setsuled

Guy Rolfe is the only decent guy in India in 1960's The Stranglers of Bombay. Hammer's take on Imperial Britain's eradication of the Thuggee cult in the 19th century, the film's populated otherwise by selfish and lazy British officers and by Indians who are either helpless children or pure evil. Though one can't argue the British didn't actually do something good by eliminating the gang of murderers and thieves, the film's basic idea that India did need British occupiers, just better British occupiers than it got, isn't exactly agreeable or convincingly presented. But the film does have its good points.



Rolfe plays Captain Harry Lewis who works tirelessly to convince the sluggish British administration they need to look into the thousand people who go missing every year. His commanding officer's reply is to bring in a friend from school who proceeds to invest no energy at all into investigating the matter.



Rolfe and his wife, played by Jan Holden, both come off as infallible, clear-eyed, sincere and wise. Everyone else falls into cartoonish categories. But the Thuggee cult scenes do have some impressive horror about them and they were obviously an influence on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.



The high priest of the cult (George Pastell) even kind of looks like Amrish Puri in Temple of Doom. His second in command is played by an already menacing Roger Delgado, ten years before he'd be cast as the first incarnation of the Master on Doctor Who.



But the highlight of the film diminishes the effect of the horror elements a bit. A captured Harry Lewis is tied to the ground by the Thugs who release a cobra to kill him--however, the villains failed to predict Lewis would have his faithful mongoose in one of his saddlebags. And so Lewis' life is determined by a battle between the snake and the furry critter.



Actual footage of a fight between the two animals is shown. I don't know if it was created for the film or if it was recycled documentary footage but it is as captivating as any nature programme. And we see that, yes, indeed, despite their meek appearance, the mongoose can go toe to toe with the fearsome reptile.



Otherwise, this is not director Terence Fisher's best film--and he's not even my favourite Hammer director.

Most people don't see any drawbacks in trying to cure cancer, many don't consider the process might produce a new species of rapidly multiplying slime creature that sucks all bone matter from human bodies with its proboscis. For the edification of the scientific community and sober contemplation of the general public 1966's Island of Terror presents the possible nightmare resulting from what many presume is a perfectly innocent and noble endeavour. This Terence Fisher movie starring Peter Cushing not produced by Hammer actually features a moralising coda warning the viewer against the dangers of science gone to far. You have to love such sincerity. Less charming is the film's misogyny but the film's mainly enjoyable for its odd succession of cosy, chatty scenes and Cushing in a very affable mode.



After establishing a super high tech lab hidden on a small island off Ireland's east coast, the film becomes a mystery unravelled in scenes of people going to visit other people who in turn go to visit yet more people with their own questions. This sort of relay of concern is kicked off when one of the villagers on the island visits the constable (Sam Kydd) complaining that her husband is three hours late getting home and he's not at the pub. The constable investigates and finds the man's body turned into a squishy, rubbery mass.



So he pays a visit to Dr. Landers (Eddie Byrne) who is confounded after doing an autopsy of the boneless body. So Dr. Landers goes to England to pay a visit to Dr. Stanley (Cushing), one of the leading men in his field.



Stanley doesn't know what to make of it so the two of them go and pay a visit to Dr. West (Edward Judd) who's even more of a leading man in this field it seems. He's also a sort of knock-off James Bond, trading corny sex jokes with a beautiful woman named Toni (Carole Gray) who's wearing only a shirt.



This was the only truly insufferable part of the movie. To get to the island on short notice, Toni offers her rich father's helicopter on the condition, imposed with a mischievous smirk, that she be allowed to come along. Throughout the film, she insists on joining the men for every adventure and then panics and cries and fouls up everything every single time. It occurs to me the wrong way to write women might be exactly the right way to write children.



By contrast nearly all the men are uncannily cool throughout the film, which is sort of fun. I liked the cosy, relaxed vibe of Peter Cushing and Edward Judd poring over notes in an inn after finding a massacre of boneless scientists at that lab. It's a little while before they meet the creatures.



It's not the most inspiring special effect--not quite having as much fascinating weirdness as the creatures in movies like Fiend Without a Face to make up for being unconvincing but they are pretty fun. I liked how they seemed to slowly secrete spaghetti whenever one creature divided to become two.



Twitter Sonnet #984

Pineapple juice adorns the leaden brick.
The vault's computer dust's too full to-day.
As runners tread like graves they'll slowly stick.
In thoughts triangles pin a bad delay.
In batt'ry temples acid sips the scalp.
Condemned for plastic hair the men retreat.
Repeating slogans captured Pez for help.
The webs of wardrobe finalise the street.
A bubbling counterfeit collects a car.
Divested hands compose an itch to sleep.
A fading laugh obliged the comic's bar.
In radios the signal carries deep.
Forgiving paws disrupt the leaves outside.
When phones make ghosts our hearts'll coincide.