{"id":4381,"date":"2010-04-01T23:00:58","date_gmt":"2010-04-02T03:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/?p=4381"},"modified":"2014-12-15T15:39:09","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T21:39:09","slug":"william-castle-double-feature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/archives\/4381","title":{"rendered":"William Castle double-feature"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shanks (1974)<\/strong><\/p>\n

“The town drunk with a shrew for a wife and a deaf mute for a brother-in-law”<\/p>\n

The movie has silly, cartoonish music by Alex North which belongs in a goofy porno comedy, just a few years before North’s lowest low point in Wise Blood<\/a><\/em>. He was oscar-nominated by the tin-eared academy, but fortunately they awarded the great Nino Rota the honors instead.<\/p>\n

Shanks (Marcel Marceau) is a ridiculed mute puppeteer hired by rich Mr. Walker (also Marceau!) to control dead people using a three-button remote? I don’t remember why. Honestly, it was late at night and it was a very silly movie and I watched it while assembling Ikea furniture. But here are some notes I took:<\/p>\n

The miracle of bringing dead animals to life is achieved cinematically by using live animals<\/em>
\nSuddenly an underage love interest named Celia.
\nThe drunk gets killed by a reanimated chicken in slow motion
\nFlowery intertitles<\/p>\n

Wife is hit by a car – I’m not giving murderous Marceau credit for that one
\nTV laugh track during sinister scenes
\nHe makes them do an awful lot with just three buttons<\/p>\n

Mr & Mrs Barton is the couple, mute is Malcolm
\nPerverse to star a celebrated mime but have all the other actors play fun reanimated dead people [this was before I realized Marceau also played Mr. Walker, the first to be hilaiously reanimated]<\/p>\n

Silly-ass music<\/p>\n

“The outside world of evil,” says a title card which burns away revealing\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 youth on motorcycles. Still the greatest threat to society in 1972: mustache dudes on motorcycles.<\/p>\n

Mata Hari is the bad girl
\nGood girl is killed and, let’s face it, probably raped. Typical 70’s.<\/p>\n

Closing title card unsubtly tells us “Good versus Evil,” but I wouldn’t exactly call Marceau “good,” just maybe in comparison with the others in this movie. He’s also shown to be a better fighter than the leader of the bike gang. Needless to say, he reanimates the dead girl at the end and makes her dance with him, because he is a dangerous creep. Mata Hari never wakes up and calls the cops, like she should.
\nFirst rom-zom-com? Look out, Shaun of the Dead<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

–
\nMr. Sardonicus (1961)<\/strong><\/p>\n

“London, 1880”
\nCastle doesn’t really look like John Goodman<\/a>, but he is just as cheesy.<\/p>\n

What was this about? Robert goes to Sardonicus’ castle to surgically fix his death-grimace face, supernaturally obtained when Dr. S tried to rob a winning lotto ticket from his own father’s grave, but Robert’s science is unsuccessful. There is intrigue involving Dr. S’s wife, I believe. I’m pretty sure I liked it better than Shanks<\/em>, or maybe I’d just been drinking more.<\/p>\n

Sir Robert is a handsome physical therapist with right-hand man Wainwright
\nMuch is made of the invention of the hypodermic needle
\nHe has a photo-locket that speaks to him in flashback-voiceover
\nOne-eyed hunchy Krull [Oskar Homolka of Ball of Fire<\/a><\/em> and Sabotage<\/em>]<\/p>\n

A scene ripped off from Dracula<\/a><\/em> when he arrives in eastern europe
\nAlso no mirrors in the castle
\nAna has leeches on her!<\/p>\n

Nice to see a castle servant who’s intelligent and well-spoken
\nMaybe Sardonicus is meant to sound like sarcophagus, but it looks more like sardonic
\nToulon! [Sardonicus is played by Guy Rolfe, Andre Toulon in Puppet Masters<\/em> 3-7<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Henryk [Vladimir Sokoloff of Baron of Arizona<\/a><\/em>] was his dad. I actually thought it was Oskar playing a different character. Elenka is his first wife
\nComically over-explainy, like in MANT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shanks (1974) “The town drunk with a shrew for a wife and a deaf mute for a brother-in-law” The movie has silly, cartoonish music by Alex North which belongs in a goofy porno comedy, just a few years before North’s lowest low point in Wise Blood. He was oscar-nominated by the tin-eared academy, but fortunately […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1066,410,400,402,445,1061,100],"class_list":["post-4381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie","tag-1880s","tag-1960s","tag-1970s","tag-puppets","tag-turner-classic","tag-william-castle","tag-zombies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4381"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9657,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4381\/revisions\/9657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}