När mörkret faller (1960)

Arne Mattsson (1919-1995) was one of more interesting directors to come from Sweden, even of he got manipulated out from the big league by Ingmar Bergman (who was no stranger to pull strings to blacklist former colleagues from the Swedish movie community) and stuck with being the laughingstock by the Swedish movie critics. Why? It’s a bit absurd to read the reviews now, so many years after, because most of his movies are among the best every produced in Sweden. It’s important to realize that Mattsson was a big fan of thrillers and detective stories and that was something he wanted to do, so he wasn’t forced to make more commercial movies like some sell-out, he really loved a good murder mystery and stayed with the genre for his whole career.

När Mörkret Faller (aka When Darkness Falls) is based on story by Maria Lang, THE female thriller writer for many years. Her work is often very uneven, but like Mattsson films, filled with sexual innuendos and an interesting look at class and generation in Sweden. This is not her best story and not Mattsson’s best movie, but that just means it’s still very competent and skilfully produced slice of detective melodrama. It’s set in small village over Christmas and New Year. On Christmas Eve the local shop owner Arne Sandell (George Fant) is brutally hacked to death with an axe and soon everyone is a suspect. An army of suspects. Police inspector Christer Wijk (Karl-Arne Holmsten) arrives and takes charge of the investigation, but soon the killer strikes again…

This is a very traditional murder mystery, shot in atmospheric black & white by master cinematographer Hilding Bladh. It’s almost a bit too generic to be Mattsson, who always found a way to include some kind of story gimmick to catch the audience attention. It’s both a blessing and boring that most of the story is set inside one house, with a few studio-bound shots outside the church. It makes the story very claustrophobic and gives us an interesting chamber play, but Mattsson has always been a visual director and he would probably have done even better if he had more to work with. Not for lack of trying, because When Darkness Falls is filled with his trademark dolly tracks, scenes shot with mirrors reflecting other parts of the room, long scenes without cuts with a lot of details and red herrings. Mattsson was a master of using the whole room, the whole frame, and here’s an excellent movie to see that. Sometimes there is three-four layers of intrigue, from one of the suspects close to the camera listening with moving at all to next layer were a dialogue is happening and to the last one were a silhouette is listening in the background.

While the story is far from the best, the film is packed with the best of Swedish actors. One fo the leading characters, vicar Tord Ekstedt is played by the former Hollywood star Nils Asther, who was forced to go back to Sweden during his golden years when jobs started to dry up in the US and he did some bad affairs which affected his reputation in the biz. He hit it big as a silent movie star, but his accent prevented him to continue rise even higher as a star and he played mostly foreigners and bad guys. He shot two movies with Mattsson, this one and the excellent Vita Frun (aka Lady in White), which show so clearly what a magnificent actor he was. I can recommend both just because of him. Karl-Arne Holmsten is Inspector Wijk, and he was one of the more popular and charming leading men during the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s, but retired from the screen at the end of the sixties with a few sporadic acting gigs after that. The supporting cast is nothing less than spectacular, with George Fant, Sif Ruud (the leading nice old lady of Swedish cinema), Hjördis Pettersson (the leading evil old lady of Swedish cinema), Adolf Jahr, Sigge Fürst and the “angry young man”, my favourite, Bengt Brunskog. Elsa Prawitz, Arne Mattsson’s wife, do a great job as the wife of the first murder victim also. Almost everyone is a veteran or future veteran of Mattsson’s movies. He always used the same actors and gave them wonderful and original parts.

Rarely seen and I’m not sure it’s been released on home video, it was shown a couple of days ago in TV. Far from classics like Mattsson’s predecessor to Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace, Mannekäng i Rött (1958) and The Lady in Black from the same year, but still a very nice murder mystery, perfect for a dark winter night.

Papi Gudia (1996)

Sometime rip-off can be a blessing, a cool twist on an old story. Sometime it can be a bore. With Papi Guida it’s a little bit of both, because I watched the whole movie without any problems or dividing the viewing-experience over a couple days. Directed by Lawrence D'Souza, Papi Guida is part the typical Indian trashy horror story and part just very uninspired. Let’s take a look at the story…

Shakti Kapoor is Charandas, a psychopatic criminal who escapes the police into a toy story. He gets shot down, but before he dies he moves his soul to a doll, Chucky… eh, Channi! The doll is later sold by a street salesman to a boy and his mother and everyone is happy, except Chucky… Channi, because he wants to find himself a new fresh body to live in! After killing the boys babysitter by throwing her from the fifth floor he… wtf, this is a god damn exact copy of Tom Holland’s immortal 1988 horror classic Child’s Play! Just with more singing and dancing!

Papi Guida is very silly movie and it becomes even sillier with Channi, the killer doll. A cheap doll with no movements or special effects added to it. Just someone holding the doll outside the frame, wiggling it back and forth. In two scenes they put clothes and a wig on a child who’s suppose to be the doll, but that’s about it. The doll looks extremely stupid, like an eighties girl-doll with a cap on the head. A transgender-doll with a knife! Anyway… whats more fun is the black magic conducted in the beginning and end of the movie, very colorful and fun. The fights are also quite brutal and filled with slow-motion stunts of people flying through the air and landing into furniture. Not much blood and the stiffness of the doll make the attack scenes very boring.

But the best part of Papi Gudia is the many instances of unintentional comedy, like the absurd montage of the talent show early in the film. It’s to describe, but I was almost on the floor laughing that the “talents” of the kids performing. It’s also such short clips of their acts to the whole thing feels even more absurd. In the middle of the movie is a musical number which starts in black & white and with zombies crawling up from a graveyard, but soon transforms into a hilarous dance number with a bloke that reminds me of Indian comedian Johnny Lever, but still not, and he’s wearing the ugliest clothes every seen on the screen.

No, Papi Gudia isn’t a good movie at all, but I suspect it would be a blast to watch together with friends and a bucket or two with home-made booze! Your brain will never be the same after the Bollywood version of Child’s Play…

Cat and Mouse (1974)

I love a good TV movie, especially the stuff made in the US during the seventies. The quality was often very high the lack of budget and graphic violence often lead to creative scripts to be able to surprise the audiences. Kirk Douglas, one of my favourite actors, had a very interesting career during this decade with a lot radical and controversial movies, like he wanted, even more than he did before, to change the view of him as an actor and artist. In Cat and Mouse (aka Mousey) he makes one of his best performances, and it’s a shame so few remember this classic.

Kirk is George “Mousey” Anderson, a grey and quiet teacher who has been married with the younger Laura (Jean Seberg) for many years. This marriage was arranged, no explanation why, and now Laura has broken free with her young son. George has started to see the boy as his own son and can’t accept that their whole marriage has been a lie. Laura has met a new man, the good David (John Vernon) and wants to start a new life for her and the boy. George, in a sudden rage, suddenly quits his job and decides to take revenge on Laura. Armed with a razor he follows them to the big city…

Until Micke at the legendary Stockholmian video store Monkey Beach gave me a copy of this I never heard about it before! This is a darn shame, because Cat and Mouse is a fantastic piece of thriller. Very simple in it’s execution with a straightforward script and not much of fancy camera work, this is so good that I just couldn’t stop watch it. Even of every actor is good, this is still Kirk Douglas movie. He’s in 95 % of every frame, dominating the screen with a disturbing performance of a man who goes from being a cry-baby to a serial killer like a god damn yoyo – and makes a convincing character all the way.

Directed by experienced TV-director Daniel Petrie, this very much feels like a low-key thriller for cinema. It also had a cinema release in the UK, which is understandable – this is good stuff, without a doubt. Petrie also never shy’s away from violence. Ok, we’re not talking anything graphic here, but it has a few scenes of quite rough and brutal violence when Kirk is waving with his razor and removing people that try to stop him.

The ending, which is a great exercise in tension, has an interesting plot-twist that actually was ripped of in another more famous thriller from the same year, and I wonder if they just stole it from this one – because it’s a good twist!

Not out on DVD what I know, which is a pity. But if you get a chance to see it, take that chance. Please.

The Water (1981)

I collect disaster movies from all over the world, and finally I found myself one from Turkey! The Water is a very patriotic slice of propaganda starring the one and only Cüneyt Arkin, the leading hero-actor in Turkey for many years. I usually stay away from most disaster movies involving water, mostly because they aren’t entertaining enough (not counting huge tsunamis of course), but this could be fun – and it was, but not really for the disaster itself…

Arkin is Murat, an honest engineer – the man behind the biggest dam in Turkey. After loosing his wife and one his sons in the water he goes crazy and more or less becomes the village idiot, talking to himself and raving about how dangerous it is to use the water for the purpose of luring tourists to the area. And that’s what his greedy brother Orhan wants to do, to with explosives make the valley bigger and transform the place to a tourist paradise with a gigantic lake, hotels and… you know the rest! Yes, the explosions will make the dam collapse! The villains in disaster movies are always evil capitalists who want to make many in every way possible, even risking their own life! Murat want to stop him, but his brother uses his henchmen to try to stop him… will they succeed? Will the place be a paradise on earth with cheap drinks and dance clubs? Guess again…

The Water is a VERY cheap disaster movie, probably the cheapest I’ve seen – but not with out merits. The best and probably the only thing I really can recommend it for is the presence of Cüneyt Arkin who gets involved in a couple of excellent fights, mixing classic fistfights with more acrobatic martial arts. In one of them he fights with big pieces of wood attached to his arms, much like Tony Jaa in Tom Yum Gong (but Tony has of course elephant-bones instead). In another sequence he’s hanged with ropes attached to his arms from a bridge, which is a very impressive stunt – and it looks like he does it himself, at lease from a few of the angles – it’s a very high bridge!).

Most of the movie is almost a one man drama. Murat walking around talking and thinking, sometimes directly to the camera, with a scene or two here with him verbally fighting with his evil brother or taking care of his old mother and surviving son in their village below the dam. Much is said about using electricity wisely and not on unnecessary things like entertainment, and several references is given to the great leader in Turkey at the moment. The movie actually ends with a filmed signed encouraging people to work hard for their country.

Directed by legendary Çetin Inanç (Turkish Jaws, Turkish Star Wars, Death Warrior and hundreds of probably better but less talked about films) with a raw energy and creative use of the very low budget. The fights and acting are mostly very good, but when the disaster finally hits the lack of money is seen very clearly. Except a very ugly miniature of the dam (who looks very different from the real dam) there are hardly any special effects. Most of the disaster is spent in rivers where the water runs fast and furious, and makes a good stand-in for dry ground. The rest is a lot of scenes when they’re spraying the extras with fire truck hoses and throwing papier-maché rocks at them! How do I know there is fire trucks involved? Well, in one scene you actually see the fire truck standing by the side of the road waiting for the next water-scene, while people running in panic from it. On the good side, the disaster takes up a big part of the ending and those takes when they obviously just pouring a bucket of water in front of the camera can’t stop it from being entertaining.

Worth watching for the spectacular fights and for a lot of shots of Cüneyt Arkin just standing up looking handsome and cool – or for those that desperately need every disaster movie ever made!

Cellat (1975)

Just a year after Michael Winner unleashed Charles Bronson’s vigilante architect came Turkey with their own version, Cellat, here with Serdar Gökhan as the unlucky architect. Sometimes these rip-offs can be both boring and under-written, but Cellat is one of those rare imitators who clearly want to add something to the story, to the message. It might have only fragment of the Death Wish-budget and probably half the shooting-time, but succeeds in giving both the audience and the vigilante genre something very special.

Gökhan is a very happy man. He and his wife have been married for ten years and still acts like they’re just fallen in love. His sister has a happy relationship and they’re just having a blast. Life is great, Gökhan saves a dog and they’re out on long romantic walks. One day his wife and sister are alone in the house and three criminals invade the place, raping them brutally. The wife dies and the sister falls into a deep state of shock. Gökhan, himself is in some kind of shock, gets back to work quickly but when a client gives him a gun as a gift something awakes inside him: revenge. He begins his search for the guilty criminals, but before he can get to them there’s a lot of trash on the street that needs to be wiped away…

Bronson and Gökhan do the same character, but so different. What’s interesting here is that the Turkish architect goes so far, he’s getting obsessed in a way that Bronson didn’t get until Death Wish 2 in 1982, like a serial killer stalking the streets after new victims to sadistically shoot down. Gökhan transforms much faster to a serial killer than Bronson, why? I think he is, because of the death of his father, realizes the trauma that guns can create. He goes back in the past, sees himself more like the son that never go the time to grief when his father died in a shooting-accident. Twice the pain creates twice the anger, and there’s absolutely nothing stopping him from getting what he wants. In a lot of way Cellat predates Death Wish 2 a lot more than the first Death Wish movie did.

Everything escalates in the way only Turks can do it, more victims for each scene and in the end three very sadistic killings worthy being a part of the crazy Death Wish 5! Here it’s not only revenge, here it’s sadism for the sake of sadism. Cellat has an open ending, compared to the original movie, which feels even more appropriate because of the cynicism and violence that we have witnessed during the last 90 minutes. Istanbul must be the most dangerous place in the world, because in every corner someone is getting robbed or being raped – so it’s easy nights for Gökhan, at least until the cops are getting closer!

Cellat is a very violent movie, with a lot of bloody squibs and beatings. It’s easily a lot more violent than anything Michael Winner did at that time, but never romanticizes the violence. Gökhan transform himself even more into a sadistic villain the longer the movie goes. The atmospheric soundtrack and good acting from everyone involved also adds to the quality. The bad guys are a bit over-the-top, but works because it’s a Turkish movie and bad guys are supposed to be bad and heroes good – the last thing is firmly stated in the beginning with Gökhan saves a dog (and remember that Tarkan took a terrible revenge on those who killed his dog in Tarkan vs The Vikings!).

The release from Onar Films looks nice and probably the best it will ever look. This is something you must own and buy it before it’s gone, because it’s only a few copies left of this limited release now!

Commando (1988)

”We are the freaks”, sings Freddie Wadling, Cortex, in the beginning of the eighties. I feel like a freak for loving Commando so much, because I guess every scientific investigation prove that Commando, starring Mithun Chakraborty, is pure shallow crap. But what had the world come to if we listen to what the scientists told us every time? The earth would still be flat and we would fear the people that live above the clouds. Starring Bengali superstar (aren’t they all?) Mithun Chakraborty with his faithful sidekick, Hemant Birje and the story, yes the story… what can I say? It has to be seen to be believed!

Similar to Ankhen, this is also by a big organization that plans and executes terrorist attacks around India, trying to get Hindus and Muslims against each other. But first we start in 1988, judging by the fashion were we meet young Chander who is thought by his patriotic father to do silly gymnastics, in identical clothes as him, to give his life for motherland India. And that’s what happens: his father dies a bloody death protecting Indira Gandhi. Jump forward, to 1988 (judging by the fashion) and Chander is now a young slightly over-aged young man who wants to take revenge on those who killed his father. He starts working at a weapon factory and discovers that one of the bosses sells guns to the terrorists, the SAME terrorist who killed his father! But he’s gonna get a hard time, because the villain has the deadliest of deadly weapon: Ninjas!

I really wish you could have watched this movie together with me, because the Insanity knows no boundaries! The whole movie starts with a rip-off of the beginning scene in Mark L. Lesters Commando, you know that father-kid stuff. Then it becomes something that could be described as a very cheap Golan/Globus production, complete with Godfrey Ho ninjas and lots of slow-mo and kung fu. And stunts. And an accordion cover of Opus Life is Life plus a healthy dose of Star Wars music (and this is the first time I think John Williams terrible score is used properly and entertaining). We’re treated to three bigger ninja-scenes, first the typical ninja-playground were all ninjas train and jumps on trampolines. Fun! Then a nice fight inside a warehouse were Chander himself takes down a gang of ninjas! The master ninja himself is named Ninja and is played by one of the coolest Indian actors ever, the awesome Danny Denzongpa! Seriously, he’s the most evil-looking character actor the world has seen (the last big movie you could see him in was in Robot… as the bad guy!).

A lot of shoot-outs and a couple of the silliest song- and dance number’s so far, the last one being slightly homo-erotic. But it could be the alcohol the characters drinking in that scene. Without any warning a half-naked man only wearing a tie and shorts jumps on Mac Mohan and kisses him, and it looks very awkward in the shit and the only thing left of it is like a couple of frames.

So, after all these ninjas and shoot-outs, didn’t we all expect a similar final? Yes, but hey… this is India and if there’s a good movie to be copied… yeah, the whole final is a shot-for-shot version of Where Eagles Dare! All the way with the bus in the snowy landscape to the airplane, and with at least as much action but with less money! The miniatures are extremely primitive, toy-cars falling of cliffs and not so realistic houses exploding. But that’s ok, as long as it’s not boring!

Ah, I forgot to mention that scene in the middle were our hero and the girl meets a chubby guy over in enemy land, dances with him and then takes a ride with his flying car. But I’ll let you discover that yourself. Commando is a fun ride, a crazy motherf**ker of Indian movies. A fun cast, lots of action and a familiar score makes this something you need to own. And don’t forget that the evil mastermind, the villain, is played by Amrish Puri – for famous for his part as Mola Ram in 1984’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom! Maybe it’s trash for most people, but for me it’s just love.

Ankhen (1968)

Time has come to one of the most iconic Indian spy-stories, Ankhen, another movies taking a lot of inspiration from James Bond, but maybe mostly succeeds to be a patriotic mishmash of drama, action and songs. I guess Ankhen is one of those movies that might be better in memory than in real life, because one of the few things that survived from its initial release is the action scenes and the gorgeous sixties cinematography. The rest is very uneven, to a degree it took me three days to watch the whole movie. Is it so bad? Absolutely not, it’s just the pacing that could have been better – and shorter songs.

Terrorist attacks kills a lot of people in India and soon we get to know that a terrorist group is responsible for making every demonstration, every radical movement even worse with planting bombs and attacking the Indian government pretending to be Indian. A concerned group of private citizens take upon them to defend the borders of India, but also do some spying in Beirut, Lebanon. When one of them is killed – or is he? – master-spy Sunil (Dharmendra) travels to Beirut to try to uncover who the killers are and what they want. The evil mastermind this time is Doctor X, complete with a monocle and an endless hate for the proud Indian people! He has built a secret underground base outside one of the big cities, and there preparing all the terrorist attacks! Will Sunil and his friends stop him, or are they all… doomed?

I can start with some whining. Ankhen is way to long for the story it tries to tell. Or let me correct myself directly, it has way to few twists, turns and action scenes for it’s nearly three hour running time. Compared with Shaan or Bond 303, its quiet slow and focuses mostly on Sunil walking around looking cool (nothing wrong with that really), some bad comedy and scenes of happy families doing stuff together. The songs are also way to long and all except the night club act is badly executed and very stiff and slow.

The story kinda picks ups when the little son of the sister of Sunil gets kidnapped by Doctor X and his cohorts and is placed in a room with moving spiked walls, always threatening to crush him! That’s poetry!

What’s more fun is the action, as usual. There’s a couple of very Jackie Chan-esque stunts when people are falling down and probably hurting themselves quite badly, a couple of fun and quite acrobatic fist fights and no less than three nice miniature sets getting blown to pieces in true Godzilla-style. The acting from the bad guys is over-the-top, and a lot more fun than the stiff hero-cast. Jeevan, who plays Doctor X, is in full scene-chewing mode and have a lot of fun with a character that is boring written. But best of them all is Indias wicked stepmother number 1, legendary Lalita Pawar, who plays the evil doctors henchwoman. The first half of the movie she’s a zombie-like psychopath, but goes into fantastic performance when she’s pretending to be an aunt of one of the good guys (they have never seen each other before, therefore he don’t recognize her as an imposter) and she completely transform herself into a hysterical, Krishna-mumbling old psycho-lady. Pure brilliance! She started her career as a nine year old in 1928 and died in 1998, what a career!

Ankhen is far from the best Indian movie I’ve seen, but it still worth watching for the action and great sets – and because of dear old Lalita of course. I have the DVD from Shanti Enterprises, and it’s a good looking fullscreen version with fully working English subtitles.