The Mark of Cain (1986)

At an isolated house in Canada, Otto (August Schellenberg) and Sean pull up in a car in time to discover Sean's twin Michael has brutally murdered a young woman and crucified her on a tree in the backyard. Fifteen years later, Michael (Robin Ward) is safely locked away in the local sanitarium under the care of Dr. Clifford (Antony Parr). Michael's twin Sean (also Robin Ward) is married to beautiful Dale (Wendy Crewson) but the couple is broke. Michael is completely insane, insisting to a visiting Sean that he will someday be free. Sean decides to sell the house where the murder occurred, and he and Dale go there to clean it up. Otto stops by with his mouthy wife Molly (Deborah Grover). As Sean lies in bed, he "sees" his brother kill a sanitarium nurse by stabbing her with a crucifix. Dr. Clifford comes out to the house and warns Dale and Sean that Michael has indeed escaped. Michael heads for the house, murdering a man who picks him up along the way. The police arrive for ineffective protection, and the group board themselves in the house, readying against the murderous brother's return.

I have come to appreciate a good driving snowstorm, and how it can play on film- look at films like "Fargo" and "The Thing" (1982), where the wintry weather is a character all its own. "The Mark of Cain" has creepy cold Canadian landscapes that isolate characters and bring about suspense through the constant sound of wind at the abandoned house. Director Pittman does not do well with his characters. The character of Otto is assumed to be the twins' father, until we find out otherwise. The original murdered girl is never identified. Where are the boys' parents? There is a whole religious angle here that does not work at all. The boys were devout Catholics, and we know from movies that all Christians are sexually repressed wackos who are either looking for sinful nookie or fighting the devil. This unabashed bigotry is played out here as well. Could Michael be the devil? Dr. Clifford comes off as nuttier than his patient. Cross and crucifixion imagery abound, and it all signifies nothing. Pittman also drags out all the horror and suspense cliches. There is an obvious clue about the twins' difference, and the climax involves a character thought dead magically coming back to life. Even the lone shooting in the film makes no sense. Ward is better as the good Sean than the wild-eyed Michael. Crewson is pretty good as Dale, but you wish she would find the front door and leave the house. "The Mark of Cain" is based on a stage play of all things, and does not open up to film well. The setting aside, it is another slasher film that tries to be more with religious imagery and pop psychology. My younger brothers are identical twins, and they were more interesting when I had to change their diapers. Sean and Michael deserve each other, and no viewer deserves this. Also known as "Mark of Cain."

Man in the Attic (1953)

Marie Belloc Lowndes' novel "The Lodger" (previously filmed under that title three times) concerns a new tenant at a house in 1880's London who is suspected of being Jack the Ripper. The problem- if the cast of this version couldn't care less about the plot of their own film, then why should the audience? Jack Palance, complete with sweat, tics, and an Elvis Presley hairdo, plays Slade, a mysterious pathologist who rents a room and an attic from down-on-their-luck couple William (Rhys Williams) and Aunt Bee...I mean, Helen (Frances Bavier) Harley. Slade keeps late hours, is a more than a little weird, and scares everyone around him. What's not to fall in love with? Lily (Constance Smith) is the Harleys' niece, and finds herself inexplicably attracted to the new lodger. Slade's competition for Lily's heart is convenient Scotland Yard inspector Warwick (Byron Palmer). You'll know Warwick because he looks just like Harvey Korman doing his Clark Gable impression on "The Carol Burnett Show." The cast suspect the odd Slade of the Jack the Ripper murders almost immediately, especially after his Freudian love/hate speech about his actress/mother, and his late night burning of contaminated clothing. You'll see the climax coming long before the cast does.

It's a straightforward story, yet the film wanders off the main plot so often, I needed GPS to get back on track. Warwick, who is supposed to be obsessed with the Jack the Ripper murders, spends more time pursuing Lily than studying that newfangled fingerprint technology or running down evidence. This leads to an odd scene where, as a date, Warwick takes Lily and third wheel Slade to a criminal museum at Scotland Yard. The only reason this scene exists is so Slade can make some more cryptic comments, and heap more suspicion upon himself. Lily is written as a strong independent woman who can juggle many an admirer- a rising star in the London theatre. Smith plays her as vacuous and shallow, a deluded Piccadilly cabaret dancer who lucked into her own dressing room. This is not a musical, but you may forget this as the viewer is treated to two long musical numbers, and one of the Ripper's victims sings an Irish tune before being hacked to death off-screen. Comically, two unnamed London policemen, out of the four thousand that are supposedly patrolling the streets, happen to walk home two of the victims, who are immediately killed while they are within earshot. Hauling them in for questioning might have been a good idea if you didn't know they weren't involved in the murders. Half of the cast is not British, and make no effort to come up with an accent of any kind. The backlot where this was filmed looks more like eighteenth century Bavaria than late nineteenth century London. The American and British cast are marshaled by an Argentinian director with little vision. The shots are elementary and static, and no suspense is generated. It seems like the film makers wanted to take the edge off the subject matter, but to the point that the film is lifeless and top heavy with light touches that don't work- the jittery maid, the Harleys' suspicions, Slade's sweat, the musical numbers. "The Lodger" was remade again, and one of its earlier incarnations was directed by Alfred Hitchcock. I would hope either of those films was more suspenseful than this tedious exercise.

Mad at the Moon (1992)

Many of you know what a revisionist western is. A few years ago, the good guys stopped wearing the white hats and became anti-heroes. The bad guys had reason behind their bad actions, and became more sympathetic. Everything out west was covered in dirt, and the women were not that beautiful, so they were forced to marry the rancher who would come to town once a year for supplies and a bath. "Mad at the Moon" is a revisionist revisionist western. The horror/western genre is small but this film reimagines the werewolf legend, transplants it to the 1892 Old West, and fails in both its western conventions and its horror.

Jenny (Mary Stuart Masterson) is a beautiful girl who likes to read and listen to opera courtesy of a traveling show. Her mother (Fionnula Flanagan) is more concerned with her daughter's impending spinsterhood unless she marries the first man who asks her. In this case, it is James (Stephen Blake), a shy and lonely bearded young man who Jenny has known since childhood. She gives him an absolute maybe, then seeks out her real love- James' half brother, rogue Miller (Hart Bochner). Miller rejects her- he's a bad boy, and James and Jenny wed. The first night of the honeymoon is a disaster, and Jenny hates James. One day, James up and boards the windows shut. He locks Jenny inside, and runs out into the field. What is this guy up to? Well, the full moon rises, and James goes nuts, attacking the house when Jenny dares to look at him. He makes snarling animal noises, and wakes up in the morning nude in the front yard. Jenny packs her stuff and runs home to mother. Jenny also talks around town about James' night time activity, and James blames it on "moon sickness." Jenny stays with a sympathetic prostitute, Sally (Cec Verrell), and passes her time doing nothing. Jenny's mom comes up with the bright idea of hiring a newly jailed Miller to stay with Jenny when James flips out. James picks up his bride, his angry half brother, and the duo lock themselves in as James roams the fields, and Jenny makes her choice between the two men.

As Jenny, Masterson is smart and strong willed. So why is she so desperately in love with such a loser like Miller? He brushes her off, takes out his violent frustrations on a prostitute, and even finds time to shoot a man. The director never gives us any background as to how these two came to fall in love, or why Jenny is attracted to him, unless it is the whole "bad boy" thing. Stephen Blake wears a beard, looks at the ground a lot, and is very shy as James. He is the most sympathetic of the love triangle, and I was sorry his character was saddled with this group of townsfolk. Jenny's mother is also a giant question mark, hating Miller yet putting him with Jenny when James begins going nuts. Ne'er-do-well will win out over raging werewolf every time? This film is slow. Slower than molasses flowing uphill. The entire plot of a girl marrying someone she does not love has been done. The horror aspect, in the form of James' werewolf transition, is nonexistent. There are some impressive shots of James silhouetted against a full moon, but he only grows hair on his hands. He never changes that we see, and the plot sounds like Donovan shuffled his werewolf script into his western script, and shot it. Donovan plays with shadow throughout, hiding his actors' faces, but this seems to have been done for no other reason than to show off. With so many weird character decisions, and lack of a good western plot and a good horror plot, "Mad at the Moon" cannot seem to make up its mind about what it wants to be. I made up mine- it should not be seen.

The Mirror Crack'd (1980)

Based on the mystery by Agatha Christie, director Hamilton brings together an outstanding cast but flubs the adaptation with what looks like a cheap television episode budget. After a film breaks during a movie showing, and Miss Marple (Angela Lansbury) solves the climax for the clueless audience, a real production crew arrives in St. Mary Mead to make a movie about Mary, Queen of Scots. The year is 1953, and has-been star Marina (Elizabeth Taylor) is looking to make a comeback in the title role in a film directed by her husband Jason (Rock Hudson). Jason's assistant, Ella (Geraldine Chaplin), has the thankless job of rallying the local villagers to show their love for Marina at a staged event. There, Miss Marple falls and sprains her leg, missing the film's first murder. Most excited about seeing Marina is Heather (Maureen Bennett), who met her years earlier during World War II. During the party, as Heather is talking Marina's ear off, rival starlet Lola (Kim Novak) and her producer husband Marty (Tony Curtis) blow in. The catty dialogue between Lola and Marina is hilarious, but the discovery that Heather has been murdered puts a damper on the day's festivities. Marple's cleaning girl, and a party waitress, Cherry (Wendy Morgan) tells Miss Marple everything, and the fact comes out that Heather was poisoned with a drink meant for Marina. Cue Delbert (Edward Fox), Miss Marple's favorite nephew and Scotland Yard inspector. The suspects are in line as Delbert begins talking to the cast and trying to track down the killer.

This film rivals other Agatha Christie adaptations in star power. The professional stars all play Hollywood phonies well against the genteel back drop of this slow English village. Lansbury is simply perfect as Marple, better than Hayes, Leighton, or Hickson. This film was to spawn a series of new Marple features but it bombed and the plans were scrapped as Lansbury went on to the horrendous "Murder She Wrote." Taylor is both beautiful and bewitching as fragile Marina. She plays some good scenes. Hudson is often forgotten as a great actor, his final scenes in the climax are worth watching. Novak is an appropriate airhead starlet, and she gets the funniest lines. Curtis is sleazy as Marty, and Chaplin does a lot with her limited time onscreen. Fox is very fun as a star-struck inspector, his scene interrogating Marina, and another with a half naked Lola, while trying to remain professional are great. Hamilton's direction is reliable since he has done tons of films before. I do wish the film had been bigger. This effort played like a network TV movie with cussing. John Cameron's lovely musical score is played against some shoddy set-ups and cheap looking costuming. I read the novel years ago, and I knew how this would turn out, but the movie was still fun enough to sit through. It is harmless, and look for an unbilled Pierce Brosnan being held against Taylor's bosom in one scene. I also think I saw Victoria Tennant in the film's opening audience but I cannot be sure. "The Mirror Crack'd" is not perfect by any means, but the cast seems to be up for the fun. I only wish the film's screenwriters and director had been able to match the enthusiasm.

Miracle at Moreaux (1986)

Loretta Swit fights Nazis and typecasting in this mild family film set during World War II. Swit is Sister Gabrielle, a nun running a school for children in the French countryside. The kids are not orphans, but their parents have sent them to the school to escape the bombings. Three Jewish children are being led to the Spanish border when their guide breaks into the school to steal food. He is caught by some visiting Nazi soldiers and killed, and Sister Gabrielle pretends the one lone child she does find, Anna (Marsha Moreau), is one of her students. Anna's brother Daniel (Robert Kosoy) and friend Sabine (Talya Rubin) come out of hiding and are given sanctuary in the school. The students don't know what to make of the mysterious trio, especially Dominique (Carla Napier), who repeats the Nazi rumors she has heard about Jews and their religion. The villains are a sympathetic Sergeant Schlimmer (Ken Pogue), who misses his own daughter, and the young Major Braun (Robert Joy), who knows the children are at the school. The children must be at a certain spot in order to be led across the border, and Sister Gabrielle and the other kids come up with a plan involving doubles and the upcoming Christmas pageant.

"Miracle at Moreaux" is touted as a "family feature film," but only runs fifty-eight minutes. It was shot for the PBS series "Wonderworks," and it is obviously made with children in mind. There is nothing here that would be too upsetting, except hearing about the fate of Sabine's family. What is here, however, is rather mild. This was shot in Canada, and the cast is tiny. The school, the surrounding woods, and the Nazi office are the only settings. Without any sort of edge and very little threat, the final escape sequence is almost too easy. I am not sure if this was based on a true story, but read the wordy writing credits that show up onscreen- "Written by Paul Shapiro and Jeffrey Cohen/ Based on a teleplay by Bob Carney/ From a script by Ellen Schecter/ Adapted from the book 'Twenty and Ten' Written by Claire Huchet Bishop and Illustrated by William Pene du Bois". Not enough makes it to the screen for so many hands in the creation. "Miracle at Moreaux" is a very mild little effort full of mild little performances. It is not bad, it is not uplifting, it merely sits there, much like this video back on my local library's shelf.

Merton: A Film Biography (1984)

Who was Thomas Merton? This biography attempts to answer that question, and partially succeeds. Thomas Merton was born in 1915 in Europe, the son of two painters. His mother died when he was six, his father died when Thomas was fifteen, and Thomas was alone- much like the early orphanage of Pope John Paul II. Merton went to school at Cambridge in England, where he drank and partied, but also read philosophy and religious texts, overstudying in every subject. He had been drawn to the churches on a trip to Rome, but did not consider a vocation in religion. Thomas' grandfather brought Thomas to America after a scandal involving a pregnant girl, and enrolled him at Columbia University in New York City. Thomas thrived, writing novels, essays, and reviews. He was drawn again to church, becoming baptized in the Roman Catholic faith. He applied to the Franciscan Order, was accepted, but then confessed all the low points of his past and was promptly un-accepted. He then applied to a Trappist monastery near Louisville, Kentucky, was accepted, and went to live there as a monk. The Trappist monks lived as they did in medieval times- they ate no meat, fish, or eggs. They shaved their heads except for a symbolic crown of hair. They slept fully clothed in a dorm-cubicle setting, and there was no heat or amenities. Thomas was only allowed to write four letters to the outside world a year. Thomas loved the monastic life, and gave up writing until he was ordered to write his autobiography about his conversion to Roman Catholicism. That book, "The Seven Storey Mountain," was an instant bestseller, and Thomas began publishing poems and essays as well.

After eight years in the monastery, Thomas was ordained a priest and became known as Father Louis, although he would continue to write under his secular name. Dozens of books followed, and then Thomas had a revelation in downtown Louisville. He realized that entering a monastery did not mean leaving the world outside to its own devices. He decided to devote his life to healing the ills of the world through his words. He disowned his autobiography, coming out strongly against war and tyranny in a time when clergymen did not speak out about such matters as the Vietnam War or the arms race. He was published alongside Beat Generation writers, and his fame grew while he still carried out his tasks in Kentucky. In 1965, he was allowed to become a hermit, living alone in a small house in the woods, and writing non-stop. He was also studying Buddhism and other Eastern religions, and jumped at the chance to tour the Far East, culminating in a monastic conference in Bangkok, Thailand. For his first trip outside the Louisville area in twenty-seven years, Thomas traveled to Sri Lanka, met with The Dalai Lama in India, and headed to Bangkok, where he gave a controversial talk. The speech would mark the only time he was captured on motion picture film, and Thomas would die just a few hours later in an ironic freak accident in his bungalow room where he was electrocuted by a badly grounded oscillating fan. He was 53 years old.

How did I come across "Thomas Merton: A Film Biography" years ago? A streaming service. For once, I did not trump their recommendation software with my varied tastes in film, and they popped it up for me to try. The film, which runs under an hour, was completed in 1984 but looks older than that. The interview subjects range from Joan Baez to Lawrence Ferlinghetti to The Dalai Lama, and they all have wonderful things to say about Thomas. Writer/director Paul Wilkes does include some passages from Thomas' books, read by a narrator, but for someone who wrote hundreds of thousands of words, not enough time is spent on what Thomas was saying. The film very carefully gives us a timeline of Thomas' life, but only brushes the surface of what made him so controversial. On the positive side, Wilkes goes to the places that Thomas inhabited (like the hermit house), and you half expect him to walk in and begin writing. The most memorable scene takes place in the exact same room where Thomas died, a silly accident taking away such a talented thinker. I had also hoped Wilkes would talk more about the Roman Catholic church's rejection of Thomas Merton. It is barely touched on yet he is best known as a Catholic writer. "Merton: A Film Biography" is a good starting point for those wanting to know more. If a documentary makes a viewer want to learn more about a subject, then it is a success. Also known as "Merton."

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983)

Not to be confused with "A Christmas Story", this film is a brutal look at the psychological power struggle between four men in a Japanese prison camp in Java during WWII. Tom Conti is the title character Lawrence, who can speak Japanese and acts as liaison between prisoner and captor. He feels he understands the enemy, and almost has run of the camp, hanging around and commenting. Ryuichi Sakamoto, who also did the outstanding musical score, is the prison's humane commander Yonoi. Yonoi seems to want to be kind to the prisoners without being a pushover, and often butts heads with the cruel guard Hara (Takeshi Kitano). Unlike many of his own films, here Kitano shows emotion. The quartet is completed by mysterious stranger Celliers (David Bowie). The four main players spend most of the film trying to vie for power, or so it seems. The Japanese look down on the British prisoners, the British prisoners look down on the Japanese. An early subplot involves the assault of a Dutch prisoner by a Korean guard. The guard is slated for execution, and after a false start, is killed. A cycle of psychological torture by making a man think he is going to die, then serving as a savior, is repeated often. Perhaps the film deals with redemption, whether it be at the hands of people we love, or people we come to think of as enemies.

This was my main problem with the film. The film was so taken with the internal conflicts of these four men, I wanted to understand it, not just observe it. While you finish "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" with more questions than answers, a few answers may have helped. There is a lack of closure, a lack of clarity, and in the end, a lack of emotion as to how you feel about these enigmatic men. The war threw them into each other's lives, but the viewer gets the idea they know each other better than we know them. I felt like I was not in on a secret everyone else knew. This is from the same director as "In the Realm of the Senses," another film that left me emotionally cold. The four leads are outstanding, the music gorgeous, the direction good, but the characters were just as puzzling after the film as they were during the film.