Halloween Countdown Day 12: 4D Man!

Today's movie, 4D Man (1959), is by no means a great sci-fi movie, but it has a Silver Age comics vibe that I find appealing.



This movie takes forever to get going, but once it does, it's pretty good. The movie follows two brother scientists: Tony and Scott Wilson(James Congdon and Robert Lansing, respectively). Tony is trying to perfect a way to force two different objects to merge with one another, like pushing a wooden dowel through a steel plate. He believes this is a natural process, where, over time, two objects in constant contact with one another will eventually merge together. When his experiment fails, the entire lab building burns down, and he loses his job. He then goes to visit his brother Scott, who works for a research facility associated with the US military. Scott is trying to develop "cargonite," an impenetrable metal.

The first half of the movie deals with the brothers' personal relationships and their scientific work, and it feels more like a soap opera than a sci-fi movie. While both brothers are trying to deal with penetrable and impenetrable metals, they are both also trying to penetrate fellow scientist Linda Davis, played by Lee "Catwoman" Meriwether in her first film role. Linda is dating Scott, but when Tony arrives, she looks him over like they are the only two people on earth with compatible genetalia.

Here's a good example of how Linda totally cockteases Tony right in front of her boyfriend:



Also, Lee Meriwether is foxy.

Tony has a history of stealing his brother's girls, so he's at first hesitant to take up with Linda. However, there is an obvious sexual metaphor in the research the two brothers conduct, and so Tony gives in to his natural impulses.

The close proximity to cargonite, however, causes Scott to have increased brain waves or something like that, and he discovers that he can do with his mind what Tony is trying to do with machines: he can pass other objects, as well has himself through solid objects. However, there is a catch: doing so causes him to age rapidly. Tony determines that this is because Scott is speeding up a natural process that causes all matter to merge over time, so when Scott enters the fourth dimension to do this, he saps some of his own life energy.

This movie provides an interesting twist on expectations: Tony is the irresponsible scientist who often blows shit up, while Scott is a more traditional, responsible scientist, though occasionally prone to personal risk. We expect Tony to become the victim of science gone awry, but it ends up being Scott.

When he first develops his powers, Scott starts by taking mail out of a mailbox. Then he steals fruit from a closed grocer and thinks about grabbing some jewelry before putting it back. However, the scene ends with him eyeballing a bank. And this is where things start to go bad for Scott.

He then finds another side effect of his powers: if he passes his hand through another human, that person ends up dying of old age. But the person's life energy then transfers to Scott, reversing the aging process. So, Scott becomes a kind of energy vampire who can also turn immaterial at will.

Once the movie gets rolling, it has a cool, Silver Age comics vibe, with science causing Scott to become a super-villain instead of a hero. The fear of science gone awry feels like it's straight out of an EC or Atlas comic of the same period. The movie also has a cool jazz score by Ralph Carmichael that is largely incongruous with the movie itself, but once it kicks in during the opening credits, it's infectious. Also, look for Patty Duke as a young girl who tries to befriend Scott because she thinks he's a hobo, which we all know is a good idea.

Halloween Countdown Day 11: Let the Right One In

First off, I want to apologize for not posting over the weekend, and to let loyal readers know that that will probably be the case for the rest of the month, too. So, expect the Halloween Countdown posts only during the week.

For the first movie this week, I decided to watch Let the Right One In (2008), a film that had been recommended to me over and over, but for various reasons, I never got around to seeing.



I generally tend not to get enthused about contemporary horror movies. I've enjoyed some of the j-horror movies I've seen, but otherwise, most contemporary American horror movies tend to leave me cold. There are a lot of reasons for this, but Let the Right One In managed to highlight one in particular.

First off, I want to be clear that I was blown away by Let the Right One In. The concept of the vampire stuck in eternal childhood is fascinating, and it's one of the things I love about my favorite vampire movie, Near Dark (it's also one of the more interesting elements in the otherwise flawed Interview with a Vampire). Let the Right One In manages to be haunting, emotional, and deeply unsettling in ways that are genuinely rare for most horror movies.

However, I really can't add much to a discussion of this movie that hasn't already been addressed in the well-deserved praise it's received. I do, though, want to highlight a particular element of the movie that I found works tremendously well, and it's a technique that's almost never used.

For the most part in this film, violent scenes tend to appear in long shot, recorded by a static camera. The image below gives a sense of the kind of shot I'm talking about, though the violence--when Eli's "father" hangs a victim upside down and drains his blood--takes place a bit before this moment:



One particularly effective example of this type of scene occurs about halfway through the movie, when Eli suddently drops out of a tree from above frame onto Ginia (there is a quick clip of this scene in the preview below). Within the same shot, we see Ginia walking up the steps and away from her husband, with whom she has just had a fight. So, the shot is held for a bit before Eli drops out of the tree.

Most contemporary horror movies would depict such a scene in a series of close-ups, punctuated by quick cuts and utilizing loud music and sound effects to heighten the shock. The effect, in such a case, is to prepare the viewer for the shock of violence--to warn us that it's on its way, and we should feel scared now.

Here, in Let the Right One In, however, the long shot with the static camera creates a sense of innocuousness and safety, so that the sudden intrusion of violence on the scene is truly disruptive. Nothing prepares us for what is about to happen, so there is no safety net of music or quick cuts to warn us that scary stuff is about to happen. Therefore, it also makes the viewer wonder, for a moment, about what is really happening.

Such an approach to violence has a practical side as well: big special effects aren't needed because the action is taking place off in the distance, and the audience has to use some imagination to figure things out.

This technique is so much more unsettling than the more common ways that violence is depicted in horror movies. Director Tomas Alfredson puts the audience on insecure ground like this throughout the movie, building to a climactic scene that is one of the best I've ever seen in a horror movie. The popularity of this film gives me hope that other filmmakers will dissect this movie for what works and borrow it for their own horror movies.

Here's the trailer, which shows some of what I'm talking about:

Halloween Countdown Day 8: Hammer Horror on TCM!

Rather than review a movie today, I want to point readers to Turner Classic Movies, which is showing 4 Hammer horror films tonight, and every Friday night in October.

First up is Plague of the Zombies (1966), a movie I have some fondness for:



I especially like how this film uses zombies as a critique of British class structure, anticipating anticipating the way George Romero uses zombies as a means of social critique. The film also anticipates Romero in the appearance of the zombies, though it's still tied to an earlier tradition of voodoo as the source for the zombie outbreak.

I'm looking forward to the second movie, The Devil's Bride (1967; a.k.a. The Devil Rides Out) because it's one of the Hammer films I have never seen.



Set in the 1920s, it stars Christopher Lee, this time as the hero, and Charles Gray as the Crowley-esque Satanist. It's directed by Terence Fisher, who made most of the great, early Hammer productions, and it's written by the great horror novelist Richard Matheson, adapting Dennis Wheatley's story.

The other two movies, The Reptile (1966) and The Gorgon (1964) are both worth checking out. I especially like The Gorgon because Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing team up as partners, rather than antagonists, which was usually the case. Also, these two movies are linked together nicely by virtue of the fact that they both feature female monsters, and to different degrees make commentary on the gender dynamics at work in each.

So, enjoy this opportunity to see a few non-franchise Hammer horror movies tonight!

Halloween Countdown Day 7: Vampire Circus

Watch enough Hammer horror movies, especially the vampire movies, and certain formulas and tropes become apparent. For example, many of the vampire movies begin in an idyllic, pastoral setting--a place intrinsic to the British cultural consciousness--that is then disrupted by the appearance of supernatural violence.



This is definitely the case in Vampire Circus (1972), directed by Robert Young. The film opens with a man out in nature, reading near the woods, while a young girl plays nearby. A woman begins to talk and play with the girl, and soon they disappear into the woods, while the man is distracted by his reading. He chases after them, but they go inside an old castle before he can catch up.

The castle is owned by Count Mittenhaus, a vampire who has beset the local village for years. The young girl is still in a state of happiness, unaware of the danger she is in until too late, when the Count bites her neck and drains her blood. Announcing, "One lust feeds the other," the Count then begins making out with the woman.

This opening scene is decadent and effectively chilling, and it sets up the rest of the movie well. It sets the stakes high by killing a kid within the first few minutes, and the unsettling mood created by this scene builds throughout the rest of the film. What I like most about Vampire Circus is that it comes very close to being the exact movie that I would want a film called "Vampire Circus" to be.



The man who witnessed the girl's kidnapping turns out to be the local schoolteacher, as well as the husband of the woman shacked up with the Count, and he gathers the village men to storm the castle. Many of these men have also lost their daughters to the Count, so emotions are running high.

When they get in, they are too late to save the girl, but after some grappling with the Count, they are able to bring down the vampire with a handy stake to the chest. Before he dies, the Count vows vengeance on the village that brought him down. The men then prepare to blow up the castle, but the schoolteacher's wife runs back in to take the Count's body deep into the catacombs and preserves his body.

The film then jumps ahead 15 years, when the village is beset by a plague and quarantined by the military. Some believe the plague is the manifestation of the Count's curse, while the local doctor and others seek a medical cure. In the midst of this, a mysterious circus arrives in town, somehow making their way past the roadblocks around town.

Circuses are inherently creepy, but this circus in particular has a series of bizarre acts that do not make it seem family friendly. The first act we see involves a naked woman painted like a snake, who fights a dude with a whip. At another point, a panther turns into a guy, and this does not set off signals that this might be a, you know, vampire circus. Even the weird twin acrobats who turn into actual bats don't set off any signals in the villagers. These villagers are basically the definition of easy marks.

There is also a little clown who is scary as hell.

Seriously, this guy

makes this guy

look like this guy:


The other performers in the troupe are creepy across the board. The panther man turns out to be Emil, the Count's cousin who is in the village for revenge. The acrobat twins clearly have some kind of incestuous relationship, plus they have some kind of Corsican Brothers deal where they feel each other's pain. Also, the female twin is played by Lalla Ward, who would later go on to be Mrs. Tom Baker and is currently Mrs. Richard Dawkins.

The cast is, in fact, filled with other performers who would go on to some notoriety. The mute circus strongman is played by David Prowse, who later played Darth Vader. And the primary female victim, Dora, went on to marry Peter Sellers and inherit his estate.

Vampire Circus is genuinely unsettling, with a real subversive quality. Tension builds through the effect that constant isolation and threat has on the village. The movie also paces the deaths well throughout, without any lapse in dramatic tension that many other Hammer films often get in the middle.

But it does have its flaws. A nice, suspenseful scene where a family tries to escape the village with the aid of the little clown is partially undermined when they are attacked by a very fake panther. Still, the fake panther kills the hell out of these people. Also, according to behind-the-scenes information on the making of this film, several key scenes weren't shot when budget problems arised, and there is a sense that some crucial information is missing.

The finale is also a mixed bag. A vampire is weakened when a crossbow is held up as a cross, which is just cheating. However, the moment is redeemed when the vampire is cleverly killed with said crossbow. Also, the villagers, with all their experience fighting vampires in the past, don't come to the final fight very well equipped. For one, you don't bring a gun to a vampire fight, and only one person seemed to think to bring a stake.

Still, the movie succeeds more than it fails, and even after almost 40 years, there is something truly unsettling about this movie. For one, children are constantly at risk in the film, and the opening shows the filmmakers' willingness to see that risk through to the gruesome end. Also, the circus itself is decadent and mysterious, and for most of the film, it seems as if the villagers can do nothing to stop it. And like The Vampire Lovers from two years earlier, Hammer continued to push the boundaries of sex and violence in this movie, but here it doesn't yet seem excessive, as it feeds the feeling of unrestrained evil that the circus presents.

Here's a look at the film's trailer:


Before I go, I'd want to comment on some sad news relevant to the films I've been discussing this week. Director Roy Ward Baker passed away today at the age of 93. Baker is probably best known for directing A Night to Remember, but I'm particularly fond of the many great films he did for Hammer studios, including Quatermass and the Pit, Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, Dracula Meets the 7 Golden Vampires, and the aforementioned The Vampire Lovers. Baker's audio-commentary on the Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde DVD is especially enlightening and gives a good sense of how Hammer films got made. RIP

Halloween Countdown Day 6: Countess Dracula

Yesterday, I covered the 1970 Hammer horror film The Vampire Lovers, starring Ingrid Pitt, and as promised, here's Ingrid Pitt's second starring role for Hammer in the 1971 film Countess Dracula.



One thing to note about Countess Dracula is that the title is really misleading. No actual vampires appear in this movie, and the title character is in no way connected to the Dracula family. Instead, Hammer went to the horror well to find new source material and came up with the historical story of Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who was rumored to bathe in virgins' blood in order to stay young.

And that is basically the plot of this movie. The film opens with the funeral of Count Nodosheen, and at the reading of his will, the aging Countess finds out that she has to split most of the estate with her absent daughter. In addition, a young man named Toth--the son of a soldier who served in the military with the Count--inherits the stables, horses, and cottage. Also, Captain Dobi, who is the Countess's lover and the Count's chief steward (played by the great Nigel Green), is pissed because all he gets are a few lousy suits of armor.

As the Countess prepares for her bath that evening, she beats her servant for making the bath too hot. The Countess gets some blood on her face, and quickly discovers that it causes part of her face to look younger. She then enlists her nurse and Captain Dobi to retrieve the servant and see what a full-body blood dousing will do. It has the desired effect, and she becomes a young woman again.

This, and all the subsequent blood-bathing that follows, happens off-screen, which some may find as a drawback for a horror movie. In fact, one of the problems with this film is that it's not much of a horror movie. Instead, it's a kind of romantic melodrama with some supernatural undertones. The Countess spurns her older lover, Dobi for the dashing young Toth. But in order to pull off this romance, she has to pretend to be her daughter. This creates some problems, as the daughter (played by a young and almost unrecognizeable Lesley-Anne Down) is on her way to the castle. Dobi arranges for some Serbs to kidnap her before she arrives.

Toth falls in love with the young Countess, and she becomes increasingly desperate to keep her young appearance. After bathing in the blood of a whore, however, she discovers that not all blood will work. And she has a nasty case of hepatitis. What she really needs is some virgin blood.

In general, the movie doesn't quite live up to the potential of its subject matter. Some class conflice emerges early in the movie, as the Countess's first victims are a servant and a gypsy, but the movie really does nothing with this until the end, when the local village women celebrate the Countess's execution. Also, the inherent potential for sex and violence the Elizabeth Bathory story is almost completely missed, and that in particular seems odd, considering how excessive Hammer would become along those lines in the next few years.

However, the movie does look very good, and Ingrid Pitt also looks great, though she's unfortunately and unnecessarily dubbed throughout the movie. Also, Nigel Green seems to be having fun as the flustered and quite whipped Captain Dobi, who continues to do the Countess's dirty work while she prances right in front of him with her young boy toy.

Here's a link to the trailer for Countess Dracula. One of the things evident in the trailer: the aging makeup used on Ingrid Pitt is actually pretty good.

Halloween Countdown Day 5: The Vampire Lovers!

Every Halloween season, I try to watch a bunch of Hammer horror films, and I feel that's especially appropriate this year, as Hammer Productions has returned with Let Me In.

I'm curious to see where Hammer goes with its revival, but in the meantime, let's look at one of the classics produced by the company in the past.



(I love how this poster--which has nothing to do with the actual movie, by the way--provides the warning "Not for the mentally immature!" In other words, "Don't giggle at the sexy lesbian parts!")

One of the more notorious Hammer productions was The Vampire Lovers (1970), directed by Roy Ward Baker and based on Sheridan Le Fanu's great early vampire novel, Carmilla (1872). Like Hammer's other adaptations, this plays fast and loose with its source material, but it remains a solid vampire movie from a time when Hammer films were starting to slip in quality.

In the late 60s and early 70s, Hammer went looking for other source material, as the main franchises--Dracula and Frankenstein--were wearing thin. Le Fanu's Carmilla seems like a logical choice, especially as the story's lesbian undertones could be exploited by a studio that was further pushing the boundaries of sex and violence in its movies.

The film opens in a typical Hammer milieu: a gothic castle surrounded by a fog-strewn moor. Voice-over narration from Baron Hartog explains the situation--he has dedicated his life to destroying the Karnsteins, a family of vampires that was responsible for his sister's death. He also explains the vampire rules for this story, in that vampires can only be killed by a stake through the heart or decapitation. He then proves this by slicing the head off of a hot blond vampire who is trying to seduce him.

The importance of this opening won't be clear, however, until much later in the movie, as Baron Hartog pretty much disappears until the end.

Years later, General von Spielsdorf (Peter Cushing, who cuts a fine figure in a Prussian officer's uniform) holds a fancy ball, which is attended by a mysterious Countess (Dawn Addams) and her daughter, Marcilla (Ingrid Pitt). However, soon after their arrival, the Countess is called away by a pale man in black, who gives her some news that requires her to leave immediately. The General offers to let Marcilla stay at his estate and serve as a companion for his daughter, Laura (Pippa Steele), until the Countess can return.

This whole scenario turns out to be a scam orchestrated by the Countess so Marcilla can infiltrate the household and feed on young Laura. Over the course of several evenings, Marcilla comes to Laura in the form of a cat, and then proceeds to feed from her breast. Every night, Laura wakes up screaming while also getting progressively weaker. In typical vampire story fashion, the General and the local doctor chalks the weakness up to anemia, and both miss the supernatural explanation.

Laura dies, and Marcilla and the Countess take their scam back on the road, working their way into the Morton house, with their young daughter, Emma (Madeline Smith). When Mr. Morton goes away, Marcilla, now known as "Carmilla," has the run of the house, seducing both Emma and her attractive governess (Kate O'Mara). The film generates much of its tension from Carmilla savvily overcoming obstacles and potential exposure before her vampire identity is finally revealed. In the meantime, though, Ingrid Pitt and Madeline Smith get down to some sexy times.

Interestingly, the plot of this movie follows that of Bram Stoker's Dracula even better than any of the other Hammer Dracula movies. In particular, when Morton becomes aware of his daughter's plight, he enlists the help of the General and Laura's boyfriend, Carl (Jon Finch, in his first film role). The General and Carl have also tracked down an aged Baron Hartog in order to take advantage of his expertise in killing Karnstein vampires. So, like Dracula, the male characters band together to combat the danger created by the female vampire. In general, the movie raises a few interesting gender issues.

The movie follows its own internal logic well enough, though it doesn't quite match the standard vampire rules. Carmilla travels during the daytime frequently, though she does have some photosensitivity, and we see her reflection in mirrors quite often. Also, the vampires don't reproduce through biting, but instead only feed. The cross and garlic still work, though, as well as staking and decapitation.

Though the film comes to a satisfying conclusion, a couple of loose ends are left dangling. We never really learn the true role of the Countess, for one. Baron Hartog claims that he killed all the Karnstein vampires but one--Carmilla--so the Countess is probably not Carmilla's real mother, and it's not clear if she's a vampire. Also, the mysterious, pale man in black appears to watch all the events of the film unfold, but we never find out who he is or what purpose he serves.

In the end, The Vampire Lovers is a solid vampire movie with a lesbian twist. It pushes the envelope of sex and violence compared to earlier Hammer films, but it looks positively constrained alongside those of the following years. Ingrid Pitt stands out as one of the great female vampires in Hammer history, and Madeline Smith makes a nice transformation from sweet innocent to willing companion to physical wreck in the course of the film. However, while the movie tends to focus on the female characters, great actors like Peter Cushing and Jon Finch are underused. And like a lot of Hammer films, it has a rather weak second act, but it is otherwise stylish and well-made.

Here is the trailer for The Vampire Lovers:



Ingrid Pitt would return to Hammer films the following year in Countess Dracula, the movie I will be covering tomorrow.

Halloween Countdown Day 4: Houdini in The Man from Beyond!

If I had to make a list of the most awesome people in human history, Harry Houdini would easily be in the top five. So, when Kino put out a DVD set of Houdini's surviving movies, I thought for sure that these would be the greatest films ever made.



However, other than the serial he made called "The Master Mystery"--which is just freaking incredible and has Houdini fighting a robot--the movies Houdini made just aren't very good. And they are all not very good for fundamentally similar reasons: Houdini doesn't escape from enough shit.

Now, it would seem that, if you are a master showman like Houdini, and you are making movies with a considerable amount of creative control, then you would want to give the audience exactly what they want from a Houdini movie. And what might audiences want to see Houdini do? Make out with a chick? No. Emote? Not really.

What they really want is to see Houdini escape from shit. Unfortunately, he only does that a couple of times per movie, when he should be escaping from something every five minutes. (This is probably why the serial he did is so good: each episode is structured around a cliffhanger that involves Houdini escaping from some trap. So, every 15 minutes or so, he has to be handcuffed or locked in a trunk or strapped to an electric chair something like that.)

A case in point: The Man from Beyond (1922), a melodramatic mystery with supernatural overtones.



On the surface, The Man from Beyond sounds like it should be the most awesome movie ever. Houdini plays Howard Hillary, a man found frozen on a shipwrecked vessel in the Arctic 100 years after his ship disappears. Imagine if Houdini were Captain America, and you get a good sense of just how much potential this movie misses out on.

Hillary is discovered by the final surviving members of an Arctic expedition--Dr. Gregory Sinclair and Francois Duval--as they are on the verge of starvation and death from exposure. Duval comes across the mysterious ship stuck in a glacier, with a perfectly preserved human frozen in ice. While Dr. Sinclair studies the ship's logs to find out its story, the Frenchman chops the body out of the ice as a potential food source. But that plan disappears once Hillary thaws and proves to be still alive.

We then get a flashback to 1820, where Hillary is first mate on a ship. The passengers on the ship include a young woman named Felice, with whom Hillary falls in love. The captain of the ship, however, is out to get his first mate, and he throws Hillary in the brig when the ship is wrecked in a terrible storm

Hillary, Sinclair, and Duval return to civilization just in time for the wedding of Sinclair's neice to Dr. Trent, a scientist and partner with the neice's father, Professor Strange. It turns out that the neice is also named Felice, and she's the spitting image of Hillary's lost love. Hillary breaks up the wedding with his sad story, and Felice decides to delay her nuptials, much to Trent's chagrin. Hillary becomes convinced that she is his love, reincarnated.

And all this is really where The Man from Beyond goes wrong. Instead of making an action-packed adventure, Houdini, who also wrote the script, oddly decided to make a supernatural melodrama--one that exceeds the limits of what little acting ability the performer had. Houdini also seemed more interested in making some kind of pro-Spiritualist propaganda about the validity of reincarnation, as the movie repeatedly presents itself as "evidence" that such a phenomenon is real.

In order to give Houdini some Houdini things to do, a mystery is introduced: Felice's father had been on the Arctic expedition until called away by a cable from Trent informing him that his daughter was sick. However, Trent denies sending the cable, and no one has seen Prof. Strange in a year. It immediately becomes clear that Trent is one shady dude, and he uses Duval to set up a frame job on Hillary for the murder of Prof. Strange.

The professor, however, is being held prisoner in Trent's dungeon, where the evil scientist also performs experiments on animals.

Meanwhile, Hillary gets taken away to an insane asylum, where he is put through some elaborate torture. He is tied up and strapped to the floor with sheets, while water pours down from above. Hillary wriggles out of the sheets, and then uses them as a rope ladder to escape the hospital. This ends up, unfortunately, being the only Houdini-style escape he performs in the entire movie.

Later, Trent tries to kidnap Felice in order to drug her and then force her into marriage, but Hillary comes to the rescue, and fisticuffs ensue. Felice escapes by getting into a canoe, which then careens out of control toward Niagara Falls. Hillary dives into the river in what turns out to be the movie's centerpiece: a dramatic river rescue.

Behind the scenes, this rescue--inspired by a river rescue in D. W. Griffith's Way Down East--proved to be potentially dangerous for Houdini. He used 8 cameras to capture the rescue in one take, and he even shot an alternative ending for the movie in case he was injured or killed in the rescue. Houdini even offered $5,000 to any filmmaker who could make a more thrilling scene.



However, the rescue as seen in the movie is not that thrilling, perhaps due to a more jaded contemporary perspective. There is, though, a striking similarity between this scene and a similar river rescue in Buster Keaton's Our Hospitality, released a year after Houdini's film.



I'd always understood Keaton's scene to be inspired by Way Down East, but after seeing The Man from Beyond, I wonder if Keaton wasn't taking on Houdini's public challenge to make a more thrilling scene. Keaton's is definitely better from both technical and dramatic standpoints, building up several short obstacles before getting to the big rope stunt at the end. Keaton also cutely flips the script on the earlier, similar scenes by first having the male character in need of rescue. But there are enough similar shots between the two to make me think that Keaton may have had Houdini in mind when constructing this scene.

The Man from Beyond ends with a final nod toward the veracity of reincarnation. The scientists Sinclair (who, by the way, was played by Erwin Connelly, an actor who later worked with Keaton) and Strange declare that reincarnation is definitely possible. Hillary even hands Felice a copy of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Spiritualist tract, "The New Revelation," just as we see a ghostly image of the old Felice inhabit the body of the new one.

The publicity for the film announced, in bold hyperbole not uncommon for Houdini, "It is as much unlike the average picture as Houdini himself is unlike the average man." (This really should be the tagline for the next George Clooney movie.) It also explained that "the story is essentially a love story, with the added feature of unparalleled thrills." Unfortunately, the film spends too much time on the love story, and the thrills are more than paralleled. But, like all the Houdini films, it does have historical value that makes it worth seeing, even if it steers too far away from what made Houdini's live performances, as well as The Master Mystery, such huge successes.

More Ask Doctor K!

I've recently received a letter from my faithful young reader, who asks a question so important that I had to answer it immediately:




Dear Young Reader:

First of all, thank you for the letter. Letter writing is a dying art form, so I'm glad that you are helping to keep it alive. I was very excited to see your letter in the mailbox alongside bills, solicitations for new phone service, and information about local politicians running in the upcoming elections.

Also, I love you a bushel and a peck, too, which, from what I understand, is a significant amount.

I felt that your question was of the utmost importance because it gets at the heart of something very important: that Batman is better than all of us, so he does not need the normal things we need in our day-to-day lives, like keys to start cars.

And by "car," I assume you mean "Batmobile." Though I would guess that Batman could pretty much start any car without a key because he's Batman.

So, let's take a look at what happens here, when the nasty Joker tries to steal the Batmobile and make a getaway:



I included the first panel because that is a pretty awesome kick to the head that Batman delivers, and who doesn't love to see that? That guy is not getting up for a long time.

Then, when the Joker tries to steal the Batmobile, look what happens:



As you can see, the Joker does need a key to start a car, and that is one of the reasons why Batman will always win against the Joker.

In order to show off just how smart he is, Batman reveals to the Joker just how the Batmobile starts without a key:



Notice that Batman's password is "Batman." Little known fact: that is also his ATM code. At first glance, that seems pretty stupid to have your own name be your password, right? (Note to self: change password.) But Batman is really thinking here. A bad guy could break into the Batmobile, and if he figured out that the ignition was controlled by the fake radio, he still wouldn't type in "Batman," because he'd think that Batman wouldn't be stupid enough to use his own name as the password. See how that logic works? Batman is really smart.

Also, Batman doesn't need a radio in his car, mainly because he hates how corporate radio has ruined the medium.

Thanks again for your question, and I would be glad to answer more in the future.

Sincerely,

Doctor K

And I would also like to extend an invitation to all readers out there: if you have or know of young children with pressing questions about superheroes and comic books, please pass them along. I would be happy to answer any that come my way.


(All comic images taken from The Brave and the Bold 111 (Mar. 1974), "Death Has the Last Laugh," written by Bob Haney and drawn by Jim Aparo.)

Halloween Countdown Day 2: Bloodlust!

I have had a couple of occasions where I've encountered a movie on its own that I had previously seen on MST3K, only to find the movie itself not half bad. One particular example is the 1961 film Bloodlust!



Bloodlust!, written and directed by Ralph Brooke, is one of 1,512 remakes of The Most Dangerous Game. And while it's certainly inferior to the original, I wouldn't hold that against the later film. However, I do have to admit that I have a soft-spot for this plot, where a hunter stalks human prey in a deadly game. In fact, I wouldn't mind if every movie were a remake of The Most Dangerous Game. Especially Eat Pray Love.

So, though Bloodlust! is no Battle Royale, or even Hard Target, it manages to be an effective movie within its budgetary limitations and occasional ridiculousness. Its novelty appeal, which clearly made it game for MST3K, comes from the fact that it stars a young Robert Reed as Johnny, the alpha male leader of a group of four young kids who end up stranded on an island controlled by the insane, megalomaniacal hunter, Dr. Balleau (Wilton Graff). Despite Reed's assertive performance, Johnny is a pretty crappy leader, often making terrible decisions that put the gang in even more danger than they were in before. In fact, whatever success they do have comes more from dumb luck than from Johnny's leadership.

The movie also establishes early on that Johnny is an excellent shot, though he never gets to utilize this talent in the battle against Balleau. His girlfriend, Betty (June Kenney), fares a little better. We learn that she's a judo expert at the beginning of the film, and she does eventually get to flip a dude into a tub of acid, but otherwise I'd count this as a missed opportunity as well.

Balleau is a former WWII sniper who got the taste for killing early in his military career, and he's turned his considerable wealth into this island paradise, where he gets to hunt humans at his leisure. He sets up fairly rigid rules for each hunt, proposing to give his prey an equal and fighting chance against him. For example, his weapon of choice is a crossbow, and he only carries as many bolts as there are prey. He also gives his prey a pistol with one bullet to even the odds. However, the gun doesn't work, and he reuses the crossbow bolts on multiple victims, which is a good way of spreading hepatitis.

The movie's low budget does not prevent it from being surprisingly gruesome at times. Two of the kids stumble acrosS Balleau's lab, where the mute servant Jondor assembles his master's trophies from human skin and body parts. The trophy room itself is pretty cool, too. Each human trophy is arranged in the pose he or she was in just before death. One guy is in a defensive position, with an arrow going through his hands and into his eye. Balleau also has his wife and her lover stuffed in the trophy room, captured in their final embrace.

Even with some of these gruesome moments, the movie has an appealing Scooby-Doo-feel to it. It manages to rise above its limitations, and at a tight 68 minutes, it doesn't overstay its welcome, either. But why take my word for it? You can watch the whole freaking movie right here:

Halloween Countdown Day 1

In past years, I have tried, with varying degrees of success,to do a Halloween blogging marathon during the month of October. I can't say that this year will be any more successful than last, but I'm going to give it a shot. So, check in regularly for posts about horror movies and comics over the next month.

I'd also like to thank the people at the Countdown to Halloween website for organizing all the blogs that are participating in this marathon. If you haven't done so, go over to the site and check out some of the other cool stuff people are doing this month.

To start off, I want to share one of my favorite horror movie scenes, from the 1962 Hammer film, Kiss of the Vampire:



The atmosphere of this scene is perfect, as is the way the tension builds to the final, satisfying payoff. And while that payoff comes as a shock, it's earned through the slow, meticulous build-up.

Keep coming back all month for more of the Halloween Countdown!

Tony Curtis, R.I.P.

Sad news today that actor Tony Curtis passed away at the age of 85. Most obits today are focusing on his classic comedic performance in Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot and his Oscar-nominated turn in the barrier-breaking film The Defiant Ones. However, I want to focus on his performance as Sidney Falco in my favorite movie, Sweet Smell of Success.

Sweet Smell of Success has everything going for it: a whip-smart screenplay by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman, sharp direction by Alexander Mackendrick, beautiful black-and-white cinematography by James Wong Howe, and top-to-bottom great performances by all the actors involved.

Sidney Falco is a bottom-feeding press agent who barely ekes out a living feeding items on his clients to powerful New York newspaper columnists. In this scene from early in the movie, we see Curtis's frenetic energy that defines the character: he's juggling several problems at once here and trying to look for a way out of all of them.



That energy can also be seen at the beginning of this scene--one of my favorites in movie history--where he's constantly in motion and the camera has to remain mobile to keep up with him. But later, we see press agent Sidney get taken apart by powerful columnist J. J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster), yet he manages to maintain his dignity in the face of Hunsecker's abuse.



That dignity wouldn't last, however, as the erosion of Sidney's already low moral standards becomes the crux of the movie. Falco is a sleazeball, but he's never unlikeable, and it's Curtis's performance that maintains such an unlikely balance of revulsion and sympathy. Curtis was at the height of his popularity when he made this movie, and it was a big risk for both him and Lancaster. Curtis was comfortably situated as a Hollywood screen idol at the time, so playing such a morally dubious role in such a dark film could have damaged that position. And the movie failed largely because of its bleak subject matter, but it remains a bold and brutal movie to this day, and a large part of its quality goes to Curtis's fearless, energetic performance.

Curtis would have a rather spotty career, but at his best, he was in some of the greatest movies of all time, all of which were made better for his performances, though he rarely seemed to get the credit he deserved. I also have fond memories, though, of the cool Tony Curtis who appeared on television when I was a kid, especially the underrated adventure series The Persuaders, where he played American oil millionaire Danny Wilde, who teamed up with British aristocrat Brett Sinclair (Roger Moore) on international adventures.

I'm going to spend part of this weekend revisiting Some Like It Hot and Sweet Smell of Success (two movies that I already watch on a fairly regular basis, anyway) to celebrate the career of one of the last classic Hollywood stars.

The Worst Comic Book of All Time

The term "worst comic book of all time" or "worst comic ever" gets bandied about quite a bit, and while there have been some recent strong contenders to that title (make that "one contender"), such assessments lack some historical scope in order to make such a claim.

In my recent research, I have come across the worst comic of all time, and after reading it, I longed for the simple pleasures of a drug-addicted teen sidekick beating people with a dead cat. That would have been infinitely better than what I experienced.

In fact, I kind of find it quaint that some people can read comics their entire lives, only to have Justice League of America: The Rise of Arsenal 3 end up being the worst comic they ever read. I also envy them.

Because, unless there's some lost comic out there written by Hermann Goering and drawn by Adolph Hitler himself, then I cannot imagine a worse comic book than this:



Published by Specialty Book Company of Columbus, Ohio, in 1944, Clean Fun Starring Shoogafoots Jones is a one-shot comic that was apparently popular enough to go through multiple printings, yet it looks like a very cheaply produced, self-published comic. It fails in every conceivable way that a comic could fail: the art and writing (credited to "McDaniel") are amateurish at best, the so-called "jokes" are not funny, and, most important, the book is racist as hell. Plus, it purports to provide moral instruction from something called "Stray Thoughts" by Crump J. Strickland, which is the most Southern name ever this side of Saxby Chambliss. The overt hypocrisy (immediately clear on the cover) of a comic that presents itself as moral instruction while also containing some of the most awful racism imaginable really puts it over the top to be far and away the worst comic book ever made.

In fact, it makes me want to punch the Greatest Generation right in the face.

The book consists of a series of one-page, four-panel gags, loosely tied together by something of a plot that involves Shoogafoots escaping his abusive wife (as seen on the cover), trying but failing to hold down a job, and getting beset by young pranksters who take advantage of his limited intelligence. (Many of these pranksters, by the way, are Shoogafoots children by different mothers, another running gag in the book.) Then, running along the bottom of each page, we get Crump J. Strickland's words of Christian advice, many of which warn against the dangers of introducing immoral "dirt" and "filth" into your mind.

Here is the inside cover and first page of the book. The gag on the inside cover gets extra points for also drawing humor out of a physical disability. The first page sets up the characters for us while also putting the plot in motion:



I would also like to point out that every panel is numbered 1-4, obviously to help the book's target audience, who wasn't yet quite used to the habit of reading from left to right.

Shoogafoots gets a construction job, but he falls off the building and gets fired. He then goes to see a doctor, who beats him and then throws him out. We start to see here a common pattern in Shoogafoots life: failure, followed by abuse at the hands of every authority figure he meets. For example, Shoogafoots later takes a train, and when he asks the conductor if he "know de way," the conductor beats him with a coal shovel. All this physical abuse, especially from his wife, creates a vicious cycle for Shoogafoots: he's abused because he doesn't work, but then his injuries prevent him from working.

And he is also guilty of perpetuating this cycle of violence, as we see on this page, when one of his illegitimate children asks him an innocent, albeit ignorant question that ironically comments on Shoogafoots's own trauma:



And again, bonus points for drawing humor from post-traumatic stress disorder.

On the road, Shoogafoots meets up with Skin Johnson, who has just joined the Army. As it's time for yet another nap, Shoogafoots falls asleep beside a tree and dreams of life in the Army. As a pilot, he bombs the Japanese fleet, but he's shot down and wakes up. Then his wife beats him some more.

We see, however, that Shoogafoots is not incapable of exertion when pressed into it, usually by a prank that capitalizes on his ignorant superstitions, as with this encounter with a ghost:



To the writer's credit, he does not have Shoogafoots shout out, "Feets, don't fail me now!"

In the following incident, Shoogafoots has a run-in with a ill-advisedly placed Halloween skeleton on a junk pile.



We get to see a kind of hierarchy of fear at work by comparing the two above images. A ghost causes Shoogafoots to run 12 miles, while a skeleton causes him to run 14 miles. Also, the skeleton turns him temporarily white, for some hilarious and ironic racial inversion.

The evidence presented here strongly suggests that Clean Fun Starring Shoogafoots Jones is hands-down the worst comic book of all time, as well as proving that human beings pretty much suck in general. It is a demoralizing and angering book to read, not least when one comes across an epigram promoting universal brotherhood appearing underneath a horribly racist joke.

The images here are from photographs I took of the copy I read at the Michigan State University library. That school's excellent comics archive actually has two copies of the comic, both in pretty good shape. Subsequent research shows that this comic is hardly rare, and cheap copies can be found for a comic from 1944. This leads me to believe that the book was fairly successful for the Specialty Book Company, which is again saddening.

The Gil Kane Punch of the Week 41: I Bend Steel and I Break Braggarts!

DC Comics Presents Annual 3 (1984) is the gift that keeps on giving ... punches, that is! When is it going to stop?



As usual, plot by Roy Thomas, script by Joey Cavalieri.

Blackhawk Wingsdays Presents: Sketchbook Time!

It's going to be a light week for Blackhawk Wingsdays, but I did want to start sharing some of the Blackhawk sketches I've recently received. Starting at HeroesCon this year, I decided to begin a Blackhawk sketchbook. Now, I've never done a sketchbook before, so I was a bit trepidatious. Luckily, everyone I've asked so far has been gracious.

Here's the first one I wanted to share, by Jeff Parker:



Jeff Parker, who is a great writer and a swell guy, really nailed this sketch. When I asked him at HeroesCon if he'd do a Blackhawk sketch, he grabbed the book and said, "I'm doing Hendrickson!" This cracks me up every time I look at it.

Blackhawk Wingsdays Presents "The Black and Blue Hawks!"

The postwar popularity of the Blackhawks sort of confuses me. Comics audiences lost interest in most war-oriented series soon after World War II ended, but Blackhawk remained successful even beyond the demise of its first publisher, Quality Comics.

And it remained successful without evolving very much. The team still fought Orientalist villains and Nazis who survived the war and planned a return of the Reich. Not much later, they became cold warriors and stopped Communist insurgencies in real and fictional nations. And Chop-Chop remained a caricature that had to be offending someone by then.

In my Blackhawk research, I have not found much contemporaneous criticism of the series's politics or racial problems. The exception, though, is the parody of Blackhawk that appeared in Mad 5 (June-July 1953), "The Black and Blue Hawks!" drawn by Wally Wood, with writing credit not given (though I have seen Harvey Kurtzman credited at times). In the typical Mad fashion, this is a biting, hilarious parody which really nails the source's many problems.

To begin with, they parody the Blackhawks fight song: "Over land, over sea, we-ee fight for do-re-mi ... ha cha cha, we're Black and Blue Hawks!"

The team is introduced as Saddlesore (Chuck), Sauerbratten (Hendrickson), Yohnson (Olaf), and Chop Chop Chop. The latter might be the most insightful part of the parody. He's so small that he's in danger of being trampled on at all times, and instead of the usual broken English, he speaks like this:



He's also the only competent member of the group. But despite that, he's given a wind-up toy named "H.M.S. Pinafore" as a plane.

After this introduction, Robespierre (Andre) crashes on the island, bringing news of a revolution in "Panazonia" with his last breath. From here on, the story effectively parodies the comics' tendency to show the team propping up third-world dictatorships.

Chop Chop Chop is always saving Black and Blue Hawk after the latter screws up in some way, leading to Chop Chop Chop actually carrying the oaf on his back after their plane crashes into the ocean:



I love that Black and Blue Hawk slips into German here.

When they discover that only one life-preserver is available, the leader shows his true colors:



This is where the parody gets truly brutal. The line "You're not really one of us!" effectively encapsulates the entire treatment of Chop-Chop over the previous eleven years or so: despite his participation on the team, he is always treated as separate and different. It's hilarious, but like the best Mad parodies, it goes way beyond that, making an insightful and painful critique of the subject at hand.

This parody also gives the sense that there was also someone else out there who thought that Blackhawk was problematic, to say the least. Not only that, but the series was also popular enough to fall within the radar of the Mad creators and readers. Nonetheless, even this parody had little effect on the status quo at the Blackhawk series, and it would be a few years before Quality would even begin to change something like the appearance of Chop-Chop.

Special thanks to Mike Sterling of Mike Sterling's Progressive Ruin for help with the scans.

The Gil Kane Punch of the Week 40: Out of the Panel and through a Building!

Once again, from DC Comics Presents Annual 3 (1984), written by Roy Thomas and Joey Cavalieri. This time, Superman gets backhanded by a Sivana-driven robot:



That's 3 so far from this one comic. Can I go for more? I think so.

The Exciting Return of the Gil Kane Punch of the Week! Episode 39: Knuckle Under!

In an earlier Gil Kane Punch of the Week, supplied by Mike Sterling of Progressive Ruin fame, I featured a page from the 1984 DC Comics Presents Annual 3, written by Roy Thomas and Joey Cavalieri. At the time, I didn't have a copy of the comic, but I have since gotten my own, and I've discovered that the thing is wall-to-wall punches! So, I decided to get some more mileage out of this great issue.

Here's a particularly awesome set of panels, where a Shazammed-up Dr. Sivana fashions some kryptonite brass knuckles (as opposed to brass kryptonite knuckles) and delivers the Earth-1 Superman a devastating blow:



I would not mind seeing more of these kryptonite brass knuckles.

The Return of Blackhawk Wingsdays: Live!

First off, my apologies for the summer long gap in this blog. Right around the time I was planning on devoting more time to the blog, a bunch of stuff happened to take the wind out of my sails, and then some other projects took over my time. I did manage to put out a fairly regular movie column over at the Bureau Chiefs site, and now I'm ready to get back to some regular blogging a few times a week, if there is still anyone out there who is interested. I'm also on sabbatical this semester to work on a comics research project, so some of my posts coming up will be related to that work.

One of my accomplishments over the summer was to read a huge chunk of Blackhawk comics. I would venture to say that I've read most of the Blackhawk stories ever printed, though my research is a bit spotty from about issue 130 to 180. So, with that under my belt,and my batteries recharged, I'm going to make an exciting return to one of my favorite features: Blackhawk Wingsdays!

But if I'm going to make a comeback to this feature, I want to do it in a big way. Therefore, I'm going to be presenting Blackhawk Wingsday live this weekend!

Actually, this weekend I'm presenting a paper at the Purdue University Comparative Literature Conference, Graphic Engagements: The Politics of Comics and Animation. My paper, titled "Retcon and Race: The Many Faces of Chop-Chop from 1941-Present" (though the program gives the subtitle as "The Changing History of Chop-Chop, 1940-Present," it has since changed, partially to get the starting date right), will be like a more academic version of a long Blackhawk Wingsdays post, complete with tons of images but a bit more literary theory than I tend to use on the blog. So, if you are attending the conference, or are in the West Lafayette, IN, area on Saturday morning, come check it out!

I just want to say that I love the fact that I have a job where I can go to a conference and present a paper on Chop-Chop and the Blackhawks. My teenage self would hi-5 me so hard right now.

But because I know that most readers of this blog won't get to see this presentation, I want to share some of the stuff I will be discussing, especially since some of it is really nuts.

One of the things I became aware of while doing my Blackhawk research is that I really, genuinely enjoy the post-war Blackhawk stories, especially those drawn by Reed Crandall. Most of these stories are straight-up anti-Communist propaganda, with the team fighting off Communist rebellions in both real and fictional nations. And with 3 stories per issue at the time, the Blackhawks would often quell three revolutions in three separate fictional countries.

But the series also became a pretty solid adventure strip in a Milton Caniff mode, aided largely by Reed Crandall's dynamic, realistic art. It's a shame that DC hasn't reprinted any of this material: the early stories in the single Archives volume only catch the very beginning of Crandall's work on the strip, and the Showcase volume reprints the early DC issues, where the team had become a group of bland and generic crime-fighters.

One Cold War story that stands out is "Red Ransom," from Blackhawk 55 (Aug. 1952):



First of all, that is one dynamic cover!

In this story, we get a rare glimpse into Chop-Chop's private life. The Blackhawks travel to the U.S. in order to eat at the restaurant owned by Chop-Chop's cousin, Wah Jung. While there, they learn that Wah Jung has a problem: the Red Chinese government has sent him an unpaid tax bill charged to his father, Wah Po, who remains in China, where he runs a kite factory. The Reds threaten to imprison Wah Po if the "tax bill" is not paid.

The Blackhawks agree to help Wah Jung, letting Chop-Chop know, "You're one of us, Chop-Chop! We Blackhawks have to lend each other a hand!" So, the team heads to China, and Chop-Chop goes undercover to help break his uncle out of prison.

Not only is this the rare plot that takes the Blackhawks to a real, rather than fictional, country, the story also has something interesting going on visually. Here's an early page from the story:



I find it curious how Crandall depicts Wah Jung in his normal, realistic style, while Chop-Chop remains a heavily caricatured figure. If anything, the contrast makes the caricature even more grotesque, as this cartoonish figure clearly doesn't belong with the rest of the strip, despite Blackhawk's assertion that Chop-Chop is "one of us."

And when Chop-Chop works undercover to infiltrate the prison, the Chinese soldiers seem to think he's some kind of imbecile:



This sort of contrast between realism and caricature in the depiction of Asian characters within the same story occurs frequently in Blackhawk stories of this era, especially as the team engages in East Asian conflicts. It would still be a few years, though, before Chop-Chop's appearance would change in order to reduce, but not eliminate, the caricatured elements.

"Red Ransom," however, is particularly sensitive despite it's overt anti-Communist propaganda. Once the Blackhawks free Wah Po, they learn about the existence of a nearby weapons factory. Wah Po can signal the team from the ground so the Blackhawks can launch an airstrike, but Chop-Chop's uncle must sacrifice himself in the process. The team flies away from the mission with tears in their eyes.

Unfortunately, that sensitivity is undermined by the awkward placement of the Chop-Chop solo story in this issue, where Chop-Chop inherits a worthless fortune from a dead relative, and hijinx ensue.

I've got plenty of material for future installments of Blackhawk Wingsdays, and my research has yielded some other stuff that I'll work into the blog as well. Before I go, though, I want to give a much belated thanks to Tom Katers for plugging this blog on his fabulous podcast, Tom vs. The Flash. Unfortunately, there wasn't much of a blog to plug at the time, but I appreciate the shout-out, anyway.

News and Updates

I first wanted to let readers know that it will be a few days before I update with the next Exile on Main St. annotation, but after that, I hope to do them fairly regularly. Also, I want to take this time to make a few announcements.

I recently got my contributor's copy of Encyclopedia of Comic Books and Graphic Novels, edited by M. Keith Booker, from Greenwood Press.

So, if you want to find out what I have to say about Black Condor, Richie Rich, Hellblazer, Marv Wolfman, and/or Gil Kane (beyond what I already have said about Kane in this blog), then you can stop by your local library and check it out. Or, if you've got $144 to burn, you can buy yourself a set on Amazon.

Here's a taste of what I had to say about Richie Rich:

Covers to Richie Rich comics usually depict the boy using money for purposes other than currency: he carpets his floor and decorates his walls with it, he plays in piles of bills, and dollar signs often appear in his presence. Covers also depict Richie treating other signs of wealth, like gold, jewels, and oil, as playthings.

And despite my hatred of Richie Rich, the entry is completely objective.

And speaking of things to which I'm contributing, The Bureau Chiefs site continues to feature my regular essays on cult movies, so if you're disappointed with the paucity of content here, you might want to check that site out. Also, you can now buy Fake AP Stylebook merchandise straight from the Bureau Chiefs at our Zazzle store.

Finally, in less than a couple of weeks, I'll be heading to HeroesCon in Charlotte with my good friend Chris Sims. I might have some Bureau Chiefs stuff to give away there, so if you want some, stop me and say, "Hi!" Or say "Hi!" even if you don't want anything. I also may be spending some time hanging out at the Action Age Comics table with Chris and the gang there.

The Annotated Exile: Rocks Off

The Rolling Stones' classic 1972 album Exile on Main Street has long been one of my favorite records--one which I've purchased in various formats over the years. So, it was with some excitement that I anticipated this week's release of the newly remastered reissue of the album, complete with outtakes and alternative versions.

While listening to this album with "fresh ears" if you will, I realized that it is heavily laden with allusions and references that contemporary audiences may not get. As a scholar, I decided that it could be useful to annotate the lyrics to these songs in hopes that younger listeners might get a better feel for the nuances of this music.

So, starting here, I'm going to go song by song through the album and provide explanation for the nuances, allusions, references, and other literary elements of these songs and their lyrics.

Also, I feel like this should be a collaborative process, as I'm certain I don't know every reference in these songs. Therefore, please feel free to add any annotations that you would like in the comments.

Rocks Off (1)
(Jagger/Richards)

Oh yeah.

I hear you talking when I'm on the street,
Your mouth don't move but I can hear you speak.(2)
What's the matter with the boy?
He don't come around no more,
Is he checking out for sure?
Is he gonna close the door on me? (3)

I'm always hearing voices on the street, (4)
I want to shout, but I can't hardly speak.

I was making love last night
To a dancer friend of mine.(5)
I can't seem to stay in step,
'Cuz she cums ev'ry time that she pirouettes over me.(6)

And I only get my rocks off while I'm dreaming,
I only get my rocks off while I'm sleeping.(7)

I'm zipping through the days at lightning speed.
Plug in, flush out and fire the fuckin' feed.(8)
Heading for the overload,
Splattered on the dirty road,
Kick me like you've kicked before,
I can't even feel the pain no more.(9)

But I only get my rocks off while I'm dreaming,
I only get my rocks off while I'm sleeping.

Feel so hypnotized, can't describe the scene.(10)
Its all mesmerized all that inside me.
The sunshine bores the daylights out of me.(11)
Chasing shadows moonlight mystery.
Headed for the overload,
Splattered on the dirty road,
Kick me like you've kicked before,
I can't even feel the pain no more.

But I only get my rocks off while I'm dreaming,
I only get my rocks off while I'm sleeping.

(1) The title of this song has two meanings. One is a colloquial expression for getting high on drugs, the other is a euphemism for achieving sexual climax. Both meanings will come into play over the course of the song.

(2) I don't think it would be correct to assume here that the speaker has psychic powers.

(3) The "boy" here might be a drug dealer. Drug use features prominently in this song.

(4) Again, the speaker hears voices, but it's probably not some kind of psychic phenomenon. It may have to do with the drugs he is taking.

(5) Mick Jagger has had a lot of sex, often with dancers.

(6) According to Wikipedia, a pirouette is "A controlled turn on one leg, starting with one or both legs in plié and rising onto demi-pointe (usually for men) or pointe (usually for women). The non-supporting leg can be held in retiré position, or in attitude, arabesque level or second position. The pirouette may return to the starting position or finish in arabesque or attitude positions, or proceed otherwise. A pirouette is most often en dehors turning outwards toward the back leg, but can also be en dedans turning inwards toward the front leg. Although ballet pirouettes are performed with the hips and legs rotated outward ('turned out'), it is common to see them performed with an inward rotation ('parallel') in other genres of dance, such as jazz and modern." (There is also an equestrian move called a pirouette, but I don't think Mick means that here, though I wouldn't put it past him.)

The way Wikipedia describes that ballet move, I'm not quite sure how spinning on one leg on top of Mick Jagger would bring a dancer to orgasm. It just doesn't seem physically possible. However, I would also concede that Mick has probably done many things that would seem physically impossible to me.

(7) I'm not sure exactly what this means. It may mean that Mick can only achieve orgasm through nocturnal emissions. I just don't think that's true.

(8) This may be another drug reference, like drugs taken with a hypodermic needle. Or it might refer to an electric guitar or a television. I was only 3 years old in 1972, so I'm not really sure how televisions worked back then.

(9) The fact that he can't feel any pain anymore is the result of taking too many drugs.

(10) If you listen to the song, it gets kind of trippy at this point, as if trying to mimic the experience of being on drugs.

(11) This line contains a pun.