Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976)

Though my high school years turned out to be the four least influential, least memorable, most inconsequential years of my life, they certainly did not feel that way at the time. As a young child all hopped up on media depictions of teenage life, I could not wait to be in high school. I was finally going to live in the world of American Graffiti, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, the John Hughes movies (most of which have not aged very well), The Lost Boys (minus the vampires), and the other big '70s and '80s teen movies and sitcoms, not to mention the neighborhood teens I'd seen cruising the streets of my hometown, blasting hard rock from their cars and trucks, smarting off to adults, embodying that special charisma that the teenager represents in the idealized gaze of the child. I didn't yet realize that teenagers were a bunch of dorks at best and that high school was a time to be endured, not enjoyed. Even though my high school years were only one-eleventh of my lifespan so far, they felt unending and all-pervasive when I was living them.

Carrie, Brian De Palma's first big hit after a string of cult films, gets what a drag high school is with its bullies, popularity contests, well-meaning do-gooders enforcing participation, calcified traditions and social pecking orders, hopes raised and frequently dashed, parental conflict, confusing new sexual feelings, justifiable paranoia, conservatism, and the in-between-ness and competing impulses of beckoning adult independence and the last vestiges of childhood. High school sucks, and De Palma's adaptation of Stephen King's first novel finds both fist-pumping catharsis and epic tragedy in Carrie White's telekinetic destruction of her school and home, though the proliferation of school shootings over the last two decades has added a creepier ambiguity to the scene of Carrie's rampage against her classmates and teachers.

Though I tend to be skeptical of filmmakers who are flashy stylists, I like De Palma and his pop art meets avant garde meets pulp fiction approach to images, subjects, and camera movement. He has the weird skill of being outrageously campy and deadly serious at the same time, a combination I find mostly enjoyable, which is perfect for a story about teenage life, fanatical fundamentalist Christian mothers, mean girls, puberty, the prom, telekinesis, and small-town apocalypse.

Carrie landed smack in the middle of De Palma's peak as a filmmaker and visual stylist and its success gave him and his star Sissy Spacek a much higher profile, though they would both continue to make artistically fulfilling and unusual choices. Before Carrie, De Palma directed late '60s counterculture satires Greetings, Hi, Mom!, and Dionysus in '69 and comedies The Wedding Party and Get to Know Your Rabbit, but he'd also proven himself a natural at horror and suspense with Murder a la Mod, Sisters, and the Hitchcock homage Obsession, as well as flop turned cult classic Phantom of the Paradise. Carrie fixed De Palma's name to the pantheon of classic horror filmmakers (though he would continue to work in many different genres) and has become such an iconic movie that it's a little hard to write about. Most of you have seen Carrie and seen it more than once.

What's made it endure for almost 45 years? Part of it is De Palma's visual confidence. The deep focus shots in the school and at Carrie's home, the split screen during the prom carnage, the alternating color of the lights moving across Carrie's luminous face as she sits with her date Tommy (William Katt) at the prom, the spinning camera as they dance, the tour de force destruction of the film's final third, the last jump scare. The set design of Jack Fisk (Spacek's husband) also deserves mention, particularly the home of Carrie and her mother Margaret (Piper Laurie), a claustrophobic, candle-lit two-story house with the world's creepiest crucifix in the closet. Pino Donaggio's music (which borrows its stings from Bernard Herrmann's Psycho score) is also memorable, gently lulling the viewer into a state of calm before abruptly upending proceedings with those piercing stabs.

The stacked cast of future stars and cult actors is another big reason for the film's longevity. Spacek, in her third major movie role, nails the shyness, sheltered vulnerability, suspicion, growing confidence, and homicidal rage demanded by the part, with Laurie (coming out of an early retirement from TV and film to take the role of Carrie's mother) equal parts terrifying and hilarious. The rest of the cast includes Amy Irving in her first film role, newcomers William Katt, John Travolta, Nancy Allen, PJ Soles, Betty Buckley, Edie McClurg, and Miami Vice's Michael Talbott, and veteran character actors Priscilla Pointer (playing mother to her real-life daughter Irving), Sydney Lassick, and Stefan Gierasch.

There are certainly criticisms to be made. A few of the camera angles seem a little pervy, particularly in the PE detention scene. The tight running time is fat-free but a little short on character development. Do we ever really get to know Carrie or do we just get an outline? Wouldn't Margaret have home schooled Carrie if she was that crazed about possible interactions with boys and the godless world outside? This list is mostly nitpicky, of course. I really like this movie, and it deserves its reputation.

I'll leave you with another possible reason this movie's popularity has endured. Carrie may be the greatest '70s hair movie ever made. The dazzling locks and thick, flowing manes of most of the cast are unparalleled in movie hairstyle history. So much hair everywhere, with special nods to William Katt, Amy Irving, and Piper Laurie. Even the creepy Jesus on the crucifix has an incredible head of hair. Carrie? More like Hairy, am I right? Eh? Eh? This guy gets it (points to guy with huge head of hair).

I'm feeling sick today (probably not Covid), so I have a feeling this post is a bit incoherent and scattered.

     

Mystery of the Wax Museum (Michael Curtiz, 1933)

Fittingly for Fourth of July weekend viewing, Mystery of the Wax Museum is about a guy who gets screwed over by the Brits and then comes to America to screw other people over. It's a jam-packed horror/mystery/action/comedy/newsroom drama/romance/weird tale that never drags, and I enjoyed it immensely.

Filmmaker Michael Curtiz (The Adventures of Robin Hood, Angels with Dirty Faces, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Casablanca, Mildred Pierce, King Creole) only directed a handful of horror films in an enormous body of work, but two of those horror films (Doctor X, already reviewed on this site, and Mystery of the Wax Museum) were the last two films made with the two-color Technicolor process, which mixed red and green dyes to make a reduced-spectrum color image. The heightened, artificial look of the two-color process fell out of favor with audiences, but it works well in the context of an expressive horror movie.

Mystery of the Wax Museum begins with an eccentric wax sculptor from "the old country," Ivan Igor (Lionel Atwill, great as the villains in Doctor X and Murders in the Zoo), working in his London wax museum/studio late at night. He talks to his sculptures and is a little too intense, but he seems like an otherwise harmless fella. He's visited by an old friend who has brought an art dealer with him. The dealer is impressed and says when he returns from a voyage, he'll recommend Igor's work to the National Museum. Igor is pleased, but his mood quickly turns sour when his landlord Joe Worth (Edwin Maxwell) turns up and demands the rent. Worth is pissed because the museum barely makes any money, and Igor is months behind on the rent. Worth suggests torching the place and splitting the insurance money, but Igor balks at the idea. Worth sets the place on fire anyway (lots of cool images of melting wax figures), and Igor and Worth get into a massive fistfight amidst the burning wreckage of the museum. After Worth knocks Igor out, he splits and leaves his tenant to die.

Thirteen years later, both men are living in New York City. Worth is now a whiskey bootlegger, and Igor, who survived the fire with massive burns on his arms and legs, is about to open a recreation of his London wax museum in the Big Apple. Unfortunately, he's now insane. Igor, whose burned hands no longer allow him to sculpt, has a criminal crew kidnap bodies from the morgue and sometimes even murder people who resemble his former sculptures. He then preserves the bodies in wax and displays them in his museum.

To present a respectable front, Igor hires an aspiring sculptor who knows nothing of his plans, the milquetoast nerd Ralph (Allen Vincent), to assist with the non-cadaver sculptures. Ralph's girlfriend Charlotte (Fay Wray) looks exactly like Igor's old Marie Antoinette sculpture, and when Igor gets an eyeful of Charlotte, an evil plan is hatched. Meanwhile, Charlotte's roommate Florence (Glenda Farrell) is a wisecracking, fast-talking newspaper reporter whose investigation into the mysterious death of a young woman named Joan Gale leads her to the wax museum and serious suspicions about Igor. Florence also has lots of His Girl Friday-style lighting-quick banter with her equally wisecracking, fast-talking editor Jim (Frank McHugh). (At one point, she says to him, "I'm going to make you eat dirt, you soap bubble." When she blows a raspberry at him, Jim replies, "A cow does that and gives milk besides." Good times.)

An aside about Glenda Farrell. She also played a fast-talking reporter in the following year's Hi, Nellie!, leading Warner Brothers to decide she needed her own fast-talking reporter film franchise, which became the Torchy Blane series. Warners made seven Torchy Blane movies between 1937 and 1939, promoting Farrell as a woman who could say 400 words in 40 seconds. Damn, Hollywood worked its talent like dogs in those days. People had enormous filmographies.

Back to the wax. Will the lovely Charlotte get waxed on, or waxed off? Will wealthy playboy George (Gavin Gordon) take the rap for Joan Gale's death instead of Igor? Will Igor get his revenge on his former landlord? Will an arrested junkie squeal on everybody? Will Florence and Jim slow their rapid-fire witty banter enough to get the story printed? Will Igor and his evil henchmen get their comeuppance? Will Ralph get hip to what's going down?

Curtiz, a journeyman director par excellence, gets lots of creepy, eye-popping images and excellent performances, including two strong female characters when the norm in genre pictures of the era (and many other eras) was to have only one. He's good with the comedy banter, he's good with the closeups, he's good with the fights and car chases and moments of danger, he's good with the atmosphere building, he's good with the actors. He's good at making movies, period. Though this film's remake, House of Wax with Vincent Price, is more well-known, Mystery of the Wax Museum is a good and good-looking film in its own right. Fans of '30s horror should definitely give it a whirl.