Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 3: And this is Joe McCormick. And today's movie on Weird
Speaker 3: House is the nineteen fifty three three D horror film
Speaker 3: The Maze, directed by William Cameron Menzies. I had never
Speaker 3: seen this before this week, and I first became aware
Speaker 3: of it back when we were doing our three Weeks
Speaker 3: of three D series. How long ago was that now,
Speaker 3: I guess it was a few months ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, I'm sometime in months weeks. It's hard to say.
Speaker 2: Time passes strangely in the digital realm, but yeah, we
Speaker 2: were looking at different three D pictures and you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of them did come. We had certain boom
Speaker 2: periods for three D, and nineteen fifty three was definitely
Speaker 2: one of those years.
Speaker 3: Absolutely the same year as Vincent Price's House of Wax.
Speaker 2: Same year as Oh Our Friend, the Guerrilla Robot.
Speaker 3: Oh Robot Monster. Nineteen fifty three.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was a big year for three D pictures,
Speaker 2: and we've been into a number of nineteen fifties films
Speaker 2: in general this year.
Speaker 3: So The Maze ended up on my list of movies
Speaker 3: for that we ended up not picking it with some
Speaker 3: other options, but it came to mind again for me
Speaker 3: a week or two back when a friend of mine
Speaker 3: was over at the house. He wanted to show me
Speaker 3: a movie, and the one he picked was another film
Speaker 3: by the same director, by William Cameron. Mindsy's a film
Speaker 3: released in nineteen fifty three, so the same year as
Speaker 3: the one we're talking about today, but called Invaders from Mars, which,
Speaker 3: according to a book called Saucer Movies, The Euphological History
Speaker 3: of the Cinema by Paul Mehan, it was the first
Speaker 3: full length movie ever to show aliens and their flying
Speaker 3: saucers in color. I think it just beat out the
Speaker 3: nineteen fifty three release of War the World, which I
Speaker 3: think was intentional. They were sort of like trying to
Speaker 3: get it out before War the World's now. We'll talk
Speaker 3: a bit more about this director when we get into
Speaker 3: the connections part of the episode, but I'll just say
Speaker 3: Invaders from Mars is very interesting in that while a
Speaker 3: lot of the movie is, you know, stuff we know
Speaker 3: very well from this period, stock footage of military vehicles
Speaker 3: driving around ooh, thrilling, and there's plenty of fifties cheeseball
Speaker 3: alien schlock in it, there are actually some very frightening
Speaker 3: moments and images, And I know this movie stuck with
Speaker 3: a lot of people who would go on to become
Speaker 3: film directors in later decades. In the seventies and eighties,
Speaker 3: they like harkened back to seeing Invaders from Mars when
Speaker 3: they were little kids and being deeply frightened by it
Speaker 3: by certain memorable images, so much so that Toby Hooper
Speaker 3: ended up remaking Invaders from Mars in the eighties, And
Speaker 3: I know there are other directors who have cited it
Speaker 3: as like a movie that really scared them when they
Speaker 3: were young.
Speaker 2: I never saw the original, but I have seen parts
Speaker 2: of Tobe Hooper's remake on TV back in the day.
Speaker 3: Well, something I thought was interesting about Invaders from Mars
Speaker 3: was that of these actually very frightening moments and images,
Speaker 3: a lot of the stuff that works best in the
Speaker 3: movie is very set focused. It depends on specific sets
Speaker 3: to the extent that I would I say that I
Speaker 3: really get the feeling that William Cameron Mendsay's is a
Speaker 3: sets guy. There's one that really sticks in my mind
Speaker 3: from Invaders, which is an indoor for outdoor set of
Speaker 3: the main character is like a little boy and aliens
Speaker 3: from mars Land in his backyard, and he starts figuring
Speaker 3: out what's going on as they sort of start pod peopling,
Speaker 3: you know, replacing people with alien drones that look just
Speaker 3: like them. He watches out his window as this alien
Speaker 3: ship comes down in his backyard. And so the backyard
Speaker 3: is a sort of eerie looking hilltop with a path
Speaker 3: leading over it and a few trees in a wooden fence,
Speaker 3: And we repeatedly in that movie see characters venture down
Speaker 3: the path over the top of the hill and just disappear,
Speaker 3: which we later learn is because they are being sucked
Speaker 3: down through a patch of Martian quicksand which Minsias shows
Speaker 3: filling itself back in after it has consumed an earthling
Speaker 3: with a reverse footage effect. And I think that part
Speaker 3: is actually highly effective, especially when paired with that unsettling
Speaker 3: indoor for outdoor set.
Speaker 2: I think I know what you mean. And this ties
Speaker 2: into a lot of the indoor for outdoor sets that
Speaker 2: we've talked about before, where if it's done well, if
Speaker 2: it's done right, it feels uncanny. It feels like it
Speaker 2: doesn't feel like a completely artificial environment, but it feels
Speaker 2: like an environment on another planet.
Speaker 3: Longtime listeners may be tired of hearing me say this
Speaker 3: because I bring it up a lot, but I really
Speaker 3: do love a good indoor for outdoor set, like some
Speaker 3: trees on a set and a painted background that I
Speaker 3: don't know when it's good. That really really makes a
Speaker 3: movie go next level for me. But anyway, so, having
Speaker 3: recently seen that movie from the same director, I was
Speaker 3: curious to see this one the Maze because it was
Speaker 3: released the same year as Invaders from Mars, and it
Speaker 3: was just kind of waiting there in the back of
Speaker 3: my mind. The only other thing I knew about this movie,
Speaker 3: besides it having the same director as the one I'd
Speaker 3: seen recently, was that it is famous for having an
Speaker 3: absolutely bizarre twist ending that is either horrifying or hilarious,
Speaker 3: or maybe both, depending on who you ask.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had to look this up in the Psychotronic
Speaker 2: Encyclopedia film, and Michael Weldon first of all praises the
Speaker 2: set designs and then refers to quote the most unusual
Speaker 2: ending you'll ever witness. And of course this is coming
Speaker 2: from a guy who lived in breathed weird movies, So
Speaker 2: that's always an intriguing sign.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess you judge the weirdness of an
Speaker 3: ending by contrast, and I would say, if you're thinking
Speaker 3: of I don't know, David Cronenberg movies, this is not
Speaker 3: the weirdest ending you'll ever see, but it might be
Speaker 3: the weirdest ending I've ever seen in contrast to the
Speaker 3: to the energy of the rest of the film beforehand.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And then you know, in general, most movies
Speaker 2: don't have this ending, yeah, though it would be interesting
Speaker 2: if they did. And I guess the challenge here with
Speaker 2: all of this is we are not going to spoil
Speaker 2: what makes this ending special yet. We'll get to it,
Speaker 2: but we'll give you a nice warning when we get
Speaker 2: into that territory. But like, this is a film that
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people would not check out
Speaker 2: unless you are maybe a fifties completest or three D
Speaker 2: cinema completest. That's probably more likely. But knowing that the
Speaker 2: ending is special, well you might push forward. And so yeah,
Speaker 2: I would encourage you to do so if that's what
Speaker 2: you're you're in the game for, like a nice weird
Speaker 2: ending that really kind of comes out of left field.
Speaker 3: It's to the point that and we're gonna play the
Speaker 3: trailer for you, because this trailer is, I say, a
Speaker 3: top ten fifties trailer for me. It's really good. It's
Speaker 3: one of those where they talk directly to the audience.
Speaker 3: So Rob, I know you were comparing it to the
Speaker 3: trailer for Mad Love, kind of reminded me of like
Speaker 3: William Castle or The Mask, where somebody is like the
Speaker 3: film you're about to see is one of the most
Speaker 3: horrifying things. Now I will say about the movie itself.
Speaker 3: While I greatly enjoyed it, especially considering the ending, I
Speaker 3: do have to say I think a real demerit of
Speaker 3: this film is that, even at eighty minutes, it feels
Speaker 3: somewhat padded out. And we have discussed films before that
Speaker 3: feel like this could have been a twenty something minute
Speaker 3: Twilight Zone episode but was padded out to feature film length,
Speaker 3: and I think this might well be an example of
Speaker 3: that category. Throughout the middle of the movie, there are
Speaker 3: multiple times we get like a long sequence where a
Speaker 3: characters are discussing what they're about to do and then
Speaker 3: we see them do it, and we could have just
Speaker 3: seen them do it, and even what they're planning on
Speaker 3: doing is not especially riveting plot material. It's like, aunt Edith,
Speaker 3: I'm going to say that you have a cold, which
Speaker 3: means we can't leave the castle, and then they'll have
Speaker 3: to let us stay and discover the secret of the maze,
Speaker 3: and then we see them do what they just talked about,
Speaker 3: So you know, not and not When I when I
Speaker 3: say see with them do what they just talked about,
Speaker 3: I don't mean discover the secret of the maze, I
Speaker 3: mean deliver the excuse about aunt Edith's cold.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean also aunt Edith and more in particular
Speaker 2: what is it Kitty? There there are protagonists, they are
Speaker 2: main investigators, and there comes a point in the in
Speaker 2: the plot where okay, we're gonna have like six additional
Speaker 2: people added to this plot to help investigate, and it's
Speaker 2: totally unnecessary, Like you could have built up to that
Speaker 2: big reveal, You could have gotten there a lot faster
Speaker 2: without all these additional people just kind of muddying things up.
Speaker 3: I will say, though, once all the friends arrive at
Speaker 3: the castle, the movie becomes significantly funnier. Yes, yeah, because Bert,
Speaker 3: the doctor they invite is uh, he's a character.
Speaker 2: Is birth the one with a gun. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he came to examine his friend for you know,
Speaker 3: medical conditions, but happened to bring a revolver.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, yeah, I know this guy, so I agree
Speaker 2: with you. Yeah, it's a slow build. I think it
Speaker 2: could have benefited from trimming maybe like twenty minutes off
Speaker 2: of it. Yeah, it could have been either a much
Speaker 2: shorter feature or a horror anthology episode. Yeah, but it's
Speaker 2: worth it's worth still worth pushing through to get to
Speaker 2: this ending. But if you didn't know there was a
Speaker 2: treat at the end, you might easily bail out, you know,
Speaker 2: half an hour into this picture. Yeah, all right, Joe,
Speaker 2: do you have an elevator pitch for the Maze?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I started writing an elevator pitch just
Speaker 3: based around spoiling the ending, But I think we're not
Speaker 3: going to do that, are we. We're not going to
Speaker 3: do that until later in this episode. We'll give you
Speaker 3: a chance to bail out if you'd rather not know
Speaker 3: ahead of time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then we will spoil the hell out of it.
Speaker 2: It's going to be a grand old time.
Speaker 3: Okay, So instead I'll do the traditional movie set up
Speaker 3: elevator pitch. East fiance, Gerald, is heir to the estate
Speaker 3: of Craven Castle in Scotland. Just two weeks before their wedding,
Speaker 3: he is summoned to Craven with no warning, only to
Speaker 3: then cease all contact with his beloved. Will she find
Speaker 3: him again and reclaim their love or will a terrible
Speaker 3: family secret destroy them all?
Speaker 2: All right, sounds intriguing. Well, let's get the trailer audio
Speaker 2: experience here, and like you said, Joe, this one's a
Speaker 2: real treat.
Speaker 4: Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Richard Carlson.
Speaker 5: If I look somewhat older and more drawn than I
Speaker 5: have in my recent pictures, it's because of the harrowing
Speaker 5: experiences I've been having here in the Maze. The Maze
Speaker 5: is the first picture in three dimension that delves into
Speaker 5: the weird and terrifying world of the supernatural. If you're
Speaker 5: familiar with the exciting effects that can be achieved with
Speaker 5: three D, you can imagine what happens when something from
Speaker 5: the great beyond reaches right out of the screen to
Speaker 5: clutch at you. On one more thing, after you've seen
Speaker 5: The Maze, please don't reveal to your friends the secret
Speaker 5: of its story or its startling climax. Because you see,
Speaker 5: we think the Maze will amaze you.
Speaker 4: What fearful secret was hidden from the world for two
Speaker 4: hundred years? Why was every door in Craven Castle locked
Speaker 4: at night? I went to your room and I saw something,
Speaker 4: something horrible. It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 4: It was your imagination, something alive.
Speaker 5: I saw it move.
Speaker 4: The terrifying story that startled the world comes to the
Speaker 4: screen in three dimensions.
Speaker 3: Hello, I'm actor Richard Carlson. You might remember me from
Speaker 3: films when I did not appear to be at the
Speaker 3: very moment of death. Well that's all in the past.
Speaker 3: I am now morbidly wizened and my blood has turned
Speaker 3: to an ashen vapor as a result of my participation
Speaker 3: in this film.
Speaker 2: We think the Maze will amaze you. Perfect, absolutely perfect. God.
Speaker 3: Can you imagine the people groaning in the theaters when
Speaker 3: they hear that.
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe it was in a different reception
Speaker 2: back then they had been like, Hey, that's clever, this
Speaker 2: movie looks clever.
Speaker 3: I almost, without no pun intended, said, that is amazing
Speaker 3: word play.
Speaker 2: All right, if you want to dive in and experience
Speaker 2: the maze for yourself, before we proceed through and start
Speaker 2: talking about the rest of the plot and the people
Speaker 2: involved in it. Well, it is available on DVD and
Speaker 2: Blu Ray, and it was released on three D Blu
Speaker 2: Ray for those of you who still have that technology
Speaker 2: or have access to a time machine to go back
Speaker 2: into the most recent home three D boom and get
Speaker 2: a taste of that. I'm not sure this one is
Speaker 2: available for like legitimate streaming out there anywhere, but all
Speaker 2: that changes, you know, month to month. Almost if you
Speaker 2: look around, you might be able to find a stream
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 3: This is yet another one that we did not get
Speaker 3: to see in three D.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you can still recognize those scenes, and we'll
Speaker 2: talk about those scenes where it's like, yep, these are
Speaker 2: the three D scenes. Put your glasses on.
Speaker 3: Now, Okay, so we talked about connections.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or we're going to start right here at the
Speaker 2: top with director slash production designer William Cameron Menzies, who
Speaker 2: we've we've been alluding to a little bit already. You know,
Speaker 2: something of a legend in this area of production design,
Speaker 2: though I don't know that i'd ever actually seen a
Speaker 2: film in its entirety that he worked on.
Speaker 3: Same here apart from Invaders from Mars. I have in
Speaker 3: part seen his famous H. G. Wells adaptation Things to Come,
Speaker 3: which I know we're going to have to watch for
Speaker 3: a weird House one day.
Speaker 2: So. Menzies was born in eighteen ninety six died in
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty seven. He was an American filmmaker, best known
Speaker 2: for his contributions as a production designer. In fact, Menzies
Speaker 2: apparently invent the title production designer and his credits in
Speaker 2: this area, which is also like art direction. I believe
Speaker 2: it was often referred to. This goes back to the
Speaker 2: silent era, and he has some extremely impressive credentials from
Speaker 2: that era, the lavish silent swashbuckler from nineteen twenty four,
Speaker 2: The Thief of Bagdad. That one starred Douglas Fairbanks and
Speaker 2: also featured Anime Wong in a supporting role, and then
Speaker 2: a much later in his career, or a good bit
Speaker 2: later in his career, nineteen thirty nine, is Gone with
Speaker 2: the Wind. He also was involved in that lavish production
Speaker 2: design on that picture. As far as directing, he directed
Speaker 2: fifteen films and served as production designer on several of them.
Speaker 2: I mean I think most of them, and these include
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty two's Chandu the Magician. This one had cinematography
Speaker 2: by James Wong Howell, who we've discussed in the show before.
Speaker 2: Nineteen thirty six is Things to Come, which you mentioned already,
Speaker 2: and fifty threes Invaders from Mars, which you recently watched.
Speaker 3: I think it's interesting. I feel I would like to
Speaker 3: know more about how he thought of his own role
Speaker 3: as a director in his own film career, because you
Speaker 3: mentioned that he invented the title production designer. If you
Speaker 3: look at the credits at the beginning of the Maze,
Speaker 3: you might notice that he is He lists himself as
Speaker 3: a production designed and directed by William Cameron Mendsies. First,
Speaker 3: first thing there is production designed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that is where he really made a
Speaker 2: name for himself. But then you know, it gets into
Speaker 2: directing of pictures as well. I was reading The Tragedy
Speaker 2: of Three D Cinema by Rick Mitchell from two thousand
Speaker 2: and four, and this is a fun article worth checking
Speaker 2: out if you're disinterested in the three D booma general.
Speaker 2: It's not a long article. You can find it on
Speaker 2: Jay Store and he's going he talks about like the
Speaker 2: different booms in three D and what different studios were
Speaker 2: doing project wise to try and capitalize in that boom,
Speaker 2: and with a nineteen fifty three three D boom, this
Speaker 2: was one of the independent entries into the three D pool.
Speaker 2: This is allied Artist slash Monogram. And while the film
Speaker 2: itself is you know what it is, it's nobody's top
Speaker 2: three D picture, it's nobody's top nineteen fifty three picture,
Speaker 2: he does say the following quote. Mensi's approach to camera placement, composition,
Speaker 2: and lighting were especially suited to three D, and in
Speaker 2: many ways the Maze is a textbook example of how
Speaker 2: to shoot a three D film, and he ultimately contends
Speaker 2: to that as a director, Mensie's never really had the
Speaker 2: chance to work with a script that was truly deserving
Speaker 2: of his talents. So, you know, far more technically proficient,
Speaker 2: and you know, the skilled when it came to the
Speaker 2: visual and the artistic design of a picture. But you know,
Speaker 2: as he worked his way up into the director's chair,
Speaker 2: he perhaps never really had that perfect script to bring
Speaker 2: to life.
Speaker 3: That does seem true based on my experience, though I
Speaker 3: guess I would reserve judgment on that until I've seen
Speaker 3: things to come, which seems a more ambitious project in
Speaker 3: terms of storytelling than the two moves I have seen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he did. You know again, he was highly
Speaker 2: thought of when it came to production design or the
Speaker 2: art design on these various pictures. Now, Minsi's was nominated
Speaker 2: for four Oscars three Best Art Direction nominations in nineteen thirty,
Speaker 2: two of them in nineteen twenty nine. And fun fact,
Speaker 2: there were two Oscar ceremonies in nineteen thirty, so these
Speaker 2: awards are spread out across three different Academy Awards ceremonies
Speaker 2: in the space of two years. Okay, yeah, it gets
Speaker 2: kind of weird when you start looking back at like
Speaker 2: early Oscars history, you know, because they didn't even start
Speaker 2: told what twenty nine. So anyway, he did win one
Speaker 2: of these. It was for a film in twenty nine
Speaker 2: titled The Dove, and then later on he got an
Speaker 2: Honorary Award for his work on Gone with the Wind.
Speaker 2: All right. The screenplay on this one was written by
Speaker 2: Daniel b Olman or as an adapted screenplay. Rather. He
Speaker 2: lived nineteen eighteen through nineteen seventy nine. His other screenplays
Speaker 2: include nineteen sixty one's Mysterious Island That Start a Giant
Speaker 2: crab as well as various action, western and suspense films.
Speaker 3: There aren't as many giant crab movies as you would think.
Speaker 3: That's one of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that one stands out. It's a good looking crab.
Speaker 2: Now I said it was an adapted screenplay. It is
Speaker 2: based on a novel, a novel by Maurice Sandawz, who
Speaker 2: lived eighteen ninety two through nineteen fifty eight, a Swiss
Speaker 2: author and composer who apparently earned a PhD in chemistry
Speaker 2: but chose to devote his life to art instead of science.
Speaker 2: His books I've read often venture into surreal and horrific territory,
Speaker 2: I guess, you know, dipping into some of that, you know,
Speaker 2: the energy of sort of the weird tales, weird fiction era.
Speaker 2: His nineteen forty five novel The Maze is the basis
Speaker 2: for this film and is apparently a key example of
Speaker 2: these interests. The novel has a largely gothic horror eye
Speaker 2: by understand, but also has this highly weird twist at
Speaker 2: the end. The surrealist artist Salvador Dali actually illustrated an
Speaker 2: edition of this novel. You can find various booksellers online
Speaker 2: selling this illustrated volume it seems to be a pretty
Speaker 2: hot item among book collectors. I couldn't get a hit
Speaker 2: my hands on a copy of it, or at least
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be going to be able to get one
Speaker 2: in time for this episode. But you can find various
Speaker 2: examples of selfador Dolly's illustrations from the novel, and they're
Speaker 2: really strange looking, as you might well imagine. There's one
Speaker 2: in particular of this kind of almost mushroom headed looking figure,
Speaker 2: and it's one of these images where you can look
Speaker 2: at it either right side up or upside down. One
Speaker 2: way it's this strange figure, and the other ways it's
Speaker 2: clearly supposed to be the castle from the book.
Speaker 3: So what is the guy's head at the bottom when
Speaker 3: it's upside down?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I's like that part, doesn't I guess
Speaker 2: translate so much into something something different, or does it?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's like a big potato in a bowl when it's
Speaker 3: upside down.
Speaker 2: M we may have to come back to this figuring
Speaker 2: this out once we get to the end of the
Speaker 2: end of the picture. But anyway, Sandoz has some other works.
Speaker 2: He wrote a novel called The House Without Windows, from
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty that has a futuristic house in it that
Speaker 2: apparently has a lot of things we just kind of
Speaker 2: take for granted as part of a house these days.
Speaker 2: And he also wrote various plays and short stories.
Speaker 3: Okay, is it time to talk about our Troy McClure
Speaker 3: for this film.
Speaker 2: Yes, playing Gerald mcteam. We have Richard Garlson, who lived
Speaker 2: nineteen twelve through nineteen seventy seven, actor of stage, screen
Speaker 2: and TV, as well as eventually a director and screenwriter.
Speaker 2: He was an established lead actor in the late thirties
Speaker 2: and early forties, but then, of course, then came World
Speaker 2: War Two. He serves in World War Two in the
Speaker 2: US Navy, and afterwards he has a little harder time
Speaker 2: getting those lead roles again, so he has to turn
Speaker 2: to screenwriting as a way to fill in the gaps.
Speaker 2: And it also meant that he dipped more into sci
Speaker 2: fi in horror films. You know, he'd kind of like,
Speaker 2: you know, fallen down the ladder. I guess a bit
Speaker 2: in Hollywood. But as is often the case, these might
Speaker 2: not have been necessarily the most sought after projects of
Speaker 2: the day, but some of them are the projects that
Speaker 2: stood the test of time, because two of them, in particular,
Speaker 2: were directed by Jack Arnold. Nineteen fifty threes It Came
Speaker 2: from Outer Space and nineteen fifty four's Creature from the
Speaker 2: Black Lagoon.
Speaker 3: Oh, who is he in Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Speaker 2: He's the human guy who's not Richard Dinning.
Speaker 3: Okay, he's the human guy who is not the guy
Speaker 3: from Creature with the Adam Brain.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah, it seems at times like we're sort of
Speaker 2: navigating our way around Creature from the Black Lagoon. We're
Speaker 2: covering various people involved in it, but not the film itself.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that means we're supposed to stay
Speaker 2: out of the Black Lagoon or if we need to
Speaker 2: venture into it eventually.
Speaker 3: Let's see, we did Tarantula, which was that directed by
Speaker 3: Jack Arnold, same I believe, So yeah, okay, same director
Speaker 3: as Creature. Then we did Creature with the Adam Brain,
Speaker 3: which has Denning, though Dick Cutting is not in Creature,
Speaker 3: is it is he?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 3: That was the one thing Creature needed to really make
Speaker 3: it perfect. It's like a news story segment from Dick Cutting.
Speaker 2: But yeah, Rid Richard Carlson is I think he's a scientist, right,
Speaker 2: He's one of the scientists who goes to the Black
Speaker 2: Lagoon and surprise finds the creature from the Black Lagoon
Speaker 2: and then realize, we've got to do something about this creature.
Speaker 3: We got to shoot at him.
Speaker 2: Anyway. Carlson was also in nineteen fifty three Is the
Speaker 2: Magnetic Monster nineteen sixties, Tormented in nineteen sixty Eight's The Power. YEA,
Speaker 2: what can you say? I mean, it's I guess it's
Speaker 2: a solid leading performance that you can't help but wonder
Speaker 2: what a weirder character actor might have done in his place,
Speaker 2: given where the plot eventually goes. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: I was trying to think, I was thought thought on
Speaker 2: this a little bit like I don't even know who
Speaker 2: I would suggest, like the fifties were such a square
Speaker 2: time for so many of these actors, Like who who
Speaker 2: else could they have possibly put right there in the
Speaker 2: starring role in this picture? And someone who had have
Speaker 2: been able to maybe lean into the strangeness of this
Speaker 2: character as we see him for most of the picture.
Speaker 3: Oh, I was wondering if you were going to say
Speaker 3: it should have been Vincent Price in this role.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess. Yeah, I mean it would have.
Speaker 2: It would have been an alteration of the Vincent Price trajectory.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean Price definitely could have done I
Speaker 2: mean Price, and now that I think about it, yeah,
Speaker 2: Price would have been perfect, knowing what we know now,
Speaker 2: because he could do those leading role types to you know,
Speaker 2: those square type characters, but has these deep reservoirs of
Speaker 2: weirdness that you know, made him an icon of horrors.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it would have been interesting to see what
Speaker 2: someone like Price could have done with this role.
Speaker 3: But I'm in some jokes. I don't mean to rag
Speaker 3: on Carlson too much in this. I think he is
Speaker 3: doing what is asked of him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he does a fine job. You can't really criticize
Speaker 2: anything about his performance, even if with modern sensibilities, especially you,
Speaker 2: or even the sensibilities of later decades, you might wonder
Speaker 2: what else could have been? Yeah, yeah, but really, our
Speaker 2: two lead characters are Kitty Murray and her aunt Edith Murray.
Speaker 3: Our Holmes and Watson of the.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, Kitty Murray is our Holmes, I guess, or
Speaker 2: she the Watson. I guess it depends how you look
Speaker 2: at it.
Speaker 3: I think she's the Holmes I think aunt I think
Speaker 3: Aunt Edith is the Watson, okay, because she's the narrator.
Speaker 2: Also, that's true. That's true. Yeah, like Watson. So Kitty
Speaker 2: Murray is played by Veronica Hurst, who lived nineteen thirty
Speaker 2: one through twenty twenty two British film, stage and television actress.
Speaker 2: This is one of her best remembered roles, though she
Speaker 2: also had a role in the nineteen sixties psychological horror
Speaker 2: film Peeping Tom, as well as a nineteen sixty five
Speaker 2: Bond knockoff titled Licensed to Kill starring Tom Adams.
Speaker 3: Well, what had the Bond Corporation not not trademarked License
Speaker 3: to Kill?
Speaker 2: Yet? I'm not sure this was not a This was
Speaker 2: not a Bond knockoff or like a non canon Bond
Speaker 2: film that I was familiar with. But you know, there
Speaker 2: were very there are things like Operation Kid Brother and
Speaker 2: you know, obviously in later decades, so it makes sense
Speaker 2: or ill guest, maybe this is the same decade. But
Speaker 2: at any rate, Veronica Hurst, I think she's great in this,
Speaker 2: you know, beautiful Town. It doesn't feign as much as
Speaker 2: Aunt Edith. You know, this character is not like Ellen
Speaker 2: Ripley or anything, but she's still, you know, highly capable
Speaker 2: and brave and wants to get to the truth of
Speaker 2: the matter.
Speaker 3: The entire plot centers around her being unbelievably pushy. The
Speaker 3: whole movie is just people telling her, no, you can't
Speaker 3: do that, and she's like, shut up, I'm doing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and with her the whole time, except when she's fainting.
Speaker 2: Is Aunt Edith played by Catherine Emery lived nineteen oh
Speaker 2: six through nineteen eighty. She acted in the nineteen forty
Speaker 2: five Boris Karloff film Isle of the Dead, various other pictures.
Speaker 2: This was her final film. However, I like her. She's
Speaker 2: the furrowed eyebrow of the film. She's there to be,
Speaker 2: you know, like Kitty comes and tells her, Oh, Aunt Edith,
Speaker 2: I found a secret passageway that's full of killer bats.
Speaker 2: You know, come with me, We'll go up the stairs,
Speaker 2: and and Edith's like, no, I would prefer not to.
Speaker 2: I want to go back to bed. Yeah. So for
Speaker 2: most of the film, these are our two investigators and
Speaker 2: the creepy castle. Now, you can't have a creepy castle,
Speaker 2: especially in a gothic film like this, without like some
Speaker 2: sort of authority figure saying no, you cannot go into
Speaker 2: that part of the house. You should not go into
Speaker 2: the maze.
Speaker 3: It is not permitted, right.
Speaker 2: And that character is William played by Michael Pate who
Speaker 2: lived nineteen twenty through two thousand and eight, an Australian actor,
Speaker 2: writer and director who if you look at you may
Speaker 2: recognize his face. He has a very distinct face, a
Speaker 2: unique look to go along with his talent. He's a
Speaker 2: guy who played a lot of heavies in his time.
Speaker 2: You see him pop up in a lot of Westerns
Speaker 2: and so forth. But he moved from Australia and from
Speaker 2: Australian film to Hollywood in the fifties and then in
Speaker 2: the sixties. He's still working there, but eventually moved back
Speaker 2: to Australia in sixty eight, and that I think ultimately
Speaker 2: seemed to position him well to then get involved in
Speaker 2: various Australian film scene projects that were taking place in
Speaker 2: the seventies and eighties. So on the Hollywood side of things,
Speaker 2: you'll find him in nineteen fifty three's Julius Caesar, fifty
Speaker 2: three's Hondo. He pops up in Roger Corman's Tower of
Speaker 2: London in nineteen sixty two, but in his later career
Speaker 2: in Australia, he appears in several Phelipe Mora films, including
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six is Mad Dog Morgan, nineteen eighty three's
Speaker 2: The Return of Captain Invisible, and of course nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: seven's Howling three the Marsupials, in which he plays the
Speaker 2: President of the United States who's briefed about the dangers
Speaker 2: of were wolves.
Speaker 3: Why does he play the president because.
Speaker 2: The president needs to be briefed about the dangers of
Speaker 2: were wolves? Okay in Australia. I guess I've seen this film,
Speaker 2: but it has been a little bit. It's a pretty
Speaker 2: pretty crazy picture.
Speaker 3: I have seen it as well. It's been many years.
Speaker 3: In fact, I recall all of the Howling sequels being
Speaker 3: extremely unusual.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's like one that's a carnival and the Carnivals.
Speaker 2: The other one that stands out in my mind. I
Speaker 2: don't know if that's that's probably like four or five
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's been a long time, but I've seen
Speaker 3: them all. I like, I got into the ones that
Speaker 3: are shot on video, like the Howling seven, which I
Speaker 3: think is in the American Southwest.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I don't think I made it that far,
Speaker 2: but it sounds promising.
Speaker 3: There are some beards and some cowboy hats.
Speaker 2: Well in this one, he's William the creepy Butler, and youah,
Speaker 2: he delivers all the creeps shades of I think Boris
Speaker 2: Karloff in his sort of physical appearance and demeanor here.
Speaker 3: I agree Boris Karloff. Also, William looks in physical appearance.
Speaker 3: He looks very frosted. He's like a frosted flake with
Speaker 3: a sugar coating.
Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: His hair in his face. I don't know if that's
Speaker 3: literally some kind of makeup they applied to his eyebrows
Speaker 3: and his hair and stuff.
Speaker 2: But Lerchian, you might say, yes, yes, all right. A
Speaker 2: couple of just supporting characters here, because we've really hit
Speaker 2: the main ones. But Hillary Brook shows up playing Peggy Lord.
Speaker 2: She lived nineteen fourteen through nineteen ninety nine, American actor,
Speaker 2: noted for roles in such films as nineteen forty six
Speaker 2: as The Strange Woman. That one starred Hetty Lamar. Supporting
Speaker 2: role she's a nineteen forty nine body hold, which it's
Speaker 2: a very alluring title, but it's apparently just a standard
Speaker 2: pro wrestling crime picture. But it has Henry Kulk from
Speaker 2: Tobor in it Oh, who.
Speaker 3: Played the communist car mechanic who ends up having to
Speaker 3: fight the robot.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, he ends up bumping for the robot. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Brooke was also in nineteen fifty six is the Man
Speaker 2: Who Knew Too Much. That's the Hitchcock film, another supporting role.
Speaker 2: Other pictures include fifty one's Lost Continent and Invaders from Mars.
Speaker 2: Now we have this character that shows up, Richard Roeblar.
Speaker 2: I had to check that doesn't spell robot backwards. This
Speaker 2: just spells what ralbor, which is not boar. Yeah, but anyway.
Speaker 2: He lived nineteen twenty through nineteen eighty nine. I mainly
Speaker 2: bring him up because we mentioned him previously in our
Speaker 2: Perana Mandir episode. Because he plays an undead, beheaded warlock
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty eight's The Thing That Wouldn't Die. His
Speaker 2: other credits include fifty four stal In for Murder and
Speaker 2: the nineteen fifty six sci fi fantasy epic The Mole People.
Speaker 3: Who is this? This is Richard Carlson's friend who's hanging
Speaker 3: out with them at the beginning and then later comes
Speaker 3: back to make martinis at the castle.
Speaker 2: Yeah. His whole thing is just seems to be rather
Speaker 2: chaotically making martinis, where he's like he's just whipping them
Speaker 2: up and like here you go, and they're like someone's
Speaker 2: like this is this is terrible. He's like, I'll get
Speaker 2: you on the next one. Like how many martinis are
Speaker 2: we hoping to? I have this evening to get to
Speaker 2: the right one. Richard use a recipe.
Speaker 3: I think at one point he I assume he's making
Speaker 3: a joke, but he says he used a twenty seven
Speaker 3: to one ratio, which I assume that means twenty seven
Speaker 3: parts gin to one part vermouth. Cute.
Speaker 2: Cute. Yes, all right, I'm going to skip over the
Speaker 2: rest of the human actors here we fit some of
Speaker 2: the main points. The music is by Marlon Skiles, who
Speaker 2: lived nineteen o six through nineteen eighty one American pianist, ranger,
Speaker 2: and composer. His scores include forty seven's Dead Reckoning, fifty
Speaker 2: seven's The Giant Claw, which we've provously mentioned That's the
Speaker 2: Giant Bird movie, fifty eight's Queen of Outer Space, and
Speaker 2: numerous westerns with some sci fi and horror sprinkled in.
Speaker 2: Some of his score work appears in twenty seventeen's The
Speaker 2: Shape of Water. This particular score is everything he'd expect
Speaker 2: from a nineteen fifty three movie, So nothing special, but
Speaker 2: it does its job.
Speaker 3: There were a couple of parts I was a little
Speaker 3: surprised by because they were more melodic than I expected.
Speaker 3: So when you see movies like this, I'd say the
Speaker 3: score is usually very kind of moody doodling. It doesn't
Speaker 3: come out with a tune that you could walk away
Speaker 3: humming to yourself. But there actually were a couple of
Speaker 3: moments in this film that had a very clear and
Speaker 3: strong melody. Like there was a part where they're first
Speaker 3: getting put into their bedrooms at the castle that suddenly
Speaker 3: playing a melody that sounds kind of like a Scottish
Speaker 3: folk song.
Speaker 2: Okay, well that's fitting. Maybe this one wasn't just completely
Speaker 2: cranked out.
Speaker 3: Then maybe are you ready to talk about the plot?
Speaker 2: Let's venture into the plot.
Speaker 3: Now, Wait a minute, is this the part where we
Speaker 3: should tell people if you really don't want to have
Speaker 3: the ending spoiled for you, maybe you should watch the
Speaker 3: movie and come back.
Speaker 2: I think so. Yes. After this point all spoilers are valid.
Speaker 2: We may skip ahead and spoil something we may explain
Speaker 2: of some teas that they roll out and go ahead,
Speaker 2: just boil what that tease is alluding to. So this
Speaker 2: is the point to break off, go see it if
Speaker 2: you want to see it, and come back afterwards.
Speaker 3: Wait did we not even mention before that? In the trailer?
Speaker 3: Richard Carlson is like, please don't tell your friends. The
Speaker 3: ending will yeah ruin everything.
Speaker 2: That's great. Yeah, I wish they would do more than
Speaker 2: most trailers are, just like, we're gonna gohead and spoil everything.
Speaker 3: Actually, yeah, here's the ending. Yeah, but anyway, Okay, So
Speaker 3: at the beginning, the movie opens with an overhead shot
Speaker 3: of a hedge maze and ominous music and sound of
Speaker 3: whispering wind, and then it fades to the gate at
Speaker 3: the entrance of the mace, which is a heavy wooden
Speaker 3: door that says keep out.
Speaker 2: And I'm assuming this is all three D at this point,
Speaker 2: so already like we're putting the viewer in the experience
Speaker 2: of passing through a gate through a door that says
Speaker 2: keep out, Like that's this is this is like watching
Speaker 2: that train. You don't come at the screen.
Speaker 3: Exactly, And the way the camera dollies to push through
Speaker 3: the door, I sort of feel like we're about to
Speaker 3: start a movie on the satellite of love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's good. Yeah, going through the various doors movie sign.
Speaker 3: But of course we see, you know, the three D titles.
Speaker 3: So like the Maze comes out with deep three D
Speaker 3: lettering that's supposed to launch out of the screen. We
Speaker 3: see the blocks of the letters like hit a vanishing
Speaker 3: point in the background, and the action begins with an
Speaker 3: establishing shot of a lonesome gray castle surrounded by mist,
Speaker 3: with light up in a single window in the turret,
Speaker 3: and a man throws open the window and calls out
Speaker 3: to the outside. He calls out Robert, Robert. Another man
Speaker 3: comes running from the grounds below, and then the two
Speaker 3: men these are servants of the castle, Robert and William.
Speaker 3: They meet and the first one tells the second it's happened,
Speaker 3: and they go up to the tower to investigate, and
Speaker 3: there we see in silhouette the figure of a man
Speaker 3: slumped motionless in a high back chair, as if dead.
Speaker 3: And they agree that one of them will go to
Speaker 3: the village and find the doctor, and the other one
Speaker 3: will get in contact with mister Gerald. And then WHOA
Speaker 3: something I did not expect at all. We cut suddenly
Speaker 3: to the first of multiple testimonials from Aunt Edith, and
Speaker 3: I was not prepared for this. I think it's because
Speaker 3: the movie did not start with voiceover narration or any
Speaker 3: direct address to the audience. But suddenly, several minutes in,
Speaker 3: here's somebody's aunt staring right into your eyes, looking into
Speaker 3: the camera and saying, I suppose that was the beginning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this really caught me off guard as well. It's
Speaker 2: kind of alarming, not only due to the fact that
Speaker 2: here's the narrator coming in after the film's already started.
Speaker 2: She's breaking the fourth wall, but at least in the
Speaker 2: version I was watching, the whole scene was also framed
Speaker 2: really strangely. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh, it's totally like that sometime. Well, so different
Speaker 3: Aunt Edith interrogation scenes are framed differently, but in some
Speaker 3: of them she is not centered vertically in the shot,
Speaker 3: like she's shot from the shoulders up or from the
Speaker 3: waist up, but only fills like the bottom third or
Speaker 3: bottom half of the frame, and the rest of the
Speaker 3: frame is just reserved for the ceiling, Like here's the
Speaker 3: wall and the ceiling and where they meet, and she's
Speaker 3: down there at the bottom of the screen, just looking
Speaker 3: right at you.
Speaker 2: I couldn't find any answers regarding this, but based on
Speaker 2: my limited experience, this feels very unninsies and it makes
Speaker 2: me wonder if this was like added in post, if
Speaker 2: this was whatever amounted to like test audiences of the
Speaker 2: day saying we're confused. Yeah that Aunt Edith, bring her
Speaker 2: in and have her explain what's happening in the.
Speaker 3: Picture, right, I did not understand the film. I need
Speaker 3: Aunt Edith to look me in the eye and tell
Speaker 3: me what's going on. But so anyways, she says, so
Speaker 3: her first narration is I suppose that was the beginning.
Speaker 3: It occurred in Scotland, in a remote and distant castle
Speaker 3: in the Highlands, and yet it started the fantastic chain
Speaker 3: of events which led to my experience in the maze.
Speaker 3: It was just a year ago. So now she situating
Speaker 3: herself in time as she's doing these narration shots. I
Speaker 3: don't know why that's necessary. It was just a year ago.
Speaker 3: My niece Kitty and I were with a group of
Speaker 3: friends in a delightful little cafe in Cohn on the
Speaker 3: French Riviera. It was an engagement party and hey, here's
Speaker 3: something similar to the other horror movie from nineteen fifty
Speaker 3: three presented in three D that we watched. Remember how
Speaker 3: in House of Wax the movie managed to work in
Speaker 3: not only a full length paddleball show, but like a
Speaker 3: phalanx of three D lady legs courtesy of an extended
Speaker 3: can Can dance number in the middle of the movie.
Speaker 3: I think the context was like this was in House
Speaker 3: of Wax. Like the main character's boyfriend tells her, Oh,
Speaker 3: you're upset about your friend being murdered and turned into wax.
Speaker 3: You need to get your mind off things. Let's go
Speaker 3: watch the Ziegfield Girls.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's go to a Bless show. And then to
Speaker 2: be clear, Burless can have healing attributes that can can
Speaker 2: heal the weathered soul. Sure, but also get some leg
Speaker 2: kicks out there. It's a great way to show off
Speaker 2: your three D technology.
Speaker 3: There you go. Well, this movie also decided to show
Speaker 3: us a full dance number, and I assume in three
Speaker 3: D this would have been even more thrilling. But I
Speaker 3: have to say that this is a horror film, but
Speaker 3: I didn't. I don't think they meant for this number
Speaker 3: to be as horrifying as it was. I was genuinely
Speaker 3: worried for the safety of the woman in the scene.
Speaker 3: So I have a question for people out there with
Speaker 3: knowledge about dance. I don't know what you call this move,
Speaker 3: but there were two male dancers and one female dancer
Speaker 3: and the lady between them. Like the two guys suspended
Speaker 3: her between them by each taking hold of one arm
Speaker 3: and one leg, and then they swung her whole body
Speaker 3: back and forth in a wild pendulum motion, like they
Speaker 3: turned her into the pirate ship carnival ride, and it
Speaker 3: looked like she was just inches from hitting the floor
Speaker 3: face first, and they were swinging her so hard it
Speaker 3: looked like if she actually did hit the floor, it
Speaker 3: would definitely kill her, or at least like really injure her. So,
Speaker 3: people with dance knowledge, is this a normal move? It
Speaker 3: looks so dangerous to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very impressive. And then there's this bit where
Speaker 2: she grabs a drink off of the table. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: I thought that was rather clever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's very good. I mean, I'm impressed by the
Speaker 3: talent of the dancers in this scene, but I think
Speaker 3: it's because she's moving so fast and the fact that
Speaker 3: they're holding her each by one arm means that if
Speaker 3: she were to fall, like, she wouldn't be able to
Speaker 3: like reach up and protect her face with her arms.
Speaker 3: It would just be face plant into the floor at
Speaker 3: full speed. Sorry to dwell on this, but it really
Speaker 3: freaked me out.
Speaker 2: It's an impressive dance number, But so.
Speaker 3: You mentioned the part where she grabs a drink off
Speaker 3: a table. So the dancer at one point in the
Speaker 3: number is like carried over to a particular table the audience,
Speaker 3: and she kind of like winks at a guy. And
Speaker 3: the guy she winks at is Richard Carlson playing Gerald mcteam,
Speaker 3: one of our protagonists. So there are four people at
Speaker 3: the table. You got Gerald, You got his fiance Kitty,
Speaker 3: played by Veronica Hurst, and Gerald and Kitty do some
Speaker 3: kind of insufferable engagement banter, like Kitty is playfully jealous
Speaker 3: of Gerald making eye contact with the dancer and so forth.
Speaker 3: Then you got Aunt Edith. That's Kitty's Aunt Edith, played
Speaker 3: by Catherine Emery. When we meet her, she already appears
Speaker 3: to be full of questions and doubts. And then you
Speaker 3: got Gerald's friend, Richard, who takes Kitty dancing while Gerald
Speaker 3: narrates some backstory to Aunt Edith. So when you first
Speaker 3: meet him, Kitty says, aunt Edith, did you see the
Speaker 3: way that girl was making eyes at my fiance? It
Speaker 3: makes me worry about what he'd be doing if I
Speaker 3: weren't here. And then Gerald says, I would probably be
Speaker 3: out looking for you, just as I've been doing my
Speaker 3: entire life. And then Kitty says, see why I'm marrying him,
Speaker 3: aunt Edith, he always says the right thing. Then aunt
Speaker 3: Edith rather slyly says, I've always mistrusted glibmh. I would say,
Speaker 3: good instincts, aunt Edith, general life rule, at least in
Speaker 3: my opinion, be on guard against people who always know
Speaker 3: the right thing to say in any situation. You know,
Speaker 3: that could be a red flag. They're just too comfortable
Speaker 3: saying things they don't mean.
Speaker 2: This is definitely a point in the film where you
Speaker 2: might ask yourself, do I really want to watch another
Speaker 2: hour of this?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: But trust us, you want to push through because the
Speaker 2: Gothic horror is going to kick in eventually.
Speaker 3: It will. Yeah, we're stuck in the French riviera right now,
Speaker 3: but it will get weirder. So yeah, so they're talking
Speaker 3: about glibmn aunt Edith is like Okay, Gerald's about to
Speaker 3: become my Would it be her nephew in law? I guess,
Speaker 3: and she's like, you know, I don't like glib men,
Speaker 3: but I'll make an exception in this case. So Gerald's
Speaker 3: friend Richard takes Kitty dancing, and then Gerald and Aunt
Speaker 3: Edith get a chance to chat, and Aunt Edith wants
Speaker 3: to know if Gerald's uncle Samuel will be coming to
Speaker 3: the wedding. Gerald says, oh, no, no, there's no reason
Speaker 3: he'd be there. He's kept himself locked up in that
Speaker 3: miserable Craven Castle for decades or I don't know, not decades.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: He just says years. Yeah, that makes sense, because I
Speaker 3: don't know how long a baronet actually lasts in that castle.
Speaker 3: And then Aunt Edith says she has heard the Craven
Speaker 3: Castle is a beautiful place, but Gerald knows better. He says, well,
Speaker 3: it might be beautiful from a distance, but I spent
Speaker 3: time there as a young man and it was a stern, unhappy,
Speaker 3: unsettling place. The castle has never had any modern improvements,
Speaker 3: so it has no telephone, no electricity, no central heating,
Speaker 3: and he also says that there were weird rules when
Speaker 3: he lived there. Like he had to be locked inside
Speaker 3: his bedroom at night and there was a maze outside
Speaker 3: with a padlock on the door, and he was forbidden
Speaker 3: to go into it.
Speaker 2: He said. The one good thing though, no flies, No
Speaker 2: flies at all. I don't know what was up. Saw
Speaker 2: a single fly?
Speaker 3: Yeah, very good. Gerald says that every Scottish castle at
Speaker 3: one point had a maze, but most of them have
Speaker 3: had their mazes removed. The only the one at Craven
Speaker 3: Castle has left, and I was wondering is that true
Speaker 3: it was actually common for Scottish castles to have a
Speaker 3: hedge maze. I've never heard of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not sure. It's been a while since I
Speaker 2: covered any maze or labyrinth content on the show. We
Speaker 2: might have to revisit that topic in the future because
Speaker 2: it gets pretty interesting. But as I recall, hedge mazes
Speaker 2: were especially a thing in the Renaissance, and I know
Speaker 2: there at least were some notable hedge mazes in Scotland.
Speaker 2: I think there's one notable hedge maze remaining. What is
Speaker 2: this Trequar House? I think I put up a picture
Speaker 2: of the maze here for you, Joe. Looks pretty impressive.
Speaker 2: There might be some sort of a gothic horror creeping
Speaker 2: around in there for all I can tell.
Speaker 3: Sure. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: By the way, I don't get the impression that there
Speaker 3: was a full size maze built for this film. I
Speaker 3: could be wrong, but I think when we see it
Speaker 3: from above, it's probably a model. And then when we
Speaker 3: actually have the scenes in it, I don't get the
Speaker 3: impression that they have more than just like a you know,
Speaker 3: a couple of turns to work with and they're just
Speaker 3: shooting those over and over. But again I could be wrong.
Speaker 2: I think this is just a look. Yeah, they shot
Speaker 2: this all in Hollywood, right, yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, anyway, after this, Gerald and Kitty go dancing and
Speaker 3: they're you know, they're very happy, blissful, they're in love
Speaker 3: and they're gonna get married and oh that's so sweet.
Speaker 3: And then suddenly cut to another Aunt Edith scene. She's
Speaker 3: looking in the camera again. This was the first one
Speaker 3: for me where she's weirdly stuck in the bottom of
Speaker 3: the frame and the top half is just the wall
Speaker 3: and the ceiling, and she says Gerald's words about Craven
Speaker 3: Castle and the mcteam family worried me, not only what
Speaker 3: he said, but something he neglected to say that none
Speaker 3: of the baronets lived more than a few years after
Speaker 3: inheriting the title, and Gerald was the next in line.
Speaker 3: The next day, which was bright with summer sunshine, did
Speaker 3: much to dispel my worries of the night before. And
Speaker 3: then we cut to a pool party, and I'll abbreviate
Speaker 3: here and do a bit of a recap. So at
Speaker 3: the pool party, I guess again, I guess they're still
Speaker 3: the French Riviera. Gerald receives a letter from Craven Castle
Speaker 3: from William, his uncle's butler. It's urgent and he must
Speaker 3: come to Craven immediately. He resists at first, He's like,
Speaker 3: I barely knew my uncle. I don't know why I
Speaker 3: would be summoned. I'm getting married to Kitty in a
Speaker 3: couple of weeks, so there's no reason for me to go.
Speaker 3: But then Kitty convinces him that he should go if
Speaker 3: he's needed, and she reasons that this will all be
Speaker 3: for the best because while he's away in the land
Speaker 3: of wind and ghosts, she and Aunt Edith can go
Speaker 3: shopping for clothes without worrying that Gerald is looking at
Speaker 3: French women. So he goes, and then Kitty and Aunt
Speaker 3: Edith just hang around. They hang out at the French
Speaker 3: Rivieria waiting to hear back from him, but they never do.
Speaker 3: They send letters and he doesn't write back, and then
Speaker 3: they read an article in the newspaper announcing that Sir
Speaker 3: Samuel mcteam, the Baron of craven Castle, has died. What
Speaker 3: newspaper this is? I'm kind of curious, like, what are
Speaker 3: they getting in France that has obituaries for minor Scottish nobles.
Speaker 2: He's just you know, the fancy folk page and the
Speaker 2: paper just telling you what's up with the.
Speaker 3: Nobles peerage times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but this is concerning Gerald's not writing back about
Speaker 2: any of.
Speaker 3: This, right, So anyway, Finally Gerald sends a letter not
Speaker 3: to Kitty but to aunt Edith, telling her that he
Speaker 3: can no longer marry Kitty and she is released from
Speaker 3: their engagement. And then there's a line in the letter
Speaker 3: that Gerald has scratched out in pencil, and Kitty manages,
Speaker 3: she does a sort of Sherlock Holmes trick, like she
Speaker 3: manages to get rid of his scratch marks and see
Speaker 3: what he originally wrote underneath. And he originally said that
Speaker 3: he could never return to her, though he would wish
Speaker 3: that he could, but he shan't wish it, for to
Speaker 3: do so would be to wish for a death. What
Speaker 3: could he be talking about? So Kitty decides she and
Speaker 3: and Edith have to go to Craven Castle to find
Speaker 3: out what's going on. And Edith is like, no in
Speaker 3: Kitty's like, we're going.
Speaker 2: All right, but now we're off to the races. Now
Speaker 2: we're headed to the spooky castle.
Speaker 3: That's right, So Kitty and Aunt Edith. Next thing, they're
Speaker 3: at Craven which might as well be Castle Braun, Transylvania.
Speaker 3: You've got foul mist swirling, You've got dead black skeletons
Speaker 3: of leafless trees just twisting over the pathway to the castle.
Speaker 3: You got an iron gate that looks like it used
Speaker 3: to belong to Vlad the Impaler. The cab driver who
Speaker 3: brought them to the castle drives off in terror without
Speaker 3: even helping them with their bags. It's a spooky place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all the expected Gothic castle notes here.
Speaker 3: So Kitty and Edith go to the door where they
Speaker 3: are greeted by the butler, William. And William, as we've said,
Speaker 3: is very serious and severe, and he has this frosted look.
Speaker 3: He almost seems kind of frozen in time. He speaks
Speaker 3: very slowly, he kind of walks slowly, and yeah, he
Speaker 3: just seems like he is all business and that business
Speaker 3: involves some kind of evil magic. So William tries to
Speaker 3: send them away, but Kitty is extremely pushy. So William says,
Speaker 3: Sir Gerald is indisposed, and Kitty says, well, we're indisposed
Speaker 3: standing here in this fog, and then just barges in
Speaker 3: through the door. Kitty is very assertive, will not take
Speaker 3: no for an answer. It's a recurring theme. So Gerald
Speaker 3: comes down finally reluctantly to meet them, but when Kitty
Speaker 3: sees her fiance, she sees that he has changed the
Speaker 3: debonair young man who is dancing in the ballroom just
Speaker 3: a few weeks before and now has gray wings in
Speaker 3: his hair like Polly Walnuts, and he looks his skin
Speaker 3: looks dry, and he just looks thoroughly aged. He is
Speaker 3: shocked and unhappy to see Kitty, and he also tells
Speaker 3: them that they must leave at once, but Kitty again,
Speaker 3: she insists on staying. She's like, nope, show us to
Speaker 3: our rooms. So Gerald has the butlers take them to
Speaker 3: a suite of adjoining bedrooms, and we and that accommodations
Speaker 3: in the castle are harsh. It's cold, as he said earlier,
Speaker 3: there's no electricity, old furnishings, windows are sealed up with bricks,
Speaker 3: and the servants lock the two women in their bedrooms
Speaker 3: during the night.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the second time we at least that
Speaker 2: we've heard about this, that this is a castle where
Speaker 2: you are locked into your bedroom at night. The idea
Speaker 2: it seems that there's something out there at night that
Speaker 2: you need to be locked away from.
Speaker 3: And for some reason, aunt Edith waits until after they're
Speaker 3: locked into their bedrooms to tell Kitty about this, Like
Speaker 3: she already knew right that Gerald explained it to her
Speaker 3: earlier that there are rules in the castle. You're locked
Speaker 3: in your bedroom at night, can't enter the maze, and
Speaker 3: the staircase to the tower is off limits. She so
Speaker 3: in this scene she's like, oh, yeah, Kitty, these are
Speaker 3: the rules.
Speaker 2: Well, she knows, and aunt Edith is a is a
Speaker 2: real rule follower. She's the sort that will appreciate a
Speaker 2: long list of weird rules, whereas Kitty is liable to
Speaker 2: just instantly rebel and ask questions about why we're doing this.
Speaker 3: That's a good point. Somewhere in here, there's a scene
Speaker 3: where William and Gerald are talking in low tones and
Speaker 3: they discussed the fact that a woman who was hired
Speaker 3: to do some cleaning at the castle last week has died,
Speaker 3: apparently of heart failure, and Gerald says that they must
Speaker 3: be more vigilant about making sure that no one is
Speaker 3: allowed into the maze. So it seems they're troubled by this,
Speaker 3: but they're also trying to keep a secret. Somehow this
Speaker 3: woman died and it was connected to her going into
Speaker 3: the maze against their wishes. Maybe she was cleaning inside
Speaker 3: the maze. Does it get dirty in there?
Speaker 2: Well, I think we'll find out, yes, it does.
Speaker 3: So in the night, Kitty hears some sort of weird
Speaker 3: scuttling sound out in the hallway, and she sees shadows
Speaker 3: passing underneath the door to her room, and then she
Speaker 3: discovers a secret passageway hidden behind behind like a what
Speaker 3: do you call it? Like a sort of textile hanging
Speaker 3: over the wall that has designs on it.
Speaker 2: Is that a tapestry? Tapestry?
Speaker 3: So she finds a secret passageway hidden behind that, she
Speaker 3: enters it and it leads to a stairway guarded by bats,
Speaker 3: and I think I want to do a brief digression
Speaker 3: on why do is that bat effects in older horror
Speaker 3: movies are always funny to me? I think there are
Speaker 3: some funny bats, even in Todd Browning's Dracula, but it
Speaker 3: goes to way more recent movies than that, like in
Speaker 3: the seventies movies with otherwise excellent effects. The bat scene
Speaker 3: in Suspiria is so funny it always makes me laugh.
Speaker 3: Why is it so hard to make a bat look
Speaker 3: like anything other than a ball of socks on a string.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but yeah, you do see it a lot.
Speaker 2: There are some pretty ridiculous bats in Santo and the
Speaker 2: Treasure of Dracula, as I recall.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. So after making it through the staircase of bat,
Speaker 3: Kitty goes as she looks out a window and she
Speaker 3: sees a light in the maize below. Someone is moving
Speaker 3: around in the maze at midnight. So Kitty tries to
Speaker 3: go get aunt Edith as she's like, Aunt Edith, wake up.
Speaker 3: We got to go up the secret passageway, but aunti
Speaker 3: Edith would prefer not to.
Speaker 2: And this is a solid note in the mystery. I think,
Speaker 2: you know, it looks effective too, Like you can't make
Speaker 2: out what's carrying the light, but you can tell there's
Speaker 2: something or somebody down there in this forbidden place at night,
Speaker 2: and so it's intrigued.
Speaker 3: I agree, it's very cool. It's spooky looking. So the
Speaker 3: next morning we get this scheming scene where Kitty plans
Speaker 3: to say that they can't leave the castle now because
Speaker 3: Aunt Edith has a cold, And then on her way
Speaker 3: to the dining room for breakfast, Kitty snoops around the
Speaker 3: stairs up to the tower and she sees strangely shaped
Speaker 3: patches of slime on the floor.
Speaker 2: Now we'll say they are strangely shaped because they are
Speaker 2: shaped like creature feet. Yeah, and this is where I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna I mean, you know, all spoilers are fair
Speaker 2: game at this point, but I went into this film
Speaker 2: knowing more specifically what the spoiler would be, and so
Speaker 2: this was also one of those moments where I was
Speaker 2: having to guess, like, well, what is the intended viewer
Speaker 2: the unspoiled viewer supposed to begin to think at this point,
Speaker 2: like what sort of theory are they putting together regarding
Speaker 2: this creepy old castle and the hideous secret a monster
Speaker 2: comes out at night.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's a good question. It seems like
Speaker 3: I can't really imagine what sort of ending it's driving
Speaker 3: toward other than the one we get.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I guess it comes down to if there is
Speaker 2: a monster, what or who is the monster and how
Speaker 2: does it factor into the plot? Like, I think one
Speaker 2: potential theory you could start getting because they're very concerned
Speaker 2: about Gerald. They're increasingly concerned about Gerald and his health,
Speaker 2: and so you might think, well, hey, maybe this is
Speaker 2: some sort of like werewolf situation or Jeckyll and Hyde situation.
Speaker 2: Maybe he is turning into a monster.
Speaker 3: I think that makes sense. Yeah, you can think it
Speaker 3: is Gerald himself. And regarding the health thing, at some point,
Speaker 3: Kitty tries to get William to send for a doctor
Speaker 3: to figure out why Gerald appears to have aged twenty
Speaker 3: years in a few weeks, and William says, no, we
Speaker 3: are perfectly capable of taking care of Sir Gerald ourselves.
Speaker 3: So Kitty starts scheming again and she comes up with
Speaker 3: a plan. Her plan is to make Gerald see a
Speaker 3: doctor quote whether he wants to or not, And her
Speaker 3: plan is that they're going to send a letter to
Speaker 3: invite some friends to join them at the castle for
Speaker 3: a holiday. And the group of friends they're going to
Speaker 3: invite includes a friend named Bert Dilling who happens to
Speaker 3: be a doctor. And then that's going to get him
Speaker 3: a secret doctor visit.
Speaker 2: Brilliant. She's going to use the laws of hospitality against him.
Speaker 3: Yes, this is smart. Yeah, make sure you ask for
Speaker 3: some bread and salt. So Kitty goes out looking for
Speaker 3: She writes a letter. She goes out looking for a
Speaker 3: way to put it in the post and ends up
Speaker 3: wandering past the maze. Oh and while she's there, she
Speaker 3: meets a groundskeeper and hands the letter off for him
Speaker 3: to post it for her, which he actually does. You
Speaker 3: don't know if he's going to do that. But the
Speaker 3: groundskeeper is apparently the Torgo of Craven Castle.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, you're gonna want a creepy groundskeeper in
Speaker 2: the mix as well.
Speaker 3: So he warns her not to go into the maze,
Speaker 3: which of course she then does, and she finds more
Speaker 3: odd footprints in the same shape as the slime she
Speaker 3: saw on the staircase. And then Gerald catches Kitty snooping
Speaker 3: in the maze. I guess he's already in there for
Speaker 3: some reason and he grabs her roughly by the arm
Speaker 3: and he commands her to get out and never come
Speaker 3: back to the maze.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So at this point we know there's some serious
Speaker 2: maze mischief going on. Gerald is highly involved in all
Speaker 2: of it, like he's he knows what's up, whatever's up,
Speaker 2: and he is just not telling them. There's some there's
Speaker 2: a communication gap here between these two would be lovers,
Speaker 2: and I guess they're not engaged anymore at this point,
Speaker 2: but you know, clearly Kitty Kitty wants things back together,
Speaker 2: but they're just not talking about whatever this is it's
Speaker 2: going on here.
Speaker 3: I think they're not in agreement about whether they're engaged
Speaker 3: su or not. He thinks they or not and she
Speaker 3: thinks they are.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean he won't talk about what the
Speaker 2: problem is. I mean basically it comes down. It does
Speaker 2: come down of communication. He's like, he's like, there's a problem.
Speaker 2: We can't get married anymore. And she's like, let's talk
Speaker 2: about the problem. Tell me what the problem is, and
Speaker 2: he says, no, you should leave right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she wants to understand Gerald's disgusting May's crimes. Yes,
Speaker 3: But then later Aunt Edith is quite rightfully infuriated to
Speaker 3: hear that the Gerald has been rough with Kitty, and
Speaker 3: she wants to go give him a piece of her mind.
Speaker 3: So she sneaks up the stairs to the tower, I guess,
Speaker 3: because she thinks Gerald will be up there. But then
Speaker 3: once she reaches the room at the top of the tower,
Speaker 3: she hears a scuttling sound and sees what other ways
Speaker 3: this like? She sees a toad butt, she sees the
Speaker 3: back end of a giant frog disappearing into a secret passageway,
Speaker 3: and she screams and faints. Now, maybe the filmmakers thought
Speaker 3: that you could preserve the ending because this goes by
Speaker 3: really fast, I guess, and you couldn't really maybe you
Speaker 3: wouldn't have time to understand what you're looking at. But
Speaker 3: it does look like just the back end of a
Speaker 3: gigantic toad or frog.
Speaker 2: Yeah, knowing what we knew going into this, like this
Speaker 2: is clearly the back half of the monster. You just
Speaker 2: revealed half of the monster minsies And I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's shot really well, and the monster suit
Speaker 2: in question, I think is really good. Yeah, we just
Speaker 2: perhaps see too much of it too early to maintain
Speaker 2: the mystery. But then again, I'm put in that weird
Speaker 2: position again of like trying to figure out what a
Speaker 2: fresh viewer would make of this information.
Speaker 3: At this point, I guess, yeah, to be charitable, you
Speaker 3: could say maybe they would. They would just think, well,
Speaker 3: I saw something weird, and that's what. And Edith says
Speaker 3: that Gerald like finds her. Shets on the floor, Gerald
Speaker 3: finds her, brings her back to her bedroom, and she's like,
Speaker 3: in your room, Gerald, I saw something horrible, the most
Speaker 3: horrible thing I've ever seen something alive. I saw it move.
Speaker 3: But then she never can say any more specifics.
Speaker 2: And then Jared, well, here here's a telling question, Joe, Okay,
Speaker 2: did you run it back immediately and watch the frog
Speaker 2: bet again?
Speaker 3: Oh? Maybe I did.
Speaker 2: I don't because I certainly did, because I was like,
Speaker 2: what did I do? Did I just see a frog bit?
Speaker 2: I've got to go back and see it, and I did,
Speaker 2: and I did that. Obviously that is not the intended
Speaker 2: viewing experience. That is not what Mensi's had in mind.
Speaker 2: So I guess we have to take that into account
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 3: That's a good point. Yeah, you couldn't rewind it in
Speaker 3: the theaters, But so aunt Edith is like I saw
Speaker 3: something alive, and Gerald says it was your imagination.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I demand privacy in my quarters. And then he instructs
Speaker 3: William to make sure that the guests are inside their
Speaker 3: rooms before he locks the doors at night.
Speaker 2: Good point, men, he died needlessly because we neglected to
Speaker 2: really hammer down how this rule plays out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then that night, once again, Kitty hears scuttling
Speaker 3: and she sees shadows move slowly down the hall in
Speaker 3: the light under her bedroom door, and then we get
Speaker 3: an intermission. This movie has one.
Speaker 2: Nice yeah, and I'm reasonably short movie, but it still
Speaker 2: has an intermission.
Speaker 3: And so they specify. I think this is the very
Speaker 3: next day, the friends that that Kitty wrote to, Bert
Speaker 3: Dilling and three other friends arrive at the castle driving
Speaker 3: Cruela Deville's car, and I was just thinking, wait a second.
Speaker 3: So Kitty put the letter in the regular paper mail yesterday,
Speaker 3: writing to her friends, who are presumably in another country,
Speaker 3: to come to Craven Castle, and they're there within twenty
Speaker 3: four hours. Sure, sure, man, don't they don't run the
Speaker 3: mail like they used to.
Speaker 2: I guess this castle is closer to the interstate than
Speaker 2: the Draculous Castle, so.
Speaker 3: When they arrived, they interrupt Gerald, who is reading a
Speaker 3: book on territology, and they say, you know, hey, Gerald,
Speaker 3: Oh good to see we found ourselves up here in
Speaker 3: the highlands. Is they're good shooting up here? Obviously Gerald
Speaker 3: is extremely unhappy about this, but he, like you said,
Speaker 3: laws of hospitality, he has no choice but to give
Speaker 3: them all bedrooms to be locked in at night. And
Speaker 3: then next thing, I love the scene where the doctor
Speaker 3: and all the other friends are conspiring about how to
Speaker 3: give Gerald a sneak medical exam. Doctor Burt is like,
Speaker 3: it's obvious he won't submit to an examination. I've just
Speaker 3: got to observe him as best I can. And then
Speaker 3: the other friend is like, well, we'll keep him distracted
Speaker 3: as best we can, if it's possible to do. And
Speaker 3: then Bert says, yes, I think that's the thing to do.
Speaker 3: But don't watch him too obviously, and keep being as
Speaker 3: cheerful as you can. I think that's a good idea.
Speaker 3: So there's a dinner party where we see Richard. Here's
Speaker 3: where Richard is making the chaotic evil Martiniz and the
Speaker 3: At one point the dinner guests hear a noise from upstairs,
Speaker 3: and Gerald and the servants all dash out and lock
Speaker 3: them in the dining room, and doctor Burt is like, well,
Speaker 3: I've observed Gerald for some time now he needs to
Speaker 3: be placed under arrest for his own protection. And then
Speaker 3: the when Gerald and the servants come back, they have
Speaker 3: a dinner. Somebody seems to be telling a possibly offensive
Speaker 3: joke about India, but I couldn't understand what the guy
Speaker 3: was saying. And then Gerald starts telling the rules.
Speaker 2: Now, is this the part where Gerald sends everybody to
Speaker 2: bed because it's almost eleven pm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's eleven pm. Everybody's got to go to bed.
Speaker 3: You'll all be locked in your rooms tonight. No going
Speaker 3: in the maze now. So they all get locked in
Speaker 3: the rooms. And then we see, well Bert brought a gun.
Speaker 3: He's like showing it off to his wife. Here's my revolver, honey.
Speaker 3: And then Bert explains to her that mcteam, the MCTEAM
Speaker 3: Baron keep dying young. Shortly after they inherit the title
Speaker 3: and the last record of a woman marrying a MCTEAM
Speaker 3: tells that she died within a few days of that marriage.
Speaker 3: So we really got to worry about Kitty now. But
Speaker 3: then that night Kitty and aunt Edith sneak up the
Speaker 3: staircase to the Forbidden Tower and they investigate the room
Speaker 3: at the top. They say, first of all, they look around.
Speaker 3: They say, there's no furniture at all, even though we
Speaker 3: can see furniture, there is furniture in the room. Did
Speaker 3: you have the same conclusion. I'm like, what am I missing?
Speaker 3: Why are they saying there's no furniture?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this felt like, Yeah, there's a disconnect between how
Speaker 2: the line was written and what the actual set was.
Speaker 3: And maybe I don't understand what furniture means in this context,
Speaker 3: Like I didn't see a couch in the room, but
Speaker 3: there were tables and shelves and stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I didn't get a really good sense of this
Speaker 2: space based on this disconnect.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but Kitty finds a bit of seaweed on the floor,
Speaker 3: and then aunt Edith, so she's like, oh, look, seaweed
Speaker 3: on the floor. And then aunt Edith, as if horrified, says,
Speaker 3: and a bowl of tomatoes. Sure, there's a bowl of
Speaker 3: tomatoes there. What does that mean?
Speaker 2: I wonder if this is tapping in I remember when
Speaker 2: we talked We've talked about tomatoes and tomatoes on the
Speaker 2: show before on the stuff to blow your mind or
Speaker 2: possibly invention. Maybe we're talking about catchup. But there have
Speaker 2: been times and places where people have had a horror
Speaker 2: of tomatoes. So maybe Aunt Edith is of that disposition.
Speaker 2: Like it's not that there might be a monster up here,
Speaker 2: but it is eating tomatoes.
Speaker 3: Maybe you're just thinking like that is what the monster
Speaker 3: in the tower would eat. Of course we eat tomatoes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean are they store bought refrigerated tomatoes? Well, yes,
Speaker 2: then that can be a little terrifying. But see I'm
Speaker 2: getting the impression this this castle has a garden. These
Speaker 2: are fresh tomatoes, only Scotland's best tomatoes. Yes, William picked
Speaker 2: them himself.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So oh. But they also find the book on tear stology,
Speaker 3: which inside is called its Territology colon the Study of Monstrosities.
Speaker 2: This book is this movie's how to cook Millhouse.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly. But then they hear the scuttling sound once again.
Speaker 3: They're forced to flee. They run out of the room
Speaker 3: and next we see a very interesting scene. Gerald and
Speaker 3: the servants emerge from the sort of secret chamber and
Speaker 3: they're carrying between them a huge sheet. Rob, what's going
Speaker 3: on here?
Speaker 2: This again? I have not read the original novel, but Joe,
Speaker 2: if you may scroll down, you can check this out
Speaker 2: for yourself. As far as I can tell, Salvador Dali
Speaker 2: did not do an illustration of the monster in this story,
Speaker 2: but this is as close as we get. And this
Speaker 2: is a depiction of one illustration of this scene where
Speaker 2: you have you William or the other guy helping to
Speaker 2: hold up this sheet and there is something behind the sheet,
Speaker 2: some monstrosity behind it, and it's a creepy moment in
Speaker 2: the picture. And then the illustration is also pretty alarming,
Speaker 2: like you can tell there's something horrifying back there behind
Speaker 2: the sheet, behind the veil.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this part of the movie I think is creepy because, yeah,
Speaker 3: you can't see it. The servants are just carrying the
Speaker 3: sheet around whatever it is that's moving down the hall.
Speaker 3: And then Kitty and Andy to follow the sheet procession.
Speaker 3: It goes out to the maze in the dark, and
Speaker 3: they follow it there and then they navigate the maze
Speaker 3: apparently by sound. They're like following the scuttling noises which
Speaker 3: are then accompanied by splashing noises.
Speaker 2: The noises are great in these scenes, like there is
Speaker 2: this kind of slouching sound with whatever is being ushered
Speaker 2: around behind the sheet. And also I do have to
Speaker 2: come back to the frog butt here and say, how
Speaker 2: effective is this scene having seen the frog butt earlier,
Speaker 2: or if you're going in fresh or you're just assuming,
Speaker 2: well that frog butt clearly has nothing to do with
Speaker 2: whatever's behind that sheet, or are you the viewer saying, well,
Speaker 2: they're there is obviously a frog behind that sheet. We
Speaker 2: saw part of it earlier, a man's sized frog.
Speaker 3: I don't know, So we're getting there. Andi Edith gets
Speaker 3: separated from Kitty in the maze. She gets lost, the
Speaker 3: candle goes out, and they're both stumbling around in the
Speaker 3: dark looking for each other until they both see something horrible,
Speaker 3: something unimaginable. A giant frog between the size of a
Speaker 3: pig and a black bear, just hopping around on the
Speaker 3: ground on all fours and roaring and screeching.
Speaker 2: It is alarming looking. It is a great frog costume. Clearly,
Speaker 2: it's like a human performer inside of a suit. And
Speaker 2: I hunted around. I tried to find if there was
Speaker 2: any credit, Like I'm always interested, who's the guy in
Speaker 2: the suit, you know, be it a gorilla suit, a
Speaker 2: monster suit, what have you? I don't know who this is,
Speaker 2: but whoever's in there, they're doing a great job. The
Speaker 2: physical performance and the suit and of course the lighting
Speaker 2: is all perfect. Though we'll come back to this at
Speaker 2: the end of the day. Though it is still a frog,
Speaker 2: and I'm not sure how we ultimately feel about that.
Speaker 3: It is shockingly weird, and it only gets weirder. So
Speaker 3: the giant frog is flopping around, apparently in terror. I
Speaker 3: mean it's immediately though frightening, it's immediately kind of piteous
Speaker 3: as well, and it flops out of the maze and
Speaker 3: then goes up the stairs of the castle, still roaring, shrieking.
Speaker 3: It rouses Bert the doctor, who is like, stand back,
Speaker 3: and he shoots the lock off of his bedroom door
Speaker 3: and comes out armed. And then I think that this
Speaker 3: just further terrifies the frog monster, which then climbs the
Speaker 3: stairs to its lair in the tower and then dives
Speaker 3: out the tower window to its death.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we see it plummet. We don't see it hit,
Speaker 2: but we kind of hear it splat. It's an alarming
Speaker 2: scene because again, once we saw the frog, after just
Speaker 2: a few seconds, it was clear it was not going
Speaker 2: to try and eat anybody. It was running for its
Speaker 2: life and now it has fallen to its death, perhaps
Speaker 2: on purpose, and now the whole scene is just awkward.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then this just gives way to an explanation
Speaker 3: scene like at the end of Psycho, you know, and
Speaker 3: they bring the criminologist in to explain what's going on.
Speaker 3: Jerald the next morning gathers everyone in a room and
Speaker 3: I love that it's the next morning, so you're like,
Speaker 3: what was the did everybody go back to bed after this?
Speaker 3: And they're like, we'll talk about it in the morning.
Speaker 3: So it's the next morning and Gerald comes out. He
Speaker 3: explains what was going on? So what was the story?
Speaker 3: He says, I know that you all think that I
Speaker 3: and my predecessors for the last two hundred years have
Speaker 3: been the real lords of Craven. Well that's not true.
Speaker 3: The last Baronet Craven, Sir Roger Philip mcteem was born
Speaker 3: on the fifth of April in the year seventeen fifty.
Speaker 3: He died on the tenth of May nineteen fifty three.
Speaker 3: Last night we buried him before dawn in a corner
Speaker 3: of the grounds, in accordance with his wishes. And then
Speaker 3: he says, quite helpfully, but Gerald a man doesn't live
Speaker 3: for two hundred years. And then Gerald says, no, Kitty,
Speaker 3: a man doesn't, but certain types of amphibians do. I'll
Speaker 3: try to explain it as best I can. A human
Speaker 3: embryo goes through all the stages of evolution from invertebrate
Speaker 3: to the mammal. At one point the embryo is an amphibian.
Speaker 3: This is an outdated view of embryology that actually we
Speaker 3: talked about in a recent Listener Male episode. By the way,
Speaker 3: Gerald goes on, Sir Roger never developed beyond that stage physically.
Speaker 3: He continued growing developmentally for over two hundred years. He suffered,
Speaker 3: knowing he was a monster, but feeling that he was
Speaker 3: a man. So we learned that since then, every other
Speaker 3: male member of the family has that was known to
Speaker 3: the outside world as the baronet was really just there
Speaker 3: to serve the real baronet, the frog, and carry out
Speaker 3: his order and quote hide the family disgrace. And then
Speaker 3: Gerald says he couldn't bear for anyone to see him
Speaker 3: except for his nephews and the staff here at the castle.
Speaker 3: That's why he was so surprised when he saw you
Speaker 3: last night in the maze, Kitty. He meant you no harm.
Speaker 3: He was merely trying to hide. And then Kitty says,
Speaker 3: oh I see. Gerald says, nevertheless, he did have certain pleasures.
Speaker 2: At night.
Speaker 3: He'd insist on us taking him down to the pond
Speaker 3: in the middle of the maze. He'd take off his
Speaker 3: cloak and splash around in the water. His natural habitat
Speaker 3: his bed in the tower was a mattress of seaweed,
Speaker 3: without sheets or pillows or blankets. We buried him in
Speaker 3: the maze near the pond, where he spent the few
Speaker 3: moments of contentment in his entire life. In the end,
Speaker 3: so Gerald apologizes to Kitty and everybody else, and he says,
Speaker 3: you know, it was really a mistake. He thinks that
Speaker 3: Roger should have been open about the fact that he
Speaker 3: was a frog, and that people would have accepted him
Speaker 3: if he'd been honest about who he was.
Speaker 2: Is that true? Would they have really accepted him?
Speaker 3: I don't know? And then whoa. We end with another
Speaker 3: tag team performance by Aunt Edith in the ceiling, where
Speaker 3: Edith comes in and looks straight into the camera and says,
Speaker 3: Kitty and Gerald are married. Now they live in the
Speaker 3: old Castle, very happily. Everything has been changed and modernized
Speaker 3: except for one place, the grave of Sir Roger. We
Speaker 3: zoom in on the grave the end. Wow, holy crap.
Speaker 2: It's a real roller coaster because it's like, Okay, we
Speaker 2: get this hideous you know, kind of like lovecrafty and reveal,
Speaker 2: you know, secret monster in the castle, and then of
Speaker 2: course we later we find it's like it's not just
Speaker 2: a giant frog, but it's a human being that is
Speaker 2: essentially like this kind of a mutant that's been living
Speaker 2: there for two centuries. But then we get this weird
Speaker 2: sad twist where he just didn't want to be seen,
Speaker 2: and then it kind of cast Kitty is the villain
Speaker 2: because like Kitty, everything was under control here. It was sad. Yes,
Speaker 2: this was a sad scene, but nobody was diving out
Speaker 2: the window. Though, at the end of this film and
Speaker 2: all this explanation, I don't feel like they really accounted
Speaker 2: for all those mysterious deaths, Like isn't the whole part
Speaker 2: of it, Like like like there's like almost like a
Speaker 2: family curse that everyone keeps dying, and then there's that
Speaker 2: like only one woman actually married into the family and
Speaker 2: she died.
Speaker 3: So the way I interpreted it is the fact that,
Speaker 3: like the cleaning woman to the castle died, and the
Speaker 3: fact that the Baronets all die young that is all
Speaker 3: a result of like the fact that looking at the
Speaker 3: frog is so horrifying that it like ages you physically
Speaker 3: years every time you see the frog, which is why
Speaker 3: the baronets all die within a few years of assuming
Speaker 3: you know, his sort of like top lieutenant post, and
Speaker 3: why people who are at the castle and happen to
Speaker 3: bump into him all die. It's just so scary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was, I was thinking about about all of
Speaker 2: this because again, at the end of the day, it's
Speaker 2: a great looking frog costume, but it is a giant frog.
Speaker 2: I wasn't able to get my hands on the book,
Speaker 2: but according to Science Fiction Encyclopedia, it describes the creature
Speaker 2: as quote a one hundred and seventy five year old
Speaker 2: mutant whose embryonic development was arrested at the amphibian stage.
Speaker 2: It makes me wonder if the form of the monster
Speaker 2: in the book is suggested or even outright described as
Speaker 2: being something that is more of a hybrid, like more
Speaker 2: of like like something maybe more like a giant fetus
Speaker 2: that's part frog and part human, like something that is
Speaker 2: like you know, you know in the weird fiction sensibilities,
Speaker 2: you know, impossible to describe or just too horrible to describe,
Speaker 2: and the film ultimately either cannot go that far, or
Speaker 2: you know, just decided, for various other reasons, to go
Speaker 2: with just more of just a giant frog effect. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was, and I was thinking, well, okay, yeah, maybe
Speaker 2: in fifty three they just weren't ready for something anything
Speaker 2: that adventurous. But at the same time, like fifty three
Speaker 2: is the year that Jack Arnold's It Came from Outer
Speaker 2: Space came out, and as we've discussed on the show before,
Speaker 2: we haven't covered that movie specifically, but it has a
Speaker 2: unique monster in it. Originally they weren't going to even
Speaker 2: show the monster, but that was too adventurous. They ended
Speaker 2: up compromising and creating something that does look very otherworldly
Speaker 2: and strange. So it's not like they weren't capable of
Speaker 2: imagining and realizing, you know, strange monstrous images that don't
Speaker 2: match up one to one with natural world organisms. But
Speaker 2: you know, for whatever reason, they did not go that direction.
Speaker 2: They just went with the giant amphibian.
Speaker 3: It's a very curious ending and effect because, in my opinion,
Speaker 3: though it was partially spoiled for me by like knowing
Speaker 3: what the ending was before I saw the movie. But
Speaker 3: for me, it's balancing right on a razor's edge between
Speaker 3: very effective and scary and just really funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think that's That's one of the reasons
Speaker 2: it's so novel, because I don't think anybody's saying this
Speaker 2: film has a great ending that totally redeems oh picture, No,
Speaker 2: it's weird, you know, and weird in a way where
Speaker 2: you're like, did that work? Did it kind of work?
Speaker 2: Did parts of it work? And you're left unsure exactly
Speaker 2: how to answer, but it is, it is notable, And
Speaker 2: then all the weird stuff with like is did Kitty
Speaker 2: just get this frog killed? And so forth? I guess
Speaker 2: all of this does kind of tie especially, you know,
Speaker 2: the explanation about like if he'd only been open about
Speaker 2: being a giant frog, everyone would have accepted him. It
Speaker 2: kind of ties into this whole thing between Kitty and
Speaker 2: Gerald too, right, Like there's this communication breakdown, like he
Speaker 2: won't tell her about his problem and therefore she can't
Speaker 2: help him or help him find help for his problem.
Speaker 2: And so I guess the ultimate message is like talk
Speaker 2: to people. Don't shut yourself off from the world, because
Speaker 2: your problems are not going to improve that way. They're
Speaker 2: only gonna fester and you'll just turn into a giant frog.
Speaker 3: Secret secrets are no fun, is Yeah, I would say
Speaker 3: that is the ethic of the film, though I don't
Speaker 3: know if that message really works, yeah, because like people
Speaker 3: do see the frog and then like die of fright.
Speaker 3: So I don't know if it if it really makes
Speaker 3: sense to say, like, oh, it would have been all
Speaker 3: right if he'd just been open about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but maybe if he prepared them. He's like, look,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have William and the other guy drop the
Speaker 2: sheet here. I am a giant frog. So just be
Speaker 2: prepared for that, and then you maybe people will be
Speaker 2: able to warm themselves up for that.
Speaker 3: Also, one thing that I think really just in general
Speaker 3: does not work is the tidiness of the explanation scene
Speaker 3: after the frog falls to its death. It's like so
Speaker 3: quick and so direct, and everybody's just like Okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: I guess that's what it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And like we've seen another pictures from this time period,
Speaker 2: like refusal to send people home anything other than happy.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot of reassuring. It's like everything
Speaker 2: turned out great, like this was you know, this was rough,
Speaker 2: but don't worry. They're fine. The kids are fine, the
Speaker 2: castle's fine. William's doing great. His hair is no longer white.
Speaker 3: They got central heating at the castle now, yeah, yeah
Speaker 3: they did.
Speaker 2: Yeah they mentioned the whole Yeah, we we open the
Speaker 2: windows back up. There's no longer a seaweed floor feature
Speaker 2: up there in the master bedroom. So it's all good.
Speaker 2: Don't worry people, you can go home happy.
Speaker 3: This film is Hayes Code approved.
Speaker 2: So yeah, in the end, a little slow in the
Speaker 2: build up, but yeah, there's a lot to consider, a
Speaker 2: lot to talk about with the ending, very very fun
Speaker 2: in thought provoking ending, and a great frog costume. I
Speaker 2: really can't think of another film off the top of
Speaker 2: my head where we've seen a frog costume, because generally
Speaker 2: you can get a frog, you can film a frog,
Speaker 2: and if you want it to be giant, you know,
Speaker 2: there are things you can do. Of course, affects wise
Speaker 2: to to have a frog play a frog, but yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna say it, best frog costume ever. If
Speaker 2: someone has a better one, bring it to my attention.
Speaker 2: Hell comes to frog Town, doesn't count because those are
Speaker 2: those are mutants, right, That's right?
Speaker 3: All right. I think that's all I can say about
Speaker 3: the maze.
Speaker 2: Well, it's amazing, that's for sure. So we hoped, we
Speaker 2: hope everyone enjoyed this episode. And if you did sort
Speaker 2: of take us on our word and you jumped in
Speaker 2: and watched this film fresh with no spoilers, please report
Speaker 2: from the field and tell us how you navigated these
Speaker 2: various twists and turns and the inevitable frog butt, how
Speaker 2: that affected your expectations concerning where the plot was taking us.
Speaker 2: If this plot is a maze, is it amazed? Are
Speaker 2: you able to leave the maze? Or do you feel
Speaker 2: like you're just kind of stuck in it at the end?
Speaker 2: I liked it that as well.
Speaker 3: I would have thought a movie called the Mae would
Speaker 3: be more confusing, but I would say the plot is
Speaker 3: actually quite straightforward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a little getting lost in the maze that works,
Speaker 2: But the maze is a good place for some of
Speaker 2: the suspense to take place. All right, We're gonna go
Speaker 2: and close it up there, but we'd love to hear
Speaker 2: from everyone out there, And we'll just remind you that
Speaker 2: we're primarily a science podcast. Here at Stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: Your Mind, but on Fridays we set aside most series
Speaker 2: concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird
Speaker 2: House Cinema. If you want to see all the movies
Speaker 2: that we've covered thus far in Weird House Cinema, there
Speaker 2: are a couple places you can go. I blog about
Speaker 2: these movies ats immutamusic dot com. But if you go
Speaker 2: to letterbox dot com, it's l E T T E
Speaker 2: r box d dot com. Look us up our handle
Speaker 2: there is Weird House. We have a list of all
Speaker 2: the movies we've covered thus far, and sometimes a peek
Speaker 2: ahead at what's coming out next.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If
Speaker 3: you would like to get in touch with us with
Speaker 3: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest topic
Speaker 3: for the future, or just to say hello, you can
Speaker 3: email us at contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 3: dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.