Goodnight, My Love (1972)

          A clue about the right way to watch the made-for-TV detective flick Goodnight, My Love is contained in the title, which is basically a rephrasing of the moniker adorning Raymond Chandler’s classic Philip Marlowe novel Farewell, My Lovely (1940). This picture is a love letter to Chandler, nothing more and nothing less, so even though it’s highly entertaining, stylishly photographed, and verbally witty, it’s not to be mistaken for a truly original piece of work. That said, paying homage to the film-noir literature and movies of yesteryear was a veritable cottage industry in the ’70s, and Goodnight, My Love was ahead of the curve, arriving a year before Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye (1973) and two years before Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974). This project wasn’t the first neo-noir, since projects including Stephen Frears’ Gumshoe (1971) came earlier, but it wasn’t riding in the back of the bandwagon, either.

          In any event, Goodnight, My Love is significant beyond its connection to similar genre pictures, because it’s among the earliest directing credits for Peter Hyams, a unique populist with a distinctive pictorial style. (He’s among the few Hollywood directors to occasionally serve as his own cinematographer.) Although his stories often crumble toward the end, Hyams has a great flair for pithy dialogue and he’s fantastic at presenting sardonic tough guys, two skills that emerged fully formed here and that suit the noir milieu perfectly. Richard Boone, all craggy bulk and sleepy-eyed cynicism, plays Francis Hogan, a low-rent private dick in 1940s Los Angeles. His partner is Arthur Boyle (Michael Dunn), a little person with a big mouth, and they spend most of their time trying to scam free meals off creditors until a glamorous dame walks into the office. (Isn’t that always how these stories start?) She’s Susan Lakely (Barbara Bain), and her boyfriend has gone missing. Francis and Arthur take the case, eventually uncovering a convoluted conspiracy involving rotund gentleman criminal Julius Limeway (Victor Buono channeling Sidney Greenstreet).

          Yet the narrative is secondary to the style here, as Hyams fills scenes with bitchy repartee that his excellent leading actors deliver in the ideal deadpan mode. Bain is arguably the weak link, a bit long in the tooth to play what amounts to an ingénue role, though that doesn’t matter a whole lot since Hyams is more interested in the amusing rhythms of boys squaring off against each other as friends, enemies, or some combination of both. Goodnight, My Love is also photographed with extraordinary artistry for a TV movie of its vintage, because Hyams mounts ambitious tracking shots and employs imaginative lighting schemes by illuminating actors with practicals scattered throughout his sets.

          In every way except perhaps the most important one—conveying a resonant theme—Goodnight, My Love is an impressive first outing, and it’s also a wonderful showcase for onetime Oscar nominee Dunn. A fabulous actor who always escaped the limitations of novelty roles and seized opportunities like this one to play everyday people, he died less than a year after Goodnight, My Love was broadcast, although this was not his final onscreen performance. 

Goodnight, My Love: FUNKY

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971)

          Given Edgar Allan Poe’s towering status as a cultural influence and literary figure, it’s interesting to note how few good movies have derived from his work. Excepting director Roger Corman’s stylish cycle of Poe movies starring Vincent Price, released in the ’60s, most attempts to translate the author’s macabre style into cinema have been middling at best. One problem with such projects—the reckless impulse to improve on Poe’s storytelling—is evident throughout Murders in the Rue Morgue, a sluggish horror film that is only peripherally related to the short story of the same name. Director Gordon Hessler and his screenwriters concocted a murky narrative featuring a handful of elements from Poe’s tale, such as a murderous primate and two generations of female victims. Predictably, much was lost in translation—Murders in the Rue Morgue suffers from a confusing script, dull pacing, and repetitive tropes. The picture has great production values, and it boasts the presence of lively stars Herbert Lom and Jason Robards, but it’s a slog to watch.

          Set in early 20th-century Paris, Hessler’s movie concerns Cesar Charron (Robards), producer/star of a Grand Guignol-type theater company that, when the story begins, performs a show called Edgar Allan Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue at a theater called the Rue Morgue. (Clearly, “overkill” was the watchword during the writing process.) When several people in the theater company are killed, clues point to Rene Marot (Lom), a former member of the company long thought dead. Eventually, a connection is discovered between the gruesome death many years ago of Cesar’s first wife and the current bedevilment of her daughter, Madeline (Christine Kaufmann), who also happens to be Cesar’s current wife. There’s also some business involving a little person (Michael Dunn), who does creepy things like stalking Madeline, and a blustery but ineffectual police detective (Adolfo Celi).

          None of this makes much sense, especially since Hessler arbitrarily toggles between “present-day” scenes, dream sequences, and flashbacks; by the umpteenth time Hessler cuts to an ominous shot of a mysterious figure falling from the rafters of the theater, viewer fatigue is inevitable. Robards phones in his performance, but Dunn and Lom add florid villainy, while actresses including Kaufmann and Rosalind Elliot (who plays a doomed prostitute) furnish eye candy. Murders in the Rue Morgue includes some unconvincing gore (think waxy-looking severed heads), as well as a silly riff on Poe’s image of a primate running amok. In other words, the picture’s not without its lurid virtues—but the lack of a coherent storyline unquestionably relegates Murders in the Rue Morgue to the realm of misguided Poe movies.

Murders in the Rue Morgue: FUNKY

The Mutations (1974)

          Reflecting its storyline about a mad scientist who gene-splices people and plants to create monsters, this lurid UK flick offers two movies for the price of one. The putative main story is an unintentionally hilarious stinker, with Donald Pleasence phoning in his bad-guy performance while the film’s special-effects team delivers laughably bad monster costumes. However, a major subplot about the mad scientist’s deformed henchman has a certain degree of pathos and suspense, especially because the subplot borrows many elements from the 1932 cult classic Freaks. Set in modern-day England, The Mutations stars Pleasence as Professor Nolter, a psycho who envisions a new race of humans imbued with plant characteristics. Nolter’s accomplice is Lynch (Tom Baker), a deformed giant who abducts young men and women for Nolter to use as test subjects. Lynch is the leader of a group of circus freaks living at an amusement park, yet while the other circus performers are harmless, Lynch is a self-loathing psychotic. Thus, while Nolter tempts fate by taking his experiments too far, Lynch is driven to madness by waiting for Nolter to deliver on promises of correcting Lynch’s deformity. (The picture also features perfunctory material involving attractive students either investigating the disappearances of their classmates or becoming victims of Nolter’s weird science.)

          As helmed by Jack Cardiff, a master cinematographer who occasionally directed, The Mutations has a colorful look and one or two genuinely creepy scenes, notably the Freaks-influenced conclusion of Lynch’s storyline. The acting is generally bland, but Baker (beloved by many for his long run on the UK TV series Doctor Who) does well playing Lynch in the Vincent Price mode of a killer besieged by inner demons. The film’s other noteworthy performance comes from the diminutive Michael Dunn, familiar to American TV fans for his work as Dr. Loveless on the ’60s show The Wild Wild West. He plays the little person who represents the conscience of the circus-freak community. Furthermore, starlets including the scrumptious Julie Ege provide major eye candy while clothed and otherwise, and The Mutations benefits from an eerie music score that utilizes dissonant classical music—a truly unsettling flourish. FYI, The Mutations sometimes carries the alternate title The Freakmaker.

The Mutations: FUNKY