Friday, July 6, 2012

Cheap, Cheesy "B" Horror Flicks That We Love

This actually looks like one of the best performances Barbara Stanwyck gave, here in William Castle's The Night Walker (1964). Even by today's standards for horror films, this one looks like it has more than a few good scary moments in it.  I love how Stanwyck raises two clinched fists and lets out her classic 'Stanwyck scream'.  
Last night I saw the very B-cheesy film "The Tingler" with "Vincent Twice, Vincent Twice" (remember "Vincent Twice" from Sesame Street?). 
 But "B" flicks are best in black & white-not in color.  Don't you agree?  What is YOUR favorite?   And now, Vincent Price speaks about a different type of horror...

Vincent Price On Racism And Religious Prejudice 

Thank you Mr. Price.

--DiamondHead
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That looks like a GREAT old horror movie! You know, Barbara Stanwyck happens to be my favorite classic film actress of ALL time. Why? Because she had all the right elements--toughness and vulnerability; tenderness and spunk. I think her pinnacle role was in 1937's "Stella Dallas". I STILL tear up when she pretends to drive away her daughter, Laurel, in order to get her away from herself whom she considers "low-class" so her daughter can have a life amongst the upper crust or what I'd call the"stuck up-crust".
(Starts at 2:09)
And that scream of Stanwyck's in "The Night Walker"--oh, that epic scream. Someday I want to have the opportunity to dramatically clench my fists and scream operatically! 
By the way, if you like William Castle and his cheesy goodness flicks, then check out the infamous "Psycho" rip-off Homicidal (1961)
You'll either giggle hysterically at the ridiculously bad dubbing and fake teeth or keep getting cinema deja-vu and just decide to watch "Psycho".
Regardless, it's cheese-tastic!
--MyVintageSoul 
https://twitter.com/MyVintageSoul
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Talking about "Stella Dallas", there...now THERE'S a movie loaded with socio-economic innuendos and class struggle.  This is veering off from the "Cheap, Cheesy "B'' Horror Flicks, but the subject of "Stella Dallas" is too good to pass up.  I'll get back to our subject after interjecting this.   
I agree that "Stella..." is one of Stanwyck's finest performances.  While it may be true that the movie overemphasized the differences between the classes (embodied in the character of "Stella"), it seems as if her character was afflicted with a kind of self-destructive "virus".  After having finally snagged this socialite husband of her's and having had his child, "Stella" throws it all away because she decides she does not want to conform to the cultural norms of his class.  She despised her own class (mill workers) and pursued the man she married to escape her class.  Yet later...after the fact, she rebelled against him, what he stood for and efforts on his part to change her.  Years later, after her daughter was nearly grown, Stella realized what an idiot she had been and backtracked--this time wanting the "high-class" life for her daughter to the point of cutting her loathsome self off from her daughter.  This movie was as much about cultural warfare as it was about class struggle.  I have to admit though, the ending "wedding scene" as almost too much for me.  
Not only does Stella cut herself off from her daughter, her ex-husband, her only child's wedding, but she cuts herself off from the human race...leering into the window at her daughter's wedding like some "stray dog" passing by.  Her character self-imposes the "penalty" of personae non grata.  Regardless of her low-class ways, she was still a human being for crying out loud!  But the way they wrote it, this again, was self-imposed by the character of "Stella" so as not to make the upper-crust characters out to be the heartless bad guys.  It just made "Stella" look stupid.  Really.  What proud mother would peer into a window at her only daughter's wedding like some stray dog or cat?  This is such a good film, loaded with so much about culture and class wars.  So much more could be said about it.  And I think it would make a good remake, maybe with Halle Berry in the role of "Stella".
--DiamondHead 
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On the topic of one of my FAVORITE movies, "Stella Dallas", I have to say this about the character and theme of the film: Stella had the right to be who she was and be accepted and loved by the people most important to her--her husband and daughter. 
Her daughter, "Laurel", DID love her for who she was, but Stella was so wrapped up in meaningless elitist trappings that she couldn't just accept that. She felt that she had to drive her own child away in order to have some sort of snobbish life amongst the "upper-class".
And what does all of that nonsense mean in the end, anyway? Class distinctions, snobbery, how one talks or dresses? They're just irrelevant divisions amongst human beings...and that's what we all are, regardless of how poor or noble we are born--just regular human beings.
I think that this perspective might be a LOT more emphasized in a 21st century remake, in a society where there are so many more important things happening to us as humanity than "class distinctions". But of course, in the 1930's, elitism must've been so much more important to people and that was reflected in "Stella Dallas", because in the end, she simply doesn't win.
As for Halle in the role of 'Stella' in a modern remake--YES! That would be a SUPERB twist I'd absolutely love to see. Perhaps she could portray a working-class African-American marrying into a wealthy Caucasian family. It would be interesting to see themes of classism and racism intertwined, and how it would affect her character. 
--MyVintageSoul
 *************************************************************************************  Quoting you..."Class distinctions, snobbery, how one talks or dresses? They're just irrelevant divisions amongst human beings..." Well, I wouldn't exactly call them "irrelevant" divisions.  For example, just look at this male character from another movie...
  
(Included in this clip is the famous 'clearing the table' scene.)
There's nothing really wrong with a little refinement.   Class snobbery and refinement aren't necessarily synonymous.    A really curious thing about the character of "Stella" is that her character is the antihero who is often viewed as the "heroine".  And why?  Merely because of her low-class status.  Stella supposedly "keeps it real" by refusing to adapt to the cultural norms of her husband's class with her stubborn determination to "keep it real".  Yet, if you really look at this character, you see that there's nothing "noble" about throwing away your marriage and breaking up your family--which is what "Stella" did.  If Stella wanted "keep it real" (thus avoiding all those "meaningless elitists trappings"), she certainly might have instead married another mill worker as her hillbilly mother did.  Why get into the water if you don't intend to swim?  But Stella wanted more.  And she went into the relationship with "Seven" with her eyes wide open, making it no secret even to him that she wanted to be part of the upper-class--his world.  So, Steven wanted Stella to adapt, to bend a little... give and take, as most couples who have successful marriages do.  When he tried to give Stella what she wanted, she resisted and threw it all back in his face.  The night Stella broke up her marriage to Steven, he let her know that her habits were going to reflect upon him and affect his bottom line...his job
 He got a transfer to a job in New York and he wanted to take Stella with him.  She refused to go to New York, refused to adapt to cultural change anymore, refused to work to keep her marriage intact and basically sent her husband packing--and all because she could not give up being low-class and tacky.   "Stella" wasn't keeping it real.  If you want, *keeping it real*, Woody Allen keeps it real in Small Time Crooks.  
 The character of "Stella" was no heroine.  Just a low-class cow who made a schnook out of her high-class husband.  What a real tribute to Barbara Stanwyck, who was very convincing in the role and high-class all the way!  "-)  --DiamondHead 

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