Bewitched (1945), by Arch Oboler

Aka: We Don't Understand Mental Illness: The Movie. This is a weird one and a bad one. Let's just dive in.

Joan Ellis is a young woman who should to all rights be happy. She has loving and doting parents, and an equally loving and doting boyfriend, Bob, who wants to marry her someday. Her family seems well-liked and affluent. However, she has the rather serious problem of someone else living in her head. This other voice, which sounds like a crabby 40-year-old waitress with emphysema, is Karen, and she actively tries to ruin Joan's life--in essence, her plot is to weaken Joan enough where she can rule over their shared body, thus enabling her life of evil. Eventually, Joan gets the help she needs, but not before Karen forces her to murder Bob after he tracks her down when she runs away from home. But can the doctors save her before she's due to be executed for Bob's slaying?

I shouldn't be quite as hard on this movie as the opening implies. While its views and explanations on dissociative identity disorder are primitive to the point of ableism, and there is virtually no effort put forth to understand the illness at work, the victim of the illness is definitively portrayed as a victim, and consequently there's an effort to sympathize (but not empathize) with her. Perhaps most significantly, it shows the effects of social stigma against mental illness and people who have it, because Joan never feels safe talking to Bob or her family about her problems for fear of them isolating her. In a time where you could be sent to a mental institution for teen rebellion and get a lobotomy for autism, there's a notable chance that her fears would be valid, especially when you consider the Ellises' wealth and social position. Crazy folk in a rich household are Just Not Done. While there is no attempt made to address or correct this possibility that maybe stigma against mental illness just makes the suffering worse, it still presents enough of a threat where audiences at the time could have left the theater thinking. Unfortunately, so much else is done wrong--and the movie itself is so cookie-cutter--that the whole affair barely registers on the synapses at all.

The plot is very stereotypical: an ordinary girl is suddenly confronted with the horror of an insidious illness, which leads her to make a fatal mistake, though she is redeemed and cured in the end. She is nearly rescued by one man and fully saved by another. I didn't mention Eric in the synopsis--he's the lawyer who falls in love with Joan when she becomes a cigar stop clerk after running away. He's also kind of creepy, because while it does turn out that Joan's reluctance to go out with him is due to her own anxiety rather than a lack of attraction, he doesn't exactly turn away when she turns him down day after day after day. He also proposes to her on their first date, which is strange even by '40s standards. It's not like Bob is much better though. I was a little glad when Bob died, to be honest. He's one of those dudes who think that lines like "I love you and I don't know why" are romantic. He also introduces Joan to a little girl as his grandmother? "She's very weak, but if you help her along she can come with us to the zoo." It's really not charming, and I don't exactly trust his eagerness to take a strange little girl to the zoo without her parents.

What is interesting about Eric is that his marriage proposal triggers the first instance in which Karen is able to fully use Joan's body, implying her problem is rooted in intimacy. She then proceeds to grope and mack on him pretty hard, suggesting that Karen's primary evil...is that she's a sexually interested woman. This is a problem in itself but a bigger issue is that what Karen does to Joan is strange and not well connected. Her primary form of harassment seems to be mocking Joan about her mere existence, insisting that she run away before her loved ones lock her up. Next, she expresses strong lust for Eric, but this is followed by her killing Bob. She seemingly kills Bob for reasons related to the first bombardment of taunts--she wants to keep Joan isolated from people who will think she's crazy. The lust for Eric comes back but it's not strongly tied to the murder plot. We can only assume that Karen sees Eric as a more ideal partner than the admittedly dreary Bob, though she also uses him as an anchor to carve out the independent life she desires. While Karen seeks to achieve her goals through violence, she desires a sort of independence and sexuality which Joan denies herself in her ordinary life, and which she permanently refuses at the end by accepting a chaste upper-class existence with Eric. No reason is ever given for Karen's existence. The movie seems to legitimately believe that multiple personalities are the product of two minds born in one brain by a fluke of hormones, like some failed conjoined twin where only their immaterial consciousness formed. Joan is never shown to have suffered any sort of trauma in the past that facilitated Karen's manifestation--we're to believe she literally popped in existence one day after years of sleeping. But because Karen appears as Joan's sexuality and desire for life outside her family, maybe that's a sign of how Joan's problem came to be. Maybe she legitimately feels trapped by her upper-class existence, and its curtailment on sexual experimentation. If so, the fact that she goes back to that at the end makes the film's conclusion actually really sad--to say nothing of the fact that she's still hanging under threat of execution as the last title card comes onscreen! 'Cause yeah, even if it was proven that Joan wasn't at fault, and that her alternate personality killed Bob, she's still been convicted. This is kind of a strange thing to consider because admittedly, the movie does suck you into the feeling of Karen's otherness. Whatever Karen represents within or without my interpretation of her, she's still a threat to at least one innocent person, and that's enough for the viewer to coherently separate her from Joan.

The thing is, though, I feel this movie is a cash-in on MGM's behalf more than anything. (Yes, despite having the plot of a Monogram movie, this was put out by MGM.) People say that this movie almost works as an early exorcism movie, because of the final scene with Edmund Gwenn as Joan's psychologist, wherein he employs good ol' fashioned Hollywood Hypnotism. Replace the Jesus stuff with psychiatry and it's beat for beat almost the same. The Good Man talks the Demon to death. However, Karen's frequent reference to "freedom" made me think of Fredrich March's Hyde in the 1931 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. That movie was remade with Spencer Tracy in 1941, a whole four years before Bewitched...by MGM. Yep, they were ripping off themselves. This isn't anything big, because the big studios did and do that all the fucking time, but the recognition of Bewitched as a de-glorified Jekyll and Hyde clone simultaneously kills and boosts the movie for me. On one hand, it helps explain why it was such a deflated experience, empty of life somehow. On the other, it adds another twist to it that keeps it wedged in my head.

Bewitched is not what I would call a fun film to watch, but it's a fun film to remember. I talk about movies on this site that I love because they're legitimately good, or they're so ridiculous that I can't help but love them. There's also of course the odd movie that I love because they're extremely banal, but their banality makes them exceptional in some way. Bewitched is a movie, though, where it's more a mess to figure out, a puzzle, and while it yields almost nothing in the end, it at least gave me something to say, if I could be said to have said anything. I always relish a chance to talk about mental illness, and how on occasion the great studios of Hollywood's golden years were a bunch of shameless hacks. Watch Bewitched for laughs and a fun Edmund Gwenn performance, but don't expect much else.

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The Identical (2014), by Dustin Marcellino

*

This is one of those..."hint movies." They have the perpetual hint of trash about them, but they're consistently circling the trash drain, never quite dipping too deep down below the waters. Eventually, there is a moment of release--in many of these films, there are sometimes several such moments--but the whole affair feels too solid, too well-disguised, for the distinct traces be properly identifiable. My first true Christsploitation movie on the site (Noah didn't count) is The Identical, a movie about the story of Elvis with a Christian spin--and man, does it make some weird decisions.

Based loosely on the possibilities of the fact that Elvis Presley had a miscarried twin brother, we follow the Hemsleys, a Depression-era couple whose child turns out to be twins. They can take care of one child, but not the other, and so when William Hemsley goes to a tent sermon led by Reverend Wade, he hears the words "It is better to give than to receive" and takes them perhaps a bit too literally. You see, Mrs. Wade has miscarried multiple times and it seems unlikely that the Wades will ever have a child. This is going where you think it's going--yes, William wants to give one of the babies to the Reverend and his wife. His own wife resists as first but fortunately they resolve it offscreen, and little Dexter Hemsley becomes Ryan Wade. The Hemsleys hold a funeral for their child (...why?) and we cut away to instead follow Ryan Wade as he grows up. His father wants him to be a preacher, but Ryan is much more interested in music, particularly the nascent genre of rock and roll. His father continually punishes him for sneaking out to rock clubs (or "honky-tonks" as he calls them) and eventually makes him join the Army...hey, just like that Elvis guy! (Except Elvis was drafted, not pushed in by his dad.) Ryan eventually hears about rock legend Drexel "The Dream" Hemsley, who maintains the same level of fame in this universe as Elvis; after marrying his girlfriend Janey, Ryan decides to enter a Drexel Impersonator contest which the King himself is judging. He's so good that he gets a deal as "the Identical," a Drexel cover artist who gets paid as much as Drexel himself (!!!). Eventually however Drexel dies in a plane crash (just like Elvis?) and Ryan retires, aiming to make peace with himself and his father, as well as his birth family when he learns of them. He decides to return to music in the end, so that his brother's dream can live on.

This movie is actually pretty sweet, even though I don't share its religious values, and even though it twists history to do what it yearns to do. The acting is good, the sentiment seems real, the filmmakers obviously adore and respect Elvis, the direction is pretty solid, it's pretty-looking, and it actually lands quite a few of its jokes. Of course, I may speak from a position of relief that this movie is never truly uncomfortable (except for one possible moment explored below); still, Stockholm Syndrome is better than what I can usually hope for in a movie like this, so I'll take it.

That having been said. It's still a movie about an Elvis impersonator who is as successful as Elvis himself. It's still about a movie put in that situation by a couple faking their child's death to cover up a simple adoption situation. (Did they seriously think adoption wasn't a thing during the Depression?) It's still a movie where a husband tells his wife to her face, "Maybe we can just give up the one?" It's still a movie where the first dialogue that isn't narration is some incredibly jarring yelling. But that's not the full depth of it. For one thing...Elvis exists in this universe. I have seen this commented on by everyone who's ever reviewed it, but it bears repeating time and time again: Elvis Presley is mentioned to exist and have the same career as he did in real life in this universe. Meaning this is a movie about a hugely successful Elvis impersonator who is himself impersonating an Elvis impersonator. A single line that includes Elvis in this universe undoes the whole dynamic, but that's really only the biggest problem.

Janey is originally seeing someone else when she re-enters Ryan's life, working as a nurse. However, he keeps creeping on her, calling her from work over and over, and sending her flowers. Worse, he uses the fact that she accidentally revealed the identity of one of her patients--Drexel Hemsley's dying mother--to creep on, well, a stranger's mother, because when Ryan decides to creep into the room of the hospital where Janey works to see Mrs. Hemsley, he doesn't know they're related. He explains to her, "I'm a big fan of your son's music and I just wanted to offer you a little prayer," but if someone came into my hospital room when I was sleeping and that was their explanation I would say something along the lines of, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!" Admittedly, the conclusion to this creepiness results in the pretty-funny scene where Ryan and his boss from the auto shop show up to serenade Janey, getting arrested in the process--he convinces her to get a single cup of coffee with him, and we Gilligan Cut from his arrest to their getting married. Again, this movie does do some things right.

It's interesting because while the movie insinuates that rock and roll was invented by two white guys playing black guys' instruments (actually, from a metaphorical statement, that's...well I mean the white guys don't steal the instruments in this case...), it takes a strong stand against traditional conservative authority. Reverend Wade's treatment of Ryan is shown to be, if not abusive, then sincerely troubling, for both of them, especially when it results in the elder man's heart attack. The movie seems to say that that old way of yelling at your kids, making them follow in your footsteps whether they want to or not, telling them to "be a man," shipping them off to the Army for misbehaving...that hurts both of them, and only in letting it go do the old priest and his son find peace. When the cop shows up to bust the "honky-tonk" that Ryan sings at (with the term itself being a racially-charged phrase), he says to the mostly-black crowd the place is "dark and stinky" and that it's full of "reefers and devil music." Ryan tells him there's nothing wrong with the people there and gets a punch to the gut. Racism and intolerance towards certain types of music are condemned just as surely as that '50s household lifestyle is. Where I was perhaps a bit uncomfortable was where the movie had a scene set during the Six-Day War which was likely intended as an analogy for a modern-day pro-Israel message. It feels out of place with the rest of the movie, but, chemical weapons aside, the scene is framed to be more of a pro-Judaism message, which I support (though I know that associating modern Israel with Judaism can be uncomfortable for some). For a Southern white church in the '60s to include a Menorah in their church and to declare foreign Jewish folk to be God's Chosen People seems pretty progressive to me. This is sort of a setup to when Ryan finds out later that Mrs. Hemsley was Jewish, making him Jewish as well--a fact which seems to delight him. For once, I feel I can presume innocence, and feel comfortable believing that this movie is just pro-Jewish, which is much-needed in movies in the 2010s.

I have so much difficulty digging into the strangeness of this movie, and why they might have done it the way they did. I'm glad that its quirks exist, though, and I can be distracted by such gems as the confirmation that Drexel Hemsley did in fact star in a series of increasingly-shitty beach movies before his untimely demise, just like his real-life counterpart (err...impersonatee?). I can notice little bits like the fact that Ryan's adopted mom never ages even while Pastor Wade shrivels into an old mummy. I can look forward to the bizarre Tarzan yodel Reverend Wade lets out when he finds out Ryan knows the truth about his parentage. Yes, this is a "bad movie." And, it's part of a genre which I normally otherwise find to be really upsetting. But it largely avoids offense and thus carries enough of that elusive hint, that seductive trashy odor, to make it a classic for me.

* Call me crazy, but I looked over my copy a few different times and for the life of me, I swear this movie has no title card. My DVD actually stopped working after my last look-through, and appears to have died permanently! That's why I've used the poster instead, which, incidentally, is from IMDB.

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The Zodiac Killer (1971), by Tom Hanson

Most of us at this point are familiar with the story of the Zodiac Killer. In the late '60s through the early '70s, an as-yet-unidentified murderer killed at least five people in the San Francisco area, leaving behind mysterious ciphers which remain as unsolved as the case they belong to. Many theories have emerged citing a number of suspects, and similarly quite a few films have been made on the subject of the murders. Like the theories, some of these movies are sound, while others are not. The 1971 film The Zodiac Killer, made by Tom Hanson as part of a harebrained, probably-bogus scheme to catch the Killer in the theater it showed at, is decidedly not one of the sound Zodiac case adaptations, being instead a fascinating portrait of ugly people thrown into a classic exploitation backdrop.

The film is a relatively disconnected series of vignettes. We first follow the Zodiac Killer without knowing who he is, and two suspects emerge for us to consider: the meek, rabbit-keeping vegan mailman Jerry, and the violently misogynistic, drug-addicted, alimony-dodging Grover. The police begin to close in on Grover, seeing as he's the more readily obvious suspect, but he's shot down after trying to kidnap his daughter with a Ultimate Weapon, a handsaw. Jerry is the actual Zodiac, believing that his victims will become his slaves in the afterlife (which the Zodiac Killer claimed to believe), after Atlantis rises from the ocean (which is horseshit concocted by the director). He keeps on killing and, as in real life, he is never caught.

Tom Hanson here takes the Ed Wood route of exploitation and tries to make a movie that teaches us something. At first, the movie is rather cynical--it flat-out calls the audience stupid for not being more paranoid about serial killers, for not suspecting the un-suspicious. This is a rather uncomfortable view to take, especially in an age where kids are now being told that their shy classmates are potential school shooters in the making just because they're quiet. Jerry being the killer fits in with this mentality; he is the very "guy next door" that he warns us about at the beginning. Grover's arc exists to demonstrate that sometimes the most vulgar and openly-violent and Trump-esque of us are just bad people, and despite their loudness and brashness they shouldn't be the only ones we look at when it comes to looking for murderers. Of course, that sort of seems to normalize people like Grover, but the subversion, I think, goes deeper than that.

Grover is violently misogynistic, true, but grotesque sexism is a running theme of the whole movie--almost as if Hanson wanted to demonstrate, at least subliminally, that the Zodiac Killer could not exist without a confining culture that encourages men to be violent. Jerry is not as sexist as Grover, but only barely. He shares a conversation with his hideous pimple of a neighbor Doc, who opines that "once women are over 20, they're no good...Chinese have a term for it, it's called the Year of the Dog. [That's...not what that is, but 'kay.] Or as I like to call it, the Birth of the Bitch!" Following this Doc adds, "if you get any leftovers, though, send 'em my way...remember, I like 'em plump 'n' juicy...and DUMB!" Jerry is generally on Doc's side during this, and the rest of the movie will show him throw sexist remarks out of his own volition. Jerry and many other characters also sling around the word f*ggot, and Jerry himself takes deep offense at being called such. This latter incident takes place in a bar scene where we get glimpses of various relationship dynamics, nearly all of them portrayed negatively. Bad sexual dynamics, negative gender roles, and institutionalized homophobia are all major parts of the world that makes the Zodiac Killer who he is.

Actually, this movie in some ways is all about subversions. After Jerry is shown to us as the Killer, we see him first share some hotdogs with some beachgoers, where he doesn't kill them--then he goes to a park full of vulnerable children, where he doesn't kill anyone. But then we get the biggest and most infamous murder scene of the whole movie, where he first claims to be a crook escaping from a prison in Montana, and that he just needs to steal his victims' keys and money to get to Mexico. But after he ties them up, he chuckles casually, "I'm gonna have to stab you people." This sort of sadistic joking-around follows as he plays games with the police. He takes genuine pleasure in shutting down the power of those who can stop him. At the end, this is played with, where it's briefly put forth that maybe if the police didn't need to get so many fuckin' permits and warrants and whatnot they'd just be able to arrest/kill all those dirty crooks all the time like we want. It's uncomfortable (because time shows that cops perform worse and commit more crimes without those regulations), but it's presented alongside the suggestion (put forth, admittedly, by the Zodiac himself) that the Killer may in fact be a sane person, which means there are other reasons for his killings aside from simple "mental illness." While it is the Zodiac Killer himself putting forth this view, it also obviously stands in for the sentiments of the filmmakers, so this is a point they're interested in exploring. It's interesting. It's almost like unscientific views of mental health and biased explanations/solutions for crime are excuses for the violence of the patriarchy or something. 

Of course, this movie is also ridiculous. Grover is absolutely disgusting inside and out, which becomes kind of comedic after a while. ("Suspect proceeded to urinate in customers' drinks, proclaiming...'The Fountain of Youth lives'?") The Zodiac Killer wears a Paul McCartney wig and a beaglepuss. The police consult a psychic, Mr. Koslow, who has some Mysterious Foreigners in his apartment for no reason. It's a weird movie, and I may have understated that, despite the fact that this is a fictionalization of a series of murders that was released while those murders were still happening. To say nothing of the fact that for all the hard facts about the case Hanson gets right, there are plenty he just makes the fuck up.

This is one of my favorite movies of all time. It's not an easy watch, for quite a few reasons, but every time I pop it into I'm completely engrossed in its world for 87 minutes. Like, I will actually forget about outside reality when I throw it on. That's another way it's weird. Watch it.

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