'Dissolving Classroom' delivers large doses of social commentary with the horror

Dissolving Classroom (2017, Vertical Comics)
Story and Art: Junji Ito
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Whereever handsome Yuuma and his hideous little sister Chizumi go, horror follows in their wake. Beautiful young women are left disfigured, classrooms of students are reduced to mysterious puddles of slime, and the all residents of entire apartment buildings vanish mysteriously. Guilt-ridden Yuuma is constantly apologizing to those who are doomed while Chizumi cackles madly and prances about. What is the terrible truth behind these happenings?

Many of horror master Junji Ito's stories deliver bits of social commentary along with the creepy scares. In "Dissolving Classroom", these messages are more front and center that is usual, and they are the driving force of them. There are two issues tackled in the five stories of "Dissolving" cycle--which are all collected in this volume--and these are that it's sometimes difficult to recognize who is the abuser and who is the abused in relationships; and the ever-growing popularity of call-out culture and the attendant displays of empty apologies. This dual messaging and commentary on how damaging it is to individuals and society as a whole are most clearly on display in the second story, "Dissolving Beauty", and the final tale "Interview with the Devil", which wraps up the cycle with a literally cataclysmic event.

The "Dissolving" stories bear a resemblance in their nature to Ito's most famous cycle of stories, Tomie: In each story, the recurring characters visit doom upon the hapless individuals who cross their paths. Ito was wise in wrapping this one up quickly, though, because there's no mystery behind Yuuma and Chizumi and why people are meeting gruesome ends around them--Yuuma's apologies are actually rituals that sacrifice people to Satan. There's also nothing sympathetic about them; as monstrous as Tomie is, there's an occasional glimmer of humanity that the reader can sympathize with... and her victims sometimes are deserving of their fates. Although Ito tries to inject some humanity in Yuuma and Chizumi toward the end of the cycle, it's too little and it's too late.

Aside from the five "Dissolving" stories, this anthology contains two brief tales. I'm going to take a guess that they were inspired by headlines or news articles that Ito read, and they are both quite thin and at the low end of the quality spectrum that we can expect from him. ("The Return" is curiously touching while "Children of the Earth" is nonsensical--not to mention covering ground that he's already trod more effectively in other stories).

The stories collected in "Dissolving Classroom" aren't among Ito's best work. They're still better than the majority of horror comics that have been published over the years, but there were were none of the moments of dread I've felt reading his previous works. In many ways, Ito has delivered a cycle of stories that felt more like standard horror comics than his usual work. Artistically, there also wasn't much that impressed--nothing was bad, but the only truly standout images were the ones where Ito drew Satan as Yuuma perceived him.

If you're familiar with Ito's work, and you've read everything else, this book is worth checking out. If you're a newcomer, "Uzumaki" is his greatest work to date. "Frankenstein", "Smash", "Shiver", or "Flesh-Colored Horror" are all short story collections that will give you a view of the range of horrors he can deliver when he is at his best.

'The Pajama Party' was a bust

The Pajama Party (1931)
Starring: ZaSu Pitts, Thelma Todd, Eddie Dunn, Elizabeth Forrester, Donald Novis, and Charlie Hall
Directors: Marshall Neilan and Hal Roach
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

ZaSu and Thelma (Pitts and Todd) attend a decadent party after its hostess (Forrester) runs their car off the road and into a lake. Things go from strange to miserable when it turns out their boyfriends (Dunn and Novis) have been hired to provide musical entertainment, and the guys think they are being two-timed.

"The Pajama Party" runs 20 minutes, but it feels longer. Few of the jokes are funny, none of the gags come off quite right, and rather than feeling amused, you're probably going to feel embarrassed on behalf of ZaSu Pitts and Thelma Todd as they try to fit in among the childish, spoiled high society people they have been forced to spend time with. Further, while usually films of this type usually see the snobbish upper-crust get deflated, we don't even really get to enjoy that here.

The high points of the film (such as they are) involve Pitts and Todd interacting with the maids charged with cleaning them up after their water-logged traffic mishap, with Todd responding to the non-English speaking maid in Pig Latin being a cute bit. Charlie Hall is also amusing as he stumbles his way through the party as a drunk attracted to ZaSu... but Hall is only a bright spot because everything else is so weak.

"The Pajama Party" is one of 17 short films included in the two DVD set Thelma Todd & ZaSu Pitts: The Hal Roach Collection 1931 - 1933, and I hope it's the low point of those films. The commentary by Richard M. Roberts paints a picture of a troubled production, helmed by a director/producer whose personal and professional life was falling apart, and who was fired before the film was fully completed, so that could explain part of why this is such a weak effort. Even allowing for that, I am starting to fear that Hal Roach made a big mistake when he took Todd away from Charley Chases' production unit to have her anchor a series of her own. Her films with Chase were spectacular, and so far none of the Pitts/Todd series have been as good.

Spacegirl Adventures, Part Eighteen

What Has Gone Before: After narrowly surviving the destruction of the spaceship she was in, our heroine was desperately trying to reach and enter a nearby space station before her oxygen ran out.

SPACEGIRL

By Travis Charest

By Gene Gonzales

'Over the Fence' is silent near-perfection!

Over the Fence (1917)
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Bebe Daniels, Harry Pollard, and Bud Jamison
Directors: Harold Lloyd and J. Farrell MacDonald
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

When his coworker (Pollard) sneakily grabs both his tickets and date (Daniels) to the ballgame, Harold (Lloyd) ends up on the field and playing for the home team after he is mistaken for a late-arriving star player.

"Over the Fence" absolutely hilarious, both as a romantic comedy and a sports comedy. It is perfectly paced--there is literally not a second wasted in the film--and every joke and gag lands solidly. With this film, I think I finally see why Harold Lloyd has gained the reputation of portraying an Everyman sort of character in his films, as he doesn't go out of his way to be jerk, and I think everyone who's been on a date that goes sideways can relate to some of the goin-ons here. (I've seen a couple references that imply the version I watched is a shortened one. I don't know how accurate those comments are, but if I did view an edited version of the film, I want to praise the editor as strongly as the creators and actors in the original film.)

Harold Lloyd, Bebe Daniels, and Harry Pollard are all great in the film, with Lloyd and Daniels giving especially good performances. Daniels, once again, impressed me with her range of acting ability. She seems to have been able to play any type of female character the script called for, unlike her male co-stars which mostly seemed to have a type that they stuck to.

That last statement above isn't entirely fair to Harold Lloyd. I have mentioned previously that there are a number of these Lloyd/Daniels/Pollard shorts that I haven't bothered writing about, because I so disliked the main character as portrayed by Lloyd. Reportedly, with this film, Lloyd reinvented his screen persona, leaving behind the rotten troublemaker that has so annoyed me and moving toward a more sympathetic figure. Looking back, I can see the change--the films I couldn't stand tend to be ones where he hasn't worn glasses but instead slightly exaggerated make-up and odd clothes, while the ones that I like he is wearing glasses. That was Lloyd's signal to himself and his audience that his screen character was not different.

The only, minor complaint I have with "Over the Fence" is that Harry Pollard is in exaggerated, clownish make-up. I realize that this film marks a transition from the earlier films, but it seems an odd choice that Pollard was the only character in the film with such clownish make-up on. It could also be that in the century that has passed since this film was released has made a significance to Pollard's exaggerated make-up fade to the point where I just don't understand it.

"Over the Fence" is just five minutes long, and I strongly encourage you to take the time to check it out; it could just be the most entertaining minutes of your day. I have even made it easy for you, by embedding it below--via YouTube and the Christopher Bird Collection.

Madonna Meets Metal on a Musical Monday

Here's some Monday morning madness with Moracchioli!

Cinco de Mayo!

Rita Hayworth is dancing because it's May 5th!

The OTHER 'The Maltese Falcon' film adaptation

The Maltese Falcon (1931) (aka "Dangerous Female" and "Woman of the World")
Starring: Ricardo Cortez, Bebe Daniels, Otto Matieson, Dudley Digges, Uma Merkel, J. Farrell MacDonald, and Thelma Todd
Director: Roy Del Ruth
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

After his partner is murdered, private detective Sam Spade (Cortez) finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into involvement with a growing assortment of odd characters, each of whom may be the murderer, as they chase each other in search of the elusive treasure known as the Maltese Falcon.

Most film buffs have at least heard of the 1941 film "The Maltese Falcon" with Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sidney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre, but few know that it's a remake of this 1931 picture of the same name, and even fewer have seen the original. (I admit to not knowing of the existence of the 1931 version until it showed up on my radar, due to my current Year of the Hot Toddy project, since Thelma Todd has a small role in it.)

This review draws on my experience with both films. If you haven't see the 1941 version, I recommend holding off until you've seen this one. The later adaptation is the superior film, but the 1931 version has its strengths as well. It pales a little in comparison to what is an undisputed masterpiece, but it has some strengths that the other film couldn't possess.

Since both films adapt the same novels, the story lines are mostly the same, as are the characters and their relationships to each other. The films also share the similarity that the characters that come in and out of the story are more fun to try to puzzle out than the intersecting mysteries of murder and treasure hunt.

One very important difference between the films is the nature of the main character, Sam Spade. In the 1941 version, Spade is a dour, snarling man that is being worn down by the world, but in the this one, Spade smiles his way through even the most deadly of encounters, having fun laughing at danger while chasing after everyone with a nice pair of breasts. Where the later picture is film-noirish in its tone, the 1931 version hews closer to the pulp fiction stories in the magazines of the time; they were stories about tough people doing nasty things, but jokes were being cracked and lots of fun was had along the way. The two Sam Spades are the main source of these differences.

While Ricardo Cortez is the undisputed star of the film, I think Bebe Daniels (who by the time this film was made had already spent nearly two decades in front of film cameras, enjoying a career that survived not only the transition from child to adult star but also the technological leap from silent to sound films) deserved the top billing she has in this picture. She's a far more effective "mystery woman" than Mary Astor, in no small part due to the fact that there's no dancing around the fact that she uses sex and her good looks as lethal weapons. After having watched Daniels in a number of silent movies she made as a teenager--where she played everything from a loyal girlfriend, to a con-artist, to a girl coyly as much on the make as the film's male lead--it was interesting to see her play a character who is apparently rotten through and through. On many levels, the more overt approach this film has to Sam Spade's womanizing and the sexuality of the film's femme fatale makes the characters more interesting and a little deeper.

For example, the affair that Spade is having with Ida Archer, the wife of his murdered partner, is not just hinted at here; it's out in the open, and it's used more effectively as a plot point and as a looking into the nature of the characters than in the 1941 version. At one point, Spade treats Ida Archer extremely coldly, given the affair, and depending on how you choose to interpret that in the context of when he's doing it, it shows that there's a truly vile human being hiding behind that broad smile, or Spade is just as devious  and calculating as the crooks he is trying to deal with throughout the picture. (Personally, I like to think it's the latter, a notion I'll come back to below.)

I found this to be a very entertaining little movie when taken on its own terms. When compared to the 1941 version, the supporting cast can't hold a candle to their counterparts, with the exception of Effie the Secretary; I really enjoyed Uma Merkel. Thelma Todd is more memorable than the Ida Archer in the 1941 version, but that's more because her relationship to Spade is more blatant than anything she does as actress here. Nonetheless, knowing that Todd was under contract to Hal Roach when this film was made, and busy appearing in short films opposite Charley Chase as well as gearing up to headline her series of comedies, I can't help but imagine that she was "lent to Warner Bros. for an afternoon of shooting, with the intent of boosting her resume and lifting her profile. In the end, Todd did her usual excellent job, but it really isn't much of a part.

One part of the film that I initially didn't like, but which grew on me as I thought about it, was the final scenes between Spade and the "dangerous female", Wonderly. My initial reaction to the film's wrap-up was that it was another one of those Hollywood insta-romances that have spoiled so many otherwise good movies for me... but then it dawned on me that there was more to the scenes than that. It struck me that those closing interactions between the two characters were a redemption of sorts--their sexual fling had reawakened some of the humanity that they had buried deep within themselves, and despite their natures, they had actually connected on a real and emotional level. Ultimately, it was too late for either character to derive any happiness from this realization, as the many lies and deceptions they engaged obscured their emotions even from themselves. (Cortez's expression when the truth about where he and Wonderly truly stand with one another is probably the best bit of acting he does in the entire film.)

You can get 1931 version "The Maltese Falcon" along with the 1934 spoof, "Satan Met a Lady", the 1941 version, and some great bonus features in the two-disc set The Matese Falcon: Special Edition. It's a great value, and I think it's a set any lover of classic mystery movies will enjoy.

Princesses of Mars, Part 30

It's National Pet Month, and here are some portraits of Martian Princesses with their favorite pets.

By Mike Hoffman

By William Stout

By Thomas Yates

By Frank Frazetta

Musical Monday with the Pet Shop Boys

It's a great video for one of the best songs from the Pet Shop Boys! Here's hoping you have a great Monday!

'Hey There' is non-stop fun with great performances by all lead actors

Hey There (1918)
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Bebe Daniels, William Blaisdell, and Harry Pollard
Director: Alfred J. Goulding
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

A man (Lloyd) goes to great lengths to return a letter dropped by a beautiful actress (Daniels). His attempt at gallantry throws an entire movie studio into chaos.

There are few films where "action-packed" is a more apt discriptor than it is for "Hey There". From the first fade-in to the final image of Harold Lloyd's character in the street, there is not a second wasted. Even better, as tightly packed as the script is with non-stop gags, its so well crafted that it provides some very nice character-defining moments that greatly enhance the film and give Bebe Daniels, William Blaisdell, and Lloyd to engage in acting that goes beyond merely clowning around. The writer of the film is unknown, or I'd be praising him by name.

This is another one of those films where Lloyd plays a guy on the make, but he comes off as more likable than in some of the others, partly because he's trying to do a nice thing (even if his motivations aren't entirely pure), and he's not intentionally trying to be an ass.

While the storytelling and performances by the actors are excellent, the film is made even more worthwhile by the way it takes a couple of silent movie tropes and demolishes them. One of my favorite bits in the film revolves around the nearly obligatory scene where a character in a rediculously bad disgusie tries to bluff one of the other characters.

I think even if you don't usually like silent movies, you might enjoy this one, due to the non-stop comedy and solid acting by the performers. That is doubly-true if you enjoy "behind the scenes"-type fictionalizations of the movie business and the personalities who work in it. (If you're a lover of hashtag activism, the film might also hold appeal, because it shows that directors have been sexually harassing actresses since the dawn of filmmaking.

I've made it easy for you to watch "Hey There" by embedding it below, via YouTube. The last bit of the movie is in bad shape, and I think a small or two piece may be missing toward the end as well, but it won't detract much from your enjoyment..