IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE (G)

I nearly forgot to write this one up! I had another post ready to go and realized I’d somehow skipped over one of the finest ‘50s saucers-from-space flicks we’ve yet seen. Yikes.

Ok, since it’s been a while and I didn’t take notes, I’ll give you the briefest review possible: It Came From Outer Space has all we love about the genre, some really good acting, hilariously fun stereotypes (why are blonds always the bad girls?!), beautiful scenery (the southwest desert), and it’s got one heck of a moral theme running through it -- one about paranoia, ignorance-generated fear, and conformity. Excellent.

This was -- allegedly -- the biggest influence on Steven Spielberg when he made Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and it was originally released in 3-D. Occasionally you'll find it playing in art houses (such as our much-missed Castro Theater in SF where it played a couple of years ago). Based on a Ray Bradbury novel, you can pick out the professor from "Gilligan’s Island" if you’re one of us older and wiser people.

You'll find more KidsFlix recommendations along these lines in our sci-fi fantasy category.

Harold Lloyd Collections (G)

I wrote a while back about one of the greatest silent comedies, Safety Last! starring Harold Lloyd, and there are a number of collections that feature his work in short form. I'm revisiting Lloyd (and should mention Chaplin and Keaton in this breath, too) to remind you that short films may be a great way to get kids raised on color screens interested in these silent, black and white classics.

We recently rented The Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection (Vol. 2) from Netflix, when my 9-year old nephew was visiting, and weren't sure it would hold his attention. Son K is accustomed by now to his parents pushing ... unusual ("to a kid," he says, in the same way he says, "No kid eats grilled peaches" -- or, insert most any non-pizza/burger food item here -- "You just think they do!") movie fare his way, but we weren't sure about his cousin.

To our delight, it worked. These things are so much fun, and so out of the ordinary for today's kids, I urge you again to consider these for family movie night. Again, try the shorts first for many of these classics; some run 20 minutes, some closer to an hour, but all may be easier for the first time out.

(See my post on Laurel and Hardy movies here.)

IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA (PG)

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This is another fine Ray Harryhausen-effects film, from 1955, and it’s been on our list for quite a while. It’s directed by Robert Gordon, and the creature-effects are pure Harryhausen, and they’re as satisfying as one would hope.

What we’ve got here is an enormous, freak octopus lurking in the depths of the Pacific, roused from its slumber by atomic testing, surfacing to terrorize submarine crews, boats and the city of San Francisco. Navy Commander Pete Matthews and his crew narrowly escape the clutches of the giant creature, and Matthews is then paired up with a couple of professor-types (one is female, and so, following in true 1950’s film fashion, a love triangle must blossom) to figure out what to do about the thing.

The opening scene is really impressive, taking place inside the sub, with the actors and star, Kenneth Tobey as the commander, giving wonderfully natural, understated performances, conveying men going about their work, suppressing panic, and trying to figure out what this thing is that they have encountered. It feels like it was shot in a true sub, not on a set, and the faint bits of upper lip perspiration and the mounting tension help the sense of claustrophobia become more tangible.

The creature is fantastic, and the scenes of tentacles reaching into the streets of San Francisco, wrapping around the Golden Gate Bridge and piers on the Embarcadero are stupidly fun. It’s cheesy enough not to really scare the small kids (um, I think), and fun enough for everyone to enjoy. Our disc, from Netflix, came with a nifty little bio piece on Harryhausen that we all enjoyed.

Oh, and It Came From Beneath The Sea is one of those period pieces that offers up plenty of opportunity to discuss SEXIST BEHAVIOR with your boys.

"K,” I said after one scene that made me scream, “Personal space, personal space!” [Commander Matthews got way too close to the lovely professor Joyce if you ask me], “K,” I said, “You try that at any job and you’ll be immediately fired, if not punched in the nose.”

“Duh,” he said.

WINCHESTER '73 (PG)

In 1876, the rare and coveted ’73 Winchester rifle was the “gun that won the west,” and when our hero Jimmy Stewart -- er, I mean Lin McAdam --wins one in a shooting contest (one of many great scenes in this classic western), you know there’s trouble ahead.

The gun is stolen, and what follows is a series of tense standoffs and misadventures between McAdam and a dirty, rotten character named Dutch Henry. Son K points out: “Like most westerns, you got your good guy, your bad guy, a tough girl,” (Shelley Winters) “... attacking Indians, some gun fights and fast horse riding.”

Yeah, that about sums it up. But it’s superbly acted, tightly directed (by Anthony Mann, who also directed El Cid, Spartacus, and The Fall of the Roman Empire, among many others), and the story goes easy on the depictions of boozing and hard livin’ women. (Winters does play a former “dance hall” girl, but there aren’t any scenes too racy or difficult to explain to the kiddies regarding her past.)

Of course, there’s some violence. People get killed, and some of the villains are oustanding examples of the dark side of humanity.

Just put on your best Jon Lovitz impression, and remind the kids, “It’s just ... acting!”

(Oh, a warning: do not read the summary on Netflix! They have a huge spoiler in their brief description of the film. Also, have fun finding a young Rock Hudson and a young Tony Curtis in the movie. One plays an Indian chief. Hilarious. )

- Scene during a night ride, Lin and his partner, High-Spade Frankie Wilson, know they’re surrounded by Indians on the war path:

Lin McAdam: Yeah, I hear 'em.
High-Spade Frankie Wilson: I told you night riding wasn't smart.
Lin McAdam: I guess you did.
High-Spade Frankie Wilson: Now we're smack in the middle of 'em.
Lin McAdam: I guess you're right again.
High-Spade Frankie Wilson: Being right ain't gonna do us any good. What do we do now?
Lin McAdam: Well, keep riding.
High-Spade Frankie Wilson: With injuns all around us?
Lin McAdam: Maybe you'd feel better if we stopped?
High-Spade Frankie Wilson: Ah... no.
Lin McAdam: Well, then maybe we better just keep riding...

MARX BROTHERS' DUCK SOUP (G)

Well, we didn't exactly have a Marx Brothers fest this weekend (as predicted earlier), but we did make a second attempt to charm son K with a Marx Brothers classic. I can't say it was a successful endeavor.

A few years ago, we tried Night at the Opera, but it was clear that K was too young to keep pace with the speedy dialogue and definitely too young to understand the humor. So, at age 12, we figured we'd try again; this is, after all, a kid who has grown up seeing black and white films of all kinds, and has a fairly mature sense of humor.

This time out, we tried Duck Soup ... but with pretty much the same results. Duck Soup is barely over an hour long, so not a huge time investment. Groucho is appointed leader of the country of Freedonia, and his brand of absurdist governing is hilarious at the same time it feels slightly dated and sexist. But his bluntly chauvinistic character is part of the charm (isn't it?) and so you don't really tsk tsk so much as you rather guiltily chuckle along to the gags. 

But of course, most of this inarguably adult humor is lost on kids.  

Unless you are dying to get a Marx Brothers fix yourself, and want to test your own kids' capacity for staccato one-liners and double entendres with phrases they may not be familiar with, I'd say these films are probably better saved for later.    

THE GENERAL (G)

Back in 1862, during the Civil War, Union Army raiders stole a locomotive named The General, running between Atlanta, GA and Chattanooga, TN, in order to disrupt service and do damage to the track, covered bridges and telegraph wires. The hijacked train was pursued not only by other locomotives, but also by handcar, and on foot. While the event did not exactly go according to plan, and several raiders were executed as spies, other raiders escaped their imprisonment and later -- back in Union territory -- received the very first Medals of Honor ever bestowed.

This exciting story has been told at least twice on film. One is in Disney’s The Great Locomotive Chase (1956), featuring Fess Parker (Daniel Boone!) as the conductor of the hijacked locomotive, determined to stop the Unionists. It gets good marks on both Netflix and IMDB, so check it out.

The Disney version is likely more a retelling of the story, where the Buster Keaton version, The General (1927), is more a feast for the eyes with fantastic stunt work and comedic genius (in silent film fashion) filling the screen.

In The General, Keaton plays a southern engineer (turned down by Confederate recruitment officers when they realize his value as a skilled engineer), aghast to learn his beloved Annabelle is on the hijacked train. He thus embarks on a chaotic adventure to recover the train and his love, and uncovers a dastardly plot against the Confederates along the way. Can he save Annabelle? Regain The General? Can he get word to the south about the impending attack?

It’s a fantastic story, and full of Keaton magic. As with Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, there are many worthy films in this artist’s cannon, but we strongly recommend this as a starting point for Keaton. Kids are thrilled with the visuals, especially if you take the time to explain they are all quite real, no computer trickery, and that Keaton actually put his life on the line for some of these shots.

Here is a great little snippet from a documentary (courtesy of YouTube) about Keaton and the making of The General. The narrator reports, during one especially harrowing scene: “The camera man had orders to keep shooting until Keaton either yelled CUT, or was killed.”

This Week's Classic Kids' Movie

In this week's classic kids' movie focus, we go with the excellent Tarzan series. These were quite often on television when I was a kid, on Saturday or Sunday mornings, but I can't remember the last time I caught one on TV. What happened to programming great old movies for kids on weekend mornings? My parents would snooze away while my sisters and I watched Tarzan, or Abbott and Costello, or Ma and Pa Kettle (ok, there's some ancient history for you).

There were six MGM Tarzan films made between 1932 and 1942, starring Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan and Maureen O'Sullivan as Jane. Having seen a handful of them over the years, I’ll stick to these, although there were more titles to follow (mostly for RKO, and without Maureen O’Sullivan). 1943’s Tarzan Triumphs was the largest grossing of the post-MGM films. No wonder, as Tarzan was fighting Nazis and of course, World War II was in full bloom ... movie fans were desperate for heroes.

What follows is a list of the MGM films, and any one of them should make fine Sunday afternoon viewing (we’re still in bitter cold winter mode here; maybe in your world being inside on Sunday is just wrong).

Remember that there is some violence in these films (a stabbing here and there in particular), menacing bad guys and man-eating crocodiles. And then there’s this trivia tidbit about Tarzan and His Mate, courtesy of Wikipedia:

The infamous scene with Jane skinny dipping (her clothes were snagged on a tree branch and pulled off, as Tarzan threw her playfully into the water) was initially cut by the Production Code Administration when the film was first released but was restored in 1986 by Turner Entertainment for its video release. Maureen O'Sullivan did not play the naked Jane in the scene. Instead she was doubled by Olympic swimmer Josephine McKim, who competed in the 1928 games with Johnny Weissmuller.

(The scene is fairly long and memorable. Also of note, in 2003, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.)

• Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)
• Tarzan and His Mate (1934)
• Tarzan Escapes (1936)
• Tarzan Finds a Son! (1939)
• Tarzan’s Secret Treasure (1941)
• Tarzan’s New York Adventure (1942)

"Yondah lies da castle of my faddah”

Sometimes silence is truly golden. Hearing a young Tony Curtis wrestling with his Bronx accent in many of his films (the above line is loosely credited to 1952's Son of Ali Baba, although the actual line differs slightly) reminds us of the magic of silent films at the beginning of all this celluloid craziness. You needed your imagination and full attention to flesh out the characters in a silent film, and you fleshed them out to suit your own vision.

Silent films are great for kids. It’s a good exercise in concentration, in honing reading skills, and in experiencing something quite different from what surrounds them all day long: noise of varying kinds, and human voices -- yours and their teacher’s and their friends' and the X-Box’s and the crossing guard’s and the television’s and the neighbor's next door. Silent films force the viewer to assign a personality, a tone, a feeling to the faces on the screen, and actually create a more involved viewing experience.

When our son, Keegan, was about five years old, we took him to a special event at the fantastic Castro Theater in SF, an all-day affair with old silent films, cartoons, magicians, jugglers and I can’t remember what else at the moment. It was his first experience with silent films, and we helped him read the short sub-titles and made sure he was engaged. He loved every minute of it. That was followed shortly by another Castro visit, this time to see Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last, which I'll write about another time.

Around this time, my husband, D, told me one night that he had been discussing film with his college students one afternoon, and casually asked how many had never seen a black and white film. This was around 2001 or 2002. An astonishing 99% raised their hands. D was floored. So was I. This was in the Bay Area, for god’s sakes, a place drowning in rep theaters and performance spaces and film festivals. What self-respecting SF college student had never set foot in the Red Vic or the Castro or the UC Theater in Berkeley, to name just a few? They’d never seen The Third Man, or Casablanca or Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf or Citizen Cane?

That means they never saw Mel Brooks’ Frankenstein, for that matter.

Things sure have changed.

I think that may have lit the fire under us to make sure our son grew up knowing more than Disney (actually, D is anti-Disney, so it was probably already ingrained in us)... and to ensure that as Keegan grew a bit older, films more sophisticated than Indiana Jones would enter his purview – well before his college years! D and I have always had a taste for the more underground-everything (movies, music, art, etc), but it's easy to get in a rut with your kids and just rent them Shrek because you don't have time to think about it.

Get comfy. Read on. (And click on July's "Welcome to KidsFlix" posting to the right if you didn't start there.)

(Possible comment topic: Do martinis go with popcorn?)