The Rube Goldberg Murders - Friday Video Distractions with Mike Norton

 

     Overly elaborate schemes of vengeance - and, occasionally, of instruction - have appealed to me for most of my life. Some of it's a cathartic path, I'm sure, though in many cases that's weak as the victims have been chosen on a madman's whim. Most of it is glorying in the details, the intricacies and eccentricities.
    Quick side-note: It had slipped my mind that the Rube Golberg reference might fall flat with some readers. Rube was an American author, cartoonist, engineer, inventor and sculptor, who is primarily remembered for outlandishly complicated devices. It's a default reference when mentioning any elaborately-prepared action, and so I'm using it rather broadly here.

     Whether Vincent Price was drawn to such things, or such projects were drawn to him because he  sold the roles so well, I cannot say, though I suspect it was both. Within three years in the early 1970s he starred in three films that quickly come to mind with this subject. In each case the ire of the main character is channeled through the lens of a specialized theme, and takes an elaborate form.
     The first two of these films form a series, as Price plays the same character.

     In 1971's The Abominable Dr. Phibes, we're initially introduced much as the police are, via bizarre deaths that at first aren't clearly murders. We in the audience know the first one we see is clearly intentional, though we're eventually brought up to speed on it on the same track as London police Inspector Trout, ably played by accomplished character actor Peter Jeffrey, seen in the shot below in a scene with Phibes' lead target, Dr. Vesalius, played by Joseph Cotton. Reportedly Cotton became slightly peeved during production because while he had to memorize all of his lines, it was necessary that Price not be seen speaking, because his face was supposed to be an elaborate bit of makeup, with Price reciting his lines as dubs later on.

     These are revenge killings by a husband who blames the surgical team for his wife's death. While it's not specifically stated, most indications are that celebrated organist Dr. Anton Phibes, lettered in both music and theology, was of an odd bent of mind all along. Steeped in ancient traditions and a view of the universe, and being inclined to find his own solutions, he was innately distrustful of modern medicine. Being permanently disfigured during a car wreck as he sped back upon news of his wife's critical condition didn't do anything to improve his perspective and mental state, as he oversaw his own restoration and recreation, doing what his doctors deemed to be impossible.

     It's worth noting - and is quickly obvious while watching them - that the Phibes films are black comedies, packed with absurdities, convenient actions and plot holes. An entertainment, it's done for laughs. While not credited for it, reportedly director Fuest did heavy rewrites of the original script, though I'm still uncertain to what degree he changed the overall story arc.

     In that first film, Phibes' revenge follows a modified version of the plagues visited on Egypt in Exodus. The modifications were for dramatic, visual reasons, as it was much easier to work with themes of rats and bats than it would have been flies and gnats.
     The death of Phibes' wife, Victoria, and the reported death of Phibes himself, happened four years earlier, at least providing some time for Phibes to recreate himself and make the many necessary preparations for his circa 1925 acts of vengeance.
    The killings include death by bees in a home library (boils), by bats, overnight in another doctor's bedroom, where the filmmakers made use of flying foxes, which are actually very docile, fruit-eating bats. The death by frog was accomplished by an elaborate mechanism built into a frog mask.

     Once the catch was set, it was set in motion to gradually ratchet tighter and tighter until it crushed the man's skull at a costume ball. It seems to have been chosen for him because he's a psychiatrist - a "head-shrinker", as the victim himself jokes perhaps a tad too on the nose less than a couple minutes before his horrible death. As a side detail, we're never given any reason why a psychiatrist would have been part of an emergency surgical team.
      That aside, the frog mask is one of the key bits that stuck with me when ten year-old me read bout the film the year it came out. One element that helps the scene stick with me is that the mask, the instrument of death itself, both hides the act in progress from the other guests until it's far too late, and blends into the party atmosphere. There's a thread of that that echoes for me in a circumstance from years later, something I won't go into in detail here today, where I saw someone killed at an amusement park. There was something affecting and lasting about such a tragedy occurring in those surroundings, where most of the people were and remained unaware that it happened at all. To die and have so many people so nearby not even realize it seems sad and delivers a final insult.

    The frog mask and the death by hail - via a portable device that created a withering, sustained blast of ice - were the items that were clever technological creations. Several of the other deaths in the film - boils, bats, rats, and locusts - were instead managed by concentrating and directing living creatures to do the deed. One of the other deaths accomplished by wholly impractical, elaborate, means involved a unicorn's head - cast in bronze - being catapulted across a London street to impale a victim as he left his exclusive club, at a moment when he felt particularly safe under guard by a group of police. It's an ultimately silly bit, done largely for a sight gag as they moved to unscrew him from the heavy wooden door. Back in the day it bothered me more because of the goofy improbabilty of managing even the hit itself, but I have too many real world matters to vex me to allow a bit of film silliness to get to me these days.

     Over the years, it's come to mind that we never get a sense of what Phibes had been like before the death of his wife, and his nearly simultaneous disfigurement. We see him in special areas of his elaborate home, primarily a large dance area, with a broad staircase rising to a peak where a pipe organ and bench are positioned such that the player faces away from the room, and just down from that, at the mid-point between it and the dance floor, are left and right bandstands with a mechanical band on each: Dr. Phibes Clockwork Wizards. (I chose a shot of them as the masthead piece for this week's post.)
    Back in the day it was just taken as an odd affectation for the film, but as I've gotten older I've briefly wondered whether these were all supposed to be left over from happier times, with he and his wife - and perhaps a bevy of party guests - dancing a pleasant night away, or if these were cobbled together during his convalescence, as he schemed, creating an insular, regulated world of simulated music and joy without the prying, judging eyes of humans?

     In the sequel, Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972), we find that Phibes' plans weren't anything as terminal as they appeared to be in the first film. His biblical and mystical studies had paved the way for a restoration of his wife's life, and for an eternity in some paradise for them both. In this film the deaths all target anyone who gets between him and his goal, which starts with recovering his property: An ancient map that had been stolen from his safe - his mansion above demolished while he slept as the dead these past three years, until the stars and planets began to align as they hadn't in 2000 years, triggering the machinery that restored him to life and action. The map itself is to a secret, underground river in Egypt, which will transport a traveler to an eternal afterlife.

     In this second film, Phibes is up against a canny and focused opponent, someone who is also of an unnatural background and is vying for the same prize: Immortality. This is Darius Beiderbeck (played by Robert Quarry), a man who has himself cheated death for centuries through the secret use of a special elixir -- a potion he is down to his final drops of, and apparently has no means of replacing. As with Phibes, Beiderbeck, too, is not doing this solely for himself, as he seeks access to the river of life in order to allow his wife to live alongside himself forever, too.
     This film also sees Peter Jeffrey return as Inspector Trout, along with his officious superior Superintendent Waverly, played again by John Cater.
     In the last of the three, 1973's Theater of Blood, Price plays a different, though similarly intense, character. While the revenge remains disproportionate, it seems somewhat more justified and much more poetically on-target in this one. While it retains a sense of humor - and is still listed as a horror comedy - this is a much more seriously handled, earnest arc of elaborate revenge.

     Shakespearian actor Edward Kendal Sheridan Lionheart, after being humiliated by the nine members of the Theater Critics Guild, confronts them and then commits a very public suicide, diving from a great height into the Thames. Unbeknownst to them, he survived the plummet, and was nursed back to health by a group of homeless who found him downriver. Two years later, commencing appropriately enough on March 15th (the ides of March), the critics begin to die, one by one, in versions of scenes from Shakespeare's plays, Linonheart aided both by those same homeless, and by a young assistant.

     Reportedly this was a favorite Price, and co-star Diana Rigg regarded it as her best movie. It was also during the production of this film that mutual friend Rigg introduced Price and the actress Coral Browne socially, thinking they would hit it off. Unfortunately for Price's wife at the time, Mary, they did. Browne became Price's next wife.
     While I was strongly tempted broaden the sweep of films for this theme - everything from 1949's revenge on estranged family on behalf of a loved one Kind Hearts and Coronets to at least the early entries in the Saw series here in our present century, I thought this was enough for one week.
     Seemingly complete versions of each of these three films discussed above are easily found on YouTube. Above I've only presented the trailers.
     Oh, what the Hell. If you've read through all this the least I can do is set them up for you.
    Here's The Abominable Dr. Phibes

    Here's Dr. Phibes Rises Again

    ...and here's Theater of Blood

     Oh, and as a reminder to keep an eye open for it, here's the trailer for 1949's Kind Hearts and Coronets, which should eventually reappear on TCM.

     Have a pleasant Halloween in whatever fashion you can best manage this year, and for my fellow U.S. citizens, if you haven't taken care of it through one of the early means offered, please be sure to get out and vote next Tuesday. A large and decisive win would give me the first strong reason for optimism I've had in recent memory. While it's entertaining on the screen, we need so much less real world horror in our daily lives.   - Mike