The Viking Queen

Ah, yes, let us now all take a moment and consider our debt to the fine British gentlemen of Hammer Films, who helped keep the 60s and 70s full of luridly colored historo-overkill epics after Cecil B. DeMille lost his mojo. Arguably, the essence of the Hammer style is 1,001 ways to nearly and/or accidentally show naked breasts, and The Viking Queen is a high example of such.

The queen of the title seems to be based on Boudica , ancient queen of the Britons who almost drove the Romans off the Isles, but for some poor battle strategy. (Boudica, or Boudicca or Bodicea,  has been one of my heroes since childhood and deserves to have a decent damned movie made about her someday -- it's a tale of honor and treachery, cultural conflict and the changing role of women, how quickly we can be taken in by hubris and how revenge can spin out of control.)

But the historical foundations of The Viking Queen are unsteady and the story built upon them is flimsy indeed. To start, they call her the Viking Queen, even though she is queen of the Britons. I can only imagine this is some kind of excuse for the leading lady's accent (although that's the least of her thespianic issues). She is also the leader of the Druids, even though they all worship Zeus. Zeus was actually a Greek god, so this is kind of taking historical inaccuracy to a new level of "whatever."

Said queen is played by "International Beauty" Carita in a style so rigid that "wooden" doesn't cover it, although she is slightly more expressive than a rock. She was a model who had bits in two other films, but this was her only leading role. However, she is not the Carita who did some of the best hair of the 60s, including Jane Fonda's astonishing do's in the Euro-Poe flick Spirits of the Dead. Starring opposite her as her eyeliner-ed Roman love interest is Don Murray, a long way from Marilyn Monroe and the Bus Stop. But, well, he wasn't much of an actor even then, so The Viking Queen is pretty understaffed. The guy playing the head Druid priest tries to make up for it by chewing scenery like a pothead eats animal-style double-doubles. Along with people who can't act acting, there's also people who can't swordfight swordfighting, people who can't ride riding and battle scenes that seem to simply consist of people in bathmats milling about and waving their arms.

So, it's during the time of the Roman conquest of Britain. The Viking Queen's husband dies, leaving half the kingdom to her and half to Rome. At first, she bonds with her Roman co-leader, Don Murray -- not even Bette Davis or Meryl Streep could make "I look at this middle-aged man with a perm, hot pants and gold chains and immediately fall in love and want to chariot-race him into a bucolic pasture for a mercifully brief love scene" believable, so i guess we should go easy on Carita for this one.

Perm n' Hot Pants of the Imperial Legion XXIV gets called away to another part of the map to put down some kind of tribal uprising. During this time, his asshole Roman boss decides to welch on the deal and take all of the Viking Queen's kingdom. They seal the deal by publicly whipping the Viking Queen (this scene has a cult following of its own) and allusively raping her daughters (who seem to be the same age as her, because Hammer has no use for women under 18 or over 30). This pisses her off and she goes on a rampage of bloodshed and human sacrifice.

My favorite scene is where the British-Viking-Greek-Druids are sacrificing Romans to the fiery pit and there's this great awkward moment where they've pitched in the first few and hooted for their vengeful god and victims have screamed as they died in agony. But then the fire burns down and some kind of assistant priest has to climb down from the big rock and stoke the fire for the next human sacrifice while all the other British-Viking-Greek-Druids stand waiting impatiently and talking amongst themselves, totally ruining that ritual sacrifice momentum. I hate it when that happens.

The Viking Queen is a reasonably enjoyable piece of sword & sandal schlock. However, i wouldn't try to pass a history quiz based on its information. If you want pop culture you can use for high school study, i suggest you stick with Isabelle Adjani films or Iron Maiden songs. Seriously: I know people who passed their AP English test on Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by listening to the Iron Maiden song of the same name.

The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires

As i have pointed out, most movie ideas are bad. You have no idea how they go from pitch to post-production. But The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires was genius the moment it was conceived: Cross a British Hammer vampire film with a Shaw Brothers kung fu action flick. Who, sitting in the back row of a theater balcony on the Deuce, eating oleo popcorn and Milk Duds, forty of Old E in a paper bag and joints a'rollin, could ask for anything more?

However, awesome + awesome does not always = ultramegaawesome. Sometimes it just = pretty damn awesome. The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires has its flaws, but it also has it moments and is, overall, an enjoyable flick. We open where any good vampire movie should open: "Transylvania 1804." A Chinese guy in dragon robe & walrus mustache drag  is climbing up a hill as a shocked Eastern European peasant looks on. After flinching before a random roadside cross, he finds Dracula's tomb, does some chanting and calls Drac out of his coffin.

"Who dares to disturb the sancity of Dracula?" Wha? Sanctity? Sanctity as in "the state or quality of being holy, sacred, or saintly." I thought that was the last thing Dracula would want to relax in the middle of.

... and -- wait! That's not Christopher Lee! Nope, Christopher Lee could not be bothered with this gig. Which is weird: I didn't know there was a movie Christopher Lee wouldn't do.

So, anyway, Droopy Mustache explains to "Dracula" that he's come all this way because there used to be seven vampires in his province and now there's only six and only six vampires gets no respect. Help me, Godfather! "Dracula" decides China sounds like a good place to move his vampire base, so he possesses Droopy Mustache and the credits roll!

Next thing we see, it's Chung King in 1904 and Professor Van Helsing -- Peter Cushing! Like he's supposed to be! Thank god! He's lecturing a class on vampires in China. As he tells the story of vampire attacks on villages, we focus in one one student in particular and then soft-focus into a flashback. A flashback that is what all flashbacks should be: A ten-minute kung fu battle involving the undead...

Humble farmer decides to save daughter from vampire sacrifice. Farmer goes to vampire hangout, frees daughter, but the vampires go apeshit. Farmer makes it out of the building -- but wait! What's that coming out of the ground? It's a rotting human hand! Zombie! Zombies! Zombie army! Apparently, in China, the vampires can summon zombies. I guess that's why Dracula decided to move his operation here: Cheap zombie labor.

Post-flashback, most of the students walk out, but the one we focused on remains. At a cocktail party after the lecture, we meet assorted Brits and Chinese, Van Helsing's son and a rich Scandinavian widow who's traveling the world in search of adventure. Yadda yadda, student pleads with Van Helsing to accompany him to his ancestral village and help wipe out the vampires.

Art first it's no go, but after everyone is attacked in the street and the Seven Brothers show off their mad skills -- and the foxy Swedish widow agrees to foot the bills -- the groups takes off through remote countryside to distant village to defeat the Seven Golden Vampires. From here on out, it's just alternating kung fu battles and Cushing-delivered exposition with occasional pan shots of the landscape. Rather than try to enumerate every kick, punch and "Long ago...," let us just list a few of the things one picks up while watching The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires.

1. Grindhouse math: If there are seven brothers and their one sister fighting nintey-eight zombies and six vampires, how many undead does each kung fu warrior get to kill? If each one gets to kill one vampire, how many kung fu warriors will not get to kill their own vampire?
2. The widow may bring her platinum AmEx, but you will grow tired of her cowering behind you during battles. And sometimes even when there is not a battle.
3. American zombies move in a sort of smacked-out goosestep, Chinese zombies do the bunny hop.
4. Vampires apparently hire third-graders to make their masks and swords. The undead do not concern themselves with the possible dangers of exposing young children to massive amounts of metallic spray paint.
5. Peter Cushing is one of the few men who can carry off a pith helmet adorned with flowing scarf without looking like Truman Capote vacationing in Tangier.
6. Vampires get really upset if you steal their belt buckles. The belt buckle is the source of a vampire's power.
7. It's nice to see that, for once, the male romantic lead looks at the shrieking, helpless, big-breasted blonde in the corset and the butt-kicking, take-care-of-myself girl in pigtails and satin pajamas and makes the right decision.
8. No matter what kind of monster costume you're making, a gorilla suit is always a great place to start.
9. When you enter a deep, dark cave in vampire territory, and you run across bats and skeletons, please don't act surprised when they are followed by vampires.
10. True love means impaling yourself on the same sharp stick.

The Shaw Brothers had done western co-productions before, such as Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold (kung fu blaxploitation) and Virgins of the Seven Seas, a German co-production (kung fu Eurosleaze). Hammer had reportedly planned a follow-up, specifically a Bollywood/Hammer co-pro (whoa). The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires isn't the best of Hammer or the best of the Shaw Brothers, but it's still got plenty of the ingredients for a good time at the movies.

Beyond the Forest

This movie is so embarrassing that it's not available anymore. Sure, you could briefly get VHS copies, but someone overruled the DVD release. And, as for Turner Classic Movies -- well, i would not be surprised if Bette Davis' dying request -- erm, command -- for her dear friend Robert Osborne was that they never play this film. But that only meant i had to track down Beyond the Forest. It embarrasses Bette Davis. Not even Seed or Wicked Stepmother or the tell-all by her nutjob born-again-Christian daughter managed to do that!

Beyond the Forest kicks off with a very extended opening: Narrative text  ("This is the story of evil....") and voiceover. We are told about the setting of our story: "The sawmill is the pulse and heartbeat of the town of Loyalton. The people wake to the scream of its whistle, go to work by it, eat lunch by it, start home by it. And, at night, if their bedrooms face the mill, they have to sleep with the shades down to close out the hot glow of the sawdust that comes from the incinerator lighting the sky, burning its way through closed eyelids, even through sleep itself." The narrator says this in a tone that indicates this is some kind of desirable small-town trait, like clearcut forests and fires that never stop burning are as fun n' folksy a part of rural life as apple picking and horseback riding.

... and our main character: "Rosa is in the courthouse facing a coroner's inquest! A man has been killed by Rosa Moline! Now they're hoping to hear aloud what has only been whispered about before." I think we're supposed to be shocked that Bette Davis is accused of -- gasp -- murder! Shit, motherfucker, this is a Bette Davis movie. Of course she's killed someone! At least one! It's only really of particular note if the numbers are in the double digits and/or she used a woodchipper.

Rosa Moline is a "twelve o'clock girl in a nine o'clock town." Her dissatisfaction with her life passes Madame Bovary levels and heads into sociopathy and psychosis. Many thirties and forties films involved the "i'm blowing this burg" trope, where a lovely young woman leaves small town for adventure in the big city. (Possessed with Joan Crawford and Clark Gable has the best one.) Beyond the Forest is kind of about what happens when our heroine gets stuck right at the leaving part. Stuck in Loyalton, Wisconsin. Man, she hates this fucking town.
 

So, we cut to bucolic wilderness, Joseph Cotten and some old dude (his buddy Moose) fishing and a lovely gleaming river surrounded by beautiful fluffy trees. Rosa Moline sits on a log in peasant blouse and high-heeled mules, plucking her eyebrows. Talk to her about bottling country air and she'll roll her eyes at you. Talk about a good night's sleep and she'll sigh like an exasperated 14-year-old girl. "Life in Loyalton is like sitting in the funeral parlor and waiting for the funeral to begin. No, it's like lying in a coffin and waiting for them to carry you out." She does seem to have a point.

But Rosa does have a sideline. She's snared a new-money millionaire from Chicago, who has an ostentatious hunting lodge nearby -- Moose is the caretaker, apparently. How will Rosa manage a rendezvous, though? Well, a little combination of faked sprained ankle and withholding a messages about a patient needing urgent medical attention until it suited her purposes. Oh, and getting the recovering alcoholic drunk. Rosa Moline knows all about your twelve steps and she's going to piss on every one of them.

Death? Addiction? Who gives a fuck? I wanna shoot some pool and get laid!

Back in Loyalton, Rosa lounges around her small home -- The nicest in town! -- and trades harsh words with her maid. Said maid seems to be of the Reform School Girls/Juvenile Jungle school of acting but one doesn't mind, as the over-the-top bitchery flies fast and sharp around the kitchen and the sideeye is so strong it's a wonder neither of these ladies have gone blind.

And then there's her husband. Her damned, do-gooder husband, the oh-so-nice doctor who treats all his patients for free and is nice to everybody and likes living in Loyalton.

"I don't want people to like me. Nothing pleases me more than when they don't like me. It means I don't belong." Rosa Moline is punk as fuck. Rosa Moline ranks up there with Sid Vicious. Seriously, this is the kind of saying you get tattooed on your body to remind you to live your life by it. When you're seventeen.

Hubby tries to distract her, "I saved a woman's life today."
"Saved her for what?"
Why to live out her days in joyous Loyalton, where the mill fires blaze all night long! Saved her to get pregnant for the ninth time! Freakin' literally: The woman almost died delivering her eighth baby. When Rosa Moline points out that a family who can't pay the doctor to deliver the eighth baby probably can't afford to have eight children, we're supposed to think she's a heartless beast.

Rosa announces she needs money to go to Chicago to go... shopping. Hubby points out they have no money. After all, no one ever pays him. Gotta love Loyalton: One company is the sole employer for the whole town, rips out all of the natural resources, pumps the environment full of industrial waste, doesn't provide healthcare and doesn't pay enough that their workers can afford it -- or much else -- on their own. I have no idea why Rosa Moline doesn't like Loyalton: According to Romney, Trump, Ryan, Paul and their ilk, this is a paradise of prosperity and opportunity!

Actually, Rosa takes a page out of the capitalist playbook and hits up all of her husband's former patients for the money they owe. This results in everyone in the town being mean to the doctor. Now, i'm not saying that what Rosa did was cool, but neither is acting like having to pay the money you owe is some kind of horrible affront to society. I bet they don't front on the grocer. If anything, this little moment seems to demonstrate how doing folks lots of favors makes them take you for granted and get pissed when the free ride ends. Beyond the Forest is a movie that often winds up teaching a rather different lesson than the one it seems to be attempting to teach.

And so Rosa rushes off to Chicago -- Mr. Goody-Goody tells her to take the money and never come back, and Rosa figures she'll be welcomed warmly by her rich Chicago man. It doesn't work out that way. Rosa's triumphal arrival finds her as just another disposable woman in the big city. But, she keeps telling herself, "I'm Rosa Moline!" she says over and over. The only cinema character i know of who repeats their name to confirm their own existence and importance this much is "Neely O'Hara!" Well, she and Hodor.

First he avoids her -- she sits in her hotel room waiting for his call, then in his office waiting for him to come out. "He can't do this to me. I'm not just some small town girl. I'm Rosa Moline!" Then he tells her he's getting married. "I came here. Dragged myself on my hands and knees with no pride! Me! Rosa Moline!" Rejected, infuriated, she jumps out of the limo and into a nightmarish cityscape.

Defeated, she flees back home.

Somehow, when I left on this trip,
I did not think that the only thing that would wind up between my legs would be my tail.

She even despair-fucks her husband. This, of course, gets her pregnant. Rosa Moline's unhappiness at being with child is palpable. She even ponytails that ratty Carmen wig.

"I'm going to have a baby."
"Aren't you... glad?"
"I'm not glad and I'm not not glad."
"I thought a baby would make you happy."
"Would it?"
"Why should you be different from any other woman?"
"I always thought I was. But now I'm like all the rest."

She tries to be good. Half-assedly, but she tries. However, as you can imagine, the thrill of birthday cake, square dancing and small talk about putting up preserves is lost on Rosa Moline. But then who turns up at the hoedown but rich old boyfriend. Who's changed his mind and now wants to marry her. All Rosa has to do is ditch hubby and she'll finally achieve her dream of being a vulgar nouveau riche trophy wife in Chicago.

But, of course, there's one little loose end. That baby she's knocked up with. Rosa makes her plans to elope anyway, but Moose overhears her. Now we've got one little loose end and one big loose end. But ain't nothing stopping Rosa Moline from being Head Bitch In Charge on The Real Housewives of Chicago. And Mr. Chekhov would explain to you that, at some point, one of the dozens of guns seen in acts one and two will be fired...

So, now we're back at the trial scene we began with. Rosa claims it was all an accident. And gets away with it. (It is at this point i imagine some kind of Rosa Moline/Dick Cheney American hunter Thunderdome. She might be the one force malevolent enough to finally kill that old bloodsucker so he'll stay dead.) But that still leaves the baby to be gotten rid of. First, Rosa brags -- erm, confesses -- to her husband about her affair and the murder in hopes it'll get rid of him. Then Rosa makes a trip to a mysterious "lawyer's office" in another town (because they wouldn't have a "lawyer's office" in good ol' Loyalton) but Mr. Goody-Goody comes and drags her home. But she manages to trick him into stopping the car, jumps out and throws herself down the mountain.

And she wakes up the next morning, self-aborted and glowing with delight. I don't know if Bette Davis and/or director King Vidor were aware of the obvious parody of Scarlett O'Hara's morning-after Rhett scene in Gone With the Wind, but somehow i cannot imagine this did not cross one or both of their minds. Or that they possibly howled about it while drinking a cocktail in Bette's dressing room afterward.

But soon she begins to feel the effects of a fever. Bad. Looks like karma may finally catch up with Rosa Moline after all. That or she's been driven to fatal illness by the twenty-something variations on "Chicago, That Toddlin' Town" we've heard every two minutes throughout this film. 

Rosa Moline makes one last mad run for the train to Chicago, face pouring sweat, mouth smeared with lipstick. The train puffs like a German Expressionist vision of hell. Does she make it? Well, does Anna Karenina....?

I'd like to note here that the screenwriter of Beyond the Forest was Leonore Coffee, a Hollywood veteran, whose first writing credit was in 1919 and her last was in 1969, including films such as Chicago, Sudden Fear and an Oscar nomination for Four Daughters, as well as the aforementioned Possessed. Somehow i don't imagine a man beginning a woman's announcement of her pregnancy with a monologue/metaphor about  how every tree has its time to be chopped down. 

The rage and discontent of Rosa Moline seem to spring from some elemental place. The fact that Bette Davis is too old and vulgar (Hey, she said it!) for the part in a way adds to her effectiveness -- her desperation isn't just her shitty town, but the fact that you imagine she's been trying to figure out how to escape for well over a decade and still hasn't. Is she irredeemably crazy, yes, but you can hear the clock-tick of "this is my last chance," a sound even perfectly sane people know all too well...

It has often been pointed out that Bette seems to be doing a Bette Davis impersonation in Beyond the Forest. The legendary "What a dump," so eloquently quoted in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf comes from here. Ridiculous though this film is, what makes it truly interesting is the utter nihilism of the main character. Rosa Moline doesn't want a small town. She doesn't want nice neighbors. She doesn't want a nice husband. She doesn't want to make dinner. She doesn't want a little house. She doesn't want a baby. All of the things held sacred to the American ideal, all the symbols of womanhood... Rosa Moline mocks and discards. As Steve Albini once sang, "I'll piss on everything you value." (And, as i used to say in high school, "Fuck you and all you stand for.") Bette Davis may be faintly ridiculous, but you have to admire her bravery in making Rosa Moline what she is.

Fuck you, world! I'm Rosa Moline!