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Movie Review – The Oblong Box

ANOTHER GOTHIC HORROR (FUN)

This is another English gothic horror movie from the 1960s.  I have added the word fun into the title because these movies are not particularly scary by today's standards but there is something so charming and fun about them that I cannot resist watching them over and over again.

This movie was uploaded by the Channel entitled New Castle After Dark where two guys present the movie and talk before, at an intermission, and after the movie is over.  They are just as charming as the movies.  They are movie buffs and share insider information about the movies as well as the actors who appear in their movie choices.

I love their format because it feels like you're not watching the movie alone.  They appear just long enough before, during and after to add to the watching experience -- at least for me they do.

If this movie is taken down by YouTube for any reason, here is a link to JustWatch where you can find it somewhere else.

THE MOVIE STATS:

The movie was produced and directed in 1959 by British director Gordono Hessler.  This movie stars Vincent Price and Christopher Lee.  It is the first movie that stared both actors.

The movie was loosely based on the short story written by Edgar Allan Poe entitled "The Oblong Box".  I say loosely because I don't believe voodoo is mentioned in the original Poe story.

Although Vincent Price is often accused of overacting, I think he fits perfect into the Gothic Horror Fun genre!  I don't see his acting as anything but great in these films.

Christopher Lee plays a co-star role in this film but as usual he is, deadly serious, but great too!   Below is a snapshot from the film from Wikipedia Commons.

QUICK SUMMARY OF THE MOVIE:

I don't want to spoil the story for anyone so I'll just give a very quick summary of what the movie is about.  Sir Edward was disfigured in Africa and is now hidden away in an attic room by his guilt-ridden brother Sir Julian.

Sir Edward is tired of being couped up and comes up with a plan that he forces the family lawyer into carrying out with him.  If everything went as planned, it would have given Sir Edward his freedom but of course, Julian throws a wrench into the plans and everything goes haywire.

The plot, although a bit crazy as all plots in British gothic horror from the 1960s is, is a good one.  It's plausible and easy to follow.   This is a great pick for autumn, even Halloween season.  It's a great movie for enjoyment but a good one for writers to learn from as I'll go into below.

 



oblong-box-atmosphereTHE ATMOSPHERE:  The movie is anchored in the late 1800s and brief  atmospheric scenes support his.  This is a good way for authors to learn about anchoring the story in England, in the historical time period and giving it the 'gothic vibe' which I'll be referring to throughout this review.

THE SCENERY:  The scenery was beautiful but it played a supportive role in this movie.  It was just beautiful enough to give the movie a great look and add to the beauty of the movie in general.  Any snapshot still could be a writer's exercise is describing an 1800's historical scene.

oblong-stage-craft

SETS/STAGECRAFT:  I love the sets used in this film.  I also include the lighting in this category.  Although it was a gothic movie, it takes place 'with the proper stage lighting'.  This means that you can see everything and every scene is well-lit for drama and atmosphere.  It adds to the beauty and enjoyment of the film.  Is there anything worse than a modern horror film where you're squinting to see scenes shot in the dark with only one Bic lighter?

This is a great place for writers to look and learn from the ways the background scenes and objects support the scene, transmit additional information, and just anchor the scene into the time period.

COSTUMING:  The costuming for everyone is great.  All of the actors and actresses in this time frame were beautiful, thin and they all looked amazing in their costumes.

graveyard-atmospheric

GOTHIC ELEMENTS:  It wouldn't be a British gothic movie if it didn't have the prerequisite mansion, candelabra, harlots showing their ankles, wild pub scene, cabriolet, mist in the woods, silhouetted horse chase or a sinister 1800s grave-robbing scientist!   It's all here and it's all delicious.  This one even has a grave-digging scene which I always love!

STORYLINE/PLOTLINE:  This is a great movie for beginner writers to learn from as there is a crazy horror plotline that does require the viewers to suspend their modern belief system to watch.  For beginner writers, sometimes it's hard to imagine that you can rely on people setting aside their logic and reason to watch, but they do.

This is also a great plotline to learn about 'the plot twist'.  The original plan that Sir Edward had, although it was crazy, it could have worked.  But the twist is what happens as the result of his brother Julian wanting to do the right thing.

There are also a couple of additional turns in the plotline towards the end that have a lot to teach about keeping the tension and surprises coming.  This would even be a good plotline for an author to reverse engineer to see how it all needs to be foreshadowed from the beginning.

FACIAL EXPRESSIONS AND EMOTIONS:

Any movie with Vince  Price is a good one to learn about facial expressions for an author.  He is often teased about over-acting, but I don't agree.  When you watch him from now almost 65 years later, his acting is perfect for this 1960s gothic horror.  His face is very expressive and can teach new authors a lot about the raising of eyebrows, eye movement, and more.

Author Writing Exercise Idea:  Make a gif of an actor responding to an action and then describe it.  Use a thesaurus and see how many new ways to describe the facial movement you can find.   Here is a gif from this movie as an example.  See if you can write this scene.

Death-scene-gif

And finally, this is a great script and storyline to learn about 'clipping dialogue tightly'.  This storyline is a long one, and with the twists and turns, a lot is covered in each scene.  Almost every word spoken -- with the exception of the romance scenes with the ladies -- are conveying important story information.  It can teach a lot about how to keep scene lean and move the plot along.



CROSSWORD PUZZLE:

Try your hand at a crossword based on The Oblong Box

Movie-Crossword-The-Oblong-pin

Click here to do the crossword online.

Click here to download the crossword, clues and answers.



Movie Review – The Little Foxes

Movie Review for Writers:

This movie, The Little Foxes, was in black and white, and although some black and white films are poor quality, this movie, at least on Amazon Prime had particular clarity.  The house furnishings and fashions were wonderful and Bette Davis was at her most beautiful and her best acting movie-the=little-foxes

QUICK SYNOPSIS:

Regina Hubbard Giddens, a proverbial gold digger in the early 20th century, marries and uses her husband in her various schemes of greed.

She is separated from her husband, who is ill and away somewhere getting treatment.
She is horrible to her daughter as the daughter is nothing but an anchor in her wedding-for-fortune.

Her brother Oscar did the same thing, married a woman with family money,
and treats her worse than the family dog.

Another brother is unmarried and he seems to have money of his own and they want to get in on a cotton mill deal with another outside party, but Regina wants in and promises her husband will come through with his side of the money.

The plot thickens when her husband decides not to go in on the deal, and Regina and her brothers show their true ruthless scheming selves.

The plan backfires but Regina takes it even further . . . don't want to spoil the end.

ELEMENTS OF INTEREST TO WRITERS:

  • The movie opens showing the beautiful oak trees and Spanish moss as the Regina Hubbard Gibbons is a southern Aristocrat.  They present great scenery for a writer wanting to describe the southern area of the country.
  • The house and fashions are very much southern, aristocratic, and gorgeous.  Again, there are lots of "sets" that the writer can use as a backdrop for any scene in a southern or gothic story.
  • Watching Bette David act during the scene where she refuses to help her husband when he is trying to climb the stairs is diabolical and this too could be helpful in showing how mean and cruel the human heart can be.
  • The daughter of the main character, Regina, comes of age as a subplot and the innocent dating scenes are very sweet and give insight into the difference in mores in the early 20th century.
  • There was enough life going on in this film to also give anyone doing a historical fiction novel some ideas of the dating habits, and how the aristocrats interacted with their servants/slaves in those days.


spoiler alert

Don't read any further if you don't want to spoil the ending.

This movie ends with the husband figuring out how the brothers and his wife schemed and stole his money, but as a writer, I saw a distinct possibility for a "sequel" of this story as the second story could have picked up with verbiage he put in the will stating that the money he left to his wife had to be used as only a loan to his brothers, etc.

There was enough going on with the daughter and the brother and his wife to fill at least one full sequel book.

WRITERS TOOLS OF INTEREST:

This is the second movie I saw that took place in a beautiful Victorian house setting.  When describing these houses in writing, it would be helpful to know the various names for the parts of the houses.  Here is a Victorian house I found on the internet and the various names for each part of the house.

victorian-house-diagram



Movie Review – Enchantment

Movie Review for Writers:

Enchantment_FilmPoster
I'm beginning to watch movies from the perspective of learning more about writing; specifically about how to add information into the background of scenes and also about plotting.

I watched Enchantment, starring David Niven and Teresa Wright and a few others looked familiar.

QUICK SYNOPSIS:  The story opens focusing on an estate house that seems almost haunted, like the walls have lots of stories to tell.  The movies moves from present time, World War II London with a grand-niece Grizel Dane needs to stay with her grand-uncle, Rollo Dane, who is old, heartsick and not interested.

The story moves from modern day and goes back in time and tells the story of Nolo's family, his widowed father, his older sister Selina who was the only lady of the house, and a ward who the father brings home to live with them.  The ward's name is Lark and the story goes back and forth touching on childhood scenes, back into present time, back into when Rollo was just enlisted in the service, and you see he falls in love with Lark.  So does the other brother, Pelham, and another Italian guy from the neighborhood.

What is interesting is to watch how the house itself becomes the vehicle that is used to go from one time frame into another.  The script takes you into every scene so you can tell which time frame you are in and what is going on in the scene, so there is never any confusion.  I got a lot out of watching this, the blending in and out of the scenes.

The modern day story is about this grand niece, who has a simiar story where she falls in love but wants to be practical about things and thinks she shouldn't marry.  Uncle Rollo gets his strength back to warn her not to let love get away like he did.

ELEMENTS OF INTEREST TO WRITERS:

  • The movie moved from time frames (Pre WWII and into WWII) seamlessly by using the house and each of the rooms as the backdrops.
  • The actors grew up by using events of their lives to indicate childhood, friendship, the courting years, and falling in love
  • The movie was very good is showing various scenes of "meanness" in developing the wicked step-sister who winds up ruining everyone's lives.
  • The set is a beautiful Victorian home (at least I think it's Victorian) and if you wanted to describe a room from that era, this movie would give you some really great ideas for describing rooms and backdrops.


spoiler alert

Don't read any further if you don't want to spoil the ending.

The audience finds out that Rollo never married Lark, even though he loved her dearly, he was never able to love again, and his career that he chose did not comfort him or make up for this lost love.

The young niece decides to chase after her Italian soldier after telling him she doesn't think they should get married.

Even in the end, it films the final love scene against the bombs dropping all over London which uses scenes from World War II as the backdrop.  You can learn a lot about how they weave references to the war and being enlisted.

WRITERS TOOLS OF INTEREST:

THE ENCHANTMENT MOVIE WORD FIND:

To Print the WordFind, click here or above and download from Google Drive.