No. Trogs. Ever!

It has recently come to my attention that a lot of my reviews open with same basic pattern: As a lifelong fan of ______ it’s truly shameful that I’ve never seen ________

At the risk of repeating myself, how can I possibly begin a post about today’s feature without the following:

As a lifetime fan of Joan Crawford, it’s a criminal shame that I’ve never seen a movie where she teaches prehistoric cave creatures how to roll a ball. And then has to shoot him with a stun gun.

Quick Plot: A trio of spelunkers (one ironically named Cliff) explore an underground cave in a sleepy riff-raff-free British town where they discover the soon-to-be named Trog. Trog, you see, is named for his trogladite identity which means he’s an upright ape-like creature that speaks in grunts and struggles mightily to move in such a way that his mask doesn’t fall off.

Also, he has Joan Crawford eyebrows.

Enter Dr. Brockton to save the day. Played by a blond Crawford with a stylish assortment of pre-Dress Barn suit sets, she and her daughter work to educate and, let’s face it, domesticate Trog, primarily by teaching him how to play with whatever might be hanging out in your 1970s toychest. Her rival scientist is stuffy, male, and British and therefore, hellbent on proving the gentle creature a menace to modern society. A showdown is imminent.

Yawn. Despite the presence of one of cinema’s most powerful leading ladies, Trog is overwhelmingly dull. You’d think that anything combining Mommie Dearest with an ape man would at least offer camp value, but aside from a random cropping ripe for youtube. Trog just ain’t that interesting. The shame is ours.

High Points

A scene involving stop motion animated dinosaurs is all sorts of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse fun

Low Points

You know. Most of the rest of the movie

Lessons Learned

All scientists are a little deranged

Too much riff-raff will give a town a bad name

Just because your profession is something as mild as cameraman or butcher is no excuse to not try to battle a giant and violent ape man with your own little homo sapien hands

Even a stalagmite made of felt, velcro and glitter is still pointy enough to puncture the flesh

Rent/Bury/Buy

Eh. Trog should be reserved for Crawford completists and, well, no one else. Maybe the ghost of Bette Davis, who I’m sure got a pretty good kick out of watching her frenemy smile pleasantly as an ape man companion sings along with an LP record. That’s something. Kind of.

SupercalifragilisticexpialiDavis

Bette Davis has an open invitation here at the Doll’s House, so it should surprise no one that her 1965 maybe-killer-kid outing, The Nanny, would take its place during the Month of the Vertically Challenged Villains. Without further adieu, I give you the grand dame of cinema (who isn’t Joan Crawford).

Quick Plot: A wealthy British family has been torn apart by the accidental (or cue dramatic sound cue, WAS IT?) bathtub drowning of its youngest member. Ten-year-old big brother Joey was sent to an institution of sorts for two years after he went on a hunger strike/massive jerk attack on his nanny following the tragedy. He returns home with the same bratty attitude while sickly mom sighs and stuffy dad leaves town for a business trip.

You know what that means. It’s up to supernanny Bette Davis to bring a spoonful of sugar into the house, but that’s quite a challenge when the spoiled juvenile delinquent wants nothing more than to make her life hell.

The Nanny is a Hammer production, but you won’t find any naked vampiric breasts or crimson blood in its black and white frames. The story unwinds slowly, inviting its audience into this unhappy WASP family and giving us plenty of time to wonder where the truth lies. Joey is a horrid little boy, but we also know enough about Bette Davis to expect a director to milk her craziness and give us the goods. But Nanny is soooo calming and surely can’t be evil. Or maybe--

I won’t spoil The Nanny, an underseen but strong little thriller that keeps you guessing and cursing at children for most of its 90 minute running time. The film doesn't break any molds, but it's a high quality hidden gem that if nothing else, lets you wonder how much better the world could have been had Bette Davis been cast as Mary Poppins.

High Points

Bette Davis is, as expected, quite magnificent, but much also must be said for child actor William Dix who toes a fine line between sadistic brattiness and sympathetic misunderstood little boy

I always appreciate smart casting and Jill Bennett and Wendy Craig are absolutely believable as flaky rich sisters, both in visual likeness and performance

Low Points

Yes it’s only 90 minutes, but there does come a point when The Nanny starts to drag, something perhaps inevitable (for me) when it comes to the mystery genre

Lessons Learned

Most grownups are balmy

Expensive juvenile facilities might put on a good show, but that doesn’t mean they’ll cure your son of silly hijinks like staging a fake suicide for laughs

Small children shouldn’t have pillows

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Nanny isn’t the most exciting film I’ve watched this month (c’mon: we kicked it off with Bloody Birthday!) but it’s a classy piece of genre fare that should keep Davis fans satisfied. I only learned of its existence from Fangoria’s recent 300th anniversary issue a superb piece with hundreds--literally, three of them--of movie recommendations. The Nanny is slow and not as macabre or campy as some of its era’s colleagues, but pop it on the queue for one of those slower, wine-infused days where the classy can meet the horror.

Summer Rental

A 1970s haunted house thriller sounds rather familiar and unappealing, but Dan Curtis's Burnt Offerings is a surprisingly well-aged, star-studded creeper that skillfully unites gothic horror with suburban despair.


Quick Plot: The happy enough Rolf family composed of B-movie queen Karen Black, Tommy’s singing stepfather Oliver Reed, and a not terrible child actor rent a secluded country home for the summer from the incredibly so-kind-they-must-be-evil brother sister superteam of Burgess Meredith (Twilight Zone’s most tortured bookworm) and the unsettling Eileen Heckert as the Allarydices. The only catch? Mrs. Rolf must prepare three square meals for the hermit-like Mrs. Allardyce, an unseen elderly matriarch who presumably wiles her day away polishing photographs and enjoying the pool view.

Oh yeah. And tagging along for the Rolf’s dream summer is none other than Baby Jane herself, Bette Davis, playing Reed’s peppy Aunt Elizabeth.

As you may imagine, something ain’t right inside the antique home. Flowers die and parents start to lose some gentility, beginning with a truly terrifying pool sequence of horseplay gone wrong and a few snippy scoldings from a growingly materialistic mom. Much like the soon-to-be-written The Shining, Burnt Offerings is as much about a family’s fragility as it is about haunted houses and creepy imagery. Reed and Black do an excellent job of creating 13 year old marriage with a few frays around the edge, and their growing alienation is far more disturbing than the overdramatic shots of the world's most macabrely cheerful funeral chauffeur.

High Points
The aforementioned pool scene--the first genuine sign that the house is digging into the family--creates such a horrific mood by beginning as a normal, sunny summer moment that quickly degrades into a nightmare

A haunting music box theme is used well throughout the film


I didn't notice this until Karen Black pointed it out on the commentary, but for a product of 1976, Burnt Offerings is very carefully not dated; From Black's velvety bathrobe to the house's collection of dusty antiques, this film has a gently gothic atmosphere with undated modernism mixed in by the standard family characters


SPOILER SHIELD ENABLED

The fact that it’s the near death of her child rather than the fatal diagnosis of her husband’s condition that finally snaps Mrs. Rolf out of her possession is powerful in showing where a parent’s deepest love truly lies


Once the finale gets going, it crescendos and leaves a very wrong feeling behind in the viewer


Low Points
Her mere presence is powerful and intriguing, but I feel like if you’re going to use Lady Bette Davis, she just deserves more meat in her role


The two hour running time takes a tad too long to kick into gear


Lessons Learned
When a tower of bricks begins to tumble, it’s best to run away rather than watch directly underneath


Evil old women with possessing powers may bear a striking physical resemblance to David Cronenberg

Wave pools are all good fun until someone gets hurt


Fun Fact
If IMDB is to be believed, the villainous house later came out of retirement to play the funeral home in Phantasm


Rent/Bury/Buy
A film like Burnt Offerings could have easily become a relic of mid 70s horror, but this one really is worth your attention for at least a viewing. The DVD includes a jovial and informative commentary with director Dan Curtis and the chatty Karen Black, who sheds some thespianly insight on how she approached her character being seduced by the pretty things inside the home. If you enjoy slower paced horror films that creep with care, then Burnt Offerings is probably worthy of a well-priced purchase. It gets richer with multiple viewings because once you stop waiting for something ghostly to happen, it's easier to pay more attention to the subtle changes slowly reshaping Mr. and Mrs. Rolf. This isn't a film for everyone, but you--like me--may find yourself pleasantly (by which I mean uncomfortably and a little frightened) surprised.

Vertically Challenged, Morally Bereft

1982’s big budget adaptation of Annie is a fairly disturbing kid film. Daddy Warbucks jokes aside (“I never thought I’d get used to a girl!”) it could have been a brilliant Lynchian surrealist fantasty had the marvelous Carol Burnett been replaced with the maniacal Clara Keller of 1973’s The Sinful Dwarf. Singing out of tune and dancing half clothed, Kelly’s Lila Lash may very well have been the chief inspiration for the eccentric, back alley orphanage mama Miss Hannigan...

except without the nudity, brothel, and son that happens to be a mischieveous little person who enjoys sodomy and the piano.


So that was kind of my way of not starting my review of The Sinful Dwarf by addressing the fact that it’s about a sinful dwarf. And a lot of sex, nearly all of it forced onto drugged up naked women. But hey, at least there’s two gleefully tone deaf musical numbers! (This is turning out to be much more like Annie the more I think about it.)


Quick Plot: While playing hopscotch like any twentysomething dressed like a little girl, a young woman meets the lecherously limping Orlaf (child actor-turned-porn star Torbin Billie). With promises of a toy collection and a Jack Nicholson smile, the hobbling dwarf lures her into heroin-addled white slavery run out of a the shabby hotel he runs with Lila Lash, his boozy floozy of a mother. Meanwhile, a comely young couple arrives to rent a room. While Peter, the husband, spends his day trying to peddle a few manuscripts, his daft wife (Anne Sparrow) lounges around and complains about everything. Occasionally, they have sex and we (and Orlaf) get to watch.

The bra & brainless Sparrow is clearly a temptation for Orlaf and of use to Lila, who’s in need of a pretty blond to replace a fair-haired prostitute that’s become a tad too reliant on the heroin Orlaf administers to dull the pain of, you know, being held captive by a flannel-wearing dwarf and forced to have rough sex with S&M enthusiastic johns. Needless to say, Orlaf gets his alone time with his houseguest. The results are just wrong.

High Points
A strong credit sequence features an array of strange little toys, setting an eerie and surreal mood early on

If an Oscar was ever given for Best Performance By a Mechanical Poodle, the final shot should have clinched it


There is a cheerfully macabre Bette Davis feel to Clara Keller’s weird and wonderful (and yet not very good) performance. Some may find it grating and tacky; as a person whose favorite Halloween of all time was spent dressed as Faye Dunaway’s Joan Crawford, it made me smile

Low Points
You know how, if you’re in a particularly sour, cynical, and airhead-hating mood, Mia Farrow’s Rosemary is kind of a drag? Sparrow’s Mary makes Mrs. Woodhouse look like Sarah Connnor


A heroin dealer named Santa Claus smuggles drugs with the help of a dwarf and homemade teddy bears. Which is awesome. You know what’s not? He’s not an interesting character


Lessons Learned
Toy police cars are great reminders about who to go to when you fear for your wife’s life


When you’re fairly poor and have nothing to do all day but investigate strange noises in a creepy hotel that makes you uncomfortable, it’s probably time to just get a fucking job

Danish police officers trust the general public to do the dirty work for them


If you feel like you’re being watched, perhaps you should wear a bra under a tight white sweater


Rent/Bury/Buy
The Sinful Dwarf is exploitation at its wackiest, rich in gratuitous nudity, graphic rapes, and scored to a porn-rock soundtrack. Whether that’s a good thing depends on your filmgoing tastes. Let’s face it: you know, based on the title, if you want to watch this film. As far as ownership goes, the newly released DVD is fairly scant on extras, but does include a very entertaining short about two video nerds being mentally abused by Orlaf’s adventures. If you’ve ever wanted to watch a bizarre little pervert sodomize a Tori Spelling lookalike, then this is, in all probability, the only movie for you.


For now.