KRULL (1983)

From this desk, the two best reasons to become an actor are Shakespeare and fantasy cinema. These worlds often intersected in the late 70s through the 80s, with many an outlandish fantasy given dramatic heft (and perhaps a dose of grounding realism) by expert, classically trained thespians. Star Wars balanced the work of its talented newcomers with performances by British veterans Alec Guiness & Peter Cushing. Brian Blessed makes the strongest impression in the 1980 Flash Gordon as the bombastic King Vultan, but he's not the only classically-trained actor giving his all to that berserk, colorful fantasy. Even the makers of the gaudy and delirious StarCrash were canny enough to bring in Christopher Plummer for a crucial role. (Props to Max von Sydow, who seems to have accepted every sci-fi role offered him.) And had Jodorowsky's Dune been distributed by someone rich and insane, it too would have married the work of some of its era's finest fantasy artists with a stellar cast able to truly run riot within the world imagined by those artists.

1983's Krull is well-remembered (both fondly and disparagingly) by those who came of age around that year. There was some critical resistance to Krull, which cited both the movie's bloated budget and its busy script as drawbacks. But at least on the two-pronged front being considered here, Krull delivers.

There's something lovely and otherworldly happening in every scene in Krull. The movie reportedly had 23 different sets built in England to create Krull's fanciful, Dark-Ages-yet-sorta-high-tech world, from the richly realized palaces inhabited by its characters to the teleporting fortress housing the Beast, Krull's glistening, evil antagonist. Even the designers of the weaponry went above and beyond, manifesting equally in the the single-shot laser spears wielded by the Beast's army of Slayers to the frankly awesome 5-pronged Glaive tossed about by the heroic Prince Colwyn. Look at this damn thing:

No one actually saw Krull in 1983, but everyone who did wanted a Glaive.

The story is packed, the world is vividly realized, and everyone in the cast just runs with it. Ken Marshall is fleet-footed but earnest as Colwyn, and everyone in the band of adventurers that gels around him during his quest gets at least a moment to shine. Freddie Jones holds the Ben Kenobi role with ease, guiding Colwyn with generous elder wisdom (and holding his own in the movie's most spellbinding sequence, a reunion with a former love presided over by a giant crystal spider). A band of thieves that falls in with Colwyn is led by Alun Armstrong, moonlighting from acting duties at the Royal Shakespeare Company and fully inhabiting the arc of a potentially tertiary character. (You'll recognize youthful Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane among his fellow thieves, and see strong hints of the leading men they'd become.) Beloved stage actor (and Carry On mainstay) Bernard Bresslaw is, naturally, covered in effects makeup as a cyclops, but endows the character with indelible pathos. Even Ergo the Magnificent, a third-rate wizard serving as comic relief, is given a rich character arc, beautifully realized by comic veteran David Battley; we see him level up from inflated egomaniac to a team player, able to sprout teeth when the chips are down. And Lysette Anthony makes the most of what could have been a rote damsel-in-distress, finding real strength within her innocence to survive as captive of the Beast.

Against this blockbuster era in which beloved books are stretched into multi-movie events, a movie like Krull that packs so much detail into a scant two hours seems, unfairly, quaint. The thing's been part of my life for so long that I can hardly be objective about it. And yet I like to think that its charms wouldn't be lost on a generation weaned on digital effects. That we haven't been so blinded by CGI that we can't recognize the abundant imagination of an older movie like Krull, its world beautifully conceived and built by hand, and inhabited by a cast that makes even the smallest roles seem larger than life.

(Ported over from a now-defunct work blog. There will be more.)

THE LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES

Sometimes you need to clear the cobwebs and just talk about a movie you enjoy. And some movies just roll over your critical faculties until all you can do is enumerate the ways in which the movie is awesome. THE LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES is such a movie. And it is awesome for so, so many reasons.



A co-production of Hammer Films and the Shaw Brothers, LEGEND is every bit as delightful as you'd hope from that promising combo. Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing), on a lecture tour of China, finds his words and warnings falling on deaf ears. But the student Hsi Ching (David Chiang) is all ears, and enlists the good doctor on a mission to liberate his village from the death grip of a cult of insidious vampires. And we just kick back and watch the two halves on this co-production find some awesome common ground, as Hammer atmospherics and earthiness serve as a springboard for honorable kung fu warriors taking on a slew of HK-style hopping vampires and the hideously-made-up vampire disciples that control them.

The American edit, THE SEVEN BROTHERS MEET DRACULA, feels more like the desperate cash-in on the kung fu craze that the movie fundamentally was (and I suspect it was cut to fit on the bottoms of double bills). What's charming about LEGEND is that it feels less like a cash-in and more like a conversation, with two directors well versed in their respective traditions (Roy Ward Baker and a shamefully uncredited Chang Cheh) giving and taking, with a script that puts these traditions on equal, mutually respectful footing.

And holy crap, look at Cushing.



Cushing must have been about 60 when the cameras started rolling on this, and one can only speculate on what he thought of the insane movie he'd been drop-kicked into. But damned if he doesn't give it his all. You get your usual authoritarian and involving delivery of vampire history, and his dialogue with Chiang is absolutely winning, elevating the thing into a charming, East/West buddy movie. And though Cushing doesn't fly on any wires or execute any flying kicks, he's not too old to get his hands a little dirty in the fight sequences (see above). A look into the archives (including Cushing's costume sketches for the film) suggests that he was no less engaged in working on this film than any of his others. And it's easy to imagine him looking around the set, watching these fighters executing their choreography, shrugging and saying "I'll do what I can." And then going to work.



And that's as fine an image to hold of the man on this, the week of his centenary. Wishing the late Peter Cushing a very happy 100th birthday, and submitting this piece in honor of the Peter Cushing Centennial Blogathon happening all week.