p e n g u i n d e v i l

Feeling that Hitchcock feeling, we finally got around to watching Dial M for Murder. I’m always surprised at how many Hitchcock films I have yet to see, and though I think I’d seen some of this on TV when I was young, it was a welcome experience to watch the movie. A great story of infidelity, a well set-up murder and plans gone wrong, quite wrong. Ray Milland is perfectly gentlemanly as Mr Wendice, who “enlists” the help of an old college classmate (played by Anthony Dawson of Dr. No) to murder his two-timing wife, Grace Kelly, who is both wealthy and who also had the misfortune to receive a letter from her lover. A lover who end up finding even more ways to make himself into a nuisance for Mr Wendice. When the plan goes wrong, Mr Wendice must use his wits to cover up his nefarious plot… Will he overlook anything or will his failed plot be successful beyond his wildest dreams? And what does Chief Inspector Hubbard really believe? The plot is quite clever and everyone is quite charmingly decent. The film does start off pretty slowly, but then it really picks up and becomes a great thriller with a great dramatic feeling. As the playwright, Frederick Knott, wrote the screenplay, so it still feels much like a play, with a small cast and taking place almost entirely in the two rooms of the Wendice’s apartment.

On the other hand, maybe if you see a marquee (ok, a dvd box) listing Ed Gein, Michael Berryman and Kane Hodder, you might think that for whatever its weaknesses, the viewing will be worth the hour and a half. Well, in the case of Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield, you’d be wrong. Sorely wrong. This movie is terrible! The dull and bumbling story follows some dull, bumbling young sheriff deputy as he wanders around feeling concerned about missing people, and telling his wife and girlfriend to be careful. On top of that, the movie is supposed to be in the 1950’s, but all they do to instill that feeling is to use period cars, the clothes are all wrong (the police uniforms are closer in style to CHiPS than to the Andy Griffith Show), the most unconvincing period setup… It’s bad. The acting is terrible, and the plot is filled his historical inaccuracies. But worst of all, Hodder’s portrayal of Gein seems to have no similarity (except for biographical details) with Gein. He’s a lumbering, blood spattered grump who creeps everyone out. Movies “based on” Ed Gein are a dime a dozen and of varying degrees of similarity to his story (putting Anthony Perkins into the house of the 1974 Chainsaw would probably be the most accurate version), but if you actually give the character the same name and time and place as the real guy, you kind of need to represent that person somewhat accurately, or it just looks like you don’t know what you’re doing.