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Truly Madly Deeply is an intelligent, moving, and deeply funny story about love and death. Nina (Juliet Stevenson), a scatterbrained professional translator, has lost the love of her life, Jamie (Die Hard's Alan Rickman). As her life (and her flat) slowly falls to pieces, she's inundated by an endless stream of repair men and eligible suitors. But rather than go on with life, Nina dwells on her dead love, slumped at her piano, endlessly playing half of a Bach duet. Then, in a truly magical sequence, his cello suddenly joins her melody ... and Jamie's back from the dead.

At first it's bliss. (Think of the superficially similar blockbuster Ghost--only with real people instead of pretty faces Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze.) But Nina gradually realizes it's a thoroughly real Jamie who's back, complete with every annoying, argumentative fault she'd conveniently forgotten. (He might be dead, he explains, but he still attends political meetings.) Moreover, he has to hide whenever any of the living are around. And he's constantly ice-cold. And he invites his dead pals to her place at all hours. What's a living woman to do?

Director Anthony Minghella went on to create the melodramatic period piece The English Patient--but in this film, he shows a far more sensitive, subtle touch. The photography is brilliant, capturing the simple beauties of suburban London. And the wonderfully acted characters, quirky and all too real, will keep you laughing--and always guessing what will happen next.--Grant Balfour ... Read more

Reviews (65)

Truly Madly Deeply unforgettable!
Truly Madly Deeply is an amazing film, it's moving, it's humorous and it's romantic. It has everything you want in a film. Being an absolute Alan Rickman fan, I couldn't resist buying Truly Madly Deeply and I must say it's an instant classic.
Nina, a thirty something translator, fantastically played by Juliet Stevenson, loses the love of her life, Jamie, who was a cellist.
As her life and her flat falls apart, it seems she's on the edge of an emotional breakdown but while she plays a half-finished Bach duet on the piano, she turns around and Jamie's there, playing the cello.
It's bliss at first but then he starts rearranging the furniture, inviting his ghostly friends to her flat to watch old movies on video and Nina's passion turns into irritation.
The ending is so moving but I won't spoil it, I loved the acting, Juliet Stevenson and Alan Rickman are brilliant, it's a pity they aren't appreciated as well as they should be.
This movie isn't a British re-make of the US film "Ghost" but a touching story about a woman who learning to cope with grief and anger and carrying on with her life. We've all been there and it's something everyone can relate to.
If you like romantic movies without the Hollywood glamour, Truly Madly Deeply is highly recommended!

Truly Madly Deeply Love this Movie!
I saw "Truly Madly Deeply" at a small, art house cinema over a decade ago.I remember that I really loved this film and now after recently seeing it again on DVD, I am reminded why. It is a film that brings about very strong emotions of how we feel about the special people in our lives. This is the story of women name Nina who has lost her husband, Jamie.The grief that she experiences is so profound, that she just can't get over the loss.Jamie eventally starts reappearing to Nina as a ghost (along with some very funny, video loving, ghostly friends).It is through these spectral visits, that Nina learns some very important lessons about living life. This is both a very funny but emotional story. My Favorite humorous scene is when one of Jamie's ghostly buddies, berates Nina for erasing a video tape of Wody Allen's "Manhattan".Apparently all these spirits are cinema buffs! It is not to often that we get to laugh and understand a character's pain all at the same time. Juliet Stevenson is just plainly brilliant as she has us experience her character's deep love for her late husband.Alan Rickman is very funny as a ghost, who is romantic but all too real, with his complaints and fussiness (he is constantly whining about the flat).This is one of those films, that after viewing, you want to find your love one, whether they are a spouse or child or any other special person in your life and hold them, just a bit tighter.

Understated, intelligent, and thoughtful movie
The Brits really have something over the Americans when it comes to subjects like this. Compare this movie with Ghost and you'll know what I'm talking about. It's nice to see something done with intelligence for a change--especially in the "romance" genre.

It is refreshing to see actors who resemble REAL people, not some pre-fabricated, air-brushed, version of humanity that Hollywood *thinks* we want.

Alan Rickman and Juliet Stevenson are terrific as usual, as is the entire cast.

TMD made me sob in the theatre more than a decade ago. It was well worth it.

a thinking person's "ghost" or "kiss me good-bye"
long before anthony minghella made the english patient or the recent cold mountain, he blessed up with a little known but wonderful little gem called truly, madly, deeply. here you have a very touching, subtle film with romantic undertones & dialogue which ranks with some fo the best woody allen comedy/dramas we've seen such as "alice" or "hannah & her sisters". truly, madly , deply has often been referred to as the thinking person's "ghost" or "kiss me good-bye" although i'd say that's an understatement. it's hard to believe it's been over 12 years since i initially watched this & it still holds up mighty well. juliet stevenson plays a sweet, lonely widow who literally stays depressed after the loss of her husband & can't bring herself to move on with her own life or to possibly fall in love again. sensing her loneliness & sadness from the other side, her husband(played flawlessly by the ever great alan rickman) returns & even brings a few of his friends back with him. from this point on, the film takes a softer & more light-hearted view. who would've though ghosts from the other side would so darn cold though? throughout the course of the film, nina finds gentleman friend & falls in love. will she chose to live with her husband's ghost & his friends or will she choose the teacher? find out for yourself with this irresistible heartwarming, witty film today. if you are interested, then why are you still reading? go get the movie !!!

Weak Plot
What happens when the husband of a widow comes back as a ghost and starts hanging around the house? In "Truly Madly Deeply" he sneezes because he is cold, invites dead friends over to watch movies, and repeatedly tells his wife he can ask them to leave. The movie begins with promise as Juliet Stephenson gives a very gripping emotional portrayal of a widow, Nina, grieving over her lost husband Jamie played by Alan Rickman. There is momentary intrigue as we wonder whether Nina is so grief stricken her imagination has run away or whether her Jamie has really come back as a ghost. The intrigue quickly fades. This movie fails to build up a single dramatic question, and quickly fizzles into a boring string of scenes where one can expect Jamie is going to leave to let Nina live her life. When Nina meets a special-education teacher and takes a romantic interest, Jamie quietly leaves and his conflict is weakly dramatized with a sad face looking out the window as he gets a pat on the shoulder from a dead friend. ... Read more

Description

The Doctor and Leela discover a horrible truth behind the Fendahl, a legendary creature from The Doctor's childhood fairy tales. ... Read more

Reviews (11)

"How do you kill death itself?"
Could a 12 million year old human skull be the key to how humans evolved? "Image of the Fendahl" is a great horror story. The pace and execution of this story is very different from a lot of Who stories, it has the feel of an "X-Files" episode. "Image..." also contains some extreme violence(extreme for the Graham Williams eara). Max shooting Stahlman in the head is quite chilling. It's got sort of a pedestrian pace, and a little padding here and there, but never lets you down.

Thea, Thea, Thea... Poor Thea.
Of all the characters in this story, the only one I felt sympathy for was the doomed Thea Ransome (Wanda Ventham.) An intelligent woman who is used by arcane powers to serve as the host for some malignant alien being. She falls into trances, the first unseen, the second broken by her "friend" Adam Colby. When Thea collapses in front of Adam and the Doctor and is bathed in a halo with a bizarre vision of embryonic aliens, the Doctor recommends that her brain be X-rayed. While he is dismissed as crazy by Fendleman and carried off, Adam dosen't say a bloody word. HOW could he not report a spectacle so bizarre to his colleagues? Dare anyone suggest it slipped his mind? "You must think my head zips up the back," he exclaims not long after. Well Adam, if the shoe fits...

It's made abundantly clear that Thea is the focal point for the entire unfolding drama, but the other characters fail to notice that fact. It's clearly not due to ignorance, it's likely due to stupidity (or bad writing.) The Doctor bumbles about after breaking free and makes no attempt to track down Thea. Fendleman and Adam rabbit on about mutation and pentagrams - in front of our hapless heroine - and not ONCE does Adam say to Fendleman: "Y'know I saw this shimmering halo around Thea and some freaky Lovecraftian beasties crawling around her! Maybe we should stop the experiments!" Rather, he blurts out the Doctor's recommendation about X-Rays without mentioning the extraordinary reason WHY. Thea, perhaps tiring of her colleague's roundabout blather and lack of concern for her peculiar condition, ups and leaves. It never occurs to Adam to keep an eye on his tormented friend.
Searching for the Hero of the Series in an attempt to save her comely ass, she instead falls into the clutches of the villain, Maxmillian Stael. Drugged and bound, she is dragged into the basement of the manor by Max. Soon after her two doofus colleagues are bound and dragged there as well. Fendelman suddenly blurts out nonsense about him being used, Max being used and Adam being used. No mention of the ultimate sacrifice lying supine before them.
An arcane ritual is conducted which transforms Thea into what looks like a radiant Hellenic Goddess (appropriate that her name means "Goddess" in Greek!) Sadly, this devil in disguise has totally erased or submerged the hostess' personality. She starts turning the participants in the ritual into the wormlike creatures that writhed over Thea's body... the Doctor manages to save idiot Adam and destroy the Fendahl Hostess and her worm flunkies by imploding them into Lovecraftsville. The only eulogy for Thea is the look of distraught loneliness on her/the Hostess' face before she's slurped out of existence. Adam mourns her loss by "sticking on the kettle" for a bunch rustic bumpkins who were peripheral to the story (and had WAY too much screen time.) The Doctor and his sidekick Leela share some dumb bell wisecracks that would be appropriate for ANY other "Doctor Who" episode except this one.
"Image of the Fendahl," in more creative hands, would have been a cool occult episode complete with Thea as the Heroine-in-distress. (Leela's no heroine, she's a comic relief.) Sadly, the script writer ignored the strengths of the story and as a result, the episode imploded.
Before anyone drones out the catch-all excuse for a muddled teleplay, "C'mon man, it's just a shooooo-oooooooow," do me a favor: Stow it. George Lucas uses that excuse for his bad prequels, the Trek franchise uses it for everything done after "The Wrath of Khan," and it's getting old.

try two and a half?
One review here states that Tom Baker's Golden Age ran for about four years. The Golden Age as some fans call it was that produced by Philip Hinchcliffe and it started with Ark in Space, Baker's second story in a seaosn which was also cut short, (there was only Ark, the two part Sontaran Experiment and Genesis of the Daleks to get excited about before the terrible Revenge of the Cybermen and ran until the end of Baker's third season. Deadly Assassin was about mid way through his third season. While it contained classics like Genesis, Pyramids of Mars, Deadly Assassin, Robots of Death and the Talons of Weng Chiang, it also suffered from some dross. Either side of Pyramids of Mars were major dissapointments, Planet of Evil and Android Invasion. Then there was the boring Masque of Mandragora and the terrible Hand of Fear and Face of Evil.
This story comes in Baker's fourth season, when the Golden Age was over and a new producer was at the helm. It's actually more entertaining than some of those dreary Golden Age stories, it is a Hell of a lot more fun than Mandragora or the silly Brain of Morbius. The Quatermass and the Pit rip-off plot about the origins of man is well used and there are amusing characters. But while the humor is good, it seems to detract from the suspense. The whole thing has a cool, gothic look and great atmosphere and overall, I like it better than some of the Golden Age stuff, which is overrated in my view.
It's quite memorable and I enjoy rewatching it, which says something and I really like things like the old lady who says to her Grandson, while helping battle the forces of evil, "There's gonna come a day when I'll be too old for this sorta thing!"
I've been rewatching my Tom Bakers recently and while he is the most alien of Doctors and very good in the role, and most of his stories are eminently watchable, I do not feel overly attached to him. I felt that the accessibility and sympathetic nature of Doctors like Pertwee and Davison made them more involving on a human/emotional level and brought out the suspense and drama, as it seemed possible that they could lose. Tom Baker breezes through situations like he's Superman! Pertwee's first season, and the Peter Davison era are my idea of the real "Golden Ages" of Dr.Who. But Tom's still pretty cool. Come to think of it, all of Dr.Who is pretty good really. In this time of CGI animation overkill to the point of boring us all stupid, Dr.Who is enjoyably character-driven and focused on dialog and performaces. So, I'd recommend this story, just like I'd recommend most Dr.Who stories.

A story on how man might fundamentally view himself
The story starts out with the examination of a skull found in the volcanic sediment in Kenya. Thea Ransome's potassium-argon test shows the volcanic sediment to be 12 million years old, but Dr. Adam Colby cannot accept the evolutionary implication of the skull: "What I don't accept is that Eustace here got himself buried under a volcano at least eight millions years before he could have possibly existed." The two and Maximilien Stael are colleagues of Dr. Fendelman, a scientific genius who made it big in electronics and who is using a sonic time scanner on the skull. His discoveries could fundamentally affect how man views himelf.

Their experiments with the scanner plays havoc with the TARDIS, which is drawn to the grounds near Fetch Priory, where the team is based. The Doctor and Leela not only become involved with the happenings there, including a mysterious death, but with Jack Tyler and his elderly grandmother, who has precognitive powers. She and many of the villagers of Fetchborough believe in the old ways of superstition and magic. Logic has no place in her life but more human nature. "When most people believe what's said, that make it true." Jack says "Most people believed the earth was flat when it were round." She counters with, "Ah, but they behaved as if it were flat," emphasizing the word "behaved".

What Dr. Fendelman is unwittingly tampering with involves a creature from the Doctor's own mythology that began when a planet between Mars and Jupiter exploded. Unless the Doctor can stop them from messing with dangerous things, the population of Earth will go down from 4 billion people to 1 person.

There's a great deal of horror/suspense in this story, from the hiker walking in the forest at night, the eerie churning sound when the skull begins to glow, and the air of crisis described by Colby at one point. "The phone is cut off, the place is surrounded by guards, we are beset by a wandering lunatic, we have a pair of corpses on our hands, and on top of all that, the telephone seems to be very dead. We are trapped."

Tom Baker is at his usual goofiness. He asks a bunch of cows upon landing, "Which one of you has the time scanner?" Another time, they are hiding outside the Priory and espy a guard and a dog.

Leela: I shall kill him.
Doctor: No.
Leela: Why not?
Doctor: You'll upset the dog.

He also offers a jellybaby to the skull and even goes "Alas, poor skull" a la Hamlet. Here, Leela sports a lighter tan outfit that shows more cleavage and has her hair, of a more reddish tint, in a bun. "Don't worry, Doctor. I shall protect you." she says and does.

What really struck me about Wanda Ventham (Thea) was that rigid, stone-faced look of someone being possessed. It's very reminiscent of Elizabeth Sladen's reaction on feeling her soul leaving her body in the Who story Planet Of Evil. She has a stab at doing Dr. McCoy: "I'm a technician, not a human paleontologist." And this is one of Denis Lill's greatest TV moments as the misguided but persistent Fendelman, someone who is a passionate adventurer in unlocking mysteries of human evolution. Daphne Heard is quite a character as the superstitious, headstrong, but also kind Ma Tyler. The dialogue between her and her grandson show an argumentative but loving relationship.

Goofs: The Doctor mentions two victims, naming one of them, even though he hasn't been told the name. Another is a scene in Episode 2, when he is locked in a cupboard. The sonic screwdriver doesn't work, yet later, the lock outside is heard unlocking and the door swings open. Who let him out?

A mixture of science and the occult, this is the closest Dr. Who got to the horror genre.

An acquired taste??
This is a rare below-average outing from Tom Baker's "Golden Period" as the doctor, which ran from his first appearance in "Robot" to his stand-alone turn in "The Deadly Assassin"; a run which I believe covered about four seasons or so. "Image" is not actually a bad episode -- it has a creepy horror-movie atmosphere (especially at the beginning), a good sense of humor, and some strong performances by the guest actors and by Louise Jameson -- but it is hampered by plot holes, a not-too-terribly convincing monster, and a not-too-terribly credible ending. As with several of the weaker outings on this show, you get a sense watching it that it could have been a strong, solid episode if somebody had bothered writing a second (or third) draft. Plot holes are not necessarily fatal if everything else works in the story, but in this case, not everything else does.

The story has the Doctor investigating a "rift" in time which is eminating from that same rural English country mansion that seems to appear in about half the show's episodes. Turns out a team of scientists led by an obsessed millionaire genius are responsible; for reasons never adequately explained, they are scanning time following the discovery of a human skull which predates the appearance of humans on earth by about 11 1/2 million years. Of course, they are messing with something better left alone, and it turns out that the skull is actually the power source of a thought-to-be-extinct race of monsters called the Fendahl. The Fendahl are snake-like creatures who feed off death itself: the Time Lords destroyed them millions of years before because they represented a perversion of evolution. It turns out that one of the scientists is actually a member of a witch coven who believe the skull is their way to power, and between the (more or less) well-intentioned efforts of the scientists and the meddling of the witches, the Fendahl emerge from the endangered list to endanger our heroes and everybody else on the planet.

If the plot sounds a bit overdrawn, it is. The logical gaps are annoying, and the Fendahl don't work very well as villains, because in addition to looking like spray-painted foam flowers or badly rendered Chinatown dragons, there there isn't really a human villain in this episode for the Doctor to spar with, or even talk to. The female scientist turned into the Image of Fendahl doesn't have any dialogue, and spends most of the last episode striking somewhat silly poses and turning people into snakes. That skull is indeed creepy, but a glowing skull can't carry a whole episode. We are told it is indestructable ("The Fendahl is death. How do you kill death?") and then at the end, the Doc breezily tosses it into a supernova to kill it. Why not spare yourself the contradiction and toss it into a black hole instead?

Okay, that last criticism is nerdly in the extreme. A cheap shot. On the plus side, "Fendahl" does do a good job of combining horror with humor, it gives the enjoyable guest stars a lot of screen time, and is one of the episodes which plays up the combative-yet-affectionate relationship between the Doc and Leela with good effect. His largely unsuccessful attempts to civilize her are some of the finest moments in the series.

"Fendahl" has problems which are hardly unique to this episode.
It's just in this case, those problems slightly outweigh the things that work. Not an episode I would recommend except to harder-core fans, but still worthy of a place in the collection. ... Read more

Description

The Master stows away on the Tardis as the Doctor embarks for Logopolis in search of a new Chamelon circuit. ... Read more

Reviews (30)

The Best
Logopolis is my second favorite Doctor Who episode. The Doctor decides to repair the TARDIS's chameleon circuit so the TARDIS will be able to change its shape again. He goes to the planet Logopolis but on the way he is chased by the watcher, a ghost figure. The Doctor is also being chased by the Master. The Master plans to take over Logopolis but his plan backfires and he and the Doctor half to team up to save Logopolis. The Doctor and the Master return to Earth, to the Pharos Tower to save Logpolis. But to put a long story short, The Master tricks the Doctor, and the Doctor falls from the Pharos Tower and hits the ground. The Watcher appears, and Adric, Nyssa and Tegan realize that the watcher is the Doctor's fifth body. This four part episode is Tom Baker's last episode in Doctor Who. The next episode is Castrovalva with Peter Davison as the new Doctor. This is a tape worth buying if you are a big Baker fan

Entropy increases
Contrary to the last reviewer, I cannot stop watching Logopolis! I'm already on my third viewing after buying it only a week ago. Tom Baker's final story as the Doctor was a very good one to go out on - it's a dark, ominous tale with good performances all round! Anthony Ainley makes his first full-fledged appearance as the Master (if you don't count his brief debut as the character in The Keeper of Traken), and he doesn't even laugh too often as he begins to do later in the series. Janet Fielding stumbles into the TARDIS as Tegan in a way reminiscent of Ian and Barbara in An Unearthly Child, the very first Dr. Who story - although it bothers me a bit that Tegan seems to accept the TARDIS's time travel abilities virtually without question. Tom Baker shows a great range of emotion, particularly when he must tell Tegan about the fate of her Aunt Vanessa. The closing scenes are good, giving us a final curtain call for not only the Fourth Doctor but also all of the companions of his era, and many of the enemies. And the incidental music maintains the story's ominous atmosphere admirably. Not one to be missed. The moment has been prepared for.

thank god he's finally gone!
I thought Baker would NEVER leave...his era is interminable, it just goes on and on and on and on....argh!
With this story, second in the brilliant Master trilogy (the first really deacent thing in Tom Baker's era in four years!!!)
we finally get rid of him. The story is so cool and does such a good job that we actually almost feel sad for a minute there, but its a massive releif when the sod fianlly pisses off once and for all so a good era can begin and the brilliant Peter Davison takes over. No more pulling faces, forced grins, bad puns, unfunny attempts at humor "Don't wana lose my arm, rather attached to it, so handy!" (yeah, right!) just a cool hero with real emotional depth and an occasional dangerous edge (shoots door open with flintlock and says "I never miss.."). And no more shouting at Leela and K-9 to "shut up" every five minutes to remind us that he has "authority". Yup, authority! "Leela, tell your friend to shut up!" "Leela, order K-9 to tell you to shut up" "No, shut up, K-9, listen... we'll finish that game of chess now." Yeah, I'm glad to see the back of him, good bye Thomas, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out! Peter Davsion has finally arrived, long live Peter Davsion, the real King of Dr.Who!

"'Standing on their heads', is an expression!"
OK, I've watched this episode a million times and love it! However, I still have a number of unanswered questions... Did "The Watcher" arrive in a third TARDIS that materialzed around the London Policebox, and simultaneously, the Master's TARDIS, causing the gravity bubble and an almost infinite regression of time machines? Or, was "The Watcher", simply a projection of the Doctor's future self? If the latter, was indeed the case, why did he look so freaky? OK, back to the infinite regression deal... How in the world could the Doctor enter into the last TARDIS and then be on the outside of the Policebox? Now, I could see, if the TARDIS he was in, dematerialized back around the original Policebox, subsequently, allowing the him to exit the main doors back to the outside. Some have speculated, the Doctor exited through another door, but that would've only brought him out the other side of the TARDIS Adric was standing outside of. And, even if that were possible, how could Adric possibly heard everything that was going on? Then, to top it all off, Adric goes inside the last TARDIS, leading him to the outside of the Policebox, where, upon re-entering with the Doctor, the last TARDIS has dematerialized and the Doctor's is there instead!! What the heck kind of circular reasoning is that?? But, as for the stuff I can fathom... I really like this episode, because it gives a peak at other areas of the TARDIS, such as the cloister room. I did, however, think the one in the 1996 Telemovie was way more cool! Of, course, being that they weren't on BBC's shoe-string budget helped out, I'm sure. So, I hope they release this one on dvd, with updated special effects. And, by that, I don't mean the McDonald's, soft, icecream effect in "The Five Doctors". C'mon guys, get real! We're in the 21st century, here! I hope, too, the audio will be remixed into 5.1!

Singing the Language of Numbers
Most regeneration stories are specifically meant to wrap up their era. It had to be in "The Caves of Androzani", for example, that we learn why Peter Davison wears celery on the lapel of his blazer. It's why we could only learn of the Doctor's origins in "The War Games". However, for my all-time favorite "Doctor Who" story, I make the argument that "Logopolis" worked just as well as the pilot for a new series of Tom Baker adventures.

If you had to isolate one image to explain "Doctor Who"'s fall from grace in the 1980s, it's Anthony Ainley. The final actor to play the Master on the BBC also held on to the role the longest, dragging his hammy character kicking and screaming alongside four different Doctors, until he was fat and possessed by the spirit of the Cheetah People. Although this may have been a fitting end for the character, some of us preferred Roger Delgado, all dignity and cigars.

In 1981, though, Anthony Ainley was magically new. In "The Keeper of Traken", he played the Doctor's friend, good guy Tremas, whose body was stolen by the decaying Geoffrey Beevers. A rejuvenated Master sneaks away into his TARDIS, chuckling, whispering, "A new body, at last. A new body. At last". That disembodied chuckle is all that remains, fading into the electronic scream of the end credits. More, please!

Director Peter Grimwade, who showed up with a zillion directorial flourishes, wisely kept the Master off-screen for more than half of Tom Baker's swan song. Menace is restored to the character for the first time, since, oh, "The Mind of Evil", because we can't see him, just hear him off-camera, as another character dies, shrunken to a corpse. Music composer Paddy Kingsland, the best there was in 26 years, punctuates the revelation of each doll-sized body with another mini-electronic scream.

When the Master finally does appear, in Part Three, we learn he's been working to a plan even since before Part One: follow the Doctor to Earth, leave deadly calling-cards, and then stow away on board to Logopolis to steal the Monitor's secrets for himself. But it's there the Master is beaten: for Logopolis is the keystone of the Universe, holding the moment of heat death at bay through sheer force of chanted numbers. And the Master's technological interference has caused the city to crumble to dust, unleashing an entropy field that will reduce the Universe to ash within hours. It's the Doctor's utterance that the Master is "mad... utterly mad" that finally convinces us this is the most dangerous Master we've seen in years.

But Ainley's not the only revelation in this story. There's Tom Baker. Just listen to his dialogue, especially in the early TARDIS scenes alone with Adric It's so dense, and delivered so rapid-fire, so naturally. We are now a million light years away from the Tom Baker who worked with Louise Jameson and Mary Tamm, trampling all over the script, clearly bored with proceedings. This Baker loves the script, giving the dialogue all sorts of inflections, loaning the Doctor a whole new scared dimension. "Nothing like this has ever happened before." It's something to say that a man could so compellingly reinvent the character in his final hour, when he could well have gone through the motions as if this were "The Power of Kroll".

The sense of newness is also borrowed from the supporting cast. Matthew Waterhouse, surprise of surprises, is compelling; witness his constant questioning of the Doctor in Parts One and Two. He even pulls an audience, getting thoroughly confused by the script: "We're going to measure Logopolis too?. When Tegan and then Nyssa arrive in Part Two, Adric starts to exhibit the bossy I'm-in-charge nature that made him so unbearable for most of Season 19, but one senses that Baker would have kept him in line. Even working with Janet Fielding, an actress he really didn't need to know at all, Baker planted the convincing seeds of a Doctor who really wanted to time-travel with this young flight attendant. It's a shame he never worked with either of them again.

And then there's the script. Chris Bidmead, with his emphasis on hard-sounding science, helped mold the "Doctor Who" of not just the 1980s, but the '90s as well. But his script in "Logopolis" far exceeds in quality any book out of the technobabble-drenched Simon Bucher-Jones oeuvre. Not only is "Logopolis" full of phrases like "unraveling the causal nexus" and "my biomechanisms are unaffected", but it's also got poetry: "And now the world I grew up in, blotted out forever"; "We are beyond recriminations... beyond everything", and my understated favorite: "Time has changed little for either of us, Doctor. You continue to roam the Universe, while we persist in our humble existence on this planet."

Special praise must be reserved for John Fraser, who, as the Monitor, played quite possibly the smartest, least hammy character in 26 years of "Doctor Who" guest turns. He has no rants, no over-the-top bursts of comedy. He's just a smart guy who knows more about what's going on than the Doctor, and actually saves the day with his computer code: he just has the good graces to die early in Part Four. That's done so Tom Baker can save the Universe and then fall to his death. Just when we were looking forward to at least another season of this exciting new Doctor. ... Read more

Amazon.com essential video

James Stewart, at his warmest and most avuncular, plays the bandleader who rocketed to fame during the swing era. The Glenn Miller Story may be a whitewashed version of Miller's life, but it certainly is a pleasant example of the feel-good Hollywood biopic, with the usual conventions: early struggles, loyal wife (June Allyson at her chirpiest), personal sacrifice--Miller joins the Army when war breaks out, although he doesn't have to--and ultimate tragedy. All the Glenn Miller classics filling the soundtrack make the film pretty easy to take, too: "Moonlight Serenade," "A String of Pearls," "Chattanooga Choo-Choo." Miller plays the great "In the Mood" with his military band during a World War II air-raid warning. Pure corn, but it works. Director Anthony Mann, better known for his superb series of hard-bitten fifties westerns with Stewart, keeps the story moving gently and gracefully. A hot jazz interlude features Louis Armstrong and Gene Krupa. --Robert Horton ... Read more

Reviews (28)

The man who invented big band!
"The Glenn Miller Story" can be enjoyed even by someone who's not a fan of big band or jazz music. It's for everyone especially music lovers of all tastes. Jimmy Stewart is cast superbly here and at times you're thinking you're watching the actual Glenn Miller himself and not the actor. The music of Glenn Miller is brought to life so magically with its captivating soundtrack filled with his most memorable tunes and melodies like "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" and the one everyone knows: "Moonlight Serenade." The colors on this film are vivid and make you wish you'd want to be there. It was indeed tragic to lose such a great musician all too soon. You still hear his music in movies, nightclubs, theaters and more. All in all, it is a neat movie to look at and to hear remembering the trombonist who became the leader of the band: Glenn Miller.

5 stars for the music.....as for the story.....well.......
This film is a typical Hollywood b.s. story. A lot of incidents were made up for the film, for example, the Chummy McGregor-Glenn Miller friendship going back to the Ben Pollock Orchestra days, which was years before they even met! And it's too bad Miller didn't come up with his "sound" so easily!!! About the parts of the movie that are true-to-life is the relationship between Glenn and Helen, as performed by two of my favorite actors, James Stewart and June Allyson.

However, the music in this film (orchestrated by Universal Pictures staff composer, Henry Mancini) more than makes up for the deficiencies in the story. The orchestra assembled does a excellent job re-creating Miller's hits (far better than some of the ghost bands later organized by the Miller Estate).

You'll enjoy the music, especially in stereo, just don't take the story seriously.

Also, the VHS version has a couple of scenes clipped to make the movie time out to 120 minutes. Hopefully, these scenes will be restored when the movie is released on DVD (in March, 2003, as a double feature with The Benny Goodman Story, another Hollywood b.s. bio-pic).

Here's a interesting factoid: Harry (Henry) Morgan ("Chummy MacGregor") actually appeared in a film with the real Glenn Miller, "Orchestra Wives". Unfortunately, they did not appear in any scenes together.

That Sound
This was the highest grossing American film of 1954; had he wanted to, James Stewart could probably have ended up owning Universal Studios, so vastly indebted were they to him at this stage for the string of hits he'd produced for them. Director Anthony Mann too. It's a pretty easygoing look at the not-so easygoing bandleader Glenn Miller from his earliest days as a sideman trombonist and arranger to his becoming the top pop musician in the United States. Very interesting and enlightening about the way Miller searched for his own distinctive sound to set him apart from the hundreds of other jazz bands of the day. It also pretty much set the tone for the mysterioso treatment that has ever since surrounded Miller's disappearance in the European theater during WW2 in 1944. The theories are that his plane crashed in England and has yet to be found, or that returning bombers from an unsuccessful mission accidentally dumped their loads on his plane over the Channel. Neither gets any exploration here; Miller just ascends into band heaven. Pretty good performances all around, especially the wonderful and always reliable George Tobias as the theater owner/agent.

Evocative and Amazing
It happens every time. When you watch a film with James Stewart in it certain things happen.

The film begins, we see Mr. Stewart appear in character, he is the same, tall ,lanky and charismatic. As the film proceeds on..slowly but surely, Mr Stewart becomes " That" character he is playing. Soon the viewer is hooked by the total talent of Jim Stewart , he invites us in to each character he is playing.

He is Glenn Miller for us here in this film. If we didnt see Glenn Miller while he was around this is a good chance to see a close example.It does not matter how accurate the film is really.
Those who carp about accuracy should pick up a biography. Those who love the mystique will watch and enjoy the timeless Glenn Miller through James Stewart.

I cant see Krupa or Satchmo in any biography , and for sure I cant hear them. In this film I can..with superb effect. A snapshot in time of our musical history.

Finally, I was not around during during the Miller era however,

after viewing this film .. " I was there"

C Pope

Another mistreatment of a classic
Let's clarify a couple of things.

First, this movie IS INDEED anamorphic, despite the claim of another writer that the package was wrong in claiming such.

Secondly, to expect any biographical picture out of Hollywood to NOT play loosely with the facts is expecting a bit much. After all, from "The Babe Ruth Story" to "JFK", Hollywood has always subscribed to the theory of "fictional biographies".

Frankly, I found this movie to be quite enjoyable. First, ANY movie with Jimmy Stewart has something going for it. Throw in some FANTASTIC music, and a great...albeit way to short...cameo by Louis Armstrong, and this movie is a real piece of cinematic history.

Unfortunately, Universal Pictures seems to have a different opinion, as they have given this picture a very bare-bones AND shabby release.

The picture, while widescreen AND anamorphic, has a VHS quality to it. Some portions had an "out of focus" appearance. But most distracting was a frequent pulsating color...going from bright to dull to bright...ad infinitum. In some instances, this REALLY distracted from the enjoyment of...and the concentration on...the movie.

Having seen other pictures from this era with wonderfully clear transfers, I can but only believe that this was merely the result of laziness, cheapness, or carelessness on the part of Universal.

As this is not considered a classic in most film circles, I doubt this movie will ever see a second release. So sad, as it could be so enjoyable with a good picture. As it is, I hate to say it, but I'd recommend against a purchase. ... Read more

Description

An outrageous odyssey of fun, fantasy, and adventure unfolds in the hilarious hit film HERCULES, Disney's 35th animated triumph "brimming with comic surprise!" (Entertainment Weekly) Taken from the gods as a newborn, adopted on earth, Hercules becomes an awkward teenage pillar of strength. Trying to fit in, he discovers his dad is Zeus and home is Mount Olympus -- if he can move from "zero" to true hero! Hercules teams with babyhood pal Pegasus, the flying stallion, and Phil -- a feisty personal trainer -- for the mission. But it's no easy task as he must match wits with Grecian beauty Meg and a comical hothead named Hades. With the help of Pain and Panic, Hades plans to rule the Universe with only Hercules standing in his way! With a bold animation style, colossal voice cast, and spectacular music, HERCULES is unmatched in strength -- delivering something for everyone with "pinwheeling, knockabout fun!" ... Read more

Reviews (133)

Best Disney Movie since "The Lion King"
Hercules restored my faith that Disney can still make fun, engaging animated movies (this one's much better than the more recent disappointing Road to El Dorado or The Emperor's New Groove). The animation is dazzling (from the makers of Aladdin and The Little Mermaid), the music is a new take -- gospel, and the characters are funny. The voices include a cast of famous names, such as Tate Donovan and Danny DeVito as Hercules and his goat-man sidekick. The plot is predictable and the storytelling of the Greek myth may be a bit off, but after all, it's Disney. The DVD includes a documentary ("The Making of Hercules") and a Ricky Martin music video (for the song "I Can Go the Distance"), and most Disney DVDs hardly have any extras. I wouldn't call this movie a must-buy, but it's a welcome addition to Disney's family of great cartoon movies... and kids will certainly love it, too.

The World's First Super Hero
Disney adds a new twist to the story of the mythological strongman in the funny animated feature "Hercules". Hercules (Tate Donovan), the son of Zeus, is kidnapped and turned mortal by the sinister god Hades (James Woods). Now, with his amazing strength and the help from his fly stallion Pegasus and trainer Phil (Danny DeVito), Hercules journeys to regain his place among the Gods of Olympus. Though not as memorable as previous Disney animated films, "Hercules" is a lighthearted fun-filled fantasy adventure. The story is fresh and funny, and the animation is stylish and colorful. The film contains some clever humor and amusing scenes including a thrilling battle between Hercules and the fierce hydra. James Woods shines as the voice of the sly Lord of the Underworld Hades and Susan Egan is amazing as Grecian beauty Meg. The voice cast also includes Bob Goldthwait, Matt Frewer, Paul Shaffer and Rip Torn. The animated tale is presented in its THX certified 1.66:1 widescreen format. The DVD contains a very detailed video transfer and a rich 5.1 Dolby Digital sound. Its supplemental material features "The Making of Hercules" featurette and a music video with Ricky Martin. Despite the lack of interesting extras, "Hercules" earns a "B-".

Great teaching tool
Precisely BECAUSE of the complete disregard for the original mythology, this movie is a superb teaching tool for middle schoolers. After a unit on Mythology, the kids can identify for themselves the many creative changes Disney opted to make, and even better, they can figure out for themselves why Disney made those choices. It makes the kids savvier media consumers, they enjoy spotting the "mistakes," and the music is terrific and holds their attention. We all enjoy the fact that nearly every time the Muses sing "and that's the Gospel truth!" they're referencing something completely FALSE. And the group scene at the christening makes a great "test" of those symbolic identifiers--the kids like being able to identify the gods and goddesses based on the clues in their appearance.

Zero to Hero
When the evil Hades, god of the underworld, learns that if Zeus and Hera's newborn son Hercules fights his world takeover plan, he will fail, Hades' idiotic helpers Pain and Panic kidnap the tyke in an attempt to turn him mortal and kill him. But before baby Herc could drink the last drop of the potion, a middle aged couple intersept. They take young Hercules in and raise him as their own. The only problem Hercules has is his god like strength, which he retained because he did not drink the last drop of the potion.

Hercules grows up feeling like he doesn't belong and goes on a journey to find his true identity. When he discovers that he is the son of Zeus, he is told that the only way he can regain entry to Mount Olympus is to become a true hero.

So with the help of Phil, a satyr, and Pegasus he begins training to become a hero. He ends up meeting Meg, a young woman who sold her soul to Hades, and falling in love with her. Meg is torn between loyalty to Hades and her growing love for "Wonder Boy".

When Hades strikes a deal with Hercules to give up his strength for 24 hours, Hades frees the Titans to take over Olympus. Due to one technicality in the deal, Hercules regains his strength and defeats Hades. But when he learns of Meg's death, he strikes a deal with Hades to rescue her and take her place in the underworld.

A little bit too modern for a story set in Ancient Greece but this movie contains all the essential elements of a true Disney classic.

From Zero to Hero
Hercules is a total knockout - for the first half of the movie. The second half falls flat. Hercules has one of the best animated film scores ever. To promote the film, Disney had a traveling "troupe" of singers in Greek costume perform at malls around the country. The executives apparently even appreciated the incredibly orignal gospel-style songs with witty and joyful lyrics. The rollicking songs get a big "Amen!" The fabulous Muses are wonderful creations.

The story involves Hercules as an awkward boy trying to fit in with the humans who have adopted him. After he inadvertently causes a disaster at the marketplace, Herc strikes out on his own, and is shocked to discover his Mt. Olympus heritage. Megara, the female romantic interest, is not very likeable as a fallen woman redeemed by love. You feel Herc deserves better.

Since Aladdin, Disney has used celebrities as character voices. Hercules in particular benefits from this, with James Woods ad libbing hilariously as Hades, lord of the underworld, and Danny DeVito, who brings heart and laughs as "Phil" the Satyr. ... Read more

Reviews (22)

Truly Sent From Above
I remember watching Date with An Angel the first time when I was only 10 years old back in the early 90's. From there on I just loved the movie. Today, this movie still rock! It's really a great movie for the family. I can't believe critics rated as a underrated movie, but somehow it slides by me as a heartwarming, heavenly-made movie about a beautiful angel sent to earth to bring a guy back to heaven. The beautiful angel is played by Emmanuelle Beart which she definately looks beautiful and stunningly. From what I heard, they had chose over 500 women actress for this role. They did a excellent job with the angel. She looks like she's real. Sent from above to Earth to bring back Jim (Micheal E. Knight), a composer whose life isn't going to well because of continous terrible headaches, also engaged to a spoiled rich girl Patty(Phoebe Cates).

Too make the story short, Jim become lucky and finds the injured angel in his pool after waking up from a bachelor party and tries to hide it from his friends, fiancee, and soon to be father-in-law. When things got out hand, his friends wants the angel as a business plan, his fiancee becomes outrageous jealous and misunderstands as a affair, and his future father-in-law wants her as a world marketing plan. In the end, Jim did past away and was brought back to life by the angel and...the angel became a human.

Date with an Angel is a great movie and I still do watch it. I heavenly recommend this movie. It has none of that oscar winning nomination or 3 hour long of boring concept with no point. It's just a movie that makes you feel how good life is. Get in DVD for widescreen and better quality.

Cates is the Angel in this movie....IMO.
Frankly the only Angelic creature in this flick that caught my eyes was Phoebe Cates.....who is stunningly beautiful in any role......Phoebe could have easily played the Angel...and she has the perfect acting skills to play any role. I give this movie 3 stars..because no one in their right mind would ever leave a totally fine babe like Cates....from Fast Times no less.
Phoebe Cates....is a Icon of Beauty even today...:D

"On a wing and a prayer"
No Phoebe Cates is the angle. This time Emmanuelle Beart is the angel.
The story is one of those strait forward situation comedies. As in "Heaven Can Wait" or more like "Meet Joe black", an angle on a mission is detoured when a satellite nicks her wing. She lands in a pool of a soon to be married musician (Jim). You know musicians; he is obligated to help the angle, yet he can not tell his fiancée (Patty), who of course suspects there is another woman. Naturally his friends find out and plan to get rich. And so on and so on.
Eventually the angle that by this time is enamored with Jim and vice versa is well and leaves. Patty who has been insulted and assaulted by Jim and the angle leaves also. To top it off maybe there was no angle. Seems Jim has a brain tumor. So how did everyone get in this situation and what is to become of Jim?

Land In My Pool Emanuelle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love this movie!!! I want an angel too!!! Emanuelle Beart is gorgeous!!! This movie did not get very good reviews when it came out back in 1987, but I believe that it is a great movie! It just makes you feel good. What else is there to say!

Silly nonsense
I'm a big fan of Emmanuelle Beart and her part in this movie was pretty good. She didn't have to speak except for a couple of sentences right at the end. The rest of the cast were terrible, but who can blame them. The idea of the movie offers so many opportunities for cleverness and hilarity, but this hardly materialises. They were a couple of good themes and some sparsely scattered funny moments.

At least for Beart it was a much better part than her one in Mission Impossible.

If you like movies like "Splash" and "Mannequin", you will only be half disappointed by this one. ... Read more

Description

"I have come to destroy you Doctor, once and for all?" The Earth is in terrible danger! The Master is back with an evil scheme to destroy humanity and silence the Doctor forever. His plan? To awaken the awesome power of the Nestene-a ruthlessly aggressive alien life form. Once mixed with plastic, they will form into faceless automatons, a willing army of destruction easily controlled by the evil Time Lord himself. This is the terrible threat now facing the Earth-the terror of the Autons. Aided by the Brigadier and his enthusiastic new assistant, Jo Grant, only the Doctor can combat their evil power, but first he must defeat the Master? Originally transmitted in color January 2nd-23rd 1971, this four part adventure starring Jon Pertwee was lost in its original form. Only a black and white version and an edited color American NTSC standard version remained until now when technology worthy of the Doctor himself has reconciled the two, synchronising them into one full color version. ... Read more

Reviews (13)

I am the Master... and you will obey me!
I am the Reviewer, and you will read this. You will read this... you will read this...

One year after the events of Spearhead From Space, the Doctor has to deal with the Autons again, because a surviving Nestene energy unit that the Brigadier loaned to a museum has been stolen by his arch-enemy, the Master. The Master, a Time Lord like the Doctor, plans to use the globe and a radio telescope to broadcast a signal to invite the Nestenes to victory where they failed before. He also commandeers a plastics factory run by the weak-minded Rex Farrell. Anyone whom he can't hypnotize, he dispatches in ruthless ways, as he does with Mr. McDermott and Mr. Farrell's father. The Doctor, meanwhile, gets a new assistant, the clumsy but adorable Jo Grant, and is drawn into the crisis upon hearing of a raid on a radio telescope research center. Thus begins the opening story of Season Eight, Terror Of The Autons, a classic of classics.

The scene of a Time Lord in a suit, bowler hat, and brolley appearing in mid-air with the noise of a materializing TARDIS borders on the surreal. He and the Doctor trade barbs, but the newcomer is here to warn him about the Master.

Katy Manning, as the cute, blonde, clumsy, and kooky Jo Grant, made her debut here and she's one of the reasons why the Pertwee era is my favorite in the series' history. The miniskirts would come much later, but this is a taste of this season and the ninth and tenth seasons. She accidentally ruins one of his experiments, and the Doctor, who calls her a "hamfisted bun vendor," for that mistake, demands that the Brigadier get rid of her. Jo proves herself worthy by procuring some much-needed parts for him. She eventually becomes one of his longest serving and most beloved assistants.

Roger Delgado is a suave villain and throughout his appearances, I found it hard to hate him. He was charming unlike Anthony Ainley's slimey and odious rendition. Pity he came out in only eight stories and died in a tragic car accident in 1973, thus barring any possible returns to Who.

The troll doll, which raised the ire of viewers, is an ugly thing, which makes it all the more menacing as it stalks the elder Mr. Farrell. The scene of fake policemen (Autons) ordered by the Master to kill the Master and Jo also got angry complaints from Scotland Yard. Gosh, how I love controversial programs, and those that portray policeman (even fake ones), as villains. Yes, I'm still judge the police over the Rodney King, Malice Green, and Amadou Diallo incidents.

It's interesting how our overwhelming dependence on plastic was made plainly clear, and how we'd be in a death trap if anything plastic could come to life and kill us. Strangled by my headphones, impaled by a flying CD,... and I hate to think what the toilet seat would do.

This is also the second of three stories whose colour episodes were lost and had to be recreated using a black and white PAL, a colour NTSC version, and synchronizing the two. The video has a film-like quality as a result, and gives it a nostalgic 70's look.

One of my favorite Who stories of all time, not only because of the return of the Autons, but the debut of Katy Manning as Jo Grant and Roger Delgado as the Master. Richard Franklin also makes his debut as Captain Mike Yates and a possible love interest for Jo, a concept that was never realized. And the late Michael Wisher, best known as Davros, makes his Who debut in this story.

I am the Reviewer, and you will watch this story... you will watch this story... watch this story...

Sequel to Spearhead... ushers in the Doctor's "Best Enemy"
The Nestenes are back and this time they are helped by one of the Doctor's own people, "The Master". The Master steals the last surving Nestene unit that a Museum loaned from UNIT HQ. The Master finds a nearby radio telescope the reactivate the Nestence unit, and then takes over a family owned plastic factory to make Auton bodies and other plastics for the Nestene to use in their attempt to take over Earth. When Doctor Who fans talk about the Master they always bring up Roger Delgado, and why not. Delgado's Master is a con-man, a talker, a man that shows his vanity(his weekness), and most imporantly someone who can completely control the minds of people (more less), including the Doctor's new companion Jo Grant played by Katy Manning. Delgado does not dispoint in his frist story as the Master and after watching it, you will say Delgado "IS" The Master. The attacks by the Nestene are much better in this story, ranging from the Autons who are more frighing in this story, to killer dolls, and plastic flowers, even the telephone cords are lethal. This is the last appearance of the Nestene, but it's the first of many confrontations the Doctor will have with the Master. If you love this kind of Doctor Who adventure, you'll love "Terror Of The Autons".

Don McCullen

Let a thousand flowers bloom!
If only Mao knew!

Combining a ride of almost Magical Mystery Tour proportions this third Doctor adventure combines the evil Master with the Nestenes to produce another action packed thriller.

Whereas the first Auton adventure made us look twice at dummies, I mean mannequins, in this story the plastic combining Nestene conciousness develops a whole new series of lines, including telephone cables, daffodils and oversized masks.

The Doctor and Jo and the irrascible Master provide an action packed adventure story which grabs the attention throughout. The plot is strong with few of the flaws which characterise a number of the Pertwee episodes and there is a sort of surreal side too which prompts the comparison with Magical Mystery Tour. The notion of the flowers that kill with their lethal plastic projectile to suffocate their victims is not that far fetched an idea especially in view of the assasination of the official in London by an assailant armed with a poisoned tipped umbrella.

This must be a strong condidate for transfer to DVD soon.

One of Pertwee's best.

"An old aquintance of yours has arrived, the Master"
This is such a great Doctor Who episode. In introduces the Doctors greatest and most hated enemy the Master. Roger Delgado gave such a great performance as the Master.The Doctor is also dealing with a new assistant the perky Jo Grant. Both filmed and acted so greatly this is one of Jon Pertwees best.It does drag a little at points but is still a great great episode. Were introduced to the Master and find out a little more of the powers the time lord uses such as mind control. powers that hte Doctor uses so seldom. For those Who dont follow Doctor Who as well this is a good episode to have. Only in early novels do you find where the real hate between these 2 comes in. It seems the master is responsible for the deaths of the Doctors wife and daughter. Since the time lords refused to bring the master to justice becasue they didnt want to get involved the Doctor took his grandaughter and stole a TARDIS and set out for earth(An unearthly Child). Thus beginning his travels. The Doctor has always respected the genius of the Master but deplored his evil ways and resents that he wastes his talent and existence on the persuit of evil. Thsi episode shows the Master for what he is . Only interested in controllling others and unleashing as much havoc as he can. His opposite is the Doctor Who wishes to help all he can although hampered by his morality and sense of fair play. But as shown over and over the Doctor is always able to just be slightly one step ahead of the master.

Doctor Who at its best!!
This episode is only second to "The Three Doctors" as being the best of the Pertwee Era as the Doctor. This episode has it all. It introduces a new assistant (Jo Grant) and also the Doctors arch nemesis( The master). Its an episode from beginning to end that is both enjoyable and a little scary. A fine performance by all. This episode marks what could be called the master series since he too becomes trapped on earth. If you like Doctor Who then this is a great episode to buy. It has cinematic quality to it. Great episode indeed. ... Read more

Reviews (25)

One for Joe & One for the Lizard
Also known as ANDY WARHOL'S FRANKENSTEIN or ANDY WARHOL PRESENTS FRANKENSTEIN, this early 1970s film is associated with Warhol only in the sense that the pop artist put up the money for the project and because it featured several actors--particularly Joe Dallesandro--who had appeared in various Warhol "factory" films. The film is a calculated effort to create a cult film, even down to deliberate courting of the X rating it received at the time of its release.

The Baron Frankenstein (Udo Kier) is married to Baroness Katrin (Monique van Vooren); they have two children and reside in the obligatory isolated castle complete with secret laboratory, where Frankenstein and his assistant (Arno Juerging) conduct their work. In this particular case, they seek to create both a male and female "monster" for breeding purposes. Unfortunately, when Frankenstein collects a shepherd's head for his male monster, he runs afoul of the shepherd's friend Nicholas (Joe Dallesandro.) The film gives every character a far-out sexual spin: the Baron and Baroness are actually brother and sister and their children are not only the result of their incestuous relationship, they themselves give every appearance of following in the family tradition; the Baron's sex life consists of unfastening the stitches of his female monster and... ahem... shall we say enjoying the pleasures of her internal organs; sexually abandoned by her husband-brother, the Baroness takes lovers (and they are spied upon by the children)--and then decides she wants to fool around the male monster; the lab assistant wants to imitate the Baron's explorations of the female monster; Nicholas rolls around naked with every woman in the village. And so on.

The film is obviously intended to be a bloody, grotesque, and erotic black comedy--but while it's certainly bloody enough and quite grotesque, it isn't greatly erotic and it's not particularly funny. It is also very sloppily made, and worse still it is as slow as molasses in January. The absolute best thing that can be said for FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN is that Joe Dallesandro, who can only be described as a rough-trade dream, has a scene where a lizard runs across his naked [behind]. One star for Joe and one star for the lizard. Recommendation: rent it before you buy it, because for most people one viewing will be more than enough.

WARNING: Do NOT Eat While Viewing This Film
One would be well-advised to heed my warning. This is one of the most violent, perverse, and laugh-out-loud (intentionally) funny versions of the Frankenstein myth. It's also one of my favorite movies (I like it better than its sister production BLOOD FOR DRACULA, though most tend to rate that one a bit higher) and, as far as I'm concerned, the best film to come out of the Andy Warhol-Paul Morrisey collaborations of the 60s and 70s. Udo Kier is astounding as the mad Baron Frankenstein, Arno Juerging is great as his idiot assistant Otto, and Monique Van Vooren holds her own as Frankenstein's wife-sister, whose insatiable sexual appetite is fed by hunky Joe Dallesandro. Poor Mary Shelley could never have imagined that one day her Gothic horror novel would one day evolve into something as hideous as this. But it's all in good fun, as the Baron and Otto sew up beautiful corpses and talk science in the lab. One of the Baron's hobbies is to make love to his female zombie (Morrisey mercifully spares us the more graphic details in this scene). He and Otto go to a bordello for the perfect male "whose overriding urges are sensual". But - oops! - they pick the wrong stud to behead. Instead of Dallesandro, they pick his friend, an aspiring monk who really didn't want to be at a bordello in the first place. When the Baron and Otto find that their male creature is frigid, the plot thickens. This film is NOT for people who are squeamish. The sex and violence is all of such a perverse nature that it isn't the kind of thing you want to sit down and watch with grandma. It's filled with campy humor and super-gory FX (imagine it as it premiered in 3-D!). But, in spite of the usual Warhol-crowd tomfoolery, there is a very real sense of quality to the proceedings. Gorgeously photographed, with a sumptuous score and fine period detail, this is a little too well-mounted to be written off as simply "a camp comedy". Ironically, the final scene is genuinely tragic! Interesting bit of film-buff trivia: This film (as well as DRACULA) was shot at the same time, in the same place (Italy), and with much of the same crew as Polanski's little-known sex comedy WHAT?. Polanski, who has a brief but hilarious cameo in DRACULA, let Warhol's crowd move into his Italian villa, but their eccentricities eventually drove him off. (As he has it in his autobiography: "They were a nice enough bunch, if a bit camp...")

Ain't got nothing if you ain't got love
Udo Kier, Udo freaking Kier. Perhaps my absolute favorite bad actor bringing new life to the story of Frankenstein, utterly unshackled by any semblance of the book itself. Here, we have the anthropomorphic vision of a petulant, tantrum-throwing Baron Frankenstein and his plan to create not one but TWO wombies, male and female, to procreate and spawn a master race of wombies to answer to the will of Udo Kier alone. This scheme is more or less similiar to the one favored by Bela Legosi in the Ed Wood saga, Bride of the Monster. Playing devil's advocate, I never pictured a male wombie with too many active sperm cells, nor a female wombie with an overly active reproductive system, but, who's splitting hairs.

At the outset of the movie, Udo does in fact have the female wombie fully completed, but he needs the final component to complete her male counterpart. To finish his male wombie, Udo in fact needs the proper "nazzum", and nazzums, evidently, are reasonably difficult to acquire. So, Baron Frankenstein, with his sidekick, Otto (the same guy that played his sidekick in Blood for Dracula) sets out for his nazzum. He needs a vigorous nazzum, the kind that frequents brothels and enjoys fornicating with any and every type of woman. At this stage, we have the same slouching Communist stable boy from Blood for Dracula, and his good buddy who wants to go join a convent or something. In the dark, Udo mistakes the the buddy, rather than the whoremongering Communist, for the nazzum he wants, and ends up, much to his despair, with a homosexual nazzum. Great Scott!!!

So, Frankenstein throws the two wombies together, kiss him, kiss him, kiss him, kiss him, KISS HIM, but unfortunately the male wombie with the insufficient nazzum ignores the female wombie. In desperation, Udo throws the male wombie to his wife, Baroness Frankenstein (who looks a little bit like Skeletor with a blonde wig), but, not only does the wombie fail to become aroused, he kills the baroness as well. Good golly miss molly, what a waste! Simutaneously, Otto, the hackneyed sidekick, learns that he has his own Mortal Kombat Fatality--pull out their guts and let them see them before they die trick--which he promptly launches against the housekeeper and the female wombie when they both dispassionately spurn his groping Torgoesque affections.

Udo, disenchanted, runs into the laboratory, kills Otto, then fails to defend himself against the vengeful male wombie. My favorite line: "My experiments will go on. I will not die in wain..."

Campy and gory telling of the famous story
Apparently "Flesh for Frankenstein" has become some sort of a revisionist masterpiece for the high brow set or those impressed by the Eurotrash excentricities of the Andy Warhol moniker that was once attached to this film. Well, I really love this film, but I refuse to accept all the vapid praise that is now being gushed about the genius of the film and its director: Paul Morrissey.

Flesh for Frankenstein is a retelling of the famous Mary Shelley story. Mary Shelley wrote it as a heavily veiled allegory for the evils of then modern science and the hubris of Man. In the DVD extras, Morrissey and some film historian would have us believe that Morrissey was consciously attempting to throw his own slant on the allegory angle. He would have us believe that he was intentionally going over the top with the gore and the sex as an affront to the liberal hippy movement which was clamboring for more of it. This sounds delightfully poignant until you take a closer look at how this film got made.

Morrissey was given creative control to direct several Andy Warhol financed films in Europe. The money that Warhol provided was certainly not without its strings attached though. In fact, Warhol was the king of creative marketing. He and his Factory were making films for fun not profit. That they made money was due to the fact that he had already engratiated himself with the artsy crowd in New York with his airbrushed art and his advertising art (i.e. the now famous Campbell's Soup can). Warhol never took himself all that seriously. He laughed himself all the way to the bank.

Morrissey was doing the same with these films. He was pushing the envelope in gore and sex, but was it for noble artistic intentions? I seriously doubt it. However, since he narrates that it was all intentional, we have no other factual basis to counter his claim.

However, I think, as with many of the now famous artists and poets, writers and filmmakers - their work is famous not because of its original genius, but rather because somebody who has the ear of those who are in power, yet gullible, promoted them as such at the time of their creation or after the fact.

Allowing the film to stand on its own is no crime. When we take a historical look at how cinema was being presented at the time, Morrissey was actually far ahead of his time. That much is true. Hammer Films in England had long been derided as going too far with the gore in their horror films and since they were still going strong at the time this film was made, they really were still the only company doing such films. Along comes Morrissey and he really blew the established film standards to pieces by making this film. Excessive gore, nudity - both male and female, sex acts only slightly veiled, and foul language - it was all in this single film.

The sets and costuming are really masterpieces. The clothing is dynamite when you think of the budget that Morrissey had to work with. And even moreso, the sets are out of this world. They are authentic locations throughout Europe. The set aspect also has me wondering when this film was "really" made. I ask this because the Dr's laboratory is obviously the inspiration for Lou Adler's Frankenfurter's laboratory in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". TRHPS actually duplicates this set in great detail, down to the glass tank, the tile walls, and the statuary in the room.

What makes this film unable to hold the title of great is the acting, the script, and the editing. I don't buy it that the poor acting is intentional. I think it was all they could get and since the people in charge didn't have any real filmmaking background or lots of money, they simply couldn't get capable actors. Udo Kier, they would like us to believe, is intentionally acting over the top. I've directed lots of regional theatre and I can assure you he's not acting over the top - he's just not a good actor. He has proven that in the 30 years since this film that, while he is better now than before, he is no actor. Dallesandro - he was Warhol's personal pet project. Warhol insisted he be used - and arguably, because of "Flesh", Dallesandro was popular in Europe. Monique Van Voohren - is only one of the worst actresses ever to be filmed. As the both the Dr's wife and sister, she simply cannot do much other than bear her body with belief (the sister/wife aspect is yet another aspect taken for TRHPS). The character of Otto is the only one who can get away with the poor acting in this film - because his over the top style is somewhat expected for the mad scientist's assistant. The "monster" is intended to be more of a stud puppy hunk than a monster (another steal from Richard O'Brien for TRHPS, I think). In fact, the creepiest aspect of the film are the Dr's children. They creep about like little ghouls throughout the film.

The extremely gory climax of the film is, frankly, Morrissey's masterpiece for the flim. With this scene, he obviously takes a page from Shakespeare. The set is simply strewn with bloody corpses in various states. And then there is the anticipation he leaves of with - of what is to come - as the children menacingly begin to come into their own scalpels gleaming.

I won't give it all away, because it is a really fun film. I've bought it for myself and I know I'd previously seen it five times. So my harsh criticism of the high brow aspects of it don't diminish my enjoyment of the film as a whole. It's really a cool film to see, if you know what history is involved in its making.

an interesting and disturbing film
this review is for the Criterion Collection edition of the film.

This film along with "blood for dracula" were filmed back to back in Italy. This one the more controversal of the two originally received an X rating by the MPAA. Is is based very loosely on Mary shelly's novel and follows Dr. Frankenstein creating a male and female zombie and his attempts to get them to breed.

Udo Kier playing the role of Dr. Frankenstein is excelent because the actor is German and has a great German accent.

The Criterion collection has audio commentary and an 18 minute slideshow with photos from the film and its production along woth an audio soundtrack of music from the film. ... Read more

Amazon.com

A romantic drama in the Masterpiece Theater vein, this John Madden film looks at the relationship between Queen Victoria and John Brown, a commoner who, though a servant, becomes her closest friend and confidant. As such, he proves the catalyst to bring her back into public life and out of her private mourning for the late Prince Albert. But the closeness of their friendship sets tongues wagging about the impropriety of what appears to be an affair between queen and commoner (an issue the film never directly addresses). The film's charm lies in the flinty give-and-take between the wonderfully starchy Judi Dench as Victoria and the robust Scottish comedian Billy Connolly, here playing it straight as a strong-willed Scotsman who comes to enjoy the power he wields by virtue of having the queen's ear. Antony Sher is also striking as Prime Minister Disraeli, in a performance that all but shimmers with unspoken malice. --Marshall Fine ... Read more

Reviews (34)

I bet John Brown knows Victoria's Secret
MRS. BROWN was a great film about Victoria, one of the longest reigning monarchs in British history (1837-1901). The movie opens with Victoria (Judi Dench) in mournig over the death of her husband, Prince Albert. One of Albert's manservants is summoned to court to help the queen cope with her mourning by taking her on horse rides. When John Brown finally gets her out of the house to ride and also what to do. Being the Queen, she finds John Brown to be rude, but actually enjoys his company. She doesn't treat him as any commoner, but as an equal. This distressed Parliament who believes John Brown is controlling her both personally and politically. This was an excellent film and I highly recommend it.

Excellent movie, beautiful performances
I have always been intrigued by the life of Queen Victoria and Judi Dench's performance contributes to the continued mystique of her life. John Brown's friendship with her is a fascinating relationship that grows from the beginning and culminates into Victoria's best friend, the most loved of advisors. I was surprised to learn that Victoria is buried with a picture of Brown in her tombstone. I think that there was more to the relationship than just a deep friendship but the movie does respect their lives & does not intend to create a version of love that was never true. The film does liberty to both people & is in my opinion one of the most thought provoking movies ever made.

Intelligent and Sensitive, Beautifully Acted
MRS. BROWN is a film that is so exquisitely acted, so sensitive in its portrayal of grief and friendship and so lacking in artifice that it's almost impossible to find words glowing enough to describe it.

MRS. BROWN centers on Queen Victoria and is based on actual events. It opens in 1864, two years after the death of Victoria's very beloved husband, Prince Albert. Unable to pull herself out of mourning, Victoria lives in almost total isolation at Windsor Castle and her family, friends and staff have become her unwilling prisoners. Silence and grief are the rule at Windsor and even though several well-meaning friends and advisors attempt to bring the queen out of the deep depression into which she's fallen, it's all to no avail. Finally, in one last, desperate effort, Victoria's wonderfully loyal and caring secretary, Henry Posonby, sends for one of Albert's old stable hands at Balmoral, John Brown. Brown is a Highlander and Victoria, you see, subscribed to the belief that "all Highlanders are good for the health." Posonby can hope she's right.

Brown certainly shakes things up when he arrives at Windsor. Unlike Victoria's other servants, Brown doesn't coddle Victoria's depression. He's too smart for that and he knows that's not the way to get the job done. Naturally, Victoria is, at first, annoyed at Brown's loud and unpolished manner and her staff is horrified. Little by little, however, Victoria responds to Brown's affection and caring and a deep and lasting friendship develops between the two as Brown pulls Victoria back to life.

Although the friendship between Brown and Victoria develops rather slowly and, in the film, at least, there's no hint of it being anything other than platonic, palace gossips can't help but dub Victoria, "Mrs. Brown."

MRS. BROWN is primarily a film of friendship, but palace politics do play a minor role. Both Edward, the Prince of Wales and Prime Minister Disraeli dislike Brown and try their best to have him sent back to Balmoral.

It is the growing friendship between Brown and Victoria, however, that really drives this film. Judi Dench is superlative in the role of Victoria as is Billy Connolly as John Brown. Even though this isn't a "romantic" film, there is definite chemistry between Dench and Connolly and their deep and sensitive friendship is totally believable and very moving.

I expected Dench to turn in a superb performance (she never gives anything less) but Connolly's exquisite performance as John Brown is an unexpected delight simply because he's far better known for over the top comedy. In MRS. BROWN, however, he plays the part of a coarse, uneducated, but deeply caring and sensitive Highlander, perfectly.

Antony Sher as Disraeli and Geoffrey Palmer as the loyal Henry Posonby certainly deserve mention as well.

While MRS. BROWN belongs to Dench and Connolly, credit has to be given to screenwriter, Jeremy Brock and director, John Madden for keeping MRS. BROWN low-key and for letting Dench and Connolly work their magic without throwing in even a hint of romantic scandal.

MRS. BROWN is a beautiful, exquisitely acted film that should appeal to anyone who loves quality and depth over formula and thrills. MRS. BROWN is one of my most prized DVDs and I couldn't recommend it more highly.

Expect for Excitement and you'll be Disappointed
Quite a lively account of Queen Victoria as a person since her husband passed away. There isn't too much drama or suspense. There is instead a lot of attention todetailssuch court life and etiquette costume etc. But it is neither as boring as one would expect from such movies.

Fiction can be duller than truth
This rather gloomy film tells the story of an imaginary love affair between Queen Victoria and her Highland servant John Brown. In reality, their relationship was much more intersting and lively than the soppy one portrayed in the film. john Brown had a brisk, no-nonsense manner of talking to the Queen which outraged everybody else, but which she loved. Moreover, Queen Victoria was a matriarch who ruled her entire family with a rod ofiron, you would never guess that from seeing the timid, shrinking creature she is portrayed as being in this film. And as for Henry Ponsonby (Geoffrey plamer), who is portrayed in this film as a miserable git, the one thing everybody always sazys about him is what fun he was, and what a wonderful sense of humour he had. you'd never guess it from this film. nor was there every any estrangement between John Brown and the Queen,as this film implies. he stayed with her until his death, and was as rude and outspoken at the end as at the beginning. this melancholy film does not do justice to any of the characters portrayed in it. However, if you like gloomy romances, you'll probably love it. ... Read more

Reviews (94)

A great dark fantasy... Despite it's flaws!
I do have to agree with the other reviewers that have mentioned an obvious amount of overzealous editing! IMO it's the biggest flaw in the film! To those who haven't read the book, the editing will probably leave you confused at times! I do however, much prefer where they ended the movie as compared to the book. And I also