BloodRayne I and II: Deliverance (2005/2007)

 

Director: Uwe Boll

Screenplay: Guinevere Turner (BloodRayne); Christopher Donaldson and Neil Every (BloodRayne II)

Cast:

BloodRayne: Kristanna Loken as Rayne; Michael Madsen as Vladimir; Ben Kingsley as Kagan; Michelle Rodriguez as Katarin; Matthew Davis as Sebastian; Meat Loaf as Leonid; Billy Zane as Elrich

BloodRayne II: Natassia Malthe as Rayne; Zack Ward as Billy "The Kid"; Michael Paré as Pat Garrett; Chris Coppola as Newton Pyles; Chris Spencer as Bob, The Bartender; Brendan Fletcher as Muller; Sarah-Jane Redmond as Martha; Michael Teigen as "Slime Bag" Franson; Michael Eklund as The Preacher

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

People reading this will immediately think, if this is first review of mine they have read, that this will be a burial. With hindsight, I held these two as among two of the worst films I had ever seen once, so I was in that camp, but alongside the fact I liked the second film Deliverance, the tale I want to write specifically with BloodRayne is what happens when you can have all the resources at your hands but, if rushed, leads to something that gained the notoriety it did rather than present the entertaining film we would have all rather had. I would want to know what happened with the first BloodRayne specifically, and how it came as it did considering its resources include its cast - Michael Madsen, Michelle Rodriguez, Sir Ben Kinsley, Kristanna Loken, even a cameo by Meatloaf - in its writer Guinevere Turner, who will stand out for many as the one who adapted Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho to the screen, and enough of the budget here to have gotten something as a video game film. Especially as I would be one of the first to defend the Street Fighter (1994) film with Raul Julia, and even find Super Mario Bros. (1993) a compellingly weird adaptation, videogame adaptations even if they are ridiculous are not something I will dismiss. Even in terms of hardcore, cult cinema niche, among the multiple roles he had in the production including the special effects team is Olaf Ittenbach, a German splatter film director I am aware of, as others may be, for the truly twisted pieced of no-budget gore cinema known as The Burning Moon (1992), and even if he barely contributed onscreen you can even see in BloodRayne splatter film influences in some of the gnarlier moments. There was enough here to adapt this videogame into something distinct.

BloodRayne was originally developed by Terminal Reality, who started in 1994 and worked through the computer era of the nineties videogames until the point the original 2002 game allowed them to spread their wings onto multiple consoles, and the game was clearly made under the shadow of Lara Croft of the Tomb Raider series of the attractive female lead who could actually be a pinup in magazines with real models. This comes to mind that, yes, Rayne appeared in a Playboy magazine as a fictional character, the first videogame character in October 2004, and that, published by Majesco Entertainment, they focused grouped the character to explicitly attract a young male audience at the time. Liz Buckley, product manager for Majesco from this time, had her designers learning what boys and young men in focus groups prefered¹, which drastically revised how the character originally was from initial design², all in mind to a time now washing away in the past as we have had sexually appealing female videogame characters become more of a contentious concept, even to the point Mortal Kombat, which was sexualising its characters in the 2000s games, have back peddled from this, and even Dead or Alive, a beat-em-up franchise infamous for this, had to include measures least in the costume choices suitable for videogame fighting tournaments.

After BloodRayne 2 (2004) however, the games also leaning on Terminal Reality having worked on horror games beforehand among other genres, there was a huge period of silence for this franchise, lost to the original Xbox/Playstation 2 era of games as a franchise. Alongside the original games being having remasters in the 2020s, there was then BloodRayne: Betrayal (2011), which showed how much changed in trends including with its 2021 enhanced version BloodRayne: Betrayal - Fresh Bites. Gone were the three dimensional levels, now a 2D side-scrolling platform game befitting the growing interesting in two dimensional and "retro" games of the past, and even a significant change in Rayne the dhampir. Whilst still the attractive vampire, gone is the voluptuous pin-up of Playboy, evoked in the two film adaptations by Uwe Boll too, but a version influenced by comic books and even Japanese animation and manga in appearance who is less explicitly sexualised.

This is worth bringing up as, with how Uwe Boll was making these films, he picked up upon not the biggest licenses but ones even from Sega (House of the Dead) which were cult hits, this review finding itself in his most controversial era between 2003 to 2008 when he was making these videogame adaptations, where Far Cry (2008) was adapting a game from its origins and not when it became the ultra-expensive Triple A franchise that would have been out of Boll's franchise nowadays to adapt. His infamous run, which barely covers a long career, is of this era, and taking an immediate change of pace from the first game, where Rayne is hunting Nazis, and starting in 18th-century Romania, he came to this clearly without heart for the material, not even the dangerous (but inventive) spinning camera scenes or Clint Howard from House of the Dead, and made a film which was not carefully through in its creation.

Immediately problems arise with the film in how there is no stop to the exposition and events, charging along without pace. There is the anecdote Guinevere Turner has talked of that, with her script late by two weeks, Uwe Boll had been angered by this and that, even when she still sent him a first draft after this moment, he worked from that version and even let the story deviate entirely from her work³. Honestly, so much more feels amiss with the film, even when one realises that most b-movies have little time to be produced and are rushed. The plot can be written on a napkin - evil vampire lord (Kingsley) clashes with the dhampir he sired (as played here by Kristanna Loken) over ancient artefacts which would allow him greater power, whilst vampire hunters led by Michael Madsen take her in as a potential ally - but it is amazing to feel and heard this film not take time to breath and coordinate itself.

It feels like a production which suffers at the hands of juggling all its variables, not just in terms of the screenplay anecdote, but also with the cast a great example of seeing this in a variety of ways. Billy Zane, who is on screen in only a few moments and has no ties to the end despite being a vampire, feels at ease, one of the more rewarding figures whilst others are hustled through scenes awkwardly, Michael Madsen, Michelle Rodriquez and Kristanna Loken among the noticeable examples. Geraldine Chaplin, daughter of that Charlie Chaplin, is a tarot reader for one scene, all her lines exposition, but feels at ease too, as does Udo Kier, who is also comfortable onscreen, whilst it feels like there is both the script and the lack of pause which forces the acting along with many of the bigger stars, who feel the most struggling with the scenario. With no time to step back and see how the mood is, as it hurtles along, and you cannot really gather yourself in both the content and the performances.

Which sucks as you can see the production design was trying. This is a rich world even on a budget where there is enough to stand out. Even in mind to its practical effects team, there is grotesqueness too, such as the monstrous helper of a monastery's secret, mallet in hand, or when we get to the Meatloaf scene and the best moment of the entire prequel. Meatloaf's hall of orgies and splatter film approved horrors, prosthetic effects and nudity crossing in ways normally not found in a more mainstream film, sticks out alongside the fact that Meatloaf, surrounded by naked actresses when introduced, came correct for the role and steals the entire production eating the scenery. Even this is rushed however, and there is a sense that Boll was forced to churn out a film against the right intentions he should have done. Some of this could not be helped, as it is clear they only had Ben Kinsley for a day or so, filming all his scenes in the same two rooms, but you see so much more to the production not being appreciated as a film has to be quickly put together within it. You can see this is in how the film skips past its plot points, skips through fight scenes, even when they have hired actors who have martial arts skills too, or the sex scene. Sold entirely on Kristanna Loken herself, after her role in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), and sold off titillation, it does make little sense, beginning a romance with a male vampire hunter which is abrupt, and feels so cynically shoved in whether it made to or not, both in Loken's comfortableness to do the scene, and Rayne being sold as a sexual videogame hero back in that era.

In vast contrast, made after the BloodRayne games would go on their hiatus, BloodRayne 2: Deliverance is a film with none of the recognisable names, barring Michael Paré as Pat Garrett, but is actually an entertaining movie with a pace and reward. Set later in history in the Wild West, westerns are a genre cheap to make but that is not an insult in the slightest, as whilst they no longer exist as a mainstream genre, they are still being made straight to DVD and other mediums from this period on when this one was produced. Following the idea of what outlaw Billy the Kid would be like as a vampire, this with Norwegian actress Natassia Malthe now Rayne has also recast the pace with one which allows this film to breathe, with care to take in its plot.

It is a b-movie horror western, which not everyone will enjoy, but in contrast to the first film, I enjoyed a film immensely which was not heavily compromised, even if I miss the practical effects team from the first production. I can be happy to see Uwe Boll here make a genre film which is entertaining like this, which no expectations but the execution accomplished, working around its limited production and retelling western clichés only with significantly cruder dialogue at points. Even the slow-mo he uses was not that bad to experience, and the aspects which could have been fleshed out, such as a band of vampire hunters consisting of Pat Garret and a corrupt preacher conman, still crackle with personality. Even how Rayne herself is no longer the figure of the first film, but just a strong female lead, feels like a considerable change in pace, and whilst there is a third film, BloodRayne: The Third Reich (2011), that feels its own review to consider, particularly as that is also in a different time period for Boll as a filmmaker to these two. Set in World War II, made in mind to the original game having its lead fighting Nazis, that film deserves its own focus as three films came from one production - The Third Reich itself, Blubberella (2011), which is a terrible parody film I will say Boll should not have made, and Auschwitz (2011), which was a serious and grim depiction of the Nazis, all based around the locations built for the time period.

The only thing more interesting than this director making a watchable genre film was whenever Uwe Boll made "serious" films, the heavy handedness of a film like Hearts of America (2002), tackling school shootings, yet contrasting with material which do have interesting things to examine within them. By the point of the first BllodRayne, a German tax law, where the German Tax Fund makes film production costs immediately tax-deductible, was dashed from existence in 2006^4&5, and whilst it did not end his productivity, it was something he had clearly used and it makes for the unfortunate argument that, as with the first BloodRayne, he focused on a string of films, videogame adaptations, which were not made with as much interest from him as a creative figure. This was the  time when he was notorious as a bad filmmaker for many, not as a filmmaker to dissect, and in 2006 came the "Raging Boll" publicity stunt, competing with critics of his films in boxing matches which would be compiled into a 2010 documentary of the same name. It became less the Boll behind films like Seed (2007), which at least presented things of interest even if the viewer hated them, but this period would make his infamy rather than these more interesting films, entirely focused on video game adaptations in the mid-2000s which feels like a compromise. The irony is that his notoriety is based really on 2003 to 2005 films, not the video game films from the years after - House of the Dead (2003), Alone in the Dark (2005) and BloodRayne - whilst by the time of BloodRayne II, I am watching a film that, regardless of its video game license, is more a working director juggling genre films and dramas in the straight-to-video era. The worst part is that the later is far more interesting and arguably more focused, but not what we talk about with this German filmmaker. What made Boll's infamy, stepping away from filmmaking by the mid-2010s as things changed, with the streaming industry coming into being, is frankly the less rewarding side to him if the first BloodRayne is to be considered.  

 

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1) Fighting Women Enter the Arena, No Holds Barred, written by Michel Marriott and published for the New York Times on May 15th 2003.

2) Getting the Girl: The myths, misconceptions, and misdemeanors of females in games, written by Zoe Flower and published for 1UP.com on 18th December 2007. Retrieved 12th July 2009 by Web Archive.

3) Bloodrayne screenwriter explains the perils of working with Uwe Boll, written by Ben Gilbert for Engadget and published October 26th 2011.

4) Uwe Boll and the German Tax Code, written by Allen Varney and published by The Escapist on January 23rd 2007.

5) Tax changes threaten German film, written for the Guardian on November 9th 2005.

Ghosts of Mars (2001)

 

Director: John Carpenter

Screenplay: John Carpenter & Larry Sulkis

Cast: Natasha Henstridge as Lieutenant Melanie Ballard; Ice Cube as James "Desolation" Williams; Jason Statham as Sergeant Jericho Butler; Clea DuVall as Officer Bashira Kincaid; Pam Grier as Commander Helena Braddock; Joanna Cassidy as Dr. Arlene Whitlock; Richard Cetrone as Big Daddy Mars; Liam Waite as Officer Michael Descanso; Duane Davis as "Uno" Williams; Lobo Sebastian as "Dos"; Rodney A. Grant as "Tres"

Canon Fodder

 

Ghosts of Mars was just okay. That really is not a good place to put oneself in a review, but for what was once a loathed film for me from John Carpenter, that pretty much is the perfect irony when returning to this. This was not even with the loaded issue for other viewers of the weight of his legacy against his later films before he retired and became fully a touring musician. It is deemed that John Carpenter’s career ended on much weaker films, and sadly that is a concept which I have heard with the legacies of a few big names. It seems absurd, and the argument that directors as they get older lose their spark misses context, when some get better and more interesting the less “popular” they are, and when you have a case like Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira was getting critical acclaim when he was making films past a hundred years old. With Ghosts of Mars, it feels less like a film of an older director losing his style; in fact, if this came from a young director in their twenties, it feels like the film that catches attention with hope that they capitalize on the style they have and add more personal voice to the later films. That is the real irony here, as Ghosts of Mars is sound in scope, with ambitious aspects, but the presentation is conventional at times to the point it lacked something, which could be found from anyone of any age.

The setting is a tantalizing one, with this one tiny story within it even if with grander concerns. Mars is colonized, and unfortunately, an entity of its past are possessing the settlers in isolated colonies, turning them into husks to be controlled and kill those not taken over. A Martian police unit has been sent to pick up a criminal, James "Desolation" Williams (Ice Cube), from a jail in a mining colony. In attempting to collect Williams, the group find themselves within a colony where no one is around, until they find the headless bodies strung up and survivors turned into a horde of killers responsible for this. The tone of this, including that their only form of escape from these killers is a giant space railway train, evokes the western genre in an outer space setting. We never got a western from John Carpenter despite the fact he has always been open in his admiration for them and inspired by them. One of the most obvious examples is how the premise of Rio Bravo (1959) inspiring Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), and this is important as that is an earlier Carpenter film evoked in Ghosts of Mars as the police and Williams find themselves trapped in a place of head hunters.

The one thing which has not aged well – in a film where the practical art design is juggled with working with CGI, for a film from the early 2000s with a soundtrack by Carpenter full of heavy metal riffs – is actually that parallel to old western films. Space westerns as a concept allow the idea, through a new frontier that is uncharted, to explore the issues of the western, allow us to reflect on the past. One of the most loaded of these is colonization of land, especially as the American Wild West is set in the context that land actually belonged to the many tribes of Native Americans. Ghost of Mars never explicitly refers to this, but by accident the film is riffing on the idea of this, which is not good by mistake as these titular ghosts, literal as we learn of who they are, are psychopaths who disfigure their hosts with body piercings, wearing victims’ faces and collect their severed heads on pikes. It is a dicey position to deal with themes of white colonization in horror with plot tropes like this, even when the colonialists are to also be criticized or even if all of this is unintentional. There is a reason why S. Craig Zahler, when he made an actual horror western with Bone Tomahawk (2015) went out of his way with the script to distance ideas to avoid this, with an actual Native American character on the leads’ side, as they are about to enter the hostile lands of a cannibal tribe, openly dismisses the “troglodytes” as they are called as being nothing like an indigenous American tribe but simply monstrous, and even that film still got called out by some reviewers as racist. You cannot really nod to themes of outsiders fighting the hostile forces of uncharted landscapes without bringing up uncomfortable colonial issues, or racial stereotypes, and Ghosts of Mars even when dealing with hostile Martian ghosts unfortunately falls into this.

Everything else about Ghosts of Mars beyond this is just okay, entertaining but just not at the batting average expected from John Carpenter, which becomes the curse for any creator who manages to string a series of legacy defining works, more so when just one of them would have been enough to cement a legacy, but Carpenter managed multiple in a row. That is the issue, that his highs were so big, even the less regarded ones, or under seen, like Christine (1983) appear with hindsight to be better than most. The issue here is that we are just missing that one twist in the plot, missing that one turn or shock of his style of the films before to stick out. The whit is still there, and actually this is jokier even if the nastiness of the threat is here. In the downtime, whilst some of the nods to the female cast being gay are crassly put, there is a fascinating nod I completely missed in my youth to the setting being a matriarchal colony. It is merely the backdrop, causing one to wish this film had been more a success and Carpenter could have made another film in this world, as it provokes a fascinating turn on gender politics without needing to be the central concern. At a period where Mars’ colonization has been dealt with in areas like the lack of breathable oxygen but is still early days, we have already set up that the figures in high power of women, that is never explained aside from the fact that, barring Ice Cube as the anti-hero, our lead is Natasha Henstridge, allowing her a good meaty role as a result of this. Men are still here, including a baby Jason Statham before his career grew, but the women are in charge, with Pam Grier as the head of the police group, and the script making jokes the explicitly cut down to size macho bullshit, even accidentally cutting their own thumb off whilst high at one point, in the downtime. Whilst Statham plays his character as a horn dog who tries too hard to proposition to Henstridge multiple times, his is one of the only male characters with Ice Cube’s "Desolation" Williams to be reliable, the most comedy coming from William’s supposed savors from jail, his brother and his two colleagues, who become the butt of most of these jokes. Cube himself, doing better than Busta Rhymes infamously in Halloween: Resurrection (2002) as a hip hop star in a genre film at this point, is stiff at first, too much attempt to make him edgy and cool, and thankfully he is able to get to the point of standing out when he and Henstridge just get to play a buddy cop duo role stuck in this hellish scenario.

The aesthetic also stands out. The practical effects are still visible, in the production design juggling the aesthetics of the western genre with science fiction on a lower scale genre film, working around ways to depict details like the giant tank-like train, a symbol from western iconography, which still work and have their own distinct sheen. There is a sense of cool pulp sci-fi in the Millennium, and it feels closer to this new century and decade than a film washing over in aesthetics from the nineties either. The music is also strong for me, in mind that there is now a greater emphasis on chugging metal riffs, prominently involving the thrash metal band Anthrax but also including guitarists of note like Steve Vai, Buckethead and Nine Inch Nail’s Robin Finck. It feels less nu metal, as the time frame have shown to have been prevalent, but feeling part of what was to become the “New Wave of American Heavy Metal” that fully formed in 2005 onwards if in context of a John Carpenter score. Some may find it inappropriate, but for me it befits the aesthetic of the entire film, which is strong in itself. With the isolation of the red earth of the setting, all the colonial town setting has lo-fi science fiction aesthetics, with steel grey and heavy looking vehicles, heavy looking guns, and the costumes either suggesting struggling on in life or the uniforms of officers designed more for practicality in this environment. The world does breath into life in the little details.

It is just a shame that the film is missing just the last little thing to get it over, the iconic aspect that a lot of Carpenter’s most well appreciated films had. This was also the film, until Carpenter’s final theatrical work The Ward (2010), we were left with as it did not do well at the box office at all. It is, in its own context, a good as a solid genre film, even in spite of issues raised by accident with the narrative. It is just a shame that this is missing that one diversion away from an A-to-B plot, which made Carpenter’s films from his golden era stand out, something which could have made this more of a highlight within the filmography.

Legend (1995)

Creators: Bill Dial and Michael Piller

Directors: Charles Correll, Michael Vejar, William Gereghty, Bob Balaban, Michael Caffey, James L. Conway and Steven Shaw

Screenplay: Bill Dial, Michael Piller, John Considine, Timothy Burns, John Consone, Carol Caldwell, Marianne Clarkson, Peter Allan Fields, Ron Friedman, George Geiger, Frederick Rappaport, David Rich, Bob Shayne, Steve Stoliar and Robert Wilcox

Cast: Richard Dean Anderson as Ernest Pratt; John de Lancie as Janos Bartok; Mark Adair-Rios as Huitzilopochtli Ramos; Jarrad Paul as  Skeeter; Robert Donner as Mayor Chamberlain Brown; Dick Bellerue as Smoky; Douglas Rowe as Sheriff Sam Motes; Bob Balaban as Harry Parver

Ephemeral Waves

[NOTE - Does contain spoilers for certain episodes]

UPN (the United Paramount Network) was an American television broadcaster that existed between 1995 and 2006, and had great success with Star Trek: The Next Generation, a considerable hit for them. Unfortunately, barring a few other shows, most of their programming only lasted for one season each. One such show, which could have become something of great interest, but is now an obscure curiosity, is the steampunk western television series that is not The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. (1993-4). That show, starring cult star Bruce Campbell, is the show that gained a cult reputation as a steampunk western television show cancelled after one season, making the actual show I am talking about, Legend starring Richard Dean Anderson and John de Lancie, even more obscure.

Legend instead stars Richard Dean Anderson, who helped executive produce the show as well. For my generation, at least in my household, he is most well known for the long running Stargate SG-1 franchise, a television series that spin off from Roland Emmerich's 1994 film and from my perspective was swallowed by it completely in terms of public consciousness. For 1995 however, I would not be surprised if Anderson was known for MacGyver, a show I am aware of because The Simpsons made it a running joke that Marge Simpson's sisters were obsessed with the television show, itself a behemoth in how long it had lasted between 1985 and 1992. Here for UPN, Anderson was clearly a bankable start to promote a fun action romp from and a wise investment to begin with.

The pilot by itself for Legend would have been a little gem if it never got twelve episodes, setting up the premise completely and even ending on the best conclusion for any of the episodes. Anderson is Ernest Pratt, a dime novel author in the 19th century Wild West who, despite his drinking and womanising, created the character of Nicodemus Legend, the ultimate hero and saint of a cowboy hero who uses imaginative tech to outwit his foes and is the polar opposite of his creator.

This is something which Pratt will regret as, having posed as his character for public events, the pilot has him accused for having redistributed an entire river for poor farm owners against a corrupt land heiress, forcing him to have to investigate the scenario. This leads him to the main location of the series, the town of Sheridan in Colorado, and Hungarian immigrant and scientist Janos Bartok, played by John de Lancie, most famous from my childhood for playing Q in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Beyond the joke that, eventually, a Q from one franchise is effectively playing a "Q" as famous from the Bond franchise, who creates gadgets for the hero here, de Lancie is playing a stand-in for Nikola Tesla, a scientist with radical ideas who like Bartok (but in real life) was screwed over by Thomas Edison.

Whilst his accent is erratic to say the least, de Lancie alongside Anderson help bolster the show with two great lead performances, Bartok the virtuous figure who can bring Nicodemus Legend to life with technology beyond the time period, be it an electric gun to a steam powered car, all whilst being able to bend Pratt's hand into being heroic. It is a shame that the third lead, Mark Adair-Rios as Huitzilopochtli Ramos, is not as distinct, especially as in a show that can be accused of having an all white cast, a smart and equally skilled Hispanic member of the trio is just as distinct in the little we get for the character, the straight man to Bartok's sincere eccentricities, and Pratt's womanising and hesitance to act.

Honestly, any issues from Legend as a series for me are that it is an episodic show, not an issue aside from that the fact that the quality per episode of the stories is a greater concern as a result than a continuous storyline that can fix itself. Production wise, even a television budget here is spun to have some spectacle, especially as the premise means that it can play with technology from beyond the era. It is especially helped by the fact that humour is inherently a core feature of the show, be it every time Pratt uses the hand glider being fraught with peril or Bartok's ill advised attempt to scientifically improve opening a locked safe. The show is at its best when it is about the characters, to which the cast and the scripts, when it is character building, is strong. Pratt is now stuck as his own character, even to the point anyone who would provide him alcohol would be ostracised by the town of Sheridan, leading to him having the barkeeper pretend it is tea and serve the liquor in a porcelain cup.  

It is to the character's advantage that, alongside nobility when pushed to, Anderson is really good in the role. Whilst the character is a simple one to get, you can even in this very cleaned up and simplistic version of the western get a complexity in a man who (as learnt) was a journalist, got cynical and liked his women, and got to writing Nicodemus Legend likely as a semblance of his old ideals as much as to make money. It is not insane to compare this character to how Mark Twain is different from Samuel Langhorne Clemens, the real man behind Twain the persona, or if this series had ran with this premise and a figure from the era like Jules Verne (or Twain himself) appeared and had to live up to their characters, like Verne acquiring Captain Nemo's submarine. Even in Pratt still loving and quoting poetry suggests even he, the coward and drunk, is still a good man, his Legend character a trap now for him but a necessary one he subconsciously built. The show gets so much reward from this dynamic.

Especially, say, when a cattle rustler kidnaps Pratt only to complain to his hostage that his depictions of stagecoach robberies is woefully inaccurate, all because no sane person would try to rob one from behind. Or the episode when a mother and child team of con artists manages to convince Pratt's publisher Legend needs a child sidekick, the show mocking a terrible trope of having cute child sidekicks to appeal to an audience that are usually hated. That both examples used are from the same episode shows how Legend the show was full of playful and clever work at its best. The same can be said for Bartok as, being the noble immigrant scientist who wants to help everyone, his almost naive interest in innovation matched by a desire for virtue is as lovable.

The side cast is also, thankfully, as strong. The fourth person (and lat) in the opening credits is Jarrad Paul as  Skeeter, a bellboy who is not in a lot of scenes is constantly surfcasting in a playful way, who also stands out because Bartok's constant electricity experiments has lead to his hair being permanently stood erected. The other worthy figures of mention are Bob Balaban, actor and director of one episode, as Pratt's contact to his publisher Harry Parver, and Robert Donner as Mayor Chamberlain Brown, who is also the town taxidermist and undertaker, measuring Pratt for a coffin before he is even expected to die or trying to shill a home to retire in to General George Armstrong Custer.

As that suggests, Legend does tackle real life western history with figures guest starring. The Custer episode does have to negotiate around his history of anti-Native American battle campaigns, but the show does make comments about this in the negative, alongside the episode referencing this being just before his ill advised last stand at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. President Ulysses S. Grant has an episode where his life is threatened, leading to a scene which references his drinking and deals with the fact, whilst sanitised, this period is set after the Civil War and the divide of the North to the South. Then there is the Wild Bill Hickok episode which becomes something special and one of the episodes which won me over. Why I include spoiler warnings, it recreates Hickok's legendary death, in the town of Deadwood with a Dead Man's Hand in cards, cutting from a fun episode to a sombre aesthetic and an alternative rock song, not as good as Bob Dylan's Knockin' On Heaven's Door for Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), which opens with the death of one of its lead character in his twilight years, but in the same ballpark of the tone. It is a sudden moment of real seriousness in this programme which has been playful and funny for everything before...only for the fact that, in this version, Bartok invented a bullet proof vest before they existed and Will Bill Hickok can fake his own death to retire.

There are flaws. When Legend tries to be serious, I do not think it succeeds. There is an episode about a fake Evangelical priest, played by Robert Englund of A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, which attempts the science versus religion debate, apt as (referred to in an early episode for a joke) this was also the era of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Like a lot of work however in this area, it always is a simple take on religion with it being part of cartoonish villains rather than anything complicated and morally murkier, poking the issue of moral corruption in religion even in a fun romp more precisely or even wondering about the history of scientists who still claimed themselves to be believers over the centuries. It says a lot that this same show, whilst the best scene in the episode, that the story hedges its bets with a narrative, about Bartok trying to create a cloud buster for rain, with the machine never working and its ending being left open. Either it was a literal deus ex machina, or a coincidence, or a cop out, but it is entirely your choice. Likewise, Ramos' episode is about racism, John Vernon playing a rich man who may be stealing Aztec artefacts, which is very simple and is very flat, sadly the last of the series and this leaving the show on an anti-climax.

In fact, when the show is being humorous, it is far more able to be complex because the premise allows for this and the jokes are good. It is not an exaggeration that the pilot has an ending that should have ended this sole season, a twist on walking into the sun as in the end of a traditional western only for Pratt to be convinced otherwise, all because his publisher threatened to cancelled his series if he did not stay. The paradox of a man being forced to play his opposite is poetic and dynamically rich even when played as a comedy, all entirely because it still stems from the cynical lead creating an ideal hero imbued with virtues, hence clearly having the virtues himself even if he presumed them to be lost. Most westerns also do not have the protagonist convince a hired gunfighter to not kill him by offering to bring him to his publisher for his stories. Legend does this, also in the pilot, and that scene is golden.

Even in terms of an action show, it is solidly made on a television budget and helped by the fact that, whilst westerns have had a waning interest past their golden era, they have always been made in the United States whether for cinema, revisionist or otherwise, for television and even straight to video/DVD/streaming productions. The western frontier, even now, can still be found because the United States has vast desert plain and wilderness that cowboys would have wandered on in the old days, and westerns were still being made at this point in the nineties and meant you could, as seen, access to good costumes, good production design and especially stunt actors who could do things like ride horses. Nothing in Legend, barring the CGI stand in for the heroes' hot air balloon for transport, looks terrible in terms of budget in the current day either, and whilst it never really gets bombastic in aesthetic, it does not need too. The real exception is, again, played for comedy with Pratt's scenes of writer's block trying to create new Legend stories, such as being chased in a ghost town by dwarf bank robbers or pursuing a villain on a hand glider, which are shot in sepia and look striking just from that one effect.

Sadly, Legend was cancelled, and honestly, it is peculiar that even happened. UPN, if you look at their programming when they existed, is mainly a list of casualties as a lot of their programming in various genres did not last more than one season, and in some cases not even all the episodes were shown. I admit that Legend itself in the later episodes is weaker at times, but you can see a show like this learn from its mistakes and grow in ambition, especially as it can have a quality production design and style without being too expensive. The biggest risk the show ever takes when it has an episode entirely set in San Francisco, an entirely different look, and that is one of the stronger later episodes because it is for a good reason, introducing Pratt's mother who is memorable, and having a go at interest plot points like the interest in spiritualism in that era. Even the problem with the show not having a fine enough grip on serious subject matter could be rectified, as even the humour does this better, such as the running joke of Native Americans betraying stereotypes by being business savvy or pointing out the lack of need in a rain dance due to the climate of their homeland. So yes, particular as this has a flawed second half, I would have been happy to have seen more of the show, entirely because even if it had not lasted longer beyond, we could have seen the show progress even more. We could have mended the disappointment of the show leaving on an anti-climax, even if it was only a couple of extra episodes or a second season, and the premise certainly had a lot of potential. I admit I prefer a continuous narrative for the most part in long form work, but it is "mostly" because examples like this show how it could work perfectly as a story of the week premise.

 

Lemonade Joe (1964)

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Director: Oldřich Lipský

Screenplay: Jiří Brdečka

Based on the novel and stage play by Jiří Brdečka

Cast: Karel Fiala as Lemonade Joe; Rudolf Deyl, Jr. as Doug Badman; Miloš Kopecký as Horace Badman/"Hogofogo"; Květa Fialová as Tornado Lou, the Arizona Warbler; Olga Schoberová as Winnifred Goodman; Bohuš Záhorský as Ezra Goodman

[Spoilers Throughout]

Synopsis: In the western town of Stetson City, Arizona, whiskey pours much to the sadness of teetotaller and Evangelist Ezra Goodman (Bohuš Záhorský) and his daughter Winnifred Goodman (Olga Schoberová), their religious abstinence campaign failing miserably. To their rescue, with his trademark Kolaloka lemonade his desired drink and perfect pistol aim, is Lemonade Joe who soon cleans the town up. Owner of the Trigger Whisky Saloon Doug Badman (Rudolf Deyl, Jr.) is not impressed by this, hiring the legendary outlaw Hogofogo, alias of his brother Horace Badman (Miloš Kopecký) to off Lemonade Joe.

With Czechoslovakian cinema - Czech and Slovakian alike - you will find the alchemist's stone of cinematic invention. Where even the genre films had the same craft as important dramatic works. Their history of stop motion both in stop motion and collage, is impeccable, and even the general style of their films from historical drama to science fiction is utterly unique. Cinema that is entirely unique and, even if more sporadic in release after the country split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, still produces such films. Theirs, before and after becoming separate countries, is barely scratched upon in terms of availability, allowing one to uncover hidden gems easily to the point of practically falling over them by accident. Take Lemonade Joe director Oldřich Lipský for example. You have, in one filmography, a Jules Verne adaptation (The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians (1981)), Lemonade Joe, the comedy sci-fi film I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen (1969), and the truly bizarre Happy End (1966), a film told entirely backwards where a man goes from his execution for murder to birth as an utterly unreliable narrator.

Lemonade Joe itself if not the only western made behind the Iron Curtain. Not the only musical made behind it either. A comedy western musical influenced by silent cinema techniques however is a one-off. Its desire to both mock American capitalism, as Lemonade Joe is actually in the hands of the Kolaloka Lemonade he drinks as a spokesperson, is yet tempered by it being openly influenced by older American cinema. Singing cowboys were actually a subgenre at one-point in Hollywood, particularly with Gene Autry, a singer-songwriter/film star/television and radio star/business entrepreneur/rodeo performer. (Aptly too as Autry starred in the twelve chapter film serial The Phantom Empire (1935), a western/scif-fi hybrid where he ends up in a secret underground world of robots and subterranean people trying to invade the world above, which is as bizarre as it sounds). Before Canadian film maker Guy Maddin starting using silent film technqiues in stylised ways, and uncovering old genres to use for his own ends, Lemonade Joe takes an era of westerns even older than the fifties classics starring the likes of John Wayne few talk of. The colour tints are from all genres of silent cinema too. Blues usually for dark environments, yellow for outside or lit rooms. Speeding up the film. Images superimposed onto scenes, such as the Egyptian pyramids in the western mountains.

The artistry of older cinema - built having to use its resources in mind of limitations - fits the style of Czech cinema immensely, which has always had a craftwork above even some of the best of industries like Hollywood. Used in a sound film, this style is incredible idiosyncratic and allows for carte blanche in terms of what can be done. If there's a contradiction between paying tribute to this type of cinema and its jabs at America, think of it as admiration for the art turned into a custard pie to the face. Apt as Lemonade Joe is a living breathing cartoon right down to Joe and Hogofogo having a Tom and Jerry like relationship when the latter's introduced. The greyness to this satire, if there is any morality, is actually to the film's advantage, Lemonade Joe becoming as much a true hero as he is a parody. Eventually the heroes and villains become farcical targets as Kolaloka can even resurrect to dead, undermining the antagonism completely.

The performances are as energised and help in Lemonade Joe actually working, characters who are as broad as cartoons but with a tangibility to them so they are not hollow caricatures. Karel Fiala makes a great Lemonade Joe, the perfect blonde and even naive gunfighter with a violent aversion to alcohol and prone to bursting into song in accented English, helped by the fact he was a real life operatic tenor as well as an actor. His could've merely been a mockable character, but its testament to the film and Fiala's performance that the satire to do with his wholesome personality doesn't stop him being a lovable figure you want with Winnifred Goodman, even with showgirl Tornado Lou, the raven haired femme fatale whose lusty demeanour is actually melted by Joe's existence is her life.

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His mirror, played by a strong figure in Miloš Kopecký, is Hogofogo. A figure so evil he's charismatic and even gets his own songs, all of which are the best in the film. One lusting over how he loves to kill, but the other probably Lemonade Joe's best scene, an inexplicably serious and potent number which intercuts into an imagined version of Hogofogo's funeral, a full New Orleans mourner's parade with blues instrumentation. That its whilst dressed as an old man to kidnap Winnifred Goodman doesn't undercut the moment. The only sour point, and the only one in the whole film, is when Hogofogo abruptly appears in blackface, a pretty grotesque look as with black makeup on Kopecký does look like a horrible caricature, but it does feel less problematic than the film referencing old Hollywood films even if its troublesome to witness.

The music alongside the production design is where Lemonade Joe in its oddness. Breaking expectations of a stereotypical western where the heroic gunslinger can hit a fly out of the air than (in English) sing a love song rocking on a bar piano. The general absurdity manages to come off as wholesome even when it still has characters die, someone getting a corkscrew in the back, and is ultimately still a piss take on American culture. The fact that this is film made in a communist country emphasising that its American references are to be viewed as parodies of the country the other side of the Iron Curtain. That it is sweet and playful is, yet, also for the better. Cartoonish with exaggeration. Its silliness, taking the production seriously, allows it stand out more.

Abstract Spectrum: Surreal

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium

Personal Opinion:

An undiscovered gem in Czechoslovakian cinema. Again, how many musical cowboy films involving silent film techniques actually exist? That it feels like a fully gestated, fully accomplished production means that this enticing premise is even better as a result.

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