289) A Time for Killing (1967)

289) A Time for Killing (1967) Dir: Phil Karlson and Roger Corman Date Released: November 1, 1967 Date Seen: July 16, 2011 Rating: 2.75/5

I remember wanting to like this a lot more than I did since Karlson's compositions often rival Jacques Tourneur's in terms of immaculate mise en scene. But the scenario is skimpy and I can't recall much of this beyond some interstitial scenes and particularly lurid shots, scenes, etc. 

349) Tales of Terror (1962)

349 Tales of Terror (1962) Dir: Roger Corman Date Released: July 1962 Date Seen: October 19, 2009 Rating: 3.5/5

Worth it if not just for the wine-tasting contest in "The Black Cat." See my mention of it in my Halloween-themed piece for the New York Press.

341) Masque of the Red Death (1964)

341) Masque of the Red Death (1964) Dir: Roger Corman Date Released: June 1964 Date Seen: October 14, 2009 Rating: 3.25/5

Screwy and strange but in a good way. See my mention of it in my piece on the films of Roger Corman for the The Onion N.Y. A.V. Club.

339) The Wild Angels (1966)

339) The Wild Angels (1966) Dir: Roger Corman Date Released: July 1966 Date Seen: October 13, 2009 Rating: 3.5/5

Not as good as I wanted it to be, perhaps but has enough pockets of technical mastery to make the slower bits well-worthwhile. See my mention of it in my piece on my Corman piece for The Onion's NY AV Club.

331) The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967)

331) The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967) Dir: Roger Corman Date Released: June 1957 Date Seen: October 9, 2009 Rating: 4/5

My favorite Corman-directed film thus far. See my mention of it in my piece on Corman's films for The Onion N.Y. A.V. Club.

330) The Intruder (1962)

330) The Intruder (1962) Dir: Roger Corman Date Released: May 1962 Date Seen: October 8, 2009 Rating: 2/5

A poor man's version of Richard Matheson's short story "The Distributor," which is also, while I'm on the subject, less smug and self-satisfied. See my mention of this one for my forthcoming feature on Roger Corman films for The Onion N.Y. A.V. Club.

Note: Matheson's story came out in 1958. The novel this film is based on came out in 1959. Yeah...um....yeah.

324) Premature Burial (1962) and 325) The Man with X-Ray Eyes (1963)

324) Premature Burial (1962) Dir: Roger Corman Date Released: March 1962 Date Seen: October 3, 2009 Rating: 3.75/5

325) X (AKA: The Man with X-Ray Eyes) (1963) Dir: Roger Corman Date Released: September 1963 Date Seen: October 3, 2009 Rating: 3.75/5

In spite of myself, I've started a mini-Roger Corman marathon with two films starring stuffy Welsh leading man Ray Milland. Milland's acting has never impressed me, not even in Fritz Lang's nutty Graham Greene adaptation Ministry of Fear (1946), in which he sweats up a storm and darts Nazi collaborators bearing mysterious cakes with the greatest of ease. His one-note delivery has never gotten under my skin but in both Premature Burial (1962) and The Man with X-Ray Eyes (1963), Milland displays anguished body language comparable to Jimmy Stewart's later performances.

Milland had more than a little help from Corman, an accomplished showman that evokes lingering gothic dread from what at a glance might look like campy set pieces. Corman pre-emptively compensates for Milland's shortcomings in both films by luring the audience's attention away from dialogue so florid it would make H.P. Lovecraft blush. For bait, he pulls out all the stops for a couple of awesomely foreboding psychedelic lightshows: fuschia and prismatic-rainbow color gels, lens filters and other lighting tricks; calculating, entrancing tracking shots; and, as usual, some of the most ravishing American studio soundstages, the kind that undoubtedly set the standard for the genre.

All of this should drown out Milland's quietly-mounting hysteria in the former film and bones-deep depression in the latter but somehow, it heightens them. Sure, new heights of kitschy ecstasy are reached as Milland shows off in Premature Burial the lengths he'll go to to escape being trapped in his tomb, including several sticks of dynamite, that newfangled invention Milland erroneously attributes to the Swiss scientist Nobel. But these tangential dalliances into aesthetic excess always return to Milland's body as the most salient sign of his emotional paralysis. And Milland really delivers, especially in Man with the X-Ray Eyes, where his slack shoulders and wan face betray the bitterness of a man that resorts to performing back-alley miracles to assuage his Promethean guilt. That may sound like hyperbole but to the character, the consequences of his actions are just that grave and monumental. For a little while, when Milland gets the opportunity to speak through his posture, I believed him.