The Story Of Mankind
(1957)
Director: Irwin Allen
Cast: Vincent Price, The Marx Brothers, Hedy Lamar
Special guest review!
By Michael Sullivan
At risk of throwing all credibility out the window
(well, let's just
pretend I had credibility to begin with), I just can't seem to get
enough
of Irwin Allen's idiotic all-star extravaganzas. I sit in awe over his
hilariously awful final stabs at the disaster movie genre (The
Swarm, When Time Ran Out) and especially his
cheap
and stupid television
shows and miniseries. (Does anybody remember that Alice in
Wonderland
miniseries which had Sammy Davis Jr. and Scott Baio in the cast?). I
love
Allen's creaky films so much, I sometimes imagine "lost epics" such as The
Life and Times of Abe Lincoln starring:
Charles Bronson,
Don Knotts, Crispin Glover, Rose McGowan, O.J. Simpson, George Kennedy
(it's required by law), Chris "Corky" Burke, Dudley Do-Right, a giant
robot,
a magical talking hat, and Small Wonder's Tiffany Brissette as
V.I.K.I.
So when I found out that one of Allen's earliest films
was an adaptation
of Hendrik Van Loon's book The Story Of Mankind, I had to check
out the results and let me tell you, this film proves that Allen was
always
a cheap and incompetent director.
Opening with an inspired rip-off of It's a
Wonderful Life,
two angels in the form of blinking stars nervously discuss that man has
discovered The Secret behind the Super H-bomb. After a lame remark
about
the bomb going off and there being a housing shortage in heaven, the
two
angels report this fact to the front office(?)
So an Outer Space Tribunal is held to see if mankind
deserves to live
or die. Speaking on behalf of us lowly humans is the Spirit Of Mankind
(Ronald Colman). Unfortunately for mankind, the slick, charismatic Mr.
Scratch (Vincent Price) is speaking against us, and after listening to
Scratch's very convincing speeches of the evils of mankind and
then
hearing Spirit's rather bland and dull speeches about how good we can
be,
I couldn't help but feel two things,
1. We deserve to die
2. I guess mankind didn't have enough money to shell out
for the Spirit
of Johnny Cochran and got stuck with this sub-par cosmic public
defender.
Scratch is accompanied by his apprentice who greets the
tribunal by
blowing smoke out his ears, which Scratch reprimands him for. One thing
I love in bad dramas or in bad horror are the writers attempts at comic
relief. Most of the time the comedy falls flat. But sometimes if you're
lucky, you get an insane non-sequiter like the scene above. (Another
favorite
non-sequiter moment comes from coincidentally another Price movie, The
Bat, the line being, "That was the cat dropping its dentures.")
After enduring some more of Scratch's inane hijinks
(which to Price's
credit, even the stalest joke is said with an air of dignity), the
tribunal
judge lays down the film's premise. Scratch and Spirit are allowed to
visit
earth during any period of time since the world began. They can use
people
and events which are relevant to the trial.
So with that, the tribunal begins with a coma-inducing
speech (from
Spirit, of course) about the caveman's birth of reasoning. But just
before
you fall asleep, John Carradine pops up as Pharaoh Koo Foo (I know I
spelled
it wrong, and I really don't care), who supposedly gave Scratch the
souls
of a million men in exchange for immortality. To see how this happened,
S and S arrive in Ancient Egypt to hide amongst a breathtaking amount
of
extras (two people) and watch stock footage from Land of the
Pharaohs.
Eventually they run out of mismatched stock footage, and Koo Foo shows
up in a cramped cardboard set and demands to have pyramids built for
all
the nation's blood whilst stroking a real lion. (Wow! How much of the
budget
did that blow?) To counter the inherent evils of Koo Foo, Spirit talks
about Moses (Francis X. Bushman in a ratty beard) who we see on Mt.
Sinai
as he listens to a very groggy-sounding God give out the Ten
Commandments.
Jumping ahead past the Hundred Year War and the Greek
philosophers,
we find Scratch getting a big laugh from the tribunal audience by a
holding
a bra out in front of him. (ha, ha, ha, ha..... bra) This is actually a
"clever" set up to introduce Cleopatra (Virginia Mayo). When I first
saw
Cleopatra's appearance in this film, I thought, "Wow! Betty Page's
first
legitimate acting gig!", but on closer inspection it's actually an
eerily
similar Mayo, who coincidentally has all of Betty's movements and
mannerisms
down pat. Mayo also decides to play Cleopatra like a moronic giggling
nine
year old girl. Although it's probably not the way most actresses would
choose to play the Queen of the Nile, the way the part is played does
have
an undeniable camp appeal and it is a nice departure from the
stultifying
speeches thanks to Cleo's casual disdain for human life.
Speaking of casual disdain for human life, let's take a
look at Nero
(Peter Lorre), who is in the middle of hosting a party. Despite the
fact
that Scratch calls Nero a murderer, maniac, rapist, and pervert, the
party
is pretty tame. Unless you find interpretive dance and a dwarf chasing
women around to be the height of perversity. After laughing
hysterically
at throwing a cup at a dancer, Nero laughs hysterically as he plays his
harp while Rome burns to the ground. (I'm no historian, but didn't he
play
a fiddle while Rome burned? Or to be more accurate, did this event ever
take place at all?)
Fast-forwarding past a constantly screaming Genghis Khan
and a ton of
stock footage of Knights on horses. A middle-aged Hedy Lamar is
pathetically
trying to play the teenaged Joan Of Arc, who is later condemned to
death
by an angry William Schallert (Hey! Patty Duke's dad!) after being
taken
prisoner by the soldiers of Burgundy.
Moving right along, past a strange speech about the pros
and cons of
Leonard DaVinci, we find a very embarrassed Chico Marx trying to
convince
Columbus that the world is flat ("Boom! No more ship."), but crafty
Columbus
puts a tiny ship on a grapefruit to prove him wrong. Thanks to this
brand
new form of transportation, the Joker (Cesar Romero as a traveling
Spaniard)
is able to meet Endora (Agnes Moorehead as Queen Elizabeth) so that the
two dignitaries can see which one of them over enunciates every word
they
say the most, or was it something about a war between Spain and
England?
I can't remember, because at this point I couldn't get the themes to Bewitched
and Batman out of my head.
Skipping ahead past a rather unfunny scene involving Sir
Walter Raleigh
and beer (don't ask), we get a legitimately funny moment, thanks to
Groucho
as Peter Minuit, who swindles Manhattan away from the Indians.
Admittedly,
the scene is really out of place (considering it's followed by footage
of a guy getting whipped), but that only adds to the film's
otherworldly
charm. The final Marx brother Harpo shows up as Sir Isaac Newton and
wouldn't
you know it, Harpo manages to work in a gratuitous harp sequence. While
playing his harp, Isaac is bonked on the head by a couple of apples.
After
some frantic mugging and some furious fist-shaking, Isaac discovers
that
his harp can cut apples into halves(?) To which Spirit adds, "But you
must
remember all this happened long before the invention of applesauce."
(Irwin
Allen, a comic genius rivaled only by the comic mind of a retarded
chimpanzee)
While we're on the subject of silly miscast roles, check
out America's
favorite burn-out, Dennis Hopper, as an intense non-French accented
Napoleon.
Being a huge fan of Blue Velvet, I kept half expecting
Napoleon
would smear lipstick all over his face and scream, "I'll send you a
love
letter straight from my heart, f*cker!" while fondling Josephine's blue
velvet robe. But Hopper plays it relatively straight, and is in the
movie
for a little more than five minutes.
The remainder of the film is mostly stock footage of the
American Revolution,
the gold rush, the Wright brother's first flight, and World Wars One
and
Two. Add to that an ambiguous ending (read: cop out) and you've got to
be kidding me.
This film is truly the definition of kitsch with it's
colorful cardboard
sets, an endless amount of stock footage that would make Ed Wood shout,
"Excessive!", overwrought dialogue, some truly ridiculous moments
(Marie
Antoinette and her guests laughing hysterically at a music box,
Alexander
Graham Bell saying, "Mr. Watson did you hear me?'' in an extremely
randy
and lascivious manner, William Shakespeare suggesting war with Spain to
Queen Elizabeth) and, of course, the embarrassed cast.
But the Big Question remains: is it a bad movie classic?
Almost. The
one thing holding it back from True Greatness are Spirit's maddeningly
dull speeches about morality, and most of these speeches don't make
mankind
look too good either. (Although the Renaissance shows how artistic and
creative we can be, is that a good enough excuse not to drop the bomb
on
us, especially after hearing about the Salem witch trials, slavery,
Nazis,
and the ultimate atrocity, Renaissance fairs?) Although not lovably bad
enough to be compared to Plan 9 or Cuban Rebel
Girls,
and not as mind-numbingly awful as Battlefield Earth or One
From the Heart, The Story of Mankind is truly
entertaining
in spite of itself.
Check
for availability on Amazon (DVD) -
-
Check
for availability of the original Hendrik Van Loon book
See also: Disk-O-Tek Holiday,
On Any Sunday, That's Black Entertainment
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