Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
And this is Joe McCormick. And today's movie on Weird House is the nineteen fifty three three D horror film The Maze, directed by William Cameron Menzies. I had never seen this before this week, and I first became aware of it back when we were doing our three Weeks of three D series. How long ago was that now, I guess it was a few months ago.
Yeah, yes, I'm sometime in months weeks. It's hard to say. Time passes strangely in the digital realm, but yeah, we were looking at different three D pictures and you know, a lot of them did come. We had certain boom periods for three D, and nineteen fifty three was definitely one of those years.
Absolutely the same year as Vincent Price's House of Wax.
Same year as Oh Our Friend, the Guerrilla Robot.
Oh Robot Monster. Nineteen fifty three.
Yeah, yeah, it was a big year for three D pictures, and we've been into a number of nineteen fifties films in general this year.
So The Maze ended up on my list of movies for that we ended up not picking it with some other options, but it came to mind again for me a week or two back when a friend of mine was over at the house. He wanted to show me a movie, and the one he picked was another film
by the same director, by William Cameron. Mindsy's a film released in nineteen fifty three, so the same year as the one we're talking about today, but called Invaders from Mars, which, according to a book called Saucer Movies, The Euphological History of the Cinema by Paul Mehan, it was the first full length movie ever to show aliens and their flying saucers in color. I think it just beat out the nineteen fifty three release of War the World, which I
think was intentional. They were sort of like trying to
get it out before War the World's now. We'll talk a bit more about this director when we get into the connections part of the episode, but I'll just say Invaders from Mars is very interesting in that while a lot of the movie is, you know, stuff we know very well from this period, stock footage of military vehicles driving around ooh, thrilling, and there's plenty of fifties cheeseball alien schlock in it, there are actually some very frightening
moments and images, And I know this movie stuck with a lot of people who would go on to become film directors in later decades. In the seventies and eighties, they like harkened back to seeing Invaders from Mars when they were little kids and being deeply frightened by it by certain memorable images, so much so that Toby Hooper ended up remaking Invaders from Mars in the eighties, And I know there are other directors who have cited it as like a movie that really scared them when they were young.
I never saw the original, but I have seen parts of Tobe Hooper's remake on TV back in the day.
Well, something I thought was interesting about Invaders from Mars was that of these actually very frightening moments and images, a lot of the stuff that works best in the movie is very set focused. It depends on specific sets to the extent that I would I say that I really get the feeling that William Cameron Mendsay's is a
sets guy. There's one that really sticks in my mind from Invaders, which is an indoor for outdoor set of the main character is like a little boy and aliens from mars Land in his backyard, and he starts figuring out what's going on as they sort of start pod peopling, you know, replacing people with alien drones that look just like them. He watches out his window as this alien
ship comes down in his backyard. And so the backyard is a sort of eerie looking hilltop with a path leading over it and a few trees in a wooden fence, And we repeatedly in that movie see characters venture down the path over the top of the hill and just disappear, which we later learn is because they are being sucked down through a patch of Martian quicksand which Minsias shows filling itself back in after it has consumed an earthling
with a reverse footage effect. And I think that part is actually highly effective, especially when paired with that unsettling indoor for outdoor set.
I think I know what you mean. And this ties into a lot of the indoor for outdoor sets that we've talked about before, where if it's done well, if it's done right, it feels uncanny. It feels like it doesn't feel like a completely artificial environment, but it feels like an environment on another planet.
Longtime listeners may be tired of hearing me say this because I bring it up a lot, but I really do love a good indoor for outdoor set, like some trees on a set and a painted background that I don't know when it's good. That really really makes a movie go next level for me. But anyway, so, having recently seen that movie from the same director, I was curious to see this one the Maze because it was released the same year as Invaders from Mars, and it was just kind of waiting there in the back of
my mind. The only other thing I knew about this movie, besides it having the same director as the one I'd seen recently, was that it is famous for having an absolutely bizarre twist ending that is either horrifying or hilarious, or maybe both, depending on who you ask.
Yeah, I had to look this up in the Psychotronic Encyclopedia film, and Michael Weldon first of all praises the set designs and then refers to quote the most unusual ending you'll ever witness. And of course this is coming from a guy who lived in breathed weird movies, So that's always an intriguing sign.
I mean, I guess you judge the weirdness of an ending by contrast, and I would say, if you're thinking of I don't know, David Cronenberg movies, this is not the weirdest ending you'll ever see, but it might be the weirdest ending I've ever seen in contrast to the to the energy of the rest of the film beforehand.
Yeah. Yeah, And then you know, in general, most movies don't have this ending, yeah, though it would be interesting if they did. And I guess the challenge here with all of this is we are not going to spoil what makes this ending special yet. We'll get to it, but we'll give you a nice warning when we get into that territory. But like, this is a film that I think a lot of people would not check out unless you are maybe a fifties completest or three D
cinema completest. That's probably more likely. But knowing that the ending is special, well you might push forward. And so yeah, I would encourage you to do so if that's what you're you're in the game for, like a nice weird ending that really kind of comes out of left field.
It's to the point that and we're gonna play the trailer for you, because this trailer is, I say, a top ten fifties trailer for me. It's really good. It's one of those where they talk directly to the audience. So Rob, I know you were comparing it to the trailer for Mad Love, kind of reminded me of like William Castle or The Mask, where somebody is like the film you're about to see is one of the most horrifying things. Now I will say about the movie itself.
While I greatly enjoyed it, especially considering the ending, I do have to say I think a real demerit of this film is that, even at eighty minutes, it feels somewhat padded out. And we have discussed films before that feel like this could have been a twenty something minute Twilight Zone episode but was padded out to feature film length, and I think this might well be an example of
that category. Throughout the middle of the movie, there are multiple times we get like a long sequence where a characters are discussing what they're about to do and then we see them do it, and we could have just seen them do it, and even what they're planning on
doing is not especially riveting plot material. It's like, aunt Edith, I'm going to say that you have a cold, which means we can't leave the castle, and then they'll have to let us stay and discover the secret of the maze, and then we see them do what they just talked about, So you know, not and not When I when I say see with them do what they just talked about, I don't mean discover the secret of the maze, I mean deliver the excuse about aunt Edith's cold.
Yeah, I mean also aunt Edith and more in particular what is it Kitty? There there are protagonists, they are main investigators, and there comes a point in the in the plot where okay, we're gonna have like six additional people added to this plot to help investigate, and it's totally unnecessary, Like you could have built up to that big reveal, You could have gotten there a lot faster without all these additional people just kind of muddying things up.
I will say, though, once all the friends arrive at the castle, the movie becomes significantly funnier. Yes, yeah, because Bert, the doctor they invite is uh, he's a character.
Is birth the one with a gun. Yeah.
Yeah, he came to examine his friend for you know, medical conditions, but happened to bring a revolver.
Okay, yeah, yeah, I know this guy, so I agree with you. Yeah, it's a slow build. I think it could have benefited from trimming maybe like twenty minutes off of it. Yeah, it could have been either a much shorter feature or a horror anthology episode. Yeah, but it's worth it's worth still worth pushing through to get to this ending. But if you didn't know there was a treat at the end, you might easily bail out, you know,
half an hour into this picture. Yeah, all right, Joe, do you have an elevator pitch for the Maze?
Well, you know, I started writing an elevator pitch just based around spoiling the ending, But I think we're not going to do that, are we. We're not going to do that until later in this episode. We'll give you a chance to bail out if you'd rather not know ahead of time.
Yeah, and then we will spoil the hell out of it. It's going to be a grand old time.
Okay, So instead I'll do the traditional movie set up elevator pitch. East fiance, Gerald, is heir to the estate of Craven Castle in Scotland. Just two weeks before their wedding, he is summoned to Craven with no warning, only to then cease all contact with his beloved. Will she find him again and reclaim their love or will a terrible family secret destroy them all?
All right, sounds intriguing. Well, let's get the trailer audio experience here, and like you said, Joe, this one's a real treat.
Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Richard Carlson.
If I look somewhat older and more drawn than I have in my recent pictures, it's because of the harrowing experiences I've been having here in the Maze. The Maze is the first picture in three dimension that delves into the weird and terrifying world of the supernatural. If you're familiar with the exciting effects that can be achieved with three D, you can imagine what happens when something from the great beyond reaches right out of the screen to
clutch at you. On one more thing, after you've seen The Maze, please don't reveal to your friends the secret of its story or its startling climax. Because you see, we think the Maze will amaze you.
What fearful secret was hidden from the world for two hundred years? Why was every door in Craven Castle locked at night? I went to your room and I saw something, something horrible. It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen. It was your imagination, something alive.
I saw it move.
The terrifying story that startled the world comes to the screen in three dimensions.
Hello, I'm actor Richard Carlson. You might remember me from films when I did not appear to be at the very moment of death. Well that's all in the past. I am now morbidly wizened and my blood has turned to an ashen vapor as a result of my participation in this film.
We think the Maze will amaze you. Perfect, absolutely perfect. God.
Can you imagine the people groaning in the theaters when they hear that.
I don't know, maybe it was in a different reception back then they had been like, Hey, that's clever, this movie looks clever.
I almost, without no pun intended, said, that is amazing word play.
All right, if you want to dive in and experience the maze for yourself, before we proceed through and start talking about the rest of the plot and the people involved in it. Well, it is available on DVD and Blu Ray, and it was released on three D Blu Ray for those of you who still have that technology or have access to a time machine to go back into the most recent home three D boom and get
a taste of that. I'm not sure this one is available for like legitimate streaming out there anywhere, but all that changes, you know, month to month. Almost if you look around, you might be able to find a stream of it.
This is yet another one that we did not get to see in three D.
Yeah, but you can still recognize those scenes, and we'll talk about those scenes where it's like, yep, these are the three D scenes. Put your glasses on.
Now, Okay, so we talked about connections.
Yeah, or we're going to start right here at the top with director slash production designer William Cameron Menzies, who we've we've been alluding to a little bit already. You know, something of a legend in this area of production design, though I don't know that i'd ever actually seen a film in its entirety that he worked on.
Same here apart from Invaders from Mars. I have in part seen his famous H. G. Wells adaptation Things to Come, which I know we're going to have to watch for a weird House one day.
So. Menzies was born in eighteen ninety six died in nineteen fifty seven. He was an American filmmaker, best known for his contributions as a production designer. In fact, Menzies apparently invent the title production designer and his credits in this area, which is also like art direction. I believe it was often referred to. This goes back to the silent era, and he has some extremely impressive credentials from that era, the lavish silent swashbuckler from nineteen twenty four,
The Thief of Bagdad. That one starred Douglas Fairbanks and also featured Anime Wong in a supporting role, and then a much later in his career, or a good bit later in his career, nineteen thirty nine, is Gone with the Wind. He also was involved in that lavish production design on that picture. As far as directing, he directed fifteen films and served as production designer on several of them. I mean I think most of them, and these include
nineteen thirty two's Chandu the Magician. This one had cinematography by James Wong Howell, who we've discussed in the show before. Nineteen thirty six is Things to Come, which you mentioned already, and fifty threes Invaders from Mars, which you recently watched.
I think it's interesting. I feel I would like to know more about how he thought of his own role as a director in his own film career, because you mentioned that he invented the title production designer. If you look at the credits at the beginning of the Maze, you might notice that he is He lists himself as a production designed and directed by William Cameron Mendsies. First, first thing there is production designed.
Yeah, I mean that is where he really made a name for himself. But then you know, it gets into directing of pictures as well. I was reading The Tragedy of Three D Cinema by Rick Mitchell from two thousand and four, and this is a fun article worth checking out if you're disinterested in the three D booma general.
It's not a long article. You can find it on Jay Store and he's going he talks about like the different booms in three D and what different studios were doing project wise to try and capitalize in that boom, and with a nineteen fifty three three D boom, this was one of the independent entries into the three D pool. This is allied Artist slash Monogram. And while the film itself is you know what it is, it's nobody's top three D picture, it's nobody's top nineteen fifty three picture,
he does say the following quote. Mensi's approach to camera placement, composition, and lighting were especially suited to three D, and in many ways the Maze is a textbook example of how to shoot a three D film, and he ultimately contends to that as a director, Mensie's never really had the chance to work with a script that was truly deserving of his talents. So, you know, far more technically proficient, and you know, the skilled when it came to the
visual and the artistic design of a picture. But you know, as he worked his way up into the director's chair, he perhaps never really had that perfect script to bring to life.
That does seem true based on my experience, though I guess I would reserve judgment on that until I've seen things to come, which seems a more ambitious project in terms of storytelling than the two moves I have seen.
Yeah, but he did. You know again, he was highly thought of when it came to production design or the art design on these various pictures. Now, Minsi's was nominated for four Oscars three Best Art Direction nominations in nineteen thirty, two of them in nineteen twenty nine. And fun fact, there were two Oscar ceremonies in nineteen thirty, so these awards are spread out across three different Academy Awards ceremonies
in the space of two years. Okay, yeah, it gets kind of weird when you start looking back at like early Oscars history, you know, because they didn't even start told what twenty nine. So anyway, he did win one of these. It was for a film in twenty nine titled The Dove, and then later on he got an Honorary Award for his work on Gone with the Wind. All right. The screenplay on this one was written by Daniel b Olman or as an adapted screenplay. Rather. He
lived nineteen eighteen through nineteen seventy nine. His other screenplays include nineteen sixty one's Mysterious Island That Start a Giant crab as well as various action, western and suspense films.
There aren't as many giant crab movies as you would think. That's one of them.
Yeah, that one stands out. It's a good looking crab. Now I said it was an adapted screenplay. It is based on a novel, a novel by Maurice Sandawz, who lived eighteen ninety two through nineteen fifty eight, a Swiss author and composer who apparently earned a PhD in chemistry but chose to devote his life to art instead of science.
His books I've read often venture into surreal and horrific territory, I guess, you know, dipping into some of that, you know, the energy of sort of the weird tales, weird fiction era. His nineteen forty five novel The Maze is the basis for this film and is apparently a key example of these interests. The novel has a largely gothic horror eye by understand, but also has this highly weird twist at the end. The surrealist artist Salvador Dali actually illustrated an
edition of this novel. You can find various booksellers online selling this illustrated volume it seems to be a pretty hot item among book collectors. I couldn't get a hit my hands on a copy of it, or at least I wouldn't be going to be able to get one in time for this episode. But you can find various examples of selfador Dolly's illustrations from the novel, and they're
really strange looking, as you might well imagine. There's one in particular of this kind of almost mushroom headed looking figure, and it's one of these images where you can look at it either right side up or upside down. One way it's this strange figure, and the other ways it's clearly supposed to be the castle from the book.
So what is the guy's head at the bottom when it's upside down?
I don't know. I's like that part, doesn't I guess translate so much into something something different, or does it? I don't know. I don't know.
It's like a big potato in a bowl when it's upside down.
M we may have to come back to this figuring this out once we get to the end of the end of the picture. But anyway, Sandoz has some other works. He wrote a novel called The House Without Windows, from nineteen fifty that has a futuristic house in it that apparently has a lot of things we just kind of take for granted as part of a house these days. And he also wrote various plays and short stories.
Okay, is it time to talk about our Troy McClure for this film.
Yes, playing Gerald mcteam. We have Richard Garlson, who lived nineteen twelve through nineteen seventy seven, actor of stage, screen and TV, as well as eventually a director and screenwriter. He was an established lead actor in the late thirties and early forties, but then, of course, then came World War Two. He serves in World War Two in the US Navy, and afterwards he has a little harder time getting those lead roles again, so he has to turn to screenwriting as a way to fill in the gaps.
And it also meant that he dipped more into sci fi in horror films. You know, he'd kind of like, you know, fallen down the ladder. I guess a bit in Hollywood. But as is often the case, these might not have been necessarily the most sought after projects of the day, but some of them are the projects that stood the test of time, because two of them, in particular, were directed by Jack Arnold. Nineteen fifty threes It Came from Outer Space and nineteen fifty four's Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Oh, who is he in Creature from the Black Lagoon.
He's the human guy who's not Richard Dinning.
Okay, he's the human guy who is not the guy from Creature with the Adam Brain.
Exactly. Yeah, it seems at times like we're sort of navigating our way around Creature from the Black Lagoon. We're covering various people involved in it, but not the film itself. I don't know if that means we're supposed to stay out of the Black Lagoon or if we need to venture into it eventually.
Let's see, we did Tarantula, which was that directed by Jack Arnold, same I believe, So yeah, okay, same director as Creature. Then we did Creature with the Adam Brain, which has Denning, though Dick Cutting is not in Creature, is it is he?
No?
I don't think so.
That was the one thing Creature needed to really make it perfect. It's like a news story segment from Dick Cutting.
But yeah, Rid Richard Carlson is I think he's a scientist, right, He's one of the scientists who goes to the Black Lagoon and surprise finds the creature from the Black Lagoon and then realize, we've got to do something about this creature.
We got to shoot at him.
Anyway. Carlson was also in nineteen fifty three Is the Magnetic Monster nineteen sixties, Tormented in nineteen sixty Eight's The Power. YEA, what can you say? I mean, it's I guess it's a solid leading performance that you can't help but wonder what a weirder character actor might have done in his place,
given where the plot eventually goes. But at the same time, I was trying to think, I was thought thought on this a little bit like I don't even know who I would suggest, like the fifties were such a square time for so many of these actors, Like who who else could they have possibly put right there in the starring role in this picture? And someone who had have been able to maybe lean into the strangeness of this character as we see him for most of the picture.
Oh, I was wondering if you were going to say it should have been Vincent Price in this role.
I mean, I guess. Yeah, I mean it would have. It would have been an alteration of the Vincent Price trajectory. But yeah, I mean Price definitely could have done I mean Price, and now that I think about it, yeah, Price would have been perfect, knowing what we know now, because he could do those leading role types to you know, those square type characters, but has these deep reservoirs of weirdness that you know, made him an icon of horrors.
So yeah, it would have been interesting to see what someone like Price could have done with this role.
But I'm in some jokes. I don't mean to rag on Carlson too much in this. I think he is doing what is asked of him.
Yeah, he does a fine job. You can't really criticize anything about his performance, even if with modern sensibilities, especially you, or even the sensibilities of later decades, you might wonder what else could have been? Yeah, yeah, but really, our two lead characters are Kitty Murray and her aunt Edith Murray.
Our Holmes and Watson of the.
Yes, yes, Kitty Murray is our Holmes, I guess, or she the Watson. I guess it depends how you look at it.
I think she's the Holmes I think aunt I think Aunt Edith is the Watson, okay, because she's the narrator.
Also, that's true. That's true. Yeah, like Watson. So Kitty Murray is played by Veronica Hurst, who lived nineteen thirty one through twenty twenty two British film, stage and television actress. This is one of her best remembered roles, though she also had a role in the nineteen sixties psychological horror film Peeping Tom, as well as a nineteen sixty five Bond knockoff titled Licensed to Kill starring Tom Adams.
Well, what had the Bond Corporation not not trademarked License to Kill?
Yet? I'm not sure this was not a This was not a Bond knockoff or like a non canon Bond film that I was familiar with. But you know, there were very there are things like Operation Kid Brother and you know, obviously in later decades, so it makes sense or ill guest, maybe this is the same decade. But at any rate, Veronica Hurst, I think she's great in this, you know, beautiful Town. It doesn't feign as much as
Aunt Edith. You know, this character is not like Ellen Ripley or anything, but she's still, you know, highly capable and brave and wants to get to the truth of the matter.
The entire plot centers around her being unbelievably pushy. The whole movie is just people telling her, no, you can't do that, and she's like, shut up, I'm doing it.
Yeah, and with her the whole time, except when she's fainting. Is Aunt Edith played by Catherine Emery lived nineteen oh six through nineteen eighty. She acted in the nineteen forty five Boris Karloff film Isle of the Dead, various other pictures. This was her final film. However, I like her. She's the furrowed eyebrow of the film. She's there to be, you know, like Kitty comes and tells her, Oh, Aunt Edith, I found a secret passageway that's full of killer bats.
You know, come with me, We'll go up the stairs, and and Edith's like, no, I would prefer not to. I want to go back to bed. Yeah. So for most of the film, these are our two investigators and the creepy castle. Now, you can't have a creepy castle, especially in a gothic film like this, without like some sort of authority figure saying no, you cannot go into that part of the house. You should not go into the maze.
It is not permitted, right.
And that character is William played by Michael Pate who lived nineteen twenty through two thousand and eight, an Australian actor, writer and director who if you look at you may recognize his face. He has a very distinct face, a unique look to go along with his talent. He's a guy who played a lot of heavies in his time. You see him pop up in a lot of Westerns and so forth. But he moved from Australia and from Australian film to Hollywood in the fifties and then in
the sixties. He's still working there, but eventually moved back to Australia in sixty eight, and that I think ultimately seemed to position him well to then get involved in various Australian film scene projects that were taking place in the seventies and eighties. So on the Hollywood side of things, you'll find him in nineteen fifty three's Julius Caesar, fifty
three's Hondo. He pops up in Roger Corman's Tower of London in nineteen sixty two, but in his later career in Australia, he appears in several Phelipe Mora films, including nineteen seventy six is Mad Dog Morgan, nineteen eighty three's The Return of Captain Invisible, and of course nineteen eighty seven's Howling three the Marsupials, in which he plays the President of the United States who's briefed about the dangers of were wolves.
Why does he play the president because.
The president needs to be briefed about the dangers of were wolves? Okay in Australia. I guess I've seen this film, but it has been a little bit. It's a pretty pretty crazy picture.
I have seen it as well. It's been many years. In fact, I recall all of the Howling sequels being extremely unusual.
Yeah, there's like one that's a carnival and the Carnivals. The other one that stands out in my mind. I don't know if that's that's probably like four or five or something.
I mean, it's been a long time, but I've seen them all. I like, I got into the ones that are shot on video, like the Howling seven, which I think is in the American Southwest.
Oh wow, I don't think I made it that far, but it sounds promising.
There are some beards and some cowboy hats.
Well in this one, he's William the creepy Butler, and youah, he delivers all the creeps shades of I think Boris Karloff in his sort of physical appearance and demeanor here.
I agree Boris Karloff. Also, William looks in physical appearance. He looks very frosted. He's like a frosted flake with a sugar coating.
Do you know what I mean?
His hair in his face. I don't know if that's literally some kind of makeup they applied to his eyebrows and his hair and stuff.
But Lerchian, you might say, yes, yes, all right. A couple of just supporting characters here, because we've really hit the main ones. But Hillary Brook shows up playing Peggy Lord. She lived nineteen fourteen through nineteen ninety nine, American actor, noted for roles in such films as nineteen forty six as The Strange Woman. That one starred Hetty Lamar. Supporting role she's a nineteen forty nine body hold, which it's a very alluring title, but it's apparently just a standard
pro wrestling crime picture. But it has Henry Kulk from Tobor in it Oh, who.
Played the communist car mechanic who ends up having to fight the robot.
Yeah yeah, he ends up bumping for the robot. Yeah yeah. Brooke was also in nineteen fifty six is the Man Who Knew Too Much. That's the Hitchcock film, another supporting role. Other pictures include fifty one's Lost Continent and Invaders from Mars. Now we have this character that shows up, Richard Roeblar. I had to check that doesn't spell robot backwards. This just spells what ralbor, which is not boar. Yeah, but anyway.
He lived nineteen twenty through nineteen eighty nine. I mainly bring him up because we mentioned him previously in our Perana Mandir episode. Because he plays an undead, beheaded warlock in nineteen fifty eight's The Thing That Wouldn't Die. His other credits include fifty four stal In for Murder and the nineteen fifty six sci fi fantasy epic The Mole People.
Who is this? This is Richard Carlson's friend who's hanging out with them at the beginning and then later comes back to make martinis at the castle.
Yeah. His whole thing is just seems to be rather chaotically making martinis, where he's like he's just whipping them up and like here you go, and they're like someone's like this is this is terrible. He's like, I'll get you on the next one. Like how many martinis are we hoping to? I have this evening to get to the right one. Richard use a recipe.
I think at one point he I assume he's making a joke, but he says he used a twenty seven to one ratio, which I assume that means twenty seven parts gin to one part vermouth. Cute.
Cute. Yes, all right, I'm going to skip over the rest of the human actors here we fit some of the main points. The music is by Marlon Skiles, who lived nineteen o six through nineteen eighty one American pianist, ranger, and composer. His scores include forty seven's Dead Reckoning, fifty seven's The Giant Claw, which we've provously mentioned That's the Giant Bird movie, fifty eight's Queen of Outer Space, and numerous westerns with some sci fi and horror sprinkled in.
Some of his score work appears in twenty seventeen's The Shape of Water. This particular score is everything he'd expect from a nineteen fifty three movie, So nothing special, but it does its job.
There were a couple of parts I was a little surprised by because they were more melodic than I expected. So when you see movies like this, I'd say the score is usually very kind of moody doodling. It doesn't come out with a tune that you could walk away humming to yourself. But there actually were a couple of moments in this film that had a very clear and
strong melody. Like there was a part where they're first getting put into their bedrooms at the castle that suddenly playing a melody that sounds kind of like a Scottish folk song.
Okay, well that's fitting. Maybe this one wasn't just completely cranked out.
Then maybe are you ready to talk about the plot?
Let's venture into the plot.
Now, Wait a minute, is this the part where we should tell people if you really don't want to have the ending spoiled for you, maybe you should watch the movie and come back.
I think so. Yes. After this point all spoilers are valid. We may skip ahead and spoil something we may explain of some teas that they roll out and go ahead, just boil what that tease is alluding to. So this is the point to break off, go see it if you want to see it, and come back afterwards.
Wait did we not even mention before that? In the trailer? Richard Carlson is like, please don't tell your friends. The ending will yeah ruin everything.
That's great. Yeah, I wish they would do more than most trailers are, just like, we're gonna gohead and spoil everything.
Actually, yeah, here's the ending. Yeah, but anyway, Okay, So at the beginning, the movie opens with an overhead shot of a hedge maze and ominous music and sound of whispering wind, and then it fades to the gate at the entrance of the mace, which is a heavy wooden door that says keep out.
And I'm assuming this is all three D at this point, so already like we're putting the viewer in the experience of passing through a gate through a door that says keep out, Like that's this is this is like watching that train. You don't come at the screen.
Exactly, And the way the camera dollies to push through the door, I sort of feel like we're about to start a movie on the satellite of love.
Yeah, it's good. Yeah, going through the various doors movie sign.
But of course we see, you know, the three D titles. So like the Maze comes out with deep three D lettering that's supposed to launch out of the screen. We see the blocks of the letters like hit a vanishing point in the background, and the action begins with an establishing shot of a lonesome gray castle surrounded by mist, with light up in a single window in the turret, and a man throws open the window and calls out
to the outside. He calls out Robert, Robert. Another man comes running from the grounds below, and then the two men these are servants of the castle, Robert and William. They meet and the first one tells the second it's happened, and they go up to the tower to investigate, and there we see in silhouette the figure of a man slumped motionless in a high back chair, as if dead. And they agree that one of them will go to the village and find the doctor, and the other one
will get in contact with mister Gerald. And then WHOA something I did not expect at all. We cut suddenly to the first of multiple testimonials from Aunt Edith, and I was not prepared for this. I think it's because the movie did not start with voiceover narration or any direct address to the audience. But suddenly, several minutes in, here's somebody's aunt staring right into your eyes, looking into the camera and saying, I suppose that was the beginning.
Yeah, this really caught me off guard as well. It's kind of alarming, not only due to the fact that here's the narrator coming in after the film's already started. She's breaking the fourth wall, but at least in the version I was watching, the whole scene was also framed really strangely. Yeah.
Yeah, oh, it's totally like that sometime. Well, so different Aunt Edith interrogation scenes are framed differently, but in some of them she is not centered vertically in the shot, like she's shot from the shoulders up or from the waist up, but only fills like the bottom third or bottom half of the frame, and the rest of the frame is just reserved for the ceiling, Like here's the wall and the ceiling and where they meet, and she's down there at the bottom of the screen, just looking
right at you.
I couldn't find any answers regarding this, but based on my limited experience, this feels very unninsies and it makes me wonder if this was like added in post, if this was whatever amounted to like test audiences of the day saying we're confused. Yeah that Aunt Edith, bring her in and have her explain what's happening in the.
Picture, right, I did not understand the film. I need Aunt Edith to look me in the eye and tell me what's going on. But so anyways, she says, so her first narration is I suppose that was the beginning. It occurred in Scotland, in a remote and distant castle in the Highlands, and yet it started the fantastic chain of events which led to my experience in the maze. It was just a year ago. So now she situating herself in time as she's doing these narration shots. I
don't know why that's necessary. It was just a year ago. My niece Kitty and I were with a group of friends in a delightful little cafe in Cohn on the French Riviera. It was an engagement party and hey, here's something similar to the other horror movie from nineteen fifty
three presented in three D that we watched. Remember how in House of Wax the movie managed to work in not only a full length paddleball show, but like a phalanx of three D lady legs courtesy of an extended can Can dance number in the middle of the movie. I think the context was like this was in House of Wax. Like the main character's boyfriend tells her, Oh, you're upset about your friend being murdered and turned into wax.
You need to get your mind off things. Let's go watch the Ziegfield Girls.
Yeah, let's go to a Bless show. And then to be clear, Burless can have healing attributes that can can heal the weathered soul. Sure, but also get some leg kicks out there. It's a great way to show off your three D technology.
There you go. Well, this movie also decided to show us a full dance number, and I assume in three D this would have been even more thrilling. But I have to say that this is a horror film, but I didn't. I don't think they meant for this number to be as horrifying as it was. I was genuinely worried for the safety of the woman in the scene. So I have a question for people out there with
knowledge about dance. I don't know what you call this move, but there were two male dancers and one female dancer
and the lady between them. Like the two guys suspended her between them by each taking hold of one arm and one leg, and then they swung her whole body back and forth in a wild pendulum motion, like they turned her into the pirate ship carnival ride, and it looked like she was just inches from hitting the floor face first, and they were swinging her so hard it looked like if she actually did hit the floor, it would definitely kill her, or at least like really injure her. So,
people with dance knowledge, is this a normal move? It looks so dangerous to me.
Yeah, it's very impressive. And then there's this bit where she grabs a drink off of the table. Oh yeah, I thought that was rather clever.
Yeah, that's very good. I mean, I'm impressed by the talent of the dancers in this scene, but I think it's because she's moving so fast and the fact that they're holding her each by one arm means that if she were to fall, like, she wouldn't be able to like reach up and protect her face with her arms. It would just be face plant into the floor at full speed. Sorry to dwell on this, but it really freaked me out.
It's an impressive dance number, But so.
You mentioned the part where she grabs a drink off a table. So the dancer at one point in the number is like carried over to a particular table the audience, and she kind of like winks at a guy. And the guy she winks at is Richard Carlson playing Gerald mcteam, one of our protagonists. So there are four people at
the table. You got Gerald, You got his fiance Kitty, played by Veronica Hurst, and Gerald and Kitty do some kind of insufferable engagement banter, like Kitty is playfully jealous of Gerald making eye contact with the dancer and so forth. Then you got Aunt Edith. That's Kitty's Aunt Edith, played by Catherine Emery. When we meet her, she already appears to be full of questions and doubts. And then you got Gerald's friend, Richard, who takes Kitty dancing while Gerald
narrates some backstory to Aunt Edith. So when you first meet him, Kitty says, aunt Edith, did you see the way that girl was making eyes at my fiance? It makes me worry about what he'd be doing if I weren't here. And then Gerald says, I would probably be out looking for you, just as I've been doing my entire life. And then Kitty says, see why I'm marrying him, aunt Edith, he always says the right thing. Then aunt
Edith rather slyly says, I've always mistrusted glibmh. I would say, good instincts, aunt Edith, general life rule, at least in my opinion, be on guard against people who always know the right thing to say in any situation. You know, that could be a red flag. They're just too comfortable saying things they don't mean.
This is definitely a point in the film where you might ask yourself, do I really want to watch another hour of this?
Right?
But trust us, you want to push through because the Gothic horror is going to kick in eventually.
It will. Yeah, we're stuck in the French riviera right now, but it will get weirder. So yeah, so they're talking about glibmn aunt Edith is like Okay, Gerald's about to become my Would it be her nephew in law? I guess, and she's like, you know, I don't like glib men, but I'll make an exception in this case. So Gerald's friend Richard takes Kitty dancing, and then Gerald and Aunt Edith get a chance to chat, and Aunt Edith wants to know if Gerald's uncle Samuel will be coming to
the wedding. Gerald says, oh, no, no, there's no reason he'd be there. He's kept himself locked up in that miserable Craven Castle for decades or I don't know, not decades.
I think.
He just says years. Yeah, that makes sense, because I don't know how long a baronet actually lasts in that castle. And then Aunt Edith says she has heard the Craven Castle is a beautiful place, but Gerald knows better. He says, well, it might be beautiful from a distance, but I spent time there as a young man and it was a stern, unhappy,
unsettling place. The castle has never had any modern improvements, so it has no telephone, no electricity, no central heating, and he also says that there were weird rules when he lived there. Like he had to be locked inside his bedroom at night and there was a maze outside with a padlock on the door, and he was forbidden to go into it.
He said. The one good thing though, no flies, No flies at all. I don't know what was up. Saw a single fly?
Yeah, very good. Gerald says that every Scottish castle at one point had a maze, but most of them have had their mazes removed. The only the one at Craven Castle has left, and I was wondering is that true it was actually common for Scottish castles to have a hedge maze. I've never heard of that.
Yeah, I'm not sure. It's been a while since I covered any maze or labyrinth content on the show. We might have to revisit that topic in the future because it gets pretty interesting. But as I recall, hedge mazes were especially a thing in the Renaissance, and I know there at least were some notable hedge mazes in Scotland. I think there's one notable hedge maze remaining. What is this Trequar House? I think I put up a picture of the maze here for you, Joe. Looks pretty impressive.
There might be some sort of a gothic horror creeping around in there for all I can tell.
Sure. Yeah.
Yeah.
By the way, I don't get the impression that there was a full size maze built for this film. I could be wrong, but I think when we see it from above, it's probably a model. And then when we actually have the scenes in it, I don't get the impression that they have more than just like a you know, a couple of turns to work with and they're just shooting those over and over. But again I could be wrong.
I think this is just a look. Yeah, they shot this all in Hollywood, right, yeah.
Well, anyway, after this, Gerald and Kitty go dancing and they're you know, they're very happy, blissful, they're in love and they're gonna get married and oh that's so sweet. And then suddenly cut to another Aunt Edith scene. She's
looking in the camera again. This was the first one for me where she's weirdly stuck in the bottom of the frame and the top half is just the wall and the ceiling, and she says Gerald's words about Craven Castle and the mcteam family worried me, not only what he said, but something he neglected to say that none of the baronets lived more than a few years after inheriting the title, and Gerald was the next in line. The next day, which was bright with summer sunshine, did
much to dispel my worries of the night before. And then we cut to a pool party, and I'll abbreviate here and do a bit of a recap. So at the pool party, I guess again, I guess they're still the French Riviera. Gerald receives a letter from Craven Castle from William, his uncle's butler. It's urgent and he must come to Craven immediately. He resists at first, He's like, I barely knew my uncle. I don't know why I
would be summoned. I'm getting married to Kitty in a couple of weeks, so there's no reason for me to go. But then Kitty convinces him that he should go if he's needed, and she reasons that this will all be for the best because while he's away in the land of wind and ghosts, she and Aunt Edith can go shopping for clothes without worrying that Gerald is looking at French women. So he goes, and then Kitty and Aunt
Edith just hang around. They hang out at the French Rivieria waiting to hear back from him, but they never do. They send letters and he doesn't write back, and then they read an article in the newspaper announcing that Sir Samuel mcteam, the Baron of craven Castle, has died. What newspaper this is? I'm kind of curious, like, what are they getting in France that has obituaries for minor Scottish nobles.
He's just you know, the fancy folk page and the paper just telling you what's up with the.
Nobles peerage times.
Yeah, but this is concerning Gerald's not writing back about any of.
This, right, So anyway, Finally Gerald sends a letter not to Kitty but to aunt Edith, telling her that he can no longer marry Kitty and she is released from their engagement. And then there's a line in the letter that Gerald has scratched out in pencil, and Kitty manages, she does a sort of Sherlock Holmes trick, like she manages to get rid of his scratch marks and see
what he originally wrote underneath. And he originally said that he could never return to her, though he would wish that he could, but he shan't wish it, for to do so would be to wish for a death. What could he be talking about? So Kitty decides she and and Edith have to go to Craven Castle to find out what's going on. And Edith is like, no in Kitty's like, we're going.
All right, but now we're off to the races. Now we're headed to the spooky castle.
That's right, So Kitty and Aunt Edith. Next thing, they're at Craven which might as well be Castle Braun, Transylvania. You've got foul mist swirling, You've got dead black skeletons of leafless trees just twisting over the pathway to the castle. You got an iron gate that looks like it used to belong to Vlad the Impaler. The cab driver who brought them to the castle drives off in terror without even helping them with their bags. It's a spooky place.
Yeah, all the expected Gothic castle notes here.
So Kitty and Edith go to the door where they are greeted by the butler, William. And William, as we've said, is very serious and severe, and he has this frosted look. He almost seems kind of frozen in time. He speaks very slowly, he kind of walks slowly, and yeah, he just seems like he is all business and that business involves some kind of evil magic. So William tries to
send them away, but Kitty is extremely pushy. So William says, Sir Gerald is indisposed, and Kitty says, well, we're indisposed standing here in this fog, and then just barges in through the door. Kitty is very assertive, will not take
no for an answer. It's a recurring theme. So Gerald comes down finally reluctantly to meet them, but when Kitty sees her fiance, she sees that he has changed the debonair young man who is dancing in the ballroom just a few weeks before and now has gray wings in his hair like Polly Walnuts, and he looks his skin looks dry, and he just looks thoroughly aged. He is shocked and unhappy to see Kitty, and he also tells them that they must leave at once, but Kitty again,
she insists on staying. She's like, nope, show us to our rooms. So Gerald has the butlers take them to a suite of adjoining bedrooms, and we and that accommodations in the castle are harsh. It's cold, as he said earlier, there's no electricity, old furnishings, windows are sealed up with bricks, and the servants lock the two women in their bedrooms during the night.
Yeah, this is the second time we at least that we've heard about this, that this is a castle where you are locked into your bedroom at night. The idea it seems that there's something out there at night that you need to be locked away from.
And for some reason, aunt Edith waits until after they're locked into their bedrooms to tell Kitty about this, Like she already knew right that Gerald explained it to her earlier that there are rules in the castle. You're locked in your bedroom at night, can't enter the maze, and the staircase to the tower is off limits. She so in this scene she's like, oh, yeah, Kitty, these are the rules.
Well, she knows, and aunt Edith is a is a real rule follower. She's the sort that will appreciate a long list of weird rules, whereas Kitty is liable to just instantly rebel and ask questions about why we're doing this.
That's a good point. Somewhere in here, there's a scene where William and Gerald are talking in low tones and they discussed the fact that a woman who was hired to do some cleaning at the castle last week has died, apparently of heart failure, and Gerald says that they must be more vigilant about making sure that no one is allowed into the maze. So it seems they're troubled by this, but they're also trying to keep a secret. Somehow this woman died and it was connected to her going into
the maze against their wishes. Maybe she was cleaning inside the maze. Does it get dirty in there?
Well, I think we'll find out, yes, it does.
So in the night, Kitty hears some sort of weird scuttling sound out in the hallway, and she sees shadows passing underneath the door to her room, and then she discovers a secret passageway hidden behind behind like a what do you call it? Like a sort of textile hanging over the wall that has designs on it.
Is that a tapestry? Tapestry?
So she finds a secret passageway hidden behind that, she enters it and it leads to a stairway guarded by bats, and I think I want to do a brief digression on why do is that bat effects in older horror movies are always funny to me? I think there are some funny bats, even in Todd Browning's Dracula, but it goes to way more recent movies than that, like in the seventies movies with otherwise excellent effects. The bat scene in Suspiria is so funny it always makes me laugh.
Why is it so hard to make a bat look like anything other than a ball of socks on a string.
I don't know, but yeah, you do see it a lot. There are some pretty ridiculous bats in Santo and the Treasure of Dracula, as I recall.
Oh yeah. So after making it through the staircase of bat, Kitty goes as she looks out a window and she sees a light in the maize below. Someone is moving around in the maze at midnight. So Kitty tries to go get aunt Edith as she's like, Aunt Edith, wake up. We got to go up the secret passageway, but aunti Edith would prefer not to.
And this is a solid note in the mystery. I think, you know, it looks effective too, Like you can't make out what's carrying the light, but you can tell there's something or somebody down there in this forbidden place at night, and so it's intrigued.
I agree, it's very cool. It's spooky looking. So the next morning we get this scheming scene where Kitty plans to say that they can't leave the castle now because Aunt Edith has a cold, And then on her way to the dining room for breakfast, Kitty snoops around the stairs up to the tower and she sees strangely shaped patches of slime on the floor.
Now we'll say they are strangely shaped because they are
shaped like creature feet. Yeah, and this is where I'm not gonna I mean, you know, all spoilers are fair game at this point, but I went into this film knowing more specifically what the spoiler would be, and so this was also one of those moments where I was having to guess, like, well, what is the intended viewer the unspoiled viewer supposed to begin to think at this point, like what sort of theory are they putting together regarding this creepy old castle and the hideous secret a monster
comes out at night.
Yeah, I mean it's a good question. It seems like I can't really imagine what sort of ending it's driving toward other than the one we get.
Yeah. I guess it comes down to if there is a monster, what or who is the monster and how does it factor into the plot? Like, I think one potential theory you could start getting because they're very concerned about Gerald. They're increasingly concerned about Gerald and his health, and so you might think, well, hey, maybe this is some sort of like werewolf situation or Jeckyll and Hyde situation. Maybe he is turning into a monster.
I think that makes sense. Yeah, you can think it is Gerald himself. And regarding the health thing, at some point, Kitty tries to get William to send for a doctor to figure out why Gerald appears to have aged twenty years in a few weeks, and William says, no, we are perfectly capable of taking care of Sir Gerald ourselves. So Kitty starts scheming again and she comes up with
a plan. Her plan is to make Gerald see a doctor quote whether he wants to or not, And her plan is that they're going to send a letter to invite some friends to join them at the castle for a holiday. And the group of friends they're going to invite includes a friend named Bert Dilling who happens to be a doctor. And then that's going to get him a secret doctor visit.
Brilliant. She's going to use the laws of hospitality against him.
Yes, this is smart. Yeah, make sure you ask for some bread and salt. So Kitty goes out looking for She writes a letter. She goes out looking for a way to put it in the post and ends up wandering past the maze. Oh and while she's there, she meets a groundskeeper and hands the letter off for him to post it for her, which he actually does. You don't know if he's going to do that. But the groundskeeper is apparently the Torgo of Craven Castle.
Oh yeah, yeah, you're gonna want a creepy groundskeeper in the mix as well.
So he warns her not to go into the maze, which of course she then does, and she finds more odd footprints in the same shape as the slime she saw on the staircase. And then Gerald catches Kitty snooping in the maze. I guess he's already in there for some reason and he grabs her roughly by the arm and he commands her to get out and never come back to the maze.
Yeah. So at this point we know there's some serious maze mischief going on. Gerald is highly involved in all of it, like he's he knows what's up, whatever's up, and he is just not telling them. There's some there's a communication gap here between these two would be lovers, and I guess they're not engaged anymore at this point, but you know, clearly Kitty Kitty wants things back together, but they're just not talking about whatever this is it's going on here.
I think they're not in agreement about whether they're engaged su or not. He thinks they or not and she thinks they are.
Yeah. Well, I mean he won't talk about what the problem is. I mean basically it comes down. It does come down of communication. He's like, he's like, there's a problem. We can't get married anymore. And she's like, let's talk about the problem. Tell me what the problem is, and he says, no, you should leave right.
Yeah, she wants to understand Gerald's disgusting May's crimes. Yes, But then later Aunt Edith is quite rightfully infuriated to hear that the Gerald has been rough with Kitty, and she wants to go give him a piece of her mind. So she sneaks up the stairs to the tower, I guess, because she thinks Gerald will be up there. But then once she reaches the room at the top of the tower, she hears a scuttling sound and sees what other ways
this like? She sees a toad butt, she sees the back end of a giant frog disappearing into a secret passageway, and she screams and faints. Now, maybe the filmmakers thought that you could preserve the ending because this goes by really fast, I guess, and you couldn't really maybe you wouldn't have time to understand what you're looking at. But it does look like just the back end of a gigantic toad or frog.
Yeah, knowing what we knew going into this, like this is clearly the back half of the monster. You just revealed half of the monster minsies And I don't know. I mean, it's shot really well, and the monster suit in question, I think is really good. Yeah, we just perhaps see too much of it too early to maintain the mystery. But then again, I'm put in that weird position again of like trying to figure out what a fresh viewer would make of this information.
At this point, I guess, yeah, to be charitable, you could say maybe they would. They would just think, well, I saw something weird, and that's what. And Edith says that Gerald like finds her. Shets on the floor, Gerald finds her, brings her back to her bedroom, and she's like, in your room, Gerald, I saw something horrible, the most horrible thing I've ever seen something alive. I saw it move. But then she never can say any more specifics.
And then Jared, well, here here's a telling question, Joe, Okay, did you run it back immediately and watch the frog bet again?
Oh? Maybe I did.
I don't because I certainly did, because I was like, what did I do? Did I just see a frog bit? I've got to go back and see it, and I did, and I did that. Obviously that is not the intended viewing experience. That is not what Mensi's had in mind. So I guess we have to take that into account as well.
That's a good point. Yeah, you couldn't rewind it in the theaters, But so aunt Edith is like I saw something alive, and Gerald says it was your imagination.
You know.
I demand privacy in my quarters. And then he instructs William to make sure that the guests are inside their rooms before he locks the doors at night.
Good point, men, he died needlessly because we neglected to really hammer down how this rule plays out.
Yeah, and then that night, once again, Kitty hears scuttling and she sees shadows move slowly down the hall in the light under her bedroom door, and then we get an intermission. This movie has one.
Nice yeah, and I'm reasonably short movie, but it still has an intermission.
And so they specify. I think this is the very next day, the friends that that Kitty wrote to, Bert Dilling and three other friends arrive at the castle driving Cruela Deville's car, and I was just thinking, wait a second. So Kitty put the letter in the regular paper mail yesterday, writing to her friends, who are presumably in another country, to come to Craven Castle, and they're there within twenty four hours. Sure, sure, man, don't they don't run the mail like they used to.
I guess this castle is closer to the interstate than the Draculous Castle, so.
When they arrived, they interrupt Gerald, who is reading a book on territology, and they say, you know, hey, Gerald, Oh good to see we found ourselves up here in the highlands. Is they're good shooting up here? Obviously Gerald is extremely unhappy about this, but he, like you said, laws of hospitality, he has no choice but to give them all bedrooms to be locked in at night. And then next thing, I love the scene where the doctor and all the other friends are conspiring about how to
give Gerald a sneak medical exam. Doctor Burt is like, it's obvious he won't submit to an examination. I've just got to observe him as best I can. And then the other friend is like, well, we'll keep him distracted as best we can, if it's possible to do. And then Bert says, yes, I think that's the thing to do. But don't watch him too obviously, and keep being as cheerful as you can. I think that's a good idea.
So there's a dinner party where we see Richard. Here's where Richard is making the chaotic evil Martiniz and the At one point the dinner guests hear a noise from upstairs, and Gerald and the servants all dash out and lock them in the dining room, and doctor Burt is like, well, I've observed Gerald for some time now he needs to be placed under arrest for his own protection. And then the when Gerald and the servants come back, they have
a dinner. Somebody seems to be telling a possibly offensive joke about India, but I couldn't understand what the guy was saying. And then Gerald starts telling the rules.
Now, is this the part where Gerald sends everybody to bed because it's almost eleven pm.
Yeah, it's eleven pm. Everybody's got to go to bed. You'll all be locked in your rooms tonight. No going in the maze now. So they all get locked in the rooms. And then we see, well Bert brought a gun. He's like showing it off to his wife. Here's my revolver, honey. And then Bert explains to her that mcteam, the MCTEAM Baron keep dying young. Shortly after they inherit the title and the last record of a woman marrying a MCTEAM tells that she died within a few days of that marriage.
So we really got to worry about Kitty now. But then that night Kitty and aunt Edith sneak up the staircase to the Forbidden Tower and they investigate the room at the top. They say, first of all, they look around. They say, there's no furniture at all, even though we can see furniture, there is furniture in the room. Did you have the same conclusion. I'm like, what am I missing? Why are they saying there's no furniture?
Yeah, this felt like, Yeah, there's a disconnect between how the line was written and what the actual set was.
And maybe I don't understand what furniture means in this context, Like I didn't see a couch in the room, but there were tables and shelves and stuff.
Yeah. I didn't get a really good sense of this space based on this disconnect.
Yeah, but Kitty finds a bit of seaweed on the floor, and then aunt Edith, so she's like, oh, look, seaweed on the floor. And then aunt Edith, as if horrified, says, and a bowl of tomatoes. Sure, there's a bowl of tomatoes there. What does that mean?
I wonder if this is tapping in I remember when we talked We've talked about tomatoes and tomatoes on the show before on the stuff to blow your mind or possibly invention. Maybe we're talking about catchup. But there have been times and places where people have had a horror of tomatoes. So maybe Aunt Edith is of that disposition. Like it's not that there might be a monster up here, but it is eating tomatoes.
Maybe you're just thinking like that is what the monster in the tower would eat. Of course we eat tomatoes.
Yeah, I mean are they store bought refrigerated tomatoes? Well, yes, then that can be a little terrifying. But see I'm getting the impression this this castle has a garden. These are fresh tomatoes, only Scotland's best tomatoes. Yes, William picked them himself.
Yeah.
So oh. But they also find the book on tear stology, which inside is called its Territology colon the Study of Monstrosities.
This book is this movie's how to cook Millhouse.
Yeah exactly. But then they hear the scuttling sound once again. They're forced to flee. They run out of the room and next we see a very interesting scene. Gerald and the servants emerge from the sort of secret chamber and they're carrying between them a huge sheet. Rob, what's going on here?
This again? I have not read the original novel, but Joe, if you may scroll down, you can check this out for yourself. As far as I can tell, Salvador Dali did not do an illustration of the monster in this story, but this is as close as we get. And this is a depiction of one illustration of this scene where you have you William or the other guy helping to hold up this sheet and there is something behind the sheet, some monstrosity behind it, and it's a creepy moment in
the picture. And then the illustration is also pretty alarming, like you can tell there's something horrifying back there behind the sheet, behind the veil.
Yeah, this part of the movie I think is creepy because, yeah, you can't see it. The servants are just carrying the sheet around whatever it is that's moving down the hall. And then Kitty and Andy to follow the sheet procession. It goes out to the maze in the dark, and they follow it there and then they navigate the maze apparently by sound. They're like following the scuttling noises which are then accompanied by splashing noises.
The noises are great in these scenes, like there is this kind of slouching sound with whatever is being ushered around behind the sheet. And also I do have to come back to the frog butt here and say, how effective is this scene having seen the frog butt earlier, or if you're going in fresh or you're just assuming, well that frog butt clearly has nothing to do with whatever's behind that sheet, or are you the viewer saying, well,
they're there is obviously a frog behind that sheet. We saw part of it earlier, a man's sized frog.
I don't know, So we're getting there. Andi Edith gets separated from Kitty in the maze. She gets lost, the candle goes out, and they're both stumbling around in the dark looking for each other until they both see something horrible, something unimaginable. A giant frog between the size of a pig and a black bear, just hopping around on the ground on all fours and roaring and screeching.
It is alarming looking. It is a great frog costume. Clearly, it's like a human performer inside of a suit. And I hunted around. I tried to find if there was any credit, Like I'm always interested, who's the guy in the suit, you know, be it a gorilla suit, a monster suit, what have you? I don't know who this is, but whoever's in there, they're doing a great job. The physical performance and the suit and of course the lighting is all perfect. Though we'll come back to this at
the end of the day. Though it is still a frog, and I'm not sure how we ultimately feel about that.
It is shockingly weird, and it only gets weirder. So the giant frog is flopping around, apparently in terror. I mean it's immediately though frightening, it's immediately kind of piteous as well, and it flops out of the maze and then goes up the stairs of the castle, still roaring, shrieking. It rouses Bert the doctor, who is like, stand back, and he shoots the lock off of his bedroom door
and comes out armed. And then I think that this just further terrifies the frog monster, which then climbs the stairs to its lair in the tower and then dives out the tower window to its death.
Yeah, we see it plummet. We don't see it hit, but we kind of hear it splat. It's an alarming scene because again, once we saw the frog, after just a few seconds, it was clear it was not going to try and eat anybody. It was running for its life and now it has fallen to its death, perhaps on purpose, and now the whole scene is just awkward.
Yeah, and then this just gives way to an explanation scene like at the end of Psycho, you know, and they bring the criminologist in to explain what's going on. Jerald the next morning gathers everyone in a room and I love that it's the next morning, so you're like, what was the did everybody go back to bed after this? And they're like, we'll talk about it in the morning. So it's the next morning and Gerald comes out. He explains what was going on? So what was the story?
He says, I know that you all think that I and my predecessors for the last two hundred years have been the real lords of Craven. Well that's not true. The last Baronet Craven, Sir Roger Philip mcteem was born on the fifth of April in the year seventeen fifty. He died on the tenth of May nineteen fifty three. Last night we buried him before dawn in a corner of the grounds, in accordance with his wishes. And then he says, quite helpfully, but Gerald a man doesn't live
for two hundred years. And then Gerald says, no, Kitty, a man doesn't, but certain types of amphibians do. I'll try to explain it as best I can. A human embryo goes through all the stages of evolution from invertebrate to the mammal. At one point the embryo is an amphibian. This is an outdated view of embryology that actually we talked about in a recent Listener Male episode. By the way, Gerald goes on, Sir Roger never developed beyond that stage physically.
He continued growing developmentally for over two hundred years. He suffered, knowing he was a monster, but feeling that he was a man. So we learned that since then, every other male member of the family has that was known to the outside world as the baronet was really just there to serve the real baronet, the frog, and carry out his order and quote hide the family disgrace. And then Gerald says he couldn't bear for anyone to see him except for his nephews and the staff here at the castle.
That's why he was so surprised when he saw you last night in the maze, Kitty. He meant you no harm. He was merely trying to hide. And then Kitty says, oh I see. Gerald says, nevertheless, he did have certain pleasures.
At night.
He'd insist on us taking him down to the pond in the middle of the maze. He'd take off his cloak and splash around in the water. His natural habitat his bed in the tower was a mattress of seaweed, without sheets or pillows or blankets. We buried him in the maze near the pond, where he spent the few moments of contentment in his entire life. In the end, so Gerald apologizes to Kitty and everybody else, and he says,
you know, it was really a mistake. He thinks that Roger should have been open about the fact that he was a frog, and that people would have accepted him if he'd been honest about who he was.
Is that true? Would they have really accepted him?
I don't know? And then whoa. We end with another tag team performance by Aunt Edith in the ceiling, where Edith comes in and looks straight into the camera and says, Kitty and Gerald are married. Now they live in the old Castle, very happily. Everything has been changed and modernized except for one place, the grave of Sir Roger. We zoom in on the grave the end. Wow, holy crap.
It's a real roller coaster because it's like, Okay, we get this hideous you know, kind of like lovecrafty and reveal, you know, secret monster in the castle, and then of course we later we find it's like it's not just a giant frog, but it's a human being that is essentially like this kind of a mutant that's been living there for two centuries. But then we get this weird sad twist where he just didn't want to be seen, and then it kind of cast Kitty is the villain
because like Kitty, everything was under control here. It was sad. Yes, this was a sad scene, but nobody was diving out the window. Though, at the end of this film and all this explanation, I don't feel like they really accounted for all those mysterious deaths, Like isn't the whole part of it, Like like like there's like almost like a family curse that everyone keeps dying, and then there's that like only one woman actually married into the family and she died.
So the way I interpreted it is the fact that, like the cleaning woman to the castle died, and the fact that the Baronets all die young that is all a result of like the fact that looking at the frog is so horrifying that it like ages you physically years every time you see the frog, which is why the baronets all die within a few years of assuming you know, his sort of like top lieutenant post, and why people who are at the castle and happen to bump into him all die. It's just so scary.
Yeah, I was, I was thinking about about all of this because again, at the end of the day, it's a great looking frog costume, but it is a giant frog. I wasn't able to get my hands on the book, but according to Science Fiction Encyclopedia, it describes the creature as quote a one hundred and seventy five year old mutant whose embryonic development was arrested at the amphibian stage.
It makes me wonder if the form of the monster in the book is suggested or even outright described as being something that is more of a hybrid, like more of like like something maybe more like a giant fetus that's part frog and part human, like something that is like you know, you know in the weird fiction sensibilities, you know, impossible to describe or just too horrible to describe, and the film ultimately either cannot go that far, or you know, just decided, for various other reasons, to go
with just more of just a giant frog effect. Yeah, I was, and I was thinking, well, okay, yeah, maybe in fifty three they just weren't ready for something anything that adventurous. But at the same time, like fifty three is the year that Jack Arnold's It Came from Outer Space came out, and as we've discussed on the show before, we haven't covered that movie specifically, but it has a unique monster in it. Originally they weren't going to even
show the monster, but that was too adventurous. They ended up compromising and creating something that does look very otherworldly and strange. So it's not like they weren't capable of imagining and realizing, you know, strange monstrous images that don't match up one to one with natural world organisms. But you know, for whatever reason, they did not go that direction. They just went with the giant amphibian.
It's a very curious ending and effect because, in my opinion, though it was partially spoiled for me by like knowing what the ending was before I saw the movie. But for me, it's balancing right on a razor's edge between very effective and scary and just really funny.
Yeah, yeah, I think that's That's one of the reasons it's so novel, because I don't think anybody's saying this film has a great ending that totally redeems oh picture, No, it's weird, you know, and weird in a way where you're like, did that work? Did it kind of work? Did parts of it work? And you're left unsure exactly how to answer, but it is, it is notable, And then all the weird stuff with like is did Kitty
just get this frog killed? And so forth? I guess all of this does kind of tie especially, you know, the explanation about like if he'd only been open about being a giant frog, everyone would have accepted him. It kind of ties into this whole thing between Kitty and Gerald too, right, Like there's this communication breakdown, like he won't tell her about his problem and therefore she can't help him or help him find help for his problem. And so I guess the ultimate message is like talk
to people. Don't shut yourself off from the world, because your problems are not going to improve that way. They're only gonna fester and you'll just turn into a giant frog.
Secret secrets are no fun, is Yeah, I would say that is the ethic of the film, though I don't know if that message really works, yeah, because like people do see the frog and then like die of fright. So I don't know if it if it really makes sense to say, like, oh, it would have been all right if he'd just been open about it.
Yeah, but maybe if he prepared them. He's like, look, I'm gonna have William and the other guy drop the sheet here. I am a giant frog. So just be prepared for that, and then you maybe people will be able to warm themselves up for that.
Also, one thing that I think really just in general does not work is the tidiness of the explanation scene after the frog falls to its death. It's like so quick and so direct, and everybody's just like Okay, yeah, I guess that's what it was.
Yeah, And like we've seen another pictures from this time period, like refusal to send people home anything other than happy. You know, there's a lot of reassuring. It's like everything turned out great, like this was you know, this was rough, but don't worry. They're fine. The kids are fine, the castle's fine. William's doing great. His hair is no longer white.
They got central heating at the castle now, yeah, yeah they did.
Yeah they mentioned the whole Yeah, we we open the windows back up. There's no longer a seaweed floor feature up there in the master bedroom. So it's all good. Don't worry people, you can go home happy.
This film is Hayes Code approved.
So yeah, in the end, a little slow in the build up, but yeah, there's a lot to consider, a lot to talk about with the ending, very very fun in thought provoking ending, and a great frog costume. I really can't think of another film off the top of my head where we've seen a frog costume, because generally you can get a frog, you can film a frog, and if you want it to be giant, you know, there are things you can do. Of course, affects wise to to have a frog play a frog, but yeah,
I'm just gonna say it, best frog costume ever. If someone has a better one, bring it to my attention. Hell comes to frog Town, doesn't count because those are those are mutants, right, That's right?
All right. I think that's all I can say about the maze.
Well, it's amazing, that's for sure. So we hoped, we hope everyone enjoyed this episode. And if you did sort of take us on our word and you jumped in and watched this film fresh with no spoilers, please report from the field and tell us how you navigated these various twists and turns and the inevitable frog butt, how that affected your expectations concerning where the plot was taking us. If this plot is a maze, is it amazed? Are
you able to leave the maze? Or do you feel like you're just kind of stuck in it at the end? I liked it that as well.
I would have thought a movie called the Mae would be more confusing, but I would say the plot is actually quite straightforward.
Yeah, there's a little getting lost in the maze that works, But the maze is a good place for some of the suspense to take place. All right, We're gonna go and close it up there, but we'd love to hear from everyone out there, And we'll just remind you that we're primarily a science podcast. Here at Stuff to Blow Your Mind, but on Fridays we set aside most series concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird
House Cinema. If you want to see all the movies that we've covered thus far in Weird House Cinema, there are a couple places you can go. I blog about these movies ats immutamusic dot com. But if you go to letterbox dot com, it's l E T T E r box d dot com. Look us up our handle there is Weird House. We have a list of all the movies we've covered thus far, and sometimes a peek ahead at what's coming out next.
Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
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