THE NIGHT WALKER (1964) - vintage William Castle

THE NIGHT WALKER
(1964, USA)

Still Not On DVD...
Any horror movie directed by William Castle is worth a look, is only for the outrageous publicity gimmicks that he promised, to get audiences into the theatres. His House on Haunted Hill and 13 Ghosts both warranted recent remakes, his famous gimmicks are still constantly referenced, most extensively in Joe Dante's Matinee (1992). The bizarre claims of the trailers and unique poster campaigns need to be seen beforehand, in order to understand some of the strange events and preoccupations within the stories themselves.

Castle’s movies even riled Hitchcock into making Psycho the shockfest it is - Hitch wanting to outdo Castle at his own game of low-budget horror. Then Castle poached the writer of the original Psycho novel, Robert Bloch, to be his scriptwriter for this creepy tale.

The Night Walker was one of Castle’s last gimmicky flix, but still prepares the audience with a bizarre and unsettling prologue about the power of dreams and nightmares. The other lure was to cast Robert Taylor opposite Barbara Stanwyck, onscreen together for the first time since their divorce.


Stanwyck plays a woman trapped in a unhappy marriage with a blind scientist, played by Hayden Rorke (the psychiatrist in I Dream of Jeannie). After he disappears in a laboratory explosion, Stanwyck thinks that she can still hear him walking around the house, tapping his white cane. When she actually sees him, disfigured from the accident, no one believes her. She moves out immediately, but continues to have strange nightmares, in which she marries a tall dark stranger in a church full of creepy mannequins. She starts to confuse her dreams with reality, doubting if her husband is really dead...


Her confusion actually played tricks on my memory. I saw this as a teenager on TV, and then dreamt about it several times. After a few years, I only remembered the dreams and didn’t realise that my memories were also scenes from the film. It was another ten years before I saw The Night Walker again and discovered where those dreams had started.

Like most of Castle's films, it's carefully shot in black and white - (the lobby cards photos you see here have all been coloured in). While visually and atmospherically very effective, this reminds us that Castle was on a budget and, in some of his films, it also disguised the use of blood, which might have been censored had they been in colour.


Another reason for seeing this, is the fantastic soundtrack by Vic Mizzy, who famously wrote The Addams Family theme tune. The central theme to The Night Walker is superbly catchy and harpsichordy, though it also effectively evokes an atmosphere of dreaminess. I was very pleased when the score was finally released on CD.

Barbara Stanwyck was initially famous as a bad girl in the 1930s (like in the scandalous pre-code Baby Face) then as a leading lady in film noir (Double Indemnity), westerns and adventure films (Titanic, 1953). Her last blast of stardom was as the matriarch of the Dynasty spin-off TV series The Colbys, opposite the late Charlton Heston. Here she has a chance to practice extreme melodrama, as well as trying to sell as many red herrings as possible.

Lloyd Bochner, as her dream lover, was a regular baddie in 1970s TV, making appearances in many classic series from The Twilight Zone to The Man From U.N.C.L.E.. Occasionally he landed a movie like Point Blank or The Dunwich Horror. Later still, he was in The Naked Gun 2½ (shouting out a fantastic in-joke about his Twilight Zone appearance), and using his velvety voice for the character of Mayor Hill in dozens of the 1990s' Batman: The Animated Series.

In 1964, William Castle’s greatest horror film was yet to come. He produced, appeared in, but was talked out of directing Rosemary’s Baby…


The Night Walker isn’t on DVD anywhere, one of the films I'd most like to see available again. The NTSC VHS release is worth seeking out - it’s a good transfer and can easily be enjoyed in its 1.33 presentation. But a DVD release is long overdue, especially considering the director's continuing cult appeal.

SLAP SHOT (1977) - ice hockey with balls

SLAP SHOT
(1977, USA)

Updated March 2014 - blu-ray and 'making of' book added

You won't find many sports films here in the Black Hole, unless they're of interest to non-sports fans, and Slapshot is still very tight, funny and entertaining. Though I was recently surprised to discover that this thirty year old, foul-mouthed comedy has started spawning sequels.

It formed an unintentional bridge between the original Rollerball and National Lampoon's Animal House, delivering violent sports action and drunken bawdy college humour. But it's also true to life and generally good-natured, though you've got to be impervious to the casual use of the words "fags" and faggots". Though it was the other f-word that gained attention at the time, particularly as it was coming from mainstream Hollywood star Paul Newman.

The Charleston Chiefs are doing badly in their ice hockey league, while representing a steel town that's inevitably closing its mills. The team's fortunes improve when they buy three teenaged players (who look like a gormless version of The Ramones). They turn out to be as good at dirty hockey as they are at dirty fighting. The Chiefs discover that by starting fights they can draw bigger crowds, and can also win games if they 'psych out' the opposition (a tactic which reminded me of Trey Parker and Matt Stone's Baseketball).

But can the team survive the brutal pummellings, win all their games, and prevent themselves from being disbanded by their owner?

Original UK tie-in novelisation

The same script could easily have been made as pure exploitation. But while there's nudity, there's no sex, and in the brutal fights there's little blood. Under the subtle, almost documentary-style direction of George Roy Hill (who also directed the Paul Newman hits Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting), it's also a sharp social comedy and a cold hard look at the lives of smalltown leaguers. The embittered 'hockey widows' bravely prop each other up, or take to the bottle. Meanwhile, the team goes on drunken regional tours, followed by a busload of groupies.

This is still as much fun as it was on first release, though I suspect more of the swearing has been restored, right up to and including the c-word. While there's ample portions of, the initial publicity was devoted to defending the abundant swearing, reminding critics that the scriptwriter was a woman, Nancy Dowd, who'd aimed to realistically portray her brother's hockey league.

Paul Newman is always worth watching, even when he's unafraid to look bedraggled, as a man preparing for life 'over the hill'. He's among an ensemble cast, actors who had to perform most of their own ice skating, mixed with hockey players who had to act! But there are few actors who had any further success - co-star Michael Ontkean eventually became a mainstay of David Lynch's Twin Peaks (as Sheriff Truman), and Melinda Dillon (appearing in only one scene, casually topless) soon landed Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Ever-reliable Strother Martin (Ssssnake, The Wild Bunch) plays the team's shifty manager.

To tie in with the recent Slapshot 2 and 3 (which I'm scared to investigate), the first film always seems to be easily available on DVD, and now blu-ray. Looking and sounding sharp, the blu-ray also includes a "Hanson Brothers" commentary track, a brief interview with them and an original trailer. 

It's drunken, gloves-off, fighty fun mixed with enough off-rink drama to involve most everyone. Thanks to director George Roy Hill (Little Big Man, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) it's a well-rounded film succeeding in many genres - action, comedy, drama... not just sports.

In 2011, this book belatedly appeared, cataloguing the enduring appeal of Slap Shot. While many of its unforgettable characters, in particular the "Hanson brothers", went back to playing hockey professionally, the film never went away. Certainly a favourite in the game itself, but also gaining a superb reputation among all sports movies.

The book details the fortunes of the Johnstown hockey team that inspired the script, and how it became a film. Al Pacino was very keen, early on, to play the lead, and the casting was all the more difficult by the requirement not only to be able to skate, but to realistically play hockey. 

The film was set in the fictional 'Charlestown', but shot in the town that inspired it. The book demonstrates that there was a close and ironic parallel between the team and the town's fortunes in the story and in real life.

There's a long look at how the film was made and the lives of everyone involved afterwards. I gained a greater appreciation of the film, the director and the cast and was delighted that a favourite film had received some serious research after all this time.

On location: DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978) - picture heavy

I enjoy visiting shooting locations from my favourite films, and I also enjoy shopping more than I should. Here was a chance to do both at the same time - looking around the shopping mall where half of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead was shot thirty years ago.

When I first saw the film in 1980, shopping malls were pretty new - I'd not even seen any in the UK. The concept of having everything under one roof was interesting, but using a mall as a post-apocalyptic hideout really impressed me. It seemed more of a fantasy than a nightmare (once all the zombies had been cleared out, that is).

Today the Monroeville Mall, a few miles east of Pittsburgh, can still be explored following the action in the film. The lack of windows obviously made night shoots easy - all they had to do was avoid shooting the high skylights.

All the stores except J.C. Penney have now changed hands. But luckily, Penney's is the main store featured in the film - the escalators, the inside aisles and the main interior doors were all featured.

Despite the decorating changes to the floors and balconies, the ‘psychological’ layout of the building remains. Physical layout is often cheated in movies, with additional sets and editing that alter the spatial relationships. The story usually inhabits a space that never existed. For example, the Psycho house is a fascinating building that never existed as you see it. The layout is well-known - from Norman Bates' attic room down to the apple cellar - but it could never actually be explored the way the characters do.

The mall is still popular, there's a couple of empty units but it's still very full, and is surrounded by other stores round the perimeter of the car park.

The layout stretches east-west, with three huge department stores accessible from the west (Boscov's), east (Macy's) and south (Penney's). The central north entrance is now at the bottom of a street between two new buildings, collectively known as The District. One side is restaurants, the other is a large Barnes & Noble bookstore.


This north entrance used to lead into the ice rink, instead it now leads to the food court.

The mall has two levels, with three atriums each with two escalators. It's easy to tell the atriums apart because the escalators are laid out differently in each one.

These look like the old lights, but there aren't many left.

Macy's dominates the east end of the mall.

View from the south side.

Ths is the bus stop, at the south side of the mall.

These trucks outside the back of Macy's reminded me of the lockdown scene.


This new lift is in the food court, where the ice rink used to be.


Just inside the remodelled north entrance is the only bank.

Just keep repeating, "It's only a mall, it's only a mall..."

This reminded me of the final shot in the film.

This is looking out of the lower level at the bus stop - the view is crying out for a large zombie, dressed only in his shorts.

The Boscov atrium, where the fountain used to stand. This was also the end where the clock tower was.

The escalators were positioned over to one side to make room for where the fountain was. The trampoline rig was cleared to make space for the special screening of Dawn of the Dead inside the mall.

The passage to the hideout is on the upper level.

Along the passage today is a nursery, rest rooms, and your chance to sign up! You can see the fire exit at the end.


The view out from the passage.

The central atrium (looking south).

Central atrium (looking east), JC Penney is off to the right.

The escalator slide in Penney's.

The only elevator I could find in Penney's - on the second level...

...and on the first level.

The big fountain has gone, but this pond and bridge remain.

Looking west, towards where the clock tower stood.

A security guard who has worked here since the film was shot, told me that this unit, at the west end of the second level, was the gun store in the movie.

The Macy's atrium now has a Mr Roger's Neighbourhood!

Some of the less busy entrances are rather scary.

Even more atmospheric at night... (I was in there for the Dawn of the Dead screening, not looting)

A gallery of old publicity posters in the lower level passage included this blaster from the past...

Yes, this is my idea of a holiday.


Dusk of the Dead

I visited Monroeville Mall while at the Pittsburgh Horrorhound Convention, where I met actors from Day of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Zombie Flesh Eaters... my coverage of the convention is here.

At the convention I saw an early cut of Paul Davis' documentary Beware The Moon: Remembering An American Werewolf in London. My review of that event, attended by David Naughton and John Landis can be found here.