St Ives: (1976. dir: J. Lee Thompson) A Philip Marlowe story, but about a different guy and set in a later Los Angeles. Charles Bronson is Ray St. Ives, a down-and-out crime-writer with a penchant for backing losing football teams. He takes a typically Marlowe gig: acting as go-between when a rich fellow needs to buy sensitive personal items back from a thief. Then he starts getting framed for murders, and beat up by thugs (in this case, Robert Englund and a very young Jeff Goldblum as a wide-eyed, first-time offender). The story probably doesn't stand up to scrutiny, but the twists are enjoyable. Jacqueline Bissett is badly cast, her talents largely wasted on this femme fatale, and Schell is the rich fellow's shrink who winds up, like everyone else, being both more and less than he appears. A highly enjoyable waste of time.
*SPOILER ALERT*
Vampires: (1998. dir: John Carpenter) A throughline of easy blues acts as rigging to episodes of intense brutality and the kind of half-baked misogyny which generally only springs up from the world of graphic novels, although this one seems to have found that pubescent level on its own. James Woods is the Catholic Church's chief Vampire Slayer in America, and the bulk of his team gets wiped out early on by a rogue Master. The verbiage and wisecracking are akin to tough-guy, less clever Buffy; the slaying is uglier and messier to clean up. The acting is good, especially Sheryl Lee as a hooker who takes a bite early and spends most of the film in bondage to one of the Baldwin brothers while she's making the transition. Graphic novel romance is often like this: stunning babe winds up with the guy who inhabits a space further down the food-chain because she is brutalized, tortured, and forced into love, all for her own good. Schell is the presiding Cardinal, and, as always in Hollywood horror films, any Catholic holding the office of Bishop or higher is always in league with the Devil, or, anyway, working against the good of mankind. (Seriously. Check it out. Always happens.) I suppose Schell took the job because he has a seriously creepifying moment towards the end where he gets to rejoice in his bland, cold evilness. The best I can say about it is that it's not the worst vampire movie I've ever seen: the music is invigorating and the palette is rich and warm.
Heidi: (1968. dir: Delbert Mann) Apparently Julia was not the first Schell movie I ever saw, after all. Apparently I was watching him play Heidi's amiable Uncle Richard from a time before my memory fully reaches. How could I forget this? That little paraplegic girl, abandoned and dragging herself across the face of an Alp? I would think that would have scarred me, made me mistrust adults entirely (and, now I think of it, maybe it did and I JUST DON'T REMEMBER. How disturbing is that?). I don't recall the book, but this film seems to be a message about how all of our troubles, even being crippled and wheelchair-bound, are self-inflicted, and with sufficient mental prowess, strength of will, and societal cooperation, all can be overcome. It sounds like a Nazi thing when I say it that way, either Nazi or New Age. In any case, it's not much of a film, in spite of Schell, Michael Redgrave, and Jean Simmons; the kids are too simple and the adults exist solely as foil and help-meet to the young 'uns. The only bit I really enjoy is the piece of class-obstructed love story between Schell and Simmons' governess, played with dignity and restraint on both parts. The scenes in which they acknowledge their awkward feelings, then backpedal miserably in order to save face, are sweet and, alas, never satisfactorily resolved, because the kids' issues take precedence.
(Read about the "Heidi Football Game Controversy" on Wikipedia.)
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