Puss intervenes as the KFC assassins descend on Rooster Boy in the K. Gordon Murray matinee classic PUSS IN BOOTS.


able to project charm, poignancy and a certain nobility of purpose, while running around like a masked jackass in front of an undercranked camera. This one- shot item has a more emphatic, yet refined, sense of fantasy than most of Rodriguez’ films, which tend to be wholly naturalistic aside from their talking animal charac­ ters; the candied cavern home of Mother Time, with its sugared caramel stalagmites, reveals the visual influence of Ptushko’sTHE STONE FLOWER (1946), and the forest of trapped souls is a dis­ turbing idea whose scariness is played down, to just the right degree, by its plastic spook-show execution. Among the startling elements are references to canni­ balism, a glimpse of Randy’s bare behind, and a half-dozen of the most miserable, tin-eared show tunes you’re ever likely to hear—


as abrasive to the ear as they are to the editing rhythms of the sequences in which they occur (indicating that they sound noth­ ing like the original Spanish melo­ dies). The film builds to a climactic duel between Puss, Rooster Boy and the ogre’s black magic, and fades out after a strange denoue­ ment in which the entire village agrees to advance into old age so that our prepubescent hero and heroine may consummate their love without delay. The color of Sinister’s source


print is badly faded, with almost no colors but red surfacing through a dominant green wash. There are also areas of heavy splic­ ing, two of which eliminate large chunks from Randy’s father’s death scene and Rooster Boy’s “I Am The Rooster” song. The mono sound is in okay shape. Preceded by trailers from FACE OF TERROR,


FRANKENSTEIN’S DAUGHTER and the Sergio Corbucci western COMPAÑEROS. —TL


REPTILICUS


1962, Orion #0715, HF/D, $14.98 (SP), $8.98 (EP), 81m 11s When a drill at a Lapland


mining site unearths chunks of bloody meat and skin, the tail of a prehistoric reptile is discov­ ered and brought for study to the Denmark Aquarium in Copenhagen. The frozen tail is accidentally thawed one night, a mishap which establishes that the monster is still alive and regenerating its wounded tis­ sues. During a thunderstorm, the electricity-charged atmo­ sphere encourages a complete regeneration of the creature— dubbed Reptilicus Martensius by the press, after aquarium


19

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