cinema history class: phantom of the opera (1925)

The session: Happy (Belated) 100th Birthday to the Phantom of the Opera
Keith shows us three classic Lon Chaney silent films and a documentary about his career

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 1: Phantom of the Opera (1925)
Directed by Rupert Julian

My Level of Prior Knowledge:
I'd seen a few versions of Phantom, and I knew of this version. But I had never seen it before.

Plot Synopsis:
A mysterious, disfigured man secretly living beneath the Paris Opera House becomes obsessed with a young soprano and manipulates events to make her a star. He haunts the opera with threats and sabotage while demanding her devotion.

Reaction and Other Folderol:
I’m very aware, watching something like this, that I’m bringing a 1970s–1980s movie brain to a 1925 film. I’m used to decades of technical advancement—better cameras, better editing, better everything. But that’s kind of the point: those later filmmakers got to stand on the shoulders of giants. Lon Chaney didn’t have that luxury. And yet, the visuals here are striking in ways that still land. The sets feel expansive, the compositions are deliberate, and the famous moments don’t feel like museum pieces—they feel like someone figuring out, in real time, how to make cinema unsettling.

And then there’s Chaney himself. The performance is great, but it’s the makeup—and how it’s used—that really sticks. The design is grotesque, but it’s the interplay with shadow that elevates it. The face isn’t just revealed; it’s unleashed. Even now, you can see how carefully it’s staged for maximum impact. It’s not just “good for its time.” It’s good, period.

There’s also a rough edge here that I kind of appreciate—something that later, code-era movies tended to sand down. This version feels a little more jagged, a little less concerned with smoothing everything into something polite or morally tidy. The tone can lurch, the emotions can spike, and the whole thing has a slightly unhinged quality that works in its favor. It feels closer to something raw and theatrical, rather than something carefully regulated.

All of which makes it hard for me to “grade” in the usual sense. I’m not really comparing it to its contemporaries—I’m comparing it to everything that came after it, which isn’t exactly fair. But given how much of this feels foundational—how much of it is first draft of the language of horror filmmaking—I’m comfortable just going with a 10. Just like Joe!

cinema history class: he who gets slapped (1924)

The session: Happy (Belated) 100th Birthday to the Phantom of the Opera
Keith shows us three classic Lon Chaney silent films and a documentary about his career

This is not a trailer in the way we think of trailers, but it was the best I could find. As near as I understand, trailers (as we know them today) weren't really a thing when this movie was first released.

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 1: He Who Gets Slapped (1924)
Directed by Victor Seastrom

My Level of Prior Knowledge:
Never heard of it.

Plot Synopsis:
A brilliant scientist is betrayed by his patron and humiliated in front of society. Years later, he reinvents himself as a clown whose act revolves around being repeatedly slapped—turning his personal disgrace into public spectacle. Beneath the performance, he harbors unresolved pain that erupts when he becomes entangled in a dangerous romantic triangle at the circus.

Reaction and Other Folderol:
Before getting into He Who Gets Slapped, I have to note something about the clowns. These are not your standard cheerful, balloon-animal-adjacent clowns. The makeup—especially on Lon Chaney’s titular character—is sharper, harsher, and just…off. The corners aren’t rounded into smiles; they feel pointed, almost weaponized. Combined with Chaney’s intensely expressive face, it creates this constant sense that something is about to snap. I spent a good chunk of the movie convinced he was going to go completely psycho and take everyone down with him—and honestly, if this had been made in the 1970s, I’m pretty sure it would have, with Chaney going full Charles Bronson on the entire cast. The film never quite becomes that movie—but it absolutely wants you to feel like it could.

And that ties into something else: this is a tough one for me to “grade.” It sits so far outside my usual movie-going experience—the pacing, the acting style, the visual language—that I’m never quite sure what scale I’m even using. I can recognize what it’s doing, and I can admire it, but translating that into a neat little number feels almost beside the point.

The story itself is actually very simple. Betrayal, humiliation, reinvention, and then things spiral from there. No complicated plotting, no twists for the sake of twists—just a straight line from emotional wound to inevitable consequences. If anything, that simplicity lets everything else—performance, visuals, mood—do the heavy lifting.

Speaking of betrayal: I hated the professor’s wife. Truly. No nuance, no sympathy—just a straight shot of “I hope this ends badly for you.” So when her boyfriend ultimately leaves her, it lands as deeply satisfying. It feels deliberate, almost moral in its structure, and—this may be my imagination—it has a kind of Russian-literature flavor to it. Actions have consequences, and those consequences are not gentle. And that kind of makers sense, given that the movie was based on a Russian play.

Visually, there are some striking touches, especially the recurring spinning world imagery. It’s simple, but effective—a literalization of disorientation, ego, and collapse. It sticks with you.

But make no mistake: this is a miserable film. Not “bittersweet,” not “melancholy”—miserable. It’s steeped in humiliation and emotional damage, and it never really lets up. Add in the unsettling clown imagery, and it becomes genuinely disturbing in places.

At the center of all of it is Chaney, and he’s incredible. The man was doing things with makeup and facial expression that still feel advanced. Every look, every twitch of the mouth, every stare—he’s completely magnetic. You can’t take your eyes off him, even when you might kind of want to.

Also worth noting: the score in the version we saw was excellent. With a silent film, that matters a lot, and this one absolutely enhanced the mood without overwhelming it.

Joe missed this one, but we all know how that would have gone. He’d have given it a 10. Frankly, I’m pretty sure he’d give anything with Lon Chaney a 10. And you know what? He might not be wrong.

cinema history class: the navy vs. the night monsters

The session: Spring is in the Air, and the Plants are Growing
Keith shows four movies about carnivorous plants.

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 4: The Navy vs. the Night Monsters (1966)
Directed by Michael A. Hoey

My Level of Prior Knowledge:
Never heard of it.

Plot Synopsis:

On a remote Pacific island, a Navy meteorological team encounters a mysterious outbreak of fast-growing, seemingly intelligent plant life that begins to overrun the base. As the vegetation turns aggressive and traps the personnel in a tightening perimeter, the sailors struggle to understand what they’re up against—and how to survive it.

Plot:
Watching The Navy vs. the Night Monsters is a bit of a slow burn at first, with a lot of foggy confusion and people talking past each other before the movie really finds its footing. There’s a stretch early on where you’re bracing yourself for pure nonsense—but then the film pauses to actually explain itself, and surprisingly, it more or less holds together. Once the premise is laid out, you can see the bones of a legitimately solid 1950s-style sci-fi concept hiding underneath the murk.

And when it works, it really works. The carnivorous trees have a certain pulpy menace to them, and the scene where a sailor loses his arm lands with a jolt that feels a notch above what you’d expect from something this obscure. For a moment, you can glimpse the movie it could have been.

But that’s where the frustration creeps in. This is clearly trying to be one of those classic mid-century sci-fi entries—isolated setting, creeping threat, military response—but it never quite escapes the feeling that everything is happening in a space the size of Keith’s projection room on a low-attendance night. Characters stand, sit, or crouch and deliver dialogue because there’s nowhere to go, and the film leans heavily on stock military footage to fake a scale it simply doesn’t have.

And that’s the real issue: not that it’s bad, but that it’s small. The idea deserved something bigger, more kinetic, more alive. Instead, it feels like a promising blueprint that never got the resources—or maybe the confidence—to fully build itself out.

Still, you can’t help but think that, in some alternate universe where the vines stretched just a little farther and the sets were just a little bigger… Joe would have recognized the potential and given it a 10.

cinema history class: the woman eater (1958)

The session: Spring is in the Air, and the Plants are Growing
Keith shows four movies about carnivorous plants.

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 3: The Woman Eater (1958)
Directed by Charles Saunders

My Level of Prior Knowledge:
Never heard of it.

Plot Synopsis:
A reclusive scientist living in London secretly cultivates a strange carnivorous tree he brought back from Haiti, feeding it human victims to sustain its growth -- hoping that it will provide a serum to bring the dead back to life. 

Plot:
The Woman Eater is a title that, until now, I would have confidently placed in the “probably terrible and rightfully forgotten” bin. And yet—surprise—it’s actually pretty good. Not just “good for a low-budget ’50s sci-fi flick,” but legitimately solid when you stack it up against some of the better-known entries in the genre. Which raises the obvious question: why is this one so forgotten? I don't have a good answer for that question; it's probably a combination of factors. I'll just blame it on the commies.

The centerpiece, of course, is the tree. And what a tree it is. It’s this wonderful, slightly ridiculous creation—part nightmare fuel, part something that wandered in from Lost in Space. Keith shared a great behind-the-scenes nugget: the original prop was destroyed shortly before filming, forcing the production team to whip up a replacement on the fly. By all accounts, the backup wasn’t as polished—but honestly, that might have been a blessing. The result lands right in that sweet spot of giggly-scary: unsettling enough to work, but just off-kilter enough to make you grin.

What really elevates the movie, though, is that it gives us actual characters. I went in expecting cardboard cutouts whose sole purpose was to be fed to the foliage. Instead, I found myself oddly invested. The scientist’s obsession, the assistant’s trickery, the romantic subplot—it all hangs together better than you’d think, and it makes the inevitable doom feel earned rather than perfunctory.

And there’s Tanga. It’s never entirely clear why he agreed to accompany the scientist from Haiti to London, but his presence adds a steady undercurrent of menace. The drumming, in particular, is a nice touch: simple, repetitive, and just creepy enough to suggest that something very wrong is always lurking nearby.

Plot-wise, this is more coherent than expected. The story actually makes sense from beginning to end, without the usual “wait, what just happened?” detours that plague a lot of these films. It knows what it’s doing, sticks to it, and manages to be fun along the way. And, in its own odd little way, it’s mischievously sexy—never explicit, but definitely aware of the pulpy appeal of its premise. We can thank Vera Day for that.

All of which is to say: this is an enjoyable, better-than-its-reputation piece of ’50s sci-fi/horror that deserves relatively high marks. But a 10? I’m sorry. I don’t see it. Joe, of course, gave it a 10.

heavens to betsy! the perfect spinoff for better call saul

One of the most delightful things about the Breaking Bad universe created by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould is that even minor characters feel like they could anchor their own show. But there’s one pair in particular who practically beg for it: Craig and Betsy Kettleman.

Yes, I am proposing a full spinoff about the Kettlemans.

And it should be called Heavens to Betsy.

Think about the possibilities.

Betsy Kettleman is one of television’s great comic creations: wildly ambitious, absolutely convinced of her own brilliance, and completely incapable of recognizing how bad her plans actually are. She’s a schemer who lacks two critical tools for scheming: patience and intelligence. Her plots are always just a little too loud, a little too obvious, and a little too reckless.

And yet she barrels ahead anyway.

Craig Kettleman, meanwhile, is the perfect comedic counterweight. He’s a timid, slightly bewildered man who knows the plan is terrible. You can see it in his face every time Betsy explains the next brilliant idea.

Craig: “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
Betsy: “Craig.”
Craig: “…okay.”

And off they go into another catastrophe.

What makes the Kettlemans funny isn’t just that they commit crimes—it’s that they commit crimes in the most amateurish way imaginable. Remember early on in Breaking Bad, when Jesse and Walt stole a barrel of methylamine from a warehouse? I'm talking about that level of incompetence or worse. They’re not criminal masterminds. They’re not hardened operators. They’re the kind of people who would attempt a sophisticated fraud scheme after reading half an article about it online.

Every episode practically writes itself:

1. Betsy hatches a bold new plan to “get what they deserve.”
2. Craig raises mild objections.
3. Betsy steamrolls those objections.
4. The plan spirals out of control in increasingly ridiculous ways.
5. Craig suffers the consequences.

And, crucially, there is a running gag.

In every episode of Heavens to Betsy, the Kettlemans have a lawyer.

Not the same lawyer.

A new lawyer.

Betsy insists on hiring “top legal talent” to support whatever the current scheme is. The lawyer—who is invariably competent, cautious, and increasingly alarmed—spends the episode trying to explain why what the Kettlemans are doing is illegal, inadvisable, or both.

Betsy interprets this as negativity.

Or worse, a lack of vision.

By the final act, as things are collapsing, the lawyer is urgently advising them to stop, to cooperate, or at the very least to not say another word.

Betsy responds by firing them.

On the spot.

“We need a lawyer who works with us, not against us.”

The lawyer exits, stunned.

Craig, watching this unfold, realizes—correctly—that the lawyer was the only thing standing between them and total disaster.

It is, of course, too late.

For example, imagine an episode where Betsy decides the Kettlemans should start a “consulting service” helping small businesses reduce their tax bills. Her plan is to charge huge fees for advice she mostly invents on the spot.

Craig points out that neither of them knows anything about tax law.

Betsy reassures him that “tax law is just numbers.”

Within a week they’ve accidentally advised a client to commit three different felonies and attracted the attention of both the IRS and the state licensing board. Craig spends the episode trying to quietly undo the damage while Betsy insists the problem is simply that they “need better branding.”

Or imagine another episode where Betsy decides the family should get into real estate. She’s convinced the key to success is buying distressed properties cheaply.

Unfortunately, the property she finds is cheap because it’s currently being used by an extremely unfriendly criminal organization.

Craig realizes this almost immediately.

Betsy insists they have “every legal right” to renovate it.

Things escalate.

Rapidly.

And then there are the moments where the Kettlemans brush up against the larger world of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul—without having the faintest idea what they’re dealing with.

In one episode, Betsy becomes convinced that they need to “scale up” and start working with more serious, high-level operators. Through a series of wildly misguided assumptions, she identifies Lydia Rodarte-Quayle as a “corporate logistics expert.”

Which, to be fair, is not wrong.

It’s just…incomplete.

Betsy aggressively pursues a meeting—emails, voicemails, an unsolicited “proposal packet” with color-coded tabs and completely nonsensical projections. Craig, meanwhile, is quietly unraveling.

The meeting, when it finally happens, is excruciating. Betsy pitches something like “regionally optimized embezzlement services for mid-sized municipalities,” while Lydia stares at her with a mixture of confusion and alarm.

By the end, Lydia is taking steps to ensure she never hears from these people again, while Betsy insists this counts as a “successful first contact.”

It does not.

Or worse: Betsy decides they need “muscle.” Not because they actually need it—but because, in her mind, serious businesses have muscle. Through a chain of terrible decisions, she ends up attempting to establish a relationship with associates of Jack Welker.

Craig immediately understands that this is not a situation they should be anywhere near.

Betsy interprets their hostility as a negotiation tactic.

She responds by trying to out-negotiate them.

There has to be a scene where Betsy is confidently explaining payment structures and “long-term partnership opportunities,” while everyone else in the room is trying to figure out who these people are and why they are still talking. Craig, sitting next to her, looks like a man actively reconsidering every life choice he has ever made.

The resolution, of course, is not success.

It’s survival.

They walk away convinced they’ve taken a bold step into the big leagues.

They have not.

And then there’s the episode that really defines Heavens to Betsy.

In the aftermath of the Wayfarer 515 plane collision, Betsy becomes convinced that what victims’ families need is “financial guidance.”

Specifically, theirs.

She creates a “support and recovery service” to help families manage settlements and “maximize outcomes.” In practice, it consists of vague advice, homemade pamphlets, and a fee structure that is both confusing and aggressively expensive.

Craig immediately senses this is a terrible idea—not just legally, but morally.

Betsy reframes it as compassion.

“Craig, we are helping people.”

They begin reaching out with unsolicited mailers, awkward phone calls, and deeply inappropriate in-person visits that somehow manage to be both overly cheerful and wildly tone-deaf.

Every interaction goes badly.

Craig tries to scale things back. Betsy insists the problem is “messaging.”

Naturally.

What makes it work is that the Kettlemans never quite grasp why people are reacting so negatively. Betsy thinks it’s a branding issue. Craig understands, dimly, that they’ve crossed a line—but doesn’t have the backbone to stop it.

The inevitable result isn’t profit.

It’s consequences.

And a hasty retreat.

Followed by Betsy insisting that “the concept was sound.”

What would make Heavens to Betsy work is that the Kettlemans would never become competent. In a franchise full of masterminds, professionals, and terrifyingly disciplined operators, they would remain exactly what they are:

People who wander into crime the way someone wanders into a glass door.

Again.

And again.

And again.

And the audience would know, from the moment Betsy unveils the plan, that this is going to end horribly.

The only suspense would be how.

In a universe famous for brilliant criminal strategists, Heavens to Betsy would give us something even better:

The world’s least competent crime duo.

Which is exactly why their show would be amazing. And it's exactly why Joe would give it a ten!