The Maze

Trailer—The Maze

source: The Maze

Kitty and Gordon loved each other. One day Gordon fled to his castle and wrote Kitty that he could never see her again, the marriage is off. Of course Kitty had to know why so she and her aunt go to the castle. Gordon, looking 20 years older, told them to leave but they were able to stay in a locked room over night then to leave in the morning - and do not try to get out and go into the Maze. The aunt had a slight cold that morning and the irritating Kitty told Gordon they could not leave over her poor sick aunt - pushing her way to stay long enough to find out what is going on with Gordon. Later on she finds a way to push Gordon into letting a group of people into the castle with them to stay. And NO ONE is to go into the Maze outside. What is up with that Maze? It's a rather boring film most of the time, suspenseful other times - but that crazy "a-MAZE-ing" ending is worth quite a few laughs. It's unbelievable! I have a feeling this film's ending was not even scary to 1950s audiences and dang sure isn't by today's standards. It's funny! No one is to tell the ending according to the film's poster and I won't be the one to spoil it for first time viewers - all I can say it is a completely unexpected and hilarious ending. I didn't see this one in 3D but why should I? Nothing happens until the last 10 minutes anyway. 4/10

A lot of "B-movie" SF/horror films of the 1950's are known for their cheesy monsters, cheap sets, and mediocre acting ... that all still works, somehow, to make up for an entertaining film that often becomes a "guilty pleasure". Such is the case for most of THE MAZE, a oddball of a film, originally shot in 3D and released in 1953, that starts off with plenty of mood and atmosphere. Kitty (Veronica Hurst) is a very attractive, upper-class blonde English gal who is engaged to the handsome, lively and upbeat Gerald (Richard Carlson) - who, just prior to their wedding, has to make an emergency trip back to Scotland when his uncle passes away. Soon after his departure, Kitty receives a note from him, breaking off the engagement and saying that Gerald is remaining in Scotland. Disturbed and worried, Kitty ventures with her Aunt Edith (Katherine Emery, who also sporadically narrates the film) to Scotland and one hell of a creepy, moody castle with even creepier, moodier servants. Worse still, Gerald is not only angry and insolent that they've come, he's also lost all his vitality and happiness ... and appears to have aged twenty years from when Kitty last saw him only weeks ago. There's something weird going on here, and it all centers around a huge hedge maze that sits just outside the castle walls. Entrance to it is forbidden, and one of the provisions of Kitty and Edith's continuing to stay (Kitty hoping for a way to help Gerald) is that they must be locked in their rooms every night - leading to more weirdness, as Kitty notices/hears something heavy being dragged past her door in the middle of the night (among other strange occurrences). Everything in the film builds up to the maze, and the secret Gerald and the castle's servants are hiding there - and the movies does its job well in building up a sense of foreboding and suspense ... only to end in one of the dippiest, most lame endings that almost spoils the entire experience of watching the film. So although I had some fun with most of it, the "WTF" of an ending in no way lived up to all that had gone before.

Kitty (Veronica Hurst) and Edith (Katherine Emery) pay an unexpected visit to Gerald (Richard Carlson) in his castle in Scotland where he has mysteriously shut himself off from the world. His behaviour is very strange and he locks his guests in their rooms at night. Why is there a maze in the garden which is out of bounds? Kitty and Edith do some investigating and alert some friends to come and join them..... This film is entertaining to watch because the characters are annoying. But its the kind of annoying that makes you laugh, eg, Kitty's terrible pronunciation which lasts throughout the whole film. She says things like "Ketherine" and "heppening" and it is relentless. You have to laugh! Edith, on the other hand, has an equally annoying accent. She is either Scottish and pretending to be posh, or she is affecting a terrible Scottish accent. I'm not sure which one! And then there is Gerald who is just so unpleasant to his guests that it has you laughing at his rudeness! Not to mention his servants who play it up as the "spooky" characters. Mix these characters with the film's ending and you have certainly been entertained. I'd like to see it in 3-D.

William Cameron Menzies was best known as set designer for Gone With the Wind. His fifties output was often sci-fi pictures like Invaders From Mars. Here, the 3-D photography is somehow supposed to add excitement while the mystery plows along about why Richard Carlson is hiding out in a dark castle he inherited and refusing to marry his intended bride. What is hiding in the backyard maze, and why won't he allow anyone to enter it? Some scenes are tossed in just to remind us we're in a 3-D movie, like acrobats performing for the engagement party and bats flying toward us. Menzies mostly relies on staircases and furniture posts while the dialog drags along. The giant amphibian that seems to be the source of everyone's fright or cover-up will have you laughing hard. I tried 3-D glasses but could only see the title letters and a few opening scenes on my TV in 3-D.

The basic premise of this film with its spooky old castle and an aristocratic family with a skeleton in the closet was a popular theme of films in 30's and 40's (THE OLD DARK HOUSE, AMONG THE LIVING,and THE UNKNOWN are a few examples.) The basic plot was probably considered old fashioned or at best "quaint" by the 1950's when this film was made. I agree with those who suspect that because Maurice Sandoz novel on which this film was based contained a bizarre science fiction twist, this film was made. Instead of an insane twin or assumed dead relative hiding from the law for some unspeakable crime, we have a phylogenetic freak! I think to like this film one must have a taste for offbeat fantasy. If viewed in the right frame of mind and one is willing to suspend their dis-belief, this can be a very enjoyable film. That being said, this film has many faults. The most obvious being that of the often intrusive narration by the "Aunt." Richard Carlson tries hard, but his performance is not up to snuff. Then there is the "frog." In most scenes it is shown only in the shadows and in brief glimpses its okay, but at the end when it goes (no pun intended) hopping mad and jumps out the window it looks silly. While this sequence I'm told by those who have seen this film on the big screen in 3D is rather startling, shown flat or on T.V. is laughable. The "frog" looks like a bad rubbery prop. However even with todays high tech special effects, I don't think a giant frog could be made to look scary now matter how hard anyone tried. While "the maze" of the title is interesting and give indications of Menzies design genius, most of the castle consists standing sets left over sets from previous films. A SIDE NOTE: The science fictional premise of this film is based on the theory of phylogeny. That is that the human embryo goes through stages just like in evolution; a fish, then an amphibian, then a reptile, then a mammal. Sir Roger, the man with body of frog and the mind of a man, stopped developing at the amphibian stage. However according to the theory, the embryo resembles a neotenic salamander and not a frog. May I also add that this theory taught as written in stone in all biology textbooks, has been mostly discredited in recent years.

I recently saw this film at a 3-D film festival in Hollywood. It was in polarized 3-D (Gray glasses not red & blue) It was so much fun to watch this film with an audience, the print was excellent and the 3-D perfect. The performances were over the top and that added to the fun, the surprise ending (that we aren't supposed to share with fellow movie go'ers, at least according to the movie trailer and poster) had people howling with laughter. By today's standards this is probably more comedy than horror but with the added dimension of 3-D (complete with cobwebs and bats coming out of the screen) this film was an entertaining romp into 50's horror.

You have to admire Richard Carlson. He was reliable, almost handsome, had an MA from the University of Minnesota, wrote novels and plays, and projected intelligence, boldness, tension, and earnestness that were perfectly suited to the unusual subject matter of hi later career. He was an exceptionally unexceptional actor but he was THERE for you. The opening is a brief flashback to a mysterious event in a 17th-century Scottish castle. Then a shot of a pleasant lady speaking directly to the audience (originally in 3D) and introducing us to the story we're about to follow. I like the lady too. Katherine Emery is Aunt Edith, and she had a pleasant, relaxing smile and I believed every word when she explained, "I guess it all started with an engagement party at Cannes, on the Rivera." She continues to do the voice over for the rest of the film. Dissolve to Carlson and a few others at a gay nightclub in which an attractive young girl is flung around with abandon by a couple of men in tuxedos. One of the guests, uncredited, is the immortal Bess Flowers, whose entire career consisted of playing uncredited guests. Carlson seems to be enjoying himself immensely. He's engaged to Emery's niece, Veronica Hurst. His holiday is interrupted by a message from that Scottish castle, called Craven. Carlson must fly to Scotland immediately. He's next in line to inherit the castle and the title of Baronet that goes with it. The castle has no modern conveniences -- no telephone, no electricity -- and stands just as it did hundreds of years ago. Still, his fiancée doesn't object, although she muses that "I suppose I'll get used to being addressed as Baroness." (You bet you will.) He does not return. Instead he sends a message to the aunt and his fiancée dissolving their arrangement. Hurst is distraught, as who wouldn't be in such a circumstance? Hurst and Emery travel to Craven Castle to find Carlson put out by their visit. What's worse, he's turned twenty years older in the past few weeks. He reluctantly puts them up for the night, cautioning his sinister butler to lock all the doors. Strange slithering sounds are heard in the hallway. Hurst is resolved to find out what the hell has been going on, and she sneaks out that night and begins exploring the cobwebbed ruins. A bat flies at her, or rather into the 3D camera lenses. It's impossible to know why bats have such a bad reputation. They mean no harm. One night, standing on the lip of the Grand Canyon, I tore a piece of scrap paper into bits and flung them into a floodlight, only to be surrounded by thousands of bats with a dawning sense of disbelief. Two or three of the more adventurous entangled themselves in my hair and I toppled helplessly into the canyon. But two days later they brought me up by mule, bloody but unbowed, still at peace with bats. Anyway, Hurst makes it to a grimy window that overlooks the back yard. There she sees a gigantic maze with dim figures moving through it. The next morning she finds a webbed footprint on the staircase and another in the gravel before the maze. At this point it's beginning to look less like a horror movie or science fiction than one of Edgar Allan Poe's fantasies. Nothing that happens from that point on changes anything.

The Maze is directed by William Cameron Menzies and adapted to screenplay by Daniel Ullman from a story by Maurice Sandoz. It stars Richard Carlson, Veronica Hurst, Katherine Emery, Michael Pate, John Dodsworth and Hillary Brooke. Music is by Marlin Skiles and cinematography by Harry Neumann. Scotsman Gerald MacTeam (Carlson) suddenly breaks off his engagement to Kitty Murray (Hurst) and moves to his recently deceased uncle's castle in the Scottish highlands. Kitty wonders why and decides to travel to Craven Castle with her auntie Edith (Emery). Upon arriving they find Gerald a changed man, prematurely aged and acting in a most peculiar way. Just what is going on at this mysterious castle? What is the secret of the big maze out in the grounds? One of the early ventures into stereoscopic filming, The Maze is a delightfully off-kilter movie. As pretty much anyone who has seen it can attest, the ending, the culmination of great building by Menzies, is so far off the scale it borders on the preposterous, and for many it ruins the picture. Certainly myself had to rewind to check what I had just seen, for I felt like I must have nodded off and slipped into some sort of bad liquor induced dream! That said, for an hour this is a triumph of atmospherics and set design. Menzies and Neumann cover the story with foggy exteriors and murky shadows, while the interior of the castle is a classic case of Gothic horror textures, with Skiles' musical accompaniments are perfectly evocative. The narrative smoothly moves along with the air of mystery hanging heavy, where the visitors to Craven are locked in their rooms at night, thus at night from the gap under the doors of the bedrooms a slow moving shadow is glimpsed roaming the corridors. What is it? What is it in the distant maze that is shuffling around? Leaving weird footprints around the grounds? The characters are a stock group for the story, with intrepid girls investigating, shifty servants (naturally), well intentioned friends and lord of the manor harbouring a secret. Menzies fluidly uses the castle and grounds for atmospheric effects, neatly placing the characters within the palpable sense of dread and tragedy, and there truly are some striking scenes, especially the build up sequence to the revelation at film's climax. Then it's that ending... On reflection the makers missed a trick, the chance to really create a terrifying shock, but you have to say it's also a product of its time and budget. And whilst I understand fully the groans and laughs that derail what has gone before, there is a sadness right there in the reveal, a touching tragedy that bears thought even if the ludicrousness of it all is practically impossible to forgive. 7/10