EATEN ALIVE (1976), aka DEATH TRAP, HORROR HOTEL, STARLIGHT SLAUGHTER

Director: Tobe Hooper

Writers: Alvin L. Fast, Mardi Rustam, Kim Henkel

Producers: Mardi Rustam, Alvin L. Fast

Cast: Neville Brand, Robert Englund, Marilyn Burns, Stuart Whitman, Mel Ferrer, William Finley, Kyle Richards, Crystin Sinclaire, Carolyn Jones, Roberta Collins, Janus Blythe, Betty Cole, Christine Schneider, Ronald W. Davis, Sig Sakowicz, David Hayward, David Carson, Lincoln Kibbee, James Galanis, Tarja Leena Halinen, Caren White, Valerie Lukecart, Jeanne Reichert, Scuffy (the dog)

In rural Texas stands the remote and ramshackle Starlight Hotel. Its proprietor is a mentally unhinged military veteran named Judd (Neville Brand). The pond below his hotel’s front porch distinguishes the squalid accommodations. This pond is home to a huge crocodile. Despite this roadside attraction having bitten off his leg, Judd still thinks highly enough of the voracious varmint to feed it the guests that he murders.

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

That Grand Guignol gourmet Tobe Hooper uses this recipe of a dollop of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), a splash of Jaws (1975), and a dash of Psycho (1960) to prep this dish of drive-in delirium called Eaten Alive. It was director Hooper’s follow up to his early-career classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and it always seems to suffer by comparison. Many of Hooper’s critics say that everything else that he made suffers by comparison. I say that a director who creates a genre standard may never eclipse it, but he can continue to make effective and interesting films. That is certainly the case with Eaten Alive.

This production’s most interesting aspect is Hooper’s decision to film almost entirely on movie soundstages. Much like Alfred Hitchcock’s preferred MO, this allowed Hooper complete control of the look and atmosphere in Eaten Alive. Everything feels like it is happening in a rural twilight zone where morality and sanity are in short supply. The movie begins with the only real world exterior shot in the entire film of the full moon in the night sky. This image cross-fades into an uncomfortable close-up of a circular belt buckle and fly being opened by a whorehouse patron. From here on out, the clammy and claustrophobic world of this story is unrelenting.

Some may feel that there is little in the way of plot and an awful lot of weird character antics that are never explained to the audience. I find these bits of eccentric behavior to be interesting and, at times, even irritating, but that establishes the random chaos of human behavior that results in so much conflict and horror in the world. We have all encountered oddballs at one time or another and wondered just what the hell was their problem, yet we will never know. Those are the sorts of weirdos that populate this film as well as Hooper’s acknowledged masterpiece, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That earlier film is also full of characters that are strange, quirky, and often unlikable without sharing any sort of backstory about them to justify their behavior. I think that the main difference between the two films is Chainsaw’s real world film locations and its more gradual build up to escalating terror.

Aside from this being Tobe Hooper’s second horror feature, Eaten Alive is probably most notable to horror fans for being actor Robert Englund’s debut in the genre. Of course, Englund has achieved horror movie immortality as Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and its sequels. In Eaten Alive, his horny character of Buck is always unlikable as he clashes with just about everyone he meets. He opens the film as he opens his pants with some vile verse that declares his drives and establishes the themes of sexual frustration and relationship dysfunction that lead to so much trouble for so many in this story.

That obnoxious horndog Buck managing to score with the luscious Lynette (Janus Blythe) is yet another perplexing and awful injustice in this film’s strange world. Maybe Lynette was a sucker for poetry. In 1977 Blythe would also appear in The Incredible Melting Man and The Hills Have Eyes.

More past and future horror film notables grace the menu of Eaten Alive. Hooper’s Chainsaw scream queen Marilyn Burns makes the scene as Faye only to suffer more abuse. She is accompanied by William Finley (star of 1974’s The Phantom of the Paradise), as her unstable husband Roy, and Kyle Richards (1978’s Halloween), as her daughter Angie. From House of Wax (1953), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), and The Addams Family television series (1964-66), Carolyn Jones allows herself to be made up into crotchety whorehouse madam Miss Hatty. The star of 1960’s Blood and Roses, Mel Ferrer, appears as the dying Harvey Wood, who is accompanied by daughter Libby (Crystin Sinclaire) and looking for his other, runaway daughter Clara (Roberta Collins).

Stuart Whitman plays Sheriff Martin. He seems to be that solid authority figure that can reign in some of the insanity running rampant in this story. However, it is soon established that this rural community plays pretty fast and loose with the law. Sheriff Martin is on very cordial terms with the whorehouse madam. As Mel Ferrer’s Harvey Wood asserts, Martin runs a “wide-open town.” This removes any sense of security we may derive from having an officer of the law around. Even though Sheriff Martin seems to be a decent sort, there is also a sense that he won’t be much of a controlling factor over the chaos at the Starlight Hotel.

Neville Brand’s performance really makes this flick click. He is both disturbing and amusing in a darkly comic way. His Judd is a lonely loony that mutters and sings to himself while looking at magazines as he tries on various pairs of old eyeglasses. He makes half-hearted attempts of dusting his cluttered and dingy hotel lobby while listening to obscure country-western songs on his enormous, old radio. His isolation from the rest of the world is only emphasized by his unexplained outbursts while he flashbacks to some traumatizing military experiences. In addition to these quirks, he has some real issues with the opposite sex that he works through with farm tools, rope, and electrical tape.

The icing on this macabre cake is the man-eating crocodile Judd keeps uncomfortably close by in the pond abutting the Starlight Hotel’s front porch. None other than Robert Mattey provided this nasty critter. Mattey was the special effects veteran who had created the giant squid for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) and the giant shark for Jaws.

With an interesting cast of old pros and genre favorites, off-kilter humor provided by strange characters, an eerie and remote location, and an unsavory atmosphere, Eaten Alive satisfies the appetite of this grue glutton. Those who dismiss it for not tasting the same as Chainsaw need to order it again and savor its own distinctive flavor. It is still served dripping with Tobe Hooper’s special sauce of hysterical horror.

WHITE HEAT (1949)

Director: Raoul Walsh

Writers: Ivan Goff, Ben Roberts, adapting the story by Virginia Kellogg

Producer: Louis F. Edelman

Cast: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O’Brien, Margaret Wycherly, John Archer, Steve Cochran, Wally Cassell, Fred Clark, (and uncredited cast members) Robert Ossterloh, Paul Guilfoyle, Ford Rainey, Ian MacDonald

In the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Arthur “Cody” Jarrett (James Cagney) and his small gang rob a mail train, killing several men in the process. U.S. Treasury agents, led by Phillip Evans (John Archer), find the body of one Jarrett gang member (Ford Rainey) and connect him to the robbery. To establish an alibi and avoid being nabbed for a federal crime, Jarrett turns himself in for another robbery he arranged to be committed in another state during his mail train heist. Jarrett’s plan is to do just a couple of years in prison for the lesser crime, and then he and his gang can spend the mail train loot when he is released. T-man Evans plants one of his men, Hank Fallon (Edmond O’Brien), as a convict in Jarrett’s prison to try and ingratiate himself with Jarrett to learn where the stolen mail train money is and get the evidence needed to bust Jarrett for the crime. Meanwhile, “Ma” Jarrett (Margaret Wycherly) informs her son that his wife, Verna (Virgina Mayo), and Jarrett gang member “Big Ed” Somers (Steve Cochran) are plotting against him.

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

That little tough guy, James Cagney, was synonymous with the gangster film genre in the 1930s. The former vaudevillian made his name acting in such Warners Bros. crime films as Sinners’ Holiday (1930) and Public Enemy (1931). He would also appear in comedies and even get the chance to show off his dancing skills in 1932’s Taxi!

While Cagney became one of Hollywood’s biggest money-makers during the Great Depression, he did not appreciate how he and many other talents at Warner Bros. Pictures were treated. Head of the studio, Jack L. Warner, referred to his stubbornly principled star as “that little bastard.” Gagney would use Yiddish to cuss out Warner, leaving the studio boss to ask others what he was being called. The good old days were certainly a lot more colorful before HR policies.

Cagney had walked out of Warner Bros. more than once. After the success of his Oscar-winning performance in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Cagney decided to leave the studio to start his own independent film production company. After making two films with limited success and a third one that was a financial disaster (1948’s The Time of Your Life), Cagney was enticed back to Warner Bros. for one of his greatest pictures, the noirish crime thriller White Heat.

The movie opens with the mail train robbery by the Jarrett gang and never stops moving. Between Jarrett’s evasions from justice, the treasury agents’ pursuit, a federal undercover man trying to join up with Jarrett’s gang, and the treachery of Jarrett’s wife and her lover in the Jarrett gang, we are all waiting for Cagney’s murderous mama’s boy Cody Jarrett to raise hell settling scores.

At 50 years of age, James Cagney was still a dynamo playing the villainous lead in White Heat. Of course, Cagney was not only the biggest star in the film but also returning to a gangster role of the type that had earned him his early success. Cagney tweaked his role to be even more extreme. There is not only a flawed morality in Cagney’s Cody Jarrett, but some psychological quirks that manifest as sudden, severe headaches and an obvious relish he takes gunning down his enemies.

The only one in his gang Cody Jarrett trusts is his devoted mother, “Ma” Jarrett (Margaret Wycherly). She has Cody’s back when he is incapacitated by his headaches, and she is all too aware of the treachery possible from the rest of the Jarrett gang. Ma Jarrett may have been inspired by the probably exaggerated reputation of Ma Barker, the matriarch of the 1930s Barker-Karpis Gang. They were public enemies responsible for a series of robberies, kidnappings, and murders.

Virginia Mayo was another vaudevillian that made it big in the movies. By the time of White Heat, she was at the peak of her fame and had just begun a six-year series of films at Warner Bros. As Verna, Mayo may be the beauty to Cagney’s beast, but her beauty is only skin deep. She is introduced as a perfectly made-up gun moll snoring away in the bedroom of the country cabin hideout for the Jarrett gang. She grumbles about her boredom while on the lam, but she provides Cody Jarrett with the kind of fun he needs. However, Verna has been playing up to another member of the gang that is as impatient as she is to live it up with the loot.

Steve Cochran immediately projects unsavory confidence as “Big Ed” Somers. Perhaps his character’s tryst with Virginia Mayo’s Verna was a just reward for Cochran having already appeared in four of Mayo’s earlier films. Cochran’s Big Ed is champing at the bit to take over Cody Jarrett’s gang and girl. Big Ed’s ambition is obvious to Jarrett. The furtive glances Big Ed trades with Jarrett’s wife Verna let us in on their affair. Once Cody Jarrett begins his short stretch in the pen, Big Ed plans to take Jarrett’s place permanently.

The good guys are U.S. Treasury agents trying to nail Jarrett. They are led by John Archer as Phillip Evans. Archer’s Evans is dedicated. Period. His only character distinction is his always-in-control manner and a great voice. That voice may explain why Archer starred as The Shadow on that crimefighter’s radio program from 1944 to 1945. Archer also deserves credit for fathering beautiful actress Anne Archer.

Edmond O’Brien plays the other featured T-man hero in White Heat: undercover specialist Hank Fallon. He assumes the identity of Vic Pardo, a con sent to the same prison cell as Cody Jarrett. It is interesting watching Fallon try to break the ice with Jarrett without seeming too eager. Jarrett is wary of letting anyone get too close to him except his bad ole ma. There is a fair amount of suspense created as Fallon must avoid being exposed as an imposter. Beyond Fallon’s law enforcement objective, we learn nothing about this T-man, either, except that he has an interest in fishing.

I find it interesting that the representatives of law and order, without any emotional depth, are meant to engage the audience’s support. Sure, these T-men do their important duty, but it is the institutions they work for that earn our respect. That is certainly an admirable attitude if the just standards for those institutions are maintained. This was certainly indicative of a post-Great Depression-and-World War II-era mindset, which had reverence for the agencies that should maintain social stability and prosperity.

The real emotional pull for the audience in White Heat is the almost morbid fascination we must have for the conflicts and duplicity within the criminal element. Since this is a James Cagney-starring film, that interest is wisely focused on his Cody Jarrett character. We may root for justice to be served to Cody Jarrett, but we also can’t help but thrill a bit to his remorseless violence and seeing what further actions his trauma may drive him to. This role is a fine example of why many actors find it more satisfying to play villains. Sins are more exciting to perform than virtues; actors can let out their inner animal that social norms urge us to keep caged.

White Heat is usually classified as film noir, yet it is hardly typical of the genre. While it has plenty of crime happening, it is strangely lacking in that crucial film noir element of temptation and moral degradation. All the main characters are established as being either good or evil, and they do not deviate. We are never in doubt as to what any of these characters are after or capable of. Even Jarrett’s unfaithful wife Verna is almost immediately known to us as completely untrustworthy. Jarrett has never really seemed to have much trust or respect for her. Our only surprise about Verna is a reveal of the violence she commits. The femme fatale’s purpose of many noir films is fulfilled here by Hank Fallon. He is the betrayer trying to gain Jarrett’s trust and camaraderie through duplicity. This happens during a particularly vulnerable time for Jarrett, yet Fallon’s moral righteousness is never in doubt, and we realize the validity of his tactics.

White Heat was a financial and critical success that re-established James Cagney as a box-office draw. It has become one of the films always gracing greatest movies lists, and it has certainly influenced many crime-centric films ever since. After watching White Heat, I can’t help but see a bit of Cagney’s Cody Jarrett bubbling up though Jack Nicholson’s Joker in Batman (1989). Some of White Heat’s themes and situations recur and are reworked in Reservoir Dogs (1992). These observations in no way diminish those latter films. They just demonstrate that a great movie can have a lasting impact.