Spectre (1977) is a thing Gene Roddenberry did in between running The Star Trek Interstellar Fan Club and delivering lectures to nerds about the philosophy of Star Trek while showing blooper reels of cast members walking into doors and Spock delivering flubbed lines like…
“The plants act as a suppository…”
It was one of Roddenberry’s failed pilots before the Star Trek movies hit. Others included Genesis II, Planet Earth, Strange New World and The Questor Tapes.
Spectre stars Robert Culp as a Sherlock Holmes-type character who battles supernatural enemies — in this case, John Hurt trying to carve out a career before Alien.
How does it compare to other made-for-TV horror movies like The Intruder Within, Midnight Offerings, Curse of the Black Widow, Satan’s Triangle, Killdozer, Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell , Invitation to Hell, Summer of Fear, Savages, Moon of the Wolf, The Initiation of Sarah, Crowhaven Farm, A Cold Night’s Death, Snowbeast, The Possessed, Chiller, Dark Night of the Scarecrow, Full Eclipse, The Victim, When Michael Calls, Fear Itself and The Aliens Are Coming?
Spectre
The interesting thing about Spectre is that it is an American-British production. 20th Century Fox backed the pilot, but it was filmed in England and used a British supporting cast, along with local facilities like Elstree Studios.
This was not unheard of at that time. For example, The Muppet Show was American, but it was also filmed at Elstree. Maybe one hope was that a British influence would give Spectre a bit of class. British performers can maintain dignity no matter what type of film they find themselves in (see Lifeforce).
As for Culp, he seemed to take Spectre as a challenge to out-serious the British. He approaches every scene like it insulted his wife (lasciviously), and he wants to challenge it to a flintlock duel at dawn.
Meanwhile, Roddenberry writes like he knows this is his one and only chance to have topless women laugh manically while midgets dance, and he aims to take it.
St. MacReady have mercy on us all…
S.P.E.C.T.R.E
Credits roll over a gothic-style art piece. Or maybe it is a byzantine-style art piece. Or it could be a Denny’s coloring mat for all we know. The resolution of Spectre on Youtube is the equivalent of Mr. Magoo vision.
A harpsichord plays. The harpsichord is the most annoying of musical instruments (worse than the theremin even). It sounds like fingernails scratching a chalkboard…but with pitch.
Historical tidbit: harpsichords were sold with a pair of icepicks to jam into your ears.
Gig Young, who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, arrives at a country home. He delivers heavy voiceover that promises Spectre to be…
“A slide into horrors unimaginable and a descent into a corner of hell…”
Spectre was one of Young’s last roles. After alcoholism cost him roles in Blazing Saddles and Charlie’s Angels, he grew disillusioned with his career and committed suicide.
In Spectre, Young plays a Dr. Watson-type to match Culp’s Sherlock Holmes-type. His character is also an alcoholic. It appears Young briefly cracked the code on how not to lose an acting job. He simply played himself…
Young enters the country home. Normally, 1970s décor is gaudy and dense. This home is done in white and somewhat sparse. The feng shui of it makes it feel like the rubber room of an asylum, but with ferns.
The maid is played by Gene Roddenberry’s wife, Marjel Barret, who was sometimes referred to as “the First Lady of Star Trek.” In Spectre, I refer to her as “that poor woman who had to be in this movie…”
In-spectre
Culp’s character is introduced sitting on the floor and playing with those psychic cards from Ghostbusters. He seems to channel Steve Jobs before anyone heard of Steve Jobs. He dresses in a black turtleneck and acts like a brilliant jerk.
Culp wants to bring Young to London for an “unexplainable” case that “will revolutionize the field of criminology.” Then Culp pulls up his shirt and shows his nipple. He also has a gross scar below his nipple. How gross? Almost as gross as his nipple…
Culp explains the scar is there because a powerful dude in London possesses a voodoo doll of him, and that is where the pin is stabbed into it. The situation is slowly killing him. Credit where credit is due; that’s a good plot device. It’s a ticking clock that physically impairs the main character.
British actress Ann Bell (Spectre) shows up in a fur coat. She dumps way more plot than the viewer can absorb.
First, Bell explains she flew all the way from London on behalf of the powerful dude, who is her brother. She tells Culp not to come to London to solve the unexplainable mystery. She takes Culp into the study and tries to seduce him. He throws an oversized volume of the Apocryphal Book of Tobit at her. At which points, she howls, screams, smokes and disappears. She was a succubus, you see.
Just nod like it all makes sense. It’s better for us both…
The Occult Is A Spectre-stator Sport
John Hurt meets Culp and Young at the airport. He pilots a private jet and is also the brother of the powerful dude in London.
Culp and Young hop aboard. Culp spends the flight arguing with Young about matters of evil. Young is the skeptic, you see, and Culp is the wizen eccentric who knows all. Culp explains how he got involved in the voodoo doll situation, but I don’t catch most of it. Culp’s character is not that fun to watch. I once went in a grocery store when it opened at 6 AM. A girl in the check out line at 6:01 AM with a single item: Midol. Culp’s character reminds me of that girl.
The plane starts to behave wonkily. The lights go out. An engine fails. Alarms sound. Turbulence happens. Culp believes a demon is trying to prevent him from reaching London. On the other hand, it could be an angel trying to save him from this movie…
Nevertheless, Culp and Young land safely in London. We know it is London because they drive by Big Ben and Parliament. And that is about the extent of Spectre taking advantage of shooting on location. They don’t even visit Piccadilly Circus or pass that crosswalk where the Beatles took that picture of themselves looking ordinarily humble under the weight of extraordinary importance.
Culp and Young visit an occult bookstore called Merlin’s Mews. They find the place on fire, the owner dead and a pentagram on the floor. Something like the gremlin from that episode of The Twilight Zone with William Shatner threatens them, so they stand in the middle of the pentagram. Then it can’t threaten them no more.
Riveting. My resting heart rate went from 56 to nearly 54 with that scene.
I Thought I Saw A Spectre At Your Shoulder
Culp and Young talk to a constable, who is an Inspector Lestrade-type. He wants to know what they saw. Culp cheekily says, “We saw nothing, neither men nor animal…”
“So…an amalgamation?” a Seventh Day Adventist might ask, and then they are promptly tackled and gagged by a member of the Ellen White Public Relations Committee…
Next, Culp and Young travel to a castle owned by the powerful Cyon family, of which Hurt and Bell are part. We finally meet their powerful dude brother, who is played by James Villiers (For Your Eyes Only).
Villiers runs quite the castle. All his maids are sexy women in slinky dresses. Again, the plot seems to forget what it is doing. Culp went to London to solve an unexplainable mystery and cure his voodoo doll problem, and now Villiers wants him to prove that Bell’s fears are weird. What fears? I don’t know…
Meanwhile, Culp wants a painted picture of a naked woman as payment.
Culp, Young, Villers, Hurt and Bell all sit down for dinner. Culp finds glass fragments in his wine. He makes a toast in Latin and everyone’s glasses shatter. Then a slinky maid comes in and says the sonic remote for the front gate is not working.
This is Spectre’s half-hearted attempt to keep the viewer guessing as to whether or not the supernatural things are really happening or if there is a rational explanation.
Did the movie forget that it already had a succubus get evaporated by book and a monster in the bookstore? Apparently, it did. Yes.
Spectre In The Machine
The most interesting thing that happens for a while is that a water bed makes an appearance. You never hear about water beds anymore. It’s all “sleep number” when people talk about high end beds these days. But there was a time when water beds were the kings of luxury sleeping.
Somehow, the plot becomes further muddled. Now the movie is about whether or not Villiers is himself or a demon named Amadeus (close enough).
Young then wakes up with a maid in his bed. She activates bedside controls to turn on mood lighting, music and open a hidden door that displays a case of whips and handcuffs. Then a woman in leather and a girl in a school dress appear.
It’s comedy, I guess.
I’m not laughing, though. I’m genuinely growing concerned about this movie causing physical injury. If a CTE specialist examined my brain after watching this film, they would probably see no difference between it and the brain of a guy who played in the NFL for 15 years.
Eventually, Culp and Young discover a miniature version of Stonehenge in the castle’s backyard. It has some of the most realistic cardboard rocks I have ever seen.
The Spectre And The Darkness
Let’s just try to lay out the rest of what happens in some sort of order that can perhaps be understood by someone with a master’s degree and 20 years of experience in chaos theory.
Culp and Young spelunk caverns below the miniature Stonehenge. They find a number of odd things like a black mass altar, a broken golden seal and a woman hanging upside down and laughing. (They leave the woman there, by the way.)
Questions like this are asked: “Is it possible for something to feel evil to the touch?”
I know this one! Yes! Cotton balls!
Seriously, it’s called bambakophobia. I have it. I genuinely cannot stand how cotton balls feel. If you give me a choice between a shot or touching a cotton ball, I will choose the shot 100 times out of 100 times. A shot is much less uncomfortable.
Anyway, Spectre culminates with a big ritual orgy in the caves. It has manically laughing women baring their breasts and dancing midgets. It turns out Hurt is the demon in a weak attempt at a twist. He wants Villiers to kill Bell. Villiers struggles to resist and refuses. Then Hurt wants Villiers to have sex with Bell instead. Villiers struggles to resist and refuses.
Culp leaps into the fray, flings some holy water and communion wine and shoots Hurt with a gold bullet after Hurt turns into a Gorn.
I think Villiers was a werewolf for a second, too…
In the end, Culp successful earns his picture of that naked woman. Good job.
And I say “good job” the way men say it to each other after one of them did something retarded, like drop their phone into a toilet or something…
Spectre
From an idea standpoint, Spectre is gold. The occult-detective genre is popular and well mined: The Night Stalker, The Norliss Tapes, Lord of Illusions, Constantine and Angel Heart. Throw in an Odd Couple relationship between the two main characters, and you are already halfway there. Unfortunately, Spectre trips up even before the halfway point.
Since the film is a pilot, a degree of proof-of-concept wonkery is allowed, but Spectre is full-on clunky. The blame probably falls at the writing level. It feels like Roddenberry delivered a second draft of a screenplay that needed about three more drafts to get smoothed and polished into something that flows better.
Clive Donner is then handed the director reins and pushed down the hill. Donner was part of the new wave of British directors in the 1960s with films like The Caretaker and What’s New Pussycat? He ended up doing things like the Maxwell Smart film The Nude Bomb. Truly, movie making is a fickle business. No wonder Roddenberry went full Star Trek in the end. Stuff like Spectre wasn’t going to put any food replicators in the kitchen to put food on the table…
