It! (1966)

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

This is a very poor attempt at a horror thriller in the "golem" genre. The story is wafer thin, the script and character development is dire and the special effects are certainly not special. There are so many disappointing things in the film, you'll feel completely unsatisfied at the conclusion of it - that's if you've lasted that long Where to begin...? Well, plot wise, a fire at a warehouse reveals a previously hidden statue that is promptly put on display in a museum by assistant curator Arthur Pimm (Roddy McDowell). Pimm is a twitchy, suspicious man who lives alone - except for the corpse of his dead mother, dressed up in gown and wig and propped up in a chair! Right from the start you need to know that this element of the plot is one of the most throwaway aspects of the whole story - there is no explanation or background on this, it's just there. Presumably it is just to re-enforce the idea that Pimm is a bit crazy, but they really could have explained it.Right from the start, Pimm starts to wonder about the statue, especially as it seems responsible for a death in the first few minutes of the film. More deaths occur (not very dramatic ones), and Pimm starts to uncover the truth about the statue - that it is in fact a Golem which can be brought to life and controlled. Pimm is an unhappy man with a crush on a pretty museum worker, who dumps him for an altogether more macho American museum curator...I'm sure you can guess what happens next.Well what happens is, a pretty shabby attempt at a "golem on the rampage" film. The film barely shows anything of the creature coming to life. The statue isn't bad, it's actually very ugly and quite creepy, but apart from moving it's arms and walking about slowly, very little mayhem is ever seen on camera. This is a huge fault of the film as a whole, it takes the cheapest way out of every big scene by cutting away from every major event. The golem destroys a bridge...we see it walk under the bridge...raise it's arms in close up and rattle some rubber girders...cut to Pimm and policeman looking shocked...cut back to a PAINTING of a collapsed bridge (the worst effect in the entire movie). The golem springs Pimm from a police hospital. We see...the golem bash down one fake brick wall (from the inside, we don't see stone arm actually hit brickwork on the exterior shot). The hospital is deserted...Pimm and the golem just stroll away through the fresh hole. Oh yes and the golem also kills people...all we see is Pimm (usually) looking shocked while the murder takes place off screen.The worst part of the film is the climax (I guess the spoilers start here...), which sees Pimm and his golem blockaded in a country house. The set-up for this is hilarious, two detectives talk to someone on the phone and then say to each other "It's Pimm! He's got the golem, he's kidnapped the girl, stolen his mother's corpse from the mortuary (which makes the fact that he's had her corpse in his house all this time a total lie), and stolen a hearse!" All of which sounds very exciting, but all sadly not shown on screen. Pimm makes off for a huge remote house with this posse, which is inhabited by one single elderly lady museum worker. Soon they are all trapped inside the house. But why? What is Pimm's great plan? Well, there isn't one, expect to stop anyone coming in. In the daftest scene of the whole film, Pimm sends the golem to defend the front gates of the estate. The army send in guns, big guns, bigger guns and a nuclear warhead (!) to get past the golem. Yet the grounds of the house are massive, all the golem is doing is standing at one gate. What's to stop someone going round the back??? The golem can't move any faster than a snail, yet all they do is point guns at it from behind sandbags and then complain that it's still standing!.Finally, the nuclear bomb goes off (cue stock footage mushroom cloud), and the country house is destroyed - off camera. Who survives? Watch and find out if you can be bothered. It's all totally lame and boring. Roddy McDowell acts over the top for too much of the time, shrieking insanely at a nightmare in which he sees a naked Jill Haworth turn into his dead mother, talking to himself, miming actions to show the audience what he his thinking (terrible direction here, getting him to flap his arms stupidly about to represent him thinking about how the golem's arms have changed position when no-one was looking). The character of Pimm seems to have no motivation. Sometimes he wants to steal jewelry for his mother, sometimes he wants to get promoted, sometimes he wants the girl, sometimes he wants to get rid of the girl, sometimes he wants to get rid of the golem. I guess that's crazy for you, but I got very lost and a film needs to give it's audience something to hang on to! I got the DVD of this to satisfy my curiosity...it wasn't worth it.

I have been aware since childhood of this British horror movie (via large color stills taken from it found in one of my father's books) but, despite knowing of its recent DVD release in the U.S., only now did I manage to check it out on Cable TV channel TCM UK. American born writer-producer-director Leder lends his modest London-based film a colorful look reminiscent of Hammer horrors while updating the Hebrew legend of the Golem for the 20th Century. Roddy McDowall (delivering a performance that is much better than the material he has to work with) plays an ambitious but disturbed museum curator who occasionally bestows his mummified mother (whom he keeps in her favorite living-room armchair) with precious stones lifted from his workplace, ineffectually lusts after his lovely blonde colleague (former Otto Preminger protégé Jill Haworth) – in a startling sequence, he envisages her lounging practically naked on his sofa before turning into his skeletal mother as he approaches her! – and is constantly harassed by his superiors. When a warehouse fire conveniently highlights the lifelike presence of an indestructible sinister statue, McDowall gradually realizes what he has come in possession of and, inevitably, makes use of his own power over it to further himself in life, both socially and romantically. Unfortunately for McDowall, both Haworth and the statue are also being pursued by visiting American curator Paul Maxwell (unsubtly named Perkins – if you catch my drift) who, necessarily, even gets entangled in the ongoing police investigations (one of whom is played by future Euro-Cult regular Ian McCulloch) of the piling murders surrounding the re-emergence of the Golem. Although the film is certainly entertaining fare, particularly for hardened genre fans, one cannot help but notice that several opportunities (especially for black comedy) are sorely missed along the way; the Golem's demolition of a bridge, then, is merely a weak matte painting (to say nothing of some very obvious day-for-night shots) and the climactic confrontation between the rampaging statue and the proverbial Army is somewhat risible as they keep shooting at it with bigger and bigger weapons (from bazookas to tanks) to no avail! Even 'It' seems to despair at their ineptitude as the Golem proceeds to drown itself in the nearby Thames soon after! This is all rather lame script-wise since we had previously been told that water cannot harm the 400-year old statue…but, perhaps, its suicide is meant to be taken metaphorically since it has been revived for destructive purposes rather than the protective ones it had originally been created for.

Deranged mama's boy assistant museum curator Arthur Primm (delightfully played to the sniveling wimpy hilt by Roddy McDowall) brings a deadly and grotesquely ugly golem statue to life so he can bump off his enemies. Unfortunately, the power of the golem gets out of hand and poor Arthur finds himself in a huge mess of trouble. Writer/director Herbert J. Leder treats the potentially silly premise with admirable seriousness, maintains a steady pace throughout, and relates a relevant and provocative central message on how power can corrupt and destroy the human soul. This film further benefits from solid and sincere acting from a sturdy cast: McDowall in particular shines as the wimpy and weaselly Arthur (having him live with the skeletal remains of his mother's corpse is an especially nice macabre touch), plus there are fine supporting turns by the gorgeous Jill Haworth as the fetching Ellen Grove, Paul Maxwell as affable visiting American history expert Jim Perkins, Aubrey Richards as the stern, fussy Professor Weal, Noel Trevarthen as the meddlesome Inspector White, and Richard Goolden as a wise old rabbi. The golem makes for a very cool and original indestructible monster. Both Davis Boulton's crisp cinematography and Carlo Martelli's roaring, dramatic score are up to par. Moreover, the movie offers a few inspired moments of wickedly black humor and concludes on a properly gloomy note. A nifty fright flick.

I saw this movie only once. For those who might be wondering about the creature itself, I'd like to add some background. This British horror movie uses the concept of a being from Jewish folklore, really. The Golem is a creature that is not really alive - the Jewish equivalent to the zombie. However, it usually appears on the scene with some sort of mission: to help somebody living wrap up unfinished business, or to act as a protector, avenger, whatever. According to Jewish folklore, the creature is made out of mud or stone and is controlled by placing a tiny sacred scroll in its mouth (if the person controlling it is brave enough!) The movie was interesting to watch, but it could have been better. It only stands as a period piece from that decade when all sorts of low-budget horror flicks were being made.