Getting this unfinished business cleared up is pleasant enough, but it was even nicer to realize they also share a theme: in each, one of the most important characters is a dog.
Beartooth (1978)
Grade: C+
This first film takes us out of Mill Creek territory and into the 2-DVD set 4 Movie Marathon: Grit 'N Perseverance, which we're hoping to review in full if we can get the discs successfully resurfaced (they're half-clean, half-trashed, so only two of the movies are currently watchable).
Anyway, this set was our source for 1978's Beartooth -- or, as the DVD case calls it, Beartooh:
In certain films, there's a moment early on -- maybe 20 minutes in, depending on the runtime -- when you realize something important about the movie you're watching, something that will shape your experience of the remainder of the film. And that realization is: Nothing is going to happen in this movie.
Or, phrased more generously: This movie isn't about plot, but about character, atmosphere and a sense of place.
Now, in the case of Beartooth, that's not strictly true. It has a plot (albeit one that could be summarized in two sentences with very little loss of information), and it even has peripeteia and anagnorisis.
But it also has long, long stretches where nothing is happening except some combination of: (a) beautiful Technicolor vistas of the American Rockies, (b) the strumming of the world's jangliest banjo, (c) stock footage of wildlife, and/or (d) Dub Taylor doing his chores while his dog Sugar keeps him company.
Your patience for this sort of thing, and your tolerance for sweet-natured stories of grizzled, lonely old mountain men who find lifesaving companionship in canine form, will heavily shape your enjoyment of Beartooth. We watched it while suspended thousands of feet in the air, in the last stage of a long and stressful transcontinental trip, and as K. said, "it was just what the doctor ordered."
Though there's almost no information on the Internet about Beartooth, it seems likely that it was intended as an educational film, or perhaps as a product to sell to schools and communities. At the very least it was produced by Educational Services Inc., and one can't help but notice that Dub Taylor's character, "old" C.J. McDonald (as he describes himself), never utters an oath any stronger than "Dadgum!"
And one more crucial point: the DVD cover features a promotional image of a snarling bear with razor-sharp teeth exposed, looking ready to kill. (Apparently, Amazon.com also uses the same image for its digital download/rental.) But if you come to Beartooth looking for pulse-pounding scenes of C.J. McDonald doing battle with a grizzly, you will be sorely disappointed: the only bears seen in Beartooth are part of stock footage montages.
It would be difficult to exaggerate the extent to which Beartooth is, in fact, the opposite of such a movie. Speaking solely in bear terms, it's far closer to Grizzly Man than Grizzly, but minus Werner Herzog.
Really, the closest archetype for Beartooth would be the evocative Canadian educational shorts they used to play on PBS on weekday mornings when you'd be home from school, sick in bed. If you have fond memories of those, you might like this, but horror fans should almost certainly steer clear.
Embryo (1976)
Grade: B+
Our K. had seen this Rock Hudson vehicle before (which is why we skipped over it in our first pass through Nightmare Worlds), but only barely remembered it; our P. hadn't, and his expectations were totally confounded.
Not a monster movie starring some grotesquely deformed fetus with psychic powers (and room for a pony), it's instead a kind of variation on Flowers for Algernon, except this time Charly Gordon is smart, hot, and female.
And Algernon is a Doberman named Number One, and doesn't die. Plus he cleans up his messes.
Apparently Embryo has gotten poor reviews in some quarters, and some reviewers absolutely loathed the movie. But we found it totally engaging up until the last five minutes, when it finally degenerated into the kind of schlock we'd been expecting all along (and were pleasantly surprised not to have gotten).
We have to give a special shout-out to the dog that played Number One (sadly uncredited), whose obvious intelligence and calm dexterity impressed the hell out of us both. Good actor, too, with inquisitive eyes, a convincing head-tilt, and a terrifying growl: we wouldn't want to be bacon on a sawhorse when Number One got in a bad mood.
In fact, Number One was probably the best performance in the movie, so it's a crime that we can't praise him (or her? -- we didn't check) by name. If there isn't a canine version of the Screen Actors Guild, there surely should be!
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