MAD MONSTER PARTY

		Review by E.C. McMullen Jr.
MAD MONSTER PARTY - 1967 USA Release: Julyy 26, 1967 (wide) Rankin/Bass Productions, Embassy Pictures, Videocraft International Rating: USA: G

Whew!

I go into every movie, book, and comic wanting to love it. I want to enjoy it and not waste my time, but -

SHEESH!

I'll tip my hat to anyone who can enjoy MAD MONSTER PARTY.

Before I saw it I would swear that I'd probably love it. Right up front it has the voices of Boris Karloff (FRANKENSTEIN, THE OLD DARK HOUSE, THE MUMMY, THE BLACK CAT, THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, THE RAVEN [1935], SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, THE BODY SNATCHER, ISLE OF THE DEAD, BEDLAM, THE RAVEN [1963], THE TERROR, BLACK SABBATH, THE COMEDY OF TERRORS, DIE, MONSTER, DIE!) and Phyllis Diller, two entertainers I've always admired and enjoyed.

The bluray cover looked great, bright, and brilliant. What went wrong?

Right off the bat the movie itself looked dark and washed out. Sure, the old haunted castle is supposed to be dark and dreary, but this is just blah. THE ADDAMS FAMILY had its dark and shadows, but also had its color. BEETLEJUICE had its darkened shadows but also had its color. All of the colors here are severely subdued and dreary, which is odd for a children's movie and not what is represented on the disc cover.

Worse, the sound editing is all over the place. Some voices, like Boris and Phyllis, come in loud and clear. Other voices like the voice acting of Allen Swift (COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG) are all over the place. In his day, Allen was a voice actor par excellence. You asked him to sound like any famous person of the day and in a blink he sounds like that person.

Here however, his voice is muddied and muddled. It's easy enough to tell its a sound producer issue and not him. Whether it was poorly recorded or poorly mastered for the disc I've no idea, but increasing the volume doesn't help. Its just loud and garbled. In particular for one character, Felix Flankin, who is supposed to sound like Jimmy Stewart, I couldn't understand half of what he was saying.

What jokes I could hear were mostly flat. Not simply cornball, but outright unfunny. That's okay when you've got jokes flying past you at a mile a minute, Bullwinkle-style. Not so great when everything a character says, like the main character of Felix, warbles and mumbles in and out of hearing range.

There may be a fun movie in here, directed by a man, Jules Bass, who knew how to deliver fun children's movies and proved himself as Producer and Director in many classic Holiday Rankin/Bass productions. And all of them, every one of them - even the one with the Scary Abominable Snowman "Bumble" - have that signature bright and colorful tone. MAD MONSTER PARTY looks and sounds boring, dull, drab.

Some day someone may unlock the issues with this movie and it will come across as full of life as any other Rankin/Bass picture I've ever enjoyed. But for now I can only give this lifeless MAD MONSTER PARTY,

One Shriek Girl.

This review copyright 2023 E.C.McMullen Jr.

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Seriously, you can not convince me that Jules Bass could do no better than MAD MONSTER PARTY. How many of you remember this fun and funky nonsense?