Willard (1971)

 

Willard (1971)

 

Rats are prominently featured in more Horror films than I could list, but few films are actually about Rats, because we look at Rats in close-up, we see small, vulnerable, Mammals. Rats are a scary idea, swarming and skittering in the shadows, but really more a Prop than a Subject.

 

The key thing to remember this about Rats is that intelligent and live communally. Yes, they are Disease Carriers, but in that they are really secondary players in the worst harms we associate with them (the near-Apocalyptic Black Death of the 14^th c. was spread by Fleas on Rats, not Rats bites). A Rat in a trash can is filthy, but a Rat in a movie is clean, well-treated, and well-fed and when low-budget Filmmakers turn their cameras on them we generally see the latter, so we see the Rats that make great pets. As for the former, we fear them because they are always nearby, but the Rats know we are their Monster more than they are ours.

 

This film’s title Character, “Willard,” isn’t a Rat, but a shy and socially awkward Human. The film is based on the novel, “Ratman’s Notebooks” by Stephen Gilbert (1968), and as the title suggests, the book is a First-Person Narrative, and Screenwriter Gilbert A. Ralston, chose to name Willard Stiles (Bruce Davidson) for him. For Willard, most of Humanity is the Monster, his world is small and no one is nice to him. In both novel and film no Character enjoyed the same level of development as Willard, but all the supporting Characters are believable, and though one could argue no one is really as bad as Willard sees them, we believe Willard even when his rages seem self-serving.

 

His oppressors include his mom, Henrietta (Elsa Lanchester), who has been abusive and is now physically dependent on him, so both mean and a burden. Worse still is his boss, Al Martin (Ernest Borgnine), who stole away Willard’s father’s business, therefore Willard’s future, and now, as Willard’s Boss, treated Willard even worse than his mom.

 

The cast is great. It is hard to call Actor Davison under-rated, his career has been prolific with both Leading and Supporting roles, he has Oscar and Emmy Nominations, and top Directors are familiar enough with his resume to seek him out. But he always seems under-rated, and this film (the one that made him a Star) proves both how great he is, and how he thrives in being under-estimated. Though he is the Title Character, he sometimes seems not to be; he carries the entire film on his shoulders even though the film wants us to look at the Rats more than he.

 

Actress Lanchester had a somewhat similar relationship to Stardom as Davidson as there was the illusion that she was under-rated. Starting in England as a Burlesque Dancer and Stage Actress in the 1920s, she popular enough for her stage work that Novelist H.G. Wells scripted three short films for her (all 1928), but those films are now forgotten. Major fame came only to her with the coming of the Talkies, she had several small but visible roles some very early ones, but big-break came in Hollywood with “The Bride of Frankenstein” (1935) playing both the Bride and Historical Character Mary Shelly, and her approach to both was so radically different that few recognized it was the same actress they were watching. She never became as big as Joan Crawford or Betty Davis, and regulated to supporting roles earlier than the other two, but was so sought-after for those roles she was a huge success. Certainly, after Time the Avenger fell upon all three, we saw Crawford and Davis struggling to find parts to sustain their Stardom while Lanchester kept ranking up credits in both B-movies and immortal Classics (two Oscar Nominations, eight years apart, a Golden Glode Win, and a few other Honors). By the time of “Willard” she was a near ubiquitous presence on film and TV both in England and the USA. She was in fifties then, generally cast as women far-older than herself, and would retire during the next decade.

 

What can I say about Borgnine? By the time of “Willard” he was among the USA’s leading Character Actors, and he would remain until his last film, one year before his death in 2012.

 

Another important cast member was a pre-fame Sondra Locke as Character Joan; she would become a transformative figure for Willard, discussed below.

 

The evolution of the plot is interesting: Tyrannical Henrietta orders Willard to exterminate the Rats in their house’s overgrown garden, but he bonds with them instead. He feeds them, trains them, allows them the run of the basement which frail Henrietta hasn’t looked inside of for years. He goes as far as to name a few, Ben, Queenie, and (his favorite) Socrates, and these travel around the whole house within him, and even off the property. For the first time in his life, his devotions are responded to, and with this, his broken self-confidence reasserts itself. It’s heartwarming really. Willard shows the ability to relax for the first time. He had difficultly looking people in the eye, but he did so with the Rats, and then, because them, some people, like his co-Worker Joan.

 

When Henrietta dies, odious Al increases his machinations against Willard, and the Rats are there for him. Had this been a Disney film, adorable Mice would’ve sewn Willard dress so he could go to the Ball; but these are Rats, not Mice, and the Bigotries are what they are, when Willard’s friends combine forces to save him, it’s a Horror movie. Critic Rodger Ebert observed this, comparing the first half of the film to a Horatio Alger story. Ebert was always uncertain of what he thought of the Horror Genre and clearly appreciated how long this film choose to unleash the Horror stuff.

 

Things were changing in Horror cinema in the 1960s and 1970s, and “Willard,” caught in the transitional period; it benefited from ignoring some trends. Censorship was easing, so violence was increasing, and with that the Body-Counts. Serial Killers were becoming more common in cinema than the were in the Real-World, led by the Italian sub-Genre of the Gaillo (we can argue which the first true Giallo film was, but I say it was “Blood and Black Lace” (1964)) which thrived on Stylistic Over-Indulgence and High-Body-Counts. The Gaillo was followed the Slasher (I say the first true Slasher was “Black Christmas” (1974)) which thrived on even Higher-Body-Counts but mostly lacked Style. High-Body-Counts created a challenge for Characterization when the film itself was restricted to a 95-minute running-time and Stylistic Over-Indulgence could be accused to the same.

 

Meanwhile “Willard” is unconditionally about Willard and his Rats, its style is understated and it has only two Murders of Humans, so it featured a Low-Body-Count that is now more shocking in a Horror film than explicit Rape and Mutilation.

 

The well-treated Rats reproduce beyond expectations, creating both an opportunity and a problem for Willard. The opportunity is that looking upon Willard as their Master, they are his Army. The problem is he will eventually lose control of the Masses he Dominates. Both of these will prove the heart of the emerging Horrors.

 

The smartest of the Rats are Socrates and Ben. Socrates is a really positive influence in Willard’s life, but there’s something sinister about the obviously even-smarter Ben. Willard becomes God-like to the Rats, but early-on it is hinted that Ben has greater leadership potential than Willard.

 

Meanwhile, Al’s abuses get worse, so Willard uses his Rats to taunt Al and assist in a Burglary. Then Al, unaware Willard’s machinations, kills Socrates. Willard uses his Army to exact Revenge, in his moment of triumph he shouts at Al, “You made me hate myself. Well, I like myself now.”

 

But the Revenge comes at a cost. Willard’s horrified that he’s now a Murderer, and the is simultaneous with him starting to have some hope of more normal Human relationship with Joan. The Rats, his Friends and Servants, are the obstacle to resolving both issues. He turns his back on a lot of them that need his assistance, then kills many more, and then, finally, he thinks it’s OK to make a nice dinner for Joan.

 

He’s wrong. He underestimated Ben.

 

It was made on a modest budget (I don’t have the exact numbers) by Cinerama Releasing Corporation and Bing Crosby Productions (reading Contemporary Critics, a number of them made jokes about the Bing Crosby connection, but both companies actually produced a fair amount of significant Horror films during their short histories. Neither failed, but were absorbed by larger companies.). They (mostly Crosby) chose to avoid a trap of many low-to-modest budget production companies by not over-relying on TV Directors, who were generally efficient but trapped in the teachings of their crushingly, limiting, medium. Instead, they chose a respected film veteran of both live-stage and screen, Director Daniel Mann, who avoided TVs reflexive error of too many zooms and close-ups, but instead offered a strong sense of the spaces the Characters moved within (the film is set-bound, but Art Director Howard Hollander is excellent). His slow burn approach managed to keep the focus where it should be, on the Human Actors and Rats, he held back of the disturbing-ness of the Rat-ness for most of the film, but knew how to tap into it when things were supposed to get scary.

 

All film is collaborative, and regarding realizing the Rats, Mann achievement rests on others as well. Their Trainers/Wranglers Moe and Nora DiSesso did remarkable work. The Rat who played “Ben” won a PATSY, basically an Animal Oscar. Also, pretty much always in a film with Animal Actors, the Editor is a key player; here it was four-time Oscar Nominee Warren Low, and it proved to be his very last film before retirement, quite a high note to end his four-decades in Hollywood on.

An instructive comparison here is with Director Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” (1963) if only to recognize that though they both tap on the same fears, a swarming mass of Beasts, the Revenge of Nature, they are otherwise quite different. “Willard” sells the Rats, but is really, subversively, about Willard first and Rats second, so about the fear of the hidden Inferiority of Man compared to the Power of Nature, but unlike “The Birds” it’s not the End of the World.

 

Despite mixed reviews, it was a surprise hit, so a sequel was demanded. That film, “Ben” (1972), was seemingly rushed. Though a more ambitious a story-line, the Rats and now at war with an entire City, the budget doesn’t seem to have increased, and given its decade, was likely cut. Unlike “Willard,” “Ben” wanted to be “The Birds” which it had no chance at all of possibly matching; Hitchcock had a generous budget and did things in “The Birds” that should’ve been impossible before CGI. All we can really say for “Ben” is that it gave it the good college try. Script was penned by Writer Ralston again, but lacking the first film’s solid source material, it proved sloppy and often silly. The Character taking the place of now-dead Willard, Danny Garrison (Lee Harcourt Montgomery), was annoying. On the other hand, it did have an Oscar-Winning Theme Song, “Ben,” sung by Michael Jackson. 

 

“Willard” was then remade (2003), Directed by Glen Morgan and starring Crispin Glover in Willard, but he’s not very good. While Davison (who had a cameo in this version) was perfectly cast in the original, his introversion beautifully naturalistic and his emergence from his shell making you want to root for him even though you know this is going to go bad, Actor Glover was weird and creepy from the get-go. The later film did benefit from improved FX, its swarming Rats were impressive in ways the “Ben” wanted them to be, but couldn’t, but even here, the original “Willard” often proved stronger, because its Rats always looked real, because they actually were. One on the more striking images of the original was Willard in a business suit, Rat swarming around his feet, ankle deep, when much have been a difficult shot to execute. In the remake, the swarm moved liquidly over his entire body, very cool, but less convincing.

 

Trailer:

Willard (1971) - Official Trailer (HD)