Tuesday, April 7, 2009

INTO THE MACHINE!!!

Lodging deep within the brains of millions of prepubescent youths, JACK AND THE WITCH is one of those movies you see on some UHF station's afternoon movie timeslot when you're home from school with a fever or it's a rainy summer day or you're stuck at the relatives and are aimlessly turning the knobs on that giant woodgrained RCA monster - the knobs make that satisfying "klunk" as you switch from channel 2 to channel 3, and you have to fiddle with the tint once you get up into those rabbit-ear channels, and you sit there by the set inhaling ozone and faint scorched plastic until things look just right.


Twenty years later you thumb through some incomprehensible Japanese book listing every animated film ever released in Japan from 1941 until 1990 or so, and you see a picture that jogs your memory hard, like a fist, and you stand there shocked as you realize that no, you didn't DREAM that movie or IMAGINE it or HALLUCINATE it after one too many shots of Dimetapp Children's Cough Syrup - it actually exists, for once your memory isn't cheating. There actually is a Japanese animated film about little witches who fly broom-helicopters on fire missions against a spectacularly homely boy named Jack and his carload of animal friends, there really is a movie filled with spooky castles and crumbling balustrades and legions of devilish imps, featuring a giant machine that exists only to turn friendly woodland creatures into evil witches.




That's JACK AND THE WITCH, a movie seemingly produced to give children nightmares and confuse the hell out of adults. Released in 1967 by Toei Animation Company in between two rock 'em sock 'em CYBORG 009 films, JACK isn't based on a fairy tale or a popular manga or an ancient legend. It's its own thing, a bastard cross Between some whimsical Hanna Barbera TV cartoon and all the scary parts of the best Disney movies.


Directed by Japanese animation pioneer Taji Yabushita, JACK is not nearly as linear as some of his more familiar works like ALAKAZAM THE GREAT (1960) and ADVENTURES OF SINBAD (1962). However, JACK's flat character designs combined with lush, expressionistic backgrounds are proof positive of Toei's mid 60s schizoid split between wannabe Disney and wannabe UPA. Released over here by American International, this film was dubbed by Titan Productions, the outfit that handled Astro Boy, Gigantor, and many other imports. Close listeners can hear Corinne "Trixie" Orr and Billie Lou "Astro Boy" Watt voicing several different characters. Other than impacting the subconciousness of impressionable youths, this film made almost no impact on American anime fandom at large - American anime fans would obsess over early Miyazaki films and the voice talent of EIGHTH MAN, but lacking star animators or super robots, JACK AND THE WITCH spent years in obscurity, or at least a slightly higher level of obscurity than it now currently enjoys.



Our titular hero Jack is a cleft-palated young hellraiser with his own car full of animal chums. Yeah, that's it, that's all the introduction you get. As the film opens he's bombing through the house - yes, driving IN THE HOUSE - in his Model T, blissfully ignorant of things like legal driving age or roads or seat belts. Well, wouldn't you know it, after a song about how the world is a lovely place, he gets into a race with a little girl witch named Allegra who rides a chopped and channelled broomstick/helicopter. Happens all the time. Allegra offers Jack a ride on her broomstick and takes him straight to an evil castle. Don't accept rides from strangers, kids!

Turns out Allegra and her more adult witch commander-in-chief Auriana all live in the terrifying castle and their hobby is turning innocent children and woodland creatures into hideous imps of Satan. This is accomplished by means of a giant machine made up of mostly of bones. "INTO THE MACHINE!!" the imps chant as our heroes are vaccummed into its depths. "INTO THE MACHINE! INTO THE MACHINE!!" It's a rhythmic cry that scarred the memories of many a TV-watching kid. Jack escapes the harpy machine- but mouse pal Squeaker doesn't!

INTO THE MACHINE! INTO THE MACHINE!
Jack's animal posse escapes the creepy, gargoyle-carved-pillared castle with their own harpy prisoner, an amiable sort who's not averse to fun. Their impromptu dance party back at the house is interrupted by Jack's return; not to mention a fierce claw-chain attack by Allegra, which is halted by the simple expedient of whacking her on the skull with crockery until she's unconscious. Stricken by sympathy, Jack stops the animals from exacting any more violence on Allegra, but he's repaid by her knocking him down as she wakes up and escapes. Cheer up Jack, it won't be the first time a girl makes a sucker out of you. Every hesitant schoolyard crush is writ large on the animated stage here as Jack comes to grips with his strange new feelings towards this weird female creature.


Attack Of The Mushroom People
Anyway, Jack and the animals realize they've got to rescue Squeaker. Their castle home invasion is sidetracked by Allegra, who's their friend again! Sure she is! She tricks our heroes and they fall into a pit populated by giant bugs and talking Sid & Marty Krofft mushrooms. But all psychedelic experiences must eventually come to an end and soon it's time for Jack to face the harpy-transforming machine. INTO THE MACHINE JACK! Saved at the last minute by desperate anti-wind power sabotage by Barnaby the Bear, Jack must now travel to the ice caves to rescue Allegra, who was banished there for her failure! Jack has a thing for the bad girls. He frees the witch-sicle with a smash from a huge crescent wrench - but then must face the angry vengeance of Auriana, whose swinging pendant chain sends Jack and Allegra into a crazy underwater volcano dimension of swirling psychedelic colors! When Jack's captured animal pals trick Harpy Squeaker into breaking the witch-queen's crystal ball, Auriana's power takes a serious hit - Jack and Allegra pop back into the regular non-psychedelic world (or at least as regular as this film gets) and Auriana changes into a weird Oni-type goblin, inflates a giant dinosaur skeleton balloon, and sets a time bomb before she escapes!


However, as it always happens in these movies, the witch is hoist by her own petard and both the castle and the witch are destroyed in a giant explosion. All the harpies are changed back into the little boys and girls and animals they once were, and the ruined castle changes into a beautiful forest. Allegra changes from her creepy witch look into a blonde. As the film wraps, children and animal friends ride off into the sunset in Jack's car, the end credits roll over dramatically-lit shots of actual models built of the film's characters, and early 70s children all over the world have nightmares.

actual footage of children's nightmare
Did I mention that JACK AND THE WITCH is a strange film? Too bizarre for younger children, not nearly comprehensible enough for older children, and possessed of none of the pretentious artistry that allows adults to admit they enjoy cartoons, it's an odd beast that refuses to be neatly categorized. Perhaps the last gasp of Toei's struggle to produce fairy-tale Disney style animated features, its European facade is permeated throughout by hints of Asian folkways; the Oni-demon Auriana transforms into, the sasumata-carrying harpy guards, and the swirling bands of fire lifted straight from Yabushita's work on SARUTOBI SASUKE. Maybe the legacy of JACK AND THE WITCH goes beyond entertaining kids in 1967; perhaps its destiny is to put us all back in touch with that confused pre-teen trying to make sense of the mysterious ways of a world that gives us girls who are sweet one minute and scary the next; a world that gives us movies like, say, JACK AND THE WITCH.


-Dave Merrill

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29 comments:

Chris Sobieniak said...

Hmm, I guess I won't have to look too far to find this one, as I noticed it's up on YouTube as we speak, in it's Titan Productions dub, and apparently uploaded separately from two users, so I guess if one of them get's taken off, we'll have a spare!

Unknown said...

Your opening paragraphs perfectly capture my relationship with this movie. Jack and The Witch, Alakazam The Great, and Gulliver's Travels Beyond the Moon all lurked in the half forgotten limbo of my childhood memories...

Chris Sobieniak said...

I second Tohoscope's sentiments. I wonder if I may've seen a film like this before, but suppressed it or such a long time as I couldn't quite comprehend what i was watching that one lonely Saturday afternoon when nothing else was on. I can remember a UHF station in my town use to play a lot of those Kung Fu movies too back in the 80's, those afternoon slots were crying out for something outside the usual network offerings of sports, sports and more sports.

Kid Fenris said...

So this was to children of the 1970s what Unico in the Island of Magic was to children of the '80s.

Was Jack and the Witch the first Toei animated film to have an initially evil female lead who was later won over by the hero's earnestness and often poorly founded affection? Horus, Prince of the Sun is sometimes praised for using that archetype, but Jack and the Witch came out a year before it.

Wendy said...

"Too bizarre for younger children, not nearly comprehensible enough for older children, and possessed of none of the pretentious artistry that allows adults to admit they enjoy cartoons...Bwahahahahahahaha!! This is perfect!

Anonymous said...

I just have to say a huge THANK YOU for this page. I have asked everyone I know who is a fan of 80's cartoons and absolutely NO ONE knew what I was talking about. All I could remember was "Into the Machine" and a boy, a witch girl and a bunch of animals. You have done miracles for my sanity level. Thank you! :)

Your Blogger- TempleDog! said...

Fuck me runnin' but I've had this in my head (specially Squeaker getting run through the demon mill) since I was knee-high to a bugbear, and could never figure out just what farked-up shite it was what I watched. Thanks for putting a name to the nightmare.

Anonymous said...

Thankyou so much. All I really remember of this film is the imps chanting "Into the machine" and that search term brought me to your post. A winner is you!

Anonymous said...

Jack And The Witch is on YouTube as of October 30, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nHs1asT56A

Unknown said...

Awesome. I've been searching for this movie for a long long time... Thnx much.

Derek said...

wonder if the person who scheduled this to play on their network would ever have thought it would affect so many people all those many years ago. I like many of you saw this some weekend in the 70s and never stopped thinking about it

Rideaux said...

There was another anime, a bit more realistic about a wolf girl who wore knee high boots. This is all very vague, but i was only a tot when I saw it, ll. The villagers thought she was evil, but one boy thought she was not.

Marc Oromaner said...

Thanks so much for posting this! I had such a similar experience! I was able to track down the movie with an English dub track. It's still selling here (it's not my site): http://www.allcluesnosolutions.com/index.php?productID=1426

Anonymous said...

As a child of the 1970s, "Into the machine!" has droned in the deepest background of my repressed fears MY WHOLE LIFE. I am so glad this now infamous quote has been permanently SEARED into the fiber of so many of us. This has been the only way I could ever have found the title. Shiver on, oh 70's kids...shiver on!
---A San Diego Beach Bum

Unknown said...

"Into the Machine, Into the Machine"

I couldn't tell you five seconds of the story line of this movie, but can remember this chant from forty years ago. Thanks for the explanation, and thanks Google for helping me find this site.

Anonymous said...

"INTO THE MACHINE!" chant and flash memories over the years of only that scene scarred me for life, until today! Thanks for your site :)

Charlie

Anonymous said...

The horrifying scene where "INTO THE MACHINE!" was chanted repeatedly has stayed with me since the 70's when the movie was shown at the Hillcrest receiving home where I stayed a few weeks. Mind you, this was a place for kids with trouble at home and the movie was less than calming or reassuring to us kids.
Still the memory of sleeping in a strange bed and cringing from the insanity of the cartoon will remain forever!
Rock on! Keep the memories alive and where's the dvd for sale? Been trying to own it for a long time.

Dave Grave said...

Actually "Dave Grave", of the band FRANKENSTEIN, here...This bit of joyous nightmare has been one of my favorites since I was a kid back in the Ice Age! My baby sis and I
would watch it whenever it ran (here in So. Calif., it was KCOP 13), and she still remembers it with traumatized happiness.In my earlier experimental-punk-rock-noise days, I'd screw around with vocal distortion and echo/reverb effects, banging away on an equally messed up bass guitar, chanting "INTO THE MACHINE!INTO THE MACHINE!"...don't forget the chorus of "Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-HA!" My friends thought I was insane (most still do), and the neighbors HATED me for scaring the crap out of their kids. Then I'd tell the local children about the carnivorous mushrooms...you guys seem to have forgotten the phrase,"BARBECQUE"!!! Ahhh, 60s and 70s TV helped make me a monster, and I'm proud to say I even tracked down a VHS copy of this fine piece of childhood brain-rape (of unfortunately poor quality). Am also hunting a DVD copy...Screw it! Just thinking about it makes me want to go out and terrorize some more neighborhood kids. They've got it too easy, anyway! "INTO THE MACHINE! INTO THE MACHINE!"(See! I turned out OK)...

drphibbs said...

Brought back some many memories. I actually saw Alakazm the great in the movies on a large screen. Local theater had Saturday movies kiddie special $1.00 for three films. You got Disney, Godzilla or cartoons

David A. Conatser said...

Just as the author said, I remember seeing this, I think on a Thanksgiving weekend (no school) on some afternoon UHF thingie. I couldn't remember it well in detail but details stick out: the bear sidekick, the Model T, harpies. I recall having having an emotional connection to the scene of Allegra being tortured by the witch, and Jack trying to rescue her. Maybe since I was in the awkward transition from kid-dom to adolescence, its particular brand of alchemy was pretty potent to me. I only saw it once, and while it has lain deep in my psyche, it was never truly forgotten. I never realized it was this wide-spread.

Katherine Hajer said...

Thank you for posting this! I have been telling people about this for years, every time the topic "films that scared me as a kid" came up, and no-one knew what I was talking about. All I could remember was "INTO THE MACHINE!", but as soon as I read the English title and saw the stills, I knew it was the one I'd been thinking of.

The Internet: (nearly) all mysteries explained.

Anonymous said...

I cannot believe I've finally found this cartoon. Just like everyone else, it has haunted me my whole life. The description of watching it on UHF, etc. was perfect! That was exactly my experience! Thank you!

SClaus said...

What can I add but more of the same: Saw it the early 70s on TV and have been haunted by it ever since. I've drawn it, written it, painted it and sung it without knowing what it was I was emulating. I spent most of my life (51 years now) trying to track it down without any idea what I was looking for. I went through every TV guide in the library in 1985, every anime book I could get my hands on in the 90s, every internet site I could imagine in the 2000s-on. I used key words like "animation/cave/car/bat/girl" and "mirror/changes people/witch/cartoon" and "anime/mouse/car/" and on and on. I'm IN the animation biz and no one I knew had any idea what I was talking about, all through the 90s-on. Finally, after over 40 years, the other night I just sighed and went, "Might as well just try again even though it's hopeless," typed in "cave/60s/anime" and got a page of pictures...saw a pic and it led to this page and within seconds I knew..."Dear God...I think this is actually IT!" And now I have the dang movie to watch to my heart's content (and yes, it was everything I remembered and more). I have a new lease on life--I really thought I'd die not knowing what the dang movie was and now the riddle is solved and I can die (whenever I do) a happy man. Thank you for this page, and to the others who have written in--I feel ya! --SC

Unknown said...

For some weird reason, I keep thinking that "You needed me" is part of the soundtrack.

Unknown said...

Wish I could locate a DVD. Only way I know to watch it is on Amazon, and it's only in full frame instead of widescreen :(

Anonymous said...

My path to finding it was ridiculously easy. I had two memories of the film and probably zero chance of fanning either into a hit.
1. Look at the Cyborg 009 Wikipedia entry.
2. Decide to try to find the mystery film by simply going through all Wiki titles in the hopes of sparking a memory.
3. First page is "1967 anime films". There are two entries, one is Cyborg 009 (where the link was), other is Jack and the Witch.
4. It is Jack and the Witch.
Total time expended; less than five seconds.

Anonymous said...

My path to finding it was ridiculously easy. I had two memories of the film and probably zero chance of fanning either into a hit.
1. Look at the Cyborg 009 Wikipedia entry.
2. Decide to try to find the mystery film by simply going through all Wiki titles in the hopes of sparking a memory.
3. First page is "1967 anime films". There are two entries, one is Cyborg 009 (where the link was from), the other is Jack and the Witch.
4. It is Jack and the Witch.
Total time expended; less than five seconds.

Anonymous said...

All I could remember was harpies and a bunch of praying mantis wondering how to cook a child and deciding on 'BARBECUE' and somehow I've ended up here. Thank you for finally vindicating my belief this thing was real and I didn't just dream it up. No-one else has ever recalled it when I've mentioned what I could remember!

Anonymous said...

Thank you, a thousand times thank you!. I'm pushing 60 and for at least the last 30 years have done periodic searches for the phrase "into the machine", hoping to learn what this movie that has hauunted me for 40+ years was called. I had nightmares after seeing it, but now I have my answer!