Month: December 2014

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)

THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD (1958)
Article #261 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 12-2-2001
Posting date: 4-17-2002

Sinbad rescues a magician from a cyclops, but the magician loses his magic lantern in the process. The magician then casts a spell on the princess that Sinbad is going to marry in order to force him to help retrieve the lantern from the cyclops.

This was Harryhausen’s first attempt at a color movie, and it is wonderful. He gives his creations all the right touches (both the dragon and the cyclops are particularly good), and Nathan Juran keeps the story moving quickly. The script is a little clunky, and some of the acting is subpar, but these are only minor problems. This was definitely one of Harryhausen’s major triumphs, and gave him a direction for his talents that would prove to be rewarding.

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Panic in Year Zero! (1962)

PANIC IN YEAR ZERO! (1962)
Article #260 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 12-1-2001
Posting date: 4-16-2002

While leaving for vacation, a family notices a flash behind them, and discovers that Los Angeles has been destroyed in a nuclear attack. They retreat into the wilderness to survive.

This is a strong, memorable movie with a solid performance and good direction by Ray Milland; after seeing this, I wouldn’t have minded if he’d directed some more. It’s not perfect; I find it hard to believe that once his family has found the cave where they stay, the only people they run into are ones that they ran into on the trip to the cave. Still, the movie is quite gripping, and you watch it in anticipation of finding out what’s going to happen next, and if all will survive. And the theme of trying to remain civilized while doing what is necessary to survive is quite compelling. I didn’t quite know what to expect from this film going in (and the trailer makes it look as if it could become quite exploitative), and I was pleasantly surprised.

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Phantom from Space (1953)

PHANTOM FROM SPACE (1953)
Article #259 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 11-30-2001
Posting date: 4-15-2002

An invisible alien from outer space crashes on earth. When circumstances force him to kill two earthlings, he finds himself being chased by the authorities.

I’ve heard it said that one of the rules to making an interesting movie is to cut out the dull parts. W. Lee Wilder should have used that rule; the movie not only opens with a sleep-inducing four minutes of narration and stock footage montage, but it’s loaded with uninteresting detail, scenes of people sitting around and talking without anything interesting to say, and too many shots of people reading, smoking and pacing. For all that, it’s better than some of his other films (I prefer it to KILLERS FROM SPACE or THE SNOW CREATURE), largely because it does garner a few interesting moments; the scene with the alien trying to communicate with the woman in the lab, though it has some weak moments, is one of the better scenes I’ve seen from this director.

SPOILER

It also may feature the first self-cleaning alien in cinema history, that phenomena by which an alien, when he dies, dissolves into nothingness. Unfortunately, that may be too apt a metaphor for this movie.

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The Nutty Professor (1963)

THE NUTTY PROFESSOR (1963)
Article #258 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 11-29-2001
Posting date: 4-14-2002

A meek college professor tries to win the heart of a student by concocting a potion that will make him irresistible. He turns into an obnoxious lounge singer named Buddy Love.

Jerry Lewis’ take on DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE isn’t really that funny, though there are a few good sight and sound gags scattered throughout. Of course, it’s humorous value isn’t what makes this movie a cult item; it has a lot more to do with the way he played with his image and ended up with a character that didn’t really seem that far from how his own character would be perceived in years to come, although it was most likely meant to be a parody of Dean Martin. For horror fans, the most interesting moment is the transformation sequence, which is played (for the most part) surprisingly straight.

If you’ve ever wondered what the French see in Jerry Lewis, here’s an experiment you can try; the next time you’re watching one of his movies, pretend that all the voices are in a foreign language and that you’re reading what they’re saying in subtitles. Maybe it’s just my imagination, but it does seem a lot funnier that way.

Also, after having seen this gimmick in several movies, I’ve come to this conclusion: wisecracking birds are rarely funny.

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Night of the Living Dead (1968)

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968)
Article #257 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 11-28-2001
Posting date: 4-13-2002

A group of people find themselves trapped inside a farmhouse fending off an attack of cannibalistic zombies.

Though I’m not necessarily fond of the direction horror movies took as a result of this movie, there is no denying its impact. A lot of the credit goes to George Romero, who got around the low budget by casting an excellent group of actors, and using creative editing to add to the intensity. I love the way we see the characters engaged in their acts of survival while the radio or television, bit by bit, provides a steadily escalating vision of horror about the nature of the ordeal they are undergoing. I also like the air of deadly seriousness; it adds to sense of danger and dread that pervades it. Even if he had never made another movie, this one guaranteed George Romero a place in horror movie history.

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The Neanderthal Man (1953)

THE NEANDERTHAL MAN (1953)
Article #256 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 11-27-2001
Posting date: 4-12-2002

A scientist, angry at being scoffed at by the Naturalists’ Society, decides to experiment with a drug that turns animals into their prehistoric counterparts on himself. After turning his cat into a saber-toothed tiger, he turns into a Neanderthal man and goes on a killing spree.

This SF/Horror film is pretty bad; it’s overlong, overwritten, and incredibly talky. There are scenes where characters talk endlessly about other scenes that you’ve already seen. Robert Shayne also plays the rudest scientist I’ve ever seen; I suspect that the Naturalists’ Society threw him out not because of his theories, but because he insulted them with every other sentence he’d deliver. This is definitely not a high point in fantastic cinema. Beverly Garland is also on hand in this one, but she’s given little to do.

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The Mole People (1956)

THE MOLE PEOPLE (1956)
Article #255 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 11-26-2001
Posting date: 4-11-2002

An entrance to an underground civilization is discovered atop a mountain in Asia. In descending underground from this entrance, explorers discover a race of albinos and their slaves, the mole people.

This is more of a fantastic adventure movie than a horror movie; the mole people actually play a somewhat minor role in the proceedings. I find it a lot more enjoyable in its use of spectacle; the shots of the underground city are fun to look at, and the hellish sights of the slave fields are particularly impressive. The story is pretty silly, and the idea that sunlight is fatal to these creatures isn’t really convincing, but that sort of thing is par for the course in any adventure movie.

I also couldn’t help but notice that the professor who opens the movie with the history of “middle of the earth” theories isn’t a scientist, but a professor of English (versus history or science), which I thought was rather curious.

I also can’t pass by without mentioning the presence of John Agar in the movie; it’s a bit of a sad coincidence that one of his movies should popped up as a Movie of the Day just a scant few days after his passing. I dedicate this one to the memory of this man and his many contributions to the science fiction cinema of the fifties. Thank you, John, and goodbye.

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Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things (1972)

CHILDREN SHOULDN’T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS (1972)
Article #254 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 11-25-2001
Posting date: 4-10-2002

A troupe of actors try to raise the dead in a cemetery; when they think they failed, they take a corpse to a nearby house for a party. Unfortunately, they didn’t fail, and the dead come to life.

It’s fairly obvious to tell that this is a NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD rip-off, and the payoff in this movie isn’t too bad; the scenes of the dead coming out of their graves are very good. However, to get to that, you have spend an hour with some of the most annoying characters you’ve ever endured, and…

SPOILER

…when the tentative hero and heroine are the first two to bite the dust, you pretty much know how it’s all going to end. Most of the actors have the same name as they characters they play; let’s hope they weren’t playing themselves. This was directed by Benjamin Clark a.k.a. Bob Clark, who would later give us a couple of really good movies and a whole slew of awful ones.

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Murders in the Zoo (1933)

MURDERS IN THE ZOO (1933)
Article #253 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 11-24-2001
Posting date: 4-9-2002

An insanely jealous millionaire/hunter disposes of his rivals through the use of deaths having to do with zoo animals.

This is one nasty piece of work, with the opening scene in particular being rather sadistic. Still, it does have a great performance by Atwill; he’s never been so evil in his life, and the hateful gleam in his eye in some scenes is enough to chill your bones. Kathleen Burke (Lota, the panther woman from ISLAND OF LOST SOULS) and Randolph Scott are also on hand. The movie drags a bit in the middle, and Charles Ruggles’ timid comic relief press agent is given far too much screen time, but this is definitely one case where you’re not sure who is going to survive till the final reel.

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The Mummy’s Hand (1940)

THE MUMMY’S HAND (1940)
Article #252 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 11-23-2001
Posting date: 4-8-2002

An archaelogist discovers a vase which he believes shows the way to the tomb of princess Ananka. Little does he know that the tomb is guarded by Kharis the mummy, who will kill anyone who tries to enter the tomb.

The first time I saw this movie on my local Creature Feature they got the reels mixed up and I ended up watching the first half of THE MUMMY’S HAND and the second half of NIGHT MONSTER; no wonder it didn’t make any sense. I managed to finally catch it several years later. The movies in the Mummy series (of which this was the first; the original THE MUMMY does not belong, though some of its footage is used) weren’t the best of Universal’s horror output, but they were good enough to get by. George Zucco and Edouard Cianelli are both having fun as Egyptian high priests, and Tom Tyler was quite good as Kharis (I love that bizarre thing they do with his eyes). Also on hand is Dick Foran, Peggy Moran, and that perennial wisecracking reporter Wallace Ford (NOT playing a wisecracking reporter in this one). It’s also nice that the mummy attacks avoid having the mummy chase someone, as the fact that he could actually catch someone seriously trying to get away always seemed fairly hard to swallow.

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