Month: May 2015

We Want Our Mummy (1939)

WE WANT OUR MUMMY (1939)
Article #580 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 10-16-2002
Posting date: 3-11-2003

The Three Stooges agree to find the mummy of Ruten Tuten.

Step 1) Take the Wheeler and Woolsey comedy, MUMMY’S BOYS

Step 2) Double the number of gags (this step is fairly easy).

Step 3) Compress the movie to a quarter of its length.

Step 4) Take out Wheeler and Woolsey; substitute Moe, Larry, and Curly.

Step 5) Mix well.

Result: A vast improvement.

Lesson to be learned: If you’re gonna be stoopid, at least don’t plod; you’ll be doing us all a favor.

Side note: The mummy in this movie looks more like Nosferatu than any other mummy I’ve seen.

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The Man Who Lived Again (1936)

THE MAN WHO LIVED AGAIN (1936)
(a.k.a. THE MAN WHO CHANGED HIS MIND)
Article #579 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 10-15-2002
Posting date: 3-10-2003

A scientist discovers a method of switching the minds of animals, and proceeds to try it on human beings.

A glance at the title and a quick perusal of the plot description may lead one to believe that this is one of Karloff’s Columbia mad doctor vehicles; however, this is a British production that predates them by a few years, and it’s superior to those productions. Karloff gives a relaxed but confident performance in the type of role that would soon be all too common for him, and it’s directed with a good pace and a nice visual sense, particularly during a rather nightmarish montage sequence. However, the movie is stolen by two character roles; Clayton is a cynical sharp-tongued cripple who is all too willing to put his two cents in at every opportunity (he has perhaps the funniest lines of any character this side of Ernest Thesiger’s Dr. Pretorius), and Lord Haslewood is an amusing but homorless newspaper magnate trying to cash in on whatever Karloff’s scientist can give him. They are played by Frank Cellier and Donald Calthrop (not necessarily respectively), and they serve as a great example on how a couple of sharply-written character roles can enhance a movie-watching experience enormously. This may not be one of Karloff’s better-known vehicles, but I think it ranks with some of his best work and is definitely worth catching.

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The Day the Earth Froze (1959)

THE DAY THE EARTH FROZE (1959)
(a.k.a. SAMPO)
Article #578 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 10-14-2002
Posting date: 3-9-2003

An evil witch kidnaps the sister of a blacksmith to force him to forge for her a magical mill called a Sampo.

When this Russian adaptation of a Finnish fairy tale was brought to the United States, it was retitled THE DAY THE EARTH FROZE and marketed as a straight horror movie. I can see the logic behind this; they were probably correct in assuming that it would probably make more money being marketed that way, as I think the audience for the movie as it stands was probably very small. Certainly, it is a very un-Hollywood type of movie; rather than the prettiness that we would expect from Hollywood, we have instead a rather rough-hewn and somewhat rugged beauty. It would also have been considered rather slow-moving by today’s standards, but it does possess a goodly amount of magic for those willing to allow the movie to work its charms. It helps to realize that it takes place in a very different time than ours; the Sampo is a mill that produces gold, flour and salt, and if one puts oneself in a time where flour and salt were just as valuable as gold, it helps. The unfortunate thing is, of course, that many of those who might have been attracted to the movie were kept away by its ad campaign, and those expecting a horror movie were disappointed. Go in knowing that it’s a fairy-tale, and you’ll enjoy it much more.

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Bride of the Monster (1956)

BRIDE OF THE MONSTER (1956)
Article #577 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 10-13-2002
Posting date: 3-8-2003

A female reporter starts her own investigation of a series of disappearances that have been attributed to a monster.

This is probably the most coherent movie I’ve seen from Ed Wood. I suspect that his intention was to make a Bela Lugosi movie, and that he modeled it off of Bela’s Monogram horrors from the forties, only updated (in story only, not in style) by throwing in atomic energy into the equation. It has certain eccentricities to be sure; Lobo’s attachment to an angora hat belonging to the heroine is one of the more striking examples of that particular obsession of Wood’s, and allowing Harvey B. Dunn to play with a bird throughout his scenes (he was apparently a clown with a bird act) adds a surreal touch that usually comes from an Ed Wood film, but despite this, it is his most conventional movie. There were some unsuccessful attempts at humor in the scenes at the police station, at least partially because he didn’t quite have the actors to pull it off, and there are some definite continuity errors, especially one involving a pencil. Still, Bela probably did more with his “I have no home” speech than Ed Wood ever dreamed, and even if it is a little over the top, the scene demonstrates that Bela himself was capable of a good deal of creativity. And at this juncture of his life, Wood was probably the only one willing to really give him a chance.

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The Evil Eye (1963)

THE EVIL EYE (1963)
(a.k.a. THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH)
Article #576 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 10-12-2002
Posting date: 3-7-2003

A woman believes she has witnessed a murder, and then undertakes to discover the truth of the situation herself.

There’s a beautiful shot in this movie of the light shining through two bullet holes in a door; it is a great example of where some of the appeal lies in Mario Bava movies in its exemplary use of light and dark. THE EVIL EYE is not a good title in itself; the alternate title, THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, is both a better description and makes manifest a certain Hitchcockian feel to this movie. Though the tale itself is quite suspenseful, particularly in a sequence where the heroine follows a voice in an old building, there is a surprising amount of humor in this movie; there’s even shtick involving John Saxon’s broken thumb at several points. I haven’t really seen enough giallo at this point to say whether this is where the whole genre began, but I’ve heard it referred to as such, so I’ll leave it to others to decide. At any rate, this movie is a great deal of fun and well worth catching.

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Lady in a Cage (1964)

LADY IN A CAGE (1964)
Article #575 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 10-11-2002
Posting date: 3-6-2003

A woman becomes trapped in a personal caged elevator in her own home, and finds herself being victimized by psychotics intent on robbing the place.

This was one of the horror movies featuring older actresses (Olivia de Havilland in this case) that came in the wake of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? However, in place of that movie’s decayed gothic wittiness, we are given jarring, ugly, decidedly modern and alienating nihilism. The movie is violent, sadistic, painful, and just plain cruel, and this might have been more bearable had it not also been self-conscious (the woman’s comment about her tormentors being the human offal on which her tax dollars are being spent is such an artificial piece of dialogue that if the movie was capable of causing laughter I would have been on the floor) and pretentious (the final scenes with the woman crawling out of the house and being ignored by the passing traffic is so “fraught with meaning” that it’s hard to endure). The psychos are quite scary, but they aren’t exactly convincing, either; I find it impossible to believe that they’re real people. There are many familiar faces here; James Caan in an early role, Ann Sothern, Scatman Crothers, and Jeff Corey as the wino; it is for these that the movie is worth watching. It’s probably going to be a long long time before I slip this one back in my VCR.

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Jack the Ripper (1958)

JACK THE RIPPER (1958)
Article #574 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 10-10-2002
Posting date: 3-5-2003

Four stories that pierce the veil of human existence.

When I covered the movie THE VEIL some time back, I pointed out that it was four stories from an unsold TV series hosted by Boris Karloff stitched together to make a movie. This anthology of four stories is cut from the same cloth. In fact, it’s a little too much the same; the first story in this one (about a man that foresees a murder before it is committed) was the third story in that one. It’s also interesting to note that the description of the above story also fits the fourth story in this one, about a man who foresees some of the details of the murders committed by Jack the Ripper (hence the title), and it seems like many of the stories in the series deal with precognition in one form or another. This may also explain why watching them strung together gets a little repetitive. To vary things, the two middle stories are not about precognition; they’re about ghosts intent on righting injustices of one sort or another. Karloff, as well as serving as hosts to each of the stories, has small roles in the first two stories, a major role in the third, and does not appear in the last, which does feature an excellent performance by Niall MacGinnis (Karswell from CURSE OF THE DEMON). It’s probably best taken an episode at a time.

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It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955)

IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA (1955)
Article #573 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 10-9-2002
Posting date: 3-4-2003

Scientists and the military do battle with a giant octopus from the ocean’s depths.

The recurring problem I have with Ray Harryhausen’s black-and-white fifties monster extravaganzas are the relative dullness of the scenes which do not feature the effects of Mr. Harryhausen; though I don’t expect scenes of people talking about a monster to be as interesting as scenes with a monster, they were always a few shades duller than was strictly necessary. Nonetheless, the special effects were special enough to pull them out of the mire. Unfortunately, it’s not the case with this one. It’s not that Harryhausen’s effects aren’t up to scratch; they’re just fine. It’s just that the other scenes are so singularly dull, I almost get the feeling that everyone was putting forth only the barest minimum of effort in the belief that the special effects would make up for it. And though the effects ARE quite good and exciting (particularly the bridge sequence), there aren’t enough of them to make the movie; except for a short sequence in which the octopus destroys a boat, the first three-quarters of this movie is one of the dullest stretches of celluloid I’ve ever viewed. It’s so much so, in fact, that by time the last quarter rolls around, I’ve almost completely lost my interest. In short, IMHO, this is one time the effects didn’t pull the movie out of the mire.

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The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960)

THE TWO FACES OF DR. JEKYLL (1960)
Article #572 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 10-8-2002
Posting date: 3-3-2003

Dr. Jekyll experiments on himself with a drug that turns him into a handsome but evil man named Edward Hyde.

One of these days I’m going to sit down to one of the Hammer horrors that will grab my attention from square one and not let go of it until the last reel ends. Actually, this has happened, but only with those movies that either bear the Quatermass name or are reminiscent of Quatermass (X THE UNKNOWN), but as far as their standard horror fare, I always seem to come up a little short. This one is certainly no exception. One of the problems is that it feels more churned out than inspired, as if someone decided they needed to do the Jekyll and Hyde story, and felt it was good enough just to move some of the plot elements around and throw in some sex and violence. Ironically, the use of sex and violence is a lot more effective in the 1931 version of the film than it is here. I think the problem is that I really got caught up in the characters in that movie; in this one, I really don’t care one way or another about any of them, including the one played by Christopher Lee, and that tends to make the experience of watching the movie to be a rather unengaging (if not completly dull) task. Once again, I wonder if I’m missing something, but if I am, I don’t know what it is. Maybe someday I’ll find out…

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The Fighting Marines (1935)

THE FIGHTING MARINES (1935)
(Serial)
Article #571 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 10-7-2002
Posting date: 3-2-2003

Marines try to establish a base on Halfway Island, but find themselves dealing with a masked villain known as the Tiger Shark.

Do they fight? They sure do. And you’ll know they do from the very first episode of this serial, where they do battle for possession of an island set (though you think the government could have seen their way clear to giving them rifles instead of pistols). And in case you miss the rip-roaring first episode of this serial, hang on for episode four, where the whole sequence gets repeated (just wait until you hear one of the characters say something like “Remember that time you saved my life…” and keep your eyes pealed). In fact, not only does this serial reuse its own footage in episode four, both episodes seven and eleven largely consist of footage from earlier episodes; I guess Mascot was making damn sure this one didn’t go over budget. It also suffers from a bad case of “cliffhangerus cheatus”, an affliction by which the makers feel it necessary to change the footage from last week’s cliffhanger in order to find a way to let our heros survive. Nonetheless, it’s an entertaining enough serial anyway, and you can (sort of) tell the two heros apart. And it does keep the identity of the Tiger Shark a secret, though you won’t think so for the longest time.

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