Month: June 2015

Laughing at Danger (1924)

LAUGHING AT DANGER (1924)
Article #645 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-20-2002
Posting Date: 5-15-2003

A lovelorn man accidentally happens upon a missing piece of a death ray machine, and becomes the target of criminals intent on using the machine.

This silent action/comedy with science fiction elements (the death ray) has a fun idea at the center of it; our hero laughs at danger not because he’s so brave, but because he believes he’s in the middle of an elaborate practical joke set up by his father to raise his spirits after he is rejected by the woman he loves. Therefore, he never really believes he’s in danger, and that is the joke of the situation. The movie is amusing enough, but it never really takes this premise to its ultimate possibilities; it’s never quite as funny as it could be. However, it works well enough in its short running time, though I’m sure the idea could be resurrected again with better results.

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Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp (1917)

ALADDIN AND THE WONDERFUL LAMP (1917)
Article #644 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 12-19-2002
Posting date: 5-14-2003

Aladdin is tricked by an evil wizard into retrieving a magic lamp, and is then trapped in the cavern where the treasure is hidden. However, he discovers the lamp is the home of a genie.

Apparently, only four of the eight reels of this work survive; however, the story seems complete and I see no real gaps in the narrative. Apparently, it was part of a series of movies in which most of the main parts were played by children; Aladdin, the sultan’s daughter, her maid, the wizard, and his sidekick are all played by children (the Sultan, Aladdin’s father and the genie are all adults; the genie is played by Elmo Lincoln). They are all good performers, though the villain actually twiddles his moustache, showing it’s all not to be taken too seriously. Also, they show a lot more in the bathing scene than they would have had the performers been adults. The most interesting point in the narrative, though, is when the sultan (an adult, as said before) engages in the most childish behavior to get his daughter to marry the evil wizard. An entertaining oddity, this.

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Spider Baby (1964)

SPIDER BABY (1964)
Article #643 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-18-2002
Posting Date: 5-13-2003

A family of degenerates is visited by relatives intent on getting their hands on the family fortune.

Lon Chaney Jr. not only plays Bruno, the family chauffeur in this movie, but he sings the theme song, too! Chaney is excellent, by the way; this is one his best latter-day performances. In fact, we get fine performances from everyone in the cast, which includes Carol Ohmart (Price’s wife in HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL), Sid Haig, and Mantan Moreland(!). The story itself is the darkest of dark comedies. I’ve heard it described as being like the Addams family with a bent towards real depravities such as inbreeding, murder, rape and cannibalism, and the description is apt; the movie is quite amusing even with the horrible events going on, but it could prove a little revolting if you’re not ready for it. This is pretty strong stuff, though not gory or particularly graphic in any way.

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The Son of Dr. Jekyll (1951)

THE SON OF DR. JEKYLL (1951)
Article #642 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 12-17-2002
Posting date: 5-12-2003

The son of Dr. Jekyll attempts to prove his father’s innocence by recreating his experiments.

This movie starts out with a bang; enjoy it while you can. As for the rest of the movie, however, I could live without it. Not that it’s badly acted; actually, the acting throughout is quite good. The problem is that the movie promises certain types of thrills and then substitutes a series of mediocre and disappointing mundanities in their place. Quite frankly, given the choice, I’d forgo Jekyll’s son for his daughter any time; at least that one had the good sense to supply a real monster when one was needed. There are far better ways for you to spend seventy-seven minutes.

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The Slime People (1962)

THE SLIME PEOPLE (1962)
Article #641 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-16-2002
Posting Date: 5-11-2003

Five people trapped in Los Angeles try to do battle with invaders that come up from the sewers known as the Slime People.

This movie does for fog what THE FLYING SAUCER does for snow, and that is not a compliment. There are some interesting ideas here; the wall that forms out of the fog and the fact that the slime creatures need to be killed with hollow poles to keep their wounds from closing up and healing are both entertaining concepts. Unfortunately, the movie has a major problem in tone; every scene feels like every other one, so the movie is distressingly lacking in variety (the repetitive soundtrack only makes it worse). This is especially a problem when Les Tremayne’s eccentric goat-loving writer appears; he is far and away the most interesting character here, but the movie’s total inability to treat his scenes any differently than the other scenes makes his character feel less like a breath of fresh air and more like an incongruous intrusion from another (and more interesting) movie. But the worst culprit is the fog that takes over many of the scenes here. Though fog can be used effectively for atmosphere and mood, here it just obscures the action on a regular basis, making many of the scenes hard to see (not to be confused with making scenes hard to watch). Thus, watching the movie ends up requiring more work than is necessary, and the movie just isn’t interesting enough to merit that extra work. Consequently, despite the potential for interest here, the movie is no fun.

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Call of the Savage (1935)

CALL OF THE SAVAGE (1935)
(Serial)
Article #640 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-15-2002
Posting Date: 5-10-2003

A jungle boy attempts to help a princess of the lost kingdom of Mu return to her world. Unfortunately, he is the target of fortune hunters because the bracelet he wears has half the formula of a cure for infantile paralysis.

The jungle boy is named Jan, which not only rhymes with Tarzan but reads like Jane with an “e” removed. His pet chimp is called Chicma (kind of like Cheetah). Therefore, I feel safe enough in assuming that we’re dealing with a Tarzan clone of sorts, and considering that he swings through the jungle on vines, that seems apt. He doesn’t have a jungle yell, but he does grin a lot, if that counts, and he speaks in stilted English. All in all, this serial* is kind of a cross between THE NEW ADVENTURES OF TARZAN and THE LOST CITY; unfortunately, it’s not up to the level of either of these. Part of the problem is that once it establishes the characters and the basic plot direction early on in the second episode, it spends the next eight episodes wandering aimlessly from cliffhanger to cliffhanger before any serious attempt is made to have our characters head to the lost kingdom of Mu; about the only plot point in this part of the serial is the recovery of one amnesiac character’s memory. The power struggle in Mu is the most interesting part of the story; however, since they don’t reach it until chapter 11, this whole sequence is rushed; they should have reached the kingdom earlier in the serial and spent more time here than the endless series of jungle perils. Plenty of animal stock footage is used to pad out the episodes; at least there is a fairly wide array of animal life on parade to hold the attention. On the plus side, the cliffhangers don’t cheat as much as some other serials; in fact, I was surprised at how they didn’t cheat in certain scenarios where it seemed certain that they would. Nonetheless, a goodly portion of this serial is a slog. Jan is played by a young Noah Beery, Jr.

* Incidentally, when I first wrote this review, I mistakenly spelled this word “Cereal”, which just goes to show you should never write a review when you’re hungry.

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The Sadist (1963)

THE SADIST (1963)
Article #639 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-14-2002
Posting Date: 5-9-2003

Three travelers try to get their car repaired at a junkyard and become captives of an insane psycho.

If I mention the names Arch Hall Jr. and Marilyn Manning, you might recognize them as the teenage couple from EEGAH: well, here they are again, and the resemblance ends there. For one thing, they were the heroes in that movie; here they are the villains. This is particularly apt in Arch’s case; despite the fact that he was supposed to be cute and cuddly in EEGAH, he was actually creepier than the monster; here, cast as a psycho, he looks the part. This would be damning him with faint praise if I left it at that, though; he also acts the part, and convincingly; he is one of the scariest psychos in screen history, and if there is any justice in this world, he will be judged by his terrifying performance here rather than as a teen idol or a rock star. In fact, this movie is an unbelievably harrowing thriller; you’re sucked in early on and it doesn’t let go until the final moments. In fact, I feel like trotting out an endless succession of suspense cliches, such as pulse-pounding or heart-stopping, because this movie actually lives up to them. It is a little unsteady at times, particularly in the opening scenes, where the dialogue sounds a little forced and contrived at times, and the ending is a shade disappointing, but these are minor quibbles in a movie that tightens the screws this well. A rarity, and a triumph.

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Rodan (1956)

RODAN (1956)
Article #638 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-13-2002
Posting Date: 5-8-2003

A combination of overly deep mining and the eruption of a volcano contribute to the hatching of two eggs containing flying dinosaurs capable of supersonic speed and mass destruction.

The two Rodans aren’t the most engaging of Toho’s giant monsters, and a good deal of this movie is a fairly average example of this type of genre. However, as a kid, I found two things about this movie to be unforgettable. One is the ending, which actually had me in tears, at least partially because of the well-phrased narration (which is surprising, as most of the narration during the movie is unnecessary and redundant), and the first twenty minutes, which may be the single most terrifying sequence in this series of movies. Part of the reason is that the initial threat in this movie has a lot more immediate impact than the much larger monsters in the latter half of the movie, as the movie dwells with much more detail on the bloody deaths involved, not to mention the eerie sequences in the flooded mines. These two aspects of the movie still hold up well for me, as well as the special effects. The American version has an unnecessary and cliched prologue about atomic bomb blasts, and the dubbing features perhaps a little too much of the voice of Paul Frees; his voice is a little too distinctive to be used for more than one character. Rodan would make a few more appearances in the Toho movies before he was retired.

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The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)

THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1958)
Article #637 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-12-2002
Posting Date: 5-7-2003

Baron Frankenstein escapes the guillotine, and continues his experiments in another village under the name of Dr. Stein.

When I hear discussions on which of the Hammer Frankenstein movies are the best, this is one that is often mentioned. Watching it this time, I could see why; I think it’s a marked improvement over the initial entry in the series. For one thing, it’s a lot less obvious; there’s not one mention in the movie about Frankenstein playing God, and his assistant makes no attempt to be the doctor’s conscience. I find this makes the movie more interesting; one can concentrate on what the doctor is trying to do and how things go wrong without endless moralizing. There are wonderful touches here and there; one of my favorites involves a moment when the doctor decides not to place a flower in his buttonhole, a seemingly inconsequential moment which nonetheless catches your attention and puts you slightly on edge during the following scenes. It’s certainly one of my favorite Hammer horror movies, with an excellent and confident performance by Peter Cushing. It’s not perfect; a fight scene in the laboratory seems contrived because the movie fails to pre-establish the character of the janitor, thus leaving the viewer with the sense that the fight merely exists to push forward a plot point rather than being a natural outgrowth of the previous action. Nonetheless, this was definitely a worthy entry to the series.

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Babes in Toyland (1961)

BABES IN TOYLAND (1961)
Article #636 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-11-2002
Posting Date: 5-6-2003

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary and Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son mean to marry, but the evil Barnaby means to take Mary for his own bride.

Back when I covered THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939), I essentially avoided the pitfall of mouthing platitudes about the movie by cleverly (or spinelessly, as the case may be) speaking of it in terms of other movies entirely. Now that I am faced with this one, I find myself wanting to talk about THE WIZARD OF OZ instead, which is something I find a little ironic.

To start with, I wonder if THE WIZARD OF OZ would be the cultural touchstone that it is if its space as a perennial favorite had been usurped by some other musical fairy tale; this one, for instance. Would I have ended up loving and revering this movie as I do that one? The answer is an emphatic “NO!”, despite the fact that they both feature Ray Bolger and trees capable of expressing themselves orally. What THE WIZARD OF OZ had was a real villain; the closest the wicked witch of the west came to being a comic character was her reaction to the suggestion that someone might drop a house on her, a moment which in no way damaged her role as a dangerous adversary. Barnaby is, on the other hand, more apt to play up the comedy of his role, and you never sense a real threat. This is a mistake; without that sense of danger, this movie never develops into anything other than a piece of fluff. Sadly, this is something that used to be known at Disney; remember how scary parts of SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS were?

The music is another point of contention; in THE WIZARD OF OZ, the songs (for the most part) are strong, memorable, and bound firmly into the plot of the story; they flesh out the themes and advance the plot. Here, they are fairly unmemorable and usually bring the plot to a screeching halt. And as this is an operetta (my definition of an operetta: a musical for people who don’t think there is enough music in musicals and who think operas are too high class), it spends most of its running time at a screeching halt. For me, the movie doesn’t really become fun until Ed Wynn shows up, and though this is partly because I find Wynn a fun and comfortable comic presence, it is also because Wynn’s distinctly non-musical presence inspires the filmmakers to blessedly dispense with the singing and dancing for the most part.

Other points: Barnaby’s comic cohorts bear just enough resemblance to Laurel and Hardy to leave me wishing I was watching the 1934 version of the movie instead. Also, having no kids of my own, I had to watch this one on my own without the excuse of playing it for the kids, and if the truth be told, I think I was more embarassed watching this than I was watching DRACULA: THE DIRTY OLD MAN.

And there’s not a single flying monkey.

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