Month: August 2015

The Ninth Guest (1934)

THE NINTH GUEST (1934)
Article #830 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-23-2003
Posting Date: 11-20-2003
Directed by Roy William Neill
Featuring Donald Cook, Genevieve Tobin, Hardie Albright

A group of eight people are invited to a party by an anonymous host, and are killed off one by one.

Title check: The title is indeed relevant, and though telling you who it is doesn’t give away the story, it does give away a great line in the movie, so I’ll not say at this point who the Ninth Guest is. It’s not the comic relief butler, by the way.

The basic story format is familiar enough; anybody reading the above description will quickly figure out that this is basically a variation on “Ten Little Indians”, though it may predate the Christie story. Still, this one has a somewhat unique feel. Though each of the characters has a guilty secret that marks them for death, most of the deaths are planned in such a way that the characters bring them about by themselves; the murderer knows each one so well, he has correctly predicted what each one will do in a certain set of circumstances. Though this is somewhat far-fetched (it’s really hard to believe some of the ‘accidents’ were pre-planned), it does place a much greater emphasis on character than other movies of this ilk are apt to do, and it is very interesting to see the events unfold that cause the respective deaths. Like TLI, it remains only marginally in the horror category, though the murderer is indeed mad enough to cause the movie to qualify. It’s not up to the level of Clair’s AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, but it it is definitely worth a look.

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Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965)

DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE (1965)
Article #829 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-22-2003
Posting Date: 11-19-2003
Directed by Norman Taurog
Featuring Vincent Price, Frankie Avalon, Dwayne Hickman

A brilliant idiot inventor plans to make a fortune (with the help of Igor, his idiot sidekick) by creating a gang of female robot idiots to catch, marry and take control of the fortunes of eligible millionaire bachelor idiots. When one of the idiot robots is accidentally assigned to an idiot spy who has been demoted by his idiot uncle, an investigation gets underway. (Note the common character theme in this movie.)

Title Check: The machine not only makes bikinis, but whole girls to wear them.

AARRGGGHHH! No, not another swinging-sixties comic take on the superspy/supervillain movies! This comes too soon after THE AMBUSHERS and CARRY ON SPYING! Well, there are some good things about this movie. In one way, it was quite ambitious; it was American International’s most expensive movie up to that point, so it might be thought of as that studio’s IT’S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD. Actually, IAMMMMW is one of those movies that ended up being funny by bludgeoning me senseless for about an hour with its desperate slapstick until I lost control and actually started to laugh; sadly, this one only gets the bludgeoning part right. Its best element is the presence of Vincent Price; he delivers his lines with such style that they actually seem far wittier than they are. It also gets a few laughs out of being referential to earlier AIP pictures; when Vincent Price starts going through photos of his ancestors, you know they’re doing a takeoff of practically every one of Price’s Poe movies, and one whole scene is a direct lift from THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM. There’s also a neat little reference to HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM for which you may want to keep your eyes open. Also, the presence of Annette Funicello and Harvey Lembeck in cameos reminds us of their beach party movies. But the slapstick pratfalls that make up the rest of the movie are frantically, desperately unfunny, and it all climaxes with one of those chase scenes that is supposed to have you busting a gut with belly laughs; it had me constantly checking the time remaining feature on my DVD player to see just how much longer this kind of thing was going to last. Fortunately, it keeps the double entendres to a minimum; I think I had more than a year’s dosage of that with THE AMBUSHERS.

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Carry On Spying (1964)

CARRY ON SPYING (1964)
Article #828 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-21-2003
Posting Date: 11-18-2003
Directed by Gerald Thomas
Featuring Kenneth Williams, Bernard Cribbins, Barbara Windsor

A spy organization sends out their worst agent along with new trainees to recover a secret formula.

Title Check: Since “Carry On” was a whole series, and this one is about spies, I don’t know what else they could call it.

All I really knew about the Carry On series from direct experience was having seen a trailer for one of the series in the late seventies at my local drive-in (incidentally, the movie never came to the drive-in). From what I could tell, the movie was basically about women ending up in their underwear. With that fact in mind, and knowing that this one was about spying, I fully expected that it was going to be like watching THE AMBUSHERS all over again; fortunately, this wasn’t quite that bad, as their is a greater variety of humor here than there was in that one. Nonetheless, I found it only sporadically funny; outside of making the main villain a hermaphrodite of sorts, I thought there was precious little inventiveness at work here. Which is not to say that the occasional gag doesn’t strike home; there are some decent ones here. It was just painfully obvious to me that this was part of a series of movies that were churned out on a regular basis, just like the Bowery Boys were here in the USA. And I wouldn’t watch too many of these in a row; Kenneth William’s smarmy nasal delivery gets awfully tiresome after a while.

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Baron Munchhausen (1943)

BARON MUNCHHAUSEN (1943)
(a.k.a. MUNCHHAUSEN)
Article #827 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-20-2003
Posting Date: 11-17-2003
Directed by Josef von Baky
Featuring Hans Albers, Wilhelm Bendow, Brigitte Horney

A recounting of the the adventures of the greatest of all liars, Baron Heironymus Munchhausen

Title check: Well, what else would you call it?

Baron Munchhausen is such a colorful character that he should make a natural choice for the subject of a movie. However, I can’t help but feeling a little disappointed by this one; despite the fact that a lot of care and effort went into it, I found it a bit sluggishly paced at times, and not quite as wild as the story should be. It’s not for kids; there’s some nudity in the film, and Munchhausen definitely shouldn’t be considered a role model, no matter what his charms are. It really turns into a full-blown fantasy near the end, when he finally makes it to the moon, and it’s also here that the movie becomes unexpectedly moving as he comes to realize the price of eternal youth (which he gains during the course of the story). Up to that point, the fantasy elements seem slightly out of place with the basic period adventure format of the rest of the story. Overall, it’s interesting, ambitious, sometimes surprising, but not quite up to the level that it should be.

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The Ambushers (1967)

THE AMBUSHERS (1967)
Article #826 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-19-2003
Posting Date: 11-16-2003
Directed by Henry Levin
Featuring Dean Martin, Senta Berger, Janice Rule

Secret agent Matt Helm is forced to ogle many women in their underwear, and can only defend himself by an endless barage of double entendres.

Title check: I suppose the ambushers are the ones who captured the flying saucer in the opening scene. The title song would have you believe they are the many women lying in wait for Matt Helm.

Let’s face it; once I started covering James Bond movies, it was only a matter of time before the Matt Helm movies started popping up. These movies feature Dean Martin as Matt Helm. He meets women in various stages of undress. We get lots of closeups of their figures. Matt Helm then says double entendres. He has a fight with some vague bad guys. Then he meets more women in various stages of undress, and delivers more double entendres. When his female companion tries to come on to him at one point, he says “In broad daylight?”, and she says “What’s wrong with a broad in daylight?” (Warning: this is one of the BETTER jokes). Dean Martin drinks lots of beer, and blows smoke into the faces of a firing squad, the members of which then break out in fits of laughter. He then ogles more women in various states of undress and responds with more double entendres. Etc. Etc. Etc.

The Matt Helm series is for people who consider the James Bond series too arty, too pretentious, too subtle, too British, too witty and too action-packed. Either that, or they’re for people who are satisfied with hearing endless double entendres while looking at beautiful women in various states of undress. Personally, I can take that for about ten minutes before I’m ready to move on. The movie runs 102 minutes. You do the math.

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Bulldog Drummond Comes Back (1937)

BULLDOG DRUMMOND COMES BACK (1937)
Article #825 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-18-2003
Posting Date: 11-15-2003
Directed by Louis King
Featuring John Barrymore, John Howard, Louise Campbell

Bulldog Drummond tries to rescue his sweetheart when she is kidnapped by a woman intent on taking revenge for the arrest and execution of her husband.

Title check: I didn’t know he was gone. The other Bulldog Drummond movies had titles where I could at least figure out why each of them had that particular title; this one is pretty vague. Perhaps it means that he returns somewhat to an old case, but other than that, I can’t say.

You know, I have to admit to a certain fondness for these Bulldog Drummond movies, not so much for the character himself, but for his cohorts; Algy, Tenny and Colonel Neilson. Oddly enough, in each of the three I’ve seen, a different one of these characters is my favorite; here, it’s Colonel Neilson (played by the great John Barrymore) who seems to be the most fun as he assumes a series of disguises to hide his identity from Drummond while helping him to solve the kidnapping. The plot itself is pretty lightweight, but fun. However, since I’m covering fantastic movies, I think I should point out that whether its enjoyable or not, it is another example, however, of one of those movies with no fantastic elements at all as far as I can tell, so in terms of my own investigations here, it is a red herring. Fantastic movie fans, be warned.

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The Spell of Amy Nugent (1940)

THE SPELL OF AMY NUGENT (1940)
(a.k.a. SPELLBOUND, PASSING CLOUDS, GHOST STORY)
Article #824 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-17-2003
Posting Date: 11-14-2003
Directed by John Harlow
Featuring Derek Farr, Vera Lindsay, Hay Petrie

A man loses his fiancee to a fatal illness, and becomes caught up with spiritualists in an attempt to contact her.

Title check: THE SPELL OF AMY NUGENT is perhaps the best; SPELLBOUND isn’t so bad, but it does confuse it with the Hitchcock film; GHOST STORY is far too vague and somewhat inaccurate, and PASSING CLOUDS is nothing but a question mark, unless I missed a crucial line of the dialogue. The last one is the title on my copy.

This movie has an occasional interesting idea and a few good visual moments. It’s also poorly paced, indifferently acted, creaky and static, filled with clumsy dialogue, and what music there is is poorly incorporated into the film. All in all, this was a pretty uninvolving movie with dull characters; the most interesting one doesn’t appear until the movie is nearly half over. I can’t believe it’s sitting with a 7.7 rating on IMDB; either some people find it a lot more exciting than I do, or it’s confused with the Hitchcock version. I don’t think I’ll be going back to this one any time soon.

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Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951)

PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN (1951)
Article #823 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-16-2003
Posting Date: 11-13-2003
Directed by Albert Lewin
Featuring James Mason, Ava Gardner, Nigel Patrick

A woman who cruelly dallies with her would-be lovers finds love herself when she encounters a man who turns out to be the Flying Dutchman of legend.

Title check: No title problem; both Pandora and The Flying Dutchman are the central characters here.

This movie has some beautiful cinematography, is well acted by everyone concerned (particularly the always-great James Mason), has some striking visual moments, and is well-written. Yet, for all that, I found myself somewhat disappointed by this romantic fantasy; though I can appreciate what’s happening on an intellectual level, it’s somewhat distant and unapproachable, and never really strikes any emotional chords. This in itself would not be a problem, but since the main theme of the movie is that true love will call forth the greatest of sacrifices, one would expect a more passionate, emotional style rather than the one used here. This, combined with the length of the movie (just over two hours), contributes to my inability to really get lost in the story and to really feel for the characters. The only time the movie really takes off is during a party sequence on a beach full of old statues, and this sequence even feels a little out of place.

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The Next Voice You Hear… (1950)

THE NEXT VOICE YOU HEAR… (1950)
Article #822 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-15-2003
Posting Date: 11-12-2003
Directed by William Wellman
Featuring James Whitmore, Nancy Davis, Gary Gray

The voice of God begins to appear nightly on the radio, and this has a deep impact on an ordinary American family.

Title check: Since the title highlights the impact of the event and is actually used at two key moments in the story, it is a very appropriate title indeed.

I’m pretty wary of movies like this; they just seem to invite preachiness of the most overbearing kind. Yes, it does get fairly preachy, but it also allows its main characters to play real people rather than mere pawns in a story, and this is the movie’s strength; James Whitmore’s performance in particular makes good use of the fact that even if you like a character, you don’t have to like everything that he does. In fact, the movie’s willingness to allow the character to react honestly about the unfolding events gives the movie a real power it would otherwise lack. Unfortunately, this falters somewhat in the second half of the movie; some of the events definitely seem contrived here, and at least one character has a complete personality change that can only be explained by the fact that the movie is now trying to drive the message home. Two interesting touches; we in the audience never actually hear the voice of God on the radio; we always hear about it second hand. And I admire the fact that they actually make some sort of attempt to make Nancy Davis look pregnant (though not as pregnant as she actually should be) rather than just telling us she is, as so many other movies from the period would do.

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The Haunted Castle (1921)

THE HAUNTED CASTLE (1921)
(a.k.a. SCHLOSS VOGELOED)
Article #821 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-14-2003
Posting Date: 11-11-2003
Directed by F. W. Murnau
Featuring Arnold Korff, Lulu Kyser Korff, Lothat Mehnert

A woman visits a castle and discovers that the man she accused of murdering her first husband is also there.

Title check: The castle isn’t haunted, I’ll say that much. Nor does it really seem to have enough character to warrant it being the center of attention in the title.

I’d heard that sitting through some of Murnau’s early work can be a bit of a chore, but I’d never had any first-hand experience with it. Well, now I have, and I have to admit that this one was not an easy or fun watch. Part of the problem is the story; it’s one of those that seems aimless and unfocused until a plot twist near the end ties everything together, and though this type of story can work, it relies on finding ways to make the previous events in the movie compelling and interesting on their own, and that is what this movie fails to do. One reason for this is the static visual feel of the movie; I found it hard to believe that this was the same man who directed FAUST. Also, the movie does one of the worst jobs of differentiating flashback sequences from the main storyline that I’ve ever seen; whole scenes would go by before I realized they were flashbacks, and I was left utterly confused at several points. Despite the title, it is not a horror movie, by the way; the only fantastic element involves a man’s dream that a claw comes in the window, grabs him, and carries him off, a scene that would have been effective if it really had anything to do with the rest of the story. As it is, I can only recommend it to Murnau completists and obsessed fools who insist on watching all these movies to complete some sort of project.

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