Revolt of the Ghosts (1949)

REVOLT OF THE GHOSTS (1949)
(a.k.a. LA REBELION DE LOS FANTASMAS)
Article #875 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-7-2003
Posting Date: 1-4-2004
Directed by A. F. Bustamente
Featuring Gilbert Roland, Amand Ledesma, Angel Garasma

Famous ghosts try to save an old house from being burned down.

Actually, I got that plot description from a reference book; to me, it looks more like they’re trying to do some matchmaking between a resident of that house and an executive in the music business. Yes, it’s another “Spanish, no subtitles” scenario here, but this should be the last one for a little while. It looks pretty wild, with some of the famous ghosts having been real people (Chopin), and others fictional characters (Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, Romeo and Juliet, etc.). The plot is impenetrable under these circumstances, but some of the sight gags aren’t bad; restaurant owners should always beware when they present a ghost his tab, especially if it’s Sancho Panza. The antics and special effects make it a decent amount of fun, though, and the ending scene, in which a couple dances while being circled by several dancing phantoms, brings a smile to my face even when I can’t figure out the rest of it.

2 Comments Leave a comment

The Macabre Trunk (1936)

THE MACABRE TRUNK (1936)
(a.k.a. EL BAUL MACABRO)
Article #874 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-6-2003
Posting Date: 1-3-2004
Directed by Miguel Zacarias
Featuring Ramon Pereda, Manuel Noriega, Rene Cardona

A madman is kidnapping women from the hospital in order to use them to restore the health of his wife.

Yes, we’re back in “Spanish-no subtitles” mode here, but this time I was helped by a hint that it was somewhat similar to THE CORPSE VANISHES, and that gave me something of a handle on it. Despite the fact that I didn’t always know what was going on, I found myself quite entertained; the story involves a sinister-looking assistant, a suspicious beggar, a pigeon-toed nurse, an intentionally bad music performance, a comic relief cop, and the trunk of the title. It also shows more skin than a Hollywood film would have done at the time, and even throws in a gag involving a severed limb that wouldn’t have made it past the Hays office here. All in all, the movie has the feel of a forties Monogram cheapie, which is interesting, because it predates them by a few years. It uses an interesting editing technique by which scenes are switched via the use of props that appear in both scenes, which is impressive at first, but ends up being overused. However, the movie’s most memorable moment involves one of the most glaring editing gaffs I’ve ever seen in my life, and though I don’t want to give it away completely, I’ll say that it occurs about twenty minutes into the film (during the song), and it offers proof positive that Mexican filmmakers used clapboards.

1 Comment Leave a comment

Scream, Baby, Scream (1969)

SCREAM, BABY, SCREAM (1969)
Article #873 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-5-2003
Posting Date: 1-2-2004
Directed by Joseph Adler
Featuring Ross Harris, Eugenie Wingate, Chris Martell

An artist kidnaps people and uses drugs and surgery to deform so he can then paint them.

Ten thoughts on this one.

1) Don’t confuse this one with KILL, BABY, KILL. Though I’ve never seen that one, I know for sure Bava had nothing to do with this one.

2) The videocassette package shows an insane bearded guy killing a woman with an axe. No such scene appears in the film.

3) The package also dares me not to scream. If it had dared me not to snooze, it might have won the bet.

4) Do you know what an LSD drug trip is like? According to this movie, it allows you to see film in double exposure and then you imagine you take the place of the animals in the zoo. I always knew drugs were overrated.

5) Most of the hideously mutated creatures in this movie consist of men able to grimace.

6) The rest of the hideously mutated creatures in this movie use makeup, but not much of it; the budget must have only allowed them to buy two eggs of silly putty.

7) The main villain looks sort of like a cross between Jack Palance and Charlton Heston with Criswell’s hair. I’ll leave it to you do decide how scary that is.

8) The last two movies I saw were in Spanish with no subtitles. The next two will probably be in Spanish with no subtitles. This one is English, but I found myself somehow wishing this one were in Spanish without subtitles. Well, you can’t have everything.

9) Considering how bad the sound is in this movie, it probably wouldn’t have made any difference if it had been in Spanish without subtitles.

10) This movie made me miss the subtleties and nuances of Ray Dennis Steckler’s THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES THAT STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP ZOMBIES?!! Really. However, it didn’t make me miss the movies of Herschell Gordon Lewis. That should you give you some idea of its quality.

1 Comment Leave a comment

Santo and the Hotel of the Dead (1963)

SANTO AND THE HOTEL OF THE DEAD (1963)
(a.k.a. SANTO EN EL HOTEL DE LA MUERTE)
Article #872 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-4-2003
Posting Date: 1-1-2004
Directed by Federico Curiel
Featuring Santo, Fernando Casanova, Ana Bertha Lepe

Beautiful women are being murdered at a hotel, and then the bodies disappear. Santo comes on the scene to investigate.

This is one of the Santo movies that never made it to the States, so I had to watch this one in an undubbed, unsubtitled print. I didn’t expect it to be as difficult to figure out as it turned out to be; the other Santo movies I’ve seen didn’t seem complicated. This one has a lot of elements that make it a little difficult to connect the dots; on top of the murders, there is a strange beatnik character who seems to be extorting money out of one of the other residents, and characters in cowboy hats digging in a cavern under the hotel. I’d really love to catch this one subtitled; it’s a lot of fun, and even given the plot difficulties, I could spot two surprising plot twists in the final moments in the film, since they’re done visually. And even though I’m not a particular fan of long wrestling sequences, I can say one thing for them here: they are kept to a minimum, and I had no trouble figuring out what’s going on during these scenes. Nonetheless, a subtitled version would definitely give me a chance to figure out the somewhat curious ending to this one.

And a warning to Santo; when you go driving off in your car, please pull your cape in instead of letting it flap around the wheels; I’d hate to have you pull an Isadora Duncan on us.

0 Comments Leave a comment

The Dead Speak (1935)

THE DEAD SPEAK (1935)
(a.k.a. LOS MUERTOS HABLAN)
Article #871 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-3-2003
Posting Date: 12-31-2003
Directed by Bustillo de Cro
Featuring Julian Soler, Amalia de Ilisa, Manuel Noriega

A student experiments with the concept that a corpse’s retina retains the last image it sees before death.

That’s as close as I can get to a decent plot description; I believe the trick of murder victims retaining the image of their murderer has been used in a few movies. This one is from Mexico, and I could only find it in an undubbed unsubtitled Spanish language print, and there’s a lot of talk to this one. In fact, I’m not sure I would have known what this one was about had it not been for plot summaries I have read. I might have guessed that it had touches of science fiction from the elaborate machinery used to take a photograph of a corpse’s eye. Visually, the movie isn’t particularly memorable, and the plot doesn’t seem particularly novel, so unless there’s something really interesting in the subtleties of the dialogue, there’s not a whole lot to recommend here.