Month: December 2015

The Tell-Tale Heart (1960)

THE TELL-TALE HEART (1960)
Article #1061 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-9-2004
Posting Date: 7-8-2004
Directed by Ernest Morris
Featuring Laurence Payne, Adrienne Corri, Dermot Walsh

A disturbed man becomes obsessed with a woman who lives in the next house, but she has eyes for his best friend.

“The Tell-Tale Heart” is a great little story by Poe. I’ve always felt the best element of the story was not the horrific heart-beating-under-the-floorboards concept, but the fact that the murderer is so confident and cocky that he isn’t even aware at how his own madness brings him down. I’d love to see a version of this story that retains that character, and I’m sure there are a few out there somewhere. This version has some very atmospheric moments and a couple of good shock scenes in the second half, but I have real problems with it as a whole. In order to expand the movie to full-length, the story ends up relying on the most unoriginal of storylines, that of the romantic triangle. Once the woman meets her boyfriend’s good-looking best friend, I knew exactly where the story would be going for the next thirty minutes. The movie also loses points for its lack of subtlety; for one thing, after the movie establishes that the woman has a thing for the handsome friend, it belabors the point for ten minutes; just how many times do we need to see the woman staring intently at the friend before we get the picture? Payne’s performance as the disturbed young man would have been better had it been given a greater variety of reactions; as it is, I really get tired of the incessant closeups of his sweaty insane face and his throwing inanimate objects around. And as for the “twist ending”, it’s the type of thing for which I invented the DS Rubber Brick Award (for those movies in which you feel the need to throw something at the TV set).

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Tarzan’s Desert Mystery (1943)

TARZAN’S DESERT MYSTERY (1943)
Article #1060 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-8-2004
Posting Date: 7-7-2004
Directed by Wilhelm Thiele
Featuring Johnny Weissmuller, Nancy Kelly, Johnny Sheffield

Tarzan, Boy and Cheetah go to the desert to gather plants for malaria serum, but they end up stranded in Balehira where Tarzan is arrested as a horse thief.

This is a fairly strange entry in the Tarzan series, with most of the action taking place in the desert rather than the jungle, and with unexpected science fiction and horror elements cropping up near the end of the movie. Jane isn’t present, as she is back home caring for war victims, so Nancy Kelly is on hand as an itinerant magician to provide the pulchritude. The story itself is fairly ordinary, but there are moments that leave me scratching my heard; for example, when Tarzan is in jail with Boy and Cheetah and after Tarzan has just strangled the guard, the keys have fallen out of reach. They concoct a scheme to escape by having Cheetah go through the window and steal turbans, so they can unwind them to make a rope to escape. My question; why didn’t they just send Cheetah through the bars of the jail to grab the keys; he’s small enough. The ending involves a giant spider, man-eating plants and Ignatz and Rumsford doing their usual wrestling bit from ONE MILLION B.C.; these guys do get around. The best moment is probably Cheetah showing off on a high wire.

This movie is not to be confused with TARZAN’S DESSERT MYSTERY, in which Tarzan tries to figure out if that’s pudding or gelatin.

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The Devil’s Mask (1946)

THE DEVIL’S MASK (1946)
Article #1059 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-7-2004
Posting Date: 7-6-2004
Directed by Henry Levin
Featuring Jim Bannon, Barton Yarborough, Michael Duane

This is the second movie I’ve seen from the short-lived Columbia series based on the “I Love a Mystery” radio show, and I must say I find myself rather fond of the series. Part of it is the main characters; I like both Bannon and Yarborough in the roles of Jack Packard and Doc Long, in particular the latter, as he manages to stay just this side of making the character pure comic relief. It’s a mystery rather than a horror movie, of course, but it makes quite a bit of use of horror elements. There’s a spooky museium, a collection of shrunken heads, murder by poisonous blowdarts, a headless body, and a man who keeps a panther for a pet. You probably will figure out the murderer early on if you’re familiar with the way these mysteries work themselves out. It’s a fun little B programmer of the period.

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The Thirteenth Chair (1929)

THE THIRTEENTH CHAIR (1929)
Article #1058 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-6-2004
Posting Date: 7-5-2004
Directed by Tod Browning
Featuring Conrad Nagel, Leila Hyams, Margaret Wycherlie

A seance is held to discover the identity of a murderer. When the man seeking the identity is himself killed, an inspector tries to figure out both murders.

DRACULA fans might find this early pairing of Bela Lugosi (playing the inspector) and Tod Browning of interest. The story itself is not a bad one, and Margaret Wycherly’s medium character is well performed. Unfortunately, several factors turned this into a difficult watch for me; the stagey direction, the bad sound (both in terms of the movie itself and my copy of it as well), occasional fits of overacting (particularly at the end), the poor nth-generation dupe of my copy, and the lack of any real visual sense all combine to make this one a tough watch. In a sense, it’s like watching DRACULA without the first fifteen minutes of that movie, though the seance itself and a sequence involving a dead man are the only horror elements to this one. It’s not a total loss; you can definitely see why Lugosi became a star and he gives the best performance here. You’ll just need to keep in mind the time it was made when watching it.

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Sherlock Holmes (1932)

SHERLOCK HOLMES (1932)
Article #1057 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-5-2004
Posting Date: 7-4-2004
Directed by William K. Howard
Featuring Clive Brook, Miriam Jordan, Ernest Torrence

Sherlock Holmes must track down his old enemy Moriarty to prevent him from taking revenge on those who sent him to prison and beginning a new crime wave.

This Sherlock Holmes movie takes several risks with the character; it takes place in modern times, Holmes is given a girlfriend, and at one point he dresses up as a little old lady in one of his disguises. Fortunately, the movie itself is so witty that the only problem I have is with the girlfriend. I even forgive a longish sequence which gets away from the main story and concentrates on a tavern owner who finds himself the target of a protection racket, largely because the stoic stiff-upper-lip attitude of the character results in one of the funniest scenes in the movie. Ernest Torrence is a great Moriarty; he is definitely one of the best I’ve seen in the role. Clive Brook plays Holmes, and Reginal Owens plays Dr. Watson; Owens would go on to play Holmes himself in the next year’s A STUDY IN SCARLET. Overall, this is a fun if occasionally bizarre take on the story, what with the subplot of Moriarty trying to adopt the methods of the American gangsters in his plots. However, the fantastic elements are fairly nonexistent, so it really only belongs marginally to the covered genres here.

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Dick Tracy vs Crime Inc. (1941)

DICK TRACY VS. CRIME INC. (1941)
Article #1056 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-4-2004
Posting Date: 7-3-2004
Directed by John English and William Witney
Featuring Ralph Byrd, Michael Owen, Jan Wiley

Dick Tracy tries to discover the identity of a criminal called The Ghost who is doing away with members of a city crime council.

There are four Dick Tracy serials in this series; I’ve covered the first two (DICK TRACY, DICK TRACY RETURNS) but have yet to see the third. This, the fourth, dispenses with Mike McGurk and Junior, and you know, I don’t miss them a bit. For one thing, the villain in this one has the power to turn invisible, giving the movie a much stronger science fiction element, and also giving Tracy his most interesting foe. The opening cliffhanger is a doozy, but I would expect that of any cliffhanger that borrowed footage from DELUGE. In fact, there seems to be quite a bit of borrowed footage; several of the action sequences seem awfully familiar, and there are some recognizable moments from the other Tracy serials. Still, I’d rather have it do that than borrow footage from itself for one of those “remember-when-we-started-on-this-case” reminiscences that pop up in these serials occasionally. Incidentally, I thought episode six did an exemplary job of pacing its non-stop action, and the final fight scene is done in negative photography, which makes it a lot of fun. I definitely prefer this to the two others that I’ve seen of the series.

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Shadow of Terror (1945)

SHADOW OF TERROR (1945)
Article #1055 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-3-2004
Posting Date: 7-2-2004
Directed by Lew Landers
Featuring Richard Fraser, Grace Gillern Albertson, Cy Kendall

A scientist develops amnesia after being thrown from a train, and tries to recover in a small western town. Unfortunately, crooks aren’t finished with him yet…

Could this be the first atomic bomb movie? It’s your basic poverty row thriller with the prize at stake being the possession of the secret to the atomic bomb. Historically, it’s pretty silly in concept, but if you take it on its own terms, it’s not too bad. It’s got some tense moments, a truly nasty villain, and something you don’t often find in movies in this series; an honest-to-goodness colorful toothless western sidekick played by Emmett Lynn. Now I know that the desert is a place where many A-bombs were tested, and it’s also a place where you’re apt to find colorful western sidekicks, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen them together in the same movie. At any rate, I will have to admit that I have an inordinate fondness for western sidekicks, and I would love to have been one. However, I do think I would have opted to keep my teeth.

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Fahrmann Maria (1936)

FAHRMANN MARIA (1936)
(a.k.a. FERRYBOAT WOMAN MARIA)
Article #1054 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-2-2004
Posting Date: 7-1-2004
Directed by Frank Wisbar
Featuring Sybille Schmitz, Aribert Mog, Peter Voss

A woman takes over the job of running a ferryboat after Death claims the previous man in the occupation. One day she rescues a man trying to escape from unknown pursuers, and then must prevent Death from claiming him as well.

Frank Wisbar’s cult horror movie STRANGLER OF THE SWAMP wasn’t really a remake of this earlier movie of his, but it drew heavily from it. Whereas that movie was clearly horror, this was more dark fantasy and fable. The primary image that both films share is that of the woman pulling herself across the swamp via a rope that stretches from one end to the other, and it’s a compelling image. The swamp is very real here, in comparison to the set-bound one used in the later film, and one is aware that the themes run a little deeper. My copy was in German without subtitles, but fortunately I was given a plot summary that explained what was going on, and it it’s a little a vague about details, I suspect that the movie itself was a little vague also. I recommend this one to anyone whose seen SOTS and is somewhat curious about its earlier incarnation.

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Zamba (1949)

ZAMBA (1949)
(a.k.a. ZAMBA THE GORILLA)
Article #1053 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-1-2004
Posting Date: 6-30-2004
Directed by William A. Berke
Featuring Jon Hall, June Vincent, Jane Nigh

A mother and her son are separated after bailing out of a malfunctioning airplane. The son develops amnesia, but is befriended by a gorilla who watches after him.

What kind of movie is this? It’s the kind of movie in which there is a lot of fretting about the fates of the mother and the son, but no one sheds a single tear over the death of the father. Maybe spending some time to do so would have cut into the comic relief footage of the cowardly file clerk. We must have priorities.

This is the type of the movie where the credits say that Zamba is played by N’Bonga. This, of course, implies that Zamba is played by a real gorilla rather than an actor in a gorilla suit. I don’t know if Ray “Crash” Corrigan should see that as an insult or a compliment.

This is the type of movie where a person falls from a great height, hits his head, and gets amnesia. He then falls from a rock, hits his head, and recovers his memory.

This is the type of movie where people spend a lot of time treed by wild animals (usually a lion, once a hyena) and spend what feels like hours calling out someone’s name. (“Tommy! Tommy! Tommy!” or “Zamba! Zamba! Zamba!”)

This is the type of movie where the potential romantic couple spends the whole movie insulting and yelling at each other until you-know-what happens in the final reel.

This is the type of movie where I’m tempted to do my review by coming up with a ditty to the tune of the old Oscar Meyer commercial theme, but I give it up after coming up with only a couple of lines, viz.

“My gorilla has a first name; It’s Z-A-M-B-A….”

On the other hand, I do have to give the movie one thing; for a jungle movie, it keeps the safari scenes from taking over. The cast also features a young Beau Bridges (as the amnesiac child) and Darby Jones (as Keega, one of the natives on the safari).

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A Strange Adventure (1932)

A STRANGE ADVENTURE (1932)
(a.k.a. WAYNE MURDER CASE)
Article #1052 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-31-2004
Posting Date: 6-29-2004
Directed by Hampton Del Ruth and Paul Whitman
Featuring Regis Toomey, June Clyde, Lucille La Verne

A murder is committed at the signing of a will, and a policeman comes in to investigate.

What we have here is a spooky old house, a cranky old man surrounded by money-hungry relatives, a will, a cursed diamond, a killer wandering around in a monk’s robe, and a cop trying to get his reporter girlfriend to marry him while she tries to investigate on her own. Combine this with some comic relief cops, a black manservant who is cowardly and stuttering, no music other than during the credits, and slow cue pick-up, and what do you have? Why, you have your typical forgotten horror, and not one of the more interesting ones at that. It’s mostly of note for having Dwight Frye on hand in a small role. It’s the sort of thing I’ve seen many times before, and I’m afraid this one doesn’t really add much new to the mix.

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