Month: May 2016

Voice of the Whistler (1945)

VOICE OF THE WHISTLER (1945)
Article #1248 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-14-2004
Posting Date: 1-11-2005
Directed by William Castle
Featuring Richard Dix, Lynn Merrick, Rhys Wiliams

When a lonely, dying millionaire passes out in a cab, the cabbie takes care of him and urges him to change his suspicious nature and distrustful ways.

One of the books that I use as a reference to choose movies for this series claims that in this movie, hypnotism is used to cause someone to commit murder. If they thought so, it’s no surprise they included it; however, there’s no hypnotism at work in this movie, though we do have a man who is tempted into a murder by another man’s suggestion. In truth, the only fantastic elements in this movie are the existence of the Whistler, that strange, shadowy character who sees all, knows all and tells all (though in a purely passive sense – in other words, he plays no role other than that of narrator) and a certain horror atmosphere towards the end of the movie. In short, this movie is another false lead.

On its own terms, I found it quite engrossing, though not necessarily in terms of its murder story; If considered merely in that aspect, the movie takes far too long to get going (which is why my plot description doesn’t touch on it at all). No, it’s the human drama and the themes that made it interesting for me; it deals with loneliness and how it is bred by distrust, and how distrust arises from having to cope with fame or riches and consequently not being able to tell a true friend from a false one. It’s handled somewhat simplistically, but I found it engaging nonetheless. In fact, I was even a little disappointed when the movie does turn into a murder story in the latter part of the movie, since it is somewhat at odds with the rest of it. Of course, I can’t say that I’m surprised; if murder weren’t involved, this wouldn’t be a Whistler movie. Still, the murder setup is rather clever, and the ending is quite sad. Ultimately, I must admit I really enjoyed the movie, even if I don’t think it quite works as a whole.

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The Unseen (1945)

THE UNSEEN (1945)
Article #1247 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-13-2004
Posting Date: 1-10-2005
Directed by Lewis Allen
Featuring Joel McCrea, Gail Russell, Herbert Marshall

A woman takes on a job as a governess to two children, only to discover that they’re harboring some mysterious secret involving an unsolved murder and an empty house next door.

Despite the fact that the movie really has no fantastic content (other than the sinister mood of the movie and the fact that the strange visitor remains a shadowy figure until the end), this movie is generally considered a follow-up to THE UNINVITED. This is no doubt due to the fact that both movies were directed by Lewis Allen, and that they have similar titles. A number of people consider this a disappointment, and I can see why; the beginning of the movie is awkward (with some very clumsy narration), and it ends rather flatly. Nonetheless, I found the rest of the movie to be rather engrossing; the first half plays like a variation of “The Turn of the Screw”, and it’s a lot of fun to see how the mysterious details in the first half all start to fall together in the second half. I was able to figure out who the villain would be fifteen minutes before it ended, but it does a good job of keeping you in the dark as to the motivations of many of the characters until the proper time. It’s not perfect, but I found it quite entertaining.

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Terror Out of the Sky (1978)

TERROR OUT OF THE SKY (1978)
Article #1246 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-12-2004
Posting Date: 1-9-2005
Directed by Lee H. Katzin
Featuring Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Dan Haggerty, Tovah Feldshuh

When killer bees infiltrate a bee raising institute, the director must race against time to prevent the development of a deadly swarm.

Bees make good horror animals; the thought of being stung to death by a swarm of them does get to you on a gut level. Consequently, any killer bee movie will put you on edge at least a little. Nonetheless, I can’t really say that I’ve seen a killer bee movie that I would actually describe as “good” (though THE SWARM is entertaining in its own way). This TV-Movie was a sequel to THE SAVAGE BEES, which I thought was merely average. I thought this one was quite bad. I got very annoyed at the foolishness of some of the characters, the horrible dialogue, and the formulaic plot elements. The director of the institute refuses to share his knowledge with the authorities, and the fact that this undercuts his ability to stop the bees apparently does not occur to him. There’s also a by-the-numbers love triangle which is resolved in the most cliched of fashions. I also don’t have much respect for the woman who decides that the people most fit to undertake the perilous task of tracking down the killer bees is a troop of boy scouts. Another major problem I have is this; in order to save the townspeople at one point, the woman hides in a school bus (with the troop of boy scouts) and continually toots the horn to lure the bees towards the bus, saying that loud noises attract them. Then, after the bus is driven out of town, nobody can figure out how to lure the bees away from the bus. Why didn’t they just plant a boom box a distance away from the bus, crank up the volume, and lure them away? This is the type of sloppy plotting that I have little use for.

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Secret Beyond the Door (1948)

SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR (1948)
Article #1245 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-11-2004
Posting Date: 1-8-2005
Directed by Fritz Lang
Featuring Joan Bennett, Michael Redgrave, Anne Revere

A woman with a large inheritance is wooed by a mysterious man who is in desperate financial straits. After she marries him, she begins to suspect that he may have murdered his first wife for her money.

For a man who contributed so much to the fantastic genres during the silent and early sound eras, I’ve had little call to cover any of Fritz Lang’s later work as he really didn’t work in those genres much afterwards. This one gets by on the skin of its teeth; though it’s not a horror movie, the theme of madness and the presence of considerable ground fog in one scene do tip it in the direction of marginalia. I was initially excited to be catching another of his movies, and the movie starts off well enough. However, there came a point where my attention began to flag. The constant self-conscious narration, the psychological babble, and the protracted buildup—instead of nudging me to the end of my seat, it had the opposite effect of annoying and distracting me. By the time the big ending came, I had lost interest, and the big psychological revelation scene almost made me laugh, and that’s not a good sign. Fritz Lang has given us a lot of fine movies, but this isn’t one of them. Now, if only FURY or THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW were within my chosen genres…

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Run for the Sun (1956)

RUN FOR THE SUN (1956)
Article #1244 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-10-2004
Posting Date: 1-7-2005
Directed by Roy Boulting
Featuring Richard Widmark, Trevor Howard, Jane Greer

A reporter tracks down a writer who has given up his craft and moved to Mexico. The two of them end up stranded on a plantation owned by men with a secret.

This thriller is well acted, will directed and quite satisfying. For the purposes of this series, though, its inclusion here is somewhat problematic; the fantastic content here is negligible, and it largely gets in by being something of a remake of a movie that does qualify. I hope I’m not giving away too much by saying that that other movie is THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. The problem here is that this variation on the story strips away most of the content that edged that movie into the horror genre; our villain here is not the insane huntsman tracking down men for the mere sport of it, but one whose motivations exist much more in the realm of the mundane, and who has logical (if unethical) reasons for his behavior. All of this really just goes to show how hard it is to pin down some of these movies; despite the surface similarity to TMDG, this is a standard, straightforward thriller with no horror content, unless the fact that it takes place in the jungle counts. Chalk this one up as another false lead.

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The Malpas Mystery (1960)

THE MALPAS MYSTERY (1960)
Article #1243 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-9-2004
Posting Date: 1-6-2005
Directed by Sidney Hayers
Featuring Maureen Swanson, Allan Cuthbertson, Geoffrey Keen

A woman just released from prison (for a crime she didn’t commit) becomes involved with a mysterious recluse known as Malpas.

From the style of the beginning and ending credits of this movie, as well as its length (my print runs a mere 53 minutes), I’m guessing that this mystery-thriller based on an Edgar Wallace novel actually was from a TV production, but I can’t really find much information to confirm or deny this. Though not a horror movie per se, its horror elements are quite striking; the mysterious Malpas wears a mask to disguise his features, and he sits alone in a dark room and controls the doors and lights in his house by remote control. These elements give an eerie sense of dread to the proceedings that really catches your attention. This is good, because as a whole, the movie feels confused and rushed; I suspect that 53 minutes is just not long enough to effectively tell this tale. I also felt somewhat disappointed by the revelation of Malpas’s identity, not so much for who it is (which turns out to be extremely logical), but for its timing; it lets the cat out of the bag, but then continues for several more minutes acting as if his identity is still a mystery, and this left me feeling a little frustrated. It’s not bad overall, but it doesn’t quite hit the mark.

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The Black Widow (1947)

THE BLACK WIDOW (1947)
(Serial)
Article #1242 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-8-2004
Posting Date: 1-5-2005
Directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet and Fred C. Brannon
Featuring Bruce Edwards, Virginia Lee, Carol Forman

A mystery writer is called on to investigate a series of deaths of noted scientists, and he attempts to track down a villainess known as the Black Widow.

Yes, it’s another Republic serial, and it’s another good one. Though I’m not keen on serials in particular, I do like how Republic handled them; they have a good sense of fun and well-staged fight scenes. By the late forties, they had also reduced the length of the episodes; except for the twenty-minute first episode, the lengths of the rest are in the thirteen to fourteen minute range. I felt this was the ideal length, since longer episodes feel more padded and my patience starts to waver. There is lots of scientific gadgetry in this one, including a teleportation machine, though I am left wondering how a culture with the scientific smarts to come up with that gizmo still needs to steal our secrets for an atomic missile. This one is thirteen episodes rather than the standard twelve, and I found myself wondering if the length of the serial was changed in mid-production, since one episode consists almost entirely of footage from other episodes. Still, this one is pretty good.

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Television Spy (1939)

TELEVISION SPY (1939)
Article #1241 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-7-2004
Posting Date: 1-4-2005
Directed by Edward Dmytryk
Featuring William Collier Sr., William Henry, Judith Barrett

A cantankerous industrialist decides to give financial backing to an inventor intent on developing long-distance television, but has to deal with spies, both industrial and political.

This is my favorite movie of the thirties with the word “television” in the title. This in itself really isn’t saying much; TRAPPED BY TELEVISION was fairly humdrum, and MURDER BY TELEVISION was a sore waste of celluloid. This one is a lot of fun, though. Part of the fun is the hilarious performance by William Collier Sr., whose barking, opinionated, and cantankerous industrialist is highly entertaining. They also make a lot of use of the science fiction elements on this one; much of the plot revolves around unexpected transmissions from the television sets in use. The movie also includes early performances by Richard Denning and Anthony Quinn. It’s exciting and efficient, running just under an hour. It’s just a b-movie, but it shows how entertaining they can be when done right.

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Life is a Circus (1958)

LIFE IS A CIRCUS (1958)
Article #1240 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-6-2004
Posting Date: 1-3-2005
Directed by Val Guest
Featuring Bud Flanagan, Teddy Knox, Jimmy Nervo

When most of Joe Winter’s circus performers walk out, a handful of men try to singlehandedly keep the big top alive. Then they discover Aladdin’s lamp. Hilarity ensues.

You can tell this is a comedy right off the bat; the stars of this one are a group of men known as “The Crazy Gang”. You can also tell it’s a musical; the title song gets spotlighted about four times during the length of the movie. There’s also a chimp to spice things up; he helps to keep the humor from getting too lowbrow. Lionel Jeffries pops in as the genie and promptly steals the movie. I also recognized Joseph Tomelty, who appeared in DEVIL GIRL FROM MARS. Most of the schtick is frantic and desperate, but the occasional funny line comes through. Despite its obvious appeal to kids, I’d be cautious about springing it on to them unprepared; the genie is watching the dance of the seven veils inside of his lamp, and it doesn’t leave a whole lot to the viewers imagination. So this is what Val Guest does when he’s not directing movies based on stories by Nigel Kneale.

I miss Quatermass.

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So Dark the Night (1946)

SO DARK THE NIGHT (1946)
Article #1239 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-5-2004
Posting Date: 1-2-2005
Directed by Joseph H. Lewis
Featuring Steven Geray, Micheline Cheirel, Eugene Borden

A famous detective from Paris falls in love with a country girl while out on a holiday, but she has a jealous boyfriend. Nonetheless, he becomes engaged to her. Then the girl vanishes the night of the engagement party and later shows up dead.

There are some plot twists that are indelible; once they’ve been used in one story, they ingrain themselves in your memory, and if you should encounter another story using the same twist, you can see it coming a mile away. This explains why it was that at the halfway point of this movie, I knew exactly what the twist was going to be.

Now, if you aren’t familiar with the twist in question, this movie should work for you just fine. But if you are familiar with it…well, in my case, the movie worked just fine anyway. I think that’s because the characters are so charmingly developed and brought to life (by a cast of largely unknown actors), that even when you see the twist coming, you still care about the characters enough to wonder what will happen afterwards. It’s also very nicely directed, with some fascinating visual moments and some creative use of lighting. The fantastic aspects are mild, but I can’t really go into much detail about them for fear that they will give away too much, so I’ll just say that madness plays a role in the proceedings. In some ways, this little b-movie does its job so well, that I really have very few complaints. It’s definitely worth a look.

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