Month: November 2016

The Bacchantes (1961)

THE BACCHANTES (1961)
(a.k.a. LE BACCANTI)
Article #1495 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-18-2005
Posting Date: 9-15-2005
Directed by Giorgio Ferroni
Featuring Taina Elg, Pierre Brice, Alessandro Panaro

A Theban tyrant banishes the worship of Dionysius in favor of that of Demeter, but the resulting drought drives his subjects into rebellion.

This story of the ancient Greeks is a French/Italian co-production made in the early sixties. If this description doesn’t conjure up the phrase “sword-and-sandal”, then nothing does. However, the phrase doesn’t quite fit here; despite the presence of many of the usual trappings of the form, this is less of an action-adventure spectacle than a drama. It even credits Euripedes with the source of the story, though anyone familiar with the Greek tragedy in question will find little familiar here. Still, I can’t blame them; ancient Greek tragedy is something of an alien form anymore, and for what it’s worth, this movie comes up with an interesting enough story that is worth following. In fact, I think it’s a decent fantasy-drama overall, though it does have some problems; in particular, the dancing and partying scenes of the Dionysians are pretty silly. I only wish I had snagged a color copy of the movie, but no such luck. Akim Tamiroff is almost unrecognizable as the blind prophet Teiresias.

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An American Christmas Carol (1979)

AN AMERICAN CHRISTMAS CAROL (1979)
Article #1494 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-17-2005
Posting Date: 9-14-2005
Directed by Eric Till
Featuring Henry Winkler, R.H. Thomson, Susan Hogan

Benedict Slade, after spending the day before Christmas repossessing various pieces of merchandise and firing his assistant, is visited by the ghost of his former partner, and then by spirits to teach him the true meaning of Christmas.

The idea of updating the Dickens classic to take place in America has something of the air of gimmick, and had the script been written with only this in mind, it would have been disastrous. However, the script does a fine job with the idea. By setting the action during the great depression, it manages to capture something deeply American while still holding on somewhat to the ambiance of the original settings of the story. It also does a fine job with filling the story with the proper details to maintain interest, and after awhile you find yourself watching just to see the kinds of inventions the movie will use to adapt the story to its setting. And somehow, it all remains quite true to the source in spirit.

However, there are problems. From a story perspective, the movie fumbles the “Ghost of Christmas Present” section somewhat; by emphasizing the hardships that the Thatcher family (the equivalent to the Cratchits) are enduring, it feels too much like a guilt trip is being placed on Slade (the Scrooge character). Instead, it should be emphasizing the fact that somehow, through all the hardships, the Thatchers are still finding the strength to celebrate a joyous Christmas. Another problem is Henry Winkler’s performance, which is half a success and half a failure. Winkler manages to come up with a unique and interesting take on the Scrooge character, but he fails to make us believe he’s really the age of his character; his voice sounds too young, and he moves too swiftly and assuredly for a man of his supposed age. This problem is compounded by his rather unconvincing make-up, which also makes him look too old and obscures his eyes, and his hands and the lower part of his neck look much too young. Though these are problems, they’re not fatal; overall, the movie works quite well. Still, it’s no replacement for some of the classic earlier versions of the story.

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Aliens from Spaceship Earth (1977)

ALIENS FROM SPACESHIP EARTH (1977)
Article #1493 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-16-2005
Posting Date: 9-13-2005
Directed by Don Como
Featuring Lynda Day George, Donovan, Leigh Taylor-Young

A documentary about spirituality, Eastern religions and higher consciousness.

I got this title from John Stanley’s “Creature Features Movie Guide Strikes Again” book. He describes the movie as being about alien visitations and features recreations of close encounters. Though the book definitely has its uses, the fact of the matter is that he didn’t see every movie listed, and every once in a while this shows in his plot descriptions. Furthermore, IMDB gives a plot outline that claims that the movie “tries to prove that all great men of the past were actually aliens”. If there are two movies of this title, than IMDB has them merged into one; the director and cast listed do match that of the movie I’ve seen (as far as they go, anyway; the cast listed are just playing themselves in the movie).

At any rate, my copy of the movie ALIENS FROM SPACESHIP EARTH has no speculation about visitations from outer space nor great men in history really being aliens. It’s a documentary about spirituality, higher planes of consciousness, and the place of Eastern religions in the Western world. Those expecting anything else will be extremely disappointed. For those interested in the subject it does discuss, it has its uses; if you’re searching for spiritual guidance and would like to explore the options offered by Eastern faiths, this movie could serve as an introductory guide to some of the options. Though it’s main area of speculation (that man is on the verge of a spiritual breakthrough in this time of crisis) doesn’t seem to have panned out (to these eyes, anyway), I found it nonetheless to be quite interesting. Whether it properly falls into the genre areas of this survey, however, is another question, though the mystic and the fantastic do intertwine. However, don’t expect anything about alien visitiations.

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Son of Sinbad (1955)

SON OF SINBAD (1955)
Article #1492 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-15-2005
Posting Date: 9-12-2005
Directed by Ted Tetzlaff
Featuring Dale Robertson, Sally Forrest, Lili St. Cyr

The Son of the illustrious Sinbad finds his life in danger when his womanizing causes him to sneak into the harem of the Caliph of Bagdad. In order to keep from being executed, he and his pal Omar Khayyam must recover the formula to an explosive known as Green Fire.

Rumor has it that this Howard Hughes production (he was executive producer) was made in order to fulfill promises made to any number of aspiring starlets. This wouldn’t be a surprise; the movie was obviously designed to show off a large female cast. So how do you make a movie with this large a female cast? Why, by grinding the plot to a halt as often as possible to fit in exotic dancing and harem scenes. This movie is so packed with pulchritude that it took two years to finally get it past the censors and onto the movie screens. By that time, the 3D craze had died down (the movie was originally intend to be in 3D), and fourth billed Vincent Price (as Omar Khayyam) had risen to stardom as a result of HOUSE OF WAX.

On its own, it’s moderately entertaining hokum. Unless you count the acres of female flesh, Vincent Price steals the movie. At least he sounds like he fits into the environment; Dale Robertson sounds as if he should be herding cattle rather than engaging in swordfights. Oddly enough, I’m not sure that the movie is really a fantasy. Despite the Arabian Nights trappings, there are no genies, flying carpets, or magical spells to speak of; even the “Open Sesame” command that opens the cave of the Forty (female) Thieves isn’t magic, but a command to a mule. The main fantastic element is a super-explosive created by the combination of certain chemicals in correct proportions, and this feels more like science fiction than fantasy.

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Alien Lover (1975)

ALIEN LOVER (1975)
Article #1491 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-14-2005
Posting Date: 9-11-2005
Directed by Lela Swift
Featuring Kate Mulgrew, Pernell Roberts, Susan Brown

A teenaged girl moves in with relatives after being released from a sanitarium. She thinks she is going crazy again when she begins to hear voices, but it turns out that an alien from another dimension is trying to communicate with her from a strange TV set in the attic. Is the alien benevolent or sinister?

This is an under-rehearsed soap-opera style TV movie shot on videotape. Some people feel that movies shot in this style seem more “real” than movies with higher production values, and maybe it is for them; for me, when I see a movie like this, all I can think about is that it’s an under-rehearsed soap-opera style TV-Movie shot on videotape. In order to have that “real” quality, you need a script that captures that sense, and the script for this one fails utterly on this level. The movie never achieves any intimacy; all the characters are distant, unlikable and/or obviously insincere, and it’s hard to care about them or what happens to them. I also dislike the ending; though some people feel that ending the story at the point it does lends a great deal of ambiguity to the movie; me, since I find very little ambiguity in the alien’s intentions, I just feel that they ended it where they do because taking the story any further would have required more of a budget that they had. And as far as movies about sinister TV sets go, I’d rather watch THE TWONKY again than this one.

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Alias Nick Beal (1949)

ALIAS NICK BEAL (1949)
Article #1490 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-13-2005
Posting Date: 9-10-2005
Directed by John Farrow
Featuring Ray Milland, Audrey Totter, Thomas Mitchell

A crusading District Attorney hooks up with a mysterious figure who helps him put a public menace behind bars by tempting him into performing an illegal act. The D.A. then finds himself running for governor, only to find that his action has repercussions and that the mysterious stranger has sinister motives.

Though it may not be clear from the above plot description, this is a variation on the “deal-with-the-devil” story line, and it’s a good one; it manages to effectively combine both horror and film noir, a combination that rarely occurs. It’s anchored by two excellent performances; Thomas Mitchell is memorable as the District Attorney who finds himself being tempted, and Ray Milland gives one of his finest performances as the eerie and unsettling Nick Beal, whose plan to trap the soul of the District Attorney is subtle and fiendish. The movie is also peopled with some other familiar faces; fans of Universal science fiction movies of the fifties will no doubt recognize Nestor Paiva as a bartender, Fred Clark (from DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE and CURSE OF THE MUMMY’S TOMB) is on hand as a the head of a corrupt political machine, and Douglas Spencer (Scotty in THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD) has a small but memorable role as a man named Finch. Interestingly, perennial villain George Macready plays a force for good this time, as the reverend who rightly figures out what Nick Beal is really up to. As far as “deal-with-the-devil” stories go, this one is subtle, convincing and haunting. Highly recommended.

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Snow White and the Three Stooges (1961)

SNOW WHITE AND THE THREE STOOGES (1961)
Article #1489 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-12-2005
Posting Date: 9-9-2005
Directed by Walter Lang
Featuring Carol Heiss, The Three Stooges, Edson Stroll

Snow White escapes from the evil queen who is seeking her life and hides out with the Three Stooges.

If you’re watching a movie called SNOW WHITE AND THE THREE STOOGES, you have expectations. Notice that I didn’t say ‘high’ expectations (this was the era of Curly Joe, after all), but expectations nonetheless. If this movie were only one-third as amusing as THE THREE STOOGES MEET HERCULES, it wouldn’t be a total loss. However, there is one major difference between these two movies that you can notice from the outset; in TTSMH, the Stooges get mentioned before Hercules, whereas in this one, they are listed after Snow White. This difference is reflected in the respective movies; the other movie is a Three Stooges movie with the character of Hercules thrown in, and this is a Snow White movie with the Three Stooges thrown in. They only appear in about half the scenes of the movie, and most of this time they’re just playing characters in the plot. When they do engage in comic mayhem, it usually only lasts for a few seconds at a time, and displays none of their usual comic timing. If anything, they play more for sympathy than anything else here, and that’s just wrong. I find it impossible to believe that any Three Stooges fan will walk away from this movie satisfied.

It’s not much better as a fairy tale, either. Carol Heiss is pretty enough, and she’s an excellent skater, but every time she opens her mouth, you know she’s not an actress. The movie also takes forever to get going; it runs 107 minutes, and it’s almost forty minutes in before Snow White even makes her escape. To fill in, we have lots of singing, lots of skating, unfunny ventriloquism scenes, and an occasional shot of the Three Stooges. It picks up a little towards the end, but I’m willing to bet that most of the kids have fallen asleep by then. The best thing I can say about this one is that there’s a lot of pretty color photography on display. Other than that, it’s largely a disaster.

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Dr. Coppelius (1966)

DR. COPPELIUS (1966)
(a.k.a. DR.?? COPPELIUS!!! /
EL FANTASTICO MUNDO DEL DOCTOR COPPELIUS)
Article #1488 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-11-2005
Posting Date: 9-8-2005
Directed by Ted Kneeland
Featuring Walter Slezak, Claudia Corday, Caj Selling

Two potential lovers get embroiled in the life of Dr. Coppelius, a scientist / inventor who specializes in life-size mechanical dolls.

After two encounters with Opera so far, I suppose it was only a matter of time before I stumbled across a Ballet. Now, if you had asked me, I would have predicted that Ballet would have been an even more alien form to me than Opera; the thought of trying to follow a story expressed entirely in dance would have made me feel ill at ease. However, I found this to be much easier to follow than either THE MEDIUM or THE TALES OF HOFFMANN. I think the reason is that the burden of translation isn’t as great; instead of needing to sort out what is being sung (as I need to do in operas), all I really have to do is make good use of the visual cues that are supplied me here, and this movie is quite generous with them. The opening credits provide mini-biographies of each character so that you know the role they play in the story, and it does a fine job of clarifying certain subtleties, such as the fact that when Brigitta is dancing with a broom, she is actually engaged in an imaginary dance with the man she loves, Dr. Coppelius. I’m also amazed at the breadth of emotion that can be conveyed in dance. In particular, I was amazed at how well dance can be used to convey humor; there are many comic moments that work beautifully here. I never really thought of Walter Slezak as a dancer, and his dancing here is quite minimal. However, he came from a musical family; he was the son of a star of the Metropolitan Opera and himself went on to sing there as well. The fantastic aspects here are prominent; Dr. Coppelius is something of an alchemist, which puts him in a category somewhere between science fiction and fantasy, and his laboratory wouldn’t look out of place in a horror movie. All in all, I found this one fun and accessible, though I did need a little break now and then during the longer dance segments. And there’s one thing I do know; I like the music in ballets a lot more than I like the music in operas.

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Dumbo (1941)

DUMBO (1941)
Article #1487 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-10-2005
Posting Date: 9-7-2005
Directed by Ben Sharpsteen
Featuring the voices of Herman Bing, Billy Bletcher, Edward Brophy

An elephant’s new-born son has huge ears, and when his mother is locked up after defending him from the jibes of onlookers, he becomes ostracized from the other elephants.

Disney lavished big budgets on his first three animated features, but when returns weren’t quite what he hoped they would be for PINOCCHIO or FANTASIA, he made this one rather cheaply. Still, I don’t think this one really suffers for its lower budget; there are scenes here that are as good as any to be found in a Disney feature, and I find two of them to be absolute classics (the scene where Dumbo visits his incarcerated mother, and the jaw-dropping “Pink Elephants on Parade” number). In fact, in terms of its individual scenes, I have no problem with the movie at all. Unfortunately, once the movie is over, I feel somehow let down. For a long time, I thought it was because the movie was geared to the discovery of Dumbo’s special gift rather than his use of it, and since I’d already known what that gift was (which I haven’t revealed here, for those who don’t know, though it does provide the greatest degree of fantastic content to the story) the movie lost its ability to surprise. However, I no longer feel that’s the problem. Instead, I think it has something to do with my dissatisfaction with the ending’s failure to resolve the emotional elements of the story. I’m really less interested in seeing Dumbo’s acts of harmless slapstick revenge on his detractors (the clowns, the ringmaster and the other elephants) than I would be in seeing these detractors won over by him, an incident you’re asked to take for granted in the final scene. In particular, I would love to have a happy reunion scene with Mrs. Jumbo and her son. It is the lack of this element that leaves me feeling disappointed, and keeps me from placing this one on the same level of Disney’s finest work.

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Batman and Robin (1949)

BATMAN AND ROBIN (1949)
Article #1486 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-9-2005
Posting Date: 9-6-2005
Directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet
Featuring Robert Lowery, Johnny Duncan, Jane Adams

Batman and Robin do battle against a master criminal called the Wizard.

This Columbia serial tends to be sneered at, but I have to admit to a certain fondness for this one. This is partially due to the fact that the characters are familiar enough to me that I can sort them out; Batman, Robin, Commisioner Gordon and Alfred the Butler were all known to me from the TV series of the sixties. Granted, I wish they had gotten one of the well-known villains rather than the relatively lame ‘The Wizard’ that appears here, but I must admit that I’m not really surprised. I also like that there is a sense of humor that pops up on occasion here; usually, humor is a rarity in serials (unless there is a stock comic relief character). Still, there are problems. The costumes are poorly done, especially Batman’s mask. Robin, the Man Wonder (sorry, I just can’t call him “The Boy Wonder” here) was played by 26-year-old Johnny Duncan, who looks even older; he would later appear in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE with his fellow BATMAN AND ROBIN actor, Lyle Talbot (here playing Commissioner Gordon). The cliffhangers and their resolutions are particularly lame here as well. I don’t think Batman and Robin should be storing their costumes in a file cabinet, and I still can’t get used to them driving around in these old cars. And there are still people referring to him as “THE Batman” rather than just “Batman”. Lot’s of gadgetry put this one firmly in the realm of science fiction as well.

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