Month: December 2016

Thunderball (1965)

THUNDERBALL (1965)
Article #1620 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-21-2005
Posting Date: 1-18-2006
Directed by Terence Young
Featuring Sean Connery, Claudine Auger, Adolfo Celi

James Bond tries to discover who was responsible for the theft of two atomic bombs which are being held for ransom.

Because of their marginal science fiction elements, I will most likely be covering all of the James Bond movies sooner or later. The only real surprise I have so far is that this is only the second one I’ve covered, especially given the plethora of Italian knock-offs that have passed my way. Maybe it’s just as well; at heart, I don’t really enjoy covering these movies, largely because I’m in the minority opinion as far as these things go. In short, I’m not particularly partial to them; I don’t think they’re the coolest movies ever made, and I can’t think of a single moment in my life where I actually felt that a Bond movie would be just the right thing for me at that moment. To me, they seem like homogenized male fantasies of sex and violence put forth with a certain degree of shameless cockiness; they’re shallow (by design) but incredibly stylish. They’re certainly not badly made, and there are individual moments that are quite wonderful. Furthermore, because the fantasy does have a certain appeal, the movies can hold my interest for a little while, but I have yet to see one that really holds it for the length of the movie; somewhere at the halfway point, my attention starts to flag. Maybe if they were shorter…

At any rate, because the series doesn’t generate a strong reaction to me, I have trouble telling them apart; each one pretty much looks like the others to me. As a result, I find it difficult to comment on them. About my only real gauge of quality I have is to how good the villains and subvillains are, and on this level, this one is a bit of a disappointment. Adolfo Celi is mostly memorable for throwing people to the sharks and his eyepatch, and his hired thugs are singularly uninteresting compared to Oddjob. Yet at heart, I don’t think the movie works for me any less than some of the others, and the only real problem is that the underwater fight scenes do get particularly tiresome; I can only see so many scenes of spearguns going off before I nod off. If I have any hobby at all during these movies, it’s trying to see how many different actors end up playing Felix Leiter at one time or another during the series.

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The Terror (1938)

THE TERROR (1938)
Article #1619 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-20-2005
Posting Date: 1-17-2006
Directed by Richard Bird
Featuring Bernard Lee, Linden Travers, John Turnbull

Ten years after the robbery of a gold shipment, two accomplices who were jailed for the crime get out of prison and decide to track down the mastermind of the robbery who turned them in. Events lead them to a spooky old house with secrets of its own.

I have to admit that I found this British Edgar Wallace / Old Dark House movie to be very enjoyable. It has a lot of the usual elements of the Old Dark House genre, including a mysterious hooded figure, murders, secret passages and organ playing late at night. The real selling point of this one, though, is the interesting cast. Arthur Wontner, who played Sherlock Holmes several times during the early thirties, is on hand as the owner of the mansion with a secret, and a young Bernard Lee (famed for playing M in the James Bond movies) as the drunken ne’er-do-well who isn’t quite what he seems (for one thing, he’s not really drunk). The big plus, though, is the presence of the great Alastair Sim as the smarter of the two ex-convicts, and though he really isn’t given a lot to do, he steals every scene he’s in. You do have to like the genre to fully enjoy this one, but if you do, this is a good one.

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Tarzan and the Green Goddess (1938)

TARZAN AND THE GREEN GODDESS (1938)
(Feature Version of Serial)
Article #1618 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-19-2005
Posting Date: 1-16-2006
Directed by Edward A. Kull and Wilbur McGaugh
Featuring Bruce Bennett, Ula Holt, Frank Baker

Tarzan tries to recover a stolen idol which contains the formula for a super-explosive.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the serial from which this feature was culled, THE NEW ADVENTURES OF TARZAN, but I do remember that the first episode was far and away the best part. I was hoping going into this one that it would get most of its footage from that part of the serial, but no such luck; this mostly comes from the later episodes, in which Tarzan pursues Raglan, who has absconded with the idol. I still think Bruce Bennett (here billed as Herman Brix) makes a decent Tarzan even if his version of the Tarzan yell sounds like a cross between a coyote and Minnie Pearl. Still, the thing that most stood out for me watching this condensation was that as far as arch-villains went, Raglan (played by Ashton Dearholt billed as Don Castello) was one of the most put-upon and pathetic. He spends most of the movie toting the heavy idol around on his back (a proper arch-villain would have an assistant for that), and his opening scene has him telling how terrified he was at being stalked by Tarzan; he’s the arch-villain as harried and hapless victim. I also wonder about any feature version of a serial that omits the spectacular initial theft of the idol, but sees fit to include the scene with the comic-relief character chasing the monkey that stole his yo-yo.

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Symptoms (1974)

SYMPTOMS (1974)
(a.k.a. BLOOD VIRGIN)
Article #1617 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-18-2005
Posting Date: 1-15-2006
Directed by Jose Ramon Larraz
Featuring Angela Pleasence, Mike Grady, Lorna Heilbron

A troubled woman invites a female friend to stay with her at a lonely, isolated country estate. However, mysterious noises and strange events begin to make the friend suspect that there is someone else in the estate as well.

This movie makes good use of sound, is quite creepy, and has a strong air of mystery to it. It’s a bit on the slow side, but as long as the mystery drives the story, it holds the attention. Unfortunately, a movie like this has to start delivering on some of the mystery, and sometimes the revelations aren’t quite as satisfying as the mystery itself, and such is the case here. In particular, I was disappointed by the revelations about the true intentions of the handyman, but pretty much all of the final revelations disappoint. It might have worked if Angela Pleasance had been able to make her character as compelling as Anthony Perkins’ in PSYCHO or Catherine Deneuve’s in REPULSION (two movies which this one will remind you of), but she never quite makes the character gel. In the end, the sheer simplicity and ordinariness of the characters’ motivations leaves me feeling slightly cheated, and I suspect that this is one movie that doesn’t lend itself to rewatching.

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The Sword in the Stone (1963)

THE SWORD IN THE STONE (1963)
Article #1616 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-17-2005
Posting Date: 1-14-2006
Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman
Featuring the voices of Karl Swenson, Rickie Sorensen, Sebastian Cabot

A young boy named Wart meets the great wizard Merlin, who takes him in order to give him an education.

For me, the story of Disney’s progress with animated feature films from the thirties to the eighties was one of steady decline; they reached their peak early on (possibly with SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS), and each succeeding feature (with a few exceptions) lost a bit of that magic. Granted, you might not notice it unless you start comparing the earlier movies with the later ones, and I suspect for the most part it didn’t bother the kids, but there is a dropping off of quality. It wasn’t entirely their fault; animated features were expensive and risky, and corners had to be cut to keep them profitable. This entry from the early sixties (based on the first of a series of clever novels by T. H. White which retold the King Arthur story) has some amusing moments, but the script is pretty weak. We have several scenes of Merlin engaging in magic that are reminiscent of the fairy godmother sequences from CINDERELLA (which, if you think about it, this movie somewhat resembles), then we have some sequences where Merlin turns Wart into a variety of animals, and though these sequences are amusing enough (particularly the squirrel sequence), they really don’t take the story anywhere because Wart really doesn’t learn anything from them that he can apply to his real life experiences (at least in the story as is). There is a talking owl, a duel between Merlin and Madam Mim the witch, some anachronistic jokes (Merlin is portrayed as something of a time traveler, but if my memory serves me right, in the novel he actually lived backwards through time), and lots of cuteness. But in comparison to many of Disney’s earlier movies, it’s a rather bland and soulless affair for the most part.

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The Story of Three Loves (1953)

THE STORY OF THREE LOVES (1953)
Article #1615 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-16-2005
Posting Date: 1-13-2006
Directed by Vincente Minnelli and Gottfried Reinhardt
Featuring Pier Angeli, Ethel Barrymore, Leslie Caron

Three people aboard an ocean liner muse about the loves of their lives.

What we have here is another anthology of stories, only one of which has fantastic content. The quality is somewhat variable, though I feel that it makes its progression from the weakest story to the strongest.

The first story involves a ballet dancer who is forced to quit dancing due to her heart condition. She then meets a ballet impressario who is smitten with her and wants her to dance, unaware of her condition. This segment features strong performances from all concerned, but at heart the story is straightforward tearjerker. It also suffers from having been seen by me too soon after having seen the superior THE RED SHOES, with which it shares some of its themes, a similarity only increased by the presence once again of Moira Shearer as the ballet dancer. Ultimately, the predictability of the story blunts its impact.

The second story is the most light-hearted. Here, a young boy who hates his governess, because he’s tired of having to learn French from her and of having to listen to her recite love poetry, meets a witch who gives him the power to turn into a full-grown man for a short while. In some ways, this segment is something of a gender-reversed version of “Cinderella”. The performances are once again quite good, and the story has some surprises. The only real problem I have with it is the presence of Ricky Nelson as the young version of Tommy; it’s not his performance that is at fault, but his voice was just shrill enough to start hurting my ears before this segment was finished.

It’s the final segment of the movie that’s the real gem. It’s the story of a disgraced trapeze artist hoping to make a comeback who hooks up with a melancholy, suicidal and guilt-ridden woman. Both Pier Angeli and Kirk Douglas are excellent in this story, which is the darkest of the bunch and shot through with real tragedy. This segment benefits enormously from Douglas’s athletic performance during the trapeze sequences, and my favorite part of the movie is when Douglas trains Angeli on the tricks of the trapeze trade, a sequence which manages to be effectively detailed and realistic. I also like the surprise ending of this one, though others may not. The cast also features Farley Granger, James Mason, Agnes Moorehead, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Richard Anderson.

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Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (1979)
Article #1614 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-15-2005
Posting Date: 1-12-2006
Directed by Robert Wise
Featuring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley

Admiral Kirk takes over captainship of the Enterprise to investigate a mysterious and deadly force that is headed for the Earth.

From a story perspective, this movie could have easily fit into an episode of the TV series which spawned it. However, a TV episode wouldn’t have suffered from the main problem of this movie; we wouldn’t have had endless scenes of people standing around staring at special effects. Still, I can’t be too hard on this one; the story itself isn’t bad, and when I watch it, I find myself transported to that time in the late seventies when the phrase “Star Trek” conjured up memories only of the original series, which had been canceled almost ten years earlier and had since then existed solely in syndication (outside of a short-lived animated version). At that time, it was a real joy to see all these characters again; in particular, Kelley’s opening scenes as the cranky Dr. “Bones” McCoy brought back floods of nostalgia for me. And I think the movie works well enough for what it turned out to be; if it had been the only “Star Trek” movie, it would remain a disappointment, but as the launch of a franchise, it passes muster. The second movie in the series would kick things into high gear. Apparently, the Director’s Cut of this one improves things considerably.

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2 + 5: Mission Hydra (1965)

2 + 5: MISSION HYDRA (1965)
(a.k.a. STAR PILOTS / 2 + 5: MISSIONE HYDRA)
Article #1613 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-14-2005
Posting Date: 1-11-2006
Directed by Pietro Francisi
Featuring Leonora Ruffo, Mario Nevelli, Roland Lesaffre

Scientists investigate radiation readings in Sardinia, only to discover they come from a stranded spaceship inhabited by aliens intent on using the humans to fix their spaceship and help them return to Hydra.

Some thoughts on 2 + 5: MISSION HYDRA…

1) Italian science fiction movies from the sixties can be frustrating to watch. They’re usually hard to follow, shrill, busy and directed by Antonio Margheriti. However, they all look good next to this one, one of the most incoherent and confusing movies ever made.

2) Why is it incoherent? No doubt, a bad script translation and awful dubbing are partially to blame. However, that doesn’t seem to be the worst problem, which is that huge chunks of exposition seem to have been forgotten, and the movie is edited in such a way that when explanations do arrive, they are either so divorced from the situations they’re explaining that they’re of no use, or there’s something else going on to distract you from the explanation. At any rate, trying to follow the plot of this film is enough to give you a headache. I’ve seen the movie almost eight times, and I’m still not sure what’s going on most of the time.

3) In the above comment, I mentioned being distracted during the movie. This is not a vague comment, but a reference to one specific element of the film; namely, actress Leontine May. No, she’s not distracting because she’s so beautiful; she’s distracting because she’s the most blatant scene stealer in the history of cinema. Practically every moment she’s on the screen, she is striking poses, making gestures, primping, or wearing bizarre outfits, all of which seems designed to draw the viewer’s attention from the business at hand to looking at her. And the movie just lets her get away with it. I know people who’ve seen this film who’ve speculated as to just how many people on the production crew she must have been sleeping with (director, cinematographer, costumer, etc.) to get away with this level of scene-stealing.

4) As long as we’re on the subject of Leontine’s costumes, let me mention a couple of the more memorable ones. In the second half of the movie she wears what looks to be a red full-body fishnet stocking with tufts of feathers to cover up the naughty bits, and in the early part of the movie she wears black pants with wide white stripes which are so eye-catching that you can do nothing in those scenes but stare at her pants. Still, those pants do serve a purpose; since the movie does such a poor job of establishing who plays who or getting you to remember the names of the characters, it does give you a chance to come up with a handy nickname for her character; namely, Skunk Girl.

5) If you can somehow get your attention away from Skunk Girl for a few moments, you might notice that sword-and-sandal mainstays Kirk Morris and Gordon Mitchell also appear in the movie.

6) The movie is full of howlingly funny and inappropriate lines. Unfortunately, most of them aren’t funny unless you see them in the context of the movie. However, one has become a bit of a legend among those of my friends who have viewed this one; namely, when several gun-wielding Oriental spies show up and take the time to tell the heroes that “We’re not Chinese – We’re Oriental!”

7) At about the hour mark in this film, we have a segment of footage about a space station full of characters who hadn’t shown up in the movie so far, and once the sequence is over, are never heard of again. I sometimes wonder if footage from the wrong movie ended up in this one. It’s hard to tell; it’s only marginally more incoherent than the rest of the movie.

8) This movie was released in the late seventies after the success of STAR WARS. For this release, it was renamed STAR PILOTS. What I wouldn’t give to have attended a screening of this one at that time just to see the reactions of people expecting a STAR WARS-style extravaganza.

9) There are moments here where characters leave the spaceship while its in flight to either work on the outside of it or to visit another nearby spaceship. From the way these people propel themselves in deep space during these scenes, I can only come to one conclusion: there are free-floating trampolines in space.

10) Yes, I will reiterate here that I’ve probably seen this movie eight times. Why? I think I’m just fascinated by a movie this jumbled that it takes that many viewings just to figure out what’s going on. Or maybe I’m just a masochist. At any rate, you should now have enough information to know whether this one is worth your effort or not. It’s recommended only for people like me and anyone really into skunk pants.

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Spirits of the Dead (1968)

SPIRITS OF THE DEAD (1968)
(a.k.a. HISTOIRES EXTRAORDINAIRES /
TALES OF MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION)
Article #1612 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-13-2005
Posting Date: 1-10-2006
Directed by Roger Vadim, Louis Malle, Federico Fellini
Featuring Brigitte Bardot, Alain Delon, Jane Fonda

Three noted French/Italian directors take on three stories from Edgar Allan Poe.

To some extent, I think how you react to this anthology of Poe stories is dependent on how you feel about the individual directors. I’ve never had much use for Roger Vadim, who helms the first segment “Metzengerstein”; Vadim seems a lot more interested in outlandish costumes and hedonistic debauchery than in telling an interesting story, and the segment suffers for it. Things improve considerably with the second story; in general, I like the work of Louis Malle, and I like this story, and though it’s heavy on the sadism, at least I feel that the sadism is more the obsession of the character of William Wilson than that of the director’s; in other words, it seems relevant. However, the real keeper here is Federico Fellini’s wild and very liberal adaptation of Poe’s “Toby Dammit”. Fans of the story probably won’t recognize it until the end, but Fellini’s adaptation (which involves Terence Stamp as a drunken, arrogant British actor who comes to Rome to star in a movie in which the Christ story is told as a western, and who hopes to get a Ferrari out of the deal) allows him to indulge in his fascination with strange faces and bizarre situations, and it’s a joy. It even retains the comic feel of the original story. Far and away, the third story is the one that makes this movie worth watching.

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Spellbound (1945)

SPELLBOUND (1945)
Article #1611 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-12-2005
Posting Date: 1-9-2005
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Featuring Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov

The head of a mental asylum is retiring, and a woman who practices psychiatry there falls in love with the man who replaces him. However, she discovers that the replacement is not the actual famous psychiatrist he’s supposed to be, but an amnesiac who may have murdered the original psychiatrist.

Fantastic content: The theme of madness is present throughout, which nudges the movie a little ways into the realm of horror. Also, the Salvador Dali dream sequences are weird enough to give a touch of fantasy to the proceedings. Nonetheless, this one is marginal.

Hitchcock’s movies from the forties are in general quite highly regarded, but I have to admit to not quite enjoying them as much as I do his works from other decades. It’s not that I think they’re badly done. Rather, it seems to me that he doesn’t quite ratchet up the level of suspense as well as he did both before and after; as a result, I tend to get a little bit bored with them. Such is the case with this one, as the fairly long buildup starts to take its toll on me. I think the movie also suffers somewhat from its use of Freudian psychology; it was innovative and relevant for its time, but now it seems dated and simplistic. Nonetheless, the movie is well done; the acting is top notch (especially from Ingrid Bergman and Leo G. Carrol), the story is quite fascinating, the dream sequences are well done, and the ending is fantastic. I also love the scene involving the straight razor and the glass of milk; it’s one of the tensest moments of the movie, and it has a great resolution. All in all, the strengths outweigh any weaknesses here, and it is a worthy entry in Hitchcock’s oeuvre.

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