Month: July 2017

Road to Bali (1952)

ROAD TO BALI (1952)
Article 2016 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-21-2006
Posting Date: 2-18-2007
Directed by Hal Walker
Featuring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour

Two entertainers get involved with natives who are after a box of jewels.

Yes, it’s another Hope/Crosby road movie, and if you’ve seen one of them, you know the basic routine. In this one, the fantastic aspects are a little more prominent; in particular, there is a giant squid that threatens Bob Hope when he’s deep sea diving. There’s also a magic flute that causes women to appear out of baskets (including Jane Russell at one point), a couple of men-in-gorilla-suits (one of which, playing a female gorilla, takes a bit of a liking to both Hope and Crosby) and a native tribe of headhunters who worship a volcano. Other cameos include Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Humphrey Bogart (who appears in a clip from THE AFRICAN QUEEN) and Bing’s brother Bob Crosby, who gets a shot in the movie. Like the other Road movies, this is amusing fun.

 

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The Pied Piper of Hamelin (1957)

THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN (1957)
Article 2015 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-20-2006
Posting Date: 2-17-2007
Directed by Bretaigne Windust
Featuring Van Johnson, Claude Rains, Lori Nelson

A town beset by rats hires a magical piper to get rid of the rodents. Then, when the mayor decides to get out of paying the piper his fee, the piper decides to exact a fitting revenge…

When reviewing children’s movies, I don’t really try too hard to figure out how it will go over with children; I’m really more interested in how well it goes over with my adult self. I quite like this one, and one reason for this is that there is much to interest the adult viewer, what with the political satire surrounding the mayor’s machinations. In fact, I think this fairy tale is more geared for adults anyway; after all, it is the adults who have the lesson to learn in this one. I also quite like the music, much of which comes from Grieg; I especially love the use of “In the Hall of the Mountain King”. The acting is also good, especially from Claude Rains (as the Mayor) and Van Johnson in the dual role of Trusom and the Piper. There are some very strong scenes here; the scene where the children are led into the mountain is the one scene I recall from a viewing many years ago (and it’s still quite powerful, especially when one child is left behind), and the scene where the piper climbs to the top of the bell tower to give his warning to the people is also memorable; pay close attention to the statues in this scene. And if I were Jim Backus’s character, I’d be very grateful that cannon did not go off.

 

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Crucible of Horror (1970)

CRUCIBLE OF HORROR (1970)
aka THE CORPSE
Article 2014 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-19-2006
Posting Date: 2-16-2007
Directed by Viktors Ritelis
Featuring Michael Gough, Yvonne Mitchell, Sharon Gurney

A cruel and abusive man is targeted for murder by his wife and daughter, but things don’t quite go in the direction they expect.

I’ve often wondered how many movies you could describe by merely mentioning the movie which served as a template for it; in this case, I was fairly certain by the halfway point that I was watching a variation of DIABOLIQUE. It may still be one, but I’m not quite sure, largely because the end of the movie didn’t answer my questions. There is the distinct possibility that I may have missed some subtle plot points that explain the whole thing, and that this is one of those movies that you just need to think through before you can come to any conclusions. Unfortunately, this is not a movie I really care to think about; despite the fact that the acting is quite good from all concerned, the movie itself is so dreary and depressing that all I wanted to do after it was over was to shake it off, not think about it. I do have two possible explanations for the ending, but I don’t like either of them. One (which involves figuring out what a fourth character who is not present during most of the main action of the movie may be up to) was what I was anticipating for most of the movie, and the lack of a surprise would have been depressing, and the other (about the mental state of one of the central characters) makes me suspect that most of what happened didn’t happen. Neither of these explanations leave me satisfied, and the various bizarre arty touches (jaggedly edited flashbacks and a preponderance of bizarre close-ups) don’t really do much for me either. All in all, I found this one frustrating and unrewarding.

 

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Magdalena, Possessed by the Devil (1974)

MAGDALENA, POSSESSED BY THE DEVIL (1974)
aka MAGDALENA, VOM TEUFEL BESESSEN, BEYOND THE DARKNESS
Article 2013 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-18-2006
Posting Date: 2-15-2007
Directed by Walter Boos
Featuring Dagmar Hedrich, Werner Bruhns, Michael Hinz

A woman at a boarding school gets possessed by the devil, cusses a lot, is raped by invisible demons, and uses her wiles to lure men into killing each other, makes furniture move, and baffles scientists.

If you didn’t know THE EXORCIST was a big hit, you might figure it out by how many imitations were made in its wake. This one ups the sleaze factor by making the possessed girl several years older; that way, they can add a lot more sex and nudity to the proceedings to compensate for the lack of blood and pea soup. There are a few good ideas in the mix, but for the most part, it’s an unfocused poorly-dubbed mess. Exploitation director Walter Boos helms this one; he’s mostly known for a series of movies that begin with the words “Schoolgirl Report”, which should give you an idea where he’s coming from. The ending is probably the most memorable part of the movie; it’s probably the only thing I’ll remember about it in a few months, but that doesn’t mean it works; it’s the type of scene that would be pretty effective in the middle of a movie like this, but as a climax, it’s – well – anticlimactic. This one is pretty much for fans of sleaze who could care less about the story.

 

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Cinderfella (1960)

CINDERFELLA (1960)
Article 2012 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-17-2006
Posting Date: 2-14-2007
Directed by Frank Tashlin
Featuring Jerry lewis, Ed Wynn, Judith Anderson

The heir to a hidden fortune finds himself oppressed by his stepmother and two stepbrothers. He then meets his fairy godfather, who tells him that he will hin the hand of Princess Charming.

I don’t quite know what to make of this attempt to turn the old fairy tale into a vehicle for Jerry Lewis. Despite having a simple and basic story to use as a template, the script seems more intent with muddying up the proceedings by introducing a subplot about a hidden fortune, making oddball observations about the effect of the Cinderella story, and playing for pathos at all the wrong times. Though I loved Lewis’s comic persona when I was a kid, as an adult I find it gets old quickly, and I think it doesn’t lend itself at all well to the pathos that it strives for on occasion. Also, with the exception of the musical numbers by Count Basie and his orchestra, the music numbers here are extremely weak; Lewis really shouldn’t sing. Still, the movie has an interesting cast, what with Ed Wynn, Judith Anderson, Henry Silva and Robert Hutton on hand; Anderson in particular does an excellent job bringing to life and fleshing out the stepmother. And Lewis did have some real comic gifts; my favorite moment here is when, while listening to a Count Basie number on the radio, he puts on a pantomime of playing the various instruments, a sequence which nonetheless has nothing at all to do with the story.

 

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Her Husband’s Affairs (1947)

HER HUSBAND’S AFFAIRS (1947)
Article 2011 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-16-2006
Posting Date: 2-13-2007
Directed by S. Sylvan Simon
Featuring Lucille Ball, Franchot Tone, Edward Everett Horton

An ad executive tries to profit off of creations from a scientist whose experiments he is financing, but when the creations backfire, he finds himself in hot water and has to be bailed out by his ever-resourceful wife.

In some ways, this movie sets the pattern for the type of shtick that would be a mainstay on “I Love Lucy”, with one big exception; whereas Lucy Ricardo’s plans would often backfire, those of the character she plays here are rousing successes and manage to save her husband’s hash on numerous occasions. It’s an amusing enough comedy, especially during the first half, when the executive has to handle an ad campaign for straw hats, a cream that allows men (and women) to remove facial hair without shaving, followed by a cream (the same one, by the way) that will cure baldness. Eventually, though, the amusement is undercut by the fact that the ad executive is not only ungrateful to his wife for her help, but actively hostile as well, and she is forced to feel guilty for being fast-thinking, clever and helpful. The movie in this sense is part of a sexist post-WWII trend towards getting women out of the workplace (which they entered during WWII due to the fact that the men were out fighting) and back in the homes “where they belonged”; the wife is made to feel bad about being useful in the real world and not staying in the kitchen. After a while, her husband’s attitude becomes rather unpleasant and grating. This isn’t Franchot Tone’s fault – it’s the script that’s written that way. In fact, I think Tone does a good job of making this jerk somewhat likable, which is no mean feat. The cast also features the Edward Everett Horton (whose baldness sets up a later situation) and Gene Lockhart, as well as Larry Parks (playing himself) and Dwayne Hickman.

 

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Alf’s Button Afloat (1938)

ALF’S BUTTON AFLOAT (1938)
Article 2010 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-15-2006
Posting Date: 2-12-2007
Directed by Marcel Varnel
Featuring Bud Flanagan, Chesney Allen, Jimmy Nervo

Six men are hoodwinked into joining the marines, but one of them discovers the button on his jacket is actually (through the miracle of recycling) Aladdin’s lamp, and that he has control of the genie. Hilarity ensues.

This is only the second movie I’ve seen featuring a British congregation of comedians known as “The Crazy Gang”, the other being LIFE IS A CIRCUS. I don’t know much about them, but I’m not particularly impressed with their comedy. Maybe it’s just too British, though I don’t have the same problem with Monty Python. In truth, though, I think their slapstick antics, energetic though they are, are uninspired, not particularly well thought out, and repetitive. Part of the problem is that the six characters really aren’t very well differentiated, and they come across most of the time as if all of them are trying to be funny at once, without anything in the way of teamwork, comic give-and-take, or real chemistry, and they fail to establish themselves as distinct personalities. I think this is crucial to slapstick comedy; think of how you can always tell apart the individual characters in Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, and the Three Stooges, and you’ll see what I’m getting at. As a result, it’s no surprise that the best moments here are individual gags (Alf’s three-word comment when he first meets the genie, which is then interpreted as a wish is the best moment here) or the ones that feature the best delineated character, the genie as played by Alastair Sim, and he’s not even a member of the gang. Apparently, this was based on a play by W.A. Darlington, who wrote several about Alf Higgins, some of which were converted into movies.

 

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La cabeza de Pancho Villa (1957)

LA CABEZA DE PANCHO VILLA (1957)
aka THE HEAD OF PANCHO VILLA
Article 2009 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-14-2006
Posting Date: 2-11-2007
Directed by Chano Urueta
Featuring Luis Aguilar, Flor Silvestre, Jaime Fernandez

A singing cowboy and his comic-relief sidekick encounter a black-hooded cult which seems interested in a box that is large enough to contain the head of Pancho Villa.

Yes, it’s the fourth unsubtitled and undubbed Mexican movie I’ve seen in a row, and this will happen sometimes; since I order several movies at once, and since you have to go to specialty sites to find these movies, I’m likely to end up reviewing several in a row. The odd thing about this group is that the first three seemed quite different from most of the Mexican movies I’ve seen to date; this one, however, is much more what I’ve come to expect from a Mexican horror movie. It is also fairly impenetrable; I think some of the plot is explained in narration that I can’t understand. It’s a horror western with a singing cowboy, a comic sidekick, a grave-robbing sequence, a mysterious head-sized box, a black hooded cult, an execution device that involves an electric chair attached to a lightning rod, a ghostly long-haired figure, skeletons in a swamp, and a man clad in white who wears a black hood over his head that makes him look like a headless person when he stands against the right background. Though it is possible to laugh about that last special effect, I do think it works better than the long-torso outfits used in other headless man movies. It’s something of a hodge-podge, and I suspect that, if I knew what was going on, that this one would be pretty weak, though still better than SWAMP OF THE LOST MONSTER .

Starting tomorrow, back to movies in English!

 

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Yambao (1957)

YAMBAO (1957)
aka CRY OF THE BEWITCHED
Article 2008 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-13-2006
Posting Date: 2-10-2007
Directed by Alfredo B. Crevenna
Featuring Ninon Sevilla, Ramon Gay, Rosa Elena Durgel

A young native woman in Cuba in 1850 finds herself attracted to a the owner of a sugar plantation, and she is tempted into using voodoo to win him from his wife.

The plot above is a bit of an approximation, as this is another Mexican movie, undubbed and unsubtitled. This one is somewhat reminiscent of those all-black horror movies of the thirties, such as THE DEVIL’S DAUGHTER. It’s a compendium of voodoo and soap opera, and horror fans may be disappointed that the soap opera seems to dominate for most of the movie. However, the movie is also a musical, and it is here that the movie really gains its power; the native music, singing and dancing is simply enthralling, and it permeates the movie in much the same way that music drives BLACK ORPHEUS. It was the music that finally won me over here, and I was somewhat surprised to see the movie sitting with a lowly 1.8 rating on IMDB, but that’s with only six votes, and two of those gave it the highest rating. This makes me wonder if there is a dubbed version around, and if in the dubbed version, the music was redubbed as well; if so, such an act most likely would have destroyed the movie’s greatest appeal. I’m glad I saw this one in its original language, and it makes me glad that we’re just starting to see some of these Mexican movies released subtitled and dubbed; the more I see of them, the more I’m convinced that some very strong movies came from there.

 

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Dos fantasmas y una muchacha (1959)

DOS FANTASMAS Y UNA MUCHACHA (1959)
aka TWO GHOSTS AND A GIRL
Article 2007 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-12-2006
Posting Date: 2-9-2007
Directed by Rogelio A. Gonzalez
Featuring German Valdes, Manuel ‘Loco’ Valdes, Ana Luisa Peluffo

At the turn of the century, two gentleman have a duel in a theater over a musical performer and end up killing each other. Their ghosts remain to haunt the theater. Years later, they encounter a beautiful woman who appears to be a descendant of the performer, and have to save her from bank robbers.

When the main title of my review is left in the native language of its country of origin, that is usually a sign that I’ve had to watch the movie in its undubbed and unsubtitled state. This, being largely slapstick comedy, suffers very little from this handicap; you can tell from the facial expressions and body language what is going on most of the time. It’s all pretty silly, and at times the manic visual humor rises to HELLZAPOPPIN’ levels, especially a bizarre musical number which features a nonstop barrage of ethnic stereotypes to a very familiar novelty tune. The split-screen special effects are a bit primitive, but I have to admit that the cast is game, and everyone involved seems to be having a good time. Horror fans should also keep their eyes open for a short sequence in which a woman is attacked by the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Wolf Man, the Mummy and the Frankenstein Monster (and maybe Dracula – I started to lose track) all at once, but it turns out they’re just actors in a movie. It’s all rather charming in its way, and if you’ve never tried watching a foreign movie without subtitles or dubbing, this would be a good one to start with.

 

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