Month: January 2018

Mystery of Marie Roget (1942)

MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET (1942)
Article 2417 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-8-2007
Posting Date: 3-25-2008
Directed by Phil Rosen
Featuring Patric Knowles, Maria Montez, Maria Ouspenskaya

When the body of a woman with a mutilated face is found, the victim is believed to be a missing actress. Then the actress shows up. Then she disappears again, and another body is found; this time it is really hers. Dupin investigates with the help of the local prefect.

If there is any Poe story that I would expect to undergo major revision before it was turned into a motion picture, this would be the one; it isn’t so much a story as speculation on the solution of a real-life murder case. This one has a story, though it’s not a particularly good one, but the cast is interesting, though it’s really hard to buy that Maria Montez (with a French accent) is the granddaughter of Maria Ouspenskaya (with a Maria Ouspenskaya accent). The latter is a suspect largely because she keeps a pet leopard (but, then, who doesn’t?), and, for that matter, the daughter is also a suspect (that is, until she becomes a victim). The horror elements are the fact that it comes from a Poe story, the presence of the leopard, and the gruesomeness of the murders. For me, most of the enjoyment of the movie is just watching Maria Ouspenskaya act, even in a strange-looking wig. Keep your eyes open for Charles Middleton as a curator of a zoo that gets a new addition to its menagerie.

 

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Mystery of Marie Roget (1942)

MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET (1942)
Article 2417 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-8-2007
Posting Date: 3-25-2008
Directed by Phil Rosen
Featuring Patric Knowles, Maria Montez, Maria Ouspenskaya

When the body of a woman with a mutilated face is found, the victim is believed to be a missing actress. Then the actress shows up. Then she disappears again, and another body is found; this time it is really hers. Dupin investigates with the help of the local prefect.

If there is any Poe story that I would expect to undergo major revision before it was turned into a motion picture, this would be the one; it isn’t so much a story as speculation on the solution of a real-life murder case. This one has a story, though it’s not a particularly good one, but the cast is interesting, though it’s really hard to buy that Maria Montez (with a French accent) is the granddaughter of Maria Ouspenskaya (with a Maria Ouspenskaya accent). The latter is a suspect largely because she keeps a pet leopard (but, then, who doesn’t?), and, for that matter, the daughter is also a suspect (that is, until she becomes a victim). The horror elements are the fact that it comes from a Poe story, the presence of the leopard, and the gruesomeness of the murders. For me, most of the enjoyment of the movie is just watching Maria Ouspenskaya act, even in a strange-looking wig. Keep your eyes open for Charles Middleton as a curator of a zoo that gets a new addition to its menagerie.

 

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Murder Mansion (1972)

MURDER MANSION (1972)
aka La Mansion de la niebla
Article 2416 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-7-2007
Posting Date: 3-24-2008
Directed by Francisco Loro Polop and Pedro Lazaga
Featuring Ida Galli, Analia Gade, Annalisa Nardi

Various travelers end up at a spooky mansion near a cemetery. There are rumors that the cemetery is haunted by vampires. Strange things happen.

The title on my copy of this movie certainly doesn’t make it sound much like a horror movie. In some ways, this is fitting; the movie itself seems to forget it’s a horror movie for most of its running time. This in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing; the trouble is, it doesn’t have much of anything really interesting going on for most of its running time either, as it seems more interested in the love lives of various poorly-differentiated characters. There are some twists at the end, but I saw them coming a mile away; I’ve always held that plot twists are only interesting if the plot itself is interesting, and this one bored me. A little gore and one interesting murder was about all that caught my attention. Not recommended.

 

0 CommentsLeave a comment

The Legend of Hillbilly John (1974)

THE LEGEND OF HILLBILLY JOHN (1974)
Article 2415 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-6-2007
Posting Date: 3-23-2008
Directed by John Newland
Featuring Hedges Capers, Denver Pyle, Susan Strasberg

A ballad singer from Appalachia becomes a defier; he battles evil with the help of his silver-stringed guitar.

This unusual and interesting fantasy is based on stories by Manly Wade Wellman, and to some extent, the movie feels a bit like an anthology with the same basic setting and several repeating characters. There’s something truly engaging about the concept, the setting, and the characters, with Denver Pyle and Severn Darden both quite memorable as the grandfather and the mysterious dowser who help the main character. I just wish it was better; the movie is quite confusing at times, especially in the early scenes, and Hedges Capers (as the title character) seems a little too seventies-leading-mannish to really make his character feel authentic. The music is a mixed bag; on a song by song basis, the music works best in proportion to how close it sounds to real folk ballad music and to how far it sounds from seventies singer-songwriter fare. The song that plays over the credits comes off best. The special effects are low-budget, but have a real charm, especially the “ugly bird”. If anything, it makes me want to seek out the Wellman stories and check them out myself; I sense a really great movie could be made from them, and could succeed where this one (a noble effort nonetheless) falls short.

 

0 CommentsLeave a comment

See No Evil (1971)

SEE NO EVIL (1971)
aka Blind Terror
Article 2414 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-5-2007
Posting Date: 3-22-2008
Directed by Richard Fleischer
Featuring Mia Farrow, Dorothy Alison, Robin Bailey

A blind woman is staying with relatives in a home in the English countryside. She returns there one day, unaware that the whole family has been murdered. Unfortunately, the murderer left a piece of evidence in the home, and he returns to get it…

Through no fault of its own, this movie started out on the wrong step with me; I mistakenly believed that Mia Farrow had played the lead in WAIT UNTIL DARK (it was Audrey Hepburn), and I found myself believing that Mia Farrow was just recycling a past success. This is patently unfair; not only was my assumption wrong, but this movie is really trying to be something else than a recycling of WAIT UNTIL DARK. Still, it started me on the wrong foot, and I was prepared to dislike this movie from the get-go. The opening moments of the movie annoyed me with what seemed to me fairly heavy-handed scenes about violence and sex in modern society (the exploitative double feature at the theater, the toy gun in the store window, etc.). As the movie progressed, I kept finding other things to annoy me; the general slickness of the production, at least one impossible-to-swallow plot element (just how long was that guy wandering around with a bullet in him?), the strident unpleasantness of Mia Farrow’s performance when she’s being terrorized (her voice takes on a shrill, grating quality in these scenes), and the movie’s almost non-stop attempts to make her situation go from bad to worse. Nevertheless, I now find myself wondering whether I might not have liked this one more if I hadn’t gone into it with the assumption I did. Somehow, I suspect I’ll never know, but as it sits now, this one left a bad taste in my mouth.

 

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Dr. Cook’s Garden (1971)

DR. COOK’S GARDEN (1971)
TV-Movie
Article 2413 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-4-2007
Posting Date: 3-21-2008
Directed by Ted Post
Featuring Bing Crosby, Frank Converse, Blythe Danner

A young doctor returns to his home town in the hopes of taking up practice with the town doctor who he’s known for years. The town seems blessed; all of the evil people die at an early age. The young doctor begins to think this is more than coincidence, so he begins to investigate the files of the town doctor…

Bing Crosby is the unlikeliest serial killer since Charlie Chaplin in MONSIEUR VERDOUX , and, like Chaplin’s character in that movie, he has a justification for his actions; whereas Verdoux’s was political, Dr. Cook’s is moral – he believes that by weeding out the evil people (note the garden metaphor), he helps the rest to grow happier and healthier. For some reason, the concept of a seemingly perfect town with a dreadful secret in its center made me recall THE STEPFORD WIVES , and I don’t think that’s a coincidence; both movies are based on works by Ira Levin. Though I’m not really too impressed with the directing or production of this movie, the story is truly interesting, the performances are good (especially from Crosby), and the moral dilemma that pops up at the end of the movie is fascinating, in that, as much as we can say that we shouldn’t “play God” in deciding who lives and who dies, we nonetheless do have opinions on who is good, who is evil, and who should die and who should live. All in all, this is one of the more interesting TV-Movies out there.

 

0 CommentsLeave a comment

The Dark Tower (1943)

THE DARK TOWER (1943)
Article 2412 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-3-2007
Posting Date: 3-20-2008
Directed by John Harlow
Featuring Ben Lyon, Anne Crawford, David Farrar

A struggling circus hits paydirt when they stumble across a man who has extraordinary hypnotic abilities. He is used in a high wire act, where he hypnotizes a woman to do dangerous feats on the high wire. However, he is not satisfied with the fame he acquires…

The plot is really nothing to write home about here; it’s basically a variation on the Svengali story, and there are very few surprises along the way. However, the film is well-directed, has a nice pace, and even the filler circus acts are fun. Especially of note here is the presence of the fourth-billed Herbert Lom as the hypnotist in question; it’s one of his very early roles, and he is wonderful in it. It’s also interesting to see William Hartnell, looking much younger than “Doctor Who” fans are used to, as a press agent who serves to promote the new hypnotist. My biggest question about the movie is the significance of the title; there really is no tower here as far as I can tell.

 

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Dangers of the Canadian Mounted (1948)

DANGERS OF THE CANADIAN MOUNTED (1948)
Serial
Article 2411 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-2-2007
Posting Date: 3-19-2008
Directed by Fred C. Brannon and Yakima Canutt
Featuring Jim Bannon, Virginia Belmont, Anthony Warde

Sergeant Royal of the Mounties patrols the town of Alcana, on the border between Alaska and Canada. He is hunting criminals who are after the lost treasure of Genghis Khan.

I’ll have to brush up on my history; I don’t recall Genghis Khan having spent a great deal of time in either Alaska or Canada, but then, I don’t have any record of him encountering Maciste, either. At any rate, he appears to have left a treasure in the area, and our dull hero spends most of his time trying to track down a henchman who is working for an unnamed boss (if you sit back and spend about ten seconds thinking about it, you should figure out who that is without having to sit through all twelve episodes) to locate the treasure, which of course, requires that he terrorize highway builders and try to procure books for their kidnapped expert on translating old languages. As a result, we get a lot of fairly ordinary fistfights (this was after the warehouse-wrecking battle royales of Republic’s better days) and lots of tepid cliffhangers; if scenes of people baling out of vehicles is your idea of fun, you’ll be in heaven with this one. There isn’t much fantastic content; mostly, it’s some slight horror/fantasy content having to do with some spooky caves. The most striking fantastic element occurs in the final episode, and has to do with the nature of the treasure that is found, but I won’t give that away, because it’s one of the few satisfying surprises in this one.

Gee, it’s been a long time since I’ve done a serial. I hope some of the remaining ones I have yet to see are better than this one.

 

0 CommentsLeave a comment

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975)
Article 2410 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-1-2007
Posting Date: 3-18-2008
Directed by Jim Sharman
Featuring Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick

Two young people engaged to be married find themselves stranded at the castle of Fr. Frank-N-Furter, who has created a creature named Rocky Horror.

I’ve heard tell that the best way to see this movie is at one of the repertory theaters where it plays weekly to an audience of dedicated fans who turn the movie into an interactive audience experience unlike anything else. I’m willing to believe that; the movie certainly lends itself to that sort of treatment; in fact, if I remember my reading correctly, the movie was intended to be watched in this fashion, as the same sort of thing happened during the stage presentations of the show. However, I watched it at home without the benefit of any of those dedicated fans, and have never seen it any other way, so I can only judge it on that level. And, watched in this environment, I’m afraid I found this compendium of horror, science fiction, rock music, sex, campy costumes and campy makeup less than fascinating; it starts out mildly interesting, but gets progressively more tedious as the movie progresses, no matter how many classic horror and science fiction movies it references along the way. Maybe it’s because I was left the impression that it really doesn’t add up to much of anything; if the movie really seems to be about anything, it’s about being campy, and I don’t find that a great attention holder. Still, a movie in which Meatloaf’s character dies a horrible death can’t be all bad. And I’m willing to bet that the presence of the aforementioned audience is what it really needs.

 

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Death Cruise (1974)

DEATH CRUISE (1974)
TV-Movie
Article 2409 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-31-2007
Posting Date: 3-17-2008
Directed by Ralph Senensky
Featuring Richard Long, Polly Bergen, Edward Albert

Three couples win an ocean cruise in a contest, but they discover that the contest was a trick; actually, they have all been targeted by an unknown person who wants to kill them all.

What you have here is something of a cross between TEN LITTLE INDIANS and an inverse episode of “The Love Boat” (all of the couples have troubled and unhappy marriages). The notion of characters being picked off one by one like this is a concept that pops up in horror quite a bit, so that appears to be the fantastic content here. As for the movie itself – well, I really don’t know what I think of this one. It’s fairly clever at points, but at others, it’s obvious, annoying, dull, and banal. There is little joy to be had in watching the endless scenes of the various married couples being unpleasant to each other, none of which add to the plot or the suspense. The movie does manage to generate a bit of suspense at times, and the central mystery (what do all of these people have in common that made them targets for the murderer) is fairly intriguing. Yet, in the final analysis, I’m not sure whether I like the explanations at the end of the movie, though I can see the cleverness; there’s something plain unsatisfying about it all. The cast also features Kate Jackson, Celeste Holm and Tom Bosley.

 

0 CommentsLeave a comment