Month: July 2018

Those Fantastic Flying Fools (1967)

THOSE FANTASTIC FLYING FOOLS (1967)
aka Jules Verne’s Rocket to the Moon
Article 2721 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-18-2008
Posting Date: 1-24-2009
Directed by Don Sharp
Featuring Burl Ives, Troy Donahue, Gert Frobe
Country: UK

P.T. Barnum attends a lecture on a new explosive and decides to finance the building of a rocket to the moon using the explosive as propulsion. However, he runs into trouble with spies and saboteurs.

At heart, this comic take on Jules Verne’s “From the Earth to the Moon” is really not very good; the pace is slow (it seems a lot longer than its 95 minute running time), the plot is contrived, and it’s a little short of laughs. But it does have a good cast (which includes Terry-Thomas, Lionel Jeffries and Dennis Price as well as those listed above), and its sense of geniality help make it fairly watchable, and there are some decent laughs in the mix. The best part is the beginning, where we see several scientific endeavors go awry. And, whatever its flaws, it’s a lot more entertaining than the snooze-inducing straight version of the story from the fifties.

 

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Body Snatcher From Hell (1968)

BODY SNATCHER FROM HELL (1968)
aka Kyuketsuki Gokemidoro; Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell
Article 2720 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-26-2008
Posting Date: 1-23-2009
Directed by Hajime Sato
Featuring Teruo Yoshida, Tomomi Sato, Eizo Kitamura
Country: Japan

An airplane makes a crash landing in the desert, stranding its passengers in the middle of nowhere. They battle each other for survival, and become targets of vampiric creatures from outer space.

This is far from a perfect film; for one thing, it’s a little too obvious in putting forth its subtext about the inherent baseness of the human animal. It’s also a little too shrill as well. Nevertheless, it’s so effective at throwing jarring visions at us (such as the bloody suicide of birds hurling themselves against the airplane) and assaulting us with grotesque imagery (the scenes where the aliens take possession of the humans is unforgettable) that it ends up being effective anyway; the movie certainly has the courage of its convictions. Almost all of the characters are unpleasant in some way; we have the bribe-taking politician, the arms manufacturer who sells his wife for political favors, an assassin, a rather heartless psychiatrist who sees his fellow humans as subjects in an experiment, etc. Even a relatively sympathetic character (a woman whose husband died in Vietnam) turns nasty when things turn bad. With all this human ugliness on display, it’s perhaps no surprise that the two characters who aren’t corrupt aren’t able to redeem the world; after all, the aliens are depending on man’s self-destructive capabilities to aid them in their own quest to take over the world. In this scenario, it’s no surprise the movie ends on a nihilistic note, which is quite appropriate given what comes before. This one is memorable and disturbing.

 

0 CommentsLeave a comment

The Ghost (1963)

THE GHOST (1963)
aka Lo Spettro
Article 2719 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-15-2008
Posting Date: 1-22-2009
Directed by Riccardo Freda
Featuring Barbara Steele, Peter Baldwin, Elio Jotta
Country: Italy

A doctor is having an affair with a rich man’s wife. She urges him to poison her husband, which he does. Afterwards, they begin to suspect the husband has come back from the grave.

One of my sources claims that director Riccardo Freda bet that he could write and film a movie in one week, and this is the result. If that story is true, then I will give him credit; he managed to come up with a coherent story, which is more than Roger Corman managed to do with THE TERROR. It’s something of a loose sequel to THE HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK, a movie which I quite like, but this one dispenses with the necrophilia angle, which was actually for me the best touch of that movie. Without it, this movie must rely on standard sixties Italian horror trappings and the presence of Barbara Steele to make it work. Unfortunately, I’m not a particular fan of Barbara Steele, and I usually find the standard sixties Italian horror trappings to be a little dull and predictable, so I find it only mildly entertaining. However, some of the fault must surely go to the weak dubbing on this one.

Addendum: According to Tim Lucas, this is not a movie Riccardo Freda made on a bet, though the story is true of a couple of other films of his.

 

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Gamera vs. Monster X (1970)

GAMERA VS. MONSTER X (1970)
aka Gamera tai Daimaju Jaiga
Article 2718 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-14-2008
Posting Date: 1-21-2009
Directed by Noriaki Yuasa
Featuring Tsutomu Takakuwa, Kelly Varis, Katherine Murphy
Country: Japan

When a stone idol on Wester Island is removed so that it can be brought to
Expo 70 for display, a monster that it was keeping prisoner is resurrected. It’s up to Gamera to defeat the monster and save Expo 70.

The movies that bookend this entry of the Gamera series (GAMERA VS GUIRON and GAMERA VS ZIGRA) both go off the goofy meter a lot more than this one. Nevertheless, this is one of the more solid entries of the Gamera series; Jiger is one of the better (and better-looking) monsters Gamera faced, and he’s got an interesting array of attacks that take Gamera out of the action not just once (as is usual in a Gamera movie), but twice. It’s the second one of these that gives the movie its most memorable sequence; Jiger injects Gamera with its eggs, causing a miniature version of the monster to grow inside of him, and two children take a miniature submarine and enter Gamera’s body (a la FANTASTIC VOYAGE) to root out the problem. Yes, it’s typical Gamera silliness, but it keeps the plot moving at a brisk pace, it mostly avoids boring sequences common in other movies of the series, and not once does it fall back on lengthy clips from previous movies in the series to fill out its running time. In fact, it may be the most consistently entertaining of the sixties/seventies Gamera movies.

 

0 CommentsLeave a comment

The Flesh Eaters (1964)

THE FLESH EATERS (1964)
Article 2717 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-12-2008
Posting Date: 1-20-2009
Directed by Jack Curtis
Featuring Martin Kosleck, Byron Sanders, Barbara Wilkin
Country: USA

When a hurricane forces a small plane to land on an island, the pilot and his two passengers find themselves trapped there with a mysterious scientist. Furthermore, the water around the island is infested with flesh-eating microscopic creatures.

This gruesome, gory science fiction thriller languished in obscurity for many years, but has become much better known recently. It’s well worth checking out; despite some flaws, the movie is well-directed, strongly acted (especially from Martin Kosleck, who gives an excellent performance), has good special effects for its budget, and has a premise that is truly unsettling. One of its problems is that two of the characters (the alcoholic actress and the slang-spouting hipster) are nearly unbelievable, but credit must go to both Rita Morley and Ray Tudor for doing what they can to keep these characters from being actively annoying. I’m also a little disappointed with some of the developments late in the story when the flesh eaters are transformed into a much more conventional menace; this latter menace is nowhere near as effective and seems designed to allow the story to end in a much more conventional fashion for the era, whereas there’s something about this movie that makes me wish the ending was much more downbeat. It’s the sole directorial effort from Jack Curtis (and was partially financed by winnings from his wife’s appearance on a TV game show), and he’s effective enough here that it’s really a shame he didn’t go on to direct anything more.

 

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Dracula (1973)

DRACULA (1973)
TV-Movie
Article 2716 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-11-2008
Posting Date: 1-19-2009
Directed by Dan Curtis
Featuring Jack Palance, Simon Ward, Nigel Davenport
Country: UK

Dracula comes to England with the intent of finding a woman who resembles his lost love and making her a vampire and companion.

I’ve seen enough of Dan Curtis’s TV-Movies to know they are hit-or-miss affairs, but when he’s on, he’s incredibly effective. He’s on with this one, and it’s great to see Jack Palance working with him again after their effective take on the Jekyll and Hyde story. Palance is fascinating in the role; he underplays his line deliveries, but with such conviction that he’s absolutely chilling. Furthermore, the supporting cast is very strong indeed; Nigel Davenort in particular is well cast as Van Helsing. Having appeared in an especially faithful play production of the story, I’ve developed a fascination with the ways various filmmakers have amended and modifed Bram Stoker’s story over the years, not from the point of view of condemning them for not being faithful to the novel (which, to my mind, has some problems), but with real interest in the various approaches that have been taken to adapting the story. This version jettisons Quincy Morris (perhaps the single major character most likely not to appear in the various versions of the story), Dr. Seward and Renfield. The latter two omissions are a little surprising (if for no other reason that Renfield is such an interesting character), but I can also see how the whole Renfield storyline can be a distraction from the main story. It retains the characters of Jonathan Harker and Lucy’s mother, though both suffer different fates. Dracula is given a greater motivation for his choice of Lucy as his victim, a move that gives his character a bit more depth as well as giving Palance more screen time. The ending also spends a lot more time in the interior of Dracula’s castle, and though the denoument is a bit disappointing, it is better than the ending of the novel. What I like best is the wonderful atmosphere Curtis adds to the production, and the way certain visual moments manage to convey such a great deal of impact; I love the scene where we see the captain lashed to the wheel of the beached ship while Dracula looks on from the shore. Oh, it has its flaws (such as some unconvincing day-for-night scenes), but overall, I found this version very well done.

 

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Return to Fantasy Island (1978)

RETURN TO FANTASY ISLAND (1978)
TV-Movie
Article 2715 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-10-2008
Posting Date: 1-18-2009
Directed by George McCowan
Featuring Ricardo Montalban, Adrienne Barbeau, Horst Buchholz
Country: USA

Several more people come to Mr. Roarke’s island to have their fantasies come true. An executive gets to spend the weekend with his female boss, a young couple hopes to relive their honeymoon so that the woman can recover her memory, and another couple hopes to meet the daughter they gave up for adoption…if they can figure out which of the three girls she is.

I was surprised that I liked FANTASY ISLAND (the first TV-Movie, not the series) as much as I did; what I thought would be insipid turned out to have a real air of mystery and a surprising dark streak. This, the follow-up TV-Movie, is a lot closer to what I envisioned the TV series would be like, and that’s not good. The writing is noticeably worse, the sense of mystery is gone, and the dark streak now feels mannered and forced. Furthermore, Montalban now plays a much more passive role in the proceedings. The story of the couple trying to figure out which of the three girls is really their daughter is an example of tepid drama and never becomes engaging. The story of the man and his female boss is incredibly predictable and utterly insipid. The story of the couple reliving their honeymoon plays like a bad horror movie, with Karen Valentine playing one of the least effective horror heroines I’ve ever encountered. From what I gather, the series itself was even more of a piece of fluff than this TV-Movie, so I’m now pretty sure it was a wise choice to skip the series. On the plus side, it does have Cameron Mitchell (whose acting I enjoy) and Adrienne Barbeau (whose…well, it’s not really her acting I enjoy).

 

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Gallery of Horror (1967)

GALLERY OF HORROR (1967)
aka Dr. Terror’s Gallery of Horrors
Article 2714 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-9-208
Posting Date: 1-17-2009
Directed by David L. Hewitt
Featuring Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, Rochelle Hudson

Five tales of terror are told. In the first, a clock revives a witch’s curse. In the second,a vampire is on the loose. In the third, revenge comes from the grave. In the fourth, a dead man is revived. In the fifth, more vampires are on the loose.

For those who encounter this one under its alternate title, please don’t mistake it for the vastly superior Amicus anthology DR. TERROR’S HOUSE OF HORRORS. Though both of them are horror anthologies, this one looks as if had a budget almost one-hundredth of the amount it cost to make the other movie (that is, if you discount the stock footage taken from some AIP movies). Even when the actors are decent, they’re still struggling with a clumsy, awkward script, and the twist endings may rank with some of the worst in history. The winner (or is it loser) in this regard is the last story; for a while, it looks as if this segment is going to tell a straightforward rendition of the Dracula story, but it goes off track after ten minutes and then reaches an ending so cockamamie that you’re liable throw something at the TV. Add some long-winded story introductions by John Carradine, and you’ve got one profoundly awful movie. Still, perhaps we should be grateful; if Hewitt hadn’t made an anthology movie, he might have tried to make features of each one of these tales. Now there’s something that will bring on nightmares…

 

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Die! Die! My Darling! (1965)

DIE! DIE! MY DARLING! (1965)
aka Fanatic
Article 2713 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-7-2008
Posting Date: 1-16-2009
Directed by Silvio Narizzano
Featuring Tallulah Bankhead, Stefanie Powers, Peter Vaughan
Country: UK

An American woman agrees to visit the mother of her deceased fiance, unaware that his mother is a religious fanatic. The mother, appalled at the worldliness of her son’s intended, holds her prisoner with the intent of forcing her to reform.

This is another of Hammer’s entries in the “horror hag” cycle that became popular in the sixties, in which aging Hollywood actresses were given top billing in horror movies. I don’t find this one as fun or as interesting as the two Bette Davis ones they did (THE NANNY and THE ANNIVERSARY), though it’s not a bad movie. It goes into the category of what I call “frustration horror”, in which most of the running time seems to be concerned with abortive attempts of a heroine to escape danger, and after a while you get frustrated because you know the movie has been set up so that there’s no way she is going to escape until the end of the movie (that is, if she escapes at all). This was Tallulah Bankhead’s last on-screen movie role (she would do voice work on THE DAYDREAMER). Unfortunately, I found her performance to be too mannered and theatrical for her to be really effective here; it’s okay when she’s terrorizing the heroine, but when the movie starts digging into her psyche and tries to garner some sympathy for her, her performance gets in the way. I think it works best at the beginning before the heroine is made a prisoner; it has a nice sense of humor up to that point. It’s also another opportunity to catch Donald Sutherland in an early character role, that of a dimwitted handyman.

 

0 CommentsLeave a comment

The Devil’s Mistress (1966)

THE DEVIL’S MISTRESS (1966)
Article 2712 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-6-2008
Posting Date: 1-15-2009
Directed by Orville Wanzer
Featuring Joan Stapleton, Robert Gregory, Wes Moreland
Country: USA

Four outlaws come upon a cabin in Apache territory and are fed by a mysterious old man and a mute woman. Two of the outlaws kill the man and rape the woman, and then take her along with them. Then, one by one, the outlaws begin to die in mysterious ways…

This low-budget horror western reminds me in some ways of MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE, but I wouldn’t take that comparison to heart; I think this movie is much better. It’s not a lost classic, mind you, but it manages to make positive use of its extreme low budget; there’s something about the turgid pacing, the dearth of action, the static presentation, and the lack of music, when placed against some of the splendid western settings and in the context of a horror story that has a fair amount of subtlety and ambiguity that gives the movie a haunting feel. I will give the movie credit for not outstaying its welcome; it runs just a little over sixty minutes, and it disposes of the outlaws in just the right order; it gets rid of the sadistic outlaw with the annoying laugh just at the point when I was getting sick of him, and the outlaws die in the reverse order in which they were responsible for the murder/rape at the beginning of the movie. In fact, you’ll be hoping that the naive innocent may be spared in the final reel, but you’ll also be nagged by the realization that, even if he didn’t take part in the brutality, he nonetheless did nothing to prevent it. My biggest problem with the movie is that it decides to make the horror quite blatant at the end of the movie; the movie would have worked much better overall if it had found an ending that allowed it to retain its eerie ambiguity. This is the sole film credit for director/writer Orville Wanzer, and I find myself wishing he had made another one; whatever its flaws, it managed to capture something unique.

 

1 CommentLeave a comment