Month: November 2018

The Death Train (1978)

THE DEATH TRAIN (1978)
TV-Movie
Article 2953 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-8-2009
Posting Date: 9-14-2009
Directed by Igor Auzins
Featuring Hugh Keays-Byrne, Max Meldrum, Ralph Cotterill
Country: Australia

An insurance investigator comes to a small town to investigate the death of a man insured by his company. The local residents believe his death was caused by his being run over by a ghost train. However, the investigator is sure there is a more rational explanation…

If there were limits to the amount of quirkiness allowed in a movie, this one assuredly would have passed that limit, and those who are allergic to quirkiness should steer clear. Those with a weakness for that sort of thing (such as me) are in for a treat; between the bizarre mystery, the supernatural overtones, the array of offbeat characters, and the surreal comic air of several of the scenes, I was delighted and charmed. Among the strange characters that inhabit this movie are the policeman who uses the hunt-and-peck method to fill out the reports, the carrot-juice swilling long-time companion of the deceased, the overly-descriptive doctor who performed the autopsy on the deceased, and the woman in the Sandman station wagon who picks up stray men. We also have key scenes in which the investigator searches for a pair of glasses in a chicken coop, a scene where the reporter tries to evade a rampaging piece of machinery while dressed in his underwear, and the scenes where he encounters the unhelpful residents of the town, including the barmaid who won’t help him because he’s sitting at the wrong end of the counter. Then there’s the reporter himself, who constantly has a cigarette in his mouth but refuses to light it and constantly lets his suspected murderer know that he’s hunting for the evidence to put him away. Then there’s the tiny hotel room with the spacious bathroom, which may be my favorite gag in the movie. Of course, the big question is whether the final revelation will prove supernatural or merely bizarre, and I won’t give that away except to say that I left the movie smiling.

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Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting (1969)

DADDY’S GONE A-HUNTING (1969)
Article 2952 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-7-2009
Posting Date: 9-13-2009
Directed by Mark Robson
Featuring Carol White, Scott Hylands, Paul Burke
Country: USA

When a woman breaks up with her psychotic boyfriend and aborts their baby, the boyfriend plots an insidious revenge; once the woman marries and has a child, he plans to force her into killing that one as well.

Had I only watched the first half of this movie, I would have dismissed it as a misfired attempt at a Hitchcockian thriller marred by stridency and occasionally poor acting. However, once you know the boyfriend’s plot, the story starts the click, the screws start turning, and the movie becomes very suspenseful, even if you never do warm up to the female lead, who, to my mind, never really becomes a convincing character. Still, Scott Hylands proves to be quite effective as the psychotic boyfriend, and director Mark Robson does manage to tap into some Lewtonian ambiguity in the first half when you’re not quite sure whether the woman is being stalked or suffering from an overactive imagination. For those into sly references, take note of the theatrical offering that the woman tries to buy a ticket for. The story and script are from Larry Cohen, who would gain fame for another movie about a baby – namely, IT’S ALIVE.

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The Curse of the Yellow Snake (1963)

THE CURSE OF THE YELLOW SNAKE (1963)
aka Der Fluch der gelben Schlange
Article 2951 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-6-2009
Posting Date: 9-12-2009
Directed by Franz Josef Gottlieb
Featuring Joachim Fuchsberger, Brigitte Grothum, Pnkas Braun
Country: West Germany

A secret cult wants to acquire an artifact called the Yellow Snake, as its possessor on a given date will have an invincible army.

If yesterday’s Edgar Wallace krimi was goofy but fun, this one is merely dull. Part of the problem may just be my print, which is so dark that it’s hard to make out some of the action, but I don’t know if it’s just my print or the movie itself. Still, even at that, this is rather predictable for an Edgar Wallace movie; it’s ersatz Fu Manchu, but without characters near as interesting as Fu Manchu or Nayland Smith. They attempt to throw in a lot of complications (involving planned marriages and business blackmail), but the movie never becomes as mysterious, atmospheric, or fun as the better movies of the series. As it is, the comic relief character (a chatterbox antique dealer) is the most memorable character here, and that’s never a good sign, as he’s mildly funny at best. This is far from the best of the series.

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The College Girl Murders (1967)

THE COLLEGE GIRL MURDERS (1967)
aka Der Monch mit der Peitsche
Article 2950 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-5-2009
Posting Date: 9-11-2009
Directed by Alfred Vohrer
Featuring Joachim Fuchsberger, Uschi Glas, Grit Boettcher
Country: West Germany

Someone is killing off college girls with a special poison. There’s also a red-robed figure on the loose attacking people with a bullwhip. The police try to track down the murderer.

It’s another Edgar Wallace krimi, and this one is particularly goofy, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fun. This one is something of a sequel to THE SINISTER MONK, though I always wonder why people consider a red KKK outfit to be a monk’s garb. The plot involves a poison gas, a whip-wielding figure in red, a competition between two detectives to see which method (psychological or traditional) will solve the case, a mysterious man who barks orders from a chair in an aquarium, and murderers who are recruited from prisons to go out and kill and then return to the prison to elude suspicion. The plot won’t hold up to close inspection, the comic relief is a matter of taste, and I wouldn’t bother trying to solve the mystery in advance because it doesn’t work that way. Nevertheless, its sense of fun will keep you going.

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The Clown Murders (1976)

THE CLOWN MURDERS (1976)
Article 2949 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-4-2009
Posting Date: 9-10-2009
Directed by Martyn Burke
Featuring Stephen Young, Susan Keller, Lawrence Dane
Country: Canada / USA

Four friends hatch a scheme to dress up like clowns and kidnap a businessman’s wife to prevent him from closing a land deal. Though the scheme is intended as a prank, it takes an ugly turn when real violence is used at the kidnapping. As the kidnappers deal with the fallout from their actions, it becomes apparent that an outside party (also in a clown costume) is stalking them.

About ten minutes of this one is a horror film; the rest is a potentially interesting variant of the heist film. I say “potentially” for a reason; the movie’s concept of having each member of the group deal with the stress of having gotten in over their heads is much more interesting than its execution. One problem is that the characters aren’t quite as complex as they need to be to make the movie really compelling. Another is that parts of the movie are incredibly improbable; I find it particularly hard to believe that none of these people ever considered that their kidnapping would be considered a crime. Add to this the problem that the beginning exposition scenes are more confusing than elucidating, that it takes nearly twenty minutes before the plot starts to move, that the direction is flat and dull, and that the identity of the clown stalking the characters near the end of the movie is obvious, and you have what amounts to a missed opportunity. Of course, what the movie is most known for anymore is for giving us an early John Candy role, but I suspect that fans of the comedian will be disappointed here; though he gives a good performance, it’s a fairly humiliating role in which far too much time is spent commenting on his size and his eating habits, and the scene where he’s bound, roughed up and humiliated by the most psychotic member of the group is just unpleasant. The ending is rather unsatisfying as well. There’s a much better movie in here fighting to get out.

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Dodskyssen (1916)

DODSKYSSEN (1916)
aka The Death Kiss
Article 2948 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-3-2009
Posting Date: 9-9-2009
Directed by Victor Sjostrom
Featuring Victor Sjostrom, Albin Laven, Mathias Taube
Country: Sweden

A man is murdered. We find out how via flashbacks.

The lame plot description above is the result of my having seen this one with only Swedish and German intertitles to help me. There are further complications due to the fact that only parts of the movie are extant; the missing parts are filled in with stills and title cards. To be honest, I wasn’t really able to follow this one; I know there’s been a murder, the plot involves two people who look identical (Victor Sjostrom is in a dual role here), there’s a creepy guy in a gas mask, the solution to the mystery is at least partially contained in the title. There may be some touches of science fiction here (the poison gas, possibly) and some horror (the guy in the mask), but it seems pretty slight. Still, I’m glad that I had a chance to cover this obscurity.

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Tarzanova smrt (1962)

TARZANOVA SMRT (1962)
aka The Death of the Ape Man
Article 2947 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-2-2009
Posting Date: 9-8-2009
Directed by Jaroslav Balik
Featuring Rudolf Hrusinsky, Jana Stepankova, Martin Ruzek
Country: Czechoslovakia

A noble, lost in the jungle as a kid and raised by apes, returns to civilization and must adjust. He finds himself torn between two factions of people who want to use him for their own ends.

Because my copy of this movie is in unsubtitled Czech, the above plot description may not be completely accurate, though given the references to Tarzan, I think my assumption about the man having been raised by apes is correct, even if we have no scenes of him in the jungle. The language barrier did make the movie more difficult to appreciate, but the spirit of the whole affair does seem to come through. IMDB classifies it as a comedy, and indeed it is, but the comedy is tempered with a dark, tragic edge. Visually, it’s quite good at times, with a scene in which two groups of people, both plotting to get our hero to marry a specific woman, have a free-for-all in the foyer of a mansion while decked out in formal attire. This scene is particularly fascinating; visually, it’s the funniest scene in the movie, but it’s also the one where we see the dark threads of the tale coming together as our hero ends up learning about guns and what they can do, and though much of the fighting is comic, the deaths are real. It’s an intriguing movie, and I find myself really hoping that someone takes the time to add English subtitles at some time so I can appreciate it better. And I find it rather fitting that a movie this comic and tragic would open and close with a singing clown.

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The Clone Master (1978)

THE CLONE MASTER (1978)
TV-Movie
Article 2946 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-1-2009
Posting Date: 9-7-2009
Directed by Don Medford
Featuring Art Hindle, Robyn Douglass, John Van Dreelen
Country: USA

A master of biochemical engineering is hired by the government to do secret research on cloning. However, when his only government contact suffers injuries that leave him a vegetable, and his assistant is kidnapped, he begins to wonder about the real situation. It soon becomes apparent that he is not being financed by the government. However, the man financing the scientist is unaware of one thing; the scientist was much farther along in his cloning experiments than anyone imagined…

About halfway through this TV-Movie, I began to suspect that we were once again dealing with a potential series pilot, and, by the end of the movie, I was convinced it was so. Still, I have to admit that this one might have made an interesting series; basically, it’s an exponentially multiplied variation on “The Fugitive”, in which one man and his twelve clones (with whom the scientist is telepathically linked) are on the run for their lives, scattered over the globe. Given that the movie established that the clones are not strictly identical and would grow more different with time, I found myself pondering the possible plot lines that could develop. Well, it never became a series, though I think it made a dandy enough thriller, albeit one with a few problems. It does make very good use of its concepts, and works itself up to a clever and satisfying ending. This is one TV-Movie I really enjoyed.

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