Month: December 2018

Wielka, Wieksza I Najwieksza (1963)

WIELKA, WIEKSZA I NAJWIEKSZA (1963)
aka The Great Big World and Little Children
Article 3095 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-8-2009
Posting Date: 2-3-2010
Directed by Anna Sokolowka
Featuring Kinga Sienko, Wojciech Puzynski, Zofia Kucowna
Country: Poland
What it is: Polish children’s fantasy

Two children are drawn into a series of adventures by a talking car. They rescue a kidnapped child, search for a lost plane in the Sahara desert, and visit another planet.

This rare fantasy movie sat on my list unfound for several years, but popped up unexpectedly on YouTube, thus giving me a chance to watch it. It’s in unsubtitled Polish, so the action is difficult to follow. However, the first two segments are straightforward enough that I was able to more or less follow them. The visit to the other planet is a bit tougher, but it seems to involve a trapped child after nuclear devastation has destroyed the planet; some of this description was based on other plot descriptions I’ve found. It’s fairly amusing, but except for the last segment, it’s not particularly engaging on a visual level. Outside of the car, we also get talking watches, radios, airplanes and telephones. It’s just offbeat enough to be worth a look.

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The Ruling Class (1972)

THE RULING CLASS (1972)
Article 3094 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-7-2009
Posting Date: 2-2-2010
Directed by Peter Medak
Featuring Peter O’Toole, Alastair Sim, Arthur Lowe
Country: UK
What it is: Black Comic Satire on the Upper Classes of Britain

When the 13th Earl of Gurney dies from a bizarre and stupid accident, the estate passes on to his son, the 14th Earl of Gurney, who is quite mad and believes himself to be Jesus Christ. Scheming relatives seek to get hold of the estate, and in the process, they undertake to cure him of his illness. However, they end up merely replacing one delusion with another…

At two and a half hours, this dark satire goes on too long, but it’s anchored by a fantastic performance by Peter O’Toole (who was nominated for an Oscar for his performance) as the mad 14th Earl of Gurney. The rest of the cast is also great, with special notice going to Arthur Lowe as a butler who is really an anarchist, Alastair Sim as a bishop, and Nigel Green as another madman (though, sadly, not his voice; he committed suicide shortly after this production and was redubbed). The bigger laughs are towards the beginning of the movie, but that’s only because we haven’t been introduced to the darker turns the story takes in the latter half. The fantastic content is there; the theme of madness is present throughout, and we have a character who is able to shoot electricity from his fingers at the halfway point. However, the fantastic content is most prominent towards the end when the movie begins to swerve into real horror territory, but to say more would be to give too much away; suffice it to say that every other plot description I’ve read gives away a plot point that I feel is best left as a surprise, and I have no intention of letting it slip here. Reportedly, Alastair Sim cast himself as the Bishop, and nobody else involved with the production could bring themselves to turn him down.

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Faust and Marguerite (1900)

FAUST AND MARGUERITE (1900)
Article 3093 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-6-2009
Posting Date: 2-1-2010
Directed by Edwin S. Porter
Cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Melies-style trick film

Mephistopheles tries to get Faust to decapitate Marguerite, but Faust refuses. When Mephistopheles decides to do it himself, complications ensue.

Basically, the complications have to do with people magically switching places, vanishing or turning into skeletons. It’s not the stuff of great tragedy by any means, but then, were any of these very early adaptations of Faust little more than trick films? It’s okay, but it lacks the verve of a real Melies short.

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The End of the World (1916)

THE END OF THE WORLD (1916)
aka Verdens undergang
Article 3092 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-4-2009
Posting Date: 1-31-2010
Directed by August Blom
Featuring Alf Blutecher, Olaf Fonss, Johanne Fritz-Petersen
Country: Denmark
What it is: Early Danish Disaster movie

Various characters living in or associated with a small Danish mining town deal with impending doom when an astronomer discovers the existence of a new comet that will enter the atmosphere of the Earth.

This movie opens with the introduction of several characters and then concentrates on the various domestic travails of their lives. It’s only after this that the comet is discovered, and it’s here that the movie takes its most interesting turn – it concentrates on an investor who sees the plunge in the stock market following the announcement of the comet as an opportunity to make a fortune. Since this investor is a relative of the astronomer who discovered the comet, he gets inside info on the impending disaster and uses it to make his fortune, even to the point of working with an unscrupulous newspaper editor to plant fraudulent information designed to create the right economic climate. Had the movie continued this exploration of greed and finance, it would have proven to be a fascinating, relevant and unique movie. Unfortunately, the movie then begins concentrating on the more conventional melodramatic plot elements that were being set up at the beginning of the movie, so we have a jealous lover, class battles, an angry father who curses his daughter who eloped without his permission, a pair of separated lovers who try to reunite, etc. It’s at this point that the movie becomes very similar to the disaster movies of the seventies, which may make it one of the earliest examples of the form. Still, it is a disappointing direction after the section about economics. I do like how the movie does show us (often without comment) the comet in the sky during some of the outdoors sequences in the middle of the movie, even if it looks something like the comet in THE BRAINIAC; notice how when the camera pans in some of these scenes, the comet pans with it. The scenes of destruction at the end are satisfying enough, though. Not bad, but it could have been better.

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Invisible Creature (1960)

INVISIBLE CREATURE (1960)
aka The House in Marsh Road
Article 3091 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-3-2009
Posting Date: 1-30-2010
Directed by Montgomery Tully
Featuring Tony Wright, Patricia Dainton, Sandra Dorne
Country: UK
What it is: Ghost story

A woman inherits a house haunted by a poltergeist. She accepts the existence of the poltergeist, but her drinking cad of a husband doesn’t believe and mocks its existence, thus offending it. Then, when the man gets attached to another woman, he decides to kill his wife for the money he can get selling the house…

There are moments when I really admire the efficiency and clarity of some parts of this movie; scenes will sometimes only go on long enough to establish the necessary plot point before swiftly moving on to the next scene and the next plot point. Had the movie had a complex, difficult plot, this efficiency would have done wonders for keeping the story moving and keeping the plot clear for the viewer. Alas, the plot is anything but complex; in fact, once the primary plot elements establish themselves as they do in the plot summary I supply above, what happens is utterly predictable and by-the-numbers, and the efficiency ends up making the movie feel perfunctory. With this sort of movie, a more colorful, flavorful and quirky presentation would have been helpful. Still, despite its predictability, the movie still has a couple of nice moments; my favorite sequence is when the poltergeist undertakes to warn the wife about the attempts on her life, as parts of this sequence are very cleverly handled. All in all, it’s passable, but uninspired.

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Who Done It? (1956)

WHO DONE IT? (1956)
Article 3090 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-1-2009
Posting Date: 1-29-2010
Directed by Basil Dearden
Featuring Benny Hill, Belinda Lee, David Kossoff
Country: UK
What it is: Private detective comedy with a surprisingly large amount of fantastic content

After winning a contest in a detective magazine, a former ice show janitor decides to become a private detective. When he mistakenly gets engaged on a case investigating an unfaithful husband, he stumbles across a group of spies attempting to send the secrets of a weather-creating machine to their country.

I’m familiar enough with the work of Benny Hill to have had an idea in advance of what this movie would be like; it’s a standard albeit energetic slapstick comedy, minus the somewhat risque humor that was the earmark of his TV work. It does manage to keep the energy level fairly high, and the gags are consistently creative enough to hold your attention throughout, though it never quite achieves the non-stop hilarity that it aspires to. There’s actually quite a bit of fantastic content here; we have the aforementioned weather machine which is used during one point of the proceedings, the mythical country of Euralia, the woman with super-strength, and a sequence at a radio show in which a number of new inventions are put on display. The movie also features the stunningly attractive Belinda Lee, whose career was sadly cut short by a car accident at the age of 26. Ernest Thesiger pops up as a scientist at the weather-machine demonstration, a sequence which also features Peter Bull. Charles Hawtrey also has an amusing cameo as a disc jockey. It’s not great, but it’s amusing enough.

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Morianerna (1965)

MORIANERNA (1965)
aka Morianna
Article 3089 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-31-2009
Posting Date: 1-28-2010
Directed by Anne Mattsson
Featuring Anders Henrikson, Eva Dahlbeck, Heinz Hopf
Country: Sweden
What it is: Swedish horror thriller…

A hated patriarch is murdered. His family are the immediate suspects. But is he really dead…?

Most of the above plot description is culled from one I found at several locations on the internet; it makes the movie sound something like an “old dark house” thriller. Since my own copy of this movie is in unsubtitled Swedish, I can’t verify too much of the plot, but things seem a little complex. The fantastic content is vague; the Willis guide mentions a killer appearing suddenly “like an avenging ghost”, and the Lee guide talks about the murders, a dead man mysteriously appearing in his favorite chair, and a phone call from Death. Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to combine these hints into what seems to me like a coherent story, and, truth to tell, it may not be; with only a 5.0 rating on IMDB, there’s reason to believe the movie isn’t very good, and the one plot description I found said the movie was more memorable for the nude scenes than anything else. For me, the moments that stand out include a man’s unexpected appearance when I thought he had been killed, and a scene where a doll is burned at the stake. I found this one impenetrable, and must wait for an English version before I can make sense of it.

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The Slasher… is the Sex Maniac! (1972)

THE SLASHER… IS THE SEX MANIAC! (1972)
aka Rivelazioni di un maiaco sussuale al capo della squadra mobile
Article 3088 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-30-2009
Posting Date: 1-27-2010
Directed by Roberto Bianchi Montero
Featuring Farley Granger, Sylva Koscina, Silvano Tranquilli
Country: Italy
What it is: giallo

An inspector tries to track down a serial killer who specializes in murdering unfaithful wives among the upper classes.

For the most part, this is a relatively uninspired giallo; it’s flatly directed, it’s a cinch to spot the real killer and the obvious red herring (once you spot one, you’ll spot the other), and the murder sequences aren’t impressive. The most interesting aspect during the first hour is the fact that, since the murders are taking place in the upper echelons of society, the inspector has to be careful whose toes he steps on during his investigation; this concept gives the movie a bit more depth and complexity than it might otherwise have had. However, the patient viewer will find that things pick up during the last half hour when the inspector sets a trap for the killer; the ensuing battle of wits is quite suspenseful, and we get some dark revelations about the inspector himself before it’s all over. In the final analysis, the movie is a mixed bag, but has its moments.

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Roseland (1970)

ROSELAND (1970)
Article 3087 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-29-2009
Posting Date: 1-26-2010
Directed by Fredric Hobbs
Featuring E. Kerrigan Prescott, Christopher Brooks, Victor Alter
Country: USA
What it is: Psychedelic pornographic musical fantasy art film

A singer’s life goes downhill when he is fired after singing a risque song on “The Ed Sullivan Show”, and he becomes a criminal known as “The Black Bandit” who steals pornography. He is caught and forced to go to a psychiatrist who feeds him LSD to help him dredge up his sexual fantasies; however, the psychiatrist throws him out when he can’t afford to pay. Can he find a job to pay his psychiatrist by working at a burlesque house, or will he need the help of Hieronymous Bosch?

The only other movie I’ve seen from director Fredric Hobbs is the freaky horror movie, ALABAMA’S GHOST. I didn’t think about it the time, but had I done so, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out that he also had given the world a psychedelic pornographic fantasy musical art film. Well, I guess it’s my week to watch movies of other people’s sexual fantasies, but at least this one is redeemed somewhat by its sense of humor. John Stanley describes the movie as a “self-indulgent mish-mash” in one of his books, and I can see his point. The DVD blurb claims that Rolling Stone compared the movie favorably to the works of Fellini… and, believe it or not, I can see that as well; through all the self-indulgence, there is a legitimate surreal vision to this movie. And it has one of the oddest narrators this side of movies like PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE and BLOOD FREAK. The more I see from this guy, the more I look forward to watching GODMONSTER OF INDIAN FLATS, or of finding TROIKA, which has been on my hunt list for ages.

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The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E.: The Fifteen Years Later Affair (1983)

THE RETURN OF THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.: THE FIFTEEN YEARS LATER AFFAIR (1983)
TV-Movie
Article 3086 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-28-2009
Posting Date: 1-25-2010
Directed by Ray Austin
Featuring Robert Vaughn, David McCallum, Patrick Macnee
Country: USA
What it is: TV-Movie update of television spy series with science fiction touches

Napoleon Solo and Ilya Kuryakin are called out of retirement when a reunited THRUSH gets hold of an atomic bomb and holds the U.S. for ransom.

The advantage of a reunion-style version of an old TV show is that you have a ready-made audience of the show’s fans. The disadvantage is that those fans often have strong feelings and memories of what they liked about the show, and a reunion show of this variety runs the risk of not capturing the elements that were liked about the show. The biggest problem with this attempt was the absence of a key regular of the show; the passing of Leo G. Carroll meant that the character of Mr. Waverly, the head of U.N.C.L.E. had to be either recast or replaced. This movie chose the replacement route, and I like that they chose Patrick Macnee as the new boss, who had at least a certain familiarity to spy fans for playing Steed in “The Avengers”. I also liked the appearance of George Lazenby as “J.B.”, though I think the movie belabors this reference just a tad too much (and it would have been even cleverer had they gotten Roger Moore). Still, even outside of dealing with casting issues, there’s going to be the sense of whether the movie is true to the spirit of the original series, which may be a bit of an intangible. Given that this movie has a rating of 5.9 on IMDB, I get the sense that fans of the series were a bit lukewarm to this revival. Since I was not a big fan of the series and haven’t seen enough episodes to get a strong sense of what would be true to the series, I can’t really judge the movie in that regard. I thought the movie likable enough, but nothing special, and the story didn’t seem quite as clever as it should be. They also kept going on about the Anthony Zerbe character having been an old foe of some sort, but as far as I can tell, he did not appear in the original series; this left me with the sense that this was either intended as a pilot for a revived series, or the first of series of reunion movies for the Solo/Kuryakin team. At any rate, neither of these events happened. The aforementioned Zerbe does quite well, though Keenan Wynn is wasted in an undeveloped role. All in all, I found this one entertaining if unsensational.

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