Month: January 2019

Snow White (1955)

SNOW WHITE (1955)
aka Schneewittchen und die sieben Zwerge
Article 3124 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-16-2009
Posting Date: 3-4-2010
Directed by Erich Kobler
Featuring Elke Arendt, Addi Adametz, Niels Clausnitzer
Country: West Germany
What it is: Another German fairy tale

When her magic mirror informs an evil queen that her stepdaughter named Snow White is more beautiful than her, she plans to have her murdered. However, Snow White takes refuge in a cottage inhabited by seven dwarfs. However, the evil queen is not so easily thwarted…

We follow up yesterday’s movie with another German version of a classic fairy tale by the same director. Well, at least the story of Snow White has more story to begin with than “The Shoemaker and the Elves”, and if you need to figure out how to stretch it to a full-length movie, you have a handy version from Disney that can give you a few pointers. Most of the differences between the two versions seem to be a matter of this version hewing closer to the original fairy tale; in this one, for example, the wicked queen makes three visits to the dwarfs’ cottage, with a poison belt and a poison comb taking the place of the apple for the first two visits. The movie does have a certain fairy tale quality to it, but, to my eyes, it adds very little new to the tale. Sometimes you have to face the fact that a children’s movie is indeed for children, and I suspect a young child who hadn’t been introduced to the Disney version would find this one acceptable. However, it is one you would probably not bother watching with them. Well, at least this one was dubbed into English.

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Die Heinzelmannchen (1956)

DIE HEINZELMANNCHEN (1956)
aka The Shoemaker and the Elves
Article 3123 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-15-2009
Posting Date: 3-3-2010
Directed by Erich Kobler
Featuring Nora Minor, Dietrich Thoms, Elke Arendt
Country: West Germany
What it is: Fairy tale

Every 100 years, elves appear in a small town and help the villagers with their work. They help a shoemaker, a baker, and a tailor. They also have to contend with a thief and a shrewish wife.

Just how long can you watch a group of children dressed up as elves do work to sprightly music without wanting to take a nap? I’m willing to bet that it’s not half the amount of time that this movie dedicates to showing you that very thing. The first twenty minutes introduces the human characters; the shoemaker, the tailor, and the baker and their respective families, as well as the thief and the local constabulary. Then we get a good thirty minutes of toiling elves, and that’s a good twenty-five minutes too long. The littlest elf does a few magic tricks for us to enliven things (to no avail), and the action is interrupted by a slapstick sequence in which the elves outwit a thief, another scene that wears out its welcome before its done. After this nonstop whimsy, we have another ten minutes of villagers reacting to the elves’ work while an elf who failed to vanish with the others at daybreak must elude capture. Then it’s night again, and the elves come back and…start working some more. After five minutes more of this they have a little change of pace (so you can stop climbing the walls) by having one of the elves break into a drum solo, and the other elves start playing along on makeshift instruments of their own (and guess what? They’re awful!) And then the shrewish wife tries to capture them, and I’ll be merciful and not give away the ending of the movie.

I found this one on YouTube in undubbed German, but it doesn’t really matter; after the first twenty minutes, there’s very little dialogue, and it’s not as if the story is unfamiliar in the first place. However, I suspect even children will have their patience tried by this one; there’s only so much whimsy you can get out of working elves, and that whimsy gets spread way too thin here.

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Savage Abduction (1973)

SAVAGE ABDUCTION (1973)
aka Cycle Psycho
Article 3122 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-14-2009
Posting Date: 3-2-2010
Directed by John Lawrence
Featuring Joe Turkel, Steve Oliver, Sean Kenney
Country: USA
What it is: Psycho killer flick with bikers

A lawyer hires a psycho sex fiend to kill his wife, but finds himself blackmailed by the psycho to find him more women to kill. To that end, the lawyer hires a biker gang to kidnap two young girls for the psycho’s pleasure.

Take PSYCHO, mix with a biker movie and throw in a little LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, and what do you have? If you’re not sure yet, be aware that the director and writer for this one also gave us the script for THE INCREDIBLE TWO-HEADED TRANSPLANT. There are three types of characters here; the repulsive ones, the stupid ones, and the stupid repulsive ones. Many wrong-headed decisions are made; I can understand playing biker-style music whenever the biker gang is tooling around, but whoever decided that the psycho’s theme song should be a lyrical singer-songwriter ditty has his head screwed on wrong. It even seems as if they’re trying to play the psycho with a comic spin; for example, he gleefully sharpens his cutlery in preparation for his fun and tries to comfort the two scared girls by showing the body bag he’s brought along. These moments are not only wrong-headed and offensive, they’re not really funny, either. In the end, the movie is sleazy, trashy and stupid, which I’m sure some folks will take as a recommendation; they can have it.

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Twins of Evil (1971)

TWINS OF EVIL (1971)
Article 3121 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-13-2009
Posting Date: 3-1-2010
Directed by John Hough
Featuring Peter Cushing, Madeleine Collinson, Mary Collinson
Country: UK
What it is: Hammer Karnstein vampire tale

Female twins, upon the death of their parents, come to live with their aunt and uncle. The uncle leads a brotherhood that has been chasing and burning witches. However, he doesn’t know that he’s actually up against vampires, with the evil Count Karnstein as their leader. And the evil count has his eyes on one of the twins…

It’s your typical Hammer vampire movie with a WITCHFINDER GENERAL subplot and a smidgen of THE CORSICAN BROTHERS added to the mix. The subplot is the key element here, and the movie makes good use of it by casting Peter Cushing as the witch-hunting uncle. Cushing emphasizes the complexity of his character; he is not an evil man so much as one whose fanaticism has caused him to deeply compromise his character through rashness, and his inability to stop and consider whether his victims are truly guilty or chosen out of convenience is his fatal flaw. The situation is further complicated by the added element of political necessity; the villagers are afraid to take on the count because they fear retribution from the emperor. These elements add some much deeper subtexts to the usual violence, gore and sex of the Hammer formula. Dennis Price had a potentially interesting role as a man who provides perverse entertainment for the Count, but ultimately the story doesn’t know what to do with the character, and he is conveniently taken out of the way. All in all, I found this one a very satisfying Hammer production, especially for this point in their history.

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Treasure of the Four Crowns (1983)

TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS (1983)
aka El tesoro de las cuatro coronas
Article 3120 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-12-2009
Posting Date: 2-28-2010
Directed by Ferdinando Baldi
Featuring Tony Anthony, Ana Obregon, Gene Quintano
Country: Spain/USA/Italy
What it is: One part horror, one part Indiana Jones, one part heist movie

A key holds the secret to the ultimate power contained in four crowns. A crack team of experts seeks to acquire three of the crowns which are being kept in an impregnable castle by a fanatical cult leader.

If you didn’t know this movie was originally made in 3-D, you’ll know soon enough; there are so many close-ups of things “comin’ at ya” (spears, knives, keys, hands, feet, tambourines, etc) that you’ll figure out the gimmick. The opening crawl is lifted from STAR WARS, the opening scene is ripped from RAIDERS FROM THE LOST ARK, and I was a little surprised that the movie just didn’t keep on that pattern; instead, by planning the acquisition of the crowns as something out of a heist movie, it manages to achieve a little more in the way of interest factor than it might otherwise have. Overall, though, the movie doesn’t really satisfy; the end in particular seems muddled and confused, and you’re never quite sure just what kind of power these crowns contain. Overall, though, I think I can say that the movie isn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. This was the follow-up to COMIN’ AT YA, a movie which started a short-lived resurrection of the 3-D craze during the early eighties; a follow-up space opera was planned but never made, as the 3-D craze petered out.

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Tintorera! (1977)

TINTORERA! (1977)
aka Tintorera…Bloody Waters
Article 3119 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-11-2009
Posting Date: 2-27-2010
Directed by Rene Cardona Jr.
Featuring Susan George, Hugo Stiglitz, Andres Garcia
Country: UK/Mexico
What it is: Romantic drama with a smidgen of JAWS ripoff

A shark hunter meets a woman in Cancun for hedonistic pleasure, but he ends up falling in love with her. This creates friction in their relationship, and she begins seeing another man. The two men, initially rivals, become fast friends when the woman departs (she’s eaten by a shark, but no one notices). Together, the two men meet a new woman, and they… oh, don’t bother; suffice it to say that a shark gets involved.

The US version of this film runs 85 minutes. The British version runs 89 minutes. The full version runs 126 minutes, and that’s the one I saw. Lucky me (and if you can imagine this line delivered in a dull, flat, emotionless monotone, do so). On the plus side, my print is subtitled in both English and Spanish, as the movie uses both languages frequently throughout the movie, though it does create a problem in that you have to keep switching gears in deciding whether to read the subtitles or listen to the dialogue. The scenery is beautiful, the underwater photography is good, and the acting is fairly decent. The problem is that it bills itself as a JAWS ripoff when at least ninety percent of its running time is devoted to the love and sex lives of the hedonistic vacationers. Some of the user comments even describe the movie as soft-core porn, but it doesn’t go that far; it’s loaded with nudity and there’s talk about sex, but visually it never gets more explicit than cuddling. That leaves precious little time for shark action, and most of that is devoted to people killing various sea animals (turtles, manta rays, other sharks) as lure for the big tiger shark. This footage is painfully explicit, and animal lovers will want to stay far, far away from this one. What it comes down to is that, unless you’re really interested in the sex lives of these people, there’s nothing to see here, and if you insist, you may want to go for one of the shorter versions. Unfortunately, as it is, it would feel padded even if it were edited down to thirty minutes.

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Sindbad Alibaba and Aladin (1965)

SINDBAD ALIBABA AND ALADIN (1965)
Article 3118 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-10-2009
Posting Date: 2-16-2010
Directed by Prem Narayan Arora
Featuring Pradeep Kumar, Agha, Baghwan
Country: India/Japan
What it is: Bollywood Arabian Nights flick

Sindbad, Alibaba and Aladin join forces to do battle with an evil ruler.

This marks my first review of a full-fledged Bollywood movie, though I’ve seen a couple prior to this. Please take the above plot description with a grain of salt; my copy is in unsubtitled Hindi, and I found the actual plot line rather difficult to follow. Basically, it seems our three heroes go on adventures to get magical items to help them defeat the evil ruler; a magic sword, lamp and carpet are all used. Based on the general tone of the movie, I’m guessing it’s a comedy; in fact, I found it frantic and shrill on quite a number of occasions. Of course, it’s also a musical, and from the few movies I’ve seen, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s the musical numbers that add the real flavor to the Bollywood movie-watching experience; they seem both familiar and alien, with dance moves that seem to be unique to the culture. There’s a lot of talk, an underwater sequence (including giant squids and clams), a reenactment of Aladin’s discovery of the lamp, and a battle with a dragon that looks like an extremely cheap version of Godzilla; in fact, if my eyes aren’t deceiving me, I’m pretty sure I saw Toho special effects wizard Eija Tsuburaya listed in the credits. I don’t know when I’ll be venturing into this territory of filmdom again, but I hope to eventually have more of a feel for Bollywood movies.

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Terror in the Jungle (1968)

TERROR IN THE JUNGLE (1968)
Article 3117 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-9-2009
Posting Date: 2-25-2010
Directed by Tom DeSimone
Featuring Jimmy Angle, Joan Addiss, Chuck Angle
Country: USA
What it is: AIRPORT crossed with a jungle movie crossed with… I just can’t say it.

A young boy with a stuffed tiger is the sole survivor of a plane crash in the Amazon jungle. While his father (who wasn’t on the flight) hunts for him, the boy is captured by native tribesmen who worship him as a god… and may want to sacrifice him as well.

The first thirty minutes of this movie is one of the most gut-bustingly funny examples of bad cinema I’ve seen in years; the howler lines come fast and furious. After the plane crash, the movie becomes dull, somewhat confused, and a bit annoying; after a while, you’ll get sick of the boy walking around whimpering for his daddy. There’s a truly atrocious native dance to liven things up during this part, but don’t worry; it’s working itself up to a jaw-dropping ending which I can’t give away here except to say that a) the movie clearly moves into the fantasy genre at that point, and b) you’ll be wondering if a certain comic strip artist ever saw this movie. I may have given too much away even saying that, but if I have, I doubt you’ll be less tempted into seeing it. Quite frankly, this is the most giddily ridiculous jungle movie I’ve seen since FORBIDDEN JUNGLE.

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The Little Ark (1972)

THE LITTLE ARK (1972)
Article 3116 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-7-2009
Posting Date: 2-23-2010
Directed by James B. Clark
Featuring Genevieve Ambas, Philip Frame, Max Croiset
Country: USA
What it is: Children’s adventure film

Two adopted children in Holland are trapped in the steeple of a church with their pets after a storm causes the dikes to break. They manage to board a boat that drifts close to the steeple, and they go in search of their father.

At one point in this movie, a captain tells the children a story about a woman who is transformed into a mermaid, and the story is shown via animation. This constitutes the sole fantastic content of the movie, so it’s pretty marginal from that standpoint. As for the movie itself, I find it easy to believe it does have some impact, especially if you saw it when you were a kid. As an adult, I find its power somewhat compromised by the problems. It’s obviously based on a novel, and there are moments where you see the movie struggling and not quite succeeding in bringing certain aspects of the story to life. Nor was I particularly impressed by the performances of the two children; though they go through some very real (and even a bit shocking) adventures, they themselves never quite feel real. It occasionally belabors some of the heartstring-tugging, which isn’t necessary; the story itself is moving without that extra pushing. It was an independent film with mostly unknown Dutch and English actors; the only familiar name to me was Theodore Bikel, who does quite well. The theme song was nominated for an Oscar, but if you’re like me, you’ll get awfully tired of it before the movie is over.

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