Month: February 2019

Goldstein (1965)

GOLDSTEIN (1965)
Article 3313 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-24-2010
Posting Date: 9-9-2010
Directed by Philip Kaufman and Benjamin Manaster
Featuring Lou Gilbert, Ellen Madison, Tom Erhart
Country: USA
What it is: Independent American art film

An old man emerges from a lake in Chicago and affects the lives of several people. When a sculptor ends up with the old man’s walking stick after having saved him from a smokehouse, the old man disappears and the sculptor begins a citywide search for him.

When dealing with an art film of this sort, I sometimes find it best to admit outright that I didn’t really get it. This is not to say that I didn’t enjoy it at all (it has some interesting moments), but it does say that it would be presumptuous of me to talk about its meaning. All I can say is that the various comments I read imply that the movie might be a metaphor about the artistic spirit and that the old man may be the prophet Elijah. My print runs only 80 minutes and ends abruptly; IMDB lists a running time of 85 minutes and that a version that ran at Cannes ran 115 minutes. Because no one is sure just what the nature of the old man is, the movie becomes a de facto fantasy. It was Philip Kaufman’s first movie, and it does seem to be at least better than FEARLESS FRANK, his follow-up, though I have yet to cover the movie of his that is of most interest to fans of fantastic cinema, his remake of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS.

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Death to Sister Mary (1974)

DEATH TO SISTER MARY (1974)
aka Murder is a One-Act Play
Article 3312 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-23-2010
Posting Date: 9-8-2010
Directed by Robert D. Cardona
Featuring Robert Powell, Jennie Linden, George Maharis
Country: UK
What it is: “Thriller” episode with psycho killer

The actress playing Sister Mary in the TV show “Saints and Sinners” discovers that a man has organized a fan club for her character. However, this fan has trouble separating her TV persona from her real-life identity… and he’ll resort to drastic means to keep her character safe and his illusions intact.

I believe this is the fourth time I’ve covered what amounts to an episode of the British TV series “Thriller”. I don’t recall having cared for the others I’ve seen, but I quite like this one, mainly because I find the nature of the psycho’s illness here pretty interesting, and I like the performance by Robert Powell in the role, as he plays him not as a sadistic fiend, but as an almost fragile man whose illusion may be the only thing holding him together. Certain touches are particularly telling; when he almost fatally injures a cast member and then discovers that the TV show has Sister Mary distraught over the character’s disappearance, his remorse is very telling. I’m not sure I buy what the psycho’s final solution to his problem turns out to be, but the show sells it well enough that it satisfied me. In short, this makes for one of the more offbeat psycho killer movies I’ve seen to date, even if it is technically an episode of a TV show.

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Kaibyo Yonaki Numa (1957)

KAIBYO YONAKI NUMA (1957)
aka Necromancy, Ghost-Cat of Yonaki Swamp
Article 3311 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-22-2010
Posting Date: 9-7-2010
Directed by Katsuhiko Tasaka
Featuring Shintaro Katsu, Takako Irie, Michiko Ai
Country: Japan
What it is: Ghost-Cat movie

When an old man is killed and his body is thrown into the swamp, his ghost and that of his cat seek revenge.

The above plot description is only an approximation and may be incorrect. My copy of the movie is in unsubtitled Japanese, and I was unable to follow the plot. I was able to appreciate certain scenes; there is one where the head of the murdered man appears out of nowhere, and I did catch one scene where an evil spirit is passed from one person to another. But how it all hangs together, I just can’t say. Apparently, ghost-cats have long been a legend in Japan, and during the fifties a string of them were made. I think this is the only one I’ve seen so far. Because of my inability to follow the story, I certainly can’t evaluate the movie, though I may give it a rewatching in the future to see if it becomes any clearer.

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Curse of the Voodoo (1965)

CURSE OF THE VOODOO (1965)
Article 3310 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-21-2010
Posting Date: 9-6-2010
Directed by Lindsay Shonteff
Featuring Bryant Haliday, Dennis Price, Janet Stacey
Country: USA / UK
What it is: Voodoo curse movie

A big game hunter kills a lion in a territory inhabited by a tribe that worships lions. The witch doctor places a curse on the hunter.

The first twenty minutes of this movie work well enough; the story is told crisply, moodily and efficiently. Once the action leaves Africa, though, the movie loses steam. This is probably because there really isn’t much of a story at this point, so we get distracted with several side issues (such as the marital problems with the hunter and his wife) and repeated displays of the curse at work, though I find little variety in the way it manifests itself. Eventually, the action shifts back to Africa, but by this time the tension built up in the opening scenes has dissipated, and the movie’s ending doesn’t really satisfy. This is ultimately a disappointing follow-up to the previous collaboration between Haliday and Shonteff (DEVIL DOLL).

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The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975)

THE REINCARNATION OF PETER PROUD (1975)
Article 3309 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-20-2010
Posting Date: 9-5-2010
Directed by J. Lee Thompson
Featuring Michael Sarrazin, Jennifer O’Neill, Margot Kidder
Country: USA
What it is: Reincarnation thriller

A man, suffering from recurring dreams and unexplainable pains, comes to the conclusion that he is having memories of a previous life. He decides to investigate the details of his previous life… and why he was killed.

I remember the ads for this movie when I was in my teens, but I don’t remember it lasting very long in the theaters and it never showed up locally. I don’t know what I would have thought of it had I seen it then; watching it now, all I can say is that the story seems to be a little better than the presentation. In some ways, it seems like the story itself is the obvious approach to a reincarnation drama – a person digs up the story of his previous life but gets embroiled in the events surrounding it and ends up reliving it. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this movie is the way that sex plays into the story; sex surrounds the murder and plays a role in the attempt to discover the truth, with hints of incest entering the picture. Unfortunately, the movie is overlong and a bit dull; after awhile, we get tired of the repetition of events that is supposed to convince us of the reincarnation angle when it is something that we take for granted in watching the movie. As a result, the movie is only so-so, and is a bit forgettable. It appears to be in the process of being remade, though IMDB lists two Bollywood movies based on the same story.

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Le Passe-muraille (1951)

LE PASSE-MURAILLE (1951)
Article 3308 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-19-2010
Posting Date: 9-4-2010
Directed by Jean Boyer
Featuring Bourvil, Joan Greenwood, Gerard Oury
Country: France / Italy
What it is: Fantasy comedy

A man stumbles upon the ability to walk through walls.

My copy of this movie is in French with no subtitles, but given that I’ve already seen the English version of this movie (MR. PEEK-A-BOO), you’d think that wouldn’t be an impediment. Unfortunately, I discovered that the English version didn’t really stay with me, so I couldn’t really use my memory to help me with this. Much of the humor is visual, usually involving the protagonist’s use of his ability to play pranks on others, but much is also verbal. I may have to rewatch the English version to see what I think. Based on the ratings on IMDB, this French version is supposed to be the superior; it has a rating of 6.0 to the English version’s 4.1. At any rate, the French version looks fast-moving and fun.

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Tarzak Against the Leopards Men (1964)

TARZAK AGAINST THE LEOPARDS MEN (1964)
aka Tarzak conro gli uomini leopardo, Ape Man of the Jungle
Article 3307 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-18-2010
Posting Date: 9-3-2010
Directed by Carlo Veo
Featuring Ralph Hudson, Rita Klein, Nuccia Cardinali
Country: Italy
What it is: Italian Tarzan clone

Zoltak must save explorers from a tribe of Leopard Men, who have given up their peaceful ways and turned to war.

No, my hand didn’t slip when I was typing the title of this one; the onscreen title is indeed TARZAK AGAINST THE LEOPARDS MEN. This makes me wonder if English was not the primary language of whoever wrote the title. Furthermore, whoever came up with the title wasn’t in sync with those doing the translation for the dubbing, for these people changed the main character’s name from Tarzak to Zoltak, probably to deemphasize the obvious fact that this movie is a Tarzan clone. The movie is so-so, but I found it more interesting to compare how this movie differs from the American Tarzan movies. For one thing, Zoltak here as Hercules-style strength, which increases slightly the fantastic content of the jungle tale. The movie has little in the way of animal footage, and Zoltak is not shown having any particular rapport with them. We also have a scene of the grateful white men coming to the rescue of the beleaguered Zoltak, something that I’ve not seen before. Most striking, though, is the ending, where the heroes seem to show more coldness and brutality than we’re used to; just consider the scene where one of the villains falls into quicksand and calls to one of the heroes for help. All in all, it proved to be an interesting viewing experience.

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Welcome to Arrow Beach (1974)

WELCOME TO ARROW BEACH (1974)
Article 3306 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-17-2010
Posting Date: 9-2-2010
Directed by Laurence Harvey
Featuring Laurence Harvey, Joanna Pettet, Stuart Whitman
Country: USA
What it is: Serial killer thriller

A female hitchhiker is invited to spend the night in the home of a Korean war veteran and his sister. When she discovers the man hacking a body with a cleaver, she escapes and tries to tell the police… but they won’t believe her.

If you were just to look at the title of the movie and know that the title tune was warbled by Lou Rawls, you might well expect it to be a drama with romantic overtones, and not a serial killer flick with cannibalistic overtones. I say overtones because the cannibalism is implied rather than made explicit, but that also may be due to the fact that my copy runs only 82 minutes, shorter than IMDB’s time of 85 minutes and much shorter than a Belgian video version that runs 99 minutes; in short, there’s something missing. I’m guessing that some of what’s missing involves a Korean war flashback that in my print is singularly uninformative. There are also a whole slew of other plot elements that are either abandoned or seem extraneous, such as the opening sequence with the hot rodder, the sheriff’s run for re-election, and the police investigation. Though these sequences do play a little into the plot, they are given far more emphasis and time than is necessary for the story as is. Perhaps the longer versions make better use of these elements, and perhaps not. At any rate, those elements did seem to promise a more complex story than we have here. Incidentally, this is Laurence Harvey’s last movie both as actor and director; he died of cancer before it was released.

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The Vulture (1967)

THE VULTURE (1967)
Article 3305 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-16-2010
Posting Date: 9-1-2010
Directed by Lawrence Huntington
Featuring Robert Hutton, Akim Tamiroff, Broderick Crawford
Country: UK / Canada / USA
What it is: Ineffectual monster movie

A vulture with the head and hands of a man is terrorizing the members of a family.

Whatever expectations you have going into this movie, I suggest you lower them. It’s by no means a good movie; in fact, it’s just plain ludicrous, with a silly monster, a ridiculous backstory, and a budget-strapped threadbare look. None of these things necessarily make a movie unenjoyable, but even those who come to laugh will be a little disappointed; there are some laughs to be had (especially when the hero explains what’s going on or the monster attacks), but most of the movie is a gabfest of the dullest sort. It’s something of a cross between THE FLY and THE FLYING SERPENT. For me, the most memorable thing about the movie is the scientific question it left me pondering – could a bird the size of a man become airborne while carrying Broderick Crawford in his claws?

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Starflight One (1983)

STARFLIGHT ONE (1983)
aka Starflight: The Plane That Couldn’t Land
TV-Movie
Article 3304 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-15-2010
Posting Date: 8-31-2010
Directed by Jerry Jameson
Featuring Lee Majors, Hal Linden, Lauren Hutton
Country: USA
What it is: Cross between MAROONED and the AIRPORT movies

A new experimental plane which uses rockets to bring it the highest levels of the stratosphere is launched on its first flight. When it is forced to fly above debris from an aborted rocket, a malfunction causes the plane to use all of its fuel and ends up leaving the earth’s atmosphere. It is stranded in space without fuel, short of oxygen, in need of repair, and unable to reenter the earth’s atmosphere without blowing up. Can they be saved?

If I didn’t know better, I’d say this was a two-hour commercial for the space shuttle Columbia; it’s used so many times in the rescue effort that it pretty much becomes the hero of the story. It’s also the movie’s greatest failing; the movie uses it so often, always with a relaunch from Earth, that it loses all credibility after a while. There are some nice moments here; I like some of the acting and certain details stand out; for example, I like the touch that the passengers who pass through the space tunnel between the plane and the shuttle do so in their stocking feet so as not to damage the tunnel. But it’s also slow-moving, mired by disaster-movie style cliches, implausible, and has plenty of dead spots. My favorite performance is from Pat Corley, who plays an electrician terrified of flying who is recruited to do some last minute repairs. It’s not awful, but it is more than a little dull.

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