Month: March 2019

Arzt ohne Gewissen (1959)

ARZT OHNE GEWISSEN (1959)
aka The Private Clinic of Professor Lund
Article 3421 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-15-2010
Posting Date: 12-26-2010
Directed by Falk Harnack
Featuring Ewald Balser, Wolfgang Preiss, Barbara Rutting
Country: West Germany
What it is: Nazi doctor drama

A respected professor and surgeon comes under suspicion when it is discovered his assistant is a former Nazi.

The above plot description I cobbled together from what I could make out of the movie along with a short plot description at allmovies.com. My copy is in unsubtitled German, and it was only with the help of this plot description that I was able to avoid getting totally lost. Still, I did get lost enough at times, and I do know that not only was the assistant a former Nazi, but he is still engaged in highly questionable practices; there is a kidnapping of a woman at one point, and there is a plot about a patient at the clinic trying to make a desperate escape. The scenes are engaging enough that I really hope some day to see it dubbed or subtitled, so I can get the full effect of the movie. There are touches of horror and science fiction around the edges; the clinic is in a rather spooky castle, and I think they’re planning a heart transplant at one point in the proceedings. At any rate, I’ll have to reserve judgment on this one.

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Oh, God! (1977)

OH, GOD! (1977)
Article 3420 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-13-2010
Posting Date: 12-25-2010
Directed by Carl Reiner
Featuring John Denver, George Burns, Teri Garr
Country: USA
What it is: Deity comedy

God appears to an assistant manager of a grocery store and recruits him to spread a message to the people of the world. The assistant manager soon finds himself in over his head in dealing with the repercussions of fulfilling his task.

I think the best thing about this comedy is the casting of George Burns in the title role; his graceful aging and gentle comic persona make for a very approachable and likable deity. I think another aspect that also helped was that George Burns developed a style that made his joke-telling simple, straightforward and easy, and these also lend themselves to bringing this role to life. The movie was quite popular, if I remember right, and spawned two sequels, but this is one of those movies I wish didn’t have sequels; what works as a one-time idea loses its appeal when turned into a franchise. The other performers do a decent job, and I can’t help but notice that Teri Garr must have had a real workout playing housewives who suspect their husbands are going crazy; she also appeared in the same type of role in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. One of the big surprises I had this time is how many well-known actors appear in the movie in very abbreviated roles; Donald Pleasence gets fourth-billing and has only one line, and you don’t see much of Jeff Corey or Barry Sullivan either. In the end, I find myself really liking the movie, though I think it may be a little too simplistic for its own good, but then, that was probably one of the reasons it was so popular. And I will say this much; if God exists and is anything like George Burns is here, I wouldn’t have any objections to believing in him.

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Honeymoon (1985)

HONEYMOON (1985)
aka Lune de miel
Article 3419 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-12-2010

Posting Date: 12-24-2010
Directed by Patrick Jamain
Featuring Nathalie Baye, John Shea, Richard Berry
Country: Canada / France
What it is: Psycho killer movie

A Frenchwoman in New York is threatened with deportation when her husband is arrested on drug charges. She arranges a marriage of convenience with another man to get her American citizenship under the assumption that she will never meet the man. Then he suddenly shows up at her apartment, and she can’t get rid of him. And furthermore, he’s not quite sane…

This is a French / Canadian production shot in New York (and Montreal) that I found difficult to find, and had to settle for a print that was dubbed into Italian. Nevertheless, I found enough in the way of plot descriptions to help me sort it out. In some ways, it reminds me of PLAY MISTY FOR ME in the way it portrays how an unhealthy person can worm their way into your life, though it’s not quite as good. Though it works itself up to a decent ending, it’s one of those movies that takes quite a while to get moving; the middle of the movie is a fairly long stretch, though it might have played better for me if I could have understood the dialogue. Nevertheless, it’s a pretty minor entry in the psycho killer movie genre.

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The Questor Tapes (1974)

THE QUESTOR TAPES (1974)
TV-Movie
Article 3418 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-11-2010
Posting Date: 12-23-2010
Directed by Richard A. Colla
Featuring Robert Foxworth, Mike Farrell, John Vernon
Country: USA
What it is: Science fiction TV series pilot

When scientists undertake to reconstruct an experiment of a missing scientist (now believed dead), the end result is an android. The android embarks on a journey to find his creator to discover his purpose.

This is another one of Gene Roddenberry’s attempts to come up with a series after the demise of the original “Star Trek”. This is the one I would have most liked to have seen make it to a series, if for no other reason than to get an idea of just how it would manifest itself in that way; the pilot itself serves as mostly an introduction to the main characters and the premise, and probably wouldn’t have captured quite what the series would have been like. Some of the observations of the non-human android on the human condition are a bit on the cliched side, but some of it is quite fresh, and the movie has a number of interesting ideas. Still, as a series, I could see how it might have fallen into a certain pattern of predictability. I found Robert Foxworth’s performance as Questor quite striking.

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Der Student von Prag (1935)

DER STUDENT VON PRAG (1935)
aka The Student of Prague
Article 3417 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-10-2010
Posting Date: 12-22-2010
Directed by Arthur Robison
Featuring Anton Walbrook, Theodor Loos, Dorothea Wieck
Country: Germany
What it is: Doppelganger film

A student falls in love with a beautiful singer, and sells his soul (in the form of his mirror reflection) to win her. He then finds himself haunted by his reflection.

Since my copy of this is in unsubtitled German, I’m doing a little guessing on the plot, but since I’ve seen the two earlier versions of the story, I’m guessing it’s accurate enough. Though this is supposed to be the weakest of the three versions I’ve seen, I quite liked it, even with the language difficulties. Several of the scenes are quite striking, and the performances by Anton Wolbrook and Theodor Loos are quite memorable. The ending is particularly memorable here; I don’t recall the endings of the other two versions to be quite as moving as this one’s. Maybe someday I’ll get to see a subtitled version and really be able to appreciate it.

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Lost Horizon (1973)

LOST HORIZON (1973)
Article 3416 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-9-2010
Posting Date: 12-21-2010
Directed by Charles Jarrott
Featuring Peter Finch, Liv Ullmann, Sally Kellerman
Country: USA
What it is: Musical fantasy

Refugees from a failed UN peace mission are on a plane that is hijacked to a remote location in the middle of nowhere. There they discover the Utopian world of Shangri-La… but is the lure of their own world too great for them to stay there?

I believe it was in “The Book of Lists” that I read a story about a country who decided to shorten the length of the movie version of THE SOUND OF MUSIC but cutting all the songs. Though it’s hard to imagine such a thing happening to that movie, that sounds like it might be a viable approach to handling this one. Not that I have any Utopian ideas of this movie being any undiscovered masterpiece if you removed the songs; it would be essentially an unnecessary, old-fashioned remake of a classic film that didn’t really add anything new to the story and suffered from some dodgy casting. But, of course, something new WAS added, and those are the songs, and every time one of them starts up, I find myself wanting to leave the room out of embarrassment for all concerned. I don’t really point the finger at Burt Bacharach and Hal David; they’re a fine songwriting team who just happened to be saddled with an impossible job that I doubt anyone could have pulled off. As it is, each song is stunningly inappropriate and out of place, and the uninspired performances and choreography just make it all the more painful. Quite frankly, turning this story into a musical was a bad idea for a movie that just happened to get made. Fortunately, there’s always the Capra version to fall back on.

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Io uccido, tu uccide (1965)

IO UCCIDO, TU UCCIDE (1965)
aka I Kill, You Kill
Article 3415 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-8-2010
Posting Date: 12-20-2010
Directed by Gianni Puccine
Featuring Franco Franchi, Ciccio Ingrassia, Rosalba Neri
Country: Italy / France
What it is: Italian comedy anthology

Italians find ways to kill each other.

This is a two-hour ten-minute movie starring Franco and Ciccio. Ordinarily, this comment would be a warning for you to run screaming for the hills, but it’s not as bad as it sounds; it’s an anthology movie of six different stories, only two of which feature the two comedians, and one of those is the shortest segment in the movie. Furthermore, they are used wisely, especially in the final story in which a man is warned by his doctor that he will die if he has one more cigarette; Franco’s mugging can be painful, but for him to play a man desperate for a smoke while having to suffer through the fact that his family is made up of chain smokers puts the mugging in the proper context. Granted, I’m guessing a little here; my copy of the movie is in unsubtitled Italian. Still, of the six stories here, only one is rendered incomprehensible; about all I can make out of the third story is that it’s a pastiche on Alfred Hitchcock movies. The smoking story is the final segment; the first one is the other Franco and Ciccio story, and it appears to be about cheating husbands and wives with the story eventually turning into a duel. The second story is fairly amusing; it’s about a man who comes up with a clever way to try to kill off an ailing relative. The fantastic content is largely limited to the fourth and fifth stories. The fifth is about a group of children who keep being passed from guardian to guardian because they have a way of eliminating those of them who don’t like their dog; there’s a certain spookiness to this one. The fifth story is about an ill-mannered suitor and a woman who undergoes a personality transformation during the full moon; it’s pretty unsettling to discover that she has her own personal cemetery. It’s scattershot, but the movie has its moments, even if you don’t understand Italian.

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Possession (1973)

POSSESSION (1973)
Episode of British TV show “Thriller”
Article 3414 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-7-2010
Posting Date: 12-19-2010
Directed by John Cooper
Featuring John Carson, Joanna Dunham, Hilary Hardiman
Country: UK
What it is: Supernatural possesseion thriller…or is it?

A couple moves into a house that was the site of a murder twenty years earlier. The husband begins exhibiting behavior like that of the killer from that time. Could he be possessed…?

I do have to admire the efficiency with which this movie establishes its premise; before five minutes are up, you have a good grasp of the basic situation, a handle on the main characters, and a strong sense of where the story is going. On the down side, it’s also quite apparent that the story is made of some very familiar concepts indeed; I can’t begin to tell you how often I’ve run into the premise of a couple moving into a house that was the site of a murder, the husband overjoyed, the woman nervous and apprehensive. The title gives you a further hint of the direction of the story, and the addition of a spiritual medium further adds to the familiarity of it all. Nevertheless, the movie does have an interesting twist or two up its sleeve, and I have to admit that I more or less like this one. Also, despite the fact that this is one of those movies where you suspect the supernatural elements will be explained away, the ending does leave some of them squarely in place. Not a bad entry in this series.

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Silent Mobius (1991)

SILENT MOBIUS (1991)
Article 3413 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-6-2010
Posting Date: 12-17-2010
Directed by Michitaka Kikuchi
Featuring the voices of Toshiko Fujita, Koichi Hashimoto, Chieko Honda
Country: Japan
What it is: Anime science fiction occult movie

The daughter of two powerful mages finds herself targeted for recruitment by a squad of women with psychic powers to help fight an attack of demons from another dimension.

This anime movie sat on my hunt list for years, evading every attempt I made to find it; every time I did a hunt, I would locate episodes of an identically-named TV series from a few years later. Eventually the movie fell off of my hunt list and ended up in my list of movies I could’t find. When it finally manifested itself, it was in Japanese with Italian subtitles, but I was nevertheless glad to find it. Anime movies can be a little difficult to follow in the first place even without these difficulties, but I was able to find enough about the basic premise and the storyline to help me through this one. I found it entertaining enough, though after a while some of the screaming got on my nerves; there’s a lot of it in this movie. One thing I was never able to quite grasp was the nature of each character’s psychic powers, but it didn’t seem really important at this point. Apparently, this was adapted from a Manga series and concentrates mostly on one character named Katsume Liqueur; most of the movie is told in flashback and covers the events surrounding her recruitment. There was a sequel made the next year, but who knows when I’ll get to that one.

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Point of Terror (1971)

POINT OF TERROR (1971)
Article 3412 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-5-2010
Posting Date: 12-17-2010
Directed by Alex Nicol
Featuring Peter Carpenter, Dyanne Thorne, Lory Hansen
Country: USA
What it is: Overheated Soap Opera

A sexy male lounge singer hooks up with the wife of a record company owner in the hope of using the connection to land a record contract. However, he soon finds himself entangled in murder and intrigue.

I found this movie on a set called “Horrible Horror”, which, given this movie, is a slightly inaccurate title. Not that the movie isn’t horrible; quite frankly, it’s atrocious. It is, however, not really a horror movie. Apparently, the advertising emphasized a masked madman killing a woman with a butcher knife. Make no mistake; the scene appears in the movie, but unless it’s a metaphor for something that escapes me at the moment, it has precisely nothing to do with anything else in the movie, and may just be a figment of someone’s imagination. That scene provides a smidgen of horror content, and the end of the movie has a twist that also adds a little more, but with the first scene being arbitrarily gratuitous and the other being the height of cliched stupidity, I’m ready to disqualify the movie on bad script choices alone. Still, this is one of those movies where the dialogue is so silly, the action sequences so ridiculous, the music so awful, and the plot so overheated that the movie nets a fair share of laughs during its running time. You’ll get the most mileage out of it if you watch it as an inadvertent comedy.

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