Month: May 2019

The Wild Wild West Revisited (1979)

THE WILD WILD WEST REVISITED (1979)
TV-Movie
Article 3496 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-10-2011
Posting Date: 3-11-2011
Directed by Burt Kennedy
Featuring Robert Conrad, Ross Martin, Paul Williams
Country: USA
What it is: TV show revival

James West and Artemus Gordon are called out of retirement to investigate the substitution of several world leaders by uncanny replicas. They discover it’s part of a plot by the son of their old arch-nemesis Dr. Loveless, who has also created the first atomic bomb.

If there was any TV show from my childhood that I would call “mine” (a personal favorite that I felt and still feel very strongly about), it would be “The Wild Wild West”. The adventures of cool secret service agent James West, the antics of his sidekick Artemus Gordon, and the nefarious schemes of their primary foe Dr. Miguelito Loveless were one of the passions of my childhood. As you might imagine, I’m a bit of a fanatic about the original show, and I hate anyone messing with it; I avoided the movie update featuring Will Smith because I knew it would have little in common with the original series. However, I did catch this late seventies TV-Movie revival of the series, overjoyed to see my old favorites back on the air… and I ended up hating it, finding it a betrayal of all I loved about the series.

I fully expected to vent my spleen about this movie when I watched it for this series, but I found it much more palatable this time. For me, the main concern was whether it would capture the ambiance of that series, and watching it now, I can say that it managed to do it for about half the time. It stars the original leading men, and they still had good chemistry. Paul Williams makes an acceptable son of Dr. Loveless (though I hated him originally for the simple reason that he wasn’t Michael Dunn), and the story more or less is an appropriate one for the series. It does miss a few points; there’s precious little gadgetry on hand (the old James West always had something up his sleeve, in his belt, or in the heels of his boots to help him), and the wild fight scenes where West would take on several assailants at once are missing, except for a disappointing one near the beginning.

Where the movie doesn’t succeed is why I hated so badly when I was younger; though the original series was a satire of sorts, it wasn’t, save for some of Gordon’s comic characters in disguise, played for laughs or camp; the show did it all with a straight face. This one plays for laughs. Sometimes it works, such as during the scene where West encounters a beautiful woman in a saloon only to discover that she’s the daughter of an old lover; in scenes like this, the humor is appropriate and character-driven. For the most part, though, it plays too broadly, especially in the scenes involving Harry Morgan and Jeff MacKay as the head of the secret service and his nephew. Artemus Gordon’s scenes in disguise were always a highlight of the series for me, but here, when he dresses up as a female barroom dancer, it’s done for no discernible reason and played purely for laughs. It was scenes like this which fueled my ire back then. Now I can at least appreciate the ease with which Robert Conrad and Ross Martin handled the comedy, and I can accept the movie for the moments when it works. But it does make me wonder whether any remake or update of a TV series will ever really be able to tap fully into the ambiance of the original. Quite frankly, I have yet to see that happen.

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Ghost Valley (1932)

GHOST VALLEY (1932)
Article 3495 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-8-2011
Posting Date: 3-11-2011
Directed by Fred Allen
Featuring Tom Keene, Merna Kennedy, Kate Campbell
Country: USA
What it is: Weird western, comic style

A judge hires a young drifter to portray one of two heirs to an abandoned ghost town in the hopes that he can talk the other heir (a beautiful woman) into selling; the judge knows there is a fortune in gold there. What the judge does not know is that the drifter is indeed the other heir for real, and has decided to thwart the judge’s scheme.

This weird western concentrates on the comedy for the first part, then has a few spooky sequences involving a masked rider during the middle section (these scenes are actually quite atmospheric), and then concentrates on western thrills for the climax. It’s not bad and fairly entertaining, though the story becomes a bit confusing in the middle section. Still, I do have to admire some of the stunt work in this western, particularly the scenes where horses are ridden down fairly steep inclines. Tom Keene had a long career in B westerns, but his last movie role would be in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.

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Flying Elephants (1928)

FLYING ELEPHANTS (1928)
Short
Article 3494 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-5-2011
Posting Date: 3-9-2011
Directed by Frank Butler and Hal Roach
Featuring Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, James Finlayson
Country: USA
What it is: Silent caveman comedy

When the king orders all residents of the tribe to be married or face banishment, two cavemen find themselves vying for the attention of the same cavewoman.

It’s great to go back to the silent era for a bit and revisit old comedy teams like Laurel and Hardy. This one has its moments, but is a little disappointing since the boys don’t really work as a team. There’s a few scenes near the beginning with Hardy, the middle section is with Laurel, but they don’t meet for a final battle until the end of the movie, so you don’t get the usual relationship between the two. On top of the caveman milieu, the short actually provides some flying elephants (in a short animated bit inspired by an offhand piece of dialogue), and it has what may be a dinosaur; all I know is that Laurel is threatened by a big creature at one point, but I couldn’t get a good look at it (it seemed roughly the size of an ox). The highlights include Laurel’s fishing technique, and the club battle between the pair.

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The Initiation of Sarah (1978)

THE INITIATION OF SARAH (1978)
TV-Movie
Article 3493 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-4-2011
Posting Date: 3-8-2011
Directed by Robert Day
Featuring Kay Lenz, Shelley Winters, Tony Bill
Country: USA
What it is: CARRIE clone

Two sisters, one adopted, go to college. They find themselves pledged to different sororities, and the beautiful sister ends up in the snobbish sorority which forces her to swear not to consort with members of the sorority the other sister has pledged to. However, the adopted sister has psychic powers that manifest when she is angry, and the house mother of her sorority has uses for them…

I remember my mother explaining to me why she never went out to the movies; it was because that sooner or later a TV-Movie would be made on the same subject, and she could watch that for free at home instead. Though I doubt she ever had a hankering to see CARRIE, but if she had, here’s the TV-Movie she would have settled for. Now it’s been years since I’ve seen the De Palma movie (and I’ve never read the Stephen King novel), but I don’t recall anything in that movie about a sisterly conflict of the sort that drives some of the storyline here, and when this movie concentrates on this aspect, it’s at its best. It’s also not too bad when it concentrates on the relationship that develops between Sarah and a timid violinist. I’m less impressed by the black magic angle that is thrown into the mix. Still, the movie is at its weakest when it when it blatantly steals from its model, especially in a “we’re-a-TV-movie-and-we-have-to-soft-pedal-the-horror” way (think mud instead of pig’s blood). At least it doesn’t try to throw in a silly twist ending.

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The Spaceman and King Arthur (1979)

THE SPACEMAN AND KING ARTHUR (1979)
aka The Spaceman in King Arthur’s Court, Unidentified Flying Oddball
Article 3492 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-1-2011
Posting Date: 3-7-2011
Directed by Russ Mayberry
Featuring Dennis Dugan, Jim Dale, Ron Moody
Country: UK
What it is: Shopping cart movie, British style

A young inventor gets caught inside an experimental rocket, and ends up being hurtled through time to end up in the days of King Arthur.

This doesn’t feel like your typical Disney “shopping cart” movie, but I’ve noticed that their British movies do have a different feel about them. I find a copy of this one on YouTube, but I must admit that the copy is pretty wretched. This may have affected my feeling that the movie itself is one of the weakest ones of its type; it feels tired, forced and obvious, and, were it not for some curious historical humor from a certain Sir Winston and a sight gag inspired by falling dominoes, I wouldn’t have laughed once. The presence of Ron Moody as Merlin and Kenneth More as King Arthur adds a bit of fun, but Dennis Dugan is one of the least memorable of Disney’s comic leads. This wasn’t the last of the shopping cart movies (at least one of the Herbie movies came after it), but it was awfully close to the end of that cycle, which had kicked off in the late fifties, hit its peak in the early sixties, and then went into a long decline. And if you want a King Arthur comedy, I’d suggest you hunt for one that came from Monty Python.

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Un Matrimonio Interplanetario (1909)

UN MATRIMONIO INTERPLANETARIO (1909)
aka Interplanetary Wedding
Article 3491 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-31-2011
Posting Date: 3-6-2011
Directed by Enrico Novelli
Cast unknown
Country: Italy
What it is: Lighthearted early science fiction

With his new telescope, a man finds his true love on the planet Mars.

I’m guessing a little bit on the plot of this one insofar as the planets in question, but I think the woman he loves is on Mars, and they meet and marry on the moon. I managed to find a copy of this one when some members of CHFB pointed me in the direction of a YouTube video that consists of several musicians performing music to fantastically-themed silent shorts. Granted, this isn’t a clean viewing of the movie; the footage from the film is interspersed with footage of the musicians, but I saw enough of it that I don’t think I missed a whole lot. The short has some fun visuals; I especially like when the man sends a telegram to his love on Mars, and you see the letters flying through space. It does make me want to go through the whole video concert and see what other movies they cover.

P.S. I have since been given a copy of this with English translations of some of the hard-to-read sections, and I turned out to be correct on my plot interpretation.

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Santo and Blue Demon vs. the Monsters (1970)

SANTO AND BLUE DEMON VS. THE MONSTERS (1970)
aka Santo el enmascarado de plata y Blue Demon contra los monstruos
Article 3490 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-29-2011
Posting Date: 3-5-2011
Directed by Gilberto Martinez Solares
Featuring Santo, Blue Demon, Jorge Rado
Country: Mexico
What it is: Mexican wrestling monster mash

An evil scientist is resurrected from the dead, and gathers together an army of monsters to do his bidding. He also creates an evil duplicate of Blue Demon. Can Santo defeat the monster army and rescue the real Blue Demon from the scientist’s clutches?

I was fully expecting to be watching another Spanish language movie without subtitles, so I was delighted to find English subtitles popping up when I put this one into my DVD player. In the final analysis, though, I don’t think it matters. The movie doesn’t really have a plot; it has a premise, a resolution to that premise, and it fills the rest with typical Mexican wrestler movie scenes (there’s two wrestling scenes and a nightclub scene) and stuffs it to the gills with monster attack mayhem. The movie is a tribute to demented excess; the first clue I had to this was when I realized that the scientist’s assistant was both a midget and a hunchback. We have a vampire, a set of female vampire minions, a mummy, a werewolf, the Frankenstein (excuse me, Franquestain) monster, a bizarre furry cyclops, a short little monster with an exposed brain (this one seems to be for atmosphere; he does little but stand around), and a set of zombie hordes whose green makeup doesn’t quite go up to the actors’ hairlines. The opening credits sure make it look like this is the Santo movie to end all Santo movies. Questions abound. Why does Raul Martinez Solares, a child actor with no previous movie acting credits, get fifth billing when he does little more than run away when his parents are attacked by the werewolf? Does the Frankenstein (excuse me again; Franquestain) monster have a valid driver’s license? Why does the movie stop the action dead in its tracks so we can visit a nightclub where they’re putting on what looks for all the world like a Mexican version of AN AMERICAN IN PARIS? Did they have to keep changing the batteries for the Cyclops’s eye? Don’t worry; the movie moves so fast you’ll barely have time to think about these things. It seems to me that this is the movie that ASSIGNMENT TERROR and Al Adamson’s DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN could only wish to be. I can’t really call it “good” per se, but as an example of insane overkill, it’s hard to beat.

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Gigantes Planetarios (1965)

GIGANTES PLANETARIOS (1965)
aka Planetary Giants
Article 3489 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-28-2011
Posting Date: 3-4-3011
Directed by Alfredo B. Cravenna
Featuring Guillermo Murray, Adriana Roel, Rogelio Guerrra
Country: Mexico
What it is: Mexican space opera

In an effort to put an end to alien espionage, astronauts take a trip to a giant planet.

I’m guessing a bit on the plot, since my copy is in unsubtitled Spanish. It’s a pretty ambitious effort considering the limited resources of Mexican cinema, and though the special effects are weak, I’ve seen worse. Still, it’s no surprise that about half of the movie remains earthbound, with the usual office, nightclub and sports arena settings so common to movies from this country (though I will admit to being a bit surprised that the arena scene was for a boxing rather than a wrestling match). The story appears to be nothing special; it’s largely a “go to the evil planet and defeat the bad guys” plot. Still, there are some odd moments you only find in Mexican cinema; my favorite is seeing someone pack for a trip and including a space helmet in their luggage. Apparently, this movie spawned a sequel which, if you can believe the ratings on IMDB, is not very good but better than this one.

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The War in Space (1977)

THE WAR IN SPACE (1977)
aka Wakusei daisenso
Article 3488 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-27-2011
Posting Date: 3-3-2011
Directed by Jun Fukuda
Featuring Kensaku Morita, Yuko Asano, Ryo Ikebe
Country: Japan
What it is: Japanese space opera

An intrepid team of fighters use their war machine called Gohton to fight off an invasion from Venus.

Any movie with a title like this to come out after the release of STAR WARS tends to trigger a belief in me that it was made to cash in on the popularity of that movie. And there are definite elements of STAR WARS in this movie. However, Japan has a tradition of space opera all its own, and Toho has more than its share under its belt, and though this movie may borrow from STAR WARS, it also is taking inspiration from previous Toho productions like ATRAGON and (especially) BATTLE IN OUTER SPACE; in some ways, this movie is a remake of that second one. This gives the movie a little bit more in the way of novelty value. There are also a few moments I really like; just for example, I’m really taken with the fact that there is no background music when the task force first enters the alien spaceship, as it adds a real tension to the proceedings. I find it more useful to compare it to BATTLE IN OUTER SPACE than STAR WARS, and I can say that in some ways it improves on that movie; there’s a much greater human element to this one, making it less of exercise in mechanical special effects. But, alas, there’s something incredibly threadbare about the whole production; I miss the crowds and milling extras that fill up those earlier movies, as there hardly seems to be anyone around in this one. There’s also quite a bit of silliness, especially in the monster and alien design. The ending owes more than a touch to the original GOJIRA, and it’s one of the better sections of the movie. Still, the movie is more of a curiosity than a success.

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The Lost Planet (1953)

THE LOST PLANET (1953)
Serial
Article 3487 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-26-2011
Posting Date: 3-2-2011
Directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet
Featuring Judd Holdren, Vivian Mason, Michael Fox
Country: USA
What it is: Science fiction serial

The evil Dr. Grood discovers a planet with a rare mineral that can give him the power to conquer the world. Can reporter Rex Barrow defeat him and rescue Grood’s hostage, Professor Dorn, who is being forced to help him in his evil schemes?

The IMDB rating of this serial is a lowly 4.6, which is no surprise for a serial made when the genre was on its last legs in the mid-fifties. And, truth to tell, it is a fairly lame serial. However, I’m feeling generous enough to say I more or less enjoyed this one. Maybe it’s because it’s an actual honest-to-goodness science fiction serial with rocket ships, an alien planet and amazing inventions rather than being mostly an action-adventure flick with one or two small Gizmo Maguffins, which is what I usually get. Maybe it’s because it actually looks like almost all of the footage used was actually shot for this serial and not lifted from another older one, which is actually pretty rare for this time. And maybe it’s because the serial has the good sense to put its comic relief character in a hypnotic trance that keeps him from cracking wise during most of the running time. This may make up a little for the fact that the alien planet looks like Vazquez rocks for the most part, that the aliens look and dress like Arabs, and that the evil Dr. Grood can’t make up his mind to kill Professor Dorn or keep him alive. Or that most of the cliffhangers are fairly lame, even if it avoids bailouts. Or maybe it’s because I’m nearing the end of covering this type of thing and don’t want to go out on a sour note. Besides, this serial has some of the most entertaining chapter titles I’ve ever enjoyed.

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