Month: November 2019

The Last Chase (1981)

THE LAST CHASE (1981)
Article 3952 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-9-2012
Directed by Martyn Burke
Featuring Lee Majors, Burgess Meredith, Chris Makepeace
Country: Canada / USA
What it is: Dystopian car chase movie

In the future, the world has run out of oil and a plague has destroyed a large portion of humanity. A former race car driver turned public transit spokesman turns rogue, rebuilds his race car, and, with the help of a young rebel, sets out on the road to escape from his oppressive society to a new community across the country in California. The authorities decide to enlist the aid of a former jet pilot to fly a fighter plane and destroy the car.

I thought the premise itself (a jet plane chasing a race car) was pretty silly until it became clear to me that the plane’s purpose was to destroy the car; at that point, I was able to accept the premise a bit more. However, the movie has other problems. The three villainous authority figures are more annoying than frightening, with George Touliatos in particular given to overacting on his big speeches. Furthermore, their characters seem utterly dim; if they couldn’t see that the pilot was an eccentric loose cannon who was more apt to sympathize with the race car driver than with the authorities (which I was able to tell immediately and which the race car driver figures out without even meeting him), then they show an appalling lack of character judgment. The character of the young rebel is very poorly thought out, and the movie has a bad habit of relying on dull and repetitive camera angles. Yet I think the movie’s biggest flaw is this; there’s something potentially incredibly visceral about the idea of a cross-country race; anyone whose seen VANISHING POINT knows what can be done with the idea. This movie never once taps into that sense, and the driving scenes are dull and mundane rather than exciting and thrilling. That problem alone is what really sinks this movie.

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La dama de la muerte (1946)

LA DAMA DE LA MUERTE (1946)
aka The Lady and Death
Article 3951 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-8-2012
Directed by Carlos Hugo Christensen
Featuring Carlos Cores, Judith Sulian, Guillermo Battaglia
Country: Chile
What it is: Another version of “The Suicide Club”

A desperate man joins a suicide club, but afterwards finds a reason to keep living. Unfortunately, he has been dealt the losing card…

Here’s another foreign movie that has no English subtitles to help me out, but it does seem to be cut from rather familiar cloth; it’s another version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Suicide Club”. It’s also one of the movies that Jerry Warren pillaged for footage for THE CURSE OF THE STONE HAND, and though I suppose I could rewatch that one to help me over some of the rough spots of this one, I somehow don’t think it will help much. This is perhaps the most elaborate version of the story I’ve seen, but most of the others have been as parts of anthology films. There are some striking visual moments, though; I love the parts where they actually play the game, because each of the members of the club has his own quirks about how they pick up and show the card. Nonetheless, the lack of subtitles does mar the viewing a bit, especially during the second half of the movie when you’re waiting for the other shoe to fall. Still, this one looks fairly decent. Still, I do wonder just how much this story can be classified as genre.

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After Darkness (1985)

AFTER DARKNESS (1985)
Article 3950 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-7-2012
Directed by Sergio Guerraz and Dominique Othenin-Girard
Featuring John Hurt, Julian Sands, Victoria Abril
Country: Switzerland
What it is: Art film

A professor decides to take his younger brother (who descended into madness after the death of his twin brother) out of an asylum and care for him himself. But is his own sanity strong enough to deal with his brother? And what happens when his assistant and former lover comes between them?

Despite the theme of madness that permeates the whole movie, this is definitely more art film drama than horror movie. It’s one of those types of movies that either draws you into its fragmented world or leaves you stranded with no real way to get in; unfortunately, this one took the second route for me, and despite the obvious talents of the cast involved, I became rather bored with this story of a man’s interminable descent into madness. What isn’t confusing in that art-movie way it has of expressing itself is more than a little obvious: I found little in the way of real surprises or real revelations. This one may well be a matter of taste.

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Electric Eskimo (1979)

ELECTRIC ESKIMO (1979)
aka Superkids
Article 3949 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-6-2012
Directed by Frank Godwin
Featuring Tom Chadbon, Ivor Danvers, Kris Emmerson
Country: UK
What it is: Juvenile superhero

When an Eskimo boy becomes caught up in an experiment conducted at the North Pole, he gains the ability to spontaneously generate electrical charges. He is taken to England for study, but becomes the target of spies who wish to use his talents for their own nefarious purposes.

Despite the fact that this entry from the Children’s Film Foundation is less overtly comic than yesterday’s movie, and that some of the plot details are quite different, it’s rather obvious that both movies are cut from the same piece of cloth; in fact, one of the first things I checked was whether there were any writing credits in common, and sure enough, both movies were penned by the same duo, Frank Godwin and Harry Robertson. The primary thrust of each movie is the same; it’s to show children cleverly outwitting and humiliating evil adults. If anything, this one is even more witless; when it tries for comedy, it does so in a tame slapstick mode that shows little in the way of comic timing or reaction. In fact, my reaction to both of the movies is similar; they seem homogenized and pre-chewed, as if the child audience in question would get indigestion from anything too intense. I’m sure some people do feel that way, but the movies I remember most from my childhood were the ones that weren’t afraid to frighten me or upset me; movies like this one would be nothing more than time-killers. That being said, I can’t help but notice that the Eskimo boy here focuses his power by use of the Bela Lugosi WHITE ZOMBIE hand gesture.

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Sammy’s Super T-Shirt (1978)

SAMMY’S SUPER T-SHIRT (1978)
aka Superkids
Article 3948 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-5-2012
Directed by Jeremy Summers
Featuring Reggie Winch, Lawrie Mark, David Young
Country: UK
What it is: Pseudo-shopping cart movie on a budget

When Sammy’s favorite T-shirt gets treated in a research lab, it develops the property of giving its wearer super powers. Can Sammy use it to win the big race, or will the two scientists trying to recover the shirt get it away from him?

In the John Stanley book I’m using, there is a listing for a movie called SUPERKIDS for which there is no entry on IMDB. However, as the listing clarifies, it consisted of two movies from the Children’s Film Foundation in Great Britain edited together, and both of these two movies had separate listings on IMDB, so I opted to watch the two movies separately. This was the first one, and though I could have watched it some time ago, out of respect for the entry in the book, I decided to get both movies before I watched them; it was a few years before I could find the other one.

Not that it was really worth the wait; the movie is really just a low-rent variation on the Disney shopping-cart movies of the period. Granted, I wasn’t expecting much of anything else, and on its own terms, the movie isn’t really awful; it’s just predictable and quite juvenile, and never really rises above its models. Other than its fantastic content, the biggest point of interest is a cameo from veteran Hammer character actor, Michael Ripper.

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The Haunted Hotel (1907)

THE HAUNTED HOTEL (1907)
Article 3947 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-4-2012
Directed by J. Stuart Blackton
Featuring Paul Panzer and William V. Ranous
Country: USA
What it is: Haunted inn trick film

A visitor has strange experiences at a haunted inn.

If anything sets this apart from the other trick films of the period, it is its extensive use of stop motion animation; the opening sequence shows the outside of the spooky inn, with the front of it eventually morphing into a sinister face, and the traveler watches as his meal prepares itself in front of him (though personally, I wouldn’t drink the coffee after I discover a clown lives in the coffee urn). Sadly, the copy of the movie I saw seems to be incomplete; I see reports of the appearance of demons at the end of the movie after the traveler has gone to bed, but the copy I saw ended with the traveler going to sleep, which is a disappointment. Maybe someday I’ll get a chance to see the complete version, but this will have to serve for now.

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La caverna de la bruja (1906)

LA CAVERNA DE LA BRUJA (1906)
aka The Witch’s Cave, L’antre de la sorciere
Article 3946 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-3-2012
Directed by Segundo de Chomon
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Comic witch tale

An idiot leaves his wife when she breaks a plate over his head. He then goes to the cave of a witch to find a replacement for her.

For the most part, the plot plays little role in this silent short; most of the middle section has the idiot being tormented by various apparitions in the cave, who reappear and disappear at will. Even when the idiot tries to pick out a new wife, he’s still tormented by the fiends. It all leads to a happy ending (I suppose), but, for the life of me, I don’t understand why the wife would want the idiot back if he annoys her so much she breaks plates over his head. Still, I’m no expert on dysfunctional relationships, so we’ll just let that be. All in all, this is a fairly amusing short.

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Die Welt ohne Maske (1934)

DIE WELT OHNE MASKE (1934)
aka The World Without a Mask
Article 3945 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-2-2012
Directed by Harry Piel
Featuring Harry Piel, Kurt Vespermann, Anni Markart
Country: Germany
What it is: Science fiction comedy

An inventor creates a television that can see through walls, and becomes the target of criminals and spies who want his invention.

Like yesterday, this is a German movie from 1934 that ended up on my “ones that got away” list, only to finally drop into my lap. And, also like yesterday, I have no English subtitles to help me out, though I did read a short description of the premise that did. Unlike yesterday, though, there is definite fantastic content, and though the premise is along the lines of your usual Gizmo Maguffin plot, I can say that the invention is used quite often during the proceedings, often to foil the crooks who are trying to get their hands on the invention. However, the lack of English subtitles does hurt somewhat; though some of the humor is visual, much of it seems verbal and situational, and what I could make out of it was only mildly amusing. Some of it is obvious (the inventor and his assistant watch some showgirls undressing at one point), and nothing really happens that looks unusual or surprising. As a snap judgment, I’d say the movie is fairly ordinary, though there is always the chance that a translated copy might appeal to me more.

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Peer Gynt (1934)

PEER GYNT (1934)
Article 3944 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-1-2012
Directed by Fritz Wendhausen
Featuring Hans Albers, Lucie Hoflich, Marieluise Claudius
Country: Germany
What it is: Ibsen drama

A ne’er-do-well from a small village makes his way into the world and becomes a successful businessman.

This movie has now been retrieved from my “ones-that-got-away” list; unfortunately, my copy is in unsubtitled German, and, even though I’ve seen the 1941 version of the story and read the original play many years ago, not enough stayed in my head to help me with this one. So I looked around for a plot description to help me, and I found one of the original play, and though this version of the story follows the story of the play for about the first thirty minutes, as far as I can tell after that, it diverges quite a bit. More to the point, the sequence where Peer Gynt encounters the troll king (which, from reading the plot description, takes place in a dream) has either been omitted from this version or changed to a much more realistic scenario. The problem is – that’s the sole fantastic content in the story, and with that gone, there’s really little reason for me to be covering this one. As it is, the language barrier makes it possible for me to appreciate the movie when the visuals or the energy make it work, so I really only found the energetic first thirty minutes and the last fifteen minutes consistently interesting; the rest was a talky bore. I might feel better if I get to see it with subtitles, so I’ll reserve judgment until then.

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Strange Cargo (1929)

STRANGE CARGO (1929)
Article 3943 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-29-2012
Posting Date: 5-31-2012
Directed by Benjamin Glazer and Arthur Gregor
Featuring Lee Patrick, June Nash, George Barraud
Country: USA
What it is: Old dark yacht movie

People attending a party aboard a yacht become suspected of murder when the host mysteriously vanishes when the light goes out.

This movie has nothing in common with the Clark Gable/Joan Crawford movie from 1940; instead, it’s an “old dark house” mystery, transferred to a yacht. It’s main problem is that it’s an early talkie, which means it’s static and very creaky. It’s also given to some silly melodramatics at time. There’s mysticism, telepathy, and hypnotism as the fantastic elements, though some of these may be faked; the final moments of the movie are a bit obscure due to the quality of my print. There’s a seance in a crow’s nest, an odd assortment of characters, and an ending that is fairly unbelievable. Still, if you can get past the creakiness, it’s entertaining in its own way.

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