Month: December 2019

Sortileges (1945)

SORTILEGES (1945)
aka The Bellman
Article 4010 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-22-2012
Directed by Christian-Jaque
Featuring Lucien Coedel, Fernand Ledoux, Renee Faure
Country: France
What it is: Crime thriller with horror elements

A bellman – that is, a man whose job it is to help lost travelers in the Alps find their way from the ringing of a bell – kills a traveler for his money and splits the proceeds with a companion. However, complications follow…

This is the fourth day in a row that I’ve been able to watch a movie that had fallen into my “ones that got away” list (and I offer my sincere thanks to those board members on CHFB who were able to point me in the direction of them). Like yesterday’s movie, this one is in French without English subtitles, so some of the plot elements are lost on me. It’s a shame; this is one I really wish I could understand more, because what I see is quite intriguing. It’s a visual treat; the snowy locations, the scenes of the murder victim’s horse running wild, and a wonderful dancing sequence are the definite highlights here. I’m not sure exactly to what extent this is a horror movie; the original plot descriptions made me think that the bellman was responsible for several murders (making him something of a serial killer), but only one occurs onscreen during the length of the movie, so if there were others, the details are hidden in the dialogue. However, the wild horse scenes give the sense of a vengeful spirit from hell, and there’s a sequence that may have touches of black magic when an ailing woman is revived with the blood of a bird. The movie seems to be forgotten nowadays, but I really hope a subtitled copy comes to light; whether it’s really a horror movie or not, it does appear to be a gripping and memorable movie.

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L’homme qui vendit son ame (1943)

L’HOMME QUI VENDIT SON AME (1943)
aka The Man Who Sold His Soul
Article 4009 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-21-2012
Directed by Jean-Paul Paulin
Featuring Andre Luguet, Robert Le Vigan, Michele Alfa
Country: France
What it is: Faust variation

A banker is saved from bankruptcy by the devil, but the new wealth he acquires has a price; he must use it for evil.

As the copy that I was able to acquire is in French without subtitles, I’m grateful for a few of the plot descriptions to help me get as much as I can out of it; otherwise, I would have found it very difficult to follow. Still, Faust variations were pretty common during the forties, and this seems like one of the lesser ones. There are some good things about it; the acting seems quite good, with whoever was playing the Mephistopheles character (Robert Le Vigan, maybe?) being the most striking, there’s a memorable sequence in which the banker is the sole audience member for an opera, and the events surrounding the moment where the banker discovers what will happen if he uses his money for good purposes is pretty fun. Still, the movie seems slow and uninteresting, especially if you can’t follow the language. Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to give it another try with a plot description and/or subtitles to help me out. And I’m always glad to finally see a movie that had ended up on my “ones that got away” list.

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La madre e la morte (1911)

LA MADRE E LA MORTE (1911)
aka If One Could See into the Future
Article 4008 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-20-2012
Directed by Arrigo Frusta
Featuring Paolo Azzurri, Maria Bay, Oreste Grandi
Country: Italy
What it is: Tragic fantasy

A woman, bereft at having her young son taken by Death, seeks out the Grim Reaper and asks that her son be returned. He takes her to a pool that shows how the child’s life would have turned out had he lived.

The English title of this one makes it sound like a work of science fiction, but it’s not; it’s a fantasy in which it is not the future of the world that is seen, but what the ultimate fate of a child would have been if it had lived. When this one popped up on my “ones that got away” list, I commented that it sounded pretty depressing, and sure enough, it is; you really feel sorry for the woman in this one who not only loses her child, but her hope that the child would have grown up to be something wonderful. Like yesterday’s movie, there is at least one truly startling effect; in the opening scenes, when Death picks up the baby, he doesn’t just vanished in the “jump cut” sense we’re used to, but he almost seems to implode. More and more I find myself respecting the early pioneers of cinema.

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Sueno de la luna (1905)

SUENO DE LA LUNA (1905)
aka Reve a la lune, Lover of the Moon
Article 4007 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-19-2012
Directed by Gaston Velle and Ferdinand Zecca
Featuring Ferdinand Zecca
Country: France
What it is: Silent trick short

A drunkard given to hallucinations dreams that he travels to the moon.

This silent short is mostly focused on the hallucinations of a drunkard in somewhat the same fashion as THE DREAM OF A RAREBIT FIEND. The moon only comes into play once he has fallen asleep, and he tries to reach the moon first by climbing the building to get to the roof, and then riding to the moon on one of the structures at the top of the building. The most startling sequence here borrows somewhat from A TRIP TO THE MOON, only instead of the moon’s eye being hit by the rocket, we see the drunkard climbing into the moon’s mouth. I wish the print was a little better so I could figure out how they did it, but it is one of the more impressive special effects in the early days of the silents. At any rate, I’m glad to salvage this one off of the “ones that got away” list.

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The Maltese Bippy (1969)

THE MALTESE BIPPY (1969)
Article 4006 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-18-2012
Directed by Norman Panama
Featuring Dan Rowan, Dick Martin, Carol Lynley
Country: USA
What it is: Horror mystery comedy

A man believes that a strange family from next door is trying to turn him into a werewolf.

Anyone who was around during the late sixties/early seventies knows who Rowan and Martin are, as they hosted the hit show “Laugh-In”. However, outside of that show and this movie, I was unaware of anything else they had done, so I checked their individual credits. They’d actually been working together since the late fifties, and they split the team after “Laugh-In”; Rowan was a diabetic who appeared sporadically on TV after that, while Martin would find a lot of work as a TV director. They apparently appeared in three movies together, with this one being probably the most famous, most likely because it was their only starring vehicle at the height of their success. However, the movie was a flop, and I can see why; whatever magic they had on the TV screen dissipated here, where they were required to play characters and not just exchange quips. It’s the kind of movie that, despite the fact that it opens with the two comedians trying to shoot a nudie film, nevertheless ends up with a ‘G’ rating in the theaters. It tries some bizarre comic tricks at the beginning and end of the movie, but for the most part it’s a bland and predictable variation of the “old dark house” movie, and the only werewolf action is during a dream sequence. It’s also startlingly unfunny; I only came close to laughing once, and that was at Martin’s response to Rowan’s set-up line “I’m not sterile.” There’s a little fun to be had with an assortment of familiar actors; Fritz Weaver, Julie Newmar, Robert Reed, Leon Askin and Mildred Natwick are all on hand, and, if anything, they’re more fun than the leads. I actually thought the script seemed like it would have worked better for Abbott and Costello; there were a few times I imagined Rowan’s lines being said by Bud Abbott and Martin’s lines being said by Lou Costello, and I could get a feel on how much funnier they might have been. As it is, there is a reason we don’t have a whole slew of Rowan and Martin movies out there.

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Calino courtier en paratonnerres (1912)

CALINO COURTIER EN PARATONNERRES (1912)
aka Calino’s new invention
Article 4005 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-17-2012
Directed by Jean Durand
Featuring Clement Mage, Gaston Modot
Country: France
What it is: silent comedy

Calino is out trying to peddle his new invention – a gigantic lightning rod. However, the huge size of his invention causes destruction and chaos wherever he goes… and when he does find a buyer, the invention has a slight defect…

Here’s another movie that got saved from my “ones that got away” list; it turned out that I had this one all along, but didn’t know it because I hadn’t matched up the English title with the French title. Clement Mage, who plays Calino, may be one of the first authentic comic actors of the cinema. Most of the comedies from earlier than this had a lot of comic shtick, but Mage shows a real assurance with screen comedy just from an acting perspective. The destruction scenes are actually pretty impressive, with a large amount of stunt work for a movie that runs under five minutes. This one is a lot of fun.

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The Man with the Twisted Lip (1921)

THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED LIP (1921)
Short
Article 4004 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-15-2012
Directed by Maurice Elvey
Featuring Ellie Norwood, Hubert Willis, Robert Vallis
Country: UK
What it is: Another “Adventure of Sherlock Holmes”

Sherlock Holmes is called in by a woman to investigate the possible murder of her husband by a beggar who lives above an opium den. However, Holmes discovers the truth isn’t really that simple…

Here’s another episode in the Ellie Norwood series of Sherlock Holmes shorts, and this one has no real fantastic content to it. I’ve read the complete Sherlock Holmes stories from Doyle, and though I barely remember most of them, there are a few that I do remember well, and this is one of them. That was why I was able to really appreciate the foreshadowing at the beginning of the story when Watson encounters Holmes in disguise at the opium den; while being a perfectly natural occurrence in a Sherlock Holmes story, it does give a hint to the denouement of this one. I warmed up to Ellie Norwood’s performance in this one; the trouble with the last one is that it placed Holmes in the situation of having, for most of the movie, to be sickly and bedridden; here, he’s playing Holmes in his more usual element, and his body language and sense of authority comes through. I also like the close-up scene of Holmes removing all of his makeup at one point. I’d say of the episodes of the series I’ve seen so far, this is my favorite, but I suspect that I will be only watching one more of them.

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The Dying Detective (1921)

THE DYING DETECTIVE (1921)
Silent short
Article 4003 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-13-2012
Directed by Maurice Elvey
Featuring Ellie Norwood, Hubert Willis, Cecil Humphreys
Country: UK
What it is: Episode of movie series “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”

Sherlock Holmes must contend with a clever specialist in Asiatic diseases who may be guilty of a murder. Can he outwit the man?

In Walt Lee’s “Reference Guide to Fantastic Films”, he includes the Ellie Norwood Sherlock Holmes series as a single entity, and, since certain episodes of that series do have fantastic content, that’s acceptable. However, IMDB lists all fifteen episodes as distinct movies, so those that haven’t already done so will now be making their way to my hunt list. But that doesn’t mean that every episode will have fantastic content, and, unless the Asiatic disease in question here is in the realm of science fiction, there’s no real fantastic content to this one. Still, the story is entertaining enough, though I do think that the plot actually relying on the villain to tell all of his secrets to someone he thinks is going to die is a bit of a stretch. I haven’t quite settled on whether I care for Norwood as Holmes yet, but this may have more to do with the fact that I prefer to hear the voice of the actors playing the character, and this being a silent movie, I don’t have that opportunity. I’ve already covered one of the movies in the series, and there are a few others on my hunt list already that I’ve not been able to find, but I’ll probably be covering the rest of them that I do have in the near future.

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