Month: March 2020

The Mechanical Handy Man (1937)

THE MECHANICAL HANDY MAN (1937)
Article 4237 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-28-2013
Director unknown
Voice cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Animated robot saga

Oswald the rabbit and his pals (a stupid rooster and a dachshund on wheels) offer to demonstrate their new invention, a mechanical handy man, to a dubious farmer by having the handy man milk his cow. However, the mechanical man only succeeds in terrifying the cow and chaos ensues.

This rather interesting animated cartoon about a robot falls squarely into the “technology runs amok” category. Once you see the mechanical handy man in action, you’ll be squarely on the side of the cow, as the handy man’s grip is so strong it causes the corn on the corncobs to pop, and his method of accosting the cow (yanking on its tail) is hardly inviting. The handy man’s roughness is actually a bit disturbing, and it gives this short an unexpected (and possibly unintentional) darkness. One other odd aspect is that the mechanical handy man is not shaped like a man; it looks like a mechanical ostrich. I suspect that this latter touch may be a result of the fact that the short was written by animator Charles R. Bowers, whose own stop-motion shorts often featured metallic birds. All in all, I found this to be an amusing short, though the dark undercurrent may leave one feeling a bit queasy.

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Kaidan Saga Yashiki (1953)

KAIDAN SAGA YASHIKI (1953)
aka Ghost of Saga Mansion
Article 4236 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-26-2013
Directed by Ryohei Arai
Featuring Takako Irie, Yoshitaro Bando, Kikue Mouri
Country: Japan
What it is: The Ghost Cat Begins

When her son is killed as part of a conspiracy, and old woman commits suicide, giving rise to a vengeful ghost-cat.

So many ghost-cat movies were made in Japan during the fifties that there must be a reason for its popularity. I think one of the reasons may be this particular movie; it was (if I have my information correct) the first of the ghost-cat movies, and based on what I’ve seen so far, it’s easily the best. Given that my copy is once again in Japanese without subtitles, I do have problems following the story line, but once the story progresses far enough so that we can get some vengeful ghost-cat action, the movie takes off; it is genuinely eerie. The movie does a better job of incorporating the cat-like nature of the ghost into the proceedings, there are some creepy transformation sequences, and the scene here where the ghost-cat forces one of its victims to undergo a series of tumbling exercises (which usually comes off as strange but silly) is quite unsettling; I could see this time that we were dealing with tendency of a cat to play with its victims. I’ve begun to realize now how the other movies I’ve seen are essentially retreads of this one, lacking the atmosphere that makes this one work. It’s always nice to see a movie that helps you to put others you’ve seen into context.

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The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914)

THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ (1914)
Article 4235 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-25-2013
Directed by J. Farrell MacDonald
Featuring Violet MacMillan, Frank Moore, Raymond Russell
Country: USA
What it is: Fantasy adventure

When a magician uses a powder to bring a patchwork girl to life, his new creation ends up using a petrification powder on several people. In order to restore their friends to life, a quest is undertaken to find the items that will make a magic potion to restore the petrified ones.

It looks like L. Frank Baum, the author of “The Wizard of Oz” as well as several sequels, became a movie producer at one point and produced a few Oz movies based on his books. I’ve seen a few of them, and though I wouldn’t exactly call them great, I do think it’s interesting to see how the world of Oz was envisioned before the famous 1939 movie version of the first novel became a nearly insurmountable cultural artifact; any Oz movie made afterwards is under that one’s shadow, while these earlier ones were made outside of it. I do like the sense I get that Oz is a much larger place than envisioned in the 1939 movie, and even though several of the characters from “The Wizard of Oz” reappear here, they are minor characters and aren’t part of the main story. I like some of the strange creatures, especially the part cat-part box creature called the Woozy, and we get to meet a few of the other races of Oz, such as the one-legged hoppers. The story meanders at times, especially in scenes involving a mule-like creature and one of those flying monkeys. Still, the costumes are fun and the acting is energetic, and though it’s a bit of a mess, there is some fun to be had here. The movie isn’t complete; there’s a reel missing near the beginning, but you’ll figure out what happened.

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The One-Man Band (1900)

THE ONE-MAN BAND (1900)
aka L’homme orchestra
Article 4234 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-22-2013
Directed by Georges Melies
Featuring Georges Melies
Country: France
What it is: Early trick short

A man creates a musical combo by duplicating himself.

I like the English title for this one; the phrase “one-man band” conjures up a vision of a guy marching around holding and playing several instruments with a bass drum attached to his back. This movie is Melies’s take on the concept, in which each musician is a duplicate of himself, thus still proving to be a “one-man band”. The movie ends with a few other amusing tricks involving the chairs the men were using. It’s a typical Melies trick short, but one of his more entertaining ones.

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Superbug, Secret Agent (1972)

SUPERBUG, SECRET AGENT (1972)
aka Ein Kafer gibt Vollgas
Article 4233 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-20-2013
Directed by Rudolf Zehetgruber
Featuring Rudolf Zehetgruber, Joachim Fuchsberger, Kathrin Oginski
Country: West Germany / Switzerland
What it is: Alleged comedy

Jimmy Bondi and his enhanced car, Dodo (aka Superbug) become embroiled with a gang of counterfeiters.

Given the fact that the primary human character of the Superbug movies has the name of Jimmy Bondi, it’s no surprise they should take a stab at the superspy genre. Still, the James Bond series weren’t quaking in their boots with the encroachment of the Superbug series into their territory any more than the Herbie the Love Bug series did. I can’t honestly say that the movie disappointed me, but that’s because I’ve seen enough Superbug movies to keep my expectations where they belong (extremely low), and the movie was just as bad as I expected it would be. For the uninitiated, Superbug is a Volkswagen with a personality; it talks, and assaults anyone that insults it by hitting it with tires, hood ornaments, door handles, etc. It’s big trick this time around is that it travels on water, and the movie is obsessed with showing this footage as much as possible. The movie is sluggish and painfully unfunny. However, I would like to make a few observations.

1) The part of the movie that most successfully makes an attempt to amuse me involves a villain being whacked on the head by Superbug’s hood ornament, leaving a VW signal imprinted on his forehead.

2) In the English dub of this movie, someone had the good sense to redub the car with the name of Dodo, because even being called a name of an extinct bird known for its stupidity is better than its original name, which is Dudu.

3) For several minutes the movie turns into a travelogue of Lisbon. In most other movies, that would be filler; here it is a high point.

4) Two repeated phrases would make for a good true/false quiz on the movie. The false statement – “I may look stupid, but I’m not.” The true statement – “That’s not funny!”

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