Month: April 2020

Five Minutes to Live (1961)

FIVE MINUTES TO LIVE (1961)
aka Door-to-Door Maniac
Article 4432 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-27-2014
Directed by Bill Karn
Featuring Johnny Cash, Donald Woods, Cay Forester
Country: USA
What it is: Crime thriller

A seasoned bank robber partners with a down-on-his-luck hood to pull off a ransom scheme by holding a bank manager’s wife hostage; she will be killed unless he approves a bad check for $70,000 dollars. However, the plan does not run smoothly…

Several years ago Johnny Cash released a three-disc set retrospective of his work in which each of the discs dealt with a theme that he consistently returned to in his musical work. The third disc was entitled “Murder”, and those familiar with his musical output certainly can attest to the fact that he has a knack for singing about criminals and killers. So it makes sense that his first movie role would feature him as a sadistic hood with little respect for human life, and when he’s in the scenes where he’s holding the banker’s wife hostage, we really sense that he’s dangerous and unbalanced. However, there is a real question as to whether he’s unbalanced enough for this movie to qualify as horror, and I don’t think it does (even if one of the alternate titles is DOOR-TO-DOOR MANIAC); he never kills anyone for no reason at all. As for the movie as a whole, I like the central concept, but the script isn’t particularly good, and the direction is often lifeless; when it works, it’s usually the result of the skill of the actors. The movie feature Vic Tayback, (who is very effective as the robber who pairs with Johnny Cash), Ron Howard, and another well-known country artist, Merle Travis.

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The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976)

THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN (1976)
Article 4431 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-26-2014
Directed by Charles B. Pierce
Featuring Ben Johnson, Andrew Prine, Dawn Wells
Country: USA
What it is: Based-on-a-true-story serial killer thriller

In 1946, a serial killer began a reign of terror in the town of Texarkana. A famous Texas ranger leads the investigate to catch him.

Charles B. Pierce wasn’t a particularly good director, but he had a good handle on how authentic locations and local color could enhance a movie, and he knows enough about how to keep you on the edge of your seat to get by. When the movie embraces its semi-documentary approach and keeps the tone serious, it works quite well. Unfortunately, the script makes a big mistake; instead of concentrating on focusing on the details of the investigation of the killings, it tends to gloss over them and shift the attention to a comic relief character played by the director himself. The character isn’t so bad that he becomes intolerable, but his scenes are so poorly integrated into the main story that they reveal themselves for the padding they are. That’s a real shame; I’d rather have been presented with a real-life investigation of the murders, and had the movie gone for that, there would have been no need for the padding. Still, the tension, suspense and horror are strong enough to compensate for this, but I do feel it’s merely a good movie when it could have been a great one.

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Pygmalion and Galatea (1898)

PYGMALION AND GALATEA (1898)
aka Pygmalion et Galathee
Article 4430 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-25-2014
Directed by Georges Melies
Featuring Jeanne d’Alcy
Country: France
What it is: Trick film

A sculptor’s statue comes to life, and the sculptor tries to possess her for his own.

I really don’t expect much in the way of plot in these very early trick films, but actually this one has the bare bones of one. It deals with the problems Pygmalion faces at being unable to possess the one he has made, and there’s actually a bit of a tragic air to the proceedings. The middle of the story is where the special effects are to be found, with the statue coming to life, magically disappearing and reappearing, and even breaking into two halves at one point. It’s a simple enough short, and quite enjoyable for what it is.

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Marvelous Suspension (1902)

MARVELOUS SUSPENSION (1902)
aka La femme volante, Marvelous Suspension and Evolution
Article 4429 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-24-2014
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Trick film

A magician turns a vase into a beautiful woman who can float in mid-air and do tricks while suspended.

This is one of those trick films that Melies made that seems to be more interested in pulling off a specific effect (in this case, the appearance of a woman suspended in midair with no visible support while she does gymnastics) than telling any sort of story. From that perspective, the short is a success; though it’s obvious that in some of the sequences the woman was filmed while lying down on the floor and rolling around, there are other sequences that can’t be sorted out that easily. There’s a bit of a plot involving a group of women who surround the one that appears, but I’m not really sure what that is all about. At any rate, this is fairly minor Melies.

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Benvenuto Cellini; or, The Curious Evasion (1904)

BENVENUTO CELLINI; OR, THE CURIOUS EVASION (1904)
aka Benvenut Celiini ou Une curieuse evasion
Article 4428 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-23-2014
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Minor trick short

The king’s sculptor is imprisoned until he produces a work that the king likes. While in the dungeon, the sculptor sees a vision of a beautiful woman and uses that for his subject.

I had thought that the two Flicker Alley collections had captured all of the extant Melies, but either I was wrong or some new ones have cropped up. This one is actually pretty minor in terms of its fantastic content; the appearance of the beautiful woman is about the only element, though the speed with which the sculptor puts the statue together might also come under consideration. My copy is missing both the beginning of the story and the very end, which is a little unfortunate, as most of what plot there is is covered in the missing footage. Given how elaborate many of Melies’s other movies are, this one can’t help but be a bit disappointing, but I’m glad I had the opportunity to see it.

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The Red Club (1914)

THE RED CLUB (1914)
aka Den rode klub
Article 4427 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-22-2014
Directed by Knud Lumbye
Featuring Edith Buemann, Tronier Funder, Peter Kjaer
Country: Denmark
What it is: Thriller

When a Prince is forced into a political marriage, his embittered ex-lover, a Baroness, joins a mystical society intent on assassinating the Prince. A captain under the Prince discovers about the plot, but can he act in time to defeat the society?

Apparently, the only existing print of this one is from an Italian archive that has been censored; the scenes involving the rituals of the mystical society have been removed. Unfortunately, that seems to be the primary fantastic content of the movie, though there is a scene involving electrical wires in an underground room that adds a touch of science fiction to the proceedings. Overall, the movie has a serial-like feel to it, in that it seems to involve a succession of perils and escapes; I found myself noticing a certain resemblance to the Louis Feuillade serials from France during this period. Yes, it’s a bit confusing (especially when you consider the missing footage), but it does have its moments and is entertaining enough. I’m just glad that I got an opportunity to catch this one.

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Making Sausages (1897)

MAKING SAUSAGES (1897)
Article 4426 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-21-2014
Directed by George Albert Smith
Cast unknown
Country: UK
What it is: An expose of the meat industry

Several cooks use a sausage machine to make sausages out of animals (and other things) they find.

There seems to be a fair amount of early silent shorts involving sausage-making machines, and given how many I’ve seen, many of them seem extant, though not easy to find. This one is very short and pretty bare bones – three cooks work on the machine while a fourth keeps coming in with new animals to feed into it. There’s no real plot, and, outside of the fact that the sausage machine has an exit for the animals to get out (I assume), no real special effects. Let’s face it; there’s only so much you can do with an idea like this.

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The Eyes of Charles Sand (1972)

THE EYES OF CHARLES SAND (1972)
TV-Movie
Article 4425 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-19-2014
Directed by Reza Badiyi
Featuring Peter Haskell, Joan Bennett, Barbara Rush
Country: USA
What it is: Supernatural visions drama

Upon the death of his uncle, a man inherits the ability to see mystical visions. He encounters a disturbed girl who believes her brother is dead and her relatives are covering up. He decides to investigate.

The user comments on IMDB for this movie seem mostly to be from people who remember seeing this one as a kid and being terrified by it. It seems that the vision they most remember is seeing the guy at the beginning of the movie with no pupils for his eyes, and if anything, this convinces me that fake white contact lenses are a sure way to frighten children. As an adult, my reaction is somewhat different; I felt that the scene in question (and, for that matter, much of the rest of the movie) was trying way too hard to be scary, causing it to slide into the inadvertently comic. Ultimately, I found myself more annoyed by the movie than anything. I was especially bothered by the way the heroine is portrayed; Sharon Farrell goes all out to convince us that she’s a mental basket case, but the reality of the movie is that she’s supposed to be sane and is only being framed as being crazy. Add to that another woman who is really crazy but acts totally sane during the first part of the movie and only flipping out later when it’s convenient for the plot, and you’ve got another case where you can see the strings being pulled all too obviously. I did, however, like the fact that when the hero catches the villains in a lie, he doesn’t immediately let on that they’ve been caught and confront them, but is smart enough to know to proceed with caution. In short, this one didn’t really work for me, and given the somewhat tiresome nature of the histrionics, I’m not totally surprised that this was another unsold TV series pilot. Maybe I would have liked it better had I seen it as a kid.

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Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1973)

DOCTOR JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1973)
TV-Movie
Article 4424 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-17-2014
Directed by David Winters
Featuring Kirk Douglas, Susan George, Stanley Holloway
Country: UK / USA
What it is: Musical version of the Stevenson classic

Dr. Jekyll tests a drug (intended to cure lunatics) on himself, and turns into the depraved Mr. Hyde.

Had someone floated the idea of a musical version of the Jekyll and Hyde story a decade or two later, I probably wouldn’t have blinked; by that time, I was starting to get used to the fact that they’d make a musical out of anything. As it is, I’m surprised that they came up with a musical version of the story this early. I’m also surprised that they opted for an actor in the title roles who is not known for his musical chops (and his attempts at singing here don’t change that evaluation of his ability). However, when the roles rely on Kirk Douglas’s acting abilities, he does a fine job, and I quite like some of the qualities he gives to his Mr. Hyde here. It’s a pity I couldn’t catch him in a straight version of the story; in it’s current form, this version of the story doesn’t ring true, and some of the musical interludes seem rather inappropriate. For me, the biggest surprise musically is discovering that Donald Pleasence does have the musical chops to pull off his role; he has one song, and he does a fine job with it. Nevertheless, I just have to say that I wish this version of the story wasn’t a musical.

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Supernatural (1983)

SUPERNATURAL (1983)
aka Sobrenatural
Article 4423 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-15-2014
Directed by Eugenio Martin
Featuring Cristina Galbo, Maximo Valverde, Ramon Lillo
Country: Spain
What it is: Ghost story

When a man is badly injured in a horrible auto accident, his estranged wife comes to see him, but he dies before she arrives. The woman discovers that her husband’s angry spirit is still around, and it is malevolent…

The movie does not open promisingly; with its corny narration, it comes across like one of those pseudo-documentaries of the seventies about UFOs, the afterlife, et.al. Once you get past that point, the movie settles into a bit of a deceptive groove; it almost comes across like a rather listless TV-movie at this point. It’s not until the ghost makes a startling attack on a housekeeper that you really sense that the ghost (and the movie) mean business. It’s an effective scene in that it serves as a good counterpoint to the low-key nature of the movie as a whole; it never seems as listless afterwards, and it keeps you on edge as the movie quietly and deliberately makes its way towards its climax. I ended up quite liking this movie; it’s something like a cross between THE UNINVITED and THE ENTITY. I found this one surprisingly effective.

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