Month: May 2020

Saturn 3 (1980)

SATURN 3 (1980)
Article 4500 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-10-2014
Directed by Stanley Donen and John Barry
Featuring Farrah Fawcett, Kirk Douglas, Harvey Keitel
Country: UK
What it is: Sci-Fi thriller

Two scientists researching hydroponics in the asteroid fields around Saturn are visited by a disturbed technician who builds them a robot to help them. However, the robot is programmed from direct input from the technician’s mind, and his lust for the female scientist is transferred to the robot, which then threatens everyone.

Well, it looks nice visually, I’ll give you that. But that’s about it for what I can say nice about this one. From what I gather, the movie had a very troubled production history (including the replacement of the director in mid-production and a sudden cut in the budget), and this, coupled with the fact that the story wasn’t all that good to begin with, seems to have really damaged the movie. Even the acting is weak; I expected very little from Farrah Fawcett in the first place (and that’s what I got), Harvey Keitel sounds stiff and weird (and that may not be his fault, as I hear that he was redubbed by another actor), and Kirk Douglas seems more interested in showing us what good shape he was in at 64. It’s one of those rare movies where I find myself not caring or feeling a thing about anything that happens in the movie or anyone in it, and for a movie that seems mostly interested in tapping into the same dread of ALIEN, that’s not a good thing. All it really leaves behind is a messy, confused vibe. This one is not recommended.

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Scream, Pretty Peggy (1973)

SCREAM, PRETTY PEGGY (1973)
TV-Movie
Article 4499 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-9-2014
Directed by Gordon Hessler
Featuring Ted Bessell, Sian Barbara Allen, Bette Davis
Country: USA
What it is: You’ll figure it out

A college girl takes on a housekeeping job with a famous sculptor who is caring for his invalid mother. She soon discovers that this family has some skeletons in the closet…

Bette Davis always adds a bit of authority to whatever she appears in. And I have to admit that Sian Barbara Allen has an odd but refreshing style that I find quite interesting. Gordon Hessler also does a good job at directing this one. Unfortunately, none of this really covers up the fact that the story itself is cobbled together from some very familiar elements of other well-known stories; in fact, if I were to come up with a thumbnail description of this one, it would be that it’s something of a cross between a “Jane Eyre” style gothic thriller and… a movie that is extremely well known. No, I’m not going to give away what that movie is, but I saw it coming long before the movie was over. The fact that the movie feels like a compendium of cliched situations certainly didn’t help things, either. It actually has a respectably high rating on IMDB, so it no doubt has its fans, but for me, it ended up being a very long wait for the second shoe to drop.

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The Devil’s Daughter (1973)

THE DEVIL’S DAUGHTER (1973)
TV-Movie
Article 4498 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-8-2014
Directed by Jeannot Szwarc
Featuring Shelley Winters, Belinda Montgomery, Robert Foxworth
Country: USA
What it is: What happens when you can’t choose your relatives

Upon the death of her mother, a young woman returns home and ends up moving in with a friend of her mother’s. She begins to discover some very troubling things about her past… including the identity of her father.

No, this isn’t an imitation of ROSEMARY’S BABY, but it seems quite obvious that this TV-movie was heavily inspired by it. One of the strengths of this movie’s inspiration was that the devil-worshipers in that one seemed so normal at first; here they’re pretty creepy from the get-go. But then, given the title of the movie, it doesn’t seem like it’s building up to a great surprise in its central revelation. In the end, the movie didn’t have much in the way of surprises for me, though I do have to admit to being charmed by at least one twist. There’s some interesting touches to the cast; given that Jonathan Frid was one of TV’s first great vampires, it’s interesting here to see him in a Bela Lugosi-style role – the mute manservant. And Abe Vigoda’s performance gave me the feeling that he was quite capable of channeling the spirit of Boris Karloff if he wanted to. All in all, this was okay.

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The Bad Seed (1985)

THE BAD SEED (1985)
TV-Movie
Article 4497 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-7-2014
Directed by Paul Wendkos
Featuring Blair Brown, Lynn Redgrave, David Carradine
Country: USA
What it is: Evil child on the loose

A widow begins to suspect her young child has homicidal tendencies… and she may be right.

This movie has a lowly 5.4 rating on IMDB, and if the user comments I found are of any indication as to the reason why, it appears that a lot of people object to the 1956 version of the story being remade at all, as well as to the performance of Carrie Wells. Well, for those who have read my review of the original movie version already know, I am no fan of the original movie, and I’m rather grateful that another shot was taken at the story. For one thing, it was nice to see a version of the story in which the acting was toned down for cinematic consumption, rather than the self-conscious theatrical approach of the earlier version. Second of all, it was in this remake that I grew to appreciate that the real emotional center of the story was centered in the mother, who is desperately trying to come to terms with the reality of the situation; quite frankly, I cared a lot more for Blair Brown’s rendition of the character than I did Nancy Kelly’s. It was also nice to see that they jettisoned the silly deus ex machina ending of the earlier version; I like the ending of this one much better. Granted, this version has its problems; it’s still a bit long-winded at times, and though the setting is contemporary, there are moments where it feels a bit too trapped in its fifties mindset. No, I don’t really think this version is a classic, but at least it didn’t annoy the hell out of me like the original did.

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In the Devil’s Garden (1971)

IN THE DEVIL’S GARDEN (1971)
aka Assault
Article 4496 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-6-2014
Directed by Sidney Hayers
Featuring Suzy Kendall, Frank Finlay, Freddie Jones
Country: UK
What it is: British giallo

The police attempt to find the identity of a killer/rapist who has been terrorizing girls in a wooded area known as Devil’s End near a girl’s school.

At about the halfway point in the movie, I saw a scene that I vividly remember catching on the local Creature Feature at one point in my life. It’s about all I remembered from the movie, but that’s not surprising; given the movie as a whole, it must have been heavily cut for airing on television, and that may well have left the movie a confused mess. In fact, I’m wondering if the print I just saw was cut as well; it runs four minutes shorter than the given time on IMDB. The main fantastic content seems to be that an eyewitness who saw the killer claims that he looked “exactly like the devil”, a fanciful description that we know is metaphorical, but the fuss that’s made by everyone about it as if it was a literal description is one of the biggest weaknesses of the movie. Once you get past that point, you end up with a not-bad little mystery/thriller, and if you’re like me, you’ll figure out the identity of the killer just at the time that the movie wants you to find out. Freddie Jones has a memorable role as a pushy reporter who ends up helping with an attempt to catch the killer, and the cast also features Lesley-Anne Down, and future “Doctor Who” villain Anthony Ainley.

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Who is Harry Kellerman and Why is He Saying those Terrible Things about Me? (1971)

WHO IS HARRY KELLERMAN AND WHY IS HE SAYING THOSE TERRIBLE THINGS ABOUT ME? (1971)
Article 4495 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-5-2014
Directed by Ulu Grosbard
Featuring Dustin Hoffman, Barbara Harris, Jack Warden
Country: USA
What it is: Comedy/Drama

A self-involved successful songwriter suffers from a bad case of insomnia, and finds himself exploring his past relationships, and wondering about the identity of the man who is calling his girlfriends and destroying the relationships.

Let’s get the fantastic content out of the way first. There are several fantasy sequences in this movie, which can be explained as being a result of the main character’s sleep deprivation-induced hallucinations. That being said, this is an art movie of sorts, and it does get rather tiresome at times, but there are compensating factors. First of all, it has a sense of humor, which helps quite a bit. Second, it has an interesting array of names in the supporting cast, including Jack Warden (who appears in several different guises as the songwriter’s shrink), Dom DeLuise, Shel Silverstein (who wrote some of the original songs for the movie), and former Bowery Boy Gabriel Dell. It’s also very well acted, with an especially fine performance by Barbara Harris as a girlfriend who is even more screwed up than the main character. The movie has definite points of interest, but it sometimes feels self-indulgent, and I’m not sure I got a whole lot out of the movie. I was also able to figure out the answer to the titular question long before the movie does.

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The Day the Earth Moved (1974)

THE DAY THE EARTH MOVED (1974)
TV-Movie
Article 4494 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-4-2014
Directed by Robert Michael Lewis
Featuring Jackie Cooper, Stella Stevens, Cleavon Little
Country: USA
What is it: Natural disaster movie

Aerial photographers discover that a defective batch of film stock is capable of picking up indications that earthquakes are imminent… and that the next place to be stricken by one is a tiny town with a handful of residents.

I don’t seek out movies that are topical on purpose, so it’s really just coincidence that this movie pops up at a time when earthquakes are in the news. I did, however, end up being rather charmed by this disaster-movie-in-miniature. It’s not so much the story, which is pretty standard stuff. It’s not the fantastic content; the existence of defective film stock that just happens to show where earthquakes are going to hit is a pretty far-fetched pill to swallow. No, what charmed me is the milieu of the town of Bates, a formerly thriving small town that has now become only a shadow of its former self with a single-digit population, many of which still hold on to the hope of the town regaining its former glory if they can only manage to clean and fix its tourist attraction, a “Santa’s Summer Village” display. I found the world of this small town so oddly compelling that I think you could have built a whole movie just around it. The print I found of this was on YouTube, and the blurriness of the image makes it a bit hard to say just how good the special effects were, but it seems effective enough. In the end, I liked the movie despite its flaws. But it’s the little village and its residents that I will remember.

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Screamer (1974)

SCREAMER (1974)
Episode of “Thriller”
Article 4493 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-3-2014
Directed by Shaun O’Riordan
Featuring Pamela Franklin, Donal McCann, Frances White
Country: UK
What it is: Thriller

An American woman visiting in England is traumatized by an attack by a serial rapist. After she is released from hospitalization, she sees her attacker, despite the fact that the police claim to have caught him. Is it just her imagination?

The British TV series “Thriller” is very uneven, but this is definitely one of the best episodes I’ve seen from the show. What makes this story intriguing is a plot element that is introduced early in the episode when the woman is hospitalized; she sees the face of her attacker in every man she encounters. As a result, when she starts seeing the attacker after she’s released, we’re never quite sure whether she’s seeing the man himself of someone else with her imagination supplying the face. It’s a clever concept, and this movie-length episode makes very good use of it throughout; though I had a good guess as to what the final revelations would be (and I turned out to be right), the suspense of not being really sure was quite palpable. The story involves a descent into madness, and that’s where it veers into horror. This one is very well done, and features a wonderful performance by Pamela Franklin.

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Where the Bullets Fly (1966)

WHERE THE BULLETS FLY (1966)
Article 4492 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-1-2014
Directed by John Gilling
Featuring Tom Adams, Dawn Addams, Tim Barrett
Country: UK
What it is: Low-budget Bond parody

Secret agent Charles Vine must prevent spies from getting hold a new shielding material that allows lightweight nuclear propulsion for aircraft.

This is a sequel to THE SECOND BEST SECRET AGENT IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD, which I covered some time back. A lot of what I said about that movie still applies here; though it’s obviously intended as a parody of the James Bond movies (it has a fake opening title of WHERE THE BULL FLIES before it gets fixed), it isn’t very consistent at keeping up the parody aspect and ends up being mostly a very low-budget imitation. There are moments that work, moments that don’t, and moments that leave you scratching your head; there’s a scene involving a cat that exemplifies the latter. The shielding material is the main science fiction aspect of the story, but as an invention, it’s pretty passive and remains a Gizmo Maguffin; fortunately, there’s a bit of gadgetry as well. All in all, there’s really not a whole lot to hold the interest here.

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Un mostro e mezzo (1964)

UN MOSTRO E MEZZO (1964)
aka A Monster and a Half
Article 4491 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-31-2014
Directed by Steno
Featuring Franco Franchi, Ciccio Ingrassia, Alberto Bonucci
Country: Italy
What it is: A Franco and Ciccio comedy

A thief is arrested for murder when he steals a suitcase from a professor that contains a cadaver. He is rescued by the professor, who offers to change his face with his experimental plastic surgery.

Just when you thought it was safe to watch an Italian movie without English subtitles…. it’s Franco and Ciccio again. Yes, I know I’ve ribbed them a lot in my reviews, but I’m going to have to be honest -I really don’t feel entitled to make a judgment on the quality of their work. When their movies are dubbed, you end up judging the dubbing rather than the original performances, and I think the only times I’ve seen them with subtitles have been in movies that don’t capture them in their usual mode. As for watching them undubbed and unsubtitled, how can you really judge a comedy when you don’t get the jokes? Yes, I still hold that Franco Franchi is one of the most unrestrained muggers in movie history, but I still sense that he has a sharp sense of comic timing, and there are times in this movie where the mugging is used to good effect; a long sequence where he is mistaken for a corpse and wheeled in as a subject during a class lecture is a good example of this. Maybe I’m mellowing on these two because I’ve gotten used to them now; I know what to expect from a Franco and Ciccio movie, and the mugging has ceased to shock me. There are touches of horror to this one, and the scene where the plastic surgery takes place offers plenty in the way of mad science, so we do have fantastic content here.

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