Month: May 2020

Rembrandt 7 Antwortet Nicht…(1966)

REMBRANDT 7 ANTWORTET NICHT… (1966)
aka Z7 Operation Rembrandt
Article 4490 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-30-2014
Directed by Giancarlo Romitelli
Featuring Lang Jeffries, Joachim Hansen, Christiane Maybach
Country: West Germany / Italy / Spain
What it is: Spyghetti

Secret Agent Mark Donen is sent out on a mission to prevent criminal elements from getting the secret to a German scientist’s new super-weapon.

Here’s another movie I’ve only been able to find in an unsubtitled foreign language edition; it’s cobbled together from a couple of different prints of the movie in different languages, but the only thing in English is the title song. As a result, I couldn’t really follow the story, but I wish I could; this one looks pretty good. The fact that the super-weapon is a death ray of sorts is the type of thing that usually fails to impress, but the opening scene where it is used is pretty impressive. In fact, it looks like there’s quite a bit of gimmickry to add to the fantastic content, and there are plot points having to do with making an exact duplicate of a man and a secret hidden on a painting. It looks efficient, fast-moving and exciting, and I suspect it’s one of the better examples of the Eurospy genre.

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What Do You Think?: Tupapaoo (1938)

WHAT DO YOU THINK?: TUPAPAOO (1938)
Article 4489 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-29-2013
Directed by Jacques Tourneur
Featuring Carey Wilson, Moroni Olsen
Country: USA
What it is: A native curse

When a con man arrives on a remote island, he cheats the natives out of their land. A falling star prompts the natives to lay a curse on the con man, but the con man knows that that’s just a native superstition… or is it?

This MGM short was apparently part of a series. Based on what I see here, the series must have told stories in which the ending’s explanation is ambiguous, and the audience is asked “What do you think?” as the central gimmick. In this instance, the ambiguity has to do whether the con man’s fate is a result of the curse or merely coincidence. Though the short has several characters, the only voice we here is of the narrator, who explains the action as it occurs. At only eleven minutes, it moves pretty quickly; I could easily see how the movie could have been stretched to B-movie feature length by fleshing out the characters, though I think it works just fine in this format. I think the ambiguity of the fantastic content is especially interesting here as the director was Jacques Tourneur, who would go on to direct several movies for Val Lewton, many of which were also ambiguous about the nature of their fantastic content. I felt this was a nifty and entertaining short.

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Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981)
Article 4488 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-28-2014
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Featuring Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman
Country: USA
What it is: High adventure

In 1936, an archaeologist is recruited by the US government to find out what the Nazis are looking for in an archaeological dig near Cairo. It turns out to be the Ark of the Covenant, and the archaeologist is sent on a mission to lay his hands on it before they do.

This is an excellent adventure tale, exciting and well made, it has definite elements of the fantastic, and it’s probably the best movie I’ve seen in the last few months. Yet, I have to admit that I’ve been dreading the time when this movie would come up on my hunt list. This is largely because it’s one of those movies that has been somewhat spoiled for me by the extreme hype that I’ve been subjected to about the film over the years. It’s not just that a lot of people were telling me that it was really good; it’s more that so many of them were carrying on as if this movie was the single finest accomplishment by all humanity since time immemorial. Yes, I’m exaggerating a bit, but not by much. I have to admit that I’m a bit of a contrarian; if a lot of people keep insisting to me that I’m absolutely going to love something, I feel very inclined to hate it for that reason alone. When I finally saw it years ago, I didn’t expect it to live up to the hype (nothing could have done that), and I was really curious what I would end up feeling about it. In the end, it turned out to just what I expected it would be – a very good and well made action/adventure film. But in order for it to even get close to the hype I encountered, it would have to have been something very special above and beyond that, and, sadly, for me, it wasn’t. Part of it is that I’m not a big action fan to begin with. Nor am I a big fan of Harrison Ford. Still, I do have to admire one aspect of this movie’s history that makes it a fairly rare animal; it’s one of those big-budget blockbusters with a huge fandom that appears to have avoided generating a backlash of those who hate it. That’s something that certainly doesn’t happen very often.

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Planet Earth (1974)

PLANET EARTH (1974)
TV-Movie
Article 4487 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-27-2014
Directed by Marc Daniels
Featuring John Saxon, Janet Margolin, Ted Cassidy
Country: USA
What it is: Genesis II II

A man from the twentieth century finds himself in the 22nd century after the apocalypse. He engages on a mission for a peace-loving city to locate a doctor who can save the life of an important elder. He finds him a prisoner of a matriarchal society that enslaves men.

When I recently covered GENESIS II, I thought I’d already covered one of the TV-Movies that Gene Roddenberry had made in the hopes of starting a new TV series that would be something like an Earthbound “Star Trek”. But when this one came up, I realized I hadn’t. There are a few changes made between this one and GENESIS II, the most striking being the substitution of a new leading man, giving us John Saxon instead of Alex Cord. This one gives us a better idea of what the series would have been like, and it’s here you really notice the similarities to “Star Trek”, as it feels like it could have been an episode of that series slightly modified for the new premise. Unfortunately, it doesn’t feel like one of the better episodes of that series, and there are moments where the movie descends into camp; the scenes where all the females in the city begin doting on John Saxon comes to mind. The movie gets a little better when it begins to see itself as a comedy and plays up the humor, but still, one does get the feeling that the series would have ended up being little more than reheated “Star Trek”. I don’t know if a better script would have sold the series, but it wouldn’t have hurt.

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Popeye (1980)

POPEYE (1980)
Article 4486 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-26-2014
Directed by Robert Altman
Featuring Robin Williams, Shelley Duvall, Ray Walston
Country: USA
What it is: Live-action cartoon

Popeye the sailor arrives in the town of Sweethaven looking for his pappy. There he adopts a child, meets his love, and makes an enemy of the town bully, Bluto.

First of all, I marvel at the casting; Robin Williams does about as good a job at bringing Popeye to life as anyone could, and I love that he adopts the muttering style that Popeye used in the Fleischer cartoons. Shelley Duvall was a perfect choice for Olive Oyl, and all the other familiar characters are very well chosen. I also think the movie looks magnificent; the town of Sweethaven has a stunning ramshackle look, and the use of color is excellent. However, I do have some real problems with the movie. I really think Robert Altman was the wrong choice for this type of film; though he is certainly capable of excellent work, his movies project a unique vibe that really feels out of place for the subject matter here, and the improvised chatter that is his staple often detracts from the slapstick humor that belongs here. The decision to turn it all into a musical only makes it weirder, and the songs by Harry Nilsson often left me scratching my head. Things pick up quite a bit once the movie remembers it has a plot, but that doesn’t really happen until the last quarter; it’s only then that it starts to feel like a Popeye story. For a while I was wondering if there was even going to be any real fantastic content, but we do get super-strength when Popeye finally eats his spinach, and there’s a giant octopus thrown into the mix. Ultimately, I don’t think the movie is a disaster, but it does leave me with such a weird vibe that I can’t call it a success.

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Gladiatorerna (1969)

GLADIATORERNA (1969)
aka The Gladiators, The Peace Game
Article 4485 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-25-2014
Directed by Peter Watkins
Featuring Arthur Pentelow, Frederick Danner, Hans Bendrik
Country: Sweden
What it is: Futuristic drama

In the near future, the governments of the world have abandoned wars in favor of a televised competition known as the Peace Game, in which various teams compete to make their way through a booby-trapped maze.

The idea of replacing war with an organized competition of this sort isn’t really a new concept; what makes this one compelling is the usual documentary-like style that Peter Watkins brings to the story. Which is not to say that the movie is easy to follow; parts of this movie are very difficult to follow, and though it may be a quirk of my print, the fact that goodly portions of the movie are not in English (IMDB lists four other languages) and have no English subtitles make it even more difficult. I do get the sense that the movie takes a very cynical look at the military mindset on hand here, where a compassionate ally is considered a more disgusting threat than the enemy army itself. As a result, despite the complexity of much that is going on, the movie occasionally lapses into being simplistic; I think I’ve encountered this problem with some of Watkin’s movies before, in particular with PUNISHMENT PARK. Still, there is a power to Watkin’s style, and I found the movie compelling, though not up to the level of THE WAR GAME.

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The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)

THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN (1976)
Article 4484 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-24-2014
Directed by Blake Edwards
Featuring Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom, Lesley-Anne Down
Country: UK / USA
What it is: Pink Panther movie

Former inspector Dreyfus, having been driven mad by his encounters with Inspector Clouseau, escapes from the asylum, and hatches a scheme to hold the world for ransom against the sweep of a deadly death ray. The price the world must pay for its survival – kill Clouseau.

This is probably the only movie from the Pink Panther series that I will be covering in my series, as it seems to be the only one with overt fantastic content. This is not to say that I don’t already have a certain familiarity with the character of Inspector Clouseau and the world he lives in; I’m pretty sure I’ve seen all of Pink Panther movies at one time or another, though I should probably restrict that statement to those that feature Sellers. I do have to confess, though, that with one exception (A SHOT IN THE DARK), I emerge from the movies feeling somewhat disappointed. It has nothing to do with the performances of Peter Sellers or Herbert Lom, both of whom are excellent in their respective roles. No, the problem I usually have is with the scripts; I generally find them overlong, full of dead space, and too leisurely paced. It’s not that the laughs aren’t there; it’s more that there aren’t quite enough of them. In this one, it seems like there’s a certain attempt at a James Bond feel here, what with a Dreyfus turning into a supervillain and an ex-Russian spy falling for Clouseau, but it never really turns into an overt parody. My favorite laugh is from the gag I most remember from my earlier viewing; it involves a dropped roll of toilet paper. All in all, I’d say it’s a good movie that should have been better.

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The Bionic Woman (1975)

THE BIONIC WOMAN (1975)
Article 4483 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-23-2014
Directed by Dick Moder
Featuring Lee Majors, Richard Anderson, Lindsay Wagner
Country: USA
What it is: Two-part episode of “The Six-Million Dollar Man”

Colonel Steve Austin rekindles a relationship with an old flame, but when she is badly injured in a skydiving accident, he has his bosses save her life by replacing her destroyed limbs with bionic replacements.

This was listed in “John Stanley’s Creature Feature Movie Guide Strikes Again”, but there are some ambiguities in the listing. The description makes it clear that it was the pilot for “The Bionic Woman” TV series, and it lists Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner as being in it, and, as far as I know, that means the two-part episode of “The Six Million Dollar Man” that introduced Jaime Sommers. However, it lists the director as Henry Mankiewicz and mentions an actress named Monica Randall as being in it. The first is a nom-de-plume for Spanish director Leon Klimovsky, and the other is a Spanish actress who did appear in a couple of Klimovsky’s films. Could there be a Spanish rip-off of the bionic woman concept that I don’t know about that is being confused with this? I’m not sure, but I decided to go with this one in the belief that it’s just a case of confused credits.

I remember being a fan of “The Six Million Dollar Man” for about a season and a half before I drifted away from the series; it became apparent to me after a bit that it was just a conventional action-adventure show with a gimmick that grew old quickly. I never bothered with “The Bionic Woman”; it just seemed like a variation on a series in which I’d already lost interest, though I’ve heard there are many who think it was an improvement over the original series. At any rate, these two episodes don’t appear to have been intended as a pilot per se, especially as the end of episode 2 doesn’t really seem to leave the door open for a spin-off. My guess is that the episodes proved to be quite popular, which is what gave them the idea. As a story, the two episodes are okay, but nothing really special; it seems like your typical “let’s throw in some romance but end it so it doesn’t complicate the original series” type of story.

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The Bermuda Triangle (1978)

THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE (1978)
Article 4482 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-22-2014
Directed by Rene Cardona Jr.
Featuring John Huston, Andres Garcia, Hugo Stiglitz
Country: Mexico / Italy
What it is: Secrets of the mysterious area revealed!

A boat sailing through the Bermuda Triangle encounters strange phenomena.

I will give this movie credit for coming up with one humdinger of an explanation for the disappearances; it’s the result of an evil doll floating in the area that takes over little girls. As a result, people die and time seems to be warped. You know, silly as it is, this still could have been somewhat exciting, but there’s just too many things wrong with it. Lifeless direction is certainly one culprit, but even worse is the clumsy, stupid dialogue being badly delivered by the actors or whoever happens to be dubbing them. Even John Huston does little for the movie, but then, it looks like he’s pretty bored with the whole thing himself. Furthermore, at 112 minutes, it’s far too long; I’m not even sure there’s sixty minutes of interest here. If there’s a good movie out there about the Bermuda Triangle, I haven’t seen it yet.

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El mundo del los muertos (1970)

EL MUNDO DEL LOS MUERTOS (1970)
aka The World of the Dead
Article 4481 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-21-2014
Directed by Gilberto Martinez Solares
Featuring Santo, Pilar Pellicer, Carlos Leon
Country: Mexico
What it is: Santo vs a witch

A woman becomes possessed by the spirit of a witch that means to kill off the descendants of those who burnt her at the stake… and one of those descendants is Santo, the Silver Mask.

Like yesterday’s movie, I watched this one in Spanish with no English subtitles. However, that really isn’t much of a problem with this one; Santo movies aren’t known for their reliance on the subtlety of dialogue in the first place, and besides, the “witch seeking vengeance from beyond the grave” is hardly a new and novel storyline. So this one is actually pretty easy to parse out; the first third of the movie covers the backstory, while the rest of the movie takes place in the present. This one actually conjures up quite a bit of horror atmosphere, and for a while it looks like one of Santo’s best movies. However, it stumbles a bit as it proceeds. Several of the fight scenes are shot in fast motion, giving them an unwanted comic effect when one is not needed. It also features graphic open-heart surgery footage that really seems out of place in a Santo movie. After a while, the movie starts spinning its wheels by having Santo fight the same three guys again and again and again. The ending is pretty bizarre, though; Santo ends up in a dream world that borrows footage from HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD. Despite the flaws, this is a fairly entertaining Santo movie, though I do have to point out that Santo is a much better wrestler than a swordsman, as can be seen in one of the fight scenes here.

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