Month: May 2020

Mad About Money (1938)

MAD ABOUT MONEY (1938)
aka Stardust
Article 4570 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-30-2014
Directed by Melville W. Brown
Featuring Ben Lyon, Lupe Velez, Wallace Ford
Country: UK
What it is: Musical

Two men trying to put together a feature-length musical film to demonstrate a new color film process find themselves in trouble when they lose their biggest backer. One of them romances a rhumba dancer who is posing as an heiress in the hopes that he can convince her to finance the film; she’s actually trying to get her best friend into the picture.

There are two fantasy musical numbers here (one in which a songwriter finds himself on trial by the ghosts of famous composers for trying to lift the melody of “The Blue Danube” for his film, and the other where various members of the cast go to outer space on a rocket) that give the movie its fantastic content. As for the rest of the movie, well… unless you happen to find the above plot description intriguing, most of the movie consists of an insignificant, over-complicated story told with maximum dullness; it’s been a while since I’ve seen a movie in which I cared less about what was going on. Yes, there’s a certain entertainment value in the weirdness of the two musical numbers mentioned above, but neither of them are staged in a particularly interesting fashion, and the other musical numbers have even less going for them. There is a certain interest factor in the presence of silent screen funnyman Harry Langdon in the cast, but he’s barely in it and isn’t really given much to do. Quite frankly, this one is a waste of time.

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Mr. Wong, Detective (1938)

MR. WONG, DETECTIVE (1938)
Article 4569 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-29-2014
Directed by William Nigh
Featuring Boris Karloff, Grant Withers, Maxine Jennings
Country: USA
What it is: Murder mystery

A chemical manufacturer contacts Mr. Wong when he believes his life is in danger. When Mr. Wong shows up for their appointment, he discovers that the manufacturer has died mysteriously in the interim. Can he figure out who killed him and how?

Despite the presence of Boris Karloff, the Mr. Wong movies were mysteries rather than horror movies; this one only gets by because the method of murder (which involves poison gas in small glass spheres that shatter under specific circumstances) pushes the movie marginally into science fiction territory. Fortunately, that’s not giving away a major spoiler; we find out about this aspect of the story during the first half of the movie. and the real mystery is trying to figure out what those specific circumstances are. I was fortunate enough to guess that aspect early enough to enjoy the cat-and-mouse game Mr. Wong was playing with the various suspects. Karloff does a good job, and though he eschews trying to give his character an Oriental accent, this probably helps to keep the character from being a stereotype as well. It’s a good and entertaining B feature, albeit one that is fairly uneven.

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Fear No Evil (1981)

FEAR NO EVIL (1981)
Article 4568 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-28-2014
Directed by Frank LaLoggia
Featuring Stefan Arngrim, Elizabeth Hoffman, Kathleen Rowe
Country: USA
What it is: Tale of the Anti-Christ

A teenage boy comes to the understanding that he is the human incarnation of Lucifer. In the meantime, three archangels in their human incarnations seek to stop him.

With a 3.8 rating on IMDB, one thing is clear; a lot of people don’t like this movie. However, it appears that the movie does have some staunch supporters. Having seen it, I can understand both reactions. Despite a premise that recalls THE OMEN, it feels like some bizarre transmutation between CARRIE, VAMPYR, teen angst dramas, and vampire and zombie movies. I will admit that it has its own sense of style, and that in its way, it is a very daring and ambitious movie. However, the style is as off-putting as it is unique, the story often feels randomly programmed, and several of the performances (especially from the teenage leads) are twitchy and eccentric; they project angst without leaving us with a real sense as to where the angst arises from. The zombie scenes seem unnecessary, but given the fact that they were forced upon the director (as per the trivia section on IMDB), that’s no surprise. Does it work? I’m not sure. There’s some interesting scenes, some awful scenes, and a fair amount of head-scratching events. However, I do sense that there’s something there. It may take another viewing to find out what it is.

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The Folly of Sin (1915)

THE FOLLY OF SIN (1915)
aka Doktor X
Article 4567 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-27-2014
Directed by Robert Dinesen
Featuring Gunnar Tolnaes, Carlo Wieth, Johanne Fritz-Petersen
Country: Denmark
What it is: Drama

A brilliant scientist who is on the verge of finding a cure for cancer is nonetheless unhappy about the emptiness of his social life. He seeks out a competing scientist for help, and that scientist puts him on the trail of winning a beautiful woman for his own. But there is a price to pay…

My various guides claim that the fantastic content here is the discovery of a cure for cancer, and indeed, that element does appear in the story. Those watching it for that content will nonetheless be disappointed; it serves as little more than a Maguffin. However, there’s an interesting and subtler fantastic element here that doesn’t become explicit until the last scene of the movie. The clues are there for those on the alert. For one thing, the lead female in this movie is named Margarethe, which is the first thing that tipped me off. Then I couldn’t help but note that the competing scientist has the sinister and demonic name of Malvolio. With these two clues and the general direction of the story, it’s plain that this is modeled off of a very familiar story indeed, one that is full of fantastic content. The end of the movie could be taken metaphorically, I suppose (especially in its revelation as to who Malvolio really is), but there’s one big question that makes that seem unlikely, and that is this – How was Dr. Malvolio able to make sure that Dr. Kamper would make his fortune in the risky business of betting on a roulette wheel? In short, it doesn’t matter that the cancer cure is a minor plot element; this story has a definite fantastically themed template in place, and once you’re aware of it, it’s even more interesting to consider what the cure for cancer represents metaphorically. I have to admit to really enjoying this one, especially in the clever way it disguises its familiar story.

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A Phenomenal Contortionist (1901)

A PHENOMENAL CONTORTIONIST (1901)
Article 4566 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-25-2014
Director unknown
Cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Sideshow with fantasy elements

A contortionist named St. Elmo illustrates the various positions into which the human body can bend.

I don’t know about you, but I find there’s something a little queasy about seeing a contortionist bend his body into truly inhuman positions, especially when he’s dressed in as skin-tight an outfit as the one here. Still, the expression of contortionistic abilities doesn’t in and of itself qualify as fantastic content. The reason this short gets included in the series is that on top of the contortions, we get a couple of mild Melies-like tricks; he makes a chair vanish and then does the same to himself at points during the short. They’re minor elements to the short, but there they are.

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Leaves from the Book of Satan (1920)

LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF SATAN (1920)
aka Leaves from Satan’s Book, Blade af Satans bog
Article 4565 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-24-2014
Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer
Featuring Helge Nissen, Halvard Hoff, Jacob Texiere
Country: Denmark
What it is: Epic anthology

Satan is condemned to an existence of trying to turn people away from God; for each success, he has 100 years added to his sentence, but for each failure he has 1000 years taken off his sentence. We then see him in action throughout several periods of history.

Carl Theodor Dreyer was inspired to make this movie after having seen D.W. Griffith’s INTOLERANCE, and though he doesn’t match it in scope, size or length, it does seem more focused and less inclined to melodramatics. The four historical events he chooses to portray are the betrayal of Christ, the Spanish Inquisition, the French Revolution and the (at that time) current event of the Finnish civil war. Satan appears as a character in each story, though under a human guise. Taken as individual stories, the identity of a character as Satan could have been dispensed with in three of the stories; however, in the French Revolution story, not only does the character openly admit to being Satan to another character, but a genuine supernatural event pops up in the story. Furthermore, taken as a whole, the Satan character is essential to the unity of the movie. I found the French Revolution story to be the most engaging, while the Spanish Inquisition story is also pretty good. The Christ story, though it features an excellent performance Jacob Texiere as Judas, is marred by the fact that he is practically the only character that has any dimension, and the Finnish civil war sequences is a bit confusing, though this may be partially due to the fact that from today’s perspective, it is the most obscure of the events (though it certainly wasn’t in the time and place when the movie was made). Overall, this is the weakest of the Dreyer films I’ve seen for this series, as I found both VAMPYR and DAY OF WRATH to be more intriguing.

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A Fire in the Sky (1978)

A FIRE IN THE SKY (1978)
TV-Movie
Article 4564 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-19-2014
Directed by Jerry Jameson
Featuring Richard Crenna, Elizabeth Ashley, David Dukes
Country: USA
What it is: Disaster movie, TV style

A comet is on a collision course with Earth, and a scientist determines it will destroy the town of Phoenix. Will the public be made aware of the danger, and if they are, will they survive?

There’s a moment halfway through the movie where Richard Crenna’s character goes on television to describe the devastation the comet will bring, and I do have to admit that it sounds pretty apocalyptic. I also found myself seriously doubting whether this TV-Movie was going to have the financial wherewithal to pull off an accompanying special effects extravaganza (the effects involving the comet are less than stellar), and sure enough, the destruction sequence is rather puny. It’s a bit of a shame; it would have been the only thing that could have really pulled the rest of the movie out of its disaster movie cliche doldrums, and given that the print I saw of the movie runs two and a half hours, that’s a pretty long stretch of doldrums. The cast does what it can with the material, but they don’t get much help from the flat and uninspired direction. The final part of the movie is the usual checklist of who lives and who dies, and the survival of one group of people is particularly hard to swallow; if you’ve seen it, you probably know the ones I mean. I wouldn’t exactly say the movie is awful, but it is utterly routine.

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3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt (1964)

3 NUTS IN SEARCH OF A BOLT (1964)
Article 4563 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-17-2014
Directed by Tommy Noonan
Featuring Mamie Van Doren, Tommy Noonan, Ziva Rodann
Country: USA
What it is: Sex comedy

An actor is hired by three neurotics living in the same house. All three want to see the same expensive psychiatrist, but they can’t afford her, so they pool their resources by having the actor see her in their stead and act out their problems. The psychiatrist believes the actor to have a multiple personality disorder. Hilarity ensues.

To give you an idea of what this movie considers most important, it’s important to note that most of the movie is in black and white. The four color sequences are all ones involving Mamie Van Doren; two of them have her singing, one has her stripping, and the other has her taking a bath in beer (and flashing quite a bit of flesh in the process). That being said, the movie doesn’t really try to coast on the exploitation value of those scenes alone; it’s really trying to be a wild, madcap comedy in the black and white scenes, and due to a certain amount of energy and a willing to go for inspired silliness, it succeeds enough to remain watchable. One thing that doesn’t really become clear is why it was included in one of my sources as having genre content. Certainly, madness is one of the subjects of horror films, and I’ve covered movies that dealt with multiple personalities before, but there was at least a glimmer of horror content to those movies, while this has none. So let’s call this one another false alarm, and move on down the line.

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Superman in Exile (1954)

SUPERMAN IN EXILE (1954)
Article 4562 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-16-2014
Directed by George Blair and Thomas Carr
Featuring George Reeves, Noel Neill, Jack Larson
Country: USA
What it is: Superhero TV-to-Movie by editing

Superman has three adventures. In the first, he saves the city from a nuclear accident, but goes into exile when he is soaked with deadly radiation that makes him dangerous to be around. In the second, a criminal gets plastic surgery to make him look like Superman, and he starts a crime wave. In the third, an eccentric scientist accidentally creates a super-explosive, and Superman must prevent it from falling into the hands of criminals.

I’ve done it before and I’m doing it again – I cheated. That is to say that I’ve not actually seen this movie as such. It was part of a group of movies that were made by editing together episodes of the “Adventures of Superman” series and sold overseas. These movies haven’t been seen in ages, but the episodes from which they were edited are readily available, so I watched the three episodes of the TV series that made up this one: “Superman in Exile”, “The Face and the Voice”, and “The Whistling Bird”.

One of the things I’ve liked about the episodes I’ve seen in the series is that they emphasized stories in which Superman has to use his powers carefully and thoughtfully; in the first story here, he has to figure a way to capture criminals who have stolen crown jewels and are holding Lois hostage without getting close enough to irradiate them. In the third story, I love the fast thinking he uses in preventing a volatile flask of liquid from exploding and destroying the lab; it’s the comic highlight of a mostly comedic story. The second one gives George Reeves a dual role; on top of playing Clark Kent/Superman, he also plays the dull-witted thug who imitates Superman, and is a lot of fun in the role. All in all, these aren’t the most impressive episodes of the series, but the entire series was of high enough quality that these remain fun to watch.

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The Devil’s Assistant (1917)

THE DEVIL’S ASSISTANT (1917)
Article 4561 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-13-2014
Directed by Harry A. Pollard
Featuring Margarita Fischer, Monroe Salisbury, Kathleen Kirkham
Country: USA
What it is: Melodrama with horror overtones

A doctor loses the woman he loves to another man, and becomes bitter and heartless. When he is called in to treat that same woman later in life, he administers a drug to her designed to bend her to his will so he can seduce her.

This silent film originally was originally five reels long, but all that appears to be left of it is a cut-down two reel version, but the story does seem to be intact, though it definitely feels like a rushed version of a longer story. It’s primarily a melodrama, though it could be argued that the drug in question may push it into the realm of science fiction. Still, the primary fantastic content is that the movie contains visions of hell in it. There’s a couple of early ones involving the doctor, but the main sequence happens near the end when one of the characters is on the verge of death, and she dreams that she is being dragged into the underworld; there are visions of devils, Cerberus, and Charon ferrying the woman across the Styx. These scenes look pretty striking; I wish the print I saw was in better condition, but I’m really grateful it exists at all in any condition. In terms of its story, it’s really hard to get a feel for how it works overall when you’re watching a rushed version of it, but it’s the hellish visions that are definitely the highlight.

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