Month: June 2020

The Pigeon Fairy (1906)

THE PIGEON FAIRY (1906)
aka La fee aux pigeons
Article 4701 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-6-2014
Directed by Gaston Velle
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Decorative trick short

A beautiful woman performs magic with pigeons.

This is an example of what I’ve come to call the “decorative trick short”. These are short special effects extravaganzas that seem primarily intended to display a series of pretty images rather than to show off the effects or tell a story. The scenes break into roughly four sections. In the first, she calls pigeons to herself through the use reversing the film. She then turns the pigeons into a flurry of feathers, transforms into a winged creature, and then into a statue. It’s pretty enough, though it’s hardly compelling. Apparently, the short is occasionally mistakenly believed to have been directed by Segundo de Chomon.

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Electric Transformation (1909)

ELECTRIC TRANSFORMATION (1909)
Article 4700 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-5-2014
Directed by Percy Stow
Cast unknown
Country: UK
What it is: Trick short

A scientist demonstrates how electricity can be used to transform and redesign objects.

This title just recently was dropped from my hunt list onto my “ones that got away” list, and upon that announcement, a friend of mine posted a link to a condensed version of the short which, though not complete, was coherent and contained everything important from the short. There was enough there to merit my coverage of it. That being said, the most interesting thing about this film is the striking use of special effects. IMDB claims that the electricity is used to “melt faces”, which I thought would turn out to be a simple form of double exposure, but instead we actually do get transformations that look like melting (sometimes in reverse), and that’s certainly an effect I’ve never seen from Melies. It’s similar to the distortion effects that popped up in a couple of Abel Gance shorts, but it’s mostly like the destruction of the city in THE PHANTOM EMPIRE. It’s this striking effect that sets this one apart from many of the other silent trick shorts of the era.

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Hokus Pokus (1949)

HOKUS POKUS (1949)
Article 4699 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-3-2014
Directed by Jules White
Featuring Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Shemp Howard
Country: USA
What it is: Three Stooges short

The Three Stooges are caring for an invalid neighbor, unaware that she is actually putting on an act to scam an insurance company. A magician known as “The Great Svengarlic” then discovers that the Stooges make ideal hypnotic test subjects.

This is a pretty good Shemp-era Three Stooges short. My favorite sequence is towards the beginning, when we are treated to the Stooges’ morning ritual, which includes a bizarrely synchronized shaving sequence; after all, only a Stooge would be stupid enough to let another Stooge shave him. The rest of the short is fairly ordinary. I did find myself thinking about Shemp and his work with the Stooges with this one. Now I like Shemp; I think he’s a good comic actor, and I enjoy watching him in action. But, unlike Curly, I don’t get the sense that he had a sharply defined and consistent character in his work with the group. That doesn’t mean he can’t be a lot of fun; I love his face-off with the insurance investigator here. But I don’t find myself thinking of individual Shemp trademark bits as I do with Curly, and that may be one of the reasons Curly remains the definitive third Stooge.

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Puss in Boots (1934)

PUSS IN BOOTS (1934)
Article 4698 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-2-2014
Directed by Ub Iwerks, Shamus Culhane and Al Eugster
Voice cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Comicolor cartoon

A boot-wearing cat decides to help a young man win a princess after the latter saves his kittens from drowning.

This animated version of the classic fairy tale takes the basic premise of the fairy tale and builds its own assortment of gags around the concept. The end result is more mildly whimsical than outright funny. The ogre is the most interesting character here, as the hero or the cats don’t really have a lot of personality, and that’s probably why most of the gags involve him. There’s a running gag involving the cats playing tic-tac-toe, often on parts of other characters’ anatomy. If there’s any lesson here, it’s that it’s not a good idea to let a bunch of angry kittens get into your pants.

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The Babes in the Woods (1912)

THE BABES IN THE WOODS (1912)
aka Les enfants perdus dans le foret
Article 4697 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-30-2014
Directed by Georges Denola
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Fairy tale

An evil uncle decides to do away with two children in order to inherit a fortune. They are left stranded in an enchanted forest.

I’ve never seen a version of this fairy tale before, and based on a few short plot descriptions I’d seen, I used to wonder if it was really just another title for HANSEL AND GRETEL. Now that I’ve seen this, I know they are two distinct stories, despite certain similarities. And, if the version I’ve just seen is a faithful telling of the fairy tale, I can see why this one doesn’t get revived a lot; it’s a fairly depressing story in which evil is left unpunished and innocence is put through the wringer, and unless you’re the type of person who equates “being beyond earthly cares” with a happy ending, this one won’t cheer you up. Nevertheless, there’s some striking sequences in the enchanted forest sequence, including one with a fire-breathing dragon. All in all, this one is not badly done, but it is a downer.

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Kotetsu no kyojin (1957)

KOTETSU NO KYOJIN (1957)
aka Supa jaiantsu, Super Giant 1
Article 4696 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-29-2014
Directed by Teruo Ishii
Featuring Ken Utsui, Junko Ikeuchi, Minoru Takada
Country: Japan
What it is: Japanese superhero

Super Giant takes on a gang of terrorists planning nuclear destruction for Japan.

There were nine short movies made about this superhero in Japan. He is known as Starman in the United States, and the nine episodes were edited into four features there. It looks like I’m going to be eventually covering all nine of the original shorts as well as all four of the features. This is the first of the nine shorts, and though I was able to get a copy of it, it has no English subtitles. That’s not a huge problem, though; the action is relatively straightforward with an emphasis on visuals rather than talk, and I do have my memories of the English versions to help. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that this version is easier to follow than the rather confusing English version; the latter versions were somewhat incoherent due to several relatively unconnected episodes being strung together, where the action in this one is of a piece. I can honestly say I enjoyed this one quite a bit, though the silliness is still there, especially during the outlandish fight sequences. I can only hope someday that someone decides to attach English subtitles to the original shorts and make them readily available here. However, this one does end in a cliffhanger that is resolved in the next episode of the series.

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The Christmas Miracle (1912)

THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE (1912)
Article 4695 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-28-2014
Director unknown
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Christmas story

It is Christmas Eve. A poor woman’s three children dream of the presents that Santa is going to leave. The woman knows they will be disappointed, but sends them to bed anyway. Then a beggar shows up, but the woman is too kindly to turn him away…

Sometimes predictability is comforting. Sometimes it is a bore. This is my way of saying that if you looked at the title of this one and saw what I wrote for the plot description, you could write the ending yourself and not be far off. You might get specific details wrong such as who the supernatural figure is who manifests himself at the end of the short, but you’ll probably get the fate of the mother and the three children right. For the record, those specific details are the most interesting bits of this otherwise unremarkable short.

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Hell’s Fire (1934)

HELL’S FIRE (1934)
Article 4694 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-27-2014
Directed by Ub Iwerks
Voice cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Anti-prohibition cartoon

Willie Whopper tells the story of how he descended to hell from a volcano and prevented the escape of one of the inhabitants.

This Ub Iwerks cartoon short only exists in fragmentary condition, but the fragment is of sizable length and I’m willing to bet that most of the cartoon is represented. Willie Whopper was a regular Iwerks character given to telling outrageous lies, but he really doesn’t have a lot of dimension beyond that. That being said, this one is rather fun; we see a parade of the damned, and you should recognize some historical and literary characters in the bunch. I wasn’t quite sure who the blue-faced man attempting to escape was, but according to one of the user comments on IMDB, he was a symbol of Prohibition, so it’s no surprise that people would want to keep him in hell. I did recognize the eagle who appears near the end as the symbol of the NRA (the National Recovery Act, not the National Rifle Association), the logo of which pops up during the credits of many movies of the era. There’s also a bit of nonsense involving Cerberus. It’s not a great cartoon, but it’s fun enough for a time-killer.

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The Chemist (1936)

THE CHEMIST (1936)
Article 4693 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-26-2014
Directed by Al Christie
Featuring Buster Keaton, Marlyn Stuart, Earle Gilbert
Country: USA
What it is: Comedy short

A chemist invents a silent explosive. Criminals find out and try to use the formula to break open a safe.

Just taken on its own terms, this comic short is pretty decent. The various formulas concocted by the title character are amusing (including a love powder and a potion that increases the size and strength of those that use it) and generally well used, and the short has a certain amount of energy as well. If it had featured some lesser comic of the era rather than Buster Keaton, I wouldn’t have felt a certain disappointment. But it does star Keaton, and if there’s one thing that this short really lacks, it’s that special quality that Keaton was capable of bringing to the table; I think this short would have largely felt the same with any competent comic actor in the lead role. The user comments on IMDB lead me to believe that this is considered one of the best of Keaton’s shorts with Educational, but if that’s so, it certainly doesn’t bode well for the others. You know, I wonder how differently things would have worked out for Keaton if the expensive THE GENERAL (which is now considered one of his finest works) hadn’t been a commercial and critical failure in its time; it was this failure that ultimately caused Keaton to lose creative control of his work, which lead to his alcoholism. One can only wonder what his later work would have been like had that movie been a success.

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Seven Deaths in the Cats Eyes (1973)

SEVEN DEATHS IN THE CATS EYES (1973)
aka La morte negli occhi del gatto
Article 4692 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-25-2014
Directed by Antonio Margheriti
Featuring Jane Birkin, Hiram Keller, Francoise Christophe
Country: France / Italy / West Germany
What it is: Mad family saga

Someone is murdering the residents of a Scottish castle while a cat malevolently looks on.

I have to admit that I was blindsided by this movie a bit, largely because the title simply screams “Giallo” while the movie itself owes more to the Italian horror movies of the previous decade. The movie actually starts out rather promising, and there are some stylish moments and memorable scenes here; the cat of the title also seems to have a nice, effective glare in his eye. However, the plot is a muddle (I think it has something to do with a power struggle within the castle, but it’s hard to tell), it throws in horror elements that are left dangling in midair (there’s talk about vampires that leads nowhere and a gorilla on the loose that just seems to vanish from the story), and it throws in sex just to throw in sex. Granted, since most of the print I saw of the movie was dubbed into English (there’s a few scenes where it looks like the originally Italian print was used with subtitles), I wonder if those preparing it for the English-speaking nations took much care with it; certainly the lack of an apostrophe in the English title shows a certain carelessness. I’d have to say this one is a mixed bag.

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