Month: June 2020

The Secret of My Success (1965)

THE SECRET OF MY SUCCESS (1965)
Article 4681 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-14-2014
Directed by Andrew L. Stone
Featuring Shirley Jones, Stella Stevens, Honor Blackman
Country: UK
What it is: Comedy

A naive police constable who ends up inheriting a fortune shares the secret of his success.

The central character in this episodic comedy is a police constable whose utter naive faith in people and goodness makes him totally oblivious to the corruption of those around him. At heart, this is not a bad idea, and with the right actor in the role (say, someone like Peter Sellers), it could have worked beautifully. Unfortunately, the role went to James Booth, and though I’m not familiar enough with the actor to say how he fares in other roles, all he really brings to this one is a forgettable blandness, and the role almost fades into the background. As a result, he’s upstaged by his three female co-stars (all of whom are credited higher than he is) and Lionel Jeffries, who takes on four roles in the movie. Yet even they can’t breathe life into a static and lifeless script, and though some of the ideas are very good, the execution is listless. The movie consists of three episodes, and I really love the idea in the third episode, in which a mythical Central American country is taken over by rebels pretending to be shooting a movie. There’s a real comic potential with that idea that remains sadly unrealized here. The primary fantastic content to this movie is in the second episode, which involves giant spiders. My print of this movie runs only 99 minutes, which is 13 minutes shorter than the original print, but somehow I don’t suspect that seeing the full version would make this one any better. This movie is a missed opportunity.

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Deep River Savages (1972)

DEEP RIVER SAVAGES (1972)
aka Il paese del sesso selvaggio, Man from Deep River, Sacrifice
Article 4680 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-13-2014
Directed by Umberto Lenzi
Featuring Ivan Rassimov, Me Me Lai, Prasitsak Singhara
Country: Italian / Burmese / Thai
What it is: The birth of the Italian Cannibal movie

A photographer exploring in Thailand is captured by a native tribe. When one of the native girls takes a liking to him, he is allowed to join the tribe… if he passes the rituals.

This movie is generally thought of as the first of the Italian Cannibal movies, one of the most notorious subgenres of horror. However, as is often the case of a movie that is the first of its subgenre, it is less hemmed in by the conventions of the form, because the conventions haven’t been set yet. This one doesn’t come across as a nihilistic exercise in assaulting the sensibilities; in fact, it almost gets sentimental at times as the civilized man eventually becomes one with the natives, with the promise of domestic bliss being the primary catalyst for this transformation. Granted, the print I saw was several minutes short of the full print, so there’s a chance I’m missing a lot of gruesome footage; however, in this form, it may be the most benign example of the subgenre I’ve encountered. Unfortunately, there IS a bit of the animal killing that would become a trademark of the form. At other times, it seems to be honing cliches from much older types of jungle movies; when the central character defies the witch doctor to try to cure a child, we’re in very familiar territory. One of the oddest bits of information I found about this one on IMDB is that the movie is something of a remake of A MAN CALLED HORSE, which implies that the Italian Cannibal movies had their roots in the American Western.

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Raw Force (1982)

RAW FORCE (1982)
aka Kung Fu Cannibals
Article 4679 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-12-2014
Directed by Edward D. Murphy
Featuring Cameron Mitchell, Geoffrey Binney, Hope Holiday
Country: USA / Philippines
What it is: Action movie

Vacationers hope to visit an island that is rumored to be the place where disgraced martial artists go to die. The island is inhabited by monks that can revive the corpses of the dead martial artists by cannibalizing women. The vacationers run afoul of criminals who sell women to the monks in return for large jade deposits on the island.

I usually don’t go into all that much detail on my plot descriptions, but there are times when a more elaborate list of the various plot elements can tell you a lot more than I can do in my commentary. Be aware that the movie features lots of gratuitous nudity and violence, zombie martial arts masters, sinister monks, cannibalism, white slavery and Cameron Mitchell. All of this together in one movie just screams “grindhouse” to me, and it’s a warning that the movie isn’t to be taken very seriously. For that matter, nobody on hand seems to be really taking it seriously either, and perhaps that’s for the best; it’s silly and dumb but free from any pretensions, and if you watch it on that level, it’s passable enough. I am a bit disappointed that the zombies are a pretty anemic bunch, but I do find it hilarious that the vacationers are actually drawn to this island by a travel brochure on it. It’s one of those movies where you just shake your head and take it all in.

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Psycho Girls (1985)

PSYCHO GIRLS (1985)
Article 4678 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-11-2014
Directed by Gerry Ciccoritti
Featuring John Haslett Cuff, Darlene Mignacco, Rose Graham
Country: Canada
What it is: Psychos on the loose

A female psycho who killed her parents when she was a child escapes from an asylum with two other inmates. They embark on a spree of torture and killing.

A cursory review of the story line of this comedy-horror movie makes it sound like a pretty run-of-the-mill “inmates on the loose” type of story. However, there’s a really odd vibe to this movie that makes it stand out a little from the crowd; the characters and relationships are a little more interesting than in the usual run of movies of this sort. Granted, this odd vibe is both a blessing and a curse; though it enhances several moments in the movie, it also brings it to a screeching halt in the middle of the movie where we end up at an interminable dinner party caught up in an endless discussion about psychiatry and its failings. It’s very hard to take this scene seriously when people make blanket claims such as most psychiatrists being impotent, and if there’s one impression I get from the movie, it’s that someone has a real issue with the whole profession. It also doesn’t help that some of the acting in the movie is pretty dodgy. Nevertheless, it does work occasionally, and overall, I’d say it’s more successful with the horror then the comedy. Though I wouldn’t say the movie is good, it does have point of interest for the patient viewer.

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Praying Mantis (1983)

PRAYING MANTIS (1983)
TV-Movie
Article 4677 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-10-2014
Directed by Jack Gold
Featuring Jonathan Pryce, Cherie Lunghi, Carmen Du Sautoy
Country: UK
What it is: Noirish thriller

Is a professor’s second wife plotting to kill him for his fortune? If so, how will she do it?

I’m being purposefully vague on the plot here for a very good reason; this is one of those movies where much of the pleasure is derived from growing to understand the situations and the characters, and it’s more enjoyable if you only have your suspicions to go on at first. It’s tempting to describe it as another variation on DIABOLIQUE, but that’s short-changing it a bit; it’s probably better to think of it as a post-DIABOLIQUE thriller in which a conspiracy runs into problems when one of the conspiracy’s intended victims turns out to be a match for the conspirators, and if the first part of the movie is concerned with the conspiracy itself, the second is concerned with the battle of wills between the various parties. That being said, this is a truly impressive movie; the acting performances are great, the script is impeccable, the direction is strong, and the editing is wonderful. It has a complex story to tell, and it clips along at a breathtaking pace while managing to keep you from getting lost in the intricacies of the plot. However, in terms of its fantastic content, however, it comes up short. Its surface similarities to DIABOLIQUE, the presence of a sociopath, and a plot element where one character is believed dead by another when they’re not (we, the audience, know that in advance) are the closest we get to horror content, and it’s not very close at all. Therefore, those looking for a horror movie are advised to stay away; those in the mood for a superb noirish thriller will really appreciate this one.

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The Magic Glass (1914)

THE MAGIC GLASS (1914)
Article 4676 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-9-2014
Directed by Hay Plumb
Featuring Reginald Sheffield
Country: UK
What it is: Comic short

A tyrannical father creates a substance that can make glasses capable of seeing through doors and walls. He uses it to keep his family in line.

This is the type of concept that seemed fairly straightforward to me, and I anticipated that this movie would consist of nothing more than scenes where the user of the glass surprises his subjects by revealing his knowledge of secrets that he isn’t expected to know. What did surprise me with this one was that it actually has a bit of emotional impact as well. The father is a tyrant who uses his knowledge to humiliate and browbeat his family, and though the family members are hardly saints themselves, you find yourself siding with them and hoping for the father’s comeuppance. Fortunately for them, the boy discovers the father’s secret for preparing glasses and uses them on both his magnifying glass and his mother’s as well. It then becomes apparent that the father is a bit of a hypocrite as well. My copy of the short ended a bit abruptly, so I don’t know if that’s just the way the short is or whether there might be a little footage missing, but I definitely found it interesting that the short added a little more than just some special effects trickery to the mix.

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Nightstalker (1979)

NIGHTSTALKER (1979)
aka Don’t Go Near the Park
Article 4675 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-8-2014
Directed by Lawrence David Foldes
Featuring Aldo Ray, Meeno Peluce, Tammy Taylor
Country: USA
What it is: You got me.

Two prehistoric people, condemned to perpetually die without becoming dead, survive into the modern age by acts of cannibalism on runaways. They attempt to gain eternal life by having the male mate with a human to create a child that can be sacrificed towards that end. Then it gets confusing.

You know, there’s something to be said for a movie that simply can’t be scoped out, and this is one of them. I never knew where it was going or what was going to happen next. The trouble is, I’m not sure whether the creative powers-that-be on this one knew that either, or whether they simply couldn’t be bothered or figured out how to tell the story in any coherent fashion. This is one of those movies that is packed with “Huh?” scenes – you know, those scenes where you have no idea why what is happening is happening. How did the girl get out of the burning van? Why did the woman decide to marry the strange man who she first meets after he sneaks into her house while she’s showering? How is the man able to perform cannibalism on a young child while managing not to get a drop of blood on his nice Sunday suit? And why does everyone scream at everything? Actually, I think I know the answer to the latter; movies often have lots of screaming in scenes where they’re trying to convince us that it’s really scary when it it really isn’t. That is probably, in a nutshell, the main reason the movie doesn’t work; as weird and sick as it is in spots, it’s never scary. On the other hand, those on the hunt for a really strange bad movie may have something worth checking out here.

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The Automatic Motorist (1911)

THE AUTOMATIC MOTORIST (1911)
Article 4674 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-7-2014
Directed by Walter R. Booth
Cast unknown
Country: UK
What it is: Science fantasy trick film

A robot takes a pair of newlyweds for a spin, and the car ends up going to outer space as well as to the bottom of the ocean.

This movie has a lot in common with the one I saw yesterday. For one thing, it too was a title that had been consigned to my “ones that got away” list until BFI put it on their website. It’s also by the same director, Walter R. Booth. It’s something of an expanded remake of the same director’s earlier movie, THE “?” MOTORIST, and repeats that movie’s most memorable sequence in which the car drives on the rings of Saturn; however, it doesn’t stop there, and it breaks into the planet so we get a somewhat Meliesian scene where a policeman who was being dragged behind the car finds himself surrounded by space aliens and ends up romancing a woman from the stars. Some of the special effects look like Gilliam animations. It’s actually a lot of fun, and may be more entertaining than the original version.

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The Aerial Submarine (1910)

THE AERIAL SUBMARINE (1910)
Article 4673 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-6-2014
Directed by Walter R. Booth
Cast unknown
Country: UK
What it is: Science fiction action adventure

Two youngsters are kidnapped by pirates who have a submarine that can also fly.

Here’s another title that ended up on my “ones that got away” list, but finally a video of the silent short was posted online by BFI. It’s pretty straightforward action/adventure fare, and many of the special effects are created with animation. In some ways, it’s like a variation of 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, and it’s interesting to note that the leader of the pirates is female. Still, if there’s a lesson to be learned from this short, it’s that good help is hard to find; the pirates are finally defeated as the result of gross incompetence on the part of the submarine’s own crew. This one is quite entertaining.

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Summer of Fear (1978)

SUMMER OF FEAR (1978)
aka Stranger in Our House
TV-Movie
Article 4672 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-5-2014
Directed by Wes Craven
Featuring Linda Blair, Lee Purcell, Jeremy Slate
Country: USA
What it is: Tale of the supernatural

A family takes in their cousin after her parents die in an automobile accident. Though she seems shy and unassuming at first, she begins to supplant the daughter of the family in terms of the affection of those around her. The daughter begins to find evidence that the cousin may be a witch.

This TV horror movie was based on a young adult novel, and I’d say that explains to me why so much of the movie seems to revolve around teenage women competing with each other. That is also the reason the movie becomes very tiresome to me as well; though on the surface I can see how the characters are fighting for things that are quite important to them, the way they express themselves often makes me feel that they’re being selfish and petty. There’s also part of me that feels this movie might have worked better if there was more of an ambiguous, Lewtonesque feel to it; it seems to be trying for that at times, but there are other times when it seems blatantly obvious. I also don’t care for the end of the movie where it becomes a full-blown horror film; at that point, it starts feeling silly, especially when I see those red-eyed contact lenses used by the witch. In the end, I just didn’t care for this one, yet I do feel there are moments when it feels authentic, sad, and quite real. In short, I don’t think the movie works, and I rather wish it did; I think there was something promising here.

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