Month: June 2020

Kadoyng (1972)

KADOYNG (1972)
Article 4641 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-30-2014
Directed by Ian Shand
Featuring Leo Maguire, Teresa Codling, Adrian Hall
Country: UK
What it is: Children’s movie


The small village of Byway is in danger of having its landscape wiped out by a bypass that is going to be built through it. However, an alien from outer space shows up to fix things.


This is an example of what I’ve come to call the “Fix-It Stranger” story. These are stories in which certain characters have problems until a stranger shows up to fix them. It’s not necessarily a bad story foundation; if you think about it, some excellent movies such as SHANE and THE ROAD WARRIOR have that plot. When it’s done badly, however, you end up with movies like this one. Granted, that’s not the worst problem here; the movie isn’t really taking the plot that seriously to begin with. It is, however, not all that funny, at least partly because it takes that condescending “kids will laugh at anything” approach. The alien looks human except for an appendage at the top of his head; the title is derived from the noise the appendage makes when the alien takes off his hat, and that should give you an idea of the level of the humor. It’s another title from the Children’s Film Foundation, and it’s also another title I couldn’t find for years until it showed up on a British DVD. It’s silly and inconsequential.

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Pinocchio (1967)

PINOCCHIO (1967)
aka Turlis Abenteuer
Article 4640 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-28-2014
Directed by Walter Beck and Ron Merk
Featuring Martin Florchinger, Alfred Muller, Martin Hellberg
Country: East Germany
What it is: Fairy tale adaptation

A lowly carpenter carves a puppet out of a magic block of wood and names him Pinocchio. The puppet boy causes his creator much grief due to his irresponsibility and tendency to fall into temptation. Can the puppet grow up and bring joy to his father, and become a real boy in the process?

No, this version of Carlo Collodi story doesn’t match up to the Disney version, but within the limitations of its much lower budget and the burden of having been dubbed from a foreign language, it is anything but an embarrassment. Part of the charm is the conceit of making it a combination of real life and puppetry; Pinocchio is performed by a marionette (with visible strings), and this choice is very fitting for the story at hand. Furthermore, both the acting and the dubbed acting are well done, so you don’t get the bizarre feeling of disconnect that often happens with dubbed movies. Also, there’s a real sense of other-worldly fantasy in the set design, especially in a creepy forest sequence and in the sequence where the kids end up in Playland. As a result, the movie works quite well indeed, and it is certainly one of the more entertainingly mounted children’s movie I’ve seen. It does manage to have its own sense of magic.

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Arthur the King (1985)

ARTHUR THE KING (1985)
aka Merlin and the Sword
Article 4639 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-26-2014
Directed by Clive Donner
Featuring Malcolm McDowell, Candice Bergen, Edward Woodward
Country: USA / Yugoslavia
What it is: Arthurian epic

Arthur’s rule at Camelot is threatened by the plottings of Morgan Le Fay and his own illegitimate son Mordred, who hatch a plot to have Guinevere kidnapped by the king of the Picts and taken to an enchanted land.

I was given the choice of watching either the shortened version of this TV-Movie (which goes under the title MERLIN AND THE SWORD) or the full length version, which, according to IMDB, ran 180 minutes. I have to admit that I was somewhat reluctant to choose the latter (though I did), because I really didn’t want to spend three hours with what would no doubt be an overly familiar story. Fortunately, the longer version I found ran only two hours and twenty minutes (perhaps the time on IMDB included the commercials), and the story at least deals with certain aspects of the Arthurian legend that I wasn’t familiar with (though, truth be told, I suspect a lot of liberties were taken here with the story). Unfortunately, I found most of the movie pretty bad. There’s a jarring framing story involving a modern day visitor to Stonehenge falling down a hole and ending up in the cavern where Merlin and Niniane were prisoners; Dyan Cannon’s performance as the modern day visitor is so jarringly at odds with the rest of the movie that I winced every time the movie switched to these scenes. Malcolm McDowell is not really given much to do in the title role, and Candice Bergen’s campy take on Morgan Le Fay rubbed me the wrong way; fortunately, Edward Woodward hits the right notes as Merlin and gives the best performance here. I didn’t find Lancelot to be particularly valiant or charismatic, and Mordred is portrayed as an ineffectual fool. My favorite touch to the movie was the odd “Beauty and the Beast” subplot involving Gawaine and the Lady Ragnell; I don’t know if this was part of the original legends, but it made for an interesting distraction. The fight scenes are pretty weak, and much of the dialogue is hackneyed. Overall, I think it tries to be a light-hearted take on the legend, but it ends up lacking both grandeur and humor. All in all, this one was quite bad. The cast also features Liam Neeson and Michael Gough, the latter in a rather embarrassing cameo in which he utters the tackiest joke in the movie.

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Die Jungen Jakobiter (1960)

DIE JUNGEN JAKOBITER (1960)
aka The Young Jacobites
Article 4638 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-25-2014
Directed by John Reeve
Featuring Francesca Annis, Jeremy Bulloch, Frazer Hines
Country: UK
What it is: Children’s adventure tale

In the eighteenth century, the Bonnie Prince Charlie, on the run from the British army, takes refuge in a castle on the Isle of Sky. A group of children on the island become the Young Jacobites, who plan to aid and protect the prince until a ship arrives that will take him to France.

This movie from the Children’s Film Foundation eluded me when it was first on my hunt list, and eventually made it to my “ones that got away” list. Fortunately, it came to light on a German DVD that (also fortunately) featured the English soundtrack. It appears that the movie originally was serialized in nine parts, but it appears to have been edited into three parts on the DVD. I’ve seen quite a few CFF movies now, and this is easily the best of the bunch, as well as one of the earliest; it has action, comedy, generally fine acting and, except for some bad sword-fighting here and there, it generally avoids cheesiness. The original ran about 139 minutes, while this copy runs under two hours, though the missing footage may include repeated credits and overlap scenes; there does not appear to be anything significant missing.

However, there is the issue of the fantastic content yet to deal with, as you’ll notice I give no mention of it in the description. That’s because the fantastic content consists of what amounts to little more than a framing device. Two of the children are from modern times, and they stumble across a threshold stone that takes them back into history, where they apparently existed in previous lives; while in the past, they make no mention of the present, nor do they seem to be surprised they have gone back in time. In fact, with a slight change at the beginning and ending, it could have easily been shot without the fantastic content, so in this case, it seems little more than a gimmick.

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Overlords of the UFO (1976)

OVERLORDS OF THE UFO (1976)
Article 4637 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-24-2014
Directed by G. Brook Stanford
Featuring W. Gorden Allen, Trevor James Constable, Juan Fava
Country: USA
What it is: UFO documentary

Who are the overlords of the U.F.O.s? Could they be beings from another dimension which our science cannot comprehend? Have the governments of the world engaged in a massive cover-up of the truth? Can they bend keys like Uri Gellar?

I found this on YouTube with the big claim that the movie was “banned” and “suppressed”. My own gut feeling is that the word “ignored” would probably be a more accurate assessment of the movie’s fate. All I know is that if I wanted to make a convincing documentary about UFOs, I’d try to keep things focused, ordered, and somewhat realistic. I wouldn’t engage in wild speculation as they do here; nor would I plaster headlines from “The National Enquirer” across the screen as part of my evidence. Yet, perhaps it’s fair to say that the wild speculation heightens the entertainment value of this one somewhat, though it gets boring when the speculation descends into mystical gobbledygook as it does on occasion. The movie feels like it’s several films edited into one at times, with the “Space Voyage from Ummo” sequence in the middle as the part that feels most tacked onto the movie. As for it being in any way convincing? Well…let’s just say that its theory for the cause of cattle mutilations is that it was done by invisible flying predatory critters. If that seems like a convincing theory to you, you’ll find the movie revelatory; the rest of us are more apt to see it as a comedy, especially when you realize that the movie sounds like it was written by Ed Wood and the narrator is as convincing as Criswell.

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Olivia (1983)

OLIVIA (1983)
aka Taste of Sin
Article 4636 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-23-2014
Directed by Ulli Lommel
Featuring Suzanna Love, Robert Walker Jr., Jeff Winchester
Country: USA / West Germany
What it is: Erotic thriller

As a child, a woman saw her prostitute mother being killed by a john. Now she’s married to a mean-spirited husband and is haunted by the voice of her mother; under her influence she takes up prostitution and kills a customer. Then she meets a man she really loves, but neither her husband nor her mother would approve…

As far as the story goes, I will give Ulli Lommel some credit with the story, which has some truly unexpected plot twists; it’s a bit of a shame that the biggest plot twist is tied to the most ridiculous murder in the movie. Still, that’s not the worst problem I have with Lommel in this movie. My issue with the movie is that Lommel seems unable to help us connect with his characters; they all remain somewhat distant and unreal, and most of the scenes strike false notes or fail to convince. It can still be enjoyed somewhat from a distance, but it really fails to generate much suspense, and for someone who is trying to borrow a bit from the Alfred Hitchcock playbook, that’s a big problem. Nor do I feel that the movie really gels; the various plot elements never quite come together in a satisfying way. I do sense that Lommel is trying here, but I also sense that he’s just not a very good director, and the movie suffers.

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Eight Girls in a Barrel (1900)

EIGHT GIRLS IN A BARREL (1900)
aka Le tonneau des danaides, The Danaid’s Barrel
Article 4635 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-21-2014
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Trick film

A magician makes eight girls disappear into a barrel.

I have to admit that I found this one a bit disappointing. Granted, Melies’s magic trick films don’t really constitute his most interesting work, but they’re usually fast and furious and illustrate a variety of different illusions. This one has one trick (the magician leads a girl to the barrel, and she disappears into it) repeated eight times with very little variation; once you’ve seen the first one disappear, you’ve seen everything this short has to offer. Granted, there is a little variation in an end-of-the-short coda, but it’s fleeting. This one is just too predictable.

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Daisy Doodad’s Dial (1914)

DAISY DOODAD’S DIAL (1914)
Article 4634 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-20-2014
Directed by Laurence Trimble
Featuring Florence Turner and Tom Powers
Country: UK
What it is: Comic short

A husband and wife both decide to enter a silly face competition being held by a local actors’ group. When the wife is ill the day of the competition, the husband wins first prize. The wife vows to win a follow-up competition, but complications arrive when she is arrested for disturbing the peace by practicing making faces in public.

Let’s face it; this is a one-joke comedy. And, if it weren’t for the fact that Florence Turner is capable of twisting her face into some truly memorable grimaces, it would die on that one joke; as it is, I found myself laughing a lot more than I really care to admit. In short, I really enjoyed this comedy. However, making funny faces does not in and of itself constitute fantastic content. What qualifies the short is the ending of the movie, where the main character has a nightmare in which she is terrorized by a succession of grotesque faces… all of them her own. When you get down to it, this makes for pretty slight fantastic content, but I’m still glad I got a chance to see this one.

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The Magic Dice (1905)

THE MAGIC DICE (1905)
aka The Crystal Casket, Le Phenix
Article 4633 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-18-2014
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Magic short

A magician performs magic with giant dice.

Apparently, this is only a fragment of the complete film, and usually that means that I wouldn’t bother with it. However, given that it appears to be a somewhat plotless magic film, it’s not like there’s a lot of story missing; the missing footage would probably have consisted of more magic. I don’t know how long the entire short was, but the fragment is fairly entertaining; it looks like it would have been one of the better films of this type from Melies.

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Crainquebille (1922)

CRAINQUEBILLE (1922)
Article 4632 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-17-2014
Directed by Jacques Feyder
Featuring Maurice de Faraudy, Felix Oudart, Jean Forest
Country: France / Belgium
What it is: Drama of French realism

When a thoughtless customer leaves a simple street vendor stranded in front of her shop waiting for his money, the latter gets into a tussle with a policeman who mistakenly thinks the vendor insulted him. The vendor is arrested and sent to prison, and must deal with a justice system he barely understands.

This is the kind of sad, powerful, and somewhat depressing drama that could easily drive away people who don’t like that sort of thing; however, I credit both director Jacques Feyder and actor Maurice de Feraudy (who plays the vendor) for making the movie a pleasure to watch. Part of this is due to the fact that they wisely find the humor in the story. Much of this is derived from the character of the street vendor; he is such a simple man that he never fully comprehends what is going on about him, and as a result, some of the indignities he suffers roll right off his back. Another reason is that the movie isn’t relentless in putting the character through the ringer; amidst the cruelty there are moments of generosity and kindness. Another factor is the creative direction, and this is where the fantastic content in the film comes into play. The trial sequence that takes up the middle of the film is shot more or less from the point of view of the tired, somewhat confused vendor who can’t see things clearly. As a result, we have scenes where certain characters turn into giants, others turn into midgets, and a statue of justice starts to move of its own accord. There’s also a dream sequence in which the judges turn into demons; oddly enough, it’s not the vendor who dreams this, but one of the witnesses. In the end, I really ended up being deeply moved by the movie, and enjoyed it thoroughly, though from a genre standpoint, it is somewhat marginal.

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