Month: October 2020

Claws (1982)

CLAWS (1982)
Article 5059 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-24-2016
Directed by Alan Nathanson and Essy Niknejad
Featuring Jason Roberts, Brian O’Shaughnessy, Sandra Prinsloo
Country: South Africa
What it is: Not what it said it was

When a farmer breaks his leg after falling off a horse, he and his mother are taken to the hospital in Capetown. Their little boy is left to watch over the farm in his absence. He has a hard time of it, and when an unseen beast begins killing the livestock…

This was apparently marketed as a horror film about a farm boy under attack by “mutant felines”. Well, let’s put that to bed, if we may. I don’t know how long you’ll be into the movie before it occurs to you that this is no horror film; it’s a “boy coming of age” drama that just happens to have a subplot involving a feline predator. It’s no mutant; it’s a lynx, and there’s only one of them. I will admit that some wild animals can elicit a certain amount of horror reaction, but if a single lynx is on the list at all, it’s very low on it. So what we’re left with is the “coming of age” drama, and that’s a pretty tepid affair here. Part of the problem is that the central character of the boy here is rather unappealing; he’s tiresomely self-pitying, specializes in one expression that says “I’m having a hard time of it!”, and spends an inordinate amount of time walking or riding around the area calling out the names of people or animals (usually his dog). In fact, I’d call that a general rule – if more than five percent of your film involves someone walking around yelling a name, the film is probably a stinker. And let’s not get started on the boy’s bizarre semi-erotic dreams…

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Ma femme est une panthere (1961)

MA FEMME EST UNE PANTHERE (1961)
aka My Wife is a Panther
Article 5058 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-23-2016
Directed by Raymond Bailly
Featuring Jean Richard, Jean Poirot, Michel Serrault
Country: France
What it is: Comedy

Thinking that he’s preventing a murder, a man meets a colonel who keeps a panther in his house; the colonel tells him that the panther is the reincarnation of his wife. When the man returns home, the panther stows away in his car, and follows him into his apartment. When a sexy neighbor shows up, the man believes she is the panther transformed into her human form. Hilarity ensues.

For the record, this French comedy remained unavailable to me for some time and the movie fell into my “ones that got away” list. However, it recently became commercially available, albeit in French without English subtitles. In this case, it’s no big problem; if you know the basic premise of the movie, it’s extremely easy to follow, as most of the humor is visual. In fact, it’s so easy to follow that I may have enjoyed it more than I would have otherwise because I was happy not to have to struggle through the language barrier; I rather enjoyed it, though from its 3.0 rating on IMDB, it’s reputation is very low. Admittedly, it’s a silly trifle, but I thought some of the gags worked well enough for me. The language content does make it a little difficult to gauge its fantastic content, though; though the transformation from panther to woman is clearly a misunderstanding, there’s a slightly hallucinatory scene where the man believes he’s driving his car through Africa that I found difficult to explain. At any rate, I’m glad to have found another movie that I thought had eluded me completely.

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El secreto de la momia Egipcia (1973)

EL SECRETO DE LA MOMIA EGIPCIA (1973)
aka Lips of Blood, Love Brides of the Blood Mummy
Article 5057 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-22-2016
Directed by Alejandro Marti
Featuring George Rigaud, Michael Flynn, Catherine Franck
Country: Spain / France
What it is: Not the best eighty minutes I’ve spent

A revived mummy needs blood to live. Women are kidnapped for their blood. Movie goes around in circles and then gets weird.

I’ve only been able to find this one in Spanish without English subtitles. Still, this one isn’t really all that difficult to figure out. Most of it is told in flashback with snatches of narration and very little dialogue, so it relies on visuals a lot. Unfortunately, one of the problems is that there isn’t a whole lot of story here; once it’s established that the mummy has been revived and needs blood to live, it’s just a series of kidnappings, mummy attacks and blood-drinking until someone decides that they’d better get rid of the mummy. The most interesting element in the story is a sequence involving a crawling hand that features a bit of stop-motion animation, but you should be able to figure out what’s going on there as well. I get the feeling that those drawn to the movie for its campy alternate English title will emerge a little disappointed. Ultimately, I found the movie to be tiresome and lacking in suspense; unless there’s something really interesting buried in the Spanish dialogue, there’s not much here.

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Miracle on 34th Street (1973)

MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (1973)
Article 5056 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-21-2016
Directed by Fielder Cook
Featuring Sebastian Cabot, Jane Alexander, David Hartman
Country: USA
What it is: TV-Movie remake of a classic

The new Santa for Macy’s turns out to believe he’s the real thing, and complications ensue.

The direction is not particularly inspired, the touches designed to make it seem more contemporary are unnecessary, and I can live without the songs, but fortunately, there’s only a very few of those. Beyond that, I mostly don’t have a problem with this remake of the perennial Christmas classic. For one thing, it’s well cast and there’s a lot of familiar faces in appropriate roles; on top of those listed above, the movie also features Jim Backus, Roddy McDowall, Tom Bosley and James Gregory. It also sticks fairly closely to the original story, and the story is sturdy enough so that I do find myself smiling and laughing at the right places. The most striking difference to my eyes is one I can understand; Kringle’s attack on the psychiatrist uses a different and gentler weapon than the one used in the original movie. Yet, when all is said and done, the movie suffers because it is a remake that doesn’t really have anything strong of its own to add to the mix, and the movie feels rather unnecessary. This is probably why this version has largely been forgotten while the original is still revived regularly.

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The Shining (1980)

THE SHINING (1980)
Article 5055 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-20-2016
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Featuring Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd
Country: USA / UK
What it is: Horror, Kubrick style

A man agrees to be caretaker of an isolated hotel in the Rockies during the off season, and he moves there with his family. However, the man has issues that the isolation of the place worsens… and the hotel seems to have a few issues of its own…

When this movie first came out, I remember the critical reception to be less than glowing. Many people felt that Kubrick didn’t understand horror, and Stephen King fans objected to the many changes made to the original novel. In fact, I came away with the general feel that it was considered a misfire from Kubrick. Over the years, though, I noticed that the movie’s reputation shifted considerably, both as a horror movie and as a Kubrick movie. On IMDB, the movie is the third highest-rated horror movie of all time (only losing out to PSYCHO and ALIEN), and it’s Kubrick’s third highest as well (behind PATHS OF GLORY and DR. STRANGELOVE). My own guess for the reason for this shift is that the movie is so indelible; various scenes are realized so exquisitely that they remain with you long after you’ve seen the movie, and with each re-viewing they plant themselves even deeper. I like all the performances, though Nicholson’s is the one that really dominates here. Yes, it doesn’t do justice to King’s novel (which I have read), but it does take on a life of its own; I’m always amazed how this two-and-a-half hour movie can leave me hypnotized. I have several favorite scenes, such as the one where Nicholson looks over a model of the hedge maze, and we see what we think is initially his point of view until we see the characters moving inside of it. For me, though, the high point of the movie is when Duvall finally gets a chance to read the manuscript Nicholson has been writing.

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The Shaggy D.A. (1976)

THE SHAGGY D.A. (1976)
Article 5054 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-19-2016
Directed by Robert Stevenson
Featuring Dean Jones, Tim Conway, Suzanne Pleshette
Country: USA
What it is: Shopping Cart Movie

A man (who fell under the spell of a magic ring that turned him into a dog as a teenager) decides to run for district attorney to clean up the town and bring out the corruption of the current D.A. However, the magic ring is stolen from a museum, and when the inscription is read, the spell returns and the man becomes a dog again.

It took Disney seventeen years to return to their first shopping cart movie and make a sequel; this is the result. It’s wilder, messier, not as inspired, and the story is very contrived. The most impressive thing about this one is the wealth of familiar faces; Dean Jones, Tim Conway, Suzanne Pleshette, Keenan Wynn, Dick Van Patten, Jo Anne Worley, Vic Tayback, Richard Bakalyan, John Fiedler and Hans Conried all pop up. Most of the humor comes from the antics of the dog or from Conway; most of the shtick the latter is saddled with is pretty weak, but he makes the most of his good moments. For me, the cutest idea here is that all of the dogs in the dog pound are given the voices of various famous actors; there are imitations of James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, Mae West and Peter Lorre, and it would have been a bit more fun if the vocal imitations had been better. The shopping cart movies were running out of steam by this point, and overall the movie is pretty tepid.

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Le temple de l’elephant blanc (1964)

LE TEMPLE DE L’ELEPHANT BLANC (1964)
aka Temple of the White Elephant, Sandok, il Maciste della giungla
Article 5053 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-17-2016
Directed by Umberto Lenzi
Featuring Sean Flynn, Marie Versini, Alessandro Panaro
Country: Italy / France
What it is: Historical action movie

When the daughter of a Viceroy is captured by a dangerous Indian sect that worships a white elephant, a lancer concocts a plan to infiltrate the cult’s temple and free the daughter.

Is that Maciste’s name I see in the Italian title? Yes, it is, but in this case, it’s a descriptive word; I’ve seen the title translated as SANDOK, GIANT OF THE JUNGLE. Furthermore, Sandok, though having a great deal the strength and wearing a loincloth, isn’t quite a sword-and-sandal hero; furthermore, he’s a secondary character in the action. The copy I found of this one was in French without English subtitles, but the plot description I found on IMDB gave me enough info to scope out the plot. There are a few fantastic touches here and there; one of the characters is under hypnosis, Sandok does demonstrate a certain amount of “super-strength” in one scene (he breaks some chains and bends the bars back), and the action makes me wonder whether the white elephant being worshipped might actually have greater than average powers, though that is fairly ambiguous since I couldn’t understand the dialogue. The movie itself seems to be pretty standard action fare; I didn’t see anything that really stood out or made it special.

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Knights of Terror (1963)

KNIGHTS OF TERROR (1963)
aka Il terrore dei mantelli rossi
Article 5052 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-17-2016
Directed by Mario Costa
Featuring Tony Russel, Scilla Gabel, Yves Vincent
Country: Italy / France / Spain
What it is: Costume swashbuckler

A small duchy is terrorized by a group of horsemen known as the Knights of Terror; they are believed to be the ghosts of an ambushed group of men seeking vengeance. The duke seeks the help of Captain Mirko to fight the terror, but Mirko refuses unless the duke’s daughter will take his hand in marriage. Much swordplay, intrigue and horse-riding follows.

It doesn’t happen very often, but every once in a while there pops up a movie in the realm of costume adventure that has enough fantastic content to be covered here. In this case, there is the rumor that the riders are ghosts, a scene involving a creepy secret passage, and even a touch of science fiction towards the end when an inventor pops up. If you watch this, you’ll probably figure out the true identity of the Knights of Terror early on, and the biggest mystery of the piece will be to wonder why the hero appears to be on the side of the villains. Beyond that, this is a pretty tepid affair, with the story coming to a halt so we can have lots of scenes of people riding around on horses, unnecessary sword-fighting scenes, and lots of footage of peasants carrying around what must be the standard peasant possession of the time, a two-pronged stick. All in all, this is uninspired action fare.

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Scream of the Wolf (1974)

SCREAM OF THE WOLF (1974)
Article 5051 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-16-2016
Directed by Dan Curtis
Featuring Peter Graves, Clint Walker, Jo Ann Pflug
Country: USA
What it is: TV-Movie horror mystery

A wild beast is killing people in a small town. Could it be a werewolf?

Dan Curtis and screenwriter Richard Matheson had both worked together in THE NIGHT STALKER, in which no one but the hero believes that a real vampire is on the loose. In some ways, this movie is the opposite; most people in this one believe the killer is a werewolf, but the hero isn’t so sure. To its credit, the movie works up to an interesting climax; it has a solid, memorable ending. It’s the long stretch leading up to the climax that is less than enchanting; quite frankly, most of the movie comes across as tired and predictable, and there’s a shortage of interesting characters. The one exception is a major one; Clint Walker’s hunter character easily steals the movie and if the movie works at all, it’s to his credit. Graves’ performance isn’t bad, but for the most part it’s business as usual with him, though the ending does give him a nice character moment as well. This is one of Dan Curtis’s lesser TV-movies, but the patient viewer won’t walk away empty-handed.

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L’isola degli uomini pesce (1979)

L’ISOLA DEGLI UOMINI PESCE (1979)
aka Island of the Fishmen, Screamers
Article 5050 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-14-2016
Directed by Sergio Martino
Featuring Barbara Bach, Claudio Cassinelli, Richard Johnson
Country: Italy
What it is: Horror/adventure movie

Survivors of a shipwreck end up on an island run by a mysterious man and plagued by strange fish monsters.

First, a bit of background. When this Italian movie was brought over to the United States, it was decided that it didn’t have enough gore content, so about twelve minutes of gory new footage featuring Cameron Mitchell and Mel Ferrer was edited into the movie, and other elements were shuffled around as well. This version was retitled SCREAMERS. For the record, I seem to have seen the original Italian version, though I was fortunate enough to see one that was dubbed into English.

Probably the main reason this version is pretty light on gore is that it really isn’t a horror movie; the story plays out more like an adventure story. It’s an odd hodgepodge of genres and ideas; it’s partially inspired by THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU and THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, and it throws in elements of voodoo as well as the lost continent of Atlantis before it’s all through. It’s not well regarded, but I actually found the hodgepodge rather interesting, and I have to admit that it’s one of the more entertaining of Sergio Martino’s movies to me. It also features Joseph Cotten as a professor involved in some bizarre experiments. It’s a bit of mess, but overall I thought it was pretty decent.

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