Month: January 2021

The Jeep (1938)

THE JEEP (1938)
Article 5332 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-30-2016
Directed by Dave Fleischer and Seymour Kneitel
Featuring the voices of Jack Mercer and Margie Hines
Country: USA
What it is: Popeye cartoon

When Swee’Pea goes missing, Popeye employs the talents of his “magic dog” to track him down.

Usually when a Popeye cartoon does not add spinach and the super-powers it grants into the mix (like this one), it’s a little difficult to argue its inclusion in the realm of the fantastic. However, that’s no problem here; the Jeep, Popeye’s “magic dog”, is a legitimately fantastic character. He can disappear, defy gravity, and walk through walls. Bluto is absent from this cartoon, so the main story involves Popeye’s struggle to keep up with the Jeep as it tracks the baby. Jack Mercer gets to ad lib a lot of hilarious dialogue here, and you do have to wonder how Swee’Pea managed to get through some of obstacles encountered; that is, if the Jeep isn’t just leading Popeye on a pointless runaround. This one is a lot of fun.

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La brulere de mille soleils (1965)

LA BRULERE DE MILLE SOLEILS (1965)
aka The Burning of a Thousand Suns
Article 5331 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-29-2016
Directed by Pierre Kast
Featuring the voices of Pierre Vaneck and Barbara Laage, and Barbara Aptekman
Country: France
What it is: Animated Science fiction short

A man travels to another planet and falls in love with a woman there. However, whenever they try to make love, six people show up in their bedroom.

This one has been on my hunt list for some time, but it proved rather elusive, so I’m glad that it showed up on Vimeo. Unfortunately, it is in French without English subtitles, and given that the style is that of very limited animation (it mostly comes across like a series of narrated pictures), there’s not much to be gotten from the action, such as it is. What little I know about is based on some rather vague plot descriptions I stumbled across, and it may be about (unless I misunderstood) the differences of mores between two cultures. The visual style is like a combination of the UPA look and woodcuts, and though most of it is very static, it does look interesting. The movie delves into live action towards the end, mostly of shots of beautiful women smiling into the camera; the significance of these scenes is no doubt buried in the narration. I enjoyed it, but I can’t say I can really evaluate it.

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Le roman de Renard (1930)

LE ROMAN DE RENARD (1930)
aka The Story of the Fox
Article 5330 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-27-2016
Directed by Irene Starewicz and Wladyslaw Starewicz
Featuring the voices of Claude Dauphin, Romain Bouquet, Sylvain Itkine
Country: France
What it is: Animated fable

In the kingdom of the animals, complaints are lodged to the lion king about the fox, who performs pranks on all of the other animals. The king decides to have him arrested, but will he be able to find another animal that can outwit his nemesis?

Up to this point, all of the works I’ve seen from Wladyslaw Starewicz have been shorts; this one, at 65 minutes, can be called feature length. For those who wonder whether his animated magic could be translated into this longer form, there’s no need to worry; he does a wonderful job, though he enlisted the aid of his daughter in the writing and directing of the movie. It’s based on a fable by Goethe, and it’s mostly a comic series of pranks in which practically every character is sooner or later outwitted by the clever fox. The ending is unexpected but logical, and it definitely shows the imprint of someone who spent at least part of his life involved in politics (meaning Goethe). The animation is stunning as usual, and I find it interesting that even in this world of anthropomorphic animals, they still find themselves at odds with man; several of the pranks involve leaving the hapless animals at the mercy of human peasants. This one is definitely recommended.

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Some More of Samoa (1941)

SOME MORE OF SAMOA (1941)
Article 5329 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-25-2016
Directed by Del Lord
Featuring Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard
Country: USA
What it is: Three Stooges short

Three idiotic tree surgeons are called in to cure an ailing rare puckerless persimmon tree. They find themselves sent to the distant jungle country of Rhum-Boogie to find a mate for the tree.

This is one of those shorts where the Stooges are firing on all cylinders. The first half focuses on their work on the tree, while the second half has them in the jungle and dealing with cannibals. The cannibals were the most predictable fantastic content in the movie, but there’s a super tree growth serum as well, and there’s a scene where Curly tussles with a native god who seems to like to slap him around. There are several great moments here – the Stooges showing their skills at tree surgery, their being mistaken for regular surgeons by two women listening outside of a door, Larry picking up Curly’s footsteps, and a tussle with an alligator who has swallowed a tree seedling. Moe and Larry even do an imitation of Amos and Andy at one point. No, the short is not politically correct, but it is one of their funniest outings.

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Snow-White (1933)

SNOW-WHITE (1933)
Article 5328 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-24-2016
Directed by Dave Fleischer
Featuring the voices of Cab Calloway, Billy Murray and Mae Questal
Country: USA
What it is: Betty Boop cartoon

An evil queen with a magic mirror discovers that she’s no longer the fairest in the land when her stepdaughter (Betty Boop as Snow-White) shows up. Snow-White escapes execution only to be frozen into a block of ice.

There were a lot of Betty Boop cartoons, but there’s an informal trilogy of them that stands out; it’s the three that were made in collaboration with bandleader Cab Calloway and featured his signature dance moves in rotoscoped animation. In this one, the song is “Saint James Infirmary Blues”, a song that has little to do with the action, but everything in the cartoon is so bizarre it hardly matters. In this one, Ko-ko the clown gets to perform the dance moves, though he is quickly turned into a strange long-legged ghost; this sequence is easily the highlight of the cartoon. Huge liberties are taken with the original story; there’s no poisoned apple or handsome prince, but the queen gets to turn into dragon creature for the final battle. Like most of the early Betty Boop cartoons, it all takes place in a surreal land where inanimate objects constantly come to life. This is one of my favorites.

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It Had to Be You (1947)

IT HAD TO BE YOU (1947)
Article 5327 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-23-2016
Directed by Don Hartman and Rudolph Mate
Featuring Ginger Rogers, Cornel Wilde, Percy Waram
Country: USA
What it is: Romantic comedy

A socialite who has backed out of three marriages at the last minute is about to try for her fourth, but a man dressed as an Indian enters her dreams and tells her she’s the man she really loves… and then manifests himself in the real world.

The fact that this movie took so long to pop up on my hunt list made me suspect that whatever fantastic content it had was going to be too slight to catch the attention of the other guides which failed to mention it, but that’s not the case. As it turns out, though, the fantastic content here is significant; the character that appears remains a supernatural being, even after his real life equivalent makes an appearance as a second character (Cornel Wilde plays this dual role). I’m not big on romantic comedies (and they rarely come up in this series), but I rather liked this one; Ginger Rogers does a great job as the socialite with a commitment problem, and there are lots of fun actors in the supporting cast, including Spring Byington. Yes, it’s pretty silly, but I got a few laughs out of it; my favorite line is “I’d like to report a fire.”. I ended up enjoying this one much more than I expected I would.

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Thiruneelakandar (1939)

THIRUNEELAKANDAR (1939)
aka Thiruneelakantar
Article 5326 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-21-2016
Directed by Raja Sandow
Featuring M.K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar, Tirunelveli Paapa, “Yaanai” Vaidyanatha Iyer
Country: India
What it is: Mystical drama

A devout potter and his wife face trials in their lives.

Almost immediately after I consigned this to my “ones that got away” list and assumed this was one of the many early Indian movies that had been lost, I was pointed in the direction of a YouTube video of the movie. Unfortunately, it was in Tamil without English subtitles, and it appears to be one of those movies that is nearly impenetrable to me in that form; there’s very little action to speak of, and it’s mostly a series of long dialogue sequences between characters and the occasional musical number. Reportedly, this was very popular in India, and I imagine even if it were in English, I’m not sure I’d be able to penetrate Hindu spirituality enough to really appreciate this one. I do know part of the plot involves romantic entanglements (there are several scenes of women falling to the floors and crying), and there’s an overt comic character who looks a little bit like Jim Carrey. There is also definite fantastic content, though it seems to be quite a ways into the movie before it noticeably manifests itself to me. Of course, being from India, it’s long – it runs nearly two and a half hours, so I deserve some sort of endurance award for this one. Still, my inability to follow the story guarantees that I can’t really can’t pass any judgment on this one.

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Mission Apocalypse (1966)

MISSION APOCALYPSE (1966)
aka Missione apocalisse
Article 5325 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-19-2016
Directed by Guido Malatesta
Featuring Arthur Hansel, Pamela Tudor, Eduardo Fajardo
Country: Spain / Italy
What it is: Spyghetti

When his scientists manage to develop an invulnerable missile, a villain holds the world for ransom. Can Agent 087 catch him before the time is up?

It’s always a satisfying experience to finally cover a movie that had previously been on my “ones that got away” list, but that has more to do with the personal satisfaction of having ultimately succeeded in the hunt than any quality of the movie itself. This one is part of a subgenre from which I’ve learned not to expect a whole lot; namely, the Italian “James Bond” imitation movie. For the record, this one looks a little less cheap than most of the others I’ve seen, and it seems more overtly imitative of a Bond movie as well, if one was shot at only the fraction of the budget of a Bond movie. Plotwise, this one seems particularly thin; after the setup, it mostly consists of the hero chasing the villain from one European location to another, meeting him, and escaping traps set by the villain; about the only mystery is where the spy will go next. I found it predictable and quite mechanical, but at least I can cross it off the list.

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Someone at the Door (1950)

SOMEONE AT THE DOOR (1950)
Article 5324 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-18-2016
Directed by Francis Searle
Featuring Michael Medwin, Garry Marsh, Yvonne Owen
Country: UK
What it is: Comedy in the “old dark house” mode

A down-on-his luck journalist who lives with his sister in a supposedly haunted house hits upon a scheme to make it big; he plans to fake the murder of his sister and write about the experience. However, the scheme goes awry when a real body turns up…

This pre-horror Hammer comedy has a rating of 4.8 on IMDB, which means it doesn’t have much of a reputation. Well, truth be told, it isn’t much of a movie, but if you take it for what it is (a late-period old dark house variant based on a stage play), it has its uses. There are a few mildly amusing jokes and a couple of decent plot twists, which is more than some examples of this genre have. It also has some dead spots and annoying moments; the opening bit where the brother and sister look for the sources of the scary laughs in the haunted house is tired and obvious. To enjoy it, it helps if you like the “old dark house”‘ subgenre, keep your expectations in check, and ignore the fact that it’s from Hammer.

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A Short History (1956)

A SHORT HISTORY (1956)
aka Scura istorie
Article 5323 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-17-2016
Directed by Ion Popescu-Gopo
No cast
Country: Romania
What it is: Animated short

The history of the world is told in three minutes.

It begins with the big bang, or, in this case, the big sneeze. Then we deal with dinosaurs, evolution, and the rise of man. Then… it’s over. It’s tempting to praise the movie for its ambition, but it’s the wit that sells this one; after all, the real trick here is to find the time in this story for the humor. My favorite moment here is how man evolves; I won’t give it away except that it involves an earthquake caused by a dinosaur chasing a bug.

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