Month: February 2021

Magic Land of Mother Goose (1967)

Magic Land of Mother Goose (1967)
Article 5464 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-28-2017
Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis
Featuring Roy Huston, David Hammond, Judith Snow
Country: USA
What it is: For when your kids have been REALLY bad

Merlin the Magician visits characters from “Stories from Mother Goose” and using magic, helps them with their personal problems.

Here’s a practical joke to play on your friends. Dare them to watch the most horrible, unwatchable movie that you know. Hint that it’s directed by goremeister Herschell Gordon Lewis. If they’re familiar with the name, they’ll probably not want to seem like wimps and take you up on the challenge. Then show them this movie. The only downside to this practical joke is that you’d have to watch it with them.

This is my nominee for the worst movie ever made. When I screened it for a bad movie group I once belonged to, we couldn’t watch it one sitting and had to space it out over six nights, meaning we could only handle about ten minutes of it at a time. It is for all practical purposes the equivalent of a photographed stage play of a high school children’s production; the only reason it doesn’t quite qualify is the cast is made up entirely of adults and there are a handful of bare-bones special effects that I’m sure Melies had already mastered before the turn of the last century. It seems to be mostly an excuse for a stage magician to ply his trade; practically every plot development ends with a magic trick. It’s static as hell and looks like it may have been shot in less than one day. It’s the epitome of a snoozefest, and the movie gives a whole slew of clues to this.

1) Notice that during the introduction by Santa, he immediately falls asleep. That is a warning.

2) Old King Cole says that “nothing ever happens around here”. He’s not exaggerating.

3) The rag doll is asleep when she is first introduced. No movie this dull should have this much sleeping in it

4) When Sleeping Beauty shows up, she’s distraught because she’s NOT asleep. She knows the best way to handle this movie.

5) The witch’s main spell on the other characters is to freeze them in their tracks, making them static and lifeless. Hint. Hint. Hint.

6) When the discussion turns to making Jack Spratt lose weight, the comment is made that he has “too much power”, which I take to mean as too much energy. Doesn’t it say something that this movie is seeking to reduce the amount of energy it has?

As always, remember the Merlin rule – If a movie features Merlin the Magician but not King Arthur, it probably stinks. This movie is the equivalent of skunk roadkill.

One final warning – the only thing you’re likely to remember about this movie is the rag doll’s disturbing mask; I’m surprised some slasher movie hasn’t borrowed the look.

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The Monster of Camp Sunshine (1964)

The Monster of Camp Sunshine (1964)
Article 5463 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-28-2017
Directed by Ferenc Leroget
Featuring Harrison Pebbles, Deborah Spray, Sally Parfait
Country: USA
What it is: Bizarre nudie flick

Residents at a nudist camp are terrorized by a mentally challenged caretaker who becomes homicidal after drinking water polluted by chemicals.

I’ve been going through my entire DVD collection and watching everything, and occasionally I stumble across an item that qualifies as genre but never appeared on my hunt list. I’m choosing to review these. This black and white nudist film appeared on the same disc as THE BEAST THAT KILLED WOMEN, and for what it’s worth, I prefer this one. Not that this one is better made than the other movie; it’s just that while TBTKW knows just what it is (a nudist film in which the plot is inconsequential) and achieves its goal, it’s dull as dishwater, whereas this one doesn’t seem to know what it is and goes all over the board; its wild inconsistency makes it more entertaining. It starts out as a drama about two female friends, one who is trying to make the other one feel less self-conscious about her body by inviting her to a nudist camp, turns into a horror movie as the nurse is attacked by killer rats, finally turns into a full-blown nudie in the second half, and takes a turn back into horror before turning into a mind-blowing surreal comedy when the entire army is called out to do battle with a monster (an ugly dumpy guy with an axe) through the miracle of stock footage. This final sequence is one of the most jaw dropping cinematic sequences I’ve ever encountered. This seems to be the only movie made by writer/director Ferenc Leroget, but I heavily suspect this is a nom de plume; in fact, it looks like an anagram of something. At any rate, it’s a lot more unpredictable than its companion feature.

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Aaya Toofan (1964)

Aaya Toofan (1964)
Article 5462 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-18-2008 Posted 5-27-2017
Directed by Mohammed Hussain and Kedar Kapoor
Featuring Rajkumari Chanda, Anwar Hussain, Mallu
Country: India
What it is: Indian fantasy

An evil magician attempts to spirit away a princess with the help of genie, but the genie is defeated by a man named Deepu. However, when the King discovers that Deepu is the son of an old enemy, he holds a grudge and makes him an enemy, despite the fact that Deepu wishes to marry the princess.

There’s something about watching foreign movies that can give you a real sense of a different culture, and Bollywood movies are striking examples of that. Their movies are very long, full of songs, and quite unique. This one starts out a little like JACK THE GIANT-KILLER, turns into something of a sword-and-sandal movie, all the time with songs and dancing. The dancing is unique and very interesting, but sometimes I wonder why they bother trying to translate the lyrics of the songs in the subtitles, as they’re more confusing than illuminating. The title means something about a “stormy life”, which I gather from the lyrics of the song that continually repeats the phrase.

As I watch more Bollywood movies, I’ll have a better feel for how to critique them; this one is a little too new for me to say anything really worthwhile about it.

***NOTE This review was written years ago and held in reserve until it entered my hunt list. Since it never did, I’m posting it now. It may actually have been the first Indian movie I’d seen.

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Fetiche (1933)

Fetiche (1933)
aka The Mascot, The Devil’s Ball
Article 5461 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-26-2017
Directed by Wladyslaw Starewicz
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Bizarre puppet animation

When the ailing daughter of a toymaker asks for an orange, she is told they don’t have the money for one. However, a stuffed dog made by the toymaker hears the request. When the stuffed dog is sold, he escapes and manages to find an orange for the girl, but can he avoid having it stolen in a demonic nightclub?

I first became familiar with this Starewicz short via a shortened version known as THE DEVIL’S BALL, which focuses on the nightclub scene. This sequence is definitely the highlight of this short; it’s a masterpiece of bizarre animation, with nightmarish and freaky characters; it certainly had an influence on THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS. However, the story is utterly obscured in that version, and the short USA version known as THE MASCOT is longer, it’s still only half the length of the full short, and omits some of the ball footage as well. Fortunately, I managed to see the full French version, and though I couldn’t understand some of the dialogue, there’s really not a lot of it, and the short is overwhelmingly visual. This is perhaps Starewicz’s masterpiece, and it even has a subplot or two added to the mix, most notably a romance between a clown and a ballet dancer (both dolls). Highly recommended. Incidentally, when I decided to abandon my “Movie of the Day” approach to this project and opened it up to watching what I chose to watch for the series, this was one of the first items I knew I had to see.

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Lightning Bryce (1919)

Lightning Bryce (1919)
Article 5460 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-24-2017
Directed by Paul Hurst
Featuring Ann Little, Jack Hoxie, Paul Hurst
Country: USA
What it is: Western serial

Lightning Bryce and Kate Arnold inherit the secret to a fortune in gold from their respective fathers, who died after its discovery. However, there is a despicable villain who also seeks the treasure, as well as a hostile tribe of Indians.

I actually wrote this review before the title popped up on my hunt list; I watched it for another project of mine and realized that there was definite fantastic content here, so I wrote this ahead of time in preparation for when it did enter my hunt list (and so I wouldn’t have to watch the whole thing again). It’s a rarity in that it is one of the few complete silent serials. It’s also a rarity in that it is one of the few western serials that has fantastic content; the Indians in the tribe here have several mystical powers that come into play at one point or another in the proceedings. It is, however, really not very good. Most of the first ten episodes is about a tired and repetitive struggle between the good guys and the bad guys to acquire a piece of string and a knife; the string when rapped around the knife reveals the clue to the location of the treasure. Quite frankly, the plot comes to a standstill during this struggle, as no real new information appears and it’s just a series of kidnapping, escapes, fights, etc. Yes, I know this is what some fans of the genre hanker for, but I find very dull when the action is there just to hold off the plot revelations. Things pick up during the final third, but even then, we have problems in that the villain starts acting villainous and mean even when there’s no good reason to do so; his attempt to fool the heroine into a fake marriage makes no sense. In the end, this one is merely passable.

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Captain America (1979)

Captain America (1979)
TV-Movie
Article 5459 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-22-2017
Directed by Rod Holcomb
Featuring Reb Brown, Len Birman, Heather Menzies-Urich
Country: USA
What it is: Super-ho-hum-hero

To save a young man’s life after an attack from criminals seeking the plans for a neutron bomb, he is given a steroid developed by his father from his own blood that maximizes his latent potential. It saves his life and gives him superpowers which he uses against the criminals.

The success of “The Incredible Hulk” notwithstanding, the seventies were not a good time for television to take on superhero stories, and I think the mentioned series only worked because its premise lent itself to a “The Fugitive” format more than a crimefighter format. Granted, the special effects for TV series may not have been quite up to par yet, but I don’t think that was the main problem. I think there was sort of a glum timidity at work that made it feel like the makers didn’t think people would buy into the superhero concept. Furthermore, it often felt like nobody was really having fun with the idea; in this one, for example, the writing is uninspired, the direction stodgy, the acting bland, and the presentation simply dull. If I were making a superhero movie (TV or otherwise), I would at least have the music during the opening scenes be rousing and exciting; this movie opens with the hero driving around in a van while some anonymous laid-back music plays, the type of music that just seams to scream that not much is happening and things aren’t likely to improve. Quite frankly, the only thing in this movie that I would call “cool” would be the way the motorcycle seems to explode out of the back of the van when it comes into action. The action sequences are nothing special, and the movie probably has a high IVT*. Not recommended.

  • IVT is a new term I coined; it stands for Index of Vehicular Tedium. It stands for the percentage of the movie’s running time that consists of footage of vehicles moving around in a non-action scene mode.
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Britannia Hospital (1982)

Britannia Hospital (1982)
Article 5458 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-21-2017
Directed by Lindsay Anderson
Featuring Leonard Rossiter, Malcolm McDowell, Brian Pettifer
Country: UK
What it is: Satire

A British hospital is the site of an underground documentary, a union strike, violent protests due to the the presence of an African dictator, mad experiments, and an impending visit from the queen.

This movie is the third of an informal trilogy that includes IF…. and O LUCKY MAN; all three share certain thematic elements and the presence of Malcolm McDowell, who plays a character named Mick Travis in all three (though they may not be the same character). I’ve already seen the other two in the trilogy (both of which are marginally genre), so I had an idea of what to expect stylistically; Anderson’s movies can be fragmentary, episodic, politically themed and often include a bewilderingly large cast. This third movie is generally considered the weakest of the three, but it is the one that is perhaps the easiest to follow, as the impending queen’s visit provides a thread from which one can follow the story. It’s also the one with the greatest amount of fantastic content; one of the doctors at the hospital is engaged in Frankenstein-style experiments, and the movie in goes into full horror mode during one sequence. The movie feels like a bizarre cross between Monty Python (though less overtly humorous) and a Robert Altman film, and I must admit that it doesn’t quite have the impact of the previous two films. Still, it does make for an interesting watch.

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The Great Houdini (1976)

The Great Houdini (1976)
TV-Movie
Article 5457 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-20-2017
Directed by Melville Shavelson
Featuring Paul Michael Glaser, Sally Struthers, Ruth Gordon
Country: USA
What it is: Biopic

The life of escape artist Harry Houdini is told from the point of view of his wife and his nurse.

This isn’t the first movie I’ve seen that involves Houdini; I’ve also seen the 1953 biography as well as a handful of movies in which he appeared, most notably THE MASTER MYSTERY. Usually, biopics don’t fall within the scope of my project, but since we’re dealing with a man who dealt with magic and spiritualism, the story does involve fantastic content to some extent. In fact, this movie puts forth the belief that Houdini did indeed contact his wife from beyond the grave, and that makes this a far less marginal picture than it would be otherwise.

Now, I haven’t read any biographies on Houdini, so I’m no authority as to what happened in his life, so I can’t attest to how accurate the movie is. However, my overall impression was very mixed. Some of the characters feel like stereotypes, and there are scenes that feel a little too pat and artificial dramatically. However, there are some nice moments here and there, as well as a handful of interesting performances. I was especially delighted to see Peter Cushing playing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; according to IMDB, he shot his scenes a few days after finishing up his scenes in STAR WARS. There are lots of familiar names in the cast; other than those already listed, we have Adrienne Barbeau, Bill Bixby, Nina Foch, Wilfred Hyde-White and Maureen O’Sullivan. However, I think Vivian Vance nearly steals the movie as Houdini’s sassy nurse, but seeing how she’s given all the best lines in the movie, that’s understandable. I enjoyed the scenes involving magic and spiritualism the best, but I was bored with the subplot about his wife competing with his mother for the man’s affection. As I said, it’s a mixed bag, but when it’s good, it’s worth the watch.

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Sherlock Holmes (1916)

Sherlock Holmes (1916)
Article 5456 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-19-2017
Directed by Arthur Berthelet
Featuring William Gillette, Marjorie Kay, Ernest Maupain
Country: USA
What it is: Detective story

Sherlock Holmes is assigned to recover incriminating letters from a woman whose sister was betrayed by the crown prince. The situation gets complicated when the woman is kidnapped by swindlers, and Professor Moriarty appears on the scene.

At the time this movie fell off my hunt list and was consigned to my “ones that got away” list, it was believed lost. Since then, a copy was discovered in France (where it was released in four parts as a serial) and it was restored and released on DVD. For some reason, I never got around to getting a copy until recently, so I’m glad to finally get a chance to cover it.

William Gillette was a stage actor who gained fame playing Sherlock Holmes. This movie was an adaptation of a specific stage production written by Gillette, with the original stage cast reprising their roles in the movie. It’s basically an extended version of the story “A Scandal in Bohemia” with an elaborate Moriarty plot added to the mix. It was probably easy to convert to a serial, as each episode has a separate story arc while having an arc that extends through the whole work. Gillette was a good Holmes, and some of the Holmesian traditions originated with him, such as the Meerschaum pipe. Some of the elaborations to the story are a bit on the awkward side, but the movie is still entertaining enough, though Watson is mostly consigned to the edges of the story until the final act. However, I find it sorely lacking in the fantastic content that defines my series; the closest it gets is that Moriarty’s secret lair has a couple of small touches of horror to it. It was the only filming of Gillette in the role of Holmes.

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Brazil (1985)

Brazil (1985)
Article 5455 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-18-2017
Directed by Terry Gilliam
Featuring Jonathan Pryce, Kim Greist, Robert De Niro
Country: UK
What it is: Dystopian satire

In a Dystopia overrun with bureaucracy, a clerical error causes the death of an innocent man, and a day-dreaming clerk gets caught up in the fallout from the event, and an encounter with the girl of his dreams only makes things worse.

If I would pick the one film in my life that I had the greatest eagerness and anticipation to see, it would be this, Terry Gilliam’s follow-up to TIME BANDITS. It ended up being a long wait; Universal loathed the film and refused to release it for the longest time, and this simply whetted my appetite. I once read that Gilliam considered this movie the middle section of an informal trilogy along with the earlier TIME BANDITS and the later THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN; the former was about childhood, the latter about old age, and this one was about adulthood. In it, Gilliam envisions two bizarre worlds – the quirky and ominous real world of the movie, and the protagonist’s fantasy world where he plays a flying hero doing battle with a giant samurai. It’s Gilliam’s version of 1984, and quite frankly, I’d rather watch it than any version of that movie, if for no other reason that it is infused with the Pythonesque humor I love so much and an eye-catching visual splendor. Still, I must admit that I never watched it as frequently as I do TIME BANDITS or his work with Monty Python; in fact, this is only the third time I’ve seen it. However, for first time viewers, I urge them to avoid like the plague the bowdlerized commercial TV version that I caught, in which Universal tried to leave the viewer with the impression that the movie had a “happy” ending. Personally, I think the original ending could be considered the only honest happy ending that, given the circumstances, the movie could have had.

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