Month: March 2021

Alerte au sud (1953)

Alerte au sud (1953)
aka Alert in the South
Article 5532 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-20-2018
Directed by Jean Devaivre
Featuring Jean-Claude Pascal, Gianna Maria Canale, Erich von Stroheim
Country: France / Italy
What it is: Foreign Legion Spy Thrills

Two foreign legionnaires stumble upon a plot involving a death ray that can shoot planes from the sky. When one of them is murdered, the other continues to investigate to solve the mystery and avenge his friend.

Like many foreign movies that have been consigned to my “ones that got away” list only to be reprieved later upon my finding a copy, this one is not subtitled in English, and given that most of the first half of the movie is talk, it wasn’t particularly easy for me to follow. Still, I did find a plot description or two, and this helped a little; however, I would have to say that for the most part this is a Gizmo Maguffin affair; the fantastic content is mostly there to drive the action/espionage story. The proceedings are brightened a little by a couple of familiar faces; you’ve seen Stroheim’s name in the credits above, and the cast also features Peter van Eyck, who I recognized from several Edgar Wallace krimis of the sixties. If the language isn’t a barrier to you, it’s probably entertaining enough, but nothing special. I don’t know if the death ray actually gets used or not, since I didn’t notice anything manifest itself visually. It does, however, have a lot of dancing and camel noises. Which, come to think of it, is not really an adequate trade-off.

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Detective Felix in Trouble (1932)

Detective Felix in Trouble (1932)
aka Felix no meitantei
Article 5531 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-15-2018
Directed by Shigeji Ogino
No cast
Country: Japan
What it is: Early Japanese animation

A girl’s shoes are stolen, and she calls in Detective Felix, who vows to catch the dog who stole them.

Though their animation style is very different from that of Americans, it appears the Japanese weren’t necessarily averse to appropriating our cartoon characters; this one features Felix the Cat, and the style is that of puppet animation. As such, it has a certain curiosity value, but I’m afraid this one didn’t impress me. In terms of its animation, it’s much more primitive than the work of either Wladyslaw Starewicz or Jiri Trnka, and in terms of its comic inventiveness, it’s definitely several steps below the Felix the Cat cartoons from America. Most of the action seems to involve Felix walking around (rather slowly) looking for the shoes; occasionally he encounters other characters. There’s a sequence where he runs into a couple of animated skeletons, but this is a long ways from THE SKELETON DANCE; this sequence mostly comes off as a chintzy take on the animation style of Emile Cohl. It runs about eleven minutes and is very short of laughs. It’s an interesting curiosity, but not much more.

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The Milpitas Monster (1976)

The Milpitas Monster (1976)
Article 5530 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-9-2018
Directed by Robert L. Burrill
Featuring Paul Frees, Doug Hagdahl, ‘Crazy George’ Henderson
Country: USA
What it is: Low-budget monster mayhem, Milpitas style

What is causing the disappearance of all the garbage cans in the town of Milpitas? And what is making those giant footprints around town? And what about the mischievous high school kids and the town drunk? Will the authorities solve the mystery?

Currently I’m watching a collection of extreme low-budget independent movies called “Tomb of Terrors”, almost all of which were made from in the years 2004 through 2006. I’m thinking that this tiny-budgeted movie from the mid-seventies might be that decade’s equivalent to the movies on this set. However, there is a difference; while I find going through that set of movies rather painful, I found this one a lot of fun. It’s not that this movie is so much better (its 2.8 rating on IMDB is about right); it’s more that its badness is the fun type of badness that makes this project enjoyable for me. The movie is clearly intended to be a comedy (that’s apparent from the opening logo), and the fact that most of the intended laughs are pretty awful (you’ll see way too much of the comic-relief drunk) doesn’t really kill the fun. There’s a giant winged monster made of garbage on the loose, and many of the scenes suffer from bad sound and/or bad lighting. The story is pretty unfocused, but individual moments are pretty amusing; I like the monsters encounter with a garbage truck and the machine known as the Odorola. It took three years to make this movie, and though the movie is a mess and it stinks, it’s also aware that it is. Paul Frees contributes only opening and closing narration, with the final bit ridiculously reprising a modified version of the last line of KING KONG. It’s the type of low-budget independent film that makes me smile; I have yet to see a single movie on that movie set that has entertained me this much.

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Nonsense Story Volume One: Monkey Island (1931)

Nonsense Story Volume One: Monkey Island (1931)
Article 5529 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-4-2018
Directed by Kenzo Masaoka
No cast
Country: Japan
What it is: Early Japanese animation

A human baby is washed off a ship and lands on an island inhabited by monkeys. He is brought up by them, but eventually trouble erupts and he becomes ostracized due to his lack of a tail.

One impression I’m getting from checking out these early Japanese animated shorts is that they really can’t be compared with the American animated shorts from the same era. They’re playing a very different game; in comparison with American shorts, this one is longer, more realistic, slower, and less given to cartoon exaggeration. In fact, it may be a little too slow; there are moments here (such as when the human child gets into a race with some other monkeys to reach a hill) that go on so long that you become antsy waiting for something to happen. There is humor here, but it’s a bit drier and doesn’t quite satisfy; it might not be very accessible to a non-Japanese audience. On the other hand, the animation is quite good; I especially like the animation of the clouds during the storm sequence. It makes for interesting viewing, but I didn’t find it to be entirely successful.

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Invaders from Space (1965)

Invaders from Space (1965)
5528
Date: 1-28-2018
Directed by Koreyoshi Akasaka, Teruo Ishii and Akira Mitsuwa
Featuring Ken Utsui, Minako Yamada, Junko Ikeuchi
Country: Japan / USA
What it is: Japanese superhero mayhem

The great superhero from space Starman (aka The Padded One) takes on a nasty group of salamander aliens.

I’ve already covered the other three Starman movies edited out of a series of shorts for American consumption, but most of my sources seem to omit this one for some reason. That’s a bit of a shame, as this one is the most entertaining of the batch. Not that it’s the most thrilling and exciting, mind you; it’s that it’s the most hilarious one of the bunch. What does it say about the salamander aliens that they have two forms (a salamander form and a human disguise form) in which the human disguise form requires that they wear face masks to hide the fact that they don’t look human at all? Or that there modus operandi requires that they infiltrate the earth as an avant-garde dance troupe? The salamander aliens also have the ability to make beakers float in the air and to run footage backwards, so you know they’re a real threat. Starman does his usual athletic battle routine with the aliens, and you’ll probably figure out how it will all turn out; still, there’s plenty of surreal laughs in this one.

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Manga: Kobutori (1929)

Manga: Kobutori (1929)
Article 5528 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-19-2018
Directed by Chuzo Aochi and Yasuji Murata
No cast
Country: Japan
What it is: Animated fantasy

Two men (one industrious, the other lazy and dishonest) both have disfiguring lumps on their heads. When the former has his lump removed after an encounter with an immortal and his bird minions, the other decides to meet them as well in the hopes of having the same fate.

Japan has a long tradition of animation, but this is the earliest one I’ve seen to date. The style is much more realistic than the American animation from the same time period, and it is much more adult in spirit as well. I was quite entertained and charmed by this little tale. One thing I’m very glad has happened with this project is that it’s given me an opportunity to encounter animation from other lands; though I’m a big fan of animation, I really didn’t encounter much that wasn’t American in origin for many years.

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Cirkus Hurvinek (1955)

Cirkus Hurvinek (1955)
Article 5527 by Dave Sindelar

Date: 1-13-2018
Directed by Jiri Trnka
Featuring the voices of Vratislav Blazek and Jiri Trnka
Country: Czechoslovakia
What it is: Puppet animated whimsy

A young child dreams he is performing in a circus with his father as the ringmaster.

I wasn’t initially sure whether I would be covering this one; I was unable to find a plot description, and a quick peek at the footage didn’t yield any immediate fantastic content. However, the fact that it was listed in Walt Lee’s guide made me decide to go ahead with it. It does have a certain amount of fantastic content; the pet dog does display a certain degree of anthropomorphism (especially during the dream sequence), and when the boy takes on the job of wild animal tamer, he encounters drawings of animals in a giant book that come to life, move, and talk. Some of the plot details are lost on me because the dialogue was in Czech, but in terms of its whimsical content, it’s fairly easy to follow. It’s not one of Trnka’s more striking works, but it’s certainly well done and quite entertaining. My favorite moment comes early on, where the young boy’s attempt to elude his father causes a certain amount of confusion to a bill poster.

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The Door in the Wall (1956)

The Door in the Wall (1956)
Article 5526 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-6-2018
Directed by Glenn H. Alvey Jr.
Featuring Stephen Murray, Ian Hunter, Leonard Sachs
Country: UK
What it is: Fantasy short

A successful politician finds himself on the verge of a great advancement in his career, but is ambivalent of taking the new position because he finds himself haunted by the memory of a magical garden behind a green door he visited when he was a child… and which has appeared at various turning points in his life.

Since this short begins by trumpeting it’s central gimmick (a process it calls “Dynamic Frame”), let’s discuss that first. Basically, the framing of the picture is fluid rather than static; it changes throughout the movie to suit the visual of the moment. I’ve seen this sort of thing before used in transitional effects; for example, think of the credit sequences of the James Bond movies that show us the view of the action through the barrel of a gun. I’m not sure whether it’s merely a gimmick or not; I found it rather distracting during the first quarter of the short, but much of that has to do with the fact that the story hasn’t really started moving yet. Once the childhood flashback sequence starts, though, it didn’t seem as bad, because we’re really concentrating on the story and the effect seems less intrusive. I suspect the process could really be put to interesting artistic use, but would have to be used carefully and thoughtfully.

The short itself is based on an H.G. Wells story, and it’s one I can’t recall having read, which is a good thing in that I didn’t know what was going to happen, so I was caught up in the mystery surrounding the garden. The story is a bit like a cross between THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE and BRAZIL, though it’s certainly not as flashy as the latter movie. It could be seen as an allegory for the loss of innocence, which seems to me to be supported by the fact that the main character is a politician, though it doesn’t deal directly with anything resembling corruption. I also liked the twist ending, and found the whole thing quite haunting. All in all, I really liked this one.

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Dva mrazici (1953)

Dva mrazici (1953)
Article 5525 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-1-2018
Directed by Jiri Trnka
Featuring the voices of Jan Werich and Vlasta Burian
Country: Czechoslovakia
What it is: Comic fantasy

Two frost spirits seek to freeze two human travelers in the woods; one is a sleeping carriage rider and the other is an industrious lumberjack.

Here’s another short from the oeuvre of Jiri Trnka, and here he combines two different types of animation. The non-spirit characters (two humans and a bird) are in Trnka’s usual puppet-animation mode, while the two spirits are apparently animated in a style known as “shadow puppet animation”; the overall effect of the latter is that it looks like conventional cel animation layered over the puppet animation. This one has dialogue between the two frost spirits; from what I gather, they’re voiced by two well-known Czech comic actors, and those who understand the language (which don’t include me) say that the dialogue adds a lot of fun to the proceedings. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed and appreciated this one; most of the action is visual, with the one spirit being very successful in freezing the carriage rider, but the other often finds himself frustrated in his task because the lumberjack is too industrious to let the cold settle into his bones. It’s not the best of the Trnka shorts I’ve seen, but I like it quite a bit, and it is worth catching.

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The Furies (1934)

The Furies (1934)
Article 5524 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-26-2017
Directed by Slavko Vorkapich
Cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Experimental music video

Avenging angels arise out of the blood of a murdered man.

For the record, in Greek mythology, the furies were avenging spirits who set upon Orestes after he murdered his mother (Clytemnestra) as vengeance for the murder of his father (Agamemnon). What exactly they’re up to in this short I’m not sure; they seem to be breaking the windows of people making out in skyscrapers. Still, the fact that this doesn’t quite make sense to me doesn’t detract from the fact that this short is visually impressive and stirring; it’s fascinating to watch the title characters fly over this urban landscape. It runs less than three minutes, and even feels a bit incomplete, but I quite liked what I saw.

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