Abstronic (1952)
Article 5589 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-29-2018
Directed by Mary Ellen Bute and Ted Nemeth
No cast
Country: USA
What it is: Abstract animation

Animation is displayed to pieces by Aaron Copland and Don Gillis.

I’ve just done one short; I might as well do another, only this time I’m returning to the realm of abstract animation. This one is fairly energetic, at least partially because the two musical pieces (both of which sound quite a bit like “Turkey in the Straw”) are lively and fun. As usual with this type of short, I don’t really have much to say about it other than it held my attention for its six-minute running time, and maybe that’s all we can expect from an abstract short.

The Abominable Snow Rabbit (1961)
Article 5588 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-28-2018
Directed by Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble
Featuring the voice of Mel Blanc
Country: USA
What it is: Looney Tunes

Bugs and Daffy get lost on their vacation and end up in the Himalayas, where they encounter an abominable snowman seeking a pet.

Warner Brothers’ cartoons were in their waning days in the early sixties, and though this cartoon is one of those from the era that is more fondly remembered, one can notice that the gags and the timing aren’t quite as sharp as they used to be, and the absence of Carl Stalling is very noticeable. Still, the reason this one is fondly remembered is that it is the most famous use of a gag they used several times over the years, in that one of the characters is modeled off of Lenny from “In Mice and Men”; in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if more people are familiar with this cartoon than with the Steinbeck story. The presence of the snowman is a catalyst for another battle of wits between Bugs and Daffy, with the usual results. Initially, the snowman was a one-off character, but would be brought back in a few attempted revivals of Looney Tunes cartoons during the seventies and eighties.

Aan (1952)
Article 5587 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-24-2018
Directed by Mehboob Khan
Featuring Dilip Kumar, Nimmi, Prem Nath
Country: India
What it is: Epic romance

When an ambitious and tyrannical prince usurps the throne, he is opposed by a heroic peasant who has fallen in love with the princess.

For those who’ve noticed that I’m watching a lot of movies that began with AA, that’s because right now I’m going through Walt Lee’s Reference Guide to Fantastic Films in alphabetical order and watching any movie I can find on the internet listed there. As it turns out, there’s a heavy dose of films from India near the beginning of the book, and it seems they’re easy to find on YouTube.

Still, that doesn’t mean that they’re easy to find with English subtitles (even though I know prints do exist with them), and so I had to watch it in Hindi without subtitles. Fortunately, I had some plot descriptions to help work out the general story. It’s something of a cross between your typical palace intrigue story crossed with “The Taming of the Shrew”; the fantastic content (according to the Lee guide) is a dream sequence which includes some magic in it. Still, I have to say that the dream sequence (which is, of course, a long musical number) is only slightly weirder than some of the other musical numbers in this ambitious but bizarre drama. It was the first Indian film shot in Technicolor, and it makes as much use of the color as it can. Even with the plot descriptions, this one gets confusing at times, but it is loaded with spectacle, some of it quite jaw-dropping. Still, the most memorable thing I found in this one was the acting of female star Nadira as the princess, whose ability to overact with her eyes (and I do mean overact) is almost beyond human comprehension. Still, at least I didn’t need English subtitles to know how she was feeling.

Aadmi (1968)
aka The Man
Article 5585 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-18-2018
Directed by A. Bhimsingh
Featuring Dilip Kumar, Waheeda Rehman, Manoj Kumar
Country: India
What it is: Drama

A rich young man falls in love with a woman, but the relationship is threatened due to a secret from his past.

I originally started watching this in a version without English subtitles, so I decided to go hunting around for a plot description to help me. When I found a fairly elaborate one to help me, I couldn’t help notice that the screen shots seemed to indicate that there was a version of the movie that bore English subtitles, so I looked a little further and managed to find it. It’s a good thing, too; had I not had the subtitles, the movie would have been impenetrable to me. It’s primarily a drama (in soap opera mode) rather than a genre movie, but it has a few fantastic touches; there is a miraculous occurrence near the end of the movie, and throughout certain characters seem to be taunted by disembodied voices; this is as described in the Walt Lee guide. However, the most impressive moment of fantastic content has the hatred of the protagonist manifesting itself as a giant doppelganger who tries to talk his real self into committing murder; it’s an impressive effect. As a whole, the movie is fairly good, but I didn’t really care much for the musical sequences, and its length (two and three quarter hours) becomes a bit oppressive.

Adhi Raat Ke Baad (1965)
aka Aadi Raat Ke Baad
Article 5584 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-11-2018
Directed by Nanabhai Bhatt
Featuring Ashok Kumar, Ragini, Sailesh Kumar
Country: India
What it is: Action thriller

When he is suspected for the murder of his girlfriend’s lover, a man who knows the secret of invisibility goes on the run and tries to discover the real culprit.

It takes so long for this movie to get to its first musical number that for a while I was wondering if I stumbled across and Indian movie that wasn’t also a musical, but such is not the case. Which is a good thing, in this case; as this movie was in Hindi without English subtitles, I found it very difficult to follow and ultimately ended up enjoying the musical numbers best because they didn’t require knowing the story line. I did figure the plot point of an invisible man wanting to prove his innocence, but as the movie progresses, the plot only becomes more obscure. Initially, I thought it was a comedy based on the mood of the earlier scenes, but it becomes steadily more serious and somber as it progresses. Though I can’t really pass judgment on this one due to the language barrier, I did feel there were a number of scenes that seemed unnecessary. As for the invisible man special effects, they’re very primitive here, and as the film progresses, we see fewer and fewer of them, almost as if the invisibility gimmick has become invisible. I can’t really say I cared for this one, but that may only be due to the language barrier.

A Compadecida (1969)
aka Our Lady of Compassion
Article 5583 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-8-2018
Directed by George Jonas
Featuring Armando Bogus, Antonio Fagundes, Felipe Carone
Country: Brazil
What it is: Comedy

A con man/practical joker plays jokes on everyone he meets.

My plot description is pretty vague, but, given that the copy I found of the film was in Portuguese without English subtitles, it wasn’t easy to figure out. However, certain things do come through. For one thing, though IMDB classifies this as a drama, the general feel of the movie makes me suspect that it’s a comedy, albeit one that gets a little dark at times. It would be nice to know what is going on with some of the practical jokes (one involves a funeral for a dog, I gather), but the only one I was able to appreciate involved tricking an armed invader into believing he can bring people back to life with a harmonica. As to why I’m covering this movie, I’ll only say that final third of the movie involves events in the afterlife. Like many foreign language movies without English subtitles, I can’t really give a full-blooded evaluation of the movie, but I quite liked some of the bits.