ABOU BEN BOOGIE (1944)
Article 4601 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-7-2014
Directed by Shamus Culhane
Voice cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Swing Symphony cartoon

A dancing girl sings the title song in an Arabian nighclub.

I’ve now returned to the Walt Lee book in my compilation of my movie hunt lists, and this increases the number of cartoons I’ll be watching in the near future, as that is one of the only sources I have that lists many of these. Most cartoons have a certain amount of fantastic content to them simply due to the fact that they defy so many physical laws; in this cartoon, a pianist plays his tunes on a roll of paper, which is then cut up into paper men that dance. There’s also a lot of exaggerated reactions to the sexy dancer (eyes getting impossibly big, etc.). The cartoon has the usual structure for these song-oriented ones; the first half is an assortment of gags involving Arab stereotypes, and the second half is the song itself. The most striking thing about this cartoon is the design of the title character, who appears halfway through the song; the outline of the character resembles the style that was used by UPA during the fifties, and that makes this cartoon a little ahead of its time. All in all, this cartoon is fairly decent, though it does overuse a running gag involving the accidental kissing of camels.

AMERICA 3000 (1986)
Article 4516 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-26-2014
Directed by David Engelbach
Featuring Chuck Wagner, Laurene Landon, William Wallace
Country: USA
What it is: Post-apocalyptic absurdity

It’s 900 years after the apocalypse. A female society enslaves men. Some men escape to do battle with the women. Then one of the men discovers artifacts from the distant past…

You know, the idea of a society ruled by women that enslaves men isn’t a totally useless idea, but it’s so rarely used in any worthwhile way that the second it’s trotted out, I expect the worst. And there are a couple of moments here and there where I sense that there was an interesting idea or two lying underneath the surface. But the movie is so mired in its bad ideas, its improbabilities, its incredible silliness, and its shamefaced obviousness (I’ll give you one guess how the society of women and the society of men come to an understanding), that the movie never rises above its status as one of the campiest bad movies of all time. Between the ludicrous lingo developed for the people of the future, the boombox that survives 900 years into the future without even needing a change in batteries, the smarmy and self-conscious narration that peppers the movie, the made-in-the-eighties big hair, and the existence of a hairy mutant character known as Argh the Awful, you’ll find an endless supply of jaw-dropping ridiculousness. No, I’m not surprised that the movie has a surprisingly high rating of 4.3 on IMDB; it’s bound to have a cult following that revels in it all. Whatever else you can say about it, this movie is an experience.

ACCEPTABLE RISKS (1986)
TV-Movie
Article 4514 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-24-2014
Directed by Rick Wallace
Featuring Brian Dennehy, Kenneth McMillan, Christine Ebersole
Country: USA
What it is: A building sense of dread

A housing development is built close to a plant that has been working with a toxic and potentially dangerous chemical, one which could cause disaster if something were to go wrong.

On the surface, the movie has a certain resemblance to THE CHINA SYNDROME, in that it involves a worst case scenario of what could happen in a potentially dangerous industry. However, it ends up reminding more of DR. STRANGELOVE in that it’s less focused with finding a particular scapegoat for what happens than in showing how a conjunction of various details could bring about an otherwise avoidable disaster. Because of the way it is formatted, it takes a little while for things to get off the ground, but that’s because it’s building up a wealth of detail. It’s also a bit hard to follow, and unless you have a strong familiarity of the chemicals involved (if they’re not totally fictional), you might find your head swimming on occasion. Still, I really like this movie, at least partially because it doesn’t simplify the problem; in the final analysis, quite a few people end up sharing the responsibility for what happens, and I find this fairly intriguing. It’s a bit marginal in terms of its fantastic content, but it’s not until the disaster occurs and we see the extent of the damage where I think it finally moves into the area of science fiction. Brian Dennehy gives an excellent performance of a man desperately trying to juggle the demands of those above him and the realities of the situation; I found myself really feeling for his situation. All in all, I found this to be quite powerful and provocative, especially for a TV movie.

A-008 OPERATION EXTERMINATE (1965)
aka A 008, operazione Sterminio
Article 4444 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-8-2014
Directed by Umberto Lenzi
Featuring Ingrid Schoeller, Alberto Lupo, Dina De Santis
Country: Italy / Egypt
What it is: Spyghetti

British and American secret agents are sent out on a mission to keep an anti-radar invention from falling into the wrong hands.

The Gizmo Maguffin here (which is to say the anti-radar device) does get a certain amount of use in the plot, so the science fiction content of this helping of Spyghetti is more pronounced than usual. That being said, the movie as a whole is a mixed bag. Like so many others of its ilk, it’s less interested in the intricacies of the plot than it is with having the good guys constantly falling into and escaping traps, a pattern that I’ve really began to notice in the last few I’ve seen. The movie actually seems to lose steam as it goes along, and the closer it gets to the climax, the slower it seems to move. The movie also had what I thought of at the time were bizarre little story quirks. Yet I have to really give credit to the movie for having effectively faked me out; there’s one humdinger of a plot twist towards the end, and if I hadn’t dismissed the odd plot moments as mere quirks, I would have seen it coming. For those who want a few hints, all I can say to help them is to pay attention to the numbers, the title, and the order of the credits, and watch what you assume. Or maybe you’d prefer to just ride with it; for me, the plot twist was the best moment of the movie.

THE APPLE (1980)
Article 4418 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-10-2014
Directed by Menahem Golan
Featuring Catherine Mary Stuart, George Gilmour, Grace Kennedy
Country: USA / West Germany
What it is: Bizarre rock musical

In 1994, a naive musical duo falls into the hands of a demonic agent and his corrupting power, and the two are separated from each other.

Over the years I’d heard about how bad this one was supposed to be, so I kept my expectations quite low going into it. Amazingly enough, I found myself rather enjoying it; sure, it was overdone and campy, but I found it entertainingly so, and I actually found the music to be fairly decent. I did, however, notice that the music wasn’t as nearly as futuristic as it was making itself out to be; basically, it’s just glam rock with some Las Vegas-style glitz added, a type of music that was already a bit dated by the time that this was made. It wasn’t until about halfway through the movie that I was startled by a revelation that coincided with my discovery that the future in which this was taking place was a dystopia in which the demonic agent seemed to be the primary political power; I suddenly realized that the movie was actually taking itself seriously. Once this happened, I began to see how obvious and how stupid the whole thing was. For one thing, if you’re going to make a movie about good vs evil, you’re probably not doing a wise thing by making your hero a tiresome bore. You also shouldn’t be having the forces of evil having ALL of the fun. The funny thing is that the movie seems blissfully unaware of its split personality and blind to its own hypocrisy. Maybe that’s why it never quite became the “ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW” of its day, which in some ways it resembles.

ADAM’S RIB (1923)
Article 4407 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-30-3013
Directed by Cecil B. DeMille
Featuring Milton Sills, Elliott Dexter, Theodore Kosloff
Country: USA
What it is: Drama

The neglected housewife of a successful businessman begins receiving the attentions of the former king of Morania. The woman’s husband intends to use his business acumen to help him save his marriage, but the couple’s daughter has a plan of her own to save the marriage.

Here’s another title that ended up on my “ones that got away” list after sitting on my hunt list too long, but it finally made itself available. Though you may not notice it at first, there’s a hint of fantastic content in the plot description above; as far as I know, there is no country of Morania, so we’re in mythical kingdom territory here. On the other hand, there’s something else about the movie that gives it even greater fantastic content. At one point in the proceedings, two of the characters begin speculating on the trials and tribulations of love among the cavemen, and we get an extended sequence of caveman and cavewoman romantic antics. This bit of the movie, cute as it is in some ways, is also one of the biggest weaknesses of the movie; it brings the main story to a screeching halt, and doesn’t really add a whole lot new to the mix. As for the movie itself, it’s a drama about how a marriage is threatened by neglect, and how the attempts to fix it end up making the situation even worse. The plot is slightly far-fetched, and I found myself speculating on how easily the movie could have been done as a comedy; in fact, I found myself wondering how a change in the background music might in and of itself accomplish this task. Still, there are a few good dramatic moments, and it’s hard not to feel sorry for the daughter, who puts her reputation on the line in order to save her parent’s marriage and ends up losing the trust of the man she loves. All in all, this is an interesting drama with some good twists and turns, and I quite enjoyed it.

THE AWAKENING (1980)
Article 4391 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-13-2013
Directed by Mike Newell
Featuring Charlton Heston, Susannah York, Jill Townsend
Country: UK
What it is: Ancient Egyptian evil meets THE OMEN

When an archaeologist unearths a tomb containing the mummy of an Egyptian queen whose name has been eradicated from history, it unleashes an evil that sets its sights on his own family.

I went into this movie with the knowledge that its reputation was not very high. An early scene in which the actions of the opening of the tomb coincide with pains undergone by the archaeologist’s pregnant wife did manage to intrigue me enough that I hoped the movie would be somewhat better than its reputation. However, once the bizarre deaths start happening, I begin to suspect the movie was primarily an imitation of THE OMEN. However, as the movie progressed, I began to feel that the bizarre deaths had less to do with the movie’s conscious attempt to borrow from the other movie, but more to do with the an attempt to cover up the movie’s real problem, which is that the movie gets more muddled and lethargic as it progresses, so much so that by the time the ending rolls around, I found myself having not the slightest interest in how it came out. In short, the movie is just plain dull, and even Heston’s star power can’t do a thing to pull it out of the doldrums. It’s a little ironic that a movie with this title should make you fall asleep, but there it is.

ALIEN CONTAMINATION (1980)
aka Contamination
Article 4389 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-10-2013
Directed by Luigi Cozzi
Featuring Ian McCulloch, Louise Marleau, Marino Mase
Country: Italy / West Germany
What it is: Alien invasion movie

When a seemingly abandoned ship shows up in New York, it turns out the entire crew was killed by deadly, poisonous green eggs that cause people to explode on contact. It turns out the eggs are extraterrestrial, and there is a plot to infest the world with them…

Here’s another Italian rip-off of a highly successful American movie (in this case, ALIEN), but at least it doesn’t clone the whole movie; it borrows a few elements (alien eggs, an alien creature, and exploding bodies obviously inspired by the chest-buster of the original) and builds a new story out of them. That’s not to say that the story it builds out of them is particularly novel, but then, it’s not the story that is the big selling point of this one; it’s the exploding bodies that are the main attraction, and whenever bodies are not exploding, the movie has all the energy of an empty egg-carton. I don’t know what the Italian dialogue was like, but the dubbed English version is a compendium of dumb cliches on whatever subject comes up in the conversation. It’s probably a good thing that the final monster is kept in the shadows; what you can see of it looks pretty silly. All in all, it’s pretty much for fans of exploding bodies, and I suppose you know who you are.

AUTOPSIA DE UN FANTASMA (1968)
aka Autopsy of a Ghost
Article 4360 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-7-2013
Directed by Ismael Rodriguez
Featuring Basil Rathbone, John Carradine, Amadee Chabot
Country: Mexico
What it is: Comedy

A ghost, trapped in the basement of the house of an inventor, is given a chance by Satan to release his soul if he can get a woman to fall in love with him and die for him.

Ten thoughts on AUTOPSIA DE UN FANTASMA

1) There’s a lot more going on in this movie than the plot description suggests, but my copy of this movie is in Spanish without subtitles, and the storyline about the ghost is the only one that I found documented enough to use here. There seems to be another plot about various parties trying to get hold of a lot of money; it that is so, then it’s possible that this movie may have been inspired by IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD, and given the aggressively manic nature of this movie, I would consider that a distinct possibility.

2) I suspect that this movie was made with the intention of being released abroad to English-speaking audiences. Not only does the movie feature three English-speaking actors (Carradine, Rathbone and Cameron Mitchell), but all of the signs that appear in the movie have an equivalent English-translated sign as well. Ironically (but not surprisingly), this does not appear to have happened.

3) If there’s one thing you can say about this movie, it does not hold back on its fantastic content. On top of the ghost and Satan, the movie has a talking skeleton, a laughing spider, a sorcerer of some sort who surrounds himself with women in bikinis, two robots, and an assortment of inventions.

4) I have to admit that the best part of the movie for me was the opening credits, which are unveiled by a variety of puppets (ghosts, demons, witches and skeletons). It’s energetic and creative.

5) Given that I didn’t see this movie in English, I should probably reserve judgment on its quality. However, given what I got from the other aspects of this movie (visuals, sound, editing, etc), I suspect that this one is in the running for one of the worst comedies ever made. It’s one of those movies that seems to be desperately and indiscriminately throwing every single comic idea it can muster at you in the hopes that it will stick.

6) This was Basil Rathbone’s last movie. I take my hat off to the guy. Even in this context, you can see that he’s out there trying to give his all.

7) As for the other two English-speaking actors, both John Carradine and Cameron Mitchell are notorious for having appeared in a plethora of horrible movies in their careers. Still, I rarely recall of them appearing together, so I did a search on shared credits on IMDB, and found that they only appeared in three movies together – this one, the dreaded FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND, and a 1986 movie called THE TOMB. If the ratings on IMDB are to be trusted, this movie is the best of the lot.

8) One thing I will say about this movie; with its rapid-fire editing and its non-stop action, it’s full of energy. But then, so is a five-year old overfed with sugar and allowed to run rampant. And for me, watching this movie was like trying to put up with a child like that.

9) One plus I will give the movie is that some of the puppetry work is quite good; the walking, talking skeleton is actually fairly well done.

10) I did laugh once during the movie. At one point of the movie, Rathbone tries to get a woman to fall in love with him by doing the Apache dance with her. It’s the twist the movie gives to this dance that amused me. I suspect this is a joke that’s been waiting to be made for years; it’s a pity it’s in a movie that is mostly just loud and obnoxious.

ALEX IN WONDERLAND (1970)
Article 4359 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-6-2013
Directed by Paul Mazursky
Featuring Donald Sutherland, Ellen Burstyn, Meg Mazursky
Country: USA
What it is: Personal art film

A film director whose first full-length film has garnered high critical praise in previews (though still hasn’t had a general release) finds himself pondering his next project.

Let’s get the fantastic content out of the way first; occasionally, the film director’s fantasies about certain ideas for film projects get shown on the screen, with at least one of these (involving smog levels causing death at an airport) verging into the area of science fiction. Beyond that, this is the type of self-indulgent art project that was made by the big studios during the late sixties/early seventies after the runaway success of EASY RIDER (which gets some references here). It’s consciously modeled after 8 1/2 (Fellini even makes a cameo appearance here), but Paul Mazursky just isn’t in the same league as Fellini. Surprisingly, the movie is easy enough to parse out (thanks in part to the clue provided in the opening quote from “Alice in Wonderland”); it’s about the sense of giddiness and uneasiness caused by the success of the last film throwing the director’s life into a new environment (the “Wonderland” of the title), and his sometimes frustrating attempts to come to terms with it. It’s very hit-and-miss; for every scene that hits home, there are a couple that either seem pointless or miss the mark. All in all, it has the air of a film that the director had used to get a lot out of his own system; this probably was good for him, but the results are not necessarily interesting to the outside viewer. If you do watch, keep your eyes open for Angelo Rossitto.