L’AGENT A LE BRAS LONG (1909)
Article 4021 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-2-2012
Directed by Romeo Bosetti
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Comic trick short

A cop uses his super-powers to help citizens and catch criminals.

There’s no English title listed on the IMDB listing for this movie, but it wouldn’t take a genius to come up with THE LONG ARM OF THE LAW. That’s the cop’s super-power; he can stretch his right arm out to unbelievable lengths. This is one of the funnier shorts I’ve encountered from the era; my favorite sequence is when the cop stretches out his arm over a canal so someone can walk across on it, only to have a variety of other people show up and decide to take the same route, including a man with a wheelbarrow. The final sequence has him chasing a criminal to the roof of a house, but when the criminal ducks down a chimney, the cop has to reach his arm into several different chimneys and ends up disturbing perfectly innocent residents. Many of these sequences have stop-motion animation.

ADVENTURES OF WILLIAM TELL (1898)
aka Guillaume Tell et le clown
Article 4020 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-1-2012
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Comic trick short

A clown keeps trying to build a statue of William Tell only to have it come to life and assault him.

Woe be it to anyone who only reads the English title and expects this one minute short film to have anything to do with the story of William Tell. The French title (which translates as WILLIAM TELL AND THE CLOWN) is much more accurate. The short is fairly amusing, and there’s a lesson to be learned – Never send a clown to do the work of a sculptor. In fact, I would be hard pressed to think of a profession in which it would be appropriate to hire a clown, except, of course, if you’re looking to hire a clown in the first place.

ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION (1900)
aka Tom Whisky ou L’illusioniste toque
Article 4002 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-12-2012
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown (but that’s probably Melies in the lead)
Country: France
What it is: Early trick short

A ragged magician makes women appear, disappear and transform.

The addition of the Walt Lee guide to my sources for movies to watch opens up the floodgate to a lot of early fantasy movies the other guides don’t cover. This is a typical Melies trick short in which he creates three women, condenses them to one fat woman and then a child, etc. This is hardly Melies at his most ambitious, but it’s a fairly entertaining one-minute short.

LES ANNEES LUMIERE (1981)
aka Light Years Away
Article 3981 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-16-2012
Directed by Alain Tanner
Featuring Trevor Howard, Mick Ford, Bernice Stegers
Country: Switzerland / France
What it is: Allegorical drama

A young drifter decides to take up working for a possibly crazy old man with a towing business. If he works out, he will learn the secret of the old man’s shed, and start on a path to enlightenment.

Because this is an allegorical drama, I don’t think it’s really a spoiler to let on that the old man believes he has been taught to fly by the birds he keeps captive in his shed; this serves as the fantastic content of this allegory. Exactly what the allegory means in its entirety, I won’t pretend to know, but I will put forth that it probably involves spiritual redemption and that the old man serves as something of a Christ figure. These types of movies tend to be a matter of taste for me, and I quite like this one. Both Trevor Howard and Mick Ford give fine performances, and there are some truly interesting scenes, such as a sequence where the old man asks to be buried in the ground up to his neck for three days to heal wounds he received from a bird attack, and one where the two men bond by watching a storm from the front seat of the tow truck. One odd realization that struck me while I was watching this was, that in certain very basic aspects, the story was quite a bit similar to that Children’s Film Foundation movie I saw recently, THE SKY BIKE; it’s interesting how the same ideas can manifest themselves in two otherwise very different movies. And I will say that, despite the fact that the title and credits were in French, the movie itself was shot in English, and I was able to catch it that way.

AFTER DARKNESS (1985)
Article 3950 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-7-2012
Directed by Sergio Guerraz and Dominique Othenin-Girard
Featuring John Hurt, Julian Sands, Victoria Abril
Country: Switzerland
What it is: Art film

A professor decides to take his younger brother (who descended into madness after the death of his twin brother) out of an asylum and care for him himself. But is his own sanity strong enough to deal with his brother? And what happens when his assistant and former lover comes between them?

Despite the theme of madness that permeates the whole movie, this is definitely more art film drama than horror movie. It’s one of those types of movies that either draws you into its fragmented world or leaves you stranded with no real way to get in; unfortunately, this one took the second route for me, and despite the obvious talents of the cast involved, I became rather bored with this story of a man’s interminable descent into madness. What isn’t confusing in that art-movie way it has of expressing itself is more than a little obvious: I found little in the way of real surprises or real revelations. This one may well be a matter of taste.

AMAZONS (1986)
Article 3867 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-7-2012
Posting Date: 3-16-2012
Directed by Alejandro Sessa
Featuring Ty Randolph, Penelope Reed, Joseph Whipp
Country: Argentina
What it is: Epic fantasy suffering from anemia

A group of Amazons must do battle with an evil magician, but their greatest warrior is sent on a quest to find a magic sword that will destroy him.

I suspect the only reason the warriors are Amazons is so that the bare chests can be more exploitable. The budget is obviously near the very low end of the scale, the action/battle scenes are unconvincing and badly choreographed, and unless you’re looking for laughs of the wretched cinema variety, about the only reason to catch this one is for the scenery (both natural and human). Yet I do have to admit to being a bit awed at this one; I’ve never seen a movie where the acting is all at the same consistently low level, because not only is every actor giving a bad performance, but they’re all giving the same level of a bad performance. When that happens, I usually suspect the problem is in the direction; obviously, the director likes his acting that way. Well, at least it keeps the overacting in check; it’s even worse when that happens, but it only occurs during the climactic battle scene. I think that’s all anyone really needs to know about this one.

THE ADVENTURES OF ULTRAMAN (1981)
Feature version of edited episodes of “Za Urutoraman”
Article 3848 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-16-2012
Posting Date: 2-26-2012
Directed by Nagayuki Toriumi and Takeyuki Kanda
Featuring the voices of Gary Morgan, Sean Reilly, Buck Kartalian
Country: Japan
What it is: Space opera

A military task force finds themselves faced with an invasion from an intergalactic tyrant. Can even Ultraman face such a dangerous foe… or is it possible that Ultraman may bring forth even greater help?

For some reason, this movie does not have a listing on IMDB, though its sequel (which is cut from the same cloth) is listed. When I first was able to find this movie, I was disappointed to find that the TV series was animated; I’ve seen the original series from the sixties, and for me, much of the charm came from the fact that it was live action. As I actually watched this movie, I was also surprised to discover that the story was more of a big space opera rather than a series of monster encounters, but I suspect that this was due to the fact that this movie was edited from the last four episodes of the series, which delves into Ultraman’s origins and provided a big climax to the series; if the series description on IMDB is correct, most of the series involved the usual monster antics. Only one monster appears in this movie, and it’s not until near the end of the movie. It’s limited animation anime, with lots of explosions and silly dialogue. For what it is, it’s passable enough, I suppose, but I still miss the live-action charm of the original series.

ANTHROPOPHAGOUS 2 (1981)
aka Absurd, Rosso sangue
Article 3805 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-4-2012
Posting Date: 1-14-2012
Directed by Joe D’Amato
Featuring George Eastman, Annie Belle, Charles Borromel
Country: Italy
What it is: A slasher/zombie movie

A horribly injured man is taken to the hospital, but it turns out that he has incredible powers of healing. He is also insane and homicidal. Can he be stopped?

The title implies that this is a sequel to ANTHROPOPHAGOUS, which I reviewed under the title THE GRIM REAPER. It’s really not, thought it’s somewhat in the same mode, and features the same lead actor and the same director. The title is also deceptive, in that this killer doesn’t appear to be a cannibal, just an insane killer. In some ways, it’s like a zombie movie in that he is only vulnerable by an attack on the brain, though this is no more a regular Italian zombie movie than REVENGE OF THE DEAD was. The set-up during the first half is the more interesting part of the movie as far as I’m concerned, mostly because I was pretty curious as to what was going on here. The problem with the second half is that I don’t think it really manages to ratchet up the suspense as well as it could, as the contrivances become rather blatant as the movie progresses, and the denouement is rather unbelievable. However, gorehounds will probably be quite satisfied, as the movie is very bloody. To me, this was a mixed bag.

ARABIAN ADVENTURE (1979)
Article 3765 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-23-2011
Posting Date: 12-5-2011
Directed by Kevin Connor
Featuring Christopher Lee, Milo O’Shea, Oliver Tobias
Country: UK
What it is: Reheated Arabian nights

A prince, wishing to marry a beautiful princess, is sent out on a quest by an evil sorcerer to bring back a magic rose; the sorcerer believes it will give him ultimate power. However, the only one who can reach the rose is a little beggar boy…

Given the reviews I’ve read of this one, I was expecting the worst; however, though it is pretty weak, it’s not as bad as all that. In its own threadbare way, it’s trying to be the STAR WARS of Arabian nights movies, but it’s badly crippled by a criminally underdeveloped script. Most of the characters are not developed past their role in the story; the hero is a hero, the female love interest is female love interest, the evil villain is an evil villain, the toady is a toady (and a toad as well before all is through); in short, the script gives them no character past these functions. It’s really noticeable in the comic characters; both Milo O’Shea’s toady and Mickey Rooney’s inventor are supposed to be comic roles, but neither one is given anything funny to say or do; Rooney in particular is left with little to do with his role other than cackle maniacally. The story itself is just another variation on THE THIEF OF BAGDAD, but I think the movie works best when it comes up with sequences that I haven’t really seen in other Arabian Nights movies; the scene where the evil sorcerer summons up a wind storm to defeat some revolutionaries, and the scene involving the inventor’s workshop inside the volcano are real visual highlights in the movie. Other special effects sequences fall flat; in particular, the battle on the flying carpets near the end of the movie is muddled and unexciting. There’s a number of name actors in the movie, but they’re mostly wasted in unmemorable roles. If it weren’t for the aforementioned visual highlights, this movie would be a total waste of time.

AUTOPSY (1975)
aka Macchie solari
Article 3749 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-7-2011
Posting Date: 11-19-2011
Directed by Armando Crispino
Featuring Mimsy Farmer, Barry Primus, Ray Lovelock
Country: Italy
What it is: Giallo

A wave of suicides, possibly caused by sunspots, runs through the country, keeping the doctors in an autopsy center very busy. A woman begins to suspect that one suicide was actually a murder, but she finds that the murderer may be much closer to her than she expects…

There are some words that, if you put them in movie titles, raise certain expectations, and the word “autopsy” is one of them; it seems to promise a certain level of gross-out. And, for a while, the movie actually manages it; with an opening that features a series of non-stop suicides and a grotesque hallucination sequence in a morgue where the bloody dead rise up, the movie does achieve that level. Eventually, though, it settles into a confusing giallo plot that ultimately tries just a bit too hard to be effective. There’s just too many sick, twisted and unhealthy characters here; even the heroine of the story seems to be one baby step away from madness, and that makes it really hard to warm up to anyone. As a result, I found myself not really caring a whole lot about the movie, despite the facts that there are some pretty odd plot twists along the way. It is stylistically interesting, and I do like it better than the other Armando Crispino movie I’ve seen for this series, THE DEAD ARE ALIVE. I just wish he’d come up with ways to get us to care about his characters.