ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1953)
Article 2882 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-29-2009
Posting Date: 7-4-2009
Directed by Charles Lamont
Featuring Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Boris Karloff
Country: USA

Two American policemen are booted from the London police force for incompetence. They decide that if they can capture the monster that is terrorizing London, they can get back on the force.

I think one of the strengths of the Abbott and Costello horror comedies was that they were full of authentic horror atmosphere, and this one is no exception in that regard; with the good use of music and mist and a good performance from Boris Karloff, there’s enough here to keep horror fans satisfied. However, the comedy was often uneven, and most of the humor here involves slapstick or acting scared, neither of which really catch Bud and Lou at their best. There’s some fun moments and touches; I’ve always had a fondness for John Dierkes and his glowering craggy face, and he shows here that he can make for a memorable mad doctor’s assistant. A couple of the comic sequences do keep me amused, and these are the ones surrounding Lou’s accidental transformation into a giant mouse. A friend of mine argues that this movie gives us a Dr. Jekyll that is truer to the original story than the other versions, and though I have no real opinion about that, I do feel that Mr. Hyde here is more of a werewolf-style monster than anything having to do with the Robert Louis Stevenson story; he can’t even speak. And though I do find the comedy disappointing overall here, it does have one gag that has netted the biggest laugh from me from any of the Bud and Lou monster comedies; it involves a baby carriage and the line “Does he look like you?”

L’AUBERGE ROUGE (1951)
aka The Red Inn
Article 2854 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-1-2009
Posting Date: 6-6-2009
Directed by Claude Autant-Lara
Featuring Fernandel, Francoise Rosay, Marie-Claire Olivia
Country: France

A monk stays overnight at a remote inn with a variety of travelers. He hears a confession in which he discovers that the managers of the inn have been robbing and killing their guests. He finds himself in a dilemma; how can he prevent the murder of his fellow travelers without breaking his vows that forbid him to reveal information he has learned during a confession?

For the second day in a row I find myself watching a movie where people have gotten into the habit of murdering and robbing others, and yesterday’s movie (ONIBABA) would have been borderline horror (as this one is) even without the supernatural elements on these grounds alone, as this type of behavior puts us into serial killer territory. There are profound differences, of course; yesterday’s movie was a harrowing drama, and today’s is a satirical black comedy. Unfortunately, I don’t have the benefit of English subtitles to help me along with this one, and I was only able to piece together certain plot elements with the help of descriptions elsewhere. It looks quite entertaining; plot elements include an organ-grinder’s monkey on the loose, a clever hiding place for a corpse, a marriage ceremony intended to delay the murder of several people, and a pivotal snowball fight. The movie supposedly has an anticlerical message, though without the dialogue to help me, I’m not sure what it is, though I wouldn’t doubt that an ironic ending plays into it. Even watched this way, the movie has its moments, but I’m really looking forward to seeing a movie in English again in the near future.

ADVENTURES OF SIR GALAHAD (1949)
Serial
Article 2835 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-10-2009
Posting Date: 5-18-2009
Directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet
Featuring George Reeves, Nelson Leigh, William Fawcett
Country: USA

When the sword Excalibur is stolen under the nose of Galahad (who seeks to become a knight of the round table), he must recover the sword to prove both his worth and his innocence.

This serial has enormous novelty value. It stars TV’s first Superman, George Reeves, as the title character, and his performance adds a lot of charm to the proceedings. It’s also nice to see a serial touching upon new territory; King Arthur movies are nothing new, but this is the only serial I know of on the subject. I also like the fact that the magical characters actually use magic; William Fawcett in particular seems to be having a lot of fun with his magical hand gestures. Another advantage is that the Arthurian settings means the serial can’t rely on the tired “bail out” cliffhangers so common to the form; in fact, the movie can only dredge up one of that ilk here. This compensates somewhat for the fact that, despite all the novelty value, it really is just a rehash of common serial elements in different clothing. Also, you may not want to pay too close attention to the story, which is a mess; just try to figure out why Merlin does what he does half of the time. I actually had the most fun trying to see how far the movie would stray from the typical King Arthur legends; you won’t be fooled by the serial’s attempts to try to paint Merlin as a villain (at first), and if you can’t figure out the identity of the black knight long before the serial is over, you don’t know your King Arthur. Still, it would have been fun to see Paul Frees behind the mask; after all, he provides the black knight’s voice.

ARTISTS AND MODELS (1955)
Article 2831 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-6-2009
Posting Date: 5-14-2009
Directed by Frank Tashlin
Featuring Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Shirley MacLaine
Country: USA

An out-of-work artist finds a job at a comic book agency and uses the dreams of his roommate to help him with story ideas.

This is a so-so Lewis and Martin comedy, but I found myself wondering about just what type of movie it was and did a little musing on the subject. In some ways, it’s like the Bing Crosby / Bob Hope road movies; basically, the Jerry Lewis / Dean Martin comedy team paired a singer with a comedian, both of whom would have separate careers outside of the pairing. However, it lacks the offhand casualness of the Road movies. It’s also reminiscent of old-style musical comedies; like them, the story doesn’t matter (nobody is really taking it very seriously here), and it seems to exist mostly for the musical numbers (some comic, some straight). The comic setpieces are rather cartoonish, which is what I’d expect from Frank Tashlin, who began his career making animated cartoons. There’s also plenty of pulchritude in the movie; there’s a lot of women in the cast showing off as much of their charms as the times could allow. I can see why Lewis and Martin eventually broke up the team; the partnership must have been rather limiting for them both, especially Lewis. As entertainment, it’s passable enough, but, for the record, I only got one real laugh out of the movie, and that was from a comment Lewis made when he meets a mother who visits the publishing office of a comic book and tells the publisher he’s responsible for her child. The movie also features an early performance by Shirley MacLaine, and, given her mystical beliefs, it’s interesting to see her playing a character who embraces astrology and numerology.

Oh, and the fantastic content? It’s pretty marginal; the comic book publishing setting gives us some superhero thrills by proxy, and the plot eventually turns to spies and espionage when one of Lewis’s dreams reveals the first half of a formula for a new rocket fuel. However, these touches remain very minor indeed, and personally, I wouldn’t qualify this movie as belonging to the fantastic genres.

AFRICA SCREAMS (1949)
Article 2821 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-27-2009
Posting Date: 5-4-2009
Directed by Charles Barton
Featuring Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Clyde Beatty
Country: USA

Two book store clerks pass themselves off as big game hunters in order to get themselves added to a safari. The safari is purportedly in pursuit of a giant ape, but in reality, it is searching for a fortune in diamonds.

This was one of the few Abbott and Costello films made outside of Universal or MGM, and the low budget shows; it opens with Costello in a jungle set in a bookstore that looks about as convincing as the jungle sets that pass for the real jungle. It’s not one of their best comedies, but it is fun to see them take on the jungle genre. Furthermore, it has a great array of other duos to play off. To begin with, we have a pair of real-life lion-tamers turned movie stars, Clyde Beatty and Frank Buck. We also have two heavyweight fighters who happen to be brothers with Max and Buddy Baer; one of the highlights has them engaging in a spirited fistfight with each other near the end of the movie (“I’ll hit you harder that Louis ever did!”). Then, to top it off, we have two third Stooges; Joe Besser plays a butler, and Shemp Howard plays a near-sighted hunter; other than in retrospectives about the Stooges that use archive footage, this is the only time these two men appeared together in a movie. Furthermore, we get Charley Gemora in a dual role (as a gorilla and a gorilla, and yes, they are two different characters); personally, I’ve always thought Gemora was the man-in-a-gorilla-suit who had the best knack for comedy. For the most part, the movie remains in the marginal category as far as fantastic content goes (like many jungle movies), but it does deliver a clear qualifying moment towards the end. And for anyone who ever wanted to see the greedy, self-serving Bud Abbott character really get his comeuppance, this is one that really delivers. All in all, this one is good fun.

THE AIRSHIP DESTROYER (1909)
Article 2816 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-22-2009
Posting Date: 4-29-2009
Directed by Walter R. Booth
Cast Unknown
Country: UK

An inventor is denied the hand of his true love by her father. However, he comes to the rescue when the country is invaded by attackers who drop bombs from zeppelins.

The special effects in this early silent aren’t convincing, but they are ambitious and fun. I especially love a sequence in which a biplane takes on the zeppelin in a dogfight, which features some very odd camera tricks. The story itself is pretty standard, but that hardly matters; it’s the special effects that really make this one a treat. It’s another movie I found on YouTube, which is proving to be a great place to find some of these old silent shorts.

ANTI-CATS (1950)
Animated Short
Article 2764 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-1-2008
Posting Date: 3-8-2009
Directed by Mannie Davis
No voices
Country: USA

Mighty Mouse comes to the aid of three mice who are stranded outside during winter by taking on the cat that won’t let them in the house.

Curiouser and curiouser. The three Mighty Mouse cartoons I’ve seen have all been quite different from each other; I’ve certainly not seen a standard plot. This one plays something like a Tom and Jerry cartoon; Mighty Mouse comes in the house dressed in a disguising trench coat and proceeds to torment the cat in typical cartoon fashion; in fact, he barely uses his superpowers in it. Furthermore, the singing is dropped here; in fact, not a word is spoken (or sung) during the length of the cartoon. Still, it’s a fairly average cartoon. And I’m becoming more curious about seeing more of the rest of the series, if for no other reason than to figure out if there is a standard plot, and if so, which cartoons are the anomalies.

AIMEZ-VOUS LES FEMMES (1964)
aka Do You Like Women?
Article 2732 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-29-2008
Posting Date: 2-4-2009
Directed by Jean Leon
Featuring Sophie Daumier, Guy Bedos, Gergoire Aslan
Country: France / Italy

A man discovers a dead body in the bathroom of a restaurant, but by the time he notifies the police, the body has vanished. He then finds himself the target of dart blowing assassins, and gets caught up in a battle between opium smugglers and cannibals.

This black comedy starts out well enough; the discovery and disappearance of the body, followed by the early assassination attempts on the man are quite amusing. However, it’s then that the fact that I’m watching an unsubtitled French language version of the movie causes me to lose my way, and I had to flesh out my plot summary above with info from “The Motion Picture Guide” (a source that is not necessarily dependable). The fantastic content is, of course, the cannibalism, and that becomes a fairly clear element in the latter part of the movie. The screenplay was written by Roman Polanski, which will go a long ways towards preparing you for some of the weirdness to come; in particular, a face-off between the hero and the cannibals comes off like something from a cheap samurai movie. It’s 4.9 rating on IMDB indicates that the movie really isn’t very good, but until I catch a version I can understand, I’ll withhold judgment; it does look rather amusing, though.

ALONE IN THE DARK (1982)
Article 2725 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-22-2008
Posting Date: 1-28-2009
Directed by Jack Sholder
Featuring Jack Palance, Donald Pleasence, Martin Landau
Country: USA

A psychiatrist with a very unusual therapeutic approach runs an asylum in which electrically-run safeguards keep the more violent prisoners from escaping. When a power blackout results in the escape of several homicidal maniacs, they band together to terrorize the home of the new assistant doctor, who they believe is responsible for the death of the man he replaced.

This is a rather oddball entry in the slasher cycle of the era. For one thing, it has a surprising amount of star power for this kind of movie. It also gives us several psychos in place of the traditional single killer usually seen in the genre, and they aren’t superhuman; when they die, they die. It also has a message, though it isn’t really an original one; it has something to do with those on the outside of the asylum being no less crazy and violent than those on the inside. The movie is a little too dark (visually) some of the time (I don’t know if it’s the print or the movie itself), but there are some tense and scary moments, especially the scene where the babysitter discovers that there is something under the bed. I also like the way the movie gets around the “unkillable maniac” cliche of the genre by giving us multiple psychos instead of one. Unfortunately, characters act with unusual stupidity at times, and the movie often doesn’t make much sense. Still, it has a quirky charm; I especially like the ending, where the last remaining psycho discovers an environment where his psychotic tendencies seem not only natural, but cool, and much of the reason it works is due to a strong performance from Jack Palance. This is definitely one of the odder entries in the slasher genre.

ATOM AGE VAMPIRE (1960)
aka Seddok, l’erede di Satana
Article 2702 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-25-2008
Posting Date: 1-5-2009
Directed by Anton Giulio Majano
Featuring Alberto Lupo, Susanne Loret, Sergio Fantoni
Country: Italy

A scientist believes he has found a serum that will revive dead tissue and he tries it on a disfigured woman. He falls in love with the woman, but then discovers that the effects of the serum are temporary. He can restore her looks with the glands of young women, so he takes a drug that makes him look like a monster and begins stalking and killing women.

There is something to be said for the efficiency with which this movie gets started; it manages to get the plot moving with very few lines of dialogue, and you’re quite a ways into the story in just a few minutes. However, I’m less impressed with the story itself, which is a rehash of EYES WITHOUT A FACE without the style, and the dubbed American version is confusing, badly acted, and (I suspect) cut to ribbons; there are plot points that are never explained, and much of the action seems to take place in random order. Nor is the movie helped by the fact that the putative heroine of the story is whiny, self-pitying, and consistently annoying; I found myself wondering why the mad scientist even wanted to keep her around. The flat direction is also a minus; it’s one of those rare Italian horror movies that has no sense of style. Ultimately, the most sympathetic character is the scientist’s faithful mute assistant; his scene at the end of the movie is actually a bit touching. All in all, this is one of the lesser Italian horror movies.