AU SECOURS! (1924)
Article #1345 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-19-2004
Posting Date: 4-18-2005
Directed by Abel Gance
Featuring Max Linder, Jean Toulout, Gina Palerme

A man takes a bet that he can spend an hour in a haunted house.

Max Linder was a popular French comedian of the silent era. The concept of getting laughs by placing a comedian in a haunted house was probably old even when this movie was made, and if this movie consisted of nothing more than comic scare gags, there wouldn’t be much to recommend here. However, the movie was directed by Abel Gance, whose early movies emphasized bizarre visual tricks. As a result, this short is much weirder than anything you could imagine, with a startling array of bizarre creatures and weird imagery; it’s actually a little scary at times. As a result, this may be one of the best examples of the comic haunted house subgenre, and it’s definitely worth catching.

AN ANGEL FOR SATAN (1966)
(a.k.a. UN ANGELO PER SATANA)
Article #1343 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-17-2004
Posting Date: 4-16-2005
Directed by Camillo Mastrocinque
Featuring Barbara Steele, Claudio Gora, Ursula Davis

When a statue is dredged up from the bottom of the ocean, a woman who bears a resemblance to it starts to act strangely, and pretty soon, murders are being committed.

Most of this plot description comes from other summaries of the plot, which I checked as soon as I realized that my print was in Italian without subtitles. I found enough info to help me out, so sorting this one out was a much easier job than trying to work on LE MONDE TREMBLERA. First of all, this movie uses much more visual storytelling, and it’s also helpful if you’re familiar enough with Italian horror and know the favorite themes of that particular subgenre. It also helps that Barbara Steele was a very expressive actress; even if you don’t know what she’s saying, you can read quite a bit from her expression. I managed to glean enough of the story that a reviewing may actually help to elicit some of the details further. Still, I wish it was subtitled; this does appear to be one of the better Italian horrors of the period.

A-HAUNTING WE WILL GO (1942)
Article #1319 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-24-2004
Posting Date: 3-23-2005
Directed by Alfred L. Werker
Featuring Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Dante the Magician

Stan and Ollie agree to transport a coffin to Dayton; unfortunately, the people they are dealing with are really crooks trying to get hold of an inheritance. The coffin then becomes confused with a stage prop for Dante the Magician.

Fantastic content: A touch of horror with the coffin plot, and some comic mayhem involving a tiny Stan.

I enjoy Laurel and Hardy so much that even in their weakest efforts, they still manage to get a laugh or two out of me. However, if that’s all they get, then you’re definitely dealing with one of their weakest movies. One of the big problems here is the over-elaborate plot involving five gangsters, a stage-hand with a past, his prospective bride, and a police inspector, and a lawyer who isn’t really a lawyer. The movie wastes so much time setting up an elaborate set of double-crosses (that just marginally involve Stan and Ollie), that it leaves your head swimming. Furthermore, Dante is another distraction, and once again I find myself a little annoyed with the fact that when stage magicians appear in a movie, all too often their illusions are tampered with using obvious cinematic special effects, as is the case here. Laurel and Hardy were at their best when the plots were simple and they were just left to ply their trade. The biggest laugh in the movie is Stan’s one-word response to being told “Pleased to meet you.”, which is simplicity itself. Still, it is a little fun to see Elisha Cook Jr. as one of the crooks.

Credits note: According to the credits, the waiter is played by Willie Best. There is a waiter, but he sure looks a lot more like Mantan Moreland to me. As for Willie Best, I didn’t see him in the movie at all; however, this may be due to the fact that my print of the movie is short about five minutes and came from a TV broadcast, hence the possibility that his scene (which I’m willingly to bet dealt with racial stereotypes) may have been excised for the TV print.

THE ATOMIC KID (1954)
Article #1307 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-12-2004
Posting Date: 3-11-2005
Directed by Leslie H. Martinson
Featuring Mickey Rooney, Robert Strauss, Elaine Davis

A man survives an atomic blast, and he becomes a national secret as scientists try to figure out what saved him from being destroyed.

Mickey Rooney was well into his thirties when this was made, so he’s really stretching it to play someone who could still be called a “kid”, but then Huntz Hall and Leo Gorcey were even older at the time, and they were still “boys”, so what do I know? Rooney produced this one himself, and the story (though not the script) came from Blake Edwards, but for all that, it largely feels like one of the weaker efforts from Abbott and Costello; in fact, it’s very easy to see Costello in the Rooney role and Abbott in the Strauss role. At any rate, this is one fairly weak comedy.

Now, given the fact that it is a comedy, you do expect them to play fast and loose with theories of atomic energy. Let’s take a look at the scientific phenomena on display here.

1) You can survive an atomic blast if you’re hiding in a closet with a peanut butter-sardine-banana sandwich. After your survival, you will be able to endorse peanut butter products.

2) Once you survive the blast, your neutrons will speed up. This will make you talk like one of the Goofy Gophers. This wears off after a while.

3) For your own protection, you must wear a geiger counter wristwatch to keep track of your neutrons. If you kiss someone, this will set them off. This will cause fires to spontaneously light up in the fireplace.

4) Another side effect of having survived a nuclear blast is that slot machines will automatically cough up all their winnings to you.

Foreign agents will want to know these secrets, so keep your mouth shut.

ANATOMY OF A PSYCHO (1961)
Article #1306 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-11-2004
Posting Date: 3-10-2005
Directed by Boris Petroff
Featuring Ronnie Burns, Pamela Lincoln, Darrell Howe

A troubled teenager seeks revenge on those he holds responsible for the arrest, conviction and execution of his older brother.

I’m not sure what you should expect from a movie with a title that seems to promise the high drama of ANATOMY OF A MURDER crossed with the giddy thrills of PSYCHO, but if this juvenile delinquent revenge story falls somewhat outside the auspices of your expectations, join the club. It’s pretty much REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE territory, except our troubled teenager acts a little loonier than usual, and outside of a few moments of stressed-out madness, the fantastic aspects of this one are nonexistent. On its own terms, it’s a mess; though it picks up during the last third of its running time, you have to sit through the confused, obvious and annoying first two thirds of the movie, and it’s not a fun ride (unless you find catching snatches of music from PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE to be a thrilling experience). You won’t know any more about psychos after watching this movie than you did before. Incidentally, Ronnie Burns (who plays Mickey) is the adopted son of George Burns and Gracie Allen.

On a final note, one character in this movie wins the DS Bag O’ Hammers award (for characters who do monumentally stupid things). It goes to the psycho’s sister’s boyfriend, who takes the time to tell the obviously hostile psycho that 1) it was his (the boyfriend’s) father that provided the testimony that sent the psycho’s brother to the electric chair, and 2) he’s about to marry his (the psycho’s) sister.

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1939)
Article #1304 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-9-2004
Posting Date: 3-8-2005
Directed by Alfred L. Werker
Featuring Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Ida Lupino

Professor Moriarty decides to embarass Holmes by diverting his attention away from a brilliant crime he’s planning to commit.

This was the last of the two period Sherlock Holmes movies featuring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce for Fox; the two actors would then be picked up by Universal for a series of modern-day stories. Some people say it’s the best of the series, and quite frankly I agree; though all of the Rathbone Holmes films are fun, this one is especially fine. I knew this one was special the moment Moriarty mentions that he’s going to use Holmes’ own restlessness as a tool against him, and from that point onward you’re caught up in both parts of the plan; can Holmes solve the intriguing murder plot he is presented with and still see through it to the daring robbery attempt that it is meant to cover up? Both Rathbone and Bruce are excellent, with Bruce slightly less of a buffoon than usual. However, George Zucco’s performance as Moriarty is one of the high points of his career. Zucco is always fun to watch, but I’ve never seen him quite as nuanced as he is here; I love the scenes where he berates a servant for having failed to water his plant and the scene where he banters with Holmes. The horror elements are fairly slight, but an exciting chase that ends in a graveyard adds an ample amount of horror atmosphere to the proceedings.

ALIENS FROM ANOTHER PLANET (1982)
Article #1158 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-16-2001
Posting Date: 10-13-2004
Directed by Sobey Martin, Irwin Allen
Featuring James Darren, Robert Colbert, Robert Duvall

Two men lost in time as a result of a government project have to save the project from a saboteur and then deal with aliens invading earth in the late nineteenth century.

“The Time Tunnel” was Irwin Allen’s third attempt at a TV series; unlike his first two, this one wasn’t a success and only lasted one season. As such, it became one of those series with insufficient episodes to allow for effective syndication, and thus became fodder for jury-rigged TV movies made by slapping two episodes together.

Now this one I remember catching occasionally as a kid. I didn’t watch it much; outside of the time tunnel itself, the show didn’t have much science fiction content and largely seemed satisfied to place our time travellers in various historical situations; in this way, the show was a little bit like early ‘Doctor Who’. This movie, however, concentrated on some of the episodes with a greater degree of fantastic content; it combines bits of the first episode “Rendezvous with Yesterday” to serve as story background, and then we get the two episodes “Chase Through Time” and “Visitors from Beyond the Stars”, the first of which involves a trip into the far future where man has evolved into a sort of beelike existence and then a trip to the prehistoric days where slurpasaurs wrestle. The second one involves an alien invasion.

As usual with Irwin Allen, the science fiction eye candy is the main attraction; in particular, the time tunnel itself is memorable. It’s also fun to spot familiar faces; Whit Bissell and Lee Meriwether were regulars, and Robert Duvall and John Hoyt pop up in the various segments. The stories themselves are fairly simplistic, and the two leads are fairly bland, and it’s all pretty silly if you think about it; for example, the spy who sets the timer for the nuclear bomb could have chosen to hide it somewhere where he wouldn’t attract attention to himself by having to attack someone, but for some reason he chooses to handle it the way he does. It’s watchable enough, but it does remind you how much more sophisticated some other science fiction series were.

ALUCARDA (1978)
(a.k.a. SISTERS OF SATAN)
Article #1120 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-8-2004
Posting Date: 9-5-2001
Directed by Juan Moctezuma
Featuring Claudio Brook, Tina Romero, Susana Kamini

Two young women staying at a convent become worshippers of Satan.

The blurb that graces the cover of the DVD of this movie is from the Psychotronic Film Guide, and describes the movie as having “More blood, loud screaming and nudity than any horror movie [he] can think of”. That’s probably a fairly accurate description, though the fact that the quote appears on the front cover of the DVD is a sign that those marketing the movie aren’t exactly aiming for the audience that appreciates subtlety. For those who are curious, yes, there is quite a bit of full-frontal female nudity in this one. There is also a LOT of screaming, and I’m glad I took the cautious step of listening to the movie over headphones, else I would have annoyed and alarmed the neighbors, not to mention my wife. There is also a wealth of blood, but this is actually one of the more interesting aspects of the movie; I couldn’t help but notice that the blood occurs in almost equal measure on both sides of the struggle between good and evil; the blood ceremony and the dead woman who rises from a blood-filled coffin on the side of evil, while on the side of good, we have a bloody exorcism, stigmata, and flagellation, not to mention the fact that the (white) gowns of the nuns of the convent all look like they have blood stains on them. However, despite the occasionally effective use of sound, a nice visual sense, the occasional interesting idea and it’s intense desire to shock, I’m afraid that the movie didn’t have any real impact on me; once it was over, it was over. All in all, the effect was akin to watching a Jean Rollin movie with the artiness level turned way down, and though I’m no big Rollin fan, his movies do linger in way that this one doesn’t. The movie isn’t without interest, but I do think it is primarily for those who would be impressed by the blurb on the front cover.

ALIEN ATTACK (1976)
Article #1096 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-15-2004
Posting Date: 8-12-2004
Directed by Charles Chrichton and Lee H. Katzin
Featuring Martin Landau, Barbara Bain, Barry Morse

The moon gets exploded out of earth’s orbit, drifts out to space, and gets attacked by aliens.

I remember when “Space: 1999” was first announced to the world, and was heralded as the finest science fiction series since “Star Trek”. It wasn’t picked up by any of the major networks and was only available through syndication, and I was quite excited when one of the local TV stations decided to air it in prime time. On the night it premiered, I was right in front of the TV set, all ready for this new show. I was promptly underwhelmed.

I continued to watch the series, but as each episode went by without firing my imagination, it became more and more of a duty and less of an event. The odd episode would catch my attention, but for the most part I sat their in dull disappointment. It just didn’t have the spirit of “Star Trek”, and I think it had to do with the lifelessness of the characters. Barbara Bain seemed to be going to great lengths to avoid showing any emotion whatsoever, Martin Landau was competent but unexciting, and almost all of the other characters made no impact on me whatsoever. The only actor I enjoyed watching was Barry Morse, as he was the only one who seemed to show any interest in the proceedings. The central concept was also hard to swallow; with only 311 people on Moonbase Alpha, I was always amazed at how many casualties they suffered and how much destruction occurred without impacting what must have been a very fragile economy. I would like to figure out sometime just how many of those Eagle ships were destroyed during the course of the series.

When the second season rolled around several changes were made. When I heard that one change was the elimination of Barry Morse from the cast, I just gave up on the show. Actually, it wouldn’t have mattered what I did; the ratings had been so poor that our local affiliate didn’t bother to pick up the second season. This would also be the last season for the show.

Naturally, without a sufficient run of episodes to make an effective stab at returning the show to syndication, the decision was made (as for several other series suffering from the same problem) to recycle the episodes by editing them together into movies. I’ve always considered this a pretty cynical way to create product, but I suspect that nobody even cared if people could tell that they were being given two episodes of a TV show rather than a real movie.

That’s what ALIEN ATTACK is; two episodes of “Space: 1999”. The first episode is the beginning of the series, and the second episode involves Moonbase Alpha undergoing massive destruction at the hands of a planet whose residents “live without fear” through the help of a universal mind. My feelings haven’t really changed much for the show over the years; I still look to Barry Morse as the main acting asset. There are visual moments that are well done here and there, including a nice scene where we see one of the members becoming infected with a strange illness. There are also some interesting ideas at times, particularly in the second episode. The only problem is that without a strong story to support them, the ideas either reduce themselves to cliches or become rather muddy. Incidentally, my tape is part of a series of Adventure videos hosted by Sybil Danning, who introduces the episode by standing there in a skimpy outfit, clutching a futuristic-looking gun, and then dully talking about the thrills and excitement you are now going to undergo. I’m sure this will trip some people’s triggers; as for me, I really grew to appreciate the sense of fun that Elvira puts into her hosting duties.

Nowadays, this movie sits on IMDB with a 6.7 rating and the series is easily available on DVD. It seems that the series must be popular and well-loved in some circles, and maybe it is. All I know is that over the years I’ve heard practically every science fiction series ever made championed and praised by some group of people. Oddly enough, I’ve never heard this series praised in this regard, though I know its supporters are out there. Maybe someday I’ll hear from them…

THE ATOMIC SUBMARINE (1959)
Article #1094 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-13-2004
Posting Date: 8-10-2004
Directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet
Featuring Arthur Franz, Dick Foran, Brett Halsey

When several ships are destroyed near the North Pole, an atomic submarine is sent to the area to investigate. The culprit turns out to be a flying saucer.

Director Bennet is largely remembered as a director of serials, though he has several features under his credits. This is perhaps the best known of them. For me, this movie just doesn’t come to life until the last twenty minutes when some of the crew manages to sneak aboard the flying saucer. Before we reach that moment, we are largely subjected to war-movie style cliches, heavy-handed and unnecessary narration and a collection of the most poorly developed characters I’ve ever seen in a movie, and it’s only enlivened by the very occasional visually arresting moment and a bit of campiness. The big conflict on the sub is between Arthur Franz and Brett Halsey, but it’s written in such a painfully heavy-handed and clumsy manner that it feels artificial. Once aboard the flying saucer, things get a lot more interesting; we get some horrible (even gruesome) deaths and an alien which looks unique (if not necessarily convincing). Despite its flaws, this movie seems to be well-loved in certain circles, though I suspect this is primarily due to the strange-looking alien. As for me, I would recommend that you keep your finger near the fast-forward button of your remote for the first fifty minutes.