THE ASTOUNDING SHE-MONSTER (1957)
Article #431 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-20-2002
Posting date: 10-13-2002

A radioactive alien lands on earth and frightens a geologist and some kidnappers in a mountain cabin.

The title is quite catchy, and the poster is very memorable; between the two of them they probably constitute seventy-five percent of the budget. Certainly, they show more creativity than anything actually in the movie; when I say that the most impressive thing in the movie is the blurry camerawork they use when photographing the alien to show its radioactivity, I’m grasping at straws. There are also rumors that Ed Wood was somehow involved with this, mostly I suspect because of the presence of Kenne Duncan and the general incompetence on display, but if he did have a hand in it, I suspect it would only be with some bits of the script that have a slight Woodian edge to them. The direction is far more lethargic than anything I’ve seen from Wood, and my overall impression of the movie is that everyone involved is bored as hell; the only moment I sense any fun being had is during a sequence where the alcoholic girlfriend of the gangster runs out of booze, and finds herself tempted by her two captives into going for a bottle in the next room, thereby giving them a chance to escape. Of course they never make it to the other room; that would have required building a whole new set, skyrocketing the whole movie over budget. This may well be the cheapest movie of all time.

THE ANIMAL WORLD (1956)
Article #430 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-19-2002
Posting date: 10-12-2002

A documentary about animals.

No story here; just lots of footage with animals in it. It starts out with a direction, recounting the evolution of animals through the ages, but it eventually settles on random footage of animals, with narrators occasionally adding voices to the animals or telling stories about them. If this sounds like it could get a bit tiresome, it does, but it does help if you like to look at animals, though some of the bullfight footage is bound to be unpleasant. It’s included here for having some stop-motion dinosaur animation near the beginning of the movie, and a shot of the Earth being blown up at the end (they’re talking about man being the only animal who destroys himself). Irwin Allen would later move on to more conventional fare.

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE INVISIBLE MAN (1951)
Article #429 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-18-2002
Posting date: 10-11-2002

Two detectives help an escaped convict who was framed for the murder of his manager. In order to elude the police, the convict takes a serum that makes him invisible.

This is probably the best of the several horror-oriented followups that Abbott and Costello made in the wake of ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN. Like that one, this has a definite storyline, even if the concept of an invisible man trying to prove his innocence was used before. Nonetheless, a storyline gives the viewer something to follow when the gags fall flat; it also pushes the story in some different directions so we don’t have a succession of “Lou is scared” gags; having Lou pose as a boxer in an attempt to catch the real criminal (Sheldon Leonard) gives them a pretty good framework for some of the later gags, particularly the extended fight sequence in the last third of the movie. Arthur Franz plays the convict/boxer, and William Frawley is on hand as the chief of police. There are several other nice character parts throughout the movie.

ATOMIC WAR BRIDE (1960)
(a.k.a. RAT)
Article #399 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 4-18-2002
Posting date: 9-11-2002

A man’s wedding is interrupted by a declaration of war, and he tries to get home with his wife before the bombs strike.

This Yugoslavian nuclear war movie is almost indescribable. It is madly satirical, almost comic at times, darkly bleak at others, all centered around the exploits of the groom, who somehow remains giddily optimistic in the face of the apocalypse. It reminds me of both DR. STRANGELOVE and THIS IS NOT A TEST (it’s companion on DVD), but it predates them both and stakes out its own territory in the end-of-the-world movie genre. There are many unforgettable images; the destruction of a cow by airplanes, a bizarre radiation outfit training scene, a series of camouflage exercises that will leave your mouth hanging open, and the devastatingly sad final scene. I’d never even heard of this movie before I began my project; now I don’t think I’ll forget it.

THE ALIEN FACTOR (1977)
Article #358 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 3-8-2002
Posting date: 7-25-2002

An alien spacecraft crashes on Earth, unleashing several wild beasts on unsuspecting earthlings.

All right, there’s one monster that is kind of interesting looking; it’s the tall one that kind of resembles a satyr. That should cover the good points I found in this Don Dohler film. I think I spent more buying the DVD than was budgeted for this film. The acting is non-existent when it isn’t bad, and the direction looks like it was inspired by Larry Buchanan, though without Buchanan’s slightly stronger sense of character. Sure, it has a bit of a twist at the end, but in order for a twist to work, you have to care about the rest of the movie. At least the movie is only eighty minutes long. This one is primarily for bad movie fanatics.

THE AVENGING CONSCIENCE (1914)
Article #319 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 1-28-2002
Posting date: 6-14-2002

A boy is raised to manhood by his one-eyed uncle. When the uncle stands in the way of the boy’s romance, the boy kills him and bricks up the body in a fireplace.

This is a very early adaptation of Poe’s “The Telltale Heart” by D. W. Griffith, one of the most important pioneers in cinema history due to his development of cinematic storytelling techniques. Though the movie borrows the events of the Poe story (as well as touches of Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee”), it’s definitely more in the spirit of early melodrama than of horror, though the hellish visions that the murderer sees when he is confronted by a detective are quite interesting. The movie also features an early split-screen sequence (horizontally rather than vertically) and some rather odd visions of Pan in a forest.

SPOILER

A happy ending is had by all. This is thanks to a storytelling trick that is apt to garner the DS Rubber Brick award for endings that make you want to throw something at your TV screen, but this movie is of early enough vintage that the ending wasn’t an overused cliche at that time, so I’ll let it go. Besides, except for some old-time histrionics, I think the movie holds up nicely.

ANGEL ON MY SHOULDER (1946)
Article #317 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 1-26-2002
Posting date: 6-12-2002

A gangster killed by his partner after his release from the penitentiary finds himself in hell. The devil decides to use him in a plot to discredit a judge who he resembles who has been contributing in a big way to a recent shortage of help in hell.

What this movie boils down to is a reworking of HERE COMES MR. JORDAN, only from the opposite direction. It even borrows Claude Rains from that movie, and the actor is quite capable of playing both the angelic Mr. Jordan and Nick the devil himself. Rains steals the movie from the main star, Paul Muni, who was considered one of the finest actors in Hollywood at one time, but his star had definitely faded; in this movie, he seems mannered, and you get the feeling he’s playing a character rather than becoming the character. As you might expect from Hollywood during this time, the devil definitely gets the bad end of the deal, though it is interesting to see how the gangster fares in the bargain. It is quite amusing to see how the gangster’s anger and bad temper actually contribute to making the judge look like a hero.

AND THEN THERE WERE NONE (1945)
Article #316 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 1-25-2002
Posting date: 6-11-2002

Several people are brought to a house on a deserted island by a mysterious man they’ve never met named U. N. Owen, and they are killed off one by one.

This is one of the basic Old Dark House premises given the grand treatment in this Agatha Christie mystery. A memorable cast of character actors fills the movie, including Walter Huston, Barry Fitzgerald, Mischa Auer, Roland Young, Judith Anderson, Richard Haydn and C. Aubrey Smith. It is quite entertaining to see these people all starting to get very suspicious of each other, especially whenever there are only two of them together at the same time. Unfortunately for me, I’d read the stage play some time ago, so I knew who the culprit was, but I think the movie does a good job of keeping the identity of the killer a secret till the end. This one is definitely worth catching, even if it is only marginally a horror movie.

ARABIAN NIGHTS (1942)
Article #311 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 1-20-2002
Posting date: 6-6-2002

The Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid has his throne usurped by his evil brother Kamar, and finds himself thrown in with a beautiful dancer and a troupe of performers.

The cast has Jon Hall, Maria Montez, and Sabu; now you know most of what there is to know about the movie. It also has Turhan Bey and Acquanetta. Far and away my favorite credits in the movie are for Aladdin (John Qualen, mostly known for playing Scandinavians) who spends most of the movie rubbing every lamp he can find, and Sinbad (Shemp Howard—yes, THAT Shemp Howard; did you think there was more than one?). It also has Billy Gilbert, who fights by bumping into people with his belly (to the sound of a timpani going “Boinngg!”) and dresses up as a woman at one point, so this should give you an idea of the level of humor in the movie. The color is beautiful, which is as usual for these types of movies. Believe it or not, I enjoyed this movie.

L’ATLANTIDE (1920)
Article #242 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 11-13-2001
Posting date: 3-29-2002

Two men encounter the kingdom of Atlantis ruled by the evil queen Antinea.

At least, that’s as much of the story as I can make out. When hunting down rare movies, sometimes you have to take what you can get. The 1920 version of L’ATLANTIDE has never had an official VHS release in this country, so I had to settle for a copy which had title cards in Italian. I figured, as a silent movie, it would rely more on visuals to tell its story than language; unfortunately, the title cards seem to contain quite a bit of important information. And since I can’t speak Italian…

As it is, it looks pretty good, with some quite striking visuals. I may have to watch the 1932 remake in order to sort out the plot, though. I was hoping to have seen that remake before the movie came up here, but time was not kind to me in that regard. I’ll just have to give this one another chance some time after I’ve seen the remake, or learned to read Italian.