BRAIN OF BLOOD (1972)
Article 2706 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-30-2008
Posting Date: 1-9-2009
Directed by Al Adamson
Featuring Grant Williams, Kent Taylor, John Bloom
Country: USA

The benevolent ruler of Kalid is dying of cancer, but his associates have a plan to keep him alive by sending him to the U.S. and having a doctor transplant his brain into the skull of a younger man. However, the doctor has motives of his own…

I’ll give Al Adamson one thing; it’s nice that he gave Angelo Rossitto a fairly sizable role in this one in place of the usual cameos you’d get of him. Still, much as I hate to say it, Angelo really wasn’t that great of an actor; he’s better than Tor Johnson, but a long ways from Michael Dunn. Still, Al Adamson’s usual acting troupe isn’t really much better, so he’s not in bad company here. The presence of Rossitto does make me realize that Adamson was tapping into some of the appeal of the old Lugosi Monogram movies, and this movie reminds me of some of them, especially THE CORPSE VANISHES. It starts out looking better than the usual Adamson movie, but the movie gets sillier and sillier as it goes on, and the pace becomes deadly in the second half of the movie; it makes DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN look sprightly by comparison. And speaking of that movie, this is the only other screen appearance of Zandor Vorkov, who plays a character named Mohammed. John Bloom gets to play a dimwitted giant once more, Reginal Carrol gets to show off cleavage, Vicki Volante gets terrorized… you know the routine. Still, I’d rather watch an Adamson movie than a Larry Buchanan movie.

BEAST OF BLOOD (1971)
Article 2703 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-27-2008
Posting Date: 1-6-2009
Directed by Eddie Romero
Featuring John Ashley, Celeste Yarnall, Eddie Garcia
Country: Philippines/USA

Dr. Bill Foster returns to Blood Island to root out the evil of Dr. Lorca once and for all.

When I first started these Movies of the Day, I remember someone asking me if I was going to cover the Blood Island series directed by Eddie Romero and starring John Ashley, and I guaranteed I would. That was over seven years ago, and I honestly thought I would have covered at least one of them a lot earlier than this. Quite frankly, I was pretty curious about seeing them myself; I had vivid memories of seeing these movies on my local Creature Feature, and from this one, I clearly remembered the scene with the Chlorophyll monster (as he is popularly known), washing up on the beach (this was the first scene in the movie when I saw it, as the opening fight aboard the ship was cut), as well as the discovery of a worm-eaten corpse (which wasn’t near as grotesque on re-watching as I remembered it).

However, I didn’t remember the plot, and watching it again, I can see why. Despite some memorable horror moments, most of this movie is a tedious jungle adventure consisting of good guys and bad guys walking around in a jungle and shooting at each other. It is effective enough dishing out the grue, with the mad doctor keeping the monster’s head alive and separated from his body (why? It’s never explained), and some nasty operation scenes. However, this was the third film in the series (which means I’m starting at the wrong end), and I suspect the series was getting a little tired by this point; I’ve heard tell that the two previous movies are better. From what I hear, Al Adamson’s BRAIN OF BLOOD is mistakenly mentioned as part of this series.

BLONDIE HAS SERVANT TROUBLE (1940)
Article 2690 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-8-2008
Posting Date: 12-24-2008
Directed by Frank R. Strayer
Featuring Penny Singleton, Arthur Lake, Larry Simms
Country: USA

Blondie’s desire for a maid ends up causing Dagwood to accept a proposal to stay at a house with servants. However, what he doesn’t know is that the house is believed to be haunted…

The “Blondie” comic strip has been something of a mainstay for me all my life; I remember it being the first comic strip in that section of the Sunday newspaper, and as I grew older, I grew to appreciate how the strict 12-panel format of the strip was effectively used to convey a sort of “comic timing”. When cartoonist Chic Young died, new writers took over, the 12-panel format was jettisoned, and the strip went downhill. Since then, the writing has improved a little, and it still remains the first strip in the Sunday paper, but I’ll always miss the Chic Young years.

However, I’m not familiar with the early years of the strip, though I hear that it was one of the first strips that allowed its characters to age as time went on; the character of Baby Dumpling was allowed to grow up. However, I think this aging was eventually abandoned; currently, the Bumsteads still have two teenage children, one of whom I assume is an older Baby Dumpling with a less embarrassing name.
If this entry in the movie series based on the comic strip is at all indicative of what the comic strip was like at the time, then Dagwood’s collisions with the mailman is one of the longest running jokes in history. So I do wonder just how different the strip was in its earlier years to how it was when I first encountered it.

Apparently the strip was popular enough to have a whole series of movies based on it; this was the sixth of 28 movies made in the series, so I’m assuming the movies were quite popular as well. I suppose one challenge in making these movies was that the “Blondie” comic strip (at least during the period I remember it) didn’t really have storylines; consequently, the writers probably had to pull out a lot of standard-issue comedy plots for the series. In this case, it should be no surprise that there is a “haunted house” episode to the series, and that’s what this is. It’s also the only movie I’ve seen in the series.

So how good is it? To its credit, it’s nowhere near as bad as it could have been, though an extended comic sequence involving Dagwood getting a flashlight stuck in his mouth gets my award as one of the worst gags in movie history. The characters are more or less close enough to the characters in the comic strip as I remember them; Dagwood is a bit more of a doofus, Blondie is a little more scatterbrained, and Mr. Dithers isn’t quite as cranky. For me, the biggest saving grace in the movie is Daisy the dog; the animal has some great comic moments. Outside of that, it’s pretty familiar territory for horror fans; most of the humor involves people being scared (with Ray Turner as the stereotyped scared black man providing most of the gags in this regard). The bad guy is a mad magician; if the movie had been made a few years later, it would most likely have been a Nazi. All in all, a fairly ordinary viewing experience.

BEDLAM IN PARADISE (1955)
Short
Article 2658 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-22-2008
Posting Date: 11-22-2008
Directed by Jules White
Featuring Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Shemp Howard
Country: USA

Shemp dies when he swallows a thermometer. In order to keep from going to hell, he has to come back as an unseen ghost and reform Moe and Larry.

You won’t know how tempted I was to pull up my write-up of HEAVENLY DAZE and recycle it for this one; after all, this short amounts to a recycling of that one, even to the point that it borrows some of the original footage. Oh, there’s a few changes; the devil is now a further adversary to Shemp in his mission to reform the other Stooges, and Sylvia Lewis has a great part as a devilish woman who tries to tempt Shemp from his appointed task. At any rate, it’s just nice to see a Shemp Stooge short as a follow-up to a Joe Besser Stooge short; I’m afraid Besser was a poor follow-up to Shemp, much less Curly. At any rate, this is a solid (if very derivative) Three Stooges short.

THE BLACK PIT OF DR. M (1959)
aka Misterios de ultratumba
Article 2553 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-1-2008
Posting Date: 8-8-2008
Directed by Fernando Mendez
Featuring Gaston Santos, Rafael Bertrand, Mapita Cortes
Country: Mexico

Two doctors make a pact that whomever dies first will return from the grave and give the other doctor the information on how to overcome death. However, the death of the first doctor brings about a series of events that will doom the other doctor.

I’m so used to having seen Mexican movies without dubbing or subtitles that I neglected to check for subtitling when I first watched this one, and I was rather confused by the story. However, I discovered afterwards that the movie had subtitles, but not wanting to sit through the whole thing again, I caught bits and pieces of it that helped to me to figure out the basic storyline. Whatever you can say about these Mexican horror movies, there’s no doubt that they’re brimming with horror atmosphere, and this one pulls out all the stops, with a ghostly presence inexorably guiding characters to their fates, a lunatic asylum, and a vengeance-driven acid-scarred man added to the mix. This is definitely one I’m going to watch again, and when I do, you can bet I’m going to make sure the subtitles are on for the whole thing.

THE BEWITCHED TRUNK (1904)
aka Le Coffre enchante
Article 2540 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-19-2008
Posting Date: 7-26-2008
Directed by Georges Melies
Featuring Georges Melies
Country: France

A magician performs amazing feats with a trunk.

No plot here; this, like THE VANISHING LADY, is merely movie-as-magic-trick; Melies uses special effects to give us a magic show, in which various people and things appear and disappear in a trunk. This one is a little disappointing largely because it’s not very ambitious; I’m a little surprised that he was still making movies like this after A TRIP TO THE MOON, but then, he didn’t make more than five hundred films by waiting around for inspiration to strike. This one is unremarkable, but fun nonetheless.

THE BEWITCHED INN (1897)
aka L’Auberge ensorcelee
Article 2531 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-10-2008
Posting Date: 7-17-2008
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown, but that sure looks like Melies himself
Country: France

A man is plagued by strange events at an inn, where inanimate objects vanish and reappear, and his own clothes take on a life of their own.

I had already consigned this to my unfound list when the long-awaited appearance of a comprehensive Melies collection finally brought it to light. It’s an amusing little short, though a bit obvious nowadays, as the effects have been repeated many times since, and only recently I saw THE BEWITCHED TRAVELER, which owes something to this one. Still, I marvel at the gusto of Melies’s acting, and the comic effectiveness and timing of the various effects; though he had many imitators, there was no early filmmaker quite as fun as Melies.

As you might guess, I’m going to spend the next couple of weeks on reviews from this set, as many of these shorts have been on my hunt list for years. Viva Melies!

THE BEWITCHED TRAVELLER (1904)
Article 2528 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-6-2008
Posting Date: 7-14-2008
Directed by Cecil M. Hepworth
Cast unknown
Country: UK

A traveler finds his life plagued by mysterious disappearances and reappearances.

This is an early silent short that uses trick photography to tell its amusing story of a traveler who finds things vanishing around him, starting with tables, chairs and clothing, and then works itself up to coaches and trains, thereby frustrating his attempts to get anywhere. It’s quite well done, and it manages to work up to an effective ending which, in its way, is quite logical and even a little bit scary, though the movie is comic in tone. Another example of the creative early origins of cinema.

BLOOD ORGY OF THE SHE DEVILS (1972)
Article 2514 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-21-2008
Posting Date: 6-30-2008
Directed by Ted V. Mikels
Featuring Lila Zaborin, Victor Izay, Tom Pace
Country: USA

Mara is a witch who practices black magic and worships Satan. She does her thing until some white magicians decide to stop her.

Nice title, huh? Well, if you’re the sort of person who picked this one up on the strength of the title, I suggest you turn the DVD package over, take note of the PG rating, and then ask yourself just how bloodily orgiastic these she-devils are going to get. Still, you can’t blame them for giving it this title; calling it TALKY SNOOZEFEST OF THE SHE-DEVILS would have kept the audience away in droves. Actually, it’s not quite as bad as that, but it ain’t good. If the above plot description seems lame, then bear in mind that’s pretty much a good reflection of how I find the plot in this one. The major annoyance is Lila Zaborin’s performance; she never says her lines when she can DECLAIM them. The movie does try to be horrific on occasion, but it relies too much on women screeching and witch cliches (torture, a burning, a stoning) to have much impact. The movie does develop a hint of a story at one point when the witch is hired to perform a political assassination, but the plot is resolved too quickly and ultimately adds nothing more than running time to the film. The final battle between good and evil will stay with you almost until the credits roll. A sense of humor would have really helped here, but there is none. Mikel’s other horror movies aren’t classics, but they’re better than this one.

THE BODY SHOP (1973)
aka Doctor Gore
Article 2500 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-7-2008
Posting Date: 6-16-2008
Directed by J.G. Patterson Jr.
Featuring J.G. Patterson Jr., Jenny Driggers, Roy Mehaffey
Country: USA

A mad scientist kills beautiful women and removes their body parts in order to construct the perfect woman.

If ever a movie looked like a tribute to the gore movies of Herschell Gordon Lewis, this is it. Director/star J.G. Patterson Jr. (aka Don Brandon) had even worked with Lewis before, in a variety of different capacities on several Lewis films, including MOONSHINE MOUNTAIN, HOW TO MAKE A DOLL and THE GRUESOME TWOSOME. It’s aggressively amateurish, extremely bloody, technically incompetent, but it does manage to have a sense of humor (at least some of the laughs seem to be intentional), and it even manages to improve on Lewis by having decent sound quality. I hope you really like the “Sugar and Spice” song that opens the movie; you will hear the melody endlessly throughout this. The movie also has no plot, as will be apparent when you reach the end of the movie. In short, the movie is awful. Patterson died in 1974, but it looks like another directorial effort of his called THE ELECTRIC CHAIR wasn’t released until 1977.