THE BRAIN EATERS (1958)
Article #505 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 8-2-2002
Posting date: 12-26-2002

The appearance of a strange metallic object in a ravine near a small town coincides with a strange wave of murders and disappearances.

Bruno VeSota directed this unauthorized adaptation of Robert Heinlein’s “The Puppet Masters”; I’ve not read the book, so I can’t do a real comparison. VeSota adds a certain dark atmosphere to the proceedings, but the story is a mess; I don’t know whether the problem was in the original script, in the editing, or if certain scenes were never filmed, but the movie feels jumpy and unfinished, almost as if they stopped filming before they were complete and just edited what they had together. And if the music sounds too good to have been composed for the film, it wasn’t; it was a classical piece by Shostakovich. There are some good ideas in this movie, but I don’t know if they were original to the script or from the Heinlein novel. And though I couldn’t spot Leonard Nimoy visually, I definitely recognized his voice when he appeared.

THE BODY SNATCHER (1945)
Article #504 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 8-1-2002
Posting date: 12-25-2002

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Okay, enough of the holiday cheer…on to the review.

A cabman supplies bodies for a doctor who teaches medicine to students.

I read somewhere that Val Lewton was less than thrilled to learn he would have to use Boris Karloff in his next movie, as he perceived him as being the standard boogeyman that he was trying to avoid using in his horror films. This was until he actually met and talked to Karloff, and discovered that they were actually on the same wavelength. It was from Lewton that Karloff would receive some of the most complex roles in his career, and THE BODY SNATCHER is their triumph. Gray is a fascinating individual; even though he robs graves and murders to supply his bodies, he has an honest affection for children (the opening scene of him talking with the crippled girl is not the least bit creepy, as his affection for children is obvious and sincere; in real life, Karloff himself loved children) and ends up being the prime force that contributes to the healing of the little girl (even though it involves murder and blackmail). He also has a cat that he loves. Dr. MacFarland, however, is cold and somewhat mean-spirited; you end up liking the cabman much more. In fact, the whole movie is about moral ambiguity; it’s very hard to make easy moral judgments about much of what happens, because so much of it is tied to curing the little girl. Karloff’s performance is magnificent; in Danny Peary’s “Alternate Oscars” book, he claims Karloff should have won an Academy Award for his performance, and I have to agree.

One sad thing about the movie is the presence of Bela Lugosi, once again shuttled off to a minor role as a servant. He does quite well in this small role, and he gets billing above Henry Daniell who plays Dr. MacFarland, but the movie is such a triumph for Karloff that you almost forget Bela is there. And though Karloff would work with Lewton twice more, this would be Lugosi’s sole collaboration with Lewton.

BLACK FRIDAY (1940)
Article #499 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-27-2002
Posting Date: 12-20-2002

In order to save the life of his friend, a doctor transplants part of the brain of a gangster into his head, then becomes obsesses with getting in touch with the gangster part of his personality to find some stolen money.

Karloff was originally intended for the Stanley Ridges role, with Lugosi in the role of the doctor; however, Karloff wanted the role of the doctor and got it, and since the producers didn’t feel Lugosi was up to the Stanley Ridges role, he was given a minor role as a gangster, and Stanley Ridges took the role of the English professor/gangster. I wouldn’t be surprised if this incident hadn’t fueled somewhat Lugosi’s resentment of Karloff, and one wonders what the movie would have been like if the casting had gone in the original direction. As it is, it’s one of the lesser of the Karloff/Lugosi collaborations. Karloff and Ridges do very well indeed, but Lugosi isn’t really given much to do at all. It’s not a bad movie, by any means; it’s just rather ordinary, more in line with Karloff’s Mad Doctor movies at Columbia than with the earlier triumphs at Universal.

BULLDOG DRUMMOND AT BAY (1937)
Article #496 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-24-2002
Posting Date: 12-17-2002

Bulldog Drummond tries to find the kidnappers of the designer of a secret airplane.

This is the first movie I’ve seen from the Bulldog Drummond series; he’s played by John Lodge here, though the role would pass through several other actors. It’s an okay B-thriller, but nothing special; since these Musings articles get posted sometime after I’ve seen the movies, I most likely have forgotten the details of the plot by now. Victor Jory does a nice turn as the villain, and I really liked Claude Allister as the comic relief Algy Longworth. The fantastic elements are minimal in this action thriller, and only come to play in the last few minutes of the movie, so I won’t go into any details; in terms of fantastic cinema, it’s marginal but entertaining.

BLOOD SUCKERS (1972)
(a.k.a. INCENSE FOR THE DAMNED/DOCTORS WEAR SCARLET/FREEDOM SEEKERS)
Article #489 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 7-17-2002
Posting date: 12-10-2002

An English professor falls under the spell of a Greek vampiress.

The title for this movie on IMDB is INCENSE FOR THE DAMNED; the popular title is BLOOD SUCKERS (that’s what’s on the title of the DVD); another title is that of the book on which it is based, DOCTORS WEAR SCARLET; the title that actually appears on the screen is FREEDOM SEEKERS (!?). Confused? Wait till the movie starts. The movie attempts to connect the dots between Greek vampirism, sadomasochistic sex, impotence and British academia, and I suppose by the time you finish the movie, you just might see the connections, but you also most likely won’t bother; the movie is a confused mess that in no way prepares you for what is supposed to be its big moment: a speech the professor gives near the end of the movie. On the plus side, there are some nice Greek locations, an excellent if brief performance by Peter Cushing, and good performances by Patrick Macnee and Edward Woodward. Unfortunately, they don’t really make up for the overstylized confusion that reigns here.

BIGFOOT (1970)
Article #488 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 7-16-2002
Posting date: 12-9-2002

When a biker’s girlfriend is kidnapped by a sasquatch, he teams up with some traveling pedlars to rescue her.

This movie is quite bad. It’s badness may have even been intentional. It’s certainly gleefully so; when the woman strips out of her pilot’s outfit and she’s wearing a flimsy revealing negligee underneath, the movie doesn’t even attempt to explain; it makes no bones that it’s going for the cheesecake. It also doesn’t even bother to have anybody light the dynamite that causes the explosion in the final scene. Still, you can’t help but be a little impressed by a cast that includes Joi Lansing, John Carradine, Doodles Weaver, Chris Mitchum, Ken Maynard, and Lindsay Crosby. Half the soundtrack is made up of hillbilly music (the scenes with Carradine and John Mitchum); the other half consists of bongos (the scenes with the bikers). And, to top it all off, the movie is loaded with references to KING KONG that will leave you scratching your head; take special note of Carradine’s variation on the line “Twas beauty that killed the beast.” It’s got more than its share of dull, boring sequences, especially the endless scenes of the bikers tooling around, but I have to admit to finding this one a little irresistible. At least the movie doesn’t bother to try to argue that the creatures are real.

BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA (1952)
(a.k.a. THE BOYS FROM BROOKLYN)
Article #439 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-28-2002
Posting date: 10-21-2002

Two entertainers find themselves stranded on an island with a mad scientist performing experiments on evolution.

There are only two reasons why this movie is as well known as it is; the first is the title. The second is the presence of Duke Mitchell and (especially) Sammy Petrillo, a comic duo that specialized in an impersonation of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Petrillo’s impersonation is the most amazing; he even looks like Jerry Lewis. Unfortunately, he’s never as funny as Lewis; he is aggressively lame, and the presence of some decent humor was the only thing that could have saved the movie. As it is, there are way too many jokes centered around the fat native girl. I’ve seen this movie three times; the first time is understandable; natural curiosity. The second time was to double check if it was as bad as I remembered it; it was. The third time was for this series of Musings. That is two times too many, at least, and if wasting time turns out to be a sin of some sort, then I’m going to have a lot to answer for to my maker.

BEDLAM (1946)
Article #438 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing day: 5-27-2002
Posting day: 10-20-2002

A protege of Lord Mortimer takes it upon herself to reform conditions in a local insane asylum, only to find herself committed there for her troubles.

I’ve always been a little bit disappointed with this Val Lewton movie; the ambiguity that I found quite prevalent in his other movies is noticeably absent here. In fact, I find it hard to think of it as a horror movie at all, though it does contain some definite horror elements (some of the asylum scenes and the basic concept of madness that is inherent to the subject matter). It is a historical drama that uses the maltreatment of the mentally ill to explore any number of issues; corruption, political expediency, the flightiness and unpredictability of public figures, and ultimately the nature of morality. This may be the only one of Lewton’s horror films where he really allows himself a hero; Anna Lee’s character is flawed and has to grow into the role, but that is ultimately what she becomes. Her performance, as well as an excellent performance by Boris Karloff as Master Sims, are definite plusses. Actually, I enjoyed this movie much more this time than I have previously, because I found it to be very rich in what it had to say, and it’s ability to look at the world as a very complex place indeed. It helps to just not think of it as a horror film at all.

THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN (1956)
Article #437 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing day: 5-26-2002
Posting day: 10-19-2002

Local residents believe that the disappearance of a cowboy’s cattle is due to a monster that lives within a mountain surrounded by a swamp.

I believe that this is the first real take on Willis O’Brien’s Gwangi concept combining cowboys and dinosaurs. It’s not really very successful; the movie is three-quarters through before we ever get a glimpse of the beast, and most of the preceeding sixty minutes is fairly dull by monster movie or western standards. Things do pick up around the forty minute mark; there is a scene in a graveyard that actually generates a fair amount of tension, and a stampede sequence that is probably the highlight of the movie. The monster itself is generated via stop-motion, but using a series of static models versus a poseable model; this gives the dinosaur a range of expressions that it wouldn’t have gotten conventionally, but it’s far jerkier and less effective than more standard stop-motion, and you see entirely too much of the dinosaur sticking his tongue out and waving it around. It must have been a difficult and expensive process, too; that’s probably the main reason the movie takes so long to get to its few dinosaur scenes. Still, the second half is much better than the first half.

BOWERY TO BAGDAD (1954)
Article #423 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-12-2002
Posting date: 10-5-2002

The Bowery Boys find Aladdin’s lamp. Comedy ensues.

Hey, it’s another Bowery Boys movie. Leo Gorcey makes with the malaprops. Huntz Hall gets big muscles and then gets a hat stuck on his head. The genii drinks too much. Gangsters with guns and Arabs with big long knives are after them. Many people are bonked on the head. It’s all done for laughs, hilarity, and hijinks.

Bowery boys movies can be like Sword & Sandal movies; they are what they are, and once you understand that, commentary is pointless.