BERKELEY SQUARE (1933)
Article #421 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-10-2002
Posting date: 10-3-2002

A man who inhabits a house that has been kept in its original condition for 150 years walks through the door one day and travels back in time 150 years to inhabit the body of his look-alike ancestor.

Leslie Howard stars in this early time-travel romance, based on a stage play by John Balderston. To give you an idea of the movie, you are almost thirty minutes into it before the time travel incident occurs, and that first thirty minutes is loaded with talk. For that matter, the next thirty minutes is also loaded with talk, most of it centered around how odd the man is and how he seems to know things that haven’t yet occurred. It’s only in the last third of the movie that it really seems to take shape, but my patience has worn a bit thin by that time. And though the movie does flirt with such themes as how horrible modern life is (in a dizzying montage of contemporary images of violence that make for one of the most energetic moments in the movie), it doesn’t romanticize the past; it’s obvious that the man finds many aspects of the past equally unpleasant. All in all, it’s a photographed stage play that really needs more cinematic touches to bring it to life. There are some interesting things to be found here, but it really helps to be patient.

One interesting piece of trivia that was told me when this was first posted is that this was H. P. Lovecraft’s favorite movie.

BEYOND TOMORROW (1940)
Article #406 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 4-25-2002
Posting date: 9-18-2002

Three eccentric old men find themselves alone at Christmas, and on a bet, they throw their wallets out in the street and plan to invite anyone who returns them in for Christmas. Two of the wallets are returned, and the two people (a man and a woman) who return them become romantically attached. Then the three men die in a plane accident and return as ghosts to watch over the couple.

Yes, this is pure Hollywood schmaltz at work here, and though there is a part of me that wants to discard the movie like a stinky sock and have a good laugh at its expense, there’s a part of me that would recognize my hypocrisy. In truth, I really enjoyed the movie for the most part, and a lot of it has to do with the great performances by Charles Winninger, C. Aubrey Smith and Harry Carey (as the three old men) and especially Maria Ouspenskaya as one of their servants; her scene on the discovery of their deaths is the work of a consummate actress indeed. These four thespians are the blood and soul of this movie; the interest level drops dramatically when the story veers away from them, as it does during the second half of the movie. Richard Carlson is on hand as the young Texan who returns one of the wallets, but he has one of the least interesting roles, and is saddled with a less than convincing Texas accent to further complicate matters, and the romantic tribulations that end up being tied to his singing career are by the book. Yes, the sap level is very high in this one, but it could have been quite intolerable indeed without the help of those fine character actors that are the real stars of the film.

BEYOND THE MOON (1956)
(a.k.a. BEYOND THE CURTAIN OF SPACE)
Article #405 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 4-24-2002
Posting date: 9-17-2002

Rocky Jones takes on a mission to rescue a scientist from an enemy planet.

It is always well to remember when watching any of the Rocky Jones movies is that they are actually episodes of a TV series strung together. Fortunately, the show was somewhat serialistic in nature, though it abjured cliffhangers in favor of having a running storyline that took a few episodes to come to full conclusion, while each episode worked as a whole in its own context. If you carefully watch these movies, you will be able to tell where each episode begins and ends, and the overall experience is more enjoyable if viewed in that context.

I expected to be quite bored by this one, but was happily surprised. The special effects are quaint, some of the dialogue is horrible, but the episodes are quite well put together in terms of story, and it actually makes for entertaining space opera, not as manic as a theatrical serial, but much more satisfying from a story perspective. I enjoyed this one, and am looking forward to seeing some of the others.

THE BLOOD OF NOSTRADAMUS (1961)
Article #392 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 4-11-2002
Posting date: 9-4-2002

The blood-sucking vampire Nostradamus pits himself against a doctor intent on destroying him.

The Nostradamus in this series of movies was not the man who made predictions of the future; he is a vampire who announces who his next victims will be and dares his archenemy to stop him.

The four movies were built from episodes of a Mexican serial, and this is the fourth of the four. It has the advantage of actually having an ending that isn’t ambiguous, as the other three do. These movies certainly don’t have much of a reputation; the awful dubbing certainly has something to do with it, especially in the case of the Hunchback named Leo, who sounds a little too close to Goofy for his own good. Being episodes of a serial strung together in a feature is also not a strength; it’s always a good idea to remind yourself that you’re watching a serial rather than a complete movie. Still, if you get past these barriers, it’s not too bad; the characters are more interesting than you expect, and Nostradamus (German Robles) is unexpectedly vulnerable at times. Still, if you decide to watch the series as a whole, this one isn’t the place to start, as there are several plot points that you won’t be privy to; the order of the movies is CURSE OF NOSTRADAMUS, THE MONSTERS DEMOLISHER, THE GENIE OF DARKNESS and this one. Give the series a little patience, and it just may grow on you.

BACK FROM THE DEAD (1957)
Article #391 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 4-10-2002
Posting date: 9-3-2002

A woman is possessed by the spirit of her husband’s first wife, an evil temptress. It’s all tied with a mysterious devil worship cult on the island.

This potentially interesting idea is a little like a cross between two Bert I. Gordon films, TORMENTED and NECROMANCY; it’s particularly reminiscent of the former, with its lapping waves and dead lover motifs; unfortunately, the movie is hoodwinked by terribly dull direction and a badly muddled script. There are too many scenes of people visiting the couple and being treated coldly by the possessed wife, and there are a number of events in the movie that either lead nowhere or abruptly come out of nowhere; the script definitely needed a rewrite. A check at IMDB indicates that the director mostly worked on westerns; he certainly doesn’t feel at ease here in the horror genre. It also contains the worst “someone’s favorite song” that I’ve had the misfortune to hear; it’s fast, aggressive, jazzy, horrific and horribly annoying, but at least it doesn’t have lyrics, and you’ll be glad when the record gets smashed.

THE BRUTE MAN (1946)
Article #386 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 4-5-2002
Posting date: 8-29-2002

A murderer is befriended by a blind woman.

You see PRC on the credits of this movie, but you’ll notice that the production values seem a lot higher than what you’re used to from that poverty row studio. That’s because it originally came from Universal and was passed on to PRC after they became embarrassed at the exploitative nature of the movie. It would be the last movie for Rondo Hatton, whose short sad horror career was built on his suffering from acromegaly, which distorted his face and made him a monster that needed no make-up. He’d appeared in a Sherlock Holmes movie (as well as a semi-sequel to one of them), one of the Paula Dupree movies, and two movies of his own, where he played a murderer known as the Creeper, plus in a variety of largely uncredited roles from 1930 onwards. In truth, he was a better actor than Tor Johnson, another actor whose primary asset was his physical appearance; he could deliver a line better than Tor did, and did have a way of carrying himself physically that made him quite effective. The movie itself is less than an hour, but it only has about twenty minutes of plot; and once you get to the halfway point your mind starts wandering. I’ve heard it said that a movie about him would have been a lot more interesting, and to be honest, I think that’s true; as I watched the movie, I spent more time wondering as to what Rondo’s life was like, and how he felt about his film career than I did paying attention to the plot. Maybe someday, someone will make an attempt to tell his story.

BEHIND THE MASK (1932)
Article #385 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 4-4-2002
Posting date: 8-28-2002

The secret service tries to track down the leader of a drug smuggling ring.

Don’t be fooled by the fact that Boris Karloff is given prominent billing; he has no more than an average-sized supporting role and practically vanishes from the movie at the halfway point. And don’t be fooled into thinking it’s a horror movie; outside of a particularly sadistic form of murder being used, it’s mostly a rather humdrum crime picture when all is said and done. If I understand correctly, the movie was made after FRANKENSTEIN but before that movie was released, so Karloff’s star hadn’t risen yet, and the publicity played up his presence in the movie once his name became familiar to moviegoers. Edward Van Sloan has a much more prominent role than Karloff, though neither one is the star of the film; that honor goes to Jack Holt. Not a bad movie, but outside of the ending and some juicy lines for Van Sloan, horror fans can expect to be disappointed.

BLOOD AND ROSES (1960)
Article #382 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 4-1-2002
Posting date: 8-25-2002

A vampire is jealous of the love a nobleman bears for another, and possesses a woman in order to win him for herself.

This is an interesting vampire tale, relying on subtlety and imagery to tell its tale, rather that the usual gothic touch you expect to find in this sort of story. In fact, it may rely on it a shade too much; sometimes lyrical degenerates into boring, and there are moments toward the end that are just way too arty for the movie’s own good. Still, it’s like nothing else out there; its images of dead roses are powerful and memorable indeed, and it somehow evades becoming silly and laughable. There’s a part of me that’s very tempted to dismiss the movie, but I have to admit that some of the images, especially the fireworks in the cemetery, stick with me. I may have to dwell on this one a bit more before I can decide just what I can make of it.

THE BLACK ROOM (1935)
Article #363 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 3-13-2002
Posting date: 7-30-2002

A corrupt baron unpopular with his subjects turns his domain over to his twin brother, while in actuality killing him and taking his place.

Other than the presence of a curse on the baron’s family and the presence of Karloff, this really isn’t a horror movie; it’s more of a costume melodrama. It is, however, one of Boris Karloff’s finest perfomances, playing both the evil Gregor and his kindly brother Anton, and finally, playing Gregor playing Anton; this is what dual roles are all about. It’s this performance that makes this movie more than a standard melodrama, and shows superbly the range of Karloff’s talent.

BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER (1960)
Article #362 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 3-12-2002
Posting date: 7-29-2002

A pilot on a test flight breaks the time barrier and ends up 64 years in the future, after a plague has decimated the earth.

This is one of those movies that really aspires to be a serious science fiction drama; it’s also a movie plagued with an incredible amount of talk, and a budget so low that you spend a lot of the movie wondering how some of the scenes might have come off if a little more money had been thrown its way. Robert Clarke produced this one, and he got Edgar G. Ulmer to direct, but Ulmer was either past his prime at this point or simply didn’t have enough resources to do more than he did; I find none of the atmosphere that permeated his earlier genre movies, and the movie becomes a long, difficult slog. It’s a bit of a shame; I think there’s some interesting things going on here, but it was really hard not to get distracted. Chalk it up as another one that may have to wait until I’m really in the right mood for it.