BEFORE I HANG (1940)
Article #361 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 3-11-2002
Posting date: 7-28-2002

A doctor convicted of murder (a mercy killing) tests a dangerous serum on himself right before his execution, and when he has a stay of execution, discovers that the serum restores youth. However, since the blood of a murderer was used to create the serum, it also turns him homicidal.

I have no doubt that Boris Karloff got quite weary of playing essentially the same character in movie after movie, but then one of the reasons he was typecast in this way was because he was extremely good at that character. The Columbia mad-scientist series were not innovative; they were conceived not as works of art but as product, but that doesn’t make them worthless. They were done with a certain amount of professionalism, and were therefore quite watchable. Karloff is quite good, as expected, and the movie is a fairly solid time-killer; still, one is glad for Karloff that the next decade would return him to the stage, and give him more of a chance to stretch himself than this movie gives him.

THE BEAST WITH A MILLION EYES (1955)
Article #351 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 3-3-2002
Posting date: 7-18-2002

A creature from outer space lands in the desert and takes control of the animals in the vicinity.

This is another of the very early movies put out by AIP back when they were known as American Releasing Corp., and it looks extremely cheap and shows the work of people who were still in the process of learning their craft. It’s slow-moving, somewhat confusing, and the acting is wildly uneven. A lot of the animal attack scenes don’t work, simply because the cheapness of the production kept them from doing them effectively, but you get the gist of what’s going on anyway. In fact, the movie almost feels like a rough draft of a better movie, and you wonder how much better it might be if the makers had the time and money to work out its rough edges. Nonetheless, though the total effect ends up being somewhat surreal, it was entertaining enough and I enjoyed it. It features Paul Birch and a puppet of Paul Blaisdell’s.

THE BLOOD ROSE (1969)
Article #343 by Dave Sindelar
Posting date: 7-10-2002
Viewing date: 2-21-2002

An artist blackmails an ex-surgeon to restore the face of his wife, who was hideously scarred by burning.

At the end of this hour and a half movie, you’ll feel like ninety minutes have passed, which really isn’t a putdown; I could say it felt like several years have passed. It takes a good forty of those minutes to establish a set-up that must have been as old as the hills by this time, being the same basic premise as EYES WITHOUT A FACE with the novelty that the artist and the doctor are two different characters. I’ve never seen that movie, so let’s take the basic plot even farther back to THE CORPSE VANISHES, a movie which I know it resembles; not only is it about someone trying to use the bodies of beautiful women to restore the beauty of his wife, it also throws a dwarf into the proceedings. And though Monogram would probably produce something as exploitative and lurid as this movie, it would never have made it as arty, distant, and detached. But maybe it’s just as well; these movies can be a little hard to take if they get too close to you; as it is, I watched it comfortably knowing it was taking place a million miles away. I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not. The ending is out of left field, though; I’ll give it that.

THE BOY WITH GREEN HAIR (1948)
Article #338 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 2-16-2002
Posting date: 7-3-2002

A war orphan wakes up one morning with green hair, and he tries to adjust to the changes it makes in his life.

This fantasy-with-a-message is very popular among certain people, but the first few times I watched it, I found it unfocused and disappointing. I fully expected to find it the same way when I watched it this time, but was quite surprised to find myself enjoying the movie immensely. The movie has a number of great subtle moments, and some fine acting, particularly from Dean Stockwell as the boy, and Pat O’Brien as Gramps. I think I found it unfocused because I was less apt to spot certain subtleties back then, and these subtleties add immensely to the story. Also, the child’s sense of feeling out of place seemed to have a greater resonance at this time in my life; this gives a depth and dimension to what could have been a very preachy and tiresome film.

SPOILER

One observation I made in this viewing of the movie was that we are hearing the story through the telling by the child, and as such, there may be a certain ambiguity as to whether the child told the strict truth; I think this may be an interesting point, if you consider how the boy feels about his discovery that he is a war orphan.

THE BLUE BIRD (1940)
Article #337 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 2-15-2002
Posting date: 7-2-2002

A little boy and girl go out in search of the bluebird of happiness.

This is the movie Shirley Temple got to do instead of THE WIZARD OF OZ; she definitely got the worst of the deal. Though it tries to emulate that movie to some extent, with a black-and-white beginning turning to color later on, it lacks the energy and inventiveness of that movie. It’s precious and charmless, overly manipulative and preachy, contrived and turgid. The best scene (a forest fire) is the only time the movie has some life; it also kills off the only interesting character, the cat as played by Gale Sondergaard. It might be a movie your your children would want to see, but you most likely wouldn’t want to sit through it with them.

THE BLOODY VAMPIRE (1961)
Article #335 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 2-13-2002
Posting date: 6-30-2002

The daughter of a vampire hunter goes undercover as a maid in a castle believed to be run by a vampire.

This movie begins with an incredibly atmospheric sequence involving a carriage moving silently in slow motion; it’s a simple effect, but wonderfully mood-setting. The rest of the movie can’t equal it; it is talky and slow-moving, with some interesting ideas and moments, but it’s too long for its own good. The ending is quite interesting; it amounts to what might be termed a stalemate between the forces of good and evil. The movie is supposed to be related to INVASION OF THE VAMPIRES, a movie I haven’t as yet seen, so I can’t say for sure; it may be either a prequel or a sequel to that movie. Interesting, but flawed Mexican horror movie.

BLOOD OF A POET (1930)
Article #334 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 2-12-2002
Posting date: 6-29-2002

Plot? Well, it all happens during the length of time it takes a chimney to fall (I didn’t figure this out from watching the movie; I just read it somewhere).

If you’ve seen other movies by Cocteau, you’ll recognize his style; it’s certainly quite individual. This is a very personal movie, which is one way to say that he understands it more than I do. The fact that my copy is not subtitled may have something to do with it, but I doubt it; this bizarre assortment of strange images and events is surreal and dreamlike, and probably isn’t intended to make any sense in the way we’re used to defining it. It works, nonetheless, because the imagery is so powerful and strong, and it’s certainly one I plan to see again.

BOWERY AT MIDNIGHT (1942)
Article #331 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 2-9-2002
Posting date: 6-26-2002

A professor by day runs a flophouse by night, which is actually a front for his criminal activities.

This Monogram Bela Lugosi vehicle is probably one of the more serious ones in the bunch, and in some ways isn’t even a horror movie; it’s more of a crime thriller, in the same vein as THE HUMAN MONSTER. The DVD I have claims it has Lugosi in a dual role, but that really isn’t the case; the two characters are the same person, and the movie doesn’t really set that up as a surprise. There is at least one very fantastic aspect of the movie which involves the experiments that the doctor whom Lugosi keeps in the basement performs on the dead bodies of the victims; however, to reveal that would give away far too much. The movie is a little dull now and then, but overall it is a pleasant surprise.

BLUEBEARD (1944)
Article #329 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 2-7-2002
Posting date: 6-24-2002

Police investigate a series of murders by a fiend they call Bluebeard.

This is an amazingly classy movie considering it came from the cheapest of the studios, PRC. This movie takes itself quite seriously, going more for drama than horror, with fine direction by Edgar Ulmer and one of the best performances ever by John Carradine; the closest he comes to hamming is the way his eyes open when he kills someone, and that is appropriate. You can see the real effort he put into his roles when he wanted to, and this is one of the high points in his horror career (he had many others outside of the horror genre). I think this is much better than any of the horror product Monogram put out during the era.

THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS (1946)
Article #321 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 1-30-2002
Posting date: 6-16-2002

A pianist with only one good hand suffers a fatal accident shortly after writing a last will and testament. When the will is contested, the lawyer in charge dies, and the culprit is believed to be the crawling hand of the dead man.

The story is somewhat uneven, and J. Carrol Naish is stuck in a role that is a little embarassing at times, but this is one of my favorite horror movies of the forties. This is one movie where it really doesn’t matter whether the fantastic elements are faked or not, as before it’s all over, we are treated to one of my all time favorite sequences in horror movies; Peter Lorre’s struggle with the crawling hand. We are treated to such bizarre, surreal sequences as watching the hand play the piano, and seeing it nailed to a stand; these sequences are powerful and stunning, and have always made up for me for the weaknesses that pop up now and then. Rumors have been passed around that Luis Bunuel was involved in some of these sequences, but I haven’t heard a confirmation one way or the other. At any rate, this one is a favorite.