BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1946)
Article #30 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 4-15-2001
Posting date: 8-28-2001

A merchant who loses his way spends the night in an enchanted castle, but finds himself under a sentence of death from the beast that lives there when he tries to pluck a rose from a bush. He is allowed to return home to settle his affairs, and his daughter Belle agrees to take his place at the castle. The beast keeps Belle prisoner until she agrees to marry him.

Visually, this movie is a sumptuous feast; the enchanted castle, with its candelabras on arms and moving faces in the stoneworks, is one of the most stunning creations in the annals of fantasy films. There are visions that stick in the memory; the beast wandering through the hallways, clothes in disarray, smoke rising from his fingers after he has just made a kill, is a wonderful sight. It also contains one of my very favorite special effects moments in cinema; when Belle gives a string of pearls to one of her sisters, the sister immediately tosses it to the ground, where you notice it has turned into a string of ugly rotten vegetables (at least that’s what I think they are; whatever they are, it looks disgusting). I don’t know how they pulled off this trick (it may have been nothing more than sleight of hand), but it’s done so smoothly it seems like pure magic. Jean Cocteau has certainly directed an amazing movie here.

However, I do have a few problems; for some reason, I don’t really lose myself in the story. I don’t know if there’s something about this movie in particular, or something about French cinema in general (I have problems with a lot of French cinema), but I always find myself at an arm’s length from the action. I even have more problems with the ending…

SPOILERS AHEAD

I can’t say that I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what a handsome prince would look like, but the one into which the beast transforms at the end of this movie is NOT what I would envision; to me, he looks for all the world like Liberace. And Belle’s curious behavior at the end of the movie where she responds to each of the prince’s statements in distracted monosyllables just baffles me: I’ve read that she’s supposed to be flirting, but it looks to me like she’s either forgotten her lines or doing her best to keep from laughing. For me, it makes for a disappointing ending to an otherwise brilliant movie.

THE BELLS (1926)
Article #29 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 4-14-2001
Posting date: 8-27-2001

In this movie, an innkeeper (Lionel Barrymore) aspiring to the position of burgomaster wins friends (and votes) by giving away free drinks, but depletes his funds in the process. To get out of debt, her murders a rich traveler for his money. After he is elected, the traveler’s brother shows up, demanding that the murderer be found, and he brings along a mesmerist (Boris Karloff) who guarantees he can find the murderer.

This movie was the fifth version of a popular stage play, and is essentially a variation on Crime and Punishment; the innkeeper finds himself haunted by his murder, and dreams of the mesmerist trapping him into admitting his crimes. It’s nothing great, but it is an adaquate time killer, with good performances from both Barrymore and Gustav von Seyffertitz (from SPARROWS and THE BAT WHISPERS), but the main attraction here is Karloff, in one of his few good roles during the silent era. As the mesmerist, he is dressed and made up to resemble Werner Krauss in THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, and he seems to be having quite a bit of fun.

BATTLE IN OUTER SPACE (1960)
Article #25 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 4-9-2001
Posting date: 8-23-2001

When I was preparing to write about this movie for the next Movie of the Day, I realized to my horror that I couldn’t remember a thing about it. So I hunted it up and watched it again, and I realized why; it’s mainly action sci-fi, and action movies have a way of not keeping a strong hold on my memory cells. It’s not too bad for all that, I suppose; I found it easier to follow than THE MYSTERIANS though nowhere near as compelling as GORATH (though, in all honesty, the latter is the only one of the three which I have seen in a subtitled version; the others were dubbed). The story is straighforward; aliens attack the earth. The first part of the story deals with brainwashed humans and their intrigues on this planet. The second part involves a trip to the moon to destroy a base of the aliens. The final third is the actual invasion. It’s not badly done, but the lack of characters in the final part tends to make it rather tedious, and I have serious reservations about the scientific theory that lowering the temperatures of objects causes them to resist gravity; I have yet to catch anything floating in my freezer.

BLOOD SHACK (1971)
(a.k.a. THE CHOOPER)
Article #19 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 4-3-2001
Posting date: 8-17-2001

A woman inherits a ranch with an old house that is haunted by an evil sword-wielding Indian god known as the Chooper, who knocks off anyone who comes near the property.

This is pretty standard low-budget slasher fare, and the ending won’t surprise anyone with a solid grounding in Scooby-Doo mystery solving, but all in all I found it quite watchable. Regular prints of the movie run seventy minutes, but the director’s print runs only sixty, as the distributors felt that the movie was too short and insisted that Ray Dennis Steckler add more footage to make it long enough. I’ve only seen the director’s print, and though it is certainly not a classic, it is a model of efficiency, and I can’t help but admire a little bit at what was done with what must have been a tiny budget.

Dr. Frankenstein discovers that the monster still lives after the fire at the windmill, He is also visited by the evil Dr. Pretorius, who wants his cooperation in creating a mate for the monster.

This is one of those movies I can watch repeatedly and I never tire of it. I not only consider it James Whale’s masterpiece, but it’s my favorite horror movie of all time. Not that it’s scary anymore, mind you, but it’s one of the richest, most entrancing cinematic experiences I’ve ever had. Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Dwight Frye and Una O’Connor are all great, but the movie is stolen by Ernest Thesiger as Dr. Pretorius, my all-time favorite mad scientist; he’s certainly the wittiest one ever devised, with a collection of some of the greatest lines in horror movie history. Still, the best scene of the movie is the most unexpected; the monster’s encounter with the blind hermit is absolutely heartbreaking, even given the way it was brilliantly parodied years later by Mel Brooks in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN.

One of the signs of a really great movie is the way you can get more and more out of it with repeated viewings. The observation I made this time round was that Karl (Dwight Frye) is present when the monster is first taken by the villagers; he is leaning against a tree, grinning (if I remember correctly). I was wondering what he was doing in that scene, and then I realized that the monster had been blamed for murders that were never shown, and that Karl was known to be a murderer. Could it actually have been Karl who was responsible for the deaths? It’s something to think about…

Several teens find themselves stranded on an island with an insane hunter who plans to hunt them down and mount them in his trophy room.

With a title like BLOODLUST! and the basic plot of THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (which I consider one of the most potentially thrilling plot ideas of all time), this movie should be a lot better than it is. But in order to get this idea to work, you have to play up its strength; i.e., that there needs to be a tense battle of wits between the hunter and the hunted. Well, no such battle of wits ever happens; the hunter is too busy knocking off his own henchman, and the teens keep finding a way to elude him by sneaking back into the mansion, and rather than thrills and chills, ennui and boredom set in. A great villain might tilt the scales, but I find Wilton Graff just plain dull; imagine what someone like Vincent Price could do with this role. It does have some horrific visuals here and there, and this might suffice for some people; I just don’t think it ever builds up a compelling story to give the visuals a context.

A man is taken over by an evil brain from outer space, which decides it wants to take over the planet. Fortunately, a good brain from outer space comes on the scene and takes over the man’s dog.

You know, sometimes you can just tell from reading a plot description that you’ve entered a B-Movie pulp paradise. The story sounds laughable, but irresistible, and the movie doesn’t disappoint. It has John Agar in one of his best SF roles; he always seemed to me to be better suited for villains than heros, and this movie gives him a great one, and he looks like he’s having a lot of fun, even if those contacts must have been painful. Credit Nathan Juran for once again having the good sense to know that the best way to handle a story like this is to keep it moving.

SPOILER COMING

One of the questions I’m left with after watching this movie is how John Agar is going to explain all this to the authorities. Though he’s won out against the evil brain, only him and his girlfriend know about it, and the good brain (the only character who could convincingly back up their story) has left for parts unknown. He’s going to have a lot of explaining to do when the police show up!

An old scientist experiments on travelling salesmen that visit his inn. He comes under the suspicion of the town jack-of-all-trades and a woman who has agreed to buy the inn.

If Boris Karloff hadn’t been with a touring company doing “Arsenic and Old Lace” when the movie version was being shot, he most likely would have appeared in it in the role he’d done on Broadway. As it is, he ended up in this “Arsenic” rip-off, which borrows a number of elements of the play (there is a romantic couple, there are dotty old people around, Peter Lorre shows up) and changes the mix slightly. Even if it is a rip-off, Karloff is having fun, and shows great comic timing. The plot is muddled, and it definitely ends with a thud, but it has some nice moments throughout. Peter Lorre plays the banker/lawyer/sheriff/justice of the peace/etc. character, and my favorite moment is when Karloff explains to him the nature of his experiments (he’s been trying to turn travelling salesmen into supermen to aid the war effort), Lorre’s reaction is relief that the old scientist wasn’t a crackpot like he thought.

As a bit of trivia, I noticed when I researched this that Lorre and Karloff had only appeared in four movies together, and all of them were comedies.

A doctor framed for murder is sent to a special prison, where he finds himself working with the warden to study blood types, unaware that the warden has contracted a disease that requires a constant replenishment of blood.

I’d seen stills of this movie for years, particularly ones that featured Victor Maddern as the hunchback. The movie itself is supposed to be in color, but my print was so faded that I could only tell it was in color when there was red in the scene (it does make the blood stand out). It’s definitely a movie of its period; like THE VAMPIRE, it attempts to come up with a scientific equivalent of vampirism, and it shows some definite influence from Hammer horrors of the period. It was written by Jimmy Sangster, and stars Donald Wolfit as the evil Dr. Callistratus. It’s not great, but it’s entertaining enough for ersatz Hammer. I hope to see a decent color print some time.

Two teens discover a shapeless blob from outer space is consuming the residents of a small town.

This was the first of three movies produced by Jack Harris and directed by Irwin S. Yeaworth, Jr. It also remains their best collaboration. Taking an opposite strategy than AIP was taking at that time, they took enough money to make two low-budget movies for a single picture that they could shoot in color and make as good as they could, and the results are actually pretty impressive. The monster is as basic as you can get, but the end result is pretty impressive. What I like best, though, is the way the characters are fleshed out, especially the teens and the policemen; you get a strong impression that these characters have known each other a long time. There’s a number of really nice touches, including the chess game the police play over the radio. This is one of my favorites, and I always enjoy watching it again.