Casper Genie (1954)
Article 5760 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-5-2020
Directed by Seymour Kneitel
Featuring the voices of Jack Mercer, Mae Questal, Sid Raymond
Country: USA
What it is: Casper cartoon

Casper’s search for a friend leads him to pretend to be a genie in order to get close to a young boy reading the story of Aladdin. But a burglar steals the boy’s lamp…

While watching this cartoon, it struck me that there’s a certain similarity between Casper and Pepe Le Pew; the appearance of either character is guaranteed to clear the area of people. The difference between the two characters is that Pepe remains narcissistically oblivious to his offensive qualities whereas Casper is all too aware of them. which is why Pepe is played for humor and Casper is played for pathos. In this cartoon, Casper’s compromise made for the hope of friendship seems a bit on the unhealthy side; you know there’s no way he’s going to be able to keep up this ruse and what it entails, but the cartoon throws in the burglar to move the plot in another direction, so they are spared from having to address this compromise directly. At any rate, it does sort of explain why Casper is always losing his old friends

The Case of the Screaming Bishop (1944)
Article 5759 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-5-2020
Directed by Howard Swift
Featuring the voice of John McLeish
Country: USA
What it is: Sherlock Holmes cartoon parody

Two characters modeled off of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson try to solve a case where a dinosaur skeleton was stolen from a museum.

This bizarre little cartoon hovers around the edges of the fantastic genres, but I’m not really sure it falls in; in fact, it doesn’t even have any anthropomorphic animals. In fact, I’m not sure it even has much in the way of laughs; every gag leaves me with a sense that it didn’t quite work, but I’m never sure exactly what I’d do to make it work because I’m not sure what it was trying to do. Unfortunately, it’s one of those cartoons I’d like to like; I’m sure you could do something with the idea of Holmes investigating a dinosaur skeleton theft. As it is, if it gets by, it’s on the strength of its weirdness. By the way, there’s no screaming bishop in the cartoon.

Captain America Battles the Red Skull (1964)
Article 5757 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-2-2020
Directed by Donald F. Glut
Featuring Larry Ivie and Donald F. Glut
Country: USA
What it is: Amateur film

Captain American battles the Red Skull.

This being an amateur film, I probably wouldn’t be covering it if it weren’t for the fact that it is listed in the Walt Lee guide compounded with the fact that Donald F. Glut’s amateur films have become famous enough that they even merit listings on IMDB. Still, this being an amateur film, I look at them more as artifacts of fandom and as learning experiences; Donald F. Glut would indeed go on to become a professional in the business. Even as an amateur film, I can appreciate the creativity that is necessary when you don’t have much in the way of money to help; in its short 2-minute run, it manages to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Its fight choreography is good, and it uses some clever methods to establish certain facts; I like the way it communicates to me that the building is on fire. For what it is, this amateur movie is pretty good.

Cinderella (1911)
Article 5663 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-11-2019
Directed by George Nichols
Featuring Florence La Badie, Harry Benham, Anna Rosemond
Country: USA
What it is: Fairy tale

Thanks to her fairy godmother, Cinderella gets a chance to go the ball and dance with the prince. What will happen?

If you’re going to do a comprehensive review of fantastic cinema, you’re going to encounter a lot of fairy tale adaptations, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the story of Cinderella proved to be the most common of these. I’ve seen so many versions that after a while, I grow to appreciate any new detail that adds a bit of novelty to the story. This short take on the tale has a few. To begin with, Cinderella’s father actually appears as a character; in most versions, he either never appears or is assumed to be dead. Granted, the most he’s really given to do is to have a scroll grabbed from him by the dominating stepmother, but at least he’s present. Another novelty is that the coach, horses and footmen and magically created indoors rather than outside, which forces the fairy godmother to create a magic exit for the coach to go through. Last is that the fairy godmother makes a final appearance at the climax of the story. These may be small details, but with a story that is so familiar, I found them to be welcome distractions, though taken as a whole, this is just another version of a familiar tale.

Catching an Early Train (1901)
Article 5641 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-27-2019
Director unknown
Cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: In reverse

A man needs to dress in time to catch an early train. Will his clothes cooperate?

One thing I wonder about the very early years of film-making is at what point certain novelties started to get old. For example, this movie’s sole trick is a simple one; they filmed a man entering a room, quickly undressing, and jumping into bed, and then ran the footage backwards so it looks like he’s getting up and dressing with the clothes jumping into his hands from wherever they were thrown. Sure, it’s a fun trick if used right, and I’ve seen it used in a few other films, but I wonder if the trick still had a freshness about it at this point. And even at that, it isn’t as fun as the tricks Melies was using at this point in his career.

The Cabbage Fairy (1896)
aka La fee aux choux
Article 5631 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-16-2019
Directed by Alice Guy
Featuring Alice Guy, Germaine Serand, Yvonne Serand
Country: France
What it is: Not this easy in real life

A cabbage fairy plucks babies out of a cabbage patch.

If you’ve ever been asked by a child where babies come from, and you’re too uptight to tell them truth, you can show them this early silent short; however, if they never took you seriously after that, that’s your problem. Be aware that the movie I saw on YouTube may not be this movie at all; at least one of the user comments on IMDB points out that the movie is lost, and this is a remake from four years later. It also lays claim to being the first fiction movie (implying, of course, that the cabbage fairy is not real), which would mean that it beat out Melies’s LE MANOIR DU DIABLE. At any rate, watching it gave me something quick to review at a time when I’ve slowed down my reviewing routine quite a bit. And I do love covering these very early silents.

City Beneath the Sea (1962)
Article 5619 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-14-2019
Directed by Guy Verney and Kim Mills
Featuring Gerald Flood, Stewart Guldotti, Denis Goacher
Country: UK
What it is: Limited run TV serial

A reporter and a photographer stow away in a stolen submarine and end up in an underwater city run by an evil scientific genius.

Seeing as how I’ve covered several of the Quatermass TV serials, I feel entitled to cover other British limited run TV serials that have sufficient fantastic content, and this one fits the bill. Mind you, it’s not up to the level of the Nigel Kneale Quatermass episodes; this one is a bit stodgy and predictable. The story is somewhat Vernian in feel, and had the evil genius of this story been more of an antihero (like Captain Nemo) rather than an obvious villain, it might have been more intriguing; as it is, you’ll be better off concentrating on the secondary characters who don’t seem to see the evil genius for what he is and seeing how long it goes on before they see the light. The special effects are fairly ragged, but then, what do you expect for a TV show of this era? It’s passable, but not really compelling.

A Corny Concerto (1943)
Article 5610 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-27-2018
Directed by Robert Clampett
Featuring the voices of Arthur Q. Bryan and Bea Benaderet
Country: USA
What it is: Parody of FANTASIA

Conductor Elmer Fudd introduces cartoons made to two famous classical pieces.

Before deciding whether to review a cartoon, I always double check to see if it’s listed in Walt Lee’s “Reference Guide to Fantastic Films”; if it’s listed, I definitely review, and if it’s not listed, I make a judgment call. In this case, I’m reviewing it because it’s listed; had I made a judgment call, I wouldn’t have reviewed. That’s because the fantastic content seems to be no greater than that of your average cartoon. In fact, it might be even less, given there are no talking animals here, only anthropomorphic ones and ones holding up signs. Still, I did notice an angel shows up at one point, and I suppose a buzzard angel isn’t something you see every day. As for the cartoon itself, it’s pretty much a parody of FANTASIA done in the classic Warner Brothers style; the first half, done to “Tales of the Vienna Woods” has Porky hunting Bugs, and the second half, done to “The Blue Danube”, is something of an “ugly duckling” variation. The bigger laughs are in the first half, though my favorite gag is in the second, when the little black duck revives the mother swan who has fainted in the river.

Case of the Missing Hare (1942)
Article 5606 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-22-2018
Directed by Chuck Jones
Featuring the voice of Mel Blanc
Country: USA
What it is: Bugs Bunny cartoon

After he is humiliated by a stage magician, Bugs Bunny vows revenge and gets it during the magician’s stage act.

For the record, at this time I’m not covering cartoons in which the only fantastic content is talking animals and/or comic exaggeration; I regard these as “cartoon conventions”, and a cartoon has to have an element beyond these to make me consider it for review. This one throws a magician into the mix, thus making it qualify. Chuck Jones had a preferred rule for Bugs Bunny cartoons, and this one qualifies – Bugs is most effective only if his antagonist strikes first (usually prompting Bugs to say “Of course, you realize this means war!”), and such is the case here. Most of the jokes play around with the usual stage magician tricks, such as pulling a rabbit out of a hat and sticking swords through a wicker basket. This one is pretty solid, and my favorite moment has the magician trying to tempt Bugs with a carrot (as per Bug’s suggestion).

Camille 2000 (1969)
Article 5594 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-9-2018
Directed by Radley Metzger
Featuring Daniele Gaubert, Nino Castelnuovo, Eleanora Rosso Drago
Country: Italy
What it is: Sexed-up classic

A young man falls in love with the courtesan of a rich nobleman.

For the record, the Lentz guide lists this movie as genre, but the Walt Lee guide consigns it to the “Exclusions” list for movies lacking fantastic content. A viewing of the movie makes me give the point to Walt Lee, but I can’t really blame Lentz; we have a right to expect any movie made before the millennium change that ends with “2000” to be science fiction. And maybe it does take place in the year 2000; that might explain why some of the costume and set design choices are so bizarre (though my own belief is that some set and costume designers just like it that way). But there’s nothing in the script that specifies that it takes place in the future, and really, is there any reason to set this Dumas tale in the future when the present could work just as well? As for the movie itself, it’s an update of “Camille” that takes advantage of the new permissiveness in the cinema to add a bunch of softcore sex scenes to the mix. For all that, the movie is a straightforward telling of the story; it’s pretty to look at, but nothing special. And as for all of the sex scenes, I will fall back on my belief that one man’s erotic fantasy is another’s consummate silliness, and after the S&M D&S party scene, I found it hard to take the movie seriously anymore.