CHANDU THE MAGICIAN (1932)
Article #66 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-21-2001
Posting date: 10-4-2001

Chandu (Edmund Lowe) becomes a full-fledged yogi just in time to save his brother, who has just invented a death ray. He has been kidnapped by the evil Roxor (Bela Lugosi), who plans to use the death ray for his own fiendish ends.

Despite a fair amount of action and the wonderful performance by Bela, I find myself rather bored by this action-adventure movie. Part of it may be the quality of the print I’ve seen, but part of it is definitely Edmund Lowe, who is way too bland for my tastes for the part of the hero; I found myself sitting around just waiting for Bela to show up and add some life to the proceedings. In fact, when RETURN OF CHANDU was made a couple of years after this, Bela was playing the Chandu role.

CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED (1963)
Article #63 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-18-2001
Posting date: 10-1-2001

Scientists discover a group of children from around the world who have extraordinary mental abilities and appear to be in telepathic rapport with each other. This causes the government to take concern over the fact that they may destroy the human race.

This movie is generally thought of as a sequel to VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (based on John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos), but I don’t really consider it as such. It takes many of the concepts of the original, and uses them in a different framework with a different point of view; in fact, this movie attempts to generate sympathy for the children, something that was definitely not present in VILLAGE. Also, where that movie’s climax pitted one man (George Sanders) against the children, in this one, the children are pitted against the full force of the British army, and it’s easy to see where are sympathy is supposed to lie. However, the movie undercuts itself by making some of the deaths suffered by those who oppose the children fairly nasty, and we’re left ultimately not quite sure how to feel about the whole thing.

Some people prefer this movie to VILLAGE, and I can see why; nonetheless, I prefer VILLAGE, as that movie creeps me out in a way this one does not. Though this one is an interesting variation on the theme, I can’t say I find it a particularly satisfying one.

THE CRIME OF DR. CRESPI (1935)
Article #60 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-15-2001
Posting date: 9-28-2001

This story is partially based on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Premature Burial.” Dr. Crespi is a mad, embittered surgeon who has lost the woman he loves to another man. When that man contracts an illness that requires Dr. Crespi’s skills, he plans revenge by injecting the man with a serum to cause him to emulate death, so he will be buried alive.

If ever a single performance makes a movie work, this is the one; Erich von Stroheim as Dr. Crespi is a wonder to behold. Even when he’s just sitting in a chair, his every gesture and movement is so crisp, pointed and ominous that you understand why he was known as “the man you love to hate.” His mood swings are also noticeable; he seems to have two voices, a smooth quiet one for some moments suddenly turning to a harsh, shrill staccato one when he becomes angry or annoyed. His performance is what makes the movie, and it lingers in your memory long after you’ve seen it.

As an added plus, the movie also features Dwight Frye in one of his most prominent roles, as an underling to Dr. Crespi who keeps getting on his wrong side and tries to stand up to him.

THE CREEPER (1948)
Article #57 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-12-2001
Posting date: 9-25-2001

Two scientists, Dr. Jim Bordon (Onslow Stevens) and Dr. Lester Cavigny (Ralph Morgan) are experimenting with a serum designed to illuminate organs of the human body: Bordon wishes to continue research, but Cavigny is having doubts about the side effects of the serum. Meanwhile, Cavigny’s daughter, Nora (June Vincent), who has developed a fear of cats, is having strangely real nightmares involving a cat creature.

Despite the title and the director (Jean Yarbrough), this has nothing to do with the Rondo Hatton character known as the Creeper, though Yarbrough directed several of these films. In fact, this is one of Yarbrough’s best films; there are some very striking visual moments involving shadows that I’ve not seen in the director’s other works. The plot is quite complicated, and tends to unfold in a convoluted way, and there are times where it is difficult to figure out what is going on. There are other problems, but overall, I think this movie has enough interesting elements to make it worth a viewing.

CRAZY KNIGHTS (1944)
(a.k.a. GHOST CRAZY)
Article #56 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-11-2001
Posting date: 9-24-2001

In this movie, three idiots end up in a haunted house with scary noises, ghosts, and gorillas. If there’s more of a plot than this, I’m not going back in there to dig it out.

There’s something about really lame horror comedies that brings out the crankiness in me. At least THE GORILLA managed to work up a little atmosphere; this movie tries to be a total laugh experience and totally fails. It stars Billy Gilbert, Maxie Rosenbloom and Shemp Howard in an attempt to turn them into a team; this is the second of three movies made by these people. All three can be amusing in small doses in other movies; as a comedy team, they have no real chemistry or reason to be working together. Granted, they don’t get much help from the script, but I will have to admit that the script is not TOTALLY useless; if you’re moving, you could use the paper as packing to keep your fine china from breaking.

If you think seeing Shemp Howard getting scared, jumping up and landing in Billy Gilbert’s arms is the height of hilarity, this movie is for you. For me it was 63 minutes of my life lost; it is by and far the lamest horror comedy I have seen, and that’s saying a lot.

CONDEMNED TO LIVE (1935)
Article #55 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-10-2001
Posting date: 9-23-2001

A vampire is loose in a small town. The vampire is actually a kindly doctor, who blacks out when it is dark, and can’t remember his crimes. His trail is covered by his faithful hunchback servant, Zan. Eventually, suspicion falls upon the hunchback for the murders.

This low-budget vampire movie has some very novel ideas, and I find the relationship between the doctor and the hunchback quite interesting in terms of the plot. It also has a very good and quite satisfying ending. There are problems, though; the direction is somewhat dull, and some of the scenes are hard to swallow, especially a sequence where the doctor is alone with his fiancee, who is supposed to be protected from the vampire, and she does everything she can to actually bring on the vampire attack. Still, it’s a nice variation on the vampire theme, and definitely worth a watch.

THE CLAIRVOYANT (1934)
(a.k.a. THE EVIL MIND)
Article #38 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 4-23-2001
Posting date: 9-5-2001

Claude Rains plays a stage mentalist who discovers that in the presence of a specific woman (Jane Baxter) he can make accurate predictions. Despite the friction this causes with his wife (Fay Wray), he manages to make a fortune on this talent, only to find himself on trial when he foresees a mining accident which he attempts to prevent, but his efforts end up actually contributing to the accident.

There are some fascinating themes in this little fantasy drama, with very good performances all around, especially from Rains. And, believe it or not, this is the full extent of the commentary I gave on this movie when it was MOTD; I must have been real lazy that day. Either that, or I really couldn’t think of much to say beyond that, and I don’t find that much has changed several months later.

Anyway, when I was looking up some information for this movie, I ran across the tagline for the film.

“Ruled by a female Svengali, he tortured women with his world prophecies!” This tagline is unbelievably lurid for what is actually a quite serious and sober film.

CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN (1943)
Article #37 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 4-22-2001
Posting date: 9-4-2001

Dr. Sigmund Walters (John Carradine) is a scientist involved in gland research. When he discovers an unusually intelligent gorilla (Ray Corrigan) brought to this country by explorer/lion tamer Fred Mason (Milburn Stone, “Doc” on “Gunsmoke”), he has it kidnapped and manages to transform it into a woman (Acquanetta) who he names Paula Dupree. Unfortunately, it is discovered that when Paula gets jealous, she reverts to animal behavior and a semi-simian form.

This was the first of three Paula Dupree the Ape Woman movies made by Universal during the forties. This was definitely one of the lesser Universal series; even the initial movie padded out its story with lots of lion taming footage (Clyde Beatty is specifically thanked at the beginning of the movie). The movie is sort of a cross between ISLAND OF LOST SOULS and THE CAT PEOPLE, both of which handled their themes with more intelligence and complexity. This was probably the best of the three movies, but it’s fairly easy to see why Paula Dupree is the least known of Universal’s classic monsters.

CALLING DR. DEATH (1943)
Article #36 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 4-21-2001
Posting date: 9-3-2001

In this movie, a neurologist (Lon Chaney Jr.) blacks out and finds himself in his office on Monday morning with no memory of the last weekend. He then discovers his wife, who had been cheating on him, had been brutally murdered in a country house, and the detective on the case (J. Carrol Naish) considers him the prime suspect.

This was one of the Inner Sanctum mysteries Universal produced during the forties. They all starred Lon Chaney Jr., and involved mysterious murders, usually with Chaney believing he was responsible, but events proving otherwise. Not really horror movies, they were marketed as such by Universal; as a kid, I knew the minute I saw the floating head in the crystal ball, that there was nary a monster to be had in the movie. This one is so-so, with some nice point-of-view shots at times and adaquate performances by all, but even at a running time of sixty minutes, I don’t feel they had quite enough of a story to support the whole movie; there are just too many scenes of Naish coming in and telling Chaney he should confess. For all that, it’s an okay time-killer.

THE CYCLOPS (1957)
Article #23 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 4-7-2001
Posting date: 8-21-2001

In this Bert I. Gordon movie, Gloria Talbot plays a woman searching for her fiance whose plane crashed in a South American jungle loaded with uranium and radioactivity. She searches the area with the help of three men (including Lon Chaney Jr.), and discovers a bunch of giant animals, and finally a giant with half his face melted away and only one eye.

I think this movie predates THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN, so that would make it Gordon’s first Giant Man movie: the giant man in WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST is very similar to this one. Unfortunately, it’s a very dull movie, one that takes forever to get to the action (like KING DINOSAUR). The presence of Lon Chaney Jr. is interesting, but it’s definitely one of his weaker performances; I don’t think he’s right for the broad villainous type of character he plays here. On the other hand, he was given one of those greedy stupid conniving coward roles that are hard to watch no matter who is playing them; they’re the type of character whose death is inevitable, and when it occurs, you feel neither sadness nor joy, just relief.