DARK WATERS (1944)
Article #867 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-30-2003
Posting Date: 12-27-2003
Directed by Andre de Toth
Featuring Merle Oberon, Franchot Tone, Thomas Mitchell

A woman recovering from a traumatic boat accident ends up staying with relatives in a Louisiana bayou, when strange things begin happening.

Title check: An extremely good one, as it does triple time meaning the dark waters in which the heroine’s parents died, the dark waters of the Louisiana bayou, and the dark waters of the mind.

Screenwriter Joan Harrison wrote this one, and she’s also written several scripts for Alfred Hitchcock. Maybe if Hitchcock had directed this one, it might have kicked it into the suspense overdrive it needed. As it is, it’s a passable GASLIGHT variation, helped a little by the fact that for once the female victim of the plot is suffering from something more than just some vague mental illness (she’s suffering from what I believe is called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder brought about by a tragic boat accident that killed her parents), and there are several familiar character actors to brighten the proceedings, like Thomas Mitchell, John Qualen, Rex Ingram and Elisha Cook Jr. I wonder what psychologists would think of the ending, where the heroine is spontaneously cured of all her mental illnesses.

By the way, this is an excellent movie in which to play the “How long will it be before Elisha Cook Jr. dies?” game, especially if played with an added game of figuring out how he’s going to die. If you’re alert, you should be able to figure out the method of death long before it actually occurs.

THE DAY MARS INVADED EARTH (1962)
Article #864 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-27-2003
Posting Date: 12-24-2003
Directed by Maury Dexter
Featuring Kent Taylor, Marie Windsor, William Mims

The family of a scientist in charge of a Mars exploration project begin to find doppelgangers of themselves at the luxurious estate in which they’re staying.

Title check: I’m sorry, but I expect a lot more from a movie with a title like that than this one delivers; they should have called it THE DAY MARS ANNOYED SOME PEOPLE ON A LUXURIOUS ESTATE.

This movie has a good first two minutes and a good last two minutes. Unfortunately, it has a middle, and the middle drags the movie down. The problem is not the basic idea of the story; the doppelganger concept had been used successfully in science fiction at least twice during the fifties (INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE); there may be others. It’s just that the movie has to do more with the concept than have people wander about the estate and spot doppelgangers, which takes up most of the running time. In fact, so much time in the movie is spent with people silently wandering around the estate, that I wonder if the movie was actually a real estate film; it’s a beautiful place, and if I only had the money. . ., but a real estate sales pitch doesn’t build suspense, a commodity this movie needs badly. I do wonder if the Martians in this movie are related to the DEVIL GIRL FROM MARS, though; like that movie, this one involves people going all fuzzy on occasion. Incidentally, going all fuzzy isn’t scary, either.

DON’T TAKE IT TO HEART (1944)
Article #838 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-30-2003
Posting Date: 11-27-2003
Directed by Jeffrey Dell
Featuring Richard Greene, David Horne, Patricia Medina

Plot Description: Huh?

Title check: See plot description.

What kind of movie would take the pains to introduce a ghost in the first few minutes of the movie, and then consign him to the status of a minor character for the rest of the movie? It would be the same type of movie where everyone is in agreement on the pronounciation of the name of the village of Chaumpuyt (sounds like Compit), but cannot agree on the pronounciation of the most common surname of its inhabitants (Bucket). In case you haven’t figured it out, this is a comedy, and an exceedingly strange one at that, full of curious eccentrics and bizarre jokes. What plot there is seems to revolve around a plot of land that was once set aside for grazing but has now come under the control of a rich man who no longer allows animals on the property. The movie takes most of its satirical jabs at the law profession during a trial scene in which the two sides engage in a bewildering barrage of legalese. Ernest Thesiger also shows up to enliven the proceedings. This is certainly one of the oddest comedies to come down the pike in quite a while.

THE DYBBUK (1937)
Article #836 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-29-2003
Posting Date: 11-26-2003
Directed by Michael Waszynsky
Featuring A. Morewsky, R. Samberg, M. Libman

A man betrays a pact that he made that his daughter will marry the son of a close friend, and as a result, his daughter becomes possessed by the spirit of his friend’s dead son.

Title check: A dybbuk is the soul of a dead man that takes possession of the body of another, and that is exactly what this movie is about.

I found this one very interesting. It is a rare example of Yiddish cinema, and the story is steeped in Jewish rites, traditions and culture. There are numerous fantastic elements; the aforementioned possession, a wandering spirit known as the Messenger comes on the scene at several points, and Satanism is part of the mix as well. It’s not an easy movie to watch; it’s a solid two hours long, and the style is somewhat akin to that of IVAN THE TERRIBLE PART ONE, with surreal touches reminiscent of VAMPYR, though the story itself is simple and straightforward. I’m almost tempted to call it a musical because of the ways that music and dance all play essential roles in the way the story is presented. I can easily see some people being very bored by this one, but I found the milieu of the events to be so rife with mystery and evocative ritual that I really felt transported to another world, and it’s a movie that I would gladly watch again. It’s simply one of those movies that was a unique enough viewing experience for me that I’m willing to overlook its flaws.

DRUMS OF JEOPARDY (1931)
Article #834 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-27-2003
Posting Date: 11-24-2003
Directed by George B. Seitz
Featuring Warner Oland, June Collyer, Lloyd Hughes

A mad scientist takes revenge on a family of nobles when his daughter dies as a result of having had an affair with one of them.

Title check: The “Drums” of the title are actually gems from a necklace that are sent to the members meant to die. They end up playing very little role in the story.

I found this to be a very interesting variation on the typical horror revenge plot. The movie spends more than the usual amount of time establishing the reasons for the doctor’s desire of vengeance, and also establishes that he doesn’t know which of the family members is responsible, thereby making it more understandable as to why he seeks vengeance on the family as a whole. It’s actually more of an action thriller than either a horror or science fiction movie, though it has elements of both. My favorite character, however, is the comic relief Aunt played by Clara Blandick, whose sensibilities are so offended by the mad doctor’s actions that she vows to give him a piece of her mind, and she actually does this (in a hilarious scene) when she is captured.

One interesting item about this movie is the character name of Warner Oland’s mad doctor; he is Boris Karlov. That someone would like to capitalize on Karloff’s name as a horror icon is no surprise; what is odd is that this movie may actually predate FRANKENSTEIN, which is the movie that made Karloff famous. Is there an explanation? I have one. The character’s name was Karlov already; he is known as Gregor Karlov in the 1923 version of the movie. Director George B. Seitz and Warner Oland had worked together once before, in a 1917 movie called THE LIGHTNING RAIDER, a movie which also featured an actor by the name of Boris Karloff. I believe that when they made this movie, they remembered the actor who had almost the same last name as the title character, and decided to use borrow Boris’s first name as well.

DOCTOR SYN (1937)
Article #833 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-26-2003
Posting Date: 11-23-2003
Directed by Roy William Neill
Featuring George Arliss, Margaret Lockwood, John Loder

A pirate who has supposedly died twenty years ago is actually running a smuggling ring while disguised as a parson.

Title check: It’s the name of the parson. Note that “Syn” is a homonym.

This is the movie of which NIGHT CREATURES is a remake, and for the most part, the movies are quite similar. The horror elements are even more downplayed in this one; though the existence of phantom horsemen does appear in the plot, they are rarely seen and not played for horror. This earlier version has a more marked sense of humor about the proceedings (particularly a good sequence where the smugglers hoodwink the King’s revenuers by sending them on a wild goose chase to find the phantom riders), and it’s less muddled than the later movie on the level of making it clear as to whom the movie wants you to sympathize with (despite being a pirate and a smuggler, Dr. Syn is obviously the one you’re going to root for). Arliss is great in the title role (as was Peter Cushing in the later movie), but the Hammer movie did have the all-around better cast, particularly in the role of Mipps. This one also ends quite differently than the Hammer version, but the ending feels rushed and a bit contrived (particularly in the convenient way it despenses with the mulatto). It’s still worth catching because of the fun story and Arliss’ s performance.

DARKENED ROOMS (1929)
Article #831 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-24-2003
Posting Date: 11-21-2003
Directed by Louis Gasnier
Featuring Neil Hamilton, Evelyn Brent, Doris Hill

A photographer decides to become a phony spiritualist in the hopes of making a fortune.

Title check: The title is evocative and appropriate; in fact, it’s better than the movie.

This very early talkie is actually not quite as static and creaky as you might expect from a movie from this time period, and the basic premise is kind of promising; there are plenty of phony spiritualist movies out there, but this is the only one I know of that deals with someone just starting in on the profession. Still the movie has some major problems; some of the dialogue is painfully bad, and the acting is horribly wooden in spots, and the combination of the two tends to make the movie unintentionally funny at times. The ending is also a problem; it’s way too pat for a movie that aspires to be a serious drama. In fact, I strongly think this movie would have fared better if they had decided to make it a comedy instead; a number of the situations certainly show some real comic promise if you look at them in the right way. As it is, I see it as largely a misfired curiousity.

DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE (1965)
Article #829 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-22-2003
Posting Date: 11-19-2003
Directed by Norman Taurog
Featuring Vincent Price, Frankie Avalon, Dwayne Hickman

A brilliant idiot inventor plans to make a fortune (with the help of Igor, his idiot sidekick) by creating a gang of female robot idiots to catch, marry and take control of the fortunes of eligible millionaire bachelor idiots. When one of the idiot robots is accidentally assigned to an idiot spy who has been demoted by his idiot uncle, an investigation gets underway. (Note the common character theme in this movie.)

Title Check: The machine not only makes bikinis, but whole girls to wear them.

AARRGGGHHH! No, not another swinging-sixties comic take on the superspy/supervillain movies! This comes too soon after THE AMBUSHERS and CARRY ON SPYING! Well, there are some good things about this movie. In one way, it was quite ambitious; it was American International’s most expensive movie up to that point, so it might be thought of as that studio’s IT’S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD. Actually, IAMMMMW is one of those movies that ended up being funny by bludgeoning me senseless for about an hour with its desperate slapstick until I lost control and actually started to laugh; sadly, this one only gets the bludgeoning part right. Its best element is the presence of Vincent Price; he delivers his lines with such style that they actually seem far wittier than they are. It also gets a few laughs out of being referential to earlier AIP pictures; when Vincent Price starts going through photos of his ancestors, you know they’re doing a takeoff of practically every one of Price’s Poe movies, and one whole scene is a direct lift from THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM. There’s also a neat little reference to HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM for which you may want to keep your eyes open. Also, the presence of Annette Funicello and Harvey Lembeck in cameos reminds us of their beach party movies. But the slapstick pratfalls that make up the rest of the movie are frantically, desperately unfunny, and it all climaxes with one of those chase scenes that is supposed to have you busting a gut with belly laughs; it had me constantly checking the time remaining feature on my DVD player to see just how much longer this kind of thing was going to last. Fortunately, it keeps the double entendres to a minimum; I think I had more than a year’s dosage of that with THE AMBUSHERS.

UN DIA CON EL DIABLO (1945)
(a.k.a. A DAY WITH THE DEVIL)
Article #817 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-10-2003
Posting Date: 11-7-2003
Directed by Miguel M. Delgado
Featuring Cantinflas, Susana Cora, Andres Soler

A newspaperboy is mistakenly taken into the army. He dies on a special mission, and visits the afterlife.

Title check: Actually, he only spends about ten minutes with the personage in question, but time is relative, isn’t it?

Arrggh! For two days in a row I find myself trying to puzzle my way through another movie entirely in a foreign language; in this case, Spanish. Fortunately, this one relies much more on visuals that LE NOTTI DELLA VIOLENZA, so I wasn’t quite as lost; the basic plot framework is easy enough to follow, the first five minutes is purely visual, and being a comedy, it also features some sight gags that translate well enough. Nonetheless, a lot of the humor appears to be verbal. Cantinflas definitely shows comic timing, and he talks a mile a minute, but I really wish I knew what he was saying. As it is, I suspect it’s a fairly decent film and someday I’ll watch it with a someone who can speak Spanish and get more out of it. Another one to file under “Further Research Necessary”.

DR. PYCKLE AND MR. PRYDE (1925)
Article #809 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-2-2003
Posting Date: 10-30-2003
Directed by Percy Pembroke and Joe Rock
Featuring Stan Laurel and Julie Leonard

The famous scientist Dr. Pyckle concocts a potion to turn him into the fiendish Mr. Pride.

Title check: As good a title for a parody of the Jekyll/Hyde story as any.

Considering just how many silent versions were ultimately made of the Jekyll and Hyde story, it’s nice to see that at least one comic version has survived the years. This one is quite interesting for anyone who would like to catch Stan Laurel in something other than his usual Stan Laurel role; he plays both Dr. Pyckle and the fiendish Mr. Pryde (obviously modeled off of Barrymore’s take on the character). I don’t know if “fiendish” is the proper description, though; it really depends on how you feel about practical jokes. It’s a pretty minor comic short, but amusing enough for all practical purposes.