THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED (1956)
Article #521 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 8-18-2002
Posting date: 1-11-2003

After a nuclear war, several people converge at an isolated house in a mountainous region that protects them from the radiation.

This is in many ways a cheaper, more sensational take on the same theme as Arch Oboler’s FIVE; the characters are more one-dimensional, and instead of evocative dialogue we are given guns and monsters. There are definite problems here; there’s enough story to keep the last thirty minutes moving at a decent pace, and the first ten minutes are necessary for the purposes of exposition and the introduction of our characters; however, that leaves a forty-minute stretch in the middle where the movie seems at a bit of a loss at what to do to fill the time. The characters aren’t complex enough for the most part to warrant much exploration (though Adele Jergens does a very nice turn as Ruby, especially during a sequence where she recreates her strip routine only to break down in tears), so the movie ends up running back and forth over the same plot points again and again to fill time. I mean, just how many times does Paul Birch ominously drop hints about the atomic testing on a specific island (the name eludes me at the moment) before he actually gets around to discussing them, or how many times does Ruby accuse Tony of having a thing for Louise, the sweet innocent country girl who is a new experience for him?

Still, there are some unexpected but fascinating subtleties here. Two in particular come to mind; notice how the theft of Diablo the burro at one point starts off a chain of events that results in the death of three people (and notice how the omission of the burro from the horrible Larry Buchanan remake IN THE YEAR 2889 deprives the prospector of the most compelling motivation for his own suicidal actions). Especially take note of the subtle and elegant way the identity of Marty the Mutant (Paul Blaisdell’s nickname for the three-eyed monster) is established in the last few minutes of the film without a word being spoken. For a movie as verbose as this one, that single moment is a stunning piece of pure visual cinema, and it may be my single favorite moment from the early work of Roger Corman.

DANGER: DIABOLIK! (1968)
(a.k.a. DIABOLIK)
Article #520 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 8-17-2002
Posting date: 1-10-2003

A law officer matches wits with a supervillain known as Diabolik.

I’m going to come flat out and admit that I really don’t have much of an affinity for the swinging-sixties-superspy-supervillain type of movie; for some reason, the highly stylized ultracool action-adventure movie just fails to ignite anything within me, probably because they seem all style and no substance, and without substance my interest tends to flag, and even with Mario Bava at the helm, I get really tired of the endless barrage of bizarre camera angles and stylistic tricks. In particular, I have never been a fan of the musical soundtracks prevalent in these movies; the jazzy blaring in-your-face horn arrangements just seem strident and jarring. This movie in particular has a soundtrack that drives me up the wall, and between that and the merely adaquate dubbing, I’m almost tempted to watch it with the sound turned off. However, I have to admit that I ended up liking this movie quite a bit despite all this; there are some very clever plot elements throughout that really hold my attention and appeal to my sense of humor, and these end up more than compensating for the elements I have no use for; in particular, I like the clever way our villain manages to retain possession of the necklace through a very bizarre series of situations (you have to see it to appreciate it). As I watch several more movies of this ilk, I’m sure that my opinions of these types of movies will evolve, and I will get more of a feel for them. Still, we have to start someplace, but fortunately, this wasn’t a bad place at all to start.

DEATH FROM A DISTANCE (1936)
Article #497 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-25-2002
Posting Date: 12-18-2002

A murder is committed in a planetarium, and a possible witness to the crime is named in the papers.

Planetariums must have been a very rare commodity in 1936; a comment is made during the movie that only three of them existed at the time. It does make for an interesting setting for a murder, but the movie is more than a tad creaky, and the opening lecture is almost guaranteed to put you in a slumber; fortunately, the murder happens just in time and we get to meet a fairly interesting array of characters before it’s all sorted out. Despite being considered a forgotten horror, there’s precious little horror here; there is, however, a smidgen of science fiction which once again I can’t give away as it plays into the final revelations. Not bad, but it does help to be prepared for its creakiness when you go into it. And the title does end up being very accurate indeed.

DON WINSLOW OF THE NAVY (1942)
(Serial)
Article #466 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 6-24-2002
Posting date: 11-17-2002

Don Winslow investigates saboteurs on Tangita island.

This serial is pretty good; it has a fairly decent story that keeps moving without repeating itself endlessly, and other than the first couple of episodes, it avoids cheating cliffhangers. Fans of fantastic cinema may be a little disappointed; there are some slight science fiction elements (a two way visual communication screen used by the minions of the Scorpion, and a Human Torpedo) and some slight horror elements when the plot turns to the planting of a microphone in the mouth of a stone idol, but other than that, it’s pretty much straight action-adventure. Still, I enjoyed it throughout; nothing amazing, but good fun nonetheless.

DESTINY (1944)
Article #454 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 6-12-2002
Posting date: 11-5-2002

An ex-convict finds himself on the run again after getting tricked into helping a bank robber.

This movie was built around a story that was left off of the movie FLESH AND FANTASY, about a farm girl’s encounter with a desperate criminal. The farm girl has psychic powers that cause nature to come to her aid. This is the fantastic aspect of the movie, but it doesn’t come into play until the last half of the movie, and I suspect these sequences were part of the original story, while the preachy scenes about trusting people were all part of the footage that was added to expand it to a full length feature. After watching this, I’d like to see what the short had been like without the added footage; the dream sequence involving the powers of nature is far and away the best thing in the movie. In this form, the movie is watchable, but somewhat muddled and (as noted before) preachy; it’s especially hard to believe when the warden gives the ex-con a sermon on learning to trust people as he’s releasing him from prison. I remember reading somewhere that in order to expand the movie, they had to change the character of the criminal, and I can see what they mean. Still, this is an interesting little oddity, and worth a watch.

DR. MABUSE, THE GAMBLER (1922)
(a.k.a. DR. MABUSE, DER SPIELER)
Article #453 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 6-11-2002
Posting date: 11-4-2002

A supercriminal is at large who makes a fortune by using hypnotism on gamblers.

The full length print of this movie runs almost four and a half hours, from what I hear; my version runs one hour and forty-five minutes. I don’t know whether I’ve got an edited version of the whole feature or whether it’s just one of the two features that it was broken into at one point. At any rate, I’m fairly confident I’m missing quite a bit, so I’ll refrain from coming to any conclusions until I’ve had a chance to get a complete copy of the movie and watch it in its entirety, but from what I’ve been able to tell, it’s fairly fascinating. Rudolf Klein-Rogge is great as Mabuse, and what is fascinating is that he ends up exhibiting more human values than you would expect. According to one source, what the shorter versions are missing are some of the depictions of social conditions in Germany at the time, which I believe would make some fascinating viewing indeed. Chalk this one up as a movie that I will revisit some time in the future.

Postscript: I wrote the above several months ago; since then, I have acquired the DVD version of DR. MABUSE, that runs close to four hours, so I can extend my commentary. It turned out that I had only watched the first half of the movie.

I suspect that this was the movie that put Fritz Lang on the map; he’d had some earlier works, but there’s a scope to this one that makes it a significant leap for him. Dr. Mabuse is one of the most fascinating supervillains ever, especially inasmuch as he is allowed a greater range of emotion than this type of character is usually allowed. His ultimate fate in this movie is fascinating, largely because it is unlike the fate of practically any other supervillain I’ve seen in cinema history. This one is definitely worth catching.

DEATHDREAM (1972)
Article #442 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-31-2002
Posting date: 10-24-2002

The soldier son of a couple returns home despite the fact that his death had been reported. They notice that he’s not like he used to be, and unusual murders are starting to be committed in town.

In some ways, this is a companion piece to Director Bob Clark’s and screenwriter Alan Ormsby’s CHILDREN SHOULDN’T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS; if that movie was a zombie flesh-eating comedy, this is a zombie flesh-eating tragedy. As such, the characters play a much greater role in this movie than the other one, as do the themes (war, dysfunctional families, etc.). Ultimately, the actions of the zombie son are less compelling than the dilemma of the parents; one is left wondering how the realization of what their son is will effect them. Actually, it’s the father who is the most compelling, because you really don’t know what he’s going to do; mother is fairly predicable once you get her number. Still, one is even more shocked in some ways by the mother’s revelation that she doesn’t care for her daughter than one is by the zombie’s actions. There is a great creepy atmosphere to the movie and some excellent use of sound. This one was a fascinating surprise.

DR. BLOOD’S COFFIN (1961)
Article #414 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-3-2002
Posting date: 9-26-2002

Dr. Peter Blood is performing strange experiments in a secret laboratory hidden in an abandoned mine.

Just how long can you watch someone crawling on the ground before you start to get bored? How many conversations about the timidity of scientists who are afraid to test the limits of knowledge can you listen to before you nod off into slumberland? How many times can you see a doctor and a nurse try to have a romantic relationship that goes nowhere and brings the plot to a standstill before you start paying attention to the dustballs under the TV set? And how long are you willing to squint at hard-to-see scenes in abandoned mines before you abandon the effort yourself? And finally, just how long are you willing to sit through all this interminable jabber before the movie sees its way through to finally give you a very mildly exciting but badly-edited action sequence at the end? These are not questions that should be asked, nor do I recommend film directors to search for the answers to them. At the risk of repeating a cliche (something this movie does with almost aggressive regularity), there are some things man should leave alone.

DESTINY (1921)
(a.k.a. DER MUDE TOD)
Article #400 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 4-19-2002
Posting date: 9-12-2002

When Death steals away with the fiance of a young woman, she kills herself in order to enter his domain and win him back from him.

It might be interesting to sit down someday and review the ways Death as a character has been portrayed in the movies. Here he is weary, hoping that the woman will prove her assertion that “Love is stronger than Death” to take some of the sadness and hardness out of his job. Her test is to attempt to save any one of three people doomed to die, and what unfolds are three very different stories on the same theme (Love Vs. Death, a theme Woody Allen would no doubt find interesting); the last one is the most comic and the most enjoyable. The ending is touching, powerful, logical and sad, and is both a victory and a loss. It’s not the best of Fritz Lang’s movies, but it’s memorable and worthwhile.

DARK INTRUDER (1965)
Article #380 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 3-30-2002
Posting date: 8-23-2002

In 1890, a strange series of murders are being committed. The murderer leaves a small statue at each killing. The police bring in an undercover agent who specializes in cases of the supernatural.

This movie was originally intended as a pilot for a TV series that was never sold. It’s a shame; if the pilot was any indication, it would have made a dandy horror series. It would have been like a horror-oriented “The Wild Wild West,” or possibly “Kolchak: The Night Stalker” set in period times. At any rate, it is loaded with atmosphere, both horrific and period, has some interesting characters, and some interesting surprises in the story. It’s only 59 minutes, but it’s worth a look if you can find it. It features Leslie Nielsen and Werner Klemperer, though you won’t recognize the latter.