The Dark Hour (1936)
Article 5575 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-6-2018
Directed by Charles Lamont
Featuring Ray Walker, Berton Churchill, Irene Ware
Country: USA
What it is: Mystery

An old tycoon who lives with his brother is found murdered. Who is responsible?

This one ended up on my suggestions list, no doubt because it was perceived as a possible addition to the “old dark house” horror subgenre. Well, it bears at least one element in common with that subgenre; we have an old man who has made a lot of enemies murdered in his room. However, beyond that, this seems to be one of those movies that bears little resemblance to that subgenre; no secret passages, no masked killers, no seances… there’s not even a wisecracking reporter. Instead, the movie focuses on the investigation of the murder by two detectives. Furthermore, the movie is brightly lit, which makes it feel even less like an “old dark house” movie. On its own terms, it’s a bit creaky, but it does manage to throw in three rather entertaining plot twists during the last five minutes, which is probably the most memorable thing about this one. It’s okay, but I think we’re pretty far from the “old dark house” here.

Dante’s Inferno (1924)
Article 5562 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-19-2018
Directed by Henry Otto
Featuring Ralph Lewis, Winifred Landis, William Scott
Country: USA
What it is: Dante’s poem… sort of

A heartless slumlord is put under a curse and reads the first book of Dante’s trilogy.

The appeal of filming “Dante’s Inferno” is the opportunity to present visions of hell. The down side is that there really isn’t much in the way of a story, and what there is requires a strong knowledge of history. Maybe that’s why, of the three versions I’ve seen, only the 1911 Italian version is a straight take on the tale; this one and the 1935 version have modern day framing stories to surround the visions of hell. The 1935 version at least had a fairly elaborate and interesting framing story; this one is little more than an “A Christmas Carol” clone involving the reformation of a scoundrel. That pretty much leaves the visions of hell as the main attraction, but the print I saw wasn’t in good enough condition to really see much in the way of detail. At any rate, this is easily the weakest of the three versions.

A Day After a Hundred Years (1932)
Article 5533 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-26-2018
Directed by Shigeji Ogino
Featuring Shigeji Ogino
Country: Japan
What it is: A vision of the future

In the year 2032, a man resurrects one of his ancestors to show him the world of the future.

This is directed by the same man who gave us DETECTIVE FELIX IN TROUBLE, but I think this one is much more interesting. It’s basically a compendium of futuristic devices to show what life might be like in the future; my favorite is a magic television that can show any event in the past. There’s really not much of a plot, and with only a ten minute running time, it can’t show you a great deal, but it also doesn’t wear out its welcome. The animation this time is a sort of shadow animation, though it’s certainly a lot less elaborate than similar work from Lotte Reiniger. There is a bit of live-action footage of the ancestor using a Pathe camera, and I’m assuming that the ancestor is Shigeru Ogino himself, and that he plays himself in that footage as well. The ending is curious and not really satisfying; I myself would have liked to have seen the promised vision of Mars.

Detective Felix in Trouble (1932)
aka Felix no meitantei
Article 5531 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-15-2018
Directed by Shigeji Ogino
No cast
Country: Japan
What it is: Early Japanese animation

A girl’s shoes are stolen, and she calls in Detective Felix, who vows to catch the dog who stole them.

Though their animation style is very different from that of Americans, it appears the Japanese weren’t necessarily averse to appropriating our cartoon characters; this one features Felix the Cat, and the style is that of puppet animation. As such, it has a certain curiosity value, but I’m afraid this one didn’t impress me. In terms of its animation, it’s much more primitive than the work of either Wladyslaw Starewicz or Jiri Trnka, and in terms of its comic inventiveness, it’s definitely several steps below the Felix the Cat cartoons from America. Most of the action seems to involve Felix walking around (rather slowly) looking for the shoes; occasionally he encounters other characters. There’s a sequence where he runs into a couple of animated skeletons, but this is a long ways from THE SKELETON DANCE; this sequence mostly comes off as a chintzy take on the animation style of Emile Cohl. It runs about eleven minutes and is very short of laughs. It’s an interesting curiosity, but not much more.

The Door in the Wall (1956)
Article 5526 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-6-2018
Directed by Glenn H. Alvey Jr.
Featuring Stephen Murray, Ian Hunter, Leonard Sachs
Country: UK
What it is: Fantasy short

A successful politician finds himself on the verge of a great advancement in his career, but is ambivalent of taking the new position because he finds himself haunted by the memory of a magical garden behind a green door he visited when he was a child… and which has appeared at various turning points in his life.

Since this short begins by trumpeting it’s central gimmick (a process it calls “Dynamic Frame”), let’s discuss that first. Basically, the framing of the picture is fluid rather than static; it changes throughout the movie to suit the visual of the moment. I’ve seen this sort of thing before used in transitional effects; for example, think of the credit sequences of the James Bond movies that show us the view of the action through the barrel of a gun. I’m not sure whether it’s merely a gimmick or not; I found it rather distracting during the first quarter of the short, but much of that has to do with the fact that the story hasn’t really started moving yet. Once the childhood flashback sequence starts, though, it didn’t seem as bad, because we’re really concentrating on the story and the effect seems less intrusive. I suspect the process could really be put to interesting artistic use, but would have to be used carefully and thoughtfully.

The short itself is based on an H.G. Wells story, and it’s one I can’t recall having read, which is a good thing in that I didn’t know what was going to happen, so I was caught up in the mystery surrounding the garden. The story is a bit like a cross between THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE and BRAZIL, though it’s certainly not as flashy as the latter movie. It could be seen as an allegory for the loss of innocence, which seems to me to be supported by the fact that the main character is a politician, though it doesn’t deal directly with anything resembling corruption. I also liked the twist ending, and found the whole thing quite haunting. All in all, I really liked this one.

Dva mrazici (1953)
Article 5525 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-1-2018
Directed by Jiri Trnka
Featuring the voices of Jan Werich and Vlasta Burian
Country: Czechoslovakia
What it is: Comic fantasy

Two frost spirits seek to freeze two human travelers in the woods; one is a sleeping carriage rider and the other is an industrious lumberjack.

Here’s another short from the oeuvre of Jiri Trnka, and here he combines two different types of animation. The non-spirit characters (two humans and a bird) are in Trnka’s usual puppet-animation mode, while the two spirits are apparently animated in a style known as “shadow puppet animation”; the overall effect of the latter is that it looks like conventional cel animation layered over the puppet animation. This one has dialogue between the two frost spirits; from what I gather, they’re voiced by two well-known Czech comic actors, and those who understand the language (which don’t include me) say that the dialogue adds a lot of fun to the proceedings. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed and appreciated this one; most of the action is visual, with the one spirit being very successful in freezing the carriage rider, but the other often finds himself frustrated in his task because the lumberjack is too industrious to let the cold settle into his bones. It’s not the best of the Trnka shorts I’ve seen, but I like it quite a bit, and it is worth catching.

Dalekmania (1995)
Article 5513 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-11-2017
Directed by Kevin Davies
Featuring Yvonne Antrobus, Steve Arnott, Toby Aspin
Country: UK
What it is: “Making Of” documentary

The making of the two Dr. Who movies of the sixties is discussed.

Back when I reviewed one of the two sixties Dr. Who movies, I suggested that they be seen in the light of being “Dalek” movies rather than “Dr. Who” movies, owing to the fact that they seemed to cater to fans of the metallic monsters over those of the human characters. The fact that the attached “making of” disc for the two movies is called DALEKMANIA rather than WHOMANIA bears this out. I’d hoped that the documentary would be more about the popularity of the monsters during that era (with lots of footage from the TV show), but no such luck; it’s squarely focused on the movies. Still, there are some moments that slip through; I love the scene where they show various examples of Dalek toys from the era, quoting their initial prices as well as how much they pull nowadays (by which I mean, the year when the documentary was made) in the collectible market. There are other memorable moments; I like seeing footage from the Italian dub of the movie, if for no other reason than to hear a Dalek speaking in Italian I also like the observation made by several actors from the first movie saying they never actually saw any actors getting out of and into the Dalek bodies, which must have contributed a bit to the illusion for them. It is, of course, mostly a hodgepodge, so it’s uneven, but most documentaries of this sort usually are.

Devil Woman (1970)
aka She yao jing
Article 5512 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-8-2017
Directed by Felix Villar and Chi-Lien Yu
Featuring Alex Tzi-Fie Lung, Rosemarie Gil, Yukio Someno
Country: Hong Kong / Philippines
What it is: Kung Fu horror

A woman is born with snakes for hair and the ability to control snakes. Ostracized for her differences as a child, she grows up to control a gang of thugs to do her bidding. Can a Martial arts master defeat her and her minions?

There are two movies with this title from about the same period that are often conflated into one movie; many of my sources list the credits for the Philippines only version but feature the plot of the Hong Kong kung fu movie, making it a little difficult for me to decide which one to use for the listing. However, as far as finding the movie, the one version is unfindable, and my attempts to locate it generally resulted in me finding the other version. So maybe it’s about time I went ahead and reviewed that one.

Because the premise is on the unusual side, the movie gets some points for that alone. Unfortunately, that’s not enough to sustain this one. It starts off well enough; the scenes of the snake-headed woman as a girl make you feel sympathetic for her plight, and you can understand her bitterness and anger. Nonetheless, once she reaches adulthood, the movie starts emphasizing the Martial Arts aspect of its story and we’re mostly treated to a bunch of kung fu fight scenes, and since our hero has none of the presence or charisma of Bruce Lee, they become rather tedious. Still, at least the movie does get around to showing us the Gorgon hair of the woman, though you have to wait till the very end of the movie for that. Beyond that, it’s always disappointing to have the hero prevail not due to his skill but to another character’s clumsiness; the ending is pretty disappointing. It’s a bit of a curiosity piece, but there are other Kung Fu / horror movies that are a lot more fun.

Devil Monster (1946)
Article 5471 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-11-2017
Directed by S. Edwin Graham
Featuring Barry Norton, Blanche Mehaffey, Jack Barty
Country: USA
What it is: A good reason to stay on a tropical island without movie theaters

A man embarks on a trip to the South Seas to learn the fate of a sailor whose schooner disappeared without a trace. Will he find the sailor, and will the sailor wish to return? And what about the devil fish that destroyed the schooner?

This was edited down from a 1936 film called THE SEA FIEND, which is now considered lost. I don’t know how much of the copious stock footage was from this original film or whether it was added for this edit, but it’s quite possible that greater than half the film consists of stock footage, either of undersea life, sea lions, South Seas natives (with topless nudity – this movie obviously was shown on the road show circuits) or tuna fishing. Much of the stock footage is from the silent era as well. The title monster is a manta ray, and I think it’s supposed to be huge, but since you never really get a good look at it or a comparison with it against any humans, it’s hard to say. The special effects are incompetent and unconvincing. It has its uses as a bad movie curiosity piece, but its entertainment value is negligible.

However, I do have an amusing story to tell about this one. I chose this as a selection to run for my bad movie group, and my wife (who had never seen the movie) chose an accompanying short called FISH FROM HELL (which I had never seen). One thing became very clear when the short and the movie were shown; they both used identical stock footage in their respective scenes. I still think everyone believes it was a joke on our part rather than coincidence.

THE DEVIL’S WEDDING NIGHT (1973)
aka Il plenilunio delle vergini
Article 5391 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-11-2017
Directed by Luigi Batzella and Joe D’Amato
Featuring Mark Damon, Rosalba Neri, Esmeraldo Barros
Country: Italy
What it is: Vampires and virgins

A scholar hunting for the ring of the Nibelungen visits Dracula’s castle to find it. There he becomes enmeshed in the net of a vampiress.

Take the Nibelungen legend, mix well with the Dracula story and the legend of Countess Bathory, throw in a bit Edgar Allan Poe and lots of nudity and sex, edit some of the scenes in a Cuisinart and throw in some abstract footage to let people know you’ve seen 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, and what do you get? Yes, I know… a mess. I only wish it was a more interesting mess, but its attempts at artiness tend to leave more annoyed than fascinated, and the muddled presentation leaves me more bored than enticingly mystified. My guess is that this one will appeal more to those who are into the exploitation elements than the story. This one just didn’t work for me.