THE FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE (1960)
Article #982 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-22-2003
Posting Date: 4-20-2004
Directed by Edward Cahn
Featuring Henry Daniell, Valerie French, Grant Richards

When a man dies suddenly and his body turns up at his funeral missing its head, his brother fears he was the victim of an ancestral curse and that he will be next.

I just barely remember watching this movie as a kid on my local creature feature, but about the only thing I could remember about it for years was the title and the vision of skulls floating through the air. I think part of the reason I didn’t remember anything else was because the somewhat lethargic pace had me drifting in and out of sleep, and the most grotesque sequence in which we see the steps undertaken to create a shrunken head (this was fairly explicit for its time) was removed from that print. Despite its pace and occasional omissions in storytelling (I never really heard a good explanation as to what brought on the ancestral curse), this is sporadically effective, partially because it is effectively lurid in its way and partially because it never quite turns into the voodoo movie it so much resembles in other ways. Henry Daniell is the villain (this is established early enough that it isn’t giving much away) and Paul Wexler (who looks just a little like Christopher Lee here) is the South American Indian assistant with his mouth sewn shut.

FRANCIS (1950)
Article #980 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-20-2003
Posting Date: 4-18-2004
Directed by Arthur Lubin
Featuring Donold O’Connor, Patricia Medina, Zasu Pitts

A second lieutenant is saved from an enemy barrage by a talking mule. His repeated encounters with the mule cause him to be repeatedly put under psychiatric care.

Since talking animals are a fantasy concept, this opens up the floodgates for a huge number of movies and shorts; just consider how many short cartoons I may have to cover. Of course, live action talking animals are a little more impressive, especially if a decent job is done of syncing up the voice (Chill Wills in this case) to the movements of the animal’s lips, which is done admirably here. Despite the silly concept, the humor is a little restrained, but it works well enough for several reasons, such as the immensely likeable performance by Donold O’ Connor, the smartass voice work of Chill Wills (pun intended), and the occasional touch that shows a certain amount of thought and care went into this one. This would be the first of six movies, although the last one would replace both O’Connor and Wills. The movie also features familiar character actor John McIntyre, Ray Collins, Mikel Conrad, and a young Tony Curtis.

FURY ON THE BOSPHORUS (1965)
(a.k.a. AGENT 077: FROM THE ORIENT WITH FURY /
VOLLMACHT FUR JACK CLIFTON)
Article #935 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-6-2003
Posting Date: 3-4-2004
Directed by Sergio Grieco
Featuring Ken Clark, Margaret Lee, Philippe Hersent

Secret agent 077 investigates the kidnapping of a scientist capable of creating a death ray gun.

The DS Movie of the Day would like to take this opportunity to present an edition of “Adventures in Movie-hunting: The trials and tribulations of trying to find genre movies”.

When this movie popped up on my hunt list, the book listed the title as FURY ON THE BOSPHORUS. When a simple hunt on IMDB failed to provide me with that title, I had to try several searches by cast names until I stumbled across a movie with a French title of FUREUR SUR LE BOSPHORE; since the other information synced up with this entry, I assumed I had found the right title. It’s title in IMDB was AGENTE 077 DALL’ORIENTE CON FURORE, and was known in English by either of the titles AGENT 077 FURY IN THE ORIENT or AGENT 077 OPERATION ISTANBUL. Was I able to find the movie under these titles? No. However, I was able to find a movie called AGENTE 077: FROM THE ORIENT WITH FURY, which was a literal translation of the Italian title, so I ordered that one. When it arrived in the mail, I was surprised to see that the title on the movie was VOLLMACHT FUR JACK CLIFTON, an incident that had me scrambling back to IMDB to try to confirm that I had the correct movie; after all, IMDB listed the main character as being named Dick Maloy, not Jack Clifton. After fumbling around for about ten minutes, I discovered that VOLLMACHT FUR JACK CLIFTON was indeed the German title for AGENTE 077 DALL’ORIENTE CON FURORE. Whew! The moral of this story? Hunting down obscure genre movies is not a task for the faint of heart.

The country of origin of this movie is listed as Italy/Spain/France on IMDB, so what language do you think was on the actual film I got? It was German, which you might have guessed seeing how I had acquired the print with the German title. Oddly enough, the only parts that weren’t in German were the lyrics to the songs, which were in English; however, since the songs don’t reveal plot elements, this was pretty useless for me.

Actually, this movie turned out not to be as difficult to enjoy as I thought it would be. Spy movies tend to be difficult to follow in the first place, and ones in unsubtitled German would seem to be all that much harder. I think the reason this one didn’t give me much of a problem is simply that the main pleasures of watching these types of superspy movies are visual; the plot is only there to move you from setpiece to another, and though the overriding storyline would remain a bit obscure at times, I was able to discern the important elements in any individual scene, such as who were the good guys and who were the bad guys, and what they were fighting about. The science fiction elements in this one don’t really manifest themselves until the last ten minutes of the movie, but when they do, they are quite marked. Overall, I found it quite enjoyable, which is good; considering all the trouble I went through to find it, it would have been depressing if the movie stunk.

FOREVER, DARLING (1956)
Article #905 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-6-2003
Posting Date: 2-3-2004
Directed by Alexander Hall
Featuring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, James Mason

A guardian angel comes to the rescue of a couple whose marriage has hit a rough spot.

On top of the TV show which brought them fame, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz made a couple of movies together as a team; this one and THE LONG LONG TRAILER. This is the lesser known of the two, and it’s a fairly minor piece of fluff. Actually, Desi gets the funniest moments in an earlier scene where he comes home and roundly insults Lucy’s dinner guests, one of which is Natalie Schafer who is best known as Mrs. Howell from “Gilligan’s Island”. After that, most of the gags are the type of slapstick gags you might expect on the TV series, except that the movie’s leisurely pace keeps them from building up any real sense of comic frenzy. I do like the fact that James Mason plays the guardian angel, and that he looks like James Mason because that’s what Lucy imagines her guardian angel would look like (Desi’s would look like Ava Gardner). Science fiction fans should also keep an eye out for John Emery (from ROCKETSHIP X-M) as a psychiatrist, and John Hoyt (ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE) as Desi’s boss at the insecticide factory.

FOG ISLAND (1945)
Article #904 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-5-2003
Posting Date: 2-2-2004
Directed by Terry Morse
Featuring George Zucco, Lionel Atwill, Veda Ann Borg

An industrialist framed for embezzlement invites a group of people to his house on an isolated island to wreak vengeance.

This isn’t the only movie to feature both Zucco and Atwill, but of the others, THREE COMRADES doesn’t appear to be a horror movie in any respect (I haven’t seen it, though), and HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN never featured them in the same scene; in this one, they share the screen several times. It’s another poverty row horror from PRC, and as usual, it doesn’t look quite as cheap as it probably was, at least partially due to the nice sets in use throughout. The story has some nice points, particularly when the guests receive an assortment of curious party favors that are supposed to lead them to a treasure, but things get a little confusing at times and certain characters seem extraneous. Otherwise, it’s a fitfully amusing revenge movie with horror overtones.

THE FACE AT THE WINDOW (1939)
Article #903 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-4-2003
Posting Date: 2-1-2004
Directed by John King
Featuring Tod Slaughter, Marjorie Taylor, John Warwick

A bank clerk is being framed for a series of ghastly murders caused by a villain called “The Wolf” involving a horrible face appearing at the window.

Tod Slaughter’s over-the-top melodramas aren’t really horror movies for the most part, but they are lurid enough to get at least marginal consideration in the genre. This is one in which the horror elements are much more overt, particularly that of the truly hideous face at the window. Slaughter chews the scenery a little less than usual in this one, partially because his character is a little more refined than his usual roles, but fans needn’t worry; he still gets plenty of opportunities to be not only evil, but ludicrously evil. Ultimately, I would have to say that of the Slaughter movies I’ve seen, this one is probably my current favorite.

FANTASTIC VOYAGE (1966)
Article #876 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-8-2003
Posting Date: 1-5-2004
Directed by Richard Fleischer
Featuring Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch, Donald Pleasence

A scientist suffers a blood clot in the brain after an attempted assassination, and several men and a woman are miniaturized and injected into the scientist’s bloodstream to remove the clot from the inside.

I first became familiar with this story through the novelization of the movie by Isaac Asimov. The movie itself never quite reaches the pitch of suspense to which it aspires, but this is a minor quibble; what it has going for it is a real sense of wonder. The scenes that take place inside the body are breathtaking and memorable, and very much of their time, as they fit in quite well with the psychedelic looks of the era; in particular, I like seeing the blue blood cells turn red inside the capillaries. It also seems to take place in fairly close to real time; once the crew is reduced in size, they have sixty minutes to complete their mission, which comes fairly close to matching the amount of running time left in the movie. The villain is almost a little too obvious, what with the casting, the constant harking by a certain character to abort the mission, and the fact that one character is obviously an atheist. Raquel Welch fans may be disappointed that she remains fully clothed the entire movie, though her skin-tight outfit aboard the sub may leave them somewhat satisfied. Amazingly enough, this is one movie that always seems to me to be shorter than its running time, which is indeed a good thing. Though not a perfect movie, it is extraordinarily efficient (they don’t belabor the plot points) and quite satisfying.

THE FIGHTING DEVIL DOGS (1938)
(Serial)
Article #866 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-29-2003
Posting Date: 12-26-2003
Directed by William Witney and John English
Featuring Lee Powell, Herman Brix, Eleanor Stewart

Two marines seek out an evil villain known as The Lightning.

Title check: Devil Dogs appear to be marines in this case. Maybe they didn’t want to call it THE FIGHTING MARINES to avoid it being confused with the 1935 serial of the same name, which this one somewhat resembles.

Republic always seems to add that extra touch of decent production values to their serials that make them more watchable than a lot of the competition; the spectacle is usually pretty good, and they know how to use music effectively. This one is pretty solid, and the electric torpedo used by The Lightning makes for a nice effect (though I have to admit, I kept thinking the villain should have been called The Lightning something-or-other rather than just The Lightning). Episode seven is another one of those annoying ones that mostly consists of footage from episode one, and I know I’ve seen the cliffhanger from episode eight in at least one other serial (a man is almost crushed in a motorboat as he tries to steer it between two ships moving close to each other), but since I can’t remember which serial that was, I don’t know if this one lifted it from that serial or vice versa. Nevertheless, it has a good variety of action and is entertaining enough; all in all, a better-than-average serial.

FLY-BY-NIGHT (1942)
Article #832 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-25-2003
Posting Date: 11-22-2003
Directed by Robert Siodmak
Featuring Richard Carlson, Nancy Kelly, Albert Basserman

A doctor is kidnapped by an escapee from a sanitarium, and later finds himself accused of murder when the escapee is killed with one of his scalpels.

Title check: It’s an okay title for a movie about a man on the run from the police.

Once the murder is committed and the doctor is about to be arrested, he tries to prove his innocence by threatening the police with a gun, breaking and entering the apartment of a woman artist able to sketch his appearance, kidnaps her and takes her car, purposefully wrecks it while stealing a car from one of those big trucks that haul new cars around (the driver of the truck doesn’t notice a thing), and in general acts in such a way that even if he was innocent of the murder, he’d still have to face a hefty prison sentence for all of his infractions. This is all supposed to prove to me his sincere desperation to prove his innocence; unfortunately, it tends to convince me of his shortness of gray matter or that he caught whatever illness the sanitarium escapee had. Perhaps it’s just as well that the movie turns from a Hitchcockian thriller to a comedy at this point; it goes a long way towards excusing some of the bizarre situations in which he finds himself. It’s all pretty far-fetched and ridiculous, but it’s funny enough to have kept my attention in its own nutty way, though my mind came to a dead halt for about ten minutes when someone uses the phrase “patriotic panties” (I am not making this up). The opening has a strong horror feel, and there is a science-fictional touch to some of the final revelations, so that is why the movie belongs at least marginally to the fantastic genres.

FAUST (1926)
Article #818 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-11-2003
Posting Date: 11-8-2003
Directed by F. W. Murnau
Featuring Emil Jannings, William Dieterle, Eric Barclay

Mephistopheles makes a bet with an archangel that he can turn Faust away from God, and thereby gain possession of the earth.

Title check: No complaint; it IS the guy’s name, after all.

I read Goethe’s play years ago, but I will come flat out and admit that I found it pretty boring back then. If this movie had done nothing more than recreate the play, I would have had little use for it. Murnau, however, uses the story as a springboard for some of the most amazing fantasy/horror images I have ever seen in my life, featuring hordes of winged devils, three of the horsemen of the apocalypse, and my favorite sequence in which a giant devil towers over a city before setting loose a plague on it. In fact, the first third of this movie is so breathtaking, that the somewhat prosaic middle section of the movie (where Faust tries to use his new-gained youth to seduce a beautiful but religious woman) disappoints me merely because it can’t maintain the imaginatve imagery of the opening third, though it in itself is quite strong; however, the whole thing regains that power towards the end, and the movie ends strongly. So far, this is the only Murnau movie I’ve seen other than NOSFERATU, and I have to admit I’m really looking forward to catching more of his work. As it is, this may well be the most powerful silent fantasy of them all.