FIRE MAIDENS FROM OUTER SPACE (1956)
(a.k.a. FIRE MAIDENS OF OUTER SPACE)
Article #806 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-30-2003
Posting Date: 10-27-2003
Directed by Cy Roth
Featuring Anthony Dexter, Paul Carpenter, Susan Shaw

Astronauts find the lost civilization of Atlantis on the third moon of Jupiter. It’s a civilization of beautiful females and one doddering old man.

Title check: Oops; I forgot to check if my print said FIRE MAIDENS OF OUTER SPACE or FIRE MAIDENS FROM OUTER SPACE, both of which are now believed to have been legitimate titles for the movie. We are in outer space, there are maidens, and when they worship, there is fire, so I guess I can’t blow the whistle on the movie on any of these points.

Imagine you’re sitting in a doctor’s office. You’ve gone to the doctor to have him check out a rather dull but persistent pain in your back; it’s not extremely painful, but it never allows you to relax enough so you can forget that it’s there. You’ve been waiting thirty minutes for the doctor to see you. None of the magazines are interesting, and the TV is running footage of the Senate in session, but the sound is turned too low to hear anything. The nurse keeps entering, and you hope that she’s about to call you in, but she never does. The only other person in the waiting room is preoccupied and doesn’t want to talk. So you find that you only have your own thoughts to keep you company, and you can’t think because the pain keeps distracting you. There’s a newspaper which you’ve already read, but you turn to the crossword puzzle for something to do, but it’s already been done. You check the clock on the wall; thirty seconds have passed since the last time you checked it. You can’t sleep because you’ve just drank some coffee. All you can do is wait.

If you can imagine what the above experience would be like, than you’ve been prepared to experience what watching FIRE MAIDENS FROM OUTER SPACE would be like. It’s part of the rather dumb but highly exploitable subgenre of all-female civilizations like CAT-WOMEN OF THE MOON or QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE. Sure, it has beautiful women in short skirts in it, but so do all those other movies (and QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE is in color, to boot), so there’s really no excuse for this one; it really is a waste of time. It’s worst aspect is its tendency to throw in repetitive scenes where absolutely nothing happens; we sit there a great deal of the time and just watch the actors sit there and look at each other, and we wonder why this scene is in the script. I suspect that a lot of the scenes are just padding to stretch the thing out to eighty minutes, but at least other directors would know that you need to have something happening in the padding. No doubt there will be those that will hunt this out just because it has a civilization of beautiful women in it, but I can’t emphasize enough that there are other options.

FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON (1958)
Article #782 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-6-2003
Posting Date: 10-3-2003
Directed by Byron Haskin
Featuring Joseph Cotten, George Sanders, Debra Paget

An inventor of a new explosive plans to use this power for a trip to the moon.

I’ve covered several of the Jules Verne adaptations from the fifties and sixties, and though I haven’t always been particularly enthusiastic about them, they all look pretty good when compared to this one. For one thing, the characters, conflicts and situations in the other movies seem clear and understandable; this movie is plagued with a rather turgid vagueness that leaves me wondering as to the whys and wherefores about what is going on at any particular moment. Also, these other movies didn’t waste time in getting to the meat of their story (though JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH is a little slow out of the gate); this one is a good hour into the film before we reach the launch countdown, and that first hour isn’t particularly interesting. Even the countdown itself starts with the number seventy rather than the conventional ten (and they do hit every number down the line) as an example of the overly leisurely pace of the movie. On the plus side, there are a number of familiar faces; along with the ones listed above, there is also Henry Daniell and Morris Ankrum (as President Grant). It also has some quite amusing nineteenth-century science fiction devices. Nonetheless, the movie as a whole just seemed vague and unfocused; it never really comes to life, despite a cast that could have easily made it more engaging and situations that had a real potential for some strong drama. All in all, one of the least satisfying of the Verne adaptations.

FURY OF THE CONGO (1951)
Article #721 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-6-2003
Posting Date: 8-3-2003
Directed by William Berke
Featuring Johnny Weissmuller, Sherry Moreland, William Henry

Jungle Jim discovers that a gang of drug dealers are using gland extracts from a rare horse-like animal to create their drugs.

When Johnny Weissmuller became too old to play Tarzan any longer, he made a series of low-budget movies around the character of Jungle Jim; they’re essentially Tarzan movies without Tarzan. He’s still in good enough shape to do scenes without his shirt, as he exhibits in the opening scenes here, but he does spend less time in the trees and more on land. A giant spider is the most fantastic element in the movie, and it is anomalous, used for a quick thrill and then no longer a part of the story. It’s largely just a rather tepid action movie, and I’m really not much of an action fan when you get down to it, so I have limited use for this one.

It did help me to define a new term, though; the Xerox Chase Scene. This is a type of chase scene that pops up a lot in low-budget action movies and serials. You begin by establishing that person B is chasing person A. Then, you find a stretch of landscape. Person A enters at point A, and then drives/runs/rides across the landscape to exit at point B, the camera following him every step of the way. The camera then cuts back point A in the landscape. Person B enters at point A, and then drives/runs/rides across the landscape to also exit at point B, the camera once again following him every step of the way. At no point do we see pursuer or pursued in the same frame. These two scenes are shot identically except for the fact that the people are different. You then cut to a new landscape and repeat the process again. You do this repeatedly until you’ve padded the running time enough. This happens several times in this movie, and I must admit that (IMHO) this is possibly the least interesting way I know of to shoot what should be an exciting sequence.

FRENZY (1946)
(a.k.a. LATIN QUARTER)
Article #720 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-5-2003
Posting Date: 8-2-2003
Directed by Vernon Sewell
Featuring Derrick De Marnay, Frederick Valk, Joan Seton

A haunted sculptor’s studio is tied to the strange disappearance of the wife of the previous occupant (also a sculptor).

This minor thriller functions as both a horror movie and a mystery, and I suspect that an alert horror movie fan will be able to figure out the answer to the central question of the mystery well before the ending is reached. Nonetheless, the horror elements are quite marked, and the movie is enhanced by some strong acting from all concerned, as well as some very nice camerawork and direction. The movie is somewhat obscure nowadays, but it is worth catching.

FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE (1950)
Article #716 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-1-2003
Posting Date: 7-29-2003
Directed by George Seaton
Featuring Clifton Webb, Joan Bennett, Robert Cummings

An angel attempts to help the spirit of an unborn child to manifest herself in the lives of two self-involved theatrical types.

As a self-involved theatrical type myself, the thought that some disembodied spirit has been hanging around me for several years waiting for me to start propagating is pretty scary; nonetheless, this isn’t a horror movie. It’s also not particularly funny or compelling; Clifton Webb can be a fun actor, but watching him spend most of the movie trying to imitate Gary Cooper and making colorful cowpoke metaphors (many with the word “tick” in the title) makes me wish they had gotten Walter Brennan instead. Edmund Gwenn is also on hand, and even though he has long been one of my favorite actors, even he needs something a little less slight than his angelic adviser role here. Joan Blondell steals the movie by just being there, and Whit Bissell is also on hand as a psychiatrist. And if there are any disembodied spirts hanging around my apartment, I’m giving them a fair warning; I’m spraying next week.

FANTASIA (1940)
Article #714 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-27-2003
Posting Date: 7-27-2003
Featuring Leopold Stokowski, Deems Taylor

Several pieces of classical music are presented with accompanying animation.

At least one of my reference books points out that most animated movies would fall under the category of fantastic cinema, what with their obsession with talking animals and the like, but I have covered precious little animation so far, because the books I’ve been using so far for this project omit them on principle. This is one of the exceptions, which may seem odd for what is essentially a series of mood pieces. Nonetheless, it definitely qualifies; fantasy fans can enjoy “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” (with Mickey Mouse trying to keep an animated broom under control) and Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony. The latter features an endless parade of satyrs, centaurs, unicorns and flying horses, all done in Disney’s cutest style, and would win my vote for what is far and away the dullest segment of the movie. Science fiction fans can enjoy the “Rite of Spring” segment, which covers the creation of the world and features extensive dinosaur animation (and not a single dinosaur has a squeaky “land-before-time” kiddie voice, thank goodness), while horror fans can enjoy the demonic and very un-Disneyesque “Night on Bald Mountain” segment; rumors abound that the demon here was drawn around footage of Bela Lugosi. Horror fans will definitely recognize the melody of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, even if it’s played by a full orchestra and not John Carradine at an organ. Nonetheless, my favorite segment is “Dance of the Hours”, a ballet populated by the most singularly ungraceful array of creatures to ever dance their way to your funny bone. Disney had hoped to regularly rerelease the movie with new segments on a regular basis, but that plan was axed when the movie proved to be a monumental flop on its initial release. Time has been more than kind to it.

THE FLORENTINE DAGGER (1935)
Article #710 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-23-2003
Posting Date: 7-23-2003
Directed by Robert Florey
Featuring Donald Woods, Margaret Lindsay, C. Aubrey Smith

A man obsessed with the fact that he is a descendant of the Borgias believes that he may have committed the murder of the father of his bride-to-be.

It may take a little while before you realize you’re watching a murder mystery; the first half of the movie is mostly concerned with an elaborate backstory. Yet, that’s no real problem here; the backstory is unusually interesting, and sets up some interesting obsessions and motifs that carry through the movie as a whole. The story (by Ben Hecht) is interesting in that it could have been done equally well as a horror movie by emphasizing certain aspects and downplaying others; in fact, had it been a horror movie, we would have most likely been allowed to see something in the final reel that in this version is kept under wraps. Overall, a quite entertaining movie, with good performances by all the principals, though Robert Barrat (as the unctuous womanizing Inspector in charge of the investigation) is having entirely too much fun, but after all, he gets all the best lines.

LE FAUX MAGISTRAT (1914)
Article #704 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 2-17-2003
Posting date: 7-17-2003
Directed by Louis Feuillade
Featuring Rene Navarre, Edmond Breon, Georges Melchior

I’m omitting the plot summary because I have to admit that in the fifth and final episode of the serial, my ability to work out the storyline based on visuals and a slight smattering of French has failed me. The problem is that there is lots of text to read, and there are obviously some subtleties in the plot that have escaped me. It definitely involves Fantomas disguising himself as a judge (I think that’s what he is), and he seems to be using his position to recover stolen jewels and procure 250,000 francs, but the details elude me; I may simply have to become more familiar with the French language and give it another shot sometime. There are some striking moments, though, particularly a sequence involving a church bell, and the robbery in the opening sequence.

Nonetheless, to sum up, despite the frustrations of watching something not in my native language, the serial as a whole was a great deal of fun and well worth catching.

FANTOMAS CONTRE FANTOMAS (1914)
(a.k.a. FANTOMAS VS. FANTOMAS)
Article #703 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 2-16-2003
Posting date: 7-16-2003
Directed by Louis Feuillade
Featuring Rene Navarre, Edmond Breon, Georges Melchior

Juve is framed under the suspicion that he is Fantomas, and an American detective is brought in on the case.

The title of the fourth episode of the serial not only reminds me of the title of the second episode (JUVE VS. FANTOMAS), but of an old Monty Python sketch in which Graham Chapman wrestles himself. Actually, the title is apt; with part of the plot revolving around Juve being mistaken for Fantomas, and a costume party sequence in which three people arrive disguised as Fantomas, the sense of identity is a bit of knotty problem. It is this very confusion that makes the storyline somewhat more difficult to sort out this time round, but I think I more or less got the gist of what’s happening before it was all over. This one has some memorable moments, particularly during a sequence where a worker punches a hole in a wall and blood comes out. Only one more episode, and I’ll have finished with the series.

FANTOMAS – A L’OMBRE DE LA GUILLOTINE (1913)
Article #701 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 2-14-2001
Posting date: 7-14-2001
Directed by Louis Feuillade
Featuring Rene Navarre, Edmond Breon, Georges Melchior

An archvillain named Fantomas is on the loose, and an inspector sets out to catch him.

Some time ago I covered a movie called JUVE CONTRE FANTOMAS; this was actually the second episode in a five-part serial; however, since each episode is roughly the length of a short movie, and IMDB lists them as separate entities, that is how I will review them. Since I’ve already covered the second episode, I’ll be covering the other four over the next few days.

The whole serial seems to only marginally belong to the world of fantastic cinema, it is here the roots of the whole “Supercriminal” subgenre can be found, and since a lot of that genre is borderline science fiction, it qualifies somewhat. I’ve managed to net the whole serial on an import DVD from France, which presents a little problem; the subtitles are also in French. However, the story is clear enough in the first episode that I didn’t really feel the need for them; the visual presentation is striking, clear, and easy to follow. It’s very clever, and there’s a light touch to the proceedings. The basic story in this episode involves the successful capture of Fantomas, and then covers the details of how he effects his escape. It’s quite entertaining, and one thing that comes across is that both Juve and Fantomas are good matches for each other; Juve’s capture of Fantomas is just as clever as Fantomas’s escape. One really is left wondering who will ultimately prevail.