HEAVEN ONLY KNOWS (1947)
(a.k.a. MONTANA MIKE)
Article #789 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-13-2003
Posting Date: 10-10-2003
Directed by Albert S. Rogell
Featuring Robert Cummings, Brian Donlevy, Jurja Curtright

Title check: Since the phrase is used at certain key moments in the film, it’s an appropriate title, a little better than it’s alternate title of MONTANA MIKE (IMHO).

An angel makes a bookkeeping error that causes a man to live a life without a soul. He then must go to Earth to get that man back on the path to his proper destiny.

Yep, it’s another angel movie. Angels are such potentially corny figures that I’m actually surprised how many very good movies were made about them. It might be that Hollywood knew how corny they were, and found ways around that problem by emphasizing their human qualities rather than the harps, halos and wings. They also knew who to cast in these roles, going for charming rather than saintly actors, and though Robert Cummings isn’t Cary Grant, he does all right. The real acting kudos here goes to Brian Donlevy as the man without a soul; his conflicts seem genuine and he never comes across as cliched. Actually, there is a rather powerful charm to this one, and it’s rather unusual for this type of movie in that it takes place in the old west. There are some memorable and surprisingly powerful moments here, at least one wonderful and subtle revelation as to the identity of one of Brian’s henchmen, and there are some memorable quotes here, in particular a wonderful line about death near the end of the movie that made me want to grab a pencil and paper to write it down. It’s not perfect, but it’s worth a look.

HOW DOOOO YOU DO!!! (1945)
(a.k.a. HOW DO YOU DOOOO?)
Article #739 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-24-2003
Posting Date: 8-21-2003
Directed by Ralph Murphy
Featuring Bert Gordon, Harry von Zell, Ella Mae Morse

Various performers on a radio show take a vacation at a resort where a murder is committed.

All right, this has been driving me crazy for some time, so let me get it out of my system. The title of the movie comes from a catchphrase of Bert Gordon’s character known as the Mad Russian. The reason for the several ‘o’s in the title is that when he said the phrase, he would stretch out the word “do”. Unfortunately, neither of the two titles gets it right; HOW DOOOO YOU DO!! puts the extra ‘o’s on the wrong “do”, but gets the punctuation right; HOW DO YOU DOOOOO? puts the ‘o’s in the right place, but he never said it as a question, so the punctuation is wrong. It should be HOW DO YOU DOOOO!!!

Oh, I suppose I should say something about the movie as well, shouldn’t I? From what I gather, Bert Gordon could be quite amusing, so I suspect that this PRC cheapie didn’t really do him justice; in fact, it would be the last movie he would make. Everyone is largely playing himself, and there are some nice musical numbers, and I do find the concept that Gordon invites several actors who play detectives to appear at the hotel in the belief that they will solve the mystery to be somewhat amusing. Nonetheless, the comedy is tepid indeed, and the movie never really gets off the ground. There are slight horror and science fiction aspects that don’t pop up until late in the story, and the ending is quite bizarre. I think this one might be mostly interesting to anyone interested in catching a bit of Bert Gordon’s schtick.

HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD (1961)
Article #726 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-11-2003
Posting Date: 8-8-2003
Directed by Mario Bava
Featuring Reg Park, Christopher Lee, Leonora Ruffo

Hercules must descend into the netherworld to recover a stone that will cure his love.

It is very fitting that the Hercules movie directed by Mario Bava and featuring Christopher Lee would be the one with the highest horror content of them all; both the journey to Hades and the atmospheric climax place this movie firmly in the horror genre as well as the sword and sandal genre. Bava certainly adds some good visuals to the mix, though in all honesty, I can’t really give the best evaluation; my copy of the movie is not only horribly dubbed and in only fair condition, but also badly panned and scanned at that. I really suspect that this one requires a much better presentation to do a fair evaluation of it. I hear there is a good DVD available; this will be something to keep in mind come upgrade time. At any rate, if you’re a horror fan, this is the sword-and-sandal movie to try out.

THE HALLUCINATIONS OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN (1911)
(a.k.a. BARON MUNCHAUSEN’S DREAM)
Article #725 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-10-2003
Posting Date: 8-7-2003
Directed by Georges Melies

Baron Munchausen eats and drinks too much and has nightmares.

Melies was often imitated during his time, and somehow it seems fitting that this movie was inspired by a movie that was inspired by his work; in particular, this movie is something of a variation on Edwin S. Porter’s DREAM OF A RAREBIT FIEND. The difference is that Porter could probably not have dreamed up the bizarre creatures that Melies puts together for the nightmare sequence that takes up most of this movie. Among the most interesting creations are a moon with a long tongue and a long nose that finally turns into an elephant-like creature, and a flying google-eyed dragon that looks for all the world like the Tenniel illustrations of the Jabberwock. This is enormous fun for Melies fans; others may be left scratching their heads.

HOUSE OF FEAR (1939)
Article #713 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-26-2003
Posting Date: 7-26-2003
Directed by Joe May
Featuring Irene Harvey, William Gargan, Alan Dinehart

An actor is murdered during a performance of a play, and his body vanishes soon afterwards. A year later, a policeman tries to solve the mystery by reopening the play in the same theater, now said to be haunted by the actor’s ghost.

Cross your basic “old dark house” movie with “The Phantom of the Opera”, and this is what you get; an “old dark theater” movie. This one is slightly better than average for this kind of thing, with some interesting and surprising plot twists, as well as a fairly entertaining array of characters. The cast also features JUST IMAGINE’s El Brendel as (surprise, surprise) a Scandinavian stagehand. The director’s name also rang a bell with me; Joe May directed a couple of Fritz Lang scripts during the silent years, including THE INDIAN TOMB.

HELLZAPOPPIN’ (1941)
Article #712 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-25-2003
Posting Date: 7-25-2003
Directed by H. C. Potter
Featuring Ole Olson, Chick Johnson, Martha Raye

If you think a plot description will tell you anything about this movie, you’re on the wrong track.

Having already encountered Olsen and Johnson in GHOST CATCHERS, I was prepared enough not to be blindsided by this one. Any movie this wild is bound to slip over into fantastic cinema territory a few times before it’s all through, so here’s a few of the genre elements: the opening musical number takes place in hell, at one point both Olsen and Johnson become half invisible (one from the waist up, the other from the waist down), and the Frankenstein monster pops in for a cameo at one point. As for the rest, try to imagine Busby Berkeley, Spike Jones and Tex Avery all pooling their talents to put together a live-action movie, and you might have an idea of the mayhem in store. Once again, there are so many gags that the bad ones don’t count, though my favorite is a CITIZEN KANE reference. The actors talk directly to the audience (specifically to the projectionist played by Shemp Howard), run into trouble from the Hays office, encounter talking animals and the world’s fastest quick-change master of disguise, and interrupt a romantic musical number by requesting that Stinky Miller leave the theater and go home. Actually, the big finish where Olsen and Johnson try to wreck a musical revue to save their friend from marrying a (censored) is relatively sedate compared to the first half of the movie, but that’s only because the first half is nearly impossible to beat. Elisha Cook Jr. is on hand. He gets shot several times. I won’t tell you whether he dies or not. I suspect that both Mel Brooks and Zucker-Abraham-Zucker could have been inspired by these guys.

HAWK OF THE WILDERNESS (1938)
(Serial)
Article #695 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-8-2003
Posting Date: 7-8-2003
Directed by William Witney and John English
Featuring Herman Brix, Mala, Monte Blue

Explorers land on a strange island in the Arctic circle kept warm by an active volcano. There they encounter a tribe of Indians and the son of a previous explorer, who undertakes to save them from the machinations of unscrupulous bandits out for treasure.

I can’t tell you what a relief it was to encounter this serial after suffering the tiresome repetitiveness of CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT or THE BATMAN; unlike either of these Columbia serials, this one from Republic throws a fairly elaborate story and a certain degree of production value into the work. There are problems; the villains are a colorless lot, the black comic relief isn’t funny, and at least one good character suddenly turns bad for no other reason than so you won’t feel bad when he’s killed ten minutes later, but on the good side, there’s a good variety of action here, and even has a slight sense of humor on occasion. The science fiction content is probably nothing more than the existence of the island itself, and the horror content is very slight, probably consisting of nothing more than a certain subplot about an evil masked guardian of a cave, so this is fairly marginal. However, I did quite enjoy this one.

HAND OF DEATH (1962)
Article #665 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-9-2003
Posting Date: 6-8-2003

A scientist experimenting with a combination nerve gas/hypnotic agent becomes poisoned with it and develops a lethal touch.

This movie was out of circulation for years and only recently began making the rounds again. I’m glad it has, but that’s largely because I’m a bit of a completist about these things, not because it was particularly good. It’s a pretty pallid affair; it’s reminiscent somewhat of THE INVISIBLE RAY or THE 4D MAN, but it has more the feel of THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON. The most interesting moment is when John Agar has a nightmare about scientific paraphernalia and white rats, and it has a certain amount of curiosity value in that one of the victims is Joe Besser (as a gas station attendant) and an almost-victim is Butch Patrick (Eddie Munster). John Agar also wears the monster outfit himself. Other than that, it’s standard and predictable low-budget fare.

HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND (1960)
(a.k.a. IT’S HOT IN PARADISE)
Article #617 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 11-22-2002
Posting date: 4-17-2003

A troupe of dancers is stranded on an island, and their manager is bitten by a giant spider and turns into a hideous monster.

The original name for this foreign film was EIN TOTER HING IM NETZ, which translates as “A body hangs in the web”; yes, there is a body hanging in a web, and this kicks off the horror part of the story, but this is one of those movies where you wondered why they bothered with the horror at all. Actually, of all the titles, IT’S HOT IN PARADISE is the most accurate; the movie is a lot more interested in the dancers in various states of undress than in any monster. The DVD notes describe the movie as almost being a nudie, and it’s an apt description. The movie largely consists of badly dubbed dancers talking, fighting, dancing, etc. And for anyone who thinks this sounds like a real treat, I do feel the need to point out that the guy who cast this likes his women big; there’s not a Twiggy in the bunch here. In fact, they don’t look so much like dancers as they do female wrestlers. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you, but you might find yourself disappointed if you don’t share his tastes.

HORROR OF DRACULA (1958)
Article #599 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 11-4-2002
Posting date: 3-30-2003

Dr. Van Helsing tries to track down and destroy Dracula.

This was the first movie in the Hammer Dracula series, and it’s a fairly succinct and entertaining take on the story. It makes a lovely use of color, as do most Hammer movies, and it features good performances from Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and Michael Gough. It’s a little plodding at times, but not as much as some other Hammers I’ve seen, and the comic relief sequences are annoying and a bit unnecessary, but these are minor quibbles. For me, the most interesting thing is noting the way that it more or less hones to the original story while making some very interesting changes to that story; though I do kind of miss not having a Renfield character (they would throw in a similar character in DRACULA, PRINCE OF DARKNESS), I found it quite surprising that Jonathan Harker’s purpose in going to Dracula’s castle had nothing to do with real estate.