HAVE YOU GOT ANY CASTLES? (1938)
Article 5231 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-17-2016
Directed by Frank Tashlin and Friz Freleng
Featuring the voices of Mel Blanc, the Four Blackbirds, Delos Jewkes
Country: USA
What it is: Warner Brothers musical cartoon

Books come to life and perform swingin’ musical numbers.

I think Warner Brothers tried this concept several times; books come to life (usually in punning ways) and perform musical numbers. It’s definitely a fantasy concept, but it does get some extra horror credentials right off the bat when we get Mr. Hyde, Fu Manchu, the Phantom of the Opera and the Frankenstein monster performing a rinky-dink little dance that includes playing patty-cake with each other. Books that have been adapted into movies will often feature caricatures of the performers; Charles Laughton appears in “Mutiny on the Bounty”, William Powell shows up in “The Thin Man”, etc. It may be minor Warner Brothers animation, but it’s still a bit of fun. I’ve had public domain versions of this one for years, but for this one, I chose to watch the version released in one of the Warner Brothers cartoon collections and discovered that there’s extra footage missing from the others; namely, opening and closing sequence involving a Town Crier.

THE HAUNTED BEDROOM (1913)
Article 5229 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-15-2016
Director unknown
Featuring Herbert Prior, Mabel Trunnelle, Augustus Phillips
Country: USA
What it is: Ghost drama

A young couple wishes to marry, but the father of the young man will not agree unless the young woman can produce a dowry of ten thousand francs. She manages to raise one of two thousand, and her brother, a gambler, vows to quickly turn it into ten thousand. He does so, but incurs the wrath of criminals, hides out in a hotel room, hides the money, and then dies. Will the woman ever get her dowry?

It doesn’t say so in the description above, but the rest of the plot involves the ghost of the dead brother fulfilling his promise to get the dowry to his sister. This is one that ended up on my “ones that got away” list, but popped up on YouTube afterwards. It’s an okay drama, but it’s a little on the dull side at least as far as this presentation goes; the movie is hand-cranked and I suspect is somewhat slower than it would be otherwise. It is nice to encounter an early silent in which the ghost is not faked, like so many of them were. Once you get past the exposition, the story is fairly predictable.

HARE TONIC (1945)
Article 5228 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-14-2016
Directed by Chuck Jones
Featuring the voices of Mel Blanc and Arthur Q. Bryan
Country: USA
What it is: Bugs Bunny Cartoon

Elmer buys Bugs at the market in order to use him as an ingredient in wabbit stew. Bugs counters by convincing Elmer he carries a contagious disease called “rabbititus”.

It’s interesting to compare this Bugs and Elmer cartoon with THE HARE-BRAINED HYPNOTIST from a couple of days ago. In that one at one point, Elmer is hypnotized to believe he is a rabbit, while in this one, he fears that the dread disease will turn him into a rabbit. This one is the better cartoon; it features a number of gags in which Bugs bamboozles Elmer into believing he’s contracted the disease (including a version of the mirror gag in which Elmer sees Bugs as his reflection), a sequence in which Bugs plays a character named Dr. Kilpatient, and a final gag which breaks the fourth wall by having Bugs tricking the audience into thinking they’ve got the disease. Outside of the talking animal detail, I suppose the fake disease could push this one into fantastic territory, though I’ll admit that’s a stretch. However, there is a sequence while Bugs is having a fit where he transforms himself into a robotic version of the Frankenstein monster for a few seconds, so that gives it a little more content. This is a fine entry in the Bugs/Elmer series.

THE HARE-BRAINED HYPNOTIST (1942)
Article 5226 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-12-2016
Directed by Friz Freleng
Featuring the voices of Mel Blanc and Arthur Q. Bryan
Country: USA
What it is: Bugs Bunny Cartoon

Elmer Fudd seeks to defeat Bugs by using hypnosis, but Bugs proves to be a rather tough case… and also knows hypnosis.

You know, whenever I cover a cartoon and say that the fantastic content consists of talking animals, it always feels like I’m cheating a bit; talking animals are a cartoon convention in the same way that people spontaneously breaking out into song and dance is a musical convention. Therefore, it’s nice to occasionally cover one that has a bit more than that. In this case, we have hypnotism thrown into the mix, and it even works up a little horror frisson… during the opening credits anyway. There’s even a passing reference to Dracula. It’s a good Warner Brothers cartoon (if not one of their best), and it has a bit of fun with the Bugs/Elmer relationship by reversing it at one point when Bugs hypnotizes Elmer into thinking he’s a rabbit. As usual, the gags, sound effects and music are quite creative.

HAVE A NICE WEEKEND (1975)
Article 5182 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-15-2016
Directed by Michael Walters
Featuring Michael B. Miller, Peter Dompe, Valerie Shepherd
Country: USA
What it is: Psycho killer

A Vietnam veteran gathers family and friends together for a meeting at an isolated house on an island. Then people start getting killed…

It’s part early slasher film (though lovers of that sort of film won’t emerge from this one satisfied), part TEN LITTLE INDIANS-style whodunit, and part Sominex ingredient. It’s one of those movies that had the potential to be interesting, but the script is horribly uneven, it’s full of uninteresting characters with uninteresting problems all being underplayed at the same level by actors who seem to be mostly competent but bored, and the movie is devoid of any sense of fun or suspense. It appears to be one of those obscure forgotten regional movies that fully deserves its obscurity. For those interested in tackling it anyway, hold on a bit after “THE END” flashes up; there’s an epilogue that explains the movie… that is, if you care. I’m not sure I did.

HU-MAN (1975)
Article 5156 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-14-2016
Directed by Jerome Laperrousaz
Featuring Terence Stamp, Jeanne Moreau, Agnes Stevenin
Country: France
What it is: Arty science fiction

An actor, still hurting over the suicide of his wife, is coaxed by an old lover to take part in a time travel experiment where he is placed in dangerous situations which are shown on television, and the energy harnessed by the audience can move him through time.

This movie ended up on my “ones that got away” list several years ago, and at that time it was considered a lost film. However, a print appeared about a year ago, and I finally got a chance to see it. Unfortunately, there are no English subtitles or dubbing on it, so I’m left to the mercy of my imagination and what few plot descriptions I could find. I’m glad I did find the latter; the movie might well have been impenetrable to me otherwise, and I suspect even with dubbing I would have had a hard time grasping it. Fortunately, much of the movie is visual; there are long sequences of Terence Stamp (playing a character of the same name) wandering through various landscapes, and some of the visual content is very striking. The movie also makes some very interesting use of sound and music, and some of the songs on the soundtrack are in English. I was able to have some appreciation of the movie on this level, but my lack of proficiency in the French language deprives me of making any real meaningful review of this one. However, I do consider myself fortunate to have finally seen such an elusive movie.

UN HORRIBLE CAUCHEMAR (1902)
aka A Horrible Nightmare
Article 5150 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-8-2016
Directed by Ferdinand Zecca
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: A bad dream

An opium smoker has a nightmare in which he is in an inescapable prison and tormented by a disappearing devil.

If this is the kind of experience you have when smoking opium, it’s just as well I never took up the habit. It’s your basic bare-bones Melies imitation; even the elaborate background painting smacks of Melies’s style, and the devil is like a variation on Melies’s ubiquitous tumbling imps. And if the ending is any indication, then your Teddy Bear is going to get the worst of the experience. At any rate, it’s a fairly amusing early trick short.

On a side note, when I first conceived of this project, my first strategy was to watch all of the movies in a strict chronological order. I abandoned this approach as it would have been a logistical nightmare; the silent era is full of difficult-to-find obscurities, and research on the era is full of so much misinformation that I would have rapidly gotten mired in the project and it would have never gotten off the ground. Instead, I chose a much looser approach (which has a chronological edge to it) that would allow me to start with movies much easier to find, and I’m glad I did. Still, the silent era fascinates me, and even this late in the game, some of these elusive titles pop up and I can still cover them.

However, I really do owe a debt of thanks to all of those who have taken an interest in my project and have pointed me in the direction of finding some of the rarities I’ve seen, especially those who have helped me negotiate the pitfalls of the silent era. This movie initially ended up on my “ones that got away” list with a LOST status, but then doctor kiss at the Classic Horror Film Board revealed that he had located the movie in a streaming file of unidentified Pathe shorts, giving me a chance to catch a movie I might otherwise have never seen. I dedicate this review to all of those who have been generous in their help; this project wouldn’t be the same without their help.

THE HONEYMOON KILLERS (1969)
Article 5144 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-30-2016
Directed by Leonard Kastle and Donald Volkman
Featuring Shirley Stoler, Tony Lo Bianco, Mary Jane Higby
Country: USA
What it is: Crime / romance

A lonely, overweight and miserable nurse meets and falls in love with a Spanish man through a lonely hearts club. She discovers he is a gigolo who romances women for their money, but she loves him enough that she decides to stay with him and aid him in his schemes. But she’s a jealous woman, and when pushed, she begins using murder to eliminate her lover’s marks.

Most of my sources do not list this as a horror movie, and though it does to some extent deal with serial killing, it is very marginal in that regard. Plotwise, it’s something of a cross between MONSIEUR VERDOUX and PRETTY POISON, but the emotional center of the movie is a love story; most of the pivotal events in the movie are the result of the characters’ love for each other. Because of that emotional center, you do become somewhat attached to these characters and you care about them, even though they engage in some heinous activities. One of the most interesting aspects about the movie is that the two lovers look nothing like your usual Hollywood love interest, and because of this, you keep expecting that the love will ultimately fail or that someone is merely using the other person. The movie is fascinating, though it isn’t perfect; things get rather slow in the middle of the movie when it spends too much time with the attempt to bilk a somewhat paranoid older woman of her money. The ending is, however, truly memorable, and is one of my favorite parts of the movie. This one is worth catching, even if it remains marginal in a genre sense.

THE HENDERSON MONSTER (1980)
Article 5124 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-4-2016
Directed by Waris Hussein
Featuring Christine Lahti, Jason Miller, Stephen Collins
Country: USA
What it is: TV-Movie drama

An ambitious Nobel-prize winning scientist’s experiments with recombinant DNA at a local college raise issues about the safety of the experiments, and the mayor decides to hold a hearing on the matter.

Some movies need a warning attached to them. This is not because they are necessarily bad; it’s because for one reason or another they get advertised as something they are assuredly not. Take this one, for example; it has the word “monster” in the title, and IMDB classifies it as both horror and science fiction. Yet I suspect anyone going into this one with their hearts set on the movie delivering on the type of actions these promise will emerge from it profoundly disappointed. In short, the monster is nothing but a theoretical possibility, it only marginally edges up against science fiction, and it is definitely not a horror movie. it is, in fact, a drama about scientific development and the attendant fears if what experimentation may unleash. It is, in fact, a social issue drama.

This is not to say that the movie doesn’t have its worth. It actually manages to take a complex view of the subject, peoples its story with characters who have complex motivations and flaws, gives us varying points of view, and comes to no simple conclusions. The script is also extremely literate, though this isn’t always a positive thing; there are moments where the dialogue feels artificial and forced, especially when the characters become a little too enamored with analyzing their personal motivations for their actions. By the end of the movie, it could be argued that very little has actually happened, but it does provide some food for thought, and this could prove a valuable movie for the right person. However, if you’re searching for a horror/science fiction thriller, this is not the place to go.

HAUNTED RANCH (1943)
Article 5123 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-1-2016
Directed by Robert Emmett Tansey
Featuring John ‘Dusty’ King, David Sharpe, Max Terhune
Country: USA
What it is: Weird Western

When a bank robber dies without revealing the location of a stash of gold bullion, the other members of his gang fake a haunting of his ranch to drive people away while they search. Can the Range Busters solve this case?

It’s nice to get back to the black-and-white era every once in a while and watch something like this. It’s the twentieth picture in the Range Busters series, and the haunting of the ranch is the obvious fantastic content, though we find out at the outset that the haunting is being faked. Oddly enough, there are also two other touches of fantastic content here. One is in the realm of gadgetry with an organ that is also a combination safe, with the choice of stops serving as the key to unlock it. The other is that Elmer, Max Terhune’s ventriloquist dummy, does a mind-reading act. The movie itself isn’t particularly good, but it is fitfully entertaining. There’s a couple of odd touches here; I can’t help but notice that the heroes are basically playing themselves; their character names are the same as their real ones. The second is that there is an odd transition in the middle of the movie where one of the Range Busters leaves to join the military (as he did in real life), and is replaced in midstream by Rex Lease. There’s a song sung by John ‘Dusty’ King, and the obligatory scared black servant.