THE INVISIBLE GHOST (1941)
Article #78 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 6-2-2001
Posting date: 10-16-2001

A series of unmotivated murders is taking place in a large house. The owner of the house (Bela Lugosi) believes his wife ran off with a lover and died in a car crash; in reality, the wife survived the crash but lost her mind in the process, and is being kept secretly in the house by one of the servants. Occasionally, she wanders outside the house at night; when her husband sees her, he goes into a trance and commits the murders.

This was the first of Lugosi’s string of horror movies for Monogram in the forties. In Tom Weavers’ “Poverty Row Horrors” book, he takes a poll of several well-known Lugosi fans to pick the best of his Monogram horrors, and this one came in first. For me, the jury is out on this one; it has a strong sense of atmosphere and some very nice poetic touches, and the opening, where Lugosi holds his annual dinner where he pretends to be dining with his wife, is as unsettling as it needs to be. It also has the advantage of being very unlike the other movies Lugosi made for Monogram; in fact, there’s nothing else quite like it out there. On the down side, it almost aggressively strains credibility, and I can’t think of a single plausible explanation as to why his wife’s appearance would cause Lugosi to commit murders (other than, “He’s mad.”), so I find myself scratching my head as often as I find myself entranced. Maybe it is his best Monogram movie, muddled as it is. Definitely an oddity, though.

INVADERS FROM MARS (1953)
Article #76 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-31-2001
Posting date: 10-14-2001

A boy sees a flying saucer land in his back yard. Everyone who goes back there to investigate returns acting strangely, and they all have strange marks on the backs of their necks. The boy soon learns that this is all a plot of invaders from Mars.

This is one of the essential SF movies of the fifties, and one of the strangest ones. William Cameron Menzies gives the movie a very distinctive, dreamlike style totally unlike the rather mundane styles of most fifties SF. It all serves a purpose, though, as we discover when we hit the final plot twist, which I won’t give away here; all I’ll say is it is the type of ending which would usually net a Rubber Brick award from me, but is the only really logical ending for this movie. For all that, this remains one of those movies that I admire more than I really love, but I suspect the movie is best appreciated if you’re a kid when you first watch it and can benefit from the full impact; this movie is as paranoid for children as INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS is for adults. Unfortunately, I was well into adulthood when I first saw it, and I can sense that I’m quite a distance from the time it would have had the greatest effect on me. Nonetheless, this is landmark movie.

I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (1943)
Article #74 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-29-2001
Posting date: 10-12-2001

A nurse comes to a plantation in the West Indies to care for the wife of the owner, who appears to have lost all will of her own. Is it a medical condition, or could she be a zombie?

This is another very fine Val Lewton film, directed by Jacques Tourneur. Lewton’s skill at taking lurid titles and building inspired, unusual stories around them is very much in evidence; the story itself is based on Jane Eyre. This is the Val Lewton film I think most effectively walks the line between fantasy and reality; you’re never quite sure whether the wife’s ailment is medical or supernatural. There are also several memorable scenes, my favorites being Sir Lancelot’s song which serves as a Greek chorus to the story, and the unforgettable walk through the jungle where the nurse encounters Carrefour (Darby Jones), the most striking zombie in classic cinema. This is a classic that deserves the name.

Incidentally, both Darby Jones and Sir Lancelot would appear together again in a movie called ZOMBIES ON BROADWAY. The less said about that one, the better.