IT’S GOT ME AGAIN (1932)
Article 4161 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-19-2013
Director unknown
Voice cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Animated cartoon

A gang of mice have a party in a music room until the party is crashed by a hungry cat.

This is one of the early Warner Brothers cartoons that got nominated for an Oscar, and though it’s pretty much a standard cartoon of the era (more singing and dancing than story, characters that look like Mickey Mouse, etc.), it is well animated (especially the fierce-looking cat) and it makes some creative use of the various musical instruments lying around the place. Perhaps the most striking bit involves two mice playing a melody on the piano while doing a version of the Apache dance. The title song is played on a gramophone initially, and then is sung by a cornered mouse with altered lyrics later on. No, it’s not a great cartoon, and it needs to be watched with an appreciation for the nature of animated cartoons at this point of history, but this is one of the better examples.

AN INTERESTING STORY (1904)
Article 4159 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-17-2013
Directed by James Williamson
Cast unknown
Country: UK
What it is: Comic short

A man becomes so engrossed in the novel that he is reading that he pays no attention to anything going on around him, and when he leaves to go to work, he becomes a danger to himself and others.

This is one of the better comic shorts of the early silent era; it takes a simple straightforward concept and sticks to it, exploring the comic possibilities for its four-minute running time. It’s actually quite realistic for most of its running time, and it only verges onto the fantastic in its final moments, when, after what would be usually a fatal encounter with a steamroller, he is revived by a couple of passers-by armed with bicycle pumps. This is a charming and fun little short.

THE INN WHERE NO MAN RESTS (1903)
aka L’auberge du bon repos
Article 4158 By Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-16-2013
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Comic trick short

A drunken man tries to settle in at an inn for the night, but strange events prevent him from getting any sleep.

This is something of an earlier version of THE DREAM OF A RAREBIT FIEND, and, like that short, it features a man trying to rest in a bed that won’t stay still. Granted, there are a lot of other things going on in this one, like a painting that blows out candles and eats things, a coatrack that comes to life, and the ubiquitous Meliesian tumbling imp. Of course, one of the ambiguities of this one is whether these events are really happening or whether they’re hallucinations of the drunken man. It’s not one of his best, but it’s fun and mildly entertaining.

THE INFERNAL CAULDRON (1903)
aka Le chaudron infernal
Article 4157 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-15-2013
Directed by Georges Melies
Featuring Georges Melies
Country: France
What it is: Eerie trick short

Two devils sacrifice three women in a cauldron and summon forth their spirits.

This is one of Melies’s more impressive trick films, not so much because of the complexity of the special effects, but because the hand-tinted color is particularly vivid, and there’s an authentically eerie air to the proceedings, especially when the three spirits manifest themselves. There’s not really much of a story, and what there is is a bit muddled in the final moments; I suspect that the spirits may be taking revenge on the devils, but it looks like some action is lost in the splices. This may be one of Melies’s most pronounced forays into horror.

IN THE BARBER SHOP (1908)
aka Salon de coiffure
Article 4156 By Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-14-2014
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Comic short

At a barber shop, a black man and a white woman are being served when the entrance of a beautiful woman distracts the barbers, causing unexpected results.

Based on what I’ve seen of Melies’s work from 1908, I think he was really trying to stretch out and experiment with other types of films than the special-effects laden ones he’d been known for, but the results were generally not good. This particular short is not a high point for him. One of Melies’s biggest problems as a director was that he often didn’t know how to stage the action so that the viewer would know what to look at and what was important; there’s too much frantic action over the whole frame. When you’re trying for comedy, that can cause problems, especially when you’re setting up for the big gags. There’s a streak of racism to this one as well; the fantastic content is centered around the fact that both the man and and the woman change their races as a result of the barbers’ distractions, and when the man is black and the woman is white, he’s constantly coming on to her, but when the races are reversed, he spurns her. Yet, for all these problems, the short isn’t a total disaster; there are a few interesting touches, but it’s far from Melies’s best work.

AN IMPOSSIBLE BALANCING FEAT (1902)
aka L’equilibre impossible
Article 4155 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-12-2013
Directed by Georges Melies
Featuring the Georges Melies quartet
Country: France
What is it: Trick film

And, for my next trick, I’ll clone myself into three other people, who will balance themselves on my head and hands.

Here’s another trick film from Melies, and it’s a fairly bare-bones one in that it’s largely to illustrate the single trick of having three copies of himself balancing on top of him. It’s not quite as seamless as some of his other trick shorts, but it is rather fun to figure out how he did the trick. It’s minor Melies, and mildly amusing.

IF A BODY MEETS A BODY (1945)
Short
Article 4000 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-9-2012
Directed by Jules White
Featuring Curly Howard, Larry Fine, Moe Howard
Country: USA
What it is: The Three Stooges in the Old Dark House

When Curly’s rich uncle dies, he goes to the mansion to claim his inheritance, only to discover that his uncle was murdered, and they’re still looking for the killer.

It’s pretty fun to see the Stooges take on the “old dark house” genre; with a running time of only about twenty minutes, they condense the plot into as little time as possible to make time for their antics, some of which are pretty funny . Fred Kelsey as the detective is a decent foil for the Stooges; he gives back as much as he gets. Curly is not at his best her, but I gather this was made shortly after he suffered a stroke, and it shows a little. Nevertheless, I do admire the way the Stooges knew how to toss off bad jokes fast enough that the work, especially when dealing with the puns surrounding the name of Link.

IMMER ARGER MIT DEM BETT (1961)
aka Nightmare
Article 3989 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-24-2012
Directed by Rudolf Schundler
Featuring Senta Berger, Gunter Pfitzmann, Trude Herr
Country: West Germany
What it is: Comedy of mistaken identities

A detective has a nightmare that his wife has been unfaithful, and when she is mistaken for a call girl, he finds his nightmare coming true.

This movie first entered my list as NIGHTMARE some time ago, but that’s not one of the alternate names on the movie in IMDB. The only clue I had was that it featured Senta Berger, and she made several movies that year, and so it remained a mystery to me. When it finally ended up on the “ones that got away” list, one of the members of CHFB was able to zero in on its original title, and also pointed me in the direction of acquiring a copy. So here I am, finally reviewing it, but, truth to tell, I’m not sure it was really worth the effort. I was only able to find a copy in German without subtitles, but even with that problem, it appeared to me that the fantastic content (the nightmare coming true) is very light; the nightmare is a short sequence at the beginning of the movie, and it hardly comes true in any literal sense. As for the movie itself, it seems well directed and makes some interesting use of music, but the comedy looks rather tepid, and I suspect the whole thing would prove to be rather forgettable. Outside of Berger, the only other performer I recognize is Leon Askin, who turns out to be the primary villain of the story.

IN THE SHADOW OF KILIMANJARO (1986)
Article 3957 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-19-2012
Directed by Raju Patel
Featuring John Rhys-Davies, Timothy Bottoms, Irene Miracle
Country: UK / Kenya
What it is: Nature runs amok

A drought causes large groups of baboons to go on a rampage of destruction and killing.

When I first heard about this movie, I thought the very idea of making baboons the menace to be pretty silly. I realize now that this was because I was reacting to the metaphorical use of the word “baboon” as a derogatory term; from what I gather, they can truly be very dangerous beasts. I think the movie does a decent job of establishing them as something to be feared, so the preconception doesn’t do a whole lot of damage. There are also some effective shots of hoards of baboons about to go on the attack, with the scene where a man is trying to change a tire while this happens being the most memorable. However, that doesn’t mean the movie is effective; a weak script, uninspired direction and bad editing all conspire to take the suspense and excitement out of movie; it ends up feeling awkward and clumsy rather than scary. Yet I think it’s biggest problems are ones brought on by failing to use the environment effectively. The areas of Kenya where the movie takes place could have been filmed to heighten the sense of fear and isolation, but the photography fails to catch any of that. And this is one of those movies that would have benefited from the use of silent and ambient sound to increase the tension; the use of a symphonic score throughout just makes the movie feel overbearing, especially when it tries to heighten the suspense in scenes where there is no reason to do so. In the final analysis, the movie fails to hit the mark.

I KILLED EINSTEIN, GENTLEMEN (1970)
aka Zabil jsem Einsteina, panove
Article 3905 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-13-2012
Posting Date: 4-23-2012
Directed by Oldrich Lipsky
Featuring Jiri Sovak, Jana Brejchova, Lubomir Lipsky
Country: Czechoslovakia
What it is: Science fiction comedy

When a new bomb causes women to grow beards, a desperate government decides to fix the problem by having the inventor of a time machine go back into time and assassinate Albert Einstein, the father of modern physics, thus preventing the development of the bomb. However, meddling with history isn’t always easy, and has its side effects…

What we have here is a variation on the old idea of going back in time and assassinating Hitler before he became a dictator, and the movie does give the original concept some lip service in a rather amusing scene. The movie opens with a scene which looks for all the world like two men kissing, but you’ll quickly find that that’s not what you’re really seeing. However, it is a great way to catch your attention and it drew me into a movie that, at least for the first half, is one of the funniest comedies I’ve seen in a long time; I found myself laughing out loud quite a few times during this part. It loses a bit of steam in the second half, mostly due to the fact that the addition of a resistance group that is trying to prevent the assassination of Einstein complicates the plot enough that you’re distracted from the humor by trying to figure out who everybody is and what is going on. Still, there’s a few clever moments in the second half as well, and the style of direction makes me wonder if Terry Gilliam might have seen this movie. Despite the weaker second half, I still think the movie is a creative and interesting comedy overall, and I highly recommend it .