THE LAST WAR (1961)
(a.k.a. SEKAI DAISENSO)
Article #1556 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-18-2005
Posting Date: 11-15-2005
Directed by Shuei Matsubayashi
Featuring Frankie Sekai, Akira Takarada, Yuriko Hoshi

A Japanese family tries to continue to live their normal lives with the impending threat of nuclear war.

My copy of this movie (in Japanese and subtitled) opens with the trailer for the movie, and the trailer would have you believe that the movie is a non-stop barrage of special effects. If it were, it wouldn’t be nearly as effective as it is. Instead, this movie focuses for the most part on the travails of a single family. The father is unable to fathom the possibility of nuclear war and assumes that all will work itself out, the mother is suffering from an unspecified illness but still takes her full role in the family, and the daughter is hoping to marry the man she loves, even if her father disapproves; there are also two young children. We get to know this family fairly well. Interspersed between these scenes of the family are scenes of the events surrounding a coming nuclear war, and two of these events involve touch-and-go situations (one involving faulty machinery, the other involving an avalanche) both of which almost result in the onset of nuclear holocaust which is only averted at the last second. If there is anything these scenes accomplish, it is that they do not leave you feeling comfortable with the idea that no war will occur and that cooler heads will prevail, two of the father’s beliefs. Still, during the panics near the end of the movie, the father makes a comment that is very telling when he refuses to evacuate himself from Tokyo with the comment that there is no place for ninety million people to hide. The movie ends up being very effective in that it allows you to get close enough to the characters that you care about them and their fates, and that is the strength of this movie. It has its problems; in particular some of the acting by non-Orientals is variable. Still, this is a worthy addition to the nuclear holocaust movies of the fifties and sixties.

THE LODGER (1944)
Article #1413 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-26-2005
Posting Date: 6-25-2005
Directed by John Brahm
Featuring Laird Cregar, George Sanders, Merle Oberon

An elderly couple take on a lodger who they suspect may be Jack the Ripper.

Despite the fact that the silent version of this movie is from Alfred Hitchcock, this is my favorite take on this tale. Plotwise, it departs from the original movie (especially towards the end), but this is a good thing in this case, because it gives us the full measure of Laird Cregar’s performance of the disturbed lodger, Slade. In fact, the movie is filled with good performances from everyone. Sir Cedric Hardwicke is more animated than usual as the eccentric elderly man, and he plays off very well with Sara Allgood. George Sanders does an fine job as a Scotland Yard detective; he really isn’t given a lot to do, but he makes good use of what he is given, and he nails his best line (the one about the murderer who killed a woman who “wouldn’t answer a direct question”). However, it’s Cregar who is unforgettable here. It would have been a career-making performance had he wanted to play psychos; unfortunately, his desperate attempts to remake himself as a romantic lead caused him to embark on a dieting regimen that would cost him his life. This would be his second to last movie, though his follow-up to this one with the same director John Brahm (HANGOVER SQUARE) is equally good.

LAUGH, CLOWN, LAUGH (1928)
Article #1388 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-1-2005
Posting Date: 5-31-2005
Directed by Herbert Brenon
Featuring Lon Chaney, Bernard Siegel, Loretta Young

A roving clown rescues an abandoned girl and raises her as his own. When she reaches womanhood, he discovers that he’s fallen in love with her, but cannot tell her becuase of his age and his belief that she loves another.

I’ve covered several of Chaney’s extant films for this series, but this one is perhaps the most marginal in terms of its fantastic content. The closest qualifications I could think of are 1) the presence of Chaney himself, who, though not really a horror actor, has been adopted by horror fans as one of their stars, and 2) the Chaney character does go a little mad towards the end of the film. Other factors often found in Chaney films that edge them closer to horror (horrible revenge and physical handicaps) are singularly missing in this one.

However, it is a tremendously moving movie, and it’s one of Chaney’s very best. His ability to project emotion is phenomenal; you feel his joy and pain every second he’s on the screen. The movie is filled with powerful scenes; the scene where Chaney tries his best to get the newly-saved child to laugh; the scene where he discovers that he’s lost the woman he loves to another right after he’s given a bravura performance on stage but right before curtain call, and the scene where the juxtaposition of his tragic life and his stage persona drives him into a fit of madness are all unforgettable. Horror fans will find little here, but Chaney fans will find plenty.

LEGEND OF HORROR (1972)
Article #1383 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-28-2004
Posting Date: 5-27-2005
Directed by Enrique Carreras and Bill Davies
Featuring Karin Field, Fawn Silver, and several uncredited performers

A new prisoner is assigned to share a cell with a mad old man named Sidney, who is in prison for once having killed an old man.

When the Poe anthology movie OBRAS MAESTRAS DEL TERROR was released in this country, it was called MASTER OF HORROR, and had its third story excised. For those who wondered about the fate of that third story, here it is, badly dubbed and expanded into a full length movie. How? They set the movie several years into the future with the murderer now an imprisoned old man who tells the original story in flashback between trying to escape, talking to rat named Tommy, and knifing anyone who gets in his way. It’s pretty bad, but I can’t help but admire a little some of the resourcefulness that went into this. The special effects are unusual; the new gory death scenes are done via stop motion animation, and though it’s far from convincing, it’s novel enough to catch your attention. It also manages to make itself not seem quite as cheap as it was, through the use of borrowed music and footage from some of the AIP Poe movies. What really confuses me is the cast list; IMDB lists only two people in the cast, both of them women – Karin Field and Fawn Silver. However, there’s only one prominent female role in the movie, and I definitely recognize it as Fawn Silver (who I recall from ORGY OF THE DEAD). So who does Karin Field play? I have no idea.

Incidentally, the movie ends with a sign that talks about the imperfection of man. Given how bad this movie is, I can’t help but feel that the movie comes with its own built-in excuse. I’m not sure whether I admire that or not.

THE LOST ZEPPELIN (1929)
Article #1372 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-16-2004
Posting Date: 5-15-2005
Directed by Edward Sloman
Featuring Conway Tearle, Virginia Valli, Ricardo Cortez

Two men in love with the same woman leave together on a zeppelin en route to the south pole.

Fantastic content: The zeppelin trip to the south pole makes the movie at least marginally science fiction.

Back in my college days, I agreed to take a part in a radio play about a detective, and I ended up with the lead role. After the first read-through, one problem became alarmingly clear; the script was not long enough to fill the thirty-minute slot set aside for it. The director decided that the best way to deal with this problem was for everyone (especially me) to talk much slower. I did, and ended up giving one of the worst performances of my life.

To get to the point, the way I feel about my performance in this radio play is the way I feel about most of the very early talkies; I find them almost unwatchable, but it isn’t quite their fault. Because of the technical restrictions of trying to incorporate the technical innovation of sound, much of the dramatic content was badly compromised. The opening twenty-five minutes of this movie suffers from the fact that it is both talky and cliched, and the huge gaps between cues were both technically necessary and dramatically disastrous, as the pace slows to a crawl.

The movie improves immensely once we get to the zeppelin flight, largely because the special effects are excellent. However, every time it becomes necessary to turn to conversation to advance the plot, we are forced to leave the environs of the zeppelin (it’s droning sound would drown out any conversation) and must go back to civilization where we can watch people sitting around and listening to plot developments over the radio, and this gets tiresome quickly. As it is, if it weren’t for the special effects, I would find this movie almost unwatchable.

Still, I don’t want to be too hard on the movie; I have this problem with all the talkies from this era. Had it been made a few years later when the sound technology and the techniques been better developed, it would have flowed a lot better. Therefore, I feel more inclined to take my hat off to those who pioneered the early sound movies; whatever their flaws, they were taking the necessary steps to perfect the new technology. I applaud the effort, even if I find the results difficult to watch.

LOST HORIZON (1937)
Article #1370 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-14-2004
Posting Date: 5-13-2005
Directed by Frank Capra
Featuring Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt, Edward Everett Horton

Several people escaping from a violent revolution in China find that their plane has been shanghaied and that they are being taken in the wrong direction. They end up stranded in an isolated area in the mountains of Tibet, and there they discover the utopia of Shangri-La.

In some ways this is one of the more offbeat entries in the Capra oeuvre, but it’s generally ranked with his best work. I like it well enough, but I don’t quite place it in the top tier of his works. He does an excellent job with the somewhat protracted beginning of the movie; I’ve always loved his use of crowds, and the opening scenes in China are exciting and fun to watch. I also enjoy the last part of the movie where Ronald Colman, John Howard and Margo leave Shangri-La to return to the outside world. It’s the actual visit to Shangri-La that gets a little dull, and I think it’s simply because utopias tend to be somewhat uninteresting on a dramatic level; that’s why not many movies are made about them. Still, the movie is packed with fine performances. In particular, Ronald Colman does a wonderful job as the man who has found the world of his dreams, and both H. B. Warner and Sam Jaffe are great as Chang and the High Lama respectively. Able support is also given by Edward Everett Horton and Thomas Mitchell, who are both initially resistant to the charms of Shangri-La, but who soon find it to be the best place for them. I also find it very interesting that the adventures of Ronald Colman after his escape from Shangri-La are told to us in story by a man at a club rather than shown to us, but I think this is very effective; it completes the transition of turning a character who we’ve come to know very well into something of a legend, and it’s fitting that his becoming a legend makes his return to Shangri-La (a legendary place itself) all the more appropriate.

THE LIVING GHOST (1942)
Article #1369 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-13-2004
Posting Date: 5-12-2005
Directed by William Beaudine
Featuring James Dunn, Joan Woodbury, Paul McVey

A detective is called on to solve the mystery of a man who has disappeared. The missing man then reappears, but with his mental faculties impaired by a paralyzed brain.

Fantastic content: A bit of horror is present due to the man’s zombified state, and there is also a visit to a spooky old house.

You know, the mystery elements here are not really too bad; it does have a somewhat interesting gimmick, and some of the details here and there caught my attention. Unfortunately, the movie is also trying to be a comedy with James Dunn as a sharp-tongued detective, and though I don’t know whether it’s the script or his performance that is at fault, the end result is that I found the whole affair very unfunny. In some ways, I’m not sure why the problem exists. The movie isn’t as creaky as some others I’ve seen, and there is a certain level of energy to the proceedings. Still, every time it goes for a laugh, it falls flat, and after awhile, I just lost interest. In particular, the running joke about the detective’s frustration with the butler is ineffective, largely because the butler never does anything to really merit that sort of reaction. All in all, this one is a waste of time for any but the most patient of mystery fans.

LILIOM (1930)
Article #1368 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-12-2004
Posting Date: 5-11-2005
Directed by Frank Borzage
Featuring Charles Farrell, Rose Hobart, Estelle Taylor

A maid falls in love with a carnival barker.

Fantastic content: Before the movie is over, one of the major characters dies and takes a train to the afterlife.

This is an adaptation of the play that would also serve as the source story for the musical CAROUSEL. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the latter, but I suspect it works a little better in that form, This version didn’t go over well with me at all. Charles Farrell looks the title role well enough, but his voice has a nasal whine to it that is distinctly unpleasant. I was quite unhappy with Rose Hobart’s performance in the role of Julie; she comes across as distant and terminally depressed, and that has a way of undercutting the message that she’s supposed to be getting a lot of joy in her relationship with Liliom. There is a touch of eroticism to some of the scenes at the beginning of the movie, but some of the accompanying dialogue is stilted and clumsy; in fact, that problem permeates the whole movie. Far and away I prefer the sequences involving the arrival of the train of the dead right through the wall of the room where Liliom is dying, (even if it does follow one of the most protracted deathbed speeches this side of an opera), as well as the other scenes in the afterlife. This sequence also has the best line of the movie; when the red train to hell arrives to take Liliom to a land where he will learn a little discipline, the man telling him about the arrival takes a second to point out that the color of the train has “no political significance”. I do find the ending message of the movie to be more than a little offensive; the concept that when you beat the ones you love they will experience them like kisses is a romantic prevarication that only lends itself to being used as a base rationalization by wife and child abusers everywhere.

THE LAST PERFORMANCE (1929)
(a.k.a. THE MAGICIAN)
Article #1367 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-11-2004
Posting Date: 5-10-2005
Directed by Pal Fejos
Featuring Conrad Veidt, Mary Philbin, Leslie Fenton

A magician discovers that his female assistant is not in love with him, but rather with one of his assistants, a thief that he took pity on and took into his employment.

Fantastic content: It’s marginal. The magician and his tricks give it that touch of fantasy, and the gruesome death gives it a touch of horror.

The story is pretty familiar; I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the same plot used in several other movies, though their titles do not come to mind immediately. I had a strong idea of where the story was going to go the minute he took the thief into his employment at the urging of his female assistant, and the movie doesn’t have any real surprises. It is, however, very efficient (my print ran only forty-eight minutes), and it is anchored by an excellent performance from Conrad Veidt, whose character must remain polite and understanding in public while hiding his true feelings. It’s the type of movie I’d expect from Tod Browning with Lon Chaney in the main role, though it doesn’t quite have the grotesquerie we would expect from that combination.

LIFE IS A CIRCUS (1958)
Article #1240 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-6-2004
Posting Date: 1-3-2005
Directed by Val Guest
Featuring Bud Flanagan, Teddy Knox, Jimmy Nervo

When most of Joe Winter’s circus performers walk out, a handful of men try to singlehandedly keep the big top alive. Then they discover Aladdin’s lamp. Hilarity ensues.

You can tell this is a comedy right off the bat; the stars of this one are a group of men known as “The Crazy Gang”. You can also tell it’s a musical; the title song gets spotlighted about four times during the length of the movie. There’s also a chimp to spice things up; he helps to keep the humor from getting too lowbrow. Lionel Jeffries pops in as the genie and promptly steals the movie. I also recognized Joseph Tomelty, who appeared in DEVIL GIRL FROM MARS. Most of the schtick is frantic and desperate, but the occasional funny line comes through. Despite its obvious appeal to kids, I’d be cautious about springing it on to them unprepared; the genie is watching the dance of the seven veils inside of his lamp, and it doesn’t leave a whole lot to the viewers imagination. So this is what Val Guest does when he’s not directing movies based on stories by Nigel Kneale.

I miss Quatermass.