LOST CONTINENT (1951)
Article #469 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 6-27-2002
Posting date: 11-20-2002

A military expedition is undertaken to recover information from a lost missile that crashed on its test run. The expeditioners discover a prehistoric land on their quest.

This cold-war take on the Lost World theme starts out with an appealing group of actors (Cesar Romero, John Hoyt, Whit Bissell, Sid Melton, and Hugh Beaumont are all on hand) with some not uninteresting characters. Unfortunately, once the expedition begins, it finds precious little to do with them. The stop-motion animated dinosaurs don’t appear until about three-quarters through the film (and they’re no better than so-so at best), and until then, we have scene after scene of them walking through the jungle or climbing the mountain, broken up by scenes of them talking to one another, and their characters aren’t quite interesting enough to compensate for the lack of a story for most of the middle of the movie. It almost feels as if the dinosaurs were thrown in to try to spice up a dull script, rather than the story revolving around the dinos in the first place. There are some nice individual moments, but its a dull ride between them.

THE LEECH WOMAN (1960)
Article #451 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 6-9-2002
Posting date: 11-2-2002

An aging woman discovers a potion that restores her youth; unfortunately it requres the fluid from a pineal gland of a man.

Well, this movie is certainly not what I’d call dull, but it is unpleasant and distasteful. Part of the problem is that the script seems downright misanthropic; you end up disliking almost every character in the story. The opening scene sets the tone with the married couple sniping at each other endlessly; it’s not only unpleasant , but badly acted and written, and I found it totally unconvincing. The rest of the movie isn’t quite so bad; you’re grateful when Gloria Talbot shows up and manages to make a minor and potentially dull character interesting and even sympathetic by sheer dint of her careful performance. The movie is no fun, which isn’t necessarily fatal for a movie. The trouble is, if it’s going to be unpleasant, it either needs to be insightful enough to give us the feeling that we’re seeing something very real and relevant to us as human beings (this one doesn’t), or it needs to make some sort of observation that makes enduring the movie worthwhile. The main observation that this movie makes (that a woman’s entire worth is centered around her being young, beautiful and loved by men, a belief shared by every character in the movie) is not only inaccurate, it is positively damaging to those who believe it.

THE LAST WOMAN ON EARTH (1960)
Article #262 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 12-3-2001
Posting date: 4-18-2002

When all the oxygen is mysteriously taken out of the atmosphere, the only survivors are a man, his wife, and his lawyer. Problems arise when the lawyer begins to take an interest in the man’s wife.

This movie is very ragged about the edges, which is understandable, considering that the script was being written as it was filmed, and the speed with which it was shot. Still, I can’t help but admire this movie in that it aspires to be an actual SF drama, and I think it succeeds. The acting is equally ragged, but it all ends up working quite well. Considering how easy it would have been to make the movie exploitative and pandering, admirable restraint is shown throughout. Credit must certainly go to Roger Corman and screenwriter Robert Towne, who also does double duty by playing the part of the lawyer, Martin Joyce. Betsy Jones-Morland and Antony Carbone (both from THE CREATURE OF THE HAUNTED SEA) play the other two roles. This one is worth a look.

THE LADY AND THE MONSTER (1944)
Article #239 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 11-10-2001
Posting date: 3-26-2002

Scientists doing experiments with keeping brains alive illegally remove the brain of an unscrupulous industrialist named Donovan.

Not to be confused with THE MONSTER AND THE GIRL, this is the earliest adaptation of Siodmak’s “Donovan’s Brain”. It is much more horror-oriented than the more famous version from the fifties, with Dr. Mueller (Erich von Stroheim) a much madder scientist than anyone in the remake, and the setting is in a castle versus that of an ordinary home with a laboratory. It’s interesting to compare the two; whereas Corey was the main scientist in the later version, here he is Stroheim’s assistant. Erich von Stroheim is a lot of fun, as might be expected, but he seemed a little unnecessary to me, though his presence does contribute to a better motivated ending to the move than the “hand of God” ending of the later version. Vera Hruba Ralston is on hand as the girlfriend of Corey, and she is quite awful, though I love her reaction everytime someone mentions a Gigli saw. All in all, the movie is OK, but I do prefer the Lew Ayres version.

THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (1963)
Article #237 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 11-8-2001
Posting date: 3-24-2002

A plague devastates the world, leaving one man alive to fight a race of vampires.

Richard Matheson penned the novel I Am Legend on which this movie was based. For me, the best part of the movie is the first third, which focuses on the day-to-day routine of the title character (played by Vincent Price) as he goes through the motions of survival; this sequence vividly captures the sense of bleakness and despair in displaying the somewhat gruesome but monotonous routine he must follow to survive, and the stark black-and-white photography adds to the atmosphere enormously. I find the rest of the movie not quite as interesting, but I still enjoy it more than THE OMEGA MAN; where that movie seems content to throw a lot of action into the mix, this one tries to dwell on some deeper issues. And I love Price’s last line. “They were afraid of me!”

THE LODGER (1926)
Article #208 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 10-10-2001
Posting date: 2-23-2002

Blondes are being murdered by a Jack-the-Ripper type stalker. When a new lodger arrives at a boarding-house and acts suspicious, the owners of the house begin to suspect that he is the murderer.

This very early Hitchcock film already has a lot of the touches for which he would become famous. His dark sense of humor is in evidence throughout, and there are a number of striking visual moments, such as watching the lodger turn all the pictures in the room with their faces to the wall, and some interesting shots of him with the heroine in which they are both looking in different directions and then switch to the direction in which the other person was looking. What I really liked was how well he kept the sense of mystery as to whether the lodger was indeed the murderer or not; keeping this revelation a secret until the end of the movie helped to build the tension nicely. This was a very satisfying movie, and a very good indication of how quickly he honed his talents.

THE LAND UNKNOWN (1957)
Article #124 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 7-18-2001
Posting date: 12-1-2001

A helicopter makes an emergency landing in a storm and the occupants find themselves several thousand feet below sea level. There they encounter prehistoric creatures and a man who has been stranded in the area for years.

This is a rather tepid, forgettable lost world movie, and though quite a bit of money went into it, it’s not that impressive. The dinosaurs are created through various means, including some less-than-stellar suitmation for the tyrannasaurus rex, and a couple of slurpasauruses thrown in for good measure. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the film is that the lost world is allowed to exist at the end of the movie; which means, no big volcano scene. This is actually pretty rare for one of these movies, and it makes you wonder whether they wanted to save the money such a scene would cost, or if they might have been hoping for a sequel. Incidentally, the leading actor Jock Mahoney was a stuntman for many years in Hollywood, and he performs his own stunts in the movie.

THE LOVES OF HERCULES (1960)
(a.k.a. HERCULES VS. THE HYDRA)
Article #89 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 6-13-2001
Posting date: 10-27-2001

Hercules falls for a queen who is the daughter of a man who he believes may be responsible for the murder of his wife. When the queen’s fiance is then found murdered, she believes Hercules to be the culprit, though he has actually been framed.

A comment that I once heard concerning Sword and Sandal movies is that the chests of the men tend to be bigger than the chests of the women; however, with Jayne Mansfield in two different roles, this one is clearly an exception. This one is a little more coherent than others of its ilk, but it is quite unconvincing and at times laughably silly; it’s hard to keep a straight face during Hercules’ battle with the three-headed Hydra. Another oddity is that the evil queen of the Amazons disposes of her lovers by turning them into hilarious-looking trees (they look like stiff, charred Gumbys). The movie is replete with the usual S&S cliches, and with Mickey Hargitay (as Hercules) wearing a particularly skimpy loincloth, there’s no doubt that this one is as much fun for the girls as it is for the boys.

THE LOST WORLD (1925)
Article #88 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 6-12-2001
Posting date: 10-26-2001

Professor Challenger organizes an expedition to South America in search of a mysterious plateau believed to have prehistoric animals living on it.

In retrospect, this movie feels like a warm-up for KING KONG, as there are very similar plot elements in common between the films. Based on a novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (most famous for Sherlock Holmes), this movie is still quite entertaining. The DVD does restore some footage that was missing on my VHS of the movie (which was in bad condition, had a lousy soundtrack, and ran at the wrong projection speed), and I noticed that most of the footage that had been cut had been character-oriented, which is not really all that surprising. Needless to say, the DVD does give a fuller and more satisfying presentation.

THE LEOPARD MAN (1943)
Article #87 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 6-11-2001
Posting date: 10-25-2001

When a leopard being used in a publicity stunt breaks loose, a series of deaths occur, seemingly as a result of attacks by the animal. However, the owner of the leopard does not believe the animal is to blame, and when the leopard is later found dead, the truth comes out.

This is often considered one of the weaker Val Lewton efforts, and in some ways, it is. The main characters are some of the most uninteresting people I’ve seen in a Val Lewton film, and their personal problems and conflicts are fairly dull. However, the movie is salvaged by some of the most memorable scare scenes in the entire canon of the producer, and it contains one of the greatest and most chilling scenes in horror movie history; everyone I know of who has seen the movie, if they remember nothing else about it, at least remembers the scene with the blood and the door. I also admire the sharp use of sound in the movie, especially the unnerving clapping of the castanets. This is one movie I enjoy a little more each time I watch it.