IL MIO AMICO JEKYLL (1960)
aka My Friend, Dr, Jekyll
Article 2461 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-28-2008
Posting Date: 5-8-2008
Directed by Marino Girolami
Featuring Ugo Tognazzi, Carlo Croccolo, Raimondo Vianello
Country: Italy

An ugly mad scientist (who scares women away) develops a method to transfer personalities between two creatures for a limited period of time. He uses this method to transfer his own personality to that of the popular teacher at a girl’s school in the hopes of scoring with women.

If I thought I was going to be able to use the fact that the name of Jekyll indicated that this was based on the Robert Louis Stevenson story to help me sort out another movie in unsubtitled Italian, I was out of luck; other than having a scientist named Jekyll, it doesn’t touch the story. Nevertheless, this was one of the easiest to follow for movies I’m watching in another language; from a plot perspective, it’s fairly easy to figure out what’s going on with the visual clues. The slightly comic touch to the title led me to suspect that this my be a comedy, and though it starts out looking serious enough, the minute I saw the scene where Jekyll tries to quiet a barking dog in his house, and it turns out not to be a dog, but a goose, I knew this was going for laughs. The basic premise is simple; the teacher is kidnapped by Jekyll, his body gets Jekyll’s personality, Jekyll goes out in the teacher’s body and makes passes at woman (attracting them and infuriating their husbands), and then when the Jekyll’s personality leaves the teacher’s body, the teacher has to deal with the complications that arose, including fighting an amusing duel at one point. I may not know what they’re saying, and there are a few plot points that are a little obscure, but the motivations and story arc are fairly obvious. Overall, I found it quite amusing and enjoyable. Once again, I hope I can find a dubbed or subtitled version of this one in the future.

MILLION DOLLAR COUNTDOWN (1967)
aka Please Don’t Fire the Cannon, Per favore… non sparate col cannone
Article 2440 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-6-2007
Posting Date: 4-17-2008
Directed by Mario Caiano
Featuring Frank Wolff, Rossella Como, Giampiero Albertini

A safecracker just released from prison is hired by a mysterious man aboard a yacht to steal a secret missile defense system that causes missiles to return back to their launching point and explode. The safecracker hooks up with his old cohorts, and puts together a plan to get the secret.

I have to admit I have a fondness for caper movies, but I don’t cover them very often for this series because they so rarely slide into the genre areas that I’m covering. This one does, though, and though it’s not a great movie, it’s a good one and quite amusing. The fantastic content is, of course, the missile defense system. The caper itself requires the usual bizarre selection of accomplices and items; in this case, we have a cannon, an armored tank, LSD pills, and an exploding car. However, the caper hits some snags when the thieves have to contend with an attempt by a woman to murder her husband via an exploding thermos. The twists at the end are also quite amusing. What I like best about this film is simply that it isn’t an Italian comedy that drives me up the wall, as too many of them do, and even the dubbing doesn’t really hurt this one. Still, I find that a lot of Italian movies from the sixties and seventies have musical scores that do nothing for me, and I’m afraid this is the case here; the music mostly consists of women’s voice singing an a capella number with lots of la-la-las that sounds for all the world like it’s background music on a Christmas song.

MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET (1942)
Article 2417 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-8-2007
Posting Date: 3-25-2008
Directed by Phil Rosen
Featuring Patric Knowles, Maria Montez, Maria Ouspenskaya

When the body of a woman with a mutilated face is found, the victim is believed to be a missing actress. Then the actress shows up. Then she disappears again, and another body is found; this time it is really hers. Dupin investigates with the help of the local prefect.

If there is any Poe story that I would expect to undergo major revision before it was turned into a motion picture, this would be the one; it isn’t so much a story as speculation on the solution of a real-life murder case. This one has a story, though it’s not a particularly good one, but the cast is interesting, though it’s really hard to buy that Maria Montez (with a French accent) is the granddaughter of Maria Ouspenskaya (with a Maria Ouspenskaya accent). The latter is a suspect largely because she keeps a pet leopard (but, then, who doesn’t?), and, for that matter, the daughter is also a suspect (that is, until she becomes a victim). The horror elements are the fact that it comes from a Poe story, the presence of the leopard, and the gruesomeness of the murders. For me, most of the enjoyment of the movie is just watching Maria Ouspenskaya act, even in a strange-looking wig. Keep your eyes open for Charles Middleton as a curator of a zoo that gets a new addition to its menagerie.

MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET (1942)
Article 2417 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-8-2007
Posting Date: 3-25-2008
Directed by Phil Rosen
Featuring Patric Knowles, Maria Montez, Maria Ouspenskaya

When the body of a woman with a mutilated face is found, the victim is believed to be a missing actress. Then the actress shows up. Then she disappears again, and another body is found; this time it is really hers. Dupin investigates with the help of the local prefect.

If there is any Poe story that I would expect to undergo major revision before it was turned into a motion picture, this would be the one; it isn’t so much a story as speculation on the solution of a real-life murder case. This one has a story, though it’s not a particularly good one, but the cast is interesting, though it’s really hard to buy that Maria Montez (with a French accent) is the granddaughter of Maria Ouspenskaya (with a Maria Ouspenskaya accent). The latter is a suspect largely because she keeps a pet leopard (but, then, who doesn’t?), and, for that matter, the daughter is also a suspect (that is, until she becomes a victim). The horror elements are the fact that it comes from a Poe story, the presence of the leopard, and the gruesomeness of the murders. For me, most of the enjoyment of the movie is just watching Maria Ouspenskaya act, even in a strange-looking wig. Keep your eyes open for Charles Middleton as a curator of a zoo that gets a new addition to its menagerie.

MURDER MANSION (1972)
aka La Mansion de la niebla
Article 2416 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-7-2007
Posting Date: 3-24-2008
Directed by Francisco Loro Polop and Pedro Lazaga
Featuring Ida Galli, Analia Gade, Annalisa Nardi

Various travelers end up at a spooky mansion near a cemetery. There are rumors that the cemetery is haunted by vampires. Strange things happen.

The title on my copy of this movie certainly doesn’t make it sound much like a horror movie. In some ways, this is fitting; the movie itself seems to forget it’s a horror movie for most of its running time. This in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing; the trouble is, it doesn’t have much of anything really interesting going on for most of its running time either, as it seems more interested in the love lives of various poorly-differentiated characters. There are some twists at the end, but I saw them coming a mile away; I’ve always held that plot twists are only interesting if the plot itself is interesting, and this one bored me. A little gore and one interesting murder was about all that caught my attention. Not recommended.

MONSTER ZERO (1965)
aka Invasion of the Astro-Monsters, Kaiju daisenso
Article 2404 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-26-2007
Posting Date: 3-12-2008
Directed by Ishiro Honda
Featuring Nick Adams, Akira Takarada, Jun Tazaki

Two astronauts explore the newly-discovered Planet X to find a civilization plagued by attacks from a creature known to them as Monster Zero, but to the Earth as King Ghidorah. Earth agrees to let them have Godzilla and Rodan to battle King Ghidorah, but the men from Planet X have an ulterior motive…

Having just encountered the English Language Dubbers Association in yesterday’s movie, I thought I’d give them a rest by watching the subtitled version of this movie, thereby giving the English Language Subtitlers Association a chance to flex their muscles. Well, if I had any hopes of the ELSA of helping me find the spelling of the hero of yesterday’s movie, they were smashed by the realization that the ELSA badly needs some quality control in the spelling department; for the record, it’s “lightning”, not “lightening” and “smoother”, not “smother”. Of course, I’d also forgotten that this movie also features English-speaking Nick Adams in the cast, and, since this is the Japanese version, the Japanese Language Dubbing Association (JLDA) had to be called in to dub him; for the record, I think they do a better job than the ELDA. (I wish to point out here that, with the exception of the ELDA, I’m not sure any of these associations ever really existed).

So enough about dubbing and subtitling; let’s get to the movie. It’s a direct sequel to GHIDRAH, THE THREE HEADED MONSTER ; in fact, it has one less monster than that one, as Mothra does not appear here. It also sets the template for the formula that would become far too common in the original Godzilla series of movies, that of aliens controlling the monsters and using them to attack the Earth. The movie is very slow in getting to the monster action; the only early battle is extremely short, and is more memorable for Godzilla’s hilarious post-victory dance than for anything else. As far as having watched the subtitled version against having watched the dubbed version (which I’d seen several times before), the main advantage I found was that I finally figured out what the practical purpose of that teeth-gnashing sound gizmo was, something I don’t recall as having been explained adequately in the dubbed version; other than that, I might just as well have seen the dubbed one. Nick Adams also appeared in FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD .

MOLE MEN AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES (1961)
aka Maciste, l’uomo piu forte del mondo
Article 2403 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-25-2007
Posting Date: 3-11-2008
Directed by Antonio Leonviola
Featuring Mark Forest, Moira Orfei, Paul Wynter

One of the sons of Hercules (Maciste, or, as they call him in this one, Majestis) does battle with a tribe of mole men, who must live underground for fear of being destroyed by the sun and who have vowed to kill all people who live above ground.

Majestis? I don’t know how they spell it, but instead of the usual pronunciation for Maciste (My Cheese Steak), we get the pronunciation “My Chest Is”. I’m thinking they already used Maciste in one of these “Sons of Hercules” films, and wanted to pretend that this was a different guy with a name that sounded so close to Maciste’s that it would be a breeze for the English Language Dubbers Association (who gets a credit here) to handle. Now, if only the English Language Subtitlers Association was on the ball, I’d know the correct spelling. At any rate, it makes sense that these sword-and-sandal heroes would like names that emphasized their chests, given that both Mark Forest and Paul Wynter have prominent ones (as well as Moira Orfei, but that’s another story). Yes, the mole men have an evil queen who falls in love with Majestis, as well as an evil courtier with plans of his own. It also has the world’s largest manually-operated merry-go-round, an ugly ape creature, bizarre torture devices, a primitive conveyor belt, death by sunlight, and a really big chain. It’s all in a day’s work for a son of Hercules.

MURDER, HE SAYS (1945)
Article 2401 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-23-2007
Posting Date: 3-9-2008
Directed by George Marshall
Featuring Fred MacMurray, Helen Walker, Marjorie Main

An itinerant pollster finds himself trapped with a family of insane hillbillies who believe he knows the whereabouts of a treasure.

There’s no adequate way to describe this truly bizarre and frequently hilarious comedy, but if I call it a hillbilly variation on an ‘old dark house’ story, I get pretty close. The movie features a hidden treasure, a whip-wielding Marjorie Main, poisoned and possibly radioactive water (it makes everything glow in the dark), two stupid twins (one with a crick in his back so you can tell them apart), a nonsense song that holds the key to the treasure, an escaped criminal, a woman disguising herself as an escaped criminal, an imaginary ghost named Smedley, a truck-powered hay machine, a “Lazy Susan” rotating table, poisoned gravy and Fred MacMurray. The fantastic elements are probably the poison and the ghost. There’s some great scenes here; the scene at dinner where everyone tries to avoid the poison gravy, the scene where MacMurray conjures up a ghost to scare the twins, the scene where MacMurray has to pretend that he has someone else’s legs, and the finale in the barn all come to mind. It simply must be seen to be believed. Recommended, but only when you’re in a really silly mood.

THE MURDER CLINIC (1967)
aka La Lama nel corpo, Revenge of the Living Dead
Article 2392 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-14-2007
Posting Date: 2-29-2008
Directed by Elio Scardamaglia
Featuring William Berger, Francoise Prevost, Mary Young

A hooded killer is loose in a clinic, murdering young women with a razor. Is it the doctor? His wife? The deformed woman in the attic? Or one of the disturbed patients? A young nurse named Mary is determined to find out before she becomes the next victim…

For the most part, this is a fairly ordinary horror thriller, with a little too much lurking in dark hallways to substitute for plot. Still, I rather like the mystery element of this one; at least three really good suspects are present, and any one of them could be the murderer; overall, I was pleased with this aspect of the movie. Still, what I most remember hearing about this movie was its being part of a set of horror films that were released as a triple feature and renamed with titles with the words “Living Dead” in them to imply they were flesh-eating zombie movies in the mold of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD . This was the first one, retitled REVENGE OF THE LIVING DEAD. The others were CURSE OF THE LIVING DEAD (actually, Mario Bava’s KILL BABY KILL , easily the best of the lot) and FANGS OF THE LIVING DEAD (actually MALENKA). At least these latter two do feature living dead of some sort (ghosts and vampires); this first one doesn’t feature living dead of any variety, much less flesh-eating zombies. Overall, this one was fairly ordinary.

MIDNIGHT MANHUNT (1945)
Article 2389 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-11-2007
Posting Date: 2-26-2008
Directed by William C. Thomas
Featuring William Gargan, Ann Savage, Leo Gorcey

When a corpse shows up outside of a wax museum, two reporters compete to get a story about it. However, they have a problem; the corpse keeps disappearing and reappearing in other places.

Well, it takes place at midnight, and everyone’s hunting for a man, so the title is appropriate. The twist is that the man is dead. Though it isn’t strictly a horror movie, it has one of those premises that has it nudging the genre, and the presence of both a wax museum and George Zucco only make it hone a little bit closer. Like most movies with vanishing and reappearing bodies, it’s played mostly for laughs, and the presence of Leo Gorcey (taking a break from East Side Kids movies) adds to the fun, and yes, his malaprops come with him. It’s a low-budget programmer, but it’s a lot of fun if you’re in a light-hearted mood. The movie also features Charles Halton as the twittery Wax Museum owner, and Ann Savage, who would appear in DETOUR later that year. By the way, Leo Gorcey’s character’s name is Clutch Tracy, and this got me imagining what a cross between Clutch Cargo and Dick Tracy would look like. I’m still not sure, but I bet the chin would be something else…