THE MUMMY (1959)
Article #1724 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-3-2005
Posting Date: 5-2-2006
Directed by Terence Fisher
Featuring Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Yvonne Furneaux

When an archaelogical expedition opens the cursed tomb of Ananka, the head of the expedition goes mad. Years later, the leaders of the expedition are being killed off by a mummy.

One of the problems I have with mummy movies is that most of them have little more to do than to repeat the same storyline line (with slight variations) again and again. That’s what this one does; on the basis of plot alone, there isn’t anything here that wasn’t done in the Universal Kharis the mummy series years ago. There are more ways to judge a movie than on plot alone, though, and I think this movie has some definite pluses. First of all, both Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee give strong performances; Cushing gives a lot of dimension to his role, and Lee manages a fine job with a role that really only gives him his eyes and body language to work with. In particular, I love his expression when he first meets Cushing’s wife, who resembles the princess Ananka. Also, the attack scenes are much more intelligently and effectively staged. Lee’s mummy isn’t really that much faster than that of Universal’s mummy, but he doesn’t waste a second. In particular, I like the way that he takes full advantage of the shock and surprise that his second victim undergoes at his appearance to move in for the kill before the victim can gather his wits to run. It’s touches like this that make the movie work as well as it does.

On IMDB, this movie about Kharis rates higher than any of the ones in the Universal series. Though I am more of a Universal fan than a Hammer fan, I find myself agreeing with this evaluation.

THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS (1959)
Article #1723 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-2-2005
Posting Date: 5-1-2006
Directed by Irvin Berwick
Featuring Les Tremayne, Foreest Lewis, John Harmon

A lighthouse keeper knows the secret behind a series of grisly deaths that occur in the vicinity of his lighthouse.

This monster movie has a bit of a following, and I can see why. For one thing, it is unusually gruesome for a movie of its time, especially with the severed heads that pop up on occasion. Second of all, I remember thinking that the monster looked rather cool in the stills I saw of the movie. Unfortunately, it’s a lot cooler in photographs than it is in action, where its turgid, clumsy movement works against it and its hodgepodge design (it was thrown together from various bits and pieces of monsters from several Universal films) becomes rather apparent. The script is terrible as well; there’s no explanation for what the monster ate before the lighthouse keeper began feeding it, for one thing. It’s also loaded with clumsy, uninteresting conversations, and it’s quite dull when the monster isn’t involved. Still, I always enjoy the easy charm of Don Sullivan and the wonderful voice of Les Tremayne. On an interesting note of trivia, director Irvin Berwick was a child prodigy on the piano.

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (1964)
Article #1720 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-29-2005
Posting Date: 4-28-2006
Directed by Roger Corman
Featuring Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Asher

When a devastating plague engulfs the land, the tyrannical Prince Prospero isolates himself along with his guests in his castle, where he engages in debauchery and Satanic rituals.

For those of you wondering what an art film from Roger Corman would be like, this should fill the bill. Quite frankly, I think it’s a stunning achievement; the sets are beautiful, the use of color is astounding, and there’s quite a bit of meditation on good, evil, life, death, and the numbing effect that a steady stream of cruelty can have on the eyes of the observers. I think, though, that one of the things I like best about this movie is that Corman doesn’t just repeat scenes and concepts from previous movies in the Poe series; Vincent Price has no dead wives to mourn, we see no pictures of relatives, and he ends the movie with a haunting and lyrical sequence with a procession of hooded figures rather than the usual conflagration (which he got out of the way at the beginning of the movie instead). Fine performances abound, particularly from Price and Hazel Court, who plans to become the bride of Satan by surviving her own sacrifice. Patrick Magee is also good as a cruel man who suffers the wrath of a dwarf, a plot sequence taken from Poe’s story “Hop-Toad”, a good choice to incorporate into this one. Still, it’s the beautiful wash of colors that really brings this movie to life. For my money, this is the best of Corman’s Poe movies.

MARS NEEDS WOMEN (1967)
Article #1719 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-28-2005
Posting Date: 4-27-2006
Directed by Larry Buchanan
Featuring Tommy Kirk, Yvonne Craig, Warren Hammack
Special guest star: A Fedpro Intercom

Martians come to Earth to abduct women when a disease causes the woman-to-man birth rate on Mars to plummet.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had to handle one of Larry Buchanan’s forays into genre territory, but sadly, not long enough. I never have high expectations for his movies, but the title at least promises a little campy fun. Sadly, there’s not even much of that; the scene where the Martians have to procure money, transportation, clothing and a map of the city is perhaps the most amusing sequence in this regard. There’s also the odd moment that works; when the tape runs out on a planetarium show and one of the Martians completes the presentation with a sad view of dying world, it’s actually a little touching. Unfortunately, most of the movie is a tedious bore, with endless scenes of aliens stalking their victims or characters engaged in endless and uninteresting conversation. The worst scene is where the military tries to prevent the Martians from landing; it consists entirely of stock footage, people standing around a computer room, and close-ups of an intercom (shot from several angles and occasionally with zooms into and away from it) which gets more screen footage than many of the actors in the movie. That’s why I granted the intercom a “Special Guest Star” credit.

Despite all this, I think this may be Buchanan’s best genre movie that I’ve seen so far. Sad, isn’t it?

THE MAGIC SWORD (1962)
Article #1718 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-27-2005
Posting Date: 4-26-2006
Directed by Bert I. Gordon
Featuring Basil Rathbone, Estelle Winwood, Gary Lockwood

A young man raised by a sorceress decides to save the life of a princess when she is kidnapped by an evil magician who plans to feed her to his dragon.

This is one of the better Bert I. Gordon movies. It was one of his rare forays into fantasy rather than science fiction or horror, and here he tackles the epic quest story. The special effects are uneven, but I think they’re consistently better than they are in many of his other movies; I like the dragon in particular. Furthermore, he has a likable cast (which includes Basil Rathbone, Estelle Winwood and Vampira herself, Maila Nurmi). It’s a little turgid on occasion, but it’s consistently entertaining. Paul Frees provides a small bit of dubbing on one occasion, and you should be able to recognize his voice when he does. Apparently, Richard Kiel is on hand as one of the pinheads in Lodac’s castle, but in all honesty, I’ve never been able to spot him. If he is, this is the only movie to feature both Kiel and Angelo Rossitto, who portrays a dwarf (of course), who terrorizes the princess at one point.

MYSTERIOUS DOCTOR SATAN (1940)
(Serial)
Article #1703 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-12-2005
Posting Date: 4-11-2006
Directed by John English and William Witney
Featuring Eduardo Ciannelli, Robert Wilcox, William Newell

An evil scientist plans to take over the world with an army of robots, but he needs the secret for a control cell created by a noted professor. In his attempts to get this information, he encounters resistance from a masked hero known as the Copperhead.

The villain here is the real draw; he was played by Eduardo Ciannelli, who had a long career playing villains of this sort and was very good at it. It’s no wonder this is one of those rare serials in which the villain nabs the title rather than the hero (like THE PURPLE MONSTER STRIKES or THE PHANTOM CREEPS). Like so many other villains, Doctor Satan wants to take over the world with an army of robots, though he’s only created one of them, and if the robot he has created looks familiar, look no further than THE UNDERSEA KINGDOM; this is the second entry in a row here to feature a recycled robot. However, I’m thinking the title would have been different if the original plan for the serial (it was supposed to feature Superman as the hero) had gone through. Certainly, the Copperhead is no Superman (doesn’t fly, no super powers); in fact, he wins an award for the hero with the least secret secret identity I’ve encountered. All he does is to don his face mask (no other change of costume) to become the Copperhead, and I’m willing to bet that everyone who doesn’t know who he really is is just pretending so as not to hurt his feelings. Nevertheless, this is a strong Republic serial; it’s well-paced, has decent cliffhangers, and fairly fun. Yes, I would have liked to have seen more of the robot, but that’s just me.

THE MAGNETIC MONSTER (1953)
Article #1654 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-24-2005
Posting Date: 2-21-2006
Directed by Curt Siodmak and Herbert L. Strock
Featuing Richard Carlson, King Donovan, Jean Byron

A scientist must find a way to destroy a deadly isotope that feeds itself on anything around it.

When I saw this movie as a kid, I was extremely unhappy with a fact that a movie with the word “monster” in the title didn’t have a monster; as far as I was concerned, that radioactive isotope just didn’t count. Still, I never quite forgot the movie, and I was really glad to finally get around to seeing it again thirty years later with different expectations. It has some flaws; the acting and the script are uneven, and some of the attempts at humor fall flat. Nonetheless, a crisp pace, some odd touches and an unusual story give this movie a lot more power than it might otherwise have had. It’s also one of those movies that really effectively uses extensive footage from other sources; much of the climax of the movie uses footage from the old German science fiction film GOLD, and the movie does a very good job of integrating the footage with the movie. The only problem I had with this older footage is that one final plot twist (a Canadian scientist goes mad and tries to hoodwink the project) seems to exist solely to allow them to use even more footage from the original film. Two odd touches bear mentioning; I find it rather charming that the concept of overfeeding manages to connect both the main storyline and the subplot about the scientist’s wife, who, despite being four months pregnant, is still skinny. His solution with both the wife and the monster is the same – feed them more than they want; honestly, Weight Watchers should condemn this movie. And another odd touch is that the super-computer used by the scientists in the movie has that most odd of acronyms – MANIAC. Hence you get lines like “I’ve got to consult the MANIAC.” and “The MANIAC is never wrong.” Still, I have the perfect response to comments about them feeding the information to the MANIAC, and that is “A maniac with a lot of knowledge is a threat!” And the first person who can tell me the source of THAT quote wins a DS Pat on the Back!

THE MONSTER AND THE APE (1945)
(Serial)
Article #1647 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-17-2005
Posting Date: 2-14-2006
Directed by Howard Bretherton
Featuring Robert Lowery, George Macready, Ralph Morgan

When a scientific foundation creates a robot called the Metalogen Man, an evil scientist who helped create him decides that he wants to use the robot for his own nefarious purposes, towards this end, he uses a trained ape to commit murder.

Viewing Note: My copy of this serial was in faulty condition. As a result, I missed most of episode three, as well as episodes four through seven. If anything I claim about the serial is contradicted by footage in these episodes, please bear in mind that I have yet to catch them.

Given that I’m a lot more partial to monsters and apes than to fistfights and lame cliffhangers, I actually looked forward to catching this serial in the hopes of it having a lot more of what I wanted. The fact that the cast featured Ralph Morgan, George Macready and Willie Best only made me more interested. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up. It’s not so much that the monster in the title is actually a robot; though I like to think of my monsters as having been more organic than metallic in nature, a robot is a suitable and acceptable substitute. It’s just that I expected a lot more monster and ape action than the serial really gave me. Most of the time the robot just sits in the corner and does nothing, and some episodes feature the ape doing nothing more than walking back and forth in his cage at the zoo. As far as the cast goes, they all seem to be merely walking through their parts; even Willie Best seems mostly bored, and his comic dialogue is extraordinarily weak. Granted, his muted performance does leave his character with a bit more dignity than his characters are usually given. The only actor who seems to be having fun here is Ray Corrigan playing Thor the Gorilla; he’s positively playful here, and it may be his best performance in a gorilla costume. But ultimately, what we’re left with here is mostly fistfights and lame cliffhangers, with the latter often going beyond mere cheating cliffhangers into the realm of lying cliffhangers. And the one scene we the viewers are entitled to expect – a knock-down drag-out fight between the title characters – is nowhere to be found, and those hoping for one will be very disappointed when one of the title characters has its last gasp at the top of episode fourteen. This makes me wonder if Corrigan may have played a dual role here, as I see no credit for the actor playing the Metalogen man. At any rate, this one is a disappointment.

MENACE (1934)
Article #1639 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-9-2005
Posting Date: 2-6-2006
Directed by Ralph Murphy
Featuring Gertrude Michael, Paul Cavanagh, Henrietta Crosman

A game of bridge inadvertently sets up a chain of events that brings about the death of the supervisor of a dam. Unfortunately, the supervisor has an insane brother who holds the other three bridge players responsible for the death and vows revenge.

In terms of his connections to the genres I’m covering for this series, I mostly associate Ray Milland with several films he made for AIP in the sixties and seventies. What surprises me is how often he seems to pop up in genre movies from the thirties and forties as well. Granted, with a small handful of exceptions (THE UNINVITED, for example), most of these are marginal to the genre, but there are quite a few of them. And even though he isn’t one of the leading performers, here he is again as the man whose death sets the movie in motion.

Though it doesn’t really sound like it from the description, this is one of those “old dark house” films, where several people trapped in an old house are stalked by a killer. It’s also a very good one. It takes itself very seriously indeed; the murderer has a strong savage streak to him, the knife murders are more explicit here than usual for this type of movie, and though it possesses humor, the movie remains more grim than jokey. It also has one of the most suspicious butlers in history, with Halliwell Hobbes giving a great performance in the role. Granted, it is the type of role that screams out “Red Herring”, but I’m not going to let on whether he is or not, because his character is so well used, there will be moments you will wonder about that yourself. Incidentally, the movie also features John Lodge, who, like Ray Milland, would assay the role of Hugh “Bulldog” Drummond one time during the series featuring that character from the thirties.

THE MARK OF THE WHISTLER (1944)
Article #1638 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-8-2005
Posting Date: 2-5-2006
Directed by William Castle
Featuring Richard Dix, Janis Carter, Porter Hall

When a bum discovers that he almost shares the same name with someone with a dormant bank account, he is tempted into engaging in fraud to get the money for himself. Unfortunately, complications arise when he discovers that the man he is impersonating has some enemies…

The genre resource which supplied this title for my hunt list admits that it will include all movies of a series if only some of the movies in the series have fantastic elements. This apparently doesn’t apply all across the board; they don’t list every Bowery Boys movie, despite the fact that several of them qualify. But it does include the entire Whistler series, and sometimes it’s hard to tell if a certain movie is included because of elements of its own or due to its connection to the series. This is one of those ambiguous ones.

Granted, the whole Whistler series could be considered fantastic, since they’re all narrated by the unseen, shadowy Whistler, who might be considered a mystical character of sorts. Still, since he serves only as a narrator, this is a fairly weak element. The only other element of this movie that could cause it to even remotely qualify is that the revenge-driven villain of the piece may be mad, but I don’t think he goes over the edge to insane-psycho-killer mad, so that’s another weak element. At any rate, this movie remains extremely marginal to the genre.

Nonetheless, it’s a great little movie about guilt and fate, and it has a good sense of tension and some wonderful plot twists, as well as strong direction from a pre-horror William Castle. Richard Dix is excellent as the bum whose plot to get a fortune backfires on him, and you may want to keep your eyes open for an uncredited cameo by Willie Best. I certainly don’t mind covering marginalia when it’s as good as this one.