MASTER MINDS (1949)
Article #1592 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-24-2005
Posting Date: 12-21-2005
Directed by Jean Yarbrough
Featuring Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Gabriel Dell

When Sach develops precognition as a result of a toothache, the Boys decide to cash in on this ability by having him make predictions for money. This catches the notice of a mad scientist, who decides that he must use Sach’s superior mental abilities by placing them in his monster, Atlas.

I would have to rank this as one of the best of the Bowery Boys movies. Here are the reasons.

1) Leo Gorcey is particularly inspired with the malaprops this time around.

2) Huntz Hall hits just the right note in his comic performance. Usually, he gives in to too much shameless mugging, but here he keeps it to a minimum.

3) It isn’t just the Leo and Huntz show; both Billy Benedict and Gabriel Dell are given real characters and a substantial part of the action.

4) The movie also features a fun cast, including Alan Napier doing his best John Carradine impersonation, Skelton Knaggs and a cameo from Minerva Urecal.

The story itself is somewhat similar to that of ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN; I mean, what other movie features an attempt to place the mind of a member of a comedy team into a character played by Glenn Strange? This movie takes it one step further, though; the transfer actually happens. Which of course leads us to the best thing about this particular movie, namely –

5) Glenn Strange’s performance as Atlas the Monster with the mind of Sach (Huntz Hall). Yes, I know that Strange was dubbed by Hall for the part, but his physicalization of the role at this point (i.e. his body language and gestures) does such a fine job of capturing the mannerisms of Huntz Hall that it becomes drop-dead hilarious. It may well be Strange’s most inspired performance. It makes me wonder what it would have been like had the brain transplant in ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN had taken place, and we had seen Strange’s performance of the Frankenstein monster as Lou Costello. That would have been something to see!

THE MIRACLE OF THE BELLS (1948)
Article #1572 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-4-2005
Posting Date: 12-1-2005
Directed by Irving Pichel
Featuring Fred MacMurray, Alida Valli, Frank Sinatra

A press agent arrives in a small Pennsylvania coal town with the body of an actress who died after making her first big picture, a biography of Joan of Arc. While making funeral arrangements for her, he conceives of a publicity gimmick to make the producer release the film, which he shelved.

This is one of those religiously inspirational movies that Hollywood made during the forties about angels, miracles, etc. Most of them are actually quite effective due to the fact that they fleshed the movies out with complex situations and characters, humor, and a sense of real curiosity about how people would really react to the fantastic situations portrayed; check out THE SONG OF BERNADETTE as one of the best examples of such a movie. This one fails to do so; it’s sincere, but trite, simplistic, and overly serious. It’s also marred by a weak performance by Frank Sinatra, but I can’t really blame him too much; he was miscast and his uncomfortable performance seems to reflect his awareness of that fact. It makes its biggest mistake, I think, when the Lee J. Cobb character mentions an actress named Genevieve James; I was immediately able to figure out the real actress being referenced, and that just called my attention one more time to THE SONG OF BERNADETTE (a movie which also featured Cobb), and this movie really suffers by comparison.

It’s not totally ineffective, though; when the central miracle occurs late in the movie (which supplies the movie’s fantastic content and merits its inclusion in this series), the movie does offer an alternate explanation which somehow makes the whole movie stronger because it doesn’t change the fact that it’s still an amazing coincidence. It also includes a few greedy characters in the bunch to keep a certain amount of drama to the proceedings. However, I do find it hard to swallow that a town that had to endure three days of church bells ringing would react with awe-struck mystical reverence (not while annoyance was still an option, anyway). And somehow, I couldn’t watch the movie without thinking about a song and a comedy sketch. The former is “The Bells Are Ringing” by They Might Be Giants, in which the ringing of bells turns people into mindless conformist zombies. The latter is a Monty Python sketch in which an agnostic is attacked by a church steeple with a ringing bell and has to destroy it with a tactical nuclear missile. (“There’s nothing an agnostic can’t do if he really doesn’t know whether he believes in anything or not!”) Somehow, this didn’t really add to my reverence for the proceedings.

THE MIND BENDERS (1963)
Article #1571 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-3-2005
Posting Date: 11-30-2005
Directed by Basil Dearden
Featuring Dirk Bogarde, Mary Ure, John Clements

In order to clear the reputation of a dead fellow scientist from charges of having been a traitor, a colleague agrees to undergo an isolation experiment that he believes changed the personality of the dead man. When the man from the ministry observes that the experiment brings about a state similar to that of brainwashing techniques, he takes the experiment one step further…

This is one of those rarities; a real science fiction drama. Despite the espionage angle, the movie is really concerned with how the experiment affects the characters and the relationships between them, and despite the fact that the DVD package mentions THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE and ALTERED STATES (both of which share strong thematic similarities to this movie), I think it bears the strongest similarities to CHARLY, another movie about the effect an experiment has on a man’s character. The acting throughout the movie is strong (especially from Dirk Bogarde and Mary Ure as the scientist and his wife), and the opening scenes really suck you into the story. The movie does get rather slow on occasion, though some of it is necessary; in order for the plot to work, it requires we have a good knowledge of how the scientist, his wife, and a friend feel about each other. However, I still think that it could have used a little pruning of its 109 minute length. Nonetheless, this is a compelling and memorable movie.

THE MOUSE THAT ROARED (1959)
Article #1568 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-30-2005
Posting Date: 11-27-2005
Directed by Jack Arnold
Featuring Peter Sellers, Jean Seberg, William Hartnell

A tiny country decides to invade the U.S. in the hopes of receiving massive government aid when they lose. However, through a strange quirk, they manage to win the war.

I was disappointed by this movie when I was a kid; despite the fact that it featured the guy who played Inspector Clouseau, I didn’t think it was all that funny. I like it much better nowadays, and I think that’s because the movie’s strengths are better appreciated by adults. The movie isn’t funny so much for its gags, but rather for its clever premise, its satirical jabs, and the great performances of Peter Sellers in multiple roles. Though none of his three roles is as amusing as his Clouseau character, they are still examples of his consummate skill as an actor. One thing that impresses me with Sellers is that when he plays multiple roles, he doesn’t come across as showing off; each role seems to be given the same thought, care and subtlety, and he feels very much at ease with playing against himself. I also like the way that the movie doesn’t load itself up with scenes where Sellers’ characters interact with each other in the same frame, as this has a tendency to distract from the performances themselves. There are a number of nice touches; the Columbia logo gets in on the humor at one point, watching the various politicians play a Monopoly-like game called Diplomacy at one point is amusing, and watching the Secretary of Defense squirm as he realizes the situation he’s in are all great fun. The movie is at its weakest when it resorts to slapstick, but these are all momentary lapses, and the movie quickly returns to humor based on satire and character. Half a decade later, Sellers would return to the comic theme of nuclear destruction (once again in multiple roles) in DR. STRANGELOVE. The movie also features the great character actor Leo McKern as well as the first Doctor Who himself, William Hartnell.

MINOTAUR, THE WILD BEAST OF CRETE (1961)
(a.k.a. TESEO CONTRO IL MINOTAURO)
Article #1567 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-29-2005
Posting Date: 11-26-2005
Directed by Silvio Amadio
Featuring Bob Mathias, Rosanna Schiaffino, Alberto Lupo

Theseus goes to Crete to take on the Minotaur.

It seems like ages since I’ve had the opportunity to cover another sword-and-sandal movie, and that’s a good thing; you can overdose on these things. This one starts out promising; the attack of a woman by a big hairy monster in a pre-credits sequence seems to promise a fair degree of monster mayhem. Well, don’t hold your breath; there’s only one monster in the movie, and since they’re saving it for the big climax, you have to wade through eighty minutes of typical sword-and-sandal shenanigans before Theseus even announces he’s going into the labyrinth to take on the Minotaur. So we get an evil queen lusting after our hero, a village of peasants massacred by armed warriors, lots of bare-chested male camaraderie, and four (count ’em, four) moments when the story grinds to a complete halt so we can have a dancing girl sequence. That’s at least three too many and way above average for this type of movie. The plot is so elaborate they even have to bring in a goddess at the halfway point to clue Theseus in on a gaggle of plot development. Unfortunately, our hero is one of those normal-strength variety; the biggest rock he throws is no larger than your head, and his attempt to bend the bars in his jail cell is merely pathetic. Still, on the plus side, the dubbing is much better than usual for this sort of thing, you can actually use the word “spectacle” to describe the fight scenes without giggling, and the monster is pretty good for a peplum, even if it doesn’t resemble the traditional description of the Minotaur in any way, shape or form.

MARS ATTACKS THE WORLD (1938)
Article #1565 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-27-2005
Posting Date: 11-24-2005
Directed by Ford Beebe and Robert F. Hill
Featuring Buster Crabbe, Jean Rogers, Charles Middleton

Flash Gordon goes to Mars to investigate a deadly beam emanating from the planet.

After the grousing I did about DEADLY RAY FROM MARS, you’d think the last thing I’d want to pop up on my viewing list would be another feature version of FLASH GORDON’S TRIP TO MARS. And you’d be right. In fact, I was prepared to write my shortest review to date; it would’ve consisted of nothing more than a link to my review of DEADLY RAY FROM MARS. Well, as fate would have it, I’m not going to do that, because this one deserves better. This is far and away the most successful attempt to convert a serial to a workable feature that I’ve seen. I applaud the editors who pulled it off; they found just the right balance between action and exposition, and made no attempt to include everything; instead, they only kept what would make the serial work as a feature. It’s not perfect, but its faults are forgivable; for example, it wisely jettisons almost the entire forest people sequence with the exception of the only necessary scene (the one that brings Prince Barin into the story), but that one necessary scene results in the most jarring continuity jumps in the movie. Still, I think this was the best compromise to make under the circumstances, and given how badly most of these feature-length serial adaptations come out, I’m delighted to find one that actually works this well. I really enjoyed it, and I never thought I’d say that about this type of movie.

MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES (1957)
Article #1564 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-26-2005
Posting Date: 11-23-2005
Directed by Joseph Pevney
Featuring James Cagney, Dorothy Malone, Jane Greer

The son of deaf parents becomes a movie star.

There are some actors who I end up rarely covering for this series because they made so few movies that fall without the bounds of fantastic cinema. Consequently, this is only the second time I’ve had a chance to do a movie featuring one of the great tough-guy actors of all time, James Cagney (the first was A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, in which he was just one of many stars in the film), and this one qualifies not so much for its fantastic content but rather for being about an actor who appeared in a lot of movies that do qualify – Lon Chaney. Cagney was an inspired choice; not only does he somewhat resemble Chaney, but he adds a lot of dimension to his character that might have been missing with a lesser actor. Reportedly, the movie isn’t particularly accurate (certainly, the closing moment with the makeup case is a piece of fiction), but then, how many Hollywood biopics are? At least it isn’t a piece of fluff, and it’s well acted and directed. It does manage to weave the various elements of Chaney’s life into a single story, and the scenes of him with his deaf-mute parents are quite touching. My only wish is that somehow they had managed to fit in a cameo for his real son somewhere in the proceedings.

THE MAN WHO COULD WORK MIRACLES (1936)
Article #1509 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-2-2005
Posting Date: 9-29-2005
Directed by Lothar Mendes
Featuring Roland Young, Ralph Richardson, Edward Chapman

A cosmic entity grants the ability to work miracles to a random individual on the planet earth.

Producer Alexander Korda had adapted H.G. Wells to the screen with THINGS TO COME, and returned to the author with this movie. Initially, these two movies couldn’t be more different; whereas the events in THINGS TO COME played themselves out in broad strokes on an epic scale, this one seems at first to be light comedy. After all, this massive power has been granted to a slightly befuddled, somewhat meek man named Fotheringay; one need only know that the part is being played by Roland Young to have an idea of what the character is like. However, the light comedy that permeates most of the movie is a bit of a deception; at heart, it’s a long-burning fuse that leads to an explosion that occurs when Fotheringay finally realizes that the power he has been granted is subservient to his will and no one elses, and it is at this point that the guidance he has been seeking from the idealistic but somewhat hypocritical crusader Mr. Maydig (Ernest Thesiger) and the conservative but selfish and brutal Colonel Winstanley (Ralph Richardson) comes to naught. It is at this point that the theme of progress in the movie starts to bear a certain resemblance to the same theme in THINGS TO COME; furthermore, there’s also the theme of the seductiveness of power which strongly recalls the similar theme in another Wells adaptation, THE INVISIBLE MAN. Roland Young is excellent in the title role, as are Thesiger and Richardson as well. The movie also features early performances from George Sanders who, as a mystical creature known as Indifference, is already displaying the arrogance that would be an acting trademark of his, and George Zucco, cast in a very unusual role for him as a manservant. The movie is full of clever touches, and the ending is great. This may be the finest adaptation of Wells to date.

MYSTERY PLANE (1939)
Article #1480 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-3-2005
Posting Date: 8-31-2005
Directed by George Waggner
Featuring John Trent, Marjorie Reynolds, Milburn Stone

A pilot invents a device that allows bombers to engage in remote-control bombing. He is then kidnapped by spies who want his information, and finds that an old flying idol of his is in cahoots with them.

My source for this movie refers to a title called SKY PIRATE, but no movies with that title matched up with the cast list in my source. After hunting around a bit, I came to the conclusion that the movie actually being referred to was MYSTERY PLANE; the cast list more or less matches, and it’s alternate title SKY PILOT bears a strong similarity to the SKY PIRATE title. The movie does have a science fiction element; namely, the remote-control bomber mechanism in the plot description. It’s a Tailspin Tommy movie, the first of four made by Monogram in the late thirties. It’s done with a fair amount of energy (courtesy of director George Waggner, who would go on to direct THE WOLF MAN), and the human element (with a down-on-his-luck former pilot) is also handled well. There are a few dead spots, and at times certain of the characters verge on the annoying, but these are fairly mild quibbles for what is a fine example of poverty-row film-making at its most effective.

THE MISSING GUEST (1938)
Article #1472 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-26-2005
Posting Date: 8-23-2005
Directed by John Rawlins
Featuring Paul Kelly, Constance Moore, William Lundigan

A reporter tries to get a story on a haunted house and a mysterious blue room in which people get murdered.

I always wondered why it was that Universal made so many versions of the Blue Room story; this was the second of three versions by the studio within a twelve year period. None of them are classics, but they’re watchable enough. The first one had a memorable cast (Lionel Atwill, Edward Arnold, Gloria Stuart, etc.). This one doesn’t, but goes heavy on the comedy. It’s your basic ‘old dark house’ movie, with mysterious murders, fake scares, secret passages, etc. As a time killer, it’s pleasant enough, but it’s pretty routine.