Miracle in Paradise Valley (1948)
Article 5570 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-9-2018
Directed by James M. Constable
Featuring Kirby Grant, Eddie Parkes, Jean Mowry
Country: USA
What it is: Farm safety film

A young farmer encounters a mystical character intent on getting him involved in a movement to prevent accidents on the farm. Only by bringing the farmer into the future can the mystical character win him over.

There’s no listing for this forty-minute short IMDB, probably because it’s in that cinematic limbo which includes films that weren’t intended for general cinematic release; it was a farm safety film. I’ve seen several of these types of films, and this is one of the best ones I’ve encountered; it looks professionally done, is generally well-acted, and actually has a bit of punch to it. It’s a good example of a common strategy of these films; create a mystical character whose purpose is to pass the gospel of whatever the message is, and have him teach it to a human. It’s corny and preachy, but it also demonstrates how an effective and dramatic presentation can really bring a subject home; the high point is when the farmer attends a presentation on farm safety, and has to go on stage to keep a crowd of hecklers from derailing the message. The farmer’s ability to make farm safety a subject that touches everyone personally is pretty impressive. In some ways, it reminds me a little of the Rip Van Winkle story I saw recently.

Modern Times (1936)
Article 5547 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-1-2018
Directed by Charles Chaplin
Featuring Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman
Country: USA
What it is: Chaplin comedy

After he has a nervous breakdown on the job, the little tramp falls in love with a young woman and attempts to find a way to make a living in the modern world.

It’s a tribute to Chaplin’s star power that he was able to make what amounted to a silent movie this late in the sound era. This wasn’t, however, due to slavish idolatry of an antiquated convention; it had been intended as his first sound film, but it became apparent to Chaplin that his “little tramp” character worked best within the silent conventions. Chaplin actually makes very creative use of sound; it gives him control over the musical soundtrack, and he allows words to be heard at strategic moments. In fact, he even lets the tramp sing at one point, albeit in gibberish. This movie and CITY LIGHTS are often praised as Chaplin’s finest moments, but I have to confess I’m a hair disappointed at this one; despite the fact that much of the movie is brilliantly staged, I don’t find myself laughing very much, though I do appreciate both the satirical observations and the pathos. The fantastic contents are mostly confined to the scenes of the futuristic factory, full of enormous machines and closed-circuit televisions; I suspect Chaplin may have been a bit influenced by METROPOLIS here.

My Big Emergency (1936)
aka Oira no hijoji
Article 5535 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-11-2018
Directed by Sanae Yamamoto
No cast
Country: Japan
What it is: Japanese animation

The peaceful members of the world of Frogland have to defend themselves when they are victims of a sneak attack by an evil horde of airplane bombers.

I don’t know if I’ve correctly assigned the Japanese title to this animated short that was passed on to me under the main title above, but it was the only movie listed on IMDB from 1936 that is credited to Sanae Yamamoto, so I’m making a leap of faith. Of the early Japanese shorts I’ve been watching lately, this is the one closest in style to equivalent American cartoons of the era. It has some Felix the Cat touches, and the pilots of the bombers look quite similar to the character of Bimbo from the Fleischer brothers shorts. It’s actually quite creative and very well done, with the anthropomorphic animals being the main fantastic content. However, as an American, I can’t view the cartoon without feeling a great sense of irony in the fact that this short about a clearly evil sneak air attack came from the same country responsible for the sneak air attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Milpitas Monster (1976)
Article 5530 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-9-2018
Directed by Robert L. Burrill
Featuring Paul Frees, Doug Hagdahl, ‘Crazy George’ Henderson
Country: USA
What it is: Low-budget monster mayhem, Milpitas style

What is causing the disappearance of all the garbage cans in the town of Milpitas? And what is making those giant footprints around town? And what about the mischievous high school kids and the town drunk? Will the authorities solve the mystery?

Currently I’m watching a collection of extreme low-budget independent movies called “Tomb of Terrors”, almost all of which were made from in the years 2004 through 2006. I’m thinking that this tiny-budgeted movie from the mid-seventies might be that decade’s equivalent to the movies on this set. However, there is a difference; while I find going through that set of movies rather painful, I found this one a lot of fun. It’s not that this movie is so much better (its 2.8 rating on IMDB is about right); it’s more that its badness is the fun type of badness that makes this project enjoyable for me. The movie is clearly intended to be a comedy (that’s apparent from the opening logo), and the fact that most of the intended laughs are pretty awful (you’ll see way too much of the comic-relief drunk) doesn’t really kill the fun. There’s a giant winged monster made of garbage on the loose, and many of the scenes suffer from bad sound and/or bad lighting. The story is pretty unfocused, but individual moments are pretty amusing; I like the monsters encounter with a garbage truck and the machine known as the Odorola. It took three years to make this movie, and though the movie is a mess and it stinks, it’s also aware that it is. Paul Frees contributes only opening and closing narration, with the final bit ridiculously reprising a modified version of the last line of KING KONG. It’s the type of low-budget independent film that makes me smile; I have yet to see a single movie on that movie set that has entertained me this much.

Manga: Kobutori (1929)
Article 5528 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-19-2018
Directed by Chuzo Aochi and Yasuji Murata
No cast
Country: Japan
What it is: Animated fantasy

Two men (one industrious, the other lazy and dishonest) both have disfiguring lumps on their heads. When the former has his lump removed after an encounter with an immortal and his bird minions, the other decides to meet them as well in the hopes of having the same fate.

Japan has a long tradition of animation, but this is the earliest one I’ve seen to date. The style is much more realistic than the American animation from the same time period, and it is much more adult in spirit as well. I was quite entertained and charmed by this little tale. One thing I’m very glad has happened with this project is that it’s given me an opportunity to encounter animation from other lands; though I’m a big fan of animation, I really didn’t encounter much that wasn’t American in origin for many years.

Maria, the Magic Weaver (1960)
aka Mariya-iskusnitsa
Article 5508 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-27-2017
Directed by Aleksandr Rou
Featuring Mikhail Kuznetsov, Viktor Perevalov, Anatoli Kubatsky,
Country: Soviet Union
What it is: Fantasy

A wandering soldier with a magic drum helps a young boy whose mother has been abducted by a water wizard.

Over the years, I’ve grown to really enjoy watching children’s movies and fantasies from other countries; they have a way of capturing cultural differences while keeping the stories simple and fun. This one is extremely colorful, especially when we enter the underwater palace of the wizard and meet his bizarre minions, including a gaggle of pirates and a frog-turned-more-or-less-human. My favorite scene is truly surreal; while the heroes make their escape with the rescued mother, the villains are incapacitated by a psaltery whose music forces them all to dance. There’s a real sense of magic to this one, and it’s a joy to watch. I look forward to seeing more from Rou, whose oeuvre includes a movie that was featured on MST3K, JACK FROST.

The Mechanical Man (1921)
aka L’uomo meccanio
Article 5502 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-27-2017
Directed by Andre Deed
Featuring Giulia Costa, Andre Deed, Valentina Frascaroli
Country: Italy
What it is: Comic thriller

An evil woman has stolen plans for a mechanical man, which she builds and uses for a wave of criminal activity. Can she be defeated?

Only about a third of this film is extant, and if it hadn’t been on my suggestion list, I might have chosen not to cover it. However, since it was on my suggestion list (and since the remaining footage does feature a wealth of mechanical man action), I did, and I’m glad I did. The opening of my print of the movie features a complete rundown of the plot, which helps in following the thing, since the remaining footage jumps right in the middle of the action. It doesn’t look like I really missed a lot; the first two-thirds of the movie seems to use the plans for a mechanical man as a Gizmo Maguffin for a story about criminals trying to get hold of the plans (albeit one with a comic sensibility), which would be the dull part of the movie. However, once the mechanical man is made, we have plenty of robot fun. Less fun is the comic relief character, who mostly seems to engage in unmemorable slapstick antics. However, the highlight of the movie is comic in nature; the mechanical man shows up at a party where it is mistaken for a man in costume. The actual battle between the two mechanical men is a bit disappointing, as they look more like the they’re dancing rather than fighting. Still, for a movie missing two-thirds of its footage, the extant material is entertaining enough to warrant a look.

Magic Land of Mother Goose (1967)
Article 5464 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-28-2017
Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis
Featuring Roy Huston, David Hammond, Judith Snow
Country: USA
What it is: For when your kids have been REALLY bad

Merlin the Magician visits characters from “Stories from Mother Goose” and using magic, helps them with their personal problems.

Here’s a practical joke to play on your friends. Dare them to watch the most horrible, unwatchable movie that you know. Hint that it’s directed by goremeister Herschell Gordon Lewis. If they’re familiar with the name, they’ll probably not want to seem like wimps and take you up on the challenge. Then show them this movie. The only downside to this practical joke is that you’d have to watch it with them.

This is my nominee for the worst movie ever made. When I screened it for a bad movie group I once belonged to, we couldn’t watch it one sitting and had to space it out over six nights, meaning we could only handle about ten minutes of it at a time. It is for all practical purposes the equivalent of a photographed stage play of a high school children’s production; the only reason it doesn’t quite qualify is the cast is made up entirely of adults and there are a handful of bare-bones special effects that I’m sure Melies had already mastered before the turn of the last century. It seems to be mostly an excuse for a stage magician to ply his trade; practically every plot development ends with a magic trick. It’s static as hell and looks like it may have been shot in less than one day. It’s the epitome of a snoozefest, and the movie gives a whole slew of clues to this.

1) Notice that during the introduction by Santa, he immediately falls asleep. That is a warning.

2) Old King Cole says that “nothing ever happens around here”. He’s not exaggerating.

3) The rag doll is asleep when she is first introduced. No movie this dull should have this much sleeping in it

4) When Sleeping Beauty shows up, she’s distraught because she’s NOT asleep. She knows the best way to handle this movie.

5) The witch’s main spell on the other characters is to freeze them in their tracks, making them static and lifeless. Hint. Hint. Hint.

6) When the discussion turns to making Jack Spratt lose weight, the comment is made that he has “too much power”, which I take to mean as too much energy. Doesn’t it say something that this movie is seeking to reduce the amount of energy it has?

As always, remember the Merlin rule – If a movie features Merlin the Magician but not King Arthur, it probably stinks. This movie is the equivalent of skunk roadkill.

One final warning – the only thing you’re likely to remember about this movie is the rag doll’s disturbing mask; I’m surprised some slasher movie hasn’t borrowed the look.

The Monster of Camp Sunshine (1964)
Article 5463 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-28-2017
Directed by Ferenc Leroget
Featuring Harrison Pebbles, Deborah Spray, Sally Parfait
Country: USA
What it is: Bizarre nudie flick

Residents at a nudist camp are terrorized by a mentally challenged caretaker who becomes homicidal after drinking water polluted by chemicals.

I’ve been going through my entire DVD collection and watching everything, and occasionally I stumble across an item that qualifies as genre but never appeared on my hunt list. I’m choosing to review these. This black and white nudist film appeared on the same disc as THE BEAST THAT KILLED WOMEN, and for what it’s worth, I prefer this one. Not that this one is better made than the other movie; it’s just that while TBTKW knows just what it is (a nudist film in which the plot is inconsequential) and achieves its goal, it’s dull as dishwater, whereas this one doesn’t seem to know what it is and goes all over the board; its wild inconsistency makes it more entertaining. It starts out as a drama about two female friends, one who is trying to make the other one feel less self-conscious about her body by inviting her to a nudist camp, turns into a horror movie as the nurse is attacked by killer rats, finally turns into a full-blown nudie in the second half, and takes a turn back into horror before turning into a mind-blowing surreal comedy when the entire army is called out to do battle with a monster (an ugly dumpy guy with an axe) through the miracle of stock footage. This final sequence is one of the most jaw dropping cinematic sequences I’ve ever encountered. This seems to be the only movie made by writer/director Ferenc Leroget, but I heavily suspect this is a nom de plume; in fact, it looks like an anagram of something. At any rate, it’s a lot more unpredictable than its companion feature.

LE MARIAGE DE BABYLAS (1921)
aka The Marriage of Babylas
Article 5426 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-16-2017
Directed by Wladyslaw Starewicz
Featuring Nina Star
Country: France
What it is: Animated whimsy

A little girl arranges a marriage between two of her dolls (one a baby, the other a monkey), but is forced to go to bed. At midnight, the dolls come to life and deal with the arranged marriage in their own ways.

Here’s another animated work form Starewicz with a partial live-action sequence. It’s a comic piece of animation in which the monkey jilts his initial bride because he’s enamored with a doll lamp whose skirt lights up. It’s not one of his better works, but it’s amusing enough; it’s a bit on the risque side, and part of the fun of being surprised when unexpected characters come to life. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve seen from Starewicz, and this one is no exception.