LE MYSTERE SAINT-VAL (1945)
aka The Saint-Val Mystery
Article 5209 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-20-2016
Directed by Rene Le Henaff
Featuring Fernandel, Arlette Guttinguer, Germain Kerjean
Country: France
What it is: Old dark house, French style

An insurance investigator who won an amateur policeman contest is sent out to the Saint-Val mansion to investigate the death of a man who recently bought a life insurance policy. Then the residents begin dropping dead…

Apparently, American comedians weren’t the only ones who would try to work a “haunted house/mystery” comedy into their oeuvre; here’s one from the French comedian Fernandel. I found this one on YouTube, but it’s not complete (it’s short about twenty minutes) and it doesn’t have English subtitles, so plotwise I was left somewhat in the dark. However, it does have a fair amount of atmosphere, there’s a fun assortment of mysterious characters, and there are a few visual jokes to liven up the proceedings. Due to the language issue, I can’t give a real evaluation of the movie, but it did look fairly fun and I enjoyed what I could from it.

MARIONETTES (1939)
Article 5207 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-17-2016
Directed by Ben Carleton
Cast unknown
Country: UK
What it is: Eerie amateur movie short

A puppeteer becomes enamored with a life-size female dancer marionette, but becomes jealous when she seems to prefer another life-size marionette, a clown. However, this is all in the puppeteer’s mind, isn’t it?…

Since most of my sources understandably pay little attention to the world of amateur film, I rarely venture there myself in my cinematic journeys. However, the Walt Lee guide is an exception, and its listings include this film from Ben Carleton, who made movies as a hobby. This one was made in 1939, but had to wait until 1948 to get shown due to the advent of WWII. Now “amateur” doesn’t mean the same thing as “amateurish”, and this eerie little tale (shot silently with music) is well acted, well edited, and quite effective; it’s better than many professional films I’ve seen. Even given the fact that it was shot silent, it actually feels a bit more modern than other films of the era, and that’s quite an accomplishment.

THE MAGIC FLUTE (1946)
aka La flute magique
Article 5188 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-21-2016
Directed by Paul Grimault
No cast
Country: France
What it is: Whimsical animated fantasy

A wandering minstrel crosses swords with a music-hating king and his lute is destroyed. However, some birds transform into a magic flute that the minstrel can use to make anyone or anything dance.

This is a charming little French animated short. The print I saw was not translated into English, but that’s really no big problem; outside of the lyrics of the minstrel’s opening song and a sign on the castle door (which I’m guessing mostly informs minstrels that they are not welcome), the story is told visually. According to IMDB, Paul Grimault was one of the leading animators in France, and had a captive audience in that country during the period of its occupation during WWII, as American animated films weren’t allowed to be shown. The cartoon itself is pleasant and well-animated, but it’s more whimsical than actively funny and is fairly predictable. As far as I can tell, it has no connection with the Mozart opera.

LA MARCA DE SATANAS (1957)
aka The Mark of Satan
Article 5185 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-18-2016
Directed by Chano Urueta
Featuring Luis Aguilar, Flor Silvestre, Jaime Fernandez
Country: Mexico
What it is: Mexican Weird Western

A singing cowboy and his comic-relief nearly-deaf sidekick try to solve the mystery of a house where an axe murder took place twelve months ago.

Don’t let the title fool you; it’s not a movie about devil worshipers. It’s a Mexican weird western, and the fantastic intent includes an an axe murderer dressed in black from head to toe, a couple of bloody deaths, an axe that seems to move around of its own accord, a ghost, a zombie, and a walking headless cowboy. It’s apparently the third part of a four movie series involving the cowboy and his sidekick; I’ve seen the fourth part, LA CABEZA DE PANCHO VILLA, and couldn’t make heads or tails out of it due to the lack of English subtitles. This one does have subtitles, but the plot is more than a bit confusing, the supernatural content is all explained away (though the explanations don’t match the visuals from earlier in the movie), and most of the humorous content revolves around the comic sidekick not hearing things well or trying to clean out his ears. It’s pretty silly, but it does hit a good spooky vibe at times, and there’s a goofy charm to the proceedings that makes me like it despite its flaws. Of course, the movie stops in its tracks several times to make room for musical numbers.

MACARIO (1960)
Article 5183 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-16-2016
Directed by Roberto Gavaldon
Featuring Ignacio Lopez Tarso, Pina Pellicer, Enrique Lucero
Country: Mexico
What it is: Fantasy

On the Day of the Dead, a poor woodsman, unhappy with his life of poverty, vows he will not eat until he can have a cooked turkey all to himself without sharing. When he finally gets his wish, he finds himself visited by God, the Devil and Death, and shares with one of them, and he receives a gift…

I can’t quite remember where, but I know I’ve encountered the basic story here before; it’s about a man given the power to cure others but only if death appears at the foot of the bed of the patient rather than at the head of the bed. It’s based loosely on a tale from the Brothers Grimm. It’s well acted, sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, and it has a truly memorable ending where our hero runs through a spooky forest and eventually ends up at the cave of Death. Overall, I’m not quite sure how I feel about the whole thing, but it does have a lingering power, and it’s definitely one of the best Mexican movies I’ve seen.

LA MARMITE DIABOLIQUE (1902)
Article 5166 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-25-2016
Directed by Gaston Velle
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Early trick short

A cook throws a young boy into a boiling pot, thus incurring the wrath of a devil.

Adventures in movie-hunting: The Walt Lee guide from which I culled this title lists the movie as being a 1903 production directed by Gaston Velle and produced by Pathe Freres. The problem is that this listing mixes up things. There are two movies of the same title: one from 1902 directed by Velle for Lumiere, and a 1904 version with an unknown director for Pathe Freres. The first of these is extant, while the second one is lost, so I’m going to use this listing to both review the extant version and write the other one to my “ones that got away” list.

The IMDB listing is for the 1904 version, and the plot description there almost sounds like the 1902 version, except it has events out of order and events that don’t occur; it was obviously a remake of this one. It’s a fairly ordinary trick short, similar to the many Melies shorts of the time, though it lacks the energy of those shorts. This earlier version is available currently on YouTube for anyone who might be interested. It is, however, nothing particularly special.

MILANO ODIA: LA POLIZIA NON PUO SPARARE (1974)
aka Almost Human
Article 5155 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-12-2016
Directed by Umberto Lenzi
Featuring Tomas Milian, Henry Silva, Laura Belli
Country: Italy
What it is: Crime thriller

A small-time psychotic crook hits upon a kidnapping scheme to put him in the big time. He’s not going to let anyone get in his way. But how far will the policeman who is chasing him go to catch him?

This crime thriller was marketed as a horror movie in certain quarters, which was probably tempting to do given that the English title lends itself to that interpretation. There’s no doubt that the villain is a psychotic madman, so it nudges into horror on that item, but it definitely plays out like a crime movie rather than a horror movie. It is, however, a very good if brutal crime thriller, with strong performances from Tomas Milian, who practically oozes twitchy psychosis, and Henry Silva, effectively cast against type as a police inspector. It’s one of those movies where you don’t harbor much hope for any of the side characters; at least one of them knows that there’s no hope for them, but given what they know about their boss, I’m a little surprised that the villain’s accomplices weren’t better prepared for what was going to be their fate. Yeah, there’s a few cliches here as well, but the convincing performances are what sell the movie.

MAUDITE SOIT LA GUERRE (1914)
aka Damned Be War
Article 5143 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-29-2016
Directed by Alfred Machin
Featuring Baert, Suzanne Berni, Fernand Crommelynck
Country: Belgium
What it is: Anti-war movie

A young man goes to another country to become an airplane pilot, and ends up staying with a family there, befriending the son and falling in love with the daughter. When war breaks out between the two countries, he must return home and fight for his country. When he becomes a successful bomber pilot, the son is assigned the task of bringing this enemy down, unaware it is the man he befriended. Things do not end well.

I’m not quite sure exactly what the fantastic content is here, but it might qualify as a prediction of World War I and the use of planes in warfare; the Walt Lee guide says it “anticipates horrors of war”. but the main horrors this one emphasizes are not technological ones but human ones; friends killing friends and people losing those that are dear to them. The story itself is no surprise; a movie with a title like this is not going to have a happy ending, and the plot may be a hair too dependent on coincidence, as the set-up is a little too neat. It also might have been a little more effective if the acting had been a little subtler; it does manage to avoid hamminess, but some of the physical reactions are a little too cliched. Still, the movie is a bit on the mild side; compared of the real horrors that would arise with WWI, this is pretty weak tea, though it certainly does personalize the horror. The print I saw does have some truly excellent hand-coloring, though.

THE MAN IN THE BACK SEAT (1961)
Article 5132 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-18-2016
Directed by Vernon Sewell
Featuring Derren Nesbitt, Keith Faulkner, Carol White
Country: UK
What it is: Crime thriller

Two criminals attempt to rob a bookie, only to discover that his money is in a bag that is chained to his wrist. They steal the bookie’s car, stash him in the back seat, and try to find a way to get the money off of him and then figure out what to do with the body. Things don’t go well.

There’s something to be said about efficiency. This movie runs only 57 minutes, and it manages to fit enough plot to fill twenty minutes in another movie into the first five minutes here, and it maintains that same tense pace throughout. It is also one of those movies that hovers on the edge of being a black comedy; all it would take is a slight change of tone to underscore the fact that what happens to the two would-be thieves is a series of unlikely and somewhat comic coincidences; these two are almost cursed. As it is, the strong script, the tight direction, and the solid acting really make this a memorable crime thriller. However, I’m going to have to remain silent on the nature of the fantastic content in the movie, but I will say this much; it exists (though it may be a psychological manifestation), and it doesn’t come into play until the very end of the movie.

THE MAN WHO WANTED TO LIVE FOREVER (1970)
Article 5130 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-16-2016
Directed by John Trent
Featuring Stuart Whitman, Sandy Dennis, Burl Ives
Country: Canada / USA
What it is: TV-Movie Thriller

A reclusive tycoon hires a brilliant heart surgeon to experiment with heart transplants in his private medical research foundation, but the surgeon begins to suspect that the tycoon’s reasons may not be strictly philanthropic…

If you take a look at the plot description and the title, and then consider the fact that the surgeon is suspicious of the tycoon from square one, you’ll be well on your way to sorting out how this plot is going to unfold long before it does. Basically, it’s an early variation of the story in THE CLONUS HORROR, only without the cloning angle, and that unfortunately means that the fantastic content is considerably lighter here. The script is rather clumsy and the direction is humdrum, but it does manage to have a few good moments. The thing I like best about the movie is Burl Ives’ wonderfully underplayed performance as the tycoon, and he steals every scene he is in. The rest of the movie is okay at best, and the final chase sequence doesn’t quite deliver on the thrills. It’s passable, but far from great.