NIGHTMARE (1956)
Article #181 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 9-13-2001
Posting date: 1-27-2002

A man wakes up from a nightmare in which he kills another man, and then finds evidence that leads him to believe that it wasn’t just a nightmare.

If you’ve seen FEAR IN THE NIGHT, you’ve seen this movie; both versions were directed by the same man, Maxwell Shane, and I see very little difference between the two. This one has a slightly bigger name cast than the other (Edward G. Robinson and Kevin McCarthy play the leads), and there are a few changes in the details. In this one, the main character is a musician in a jazz combo rather than a bank teller, and instead of putting out an ad in the paper to find the house with the room of mirrors from his dream, he goes to a bar and almost picks up a lady; both differences seem to make the movie a little more “Hollywood”, IMO. Despite the fact that I really like Robinson, his presence really doesn’t add a whole lot extra to the movie, and I really don’t consider this one an improvement over the original. In fact, if anything it lacks the earlier film’s “B-Movie” charm.

NOSFERATU (1922)
Article #106 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 6-30-2001
Posting date: 11-13-2001

A city is invaded by a vampire called Count Orlok, who brings the plague and terrorizes the inhabitants.

This is my favorite silent horror film. Everyone here probably knows that it was a plagiarized version of “Dracula” and all copies were supposed to be destroyed; it’s quite amazing that any survived, considering how much of silent cinema is lost to us forever. I certainly prefer it to the Universal DRACULA: I’ve never fallen asleep to it, even though my VHS copy had no musical soundtrack at all (I recently picked it up on DVD, so I no longer have that problem). It’s a much more interesting movie, scene for scene. I don’t even miss Lugosi, as the mysterious Max Schreck has such a commanding, unforgettable presence. I’m looking forward to seeing some of the other movies of F. W. Murnau, though I’ve heard that much of his earlier material is quite disappointing.

NIGHT TIDE (1961)
Article #105 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 6-29-2001
Posting date: 11-12-2001

A sailor finds himself falling in love with a woman who portrays a mermaid in a local sideshow. He discovers that she believes herself to be a real mermaid who leads men to their deaths.

Whenever I hear this movie mentioned, I hear it compared to Val Lewton’s work. The comparison is quite apt; there is a lot of the ambiguity and mystery of a Lewton movie at work in this one, and the story, which bears several aspects in common with THE CAT PEOPLE, is very much in the spirit of the Lewton movies. However, I have to admit that I don’t enjoy it; I never really get involved with the story or the characters the way I will in a Lewton movie. Part of the problem may be Dennis Hopper’s performance; though I can admire some of what he’s doing, some of it is just distracting, and I end up not really caring about the character he plays. The music is another part of the problem; in certain scenes where it should be generating tension and suspense, it just sits there. I particular notice this when the sailor is following a strange woman. As it is, the movie is just one of those I wish I liked more than I do.

NIGHT OF THE GHOULS (1959)
Article #104 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 6-28-2001
Posting date: 11-11-2001

A policeman who specializes in strange occurrences is sent out to investigate sightings of ghosts near an old house in the swamp. There he meets Dr. Acula, a phony spirtualist trying to bilk people out of their money.

Here we go, Ed Wood fans; the first Ed Wood movie to make it to the Musings and Ramblings. The movie is a sequel to BRIDE OF THE MONSTER and a semi-sequel to PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, with only the character of Kelton (Paul Marco) as the link between all three movies. At this point, Tor Johnson was the closest to a star that Ed Wood had to work with, but he is poorly used in this movie as all that is left of Lobo, the character he played in BRIDE.

I don’t think Ed Wood was talentless; occasionally, glimpses of cleverness and imagination shine through in his movies. I think what he lacked was either the desire, the ability, or the time to look critically at what he was doing in his capacity of either a writer or a director. The speed with which he worked certainly didn’t help matters either.

I do like certain touches in this movie; the early scenes in the police office (check out the wanted poster) are interestingly staged, in that some characters actually leave the scene through an exit just to the side of the camera, which I find rather novel. And the seance that takes up a good middle of the movie is either one of the most outrageous parodies of this type of sequence I’ve ever seen, or one of the most incompetent seances in cinematic record; when you see the trumpet mute floating around or the ghost that floats by to the tune of a slide whistle, you may wonder just what Ed Wood was trying to do in this sequence.

NIGHT MUST FALL (1937)
Article #103 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 6-27-2001
Posting date: 11-10-2001
After a strange murder takes place in the vicinity, a young man becomes a companion to an elderly wheelchair-bound woman, much to the chagrin of her repressed niece. Is the man responsible for the murder?

This movie has fine performances in the three central roles; Robert Montgomery (in a change of pace from his usual roles) as the murderer, Rosalind Russell as the niece, and Dame May Whitty as the old woman. Still, I always get a little impatient as I watch this movie, and I start feeling antsy. I think it’s overlong, for one thing. It’s also a little too much of a photographed stage play; the action takes place largely on one set (and the scenes that take us off the set feel unnecessary), and the characters talk your ears off. I don’t care for some of the arty self-conscious poetry the niece spouts on occasion, and as a whole, the movie is way too genteel, as if afraid to offend; considering that a good deal of the plot revolves around a mysterious box that may contain a severed head, I really wish the movie were somewhat less proper. What this movie needs is a good strong dose of Hitchcockian black humor.