ONE NIGHT STAND (1984)
Article #1738 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-17-2005
Posting Date: 5-16-2006
Directed by John Duigan
Featuring Tyler Coppin, Cassandra Delaney, Jay Hackett

Several teens hide out in the Sydney Opera House while waiting for the onset of World War III.

Before I get started, I need to go on a little bit about the title. Not that the title is bad, mind you; it’s just that within the last thirty years, nine different movies were made that share that title, and when you’re doing movie-hunting, it makes things difficult to find the right one. Several months ago, I purchased the wrong one, and ended up watching the whole movie before I realized it wasn’t the one I was looking for, so I spent some extra time making sure the next time I bought the movie, it would be the right one.

As for the movie itself, the best way I can describe it is as a cross between ON THE BEACH and a Brat Pack movie. This may or may not be a recommendation, depending on how you feel about the Brat Pack. Granted, the teens in this movie are unknowns, but they’re pretty much working in the same mode. Fortunately, it’s like one of the better Brat Pack movies like THE BREAKFAST CLUB; despite the fact that some of the characters are cocky and annoying and that some of the scenes are of the type designed to appeal to teens, the emotional resonance is there and quite real at times. It also helps that I actually am familiar with the two songs that serve as set pieces for a couple of scenes; “Short Memory” is performed by my favorite Australian band, Midnight Oil, and the music video / dance sequence is performed to an infectious garage rocker from the sixties, “Friday on My Mind” by the Easybeats. The latter is played while we see footage from METROPOLIS, which also pops up again in during the rush to the shelters near the end of the movie. The anti-war message is obvious, but for the most part, the movie focuses on the human aspects of the story, and is quite successful in that regard.

ONCE UPON A TIME (1944)
Article #1662 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-2-2005
Posting Date: 3-1-2006
Directed by Alexander Hall
Featuring Cary Grant, Janet Blair, James Gleason

When a show promoter is on the verge of losing his theater due to a string of flops, he hits upon a scheme to save it when he encounters a boy who has a caterpillar who dances to the tune “Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby”.

The movie opens with a message about how wartime audiences needed escapist entertainment to help them cope with the difficult time. They must have needed escapist entertainment pretty badly if this idea was considered viable. Yet, it’s a tribute to Hollywood moviemaking that they almost make this one work; it’s almost jaw-dropping to see the amount of effort that went into bringing this slight premise to near-life. Certainly, the presence of Cary Grant, James Gleason and William Demarest go a long ways towards bringing this one to life, and I just marvel at the huge list of uncredited performers who appeared in this (not to mention those who had their scenes deleted). Unfortunately, the slightness and silliness of the concept undermine it at every step, and it really becomes hard to take when it gets incredibly weepy. It also fails to deliver the one thing the movie seems to promise; you can sit through the whole movie if you wish, but you will not once get to see Curly the Caterpillar boogie. And if you’re going to watch it, you’re really going to need to like “Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby” a lot!

OPERATION ATLANTIS (1965)
(a.k.a. AGENTE 003, OPERACION ATLANTIDA)
Article #1582 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-14-2005
Posting Date: 12-11-2005
Directed by Domenico Paolella
Featuring John Ericson, Bernardina Sarracco, Cristina Gaioni

Agent George Steele is hired by a scientific research agency to investigate reports of radioactive elements in the world of Atlantis in the African desert.

This is one of the many Italian pseudo-Bond spy movies of the mid-to-late sixties. At their best, they can be charming low-budget fun. They give the viewer the novelty of seeing likable heroes romance beautiful women while taking on dangerous enemies without the benefit of a the budget or stunt expertise of a Bond movie, and the bad dubbing merely adds a bit of quaint charm to the proceedings. At their worst, they are incoherent jumbles of difficult-to-follow plots, bad editing, charmless heroes, confusing characters and horrible editing; in these cases, the bad dubbing merely adds to the mounting headache the movie is giving you. Unfortunately, this is one of the latter, and the fact that the science fiction aspects are stronger than usual this time (what with the Atlantis storyline and the existence of a super-radioactive mineral from the asteroid belt) does nothing to enliven the proceedings. In fact, there’s only one thing I like about this movie, and that is that one of the assassins in this movie uses as his weapon a giant spiked claw. If this were a real James Bond movie, we would be guaranteed a big fight between the hero and the claw-wielding assassin; we’re in no such luck here. Avoid this one like the plague unless you’re a really big, uncritical fan of Italian pulchritude or just have to see that big claw.

ORPHEUS (1949)
(a.k.a. ORPHEE)
Article #1578 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-10-2005
Posting Date: 12-7-2005
Directed by Jean Cocteau
Featuring Jean Marais, Francois Perier, Maria Casares

A poet has a strange encounter with a woman in black known as the Princess, and then begins to hear bizarre poetry on the radio of the princess’ automobile.

There’s a moment in this movie where the poet puts on a pair of clear gloves that will help him to pass through a mirror. Instead of showing footage of the poet donning the gloves in a straightforward fashion, Jean Cocteau used footage of the poet taking off the gloves and ran it backwards. On the basis of purely practical story-telling, this use of footage is eccentric and useless, but in terms of adding that special touch of surreal lyricism and giving the sense of truly other-worldly action, it’s a brilliant moment. That is certainly one of Cocteau’s charms; he uses special effects not to give a sense of reality to fantastic events, but to give that sense of exotic unreality that underlies much of his work. The fact that some of his special effects techniques are obvious (he loves to run footage backwards and does it quite a bit during this movie) does not in any sense reduce its cinematic power.

This may be his best-known work after his masterpiece, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. It’s not the equal of that one, largely because the story itself (an update of the Orpheus story) is more obscure and difficult than the one of the earlier movie. It is also very difficult at time to fathom the motives of the main character; in particular, I’m never sure how Orpheus really feels about either the Princess or Eurydice. But the imagery has a definite staying power, and there’s something rather compelling about the vision of the world of Death and the dead as it is portrayed here. At any rate, the visions of Orpheus travelling on the other side of the mirror with the chauffeur have stayed in my memory from my first viewing of the movie years ago. It makes me rather sad that Cocteau only directed 10 movies in his life, but other than an obscure silent film and the short BLOOD OF A POET, he really didn’t start directing until he was well into his fifties. Cocteau was one of the filmmakers being emulated by Herk Harvey when that man directed CARNIVAL OF SOULS.

AN OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE (1962)
(a.k.a. LA RIVIERE DU HIBOU)
Article #1577 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-9-2005
Posting Date: 12-6-2005
Directed by Robert Enrico
Featuring Roger Jacquet, Anne Cornaly, Anker Larsen

A Confederate spy is being hanged off of a bridge by Union soldiers during the Civil War. When the rope unexpectedly breaks, the spy makes a desperate attempt for freedom.

This short French film won an award at Cannes, as well as taking the Academy Award for Best Short Subject in the live action category. Though these are indeed great honors, this movie would have most likely faded into obscurity over time. However, fate had one more surprise in store for it. The producer for the final season of “Twilight Zone” had seen the short, and since the season for the show was running over budget, he decided to buy the television rights to the short and then showed it as an episode of the series. It was an excellent choice; not only does the mood of the short fit well with that of the series, but since there were only a handful of lines of dialogue (and these were in English), no dubbing of lines was required.

Another reason the short fit the format is that the whole movie builds up to a single final twist, and this twist is essential to the tale; without it, the story becomes merely an adventure story (exquisitely directed, but rather ordinary). The twist is what gives this one its power, impact and haunting quality. Still, the movie is only marginally genre; the only quality that makes it so is that there is something rather horrific about the twist. Still, I do find myself wondering as to whether Terry Gilliam was familiar with this story when he made BRAZIL.

THE ORACLE (1953)
(a.k.a. THE HORSE’S MOUTH)
Article #1531 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-24-2005
Posting Date: 10-21-2005
Directed by C. M. Pennington-Richards
Featuring Robert Beatty, Michael Medwin, Virginia McKenna

A journalist in fear of losing his job stumbles upon an oracle living in a well in a Scottish village.

There are several directions that this concept could have taken, but I like the way this one chose. It’s a comedy, but a quiet and thoughtful one rather than a wild one. It asks some interesting questions; in particular, it explores the idea of how people would react if they encountered a truly accurate oracle, and exactly what questions they would feel at ease to ask of it. Even the relatively harmless pursuit of asking it for horse race winners turns out to have some unpleasant side effects; in fact, the funniest scene in the movie shows the effect that these predictions have on the race itself. The thoughtful handling of these themes lends a good level of interest to this one. Most of the obvious comedy comes from the oracle himself, who is moody and unpredictable, sings in the bathtub, and makes derogatory comments during both the beginning and ending credits. This is no classic, but it’s pleasant and has a little meat on its bones. Worth a look.

ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. (1966)
Article #1227 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-24-2004
Posting Date: 12-21-2004
Directed by Don Chaffey
Featuring Raquel Welch, John Richardson, Percy Herbert

When one of the sons of a prehistoric primitive tribe known as the Rock People is banished, he makes his way to a more civilized tribe known as the Shell People.

Back when I covered ONE MILLION B.C. (the movie of which this one is a remake), I mentioned that the primary appeal of this type of movie is twofold; to see dinosaurs and to see cavepeople in skimpy outfits. Actually, that is a bit of a simplification; though these movies are absurd on a realistic level, they do have their uses as moral fables (the movies do have something to say about the two sides of human nature and how each side is necessary for survival), and they can also be interesting in cinematic terms, in that by reducing the amount of dialogue to a minimum, it challenges those in charge to make these movies work on a purely visual level. After all, if there’s one thing you usually can’t say about a caveman epic, it’s that it talks you to death.

On the cinematic level, I think this one works just fine; it’s probably a bit more enjoyable than the earlier version. On the moral fable level, this one is a little more confused, especially towards the end, when the story seems to lose itself in the special effects for the earthquake sequence; the earlier movie gets the edge in this case. As to those more basic levels of appeal, this one has the advantage of Ray Harryhausen’s special effects, which are excellent as usual; I was even amused that a slurpasaur is tossed into the proceedings, and that the scene that uses it is fairly well staged. Unfortunately, there really isn’t very much dinosaur footage, and the movie sorely needs another one towards the end. And as for the cavepeople in skimpy outfits, I’m afraid there really isn’t much in the way of a contest between this one and the original; I don’t think Carole Landis ever made the same splash that Raquel Welch made here.

THE OUTER SPACE CONNECTION (1975)
Article #1191 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-18-2004
Posting Date: 11-15-2004
Directed by Fred Warshofsky
Narrated by Rod Serling

This documentary explores evidence that aliens landed on this planet many years ago.

It looks as if some of my genre movie books include documentaries of this sort, hence its coverage here. When it comes to theories like this, I tend to be on the skeptical side, but I’m quite willing to let those who propose the theories have their say. Usually, though, my conclusion is simply that there are many mysteries of the universe and of history that remain unsolved at this time. Yes, there are plenty of things in this world to provide grist for speculation, but speculation isn’t incontrovertible proof. Ultimately, I remain unconvinced, despite the fact that it is narrated by Rod Serling, has lots of outer space sounds in the soundtrack, and continually refers to one of its mystery sites as “Earth Base One”. It covers a lot of ground, though; UFO sightings, the Bermuda triangle, Kirlian photography, cloning, and communication with chimpanzees all come into play in this one. For the most part, I found this documentary to be on the dullish side, though the sequences on Kirlian photography, ancient brain operations and the sequence on chimpanzee communication all held my attention (more for themselves than for their relation to the main subject). Incidentally, the aliens are supposed to return in 2011. It’s nice to have a deadline.

THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1963)
Article #1016 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-26-2003
Posting Date: 5-24-2004
Directed by William Castle
Featuring Tom Poston, Robert Morley, Janette Scott

An American car salesman tries to deliver a new car to the home of a man with whom he shares an apartment, and he ends up stranded in a house of eccentrics, one of which is intent on killing off the rest.

James Whale certainly does not need to worry that this movie poses any threat to the reputation of his own version of the story; the 1932 version is definitely the superior. This being said, I have to admit that I didn’t find this one without interest, and it piqued my curiosity about the J. B. Priestley novel (which I haven’t read) and whether either of the versions follows the novel. Though this version has certain similarities to the Whale version, the differences are somewhat interesting; the lineup of characters is different, with only one real outsider to speak of, and the family seems to be a very different one than the original movie, though some have similar names. Morgan, who was a butler in the original, is here an actual family member, though he is still a mute. There are several familiar faces in the cast, and some of the characters are quite interesting, particular Mervyn Johns’ Petiphar, a man obsessed with the inevitable onset of the biblical flood; unfortunately, his subplot results in the lousiest special effect of the movie, but I suppose they couldn’t use a real hyena for the scene. The movie does have some real problems; not only does it fail to be as funny as the original (it unfortunately relies on slapstick moments to try for laughs), but it also fails to reach the heights of real danger and tension that mark the climax of the earlier movie. And even though the movie never really gels as a whole, it does have its moments, particularly during the opening credits (in which the backgrounds are designed by Charles Addams) and a joke involving a horrible knitting accident. And I will also admit that the revelation of the killer’s identity did indeed catch me off guard.

ONE FRIGHTENED NIGHT (1935)
Article #1004 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-14-2003
Posting Date: 5-12-2004
Directed by Christy Cabanne
Featuring Charley Grapewin, Mary Carlisle, Arthur Hohl

A crusty millionaire is on the verge of giving a number of potential heirs a million dollars each when his long lost granddaughter shows up, and he decides to make her the sole heir. And then another woman shows up also claiming to be his granddaughter…

Here we are back in the world of Forgotten Horrors in the Old Dark House subgenre, and it’s a fine place to be. This one is one of the best, by the way. One of the reasons is that the movie has more than its share of fun performances, with Charley Grapewin having a field day as the crusty millionaire who is perceptive enough to be cynical about the motives of his potential heirs, outspoken enough to say his thoughts out loud, but good-humored enough not to be bitter about the situation. Also having the a great time is Wallace Ford (billed here as Wally Ford), cast not as a wisecracking reporter, but rather as a wisecracking magician ; it’s a good role for him and he makes the most of it. It’s also helped by energetic direction, a fun plot, and the fact that the characters are well-differentiated enough that you can tell them apart. I also like the clever opening credits which appear on window shades. For those thinking of delving into the world of Forgotten Horror, here’s a very good place to start.