PLUCKED! (1967)
(a.k.a. DEATH LAID AN EGG)
Article #532 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 8-30-2002
Posting date: 1-22-2003

A man who is married to a rich poultry rancher plans to run away from her with his girlfriend; he also murders prostitutes for pleasure.

Between the two titles and the description above, you might think you’ve stumbled upon a weird one here. And you’d be right; what with the jarring soundtrack, jagged editing, bizarre situations and continual obsession with chickens, you would be excused from thinking that you had actually run across some pointless, self-indulgent art film rather than a horror-thriller. That’s what I was beginning to think, anyway, but amazingly enough, it all starts to fall together within the last twenty minutes, and the less I say about it the better, as some of the plot twists and revelations are delicious indeed. I ended up admiring the sheer audacity of the work; it actually had managed the trick of holding my attention through a fairly long stretch of film where very little seemed to be happening, and though your mileage may vary, it worked very well for me. Still, I will say this is one of the weirdest ones to come down the pike since THE RAPE OF THE VAMPIRE, though this movie (unlike that one) actually has a payoff.

THE POWER GOD (1925)
(Serial)
Article #527 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 8-24-2002
Posting date: 1-17-2003

An inventor devises a machine that draws energy from the air, which becomes the target of a criminal intent on making his fortune off of it.

This 15-chapter serial is made by some of the same people who were responsible for OFFICER 444. It has certain similarities to that serial; once again, much of the action revolves around fisticuffs rather than gunplay, the same sense of humor that pervaded that serial is present in a lesser degree here (my favorite moments; the revelation of one of the cliffhangers involving the shadow of a man with a rifle, and the hero’s encounter with an opportunistic justice of the peace and his alert deputy), and the presence of Ruth Royce as the “subtle” aide to the villain (though this time I actually see her taking an active part in the plot). It differs in that the story is much more straightforward and coherent than OFFICER 444; in fact, it reminded me much more of THE MASTER MYSTERY in its general feel. It’s not perfect; certain episodes spin their wheels with very little really happening, some of the plot elements are repetitive, and the ending is a little too corny for my tastes. On the positive side, however, it never drives its plot contrivances into the ground, and manages to find a fair variety of situations within the action, has a number of clever plot twists, and it is refreshingly free of cheating cliffhangers. Overall, quite enjoyable.

PRIMITIVE MAN (1913)
Article #486 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 7-14-2002
Posting date: 12-7-2002

Caveman Weakhands must contend with his enemy Bruteforce and then forms a tribe to contend with the rival tribe led by a caveman named Monkeywalk.

Sound familiar? This movie was made a year after MAN’S GENESIS, and except for a change in the framing device (from an old man telling children the story to the dream of a man who belongs to a club), the first ten minutes is a replay of the footage of that earlier short. It then tells what happens afterwards, which adds twenty minutes to the running time; it’s largely the same story with bigger stakes, more characters, and a subplot about the happy couple trying to find a place to be alone and being interrupted by a snake, a slurpasaur (that’s what I think it is; the costume they slap on this poor gator makes him look like nothing I’ve ever seen) and a big model dinosaur that manages to bob up and down a little. You know, considering the story arc is essentially the first step of an arms race, this whole series of films could have gone on forever; however, since this film is roughly three times the length of the previous, I would hate to see the series continue that tradition; nobody would have the patience to sit through the fifth one.

PSYCHOMANIA (1964)
Article #472 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 6-30-2002
Posting date: 11-23-2002

An artist finds himself under suspicion of murder when a woman who was posing for him turns up dead.

This is essentially another one of the several variations on PSYCHO that came out in the wake of that movie; this one has definite low budget roots (it was produced by Del “Horror of Party Beach” Tenney). It’s not without interest; it actually pulls off the trick of having two men both being under suspicion for the murders while we in the audience know that both of them are innocent, though the juvenile delinquent character is unpleasant enough that you hope that he comes to a bad end. My copy has definite cuts during some of the violent sequences; I wonder if I have an incomplete print or whether the cuts had to be made to the original print. It gives us an obvious suspect, and the movie does leave you wondering whether the character is the real culprit or whether he is a smokescreen designed to hide the real culprit. Standard, but not badly done, and it held my interest for the most part.

PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1958)
Article #388 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 4-7-2002
Posting date: 8-31-2002

Space aliens try to defeat the forces of the earth by raising the dead.

One of the problems of dealing with a movie that has attained a legendary status such as this one is that it’s really hard to say something original; saying that it’s the worst movie of all time is as hackneyed a statement as saying it’s not (though I agree with the latter). It’s also tempting to quote some of the many priceless lines that pop up in the movie, but even those have been quoted and requoted ad infinitum. Nonetheless, I need to say something, so I’ll forge on ahead.

The main thing I did notice this time round (and I have seen the movie several times) is that there is a lot of editing in this movie; compare an equivalent movie from Jerry Warren, Herschell Gordon Lewis, or Larry Buchanan, and you’ll see what I mean. Not that the editing was effective, but it does show that Ed Wood was ambitious enough to try some fairly complicated things on occasion. One thing I do sense; Ed Wood loved and watched movies, and he tried to learn from them and adopt some of their techniques. He just never learned enough. Many times while watching this movie, I get a sense at what he was trying for, but he lacked the technical ability (and the money) to actually make these ideas work.

Also, I can’t help but notice that William C. Thompson’s cinematography is quite nice-looking, the down side of this being that you get a very clear view (especially on DVD) of exactly how cheap the movie looks, particularly in the graveyard sequences.

And despite the fact that the idea is done to death, I still can’t resist adding a couple of my favorite quotes from the movie, but I am trying to choose some I haven’t heard quite as often.

“It’s hard to find something when you don’t know what you’re looking for!”

and

“Even when Inspector Clay was alive, he couldn’t run fast enough to catch me.”

THE PALACE OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS (1905)
Article #387 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 4-6-2002
Posting date: 8-30-2002

A sultan tries to win the hand of the woman he loves by hunting for a treasure in a haunted palace.

Another Melies piece that packs a movie’s worth of events into fifteen minutes (shorter if you’re watching it at the wrong projection speed). It features a really big pair of scissors, lots of tumbling mimes in animal outfits, a short fat guy, dancing skeletons, ballerinas and a scary puppet version of Cecil the seasick sea serpent. There’s also an incredible sequence where our heros pass through a forest which consists of layer after layer of foliage that is stripped away until we reach the stairs of the palace, and it looks like it was all done in one smooth shot. Pretty impressive.

THE PHANTOM OF PARIS (1931)
Article #381 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 3-31-2002
Posting date: 8-24-2002

An escape artist is framed for the murder of the father of the woman he loves. He escapes from prison, and seeks a way to prove his innocence.

Horror fans may want to take note that there is no phantom to speak of, unless you think the fact that the escape artist evades the police for several years qualifies him as a “phantom” (I don’t). I suspect the title came from someone who knew that the author of the novel on which this movie was based was also responsible for the novel on which THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA was based, and thought they could draw a connection. It stars John Gilbert, and there’s no doubt it’s slickly made, but once the murder is committed (which takes C. Aubrey Smith out of the cast), the movie loses some of its initial charm, and, despite some interesting moments, it gets a little tiresome and predictable. All in all, a pretty average movie.

THE PROJECTED MAN (1967)
Article #336 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 2-14-2002
Posting date: 7-1-2002

A man experimenting with matter transmission experiments on himself with disastrous results.

It sounds a bit like THE FLY, only it doesn’t have the strengths of that movie; here, he becomes your average monster who can kill with a touch, and he takes vengeance on those who sabotaged his experiments. It’s not a horrible movie, but it’s all pretty humdrum and a little tiresome and predictable. It largely reminds me of other movies I like better, such as THE 4D MAN, for example.

PROJECT MOON BASE (1953)
Article #285 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 12-25-2001
Posting date: 5-10-2002

A saboteur tries to destroy a space station, which forces an expedition sent out to photograph the back side of the moon to actually land on the surface of it.

Yes, that is Robert Heinlein’s name you see on the credits, and there are touches throughout that indicate he did have his hand in this. If you take into account that the show was originally slated for TV, the special effects are very good; for a movie, they do lack somewhat. However, the overall presentation is so humdrum and desultory that it’s hard to keep interested in the story, and the two main threads of the story (the standard spy story and the overly cute and contrived romance) are nothing to write home about. The movie also undercuts some of its good ideas badly; the rather novel idea of making the president of the United States a woman is offset by having Colonel Breiteis be a petulant spoiled girl intruding on a man’s world (though she provides the love interest). Even the novel space station footage where people walk on several planes (I love the DO NOT WALK ON THE WALLS sign) loses its impact during a meeting where some people appear to be sitting on the floor while others are sitting on the wall by making you notice that they have to uncomfortably crane their necks to look at each other; you know that in reality the rooms would have to be designed better than that.

THE PLAYGIRLS AND THE VAMPIRE (1963)
Article #284 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 12-24-2001
Posting date: 5-9-2002

A troupe of showgirls is forced to spend the night in a creepy castle when the bridge goes out.

This one was a pleasant surprise; I was expecting a sex movie masquerading as a vampire flick; instead, it’s a vampire flick masquerading as a sex movie. In other words, the director was more interested in the horror, and this movie is not bad in that regard. Sure, the dubbing is substandard, and the scene of the women practicing their dance routine demonstrates all too adaquately that not only didn’t they cast dancers, but that their choreographer was working none too hard to pull in the paycheck (I initially thought they didn’t have one at all, but then I saw a name in the credits). And, like SLAUGHTER OF THE VAMPIRES, it goes on for several minutes after the movie is essentially over. Still, it works as a horror movie without resorting overmuch to formula, and that was enough for me. Walter Brandi plays the vampire.