THE RISK (1960)
aka Suspect
Article 2266 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-3-2007
Posting Date: 10-26-2007
Directed by John and Roy Boulting
Featuring Tony Britton, Virginia Maskell, Ian Bannen

A group of scientists researching plague cures is denied the chance to publish their results when their project is put under top secret security. One scientist, angered at how the inability to publish the work because of the many lives that could be saved, ends up meeting a man who offers him a chance to get it secretly published. However, things may not be what they seem…

This movie spends enough time at the beginning of the movie discussing the scientific methods used for the research that I found myself hoping it would actually emerge as a full-blown science fiction movie. But once the government makes the project top secret, the plague cure becomes the Gizmo Maguffin in another spy thriller. My disappointment was checked, however, by the fact that it is a good one, with an unusual story line and interesting character relationships. A good cast also helps; along with the ones listed above, the movie also features Peter Cushing, Donald Pleasence and “Goon Show” regular Spike Milligan as a genuinely amusing comic relief lab assistant. Still, despite the star power, the movie is stolen by the most interesting characters in the movie; Ian Bannen plays the armless war veteran who turns the life of his lover (a female scientist working on the project) into a living hell, and has special plans for his rival (another scientist on the project), and Thorley Walters, who plays the special agent in charge of security on the project as an absent-minded eccentric. It’s the way the plot unfolds that really makes this movie work; we get to see how the various forces at work conspire to tempt the scientist played by Tony Britton into turning into a traitor. I really liked this movie, though the science fiction content remains marginal.

RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY: A MUSICAL ADVENTURE (1977)
Article 2252 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-17-2007
Posting Date: 10-12-2007
Directed by Richard Williams
Featuring the voices of Didi Conn, Mark Baker, Mason Adams

When a young girl’s new doll from France is kidnapped by a pirate, Raggedy Ann and Andy leave the playroom and go out into the wide world to rescue her.

With just one look at that title, I sat down to prepare myself for what I was sure going to prove an hour and a half of insufferable cuteness. Having now watched, I can at least strike the word “insufferable”. Yes, it’s got major problems; it’s certainly no TOY STORY, it is cuter than I have a taste for (for example, it features a pirate singing a song about friendship to his parrot), and there are far too many songs. But the songs, mediocre as they are, are still consistently stronger than those in PUFNSTUF , and at least one of them (the poignant song of the camel) was strong enough that I actually found myself caught up in the fate of the singer. The animation is also nicely done; in particular, it retains that kind of floppy rag-doll feel that is appropriate for the title characters. Another plus is that it didn’t actively annoy me; only a pair of identical dolls got on my nerves, and they only pop up sporadically. All in all, I found it passable kiddie entertainment, though it may get a little too weird towards the end for the very young.

THE RED MILL (1927)
Article 2215 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-9-2007
Posting Date: 9-5-2007
Directed by Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle
Featuring Marion Davies, Owen Moore, Louise Fazenda

In a Dutch village, the maid to a tyrannical burgomaster falls in love with a visiting Irishman. She tries to win him while saving the burgomaster’s daughter from entering a forced marriage with the governor. However, the burgomaster has a way of dealing with those that get in his way; he locks them up in a haunted mill.

Here’s another movie that sat on my list for some time before it finally manifested itself in a showing on TCM, and, as usual, I’m glad to finally see it. However, that doesn’t keep me from consigning it to the non-essential viewing category for fans of fantastic cinema. The haunted mill isn’t really haunted (though I can’t think of why a skeleton is stored in there), but it’s passably scary in the last ten minutes of the movie, which, outside of a couple of minutes in the middle of the movie, is the only time it gets used. The rest of the movie is a light and inconsequential romantic comedy based on an operetta, and I found it only mildly amusing at best. Most of the humor seems to come from the odd dialogue that appears on the title cards, but these get old fairly quickly, and I only found a few laughs along the way. Still, the cast is spirited enough, and those who like romantic comedies might find it their cup of tea. For me, the best moments come at the end, particularly with some of the stunt work involved in having characters climbing on the arms of a windmill. Incidentally, this was made after the scandal that destroyed Arbuckle’s career, and was directed under the nom de plume of William Goodrich.

THE RELUCTANT SAINT (1962)
Article 2176 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-1-2007
Posting Date: 7-28-2007
Directed by Edward Dmytryk
Featuring Maximilian Schell, Ricardo Montalban, Lea Padovani

The story of Saint Joseph of Cupertino is told here. At the beginning of the movie, he amounts to what would be called the village idiot, and his mother pulls strings to have him accepted as a lay worker by the monastery. By an amazing chain of events, he manages to take holy orders and become a priest. It is then discovered that he can levitate when he is in the throes of religious ecstasy.

This movie opens with a statement saying that the story the movie tells is “in essence” true to the facts, which I interpret to mean that some liberties were taken with the story. After having seen the movie, that didn’t really bother me; I found it a fascinating, moving, and sometimes comic experience. What really makes this inspirational movie come to life are the performances, especially from Maximilian Schell (I was flabbergasted that he didn’t get nominated for an Oscar for his acting in the title role), Akim Tamiroff as an archbishop (his scenes with Schell are the highlights of the movie), and Ricardo Montalban, who I didn’t even know was in the movie until I saw his name in the final credits; his ability to disappear into his role here is simply amazing. I didn’t anticipate really enjoying this movie, but from the beginning I was hooked. This is one of those rare inspirational movies that really does inspire, even if you’re not particularly religious. Highly recommended.

RETURN TO OZ (1964)
Article 2169 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-22-2007
Posting Date: 7-21-2007
Directed by F. R. Craley, Thomas Glynn and Larry Roemer
Featuring the voices of Larry D. Mann, Alfie Scopp, Carl Banas

Dorothy is whisked back to Oz where she must contend with the revived Wicked Witch of the West and help her friends once again regain the prizes they got from the wizard.

One of the problems I had with PINOCCHIO IN OUTER SPACE was its attempt to clone as much of the plot of the original movie version as it could for a sequel; in general, if a sequel can do little more than repeat the original, it seems unnecessary. This one is even worse; Dorothy is whisked to Oz on a tornado, meets the munchkins and Glenda the Good Witch, and embarks on a quest to find her friends and take them to the emerald city to get a heart, a brain, and courage. From the emerald city they are sent to face the witch, etc. etc. Despite the fact that this is an early Rankin/Bass feature, I find it pretty charmless in comparison to their more famous holiday movies, and the extremely limited animation and the bad songs (when was the last time you hummed “I Wanna Go Back”?) really make this one a chore to watch. The most amusing variation it adds to the story is having the witch send flying crocodiles rather than flying monkeys to capture Dorothy. Fortunately, since it was made for TV, it is fairly short.

THE RED TENT (1969)
aka KRASNAYA PALATKA
Article 2151 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-4-2007
Posting Date: 7-3-2007
Directed by Mikheil Kalatozishvili
Featuring Peter Finch, Sean Connery, Claudia Cardinale

When an expedition to the North Pole via dirigible ends in disaster and leaves a handful of men lost in the arctic regions, the commander does what he can to keep his men safe and to facilitate the rescue efforts underway to save them.

Usually when I list the actors, I just take the first three names listed in IMDB, which usually reflects the order in which they were billed in the credits of the movie. Every once in a while I feel compelled to make exceptions, such as in this case. Peter Finch only receives fourth billing, despite the fact that he is the central character in the story, whereas Sean Connery, though obviously the bigger name star (and it is probably due to this that he received top billing) plays what amounts to a supporting role; his character hardly appears at all during the first half of the movie, and has only a few scenes in the second half. This is not to denigrate Connery’s performance in any way; he gives one of his best performances as Roald Amundsen, and he gets the best lines of the movie (my favorite has to do with the perils of an arctic explorer having too little or too much courage). But it is Finch’s story, as it is his haunted perception of the events that unfold that gives the movie its themes. The fantastic content is something of a plot device; General Nobile is visited by the ghosts of those involved in the story, who sit in judgment of his actions. The ghosts (like those in THUNDER ROCK) are most likely not real, but they do serve the job of helping us understand the themes of guilt and the nature of leadership which are central to the story. This was a joint Russian/Italian production; it originally ran three and a quarter hours, but this version runs just over two hours, and since most of the cast is already speaking English, there’s no real dubbing issue to contend with. I also quite liked the performances of Mario Adorf as the radio operator on the expedition, and Eduard Martesevich as a Swede whose relationship with a nurse (Claudia Cardinale) ends up driving some of the rescue efforts. The movie is not perfect; even in its shorter form, I feel some of the scenes could have used a bit of trimming, but the ending is excellent, and it didn’t really deserve to be the financial disaster it turned out to be.

RASHOMON (1950)
Article 2132 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-16-2007
Posting Date: 6-14-2007
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Featuring Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori

Three men gather at the Rashomon gate during a rainstorm and relate the conflicting testimonies of the participants of the murder of a Samurai and the rape of his wife which occurred in the nearby woods.

I am a huge fan of the work of Akira Kurosawa, who I consider one of the finest directors of all time. I find it highly regrettable that I will be covering only a smidgen of his work for this series, as he rarely ventured into the cinema of the fantastic, and of the only three that I anticipate covering, two are quite marginal indeed. I’m also a little disappointed that one of those three is this one; not that I feel it doesn’t deserve its acclaim (it would merit it just by telling this incredibly complex story in the first place), but because I don’t fondly dote on it in the same way that I do on THE SEVEN SAMURAI, THE HIDDEN FORTRESS or YOJIMBO, just to name a few of his other classics. The basic concept is brilliant; we hear four substantially different tellings of what happens in the aftermath of the capture of the samurai and the rape of his wife. One is from the bandit’s point of view, another is from the wife’s point of view, the third is from the point of view of the dead samurai (who tells his story through a medium, which provides the fantastic content to the story), and the fourth from a witness who never testified and whose story is, as far as it goes, probably the most accurate. It is the vast differences between the stories that makes it fascinating; for example, the samurai dies at the hands of three different people in the course of the four stories. It’s the performances that stick in my mind the most from this one, particularly from Toshiro Mifune (whose character is quite different depending on whose story is being told) and Takashi Shimura as the woodsman who discovers the body of the samurai and has secrets of his own. It’s a profound story, and the movie is definitely a triumph, but I think one of the reasons it isn’t one of my favorites is that I had more enjoyment performing in a stage version of the play. I played the character known in the movie as the Commoner, though in the play he is called the Wigmaker, who makes his living by selling wigs he made from the hair of the dead around the Rashomon gate. When I think of this story, it is for that version that my fondness lies.

RETIK, THE MOON MENACE (1966)
Feature Version of Serial RADAR MEN FROM THE MOON
Article 2118 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-2-2007
Posting Date: 5-31-2007
Directed by Fred C. Brannon
Featuring George Wallace, Aline Towne, Roy Barcroft

Commando Cody takes on moon men intent on invading the earth.

Yes, it’s another feature version of a serial, this time RADAR MEN FROM THE MOON. As far as these things go, they do an average job of it – it flows well enough in some scenes and jumps abruptly in others. Beyond that, I’ve pretty much exhausted what I have to say about these feature versions of serials, so I have nothing more to add.

RADAR MEN FROM THE MOON (1952)
Serial
Article 2039 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-14-2006
Posting Date: 3-13-2007
Directed by Fred C. Brannon
Featuring George Wallace, Aline Towne, Roy Barcroft

Commando Cody has to deal with saboteurs from the moon intent on softening up our defenses for an upcoming invasion.

Though it doesn’t hold a candle to their best serials from the forties, this is perhaps the best serial from Republic during the fifties that I’ve seen so far. Chalk it up to a fairly decent pace and the fact that it takes the time to shift locations to the moon every once in a while. At any rate, it’s certainly a better rocket man serial than ZOMBIES OF THE STRATOSPHERE. At any rate, a few comments…

1) The rocket man popularly known as Commando Cody is known here as…Commando Cody! Cody even has a cool logo on the wall near the entrance to his building.

2) Based on a few comments here and there, I’ve come to the conclusion that Cody’s first name is actually Commando. This, of course, makes me wonder about the state of mind of Cody’s parents.

3) Sure, the rocket suit is cool and all, but let’s face it; the real test of a hero is how well they handle themselves in a good, solid fistfight. Unfortunately, almost every time Cody and his assistant Ted get involved in one, they get the crap kicked out of them. Maybe they shouldn’t have been tussling with Clayton Moore, the Lone Ranger himself.

4) Retik can brag all he wants about the superiority of moon weapons to earth weapons, but watching him fumble clumsily with his hand ray-gun (which can only fire a single shot before having to reload) while Cody proceeds to mop the floor with Retik’s associates (in one of the few fights where he proves his mettle) and then consistently missing when he does fire – well, let’s just say I’m not quaking in my boots about the fate of the world in the hands of these moon men.

5) I think somebody should take a look at the shocks on those moon tanks.

6) Any saboteur organization that spends an inordinate amount of time trying to get finances for their diabolical plans doesn’t strike me as effective. And any such organization that hits upon the idea of getting money by kidnapping their most prominent foe and holding him for ransom doesn’t strike me as particularly intelligent.

7) As for the cliffhangers, let’s just say this – there’s a lot of bailing out going on.

ROAD TO BALI (1952)
Article 2016 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-21-2006
Posting Date: 2-18-2007
Directed by Hal Walker
Featuring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour

Two entertainers get involved with natives who are after a box of jewels.

Yes, it’s another Hope/Crosby road movie, and if you’ve seen one of them, you know the basic routine. In this one, the fantastic aspects are a little more prominent; in particular, there is a giant squid that threatens Bob Hope when he’s deep sea diving. There’s also a magic flute that causes women to appear out of baskets (including Jane Russell at one point), a couple of men-in-gorilla-suits (one of which, playing a female gorilla, takes a bit of a liking to both Hope and Crosby) and a native tribe of headhunters who worship a volcano. Other cameos include Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Humphrey Bogart (who appears in a clip from THE AFRICAN QUEEN) and Bing’s brother Bob Crosby, who gets a shot in the movie. Like the other Road movies, this is amusing fun.