THE RELUCTANT ASTRONAUT (1967)
Article #1268 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-3-2004
Posting Date: 1-31-2005
Directed by Edward Montagne
Featuring Don Knotts, Leslie Nielsen, Joan Freeman

A carnival worker with a fear of heights is given a job at NASA as a janitor. However, his father is convinced that his son is an astronaut.

Back when I was a child, I really enjoyed the comedies of Don Knotts, but I haven’t seen anything of his in years. Several of his movies fall into the realm of fantastic cinema, so I knew I’d be watching some of them again, and I have to admit feeling a bit of trepidation at watching him again for fear that I might find his shtick unwatchable. Fortunately, that isn’t the case; he’s actually weathered the years fairly well. His worst problem is his mugging, but he keeps it to a minimum, and to some extent (given his pop-eyed face and persona), the mugging is a bit unavoidable. At his best, he exhibits a sure sense of comic movement, he has a way of expressing himself that lets you know just how he’s feeling, and there are times that he even reminds me a bit of Buster Keaton. He also knew how to nail the pathos in certain scenes. The most effective scene here is one where his father reveals the secret truth about his war years, and both Arthur O’Connell and Knotts are excellent in it; in fact, it fleshes out O’Connell’s character so well that it makes you fully understand why he was so annoying during the first half of the movie. The movie itself is fairly weak; the direction is uninspired, it’s fairly slow, and it really doesn’t have that many laughs to it. However, it emphasizes character over slapstick shenanigans (which plays to Knotts’ strengths), and it is fun to catch perennial Maytag repairman Jesse White as well as Leslie Nielsen in his pre-comic days.

RASPUTIN: THE MAD MONK (1966)
Article #1267 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-2-2004
Posting Date: 1-30-2005
Directed by Don Sharp
Featuring Christopher Lee, Barbara Shelley, Richard Pasco

Rasputin uses his healing powers and his mastery of hypnotism to gain prestige with the czarina in Moscow.

One problem I often have with Hammer films is that I often find the actual scripts and stories to be somewhat perfunctory and weak, and this one is no exception. It pretty much does what you’d expect they would do with the Rasputin story; they forego any of the epic sense that could underlie the story and play up the horror aspects. I think their strengths consisted in their ability to make their movies look much classier than they might have done otherwise, and they used the best actors they could afford. In this case, the casting of Christopher Lee in the title role was inspired, and you can tell that Lee knew he had a great role in this one; he gives one of his finest performances, and he looks like he’s having a lot of fun as well. As far as I’m concerned, it is his performance that makes this movie work, and the movie is worth catching simply for him.

RACE WITH THE DEVIL (1975)
Article #1266 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-1-2004
Posting Date: 1-29-2005
Directed by Jack Starrett
Featuring Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, Loretta Swit

After witnessing the murder of a young girl by a Satanic cult, four vacationers in a recreational vehicle find themselves being pursued by members of the cult.

In some ways, I can appreciate what this movie is trying to do; it’s trying to build a sense of dread by hinting at a vast intricate conspiracy, thereby compensating for the fact that it keeps the identities of the actual Satanists vague, shadowy and unsubstantiated. Unfortunately, in order to pull this off, you really have to know how to turn the screws of suspense, and that’s what this movie fails to do. Not only is there too much empty time and too many pointless scenes here, the tense sequences are shrill and confusing rather than scary. Consequently, the sense of conspiracy comes across as improbable rather than ominous, and when you consider that their attacks on the vacationers put themselves in a great deal of unnecessary danger, you’re not too impressed with their intelligence. Maybe that’s why the big scene of the movie is an extended chase sequence with lots of car crashes; I sense that the makers of this movie felt a lot more comfortable with the action aspects of the plot than with the horror aspects. As it is, the scariest thing in this movie is the opening credits, and that’s not a good thing. A decent cast tries hard, but a weak script lets them down.

RETURN TO TREASURE ISLAND (1954)
Article #1260 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-26-2004
Posting Date: 1-23-2005
Directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
Featuring Tab Hunter, Dawn Addams, Porter Hall

A woman who is the descendant of Jim Hawkins joins a team of people to return to Treasure Island and find the treasure.

Story time, folks.

When this movie popped up on my list, I took one look at the title, and found myself wondering what kind of fantastic elements would pop up in what sounded for all the world like a pirate movie. A few days later, I was browsing the DVDs in my local Borders, and I came across a disc title “Legendary Pirate Movies”. One of the movies was called LONG JOHN SILVER’S RETURN TO TREASURE ISLAND. This must be it, I thought.

Several days later, I sat down to watch the movie. After I was a good three-quarters a way through the movie without anything remotely fantastic popping up, I took a second to look at the source that listed the movie. To my surprise, I saw cast members listed that were not to be seen in the movie I was watching. I hopped on IMDB and did a little research. Sure enough, LONG JOHN SILVER’S RETURN TO TREASURE ISLAND and RETURN TO TREASURE ISLAND were two distinct movies, despite having been made in the same year.

“Well, that explains the lack of fantastic elements, ” I thought, and promptly moved on to another movie on my list.

So here I am several months later. I’ve snagged a copy of the actual movie in question, and sit back, waiting for the fantastic elements to manifest themselves. And once again, I find myself left high and dry. The closest this movie comes to having any fantastic elements are the existence of three decidedly un-animated and very dead skeletons, and a few plot points borrowed from Poe’s “The Gold Bug”. Sure, it’s a Poe story, but it’s not one of his horror stories. As far as I’m concerned, the movie doesn’t qualify.

In fact, in all respects I was better off with the other movie. At least that one a grand over-the-top performance by Robert Newton to hold your interest. This one is fairly lifeless. It’s not a total washout, but there are far too many scenes of people just sitting around talking, and they aren’t directed with much energy. Furthermore, the movie is narrated by and stars Tab Hunter, of which I can only make the following two comments. 1) He’s not much of an actor, and 2) he’s a better actor than a narrator.

Sorry, folks. Another false alarm. And unfortunately, it probably won’t be the last one.

RAINBOW ISLAND (1944)
Article #1259 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-25-2004
Posting Date: 1-22-2005
Directed by Ralph Murphy
Featuring Dorothy Lamour, Eddie Bracken, Gil Lamb

Three sailors from the Merchant Marines find themselves stranded on an island in the Pacific, and one of them must pose as a local god to keep them all from being executed.

You know, I don’t screen these movies before I watch them, so sometimes I have a little trouble zeroing in on the fantastic elements that caused them to be included in someone’s list of fantastic genre movies. Sometimes I don’t succeed; when the best I can say is that it has a few scenes with a slight horror feel, I’ve pretty much failed to find anything more substantial. This movie gave me some problems in this regard. Initially, I thought I’d have to argue that the South Seas Island Paradise movies (think Dorothy Lamour in a sarong) could be considered a subgenre of fantasy; after all, they have about as much connection to real life as a Tarzan movie. Then I thought I’d have to take the route that the impersonation of a god (gods are fantastic figures, after all) caused it to brush up to the realm of fantasy; after all, we’ve seen plenty of movies where people pretend to be ghosts or vampires. Fortunately, the movie made it easy for me at the fifty-five minute mark; our heroes have an encounter with a giant man-eating plant.

Still, that’s a short scene, and whether you’d want to bother with the whole movie is up to you. Still, this one is pretty entertaining, and the comic antics of the sailors are actually funny enough to pass muster. On a side note, the giant bust of the great god Momo bears an uncanny resemblance to Rock Hudson, and fans of the forties Universal horrors may recognize Elena Verdugo as one of the native girls.

RUN FOR THE SUN (1956)
Article #1244 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-10-2004
Posting Date: 1-7-2005
Directed by Roy Boulting
Featuring Richard Widmark, Trevor Howard, Jane Greer

A reporter tracks down a writer who has given up his craft and moved to Mexico. The two of them end up stranded on a plantation owned by men with a secret.

This thriller is well acted, will directed and quite satisfying. For the purposes of this series, though, its inclusion here is somewhat problematic; the fantastic content here is negligible, and it largely gets in by being something of a remake of a movie that does qualify. I hope I’m not giving away too much by saying that that other movie is THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. The problem here is that this variation on the story strips away most of the content that edged that movie into the horror genre; our villain here is not the insane huntsman tracking down men for the mere sport of it, but one whose motivations exist much more in the realm of the mundane, and who has logical (if unethical) reasons for his behavior. All of this really just goes to show how hard it is to pin down some of these movies; despite the surface similarity to TMDG, this is a standard, straightforward thriller with no horror content, unless the fact that it takes place in the jungle counts. Chalk this one up as another false lead.

THE RETURN OF DR. FU MANCHU (1930)
Article #1236 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-2-2004
Posting Date: 12-30-2004
Directed by Rowland V. Lee
Featuring Warner Oland, O.P. Heggie, Jean Arthur

Dr. Fu Manchu fakes his own death in order to have another chance on avenging himself against Dr. Petrie.

The three movies in Warner Oland’s Fu Manchu series are quite entertaining, but reportedly they have precious little to do with Fu Manchu as presented in the Sax Rohmer novels. I haven’t read any of these, so I can’t make a comparison, but I do know that in comparison with some of the other Fus I’ve seen (notably, Boris Karloff’s in THE MASK OF FU MANCHU), Warner Oland’s is positively cuddly and benign, while still proving to be a resourceful villain. This is the second in the series, and is a direct sequel to THE MYSTERIOUS DR. FU MANCHU, with all the surviving main characters back with the original actors in their respective roles. Unfortunately, that also means that the character of Sylvester is back, which means we have more scenes of his annoyingly prissy cowardice (and he doesn’t even have the marmalade line to redeem him this time). Still, this one may well be the most enjoyable of this series.

ROMAN SCANDALS (1933)
Article #1173 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-31-2004
Posting Date: 10-28-2004
Directed by Frank Tuttle
Featuring Eddie Cantor, Ruth Etting, Gloria Stuart

When a local boy is thrown out of the town of New Rome, he finds himself transported to the times of Ancient Rome.

The time travel aspect in the above plot description delineates the fantastic element in this musical comedy; as for the actual mechanics as to how the time travel occurs, it’s never clearly explained, but from the surrounding events, It’s pretty obvious he either dreamed or imagined it. I found the whole affair a lot of fun, with the big dance numbers choreographed by Busby Berkeley and some entertaining songs by Eddie Cantor. There are several interesting names in the cast; Gloria Stuart, David Manners, Edward Arnold and Alan Mowbray are all on hand, with various smaller parts played by Richard Alexander, Lucille Ball, Billy Barty (in another moment of fantasticism, Eddie Cantor enters a steam bath and is shrunk to the size of a midget, thus Barty’s appearance), Jane Darwell, Francis Ford, Paulette Goddard and Noble Johnson (as a torturer). The plot is fairly thin, but the mostly light-hearted fun has a few darker moments; the theme of political corruption is on hand, and one of the musical numbers involves the selling into slavery of a female slave who is then thrown to her death, a sequence that is somewhat shocking given the general light nature of the movie. Also, being pre-code, some of the musical numbers are fairly risque, especially the number inside the woman’s bath, which features Eddie Cantor singing in blackface and plenty of women in various states of undress. This one was definitely a movie of its time.

REMEMBER LAST NIGHT? (1935)
Article #1087 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-6-2004
Posting Date: 8-3-2004
Directed by James Whale
Featuring Edward Arnold, Robert Young, Constance Cummings

When a murdered body is found in the mansion of rich partiers, nobody can remember what happened since they were all too drunk to recall the circumstances.

This comedy-mystery directed by the man responsible for some of the greatest horror films of all time has a lot going for it; it has a great cast, beautiful sets, an energetic, almost dizzying pace, and Whale’s wonderful visual sense. I don’t think it’s quite as hilarious as it sets out to be; the first quarter of the movie consists almost entirely of the antics of rich drunken people, and except for Arthur Treacher’s long-suffering but contemptuous and curt commentary on the proceedings, I get fairly tired of the endless partying. The story also gets very confusing as it progresses, though its strong points are such that I would be more than willing to give it all a second viewing. The fantastic aspects are minor, but memorable; Gustav von Seyffertitz makes a memorable appearance as a hypnotist, and this sequence is definitely a high point in the movie. There are also direct verbal references to both THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and DRACULA’S DAUGHTER (though the latter hadn’t been released yet), and some of the later scenes also have a slight horror feel to them. There are many familiar names in the cast, include Robert Armstrong, George Meeker, Edward Brophy, Gregory Ratoff, and Regninal Denny. E.E. Clive has a priceless bit as the coroner’s photographer.