RHYTHMUS 21 (1923)
aka Rhythm 21
Article 5312 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-2-2016
Directed by Hans Richter
No cast
Country: Germany
What it is: Abstract animation

No plot

Yes, it’s more avant-garde experimental abstract animation here. This one mostly involves white and black rectangles on black and white backgrounds growing larger or shrinking; I assume the rhythm is captured by the speed at which these rectangles change size. It’s pretty much what you might expect from an early attempt at abstract animation; it’s watchable if you’re in the mood, but hardly exciting or compelling.

RAINBOW DANCE (1936)
Article 5310 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-30-2016
Directed by Len Lye
Featuring Rupert Doone
Country: UK
What it is: Experiment film advertisement

No plot.

If you start watching experimental films of this sort, you will sooner or later start being able to pick out favorites (that is, if you don’t hate the whole form altogether). I’ve decided that Len Lye is one of those that I really like. At least partially the reason is that the examples I’ve seen have also been advertisements (in this case, it’s for the General Post Office), and this tends to add a little more sense of purpose. Also, instead of relying on pure abstraction, Lye likes to play around with concrete images as well; among all the colorful hand drawn abstraction, we have a silhouette dancer performing such actions as opening an umbrella and playing (and watching) tennis. Another plus is that Lye tends to keep his films a bit short; I get the sense that he knows when enough is enough. I liked this one, though I should point out that I didn’t see a version with the original musical soundtrack; apparently, this is a film that is often used by composers as an inspiration for soundtrack writing, so there are several copies out there on YouTube with music by various individuals.

REASON AND EMOTION (1944)
Article 5306 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-26-2016
Directed by Bill Roberts
Featuring the voice of Frank Graham
Country: USA
What it is: Wartime propaganda, Disney style

The battle for control of the human will between reason and emotion is exemplified.

In some ways, this wartime propaganda short is a precursor to the recent Pixar film INSIDE OUT, in that it portrays two aspects of the human psyche battling for control of their host. It’s perhaps most effective in showing how unbridled emotion can give way to bad decisions and stress; the scene where a man finds himself reduced to a nervous wreck after having been hammered by a series of paranoid statements from various sources is my favorite moment. Though it can’t help but simplify things overmuch (it’s only an eight-minute cartoon, after all), it is still useful and relevant, and as such, transcends the propagandistic nature of its conception.

RABBIT HOOD (1949)
Article 5305 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-24-2016
Directed by Chuck Jones
Featuring the voice of Mel Blanc and Errol Flynn in his entirety
Country: USA
What it is: Bugs Bunny cartoon

Bugs Bunny runs afoul of the Sheriff of Notthingham when he tries to steal a carrot from the royal garden. Will Robin Hood come to his rescue or will Bugs have to deal with the sheriff himself?

This take on the Robin Hood legend isn’t quite up to the level of the Daffy Duck cartoon ROBIN HOOD DAFFY, but it’s still a classic in its own right. This one I remember vividly from my childhood; in particular, the poem recited by Little John in the cartoon’s running gag always brings back memories. The cartoon has a number of great moments; one of my favorites is when the Sheriff of Nottingham gets played for a fool at one point, and it takes him an enormous length of time before he realizes it. I also like the speedy cake baking that Bugs performs at one point. The character of Bugs provides the only real fantastic content in this one (anthropomorphic animal), and it is fun to see Errol Flynn appear in a short clip from his most famous movie.

REPAS INFERNAL (1901)
aka Repas impossible, The Infernal Meal
Article 5252 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-20-2016
Directed by Ferdinand Zecca
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Early trick short

A diner with a devilish waiter finds himself assaulted by his dining table.

I’m sure I’ve seen a few variations of this one already; a diner finds it impossible to eat because of the antics of the dining furniture. This one rushes by so quickly that it really doesn’t have time to explore the possibilities; other than the table jumping on his back and the waiter disappearing in a puff of smoke, not much really happens. Granted, the copy of the short I saw ran only 23 seconds, and about a third of that is the opening title, so I can’t say expected anything more elaborate. However, this one might have been more fun had it been longer.

THE RED SPECTRE (1907)
aka Le spectre rouge
Article 5199 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-7-2016
Directed by Segundo de Chomon and Ferdinand Zecca
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Magic short plus

A devilish skeletal figure presents his magic act; unfortunately, he may be thwarted by a good spirit.

This short can be described as a variation of Melies’s many magic-themed shorts in which a magician appears and does his act. What sets this one apart is that the magician is a devilish skeletal figure whose tricks are surrounded by a hellish atmosphere, and the presence of the whisper of a plot involving his conflict with a good spirit. The plot as such isn’t much, but the vivid hand-coloring of the print and the macabre atmosphere add so much flavor to the proceedings that this becomes one of the most entertaining variations I’ve seen of this theme. I think my favorite moments involve the main character advancing to the camera to perform some of this tricks up close; this is an approach that I don’t think Melies ever tried. It’s not as slickly done as the Melies shorts at their best, but this still may be my favorite example of the early silent era magic short.

REVENGE OF THE MYSTERONS FROM MARS (1981)
Article 5164 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-22-2016
Directed by Brian Burgess, Robert Lynn and Ken Turner
Featuring the voices of Francis Matthews, Ed Bishop, Donald Gray
Country: UK
What it is: TV-Movie compilation of episodes from “Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons”

Spectrum agent Captain Scarlet and his cohorts match wits with an alien race known as the Mysterons.

This TV-Movie has four episodes from “Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons” stitched together to create a feature; they are “Shadow of Fear”, “Lunarville 7”, “Crater 101” and “Dangerous Rendezvous”; the last three episodes do seem to be semi-sequels to each other, though they weren’t originally shown in direct succession. It was another one of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s Supermarionation series. I suspect the Andersons took these shows quite seriously; a lot of effort went into making the marionettes as lifelike as possible, and sometimes when you squint they almost look and act human. However, they never found an effective way to show them walking, so the shows were framed so you never saw their legs moving. That’s why so many of the action sequences were more likely to involve hardware and vehicles. I don’t know if there was any resolution to the central conflict between Spectrum and the Mysterons in the original series, but if there was, it would have come in the last episode, which is not among the bunch in this compilation, so the movie never really resolves itself. It’s mildly entertaining, but the series is better experienced in thirty-minute segments; it gets rather dull stretched out to a feature. Nowadays, this feature version is probably best remembered as one of the first features to have gotten the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment back in its KTMA days, though the episode hasn’t been in circulation in years and probably will never be.

LE RETOUR D’ULYSSE (1909)
aka The Return of Ulysses
Article 5145 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-2-2016
Directed by Andre Calmettes and Charles Le Bargy
Featuring Paul Mounet, Madame Bartet, Albert Lambert
Country: France
What it is: Homeric adaptation

Ulysses returns after a twenty-year delay from the Trojan War to deal with suitors to the queen Penelope.

Anyone familiar with Homer’s “The Odyssey” knows the story is full of fantastic content, with the most famous part of the story involving Ulysses’s encounter with the cyclops Polyphemus. However, the main thrust of the story involves the hero’s return home to deal with a group of abusive suitors who are trying to force the wife of Ulysses to pick a king, and this segment of the story is much lighter on the fantastic content, and it would be possible to adapt it without any fantastic content whatsoever, especially if you eliminate the roles of the gods and goddesses. This bare-bones version of that part of the story does have a little fantastic content; Penelope has a precognitive dream of Ulysses that makes it appear as if he disappears into thin air at one point, and references are made to the goddesses Calypso and Minerva in the title cards (the latter supposedly stopping time) but not appearing as characters in any capacity. The short mostly deals with the more famous aspects of that part of the story – the tapestry ruse and the bow-bending competition. As such, it’s a passable if uninspired adaptation of that part of the epic, though the actress playing Penelope really chews the scenery. Still, there are other versions of the story preferable to those seeking the fantastic content.

RIM OF THE CANYON (1949)
Article 5127 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-9-2016
Directed by John English
Featuring Gene Autry, Champion, Nan Leslie
Country: USA
What it is: Weird Western

When his stagecoach crashes in a race, Gene Autry becomes stranded in a ghost town in which he must deal with three escaped convicts looking for stolen money… and possibly a real ghost as well.

Most of the B-movie weird westerns I’ve encountered so far have been rather pallid affairs with extremely mild fantastic content and very low production values (which is not to say that there isn’t something inherently entertaining about the form). This one is relatively upscale. It has an interesting, offbeat story (which is complicated enough to include two lengthy flashbacks), a sense of genuine emotional warmth, well-choreographed action sequences, and interesting characters. The fantastic content concerning the ghost is actually a prominent plot element that adds a real air of mystery to the proceedings, and though it is eventually debunked, a passing comment near the end of the movie hints that maybe it hasn’t been debunked after all. Yes, Gene Autry’s horse gets second billing, but he merits it; the horse manages to function as an authentic character in the proceedings, and his fate means as much to us as that of the human characters. All in all, I can say this was one of the most enjoyable weird westerns that I’ve seen for this series so far.

ROGER CORMAN: HOLLYWOOD’S WILD ANGEL (1978)
Article 5084 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-19-2016
Directed by Christian Blackwood
Featuring Allan Arkush, Paul Bartel, David Carradine
Country: UK / USA
What it is: Documentary

This is an appreciation of Roger Corman and his facility for finding and introducing major new talent into Hollywood.

I was posed with a dilemma today; I could either spend forty dollars on an old VHS copy of this hour-long documentary, or I could watch in for free on YouTube with the catch being that the YouTube presentation featured additional voices translating the narration and interviews into Spanish. Hmmm, decisions, decisions….

Well, I just finished watching this documentary with the equivalent of someone yelling Spanish into my ear the whole time, Did this interfere with me fully appreciating the movie? I’d be lying if I didn’t say that, yes, it did interfere. However, I was able to catch some of what was said, and fortunately, when trailers were used, the change to less-intrusive subtitles was less problematic. Still, at only an hour’s length, one wonders just how much depth the movie could have gone into, and I figure I’d probably get a lot more from a good book or article about Corman anyway. The first half of the movie concentrates on his work as a producer during the seventies, and we get interviews from several directors and actors he worked with. Most of the movies in this half are action/exploitation pictures, with HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD and DEATH RACE 2000 being the ones with the most fantastic content; we see clips from both films. The second half features footage from the sixties where he was still primarily working as a director, and we get footage from A BUCKET OF BLOOD, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, THE TOMB OF LIGEIA, THE RAVEN, DEMENTIA 13, THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH and GASSSS! It gives him a chance to highlight some of the discoveries who weren’t interviewed for the film (Jack Nicholson and Francis Ford Coppola in particular). All in all, it looks mildly interesting, but I doubt it would have been worth the forty dollars I would have had to fork out to see it without the Spanish. And, looking over at Amazon.com, I see several books that would not only tell me more, but would much more affordable.