SECRET AGENT X-9 (1937)
Serial
Article 2743 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-9-2008
Posting Date: 2-15-2009
Directed by Ford Beebe and Clifford Smith
Featuring Scott Kolk, Jean Rogers, David Oliver
Country: USA

Secret Agent X-9 must track down a master thief who has stolen the Belgravian crown jewels.

This rather average serial was listed in the Willis guide as having fantastic elements on the strength of the title of its second chapter: THE RAY THAT BLINDS. I can understand that deduction; given the ubiquity of death rays in the era and the fact that the title of the serial implies spy action, I’d expect a weapon-ray of some sort myself. However, on inspection, the “ray that blinds” turns out to be nothing more than an ordinary light shined into the eyes of a driver; I remember it being referred to as an ‘x-ray’ of sorts, but I don’t remember whether it’s in the serial itself or some writing referring to it. Its primary use in the movie is to shine through some paintings in the hopes of finding a concealed receipt that leads to the stolen jewels. This doesn’t quite cut it as science fiction content, in my humble opinion. However, the movie may also be borderline fantasy; the existence of Belgravian crown jewels implies that there is a country called Belgravia out there, which goes under the classification of mythical kingdoms, even if the movie doesn’t spend any time there.

As I said before, this serial struck me as pretty average. The story is passable, but hardly great. Of the things I noticed most, there are moments when it has the most atrocious dubbing that I’ve ever seen in an English-language film; apparently, they tried to add voices from some of the silent stock footage they used. It also has more than its fair shares of lying-cliffhangers; for those who need to be refreshed as to the difference between cheating cliffhangers and lying cliffhangers, the former edit in new footage between the pieces of footage you saw in the previous episode, whereas the latter completely omits footage that was part of the cliffhanger, such as moments when the hero clutches his chest after a gun goes off, and falls to the ground. And seeing Lon Chaney Jr. in this one as a henchman, I can’t help but feel how fortunate he was that his career took off like it did; I’ve known a few serial heroes whose careers took them on to greater things, but I know very few serial henchmen who were that fortunate.

SPOOKS (1930)
Animated short
Article 2727 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-24-2008
Posting Date: 1-30-2009
Directed by Walter Lantz
Featuring the voice of Pinto Colvig
Country: US

A phantom terrorizes entertainers in a music hall.

I remember Walter Lantz hosting “The Woody Woodpecker Show” from my childhood, and though I have a fond memory of him because of it, the truth is that I barely remember the cartoons themselves. This is from his pre-Woody Woodpecker days. It’s something of a parody of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. On the plus side, the animation is quite good. On the minus side, the writing is very weak. Now, I don’t really expect anything more from the writing than an assortment of funny gags, but this one only manages a couple of decent ones; one involves a skeleton living in a tombstone, and another involves a songstress performing to the music of a phonograph strapped to her back. The rest of the gags are either lame, impenetrable, or missing in action. Still, since Lantz’s shorts from this era were made for Universal, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these were actually shown at the original screenings for the early horror classics, and it might be appropriate to watch this one before one of them. Incidentally, I also had to take a quick peak at KING KLUNK (another cartoon in the collection in which I found this one), another Lantz short that took on KING KONG; I liked that one much better.

THE SWORD OF ALI BABA (1965)
Article 2704 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-28-2008
Posting Date: 1-7-2009
Directed by Virgil W. Vogel
Featuring Peter Mann, Jocelyn Lane, Frank McGrath
Country: USA

When Mongols invade Bagdad, the evil Cassim betrays the Caliph to the Hulagu Khan, leader of the Mongols. However, the caliph’s son escapes and joins up with a band of thieves. They plot to defeat the Mongols.

About five minutes into this movie, I saw a scene of two young children, a boy and a girl, mixing their blood in a vow. This scene set off sirens in my head, and I popped into IMDB to check the movie connections. Sure enough, the movie took the footage from the 1944 Arabian Nights epic, ALI BABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES. Then I noticed something else; this movie is in fact a remake of that one, and that scene is far from the only one that was borrowed from the earlier movie. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if a good forty to fifty percent of this movie is made up of footage from the earlier movie, and it looks like this movie was made exclusively to take advantage of this footage. Characters are cast by their resemblance to the characters in the earlier movie, though the acting is much weaker here. Instead of Jon Hall and Maria Montez, we have Peter Mann and Jocelyn Lane, and instead of the unforgettable Andy Devine, we have the forgettable Peter Whitney. There are a couple of interesting touches; Frank Puglia is cast in the same role he played in the earlier movie, which certainly made it easier to pillage the footage, and it is interesting to see Gavin MacLeod playing the villainous Hulagu Khan, since I’ve never seen him in a villainous role before. Still, one has to wonder what the point is in making a scene-for-scene remake of an earlier movie in which much of the footage is from that movie; I’m certain that any reason for this movie’s existence has much to do with the fact that to many film executives, movies are considered product (as in opposition to being considered works of art). Whichever way you look at it, this seems to be one of the most unnecessary movies ever made.

SUPERZAN Y EL NINO DEL ESPACIO (1973)
aka Superzan and the Space Boy
Article 2689 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-7-2008
Posting Date: 12-23-2008
Directed by Rafael Lanuza
Featuring Superzan, Caro Laniesti, Claudio Lanuza
Country: Mexico

A boy from space comes to Earth to share his knowledge, but he meets an evil scientist who plans to use the knowledge to his own ends. Only Mexican superhero Superzan can save the day.

Here’s more Mexican wrestling madness for your enjoyment. Unfortunately, Superzan was not a successful wrestler, and, as a result, there is no wrestling footage here to pad out the movie. The name is a cross between Superman and Tarzan, and the character is something of a low-rent version of the former; he has the ability to fly and to survive being run over by a car. My copy of this is in undubbed unsubtitled Spanish, but it should have been easy to dub; the boy from space (and any of the other characters from space) are able to communicate telepathically, so you get lots of voices with no lips moving, and it would have been a cinch to dub. I’m just curious about just what the machine does to humans; they gain the ability to use telepathy, but have to wear the same type of silly outfit as the boy does. According to IMDB, this movie runs more than two hours long, and my copy is only 77 minutes; however, I suspect that IMDB is wrong, as I know of no other Mexican wrestling movies that ran that long. Superzan also has one of the flashiest costumes of any of the Mexican wrestlers. Still, this is the usual type of stuff you expect from the form.

THE STRANGLER OF BLACKMOOR CASTLE (1963)
aka Der Wurger von Schloss Blackmoor
Article 2668 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-12-2008
Posting Date: 12-2-2008
Directed by Harold Reinl
Featuring Karin Dor, Harry Riebauer, Rudolf Fernau
Country: West Germany

The tenant of Blackmoor castle finds himself terrorized by a hooded killer who strangles and decapitates his victims. The killer knows that the tenant was responsible for the death of another man and the theft of diamonds.

It’s krimi time again, and this is a good one. Like most krimis, it gets confusing during the middle section and it has too many characters, but the musical score is unique and effective, the comic relief (a Scottish landlord) is fairly decent, and it’s full of effective touches and scenes. Of the latter, I quite like the Toby-Damnit-style murder of the motorcyclist, the scene where we discover where the diamonds are hidden (it’s a wonderful hiding place), the scene where the tenant’s manic assistant threatens someone with his diamond drill, and a great climax in the swamp. Once again, it helps to know in advance that krimis are not really horror movies, but crime movies with horror elements, and I think this is one where the horror elements are quite strong. And I must admit to having been quite surprised by the identity of the murderer. For my money, this is one of the better krimis out there.

SPACE THING (1968)
Article 2660 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-24-2008
Posting Date: 11-24-3008
Directed by Byron Mabe
Featuring Carla Peterson, Merci Montello, Dan Martin
Country: USA

A space alien disguises himself as a human and becomes part of the crew of a spaceship. He means to destroy the ship, but, in the meantime, he decides that in order to convince his crew members that he’s really human, he has to study their love-making techniques. Then he tries them out.

Here’s some more soft-core porno science fiction. You know, I can understand the appeal of movies like this, but when you’re watching them for their fantastic content, they’re bloody bores. The most interesting moment from a science fiction perspective comes early on in a scene that feels like it was tacked on later to add to the running length; a woman tries to tempt her husband away from his beloved science fiction magazines, and, at one point, he talks about a story that puts forth the theory that there are an infinite number of universes we all exist in. I almost hoped that the story proper that followed this prologue would deal with that idea, but alas, it’s just sexed-up space opera of the most primitive kind. The scenes without sex are dull and trite, and the scenes with sex are dull and passionless, at least partially because no one here can act their way out of a paper bag. As far as the special effects go, Ed Wood’s PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE is better. And between the false eyelashes that all the women are wearing that make it look like they’re wearing caterpillars on their eyes, and the eye-makeup that looks like it was applied by the gallon with a spatula, I swear every woman hear looks like they’ve added an extra ten pounds to their weight on their faces alone.

THE SILENCERS (1966)
Article 2656 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-19-2008
Posting Date: 11-20-2008
Directed by Phil Karlson
Featuring Dean Martin, Stella Stevens, Daliah Lavi
Country: USA

Matt Helm is called out of semi-retirement to catch the members of an evil organization that has a plan to take over the world called “Operation Fallout”.

The Matt Helm series took a definite approach in their intent to ape the James Bond series; less action, more comedy, and more female anatomy. I’ve already seen one movie from the series, THE AMBUSHERS, and had I judged the series from that one, I would have written it off as the tackiest and crassest of the Bond rip-offs; thankfully, this one, the first of the series, is much better, mostly because the leering and the stupid double-entendres are kept to a minimum. It also helps that this has a strong cast; Stella Stevens was a great comic actress as well as a looker, Victor Buono always makes for a fun villain, Cyd Charisse does a memorable dance, and the cast also features Roger C. Carmel and Arthur O’Connell (who is sadly wasted as Joe Wigman). Still, the movie is only mildly funny at best, and as a Bond rip-off, it’s only passable. Reportedly, this is the best of the lot, though the other two (MURDERER’S ROW and THE WRECKING CREW, which I have yet to see) are supposed to be better than THE AMBUSHERS.

SCROOGE (1970)
Article 2655 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-18-2008
Posting Date: 11-19-2008
Directed by Ronald Neame
Featuring Albert Finney, Edith Evans, Kenneth More
Country: UK

On Christmas Eve, miser Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his former partner Jacob Marley, who sends him three ghosts who will attempt to get him to change his curmudgeonly ways.

That Dickens’s Christmas classic would be converted into a musical is no real surprise, especially after the success of OLIVER. But in its own way, the original story is just fine the way it is, and it simply doesn’t need the spectacle-heavy retooling it’s been given here. It’s far from a bad movie, though; the songs are decent, the performances are solid, and there are some great moments here (I particularly like the moments where Marley, played by the excellent Alec Guinness, shows Scrooge that he can sit down and when he takes Scrooge through the heavens to see the ghosts of the damned). But I miss the simpler and more compelling charms of the story that have been set aside to make way for the songs and dances which often tend to distract rather than enhance. I must admit I’m quite spoiled by the 1951 version; though Albert Finney does well in the title role, his performance is nowhere near as revelatory as Alistair Sim’s was. The movie also adds a scene where Scrooge goes to Hell to see his fate in the afterlife and the length of his chain, a sequence which unforunately veers the movie way too close to camp for my liking. Yes, it’s pretty to look at, but ultimately, I care about the characters and their fates far less here than I did in some of the other versions of the tale.

SINTHIA, THE DEVIL’S DOLL (1968)
Article 2654 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-16-2008
Posting Date: 11-18-2008
Directed by Ray Dennis Steckler
Featuring Shula Roan, Peter Balakoff, Bret Zeller
Country: USA

At the age of 12, Cynthia (aka Sinthia), due to her unnatural feelings towards her father, murders her parents while they are making love and then sets fire to their bedroom. She is freed by the courts due to her age. Years later, she is afraid to marry her fiance due to her nightmares about the experience. A psychiatrist tries to help her.

Don’t trust the above plot description; it makes the movie sound a lot more linear than it is. Ah, me, how do I describe this one? Well, if Jess Franco and Ed Wood read a one-paragraph summary of the teachings of Sigmund Freud and decided to apply what they learned to an arty soft-core horror movie, that might give you an idea of what this one is like. It’s directed by Ray Dennis Steckler under the Sven Christian pseudonym, and it contains lines like “How do I commit suicide without committing suicide?” The plot takes up about five minutes of the running time; the rest of the time we’re caught up in Cynthia’s nightmare, which involves lots and lots of nudity, double-exposure, and calling out for her daddy every other line (just in case you missed the part about her unnatural obsession with her father). Awful… just awful.