SANTO VS. BARON BRAKOLA (1967)
aka El Baron Brakola
Article 2485 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-23-2008
Posting Date: 6-1-2008
Directed by Jose Diaz Morales
Featuring Santo, Fernando Oses, Mercedes Carreno
Country: Mexico

Santo has to do battle with an evil vampire named Baron Brakola.

Brakola? Brakola? Hmm… the name sounds vaguely like that of one of the most famous horror characters of all time. Once you make the connection, you’ll know in advance that Santo is battling a vampire this time out before the movie even starts, and, considering that my copy is in unsubtitled Spanish, any hint helps. Nevertheless, I would have been able to figure out he was a vampire from square one, as his pointed teeth and penchant for biting women on the neck gives it away. All in all, this one is fairly easy to understand even in its unsubtitled form, and has an amusing backstory in which one of Santo’s ancestors also does battle with Baron Brakola. It’s the basic “Dracula” story with Santo in the Van Helsing role, or, if you prefer, imagine Van Helsing as a Mexican wrestler. Hey, here’s some scenarios to imagine – a bare-chested Edward Van Sloan in tights, mask, and cape wrestling Bela Lugosi. Or, even better, bare-chested Peter Cushing in mask, tights and cape wrestling with Christopher Lee!

Wait a second… I really didn’t want to conjure up those visions. Now I WILL have nightmares tonight.

CROSIERES SIDERALES (1942)
aka Sideral Cruises
Article 2464 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-31-2007
Posting Date: 5-11-2008
Directed by Andre Zwoboda
Featuring Madeleine Sologne, Jean Marchat, Julien Carette
Country: France

Two people ascend into the stratosphere in a capsule carried by a balloon. When the balloon bursts, it hurtles them into outer space. When they return to Earth, they find that Einstein’s theory of relativity has left them the same age, but all those they knew have aged. They are greeted as heroes, and further trips to the stratosphere are planned.

The above plot description is an approximation; the film is in unsubtitled French, and I was only able to sort out some of the plot thanks to a rather glib description from the Phil Hardy book on science fiction movies. That gave me a little to go on; without it, I would have been lost. I would have known it involved space travel, and I would probably have figured out the role of relativity. Beyond that, the movie is a question mark. Visually, the most interesting thing is a bizarre spectacle that looks it was staged by Busby Berkeley, involving lots of beautiful girls (some not entirely clothed), trapezes, merry-go-rounds, etc. There’s also someone who looks like Spike Jones’s short brother running around. Until subtitles or dubbing comes along, I’m lost on this one.

SATANAS DE TODOS LOS HORRORES (1974)
aka Satan of All Horrors
Article 2450 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-17-2007
Posting Date: 4-27-2008
Directed by Julian Soler
Featuring Enrique Lizalde, Enrique Rocha, Carlos Lopez Moctezuma
Country: Mexico

A man visits the home of his beloved, and finds her under the sway of his strange brother in a crumbling mansion.

I was caught off guard by this movie, as I didn’t know my print was going to be in unsubtitled Spanish, but, heck, it’s not like I haven’t been here before. Still, I had some help; the titles indicated that it was based on something by Edgar Allan Poe, and it didn’t take much thinking to figure out that the source was “The Fall of the House of Usher”. Granted, that particular story tends to lend itself to talkfests, and, sure enough, there’s lots of talk in this one, and when it’s in a language you can’t understand, it’s even worse. Still, the movie tries to jazz things up, though I’m not sure I care much for the changes; an evil manservant is thrown into the mix, as well as a dose of black magic dabbling and demon summoning. There’s also a plot twist that I’d probably understand better if I knew what the dialogue was saying, but I’ll not reveal it in case it would be a spoiler; it certainly caught me off guard. However, I really like one aspect of this one; it’s the only version I’ve seen that really emphasizes the crumbling state of the house itself; there are cracks in the walls, and the whole house shakes on occasion. There’s an especially memorable sequence involving a picture on a wall. Throw in some rats and decaying corpses to add to the fun. Really, as far as watching foreign movies in their original language goes, this was one of the more benign experiences I’ve had.

STAR VIRGIN (1979)
Article 2447 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-14-2007
Posting Date: 4-24-2008
Directed by Howard Ziehm
Featuring Kari Klark, Kevin Thompson, Tracy Walton

The last of the human species, a female, quizzes her robot mentor about sex.

One thing you can be pretty sure about any movie with the word “virgin” in the title; the movie is going to have precious little to do with virginity, especially if he movie can only be found in that section of the video store that prominently displays multiple iterations of the 24th letter of the alphabet. You can also be confident that, despite the existence of certain fantastic content incidental to the plot (and I use the word loosely) will have very little to do with what the movie is really about, and such is the case here. So we have a setting in the future, a robot, the devil, and a vampire in a spooky old castle, but the movie is more interested in other (very explicit) details. As such, there’s little more for me to say about this one.

STAR ODYSSEY (1979)
aka Sette uomini d’oro nello spazio
Article 2435 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-28-2007
Posting Date: 4-12-2008
Directed by Alfonso Brescia
Featuring Yanti Somer, Gianni Garko, Malisa Longo

Aliens from outer space purchase Earth in an auction and proceed to invade. A super-smart human gathers together a group of people and robots to do battle with them.

I now present “Dave’s Tips on How to Make a Better Movie”.

1) If you’re marketing a cheap Italian space opera modeled after STAR WARS , I suppose it’s inevitable that you will choose a title that conjures up the original from which it was derived. If, however, you come up with a title that also elicits thoughts of another science fiction movie with a high reputation (such as, say, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY), then you’re just asking people to make comparisons that you really don’t want them to make.

2) Note to editors: unless you’re really trying to be arty, you should put your movie together to make some sort of linear and coherent sense. If you place the auction scene where the planet is bought after the opening invasion scenes, you will only confuse the viewer, unless you indicate in some ways that it is a flashback.

3) Having three characters with special hypnotic abilities and glowing eyes is at least two too many.

4) The bad guy having an army of androids at his disposal = good idea. Having the androids all look like Prince Valiant = bad idea.

5) If your soundtrack sounds like your ten-year old nephew playing one of those keyboard instruments you can buy at Target while somebody stomps on the floor with heavy boots in the background, you will not achieve the operatic grandeur you need to make this space epic fly.

6) A cute robot couple for whimsy = good idea. Having them talk endlessly about why they were trying to commit suicide = bad idea.

7) If you’re having a boxing scene between a gymnast and a robot, it is a not a good idea to have the referee the one that gets hit the most.

8) Remember, when people are laughing while watching your movie, and it isn’t a comedy, it’s not a good sign.

I’d go on, but why bother? All you need to know is that this is the cheesiest, most incompetent ripoff of STAR WARS that I’ve seen to date, and that’s no mean feat. Giving advice now is like going up to a train wreck and telling the dead engineer that he should have kept the train on the tracks.

THE SPY IN THE GREEN HAT (1966)
Article 2434 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-27-2007
Posting Date: 4-11-2008
Directed by Joseph Sargent
Featuring Robert Vaughn, David McCallum, Jack Palance

Napoleon Solo and Ilya Kuryakin discover that THRUSH has made contact with a Nazi scientist who has plans to take over the world by diverting the Gulf stream.

This is another of those movies cobbled together by combining two episodes of “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” TV series, and, of the ones I’ve seen so far, it’s the best. It’s certainly the most comic one; it’s one of those where the subplot (Solo is caught in a compromising situation with an Sicilian girl and finds himself being set up for a shotgun wedding by her gangster uncles) almost takes over the movie. This gives the show the opportunity to take on the gangster genre as well as the spy genre, and among the gangsters and their friends we find some great actors, such as Eduardo Ciannelli, Allen Jenkins, Jack La Rue, Joan Blondell (as one of the gangster’s wives, who gets the same thing Mae Clarke got in THE PUBLIC ENEMY), Vincent Beck, Elisha Cook Jr., and Maxie Rosenbloom. On the spy side of the story, we have Jack Palance as THRUSH agent Louis Strago; though Palance could have played it straight with his usual brooding menace, he instead chooses to make his character a repressed Nervous Nellie type. There’s also Janet Leigh, who (in what may be a PSYCHO reference) plays a murderess with knife killings her gleeful specialty. It was quite surprising to see Will Kuluva as the top-ranking THRUSH agent of the title; the last time I saw him was in TO TRAP A SPY , where he played the head of UNCLE before he was replaced by Leo G. Carroll, the man who plays here that sentimental old grandmother Mr. Waverly. I think I see references to serials and westerns as well in this one; the latter occurred to me when the gangsters have a showdown with a patrol boat that is circling their craft, a concept that reminded me of the old cliche of Indians circling covered wagons. The plot is pretty goofy, but a lot of fun. Incidentally, this was edited from the two parts of the series known as “The Concrete Overcoat Affair”.

SHIVERING SHERLOCKS (1948)
Short
Article 2433 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-26-2007
Posting Date: 4-10-2008
Directed by Del Lord
Featuring Shemp Howard, Larry Fine, Moe Howard

The Three Stooges are mistaken for robbers in an armed robbery, but they’re only witnesses. They work at a restaurant for a while. Then they stumble upon a haunted house where the real robbers live, and the robbers send out a maniacal murderer to kill them.

From what I gather, goodly portions of this short consist of routines that had previously been done with Curly. As a result, this is not considered one of their best, but their timing is good in it, and I liked it better than some of the others I’ve seen. Still, it’s the ending that makes this, as they encounter Duke York as an ugly hunch-backed killer who chases them with what looks like a machete; it’s this last sequence that adds the horror content to the story (and I use that last word loosely here).

SHERLOCK HOLMES FACES DEATH (1943)
Article 2432 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-25-2007
Posting Date: 4-9-2008
Directed by Roy William Neill
Featuring Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Dennis Hoey

Sherlock Holmes investigates murders of the Musgrave family at Hurlstone manor. The murders appear to be tied to a nonsensical document family members are required to memorize known as the Musgrave Ritual. Holmes begins to suspect that the ritual is not nonsense at all…

With this movie, I complete my coverage of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies of the thirties and forties. The majority of these movies have some fantastic content to them; apparently, enough of them do so that at least one source for my lists felt compelled to include even those that don’t have any, such as PURSUIT TO ALGIERS . This one has a spooky old house with secret passages and talk of ghosts. Nevertheless, the fantastic elements seem tacked on in this movie; the ghost talk never comes to anything, and, despite the dread hints about the Musgrave family in the opening scene, I found little horrific about them as such. The story is very loosely based on the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story, “The Musgrave Ritual”; it takes a few plot elements and characters from the story, jettisons the rest, changes the ritual, and layers on a subplot about Hurlstone manor being used as a home for convalescent soldiers (thus putting a wartime spin on the story). The latter element is a bit of a smokescreen; though the movie hints that one of them may be the murderer, a quick consideration of the time the movie was made and the attitude of the movie industry towards the war effort, you can safely bet that none of the soldiers are guilty (I’m only surprised that the villain didn’t turn out to be a Nazi spy). All in all, this one is fairly good, with some fun dialogue, an interesting story, some great moments (I love the scene involving the raven and the rumble seat), and a sense of class; as always, I’m impressed with how the ending speech in the movie manages to subtly but effectively put out its propagandistic message.

SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER (1977)
Article 2429 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-21-2007
Posting Date: 4-6-2008
Directed by Sam Wanamaker
Featuring Patrick Wayne, Taryn Power, Margaret Whiting

Sinbad helps a prince who has been changed into a baboon to seek out an alchemist/sorcerer to help return him to his original form. However, an evil sorceress is trying to prevent this from happening.

This was the third of Ray Harryhausen’s Sinbad movies, and it is easily the least. This is not to say that the movie is devoid of good points; many of Harryhausen’s creations here are not merely monsters for our heroes to dispense with, but characters who interact in many different ways with the human characters; the Baboon and the Troglodyte are the most striking examples here. There’s also touches I really like, such as what happens to Zenobia when she doesn’t have quite enough potion to return to her human form. But the movie’s problems are rather noticeable; the story seems to have fewer and shorter action sequences than the other movies in the series, and it is significantly longer. Furthermore, the non-stop-motion special effects are fairly weak and rather cheesy; I’m especially disappointed at Zenobia’s transformation into a bird. The end result is that the sense of wonder that is so prominent in the other Harryhausen movies is rather muted here, and despite the character touches, none of Harryhausen’s creations here rank with his most memorable. The battle between the Troglodyte and the Tiger is the high point here; it’s at this moment when the movie comes closest to recapturing the magic of his other movies.

SEVEN KEYS TO BALDPATE (1947)
Article 2428 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-20-2007
Posting Date: 4-5-2008
Directed by Lew Landers
Featuring Phillip Terry, Jacqueline White, Eduardo Ciannelli

A writer visits the Baldpate Inn in the hopes of winning a bet that he can write a novel in 24 hours while staying there. However, he discovers that he is not the only one with a key to Baldpate Inn…

Here we are, yet again, with another version of the Earl Derr Biggers novel as translated through the George M. Cohan play. The fantastic content is the same as the others; slight “old dark house” touches and a hermit pretending to be a ghost, though the latter gimmick is barely used. This version takes itself more seriously and slows down the plot points so that the movie is more comprehensible. And therein lies the movie’s problem – by removing the bewildering rush of events that is present in the other movies, the movie loses its comic edge and one can feel the energy slowly but surely being sapped away. Yes, you can understand the story more, but it wasn’t meant to be understood; part of the charm of it all was that the story was too far-fetched to be taken seriously. A few entertaining cast members (Eduardo Ciannelli and Arthur Shields in particular) help a little, but this version falls flat. This would be the last movie version of the story for almost four decades; it would be revived as HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS in 1983.