SECRETS OF THE FRENCH POLICE (1932)
Article #1603 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-4-2005
Posting Date: 1-1-2006
Directed by A. Edward Sutherland
Featuring Frank Morgan, Gwili Andre, Gregory Ratoff

The French police investigate the murder of one of their own, and find it is tied up with the kidnapping of a flower girl and a fraudulent claim about the discovery of Princess Anastasia.

Secrets? French? Ooo-la-la, it sounds pretty racy! Well, it isn’t. Their secrets seem to be that they refer to each other by codenames, disguise themselves as winos to buy cigarettes, use clever human-face jigsaw puzzles, and employ thieves to do some of their detective work. The secrets of the villain are more interesting; he’s a combination of Svengali, Fu Manchu and Ivan Igor, and it is his machinations (including hypnotism and a grotesque way of disposing of bodies) that adds the horror elements to this story. The first half is pretty confusing, but things clear up once they really get going with the Anastasia plot. It’s short and moderately entertaining, with the best parts coming towards the end of the movie.

THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY (1947)
Article #1602 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-3-2005
Posting Date: 12-31-2005
Directed by Norman Z. McLeod
Featuring Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo, Boris Karloff

A perpetual daydreamer finds himself mixed up with thieves after the Dutch crown jewels.

I haven’t read the James Thurber story on which this movie is based, but I’m willing to bet that the plot elements surrounding the Dutch crown jewels are nowhere to be found in it. Still, I suspect it was just the screenwriter’s way to take the daydreaming conceit and stretch it into a whole movie. Though it seems to be a favorite among Danny Kaye fans, I have to admit being a little disappointed by it, but then, I’m coming at it from the direction of a Boris Karloff fan, and despite the fact that he has two great scenes and a great opening line, you have to wait for half the movie to pass before he appears, and then he’s mostly shuttled off to the sidelines. Danny Kaye was a good choice for the role of Walter Mitty, especially during the sequences in which he fantasizes himself in several different scenarios; however, the movie strains things a little to give him his trademark musical numbers, which, though they’re amusing enough, feel out of place. The movie runs a bit long for my taste, but I do like the pulp magazine covers that decorate the office where he works, and there are lots of familiar faces, including Milton Parsons as a butler. A mixed bag, but it has its moments.

SATAN’S SCHOOL FOR GIRLS (1973)
Article #1601 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-2-2005
Posting Date: 12-30-2005
Directed by David Lowell Rich
Featuring Pamela Franklin, Kate Jackson, Lloyd Bochner

A woman enrolls in a school for women to find proof that the death of her sister was not a suicide.

For those attracted to this movie by the title (which seems to promise a certain amount of exploitation as well as horror), you should first be aware that this is an early-to-mid seventies TV movie that takes pains not to offend. And it doesn’t. Nor does it really engage the interest due to its terminal blandness. It makes a few attempts to scare, but after a woman is frightened by a wandering hobo and a handyman in the opening scenes, I pretty much came to the conclusion that the movie was just trying to be scary rather than actually being scary. The movie tries to be mysterious about the type of evil present in the school, but since the title gives it away, about the only mystery left is “Who is Satan?”, and practically every review I’ve read gives that away. It has a couple of good moments, in particular a scene in which a bevy of women with long poles prevent a professor from escaping from a pond and causing his death. This is mostly for people attracted by the cast of familiar names and faces, which also includes Roy Thinnes, Jo Van Fleet and Cheryl Ladd.

THE SARAGOSSA MANUSCRIPT (1965)
(a.k.a. REKOPIS ZNALEZIONY W SARAGOSSIE)
Article #1600 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-1-2005
Posting Date: 12-29-2005
Directed by Wojciech Has
Featuring Zbigniew Cybulski, Iga Cembrzynska, Elzbieta Czyzewska

A captain of the Walloon guard finds himself dealing with ghosts in a haunted inn, a hermit and his possessed friend, the Inquisition, executed criminals, and a gypsy with a story to tell.

Based on an eccentric novel by eighteenth century nobleman and adventurer Jan Potocki, this movie is equally eccentric. It’s also complex, convoluted, bewildering, infuriating and possibly brilliant. The story falls roughly into two parts; in the first, our hero finds himself repeatedly (either physically or by proxy) encountering sensual ghosts which urge him to drink from a skull and then finding himself waking under the gallows. The second part of the movie consists largely of a story told by a gypsy, but the story has a story in it, and that story has a story in it, etc. etc.; ultimately it loops back to the ghosts at the haunted inn and then back to the gallows. Oddly enough, it all seems to hang together, and I’m really interested in reading the novel it is based on. Still, the overall effect of the movie is that of being told an enormously long joke (the movie is 182 minutes) with a groaner punch line; the only thing missing is the punch line, though from what I read, the novel ends quite differently from the ambiguous ending here. This movie was admired by Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Jerry Garcia. Me, I’m still sorting through it myself, but I must admit it intrigued me.

THE SHADOW (1940)
(Serial)
Article #1542 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-4-2005
Posting Date: 11-1-2005
Directed by James W. Horne
Featuring Victor Jory, Veda Ann Borg, Roger Moore

The Shadow fights a mysterious criminal known as The Black Tiger.

It’s another cinematic stab at The Shadow! I last dealt with one of these when I covered the movie BEHIND THE MASK (1946), and I was less than thrilled to find that movie had bypassed moody ambiance in favor of excessive comic relief, and that there had been no use of the Shadow’s vaunted ability to ‘cloud men’s minds’.

This one is a little better. I’m still waiting for him to cloud someone’s mind, but it looks like that ability was given to the villain himself; the Black Tiger becomes invisible before meeting with his henchman (actually, these moody smoke-filled scenes are some of the best in the serial). At least this serial doesn’t drown in comic relief; the sole concession to it here is that one of the Black Tiger’s henchmen is a little on the dim side. So, if the Shadow can’t cloud men’s minds, what can he do? Well, he can let villains know he’s around by engaging in his sinister laugh.

The setup here is this: Lamont Cranston fights crime in the guise of the Shadow, but the police believe that the Shadow is actually a criminal, and possibly, the Black Tiger himself. Lamont Cranston also disguises himself as a Chinese shopkeeper named Lin Chang, who is able to consort with the underworld. This would be an interesting set-up if it didn’t set off sirens in my head. The fact of the matter is that rather than giving the Shadow his famed abilities, the writers used Serial Development Rule #1 – Whenever adapting a famous character to the serial format, ignore the character’s known talents and just shoehorn him into the standard serial format. In this case, they borrowed the whole setup for the Spider in THE SPIDER’S WEB, and applied it to the Shadow. Remember Blinky McQuade?

Now, let’s talk cliffhangers again. I’ve gone on about cheating cliffhangers and car-bail cliffhangers before, but now it’s time to discuss another lame type of cliffhanger—The “I’m Indestructible or Just Really Lucky” cliffhanger. These are the types in which our hero is in some sort of life threatening situation, and the resolution is that he just happened to survive. This serial is one of the worst offenders I’ve seen, and it’s almost always used in the same form, to wit—

1. The Shadow is trapped in a room.
2. The room explodes and all sorts of stuff falls off the ceiling.
3. The episode ends.
4. In the resolution, the Shadow just pulls himself out of the wreckage and walks away.

I can’t tell you how often this happens this time around! In fact, there are two episodes in particular that underline the overuse of this. In one of them, the episode begins with the aforementioned resolution; the Shadow walks away from the debris of a wrecked room. The actual cliffhanger of that episode does not involve an exploding room, but since each episode also includes exciting scenes from the next episode, we see that the next episode also has the Shadow trapped in an exploding room, and sure enough, that turns out to be the cliffhanger in the next episode. Being given two cliffhangers in one episode wouldn’t be a disappointment if they weren’t so lame.

The other instance is in the cliffhanger of episode 14. The moment where several men are being poisoned by gas in a sealed room was actually rather powerful (thanks to an effective use of music). The Shadow breaks in and tries to rescue the men, but he begins to succumb to the gas himself. This would have made a decent cliffhanger, if—

—right, you guessed it—

—there was then an explosion, all sorts of stuff fell off the ceiling, and the episode ended.

And guess what happens at the top of the next episode?

SON OF SINBAD (1955)
Article #1492 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-15-2005
Posting Date: 9-12-2005
Directed by Ted Tetzlaff
Featuring Dale Robertson, Sally Forrest, Lili St. Cyr

The Son of the illustrious Sinbad finds his life in danger when his womanizing causes him to sneak into the harem of the Caliph of Bagdad. In order to keep from being executed, he and his pal Omar Khayyam must recover the formula to an explosive known as Green Fire.

Rumor has it that this Howard Hughes production (he was executive producer) was made in order to fulfill promises made to any number of aspiring starlets. This wouldn’t be a surprise; the movie was obviously designed to show off a large female cast. So how do you make a movie with this large a female cast? Why, by grinding the plot to a halt as often as possible to fit in exotic dancing and harem scenes. This movie is so packed with pulchritude that it took two years to finally get it past the censors and onto the movie screens. By that time, the 3D craze had died down (the movie was originally intend to be in 3D), and fourth billed Vincent Price (as Omar Khayyam) had risen to stardom as a result of HOUSE OF WAX.

On its own, it’s moderately entertaining hokum. Unless you count the acres of female flesh, Vincent Price steals the movie. At least he sounds like he fits into the environment; Dale Robertson sounds as if he should be herding cattle rather than engaging in swordfights. Oddly enough, I’m not sure that the movie is really a fantasy. Despite the Arabian Nights trappings, there are no genies, flying carpets, or magical spells to speak of; even the “Open Sesame” command that opens the cave of the Forty (female) Thieves isn’t magic, but a command to a mule. The main fantastic element is a super-explosive created by the combination of certain chemicals in correct proportions, and this feels more like science fiction than fantasy.

SNOW WHITE AND THE THREE STOOGES (1961)
Article #1489 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-12-2005
Posting Date: 9-9-2005
Directed by Walter Lang
Featuring Carol Heiss, The Three Stooges, Edson Stroll

Snow White escapes from the evil queen who is seeking her life and hides out with the Three Stooges.

If you’re watching a movie called SNOW WHITE AND THE THREE STOOGES, you have expectations. Notice that I didn’t say ‘high’ expectations (this was the era of Curly Joe, after all), but expectations nonetheless. If this movie were only one-third as amusing as THE THREE STOOGES MEET HERCULES, it wouldn’t be a total loss. However, there is one major difference between these two movies that you can notice from the outset; in TTSMH, the Stooges get mentioned before Hercules, whereas in this one, they are listed after Snow White. This difference is reflected in the respective movies; the other movie is a Three Stooges movie with the character of Hercules thrown in, and this is a Snow White movie with the Three Stooges thrown in. They only appear in about half the scenes of the movie, and most of this time they’re just playing characters in the plot. When they do engage in comic mayhem, it usually only lasts for a few seconds at a time, and displays none of their usual comic timing. If anything, they play more for sympathy than anything else here, and that’s just wrong. I find it impossible to believe that any Three Stooges fan will walk away from this movie satisfied.

It’s not much better as a fairy tale, either. Carol Heiss is pretty enough, and she’s an excellent skater, but every time she opens her mouth, you know she’s not an actress. The movie also takes forever to get going; it runs 107 minutes, and it’s almost forty minutes in before Snow White even makes her escape. To fill in, we have lots of singing, lots of skating, unfunny ventriloquism scenes, and an occasional shot of the Three Stooges. It picks up a little towards the end, but I’m willing to bet that most of the kids have fallen asleep by then. The best thing I can say about this one is that there’s a lot of pretty color photography on display. Other than that, it’s largely a disaster.

THE STUDENT OF PRAGUE (1926)
(a.k.a. DER STUDENT VON PRAG)
Article #1481 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-4-2005
Posting Date: 9-1-2005
Directed by Henrik Galeen
Featuring Conrad Veidt, Elizza La Porta, Fritz Alberti

A poor student with an infatuation for a rich society girl meets a mysterious man who offers him a huge supply of gold in trade for any one item within the student’s apartment. When the student agrees, the man makes off with the student’s mirror reflection, which then begins to interfere with the student’s life.

When I covered the 1913 version of this story, I was unable to go into much detail, since my copy of the movie only had German title cards. This one has English title cards, and it’s a pleasure to finally understand the story. Furthermore, this is the superior version, thanks to some moody direction by Henrik Galeen (who was involved in either a writing or directorial capacities in an astonishing number of German horror movies, such as both versions of THE GOLEM, WAXWORKS, ALRAUNE and NOSFERATU) and a fine, powerful performance from Conrad Veidt, who may actually have been the finest horror actor of the silents and is here reunited with his CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI co-star Werner Krauss. The movie isn’t perfect; it’s confusing at times, too slow-moving at others, and the soundtrack on my copy, though it does have a dolorous, somber feel to it very appropriate to the story as a whole, is at times annoyingly repetitive. Still, that doesn’t really matter, as there’s a real power in the growing horror of the story, and the final sequences in which Veidt is stalked by himself are absolutely chilling. In a sense, there’s no other horror movie out there quite like this one, and I’m surprised no one has seen fit to remake it in recent years (though there was one in 1935). Highly recommended, especially to fans of silent horror.

SHERLOCK HOLMES IN WASHINGTON (1943)
Article #1479 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-2-2005
Posting Date: 8-30-2005
Directed by Roy William Neill
Featuring Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Marjorie Lord

When a secret service agent is kidnapped and then murdered by spies to locate a secret document, Sherlock Holmes is called to Washington on the case.

Fantastic content: None to speak of in this one. The book that listed it lists all the Sherlock Holmes movies in the series despite the fact that only a few of them had anything of the fantastic in them.

Unlike SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE VOICE OF TERROR, this entry in the modern-day Sherlock Holmes series at Universal eases up considerably on the propaganda, largely confining it to a few closing comments near the end of the movie. It’s one of what I’ve come to call the “bad-haircut Holmes” movies; personally, I’m glad Rathbone eventually got away from that distracting coiffure he has here. All in all, though, it’s a very entertaining entry in the series, and it’s almost Hitchcockian at times; I love the party sequence where the item everyone is hunting for passes from hand to hand with no one aware of its significance. This movie also has the novelty of featuring both a former Moriarty and a future Moriarty; George Zucco had played him in THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, and Henry Daniell would play him in THE WOMAN IN GREEN. I also like the sequence aboard the train where we see the agent pass on the document to any one of several people. The bumbling of Nigel Bruce’s Dr. Watson character is kept to a minimum here, largely confined to Holmes having a few jokes at his friend’s expense. Incidentally, the incredibly familiar face of the clerk in the antique shop is Ian Wolfe, who appeared in four of the Sherlock Holmes movies. The movie also contains a reference to the ‘Blue Room’, of all things.

SHAMROCK HILL (1949)
Article #1474 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-28-2005
Posting Date: 8-25-2005
Directed by Arthur Dreifuss
Featuring Peggy Ryan, Ray McDonald, Trudy Marshall

A girl wants to save a magical place called Shamrock Hill from being turned into a television station.

….umm, let’s see…free-spirited Irish girl with eccentric family wins over the heart of lawyer loved by wealthy socialite and daughter to businessman planning on bringing TV to the masses…socialite makes moves on Irish girl’s boyfriend to teach her a lesson…Irish mother practices oil painting and uses the color green quite a bit…wacky uncle invents an umbrella that doesn’t work and an electron TV tube while trying to make hair grow on father’s head…Irish girl embarrassed when family shows up at a soiree and does a jig…Irish girl consults leprachauns who sing an inspirational song to her…lawn in front of house of Irish family is hard enough for boyfriend to perform tap-dances on but soft enough to grow bushes…ends happily with every one smiling and cheery….

When I was a kid, I hated musicals. As I grew older, I learned to appreciate the form.

This movie made me nostalgic for my childhood.

Oh, and on the good side, the dancing is fun.