THE SCARLET CLUE (1945)
Article #1402 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-15-2005
Posting Date: 6-14-2005
Directed by Phil Rosen
Featuring Sidney Toler, Mantan Moreland, Virginia Brissac

Charlie Chan tries to discover the identity of a suspect he had been tailing. His main clue is a blood-soaked footprint.

While watching this one, I found myself wondering whether it had been really intended for the Charlie Chan series or not. For one thing, almost all of Chan’s dialogue is written in straightforward English, rather than the aphoristic style usually used by the character. Unfortunately, this dialogue is at odds with the stilted voice pattern Sidney Toler uses for the role; it makes him sound as if he can’t remember his lines. To compensate for this, the movie uses Mantan Moreland a lot, and even if too many of the gags involve him being scared, he’s still the best thing here. His best scene, though, is with actor/musician Ben Carter; they have an extended conversation where they repeatedly pick up cues from each others uncompleted sentences and understanding each other completely while leaving Benson Fong totally confused.

The fantastic content is slight; there’s a bit of science fiction involving plans for radar, and a slight horror element with the killer walking around at one point in a scary mask and costume. However, one of the most interesting touches is the presence of a character named Horace Karlos, a Shakespearian actor who now specializes in playing monsters. Given that his name rhymes with Boris Karloff, I think we’re seeing another tribute to that actor. You could probably do a whole night of movies which feature characters whose names are modeled after Karloff.

SANTO VS. THE KING OF CRIME (1962)
(a.k.a. SANTO CONTRA EL REY DEL CRIMEN)
Article #1401 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-14-2005
Posting Date: 6-13-2005
Directed by Federico Curiel
Featuring Santo, Fernando Casanova, Ana Berthe Lepe

Santo takes on a crime syndicate that is making money off of sporting events.

Now we move on from Santa to Santo. Unfortunately, we’re also moving on from English to unsubtitled Spanish, as that was the only copy I could find of this one. It’s a bit of a shame; like SANTO EN EL HOTEL DE MUERTE, there are some very interesting elements of the story. In particular, the opening sequence is about a young boy who gets into a fight with several other children, and then returns home and has a long talk with his father (in the presence of another man who I believe may be a butler), who reveals he has the mask of Santo hidden in his library. The next scene has a man (whose face we never see) talking with the butler above, and then donning the Santo mask, and making his way down to a secret lab underneath the library. I can’t help but wonder whether I’m watching the mythic origins of Santo or not.

This one seems quite well made, and has an interesting use of double exposure at one point in the proceedings. The fantastic elements are slight here; the villain is in no way supernatural that I can tell (unlike many of Santo’s foes), and there is really no horror atmosphere to speak of. It does have slight science fiction elements, though; the lab itself is one of them, and one of the gizmos on hand is combination wristwatch / walkie talkie of some sort.

There are two types of sporting events that take place in this film. One is wrestling (of course), and for fans of this, the wrestling scenes are quite good. The other has me puzzled. It looks like some variation of racquetball, only it involves teams, and the players wear these long hard curved appendages strapped to their hands (they look vaguely like tentacles) with which they must catch the balls and throw them. I have no idea what this sport is. Initially, I thought it might have been lacrosse, a sport which I’ve never seen in action. However, I have seen lacrosse rackets, and they don’t look anything like the appendages here, so I’m at a loss. This is one of the downsides of watching movies in other languages.

UPDATE: Thanks to Jolyon at the SciFilm board, I now know the name of the sport. It’s called pelota, and he described it as one of the most lethal sports on earth.

SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS (1964)
Article #1400 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-13-2005
Posting Date: 6-12-2005
Directed by Nicholas Webster
Featuring John Call, Leonard Hicks, Vincent Beck

Martians decide to kidnap Santa Claus in order to fight a wave of despondency amongst the Martian children.

Nothing is harder than to review a movie whose reputation precedes it, especially when the reputation is largely justified. It’s even harder when the movie has been adaquately covered elsewhere and you’re in the position of trying to find something new to say. Still, you’ve got to make the best of it, so here goes.

Is this the worst movie ever made? No, it isn’t; in fact, it’s not even the worst Christmas movie ever made. It is the one, however, which most blatantly calls attention to itself by dint of its title. Yet, I don’t have any real problem with the central concept; it’s jarring at first, but a movie about Santa Claus or Martians requires a suspension of disbelief anyway. If you buy one, it’s not too tough to buy the other.

I honestly like two touches in this film. The initial confusion of the Martians about the plethora of Santas on earth is clever and amusing, and giving the Martians a form of affectionate greeting (they touch foreheads) shows more creativity than you might expect.

Still, even if it isn’t the worst Christmas movie ever made, it’s not for lack of trying. Here are my choices for the ten worst things about this movie.

1) The Martian makeup isn’t fun. It’s ugly, greasy and too dark.

2) The musical soundtrack. Especially the blaring horns that try to punctuate certain scenes.

3) The incessant use of stock footage during the first half of the movie. This movie actually moves at a fairly decent pace, but the stock footage always grinds things to a complete halt.

4) The fight scenes. This movie may have the single worst fight scenes of any that I’ve seen. In particular, the fight scene between Voldar and Kimar in the spaceship is truly embarassing.

5) The polar bear costume. The less said about this, the better.

6) The performances of the child actors. Yes, Pia Zadora plays the little Martian girl, but she comes off better than either of the two kids who play the earth children. There are times where I can practically see the cue cards the boy is reading from.

7. The comic relief. Yes, it’s easy to target Dropo, but his comic relief character comes with the territory, and he does at least show the ability to fade in the background when he’s not supposed to be the center of attention. No, the worst offender here is the accomplice of Voldar’s that looks like Jamie Farr. His mugging is incessant even in scenes where he’s not supposed to be the focus of attention, an act which is known as upstaging. No wonder Voldar deals him some otherwise unprovoked blows to the head; he was probably getting on his nerves.

8. The scene where Santa turns Torg into a toy. I’m not sure how this scene was supposed to work, but I do know that it doesn’t.

9) The ski in the storage room. This prop seems so out of place in its environment that it calls an inordinate amount of attention to itself even before it is used by one character to disarm another.

10) And finally, Santa’s laugh. John Call actually doesn’t give a bad performance of Santa, but his laugh really needed work. It’s not jovial; it’s just plain creepy.

So, what is the worst Christmas movie ever? Believe me, friends, we don’t want to go there.

Inspirational Quote: “My finger isn’t tired.”

THE STEPFORD WIVES (1975)
Article #1397 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-10-2005
Posting Date: 6-9-2005
Directed by Bryan Forbes
Featuring Katharine Ross, Paula Prentiss, Peter Masterson

A woman moves to a new town with her husband and children, but feels out of place. Almost all the other women in town seem to be obsessed with homemaking and satisfying their husbands, and little else. She begins to suspect that there is something very wrong here.

Sometimes you have to give credit where credit is due; whatever its flaws, THE STEPFORD WIVES has filtered itself deeply in the public consciousness, and has become a part of our culture. Obviously, the movie touches a nerve or two, and all in all the movie is good enough to get by. Still, I’ve never quite warmed up to the movie. Part of the reason is that at almost two hours, I think it’s too long; certain scenes drag on forever, and others fail to cover any new ground. I also think it’s too narrow; despite the fact that it subtly hints that this may not be quite the paradise it seems for the men, ultimately it chooses to be little more than a woman’s nightmare.

I also never quite believe the movie. Personally, I find the town of Stepford as dull as dishwater, and not the paradise of my dreams. I also find it hard to believe that my sexual ego would really be bolstered by the compliments of a robot who I know had been programmed to say those things. Furthermore, the movie never develops the children as characters, but only as plot devices; wouldn’t a child be one of the first to know that mommy has changed? (For comparison, consider the opening scenes in the original INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS). And finally, I really find it hard to believe that the women have really been programmed by men; sure, they dress sexy, but not quite in the way that corresponds to any male fantasies I know of. At any rate, I don’t think all the men would have picked out those big white floppy hats that all the wives wear in the final scene. All in all, I think the movie falls short of what it could have been.

S.O.S. COAST GUARD (1937)
(Serial)
Article #1374 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-18-2004
Posting Date: 5-17-2005
Directed by Alan James and William Witney
Featuring Ralph Byrd, Bela Lugosi, Maxine Doyle

A scientist invents a gas that disintegrates everything and has sold a shipment of it to a foreign country. It is up to Lt. Terry Kent of the Coast Guard to prevent this from happening.

Most of Bela Lugosi’s serials are on the cheesy side; it doesn’t mean they weren’t fun, but the cheapness was pretty obvious. This is probably the best of his serials in terms of production quality (having been made with Republic), but unless you’re watching the last and the first episodes, you might be a bit disappointed if you’re a Lugosi fan, as he usually has only about a couple of minutes in each episode. Most of the running time is devoted to the good guys, with soon-to-become-Dick-Tracy Ralph Byrd as the main hero, with standard issue girlfriend (Jean Norman) and comic relief sidekick (Lee Ford). The movie also has a nice turn from Richard Alexander as Lugosi’s giant mute henchman, and he is the most memorable character other than Lugosi himself. All in all, this one is pretty good, but sometimes I wonder if I should have reviewed serials one episode at a time; at least one of the episodes of this one (either the 8th or 9th; I can’t quite remember) is truly as thrilling as I’d always dreamed serials should always be when I was a kid; sadly, when i first saw them as an adult, they rarely lived up to the hype.

THE SECRET OF THE TELEGIAN (1960)
(a.k.a. DENSO NINGEN)
Article #1344 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-18-2004
Posting Date: 4-17-2005
Directed by Jun Fukuda
Featuring Koji Tsuruta, Akihiko Hirata, Yoshio Tsuchiya

A mysterious murder with a bayonet takes place inside a cave of horrors. Policemen come to believe that the perpetrator is a man believed dead for fourteen years with access to a teleportation machine.

I tend to group this movie along with THE H-MAN and THE HUMAN VAPOR; all three came from Toho, they all were made within a couple of years from each other, and all couch their science fiction men-with-special-powers themes into a crime story plotline. Also, all three of these movies had remained unviewed by me until I began this series, and it’s nice to finally get around to seeing them.

This one is quite good, though the dubbed dialogue is quite awful at times. The premise itself isn’t particularly fascinating, but I like certain touches; my favorite is the fact the overheating vacuum tubes cause the teleported man to occasionally flicker with static. All in all, I prefer THE H-MAN, which I thought was much scarier, but this one has a great ending, and some very strange moments throughout. This was Jun Fukuda’s second directorial effort; he would go on to direct several of the Godzilla movies.

SAMSON AND DELILAH (1949)
Article #1330 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-4-2004
Posting Date: 4-3-2005
Directed by Cecil B. DeMille
Featuring Hedy Lamarr, Victor Mature, George Sanders

Super-strong Samson does battle with the Philistime oppressors, only to be betrayed by the seductress Delilah.

Hey, it’s a movie that takes place in ancient times about a man with super-strength who fights lions and picks up heavy things and throws them. It sounds like a sword-and-sandal movie, doesn’t it? Well, you’re close; I have no doubt that biblical epics like this one were a big influence on the sword-and-sandal trend. The main difference is that the sword-and-sandal movies were meant to be light-hearted action fare, whereas this one (being based on the Bible) is “serious” fare; no sword-and-sandal flick ever moved this slowly. The acting throughout is good, sometimes excellent; George Sanders and Victor Mature in particular shine. Still, they’re saddled with a script that is as fast-moving as a sleepy turtle and as agile as a three-legged elephant. It’s also repetitive; in case you didn’t know that Samson slew an army with the jawbone of an ass, George Sanders repeats that fact about six times within a two minute period. And how long do you think it would take for Samson to tell Delilah that his strength comes from his hair? Here’s some dialogue to show how long it could have taken.

Delilah: Tell me, Samson, where do you get your strength?

Samson: From my long hair.

Delilah: Oh, I see.

Instead, we get a long speech about the manes of lions and how pathetic sheep look like when they’re shorn. If you’re going to belabor a plot point, at least pick one that isn’t known by everybody at the outset.

Still, the action scenes are definitely highlights; the battle at the wedding feast, the battle with Samson’s captors (you know, the one with the jawbone of an ass), and the final sequence in the temple of Dagon are truly great epic moments. Still, I would have loved to have at least one scene where Samson bends the bars of jail cell. You can’t have everything.

SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER (1959)
Article #1324 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-29-2004
Posting Date: 3-28-2005
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Featuring Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift

An aging widow promises to contribute a large amount of money to an asylum (to build a new building for neurosurgery) if the doctor agrees to give a lobotomy to her committed niece. However, the doctor isn’t quite sure that the niece is crazy, and he investigates.

The book which listed this movie as belonging to the realm of fantastic cinema was very vague about the reasons for its inclusion, so I went into this one expecting it to be marginal. However, the opening scenes of this one involve a doctor giving a lobotomy to a female patient at an asylum, and though this doesn’t automatically turn it into a horror movie, it puts us very definitely in the same ballpark. In fact, the movie seems drenched in horror at times; the theme of madness runs throughout the story, the imagery inside the Venable mansion is quite nightmarish (especially the primitive jungle that passes for a back yard, and the presence of a statue of a truly ghastly skeletal figure), there is a scene where an old woman appears as a moving skeleton, and the revelations around the death of Sebastian (which mark the climax of the movie and which I will not reveal here) will be more familiar to a horror fan than to fans of drama.

In some ways, I’m not entirely surprised. The movie was based on a Tennessee Williams play, and Williams’ symbolic southern Gothic style isn’t really all that far from horror; even the title one of his plays (THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA) sounds like that of a horror movie. Still, it is a drama, and a fairly talky one at that, but it’s one of those where the talk is rich and fascinating. Both Katharine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor give fantastic performances, and Montgomery Clift also does well, though his part is far less flashy. As far as this series goes, it’s rather nice to see all three of these performers, as I don’t believe I’ve covered a movie yet for this series that features any of them. It will also probably be my last time for either Clift or Hepburn, though Taylor pops up in a few other genre productions. All in all, it’s a fascinating and harrowing drama, but it does help if you are familiar enough with the works of Tennessee Williams to know what to expect.

THE SPIDER’S WEB (1938)
(Serial)
Article #1317 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-22-2004
Posting Date: 3-21-2005
Directed by James W. Horne and Ray Taylor
Featuring Warren Hull, Iris Meredith, Richard Fiske

Richard Wentworth uses his secret identity of The Spider to do battle with an archfiend known as the Octopus who is bent on industrial sabotage.

Fantastic content: Other than some hints that imply that the Octopus may not be entirely human, the main piece of fantastic content is that the bad guys end up developing one of those big ray guns that can kill the engines of airplanes. I would be exaggerating if I said that every serial has one of these, but not by much.

For one fleeting episode I thought this serial was going to be something special; it looked as if it was going to have both an interesting hero and an interesting villain. The hero is a master of disguise whose most famous persona is that of the Spider, a vigilante crimefighter who is distrusted by the police, since they believe he is responsible for the very crimes he is preventing (if our hero displayed the slightest degree of angst over this dilemma, we’d have an early version of Peter Parker here). The Octopus also starts out promising; he is seemingly crippled (he hobbles to his seat behind the desk) and apparently has a third hand with which he can shoot people unexpectedly. Unfortunately, things didn’t pan out quite as well as I hoped. The hero remains fairly interesting, but he really only uses one other disguise extensively (that of a petty thief named Blinky McQuade), and though that’s a fun character, I think they could have come up with a lot of other disguises as well.

The Octopus becomes very boring however; his trick with the third hand (which you should be able to figure out long before the serial is over) is the only trick he really has, and once he’s behind that desk, he spends the whole movie there just barking orders. I really would have liked him to take part in the action more; unfortunately, the serial decides to go the route of making the villain someone who we encounter in his real identity elsewhere in the story. If he became more active, he’d probably give himself away; unfortunately, since we really don’t care which of the secondary characters he really is (not a one of them has any personality to speak of), this would be a small loss.

The serial also has an irritating way of segueing into each episode; a narrator goes into an elaborate and confusing summary of the whole basic plot of the serial while the events that lead up to the cliffhanger pass by on the screen. The trouble is that the narration and the events don’t have anything to do with each other, so we don’t know whether to watch the action or listen to the narrator.

In summary, the serial largely works on the strength of Warren Hull and the Spider character. At the time I write this, it is sitting with an 8.9 rating on IMDB which seems to indicate that it’s well loved. Myself, I’m afraid I found it a bit of disappointment overall.

SILVER NEEDLE IN THE SKY (1954)
Article #1299 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-4-2004
Posting Date: 3-3-2005
Directed by Hollingsworth Morse
Featuring Richard Crane, Sally Mansfield, Robert Lyden

Rocky Jones must escort several VIPs to an Interplanetary Conference, unaware that an outlaw planet has plans to kidnap them.

You know, I’ve been so nice to these Rocky Jones movies that I’m a little bit afraid that I may be making them sound better than they really are. For the record, they’re talky and static, the plots are naive and don’t hold up to close scrutiny (for example, if you’re going to have an exchange of hostages with the agreement that neither side will be armed, you really should have someone frisking the participants), the acting is uneven, and it engages in cute melodrama at time. The special effects are also quite primitive. Yet, for all this, I think they work. The primitive special effects do have the necessary sense of wonder. The cute melodrama doesn’t overwhelm the story, enough of the acting is is better than you’d expect, the plots may be naive, but they’re not quite as simplistic as they might have been (the average Rocky Jones movie is more complex than the average serial), and even if it’s talky and static, it never grinds to a halt. I think the reason for this is that they’re built off of episodes of a TV show, and when you’ve got only thirty minutes of airtime, you can’t afford to grind things to a halt. Yes, they’re a bit slow and talky, but it’s that relaxed, riding-easily-in-the-saddle type of slowness that actually makes it easy to watch. As it is, my worst complaint about the Rocky Jones movies is the character of Cleolante played by Patsy Parsons; her petulant, fit-throwing character is totally unconvincing as the tyrannical leader of an outlaw planet. Still, if you’ve never seen a Rocky Jones movie, I wouldn’t start with this one; it’s singularly devoid of action. You’d be better off starting with CRASH OF THE MOONS.