STRANGER FROM VENUS (1954)
Article #541 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 9-7-2002
Posting date: 1-31-2003

A man from Venus visits a country inn and tries to organize a meeting with world leaders.

It is possible to make a low-budget but thought-provoking science fiction movie that emphasizes ideas over action, but it helps if you have an original concept to begin with, and you’re not just doing a low budget take on an already established movie. This is essentially a long way of saying that most of what this movie had to say was already said in THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, which not only said it all in a more interesting way but had a lot that this movie doesn’t have (crisp dialogue, well-rounded characters, and decent pacing). Patricia Neal plays the same type of character as she played in TDTESS, but this movie gives her practically nothing to do but gaze into the Venusian’s eyes after her accident in the opening reel, and the rest of the characters are such a stolidly uninteresting and colorless bunch that the only performances that stand out at all are hers and Helmut Dantine’s as the Venusian. I’d seen this movie years ago, and it put me to sleep. I’m a more patient and thoughtful viewer now, but it didn’t help much; I managed to keep awake, but there was too little here to really make it worth my while. It just made me miss Gort.

THE SKULL (1965)
Article #515 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 8-12-2002
Posting date: 1-5-2003

A collector of sinister arcana comes under the influence of the evil skull of the Marquis de Sade.

Amicus, Freddie Francis, Robert Bloch; the last time I found these names in close juxtaposition was in the regrettable THE DEADLY BEES; this one is far better. Granted, this one has a few other benefits, such as Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Patrick Wymark, and in smaller roles, Michael Gough, George Coulouris, Nigel Green and Patrick Magee. The first three-quarters of the movie bides its time in order to create atmosphere for the last twenty minutes, which in and of itself feels like a good segment of a horror anthology, and for the most part it works. It’s not perfect, though; though the camera shots that seem to take place from a point of view inside the skull is a clever idea, it is used a few too many times and loses its effectiveness, and they would have been better off omitting all shots of the skull floating in the air, as these scenes are not only a little bit silly, but a) it’s a lot more jarring to see the skull appear suddenly in a different place than it was before without any hint of transition, and b) you can see the strings. Not bad, but could have been even better.

SINBAD THE SAILOR (1947)
Article #511 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 8-8-2002
Posting date: 1-1-2003

The story of Sinbad’s eighth voyage is told, in which he discovers he is the prince of a lost island which holds the treasure of Alexander the Great.

I know this is an Arabian Nights movie from the forties; it’s supposed to be big and colorful and over-the-top. But this one is so colorful, the dialogue is so mannered and florid, the music so lush, and Douglas Fairbank Jr.’s acting is so energetic (with his gestures, ripe delivery, and jumping around I don’t feel he’s so much acting as practicing a difficult dance routine) that I feel like I’ve been cornered by someone who is aggressively expending every last bit of their energy to get me to like them while not realizing that their in-your-face manner is actually driving me away. In other words, I found the first three-quarters of this movie interminable; since the movie runs two hours, that’s ninety minutes of the movie that gave me problems. The movie does have one oasis; Walter Slezak manages to hit just the right touch of charm and lightness with his character, and his scenes are far and away the best things in the movie; if he hadn’t been playing a role that requires him to masquerade as a minor comic relief character for the first ninety minutes of the movie, I would have enjoyed it more. As it is, it’s definitely not a coincidence that I don’t really start enjoying the movie until his character fully comes into his own during the last thirty minutes. It almost makes up for the first ninety minutes. Almost.

THE SMILING GHOST (1941)
Article #506 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 8-2-2002
Posting date: 12-26-2002

A down-on-his-luck college graduate is offered a thousand dollars if he’s willing to pose as a young woman’s fiance for one month. What he doesn’t know is that the woman has already had three fiances who have died under mysterious circumstances.

This minor but enjoyable horror comedy came as a pleasant surprise; by taking itself a little more seriously than many other horror comedies do, it ends up avoiding some of the desperation that comes across in them. A strong cast helps; Wayne Morris is the graduate, Alexis Smith is the woman, and Brenda Marshall is a reporter looking into the story. Also some fine work from Willie Best, Alan Hale Sr., David Bruce and Charles Halton, who has my favorite character; that of a wacky uncle who collects shrunken heads and wants to add Willie Best to his collection. There are some definite plot holes here, but the generally high level of acting keeps things from being too ridiculous.

SHOCK (1946)
Article #503 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 7-31-2002
Posting date: 12-24-2002

A woman goes into shock after witnessing a murder. The doctor who is called in to treat her is the murderer she saw.

This is an interesting little movie; though I don’t think it quite lives up to its premise, nonetheless it has a strong beginning (with a great little dream sequence to kick things off) and a strong ending, plus it is blessed by a good performance by Vincent Price before he became a horror star. It’s less of a horror film than a film noir, with a femme fatale nurse dominating the doctor and pushing him into further illegal acts to cover up his crimes. The uses of hypnotism, and the theme of madness, plus the dream sequence, are the elements that add the touches of horror to this movie.

SCARED STIFF (1953)
Article #500 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-28-2002
Posting Date: 12-21-2002

A nightclub singer and his busboy friend get involved with gangsters and a haunted castle.

This is a remake of the Bob Hope movie THE GHOST BREAKERS tailored for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Now I’ve never really believed Jerry Lewis was without creativity, and there are a couple of nice bits of his here; one involves him talking to himself in a mirror in which his reflection ends up breaking the two-dimensional surface, and the other is his imitation of Carmen Miranda (who also appears in the film). However, putting him in a haunted house comedy is not a good idea; these types of movies sooner or later end up relying on having the comedian get his laughs by being scared in over-the-top ways, and since Lewis’ regular persona is already one of over-the-top mugging, this just makes it worse, and he is really tiresome in this one. I was hoping that I could say it was one of those movies that you would end up looking forward to the musical numbers just to get away from him for a bit, but besides the opening number with Dean Martin, Lewis is incorporated into all the other songs, so there’s no avoiding him. There’s a bit of nice atmosphere in the haunted house scenes, but compare the zombie here with Noble Johnson’s great zombie from the Bob Hope version, and you can’t help but come up disappointed. The best laugh I had in the movie is from an unexpected cameo near the very end.

THE SPIDERS PART 2: THE DIAMOND SHIP (1920)
(a.k.a. DIE SPINNEN, 2. TEIL: DAS BRILLANTENSCHIFF)
Article #477 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 7-5-2002
Posting date: 11-28-2002

An adventurer tries to prevent a criminal organization from acquiring a fabled diamond.

This was the second of what was projected to be four movies that followed the exploits of an adventurer and his encounters with a criminal organization known as The Spiders. Only the first two were made. Both this and the first one can work well enough as stories that stand alone outside of the serial structure. The plot is a bit complicated, moreso than the first episode, and involves a hidden underground city in San Francisco, India, the Falkland Islands, and a ship known as the Storm Bird. Fritz Lang wasn’t quite as skilled at this point as he would later become, but this is a fairly entertaining yarn nonetheless.

THE SECRET OF THE LOCH (1934)
Article #475 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 7-3-2002
Posting date: 11-26-2002

A reporter sets out to interview a professor who claims that a monster lives in a Scottish lake.

This is one of the earliest cinematic takes on the Loch Ness monster, and it’s a rather curious movie. There’s a nice visual sense about it (especially in the opening scenes) even if the special effects are none too convincing, and there is an interesting array of colorful Scottish characters to keep us entertained. Unfortunately, we’re a good three-quarters of the way through the movie before anyone actually gets around to investigating the presence of the monster, so it does come across as somewhat padded. And do they find a monster?

SPOILER

Well, I won’t say for certain, but I will mention that my pet slurpasaur Rumsford is quite fond of this movie.

SAMSON VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN (1961)
Article #434 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing day: 5-23-2002
Posting day: 10-16-2002

When a man discovers that his daughter is under a curse to be taken away by vampires, he calls up Santo to protect her.

Forget that the name Samson is in the title; this is no sword-and-sandal togafest. Samson is Santo, the masked Mexican wrestler. There are four types of scenes in this movie; firstly, there are the creepy and quite effective scenes of the vampire women (and their rough and tumble wrestling vampire men) in their crypt; then there are the dull, static exposition scenes, which largely consist of people sitting around talking; then there are the wrestling sequences (which can be even duller than the exposition scenes if you’re not a fan), and finally, there are the scenes where Santo, the Vampire Women, and the plot all come together for action; these scenes would be more effective if the plot didn’t seem cobbled together in the first place. Still, it has some fun with vampire lore; I like the scene in the restaurant where our heros identify the vampires by noticing how old and decayed they look in their mirror reflections (instead of not being able to see themselves in mirrors, maybe they just don’t like how they look in them). Nonetheless, these Mexican wrestler movies, though silly and sometimes dull, can also be a lot of fun; these guys don’t even have superpowers to compensate for the fact that they’re running around in tights. And don’t miss Santo’s wrestling bout with a werewolf (and did you know that the hair grows only on their faces?)

SABU AND THE MAGIC RING (1957)
Article #422 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-11-2002
Posting date: 10-4-2002

A stable boy comes by a magic ring that summons forth a genie, who aids him in putting an end to a plot to kill the Caliph.

From what I gather, this puny little Arabian nights movie was originally a couple of episodes from TV edited together into a single movie. Actually, the whole thing flows smoothly enough that you don’t get that sense of it jumping into another episode at any point; I suspect the two episodes were meant to work as a whole. Sabu plays a character named Sabu, and the whole thing rides on his charm. You can’t help but notice that there are only a handful of sets; most of the movie takes place in a marketplace and a stable area nearby. And though the genie is supposed to be particularly powerful (he claims he’s an Ifrit; he eats genies for breakfast), his magic feats have been definitely scaled down to TV size, though I would definitely love to see that rule book for ifrits and genies that he has. Nothing great here, but an enjoyable little time-passer in its way.