SCULPTEUR MODERNE (1908)
aka Modern Sculptors
Article 5267 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-10-2016
Directed by Segundo de Chomon
Featuring Julienne Mathieu and Andre Deed
Country: France
What it is: Special effects short

A woman presents a variety of sculptures and paintings, some of which come to life and others which create themselves.

I like Chomon best when he goes off the deep end and produces something truly bizarre. This, however, is not one of those; it’s merely a parade of special effects set pieces, some of which are obviously people pretending to be statues until they movie of their own accord, and others which are the work of stop-motion animation. In fact, some of the sculptures don’t move at all, which is a little disappointing. The special effects are well done, but the short is pretty ordinary overall. This is minor Chomon.

SCOTLAND YARD (1930)
Article 5265 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-7-2016
Directed by William K. Howard
Featuring Edmund Lowe, Joan Bennett, Donald Crisp
Country: USA
What it is: Crime drama

During World War I, a criminal joins the army to evade the police, but has his face destroyed in an enemy barrage. A French plastic surgeon restores his face under the assumption that the photograph in a locket the criminal was carrying was his own face; in fact, he had stolen it from a banker. The criminal decides to use his resemblance to the banker for his own purposes.

The fantastic content of this movie, as explained by the Don Willis guide, was that plastic surgery in the movie was beyond the capabilities of plastic surgery in real life, and I can see where he’s coming from; it’s similar to the exaggerations movies applied to hypnotism and lifelike face masks, just to name a couple. However, I can also see putting this phenomenon into the realm of movie convention rather than in outright science fiction; I don’t recall within the movie there being any mention of the surgeon having developed any new techniques, so I’d have to say the fantastic content is extremely marginal. The movie is very much an early talkie, which is to say it creaks and paces itself so deliberately that you could visit the refrigerator in the spaces between the lines. It’s based on a stage play, but it least it does some interesting things with the framing, occasionally focusing on close-ups of objects, and this helps it fight the “photographed stage play” feeling. Still, the script itself is rather creaky, especially when it attempts to be subtle about meanings that are blatantly obvious. Still, it does have some points of interest, but it requires a certain amount of patience and a little forgiveness.

STUDIE NR. 6 / STUDIE NR. 7 (1930)/(1931)
Articles 5211/5212 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-22-2016 / 7-23-2016
Directed by Oskar Fischinger
No cast
Country: Germany
What it is: Abstract animation

Yes, I’m reviewing two movies at once, but given the fact that they’re two movies of a 14-part series that consist of abstract animated shapes moving in sync to the music on the soundtrack, I think my decision is understandable. Actually, the Walt Lee guide which listed these lists numbers five through eleven of the series as a single entry; why it didn’t include the first four or the last three is unknown by me. At any rate, they’re cut from the same cloth; the first has mostly bird-like shapes moving around to “Los Verderones”, while the second has mostly flat paper-shapes dancing around to Brahms’ “Hungarian Dance No. 5”. They’re both well done and short enough so that they don’t overstay their welcome. I suspect the rest of the series is similar, but these appear to be the only two that are quickly and easily available for viewing; I saw excerpts for 5 and 8, but would prefer to cover the full shorts when they become available. Believe it or not, the Nazis labeled him a degenerate due to the abstract nature of these shorts, no doubt because they were suspicious of anything they couldn’t understand. He would later help design the abstract sequence in FANTASIA, but would quit when the powers that be made his abstract designs more representational.

Spermula (1976)
aka L’amour est un fleuve en Russie
Article 5208 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-18-2016
Directed by Charles Matton
Featuring Dayle Haddon, Udo Kier, Francois Dunoyer
Country: France
What it is: Adult art film

A secret society that developed supernatural powers concerned with the “Rapture of Being” vanished in 1935, only to return to the world many years later where they possess the women and use the men. However, have they returned too soon…?

Quite frankly, I expected porn, and given the title, can you blame me? I was very surprised when a copy of this one showed up on YouTube, of all places, and that was a big tip-off to me that this movie didn’t quite fit that pigeonhole. Granted, there are several versions of this movie out there (and I hear tell that the English language version is very silly), but the French version I saw, while still clearly an adult film of sorts, is more stylistically surreal than openly erotic; even when the sex shows up, I was more entranced than aroused. It’s not an easy movie; much of it is confusing, and it takes a bit of work to sort through the characters, but it did catch my interest enough that I think it might be worth revisiting. Now if only the title wasn’t so crass; the French title translates as “Love is a River in Russia”, a line from the movie.

STOOGEMANIA (1986)
Article 5165 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-23-2016
Directed by Chuck Workman
Featuring Josh Mostel, Melanie Chartoff, Sid Caesar
Country: USA
What it is: Recycling gone horribly wrong

A prospective bridegroom calls off his marriage when it becomes apparent that he suffers from an affliction called Stoogemania, in which he hallucinates Three Stooges footage and acts like an idiot.

The fantastic content of this movie is the title disease, and if you think that’s lame… well, yes, it is. Nor is it a promising premise for a movie, though I will acknowledge it as an affectionate nod to the comic team in question. The challenge with attempting a tribute of this sort is coming up with new comic business that is as inspired and funny as the Three Stooges at their best, and I’m afraid it doesn’t succeed; all too often, the movie just collapses into loud, messy undisciplined slapstick. To further underline this, a good thirty to forty percent of the movie consists of authentic Three Stooges footage (which allows you to compare the real thing with the new footage), and I suspect all of it is from the handful of shorts that fell into public domain. You can get those shorts for a song, and if you do, you have the best parts of the movie there. The rest is unnecessary and a waste of time. And, for the record, movie, it’s “nyuk nyuk nyuk”, not “nuk nuk nuk”.

SUMPAH PONTIANAK (1958)
aka The Vampire’s Curse
Article 5160 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-18-2016
Directed by B. Narayan Rao
Featuring Maria Menado, Mustapha Maarof, Salmah Ahmad
Country: Singapore
What it is: Exotic strangeness

The residents of a small village have to deal with a series of monsters, including a pontianak, a shape-shifting female vampire.

One of the most interesting aspects of this project of mine is having the chance to visit the cinema of countries that are off the beaten path. This returns me to Singapore; the last movie I saw from there was CURSE OF THE OILY MAN. This one was apparently the third of a trilogy about a pontianak, a shape-shifting flying female vampire. We also encounter an ugly forest zombie and a strange lizard creature before it’s all over. Since the dialogue was in Malay, I can’t claim I that I was able to follow the plot, and the fact that it was the third movie in a trilogy in which I haven’t seen the first two movies further complicates things. Still, it’s fun when the monsters show up, but that really doesn’t happen until the middle of the movie. Until then you get a lot of dull talk broken up by some entertaining musical numbers; the movie is as much a musical as it is a horror movie. The special effects are pretty weak, but for this one, it’s part of the charm. Perhaps the most striking moment for me in the movie had nothing to do with the monsters; it was the final musical number that blew me away, as the musicians tell a song acted out by three dancers who move in such a stiff, jerky fashion that they look like poorly stop-motion animated marionettes, and it was indescribably fascinating. I love taking cinematic adventures like this.

THE SEX MACHINE (1975)
aka Conviene far bene l’amore
Article 5151 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-9-2016
Directed by Pasquale Festa Campanile
Featuring Gigi Proietti, Agostina Belli, Eleanora Giorgi
Country: Italy
What it is: Science fiction sex comedy

In the year 2000, mankind has exhausted its energy resources and has regressed to a relatively primitive existence. However, a scientist hopes to tap into a heretofore unsuspected source of energy; that produced by the human body during sex.

Given that the director of this one was the same person who gave us the horrid WHEN WOMEN HAD TAILS, I didn’t exactly hold high hopes for this Italian exploitation comedy. Sure enough, as a sex comedy, I found it witless, though I should point out that much of the blame may go to the translation and dubbing into English; much is usually lost when this happens. Nevertheless, the movie swings into full-blown satire in the second half, and at this point the movie becomes much more interesting, as it investigates the mutability of the civic and religious authorities in coping with the discovery, and their willingness to bend, break, and rewrite the laws of morality to suit this new world. There’s enough thoughtful material in this part of the movie that I wish the whole movie had been focused on that part of the story, but let’s face it; sex is more salable than satire. Nonetheless, I’m glad there is a bit more to this movie than the leering.

THE SLEEPING PRINCESS (1939)
Article 5141 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-27-2016
Directed by Burt Gillett
Featuring the voices of Sara Berner and Mel Blanc
Country: USA
What it is: Animated cartoon

When the Fairy of Destiny is not invited to the christening of a new princess, she places a curse on the child that she will fall asleep for a hundred years when she reaches her sixteenth birthday.

In case you haven’t figured it out, this is a cartoon parody of the Sleeping Beauty story. As such, it’s a passable though uninspired take on the subject. It gets most of its comedic content from the antics of the aged fairies and from the reluctance of both the princess and the prince in performing the duties assigned them in the stories; the princess doesn’t want to touch the spinning wheel and the prince is too shy to kiss the princess. Personally, when it comes to comic takes on fairy tales, I prefer the way Jay Ward and friends would turn them on their ears in “Fractured Fairy Tales”; in comparison, cartoons like this seem pretty timid.

THE STRANGE POSSESSION OF MRS. OLIVER (1977)
Article 5129 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-15-2016
Directed by Gordon Hessler
Featuring Karen Black, George Hamilton, Robert F. Lyons
Country: USA
What it is: TV-Movie thriller

After a strange nightmare, a married woman in a constrictive marriage begins altering her image and personality… only to discover that the personality she adopts has had a real existence.

I’ve not really been impressed with the other movies I’ve seen from Gordon Hessler, but I like his work here; there’s a nice eerie, dream-like feeling he captures very well, especially during the two nightmare sequences. The first half of the movie concentrates on the plight of the main character (well acted by Karen Black) and what seems like her choice of a strategy to add some fun and excitement back into her life. The true reason for this choice is the main mystery of the movie, and the possibility that she is indeed possessed by the spirit of a woman who died five years ago marks out the movie’s fantastic content. At about the three-quarters mark of the movie, I thought I had a good handle on where it was all going, but the movie has a few twists that did catch me off guard. I quite enjoyed this one; it manages to walk a fine line of ambiguity for much of its running time, and I like a movie that keeps you guessing.

THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM (1909)
Article 5128 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-14-2016
Director unknown
Cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Biblical adaptation

The birth of Christ is reenacted.

I found several versions of this short on YouTube, all of which claim to be the 1909 version of this movie. The opening credits say the company is “Exclusive Pictures”, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a repackaging of the Edison picture from 1909. If so, I don’t think it’s complete; IMDB lists a plot description from “The Motion Picture World”, and there is mentioned some scenes involving Herod that do not appear to be present in this picture, but that may only mean that it isn’t the complete movie. At any rate, I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen this version before; the most striking moment is the birth of Christ itself, which certainly makes it appear that Mary didn’t undergo much in the way of labor pains. This sequence, as well as the appearance of angels and the star itself, mark the fantastic content of the short. It is, as you’d expect, very reverent and a little on the slow side.

NOTE The YouTube video does not appear to be labeled correctly; this is actually a cut down version of a movie from 1903 that I’ve already seen. Let it stand as an example of how you can’t always trust the labeling of movies on YouTube.