THE TRIUMPH OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1935)
Article 1880 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-8-2006
Posting Date: 10-5-2006
Directed by Leslie S. Hiscott
Featuring Arthur Wontner, Lyn Harding, Leslie Perrins

Sherlock Holmes is called out of retirement after a man is murdered in a nearby estate. It turns out that the man had an association with an American secret society known as the Scowlers.

Though this doesn’t complete the list of the Wontner Holmes series, it probably will be the last one I cover; the only one left is THE MISSING REMBRANDT, and, from what I can gather at this point, it is considered lost. This one is somewhat more lively than SILVER BLAZE , and once again, it is based on a specific story (“The Valley of Fear”) with Moriarty shoehorned into the plot. I quite liked this one, because the elements that play into the solution of the mystery are quite odd; clues that lead Holmes to the solution of the mystery are an unlocked door, a candle, and a missing dumbbell. A good half of the movie is backstory about the victim’s involvement with the Scowlers, and these sections are quite exciting. At this point, I suspect that this is my favorite of the Wontner Holmes series, even if the movie doesn’t really effectively weave Moriarty into the plot.

TERROR BY NIGHT (1946)
Article 1879 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-7-2006
Posting Date: 10-4-2006
Directed by Roy William Neill
Featuring Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Alan Mowbray

Sherlock Holmes is hired to protect a valuable diamond from theft while it is being transported by train. When an attempt is made at theft and a man is murdered, Holmes begins to suspect the involvement of a nemesis he’s never meant: Colonel Sebastian Moran.

The fantastic content is slight in this entry in the Rathbone Holmes series. We have a bit of science fiction with the special gun, and touches of horror in the fact that part of the plot revolves around a coffin, and by the presence of Skelton Knaggs (who was always rather creepy). Still, this is one of the most entertaining films of the series; I like the interesting array of characters, the fact that almost the whole story takes place on a train, and the fun series of twists and turns in the story. Unfortunately, Watson is at his most buffoonish here, especially when he decides to conduct interviews without the help of Holmes or Lestrade, though he does redeem himself in the final fight. You won’t really be surprised by the revelation of who turns out to be Moran, but it’s still pretty satisfying to watch everything unfold. Dennis Hoey has probably his most prominent performance as Inspector Lestrade here.

TARZAN TRIUMPHS (1943)
Article 1878 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-6-2006
Posting Date: 10-3-2006
Directed by William Thiele
Featuring Johnny Weissmuller, Johnny Sheffield, Frances Gifford

A princess of a lost civilization flees to Tarzan when her city is overrun with Nazi invaders. Tarzan is reluctant to save her people until the Nazis kidnap Boy.

With this movie, I have now completed the entire Tarzan series with Weissmuller in the role. This was the first one after RKO took over the series from MGM, and the character of Jane is not present since Maureen O’Sullivan had stopped doing the role and no replacement had been found; Frances Gifford serves as something of a mock Jane in the character of Zandra. This series brought back a certain amount of savagery to the series, largely because the advent of wartime propaganda made the savagery fashionable; the Nazis themselves are portrayed as violent brutes, ruthless, heartless and often stupid as well. Because they were Nazis, they were allowed to do horrible things in the movies, and because they were Nazis, it was acceptable to do horrible things back to them. Everyone gets into the act, too; this may be the sole time Boy was allowed to kill someone, and Cheeta even manages to get hold of a machine gun to mow a few of them down. The movie is almost surreal at times; when the monkeys shake the leaves in the trees to cover Tarzan’s body so he won’t be discovered by the Nazis, one can only marvel at how evil the characters must be if even the monkeys can tell. Cheeta steals the show here, though; his constant absconding of a crucial part to the Nazi radio, his screams of terror when Boy is caught and tortured by the Nazis, and the aforementioned machine gun scene are all memorable. Still, I do miss the MGM days when I watch the RKO Tarzans; the MGMs usually had a lot more elephants.

TARZAN’S NEW YORK ADVENTURE (1942)
Article 1877 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-5-2006
Posting Date: 10-2-2006
Directed by Richard Thorpe
Featuring Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O’Sullivan, Johnny Sheffield

Boy is taken to New York by a circus trainer when it appears that Tarzan and Jane have died in a fatal accident. However, thanks to the quick thinking of Cheeta, Tarzan and Jane survive, and make their way to New York in the hope of getting Boy back.

It was a real treat to go back to one of the earlier movies in the Tarzan series after spending a couple of movies towards the end of the Weissmuller era. This one, despite spending a good half of its running time in an urban environment, has more animal action and savage natives than the other two movies combined. In particular, I couldn’t help but notice how the later movies were somewhat short of elephants; this movie has plenty of them, and they play a massive role in the exciting climax of the movie as well as providing some of the cuter animal moments that don’t involve Cheeta. There is, of course, the great novelty value of seeing Tarzan in a place where he doesn’t belong, and the movie makes good use of the concept. In particular, I liked the sequence where Tarzan is trapped by police on the Brooklyn Bridge. A good supporting cast helps as well, and it features Charles Bickford as the villain, Chill Wills, and Mantan Moreland (in a cameo in which he has a phone conversation with Cheeta). According to IMDB, an uncredited Elmo Lincoln is one of the circus people.

TARZAN AND THE MERMAIDS (1948)
Article 1876 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-4-2006
Posting Date: 10-1-2006
Directed by Robert Florey
Featuring Johnny Weissmuller, Brenda Joyce, George Zucco

An unscrupulous trader makes money by disguising himself as the god of a native tribe, whose members offer pearls to him. When he decides to take one of the native girls for his bride, she escapes and runs into Tarzan. When she is kidnapped by the natives, Tarzan comes to her rescue.

It’s rather instructive to watch this, the last of the Weissmuller Tarzan movies, right after having viewed the previous one in the series, TARZAN AND THE HUNTRESS . The departure of Johnny Sheffield is felt; there is very little of the interplay between the characters that made the last movie in the series enjoyable; Cheeta even seems rather dispirited, and her antics consist of little more than stealing and strumming Benji’s guitar. The whole production seems cheaper than the previous one as well, and though it’s fun to see George Zucco as the high priest, his costume unfortunately reveals how scrawny his arms and legs were at this point, and he looks emaciated and frail. The fantastic content of this one is somewhat higher than that of the previous one, though; though I neglected to mention it in my previous review, other than the slight fantasy content inherent to a Tarzan movie, there was little else that could be called fantastic. Here, the hint that a native god is alive gives it a stronger touch, and you’re actually a little startled the first time you see him move. This would be the last Tarzan movie for Weissmuller; though the official story was that Weissmuller was getting old and out of shape, the prologue to the AMC showing of this movie I have on tape suggests that the true reason was the producer’s desire to find a Tarzan who would work for less money, and given how much cheaper this production looked than the earlier ones, I find that quite plausible. Boy’s absence is explained by his having been sent off to school in England.

TARZAN AND THE HUNTRESS (1947)
Article 1875 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-3-2006
Posting Date: 9-30-2006
Directed by Kurt Neumann
Featuring Johnny Weissmuller, Brenda Joyce, Johnny Sheffield

A safari of hunters conspires with some greedy natives to assassinate a native king who is restricting the amount of trapping the hunters can do. When the new regime allows the hunters to capture animals without limit, Tarzan takes action.

The opening parts of this movie are the best, as they feature Tarzan, Jane and Boy all having fun with each other; these scenes show that a real chemistry had developed between all the actors concerned. Cheetah is also on hand, and she proves to be one of the great animal comedians of all time; her quest to get hold of the huntress’s compact is one of the highlights of the movie. These scenes go a long way to compensate for the fact that the plot this time was pretty tired; most of what happens here has happened before in other Tarzan movies, and it is very short of real surprises. Still, it is, like all of the Weissmuller Tarzan movies, rather enjoyable, even if the savagery was long gone by this point. This was, however, Johnny Sheffield’s last movie in the series; his contract had expired and he had signed up with Monogram to make Bomba movies. Weissmuller himself had only one more Tarzan movie in him, though Brenda Joyce would hang around in the series long enough to welcome Lex Barker into the role.

TOMB OF TORTURE (1963)
aka Metempsycho
Article 1850 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-8-2006
Posting Date: 9-5-2006
Directed by Antonio Boccaci
Featuring Annie Alberti, Adriano Micantoni, Marco Mariani

A woman who may be the reincarnation of a dead countess is plagued by bad dreams that recount the death of her previous incarnation. Her father takes her to the village near the castle of the countess to try to cure her. There she meets a reporter who is there to investigate the deaths of two young women who were murdered by a monstrous creature inside the castle.

I’m not quite sure what to make of this bizarre little Eurohorror. As a horror movie, it’s a little too obvious to be really effective; it’s one of those movies that tries to get its scares in by having women scream at everything. It certainly doesn’t help that the monster is both overused and has a goofy laugh; it would have worked a lot better if they had kept his face hidden until the final reels and if we only heard him breathing. The movie also seems at least partially a comedy, and the primary comic relief character is our reporter-hero; just as a rule, don’t put too much hope on how effectual your hero will be if his musical theme prominently features an oboe. Overall, the movie is rather clumsy and crude, but it somehow remains rather watchable all the same; just don’t think about it too much. This would be Antonio Boccaci’s sole directorial effort.

TWICE-TOLD TALES (1963)
Article 1809 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-26-2006
Posting Date: 7-26-2006
Directed by Sidney Salkow
Featuring Vincent Price, Sebastian Cabot, Brett Halsey

Three tales based on the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne are presented. In the first, a doctor inadvertently discovers the secret of eternal youth. In the second, a man concocts a scheme to keep any man from taking advantage of his daughter. In the third, a woman marries a man whose family line suffers from a curse.

For those looking for a good companion piece to AIP’s TALES OF TERROR , this should suffice; an adaptation of three tales from Nathaniel Hawthorne. In fact, for me, this has one advantage over TALES OF TERROR; whereas I’m extremely familiar with the Poe stories used in that anthology, I have never read the Hawthorne stories that served as the basis for this one, so there was more of an element of surprise for me. The movie itself is pretty good, if not great, with solid acting and interesting stories. I enjoyed the first two stories the best; for one thing, I have read enough Hawthorne to know that his favorite theme is sin (whereas Poe’s favorite theme is madness), and this is apparent in both of the first stories. I’m less taken with the third, an abbreviated version of “The House of the Seven Gables”. I’ve never read the novel, but I remember that the earlier movie version of the movie I’d seen had only slight horror elements. Not so this one; what with ghosts and blood pouring from paintings, cracks in the walls, lockets, etc., this story is given the full horror treatment, but it feels grafted on, and it is this episode that most feels like an imitation of the AIP Poe series. Still, I liked the anthology overall, especially the middle story.

THUNDER ROCK (1943)
Article 1806 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-23-2006
Posting Date: 7-23-2006
Directed by Roy Boulting
Featuring Michael Redgrave, Barbara Mullen, James Mason

In the years before World War II, a British journalist spends time in Europe observing the rise of Hitler and fascism. He attempts to spread the warning of the upcoming war to his fellow countrymen, but is greeted by apathy and indifference. Disillusioned, he retreats from life by taking a job as a lighthouse keeper on an isolated island in the Great Lakes in the United States, and keeps himself company by mentally recreating the captain and several immigrant passengers on a ship that went down near the spot several decades ago. But these images he’s conjured up soon begin to take on a life of their own…

In some ways, this movie is fairly obvious; it’s sort of a variation on A CHRISTMAS CAROL, with a different lesson to be learned and a different modus operandi to teach the lesson. You should be able to figure out the basic direction of the plot once the lighthouse keeper’s backstory is shown, especially if you keep in mind that the movie was made in 1943 while Britain was still very deeply in war. However, the stories about the real struggles of the immigrants are engaging and powerful, especially as we see that the reasons that they came to America had little to do with the hopeful promise of new opportunities that the lighthouse keeper had attributed to their motives. It’s a long movie, and it takes a little while to get going, but it’s worth the watch.

I also find it interesting to ponder on the nature of the fantastic content. Do the immigrants and the captain remain mental creations, or have they truly taken on a life of their own? Their personalities may well have changed as a sign of the lighthouse keeper’s own reflections on the wisdom of his decisions, or they may have come to life in their own way. At any rate, their presence gives the movie an enticing way to deliver its message. I do know that there is enough ambiguity on this point to account for the fact that this movie is omitted from many guides of fantastic cinema.

THE THING THAT COULDN’T DIE (1958)
Article 1803 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-20-2006
Posting Date: 7-20-2006
Directed by Will Cowan
Featuring William Reynolds, Andra Martin, Jeffrey Stone

A woman with psychic powers discovers an ancient chest buried under a tree at a ranch. Though she thinks the chest is evil, the other residents of the ranch dig it up in the hope of getting money for it. However, the chest contains the head of a Satanist executed by Sir Francis Drake, and the head isn’t dead…

Will Cowan has over one hundred films to his credit, but this was apparently his only feature film; the rest were shorts, almost all of which intended to highlight musical stars. It was also his last movie, and I can see why he didn’t pursue a career in horror after this tired, lethargic entry. The idea itself is not bad, and I do like some of the touches; for example, though the head moves its lips when talking, no sound is heard, which is actually a rather realistic touch as a person without lungs could not talk; he does appear to make himself heard by those he possesses through his mental abilities. Still, the movie is a bore; it moves at a snail’s pace, and is packed with unnecessary and uninteresting subplots that appear to do nothing but fill out the running time; for example, there’s no point in establishing the fact that Boyd has designs on Linda when this fact plays no role in the plot to follow. All in all, I consider this the nadir of Universal’s horror movies.