THX 1138 (1971)
Article #1621 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-22-2005
Posting Date: 1-19-2006
Directed by George Lucas
Featuring Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, Don Pedro Colley

In an oppressive future environment where sex is outlawed and drugs are mandatory, a man who has gotten his roommate pregnant finds himself at the mercy of the authorities.

Those who know Lucas’s science fiction work solely through the Star Wars movies may be caught off guard by this, his first full-length motion picture (based on a student film). Though it too is science fiction, it is a far cry from the serial-like thrills of his later series. Storywise, it’s a bit of a cross between “1984” and “Brave New World”, with a little big of THE GREAT ESCAPE thrown in for good measure (and it shares one cast member from that movie — namely, Donald Pleasence). The movie takes place in a bleak, depressing world, and it’s quite difficult to follow at times. However, it does have a great sense of style, and it makes you wonder about the other directions his career might have gone if STAR WARS hadn’t become the phenomenon it did. It’s well acted by all the principles, though I think Donald Pleasence’s character the most complex and fascinating. The director’s cut has what looks like a bit of tampering; there are some scenes involving ape-like creatures that I don’t think I’ve seen before and which look a too CGI-ish for the time in which the original movie was made. Still, I like some of the touches; the patter between the robot guards is amusing, and the fact that the pursuit of the escapees will only continue for as long as it doesn’t go more than five percent over the budget allotted to it; this is the kind of detail I just love in movies like this. The movie also features Don Pedro Colley, Maggie McOmie and Ian Wolfe in memorable roles, and Sid Haig has a great moment destroying a robot guard.

THUNDERBALL (1965)
Article #1620 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-21-2005
Posting Date: 1-18-2006
Directed by Terence Young
Featuring Sean Connery, Claudine Auger, Adolfo Celi

James Bond tries to discover who was responsible for the theft of two atomic bombs which are being held for ransom.

Because of their marginal science fiction elements, I will most likely be covering all of the James Bond movies sooner or later. The only real surprise I have so far is that this is only the second one I’ve covered, especially given the plethora of Italian knock-offs that have passed my way. Maybe it’s just as well; at heart, I don’t really enjoy covering these movies, largely because I’m in the minority opinion as far as these things go. In short, I’m not particularly partial to them; I don’t think they’re the coolest movies ever made, and I can’t think of a single moment in my life where I actually felt that a Bond movie would be just the right thing for me at that moment. To me, they seem like homogenized male fantasies of sex and violence put forth with a certain degree of shameless cockiness; they’re shallow (by design) but incredibly stylish. They’re certainly not badly made, and there are individual moments that are quite wonderful. Furthermore, because the fantasy does have a certain appeal, the movies can hold my interest for a little while, but I have yet to see one that really holds it for the length of the movie; somewhere at the halfway point, my attention starts to flag. Maybe if they were shorter…

At any rate, because the series doesn’t generate a strong reaction to me, I have trouble telling them apart; each one pretty much looks like the others to me. As a result, I find it difficult to comment on them. About my only real gauge of quality I have is to how good the villains and subvillains are, and on this level, this one is a bit of a disappointment. Adolfo Celi is mostly memorable for throwing people to the sharks and his eyepatch, and his hired thugs are singularly uninteresting compared to Oddjob. Yet at heart, I don’t think the movie works for me any less than some of the others, and the only real problem is that the underwater fight scenes do get particularly tiresome; I can only see so many scenes of spearguns going off before I nod off. If I have any hobby at all during these movies, it’s trying to see how many different actors end up playing Felix Leiter at one time or another during the series.

THE TERROR (1938)
Article #1619 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-20-2005
Posting Date: 1-17-2006
Directed by Richard Bird
Featuring Bernard Lee, Linden Travers, John Turnbull

Ten years after the robbery of a gold shipment, two accomplices who were jailed for the crime get out of prison and decide to track down the mastermind of the robbery who turned them in. Events lead them to a spooky old house with secrets of its own.

I have to admit that I found this British Edgar Wallace / Old Dark House movie to be very enjoyable. It has a lot of the usual elements of the Old Dark House genre, including a mysterious hooded figure, murders, secret passages and organ playing late at night. The real selling point of this one, though, is the interesting cast. Arthur Wontner, who played Sherlock Holmes several times during the early thirties, is on hand as the owner of the mansion with a secret, and a young Bernard Lee (famed for playing M in the James Bond movies) as the drunken ne’er-do-well who isn’t quite what he seems (for one thing, he’s not really drunk). The big plus, though, is the presence of the great Alastair Sim as the smarter of the two ex-convicts, and though he really isn’t given a lot to do, he steals every scene he’s in. You do have to like the genre to fully enjoy this one, but if you do, this is a good one.

TARZAN AND THE GREEN GODDESS (1938)
(Feature Version of Serial)
Article #1618 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-19-2005
Posting Date: 1-16-2006
Directed by Edward A. Kull and Wilbur McGaugh
Featuring Bruce Bennett, Ula Holt, Frank Baker

Tarzan tries to recover a stolen idol which contains the formula for a super-explosive.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the serial from which this feature was culled, THE NEW ADVENTURES OF TARZAN, but I do remember that the first episode was far and away the best part. I was hoping going into this one that it would get most of its footage from that part of the serial, but no such luck; this mostly comes from the later episodes, in which Tarzan pursues Raglan, who has absconded with the idol. I still think Bruce Bennett (here billed as Herman Brix) makes a decent Tarzan even if his version of the Tarzan yell sounds like a cross between a coyote and Minnie Pearl. Still, the thing that most stood out for me watching this condensation was that as far as arch-villains went, Raglan (played by Ashton Dearholt billed as Don Castello) was one of the most put-upon and pathetic. He spends most of the movie toting the heavy idol around on his back (a proper arch-villain would have an assistant for that), and his opening scene has him telling how terrified he was at being stalked by Tarzan; he’s the arch-villain as harried and hapless victim. I also wonder about any feature version of a serial that omits the spectacular initial theft of the idol, but sees fit to include the scene with the comic-relief character chasing the monkey that stole his yo-yo.

2 + 5: MISSION HYDRA (1965)
(a.k.a. STAR PILOTS / 2 + 5: MISSIONE HYDRA)
Article #1613 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-14-2005
Posting Date: 1-11-2006
Directed by Pietro Francisi
Featuring Leonora Ruffo, Mario Nevelli, Roland Lesaffre

Scientists investigate radiation readings in Sardinia, only to discover they come from a stranded spaceship inhabited by aliens intent on using the humans to fix their spaceship and help them return to Hydra.

Some thoughts on 2 + 5: MISSION HYDRA…

1) Italian science fiction movies from the sixties can be frustrating to watch. They’re usually hard to follow, shrill, busy and directed by Antonio Margheriti. However, they all look good next to this one, one of the most incoherent and confusing movies ever made.

2) Why is it incoherent? No doubt, a bad script translation and awful dubbing are partially to blame. However, that doesn’t seem to be the worst problem, which is that huge chunks of exposition seem to have been forgotten, and the movie is edited in such a way that when explanations do arrive, they are either so divorced from the situations they’re explaining that they’re of no use, or there’s something else going on to distract you from the explanation. At any rate, trying to follow the plot of this film is enough to give you a headache. I’ve seen the movie almost eight times, and I’m still not sure what’s going on most of the time.

3) In the above comment, I mentioned being distracted during the movie. This is not a vague comment, but a reference to one specific element of the film; namely, actress Leontine May. No, she’s not distracting because she’s so beautiful; she’s distracting because she’s the most blatant scene stealer in the history of cinema. Practically every moment she’s on the screen, she is striking poses, making gestures, primping, or wearing bizarre outfits, all of which seems designed to draw the viewer’s attention from the business at hand to looking at her. And the movie just lets her get away with it. I know people who’ve seen this film who’ve speculated as to just how many people on the production crew she must have been sleeping with (director, cinematographer, costumer, etc.) to get away with this level of scene-stealing.

4) As long as we’re on the subject of Leontine’s costumes, let me mention a couple of the more memorable ones. In the second half of the movie she wears what looks to be a red full-body fishnet stocking with tufts of feathers to cover up the naughty bits, and in the early part of the movie she wears black pants with wide white stripes which are so eye-catching that you can do nothing in those scenes but stare at her pants. Still, those pants do serve a purpose; since the movie does such a poor job of establishing who plays who or getting you to remember the names of the characters, it does give you a chance to come up with a handy nickname for her character; namely, Skunk Girl.

5) If you can somehow get your attention away from Skunk Girl for a few moments, you might notice that sword-and-sandal mainstays Kirk Morris and Gordon Mitchell also appear in the movie.

6) The movie is full of howlingly funny and inappropriate lines. Unfortunately, most of them aren’t funny unless you see them in the context of the movie. However, one has become a bit of a legend among those of my friends who have viewed this one; namely, when several gun-wielding Oriental spies show up and take the time to tell the heroes that “We’re not Chinese – We’re Oriental!”

7) At about the hour mark in this film, we have a segment of footage about a space station full of characters who hadn’t shown up in the movie so far, and once the sequence is over, are never heard of again. I sometimes wonder if footage from the wrong movie ended up in this one. It’s hard to tell; it’s only marginally more incoherent than the rest of the movie.

8) This movie was released in the late seventies after the success of STAR WARS. For this release, it was renamed STAR PILOTS. What I wouldn’t give to have attended a screening of this one at that time just to see the reactions of people expecting a STAR WARS-style extravaganza.

9) There are moments here where characters leave the spaceship while its in flight to either work on the outside of it or to visit another nearby spaceship. From the way these people propel themselves in deep space during these scenes, I can only come to one conclusion: there are free-floating trampolines in space.

10) Yes, I will reiterate here that I’ve probably seen this movie eight times. Why? I think I’m just fascinated by a movie this jumbled that it takes that many viewings just to figure out what’s going on. Or maybe I’m just a masochist. At any rate, you should now have enough information to know whether this one is worth your effort or not. It’s recommended only for people like me and anyone really into skunk pants.

TEENAGE MONSTER (1958)
(a.k.a. METEOR MONSTER)
Article #1566 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-28-2005
Posting Date: 11-25-2005
Directed by Jacques R. Marquette
Featuring Anne Gwynne, Gloria Castillo, Stuart Wade

When a meteor kills a prospector and turns his son into a hairy monster, the grieving mother hides him away from the world. When she discovers a vein of gold in her husband’s mine, she moves to town, only to have her son go on a killing spree.

At the core of this movie is a potentially strong idea; a movie about a mother trying to hide and protect her monstrous son lends itself to some strong possibilities. You have the possibility of exploring any number of intriguing relationships and situations (the mother’s love for her son, the son’s attachment to his mother and fear of desertion, the scheming younger woman’s desire to escape from her condition and willingness to use anyone to serve her ends) that could have made for an emotionally compelling feature. Unfortunately, the movie fumbles the idea on practically every level; the direction by cinematrogapher Jacques R. Marquette shows a total lack of good judgment, the actors and actresses have no chemistry with each other, and the performances range from the merely adequate to the stunningly awful, and the script is full of howlingly bad lines. The worst performance comes from a miscast stuntman Gil Perkins who, at the age of fifty, plays the Teenage Monster. He reacts to every situation in the same way – with whiny, twitchy mewling. It’s just plain ridiculous to have characters engage in long conversations with the monster when only one in twenty of the monster’s lines are even remotely coherent. The end result is a movie that is painfully awkward. THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS was its cinematic companion at the drive-ins, and though that movie is no classic, it must have seemed so in comparison to this one.

THREE ARABIAN NUTS (1951)
Article #1482 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-5-2005
Posting Date: 9-2-2005
Directed by Edward Bernds
Featuring Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Shemp Howard

The Three Stooges undertake the delivery of some Oriental treasures, and happen upon Aladdin’s lamp. They also find themselves pursued by Arabs.

With a rating of 8.5 on IMDB at the time of this writing, I can only assume that this is a favorite of Stooges fans. Myself, I found it a fairly ordinary entry in the series; there’s a few good laughs (including one involving a kettle full of hot tea and the final moment), but all in all, I thought it was business as usual. Moe does have a fun little opening gag reading a label on a crate, though.

12 TO THE MOON (1960)
Article #1447 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-1-2005
Posting Date: 7-29-2005
Directed by David Bradley
Featuring Ken Clark, Michi Kobi, Tom Conway

Twelve people of various nationalities take part in an expedition to the moon.

There are some very nice touches to this movie; I like the international flavor of the cast, it’s certainly not predictable, and it has some very odd moments, particularly one involving experimental cats. You also have no idea which of the characters will survive (or remain active in the plot) and which won’t. This might have made up somewhat for the poor and clumsy character development, the low-budget special effects, and the sometimes silly plot elements; had everything else been acceptable, this movie might have worked.

Unfortunately, the movie is badly marred by its flaws. The pacing is almost nonexistent. It lacks any sense of real drama. Most of the acting is hesitant and stilted, as if the actors didn’t know what was going on or how they were supposed to feel about it. Some of the character conflicts are so painfully and blatantly contrived that you feel embarrassed to watch them trotted out in front of you. And ultimately, the movie lacks any real variety of mood; every scene feels the same as the last one, a problem compounded by the extremely clumsy use of music throughout. All these movies render this one nearly unwatchable, and I think that’s a real shame, because it is trying for something a little different. Director David Bradley would really only have one further movie to his credit, and that one (THE MADMAN OF MANDORAS) would be edited into the infamous THEY SAVED HITLER’S BRAIN.

THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (1961)
(a.k.a. IL LADRO DI BAGDAD)
Article #1446 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-28-2005
Posting Date: 7-28-2005
Directed by Arthur Lubin and Bruno Vailati
Featuring Steve Reeves, Giorgia Moll, Arturo Dominici

A thief falls in love with the daughter of a sultan, and when she falls ill, he vows to recover a blue rose that will return her to health.

Given the fact that the movie was made in the early sixties, stars Steve Reeves, and features a plethora of Italian names in the cast and crew, you have every reason to believe that you’re going to be watching a bona fide Sword and Sandal movie when you go into this one. Indeed, the opening musical chord practically screams out this heritage. Nonetheless, there is something odd going on here. Somewhere along the line, somebody took special care with this one, either in the making of the original movie or in its preparation for American audiences. It simply doesn’t feel like a sword and sandal movie. For one thing, the music seems very well chosen throughout, rather than repetitively rousing. Secondly, there’s a genuine wit at work here; the movie has a strong and effective sense of humor totally unlike anything I’ve seen in these types of movies before, and a scene in which the thief robs several people in the main hall of the palace by disguising himself as a visiting prince and picking pockets while distributing gifts is clever by any standards. In short, this one is charming and a lot of fun. No, it doesn’t hold a candle to the 1940 or 1924 versions of the story, but it holds its own and is quite rewarding on those terms. It’s certainly worlds better than THE WONDERS OF ALADDIN at any rate.

TROMBA THE TIGER MAN (1949)
(a.k.a. TROMBA)
Article #1444 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-26-2005
Posting Date: 7-26-2005
Directed by Helmut Weiss
Featuring Rene Deltgen, Angelika Hauff, Gustav Knuth

A crippled female circus owner rehires an animal trainer whose act involves using hypnotism on tigers, despite the fact that the trainer may have been responsible for the deaths of some acrobats and her own injuries.

When I first saw the title of this movie, I thought it was going to be another variation on the Tarzan story. I turned out to be wrong; it is, in fact, a circus drama, with the sole fantastic element being the use of hypnotism. The hypnotism gimmick is well used; much of the plot actually hinges on this power, and the scene where we see his routine in action is one of the most fascinating animal training sequences I’ve ever seen. Still, it’s mostly a drama involving several characters; beside the trainer and the female circus owner, we have the trainer’s jealous acrobat girlfriend, the owner’s teenage daughter who is trying to get into circus work herself against the wishes of her mother, and an ex-acrobat torn with guilt over the death of another member of his team. All of these characters have relationships with each other, and one of the problems I ultimately had with the movie is that many of these relationships are left unresolved at the end. Still, this may be due to the fact that the American print of the movie runs only 62 minutes, whereas the German print of it goes on for 96 minutes; with a good third of it missing, it’s no wonder that this version falls short dramatically. It’s still interesting to catch because of the somewhat offbeat story, but I’m willing to bet the German version is much better.