TUNNELING THE CHANNEL (1907)
(a.k.a. TUNNEL SOUS LA MANCHE OU LE CAUCHEMAR FRANCO-ANGLAIS)
Article #1424 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-6-2005
Posting Date: 7-6-2005
Directed by Georges Melies

French and English kings have a dream that they build an underwater tunnel between the two countries across the English channel.

It’s been a long time since I’ve covered one of Melies’ silent shorts, so it’s nice to do another one. This one is quite amusing, though you do have to wonder about the intelligence of the tunnel architects who only build one set of train tracks, failing to realize that you’ll have traffic going both ways at the same time. My favorite moment is the opening of the dream, in which England and France are represented as two giants with a body of water between them, and in order to shake hands, they must stretch their arms to the proper length; this sequence looks like a political cartoon come to life.

TOPPER RETURNS (1941)
Article #1423 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-5-2005
Posting Date: 7-5-2005
Directed by Roy Del Ruth
Featuring Joan Blondell, Roland Young, Carole Landis

Topper is bothered by another ghost. In this case, it’s the American friend to the heir of a fortune who was murdered by mistake. She wants Topper to help solve her murder.

This was the only one of the three Topper films that wasn’t based directly on one of Thorne Smith’s stories, but rather on the characters he created. You can see the difference. Whereas the other two Topper movies were somewhat unpredictable, wild but somehow never going over the top or descending into predictable slapstick. Such is not the case here. The story is your basic old dark house murder mystery, complete with suspicious characters and a scared black chauffeur; Eddie “Rochester” Anderson does his best with the latter, but I don’t blame him for for wanting to be back with Mr. Benny, as he mentions at one point. The humor here is over-the-top and predictable; Eddie Anderson being scared of the ghost, recycled humor from the first two movies in the series, slapstick antics, a stupid cop and a sarcastic cab driver. It’s somewhat hit and miss, but it does have a great cast; in fact, horror fans may prefer this one over the first two of the series; after all, we have George Zucco on hand to glower for us. Somehow, though, I suspect that Topper and Thorne Smith fans may be somewhat disappointed.

THE TIME TRAVELERS (1964)
Article #1422 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-4-2005
Posting Date: 7-4-2005
Directed by Ib Melchior
Featuring Preston Foster, Philip Carey, Merry Anders

When scientists working on a time window accidentally creeate a portal to the future, four people find themselves transported one hundred years to the future in a post-apocalyptic age.

This isn’t a great movie; most of the story during the post-apocalyptic sequence is overly familiar, the music is a little silly, and the acting is variable. However, it does have a truly great and unforgettable ending. It also doesn’t belabor the plot, which is a good thing in this case. It has a nice sense of wonder to it, it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and the special effects feel less like studio trickery and more like magic tricks. All these factors combine to make me feel a great deal of warmth towards this movie, and I find myself wishing that it was better known. Sadly, I suspect it will remain somewhat obscure, largely because I don’t think anyone will bother reviving it when the inferior remake (JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF TIME) that was made just three years later (directed by David L. Hewitt, who wrote the original script) is in public domain and is easily available. I myself will always have fond memories of the original.

TARZAN THE FEARLESS (1933)
Article #1421 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-3-2005
Posting Date: 7-3-2005
Directed by Robert F. Hill
Featuring Buster Crabbe, Julie Bishop, E. Alyn Warren

Tarzan swings around a jungle and meets some people.

I saw this movie once years ago, and the only thing I could remember about it was that a chimpanzee did a lot of backflips. Having seen it again, I can see why; the plot is such an incoherent mess that it’s unlikely you’re going to remember any of it. Granted, there’s a reason this movie is that way; it’s actually a feature version of a serial and feels like it. The original serial is lost, but seeing this doesn’t really make me want to spend a lot of time looking for it. It does leave me wondering what I’m going to remember about it years from now. Maybe I’ll remember that an inordinate amount of the running time is spent dealing with a phonograph. Maybe I’ll remember that Buster Crabbe’s Tarzan’s main way of expressing himself to people is giggling like an idiot. Or maybe I’ll remember that, despite the fact that Crabbe is wearing one of the skimpiest loincloths I’ve ever seen, he still has room in it for a knife and a picture of his girlfriend. At any rate, I hope that I don’t remember the scene where Crabbe and Julie Bishop try to emulate the back-and-forth banter that Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan had in TARZAN, THE APE MAN. Somehow, though, I think fate will be kind, and years from now, when I think of this movie, I’ll think of a monkey doing backflips. Sad, isn’t it?

TARZAN’S SECRET TREASURE (1941)
Article #1420 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-2-2005
Posting Date: 7-2-2005
Directed by Richard Thorpe
Featuring Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O’Sullivan, Johnny Sheffield

When Boy decides to leave home to visit civilization, he encounters scientific explorers who take more than a passing interest in a gold nugget that he is carrying.

At the time of this writing, this movie has the exact same IMDB rating as TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD WOMAN; nonetheless, I have a clear preference between the two, and it’s for this one. Though Brenda Joyce was cute, I just don’t think she had the same chemistry with Johnny Weissmuller as Maureen O’Sullivan had, but their scenes together here are pretty good. Cheetah is on hand in both movies, but here they don’t make the mistake of over-relying on his presence for cute antics. Which is not to say that there aren’t a few, but the ones that exist are more creative, and Cheetah is given a little competition in the scene-stealing department by not only the baby elephant, but by Barry Fitzgerald as well. The story is also somewhat less silly here, but unfortunately it’s also a little too familiar; I think several movies in the Tarzan series have the same basic plot as this one, and the sense of over-familiarity was very noticeable. Still, the final scenes are quite spectacular, and there’s something really likable about this entry in the series. And I don’t know what it was about this movie that made me appreciate him, but I decided that I really like Johnny Sheffield as Boy, despite the fact that his addition to the series was one of the factors in its domesticisation. The fact of the matter is that Sheffield was an excellent actor who worked well with Weissmuller as well. The fantastic elements are minimal as usual for the Tarzan movies, consisting of little more than the slight air of fantasy that hangs over all of them.

TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD WOMAN (1946)
Article #1418 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-31-2005
Posting Date: 6-30-2005
Directed by Kurt Neumann
Featuring Johnny Weissmuller, Brenda Joyce, Johnny Sheffield

Tarzan believes that some leopard attacks are the result of something other than leopards, and they are; a tribe of bloodthirsty leopard men is on the loose.

The farther into this series you go, the less savage Tarzan becomes. Therefore, it shouldn’t be surprising that by this entry in the series, we spend a lot of time dealing with both Tarzan’s domestic concerns and Cheetah’s antics. Still, it builds up to a decent climax, despite some high silliness. The leopard men earn their stripes -er- spots, by feeding hearts to their leopard god and doing this silly dance. They’re ruled by Acquanetta, who must have decided that playing a leopard woman was a step up from being an ape woman. The movie also features Edgar Barrier as a traitor to civilization, and Dennis Hoey, taking a break from the Sherlock Holmes movies to deal with a different cultural icon. Acquanetta actually does a slightly better job here than she usually does.

TRILOGY (1969)
(a.k.a. TRUMAN CAPOTE’S TRILOGY)
Article #1337 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-11-2004
Posting Date: 4-10-2005
Directed by Frank Perry
Featuring Mildred Natwick, Geraldine Page, Martin Balsam

A trio of stories by Truman Capote are presented.

Fantatstic content: Truman Capote isn’t a genre author, but the opening story here (“Miriam”) does have a fantastic premise; a retired nanny finds herself dealing with a mysterious and somewhat rude child who turns out to be not strictly human.

Dealing with loss is the theme that strikes me most from having watched these three adaptations of Truman Capote stories. In the first, a retired nanny has trouble coping with the fact that her lifelong devotion to her charges has actually alienated them rather than endeared them, and she builds up fantasy scenarios to cope (“they just couldn’t have the wedding without their old nanny” is a paraphrase of her every statement). The second, “Among the Paths to Eden”, deals with two lonely middle-aged people who meet in a cemetery. This one is perhaps the weakest of the lot due to the fact that it goes on somewhat longer than is necessary; you should be able to figure out what’s actually going on fairly early in the proceedings. Nonetheless, it still works, mostly due to the sheer likability of the performances of both Martin Balsam and Maureen Stapleton; you end up caring about both of them. The last one is the most memorable; it deals with a man’s childhood memories of the last Christmas he spent with a dotty old aunt (Geraldine Page is great in the role) who proves to be the sole relief from the smothering joylessness of the rest of the family. Most of the story centers around the aunt’s yearly ritual of making fruitcakes, which she distributes not to her immediate friends and family, but to any stranger who strikes her fancy (she sends one to President Roosevelt every year). My favorite scene in the movie involves her attempts to procure some whiskey for the recipe, which, being illegal, is only available for purchase from an intimidating Indian known as Mr. Haha. The direction is fairly humdrum, but the acting is right on the mark, and the movie is quite enjoyable.

TIGER FANGS (1943)
Article #1327 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-1-2004
Posting Date: 3-31-2005
Directed by Sam Newfield
Featuring Frank Buck, June Duprez, Duncan Renaldo

Frank Buck, hunter and lion tamer, is called to Asia to investigate a report that tigers have been attacking workers on a rubber plantation. The natives believe the tigers have been possessed by Japanese agents.

You can tell by the way some movies handle their fantastic elements that the final explanation is going to be much more mundane, and this one is no exception. All in all, the true explanation isn’t bad (though it is far-fetched), and it might have made for a decent movie, but this one isn’t it. It’s a little too obvious (if something is endangering the production of America’s wartime industry, and the local doctor has a German accident, who do you think will turn out to be the villain?), and the movie itself is static and dull. It also engages in some typical war era racism; the Japanese are referred to by their derogatory diminutive, and the natives refer to them as “monkey men”. It largely tries to rely on the novelty of the presence of real-life hunter and lion tamer, Frank Buck, (who doesn’t quite have the cinematic appeal of Clyde Beatty, as far as I’m concerned). All in all, it’s dull, talky and plodding. I never thought I’d say this about a jungle movie, but this is one that could have used a little more safari.

THE TERRIBLE PEOPLE (1960)
(a.k.a. DIE BANDE DES SCHRECKENS)
Article #1300 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-5-2004
Posting Date: 3-4-2005
Directed by Harold Reinl
Featuring Joachim Fuchsberger, Karin Dor, Fritz Rasp

A criminal vows to murder all the people responsible for his capture, arrest and execution. Sure enough, after the execution, the various parties responsible begin to die one by one.

This is another of the German Edgar Wallace adaptations made during the early sixties, and it starts out with a bang; the first scene recounts the capture of the criminal, and the second scene has him confronting his captors and making his promise, and then the credits roll while we watch a clock tick off the last minute and a half before the execution. It does get somewhat confusing and a little slow during the middle section of the movie, but these are only minor annoyances, as the movie has so many interesting characters (including a squeamish police photographer who is genuinely amusing) and so many surprising moments (the staircase murder will definitely catch you off guard), that its flaws are easily forgotten. Originally, I thought I’d figured out what the final twist would turn to be (I found one character in particular to be highly suspicious), but the movie actually reverses the twist to present an ending that is quite satisfying and more logical. The fantastic aspect is that the executed convict keeps appearing at the sites of the murders, so speculation is rife that a ghost is on the loose; however, it would be giving too much away to verify whether a real ghost is at work here. I quite liked this one, though I will admit that it takes a little time to warm up to the style of these krimis.

TORTURE GARDEN (1967)
Article #1291 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-26-2004
Posting Date: 2-23-2005
Directed by Freddie Francis
Featuring Jack Palance, Burgess Meredith, Beverly Adams

Five people take in a special exhibit at the Dr. Diabolo’s Torture Garden, where they confront their own personal horrors.

Amicus was the king of horror anthologies, but this is one of their more obscure entries in the field. Unfortunately, it is one of their weaker entries, due to the uneven quality of the stories. The first one (about a witch’s familiar who eats human heads) is all right, though it raises more questions than it answers and it flirts with silliness. The second one (about a woman trying to make it in Hollywood who discovers how actors stay so young) is just blah; neither the story nor the final twist is remarkable. The third one is the weakest; like TALES FROM THE CRYPT, I saw this one years ago, and also like TFTC, one memory stuck in my mind. Unfortunately, my memory is from this one, and it’s about a killer piano. Quite frankly, this one should have been done as a comedy.

Still that leaves us the fourth tale (about two men who collect Edgar Allan Poe memorabilia, one of whom has taken the hobby a step farther), which is easily the high point. It features a fine performance by Peter Cushing as well as a revelatory one by Jack Palance. In fact, I highly recommend this sequence to anyone who wants an example of Palance’s range; his character here is such a far cry from his usual type of role that it’s a shame he ended up somewhat typecast. Furthermore, the framing sequence of the movie is quite fun; Burgess Meredith is having a fun time, even if he does seem to be doing a repeat of his role as The Penguin at times. Overall, it’s a bit of a disappointment, but not without its high points.