WHEN DR. QUACKEL DID HIDE (1920)
aka When Quackel Did Hyde, When Quackel Did Hide
Article 4579 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-14-2014
Directed by Charles Gramlich
Featuring Charlie Joy and Edgar Jones
Country: USA
What it is: Parody of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”

Dr. Quackel comes up with a potion to make himself evil; only Seidletz powder can cure him.

I don’t know how many silent parody versions of this story exist, but here’s one that survived. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this version is that, rather than just parodying the central premise, it also parodies some of the side characters and significant scenes from the novel. The biggest problem with the short is simply that it’s not very funny; in fact, other than a couple of moderately entertaining title cards, it’s pretty lame. In fact, it’s the director’s sole credit on IMDB, which does seem to indicate that this one didn’t go over all that well. Still, it’s such a rarity that I’m grateful I had a chance to see it.

WAKING UP THE TOWN (1925)
Article 4547 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-29-2014
Directed by James Cruze
Featuring Jack Pickford, Claire McDowell, Alec B. Francis
Country: USA
What it is: Odd little comedy

A young inventor dreams of getting the financing to build a hydroelectric plant to harness energy from a nearby waterfall. How will he accomplish this?

IMDB lists the length of this movie as 63 minutes. I found it in a version that runs 41 minutes. The Don Willis guide from which I culled the title claims the fantastic content consists of a dream in which the world comes to an end. At this point, I can only conclude that the dream in question is among the 22 minutes that is missing from this print; though an amateur astronomer goes on about a coming apocalypse (in eighteen months and three days exactly), it remains only talk. However, there is some gadgetry in the movie to give it at least some tinges of science fiction content. As for the story, there’s not a whole lot here to speak of, but that may also be the result of missing footage. In its present form, almost the first half of the movie involves the meet cute between the inventor and the amateur astronomer’s granddaughter, which doesn’t do a thing to advance the plot. The plot itself is about how a local banker is convinced to invest in the inventor’s plan, and this is all pretty threadbare. And, given that the movie isn’t particularly funny, the movie ends up mostly being a curious oddity more than anything else.

THE WORM EATERS (1970)
Article 4540 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-22-2014
Directed by Herb Robins
Featuring Herb Robins, Lindsay Armstrong Black, Joseph Sacket
Country: USA
What is is: Beyond several pales

A corrupt city council attempts to get hold of a lake area owned by a crazy German immigrant who talks to worms. Then, one day, the immigrant discovers that those who eat his worms turn into worm people.

Ten thoughts on THE WORM EATERS.

1) Look at the title.

2) Be aware that the title is not to be taken metaphorically.

3) IMDB classifies the movie as a Comedy Horror. It is neither scary nor funny.

4) The fact that the movie is not scary is not to say that you won’t have a visceral gut reaction to what you’ll see.

5) The movie is horribly acted. If I were to describe the acting style, it would be to say that the actors deliver their lines as if they were trying to overcome constipation.

6) If the above metaphor is crude, so be it; it’s still classier than this movie.

7) Movies are designed to appeal to several senses. However, when the primary senses that seem to appealed to are those of taste and smell, that’s a warning in itself.

8) I read somewhere that no worms were really eaten during the making of this movie. If that is true, then somebody does an amazing job of special effects during certain sequences. My own opinion is that what I heard was not correct.

9) Even if it were true that no worms were eaten, it nonetheless isn’t true that no worms were killed in the making of this film. That becomes apparent in the opening scene.

10) At this point in time, I can honestly say that I’ve never seen a John Waters film. I suspect that this film may be the closest I have ever come to actually seeing one, though.

In summary, I almost find myself at a loss of words with this one. All I can say is that it lives up to its title. Take that as a warning or a recommendation, whichever you choose.

WONDER WOMAN (1974)
TV-Movie
Article 4539 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-20-2014
Directed by Vincent McEveety
Featuring Cathy Lee Crosby, Kaz Garas, Andrew Prine
Country: USA
What it is: Superhero… uhh… action?

Wonder Woman sets out to locate a supervillain that has stolen information leading to the identities of 39 international spies.

Before Lynda Carter made the role her own in 1975, there was this earlier attempt at starting a series featuring Cathy Lee Crosby in the role. I’m glad they held out; had this one become a series, I doubt that it would have lasted half a season. When the action highlight of a super hero movie is a lethargic quarter-staff fight between Wonder Woman and a former friend from the island, and this occurs halfway through the movie, you know you don’t have a winner. Most of the movie involves people being very polite to each other, and Wonder Woman’s main superpower seems to be that everyone wants to take her out to dinner. In fact, the whole movie is singularly lacking in tension. And if you’re going to spend two-thirds of the movie hiding the face of your supervillain, then maybe you shouldn’t cast in the role a star with as distinctive a voice as Ricardo Montalban’s AND put his name prominently in the opening credits. In the end, this attempt a super-hero movie is dreary and lifeless, and seems to be mostly made for those who are into mildly witty banter.

THE WIZ (1978)
Article 4538 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-19-2014
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Featuring Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Nipsey Russell
Country: USA
What it is: Soul version of THE WIZARD OF OZ

A 24-year-old schoolteacher finds herself swept up by a winter tornado into the land of Oz, where she comes into the possession of silver slippers. She seeks a great wizard to help her return home.

I think three things were important in the shaping of this musical. The first was to make a soul all-black version of the Oz story. I have no problem with this idea, and since Motown produced the movie, at least there were some authentic soul music roots involved in the making of this (though if I’d had my druthers, I would have been much more interested in what George Clinton and Parliament/Funkadelic would have made of the story). The second was to use authentic New York locations to portray Oz; I suspect this would be most satisfying for those who either live in or are enamored of New York City, but I’m neither. The third is something I read in the trivia section of IMDB, and I think it may be the thing that is most responsible for how the movie turned out; apparently the scriptwriter was into est (Erhard Seminars Training), and the philosophies of that movement were incorporated into much of the story. I suspect this explains the preponderance of songs in the movie about “believing in yourself” that bring the story to a screeching halt. And therein lies my biggest problem with this movie. The 1939 version of THE WIZARD OF OZ is a model of how to incorporate musical numbers into a story; the songs are short, catchy, and advance the story. The musical numbers here are long-winded and stop the story short; I could easily jettison all of Diana Ross’s ballads, Lena Horne’s number, and the big dance numbers (when they get to Oz and when the Winkies are freed) because they are all unnecessary and boring. As for the rest of the movie, I’m afraid I found the manifestation of the ideas more cute than interesting, with an occasional foray into the totally bizarre (the whole subway sequence, for example). But I often found myself utterly bored, and that’s something I’ve never been by the 1939 version of the movie.

WAIT UNTIL DARK (1967)
Article 4537 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-17-2014
Directed by Terence Young
Featuring Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna
Country: USA
What it is: Thriller

A sadistic killer hires two small-time thugs to help him get his hands on a doll filled with drugs that has fallen into the hands of a blind woman.

I knew this one was going to come up sooner or later; though I knew it wasn’t a horror movie, the character of Roat is so sadistic that it nudges the film close enough to horror territory for at least one of my sources to include it. The movie has a very high reputation, but I have to admit that I wasn’t particularly looking forward to catching it. Why? Because much of the appeal of the movie is watching the plot unfold and discovering the surprises along the way, and since I’d already performed in the stage version of the story, I was already extremely familiar with it, and I knew all the important surprises that were coming. There is, however, at least one great reason to catch the movie even under those circumstances, and that is to see Alan Arkin’s fantastic and intense performance as Roat. He’s so fascinating to watch, that I was hooked every second he was on the screen. Unfortunately, because of my familiarity with the story, my mind wandered in most of the other scenes, and though all of the other performances were good, they weren’t enough to compensate. Nevertheless, it is a well made movie and a very effective thriller; I just wish I could really appreciate it with fresh eyes. And it is also one of the few movies in which it is highly effective to have certain scenes shot in complete darkness.

WON’T WRITE HOME, MOM- I’M DEAD (1975)
Episode of “Thriller” aka Terror from Within
Article 4522 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-2-2014
Directed by James Ormerod
Featuring Pamela Franklin, Ian Bannen, Suzanne Neve
Country: UK
What it is: Mild “Thriller”

A woman visits a cousin who she hasn’t seen since she was a child; she’s visiting because her fiance (with whom she has a psychic link) was supposed to have been there. Little does she know that her fiance has been murdered. Will her dreams reveal the secret her fiance left behind?

The British TV series “Thriller” was very uneven; some of them did indeed live up to the title, while others tend to disappoint. This one is a little closer to the latter; though it has an interesting initial setup and passable climax, it’s one of those stories where you just know that most of the running time is going to consist of the heroine not finding the clue that she needs to unravel the mystery, and sure enough, that’s what we get here. It tries to add to the tension by having a subplot about a mysterious Rolls Royce, but the mystery of this plot element feels pretty forced. The psychic link is the fantastic content here, which is more than a lot of the other episodes have to make it qualify. Still, the psychic link manifests itself rather clumsily. At heart, this is an interesting idea marred by a weak script.

WHO IS HARRY KELLERMAN AND WHY IS HE SAYING THOSE TERRIBLE THINGS ABOUT ME? (1971)
Article 4495 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-5-2014
Directed by Ulu Grosbard
Featuring Dustin Hoffman, Barbara Harris, Jack Warden
Country: USA
What it is: Comedy/Drama

A self-involved successful songwriter suffers from a bad case of insomnia, and finds himself exploring his past relationships, and wondering about the identity of the man who is calling his girlfriends and destroying the relationships.

Let’s get the fantastic content out of the way first. There are several fantasy sequences in this movie, which can be explained as being a result of the main character’s sleep deprivation-induced hallucinations. That being said, this is an art movie of sorts, and it does get rather tiresome at times, but there are compensating factors. First of all, it has a sense of humor, which helps quite a bit. Second, it has an interesting array of names in the supporting cast, including Jack Warden (who appears in several different guises as the songwriter’s shrink), Dom DeLuise, Shel Silverstein (who wrote some of the original songs for the movie), and former Bowery Boy Gabriel Dell. It’s also very well acted, with an especially fine performance by Barbara Harris as a girlfriend who is even more screwed up than the main character. The movie has definite points of interest, but it sometimes feels self-indulgent, and I’m not sure I got a whole lot out of the movie. I was also able to figure out the answer to the titular question long before the movie does.

WHERE THE BULLETS FLY (1966)
Article 4492 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-1-2014
Directed by John Gilling
Featuring Tom Adams, Dawn Addams, Tim Barrett
Country: UK
What it is: Low-budget Bond parody

Secret agent Charles Vine must prevent spies from getting hold a new shielding material that allows lightweight nuclear propulsion for aircraft.

This is a sequel to THE SECOND BEST SECRET AGENT IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD, which I covered some time back. A lot of what I said about that movie still applies here; though it’s obviously intended as a parody of the James Bond movies (it has a fake opening title of WHERE THE BULL FLIES before it gets fixed), it isn’t very consistent at keeping up the parody aspect and ends up being mostly a very low-budget imitation. There are moments that work, moments that don’t, and moments that leave you scratching your head; there’s a scene involving a cat that exemplifies the latter. The shielding material is the main science fiction aspect of the story, but as an invention, it’s pretty passive and remains a Gizmo Maguffin; fortunately, there’s a bit of gadgetry as well. All in all, there’s really not a whole lot to hold the interest here.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?: TUPAPAOO (1938)
Article 4489 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-29-2013
Directed by Jacques Tourneur
Featuring Carey Wilson, Moroni Olsen
Country: USA
What it is: A native curse

When a con man arrives on a remote island, he cheats the natives out of their land. A falling star prompts the natives to lay a curse on the con man, but the con man knows that that’s just a native superstition… or is it?

This MGM short was apparently part of a series. Based on what I see here, the series must have told stories in which the ending’s explanation is ambiguous, and the audience is asked “What do you think?” as the central gimmick. In this instance, the ambiguity has to do whether the con man’s fate is a result of the curse or merely coincidence. Though the short has several characters, the only voice we here is of the narrator, who explains the action as it occurs. At only eleven minutes, it moves pretty quickly; I could easily see how the movie could have been stretched to B-movie feature length by fleshing out the characters, though I think it works just fine in this format. I think the ambiguity of the fantastic content is especially interesting here as the director was Jacques Tourneur, who would go on to direct several movies for Val Lewton, many of which were also ambiguous about the nature of their fantastic content. I felt this was a nifty and entertaining short.