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The Red House (1947)

THE RED HOUSE (1947)
Article #1044 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-23-2004
Posting Date: 6-21-2004
Directed by Delmer Daves
Featuring Edward G. Robinson, Lon McCallister, Judith Anderson

A teenage boy takes a job on a remote farm, but crosses swords with the wooden-legged owner when he tries to take a shortcut through the local woods.

Edward G. Robinson is one of my very favorite actors, but since he only occasionally worked in movies that belong to the genres I’m covering, I haven’t been able to talk about his work near enough. Here he is riveting as a man who is haunted by a past he can’t forget and who is eaten up by fear. The movie starts out with some real horror content and features the scariest walk in the woods this side of I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF, but gives every indication as it goes along of being one of those movies in which the horror has a mundane explanation. It does shift back into horror towards the end, though of a more psychological variety, and there are moments that may well make you think of PSYCHO before it’s all through. On top of the excellent performance by Robinson, there is also a fine one from Allene Roberts as the adopted daughter bent on unravelling the mystery. It’s not perfect; it’s a little too long, so you end up figuring some of the final revelations before you should, and it gets a little repetitive at times, but the strong acting and some memorable images make it worth the investment.

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Quest for Love (1971)

QUEST FOR LOVE (1971)
Article #1043 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-22-2004
Posting Date: 6-20-2004
Directed by Ralph Thomas
Featuring Joan Collins, Tom Bell, Denholm Elliott

A physicist finds himself thrust in an alternate universe when an experiment goes haywire. There he meets and falls in love with the wife of his doppelganger.

The opening third of this movie is fairly intriguing, in that we find ourselves watching a man trying to come to terms with a world that is not only different in subtle ways from his own, but must also deal with wending his way through the life of his alter ego. Then it turns into a love story with all the trimmings; an initially hostile companion to be won over, a world of bliss, a mysterious disease, and a second chance to succeed against the odds are all here. It’s at this point that I realized that the science fiction angle is merely there to serve the purpose of the love story, and if any one moment in the movie convinces me of this, it’s when our hero locates the one person who he can convince of the truth of his story of being from a parallel world, and ends up getting advice on his love life from him. Though I could hardly say this turn in the story took me by surprise (the title of the movie leaves little doubt of what you’re getting into here), I still must admit that I’m not really into romantic movies of this ilk; they always seems so baldly manipulative and fake. Nonetheless, there is a lot of intelligence here, and you do get caught up in our hero’s attempts to deal with his situations. Incidentally, the movie is based on a story by John Wyndham, author of “The Day of the Triffids” and “The Midwich Cuckoos”.

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Clouds Over Europe (1939)

CLOUDS OVER EUROPE (1939)
(a.k.a. Q PLANES)
Article #1042 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-21-2004
Posting Date: 6-19-2004
Directed by Tim Whelan
Featuring Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Valerie Hobson

A British secret service agent unites with a test pilot to prove their theory that a string of airplane accidents was not just a coincidence, but rather the work of foreign spies.

You would be excused if you found precious little to catch your attention in the above plot description, as it sounds like a fairly common plot. In fact, there is precious little in the storyline as such to really merit more than passing interest. However, the cast list might indeed catch your attention, and if you decided to tune in based on that you might find yourself pleasantly surprised. It is indeed the cast and the witty dialogue of the surprisingly light-hearted script that make this movie work. Both Olivier and Hobson do fine jobs in their roles, but the movie is stolen by Ralph Richardson, who is simply hilarious as the eccentric secret service man working on the case; in fact, his obsession with both his umbrella and his hat are traits that go a long way towards making me think that there’s more than just a little similarity between his character and that of Patrick MacNee’s Mr. Steed on “The Avengers”. Not that this movie is as bizarre as the episodes of that show, mind you, but the same sense of humor pervades them both. It’s not a perfect movie, but it is worth a look.

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Mr. Hex (1946)

MR. HEX (1946)
Article #1041 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-20-2004
Posting Date: 6-18-2004
Directed by Wiliam Beaudine
Featuring Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan

Slip decides to make Sach a terrific boxer by employing the art of hypnotism.

This is one of the earlier comedies featuring the Bowery Boys as such; though they had been around for years in other combinations, it wasn’t until 1946 that they began making the string of low-budget comedies under their most famous title. Having watched PRIVATE EYES recently, I thought it was interesting to compare this one in terms of evolution. Leo Gorcey was using malaprops at this point, but they weren’t taken to the extremes of the later movies, and Huntz Hall is still playing someone who resembles a human being. Hypnotism is one of those gimmicks that comedians and comedy groups loved to play with, and the Boys were in the business so long and made so many movies that they used this gimmick not only once, but twice; they would revisit it in HOLD THAT HYPNOTIST. This one is fairly decent, and features a good performance by one-time Dracula hopeful Ian Keith as well as a strange one by Sammy Cohen as a man whose bizarre eyes can break hypnotic trances. The other Boys get a little more to do than they would in later movies in the series as well.

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The Adventures of Tarzan (1921)

THE ADVENTURES OF TARZAN (1921)
(Serial)
Article #1040 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-19-2004
Posting Date: 6-17-2004
Directed by Robert F. Hill and Scott Sidney
Featuring Elmo Lincoln, Louise Lorraine, Scott Pembroke

Tarzan tries to keep a villain named Rokoff from stealing the treasure of the land of Opar.

Why am I covering another serial so soon? There’s a reason for this. Usually, I like to watch my serials one episode at a time (right before the movie I watch for the day), and I was planning to do the same for this one. I was fifty minutes into this serial before it started to dawn on me that the chapter breaks had been edited out, and I was so far along that I decided to just ride the thing out to the end, even though that is hardly the best way to watch a serial. According to one source, this serial consists of 15 episodes; the tape I have says 10. Since it’s all edited together, I can’t say for sure. It starts in the middle of the action (maybe there’s some missing episodes), and the first third is confusing and repetitve; you can only see so many lion attacks before you get bored. However, things start to sort themselves out when the villains leave the jungle with Jane as their captive and decide to head to a nearby village to gather up some henchmen.

Tarzan is played by Elmo Lincoln, and I must admit that I never thought that sounded like a name of someone who would play Tarzan, but then I never thought Arnold or Sylvester sounded like good action hero names either. He was certainly one of the most muscular Tarzans I’ve ever seen; in fact, I think he might have made a good Hercules. He may even be a bit on the chunky side, but that me be just his costume, which tends to accentuate his paunch more than his other assets. Since this is a silent, he can’t give a nice Tarzan yell, but he does a victory pounding-of-the-chest which not only serves as a satisfying substitute, but it looks aerobically healthy as well. In fact, there really is something about this serial that is unique; it doesn’t really feel like any other Tarzan serial or movie I’ve seen, though I can’t quite put my finger on it. Not bad, but I wish I could have taken it one episode at a time.

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Private Eyes (1953)

PRIVATE EYES (1953)
Article #1039 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-18-2004
Posting Date: 6-16-2004
Directed by Edward Bernds
Featuring Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bernard Gorcey

When Sach develops the ability to read minds after being punched in the nose, Slip takes advantage of this ability to buy a detective agency in the hopes they’ll be able to spot crooks.

By Bowery Boys standards, this one is pretty good and fairly energetic. It’s business as usual here, with Leo Gorcey in charge of malaprops (“retailed prescription” for “detailed description”, etc.), Huntz Hall in charge of mugging, slapstick and cross-dressing, Bernard Gorcey in charge of being the unwilling participant in Leo’s schemes, and David Gorcey and Benny Bartlett in charge of being the Boys that aren’t Leo and Huntz (I have to feel a bit sorry for them because they really aren’t given much of anything to do). Lee Van Cleef is somewhere in here (though I’m not sure where), but Three Stooges mainstay Emil Sitka has a great little uncredited role as a wheelchair-bound patient who develops a liking for Huntz Hall in drag.

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King of the Kongo (1929)

KING OF THE KONGO (1929)
(Serial)
Article #1038 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-17-2004
Posting Date: 6-15-2004
Directed by Richard Thorpe
Featuring Jacqueline Logan, Walter Miller, Richard Tucker

A woman searching for her lost father in the jungle hooks up with a secret service agent investigating ivory poachers and the disappearance of fellow agents.

You know, I have to feel a little sorry for moviemakers during the late twenties who were caught between deciding whether to make their movie silent or sound. One of the solutions was to make the movie and release as both; just toss title cards into the silent print. KING OF THE KONGO was released that way, but only the silent print survives. The trouble is it only looks like a silent film about half the time; the other half the time it looks like a sound film. There are long stretches here where people stand around talking and no title cards come up to tell you what they’re talking about. At least one plot point that I should have gotten in the first reel (why the Secret Service agent was investigating in the first place) I didn’t find out until it appeared in a title card in the fourth episode. All in all, it made watching this adventure serial more than a little difficult.

For fans of the fantastic, however, it has several points of interest. Boris Karloff is one of the main bad guys, and he’s called Scarface Macklin (this was before he appeared with Paul Muni in SCARFACE), and he does a fine job. It also has a gorilla wandering around the premises. And finally, there’s about ten seconds of slurpasaur footage in the movie, which doesn’t seem like a lot of slurpasaur until you notice that same ten seconds pops up in practically every other episode. Its function is to scare people when the going gets slow.

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Americathon (1979)

AMERICATHON (1979)
Article #1037 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-16-2004
Posting Date: 6-14-2004
Directed by Neal Israel
Featuring John Ritter, Harvey Korman, Fred Willard

In the future (1998, to be precise), America has run out of oil and is in debt to a Native American businessman who is preparing to foreclose. The country decides to hold a telethon to raise the money to pay the debt.

The script for this movie was based on a play written by Peter Bergman and Philip Proctor, two members of the innovative comedy troupe known as The Firesign Theatre. Fans of the troupe will notice several touches that do recall some of their satirical counterculture wit, and there are sporadic moments that actually elicit laughs (including seeing a short sequence of game show announcer Peter Marshall in his new profession as a newscaster), but a deadly malaise hangs over the proceedings. For every moment that works there are several others where the movie falls flat, and other moments that are downright embarassing. It’s mainly interesting for oddball cameos: Jay Leno plays a boxer having a bout with his mother, Meat Loaf plays a man battling the last running car in existence, Elvis Costello pops up to sing “Crawling to the U.S.A.”, and George Carlin narrates. There’s also some subpar dinosaur animation in the opening minute of the movie. It’s definitely a misfire, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I found out that the movie has a small cult following for all that.

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Idle Roomers (1944)

IDLE ROOMERS (1944)
Article #1036 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-15-2004
Posting Date: 6-13-2004
Directed by Del Lord
Featuring Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

Three incompetent bellboys encounter a wolf man loose in the hotel.

This Three Stooges short probably has some of the stronger fantastic content of the ones I’ve seen, though the Wolf Man himself is one of the chunkier ones I’ve seen. It’s not one of their better shorts; the gags tend to be somewhat abbreviated so that we can have lots of scenes of the boys getting scared. Nevertheless, it has its moments, and they usually involve Curly. In one he tries to deliver a trunk while the carpet is being pulled out from under him, and in another one he participates in the old mirror reflection gag with his reflection being played by the Wolf Man (“I need a shave, but I don’t feel any hair!”).

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The Power (1968)

THE POWER (1968)
Article #1035 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-14-2004
Posting Date: 6-12-2004
Directed by Byron Haskin
Featuring George Hamilton, Suzanne Pleshette, Richard Carlson

When a scientist discovers that one of the members of a think tank has super-psychic powers, he is killed. When another man is framed for the murder, he vows to discover the identity of the real killer.

Is the killer Richard Carlson? Michael Rennie? Nehemiah Persoff? Earl Holliman? Or is it someone else entirely; i.e. Suzanne Pleshette? I know what my guess was, and I’m not going to say whether I was right or wrong; I’m just going to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this science fiction mystery thriller, one of George Pal’s latter-day productions. The only real problems I had with this movie was that the pace was a little on the slow side at times, and Arthur O’Connell overacts badly in his small role. There are a number of familiar faces in smaller roles, such as Aldo Ray, Yvonne de Carlo, and Celia Lovsky (Mrs. Peter Lorre), who has a great cameo as a dotty old woman with a fly-swatter. It should keep you guessing till the end, and it finishes off with a truly satisfying (and highly logical) plot twist. This one is definitely recommended.

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