The Man Who Wanted to Live Forever (1970)

THE MAN WHO WANTED TO LIVE FOREVER (1970)
Article 5130 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-16-2016
Directed by John Trent
Featuring Stuart Whitman, Sandy Dennis, Burl Ives
Country: Canada / USA
What it is: TV-Movie Thriller

A reclusive tycoon hires a brilliant heart surgeon to experiment with heart transplants in his private medical research foundation, but the surgeon begins to suspect that the tycoon’s reasons may not be strictly philanthropic…

If you take a look at the plot description and the title, and then consider the fact that the surgeon is suspicious of the tycoon from square one, you’ll be well on your way to sorting out how this plot is going to unfold long before it does. Basically, it’s an early variation of the story in THE CLONUS HORROR, only without the cloning angle, and that unfortunately means that the fantastic content is considerably lighter here. The script is rather clumsy and the direction is humdrum, but it does manage to have a few good moments. The thing I like best about the movie is Burl Ives’ wonderfully underplayed performance as the tycoon, and he steals every scene he is in. The rest of the movie is okay at best, and the final chase sequence doesn’t quite deliver on the thrills. It’s passable, but far from great.

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The Strange Possession of Mrs. Oliver (1977)

THE STRANGE POSSESSION OF MRS. OLIVER (1977)
Article 5129 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-15-2016
Directed by Gordon Hessler
Featuring Karen Black, George Hamilton, Robert F. Lyons
Country: USA
What it is: TV-Movie thriller

After a strange nightmare, a married woman in a constrictive marriage begins altering her image and personality… only to discover that the personality she adopts has had a real existence.

I’ve not really been impressed with the other movies I’ve seen from Gordon Hessler, but I like his work here; there’s a nice eerie, dream-like feeling he captures very well, especially during the two nightmare sequences. The first half of the movie concentrates on the plight of the main character (well acted by Karen Black) and what seems like her choice of a strategy to add some fun and excitement back into her life. The true reason for this choice is the main mystery of the movie, and the possibility that she is indeed possessed by the spirit of a woman who died five years ago marks out the movie’s fantastic content. At about the three-quarters mark of the movie, I thought I had a good handle on where it was all going, but the movie has a few twists that did catch me off guard. I quite enjoyed this one; it manages to walk a fine line of ambiguity for much of its running time, and I like a movie that keeps you guessing.

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The Star of Bethlehem (1909)

THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM (1909)
Article 5128 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-14-2016
Director unknown
Cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Biblical adaptation

The birth of Christ is reenacted.

I found several versions of this short on YouTube, all of which claim to be the 1909 version of this movie. The opening credits say the company is “Exclusive Pictures”, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a repackaging of the Edison picture from 1909. If so, I don’t think it’s complete; IMDB lists a plot description from “The Motion Picture World”, and there is mentioned some scenes involving Herod that do not appear to be present in this picture, but that may only mean that it isn’t the complete movie. At any rate, I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen this version before; the most striking moment is the birth of Christ itself, which certainly makes it appear that Mary didn’t undergo much in the way of labor pains. This sequence, as well as the appearance of angels and the star itself, mark the fantastic content of the short. It is, as you’d expect, very reverent and a little on the slow side.

NOTE The YouTube video does not appear to be labeled correctly; this is actually a cut down version of a movie from 1903 that I’ve already seen. Let it stand as an example of how you can’t always trust the labeling of movies on YouTube.

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Rim of the Canyon (1949)

RIM OF THE CANYON (1949)
Article 5127 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-9-2016
Directed by John English
Featuring Gene Autry, Champion, Nan Leslie
Country: USA
What it is: Weird Western

When his stagecoach crashes in a race, Gene Autry becomes stranded in a ghost town in which he must deal with three escaped convicts looking for stolen money… and possibly a real ghost as well.

Most of the B-movie weird westerns I’ve encountered so far have been rather pallid affairs with extremely mild fantastic content and very low production values (which is not to say that there isn’t something inherently entertaining about the form). This one is relatively upscale. It has an interesting, offbeat story (which is complicated enough to include two lengthy flashbacks), a sense of genuine emotional warmth, well-choreographed action sequences, and interesting characters. The fantastic content concerning the ghost is actually a prominent plot element that adds a real air of mystery to the proceedings, and though it is eventually debunked, a passing comment near the end of the movie hints that maybe it hasn’t been debunked after all. Yes, Gene Autry’s horse gets second billing, but he merits it; the horse manages to function as an authentic character in the proceedings, and his fate means as much to us as that of the human characters. All in all, I can say this was one of the most enjoyable weird westerns that I’ve seen for this series so far.

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The Plumber (1979)

THE PLUMBER (1979)
Article 5126 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-7-2016
Directed by Peter Weir
Featuring Judy Morris, Ivar Kants, Robert Coleby
Country: Australia
What it is: TV-Movie thriller

A housewife’s life is upended when an eccentric, intrusive plumber shows up at her apartment to work on the plumbing.

I’ve never been keen on the “psycho terrorizing people in their own homes” movies, but the presence of Peter Weir, who gave us PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK and THE LAST WAVE, gave me reason to hope that this one would prove a little different. Sure enough, it is; in fact, I’m not even sure it’s genre. IMDB classifies it as a horror thriller, but I think it’s far more accurate to call it a psychological black comedy. The plumber is certainly not a psycho in the classic horror sense; he’s much more neurotic than psychotic, and any terror he inflicts is more in the social than physical sense. If it’s a horror movie at all, it’s in the metaphorical sense, though it does share with certain horror movies the theme of how stress can drive a person to perform acts that would be beyond the pale. It wasn’t as strong as Weir’s other movies that I’ve seen, but it is quite interesting. It’s just better not to go in expecting a horror movie.

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The Jaws of Death (1976)

THE JAWS OF DEATH (1976)
aka Mako: The Jaws of Death
Article 5125 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-5-2016
Directed by William Grefe
Featuring Richard Jaeckel, Jennifer Bishop, Buffy Dee
Country: USA
What it is: Shark snack time

A man develops a telepathic link to sharks, and woe to anyone who threatens one of his seafaring beasties…

Here’s another example of the work of low-budget Florida filmmaker William Grefe, and this one was no doubt inspired by a similarly titled Hollywood blockbuster by a certain Steven Spielberg. Certainly, the artwork on the DVD I found of this movie was clearly modeled off of that of this other movie, with the second word of the title easily the largest word on the cover. Grefe does not borrow the plot of his model though; after all, he can just borrow the same basic story as his own earlier movie STANLEY, only substituting sharks for snakes. Richard Jaeckel gives a good performance, but the script is slow and clumsy, the direction is weak, the sound is very bad, and it sounds like the score consists of about twenty seconds of music on an endless loop. In a way, this movie looks even cheaper and shoddier than some of this other movies, which is no mean feat. The movie does have a certain amount of interest value in that it doesn’t use mechanical sharks or cages, but there are also moments where it looks like real sharks were killed for the movie. The movie also features Harold ‘Oddjob’ Sakata and a man named Buffy Dee who may qualify as the most massive actor I’ve ever seen in a movie; be warned that he spends portions of the movie shirtless. There are a few points of interest here, but the production is too weak to sustain interest.

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The Henderson Monster (1980)

THE HENDERSON MONSTER (1980)
Article 5124 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-4-2016
Directed by Waris Hussein
Featuring Christine Lahti, Jason Miller, Stephen Collins
Country: USA
What it is: TV-Movie drama

An ambitious Nobel-prize winning scientist’s experiments with recombinant DNA at a local college raise issues about the safety of the experiments, and the mayor decides to hold a hearing on the matter.

Some movies need a warning attached to them. This is not because they are necessarily bad; it’s because for one reason or another they get advertised as something they are assuredly not. Take this one, for example; it has the word “monster” in the title, and IMDB classifies it as both horror and science fiction. Yet I suspect anyone going into this one with their hearts set on the movie delivering on the type of actions these promise will emerge from it profoundly disappointed. In short, the monster is nothing but a theoretical possibility, it only marginally edges up against science fiction, and it is definitely not a horror movie. it is, in fact, a drama about scientific development and the attendant fears if what experimentation may unleash. It is, in fact, a social issue drama.

This is not to say that the movie doesn’t have its worth. It actually manages to take a complex view of the subject, peoples its story with characters who have complex motivations and flaws, gives us varying points of view, and comes to no simple conclusions. The script is also extremely literate, though this isn’t always a positive thing; there are moments where the dialogue feels artificial and forced, especially when the characters become a little too enamored with analyzing their personal motivations for their actions. By the end of the movie, it could be argued that very little has actually happened, but it does provide some food for thought, and this could prove a valuable movie for the right person. However, if you’re searching for a horror/science fiction thriller, this is not the place to go.

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Haunted Ranch (1943)

HAUNTED RANCH (1943)
Article 5123 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-1-2016
Directed by Robert Emmett Tansey
Featuring John ‘Dusty’ King, David Sharpe, Max Terhune
Country: USA
What it is: Weird Western

When a bank robber dies without revealing the location of a stash of gold bullion, the other members of his gang fake a haunting of his ranch to drive people away while they search. Can the Range Busters solve this case?

It’s nice to get back to the black-and-white era every once in a while and watch something like this. It’s the twentieth picture in the Range Busters series, and the haunting of the ranch is the obvious fantastic content, though we find out at the outset that the haunting is being faked. Oddly enough, there are also two other touches of fantastic content here. One is in the realm of gadgetry with an organ that is also a combination safe, with the choice of stops serving as the key to unlock it. The other is that Elmer, Max Terhune’s ventriloquist dummy, does a mind-reading act. The movie itself isn’t particularly good, but it is fitfully entertaining. There’s a couple of odd touches here; I can’t help but notice that the heroes are basically playing themselves; their character names are the same as their real ones. The second is that there is an odd transition in the middle of the movie where one of the Range Busters leaves to join the military (as he did in real life), and is replaced in midstream by Rex Lease. There’s a song sung by John ‘Dusty’ King, and the obligatory scared black servant.

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A la conquete de l’air (1901)

A LA CONQUETE DE L’AIR (1901)
aka The Conquest of the Air, The Flying Machine
Article 5122 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-31-2016
Directed by Ferdinand Zecca
Cast unknown
Country: France
What is is: Trick film

A man pedals his flying machine over a city.

I haven’t seen the complete version of this silent short, but I’ve been told that the YouTube video for it pretty much captures the experience; in this case, all I’m missing is about 23 more seconds of the man pedaling over the city. The special effect is the whole story here; the man alternates between pedaling his vehicle and occasionally tipping his hat. It’s similar to THE TWENTIETH CENTURY TRAMP, except I think this one has better special effects; there isn’t that sharp delineation on the screen between the man in the sky and the cityscape, so it looks more convincing. That being said, there’s not a whole lot to this short, but I do have one question; I can understand the vehicle in question having one of those spoked steering wheels you see on ships, but wouldn’t it have been better to have the wheel facing the pedaling man rather than facing the audience?

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Time Walker (1982)

TIME WALKER (1982)
Article 5121 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-29-2016
Directed by Tom Kennedy
Featuring Ben Murphy, Nina Axelrod, Kevin Brophy
Country: USA
What it is: Extraterrestrial mummy movie

A mummy is unearthed from the tomb of King Tut that turns out to be not human… and, is in fact, still alive.

Here’s another movie that is mostly known for having appeared on MST3K; it was under the title BEING FROM ANOTHER PLANET. It’s something of a cross between E.T. and a mummy movie. Personally, I think it comes off even worse in its original state. It’s one of those movies with a fairly straightforward story that ends up degenerating into confusion due to a combination of poor screenwriting, muddled editing, an overabundance of minor characters, and a tendency to fall into the doldrums at every opportunity. Even its most exciting sequence (a chase through a library) loses steam, largely due to being overlong and failing to keep the screws turning. Stupid characters (especially the authority figures) and poor acting also bring it down. It promised a sequel, but I’m not surprised it was never made.

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