The Day Time Ended (1979)

THE DAY TIME ENDED (1979)
Article 4320 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-28-2013
Directed by John ‘Bud’ Cardos
Featuring Jim Davis, Christopher Mitchum, Dorothy Malone
Country: USA
What it is: Odd little science fiction movie

A family living in a home in the desert finds that their area is the center of activity caused by a distant triple supernova whose light has just reached the Earth, and they find themselves in the middle of a time-space vortex.

The last couple of low-budget movies I’ve seen did little more than rehash familiar stories and plots. This one is much more ambitious; in fact, despite the fact that it does seem to show a certain amount of influence from CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, it really is trying to do something original. It’s not exactly successful; it’s maddeningly episodic at times, vague and confusing at others, and it ultimately doesn’t really satisfy, but the journey is often entertaining and sometimes intriguing. There’s a fair amount of stop-motion special effects here; there’s a tiny alien creature, a miniature spaceship, and two of the oddest looking dinosaurs that I’ve ever seen. If they had hitched a really strong story to this one, they might have really had something, but even as it is, it’s worth a viewing for the more interesting touches.

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Curse of the Swamp Creature (1966)

CURSE OF THE SWAMP CREATURE (1966)
Article 4319 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-27-2013
Directed by Larry Buchanan
Featuring John Agar, Francine York, Jeff Alexander
Country: USA
What it is: Larry Buchanan movie

A mad scientist performs experiments with evolution in the Texas swamps.

For the second day in a row, I’m watching a movie about a monster in the swamps. The two movies even share an actor; Larry Buchanan favorite Bill Thurman, who played the sheriff in the last movie, here plays a dual role as an oil man and the title creature. It’s a loose remake of VOODOO WOMAN with the action moved to the Texas swamps, and unlike some of the other movie Buchanan made for AIP, almost all of the dialogue has been rewritten. Is it any good? Well, let’s just say that Buchanan invests it with the same cinematic skill and insight that he showed on the other movies of his that I’ve covered; in other words, it’s pretty awful. Nevertheless, I do have to tip my hat to a man who was willing to make movies in uncomfortable locations like this one in a swamp at Caddo Lake; it takes a certain amount of dedication and commitment to his calling, and, as bad as his movies were, Larry Buchanan has at least gained a certain amount of fame for his work. He left his mark, such as it is. And with this movie, I’ve completed the catalogue of his genre AIP remakes of the sixties.

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Creature from Black Lake (1976)

CREATURE FROM BLACK LAKE (1976)
Article 4318 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-26-2013
Directed by Joy N. Houck Jr.
Featuring Jack Elam, Dub Taylor, Dennis Fimple
Country: USA
What it is: Sasquatch movie

Two college kids from Chicago come to Louisiana to find proof of the existence of a sasquatch.

I first encountered this movie on my local Creature Feature. This was after the rise of “Saturday Night Live” had consigned it to the wee hours of the morning, and the drop of ratings resulted in the program having to cut costs, and the quality of the movies dropped dramatically. About all I could remember about it for years was a scene near the end where the creature attacks a van, and my main impression was that it was a very cheap effort. I was surprised a bit by some of the user comments on IMDB, many of whom consider it a very scary film; still, I notice that the overall IMDB rating of 3.5 shows that a considerable amount of voters are not impressed. My own reaction on this viewing is that if you take for the subgenre it belongs too (Bigfoot movies of the seventies), it may well be in the running as one of the better examples, but the competition isn’t exactly strong, and I still prefer THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK. It has a lot of local color and atmosphere, is generally well acted, The script itself is meandering and weak, though it does have its moments. Still, I didn’t find it particularly scary.

One issue that I occasionally encounter is that some people love movies where the monster remains in the shadows the whole time and you never get a good look at it, such as happens here. I can appreciate their argument that this may be scarier by leaving things to the imagination, and that it often spares us the disappointment of being disappointed by seeing the monster in all its glory. Still, my own reaction is different; yes, I’ve been disappointed by how the monster looks on occasion, but I’ve always been MORE disappointed when the monster is not shown at all. Just my two cents.

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Conan the Barbarian (1982)

CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982)
Article 4317 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-25-2013
Directed by John Milius
Featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Earl Jones, Max von Sydow
Country: USA
What it is: Sword and sorcery

A slave trained in the art of war and freed from slavery embarks on a quest to seek vengeance against the evil sorcerer who killed his family.

To my mind, Arnold Schwarzenegger was not an actor of really great range, but during the eighties, I think he was very shrewd in the way that he was able to pick out parts that played to his strengths; he is certainly an ideal choice for the title character. James Earl Jones steals the movie as the villain, Thulsa Doom, and Max von Sydow has a memorable cameo as an old king desperate to recover his daughter from a snake cult. There are also a number of moments here that deliver on the kind of action and spectacle that you’d expect and hope for from this type of story. Nevertheless, I think the movie has a few problems. It’s overlong (the action really drags in the half hour after Conan is freed), overproduced (some of the spectacle seems unnecessary), and, what surprises me most, too civilized; there are times where I feel it’s trying to be lyrical and philosophical rather than barbaric. Personally, I feel the rousing symphonic soundtrack is a mistake, especially when they use it in scenes that would benefit from a much sparer sound; the scene where Conan and friends abduct the daughter from the temple is one that comes to mind. Still, this may be the best sword and sorcery movie I’ve seen, but I’ve not seen a whole lot of competition at this point.

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Alone With the Devil (1914)

ALONE WITH THE DEVIL (1914)
aka Expressens Mysterium
Article 4316 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-24-2013
Directed by Hjalmar Davidsen
Featuring Svend Aggerholm, Philip Bech, Moritz Bielawski
Country: Denmark
What it is: Weird melodrama

An industrialist finds himself a victim of the machinations of an arch-rival who will stop at nothing to destroy him… even if it costs the arch-rival his own life.

This movie ended up on my hunt list on the strength of the fact that the arch-rival was a hypnotist who kept the industrialist’s wife under his power. When I was unable to find the movie, it moved to my “ones that got away” list, but I’m happy to say that a copy finally showed up, and the person who passed it on to me was kind enough to add English intertitles to help me follow the story, which would have been impenetrable without them. I have to admit that the basic premise is intriguing; the fact that the arch-rival is so intent on destroying the industrialist that he’s willing to commit suicide in such a way that it looks like the industrialist committed murder makes for a fascinating obsession. Unfortunately, the story that surrounds the premise is badly contrived, and the climax of the movie (in which the industrialist’s chances of being cleared is dependent on the discovery of a missing ring) is handled so blandly and flatly that it fails to generate a modicum of suspense. The movie is interesting, but ultimately it’s unsatisfying.

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Serebristaya pyl (1953)

SEREBRISTAYA PYL (1953)
aka Silver Dust
Article 4315 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-23-2013
Directed by Pavel Armand and Abram Room
Featuring Mikhail Bolduman, Sofiya Pilyavskaya, Valentina Ushakova
Country: U.S.S.R.
What it is: Satire

An American scientist develops a radioactive dust that he wants to test on human subjects. However, there are other parties interested in the dust as well…

To be perfectly honest, there’s no way I can give a fair review of this movie; the only copy I was able to find did not have English dubbing or subtitles. I’m not surprised I couldn’t find one in English. From the sources I checked, this movie was made by Abram Room to get back in the good graces of the Soviet government; some of his earlier movies made during WWII had a positive view of the United States, most likely because we were allies during the war. Once the cold war was fully underway, he had to redeem himself by making a movie in which the U.S. was portrayed as a menace, and this is the result. I don’t know if it ever got a release in this country, but I doubt it; its anti-American stance and its addressing of race issues would have made it unwelcome here. There’s not a whole lot I could get out of the film on my viewing under these circumstances; with the exception of a handful of scenes, the movie is extremely talky and conveys its story through dialogue rather than visuals. One reaction I did have was that it might have had a bit of trouble seeming real; the story takes place in the U.S., but despite the presence of English words and lettering on all of the sets, the locations never quite look authentic, and though this probably wouldn’t have bothered a Russian audience, I think it wouldn’t have passed muster with an American audience. Think of it as the Soviet flip side to the “Red Scare” movies made here in the fifties.

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Battlestar Galactica (1978)

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (1978)
Article 4314 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-21-2013
Directed by Richard A. Colla
Featuring Richard Hatch, Dirk Benedict, Lorne Greene
Country: USA
What it is: TV Pilot space opera

When the twelve colonies are destroyed by an attack of the Cylons, the lone surviving battlestar gathers together the survivors and sets out to find a new home for humanity – Earth, the planet of legend from which they came.

I never got caught up in the hype surrounding the TV series when it debuted in 1978, probably because I watched very little TV at all at the time. I do remember that the critical reception to the show (and to this theatrical release of the pilot episode) was not good, with the most common accusation leveled at it being that it was ripping off STAR WARS. Without having seen it, my response to that criticism at the time would have been that the similarity was the whole point of making the thing in the first place.

Watching it here and now for the first time, I can understand the criticism; it looks like practically every element of the production of this pilot was doing double time in trying to imitate STAR WARS as much as it possibly could; there are quite a few moments here which directly reference similar moments in the earlier movie. However, there is one crucial difference; the plot itself is very different, and that’s the movie’s biggest saving grace.

Overall, this one is a mixed bag. The premise itself is interesting enough that I can see how it might make for a compelling series (and I can appreciate why, after the original series foundered, it would be remade many years later to great success). The plot gets a bit muddled at times, and because the movie places its biggest scenes near the beginning, it really drags in the middle. I also don’t care for the fact that the movie chooses to emphasize the adventures of the three fighter pilots (who I find rather dull and uninteresting) rather than the adventures of Commander Adama (who is played by a much better actor). I don’t care much for the subplot about the kid who misses his dog, but at least the dog robot that results from it isn’t annoying. Overall, the movie does entertain well enough, though some of the dialogue could use some work. And the movie has at least one moment that really wins me over, and that’s when it gives one of the Cylons a laugh line; I certainly never expected that.

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The Alchemist (1983)

THE ALCHEMIST (1983)
Article 4313 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-20-2013
Directed by Charles Band
Featuring Robert Ginty, Lucinda Dooling, John Sanderford
Country: USA
What it is: Low budget demonic horror movie

A woman and a man she picked up hitchhiking get embroiled in the fate of a man who has been cursed by an alchemist. Things get complicated when the woman turns out to look exactly like the cursed man’s former wife… and the woman the alchemist loved.

Well, I will give the movie at least some credit for the basic story, which is offbeat enough that it isn’t a total waste of time making your way to the ending. Granted, the movie needs all the help it can get; it’s cursed with a badly written script and some very weak acting. Even worse is the lethargic pacing, which is probably due to the fact that there’s too little story stretched out over too much running time. The opening encounter between the woman and the hitchhiker may be one of the most atrocious meet-cutes ever committed to celluloid, and when the movie gets around to unleashing the horde of demons, you’ll be disappointed that there’s only three of them and they’re absurdly easy to kill. Despite all this, the movie does manage to keep from being unwatchable, and there’s the occasional moment that works.

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The Extraordinary Adventures of Saturnino Farandola (1913)

THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF SATURNINO FARANDOLA (1913)
aka Le avventure straordinarissime di Saturnino Farandola, Zingo, Son of the Sea
Article 4312 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-18-2013
Directed by Marcel Perez
Featuring Marcel Perez, Nilde Baracchi, Alfredo Bertone
Country: Italy
What it is: Whimsical action movie

A man who was raised by monkeys as a baby is rescued and has adventures all around the world.

For some reason, this movie really stands out in the era that it came from; I’ve gotten the impression that most full-length silent movies from this time frame aspired to a certain degree of seriousness, and this one is pretty light-hearted. So I’m not entirely surprised to find out that it was originally shown as four shorts (which I”m guessing were each about thirty minutes long), and that this feature was edited together from them, though it appears that a third of the footage was left out in the process. There are four distinct segments here; the first is in Oceania where our hero has to save the woman he loves from an evil oceanographer, the second is in the Orient and involves the recovery of a sacred white elephant, the third is in Africa and appears to involve the rescue of two princesses from cannibals (this sequence is missing quite a bit of footage), and the fourth is in America where the hero gets embroiled in the Civil war and faces off with a character from a Jules Verne novel who has gone evil. Weird elements abound; there’s a sequence involving a woman swallowed by a giant fish, scenes involving monkeys and men in diving suits marching off to war, a battle in the sky involving hot air balloons, and, unless I’m very much mistaken, there’s a hint of a plot to steal Niagara Falls (which, since it never is addressed again, may be me hallucinating). The monkey and gorilla suits are certainly nothing to write home about, and the movie is often hard to follow (possibly due to the missing footage), but the whole thing is so charmingly bizarre that I’m tempted to hunt up the novel that inspired this. There are fantasy and science fiction touches to the story as well. This may well be one of the most entertaining of the early silent features.

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The Witch’s Revenge (1903)

THE WITCH’S REVENGE (1903)
aka Le sorcier
Article 4311 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-15-2013
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown
Country: France
What is it: Trick film with a plot

An old man arrested for practicing witchcraft pleads for his freedom to the king, who finally relents when the old man offers to perform tricks for the king’s pleasure.

Apparently, the use of the word “witch” in the English title is meant to be sex-independent, as our magician is male. It’s basically a trick film with a plot attached to it, and, given the fact that the tricks aren’t particularly novel this time round, that’s a good thing; the plot adds some interest to the proceedings. I notice that Melies resists the desire to feature dancing girls in this one; except for the ending where almost all of the characters cake-walk off the screen, there is no dancing. This makes for a mildly amusing three minutes.

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