The Cabbage-Patch Fairy (1900)

THE CABBAGE-PATCH FAIRY (1900)
aka La fee aux choux, ou la naissance des enfants
Article 4120 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-30-2012
Directed by Alice Guy
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Novelty short

A woman displays babies found in a cabbage patch.

Sometimes the title is the main source of the fantastic content of the movie; if this one had been called WOMAN FINDING BABIES HIDDEN IN A GARDEN, no one would have seen any fantastic content at all. It’s the title that tells us that the woman is a fairy, and the garden is where the babies come from. Well, at least the movie doesn’t steal any special effects from Melies, but that’s because there are no special effects to speak of; the babies are hidden behind garden displays, and she just finds them and sets them down in our line of vision. And that’s about all this slight little short gives us.

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The Enchanted Drawing (1900)

THE ENCHANTED DRAWING (1900)
Article 4119 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-29-2012
Directed by J. Stuart Blackton
Featuring J. Stuart Blackton
Country: USA
What it is: Early trick short

An artist draws a face and several items on a large pad. The face reacts as the artist pulls the various items from the pad and uses them.

This is a simply conceived but well-executed trick film. It’s basically the simple trick of stopping the camera and substituting new items, but it’s done with a sense of wit. It isn’t quite an animated film, but it does point in the direction of animation and can be seen as a film connecting the dots between animation and the simple substitution trick. Blackton himself seems at ease as the artist at work, and this also makes the short fun to watch.

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Hot Water (1924)

HOT WATER (1924)
Article 4118 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-28-2012
Directed by Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor
Featuring Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston, Josephine Crowell
Country: USA
What it is: Comedy

A newlywed discovers that married life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be… especially when the in-laws show up.

As this movie was closing in on its last few minutes, I found myself scratching my head over what the fantastic content was, and found myself checking the Don Willis guide (which listed the movie) and the Walt Lee guide (which consigned it to the “out” list). I was just about to consign it to the land of genre false alarms when the movie, in the last four minutes, threw in all of the fantastic elements at once; there’s a resurrection from the dead, a ghost, a haunted house, and a crawling hand. Granted, they’re all misunderstandings, but at least they were finally there.

As for the movie in its entirety, I found it a highly entertaining entry in the oeuvre of Harold Lloyd. Like so many of the comedies of this type, it plays like a series of shorts, and falls roughly into three sections. In the first, Harold has to negotiate his way home while carrying a huge amount of groceries, a problem further complicated when he wins a prize turkey that is very much alive. The second section has Lloyd taking the family out for a spin in the new family car, only to have disaster follow in its wake. The final sequence has Lloyd getting drunk so he can stand up to his mother-in-law, but ends up mistakenly believing that he has inadvertently murdered her; it is the complications that follow this sequence that lead to the fantastic content. Lloyd is such a confident and likable presence that he makes it all work smoothly; my favorite sequence has him mistaking the meaning of the actions and words of several people to reinforce his fear that he has committed murder. This is a truly amusing comedy.

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Secrets of Sex (1970)

SECRETS OF SEX (1970)
aka Bizarre
Article 4117 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-27-2012
Directed by Antony Balch
Featuring Richard Schulman, Janet Spearman, Dorothy Grumbar
Country: UK
What it is: Anthology involving sex

A mummy narrates a series of stories involving the battle of the sexes.

To be truthful, I was expecting a movie that would settle for little more than a series of sex scenes, and the cover of the DVD package certainly did little to convince me otherwise. I turned out to be wrong; the movie has a theme (namely, the stranger manifestations of the battle of the sexes) and it sticks to it, as each of the sequences does deal in some way or another with sexual politics and manipulation, and not just sex per se. In fact, some of the sequences don’t even involve nudity; the opening story about a man who thinks his wife’s lover may be hidden in a trunk certainly has none. It doesn’t quite live up to the claim to be one of the strangest movies ever made, but it gets a lot closer than I thought it would. Outside of the framing device (an ancient mummy narrates the various stories), a couple of the stories do have fantastic content; the story about the photographer doing a study on torture lapses into horror before it’s all through, there’s a spy pastiche among the stories, and the story about the old woman and the greenhouse has some fantasy elements. Those catching it for the sex scenes only will be the ones most disappointed; I found myself rather intrigued and amused by the whole thing. I found this one to be much better than I thought it would be.

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The Mystery of the Rocks of Kador (1912)

THE MYSTERY OF THE ROCKS OF KADOR (1912)
aka Le mystere des roches de Kador, In the Grip of the Vampire
Article 4116 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-26-2012
Directed by Leonce Perret
Featuring Suzanne Grandais, Emile Keppens, Leonce Perret
Country: France
What it is: Melodrama

An heiress is under the guardianship of her tutor, but the latter stands to inherit the fortune for himself is something happens to his ward. The tutor plots against the heiress…

One of the first things I noticed about this one was how familiar the basic premise was. Then I realized it was the same premise that drives the whole serial THE PERILS OF PAULINE, and the fact that the villain of that serial resembles the villain of this short (played by the director, Leonce Perret) makes me wonder if this might have influenced the other one. This is also one of those movies that ended up on my “ones that got away” list because I hadn’t been able to match up the title that I was given (IN THE GRIP OF THE VAMPIRE) with the French title of this one; it was only with the help of a member of CHFB that I was able to make the connection. The fantastic content of this one includes a drug that renders the heroine unconscious, and an original and rather intriguing cure for the madness of the heroine; the crime is recreated in a film and shown to the heiress, thus restoring her sanity. On the surface the story seems a bit silly, but Leonce Perret was a skilled and innovative director, and that skill goes a long way towards making this one an intriguing and fun movie, with strong acting, creative staging, and a nice sense of character.

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Jesus of Nazareth (1912)

JESUS OF NAZARETH (1912)
aka From the Manger to the Cross
Article 4115 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-25-2012
Directed by Sidney Olcott
Featuring Robert Henderson-Bland, Percy Dyer, Gene Gauntier
Country: USA
What it is: The tale of Jesus Christ

The life of Jesus Christ is told from the angel’s visit to Mary to Jesus’s ascension into heaven.

I do not gear my series toward the holidays, but this one came up spontaneously as my title for Christmas Day, which, though it can’t be called strictly a Christmas movie, is closer than I’ve ever gotten before. It’s listed in the Walt Lee reference guide for fantastic films due to the fact that many of the events (the angelic visitations, the miracles, the resurrection, etc.) qualify as fantastic content, and that is why I’m covering it. It is pretty much what I would expect of a silent treatment of the life of Christ; the movie forgoes Christ’s teachings for the obvious reason that this would swamp the movie with words, and emphasizes the highlights of Christ’s life story. I’m not surprised it’s very faithful; I doubt that the audiences for which it was intended would have tolerated anything else. The movie originally ended with the crucifixion of Christ, but a rerelease several years later added the Resurrection and Ascension sequences that were on the version I saw. This explains one thing I was curious about; throughout the movie, every title card consists of a direct Biblical quote (by verse and chapter) until after the crucifixion, when the technique is abandoned. All in all, it’s an acceptable adaptation for its era.

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Ein Mann Geht durch die Wand (1959)

EIN MANN GEHT DURCH DIE WAND (1959)
aka The Man Who Walked through the Wall
Article 4114 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-24-2012
Directed by Ladislao Vajda
Featuring Heinz Ruhmann, Rudolf Vogel, Hubert von Meyerinck
Country: West Germany
What it is: Fantasy comedy

When a clerk develops the ability to walk through walls, he uses it to take vengeance on his boss and to romance a young lady he has fallen for.

When I noticed that this movie was classified as a ‘comedy’ and a ‘romance’ on IMDB, and knowing that the movie was about a man who developed the ability to walk through walls, I found myself wondering if this was a remake of MR. PEEK-A-BOO. And, sure enough, both movies are based on the same source novel. I was only able to find this one in a German language version, but having already a certain familiarity with the basic story, and the fact that much of what happens is conveyed visually, I more or less was able to follow the main thread of the action. And, despite the language barrier, I found I liked this one better than either of the other two versions I’ve seen; it not only makes much better use of the central gimmick, but I sense it has a bit more warmth and likability around the edges. Heinz Ruhmann is quite effective in the title role, and my favorite scene has him getting drunk and using his power frivolously. All in all, the language barrier didn’t keep me from enjoying this one.

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The Frog (1908)

THE FROG (1908)
aka La grenouille
Article 4113 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-23-2012
Directed by Segundo de Chomon
Featuring Julienne Mathieu
Country: France
What it is: Spectacle trick short

A woman summons a frog from a fountain, which she then kisses. She takes his place in the fountain, which then turns into a variety of objects, including a giant frog, the head of an old man, and a variety of carousels.

There’s no real plot to this one; it’s basically a premise designed to show a variety of tableaux enhanced by special effects. Chomon may have borrowed many of his special effects tricks from Melies, but he does appear to have his own unique vibe, and I sense that he enjoyed making these movies. This is not one of his better works, but it is mildly entertaining.

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The Four Troublesome Heads (1898)

THE FOUR TROUBLESOME HEADS (1898)
aka Un homme de tetes
Article 4112 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-22-2012
Directed by Georges Melies
Featuring Georges Melies, and parts of Georges Melies
Country: France
What it is: Early trick short

A magician detaches his own head three times so he can sing a song in four-part harmony. The results leave something to be desired.

Apparently Georges Melies’s still-attached head is one of the four in question, as he only has three disembodied heads to contend with in this early trick short. It’s quick fun, and, at only one minute’s length, efficient. This is one of his most memorable trick shorts.

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A Colour Box (1935)

A COLOUR BOX (1935)
Article 4111 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-21-2012
Directed by Len Lye
No cast
Country: UK
What it is: Abstract animation/commercial

Abstract images pulse along to Brazilian music, and then you find out what a good deal it is to ship your packages with GPO.

This is, like ESCAPE, another venture into the world of abstract animation, which throws it into the realm of borderline fantasy. Reportedly, the film was not originally a commercial for the GPO (General Post Office); the latter bought the rights to the short, and added the advertisements that pop up during the last minute. Still, at least these advertisements seem well integrated into the short, enough so that they actually added a bit of charm to the proceedings. I quite like abstract animation, as long as it doesn’t go on too long, and this clocks in at about three to four minutes.

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