Mickey’s Ape Man (1933)

MICKEY’S APE MAN (1933)
Article 3960 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-23-2012
Directed by Jesse Duffy
Featuring Mickey Rooney, Billy Barty, Kendall McComas
Country: USA
What it is: Comedy short

Mickey hopes to win a prize by doing the best imitation of an ape man as part of a movie promotion. But is one of the other members of his gang a better choice to be the ape man?

It looks like the McGuire’s Gang shorts (of which this is a member) were like The Little Rascals, albeit more in a slapstick mode; some of the gags are the type you’d expect in animated cartoons. Just on the surface, this seems pretty marginal in terms of its fantastic content; after all, Tarzan movies are generally on the marginal side, and a short about kids imitating the Tarzan movies seem even further away from the genre. However, since the kids are practicing near one of the least secure zoos in the country, they end up having to face off with an escaped gorilla, and since gorillas often substituted for monsters, I’ll give this one a pass. I wish I knew who played the gorilla; at times it looks like it might be Charley Gemora, but other times not. At any rate, Billy Barty steals the show here.

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Rapsodia Satanica (1920)

RAPSODIA SATANICA (1920)
aka Satanic Rhapsody
Article 3959 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-21-2012
Directed by Nino Oxilia
Featuring Lyda Borelli, Andrea Habay, Ugo Bazzini
Country: Italy
What it is: A deal with the devil

An old woman makes a pact with the devil to regain her youth; in return, she must not fall prey to the emotion of love. But that’s harder said than done…

I quite like this efficient little take on the deal with the devil story, at least partially because Ugo Bazzini gives a fun little performance as Mephisto, the devil who makes his offer to the old woman; I like the way he creeps around at the edges of scenes waiting for his opportunities to spread misery and unhappiness. Lyda Borelli also does a good job as the “Faust” character, though it does require quite a bit of sympathy with the silent (as in opposition to talkie) mode of acting, as she does come off as a bit too obvious at times. I like the prologue and the first act the best; the second act seems to be mostly about the main character being depressed, and that gets a bit old after a bit. Nonetheless, this is an interesting silent Italian film.

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Toomorrow (1970)

TOOMORROW (1970)
Article 3958 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-20-2012
Directed by Val Guest
Featuring Olivia Newton-John, Benny Thomas, Vic Cooper
Country: UK
What it is: Science fiction musical comedy

Space aliens plan to kidnap a pop group whose music has a healing effect on them, but the group wants to return to Earth. Can they go back, solve all their personal problems, and make it to the big concert on time?

If this movie has an audience out there, it’s probably mostly for die-hard Olivia Newton-John fans who are curious to see her from before she became famous. Outside of that, the most interesting credit is that of Val Guest, who directed the first two Quatermass movies, but I’ve seen enough of his work in other genres to know that his name in a movie is no guarantee of anything. As for the movie itself, it’s a harmless piece of fluff; the group plays mostly bland feel-good pop ditties that do little for me, the comedy is equally bland (for the most part, that is; it gets a little sexy on occasion and even has a touch of nudity), and, despite the space alien angle, the plot is mostly concerned the various romantic entanglements of the group members. Overall, the feel is like a watered-down beach party movie, only without the beach… or the fun. I did laugh once. As for Newton-John (of whom I’m not a fan), all I can say is that she does have the pipes, but it’s easy to see why she had to go solo before she made it big.

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In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro (1986)

IN THE SHADOW OF KILIMANJARO (1986)
Article 3957 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-19-2012
Directed by Raju Patel
Featuring John Rhys-Davies, Timothy Bottoms, Irene Miracle
Country: UK / Kenya
What it is: Nature runs amok

A drought causes large groups of baboons to go on a rampage of destruction and killing.

When I first heard about this movie, I thought the very idea of making baboons the menace to be pretty silly. I realize now that this was because I was reacting to the metaphorical use of the word “baboon” as a derogatory term; from what I gather, they can truly be very dangerous beasts. I think the movie does a decent job of establishing them as something to be feared, so the preconception doesn’t do a whole lot of damage. There are also some effective shots of hoards of baboons about to go on the attack, with the scene where a man is trying to change a tire while this happens being the most memorable. However, that doesn’t mean the movie is effective; a weak script, uninspired direction and bad editing all conspire to take the suspense and excitement out of movie; it ends up feeling awkward and clumsy rather than scary. Yet I think it’s biggest problems are ones brought on by failing to use the environment effectively. The areas of Kenya where the movie takes place could have been filmed to heighten the sense of fear and isolation, but the photography fails to catch any of that. And this is one of those movies that would have benefited from the use of silent and ambient sound to increase the tension; the use of a symphonic score throughout just makes the movie feel overbearing, especially when it tries to heighten the suspense in scenes where there is no reason to do so. In the final analysis, the movie fails to hit the mark.

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Rogues Gallery (1944)

ROGUES GALLERY (1944)
Article 3956 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-18-2012
Directed by Albert Herman
Featuring Frank Jenks, Robin Raymond, H.B. Warner
Country: USA
What it is: A wisecracking reporter mystery

A wisecracking reporter and her photographer attempt to get an interview with an inventor who has developed an amazing new eavesdropping device. However, they stumble upon murder and intrigue when it becomes obvious someone is trying to steal the plans for the device.

The fantastic content in this one is a Gizmo Maguffin, but there are two types of Gizmo Maguffins. There’s the pure Gizmo Maguffin, in which the device isn’t used at all but merely a pawn in the melodramatic turns of the story. And then there is the self-referencing Gizmo Maguffin, in which the device is used to solve the mystery of the attempts to steal it. Given the nature of this device, I wasn’t surprised it turned out to be the latter of the two. In fact, very little surprised me here; the characters are straight out of the reporter cliche playbook, the plot turns are by-the-numbers, and even the identity of the villain is mind-numbingly obvious. On a side note, you will note that I omitted any apostrophes in the title. So did the title card in the movie, though I do note that some of the promotional materials (the image on IMDB, for example) do use an apostrophe.

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The Ghost Train (1931)

THE GHOST TRAIN (1931)
Article 3955 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-17-2012
Directed by Walter Forde
Featuring Jack Hulbert, Cicely Courtneidge, Ann Todd
Country: UK
What it is: Another ghost train movie

Several people get stranded in a remote train station during a storm. The station seems to be haunted by a ghost train as well.

I’m stretching things a bit to include this one; this early talkie only partially exists, and most of the reels that still exist lack the soundtrack. Fortunately, since I’ve seen two other versions of this particular story, I wasn’t exactly baffled by what I saw, but I do suspect that anyone who wasn’t familiar with the story would have trouble sorting it out. Still, with what little sound I did have to go on, I’ve come to the conclusion that one definite flaw of the story itself is it makes a rather annoying comic character the center of the action; even if the actor playing him is decent, his actions make him more irritating than funny. Fortunately, the final reel is one of the surviving reels, and it’s also one of the only two that has sound, so the climax of the story (which is pretty good) is intact. Nonetheless, I don’t think it holds a candle to the 1927 version of the movie, which for me is the most impressive of the lot.

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The Eyes of Annie Jones (1964)

THE EYES OF ANNIE JONES (1964)
Article 3954 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-12-2012
Directed by Reginald Le Borg
Featuring Richard Conte, Francesca Annis, Joyce Carey
Country: UK / USA
What it is: Psychic thriller

When a woman disappears (though she has actually been murdered and her body hidden), her family enlist the help of a teenage psychic to find her whereabouts.

This movie has been on my “ones that got away” list for some time, but it’s one I expected would eventually turn up and it finally has. And though I’m always glad when a rarity manifests itself, I don’t necessarily expect it to be a hidden gem, and this one certainly isn’t. It’s one of those stories that really doesn’t have enough to it to sustain a feature length movie, even one that runs under seventy-five minutes. So, after the opening murder, the movie gets bogged down in tedious and uninteresting details, mostly emphasizing the teenage psychic girl’s attraction to the missing woman’s womanizing brother. The ending was particularly disappointing in the way it handles the fantastic elements; if it doesn’t go so far as to debunk them, it nonetheless relegates them to the realm of the inconsequential. In the end, I found the movie dull and ordinary.

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En Route (1910)

EN ROUTE (1910)
aka The World’s Progress from Stone Age to Airships
Article 3953 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-11-2012
Directed by Emile Cohl
No cast
Country: France
What it is: Animated meditation on progress

The development of various modes of transportation are explored.

The English title for this one promises quite a bit for what is in essence a five minute short, but once I realized it was directed by Emile Cohl, I figured it wouldn’t prove to be a hopeless task. It restricts itself largely to the development of transportation, and takes three trips through history – for transportation on land, transportation on water, and transportation in the air. Each trip begins with a caveman speculating on how to advance, which is what gives the movie its science fiction content. Oddly enough, the caveman never invents the wheel, which is what you’d think would be the first act; instead, it deals with his idea of catching and taming horses for transportation. The movie even dabbles in a little social satire, hinting that maybe all this progress isn’t necessarily a good thing. Not bad for a five-minute short.

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The Last Chase (1981)

THE LAST CHASE (1981)
Article 3952 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-9-2012
Directed by Martyn Burke
Featuring Lee Majors, Burgess Meredith, Chris Makepeace
Country: Canada / USA
What it is: Dystopian car chase movie

In the future, the world has run out of oil and a plague has destroyed a large portion of humanity. A former race car driver turned public transit spokesman turns rogue, rebuilds his race car, and, with the help of a young rebel, sets out on the road to escape from his oppressive society to a new community across the country in California. The authorities decide to enlist the aid of a former jet pilot to fly a fighter plane and destroy the car.

I thought the premise itself (a jet plane chasing a race car) was pretty silly until it became clear to me that the plane’s purpose was to destroy the car; at that point, I was able to accept the premise a bit more. However, the movie has other problems. The three villainous authority figures are more annoying than frightening, with George Touliatos in particular given to overacting on his big speeches. Furthermore, their characters seem utterly dim; if they couldn’t see that the pilot was an eccentric loose cannon who was more apt to sympathize with the race car driver than with the authorities (which I was able to tell immediately and which the race car driver figures out without even meeting him), then they show an appalling lack of character judgment. The character of the young rebel is very poorly thought out, and the movie has a bad habit of relying on dull and repetitive camera angles. Yet I think the movie’s biggest flaw is this; there’s something potentially incredibly visceral about the idea of a cross-country race; anyone whose seen VANISHING POINT knows what can be done with the idea. This movie never once taps into that sense, and the driving scenes are dull and mundane rather than exciting and thrilling. That problem alone is what really sinks this movie.

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La dama de la muerte (1946)

LA DAMA DE LA MUERTE (1946)
aka The Lady and Death
Article 3951 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-8-2012
Directed by Carlos Hugo Christensen
Featuring Carlos Cores, Judith Sulian, Guillermo Battaglia
Country: Chile
What it is: Another version of “The Suicide Club”

A desperate man joins a suicide club, but afterwards finds a reason to keep living. Unfortunately, he has been dealt the losing card…

Here’s another foreign movie that has no English subtitles to help me out, but it does seem to be cut from rather familiar cloth; it’s another version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Suicide Club”. It’s also one of the movies that Jerry Warren pillaged for footage for THE CURSE OF THE STONE HAND, and though I suppose I could rewatch that one to help me over some of the rough spots of this one, I somehow don’t think it will help much. This is perhaps the most elaborate version of the story I’ve seen, but most of the others have been as parts of anthology films. There are some striking visual moments, though; I love the parts where they actually play the game, because each of the members of the club has his own quirks about how they pick up and show the card. Nonetheless, the lack of subtitles does mar the viewing a bit, especially during the second half of the movie when you’re waiting for the other shoe to fall. Still, this one looks fairly decent. Still, I do wonder just how much this story can be classified as genre.

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