The Fall of the House of Usher (1928)

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER (1928)
Article 3940 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-24-2012
Posting Date: 5-28-2012
Directed by James Sibley Watson and Melville Webber
Featuring Herbert Stern, Hildegarde Watson, Melville Webber
Country: USA
What it is: Arty Poe adaptation

A traveler arrives at the house of Usher to discover that Roderick’s sister has been buried alive.

This isn’t the only adaptation of this Poe story from 1928; I covered the striking Jean Epstein version some time ago. Yet this one is equally striking, and it uses some truly astonishing camera tricks. At only 13 minutes, it is an extremely condensed version of the story, and I suspect if you aren’t familiar with the story, you’ll have a pretty tough time figuring out what’s going on. Still, I would be hard pressed to pick between the two versions; both are highly effective and have compelling imagery, with this one using the image of a hammer quite effectively. It’s worth catching.

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Haunted Spooks (1920)

HAUNTED SPOOKS (1920)
Short
Article 3939 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-22-2012
Posting Date: 5-27-2012
Directed by Alfred J. Goulding and Hal Roach
Featuring Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Wallace Howe
Country: USA
What it is: Comic haunted house short

A boy courts an unmarried girl who is the heiress to a fortune, provided she stays there one year with her husband. However, he has rivals for the girl’s affection, and there’s a scheming uncle who wants the inheritance for himself…

This is my only encounter so far with Harold Lloyd in my series, and even though I can’t say I’m familiar with his work, I suspect that this isn’t one of the high points. Still, it’s a pretty decent take on the old haunted house comedy, even though I think the comic high point (Lloyd tries unsuccessfully to commit suicide) comes before we even reach the haunted house section. The film also suffers a bit from the stereotypical scared black, with the entire work crew of the house panicking when they hear the place is haunted. Of course, it’s not really haunted, and we all know that early on. But as far as silent haunted house short comedies go, I think I’ll still opt for Buster Keaton’s THE HAUNTED HOUSE.

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The Electric Grandmother (1982)

THE ELECTRIC GRANDMOTHER (1982)
aka Ray Bradbury’s The Electric Grandmother
TV-Movie
Article 3938 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-22-2012
Posting Date: 5-26-2012
Directed by Noel Black
Featuring Maureen Stapleton, Edward Herrmann, Paul Benedict
Country: USA
What it is: Bittersweet science fantasy

A family grieving the loss of the mother decide to take advantage of an offer to get a robot grandmother. The new grandmother wins the hearts of the father and the two boys, but will she be able to win over the inconsolable daughter?

I was a little disappointed by this adaptation of the Ray Bradbury story “I Sing the Body Electric” during the first twenty minutes; I found it lacking in that poetic verve I expect from a Bradbury adaptation. However, the movie does a quick turnaround once the grandmother arrives and the story begins to focus on her relationship with the daughter, whose grief has given way to bitterness and anger. It is the movie’s focus on grief and the fear of loss that gives it its dimension, and it effectively taps into that desire that those we love will be with us forever by giving us a parental figure who won’t go away; the final scene in which the children have become old enough to be grandparents themselves is very moving. The movie isn’t flashy, but it resonates emotionally and it keeps its magic simple. Recommended.

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The Jungle Book (1967)

THE JUNGLE BOOK (1967)
Article 3937 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-17-2012
Posting Date: 5-25-2012
Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman
Featuring the voices of Phil Harris, Sebastian Cabot, Bruce Reitherman
Country: USA
What it is: Animated fantasy

An abandoned baby is raised by wolves in the jungle. When a man-hating tiger returns to the area, a panther undertakes to escort the young boy to the man-village for safety, but the boy wants to remain in the jungle and runs away. Can the panther and a bear befriended by the boy save him before he encounters the tiger?

This is the first movie I actually saw in a theater, so it’s no surprise that I have a real affection for the movie. Had there been home video in those days, I probably would have gotten a copy and seen it over and over again. As it is, many years passed before I saw it again, and by that time, I’d had a chance to see many of Disney’s other animated features, and I came to the sad realization that it didn’t rank with the company’s very best work. Watching it now, I think the primary problem I have with it is that its episodic structure makes the movie seem a bit aimless, and though there is talk of Shere Khan the tiger, he really doesn’t appear until the movie is half over. I think the movie would have worked better had Shere Khan appeared much earlier in the action; it would have added an urgency to the trek to bring the boy to the village. I do like the choice of George Sanders as the voice of the tiger. Still, the one thing I remember most from the initial viewing in the theater is Mowgli’s encounter with the orangutan king, and that remains my favorite musical moment from the movie. And if I don’t place the movie in the front rank of Disney’s animated features, I do at least recognize it as being one of the strongest of Disney’s animated movies from that period in their history.

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Zoltan: Hound of Dracula (1978)

ZOLTAN: HOUND OF DRACULA (1978)
aka Dracula’s Dog
Article 3936 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-16-2012
Posting Date: 5-23-2012
Directed by Albert Band
Featuring Michael Pataki, Jan Shutan, Libby Chase
Country: USA / Italy
What it is: Vampires with fleas

When a vampire’s tomb is unearthed in Romania, a half-vampire manservant of Dracula’s is revived as well as a vampiric dog. Together they seek the last of the Dracula line, who is living in Los Angeles. Their mission – to turn the man into a vampire so they can serve him.

Okay, I’ll buy that if Dracula had a dog, he’d name him something other than Fido or Rover. The movie has a pretty bad reputation, and although I think it’s a little better than that, I mean by only a hair. The biggest problem is the rather silly plot, though it’s not appreciably sillier than the title would lead you to believe. There’s a scene of a dog having a flashback, lots of close-ups of Reggie Nalder (I think Nalder has a great face for a horror movie, but it’s possible to overuse him, and this movie does so), a side character whose only purpose in the movie is to be torn to shreds, lots of glowing dog eyes, and a twist ending that won’t surprise anyone because it’s been set up a little too memorably to be forgotten by the time it’s needed. Despite the silly story, it still might have worked had the direction been stronger; as it is, the title is really the most memorable thing about the movie.

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The Doll (1919)

THE DOLL (1919)
aka Die Puppe
Article 3935 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-15-2012
Posting Date: 5-23-2012
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Featuring Josefine Dora, Victor Janson, Max Kronert
Country: Germany
What it is: Fantasy love story

The timid nephew of a Baron takes refuge in a monastery when his uncle seeks to force the young man into marrying. When the monks discover that the baron is offering a huge dowry to the woman who marries the nephew, they convince the young man to get the money by marrying a life-like automaton created by a doll maker named Hilarius. The nephew marries the automaton, unaware that the doll-maker’s daughter has actually substituted herself for the automaton.

Ernst Lubitsch’s movies don’t venture into the fantastic genres very often; this is only the third one I’ve seen for this series. The other two are considered his two weakest movies by IMDB; this one is easily the best of the bunch. At first I was wondering how much fantastic content there would be; the first description merely talked about the man marrying a doll who wasn’t really a doll, which by itself doesn’t make it qualify, but the elaborateness of the automatons here does push it into science fiction territory. Furthermore, the whole movie is shot in a non-realistic style in much of the same manner as THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI was, though the style is markedly different. The non-realistic approach manifests itself in some interesting ways; the horse-drawn carriage is being drawn by two sets of men in horse suits, and it’s a tribute to how well the movie works that you’re willing to buy into it. There’s also some animation and stop-motion sequences as well. I found the movie highly amusing; Lubitsch does a great job of getting wonderful reactions from his character, and Ossi Oswalda steals the movie in an excellent performance as the girl pretending to be an automaton. This one was delightful.

P.S. Actually, I discovered that I’ve seen two other Lubitsch films for this project, though this one is still towards the top of the list.

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Danse Macabre (1922)

DANSE MACABRE (1922)
Article 3934 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-13-2012
Posting Date: 5-22-2012
Directed by Dudley Murphy
Featuring Adolph Bolm, Olin Howland, Ruth Page
Country: USA
What it is: Eight-minute horror ballet

Youth and Love find themselves threatened by Death.

Lest we forget, silent movies weren’t shown silent; they had musicians performing to them. Therefore it makes a certain amount of sense that a silent ballet could be made out of a well-known classical piece, as this one does of Saint-Saens’s “Danse macabre”. It’s an engaging little short, using animation and double-exposure to tell the tale of a young couple threatened by a fiddle-playing figure of Death. Incidentally, the latter role is played by the old man in THE BLOB; namely, Olin Howland. My favorite part of this one may be the animation of the movie title, in which a number of small animated figures all move slightly to spell out the title.

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La llorona (1933)

LA LLORONA (1933)
aka The Crying Woman
Article 3933 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-12-2012
Posting Date: 5-21-2012
Directed by Ramon Peon
Featuring Ramon Pereda, Virginia Zuri, Carlos Orellana
Country: Mexico
What it is: Ghost, curse and possession story

When their son reaches the age of four, a couple fears for his safety, since the family is under a curse that causes the oldest son of each generation to die on their fourth birthday. Will they be able to break the curse?

The print I saw of this movie is from the only known TV transmission in the last decade, and the print is in terrible shape, as it has bad sound and much of the dialogue is out of sync with the action. My problems were further enhanced by the fact that it is in unsubtitled Spanish, but fortunately, I found a decent plot description that gave me enough of a plot summary to help me along. Yet, despite the creakiness, there is a certain amount of visual flair and atmosphere to this early Mexican horror movie, and there are some eerie scenes of the ghost of the crying woman (the source of the curse) rising out of the bodies of the victims she possesses. Once again, I find myself wishing someone would take the trouble to restore the Mexican horror movies of the era; they seem to be of unusually high quality.

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The World’s Greatest Athlete (1973)

THE WORLD’S GREATEST ATHLETE (1973)
Article 3932 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-10-2012
Posting Date: 5-20-2012
Directed by Robert Scheerer
Featuring Tim Conway, Jan-Michael Vincent, John Amos
Country: USA
What it is: Shopping cart movie

A coach discovers a boy in the jungles of Zambia who has incredible athletic powers, and tricks the boy into coming back to American with him. But what will happen when the boy’s witch doctor godfather comes to take him back home?

For some reason, I was incredibly eager to see this movie back when I was in Junior High. In retrospect, I think it was the presence of top-billed Tim Conway, a comic actor who I loved from his work on “The Carol Burnett Show”. I never did get a chance to see the movie in a theater, but I caught it several years later on TV … and was promptly underwhelmed. The script is one of the weakest of the Disney shopping cart movies, and the direction is uninspired and pedestrian. As for Conway, he’s stuck in a role that doesn’t play to his strengths, and his comic dialogue is pretty lame; his best moment is when he’s under the spell of a voodoo doll made in his image, which emphasizes physical shtick instead of dialogue. In fact, the best performance here is from Roscoe Lee Browne, who plays Gazenga the witch doctor; it may be a silly role, but Browne plays it with a charming confidence and an authority that transcends the silliness. Actually, the most impressive thing about the film is the presence of a tiger who actually seems to be interacting with the actors and not just trainers; this must have been one well-trained animal.

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The Tenant (1976)

THE TENANT (1976)
aka La locataire
Article 3931 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-9-2012
Posting Date: 5-19-2012
Directed by Roman Polanski
Featuring Roman Polanski, Isabelle Adjani, Melvyn Douglas
Country: France
What it is: Psychological horror

A shy man takes an apartment whose former occupant committed suicide. He finds the neighbors and the management hostile, and grows to believe they are forcing him to become the former tenant… and to also kill himself.

This rather odd horror movie is something like a cross between ROSEMARY’S BABY and REPULSION, with the sinister neighbors of the former crossed with the descent into madness of the latter. The fascinating thing is that we’re never quite sure whether the various incidents he undergoes are the result of a plot, coincidence, or an overactive imagination, though the end of the movie clearly shows a descent into madness that tinges everything. Though I don’t like the movie quite as well as either of the two movies mentioned above, it does have a power to it, and I’m sure anyone who has ever had to deal with difficult fellow apartment dwellers will find something to relate to here. It is interesting to see how the various events cause the man to start identifying with the former (female) tenant, from the fact that he changes his cigarette brand to match hers to the way he ends up establishing relationships with the people that formerly knew her. The ending is a bit of a question mark, and I suspect it could be interpreted in various ways.

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