The Living Idol (1957)

THE LIVING IDOL (1957)
Article 3550 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-11-2011
Posting Date: 5-4-2011
Directed by Rene Cardona and Albert Lewin
Featuring Steve Forrest, Lilane Montevecchi, James Robertson Justice
Country: USA / Mexico
What it is: Reincarnation and ancient curses

A young woman becomes the focus of a scientist fascinated by the history of human sacrifice who believes she might be the reincarnation of the victim of an ancient ritual involving sacrifice to a jaguar god… and he’s intent on testing his theory.

This movie sat on my hunt list for the longest time before a copy showed up. I’m very glad to have finally seen it; in some ways, it’s a variation on your basic “mad scientist” movie, only centered on reincarnation, superstition and ancient rituals. The end result is often fascinating; I’ve never really seen a story like this, and there are moments that are startlingly effective. Yet, for all that, the movie is a misfire; despite a fascinating story, it suffers from awkward and bizarre pacing, and its potentially scary scenes are badly ruined by an over-reliance on clumsy narration. I suspect that the problem may be that co-director Albert Lewin also wrote the novel on which the movie was based, and I found myself wondering if he just couldn’t let go of certain prose passages. Yet, between the fascinating characters and ideas, I firmly believe this could have been a classic. In my personal opinion, this is the type of movie that should be remade in the hopes that someone can circumvent the problems and make it work. As it is, I’m very glad to have seen it, but understand why the movie is rather difficult to find and appreciate.

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Genuine (1920)

GENUINE (1920)
Article 3549 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-10-2011
Posting Date: 5-3-2011
Directed by Robert Wiene
Featuring Fern Andro, Hans Heinrich von Twardwoski, Ernst Gronau
Country: Germany

A Lord keeps a dangerous wild woman locked up because of her destructive seductive powers over men. However, she escapes, and….

Robert Wiene is known primarily as the director of THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI. This movie is done in roughly the same style, which makes it at least visually of interest. However, I’m a little reticent at judging the movie based on the print I’ve seen, seeing as it is the 43-minute condensation of the movie; there are obviously scenes missing. Those expecting a conventional vampire will be disappointed; the title character is more of a vamp/femme fatale, which were commonly called vampires in that era. The story is muddled; why does the ring keep the servant in line? How did the barber’s son get away from Genuine? Just what powers does she have? The movie is never really clear about these, and overall it’s just not a very satisfying movie. Still, I think the skeleton clock is a nice piece of decor.

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Liebe, Tod und Teufel (1934)

LIEBE, TOD UND TEUFEL (1934)
aka Love, Death and the Devil
Article 3548 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-9-2011
Posting Date: 5-2-2011
Directed by Heinz Hilpert and Reinhart Steinbicker
Featuring Kathe von Nagy, Albin Skoda, Brigitte Horney
Country: Germany
What it is: Deal with the devil variation

A man buys a magic bottle that will grant him anything he wishes… but if he doesn’t sell it to someone for less than he paid, he will lose his soul.

I knew when I was going into this that I would be watching an unsubtitled German language film, so I was hoping to find a good plot description to help me sort it out. Alas, all I was able to find were some short plot descriptions with the above stated plot, but it’s not enough to sort out the subtleties of the story. I’m assuming that this is pretty late in the chain of affairs for this bottle, when the price is so low it would be next to impossible to sell the bottle for less. There’s some interesting scenes here and there that I’d like to find out more about; in particular, I wonder what the one man has on his back that frightens away his Oriental manservants. From what I can tell, the movie is mostly famous nowadays for having a classic song sung by Brigitte Horney.

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A Roadside Inn (1906)

A ROADSIDE INN (1906)
aka L’hotel des voyageurs de commerce
Article 3547 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-6-2011
Posting Date: 5-1-2011
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Minor Melies

Three pranksters invite a drunkard to spend a night in a room in a hotel so they can play jokes on him.

The primary joke involves a dummy dressed up to look like a ghost and run by strings; this is to frighten the drunkard. For a Melies film, this is singularly unambitious, though it does have a sort of split-screen effect with half of the screen in the bedroom and the other half out in the hall. Though the fantastic content involving the ghost is faked, the ending has a twist that moves it into the realm of fantasy, although I’m not sure of exactly what happened. As stated above, this is fairly minor entry in Melies’s oeuvre.

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Scalpel (1977)

SCALPEL (1977)
aka False Face
Article 3546 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-5-2011
Posting Date: 4-30-2011
Directed by John Grissmer
Featuring Robert Lansing, Judith Chapman, Arlen Dean Snyder
Country: USA
What it is: Southern melodrama

A plastic surgeon rescues a mutilated stripper with the intent of changing her face to that of his daughter’s, who disappeared some time ago. The purpose: to get his hands on a fortune inherited by his daughter. However, complications arise…

The plastic surgery doppelganger plot doesn’t really make this a horror movie, but the fact that the plastic surgeon isn’t just unscrupulous but downright insane does add some horror touches to the plot. It has its fair share of twists; I thought I had anticipated one twist, but it turns out I was dead wrong, and I like a movie that can surprise me. The performances are solid, and the story is interesting, but things do get a little dull at times, and I did get a little annoyed with a couple of the fake-out scenes thrown in on occasion. Nevertheless, this is a mildly engaging little melodrama.

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Satan’s Cheerleaders (1977)

SATAN’S CHEERLEADERS (1977)
Article 3545 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-4-2011
Posting Date: 4-29-2011
Directed by Greydon Clark
Featuring John Ireland, Yvonne De Carlo, Jack Kruschen
Country: USA
What it is: Really silly

A group of cheerleaders aren’t aware that their school’s janitor is a member of a Satanic cult, and soon they find themselves in danger.

To its credit, this movie isn’t quite as stupid as its title, but it’s not for lack of trying. The first half of the movie is mostly concerned with the antics of the cheerleaders, and they are as vapid as you might fear. The Satanists really come into play during the second half, and though this section is not really a great improvement over the first half, it does have at least one plot complication to add to the interest factor. That, in a nutshell, is the reason I give the movie a few extra points; based on its title, I didn’t expect any plot complications to break up this movie at all. I suppose the movie does deserve a point or two for not taking itself too seriously, even during the second half. And, despite a couple of small pluses, the movie is really only for those who are impressed by the title.

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Os Deuses e Os Mortos (1970)

OS DEUSES E OS MORTOS (1970)
aka Of Gods and the Dead

Article 3544 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-3-2011
Posting Date: 4-28-2011
Directed by Ruy Guerra
Featuring Norma Bengell, Othon Bastos, Itala Nandi
Country: Brazil
What it is: Brazilian New Wave with surrealism

An adventurer (who has already been shot seven times) gets involved in a battle for a cacao plantation, setting loose a wave of bloody killings.

This movie entered my list from John Stanley’s “Creature Features Movie Guide Strikes Again” book under the mistranslated title OF GODS AND THE UNDEAD. With that kind of title, it’s little wonder that he thought the plot involved people rising from the dead, and, to be honest, Othon Bastos’s gruesome makeup certainly makes him look like the living dead. In truth, the movie is an art film, part of the Brazilian “Udigrudi” movement, an offshoot of “Cinema Novo”. Aware of the art movie credentials of this one, discovering that “Udigrudi” subverted traditional narrative film structure, and knowing that my copy was without English dubbing or subtitles, I went into this one without any expectations that I would understand what was going on, and the above plot description is taken from what IMDB has about the film. As usual in this case, I was forced to rely on the visual aspects of the film, and on that level, I can say quite frankly that I was blown away. Perhaps the most impressive aspect I found was the direction and the camerawork; many of the scenes are shot with a what looks to be a hand-held camera, and given that some of the long scenes in this movie were shot in one take, I became fascinated by the way that the camera would weave in and out among the actors, focusing in on the most interesting visual pictures and then moving on, not showing you certain details until late in the scene… whatever else you can say about these scenes, they are stunning pieces of cinematic choreography. The music is also startling and effective, and the movie certainly seems to delve into fantasy and horror before it’s all over. Just on a visual level, it’s often breathtaking, and the movie won a whole slew of Brazilian cinema awards. Even if I never come by a copy in English, I’ll probably give this one another viewing just to appreciate its visual brilliance.

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Der Hexer (1964)

DER HEXER (1964)
aka The Mysterious Magician
Article 3543 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-2-2011
Posting Date: 4-27-2011
Directed by Alfred Vohrer
Featuring Joachim Fuchsberger, Heinz Drache, Sophie Hardy
Country: West Germany
What it is: Krimi

Scotland Yard investigates the murder of a woman whose body was found in the Thames. It turns out the woman is the sister of a known vigilante known as the Ringer who now lives in Australia. When the Ringer’s wife shows up in London, they suspect the Ringer himself is in town. Scotland Yard now has a double mission; catch the murderers of the woman and also prevent them from being killed by the Ringer.

Outside of a little horror atmosphere in this one, there’s really not much in the way of fantastic content here. It is, however, one of the most entertaining of the krimis; it’s easy to follow, has an interesting premise, and the humorous content is fairly good. The movie even has a bit of William Castle-like gimmick feel to it; a card comes up near the end of the movie to ask the audience if they’ve identified who the Ringer is (for the record, I got it wrong). The version I saw was dubbed into English, but the title and writing throughout is in German, so I’m probably seeing the original print. One thing that is curious is that on IMDB, the USA version runs 13 minutes longer; I’m really curious as to what was added. At any rate, this is a very good choice for anyone out there interested in trying out a krimi.

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Robinson Crusoe of Mystery Island (1966)

ROBINSON CRUSOE OF MYSTERY ISLAND (1966)
Feature version of serial ROBINSON CRUSOE OF CLIPPER ISLAND
Article 3542 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-1-2011
Posting Date: 4-26-2011
Directed by Ray Taylor and Mack V. Wright
Featuring Mala, Mamo Clark, John Picorri
Country: USA
What it is: Serial thrills in convenient feature form

A federal agent is sent to Clipper Island to investigate the possibility of sabotage being performed on a dirigible company. It turns out the island is the hideout of a gang of international spies who are manipulating the natives by controlling the volcano.

It seems like eons since I’ve covered a feature version of a serial. Not that I really missed them, mind you; I always thought that serials crammed into features generally come off as repetitive; what works in twenty minute spurts doesn’t necessarily work in a 100 minute chunk, especially if you feel compelled to edit out plot points to make room for more action. This one is pretty typical; jagged editing leaves the storyline a confused mess. Nowadays, the original serials are easier to find than these condensations, so there’s no real reason to hunt for these, unless you’re a completist like me.

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Grandfather’s Pills (1908)

GRANDFATHER’S PILLS (1908)
aka Les dragees du grand-pere
Article 3541 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-31-2011
Posting Date: 4-25-2011
Director unknown
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Early trick film

A grandfather buys some pep pills to give him vim and vigor, but when a boy tries the pills, it gives him super-powers and he terrorizes the neighborhood.

This one is pretty amusing; the antics of the boy (including throwing cops around like rag dolls and lifting barbells with ease) are rather funny; it’s rather like a slapstick cross between a supervillain and THE BAD SEED. I wonder if this was the first movie about juvenile delinquency. Well, at any rate, this is another movie rescued from the ashes of my “ones that got away” list.

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