When Women Lost Their Tails (1972)

WHEN WOMEN LOST THEIR TAILS (1972)
aka Quando le donne persero la coda
Article 3150 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-27-2010
Posting Date: 3-30-2010
Directed by Pasquale Festa Campanile
Featuring Senta Berger, Frank Wolff, Lando Buzzanca
Country: Italy/West Germany
What it is: Caveman comedy/satire

Five cavemen live in the skeleton of a dinosaur with a woman whom they share. When a stranger shows up and introduces them to the concept of money, they begin to lose everything they have.

One thing I was sure of going into this sequel to WHEN WOMEN HAD TAILS; there was no way this sequel was going to demean or lessen the quality of the original movie in my eyes, as that would have been impossible. What did surprise me was that, unlike its predecessor, this one actually seemed to have a focused theme; once the stranger introduces the concept of money to the cavemen, the movie turns into a satire on capitalism, which is here portrayed as the game of a con man. Granted, once you latch on to the theme, the movie becomes more than a little obvious; in fact, it gets pretty repetitive after a while. Senta Berger fans may also be disappointed; because of the thrust of the plot, her character becomes secondary and almost vestigial at times, which is my way of saying that she doesn’t get very much screen time. Still, she does provide a focus for some interesting points; one of the themes that pops up at one point is the changes in standards of beauty, and one of the final scenes involves her encounter with a new con man who equates women’s liberation with prostitution. There’s another sequel out there to this series, but it doesn’t appear that it has the same set of characters, and Senta Berger is noticeably absent from the cast. The basic upshot of this one is that it turned out to be a lot more interesting and sophisticated than I thought it would be. Don’t read too much into that statement, though; I thought this one was going to be totally worthless.

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Watermelon Man (1970)

WATERMELON MAN (1970)
Article 3149 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-26-2010
Posting Date: 3-29-2010
Directed by Melvin Van Peebles
Featuring Godfrey Cambridge, Estelle Parsons, Howard Caine
Country: USA
What it is: Satirical fantasy

An obnoxious white insurance agent wakes up one morning to discover that he has turned into a black man. When his desperate attempts to turn back to white fail, he begins to find his life changing…

In some ways, this is similar to the previous year’s CHANGE OF MIND in that a white man gets to experience what it’s like to be black. It’s an aggressive, over-the-top movie. The first half plays like a slapstick movie and is too shrill for its own good, but it does serve its purpose; by contrasting how people react to his obnoxious behavior when he’s white and how they react to it when he’s black, it does manage to show the various manifestations of racism in action. Estelle Parsons, here playing another white wife of a black man as in THE UFO INCIDENT (albeit one who was initially married to a white man) portrays a character who serves as an interesting example; though a liberal by nature (she watches news broadcasts about the race riots), she finds actual marriage to a black man to be ultimately unsupportable. The movie is quite effective; it’s both sad and fascinating to watch how this initially unlikable boor is forced to adjust to a new life and, ultimately, a new world. There’s some very interesting names in the cast. Erin Moran (who plays the man’s daughter) would go on to play Joanie on “Happy Days”, former Three Stooges foil Emil Sitka pops up as a delivery man, Mae Clarke appears as an old woman in her last movie, and Paul Williams has a cameo as an employment clerk. The most interesting cast member, though, is none other than Mantan Moreland as the man who works at the lunch counter; his reaction to the main character’s change gave me the biggest laugh in the movie, and I’m glad Melvin Van Peebles decided to use him.

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Warlock Moon (1975)

WARLOCK MOON (1975)
Article 3148 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-25-2010
Posting Date: 3-28-2010
Directed by Bill Herbert
Featuring Laurie Walters, Joe Spano, Edna MacAfee
Country: USA
What it is: Low-budget witchcraft flick

A young female art student ends up dating a young man who takes her to an abandoned spa in an out-of-the-way village. There she encounters a strange old woman, and begins to have mysterious experiences with a ghostly woman and two ax-wielding madmen.

Yeah, I could see how this low-budget horror film (shot in an abandoned tuberculosis clinic in San Francisco) could creep you out under the right circumstances, especially if you caught it late at night. To its credit, Laurie Walters is a likable heroine, and, despite the fact that it often moves at a snail’s pace and has too much wandering around, it never quite put me to sleep. However, the heroine is a major fool; she puts her trust in a creepy boyfriend she barely knows and, despite the fact that she could easily drive off at anytime during the last half of the movie, she insists on leaving herself at the mercy of some quite obvious psychos. It has a fair assortment of plot twists, but the movie is so obvious about showing its hand early on that none of the twists really comes as a surprise. Still, I’ve seen far worse, and the good and bad in the movie is so evenly balanced that I can see how opinions would fluctuate wildly; the IMDB ratings chart does show a fairly even distribution of votes throughout the whole quality spectrum. Uneven, but far from worthless.

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The UFO Incident (1975)

THE UFO INCIDENT (1975)
TV-Movie
Article 3147 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-24-2010
Posting Date: 3-27-2010
Directed by Richard A. Colla
Featuring James Earl Jones, Estelle Parsons, Barnard Hughes
Country: USA
What it is: UFO encounter reenactment drama

An interracial couple experiences dual amnesia after seeing a UFO. After keeping the subject to themselves for two years, they find the secret putting a strain on their marriage, and they see a psychiatrist. He uses hypnotism to find out what happened during the period covered by the amnesia.

Though one’s personal perceptions about the truth of the story of Barney and Betty Hill will no doubt play a role in how one accepts this drama, I think the movie is definitely worth catching. Much of the credit goes to the excellent acting of all three of the principals, especially from James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons, who portray the Hills as full realized, three-dimensional people. The writers also should be commended for producing a script that allowed that dimensionality to come through. It is because the characters are so well-developed that we grow interested in them and their plight. Solid direction by Richard A. Colla further enhances the movie. Its main problem is that the special effects are only so-so; it’s one of those movies where it would have been better if the aliens had remained shrouded in the shadows, because it’s not really satisfying when you get a clear look at them. Nevertheless, this is secondary; it’s the human story that dominates here, and in terms of dealing with the complex relationship problems between the married couple, the movie does engage us and even manages to give us a happy ending. This is definitely one of the more interesting TV-Movies I’ve seen for this series.

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Stop Press Girl (1946)

STOP PRESS GIRL (1946)
Article 3146 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-23-2010
Posting Date: 3-26-2010
Directed by Michael Barry
Featuring Sally Ann Howes, Gordon Jackson, Basil Radford
Country: UK
What it is: Romantic comedy with a fantasy premise

A young woman leaves her backwards hometown to go to London to find a runaway suitor. What she doesn’t know is that she has inherited a strange ability; if she’s in the vicinity of a machine for more than fifteen minutes, it stops working.

If I wanted, I could harbor on the inconsistencies of the concept; for example, she lives with her dentist uncle, and it would seem to me that a dentist would find it hard to ply his trade if his drill constantly stopped working. However, that’s probably nitpicking in a movie that’s aspiring mostly towards being a screwball romantic comedy. It’s not bad, but I’d have liked it better if it dropped the romantic angle and more thoroughly explored the comic possibilities of the concept. The movie does use one idea that popped into my mind while watching it; I wondered what would happen if the woman got on board a plane, and that does happen. However, I would have used that as a climax to the story; here it occurs towards the middle of the movie, and I personally think the movie loses steam after this sequence. My favorite character was the heroine’s uncle, played by James Robertson Justice, who likes his dentist profession perhaps just a little too much. The movie features a small role for Kenneth More, who would go on to bigger and better things.

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Die Nylonschlinge (1963)

DIE NYLONSCHLINGE (1963)
aka The Nylon Noose
Article 3145 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-21-2010
Posting Date: 3-25-2010
Directed by Rudolf Zehetgruber
Featuring Dietmar Schonherr, Helga Sommerfeld, Ernst Schroder
Country: West Germany
What it is: Ersatz Edgar Wallace

A Scotland Yard inspector investigates a series of strangulation murders. It’s tied to a meeting of stockholders at a spooky mansion.

This movie almost ended up being moved from my hunt list to my not found list, but a copy popped up just in time to save it. Unfortunately, the only print I could find is in unsubtitled German, so I only got so much out of it. It’s one of those rare krimis that has nothing to do with Edgar Wallace or Dr. Mabuse, and I haven’t seen any other movies of this genre from the director. Nevertheless, it’s pretty standard issue as far as I can tell, though I do think the plot may be a little easier to follow (if it had been in English, that is). The serial killer provides the horror content, though a “mad scientist” type character seems to play a role in it as well, and Ady Berber is always good for a glowering scare or two.

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Superman Flies Again (1954)

SUPERMAN FLIES AGAIN (1954)
Article 3144 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-17-2010
Posting Date: 3-24-2010
Directed by George Blair and Thomas Carr
Featuring George Reeves, Noel Neill, Jack Larson
Country: USA
What it is: More “Adventures of Superman” edited into a movie

Superman has more problems to contend with. He must save a kidnapped jet pilot from spies. Then he must deal with the fact that a dog he saves is able to identify his alter ego. Lastly, he must catch a criminal impersonating a clown who means to steal the money from a telethon.

Once again, I’ve taken the approach of watching the three episodes of the series that made up this movie; they are “Jet Ace”, “The Dog Who Knew Superman”, and “The Clown Who Cried”. One disadvantage this compilation has is that it lacks a single epic story like SUPERMAN OF SCOTLAND YARD’s “Panic in the Sky”, and the meanest of the criminals (the spy in “Jet Ace”) is in the least interesting story. The story about the clown has an interesting premise, but the real winner here is the middle story, which, though the basic premise is the slightest of the bunch, still manages to be clever and charming, and even has a touch of heart to it. As for the series itself, I’ve begun to notice the sometimes witty ways they use Superman’s powers; for example, during the first story, Lois catches Clark Kent looking up at the ceiling and asks him if he thinks he can see the jet plane through it. Even if I’m not quite watching the real movie, I’m finding the series itself to be very enjoyable in its own right.

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L’Affaire des poisons (1955)

L’AFFAIRE DES POISONS (1955)
aka The Poison Affair
Article 3143 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-15-2010
Posting Date: 3-23-2010
Directed by Henri Decoin
Featuring Danielle Darrieux, Viviane Romance, Paul Meurisse
Country: France / Italy
What it is: Historical crime drama with horror touches

A mistress, jealous of a new rival for the king’s affections, plans to frame the new mistress for the poisonings of several nobles.

I knew the bare basics of the plot before I saw this movie, but even with that as a helper, I found much of the movie, which I was only able to see in French without subtitles, very difficult to follow. Things get a little better about forty minutes into it when the poisonings begin, and though I spot a clear villainess, I still found the details very unclear because of my lack of comprehension of the language. So we’ll pass by the plot for the time being and look at the genre touches. The plot description I saw didn’t offer much help in this regard, though a case could be made for the “serial killer” theme. On seeing the movie, however, the touches become clearer; the story involves witchcraft and black masses, and part of the plot revolves around a wax doll of a woman which has a needle thrust through it. There’s also a harrowing torture sequence. Visually, it’s probably most enjoyable to people who love period costumes, but there are some sequences that have a nice moodiness to them. Still, until I can see it subtitled, I’ll reserve any sort of judgment on this one.

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Superman in Scotland Yard (1954)

SUPERMAN IN SCOTLAND YARD (1954)
Article 3142 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-14-2010
Posting Date: 3-22-2010
Directed by George Blair and Thomas Carr
Featuring George Reeves, Noel Neill, Jack Larson
Country: USA
What it is: Classic superhero TV show episodes strung together

Superman must contend with several problems. First, there are reports of the ghost of a magician appearing five years after the man’s death. Then he looks into Jimmy Olson’s story about strange sounds in an apartment. Then he must contend with a meteor that threatens to destroy the Earth.

If a movie that consists of episodes of a TV show edited together ends up on my hunt list and stays there long enough to be shuttled off to my lost list, I’ve decided to, as a last resort, try emulating the experience by watching the TV episodes involved. This is for the most part safe; in my experience, the editing of these types of movies usually consist of replacing the credits sequences and running the episodes straight, possibly with some voice-overs added. I don’t do the same with feature versions of serials because the editing there is much more extensive.

This is my way of saying, of course, that technically, I have not seen this movie, but rather, the three episodes that made it up. The three episodes all hail from the second season of “Adventures of Superman”, and the episodes are “A Ghost for Scotland Yard”, “Lady in Black”, and “Panic in the Sky”. It’s an interesting combination; the first two both feature elements of horror, in that the one involves a ghost and the other involves strange happenings in an apartment (loud noises, paintings changing, etc.), though both have non-supernatural explanations. These two episodes are rather odd ones, in that they don’t seem to really require Superman’s superpowers, though he does use them on occasion; they could have easily been adapted to a non-superhero storyline. The third is far and away the best, and, if the ratings on IMDB are any indication, it may be the best episode from the whole series; in this one, Superman’s attempt to keep a meteor from colliding with the earth results in his amnesia.

Actually, this really marks the first time I’ve seen episodes from the series, and my main impression was that the real attraction here is the easy charm of George Reeves in the Superman/Clark Kent role; he is immensely likable. There were four other movies culled from the series (all from season two episodes, incidentally), and, unless the other three manifest themselves as individual entities, I’ll probably have to take the same strategy in watching them as well. I may be cheating, but I think, under these circumstances, it’s not cheating a whole lot.

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Retorno a la juventud (1954)

RETORNO A LA JUVENTUD (1954)
aka Return to Youth
Article 3141 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-12-2009
Posting Date: 3-21-2010
Directed by Juan Bustillo Oro
Featuring Andres Soler, Enrique Rambal, Rosario Granados
Country: Mexico
What it is: Mexican fantasy/horror on the artier side

A doctor, pining for his lost youth, is replaced by the youthful image of himself in his portrait. However, his new youthfulness leads him into actions that result in murder…

My copy is in unsubtitled Spanish, and I’ve been unable to find an adequate plot description to help me with this one, so there may be some inaccuracy above. Furthermore, it looks as if the movie isn’t really straightforward; there’s a point in the proceedings where the sets (particularly the exteriors) take on a strong non-realistic air to them, and certain events seem incredible, even given the premise. This opens the possibility that much of the movie may be a dream (or nightmare, as the case may be). It’s quite moody, and it reminded me of EL HOMBRE SIN ROSTRO, and I was not surprised to discover both movies had the same director. Still, much of the plot seems to involve the amours of the central characters, and the encounters with jealous husbands, etc. do get a little tiring, a problem that is enhanced by the fact that the language barrier keeps me from really understanding the movie. I’m going to have to say the jury is still out on this one until I can see a dubbed/subtitled version, but parts of it certainly look intriguing.

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