Target for Killing (1966)

TARGET FOR KILLING (1966)
aka Das Geheimnis der gelben Monche
Article 3070 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-3-2009
Posting Date: 1-9-2009
Directed by Manfred R. Kohler
Featuring Stewart Granger, Karin Dor, Rupert Davies
Country: Italy / Austria / West Germany
What is is: More spyghetti

A secret agent becomes involved with a woman who is set to inherit a fortune… and is also the target of assassins.

I like this Eurospy outing a little more than yesterday’s, largely because I find Stewart Granger’s take on a Bondian superspy to be a real hoot. The story is a little unusual, as it’s less concerned with the evil spy organization’s other activities than it is with its single assassination attempt, which is, of course, a bid to get a hold of her imminent fortune. Still, many of the same elements are there, and this one has two elements that are similar to yesterday’s; the criminal organization works out of an abandoned monastery, and rats play into the storyline. The cast here also features Klaus Kinski in an interesting if abbreviated role as an unpredictable hit man, and Adolfo Celi as someone other than the primary villain. There’s some funny scenes here; I like the one in which Granger tries to cover up his job as a secret agent by telling the local police he’s a snake fancier, only to discover that the head of the police is actually one of them, and is then is forced to contend with a snake he’s been told is deadly poisonous. The fantastic content is less central to the plot, but it is there; the criminal organization uses a sort of telepathic hypnotism to bring its victims under control.

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Shadow of Evil (1964)

SHADOW OF EVIL (1964)
aka Banco a Bangkok pour OSS 117
Article 3069 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-2-2009
Posting Date: 1-8-2009
Directed by Andre Hunebelle
Featuring Kerwin Mathews, Robert Hossein, Pier Angeli
Country: France / Italy
What it is: Spyghetti

A secret agent is sent to Thailand to investigate outbreaks of plague which are tied to the distribution of a certain type of inoculation.

This isn’t a particularly good example of the Spyghetti genre, but I find it does have a certain bare-bones charm about it. For once, the movie is crystal clear and easy to follow, largely because it avoids the distractions that can often overwhelm the plot in the usual James Bond vehicle. In some ways, the story here could be used as a template for this sort of movie; change a few details, add some spice and pizzazz, and you’d have your typical James Bond movie. As I mentioned before, it’s really not that good, though; some of the fight scenes in particular come off as weak. Still, it has its moments; my favorite involves the villain releasing hundreds of rats in a bid to make his getaway.

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Primal Impulse (1975)

PRIMAL IMPULSE (1975)
aka Le orme
Article 3068 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-1-2009
Posting Date: 1-7-2010
Directed by Luigi Bazzoni and Mario Fanelli
Featuring Florinda Bolkan, Peter McEnery, Lila Kedrova
Country: Italy
What it is: Bizarre arty horror / science fiction movie

A woman discovers that she has lost two days of her life. She investigates the reasons for the memory loss, with her only clues being a torn-up postcard of a Hotel and recurring memories of a movie about a man left stranded on another planet.

The premise is certainly intriguing, and the movie seems to have a very good reputation (based on a good user rating and comments on IMDB). Based on these factors alone, it might well warrant a rewatching, as I suspect that there may be certain important plot details I have missed. However, on this, my first viewing of the movie, I find myself more frustrated than intrigued. For me, the ending, though truly eerie, still leaves me unsatisfied insofar as I don’t feel that what exactly is going on has been explained to my satisfaction. Even had this problem not occurred, I still would have some problems with the movie, as I think the sequences where she tries to discover the details of the missing two days go on for too long with too little payoff. There is one explanation that may make sense, but if so, I’m not particularly taken with that one, either. Still, the movie is incredibly stylish, though not in the usual Italian giallo sense (some of the user comments refer to this one as a giallo, but I think it’s something else altogether); rather, it’s more arty than anything. Klaus Kinski is given a prominent credit, but I think he may have less than a minute of screen time, and it sounds as if somebody else dubbed his voice. I may like it better upon re-viewing, but at this point of time, it doesn’t work for me.

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Tainstvenny Ostrov (1941)

TAINSTVENNY OSTROV (1941)
aka Mysterious Island
Article 3067 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-30-2009
Posting Date: 1-6-2009
Directed by Eduard Penslin
Featuring A. Krasnopolsky, Pavel Kiyansky, A. Andriyenko-Zemskov
Country: Soviet Union
What is is: Jules Verne adventure story adaptation with science fiction elements

Some civil war prisoners make an escape in a hot-air balloon and end up on a deserted island, but mysterious events lead them to believe they are not alone on the island…

I really shouldn’t be surprised to discover that the Soviet Union did an adaptation of this novel, but I am anyway. I know the reason for this; Jules Verne has always struck me as being a distinctly American author, which is of course incorrect – he was French. Nonetheless, I always sensed an American air to his work, and the fact that the protagonists of this story are Americans underscores this. I’d have to say at this point that this may be the most faithful version of the Verne story I’ve seen to date; it is bereft of many of the additional fantastic touches (undersea creatures, giant chickens, miniskirt-wearing Venusians) that have popped up in the other adaptations I’ve seen. Granted, it’s not totally faithful; it’s been a while since I’ve read the novel, but I don’t remember any youngsters being along, and I’m also suspicious about the domesticated ape subplot. Furthermore, since my print is in unsubtitled Russian, I have no idea what the characters are actually saying, and I wouldn’t be surprised were I to discover that the story had been politicized to reflect a more Soviet way of thinking. Nevertheless, this looks like a solid version of the story, and the final scenes (in which we find out why it’s a sequel to “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”) are quite memorable.

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Begegnung im All (1963)

BEGEGNUNG IM ALL (1963)
aka Mechte navstrechu, A Dream Come True
Article 3066 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-29-2009
Posting Date: 1-5-2009
Directed by Mikhail Karzhukov and Otar Koberidze
Featuring Larisa Gordeichik, Boris Borisenko, Otar Koberidze
Country: Soviet Union
What it is: Russian space epic

Aliens from another planet decide to visit Earth when they hear a transmission of a song from there. However, their spaceship crashes on one of the moons of Mars. It is up to a mission from Earth to rescue the visitors.

One of my sources claims that this movie is a sequel to PLANETA BUR, but I’m not sure if that is correct. However, it is the movie from which footage was culled for QUEEN OF BLOOD. However, I can’t really compare the two movies. For one thing, QUEEN OF BLOOD mostly just picked off some of the special effects footage and built a whole new movie around them. Furthermore, since my print of this movie has no English subtitles, and the copy I found was in German, I’m in no position to analyze the plot; the plot description above is based on what other sources say about the movie, and I’m not sure I would have been able to figure even that much from what I saw. I can say this much, though; in terms of the visual science fiction eye candy, the movie really delivers; just from the visual standpoint, it’s a real treat. It’s a shame that this is the only way I can see some of these movies, but I guess that’s the price of completism.

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La valse du gorille (1959)

LA VALSE DU GORILLE (1959)
aka Operation Top Secret
Article 3065 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-28-2009
Posting Date: 1-4-2010
Directed by Bernard Borderie
Featuring Roger Hanin, Charles Vanel, Jess Hahn
Country: France
What it is: Probably a Gizmo Maguffin spy thriller

Plans for a method of returning space rockets to earth become the prize in a battle of wits between spies.

The title above translates into THE GORILLA’S WALTZ, which is an interesting title; I wouldn’t have an idea what the movie was about from that one. However, the title under which it first entered my list isn’t that ambiguous; I’d expect a movie called OPERATION TOP SECRET to be a spy movie of sorts. My copy is in French with no subtitles, and a good deal of the plot description above is from John Stanley’s “Revenge of the Creature Features Movie Guide”, and that is pretty sparse. It was apparently based on a novel that was part of a series of spy novels by one Antoine-Louis Dominique (a former secret agent), and the Gorilla is apparently the nickname of the main character here. The movie has a low rating on IMDB, so I’m assuming the story is fairly weak, but it has some odd little touches, such as the spy with the magnetic hook for a hand. Still, the movie was largely impenetrable to me, so I’m going to have to reserve any judgment.

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The Night Nurse (1978)

THE NIGHT NURSE (1978)
TV-Movie
Article 3064 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-27-2009
Posting Date: 1-3-2010
Directed by Igor Auzins
Featuring Gary Day, Kate Fitzpatrick, Kay Taylor
Country: Australia
What it is: Oddball horror thriller

A woman gets a job as a night nurse for a reclusive former opera singer known as “The Diva”. The recluse’s daughter (who has been selling her mother’s art collection and replacing them with prints) attempts to drive the new nurse away, but the recluse has taken to her. However, there are more skeletons in the closet here than she suspects…

Though I don’t think the user ratings necessarily give an accurate idea of the critical worth of a movie, they do manage to give a little snapshot on how people feel about a movie. This one has a rating of 4.6, which means it’s not highly regarded, and I can see why; as a horror movie, this is pretty mild stuff, and the big horrific finale is clumsy. Still, I think it’s the overly talky script that is the main culprit. I myself didn’t have that much of a problem with it; the talk is there to establish character, and this is a very character-driven story. It seems to be a variation on one of the subplots of THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE; we have a wheelchair-bound recluse, a jealous daughter, and an intruder who threatens to steal the affection of the mother that belongs to the daughter. What I like about this movie is that it is quite unpredictable; the opening set-up (when the daughter kills an art dealer) makes us think we’ve got a handle on where the story will go and who the villain is, but the movie has some surprises in store for us before it comes to its conclusion. I have respect for a movie that can consistently surprise me, especially if the story still holds together with each revelation. Even the very final moment is a surprise, albeit one in which the movie simply refuses to take the expected ending. Due to some clumsiness and slowness, it’s not a great movie by any means, but it is something different for those who like their horror to be a little unpredictable.

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Valley of the Dragons (1961)

VALLEY OF THE DRAGONS (1961)
Article 3063 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-26-2009
Posting Date: 1-2-2009
Directed by Edward Bernds
Featuring Cesare Danova, Sean McClory, Joan Staley
Country: USA
What it is: Low-budget caveman antics masquerading as Jules Verne epic

Two duellists are whisked up by a comet, where they find themselves in a prehistoric world that had been whisked up on the comet’s previous journey to earth.

I’ve been curious about this movie ever since it was mentioned in a quiz in Cracked Mazagine (and I’m sure some of you see no spelling mistakes there). In the quiz, they showed a series of stills from horror/science fiction movies, and you were supposed to pick out the name of the movie from a multiple-choice list. This was pretty easy, as the other titles were obvious fakes (I remember one called THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME WEARS BELL-BOTTOMS). This movie was one of the answers that was supposed to be correct, and the photo showed a real cool-looking dragon. However, as I was to discover a few years later, the dragon on display was actually the one from THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD. This raised a question to me; did the mazagine get the wrong photo, or did VALLEY OF THE DRAGONS cop footage from THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD? As I’d never seen VALLEY OF THE DRAGONS, I didn’t know.

Well, now I’ve finally seen it, and I can say that no Harryhausen footage (new or borrowed) appears in this movie at all. Which is not to say that this movie was above borrowing stuff from other movies; the prop spider from CAT WOMEN OF THE MOON appears at one point, as does footage from RODAN and (especially) ONE MILLION B.C. Yes, this means we have Ignatz and Rumsford going through their battle once again, and we get the volcano destruction footage as well (just how many times have I seen that woman fall under the advancing lava?). It did make me wonder if ONE MILLION B.C. and all its footage vanished from the face of the earth, how many other movies would be swept up in the wake. Well, that’s a side issue. As far as this movie goes, despite the outlandish premise, it’s pretty much standard caveman escapades, with the addition of a couple of semi-modern (that is to say, nineteenth century) Engish-speakers to add to the comprehensibility and to teach the two tribes of caveman about cooperation (if the modern men had been named Ernie and Bert, I could make a good Sesame Street joke here). To its credit, the volcano footage doesn’t destroy this world in its entirety. It also has a bit of a sense of humor, which, given that the movie was directed by Edward Bernds (who helmed a lot of the Three Stooges shorts), is no real surprise. Overall, it’s no better than it sounds, but at least it isn’t a whole lot worse.

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Shadow on the Land (1968)

SHADOW ON THE LAND (1968)
TV-Movie
Article 3062 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-25-2009
Posting Date: 1-1-2010
Directed by Richard C. Sarafian
Featuring Jackie Cooper, John Forsythe, Gene Hackman
Country: USA
What it is: Alternate universe United-States-under-dictatorship thriller

In an alternative universe, the United States is under the control of a dictator who uses a special band of law enforcers known as the ISF to control the people. A resistance group known as the Society of Man has arisen to overthrow the dictatorship. In this story, an army general is taken into custody by the ISF, but the resistance group breaks him out of a concentration camp to discover what he knows. The IFS places Major Shepherd McCloud in charge of finding the general, unaware that the Major is a double agent for the Society of Man.

Usually, ideas like this are the stuff of exploitation; I’m thinking of movies like STRANGE HOLIDAY and RED NIGHTMARE. This one tries a different tack; it’s more of an espionage thriller in which the resistance group pits itself against the law enforcers. It’s interesting, but not entirely convincing, and, as a stand-alone movie, it’s rather unsatisfying in the final analysis. But that’s the point; it isn’t really a stand-alone movie, but another pilot for an unsold TV series. I actually was a bit surprised by this discovery (not that the pilot didn’t sell, mind you, but that it was intended as a pilot), because it just didn’t seem like it was an idea that had a real chance of becoming a regular series; I think there would have been a great deal of ambivalence in people’s minds about the concept. Still, as I said, it was interesting; there are odd bits of engaging dialogue, and Gene Hackman is memorable as a priest who must decide on which side he will fight. At any rate, this is one of the odder TV-Movies out there.

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The Lord of the Rings (1978)

THE LORD OF THE RINGS (1978)
Article 3061 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-24-2009
Posting Date: 12-31-2009
Directed by Ralph Bakshi
Featuring the voices of Christopher Guard, William Squire, Michael Scholes
Country: USA
What it is: Animated version of epic fantasy

When it is revealed by Gandalf that the magic ring possessed by Frodo the hobbit is actually the one ring created by the evil lord Sauron, the hobbit must embark on a quest that will ultimately bring about the destruction of evil and the rescue of Middle-Earth.

At the time this movie was made, I would have guessed that animation would have been the only effective way to bring Tolkien’s epic story to the screen. Even at that, Ralph Bakshi would not have been my ideal choice for the project (though he was probably the best choice at the time), and I suspect that it would have worked much better as a TV mini-series than a motion picture. Still, it would have been a risky venture whatever choice was made. This version gets roughly half-way through the second volume of the trilogy, and even this was squashing too much of a story into too short a time; those who are familiar with the story will have no trouble following, but if you don’t know the story, it will end up feeling like a confusing mess, a situation only made worse by the fact that no sequel was made (though an unrelated animated version of THE RETURN OF THE KING made by Rankin/Bass would eventually manifest itself). Bakshi keeps some of his more excessive stylistic touches in check; he obvious truly loves the story. The movie is almost entirely rotoscoped, which is impressive on one level, but disappointing on another. In condensing the story, the characters are often given short shrift. Some scenes are rushed, and others go on too long. In the end, I find it more useful as a refresher of the first half of the story more than anything else.

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