The Underwater City (1962)

THE UNDERWATER CITY (1962)
Article 3060 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-23-2009
Posting Date: 12-30-2009
Directed by Frank McDonald
Featuring William Lundigan, Julie Adams, Roy Roberts
Country: USA
What it is: Science Fiction of the “New Frontiers” variety

A project is undertaken to build a self-sufficient underwater city.

This is an earnest, well-intentioned slice of Heinleinian science fiction; it generally eschews melodrama in favor of the step-by-step process by which the city is developed, settled, and becomes able to fend for itself. It’s rather cheesy at times, the characters are two-dimensional, and it occasionally relies too much on devices such as narration and newspaper headlines, but after a while, the sincerity does win through. There’s an eel attack, a manta ray attack, and a battle between an octopus and an eel, but they’re all side issues (in fact, the manta ray attack is dispensed with via a newspaper headline), so you can’t really call it a monster movie. The movie was shot in color, but it was released to theaters in black and white; however, television prints were in color. My favorite scene occurs near the end, where the celebration of the city’s success is undercut by an ominous revelation.

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Track of the Moon Beast (1976)

TRACK OF THE MOON BEAST (1976)
Article 3059 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-22-2009
Posting Date: 12-29-2009
Directed by Richard Ashe
Featuring Chase Cordell, Leigh Drake, Gregorio Sala
Country: USA
What it is: Wolf Man variation of the lizard variety

A geologist is hit by a meteor from the moon. A piece of it lodges in his brain, and he turns into a murderous lizard monster on a nightly basis.

This movie sat on the shelf for four years before it found a distributor. That’s no surprise; it’s a tired variation on THE WOLF MAN, badly scripted, flatly directed and atrociously acted. The most striking thing I noticed about it is that the director must have also seen THE LEOPARD MAN; he borrows a key moment from that movie, though he doesn’t handle it near as well as it was in that one. The dialogue runs from the trite and cliched (“Why did this have to happen to you?”) to the ludicrous (“Moon Rocks? Oh, wow!”). It might be good for a laugh, but little else.

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Time After Time (1979)

TIME AFTER TIME (1979)
Article 3058 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-21-2009
Posting Date: 12-28-2009
Directed by Nicholas Meyer
Featuring Malcolm McDowell, David Warner, Mary Steenburgen
Country: USA
What it is: Time travel story with horror overtones and a comic edge

Writer H.G. Wells is appalled to discover that one of his closest friends is actually the notorious Jack the Ripper… and is doubly shocked to discover that that friend has stolen his time machine to continue his murders in the future. Fortunately, the time machine returns to its original time, and H.G. Wells uses it to go to the future and track down Jack the Ripper.

This has long been one of my favorite time travel movies. I find the premise clever, I like the juxtaposition of two historical characters thrust into modern times, and having them try to adjust to how the actual future diverges from their views of it. All three leads are excellent; both Malcolm McDowell and Mary Steenburgen are engaging, and David Warner is the perfect choice to play Jack the Ripper. The movie has a fair amount of humor, especially with Wells trying to come to terms with such modern conveniences as telephones, cars, garbage disposals, and fast-food restaurants. It has its social commentary as well; when Jack the Ripper shows Wells all the violence on TV and describes himself as an ‘amateur’, we get the point. It’s quite scary on occasion, especially when the Ripper discovers how Wells got his address. One thing I noted with this viewing; the scenes in England actually feel like they’re from movies from the late fifties or early sixties (when the original version of THE TIME MACHINE was made), and it doesn’t start feeling like a modern movie until H.G. Wells reaches the present day. In between we get the time travel sequence, which looks like the stargate sequence in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, and I couldn’t help but feel how that made a perfect bridge from the earlier movie style to the later one. My favorite moment is when H.G. Wells replaces his broken glasses.

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Supervan (1977)

SUPERVAN (1977)
Article 3057 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-20-2009
Posting Date: 12-27-2009
Directed by Lamar Card
Featuring Mark Schneider, Katie Saylor, Morgan Woodward
Country: USA
What it is: Lowbrow van worship movie with science fiction touches

A man takes a solar-powered supervan that shoots laser beams to a van “freakout”, where he hopes to win the $5000 prize.

This movie features –

1) endless CB chatter

2) nonstop songs about vans

3) a wet t-shirt contest with Charles Bukowski

4) a cop-in-an-outhouse scene

5) lots of car-wrecks

6) a sex-with-whipped-cream scene that is sent out over the airwaves

7) a van-hopping preacher’s wife

8) lots and lots of van convoys and van design footage

9) Len Lesser as a cop

10) motorcycle-driving rapists.

I think there’s also a plot in there somewhere, but I can’t be sure. Is it good? I’m not even sure it really exists. I’ll just say this much; a) it’s designed for people who think SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT was elitist and too arty, and b) it was filmed in Kansas City, Missouri, which is only four hours away, and that’s too close for comfort.

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Strange Illusion (1945)

STRANGE ILLUSION (1945)
Article 3056 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-19-2009
Posting Date: 12-26-2009
Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer
Featuring Jimmy Lydon, Warren William, Sally Eilers
Country: USA
What it is: Crime Thriller with mystic overtones

While on a fishing vacation, a teenager has a nightmare in which his family is threatened by a shadowy figure who plans to marry the boy’s widowed mother. When he returns home, he discovers that his mother has become attached to a strange man, and, bit by bit, he finds the elements of his dream coming true.

This movie is definitely more of a crime thriller than a supernatural one, but the precognitive dream does drive the action; it is the similarity of events in real life to those of his dream that pushes the boy into investigating further. This is one of Edgar G. Ulmer’s better known movies, though it is important to take note that it came from PRC, the bottom of the Poverty Row studio heap, and that means it doesn’t have the production values that would really make it fly. Still, give it its due, and it does deliver enough bang for its buck. As for the fantastic content, outside of the precognitive dream, there’s the fact that the villain is a serial killer of sorts. The dream sequence is done with enough imagination and power that you remember it throughout the movie, which is handy when aspects of it start coming true. This is another example of how well a ‘B’ movie can work with discipline and imagination.

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Till Dawn Do Us Part (1972)

TILL DAWN DO US PART (1972)
aka Straight on Till Morning
Article 3055 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-18-2009
Posting Date: 12-25-2009
Directed by Peter Collinson
Featuring Rita Tushingham, Shane Briant, James Bolam
Country: UK
What it is: Offbeat Hammer psychothriller

A plain young woman dreams that her life can become like the fairy tales she writes. She leaves home and goes to live in London to find the man of her dreams. She is eventually drawn to a young man who lives in a big house and who has a Peter Pan infatuation, and she moves in. But the man is not sane…

The first part of this movie uses a lot of jagged fast-paced editing which makes it a little difficult (though far from impossible) to get to know the characters and their situations. This is surprisingly effective, because it puts the viewer on edge despite the fact that it takes a while for the thriller aspects to really manifest themselves. The story is highly character-driven, and the movie takes the time to establish and develop those characters. Rita Tushingham is excellent as the neurotic, fragile woman who is drawn into the web of a man who she doesn’t even recognize as a threat because their respective fantasy fixations dovetail so neatly. The movie eventually settles down into a more straightforward style, and the story almost becomes predictable, but it still has some surprises even after this point. The movie does turn the screws very nicely, and it makes the psychosis of Shane Briant’s character seem real. My biggest problem with the movie is the ambiguously downbeat ending; we’ve become so attached to the central female character that it’s unsatisfying for it to end this way. Incidentally, the title that I watched this under is obviously one of those that have been tacked on for a video release of some sort; the freeze-frame and cheesy graphics when it appears are a dead giveaway. I much prefer the original title, STRAIGHT ON TILL MORNING, which will become quiet clear once the Peter Pan references start to crop up. All in all, this is an interesting if really odd movie from Hammer.

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Son of Samson (1963)

SON OF SAMSON (1963)
aka Maciste nella valle dei re
Article 3054 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-17-2009
Posting Date: 12-24-2009
Directed by Carlo Campogalliani
Featuring Mark Forest, Chelo Alonso, Angelo Zanolli
Country: Italy / France / Yugoslavia
What it is: Sword-and-Sandal fantasy of the evil queen variety.

The son of Samson (known as Maciste) comes to ancient Egypt to do battle with an evil queen who has joined forces with the Persians to enslave the villagers and steal their lands.

If ever there was a series of movies that seemed plotted with a Mad Libs book, it would be the evil queen variety of the sword-and-sandal epics from the sixties; just change the locations, the names, and a few details, but otherwise, it’s the same plot. Still, Chelo Alonso may be one of the sexiest evil queens of the bunch, and she does a mean belly dance as well. Mark Forest plays Maciste this time around, and his waist is so thin while his upper torso is so developed he looks almost insectoid. This one is bloodier and more brutal than most, with a couple of memorable scenes; in one, we see villagers buried up to their heads (or shins, for those buried the opposite direction) in a field full of snakes, and in another, one of those chariots with bladed wheels runs through a crowd of enslaved villagers. Maciste’s great strength and a charm that puts a man under hypnotic control are the fantastic elements here. Outside of the hackneyed plot, its worst problem may be its pacing; it wanders around for its first hour and then tries to pack as much of its plot as it can into the last thirty minutes.

I must be nearing the end of these…

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Sergeant Dead Head (1965)

SERGEANT DEAD HEAD (1965)
aka Sergeant Deadhead the Astronaut
Article 3053 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-16-2009
Posting Date: 12-23-2009
Directed by Norman Taurog
Featuring Frankie Avalon, Deborah Walley, Eve Arden
Country: USA
What it is: Beach party movie transmogrified into a non-Disney shopping cart movie with a military milieu.

Sergeant Deadhead is accidentally shot into space with a monkey. The space trip alters his personality, and when he returns, the military echelon decides to hide his aggressive new personality by locking him up and finding a look-alike to take his place. Hilarity ensues.

Though it isn’t strictly a ‘beach party’ movie, this American International comedy has a lot of the same actors and the same basic feel as those movies. It made me think about the similarities and differences between the ‘beach party’ movies and the Disney ‘shopping cart’ movies. The Disney movies had better special effects; the ‘beach party’ movies had more songs. The ‘beach party’ movies were sexier, but the Disney movies were smarter. Both made use of big-name actors, and occasionally pulled their talent from the same sources (Annette Funicello isn’t in this one, but she’s one obvious example). And both types of movies were bright and colorful.

This one is pretty dumb; the songs are weak, the plot is a mess, and it wastes Buster Keaton in a big way. Still, it did net me a couple of laughs, and there’s some fun to be had with the cast of name actors (which, along with those mentioned above, includes Fred Clark, Cesar Romero, Gale Gordon, John Ashley, and Harvey Lembeck). It’s a good-natured enough time-waster, but there’s better ones out there.

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Till Death (1978)

TILL DEATH (1978)
Article 3052 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-15-2009
Posting Date: 12-22-2009
Directed by Walter Stocker
Featuring Keith Atkinson, Marshall Reed, Belinda Balaski
Country: USA
What it is: Love from beyond the grave

A man has a nightmare that he is locked in a crypt with a dead woman stalking him. He is awoken by a phone call from his fiancee, who he will marry that day. They marry, but she dies in a car accident on their wedding night. He survives the accident, but is torn by guilt. He decides to visit her in the crypt where she’s buried…

This earnest but cheesy horror film seems so out of place in the late seventies that I was sure that it had been shot earlier. And sure enough it was; it was made in 1974 and sat on the shelf for four years. I’m tempted to describe it as a cross between CARNIVAL OF SOULS and the second half of 100 CRIES OF TERROR, except that makes it sound more complex than it is; the plot is obvious and threadbare, and, unless you find the endless conversations about love to be heartfelt and compelling, it’s probably going to bore you. It must have been made on a tiny budget, and it remains Walter Stocker’s sole directorial credit, though he did have a career as an actor, and appeared in the infamous THEY SAVED HITLER’S BRAIN. I’m not surprised it has its supporters, though; it has a certain low-budget charm for all its problems.

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Un soir… par hasard (1963)

UN SOIR… PAR HASARD (1963)
aka One Night… by Accident
Article 3051 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-14-2009
Posting Date: 12-21-2009
Directed by Ivan Govar
Featuring Annette Vadim, Michel Le Royer, Jean Servais
Country: France / Belgium
What it is: Mystery thriller with science fiction and possible Gizmo Maguffin overtones

An atomic scientist has a motorcycle accident. When he awakes, he finds himself in the castle of a man who claims to have brought him back from the dead. The scientist ends up falling in love with his host’s mistress. However, everything may not be what it seems.

Since my print is in unsubtitled French, I found it necessary to hunt around for some plot descriptions to help me sort this one out; the plot description above is cobbled together from what I found out. Oddly enough, I got two different plot descriptions, though they aren’t incompatible; however, I’ve mostly avoided touching on the second one I found (which reveals a much more conventional plot) because I think it’s a major spoiler. It also reveals why the movie is a bit of disappointment; the plot description above makes it all seem more mysterious and eerie than it ultimately turns out to be. I suspect that if I ever get a chance to see this one subtitled, I’ll like the first part a lot more than the last part.

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