Ground Zero (1973)

GROUND ZERO (1973)
aka The Golden Gate is Ground Zero
Article 3010 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-4-2009
Posting Date: 11-10-2009
Directed by James T. Flocker
Featuring Ron Casteel, Melvin Belli, Augie Tribach
Country: USA

A criminal plans to force the release of two of his cronies who are in prison by hiding an a-bomb in the Golden Gate bridge and threatening to blow it up unless the prisoners are released.

The director’s name was familiar enough that it had me taking a quick trip to IMDB to look up his filmography. Sure enough, I’d encountered him before; he was responsible for THE ALIEN ENCOUNTERS, a movie that managed to charm me a little despite its obvious weaknesses. This one is really not much better; the dialogue is atrocious, the acting matches the dialogue and the action sequences are some of the slowest ever committed to celluloid. Also, despite the fact the story lends itself to an edge-of-the-seat ticking-clock suspense feel, I never felt much tension during the run of the movie. Still, there’s a few touches I like; the story and the characters are on the offbeat side, some of the camerawork is rather interesting, and the score is actually pretty damn good for a movie this cheap. In fact, the movie managed to hold my interest during a long driving sequence merely because of the catchy music. The atomic bomb provides the science fiction content here, which in and of itself is pretty marginal, but the ending nudges it a bit closer. I don’t know what it is about Flocker, but I find his bad movies to be rather watchable in an Edward D. Wood Jr. kind of way.

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The Emerald of Artatama (1969)

THE EMERALD OF ARTATAMA (1969)
aka The Girl of the Nile, La muchaca del Nilo
Article 3009 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-3-2009
Posting Date: 11-9-2009
Directed by Jose Maria Elorrieta
Featuring Pilar Arenas, Frank Brana, Rory Calhoun
Country: Spain

An adventurer seeks financing for an expedition to the tomb of Artatama to recover a legendary emerald.

In the first half hour of the movie, we have some voice-over narration, a fistfight, a little exposition about how the hero is planning an expedition, some dancing, some womanizing, a reunion of old buddies, and another fistfight. By the time the second fistfight came along, I was wondering when the movie was really going to get started. Which goes to show how clueless I am; all that stuff IS the movie, and the plot is strictly an excuse for the action scenes and the beautiful women. The fantastic content isn’t much; there’s some talk about a curse on Artatama’s tomb, but it comes to nothing. Does our hero reach the tomb? Does he find the emerald? Does he survive the several plots that are made against him? Does he end up with the woman who really loves him? Does the movie ever rise above the run-of-the-mill bottom-of-the-bill action flick it appears to be? One of the above questions has an answer of ‘no’, and if you follow the path of fewest surprises, you’ll know which one it is. Watchable and forgettable.

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The Medusa Touch (1978)

THE MEDUSA TOUCH (1978)
Article 3008 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-2-2009
Posting Date: 11-8-2009
Directed by Jack Gold
Featuring Richard Burton, Lino Ventura, Lee Remick
Country: France / UK

When a man is found bludgeoned almost to death in his apartment, a police inspector seeks to find the murderer. His search leads him to the knowledge that the victim may have powers of destruction that make him a threat to society. Furthermore, despite his injuries, the victim refuses to die… and his brain is getting stronger.

If you’re a fan of fantastic cinema, then it can be rather tiresome to run across one of those movies that dwells overmuch on the subject that “no one will believe what’s happening”, even if it is essential to the plot. This is why the first three-fourths of this movie gets tiresome; I get a little antsy waiting for the movie to take the concept to the next level, and I don’t need to see continually mounting evidence that this character really has the powers in question. Nevertheless, the movie manages to build to a neat little thriller once it finishes setting up its premise, and it raises a number of interesting moral questions in the process. Oddly enough, the movie doesn’t really take off until it manages to solve the mystery that drives its first three-quarters, but the universally strong performances from all concerned help to keep us interested despite its flaws. Oddly enough, my favorite little touch to the mystery is one you can figure out on your own; immediately after the murder, the television is switched off, but when the body is discovered, the television is back on. I don’t recall it being solved directly during the course of the movie, but you should be able to figure out why it’s on.

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Matchless (1967)

MATCHLESS (1967)
Article 3007 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-1-2009
Posting Date: 11-7-2009
Directed by Alberto Lattuada
Featuring Patrick O’Neal, Ira von Furstenberg, Donald Pleasence
Country: Italy

An American journalist, while a prisoner in China, acquires a magic ring that can turn him invisible for limited periods of time. When he returns to the U.S., he is sent on a mission by the military to track down a genius master criminal to acquire his secrets.

This spoof of the Bond movies doesn’t have much of a reputation, but I found it amusing enough in a harmless sort of way. I’m a bit amused that the fantastic content involving invisibility seems to involve magic rather than science, which is kind of odd for the superspy genre. It’s also fun to see Henry Silva in a more comic role than usual for him, and, for my money, Donald Pleasence is a lot more fun as the villain of this movie than when he played Blofeld. I also liked a car chase scene that ends up with the cars on top of a moving train. I’d hardly call it a great movie, but this cross between INVISIBLE AGENT and the Bond movies did keep me consistently entertained.

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Mark of the Devil (1970)

MARK OF THE DEVIL (1970)
aka Hexen bis aufs Blut gequalt
Article 3006 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-31-2009
Posting Date: 11-6-2009
Directed by Michael Armstrong and Adrian Hoven
Featuring Herbert Lom, Udo Kier, Olivera Katrina
Country: West Germany

A town hopes the arrival of witch-hunter Lord Cumberland will free them from the tyranny of their local witch hunter, who has been abusing his authority for personal satisfaction. However, the new witch-hunter may be even worse…

One of the tag lines for this movie was “likely to upset your stomach”, and patrons were given barf bags when the movie was shown. Obviously, this witch-hunting / torture film modeled off of WITCHFINDER GENERAL wasn’t going for the art house crowd. The dubbing is often quite bad, the musical score thinks the movie is a romance or a swashbuckler, and the editing makes the movie quite confusing at times. It also does wallow in the exploitative sadism it mires itself into, which is probably the reason the movie was successful enough to spawn a sequel. Still, it does manage to have a storyline as well, occasionally it shows an interesting insight into the witch-hunting mindset, and it’s anchored by a good performance from the ever-dependable Herbert Lom. Apparently, the movie was originally to be directed by Michael Reeves (who probably would have given us something a little better), but when he died, the direction passed Michael Armstrong, who, according to IMDB, was Reeves’ assistant during WITCHFINDER GENERAL, though they list no credit for him; at any rate, I got the impression Armstrong knew a bit about Reeves’ style, but didn’t quite know how to make it work. Also, according to IMDB, the original ending featured the dead rising up and pulling the character of Christian into the abyss, but it was nixed by one of the directors. This ending makes no sense to me at all, given that the character of Christian is the closest this movie comes to a hero. I wonder if this piece of trivia is mistaken, and whether it might actually be Lord Cumberland who was to be pulled into they abyss; if not, it would have been one of the most cynical endings in movie history.

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Doctor Dracula (1978)

DOCTOR DRACULA (1978)
aka Svengali, Lucifer’s Women
Article 3005 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-30-2009
Posting Date: 11-6-2009
Directed by Paul Aratow and Al Adamson
Featuring John Carradine, Don ‘Red’ Barry, Larry Hankin
Country: USA

Svengali has been reincarnated into a college professor by Satanists who want him to deliver Trilby to them. Meanwhile, Dracula is killing women and plotting against the Satanic cult. John Carradine looks on.

In which Al Adamson follows in the footsteps of Jerry Warren and edits his own footage into another movie (in this case, a 1975 movie called SVENGALI / LUCIFER’S WOMEN) to produce a new movie. He actually does a nice job of making his footage match that of the original movie; I suspect he helped things by getting the same actor who played the college professor in the original movie to reprise the role in the new footage. I suspect all of the Dracula footage is Adamson’s, as well as any scene with John Carradine. No, Adamson’s footage isn’t any good (it has some truly atrocious acting), but neither was the footage from the original film. The result is an unsatisfying mishmash that never makes sense, and which is often talky and boring. Quite frankly, I don’t understand why they didn’t call it DRACULA VS SVENGALI, or why producer Sam Sherman didn’t come up with an alternate title that had the word “blood” in it, as was his wont. At any rate, this is pretty much the bottom of the barrel for everyone concerned.

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Mad Monster Party? (1967)

MAD MONSTER PARTY? (1967)
Article 3004 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-29-2009
Posting Date: 10-4-2009
Directed by Jules Bass
Featuring the voices of Boris Karloff, Allen Swift, Gale Garnett
Country: USA

Dr. Frankenstein plans to retire as head of the monsters and plans to put his nephew in his place, a human named Felix Flankin. However, the other monsters hatch a plot to do away with Felix so they can get a hold on all of Dr. Frankenstein’s secrets.

It’s really impossible for me to be too hard on a movie that pays tribute to so many classic monsters (Frankenstein, his monster, the Bride of Frankenstein, the Wolfman, Dracula, the Invisible Man, the Mummy, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and a special surpise appearance only billed as “It”), especially if it features the voice work of Boris Karloff and a whole slew of celebrity imitations (including Jimmy Stewart, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet and Charles Laughton). I wondered about the presence of Phyllis Diller, but when I discovered she was cast as the Bride of Frankenstein (who lovingly calls the monster “Fang”), I had to admit it was an inspired choice. It’s just that I wish this Rankin/Bass animated film was better. The movie opts to go the comedy route, yet at heart, comedy wasn’t really what Rankin/Bass did best; they specialized in whimsical fantasies. Here the comedy falls thuddingly flat most of the time, and, despite the fact that animation is capable of producing immaculate comedy (think of Looney Tunes), much of the timing here is clumsy. I also find it a little questionable tastewise in a children’s movie to have our villainess fall in love with a man only after having been slapped around by him; though it’s not sadistically (he’s just trying to break her out of hysteria), I would certainly not want to have to try to explain masochism to an impressionable child. Still, there’s always Karloff to brighten things up, and I do like the ending, especially a nice little final twist that also serves as an unlikely reference to SOME LIKE IT HOT. My favorite gag involves Frankenstein’s offering a fly to a giant frog.

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In Search of Noah’s Ark (1976)

IN SEARCH OF NOAH’S ARK (1976)
Article 3003 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-28-2009
Posting Date: 11-3-2009
Directed by James L. Conway
Featuring Vern Adix, Brad Crandall, Lee Sollenberger
Country: USA

Does evidence exist of Noah’s Ark on top of Mount Ararat? This movie sets out to examine the proof…

I always feel like I’m walking on thin ice with movies whose fantastic content ties them with Biblical themes; the very fact that I’m covering them in the context of a comprehensive view of the fantastic genres (science fiction, fantasy or horror) makes me run the risk of appearing that I’m scoffing at things that many people embrace as unassailable truth. My response is twofold; firstly, any movie that deals with events that could be described as magical (in this case, consider Noah’s ability to control all of those animals) places it within the bounds of fantasy, whether or not the event is true or believed true, and secondly, I won’t cover a movie unless some other source has already classified it as belonging to the fantastic genres. With this out of the way, let me go on to the movie itself.

In some ways, movies like this are a bit useless; if you’re a devout believer, you don’t need proof, and if you’re skeptical, you’ll probably never find sufficient proof for your purposes, especially if you question the intents of the filmmakers themselves. I suspect you’ll most be impressed if you see it as a child. I’ll give it credit for addressing many of the thorny questions that can usually be asked about the possibility of such an event actually occurring. Nevertheless, the movie is only mildly interesting at best, and rather repetitive at its worst; there’s just so much you can do with footage of people climbing mountains. At any rate, I suspect most people know in advance whether this movie would have any interest for them without having to read my review.

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The Ice House (1969)

THE ICE HOUSE (1969)
aka Love in Cold Blood
Article 3002 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-27-2009
Posting Date: 11-2-2009
Directed by Stuart E. McGowan
Featuring David Story, Robert Story, Jim Davis
Country: USA

An ice house worker is humiliated by a buxom blonde who hits him over the head with a beer bottle. This gives him a trauma so that he strangles any woman who raises a drink to him. Pretty soon, his twin brother, a cop, is on a case to track down disappearing women.

At first I thought this sleazy, cheap little movie was doing an amazing job in twin brother special effects, but a quick check of the credits cleared that up; instead of one actor playing two roles, we have actual twins in the leads. It’s a neat trick getting real twins to play twins a movie. It’s an even better trick if both the twins can act, but you can’t have everything. This movie is incredibly sleazy; the local dance place features lots of nude dancing to the non-hit “The Scrub”, there’s a gratuitous orgy sequence, and assorted other nude scenes. It’s also incredibly silly; from the traumatic experience that sets off the murders, the twin cop subplot, and a variety of other silly scenes (especially a freak accident where a corpse appears in an ice dispenser), the movie becomes unintentionally comic a lot of the time. But then it may not be unintentional; director Stuart McGowan went on to direct a couple of Tim Conway films. The most surprising thing about this movie is that there’s a touch of naivete in place of the mean-spiritedness I usually find in movies of this ilk; the killer is basically a big lug who can’t control what he does rather than the repellent misogynist that I’d expect from a movie like this, and it doesn’t drench itself in sadism. In short, this one is definitely bad, but far from unwatchable.

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Past Midnight (1991)

PAST MIDNIGHT (1991)
Article 3001 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-26-2009
Posting Date: 11-1-2009
Directed by Jan Eliasberg
Featuring Rutger Hauer, Natasha Richardson, Clancy Brown
Country: USA

A social worker takes on a case of finding a job for a parolee who was in prison for killing his wife and unborn child. She begins to suspect that he was framed for the murder, and she investigates on her own while falling in love with him. However, she may be in greater danger than she thinks…

Yesterday I mentioned Quentin Tarantino in passing; today I find myself unexpectedly encountering him. He’s listed as associate producer on this movie, though, according to IMDB, he got the credit from having done an uncredited rewrite on the script. I have yet to see any of Tarantino’s other movies, so I’m not going to make any judgments or generalizations, and I don’t know just how much was rewritten here. The movie is only fair; Rutger Hauer is well cast, but he’s in exactly the sort of role I’d expect him to be in. The story itself is standard, and I think it mostly falters towards the end when too many characters make stupid decisions. A serial killer aspect of the story is the primary horror element, though touches of PEEPING TOM also creep in. Incidentally, this movie predates Tarantino’s breakthrough movie RESERVOIR DOGS.

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