Trilby (1915)

TRILBY (1915)
Article 2880 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-27-2009
Posting Date: 7-2-2009
Directed by Maurice Tourneur
Featuring Wilton Lackaye, Clara Kimball Young, Paul McAllister
Country: USA

A musician named Svengali decides to make his fortune by using his hypnotic powers to turn a Paris model into a singer.

IMDB lists eleven versions of the Du Maurier story, seven of which feature Trilby’s name in the title and five of which feature Svengali’s name in the title; the reason it adds up to twelve rather than eleven is that one version is called TRILBY AND SVENGALI. It’s not surprising that the use of Trilby’s name is more common, as that is the title of the original novel, but I’ve always felt Svengali was the more interesting character, and I’m not surprised that the most interesting movie version of the story is the one with the most striking performance of that character; namely, John Barrymore’s version from 1931. This version is quite good, but I don’t find Wilton Lackaye’s performance to be near as memorable as Barrymore’s, and I suspect that I’ll find this true about any of the other versions of the story I encounter. This marks either the third or fourth version of the story I’ve seen; it depends on whether you count ELLA LOLA A LA TRILBY, which, personally, I don’t.

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Santo the Silver Mask vs the Martian Invasion (1967)

SANTO THE SILVER MASK VS THE MARTIAN INVASION (1967)
aka Santo el enmascarado de plata vs la invasion de los marcianos
Article 2879 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-26-2009
Posting Date: 7-1-2009
Directed by Alfredo B. Crevenna
Featuring Santo, Wolf Ruvinskis, El Nazi
Country: Mexico

Santo must do battle with Martians who are intent on saving the Earth from itself… by taking over the planet and forcing them to live in peace.

Maybe I’ve gone off the deep end here, but I would have to nominate this as the best of the Mexican wrestler movies. Granted, this judgment is clouded somewhat by the fact that this is one of the few movies of the bunch that I’ve had English subtitles to help me understand what’s going on. It’s a movie with a message, and though it’s somewhat ham-fisted about it, it does add a touch of seriousness to the silliness that abounds. It also seems like more care was given to the story than is usually the case for these movies. Here’s a quick list of some of the more remarkable touches I found.

1) I’m amused by the opening sequence, in which the Martians take over the TV signals to announce their impending invasion of the Earth. This fails to frighten the Earthlings because they mistake the transmission as a comedy skit. Oddly enough, I found this concept rather convincing.

2) Quite a few people die by disintegration in this one, including huge crowds at sporting events. The Martians even disintegrate defenseless children.

3) There are several moments where Santo finds himself surveying a deserted location after a Martian attack. These scenes are unexpectedly poignant, especially since there is no music underlying these scenes, only silence.

4) There’s a rather surreal sequence where Santo holds a wrestling match in a deserted arena, insisting to his opponents that they must continue the match even though there is no audience.

5) On top of disintegrating humans and trying to kidnap Santo (so they can take him to Mars and study him), the Martians also kidnap a strange group of people. They kidnap a small family, a pair of government officials, a science fiction writer, a nuclear scientist, and a priest. Why? No explanation is tendered.

Oh, there’s plenty of silliness as well, including a musical number by the Martian women, the Martian costumes and names borrowed from mythology, and the all-too-convenient lever that blows everything to atoms. But the movie is surprisingly focused; the only wrestling scenes are relevant to the plot, for example. No, it’s not a great movie, but it’s one of the most ambitious Santo movies as well as the most enjoyable. If you were only to see one of them, this is the one I’d recommend.

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Phantom Killer (1942)

PHANTOM KILLER (1942)
Article 2878 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-25-2009
Posting Date: 6-30-2009
Directed by William Beaudine
Featuring Dick Purcell, Joan Woodbury, John Hamilton
Country: USA

An assistant D.A. is sure that several murders have been committed by a prominent citizen who is pretending to be a deaf-mute. However, the citizen has an alibi in which he was at public events at the time of the murders. Furthermore, it has been proven by doctors that the citizen is a deaf-mute, though witnesses to the murders claim that he can talk. What is the solution to this mystery?

If you’re familiar with THE SPHINX, and are aware that this movie is a remake of that one, you’ll know the solution. If you’re not, don’t worry; one of the characters gives away the solution to the mystery in one of the opening scenes, if you’re alert enough to catch it. There’s no phantom to speak of, so the only fantastic content is the implied doppelganger of the storyline. Overall, it’s a thoroughly ordinary poverty row mystery. At least one of the user comments on IMDB suggests you watch it for Mantan Moreland, but be aware that he has about one minute of screen time. This one is routine at best.

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Profanadores de tumbas (1966)

PROFANADORES DE TUMBAS (1966)
aka Santo Vs. the Grave Robbers, Dealers in Death
Article 2877 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-24-2009
Posting Date: 6-29-2009
Directed by Jose Diaz Morales
Featuring Santo, Gina Romand, Mario Orea
Country: Mexico

A mad doctor employs a hunchback (who he beats repeatedly) and two grave robbers (who really enjoy burning dead bodies). His experiments with heart transplants are unsuccessful because he needs a super-human heart, such as one from a masked wrestler named Santo. However, they have to kill him first…

Okay, the mad scientist needs to kill a masked wrestler for his heart. I can handle this; this is familiar territory. Then things start getting weird. The killer lamp with a bleeding heart on the shade is strange enough (hint for Santo: lamps don’t work if they’re unplugged), but we also get a bleeding painting, a killer violin, and… a killer wig. This is one mad doctor we’re talking about. Santo has wrestled a lot of nemeses in his days, but if you want to see him doing battle with a lamp, this is the movie for you. Oh, and Santo (and I’ve mentioned this before, I know), please, please, please don’t let your cape dangle out near the tires of your Santomobile when you’re out driving; this just makes me nervous. The cast includes actors named Frankenstein and Quasimodo; incidentally, the latter actor is NOT playing the hunchback. At this sitting, this takes the cake as the weirdest Santo movie of the lot; I only wish it was dubbed or subtitled in English.

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The Tale of Osaka Castle (1961)

THE TALE OF OSAKA CASTLE (1961)
aka Daredevil in the Castle, Osaka jo monogatari
Article 2876 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-23-2009
Posting Date: 6-28-2009
Directed by Hiroshi Inagaki
Featuring Toshiro Mifune, Kyoko Kagawa, Yuriko Hoshi
Country: Japan

A mountain Samurai comes to Osaka to get a job at the castle, but becomes embroiled in a political struggle that is threatening to turn into a war.

The fantastic content is pretty light here; there’s a short sequence in a scary underground cave with bats and snakes, and I’m not familiar enough with Japanese history to know if this is based on a real historical event or if it’s a borderline fantasy. Like the other Toshiro Mifune movies I’ve seen that were not directed by Kurasawa, it’s not up to the level of the movies he acted in for that great director, but Mifune is still a charismatic and appealing actor. Here he’s a lot of fun as a brawling loose cannon who just wants to keep out of the war, but finds himself drawn into it when he falls in love with a woman at the castle. He uses humor and body language exquisitely, and he’s particularly good in the action sequences. The story gets a bit confusing at times, but the final battle sequence is quite exciting as Mifune must find a way to light a wagon full of gunpowder on a bridge as the enemy rapidly approaches. The cast also features Akikhiko Hirata and Takashi Shimura.

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The Thirteenth Hour (1947)

THE THIRTEENTH HOUR (1947)
Article 2875 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-22-2009
Posting Date: 6-27-2009
Directed by William Clemens
Featuring Richard Dix, Karen Morley, John Kellogg
Country: USA

The boss of a small trucking firm ends up at odds with a police officer who is his rival for the affection of the woman who runs the local diner. The rivalry intensifies when the policeman tickets the trucker for drunk driving and causes him to lose his license. The trucker is then forced to take it on the lam when he is framed for the murder of the policeman.

Though it isn’t apparent from the title, this is another entry in “The Whistler” series of movies, and, like many of the others, the shadowy figure of the Whistler (who serves as our narrator) is the sole fantastic element in the movie. Still, this is one dandy little B movie, with Richard Dix capturing our sympathy as an everyman who gets caught up in a situation that is over his head, and which eventually leads to a diamond smuggling operation. The script is quite strong. I like that the characters here act with intelligence; when our hero is forced to write a note to his fiancee, he manages to find a way to clue her in to the true nature of his situation by writing a comment that seems quite innocent on the surface, for example. One really gets the sense of paranoia and oppression of being on the lam as well. “The Whistler” was one of the better B-Movie series out there, and this entry in the series is one of the reasons why.

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Tarzan and the She-Devil (1953)

TARZAN AND THE SHE-DEVIL (1953)
Article 2874 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-21-2009
Posting Date: 6-26-2009
Directed by Kurt Neumann
Featuring Lex Barker, Joyce Mackenzie, Raymond Burr
Country: USA

Tarzan must match wits with Ivory hunters who kidnap members of a friendly native tribe and use them as slaves.

On IMDB, this movie has a 5.0 rating, and a quick check of all of the other titles I have watched for this series which begin with the word “Tarzan” reveals it’s tied for the lowest with two other movies, TARZAN’S REVENGE and TARZAN THE FEARLESS. However, neither of those two movies are part of the series that began with TARZAN THE APE MAN in 1932, and would eventually lead to this one. For the first half of the movie, I was wondering why the rating was so low; it seemed like a derivative but passable Tarzan movie up to that point. Unfortunately, the movie goes off track at the halfway point, when Tarzan’s tree-house is burned down and he believes Jane has died in the inferno. He then proceeds to spend almost the rest of the movie in a surly mope. Not only is this a downer of the worst variety, but it’s also counter to what I believe is an essential quality of Tarzan; he’s only a step away from a savage jungle animal, and I find it impossible to believe that he would choose depressed moping over enraged violence. Had the series fallen this far from the original conception of the character? At any rate, this would be Lex Barker’s last movie in the role; Gordon Scott would take over in the role after this one.

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Tarzan and the Lost Safari (1957)

TARZAN AND THE LOST SAFARI (1957)
Article 2873 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-20-2009
Posting Date: 6-25-2009
Directed by H. Bruce Humberstone
Featuring Gordon Scott, Robert Beatty, Yolande Donlan
Country: UK

Tarzan rescues the passengers of a private plane that crashes in the jungle. They team up with an adventurer who agrees to lead them out of the jungle. However, the adventurer is in cahoots with a tribe of natives who wants to sacrifice the passengers to their god…

Gordon Scott is likable in the role, the color is nice, and there is lots of animal footage. Still, at heart, what we have here is a Double-Stuffed Safari-O with a third-rate plot whose predictability is incredibly apparent; there are no surprises and a lot of padding in this movie. Scott would appear six times as Tarzan before turning to sword and sandal movies. The fantastic content here is no more than the slight fantasy touches to any story about Tarzan.

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The Strangler (1964)

THE STRANGLER (1964)
Article 2872 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-19-2009
Posting Date: 6-24-2009
Directed by Burt Topper
Featuring Victor Buono, David McLean, Diane Sayer
Country: USA

Police are searching for a serial strangler who specializes in nurses. The killer is a seemingly mild-mannered man with an overbearing and manipulative mother.

This movie has one big plus; Victor Buono was a great actor who was wonderful at playing sinister characters who outwardly don’t seem so at first, and that’s just what is called for here. He is fascinating to watch, and when he’s on the screen, he holds your attention. This helps to make up for the fact that the script falls a little bit short. I’m particularly disappointed that the movie doesn’t really give us an understanding of what drives the killer to commit the murders of nurses in the first place; instead, it concentrates on the murders that only have a direct bearing on his relationship with his mother, which are departures from his usual pattern. This means we never really get the insight into what makes him tick, as we only see the murders that are logically motivated. I suppose the lack of insight was to be expected; after all, the minute the psychologist confuses schizophrenia with split personality, I knew the movie wasn’t going to be psychologically incisive. Still, for a low budget movie, it’s efficient and mostly well-acted, though I wasn’t impressed with the acting from Davey Davison, despite the fact that she’s given a prominent credit during the opening. In short, it’s good, but not great.

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Fantomas (1947)

FANTOMAS (1947)
Article 2871 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-18-2009
Posting Date: 6-23-2009
Directed by Jean Sacha
Featuring Marcel Herrand, Simone Signoret, Alexandre Rignault
Country: France

Detective Juve matches wits with super-criminal Fantomas.

If you take the five episodes of Louis Fuillade’s serial about the title character as one unit (IMDB lists the five episodes as different movies and I’ve covered them the same way), then this is the third version that I’ve seen of this story. Unfortunately, except for the second episode of the aforementioned serial, every version I’ve seen has been in unsubtitled French, and this one is no exception. In fact, this particular version is so dependent on words to flesh out its story that I couldn’t follow the story at all, hence the vague plot description above. It does seem, though, that the Fantomas in this movie is rather different than the ones I remember from the earlier versions; in fact, there are moments where the movie made me think more of Dr. Mabuse than Fantomas. The fantastic content is more marked though; there’s some definite science fiction content, with a number of strange machines, an odd-looking helicopter, and a death ray machine. A few nice visual moments help a little, and the action scenes at the end are fun, but it looks like I’m really going to need to see this one in English to appreciate it.

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