My Blood Runs Cold (1965)

MY BLOOD RUNS COLD (1965)
Article 2001 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-6-2006
Posting Date: 2-3-2007
Directed by William Conrad
Featuring Troy Donahue, Joey Heatherton, Barry Sullivan

The daughter of a ruthless and possessive business tycoon almost runs over a man who claims to have known her in a previous life. Despite her father’s wishes, she falls in love with the man, and decides to run off with him. Unfortunately, the man isn’t quite what he seems…

I’m mostly familiar with William Conrad for his having played the title role in the TV series “Cannon”, and for his voice-over work on “Rocky and Bullwinkle”. In truth, he appears to have had a varied career, which includes a lot of radio work, some producing, and even some composing. As a director, he mostly worked for television. This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered him in this capacity; he did some uncredited work on COUNTDOWN. At any rate, I’m not particularly impressed with his work on this one, but it’s mostly the story that leaves my blood running tepid. With all the potential for fantasy-horror here (what with the reincarnation angle and the psycho-on-the-loose plotline), somehow the movie seems little more than a variation of REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE; just substitute a homicidal psycho for a troubled teen, and you’re pretty much in the same territory. The acting is variable, with Jeanette Nolan coming off the best as the heroine’s Aunt Sarah; she’s far and away the most unpredictable and interesting character in the story. Nocolas Coster also does surprisingly well when you consider that he has the thankless role in the movie (that of the the girl’s other boyfriend) and Sullivan also comes off well. Troy Donahue does all right, but his character is a little too obvious to be effective, and, though she is undeniably very attractive, I didn’t find Joey Heatherton to be very convincing in her role. The most fun I had with this movie was figuring out who does the voice of the helicopter pilot near the end of the movie.

 

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Killer With Two Faces (1975)

KILLER WITH TWO FACES (1975)
Article 2000 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-5-2006
Posting Date: 2-2-2007
Directed by John Scholz-Conway
Featuring Donna Mills, Ian Hendry, David Lodge

A homicidal maniac with a fetish about physical perfection breaks free from an asylum and starts a killing spree. He takes on the identity of his twin brother, who is a noted architect, and hooks up with a woman who wants some changes made to her house. The brother tries to help the police catch the maniac.

As far as I can tell, there was either a British TV series or series of movies called “Thriller” in the mid-seventies that produced a series of 75-minute movies for broadcast. Both this and KISS ME AND DIE appear to have been from this series, and based on these two example, I’m afraid I can only conclude that the thrills were pretty tepid. The acting was all right, and the scripts weren’t too bad, but the turgid pace and the lifeless direction really dragged this one down. Quite frankly, this would have made a nice thirty minute episode from something like “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”, but at its present length, it just takes the movie forever to get to its fairly obvious plot twists. Writer Brian Clemens was responsible for most of the scripts in this series, and he was one of the writers and producers of “The Avengers”, episodes of which I would find much more enjoyable than this one was.

 

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The Chinese Web (1979)

THE CHINESE WEB (1979)
aka SPIDER-MAN: THE DRAGON’S CHALLENGE
Article 1999 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-4-2006
Posting Date: 2-1-2007
Directed by Don McDougall
Featuring Nicholas Hammond, Robert F.Simon, Rosalind Chao

When a Chinese politician finds himself under suspicion of murder and selling military secrets, he comes to the United States in the hope of locating the men who can clear his name. He appeals to J. Jonah Jameson for help, who puts Peter Parker on the case. However, an industrialist, who will lose a billion-dollar contract if the politician remains alive, decides to have the politician killed, and it is up to Spider-Man to protect him.

This movie is two episodes of the the 1978 “Spider-Man” series edited together to make a feature, and since the two episodes are part of the same story, it comes across better than those attempts where they try to edit together episodes that have nothing to do with each other. I’m not really a big fan of the live-action superhero TV series of the seventies; it always struck me that the limitations of the medium required some heavy compromise; the heroes themselves had their powers curtailed, and were usually given only ordinary villains to contend with rather than the super-villains you would find in the comics. Apparently, both “Wonder Woman” and “The Incredible Hulk” were successful enough to overcome this; in fact, I’d go so far to say that the TV version of the Hulk is more well-known and widely accepted than the comic book version. This series was not the success of those others.

In terms of the compromises the series made with the comic version, the biggest problem I have is the conversion of the cantankerous, bad-tempered and near-villainous character of J. Jonah Jameson into a nice older guy who has no problem with Spider-Man at all; this takes all the flavor out of his character. As for the whole “movie” itself, the writing is pretty weak, the action is tepid, and the acting is uneven. Though Spider-Man still has is Spidey sense intact, having him show it by freeze-framing him and having his eyes flash is pretty weak, and his ability to react with a faster reaction time is not in evidence; he is shot twice here. Though he still has most of his powers, he doesn’t use them near as often as the situations warrant. The first half of the movie works best, but by the time the action moves to Hong Kong in the second half, it becomes rather repetitive and dull.

 

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Boom (1968)

BOOM (1968)
Article 1998 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-3-2006
Posting Date: 1-31-2007
Directed by Joseph Losey
Featuring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Noel Coward

A dying female tycoon who lives on a mountain on an island treats her staff and the residents of the island dictatorially. She is visited by a poet who is known as the Angel of Death because every woman he is associated with dies.

It stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, is directed by Joseph Losey, and has a script from Tennessee Williams. How bad can it be? Well, there may be something here for the persistent searcher who doesn’t mind that the movie isn’t going to help him much. Me, I think it’s an exercise in self-indulgence in which only a select few emerge with their dignity intact. Burton comes off best, and Joanna Shimkus and Michael Dunn do all right in their respective roles. The worst excesses come from the script itself; I love some of Williams’ plays, but this one utterly fails to click. The costume designer also is a major problem, especially that freaky Kabuki hat Taylor wears during a dinner scene; it’s so distracting, it’s a nearly impossible job to pay attention to anything else. Noel Coward is saddled with a role that requires him to resort to bird calls all the time, and Taylor – well, let’s just say if you want to see a movie where Elizabeth Taylor spends practically every moment being bitchy, screaming, cussing or having coughing fits, this one is for you. I love checking the user ratings on IMDB for users like this; with most movies you end up with a consensus of some sort, but with this one, the ratings are scattered all over the place, with the extremes getting the most votes and about even on those. At heart, it’s one of those movie that either clicks with you or it doesn’t, and for me, this one didn’t. I suspect that the “Angel of Death” plot point is the fantastic content.

 

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Rostro infernal (1963)

ROSTRO INFERNAL (1963)
aka THE INCREDIBLE FACE OF DR. B
Article 1997 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-2-2006
Posting Date: 1-30-2007
Directed by Alfredo B. Crevenna
Featuring Eric del Castillo, Rosa Carmina, Jaime Fernandez

Count Brankovan can gain immortality by drinking liquids drained from the brains of his victims. The police are trying to catch him.

Here’s another useless review of Mexican horror movie which I’ve only been able to find in unsubtitled Spanish. I wouldn’t even have that much of the plot to give you if the blurb on the back cover of my DVD didn’t explain it. As usual, the parts I best appreciate are those that are purely visual; as a result, I find myself enjoying the musical numbers more than I would in other movies, and this movie features a combo which plays jazzy versions of familiar melodies, two of which I recognize though I don’t know their titles; all I can say is that one number always reminds me of Hawaii and the other of undertakers. I do know that the evil scientist (who hides his ugly face behind a mask) has an assistant named Kunto who looks quite familiar, though the only other credit I can find for him is in TARZAN AND THE VALLEY OF GOLD, which I’ve never seen. The scientist also keeps four white-haired androids (I think that may be the proper word) to do his bidding, though they do get confused on occasion, especially towards the end when they take off their suits so they can go bare-chested while interrupting a musical number but end up attacking each other when clever policeman shine big flashlights on them (I’m betting this scene makes a lot more sense if I understood the language, but who knows?) This is one movie where the subtitles or dubbing would really have come in handy, though I’d sum it up by saying it’s a more horror oriented take on THE MAN IN HALF MOON STREET.

 

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The Story of Mankind (1957)

THE STORY OF MANKIND (1957)
Article 1996 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-1-2006
Posting Date: 1-29-2007
Directed by Irwin Allen
Featuring Ronald Colman, Vincent Price, Cedric Hardwicke

When mankind invents the Super H-Bomb several decades too early, a high tribunal is called to decide whether mankind should be destroyed or allowed to continue its existence. Mankind is put on trial, with Mr. Scratch, the devil, serving as prosecuting attorney, and the Spirit of Mankind serving as defense attorney.

Whatever its merits, there is no doubt that this movie possesses a very high curiosity value; its array of stars playing various historical figures guarantees that. Just listing the names could take up this whole review, but let’s get it over with; Ronald Colman, Hedy Lamarr, the Marx Brothers, Virginia Mayo, Agnes Moorehead, Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Charles Coburn, Cedric Hardwicke, Cesar Romero, John Carradine, Dennis Hopper, Marie Wilson, Helmut Dantine, Edwart Everett Horton, Reginal Gardiner, Marie Windsor, and, now just picking a few noticeable names out of the rest, Franklin Pangborn, Henry Daniell, Francis X. Bushman, Nick Cravat, Anthony Dexter, Don Megowan, William Schallert, Abraham Sofaer, Bobby Watson (as, of course, Adolf Hitler) and Angelo Rossitto.

Given that this is an Irwin Allen movie, I pretty much discarded from the outset any possibility that the movie would actually manage to say anything profound about human nature, and sure enough, the movie’s philosphical pursuits are vulgar, obvious, muddled, and often dull Still, the actors forced to reckon with these sections of the story (Colman, Price and Hardwicke) come off with their dignity intact, and Price did get a laugh out of me with a passing comment about his views of painting. For the rest, it’s mostly an adventure to see how well the various name stars fare against utter miscasting and abysmal writing. Some come out all right; at least Groucho (as Peter Minuit) is allowed to ad lib to his heart’s content, Dennis Hopper wisely underplays his Napoleon, Cesar Romero retains his dignity, and Harpo plays Harpo. Others get by as best they can (Carradine, for example), and some are forced to overact by the necessity of the script (Peter Lorre as Nero), while others overact of their own free will (Agnes Moorehead as Queen Elizabeth manages to give perhaps the worst performance of her career here), while others are thoroughly wasted (Edward Everett Horton’s role consists of nothing more than having a flagon of beer poured over him, and Chico Marx is relegated to trading a few non-humorous lines with Anthony Dexter, who is playing Columbus). Two-thirds of the movie is made up of the philosophical discussions and the cameos; the rest is stock footage.

So what’s the verdict? Given the lack of real philosophical insight as a forgone conclusion, the question becomes – is the movie much fun? Sadly, the answer is – not really. A few moments stand out, the curiosity value will draw you in occasionally, but mostly the movie is on the dreary side. Most of the fun I had was spotting some familiar faces, my favorite being that of Angelo Rossitto as a dwarf chasing a woman during the Nero sequence. Even given my expectations, this one proved disappointing.

 

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The Seventh Veil (1945)

THE SEVENTH VEIL (1945)
Article 1995 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-31-2006
Posting Date: 1-28-2007
Directed by Compton Bennett
Featuring James Mason, Ann Todd, Herbert Lom

A psychiatrist tries to tap into the mind of a female pianist who attempted suicide after escaping from her hotel room. He learns her life story, which involves a guardian who has a Svengali-like hold over her.

At the outset, I’ll point out that the fantastic content here is very slight. We deal somewhat with mental illness, hypnotism comes into play (though not in a menacing sense), and these are both elements of horror, but probably the biggest element has to do with the fact that the story is somewhat modeled after the Svengali/Trilby story, though it should be pointed out that the nature of the hold that the guardian has over the pianist is something a lot more subtle than the hypnotism of the source story; in a sense, this movie’s fantastic content is by proxy only.

At first, this movie didn’t impress me much; the beginning scenes made it look as if they had merely taken the Svengali story and filtered it though “Jane Eyre”, and most of these early scenes felt overly familiar. However, the movie took what I thought was a surprising left turn at the halfway point, when the pianist gives her first concert which, due to the presence of certain people, I expected to be a failure, but instead turned out to be a triumph. It as at this point that the movie really comes into its own, and I think much of the credit to this movie’s power goes to Ann Todd’s exquisite performance as the pianist. Despite the fact that she’s got plenty of acting competition from the rest of the cast (including James Mason, Herbert Lom, Albert Lieven and Hugh McDermott, who are all excellent), she’s the one who really pulls it all together, and her piano playing looks so convincing that I wonder if she actually was classically trained on the instrument. Still, fans of fantastic cinema will certainly get some fun out of seeing two famous Captain Nemos in the same scene. Though in some ways this is a love story, it’s actually less sexist than many of them when you consider just how important the pianist’s career is in making her life decisions. Very well done.

 

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One Body Too Many (1944)

ONE BODY TOO MANY (1944)
Article 1994 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-30-2006
Posting Date: 1-27-2007
Directed by Frank McDonald
Featuring Jack Haley, Carol Dunlap, Bela Lugosi

An insurance salesman arrives at a mansion in the hope of selling a policy to the eccentric old man who lives there, only to discover that the man is dead and his relatives are gathered together for a reading of the will. He finds himself volunteering to guard the body against abduction.

I always thought it a bit odd that, despite their having played some of the most memorable roles of all time, the three actors who played Dorothy’s companions in THE WIZARD OF OZ (Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr and Jack Haley) rarely pop up in my movie-watching travels. Other than THE WIZARD OF OZ iself, I think this is only the second time I’ve encountered one of them for this series (Ray Bolger popped up in BABES IN TOYLAND). This is basically an “old dark house” movie, and Jack Haley has what amounts to the Wallace Ford role. He’s only mildly amusing, but then, the comic dialogue is fairly weak to begin with, and I’m not sure anyone could have really done much with it to begin with. His best line involves the word “drip”. Bela Lugosi plays, once again, the butler, and though I still think it’s a bit of a shame that he was consistently given the same type of role in movies like this, at least this time he gets to be in charge of the best running gag in the movie (it involves rat poison and coffee), and, as in THE GORILLA, he gives the funniest performance in the movie. The dialogue is pretty weak, and the direction is none too impressive in this one (Frank McDonald mostly churned out B westerns), but I do like the concept that the will is set up so that the money awards will be reversed if the dead man is not buried as requested; with this situation, it makes sense that people might make off with the dead body. I also like the sequences involving the observatory atop the mansion; it makes for an interesting setting for some of the action. One note: Leo is a constellation, not a star. This is the type of mistake I’d expect in a dubbed movie from Japan, not one in which English is the native language.

 

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Hysteria (1965)

HYSTERIA (1965)
Article 1993 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-29-2006
Posting Date: 1-26-2007
Directed by Freddie Francis
Featuring Robert Webber, Anthony Newlands, Jennifer Jayne

An amnesiac tries to track down information about a mysterious benefactor who has been footing the bill for his medical treatment, and tries to discover the identity of a woman whose torn picture remains the sole possession found with him at the time of his accident. He begins to hallucinate about hearing a murder when there’s no one around.

Despite the fact that Hammer was best known for their color period horror series films, I’m personally much more partial to their black-and-white modern day non-series thrillers like this one. Given the title, I was fully expecting a variant on PSYCHO, but instead, the movie made me think of another one-word Hitchcock film, VERTIGO. In some ways, the plot set-up is quite predictable; you know the amnesiac is not going crazy and that he’s being manipulated by unscrupulous individuals towards an unknown end, but I like the element of mystery that surrounds stories like this, and I like to speculate on who of the many people encountered by the amnesiac will turn out to be friends and who will turn out to be schemers. This one is pretty good, though it does get a little uneven in the middle of the story; the long flashback sequence which explains how the main character got into the accident that caused his loss of memory in the first place ends up not really adding too much to the story. At least one of the twists reminds me of a similar one in TASTE OF FEAR, which is really the better movie of the two, but this one was quite satisfying for me as well.

 

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Manhunt of Mystery Island (1945)

MANHUNT OF MYSTERY ISLAND (1945)
Serial
Article 1992 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-28-2006
Posting Date: 1-25-2006
Directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet, Yakima Canutt, and Wallace Grissell
Featuring Richard Bailey, Linda Stirling, Roy Barcroft

A scientist has been kidnapped and is being held prisoner on Mystery Island by a pirate named Captain Mephisto. Investigator Lance Reardon travels to the island to rescue the scientist and figure out the pirate’s true identity.

At this point, the average episode length of the Republic serial was a little less than fourteen minutes per episode, and a good deal of that running time was taken up with credits, footage from the previous episode, and a repeated sequence in which Mephisto transforms himself to his real identity (or vice versa, as the case may be). Furthermore, episode ten is one of those annoying recap episodes made up mostly of footage from previous episodes. Though there’s a part of me that’s tempted to complain, I really don’t have the heart; I like this one too much. For one thing, I like it when Roy Barcroft plays the main villain; they’re always a bit more interesting, and they take part in the fights rather than sitting behind desks and barking orders. Furthermore, the science fiction content is pretty high here; not only does the scientist come up with an interesting array of inventions, but Captain Mephisto himself uses a machine to change his appearance. It also helps that the female lead is one who actually proves useful on occasion rather than being one in perpetually need of rescue. But the real high point here is the high quality of those Republic warehouse-wrecking fights, which are in top form here. Ed Wood favorite Kenne Duncan also has a more pronounced role here as the main henchman. All in all, I rate this as one of the better serials I’ve seen.

 

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