Night Watch (1973)

NIGHT WATCH (1973)
Article #1742 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-21-2005
Posting Date: 5-20-2006
Directed by Brian G. Hutton
Featuring Elizabeth Taylor, Laurence Harvey, Billie Whitelaw

A woman sees a murder take place in an abandoned house across from her home, but the police find nothing when they investigate. She begins to think that she is going crazy.

In some ways, this movie is inevitable; ever since the movie GASLIGHT set up a template for a specific kind of thriller, It would only be a matter of time before someone took the template and added the twist ending that can be found in this movie. And, to be honest, the twist is pretty good; it’s the best thing about the movie. Still, in order to use this twist, you pretty much have to follow the GASLIGHT template for most of the movie’s running time, and I’ve never been particularly fond of that template: I get annoyed with its predictability and its shrillness. You’re always treated to endless scenes of a hysterical woman screaming at people to believe her, and they don’t (because she’s hysterical), and this just makes her more hysterical, etc. etc. etc. The fact that it’s Elizabeth Taylor providing the hysterics doesn’t really alleviate the fact that the movie spends most of its time walking an overused path. In short, I didn’t find that the final twist really compensated for the over-familiarity of most of the movie.

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Night in Paradise (1946)

NIGHT IN PARADISE (1946)
Article #1741 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-20-2005
Posting Date: 5-19-2006
Directed by Arthur Lubin
Featuring Merle Oberon, Turhan Bey, Thomas Gomez

When a sorceress is swindled by King Croesus, she vows revenge. She uses her magic powers to get Aesop to steal away Croesus’s bride-to-be, Delarai.

Hollywood ventures into sword-and-sandal territory with this costume picture, and if it takes itself way too seriously half the time, the other half of the time it’s aggressively courting silliness. Still, it has some good performances; I barely recognized Turhan Bey in what amounts to a dual role (let’s just say that Aesop is not quite what he seems), Thomas Gomez, Gale Sondergaard and Merle Oberon do fine jobs, but Ray Collins steals the show as Leonides, adviser to the king. It gets a little racy at times; in particular, a gag involving a statue being cleaned must have slipped by the censors somehow. It also has some of the worst crowd acting I’ve ever seen; notice how whenever a crowd gathers together, they’re all saying the exact same thing?

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Meet Mr. Lucifer (1953)

MEET MR. LUCIFER (1953)
Article #1740 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-19-2005
Posting Date: 5-18-2006
Directed by Anthony Pelissier
Featuring Stanley Holloway, Peggy Cummins, Jack Watling

The devil enlists the help of a drunken actor to help him to destroy the lives of various people with the help of his new invention – Television.

Yes, here’s another cinematic attack (in the grand tradition of MURDER BY TELEVISION, TRAPPED BY TELEVISION and THE TWONKY) on that most insidious of evils, the cathode ray tube. At least this one knows it’s a comedy from the outset. It shows how television destroys the lives of all whom it touches; it drains the money away from a elderly retiree, destroys the marriage of a young couple, and turns a respected pharmacist into a madman and a thief. Good heavens, it’s worse than alcohol or drugs! No, the movie is hardly convincing, but I don’t think it’s trying to be. Still, the third story (about the effect that an anonymous lonely hearts singer has on the imagination of an unhappy young man) actually has a touch of poignancy to it amid the laughs. Ernest Thesiger has a small but memorable role as a cantankerous pharmacist who refuses to dispense drugs to handle any ailments which he deems to be the result of divine punishment. All in all, it’s a fun if inconsequential comedy. And it even takes a potshot at the 3-D craze before it’s all over.

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The Man Who Lived Twice (1936)

THE MAN WHO LIVED TWICE (1936)
Article #1739 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-18-2005
Posting Date: 5-17-2006
Directed by Harry Lachman
Featuring Ralph Bellamy, Marian Marsh, Thurston Hall

A criminal on the run from the police allows a surgeon who has experimented with surgical methods in controlling sociopathic behavior to perform a brain operation on him to remove his criminal tendencies. The operation is successful, but the criminal now has amnesia and can’t remember his former life. He then becomes a respected doctor, only to find that his past is catching up to him.

The middle section of this movie drags a bit, but outside of that, I found this an enjoyable if somewhat far-fetched little B-movie. It’s the performances that really make this work. Ralph Bellamy is very good in the opening scenes as the criminal; it’s such a break from his usual type of character that it’s a little disappointing when he emerges from the operation in a far more conventional role for him, though he does a fine job throughout. However, my favorite performance goes to Ward Bond, who plays an old crony of the criminal who discovers the truth of the matter, but who is so won over by the change that he takes on the job of Bellamy’s chauffeur and vows to go straight; his final scene with Isabel Jewell is great. All in all, an enjoyable combination of the crime and science fiction genres.

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One Night Stand (1984)

ONE NIGHT STAND (1984)
Article #1738 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-17-2005
Posting Date: 5-16-2006
Directed by John Duigan
Featuring Tyler Coppin, Cassandra Delaney, Jay Hackett

Several teens hide out in the Sydney Opera House while waiting for the onset of World War III.

Before I get started, I need to go on a little bit about the title. Not that the title is bad, mind you; it’s just that within the last thirty years, nine different movies were made that share that title, and when you’re doing movie-hunting, it makes things difficult to find the right one. Several months ago, I purchased the wrong one, and ended up watching the whole movie before I realized it wasn’t the one I was looking for, so I spent some extra time making sure the next time I bought the movie, it would be the right one.

As for the movie itself, the best way I can describe it is as a cross between ON THE BEACH and a Brat Pack movie. This may or may not be a recommendation, depending on how you feel about the Brat Pack. Granted, the teens in this movie are unknowns, but they’re pretty much working in the same mode. Fortunately, it’s like one of the better Brat Pack movies like THE BREAKFAST CLUB; despite the fact that some of the characters are cocky and annoying and that some of the scenes are of the type designed to appeal to teens, the emotional resonance is there and quite real at times. It also helps that I actually am familiar with the two songs that serve as set pieces for a couple of scenes; “Short Memory” is performed by my favorite Australian band, Midnight Oil, and the music video / dance sequence is performed to an infectious garage rocker from the sixties, “Friday on My Mind” by the Easybeats. The latter is played while we see footage from METROPOLIS, which also pops up again in during the rush to the shelters near the end of the movie. The anti-war message is obvious, but for the most part, the movie focuses on the human aspects of the story, and is quite successful in that regard.

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Scrambled Brains (1951)

SCRAMBLED BRAINS (1951)
Article #1737 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-16-2005
Posting Date: 5-15-2006
Directed by Jules White
Featuring Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Shemp Howard

Moe and Larry care for Shemp, who is suffering from hallucinations.

The fantastic content in this Three Stooges short is probably the bizarre hallucinations Shemp has. In particular, a sequence where Shemp is playing the piano only to discover he’s sprouting extra hands belongs to the realm of fantasy. Not only does it have some nifty special effects, but It’s also one of the two funniest scenes in the short. The other is a sequence where the Stooges get stuck in a phone booth along with Vernon Dent and his bag of groceries. The short also features Stooge regular Emil Sitka as a doctor who suspects that Shemp may be pregnant. Quite frankly, this is one of the most amusing shorts I’ve seen by the Three Stooges.

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Ben and Me (1953)

BEN AND ME (1953)
Article #1736 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-15-2005
Posting Date: 5-14-2006
Directed by Hamilton Luske
Featuring the voices of Sterling Holloway, Charles Ruggles, Hans Conried

A mouse helps Ben Franklin with his inventions.

Sometimes I wonder exactly what criteria goes into the selection of entries in some of the source books I use for compiling my hunt lists for this project. This Disney short is included in John Stanley’s Creature Features Strikes Again Movie Guide, which, for the most part, omits shorts. One would think that he would only make an exception for a short in which the fantastic aspects are particularly prominent, and though I don’t in any way question that the short is indeed a fantasy (talking mouse = fantastical creature), I don’t think it’s particularly more a fantasy than any number of other animated shorts (most of which also including talking nonhuman critters) that he does not include. Maybe he just really likes this one.

I can understand liking this one, though; it’s a charming and enjoyable short, featuring some very familiar voices and some fine animation. My wife suggested that there may be further fantastic content in the fact that it presents an alternate history of sorts, but even within the bounds of the story, the alternate history really registers no historical impact. I was wondering how much impact Amos the mouse had on Franklin’s legendary weakness for the feminine sex, but the short even touches upon this aspect (subtly, of course), and pretty much gives Franklin lone credit for that part of his story.

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Valley of Eagles (1951)

VALLEY OF EAGLES (1951)
Article #1735 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-14-2005
Posting Date: 5-13-2006
Directed by Terence Young
Featuring Jack McCallum, Jack Warner, Anthony Dawson

A Norwegian inventor develops a method of creating electricity through sound, but his invention is stolen by his assistant and his wife. He then joins forces with a police inspector to try and catch them.

You know, nothing makes my heart sink like a movie that opens with the demonstration of some amazing invention, and then instead of exploring the impact the invention has on the world, it consigns the invention to the role of first prize in a more conventional cinematic struggle. It then becomes merely a case of whether the good guys can keep the invention from falling in the hands of the bad guys; most serials with slight science fiction elements fall into this category. That’s pretty much the direction this movie goes at the ten minute mark, and had the movie stayed at that level, I wouldn’t have liked it as well as I did. Fortunately, the movie is much better than that; not only is it made with a great deal of subtlety, suspense and wit, it also refuses to keep still. At the thirty minute mark, it shifts once more, this time from an espionage thriller to an adventure movie when the heroes join a group of reindeer herders in an attempt to keep on the trail of the thieves, and it is here that the movie starts to develop a surprising degree of emotional resonance as the scientist’s experiences with the “savages” makes him doubt the legitimacy of his own obsession with science. As a result, the movie ends up a much richer and more satisfying experience than I thought it would be. Still, I do have some reservations; there are a number of scenes of animal deaths and attacks here, and though some of them seem to clearly be stock footage, I’m still not sure about others; in particularly, scenes of eagles attacking wolves bother me. Still, I am amazed at the sequence where we encounter a tribe of men with trained eagles which they use instead of guns for fear of avalanches. Keep a sharp lookout for Christopher Lee in the small role of a police detective.

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Svengali (1954)

SVENGALI (1954)
Article #1734 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-13-2005
Posting Date: 5-12-2006
Directed by Noel Langley
Featuring Hildegard Knef, Donald Wolfit, Terence Morgan

A model finds herself falling in love with an artist, not knowing that she is arousing the jealous wrath of a hypnotic musician who has his own plans for her.

I was all ready to dismiss this version of the classic Du Maurier novel for the simple reason that I was largely familiar with the work of Donald Wolfit through his performance in BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE, which did not impress me. Nonetheless, I was glad to see that he gave a much better performance than I expected; he is quite good in the role, despite the fact that physically he is all wrong for playing a character who is described as a “scarecrow”. Still, Wolfit is not John Barrymore, and he never quite glues you to the screen in the same way Barrymore did in the role in the 1931 version of the movie. For most of the movie, this doesn’t matter all that much; the acting from all concerned is very solid, and I especially liked Paul Rogers as one of the trio of artists who Trilby encounters. The solid acting compensates somewhat for some uneven editing and some abrupt and poorly paced scenes. It’s not until the last third of the movie that it really loses steam, primarily because we don’t have a Svengali that really commands the stage. In this context, I suppose it makes sense that the ending is changed from tragic to happy, but overall the movie has much less impact than the 1931 version. It’s not a disaster, but I do know that when I want to rewatch a version of this tale, it won’t be this one.

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Strange Holiday (1945)

STRANGE HOLIDAY (1945)
(a.k.a. THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW)
Article #1733 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-12-2005
Posting Date: 5-11-2006
Directed by Arch Oboler
Featuring Claude Rains, Martin Kosleck, Milton Kibbee

A businessman returns home from a long vacation to find that no one will talk to him. and the few people he can find are living in abject fear. He then finds his family missing and himself arrested.

This piece of wartime propaganda is so paranoid, so overwrought, so preachy, and so emotionally manipulative, I found myself wondering just what brought on this serious lapse of taste. If anything, it’s even more simplistic and unbelievable than its nearest cinematic equivalent, INVASION U.S.A. (1952), and it’s only the impressive thespic talents of Claude Rains that keeps the movie from sliding into total camp. However, a quick perusal of the entry in the Maltin movie guide gave me the crucial clue in understanding why this movie was the way it was; the movie was not originally intended for the viewing public, but was sponsored by GE for the purpose of being shown to its employees only. This places the movie’s origins in the realm of what my wife refers to as Film Ephemera; that other film industry that geared its products to industry and educational purposes. For those who remember the Bell Science Lab films that we all watched in high school, you’ll know the type of thing I mean. This goes a long way towards explaining why the movie is so unsubtle; it primarily existed for its message, which was to keep its employees from taking long vacations while the war was going on. What else can you say?

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