The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947)

THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY (1947)
Article #1602 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-3-2005
Posting Date: 12-31-2005
Directed by Norman Z. McLeod
Featuring Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo, Boris Karloff

A perpetual daydreamer finds himself mixed up with thieves after the Dutch crown jewels.

I haven’t read the James Thurber story on which this movie is based, but I’m willing to bet that the plot elements surrounding the Dutch crown jewels are nowhere to be found in it. Still, I suspect it was just the screenwriter’s way to take the daydreaming conceit and stretch it into a whole movie. Though it seems to be a favorite among Danny Kaye fans, I have to admit being a little disappointed by it, but then, I’m coming at it from the direction of a Boris Karloff fan, and despite the fact that he has two great scenes and a great opening line, you have to wait for half the movie to pass before he appears, and then he’s mostly shuttled off to the sidelines. Danny Kaye was a good choice for the role of Walter Mitty, especially during the sequences in which he fantasizes himself in several different scenarios; however, the movie strains things a little to give him his trademark musical numbers, which, though they’re amusing enough, feel out of place. The movie runs a bit long for my taste, but I do like the pulp magazine covers that decorate the office where he works, and there are lots of familiar faces, including Milton Parsons as a butler. A mixed bag, but it has its moments.

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Satan’s School for Girls (1973)

SATAN’S SCHOOL FOR GIRLS (1973)
Article #1601 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-2-2005
Posting Date: 12-30-2005
Directed by David Lowell Rich
Featuring Pamela Franklin, Kate Jackson, Lloyd Bochner

A woman enrolls in a school for women to find proof that the death of her sister was not a suicide.

For those attracted to this movie by the title (which seems to promise a certain amount of exploitation as well as horror), you should first be aware that this is an early-to-mid seventies TV movie that takes pains not to offend. And it doesn’t. Nor does it really engage the interest due to its terminal blandness. It makes a few attempts to scare, but after a woman is frightened by a wandering hobo and a handyman in the opening scenes, I pretty much came to the conclusion that the movie was just trying to be scary rather than actually being scary. The movie tries to be mysterious about the type of evil present in the school, but since the title gives it away, about the only mystery left is “Who is Satan?”, and practically every review I’ve read gives that away. It has a couple of good moments, in particular a scene in which a bevy of women with long poles prevent a professor from escaping from a pond and causing his death. This is mostly for people attracted by the cast of familiar names and faces, which also includes Roy Thinnes, Jo Van Fleet and Cheryl Ladd.

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The Saragossa Manuscript (1965)

THE SARAGOSSA MANUSCRIPT (1965)
(a.k.a. REKOPIS ZNALEZIONY W SARAGOSSIE)
Article #1600 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-1-2005
Posting Date: 12-29-2005
Directed by Wojciech Has
Featuring Zbigniew Cybulski, Iga Cembrzynska, Elzbieta Czyzewska

A captain of the Walloon guard finds himself dealing with ghosts in a haunted inn, a hermit and his possessed friend, the Inquisition, executed criminals, and a gypsy with a story to tell.

Based on an eccentric novel by eighteenth century nobleman and adventurer Jan Potocki, this movie is equally eccentric. It’s also complex, convoluted, bewildering, infuriating and possibly brilliant. The story falls roughly into two parts; in the first, our hero finds himself repeatedly (either physically or by proxy) encountering sensual ghosts which urge him to drink from a skull and then finding himself waking under the gallows. The second part of the movie consists largely of a story told by a gypsy, but the story has a story in it, and that story has a story in it, etc. etc.; ultimately it loops back to the ghosts at the haunted inn and then back to the gallows. Oddly enough, it all seems to hang together, and I’m really interested in reading the novel it is based on. Still, the overall effect of the movie is that of being told an enormously long joke (the movie is 182 minutes) with a groaner punch line; the only thing missing is the punch line, though from what I read, the novel ends quite differently from the ambiguous ending here. This movie was admired by Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Jerry Garcia. Me, I’m still sorting through it myself, but I must admit it intrigued me.

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Road to Zanzibar (1941)

ROAD TO ZANZIBAR (1941)
Article #1599 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-31-2005
Posting Date: 12-28-2005
Directed by Victor Schertzinger
Featuring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour

Two carnival performers find themselves on the run after setting fire to a carnival tent and trying to sell a fake diamond mine.

This is the second of the Road movies I’ve covered for this series, and the fantastic content this time is mostly limited to the appearance of certain jungle motifs; in particular, a tribe of cannibals and a wrestling match with a gorilla provide the main elements of fantastic content. Though I like the road movies, I’m a little disappointed with this one. I suspect it’s because it’s one of the earlier ones in the series; the series seemed to get weirder and more outlandish as it progressed, and that’s the way I like it. My favorite moments in this one occur towards the end, when Hope and Crosby become guests of cannibals who think they are white gods only to undergo a test to make sure that they are, which involves Hope wrestling a gorilla (Charles Gemora in a gorilla suit). It also includes my favorite variation on the patty-cake gag (it pops up twice in this movie, and it’s the second one that’s the favorite).

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The Riders of the Whistling Skull (1937)

THE RIDERS OF THE WHISTLING SKULL (1937)
Article #1598 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-30-2005
Posting Date: 12-27-2005
Directed by Mack V. Wright
Featuring Robert Livingston, Ray Corrigan, Max Terhune

The 3 Mesquiteers help an archaelogical expedition search for a lost Indian city of gold.

A lot of fuss is made about the supernatural elements in this B-Western, especially the existence of a living and walking mummy. Well, the latter has about thirty seconds of screen time and is dispatched with such ease that those expected a more fully realized horror western will be disappointed. Still, it does have some mood to it; there’s a skull with writing on it and a large skull-shaped rock formation. Still, it never really rises out of its B-Western roots, and it’s best to keep this in mind. Incidentally, one of the heroes reads mystery stories, and another is a ventriloquist who has to fend off the advances of an avid female archaeologist, which only adds to the weirdness of the proceedings.

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The Reincarnate (1971)

THE REINCARNATE (1971)
Article #1597 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-29-2005
Posting Date: 12-26-2005
Directed by Don Haldane
Featuring Jack Creley, Jay Reynolds, Trudy Young

A dying lawyer who is a member of the cult of Sarkana offers a struggling artist the chance to inherit his memories in order to aid his ambitions. However, the process involves a ritual, and that ritual requires a virgin…

**NOTE** Despite a major setback in my viewing of this movie, I have decided to go ahead an write my review. More about the setback shortly.

I’m always looking forward to a movie that goes somewhere new with its ideas, and this is one of those. It’s basically about reincarnation, but it seems to follow different rules than other movies of this ilk. Granted, it’s not for many people; the movie is rather slow and is full of philosophical discourse, and those with a low tolerance threshold for this sort of thing will be unsatisfied. I found it quite interesting, especially because I was never sure exactly where it would go. Is it a variation on the Faust/Mephistopheles story (with the artist in the Faust role) or an Omen-style horror story (there is a cat who causes the death of several people who stand in the way of the memory transference from taking place)? One thing you do know; there is a price to pay, and you’re not quite sure exactly what it is. It is this mystery that kept me interested for the length of the movie.

That is, for the amount of the movie I saw. The setback I suffered is that my print is missing the ending. I decided to go on and write this review anyway, as having spent the amount of time to watch as much as I did, I didn’t want to have to watch another movie just to get one in today. I will attempt to get another copy with a complete ending; if there is no addendum to this review, you’ll know I haven’t done it yet.

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The Red Shoes (1948)

THE RED SHOES (1948)
Article #1596 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-28-2005
Posting Date: 12-25-2005
Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Featuring Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Moira Shearer

A young ballet dancer and an aspiring music composer fall in love against the wishes of a dictatorial ballet impressario.

The fantastic element in this movie isn’t contained in the above plot description, and in some ways, it’s not part of the main plot. It is present within the central ballet of the film, which is based on a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale about some red dancing shoes which take possession of the wearers and causes them to dance until they drop dead. This ballet sequence is in the middle of the film, and it is brilliant; despite the fact that the movie introduces it as a work being performed on stage, it is a purely cinematic piece, with special effects and transitions which are only possible through the movie medium. It is also a richly fantastic piece, and even touches upon horror at one point as the dancer encounters some grotesque night creatures. This sequence is definitely the high point of the film.

In truth, though, it can’t be said that the ballet has nothing to do with the main picture; rather, it serves as a metaphor for the three characters who make up the romantic/artistic triangle plot that drives the movie. The plot itself is usually the stuff of soap opera and women’s movies, and would hold little interest for me if it weren’t in the hands of the brilliant directing team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. They transform this story into a transcendent and incredibly moving story of a woman who is forced to make an impossible choice between love and art, both of which are demanding (in the form of the two men in her life) total commitment to one at the expense of the other. The climax of the movie is unforgettable and includes a short reprise of the ballet, only with one significant change. The performances are uniformly excellent, with special kudos going to Moira Shearer as the ballerina and Anton Walbrook as the impresario.

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Red Alert (1977)

RED ALERT (1977)
Article #1595 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-27-2005
Posting Date: 12-24-2005
Directed by William Hale
Featuring David Hayward, M. Emmet Walsh, William Devane

A leak at a nuclear power plant in Minnesota causes an unexpected explosion in the containment area which may cause a meltdown. Investigators are called in to solve the problem and look for evidence of sabotage.

This movie brought up two memories. One is of having seen bits and pieces of it when it first aired; I didn’t remember the story, but I did remember William Devane’s face, the containment set, and the presence of Ralph Waite who I remembered as the father on “The Waltons”. I also remembered asking my mother why she never went to the movies, and her telling me she didn’t need to, because any interesting movie would eventually spawn a TV-Movie knockoff, and she could just watch that instead. There may be some truth to that assertion, but I can’t help but notice that this movie predated THE CHINA SYNDROME by two years. This one doesn’t have the impact of that one, but it didn’t have the fortuitous timing of that one, either. On the plus side, the story is interesting and moves at a good clip, and it does hold the attention throughout its running time. On the minus side, the acting is variable (there’s way too much yelling) and the climax itself is handled a little too sluggishly. I also wonder about the attitude towards computers in movies like this; though it is obvious at one point that the computer is malfunctioning, nobody calls out programmers and technicians to look into the problem; they just stand around dumbly as if computers were supposed to be perfect and/or fix themselves. If this is how people thought they worked, no wonder they were portrayed as things to be feared. The movie also features Adrienne Barbeau in a negligee, which would go under the plus column for many of us.

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Radio Ranch (1940)

RADIO RANCH (1940)
(a.k.a. MEN WITH STEEL FACES)
Article #1594 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-26-2005
Posting Date: 12-23-2005
Directed by Otto Brower and B. Reeves Eason
Featuring Gene Autry, Frankie Darro, Betsy King Ross

Gene Autry must contend with horsemen from a scientifically-advanced underground city and with crooks after radium while keeping his radio show on the air.

One advantage of watching a feature version of a serial (of THE PHANTOM EMPIRE, in this case) when you haven’t seen the serial itself is that you don’t have that air of redundancy of having been through the whole thing before. The disadvantage is that it makes it that much harder to figure out what’s going on. Like most feature versions of serials, this one flows badly and jumps around from scene to scene in a confusing manner. Still, there’s something innately fun about the combination of singing cowboys, radium smugglers, cowboy-hatted robots, death-ray guns and evil queens, and this somewhat compensates for the confusing mess as well as the fact that my copy of the movie has the worst sound in the world. Still, I bet I like the full serial better. Someday, I’ll know for sure…

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Pygmy Island (1950)

PYGMY ISLAND (1950)
(a.k.a. JUNGLE JIM IN PYGMY ISLAND)
Article #1593 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-25-2005
Posting Date: 12-22-2005
Directed by William A. Berke
Featuring Johnny Weissmuller, Ann Savage, David Bruce

Jungle Jim tries to help an expedition from the United States acquire the secret of an extra-strong and resilient rope that can’t be burned. The rope is the secret of a tribe of white pygmies, and foreign agents are also after the secret. There seems to be a tribe of bush devils on the loose as well.

I really liked this Jungle Jim movie at first. The story is different than the usual jungle movie storylines, the pygmies are fun if unconvincing, and there’s one hell of an elephant stampede sequence to liven things up. This held my interest for the first half of the movie, but it began to flag somewhat in the second half when the story ran out of steam, and we end up with endless scenes of people skulking through the bush. It starts to repeat itself as well; it was very entertaining to see the pygmies swinging through the jungle on vines Tarzan-style, but they repeat the footage too much before the movie is over. Still, the fight with the gorilla is still a highlight, and it was interesting to see Ann Savage (the femme fatale in DETOUR) as well. And they should have hired a proofreader for one of the newspaper headlines. Remember, “I” before “E” except after “C”; I “beleive” that’s the rule.

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