The Shadow (1940)

THE SHADOW (1940)
(Serial)
Article #1542 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-4-2005
Posting Date: 11-1-2005
Directed by James W. Horne
Featuring Victor Jory, Veda Ann Borg, Roger Moore

The Shadow fights a mysterious criminal known as The Black Tiger.

It’s another cinematic stab at The Shadow! I last dealt with one of these when I covered the movie BEHIND THE MASK (1946), and I was less than thrilled to find that movie had bypassed moody ambiance in favor of excessive comic relief, and that there had been no use of the Shadow’s vaunted ability to ‘cloud men’s minds’.

This one is a little better. I’m still waiting for him to cloud someone’s mind, but it looks like that ability was given to the villain himself; the Black Tiger becomes invisible before meeting with his henchman (actually, these moody smoke-filled scenes are some of the best in the serial). At least this serial doesn’t drown in comic relief; the sole concession to it here is that one of the Black Tiger’s henchmen is a little on the dim side. So, if the Shadow can’t cloud men’s minds, what can he do? Well, he can let villains know he’s around by engaging in his sinister laugh.

The setup here is this: Lamont Cranston fights crime in the guise of the Shadow, but the police believe that the Shadow is actually a criminal, and possibly, the Black Tiger himself. Lamont Cranston also disguises himself as a Chinese shopkeeper named Lin Chang, who is able to consort with the underworld. This would be an interesting set-up if it didn’t set off sirens in my head. The fact of the matter is that rather than giving the Shadow his famed abilities, the writers used Serial Development Rule #1 – Whenever adapting a famous character to the serial format, ignore the character’s known talents and just shoehorn him into the standard serial format. In this case, they borrowed the whole setup for the Spider in THE SPIDER’S WEB, and applied it to the Shadow. Remember Blinky McQuade?

Now, let’s talk cliffhangers again. I’ve gone on about cheating cliffhangers and car-bail cliffhangers before, but now it’s time to discuss another lame type of cliffhanger—The “I’m Indestructible or Just Really Lucky” cliffhanger. These are the types in which our hero is in some sort of life threatening situation, and the resolution is that he just happened to survive. This serial is one of the worst offenders I’ve seen, and it’s almost always used in the same form, to wit—

1. The Shadow is trapped in a room.
2. The room explodes and all sorts of stuff falls off the ceiling.
3. The episode ends.
4. In the resolution, the Shadow just pulls himself out of the wreckage and walks away.

I can’t tell you how often this happens this time around! In fact, there are two episodes in particular that underline the overuse of this. In one of them, the episode begins with the aforementioned resolution; the Shadow walks away from the debris of a wrecked room. The actual cliffhanger of that episode does not involve an exploding room, but since each episode also includes exciting scenes from the next episode, we see that the next episode also has the Shadow trapped in an exploding room, and sure enough, that turns out to be the cliffhanger in the next episode. Being given two cliffhangers in one episode wouldn’t be a disappointment if they weren’t so lame.

The other instance is in the cliffhanger of episode 14. The moment where several men are being poisoned by gas in a sealed room was actually rather powerful (thanks to an effective use of music). The Shadow breaks in and tries to rescue the men, but he begins to succumb to the gas himself. This would have made a decent cliffhanger, if—

—right, you guessed it—

—there was then an explosion, all sorts of stuff fell off the ceiling, and the episode ended.

And guess what happens at the top of the next episode?

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The Hyena of London (1964)

THE HYENA OF LONDON (1964)
(a.k.a. LA JENA DI LONDRA)
Article #1541 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-3-2005
Posting Date: 10-31-2005
Directed by Gino Mangini
Featuring Bernard Price, Diana Martin, Tony Kendall

A killer known as the Hyena of London is executed. A few days later, his coffin is found empty. Soon after that, new murders start being committed in a village near London.

The title of this movie is THE HYENA OF LONDON. The movie opens with the title character’s execution, followed by the discovery that his coffin is empty. Then the movie changes locations. Pretty soon, murders begin happening all over again. Now, if you’re like me, you may not necessarily know the circumstances of the murder, but you can bet good money on one thing at least—that is, that the murders have something to do with the title character. And you’d be right; the movie does get around to establishing that the murders do have something to do with the title character (and the circumstances add a little science fiction to the plot as well as the horror elements). The only trouble is, they make no attempt to establish this connection until about five minutes before the movie ends. In short, this movie’s entire plot can be found in the first five minutes and the last five minutes of the movie.

So, what makes up the rather sizable center of this movie? Two things – incident and obfuscation. By incident, I mean that in order to have a mystery about murders, you have to spend some screen time on the murders themselves—that is incident. And by obfuscation, I mean any extraneous subplots whose sole design is to obscure the plot and fill running time, and ultimately they have nothing to do with the story. You can safely consign the sizable amount of time this movie spends on the amours of the various characters to this category.

Now, I can understand the purpose of this; after all, the movie is at least partially a mystery, and what’s a mystery without a certain amount of red herrings and misdirection? The trouble is, in a good mystery, you never realize that the red herrings and misdirection ARE red herrings and misdirection. In this one, you are keenly aware that the red herrings and misdirection are exactly that, and it makes for a frustrating and unsatisfactory viewing experience. Feel free to pass this one by.

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Destination Saturn (1966)

DESTINATION SATURN (1966)
Article #1540 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-2-2005
Posting Date: 10-30-2005
Directed by Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind
Featuring Buster Crabbe, Constance Moore, Jackie Moran

Buck Rogers ends up in the 25th century and joins a group of rebels intent on defeating the evil Killer Kane.

Yes, it’s another feature version of a serial (BUCK ROGERS, to be precise) – twelve weeks of excitement crammed into ninety minutes in much the same way that Cinderella’s sisters tried to squash their feet into the glass slipper. It’s pretty much the same routine; though I can intellectually appreciate the idea of the thrill-a-minute action movie this technique is supposed to produce, in truth, the deluge of repetitive action sequences causes the movie to collapse under its own weight and sink into dullness. However, you can feel free to ignore my commentary if you like this sort of thing; I’ve expressed my distaste before about this whole serial-into-feature process, and I’ll readily admit that my prejudice against it colors these reviews. Still, you can’t blame me for wishing that they had at least taken the trouble to make the music on this one fit the action; as it is, the music jumps back and forth between pompous and comic without paying any attention to the action on the screen. Still, I understand why the music is the way it is; to have spent more time on it would have no doubt cut into the slender profit margin they surely expected from this sort of thing.

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Crimes at the Dark House (1940)

CRIMES AT THE DARK HOUSE (1940)
Article #1539 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-1-2005
Posting Date: 10-29-2005
Directed by George King
Featuring Tod Slaughter, Sylvia Marriott, Hilary Eaves

A con artist murders a prospector and takes over his identity under the belief that he will be heir to a fortune. Unfortunately, he discovers that he was actually the heir to a whopping debt, and must engage in further murder and mayhem to recoup his losses.

You know, you really have to hand it to Tod Slaughter. It takes a special talent to walk that tightrope in which he managed to be so gleefully villainous without actually falling into complete parody, and when you’re given lines like “I’ll feed your entrails to the pigs!”, you’re going to need that sense of balance. Though I still prefer the perverse CRIMES OF STEPHEN HAWKE, there is no doubt that this movie is one of Tod Slaughter’s finest hours, and it may even be a better introduction to his style for those unfamiliar with his work. Slaughter is just hypnotic; you always know what’s running through his mind even when he hasn’t said a thing, and he has a way of loading his every gesture with meaning. It’s also packed full of great lines; outside of the entrails line quoted above, check out his teetotaler line towards the end of the movie. It’s only marginally horror, but some of the murders are quite grotesque, and the theme of madness rears its head as well.

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City of Lost Men (1935)

CITY OF LOST MEN (1935)
(a.k.a. THE LOST CITY)
Article #1538 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-31-2005
Posting Date: 10-28-2005
Directed by Harry Revier
William ‘Stage’ Boyd, Kane Richmond, Claudia Dell

A madman named Zolok plans to take over the world with his electrical machine hidden in the African jungle.

At this point I’ve seen many of the classic serials – DAREDEVILS OF THE RED CIRCLE, GANG BUSTERS, SPY SMASHER, FLASH GORDON, THE CRIMSON GHOST, etc. So why is it that the one whose siren song I hearken to with the most affection is one of the cheesiest of the lot, THE LOST CITY? I don’t know; maybe I’m just perverse. It is, after all, the PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE of serials, loaded with bad acting and hilarious dialogue. Maybe it’s because I can actually tell all the characters apart, something that doesn’t happen very often with other serials. Maybe it’s just because the campy acting, bad dialogue, silly costumes and general air of cheapness holds my interest a lot more than non-stop action. I don’t know. The fact of the matter is that I just love that serial.

Heck, I even like this feature edit of the serial, though reportedly this is just one of several. Nevertheless, I do think that this serial-turned-feature does at least one thing right; rather than attempting to cram the whole serial into eighty minutes, it just grafts together the first three and a half episodes and then staples on the last ten minutes of the last episode. Does this result in an outrageous break in continuity? It sure does. The simple fact of the matter is, though, that I find this huge break of continuity much easier to bear than the flood of nonstop action of most other feature versions of serials. Besides, the best part of the original serial was the first few episodes and the ending anyway. And I do find it rather amusing that at this point my tolerance for the feature version of a serial runs in inverse proportion to the quality of the serial itself.

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How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965)

HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI (1965)
Article #1537 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-30-2005
Posting Date: 10-27-2005
Directed by William Asher
Featuring Annette Funicello, Dwayne Hickman, Brian Donlevy

Frankie is worried that Dee Dee will be unfaithful to him while he is in the naval reserve on a tropical island. He consults a local witch doctor, who agrees to do two things; he sends an attractive woman to the beach to keep the guys’ eyes off of Dee Dee, and sends out a pelican to keep an eye on Dee Dee.

I’ve had little call to cover any of the Beach Party movies as part of the series (unless DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE, which makes a few references to the series, counts), and this is said to be one of the weaker entries. Based on this one, I’d have to say that the movies seem a little dumb but also rather disarming; there’s something about the spirit in which they are done which makes them painless viewing, and the silly hijinks come naturally (whereas they feel forced in some of the imitators). Then there are also the guest stars to pep things up, and this one features Brian Donlevy (as B.D., which stands for several different things as far as I can tell) and Buster Keaton as Bwana, the Witch Doctor; though the latter role might seem a little embarrassing, it’s still a huge step up for Keaton from stuff like BOOM IN THE MOON). Nonetheless, it’s Mickey Rooney who comes across best among the guest stars; in many ways, this sort of movie wasn’t all that far from the kinds of movies he made with Judy Garland, and he gets right in to the spirit of things. The movie also features the usual antics of Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck) and his motorcycle gang, a tough guy named North Dakota Pete (played by Len Lesser), the aforementioned scene-stealing pelican, and a memorable cameo appearance from someone playing the Witch Doctor’s daughter (it’s best to let this one catch you by surprise).

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Diabolique (1955)

DIABOLIQUE (1955)
(a.k.a. LES DIABOLIQUES)
Article #1536 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-29-2005
Posting Date: 10-26-2005
Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot
Featuring Simone Signoret, Vera Clouzot, Paul Meurisse

A man’s wife and his mistress conspire together to murder him.

This suspense thriller is considered a classic, and rightly so. However, it is also rather widely known, and over the years I’ve heard enough about it and its influence that the movie didn’t hold a lot of surprises to me. In particular, knowing that this movie was influential on one specific director and having had access to several of that director’s movies (some of which borrow heavily from DIABOLIQUE) was enough to clue me off on several crucial plot points.

Writing about movies like this without engaging in spoilers is also a nightmare; even slight, subtle hints have the potential to give things away. Therefore, I’ll just say this; if you haven’t seen the movie and haven’t heard much about it and all, you’d be best off watching it now before you learn more. This is one movie that thrives on surprise, and to say more would be to give things away. Suffice it to say that the movie does move into the realm of horror before all is said and done, and thus does qualify as genre.

And, to the movies credit, the final moment of the movie does have one last surprise that I didn’t see coming.

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The Aztec Mummy (1957)

THE AZTEC MUMMY (1957)
(a.k.a. LA MOMIA / LA MOMIA AZTECA)
Article #1535 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-28-2005
Posting Date: 10-25-2005
Directed by Rafael Portillo
Featuring Ramon Gay, Rosa Arenas, Luis Aceves Castaneda

An experiment in hypnosis and past lives leads a scientist to search for proof of his theories in an Aztec tomb. There he awakens the wrath of Popoca, the Aztec Mummy.

When I reached the point where my hunt list consisted of one thousand movies, none of which were immediately available to me for viewing, I was going to take up the slack of this series by engaging in coverage of those movies that had been on my list the longest but which I had never been able to find. I honestly thought that I would have reached that point by now, but such is not the case. Had I indeed reached that point, one of the first movies I would have covered would have been THE AZTEC MUMMY, which, if considered as a separate entity from Jerry Warren’s atrocity ATTACK OF THE MAYAN MUMMY, had seemingly vanished off the face of the earth. Fortunately, such is not the case.

The movie recently popped up for sale, and I was able to snag a copy. It’s undubbed and unsubtitled, but I have been fortunate enough to acquire a translation of the dialogue (special thanks to Rich Wannen for this). Yet I’m not sure even that was necessary. Anybody familiar with the other Aztec Mummy movies already have the necessary plot elements in hand, and the movie is pretty much a full-length recreation of the first twenty minutes of the ‘story-so-far’ section of THE ROBOT VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY. Still, it is nice to see it at its appropriate pace and original music, and it’s probably the strongest of the three movies. Those not familiar with the other entries in the series may have a tougher time with it, but I still think it can be generally understood.

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How I Won the War (1967)

HOW I WON THE WAR (1967)
Article #1534 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-27-2005
Posting Date: 10-24-2005
Directed by Richard Lester
Featuring Michael Crawford, John Lennon, Roy Kinnear

An incompetent commander recounts his adventures during World War II, unaware of the fact that his own men secretly wish him dead.

I have to admit to having a little trouble with the movies of Richard Lester. Much of it is cultural, though; his movies are very British, and they’re so fast-moving that unless you have a strong ear for the accents, you may find yourself left in the dust. Combine this with the fact that he works in a very non-realistic mode (the characters spend a lot of time talking to the audience and the action pops back and forth in time), and the result is confusion. Yet this confusion may be a plus in this movie; most war movies do have a certain amount of confusion in them, as war itself can be very confusing when you’re in the midst of it. This anti-war movie has an interesting viewpoint in that the main enemy of the soldiers isn’t so much the enemy but their own leaders, and the movie has a certain amount of impact; the death scenes of each character are powerful. The fantastic content is that after each man dies, he does not leave the company, but stays on as a ghost. It’s a pretty grim comedy, but there are some great one-liners, and it’s fun to see John Lennon in a rare acting role. It’s difficult, but worth a look.

Postscript: Thanks to the responses I received from my original posting of this review (which I have left intact above if for no other reason that I intend to let this mistake go on record), I have since learned that Richard Lester is not British, but American. I will admit to being somewhat surprised by this, but I was largely familiar with him through this movie and his Beatles movies. It just goes to show that there’s always something new to learn.

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House on Bare Mountain (1962)

HOUSE ON BARE MOUNTAIN (1962)
Article #1533 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-26-2005
Posting Date: 10-23-2005
Directed by Lee Frost
Featuring Bob Cresse, Laine Carlin, Leticia Cooper

A granny who runs a school for girls who like to go topless is actually a bootlegger with a werewolf assistant.

Let’s face it; you go into a movie with expectations. Given that the title of this movie is HOUSE ON BARE MOUNTAIN, and that my foreknowledge of this movie was that it was a nudie with monsters, I can admit to having some expectations. I expected that there were going to be a lot of topless women, lame monsters, no story to speak of, bad jokes, poor photography and rotten sound.

So what did I get? Yes, there are a lot of unclothed women in the picture, though it stops short of full frontal nudity. There’s only one real monster; the rest are just guys in monster costumes, so it could be considered a disappointment on that level, but I think I’ll let it slide; after all, in this context, it doesn’t matter much. The plot was just as elaborate and scintillating as I expected.

In the final assessment, though, the movie was better than I expected, but this is just my way of saying that the occasional joke wasn’t too bad, and that the photography and sound were both acceptable. It’s greatest strength is a simple one, though; despite the copious nudity in the movie, Granny Good herself remains clothed throughout, and considering that she’s played by Lovable Bob Cresse, this is a good thing. You’ve got to be thankful for such tender mercies.

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