Three Arabian Nuts (1951)

THREE ARABIAN NUTS (1951)
Article #1482 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-5-2005
Posting Date: 9-2-2005
Directed by Edward Bernds
Featuring Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Shemp Howard

The Three Stooges undertake the delivery of some Oriental treasures, and happen upon Aladdin’s lamp. They also find themselves pursued by Arabs.

With a rating of 8.5 on IMDB at the time of this writing, I can only assume that this is a favorite of Stooges fans. Myself, I found it a fairly ordinary entry in the series; there’s a few good laughs (including one involving a kettle full of hot tea and the final moment), but all in all, I thought it was business as usual. Moe does have a fun little opening gag reading a label on a crate, though.

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The Student of Prague (1926)

THE STUDENT OF PRAGUE (1926)
(a.k.a. DER STUDENT VON PRAG)
Article #1481 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-4-2005
Posting Date: 9-1-2005
Directed by Henrik Galeen
Featuring Conrad Veidt, Elizza La Porta, Fritz Alberti

A poor student with an infatuation for a rich society girl meets a mysterious man who offers him a huge supply of gold in trade for any one item within the student’s apartment. When the student agrees, the man makes off with the student’s mirror reflection, which then begins to interfere with the student’s life.

When I covered the 1913 version of this story, I was unable to go into much detail, since my copy of the movie only had German title cards. This one has English title cards, and it’s a pleasure to finally understand the story. Furthermore, this is the superior version, thanks to some moody direction by Henrik Galeen (who was involved in either a writing or directorial capacities in an astonishing number of German horror movies, such as both versions of THE GOLEM, WAXWORKS, ALRAUNE and NOSFERATU) and a fine, powerful performance from Conrad Veidt, who may actually have been the finest horror actor of the silents and is here reunited with his CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI co-star Werner Krauss. The movie isn’t perfect; it’s confusing at times, too slow-moving at others, and the soundtrack on my copy, though it does have a dolorous, somber feel to it very appropriate to the story as a whole, is at times annoyingly repetitive. Still, that doesn’t really matter, as there’s a real power in the growing horror of the story, and the final sequences in which Veidt is stalked by himself are absolutely chilling. In a sense, there’s no other horror movie out there quite like this one, and I’m surprised no one has seen fit to remake it in recent years (though there was one in 1935). Highly recommended, especially to fans of silent horror.

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Mystery Plane (1939)

MYSTERY PLANE (1939)
Article #1480 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-3-2005
Posting Date: 8-31-2005
Directed by George Waggner
Featuring John Trent, Marjorie Reynolds, Milburn Stone

A pilot invents a device that allows bombers to engage in remote-control bombing. He is then kidnapped by spies who want his information, and finds that an old flying idol of his is in cahoots with them.

My source for this movie refers to a title called SKY PIRATE, but no movies with that title matched up with the cast list in my source. After hunting around a bit, I came to the conclusion that the movie actually being referred to was MYSTERY PLANE; the cast list more or less matches, and it’s alternate title SKY PILOT bears a strong similarity to the SKY PIRATE title. The movie does have a science fiction element; namely, the remote-control bomber mechanism in the plot description. It’s a Tailspin Tommy movie, the first of four made by Monogram in the late thirties. It’s done with a fair amount of energy (courtesy of director George Waggner, who would go on to direct THE WOLF MAN), and the human element (with a down-on-his-luck former pilot) is also handled well. There are a few dead spots, and at times certain of the characters verge on the annoying, but these are fairly mild quibbles for what is a fine example of poverty-row film-making at its most effective.

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Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943)

SHERLOCK HOLMES IN WASHINGTON (1943)
Article #1479 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-2-2005
Posting Date: 8-30-2005
Directed by Roy William Neill
Featuring Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Marjorie Lord

When a secret service agent is kidnapped and then murdered by spies to locate a secret document, Sherlock Holmes is called to Washington on the case.

Fantastic content: None to speak of in this one. The book that listed it lists all the Sherlock Holmes movies in the series despite the fact that only a few of them had anything of the fantastic in them.

Unlike SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE VOICE OF TERROR, this entry in the modern-day Sherlock Holmes series at Universal eases up considerably on the propaganda, largely confining it to a few closing comments near the end of the movie. It’s one of what I’ve come to call the “bad-haircut Holmes” movies; personally, I’m glad Rathbone eventually got away from that distracting coiffure he has here. All in all, though, it’s a very entertaining entry in the series, and it’s almost Hitchcockian at times; I love the party sequence where the item everyone is hunting for passes from hand to hand with no one aware of its significance. This movie also has the novelty of featuring both a former Moriarty and a future Moriarty; George Zucco had played him in THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, and Henry Daniell would play him in THE WOMAN IN GREEN. I also like the sequence aboard the train where we see the agent pass on the document to any one of several people. The bumbling of Nigel Bruce’s Dr. Watson character is kept to a minimum here, largely confined to Holmes having a few jokes at his friend’s expense. Incidentally, the incredibly familiar face of the clerk in the antique shop is Ian Wolfe, who appeared in four of the Sherlock Holmes movies. The movie also contains a reference to the ‘Blue Room’, of all things.

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Return to Glennascaul (1951)

RETURN TO GLENNASCAUL (1951)
(a.k.a. ORSON WELLES’ GHOST STORY)
Article #1478 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-1-2005
Posting Date: 8-29-2005
Directed by Hilton Edwards
Featuing Orson Welles, Michael Laurence, Shelah Richards

On break from his filming of OTHELLO, Orson Welles picks up a stranded man on his way to Dublin, and is told an eerie tale by him.

Orson Welles directed OTHELLO in Europe over a three-year period, as he had to occasionally shut down production for one reason or another. To help finance his project, he would occasionally appear in other movies during this period. He also narrated and appeared in this short (as himself, which serves as a bit of a joke at times), directed by the actor who was playing Brabantio in OTHELLO. It’s a fairly straightforward ghost story with little in the way of surprises, but it’s simply and elegantly told, and the presence of Welles gives it a special touch of humor. The short was also nominated for an Academy Award in the “Best Short Subject 2-Reel” category.

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All Gummed Up (1947)

ALL GUMMED UP (1947)
Article #1477 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-31-2005
Posting Date: 8-28-2005
Directed by Jules White
Featuring Shemp Howard, Larry Fine, Moe Howard

The Three Stooges try to get rich by concocting a drug that will restore youth to the elderly.

At their best, the Three Stooges would time their slapstick antics and sound effects so impeccably that the result was also musical. They were also able to pull them off so nimbly and swiftly that the gag was over almost before it began. This is one of those shorts where the timing was right on the money. It also has the added appeal of putting the stooges in a profession where you definitely wouldn’t want to encounter them in real life (in this case, as pharmacists). The mounting absurdity of the preparation of the drug is also a plus in this one. This short was made the year that Shemp replaced an ailing Curly.

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Death Smiles at Murder (1973)

DEATH SMILES AT MURDER (1973)
(a.k.a. LA MORTE HA SORRISO ALL’ASSASSINO)
Article #1476 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-30-2005
Posting Date: 8-27-2005
Directed by Joe D’Amato
Featuring Ewa Aulin, Klaus Kinski, Angela Bo

When an amnesiac woman suffers an accident near a country estate, the couple that lives there takes her in. Her arrival sets off a series of murders.

Somewhere in this bizarre compendium of—
a) jerky hand-held camera style photography
b) confusing editing
c) extreme close-ups (especially of eyes)
d) bizarre camera angles (you know, the type where someone’s hand will be bigger than the rest of their body)
e) gory murders,
f) sex
g) very bad dubbing, and
h) subplots about a secret Inca formula to raise the dead

—there may be a plot. There may even be a point. Unfortunately, one thing it doesn’t have (for me anyway) is a real compelling reason to bother sorting out the whole mess. I was also hoping that the familiar face of Klaus Kinski would be enough to help me wend my way through this movie, but he’s stuck in a subplot that ends abruptly and vanishes from the movie after the first half hour.

This movie serves as my introduction to the work of prolific cult director Joe D’Amato. I’ll probably be covering more of them. If the ratings on IMDB are any indication, it may be his best movie. If it is, I don’t really look forward to the future.

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Dark Places (1973)

DARK PLACES (1973)
Article #1475 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-29-2005
Posting Date: 8-26-2005
Directed by Don Sharp
Featuring Christopher Lee, Joan Collins, Robert Hardy

When a doctor from an asylum hears of a fortune hidden in an old house, he poses as an heir to find the money. Unfortunately, the house is rumored to be haunted, and…

Though there’s not a whole lot of novelty to this story of ghostly possession, it does have some interesting points to it. I like the way that the protagonist finds himself shuttled back and forth between his life in the present and the life of the possessing spirit in the past. Furthermore, the movie is well acted, with solid work from Christopher Lee, Joan Collins, Robert Hardy and Herbert Lom. However, the problems eventually sink the production. The pace is quite sluggish throughout, and it tends to repeat some of its ideas more often than is strictly necessary. It’s worst problems arrive towards the end of the movie; the revelations about the past events in the house have a somewhat silly edge to them, and the movie loses a lot of steam in its final moments and ends with a whimper rather than a bang. In short, it’s watchable, but not very memorable.

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Shamrock Hill (1949)

SHAMROCK HILL (1949)
Article #1474 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-28-2005
Posting Date: 8-25-2005
Directed by Arthur Dreifuss
Featuring Peggy Ryan, Ray McDonald, Trudy Marshall

A girl wants to save a magical place called Shamrock Hill from being turned into a television station.

….umm, let’s see…free-spirited Irish girl with eccentric family wins over the heart of lawyer loved by wealthy socialite and daughter to businessman planning on bringing TV to the masses…socialite makes moves on Irish girl’s boyfriend to teach her a lesson…Irish mother practices oil painting and uses the color green quite a bit…wacky uncle invents an umbrella that doesn’t work and an electron TV tube while trying to make hair grow on father’s head…Irish girl embarrassed when family shows up at a soiree and does a jig…Irish girl consults leprachauns who sing an inspirational song to her…lawn in front of house of Irish family is hard enough for boyfriend to perform tap-dances on but soft enough to grow bushes…ends happily with every one smiling and cheery….

When I was a kid, I hated musicals. As I grew older, I learned to appreciate the form.

This movie made me nostalgic for my childhood.

Oh, and on the good side, the dancing is fun.

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Boom in the Moon (1946)

BOOM IN THE MOON (1946)
(a.k.a. A MODERN BLUEBEARD / EL MODERNO BARBA AZUL)
Article #1473 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-27-2005
Posting Date: 8-24-2005
Directed by Jaime Salvador
Featuring Buster Keaton, Luis G. Barreiro, Guillermo Bravo Sosa

A confused American soldier from World War II surrenders himself to the Mexicans under the mistaken belief they are Japanese. They in turn confuse him with a notorious Bluebeard. He is then offered the option to avoid the electric chair by volunteering for a planned expedition to the moon.

This may be the most depressing movie I’ve seen for this series. It’s not necessarily the worst, though it is pretty bad. It’s just that bad comedies tend to be pretty depressing anyway, and this is only compounded by the fact that it represents the nadir for one of the greatest screen comedians of all time, Buster Keaton. If that’s not depressing enough, consider these points. Fellow silent comedian Charlie Chaplin would take the Bluebeard concept that this movie touches upon and produce the brilliant and daring MONSIEUR VERDOUX just a year later. Then consider that Abbot and Costello (two comedians who, though I have a great deal of affection for them, simply weren’t in the same league as Buster Keaton) would use some of the same elements of this movie (two convicts aboard a rocketship; Earth being mistaken for another planet) to make ABBOTT AND COSTELLO GO TO MARS, which, despite the fact that it was one of their weakest movies, is still better than this one. It’s also more than a little depressing that at the time of this writing, this remains the only Buster Keaton movie I’ve covered for this series (and SUNSET BLVD. doesn’t count, as it contains Buster only in a cameo). Still, the saddest thing about this one is that every once in a while during this movie, you’ll see Buster do something that for a fleeting few seconds reminds you of the old Buster of the silent era. It never lasts long enough to make a joke work; all it does is remind you of how low he’d fallen to this point. Let’s just hope there aren’t any other movies out there more depressing than this one.

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