Dick Tracy Vs. Cueball (1946)

DICK TRACY VS. CUEBALL (1946)
Article #1332 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-6-2004
Posting Date: 4-5-2005
Directed by Gordon Douglas
Featuring Morgan Conway, Anne Jeffreys, Lyle Latell

Dick Tracy tries to solve a series of murders that revolve around the theft of some rare diamonds. The killer is a bald ex-convict known as Cueball.

Fantastic aspects: Other than that Cueball strangles people with his hatband (which gives the movie only a slight tinge of horror), there are none. This movie was included in a reference book that had the habit of including all movies from a series in which only a few movies of the series actually had more pronounced fantastic elements.

Before “The Golden Turkey Awards”, the Medveds had put out an earlier book about bad cinema called “The 50 Worst Films of All Time” (this title may be approximate). DICK TRACY VS. CUEBALL was one of the movies singled out for this unfortunate award, and though the movie is no classic, it certainly doesn’t rate that low. The main thrust of their argument for its inclusion was the extreme sadism of Cueball. There is a certain amount of truth to this point; the murder scenes are a bit too nasty for what is essentially supposed to be light-hearted fare. Still, I don’t think it sinks the movie completely; in fact, I found the movie quite entertaining.

I’ve seen two of the Dick Tracy movies so far and three of the serials, and quite frankly, I like the movies better. I think it’s because the movies actually tried to get a bit of the flavor of the comic strip into them; the serials just plugged a comic strip character into standard serial plots. The comic strip sense is strong here; there is a jeweler named Jules Sparkle, there is a tavern called The Dripping Dagger (complete with a great little animated neon sign to go with it), and it is run by a character named Filthy Flora who allows criminals to hide out there. Dick Wessel’s Cueball is not the smartest crook on the block (actually, he’s pretty dumb), but his brutality makes him a bit of a threat. Ian Keith has a field day as the pill-popping and florid Vitamin Flintheart, and any movie that gives us the cadaverous Milton Parsons (even as an antique dealer, he can’t escape association with undertaking; he ends up serving a man intent on furnishing his crypt) and the photogenically ugly Skelton Knaggs (talk about an actor who would have been great as an ugly villain in a Dick Tracy movie) can’t be all bad.

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Big Jack (1949)

BIG JACK (1949)
Article #1331 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-5-2004
Posting Date: 4-4-2005
Directed by Richard Thorpe
Featuring Wallace Beery, Richard Conte, Marjorie Main

In the early nineteenth century, the head of a band of outlaws rescues a doctor (who was about to be hanged) to get him to fix a leg injury.

Fantastic aspects: For a good twenty minutes or so I was wondering when the fantastic aspects of the story would manifest themselves. Eventually, you find out why the doctor was being hanged; he procured research subjects via grave-robbing, which nudges the movie a tiny bit into horror territory.

IMDB describes this movie as a western, and I suppose it is to some extent; despite the one horror element, it’s certainly not a horror movie. Still, the “western” shoe doesn’t quite fit to these eyes; it’s more of an historical comedy-drama. Still, however you try to pigeonhole this one, it’s one strange movie, and the fact that it doesn’t even appear to know how strange it is just makes it all the stranger. Richard Conte’s doctor is the hero of the story; the movie is firmly pro-science, and treats his grave-robbing as a necessity to the growth of his medical knowledge and a necessary evil in an unenlightened age. It’s tempting to call Wallace Beery’s Big Jack Horner the villain, but he’s more of an anti-hero. Despite being a robber and a murderer, he’s almost a child in the way he looks at the world (he’s fascinated by the doctor’s desire of making a “window” in the human body), and like a child, he doesn’t handle well not getting what he wants. The main villain of the story is probably the jealous barber / doctor who ends up resenting the intrusion of a new doctor in the community.

All in all, I consider this one a black comedy, though once again, the movie remains firmly unaware that it is; it’s dark comic aspects seem the result of innocence rather than cynicism. It is also quite funny at times. My favorite sequence is when Big Jack concludes that the doctor’s desire to escape from his band of outlaws arises out of his loneliness due to a lack of female companionship, and so kidnaps a young woman to keep him company. As he and his own woman (Marjorie Main) listen to the struggle between the surprised doctor and the feisty kidnap victim (who are locked in a cabin together), they muse sentimentally on their own courtship. This would be Wallace Beery’s final movie.

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Samson and Delilah (1949)

SAMSON AND DELILAH (1949)
Article #1330 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-4-2004
Posting Date: 4-3-2005
Directed by Cecil B. DeMille
Featuring Hedy Lamarr, Victor Mature, George Sanders

Super-strong Samson does battle with the Philistime oppressors, only to be betrayed by the seductress Delilah.

Hey, it’s a movie that takes place in ancient times about a man with super-strength who fights lions and picks up heavy things and throws them. It sounds like a sword-and-sandal movie, doesn’t it? Well, you’re close; I have no doubt that biblical epics like this one were a big influence on the sword-and-sandal trend. The main difference is that the sword-and-sandal movies were meant to be light-hearted action fare, whereas this one (being based on the Bible) is “serious” fare; no sword-and-sandal flick ever moved this slowly. The acting throughout is good, sometimes excellent; George Sanders and Victor Mature in particular shine. Still, they’re saddled with a script that is as fast-moving as a sleepy turtle and as agile as a three-legged elephant. It’s also repetitive; in case you didn’t know that Samson slew an army with the jawbone of an ass, George Sanders repeats that fact about six times within a two minute period. And how long do you think it would take for Samson to tell Delilah that his strength comes from his hair? Here’s some dialogue to show how long it could have taken.

Delilah: Tell me, Samson, where do you get your strength?

Samson: From my long hair.

Delilah: Oh, I see.

Instead, we get a long speech about the manes of lions and how pathetic sheep look like when they’re shorn. If you’re going to belabor a plot point, at least pick one that isn’t known by everybody at the outset.

Still, the action scenes are definitely highlights; the battle at the wedding feast, the battle with Samson’s captors (you know, the one with the jawbone of an ass), and the final sequence in the temple of Dagon are truly great epic moments. Still, I would have loved to have at least one scene where Samson bends the bars of jail cell. You can’t have everything.

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Dead Man’s Eyes (1944)

DEAD MAN’S EYES (1944)
Article #1329 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-3-2004
Posting Date: 4-2-2005
Directed by Reginald Le Borg
Featuring Lon Chaney Jr., Jean Parker, Acquanetta

When an artist loses his eyesight during a freak accident, the father of the artist’s fiancee agrees to give his own eyes for corneal transplants to help restore his vision. Then the father turns up dead…

Fantastic content: Unless there’s some science fiction content involved in the corneal transplants, the only fantastic element here is that floating head in the crystal ball that introduces most of the “Inner Sanctum” mysteries.

I think this marks the sixth and final movie I’ve covered for the series, and I have to admit to being not too impressed with this one. The script is clumsy, the real murderer is obvious, and Acquanetta, beautiful as she was, should not have been cast in a role that gave her extensive dialogue. On the plus side, some of the performances are fun, particularly from Paul Kelly as the artist’s psychiatrist buddy and Thomas Gomez as the detective on the case. Chaney does only a fair job here, but his part isn’t particularly well written and it’s loaded with cliches. For my money, this was one of the weakest of the series.

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The Final Programme (1973)

THE FINAL PROGRAMME (1973)
(a.k.a. THE LAST DAYS OF MAN ON EARTH)
Article #1328 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-2-2004
Posting Date: 4-1-2005
Directed by Robert Fuest
Featuring Jon Finch, Jenny Runacre, Hugh Griffith

After his father dies, Jerry Cornelius finds himself embroiled in a strange quest in which he helps some scientists acquire a microfilm of his father’s work while he seeks revenge on his drug-addled brother for the enslavement of his sister.

This bizarre movie about the creation of a modern messiah was directed by Robert Fuest, who was responsible for the Dr. Phibes movies. If you’re familiar with those movies, you should be able to spot the visual style without a problem. This was based on the first of several novels written by Michael Moorcock about Jerry Cornelius. I remember having read it years ago, and not understanding a word of it (though I had no problems with the sequels). I understand this movie version better, but whether I really like it is another matter. I’m not sure what it’s really trying to do, but whatever it is, it doesn’t quite succeed. It’s not quite as funny as it could be, it’s not quite as exciting as it should be, the eccentric characters are not quite as compelling as they could be, and the curious ending is not quite as satisfying as it needed to be to make me feel that it was worth wading through the confusing story to reach it. On the plus side, the music is quite good and Fuest definitely has a sense of style; I’m just not sure that’s enough to make me give it another shot. It’s interesting enough to make it worth watching once, though, but somehow it falls short of what it could have been.

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Tiger Fangs (1943)

TIGER FANGS (1943)
Article #1327 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-1-2004
Posting Date: 3-31-2005
Directed by Sam Newfield
Featuring Frank Buck, June Duprez, Duncan Renaldo

Frank Buck, hunter and lion tamer, is called to Asia to investigate a report that tigers have been attacking workers on a rubber plantation. The natives believe the tigers have been possessed by Japanese agents.

You can tell by the way some movies handle their fantastic elements that the final explanation is going to be much more mundane, and this one is no exception. All in all, the true explanation isn’t bad (though it is far-fetched), and it might have made for a decent movie, but this one isn’t it. It’s a little too obvious (if something is endangering the production of America’s wartime industry, and the local doctor has a German accident, who do you think will turn out to be the villain?), and the movie itself is static and dull. It also engages in some typical war era racism; the Japanese are referred to by their derogatory diminutive, and the natives refer to them as “monkey men”. It largely tries to rely on the novelty of the presence of real-life hunter and lion tamer, Frank Buck, (who doesn’t quite have the cinematic appeal of Clyde Beatty, as far as I’m concerned). All in all, it’s dull, talky and plodding. I never thought I’d say this about a jungle movie, but this is one that could have used a little more safari.

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Ghost Chasers (1951)

GHOST CHASERS (1951)
Article #1326 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-31-2004
Posting Date: 3-30-2005
Directed by William Beaudine
Featuring Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Lloyd Corrigan

When the neighbor of Slip’s mother becomes obsessed with reaching her dead son through the help of a phony medium, Slip decides to expose the racket.

Is it just me, or does this Bowery Boys comedy seem a little classier than usual? Maybe it’s just a little bit earlier than most of their movies, or maybe I just got hold of a really good print, but it just seems slicker, more thought out, less frantic and better paced. It has touches I usually don’t expect from a Bowery Boys film; the ghost that appears at one point breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience directly, there’s a bit more emotional depth to the story (I like the scenes with Slip and the neighbor woman), and among the boys themselves, the emphasis isn’t entirely on Slip and Sach; Billy Benedict as Whitey is given a central role in the proceedings as well. I don’t know if these touches made a whole lot of difference; it’s still a Bowery Boys movie, and Huntz Hall’s mugging and Leo Gorcey’s malaprops are still the primary focus. Still, I just wanted to say that I noticed those little touches. My favorite scene: Louis Dumbrowsky agrees to a seance to speak to his dead uncle (who owed him money when he died) only to have the spirit ask for a loan of a hundred dollars.

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You’re Telling Me (1934)

YOU’RE TELLING ME (1934)
Article #1325 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-30-2004
Posting Date: 3-29-2005
Directed by Erle C. Kenton
Featuring W.C. Fields, Joan Marsh, Buster Crabbe

An inventor attempts to help his daughter to marry the rich kid in town by selling his new invention; a puncture-proof tire.

I’ve always been a little disappointed by this W. C. Fields comedy. It’s one of those where he places his character in a thoroughly domestic situation, which is actually a very interesting thing to do from a character perspective. The persona of W. C. Fields as a somewhat misanthropic low-life is challenged when he plays a married man; he mainly wants to drink with his friends and to tinker with his inventions, but he’s compromised by having to squelch his own personality so that he can get along with his wife and to help his daughter (who he truly loves) to win the man of her dreams. It’s a fairly sophisticated type of character comedy, and even though he never plays for sympathy, you care for him. Nevertheless, I find this one a little short on laughs (unlike IT’S A GIFT), and I think this is due to the fact that he’s not given enough annoying characters to contend with. There are moments, though; the movie builds up to the classic scene of him trying to tee off at a golf course only to have all sorts of obstacles get in his way (including an incompetent caddy), and certain other moments also work beautifully. There’s a scene of him rolling his tire down the street with a stick that is both funny (he’s a grown man) and touching (there’s a part of him that’s still quite childlike). For me, the biggest laugh revolves around a bottle of roach exterminator, and the most surreal moment deals with his attempt to placate his wife by buying her a pet; namely, the biggest bird in the pet store.

Oh, and the fantastic aspect of the movie is the puncture-proof tire, which is even able to resist bullets.

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Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)

SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER (1959)
Article #1324 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-29-2004
Posting Date: 3-28-2005
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Featuring Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift

An aging widow promises to contribute a large amount of money to an asylum (to build a new building for neurosurgery) if the doctor agrees to give a lobotomy to her committed niece. However, the doctor isn’t quite sure that the niece is crazy, and he investigates.

The book which listed this movie as belonging to the realm of fantastic cinema was very vague about the reasons for its inclusion, so I went into this one expecting it to be marginal. However, the opening scenes of this one involve a doctor giving a lobotomy to a female patient at an asylum, and though this doesn’t automatically turn it into a horror movie, it puts us very definitely in the same ballpark. In fact, the movie seems drenched in horror at times; the theme of madness runs throughout the story, the imagery inside the Venable mansion is quite nightmarish (especially the primitive jungle that passes for a back yard, and the presence of a statue of a truly ghastly skeletal figure), there is a scene where an old woman appears as a moving skeleton, and the revelations around the death of Sebastian (which mark the climax of the movie and which I will not reveal here) will be more familiar to a horror fan than to fans of drama.

In some ways, I’m not entirely surprised. The movie was based on a Tennessee Williams play, and Williams’ symbolic southern Gothic style isn’t really all that far from horror; even the title one of his plays (THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA) sounds like that of a horror movie. Still, it is a drama, and a fairly talky one at that, but it’s one of those where the talk is rich and fascinating. Both Katharine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor give fantastic performances, and Montgomery Clift also does well, though his part is far less flashy. As far as this series goes, it’s rather nice to see all three of these performers, as I don’t believe I’ve covered a movie yet for this series that features any of them. It will also probably be my last time for either Clift or Hepburn, though Taylor pops up in a few other genre productions. All in all, it’s a fascinating and harrowing drama, but it does help if you are familiar enough with the works of Tennessee Williams to know what to expect.

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The Curse of the Aztec Mummy (1957)

THE CURSE OF THE AZTEC MUMMY (1957)
(a.k.a. LA MALDICION DE LA MOMIA AZTECA)
Article #1323 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-28-2004
Posting Date: 3-27-2005
Directed by Rafael Portillo
Featuring Luis Aceves Castaneda, Crox Alvarado, Rosa Arenas

The evil Dr. Krupp escapes from the police and plots to once again get hold of the Aztec necklace and breastplate, despite warnings that this will arouse the wrath of the Aztec Mummy.

It feels a little silly to be comparing this movie with its immediate sequel, THE ROBOT VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY; as both movies are largely cut from the same cloth, it’s like comparing one Pringle’s potato chip to another. Nevertheless, I think this movie is markedly better than its sequel. I can actually sit through this one straight without my interest flagging, whereas ROBOT is tough going in that department. I think one of the things this movie does right is that it doesn’t start out with twenty minutes of footage from the previous movies of the series; it does manage to fit in five minutes in the middle of the movie, but that’s still an improvement. It also adds a new character to the mix, a masked crime fighter known as the Angel, though there is a reason this character doesn’t appear in the sequel as such, but I won’t give that away. Finally, I think the big difference between the two movies is that this one actually has enough plot to fill the whole movie, where ROBOT does not. Consequently, things rarely grind to a halt as they constantly do in the latter movie; in fact, the only padding in the movie is that five minutes of footage it took from THE AZTEC MUMMY (we don’t really need to see the sacrifice sequence). This movie also gives us a lot more of Dr. Krupp, whose evil dialogue is pretty amusing. Now if only I could see the first movie of the series, which is inexplicably unavailable except in the bastardized Jerry Warren version THE ATTACK OF THE MAYAN MUMMY, which is not an adequate substitute.

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