Twisted Nerve (1968)

TWISTED NERVE (1968)
Article #1262 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-28-2004
Posting Date: 1-25-2005
Directed by Roy Boulting
Featuring Hayley Mills, Hywel Bennett, Billie Whitelaw

A disturbed young man (suffering from a possible chromosomal problem) becomes attached to a woman who feels sorrow for him and pays for a toy he stole. He then works his way into her life through the use of subterfuge.

This movie opens with a spoken disclaimer meant to deal with the controversial central issue of the movie. The disclaimer says there has been no scientific evidence linking mongolism and psychotic/criminal behavior. Still, I would imagine that even with the disclaimer, this movie would probably upset anyone who has had to personally deal with mongolism. It’s very well acted, especially by Hywel Bennett, and he leaves you wondering whether his childlike Georgie character (as opposed to his scheming and manipulative adult character) is real or merely an act. At any rate, those who come into this one expecting primarily a psycho thriller may go away disappointed; on that level, it’s overlong (almost two hours) and slow-moving. However, it held my interest throughout, largely because the various characters are so well-developed that I found myself caught up in each of their lives; in fact, much of the running time is dedicated to defining these characters. The movie also features a score by Bernard Herrmann, the highlight of which is the most disconcerting whistled tune since the one in M. If you go in expecting a character-driven story, this one will be much more effective.

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Superargo Against Diabolicus (1967)

SUPERARGO AGAINST DIABOLICUS (1967)
(a.k.a. SUPERARGO CONTRO DIABOLIKUS)
Article #1261 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-27-2004
Posting Date: 1-24-2005
Directed by Nick Nostro
Featuring Giovanni Cianfriglia, Gerard Tichy, Monica Randall

A masked wrestler turned secret agent investigates the theft of several shipments of radium and mercury.

I went into this one not knowing a thing about the movie other than the title. I was wondering what it was going to be about. Two giant rubber-suited monsters flailing at each other? A shape-shifting car/robot doing battle with a slug from outerspace? A muscular mega-mole taking on a rabid were-squirrel? My question was soon answered; Superargo is a masked wrestler, and this was a Mexican wrestling movie….

Except it didn’t come from Mexico. It’s an Italian-Spanish production. This explains a few things, such as the fact that the movie opens with Superargo torn with guilt at having accidentally killed a man in the ring (this type of self-torment isn’t the sort of thing you expect to happen to Santo). It also explains why our hero doesn’t take on werewolves and other monsters; he goes the James Bond route and becomes a superspy.

This movie has enough unusual touches that I ended up really enjoying it. For one thing, Superargo isn’t just a guy in a wrestling outfit; he has slight but quite distinct superpowers. In one of the most startling scenes in the movie, Superargo is stabbed by his best friend to demonstrate one of them. He’s also more brutal then any Mexican counterparts; where Santo might leave a string of aching, bruised bodies in his wake, Superargo leaves nothing but corpses. There’s an assortment of wildly improbable gadgets that turn out to be precisely what Superargo needs to finish his mission (The oddest? A broach with a transmitter inside. You know that Superargo isn’t going to be wearing this!) And many of the attempts to kill him turn out to be just the methods to which his super-powers make him resistant. I found this one fun, offbeat and unusual. It’s worth checking out.

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Return to Treasure Island (1954)

RETURN TO TREASURE ISLAND (1954)
Article #1260 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-26-2004
Posting Date: 1-23-2005
Directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
Featuring Tab Hunter, Dawn Addams, Porter Hall

A woman who is the descendant of Jim Hawkins joins a team of people to return to Treasure Island and find the treasure.

Story time, folks.

When this movie popped up on my list, I took one look at the title, and found myself wondering what kind of fantastic elements would pop up in what sounded for all the world like a pirate movie. A few days later, I was browsing the DVDs in my local Borders, and I came across a disc title “Legendary Pirate Movies”. One of the movies was called LONG JOHN SILVER’S RETURN TO TREASURE ISLAND. This must be it, I thought.

Several days later, I sat down to watch the movie. After I was a good three-quarters a way through the movie without anything remotely fantastic popping up, I took a second to look at the source that listed the movie. To my surprise, I saw cast members listed that were not to be seen in the movie I was watching. I hopped on IMDB and did a little research. Sure enough, LONG JOHN SILVER’S RETURN TO TREASURE ISLAND and RETURN TO TREASURE ISLAND were two distinct movies, despite having been made in the same year.

“Well, that explains the lack of fantastic elements, ” I thought, and promptly moved on to another movie on my list.

So here I am several months later. I’ve snagged a copy of the actual movie in question, and sit back, waiting for the fantastic elements to manifest themselves. And once again, I find myself left high and dry. The closest this movie comes to having any fantastic elements are the existence of three decidedly un-animated and very dead skeletons, and a few plot points borrowed from Poe’s “The Gold Bug”. Sure, it’s a Poe story, but it’s not one of his horror stories. As far as I’m concerned, the movie doesn’t qualify.

In fact, in all respects I was better off with the other movie. At least that one a grand over-the-top performance by Robert Newton to hold your interest. This one is fairly lifeless. It’s not a total washout, but there are far too many scenes of people just sitting around talking, and they aren’t directed with much energy. Furthermore, the movie is narrated by and stars Tab Hunter, of which I can only make the following two comments. 1) He’s not much of an actor, and 2) he’s a better actor than a narrator.

Sorry, folks. Another false alarm. And unfortunately, it probably won’t be the last one.

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Rainbow Island (1944)

RAINBOW ISLAND (1944)
Article #1259 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-25-2004
Posting Date: 1-22-2005
Directed by Ralph Murphy
Featuring Dorothy Lamour, Eddie Bracken, Gil Lamb

Three sailors from the Merchant Marines find themselves stranded on an island in the Pacific, and one of them must pose as a local god to keep them all from being executed.

You know, I don’t screen these movies before I watch them, so sometimes I have a little trouble zeroing in on the fantastic elements that caused them to be included in someone’s list of fantastic genre movies. Sometimes I don’t succeed; when the best I can say is that it has a few scenes with a slight horror feel, I’ve pretty much failed to find anything more substantial. This movie gave me some problems in this regard. Initially, I thought I’d have to argue that the South Seas Island Paradise movies (think Dorothy Lamour in a sarong) could be considered a subgenre of fantasy; after all, they have about as much connection to real life as a Tarzan movie. Then I thought I’d have to take the route that the impersonation of a god (gods are fantastic figures, after all) caused it to brush up to the realm of fantasy; after all, we’ve seen plenty of movies where people pretend to be ghosts or vampires. Fortunately, the movie made it easy for me at the fifty-five minute mark; our heroes have an encounter with a giant man-eating plant.

Still, that’s a short scene, and whether you’d want to bother with the whole movie is up to you. Still, this one is pretty entertaining, and the comic antics of the sailors are actually funny enough to pass muster. On a side note, the giant bust of the great god Momo bears an uncanny resemblance to Rock Hudson, and fans of the forties Universal horrors may recognize Elena Verdugo as one of the native girls.

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Darkest Africa (1936)

DARKEST AFRICA (1936)
(Serial)
Article #1258 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-24-2004
Posting Date: 1-21-2005
Directed by B. Reeves Eason and Joseph Kane
Featuring Clyde Beatty, Manuel King, Elaine Shepherd

An animal trainer undertakes to help a young jungle boy rescue his sister from the clutches of a power-hungry high priest from the lost city of Joba.

If my sources are correct, this was the first Republic serial, and even at this point I can see a marked improvement over the previous Clyde Beatty serial, THE LOST JUNGLE. This time the curiosity value is upped a notch by the inclusion not only of Beatty, but of Manuel King (“The Youngest Animal Trainer of All Time”) as the jungle boy. The fantastic elements are much more pronounced here, as the lost city of Joba is inhabited largely by winged flying men known as Bat Men. Watching them on the wing is actually quite a bit of fun, even if you can tell they’re obviously miniatures in some scenes (though not all) and certain flying sequences are repeated ad infinitum (spot how many times we see the same shot of a Bat Men flying away from us with leafless trees in the background). The guys playing the Bat Men don’t get credited by name, though; they are listed simply as Bat Men in the credits. For that matter, neither does Ray “Crash” Corrigan, who is billed (as he was in ZAMBA) by the name of the gorilla he plays (in this case, “Bonga”). For those who remember THE LOST JUNGLE, there is no sign of Syd Saylors in this one (the guy with the bobbing necktie), but the comic relief character Hambone is painful, and you can be thankful that he appears only intermittently.

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The Psycho Lover (1970)

THE PSYCHO LOVER (1970)
(a.k.a. THE LOVING TOUCH)
Article #1257 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-23-2004
Posting Date: 1-20-2005
Directed by Robert Vincent O’Neill
Featuring Lawrence Montaigne, Jo Anne Meredith, Frank Cuva

A psychiatrist with marital problems takes on a psychotic who commits murder against women, but thinks he’s only dreaming the murders.

Here’s the set-up. The psycho has a hatred of women (brought on, of course, by his relationship with his mother), and must kill them when the voice inside his head tells him to. The psychiatrist is in love with his mistress, but his bitter hard-drinking wife (now there’s an original character) refuses to give him a divorce. Now, given that the psychiatrist wants to get rid of his wife, and has a woman-killing psycho for a patient, what kind of plan do you think he’s going to concoct? And given what you know about cinematic irony, what do you think is actually going to happen? Answer these two questions correctly (I figured out the first one twenty minutes into the movie and the second one at the halfway point), and you have your movie. Whether you would wish to see the movie once you’ve figured these things out largely depends on your taste for sleazy rape scenes and interminable romantic interlude scenes (the latter to romantic soft-rock songs). It also depends on whether you consider the brainwashing sequence to be clever or stupid; sadly, I lean towards the latter. As for the story itself, it moves at snail speed. This one is for fans of sleazy exploitation.

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Privilege (1967)

PRIVILEGE (1967)
Article #1256 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-22-2004
Posting Date: 1-19-2005
Directed by Peter Watkins
Featuring Paul Jones, Jean Shrimpton, Mark London

In the near future, a pop star is being manipulated by the government in an attempt to control the potentially violent youth of the nation.

This is only the second movie I’ve seen by Peter Watkins; the other one is PUNISHMENT PARK. Though I liked the pseudo-documentary style there, I thought that movie was painfully predictable; I knew exactly how it was going to end five minutes into the movie. This one is much richer; it’s more unpredictable, and it’s satirical jabs seem sharper and more effective. It’s also anchored by a great performance by Paul Jones, who was the lead vocalist for Manfred Mann. The movie isn’t subtle, but it is thought-provoking, and even slightly humorous at times. It is somewhat dated, but I do think that some of its messages are still relevant, especially those involving political use of mass media and the way fan worship can have a soul-sucking effect on a celebrity. The scene near the end of the movie where the singer receives an award is great.

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Prehistoric Women (1967)

PREHISTORIC WOMEN (1967)
Article #1255 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-21-2004
Posting Date: 1-18-2005
Directed by Michael Carreras
Featuring Martine Beswick, Edina Ronay, Michael Latimer

A jungle guide is captured by white rhino worshippers when he trespasses on their domain, and then finds himself transported back in time to a world where brunettes enslave men and blonde women.

In a word, this is silly. Not that my saying so will change anybody’s mind about this one. After all, it’s full of beautiful women in skimpy costumes, and this is usually enough to entice half the population into wanting to watch it anyway. There’s silly native music and dancing, but you already knew that, didn’t you? Two comments: despite the presence of the word “Prehistoric” in the title, don’t strain your eyes looking for anything resembling a dinosaur. The closest you get is a rather unconvincing rhino. Second comment: this movie has what may be the single strangest method of transportation through time that I have ever encountered; our jungle guide travels through time after stroking the horn on the statue of the white rhinoceros. But then, of course, I’m only assuming it’s travel through time because of the movie title; it certainly doesn’t look like time travel to me. At any rate, the lesson is obvious – Be Careful What You Touch.

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The Flame Barrier (1958)

THE FLAME BARRIER (1958)
Article #1254 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-20-2004
Posting Date: 1-17-2005
Directed by Paul Landres
Featuring Arthur Franz, Kathleen Crowley, Robert Brown

A woman finances an expedition through a South American jungle to try to locate her husband, who went there to search for evidence of a downed rocket.

The opening sequence of this movie involves the launching of a rocket; since it consists entirely of stock footage, we’re spared from having to sort out any of the characters. Then we have a narrator telling us plot information that we can easily glean through the ensuing action. It’s only then that the movie really shows its colors; it’s none other than our old friend, the Double-Stuffed Safari-O. We have the spunky but beautiful woman who insists on financing a jungle expedition despite the fact that the rainy season is about to start, and we have the mercenary safari guide who initially doesn’t get along with the woman (read: romantic pairing). We have the safari guide’s hard-drinking brother who is seeking to prove his worth and also really likes the woman (read: fifth wheel destined to take himself out of the romantic fray via an act of self sacrifice). Then we have a handful of natives (read: monster fodder). Throw in a few stray animals to scare the woman, and the occasional death scene to keep reminding us that there’s something scary at the end of the road. The monster itself is pretty lame, and I can never quite figure out how it was able to kill the natives earlier in the movie when I look at its state near the end of the movie. All in all, it would be pretty easy to dismiss this one, but the cast is likable enough, and I was in a congenial mood when I watched it, it was actually a little fun just to let the routine plot unfold in its own predictable way. My major complaint: they killed off the chimp far too quickly.

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Earth II (1971)

EARTH II (1971)
Article #1253 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-19-2004
Posting Date: 1-16-2005
Directed by Tom Gries
Featuring Gary Lockwood, Anthony Franciosa, Scott Hylands

A space station called Earth II must cope with a Chinese satellite harboring nuclear warheads.

I think the movie gods are trying to teach me a lesson for taking potshots at yesterday’s movie CHOSEN SURVIVORS. This seems to be its polar opposite; instead of taking place underground during a nuclear holocaust, this one takes place in the new frontier of outer space where hope of a new vision of humanity reigns supreme. Instead of having unpleasant characters yell at each other all the time, this one has pleasant people talking nicely to each other in normal tones of voice. And instead of a hysterically dark view of human nature, this one gives us a bland feel-good view of man and his future. Unfortunately, the key word here is bland; this movie not only courts blandness, it’s married it and made a lifelong commitment to it. It also, like many science fiction movies of the era, borrows a lot of its style from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (also note the presence of Gary Lockwood), and like so many others that tried the same trick, it has no clue as to why that style was appropriate for that movie and deadly for others. One example of its wrongheadedness; whereas the extended docking sequence in 2001 was shot like with a ballet-like lyricism to the strains of “The Blue Danube Waltz”, this one is shot flatly to the strains of some anonymous elevator music. I’m not sure whether it’s a theatrical release or a TV-Movie; IMDB lists it as the latter, but also points out that it had a theatrical rating (G, or course). I’m opting for TV-Movie, myself; this one has “pilot for potential TV series” written all over it. I’m just grateful it wasn’t picked up.

By the way, the main character is named David Seville. Despite this, the Chipmunks do not show up. This is a pity; they would have helped this one immensely.

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