The Medium (1951)

THE MEDIUM (1951)
Article #991 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12/1/2003
Posting Date: 4/29/2004
Directed by Gian Carlo Menotti
Featuring Marie Powers, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Leopoldo Savona

When a fake medium is unexpectedly touched by a spirit during a seance, her life and sanity begin to unravel.

In my voyage through the waters of Fantastic Cinema, I have touched on many more genres than just fantasy, science fiction and horror; since I also cover movies that have fantastic elements even if they don’t strictly belong to the above genres, I have also covered mysteries, film noirs, comedies, dramas, soap operas, espionage thrillers, action/adventure, musicals, and biographies, among others. In fact, are there any genres that I haven’t yet touched upon in my travels?

Well, how about opera? For that is precisely the type of movie THE MEDIUM is.

Now, I’ll start out by saying that I’m not an opera buff; though I like many types of classical music, opera has remained elusive and unsatisfying to me. Watching this movie helped me to pinpoint why; in most vocal music, the lyrics are prepared to bow to the demands of the music. With opera, the opposite appears to be the case; the music seems designed to play a secondary role to the words. As a result, I find most opera music to be singularly devoid of any real melodic value; I can’t hum them, I can’t whistle them, and they don’t stick in the memory.

I’m also not keen on operatic vocal techniques. To illustrate, let me describe my initial moments of watching this movie. The first five minutes were just fine; the music was largely a voiceless prelude, and the movie concentrated on visuals. When the singing began about five minutes into the movie, I moaned in frustration, as I thought it was in Italian, and not subtitled to boot. Then, five minutes later, I made a new discovery; the movie wasn’t in Italian, as I thought, but in English. It was at that point that I realized that it didn’t matter to me what language it was in; I would have preferred subtitles, so I could understand the English. The problem is that operatic phrasing is such a distinct and precise thing that listening to it is like hearing English being spoken in some unknown and alien dialect. Furthermore, even if I could understand the occasional line, all it took was for the diva to hold a note for several seconds in the middle of one of her sentences for me to start to lose the thread of what she was saying. Now I’m willing to believe that continued exposure to opera would eventually enable me to understand the vocalization better, but that would requre me to watch a lot more of it, and I’m not sure I want to make the investment of time.

So, bearing in mind that this movie already had several strikes against it (in my mind), I’m quite pleased to say that nonetheless, I enjoyed the movie well enough. There are several reasons; first of all, it was only eighty minutes long (most operas run three and a half hours, and though that statement is probably not strictly true, that’s what it feels like to me). Second of all, it was shot like a movie rather than like a photographed stage play, relying on visuals and close-ups to clue us in on the emotions of the characters; this created a much greater degree of intimacy than I expected. Thirdly, the acting is very good indeed, especially Marie Powers as the medium who finds her life falling apart because of her inability to cope with her experience. And lastly, I actually liked the story; it was real drama with strong fantastic elements rather than the melodrama that seems so prevalent among opera plots. As a consequence, I liked the movie.

Odd how these things work out, isn’t it?

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Hangover Square (1945)

HANGOVER SQUARE (1945)
Article #990 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11/30/2003
Posting Date: 4/28/2004
Directed by John Brahm
Featuring Laird Cregar, George Sanders, Linda Darnell

An overworked composer suffers blackouts during which he becomes a homicidal maniac.

Laird Cregar was an excellent character actor who, much to his disdain, ended up playing psychotic murderers towards the end of his short career; he tried to lose weight in an effort to get other types of roles, but ended up dying of a heart attack at the age of 28. One can easily see why he ended up with these roles; he is wonderful here, particularly in the sequences when he goes into his blackouts. There are other strong aspects to this movie; John Brahm’s direction is wonderful and audacious, and the staging of some of the murders is memorable. What is interesting is the way he uses crowd scenes as a backdrop to some of the murders, particularly the opening one which occurs in a pawn shop on a crowded street. I also like the way that each murder is punctuated by a scene that involves fire; three separate conflagrations occur at various points in this movie, including a memorable one during Guy Fawkes day. Also excellent is Bernard Herrman’s score, which is crucial to the proceedings since music plays such an important role in the movie, particularly during the final moments of the film. For those who’ve never seen one of Cregar’s classic psycho performances (in this movie and in THE LODGER), I highly recommend them.

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The Final Countdown (1980)

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN (1980)
Article #989 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11/29/2003
Posting Date: 4/27/2004
Directed by Don Taylor
Featuring Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, Katharine Ross

An aircraft carrier goes through a time warp and ends up in 1941, just prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

If you’re in love with military technology and really enjoy endless shots of planes taking off, fueling and landing, then you’ll probably enjoy this movie well enough; as for me, I’m not particularly keen on that sort of thing, so I have to rely on the plot to hold my attention. Unfortunately, I never had a chance to see this movie before I’d heard about the ending (several times over, in fact), and it is one of those endings that tends to make the action that leads up to it seem rather pointless. It’s also the type of ending that would probably feel more effective in a thirty-minute Twilight Zone episode than in a full-length movie; as it is, this movie feels more like a missed opportunity than anything else, one that sets up some intriguing hypothetical situations, and then fails to really deliver on them. In short, the movie chickens out. This being said, it still has its uses; you can watch the first ninety-percent of the movie and speculate on what could have been. And as a side puzzle, see if you can figure out the identity of Martin Sheen’s mysterious boss before the final reel.

And incidentally, this movie marks the MOTDs first foray into the decade of the eighties.

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Dream No Evil (1970)

DREAM NO EVIL (1970)
Article #988 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11/28/2003
Posting Date: 4/26/2004
Directed by John Hayes
Featuring Edmond O’Brien, Marc Lawrence, Brooke Mills

A woman obsessed with finding her father discovers him in a morgue, where he rises from the dead and kills his undertaker. She then moves with him on to his farm, where he sporadically kills people.

The book from which I got this title to add to my list described it as a PSYCHO variation, though it’s a good thirty minutes into the movie before that becomes noticeable. However, that makes it quite similar to its model; you’re a good ways into that movie before the real direction of the story becomes apparent. This one, however, has some voice-over narration that essentially gives away the game at a crucial point in the movie; you’re pretty much in on the truth of the situation before the first murder even occurs. Still, this is not to say that this movie doesn’t use some interesting approaches to telling its story, and there is a real surreal oddity that cuts through many of the scenes to help compensate for the extreme low-budget of the undertaking. Nonetheless, I don’t think O’Brien considered this as one of the high points of his career. The movie also features Arthur Franz and Michael Pataki.

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The Scarlet Claw (1944)

THE SCARLET CLAW (1944)
Article #987 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-25-2003
Posting Date: 4-23-2004
Directed by Roy William Neill
Featuring Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Gerald Hamer

Sherlock Holmes investigates the death of a former actress who was supposedly killed by a monster.

As I’ve stated before, there is a certain bond between horror cinema and mystery cinema, and that is especially noticeable when dealing with Sherlock Holmes, whose stories have a fair amount of horror atmosphere to them. Of course, one of the differences between the two genres is our expectations; if we’re presented with a straight vampire story, for example, we expect to not be disillusioned about the existence of the creatures at the end of the movie, and we are disappointed if the movie does so. However, if Sherlock Holmes is on a case where there are supernatural aspects, we fully expect that the denoument will safely put any supernatural explanations aside and that a more rational explanation will prevail, so we aren’t disappointed. This is one of the basic differences between the genres; in one we want our irrational fears to be realized, in the other we want them to be explained away. Nonetheless, the mood and the scary touches may be very much the same.

So far, I’ve covered several of the Holmes movies, but most of them have only the slightest of horror touches to them. This is a marked exception; though it doesn’t take place in London (it’s one of the modern Holmes stories), there is plenty of fog and atmosphere in the Canadian town where this one takes place. It’s a truly satisfying movie as well, one of the best of the Holmes series that I’ve seen so far. I highly recommend this one to any horror fan who wants to check out an effective horror-themed mystery. Fine performances from all, especially Rathbone, Bruce and Hamer.

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Heavenly Daze (1948)

HEAVENLY DAZE (1948)
Article #986 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-25-2003
Posting Date: 4-23-2004
Directed by Jules White
Featuring Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Shemp Howard

A dead man hoping to get into heaven can only get there if he goes back to earth and manages to reform his two friends.

Well, this one has an unusual plot for a Three Stooges short. Usually, they don’t have plots; just a series of gags around a certain theme. So how does Shemp reform his brothers? He does it by slapping them upside their heads, punching them in their stomachs, and sticking pins in their rear ends….wait a second, it just occurred to me that this one doesn’t have a plot either. As a side item, the boys test out a new invention; a pen that can write under whipped cream. It’s mostly notable for giving Shemp the opportunity to torment Moe without Moe being able to get revenge, that is until…well, you don’t want me to give away the plot twist, do you? Wait—how can you have a plot twist without a plot?

Sometimes it’s best to just not think about these things.

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Shock Treatment (1964)

SHOCK TREATMENT (1964)
Article #985 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-24-2003
Posting Date: 4-22-2004
Directed by Denis Sanders
Featuring Stuart Whitman, Carol Lynley, Roddy McDowall

An actor is hired to pretend to be mentally disturbed so that he will be committed to an asylum where he is supposed to find out where one homicidal patient has hidden a million dollars.

If I had to make a list of actors who would make ideal mental cases, I’m sure my top ten list would include Roddy McDowall, whose characters have always left me with the feeling that even if they weren’t out-and-out insane, their relationship with reality was fragile to say the least. Here he plays a homicidal maniac, and he’s the best thing about this movie. The rest of the mental patients don’t fare quite as well; though I’m no expert on mental illness, I don’t find the rest of them particularly convincing. Nor do I find the performance of Stuart Whitman’s character as a mental patient convincing, but since he’s supposed to be faking it, that’s not really a criticism; I just don’t understand why everyone else is fooled. Actually, I take that back; one person is not fooled, and once we reach the point of the story where this is revealed, the story settles into a fairly predictable groove. It’s an interesting try, and may have been actually somewhat inspired by Samuel Fuller’s SHOCK CORRIDOR from the year before, but I ultimately found it rather disappointing, especially with an ending which must have looked good on paper (especially for those into poetic justice) but which in actual execution goes so horribly wrong that I found myself actively embarrassed for Lauren Bacall. Worth catching for Roddy.

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Master of Horror (1960)

MASTER OF HORROR (1960)
(a.k.a. OBRAS MAESTRAS DEL TERROR)
Article #984 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-23-2003
Posting Date: 4-21-2004
Directed by Enrique Carreras
Featuring Narciso Ibanez Menta, Mercedes Carreras, Carlos Estrada

A maid entertains herself on a stormy night by reading three stories from Poe.

Edgar Allan Poe’s name has been conjured up so often in the world of horror cinema that seeing his name attached to something means very little to me, especially considering how rarely any of these movies have been true to the spirit of his work. However, I have to admit I found myself entranced by the introductory narration in this adaptation of three of his stories from the country of Argentina; they spoke of him in terms that made me think of his literary status and his work rather than in terms of his name as a convenient horror label, and I was a little intrigued to see what would follow. I was delighted to find that this movie provided for me some of the most satisfying adaptations of his stories to date, despite the dubbing and a framing story that serves no other purpose than to set up a lame joke. The stories, THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR, A CASK OF AMONTILLADO, and THE TELL-TALE HEART are all presented; the first two are quite faithful, effectively filling in the backstories of the tales and adding slight but marked subtle touches of its own; in particular, I was impressed with how the hypnotist in the VALDEMAR story uses his subject’s own obsessions as a starting point in bringing them into a hypnotic trance. I was so impressed by this accomplishment, that I’m willing to overlook the relatively huge changes made to THE TELL-TALE HEART, partially because it is so powerful on its own that it easily becomes the most horrifying of the three tales, and partially because the changes it does make are startlingly effective. I highly recommend this one to Poe enthusiasts, and in terms of real Poe adaptations, this may be my favorite.

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The Lost World (1960)

THE LOST WORLD (1960)
Article #983 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-23-2003
Posting Date: 4-21-2004
Directed by Irwin Allen
Featuring Claude Rains, Michael Rennie, Jill St. John

Professor Challenger organizes an expedition to a plateau which is inhabited by dinosaurs.

I’m not an Irwin Allen fan, but I do feel that he had a flair for eye candy and makes nice use of color at times. The movie is very easy to look at, and the slurpasaur scenes are certainly some of the better I’ve seen of that variety, so much so that I’d even forgive him using slurpasaurs if Willis O’Brien’s name hadn’t been hanging there in the credits to remind us of what could have been. What tries my patience is his handling of characters and actors; the movie is so overloaded with stock melodramatic characters and situations (love triangles, secret vendettas, etc.) that you look forward to the dinosaur scenes merely in the hope that it will distract us from the human characters. It’s depressing to see Claude Rains overacting in one of his rare bad performances; his dialogue is so florid and melodramatic that he would have been better off underplaying. I like Michael Rennie, but somehow I don’t quite buy him as a big-game hunter and adventurer. Other distractions include Jill St. John’s pink pants and poodle (two things she should have left at home), and somehow I find it truly annoying that the script makes Jay Novello’s character 1) a craven coward, 2) an incessant whiner, 3) a lip-smacking would-be rapist, 4) a greedy diamond hunter, and 5) a person who speaks with a foreign accent; any one of those qualities would probably guarantee his death before the final reel, and to heap them all on the same person is overdoing it more than just a little.

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The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1960)

THE FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE (1960)
Article #982 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-22-2003
Posting Date: 4-20-2004
Directed by Edward Cahn
Featuring Henry Daniell, Valerie French, Grant Richards

When a man dies suddenly and his body turns up at his funeral missing its head, his brother fears he was the victim of an ancestral curse and that he will be next.

I just barely remember watching this movie as a kid on my local creature feature, but about the only thing I could remember about it for years was the title and the vision of skulls floating through the air. I think part of the reason I didn’t remember anything else was because the somewhat lethargic pace had me drifting in and out of sleep, and the most grotesque sequence in which we see the steps undertaken to create a shrunken head (this was fairly explicit for its time) was removed from that print. Despite its pace and occasional omissions in storytelling (I never really heard a good explanation as to what brought on the ancestral curse), this is sporadically effective, partially because it is effectively lurid in its way and partially because it never quite turns into the voodoo movie it so much resembles in other ways. Henry Daniell is the villain (this is established early enough that it isn’t giving much away) and Paul Wexler (who looks just a little like Christopher Lee here) is the South American Indian assistant with his mouth sewn shut.

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