The Spider (1931)

THE SPIDER (1931)
Article #881 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-13-2003
Posting Date: 1-10-2004
Directed by William Cameron Menzies and Kenneth MacKenna
Featuring Edmund Lowe, Lois Moran, Howard Phillips

A murder is committed during the performance of a magic act in a theatre. The magician as well as his assistant become the prime suspects, and must prove their innocence.

A lot of this short movie is dedicated to the magic act, but since the act is well paced and fun, and Edmund Lowe’s performance is strong in the role of the magician, this doesn’t slow down the story at all. In fact, the whole affair is pretty energetic and fast moving, with the fantastic elements fairly strong—hypnotism, mind-reading, and a very eerie and effective seance sequence. The title refers to a minor plot point involving a ring. JUST IMAGINE’s El Brendel is on hand as an audience member who thinks the murder is part of the show.

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The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe (1942)

THE LOVES OF EDGAR ALLAN POE (1942)
Article #880 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-12-2003
Posting Date: 1-9-2004
Directed by Harry Lachman
Featuring Shepperd Strudwick, Linda Darnell, Virginia Gilmore

This movie tells the story of the life of Edgar Allan Poe and the women in his life.

This isn’t the first biopic I’ve seen for this series; in fact, it isn’t even the first Poe biopic (that honor goes to THE RAVEN (1914)). Unfortunately, that earlier biopic, though it was weird and hard to follow, did capture more of the feel of Poe, especially during its dramatization of ‘The Raven’; here, we only see bits of it read in front of an audience. In fact, the only fantastic aspect of this movie is that it’s about a writer of horror stories. I don’t know the exact details of Poe’s life, but I do know they sound somewhat interesting; however, I’m really not interested in Poe’s romantic entanglements near as much as the makers of this movie were. As it is, I find it rather dull and obvious, with the high points being appearances by Henry Morgan (who I wouldn’t have recognized except that his voice hadn’t changed all that much between this movie and his stint on ‘M*A*S*H’) and an early appearance by perennial army general Morris Ankrum as a publisher. It also features historical personages Thomas Jefferson and Charles Dickens among its characters.

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The Girl From Scotland Yard (1937)

THE GIRL FROM SCOTLAND YARD (1937)
Article #879 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-11-2003
Posting Date: 1-8-2004
Directed by Robert Vignola
Featuring Karen Morley, Robert Baldwin, Eduardo Cianelli

A woman who works with Scotland Yard investigates the source of strange explosions and encounters a reporter who is hunting for the lost husband of a friend.

Another of those mystery/thrillers of the thirties with a marginal and cliched science fiction aspect; in this case, the ubiquitous ‘death ray’ machine. There are nice touches here and there (the final sequence involves a fairly exciting dogfight) and occasional bursts of momentary bad acting (since the actors are pretty competent outside of these moments, I suspect these lapses may be the result of bad direction), but all in all, it’s merely rather ordinary. Not bad for a slow day and keep your expectations in check.

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Succubus (1967)

SUCCUBUS (1967)
(a.k.a. NECRONOMICON)
Article #878 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-10-2003
Posting Date: 1-7-2004
Directed by Jess Franco
Featuring Janine Raynaud, Jack Taylor, Howard Vernon

A woman who performs in a sadistic stage show starts to blur the line between fantasy and reality.

Title check: No buses are sucked, and as for the alternate title, this has precious little to do with Lovecraft’s fictional tome.

Here we are, 878 listings into the MOTDs, and I finally hit Jess Franco. I’ve heard him described as one of the worst directors of all time; I’ve also heard him described as a genius, though even his supporters seem to think that he’s made a fair number of stinkers. I’ve seen a few of his others, and I suspect this is one of those in which he put some sort of effort into his work. He’s not talentless, and he has the occasional flare for interesting visuals, but he’s not much of a storyteller (I haven’t seen a movie of his that didn’t leave me somewhat confused), and sometimes his surreal visuals become merely silly and stupid. Quite frankly, I don’t have much use for this movie; if I’m in the mood for arty, erotic horror, I can always turn to Jean Rollin; unfortunately, I’m rarely in that mood. And I’m afraid that, despite all the name dropping of famous people and cultural icons (including the Marquis de Sade, the name people like to trot out to demonstrate that their delvings into sadism are actually high art of some sort), I suspect that there’s really a whole lot less here than meets the eye.

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A Bird in the Head (1946)

A BIRD IN THE HEAD (1946)
Article #877 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-9-2003
Posting Date: 1-6-2004
Directed by Edward Bernds
Featurung Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard

A mad scientist wishes to use Curly’s brain to transplant into the skull of a gorilla.

Not much to say about this one; this is pretty standard Three Stooges mayhem. In it you will be treated such sights as an X-ray of the inside of Curly’s skull, a gorilla with a machine gun, and the usual well-timed slapstick gags, including a plank that won’t remain standing against a wall. Unfortunately, we never do learn Curly’s hat size.

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Fantastic Voyage (1966)

FANTASTIC VOYAGE (1966)
Article #876 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-8-2003
Posting Date: 1-5-2004
Directed by Richard Fleischer
Featuring Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch, Donald Pleasence

A scientist suffers a blood clot in the brain after an attempted assassination, and several men and a woman are miniaturized and injected into the scientist’s bloodstream to remove the clot from the inside.

I first became familiar with this story through the novelization of the movie by Isaac Asimov. The movie itself never quite reaches the pitch of suspense to which it aspires, but this is a minor quibble; what it has going for it is a real sense of wonder. The scenes that take place inside the body are breathtaking and memorable, and very much of their time, as they fit in quite well with the psychedelic looks of the era; in particular, I like seeing the blue blood cells turn red inside the capillaries. It also seems to take place in fairly close to real time; once the crew is reduced in size, they have sixty minutes to complete their mission, which comes fairly close to matching the amount of running time left in the movie. The villain is almost a little too obvious, what with the casting, the constant harking by a certain character to abort the mission, and the fact that one character is obviously an atheist. Raquel Welch fans may be disappointed that she remains fully clothed the entire movie, though her skin-tight outfit aboard the sub may leave them somewhat satisfied. Amazingly enough, this is one movie that always seems to me to be shorter than its running time, which is indeed a good thing. Though not a perfect movie, it is extraordinarily efficient (they don’t belabor the plot points) and quite satisfying.

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Revolt of the Ghosts (1949)

REVOLT OF THE GHOSTS (1949)
(a.k.a. LA REBELION DE LOS FANTASMAS)
Article #875 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-7-2003
Posting Date: 1-4-2004
Directed by A. F. Bustamente
Featuring Gilbert Roland, Amand Ledesma, Angel Garasma

Famous ghosts try to save an old house from being burned down.

Actually, I got that plot description from a reference book; to me, it looks more like they’re trying to do some matchmaking between a resident of that house and an executive in the music business. Yes, it’s another “Spanish, no subtitles” scenario here, but this should be the last one for a little while. It looks pretty wild, with some of the famous ghosts having been real people (Chopin), and others fictional characters (Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, Romeo and Juliet, etc.). The plot is impenetrable under these circumstances, but some of the sight gags aren’t bad; restaurant owners should always beware when they present a ghost his tab, especially if it’s Sancho Panza. The antics and special effects make it a decent amount of fun, though, and the ending scene, in which a couple dances while being circled by several dancing phantoms, brings a smile to my face even when I can’t figure out the rest of it.

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The Macabre Trunk (1936)

THE MACABRE TRUNK (1936)
(a.k.a. EL BAUL MACABRO)
Article #874 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-6-2003
Posting Date: 1-3-2004
Directed by Miguel Zacarias
Featuring Ramon Pereda, Manuel Noriega, Rene Cardona

A madman is kidnapping women from the hospital in order to use them to restore the health of his wife.

Yes, we’re back in “Spanish-no subtitles” mode here, but this time I was helped by a hint that it was somewhat similar to THE CORPSE VANISHES, and that gave me something of a handle on it. Despite the fact that I didn’t always know what was going on, I found myself quite entertained; the story involves a sinister-looking assistant, a suspicious beggar, a pigeon-toed nurse, an intentionally bad music performance, a comic relief cop, and the trunk of the title. It also shows more skin than a Hollywood film would have done at the time, and even throws in a gag involving a severed limb that wouldn’t have made it past the Hays office here. All in all, the movie has the feel of a forties Monogram cheapie, which is interesting, because it predates them by a few years. It uses an interesting editing technique by which scenes are switched via the use of props that appear in both scenes, which is impressive at first, but ends up being overused. However, the movie’s most memorable moment involves one of the most glaring editing gaffs I’ve ever seen in my life, and though I don’t want to give it away completely, I’ll say that it occurs about twenty minutes into the film (during the song), and it offers proof positive that Mexican filmmakers used clapboards.

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Scream, Baby, Scream (1969)

SCREAM, BABY, SCREAM (1969)
Article #873 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-5-2003
Posting Date: 1-2-2004
Directed by Joseph Adler
Featuring Ross Harris, Eugenie Wingate, Chris Martell

An artist kidnaps people and uses drugs and surgery to deform so he can then paint them.

Ten thoughts on this one.

1) Don’t confuse this one with KILL, BABY, KILL. Though I’ve never seen that one, I know for sure Bava had nothing to do with this one.

2) The videocassette package shows an insane bearded guy killing a woman with an axe. No such scene appears in the film.

3) The package also dares me not to scream. If it had dared me not to snooze, it might have won the bet.

4) Do you know what an LSD drug trip is like? According to this movie, it allows you to see film in double exposure and then you imagine you take the place of the animals in the zoo. I always knew drugs were overrated.

5) Most of the hideously mutated creatures in this movie consist of men able to grimace.

6) The rest of the hideously mutated creatures in this movie use makeup, but not much of it; the budget must have only allowed them to buy two eggs of silly putty.

7) The main villain looks sort of like a cross between Jack Palance and Charlton Heston with Criswell’s hair. I’ll leave it to you do decide how scary that is.

8) The last two movies I saw were in Spanish with no subtitles. The next two will probably be in Spanish with no subtitles. This one is English, but I found myself somehow wishing this one were in Spanish without subtitles. Well, you can’t have everything.

9) Considering how bad the sound is in this movie, it probably wouldn’t have made any difference if it had been in Spanish without subtitles.

10) This movie made me miss the subtleties and nuances of Ray Dennis Steckler’s THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES THAT STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP ZOMBIES?!! Really. However, it didn’t make me miss the movies of Herschell Gordon Lewis. That should you give you some idea of its quality.

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Santo and the Hotel of the Dead (1963)

SANTO AND THE HOTEL OF THE DEAD (1963)
(a.k.a. SANTO EN EL HOTEL DE LA MUERTE)
Article #872 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-4-2003
Posting Date: 1-1-2004
Directed by Federico Curiel
Featuring Santo, Fernando Casanova, Ana Bertha Lepe

Beautiful women are being murdered at a hotel, and then the bodies disappear. Santo comes on the scene to investigate.

This is one of the Santo movies that never made it to the States, so I had to watch this one in an undubbed, unsubtitled print. I didn’t expect it to be as difficult to figure out as it turned out to be; the other Santo movies I’ve seen didn’t seem complicated. This one has a lot of elements that make it a little difficult to connect the dots; on top of the murders, there is a strange beatnik character who seems to be extorting money out of one of the other residents, and characters in cowboy hats digging in a cavern under the hotel. I’d really love to catch this one subtitled; it’s a lot of fun, and even given the plot difficulties, I could spot two surprising plot twists in the final moments in the film, since they’re done visually. And even though I’m not a particular fan of long wrestling sequences, I can say one thing for them here: they are kept to a minimum, and I had no trouble figuring out what’s going on during these scenes. Nonetheless, a subtitled version would definitely give me a chance to figure out the somewhat curious ending to this one.

And a warning to Santo; when you go driving off in your car, please pull your cape in instead of letting it flap around the wheels; I’d hate to have you pull an Isadora Duncan on us.

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