Samson in the Wax Museum (1963)

SAMSON IN THE WAX MUSEUM (1963)
Article #741 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-26-2003
Posting Date: 8-23-2003
Directed by Alfonso Corona Blake
Featuring Santo, Norma Mora, Fernando Oses

Samson is called onto the case when a series of mysterious disappearances occur in the vicinity of a wax museum.

A couple of movies ago I posed the cinematic question; How did Samson end up in thirteenth-century China? Now I ask what he was doing in a Wax Museum, a phenomenon somewhat even farther from the biblical times from which Samson hearkened. The answer is simple; it’s not Samson, it’s Santo, the Silver Maskman; in fact, if you listen during the crowd scenes in the wrestling matches, you can hear them calling out ‘Santo! Santo! Santo!”, not “Samson! Samson! Samson!”. Of course, all the other dialogue is dubbed (and badly), but that’s to be expected. The movie trots on for about forty minutes pretending that no one has any idea who is responsible for the disappearances (anyone in the movie, that is; the average viewer should figure it out in ten seconds). There’s some nice horror scenes of wax figures coming to life, and some scattered fun throughout. Incidentally, there are three wrestling scenes; this translates into three trips to the refrigerator, though you may want to catch Santo’s cocky opponent in the third match. Incidentally, the climax of this movie bears a slight resemblance to the one in THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES.

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Tomorrow at Seven (1933)

TOMORROW AT SEVEN (1933)
Article #740 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-25-2003
Posting Date: 8-22-2003
Directed by Ray Enright
Featuring Chester Morris, Vivienne Osborne, Frank McHugh

A murderer known as the Black Ace threatens to murder a man at seven o’clock the next day.

I’d have to say this is one of the better forgotten horrors I’ve seen. It has some unusual choices of locations for a murders, a very effective opening scene, and the comic relief is much stronger than usual for this type of thing. For the latter, thanks must go to Frank McHugh and Allen Jenkins, who make a great team as the two detectives on the case, though Charles Middleton also has some fun in his appearance as Simons. It’s also interesting to note that the only role for a black performer is not a comic relief role, and he ends up playing a serious role in the proceedings. Though it hovers in that grey area between murder mystery and horror, this is probably one I would recommend for those interested in experimenting with the world of forgotten horrors.

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How Doooo You Do!!!! (1945)

HOW DOOOO YOU DO!!! (1945)
(a.k.a. HOW DO YOU DOOOO?)
Article #739 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-24-2003
Posting Date: 8-21-2003
Directed by Ralph Murphy
Featuring Bert Gordon, Harry von Zell, Ella Mae Morse

Various performers on a radio show take a vacation at a resort where a murder is committed.

All right, this has been driving me crazy for some time, so let me get it out of my system. The title of the movie comes from a catchphrase of Bert Gordon’s character known as the Mad Russian. The reason for the several ‘o’s in the title is that when he said the phrase, he would stretch out the word “do”. Unfortunately, neither of the two titles gets it right; HOW DOOOO YOU DO!! puts the extra ‘o’s on the wrong “do”, but gets the punctuation right; HOW DO YOU DOOOOO? puts the ‘o’s in the right place, but he never said it as a question, so the punctuation is wrong. It should be HOW DO YOU DOOOO!!!

Oh, I suppose I should say something about the movie as well, shouldn’t I? From what I gather, Bert Gordon could be quite amusing, so I suspect that this PRC cheapie didn’t really do him justice; in fact, it would be the last movie he would make. Everyone is largely playing himself, and there are some nice musical numbers, and I do find the concept that Gordon invites several actors who play detectives to appear at the hotel in the belief that they will solve the mystery to be somewhat amusing. Nonetheless, the comedy is tepid indeed, and the movie never really gets off the ground. There are slight horror and science fiction aspects that don’t pop up until late in the story, and the ending is quite bizarre. I think this one might be mostly interesting to anyone interested in catching a bit of Bert Gordon’s schtick.

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Gang Busters (1942)

GANG BUSTERS (1942)
(Serial)
Article #738 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-23-2003
Posting Date: 8-20-2003
Directed by Ray Taylor and Noel Smith
Featuring Kent Taylor, Irene Harvey, Ralph Morgan

Police try to break a ring of gangsters known as The League of Murdered Men.

I have to confess to not being a particular fan of action movies; mere action in and of itself doesn’t really interest me. For the action sequences to catch my interest, there have to be other conditions that serve as an incentive; either the characters need to have really grabbed my attention, or the action choreography has to have been particularly well-done, or the fights are peppered with a good sense of realism, or the movie has to have really built up the right amount of suspense, etc. All too often, I see nothing but bland, predictable characters throwing their fists at each other, and this simply leaves me cold, especially when the good guys look just like the bad guys. This is perhaps why I’ve never been fond of action-oriented serials (in contrast to adventure-oriented ones); watching fisticuffs break out every five minutes leaves me tired rather than thrilled, no matter how many people they throw into them. GANG BUSTERS is an action serial, but I’m thrilled to say that I find it a refreshing change of pace from the others I’ve seen.

Part of it is a strong sense of grittiness that pervades the story; everybody is playing it serious, and I like that. The characters are more interesting than you usually find, particularly Ralph Morgan’s villain, Dr. Mortis, who shows from time to time a greater range of emotion than most villains in this type of thing. The episodes never skimp on the suspense, and there’s just a lot of details I really like, from the villains’ wonderful hideout (underneath a manhole found between the tracks of a subway train, so that even the act of getting into the hideout is fairly harrowing) to the creative way each episode segues into its cliffhanger; instead of narration explaining the last episodes, various characters in the middle of the action discuss the events that lead up to the cliffhanger, which is then recreated. Add to this the emphasis on actual police detection methods (fingerprints, chemical analysis, etc.), and a plotline that throws out the usual scientist-with-a-new-invention-gets-kidnapped-by-gangsters storyline with a simple revenge-driven motive coupled with the science fictional concept of gangsters being revived from death, and you have a novel story indeed. I’ve seen several people put this serial near the tops of their lists of favorite serials. It’s definitely at the top of my list so far.

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Samson and the Seven Miracles of the World (1961)

SAMSON AND THE SEVEN MIRACLES OF THE WORLD (1961)
Article #737 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-22-2003
Posting Date: 8-19-2003
Directed by Riccardo Freda
Featuring Gordon Scott, Yoko Tani, Helene Chanel

A strong man named Samson comes to the aid of the Chinese in the thirteenth century to help them throw off the yoke of the evil mongols.

Ever get the feeling of Deja Vu, that weird sense that you’ve lived through something before? When I watched HERCULES AND THE BARBARIANS, I asked myself how Hercules managed to find himself in thirteenth century China; now I find myself asking how Samson got there. Of course, the answer is the same; he’s not really Hercules/Samson, but just someone who is really strong that took on the name. Furthermore, the Italian titles on both the movies indicate that the hero is really Maciste, but that doesn’t really answer the question, as Maciste first appeared in Roman times in the movie CABIRIA. And the Seven Miracles? Well, I can’t tell you what they are, because the wise man who keeps track of them doesn’t appear until the last twenty minutes of the movie and we have to take his word that five of them have already happened. I suppose I shouldn’t complain; it’s sword-and-sandal, which usually means that what you get is a random assortment of action set pieces only vaguely tied together by a plot. Samson/Maciste uproots a tree, saves some Chinese rebels from a horrible execution (probably the most memorable scene of the movie), rings a bell, and causes an earthquake after being buried by a dwarf. And me, all I do is sit here and write reviews. Let’s face it; some people have more interesting lives.

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Possessed (1947)

POSSESSED (1947)
Article #736 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-21-2003
Posting Date: 8-18-2003
Directed by Curtis Bernhardt
Featuring Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey

A disturbed woman is placed in a psychiatric ward, where under the use of drugs she recounts the events that brought her there.

Thematically this movie might have been marginally horror merely in its use of madness, but as the madness involves hallucinations of a certain sort, the movie pushes a little farther into the horror realm than it might otherwise. This accounts for its inclusion here; beyond that, I’m not quite sure what to make of it. It’s a Joan Crawford vehicle, and that says quite a lot right there; the trouble is, I’ve never been quite sure how I feel about Joan Crawford as an actress. Partially, this is due to the fact that I’ve heard so many rumors of what her life was like offscreen, and though these wouldn’t usually make a difference, it’s somewhat jarring to see some of these rumors reflected in the roles she played; considering that “Mommie Dearest” was written by her daughter, it leaves a bit of a chill to see her have so many bad relationships with daughters (or daughter-figures) in her movies. As for evaluating her work as an actress, I’m also a bit at sea; there are times here when she is brilliant, and there are times I feel she’s a little too campy and overdone, but overall I don’t get the feeling that she’s playing the same character from scene to scene, and this leaves me feeling somewhat ill at ease. Maybe you need to be a fan of hers to really get her, and I’m not one of them, though there is no doubt she has a powerful presence. The movie also features BLACK FRIDAY’s Stanley Ridges.

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One Touch of Venus (1948)

ONE TOUCH OF VENUS (1948)
Article #735 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-20-2003
Posting Date: 8-17-2003
Directed by William A. Seiter and Gregory La Cava
Featuring Ava Gardner, Robert Walker, Dick Haymes

A decorator in a department store kisses a statue of Venus and it comes to life.

You know, I embarked on this project so I could see movies about werewolves, vampires, space aliens and giant monsters. But there’s a wide spectrum of fantastic creatures out there, and it includes angels, pixies, mermaids and Greek goddesses, so I suppose that’s the price you pay for trying to be comprehensive. Ava Gardner is certainly an appropriate choice to play the beautiful goddess of love, but Eve Arden has all the best lines and steals the picture. The movie also has some decent songs, and Tom Conway is on hand as a familiar face for horror fans. It’s all fairly amusing, but it never really becomes anything more than cute, and my cuteness threshold is fairly low. And I still maintain that one strategically placed werewolf could have brightened things considerably (IMHO).

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Neutron Against the Death Robots (1960)

NEUTRON AGAINST THE DEATH ROBOTS (1960)
Viewing Date: 3-19-2003
Posting Date: 8-16-2003
Directed by Federico Curiel
Featuring Wolf Ruvinskis, Julio Aleman, Rosa Arenas

Dr. Caronte creates a horde of death robots to find blood for his hideous brain experiment, but Neutron decides to put an end to his reign of terror.

Do you like movies about Mexican wrestlers, but can’t stand the endless wrestling scenes? This might be the one for you; Neutron is for all practical reasons a Mexican wrestler; he wears a mask, walks around bare-chested in tights, and fights a villain in a mask who also wears tights. However, he is never referred to as a wrestler, and all his fighting is outside the ring. So what does this movie have other than wrestling scenes? How about a romantic subplot with three guys all after the same girl, and several musical numbers? Dr. Caronte has a dwarf for an assistant, the death robots look decidedly hairy for automatons, and Neutron says the line “Now it’s my turn to destroy something!” It’s also very badly dubbed, but then, you knew that, didn’t you?

All right, I’ll admit I loved it, but I had to take frequent breaks. I leave it to the rest of you to read the above description and decide whether it’s your cup of tea.

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Midnight Warning (1932)

MIDNIGHT WARNING (1932)
Article #733 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-18-2003
Posting Date: 8-15-2003
Directed by Spencer G. Bennet
Featuring William Boyd, Claudia Dell, John Harron

A doctor discovers an ear bone in the fireplace of his hotel room, and then mysteriously collapses. The detective who is visiting him investigates these strange events.

As I was watching this horror-mystery unfold, my wife recognized several of the plot elements as belonging to an urban legend about a vanishing lady. If you’re familiar with that legend (or with the 1919 movie, UNHEIMLICHE GESCHICHTEN), you’ll have an idea of how this story will turn out. Granted, the movie throws in plenty of other additions to the story, including a sniper subplot and a sequence in which a woman is wandering through a morgue of dead people; it’s the latter sequence that really adds the horror element to this forgotten horror. The plot elements do help to keep this one a bit interesting; otherwise, it’s creakiness and stiff acting may turn you off. The detective is played by William (“The Lost City”) Boyd.

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The Living Dead (1933)

THE LIVING DEAD (1933)
(a.k.a. THE SCOTLAND YARD MYSTERY)
Article #732 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-17-2003
Posting Date: 8-14-2003
Directed by Thomas Bentley
Featuring Gerald du Maurier, George Curzon, Grete Natzler

Scotland Yard investigates possible insurance fraud when a series of unexpected heart attacks occur among recently insured people.

The one title, THE SCOTLAND YARD MYSTERY, has to be one of the more generic film titles I’ve seen; don’t most British mysteries involve Scotland Yard at one point or another? So let’s check out the other title, THE LIVING DEAD. Are they zombies? Vampires? Ghosts? Something even more scary? No, something even less scary; it’s our old friend, the drug-that-makes-people-seem-to-be-dead-but-they-really-aren’t. This one definitely shows its age, but it has some nice performances, some novel ideas, and a smartass villain with a real sense of chutzpah; it’s not great, but it’s an entertaining little diversion in its way, with a great last line.

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