The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1936)

THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (1936)
(a.k.a. SWEENEY TODD, THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET)
Article #62 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-17-2001
Posting date: 9-30-2001

An evil barber, Sweeney Todd (Tod Slaughter), makes his fortune by murdering rich customers and taking their money. He is partners with an old woman running a meat pie shop, who takes care of the disposal of the bodies. Problems arise when his partner begins to suspect he is cheating on splitting the money with her. She ends up helping the beau of the woman whom Sweeney wants for his own.

This is the first and (at this time) only Tod Slaughter movie I’ve seen; there is no doubt that he loved playing villainous characters, with his gleeful laugh and contempt for all. The whole story is fun, with Sweeney as a Dickensian villain, terrorizing his apprentices and cajoling his victims with the promise of how quickly he will “polish them off.” I also like how the movie never becomes explicit in how the old lady disposes of the bodies; it adds some nice touches of comic subtlety to the movie, my favorite being a discussion on that particular topic as one of the comic relief characters merrily munches away on one of the meat pies.

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Flash Gordon (1936)

FLASH GORDON (1936)
Article #61 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-16-2001
Posting date: 9-29-2001

Flash Gordon meets up with Doctor Zarkov and Dale Arden, and they go to the planet Mongo to defeat the evil emperor, Ming the Merciless.

This is probably the best serial I’ve seen to date. The story doesn’t start spinning its wheels after the first two episodes; in fact, the story lasts throughout the full length of the serial. It also avoids the trick used by many serials of editing new scenes before the cliffhanger in the following episode, a trick that I find somewhat dishonest and unsatisfying. The costumes and monsters are a bit silly, but that’s part of the fun. This is one of the serials that is actually as fun as they are supposed to be.

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The Crime of Dr. Crespi (1935)

THE CRIME OF DR. CRESPI (1935)
Article #60 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-15-2001
Posting date: 9-28-2001

This story is partially based on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Premature Burial.” Dr. Crespi is a mad, embittered surgeon who has lost the woman he loves to another man. When that man contracts an illness that requires Dr. Crespi’s skills, he plans revenge by injecting the man with a serum to cause him to emulate death, so he will be buried alive.

If ever a single performance makes a movie work, this is the one; Erich von Stroheim as Dr. Crespi is a wonder to behold. Even when he’s just sitting in a chair, his every gesture and movement is so crisp, pointed and ominous that you understand why he was known as “the man you love to hate.” His mood swings are also noticeable; he seems to have two voices, a smooth quiet one for some moments suddenly turning to a harsh, shrill staccato one when he becomes angry or annoyed. His performance is what makes the movie, and it lingers in your memory long after you’ve seen it.

As an added plus, the movie also features Dwight Frye in one of his most prominent roles, as an underling to Dr. Crespi who keeps getting on his wrong side and tries to stand up to him.

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House of Wax (1953)

HOUSE OF WAX (1953)
Article #59 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-14-2001
Posting date: 9-27-2001

A series of murders and disappearing bodies seem to be tied to the opening of a new wax museum by a wheelchair-bound artist (Vincent Price).

This remake of MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM jettisons a lot of the subplots of the original; in their places are setpieces for the 3D presentation. In fact, of all the movies shot in 3D, this seems to be the one that most needs to be seen in that format; several of the scenes are pointless or overlong unless they are viewed that way. Price is a great deal of fun, as usual, and the story seems less cluttered than the original. However, unless you can catch it in 3D, you will most likely find it rather tedious and disappointing.

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The Haunted Strangler (1958)

THE HAUNTED STRANGLER (1958)
(a.k.a. GRIP OF THE STRANGLER)
Article #58 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-13-2001
Posting date: 9-26-2001

A writer (Boris Karloff) who is researching an old case of murders committed by a fiend known as “The Haymarket Strangler” has a theory that the wrong man was executed for the crime. To prove his point, he has his grave exhumed and comes upon the knife used in the killings. When he picks up the knife, he transforms into the strangler and begins a new series of killings.

Karloff himself picked the story from which this was filmed, “Stranglehold” by Jan Read. It’s bloodier and has a nastier edge than you would expect from a Karloff vehicle, but it has some unexpected and quite interesting story twists. Unfortunately, this is one of the very few Karloff performances I don’t like; he seems to me to be somewhat over the top, almost hysterical, and I don’t get the feeling he was comfortable with the role, which is odd, considering the role he played in picking it out. His other movie for Amalgamated Productions, CORRIDORS OF BLOOD, (I always associate these two movies in my mind) is the one I much prefer.

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The Creeper (1948)

THE CREEPER (1948)
Article #57 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-12-2001
Posting date: 9-25-2001

Two scientists, Dr. Jim Bordon (Onslow Stevens) and Dr. Lester Cavigny (Ralph Morgan) are experimenting with a serum designed to illuminate organs of the human body: Bordon wishes to continue research, but Cavigny is having doubts about the side effects of the serum. Meanwhile, Cavigny’s daughter, Nora (June Vincent), who has developed a fear of cats, is having strangely real nightmares involving a cat creature.

Despite the title and the director (Jean Yarbrough), this has nothing to do with the Rondo Hatton character known as the Creeper, though Yarbrough directed several of these films. In fact, this is one of Yarbrough’s best films; there are some very striking visual moments involving shadows that I’ve not seen in the director’s other works. The plot is quite complicated, and tends to unfold in a convoluted way, and there are times where it is difficult to figure out what is going on. There are other problems, but overall, I think this movie has enough interesting elements to make it worth a viewing.

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Crazy Knights (1944)

CRAZY KNIGHTS (1944)
(a.k.a. GHOST CRAZY)
Article #56 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-11-2001
Posting date: 9-24-2001

In this movie, three idiots end up in a haunted house with scary noises, ghosts, and gorillas. If there’s more of a plot than this, I’m not going back in there to dig it out.

There’s something about really lame horror comedies that brings out the crankiness in me. At least THE GORILLA managed to work up a little atmosphere; this movie tries to be a total laugh experience and totally fails. It stars Billy Gilbert, Maxie Rosenbloom and Shemp Howard in an attempt to turn them into a team; this is the second of three movies made by these people. All three can be amusing in small doses in other movies; as a comedy team, they have no real chemistry or reason to be working together. Granted, they don’t get much help from the script, but I will have to admit that the script is not TOTALLY useless; if you’re moving, you could use the paper as packing to keep your fine china from breaking.

If you think seeing Shemp Howard getting scared, jumping up and landing in Billy Gilbert’s arms is the height of hilarity, this movie is for you. For me it was 63 minutes of my life lost; it is by and far the lamest horror comedy I have seen, and that’s saying a lot.

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Condemned to Live (1935)

CONDEMNED TO LIVE (1935)
Article #55 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-10-2001
Posting date: 9-23-2001

A vampire is loose in a small town. The vampire is actually a kindly doctor, who blacks out when it is dark, and can’t remember his crimes. His trail is covered by his faithful hunchback servant, Zan. Eventually, suspicion falls upon the hunchback for the murders.

This low-budget vampire movie has some very novel ideas, and I find the relationship between the doctor and the hunchback quite interesting in terms of the plot. It also has a very good and quite satisfying ending. There are problems, though; the direction is somewhat dull, and some of the scenes are hard to swallow, especially a sequence where the doctor is alone with his fiancee, who is supposed to be protected from the vampire, and she does everything she can to actually bring on the vampire attack. Still, it’s a nice variation on the vampire theme, and definitely worth a watch.

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Blood of Dracula (1957)

BLOOD OF DRACULA (1957)
Article #54 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-9-2001
Posting date: 9-22-2001

A teenage girl is sent away to a girls’ school, where she comes under the control of a science teacher who tries to “save the world” by causing her to turn into a bloodthirsty vampire.

This movie was a part of a set of movies that included I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF and I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN, and it’s surprising it wasn’t called I WAS A TEENAGE VAMPIRE. As it is, it obviously models its plot off of WEREWOLF, but it emphasizes the weaknesses of that movie while losing its strengths; there isn’t a performance here to equal Michael Landon’s, for example. The scientist’s plan to save the world makes no sense whatsoever, there are far too many scenes that have no point and lead nowhere, and the whole girls’ school setup is contrived and unbelievable; this is one movie that I don’t believe for a second of its running time.

It also has an especially lousy musical number, “Puppy Love”; this is why fast forward buttons exist. I don’t know if this song was supposed to be rock ‘n’ roll; if it was, somebody didn’t know what rock ‘n’ roll was. At any rate, I would have been glad if someone had recognized it for the sickening tripe that it was and cut the song from the movie; unfortunately, they would have just had to add some new padding elsewhere. It was not a hit single.

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H. G. Wells’ The New Invisible Man (1957)

H.G. WELLS’ THE NEW INVISIBLE MAN (1957)
(a.k.a. THE NEW INVISIBLE MAN)
Article #53 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 5-8-2001
Posting date: 9-21-2001

A man framed for murder receives an injection that turns him invisible. He uses his power to escape and prove his innocence. Unfortunately, the drug causes madness, and…

First of all, I just love Mexican horror movies from the fifties and sixties. They were like bizarre remakes of Universal classics filtered through a very unique sensibility, and the results could be quite engaging. I’ve only seen one of these in its original language, and the dubbing is usually quite bad, but the charm manages to show through anyway.

Unfortunately, this is one of the lesser entries in the field. It borrows little from Wells and is hardly new, being essentially a remake of one of the Universal invisible man sequels. In fact, the concept of a man trying to use invisibility to prove his innocence seems a fairly common invisible man theme. This one doesn’t really add anything new to the idea, and is somewhat dull. This is not the place to start if embarking on a journey through Mexican horror.

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