The Secret of Death Valley (1906)

The Secret of Death Valley (1906)
Article 5515 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-22-2017
Director unknown
Cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: The first weird western?

Several men set out on an expedition to prospect for gold. When one of them hits a big stake, another man kills him off as well as the others so he can have the gold for himself. However, that doesn’t mean he won’t pay for his crime…

Here’s another title that ended up on my “ones that got away” list that has finally revealed itself. I’m glad it did; it’s in the running as possibly the earliest example of the “weird western” subgenre. The fantastic content in this case involves the wife of one the murdered men having a vision of his murder; though this is a bit on the marginal side, it is a plot point of sorts, and, for that matter, the fantastic content of many weird westerns is pretty marginal as well. Despite being only about eight and a half minutes long, the short is pretty slow to get started; gold isn’t discovered until nearly half way through the short. Still, fans of weird westerns might want to check this one out.

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Batman vs. Two-Face (2017)

Batman vs. Two-Face (2017)
Article 5514 by Dave Sindelar
Date:10-18-2017
Directed by Rick Morales
Featuring the voices of Adam West, Burt Ward, William Shatner
Country: USA
What it is: Animated super-hero shenanigans

Batman discovers that some recent criminal plans by King Tut and Bookworm were actually plotted by Two-Face, who seems to have returned even though Harvey Dent appears to have been cured.

This is the second in an animated series that is modeled off of the sixties TV-series and features the voices of Adam West and Bert Ward; West’s recent death means that this was one of his last projects. Like the first, it successfully taps into the feel of the series, and there are a few fun references to the original series, including the touch that the characters played by both Julie Newmar and Lee Meriwether end up in the Catwoman outfit. Shatner plays Two-Face, and does a fine job while avoiding the acting quirks for which he has gained a certain notoriety. Two-Face never appeared in the original series, though I gather that a treatment for one was written by Harlan Ellison and there were plans to get Clint Eastwood to appear in the role; according to IMDB, this animated movie is not based on that script. I’m not sure whether they’ll continue the series without Adam West, as I suspect that was one of the selling points of the series.

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Dalekmania (1995)

Dalekmania (1995)
Article 5513 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-11-2017
Directed by Kevin Davies
Featuring Yvonne Antrobus, Steve Arnott, Toby Aspin
Country: UK
What it is: “Making Of” documentary

The making of the two Dr. Who movies of the sixties is discussed.

Back when I reviewed one of the two sixties Dr. Who movies, I suggested that they be seen in the light of being “Dalek” movies rather than “Dr. Who” movies, owing to the fact that they seemed to cater to fans of the metallic monsters over those of the human characters. The fact that the attached “making of” disc for the two movies is called DALEKMANIA rather than WHOMANIA bears this out. I’d hoped that the documentary would be more about the popularity of the monsters during that era (with lots of footage from the TV show), but no such luck; it’s squarely focused on the movies. Still, there are some moments that slip through; I love the scene where they show various examples of Dalek toys from the era, quoting their initial prices as well as how much they pull nowadays (by which I mean, the year when the documentary was made) in the collectible market. There are other memorable moments; I like seeing footage from the Italian dub of the movie, if for no other reason than to hear a Dalek speaking in Italian I also like the observation made by several actors from the first movie saying they never actually saw any actors getting out of and into the Dalek bodies, which must have contributed a bit to the illusion for them. It is, of course, mostly a hodgepodge, so it’s uneven, but most documentaries of this sort usually are.

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Devil Woman (1970)

Devil Woman (1970)
aka She yao jing
Article 5512 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-8-2017
Directed by Felix Villar and Chi-Lien Yu
Featuring Alex Tzi-Fie Lung, Rosemarie Gil, Yukio Someno
Country: Hong Kong / Philippines
What it is: Kung Fu horror

A woman is born with snakes for hair and the ability to control snakes. Ostracized for her differences as a child, she grows up to control a gang of thugs to do her bidding. Can a Martial arts master defeat her and her minions?

There are two movies with this title from about the same period that are often conflated into one movie; many of my sources list the credits for the Philippines only version but feature the plot of the Hong Kong kung fu movie, making it a little difficult for me to decide which one to use for the listing. However, as far as finding the movie, the one version is unfindable, and my attempts to locate it generally resulted in me finding the other version. So maybe it’s about time I went ahead and reviewed that one.

Because the premise is on the unusual side, the movie gets some points for that alone. Unfortunately, that’s not enough to sustain this one. It starts off well enough; the scenes of the snake-headed woman as a girl make you feel sympathetic for her plight, and you can understand her bitterness and anger. Nonetheless, once she reaches adulthood, the movie starts emphasizing the Martial Arts aspect of its story and we’re mostly treated to a bunch of kung fu fight scenes, and since our hero has none of the presence or charisma of Bruce Lee, they become rather tedious. Still, at least the movie does get around to showing us the Gorgon hair of the woman, though you have to wait till the very end of the movie for that. Beyond that, it’s always disappointing to have the hero prevail not due to his skill but to another character’s clumsiness; the ending is pretty disappointing. It’s a bit of a curiosity piece, but there are other Kung Fu / horror movies that are a lot more fun.

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L’igiene di Tombolino (1932)

L’igiene di Tombolino (1932)
aka Tombolino’s Hygiene
Article 5511 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-3-2017
Directed by Luigi Pensuti
No cast
Country: Italy
What it is: Cautionary public service animation

On a trip to the zoo, Tombolino encounters a doctor whose magnifying glass shows germs underneath his fingernails. Running to get away from the doctor, Tombolino trips and injures his knee, and then touches the wound with his unclean fingers. And then…

I remember once having had a nightmarish children’s book in which misbehaving children would have horrible things happen to them tied to their misbehavior; the one that sticks most in the memory for me was a thumb-sucking boy who had his thumbs cut off by a skinny fiend with a giant pair of scissors. I got roughly the same impression from this Italian animated short, in which a boy dreams he is dragged to hell by devils who release bacteria that enter his wounded knee, and the final scene involving the doctor is certainly ominous if you consider what instruments he’s pulling out of his doctor’s bag. There’s no listing on IMDB for this one, which I suspect may have been a public service film, as the end of the movie shows the boy giving his hands a thorough scrubbing. The print I saw had Italian subtitles which I can’t say I totally understood, but the story isn’t really that difficult to follow. This one was rather interesting.

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The Cavalier’s Dream (1898)

The Cavalier’s Dream (1898)
Article 5510 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-30-2017
Directed by Edwin S. Porter
Cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Special effects short

A cavalier dreams that he is surrounded by ghostly shape-changing figures.

Here’s another movie that has been rescued from the limbo of my “ones that got away” list, and the person who pointed me in its direction made the point that it may well have the claim to being the first American horror movie, and the argument is sound. There’s really not a whole lot to it (after all, it’s less than a minute long), but it does have the sense that it’s not being played for laughs and is to be taken more or less seriously. Granted, with silent movies, the general feel may be altered by the choice of musical soundtrack, so it’s possible a light-hearted soundtrack might make a difference, but in the state I saw it (which was without music), it doesn’t feel comic, nor do the phantoms or the cavalier play for laughs. As such, it has some genuine curiosity value and is well worth watching.

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Canards Parisiens (1903)

Canards Parisiens (1903)
Article 5509 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-24-2017
Director unknown
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: A little piece of strangeness

A little boy gets sick from eating a duck egg and turns into an egg-laying duck. Other events occur.

This short found on YouTube was directed to me by Doctor Kiss; it doesn’t have a listing on IMDB and I have very little information about it. However, it is one strange little short; it’s mostly a series of trick effects surrounding ducks, eggs, nests and various individuals. It’s quite unlike most of the other early surreal shorts, though I think it’s a little closer in style to Segundo De Chomon then Georges Melies. It will make you think twice about eating raw duck eggs, though.

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Maria, the Magic Weaver (1960)

Maria, the Magic Weaver (1960)
aka Mariya-iskusnitsa
Article 5508 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-27-2017
Directed by Aleksandr Rou
Featuring Mikhail Kuznetsov, Viktor Perevalov, Anatoli Kubatsky,
Country: Soviet Union
What it is: Fantasy

A wandering soldier with a magic drum helps a young boy whose mother has been abducted by a water wizard.

Over the years, I’ve grown to really enjoy watching children’s movies and fantasies from other countries; they have a way of capturing cultural differences while keeping the stories simple and fun. This one is extremely colorful, especially when we enter the underwater palace of the wizard and meet his bizarre minions, including a gaggle of pirates and a frog-turned-more-or-less-human. My favorite scene is truly surreal; while the heroes make their escape with the rescued mother, the villains are incapacitated by a psaltery whose music forces them all to dance. There’s a real sense of magic to this one, and it’s a joy to watch. I look forward to seeing more from Rou, whose oeuvre includes a movie that was featured on MST3K, JACK FROST.

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The Crater Lake Monster (1977)

The Crater Lake Monster (1977)
Article 5507 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-13-2017
Directed by William R. Stromberg
Featuring Richard Cardella, Glen Roberts, Mark Siegel
Country: USA
What it is: Dinosaur on the loose

A meteor causes a plesiosaur egg to hatch at the bottom of Crater Lake, and the monster begins chowing down on vacationers on the lake.

I found several odd touches in this one, the first of which was even before the movie started; on the DVD menu, I couldn’t help but notice that the music underlying the menu was muted and somber, hardly the usual choice for a “monster on the loose” movie. It certainly wasn’t what I would have expected for a low-budget movie with a poor reputation (3.1 on IMDB) and a (mostly) stop-motion dinosaur. And, for the most part, its reputation is earned; the script is slipshod and clumsy at times, the stop-motion animation is competent but uninspired, the acting is uneven, many of the plot points are way too familiar (it’s a rare scientific discovery that should be preserved, but it’s also a monster eating people), and it’s not the least bit scary. Furthermore, even though it does dovetail with the main story, the subplot about the liquor store killer feels like it’s in the wrong movie. The biggest question I had was why it was that the comic-relief characters (a pair of doofuses that run a boat rental business on the lake) took over the movie. Still, it struck me as curious that the comedy bits with these two characters were driven by character rather than slapstick, but there’s a reason for this; as unlikely as it seems, these two are the emotional center of the movie. And, for all its flaws, I have to admit that I was struck by the poignant end to the movie, a touch that is quite surprising and far more effective than I ever could have guessed. For this reason alone, I feel a great fondness for this one.

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Weltraumschiff 1 startet… (1937)

Weltraumschiff 1 startet… (1937)
Article 5506 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-10-2017
Directed by Anton Kutter
Featuring Fritz Reiff, Rolf Wernicke, Carl Wery
Country: Germany
What it is: A trip to the moon

A rocket is launched to circle the moon and return to Earth.

The copy I found of this odd little German science fiction movie was in German without English subtitles, and seeing as to how half of the movie is primarily talk, that is certainly an obstacle to following it. However, the general thrust of the action seems simple enough; the first half of the movie consists of a scientist explaining to the press the nature of the trip to the moon, whereas the the second half of the movie is the journey itself. However, since the movie is only 23 minutes long, it’s never really too elaborate to follow, and since the voyage itself almost entirely consists of special effects footage peppered with narration, and since nothing from a plot perspective happens other than the trip to the moon (there is virtually no human interaction in the second half of the movie), it’s devoid of long sections of film where you can’t tell what’s going on. The special effects themselves are the highlight of the film, and they’re pretty good and quite entertaining; in fact, I found myself wondering why they would put this much work into a short. The answer is simple; the short was edited down from footage from two incomplete feature films that were abandoned when Germany went to war, so this was no doubt intended to keep the films from going to waste. As it is, the movie serves as an interesting little stepping stone between some of the space travel films of the silent era and the coming science fiction boom of the fifties; in fact, I found myself thinking of ROCKETSHIP X-M, DESTINATION MOON, and WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE (especially when you see the launch ramp) while watching this. All in all, it’s an interesting and useful curiosity, and worth seeing even if you can’t understand the language.

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