Human Beasts (1980)

HUMAN BEASTS (1980)
Article 5385 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-5-2017
aka The Beasts’ Carnival, El carnaval de las bestias
Directed by Paul Naschy
Featuring Paul Naschy, Elko Nagashima, Lautaro Murua
Country: Spain / Japan
What it is: Horror action hodgepodge

A professional criminal is on the run from a Japanese criminal organization after making off with diamonds that he agreed to steal for them. The criminal is badly injured, but is saved by a doctor and his two daughters in their isolated country home. However, this house has some skeletons in its closet…

For a while, the only clue that we have that this is going to turn out to be a horror movie is the prominence of Paul Naschy’s name in the credits; the first third of the movie primarily plays out like an action flick. Then it plays out like a combination of one of those old “house with a dreadful secret” Gothics and THE FOLKS AT RED WOLF INN, with a smidgen of DADDY’S DEADLY DARLING thrown in for good measure. I’m not going to blatantly give away the main horror content here (though everyone else does), though the emphasis on how good the doctor’s famous “stew” is should clue you in. And since this is a Naschy film, he sleeps with most of the beautiful women in the cast. It’s a bit of a mess, though I’m not going to complain about the dangling plot points because they’re obviously there to distract us from the “surprise” ending. At least this one is a little bit different for Naschy, so that counts for something.

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Audrey Rose (1977)

AUDREY ROSE (1977)
Article 5384 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-4-2017
Directed by Robert Wise
Featuring Anthony Hopkins, Marsha Mason, John Beck
Country: USA
What it is: Drama with mystical and horror overtones

A father and mother are alarmed when a strange man takes an interest in their daughter. When the stranger reveals to them that he believes their daughter to be the reincarnation of his own daughter who died many years ago in an automobile accident, they dismiss him as a kook. However, the daughter begins to have nightmares, and the only person who can calm her down is the stranger…

This movie is something of a cross between THE EXORCIST and THE SEARCH FOR BRIDEY MURPHY. It also has something of a lukewarm reputation, and I think this may be because the movie was marketed as a horror movie and whose similarities to THE EXORCIST lead one to expect something other than what is delivered. I think it works better as a drama with mystical overtones in which the mother is the central character; it is she who finds herself torn between the competing belief systems and it is her character who undergoes the greatest change during the length of the movie. Both Marsha Mason and Anthony Hopkins (as the stranger) do excellent jobs. My biggest problem with the movie was the performance of the child actor; she’s convincing in some scenes, less so in others. Granted, she does have a tough role, but it is a role that really needs to be on the mark for the movie to work completely. I like it better than most other people do, but it is one of those movies that requires a certain degree of patience.

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Amityville 3-D (1983)

AMITYVILLE 3-D (1983)
Article 5383 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-3-2017
Directed by Richard Fleischer
Featuring Tony Roberts, Tess Harper, Robert Joy
Country: USA
What it is: That spooky old house again

A professional debunker decides to buy the Amityville house so he has a quiet place to write his book. It’s not as quiet as he hoped…

For legal reasons this movie couldn’t be called a sequel to the original movies, but it amounts to a marketing decision; they just make no mention of the family from the original movie. Still, it’s a sequel in spirit, though I do notice that it borrows as much from POLTERGEIST as it does from the original movie (though we don’t have a regurgitating clergyman in this one). The spooky events seem to reach beyond the house as well; there’s an elevator sequence in an apartment building and a bizarre traffic accident that don’t happen anywhere near the house. The movie was one of the entries in the short-lived 3D revival of the early eighties; reportedly, the 3D effects were more headache-inducing than effective, and the movie tanked at the box office. I’m not a fan of the Amityville series at all, but at least the first two movies managed a scare or two; this one didn’t do a thing for me, and some of the moments (bad music cues, goofy fake scares) yielded laughs. This didn’t exactly kill the Amityville franchise, but it certainly slowed it down a bit. Despite what the trivia section of IMDB claims, this wasn’t the feature film debut of Meg Ryan (she appeared in a movie two years earlier), but it’s probably one of the very few movies I’ll be covering to feature her at all.

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A Florida Enchantment (1914)

A FLORIDA ENCHANTMENT (1914)
Article 5382 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-28-2017
Directed by Sidney Drew
Featuring Sidney Drew, Edith Storey, Charles Kent
Country: USA
What it is: Gender bending comedy

A woman comes to Florida to visit friends and visit her fiance. She discovers a casket with four seeds that can change the sex of the people who consume them. When she feels neglected by her fiance, she decides to take one herself…

What most impresses me about this unusual silent fantasy is that it often goes for the subtle rather than the obvious, and its greatest strength is the performance of Edith Storey. After her character takes one of the seeds, she may never quite end up looking convincing as a man, but she sells the transformation through the use of body language, gesture and acting. I also like the fact that it mostly avoids the slapstick route; instead the main character realizes the problems the sex change would cause, and to that end, sets up a situation where she fakes her own death and takes on a new identity. The slapstick antics are largely confined to the black characters; she changes her black maid to a black valet, and that character goes wild. Because of the gender-bending, it flirts with homosexuality and lesbianism in a way that is pretty rare for films of this era, which makes it pretty sophisticated in some ways. However, it’s not so sophisticated that it allows the black characters to be played by blacks; they’re all white actors in blackface. And I’m also not surprised by the cop-out ending; I would have liked to see the situations resolved in a way that doesn’t happen here. All in all, this is one of those movies that is very interesting, but not entirely effective.

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The Woods are Full of Cuckoos (1937)

THE WOODS ARE FULL OF CUCKOOS (1937)
Articler 5381 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-27-2017
Directed by Frank Tashlin
Featuring the voices of Sara Berner, Mel Blanc, Peter Lind Hayes
Country: USA
What it is: Looney Toons Cartoon

Welcome to the Woodlands Community Swing. Be entertained by the bird celebrities.

I have a collection of Dilbert comics with the title “It’s Not Funny If I Have to Explain It”, and the title is a good description of why certain types of jokes fall flat. I found the title quite relevant as I watched this cartoon; the basic format is that of a radio program in which all of the stars are famous celebrities caricatured as birds. Now, usually I quite like these celebrity based cartoons from Warners, but I found this one a bit of a chore for one simple reason; it throws a big array of celebrity caricatures your way, and with the passage of time, most of them have become rather obscure. My guess is that unless you’re a big fan of thirties radio shows, you’re going to be scratching your head a lot more than you’ll be laughing. In other words, to today’s audience, most of the jokes would need to be explained. Even some of the ones I did recognize took me awhile to identify, and what humor there is in the cartoon requires instant identification. Even at that, I didn’t laugh much even when I could instantly recognize them; about the only thing that amused me was that they included a caricature of Andy Devine. It must have played much better in its time, but I’m afraid now this one is largely a curio. The fantastic content is, of course, the talking animals and little else.

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Zvenigora (1928)

ZVENIGORA (1928)
Article 5380 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-25-2017
Directed by Aleksandr Dovzhenko
Featuring Georgi Astafyev, Nikolai Nademsky, Vladimir Uralsky
Country: Soviet Union
What it is: Avant-garde folk fantasy

A centuries-old man guards the hidden treasure of Ukraine in the steppes of Zvenigora.

There are some movies you can go into without knowing anything about them in advance and have no problem appreciating them. There are others where it’s helpful if you know what you’re getting into. I went into this one cold and about thirty-five minutes into it, I found myself scrambling over to IMDB to see if there was some plot thread I had forgotten to pick up. It was only then that I discovered that the movie was a non-linear avant-garde movie. I wish I had known that at the outset; I think I would have gone into it with a different frame of mind, and I wouldn’t have gotten frustrated. I’ve encountered Dovzhenko before with ARSENAL, and I remember that one being a little difficult as well, and if I’d remembered that before I started this movie, that would have helped as well. At any rate, once I overcome my frustration and adjusted my expectations, I found some of this fascinating; the two scenes which involve attempted self-executions (one by firing squad, another by post-lecture suicide) are quite fascinating. There’s a lot of war footage as well as footage of industry in action. Does it all make sense? I’m not sure; I may have to give it another viewing. However, when I do, I hope it’s with a better copy of the movie than the one I have; I hear tell cinematography is excellent, but that’s a bit hard to appreciate with the copy I found. There are magical scenes involving the treasure, so there is genre content. For the moment, I think I need to refrain from any judgment about the movie.

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Ziegfeld Follies (1945)

ZIEGFELD FOLLIES (1945)
Article 5379 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-24-2017
Directed by Vincente Minnelli, George Sidney, and five others
Featuring William Powell, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland
Country: USA
What it is: Revue style musical

Ziegfeld in heaven ruminates on when he was alive and produced his Follies, and decides he would like to do one more, which he plans, and we see.

The fantastic content is right there in the plot description, so that’s taken care of. Of course, there is no overall plot to this one; it’s a compendium of song and dance numbers interspersed with comedy sections. The use of color and the set design is top-notch throughout; the movie is worth catching for this alone. It also helps that four of the sequences feature Fred Astaire, one of which even pairs him up with Gene Kelly. My favorite sequences include an early sequence in which puppets are used to re-create an original Follies production, an underwater ballet featuring Esther Williams, and an atmospheric, evocative and brilliant sequence that takes place in Chinatown called “Limehouse Blues”. Some of the sequences and moments are just weird; we have Lucille Ball taming dancing cat women with a whip, Judy Garland singing a jazzy song about the invention of the safety pin, and a big production number that uses colored soap suds. The movie’s weakest segments are generally the comic sections; with the exception of the one featuring Red Skelton, they seem stiff and forced and they fall flat. Still, when it works, it works very well, and though I’ve never been a big musical buff, it held my attention.

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Der Verlorene (1951)

DER VERLORENE (1951)
aka The Lost One
Article 5378 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-22-2017
Directed by Peter Lorre
Featuring Peter Lorre, Karl John, Helmuth Rudolph
Country: West Germany
What it is: Bleak drama

A doctor working as an immunologist for the Nazis is told that his fiancee has been leaking his secret work. He ends up strangling her and his murder is covered up. However, he has developed a homicidal instinct to kill women he’s attracted to…

I found this movie on YouTube, but it was in German without English subtitles; fortunately, it turns out that the listing for the movie in THE MOTION PICTURE GUIDE gives a fairly elaborate description of the plot, so I was able to more or less follow the story. Despite the above plot description, this isn’t a horror movie (though the serial killer aspect provides the movie’s genre content), but rather a depressing drama about the German post-war experience, and despite the fact that it is a little reminiscent of M, it goes in a different direction entirely. It is the sole directorial effort of Peter Lorre, and he shows a good eye for interesting visuals. Lorre’s performance is equally good; I really admired the way he would use his hands to express his mental state. The movie was not a hit in Germany, which at that point preferred escapist entertainment; if it had been a hit, I wonder if Lorre would have continued as a director. As it is, it’s a bleak and unsettling drama, and the final image is unforgettable. This is recommended especially to Peter Lorre fans.

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Sing, Baby, Sing (1936)

SING, BABY, SING (1936)
Article 5377 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-21-2017
Directed by Sidney Lanfield
Featuring Alice Faye, Adolphe Menjou, Gregory Ratoff
Country: USA
What it is: Musical comedy / Horror

Poor Joan Warren! Not only is her singing career on the skids because she’s not a trendy “blue blood”, but she also has to preview comedy acts by the Ritz Brothers. However, her agent attempts to resurrect her career by romantically linking her with a vacationing but hard-drinking Hollywood actor.

Where does the horror come in? Well, the movie does feature the Ritz Brothers… and that’s a cheap shot, I’ll admit. It’s not their fault I tend to associate them with the dismal THE GORILLA; in reality, they were out of their element in that movie and they knew it. That’s not the case in this movie; there performance consists of a series of vaudeville song-and-dance routines, and there’s something to admire in the deftness of their comic hoofing, However, as far as comedy goes, I feel they come across as a less-inspired Danny Kaye crossed with Huntz Hall at his muggiest, and that’s not a comfortable place to be. Nevertheless, they are responsible for the fantastic content of the movie; one of their routines takes on the Dr. Jekyll story and also features a version of the Frankenstein monster.

Most of the movie is your typical musical comedy of the time. The best thing about it is Adolphe Menjou’s performance as an actor somewhat inspired by John Barrymore; I’ve seen this actor in many movies, but I’ve never quite seen him cut loose in a comic style like this. The movie also features Ted Healy, and quite frankly, the Three Stooges were better off without him. Alice Faye and Gregory Ratoff do a fine job, and some of the songs are pretty decent. All in all, it’s pretty marginal from a genre perspective, but I’ve seen a lot worse.

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The Sign of the Cross (1932)

THE SIGN OF THE CROSS (1932)
Article 5376 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-20-2017
Directed by Cecil B. DeMille
Featuring Fredric March, Claudette Colbert, Elissa Landi
Country: USA
What it is: Epic sword and sandal

After the burning of Rome, Nero places the blame on the rapidly growing sect of Christians and orders their destruction. However, his highest military official has fallen in love with a Christian woman…

The Walt Lee guide attributes the fantastic content of the movie to the tortures and sadism, and one has to admit they’re fairly shocking. We don’t see the torture of the young boy, but we hear it and we see the after-effects. And some of the spectacles in the arena are pretty gruesome; among other things, we see a violent battle between Amazons and pygmies, men crushed by rampaging elephants, and a bound woman menaced by several crocodiles. Though this doesn’t make it a horror film, it certainly makes it horrific. I was almost expecting some sort of miracle in the final moments of the movie, but the movie refuses, giving the whole thing a sort of integrity that I like. The coliseum/arena sequence is the centerpiece of the motion picture, and it takes up the final third of the movie. The rest is a hodgepodge of court intrigue and sword-and-sandal setpieces; unfortunately, there’s no super-powered Maciste character to come to the rescue. Fredric March and Elissa Landi do all right as the heroes, but it is the villains that steal the show; Claudette Colbert is memorable as the self-serving Empress Poppaea, but it’s Charles Laughton that really shines as the decadent Emperor Nero, a role that seems tailor made for him. There’s a number of other familiar names and faces; you’ll recognize the voice of John Carradine as several different characters, and Angelo Rossitto pops up as one of the pygmies. There’s also Joe Bonomo as a mute torturer and Charley Gemora as… well, you’ll know him.

And speaking of the latter, I did find one thing quite disappointing. If you’re like me, the movie mostly makes you think of a still showing a near-naked woman being threatened by a gorilla. Well, the scene is here… and it lasts about two seconds in total.

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