The Overcoat (1952)

THE OVERCOAT (1952)
aka Il cappotto
Article 5345 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-14-2017
Directed by Alberto Lattuada
Featuring Renato Rescel, Yvonne Sanson, Giulio Stival
Country: Italy
What it is: Comedy / Drama

A harried and somewhat hapless government clerk becomes enamored with the idea of getting a fine new coat to replace his raggedy one. When he gets an unexpected bonus, he finally gets his dream… but for how long?

For those familiar with the Gogol story on which this was based, the fantastic content (the appearance of a ghost) doesn’t manifest itself until near the end of the story. This is the third adaptation of the story I’ve seen for this series. The first one I saw increased the amount of fantastic content, but only borrowed aspects of the original story and went in a different direction. The second one was more faithful, but ended the story previous to the manifestation of the ghost. This one, though it updates the action to the present and changes the professions of some of the characters, is perhaps the most faithful and retains the fantastic content.

This movie has a high rating on IMDB, but I have to admit to being somewhat disappointed with the first half of the movie. That’s because the movie is very slow to get moving; it dedicates too much of its running time to comic scenes with the lead actor and to scenes featuring the pompous, self-important mayor. Not that the scenes are bad, mind you; they’re just overlong and interfere with the story getting into gear. The movie improves immensely once it decides to focus on the main plot, and the second half is immensely satisfying. Two scenes in particular stand out. One has the mayor’s dedication ceremony being interrupted by the appearance of a horse-drawn hearse. The other is the final scene in the movie, which should linger on in my memory, even if it somewhat modifies the ending of the Gogol story. This one is recommended, though I advise patience during the first half. And, after two days of foreign movies without subtitles, it’s nice to see one that has English subtitles in all their glory.

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Los jueves, Milagro (1957)

LOS JUEVES, MILAGRO (1957)
Article 5344 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-13-2017
Directed by Luis Garcia Berlanga
Featuring Richard Basehart, Jose Isbert, Paolo Stoppa
Country: Spain / Italy
What it is: Comedy /Satire

A group of men from a small village (once famed for its medicinal spa which then lost its power) decide to revive tourism by faking the miraculous appearance of a local saint. Things go well at first, but complications arrive when a stranger arrives in town who knows the truth about the miracle.

My copy of this movie is in Spanish without English subtitles, but the plot descriptions I found helped me through most of the movie; the action does become somewhat more obscure for me during the second half of the movie. The movie was directed by prominent Spanish film director Luis Garcia Berlanga, but reportedly it was held up from release for many years by censors, and what remains is a very watered-down version of what was intended. Still, I did get some enjoyment out of the movie; much of the humor is handled visually, and the scene where they first fake the appearance of the saint is a definite highlight of the movie. The fake miracle is the obvious initial fantastic content, but later developments augment that content and the movie becomes a fantasy of sorts; the first appearance of the stranger gives a definite clue to his secret. I liked this one, though the language limitations do mean that I can’t give a full evaluation of it.

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Byakuya no yojo (1958)

BYAKUYA NO YOJO (1958)
aka The Temptress and the Monk
Article 5343 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-12-2017
Directed by Eisuke Takazawa
Featuring Yumeji Tsukioka, Ryoji Hayama, Tadashi Kobayashi
Country: Japan
What it is: Eerie Japanese horror/fantasy

A monk, lost in a sinister forest, seeks refuge at a house where a woman lives with her dwarf husband. She seduces passers-by and turns them into animals, but will she do so to the monk?

This is another one that ended up on my “ones that got away” list, but it apparently popped up on YouTube and someone pointed me the way to it. It’s in Japanese without English subtitles, but a basic plot description helped me to follow it, and though some of the plot details eluded me, I found it quite enjoyable. It’s well acted, has a nice visual sense, and has a lot of eerie atmosphere. In particular, I liked the use it made of animal sounds; every time you hear one you wonder if it’s made by one of the women’s conquests. The movie has only a mediocre reputation based on its rating on IMDB, and perhaps it’s less satisfying if you can understand the language, but on the terms that I saw it, I found it satisfying enough.

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The Obedient Flame (1939)

THE OBEDIENT FLAME (1939)
Article 5342 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-11-2017
Directed by Norman McLaren
Cast unknown
Country: UK
What it is: Industrial film

The effectiveness of ovens for the kitchen that use gas is demonstrated.

You know, I don’t really mind covering as much animation for this series as I have been recently, since I’m a big fan of animated films. However, it’s become obvious that the selection of genre animated films in the Walt Lee guide (which lists this one) is very scattershot; it’s obvious many of these movies were added to the list with very little knowledge of what they were like. This one is an industrial film about how it is possible to adjust the levels of a gas stove and has demonstrations and explanations as to how the heat can be kept at a steady level. It’s not a useless of pointless film; I actually rather liked it, and I must admit that I learned about how these appliances work. It is, however, devoid of fantastic content; there’s not even an anthropomorphic flame to lead us on our journey to discovery. I do think a discussion of the nature of fantastic content in animation would be interesting; if I ever decide to write a book, that might be something I’d explore. But one thing I do know for sure; animation does not automatically mean fantastic content.

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Nature in the Wrong (1933)

NATURE IN THE WRONG (1933)
Article 5341 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-10-2017
Directed by Charley Chase
Featuring Charley Chase, Muriel Evans, Carlton Griffin
Country: USA
What it is: Charley Chase short

In order to marry his beloved, Charley must prove he has blue blood in his veins, but when he contacts an ancestry company from Texas, he is told he is the descendant of Tarzan. Initially disappointed, he decides ultimately to emulate his ancestor.

The first half of this short sets up the situation; the second half has Charley dreaming he’s Tarzan in his jungle home. Actually, this short has probably more fantastic content than the average Tarzan movie; in his adventures, he encounters a talking lion and a talking gorilla (the always welcome Charley Gemora). It’s pretty silly, and it’s hardly Charley Chase at his best, but the short is fun in its goofy way. There’s a bit of pre-code humor with Charley swinging on a vine over a nudist camp, a few in-jokes (the Lion’s brother works for MGM), and some sequences are downright bizarre, such as the one in which Charley tries to get milk for the baby. Oddly enough, there’s one detail that the short misses. Being a descendant of Tarzan would make him a blue-blood; Tarzan was Lord Greystoke, after all.

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The Mouse-merized Cat (1946)

THE MOUSE-MERIZED CAT (1946)
Article 5340 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-9-2017
Directed by Robert McKimson
Featuring the voice of Mel Blanc
Country: USA
What it is: Warner Brothers cartoon

In order to get some food, Babbit hypnotizes Catstello into thinking he’s a dog.

Thinly-disguised Abbott and Costello knock-offs Babbit and Catstello first appeared in A TALE OF TWO KITTIES (the cartoon that first introduced Tweety to the world) as cats; here they are again, only they’ve been transmogrified into mice. The title is a bit deceptive; though the cat does eventually get hypnotized, by and large it is the mouse Catstello that suffers that indignity here. This one is pretty good for a Robert McKimson cartoon. Most of McKimson’s cartoons suffer in comparison the Jones and Freleng cartoons largely because his cartoons suffered a bit from being overly talky; here that problem is kept to a minimum. A few celebrity parodies appear as well; Catstello is hypnotized into doing imitations of Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Durante; apparently, in the original cartoon he also did Rochester from “The Jack Benny Show”, but that’s missing from the print I saw, no doubt because of the racial stereotype. The best moment has Catstello under assault by the hypnotic powers of both Babbit and the cat. This would be the last appearance of this duo other than as cameos in much later projects.

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A Lad an’ a Lamp (1932)

A LAD AN’ A LAMP (1932)
Article 5339 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-8-2017
Directed by Robert F. McGowan
Featuring Matthew ‘Stymie’ Beard, Dorothy DeBorba, Bobby ‘Wheezer’ Hutchins
Country: USA
What it is: “Our Gang” short with monkey.

The Our Gang kids believe they have stumbled across Aladdin’s lamp.

This short has the reputation of being one of the funniest ones from the “Our Gang” series, and it is pretty amusing. However, even though it was originally released uncut for TV syndication, it was eventually cut severely and then dropped from the package altogether. This was due to some noticeable racial stereotyping in the episode; check out Stymie’s wishes when he’s trying out a lamp for examples, but the most glaring one is when Spanky wishes that a young black boy named Cotton would turn into a monkey and comments that “all he needs is a tail”. Most of the story hinges on that last wish, as a chimp escapes from a show and appears in front of the kids after Cotton runs off. Pretty much the rest of the short gets its humor from chimp antics, though I find the sequences where various incidents occur in tandem with their wishing on the lamp (some of them engineered by eavesdropping adults) to be the best parts. As might be expected, the lamp isn’t really magic, so it’s a little dodgy as far as the fantastic content is concerned, though throwing a magician into the mix helps a bit.

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Le remords (1906)

LE REMORDS (1906)
aka Remorse, Conscience, Comedy about a Rich Man and His Servant
Article 5338 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-7-2017
Directed by Ferdinand Zecca
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Early horror short

A servant kills his master for his money, but finds that vengeance can come from beyond the grave.

Here’s another movie rescued from my “ones that got away” list by its appearance on YouTube; those interesting in viewing it should search by “comedy about a rich man and his servant”, which is how it is labeled, thought that’s hardly an official title for this short. In fact, I would hardly call it a comedy; at least, to these eyes, it’s played more for scares than for yuks. It’s also incredibly efficient; it tells its whole story in less than two minutes, and there’s quite a bit going on, especially towards the end. I enjoyed this one a lot, and I’m glad it finally came to light.

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The Tempest (1908)

THE TEMPEST (1908)
Article 5337 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-5-2017
Directed by Percy Stow
Cast unknown
Country: UK
What it is: Silent Shakespeare adaptation

The survivors of a ship sunk by a tempest find themselves stranded on an island inhabited by a sorcerer, his daughter, and two mystical creatures.

I’m surprised I don’t have more of a working familiarity with the play that inspired this one; it is, after all, with the possible exception of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, the play of Shakespeare’s that has the greatest amount of fantastic content. However, every time I try to read it, I get lost in the language and lose the thread of the story. As a result, I actually got something out of this version; bereft of the language and shortened to twelve minutes, I came out of it with at least an outline of the story to help me when I tackle reading it again in the future. On its own terms, it’s not bad for what it is – an abbreviated “high points” summary of a familiar story, and it’s entertaining enough for its length. And of course, I couldn’t resist trying to match up the various characters with their equivalents in the science fiction classic modeled off the story, FORBIDDEN PLANET. All in all, I found this viewing quite useful.

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The Magical Hen (1902)

THE MAGICAL HEN (1902)
aka La poule merveilleuse
Article 5336 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-4-2017
Directed by Ferdinand Zecca
Featuring Ferdinand Zecca
Country: France
What it is: Something you can’t unsee

A magician does magic with hens and eggs.

First, a digression. There’s a well-known exploitation movie called BECAUSE OF EVE that is mostly famous for a specific sequence. If you’ve seen or heard of the movie, you probably know which one I mean. Now imagine if you saw that sequence….backwards. This digression will become clear shortly.

I’ve seen lots of these early trick shorts so far, and for the most part, they’re pretty difficult to differentiate. However, there are a few that stand apart for one reason or another (or for good or bad). This is one of them. Why? Well, let me describe in detail the first half of this short.

1 – A magician carries on a hen and removes from its backside six eggs.

  1. He then cracks open each of the eggs and a chick falls out.

That’s the first half of the movie. What happens during the second half? Basically, they run all the footage from the first half backwards. Which means…. well, I’m sure you’ll understand the BECAUSE OF EVE reference now. And I don’t think you can blame for finding this one a bit on the queasy side.

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