SANTA’S CHRISTMAS CIRCUS (1966)
Article 5335 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-3-2017
Directed by Frank Wiziarde
Featuring John Bilyeu and Frank Wiziarde
Country: USA
What it is: Christmas movie

Whizzo the clown celebrates Christmas with his children friends and takes them on a magic carpet trip to the North Pole to visit Santa.

Those who hail SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS as the worst Christmas movie ever are probably unaware there’s a whole level of Christmas / children’s movies that make that one look well-crafted and lavishly produced. I’ve seen several of these, but this may be the first one I’ve reviewed. It’s been sitting on my “ones that got away” list with a LOST status like LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT, but while that one still is, this one has been found. It’s just hard to imagine anyone looking for it.

It features a character called Whizzo the Clown, and I suspect that we’re dealing with a character who gained fame in the same way that horror hosts did – as a local celebrity who probably hosted a kid’s show that ran cartoons. On that level, the character probably worked well enough; I’ve seen worse children’s clowns. But that doesn’t mean that his shtick can maintain a sixty minute movie, especially one with only a wisp of a plot and probably no set script. The first third of the movie consists of the clown and his children friends performing a perfunctory circus. Then he pulls out his atomic time machine and we get to watch footage from window store displays for about fifteen minutes. Then a magic carpet takes them all to the North Pole for a visit to Santa, who shows them toys and talks about the spirit of Christmas. Then they go back to Whizzo’s place and the movie is over. That’s it. It’s a good example of what I call the “non-event”.

It’s not the worst Christmas movie I’ve ever seen. But it may be the worst one I’ve covered for this series; only THE CHRISTMAS MARTIAN really gives it a run for its money, since it’s as annoying as this one is a snoozefest. It’s perhaps best described as an inconsequential waste of time. Still, I can say two good things about it. One is that one of the kids does an impressive backflip at one point. The other is that the dog puppet is used very sparingly.

SUPU JAIANTSU – JINKO EISEI TO JINRUI NO HAMETSU (1957)
aka Super Giant 5
Article 5333 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-31-2016
Directed by Teruo Ishii
Featuring Ken Utsui, Utako Mitsuya, Hiroshi Hayashi
Country: Japan
What it is: Super Giant short

Super Giant does battle with Space Nazis who have an artificial satellite orbiting the Earth.

This is the fifth of the nine-part Super Giant series from Japan that was edited into the four “Starman” movies; this one marked the first half of ATTACK FROM SPACE. That was one of the more coherent of the Starman movies, and it appears that may be due to the fact that the sixth short was a direct sequel; in fact, this one ends on a cliffhanger. My copy didn’t have English subtitles, but that’s all right; if I want to know what’s going on, I can consult ATTACK FROM SPACE, but I don’t think I really need to know any more than that it’s Super Giant versus Space Nazis. I have to admit this one is a bit disappointing taken on its own; there’s only one fight scene, and it’s not one of the better ones, though I do notice how the sound effects work overtime to make it sound like there’s actually a fight going on instead of people doing gymnastic routines. This one just has too much time of Super Giant flying around in outer space, a visual image that gets old pretty fast. If I remember ATTACK FROM SPACE, I’m willing to bet the sixth episode in this series will be an improvement.

SOME MORE OF SAMOA (1941)
Article 5329 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-25-2016
Directed by Del Lord
Featuring Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard
Country: USA
What it is: Three Stooges short

Three idiotic tree surgeons are called in to cure an ailing rare puckerless persimmon tree. They find themselves sent to the distant jungle country of Rhum-Boogie to find a mate for the tree.

This is one of those shorts where the Stooges are firing on all cylinders. The first half focuses on their work on the tree, while the second half has them in the jungle and dealing with cannibals. The cannibals were the most predictable fantastic content in the movie, but there’s a super tree growth serum as well, and there’s a scene where Curly tussles with a native god who seems to like to slap him around. There are several great moments here – the Stooges showing their skills at tree surgery, their being mistaken for regular surgeons by two women listening outside of a door, Larry picking up Curly’s footsteps, and a tussle with an alligator who has swallowed a tree seedling. Moe and Larry even do an imitation of Amos and Andy at one point. No, the short is not politically correct, but it is one of their funniest outings.

SNOW-WHITE (1933)
Article 5328 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-24-2016
Directed by Dave Fleischer
Featuring the voices of Cab Calloway, Billy Murray and Mae Questal
Country: USA
What it is: Betty Boop cartoon

An evil queen with a magic mirror discovers that she’s no longer the fairest in the land when her stepdaughter (Betty Boop as Snow-White) shows up. Snow-White escapes execution only to be frozen into a block of ice.

There were a lot of Betty Boop cartoons, but there’s an informal trilogy of them that stands out; it’s the three that were made in collaboration with bandleader Cab Calloway and featured his signature dance moves in rotoscoped animation. In this one, the song is “Saint James Infirmary Blues”, a song that has little to do with the action, but everything in the cartoon is so bizarre it hardly matters. In this one, Ko-ko the clown gets to perform the dance moves, though he is quickly turned into a strange long-legged ghost; this sequence is easily the highlight of the cartoon. Huge liberties are taken with the original story; there’s no poisoned apple or handsome prince, but the queen gets to turn into dragon creature for the final battle. Like most of the early Betty Boop cartoons, it all takes place in a surreal land where inanimate objects constantly come to life. This is one of my favorites.