Scotland Yard (1930)

SCOTLAND YARD (1930)
Article 5265 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-7-2016
Directed by William K. Howard
Featuring Edmund Lowe, Joan Bennett, Donald Crisp
Country: USA
What it is: Crime drama

During World War I, a criminal joins the army to evade the police, but has his face destroyed in an enemy barrage. A French plastic surgeon restores his face under the assumption that the photograph in a locket the criminal was carrying was his own face; in fact, he had stolen it from a banker. The criminal decides to use his resemblance to the banker for his own purposes.

The fantastic content of this movie, as explained by the Don Willis guide, was that plastic surgery in the movie was beyond the capabilities of plastic surgery in real life, and I can see where he’s coming from; it’s similar to the exaggerations movies applied to hypnotism and lifelike face masks, just to name a couple. However, I can also see putting this phenomenon into the realm of movie convention rather than in outright science fiction; I don’t recall within the movie there being any mention of the surgeon having developed any new techniques, so I’d have to say the fantastic content is extremely marginal. The movie is very much an early talkie, which is to say it creaks and paces itself so deliberately that you could visit the refrigerator in the spaces between the lines. It’s based on a stage play, but it least it does some interesting things with the framing, occasionally focusing on close-ups of objects, and this helps it fight the “photographed stage play” feeling. Still, the script itself is rather creaky, especially when it attempts to be subtle about meanings that are blatantly obvious. Still, it does have some points of interest, but it requires a certain amount of patience and a little forgiveness.

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Whistling in the Dark (1933)

WHISTLING IN THE DARK (1933)
aka Scared!
Article 5264 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-6-2016
Directed by Elliott Nugent and Charles Reisner
Featuring Ernest Truex, Una Merkel, Edward Arnold
Country: USA
What it is: Comedy thriller

When a milquetoast crime writer’s car breaks down while trying to elope, he and his girlfriend end up in the hideout of criminals who force him to come up with a way to commit the perfect murder.

In terms of its fantastic content, this is a bit of a washout; the closest it gets to being scary is a very mild sequence in which the lights go out, and though there may be some science fiction to the fact that the hero jury-rigs a radio to connect to a phone line, I suspect this is way too mild as well. As for the movie itself, it’s…well, mild. Ernest Truex mostly plays for mild, subtle laughs, and though he and Una Merkel do decent jobs in the humor department, the rather static nature of the movie (it was based on a stage play and looks it) and the preponderance of talk make it a bit on the dull side. It does get a little suggestive in a pre-code way during a sequence in which Merkel’s character, fearing that she and her husband-to-be may not survive to marry, gets it in her head to go for an early consummation. The movie’s all right, and it is a little bit different, but it’s not essential.

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Ghost Ship, Part Two (1957)

GHOST SHIP, PART TWO (1957)
aka Yureisen: Kohen
Article 5263 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-5-2016
Directed by Sadatsugu Matsuda
Featuring Ryutaro Aoyagi, Iwao Daimaru, Kensaku Hara
Country: Japan
What it is: Japanese swashbuckler

When the princess is kidnapped by pirates, an expedition sets out to rescue her and to solve the mystery of the ghost ship.

I was wondering if there would be more about the ghost ship in the second movie of the series, and sure enough, there is; in fact, the movie opens with a spooky scene in which several people board the ghost ship, and the son soon finds himself stranded aboard it, until… well, let’s just say that this scene turns out not to be on the same level of reality as the rest of the movie. This half is somewhat more successful than the first half; in fact, it abandons the whole warlord/Kyoto story and concentrates on sea-faring adventure, and the plot rolls along a little more comfortably as such. This one feels somewhat Vernian in its telling, and is more consistently entertaining. In fact, the two movies could be watched and enjoyed as distinct movies rather than as a single story. And, if the above phrase about “solving the mystery of the ghost ship” implies that the fantastic content is somewhat compromised… well, I can’t really say I was all that surprised. Still, I found this one satisfying.

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Ghost Ship Part 1 (1957)

GHOST SHIP PART 1 (1957)
aka Yureisen: Zempen
Article 5262 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-4-2016
Directed by Sadatsugu Matsuda
Featuring Yaoei Yakichi, Hideo Azuma, Tokumaro Dan
Country: Japan
What it is: Samurai drama

A young man goes to a war-torn Kyoto to live with his merchant uncle and become a Samurai, but gets caught up in a class conflict between rebels and a warlord. Disliking his uncle’s role in the conflict, he decides to join with the rebels.

As you might expect, this movie only tells part of a story, but not to worry; I also have part two and will be seeing that one tomorrow. Despite the ghostly title, the movie is primarily a drama, and I’m not surprised to find that it was based on a novel; it has that air about it. There is a ghost ship in the story believed to be helmed by the dead father of the protagonist, but exactly what role it plays in the proceedings is still a mystery; its presence isn’t acknowledged until near the end of this half. There’s also a touch of fantastic content at another point where a deserted mansion is believed to be haunted by demons. On it’s own terms, the movie seems to be merely okay; it’s one of those movies that looks as if it doesn’t quite have the budget to live up to its ambitions, and up to this point, it’s only mildly interesting. Then again, since this is only the first half of the story, I may have to wait to see the second half before I can give it a full evaluation. More to come.

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Gypsy Life (1945)

GYPSY LIFE (1945)
aka Mighty Mouse in Gypsy Life
Article 5261 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-3-2016
Directed by Connie Rasinski
Featuring the voices of Betty Jaynes and Tom Morrison
Country: USA
What it is: Mighty Mouse cartoon

A band of gypsy mice is attacked by a flock of vampire cats. Can Mighty Mouse save the day?

It’s Mighty Mouse in operetta mode here, though not in serial parody mode; in fact, this cartoon takes things more or less seriously and never goes for a laugh. It’s actually pretty well animated, and it looks like a bit of extra work went into this one. It seems mostly geared to those who get into the operetta-style music, and since I’m fairly immune to that, I have to admit I found this one rather predictable and dull, with the most interesting moment being when I discovered that the inevitable villain cats were portrayed as bats. This is not one of my favorites from the Mighty Mouse library.

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Dizzy Dishes (1930)

DIZZY DISHES (1930)
Article 5260 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-2-2016
Directed by Dave Fleischer
Featuring the voices of William Costello, Margie Hines, Billy Murray
Country: USA
What it is: Fleischer cartoon

A waiter at a nightclub is too busy participating in the floor show to effectively serve a customer waiting for his roast duck.

This cartoon is primarily remembered as the one to first feature the character of Betty Boop, albeit as a dog rather than as a human. She has a short musical number in the middle of the cartoon. The rest of the cartoon focuses on the antics of a waiter who, in the midst of his dancing and enjoying the floor show, never manages to get his food to his customers in a timely fashion. The cartoon really isn’t all that funny, though I did get a big laugh at the joke of the waiter trying to cut a hair with his knife. Nevertheless, I’m quite fond of the cartoon, or for that matter, with pre-code Fleischer cartoons in general; they were so weird that I can’t tear my eyes away from them. This one is so full of bizarre images (such as a dancing headless roast duck) and risque humor that I find myself entranced. Lots of anthropomorphic animals and bizarre characters add to the fantastic content. It’s worth a watch.

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Vacation in Reno (1946)

VACATION IN RENO (1946)
Article 5259 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-1-2016
Directed by Leslie Goodwins
Featuring Jack Haley, Anne Jeffreys, Wally Brown
Country: USA
What it is: Comedy

A hapless husband stages a fake argument with his wife to teach some friends a lesson, but his marriage is threatened when some of the arguments hit too close to home. He tries to fix the problem, but things spiral out of control.

After watching this movie, I had to go back to the Don Willis guide in which this was listed in order to figure out the fantastic content. One thing I learned is that sometimes you have to listen closely. At one point in this story the main character goes hunting for treasure with a metal detector, and I think I may have missed the dialogue that mentioned that the metal detector was of his own invention. I’m not sure to what degree this pushes the movie into the realm of science fiction; after all, prototypes of metal detector design were created as far back as the nineteenth century.

At any rate, I almost guessed that the fantastic content would be the incredibly high coincidence ratio of the main plot developments here. Basically, in a secondary plot tied to the marital problems plot, our hero is the only person to see the faces of a pair of bank robbers. The bank robbers bury their stolen loot and hide out at a dude ranch. To test his metal detector, the hero just happens to go to the same dude ranch and finds the buried loot. Fortunately, this outrageous coincidence is appropriate to a comedy. As for the whole movie, it’s mildly amusing, as is Jack Haley and the various situations that arise. However, I do sense that it could have been a lot funnier than it is; in its present condition, it feels pretty contrived.

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A Mesmerian Experiment (1905)

A MESMERIAN EXPERIMENT (1905)
aka Le baquet de Mesmer
Article 5258 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-30-2016
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Magic trick film

A magician shows us that he can create dancing girls from an empty tub.

Much as I love Melies, I’m going to have to call foul on the title here; if you’re going to reference Mesmer, than you should have something involving hypnotism in the works. There’s nothing like that here; he does a magic trick with a tub to make it produce a series of dresses, which then turn into dancing girls, which of course, then, dance. For a minute I thought he was going to pull one of the dancing girls down to do trick with hypnotism, but no, they just dance some more, and then they are turned into ducks. For Melies, this is pretty run-of-the-mill stuff, and personally, I’d rather see tumbling imps, but no such luck. This is not Melies at his best.

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Mary Jane’s Mishap (1903)

MARY JANE’S MISHAP (1903)
Article 5257 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-28-2016
Directed by George Albert Smith
Featuring Laura Bayley
Country: UK
What it is: Slapstick short

Mary Jane attempts to light her stove with paraffin. Carnage ensues.

To be perfectly honest, Mary Jane isn’t a paragon of wisdom; the opening sequence has her incompetently trying to polish a shoe and then liking her new look when the polish gets on her face. The incident with the paraffin pretty much takes her out of the gene pool. The comic exaggeration was what I would have chosen as the fantastic content here were it not for the fact that an unexpected coda to the action occurs at someone’s grave (you can guess whose), and we get the appearance of a ghost. This one is a bit on the goofy side, but it’s likable just the same.

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Make Mine Music (1946)

MAKE MINE MUSIC (1946)
Article 5256 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-26-2016
Directed by Robert Cormack, Clyde Geronimi, Jack Kinney, Hamilton Luske, Joshua Meador
Featuring the voices of Nelson Eddy, Diane Shore, The Andrews Sisters
Country: USA
What it is: Musical hodgepodge

A variety of jazzy animated segments is shown.

During the late forties, Disney was a bit short of talent and resources, and got by by releasing movies that were largely ideas for shorts strung together. The end result here is something of a popular-music version of FANTASIA, though certainly it’s less ambitious. It’s something of a mixed bag; some of the more abstract mood shorts get lost in the mix, and others fall flat. There are definite highlights here, the most obvious being the last story, about an opera-singing whale who dreams of singing at the Met; he ends up being hunted by a musicologist who is convinced the whale has swallowed an opera singer. Nelson Eddy sings all of the parts in this one, and it’s quite memorable; I remember seeing this one when I was a kid. Of the rest, I was also very fond of the Andrews Sister number about two hats that fall in love, and I also like “All the Cats Join In”, an infectious sequence in which teenagers go to a dance that has such energy that the artists can just barely keep ahead of the action; a pencil is still drawing the action as it happens. When originally released on VHS, the opening segment, a rustic ballad about feuding hillbillies was omitted due to the gun violence, though I didn’t find the violence too upsetting; however, it is one of the weakest segments of the film.

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