Richard_Harland_Smith Reviews

One Frightened Night (1935)

Wallace Ford up to his dimpled chin in magic and murder!

[20 March 2001]

Greed is the key in Christy Cabanne's ONE FRIGHTENED NIGHT, which begins with the heirs of elderly Jasper Whyte (THE WIZARD OF OZ's Charley Grapewin) assembling to learn the division of his $5,000,000 estate. Among the expectant are Jasper's wastrel nephew Tom (Regis Toomey), flighty daughter Laura (Hedda Hopper, in DRACULA'S DAUGHTER the following year), ambitious son-in-law Arthur (Arthur Hohl), family doctor Denham (Lucien Littlefield) and scornful housekeeper Elvira (Rafaela Ottiano, later of Tod Browning's THE DEVIL-DOLL). The crotchety Jasper surprises his relations by promising them all $1,000,000, barring the return of wayward granddaughter Doris Waverly before midnight-- but come the witching hour, Jasper finds he must choose between two young women claiming to be the grown up Doris, one demure and polite (Evalyn Knapp) and the other (Mary Carlisle, later in DEAD MEN WALK) sharp-tongued and accompanied by pesky variety magician The Great Luvalle (Wallace Ford, billed as Wally). When one of the Dorises turns up dead by poison, local sheriff Jenks (Fred Kelsey) and deputy Abner (Adrian Morris, brother of Chester), have their hands full trying to keep the survivors from either killing one another or falling victim to a masked fiend dealing death through the business end of an Amazon blow gun.

Former D. W. Griffith protégé Cabanne kicks off this Mascot Pictures quickie with a credit sequence promising a fun sixty minutes plus: as lightning flashes and rain pelts a miniature mockup of an old dark house, the shutters burst open to reveal titles written on window shades drawn down by a bare, pallid arm. After the introduction of the cast via a series of cute vignettes, the camera (cinematography is credited to both Ernest Miller, who later shot Sam Fuller's THE STEEL HELMET, and William Nobles) pushes in through the drawing room windows, upsetting the drapes and telegraphing the dark and stormy atmosphere that will prove `a swell night for a murder.' The script by Wellyn Totman (from a story by mystery writer Stuart Palmer) thwarts expectations by allowing the crusty Jasper Whyte to survive beyond the anticipated expiration date of a cinematic septuagenarian with his fingers curled around a multi-million dollar fortune. Although Wallace Ford steals the show (`Stick around this morgue long enough and they'll be saying goodbye to you with flowers!'), Mary Carlisle proves his equal in doling out the jibes (`I've played tougher houses than this!')-- it's a pity that Totman's script requires her to manifest more romantic interest in Regis Toomey than Ford (who would appear for Cabanne again as the magic-obsessed Babe Hansen of THE MUMMY'S HAND).

The Crooked Circle (1932)

"A fight to the knife and a knife to the hilt!"

[20 March 2001]

Bruce `Lucky' Humberstone's THE CROOKED CIRCLE begins with that eponymous quintet of `counterfeiters and thieves deluxe' pledging their dark allegiance (`To do for each other, to avenge any brother, a fight to the knife and a knife to the hilt!'), drawing lots from a hinged skull for the honor of bringing to ground Colonel Wolters, leader of an affluent band of amateur criminologists known as The Sphinx Club. In its second half, the film adheres faithfully to the established spookhouse syllabus (sliding panels, trap doors, and an attic stuffed with skeletons, sarcophaguses and Oriental objets d'art), with director Humberstone maximizing the felonious, comic and preternatural possibilities, all nicely complemented by the amusing dialogue of playwright Ralph Spence (THE GORILLA) and Tim Whelan. Rounding out the roster of red herrings, henchmen and gawkers are WHITE ZOMBIE's Robert Frazer, the ever-quivery Zasu Pitts (`There's a ghost in this house and when he plays the violin, something always happens to somebody!'), James Gleason as a malaprop-prone New Yawk flatfoot, KING KONG's Frank Reicher, and `queer-acting hunchback' Raymond Hatton (later the sour Farmer Larkin of INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN). It's corny and creaky and good old fashioned fun for those hip to the charms of Poverty Row whodunits. See for yourself!

The Vampires Night Orgy (1973)

A blood-soaked Brigadoon

[17 August 2000]

Reminiscent of Piero Regnoli's THE PLAYGIRLS AND THE VAMPIRE and Jean Brismee's THE DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE, Leon Klimovsky's THE VAMPIRES' NIGHT ORGY finds a busload of disparate characters stranded in the middle of a desolate Carpathian countryside and forced to rely on the kindness of strangers... who turn out to be vampires under the domination of an Anne Ricean queen played by veteran Euro-cult actress Helga Line (the ill-starred foreign agent in Eugenio Martin's HORROR EXPRESS). Eschewing fangwork and the usual Gothic trappings of the vampire mythos, Klimovsky and his screenwriters (Antonio Fos had co-written Eloy de la Iglesia's CANNIBAL MAN and CLOCKWORK TERROR) return to European folklore to present shabby, homely revenants whose attacks, while relatively bloodless, effectively communicate a vibe of disgust and dread.

Rounding out the stellar international cast is American expatriate actor Jack Taylor (recently seen in Roman Polanski's THE NINTH GATE), Dianik Zurakowska (CAULDRON OF BLOOD, THE HANGING WOMAN), Manuel de Blas (ASSIGNMENT: TERROR, THE HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE), Luis Ciges (HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB, VENGEANCE OF THE ZOMBIES and Pedro Almodovar's LABYRINTH OF PASSION) and Fernando Bilbao (FANGS OF THE LIVING DEAD, DRACULA PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN).

Known mostly for war films and westerns, the Argentina-born Leon Klimovsky directed THE VAMPIRES' NIGHT ORGY during a period of exclusive horror filmmaking, which included the popular Paul Naschy vehicles THE WEREWOLF VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMAN, DR. JEKYLL AND THE WOLFMAN and the superior THE SAGA OF THE DRACULAS (which also featured Helga Line).

A Euro-cult classic, and well worth seeking out.

Victory (1919)

A ripping adaptation of Joseph Conrad's 1915 novel

[9 May 2000]

Maurice Tourneur's VICTORY was made only four years after the publication of the source novel by Joseph Conrad, and features silent film sensation Lon Chaney in an early co-starring role.

When pre WWI isolationist Jack Holt steals a girl away from predatory hotel permitee Wallace Beery, Beery sics a trio of island-hopping fortune hunters on him. Lon Chaney steals the film as the shiv-shoving Ricardo, but Seena Owen is his equal as the desperate but clever Alma. Jack Holt is the jut-jawed hero, Bull Montana (the "ape man" of 1926's THE LOST WORLD, which starred Beery) a simian heyboy and Ben Deeley is the languid, almost Ernest Thesiger-like villain of the piece.

Jules Furthman's script simplifies Conrad's novel, and provides a much happier ending, but it's still surprisingly faithful and Conrad's witty but

fatalistic voice rings loud and clear.

Woyzeck (1994)

A Hungarian updating of a classic German tragedy

[21 March 2000]

János Szász's WOYZECK updates Georg Büchman's 1837 tragedy, shifting the action from the German provinces to modern Budapest and recasting its soldier protagonist as a lowly railway flagman. Lajos Kovács (WINGS OF DESIRE) stars as the misused Woyzeck, who ekes out a miserable existence sweeping train tracks, running errands for a bullying army captain and acting as a human guinea pig for a local doctor with ideas about free will. When his common-law wife begins an affair with a local cop, Woyzeck's pocket Bible and near-starvation diet point him on a downward spiral of twisted redemption.

While director Szász has taken certain liberties with the text – he eliminates the character of Andres, having Woyzeck confide in an unnamed youth who may be the specter of the son his rage will soon orphan – his adaptation is remarkably faithful to Büchman's theme of the dehumanization of the common man by the machinations of Order and fleshes out the play's unsympathetic ciphers, making even the manipulative authority figures pathetically understandable. Tibor Máthé's searing black and white cinematography gives the film, with its industrial winter landscape, a nigh science-fiction ambiance, putting the viewer in the mind of Andrei Tarkovsky's STALKER and David Lynch's ERASERHEAD, whose befuddled Henry Spencer could be a cousin to Woyzeck.

Murder by Invitation (1941)

A cut-rate cut-up CAT AND THE CANARY

[21 March 2000]

No doubt prompted by the success of Elliot Nugent's 1939 remake of THE CAT AND THE CANARY, Monogram's MURDER BY INVITATION is a spit polishing of dusty doings distinguished by a cagey awareness of its own derivativeness. Like the imperiled teens of Wes Craven's SCREAM, the dramatis personae here – heirs to a sizeable legacy - enter into danger with full knowledge of the rules of the game - with comic star Wallace Ford (FREAKS) even cracking: `I'm the handsome young juvenile of this story – he never gets hurt.'

Supporting the ever-watchable Ford is a cast of faces familiar from the Poverty Roll payroll: Sarah Padden (THE MAD MONSTER), Dave O'Brien (THE DEVIL BAT, REEFER MADNESS), Minerva Urecal (THE CORPSE VANISHES) and John James (DEVIL BAT'S DAUGHTER), as well as Marian Marsh (Trilby to John Barrymore's SVENGALI) and Gavin Gordon (Lord Byron in THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN). A former Edison camera man turned prominent silent film director (ABRAHAM LINCOLN), Phil Rosen exhibits little enthusiasm for George Bricker's scenario, and seems grateful that the conventions of the murder mystery allow characters to remain seated for long stretches at a time. French cameraman Marcel Le Picard also shot the low-rent SPOOKS RUN WILD and VOODOO MAN.

Not a must-see film, but undemanding fun for fans of the murder mystery - and Wallace Ford never disappoints.

The Private Eye Blues (1994)

A Hong Kong SOMETHING WILD

[20 March 2000]

THE PRIVATE EYE BLUES was directed by Eddie Fong Ling-Ching, and stars Jacky Cheung Hok-Yu (CHINESE GHOST STORY II & III, BULLET IN THE HEAD) as a Hong Kong private detective depressed over the failure of his marriage to ambitious television reporter Kathy Chow Hoi-Mei. When he is assigned to keep tabs on a young Mainland girl (Mavis Fan Hiu-Huen), she turns the tables on him by blowing his cover and declaring that the two of them are predestined.

THE PRIVATE EYE BLUES belongs to that subgenre of HK flicks that deal with the anxiety of Hong Kong's (then) looming reunification with mainland China. The film gets a lot of mileage out of cultural and language differences. We come to share Cheung's unease with visitors from the Mainland, and empathize with Mavis Fan's reluctance to be returned there.

Although this film's off kilter shooting style is initially a bit difficult to follow, its core benefits from amusing and offbeat characters and the latticework of circumstance that unites them all. THE PRIVATE EYE BLUES is loose and elastic without being too self-consciously arty; although many hardcore Asian film fans were not impressed, others may be pleasantly reminded of similarly themed films such as Jonathan Demme's SOMETHING WILD (1985) and Wong Kar-Wai's CHUNGKING EXPRESS (also 1994).

Demonia (1990)

Later, and lesser, Fulci

[20 March 2000]

No, it's not the name of a disinfectant used by exorcists, but rather the title of Lucio Fulci's 1989 film about demonic possession on the island of Sicily.

Brett Halsey and Meg Register star as a pair of archeologists, one sensible and scientific, the other sensitive and superstitious, whose latest dig is plagued by a series of violent, non-Mafia-related deaths. It seems a local Medieval nunnery was once the site of devil worship, flagrant carnality and ritualistic murder - until the locals banded together to exorcise the evil by crucifying the nuns (depicted in the film's prologue). Turning a deaf ear to the warnings of the village leader and the local butcher, the archeologists carry on digging, and ultimately loosing the hounds of Hell, Fulci-style.

DEMONIA is a largely uninteresting affair, sluggishly paced and directed with apparent indifference by Fulci. Everything seems a bit tame (artfully placed blankets throw cold water on the orgy scenes) and second hand, from Giovanni Cristiani's corny, tympani-heavy score to the use of such hoary spook-cinema devices as double exposures to suggest ghostly apparitions and echoey dream voices (has anyone in your dreams ever spoken with an echoey voice?). Fulci stumbles further by having his heroine plagued by nightmares that offer no information beyond what we already saw in the prologue.

Fulci himself turns up late in the film as an inspector from Scotland Yard, only to turn up clues to a mystery that is no mystery to us; worse yet, Fulci's Inspector Carter's last scene finds him eyeballing a piece of cloth (torn from the habit of one of the murderous ghost-nuns), identifying it as centuries old, and then disappearing from the film entirely). Al Cliver (aka Pier Luigi Conti) appears as Porter, a fellow archeologist who meets an untimely end at the hands of a transparent, headless, speargun-toting haint (Fulci regular Cliver is billed in the credits as Al "Clever").

The film perks up a bit halfway through, when the local medium (a character similar to one played by Rada Rassimov in Mario Bava's BARON BLOOD) meets her predetermined demise by dint of half a dozen cat hand puppets, but DEMONIA is still slow going. A third act disemboweling of one of the dig members is gross but unconvincing, and the film climaxes on an ambiguous note that fails to satisfy or justify the investment of an hour and a half.

...And Hope to Die (1972)

Confusing but compelling Canadian caper

[20 March 2000]

René Clément's LA COURSE DU LIÈVRE À TRAVERS LES CHAMPS/AND HOPE TO DIE is based on the David Goodis novel "Black Friday." Jean-Louis Trintignant (A MAN AND A WOMAN, THE CONFORMIST) stars as Tony, who arrives at a train station outside Montreal where several gypsies are waiting for him (a moment shot and scored like a Sergio Leone film, complete with the pan pipe accompaniment); although their comments are cryptic, we understand that a deal has gone sour, and the gypsies want Tony to settle the balance in blood. Eluding them, Tony manages to get into the city, where he witnesses the shooting death of gangster Renner (Louis Aubert), who passes him $15,000 in cash and makes even more cryptic comments, telling Tony that "Toboggan" has committed suicide, and that "Charley thinks he's smarter than the others."

Apprehended, Tony is led away from this scene by two men he believes to be cops; when they drive him out into the country, he realizes he's being kidnapped and pushes one of the men, Paul, out of the car, mortally injuring him. Recaptured and brought to an unused country hotel, Tony is introduced to an outlaw gang led by Charley Ellis (Robert Ryan), a career criminal who has spent ten of the last fifteen years in jail, and Charley's associates - Rizzio (Jean Gaven, also in Clément's LA PASSAGER DE LA PLUIE/RIDER ON THE RAIN), ex-boxer Mattone (Aldo Ray, in one of his last decent parts), the sultry Sugar (Lea Massari, from Sergio Leone's IL COLOSSO DI RODI and Antonioni's L'AVVENTURA) and the near feral Pepper (Tisa Farrow, in her second film), sister to the dying Paul. Knowing that Tony (whom he calls "Froggy") has his money, Charley doesn't kill the stranger, who soon bonds with the gang. When Paul dies, Tony gives up the cash to be allowed to join the gang to help finance his escape to Australia.

The caper is the kidnapping of a government witness - a mobster's moll who goes by the name of Toboggan. Only Charley - and Tony - know that the woman is dead - but they decide to go through with the plan, collect the reward from the underworld for delivering the witness and to get out of the country before anyone's wise.

AND HOPE TO DIE is an odd, unsatisfying but compelling little film. Released in November of 1972 with a PG rating, it has neither graphic violence or sexuality, but offers an endearing cast of supporting players. Near the end of his life, Robert Ryan (who died of cancer in 1973), breathes and spits world weariness, alternatively even-tempered and explosive - the kind of thug who creeps you out more by smiling than scowling. Jean-Louis Trintignant was in a transitional phase here between his stint as Euro smoothie (AND GOD CREATED WOMAN, LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES) and character actor (CONFIDENTIALLY YOURS, UNDER FIRE); we never quite know what's up with Tony - although he pleads to the murderous gypsies that he's "just a bookseller," he occasionally flashes on the black and white image of a child who is either sleeping or dead - we never quite know what this means. Ray, Gaven and Massari are all great as the more seasoned gang members, and Tisa Farrow is typically awkward as Pepper, but certainly believable as the "unsophisticated" girl-child. Emmanuelle Béart is briefly glimpsed as a young child.

Francis Lai (A MAN AND A WOMAN, LOVE STORY) contributes a melancholy score that glides from ominous lower strings to pan pipe interludes and guitar melodies evoking sadness and disappointment - a recurring motiff quotes "I Love Paris In The Springtime." Cinematographer Edmond Richard had previously filmed Orson Welles' CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT and DON QUIXOTE, and would go on to shoot THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE and THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE. Second assistant director Jean-Jacques Beineix would go on to greater glory by directing DIVA (1981) and BETTY BLUE; in 1972, Beineix would also serve as second AD on the infamous Jerry Lewis film THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED, and tried his hand at his own Goodis adaptation with the poorly received THE MOON IN THE GUTTER.

Clément and screenwriter Sébastien Japrisot (who had also scripted Clément's LA PASSAGER DE LA PLUIE, and wrote the novel "The Lady In The Car With The Glasses And The Gun") start this tragic story with a quote from Lewis Carroll: "We are but older children dear/Who fret to find our bedtime near," and bracket the action with scenes of children playing in the streets of Paris. We are made to identify these children with the gang members (indeed, several of them have clothing or activities that force the parallels); ultimately, it's difficult to tell if these children are the gang members when young or if it's merely a way of showing the universality of human behavior.

Moonchild (1972)

As overeager allegories go, THE MOON CHILD isn't half bad

[17 March 2000]

Shot in 1971 as a student film under the title FULL MOON and given a brief theatrical release as THE MOON CHILD by Filmakers Limited in 1974, Alan Gadney's sole directorial effort tells the story of a student (Mark Travis) whose pursuit of artistic perfection leads him to a desert mission-cum-hotel where a wandering `keeper of words' (John Carradine) introduces him to a small society of odd personalities – the pious Maitre D' (Victor Buono), the granite-faced Manager (BULLET's Pat Renella), a kindly old man (William Challee, from BILLY THE KID MEETS DRACULA) and his beautiful daughter (THE SWIMMER's Janet Landgard). Before the youth has passed his first night under their roof, his wildly combative hosts set themselves in fervid competition for receipt of his immortal soul.

As far as overeager allegories go, THE MOON CHILD isn't bad and predates Stanley Kubrick's somewhat similar THE SHINING by nearly a decade (it also can be said to anticipate other full circle thrillers as ANGEL HEART and THE SIXTH SENSE, albeit taking a less horrific tack in favor of New Age notions of circularity and karma filtered through the visions of Jean Genet, Samuel Beckett and Luis Bunuel). Long neglected, and too often written off as a bad horror movie (a classification it does not deserve), THE MOON CHILD is, if not entirely persuasive, at least a refreshing reminder of a time when film students sought to use the medium for a purpose higher than attention-getting.

Her and She and Him (1970)

An X-rated church homily

[17 March 2000]

"Because Paris is Paris," Swedish art history student Astrid Frank thumbs her way to the City of Lights with nothing more on her shoulders than a guitar case and a pair of blonde braids. When her friendliness is interpreted by a series of sexual predators as an open invitation to Swedish "free love," Greta retreats into a lesbian relationship with the affluent but lonely Nicole Debonne – but eventually tires of the older woman's possessiveness ("It disgusts me!") and sets her sights on the boytoy (Frederic Sakiss) of a celebrated gay painter (Yves Vincent) – with calamitous results.

Because CLAUDE ET GRETA (filmed as LES LIAISONS PARTICULIÈRES, it opened in Paris in 1970 as CLAUDE ET GRETA, but is now available on video as HER AND SHE AND HIM) was distributed by Radley Metzger, it begs comparison to a Radley Metzger production. Although director Max Pécas displays a painterly eye and occasional erotic gusto, his characters lack the depth that Metzger reliably brought to both his high living and lowdown sensualists. Worse yet, his script (co-written with Michel Ressi) depicts its homosexual characters as neurotic and borderline psychotic, while the two young innately hetero lovebirds are etched as innocents turned away from their destiny at the altar by the decadent allure of same sex relationships. Despite the abundant nudity and X-rated insert shots, CLAUDE ET GRETA doesn't advance any thinking that would be out of place in a Sunday sermon.

Rent THE LICKERISH QUARTET instead.

The Murder in the Museum (1934)

If you liked FREAKS ...

[14 March 2000]

When reform-minded city councilman Newgate is gunned down while investigating dope peddling charges lodged against a seedy metropolitan side show, a key suspect's debutante daughter joins forces with a slick newspaper reporter to find the real killer.

This 1933 Poverty Row whodunit was most likely inspired by Tod Browning's FREAKS (1932), and cleverly co-opts the whodunit format to provide a mediation on urban cynicism in Depression-era America. Instead of the expected lineup of affluent ne'r-do-wells peculiar to mystery thrillers, the unusual suspects here comprise a sobering cross section of disappointed and bankrupt men, from Steve Clemente's Mexican revolutionary turned knife-thrower to Henry B. Walthall's "Professor Mysto," a sad-eyed bibliophile reduced to performing sleight-of-hand in the disreputable Sphere Museum. Several of the characters refer to grudges borne and threats perceived (whether real or imagined), and with the dead "blue-nose city councilman" etched as more of an opportunist than a philanthropist, THE MURDER IN THE MUSEUM inclines intriguingly toward social criticism - but also offers entertaining flashes of pre-Production Code pulchritude and plenty of ripe, dime novel dialogue.

Sadly, both Walthall (formerly a star of silent films) and lead John Harron (WHITE ZOMBIE) would die before the end of the decade - lending additional poignancy to this tale of financial and spiritual ruination. Three Stooges fans will get a kick out of seeing Symona Boniface cast here as "Katura the Seeress."

Voodoo Blood Death (1965)

Dull drama of voodoo vengeance

[13 March 2000]

This dull follow-up to producer Richard Gordon and director Lindsay Shonteff's DEVIL DOLL stars Bryant Haliday as a big game hunter in modern day Africa who bags a lion on Simbasa territory and is cursed by the tribe, who revere lions as gods. Although Haliday flees to London, he is wracked by unexplained fevers and is dogged (or is he?) by spectral Simbasa warriors who run him down on Hempstead Heath and peek in through his seedy hotel window. It's all pretty unexciting stuff; although the film begins and ends in the Dark Continent, the lion's share of the story takes place indoors - apart from a couple of exteriors and one ill-advised attempt at a "Lewton walk," where Haliday hears the growling of game cats while walking back to his hotel one night (this might have had some effect had not Shonteff overlaid Brian Fahey's bombastic score atop it, killing the atmosphere). 1965 matinee audiences must have been driven mad by this unrelentingly dull voodoo drama; seen now after the passage of thirty years, its racist underbelly destroys any possibility of enjoying the film on a kitsch level. British character actor Dennis Price brings class to the production, but he's wasted as Haliday's sage advisor.

Freak (1999)

A masked killer hunts his blood sister ... sound familiar?

[15 February 2000]

In telling the story of a masked psychopath (institutionalized since childhood for the murder of his abusive mother) pursuing his blood sister, director Tyler Tharpe (who plays the adult "Keller boy") borrows more from John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN and its first sequel than he is able to adequately repay. His closing shots even ape the dénouement of John Carpenter's landmark killer-on-the-loose film - and it's this derivative approach that ultimately does FREAK in; still, Tharpe manages some effective moments, particularly his upsetting opening. Tharpe gets good use out of his stark Midwestern settings, but in styling FREAK so heavily after HALLOWEEN, Tharpe ultimately cheats his story of depth. For those looking for cheap and bloody thrills, FREAK doesn't offer those either - which makes one wonder who Tharpe made this film for after all.

James Ellroy: Demon Dog of American Crime Fiction (1993)

This Austrian documentary leaves too much "confidential"

[15 February 2000]

Reinhard Jud's portrait of James Ellroy was already five years old when it played the American art house circuit in 1998 - and looks in on Ellroy before his international recognition as the author of L.A. CONFIDENTIAL. Although Ellroy is a fascinating, beguiling character, Jud's documentary is too fannish and impressed with itself to really hit the mark. Ellroy is allowed to do his City of Angels spiel and poke fun at himself, but none of his more interesting allegations - such as that Los Angeles has become "uglier, darker and more violent in every conceivable way" are challenged (and nothing we are shown supports this view - despite the fact that Jud's crew turns its camera on Los Angeles nightlife for as long as six interrupted minutes - although this is likely a bid to beef up the film's running time to feature length.) JAMES ELLROY: DEMON DOG OF AMERICAN CRIME FICTION isn't a bad movie (Ellroy is part coroner, part carnival barker), but it's a crummy documentary.

James Ellroy: Demon Dog of American Crime Fiction (1993)

This Austrian documentary leaves too much "confidential"

[15 February 2000]

Reinhard Jud's portrait of James Ellroy was already five years old when it played the American art house circuit in 1998 - and looks in on Ellroy before his international recognition as the author of L.A. CONFIDENTIAL. Although Ellroy is a fascinating, beguiling character, Jud's documentary is too fannish and impressed with itself to really hit the mark. Ellroy is allowed to do his City of Angels spiel and poke fun at himself, but none of his more interesting allegations - such as that Los Angeles has become "uglier, darker and more violent in every conceivable way." Nothing we are shown supports this view - despite the fact that Jud's crew turns its camera on Los Angeles nightlife for as long as six interrupted minutes - although this is likely a bid to beef up the film's running time to feature length. JAMES ELLROY: DEMON DOG OF AMERICAN CRIME FICTION isn't a bad movie (Ellroy is part coroner, part carnival barker), but it's a crummy documentary.

Puzzle (1974)

WAIT UNTIL DARK meets THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE ... sort of

[15 February 2000]

In London, an amnesiac is abducted and beaten by a stranger who calls him a "dirty son of a double-crosser." When a sniper's bullet kills his attacker, the amnesiac flees the country with airline tickets provided by a wife he never knew he had. Arriving in Portofino, the amnesiac is called a "dirty rotten bastard" by his wife, and threatened by another stranger to return a million dollars in uncut heroin - or die. Duccio Tessari's stylish L'UOMO SENZA MEMORIA/MAN WITHOUT A MEMORY, aka PUZZLE (1974), tears a page or two from Terence Young's WAIT UNTIL DARK, substituting for sightlessness a memory loss that seems self-willed. The more the amnesiac (Luc Merenda) learns of his past, the more he wants to forget (Hal Hartley's indie AMATEUR mined similar territory twenty years later). Tessari (A PISTOL FOR RINGO, DEATH OCCURRED LAST NIGHT, THE BLOODSTAINED BUTTERFLY) and scenarist Ernesto Gastaldi (WEREWOLF IN A GIRL'S DORMITORY, TORSO) make the principal characters surprisingly likeable for giallo pawns and the derivativeness of the narrative is offset by a series of nicely staged setpieces (a razor slashing predates Angie Dickinson's postcoital comeuppance in Brian DePalma's DRESSED TO KILL by more than half a decade). Senta Berger proves an above average heroine, and even gets to brandish a chainsaw in the film's tense conclusion. This film won't convert any new fans to the giallo genre, but should provide an invigorating diversion to those familiar with the rules of the game.

Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970)

Imagine a sequel to FREAKS directed by Sam Fuller

[15 February 2000]

Werner Herzog's upsetting, black and white, documentary-like EVEN DWARFS STARTED SMALL concerns the rebellion of a handful of dwarves against the institution in which they are inmates. No average-sized actors appear - just the buildings, furniture and accessories that have been constructed for (and seemingly abandoned by) them. Herzog pulls a double whammy by getting his audience to identify with his performers - indeed, they are shown to express great sensitivity and pain - but doesn't cop out by suggesting that the dwarves will be happy now that they've smashed some windows. A difficult film to watch - and certainly not for the easily-offended.

Woman Who Came Back (1945)

A nifty, Poverty Row Lewtonian thriller!

[11 February 2000]

THE WOMAN WHO CAME BACK stars Nancy Kelly (THE BAD SEED) as Lorna Webster, direct descendent of the 17th Century magistrate responsible for "sending eighteen women to their fiery deaths," in the infamous Massachusetts town of Eben Rock. Coming back by bus, Lorna shares her seat with a black-veiled hag (THE OLD DARK HOUSE's Elspeth Dudgeon) who claims to be Jezebel Trister, Judge Elijah Webster's most famous victim. When the bus plunges into Shadow Lake, Lorna is the sole survivor - with the body of the strange woman nowhere to be found. So begins a series of strange encounters that threaten to plunge modern Eben Rock back into the dark ages.

THE WOMAN WHO CAME BACK is a neat little Lewtonian drama about Old Country superstitions festering in the New World. Eben Rock is a town unable to rest comfortably on its own foundations (the Webster family tree hangs heavy with the kind of scoundrels that found nations), making less a story about the supernatural than of how superstition drives the sensitive and marginal away from reason and true faith (embodied here by the friendship between John Loder's town doctor and Otto Kruger's sage minister).

Although THE WOMAN WHO CAME BACK seems influenced by the psychological horror films being produced by Val Lewton at RKO around the same time, the film also anticipates a key bit of business in the later CARNIVAL OF SOULS (the survivor of an aquatic auto accident later coming to doubt her sanity). Highly recommended.

Sisters of Death (1977)

A tumbleweed TEN LITTLE INDIANS

[9 February 2000]

This PG-rated see-how-they-die thriller reunites five sorority sisters seven years after the death of a fellow pledge during a hazing ritual gone terribly wrong. Responding to anonymous invitations to gather at an isolated desert villa, the girls soon learn the day of judgement is at hand - and begin to die one by one.

Made in 1972, but not released until 1978, SISTERS OF DEATH is a passable time killer, but lacks interesting characterizations, thrilling setpieces or the trademark extremes that made drive-in going such a singular thrill. With a film like Bava's BAY OF BLOOD pulling out all the stops, SISTERS OF DEATH is just too tame. Still, the cast is game; check out Claudia Jennings (former Playboy Playmate of the Year), Arthur Franz (MONSTER ON CAMPUS) and Joe Tata (the wistful frycook on TV's "Beverly Hills 90210).

The People Who Own the Dark (1976)

aka The People Who Own the Dark

[9 February 2000]

ULTIMO DESEO is the longer, Spanish language version of what Americans saw as THE PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK. An inspired reworking of George Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, Klimovsky's film posits a nuclear war in Europe that blinds the populace (a la THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS), but spares a handful of libidinous businessmen and military types who were copulating in a rural bordello. When the villagers learn of the sighted survivors, they storm the villa in a manner very much like (and superior to) the undead in Romero's classic chiller. Alberto deMendoza (HORROR EXPRESS), Teresa Gimpera, Maria Perschy and Paul Naschy all star (and were given anglicized monikers - Albert Mennen, Terry Kemper, Mary Pershing and Paul Mackey - to fool us boorish Yanks. Although rare, this film does exist on video, albeit in out of print and bootleg copies of less than pristine quality. Still, the film packs a punch and should be seen.

The People Who Own the Dark (1976)

A Spanish-language take on NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

[9 February 2000]

Forget the reference books (including the IMDb) - PLANETA CIEGO was directed by Argentinian filmmaker Leon Klimovsky, also responsible for WEREWOLF VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMAN, VENGEANCE OF THE ZOMBIES (both with Paul Naschy, who co-stars here, too) and THE VAMPIRE'S NIGHT ORGY. A group of prominent business and military men enjoying a weekend debauch in the cellar of a rural bordello are spared when a nuclear attack devastates Europe. Finding the locals blinded, and drawing hatred upon themselves for looting the village stores, the survivors board up the villa and prepare for an attack by night. PLANETA CIEGO, which is also known as THE PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK (a shortened version that played in America) and ULTIMO DESEO is an exciting and disturbing (if non-graphic) reworking of themes found in George Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. The cast includes Alberto deMendoza (HORROR EXPRESS) and Maria Perschy (also in Klimovsky's VENGEANCE OF THE ZOMBIES). This film has for too long been attributed to Amando de Ossorio, probably because he directed the well-known "Blind Dead" films. Well worth seeking out.

East of Borneo (1931)

A rousing, forgotten adventure film

[9 February 2000]

Rose Hobart (DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE) travels deep into the jungles of Borneo to find her missing doctor husband (Charles Bickford), now the drunken court physician to capricious potentate, Prince Hashin (Georges Revavent). Although her husband won't give her the time of day, the Prince decides this white woman will do to give him an heir to further his "Aryan" race. After a slow (but not uninteresting) start, EAST OF BORNEO picks up with a couple of dynamic adventure scenes - one showing the heroes racing across the backs of crocodiles, and the other showcasing a fantastic volcanic eruption achieved by a primitive but still wondrous combination of rear screen projection and miniature work. Leonard Maltin is all wrong about EAST OF BORNEO; although it's not quite as good as the later THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, this forgotten film (made by the same team responsible for Universal's Spanish-language DRACULA) is definitely worth seeking out.