(1952)
Dir - Arthur Maria Rabenalt
Overall: MEH
More of a missed opportunity snooze than a gripping melodrama, Arthur Maria Rabenalt's Alraune, (Unnatural: The Fruit of Evil), is the to-date last full cinematic adaptation of Hanns Heinz Ewers' 1911 novel of the same name. It is notable for Erich von Stroheim's involvement, who speaks in his native tongue while making his first acting appearance after appearing in Billy Wilder's seminal Sunset Boulevard two years earlier. Karlheinz Böhm is also on board, though his role is less showy than Stroheim's disgraced doctor who medically inseminates Hildegard Knef with the DNA of a murderer, apparently for funsies. None of the three leads are likeable and the inherent evil of Knef's title character is never properly conveyed. Instead, everyone seems uptight about a humdrum situation that pushes Knef to flirt with men as well as being in the vicinity of when things go wrong with people, all because Stroheim scares Böhm away from having the hots for his artificially created cousin. On the plus side, Friedl Behn-Grund's cinematography is sufficient, yet even though it is a slick production, it fails to cast the appropriate spell.
(1955)
Dir - Enrique Carreras
Overall: MEH
Not to be confused with the 1960, Germán "Tin-Tan" Valdés-starred movie of the same name, El fantasma de le opereta, (The Phantom of the Operetta), is a horror/comedy mishmash stemming from Argentina that manages to be stupid without being insulting. The story plays out in an opera house where a wacky group of actors convince the owner to let them rehearse there, one guy really wants to open a pizzeria, and a mad scientist keeps a slew of Universal monsters in the basement because this movie likes drugs. In addition to said mad scientist, genre fans will appreciate the appearance of an invisible man, Dracula, two different phantoms, a wolf man, and Frankenstein's monster who eventually all run amok while a performance is unfolding on stage. People fall down, people act scared, people are smitten with pretty ladies, people chase each other around, and then the whole thing is revealed to be a dream which actually gives all of the nonsensical tomfoolery some "logical" footing to stand on. The cast of characters are interchangeable, but the tone and plot are equally ridiculous and easy to not have to pay attention to. Forgettable and monotonous, (as well as padded with musical numbers that are at least brief if still frequent), some of the fourth wall-breaking humor actually lands.
(1959)
Dir - Virgil W. Vogel
Overall: MEH
One of the few theatrically released films from director Virgil W. Vogel who worked almost entirely in television throughout his career, Invasion of the Animal People, (Rymdinvasion i Lappland, Space Invasion of Lapland, Terror in the Midnight Sun), is a rare Swedish/American co-production that was re-edited with added and removed footage three different times over the years. First, crap peddler Jerry Warren did his usual job of cutting the original running time down while adding newly shot scenes, including opening and closing prologues by John Carradine. Then once that version was deemed too short for television broadcast, even more different scenes were filmed to pad it back out. The OG Swedish cut opens with a flying orb from outer space crashing into the snowy mountains, but we do not get back to it until thirty-three minutes in. This gives us way too much time to meet a crop of vanilla-flavored characters, some with accents and some without. Vogel actually stages a couple of scenes with the appropriate level of menace and eventually there is a giant abominable monster and some weird aliens in robes who omit a weird piercing sound, but the trek to get there is arduous.
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