1950s Nobuo Nakagawa Horror Part Two

THE CEILING AT UTSUNOMIYA

(1956)

Overall: MEH

 

This pedestrian, period-set shogun drama from director Nobuo Nakagawa predated his better and more renowned horror works, and in fact there is only a single scene here that comes nearly an hour and ten minutes in which can qualify it as anything in the "horror" camp, by a stretch mind you.  The Ceiling at Utsunomiya, (Kaii Utsunomiya tsuritenjô, Ghost of Hanging in Utusunomiya), is typical of other chambara films from the era, concerning rival factions, shady political deals, shoguns and hired assassins caught up in deadly ploys, troubled romances, and abused peasants.  The script is convoluted to a fault, bouncing between its various characters that are difficult to keep up with and whose conflicts become tiresome, only with a few stagey sword fighting scenes thrown in between your typical wailing melodrama.  When the lone supernatural sequence arrives, it seems noticeably out of place considering that there is no macabre atmosphere or build up at any point beforehand.  When the ceiling of the title finally collapses on its intended victims, (long story), tragedy is mostly subverted as far as our main players are concerned, so even though it is anticlimactic, at least some of the good guys make it out OK.

 

VAMPIRE MOTH

(1956)

Overall: MEH

 

Similar both in its script and presentation to Toho's earlier Ghost Man, Vampire Moth, (Kyûketsu-ga), is another crime film where beautiful models are targeted and bad guys wear sunglasses to cover up their faces.  There are also no supernatural elements whatsoever, despite what the misleading title suggests.  In fact, the word "vampire" especially does not belong, as the mysterious killer with a horrifying fanged mask is consistently refereed to as a wolf man, with even a flashback sequence alluding to the whole getting bit under a full moon dealie.  No such lycanthropian antics are present either though as the story revolves around detectives trying to catch and discover the identity of a wacky killer and the characters who are caught up in his scheme.  There are some precursor elements to Italian giallos which would start to dominate the thriller spectrum the following two decades, (particularly with Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace which has one or two direct similarities here), but director Nobuo Nakagawa also utilizes a more restrained tone that hearkens back to early sound films.  There is little to no dramatic music,  and the cinematography is heavily inspired by German Expressionism.  Still, the story involving inner-fashion designer turmoil is hardly interesting and highly confusing, with the whole thing quickly becoming, (and remaining), a chore to sit through.

 

THE LADY VAMPIRE

(1959)

Overall: MEH

An unfortunately forgettable undead movie coming from director Nobuo Nakagawa, The Lady Vampire, (Onna kyûketsuki), is adapted from a novel by Soto Tachibana that plays like a contemporary-set Japanese Dracula in some respects, except a sluggishly uneventful one.  Here, Shigeru Amachi's lead blood-sucker has an adverse reaction to moonlight which does not burn him in a manner that the sun usually would, (just a simple pair of sunglasses renders him fully able to commute in the daytime), but instead aggravates his vampire symptoms tenfold in the way that such lunar rays affect werewolves.  Otherwise, he travels a long distance to reclaim a woman that he turned to the dark side twenty-years ago who has a noble blood preference.  He also has a dwarf assistant, but otherwise there are no defying attributes to either his character or his ordeal.  The plot runs through various monotonous scenes that become easier and easier to check out of, and the whole thing loses momentum before the first act is even finished.  Nakagawa still has an eye for fetching imagery here or there, plus Amachi's makeup effects are creepy in earlier scenes, becoming silly once he is rendered old and decrepit in the finale.

1950s Hammer Horror Part Three

FOUR SIDED TRIANGLE

(1953)

Dir - Terence Fisher

Overall: MEH

 

Notable as the first horror-adjacent Hammer film to be directed by Terence Fisher, (if not the first horror-adjacent work from the studio, period), Four Sided Triangle adapts William F. Temple's 1949 novel of the same name as a sci-fi tale gone wrong where two scientist friends, (Stephen Murray and John Van Eyssen, respectively), develop a replicator machine that one of them utilizes for less than wholesome means.  It is interesting how such a decision is made, where the characters behave logically and compassionately to the impossible scenario and the morally dubious agenda that Murray undergoes under heartbroken determination.  As a quickly produced B-movie, Fisher was obviously working within meager means and was therefor unable to generate much atmosphere, let alone being able to maintain an agreeable enough pace for a film with a mostly talky structure and few if any exciting set pieces.  It no doubt could have gotten a more flashy and garish treatment had it been made ten years later during the studio's bold color and gothic horror heyday, but here it is merely forgettable.

 

THE SNORKEL

(1958)

Dir - Guy Green

Overall: MEH

 

Though its bookending Hitchcockian segments are memorable, the bulk of Hammer's The Snorkel is tedious and underwhelming.  The screenplay was by Peter Myers and studio regular Jimmy Sangster, (based on a story from actor Anthony Dawson), though Dawson himself does not appear on screen in the finished product.  Instead, Peter van Eyck gets the villainous part as a man who offs his wife and remains under persistent suspicion from his adopted daughter Mandy Miller throughout.  Miller's desperate accusations that her mother's husband has now killed both of her parents, (her father believed to have died via a boating accident), fall on deaf ears to everyone that hears them, and she tries, tries, tries, and tries again to convince everyone in literally every one of her scenes.  This grows irksome quick, turning the story's victim into an annoyance where we should have her back yet just want Eyck to get busted already so that she can stop her pleading.  The film acts as one long waiting game until such busting finally transpires, and thankfully it is a fitting comeuppance that manages to be simple yet surprising, with Eyck meeting his doom due to a seemingly insignificant detail.  If the near hour before that moment was better handled and had more to work with, then it could have elevated this to the successful B-thriller that it deserves to be.

 

THE UGLY DUCKLING

(1959)

Dir - Lance Comfort

Overall: MEH

A year before they made their official if still significantly tweaked adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll, Hammer did the lighthearted comedy variation The Ugly Duckling.  This one does not even try to make its potion-drinking protagonist look different in either of his alter ego forms, yet nobody recognizes six foot seven Bernard Bresslaw when such a transition takes place, a mustache and completely different personality apparently all that is acquired to dupe people.  It is an inconsequential nitpick considering the movie's nonsense tone which is not meant to be taken seriously by anyone, let alone anyone involved in the production.  Aside from Bresslaw who is amusingly cast as the towering doofus-turned suave criminal, Hammer mainstay Michael Ripper shows up as a gangster and the Third Doctor himself Jon Pertwee gets to indulge in some goofiness as Bresslaw's comparatively more levelheaded brother.  Aside from agreeable pacing and the always professional performances, Sid Collins and Jack Davies script is pedestrian and allows for only the broadest of amusing set pieces.  Nothing comes close to being laugh-out-loud funny or even clever, but it suffices as an innocent time-waster.

1950s American Horror Part Thirty-Two

MONSTER FROM GREEN HELL

(1957)

Dir - Kenneth G. Crane

Overall: MEH

 

One of many dull and D-grade giant monster movies made in the 1950s, Monster from Green Hell features wasps and an oversized spider crab that become mutated after rockets full of cosmic radiation crash land in Central Africa.  The premise is as bog-standard as the movie, featuring the usual low-level components of stock footage, zero charisma actors, endless chatter between them, and roughly two and a half total minutes of on-screen creature mayhem.  Endre Bohem and Louis Vittes' script tries to get around its main attraction by throwing its crop of mostly Caucasian characters up against a harsh foreign landscape that does everything in its power to do them in before they can take care of the radiation-charged insect problem.  While their treks through jungles, deserts, and volcanic caves proves to be anything but heart-racing, the production gets a few things correct, such as giving African American actor Joel Fluellen a significant and non-comic relief role.  Also, the sound omitted by the giant wasps as they are being devoured by lava in the finale are creepy enough.  It is a shame that we see so little of them and so much of the bored thespians on screen going through the motions, but that was the style at the time after all.

 

4D MAN

(1959)

Dir - Irvin Yeaworth

Overall: MEH

 

For their follow-up to the seminal drive-in hit The Blob, director Irvin Yeaworth and producer/screenwriter Jack H. Harris once again craft a talky, independent, Pennsylvania-shot sci-fi B-movie in color, granted with a less sensationalized premise than a huge extraterrestrial form of gelatin descending upon a small American town.  4D Man, (The Evil Force, Master of Terror), aligns with most other disposable genre movies from the period, meaning that little screen time is delegated to anything that a teenage demographic would actually want to see, but enough special effects and gnarly makeup shots are present to throw into a trailer to get butts in the seats.  In this respect, one can watch that trailer, skip the actual movie, and get the full picture just fine.  This marks the first non-television appearance from Robert Lansing, a deep-voiced character actor who does not have ideal leading man charisma yet nevertheless does just fine here as the title scientist who manages to grant himself the ability to pass through solid objects.  Unfortunately, this does not happen until about fifty minutes into the film, starting off as a fun gag that Lansing's protagonist enjoys since the rest of his life is hardly going according to plan, (his girlfriend leaving him for his brother, and a cancer diagnosis will do that).  It ultimately leads to deadly consequences where anyone he touches rapidly ages and dies, but the third act is the only one where anything memorable transpires.

 

TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE

(1959)

Dir - Tom Graeff

Overall: MEH

 

Notable and infamous as the only full-length from actor/director/producer/cinematographer/editor/screenwriter/special effects and music coordinator Tom Graeff, Teenagers from Outer Space, (The Gargon Terror, The Boy from Outer Space), is one of the cheapest of drive-in cheapies done in an era that was ripe with cheap drive-in cheapies.  Graeff allegedly made it on a budget of less than twenty-thousand dollars, which even in 1959 was detrimentally meager.  The proof is in the pudding, with bottom-barrel costumes, props, and toy guns, as well as a scant few special effects shots that are as piss-pour as they get.  Graeff also had the asinine idea to prerecord the dialog and then have the actors lip-sync it, though at least he did not use this tactic throughout the movie's entirety.  To be fair, Graeff gets around his lack of funds by shooting in real locations successfully enough since the script places some human extraterrestrials in the suburbs and little to nothing is required to spruce up any of the surroundings.  While the plot has the allusion of being busy, it is a monotonous watch of an alien named Derek, (yes, Derek), getting chased by his more surly companions through various mundane spots around sunny California, all of the local yokels being overly-trusting and helpful.  The stakes never seem high enough due to the talky and droll pacing, but there are far worse abominations of celluloid that came out around the time, this one at least being shy of incompetent.

13 Demon Street Part Three

A GIFT OF MURDER
(1959)
Dir - Curt Siodmak
Overall: MEH

 

A nifty premise with a sub-par execution, 13 Demon Street's "A Gift for Murder" features a common motif of people casually and recklessly dabbling in black magic with of course disastrous results.  When a married couple receives a voodoo doll as an anniversary present, (as odd of a gift as that is), they decide to use it on Charles Nolte's co-worker as a goof since he was too touchy feely with his misses at the party, as well as being the boss's son who is getting promotions which Nolte feels he deserves.  Things go the way that the audience will predict and the characters do not, and because Nolte is a hypocritical scumbag who also cannot keep his hands off his secretary, he gets too comfortable with the doll's powers and starts using them more frequently.  Comeuppance is delivered in a flimsy enough manner, but Ib Melchior and Kenneth Hartford's script offers up few surprises, plus the performances leave something to be desired.

 

THE SECRET OF THE TELESCOPE
(1959)
Dir - Curt Siodmak
Overall: MEH

 

An odd choice was made to air the 13 Demon Street episodes "A Gift of Murder" and "The Secrete of the Telescope" back-to-back, since they not only contain similar premises, but they also both feature Charles Nolte in the lead, who was one of a handful of actors to show up in three different stories for the program.  Nolte basically plays the same unlikable character, which is to say that he is an asshole who wants a divorce from his innocent wife, recently acquires an antique of sorts with supernatural powers, and said antique in a roundabout way seals his doom.  Nolte also once again delivers a subpar performance, clumsily melodramatic in some instances and stiff in others.  As far as the otherworldly rules are concerned, they are as haphazardly delivered as they are in any other installment for the program, plus the simple premise of a telescope that can see the future is more odd than interesting.

 

NEVER STEAL A WARLOCK'S WIFE
(1959)
Dir - Curt Siodmak
Overall: MEH

 

Some more black magic meddling is afoot in 13 Demon Street's "Never Steal a Warlock's Wife", which opens with Alan Blair purchasing a feline "familiar" at a pet shop.  Apparently that is something that can be done in this universe.  Blair portrays a nebbish man with an openly gold-digging wife, (Lori Scott), except the only problem being that he is not rolling in enough dough for her liking.  Even when he does procure an obscene amount of cash through dubious means, Scott acts appalled and runs off with her lover anyway, somewhat understandably since Blair has the personality of a pathetic and timid wiener, which begs the question of why these two were ever wed in the first place.  Both actors appeared in three episodes of the series and neither are given likeable characters to work with here, but Scott Flohr's script hardly does anything interesting with its mystical premise anyway, plus the whole thing ends just as it gets going.

 

MURDER IN THE MIRROR
(1959)
Dir - Curt Siodmak
Overall: MEH

 

One of the poorest realized installments in the 13 Demon Street program was its penultimate one "Murder in the Mirror".  The show had hooked its supernatural angle on various objects depending on the episode, (a telescope, a book, a voodoo doll, etc), and mirrors have long held an unsettling pull in horror tales since it is always creepy to see something in them besides one's own undoctored reflection.  Here though, the script from director Curt Siodmak is half-baked and leads to an underwhelming conclusion, as Vernon Young hires Ben Breen to find a specific mirror regardless of the fact that Breen is hardly an expert in such matters.  This makes no difference since his antique dealer friend, (who Young should have went to in the first place), just so happens to have the exact wall decoration in question.  The hoopla surrounded said mirror is relatively interesting, but the plot hits a brick wall as far as what to do with it, and the finale is more unintentionally funny and abrupt than anything.

 

BLACK NEMESIS
(1959)
Dir - Jason Lindsay
Overall: MEH

 

The only 13 Demon Street episode not to have any involvement from Curt Siodmak who either directed or authored every other installment, "Black Nemesis" ends the series on a subpar note.  That is not to say that it is any worse or better than the bulk of the program, which started off strong yet quickly settled into a mediocre-at-best assortment of humdrum supernatural tales.  Here, a many runs into gambling debts, is given two weeks to come up with the money from the gangsters that he owes it too, and somehow phony seances and a disembodied ghost head play into things.  Screenwriter Ib Melchior penned two of these episodes, ("A Gift of Murder" being the other and comparatively better one), but his work here seems aimless and desperate, as if he had a deadline to catch and just threw something together on the fly.  In any event, it is immediately forgettable and void of spooky atmosphere, unless one counts the frequented horn blares on the soundtrack to signify when something extraordinary is happening.

13 Demon Street Part Two

THE GIRL IN THE GLACIER
(1959)
Dir - Curt Siodmak
Overall: MEH

 

An archaeologist falling in love with a frozen cave woman is the premise at hand in 13 Demon Street's fittingly titled "The Girl in the Glacier".  This one steers farther away from horror elements than usual for the program, almost exclusively presenting itself as a psychological musing on whatever spell said glacier lady seems to cast on the red-blooded men who unearth her.  It comes closer to sci-fi than anything as we eventually get more than just Frank Taylor spewing sweet nothings to the centuries-old frozen woman, raving about how he should have complete control of the operation, dismissing his wife and demanding a divorce, and even murdering those who get in his way.  In other words, a nice fella.  We can guess what is likely to happen from numerous shots of Sara Harts closed eyelids, leaving little sense of mystery to go along with the merely serviceable starting point.

 

THE BOOK OF GHOULS
(1959)
Dir - Curt Siodmak
Overall: MEH

 

Taking some bare-bones inspiration from the often-frequented W. W. Jacobs' short story "The Monkey's Paw", "The Book of Ghouls" fails to do anything interesting within such a framework.  Screenwriter Fred De Gorter would go on to write four episodes of the Batman series which is something that any author should be proud of, but his work here lacks both flare and imagination.  The book of the title is one that holds the power to bestow wealth upon those who follow its instructions, but of course these things always come at a detrimental price and this is no exception.  Things proceed in a formulaic fashion, (blood is shed, money comes in, the participants are both confused and troubled by such supernatural forces actually working, and a happy ending is nowhere to be found), and this renders the episode as merely a forgettable spending of twenty-three minutes.

 

THE PHOTOGRAPH

(1959)

Dir - Curt Siodmak

Overall: MEH

 

13 Demon Street's take on M.R. James' short story "The Mezzotint", "The Photograph" presents yet another tale of a heinous crime for us to judge in comparison to the one committed by host Lon Chaney Jr's, the latter's atrocity never divulged to the audience.  While John Crawford, (making his second of two appearances on the program), may not be the world's most despicable criminal, he is a relentless asshole who makes one illogical decision after the next that stretches plausibility in producer/director/screenwriter Curt Siodmak's James homage.  The outcome is preordained since we know that Crawford shall be doomed for his actions and that the seemingly haunted photograph of the title will somehow seal the deal, but the only surprises are in how moronic he acts at every opportunity until then.

 

THE VINE OF DEATH

(1959)

Dir - Curt Siodmak

Overall: MEH

 

Another scumbag gets his comeuppance in a 13 Demon Street installment with "The Vine of Death".  This time it is a ridiculously pushy handyman neighbor who appears to have cement in his ears as far as "no means no" is concerned, and his hair-brained scheme when a murder transpires is to bury the body in a patch of dirt that the victim had imported some ancient calcified bulbs from.  Besides the corpse being remarkably easy to find for anyone who comes investigating which they of course do, Lauritz Falk and Pat Clavin continue to behave irrationally which only raises more suspicions.  People on screen are generally terrible liars so this is nothing new, but Leo Guild's teleplay only offers a lone memorable set piece where the sprouting plants do their grisly business.  This leaves the rest of the presentation to merely linger on unlikable people doing idiotic things until they are busted.

13 Demon Street Part One

THE BLACK HAND

(1959)

Dir - Curt Siodmak

Overall: MEH

 

For episode one, the Lon Chaney Jr. hosted, English-langue, Swedish horror television anthology series 13 Demon Street kicks off with a variation of Maurice Renard's 1920 novel Les Mains d'Orlac, which had been adapted to the big screen numerous times.  As the title would allude to, it concerns an amputated appendage with a sinister mind of its own, one that a renowned surgeon decides to give himself after a car accident.  It becomes readily apparent that the story from screenwriter Richard Jairus Castle and director Curt Siodmak is not concerned with iron-clad logic as things rush along with glaring inconsistencies.  This would set the tone for the series though which would deal with otherworldly scenarios condensed to twenty-odd minutes for melodramatic consumption.  In this respect, it is a serviceable if still fragile under a microscope.

 

FEVER

(1959)

Dir - Curt Siodmak

Overall: GOOD

 

Writer/director Curt Siodmak concocts a unique tale for the second 13 Demon Street episode "Fever" where a demented painter becomes obsessed with a neighbor across the street that may or may not exist in a consistently corporeal sense.  The actual protagonist is not said artist but instead a doctor who visits him due to complaints of a fever, a fever which he too succumbs to after likewise becoming infatuated with the beautiful woman the smiles from a castle window on the other side of the road where there is no such castle to be found.  Specifics are kept vague, more due to the brisk running time that each of the program's installments dictated than any weak writing on Sidmak's part, and this gives the tale a fittingly eerie tone that is well-maintained.

 

CONDEMNED IN THE CRYSTAL

(1959)

Dir - Curt Siodmak

Overall: GOOD

 

The excellent and chilling "Condemned in the Crystal" was the only 13 Demon Street screenwriting contribution from Dory Previn, who works wonders within the framework of a stoic gypsy woman foretelling an unavoidable and tragic fate.  Director Curt Siodmak certainly favored such terrain as his most famous credit amongst several is for being the author of Universal's The Wolf Man, and while there are no lycanthropian elements to be found, the episode is a consistently tense musing on the inevitability of fate, if one is to believe in such a thing.  Of course our lead protagonist, (portrayed by usual Western man Michael Hinn, who looks like he could have been a close relative to René Auberjonois), does not believe in such supernatural mumbo jumbo, or at least persistently tells himself that as his analyst suggest that he visits a place from his childhood that has been giving him vivid nightmares.  Why do TV and movie therapists always suggest that their patients revisit a place of trauma in order to "conquer" it?  Does that ever work?

GREEN ARE THE LEAVES

(1959)

Dir - Curt Siodmak

Overall: MEH

 

Though it gets off to a fine start as an atmospheric if still bog-standard haunted house yarn, "Green Are the Leaves" goes through some clunky motions in its closing moments.  It immediately recalls the second season Tales from the Crypt episode "Television Terror" where a film crew sets up in a haunted abode in order to broadcast their otherworldly findings for some rating boosts.  Other stories have come down the pike with similar premises, and this one has less sleazy characters than usual, focusing on a small handful of them who seem generally if still cynically curious to uncover any supernatural mystery.  The spacious mansion setting is ideal, as is some brooding cinematography and a stark sound design that emphasizes a still tension until one particular room in the place makes good on its nasty reputation when midnight strikes.  Unfortunately, it hits a peak when it still has several minutes left in the running time, ending in a clumsy and melodramatic fashion that dilutes the previously established spooky mood.

1950s British Horror Part Eight

ALIAS JOHN PRESTON 

(1955)
Dir - David MacDonald
Overall: MEH

Christopher Lee fans may rejoice at this obscure B-feature that he starred in for the American Danzinger brothers; pre-Hammer and in the title role no less.  Alias John Preston is a pedestrian affair from top to bottom, one that was clearly a rushed work and made on the cheap to slap on the bill of a comparatively more memorable A-production.  It runs a mere sixty-six minutes so one could hardly complain that it overstays its welcome, but it also represents an interesting historical footnote for Lee who had delivered few if any performances with this much screen time beforehand.  While his American accept slips regularly, he still proves himself to be an intimidating presence as a mysterious wealthy man who arrives in a small community, charms many of the locals, buys up property, gets himself on the city council, gets engaged to a bank lender's much younger daughter, and shows increasingly evidence that his mental facilities are on the fragile side.  The narrative loses its intrigue once Lee starts explaining his detailed and disturbed dreams to a therapist, at which point it crawls to an inevitable finish that everyone will see coming.  Also, director David MacDonald merely points the camera at his actors in order to get the job done, so there is no sense of style or agency anywhere to be found.

1984

(1956)

Dir - Michael Anderson

Overall: GOOD

The first theatrically released adaptation of George Orwell's famed novel, 1984 took its cue from the BBC production from two years prior.  Tweaking the ending of the source material while adhering to its nightmare-via-oppression tone, these are ideas that would continue to get expressed over virtually every other totalitarian sci-fi work going forward.  Not without its foibles, the relationship between Edmond O'Brien and Jan Sterling is abrupt and feels forced, intentionally to a point considering that the story exists in a world where feelings of love and personal closeness are foreign to everyone.  Still, their romantic bond is further hindered by O'Brien's oafish performance.  Once again though, it makes sense that his perpetually nervous Average Joe would stand out enough to Sterling, even if their chemistry is consistently lacking.  Besides that, director Michael Anderson handles the ever-imposing reach of Big Brother accordingly, providing only fleeting moments away from its all-powerful eye, or so our hapless protagonists are lead to believe.  The inevitable third act is when things kick into higher gear and doubles as the moment where O'Brien finally gets to let loose, all-in-all creating an agreeably paced and chilling cautionary tale of humanity's potential downfall.

 

THE SPANIARD'S CURSE

(1958)

Dir - Ralph Kemplen

Overall: MEH

 

A bog-standard thriller without any oomph, The Spaniard's Curse also stands as the only directorial effort from editor Ralph Kemplen.  Kemplen also co-authored the screenplay along with Kenneth Hyde and Roger Proudlock, which is an adaptation of Edith Pargeter's 1958 novel The Assize Of The Dying.  Things begin promising enough with a likely innocent and ill-stricken man being convicted of murdering a young lady actor, the man going on to curse the lot of people responsible for his condemnation.  Once some curious younger people begin investigating the details, (including the wise-talking news reporter son of the Judge), the film settles into scene after scene of characters walking into rooms to ask other characters questions.  Kemplen has no sense of pacing from behind the lens, though there are one or two suspenseful sequences that finally arrive in the third act which indicate who the culprit has been all along.  The music is curiously inappropriate at times, as if taken from more cheerful melodramas. doing the opposite of creating a tense atmosphere in the process.  Performance wise it is fine, since British thespians were by and large able to adequately deliver even humdrum material such as this in a manner void of scenery chewing.  That said, some pizazz on the actor's parts would have actually helped matters since few things need more assistance than an uninteresting murder mystery.

1950s Italian Horror Part Two

THE MACHINE TO KILL BAD PEOPLE
(1952)
Dir - Roberto Rossellini
Overall: MEH

Long lost and presumably left unfinished by filmmaker Robert Rossellini, The Machine to Kill Bad People, (La Macchina ammazzacattivi), fuses neorealism, fantasy, and comedy within a story about a camera that either kills or merely freezes people in the perpetual state that they posed in for the photograph.  Even with seven credited screenwriters, the otherworldly specifics are loosey-goosey at best and the plot has a disruptive quality where everyone talks over each other and nobody is all that likeable.  This, the on location shooting, and the social commentary about how noble intentions can often be manipulated and taken advantage of by people's inherent selfishness root it clearly enough in the neorealism movement which Rossellini championed, but the humorous elements fall flat due to the film's rambling yet sluggish presentation.  There are some clever bits scattered about, (like the bookending segments where a narrator introduces the tale with picturesque scenery and models being placed in front of each other by someone's hands), and the closing reveal of a mysterious hobo being some form of lower devil is fun, but it gets lost in its agenda along the way.

THE ISLAND MONSTER
(1954)
Dir - Roberto Bianchi Montero
Overall: WOOF

A rare, pre-Mario Bava Italian production to score Boris Karloff, The Island Monster, (Il mostro dell'isola), suffers from top to bottom, not least of all due to its misleading title.  Combining the words "monster" and "Karloff" together would logically indicate "horror", but this is not the case.  Instead, the film is a dull and moronically plotted crime caper where Karloff plays a drug kingpin mascaraing as a philanthropist who kidnaps the daughter of a drug task force agent because stupid.  Besides a quick introduction, Karloff is absent throughout the rest of the first act which leaves all the time in the world for a snore-inducing love triangle and some badly-dubbed military officers and criminals to talk to each other.  Even the Ischia island setting is poorly utilized since Augusto Tiezzi's cinematography is merely of the "point the camera at the actors until they're done saying stuff" variety.  Karloff does his respectable best and was still spry enough at this point in his career to perform some physical action, but there is hardly enough overall for him to do to elevate such uninspired tripe.  Hopefully he at least got a nice vacation out of the assignment.

 

UNCLE WAS A VAMPIRE

(1959)

Dir - Stefano Vanzina

Overall: WOOF

Christopher Lee makes his first of many appearances in an Italian production, playing a member of the undead for the second time following his breakthrough in Hammer's Horror of Dracula with Uncle Was a Vampire, (Tempi duri per i vampiri, Dracula is My Uncle, Hard Times for Vampires, Hard Times for Dracula, My Uncle, the Vampire).  Sending up his image already in a hare-brained slapstick comedy directed by Stefano "Steno" Vanzina who is mostly known in his home country for making such movies, Lee proves to have a keener sense of humor than anyone else involved in the proceedings here, which are exactly as stupid and not-funny as one would suspect.  As was common for Italian movies of the era, there are numerous people credited with screenwriting yet none of them were able to come up with any amusing gags.  Renato Rascel portrays your typical weaselly protagonist until he becomes a vampire, which ushers in much dopey mugging and monologuing to himself in a reverberated voice.  Lee fans will be doubly disappointed since he disappears for the entire second act and is dubbed in English by a guy with an Italian accent, making this one of the horror icon's least essential movies by a mile.

1950s Italian Horror Part One - (Mario Bava Edition)

I VAMPIRI

(1957)

Dir - Riccardo Freda/Mario Bava

Overall: MEH

Both Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava can be credited with ushering in the Italian horror movie in the sound age since I Vampiri, (The Vampire, The Devil's Commandment, Lust of the Vampire), was the first such vehicle produced at a time when the country's film industry was exponentially booming, yet genre pictures such as this were not on the menu.  Freda and Bava, (the latter who acted as cinematographer, uncredited special effects supervisor, and director on the last two days of shooting), convinced Titanus Studios executive Goffredo Lombardo to let them make a horror film in less than two weeks and on the cheap once Freda produced a script in one day.  Set in the modern era to avoid period costumes and filmed on pre-existing sets, the results show both the rushed production and lack of budget.  Still, decrepit scenery and a mad scientist laboratory are atmospheric additions, the story borrows from familiar sources such as the legend of Elizabeth Bathory, and on the make-up effects side, it utilizes some of the same camera tricks that the legendary 1931 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde did.  A historically important milestone in European horror, but it lacks the mood and flair of the filmmaker's later works and is understandably a mediocre first attempt at Gothic Euro-horror.

THE DAY THE SKY EXPLODED

(1958)

Dir - Mario Bava/Paolo Heusch

Overall: WOOF

 

Recognized as Italy's first science fiction film, The Day the Sky Exploded, (La morte viene dallo spazio, Death Comes From Space, Death Comes From Outer Space), is essentially a stock footage montage that is interjected with characters in a control room panicking.  A precursor to Michael Bay's blockbuster turkey Armageddon, the story concerns an incoming meteor shower that threatens the entire planet, causing apocalyptic destruction before scientists and astronauts figure out a way to stop it.  Completely sterile melodrama is haphazardly tossed in to provide it with some sort of human element, but a couple's heartfelt reunion, a ladies man trying to smooth over a woman, and one guy snapping under the pressure by proclaiming that mankind has doomed itself due to our building of nuclear missiles, it all come off as an afterthought just to have some more dialog exchanges to break up the recycled disaster footage.  Though Paolo Heusch was officially credited as director, various cast and crew members proclaimed that cinematographer/special effects man Mario Bava was mainly in charge of the proceedings.  Thankfully there are a few above-average camera angles and shots that are eerily lit due to Bava's always keen eye for visuals, but this is an inconsequential saving grace to a relentlessly boring movie with no other redeemable qualities.

CALTIKI - THE IMMORTAL MONSTER

(1959)

Dir - Riccardo Freda/Mario Bava

Overall: MEH

Riccardo Freda and again cinematographer turned co-director Mario Bava join forces to unofficially remake The Quartermass Xperiment for a European audience.  Caltiki - The Immortal Monster, (Caltiki, il mostro immortale), was another historically noteworthy film in Italian cinema, being one of the country's early sci-fi outings that gave the careers of both Freda and Bava another push into genre terrain.  Unfortunately though, the film itself is dull, mundane, and derivative of its Hammer source material.  Some of the dialog and one random car crash are laughable in a way that is likely not intended, plus the American dubbing does not help the accidental awkwardness any more than bad dubbing ever does.  Bava handles a number of special effect shots and though he is clearly working with unconvincing miniatures and a Doctor Who worthy monster, these scenes are cleverly shot in heavy shadows that, (along with being in black and white), do enough to hide the budget constraints.  It is also a nice touch that a Mayan curse element is brought in as a foundation, though plenty of "superstitions natives and greedy white men on jungle expeditions resulting in their doom" cliches are also present.

1950s Foreign Horror Part Four

ALRAUNE
(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.

 

EL FANTASMA DE LE OPERETA
(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.

 

INVASION OF THE ANIMAL PEOPLE

(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.

1950s Foreign Horror Part Three

THE WITCH

(1952)

Dir - Roland af Hällström

Overall: MEH

An odd folk horror/sex romp hybrid, The Witch, (Noita palaa elämään, Return of the Witch), is notable for being one of Finland's earliest works in the genre, as well as for its liberal nudity and risque dialog.  Director Roland af Hällström and screenwriters Viljo Hela and Kaarlo Nuorvala adapt Mika Waltari's 1947 novel of the same name, presenting it as a lighthearted fairy tale with a simple enough message that wickedness resides in all of us and to a more chauvinistic extent, that "All women are witches".  This is more ironic when viewing since the men come off the worst, with Mirja Mane's titular character effortlessly enticing every guy on the screen, all of whom cannot stop having innuendo-laced conversations and taking her in their arms as much as they condemn her for having such horny control over their genitals.  Mane spends a significant portion of the film in her birthday suit and when her clothes are kept on, she still frolics, manically amuses herself, and bites people in a playful manner, giving the movie a type of taboo-pushing glee that outshines any potential atmospheric elements.  Such things are undone by a horrendously inappropriate musical score that plays arbitrarily during scenes and seems to have been plucked out of a different film.  The plot is also monotonous and chatty, making this more of a historical curiosity than anything else.

THE BLACK VAMPIRE

(1953)

Dir - Román Viñoly Barreto

Overall: GOOD

 

Equipped with one of the most misleading titles imaginable, The Black Vampire, (El vampiro negro), features neither any members of the undead nor any black people, and is instead an Argentinian film noir reworking of Fritz Lang's seminal M.  Though more pathetic than menacing, Nathán Pinzón makes a fittingly eerie Peter Lorre stand-in, still managing to look like a beaten down puppy even when going into a rage.  Though it keeps the angle of the killer targeting children, the blind beggar recognizing his whistling, and his capture by way of the city's underbelly citizens, every other plot aspect is unique to this version and it adds more dynamics to the murder's persona, as well as a sexually frustrated police detective and a working girl whose daughter is Pinzón's would-be final victim, both of whom take up the majority of the narrative.  Though it is not paced as compellingly as Lang's original and is nowhere near as suspenseful, director Román Viñoly Barreto pulls off an agreeably dark final act.  The real star of the show though is Aníbal González Paz' expressive cinematography, lighting prominent eye lines and casting sinister shadows in every frame.

JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING OF TIME 

(1955)
Dir - Karel Zeman
Overall: MEH

A notable fusing of 2D and 3D model animation with live action, Journey to the Beginning of Time, (Cesta do pravěku), serves its purpose as a lightweight educational film for its era.  Director Karel Zemun had and would continue to make a number of movies that relied heavily on special effects and animation, and this one takes its narrative cue from two novels, Vladimir Obruchev's Plutonia from 1915 and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World from 1912.  Throwing four jolly-wiz teenagers into a raft where they inexplicably end up in and innocently explore Earth's bygone, pre-human eras is dopey stuff, but it works fine in the context of a documentary where the kids constantly notify the audience as to the specifics of their findings.  The American re-edited throws in bookending segments at the American Museum of Natural History in New York that "explain" the movie's events as an elaborate dream, but the bulk of the film was shot at a Czech nature reserve, two different rivers, and conventional studio sets.  The prehistoric beast shots are noticeably smoother than Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion and blend with the young actors as well as any from the time period, but there are also puppets utilized as well as a convincing, life-sized model of a defunct Stegosaurus.

1950s Mexican Horror Part Two

EL MONSTRUO RESUCITADO

(1953)

Dir - Chano Urueta

Overall: MEH

 

A mad scientist who lives in a mansion behind a cemetery, likes to dress up like the Phantom of the Opera, play the piano like the Phantom of the Opera, and have a liking towards wax statures, El Monstruo resucitado, (The Revived Monster), throws as many ingredients as it can muster into its main bad guy, played in an expressionless monster mask by José María Linares-Rivas.  One of the earliest Mexican horror films to usher in a boom of them that took direct inspiration from Universal's classic output, director Chano Urueta handles the material with a heavy atmospheric hand.  The sets are appropriately dreary, especially the Gothic abode of Linares-Rivas whose main mannequin-decorated chamber room, expansive laboratory, graveyard front lawn, and dungeon area where he keeps a caged up brute all manage to exceed the low-budget.  Unfortunately, the pacing is disastrously slack as the movie bounces between about three locations and follows just as many characters who say little to advance the plot, though say a lot they certainly do.  Talky and bland despite its silly premise, it merely stands as a historically important genre film from its era and country.

 

EL CASTILLO DE LOS MONSTRUOS

(1958)

Dir - Julián Soler

Overall: MEH

 

Another dopey Mexican horror comedy from an era that had a particular penchant for them, El castillo de los monstruos, (The Castle of the Monsters), stems from director Julián Soler and throws every classic monster available on the screen for a small handful of minutes while padding ninety percent of the running time with the unfunny antics of Antonio "Clavillazo" Espino.  To be fair, Espino is less grating than your Germán "Tin-Tan" Valdéses and Manuel "Loco" Valdéses, but while likeable, he still ends up doing nothing remotely funny besides wearing clothes that are too big for him and falling down a set of stairs to cartoon sound effects.  As far as the ghoulish personnel, we have a mad scientist, a Neanderthal-esque brute, a gill man, a Frankenstein monster butler, a deformed lab assistant henchman, a mummy, a werewolf, and Mexico's favorite on-screen vampire Germán Robles reprising his undead foe in a non-speaking part that is only a notch above a cameo.  The burgeoning romance story is nothing worth paying attention to, which is a problem since we are stuck with it until the last act which is finally when the movie remembers that it was supposed to have monsters in it.

THE MAN AND THE MONSTER

(1958)

Dir - Rafael Baledón

Overall: MEH

 

Fusing the Faust legend in with a little Phantom of the Opera and Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, (and all with a monster that looks like a werewolf), The Man and the Monster, (El hombre y el monstruo), was the first of several horror films from director Rafael Baledón.  Arriving at the cusp of the genre's boom in Mexico, it throws back to Universal's 1930s and 40s output with some well-established tropes at its disposal, plus Raúl Martínez Solares' shadow-heavy cinematography creates the right macabre mood.  Besides the story itself which is borderline ridiculous, there are a few unintentionally funny moments like when a journalist arrives at a house that all of the villagers are afraid of and tries to use the phone, only for the cold woman at the door to merely "Nnnnnope" her head back 'n forth before nonchalantly closing it.  Enrique Rambal narrating his own backstory to absolutely no one just so the viewers can be brought up to speed is silly, plus he looks more goofy than menacing in his Mr. Hyde bestial form that only comes out when either he plays the piano or someone else does, depending on what the plot needs to happen.  Far from a classic, but not without some charm.

1950s Fernando Méndez Part Two

THE BLACK PIT OF DR. M
(1959)
Overall: GOOD

 

One of the more singular entries in Mexico's golden age of horror, The Black Pit of Dr. M, (Misterios de ultratumba, Mysteries from Beyond the Grave), throws together Gothic cinematography, melodramatic performances, seances, an insane asylum, ghosts, and a little bit of Faustian "Be careful what you wish for" warnings from the afterlife.  Screenwriter Ramón Obón was and would continue to be as versed in the macabre as director Fernando Méndez was for yet another pairing between the two, crafting something that stylistically is in keeping with Universal's 1930s and 40s output, yet unique in its narrative.  Mankind's curiosity for what lies beyond is at the heart of Rafael Bertrand obsession, which grows to include his dead colleague's daughter Mapita Cortés who has eyes for a more age-appropriate man.  Yet the intermingling of violent tragedy and the supernatural is wonderfully realized by Méndez and Víctor Herrera's camerawork, which is endlessly atmospheric in a traditional dark and spooky sense.  Throw in Gastón Santos going for gusto in the final act with deformed make-up on, and the film provides a little bit of a lot of things with a more sincere tone than most unintentionally silly Mexican genre exports from the era allowed.

LOS DIABLOS DEL TERROR
(1959)
Overall: MEH

 

A Western with a mysterious horseback cult wearing luchador masks because Mexico, Los diablos del terror, (Night Riders), does not properly convey any horror atmosphere despite its catchy title.  Like most south of the border filmmakers, Fernando Méndez had made his share of low-rent Westerns as much as he had made anything in any other genre and he utilizes the usual array of clean, eye-catching costumes and fist-fights in place of pistol shoot-outs because apparently the prop gun department was low on blanks.  Though the day for night scenes are as pathetic as any that were ever filmed, Méndez and cinematographer Victor Herrera manage to get a lot of mileage out of colorful backlighting that make the otherwise cheap sets pop off the screen better than they have any business to, especially in some underground cave sequences.  There is also a bumbling comic relief cohort who gets fly paper stuck to him over and over again while having a terrible time remembering that he can just use his hands to take it off, plus we have a ridiculous prison escape where a horse and a flimsy piece of rope manages to rip an entire cell wall off within a few seconds.  Harmlessly silly, but too sluggish and cheap to be of much interest.

THE LIVING COFFIN
(1959)
Overall: MEH

 

The sequel to the same year's Los diablos del terror, The Living Coffin, (El grito de la muerte, Scream of Death), is another horror/Western hybrid that comparatively adheres closer to the former genre than its companion film does.  Actor's Gastón Santos and Pedro de Aguillón reunite as the dashing gunslinger hero and his bumbling sidekick, both of whom square off against La Llorona herself.  The Western elements are mitigated to two fistfights amongst cowboys who forget that they have guns and Santos' apparently human-brained horse being able to save him from drowning in quicksand with a lasso, with the emphasis being on people who are convinced that "The Crying Woman" is behind a series of town murders.  Director Fernando Méndez keeps the lights down low for most of the alleged specter's appearances, framing some atmospheric shots of quiet alleyways and a candlelit house where family members jump at the sound of a ringing bell.  It all ends up being nothing more than a Scooby-Doo worthy ruse though and once again Aguillón's doofy mannerisms are completely out of place with the otherwise sincere and eerie tone.