30's Foreign Horror Part Four

LE GOLEM

(1936)

Dir - Julien Duvivier

Overall: MEH

Stylized as a sequel to Paul Wegener's seminal 1920 film The Golem: How He Came into the World, French filmmaker Julien Duvivier's Le Golem, (The Man of Stone, The Legend of Prague, Golem), is a Czech production that fails to capture much of the majesty inherent in the movie that it is following.  Jiří Voskovec and Jan Werich originally penned the script based on their own play, setting it in the same Prague ghetto as the silent film which is once again under the oppression of the Holy Roman Emperor.  Though some money was clearly spent on the costume and set design, there is little compelling, German Expressionist styled atmosphere and virtually no mystical and/or supernatural components whatsoever to the story.  Most problematic though is that the title monster does absolutely nothing until the final ten minutes of the running time, meaning that nearly the entire thing serves as one elongated build-up to some much deserved Jewish vengeance.  Actor Ferdinand Hart makes a towering impression as the golem in question, but his makeup seems to have been applied as an afterthought and all that he really ends up doing is stomping around slowly while people scream and run away from him.

THE GHOST CAT AND THE MYSTERIOUS SHAMISEN

(1938)

Dir - Kiyohiko Ushihara

Overall: MEH

An early, surviving Japanese kaibyō eiga film, The Ghost Cat and the Mysterious Shamisen, (Kaibyō nazo no shamisen, Ghost Cat's Mysterious Shamisen), goes for some drawn-out atmosphere that overstays its welcome by later cinematic standards, yet it is at least an interesting footnote for being one of the few genre films in the country to be produced so closely to the outbreak of World War II.  After a highly prolific career beginning in the silent era, this would be the final movie from the 1930s made by director Kiyohiko Ushihara who would go on to do only two more, each a decade apart from each other.  It has a typical concept of a victimized woman who comes back from the dead under supernatural means, yet her vengeance is ultimately carried out through the assistance of her surviving loved ones.  The story is simple and as the title would suggest, almost the only music present is from the title instrument which is played by a handful of characters, thus giving the movie a more intimate feel that early talkies inherently had.  There are a few relatively creepy moments, but they are few and far between, only arriving after a meandering build up that makes the movie feel longer than it actually is.

DE SPOOKTREIN

(1939)

Dir - Carl Lamac

Overall: MEH

One of the numerous cinematic interpretations of Arnold Ridley's stage play The Ghost Train, De Spooktrein is the Dutch version from Czech filmmaker Carl Lamac, essentially following the same trajectory as adaptations past and present.  Save for a couple of red herrings and some ominous lighting, the supernatural elements which are obliviously implied by the very title are quite underplayed to the point of being nonexistent.  Instead, the movie is comedy first and foremost and while it is not particularly amusing at any intervals, it at least gets by with unembarrassing gags as well as likeable enough characters and performances, which is a lot more than can be said about the atrocious British remake two years later that starred the painfully not funny Arthur Askey ruining every second that he was in front of the camera.  Once the twist is revealed here and the entire thing switches gears to a train robbery crime film, Lamac stages some suspenseful moments with the limited amount of time that the meager seventy-minutes allows.  As is problematic for the source material itself though, the genre switch is too abrupt and underdeveloped to gain any momentum.