10/06/09: SUSPENSE: A CASK OF AMONTILLADO (TV) (Robert Stevens, 1949) 
Although I have been familiar with Edgar Allan Poe's original story since childhood (from an abridged illustrated version of it intended for children’s consumption), this is only the second film adaptation that I have watched, the other being (of course) the second story in Roger Corman's three-part compendium TALES OF TERROR (1962) – and neither of them was completely faithful to its source. Part of the long- running TV anthology series SUSPENSE, it proved to be horror icon Bela Lugosi's very first work after the last hurrah –is wonderful turn as Count Dracula in ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948) – and before his subsequent fall from grace into Z-grade movieland. Technically, his thick Hungarian accent serves him well in the role of the wine-loving fascist Italian General Fortunato (oddly enough, the events are transposed to the WWII-era) but I had difficulty understanding some of his lines; Romney Brent as his vengeful brother-in-law Montresor makes for a fine antagonist. Curiously, the story starts in (and occasionally cuts back to) the U.S. Army H.Q. in Italy where Brent tells his murderous story in great detail to the chagrin of the openly mocking and impatient desk soldier (Ray Walston!) on the one hand and his inebriated superior on the other – sequences which, while certainly amusing in themselves, rather unbalances the 30-minute short.
10/06/09: GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS: TREASURE OF ABBOT THOMAS (TV) (Lawrence Gordon Clark, 1974)
An interestingly historical and enjoyably deductive episode of this yearly series adapted, as were several entries, from an M. R. James short story – which apparently also inspired the Dario Argento production THE CHURCH (1990) – about the search for a treasure hidden away years before in a monastery catacombs. The seekers are a current member of the religious order (Michael Bryant) and his enthusiastic young pupil; the latter's mother often employs the services of a would-be medium to conduct seances with the object of contacting her late husband but, in an early highlight, Bryant exposes the proceedings as a sham by interrogating the spirit – supposedly of a past man of the cloth – in both Latin and French to confirm or disprove his veracity. Their investigation of the treasure’s whereabouts take them to a chapel with tell-tale illustrated windows and stony gargoyles seemingly pointing to the hidden loot. Since the clues are given out in the form of Latin riddles or quotations, it can prove somewhat heavy-going at times and the scenes depicting the attacks of the slimy guardian are very hurriedly dealt with, the panic-stricken Bryant being left with the burden of projecting the real horror of what he had infact confronted. The climax – in which Bryant is about to get his comeuppance by supposedly meeting the abbott face to face while convalescing wheelchair-bound in a garden – takes place off-screen but still provides a satisfyingly creepy coda.
10/06/09: 4D MAN (Irwin S. Yeaworth, Jr., 1959)
The second Jack H. Harris-Irwin S. Yeaworth collaboration is a more celebral effort (being an outright sci-fi piece) than its more famous predecessor THE BLOB (1958). Typically for the genre, it deals with a scientist becoming accidentally endowed with some form of superhuman ability (in this case, passing through solids) – the downside to this is that he ages every time this feat is accomplished…but, then, coming to contact with other people, he is able to sap their energy and bring about his own rejuvenation! Robert Lansing – whom I fondly recall from the TV series AUTOMAN (1983-84) that I used to watch during childhood – is adequate in the title role but his brash younger brother (who is actually the catalyst for the transformation) is less likeable; as a result, while Lee Meriwether makes for a lovely conflicted heroine (being engaged to Lansing but falling for his younger sibling), their budding relationship sorely feels like a plot contrivance. Besides, Robert Strauss is cast against type as a scientist who is not above appropriating a colleague’s work for his own advancement. Even though boasting variable effects (particularly the ageing make-up) and ending somewhat inconclusively, the film remains an eminently watchable and thought-provoking piece that should please fans of the genre and the era which spawned it.
10/06/09: THE MYSTERIOUS DOCTOR (Benjamin Stoloff, 1943)
I cannot say I was aware of this one before our own Michael Elliott gave it a thumbs up not that long ago; actually emerging as only borderline horror, it effectively mingles a traditional plot – an English village, complete with hulking idiot and disfigured bartender hiding his features behind a hood(!), lives in fear of an ancient curse involving a headless ghost – with topical (i.e. WWII) concerns. The village mine was being utilized to produce tin for the Allied cause so the Axis powers apparently felt the need to send out one of their own to intermingle in the community and recreate by night the legend of The Headless Ghost, thus curtailing the mining operations which are subsequently abandoned. The prerequisite foggy atmosphere is thickly laid on, the plot is fairly engaging and the modest but pleasing cast – squire John Loder, the lovely Eleanor Parker, title character Lester Matthews, dim-witted Matt Willis, etc. – is sympathetic to the material at hand. Besides, being a compact 57-minute ‘B’ flick, it is essentially comparable in quality and effect to the likes of Fox’s DR. RENAULT’S SECRET and THE UNDYING MONSTER (both 1942).
10/07/09: DINOSAURUS! (Irwin S. Yeaworth, Jr., 1960)
The third (and least) of the three successive Jack H. Harris/Irwin S. Yeaworth Jr. collaborations I have watched is, unfortunately, marred by an overly juvenile approach and a completely anonymous cast. Nuclear bomb tests in a Mexican village unearth a Brontosaurus, a Tyrannousaurus Rex and even a Neanderthal man; the latter is befriended by an obnoxious kid while, at the same time, being targeted by the villain (the boy’s sadistic guardian) for exploitation purposes as a potentially lucrative sideshow attraction! There is the expected havoc by the dinosaurs, of course, though none of it is remotely memorable, I am sorry to say. Apparently, Steve McQueen was originally intended to star in this as well but, owing to how difficult he proved to be during the shooting of THE BLOB (1958), he was replaced by the bland Ward Ramsey. For what it is worth, the highlight of this film are not the cut-rate special effects but the amusing sequence depicting the cavemen at bay in the modern-day settings of a kitchen and living room! Useless bit of trivia: all three of these Harris-Yeaworth movies that I watched amusingly end [sic] with a question mark next to "The End" title!
10/07/09: TERROR OF FRANKENSTEIN (Calvin Floyd, 1977)
I had always been intrigued by this Swedish-Irish production(!) - a follow-up to the same film-makers' lackluster IN SEARCH OF DRACULA (1975) - for being the screen’s most faithful rendering (even more so than the disappointing "official” 1994 adaptation by Francis Ford Coppola and Kenneth Branagh) of the oft-filmed Mary Shelley horror tale; while it is decidedly uninspired and choppy in treatment, its essentially literate and stately approach makes the most of the novel’s classical plot and, as a result, it remains full of interest throughout. At first, I felt that Leon Vitali – who, after appearing in BARRY LYNDON (1975), became Stanley Kubrick’s long-time assistant! – was too youthful in appearance to be convincing in the title role but one must remember that, after all, he was supposed to be a medical student. On the other hand, distinguished Swedish actor Per Oscarsson (whose face is effictively made up in a deathly pallor complete with darkened lips) brings out all of the creature’s various qualities: an imposing build, his confusion and solitude and, eventually, a lust for vengeance towards his resentful maker. Though obviously a low-budget effort, the film still manages to approximate the narrative’s epic sweep without, however, resorting to overstatement – a fault which lies at the heart of the later ‘definitive’ Hollywood version’s artistic (and commercial) failure. For the record, even though I am familiar with many another film version of the famous story, there are still a few more which I need to see, namely the 1973 Dan Curtis TV-adaptation, the darkly-comic modern French take of Alain Jessua’s FRANKENSTEIN ‘90 (1984) and the futuristic Roger Corman version, FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND (1990).
10/07/09: GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS: THE ASH TREE (TV) (Lawrence Gordon Clark, 1975)
Another gothic horror story from the spine-tingling pen of M.R. James dramatized by the BBC to provide Yuletide shivers for its dedicated viewership: this episode dwells on the familiar themes of both possession (the new heir to an English title and manor relives the experiences of his ancestor) and witch-hunting (the ancestor's evidence of a middle-aged woman's transformation into a wild animal damns her to expire on the pyre but not before unleashing the proverbial curse on his successors). Edward Petherbridge, a dead-ringer for Anthony Higgins, is an appropriately confused protagonist as he shifts from one epoch to the other and, indeed, these unheralded recurrences give this particular episode a unique element of pretentious artiness missing from previous and successive episodes in this series. The real coup here, though, is the genuinely unnerving appearance of a clutch of little monsters which spring from the ash tree to devour their sleeping victim.
10/07/09: ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS: THE SCHARTZ-METTERKLUME METHOD (Richard Dunlap, 1960)
The genre tags on IMDb for this unrewarding "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" episode misled me into thinking that it had horror elements involved amd thus adequate fodder for this ongoing Halloween Challenge. As it turned out, its fantasy elements were very mild indeed as it tells of an eccentric governess (Hermoine Gingold) to a quartet of children whose proactive teaching methods in biology and history brings her in direct confrontation with their conservative parents (one of whom, the ineffectual father, is played by Tom Conway). I don't know if Gingold was supposed to be a precursor of sorts to Mary Poppins but the twist ending - revealing her to be a croquet-playing member of high society herself - actually reminded me more of the worker-bishop delightfully portrayed by Julien Bertheau in Luis Bunuel's sublime masterpiece THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE (1972)!
Edited by Mario Gauci - 10/10/09 at 10:31am
