Doctor_Mabuse Reviews

The World of Abbott and Costello (1965)

4/10 **/5 ~ Abbott and Costello Meet Exploitation.

[4/10 · 2 May 2005]

This compilation feature does a disservice to the memory of the beloved comedy team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. The film is a random selection of scenes from the team's Universal films, assembled in evident haste, with none of the care or respect of Robert Youngson's comedy documentaries, and burdened with a condescending narration by Jack E. Leonard. The non-stop footage of the boys makes it a breezy enough light entertainment but a poor introduction to Abbott and Costello.

To its credit the film offers clips from a few of Abbott and Costello's best films (Buck Privates, Who Done It?, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, In the Navy, Buck Privates Come Home) and several memorable ones (Ride 'Em Cowboy, Hit the Ice, In Society, The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap). And the immortal "Who's On First?" routine, as performed in The Naughty Nineties, is duly featured as an appropriate finale.

Yet, with all the riches at their disposal, producer Milton Subotsky and editorial director Sidney Meyer focused inordinately on the team's later, lesser films: Little Giant, Mexican Hayride, Abbott and Costello In the Foreign Legion, Abbott and Costello Go to Mars, Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops, Comin' Round the Mountain, Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy and the notorious Lost in Alaska.

It is inexplicable that such mediocre material would be consciously chosen over classics like Hold That Ghost, Keep 'Em Flying, Pardon My Sarong, It Ain't Hay, Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man and (supremely) The Time of Their Lives. Clearly the compilers had little knowledge or appreciation of the subject of their film. The resulting curio is an unintended insult to classic movie comedy.

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)

7/10 ~ 4/5 ~ Imperfectly Wonderful Ray Harryhausen Fantasy Fun.

[7/10 · 10 March 2005]

Sinbad the Sailor voyages to the mythic northern realm of Hyperborea to restore a caliph from an evil witch's transformation.

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, the follow-up to the classics The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, is an uneven conclusion to Ray Harryhausen's celebrated "Sinbad Trilogy". The troubled production began with a draggy script, budgetary restrictions and an inexperienced director; the film as released suffers from choppy editing, over-length and routine music scoring. One animation highlight (the giant walrus) is obscured by an optical snowstorm. The attractive cast performs listlessly and the villain is campy rather than truly menacing, although former "Doctor Who" Patrick Troughton is delightful as a befuddled wizard.

Yet, for all its flaws, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger remains an entertaining escapade in the old-fashioned Saturday-Matinée tradition. Costuming and settings are colorful and the film looks handsome in widescreen. The quest for the mystical Shrine of the Four Elements has a particularly epic quality with the usual eclectic blend of mythical elements set against the backdrop of the Arabian Nights.

Most importantly, Harryhausen's realistic stop-motion animation is as extraordinary as ever, with two of the animated-puppet creatures -- Kassim the Baboon and Trog the Troglodyte -- successfully functioning as actual communicative characters within the body of the story. Other wonders include insectoid demons, an over-sized mosquito, Minaton the Brass Minotaur and the saber-tooth tiger of the title.

Genuine movie fantasy is a rare commodity, and Ray Harryhausen's vision and conviction shine through the circumstances of production to make this a satisfying final visit to the land beyond Beyond.

Miracle of the White Stallions (1963)

7/10 ****/5 ~ Underrated, intelligent, mature Walt Disney adventure.

[7/10 · 14 May 2004]

This exceptional live-action Walt Disney adventure-drama might have benefited from a warmer actor in the lead role, but Robot Taylor (pun intended) nevertheless brings strength and conviction to the part of an angry but caring man. The supporting cast is uniformly excellent, especially Lilli Palmer and Curt Jurgens who supply a depth of emotion to a dry and unsentimental story.

The film works the family-oriented animal interest of the Lippizan horses into the framework of a dramatic and often suspenseful wartime adventure. One needn't be a horse-lover to be caught up in the story and end up caring about the animals which in this film are symbols of art, grace and beauty surviving a war-torn world. The audience is teased with glimpses of the stallions at play and in training and learns to appreciate their value so that the full-blown horse-show finale comes as a welcome joy.

The well-produced movie was filmed on location in Austria and is handsomely photographed. There is a gripping battle scene and adults will be impressed with the maturity of the entire project.

The Concorde... Airport '79 (1979)

2/10 */5 ~ "Please do not misconscrew me. Can't the drone be reprogrammed? What a pathetic joke!"

[2/10 · 12 April 2004]

The original Airport (1970) was a classic of its kind, and the first two B-movie follow-ups (Airport 1975; Airport '77) were watchable fun at best, amusing camp at worst; but this crass and inept final entry lacks any entertainment value and displays a shocking contempt for its audience. It's unendurable and not even good for laughs.

All of the three "Airport" sequels were theatrical releases made by Universal's television wing but this one is beneath even the modest standards of a TV movie of its day, with cheapjack production, grotesque casting, visual ugliness and tasteless, unfunny "comedy". The project was clearly doomed by the "creative" efforts of Universal executive Jennings Lang who personally produced and is given a "story" credit.

Everyone starts somewhere, and writer Eric Roth (Forrest Gump) might have provided an element of self-burlesque, as had the previous films (especially the notorious Airport 1975), but there is nothing worth spoofing in Roth's turgid, incoherent script and even the comedy Airplane! left this crud untouched.

What makes The Concorde: Airport '79 particularly offensive is its insulting misuse of professionals. The worst victim is the supremely gifted Cicily Tyson (Sounder; The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman), pitilessly reduced to a vomitous subplot involving her escorting a frozen heart transplant on the unfortunate flight.

A special kick to the groin is reserved for the wonderful George Kennedy, who is the true lead despite being buried in the cast list. The official mascot of the "Airport" series and the only actor to appear in all four movies, Kennedy had more than earned the starring role and his turn in the Captain's seat would have been the only possible reason for this entry other than the squeezing of one last buck. Kennedy provides the only warmth and real humor in this mechanical muckup, briefly putting aside the bravura machismo and revealing a genuinely sweet and tender side to himself, and his lovable and heroic character of "Joe Patroni". Unfortunately we are never allowed to forget how fat and old and over-the-hill Kennedy is, and overage pretty-boy Alain Delon relentlessly calls him "Porky Pig" as part of a buddy-bonding that falls completely flat. Even Kennedy's Parisian romance, the only humane part of this plane-wreck, turns out to be merely a set-up for a hateful joke at Patroni's, Kennedy's, and the viewer's expense.

Herbie Goes Bananas (1980)

3/10 **/5 ~ Beloved Bug Bites Bottom.

[3/10 · 5 April 2004]

This third and last theatrical sequel to the classic Walt Disney Production The Love Bug (1969) brought the enormously successful franchise about a magical Volkswagen to a screeching halt. Herbie deserved a better send-off.

There's just no love left in the poor little disrespected cash-car. Filmed on the cheap in Mexico, this entry has none of the quality and charm of its original and trashes all that was good about the preceding sequels. Vincent McEveety, the weakest of Disney's three main directors during this period, was assigned the project after having done a fair job with Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, but makes no effort to elevate the project above the level of its poor script.

The frenetic, maudlin result is one of the worst Disney films. Talented comic performers Harvey Korman, Cloris Leachman and Charles Martin Smith are wasted on unfunny material. Only the clever stunt and effects work save this mechanical destruction derby from oblivion.

The Love Bug was eventually revived for a brief TV series and made-for-TV movie, but Disney was flogging a dead V-Dub.

Chicago (2002)

10/10 *****/5 ~ Ideal filming of Broadway masterpiece lacks "Class".

[10/10 · 1 March 2004]

Chicago triumphs in meeting and overcoming enormous challenges in adapting a seemingly unfilmable, high-concept stage piece for the screen. The solutions found by director Rob Marshall and screenwriter Bill Condon are not only ingenious, but they "work", and the resulting cinematic/theatrical hybrid is one of the most exciting Musical films since Bob Fosse's Cabaret (1972) -- not that much competition has been available in the anti-Musical interim.

The Chicago/Cabaret comparison is both inevitable and valid, yet the two films are as different as they are similar. Fosse's Cabaret was a radical reinventing of its stage original which threw out the book and half the songs, starting from scratch with a fresh screenplay and a wholly realistic, "in-performance" approach to each musical number. Chicago, on the other hand, goes to great lengths to maintain its innate theatricality in a fresh cinematic context.

Okay, enough already, you've read it all before: This is a wonderful film of an American Musical masterpiece. Especially impressive is Marshall's vivid evocation of the cinematic and editorial manner of Fosse's five brilliant films as director (Sweet Charity, Cabaret, Lenny, All That Jazz and Star 80) while avoiding any slavish imitation of Fosse's approach to the original Broadway Chicago or to that one-and-only Fosse choreographic style. The Fellini influence (Variety Lights in this case), the contrasting reality/fantasy sequences, the vicious fascination with the cult of Celebrity, the obsession with death and the extravagant razzle-dazzle showmanship are all there, but the the film both embraces and transcends Fosse to become an entity of its own.

It is in this arena that the film attains its greatness, but the performances in the center ring are its most amazing feature: Catherine Zeta-Jones' super-pro Oscar devastation; pug-nosed-dream John Reilly's sweet-heartbreak "Mr. Cellophane"; and that incandescent "who knew?" miracle, Renee Zellweger. "All That Jazz", "Roxie" and "Nowadays" take their places among the all-time great movie-musical numbers.

The one regrettable error is the cutting of the memorably vulgar song "Class", surely one of the highlights of the John Kander-Fred Ebb score. It is generally for the best that several songs were dropped from the score, but the film's lack of "Class" is an unconscionable blunder. Marshall and Condon stage a three-ring circus of their own on the DVD commentary track to explain and validate this post-filming decision as Compromising the Film's Conceptual Integrity, yada yada yada, but nothing justifies divesting Chicago of this distinctive song -- or robbing the astonishing Queen Latifa of a second number. It's nice that the scene is included as an extra on the DVD, but until Marshall relents and restores it to a future cut, the film will remain incomplete.

Even its "Classlessness", however, cannot prevent Chicago from being a great movie Musical.

Supergirl (1984)

8/10 ****/5 ~ Super Science-Fantasy Entertainment.

[8/10 · 22 October 2003]

Although it never achieves the extraordinary level of Richard Donner's masterly Superman (1978) and Richard Lester's Superman II, Supergirl escapes relatively unscathed from the production troubles that damaged others in the Alexander and Ilya Salkind series.

Screenwriter David O'Dell (The Dark Crystal) adapts the classic comic as an imaginative fairy tale. The film has the light, fanciful touch director Jeannot Szwarc brought to his memorable romantic fantasy Somewhere in Time. Szwarc had handled Jaws 2 well but his promising career in theatrical features was cut short by the mega-failure of the Salkinds' next would-be blockbuster, Santa Claus (1985).

Helen Slater is an ideal Kara, aka Supergirl, and, as the wicked witch Selena, arch-diva Faye Dunaway spoofs her high-camp Mommie Dearest Joan Crawford persona. And the supporting cast, led by the wonderful Peter O'Toole, has class. Only Hart Bochner's insincere romantic lead misses the mark.

The disastrous reception of Superman III led audiences to stay away and the film developed a bad reputation after the Salkinds' fall from grace in the Santa Claus debacle. The time is ripe for the rediscovery of this maligned popcorn dream as Anchor Bay's recent Director's Cut DVD brings Supergirl to new life.

Howling: New Moon Rising (1995 Video)

1/10 */5 ~ Let's Pretend That There's a Moon. (And a werewolf... And a movie...)

[1/10 · 23 March 2003]

There have been so many terrible horror sequels that whole volumes could be written. One of the worst ever must certainly be Howling: New Moon Rising (unofficially Howling VII). Most of the ersatz, in-name-only, direct-to-video "sequels" to Joe Dante's modern classic The Howling (1981) are enjoyable enough on their own stinky cheese level, but this ... this THING is beyond Limburger.

If you're looking for a werewolf movie, be warned: despite the masquerade this is not a horror film at all but a Country-Western musical filled with instantly dated line-dancing and amateur acts by the denizens of a homespun tavern, with something that barely passes for a werewolf tossed in at the very end -- blink and you'll miss it -- to justify the title. There's nothing wrong with Horror Musicals or Country Musicals (The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is fun), but this is just horrible. Even the ever-popular Hillbillys (sic) in a Haunted House (1967) has more honest spooks than this.

The lead performer, Australian Clive Turner (of the surprisingly decent Howling V: The Rebirth), who also wrote and directed, has an appealing enough personality, but otherwise this vanity production is hopeless. Technically worse movies exist but few are so gallingly deceptive. By comparison, John Hough's cheap, disappointing Howling IV: The Original Nightmare plays like a winner, while Phillipe Mora's notorious Howling II and III are revealed as stylish successors.

Conan the Destroyer (1984)

5/10 ***/5 ~ Saturday Matinée romp is a far cry from Robert E. Howard's creation.

[5/10 · 14 March 2003]

Conan the Cimmerian (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is tricked into helping a princess (Miriam D'Abo) to steal an enchanted jewel which will revive the demon god Dagoth.

Producer Dino De Laurentiis' unworthy follow-up to John Milius' powerful Conan the Barbarian (1982) is passable escapist entertainment in spite of cheap-jack production values (filmed in Mexico), a sub-literate screenplay and listless direction by the usually competent Richard Fleischer (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Fantastic Voyage, Barabbas).

Schwarzenegger's Conan is here wasted on a trivial adventure which resembles the Conan comics more than Robert E. Howard's original stories, with none of the latter's imaginative pulp poetry. The Sword and the Sorcerer, a prominent low-grade Conan cash-in, is a more satisfying Saturday Matinée than this. There is more so-called "magic" in this fantasy than in the first Conan film, but the rubber monsters make it play like a charmless remake of Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger without the wonderful effects artistry. The script, an appalling come-down for writer Stanley Mann, is cursed with unfunny comedy and relentlessly dumb dialogue which make the dubbed Italian Maciste pepla epics of yore seem bright by comparison.

Big Arnold, then just cutting his teeth as a professional actor, is given no opportunity to develop his one-dimensional character, yet commands attention whenever he is front-and-center. The film only comes to life during the fight sequences, which really deliver the goods. A thrilling sword-fight between Conan and one of the Queen's guards is a major highlight.

Otherwise the production's most interesting aspect is the colorful supporting cast, notably scene-stealer Grace Jones, as a ferocious, butt-kicking warrior, and ultra-cool Sarah Douglas (Superman II), in outrageous leather-bondage garb as an Evil Queen. Mako returns as the Dune Wizard, but sports giant Wilt Chamberlain is not allowed to make much of an impression, apart from a display of grunting machismo. Ferdy Mayne (Count Von Krolock of Roman Polanski's The Fearless Vampire Killers) makes an appearance as a wicked sorcerer. There is also the novelty of two future Bond women (D'Abo of The Living Daylights and Jones of A View to a Kill) in leading roles. The movie's nadir is the foolish inclusion of a pipsqueak comic sidekick (Tracey Walter), so annoying that the real Conan would have eaten him for breakfast -- raw.

Instead of making improvements for a third entry in the initially promising Conan series, De Laurentiis squandered Schwarzenegger in an unwanted travesty of Howard's Red Sonja (1985), killing off hopes for further adaptations of the author's work. Recent plans by Schwarzenegger to atone by reviving the character seem to have been ... Terminated.

Thir13en Ghosts (2001)

5/10 ***/5 ~ Slick thrill-ride is visually dazzling but just no fun.

[5/10 · 13 March 2003]

Like their House on Haunted Hill (1999), Dark Castle Entertainment's remake of William Castle's 13 Ghosts (1960) plays as a grade-B cash-in on the misguided new version of The Haunting (1999), emphasizing dazzling visuals, imaginative production design and obligatory CGI effects over good old-fashioned spookery.

Thir13en Ghosts (2001) has none of the charm or chills of Castle's family-friendly Halloween favorite, and the original's mild subversiveness as an Ozzie-and-Harriet ghost story is lost in the imposition of a nasty, nihilistic tone. The keynote is excess, with an overkill of self-canceling thrills.

Master showman Castle, were he alive today, would no doubt have exploited gore and technical effects for all they are worth, but with the restraint necessary to allow the big moments to stand out. Castle would have known when to stop, but this version can't trust itself to entertain and wears out its welcome fast.

It just isn't any fun, although some of the old Castle humor is present in amusing performances by Matthew Lillard, as a professional ghost-buster, and Rah Diggs, as a comic domestic so un-PC as to raise the specter of Mantan Moreland. But the comic material is less funny than cynically clever and self-congratulatory.

Little of Robb White's original story remains, except the situation of a haunted house being inherited by an average All-American family (here an average All-Greco-American family with average All-African-American nanny), and the point-of-view is no longer that of the little boy.

As dead Uncle Cyrus (White's reference to the Old Dark House classic The Cat and the Canary), F. Murray Abraham blesses the film with the kind of juicy, campy presence Vincent Price gave to Castle's House on Haunted Hill (1958) and The Tingler (1959) and which was the essential ingredient missing from the bland original.

Yet the shabby little haunted house of Castle's 13 Ghosts had a warm soul, while this one's dazzling glass mansion-of-the-damned is cold and empty for all its state-of-the-art shocks.

The Spirit Is Willing (1967)

5/10 ***/5 ~ Chilling novel travestied by inappropriate comic treatment.

[5/10 · 13 March 2003]

Nathaniel Benchley (son of humorist Robert Benchley) wrote The Visitors, a frightening novel about a ghostly haunting, which was purchased for filming by legendary Hollywood showman William Castle.

Castle, who had yet to attain respect as producer (but not director) of Roman Polanski's masterly Rosemary's Baby (1968), had recently completed a successful string of blatant imitations of Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), including Homicidal (1961) and Strait-Jacket (1964), and had stumbled with a pair of inept teen-thrillers, I Saw What You Did (1965) and Let's Kill Uncle (1966).

Evidently seeking to expand his audience while maintaining his position as king of schlock horror, Castle re-visioned Benchley's decidedly adult novel as a family comedy along the lines of his bland 13 Ghosts (1960). Unfortunately, Castle was hopeless as a comedy director, as his overly-broad Hammer remake of The Old Dark House (1963) had demonstrated. Humor had been an essential underlying element of Castle's most successful earlier films, The House on Haunted Hill (1958) and The Tingler (1959), but this had been supplied by star Vincent Price and the ironic wit of screenwriter Robb White rather than any knack on the part of the director. Castle persisted and The Spirit Is Willing descended into lazy slapstick, as did its black-comedy follow-up The Busy Body (1967), also starring Sid Caesar.

In and of itself, The Spirit Is Willing is a fun little movie which today carries an aura of tacky nostalgia, but the golden opportunity for a chilling ghostly thriller along the lines of Robert Wise's classic The Haunting (1963) was recklessly thrown away.

It behooves Dark Castle Entertainment, which has been remaking the Castle "classics", to consider a new, dramatic version of the Benchley novel. With the blockbuster success of films like The Sixth Sense, The Others and The Ring, the time is right for The Visitors to arrive.

Bring Me the Vampire (1963)

3/10 **/5 ~ Vintage Mexican Vampire opus with spooky atmosphere but poor comedy.

[3/10 · 15 October 2002]

Échenme al Vampiro (1963) (Bring Me the Vampire) is an unfunny "spooky comedy" set in an Old Dark House and reminiscent of The Cat and the Canary and Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians/And Then There Were None.

The film is contemporary to, but no match for, the classics of the Mexican vampire cinema (notably Fernando Mendez's El Vampiro/The Vampire (1957) and El Ataud del Vampiro/The Vampire's Coffin, and Alfonso Corona Blake's amazing Santo Contra las Mujeres Vampiras/Samson vs. the Vampire Women) which are rich in shadowy atmosphere carefully modeled on the Hollywood Gothic films of the 1930's and 1940's. Students of international mid-century genre films might enjoy the pleasantly spooky visuals.

The low-budget film is one of dozens of Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction films imported to U.S. television and kiddie-matinées by American entrepreneur K. Gordon Murray with unintentionally humorous dubbing done at the infamous Soundlab Studios in Florida (where people must have been literally dragged off the street to do the readings).

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1948)

7/10 ****/5 ~ Classic Christmas cartoon.

[7/10 · 17 December 2001]

This first film version of Robert L. May's story is a color animated cartoon by Max and Dave Fleisher which covers the salient points of the classic holiday saga in a brisk and breezy seven minutes. Rudolph, Santa and Reindeer Games are all in place along with Johnny Marks' beloved song.

The warm and winning short artistically surpasses the better-known Rankin-Bass puppet version but does not quite rival it for charm. Baby Boomers will look in vain for Sam the Snowman, Hermey the Elf, Yukon Cornelius and the Abominable Snowman.

The once-rare cartoon is currently available on a number of video compilations of seasonal short subjects.

Broadway Serenade (1939)

6/10 ***/5 ~ Jeanette stumbles in her career and breaks a nail.

[6/10 · 22 September 2001]

With a string of glorious classics including The Merry Widow, Naughty Marietta, Rose Marie, Maytime and San Francisco, Jeanette MacDonald had rapidly grown from Paramount transfer to established musical Queen of the MGM lot. Her operetta series with Nelson Eddy was challenging the studio's intended blockbusters. Stars from Joan Crawford to Norma Shearer were taking new acting lessons and going over their contracts. Evidently MGM felt the need to show MacDonald her place, and railroaded her into this unworthy affair which remains among the "Iron Butterfly"'s weaker vehicles.

MacDonald herself endures the film with her usual dignity, and there are the usual songs and arias to atone for the silly story. Also there's a chance to see Lew Ayres out of his "Dr. Kildare" strait-jacket, and Jeanette has some charming scenes with The Wizard of Oz himself, Frank Morgan. Anyone who loves the Lion will find something to like; everyone else beware.

Alice in Wonderland or What's a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This? (1966 TV Movie)

7/10 ****/5 ~ Hip "Alice in Wonderland" animated musical parody.

[7/10 · 19 September 2001]

Despite the widely held opinion that the material is unfilmable, Lewis Carroll's fantasy/nonsense classics Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (1871) have frequently been dramatized for films and television. While few of these productions have successfully translated Carroll's verbal and intellectual experimentation into cinema, several are of superior quality and hold an under-appreciated place in the history of the fantastic film.

Alice's Adventures in Videoland have been uneven in quality; there has been a tendency toward parody and experimentation, and several fine productions have been broadcast.

Walt Disney's animated feature Alice in Wonderland (1951) has been criticized as unfaithful and disrespectful to the Carroll classic. Even less for the purist is Hanna-Barbera's prime-time television special Alice in Wonderland or What's a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This? (1966). This hour-long animated musical is a good-natured burlesque whose colorful visuals, wacky script by comic Bill Dana (aka "Jose Jiminez"), and pleasant, tuneful score by Charles Strouse (of "Annie," "Applause" and "Bye Bye Birdie") result in a happy light entertainment.

Alice, a typical mid-1960's suburban American teenager (in hip-boots and mini-skirt), bumps her head while doing a book report on "Alice in Wonderland". She thereafter chases her dog, Fluff, into her TV set, falling into an astonishingly vulgar Wonderland.

Highlights include a guest appearance by cartoon characters Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble as a two-headed Caterpillar, doing the vaudeville-style "They'll Never Split Us Apart"; a Mad Tea Party with the Mad Hatter's wife, Hedda Hatter (voiced by Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper); Bill Dana's diminutive White Knight; Zsa Zsa Gabor's Queen of Hearts ("Off viss zerr heads, dahlink"); and a zany croquet game which degenerates into a frantic amalgam including football, cricket, surfing and Monopoly.

Most memorable is Sammy Davis, Jr.'s performance (as the beatnik Cheshire Cat) of the terrific theme song, "What's a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?", which was a hit novelty single in 1966.

The show is a superior example of the Hanna-Barbera studio's limited animation (not to mention limited imagination) during the heyday of "Yogi Bear", "The Jetsons" and "Jonny Quest", and as such is recommended to all cartoon fans and to those students of Lewis Carroll's "Alice" books who can take a little irreverent spoofing of the classic icon.

Make Mine Music (1946)

8/10 ****/5 ~ Walt Disney's Pop "Fantasia" for the Fightin' Forties.

[8/10 · 14 September 2001]

Make Mine Music finds Walt Disney in the midst of the transitional period between his first five animated features (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, Bambi) and the post-war revival begun with Cinderella (1950).

The idea of a casual variant of Fantasia featuring popular music was a good one. Even though the segments which comprise the film vary in quality, the film as a whole is a bright, colorful and amusing light entertainment which fit wartime needs ideally.

Highlights include two spirited Benny Goodman swing numbers ("All The Cats Join In" and "After You've Gone") and the unforgettable finale, "Willie the Operatic Whale", narrated and sung by Nelson Eddy. The animation is generally first-rate and the Technicolor film will dazzle any viewer not expecting a genuine masterwork.

Make Mine Music was successful enough to warrant a considerably better follow-up, Melody Time (1948).

The undistinguished but harmless "Martins and the Coys" segment, concerning the gun-feuding backwoods families of American folklore, has idiotically been removed from current editions, evidently for PC reasons. It's scary that Disney may start altering their classics to meet artificial modern standards. (If they had cut anything from Make Mine Music, it should have been the tasteless "Two Silhouettes" ballet, all doilies and valentines and icky fake sentiment.)

Crypt of the Living Dead (1973)

4/10 **/5 ~ Hard-Hearted Hannah, the Vamp from the Drive-In.

[4/10 · 22 August 2001]

DVD title: Young Hannah, Queen of the Vampires.

An archaeologist (Andrew Prine) visits Vampire Island to bury his father, who has died under mysterious circumstances. He ignores the warnings of a schoolteacher (Patty Shepard) and, prodded by an historical novelist (Mark Damon), he opens the tomb of the 13th-Century vampire Queen Hannah (Teresa Gimpera).

This routine but decent little import benefits from a colorful Mediterranean location, good photography and an engagingly casual performance by the slumming Prine. Despite a tedious midsection and poor dubbing of minor roles, the film has a mildly distinctive flavor, like a failed Euro-Trash Count Yorga, Vampire (1970).

Of the cast, Gimpera played the Crying Mother opposite Christopher Lee in Jesus Franco's El Conde Dracula/Count Dracula (1970), and Shepard (Spanish cinema's answer to horror star Barbara Steele) was Paul Naschy's co-star in the cult classic La Noche de Walpurgis/The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman/Werewolf's Shadow (1971). Damon (House of Usher, 1960) had faced vampires before in Il Plenilunio delle Vergine/The Devil's Wedding Night (1973) and in Mario Bava's I Tre Volti delle Paura/Black Sabbath (1963). (Today a Hollywood producer, Damon faces a different kind of vampire.)

Originally titled La Tumba de la Isla Maldita, the completed film (directed by Julio Salvador) was reworked for American release with new scenes shot by former actor Ray Danton, whose horror films as director include Deathmaster (1972) and Psychic Killer (1975).

It is more interesting to learn about such films than to dismiss them out of hand.

I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957)

3/10 **/5 ~ Gory, gloomy, glum garbage.

[3/10 · 15 August 2001]

Cheapjack producer Herman Cohen quickly cranked out this depressingly crass opus to capitalize on the surprise success of his much superior I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), starring Michael Landon.

I Was a Teenage Frankenstein has a great exploitation title and a few taboo-breaking gore scenes but little else than unwitting camp and curio value to recommend it. Reliable actors Whit Bissell (as Dr. Frankenstein) and Phyllis Coates (Lois Lane of Superman fame) struggle valiantly with the schlocky material but are unable to get any fun out of the poor script. Young Gary Conway, all muscles and no personality, is an unimpressive Monster with a ludicrous putty face.

Cohen also produced Blood of Dracula (1958), a female remake of I Was a Teenage Werewolf with no Dracula in sight, and How to Make a Monster (1958), which pitted the Teenage Frankenstein (Conway again) against the Teenage Werewolf. All three follow-ups to I Was a Teenage Werewolf suffered from unintelligent scripting and dull, unimaginative direction by Herbert L. Strock.

The best bad Fifties Teenage Frankenstein movie, in all its goofy glory, is Richard Cunha's Frankenstein's Daughter (1958).

Godzilla (I) (1998)

8/10 ****/5 ~ Forget the myth and glide with the roller-coaster.

[8/10 · 14 August 2001]

This all-American version of the Japanese fantasy classic is one heck of a Giant Monster Movie (with every cliché in place) which plays more like an unofficial entry in the Jurassic Park series than a genuine "Godzilla" film.

The movie's true source is neither Toho nor Spielberg, but Ray Harryhausen and Eugene Lourie's seminal The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), of which Eiji Tsurabaya and Ishiro Honda's original Gojira/Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1954) was itself an uncredited reworking.

With its conventionally wooden characters and empty story, the Columbia/Tri-Star CGI epic is an accurate tribute to the traditional matinée entertainments of the 1950's. Emmerich's popcorn Godzilla is no work of art but an awareness of the golden era of Grade-B Sci-Fi films may be necessary to appreciate and enjoy it for what it is. It appears that the film was targeted at an audience that lacked that awareness.

Alice Through the Looking Glass (1973 TV Movie)

8/10 ****/5 ~ Authentic video adaptation of Lewis Carroll classic.

[8/10 · 1 August 2001]

Despite the widely held opinion that the material is unfilmable, Lewis Carroll's fantasy/nonsense classics Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (1871) have frequently been dramatized for films and television. While few of these productions have successfully translated Carroll's verbal and intellectual experimentation into cinema, several are of superior quality and hold an under-appreciated place in the history of the fantastic film.

Alice's Adventures in Videoland have been uneven in quality; there has been a tendency toward parody and experimentation, and several fine productions have been broadcast.

A particularly literate video "Alice" was produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation. Alice Through the Looking Glass (1974) was a detailed dramatization of the second "Alice" book which compensated for the heresies of the 1966 American television musical of the same title. The color videotape production combined human actors and puppetry with costumes and backgrounds based on the original Sir John Tenniel illustrations, and while there was some use of camera magic the focus was primarily on text and characterization.

The script was almost verbatim from the book; only a few minor vignettes, such as that with the Fawn in the Wood with No Name, were deleted. Episodes never previously filmed, including the train trip, the Looking Glass Insects, the rowboat ride with the Sheep, and the fight of the Lion and the Unicorn, were represented. The program captured the wit and melancholy mood, the substance and spirit, of the fantasy masterpiece.

The cast, culled from the best of English theatre, were chosen for their suitability for their roles rather than for their names and celebrity: outstanding were Geoffrey Bayldon's sentimental White Knight, Judy Parfitt's snappy Red Queen and Brenda Bruce's befuddled White Queen. Freddie Jones gave an extraordinarily rich on screen reading of Humpty Dumpty, rivaling Cyril Ritchard's famous recording.

Alice was acidly portrayed by little Sarah Sutton, the youngest actress to play Alice on the sound screen thus far, and the closest to the age of the character in the book ("exactly seven and a half"). Sutton grew up to co-star as a companion of "Doctor Who" on the classic science fiction television serial.

This version of "Alice in Wonderland" has rarely been re-broadcast and is deserving (if extant) of a DVD release.

Snow White and the Three Stooges (1961)

8/10 ****/5 ~ Set aside the Disney Classic and enjoy this delightful fantasy.

[8/10 · 31 July 2001]

20th Century Fox's colorful live-action version of the oft-retold fairy tale is a lavishly-produced fantasy extravaganza featuring the Three Stooges as the star comics.

Cast as Snow White is charming Olympic Champion ice skater Carol Heiss who dances two ice ballets. The film's wintertime setting makes it ideal old-fashioned holiday family entertainment.

The imaginative adaptation by Noel Langley (The Wizard of Oz, 1939; Scrooge/A Christmas Carol, 1951) elaborates the famous story to include romance and swashbuckling adventure. The film is a worthy variant of the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm and need not suffer direct comparison with the Disney version, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).

Fans of the Three Stooges have long expressed hatred and contempt for this film, which is not neither a slapstick comedy nor a true Stooges vehicle. This prevailing attitude need not detain others (especially those who can't stand the Three Stooges) from being entertained.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972)

9/10 *****/5 ~ Faithful musical fantasy with a mesmerizing John Barry score.

[9/10 · 19 July 2001]

Despite the widely held opinion that the material is unfilmable, Lewis Carroll's fantasy/nonsense classics Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (1871) have frequently been dramatized for films and television. Although few of these productions have successfully translated Carroll's verbal and intellectual experimentation into cinema, several are of superior quality and hold an under-appreciated place in the history of the fantastic film.

The initial rejection of Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland (1951) must have seemed like a final and irrefutable validation of the dictum that any film based on this work of literature -- even one produced under the auspices of a major creative force -- is a doomed proposition. Yet, twenty-one years later, British producer Joseph Shaftel dared to attempt another major theatrical film version as a belated celebration of the centennial of one of England's greatest national literary treasures. This visually beautiful musical brings John Tenniel's famous illustrations to vivid life and is in general the best live-action film version of the classic. Approached in the proper spirit this literate film is a magical experience.

Carroll's characters are played by a distinguished all-star cast including Michael Crawford (the White Rabbit), Dudley Moore (the Dormouse), Ralph Richardson (the Caterpillar) and Peter Sellers (the March Hare), with Michael Hordern, Spike Milligan, Dennis Price and Flora Robson. Robert Helpmann (the wicked ChildCatcher of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) played the Mad Hatter and also choreographed.

Teenage Fiona Fullerton was an ideal Alice for the film, bringing beauty, warmth and a soft, winsome quality to the neurotic (and difficult) character. Fullerton had previously been seen as one of the daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra in the 1971 film, which incidentally starred Michael Jayston, who appears here as "Lewis Carroll/Rev. Dodgson". As an adult Fullerton starred opposite Richard Harris in a major London revival of Camelot, and appeared as a gorgeous Bond Girl in A View to a Kill.

The film's cinematic distinction is its extraordinarily beautiful photography by Geoffrey Unsworth, B.S.C. (2001: A Space Odyssey; Cabaret), whose graceful images and fluid, balletic camera movements create a dream-like atmosphere. Equally striking is the imaginative production design by Michael Stringer (Fiddler on the Roof), who made the most of a moderate budget to create a spectacular artificial Wonderland plainly influenced by The Wizard of Oz (1939). As with Oz, elaborate character makeups and costumes carefully expose the personalities of the performers, unlike the stiff masks which stifle the actors in the 1933 Paramount version. And the film boasts some eye-popping (pre-CGI) special effects, with Alice's changes in size being impressively executed.

The haunting orchestral score by John Barry, then best known for The Lion in Winter and the James Bond films, finds the contrasting emotional mood underlying the cool cerebral surface. There is sprightly music enough but the score reflects a wistful, eerie and otherworldly quality evocative of Carroll's theme of loss of childhood. Original songs by Barry and Don Black (the "Born Free" team) include "Curiouser and Curiouser", which establishes the theme of the child awakening through bewilderment to new awareness, and "The Me I Never Knew", which poignantly resolves that theme.

The scenario, by director William Sterling, is very faithful Carroll's first "Alice" book, although a scene with the Cheshire Cat was cut prior to release, and Tweedledum and Tweedledee (from Through the Looking Glass) are included for good measure. Every major episode and character are retained, with dialogue taken verbatim from the text. New to the story is a prologue and epilogue dramatizing the famous Fourth of July river excursion undertaken by Lewis Carroll (in his real-life guise as the Rev. Charles L. Dodgson of Christ Church, Oxford), Rev. Duckworth, and the three Liddell Sisters, Lorina, Alice and Edith, in the course of which was told for the first time the story of Alice's Adventures Under Ground. This lovely sequence is imaginatively blended in the film with the tale itself.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was made at a time when the British film industry was rapidly dying. The film debuted in America at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood, was greeted with condescension by critics, and vanished into undeserved obscurity. Its value as a sincere and true reproduction of Carroll has not gone entirely unappreciated, however, and has been accorded a degree of respect in scholarly studies. Originally stunning in Todd-AO 35 widescreen, the film is badly in need of restoration and a decent DVD re-release.