PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

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The Bride From Hades 1956 Based on a Japanese ghost story called Botan Dōrō, screenplay by Enchô San'yûtei and Yoshikata Yoda, directed by Satsuo Yamamoto. The film is known under several names: Bride from Hell, Haunted Lantern, Ghost Beauty, My Bride is a Ghost or Peony Lanterns. There were 7 film adaptations between 1910 and 1937 but all are gone. Other adaptations have followed making it one of the most adapted folk horror stories. 

A young man called Shinzaburo is estranged from his family. His father wants him to marry a woman to strengthen the family's power. He doesn't love the woman and won't cooperate, choosing to live simply among the poor peasants. On the evening of the Obon Festival Shinzaburo meets a couple of women and helps them when their floating lanterns get stuck in the weeds.

They visit his home after the festival. Shinzaburo becomes infatuated with the younger woman who's called Otsuyu until it's revealed to him she's a ghost. The local villagers try to help him fend off the ghost but they are determined. The ghosts get help from the horrible couple that work for Shinzaburo. The couple think they can bribe the ghosts and they can. Shinzaburo is a rather weak man and things have a rather bittersweet ending for him. I did enjoy the nice and gory ending that befell the horrible couple.

I enjoyed the movie and would be interested in watching it again some day. We watched the new Radiance Blu-ray box set, it's packaged with The Ghost Of Yotsuya and The Snow Women. The Bride Of Hades looks fine and the set is one to consider. I'd recommend the movie to those who like a ghost story and a bit of vengeance.

Sumpah Orang Minyak 1956 Based on the Malaysian folk horror story Curse Of The Oily Man, screenplay by Teuku Djaafar and P Ramlee and S Sudarmadji, directed by P Ramlee, produced by Run Run Shaw and distributed by his production company. P Ramlee also plays the main character Si Bongkok.

Si Bangkok is a hunchbacked man in a small village at the turn of the last century. He's picked on by the local bullies for his deformed face and body. They harass him and beat him without much opposition from the other villagers. Si Bongkok is befriended by local batik cloth seller Selamat. His cloth sales have been poor, the ladies don't want his out of date patterns. Turns out Si Bongkok is a great artist and his patterns are quite nice, they become much desired by the local ladies.

After Si Bongkok's latest vicious beating the gods bring him to heaven and grant him a wish because he's got a good heart. He only gets one wish and no more. Si Bongkok chooses beauty from the list of favors. He's made handsome and falls in love with the pretty lady in the picture. She's a princess in heaven. Sadly he can't stay in heaven, she can't leave with him and he can't change his wish. He also has to keep from killing anyone or he'll be punished severely.

Si Bongkok returns to the same village and reveals who he is to Selamat. He gets back to designing cloth patterns and they do well in the market place. Pride gets the best of him and and he brags to the village he's the old hunchback. He tries to steal a man's fiance, one of the men that beat him in the past, they fight, the bully is killed. Si Bongkok is turned into the oily man as punishment. Our disgraced hero becomes a monster with rape and murder on his mind. The locals have a hard time getting him under control, lucky for them they're helped by the gods.

YouTube has copies of the movie, the better looking ones are sadly deformed by logos and TV crawls reminding you about Covid-19. There's a colorized version that has Covid-19 crawls and some different logos. No matter, I still enjoyed the movie and was happy to see it. It would be nice to see a good version of this out. It would be ideal for an inclusion in a Severin folk horror box set.

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Death Machine 1995 Written and directed by Stephen Norrington. We watched the director's cut from the Kino Lorber Blu-ray. It's got three versions of the movie on two disks. Norrington only directed four films, this was the first, followed by Blade, The Last Minute and The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I've liked the 3 films of his that I've seen, TLM is the one I haven't seen. He hasn't directed any films since 2003 but has occasionally worked in special effects. He has no credits on the IMDb after 2016.

Ely Pouget is head of Chaank Armaments Corp, Brad Dourif is a designer, Richard Brake and William Hootkins are executives. The Corp's enhanced solder glitches and kills some people in a diner. The story is out and the public isn't happy. The corp tries some damage control. Ely wants full public disclosure but the board says no. She wants Brad fired but the board says no.

Ely has an encounter with Brad about the project in Vault 10 and Brad threatens her. He's a major loony but fun to watch. Things get worse between them and Brad sends his killer robot from Vault 10 after her. Soon the robot is clanking around the building, slaughtering the staff. Some Eco-warriors break into the building, they become Ely's reluctant partners battling the robot and trying to escape. Ely locks Brad in Vault 10 with his robot. Hardly anybody gets out alive.

It's got plenty of great robot action, lots of clanky noise, good sets and models, plenty of gun shooting and explosions. I enjoyed it and I will order the Blu-ray for myself. I want to see the other versions of the film and I'm curious about the Norrington commentaries. The Blu-ray is only 15 bucks on Amazon. Seems a bargain.

The Lady And The Monster 1944 Based on the novel Donovan's Brain by Curt Siodmak, screenplay by Dane Lussier and Frederick Kohner, directed by George Sherman. He watched the new Kino Lorber Republic Horror Collection Blu-ray. It's got four 1940s films on two Blu-rays with plenty of commentaries.

 

Erich von Stroheim is Professor Franz Mueller, he's a mad scientist with his own laboratory in a fake looking castle in the middle of the Arizona desert. Erich believes he can keep a human brain alive out of the body. Mueller is asked by the local rangers if he can help a man who was in a plane crash. When the man dies Mueller takes advantage and removes the brain. They find out the dead man is a millionaire business man called Donovan. Richard Arlen and Vera Ralston are Erich's assistants, Patrick and Janice. The pair have a thing going on but Mueller also has feelings for Janice, he tries his best to disrupt the relationship.

Donovan's brain seems to be sending messages to a tired Patrick and Mueller encourages him to make contact with the brain. Patrick does, Donovan slowly takes over Patrick's brain, turning him into a slave. Donovan's lawyer is investigating the death, he finds the brain in the lab with documents about the experiment. Donovan had hid all his money, he sends Patrick on a mission to recover it. Things come to a head when Mueller tries to kill Patrick. The house keeper shoots him dead  and Donovan's brain gets dashed to the floor. Patrick goes to jail for monkeying with a dead man's brain and Janice promises to wait for him.

I mostly enjoyed the movie but it sure dragged at times, I was drifting off for a while there and there were complaints about the pace. A New York Times review, at the time of release, called it "a mite too lethargic." They aren't wrong. I seem to remember that the 1953 Donovan's Brain film was a better picture but it's been ages since I've seen it. I'll have to watch it and see. I'm looking forward to the commentaries on the film.

Murder In The Blue Room 1944

Murder In The Blue Room 1944 Based on Geheimnis des Blauen Zimmers by Erich Philippi, screenplay by I A L Diamond and Stanley Davis, directed by Leslie Goodwins. It's a remake, here's the bit about that from the Wikipedia:

It is the second remake of the 1933 American Pre-code murder-mystery film Secret of the Blue Room, the first being Universal's 1938 remake, The Missing Guest. Faithful to the original plot, Murder in the Blue Room plays up the comedy with songs. The plot is based on the 1932 German film Secret of the Blue Room.

 

A family is having a party in their mansion. The three ladies in the picture on the left are a singing trio that's come to entertain the guests. They are played by The Three Jazzybelles who were picked to replace The Ritz Brothers. The trio of gals are friends with a young woman at the party and the comic relief.

The house is said to be haunted by people in the area. The title refers to the room in which the patriarch of the family was murdered, that happened in 20 years ago and the room has been kept closed up ever since. The movie is mostly a comedy with a couple of murders, plenty of yelling and lots of running about. It's kind of silly and most of the jokes are fairly good.

A man gets the family to let him sleep in the blue room overnight, in the morning the man is gone and the door to the room is locked from the inside. His body turns up the next day in the blue room after another man has disappeared.

I had a good time despite the songs from The Three Jazzybelles, they were OK but nothing much special. You can have a gander at it on YouTube.There are a few links above with other versions of the story.

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Motivational Growth 2013 Written and directed by Don Thacker. It's Don's first feature, he made one more in 2016, the other 30 plus entries in his IMDb page are all short films. I haven't sen any of his other work and don't plan to look for it. The IMDb estimates the budget for MG at $176,199, I can't imagine it made back that money. 

Adrian DiGiovanni plays Ian, a guy who hides in his filthy apartment because he's depressed. He rants on, mostly sitting around in his t-shirt and y-fronts, while a stream of visitors come calling. Jeffrey Combs voices the sentient pile of mold in the corner of the bathroom. He talks to Ian and makes his life better and worse at the same time. Part of the problem is the movie changes the reality again and again, what's real and what's not, who knows. Not Ian. Not me.

At the end of MG I don't know what happened to underwear guy, is it all in his imagination, is he dead, who knows. I didn't care at that point. I wouldn't recommend this for most film fans, it's really one of those personal films that has something going on that will remain a fungus wrapped mystery to me. I'm not planning to add it to my collection.

The poster quote from the totally irrelevant Ain't It Cool News says "Unlike anything you've seen before" but it reminded me of the 1991 film High Strung, a film with Steve Oedekerk sitting around his apartment and raging about his  demons. Steve has a level of intensity that is pretty amazing, even the Devil, played by Jim Carrey, can't deal with him for long, he admits defeat in his attempt to claim Steve's soul. Steve is a better actor and writer, he wrote the script for HS with Robert Kuhn. Steve is the creator of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and he wrote several popular comedies and cartoon shows.

Cobra Woman 1944 Story by Scott Darling, screenplay by Gene Lewis and Richard Brooks, directed by Robert Siodmak. A Universal Pictures release with Maria Montez, Jon Hall, Sabu and Lon Chaney Jr. Both Maria and Sabu died when they were only 39.

Maria plays a double role, she's the lovely native girl Tollea who's going to marry Ramu, played by Jon Hall, she's also Naja, Tollea's twin sister and the high priestess of Cobra Island. Sabu is Jon's best pal Kado, big hearted but a bit of a clumsy goof.

Maria is kidnapped by Hava, played by Lon Chaney Jr, and taken to Cobra Island, Ramu and Kado follow in hopes in rescuing her. The Queen of Cobra Island is the twin's grandmother, she wants Tollea to replace Naja as the High Priestess, Naja is an evil creep and the locals are unhappy with her. Naja really likes sacrificing the locals to appease the volcano.

Ramu and Kado get to the island and Ramu mistakes Naja for Tollea. Naja falls for Ramu but as soon as he realizes who's who he's not wanting any part of her. Naja gets all nasty and sends plenty of the locals to the volcano. Our heroes put a stop to that and they can't stop the Queen from being murdered in Naja's power grab. Naja is defeated and Tollea assumes the throne of Cobra Island.

We watched the Kino Lorber Blu-ray and it looked fine. It's a good example of a fun adventure film. It's quick and breezy, packing plenty of story in it's 71 mins.

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It Happened Tomorrow 1944 Based on the one act play The Jest Of Haha Laba by Lord Dunsany, unproduced screenplay by Hugh Wedlock and Howard Snyder, ideas by Lewis R Foster, screenplay by Dudley Nichols and René Clair with additional dialogue by Helene Frainkel, directed by René Clair.

Dick Powell plays the obit writer on a newspaper who wants to be a reporter. The man who runs the newspaper's archives gives Dick a newspaper from the next day and that really changes his life, giving him the chance to write a big story. The story gets him in lots of trouble. Linda Darnell plays a medium in a vaudeville show, Jack Oakie is her father and the star of the act. Both of them get pulled into Dick's life.

A second and third news paper complicate Dick's life even more. There's plenty of running about and yelling with some entertaining jokes and characters. Edgar Kennedy, Edward Brophy, Sig Ruman and Paul Guilfoyle were some of the cast that I knew. I hadn't heard of the film before and was glad to have seen it. I downloaded a copy from YouTube, see link above, as I know I'll want to watch it again sometime. There's is a DVD and Blu-ray available for those that want it.

Buccaneer's Girl 1950 Story by Joe May and Samuel R Golding, screenplay by Joseph Hoffman and Harold Shumate, directed by Frederick de Cordova. Fred was Johnny Carson's producer on The Tonight Show from 1970 to 1992.

Yvonne De Carlo plays a singer who gets captured by the pirate Fredric Baptiste. She escapes the ship when it docks at New Orleans and gets a job at Eliza Lanchester's school for young ladies. On an assignment she finds out that the pirate is really Captain Kingston. He's been acting the pirate to sink the ships of a rich man and selling the cargo to fund ships for others.

It's more a romantic comedy musical than a lady pirate movie. We couldn't remember anyone being killed in any of the fights. It's still fairly pleasant and the baddies get theirs in the end. I didn't care much for the songs but enjoyed the rest of the film. There's a nice Blu-ray out from Kino Lorber. I picked it up during one of their sales. I'll probably watch it again someday.

A Night Of Magic 1944

A Night Of Magic 1944 Script by Eversley Bracken under the name Ewesley Bracken, directed by Herbert Wynne. A short British comedy musical about the 3000 year old mummy of Egyptian Princess Raviola being found alive in her sarcophagus. Her coffin arrives at the apartment of a young upper class man who gets over his surprise quickly, it's a short film, no time to waste. He takes her out to the hairdresser and shopping for modern clothes. He dumps his fiance and plans to marry her. There's a sucky surprise ending and some songs by a guy playing the ukulele. He's no George Formby. Fun enough but below average.

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The Portrait Of Dorian Gray 1945 Based on the novel of the same name by Oscar Wilde, screenplay and direction by Albert Lewin.

 

I saw this picture back in 2006 but haven't seen it since. I recently got the DVD and decided tonight's the night to put it on. You probably know the story, man stays young while a painting of him ages. You can click the paintings for a larger size image. The picture on the left was painted by Henrique Medina and the one on the right was painted by Ivan Le Lorraine Albright. The Medina painting is shown in color in a brief scene in the B&W film. It's believed to be in a private collection. The Albright painting is in the collection of The Art Institute of Chicago. Ivan's identical twin Malvin was hired to paint the good Dorian painting but it wasn't used in the film. Ivan made changes to both the good and bad paintings while the film was being shot.

Hurd Hatfield lays Dorian. I knew nothing about Hurd, even though his IMDb listing says I've seen him in a few TV shows and movies. He worked steadily from 1944 until 1991, he passed away in 1998 at the age of 81. The other fellow is George Sanders playing Lord Henry Wotton. I'm more familiar with George's work and a big fan of him as The Saint and The Falcon. He's a bit of a rotter here and he convinces Dorian that a lifestyle of pleasure and hedonism is the way to go. Dorian's pretty shallow and he's easily swayed by Wotton. Dorian is generally a pretty piss poor example of a human being.

Dorian is having his portrait painted by artist Basil Hallward, he's played by Lowell Gilmore. That's him in the middle between Peter Lawford and Donna Reed. Donna is Gladys Gilmore, Basil's daughter and Peter is David Stone, a man in love with Donna. Their lives become a mess from being involved with Dorian. Gladys is a child when the painting is finished, about 18 years pass and she grows into a lovely young woman. Dorian looks the same but his painting is growing more and more grotesque from his naughty life style. Dorian asks her to marry him and she excepts. What's wrong with these people?

Angela Lansbury is Sibyl Vane, a singer in a small tavern in a rough part of London. Shortly after the portrait is finished Dorian sees her sing and returns over and over to the tavern. He proposes to her but Lord Wotton's influence causes Dorian to offer her a choice, sleep with him before marriage or get out. She walks but returns. The next day Dorian sends her a letter telling of his disappointment in her giving into him, he ends the relationship and includes a pile of cash. She commits suicide.

Time passes and Dorian becomes known as a bounder and his portrait has become as grotesque as he is inside. Gladys brother vows revenge but fails. Dorian becomes more and more evil. In the end he destroys himself.

It's a pretty darn good looking film, plenty of great sets, really good cast, everything about it is top notch. Might be the best film I've seen this year. Well worth a look.

Molly And The Ghost 1990 No writer is credited on the film or the IMDb. Don Jones is the director. I can see why the writer might have taken his name off the film, there's nothing much good about it. A horrible 16 year old runs away to LA and moves in with her older sister. She steals money and jewelry from her sister and tries to seduce her husband. Thrown out she hires a hit man but she's so stupid she mails him a picture of herself. He kills her and she become's a vengeful ghost. It's a pretty piss poor film and should be punched in the face. I started fast forwarding after a while.

The Mind Benders 1963 James Kennaway wrote the original screenplay and adapted that into his novel of the same name, Basil Dearden directed.

Professor Sharpey jumps from a moving train and a huge pile of money is found in his briefcase. He's suspected of selling secrets to foreign interests. Major Hall comes to investigate Sharpey and he finds he'd been involved with a project studying the effects of cold and isolation on men. That project has morphed into a study on sensory deprivation, Professor Sharpey had worked on the project with Dr Longman and Dr Tate, scientists at the University. Major Hall is played by John Clements, he's on the right, the guy on the left is Michael Bryant who played Dr Tate. Dirk Bogarde plays Dr Longman.

The Major finds that the process of cutting off the body from all sensation leaves the mind messed up and the person susceptible to easy manipulation. If this is the case it might be that Professor Sharpey could have been an easy mark for spies after being in the tank.

Longman had been in the tank for four hours and taken a leave. He's at home with his wife Oonagh and their four children when the Major comes to call. Longman believes that Sharpey could have been easily swayed by some spies. The Major talks a reluctant Longman into going back into the tank. They leave him in for 8 hours and he's pretty much a broken man.

As part of the experiment they tell Dirk his wife is a pain and he doesn't really love her. Dirk seems to recover but the seeds have been planted and his marriage breaks apart. That's Dirk with Mary Ure, who plays his wife Oonagh. Now the Major has to try to rectify is awful blunder.

That's Wendy Craig, it was one of her early film roles, she'd been in a few TV programs and would go onto star in the beloved series Butterflies. There's a few people in the cast that I knew, Terence Alexander, Roger Delgado, Edward Fox, Geoffrey Keene and Norman Bird. The good script gives them good material to work with. It's well filmed and directed. Everything about it is way above average. It's also a good reminder that human's are fragile. Well worth seeing. It's another film that turned out to be one of the best films I've seen this year. I have the Kino Lorber DVD and it looks nice. There's a commentary that I listened to part of, might get around to it again someday.

The Interrupted Journey 1949

The Interrupted Journey 1949 Original story and screenplay by Michael Pertwee, direction by Daniel Birt.I didn't recognize any of the other dozen films Birt's directed but I have seen the 4 episodes he directed of The Adventures Of Robin Hood. That's a favorite series of mine.

Michael is both actor and writer, he's brother to Jon Pertwee and cousin of Bill Pertwee. His father Roland was an actor, same with his nephews Daniel and Sean. Michael only has three acting credits but over a hundred writing credits. You might have sen some of his movies, Too Many Crooks, Make Mine Mink, The Mouse On The Moon, Strange Bedfellows and A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum. He wrote for several popular shows and many I haven't seen. I've seen episodes of his on The Invisible Man, Danger Man, Adventures In Paradise, Secret Agent, The World Of Wooster and The Saint. 

A guy is running off with his mistress, they are on a train when he gets it in his head that he shouldn't do it. He also thinks he sees his mistress's hubby on the train and doesn't a confrontation. The train slows down near enough to his home that he pulls the emergency cord and jumps off the train when it stops. He walks to his house only to hear an huge noise, another train has hit the stopped train. All sorts of people are dead, including his mistress, and dozens injured. The train police investigate and find his name in the mistress's pocket.

He tells his wife he was there but left and she says she'll stand behind him. The train inspector hounds him but the news on the accident puts the blame on a faulty signal. No matter it turns out that the mistress was shot dead before the crash, they suspect our idiot, he says it wasn't him but they find the gun what did the deed in his pond. We'd seen a man throw it in there but the train inspector hasn't. The guy does some more investigating which leads him to the dead woman's husband, supposedly found dead in the wreck, and the hubby kills him.

When the guy wakes up it's all been a dream. Imagine my disappointment! He leaves the train the same way and returns home to his wife. This time there's no crash. I'm not much of a fame of dream fantasy and this one was the one of the more contrived ones. Other's seem to like it more than me but that's the way that rolls. I probably wouldn't bother watching it again. It's on YouTube, click the link above and watch.

Blithe Spirit 1945

Blithe Spirit is a 1945 British comedy directed by David Lean. It's based on Noël Coward's play of the same name, the screenplay is by David Lean, Ronald Neame and Anthony Havelock-Allan.

It's got Rex Harrison, Constance Cummings, Kay Hammond, Margaret Rutherford, Hugh Wakefield and Noël Coward as the narrator.

Rex is a crime novelist, he invites a medium, played by Margaret, over to the house, he's got research in mind for a novel. Unfortunately she brings the ghost of his dead wife to the house and she causes all sorts of issues. Rex and his current wife end up dead by the end of the film and it made me glad ghosts aren't real. It's kind of funny but not Topper funny, I didn't laugh at all the jokes anyway. It's not going to be one of my favorite ghost stories that's for sure. I'd still watch it again sometime. Who can say when. Too bad there aren't liars fortune tellers to let me know when that would be happening.

The Catman Of Paris 1946

The Catman Of Paris is a 1946 Republic Picture about a murdering cat guy. Sherman L Lowe wrote the screenplay and Lesley Selander is the director.

There's a catman killing in the streets of Paris. Carl Esmond has written a book about a catman of legend, the authorities want to ban it, his publisher is fearful of losing money. The police suspect Esmond is the killer and they set a trap.

Gerald Mohr, John Dehner and Anthony Caruso were cast members I knew from other work. It was the first of Republic's Horror double features and it was paired with Valley Of The Zombies. It was fairly decent but barely average. I enjoyed it enough to watch to the end and I'd check it out again someday but it's unlikely to happen.