Cinefantastique celebrates the good, the bad, and the ugly from five decades ago.
1964 is a transitional year for horror, fantasy, and science fiction films. In the wake of the new wave of Technicolor horror that started in the 1950s, old-fashioned black-and-white atmosphere is seeing its last gasp, with titles such as CASTLE OF BLOOD and THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH. Ringing the death knell, Mario Bava abandons the period setting and moody monochrome of BLACK SUNDAY (a.k.a. THE MASK OF SATAN, 1960) for the lurid hues and modern-day mayhem of BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (a.k.a. SIX WOMEN FOR THE ASSASSIN). The foremost proponent of graphic Gothic horror, with an emphasis on bright red blood, Britain’s Hammer Films is recycling old ideas (THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN, CURSE OF THE MUMMY’S TOMB) but also experimenting with a new monster movie, THE GORGON, which emphasizes tragic romance instead of horror. Meanwhile, the fear of the unknown dramatized so well in VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1961) is replaced by the more nuanced view of CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED.
In the world of spy-fi, Bond is back, but the gritty Cold War melodrama of FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE is extinguished by the over-the-top antics of GOLDFINGER, whose incredible gadgets and laser beams point the way toward the superspy’s eventual entrance into full-blown science fiction a few years later. Although 007 will not leave the stratosphere for a while, the space race is altering science fiction cinema, turning out attention toward the stars more than ever before. Ray Harryhausne leaves the earthbound Greek legends of JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963) to explore our nearest neighbor in the solar system with THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON. Likewise, Toho Studios, which has been moving away from grim black-and-white science fiction of GODZILLA (1954) toward colorful fantasy, begins offering monsters from outer space, with DOGARA and GHIDORAH: THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER.
Speaking of Japan, though the country has been making wonderful ghost stories for decades (e.g. YOTSUYA KAIDAN in 1959), these films make their first impression on the international market this year, thanks to the one-two punch of ONIBABA and KWAIDAN. The latter, an anthology, includes an episode titled “The Black Hair,” whose imagery will return decades later in the J-Horror wave of the 1990s and early 2000s.
There is an increasingly international feel to cinefantastique. American producer-director Roger Corman moves his series of Poe adaptations to England, where bigger budgets and better supporting casts yield two of his best efforts, THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH and THE TOMB OF LIGIEA. Corman’s U.S. distributor, American International Pictures, will follow his example, mounting many of their subsequent productions in the U.K.; they will also release an alternate version of GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA (under the title GODZILLA VS. THE THING) that was specifically designed by Toho for international release, with additional scenes of English-speaking actors and American warships.
As usual with genres that depend on satisfying popular taste, many of the films are churned out with little artistry; nevertheless, even some of the lesser efforts show hints of imagination, with enough lively energy to make interesting viewing. Moreover, great titles abound – classics that live on, delighting our Sense of Wonder five decades later: George Pal’s THE 7 FACES OF DR. LAO; Robert Aldrich’s HUSH…HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE; Stanley Kubrick’s DR. STRANGELOVE, OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB, to name a few.
Here, then, is a rundown of what the year 1964 has to offer those willing to take a trip in the Way Back Machine. Explore at your own risk. There is exploitation aplenty, lurid and shocking, but tempting nonetheless – and not nearly intimidating enough to dissuade brave viewers willing to sift through the sleaze in search of gems.
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7 Faces of Dr. Lao
George Pal produced and directed this fantasy film, from a screenplay by Charles Beaumont and Ben Hecht, based on the novel The Circus of Dr. Lao by Charles G. Finney. Tony Randall stars as the enigmatic Chinese magician, who rides into an old western town and changes the lives of the inhabitants with the lessons learned from the magic wonders inside his circus. William Tuttle won an honorary Oscar for his makeup work, which transformed Randall into the titular seven faces (well, one of them is actually a stop-motion puppet voiced by Randall, and another is pretty much a stunt man in a suit). Jim Danforth’s special effects, which also included a fanciful Loch Ness Monster, were nominated by the Academy as well.
Pal is more well known for his apocalyptic science fiction epics, WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE (1951) and WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953), but 7 FACES OF DR. LAO is equally memorable, its charms lovingly recalled by a generation of children now grown to adulthood. With Babara Eden and Arthur O’Connell.
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Batman Dracula
This is a black-and-white silent film, made by artist Andy Warhol without approval from DC Comics. Taking a campy approach to the character years before the Adam West television series, BATMAN DRACULA was shown only at Warhol’s art exhibits. Jack Smith starred as Batman.
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The Black Torment
The title of this unfairly neglected Gothic thriller suggests Euro-Horror – German, maybe Italian – but it is in fact a colorful British production about a wealthy gentleman, Sir Richard Fordyke (John Turner) returning to his ancestral home with his new bride, only to be met with accusations of murder. During his long absence, his dead wife has been wandering the countryside, suggesting she rests uneasy in her grave – perhaps because Sir Richard killed her? Also, Richard himself has supposedly been seen stalking and killing a victim during his absence from home.
The script (by Derek and Donald Ford) and the direction (by Robert Hartford-Davis) are perhaps more workmanlike than inspired, but the competent craftsmanship is more than enough to wring several spooky chills out of the premise of an innocent man, who merely wants to settle down to a quiet life with his wife, bedeviled by rumors, innuendo, a ghost, and possibly a doppleganger. Fans of Hammer horror will spot a few familiar faces in THE BLACK TORMENT, including Heather Sears (THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA).
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Blood and Black Lace
Known as Sei Donne per L’assassino (“Six Women for the Assassin) in its native country, the mystery-thriller from director Mario Bava pushes the violence to horrific levels, essentially creating a new sub-genre, the giallo (named after the yellow covers of mystery novels in Italy). Set in the world of high fashion, the story in a programmatic, Ten-Little-Indians kind of way, depicts the death of six beautiful models, each of whom has come in contact with a diary that includes some kind of incriminating evidence that the killer (or killers) wants to keep hidden.
The ultimate explanation of the motivation appears too weak to justify the on-screen carnage, which seems more like the work of a maniac (as the police in the film assume it to be). However, questioning the plot developments is beside the point in this film, which works as a series of gruesomely stylish set-pieces, showing off Bava’s visual artistry. Never has murder been realized with such beauty; the heightened use of color (as when one victim’s face is pushed closer and closer to a red-hot stove) rendered the imagery in almost abstract terms – until you hear the screams of pain. BLOOD AND BLACK LACE is must-see viewing.
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The Brass Bottle
Tony Randall and Barbara Eden, seen in 7 FACES OF DR. LAO, are together in this fantasy film as well. Randall plays an architect who purchases the titular antique, from which emerges a djinn (like a genie but different, according to the F. Anstey source novel). The joke is that, having been locked inside the brass bottle for many years, this ancient supernatural being (played by Burl Ives) is ill-equipped to deal with the modern world, and his granting of wishes inevitably goes wrong, causing trouble for the architect. Harry Killer directed from a screenplay by Oscar Brodney.
“…one of the duller fantasies dreamed up by Hollywood’s necromancers,” opined the New York Times’ A. H. Weiler upon the initial release of THE BRASS BOTTLE. Little has happened over the ensuing decades to alter that judgement.
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A Carol for Another Christmas
This 90-minute made-for-television update of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was scripted by Rod Serling (THE TWILIGHT ZONE) and directed by Joseph Mankiewicz. Sterling Hayden plays an industrial tycoon embittered by the loss of his son on Christmas Eve in World War II, until he has a change of attitude thanks to the intercession of the Ghosts of Christmas Past (Steve Lawrence), Christmas Present (Pat Hingle), and Christmas Future (Robert Shaw).
Broadcast on December 28, without commercial interruption, A CAROL FOR ANOTHER CHRISTMAS was the first in a series of special promoting the United Nations. As such, Serling’s adaptation was themed as a plea for cooperation between nations. The “all-star cast” included Britt Ekland, Ben Gazzara, Eva Marie Saint, James Shigeta, and Peter Sellers (Hayden’s co-star from DR. STRANGELOVE).
Never released on home video, the film has been screened in recent years by Turner Classic Movies, and is available through UCLA’s Film and Television Archive.
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Castle of Blood
This splendidly atmospheric Italian ghost story features a contrived plot in which English journalist Alan Foster (Georges Riviere) tracks down Edgar Allan Poe ( Silvano Tranquilli) for an interview, only to end up accepting a challenge from Poe’s acquaintance, Lord Blackwell, whose ancestral castle is supposedly so haunted that no one can survive All Souls Night within its walls. Inside, Foster encounters various spectres from beyond the grave, including Elisabeth Blackwood (Barbara Steele) and Dr. Carmus (Arturo Dominic), the latter of whom theorizes about the distinction between the Death of the Body and the Death of the Spirit (apparently, a violent demise kills the body but leaves the spirit restless and wandering on this earthly plane).
The castle setting, beautifully captured in black-and-white, lends just the right atmosphere for this horror film, which is much enhanced by the presence of Steele as an alluring phantom. The screenplay by Sergio Corbucci and Giovanni Grimaldi has some interesting ideas and pulls off a nice, ambiguous twist ending that is both morbid and romantic. Director Antonio Margheriti (working under his Anthony Dawson pseudonym) handles the material with unobtrusive expertise – he doesn’t have the visual flash of Bava, but he knows how to get the job done in an entertaining fashion.
CASTLE OF BLOOD is known as Danza Macabra (“Macabre Dance”) in Italian. The credits claim the screenplay is based on a story of that name by Poe, though the author bibliography includes no such title. The film was released to American television, in a shortened version, as CASTLE OF TERROR. The longer version, available on DVD, includes dialogue in which the character of Poe recites passages from his work – truly the only Poe material included in the script.
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Castle of the Living Dead
This is a relatively minor black-and-white thriller from Italy, whose historical interest lies mostly in the presence of Michael Reeves, who would go on to direct WITCHFINDER GENERAL (1968, a.k.a. THE CONQUEROR WORM) before his untimely death a few years later. Though the direction is officially credited to Warren Kiefer and Luciano Ricci (working as “Herbert Wise”), second-unit director Reeves impressed the producers so much that he was allowed to write and direct additional material (apparently focusing on supporting character rather than the main cast).
Christopher Lee (HORROR OF DRACULA) plays another Count, this one named Drago, who mummifies his victims with a secret formula that leaves them frozen, looking exactly as they did at the moment of death. Donald Sutherland plays a comic-relief gendarme who does little to solve the situation but takes credit nonetheless. One of Reeves’ additions to CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD (Il Castello dei Morti Vivi) was to give Sutherland a second role, as a witch in drag – a sight that truly must be seen to be believed.
No one is doing his best work here, but Lee’s fans may want to check this out after they have seen everything better. Reeves’ work (mostly on non-dialogue action scenes) are nice but not enough to save the film. The biggest attraction is probably Sutherland’s eccentric performance(s).
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Cave of the Living Dead
This little German opus is too much a jumble of conflicting elements to be fully satisfying, but at the same time the mixture is just weird enough to be interesting. Known as Der Fluch Der Gruenen Augen (“The Girl with the Green Eyes”), CAVE OF THE LIVING DEAD begins like a James Bond movie, with hip agent Frank Dorin (Adrian Hoven) hanging out in a nightclub, listening to jazz, and eyeing a hot chick while contemplating a well-deserved vacation. Unfortunately, his idyll is interrupted by a call from headquarters, asking him to investigate a rash of mysterious deaths (though not necessarily murders) in a small town. The modern flavor of the opening scenes morphs into a more traditional flavor as Dorin reaches the stricken villa, which hasn’t moved much out of the 19th century. It becomes clear pretty quickly that the problem is vampires and almost as quickly that the source of the problem lives in the local castle, though Dorin takes his time about figuring this out.
The locations, filmed in black-and-white, lend an appropriate atmosphere to the proceedings, even when the narrative is taking its time about getting anywhere, and Dorin’s transformation from modern-day skeptic to believer is nicely underplayed. There are a few visual moments that evoke the glory days of German expressionism, such as the shadow of a vampire cast upon a wall, suggesting the monster’s presence without revealing its true identity. Perhaps the most remarkable moment reveals how the old “he was right behind me but now he’s gone” moment works, the vampiric Professor Adelsberg (Wolfgang Preiss) quickly stepping through a doorway when Dorin is not looking.
Akos Rathonyi directed from a script he co-wrote with Kurt Roecken. and Erika Remberg co-star. Also known as NIGHT OF THE VAMPIRES.
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Children of the Damned
This truly remarkable follow-up to VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1960) deserves credit for being one of the few sequels to truly re-think the material, creating a new story that is less a continuation of its predecessor than a complete inversion. The only link is the concept of children, gifted with psychic powers and glowing eyes that make them an (apparent) threat to the normal, human world. Though there is an ominous black-and-white atmosphere similar to VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED, which depicted the children as an alien menace that needed to be exterminated, CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED presents mankind as the true monsters, afraid of this new breed of humanity without trying to truly understand it.
The original screenplay by John Briley (GANDHI) is fairly clever about serving up its liberal message in an exciting science fiction story. One of the sly jokes is that the two male leads (played by Ian Hendry and Alan Badel) are, respectively, a psychologist and a geneticist, neatly embodying the old “nurture versus nature” debate regarding human development – though in this case, neither one has an answer for why there are suddenly a half a dozen special children from around the world, who may be the next step in human evolution (unlike the previous film, in which the children were implied to be the result of alien invasion). Even the title makes metaphoric sense: the children are not “damned;” they are the children of the “damned” – i.e., the human world that is too paranoid to accept these new beings, whose virgin births and ability to resurrect the dead make them blatant Christ-figures.
Anton M. Leader directed. Barbara Ferris, Alfred Burke, and Patrick Wymark arein the supporting cast.
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The Comedy of Terrors
Though not based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe, this tongue-in-cheek spoof from American International Pictures is clearly a follow-up to their previous efforts, TALES OF TERROR and THE RAVEN, both of which had injected the old horror formula with doses of humor. Richard Matheson, who had scripted those two efforts, recycled and revised motifs, inverting character relationships to come up with something recognizable but new. The love triangle from TALES OF TERROR’s middle episode, “The Black Cat,” is back, in the form of Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Joyce Jameson, but this time Lorre rather than Price is the third wheel. The story has Price and Lorre as undertakers who save money by reusing the same coffin over and over again, dumping out the body and buring it after mourners have left. The plan goes bad when their latest customer, Mr. Black (Basil Rathbone) is placed to rest above ground, inside a tomb, where the coffin will be visible. Things get worse when Mr. Black returns from the grave to menace the undertakers, who contributed to his “death” when he was trying to collect a debt from them.
Unfortunately, AIP’s resident horror producer-director, Roger Corman was not involved, and his absence is telling. Though THE COMEDY OF TERRORS features a similar look to Corman’s Poe films, right down to exteriors rendered with stylized matte paintings, the result feels like an uninspired forgery, despite the presence of director Jacques Tourneur, who had helmed the excellent CAT PEOPLE (1941) and I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (1942) for producer Val Lewton. The film’s greatest virtue is its cast of classic horror stars, who seem to be having a good time – much better than the audience, unfortunately – delivering lines like “I wouldn’t be caught dead in that thing” (in reference to an attempt to build a replacement coffin). Boris Karloff (FRANKENSTEIN) is on hand as the decrepit former owner of the funeral business (now owned by his son-in-law); he is given little to do, but his funeral eulogy (in which the senile old man cannot recall the name of the dearly departed) is worth a few laughs.
THE COMEDY OF TERRORS actually had its premiere on December 25, 1963 in Detroit, Michigan, but its major release did not take place until the following year, so we included it here among the films of 1964. The film was not a success, and a planned follow-up was abandoned. Matheson ceased writing the Poe films, leaving Corman to find other collaborators for the two that he completed in 1964.
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The Creeping Terror
Prepare to have your mind blown by one of the most aggressively awful films ever created – a movie that truly knows no shame as it assaults the viewer with mindless stupidity from beginning to end, justifiably earning a reputation a for unintentional camp that helped make it one of the best episodes of MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 ever. Produced, directed, edited by, and starring Arthur Nelson White (who billed himself as “Vic Savage” in front of the camera and “A.J. Nelson” behind), THE CREEPING TERROR is the one with the walking carpet monster – surely cinema’s most hilarious inept example of a slow-moving threat that miraculously manages to overtakes its victims (who more or less have to throw themselves into its maw, because despite the alien’s dangling appendages, it has no functioning claws or tentacles to grab its prey).
This is also the film with no soundtrack. Well, there is canned music and narration; however, there is no live sound recorded while filming. Explanations vary: either the director lost the soundtrack, or he shot silently with the intention of over-dubbing later, only to find the post-production process too time consuming. The result is that the “story” is conveyed by an annoying narrator, who spends most of the time telling us what the characters are saying and explaining action that is self-evident to any viewers who manage to remain non-comatose throughout the proceedings.
The highlight is a dance party invaded by the monster, who eats men and women indiscriminately – though the director’s gaze lingers far more lovingly on the latter, who go in head first and ass-up, kicking and screaming as they crawl inside, pretending to be eaten. In at least one case, the woman’s male companion clearly pushes her toward the monster. (Chivalry is dead – it’s time to look out for Numero Uno!)
Screenwriter Robert Silliphant was the brother of Sterling Silliphant, a successful film and television writer. Though uncredited, Robert’s younger brother Allan is said to have written the original story. Apparently, Sterling’s talent was not genetically transmitted to his siblings: Robert went on to co-script the equally awful THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP ZOMBIES; Allan wrote and directed the 3D softcore film THE STEWARDESSES, under the pseudonym “Alf Sillman Jr.
Reportedly hiding from creditors, Vic Savage never made another movie. His story is told in the documentary THE CREEP BEHIND THE CAMERA (2014), which includes dramatic recreations and interviews with the cast of THE CREEPING TERROR.
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Crypt of the Vampire
Camillo Mastrocinque, who later directed Barbara Steele in AN ANGEL FOR SATAN (1965), helmed this unofficial adaptation of J. Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla. Christopher Lee once again plays a Count, though this time he is protecting his family from vampirism. The screenplay by Tonino Valerii & Ernesto Gastaldi (writing as Robert Bohr and Julian Berry) has Count Karnstein’s innocent daughter, Laura (Adriana Ambesi) befriending Ljuba (Ursula Davis) after the latter’s coach crashes outside the castle. Ljuba turns out to be the witch Scirra, who has been plaguing the Karnstein family for decades.
Release in England as CRYPT OF HORROR, and shown on American television as TERROR IN THE CRYPT, CRYPT OF THE VAMPIRE (originally La Cripta e L’Incubo) has never earned much of a reputation, even among fans of black-and-white ’60s Euro-horror. There is some nice black-and-white photography in this Italian-Spanish co-production, but the pacing is slow (even though the basic outline of LeFanu’s fine tale is still recognizable).
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The Curse of the Living Corpse
Stop me if you have heard this one: a bunch of greedy relatives, gathered at an old house for the reading of a will, die in mysterious ways. Even by 1964, this story was older than Dracula’s castle, but that didn’t stop one-man creative team Del Tenny (director, writer, and co-producer) from dusting off the cobwebs for another attempt. The interesting wrinkle here is that the dearly departed had a morbid fear of being buried alive, and his will left specific instructions to prevent this from happening – instructions which the relative ignore in their haste to get their hands on the estate, thus sealing their fate.
This film marks the feature film debut of Roy Scheider, who would essay the iconic role of Chief Brody in JAWS a decade later. Cult movie fans will also note the presence of Candace Hilligoss (CARNIVAL OF SOULS).
Shot in Stamford, Connecticut, on an estate owned by Tenny’s father-in-law, THE CURSE OF THE LIVING CORPSE was released on a double bill with THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH, another Del Tenny production, filmed around the same time.
Critic Dennis Schwartz advises: “If you love bad films, this one is irresistible.”
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The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb
Though not a direct sequel, this second mummy movie from Hammer Films is a rehash of its predecessor, THE MUMMY (1959). To its credit, the scenario (credited to “Henry Younger” – a pen name for producer-director Michael Carreras) offers a few interesting twists on the familiar elements; for instance, actor George Patel is back, playing another Egyptian, but this time instead of aiding the mummy, he turns out to be a good guy.
A very proper British expedition of dedicated archaeologists discovers yet another entombed mummy, but their backer and crass American showman Alexander King (Fred Clark) exploits the discovery for fun and profit – at least until the Mummy revives and kills him. It looks like yet another example of an ancient curse decimating the desecrators of a tomb, but there is something more going on here, something to do with the Mummy’s brother, who may also be walking the Earth as an immortal…
The story is an entertaining mis-mash of forgotten plot threads and neglected motivations; at first, scenes seem to make sense (such as an attempted robbery of Egyptian artifacts), and only later do you realize that we never learn who the robbers were or whether the attempt was not just a set-up, allowing a stranger, Adam Beecham (Terence Morgan) to intervene heroically and gain the trust of the expedition.
Typical for Hammer, the sets and photography are beautiful, and the modest budget goes a long way toward making this look like a lavish production. Unfortunately, stunt man Eddie Powell, his face buried beneath the bandages, brings little personality to the Mummy – which might not normally be a big drawback in a mummy movie, but this one gives the character a back story and a dramatic conflict based on a character conflict with his brother.
Carreras pulls off several nice horror scenes. The attempted capture of the Mummy by the police, after the bandaged juggernaut has crashed through a window into a study, plays like a direct lift from THE MUMMY, once again juxtaposing the decaying ancient figure with brightly colored, modern surroundings, but one attack upon a helpless victim, whose skull is bashed repeatedly with a paperweight, is memorably brutal, without being explicit; the almost methodical way the Mummy raises the weapon for one more blow is just slow enough to give viewers time to gasp, “Oh no, not again!”
All in all, this is a good “Horror Pinch Hitter” – not as good as THE MUMMY, but a good substitute when you tire of repeatedly viewing the original.
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Death on the Fourposter
This is another modern-day Euro-thriller that affects a Gothic atmosphere, insofar as much of the action is set inside an old castle and filmed in black-and-white. Mostly the film is about a group of young, hip, swinging ’60s kids, deciding who will sleep with whom. However, the most provocative member of the group starts a little game, in which her allegedly psychic boyfriend predicts horrible demises for the participants.
Originally titled Delitto allo Specchio, and sometimes known as SEX PARTY in England, this little-seen Italian production includes some elements that would later bloom into the giallo genre, but here they play a subordinate role in the narrative (which doesn’t get to the first murder till after the halfway mark). Fans who have tracked it down tend to be modest in their appraisal (the film’s appeal seems to rest more with its attractive female cast than with the thriller elements); however, Johan Melle of Euro-Fever Blogspot writes that DEATH ON THE FOUR POSTER offers “is a superlative early giallo that provides sexy, campy fun from beginning to end.”
Jean Josipovici and Ambrogio Molteni directed, from a script Josipovici co-wrote with Giorgio Stegani. The cast includes John Drew Barrymore (the missing link between John Barrymore and Drew Barrymore), Gloria Milland, Luisa Rivelli, and Antonella Lualdi.
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The Death Ray of Dr. Mabuse
This is the sixth and final entry in a ’60s-era series of films based on the character previously seen in Fritz Lang’s THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE. Unlike its predecessors. THE DEATH RAY OF DR. MABUSE (Die Todesstrahlen des Dr. Mabuse) supplants the krimi (“crime”) film elements with a more high-tech, science fiction approach, akin to the James Bond films – most notably with the titular death ray.
Working from a screenplay by Ladislas Fodor, Hugo Fregonese directed the German-Italian-French co-production, which features an international cast, including Peter Van Eyck, Yvonne Furneaux (of Hammer Films’ THE MUMMY), Walter Rilla, O.E. Hasse, Rika Dialina, and Robert Beatty. Wolfgang Preiss, who had played Mabuse in the previous films, appears only in re-used footage; the character, apparently now in spirit form, is dubbed by another actor, as he influences a professor to complete the death ray.
The Lexicon of International Film dismissed the movie as “rude and crude.” Poor box office returns doomed plans for further sequels, though the character was revived years later.
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Demon in the Blood
This ultra-obscure title apparently hails from Argentina (though IMDB lists it as Mexcian in origin). A three-part anthology, DEMON IN THE BLOOD (El Demonio en la Sangre) showcases tales of ordinary people turning to murder: a black boxer is hypnotized, turning him into a murderer; a married couple is haunted by the ghost of the man’s first wife; a mysterious stranger torments a couple travelling by train.
Rene Mugica directed. The script was co-written by Tomas Eloy Martinez, Augusto Roa Bastos, and Mugica. The cast includes Rosita Quintana, Ubaldo Martinez, Ernesto Bianco, and Wolf Ruvinskis (who starred as Neutron in a series of Mexican masked wrestler movies).
Phil Hardy’s Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Horror called DEMON IN THE BLOOD “technically competent” but “disappointing” and accused the cast of giving “hammy” performances.
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Devil Doll
A movie about a ventriloquist and his dummy – think there might be something strange, even supernatural, going on? You guessed right! Although deliberately created to replicate the eerie quality of the ventriloquist’s dummy episode from DEAD OF NIGHT (1945), this black-and-white English production works tolerably well as a crude rip-off, thanks to a creepy dummy and an even creepier performance from Bryant Haliday as The Great Vorelli. The innovation here is that Vorelli is not only a ventriloquist but also a mystic who casts a mesmeric spell over leading lady Marianne Horn (Yvonne Romain, of Hammer’s THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF). William Sylvester (2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY) plays American journalist Mark English (??), who seeks to unravel the secret of Vorelli’s ambulatory dummy Hugo and hopefully put a stop to Vorelli’s designs on Marianne.
There is a sleazy aura to the film – not only in the Continental version, which adds gratuitous nudity, but also in the original narrative, which has English more or less rape his reluctant girlfriend in a car (she clearly resists, but he presses on regardless) and then pimp her off to Vorelli in the hope getting a good newspaper article about the famous entertainer. Fortunately, the on-stage tension between Vorelli and Hugo is palpable, lending an interesting edge to the proceedings, and the bizarre climax (a physical fight between the two opponents) is both laughably funny and oddly disturbing, leading to a conclusion that is almost satisfying (the villain gets what he deserves, but no thanks to our hero Mark, who was off-screen at the decisive moment).
Lindsay Shonteff directed for producer Richard Gordon, who was responsible for several productions of this type during this era (CORRIDORS OF BLOOD, ISLAND OF TERROR). Ronald Kinnoch and Charles F. Vetter (under the pen names George Barclay and Lance Z. Hargreaves) wrote the screenplay, based on a short story by Frederick E. Smith.
If you like this kind of thing, DEVIL DOLL is worth seeing, especially if you can catch the MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 version.
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Dogora
You ever get tired of giant monsters attacking Tokyo? So did the filmmakers, or at least that’s the way it seems when you look at DOGORA (Uchū Daikaijū Dogora – i.e., “Giant Space Monster Dogora”), which conspicuously splices a cops-and-robbers story line involving international jewel theives into the usual kaiju scenario. The intersection between the two plot elements is that the titular monster feeds on coal, including diamonds, the mysterious disapperance of which leads the local diamond ring to be blamed for more robberies than they actually committed; consequently, they set out to discover who’s poaching their territory, and finger Mark Jackson (Robert Dunham), who turns out to be an international agent posing as a criminal.
In between the police procedural elements, the monster attacks just often enough to remind you that this is a monster movie, though the initial special effects sequences are played somewhat tongue-in-cheek (e.g., a sleeping man levitating without waking). Later, there is a fairly spectacular sequence in which Dogora finally materializes – a giant jellyfish floating above the city, its tentacles destroy a bridge like matchsticks. Abandoning the usual man-in-a-suit approach, effects supervisor Eiji Tsuburaya created a startling, amorphous creature unlike any other in his lengthy filmography (which includes Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra and more). Unfortunately, the creature mutates into a less impressive form for the rest of the film, which leaves viewers feeling the climax took place at the film’s midpoint.
The usual crew from Toho Productions was involved here: producer Tomoyuki Tanaka, director Ishiro Honda, screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa, composer Akira Ifukube. The cast included Yosuke Natsuki, Yoko Fujiyama, Hirohsi Koizumi, Nobuo Nakamura, Jun Tazaki, and Akiko Wakabayashi as a sultry gangsters moll.
Though DOGORA does not really add up to much, there are some exciting scenes, including a nail-biter in which Mark Jackson and his Japanese police counterpart are tied up and left in a room with a lit stick of dynamite. The effectiveness suggests that director Honda was eager to prove he could handle a more conventional form of suspense that did not require toppling buildings to generate thrills.
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Dr. Orloff’s Monster
This is an early effort from cult auteur Jess Franco, whose exploitation excesses have earned him a following among fans of Euro-trash. The story involves a Dr. Fisherman (renamed Dr. Jekyll in some languages), who kills his brother Andros (Hugo BLanco) for cuckolding him, then resurrects him as a mindless zombie that kills on command; plot complications ensue when Fisherman’s niece (Agnes Spaak) arrives for a visit and finds out what happened to her father.
DR. ORLOFF’S MONSTER is the second a series of films named after mad scientist who first appeared in THE AWFUL DR. ORLOFF 1962). However, the connection is tenuous at best: there is an early scene of a dying old man (presumably Orloff, though not played by the actor from the previous film) passing on his secrets to Fisherman (Marcelo Arroita-Jauregui), who carries on from there.
Also, it is easy to loose track of exactly where this film comes in the Orloff saga, thanks to confusion over the title. Shot as El Secreto Del Dr. Orloff (“The Secret of Dr. Orloff”) in its native Spain, the film was released as THE MISTRESSES OF DR. JEKYLL in some territories, and did not become known as DR. ORLOFF’S MONSTER until much later – after a subsequent sequel named DR. ORLOFF’S INVISIBLE MONSTER (1971).
Franco’s combination of pretension and sleaze (arty black-and-white approach mingled with gratuitous nudity) has its advocates, but DR. ORLOFF’S MONSTER is not highly regarded, even by fans (thanks at least in part to the absence of the title character).
Long available only in an edited TV version, the Spanish production can now be seen in its uncut European incarnation (taken from a French print, dubbed into English), which is available on DVD and instant streaming.
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Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Fifty years after its release, it is more than a little bit redundant to rank producer-director Stanley Kubrick’s black comedy apocalypse among the greatest achievements in the history of cinema; the film is a masterpiece that transcends genre. The science fiction element is small (limited to a Doomsday Device that brings about the end of the world regardless of the effectiveness of enemy attack); nevertheless, DR. STRANGELOVE, OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB stands as a superb example of speculative fiction: What if a general went made and ordered his B-52s to attack the Soviet Union with nuclear warheads?
The premise plays out in a surreal context that juxtaposes the petty foibles of individual humans against the horrifying backdrop of potential human extinction, and the comic absurdity is all the more effective because the grim logic of the narrative seems absolutely convincing. Credit this to the fact that Kubrick based his screenplay, co-written with Terry Sothern, on a serious novel, Red Alert, by Peter George.
If there is anything we can extract from the film today that was not apparent in 1964, it is perhaps the moral imperative of civil and military leaders to ensure that their actions are justified when they send soldiers in their command to war. The various faction we see in the film all perform heroically when seen from their own vantage point: the air force personnel defending their base (not knowing their commander is launching an unprovoked war); the soldiers who are attacking the base to get the recall code from the general, which requires them to fire upon fellow Americans; and most especially, the crew of the B-52 that defies all odds to deliver its payload, in the belief that they are defending friends and family back home from a Soviet attack. The plane’s captain, Major Kong (Slim Pickens, playing to perfection) deserves a medal of valor, and in a weird way it’s a good thing that he ends up vaporized, having sacrificed his life to dislodged a bomb a stuck H-Bomb – and thus never learning the truth that his action triggers the Doomsday Device.
Unlike other Kubrick films, DR. STRANGELOVE is mostly free of elaborate tracking shots; the emphasis is on montage, with exaggerated camera angles, expressionistic black-and-white photography, and stylized performances that emphasize the nightmare nature of the demented comedy. Peter Sellers shines in three roles, particularly the title character – a mad German scientist who seems like a living embodiment of the Death Wish driving mankind to nuclear annihilation. Sterling Hayden is equally memorable as the insane General Ripper, and George C. Scott chews the scenery with gusto (though in fact his performance is the result of Kubrick pushing him further than he wanted to go).
What else can we say about DR. STRANGELOVE, five decades after its debut? Well, apparently the U.S. Air Force reviewed and revised its protocols to prevent this scenario from playing out in real life. There are many films that can lay claim to great artistic achievement; how many can plausibly claim to have helped prevent the end of mankind?
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To be continued…
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