BATMAN AND ROBIN (1943)

Talbot, Lowery and Duncan

BATMAN AND ROBIN (15 chapter Columbia serial/1943). Director: Spencer Bennet. 

An unknown enemy called the Wizard (voice of Gerald Mohr, I believe)  employs a device that can take over control of any moving vehicle from afar. Later he develops the ability to turn invisible and can really get up to mischief! The Batman (Robert Lowery) and Robin (Johnny Duncan) find there are a number of suspects who could be the nefarious Wizard: Professor Hammil (William Fawcett), who may not be stuck in a wheelchair as he pretends; his houseman Carter (Leonard Penn); the inventor Morton (Marshall Bradford); radio announcer Barry Brown (Rick Vallin), who seems to know a lot more about the Wizard's activities than he should; and others.

The Wizard plots

Suspenseful, exciting, and quite well-done in all departments, Batman and Robin is one of the best-ever Columbia serials, and one of the best cliffhangers ever made period. Lowery and Duncan impersonate the Dark Knight and his ward to near-perfection; Jane Adams and George Offerman Jr. are notable as reporter Vicki Vale and her ill-fated brother, Jimmy; and even Lyle Talbot as Commissioner Gordon is better than usual. There is no batmobile in this serial, but we do have the batcave and its entrance through a grandfather clock. Cliffhanger sequences include Batman being forced to shoot Robin; a room that rapidly fills with a deadly gas, trapping our heroes; and Batman falling off of a cliff after being electrofried. The serial also has terrific theme music, although the composer is uncredited. 

Verdict: Far superior to and a lot more fun than the sixties TV show and many of the movies that followed. ***1/2. 

THUNDER IN CAROLINA

Rory Calhoun at the wheel

THUNDER IN CAROLINA (1960). Director: Paul Helmick. 

Race car driver Mitch Cooper (Rory Calhoun) has an accident on the track, breaks his foot, and smashes his auto. He decides to cool his heels for awhile and looks up an old friend but discovers that he's passed away. The garage that friend used to own is now owned by Les York (Race Gentry) and his wife Rene (Connie Hines), who invite him to stay. Les helps Mitch fix his car and importunes him to let him race it as well, although Rene is not crazy about having to become the camp follower of a race car driver. Still she goes along with the idea, becoming as worried about other women as she is about Les being injured or killed. 

Race Gentry, Calhoun, Connie Hines

Despite the title, Thunder in Carolina is an awfully dull picture. Even the climax which employs real footage from a race track is put together in such a way as to minimize thrills. This was the second of only two films helmed by Paul Helmick, who isn't able to do much to save the film. The occasional provocative sequence -- Mitch thinking a woman in the motel shower is an old girlfriend when it's really Rene and an catfight that never really materializes -- are too minor to amount to much. Supposed to be a hell-raiser and lover boy, Mitch basically takes a back seat to Les York's activities, which would scarcely raise an eyebrow. Race Gentry was a handsome if limited actor who had a few credits, mostly on television; he makes a favorable impression in this. Connie Hines was introduced in this film but she had over a dozen television credits beforehand. This was her only theatrical feature and she is much better known for the TV series Mr. Ed. Alan Hale Jr. is fine as a mechanic on the track and a friend of Mitch's. Many of the cast members only appeared in this one movie. 

Verdict: Even an attractive cast can't save this stinker. **.

THE EVIL DEAD

THE EVIL DEAD (1981). Written and directed by Sam Raimi. 

Ashley (Bruce Campbell) and four friends travel to an isolated cabin in the woods where they discover and play a tape recording of incantations from the "Book of the Dead" which can resurrect demons. Which is exactly what happens. Before long -- and after one woman has apparently been raped by malevolent, moving roots -- the women in the party are possessed one by one by demonic forces that transform them and turn them into murderous, cackling hags that only dismemberment can kill. This is another in a long line of Exorcist-inspired films, and in its own way was also a bit influential, though it's much less impressive now than it seemed nearly thirty years ago. The movie, full of comic book gruesomeness, is like a nightmare come to life, and is sometimes effective and sometimes clumsy, often employing shock techniques that were old-fashioned even in 1981. Some feel the direction and camera work of the film are "masterful." Well ... not quite. Raimi's screenplay fails to provide three-dimensional characters. The true stars of the film are the FX people and the make up artists, whose work is excellent. Some of the acting is awkward, although Campbell isn't bad. The best scene has a paranoid Ash all alone in the cabin wondering what on earth is going to happen next. Raimi would go on to direct much better films. 

Verdict: Lively, once it gets going, but perhaps not lively enough. **1/2.

GARGOYLES

Cornel Wilde, Grayson Hall, Jennifer Salt

GARGOYLES (1972 telefilm). Director: Bill Norton. 

Dr. Mercer Boley (Cornel Wilde) and his daughter, Diana (Jennifer Salt), drive into the desert to seek out an old man (Woody Chambliss) who runs a museum of strange artifacts and has found a very weird skeleton. Just as Boley thinks the old man has put together a phony artifact, his home is attacked by a barely-seen creature that sets fire to the place and runs off. A motorcycle gang run by James Reeger (Scott Glenn) is accused of the crime, but Mercer and Diana know that there's something monstrous out there in the desert, or more to the point, in the caverns nearby. Boley has uncovered a nest of gargoyles, a demonic race that are intent on taking over the world. When Diana is kidnapped by the head gargoyle (a dubbed Bernie Casey), Mercer and the police track her to the caverns ... 

Scott Glenn protests his innocence

Gargoyles is pretty bad, which is a shame because it has some atmosphere in the beginning, as well as a workable plot, but it's just unconvincing and kind of cheapjack. Wilde and Salt do the best they can with the material, and Grayson Hall is fun as a slatternly motel owner who hopes to get a date with Wilde -- fat chance! Scott Glenn makes an impression as the motorbike guy who joins in the hunt for the gargoyles. The prologue to the film makes it sound as if this will be some kind of epic good vs. evil battle -- apparently the gargoyles were thrown down from Heaven and try to take over the world every several hundred years or so -- but this doesn't have the required budget to make it work. The overuse of slow-motion to depict action is a tiresome device that doesn't work at all. Director Bill Norton did a better job with False Arrest some years later.

Verdict: Another crappy 1970's made-for-TV horror flick that wastes its potential. **. 

CHILLERS

CHILLERS (1990 TV series). 

This French-English TV series with a foolish title is based on the work of novelist Patricia Highsmith of Talented Mr. Ripley and Strangers on a Train fame. The title makes one imagine that this will be a series of scary stories, but while there are a few creepy moments, that is not exactly the case. The main trouble is that not all of Highsmith's short stories translate well to the screen, and when I looked up some of the stories that had been adapted, I didn't find the originals all that great, either. Flat wind-ups do not make for compelling episodes. Perhaps Highsmith worked better in the longer form, although there are many who might disagree. While none of the 12 episodes of this short-lived series -- hosted amiably by Anthony Perkins -- are outstanding, there are a few that are notable. "A Curious Suicide" has a man killing an old friend, now a widower, who married the woman he loved; Nicole Willamson and Barry Foster are excellent as the two principals. "Old Folks at Home" finds a middle-aged couple regretting it after they take in an elderly couple who at first seem sweet but then become more and more demanding. In "Sauce for the Goose" a woman murders her husband to be with a younger man, a singer, then winds up fearing for her own life. Ian Holm stars in "The Stuff of Madness" in which a woman has numerous pets stuffed and spread throughout her garden while her husband obsesses over an old flame. In "Under a Dark Angel's Eyes" a man isn't told that his hateful mother has died so he can keep paying the bills for the couple supposedly looking after her -- Ian Richardson and Peter Vaughn offer exemplary performances in this. 

Stephane Freiss in "Puzzle"

One episode, "The Thrill Seeker," I found too poor  to even finish. Two others are notable for vastly different reasons. "Puzzle" offers a fine performance by Stephane Freiss as Harry, a handsome executive who is caught between two attractive girlfriends who don't know about each other. Like many other episodes, this is entertaining but is not at all a "chiller" and also has a flat resolution. "The Day of Reckoning" is notable if only for the fact that it was helmed by well-known director Samuel Fuller. But the plot, a weird one about tensions between both humans and poultry at an automated chicken farm, is evocative but goes nowhere, becoming rather silly all told. I can only imagine what Fuller thought when he was handed the script!

Verdict: Some very good premises that initially stir the imagination but don't quite hold up for the most part. **1/2. 

TWINS OF EVIL

Madeleine and Mary Collinson

TWINS OF EVIL (1971). John Hough. 

Gustav Weil (pronounced "vile") -- played by Peter Cushing  of The Beast Must Die -- is a witch hunter who cares nothing about putting innocent women to death by burning. He has his hands full when his two nieces -- Maria and Freida (Madeleine and Mary Collinson) -- become his wards, as at least one of them has no intention of staying pure and virginal. Indeed she is fascinated by the decadent Count Karnstein (Damien Thomas), who is not only a vampire but offers sacrifices to Satan. The choirmaster, Anton (David Warbeck), intervenes when the wrong twin is accused of being in league with Karnstein. Two sides of the same coin, Weil confronts Karnstein in the climax, but it's a question as to which of these loathsome creatures will ultimately win. 

Damien Thomas as Karnstein

Twins of Evil is a highly entertaining and well-mounted Hammer horror film. Peter Cushing offers his customary excellent performance, but while he gets away with being overwrought, the same is not true of some of the actors playing the church elders. The Collinson twins, who I believe posed for Playboy years ago and go bare-breasted in this, are certainly attractive and deliver adequate performances, although all of their dialogue was dubbed by unknown British actors. Damien Thomas is strikingly effective and simply wonderful as Count Karnstein, but although he had many other subsequent credits and is still working today, he never did another horror film, more's the pity. Warbeck, Kathleen Byron [Profile] as Weil's wife, Dennis Price [The Horror of It All] as Karnstein's associate Dietrich, are all notable as well. It's never explained how Karnstein, whose image can't be seen in a mirror, can walk about in broad daylight. This is the final film in the trilogy consisting of The Vampire Lovers, Lust for a Vampire, and Twins.

Verdict: Blood, vampires, witch hunters, and boobs! ***. 

JESSE JAMES' WOMEN

Don "Red" Barry

JESSE JAMES' WOMEN (1954). Director: Don Barry. 

Jesse James (Don 'Red" Barry) and his gang are hiding out in a small western community where Jesse calls himself Mr. Woodsen. Jesse has an amazing ability to charm the ladies, but he also fleeces and cheats on them with abandon. This time he's juggling several gals: Waco Gans (Peggie Castle of Beginning of the End), who co-owns a saloon; the sexy singer, Delta (Lita Baron of High School Hero); Cattle Kate Kennedy (Betty Brueck), who wants money for her herd but may have a hard time keeping it away from Jesse; and Caprice Clark (Joyce Barrett), the daughter of the banker whose establishment Jesse robs with her complicity. While his brothers and fellow gang members argue with him and amongst themselves, Jesse may have trouble keeping all the ladies from killing each other and himself. 

Lita Baron, Barry, Peggie Castle

Jesse James' Women is actually a fun movie if you don't take it seriously. It borders on the edges of comedy and occasionally steps over, but that's perfectly okay in a movie of this nature. Barry doesn't exactly look like a lover boy, but he's fine in the role, and Peggie Castle makes her mark as the tough saloon gal who doesn't want any other women encroaching into her territory. Michael Carr and Jack Buetel score as, respectively, gang members Bob Ford and Frank James. An interesting aspect of the film is the fact that the protracted fight scene between Waco and Delta, which rivals the one in Destry, is longer than any of the fights between the guys. Waco and Cattle Kate even have a gun dual -- however, brief -- which is something the men never do. Lita Baron warbles a couple of tunes, including "Careless Love" by George Antheil!

Verdict: Surprisingly flavorful comedy-western-musical. ***. 

IN A DOOR, INTO A FIGHT, OUT A DOOR, INTO A CHASE

IN A DOOR, INTO A FIGHT, OUT A DOOR, INTO A CHASE: Moviemaking Remembered by the Guy at the Door. William Witney. McFarland; 1996.

This generally pleasant if unspectacular memoir of director William Witney looks back at the early days of filmmaking and also covers his output for Republic Pictures in the forties. Witney directed or co-directed such classic cliffhangers as Dick Tracy, Zorro's Fighting Legion, The Adventures of Captain Marvel, Drums of Fu Manchu, Spy Smasher, and many, many others. He hit upon the idea of having the stunt men choreograph their fights instead of simply swinging at each other with no forethought, resulting in much more exciting fight sequences. Witney describes what it was like working on the serials, the fast pace, getting around a low budget, assorted mishaps and near-accidents, and his opinion -- generally favorable but not always -- of some of the actors who starred in these cliffhangers. The book ends when the U.S. entered WW2, so there is no discussion of later projects Witney worked on, such as The Bonnie Parker Story, which in my opinion was better than the more famous Bonnie and Clyde. 

Verdict: Worth a read if a bit disappointing. **3/4. 

FALSE ARREST

Robert Wagner and Donna Mills

FALSE ARREST (2 part telefilm/1991). Director: Bill Norton. 

In Scottsdale, Joyce Lukezic (Donna Mills) is married to her husband Ron (Robert Wagner), who is stepfather to her two children. One night Ron's business partner is murdered, along with his mother-in-law; his wife is severely injured. At first it seems like a simple home invasion, but the authorities, led by Detective Dan Ryan (Steven Bauer), begin to focus in on Joyce, feeling she had the most to gain from the murders and may have hired the killers. Arrested, she faces nasty fellow inmates, and is even raped. Meanwhile Ron hands her pills in her hospital bed, suggesting that suicide might be the best way out for her! If possible, things get even worse for Joyce after she's convicted and sent to prison, with not a soul helping her but moral support from Nadine (Mimi Kuzyk), a sympathetic lesbian who falls for her. 

Mimi Kuzyk and Mills

False Arrest is a riveting true-crime telefilm with a good, if non-revelatory, lead performance from Mills. Robert Wagner gives one of the best performances of his career as the very slimy Ron, who basically runs off and leaves his step kids on their own. There is also very good work from Kuzyk, Bauer, George Hearn as a lawyer,  Dennis Christopher as a coke-addicted co-worker, and Lewis Van Bergen as Joyce's brother, Arnie, among others. Although Joyce was eventually acquitted in a second trial, she was never fully exonerated. This is based on her book about her trials and tribulations. 

Verdict: Absorbing true crime story with some on-target performances. ***.  

THE LOST VOLCANO

Johnny Sheffield as Bomba

THE LOST VOLCANO (1950). Director: Ford Beebe. 

Paul and Ruth Gordon (Donald Woods and Marjorie Lord) are troubled by reports that their young son, David (Tommy Ivo), has an "imaginary" friend named Bomba (Johnny Sheffield). David argues that Bomba actually exists, and his friend, the maid Nona (Elena Verdugo) concurs. The Gordons aren't crazy about their son running around the jungle in a loincloth accompanied by Bomba, but they quickly change their tune once David is kidnapped. Previously Bomba had taken David to a secret location, an extinct -- or "lost" -- volcano inside which is hidden treasure, and now two hunters, Barton (John Ridgely) and Higgins (Don C. Harvey), want David to take them there -- or else. As his parents and Nona search frantically for the missing boy, Bomba comes to the rescue, but an earthquake and bullets may cause a problem ... 

Tommy Ivo and Donald Woods

The Lost Volcano is an entertaining Bomba programmer with Sheffield appealing as the jungle "boy" and a climax that has lots of action. The movie judiciously uses lots of stock footage, although there are times when one can't quite place the actors in true relationship to their surroundings, a typical problem with low-budget movies. Despite this, the movie is fun due to its fast pace and generally spirited cast. There is a humungous python that wraps itself around one of the villains, tunnels and caverns full of skeletons and jewels, and an unexpected eruption with lava flows, adding up to an effective climax. Little Tommy Ivo amassed 85 credits, and then retired to become a professional race car driver. 

Verdict: Not bad Bomba feature with pleasant players. **3/4.