Mala Powers

 

 (imdb)

FEAR NO MORE-1961-Sharon Carlin (Mala Powers; OUTRAGE), secretary to a rich guy named Seymour (John Harding), is framed for murder while on a train bound for San Francisco. She escapes the police officer who's arresting her and tries to make it back to LA. She meets an unhappy divorced French guy Paul Colbert (Jacques Bergerac; THE HYPNOTIC EYE) who's returning his son to his neurotic ex-wife. After having coffee with Paul, she discovers her friend Keith (John Baer) has been murdered by the same man who framed her. Paul comes to her rescue and she escapes. She later reveals to Paul that she was once in a mental institution. The next day she and Paul visit Seymour but he denies ever having sent her to San Francisco. Many more strange things pop up. Is Carol really a delusional insane woman? 

This interesting low budget black and white psychological mystery has a great performance by the underrated Mala Powers. It was the only feature length film directed by Bernard Weisen, who's other credits are all in TV.

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Passing Parade

 

 (flickchart)

JOHN NESBITT'S PASSING PARADE-1944-"Return From Nowhere". In this story, traumatized seaman Alan Blank (Don DeFore) loses a sum of money he hoped to buy a farm with. He cracks up and is put in a hospital. His friend Jack (Donald Curtis) relates the story to a doctor (Morris Ankrum). Using fried eggs and bacon, a jazz record and a kind of dream therapy,  the doc figures out what's ailing Alan and helps cure him. At the beginning and end Peter Cushing is shown in a scene from another movie!

 “The Passing Parade” was a popular radio show written and narrated by John Nesbitt (the grandson of Edwin Booth). Beginning in 1938 MGM produced a series with Nesbitt as writer/narrator. 46 shorts were produced, the last in 1949.

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Scissors and Stone

 

 (imdb)

SCISSORS-1991-Weird tale about a repressed young woman Angie (Sharon Stone) who makes dolls. After she stabs a would-be rapist, her psychiatrist Dr. Carter (Ronny Cox) tells her she's hiding a repressed memory from her childhood. Her suspicious acting neighbor Alex (Steve Railsback) tries to help her. He has a wheelchair bound painter twin brother (also Railsback) who's only pretending to be a cripple. After another encounter in a movie theater and almost having sex with Alex, Angie becomes trapped in a high rise apartment. From things in the apartment including a myna bird and a corpse it's obvious it's someone's plot to drive her crazy. Meanwhile the brothers argue over where she is. It turns out it's a plan by her insane cuckold shrink to kill his wife's (Michelle Phillips) lover. Although Angie appears to lose her mind she turns the tables on the shrink and meets up with Alex. 

This was the only theatrical full length movie director Frank De Felitta made. As a screenwriter he adapted both his novels “Audrey Rose” and “The Entity” to the big screen and also wrote George C. Scott's controversial THE SAVAGE IS LOOSE (1974). He also directed an above average made for TV horror film NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW (1981). 

SCISSORS is based on a short story that was first done on an anthology show in the 1950's and directed by Ida Lupino.

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Bava

HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON-1970-John Harrington (Canadian actor Stephen Forsyth), a bridal designer kills brides to be with a hatchet because of a repressed childhood trauma and uses their bodies for fertilizer. He thinks "My name is John Harrington. I'm 30 years old. I'm paranoiac. Paranoiac. An enchanting name word. So civilized. Full of possibilities". 

He wants a divorce from his rich wife Mildred (Laura Betti) but she refuses. In a hidden room at his dress shop he hugs, kisses and dances with some mannequins. He and Mildred go to a seance' because Mildred is trying to contact her dead former husband but instead she seems to channel John's mother. A police inspector suspects John and they have several conver-sations about a missing employee. When one of his models gives her notice (she's going to be married) he has her put on a wedding dress, dances with her then kills her while a female voice calls his name and he thinks lines like "someone is tip toeing in my brain".  Her replacement Helen (Dagmar Lassander; Fulchi's HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY) turns out to be the missing model's sister who's investigating her disappearance (John admits he killed her and buried her in his green house but she thinks he's joking). Later he puts on a bridal veil and chops up Mildred.  Occasionally John sees a young boy watching him. Later people see Mildred even though John can't. After some talk John puts Mildred's ashes in a bag and goes to a disco.

This is slick sickness from the master Mario Bava (who co-wrote the script) uses great lighting and dream like sequences marred somewhat by the cliched dubbed dialogue: "You like horror films, do ya?". "I don't find them very entertaining. I keep thinking that reality is more terrifying than fiction".  But it's still one of Bava's best, an entertaining entry into the Italian "giallo" genre with a great final ending.

Sometimes listed as HATCHET FOR A HONEYMOON. This was star Forsyth's last movie role after a brief career in Italian films.

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More of The Same

ASYLUM-2008-More derivative psychological horror nonsense has a group of teens staying in a dorm that used to be an insane asylum for teenagers where the doctor did experiments on them. One teen (Sarah Roemer from DISTURBIA) who'd seen her father kill himself when she was little has weird visions. It seems the evil doctor has come back and is killing off the new kids. 

The director of this muck David R. Ellis previously made SNAKES ON A PLANE and FINAL DESTINATION 2 and was stuntman on movies like HOTEL FOR DOGS.

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Deep End

DEEP END-1970-15 year Mike (John Moulder-Brown) gets a job as an attendant in a bathhouse where he meets the female worker Susan (Jane Asher). He becomes increasingly obsessed with her and eventually stalks her while she’s out with her fiancée (Christopher Standford), although she’s also having an affair with a swimming instructor. After some stalking, harassment and hot dog eating Mike has sex with Susan and it all ends tragically. This psychological drama is too talky and boring.

Polish born director Jerzy Skolimowski later made THE SHOUT. Diana Dors has one scene as a floozy who comes on to Mike and Bert Kwouk plays the hot dog vendor. Moulder-Brown was later in VAMPIRE CIRCUS and a lot of BBC productions.

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Silent and Not So...

PHANTOMS-1922-FW Murnau made this moody expressionistic examination of human suffering the same year he made his classic NOSFERATU. It’s not as startling or even as interesting as his later silent masterpieces FAUST and SUNRISE but it’s still well done.

Alfred Abel (the industrialist in Lang’s METROPOLIS) is excellent as a timid book reading city clerk who’s life is turned inside out by a chance encounter with a mysterious woman in white who rides a horse drawn coach (portrayed by Lili Dangover from THE CABINET OF DR. CALAGARI). The running time is a little long but most of Murnau’s work before this isn’t available so it’s a nice find.



THE CABINET OF CALIGARI-1962 –This is a talky psychological melodrama that’s not really a remake of the German expressionistic silent classic but borrows some sets and a “things aren’t what they seem” plot.

Glynis Johns stars as stranded traveler who seeks help at the home of Dr. Caligari, a strange but seemingly helpful fellow. She eventually is held against her will at his home (or so she thinks). Dan O’Herihy is a friendly pipe smoking houseguest with a secret. English actress Estelle Winwood (was this woman ever young?) is talkative guest. She was in Bert I. Gordon’s THE MAGIC SWORD the year before. Familiar TV character actor J. Pat O’Malley is there too. Robert Bloch wrote the screenplay. The film has it’s moments but I found it disappointing. It reminded me of a William Castle movie without any of his gimmicks or black humor! Director Roger Kay worked mostly on TV series including an episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE (“99 Years Without Slumbering”).

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Night/Door

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD-30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION-1999=The original NOTLD is one of my favorite horror movies of all time. Even today I think it stands up pretty well against most “modern horror”.

Anyway, the story of how the movie finally got made is amazing too. The 10 principle investors (including director George Romero & screenwriter John Russo) never made much money from it despite it bringing in a gazillion dollars over the years! This “new edition” was put together by Russo and two of the original cast members (also investors) Russell Streiner (Johnny) and Bill Hinzman (the first zombie who kills Johnny in the cemetery). It adds new music and sound effects and worse of all newly shot scenes designed to “enhance” the original!

So colorizing it years ago wasn’t enough! Remaking it wasn’t enough! No, they had to add new scenes!

It’s crazy too! Some of the scenes feature zombies and some gore but the main new scenes consist of a weird priest (he kind of looks like Anton LeFay) ranting and the revelation that that first zombie was actually a child killer. The disc also features the original version but it also has a new musical score.

There’s a “making of” feature too, a trailer for the new version and a scene from Hinzman’s FLESH EATER (but for some reason it’s in black & white; I could swear it was in color when I saw it years ago…).

Some NOTLD fans went nuts for this when it was released a few years back but I’ll take the dark grainy original that scared the hell out of me back in 1968!



SOMEONE BEHIND THE DOOR-1971-Weird psychological drama features Anthony Perkins as a brain sturgeon who takes an amnesia victim (Charles Bronson) into his home and tries to piece together his past. However Perkins has his own agenda that involves taking care of his unfaithful wife (Jill Ireland) and her lover. While Perkins is his usual cool calculating self, Bronson is out of character acting confused, befuddled and/or frustrated. It’s talky but short enough not to be too boring but the ending is a real letdown.

The print I saw was very worn and jumped in spots but several companies have released it on video. Bronson made THE VALACHI PAPERS the next year. It was made in France (but takes place in England) by Hungarian born director Nicolas Gessner who also made the original version of THE 12 CHAIRS, THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE and TENNESSEE NIGHTS.


"Spring makes everything young again except man"-Jean Paul Richter

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