Chan's Magic

BLACK MAGIC aka MEETING AT MIDNIGHT-1944-With his boss Charlie Chan going back to Hawaii, Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland) gets a job as a domestic servant at the home of a medium named William Bonnar (Richard Gordon). During a seance in which Chan's daughter Frances (Frances Chan) is attending Bonnar is shot and killed after a mysterious voice asks him where he was on Oct. 5 1935. Police Sgt. Matthews (Joseph Crehan) arrives on the scene and soon the great detective (Sidney Toler) is involved. No gun can be found and there's no bullet in the body! While Charlie does his investigation, Frances and Birmingham do their own. 

Suspects include Nancy Wood (Helen Beverley) who's father was driven to suicide by Bonnar, his jealous wife Justine (Jacqueline deWit) who's in cahoots with a couple who provide effects for the seance, Edwards (Harry Depp) a guy who makes magic props, Hamlin (Paul Jacquet) also being blackmailed by Bonnar and jilted mistress Harriet Greene (Geraldine Wall). 

After Mrs. Bonnar in a trace state jumps off a building to her death Chan discovers she was under the influence of a powerful drug and hypnotized. Later he's drugged and hypnotized and almost commits suicide. Matthews more competent assistant Rafferty (Ralph Petters) helps out. Chan reveals the murderer and murder weapon at his own seance. 

A not bad mystery that again can't help but throw in some racist humor with Moreland but uses Chan's daughter to good effect and should have used her in future stories. Director Phil Rosen directed many more in the series. For it's re-release the title was changed to MEETING AT MIDNIGHT to avoid confusion with another film called “Black Magic” starring Orson Welles.

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Next in the series: THE JADE MASK

Shhh! It's Chan Secret....

CHARLIE CHAN’S SECRET-1936-Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) searches for a guy named Alan Colby who may have perished in the sinking of a ship but since his body was never found he could still be alive. This could pose a problem to people like Mrs. Lowell’s daughter Janice (Astrid Allwyn) and her grouchy husband Fred (Edward Trevor) who have been living off the fortune for years.   Mrs. Lowell (Henrietta Crosman) has hired Chan because Colby is the rightful heir to her husband's estate. It turns out Colby is alive but he's killed before he makes his presence known. Mrs. Lowell believes in psychic phenomena and plans to hold a seance in “the old house” with her other daughter Alice (Rosina Lawrence) and her beau reporter Dick (Charles Quigley). The professor (Arthur Edmund Carewe) and Carotta (Gloria Roy) perform a seance where Colby's corpse shows up. The family lawyer (Jonathan Hale) hangs around suspiciously. Without any son, comedy relief is provided by the family butler (Herbert Mundin). Later after the killer strikes again but unsuccessfully Charlie is nearly electrocuted by the professor. Even though he was almost killed, the police blame Chan for letting the murderer get away! Later while Mrs. Lowell and the butler use a Ouija board she is shot! Charlie uses another seance to expose the guilty party.

 Director Gordon Wiles was also an art director. Of the eleven films he directed only this Charlie Chan entry stands out. It was also the last role for Arthur Edmund Carwe who committed suicide in 1937 after suffering a stroke.

Followed by CHARLIE CHAN AT THE CIRCUS...

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More Fulci Zombies!

CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD-1980-In Dunwich, a priest hangs himself in a graveyard while in New York at a seance a woman named Mary (Catriona MacColl) screams “The city of the dead!” then dies. A cop believes it all has to with drugs (“What are you on? Coke? Grass? Where's the stash? Down the toilet?”). Back in Dunwich, a weirdo named Bob (John Morghen aka Giovanni Lombardo Radice) starts to fool around with an inflatable love doll and finds a rotting corpse. 

Back in NY, Peter Bell (Christopher George), a news reporter goes to visit the seance place but is turned away by a cop. Back in Dunwich, some guys at a bar see the walls crack out and smoke comes out. One of the guys blames the strange-ness on the priest who killed himself. Then Gerry (Carlo de Mejo), a psychiatrist is interrupted while asking his patient Sandra (Janet Agren) about her childhood. 

Back in NY, Jerry saves Mary (who's alive in her coffin now) from being buried alive (and almost kills her!). They meet with Theresa (Adelaide Aste), the woman who ran the seance and she tells Peter about “the book of Enoch” while Mary mentions Dunwich being the city of the dead and that the gates of hell are being opened again and if they aren't closed the dead will walk. 

Later Jerry's friend Emily (Antonella Interlenghi) meets Bob at a gas station and the dead priest shows up and rubs worms in her face. Then a man and woman making out in a car see the dead priest hanging around (literally). He makes the woman's eyes bleed and she upchucks worms and stuff that looks like intestines before someone rips the top of the guy's head off. Peter and Mary go to Dunwich while Bob is blamed for the murders. It seems for some reason that the priest's suicide is opening the gate to hell. At night a creepy coroner is attacked and Emily's little brother John John (Luca Paisner) sees a sinister apparition. Meanwhile Bob wanders around while Jerry and Sandra find the corpse of an old lady in Sandra's kitchen. Bob for some reason is hanging out in Emily's father's car and when the father sees them together he kills Bob by sticking his head into some kind of rotating drill. Peter and Mary meet Jerry and Sandra in a cemetery and they are attacked by a tornado of worms and maggots. Then Jerry gets a call from John John saying that Emily has killed their parents. The quartet hurry to find a solution before All Saints Day comes. Sandra takes John John home but is killed by a ghoul faced Emily. Bloody, gory faced zombies terrorize John John but he's saved by Jerry. It seems some of the zombies are hallucinations. 

Zombies attack the local bar and kill and eat the bartender and his two lone customers. Meantime, now a trio Peter, Mary and Jerry investigate the priest's tomb and some underground tunnels where they meet a zombified Sandra who promptly kills Peter. Rats waste no time in eating his brain. Mary almost goes the “vomiting maggots” route but Jerry kills Sandra. After further snooping Mary and Jerry are trapped by the undead and the hanging priest. Just when Mary starts to bleed from the eyes, Jerry guts the priest with a wooden cross and he burns up (?). His minions burn too. Jerry and Mary are reunited with John John. But something is wrong. Mary screams as the scene breaks up.  

Although he had already made the notorious ZOMBIE (and several other successful projects), Italian director Lucio Fulci really hit his stride with this episodic baffling gory horror story. Though incomprehensible and slow going at times, Fulci packs stomach churning SFX, eerie apparitions and some good suspense scenes so the viewer only has time to wonder once or twice as to what's going on. The abrupt cheat ending seems to have evolved from the actually end scene having been destroyed accidentally while it was being developed. The producers would not allow Fulci to re-shoot so he kind of said “screw it”. Co-star Morghen was in several other Italian horror productions (CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE, CANNIBAL FEROX) where his character also came to a bad end. Director Fulci appears un-billed as a doctor. It also features journeyman actor Robert Sampson as the local sheriff and future director Michele Soavi.   

I saw this in a theater way back in 1980 under it's US edited title THE GATES OF HELL.

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Early Talkie

THE THIRTEENTH CHAIR-1929-This creaky old early talkie features (pre-Dracula) Bela Lugosi as an Inspector (who's not much better than Inspector Cousteau) who investigates a murder that took place during a séance. Conrad Nagel and Leila Hyams are the real stars. They play an engaged couple (he's rich, she's not and hides a secret about her mother). They and several others are all suspects of the murder of a police officer who was investigating another murder. A medium (Margret Wycherly, later James Cagney's mother in WHITE HEAT) may have been in cahoots with the officer in trying to catch the murderer. She's also the mother of the girl but no one knows it. 

This was Tod Browning's first sound film and like most of them around this time it's almost like a filmed play. One scene begins with  the actors waiting for their cue! Holmes Herbert is also in it.  Co-star Leila Hyams was later in Browning's FREAKS (and ISLAND OF LOST SOULS). She made her last film in 1936 and retired. She died in 1977.  

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Ghost Chasers

GHOST CHASERS-1951-Another Bowery Boys adventure! This time Slip (Leo Gorcey), Sach (Huntz Hall) and the usual gang (David Gorcey, Billy Benedict and Buddy Gorman) investigate Maro the Medium (Lela Bliss) and her phony seances. Of course little Louie (Bernard Gorcey) also gets involved for some laughs and Sach gets help from a Pilgrim ghost (Lloyd Corrigan) that no one else can see! It's not very good. Phillip Van Zandt is the leader of the bad guys. Also with Jan Kayne, Argentina Brunetti. Paul Bryar and Bess Flowers. William Beaudine directed once again and Charles Marion scripted.

Hi Mom!

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