From: psperson@old.netcom.invalid   
      
   On Fri, 2 Jun 2023 03:46:40 -0700 (PDT), Jack Bohn   
    wrote:   
      
   >April's all-Warner-Bros month on TCM seems to have left them with a backlog   
   of new old movies.  Still, by staying up later, I am also ploughing through   
   the stacks of DVDs.   
   >   
   >The serial in my matinee was The Phantom Empire (1930).  Cowboys vs.   
   Superscience!  Gene Autry's Radio Ranch is a radium ranch, as some   
   unscrupulous explorers find out.  This is probably also why the one-city   
   empire of Murania settled 25,000 feet below    
   the surface thousands of years ago.  Autry seems game for everything they   
   throw at him, the pair of kid sidekicks are suitably dead-serious about their   
   adventure, and the pair of comedy relief characters show a core competence,   
   (which they are    
   continuously operating outside of, but) which keeps them from being too   
   annoying.   
   >   
   >Next was "Zipang"(2004) an anime TV series of 26 episodes, continuing into   
   this month.  sf.movies fans may recognize the setup from "The Final   
   Countdown"(1980).  But a JSDF (Japanese Self Defense Forces) Aegis escort ship   
   appearing before the Battle of    
   Midway hits kind of different.   
   >   
   >   
   >The ones everyone already saw and had an opinion on:   
   >Godzilla (US)(1998)   
   >Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)   
   >Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 (2017)   
   >Jurassic Park (1993)   
   >The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)   
   >   
   >My memory of "Lost World" was that it consisted of three equal parts: our   
   heroes in an RV teetering on the edge of a cliff, Dinosaur Hunters, and   
   monsters in San Diego.  Still, when the hunters show up and try the   
   Harryhausen trick of poking a stick at    
   and throwing a rope into the special effects, I am ready to forgive anything.   
      
   For Harryhausen, what /I/ noticed was that the monster was just lying   
   there, minding its own business, not a threat to anyone -- until the   
   humans poked it with a stick.   
      
   The lesson, of course, is: if you don't want something to attack you,   
   then don't poke it with a stick.   
      
   >The Devil's Messenger (1962)   
   >That date should be "(mostly 1959)".  Three episodes of a Swedish TV   
   anthology, "13 Demon Street", mostly written and/or directed by Curt Siodmak.    
   More interesting in its construction than the stories; apparently Lon Chaney,   
   Jr. was the host of the TV    
   show, but was hired to shoot a different wraparound story to connect these   
   segments into a movie.  He plays a functionary of Hell, who, on receiving a   
   suicide soul, his idea is to get her to do some of his work by delivering some   
   special prop into each    
   story.  No, the items do not seem particularly cursed in their stories, nor is   
   there anything strange about how they show up -- in fact, one could have been   
   around for years.  This might be an opportunity for reflectiveness on   
   signposts or blocks on the    
   path of life, but this isn't that type of movie (and there's no budget to   
   refilm the segments).  In fact, the way the suicide complains about how she's   
   being treated, I expected some comment along the lines of, "Don't you realize   
   where   
   >you are?" but if there was, I missed it.   
   >The directing and acting in these segments seems more European.  If I were   
   industrious, I might rewatch them in comparison with the 1959 season of The   
   Twilight Zone, or Siodmak's own USTV movie, "Tales of Frankenstein"(1958).   
   >   
   >Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1920)   
   >John Barrymore in the dual role.   
   >Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1941)   
   >Spencer Tracy in the dual role.   
   >Is this the story that's spent the most time considered art rather than   
   horror?  Tracy's makeup is rather subtle, not until late in the movie when the   
   transformations begin coming unbidden and we get the fade-in of the changes   
   can I tell what was done.     
   He's stockier than Barrymore, or Frederic March of the 1931 version, is his   
   the model of the burly Hydes, such as in Bugs Bunny cartoons, or Marvel's   
   supervillain?   
      
   I watched a couple of these (31 and 41, perhaps, not the silent   
   version) and, having read the short novel within living memory,   
   noticed that the story in the film is ... considerably changed. Which   
   may be a good thing.    
      
   >Full Metal Alchemist: The Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa (2005)   
   >I got the disk some time after having watched the series on TV, and kept   
   thinking about somehow watching it again first, and never getting around to   
   it.  When this came up, I opened the DVD case to find "Full Metal Alchemist:   
   The Movie: Conqueror of    
   Shamballa Guide Book" (with room for nothing but that name on the cover!) so I   
   pushed this back in the rotation a coupla days to read its four-page article   
   on the transition from the series to the film.  A nice story, not *necessary*   
   as an end to the    
   series.   
   >   
   >Gods and Monsters (1998)   
   >A fiction on the death and life of James Whale, director of "Frankenstein"   
   and "Bride of."  Whale has several reasons to feel different, but I'm sure   
   he'd rather think of himself as a god rather than a monster.  In the 1950s a   
   stroke costs him the    
   abilities which are his coping mechanism.   
   >   
   >King of Kong Island (1968)   
   >My title card says only, "Kong Island".  IMDb says versions marked thus are   
   also missing other parts of the movie.  From what I have, I don't see where   
   more could make it any better.   
   >   
   >Manfish (1956)   
   >Mash together Poe's stories "The Gold Bug" and "The Tell-Tale Heart" and make   
   the protagonists not erudite city-dwellers, but a pair of tramp divers in the   
   tropics, who own only a boat.  I'm not sure if I would have recognized the   
   origins of this if it    
   hadn't been in the credits, but I guess even in 1956 it cost nothing to give   
   credit for the inspiration.   
   >   
   >Maniac (1934)   
   >Making my watching less (or more?) random, this month I decided that when I   
   draw a film on a multi-movie disk, to put the other movies up next, too.  This   
   was early in the month, and gave me an appreciation for competence, which may   
   have put the other    
   public-domain movies (see above) higher on the curve.   
   >   
   >Predestination (2013)   
   >Spoilers: an adaptation of Heinlein's "All You Zombies."  Faithful to the   
   talkiness of the original, difficult with a pair of muttering actors.  You may   
   already be saying that the cast is too large, but grant that.   
      
   I /really/ liked this one. Rarely have I seen a film that captures the   
   nature of Science Fiction as well as this one does.   
      
   >She Beast (1966)   
   >A witch/vampire slain in old Transylvania curses the descendants of the   
   village with her eventual return.  A modern traveling couple get the   
   stereotypical poor reception from the village innkeeper... this is the   
   stereotypical attitude under communism of    
   "The State pretends to pay me and I pretend to work."  The humor in the movie   
   works better than the horror.   
   >   
   >The Warriors (1979)   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)