The Bat (1959)

The Bat
Starring: Agnes Moorehead, Vincent Price
Director: Crane Wilbur
Writers: Avery Hopwood (novel/play), Mary Roberts Rinehart (novel/play), Crane Wilbur
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Year: 1959
My rating: 

I am disappointed to have to inform the general, unprepared public that the film THE BAT does not feature a giant evil bat, or a genetically enhanced killer bat, or even Adam West doing the Batusi. No, the movie is only titled thusly because the (human) villain has given himself the name "The Bat". Unfortunately, this is one of the only interesting things about the bad guy in this film.

As cheesy, cheap horror movies go, THE BAT isn't half bad. It's unpredictable in the sense that the movie keeps the identity of the killer a secret by throwing so much information at the viewer that each character has half a dozen clues pointing to him. The number of red herrings may make the Sherlock Holmesian portion of the audience weep, but it makes for an entertaining –- if totally incoherent -– ride.

The movie stars Agnes Moorehead (of CITIZEN KANE and "Bewitched" fame) as Cornelia van Gorder, a writer of cheap thrillers. (Her books are described as corny, and her friend shortens Cornelia to "Corny". Did you catch the joke there? Did you?) She's one of those fictional authors who somehow makes a huge amount of money from her scribblings, so she's taking the entire summer off and renting a luxurious mansion in a picturesque locale out in the country.

Ah, but where would a cheap horror movie be without Vincent Price? He shows up in his first scene wearing a stupid flannel shirt and wielding a shotgun. He purrs his way through the rest of the movie as Dr. Wells, one of the characters who keeps getting drawn back to the mansion. 

The mansion is where the bulk of the story takes place. You see, there's a hell of a lot of plot, and all of it comes back to the mansion. A million dollars has been embezzled from the local bank. There's already been one murder because of this. The money is hidden inside a secret room in the mansion, and while Moorehead and her maid/friend Lizzie are ignorant of these events, they have their own problems. Newspaper reports are hyping the recent killing spree of a serial murderer called "The Bat", a mean fellow who specializes in killing women, and who has taken a healthy interest in the mansion.

Scenes featuring the Bat show the nefarious villain creeping through the shadows in a black suit, a black ski-mask and a Jack Abarmoff black fedora. Is he attracted to the mansion because of the ill-gotten loot? Or is he simply preying on the women for kicks? Well, you'll have to wait during most of the movie while the screenwriter makes up his mind on that one.

The Bat is a relatively lackluster villain. He has no great lines of dialog, no fun character quirks. He does, however, have one redeeming feature. One of his methods of murder is to release a rabid bat into a room where his victim sleeps. Unfortunately, he only does this in one scene. A scene with one of the worst special effect animals I've seen in a long time. Indeed, I have vague memories of the Three Stooges being harassed by the same rubber bat prop to equally hilarious effect some years before. (The difference, of course, is that the Three Stooges were deliberately trying to amuse.)

Agnes Moorehead and Vincent Price are really the only two memorable people in this movie. I watched this movie a few weeks ago, and when playing it again this evening to refresh my memory for this review, I realized that I had completely forgotten about every character who wasn't played by Moorehead or Price. The rest of the cast simply stand around blankly, passively waiting their turn to be killed off. (Basically, if you aren't Moorehead or Price, then there are only two actions for you to perform. You can either discover a new corpse, or you can be the new corpse.)

I mentioned that this is a decent film, but one gets the impression that this could have been much better. The appeal comes mostly from the cheesy, camp factor, yet with little effort, this could have been much better. Indeed, other films that were derived from the same source material have a much better reputation than this. 

There's no real tension, no sense of danger. A haunted spooky house is a common location for horror movies, but this mansion does nothing to distinguish itself. There are no ominous shadows, no creaky staircases. (There's the requisite dusty suit of armor, but it gets killed off in the first act.) In fact the only way we have of knowing that this is indeed a spooky, eerie house is that the characters keep insisting that it is.

I'm reviewing the Digiview Productions release of this DVD and the picture and sound quality are more than adequate for this kind of movie. There is an odd purple blotch that occasionally shimmies across the picture. Annoying as this interference is, it's often times more lively than the actors currently appearing on screen.

While this version of THE BAT is entertaining, it's nothing to write home about. I suspect that if I track down the other versions of this movie (1926's THE BAT and 1930's THE BAT WHISPERS) I'd probably enjoy them in the manner in which they were intended. As it exists, THE BAT is a fun movie, if goofy at times. Moorehead and Price at least make this watchable.

The Ape (1940)

The Ape
Starring: Boris Karloff, Maris Wrixon
Director: William Nigh
Writers: Adam Shirk (play), Kurt Siodmak, Richard Carroll
Genre: Horror
Year: 1940
My rating: 

THE APE is a badly made and badly written film, but one which I am happy to report is actually entertaining. Its badness makes it fun, which -- despite the existence of the phrase "so bad it's good" -- is actually a rare phenomenon in my experience.

To begin with, this is the first horror movie I've ever encountered that displayed the opening credits accompanied by happy, cheerful circus clown music. Forget dark, ominous, atmospheric orchestration which can set the mood immediately. Disregard all attempts to initially set the viewer in mind of deep hopelessness, imminent despair and slow lingering death. Play clown music! You're trying to scare me, but all I can think about are guys with big shiny pants jumping through rings of fire.

Anyway, the movie is about Boris Karloff as a mad scientist (he wears a white coat, has loads of test tubes and kills in the name of science), and his desperate search to find a cure for polio, the affliction which has prematurely ended the lives of his wife and daughter. He's working feverishly to cure the paralyzed eighteen-year-old woman next door -- Frances -- who reminds him of his deceased daughter.

But there's an interruption to Karloff's work. A big, mean, angry ape has killed its trainer and run away from the nearby circus (hence the goof-ball music in the opening credits). This disagreeable primate is killing and maiming loads of folks in this small town, and the bodies are making they way through Karloff's lab (he's the town's doctor, even though almost everyone thinks he's a nut). Karloff takes advantage of his good fortune by using these patients for experimentation purposes.

Soon, the ape breaks into Karloff's lab and things start getting really odd. Karloff kills the ape in self-defense. Then, realizing that his supply of corpses will dry up, he hollows out the body of the ape, wears it like a suit, and continues the ape's killing spree.

Now, depending on what you expect from bad movies you can either throw your hands up in complete disgust, or you can accept the movie's wonderfully goofy premise. Personally, I dug it, precisely because it's so fundamentally hokey. I know you don't need me to tell you this, but you simply cannot hollow out an entire ape and wear it like a Halloween costume. I mean, okay, maybe you can, but you wouldn't look like an ape. You'd look like a giant jackass with bits of dead ape wrapped around him. (Forgive me for assuming the male gender in that last sentence, but I'm thinking that the whole hollowing out an ape and draping yourself in its carcass is definitely a guy thing.)

I won't discuss any more of the plot. Partially, because I'd then be getting into spoiler territory, but mostly because the movie doesn't have any plot left. There are just a few annoying things left that I wish to mention.

Francis' boyfriend actually dislikes the idea of his girlfriend being cured because he doesn't want her to stop being dependent on him and also because, as he says, "I don't like things I don't understand." 

Um, wow. I mean, I fully grok the natural suspicion one has towards new advances, but isn't the blanket rejection of all things he doesn't understand going a bit far? ("Sorry, can't drive into town; I don't understand that fangled internal combustion engine! ... No, no email for me; I never did get the hang of binary! ... What? A pickle? No, I can't eat them; I never figured out how they work either.")

And I'm sure his viewpoint was a great source of comfort to any members of the audience who actually were themselves stricken by polio. There shouldn't be a cure in the future, because there isn't a cure in the present? Forcing people to be dependent on other people is fine? They must have been outraged. They'd have walked out of the movie before the end if they'd been able to walk. (Sorry.)

There are some painfully sloppy moments throughout and many of them could have been corrected so easily that it gives the impression that the filmmakers simply didn't care. Take, for example, what is (very) arguably the film's most ludicrous scene. Karloff has just discovered a potion which is the cure for paralysis. He places the only drops of this previous fluid in a small, fragile test-tube. Which he sits down flat on its side onto an ordinary tabletop in his lab. Which then rolls off said table and smashes into tiny pieces on the floor.

As hilariously inept as this scene is (and you have to see the look on the faces of the actors to really appreciate it), it could easily have been fixed. You see, the very next scene at the lab is a sequence where the ape breaks in and smashes most of it before being killed. Wouldn't it have made more sense to have the ape itself smash up the test tube? (And it would have made the desecration of the monkey's corpse a little easier to understand too.)

Also, as a complete aside, I wish to question Karloff's credentials as a physician. During his early experiments with animals, he injects a paralyzed dog with a solution and then confidently states, "You'll be chasing bones in the morning." 

I'm no dog expert, but dogs generally chew bones and chase cars. If a dog is chasing a bone, then either he's A) still paralyzed or B) left his bone in the glove compartment. (A third possibility exists, which is that the bone is still in the possession of its original owner, but I don't think this is something Karloff should be encouraging in his pets.)

The Digiview Productions version of this movie is not in good shape. The image is mostly decent, but the picture keeps jumping and the sound cuts off. It almost seems like three or four frames every few minutes just went completely AWOL. This problem affects some scenes more than others. Most of the movie is acceptable, but some passages are almost unwatchable.

Before leaving this movie, I'm going to reveal myself as a complete softy and say that the final scene between Karloff and his young patient is actually quite touching. (Ignoring the monkey costume, of course.) But in any event, I do recommend this as the proverbial fun, bad movie. Boris Karloff, guys in ape costumes, stupid townsfolk -- this movie's got 'em all!

Vengeance Valley (1951)

Vengeance Valley
Starring: Burt Lancaster, Robert Walker
Director: Richard Thorpe
Writers: Luke Short (novel), Irving Ravetch
Genre: Western
Year: 1951
My rating: 

This is the most difficult kind of a review to write: a movie that had absolutely no impact on the reviewer at all. The film exists. I exist. I experienced the film. After the film, what did I take away from it? Nothing. (I'm forcing myself to write this, because after doing seventeen one dollar DVD reviews, I'm far too anal to simply start skipping titles now.)

VENGEANCE VALLEY (1951) is a movie that I wouldn't expect many people to love, but which I also wouldn't expect many people to hate either. There's just not a lot of substance to get excited one way or the other.

Ray Collins (Boss Jim Gettys in CITIZEN KANE) is the aging owner of a cattle ranch. He has two grown sons: one who was adopted as a child (Burt Lancaster) and one biological son (Robert Walker). The adopted son is this western's good son and the biological is the movie's bad son.

That's basically all you now need to know. The good son moves through the picture doing good deeds and picking up the pieces left behind by his bad brother who goes around being -- you guessed it -- bad. That sentence summaries about ninety percent of the movie's scenes. There's no questionable morality, no ethical ambiguity, no real reason to think much, give any thought to the character's inner lives or even to think of them as real people at all.

As an aside, there would appear to be the glimmers of a good idea buried deep within the backstory. It's the adopted son who turns out good. Is there some resentment from their shared childhood that turns the biological son into a twisted, petty, immature adult? Ray Collins mentions that he adopted Lancaster partly because he needed help raising Walker. Was it the influence of this boring and disgustingly moral older sibling that turned Walker from the path of nice to the path of naughty? Was Walker damned from birth? Unfortunately, the movie doesn't seem very interested in these questions.

What makes the film even more unlikable is that even within the broad strokes of the good guy vs. bad guy characterizations, the individual people aren't even portrayed in an interesting manner. For instance, given that Robert Walker is an out and out baddie, you'd have hoped that the filmmakers could have made him an interesting villain – a bad guy you could cheer for, or at least sympathize with. But he isn't a powerful and strong evil guy. His bad nature is communicated through him being extraordinarily whiny, sniveling and annoying. Sure, this makes the audience dislike him, but it doesn't make him fun to watch.

The only character I really enjoyed seeing was played by John Ireland. He enters the film initially seeking revenge for his sister (she's impregnated and then abandoned) and later becomes the bad son's hit man. Ireland understands how to create an enjoyable villain. He scowls, growls and grumbles. He also has the advantage of getting the script's best lines: "I'm gonna kill a man before I leave here," he barks at the town's sheriff immediately after getting off the inbound train. ("Anybody special, or will I do?" retorts the sheriff.) This is how to portray a villain with no redeeming characteristics at all. Make him fully bad; don't make him annoying.

(Incidentally, John Ireland is a popular fellow in the Wal*Mart one dollar DVD bin. Without trying or realizing, I've managed to pick up at least three of his films. It's a shame the movies themselves all been pretty lousy, but I've been entertained by Ireland's performances in all three.)

Other than John Ireland, I really can't think of much else to recommend about the film. (The cattle ranching sequences are done well, if you're really into cows.) The only thing I believe I'll remember about this movie is that typing up this review taught me how to spell "vengeance" properly. (Three e's. Who knew?)

The Bodyguard (1976)

The Bodyguard
Starring: Sonny Chiba
Director: IMDB doesn't know; neither do I
Writers: Ditto (I'm not kidding either. There's no director or writer listed in the credits. Go figure.)
Genre: Bad Kung-Fu
Year: 1976
My rating: 

One of the most memorable things in PULP FICTION was Samuel L. Jackson's supposed recitation of Ezekiel 25:17. However, anyone who has looked up that biblical passage will notice that the actual scripture is significantly shorter than what's in Quentin Tarantino's script. Where Tarantino's dialog ran for two paragraphs, the Almighty's screenplay only spends one sentence. So, where did those extra words come from?

It turns out that Tarantino borrowed the quote wholesale from THE BODYGUARD (also known as KARATE KIBA). The scrolling text at the beginning (with narration by Sonny Chiba) is virtually word for word the same and also erroneously credits this as belonging to the Book of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 25:17 again). Of course, it should be noted that while Samuel L. Jackson shouts, "And you will know my name is the Lord!" (actually from the bible, that bit), THE BODYGUARD gives the biblical passage as: "And they shall know that I am Chiba the Bodyguard!" Most people will probably suspect that Chiba the Bodyguard isn't one of the Bible's main players. On the other hand, I do worship at the House of the Bad Movie Star, so perhaps I shouldn't throw stones.

But anyway, one mystery solved. We now know where Tarantino got his cool dialog from. But solving that question merely suggests another. 

What the hell is up with THE BODYGUARD?

Seriously. Can anyone follow the plot of this one?

Let's start at the beginning. Two random guys (who never reappear after their opening scene) are in some karate class in New York and begin arguing about who the better fighter is: Bruce Lee or Sonny Chiba. Now, here's where my poor little brain begins running in circles and eventually tires itself out. Arguing about Bruce Lee is just fine. But talking about Sonny Chiba in this film poses problems. Namely... Sonny Chiba is actually in this movie!

And even more confusingly, Sonny Chiba is playing a character named... Sonny Chiba. 

So, when the guy is saying that Sonny Chiba is the best fighter, is he talking about Sonny Chiba the action movie actor? Or is he talking about the fictional character named Sonny Chiba?

If he's talking about the action movie actor, then is Sonny Chiba playing himself? Why does no one think it odd that a movie star is out fighting crime?

But if he's talking about Sonny Chiba the fictional character, why is this Chiba famous? And is Bruce Lee also a fictional crime fighter in this movie's universe?

Maybe it's only me who gets hung up on dumb details like this, but it really sets the stage for the mass confusion that is to follow.

Let's start with the film's premise. Sonny Chiba fights off a gang of five would-be hijackers on a flight from New York to Tokyo. At the resulting press conference he reveals that this gang was involved in heavy-duty drug dealing. How he discovered this is never explained. A reporter asks him how he magically knows and his reply is: "How could I explain it to you?"

He then breaks a coke bottle into pieces with his bare hands and, on national television, says that he will be the bodyguard to any person willing to testify against the traffickers.

So far so good. Later at his home he is visited by a mysterious woman seeking his protection. However, she doesn't tell him what she knows. She doesn't tell him how she's connected to any drug dealers. She doesn't say that she will testify against anyone. In fact, she gives no indication that she has any beef with drugs or drug dealing at all. 

Despite this, Chiba agrees to be her bodyguard.

Look, Chiba, ten out of ten for good intentions, but minus several million for smart thinking. How are you possibly going to slow down drug dealing if you're the bodyguard to any Tom, Dick and Harry who happens to show up at your house? (Amusingly, at the press conference he gave no clue as to how anyone could contact him. He merely states that any potential witness "will know how to reach me.")

From here, the plot shakes forward uncertainly into new areas of confusion. We eventually learn that there are two Japanese gangs fighting over a drug shipment. The Italian mafia is involved also (presumably they are the original suppliers of this particular stash of drugs). There seems to be a American gangster presence on an US Army Base somewhere near Tokyo, although their involvement is nonsensical to say the least. There are army soldiers involved in both the smuggling operation and the customer end of things. So the plot has the drugs being smuggled onto the base for storage, smuggled out to the Japanese gangsters, and then smuggled back in again for consumption. I'm no expert, but if they asked me I think I could save them a step or two there. (I may be doing the film a disservice, but the American connection is left annoyingly vague.)

Eventually, one of the equally boring Japanese gangs is all but wiped out. (Which one? Who cares?) The movie stumbles around for a while with its spare tire of a gang before mercifully falling to a close.

There are no interesting characters, no fascinating plot points, no bits of snappy dialog (excepting the opening narration), and no real reason to keep your eyes on the screen for the full hour and a half. The fight scenes aren't any good either, which is pretty much the kiss of death for any martial arts movie.

I'm reviewing the Digiview Productions version of this disc, and the first thing to mention is that there is censoring on this disc. All nudity has been clumsily pixelated out. The nudity is nothing to get excited about (and disturbingly only seems to occur in violent scenes) but the censoring ends up being very distracting.

The other problem with this disc is that it's presented in the worst pan-and-scan format I've seen in a long time. The shots are extremely poorly framed. Rest assured that if it happened on screen, the pan-and-scanner missed it. Still, given what you do see when the presentation is correct, perhaps they're doing us a mercy.

If you're the world's biggest fan of PULP FICTION, then it may almost be worth your dollar to finally see the reason that it and THE BODYGUARD are joined in the Internet Movie Database's movie connections section. Even so, I'd recommend making surf guitar noises with your mouth and hitting the stop button immediately after the opening narration. Chiba the Bodyguard help us.

Evel Knievel (1971)

Evel Knievel
Starring: George Hamilton, Sue Lyon, Bert Freed
Director: Marvin J. Chomsky
Writers: Alan Caillou, John Milius
Genre: Biography
Year: 1971
My rating: 

From the onset, EVEL KNIEVEL (1971) gave all the signs of being a stereotypical bad movie. An early 1970s biopic. About Evel Knievel. Starring George Hamilton. Sounds wretched, doesn't it?

Surprisingly, the movie isn't that bad at all. But the things that make it a decent movie also contribute to making it an absolutely awful biopic. I didn't really learn anything about Evel Knievel at all except that he's a bit of a nut (I should have seen that coming, really) and that his medical bills must be high (ditto). The story is told as a series of seemingly random flashbacks. There's nothing holding the scenes together and they don't form a coherent story. They do little to educate, but a lot to entertain.

First of all, I should mention George Hamilton's performance as Evel Knievel. You know, I've seen Hamilton in countless commercials, and I've seen his increasingly orange glowing face being interviewed more times than I care to think about. But I'm not convinced that I've ever actually seen him acting in a movie. So color me surprised when I thought his performance was quite good. I have no idea what the real Evel Knievel is like (a refrain you will see me revisit more than once during this review), but Hamilton is very believable in the role.

The supporting actors matter less. The only person who may stick in the memory is the character of Knievel's doctor/surgeon (played by Bert Freed) who has the unenviable job of regularly putting Humpty Dumpty back together again after each spectacular crash. I enjoyed watching this surly doctor patiently sewing Knievel's limbs back on (while admiring his previous repairs), wondering if the next crash will be the last one, and not really caring all that much. (A lot of movies would have had the doctor as a grumpy guy with a heart of gold. Deep down he really wouldn't anything bad to happen to Knievel. But not here. This guy genuinely doesn't seem to give a damn about his patient, which I found delightful.)

The only other real character of note is Knievel's girlfriend/wife. I know nothing about the real life couple, but this scrawny, skinny woman wouldn't have been what popped into my head if ever I had spent a moment of my past pondering what Evel Knievel's wife would be like. I would have pictured a more substantial woman. Someone a little sturdier. Someone he could leap off a building onto without damaging. I mean, that just makes sense, doesn't it?

The film has little plot to speak of. The (then) present day Knievel is waiting to execute his most extraordinary stunt ever and while putting in time he endures a series of flashbacks. Most of these flashbacks are entertaining, but they each seem to exist in an independent universe. They're fun because each one decides that it will be the light and goofy flashback and the heavier stuff will be handled in other scenes. Except there are no weighter scenes, so the whole thing ends up being very insubstantial. 

While this leads to a frustrating biography, it also results in a fun enough movie. I can't, for example, think of too many other movies where an exciting and tense chase sequence is accompanied by comedy tuba music. Or a film where the leading lady loses her virginity to a man wearing ice-skates. Or a biopic that dares to show the hero dynamiting his way into the City Hall men's room.

Speaking of the City Hall, I should point out that this movie is the earliest movie listed on IMDB to have done location filming in Butte, Montana. I didn't realize when I spent my dollar on this DVD at Wal*Mart that I'd be looking at beautiful Butte, Montana footage. Despite this, Butte, Montana doesn't come across as all that exciting of a place. Apparently, all you have to do is walk into a bar, tell people that "something big is going to happen", and you'll work up all the Butteans into a frenzy, get them running in the streets, and causing all kinds of chaos. (Butte, Montana seems to have undergone a cinematic revival in the past two years. IMDB lists ten total movies as having been filmed there, five of which were shot in 2004 or 2005. Food for thought.) 

As for the accuracy, I'm not too interested with that, but I didn't notice any "authorized by Evel Knievel" in the credits. Perhaps this explains the portrayal of Knievel as a screaming, nitpicky neurotic. He comes across as an extremely unpleasant person, and one's sympathy instantly rests with whoever is unlucky enough to be in a room with him. And yet there is something likable about this lunatic. Just as long as you don't have to nurse him, be married to him, talk to him or be within five hundred yards of him. Watching his biopic is about as close as I ever want to be.

But as fun as the movie is, it leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Why did he fall in love with his wife (we see their early dating life, but no indication of what he saw in her)? Why did he get into stunt-riding? Why is his name spelled "Evel"? 

In case I haven't made this clear by now: this is not a film you want to take in any way seriously. But then, you probably figured that when you saw the title and the star. Much of the entertainment comes from the "this is so goofy; I can't believe I'm watching this" factor, but just try to get yourself into the right frame of mind. I'm honestly not sure how seriously the filmmakers were taking this, but as long as the audience doesn't take it seriously, you should enjoy it.

White Zombie (1932)

White Zombie
Starring: Bela Lugosi, Madge Bellamy
Director: Victor Halperin
Writers: Garnett Weston
Genre: Horror
Year: 1932
My rating: 

WHITE ZOMBIE is credited as the first ever zombie movie, which makes it one of those films that inspired countless, paler imitations. I'd previously seen many of the lesser derivatives, but this was the first time for me to see the instigator. I hugely enjoyed it, which surprised me as I was watching, because I generally don't care much for zombies and this movie is generally weak in a lot of areas. But it has great atmosphere and the positives more than outweigh the negatives.

The characters are cleanly defined and don't vary at all from their introduction. We have the young couple. We have the young, selfish plantation owner. There's the friendly older doctor. The only character any way interesting is Bela Lugosi's witch doctor. And he absolutely steals the show.

The story is very simple. A man and his fiancé are due to be married in Haiti. While on the island and on their way to the church, a rich man invites them to stay at his mansion before the ceremony. Ostensively, the invitation is given because he claims to like the pair. But it turns out that his real motive is to steal the heart of the woman. But when she turns down his offers, he turns to a witch doctor to bend the laws of nature so that he can get some.

At this point, I offer a quiet word of advice to you, gentle reader. If the woman of your dreams rejects your advances and instead falls for another: move on. Get over it. It may take a few years, a few drinks and a few tears, but you'll be okay. It happens to all of us. Whatever you do, do not kill the woman and then try to make love to her reanimated corpse. It may have worked at your prom, but trust me, it won't work at anybody else's.

I've known a lot of zombies in films and TV shows over the years. These reanimated corpses have had a lot of work in the decades since their inception, but this is the first time I've ever actually found them creepy. Perhaps this is because they're less over-the-top here than they would become later. Since this is their first cinematic outing, maybe the filmmakers went gently with the concept to allow audiences to become familiar with the idea of the walking dead. In any case, they're very restrained here, which makes them extremely unsettling.

The film was made in 1932 and the production is relatively stagy and occasionally static. It's not a silent film, but it definitely looks like one. Indeed, it even sounds like one: the best moments come through great visuals rather than staggering dialog (and the scant dialog is weak at best). And there are some very effective scenes. Take the part where Bela Lugosi steals the woman's light scarf... and then later uses it in a voodoo spell. Or the genuinely spooky scenes of the zombies walking in long shot -- evil shadows slowly ambling across the darkened skyline. Or the zombie coach driver, adorned with a German Iron Cross (giving a fascinating hint at the previous life of this particular corpse). 

Or take what is arguably the most unnerving scene in the film -- the sequence where the rich man visits the witch doctor and finds an entire factory (the actual purpose of which isn't explained) full of toiling zombies. I kept being reminded of the factory scenes in METROPOLIS only using zombies instead of proletariat. You really get the sense here that these are the living, walking dead instead of just underpaid extras with white makeup on. There are a number of great moments like this, virtually all atmospheric based on strong cinematography and solid acting (usually from Lugosi).

On the other hand, the audio is surprisingly good in a few places. Not necessarily with the dialog, but with the initial background music. There's a good deal of atmospheric chanting from the natives of the island of Haiti. I have no idea if this is authentic or merely some white person's idea of what such things should sound like, but in the context of the film it works extremely well. It's fantastic as far as establishing the setting and creating a mood.

The video picture and audio aren't great, but this is the Digiview Productions, one-dollar a pop version of the film, so I'm just happy I can see or hear anything. There no doubt exist more expensive versions of the film (and a quick search reveals several "restored" versions which I imagine are far superior in terms of image quality and sound), but this is a great way to see the film for the first time. 

I don't usually like zombie movies, but I liked this one. So if you too dislike such films, you might want to give this one a try anyway. This is my favorite kind of horror film, where the menace comes more from mood and tone than from visible blood and gore. It's very good at what it sets out to do. I recommend this.

The Basketball Fix (1951)

The Basketball Fix
Starring: John Ireland, Marshall Thompson
Director: Felix E. Feist
Writers: Peter R. Brooke, Charles K. Peck Jr.
Genre: Crime/Drama
Year: 1951
My rating: 

It's 1951, and basketball is a sport dominated by scrawny white men in small disturbing shorts. THE BASKETBALL FIX is a movie based on that noble game, but it suffers from one large fatal flaw. Simply put, this is the most predictable movie ever made. The back cover of the DVD packaging states that the movie concerns "events that seem commonplace today, but were positively scandalous at the time of the film's original release." I must take issue with this, but before I do that, I should at least hint at what the film is about.

You should, in fact, be able to guess the basic story of this movie based on the title. And then given the subject matter, you may have a pretty good idea of how the film will progress. You'll only need a few details to get you going.

THE BASKETBALL FIX is a movie where unscrupulous fellows attempt to fix... a basketball game. Well, there. That's it.

The characters are those you'd expect in a story like this. There's the main character: John "Johnny" Long, the young lad with a talent for basketball who falls in with bad company. There's his girlfriend, who he wishes to marry, and his kid brother -- fatherless -- who relies on his older brother for financial support. There's the crooked gambler who provides the temptation for little Johnny. The cast is rounded out by the obligatory overeating coach and the sports reporter who doubles as a basketball scout. (Of course, all the teens are played by actors a decade older than their characters.)

There's no fun in watching a movie where you can guess exactly what's going to happen before you've even seen it once, and I had no fun watching this. The movie is contrived so that Johnny can either accept the cheating offer, or he can turn it down. You can guess exactly which option he takes (the other option would result in there not being a movie anymore). 

The time between the initial offer to the moment when he makes his decision is pure padding. The stakes are never raised. Alternate viewpoints aren't discussed. Nothing significant changes between those two moments in time. At one point I got down on my knees and screamed at my television. "Stop being so noble!" I implored. "You're only making the movie longer!" And he is. The film is only sixty-six minutes long, but it feels like forever. All the time Johnny Long spends agonizing over his decision adds nothing to the moral weight of his choice. 

And worse, is that there is absolutely nothing else to this movie except for its simplistic moral dilemma. No cool characters, no snappy dialog. I would have enjoyed myself if there was something else entertaining going on. But there's simply nothing else there. 

One bright spot was John Ireland's performance as Pete Ferreday, the bad-tempered sports-journalist who tells the story (the movie is narrated by him and told as one big flashback). The character isn't terribly original, but I liked the way he grumbled his way through the picture, crankily distributing advice and making fun of the basketball coach's propensity for consuming a lot of food. It's not much, but Ireland did a good job and at least kept me awake during the film. He's the only character with any depth whatsoever.

Now, here's the point in the review where I disagree with the description of the film as "positively scandalous at the time of the film's original release". Now, I may be wrong about this (I wasn't there myself), but I find this very difficult to believe. Fixing sporting events has been going on for as long there have been sporting events. To whit, earlier in the century, a team had thrown the World Series. The invention of sports gambling simultaneously invented smooth talking guys who wanted to get better odds for themselves. Cheating was not something new to the early 1950s.

And the films of this period are hardly bland, spineless features with rigid straightforward plots and no moral quandaries. This is 1951: the heart of the film noir period, which featured gangsters, good cops, bad cops, crooked politicians and selfish bystanders. An elderly teenager wondering whether or not he should shave a few points shouldn't have posed much of a threat to audiences. Anyone who actually was scandalized by this movie was probably equally disturbed by the used chewing gum they found under the cinema arm rests.

The DVD box description also refers to this as a "noir-ish" film. The only similarity of this movie to film noir classics is that it's in black and white, the men wear cool hats, everyone smokes, and there's a heavy-drinking, grumpy guy featured prominently in the cast. 

The Digiview Productions release of this film is the version that I've got my grubby little hands on, and I was impressed by both the sound and the picture quality. If the quality of the underlying film itself had been as good, I would have been a much happier camper.

THE BASKETBALL FIX is a movie where the women are either clueless or stupid (or a combination of both) and minorities of any kind don't exist. I realize this is not a unique failing of the films of that era, but the whole thing has put me in a bad mood so I'm going to complain about that anyway. And I got a good chuckle at the film's expense out of the scene where our protagonist initiates his love-making with the immortal words: "What hamburgers?" Ah, romance!

I found this to be an overly simplistic and boring movie. It's difficult to sympathize with a character facing a moral dilemma when he has all the depth of an evaporating puddle. This DVD can be had for only a buck at your local Evil Capitalist Mart, but it isn't worth it.