paranormal – Page 4 – Go Retire Psychiatrist

Svengoolie Show: “The Curse of Frankenstein” No Laughing Matter

The Svengoolie show last night was the 1957 Hammer production “The Curse of Frankenstein” starring the 3 stooges. Actually, this film was no laughing matter and this was my first time (and last time) seeing it.

That’s not saying it’s a “bad” movie. It’s just tough to come up with anything comical to say about a gothic horror flick that was inspired by Mary Shelley’s novel, “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.”

I’ve not read Mary Shelley’s novel and I only skimmed the Encyclopedia Britannica entry. That’s good enough for an old guy pretending to be a movie reviewer.

What hooked me, though, early on the film was a short dialogue between Paul Krempe (Robert Urquhart) and Elizabeth Lavensa (Hazel Court). Paul describes Victor Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) in contemptible and scary terms, to which Elizabeth reacts by saying that Victor is either “wicked or insane.” Paul answers that Victor is neither—which struck me as odd.

I would have no trouble saying Victor is evil, but what do I know? On the other hand, I ran across a couple of web articles that mentioned “psychopath” as a suitable label for someone who thinks nothing of pushing an old man like the scientific scholar Professor Bernstein (Paul Hardtmuth) over a banister to kill him in order to dig his brain out of his skull to insert into a do-it-yourself hodgepodge of spare body parts in an experiment to create a living being.

Victor, from the time he first meets Paul, presents as an insufferable, entitled brat lacking a conscience and by the time he reaches adulthood he’s the perfect example of someone with the most creepily severe case of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) imaginable.

He gets the housekeeper Justine (Valerie Gaunt) pregnant, tricks her into entering the laboratory where the monster (Christopher Lee) kills her, marries Elizabeth and then abandons her on their wedding night in order to cheat in a cribbage game with the monster.

He pretends to bury the monster in the woods after Paul kills it by shooting it in the eye with an AK-47—then sneaks back to dig it up, carry it back to the lab and reanimates the wreck. He proudly shows it off to Paul, who throws up on him. This makes no difference to Victor who is always smeared with dirt anyway because he hangs out in morgues, graveyards, and golf courses (“as he approaches this critical putt, somebody leaps out and cuts off his feet”), filching eyes, hands, Adams apples and what have you to assemble and repair the monster.

There are big differences between Shelley’s monster and Hammer’s creature—the latter doesn’t speak at all while the former is eloquent. Hammer’s creature can barely stand up or sit down on command while Shelley’s monster can do triple axels skating across the Arctic ice as Victor pursues him.

During the movie, my mind often wandered off to memories of Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein.”

Svengoolie Show Upcoming Movie: “The Curse of Frankenstein”!

Svengoolie Show Intro: “Calling all stations, clear the air lanes, clear all air lanes for the big broadcast!”

The Svengoolie show movie coming up this Saturday is Hammer’s 1957 production of “The Curse of Frankenstein”! Guess what? This time, Christopher Lee plays Frankenstein’s monster and—he has no lines at all. The movie is loosely based on Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s classic novel, “Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus.”

There’s lots of blood and gore, so wear goggles because the film was shot in SpatterVision. Don’t look for screws on the monster’s neck. I guess they were loose and fell off.

Svengoolie Show: “Horror of Dracula” Has a Funny Side!

Well, last night I watched Hammer Films 1958 production of “Horror of Dracula” and because we had some bumpy thunderstorm weather again in eastern Iowa, the movie had to share TV screen space with the weather report. No matter, it didn’t diminish the total creepy and comedic effect of the film. You heard right; I thought parts of it were comical. I know, Christopher Lee had only 7 minutes of screen time and none of it was humorous.

Now I’m sure you believe I hallucinated the comedy bits, but I can provide links to them to prove it. I never ask Artificial Intelligence (AI) anything, but it pipes up without prompting because I can’t get rid of it. AI denied there was any humor in it at first, but when I put the question indirectly by asking about one of the actors, AI had a different answer.

When I searched using the term “George Benson played what part in Horror of Dracula?” AI said: “In the 1958 film Horror of Dracula, George Benson played the role of a Frontier Official. He appears in scenes that border on slapstick comedy where his authority is undermined.”

I think this is interesting because I didn’t find any other web sites that remarked on humorous elements in the film.

The actor, George Benson, plays a coughing Frontier Official who Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) and Arthur Holmwood (Michael Gough) are questioning in an attempt to track the whereabouts of Dracula by pressuring the official to reveal where Dracula’s coffin was sent. The official coughs his way through various excuses and expressions of the need to obey the laws and so on. Holmwood makes a good show of dramatically waving money under the official’s nose, eventually succeeding by bribery to get the official’s cooperation.

There’s also some near-slapstick after Dracula crashes through the border barrier in his coach while fleeing from Holmwood and Van Helsing. The coughing Frontier Official has to fix the border crossing barrier with rope and a hammer. Right after that he’s frustrated again when Van Helsing and Holmwood crash through the barrier again.

These occur at 59:17 min and 1:16:13 min, respectively on the Internet Archive film I used for reference.

And there’s also an odd comedy bit with the undertaker at 1:03:34 min. J. Marx the undertaker and mortician (Miles Malleson) actually tells a humorous anecdote and slaps Van Helsing on the chest as he laughs at his own lame joke in the context of trying to find Dracula’s coffin. He can’t find it because it’s missing.

I think the humor helps offset the grim and creepy aspects of the film. Dracula (Christopher Lee) doesn’t have any lines after about the first half hour of the movie. He bares his fangs, drools blood, and ogles women while the women ogle back. There are references to addiction and seduction in the vampire’s motivations and the victims’ collusion with him. But eternal life has its drawbacks—skulking in the dark, fear of the light, and being unable to articulate dramatic lines because oversize canine teeth get in the way, just to name a few.

I think the movie might be too intense for sensitive viewers. Otherwise, I thought it was pretty good.

Svengoolie Upcoming Movie: “Horror of Dracula”

Svengoolie Show Intro: “Calling all stations, clear the air lanes, clear all air lanes for the big broadcast!”

This week’s upcoming movie on the Svengoolie TV Show is the 1958 classic “Horror of Dracula.” I don’t remember ever seeing it. Speaking of classic, I admit I read some of the Turner Classic Movies (TCM) comments about the movie which features Christopher Lee as Dracula.

I’m not sure if it’s a typo or not, but one other website besides TCM say that Lee’s total time on screen for this 82-minute-long movie was only 7 minutes. The quote is:

“Ironically enough, Lee is only on the screen a total of seven minutes in Horror of Dracula yet his frightening presence is felt through the film.”

Can that be true? It got me wondering how many minutes of commercials are in a full-length film. I’m not talking about Svengoolie’s comedy bits. I get a big kick out of those! It’s the typical advertisement time I was curious about.

So, I looked this up and the counts vary, but I picked a website called TVWeek to get figures. The article is from 2014 so my guess is that the ad time estimates are even longer now, but in a typical average cable TV hour there was a little over 15 minutes of commercials. There were 237 comments, which I ignored because I figured they were the usual gripes.

And Christopher Lee got a total of 7 minutes screen time? Isn’t that almost the same time the Liberty Mutual star LiMu the Emu gets (“You’re just a flightless bird!”)?

Svengoolie Movie: “Werewolf of London” Comedy Show

I watched the Svengoolie TV show last night and saw the 1935 Universal Pictures movie “Werewolf of London.” You can watch the movie on the Internet Archive.

This film reminded me of another British movie, “Return of the Vampire” in which there was a comedy sketch between two grave diggers. In Werewolf of London there’s this hilarious scene in which the unfortunate Dr. Wilfred Glendon (Harold Hull) meets with a couple of old women named Mrs. Whack (Ethel Griffies) and Mrs. Moncaster (Zeffie Tilbury).

They were a couple of alcoholic landladies with rooms to let who competed with each other to rent a room to Dr. Glendon, who is trying to prevent his murderous tendencies when he transforms into a werewolf by moving out of his house. The scene is priceless, arguably the highlight of the movie, and begins at about 46.41 minutes into the film. Mrs. Whack and Mrs. Moncaster, even though they seem smitten with Dr. Glendon yet hesitate to offer him a drink, probably because they want most of the booze all to themselves.

Dr. Wilfred Glendon (Henry Hull) who is afflicted with “werewolfery” according to the other werewolf, Dr. Yogami. Warner Oland played Yogami, although he was actually Swedish and had played Charlie Chan in other films. They met briefly under violent circumstances while Glendon was in Tibet looking for the Mariphasa flower—although Glendon doesn’t recall that until later.

The thing about the Mariphasa is that drops from the flower are an antidote for lycanthropy. Or is it lycanthrophobia? Dr. Yogami mentions the latter twice and it shows up twice in print as well during the film. Lycanthrophobia is by definition the fear of turning into a werewolf. Lycanthropy is the process of turning into one—minus the fear factor, presumably. Whatever.

Dr. Glendon prowls around and slaughters a few victims when the moon is full but tries to avoid killing his wife, Lisa (Valerie Hobson) by renting a room above a tavern apparently, and crashes though the window of his room, possibly because of claustrophobia. This of course makes him a victim of multiple phobias and there is no one playing the role of psychiatrist; figure that one out.

Eventually, there’s a showdown between two cops and Glendon which takes the form of a 3-way thumb wrestling match between them, mainly because Glendon has an obvious case of dental caries in his fangs which causes some pain, especially when the vodka-swilling comedy duo of Whack and Moncaster try to get him plastered by pouring liquor down his gullet through a funnel.

You’ll want to watch this when you’re in a good mood and disinclined to watch anything that is consistently horrifying. There is no laugh track.

Upcoming Svengoolie Movie: “Werewolf of London”!

Svengoolie intro: “Calling all stations, clear the air lanes, clear all air lanes for the big broadcast!”

The Svengoolie show will be airing the movie “Werewolf of London” this coming Saturday night. It was released in 1935 and features something I don’t usually associate with werewolves—a special flower.

Anyway, it’s the first full-length werewolf film. This guy is not looking for beef chow mein.

Svengoolie Movie: “The Black Scorpion” Subtitle: “Stay Out of Trouble Juanito!”

Hey, I watched the Svengoolie show “The Black Scorpion” last night and I think a subtitle could have been “Stay Out of Trouble, Juanito!” Every time I woke up, that seven-year-old kid was getting himself into another jam.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. This is a 1957 film starring Richard Denning as Hank Scott, Carlos Rivas as Artur Ramas, Mara Corday as Teresa Alvarez, and Mario Navarro as the irrepressible Juanito. Perry Mason has a bit part as a scorpion.

Hank and Scott are geologists who get roped into investigating the cause of a disaster in Mexico City after a volcano blows its top, waking up a gang of giant scorpions who can’t stop drooling partly because they’re hungry for human flesh, but vitamin B12 deficiency can’t be ruled out. The scorpions are stop motion animation creations which look pretty good, actually.

Right away, Juanito starts messing around getting attached to Hank, opening doors for him, shining his shoes and just making a general nuisance of himself, especially when he starts ignoring his safety from the scorpions—which in turn necessitates his need for being rescued dozens of times. I think this is just attention-seeking after the first few times, one of which involves wandering around and dropping dead fireflies behind him to get the giant arachnids to follow him within shouting distance of Hank, who has to constantly snatch him away from danger.

Juanito: “Hank, help, Hank! The scorpion is about to catch me!”

Hank: “Thunderation, Juanito! What the heck are you doing down here in the cave?”

Juanito: “Save me, Hank! And then I will shine your shoes for only 11,436 pesos!”

Hank (after getting out his exchange rate calculator): “That’s 600 dollars you little hustler!”

Juanito: “Hurry, Hank, before the rate changes; and now the scorpion is close enough to drool on me!”

I found out one thing on the web about one of the items (which was tequila) that Dr. Delacruz wanted to run further tests on with the corpse of one of the scorpion’s victims. Of course, he was joking about the tequila but I guess there is such a thing as a scorpion drink from a bottle of tequila that contains a scorpion. It turns out that the scorpion shot tequila is a macho thing which the giant scorpions hate and destroying mankind is their revenge for it. Just so you know.

Juanito: “Help, Hank! The scorpion is inches away from me now that I’m in their cave after sneaking down here in the bucket with the weapons and the press cameras!”

Hank: “What on earth made you do a stupid thing like that, Juanito?”

Juanito: “I was bringing you this bottle of tequila with a little, edible scorpion in it because I know you’re a macho guy! Then you could waste your time chewing the little scorpion instead of wasting your time taking pictures of the giant drooling scorpion with the old-fashioned big clunky press camera with the huge bulb.”

Hank: “Shut up, Juanito, and bring me another bulb!

The movie could have been shorter if it had ended after the good guys exploded the rocks into the cave. But no, there was a long segment of a guy explaining in pseudoscientific language why Hank and Artur had to return after they left thinking they had finished off the bugs. The guy used a map and PowerPoint slide presentation, carefully explaining while using a laser pointer to indicate various places that provided an implausible escape route for the scorpion which did not clearly show why the giant scorpion had not been killed in the explosion. So much for PowerPoint!

But it did prolong the movie and provided more gruesome footage of scorpions snacking on various human hors d’oeuvres. None of them managed to catch Juanito.

I fell asleep very briefly only a couple of times during the film, so overall I thought it was OK. I believe there’s a sequel in which Juanito, now a teenager, challenges a giant inchworm to a thumb wrestling match.

Svengoolie Interviewed at the Comic-Con!

Hey, I thought it would be fun to share an interview that somebody did of Svengoolie at the Comic-Con in San Diego yesterday. Svengoolie is played by Rich Koz and he’s been around a long time. He’s definitely not thinkinig of retiring. The only way we would have recognized him is by his voice!

Upcoming Svengoolie Movie: “The Black Scorpion”

Svengoolie intro: Calling all stations, clear the air lanes, clear all air lanes for the big broadcast!

I plan to watch the upcoming blockbuster Svengoolie movie this Saturday night, “The Black Scorpion” and so far, I haven’t read much about it except for a couple of lines from a synopsis or two. A volcano erupts and all of a sudden, a little town in Mexico is infested with giant scorpions.

I bet you, just like me, remember the TV series Meerkat Manor. Why would I say that, since probably none of you will fess up to it? Because meerkats eat scorpions! Not to mention the meerkats were often not much bigger than the scorpions. But could a mob of meerkats tip the scales? You’d need more than a mob to take down a bed of giant scorpions.

So, can you use bug spray on them? I mean the scorpions, not the meerkats. It turns out that scorpions are arachnids, not insects—but that doesn’t mean some bug sprays won’t work. On the other hand, you could just stick them in a freezer to kill them—not yours, of course. You’d need a freezer the size of a warehouse.

By the way, a bunch of scorpions is called a bed (see above). And so, I guess you can figure out a punch line for a Chuck Norris joke with the lead-in: What does Chuck Norris sleep on when he camps out in the desert?

Spotting Venus in the Eastern Sky

I was watching a television show last night about UFOs and had to chuckle about some of the segments in which there was a lot of speculation about underground and underwater bases where extraterrestrials typically are thought to hide from us while they work on whatever it is they work on.

There was the usual discussion of the Chicago O’Hare airport UFO sighting in 2006 which, according to the official FAA explanation was a weather phenomenon known as a “punch hole” cloud. Of course, true believers don’t believe that.

The show also rehashed the remote viewing theme in which somebody describes and draws pictures of things which are said to be seen remotely, often of extraterrestrials and humans working together on antique cars.

Remote viewer: I see many objects lining the walls of a hollowed-out mountain in Wyoming.

Observer: What are the objects?

Remote viewer: They are…socket wrenches. Billions and billions of socket wrenches.

Observer: Zzzzzzzz.

I thought about that show as I was walking out to the mailbox pod early this morning. I saw a very a bright object in the eastern sky. It didn’t move. It wasn’t disk-shaped and it didn’t look like an orb. It didn’t abduct me. It looked like a star, which I decided it was. I looked around the internet and it was most likely Venus, sometimes called the morning star (it also can be known as the evening star).

That reminded me of an X-File episode in which Jesse Ventura, a former Minnesota governor (1999-2003), had a role. The episode was “Jose Chung’s from Outer Space” and it’s one of my favorites. Ventura played a man in black.

I’m not saying Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) don’t exist and I don’t know why we need to call them Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) nowadays. I’m just saying that the morning star is a beautiful thing.