SPELL OF THE HYPNOTIST (1956)

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological*


W. Lee ""Brother of Billy" Wilder made three pure-SF films with scripts from his son Myles Wilder. These films, despite their many problems, are probably the only reasons anyone remembers either of the Wilders. The Wilders' other four collaborations-- three naturalistic thrillers and SPELL OF THE HYPNOTIST, the subject of my review--  are not often celebrated. Myles Wilder went on to do a lot of episodic TV, some of which is decent (like early GET SMART episodes) though hardly outstanding. W. Lee directed two non-Myles films with SF-content, THE OMEGANS and MAN WITHOUT A BODY, both of which I think deserve their obscurity, and most of W. Lee's efforts in other genres seem to inspire only apathy.

The film being reviewed has probably been exhibited most often with the title FRIGHT, but SPELL OF THE HYPNOTIST is a better title, especially since it's so hard to imagine even an impressionable child being scared by this double-Wilder outing. In addition, just as the Wilders seem generally under-invested in their three SF-films-- as if they could hardly summon the energy to care much about the motives of their snow creatures or their space-visitors-- SPELL conjures a little with the subject of reincarnation, but then dispels the supernatural from the world of the film. However, the Wilders do seem a little more invested in the titular hypnotist and his power to manipulate human minds.

There seems to be little question that the film was created to ride on the bestseller status of the 1956 book THE SEARCH FOR BRIDEY MURPHY. This purported non-fiction recounted how an amateur hypnotist put a housewife into a trace, resulting in her remembering a past life as an 1800s woman named Bridey Murphy. Paramount adapted the book in the same year, but given that SPELL comes out a month or so earlier than the paramount adaptation, I think I'm justified in assuming that the Wilders simply rushed an imitation of the bestseller out as quickly as possible.

SPELL's opening scene is simple but more viscerally involving than anything else I've seen from W. Lee Wilder. A demented murderer named Morley, having escaped police custody, gets atop a bridge and threatens to jump if the cops don't back off. Crowds gather to watch the spectacle, and among them is a psychiatrist, Doctor Hamilton (Eric Fleming). Hamilton commandeers a police bullhorn and uses hypnosis-techniques to lull Morley into a suggestible state, so that he can be captured. However, one other person in the crowd is affected by Hamilton's persuasive voice, a young woman named Ann Summers (Nancy Malone). Summers approaches Hamilton, and though he's taken with her good looks, he doesn't accept clients who come up to him on the street. However, he soon changes his mind and allows her to visit his office-- and the visit leads to his use of hypnosis to disclose her apparent manifestation of a second personality, a German woman from the 1800s, also a lover to the Bavarian crown prince Rupert.

Amid many dull talking-heads scenes, the two of them fall in love, but Hamilton doesn't want a "second wife" in the bargain. While Hamilton seeks to solve Summers' dilemma, he also happens to be called in to consult on the psychological state of Morley the murderer. (Morley later proves crucial to Hamilton being able to solve his reincarnation problem). The psychiatrist eventually determines that there are no spirits involved, and that Summers has simply created a fantasy-construct-- which, significantly, is what modern authorities tend to believe about the actual "Bridey Murphy" controversy.

But although there's nothing supernatural about Summers, Hamilton's use of hypnosis carries an uncanny vibe. Though he's supposed to be no more than a skilled professional, he works a sort of "mental magic" when he uses Morley's presence to "exorcise" Summers' false construct. The title SPELL OF THE HYPNOTIST is also appropriate because the main character-arc is all about Hamilton overcoming the obstacle to his future marriage. (It helps that Fleming is the best actor in the ensemble, though good acting isn't the determining factor in determining a story's main character.) Ann Summers in both of her personalities is more of an object to attain than a character, and so SPELL is structurally the opposite of the slightly later TERROR IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE, where the haunted female is the star of the narrative.

SPELL is certainly mediocre as plain entertainment. But it still has a couple of reasonably involving scenes, which certainly puts it way ahead of THE SNOW CREATURE.

PHANTOM FROM SPACE (1953)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

I recently reviewed W. Lee ("Brother of Billy") Wilder's SNOW CREATURE, the last of the pure-SF films he did with his son Myles. I had already looked at the Wilders' second collaboration, KILLERS FROM SPACE, so I decided to get round to the first, PHANTOM FROM SPACE.

PHANTOM seems to have provided the template for SNOW CREATURE, insofar as both films take a pseudo-documentary approach to the subject matter. With even less set-up than CREATURE, a mysterious space-suited man begins wandering around Santa Monica. The spaceman's presence interferes with radio broadcasts, which gets the local FCC reps into the investigation, and he kills a man, which brings in the cops. All three Wilder films seem to be aping the trend of 1950s SF-films to idolize "professional men" of any kind, whether cops, soldiers, scientists or government officials, but the Wilders show no awareness that the audience might like to see such characters given human traits in order to make them somewhat relatable.  Indeed, the lead cop in the investigation, a fellow named Bowers, might be more likely to alienate audiences. The alien kills his victim when the latter attacks him, and the two witnesses-- the man's wife and his neighbor-- are automatically disbelieved when they tell their story of a man in a "diving suit," whose face seemed to be invisible inside the helmet. Bowers, on no evidence whatever, tries to float the idea that the neighbor killed the victim to get with the victim's wife. Not exactly Columbo here.

Eventually, even Bowers has to believe that something weird is going on. A night watchman also sees the diving-suit guy, and relates how the stranger ventures near an oil tank and blows it up through his mere presence. Again, where a lot of SF-films of the time would have faulted the various witnesses  for their xenophobia, the script is silent on this topic. The cops and the other investigators also encounter a pretty young lab assistant, Barbara. It's quickly established that she's married to another scientist, though their relationship has no greater significance to the story.

The alien-- called an "x-man" once or twice in the film-- has another property: whenever he takes off his spacesuit, he becomes invisible to human sight. At no time in the story is it made clear how the "Phantom" survives, even briefly, in Earth's atmosphere without his suit. Given that it's an important point in the story that the "x-man" needs to replenish his breathing-resources somehow, scripter Myles seems to be pretty cavalier in coming up with a gimmick where his alien can doff his suit whenever he pleases. The alien has no way of communicating with Earthmen, suggesting-- though it's never stated outright in the script-- that he's a castaway who didn't mean to land on Earth. Yet, aside from one scientist in the investigating group-- the fellow brought in to supply the technical exposition-- no one seems particularly bowled over by this contact with extraterrestrial life. Hazen's attitude toward his quarry often seems to be a mirror for the director's attitude toward the film: he just wants it to be over with.

Eventually, thanks to input from the military, the investigators figure out that their visitor can be tracked by his radioactivity. However, the spaceman foils them by taking off his suit and disappearing. Hazen and company take the suit with them back to their HQ at Griffith Observatory, and, unbeknownst to them, the alien stows away in one of their cars. At his first opportunity, the Phantom regains his suit and takes Barbara prisoner. Though he rips her lab-coat once, his main motive seems to be trying to communicate, attempting to establish a code by making rhythmic tapping sounds. However, the scripter is too impatient to deal with how an intelligent castaway might try to establish communication, and so the alien's efforts are interrupted and he's on the run again. At the anti-climactic climax, the alien's breathing apparatus is destroyed and the Earthmen use ultra-violet lights to foil his invisibility-- at which point he takes a fall and dies.

I can see why some SF-fans like this better than Wilder's other SF-films, since there are a few scenes in which the Phantom is scientifically analyzed. However, I found these scenes to be marginal in their impact, when compared to their stultifying effect of the documentary-style narrative. Most Hollywood professionals of the period, whether they really liked SF or not, got the gist of the genre's appeal and successfully emulated it. In all three pictures, Wilder seems fundamentally at odds with the demands of the genre, as if he's trying as hard as possible to minimize the effects of his SF-boogiemen. Only in KILLERS FROM SPACE, despite all of its problems, are the monsters even slightly memorable.

THE LIVING GHOST (1942)

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *cosmological*


One year before William Beaudine directed THE APE MAN, his first Bela Lugosi cheapie for Monogram, the director turned out this comedy-mystery with a minimal fantastic content.

After a rich patriarch disappears, his family suspects kidnapping. A friend of the family brings in oddball private detective Nick Trayne (James Dunn) to investigate. Since Nick has moved on from being a detective, having become a "professional listener" who gives ear to people's problems for dough, the old friend encourages the family's cute private secretary Billie (Joan Woodbury) to give Nick a little ribbing so he'll catch the shamus bug again. Nick lets himself be talked into the case, and joins the family-- not nearly as eccentric as one usually finds in horror-comedies-- at their country house. But before Nick finds out much of anything, the missing man turns up-- not dead, but a "living ghost" in that he seems to be in a zombie-like state of unresponsiveness.

The mystery part of the film is efficient but forgettable, and it seems likely that the filmmakers were largely banking on the sparks between Dunn and Woodbury to sell the film with B-movie audiences. Both actors play their limited parts with vivacity, though Dunn's smart-ass dick gets a bit tiring at times. As for supporting players, only Minerva Urecal distinguishes herself as a would-be mystical type.

In terms of the metaphenomenal content, a consulting doctor gives Nick a lecture on the scientific means by which the rich man's will has been paralyzed. Though the explanation may well be nonsense in a scientific sense, the gist within the movie is that the method of "zombie-fication" is something within the bounds of science, slightly extended, so that it fits into the category of the uncanny. Neither the "zombie" nor its creator are particularly compelling, which leaves the acid-tongued detective in the position of center stage.

The film does include with a bit of pre-marital byplay that would be verboten today. Early in the film Nick promises to paddle Billie for her mockery if given the chance, and when she agrees to marry him at the end, she duly receives her punishment-- also in the end. I suspect that any adults watching the film in 1942 would have regarded the assertion of male privilege as nothing more than a joke.

KILL BABY KILL (1966)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Mario Bava’s mid-sixties exercise in Gothic excess is no BLACK SUNDAY, though at times Bava--who collaborated on the script for KILL BABY KILL with two other authors-- seems to be attempting to turn some of the earlier film’s tropes on their respective heads.

Following various mysterious deaths in a small Carpathian town, a medical expert is called in to certify the causes of death. Young doctor Eswai is characterized only by his utter disbelief in the superstitions of the locals, who blame the deaths on a mysterious curse. The locals so resent Eswai’s intrusion that they rough him up once, but he makes an important (and sexy) ally: a young female medical student named Monica (Erika Blanc). Unlike Eswai she’s a liminal figure, having been born in the town though she went away to receive her medical education. To be sure, Monica never contributes any medical acumen to the case.

As in many such haunted European towns, the spectre of an aristocratic presence still endures. Here it takes the form of the aged Baroness Graps, though she makes only minimal appearances in the film’s first half, and her ultimate significance is not prefigured by the rambling script. Far more consequential are two other female figures: a little blonde girl named Melissa, soon revealed to be the ghost of the baroness’s long-dead daughter, and Ruth, a dark-haired witch-woman. Whereas in BLACK SUNDAY Bava utilized the familiar trope “good blonde female/ bad brunette female,” that dichotomy is reversed here, with the blonde ghost-girl being the source of the killings while the dark-haired witch-woman seeks to allay the ghost’s malice.

Compared to BLACK SUNDAY or even THE WHIP AND THE BODY, Bava’s visuals are undistinguished, except for one bracing scene in which Monica flees her ghostly nemesis down a winding staircase. Only in the final third of the film does the role of the Baroness become significant, as she’s revealed to be the medium that called forth the ghost-child’s vengeance.

In fact, the role of the Baroness is less interesting in itself than in the possible influence of KILL BABY KILL on a later classic horror-film. It’s long been hazarded that the second FRIDAY THE 13^TH  film might have picked up some visual tropes from Bava’s 1971 slasher-precursor, TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE. Yet DEATH NERVE has nothing in its script that’s at all comparable to FRIDAY’s big reveal, that the killer is actually the aggrieved mother of a child who died as a result of the camp-supervisors’ neglect. KILL BABY KILL turns upon a very similar revelation: that the reason the Baroness has unleashed Melissa against the town is because some of the citizens trampled the girl to death during a raucous celebration. 

There’s also a throwaway revelation that Monica’s life-history is a lie, and that she like Melissa is also one of the Baroness’s children. But both of them are such boring characters that there’s no tension to this reveal, just as Eswai’s conversion to the reality of the supernatural lacks any deeper resonance.

THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE (1967)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

This low-budget “alien possession” tale was adapted by Amicus producer Milton Subotsky from an American SF-novel, THE GODS HATE KANSAS. I have not read the original novel, but Subotsky and the all-Brit cast do a creditable job of transferring the action to the British Isles, so that BEYOND seems of a piece with such similar Brit-works.

BEYOND’s main character is scientist Curt Temple (Robert Hutton), who frequently collaborates with his girlfriend and fellow scientist Lee Mason (Jennifer Jayne). Prior to her departure to collaborate with another scientific group, Curt humorously remarks that he doesn’t want other scientists to find out that Lee is the “real brains” of their partnership.

Then bodiless aliens descend to earth via a meteor-shower, and within the film’s first fifteen minutes they take possession of Lee and her fellow eggheads, all of whom immediately speaking in highly affected tones. They set up their own base, co-opting the resources of the British government. Curt becomes aware of Lee’s strange behavior and investigates the base, though he’s unable to convince the authorities of the group’s sinister plans.

Since both Curt and Lee are very flat character-types, her constant rejections of his attentions doesn’t carry much resonance. There’s some potential for romantic conflict when a blonde town-girl tries to chat up Curt during his period of rejection. But though she later succors Curt after his possessed girlfriend shoots him with a stun-ray (complete with a groovy “spiraling circles” effect), the town-girl fades out of the story and is one of the characters slain by an apparent plague. The plague is one of the aliens’ stratagems for keeping the authorities away from their operations, but Curt sees through their charade. In the end Curt penetrates the base and “deprograms” his girlfriend. However, at the eleventh hour the aliens reveal that they haven’t really killed anyone and that everyone who apparently died will be made whole. The film ends with Curt vowing to help the aliens out of their difficulties.

THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE is a pretty ordinary low-octane thriller, but there are at least a few lively moments here and there. That’s more than I could find in Amicus’s same-year SF-flick THE TERRORNAUTS, also adapted from a little-known American SF-novel.

THE SNOW CREATURE (1954)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*


THE SNOW CREATURE, one of the first "Yeti" films, is also the last of three low-budget SF-films on which director W. Lee ("brother of Billy") Wilder collaborated with his son Myles Wilder (though the two also worked on other, non-SF projects). Both PHANTOM FROM SPACE and the similarly titled KILLERS FROM SPACE are far more watchable, though CREATURE gets a few points for not being a total ripoff of its main influences, 1933's KING KONG and CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, which appeared in theaters about six months before Wilder's Yeti.

Whereas the explorers of CREATURE are looking for their fishy quarry, narrator-and-viewpoint-character Parrish undertakes his expedition to the Himalayas looking for rare botanical subjects. His only companions are another American, a photographer named Wells, and several Sherpas, implicitly Tibetan though they are played by Japanese actors. Only three of the Tibetans are named: the leader Subra, his wife Tala, and his brother Leva.

After a few days of monotonous travel through the Himalayan snows, a Yeti appears at Subra's house and steals Tala. Leva overtakes the expedition and relates this story to Subra, who believes it implicitly. He asks the two Americans for help, but neither of them believe in abominable snowmen, and they decline to go Yeti-hunting. In one of the film's few original touches, Subra hijacks the expedition for that purpose, forcing Parrish and Wells to go along if they don't want to be left behind to freeze in the snows.

Though the Americans try a few tricks to take control of the situation, Subra heads them off and the group finally comes across evidence of a Yeti's passage: the prints of his "big feet" in the snow. However, there's no proof that the Yeti they're tracking has Tala in his possession, though the group does find one of Tala's shoes. However, Tala is never seen again in the movie, nor is there more than circumspect acknowledgment that she's been abducted to help breed more Snow Creatures. Wells shows himself to be a minor-league Carl Denham, asking Subra if he might want to profit from any creatures they find, rather than simply killing them. Parrish can only think of making a new discovery that will benefit his career, though even before seeing any snowmen, he's oddly certain that the creature is just some kind of animal (contradicting his narration about their being a "crude civilization" of Yetis).

The expedition follows the tracks to a series of caves, and they find not one but three Snow Creatures-- an adult male, an adult female, and a child-- though the latter two are barely seen. Since Wilder's script has no use for them, the scripter resorts to a peculiar device to get rid of them. When the male Yeti sees the outsiders, he tries to bring down the ceiling on them, but only succeeds in killing his own family and stunning himself. Parrish and Wells steal back their guns from Subra, forcing all of the Sherpas to give up the search for Tala, though it's possible that Subra believes her to have died in the cave-in. However, thanks to a handy syringe filled with a knockout drug, Parrish can keep the Snow Creature unconscious as the Sherpas drag him back to the nearest city. Once there, big-hearted Parrish declines to press charges against the rebellious Tibetans, but there's a new source of conflict. Wells thinks they should exploit the creature for profit, while Parrish simply wants him examined by scientists, for which purpose he sends the snowman back to the States in a "refrigerator unit." Strangely, unlike most noble scientists in 1950s films, Parrish is utterly indifferent to the Creature's possible human status. In a later scene Parrish reaffirms that it's only an animal, though he does so in part to allay Wells' attempt to publicize the new find as a "snow man."

The sketchy debate about the Creature's status ends when the snowman breaks free of its prison in a California city. The Wilder script seems to agree with Parrish: there are absolutely no scenes to suggest that the monster can think or even express puzzlement over his surroundings. The Snow Creature is just a primitive libido on the loose, for, apart from fighting back against police, his only action is to attack women in two very discreetly handled scenes. Finally, Parrish is able to advise the police to look for the beast-man down in the sewer system, at which point the cops eventually overtake and kill the monster with a minimum of fuss.

Though it may be presumptuous to do so, I can't help expressing that the absolute disinterest of both of the Wilders in the creature's mentality signals their lack of investment in the making of SF-films about monsters and aliens. Father and son worked on three other films together, two of which have metaphenomenal content even though they don't qualify as mainstream SF. After that, Myles Wilder had a long career in episodic TV-- including another "caveman," KORG 70,000 B.C.-- and W. Lee only directed a few more films, ending his career with yet one more fantasy-flick, THE OMEGANS.

ADDENDA: I considered the possibility that the Yeti might reflect attitudes of 1950s Caucasians toward so-called "savage races." However, there's not much to back up this sort of sociological reading, particularly since the Yeti people prey most of all upon "persons of color." It seems more likely that the ham-fisted script conceived of the snow creatures as a menace to all humanity, like nasty Cro-Magnons still trying to get one up on those intruding Neanderthals.

MASTER MINDS (1949)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological*


I'd tend to agree with the dominant online opinion that this Bowery Boys film probably owes more than a little to the previous year's successful monster-comedy ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN. In that film, Glenn Strange played the Frankenstein Monster, and a mad scientist working for Count Dracula wanted to transplant Lou Costello's simple brain into the monster's skull. Here, a mad scientist named named Druzik (Alan Napier) has control of a hairy brute named Atlas (Strange again), whom Druzik wants to improve upon. But instead of using the tried-and-true brain-transplant mode, Druzik employs lots of Frankensteinian elecrtical arcs to effect a personality-transfer-- and thus Atlas's brutish body comes to be inhabited by the timid consciousness of Sach (Huntz Hall), the resident dingus of the Bowery Boys.

Perhaps so that filmmakers could keep their comedy's plot a little distinct from that of the A&C film, MASTER MINDS starts out with a fantasy-trope that's largely irrelevant to the main story. Sach eats too much candy and somehow gains the power to make accurate prophecies. His leader Slip (Leo Gorcery) and the rest of the middle-aged "boys" immediately set Sach up to be a carnival fortuneteller. Druzik sees the act and for some reason thinks that a prognosticating man-monster might prove useful, so he and his aides kidnap Sach. Once the personality transfer takes place, "Sach.," now in the body of a behemoth, seeks out his old pals and eventually leads them to Druzik's laboratory, resulting in assorted silliness.

In comparison with some of the earlier Bowery Boys adventures into the supernatural, this one benefits from good casting, particularly with Napier as the silver-tongued scientist, whose aides include Skelton Knaggs and Jane Adams, both of whom had worked alongside Strange in 1945's HOUSE OF DRACULA,  But the most interesting aspect of MINDS is how well Huntz Hall throws himself into playing the ferocious Atlas once the monster's mind has been placed in Sach's body. Strange also has a little fun playing the part of the timid Sach despite his gangling form, but Hall doesn't try to mug in his role, although it's pretty much what one would expect of such light comedies.  Huntz Hall was certainly not what anyone call a versatile actor, but it's refreshing to see him step, however briefly, outside his usual routines.