Picture Perfect Wednesday:The Burka Compromise

With more and more European nations and American communities resisting the spread of the Muslim burka (and similar garb) for a host of reasons, I have looked to the wisdom of the past to find a middle-ground.


No hair or face is visible to arouse evil, lustful thoughts in men or to make the woman seem "immodest," yet its revealing enough that terrorists with a love of cross-dressing can't pass themselves off as a hapless woman just going about the business of Serving Man.

It may not completely address the concerns raised by thoughtful commentators here and here, but it's something.

Big revenge becomes small stuff

The Devil-Doll (aka "The Witch of Timbucktoo") (1936)
Starring: Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan, Rafaela Ottiano, and Frank Lawton
Director: Tod Browning
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Honest banker Paul Lavond (Barrymore) is sentenced to life in the hellish prison of Devil's Island after his business associates frame him for a robbery and murder they committed. However, after 17 years, he escapes with a mad scientist who was working on a method to reduce humans to a height of mere inches (all for the good of humanity, of course). The scientist may have been mad, but his methods worked--they not only reduced humans to doll-sizes, but they make them controllable via mental telepathy. Consumed with hatred for those who framed him, and a wish to restore the wealth that was denied him to his now-grown daughter (O'Sullivan), he takes the scientist's methods to Paris and embarks on a bizarre campaign of terror and vengeance.


"The Devil-Doll" is a film with an exceedingly goofy concept at its core, but the cast is so spectacular and the effects so well done--they hold up in most instances even today--that it really doesn't matter. Barrymore and every other actor in the film give such straight performances that telepathically controlled, tiny assassins seem perfectly reasonable. (The one exception is Ottiano, who plays the widower of the inventor of the "dollification" process... and since she's even nuttier than her husband, it's okay for her to be waaaay over the top.)

This is a film that's well-shot, well-acted, and that holds up well nearly 75 years years after its release.

'Essential Ghost Rider Vol. 1' is interestingif inconsistent superheroic horror

Essential Ghost Rider, Vol. 1 (Marvel Comics, 2005)
Writers: Gary Friedrich, Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, et.al.
Artists: Mike Ploog, Jim Mooney, Tom Sutton, Herb Trimpe, Frank Robbins, John Byrne, et.al
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

"Essential Ghost Rider Vol 1" reprints 500+ pages of the earliest tales of one of most bizarre Marvel horror characters. The series focuses on Johnny Blaze, a young motorcycle daredevil who sold his soul to the devil so that his adopted father wouldn't of a deadly disease. Johnny didn't think of the saying "the devil is in the details," so when his adopted father died anyway (just not of the disease), he tried to renege on his deal with Satan. Only the love of his pure-hearted stepsister saved him from being carried off to Hell. She couldn't prevent him from being cursed, and when the sun goes down (or when there is evil afoot, or when he is in danger... the curse keeps changing), Johnny is transformed into the Ghost Rider--a being with a flaming skull who rides a bike made from pure Hellfire.

Some things should remain childhood memories. The stories in "Essential Ghost Rider Vol 1", a book I look with great anticipation because I had such fond memories. In particularly, I remembered Ghost Rider fighting a WW I ghost biplane, and I remembered him fighting an Indian witch who had sold her soul to Satan like he had.

In some respects, the stories here match my childhood recollection. If taken on their own, each of Ghost Rider's adventures--most of which spanned two or three individual issues when first published--feature a curious mix of mystical gobbledygook, horror tropes, and superheroics. Out of all of Marvel's horror characters, the Ghost Rider is the most superhero-like, with Son of Satan--whose debut is also featured in this volume--coming in a close second.


However, when the stories are collected like they are here, a fatal editorial sloppiness becomes apparent, most obviously in the constant redefining of Johnny Blaze's curse and the repeated lapses in continuity as writers come and go on the series. The number of contradictions and "reinventions" that we see in the series are inexcusable over a mere 30 or so individual issues.

There's also an issue with the stories not aging well. They were products of the 1970s, and this is painfully evident in some of the stories, many of the characters, and much of the art. (The heavy 1970s feel is a blessing when it comes to the Witch Woman, though... she fills a pair of hotpants like no minon of Satan ever will again ).

Speaking of the art, it is the exceptional quality of the work produced by Ploog, Mooney and Sutton (the latter of which make for a surprisingly effective team) who save the book from getting a Four Tomato rating. Ploog's work is particularly excellent--not quite up to the level of his "Monster of Frankenstein" run but it's still very good. Mooney's run on the book brings out the superhero aspects of the title clearly, while Sutton helps bring out the macabre as he does on virtually every title he ever worked on.

My mild disappointment with this book may be that I approached the book with an attitude tainted by fond childhood memories instead of a neutral eye. However, the "Ghost Rider" series actually got better as it wore on, something which future volumes of this series have borne out, so maybe my negativity isn't all nostalgia. So far, Marvel Comics has released three volumes in this series, and I hope they will collect them all with the release of a fourth. (I hope to eventually post reviews of them all.)

United States threatened by Chinese brainwashing plot!

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Starring: Frank Sinatra, Angela Lansbury, James Gregory, Janet Leigh, Laurence Harvey, Leslie Parrish, and Henry Silva
Director: John Frankenheimer
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

A Korean War vet (Sinatra) fights off brainwashing and becomes the only man who can stop a far-reaching plot by the Chinese to place their handpicked agent in the highest elected office of the United States--the Presidency.

"The Manchurian Candidate" is one of those movies that truly is a classic. Not only is it spectacular film--with a suspenseful script, great camera work and even greater acting by everyone who appears on screen. Although over two hours in lenght, the film doesn't contain a dull moment, and you will absolutely grow to hate Angela Lansbury's evil, power-at-any-cost bitch of a political femme fatale.

While some of the details may date this movie, the characters and storyline remain as fresh and relevant-seeming today as they were in 1962. While I find the entire film engrossing, with one tiny exception, I find it particularly interesting that while I felt sympathy for Alexander Sebastian in "Notorious" (review here), I have nothing but contempt and disgust for Senator John Iselin (James Gregory) in this film. Both characters are men who are dominated by evil mothers with similar goals in mind. Perhaps the difference is that there seems to be a spark of decency in Sebastian, while Iselin is nothing but a perverted puppet of his twisted mother. Maybe it's the way we see Sebastian's heart break when he discovers that he has been betrayed by the woman he loves, and we have no similar moment to make Iselin less gross.


Speaking women and love, the romantic element of this film is the one part of it that I simply couldn't buy. As much as I thought both Frank Sinatra and Janet Leigh were great in their parts (as good as any in their careers, not to mention unique), the Insta-Romance that sprang up between them when they met on the train just didn't ring true to me. I kept expected her to be revealed as a spy of some sort--that the romantic attraction was part of the brainwashing, or that she was perhaps an American agent of some sort. Neither came to pass in the film. I suppose this is another similarity I see between this film and Alfred Hitchcock's "Notorious"... the film's hero and heroine have a forced romance Just Because.

With the exception of the romance misstep, "The Manchurian Candidate" is a fabulous political thriller that I think fans of the genre definitely need to see.

Picture Perfect Wednesday?

I don't get it, but this picture was originally spotted at Starlet Showcase.

Vincent Price is 'The Last Man on Earth'

The Last Man on Earth (aka "The Night Creatures", "Wind of Death", and "Night People") (1964)
Starring: Vincent Price, Franca Bettoia, Emma Danieli and Giacomo Rossi-Stuart
Director: Sidney Salkow (or Ubaldo Ragona, depending on the source)
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Dr. Robert Morgan (Price) spends three lonely years battling undead monsters after a mysterious plague that kills most people while causing others to rise as vampires sweeps the world. He starts to uncover signs that someone else is battling the vampires, and soon afterwards he meets Ruth (Bettoia), a fellow survivor. But is Ruth what she seems, or are the vampires getting smarter and is she part of an elaborate trap?


"The Last Man on Earth" is a fantastic horror film. It is creepy up to the very last moment, and it creates its sense of horror, dread, and even sorrow without resorting to gory violence or even obscenity.

Price is excellent in a rare part as someone who is a thoroughly sympathetic character who does everything in the film with the very best of intentions. The supporting cast are okay, but they are really just there for Price to play off.

This is a movie that's well worth the time it'll take you to see it... and it's a movie that all those oh-so-clever filmmakers out there who are churning out horror and suspense films with lame (and even movie-destroying) twist endings need to see. "The Last Man on Earth" offers a twist and then a twist on that twist, and both make the movie a stronger story.

Is that the smallest continent on Earth?

Lost Continent (1951)
Starring: Cesar Romero, Chick Chandler, John Hoyt, Sid Melton, Whit Bissel and Hugh Beaumont
Director: Sam Newfield
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

When an experimental missile goes out of control and crashes on an uncharted island, Air Force Major Joe Nolan (Romero) leads an expedition to recover the guidance system and figure out what went wrong. But when the same mysterious rays that caused the missile to go of course also brings down the expedition's plane, Nolan and his team must travel through miles of wilderness, scale a mountain... and find themselves confronted with dinosaurs and other life that has died out millions of years ago elsewhere on the planet. But what is more deadly--the pre-historic creatures, or the man Nolan suspects of being an enemy agent (Hoyt) and of trying to pick off expedition members one by one.


"Lost Continent" is a film with very little to recommend it. It's got a slow-moving story that's made even more slow-moving by what seems like a never-ending sequence of the characters climbing a mountain; I used to think the driving scenes that are popular padding in crappy movies were boring, but scenes of guys pretending to be scaling a mountain on an obvious set are even worse.

Those climbing scenes are doubly-boring when the attempts at generating suspense come from extreme illogic in character behavior and actions. For example, one character is injured early in the expedition, but do the supposedly experienced leader Major Nolan leave him behind in the care of the buxom and friendly young native lass played by a cameo-ing Acquanetta near the end of her brief acting career? Nope, they drag him along on a difficult climb for no reason whatsoever other than to have his injury give rise to him slipping and falling... and ultimately to give grounds to suspect the Russian defector as a double-agent trying to sabotage the mission. It's what "The Eiger Sanction" (review here) might have been like if it had been made by morons.

Then there's the stop-motion animation that gives life to the dinosaurs that menace our heroes. Even allowing for the facts that this is a movie from 1951 and that it was more stock footage like the exterior scenes of the air force base the missile was launched from. However, after taking a quick look at the silent movie version of "The Lose World," where I assumed the dinosaurs had been picked up from, I concluded that the animation was original... just so bad that it made one think it had to state from the early decades of filmmaking. Further, these dinosaurs don't appear until about 3/4th of the way into the film, despite the fact they were a main selling point of the picture.

At every turn, this is a movie that lets the viewer down. Heck, even the promo still I used to illustrate this article has nothing to do with anything that happens in the movie. Acquanetta is never menaced by any flying creatures, as she never sets foot outside the village set.

The Rating of Three I'm giving this film is so low that it borders on a Two. I'm only being as generous as I am, because the actors are actually pretty decent given what they're working with. Plus, Cesar Romero is particularly good as the American officer who knows to be suspicious of a possible enemy agent, but who is intelligent enough not to jump to judgement until he is 100 percent certain that he is right. I always appreciate a movie that features portrayals of military officers as I have known them, not the frothing-at-the-mouth paranoid psychopaths that are so often presented in Hollywood flicks. (Of course, another reason for the portrayal of Major Nolan may be a statement on the part of the filmmakers about the Red Scare that was running through American pop culture and politics at the time this movie was made. While there were reasons to be wary, there were more reasons to be certain before accusing, could be what the movie was trying to say.)

Those few good elements can't make up for the fact that this is a movie that at every turn delivers less than it should. Heck, even the name promises more than the movie delivers. Instead of a lost continent, it presents a mountain valley on an uncharted island.