Ghost Ship (1952)

“Ghost Ship” (1952) is a time killer of the most modest variety. While it’s not remotely scary and opportunities are wasted to generate even the mildest of shudders, I found it watchable thanks to the cast and a couple of pop culture references that amused me.

Guy and Margaret Thornton (Dermot Walsh and Hazel Court, married in real life at this time) answer a newspaper advertisement for a small cruiser. The ship in questions is old and in desperate need of repair, but something draws the couple to the ship, and they decide to make the purchase. The harbormaster tells them the ship is considered haunted when it was towed back to port after being found adrift in the ocean with no one aboard.

The young couple naturally scoffs at the idea of a haunting, but guests soon complain of smelling cigar smoke when no one is around. Some crewmembers quit, telling Guy they’re seeing ghosts in the engine room. Guy doesn’t believe them until night when he’s in the engine room and sees a young man staring at him. He calls to him but the man disappears. To help clear up the mystery, the Thorntons call in a psychic who holds a séance on board the ship .

“Ghost Ship” is one of those movies where everything horrible is talked about, but hardly anything is shown. The scene where Thornton sees the man in the engine room generates a little suspense, but that’s about it for the 70-minute running time.

No one wonder Hammer Films made such a big impact on the world with their Quatermass movies and the Technicolor shocker “The Curse of Frankenstein” (1957). British audiences expected their country’s horror films to be like “Ghost Ship” and were no doubt surprised – and pleased – by the visceral terrors on display in the Hammer offerings.

I always liked Hazel Court and it’s a pleasure to see her in any movie. At one point she mentions Frankenstein. She would utter the name much more frequently when she would co-star in the aforementioned “The Curse of Frankenstein.”

One scene I found very puzzling. At dockside, the Thorntons are waiting for the arrival of the psychic. The boat is approaching and Guy says, “We’re off to see the wizard.” Obviously a “Wizard of Oz” reference, but was “The Wizard of Oz” that well known at the time? I always thought its annual airings on television was what turned it into a pop culture phenomenon. I know it was re-released several times in the 1940s, and likely was a big hit in England. But it was jarring to hear a reference like that in a 1952 movie.

When you’re picking up on bits like that, it means there’s not much else to focus on. Director Vernon Sewell doesn’t even try to work up much atmosphere. Come to think of it, he didn’t do much with “The Blood Beast Terror” (1968) either, one of Peter Cushing’s lesser efforts. If you have Peter Cushing as a doctor whose daughter turns into a blood sucking moth and you’re watching it thinking about what to have for dinner, then all is lost.

He also directed “The Curse of the Crimson Altar” (1968) which is something of a cult film thanks to its cast: Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee and Barbara Steele. But don’t let the cultists fool you, it’s still a dud.

Thankfully “Ghost Ship” is only 70 minutes. It’s not very good, and there are too many missed opportunities, but there are worst things to watch.

Rating for “Ghost Ship”: Two stars.

The Man Who Could Cheat Death; The Bride and the Beast

It’s Hammer Time!

From the famed British studio comes “The Man Who Could Cheat Death” (1959) a glossy horror flick about a man who has discovered the secret of eternal life. This being a horror flick, such a discovery comes with a price, in this case, killing young, beautiful women and then secreting their glands to keep him going. He looks to be in his mid-30s, but in reality he’s 104 years old.

It’s Paris in the 1880s, and Anton Diffring plays the eternal man, a sculptor who first sculpts busts of his female models before killing them. It’s a good performance from Diffring, who excelled at playing these cold, aristocratic types. His latest victim is played by the stunningly beautiful Hazel Court, whose red hair and alabaster skin made her one of the most beautiful actresses of that era. She’s a wonderful actress too; no ingénue type, but you can feel her growing love for her sculptor, not knowing what he really has in mind for her. Christopher Lee brings up the rear as a doctor who sees his sweetheart fall under the spell of the artist.

The film has a lot going for it. Good cast, great production design (Hammer always made their films look more expensive than they actually were), and evocative lighting. I particularly liked the scene where Diffring opens his safe to drink his mixture to keep from going old. A luminescent green spills over the cup and fills the screen. The mixture looks like Mountain Dew, which made me go to the refrigerator and get a Dew. See, movies can influence behavior.

On the debit side, the film is awfully talky and slow-going. Director Terence Fisher could be a marvelous director, but this is one of his weakest efforts. Horror moments are few and far between, and there’s probably one talk too many about the dangers of prolonging life. The score by the usually reliable Richard Rodney Bennett is pretty undistinguished. The film needed some good old James Bernard bombast to spice things up at the end.

“The Man Who Could Cheat Death” is based on a play by Barre Lyndon called “The Man in Half Moon Street.” (Lyndon wrote the screenplay for “The Lodger” (1944) and “Hangover Square” (1945), two of my all-time favorite Victorian melodramas.)

“The Man in Half Moon Street” was made into a movie by Paramount Pictures in 1944 with Nils Asther and Helen Walker. I haven’t seen that version in probably 30+ years and don’t remember a thing about it, but I would be interested in seeing it again and comparing it to the remake.

“The Man Who Could Cheat Death” is by no means a bad film. It’s beautiful to look at (the DVD transfer is stunning), and is very well acted. It’s just kinda dull and talky. I’m glad I saw it, but for me, its definitely one of the lesser Hammers from the period.

Rating for “The Man Who Could Cheat Death”: Two and a half stars.

Far worst, but in its own way, more watchable is “The Bride and the Beast” (1958). It’s a terrible movie, but it’s so goofy that I found myself being mildly entertained for most of its 78-minute running time.

If the following sounds like an Ed Wood movie, well, that’s because he wrote the script (but not the original story, called “The Queen of the Gorillas” from Adrian Weiss, who also directed and produced).

Laura Fuller (Charlotte Austin) and her husband Dan (Lance Fuller, there’s a male porn star name for you) spend their wedding night at Dan’s house. Dan goes into the jungle to collect specimens for zoos. In the basement is a caged gorilla named Spanky (I am so not going there).

Spanky gets the hots for Laura, breaks out of his cage and steals up to their bedroom. He rips off her nightgown before being shot by Dan. Strangely, Laura does not feel threatened by the monkey’s advances.

The next day, Laura is hypnotized by a doctor. Regressing to a past life, it is learned she was a gorilla in a previous existence; not just any gorilla, but The Queen of the Gorillas. The doctor explains to Dan this probably explains her penchant for wearing angora sweaters (yep, we’re definitely in Ed Wood territory here).

For their honeymoon Dan takes Laura into the African jungle for his next expedition. You guessed it, Laura’s presence attracts the presence of gorillas in the area, setting the stage for the nail-biting climax – will Laura stay with Dan, or will her past life take over, forcing her to stay in the jungle and reclaim her Queen of the Gorillas moniker?

Before this can be decided, we’re treated to lots and lots of stock footage of wildlife in the jungle, including ferocious scenes of tigers in action. What are tigers doing in Africa? I don’t know either, but its likely producer Weiss had the stock footage, so why let it go to waste? In the film’s defense, the tigers are explained away in a scene where Dan is told that a ship leaving Asia with a shipment of animals lost its bearings on the shoals of Africa, and all the animals got loose and were seen roaming around.

“The Bride and the Beast” is badly acted and poorly directed. Its central story idea is goofy beyond belief. It’s probably a one star movie, but because the movie has several good gorilla suits (always a big plus with me), I have to give it an extra half star. Hey, it was better than “Wanted” (2008).

Rating for “The Bride and the Beast”: One and a half stars.