7 reviews
I actually suffered through this entire shovelful of cinematic tripe. The participants must have been desperate for money, but even that cannot excuse the miserable demonstration of their pitiful efforts and the eternal embarrassment that must attach to them. The acting (if it may be so called) was wooden and slack jawed; the music just...sucked, just sucked, is the appropriate description; and the direction was incompetent and hopelessly lost and inept. I will single out Judy Geeson, the famed British actress and putative star of this mess, for special praise: her most memorable and rewarding effort was the Giving Birth scene. It was hysterically, ridiculously, inconceivably funny and gave me the only laugh I had throughout this entire sodden mess.
Universal embalmed the Phantom in a Technicolor coffin in 1943. Spectacular sets and costuming, a cloying romantic triangle, inappropriate comedy, and plodding direction doom a production that cannot be saved by even this large, talented cast. It is not a horror movie. It is an MGM musical kind of production (without the pizzazz) in which the horror elements are subordinated to an onslaught of boring opera that adds nothing to the story or pacing. The original with Chaney, and Hammer's version with Herbert Lom are by far superior and more engaging. The pretentious abomination of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical version can trace its lineage to this film, as can the 1998 floperoo starring Julian Sands.
As other reviewers have noted, it was apparently shot without a script and grafted on to another unfinished movie. Christopher Lee is the attraction here, but even he can't salvage this doomed production. Its incomparable awfulness encompases: 1) the single worst acting performance ever committed to film (Ardisson, as "Gugo," itself an unforgettable travesty); 2) the flabby has-been stripper Alma De Rio stumbling through a dance in which she waddles drunkenly while wiggling her hefty avordupois (without removing a stitch, thank God); and, 3) a solo guitar dirge opening "theme" that sounds like a 10 year-old trying to pick out a tune on an instrument for the first time. Execrable and stupefying, like watching an animal eating another animal's vomit.or feces.
This is a nice, efficient mystery/thriller, enlivened by the presence of Boris Karloff and Edward van Sloane. Karloff is fine in this non-monster role, as a cocky, bowler wearing, cigar smoking crook. His presence (in retrospect) also provides a cachet of horror to the mix. This movie, after all, was shooting just as Frankenstein was released. The rest of the cast is very good and the direction is no-nonsense, straight ahead story telling (if a bit improbable). Things keep moving so quickly you don't really have time to question the plot's realism. But the real kick and revelation is Edward van Sloane in a dual/triple role -- in particular, his portrayal of Dr. Steiner, with his crackling electronic gear, his google-eye specs, his trilling foreign accent -- apparently having the time of his life as an sinister, conniving doctor masterminding a dope ring. His sadistic banter during the film's climax is convincing enough to rank with the best of Lionel Atwill's or Bela Lugosi's incarnations of mad doctors at the height of their madness.
Hands of a Stranger is a so-so stab at retelling Maurice Renard's Hands of Orlac. It suffers from a cheap budget but is redeemed by a couple of memorable moments (and a couple of hilarious ones). Lawrence Haddon as Police Lieutenant Syms creates a uniquely sardonic and cynical touch as a philosophizing detective who suspects that Dr. Gil Harding (Paul Lukather) has been up to some monkey business with an incomplete corpse. His sincerity is all the more remarkable for the ponderous dialogue he's required to bring off. But the best part is that little Barry Gordon -- a child actor who irritated me from the first moment I saw him some 60 years ago -- finally gets his comeuppance for being a pushy, smart aleck kid. If you've ever felt aggrieved by his childhood persona, you'll take the same delight I did in seeing Vernon Paris crush the kid's hands after he makes the wise-ass comment, ""Gee, mister, it sure musta been a long time (since you practiced), cause you sure can't play now! How can you play that piano if you can't even hit the chords..."
This episode exposes the weaknesses inherent in forcing a one-hour format onto a successful half-hour show. It's overlong and obviously padded with pointless scenes and occasionally laughable dialogue, this one has the special added detraction of a shrill, one-dimensional performance by the miscast Pat Hinkle. He is absolutely intolerable as the bipolar self-absorbed lout who can't think of anything or anyone else but himself and his lost childhood. The repeated family bickering and shouting fail to develop character and only add to the irritation factor. Like most of these hour-long TZ's, you can figure out the ending about 15 minutes in. The concept and writing on this one is thin at best.
How Barbara Steele, Tippi Hedren and Kevin McCarthy ever get roped into this disaster is beyond imagination. About a dozen interchangeable airheaded bimbettes self consciously struggle to get by on cleavage as they mumble, mangle and stumble through a witless, boring script. The various male players are likewise strictly Z-list rejects. None of them have a shred of acting talent or screen presence. Combine this with jittery steady cam videography, dimensionless lighting that only enhances the utter cheapness of the sets, and writing that beggars the expectation of anything approaching coherence, and you have The Boneyard Collection. This movie is execrable. I can only compare the experience of watching it to stepping on a large pile of ripe, fragrant dung while wearing open-toed shoes. This IS the worst movie I have ever seen.