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drwayne05
Reviews
Furankenshutain tai Chitei Kaijû Baragon (1965)
The world became smaller
Perhaps the people who named the film did not see it? Aside from inane titling, the viewer is in for a twist on the Frankenstein motif that adds absolutely nothing to the horror genre. The giant Frankenstein monster is done fairly well for its time though the viewer might wonder why anyone would go to the trouble to super-size him. Although the idea that Frankenstein is composed of corpses is totally lost, the Japanese version of the monster retains the original monster's ignorant innocence. The film is less an exercise in bringing Frankenstein under control than it is an exercise in retaining this spark of humanity for no real reason. For the viewer, the exercise is simply staying awake.
Dracula (1931)
An inhuman monster, an anti-climatic movie
Given the advances that film-making made between the original Nosferatu and Browning's Dracula, I expected more. We get good but under-utilized Gothic sets, spooky close-ups of Lagosi's eyes, and acceptable performances from most of the cast, but the cinematography and effects are flat. I didn't expect a 90s-style editing pace to pick up the tension and the music does more to motivate anxiety than this pre-Psycho film is credited with. Nonetheless, even the director seems to lose interest with the story once Dracula leaves his castle in Transylvania and he ends the film, perhaps thankfully, prematurely quick.
Harvey (1950)
Disappointing
In his other films Stewart's stumbling line delivery is charming, but in this film it is like listening to a skipping record -- it makes an already slow film drone on. The dialog started out with spirit but quickly flattened out which made the film fall far short of other witty 50s era American productions. The Harvey gag was under-developed, leaving viewers with a murky idea of what/who Harvey was and little idea as to why we should like him/it as much as Stewart did. Desperation seemed to be the only reason that the time travel idea was even introduced as well as an apt description of how badly Steward needed mime training in order to pull off the Harvey gag. If you want to see Stewart in a stellar comic performance, watch Philadelphia Story.