The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)

Dr. Phibes (Vincent Price) is horribly scarred from a car accident while rushing to be with his sick wife. When she dies, he holds  her nine doctors responsible. Presumed dead from his crash, Phibes enacts his plan to murder them in the mode of the biblical plagues, with minor alterations for filming purposes.

Virginia North was adorable as Phibes’ assistant Vulnavia, whose presence here makes no sense. She previously appeared in the Lazenby Bond film. Caroline Munro was uncredited as Phibes’ dearly departed. She would later go on to be in a Moore Bond film. Susan Travers played an argumentative nurse. Previously she had a small role in the excellent Peeping Tom. She didn’t get to do a Bond film, but did get to work with Hitchcock. She seemed to play nurses a lot.

It was sad to see a late career Joseph Cotten stumble through his lines. There wasn’t much dialog but what little there was, was terrible. Price recited all of his lines in a studio as his character could only talk using the technology of phonograph. Worse than the dialog, though, was the police work. They interview people and fail to ask the most basic questions. Every aspect of their work borders on laughable, but maybe that was the point. Ostensibly set in the 1920’s, Phibes’ Phantom opera house inspired mansion resembled a cheap amusement park ride, complete with a clockwork band.

Billed as Price’s 100th film, it was 85th by my count. A pretty ridiculous movie, The Abominable Dr. Phibes plays right to Price’s strengths. Not a good film by any measure, and maybe more dark comedy than horror, but it holds your attention. AMRU 3. I don't know if I can bring myself to watch the sequel.

Pursuit to Algiers (1945)

Holmes (Basil Rathbone) is hired to escort a young Algerian monarch back home after his father is assassinated. Set almost entirely on an ocean liner, there are many suspects and more than enough red herrings.

Well, that ends it. Fourteen Sherlock Holmes films up, fourteen down, the first of which I watched five years ago. I’ve marveled how consistent they are in tone and quality, but the earlier ones were a bit more serious. Part of the consistency may be due to the frantic pace they were produced. All in eight years, twelve in five years. This somewhat mirrors Nigel Bruce’s pace of 78 feature films over twenty five years, including seven films released in 1940 alone. Movies are simply not produced at that pace anymore.

Marjorie Riordan was charming as a song and dance ingenue. She would soon get bored with Hollywood and leave for grad school. 6’5” former wrestler Wee Willie Davis had a minor career playing brutes and thugs. Here was no exception.

Pursuit to Algiers proved to be the hardest film for me to find, resorting to YouTube and tolerating the skippable ads every eight minutes. I’m glad I watched the set but I don’t expect to ever revisit them. I wish I could have seen more with mom. AMRU 3.

The Ring (1927)

The boxing champion hires a circus boxer (that’s a thing) as his sparring partner, and has eyes for his girl.

One of four Hitchcock films released in 1927, we follow ‘One-Round’ Jack from circus side show up the ranks of organized boxing to become a legitimate contender. All for the love of a woman. Shades of Rocky, anyone? The first Rocky, not the others were he fights space robots, or whatever foolishness. Lillian Hall-Davis plays ‘the girl’ that the men, for some reason, desire. Her career faltered in the early sound era, then she ended it all at age 35.

While never uninteresting, The Ring (not that Ring) drags a little, a victim of a one hour story with a two hour runtime. The twenty-something Hitchcock wasn’t yet the master of suspense he would later become. A more mature Hitch would have tightened it up a bit. Oh, and have left out the N word. AMRU 3.