The Corpse Vanishes (one star total) This is the oldest feature film to be riffed on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1942 to be exact). It's one of those movies that would be unbearable to watch without the mocking commentary. There's a scene a little over halfway through where the same musical phrase gets repeated over and over. Before I even had a chance to fast forward though, Crow, Joel and Tom Servo started humming along like kazoos. Talk about taking lemons and making lemonade! Granted, everything sounds funnier coming out of a robot's mouth. Say anything in a robot voice and try not to smile. That's not to say that they speak robotically on MST3K. Well, Joel Hodgson does, but I think that's unintentional (he left the series after 100 episodes because he didn't feel comfortable acting in front of the camera). On this particular episode, he does a Bela Lugosi impersonation that sounds more like Sesame Street's Count von Count and it's still better acting than Lugosi's. Out of 198 total episodes, 66 (that's exactly one-third) are available for instant streaming on Netflix. If you do attempt to watch the original, unedited version of The Corpse Vanishes without the aid of MST3K, at least do so in the company of others. You could try riffing yourself about how the movie's family of freaks looks like Dick Tracy rogues' gallery or wonder aloud why "ace" reporters and "hard-boiled" newspaper editors were so popular in the early '40s. Without a doubt, someone will make a lewd comment about the mad scientist's wife moaning all through her rejuvenative procedure and everyone will laugh when she later slaps the journalist who's simultaneously barged into her home AND into the overall plot of an otherwise serious mad scientist movie.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Bela Lugosi, Mad Scientist
"Michael Jackson is often compared to Peter Pan, but Peter Pan is rarely acknowledged as the variation on Dracula that he is - a late-Victorian fantasy being who flew into young people's bedrooms with a problematic offer of life everlasting . . . The fantasy still flies. Rejuvenation and eternal youth are the driving illusions of the cosmetic surgery business, to which Michael Jackson's image is forever wed." (David J. Skal, The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror, p. 320)
The Corpse Vanishes (one star total) This is the oldest feature film to be riffed on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1942 to be exact). It's one of those movies that would be unbearable to watch without the mocking commentary. There's a scene a little over halfway through where the same musical phrase gets repeated over and over. Before I even had a chance to fast forward though, Crow, Joel and Tom Servo started humming along like kazoos. Talk about taking lemons and making lemonade! Granted, everything sounds funnier coming out of a robot's mouth. Say anything in a robot voice and try not to smile. That's not to say that they speak robotically on MST3K. Well, Joel Hodgson does, but I think that's unintentional (he left the series after 100 episodes because he didn't feel comfortable acting in front of the camera). On this particular episode, he does a Bela Lugosi impersonation that sounds more like Sesame Street's Count von Count and it's still better acting than Lugosi's. Out of 198 total episodes, 66 (that's exactly one-third) are available for instant streaming on Netflix. If you do attempt to watch the original, unedited version of The Corpse Vanishes without the aid of MST3K, at least do so in the company of others. You could try riffing yourself about how the movie's family of freaks looks like Dick Tracy rogues' gallery or wonder aloud why "ace" reporters and "hard-boiled" newspaper editors were so popular in the early '40s. Without a doubt, someone will make a lewd comment about the mad scientist's wife moaning all through her rejuvenative procedure and everyone will laugh when she later slaps the journalist who's simultaneously barged into her home AND into the overall plot of an otherwise serious mad scientist movie.
The Corpse Vanishes (one star total) This is the oldest feature film to be riffed on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1942 to be exact). It's one of those movies that would be unbearable to watch without the mocking commentary. There's a scene a little over halfway through where the same musical phrase gets repeated over and over. Before I even had a chance to fast forward though, Crow, Joel and Tom Servo started humming along like kazoos. Talk about taking lemons and making lemonade! Granted, everything sounds funnier coming out of a robot's mouth. Say anything in a robot voice and try not to smile. That's not to say that they speak robotically on MST3K. Well, Joel Hodgson does, but I think that's unintentional (he left the series after 100 episodes because he didn't feel comfortable acting in front of the camera). On this particular episode, he does a Bela Lugosi impersonation that sounds more like Sesame Street's Count von Count and it's still better acting than Lugosi's. Out of 198 total episodes, 66 (that's exactly one-third) are available for instant streaming on Netflix. If you do attempt to watch the original, unedited version of The Corpse Vanishes without the aid of MST3K, at least do so in the company of others. You could try riffing yourself about how the movie's family of freaks looks like Dick Tracy rogues' gallery or wonder aloud why "ace" reporters and "hard-boiled" newspaper editors were so popular in the early '40s. Without a doubt, someone will make a lewd comment about the mad scientist's wife moaning all through her rejuvenative procedure and everyone will laugh when she later slaps the journalist who's simultaneously barged into her home AND into the overall plot of an otherwise serious mad scientist movie.
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