Strangler of the Swamp dvd movie.|
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List Price: $9.99 Our Price: $9.99 Features • Black & White • DVD-Video • NTSC In Theaters : 02 January, 1946 DVD Release : 21 September, 1999 |
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Strangler of the Swamp description Written and directed by Frank Wisbar, this hour-long B thriller from 1946 is so obscure that it doesn't even rank an entry in Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide, but it's a perfectly adequate example of the low-budget fare that was cranked out like sausages by Producer's Releasing Corporation (PRC) in post-World War II Hollywood. Of interest to trivia buffs is the youthful appearance of future Pink Panther director Blake Edwards as the movie's youthful would-be hero, while Rosemary La Planche plays his beloved, who would sacrifice herself to spare her lover from the title character--the shadowy ghost of a ferryman (played by Charles Middleton) who haunts the local swampland, avenging his wrongful hanging for murder. Steeped in rich, foggy atmosphere, the film copies the effective visual style of Wisbar's earlier German film Fährmann Maria, and although this shoestring spooker barely registers on the fright meter, it's still an interesting oddity for hardcore film buffs, who will appreciate the fact that a movie of such minimal consequence has somehow made its way to DVD. (Collectors, take note: Another Wisbar curio from 1946--The Devil Bat's Daughter--was also released on DVD in 1999.) --Jeff Shannon |
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| ♥♥♥♥♥ | "Only his legs was sticking out...we had a hard time getting him loose." |
| The life of a ferryman certainly doesn't seem like a glamorous one, living in a hovel on a muddy bank, endlessly schlepping people and their possessions back and forth, regardless of the weather, for a mere pittance. And it's not like you get to set your own hours, either...no, there's always people coming around all times of the day and night, looking to cross...the ones at the night are the worst. These are usually men who've stayed out late drinking, and they almost always get to heaving the contents of their stomachs once that ferryboat starts a rockin'...it wouldn't be so bad if they managed to spew forth over the side of the ferry rather than in the ferry...there are some benefits...lots of fresh air, great upper body strength, and the juicy gossip one hears when ferrying people back and forth, especially from the ladies. Co-written and directed by Frank Wisbar aka Franz Wysbar (Secrets of a Sorority Girl, Devil Bat's Daughter), the film features Rosemary La Planche (Devil Bat's Daughter, Betty Co-Ed), in her first starring. Who's Rosemary La Planche, you say? Well, she was only Miss California two years in a row (1940 and 1941), and crowned Miss America in 1941. Also appearing is Robert Barrat (The Last of the Mohicans, The Life of Emile Zola), Charles Ming' Middleton (Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars, Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe), bit player Nolan Leary (The Abductors, Man of a Thousand Faces), Frank Conlan (The Devil and Daniel Webster), and Blake Edwards, who would later go on to become more famous behind the camera writing and directing such films like Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), The Pink Panther (1963), A Shot in the Dark (1964), and The Party (1968), to name a few.
As the movie begins we see four men, one unconscious clad only in a bathing suit, trucking across a foggy swamp in a ferry. On reaching the bank, the unconscious man is laid out, and one of the men puts his coat over the prone figure...okay, maybe he's not unconscious (who the heck goes swimming in the swamp?)...the old biddies gather and we hear about how the curse' has taken another life. Apparently, in the not too distant past, the men of the town strung up the previous ferryman, whom they thought was a killer. Prior to his death, the accused man, who vehemently proclaimed his innocence, vowed to come back from the grave and take vengeance on all the men, including their male descendants, for their heinous act (turns out the evidence tying the hanged man to the crime was a bit thin). Since then, various male townspeople have suffered bizarre deaths attributed to some form of strangulation, and now the town is divided into two groups, the superstitious lot who believe the curse, and the enlighten' few, including town leader Christian Sanders (Barrat), who see the deaths as nothing but a series of coincidences. Shortly after the current ferryman meets his untimely demise, one of his descendants arrives, a pretty woman named Maria (La Planche), and takes over the business (the townspeople neglect to mention the circumstances about the old man's death). Shortly after this Sanders son, Christian Jr. (Edwards), returns to take up the family farm, and he falls for Maria. As their love grows, so does the ominous presence in the swamp, as the prodigal son is now in apparition's sights... Strangler of the Swamp, released by PRC studios, which went under around the time the film was released, is actually a remake of an earlier Wisbar film, a German feature titled FA hrmann Maria (1936), and among a handful of films Wisbar did for the "Poverty Row" studios upon arriving in America from Germany. I have not seen the earlier film, but I thought this one was quite good. It wasn't very frightening, but it did have a whole mess of atmospheric flavor, as whoever was manning the fog machine surely earned his money. At first I thought this was going to be a straight up mystery, but that wasn't the case as there was a sense of the story existing in the ether of a thinly shrouded twilight realm, much like that of the film Carnival of Souls (1962). The two films are very different, this one featuring more of a linear storyline, but both exhibit a spooky ethereal quality, one that transcends their respective shoestring budget origins. This isn't a great movie, especially given the extremely talkie' bits and penchant for the characters to spend an awful lot of time traipsing around the swamp, but those elements where it succeeds, it does so extremely well, rising above its meager budget. And having Rosemary La Planche in the film certainly didn't hurt...her acting here was decent enough, but her actual presence in the foggy mists, her physical beauty (and that long hair), kept me interested thoroughly. Oh mama...my favorite scene in the film featured Barrat as Christian Sanders, the staunch, well-to-do, grounded in reality community leader, and Leary as Pete Jeffers, the town ne'er-do-well, afraid of everything, including his own shadow. Both men had been involved in the nastiness of the past, and now Jeffers, fearing specifically for his life, tries to convince Saunders to do the altruistic by giving himself to the ghost (thereby breaking the curse) because Saunders has lived a full, rich life, and achieved about as much as a man could expect. He also prattles on about how Saunders will be fondly remembered by those he saves through his sacrifice...Saunders, seeing the cowardly ploy for what it is, makes a counter offer in that Jeffers should sacrifice himself if only because Jeffers has done so little for the community, contributing practically nothing towards the common good, and his sacrifice would be the pinnacle of a relatively pointless life. Another scene I enjoyed was when Maria was being accosted by a lecherous, drunken ferry customer, and Christian Jr. shows the man the errors of his way with a few, good smacks upside the head. All in all decent little obscurity, steeped in atmospheric goodness, one whose charms more than make up for its humble origins, in my opinion. The fullscreen, original aspect ratio picture presented on this DVD looks decent, but does have a number of visible flaws, which I expected, given the age and relative obscurity of the film in general. They didn't distract overall, and were very acceptable, in my opinion. The Dolby Digital mono audio comes through fairly clean, but again, any imperfections are easily overlooked. There aren't any special features or extras, but there are chapter stops. Cookieman108 |
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