Man of Mystery

The German film poster for THE ENIGMA OF KASPAR HAUSER aka Every Man for Himself and God Against All (1974).

In May 1828 a young man appeared in a town square in Nuremberg, Germany carrying a prayer book and two letters written by his former caretaker. He spoke very little and was unable to answer any questions about his identity, where he came from or why he was there. One of the letters stated that he had come to the city to meet the captain of the 6th cavalry regiment with the hope of becoming a cavalryman. The other letter claimed he had been born in 1812 and had been raised in complete isolation from other people although he had been taught rudimentary reading and writing skills. His name was Kaspar Hauser but his mysterious nature and childlike presence baffled the townspeople and he was housed as a vagabond at the local prison until he was made a ward of the city and put under the protective care of Lord Stanhope, a wealthy aristocrat. Stanhope devoted himself to Hauser’s further education and re-entry into society and the young man’s bizarre demeanor aroused the curiosity of the public as well as doctors, professors and members of the clergy. Unfortunately, Hauser’s life came to an abrupt end in April 1833 when the mysterious man who first brought him to Nuremberg returned and stabbed him to death, escaping without a trace. The case has been a source of fascination for years in Germany and numerous films, television series and made-for-TV movies have been made about him but The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser aka The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser aka Every Man for Himself and God Against All (German title: Jeder fur Sich und Gott Gegen Alle, 1974), directed by Werner Herzog, is probably the most famous and critically acclaimed of all the versions made to date.

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Not a Beauty Treatment

It’s not likely that a Poverty Row horror film like The Face of Marble (1946) will ever end up on anyone’s top ten list – unless the category is guilty pleasures – but that’s what distinguishes a movie like this from a title on the AFI approved list of great American classics. A cult movie rarely conforms to conventional standards of what’s good and what’s bad and that’s why The Face of Marble could be a more entertaining and challenging viewing experience than say, Ingmar Bergman’s Winter Light (1963). For one thing, you need a scorecard to keep track of the anything-goes-plot which ties together failed scientific experiments, reanimated corpses, a blood-drinking ghost dog that can walk through walls, a voodoo-practicing housekeeper and one woman’s hopeless, unrequited romantic obsession with her husband’s young assistant.

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Don’t Mess with a Vietnam Vet

Among the slew of Hollywood movies that followed in the final days of the Vietnam War and used that as the subject, Rolling Thunder (1977) is a fascinating aberration. On the one hand, it flirts with serious issues and societal problems addressed in such post-Vietnam dramas as Coming Home (1978) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989) but it is also a violent revenge film that exploits a Vietnam veteran as an avenging angel.

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Introducing The Ramones

There was a time in the 1970s when film distributors were able to test-market their more offbeat offerings as “Midnight Movies” for adventurous moviegoers. Sometimes these developed into cult phenomenas like El Topo (1971), The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), or Eraserhead (1976). Sometimes they failed to find any audience at all like Pelvis (aka All Dressed Up in Rubber with No Place to Go, 1977) or Elevator Girls in Bondage (1972). Arriving at the tail end of the Midnight Movie craze, Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979) fell somewhere between these two extremes.

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Two Heads Are Not Better Than One

The title creature and star of The Manster (1959), a Japanese-American co-production made in Japan and co-directed by George P. Breakston and Kenneth G. Crane.

What we have here is a different type of mutant monster. It’s part man, part monster. In other words, a manster. The unlucky title creature of this 1959 horror thriller is Larry Stanford (Peter Dyneley), a brash American reporter who hopes to land a front-page story about some startling new developments in the field of medical experimentation. Well, he gets his front-page story all right. You could say he IS the story.  

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