Mystery of the Sphinx

Starring:Mystery of the Sphinx
Studio: UFO TV
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

Excellent 1930's B Mystery Movie
An amusing and fast-paced B-movie quickie; murder, mayhem and a sliding door in 63 minutes
A slightly hokey but very entertaining murder mystery
Atwill plays the invisible keyboard.

The Sphinx
Starring: Ernie Adams , Luis Alberni , Hooper Atchley , Lionel Atwill , and Jack Cheatham
Director: Wilfred Lucas
Manufacturer: Alpha Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00008G8WT
Release Date: 2003-03-18

Customer Reviews:

Excellent 1930's B Mystery Movie.......2007-04-02

On the 1930's B-Movie scene, Monogram Pictures was the most consistent provider of quality stuff. One reason for Monogram's success was the fact that it was able to attract major stars such as Lionel Atwill who stars in The Sphinx as millionaire Jerome Breen.

The basic plotline for The Sphinx starts with a string of murders of stockbrokers, however the leading suspect, Jerome Breen is acquitted.
Newspaper reporter Jack Burton (Theodore Newton) is unconvinced of Breen's innocence. Despite the fact that Burton is both pompous and annoying, he is on to something when it comes to Breen.

The Sphinx is both a great 1930's B-Movie and one of the best mystery movies of that decade.

An amusing and fast-paced B-movie quickie; murder, mayhem and a sliding door in 63 minutes.......2007-01-20

If someone asks you, "Do you happen to have the correct time?," you can be sure that, as soon as he leaves, you'll find around the corner, or in the next office, or in an upstairs bedroom, a corpse...brutally strangled. The problem is, the person who asked you the time is a deaf mute.

A serial killer has been prowling Gotham knocking off stockbrokers, and in the 63 minutes it takes to tell this story three deaths will occur, not counting the three that happened earlier. The suspect is Jerome Breen (Lionel Atwill), a wealthy stockbroker and a respected philanthropist. Witnesses swear he was the man who at each killing asked them the time. Yet doctors testify that Breen has been a deaf mute from birth, with a paralyzed larynx which is proven to be caused by a genetic defect. The cops can't lay a hand on him. Jack Berton (Theodore Newton), a hot-shot reporter, is determined to crack the case. Things get complicated when his girl friend at the paper, Jerry Crane (Sheila Terry), decides to write a series on Breen's life and good works. It's not long before she finds she likes Breen a lot...and he's showing interest in her. The climax comes with a twist and a feint, and involves Breen's ornate and lavish home, a piano with a deadened key, a sliding door, a hidden room, a suspicious butler, gun play and a poison ring. What more could you want in little more than an hour?

Not much more, I hope, because this is a fine example of a cheap B movie that delivers the goods. Yes, the two romantic leads are a bit clunky, but the secondary cast features amusing performances, especially by Detective Terence Aloysius Hogan (Paul Hurst) and Jinks the butler (Lucien Privet). Lionel Atwill as the deaf mute is who the movie is all about and he does a fine job. He has a well-modulated voice, acts stylishly in a tux or a smoking jacket and uses his eyes to great effect. He was an actor whose eyes could look as crazy as George Zucco's; here he uses them to convey many kinds of emotion. Atwill's career was often in B movies with an occasional part in A-level films. I've always thought he was an interesting actor who usually kept the ham under wraps. He also could be funny by playing with a straight face. Watch him in Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be or as the police chief in Son of Frankenstein who uses his wooden arm as a place to stick his darts. Mel Brooks owes him one.

The Sphinx is dated, but it still works fairly well. I think this is because many, perhaps most, of these B quickies weren't the work of artists or even craftsmen. They were the work of skilled journeymen who knew how to crank out the product while making sure the story was interesting, the dialogue was smart enough to keep us paying attention and the action kept us moving along. Think of these men and women as carpenters who knew how to throw together a solid table that could bear weight, not wobble and do it on time and under budget, The Sphinx, like so many of these old cheapies, is in the public domain and will never see better treatment than what they've already received. The Alpha Video release is watchable, but that's about it. There are no extras, and the six chapter stops are arbitrarily placed in the film. If you're fond of the old ones and if the price is right, the movie is worth getting.

A slightly hokey but very entertaining murder mystery.......2005-12-20

In most cases, stopping to ask a good fellow for a light and to inquire as to the time is not the best of strategies for a murderer leaving the scene of the crime. In The Sphinx, though, it offers said murderer an iron-clad alibi. When a prominent stockbroker is killed, a janitor named Luigi is right there in position to be the perfect witness. He swears in court that he recognizes the defendant and makes a big deal over the fact that the guy stopped to chat with him. It looks like a slam dunk case for the prosecution. There's just one teensy little problem, however - the defendant, Jerome Breen (Lionel Atwill), is a deaf-mute, as any physician can certify. The cops come off looking pretty foolish for putting the guy on trial, especially since Jerome Breen is well-known as an all-around great guy and true humanitarian. Almost no one believed he was capable of cold-blooded murder to begin with.

One man who does still suspect Breen is Jack Burton (Theodore Newton), a - you guessed it - crime reporter who fancies himself to be quite the detective. Despite the fact that he's rather pompous and undeniably annoying, the police chief keeps letting him horn in on the big cases, and he did as much as anyone to finger Breen from the start. What really drives him up the wall, though, is the fact that his would-be girl, society columnist Jerry Crane (Shelia Terry), thinks the world of Breen and makes regular visits to his home as she works on a series of favorable articles about him. I think any of us would be a little put out to see our girl making nice-nice with a guy we suspect to be a devious, cold-blooded killer. I know I would. Burton is determined to get to the truth, and he manages to get the local police to keep Breen on their radar screens.

The Sphinx is a classic 1930s whodunit. Jerry may be an independent woman pursuing her own career, but she's still just a dizzy "dame" to Burton and the cops. Burton is your prototypical journalist/investigator who thinks he knows more than the cops or anyone else. The cops themselves are great, especially Detective Terrence Aloysius Hogan (Paul Hurst), who is very much the Lestrade for Burton's Sherlock, an ambitious, publicity-seeking bungler who is only capable of solving a crime by stumbling over the crucial piece of evidence. He manages to close the film with a wonderful, "ah, that Hogan - you've gotta love him" - quip that single-handedly cemented a four-star review from this reviewer.

Egad, I've written all of this without yet mentioning Lionel Atwill's winning performance as Jerome Breen. Atwill was every bit the polished actor who turned in winning performances left and right, even in lesser-known films like this one from Monogram Pictures. Even though his character is a deaf-mute, he manages to command attention in every scene he's in, and he gives this somewhat hokey murder mystery a real aura of class and distinction.

Atwill plays the invisible keyboard........2004-11-06

This little thriller is an early effort of Monogram Pictures, sturdy purveyors of cost conscious film. Lionel Atwill stars as a deaf-mute accused of murder. As in most low budget efforts, unintentional humor is prevalent. Atwill uses sign language to communicate. He wiggles his fingers while holding his hands palms down at waist level. This makes it appear he is vigorously playing an invisible keyboard. Once or twice wouldn't be so bad, but this takes up time through much of the film. Only his assistant, a real red herring, can interpret Atwill's thoughts. Packaged as a horror flick, the little scenario is a murder mystery with typical plot twists. A snappy newspaper couple, '30s style, trade verbal barbs as they work to solve the mystery. Luigi the janitor swears the deaf mute spoke to him as he left the crime scene. This serves as comic relief and an intriguing plot twist. The DVD transfer is average. The audio is about the same. ;-)

Average customer rating:

The Lion's Share of Attention
Answering Questions about a Most Famous Monument!!
Mystery of the Sphinx lives on.

The Mystery of the Sphinx
Starring: Charlton Heston
Manufacturer: Goldhil Home Media
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000095IZL
Release Date: 2003-06-24

Customer Reviews:

The Lion's Share of Attention.......2007-04-27

This DVD edition contains the expanded edition -- the NBC broadcast, plus additional footage not aired. Somewhere around here I have both editions on VHS, but rather than an extensive comparison of the differences between the editions, this review will concentrate on the contents of this one.

This video presents the views of John Anthony West and Dr. Robert M. Schoch vis a vis the dating of the Great Sphinx of Giza, along with three critics of that view, as well as some waldorf salads on the side, if you get my meaning.

The video is well produced, the transfer to DVD was well done, and this extended version is divided into bands which are handy ways to skip the irrelevant or distasteful. Charleton Heston does a creditable job as narrator and host, part of the time with a bit of a twinkle in his eye.

The story unfolds. West's discovery is described, then West himself tells how he found he was on the right track, and searched for a geologist who would actually study the problem at the site and then publicly state his findings. That geologist turned out to be Dr. Robert M. Schoch. Step by step they build their case, using the geology of the Sphinx and environs, as well as the mudbrick monuments at Saqqara (which I think had just been reopened to the public at the time this was filmed), the Inventory Stele, the Dream Stele, NYPD forensics, paleoclimatology, and a seismic experiment permitted by the Egyptian Antiquities Authority. The late Boris Said, who was involved in the production, can be seen swinging the sledgehammer, and later bonking a chunk of broken obelisk.

There's a decent amount of footage of James F. Romano (who died untimely at age 56, in 2003, years after this was filmed), in which he makes some good sound bytes, but also heaps abuse on the whole idea of a predynastic Sphinx. At one point his words are used to help make the case, which I found amusing -- he states that the idea that Egyptian sculpture is perfectly symmetrical is "absolutely wrong", and that the Egyptians noticed subtle differences in the real and included them in their images. This is followed by a comparison between a known likeness of Khafre and the head of the Sphinx and how they don't match. I love that part.

James J. Hurtak has a few brief appearances, none of which detract much from the program, and in fact add some humor. If you take James J. Hurtak seriously in this, I'm just glad I don't know you. He isn't credited on the DVD box as being a member of The Scientific Team (those names are West, Schoch, Dr. Thomas Dobecki, Professor John Kutback, and Detective Frank Domingo), for which I'm thankful. Hurtak may have originated the notion that there are artificial structures on Mars, a view he has promulgated since circa 1971.

Richard Hoagland has an easy-to-skip band near the end of this edition. West does an intro, seeming to give his imprimatur to what Hoagland is about to say. Much of this footage is from Hoagland's talk at the UN building (he didn't appear there under UN or any other official auspices, and his Angstrom Medal has all the significance of a casino poker chip). Hoagland first states that the "Face on Mars" has 95 per cent symmetry, then shows that each half, when mirrored against itself, yields a different image -- which means, to any reasonable person, that there isn't any symmetry at all. It's a heads-he-wins-tails-we-lose kind of approach. I am mystified as to where the money comes from to support such a cockeyed delusional system.

The Face on Mars was an artifact -- an artifact of the low resolution of the Viking orbiter's cameras. The original images of the Face consist of about three dozen pixels each. The newer (1990s) images of Cydonia show what most people already figured -- that the "Face" is just an unremarkable, natural formation. More to the point, the so-called Monuments of Mars don't have any bearing on the Great Sphinx of Giza. The silly detour into this [...] is a detriment to the entire presentation. This is easily skipped, or may even produce no little amusement. It should not create an impediment to your purchase and enjoyment of this disk.

West can be amusing (his reference in this video to "smart old us with our hydrogen bombs and striped toothpaste" for example), but on his website sometimes comes off as childish and hostile. This video appears to be West at his best.

Schoch's final words in this video include his opposition to the idea that extraterrestrials had anything to do with the Sphinx. He has made his case for water erosion and a predynastic date for the Sphinx, while only (and wisely) following West up to a point. Although it is mentioned a few times, I didn't think that enough emphasis was given to the obvious fact that the head has been recarved. In any case, I recommend this video to adults who will watch carefully, as well as children, provided their viewing of it is supervised.

Answering Questions about a Most Famous Monument!!.......2005-11-12

+++++

The information presented in this program is based on the seventeen years of research of an Egyptologist and a geologist. It is hosted by the legendary Charlton Heston.

Experts of what is called "The Sphinx Project" (five people make up this "scientific team") re-examine the Great Sphinx of Egypt. They show that what orthodox Egyptologists claim about the Sphinx cannot be true. Experts other than those of the Sphinx project also give brief comments. There are even rebuttals by opposing experts as to what is claimed by the Sphinx project.

Areas covered in this program include archaeology, Egyptology, geology, mathematics, seismology, paleoclimatology, engineering, and even forensics. All scientific concepts are explained with the aid of computer simulation and animation.

To see how all this new information presented fits together, there is a fantastic computer graphic sequence near the end of the program to illustrate the possible life history of the Sphinx.

Here are some of the questions answered about the Sphinx:

(1) Is the Sphinx older than thought?
(2) How were the huge 200 ton blocks used to build it put in place?
(3) Is there more to the Sphinx than can be seen?
(4) Is the face of the Sphinx really who it is thought?
(5) Is the head of it really the original head?

In this program, there is no mention of UFOs or LGM (little green men). This program presents a serious scientific investigation.

The DVD itself is practically perfect in picture and sound quality. There are no extras.

Finally, to determine what the Sphinx is staring at, I recommend viewing the excellent video "Heaven's Mirror" (1998) hosted by Graham Hancock.

In conclusion, this program answers mysteries about the Sphinx. If you're like me and like mysteries, then you can't miss this program!!

(1993; 50 min; made for TV; full screen)

+++++

Mystery of the Sphinx lives on........2004-02-17

Hosted by Charlton Heston, it explores the possibility that the Sphinx maybe older than expected. John Anthony West examines that water erosion on the Sphinx can pre-date it to 10,000 years old?. Other mysteries such as how they moved 200 ton stone blocks to build the pyramids, the secret chambers under the Sphinx and the links to the pyramids that are suggested on Mars. Entertaining viewing, recommended. Made in 1993 televised on NBC.

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