Plan 9 Crunch: All About Cult Films

Panic In Year Zero

2012-01-27T13:39:00.000-08:00

By Steve D. Stones

Actor-director Ray Milland casts himself as a father taking his family on a camping trip near Los Angeles as a nuclear holocaust destroys the city, causing people to loot and murder for survival. Milland and family discover a cave to hide out in as protection fromthe chaos and nuclear fallout.

Teen heartthrob Frankie Avalon stars as Milland’s son, who is shot in the leg while trying to protect a young girl he and Milland discover in a farmhouse close to the cave. This is another interesting film which convincingly focuses on the breakdown of relationships and the instinct for survival after a chaotic event.

MGM sells a double feature DVD of Panic In Year Zero with the Vincent Price classic – The Last Man On Earth. It seems appropriate that both films would be billed together on the same DVD, since they are both of the post-apocalyptic theme. The film was released shortly before the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, making it all the scarier for audiences of 1962. Enjoy the film above.

The Day The Earth Caught Fire

2012-01-21T11:03:00.000-08:00

By Steve Stones

This intelligent 1961 British sci-fi thriller focuses mostly on the breakdown of relationships among people when things go terribly wrong.

A series of nuclear tests in Russia and America has caused the earth to tilt off its axis and draw closer to the sun. The world starts to overheat, causing floods, cyclones and other natural disasters.

Reporter Peter Stenning, played by actor Edward Judd, is caught up in the panic while reporting on the event and trying to maintain his relationship with actress Janet Munro – star of The Crawling Eye.

The film convincingly uses many stock footage shots of mass panic scenes and disaster footage of fires, floods, cyclones and explosions. Actor Michael Caine has a brief cameo as a policeman.

The plot centers mostly in London, which makes it a great double feature with another great early 60s British sci-fi effort – Day of The Triffids from 1963.

The Rogues Tavern

2012-01-14T11:52:00.000-08:00

By Doug Gibson

"The Rogues Tavern," 1936 black and while film, directed by Bob Hill, produced by Mercury Pictures and released by Puritan Pictures, is one of the reasons I love film. It's just a stroke of luck, and a blessing, that this low-budget, 70-minute C-movie is still around for film fans to enjoy. It's like stepping into a wonderful time capsule, and getting a glimpse of what your grandparents watched in the 1930s before the "A" picture was shown.

Enough reminiscing, here's the plot. Wallace Ford (Jimmy Kelly) and Barbara Pepper (as Jimmy's fiancee Marjorie Burns) are detectives heading to the Red Rock Inn to meet a justice of the peace and get hitched. "It is a dark and stormy night" with lots of whistling wind and there are quite a few eccentrics in the tavern. They include the renters, Mr. and Mrs. Jamison (Clara Kimball Young and John Elliott), a mentally-challenged handyman, Bert, (Vincent Dennis), and a collection of nervous, shady characters, including a nervous, but very beautiful Mexican lady named Gloria Rohloff (Joan Woodbury). Finally, there's also a dog, Silver, Wolf, running around.

For reasons known only to themselves, the Jamisons deny Jimmy and Marjorie two rooms, or one if the justice of the peace arrives. The couple, who are a poor man's Nick and Nora -- for those who recall William Powell and Myrna Loy of The Thin Man series -- settle down in the lobby, which boasts a very impressive fireplace. (According to the book, Forgotten Horrors, the film was lensed at RKO-Pathe Studios, which was favored as a place for low-budget production companies, who liked the fireplace as a prop)

Back to the film: One by one, the nervous, shady characters start getting murdered. Jimmy, with typical Wallace Ford bravado, starts to take charge of the investigation. Fiancee Marjorie, a very pretty blonde who acts a lot like Lucille Ball, tries doggedly to help her slightly sexist love interest. At first the dog is the chief suspect, but interest soon coalesces around a mysterious "Wentworth," who apparently called the endangered characters to the inn, and later a mysterious "Morgan." We soon learn that the nervous character at the inn have a history of jewel thievery.

That's all the plot I'll provide. This is an "old dark house" programmer, common for the era. What makes The Rogues Tavern special is that it's better than the average C-movie programmer. The murders are well plotted, it' a bit goofy, Ford and Pepper are talented actors with good comic timing. My favorite lines of witty dialogue involve Pepper, after reflecting on the romantic fireplace, exclaim to Ford, "I feel so poetic, I could make love to a snowman." Ford retorts, "If that justice of the peace doesn't show up, you'll have too!"

In fact, Rogues Tavern boasts an excellent cast. Besides Fox and Pepper, Kimball Young and Elliott were silent film stars. Woodbury wears a very slinky dress that thumbs its nose at the Hays Commission morality censors of that era. Her breasts, while not shown, are quite well defined despite being covered.

Ford starred in the legendary "Freaks" for Universal but was mostly a C- and B-movies star. He was a good actor with comic timing and may be best known for his role in the Bela Lugosi Monogram effort The Ape Man. Woodbury was a steady actress who appeared in the Monogram film, King of the Zombies. Pepper, who was a friend of Lucille Ball's, later in her career was a regular on Green Acres.

The film is fairly easy to find. It can be purchased at oldies.com and sinister cinema and is part of a 50-film set that can be bought cheaply. You can watch it free on the Net (YouTube's is above) and it's the type of film that should pop up on Turner Classic Movies. I've been lobbying TCM to air it. The sets are better than an average C-programmer, which probably was filmed for less than $40,000.

The film has a lot of twists, some clever, some clumsy. It's about 10 minutes too long, particularly in the last third, with too many red herrings and static scenes. But the climax is fun, and a bizarre surprise, and the first 45 minutes are very entertaining in its mixture or murder and comedy mystery.

Pride and Prejudice, the many sequels

2012-01-07T22:23:00.000-08:00

To note PD James new Pride and Prejudice sequel, A Murder at Pemberley, which I have not read yet but will soon, I resurrect this several-year-old column on the many sequels to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice -- there have been hundreds.

- Doug Gibson

To some readers, the classics, or just a good novel, are made to have a Part Two. Unfortunately, few authors feel the same, and many a great novel ends in suspense. For six decades, Margaret Mitchell fans waited to find out if Scarlett O’Hara ever won back Rhett Butler. The soft-spoken Mitchell, when asked that question, always replied, “I don’t know.”

Eventually, the long-dead Mitchell’s estate, eager to make a big pile of cash quickly, commissioned romance novelist Alexandra Ripley to write a sequel. The result was Scarlett, a long, semi-bloated, often lackluster, sometimes entertaining continuation that resulted in Rhett and Scarlett hooking up for good in Ireland. It wasn’t a bad novel, but the characters, so well defined by Mitchell in Gone With the Wind, seemed like caricatures. It was as if readers were at a community playhouse watching semi-talented locals reciting lines. The film version of Scarlett was worse, but that’s another essay...

Wanna know a secret? When it comes to the classics, Scarlett ranks as one of the greatest sequels not crafted by the original author. For decades, fans of the writing greats have succumbed to the temptation to continue a tale best laid to rest. I admit it’s an alluring thought. I’d love to know if 1984's Inner Party was ever overthrown, or if Doremus Jessup, the hero of It Can’t Happen Here, ever managed to help restore America to democracy. Or did Clinton-like preacher Elmer Gantry ever face a scandal that ruined him?

Jane Austen whets the appetite for a sequel. Her main novels, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma and Northanger Abbey are masterpieces of characterization and parody. Although she’s never lagged in interest, Austen has experienced a surge in popularity the past decade. Most of her books have been made into films recently and Jane Austen clubs dot the world. Any day, crowds of Austen fans will file in to the local library and eagerly take in a lecture. A sample topic might be the “difference between attachment and connection in Austen’s England, and how that relates to Sense and Sensibility....” Austen died relatively young, and never attempted a sequel.

With the current Jane-mania, however, comes a new round of unauthorized sequels cluttering up space in bookstores and public libraries. Some authors are adoring fans, clumsily trying to pay homage to their favorite authors. A few are professional romance novelists looking to cash in on Austen to make a quick buck. Others, more atrociously, are post-modernists trying to attach Austen’s settings and characters to politically correct ideals.

A casual perusal of amazon.com listed more than a dozen Jane Austen sequels:

- The Bar Sinister: Pride and Prejudice Continued

- Letters From Pemberley: The First Year: A Continuation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

- Presumption: An Entertainment: A Sequel to Pride and Prejudice

- Consequence: Or Whatever Became of Charlotte Lucas

- The Ladies: A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty

- An Unequal Marriage, Or Pride and Prejudice Twenty Years Later

- Desire and Duty: A Sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

- Lady Catherine’s Necklace

- Pemberley or Pride and Prejudice Continued

- The Diary of Henry Fitzwilliam Darcy

- Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen

- Virtue and Vanity

- Old Friends and New Fancies: An Imaginary Sequel to the Novels of Jane Austen

No doubt there are more. The first sequels to Pride and Prejudice were published in the 19th century.

Eager to find out what others believed were the fates of the Bennets, Darcys, Collinses, Bingleys, De Bourghs and other Pride and Prejudice characters, your reviewer managed this past summer to slog through four of these unauthorized Pride and Prejudice sequels. They were Presumption, Desire and Duty, Lady Catherine’s Necklace and Pemberley.

The best of the lot was Presumption, by Julia Barrett. It’s very mediocre, but at least Barrett understands what the others apparently don’t: Jane Austen was poking fun at sentimental novels of her era. Her novels were parodies, as is Presumption. The title tells you that it’s all for fun. Presumption focuses, as most of the sequels do – on the love life of Mr. Darcy’s younger sister Georgiana. She’s tempted at first by a dashing officer, but eventually finds love with an architect. They quarrel for a while before falling in love. The parallel to Darcy and Elizabeth is a safe, and obvious, creative tool by Barrett. The weakest part of the novel is Elizabeth’s constant fear that she will never gain approval of Darcy’s elder friends and relations. To highlight this threat, a ridiculous subplot involves Elizabeth’s Aunt Phillips being accused of theft, which threatens her reputation by association.

However, Presumption is a gem compared to Desire and Duty, written by the husband/wife team of Ted and Marilyn Bader. The Baders are devoted fans of Austen, and the authors try desperately to follow Austen’s style but it is a crude effort. The plot plays like an older version of Sweet Valley High in pre-Victorian London. Once again Georgiana is the focus, but she spends most of the novel unmarried, eventually fluttering around the possibly haunted Darcy estate learning of her dead mother. The lack of focus on a much-needed key plot element makes Desire and Duty frequently dull for long spots.

The Baders are nothing if not persistent, however. They’ve recently had the chutzpah to publish Virtue and Vanity, a sequel to a sequel.

Nevertheless, Desire and Duty is a better novel than Lady Catherine’s Necklace, a boring sequel composed largely of characters from Pride and Prejudice that no one cared about. Forget about the major characters. They at best have cameos. The plot involves Anne De Bourgh and her search to learn more about her deceased father. I could tell you more, but you’d stop reading this essay. One major gaffe by author Joan Aiken is having Anne be too young. She’s maybe 17, but she was earlier considered marriage material a few years earlier for Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. Another presumption is Aiken having Colonel Fitzwilliam, a thoroughly decent man in P&P, turn out to be a cad. That’s an insult to Austen’s memory.

As bad as Lady Catherine’s Necklace is, it’s still better than Pemberley, the worst of the P&P sequels reviewed. This book is so terrible, I’m surprised Jane Austen didn’t rise from her grave and strangle author Emma Tennant over her word processor. The plot runs like a bad season of Ryan’s Hope. Elizabeth loses all her will and is a silly ninny who takes to her bed during a crisis. Georgiana loses her loyalty to Elizabeth and joins Caroline Bingley in teasing her. Writing gaffes include Jane Bennet with one child and already pregnant with another. Worse, Lydia has four children. This is all supposed to have occurred around a year after all three were married, an impossibility.

Pemberley achieves camp, however, when Mrs. Bennet discusses feminine hygiene at the Darcy dinner table. Readers will finally throw the book up in the air (or in the fireplace) when it’s revealed that Jane’s hubby Mr. Bingley had an affair with a French woman prior to his marriage.

Pemberley is an example of post-modern ninny authors trying to sexualize Jane Austen’s works. To do this they attempt to show the characters as sexual beings. But that’s contrary to a message that Austen revealed in P&P despite the comedic elements: Virtue, morality, fidelity, love and honesty are rewarded. Sexual permissiveness, as in the case of Lydia and Wickham, hamper the reputation of both. It is the positive examples of Jane and Elizabeth that lead to success for the Bennet family.

I’m through with wanna-be sequels. The best solution for creating a sequel to Pride and Prejudice, or any beloved novel, is for the reader’s imagination to carry the plot. It’s a method that allows total editorial freedom, and a chance to correct bad plot turns without revealing your weaknesses to the rest of the world.

It's a scary New Year's Eve

2011-12-31T17:08:00.000-08:00

Happy Days star Roz Kelly stars in this early 1980s slasher film directed by Emmett Alston. Like so many horror films of the 1980s, this one is an attempt to cash in on the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween franchise.

Kelly is a punk rock mother hosting a New Year’s Eve party at a hip New Wave music club in downtown Los Angeles. Her teenage son comes to see her at the club with flowers, but she completely ignores him. A maniac killer, played by Kip Niven, calls Kelly at the club hotline to inform her that he will commit a murder every hour until 12 midnight as part of his New Year’s resolution. A club worker named Yvonne is the first victim to be killed in a bathtub in a club dressing room.

The second victim is a pretty blonde nurse at the local hospital. The killer predictably poses as a new hospital orderly who lures the nurse into a hospital room with champagne and proceeds to stab her to death after making out with her. Another nurse at the hospital discovers her body in a closet.

The killer continues to call Kelly at the music club in a disguised voice to inform her that he is committing murders. He even plays a taped recording over the phone of him stabbing the nurse at the hospital. Kelly is now forced to take his threats seriously. She asks the local police department for police protection.

By now the viewer has been exposed to lots of really bad punk rock performances, zebra striped T-shirts, and 1980s mullet hairstyles. Where are The Ramones, The Misfits and The Sex Pistols when we need them?

Feeling rejected by his mother, Kelly’s son sees his mother performing on television at the club with a punk band. In a fit of anger, he tears apart the roses he brought for her, and stretches one of her red nylon stalkings over his face as if he is about to become a killer himself. This is a particularly confusing scene because by now we already know who the killer is and what he looks like, so any attempt to suggest that the killer could be Kelly’s son seems unnecessary. The killer now shows up at another dance club in L.A. dressed in an obviously fake moustache and three-piece suit. He tells another pretty blonde girl at the bar that he is a business agent for many Hollywood actors in town. He convinces her to leave the club to attend a business party. She refuses to go alone with him, so she takes one of her club friends with her.

This spoils the plans of the killer to get her alone. The three drive in the killer’s Mercedes to a gas station, where the killer strangles one of the girls with a bag full of marijuana. He hides in a Dumpster to attack the second girl as she comes out of the gas station with a bottle of champagne. The killer stabs her to death. As the killer flees the scene, he is harassed at a stop light by a motorcycle gang. The killer speeds away from the motorcycle gang and hides out at a local drive-in theatre.

The movie screen advertises a film entitled Blood Feast as a feature playing at the theatre, but it is not Herschel Gordon Lewis’ schlock masterpiece from 1963, unfortunately. After stealing another car from a young couple making out at the drive-in, the killer shows up at the New Wave club, manages to club a police officer in the head at a back entrance, and puts his police uniform on, which conveniently fits him perfectly. Under police protection outside her dressing room, Kelly sits in front of a mirror putting on make-up as the killer suddenly appears in her room in a jogging outfit and a Halloween mask.

She sees him in the mirror, but is not frightened. He removes the mask, and reveals himself to be Richard Sullivan, her husband. She is not frightened by his presence because she has no idea he is the killer. As the couple gets into an elevator, it becomes evident to Kelly that her husband is the killer.

He holds a knife up to her and saying:“I’m fed up . . . You’re just like all the other women in my life. Women are manipulative, deceitful, immoral and very, very selfish!”

His reasoning for killing here seems very petty and unnecessary. Wouldn’t his actions make him “manipulative, deceitful, immoral and selfish?” If he was so fed up with his wife, why didn’t he just request a divorce from her? Why go through the troubles of killing several innocent women to get to her? In the post O.J. Simpson and Scott Peterson world we live in today, it seems highly unlikely that a man would go on a killing spree killing innocent victims just to prove a point with his wife.

However, I realize this film was made long before the O.J. Simpson ordeal of the1990s, and the Scott Peterson ordeal early in this decade. As the film comes to an end, Richard chains his wife to the bottom of the elevator and is chased by policemen who fire shots at him. He is chased to the top balcony of the building, where he puts the Halloween mask back on and jumps off the building, committing suicide. His son emotionally removes the mask from him.

The film ends with a shot of Kelly being wheeled into an ambulance. The driver of the ambulance is wearing Richard’s Halloween mask, and the paramedic on the passenger side lies dead on the floor of the ambulance. Could the killer now be Kelly’s son?

NEW YEAR’S EVIL follows in the long line-up of so many 1980s slasher/horror films. Like Silent Night, Deadly Night, My Bloody Valentine, Christmas Evil, Don’t Open ‘Til Christmas, April Fool’s Day, Mother’s Day, and so many others, NEW YEAR’S EVIL is an attempt to use a holiday title to cash in on the slasher craze of the 1980s.

-- Steve D. Stones

Plan 9 From Outer Space on Sci-Fi Friday tonight!

2011-12-30T10:58:00.000-08:00

Watch Plan 9 From Outer Space on UEN Channel 9's Sci-Fi Friday at 9 p.m. on Dec. 30, 2011:

This capsule review of Plan 9 From Outer Space was written by Steve Stones, originally published in the Jan. 28, 2007 Standard-Examiner (www.standard.net)

PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE —This film by cross-dressing director Edward D. Wood Jr. actually began in 1956, but was completed in 1959 when Wood convinced a group of Christian Baptists to fund the remainder of the film in exchange for being baptized into the church.
The story surrounding how this film was made has become as much of interest and a phenomenon as the film itself. Universally hailed as the "worst movie ever made," this film has become one of my favorite "guilty pleasures."
Plan 9 concerns aliens from outer space who are robbing graves in the San Fernando Valley of California to turn these corpses into murdering zombified slaves for world power. The film has every element a student of "bad films" could ever hope for, such as bad acting, cheap sets, continuity errors, and burning hubcaps and paper plates used as flying saucers. An absolute must for every connoisseur of "bad movies."

Spider Baby -- one great cult flick

2011-12-28T23:08:00.000-08:00

Spider Baby, or The Maddest Story Ever Told, B&W, 1964. Directed by Jack Hill. Starring Lon Chaney Jr. as Bruno, the chauffer, Carol Ohmart as Emily Howe, Quinn K. Redeker as Peter Howe, Beverly Washburn as Elizabeth, Jill Banner as Virginia, Sid Haig as Ralph, Mary Mitchel as Ann, Karl Schanzer as Schlocker, the lawyer and Mantan Moreland as the messanger. Schlock-meter rating: Nine stars out of 10.

By Doug Gibson

In the 1960s several creepy, very original low-budget B&W shockers (some loaded with black humor) were thrown into the drive-ins and theaters. Most fared poorly at the box office (the exception being Night of the Living Dead). Others included Carnival of Souls, The Sadist and Dementia 13. Perhaps the best of the lot is Jack Hill's Spider Baby, or The Maddest Story Ever Told, an extremely creepy, laced with black humor let's-spend-the-night-in-a-house-filled-with-homicidal-lunatics film. Spider Baby's inventive plot involves the story of The Merrye Syndrome, a disease that infects the few remaining descendants of the deceased Titus Merrye; what happens is, after a Merrye turns 10, they rapidly age backwards. As they become more childish, they become homicidal, graduating towards dementia and cannibalism as the afflicted moves past the pre-natal stage. As the story begins, the clan is cared for by loyal servant Bruno (Chaney Jr., in a great performance). Living there are sexy teenage "toddlers" Elizabeth (Washburn) and Virginia (Banner), a young man, Ralph (Haig), who has degenerated to baby status, and aunt Martha and uncle Ned who live in the basement, mewling, growling and being fed scraps of raw meat. Virginia likes to play "spider," and in a highly entertaining opening sequence, a hired messenger, played by former cult movie star Mantan Moreland, is trapped in a window sill by Virginia the spider, who use knives and scissors to "bite" him to death. Mantan the messenger is eventually tossed in the cellar to be consumed by aunt and uncle.

However, there are more visitors. Distant relatives Peter and Emily Howe, along with a overbearing lawyer (Schanzer) and quiet secretary (Mitchel) arrive and inform Chaney and the Merrye brood that they'll be moving soon, to be institutionalized. Naturally, the Merryes are less than enchanted by these developments, and the sleepover the visitors experience turns into an experience of terror. Chaney, in what must have been a first in his career, warbles the title song to Spider Baby. It's sort of a singsong rap, delivered in such kooky fashion, that it's worth the price of the film itself. The cast, with the exception of Karl Schanzer's smarmy lawyer, are all in fine form. Besides Chaney, the best actor in the film is surprisingly Jill Banner, who plays the psychopathic toddler teen Virginia. Only 17 when Spider Baby was filmed, Banner conveys a disturbing sexuality; she's best described as a pyschotic Lolita. The scene where she ties up visitor Peter Howe (Redeker), decides to seduce him and then just as quickly decides it would be better to kill him is very chilling. Had there been cable, video and dvd in the 1960s, Banner likely would have achieved notice for her role. As it is, she is best known for occasional appearances on the 1960-70s show Dragnet. She was killed in 1982 in a car wreck while developing scripts for Marlon Brando. To sum up, Spider Baby is a must for cult fans of quirky 60s black comedies.

Notes: Spider Baby cost $65,000 to make. It was tied up in bankruptcy court. Once released in 1968, it hardly played in theaters, mostly serving as the second half of double bills. It was finally re-discovered and played the midnight movie circuit in the 1990s. Director Jack Hill, a protege of Roger Corman, later directed several Pam Grier "blacksploitation" films, including Coffy. Chaney Jr., known as a severe alcoholic, only fell off the wagon once during filming, according to Hill. The veteran actor died several years after the film was completed. In 1993, the film was re-premiered in Los Angeles. Guests at the post-film party included Hill and actors Haig, Washburn and Mitchel. Actress Ohmart starred in the 60s cult shocker House on Haunted Hill. The subtitle, The Maddest Story Ever Told, was a film joke parody of the monster-budget Bible film, The Greatest Story Ever Told, which came out at about the same time. Spider Baby has finally received a DVD release.

The forgotten, but wonderful 'Scrooge'

2011-12-23T13:07:00.001-08:00

Scrooge, 1935, 78 minutes, B&W, British. Directed by Henry Edwards. Starring Sir. Seymour Hicks as Ebenezer Scrooge, Donald Calthrop as Bob Cratchit, Robert Cochran as Fred, Mary Glynne as Belle and Phillip Frost as Tiny Tim. Rating: Seven stars out of 10.

This very creaky British version of Dickens' A Christmas Tale can't hold a candle to the 1951, 1984 and 1999 versions, but it's better than the 1938 Hollywood adaptation. It stars Hicks as Scrooge. The British actor had the part down pat. He had played Scrooge for decades on the British stage.

Nevertheless, he plays Scrooge as a crochety old crank, which is one of your reviewer's pet peeves. I prefer Scrooge to be played as a smug, self satisfied superior sort, such as Sims, Scott and Stewart portrayed Dickens' miser in other adaptations. The result is that Scrooge's experience is a startling comeuppance for him. Like Saul of Tarsus, he's literally brought to his senses and scared straight through divine interference. But with an old crochety Scrooge, all he goes through seems like a scolding that a child would take from an elder.

But still, this is a must-see version for fans. The London sets are simply marvelous. You can feel Victorian England in this film better than any other version. Also, a pleasant surprise is Calthrop as Bob Cratchit. He is the only Bob Cratchit that's able to stand up to Scrooge. Indeed, early in the film, he mutters of Scrooge's miserliness when denied coal for the fire. The other actors are adequate for their roles. One chilling scene has Tiny Tim (Frost) laying dead on a bed for Scrooge to see during the third spirit visit.

There are some odd twists to the film. Not much is told about Scrooge's childhood, and a really strange scene is with Marley's ghost. To the audience he is invisible, though it's clear Scrooge can see him. There is a scene early in the film, inserted for some reason, of Queen Victoria receiving a Christmas toast from London's leading citizens. The final scene where a changed Scrooge fools Cratchit and gives him a raise has the pair taking the day off, rather than having some smoking Christmas bishop to drink.

Scrooge, quite an expressionist film, is a curio of early British filmmaking and certainly worth a rental for the holidays. For decades this film was literally out of circulation, but with the advent of video it enjoyed a comeback and can now usually be found on TV each holiday season and can be purchased. It can also be seen for free on the Web. Go to is www.imdb.com (Internet Movie Database) page to watch the film. Enjoy the film; watch it above!

-- Doug Gibson

Black Christmas - Happy Holidays

2011-12-17T08:42:00.000-08:00

By Steve D. Stones

A film like this could never be made for today’s audiences because most phones have caller IDs. The plot evolves around a killer making obscene phone calls to a university sorority house. Wes Craven’s Scream and John Carpenter’s Halloween both owe a great deal of credit to this film.

The opening sequence is a point of view shot of someone wandering outside a sorority house and peaking in a window. This same technique was used in the opening sequence of the 1978 Halloween to establish the point of view of little Michael Meyers walking up to his sister’s room to stab her to death. Carpenter may have borrowed this idea from Black Christmas, made just four years earlier in 1974.

The film immediately sets up the premise that someone is lurking in the attic of the sorority house just before college students are leaving for their Christmas break. The opening point of view shot continues with a shot indicating that someone is crawling through the window from outside the attic. The shot then cuts to an interior shot inside the house showing the opening of the attic uncovered.

Sorority sister Jess, played by Olivia Hussey, answers the telephone to someone making loud obscene noises. She holds up the phone so that everyone in the room can hear the call. A girl in the room asks if the caller is only one person. “That’s the Mormon Tabernacle Choir doing their annual obscene phone call,” says Barbara, played by Margot Kidder.

One of the sorority sisters named Claire Harrison is in her room packing to leave for the Christmas break. Her father is to pick her up later that evening. As she walks into her closet to remove some of her clothes, a figure can be seen hiding behind plastic. The figure lunges at her and strangles her with the plastic. Next we see Claire dead in a rocking chair in the attic with the plastic wrapped around her head. The killer is rocking her back and fourth in the chair.

Claire’s father, Mr. Harrison, comes to pick her up at the bell tower on campus later that evening. She never shows up, so he decides to go directly to the sorority house to find out what happened to her. The drunken housemother Mrs. Mack meets him. She suggests that Claire could be at the fraternity house on campus visiting a boy.

Mr. Harrison cannot find Claire anywhere on campus so he goes to the local police station with some of Claire’s friends to file a missing persons report. Lieutenant Fuller, played by John Saxon, forms a search party later that night.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Mack is now housemother to an empty sorority house, and is desperately trying to find Claire’s cat named Claude. She climbs up to the attic to discover the corpse of Claire as the killer swings a meat hook on a rope, killing her.

Jess arrives back at the sorority house to another obscene phone call. Another point of view shot shows legs coming down the stairs towards Jess. It is Jess’s boyfriend Peter. This is where the audience is led to believe that the killer has to be Peter.

Peter proposes marriage to Jess, but she refuses. Peter is concerned over Jess’s decision to have an abortion, since he is the father. The two have a fight and Peter angrily leaves the house.

Lieutenant Fuller has a tracing device put on the sorority house phone. Jess sits by the fireplace in the house to wait for another obscene phone call so that the police can trace the call. She hears the loud sound of someone choking, and rushes into Barbara’s room as she is having an asthma attack in her sleep. Christmas carolers begin singing loudly outside the house. Jess opens the door to listen to the carolers as the killer comes out of the attic and kills Barbara in her room.

Jess comes back into the house as the carolers leave. The phone rings and Jess picks up the phone, only to hear more obscene noises. A close up shot of Jess’s face as she tries to talk to the obscene caller puts the viewer on the edge of their seat.

The police are able to trace the phone call to the house itself. Police clerk Nash calls Jess and tells her to get out of the house immediately. Jess grabs a fire poker from the fireplace and walks up the stairs to discover Barbara and another girl dead. She sees an eye staring out of the bedroom closet. This is the most haunting shot in the entire film.

Jess runs down the stars, but is unable to get the front door open. As she runs back towards the stairs, we see a hand reach out and grab her hair. She is able to get away and lock herself in the basement. A shadowy figure peeks into the windows of the basement and begins to call Jess by name. He breaks the window and we discover it is Peter her boyfriend.

The police arrive to find Jess lying on top of dead Peter. She has killed him with the fire poker. The police take her up to her bedroom to rest. The film ends with the camera traveling back up to the attic to reveal that the killer is still there with the corpses of Claire and Mrs. Mack. Peter was not the killer after all.

I think it would be safe to say that this film sets up many of the typical clichés that we now recognize in the slasher genre that saturated 1980s horror films. However, that is not to say that they are not effective in this film. There are many false scares in this film where the viewer is lead to believe one thing, but later discovers something else. Much of the horror in this film is implied, not shown.

For example, in one clever sequence, the parents of Claire Harrison are helping with the search effort to find their daughter. They see a girl screaming in a park and run to her. The camera shows a look of horror on their faces as they look down at something on the ground. The camera never shows what they are looking at, but we later discover they are seeing a murdered child, and not their daughter. The audience is led to believe it is their daughter they are looking at.

It is also quite clever that we never get to see what the killer looks like. As Jess runs down the stairs towards the end of the film and a hand reaches out over the banister to grab her, we never see who the person is, just the hand grabbing her. We also never see the killer as the camera travels back up to the attic at the end of the film, but we do know the killer is there. This is a clever tactic in never revealing to the audience who the killer really is.

As an interesting side note, producer/director Bob Clark went on to create A Christmas Story and the first two Porky’s films. All three films were a huge hit in the 1980s. Have yourself a scary little Christmas with Black Christmas this Christmas Season! And watch the really cool complete original trailer for the film above!

Alistair Sim's second take as Scrooge!

2011-12-14T13:38:00.000-08:00

Some of us recall seeing this 25-minute "A Christmas Carol" on TV in the 1970s. Alistair Sim plays Scrooge, and he's almost as good as he was in the classic 1952 feature "Scrooge." This is a real Yuletide treat of an animated short that you just can't find anywhere to buy at a decent price. There are used out-of-print VHS tapes for sale at more than $100 on amazon. That's just too much, enjoy it here, courtesy of Google video. Trust me -- this is a great film. It's a Richard Williams production from 1971, also starring the voice of Michael Redgrave.
-- Doug Gibson

Some very unique Christmas films

2011-12-03T22:15:00.001-08:00

(This essay originally ran in the Dec. 20, 2007 Standard-Examiner)

By Doug Gibson

Every December the best Christmas films pop up on TV: "Miracle on 34th Street," "A Christmas Carol," "Going My Way," "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" — I refer to the Boris Karloff-narrated cartoon — "Mr. Krueger's Christmas" and, of course, that other Jimmy Stewart classic, "It's a Wonderful Life."

We all have our favorite Christmas cinema moments. George Bailey's joyous run through Bedford Falls, Ebenezer Scrooge dancing for joy on Christmas morning, Macy's Kris Kringle speaking Dutch to a World War II orphan girl, and my favorite, crusty but lovable Father Fitzgibbon's surprise reunion with his mother after decades apart.

There are great holiday films. Much has been written about them. But today let's spill some ink about the other Christmas films, the kitschy ones. They're all over the dial. Just turn on the Hallmark Channel!

Most aren't worth five minutes of our time, but some still spread holiday magic. We've all heard of "A Christmas Carol" or "Scrooge," but how many recall the Fonz — Henry Winkler — starring in "An American Christmas Carol"? There are two well-received versions of "Miracle on 34th Street," but do you recall the kitschy 1973 TV version in which the lawyer was played by actor-turned-newsman David Hartman?

Even the biggy, "It's a Wonderful Life," has a kitschy cousin. Remember "It Happened One Christmas," the gender-switching knockoff starring Marlo Thomas?

Indeed, the competition is fierce for those kitschiest Christmas movies that still entertain us. But here are three finalists, all made on the cheap, yet still being sold and garnering holiday TV showings.

So, without further adieu, here is the best kitschiest Christmas film:

"Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" — This 1964 film was shot in an abandoned airport hangar in Long Island, N.Y., using many minor cast members from a NYC stage production of "Oliver Twist." It has a catchy theme song, "Hurray for Santy (sic) Claus," that you'll hum afterward. The plot involves Martians coming to earth, kidnapping Santa and whisking him away to cheer up the Martian kiddies. Two earth children are kidnapped along with Santa. Santa and the earth kids fight off a Martian baddie, prep a goofy Martian to become that planet's Santa, and launch off to earth in the spaceship. We never know if they made it home — perhaps the budget didn't allow that. The acting has to be seen to be believed, but the film has a goofy charm. It was a big hit on the now-gone "weekend matinee" circuit and played theaters for years. Pia Zadora, who was briefly a sexy starlet in the 1980s, plays one of the Martian children. John Call, as Santa, does a mean "ho, ho, ho." (Update, in 2011 holiday season this film played at the North Ogden Walker Cinemas for $2 plus a donated can of food!)

And now, the second-best kitschiest Christmas film:

* "Santa Claus" — Don't confuse this 1959 Mexican film with Dudley Moore's "Santa Claus: The Movie" or Tim Allen's "The Santa Clause" films. This import is weird and a little creepy, but it sticks with you. Old Kris Kringle is a sort of recluse who talks to himself and lives in a castle in outer space. He has no elves. His helpers are children from around the world who can't sing very well, though they belt out a lot of songs. Santa's reindeer are, I think, plastic and he uses a key to start them. Santa also works out on an exercise belt to slim down for the chimneys. For some reason Santa hangs out with Merlin the Magician. Enter "Pitch," a devil. His goal is to stop Santa from delivering presents. Pitch is a wimpy fellow in red tights and wears what looks like a short middy skirt. Santa and Merlin foil Pitch's nefarious plans. The film also focuses on two children, a poor girl and a rich, neglected boy, who resist Pitch's temptations. There are magic flowers and even special drinks. Santa glides safely to a chimney using a parasol. If this film sounds to readers like the after-effects of taking two Percocet, you got the gist of it.

Finally, the third-best kitschiest Christmas film:

* "Santa and the Three Bears" — If you lived in Southern California long ago, this 1970 blend of live action and cartoon was a Thanksgiving afternoon staple on KTLA Channel 5. The animation is mediocre, but the story has a simple charm. A forest ranger teaches two excitable bear cubs about Christmas while their grouchy mother bear wants them to hibernate for the winter. The ranger agrees to play Santa for the cubs on Christmas Eve, but a storm keeps "Santa" away ... or does it? The best part of the film is the live-action beginning and ending, where the ranger sits by the Christmas tree with his grandaughter, a sleepy cat and many toys. The ranger is voiced and played by Hal Smith, best known as Otis the town drunk on "The Andy Griffith Show." Grumpy Mama Bear was voiced by Jean Vander Pyl (Wilma on "The Flintstones"). The uncredited director is Barry Mahon, who made soft-core sex films in the 1960s with such titles as "Nudes Inc." and "The Sex Killer."

A footnote: These films can occasionally be found on TV. Indeed, "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" and "Santa Claus" are usually broadcast a Friday in December on KULC Channel 9 in Utah at 9 p.m. Both Santa Claus films mentioned here have also been spoofed by the snarky robots of "Mystery Science Theater 3000."

The Andy Griffith Show celebrates Christmas!

2011-11-29T13:05:00.000-08:00

Here's another recap/review of a great Andy Griffith Show episode (watch above). From Season 1, "The Christmas Story."
By Doug Gibson
The Andy Griffith Show, Season 1, Episode 11, "The Christmas Story." Starring Andy Griffith, Don Knotts Ron Howard, Frances Bavier and Elinor Donahue. Guest starring Sam Edwards, Margaret Kerry and Joy Ellison as Sam, Bess and Effie Muggins, Will Wright as Ben Weaver.
Most successful TV situation comedies tend to have a Christmas episode and for some reason they are often produced in the first season: think "Mary Tyler Moore Show, "The Odd Couple" and "Happy Days." TAGS was no exception producing its Christmas-themed show in the 11th episode. It's a well-paced, funny, heartwarming tale that features Ben Weaver, Mayberry's most prominent merchant, a crochety, stooped-shouldered somewhat Dickensian figure with a well-hidden heart of gold tucked behind his gruff exterior.
The plot involves Weaver (Will Wright) dragging in moonshiner Sam Edwards to the courthouse on Christmas Eve and demanding that Edwards be locked up. A big Christmas party is being planned and Andy asks Ben if he'll let Edwards have a furlough through Christmas. True to form Weaver refuses. It looks like the Christmas Party is off, until Andy invites Edwards wife, Bess, (Kerry), and daughter, Effie, (Ellison), to stay in the jail with dad. In a funny scene, Andy overrides Ben's objections by cross-examing Sam's smiling kin, who admit they knew about the moonshining!
The funny plot seamlessly turns serious as a lonely Weaver, his Grinch-like plans foiled, tries to get himself arrested. Writer Frank Tarloff -- who penned 9 TAGS episodes -- deserves a tip of the hat for his funny, ironic script. Ben's plans to get busted are foiled when party-goers, including Ellie, either pay his fines or donate "stolen property" to him. Finally, in a scene that can bring tears, we see a lonely Ben Weaver, standing in an alley, peeking through the jail window bars, softly singing along with a Christmas Carol sung in the courthouse.
I won't give way the end for the very few who might still have missed the show, but it should be noted that perhaps the reason TAGS never again attempted a Christmas episode is that it could never have topped this. Wright as Ben Weaver is simply magnificent. His page on IMDB.com says he looks as "if he was born old." The grizzled, stooped ex-Western actor actually died at the relatively young age of 68. He played Ben Weaver in three TAGS episodes, the last before his death of cancer. Several other actors played Weaver in later episodes, but only one, Tol Avery, captured even a smidgen of the cranky magic Wright gave the role. He was, and remains, Mayberry merchant Ben Weaver to TAGS fans. In his three episodes, Weaver created a happy Christmas, saved a family from homelessness and gave a tired traveling merchant a job.
Notes: "Family members" Edwards, Kerry and Ellison were the same family Wright's Weaver threatened with eviction in another TAGS episodes. They were the Scobees. Knotts' Fife played Santa Claus, in full costume and "ho ho hos." Donahue's Walker sang "Away in the Manger." Season 1 was a little uneven, with the cast developing their roles. Knotts was still being too often used only for manic comic relief. Taylor's Andy was still the impetus for most humor. In the second season Sheriff Taylor would began to react to the humorous situations of others, and the show would move to its current classic status as a result.

Plan9Crunch re-run: Ed Wood versus Nightmare of Ecstasy

2011-11-21T20:56:00.001-08:00

By Doug Gibson

Tim Burton's wonderful film, Ed Wood, recently was chosen as one of the "new classics," by Entertainment Weekly. It's a worthy selection. Burton's black & white tale of Hollywood in the 1950s is a romanticized fairy tale. Johnny Depp's exuberant, ceaselessly optimistic Wood carries the day with a triumphant Plan 9 from Outer Space premiere at the Pantages. (That didn't happen, of course. Plan 9 was screened once at the tiny Rialto and then sat on the shelf for three years). When Plan 9 was put into general release, Wood didn't see a cent.

Later, before the credits to Burton's film roll, the epilogue tells us Wood descended into alcoholism and pornography. It's appropriate that not be shown in Burton's film. It is, as mentioned a fairy tale, of optimism and perserverance. In a general sense, it is accurate. Wood battled tremendous odds in the 1950s. He filmed Glen Or Glenda, Jail Bait, Bride of the Monster, Plan 9 From Outer Space and Night of the Ghouls with virtually no money. He managed to attract a diverse and eccentric collection of well-known and semi-known cast names, including Dolores Fuller, Criswell, Kenne Duncan, Steve Reeves, Bud Osborne, Timothy Farrell, John Carpenter, Harvey Dunne, Lyle Talbot, Vampira, Herbert Rawlinson, Gregory Walcott and, of course, Bela Lugosi. It appears Wood's enthusiasm was contagious, and many thought he might make it. That he didn't have a long career at least in directing low-budget thrillers must be attributed to his alcoholism, which made him unreliable. Even near his death, his writing was amazingly prolific. More than one friend recalls him writing a screenplay in a day. He wrote hundreds of paperback novels.

The following are some inconsistencies between Burton's Ed Wood, the romanticized, fairy tale film, and Grey's often gritty absorbing oral biography account of Wood's short rise and long descent. I will likely add to this as time goes on. Here are inconsistencies by film:

Glen or Glenda: In the book, George Weiss is shown as short and trim. In the film he is an overweight slob; It is doubtful that Wood's gay friend Bunny Breckenridge auditioned transvestites for the film. By the way, actor Bill Murray does a great job portraying Breckenridge. The film set for G&G though, matches it as described in the book. Lugosi was not divorced, as the film depicts him. He was still with his wife, Lillian, although she left him soon after. In fact, Grey reports that Lillian pushed Lugosi to take the film. It is also very doubtful Wood gave G&G to a major producer to watch, as the film shows. Also, the film shows Depp's Wood as unhappy that the film was not reviewed in LA. Obviously, Wood would have known where the film was debuting and not checked the LA Times for a review. Burton's scenes of Wood's company stealing shots on LA streets are accurate, according to Grey.

Jail Bait: This film is not even mentioned in Burton's Ed Wood (probably for time and continuity reasons) so let's give it some ink. It's a crime thriller that involves a hood (Farrell) pressuring a plastic surgeon (Rawlinson) and his daughter (Fuller) to make him a new face. Interesting co-stars were Reeves (in his pre-muscleman days) and then-top model Theodora Thurman. Also in the cast are Wood regulars Mona McKinnon, Don Nagel and Bud Osborne. The film's score, which is a bit grating, was taken from Mesa of Lost Women. Howco Films released the film, which likely mostly played the southern drive-in circuit. It's too ambitious for its budget, but is not a bad hour-long time waster. According to Grey, scenes were stolen at an LA motel. (Scene stealing is shooting at private and public locations without permission) Grey, and many rumors, claim that ex-silent film star Rawlinson died the morning after his scenes were shot. Lugosi was slated to play the plastic surgeon, but was either exhausted from his recent Las Vegas gig, too addicted to morphine, or perhaps just had a better offer.

Bride of the Monster: Burton's scenes in LA's Griffith Park of Wood filming in the early AM the finale to Bride are accurate to Grey's description with one exception: Lugosi never got in the water to tangle with a rubber octopus. That was handled by his stand-in, stuntman Eddie Parker. Burton portrays Loretta King, who starred as a nosy reporter, as an airhead. Grey's depiction is fairer, and recent interviews support that she was a capable actress who got the job not for her supposed money, but for her skills. Dolores Fuller's anger at losing the role is accurately portrayed in both film and book. Also, Burton is very unfair to leading man Tony McCoy. He is portrayed as borderline retarded. Wood calls him the worst he ever had in Grey's book. But a viewing of Bride of the Monster shows McCoy to be a very average but capable actor. He certainly knew his lines and can be personable on screen. In fact, McCoy and King were both handled by agent Marge Usher, who supplied Wood with several actors.

Plan 9 From Outer Space: First, although it is a marvelous scene in Burton's Ed Wood, Wood and his idol Orson Welles never chatted at a Hollywood bar. That scene is fiction. By the way, Wood's friend and actor Conrad Brooks plays the bartender in that scene. Also, Burton has Vampira and Kathy Wood being baptized as a Baptist with other Wood regulars to get funding for the film. I don't believe Vampira would have done it, and Kathy Wood says in Grey's book she wouldn't get baptized. It is doubtful Wood would have been angry at Gregory Walcott being cast in his film, since he was a minor name actor at the time. Also, Wood never agreed to his film, Grave Robbers From Outer Space, being changed in title to Plan 9 From Outer Space, as Burton's film show. A minor point; but Ed and Kathy Wood did not meet at Lugosi's hospital, as the film shows. In later interviews, Kathy Wood said they met in a bar. The film was not premiered at the Pantages, and certainly wasn't the elaborate affair as Burton's film shows. In fact, Wood sold the rights to Plan 9 to his Baptist financier, J. Edward Reynolds, for $1 (as Grey recounts) and the film received a minimal release from a small firm, Distributors Releasing Corporation of America. It opened as a second bill to a now-obscure British film called Time Lock.

Night of the Ghouls: Again, not mentioned in Burton's Ed Wood, this film was a sequel to Bride of the Monster, as it involved Tor Johnson's giant Lobo, and a semi sequel to Plan 9 as it had Paul Marco's Patrolman Kelton and Duke Moore's Lt. Daniel Bradford in the cast. It involves a phony medium (Duncan, in a role obviously intended for the late Lugosi) and his young squeeze (Valda Hansen) ripping off elderly fools in an old house. The tables are turned on the pair as the police close in on them and the dead really do start to awake. It has Criswell, narrating from a coffin as he does in Plan 9 and having a brief acting role as well. (Let me digress and say that Jeffrey Jones was brilliant as the late psychic in Burton's film). As mentioned, Tor Johnson's Lobo shuffles around menacingly. The film is intermixed with scenes from an unreleased Wood film called Final Curtain. That sequence, which stars Moore and actress Jeanne Stevens, is quite creepy. If anyone knows where to find a complete version of Final Curtain, it would be quite a find. Night of the Ghou;s was premiered but Wood ran out money, couldn't pay a lab bill and the film was seized for about a quarter of a century before Wood fan Wade Williams paid the bill and it was released. The film's budget is threadbare and dirt-cheap. A cut out picture of Ed Wood is posted on a police wall. The police commander's office has no doorknobs. Obviously, Wood planned more editing and shoots before he lost control of the film. Night of the Ghouls was the first in a planned sequence of films that Wood wanted to make.

The Angry Red Planet

2011-11-16T12:40:00.000-08:00

By Steve D. Stones

The interesting gimmick used to sell this film was a process known as Cinemagic in which a red colored filter is used with scenes depicting shots on Mars. However, the scenes using Cinemagic look pink instead of red, which seems very appropriate, considering one of the producers and screenwriters of the film is named Sidney Pink. I’m not sure if this was intentional or strictly coincidental, but it certainly adds to the cult interest of the film.

Three male crew members and one-woman scientist, played by Nora Hayden, lead an expedition to Mars – The Angry Red Planet. Upon landing on Mars, the crew discovers that their ship has become incapacitated and cannot leave the planet. This fact is further reinforced when the crew later witnesses a Martian peeking through the ship’s window. The Martian issues a warning to the crew that they cannot return to earth.

The four-crew members travel outside the ship to explore the planet. A creature looking part plant life and part octopus attacks Hayden. The head crew member Colonel Tom O’Bannion, played by serial star Gerald Mohr, rescues Hayden by chopping the tentacles of the creature with a machete. The creature was operated by one of the munchkins from The Wizard of Oz.

The crew takes a second trip outside the ship and is attacked this time by a giant rat-bat-spider creature. This sequence in the film is the one which gives it it’s strange cult following. The rat-bat-spider would later appear on the 1982 album cover of Walk Among Us by The Misfits.

The strangest creature is saved for last when the crew paddles across a Martian lake in a raft and discover an abandoned city. A giant blob with a spinning eyeball on top emerges from the lake and chases after the crew as they desperately attempt to row back to shore. The blob looks as if it could pass for a Sunday dinner rump roast.

Producer and screenwriter Sidney Pink went on to work on another sci-fi cult favorite – Journey To The Seventh Planet, starring John Agar in 1962. Director Ib Melchoir also went on to work on other cult classics, such as The Time Travelers, Reptilicus, Robinson Crusoe On Mars and several episodes of The Outer Limits TV show. For more information on the life and work of Melchoir, I recommend the book Ib Melchoir – Man of Imagination by Robert Skotak, published in 2000.

Plan9Crunch Book Review - Embers

2011-11-08T20:42:00.000-08:00

By Doug Gibson

The late Hungarian Sandor Marai's novel Embers takes place in Hungary in 1940, in a secluded castle. There lives the very old general Henrik, with his even older nanny, who has cared for him most of his life. The general's wife died a generation ago. It is a big night. Coming to dine that evening is Konrad, once the general's closest friend. The general and Konrad have not seen each other in 42 years, nor communicated.

It will be a tense dinner and evening. Prior to Konrad's arrival, the aged nanny places her hand on the general and gently tells him not to get too excited. When Konrad arrives, the pair take the same places they had the last time they met. After dinner, the host begins a discourse, with the guest mostly listening. Traced through the rest of the novel is a deconstruction of a dead friendship. Two lives, friendship, pride, guilt, anger, loathing, deceit, adultery, regret, hunting and thoughts of murder and betrayal are recalled during the long evening spent together by the pair.

Embers is a marvelous, lucid, engrossing novel that deals with male friendships and emotions from a male perspective. Two men with great potential are explored. One betrays the other and runs away without the courage to explain why. As a result the other shields his love from who needs it most, and lives an empty life. The dialogue between the old friends is masterfully crafted. Marai's style compares with Thomas Mann in that this is a European novel that builds slowly with much patience. The reader who delves into Embers one evening may encounter dawn before he turns from the pages.

Notes: Marai was an acclaimed Hungarian novelist 70 years ago but his works were mostly destroyed and he was forced into exile when communists grabbed power in Hungary. He emigrated to America and died in San Diego in 1989. Shortly afterwards, his novels were returned to circulation and his stature as one of the best European novelists of the first half of the 20th century was restored.

Castle Films break! The Mummy's Ghost

2011-11-08T12:11:00.000-08:00

Kick back and enjoy a condensed version, courtesy of Castle Films and YouTube, of The Mummy's Ghost. I used to watch Castle Films as a kid in school at assemblies. It's cool to see an 8 minute version of a classic, and Castle's got a bunch, including all the old Universal horrors. So, enjoy:

Dracula’: Was the Count resigned to finally dying?

2011-10-31T10:53:00.000-07:00

By Doug Gibson

I absolutely love Bela Lugosi’s portrayal of Count Dracula in the 1931 classic. He is pure aristocratic evil, able to put on a facade of gallantry yet betray it in mere seconds with a deadly glare at Van Helsing. Also, even in fine attire, in his own domain, in a dungeon, with rats, bugs, whey-faced brides or a cringing, spider-eating Renfield, he conveys malicious evil deeper than the filth around him. In that deepest part of his existence, his dead heart rots darker.

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‘White Zombie’ – the first zombie classic

2011-10-30T16:02:00.000-07:00

By Steve D. Stones

To the younger generation of today, White Zombie refers to a 1990s heavy metal band founded by singer Rob Zombie, and inspired by low-budget B-movies of the past. To the much older generation, White Zombie is a low-budget 1930s, forgotten B-movie starring the legendary Bela Lugosi, shortly after his success in the 1931 Universal Studios film — Dracula. Victor and Edward Halperin produced and directed the film.

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What! No Beer? OK Keaton, bad Durante

2011-10-27T18:49:00.000-07:00

What! No Beer? 1933. B&W, MGM, 70 minutes. Directed by Edward Sedgwick. Starring Buster Keaton as Elmer J. Butts, Jimmy Durante as Jimmy Potts, Phyllis Barry as Hortense, Edward Brophy as Spike Moran and Charles Giblyn as Chief. Schlock-Meter rating: Four stars out of 10 stars.

What! No Beer? is a curio, a relic from the past. The plot of the mostly unfunny comedy deals with prohibition and efforts to repeal it, an issue which dominated headlines nearly 80 years ago. It was a box office winner due to its stars, Keaton and Durante, but is generally regarded as one of the unfunniest comedies of the 1930s. It was the pair's last film together. Keaton's drinking problem and absences from the set caused the studio to fire him even before the film was released. It was the start of a spiral into film oblivion for Keaton, and his career did not surge again until television began to thrive two decades later.

The plot: Jimmy Potts (Durante) is a barber and Elmer J. Butts (Keaton) is a luckless businessman. Potts, incorrectly thinking prohibition has been repealed, convinces Butts to invest his money in a long-closed brewery. The stone-faced Butts moons over a pretty gangster moll named Hortense (Barry). He wants to be a millionaire so he can win her love. Seeing no other way to earn the million bucks, he agrees to get into the beer business. Police quickly raid the brewery and arrest the pair, but discover there's no alcohol in the brew. Later, a hobo at the deserted plant confesses he was once a great brewer and real beer is made, which is a big hit. Soon the police and the mob muscle in on Potts and Butts.

The film is as unfunny as it sounds. Durante, in particular, is just pathetic. He bellows and brays and cracks unfunny jokes. It's painful to watch him flop on the screen. Although he is clearly half-bagged in many of the scenes, the best part of the film is comic great Keaton. His talent for physical comedy is on display in several scenes, and his naivete and trusting demeanor leads to misunderstandings that bring laughs, particularly a scene where gangsters, sent to muscle him, interpret his bland replies as extreme coolness under pressure, and leave impressed. What! No Beer? is not a good movie, but it's worth a rental to see an early sound Keaton offering.

-- Doug Gibson

Attack of The 50 Foot Woman – Every Man’s Nightmare!

2011-10-19T12:16:00.000-07:00

By Steve D. Stones

Howco International Studios produced a number of low-budget,drive-in movie faire in the mid to late 1950s. Two of their most beloved titles were The Brain From Planet Arous (1957) and the more famous and notorious for being laughable- Attack of The 50 Foot Woman (1958).

Director Nathan Hertz (AKA Nathan Juran) was at the helm of directing both pictures. Attack of The 50 Foot Woman stars buxom brunette beauty Allison Hayes and Playboy Magazine’s Miss July 1959 – Yvette Vickers.

Both women serve as rich eye candy for the male drive-in audience, which is part of the appeal of the film, if not the only appeal. Much has been written over the years as to whether or not Attack of The 50 Foot Woman is a ridiculous, kitsch-laden film with no redeeming social value, or a pure feminist work of art that makes a bold political statement about the breakdown of male-female relationships and angst female power. In a time when women stayed at home cooking and cleaning in poodleskirts, it certainly serves a message that was well ahead of its time.

Hayes plays a wealthy socialite who drives directly into a satellite from outer space in the desert after an evening of heavy drinking. She becomes terrified as a giant alien, who looks a bit like President Eisenhower, leaves the satellite and chases after her. Her two timing husband refuses to believe her story when she returns home. He even suggests that she go back to a sanitarium for psychological treatment, after having already spent some time there.

Meanwhile, Hayes’ husband Harry, played by William Hudson, is running around town and drinking heavily with a local harlot named Honey, played by Yvette Vickers. The two have plans to put Hayes into a crazy state of mind to drive her back to the local booby-hatch in order to take over all her wealth.

After several attempts to convince Harry that she is not crazy,the two decide to drive out into the desert to find the satellite and giant alien. Hayes expresses her disgust and awareness of Harry going around with the town tramp. Sure enough, the two encounter the giant alien, and Harry quickly drives away, leaving Hayes behind.

Hayes later returns home, although it is never fully established in the film how or why she was able to get back. We learn that she is growing at a fast pace,and must be administered drugs to slow down the growing process. One hilarious scene shows a nurse entering Hayes’ room with a giant rubbery hand chained to the bedside as the nurse administers a drug to her. This is likely the same hand that was used in an earlier scene in which the giant alien picks up the sheriff’s car and throws it, only this time it does not have hair painted on the knuckles. By all appearances of the fake hand, her body would be much too large to fit into the entire bedroom. Talk about cheap,unconvincing special effects. This is down-right hilarious!

Hayes eventually breaks out of her bedside shackles, tears down her own house, and goes on the prowl for Harry. Now she has grown 50 feet tall, is dressed in a low cut bikini skirt and blouse, sporting eye-popping cleavage. We don’t know whether to be scared of her, or to stop and look up her giant skirt for an eyeful. She is sexy, mad as hell, and ready to tear Harry apart, just like the house she left in shambles.

As she walks around town in unconvincing rear projected photography superimposed over shots of town environments, she continually yells out Harry’s name. She tears through the roof of the town saloon to grab Harry. Here we see another unconvincing shot, only this time it actually is Hayes carrying a doll instead of the actual Harry. Enough gunshots are put into Hayes to bring her down, with the dead Harry in her hand.

It is safe to say that Attack of The 50 Foot Woman serves as an early feminist tale of women who want to have a sense of independence and power in a 1950s male-dominated society. No longer are women content with staying home, cooking and cleaning all day for their men. Director Nathan Juran and screenwriter Mark Hanna may not have had this in mind at the time Attack of The 50 Foot Woman was filmed, but viewers of today certainly view the film this way.

Sadly, actress Yvette Vickers was found dead in her Benedict Canyon Drive home in Beverly Hills in April 2011. After not hearing from Vickers for several months, a neighbor crawled through a house window to find the mummified remains of the 50s sex symbol. It is speculated that she had been dead for over six months before the neighbor found her. A sad ending to a once-promising young woman who appeared in the pages of Playboy. She was 82. Fans can also see Vickers in the 1959 film Attack of The Giant Leeches (AKA The Giant Leeches), once again cast as a town harlot.

Attack of The 50 Foot Woman was remade in 1993, with Daryl Hannah in the lead role. This film does not have the enjoyable, feminist, camp quality that is apparent in the original. Happy Viewing!

The Unearthly: Carradine as mad scientist, again

2011-10-14T15:12:00.001-07:00

The Unearthly
The Unearthly, 1957, Director: Brooke L. Peters; Cast includes John Carradine, Tor Johnson, Allison Hayes, Myron Healey; About 75 minutes in most prints. *******1/2 out of 10 stars on the Schlock-Meter

The Unearthly boasts Ed Wood’s giant Tor Johnson among its cast, which automatically bumps it up a star or two on the Schlock-Meter. The tale is pretty standard fare for 1950s sci-fi/horror filmdom; Mad scientist John Carradine uses unsuspecting patients to try and graft on a “17th gland,” which the “good” doctor hopes will create eternal life. The problem is, all of the previous human guinea pigs he’s tried the gland procedure on have turned up mentally impaired and deformed. They exist -- a pretty motley bunch -- in the basement.

Pretty Allison Hayes is Carradine’s next intended victim, but she’s saved by Myron Healey, who plays an undercover cop who infiltrates Carradine’s sanitarium pretending to be a killer on the lam. Don’t you love these convoluted plots. Anyway, it’s up to Healey to save the day, since the patients of Carradine are too dense to realize that their ranks are shrinking rapidly.

Surprisingly, Carradine makes a pretty effective bad guy in this low-budget offer. He’s more subtle, resisting the urge to revert to his usual “over-the-top” overacting. The few times Carradine raises his voice in anger, his sinister side is effectively revealed. Tor Johnson, as Carradine’s hulking helper, is actually allowed a few lines of garbled dialogue. There are a few shots of Allison Hayes in a low cut nightgown, which must have a excited quite a few movie-going boys just entering puberty in 1957.

Some of the more glaring inconsistencies include: The sanitarium appears to be located in a secluded, out-of-the-way site, but it only takes the police a couple of minutes to arrive when called; none of the “patients” of Carradine’s doctor appear too concerned that Tor Johnson’s grotesque “Lobo” is on the staff; also, it’s amusing to see characters feign the effects of being shot in the stomach without any blood or bullet holes showing up.

The Unearthly is definitely worth a rental, if just to see one of the few films Tor Johnson made.

-- Doug Gibson

The Wizard of Gore - Marvel At Montag The Magician's Gruesome Illusions!

2011-10-09T21:48:00.000-07:00

By Steve D. Stones

Over the years, gore specialist Herschell Gordon Lewis has not spoken fondly of his 1970 film - The Wizard of Gore. He claims he was unable to achieve the believable gore effects that he wanted in the film. His watershed gore film - Blood Feast, from 1963, broke all the rules for what was acceptable in showing extreme violence on the screen. His reputation for showing some of the most gruesome and over-the-top gore effects soon earned him the title of "The Godfather of Gore."

Blood Feast broke all the rules of tasteful entertainment in showing a woman's leg sawed off in a bath tub, a young girl's brain removed from her head, and another woman's tongue ripped out. Lewis is responsible for more sick-to-their stomach movie goers at the movie house as Russ Meyer was responsible for sexually arousing male viewers with his films at the drive-in movie circuit of the 1960s.

Like so many of Lewis' gore epics, The Wizard of Gore suffers from technical problems and strange, kitsch ridden acting, particularly from actor Ray Sager, who plays Montag The Magician in the film. Montag is not your usual dog and pony act wizard. He actually shows his illusions without any barriers blocking the audience's view.

In the opening act, he cuts off his own head with a cheap looking, cardboard guillotine. The head that rolls into a basket below the guillotine is obviously a rubber stage prop that looks nothing like actor Ray Sager, giving the viewer a taste of Lewis' tongue and cheek effects.

Next, Montag asks for volunteers from the audience to perform his gruesome illusions. The volunteers are conveniently women, and appear in a zombie-like trance. In one act, Montag saws a girl in half with a chainsaw, then pushes her innards around with his hands in extreme camera close ups. Another volunteer is punched through the stomach with a punch press. A third victim has a spike nailed through her head.

Each victim lives through the act, then later dies after leaving Montag's theater. Audience members are puzzled as to why each woman walks away from the illusions unharmed.

Lewis' next gore epic is the much less entertaining Gore Gore Girls from 1972. Lewis retired from the film business in the 1970s, and worked in the advertising industry for many years. He is now back in the director's chair directing new gore films. For further information about The Wizard of Gore and the career of Herschell Gordon Lewis, read the two very informative books: "A Taste of Blood" by Christopher Wayne Curry and "Herschell Gordon Lewis - Godfather of Gore: The Films" by Randy Palmer. Something Weird Video in Seattle, Washington has also recently produced a new documentary about Lewis. Be sure to have a vomit bag on hand if you watch any of Lewis' gore films. Happy Viewing! (or should I say - Happy Vomiting!).

Detective meets Baldy! Dick Tracy versus Cueball

2011-10-06T15:07:00.000-07:00

By Doug Gibson

The Medved brothers list Dick Tracy Vs. Cueball as one of the 5o worst films in their book, The 50 Worst Films of All Time, that was a popular a generation ago.

They're wrong, of course, "Dick Tracy vs. Cueball," from RKO Radio Pictures, is a lean 62-minute programmer that provides exactly what is offers. A very fast-paced cartoonish detective story of the famous detective stopping a dangerous mug, Cueball, who starts strangling people with a hatband who get in his way of getting full value for the diamonds he stole.

Morgan Conway as Tracy lacks the facial looks and screen presence that Ralph Byrd brought to the role but he does an OK job. The funny-pages feel to the picture is accentuated by colorful characters, including Anne Jeffreys as Tess Truehart, Tracy's girl and Lyle Latell as Pat Patton, Tracy's silly sidekick.

The other characters have names that highlight their personalities, such as Jewels Sparkle, Percival Priceless, Vitamin Flintheart, Filthy Flora and, of course, the baddie Cueball, played in sinister fashion by Dick Wessel. A chief clue toward catching Cueball is learned when a youngster tells Tracy all the kids bought hatbands made by a prisoner who was recently released. ...

A 50 worst film? ... NONSENSE. I loved this action programmer from director Gordon Douglas. Why don't we watch the trailer below! Or start watching the entire film above via YouTUbe!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVOZRFEk5Pk

Swamp Girl -- a real cracker film!

2011-09-30T14:05:00.000-07:00

By Doug Gibson

"Swamp Girl" is a real "cracker" film. A deep South drive-in, Saturday matinee film that bombed at the box office largely due to that dichotemy. The film is very tame, tame enough indeed to play at a kids' Saturday matinee. That is was a best a soft PG is a bit perplexing given that the director was Don Davis, who was more comfortable shooting soft-core porn in that era. (Davis also has a memorable but small role as a drunk in Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space.)

"Swamp Girl" is an interesting film and watchable. It stars a "Marcia Brady" lookalike (Simone Griffith) who is a gorgeous teenage blonde named Janeen who lives in the swamp with her guardian, a black man she calls "Paw." It seems that Swamp Girl was abandoned as a baby and later Paw rescued her from drug dealers who killed her earlier guardian. Despite living in a swamp, swamp girl is gorgeous, with creamy white skin, tanned shaved legs, beautifully coiffed blonde hair and wears a cut summery type of dress. She also is friends with the local sheriff (Claude King) and the swamp ranger, played by southern crooner Ferlin Husky (he of Hillbillys in a Haunted House fame).

To go on, one day a con and his girlfriend are on the run. They turn up at Swamp Girl's house, kill "Paw" and take Swamp Girl hostage as they seek escape through the swamp. However, Swamp Girl, who knows the swamp all too well, turns the tables on the baddies and makes their lives miserable in the swamp. Eventually, the bad guy sinks to his death in quicksand and his girlfriend is eaten by 'gators. (There's a subplot involving some local criminals who want to kill Swamp Girl for some reason but viewers can ignore and just star at Griffith prancing through the swamp)

Besides the plot as mentioned, Ferlin Husky sings a song or two and I think there's a half-baked, chaste romance between Swamp Girl and a deputy. There's also, and let me make this clear, no R-rated material in this film. As mentioned, it's quite tame.

It's an enjoyable 70 minutes or so and is a chance to see a genre film (southern justice) that is very low budget and all late '60s early '70s deep South. And, it was filmed at a real swamp, Okefenokee Swamp Park, near Waycross, Georgia. It can be purchased via Something Weird, which recently showed the film on OnDemand cable. Enjoy the trailer above!

Haunted House - The Screaming Skull

2011-09-25T22:48:00.000-07:00

The Screaming Skull - Free Burial For Frightened Viewers!

By Steve D. Stones

Director Fred Olen Ray once said that The Screaming Skull is perhaps the greatest low budget film made with only five actors and one location. If it wasn’t for Roger Corman’s 1961 classic The Pit & The Pendulum, I would agree with Ray. The Screaming Skull has my vote as second best for a film limited to less than six actors and one location.

The film opens with an interesting gimmick of a coffin opening with a sign inside that says: Reserved For You. The narrator insures viewers that the producers promise a free burial for anyone who dies of fright while watching The Screaming Skull. I wonder if they ever had to follow through with their promise?

Next, a boiling stream of water is shown with fog as a skull floats to the surface and a loud screaming of a wild bird is heard. The bold letters of THE SCREAMING SKULL dash out in front of the floating skull.

Eric Whitlock brings his new bride named Jenny to his mansion in the countryside after having been gone for two years. Eric lived there with his former wife Marion, who died in the garden when she slipped and fell on a concrete wall, banging her head.

The reverend Snow and his wife arrive to meet Jenny and to bring the couple some groceries for the night. Eric informs reverend Snow in private that Jenny’s parents had died many years ago in a drowning accident, making her emotionally unstable, but also inheriting their wealth.

That night while in bed, Jenny hears a constant banging sound, which she discovers to be the wind banging some window shudders against the house. The next morning she tries to make friends with the shy, introverted gardener named Mickey by suggesting they take some flowers to Marion’s gave.

The following night Jenny has nightmares as the sound of screaming peacocks haunts her dreams. She wakes to the sound of a loud knocking on the front door. She opens the door to discover a skull on the doorsteps. What follows for the rest of the film is a series of Jenny finding the skull all over the mansion, driving her insane.

Eric suggests that Jenny is hallucinating, and that perhaps her nightmares are a result of a portrait in the house of Marion. Eric decides to burn the portrait as Jenny witnesses the destruction of the painting. As the couple rake over the hot coals from the fire, another skull emerges, causing Jenny to faint.

It turns out that Eric placed the skull in the ashes of the fire to frighten Jenny. His goal was to drive Jenny insane so that he could inherit her wealth.

By some supernatural force, the skull returns to haunt Eric, causing him to be struck by lightning and drown in his garden pond, the same pond where Marion was killed.

It’s unfortunate that many film encyclopedias give The Screaming Skull such a poor rating. I find it to be a fun little film worthy of any serious B-movie fan’s list of guilty pleasures. It’s a film that goes well with a large bucket of buttered popcorn and a soda drink at 1 in the morning. Who knows, perhaps the producers of The Screaming Skull may still promise you a free burial if you die of fright while watching the film? Happy viewing!