ferbs54 Reviews

El mundo de los vampiros (1961)

Murcielago-Chica

[8/10 · 29 December 2022]

1961 was still another interesting year for the Mexican horror film, as that country's so-called Golden Age of Horror continued apace. The year saw the release of the intriguingly titled offering "The Curse of Nostradamus," as well as the third, fourth and fifth films in the Santo series - "Santo vs. The Zombies," "Santo vs. The King of Crime" and "Santo in the Hotel of Death" - a series that would go on till 1976 and comprise over 50 films (!) detailing the adventures of the luchador wrestler turned cinematic crime-fighting superhero. And then there was "The World of the Vampires," released, of course, under the Spanish appellation "El Mundo de los Vampiros," a more traditional sort of horror outing. I had never seen any of those titles before, and so it was with great anticipation that I recently sat down to watch that last-named film, after having discovered a nice-looking print of it, in the original Spanish and with very adequate subtitling. And to my great surprise, the film has revealed itself to be very tastefully and - dare I even say it? - even artfully put together; a horror treat that might leave viewers today, more than 60 years later, very well satisfied.

In the film, we are introduced to the centuries-old (?) vampire Count Sergio Subotai, who, as portrayed by Argentinian actor Guillermo Murray, 34 years old here, just might be the handsomest neck nosher ever depicted. In the film's stunning first 10 minutes, performed largely sans dialogue, we see the Count emerge from his coffin and play a mournful dirge on his pipe organ, that organ situated in a dismal and misty-looking underground crypt. A man and a woman are later taken from their automobile by Subotai and his retainers, a gaggle of ghoul-faced fellow vampires, and brought to his lair, where they are bitten on the neck and thus transformed. To this unfortunate couple, Subotai explains his background and agenda: His human self had been killed some hundred years earlier (confusingly, he later says that it was 300 years earlier) by the Magus of Transylvania, a man named Elias Colman, and for the last century, as a vampire, he has been spending his time killing off all the remaining descendants of that hated man. Now, in modern-day Mexico, only three members of the Colman family remain: two sisters, the morose but belleza Leonor (Mexican actress Silvia Fournier) and the lively tamal caliente Mirta (Mexican actress Erna Martha Bauman), and their uncle (portrayed by Spanish actor Jose Baviera). These three must be exterminated by the full moon or Subotai will have to wait another 100 years to take his vengeance (OK, I didn't quite understand that part) and to give his lord and master, Astaroth, the signal to start the conquest of mankind. Uh, whatever. Subotai wastes little time in prosecuting his campaign. His underground lair and decrepit mansion, as we soon learn, are right in the vicinity of the Colman residence, where we see Uncle Colman giving a dinner party in honor of the pianist/composer Rodolfo Sabre (Mexican comedian/actor Mauricio Garces). When we first encounter the mustachioed pianist, he is entertaining his fellow guests with a composition he has devised that, with its unique combination of scientifically devised tonal qualities, is able to lure out vampires and drive them to madness. And that composition does indeed seem to be quite effective, as the discomfiture evident on guest Subotai's face demonstrates! Later that evening, Subotai offers the depressed and borderline suicidal Leonor an offer of immortality as one of the living dead, an offer that she somehow jumps at. Thus, with one of the Colman clan under his spell, Subotai's mission is already partway to its completion. And with the subsequent kidnapping of Mirta and Uncle Colman, can the fulfillment of his quest be far behind?

As I mentioned up top, "The World of the Vampires" might just surprise the casual viewer with how very artfully it has been put together by its team of pros both in front of and behind the cameras. Director Alfonso Corona Blake, who would go on to helm "Santo vs the Vampire Women" the following year, here injects an otherworldly and dreamlike atmosphere to his picture, and he is nicely abetted by American cinematographer Jack Draper, whose B&W lensing is often a thing of surreal wonder. The film's script, by Alfredo Salazar, is, despite its aforementioned head-scratching moments, a good one, and composer Gustavo Cesar Carrion has supplied some often-freakish background music to complement the proceedings. The actors play their parts absolutely straight, and in all, the film is a startlingly well-crafted one, thanks largely to producer Abel Salazar, who had been so wonderful in front of the cameras in the wonderful Mexican horrors "The Brainiac" (1962, and one of the trippiest Mexican horrors that I have ever seen) and "The Curse of the Crying Woman" (1963, and still my personal favorite film in the Mexican horror pantheon). And adding immeasurable strength to the proceedings are the two leading performances by Guillermo Murray as Subotai and Mauricio Garces as our vampire-fighting hero Rodolfo. Murray is particularly impressive, intoning his lines at times with almost Shakespearian intensity, and it must be remarked that he looks quite impressive in his vampire getup, with flowing cape and a neck collar that reaches almost to the top of his head. As for Garces, an actor of Lebanese descent who was born in Mexico, he is very likeable and appealing as the film's hero; it is a shame that his career did not include more horror items such as this one. I see that Garces also had a small role in "The Brainiac," but I would be lying if I said that I recalled his part in it.

And "The World of the Vampires" has any number of bizarre and interesting touches that will probably take the viewer unawares. Among these unique touches: Subotai's pipe organ, which seems to have been constructed of bones and skulls, and which winds up playing a pivotal role in the film; the ghoullike faces that all the other male vampires sport (the female vampires, on the other hand, are all stunning beauties, every one of them!); the fact that these vampires worship Astaroth, the Phoenician fertility goddess, of all things; the eerie electronic background noises that throb and hum throughout the film's quiet moments; the ubiquitous swirling mists that are present outdoors and in Subotai's underground lair; the fact that the vampires seem to be able to "teleport" themselves through walls; the deep pit, studded with enormous spikes, in Subotai's lair, which he uses to execute his enemies; Rodolfo, having been bitten by a vampire and in the process of transformation himself, being able to hear the steps of a tarantula as it crawls along a cave wall; and the fact that most of the vampires' coffins stand upright, instead of laying horizontal as usual. Oh...and then there's my favorite touch of the film. It occurs when Leonor, in her bat form, hides from her sister and from Rodolfo by hovering in the corner of her bedroom. For a brief moment, we see her bat body with Leonor's face in lieu of the bat's, and it is a startling and bizarre spectacle, to put it mildly; I have never seen anything quite like it in another vampire film. And "The World of the Vampires" also dishes out several wonderful scenes for the viewer, besides that wonderful opening sequence. I love Rodolfo's protracted and violent dukeout with Subotai's mute and hunchbacked servant (played by Alfredo W. Barron), as well as the film's denouement, which is a nicely satisfying one, telegraphed as it might be.

Now, having said all that, I don't wish to give the idea that "The World of the Vampires" is some kind of lost horror masterpiece, or a top-grade cinematic gem waiting to be discovered. The film was undoubtedly made on a limited budget, and its special effects, such as they are, will surely prove a disappointment to a modern generation of viewers who have become practically inured to "Avatar"-style, computer-generated wonders. Still, as I say, the film manages to impress despite its sparing use of pesos, and that is solely due to the creativity and resourcefulness of the filmmakers. Truly, all the money in the world cannot take the place of ingenuity and craft, and "The World of the Vampires" evinces enough in the way of creepy miasma to take the place of any amount of ILM magic. There was something about these B&W horror films of Mexico's Golden Age that is very hard to define in words; an aura, an otherworldly feeling of unease, a strangeness, that no amount of money can quite achieve. "The World of the Vampires" achieves that creepy atmosphere in spades, and may just prove to be a genuine find for all horror buffs who are looking for something different....

Hysteria (1965)

An American Amnesiac In London

[8/10 · 19 November 2022]

As I believe I have mentioned here before, during the 1960s, Hammer Film Productions in England did not only excel at the horror, science fiction and period action movies for which it is best remembered today, but at the psychological thriller, as well. Previously, this viewer had watched and hugely enjoyed such Hammer thrillers as "The Snorkel" (1958), "Maniac" (1962) and "Nightmare" (1964), and so it was with great anticipation that I sat down the other day, on an appropriately stormy afternoon, to watch the Hammer offering entitled "Hysteria." This film was initially released in the U. S. in April 1965 and in the U. K., strangely enough, two months later. During that year, at the height of Hammer's heyday, the studio would ultimately come out with a half dozen entertainments for its audiences: "The Secret of Blood Island," a war movie; "The Brigand of Kandahar," an adventure film set in 19th century India; the remarkable suspenser "Die! Die! My Darling," starring Stefanie Powers and Tallulah Bankhead; the film in question, "Hysteria"; the Bette Davis wringer entitled "The Nanny"; and another adaptation of the great H. Rider Haggard's "She." Not a Frankenstein, Dracula, Mummy or period-set horror film in the bunch, you will note. Sadly, "Hysteria" did not fare very well at the box office, and now, with the hindsight of more than half a century, the viewer can only wonder why, as it is a beautifully shot, finely scripted, marvelously acted and consistently intriguing picture that really does hold the viewer's attention.

In the film, the viewer meets an American, currently living in London, named, for the sake of convenience, Chris Smith (California-born actor Robert Webber, who most will recall as the brash adman Juror 12 in "12 Angry Men"). Smith, we learn, had been in a serious auto wreck four months earlier and had lost most of his memory as a result. He cannot even remember his own name, and has been dubbed Chris Smith as a result of the St. Christopher medallion he had been wearing at the time of his accident. Smith learns that some unknown benefactor has been paying for all his hospital bills, and that a swanky penthouse apartment has also been rented for him when he is released. His physician, one Dr. Keller (Anthony Newlands, whose other horror credentials include 1966's "Circus of Fear" and 1970's "Scream and Scream Again"), gives him some pills to take in case he should suffer consequent hallucinations, and as it turns out, those pills really do come in handy. While in hospital, Smith, despite his memory loss, begins to put the moves on his pretty nurse, Gina McConnell (Jennifer Jayne, who had appeared in the classic horror film "The Crawling Eye" in 1958 and would go on to feature in 1965's "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors"), a woman who will be more than helpful to him later on. Smith's only clue to his past, we further learn, is a magazine photo of a beautiful woman that had been found in his pocket; a woman who would seem to hold the key to his past.

Once ensconced in his new luxury pad, in an apartment high-rise that is otherwise strangely empty, very strange things begin to occur to the befuddled American. He keeps hearing voices raised in heated argument, although no one else is living nearby. He finds a bloody knife on the floor of his apartment. And, several times, he seems to see the mysterious woman who he is searching for, either walking around town or driving past in a car. Smith hires a private detective, Hennings (British character actor Maurice Denham, who had appeared in one of the greatest horror films of the '50s, 1957's "Night of the Demon," as well as another Hammer psychological thriller, 1963's "Paranoiac," and "The Nanny," 1967's "Torture Garden" and 1971's "Countess Dracula"), to aid him in the search for his unknown past, while he at the same time prosecutes his own investigations. Soon, he learns that the woman in the photo had been killed in her shower months earlier, and is thus startled when that same woman, who calls herself Denise James (American actress Lelia Goldoni, who would appear in the great Martin Scorsese film "Alice Doesn't Live Her Anymore" in 1974, as well as in 1978's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," and who, for some reason, struck this viewer as a British variant of Arlene Martel), shows up inside his apartment. Denise claims that it was her deceased husband who had been driving the car in which Chris suffered his accident, and that she has been paying his bills for the past four months out of a sense of guilt. And before long, other strange things begin to occur, as a dead woman is found in Chris' shower, and the arguing voices in his head continue, leading Chris ever closer to the edge of not only the titular hysteria, but also madness....

Now, writing in the household bible "Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide," the editors there tell us that Hysteria "starts out promisingly, but gets bogged down,"and for the life of me, I have no idea what they are talking about (hardly the first time that I have had some issues with the pronouncements from the wet-blanket editors there!). On the contrary, I feel that this film only grows increasingly bizarre and dumbfounding as it proceeds, piling on one outre incident on top of another. Indeed, this is the type of film in which there is just no way to predict what is going to transpire next, and the viewer surely does sympathize with poor Chris Smith's predicament. And Webber is just perfect in the role here, making us feel the character's bewilderment as he seemingly teeters closer and closer to the edge. But then again, all the players here are just wonderful in their roles, and they are abetted by a team behind the cameras that is every bit as professional. Kudos, thus, to cinematographer-turned-director Freddie Francis, who helms his film in a manner that deftly brings out the strangeness of the conceit; Francis, of course, would ultimately be responsible for such wonderful Hammer affairs as "Paranoiac," "The Evil of Frankenstein" (1964), "Nightmare", and "Dracula Has Risen From the Grave" (1968), as well as a slew of wonderful horror entertainments from the rival British horror studio Amicus ("Dr Terror's House of Horrors," 1965's "The Skull," 1966's "The Psychopath," "Torture Garden," and 1972's "Tales From the Crypt," for example). The film's wonderfully twisty script here is by Jimmy Sangster, who was responsible for dozens of these '50s and '60s British horror/thriller entertainments (go look up his filmography; it's almost like a What's What of mid-20th century British horror), while the film's autumnal B&W lensing, by John Wilcox, surely is a thing of stark beauty on its own. And "Hysteria" also boasts a marvelously jazzy score by the Australian composer Don Banks that goes far in abetting its atmosphere of escalating strangeness.

To be perfectly honest, "Hysteria" is not the type of picture that holds up well under scrutiny after the end credits role, and I'm not quite sure that the final resolution of the picture ties together all the many loose ends that we had been presented with, or explains all the outrageousness that had come before. (In that respect, it is a little like many of the "weird-menace" stories of 1930s pulp fiction, in which seemingly supernatural doings are ultimately explained in a mundane yet far-fetched manner that doesn't quite cover all the bases.) But while it is being experienced, the film is an absolutely captivating and riveting experience. "Hysteria" offers the viewer any number of fascinating scenes, including the one in which Chris first explores his new luxury pad; Chris' first meeting with the mysterious Denise; an extended flashback sequence that transpires in France, allowing us to see Chris before his accident and discover what type of man he really is (something of a swinging playboy he-man, if truth be told); and the picture's ultimate reveal, as all the characters' ulterior motivations come to the fore. It is a highly satisfying denouement, but as to whether or not Chris is vouchsafed a happy ending or not, don't expect me to say. "Hysteria" is not as cleverly plotted as "The Snorkel" and never rises to the scary heights of "Nightmare," but for what it is and for what it is trying to do, it does so very well; namely, present a truly disorienting experience in as artful and impactful a manner as possible. And the picture even manages to provide the viewer with the occasional chuckle; just witness the way that the elderly detective Hemmings keeps hesitating before saying the word "Smith," and the manner in which that private eye easily bests the American in a dukeout. Nice touches! This film kept me very well entertained and spellbound on a gloomy afternoon at home - the perfect accompaniment on a dismal October day - and thus gets my heartiest seal of approval. It is still another wonderful winner from the great House of Hammer....

The Haunting of Julia (1977)

The Least Of Mia's Big Three Horror Outings But Still Fun

[6 November 2022]

You've got to feel a little sorry for the characters that Los Angeles-born actress Mia Farrow portrayed in her three big horror outings of the late 1960s and early '70s. Her Rosemary Woodhouse, in the 1968 classic "Rosemary's Baby" - surely one of the classiest fright fests of that great decade - was not only set up by her husband and later knocked up by Old Scratch himself, but was later the unwitting deliverer of the son of Satan. In 1971's "See No Evil," Farrow played a character named only Sarah, a blind woman who is pursued by a maniacal killer. And in "The Haunting of Julia," she ... but more on this unfortunate character in just a moment.

"The Haunting of Julia," as it is known today, originally debuted in 1977 at Spain's San Sebastian International Film Festival sporting the perhaps more apropos title "Full Circle." The British-Canadian coproduction would then open the following year in those two countries but never played in the U. S. until 1981, when distributors apparently felt that by changing the film's title to "The Haunting of Julia," more box office dollars would be the result. The film was the first to be based on a book by Peter Straub - in this case his 1975 novel "Julia" - featured some A-list talent in front of the cameras and some sophisticated filmmaking talent behind them, certainly provided its fair share of creepy moments, and yet, for all that, would appear to be a somewhat forgotten and overlooked film today. Yes, it surely pales in comparison to the Roman Polanski film of 1968 - but then again, not too many horror films can hope to approach the greatness that is "Rosemary's Baby" - and is not even as nerve racking as Mia's underrated suspenser of 1971, but still has some interesting bits to offer to the discriminating horror fan looking for something offbeat.

In the film, Mia Farrow - looking precisely as she did in "Rosemary's Baby," short hair and all - plays the part of Julia Lofting, an American wife living in London. Julia has a pretty, blonde, 8-year-old daughter named Kate, as well as a handsome husband, Magnus (Cleveland-born actor Keir Dullea), with whom, we later learn, she does not get along. Tragedy strikes the Lofting household one morning when Kate chokes on her food while eating breakfast and begins to suffocate. Julia performs an emergency tracheostomy in order to save her daughter's life, resulting in Kate's unfortunate death. Julia, needless to say, is devastated by the tragedy, and spends some months in a hospital recovering from the shock of it. Once released, she decides to move into a fashionable Victorian townhouse and separate from her husband, and the viewer really can't blame her, as Magnus does come off as something of a cold-blooded fish, only interested in Julia for her money, and the fully furnished home that Julia moves into is certainly a stunner. But once ensconced therein, strange things begin to transpire to poor Julia. A heater in the building keeps turning on and off by itself. She repeatedly imagines seeing Kate outdoors, in playgrounds and elsewhere. A séance that she allows her sister-in-law Lily (British actress Jill Bennett, whose earlier horror credentials include 1965's "The Skull" and "The Nanny," and who would go on to appear, four years later, in the 007 blowout "For Your Eyes Only") to conduct in her living room results in the medium's panicked sighting of both a ghostly little girl and a spectral little boy in the home. Julia's only true friend, an antiques dealer named Mark Berkeley (the Scottish actor Tom Conti, here in his fourth film), tries to persuade Julia to move out of her new house, but she, for some obscure reason, and despite feeling that something is watching her there, decides to stay. Ultimately, Julia does a bit of amateur sleuthing and brings to light the 30-year-old tragedy that had resulted in her home's being the haunted abode that it is today; appropriately enough, the film's promotional poster showed a little blonde girl under the tagline "She had no one to play with for thirty years." But the spectre that haunts Julia's abode, as we see, is not merely a passive one, and before long, everyone in Julia's orbit begins to suffer some pretty horrendous demises...

"The Haunting of Julia," it must be said, is never all that frightening (unlike, say, the "dream" sequence in "Rosemary's Baby") and never even that grippingly suspenseful (as was surely the case in "See No Evil"); it is certainly never more horrifying than in that very first scene, when Kate chokes out her life while Julia stands by trembling in traumatic shock. And yet, the film does manage to offer up any number of eerie little moments. Among these: the gruesome fate of Magnus, as he explores Julia's apartment unannounced; Julia's repeated sightings of a little blonde girl outdoors; Julia's visit to Mrs. Rudge, a previous owner of her current home, and played by British actress Cathleen Nesbitt, here pushing 90 years old; and, of course, that shocking final scene, which has apparently been the cause of both debate and head-scratching puzzlement for many years now. As to that final stunning image, the viewer must wonder whether what happens to Julia at the tail end of the film was a deliberate act on her part, OR whether it was something that she merely allowed to happen to her, for reasons of her own. I tend to feel that the latter is the case here, that the ghosts in her household were indeed very real, and that Julia was happy at the end to be ... but perhaps I have already said too much. It is certainly not a happy ending, objectively speaking, and yet, for Julia, who knows?

The film, it must be added, looks just marvelous, and makes good use of its offbeat London locales. British director Richard Loncraine helms his picture with an eye toward maximum freakish effect, despite having not much in the way of objective frights to work with, while British screenwriter Harry Bromley Davenport, I would imagine, has done a fair job of adapting Straub's original (I'm only guessing here, actually, not having read that book). The picture's lensing, by Australian DOP Peter Hannan, looks just fine, but perhaps best of all is the film's wonderfully haunting score by Colin Towns, a fittingly childlike melody that might put some in mind, again, of the similar air to be found in "Rosemary's Baby." This earworm of a melody insinuates itself into the film and does go far in generating a creepy miasma. In his role of Magnus, Dullea, 41 here, is just fine, bringing a nasty edge to this greedy and overbearing character. Dullea, of course, was riding high at this point, having appeared in some true classics of the 1960s and early '70s, such as "David and Lisa" (1962), "Bunny Lake Is Missing" (1965), "The Fox" (1967), "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968), and the cult horror classic "Black Christmas" (1974). But this really is Mia's picture all the way, and she is just terrific in it, as she was in her other two horror outings. She is just ideal for these kinds of films, her gentle and doelike demeanor contrasting nicely with the terrible events that she is forced to endure. It is a pity that she did not do more of these kinds of films back when; she might have become one of the great "scream queens" of all time. Mia had been only 23 when she essayed the role of Rosemary Woodhouse back in 1968, and here, at 32, she comes across as a bit more womanly, although decidedly just as soft and fragile. She is the single best reason for making it a point to see this unusual horror experience one day.

Now, having said all that, I must confess that I really wanted to like "The Haunting of Julia" more than I did, and it is proving very difficult for me to understand just why I didn't have more fun with it. The script is a good one, the acting as professional as can be, the direction and cinematography and music everything that one could want, and yet ... somehow, the end result just doesn't add up to the sum of its many fine parts. Perhaps it is the fact that the film is just never scary enough, that its ending is ambiguous, and that its several homicides are never really all that shocking. When the scariest things about a horror movie are a botched tracheostomy (that is not even shown on screen, although I hear that this scene is more graphically depicted in other prints) and the bizarre look on a 90-year-old woman's mug, you know that something has gone amiss. This viewer has never been one to require blood and grue to satisfy a lust for cinematic kicks, but it would be nice to experience an occasional cold shiver down the spine during affairs such as this, and sad to say, "The Haunting of Julia" will provide those frissons for only the most inexperienced of viewers. I'm certainly not sorry to have seen it, especially to revel in another one of Mia Farrow's marvelous horror performances, but it really does come in third best among Mia's frightful offerings.

The Toll of the Sea (1922)

Watch It For Anna May

[7/10 · 5 July 2022]

"The Toll of the Sea" is an historically important film today for two reasons: It was one of the very first films to be shot in Technicolor, AND it was the very first film to feature Anna May Wong - the first Asian actress of importance in the Hollywood system - in a starring role. Wong, at this point, was only 17 years old and had already appeared briefly in two films, but in this one, she is very much the lead all the way, and looks far younger than you have probably ever seen her. Remarkably, she is able to dominate every scene that she appears in, which, happily, means that she is on screen for well over 95% of this feature's running time. Originally released in November 1922, some 100 years from the time of this writing, "The Toll of the Sea," with its dreamlike tone and fablelike feel, holds up very nicely today for modern viewers, despite its shortcomings, more of which in a moment.

In the film, Wong plays the part of Lotus Flower, a young woman in Hong Kong who one day finds an unconscious man who had washed ashore near her village. After the man is revived, we learn that his name is Allen Carver (Boston-born Kenneth Harlan, who would go on to appear in minor parts in countless films from 1917 to 1943), and that he is an American. The two fall in love remarkably quickly and marry in a Chinese ceremony, but when Carver is recalled home by some sort of family emergency, he decides not to take his new bride with him. Back in the U. S., Carver manages to quickly forget all about his Chinese wife as he falls anew under the charms of his childhood sweetheart, Elsie (Beatrice Bentley). Several years pass by, and while Carver and Elsie have married, Lotus Flower pines away for his return, having already given birth to his son (one of the cutest kids you will ever see on film, and played by 5-year-old Priscilla Moran ... yes, a girl). But dramatic trouble arises when Elsie convinces Carver, the turdish cad, to return to Lotus Flower and apprise her of his new marital status. The despondent Lotus Flower is elated when she hears of Carver's return, thinking that he has come back to her to stay. But a double tragedy looms when the full facts become known....

And that's pretty much it. Yes, the film is a short one, with a running time of just 53 minutes, but fortunately, there is absolutely no flab whatsoever to be had. As a matter of fact, one of the primary faults of the film is that the story line, by Frances Marion, is inadequately fleshed out, and the viewer cannot help but feel that the picture might have benefited from an extra 15 minutes of running time. We never do learn just why Carver had washed up on shore - was it a shipwreck, a boating accident or what? - and the early romance between the American and Lotus Flower is so ridiculously brief that they seem to have fallen in love and gotten married immediately after having met. We never learn what Carver does for a living, or what his relationship is to the men who advise him to leave his new Chinese bride behind. The intertitles in the print that I just watched - the one that was restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive, and shown on TCM recently - are barely adequate, and the music, for the most part, is woefully inappropriate; almost distractingly so! One gets the sense that with a better musical backdrop, and a more fleshed-out screenplay, this film, as directed by Chester M. Franklin, might have been some kind of genuine silent classic, instead of the historic curio that it remains. A pity.

And yet, for all that, "The Toll of the Sea" remains eminently watchable, largely due to Anna May's magnetism and charisma. She truly makes for a sweet and pitiable presence in this film, although modern-day women will probably be pulling their collective hair out at her character's timidity and noble sacrifices. Wong would later play characters who were much more forceful and who showed a lot more grit and spunk, such as in 1932's "Shanghai Express" (still one of this viewer's personal favorite films) and 1937's "Daughter of Shanghai," in which Wong actually portrays a secret agent of sorts battling smugglers. Modern-day audiences will also be happy to learn that the primitive Technicolor process employed in the making of this film looks just fine, and that the flesh tones appear perfect. Shot exclusively outdoors, the film is often a joy to look at, and the many scenes filmed in gardens and at the seashore are a wonder to behold. So those viewers who are averse to watching a silent film because of its scratchy-looking B&W images will have no excuse for not sitting down with this particular outing, although they will surely (and understandably) complain about the film's dearth of intertitles. The bottom line, I suppose, is that the picture is of course a must-watch for all fans of Anna May Wong - surely one of the most fascinating players in the history of Hollywood film - as well as for all film buffs with an abiding interest in the history of the medium.

Gorgo (1961)

Mother And Child Reunion?

[8/10 · 31 August 2021]

Although the Russian-born French filmmaker Eugene Lourie has dozens and dozens of credits to his name as a production designer and art director, it is for the three "giant monster" films that he directed in the early '50s to early '60s that he is probably best remembered today. I have already written here about the first of that trio, "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" (1953), which, thanks largely to the incredible stop-motion special effects provided by Ray Harryhausen, remains to this day my favorite monster movie of all time, and one that I have watched on dozens of occasions. I have also written here of Lourie's second dinosaur extravaganza, "The Giant Behemoth" (1959), which, even as a kid, I found to be second rate as compared to The Beast, featuring as it does stop-motion effects by the great Willis "King Kong" O'Brien that strangely come off as clunky and unconvincing. I had not seen this one in many years until fairly recently, and my opinion of the film remains the same as when I was a kid. And then there is the third film of that trio, "Gorgo," which I retained very fond memories of, although I had not been able to watch the film in a good {mumble mutter} decades. But I am here to tell you that I have finally caught up with this beloved kiddy favorite again, and that it has charmed me anew. Originally released in March '61 here in the U. S., and seven months later in its country of origin, the U. K., the movie was filmed in color, unlike those other two, and at a cost of a respectable $650K ... more than three times the budget that was necessary to bring the Beast to the screen. Again unlike the first two films, the monsters this time were brought to life not via stop-motion techniques, but rather with the "man in a suit" expedient that had featured in the "Gojira" film of seven years earlier. Still, the results are completely winning.

The film introduces us to the captain of a salvage ship, Joe Ryan (English actor Bill Travers, whose experiences while working on the 1966 film "Born Free" would lead him to become an animal rights activist), whose crew has been diving for possible items of value in sunken ships off the Irish coast when we first encounter him. He and his first mate, Sam Slade (American actor William Sylvester, who many will recall as Dr. Heywood Floyd in the 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey"), along with the other men, are astounded when an undersea volcano erupts not too far off their port side, stirring up the waters for miles around and damaging their craft. The men put into the lonely Irish island called Nara to effect repairs, where they meet a young lad named Sean (Scottish child actor Vincent Winter, 11 years old here, who would go on to a career in film himself as a production manager before passing away prematurely in 1998, at the age of 50), the assistant to the surly harbormaster. Trouble soon looms on the island when several local fishermen go missing; one of them is eventually found in the nearby waters, having died of shock. And before very long, the cause is revealed: a gigantic amphibious dinosaur that has been belched up from beneath the bottom of the ocean by that volcanic blast, and which wastes little time in attacking the villagers. The creature is caught by Ryan and Slade using steel nets (following a diving-bell hunt that might bring to mind the much more effective one in "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms") and hauled up on deck. The two resolve to bring the creature back to London and make a fortune by displaying it to the world, much against young Sean's wishes. But soon enough, the creature, which the owner of Dorkin's Circus, Dorkin himself (Martin Benson, who many may recognize as Mr. Solo in the 1964 film "Goldfinger"), has dubbed Gorgo (a nod to the Gorgon of Greek myth), is put on display in a sunken pit, to the delight of sellout audiences. But trouble again looms when two Irish scientists, who had wanted to study the creature, inform Capt. Ryan that they have determined that Gorgo, despite its size, is merely a baby, a fact leading to the inevitable conclusion that its parent might be out there somewhere ... and mighty ticked off by its absence! And sure enough, that parent (which generations of viewers have assumed is Gorgo's mother, although there is really every possibility that the 200-foot-tall monstrosity is actually its Dad) eventually does show up, kicking butt on the British navy in mid-ocean, and fighting its way up the Thames and into the heart of London itself, to get Junior back...

Seen largely from a child's POV and boasting as lovely a theme song as might be imagined - a sea chanty type of melody that will stick in your head for days and that was written by Italian composer Angelo Lavagnino, who also has some 200+ other film credits to boast of - "Gorgo," if not the best film of the beastly trio, is easily the most charming one of the lot. It almost operates as a fairy tale of sorts, and its winning story line featuring a parent's love for its child is one that anyone will be able to appreciate. Unlike the Beast and the Behemoth, the monsters here are either a scared and abused youngster or a desperate and vengeful parent; tellingly, unlike the monsters in the first two films, the ones here are deservingly victorious by the film's end, and manage to survive all that modern-day man can throw against them. The film's script, by Robert L. Richards (who had cowritten that great Western of 1950, "Winchester '73") and Daniel James, gives us a chance to get to know our two (human) leads, as well as the young Sean, and thus we can empathize with all of them ... even with Ryan, who, by the film's end, acknowledges to Sam that he had made a terrible mistake in bringing Gorgo back to civilization.

Of course, any giant monster movie lives and dies on the strength of its monsters themselves, and in this regard, Gorgo does not disappoint. Yes, the creatures here, being just men in rubber suits, move a bit clunkily and look patently phony (unlike the Beast, who, thanks to Harryhausen's genius, came off as a genuine, living and breathing monstrosity), but they are charming (there's that word again) constructs nevertheless, and when filmed against some of the picture's pyrotechnic backdrops, look fairly intimidating. I just love the shot of Mama/Papa advancing on Piccadilly Circus, the sky a crimson red from all the nearby conflagrations. That parent really does get to tear up the area, too, in fairly spectacular fashion, and the sight of both the Tower Bridge and Big Ben being pulled down to bits are brought off very well indeed. Actually, the entire final third of the film is comprised of one long sequence of destruction, in which Gorgo's parental unit gets to sink a Naval cruiser, withstand electrified netting, shrug off missile attacks and gunfire, walk through sheets of flame, and make its way into the heart of London itself, as it wends its way up the river to the circus in Battersea Park. It is a wonderful sequence, replete with the inevitable fleeing crowds, tumbling masonry, and general pandemonium; hugely entertaining viewing for both the kiddies and the adults in the audience. These scenes of chaos and destruction are immensely aided by the contributions of English special effects wizard Tom Howard (who would go on to work on both "2001" and one of my favorite horror films of the next decade, 1973's "The Legend of Hell House") as well as master cinematographer Freddie Young (who would serve as director of photography on the gorgeously shot "Lawrence of Arabia" the following year, and then on such screen classics as '65's "Doctor Zhivago" and '67's "You Only Live Twice"). And that final scene, the one in which parent and child are reunited and then walk off, is simply wonderful; although it had been many decades, this viewer had never forgotten Sean's final words, as that charming melody swells: "They're going back now ... back to the sea..."

Okay, I have to admit, perhaps I am looking at "Gorgo" the film through a veil of fond childhood nostalgia, which tends to distort my objective viewpoint. Kids today above the age of 10 might snort with derision at the picture's FX, which admittedly cannot compare to the ones they might take for granted in this age of Transformers and Marvel superheroes. Still, I can't help thinking that even they might be charmed by the film's overall aura, by its fast-moving story line, and by its bravura spectacle. Kids today might also be pleased at the fact that, like the Beast and unlike the Behemoth, Gorgo makes its first appearance in the film within the first 20 minutes; no sitting around waiting for the monster to show up already! "Gorgo" the film is not the work of cinematic art that "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" will always be, nor could it possibly be as influential, but it sure is a lot of fun to watch today ... whether you're a kiddy like Gorgo itself, or a full-grown adult, like Gorgo's gender-indeterminate parent. Highly recommended for one and all!

Captive Wild Woman (1943)

Lions And Tigers And Cheela ...Oh, My!

[7/10 · 23 August 2021]

1942 had been a very good year for the Universal horror film, with the releases of "The Ghost of Frankenstein," "Invisible Agent," "Night Monster" and "The Mummy's Tomb," and as 1943 began, and America entered what was very possibly the bleakest year of the WW2 era, the studio continued to pump out scarifying entertainments for its audiences. In March of that year, "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man" was released; June saw the premiere of "Captive Wild Woman," the first film in what would eventually be a trilogy; August saw the studio's rendition of "The Phantom of the Opera"; October would witness the opening of "Son of Dracula"; and November would see the studio's release of "The Mad Ghoul." (December '42, I might add, was also the month in which producer Val Lewton, at rival studio RKO, began to offer the public his own brand of unique horror films, starting with "Cat People" and continuing into 1943 with "I Walked With a Zombie," "The Leopard Man," "The Seventh Victim" and "The Ghost Ship" ... a serious challenge to Universal's dominance in the horror market.) Of that Universal quintet, "Captive Wild Woman" was the one that this viewer had never seen before, and since the film stars two of the preeminent horror players of that decade, Evelyn Ankers and John Carradine, it was with great anticipation that I recently plopped the DVD in to watch at home. And while the film did not, unfortunately, quite live up to my expectations of greatness, it yet proved to be more than an entertaining experience.

The film introduces us to wild-animal hunter and trainer Fred Mason (Milburn Stone, who most will recognize as Doc Adams on TV's "Gunsmoke," but who also appeared in "The Mad Ghoul"; this film's sequel of the following year, "Jungle Woman"; and 45's "The Frozen Ghost"), who has just returned from a two-year trip to Africa. He is greeted on the docks by his girlfriend, pretty blonde Beth Colman (Universal star Evelyn Ankers, the Chilean-born British-American actress who was perhaps the foremost "scream queen" of the '40s, and who would ultimately appear in such horror fests as '41's "Hold That Ghost" and "The Wolfman"; "The Ghost of Frankenstein"; '43's "Son of Dracula," "The Mad Ghoul" and "Weird Woman"; '44's "The Invisible Man's Revenge"; as well as "The Frozen Ghost"), who gives him the sad news that her sister Dorothy (Martha Vickers, perhaps best known to filmgoers from her role in the 1946 film noir classic "The Big Sleep") has recently been suffering from some kind of glandular disorder and been sent to the gloomy old pile known as the Crestview Sanatorium. This hospital is run by a cadaverous and mustachioed gentleman named Sigmund Walters (Carradine, whose other Universal credits that decade would include "The Invisible Man's Revenge," '44's "The Mummy's Ghost" and "House of Frankenstein," and '45's "House of Dracula"; he would play the Count himself in those last two films). While Fred gets down to the business of training his new animals at Whipple's Circus, owned by the gruff but lovable Fred Whipple (Lloyd Corrigan, who would appear in Universal's "She-Wolf of London" three years later), Dr. Walters gets down to his own less-wholesome business: that of using the glandular secretions of various animals to change living matter into whatever shape and arrangement he devises!

After stealing an enormous gorilla named Cheela from the Whipple Circus (and murdering the poor sap who had done the job for him), he injects Dorothy's glandular secretions into the brute, and transforms the ape into ... something else. When his pretty assistant, Nurse Strand (Fay Helm, who had appeared the previous year in both "Night Monster" and "The Wolf Man"), objects to the proceedings, saying that the doctor has gone too far, and that the new creature might look like a human being but will always be a wild animal, the doctor kills her outright and transplants her brain into Cheela's noggin. Thus, the wild gorilla is transformed into a beautiful brunette whom the doctor introduces to his friends at the circus as Paula Dupree (and played by the South Carolina-born actress Acquanetta, nee Mildred Davenport, who would go on to be dubbed, for some strange reason, "The Venezuelan Volcano" and who would appear in Universal's "Jungle Woman" and "Dead Man's Eyes" the next year). Paula seems to have a tranquilizing effect on the lions and tigers that Fred is endeavoring to train, and is thus hired by Whipple to stand by in case of trouble. But trouble looms when Paula, who never speaks a single word, becomes jealous of the loving relationship between Fred and Beth. In a rage, she begins to revert back to her ape form, and later, in some bizarre-looking hybrid form of gorilla and woman, goes to Beth's bedroom at night to kill...

Now, in a film that purports to be one of horror, "Captive Wild Woman" unfortunately only boasts a few scenes that might be deemed even remotely scary. The scene just mentioned above, in which the half-reverted Paula creeps into Beth's bedroom at night, is surely one of them, to which I might add the scenes of Mason getting into the cage with those big cats. And indeed, this film features some of the nastiest-looking tigers and lions that you have ever seen ("pretty vicious looking," Walters rightfully opines of them), which Mason endeavors to train with whip, pistol and chair. These scenes comprise a good bit of the running time of the film (which I believe only runs to a brief 60 minutes) but are absolutely riveting. Of course, Milburn Stone would never have consented to get within 100 feet of those vicious animals, and so professional animal tamer Clyde Beatty stands in for the actor in the film's long shots; sadly, the insertions of Beatty for Stone are more than a little obvious. But other than that, the film does not offer much in the way of frights.

Still, it has plenty enough to offer. Ankers, for one, has rarely looked more gorgeous, and her character here is both levelheaded and spunky. Carradine makes for a wonderfully hissable villain, and Cheela the gorilla is surely an imposing-looking creation. The big ape is here played by Ray "Crash" Corrigan, the professional stuntman and actor who, utilizing his own gorilla costumes, played a giant ape in around two dozen films, including "Tarzan and His Mate" ('34) and the wonderful "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla" ('52), and who is also fondly remembered for portraying the title monster in the 1958 sci-fi classic "It! The Terror From Beyond Space." The film has been helmed in a very streamlined manner by Canadian director Edward Dmytryk, who had given us the wonderful Boris Karloff film "The Devil Commands" in '41, and who would later be responsible for such classic film noirs as "Murder, My Sweet" ('44), "Cornered" ('45), "Crossfire" ('47), and "The Sniper" ('52), as well as such cinematic classics as "The Caine Mutiny" ('54), "Raintree County" ('57), "The Young Lions" ('58) and "Walk on the Wild Side" ('62). The film's screenplay by Griffin Jay (who was responsible for such Universal films as '40's "The Mummy's Hand," '42's "The Mummy's Tomb," and "The Mummy's Ghost") does not waste our time with nonessentials, and the film's lensing, by cinematographer George Robinson (who would ultimately leave his mark on such Universal creations as '39's "Son of Frankenstein," "The Mummy's Tomb," "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man," "Son of Dracula," '44's "House of Frankenstein," "House of Dracula," and the world's foremost camp classic, '44's "Cobra Woman"), is often a thing of genuine beauty, most particularly the nighttime shots.

And yet, despite the solid acting contributions by the film's players, and the more-than-professional talents of the picture's filmmakers, "Captive Wild Woman" remains at best a minor installment in the Universal horror canon, and it is difficult to believe that such a lesser film would spawn no fewer than two sequels. In the first sequel, "Jungle Woman," Ankers and Acquanetta return, but the latter this time portrays an ape woman named not Cheela, but Cheena. In the third film of the series, 1945's "Jungle Captive," Paula is portrayed by an actress named Vicky Lane, who this viewer has not previously encountered. Word on the street has it that both of these sequels are even lesser films than the original, which I am telling you here is nothing to get overly excited about to begin with. Still, as a Universal horror completist, I would certainly be interested in catching up with them one day. I am particularly interested in seeing the gorgeous Ankers in another of her featured roles, and am curious to see whether or not Acquanetta gets to have a single word of dialogue in the second film. To be fair, though, hers is a compelling presence in "Captive Wild Woman," without a single word of dialogue to her credit. And she might just have the nicest pair of legs (excuse me ... in '40s parlance, that would be "gams") that you have seen on screen in a very long time ... a special effect in their own right! Indeed, the sight of Acquanetta in her minidress might just make any male in the audience cry into the night like a howler monkey himself!

Night Monster (1942)

The Silence Of The Frogs

[8/10 · 4 August 2021]

1941 had been a very good year for the Universal horror film, during which time the studio released "Man-Made Monster," "Horror Island" and "The Black Cat" in the spring, and the eternal glory that is "The Wolf Man" in early December. And as America geared up for war at the beginning of 1942, the studio continued to crank out impeccably crafted horror films to entertain the masses. March would see the release of the fourth film in its Frankenstein franchise, "The Ghost of Frankenstein"; July would feature the well-nigh-forgotten picture "Invisible Agent" (a very loose "Invisible Man" sequel); and October would witness the release of two new films, "Night Monster" and "The Mummy's Tomb" (the third of six Mummy films from the studio!). The only one of those four that was not part of a Universal franchise, "Night Monster" was one that this viewer had never previously seen before, and it was with great anticipation that I recently plopped it into my DVD player at home. I had very high hopes for this particular picture, starring as it does two of Universal's greatest horror icons, Bela Lugosi (who had already appeared in some two dozen horror outings for Universal since Dracula in '31) and Lionel Atwill (the great English actor who had already appeared in Universal's "Mystery of the Wax Museum" in '33, "Son of Frankenstein" in '39, "Man-Made Monster" and "The Ghost of Frankenstein," and who would go on to appear in "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man" in '43 and "House of Frankenstein" in '44). And it also featured Irene Hervey, whose work I had previously only enjoyed in one of my favorite TV programs of the '60s, "Honey West," playing Aunt Meg, and in a very small role in Clint Eastwood's wonderful horror film, '71's "Play Misty for Me" (one of this viewer's all-time faves), and who I had long wanted to see in something more vintage. So yes, my hopes were very high for this one. And as it turns out, the film did not disappoint.

And yet, as it turns out, although Bela Lugosi and Lionel Atwill are the top-billed actors in this film, they are actually relegated to fairly minor roles in it. The film introduces us to the residents of an elegant yet creepy abode called Ingston Towers, which stands hard by a foggy and frog-infested swamp. In the house we find its owner, Curt Ingston (Ralph Morgan, the look-alike brother of Frank "The Wizard of Oz" Morgan), a quadriplegic with completely paralyzed arms and legs; his sister Margaret (Fay Helm, who had appeared in "The Wolf Man" and would, in '43, be featured in Universal's "Captive Wild Woman"), who may or may not be insane; Agar Singh (Swedish actor Nils Asther here portraying a man from India), who is teaching Curt the mind secrets of the Far East; Mrs. Judd (Doris Lloyd, whose filmography extends all the way back to the '20s); Lawrie the chauffeur (Leif Erickson, who many may recall as the Dad from '53's "Invaders From Mars"), a leering and licentious sort who seems to hit on every female he comes across, including old Mrs. Judd (!); Rolf the butler (our Bela); the crusty and treacherous gateman Torque (Cyril Delavanti, who would also appear in "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man," '43's "Son of Dracula" and '44's "The Invisible Man's Revenge," and whose work I recently enjoyed in several episodes of the great '60s anthology show "The Twilight Zone"); and pretty blonde Millie, the maid (Janet Shaw, who also appeared in "The Mummy's Tomb" that month and would be featured in Universal's "House of Horrors" four years later), who flees the house to report some terrible goings-on there to the law and is soon found dead, strangled, in the nearby swamp. And the household soon grows even more populated when the three doctors who Curt blames for his present condition are summoned to the house. Those medical men are Dr. King (Lionel Atwill), Dr. Timmons (Frank Reicher, here practically unrecognizable as Capt. Englehorn from the classic "King Kong" of a decade earlier), and Dr. Phipps (Francis Pierlot). Coincidentally, another doctor has just been summoned to the abode, one Dr. Lynn Harper (beautiful Irene Hervey, 33 here), a psychiatrist who has been desperately called in by the lunatic (?) Margaret. And to round out this cast of characters, also appearing on the scene is a horror writer and friendly neighbor of the Ingstons, Dick Baldwin (Don Porter, who would be seen in Universal's "She-Wolf of London" four years later), and the crusty police captain investigating Millie's murder, Beggs (Robert Homans). With these dozen disparate sorts under one roof, an uncomfortable dinner is gone through, after which Singh demonstrates one of his uncanny abilities, materializing an ancient Greek skeleton from its tomb, from thousands of miles away! But this parlor game turns far more serious when the three male doctors start turning up dead in their respective bedchambers, strangled like Millie, and with a strange pool of blood found next to each of them! Who could the crazed killer be?!?!

"Night Monster," as might be expected, looks just great in beautiful B&W and is well played by its large and professional cast of players. The fact that Lugosi is given a smallish part to play - and a fairly nonsinister one at that, although Millie is quite correct in pointing out that he "looks like something you'd find under a wet rock" - and the fact that Atwill is the very first doctor to get snuffed out, do not work against the film's favor, happily, and it turns out that there are a lot of other things to enjoy in it. The film is often quite eerie, and features at least three exceptionally well-done scenes: the one in which the frogs that infest the nearby swamp stop croaking suddenly, immediately before the attack on Millie; the suddenly advancing shadow that obscures the camera lens as Timmons is attacked; and the revelation of the titular "night monster" at the end, a major surprise that few viewers will see coming. (And speaking of "eerie," I would like to say a quick word on the character of Lawrie making lustful passes at not only the young and pretty women in the film, such as Millie and Dr. Harper, but also at the older Mrs. Judd. At first blush, the character's attempt to seduce the much older woman strikes the viewer as a bit, uh, icky, but on further consideration, I decided that the film was actually being quite PC and ahead of its time in this regard, recognizing the fact that a hunky and virile man might indeed find a much more mature and "over the hill" woman an object of his prurient fancy. I cannot recall, offhand, another film of the era in which this obvious fact is so taken for granted. So additional points to "Night Monster" for this slight but unusual bit of business!) The film's conclusion is admittedly a bit far-fetched and hard to swallow, but not enough so to torpedo what is otherwise a very fine horror outing. Director Ford Beebe, who had previously helmed those wonderful Flash Gordon serials in the '30s, and then the Universal serial "The Phantom Creeps" ('39) and "The Invisible Man's Revenge," does a wonderful job here at keeping things moving along briskly (the entire film runs to a streamlined 73 minutes), and the camera work of cinematographer Charles Van Enger (who would go on to shoot the greatest horror-comedy of all time, Universal's "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein," in '48) really is a thing of artful beauty here. Van Enger makes great use of the film's many outdoor nighttime locales, the fog-shrouded swamp becoming a thing of ghostly beauty via his lens. And the cameraman makes the scene in which Lynn and Dick discuss their mutual concerns in a dark, candlelit room an instance of almost noirish intensity. Throughout the film, the use of light and shadow is meticulously well designed, giving the entire affair a creepy miasma that it would surely not have enjoyed without it. The film builds nicely to a bravura and flaming finale, when one of the characters utters the fateful and memorable words "...It was inevitable. A little knowledge of the occult is dangerous. Unless it's used for good, disaster will follow its wake. That is cosmic law..." So yes, though it is seldom discussed today and surely remains only a minor product of the great Universal horror factory, "Night Monster" still has much to offer to the modern-day viewer. It is seldom outright scary, but as mentioned, does yet sport three or four well-done scenes of fright. The film would be perfect fare to watch with your favorite 10-year-old nephew, who might get a kick out of the spooky swamp scenes and the outrageous and unbelievable monster to be seen at the film's tail end. And of course, it is essential viewing for all completists of the horror greats Bela Lugosi and Lionel Atwill, and for those who wish to see what lovely Irene Hervey was all about in her youthful prime....

Horror Island (1941)

A Rum Time On Morgan's Island

[6/10 · 15 July 2021]

Just recently, I had some words to say about the Universal horror movie "Man-Made Monster," a rather pleasing little film that featured some top-notch special effects and is primarily remembered today for the debut horror role of the great Lon Chaney, Jr. The film was first released on March 28, 1941, along with the expected cartoons, trailers, news reel, film shorts and heaven knows what else; the crowds surely got their 15 cents' worth back when! But also on that same bill, 80 years ago as of this writing, was yet another Universal horror film, one that featured little in the way of effects, and one that is virtually forgotten today. That second film on the fright bill was "Horror Island," and my recent, first-time watch has revealed the picture to be a somewhat silly, lighthearted horror comedy that just barely manages to entertain the adult viewer. Unlike "Man-Made Monster," the film is fairly undistinguished but yet gets a passing grade largely due to its likeable cast of second-tier actors, a zippy pace, and a screenplay that wastes little time with unnecessaries. Perhaps more suitable for younger viewers, the film is on a frightening par with such exercises as Abbott and Costello's "Hold That Ghost" (which was released four months later), in which the laffs dominate the shudders but entertainment value rules.

In the film, the viewer is introduced to the impecunious Bill Martin (the always-ingratiating Dick Foran, who had already appeared in the Universal horror film "The Mummy's Hand" in 1940, and would later be seen in "The Mummy's Tomb" in 1942), who operates a small vessel called the Skiddoo. He and his sidekick, Stuff Oliver (Fuzzy Knight, a character actor whose filmography includes around 180 films, mainly Westerns), are seemingly perpetually in debt and evading their creditors. Bill also happens to be the owner of a small island that had once been the hideout of the 17th century Welsh pirate Sir Henry Morgan, and so when a peg-legged seaman named Tobias Clump (Leo Carrillo, whose other 1940s horror credits would include '43's "Phantom of the Opera" and '44's "Ghost Catchers") arrives at his boat one day with a treasure map, and claims that this map shows the location of a hidden horde on that very island, Bill is understandably intrigued. (And by the way, in case you were wondering just where in the U. S. of A. Morgan's Island is located, and thus where this film is set, the answer is ... well, actually, I don't have a clue. One might expect this pirate of the Caribbean to have had a hideout somewhere in that area, but the setting of the film never quite evinces a Southern feel whatsoever.) A local expert on maps and surveying, Jasper Quinley (Hobart Cavanaugh), insists that the map is a phony, but the three men are undaunted. To raise money, Martin hatches the scheme of making a tourist destination of his island, and giving a mock treasure-seeking tour of the 400-year-old castle on that site. The film spends 25 minutes of its 60-minute running time in gathering together the 10 individuals who will go via the Skiddoo over to the island, including Bill, Stuff and Tobias, naturally; pretty socialite Wendy Creighton (Iowa-born actress Peggy Moran, who, like Foran, had appeared in "The Mummy's Hand" and "The Mummy's Tomb"!) and her drunken cousin Thurman Coldwater (Lewis Howard, whose filmography is a short one, due to his suicide, at 32, in 1951); Jasper Quinley, who decides to tag along at the last moment; Bill's cousin George (John Eldredge, who would appear in Universal's "The Black Cat" just a month later), who had earlier tried to convince Bill to sell the island to him; oafish policeman Sgt. McGoon (Walter Catlett, who would also appear in "Ghost Catchers" three years later), along for the ride in order to arrest Bill for false advertising; and husband-and-wife bank robbers Rod Grady (Ralf Harolde, from 1945's "The Phantom Speaks") and Arlene (Iris Adrian, a tough-talking dame in the Mayo Methot/Glenda Farrell mold), just hitching a ride on the Skiddoo in order to evade the authorities. And oh...there is one more personage who arrives at the island: a mysterious figure known only as The Phantom (Foy Van Dolsen, whose entire filmography consists of a bare dozen films), a bizarrely visaged man wearing a black fedora and cape, a la The Shadow, who had previously stolen half of Tobias' treasure map and has been making assassination attempts on Bill & Co. Once arrived at their destination, Tobias does his best to find that darned treasure with his half of the map, while Bill and Stuff endeavor to entertain the others with phony scares, and while The Phantom begins to knock off the others, "Ten Little Indians" style, in order to eliminate the competition. But as will be seen, The Phantom is not the only source of worry that our heroes will have to contend with...

"Horror Island" only lives up to its chilling title in one brief sequence, unfortunately, in which The Phantom sneaks into Wendy's room while she lies in her bed in the gloomy castle. We see his shadowed form, talons outstretched, on the bedroom wall, and it is a most arresting image, indeed. Wendy awakes, opens her eyes, and sees the leering face of this bizarre character staring down at her, resulting in this heretofore cool and snappy modern woman emitting a bloodcurdling shriek of terror. It is a marvelous moment in a film that is otherwise a bit too lighthearted for this viewer's taste. For the rest of it, the film dishes out the expected creepy-castle set pieces: secret panels, a torture chamber, a suit of armor that falls and almost crushes one of the characters, a crossbow that fires a harpoon seemingly of its own volition, a sleepwalker, a pitfall and other booby traps, trick bookcases and so on. But if the film is hardly ever chilling, it is at least ingratiating and likeable, moving along briskly and with purpose. Director George Waggner, who had also helmed "Man-Made Monster" and would later that same year direct the eternal glory that is "The Wolf Man," brings his film home in a superefficient manner, and the screenplay, by Maurice Tombragel (48's "The Creeper") and Victor McLeod ('43's "The Phantom"), is a brisk and no-nonsense one. (The art of bringing in a film with a running time of just 60 minutes is a seemingly lost one, but then again, not too many modern-day filmgoers would be willing to spend $17 for just a one-hour movie!) And the film itself looks pretty terrific, having been shot in beautiful B&W by British ace cinematographer Elwood Bredell, whose other horror credits include "The Mummy's Hand," "The Invisible Woman" (1940), "Man-Made Monster" and "The Ghost of Frankenstein" (1942), and who also shot such film noir classics as "Phantom Lady" (1944) and "The Killers" (1946). Brought in for a cost of a mere $93K, "Horror Island" looks a lot better than might be expected, thanks largely to this team of pros. Waggner and Bredell make wonderful use of close-up images, and the film's nighttime scenes are often quite striking to behold. (I particularly like the image of The Phantom fleeing down the streets of the harbor area in which Bill has his boat moored, with his cape flowing behind his back as he scurries back into the shadows.)

As for the rest of it, the film is often quite funny, much of the humor being supplied by Carrillo's apoplectic seaman character, sporting an outrageous accent (French?); by Fuzzy's sidekick shtick; by cousin Thurman's ability to drunkenly fall asleep no matter what is going on around him; and by the snappy patter between Foran and Moran...patter that often seems as if it had been lifted straight out of a screwball comedy; you know, the kind of persiflage that was on display between Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in 1940's "His Girl Friday." The film also offers up a secondary killer, as I inferred above, and my advice would be to not even try to guess the identity of that homicidal maniac; trust me, you'll never see the big reveal coming! Also fun is the fact that one of the killers has a habit of writing taunting messages on the walls of the castle after perpetrating each murder; words like "9 Left," "8 Left" and "7 Left," as the number of characters left alive begins to dwindle. So yes, "Horror Castle" manages to conflate Agatha Christie's novel "And Then There Were None" (which had just been released in the U. S. the year before) with horror elements such as a haunted castle, as well as a treasure hunt, mixing in comedy and noirish photography to create one fast-moving mélange of a movie. So even if the film is not one of Universal's classic horror films, and certainly not one of its more chilling, it yet remains worthy of a rediscovery by modern audiences, who might find it perfect fare to watch with their little ones. Trust me, for an 8-year-old, this film will likely prove as memorable as can be!

Man Made Monster (1941)

High-Tension Thrills

[8/10 · 7 June 2021]

In the 1956 film "Indestructible Man," the great Lon Chaney, Jr. Portrayed a character named Butcher Benton, who is sent to the gas chamber after a botched robbery but is later brought back to life by a mad-scientist type who supercharges his body with 300,000 volts of juice. Benton is thus turned into the seemingly unkillable creation of the title, with skin impervious to bullets and even to a bazooka blast. But as many filmgoers have known for decades, this was not the first time that Chaney had played a character who was dosed with an abundance of electricity and turned into a kind of supercreation. Fifteen years earlier, we find Chaney, in his very first horror picture, playing a similar role, but with far more impressive and artistic results. The film, "Man Made Monster" (the lack of a hyphen is annoying), was initially released as part of a double feature in March '41 along with another picture from Universal Studios, "Horror Island," both of which were directed by George Waggner and both of which, curiously enough, clock in at a remarkably streamlined 60 minutes. A recent viewing has just revealed to me what a wonderfully efficient and impressive horror outing "Man Made Monster" is; still another hugely entertaining creation from Universal.

In the film, we witness a horrendous bus accident, in which the speeding vehicle crashes into a utility pole and results in the death by electrocution of the driver and all aboard ... all except one Dan McCormick (Chaney), who has somehow miraculously survived. Interviewed in the hospital, Dan reveals that he is a carnival worker; a performer of a phony electrical act under the guise of Dynamo Dan, the Electrical Man. Visiting professor of electrobiology (yes, that is apparently an actual science!) Dr. John Lawrence (Samuel S. Hinds, whose filmography extends all the way back to 1926) speculates that Dan might have thus acquired some sort of immunity to electricity as a result, and invites Dan to his home to study his reactions to various small doses of juice. Dan, a friendly and outgoing sort, and now out of work, readily accepts the offer, and thus meets the other members of Lawrence's household: his pretty niece June (Massachusetts-born actress Anne Nagel, whose other horror credits include 1940's "Black Friday" and "The Invisible Woman," and 1942's "The Mad Doctor of Market Street" and "The Mad Monster"); the adorable mutt Corky; and the handsome but sinister Dr. Paul Rigas (horror mainstay Lionel Atwill), who is currently working on his own project: namely, using electricity to create a race of beings who will thrive on nothing but voltage and be subservient to his will. Also stopping by at the mansion frequently is snoopy reporter Mark Adams (Frank Albertson), out for a story and also attempting to court pretty June Lawrence. And if June is used in this film as the voice of common sense and reason, then Adams might be seen as its primary source of humor; as he says of Dr. Rigas upon first meeting him, "I'll bet he spent his childhood sticking pins in butterflies"! Anyway, all goes well at first, with Dan settling happily into his life in the Lawrence household, until Rigas decides that he is the perfect test specimen for his experiments, and begins charging him with increasingly heavy doses of electricity. Ultimately, Dan becomes almost like a junkie for the stuff, requiring more and more doses to stay healthy and active, and becoming lethargic and weak as those doses wear off. Finally, after a particularly heavy final treatment, Dan becomes so supercharged with juice that he positively glows with electrical force, and is a virtual slave to Rigas' will. The mad scientist orders Dan to kill Dr. Lawrence, which he does, admitting to the crime under Rigas' further dictates. And so, the state has no option but to find poor Dan guilty, and - you guessed it - send him to the chair! But how do you electrocute a man who positively thrives on electricity, and who can then electrocute others with the merest touch?

"Man Made Monster," it strikes me, has three main selling points that put the film way over the top and help to make it a winning affair. First, and of great importance for me, is the wonderfully moody B&W lensing by ace cinematographer Elwood Bredell, whose horror and film noir credits would ultimately include "The Mummy's Hand" ('40), "The Invisible Woman," "Horror Island," "Hold That Ghost" ('41), "The Ghost of Frankenstein" ('42), "Phantom Lady" ('44) and "The Killers" ('46). Bredell takes especial care here with his use of light and shadow, especially in the nighttime and laboratory sequences, resulting in a film that is wonderful to behold. Another primary selling point here are the absolutely first-rate special effects on display, courtesy of (the uncredited) John P. Fulton. The electrical effects in those laboratory scenes are most impressive; just get a look at what Chaney looks like after he is transformed into that electrical monstrosity! Glowing and pulsating like a faulty neon sign, his body shining with a supernal luminosity, he really is something to see here. (Actually, he shines a tad like the Boris Karloff character in an earlier Universal film, 1936's "The Invisible Ray," who becomes saturated with a meteorite's radioactive energy.) And the impressive work by Universal makeup wiz Jack Pierce (again uncredited) helps to make Chaney look quite striking in these astounding sequences. Viewers who watch "Man Made Monster" might be a bit surprised to learn, given how impressive the entire affair looks on screen, that the entire affair was brought to fruition at a cost of a mere $84,000!

But the film's primary selling point, for this viewer, must be the absolutely wonderful acting contributions of those titans of terror, Chaney and Atwill. Chaney had previously appeared in dozens of films in the 1930s, and in this, his first horror role, he is hugely likeable and appealing. We see what a swell guy he is early on, as he plays with Corky and comes off as the all-American, somewhat dim-witted Joe that one can't help warming up to. But he is equally impressive as the supercharged electrical zombie later on, his face sporting the soon-to-be-famous Chaney grimace while his hulking body advances toward the camera. Is it any wonder that Chaney was immediately given a contract by Universal, signed to play Lawrence "Wolf Man" Talbot later that year, and proceeded to become one of the legends of cinematic horror, in a career that would last for another three decades? Simply put, he is just aces here. And as for Atwill, he is equally marvelous as the crazed Dr. Rigas, a self-admitted madman who looks quite striking in his oversized lab goggles. Atwill had previously impressed horror fans with his turns in such films as "Doctor X" ('32), "The Vampire Bat" ('33), "Mystery of the Wax Museum" ('33), "Murders in the Zoo" ('33, and an absolutely astonishing pre-Code must-see, BTW), "Mark of the Vampire" ('35), "Son of Frankenstein" ('39) and "The Gorilla" ('39), and here adds still another feather to his already-impressive horror cap. Playing his role absolutely straight and without a bit of overdone camp, he is most convincing as the scientist who is more than willing to sacrifice a human life in the name of his demented calling. For me, watching this great English character actor, and listening to his perfectly modulated voice, is surely one of the great pleasures of Golden Age cinematic horror.

And in addition to its great lensing, wonderful effects, and pair of terrific performances, "Man Made Monster" also sports some superefficient direction from Waggner, who would go on to direct "The Wolf Man" later that year and enjoy a long career in 1950s and '60s TV. He keeps his film moving at a brisk pace, resulting in a taut and concise experience; that art of concision is a seemingly lost art in filmmaking today. His script (for some reason, under the pen name of Joseph West) is similarly no-nonsense; it really is remarkable how fast moving and intelligent this entire affair is! And for all the dog lovers out there (I know there must be a few of you!), I would be remiss in not mentioning that cute canine who essays the role of Corky here, and whose reactions to Dan before and after his treatments are indicators as to how we should also be viewing him. This adorable mutt is just wonderful, and must be automatically listed in the pantheon of great canine actors in horror cinema. His final embrace of Dan at the end is most touching, indeed. So all told, "Man Made Monster" really is a winning concoction for both young and old. It would be followed a little over a month later by Universal's wonderful horror/comedy "The Black Cat," and later that year by the eternal glory that is "The Wolf Man," thus demonstrating that at this point in time, Universal Studios was surely preeminent in the field of cinematic horror....

The Black Cat (1941)

A Very Well-Done Horror Comedy

[8/10 · 14 May 2021]

As the new decade of the 1940s got under way, Universal Studios in Hollywood continued to pump out frightening movies that have since become a distinct film genre unto themselves: Universal horror! The '30s had seen the studio get the ball rolling with its Frankenstein, Invisible Man, Mummy and Dracula franchises, and as the new decade began, audiences would continue to be thrilled and amused by their continued antics. The year of 1940 saw four sterling entertainments released: "The Invisible Man Returns," "Black Friday" (starring the studio's two leading horror stars, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi), "The Mummy's Hand" and "The Invisible Woman," and 1941 would witness the release of another quartet of chillers: "Man-Made Monster" and "Horror Island" (released as a double feature on March 28th), "The Black Cat" (released on May 2nd), and the eternal glory that is "The Wolf Man" (which came out on December 12th). Of those eight films, "The Black Cat" was one that this viewer had never somehow watched before. Oh, I had often seen Universal's 1934 film called "The Black Cat," a wonderful and truly artful cult masterpiece that teamed Boris and Bela for the very first time, but still, the 1941 version, which was again very loosely based on the Edgar Allan Poe short story of 1843, constituted a gap in my Universal viewing experience ... until the other night, that is. And now that I have finally caught up with it, I can honestly say that it is still another pleasing, occasionally chilling, genuinely amusing, and often quite funny addition to the Universal horror catalog.

In the film, we learn that the millionairess Henrietta Winslow (Scottish actress Cecilia Loftus, here in her final screen role) is dying, and that her relations have convened at her gloomy old house, like vultures, awaiting word of her demise. Those relations include her niece Myrna Hartley (Gladys Cooper, who would go on to appear in the much-beloved Bette Davis film "Now, Voyager" the following year); Myrna's husband Montague (the great Basil Rathbone); their son Richard (Alan Ladd); Henrietta's granddaughter Elaine (Anne Gwynne; the grandmother, incidentally, of modern-day actor Chris Pine); and two other adult grandkids, Margaret (Claire Dodd) and Stanley (John Eldredge). Also to be found in the gloomy old household, besides the dozens and dozens of cats that the old dowager kept around, are the groundskeeper, Eduardo (Bela Lugosi, practically unrecognizable under heavy makeup), and the housekeeper, Abigail Doone (wonderfully imposing character actress Gale Sondergaard). In addition, on this one particular evening, there is to be found an old acquaintance of the family, Hubert Smith (Broderick Crawford), who has brought along an antiques dealer, one Mr. Penny (Hugh Herbert), to appraise and purchase all the movable effects on the property. Despite Henrietta's surviving her latest bout of illness and then going on to read her will to her future heirs, in which she is proved to be more than generous to all her greedy relations, a poisoning attempt is made on her life, and she is later found inside the property's feline crematorium, stabbed to death with a knitting needle. And then the truth comes out: None of her heirs will receive a single penny of her estate, until all her cats, as well as their custodian, Abigail Doone, are deceased. And when a murder attempt is inevitably made on Abigail herself, it sets the stage for a very long and stormy night indeed, as our hero, the bumbling Hubert, tries to get to the bottom of it all....

Now, "The Black Cat" is the type of film that you might need to watch twice to fully appreciate all that it packs into its brief 70-minute running time. For one thing, the extremely clever script features dialogue that flies by in a rat-a-tat-tat manner; it is almost hard to keep up. Cowritten by Robert Lees, Frederic I. Rinaldo, Eric Taylor and Robert Neville, this script manages to combine scares with any number of hilarious one-liners, and while the film is nowhere near being in the rarified league of Universal's 1948 horror/comedy masterpiece "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein," it yet remains a pretty sterling exemplar of this often-difficult-to-pull-off hybrid genre. And those laffs are largely courtesy of the pairing of Broderick Crawford - a great dramatic tough-guy actor in later life who here proves himself quite adept with a zingy bon mot - and Hugh Herbert, who, with his fluttering antics and absentminded "hoo hoo hoo"s, is very much laff-out-loud funny here. And do they ever get to pump out those amusing one-liners in machine-gun fashion! Thus, Penny's line "Looks like it's been raining cats and cats around here!" And Penny's comment about Abigail Doone: "What a puss! Like a lemon rinse." And Hubert's comment about the Winslow estate: "Everything around here is for the cats. That's why the place is going to the dogs!" And then there's this howler, which Hubert utters after Montague gives his theory about a recent murder attempt: "He thinks he's Sherlock Holmes!" (It will be remembered that by 1941, Basil Rathbone had already played the famous detective twice on screen, and would ultimately go on to portray him 12 more times.) So yes, a repeat viewing might be useful in assimilating all the rapid-fire verbiage. But it might also prove useful in admiring the absolutely stunning cinematography that Stanley Cortez has provided for the film, turning what would ordinarily have been a pleasant amusement into a genuine work of art. Simply put, the film looks fantastic - reportedly, it only cost around $175K to produce, but looks as if it had cost far more - and Cortez' B&W compositions, making great use of shadow and chiaroscuro, will make you want to watch and admire them over and over. Cortez would go on to lens such wonderful screen entertainments as "The Magnificent Ambersons," "Smash-up: The Story of a Woman," "The Night of the Hunter" and "The Three Faces of Eve," and here, he offers the viewer work that is every bit as good as will be found in those classic others.

As for the rest of it, "The Black Cat" has been directed with a sure hand by Albert S. Rogell, a filmmaker whom I was not previously familiar with, but who seems to have a very long filmography to his credit, this particular film being perhaps his most well known. Every single one of the players in the film turns in a very fine performance, and it is a great pleasure to watch those accomplished British players Basil Rathbone and Gladys Cooper alongside their American colleagues ... as well, of course, as the Hungarian Bela. Perhaps surprisingly, Bela's role in the film is a minor one, and he for once underplays it nicely. As for frights, the film will probably prove most scarifying for the younger set, but still, there are a few chills to be had, most especially during the film's final 10 minutes, during which the killer is revealed, and we see him/her dragging a victim to that feline crematorium for disposal. The figure of the black cat itself, a creature that had been relegated to a side mention early on in the film, eventually proves to be an integral one, too. In all, this film fits in very neatly into the "old dark house" genre of motion picture, in which a group of strange and disparate characters is gathered in a gloomy abode on a stormy night. Universal had had great success with its film "The Old Dark House" (based on J. B. Priestley's terrific novel "Benighted") nine years earlier, and "The Black Cat" follows in that same classic mold. Except that the moldering pile of Henrietta Winslow might be even more intimidating than that of the Femms in the 1932 film, featuring as it does hidden passages, revolving walls, and an underground tunnel leading straight to that creepy crematorium.

Okay, to be perfectly honest, fun as it is, "The Black Cat" remains a minor Universal film, and it did not perform all that well with audiences back in 1941, which really was a terrific year for Hollywood, after all, with dozens of classic pictures released, including "Citizen Kane." As a matter of fact, of the more than 200 films released that year, "The Black Cat" came in at something like the #155 spot, managing to pull in only around $900K at the box office. (By comparison, "The Wolf Man" came in at #69, pulling in $2.4 million.) Still, for a modern-day viewer who wants to pass an entertaining hour and change one evening, the film should just fit the bill. A chance to see this particular group of fine actors, an opportunity to ogle at Stanley Cortez' exquisite work, and a shot at getting some huge chuckles courtesy of all the many witty lines to be had, are reasons enough to sit down with this one ... preferably on a dark and stormy night, and with your favorite 8-year-old by your side...

Lady Frankenstein (1971)

Neri Fiddles While The Castle Burns

[7/10 · 26 April 2021]

Of all the great quotes ever uttered by Hollywood royalty, one of my favorites has long been a line that was uttered by the great Virginia-born actor Joseph Cotten, who once said "Orson Welles lists "Citizen Kane" as his best film, Alfred Hitchcock opts for "Shadow of a Doubt," and Sir Carol Reed chose "The Third Man" ... and I'm in all of them!" And it's so true ... Cotten, at the height of his career, got to work with the cream of Hollywood, and appeared in some of the very finest pictures of the age. But as the actor got older, he found, as had so many before him, that the availability of choice roles was limited (you might recall that the great Basil Rathbone's final film was, uh, 1967's "Hillbillys in a Haunted House"!), and during his final decade, he perforce appeared in any number of questionable/outre projects. Case in point: the 1971 Italian film "Lady Frankenstein," in which Cotten not only played the infamous baron, but appeared in a role that was snuffed out before the film was even halfway done. But to be honest, Cotten's participation in this film was not my primary reason for seeking it out. Rather, it was a picture that I had long wanted to see because it happens to star one of my very favorite "Eurobabe actresses" from that great decade, Rosalba Neri, who, along with Edwige Fenech and Barbara Bouchet, might be said to comprise three of the most alluring "psychotronic" female performers that the Continent has ever produced. I had previously enjoyed watching the gorgeous Rosalba in such pictures as "99 Women" (a women's prison film from 1969); two giallo outings, "Slaughter Hotel" ('71) and "The French Sex Murders" ('72); and the truly bizarre horror excursion "The Devil's Wedding Night" ('73). The prospect of seeing the beautiful Italian actress in a film in which she was the indubitable leading lady was too much for this viewer to resist.

In the film, the good baron and his UNhunchbacked assistant, Dr. Charles Marshall (Swiss actor Paul Muller, whose work I had previously enjoyed in '57's "I Vampiri," '65's "Nightmare Castle," and '69's "Venus in Furs" and "Vampyros Lesbos"), are very close to achieving their goal: breathing life into a synthetic man. When Marshall questions the morality of the work that they are engaged in, the baron replies, with some asperity, "Here on Earth, man is God!" On the night of a tremendous thunderstorm, they attach their synthetic construct to a lightning conductor, and allow the heavenly bolts to animate the brain that they had just placed into the noggin of their creation ... the brain of a recently hanged murderer, which Marshall had cautioned evinced signs of having a damaged hypothalamus. The lightning not allow brings their creation to life - "Man's will be done!" the baron amusingly declares in triumph - but manages to burn the creature's face pretty badly, causing the giant, bald hulk (played by the absolutely enormous Riccardo Pizzuti) to have a hideously scarred appearance, with one eye bulging out of its socket. The creature wastes little time in killing the baron with a murderous bear hug, escaping from the lab, and going on a killing rampage throughout the countryside, leaving Marshall at a loss as to how to proceed. Fortunately for him, the baron's daughter, Tania, played by Rosalba, has just returned to the ancestral Frankenstein castle from her studies abroad, and is now a fully qualified lady surgeon ... something of a rarity in the Europe of the 1800s! Tania's plan is to blame her father's death on a robber, an explanation that the local magistrate, Captain Harris (Budapest-born actor, former Mr. Universe and one-time husband of Jayne Mansfield, Mickey Hargitay, whose work in 1965's "The Bloody Pit of Horror" had been so enjoyable), does not believe for a minute. Tania also tells Marshall that she wishes to build another creature, for two reasons: (1) to prove to the world that her father was a genius, and (2) so that this second creature will be able to go out and destroy the first. But there is an even more important consideration here. Since Marshall, a very intelligent man in a body that is decidedly on the wrong side of middle age, is in love with her, and since she desires the hunky body of handsome but intellectually challenged (I believe that is the PC term for the condition these days) stableboy Thomas (Marino Mase, who had also appeared in "Nightmare Castle" and would go on to appear in the truly superb giallo "The Red Queen Kills Seven Times" the following year), what better solution than to place Marshall's brilliant brain in Thomas' dreamy body, and thus create for herself the perfect man? And, in a flabbergasting climax, Lady F. Does indeed carry through with this program, and with jaw-dropping results...

Ever since its release in Italy in October '71 (it would be first shown in the U. S. five months later), "Lady Frankenstein" has not seemed to enjoy a very good reputation, and indeed, I see that the esteemed "Maltin Movie Guide" (which has historically shown little tolerance for this sort of genre fare) has chosen to award it with its lowest BOMB rating. And this, to me, seems inexplicable. As far as I am concerned, having just watched the director's cut of the movie for the first time, this film sports some very fine production values - the sets are often quite stunning to behold - beautiful color, decent acting, and a fine script. The film was directed by NYC-born Mel Welles, of all people, who had played flower shop owner Gravis Mushnik in the 1960 classic "Little Shop of Horrors," and he does a surprisingly effective job here in his third go behind the camera ('65's "Our Man in Jamaica" and '67's "Maneater of Hydra" had been his two earlier films), although one would never dare to compare Mel Welles' skills as a director to Orson Welles'! The film's screenplay, by Edward di Lorenzo, who would go on to do mainly TV work, is both fascinating and oftentimes amusing, and the background music by the great Alessandro Alessandroni (who had so impressed me in such films as '71's "The Devil's Nightmare" and '78's "Killer Nun") goes far in creating an unsettling mood. The camerawork of cinematographer Riccardo Pallottini (who had also worked on such Italian wonders as '64's "Castle of Blood," '65's "The Long Hair of Death" and '67's "The Snow Devils") is often beautiful to look at, and as I said, the sets are handsome and convincingly Victorian. The supporting players are all uniformly fine, especially Austrian actor Herbert Fux (from 1970's "Mark of the Devil") as the sleazy grave robber Tom Lynch. (And not for nothing, I wish my name were Herbert Fux!)

"Lady Frankenstein," at least in the director's cut that is now available, sports any number of yucky gross-out moments to please the avid gorehounds out there. Thus, we get to witness an oozing surgical incision as the baron begins his procedure; a bloody heart being removed from a body, and a brain that is floating in vitro; the mangled corpses of Lynch and his fellow grave robbers, after the first Monster gets through with them; the Monster's arm getting lopped off; and the Monster getting skewered through the chest and then cleaved with a tool of some kind through the head. And, in the uncut version, the viewer is also treated to three instances of nudity: the first, a lady victim of the Monster; the second, a blonde floozy who pops out of Lynch's bed; and the third, an incredibly erotic striptease performed by Rosalba to entice the dim-witted Thomas, in a scene that almost rivals Sophia Loren's famous undressing for Marcello Mastroianni in the 1963 Italian classic "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow." In truth, Rosalba, who was 32 here, is just wonderful in the part of Tania Frankenstein, sinking her teeth into the role of the lusty mad surgeon who will do just about anything to preserve her father's good name ... and build the perfect mantoy for herself! Indeed, "Lady Frankenstein" the film is quite far from being a "bomb," although Tania Frankenstein herself most definitely is "the bomb," if you get my drift! From its opening scene, depicting the grave robbing of the baron's latest subject, to its very last, an ambiguous finale in a flaming castle, the film manages to entertain and stun the viewer throughout. It is only campy/laughable in one brief segment, when the baron and Marshall take the brain of that hanged murderer and just stuff it into the cranium of their Monster; even the operation in the infamous "Star Trek" episode "Spock's Brain" had entailed more sweatwork, and more recognition of how very difficult it is to reattach a living brain! But overall, this is a fairly serious and quite well-done exercise in horror, and a not inconsiderable retelling of the Frankenstein legend, with a distaff twist. You won't be bored, that's for sure!

The Nesting (1981)

Gloria's Swan Song

[9/10 · 3 April 2021]

It sits on the crest of a hill overlooking the Hudson River to the west, a mere 18 miles north of NYC ... the truly bizarre-looking structure known as the Armour-Stiner Octagon House. Built from 1859 - 1860 in Irvington, NY by financier Paul J. Armour, and expanded from 1872 - '76 by tea importer Joseph Stiner, the structure is one of the few remaining octagonally shaped Victorian residences in the world; is now the site of a museum that is open for touring by the general public; and has deservedly been designated a National Historic Landmark. It is a site that I have long wanted to visit. OK, that last bit is an exaggeration. Actually, it is a site that I have wanted to visit for the last five days ... ever since I watched the truly superior horror outing "The Nesting," which features the Octagon House prominently in its story. Released in May 1981, "The Nesting" is a film that I never got a chance to see during its limited run back when, but have long wanted to experience, for the simple reason that it features one of my very favorite actresses, the legendary Gloria Grahame, in her final screen role. I wasn't really expecting much in the way of scares and cinematic quality, but let me tell you, this one really did catch me off guard. The film has proved a triple winner for this viewer, having allowed me to catch not only a stunningly effective horror wringer, but also having let me experienced Ms. Grahame in her swan-song act (and, surprisingly, still looking great five months before her passing, at age 57) and learn about a terrific place for a day trip outside NYC. Simply stated, I just loved this one!

The film introduces us to an attractive-looking author named Lauren Cochran (played by Robin Groves, whose filmography seems to be a sadly short one), whose latest novel, "The Nesting," we see lying on the table of her NYC home. The cover of this book, like so many other Gothics, depicts a young woman fleeing from a creepy-looking Victorian abode, this one being strangely octagonal in shape. Lauren, who describes herself to her therapist, Dr. Webb (Patrick Farrelly), as "an uptight, neurotic, creative, brilliant nutjob," has lately begun to suffer from agoraphobia - a fear of going outside her home. As a self-administered therapy of sorts, Lauren gets her boyfriend, Mark Felton (Christopher Loomis), to drive her upstate, where the country air might do her some good. The two stop at the side of Estes Pond (which will later figure prominently in the film), hard by the quaint little town of Dover Falls. They then climb a small hill, at the top of which they find the exact same house that had been depicted on the cover of Lauren's book! Our authoress is strangely drawn to the abandoned house, so much so that she decides to rent the place to do her writing. She thus visits the house's owner, one Colonel LeBrun (John Carradine, whose filmography includes over 350 films, dating from 1930 - '95), who suffers a stroke the moment he looks at her face. But the colonel's grandson, Daniel Griffith (Michael David Lally, who would go on to appear in one of this viewer's favorite films of the '90s, 1991's "The Rapture"), goes ahead and rents the place to her anyway. Once ensconced in the old abode, unusual things begin to transpire almost at once. Music and footsteps are heard coming from the upstairs floors. Lauren sees the ghostly figures of prostitutes and their patrons in the house's bedrooms. Her typewritten manuscripts are tampered with in the middle of the night. A man seems to appear in her bed from out of nowhere. When the house's handyman, Frank Beasley (Bill Rowley), attempts to rape her (you might almost think of him as Frankly Beastley!), the spectral figure of a blonde woman (our Gloria!) comes to her rescue, levitating the man bodily and throwing him about. When Lauren goes to Frank's best friend, the slovenly Abner Welles (David Tabor), to ask him about the history of the house, Abner tries to kill her, chasing her by car to a lonely farmstead, where the ghostly blonde woman again comes to Lauren's aid. Thus, Lauren is driven to the inevitable conclusion: Her house is haunted, and peopled by phantoms who used to dwell therein. Eventually, the truth comes out. Yes, the Octagon House was indeed the site of a former brothel, and the site of an unspeakable tragedy. But that is just the beginning of this truly imaginative thrill ride.

"The Nesting" (and no, we never do learn the meaning of that title, other than the fact that it is the title of Lauren's latest book) offers the viewer any number of wonderful scare sequences and shock moments. Thus, the initial exploration of the lonely old house; the startling eruption of pigeons from out of a downstairs window; Lauren getting stuck on a high windowsill of the abode, and her catastrophic "rescue" by Dr. Webb; Frank's getting tossed about by that phantom lady, and his eventual demise in the nearby pond; the entire sequence with Abner chasing Lauren down the highway, with his car repeatedly slamming into Gloria's imposing image, and that harrowing sequence in the farmyard, with Abner's demise by scythe being perhaps the film's most memorable moment; and finally, the sequence during which we learn of the tragic history of the house, via a narration by the Colonel on his deathbed, and see, via flashback, the horrible events that had transpired there decades ago. Director Armand Weston helms his film with a sure hand, and his script, cowritten with Daria Price, is a clever and imaginative one. (I do believe that Michael Weldon, in his book "The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film," is being unduly harsh when he says of the director "Weston previously directed hard-core sex movies. He should go back to them.") The film's musical backdrop (by Jack Malken and George Kim Scholes) ratchets up the tension to just the proper key, and cinematographer Joao Fernandes (who, in 1984 alone, shot such films as "Children of the Corn," "Missing in Action" and "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter") has lensed the picture in a wondrously artful manner. The film's players, although composed of folks who might not be household names, other than Carradine and Grahame, all deliver very effective performances, and Ms. Groves, in the lead, is especially credible and appealing. She makes for a very sympathetic heroine, and also demonstrates that she could have been a fine "scream queen" herself. Her shrieks of terror are truly convincing here, and given what her character is forced to undergo, I suppose that this should hardly come as a surprise.

But perhaps best of all in "The Nesting" is Gloria Grahame herself, playing the part of Florinda Costello, the madame of the old bordello. Grahame, of course, had been a star of the first rank some 35 years earlier, beginning shortly after her first role in 1944's "Blonde Fever." She would go on to become one of the true queens of the film noir genre, win an Oscar for her role in 1952's "The Bad and the Beautiful," and appear in some 40 theatrical pictures. Her final days were the subject of the 2017 biopic "Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool." Gloria is both stunning to look at and the cause of several shivery moments in the picture in question, and her work in this, her final film, has only reinforced my desire to see her in three other horror movies that she appeared in: "The Todd Killings" ('71), "Blood and Lace" (also '71) and "Mansion of the Doomed" ('76). Grahame, with her sultry sexpot ways and slightly lisping delivery, always managed to add some captivating charm to whatever project she appeared in, and her farewell performance in "The Nesting" is no exception. And, oh ... I would hate to be remiss in not mentioning one of the other true stars of The Nesting: the Octagon House itself, a structure that, once seen on film, exerts a compelling fascination on the viewer, as well as a desire to visit the place in person. The Octagon House has now been put in my Pantheon of All-Time Great Horror Houses to Visit, a pantheon that includes the Ennis House in the Los Feliz section of L. A., from 1959's "House on Haunted Hill"; the Ellington Park Hotel in Warwickshire, from 1963's "The Haunting"; Wykehurst Place in West Sussex, from 1973's "The Legend of Hell House"; the Remsen Street brownstone in Brooklyn Heights, from 1977's "The Sentinel" (which I have visited many times and tend to naturally think of as the Sentinel House); and the Amityville Horror house, from 1979's "The Amityville Horror." Fortunately for me, the Armour-Stiner Octagon House has been open to the public for tours since April 2019, and I do hope to be visiting it very shortly. I only hope that my experience there is a lot more pleasant than poor Lauren Cochran's, and that I do not encounter any ghostly ladies of the evening wandering around its Victorian halls....

Night of the Bloody Apes (1969)

Eye-Popping Fun

[7/10 · 23 March 2021]

Although the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema is generally said to have lasted from the years 1936 - '59, it wasn't until the very end of that glorious run that the country really began to excel in the realm of horror. Indeed, it was only in the mid-'50s that Mexico began to make an impact in the fright arena, but in a very big way; I have already written here of such marvelous Mexican horror entertainments as "The Vampire" ('57), "The Vampire's Coffin" ('58), "The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy" ('58), "Ship of Monsters" ('60), "The Witch's Mirror" ('60), "The Brainiac" ('61), and the masterpiece that is "The Curse of the Crying Woman" ('61). But even after this marvelous run of horror films had run its course, the Mexicans continued to produce unusual horror fare, taking advantage of the new freedoms as regarded sex and violence. Case in point: Rene Cardona's "Night of the Bloody Apes," which opened in February '69 and has been shocking and stunning audiences ever since. Unlike those other films just named, this one, a supposed remake of Cardona's 1962 film "Doctor of Doom," was shot in full color and featured copious amounts of gore and nudity, its only real ties to the films that had preceded it being the presence of a "luchadora"; that is, a wrestling woman. But here, that woman, rather than being the film's protagonist and heroine, is very much a minor player in the proceedings. But what proceedings they are! When it first premiered, "Night of the Bloody Apes" went by the titles "La Horripilante Bestia Humana" ("The Horrible Man-Beast"), "Horror y Sexo" ("Horror and Sex" ...talk about truth in advertising!) and, confusingly, "Gomar - The Human Gorilla." But whichever title you happen to see it under, a flabbergasting time will surely be in store!



In the film, the viewer is introduced to pretty Lucy Osorio (Norma Lazareno, who is still acting today, at age 78 as of this writing), who plies her trade as a wrestler dressed as the Devil. Lucy is heartbroken after throwing her opponent, Elena Gomez (Anna Thomson, a NYC-born actress, here in her first film), out of the ring and fracturing her skull. With her boyfriend, a police lieutenant named Arturo Martinez (Armando Silvestre, who had also appeared in "Doctor of Doom"), Lucy goes to the hospital where Elena is being operated on. The surgeon in charge of the procedure is one Dr. Krallman (Jose Elias Moreno, a character actor whose filmography extends all the way back to 1937, and here in one of his final films), who, we soon find out, has a handsome young son (played by Agustin Martinez Solares) who is dying of leukemia. And thus, we come to the crux of this story. Krallman, desperate to save his son Julio's life, goes to the local zoo and steals a massive gorilla from its cage. Back in his lab, he and his scarred, Igor-like assistant, Goyo (Carlos Lopez Moctezuma, whose filmography extends all the way back to 1938, and who also appeared in "The Curse of the Crying Woman"), surgically remove the ape's heart and transplant it into Julio's body, hoping that a transfusion of "stronger" blood might work a miracle cure. But as things turn out, instead of effecting a return to health, Julio becomes some kind of half-man/half-ape hybrid. The resultant monstrosity, which we finally get to see at around the film's 29-minute mark, has the body of a massive human (and now played by former-wrestler-turned-actor Gerardo Zepeda, who had also appeared in "Doctor of Doom," as well as the 1964 wonder known as "Wresting Women vs. the Aztec Mummy") - with a horribly scarred surgical incision in its chest, natch - and the head of a simian. Escaping from the doctor's lab, the "Monstruo" hightails it to the apartment of a beautiful young woman, whom it rapes and kills. Dr. Krallman and Goyo successfully capture the monster before it can do any more harm, and Krallman determines that the ape heart in a human's body has just proved too much of a strain on his son's system. He thus decides to replace the ape heart with a human donor's ... but whose? Fortunately, Krallman recalls that Elena Gomez, whom he had just operated on, really has very little likelihood of a recovery, and so abducts her from the hospital and places her heart into Julio. But sadly enough, even this procedure is a failure, and Julio once more becomes a human/ape creature, who breaks loose again and goes on a homicidal path of mayhem throughout the streets of the small Mexican city...



Those viewers expecting to see a final showdown between that rassling Lucy and the killer beast of this film might be in for a surprise at how things unreel here. Unlike the previous "luchadora" films of the early to mid-'60s, here, our putative heroine is very much a minor figure, whose role in the film seems to exist solely as a means of giving the viewer a few scenes in the ring, as well as a means of introducing us to her policeman boyfriend, and to Dr. Krallman as well. But fans of the horror genre will surely not be disappointed in the many sequences of gory and explicit carnage that this film dishes out in spades! Among the many instances of stomach-churning grossness on display here are those two surgical procedures, in which director Cardona utilized footage from actual open-heart transplants. (And if you can stomach these sequences, you might very well be a candidate for medical school!) And then we have the attacks that the "Monstruo" perpetrates, thus treating the viewer to such visuals as a woman being raped and slashed to death in her bedroom; a man getting his throat torn out; another hombre getting stabbed in the chest multiple times; an eyeball being popped out of a dude's noggin; another man getting his head literally twisted off of his torso; and yet another fella getting scalped as the entire top half of his skull is ripped off! Yes, all the gorehounds out there should be very well pleased, indeed. And then there is the matter of nudity. In this film, no fewer than four women are shown in various states of undress, including Julio's two rape victims, as well as Lucy and Elena (the latter being shown nude on the operating table). Is it any wonder that one of my bibles, "The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film," deems "Night of the Bloody Apes" "totally tasteless," and that "TV Guide" once described the film as a "gross, unbelievably inept offering"? And those accusations really are difficult to refute. And yet, the film does have its moments.





Directed with some flair by Cardona (who had been helming motion pictures since 1937, including "Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy"), from a script by himself and his son, Rene Cardona, Jr., the film moves along at a brisk clip, with nary a wasted moment in its 81-minute length. Cardona utilizes overhead shots and unusual camera angles to heighten the strangeness quotient, and seemingly relishes shoving all those sequences of carnage into our faces in bloody close-up. (But when will filmmakers realize that actual blood is hardly ever cherry red in color, but rather a dark crimson?) Cinematographer Raul Martinez Solares (the father of Agustin Martinez Solares?), whose filmography also extends back to the mid-'30s, and who had previously shot the awesome sci-fi/horror film "Ship of Monsters," here gets to show off his obvious skills in a color film for a change, while composer Antonio Diaz Conde (whose filmography "merely" extends back to 1942 but includes such wonders as "The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy," "Doctor of Doom" and "Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy") provides a bombastic score for the film that is guaranteed to stick in your head for days. The film has a unique aura, cheaply made as it is, as well as a few lines guaranteed to make the viewer chuckle. For instance, when Lt. Martinez tells his supervisor of his suspicions regarding the man/ape, he is reprimanded with the line "I'll say that's absurd ... It's more probable that of late, more and more, you're watching on your television more of those pictures of terror!" Doubtless, the dubbed version of the film loses something in translation; how nice it would be to see a good print of this film with well-done subtitles, instead. And despite the horrific proceedings on display here, the film can also be quite touching in parts. I mean, it is heartwarming to see the lengths that Krallman is willing to go, all to save the life of his dying son ... even if those lengths entail the killing of a poor zoo creature and a woman lying in hospital. Conversely, in one scene, the raging monster, seeing its father laying unconscious on the floor, does not do the expected thing (namely, pounce upon him and shred him apart), but rather, tenderly carries the old man to his bed and lays him upon it. Some touching moments in a film filled with so much in the way of gruesomeness. I don't wish to oversell "Night of the Bloody Apes," but will admit to having a very fun time with it. From its blood-dripping opening credits to Lucy's avowal at the end that the preceding events had been "unfortunate ... really sad," the film might just prove a bloody good time for you, too!

Nightmare (1964)

A Minor Masterpiece From The House Of Hammer

[9/10 · 15 March 2021]

1964 was a very good year for Hammer Studios in the UK. On April 19th of that year, remarkably, the studio released two films, "The Evil of Frankenstein" (the third entry in an ongoing series) and the psychological horror thriller called "Nightmare." The following month, the little-seen entry known as "The Devil-Ship Pirates" was released, and on October 18th, the cinema juggernaut would do it again, by releasing two films on the very same day: "The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb" (the second Mummy movie in that series) and a picture that would go on to become a fan favorite, "The Gorgon." But it is of "Nightmare" that I would like to speak here, a film that this viewer had never seen before until recently, but one that has just made a hugely favorable impression on me. Clocking in at 82 very efficient minutes and impressively shot in ubercreepy B&W, the film is surely one that is ripe for rediscovery today, dishing out as it does scares and shocks, as well as a story line guaranteed to keep the viewer guessing all the way till the very end. Simply stated, I just loved this one!



The film introduces the viewer to pretty, 17-year-old Janet Freeman (Jennie Linden, an actress very much in the Jill Ireland mold, and a last-minute replacement for Julie Christie, supposedly; Linden would go on to appear in 1965's "Dr. Who and the Daleks" and 1969's "Women In Love"), who is something of a psychological wreck, having witnessed her mother killing her father with a knife when she was only 11. Poor Janet had suffered a breakdown and has had horrible dreams ever since, and when we first meet her, she is having another doozy; a nightmare in which she walks down the nighttime corridors of the lunatic asylum where her mother is currently incarcerated. Her hysterical screams upon awakening result in her getting kicked out of the Hatcher's School for Young Ladies where she is a student, and a forced return to her ancestral home, the gloomy pile known as High Towers. Her return is at first a happy one, accompanied as she is by her favorite teacher, Miss Lewis (Brenda Bruce, whose filmography extends all the way back to 1938, and who had appeared in the great horror film "Peeping Tom" four years earlier), and reuniting with the mansion's maid Mrs. Gibbs (Welsh actress Irene Richmond, who many will recall from the following year's "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors") and chauffeur John (George A. Cooper, who had just appeared the previous year in the classic film "Tom Jones"). New on the scene, however, is a nurse companion named Grace Maddox (Moira Redmond, who would go on to appear that year in "A Shot in the Dark"), who has been provided by the lawyer who is also Janet's guardian, Henry Baxter (handsome but weaselly David Knight, the only American actor in the cast, who would go on to do mainly TV work). But after a nice homecoming, things rapidly deteriorate for Janet. Her dreams begin again, centered now upon a lank-haired, scar-faced woman dressed in a long, flowing white gown (and played by Australian actress Clytie Jessop, who only appeared in two other films, 1961's "The Innocents" and 1967's "Torture Garden"), who beckons to her and leads her through the house to her parents' old bedroom, where she finds ... the Woman In White lying on a bed, a knife sticking through her bloodied chest! The dream (or is it a dream?) is repeated on several occasions, and matters grow even worse when Janet sees the WIW appear to her in the hallway in broad daylight! After a shocking suicide attempt, Janet admits to herself that she, like her mother, is very probably on the brink of madness. And then her birthday rolls around, the anniversary of her mother's shocking act. All Janet's adult friends gather for a small party in her honor, and Henry Baxter even brings his wife along ... a woman who Janet is appalled to find is the same scar-faced woman of her dreams! What follows is a sequence that is so jaw-dropping that most viewers will be simply flabbergasted by what they are looking at. And then ... the film veers off into very strange waters indeed. That birthday party scene, you see, only occurs at the film's halfway point, but to reveal any more would surely constitute a major spoiler of sorts, and ruin the fun for any potential viewers of this consistently twisty thrill ride.



"Nightmare," indeed, is a very difficult film to write about, simply because there are so many unexpected surprises in it, and because the entire second half of the film is one that cannot be discussed without giving away so much of the fun. Take it from me, though: If you think you know where this film is going, having seen such previous exercises in fear such as George Cukor's "Gaslight" ('44), William Castle's "House on Haunted Hill" ('58) and, especially, Henry-Georges Clouzot's 1955 masterpiece "Diaboliques," you are wrong. This film cleaves almost perfectly evenly into two discrete sections, and each one of them is an exercise in tension and fear done to a turn, with that second section coming as a completely unexpected curveball. The film has any number of stunning scenes, and every one of Janet's dreams, and every appearance of the WIW, is a chilling one. And oh, how I wish I could tell you of the escalating tension and surprises that are to be found in the film's second section!



"Nightmare" features another improbable but oh-so-clever script by Jimmy Sangster, a terrific screenwriter who was an old hand at both sci-fi and horror; his credits include "X the Unknown" ('56), "The Curse of Frankenstein" ('57), "Horror of Dracula" ('58), "The Revenge of Frankenstein" ('58), "The Snorkel" ('58), "The Mummy" ('59), "The Brides of Dracula" ('60), "Scream of Fear" ('61, and the film that really got Hammer going in the psychological horror field), "The Nanny" ('65), "Fear in the Night" ('72) and "Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?" ('72). His script is a marvel of economical characterization and even features some wonderful instances of acidic humor; I love, for example, when Baxter says to the, uh, reclusive nurse Maddox "You've emerged, I see." And Sangster's script is more than abetted by the typically fine direction of Freddie Francis, another old hand at these types of affairs, whose list of horror credits, for not only Hammer but also rival British studios Amicus and Tigon, would ultimately include "Paranoiac" ('63), "The Evil of Frankenstein," "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors," "The Skull" ('66), "Torture Garden," "Dracula Has Risen From the Grave" ('68), "Trog" ('70), "Tales From the Crypt" ('72) and "The Creeping Flesh" ('73). Francis incorporates any number of unique and interesting touches into his film, including overhead shots and off-kilter camera angles, and brings his film home while ratcheting up the tension level to a remarkable degree. Master cinematographer John Wilcox (who had also worked on "The Evil of Frankenstein," "The Skull" and 1966's "The Psychopath") gives the B&W film a haunting feel in any number of finely shot scenes, while composer Don Banks (whose horror credits would include the 1966 Hammer classic "The Reptile," 1966's "The Frozen Dead," and "Torture Garden") provides some wonderfully dreary background music, especially to those nighttime dream sequences. The film, I should also add, makes good use of absolute silence in other suspenseful scenes, to add even more tension to the affair. And finally, the film's performers all do wonderfully convincing work here, every single last one of them, down to the smallest bit players. Jennie Linden makes for an appealing and sympathetic lead in the picture - it is a pity that her career did not go further - while David Knight and Moira Redmond, whose characters are more prominently displayed in the film's second section, are both extraordinarily incisive and memorable. So yes, some wonderful talent both in front of and behind the cameras in this terrific horror wringer.



As much fun as "Nightmare" is to watch the first time, while we try to figure out just what the heck is going on, all the while sitting on the edge of our seats, a second viewing might prove just as engaging for viewers. During that repeat viewing, we can examine the characters more closely, with a knowledge of what they are really thinking as we study their facial expressions. And yes, the actors do play it fair in this regard. It is a film that I do look forward to watching for a third time somewhere down the line. The promotional poster for "Nightmare," I should add, is somewhat misleading, when it proclaims "Three Shocking Murders ... did she DREAM them, or DO them?" Well, yes, there are indeed three shocking murders featured in the film, but that hyperbolic blurb does not give a true impression as to what the viewer might expect here. Again, I find myself effectively stymied at revealing more. I would love to sing the film's praises on and on, but really should not. See it for yourself, and I think you will find that the film really is something of a minor masterpiece, and yet another winner from the House of Hammer....

The Snake Woman (1961)

Cold-Blooded, But Not Chilling

[5/10 · 6 March 2021]

In John Gilling's 1966 film "The Reptile," produced by Hammer Studios, the audience was presented with the spectacle of a young woman (the great Jacqueline Pearce) who, thanks to the ministrations of a Malaysian snake cult, could turn into a serpent at will. The film was set in the Cornwall area in the early 20th century and had been brought in at a budget of over 100,000 pounds ... and with terrific and scarifying results. But, as it turns out, this was not the first time that the Brits had given us a story about a young woman who could turn herself into a snake, and who terrorized her vicinity in the early 1900s. Five years earlier, an infinitely smaller and lesser film, nearly forgotten today, had appeared, by name of "The Snake Woman," and a recent watch has only served to impress upon this viewer what an inferior product it is, in comparison. Whereas "The Reptile" had featured sumptuous color and sets, as well as a very memorable and hideous-looking monster, "The Snake Woman," which was filmed in just six days at a cost of some 17,000 pounds, and in B&W, features none of those attributes. Still, it is a film worth seeing, if one only lowers his or her expectations going in.



"The Snake Woman" debuted in April '61 in the U.S. as part of a double feature, the other film on the menu being the superior picture "Doctor Blood's Coffin"; both films shared the same director, Sidney J. Furie. Strangely enough, "The Snake Woman" would have its premiere in the U.K. after it first appeared in the U.S., playing variously as the co-feature with such films as (the baby-boomer favorite) "The Manster" ('59) and "The Vikings" ('58). Running just 68 minutes in length, the film at least has the virtue of being a streamlined affair, wasting little time in telling its story. In it, the viewer is introduced to a herpetologist - an expert in reptiles and amphibians - named Dr. Horace Adderson (English actor John Cazabon, whose filmography extends mainly to TV work) ... and I suppose with a name like "Adderson," it was inevitable that this scientist would specialize in the study of snakes! Adderson lives in the small Northumberland village of Bellingham in the year 1890, and keeps busy by devising serums made of various snake venoms to administer to his wife Martha (Dorothy Frere, who would go on to appear in the fun horror film "It!" in '67), as a means of curing her mental illness. But the pregnant Martha turns out to be wiser than her husband, when she declares "Life is such a miraculous, delicate thing. What if this poison were to upset the balance, and instead of a normal, healthy child, ours were to be born..." Her sentence is left unfinished, but soon after, that child, a daughter, is born, and she turns out to be a strange one indeed, with no lids over her eyes and with cold blood in her veins. The midwife on the case, Aggie Harker (Elsie Wagstaff, whose filmography dates all the way back to 1937), who is deemed something of a witch, wants to kill the child out of hand, but the presiding physician, Dr. Murton (German actor Arnold Marle, whose filmography goes back to 1919!), declares that she must be kept alive for study. Problems arise, however, when Aggie runs to the local tavern to warn the populace of the evil that has descended upon them, and when the torch-bearing townsmen break into Adderson's lab to destroy it and kill the baby. Adderson is bitten by a snake and dies in the resulting conflagration, while Martha had already expired soon after childbirth. Thus, the baby is brought by Murton to the hut of a local shepherd for safekeeping, after which Murton himself departs for a trip to Africa.



After this intriguing setup, the film - with no sense of time transition whatsoever, not even an intertitle reading "Nineteen Years Later" - flashes forward 19 years. Murton, returning from his studies in Africa, learns that the child, now a grown woman, has disappeared. He also hears of the killings that have been plaguing Bellingham; of the villagers who have been slain with the bite of a king cobra on them, in an area of the world where no such creature should exist. And in the film's second half, retired Army colonel Clyde Wynborn (Geoffrey Denton, who would go on to appear mainly in TV), a resident in the area, writes to a friend in Scotland Yard with a request for help. Thus, handsome Charles Prentice (John McCarthy, who would go on to appear in small roles in two of the great films of 1964, "Goldfinger" and "Dr. Strangelove") is sent to the village, with orders to find out what is going on. Wynborn gives him a snake charmer's flute, and while tootling it on the moors one day, Prentice runs into the Adderson girl herself, whom the shepherd had named Atheris, a name he'd found in one of Adderson's books. ("Atheris," by the way, is the name of a genus of pit viper.) The young woman is indeed 19 now, and, as played by British actress Susan Travers (whose other "psychotronic films" include 1960's "Peeping Tom" and 1971's "The Abominable Dr. Phibes"), is quite the looker indeed. Atheris is strangely drawn by the sound of the flute, and when Prentice puts his arm around her, is found to be ice cold to the touch. Hmm, what's a bright young investigator from Scotland Yard to think?



The promotional poster for "The Snake Woman" declared the film to be "Weird! Supernatural! Horrifying!," but of that list, only the first word turns out to be true. The film surely is weird, in the best sense, but it is hardly a supernatural affair (Atheris' ability to change into a serpent and back to human form at will is the result of hard science, after all), and it is hardly ever horrifying. Indeed, in a film that purports to be a horror movie, there are only two scenes that might engender a chill in anyone who is not a hard-core sufferer of ophidiophobia. The first of those scenes involves Adderson forcing the venom out of the fangs of a king cobra, and it is a nerve-racking sight to behold indeed, an actual snake being used for the purpose. And in the second, we see a serpent of some kind crawling through the mouth of a human skull in Adderson's burning lab. That's it for the scares in the film. As for the rest of it, there is not a shudder to be had. The film never shows us one transformation scene, in which Atheris turns into her serpent form. We merely see the girl, then her potential victim, and then a snake crawling on the ground. Hey, I DID say the film was brought in for under 17,000 pounds, right? The victims of the Snake Woman never scream, or evince any high degree of fright either, so how can we viewers be expected to have much in the way of scares ourselves? So yes, this is a horror film with virtually no horrors to be had or seen ... unless, of course, the sight of a snake is a scarifying matter for you.



Still, there are some pleasures to be had here. "The Snake Woman" does feature some eerie atmosphere at times, especially during its dreamlike nighttime scenes on the moors, and the film's musical background, consisting mainly of that darn flute, by Buxton Orr (who had previously worked on '58's "The Haunted Strangler" and "Fiend Without a Face" and '59's "First Man Into Space" and "Suddenly, Last Summer"), goes far in creating a mood. The film's script, by Orville H. Hampton (who'd given us '59's "The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake" and "The Atomic Submarine"), is a no-nonsense and intelligent one, as far as it goes, while the cinematography by Stephen Dade (who had also worked on "Doctor Blood's Coffin," and would go on to work on the great '64 film "Zulu") is effective in creating a nice period atmosphere. As for Furie, he brings his film home as well as he might have, I suppose, being hamstrung by a small budget and his lack of an effective central monster. Furie would go on to helm such marvelous films as '65's "The Ipcress File," '72's "Lady Sings the Blues" and the truly horrifying horror film "The Entity" ('82), and thus it is somewhat difficult to realize that he had also been responsible for this much smaller and infinitely lesser picture. "The Snake Woman" is a likeable film, with its heart in the right place, but its main problem is that it just isn't scary, or suspenseful, or even all that memorable. Travers is never given anything much to do, other than stare hard into the distance and utter a few lines in monotone; for a woman with cold blood, she fails to elicit the slightest corresponding chill in the viewer. Perhaps if theatergoers had been given ONE transformation scene, or if Atheris' victims could have let loose with some bloodcurdling screams as they met their demise, things might have been different. But no. Compared to the Reptile creature that Jacqueline Pearce would become five years later, Atheris is very weak tea, indeed. At the tail end of "The Snake Woman," the Inspector at Scotland Yard, after reading Prentice's report, declares the affair to be "Amazing ... absolutely, utterly incredible." And indeed, such had indeed been the case. It's just a shame that "amazing" and "incredible" don't necessarily translate into a scary time at the movies....

The Vampire (1957)

A Novel Kind Of Bloodsucker

[8/10 · 26 February 2021]

Fairly recently, I had some words to say about the excellent Mexican horror film "The Vampire" (or, as it was known upon release, "El Vampiro"), which came out in 1957 and starred Spanish actor German Robles as the Count Lavud, a bloodsucker in the very traditional, uh, vein. This South-of-the-border neck nosher, thus, could turn into a bat, cast no reflection in a mirror, could hypnotize his victims from afar, suffered from crucifixaphobia, spent the day sleeping in a coffin, and could only be killed by a stake through the heart. But that same year, in the U.S., another film entitled "The Vampire" would be released, telling of a very UNtraditional blood feeder with not a single one of the above-mentioned attributes. It is a film that I had long wanted to see, and a recent viewing has served to demonstrate to me what a really fine picture it is, as well. The film was released in June of that year alongside another - the baby-boomer favorite "The Monster That Challenged the World" - to make for one fairly terrific double feature. "The Vampire" was made by the same team that would go on to create another film that I had recently watched, April '58's "The Return of Dracula," and like that later film, it is a surprisingly serious and well-put-together little B picture that just might surprise viewers with its nonrisible presentation, fine acting, and aura of solid professionalism.



The picture introduces the viewer to the kind of doctor who we all wish we might have as our own PCP. He is Dr. Paul Beecher (played by Joplin, MO-born actor John Beal, who has a filmography extending all the way back to 1933), a physician who not only exudes warmth and caring to his patients, but who makes nothing of their avowals of being unable to pay, telling them to "just pay me whatever you can whenever you can." (Boy, how I wish I had a doctor like that!) Beecher makes an emergency house call to the abode of one Dr. Campbell, a scientist who is dying of an apparent heart attack. Campbell had been working on some kind of method of regressing the brain to a primitive state and then reversing the process to improve the intellect. On his deathbed, he gives Beecher a jar of pills, which Beecher brings home with him. Trouble arises, however, when the doctor's daughter, Betsy (young Lydia Reed, who had already appeared in "Good Morning, Miss Dove" and "High Society," and would go on to appear in TV's popular "The Real McCoys"), hands Beecher the mystery pills instead of his migraine tablets, and the good doctor pops one of them. The pill causes him to black out, and the next morning, one of his patients, a pretty blonde named Marion (Ann Staunton, whose career would be comprised of pretty much all television work after this), is found in a hysterical state, with two puncture wounds in her neck. Marion, unfortunately, soon passes away. As the days progress, Beecher finds that he has become addicted to those pills, waking up every morning with little memory of what had transpired on the previous night. But on each of those nights, there had been another murder victim: Henry Winston, the scientist who had taken Campbell's place (and played by James Griffith, who had recently appeared in Stanley Kubrick's "The Killing"); Carrie Dietz (Hallene Hill, an actress whose filmography also extends all the way back to the early '30s), an elderly, half-deaf patient of the doctor's; and Dr. Will Beaumont, the university head sponsoring the scientific work (and played by the great character actor Dabbs Greer, who had already appeared in the sci-fi champs "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "It! The Terror From Beyond Space," and who would go on to appear in over 100 film roles and 600 TV episodes). Even the doctor's pretty secretary, Carol Butler (Nebraska-born Colleen Gray, more frequently identified with such film noirs as "Kiss of Death," "Nightmare Alley," "The Sleeping City," "Kansas City Confidential" and "The Killing," as well as numerous Westerns such as "Red River," but here making her debut in horror, going on to appear in such films as "The Leech Woman" and "Phantom Planet"), is attacked on the street one night. The town's sheriff, Buck Donnelly (Kenneth Tobey, star of such '50s sci-fi classics as "The Thing From Another World," "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" and "It Came From Beneath the Sea"), is at a loss to explain the homicides, but Beecher himself does a little investigating and discovers that the pills that he has been taking contain nothing less than the blood of the vampire bat. Could that have any possible connection with what has been going on? What would you think?



"The Vampire," despite having been shot in only one week on a budget of just $115,000 (!), and despite its brief running time of just 74 minutes, looks just fine on screen, features very adequate special FX (Beal's transformations are nicely brought off, indeed), showcases a serious screenplay, and moves along briskly and with purpose. That screenplay, a very talky one by Pat Fielder (who had also demonstrated his talents in "The Monster That Challenged the World," "The Return of Dracula" and "The Flame Barrier"), is an intelligent and convincing one, presenting us with a very unusual monster, and spotlighting the then-novel concept of pill addiction. Director Paul Landres (who would also be responsible for "The Flame Barrier" and "The Return of Dracula") brings his picture home in a taut and no-nonsense manner, crafting suspense and chills on a tight budget. The film's score, by Gerald Fried ("The Killing," "Paths of Glory," "I Bury the Living," "The Lost Missile," "Curse of the Faceless Man"), similar to the work he would provide in "The Return of Dracula," is largely comprised of blaring horns and pounding tympani, and goes far in adding shocks to the film's proceedings. And the fine cinematography of Jack MacKenzie ("Isle of the Dead," "The Flame Barrier"), especially in the scenes that transpire at night, goes far in creating an eerie feel.



"The Vampire" includes any number of impressively composed sequences, such as the murder of Dr. Winston, which takes place offscreen while the viewer only gets to see a flaming Bunsen burner in the foreground; the exhumation of Marion's body, which is shown as having completely decomposed in only a matter of days, the result of "capillary disintegration"; the offscreen murder of Carrie Dietz, her small lapdog watching and shivering from the safety of a nearby shrubbery; the murder of Dr. Beaumont, which we do get to witness, and his being placed in an incinerator by the bloodsucking fiend; and the film's finale, in which Beecher transforms into his monstrous alter ego and then attacks Carol, who flees outdoors while Donnelly and his partner Ryan (Herb Vigran, who many will remember as a crook in a half dozen episodes of "The Adventures of Superman," or perhaps from his 350 other TV and film roles!) follow. But perhaps best of all is an earlier scene in which the fiend stalks and then chases after Carol at night, creeping up from behind tree trunks on the small-town streets. It is a stunningly well-done sequence, with Carol just narrowly escaping doom at the hands - or rather, the fangs - of the fiendish killer.



As for the film's monster itself, which we only get to see for the first time at the movie's 49-minute mark, he is a rather pleasing creation, sporting wildly unkempt hair, bushy eyebrows, blubbery lips and scabrous skin; truly, an intimidating enough proposition, although truth to tell, I have seen worse on NYC's subways at night. Unfortunately, the viewer cannot help but feel that Dr. Beecher's ultimate fate in the film is a tragic and undeserved one. Beecher, as is shown, is not only a warm and experienced family doctor (and, flabbergastingly enough, a qualified abdominal surgeon!) but also a loving father. Had he been depicted as the traditional mad-scientist sort, trespassing on God's domain and investigating into matters best left alone by Man, then we might have felt a little less sorry for him. But as shown, Beecher is completely innocent of all wrongdoing up until the time of his first pill ingestion, and despite the four homicides that he goes on to commit in horrible fashion, he has the viewer's sympathy throughout. Such a shame that the filmmakers could not have devised a less pitiful conclusion for both him and his young daughter, instead of the tragic one that we are given. But other than this slight misstep in the film's screenplay, intentional although it doubtless was, "The Vampire" remains a rock-solid entertainment, and one that might surprise newcomers, as it did me. It demonstrates very effectively that a vampire need not wear a cape and become a bat at night to be a memorable cinematic monster. The promotional poster for the film, back in 1957, featured a blurb that proclaimed "A new kind of killer to stalk the screen," and for once, that blurb was not hyperbolic. The bloodsucker that poor Dr. Beecher here becomes was indeed a novel one, in a film that gives the viewer a scientific rationale for a classic horror trope....

The Return of Dracula (1958)

Welcome Back, Champ!

[8/10 · 20 February 2021]

Contrary to popular belief, the great Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi only portrayed the world's most famous vampire twice, both times for Universal Studios: first in the creaky yet eternal glory that is "Dracula" (1931) and next in what many of us consider to be the greatest horror/comedy of all time, "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" (1948). And then, for a solid decade, that infamous character, the dreaded Transylvanian bloodsucker, would disappear from the world's screens (with the single exception being the little-seen, 1953 Turkish curio "Dracula In Istanbul") until the spring of '58, when two films would mark the character's return in a very big way. In April '58, United Artists in the U.S. released a picture with the very apropos title "The Return of Dracula," while in the U.K., the following month, Hammer Studios would release its highly influential film "Horror of Dracula," the first in a series of nine, most of them starring the great Christopher Lee in the role of the Count. But it is the American film that I would speak of here, a film that I had never watched before until just the other night. "The Return of Dracula" originally appeared as part of a double feature, the other film on the bill being "The Flame Barrier," which this viewer does remember very fondly from TV viewing as a child. Featuring an intelligent script, very decent acting turns by one and all, adequate (albeit low-budget) special FX and some serious talent behind the cameras, "The Return of Dracula" today reveals itself to be a rock-solid effort, and not at all the risible camp fest that you might be expecting.

In the film, we see our vampiric acquaintance, here played by Czech-born Francis Lederer (who many may recall from the 1959 Filipino horror classic "Terror Is a Man"), attack and kill a fellow passenger on a European train. Stealing the victim's papers, the Count then travels by ship and train all the way to (the fictitious town of) Carleton, CA, where the murdered man was headed to live with cousins. Passing himself off as the recently deceased Bellac Gordal, the Count ingratiates himself with the welcoming, all-American family. And just how all-American is this family? Well, let's just say that their surname is Mayberry, and leave it at that! The mother, Cora (Greta Granstedt, whose huge filmography extends all the way back to 1927; this was her final credited film role), is a widow with two kids, and she has not seen her cousin Bellac since they were children in Europe. Her daughter, the sweet, soft-spoken, pretty blonde Rachel (Norma Eberhardt, whose juvenile delinquent role in that same year's "Live Fast, Die Young" was about as different as can be from her role here), is an aspiring artist who is dating the next-door neighbor Tim (Ray Stricklyn, who would go on to appear in the 1960 sci-fi classic "The Lost World"), while her young son Mickey (Jimmy Baird) has as his only concern the pet cat who has gotten lost in a local cave. With his Continental manners and handsome yet sinister good looks, Bellac wins over his newly adopted family, although the Mayberrys can't help but wonder about his aversion to the bedroom mirror, his habit of disappearing by day to go off and "paint," his insistence that Rachel not wear her crucifix around her neck, and his declining of all meals. But all seems to go well, until Jennie, a young blind woman in the local Parish House - played by Virginia Vincent, who would go on to appear in such classic films as "I Want to Live!" ('58), "Sweet November" ('68), and "The Hills Have Eyes" ('77), and to have a lengthy career in TV from the '60s to the '80s - is attacked and killed by something while lying in her bed. And more troubles arise when an Immigration official is attacked and killed by a large white dog, and when a representative of the "European Police Authority," one John Meierman (the handsome and distinguished Austrian actor John Wengraf, whose immense filmography includes such psychotronic wonders as '54's "Gog" and '57's "The Disembodied"), arrives in town and asserts that the Mayberrys' recent guest is nothing less than ... a vampire!

"The Return of Dracula" packs quite a lot of story and incident into its relatively brief running time of 77 minutes, and features any number of well-done scenes. I love, for example, when the frightened scream of the real Bellac segues into the screech of the train's whistle, and when the Count emerges from out of thin air at the train station in Carleton. How cool it is, when Dracula's coffin opens at dusk, and we see his form lying there, in a casket filled with escaping smoke! And speaking of smoke, I suppose the producers of this film could not afford the traditional bat transformation sequence, and so here, when Dracula enters Jennie's room, we see him materialize from a billow of incoming smoke/steam/fog. Other nice sequences in the film include the sight of Dracula walking through a cemetery to awaken Jennie in her crypt (call me weird, but I'm a sucker for any morbid-looking cemetery sequence in a horror film); Jennie's resurrection, with Dracula telling her that breathing difficulties are quite normal in the newly revived; the murder of that Immigration official by a murderous-looking canine (offhand, I cannot recall any vampire turning into a dog before); Rachel going through Bellac's paintings, and seeing one of herself lying in a coffin; Rachel's first noticing of cousin Bellac's, uh, nonreflective qualities in a mirror; the staking of Jennie by Meierman & Co. (in the only instance of color in this B&W film, a gush of crimson erupts from her staked chest!); and the ultimate fate of Bellac, as he sets upon Rachel and Tim in that local cave system. All wonderful sequences, and all very well brought off.

"The Return of Dracula" was directed with great skill by Paul Landres (who had previously given the world 1957's "The Vampire" and who had also directed "The Flame Barrier"). Its no-nonsense script by Pat Fiedler (who had also worked on those two last-named films, as well as '57's "The Monster That Challenged the World") incorporates some imaginative touches (whoever heard of a vampire drinking the blood of a cat, for example, as well as a blind woman transforming into a vampiress who can now somehow see?) and eerie moments (I love it when Rachel walks down the street alone at night and suddenly asks, out of nowhere, "What ... what did you say?"). It is a script that borders on the poetic at times, such as when Dracula appears at Rachel's bedside and murmurs "...There's only one reality, Rachel, and that is death. I bring you death, a living death ... I bring you the darkness of centuries past and centuries to come; eternal life and eternal death..." Cinematographer Jack MacKenzie - whose filmography extends all the way back to 1916, and who had also worked on "The Vampire" and "The Flame Barrier," as well as one of this viewer's favorite horror films, 1945's "Isle of the Dead") - does a terrific job here at giving the film an eerie feel, while the background music of composer Gerald Fried - whose work graces such films as Stanley Kubrick's "The Killing" ('56) and "Paths of Glory" ('57), "The Vampire," "I Bury the Living" ('58), "The Flame Barrier," "The Lost Missile" ('58), and "Curse of the Faceless Man" ('58), as well as dozens of episodes of "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," "Star Trek" and "Mission: Impossible" - is wholly memorable, comprised as it is of mostly blaring horns and occasional strident strings. It is a score that might stick in your noggin for days after watching this movie. And the film, it must be added, is very nicely cast, its three leads being perfectly suited for their roles. As Dracula, Francis Lederer makes for one intimidating customer, his Czech accent adding authenticity to his supposedly Carpathian background. He is never seen in the traditional vampire's cape in this film, although his overcoat, worn draped around his shoulders, makes for a fine substitute. Likewise, John Wengraf, in his role as the Van Helsing stand-in, is also quite convincing, his Austrian background lending an aura of verisimilitude to his character. And then there is Norma Eberhardt as Rachel, as sweet and pretty a vampire's target as the screen has ever witnessed. What a pity that Norma's film career was not a longer one, as she is quite good here; very likeable and endearing.

So yes ... all told, "The Return of Dracula" did indeed make for a nice welcome-back for the old neck nosher! It is not a perfect film, of course, and some inevitable problems do arise. For example, the viewer cannot help but wonder how Dracula ever imagined that he could pass himself off for very long as a distant cousin without arousing suspicions. (Perhaps he never intended to stay for long?) And the film contains a few too many phony jump starts, such as when Rachel awakes in her bed to see Mickey looking at her with a Halloween mask, and when Bellac's hand suddenly appears on Cora's shoulder. But it is surely a sold-enough horror outing, and a fairly serious one, and I do recommend it.

Blood of Dracula (1957)

"Her Name Was Nancy, Her Face Was Nothing Fancy...."

[7/10 · 14 February 2021]

In the memorable cult horror film "I Was a Teenage Werewolf," future "Bonanza" star Michael Landon plays the part of hotheaded adolescent Tony Rivers, who goes to Dr. Alfred Brandon (the ubiquitous Whit Bissell) for help with his temper problems and is turned by the doctor, via a mysterious serum, into the titular monstrosity. Released in July '57 and written by its producer, Herman Cohen, along with Aben Kandel, the film was such a hit that it induced the team to come out with three more cinematic wonders in a similar vein; films in which a diabolical adult causes an innocent teen to become a homicidal and monstrous killer. In "I Was a Teenage Frankenstein," released four months later, Bissell was at it again, building a monster using the young and muscular Gary Conway. In "How to Make a Monster" (7/58), Robert H. Harris plays a Hollywood makeup artist who turns two teenage boys into rampaging horrors. But perhaps the most interesting of this quartet was "Blood of Dracula," which was released as part of a double bill alongside "I Was a Teenage Frankenstein," and which featured, for a change of pace, a young woman who becomes an object of terror and dread, and who is brought to woe by a scientist who also happens to be a woman. Similar to two other films of which I have recently written here, "Earth vs. the Spider" ('58) and "The Screaming Skull" ('58), "Blood of Dracula" is a film that I saw once before, around 30 years ago, at the NYC revival house extraordinaire Film Forum, but retained virtually no memories of, incredibly enough. A recent rewatch, however, has served to remind this viewer that the film is indeed a well-done one, combining a teenage love story, rock 'n' roll, and classic horror elements into one economical and compact package.



The film introduces us to pretty 18-year-old Nancy Perkins, played by Sandra Harrison in her only credited film role. Nancy, when we first meet her, is being driven by her father (Thomas B. Henry, who had just appeared in "The Brain From Planet Arous" one month earlier and who would go on to appear in "How to Make a Monster") and her brand-new stepmother (Noel Neill lookalike Jeanne Dean) to the Sherwood School for Girls, where they plan to dump her before going off for their honeymoon, a mere six weeks after the death of Nancy's mother. Rebellious, morose and understandably sullen, Nancy has a difficult time fitting in at first with the other, admittedly bratty girls in the school, particularly with Myra (Gail Ganley), the leader of the cliquish club called the Birds of Paradise. Myra also happens to be the student assistant of the school's chemistry teacher, Miss Branding (Louise Lewis, who had appeared in "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" and who would enjoy a very long TV career all the way into the mid-'90s), who is engaged in a very interesting form of research. Branding's theory is that each individual has a latent ability within him- or herself that is more devastating than anything that the A-bomb scientists could imagine; as she puts it, "...There's a power strong enough to destroy the world buried within each of us, if only we could unleash it ... I can release a destructive power in the human being that would make the split atom seem like a blessing...." Branding goes on to tell Myra that she needs a girl with "a natural fire ... explosiveness close to the surface ... a disturbed girl, perhaps...." Myra, having already seen our Nancy enter into fights with the others, recommends her to the teacher's attention, and soon enough, Nancy is brought into Branding's office, where she is hypnotized by her teacher with the help of an amulet from the area of the Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania. And so, it is almost at the halfway point of this brief 68-minute film that we see what becomes of this Branding treatment, as one of the students, Nola (Heather Ames, who would also figure - and what a figure! - in "How to Make a Monster"), is attacked and killed, drained of her blood, by something in the school's basement. The cops are mystified, and later, when two more teens are killed in the local cemetery during a Halloween scavenger hunt, we finally get to see, at around the 50-minute mark, what Nancy is transforming into when riled ... and the results are not exactly pretty!



"Blood of Dracula" is a film whose title is something of a misnomer, actually, as it features absolutely no blood whatsoever, not 1 cc, and the word "Dracula" is never even mentioned. Still, the vampiress that poor Nancy becomes looks like nothing that you've seen previously. With a bushy head of hair terminating in a widow's peak, thick eyebrows that extend diagonally up toward her ears, ears that are huger and pointier than Mr. Spock's, and canines and incisors so prominent that her mouth could not possibly close shut if she wanted it to, Nancy really is a sight to behold, and indeed, moviegoers would have to wait a whole 13 months before seeing another female on screen who looked quite so hideous (Sandra Knight, in the December '58 wonder "Frankenstein's Daughter"). Unfortunately, we only get to see this pleasing creation on a handful of occasions, as her attacks are limited to the two mentioned above, plus one other. Still, the film has several other pleasing aspects to commend itself to the viewer's attention. Its script, by Cohen & Kandel, using the pen name Ralph Thornton, is a no-nonsense and streamlined one - the two would go on to create such memorable horror outings as "Horrors of the Black Museum" ('59), "The Headless Ghost" ('59), "Konga" ('61), "Black Zoo" ('63) and "Berserk" ('67) - and the film's direction, by Herbert L. Strock (who had already been responsible for '54's "Gog" and "I Was a Teenage Frankenstein," and would go on to direct "How to Make a Monster" and '63's "The Crawling Hand"), is at times imaginative and involving.



The film does indeed feature what I suppose would be termed a "no-name cast," and indeed, any film whose biggest star is Malcolm Atterbury, here playing Lt. Dunlap, the local chief of police on the case (trust me, you've seen this guy's vulture puss on any number of occasions, such as when he spoke to Cary Grant about crop dusters in the 1959 Hitchcock masterpiece "North by Northwest," and when he popped up as a deputy in Hitchcock's '63 classic "The Birds"), has got to be called "no-name." But all the players are surprisingly quite good, and the acting here is uniformly fine, even by its young players. Particularly good, perhaps, is Lewis, playing the misguided and manipulative chemistry teacher (the only teacher at the Sherwood School who we get to see, actually), a nice-looking, middle-aged woman who alternately comes off as sweet and as evil. Mary Adams (who I'd recently seen in one of the very scariest episodes of "The Twilight Zone," the one called "Twenty Two"), playing the school's owner, Miss Thorndyke, is also very good, and she gets to deliver the film's wise and closing line: "There's a power greater than science that rules the Earth, and those who twist and pervert knowledge for evil only work out their own destruction...." So yes, combine a unique female monster, a tight script, competent thesping, some decent FX and a rock 'n' roll number (the song "Puppy Love," sung by Jerry Blaine, the song's writer, here playing Tab, a future victim of the toothsome Nancy) and you've got a surprisingly winning, minor horror outing. On the original poster for the film, potential theatergoers were told that the picture "Will Give You Nightmares Forever," and while this bit of come-on is surely just hyperbole - I cannot imagine anyone but the most impressionable child ever getting a single bad dream from this picture - "Blood of Dracula" is still a mighty entertaining experience. The film is indeed a pleasing one, except for the fact that the ultimate fate of Nancy Perkins is one that any viewer will feel is wholly undeserved, as was Tony Rivers' in the 1957 film. "The deed and the responsibility are mine," Miss Branding had told her earlier, and so we really don't care what happens to her, despite her professed good intentions of putting an end to mankind's atomic folly. But as for Nancy ... well, the love that she had been harboring for her boyfriend Glenn (Michael Hall, who had appeared over 10 years earlier in the great Hollywood classic "The Best Years of Our Lives") is here doomed to be snuffed out in its, uh, nascent puppyhood. That poster had also declared, of Nancy, "In her eyes ...desire. In her veins ... the blood of a monster!," and I suppose that at least that part is more on the money. Nancy is indeed a warm and loving young girl, full of youth and life, shabbily treated by her parents and her fellow students, and the viewer hopes that things will work out alright for her in the end. You'll permit me this slight spoiler as I tell you ... no such luck. Talk about things that really suck!

The Screaming Skull (1958)

Portrait For Jenni

[7/10 · 9 February 2021]

It was at NYC's revival theater extraordinaire Film Forum that I first got the chance to see the 1958 horror wonder known as "The Screaming Skull." On that day, back in 1990 or so, the film was shown as part of a double feature, playing with another 1958 doozy, "Earth vs. the Spider." And really, this was a most apropos pairing, as these two films, when first released in August '58, were indeed shown as a double feature. Somehow, though, the passing of three decades had sufficed to allow me to forget pretty much all the incidents in both films, and recent rewatches of the two have made me wonder how I could possibly have forgotten all the many fine qualities in them. (I really do need to start taking ginkgo biloba to improve my memory capacity!) But while "Earth vs. the Spider" continues to have many defenders today, despite its being a mere "B picture," "The Screaming Skull" has been all but forgotten, and the only reviews that you tend to see of the film are largely negative in tone. True, the film is a small one, with a relatively "no-name cast," but that recent rewatch of mine has only served to reinforce the notion that the picture is highly effective, dishing out scares in a very competent manner.



The film opens with a warning, one seemingly taken from the pages of the great cinematic showman William Castle. Castle's first genuine horror film, "Macabre," had just opened in March '58, and its customers were all given $1,000 life insurance policies in case any of them were to die of fright during the viewing of the film. Five months later, in the opening of "The Screaming Skull," we are treated, in the very first scene, to the sight of a candlelit coffin, and are told that the picture that we are about to see just might kill us, and so free burial services will be provided by the film's producers for all of us who die of fright while watching! (Somehow, this viewer managed to survive.) It is a nice creepy way to get the festivities rolling here, after which we viewers get to meet a newlywed couple, Eric (John Hudson) and Jenni (Peggy Webber), who are about to move into the empty mansion that had belonged to Eric's recently deceased first wife, Marion. It is a beautiful estate, with a decorative pond and greenhouse attached to the property, although the house itself is devoid of furnishings and furniture and thus looks rather eerie. The happy couple is greeted by their friendly neighbors, the Reverend Snow (Russ Conway) and his wife (Tony Johnson...and yes, that is a woman), although the estate's gardener, Mickey (Alex Nicol, who also happens to be the film's director), who is both mentally and physically handicapped, is not nearly as welcoming. Problems begin almost immediately for poor Jenni, a woman who had recently been committed to a mental institution after having watched both her parents drown in an accident. Now, she has a morbid belief that the portrait of Marion that is one of the house's few adornments looks just like her dead mother. Worse, it would seem as if the ghost of Marion herself has come to haunt her, making knocking noises at night and leaving skulls in cabinets and out of doors. Eric prefers to blame all these occurrences on the very strange and secretive gardener Mickey, but we viewers just aren't sure about that. And as the spectral manifestations continue, it would seem as if Jenni is drawing ever closer to the brink of another mental collapse...



"The Screaming Skull" was supposedly based on a 1908 short story by the great horror author Francis Marion Crawford, but as far as I can tell, the only things the two have in common are the title itself. Rather, this film seems to be more indebted to such great Gothic cinematic masterpieces as Alfred Hitchcock's "Rebecca" ('40) and George Cukor's "Gaslight" ('44). As in the first, here, we have a new bride who is haunted and overwhelmed by the presence of her predecessor; as in the second, we have a woman in a creepy Gothic abode who is most definitely losing her marbles. And Peggy Webber, I must say, does a pretty terrific job as the befuddled Jenni. Webber, who had previously appeared somewhere in Hitchcock's 1956 film "The Wrong Man" and who is still very much alive today, at the time of this writing, at 95, is an attractive if not entirely beautiful performer, although she does look pretty alluring when stripped down to her brassiere and see-through nightie. She also happens to be a most impressive screamer, a skill that she gets to demonstrate many times during the course of this film. As for the picture's other players, Hudson had just appeared as Virgil Earp in the great Western "Gunfight at the OK Corral" one year previous to this film, and he gives a nicely ambiguous performance here. Conway, playing the reverend, has a surprisingly huge filmography dating from 1947 - '77 (it's just remarkable how extensive the resumes of some of these relatively obscure performers are!), while Tony Johnson, playing his wife, would only go on to appear in one other film, 1959's "Crime and Punishment USA." And then there is Nicol himself, who does an impressive job at portraying the imbecilic gardener; I had just watched Nicol in a classic "Twilight Zone" episode entitled "Young Man's Fancy" one week earlier.



As for the talents behind the camera here, Nicol acquits himself nicely here in his first go as director, and lends a genuinely creepy feel to several sequences in his film (more on this in a moment). The movie's screenplay, by its producer John Kneubuhl, is a nicely compact one, and the film itself clocks in at a remarkably streamlined 68 minutes! Cinematographer Floyd Crosby, who had previously worked on both "High Noon" ('52) and "Attack of the Crab Monsters" ('56), and who would go on to shoot around a dozen other films for Roger Corman, likewise does a terrific job of giving this B&W film a sinister feel, and he makes wonderful use of light and shadow, particularly during the many nighttime scenes. Finally, the film also features the abundant talents of composer Ernest Gold, who would go on to work on such films as "The Defiant Ones" ('58), "On the Beach" ('59), "Inherit the Wind" ('60), "Exodus" ('60, the film for which he won an Oscar), and the baby-boomer favorite "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" ('63). Gold's incidental background music for "The Screaming Skull" makes the already creepy visuals even more unsettling; producer Kneubuhl was indeed lucky to acquire him for this picture! So yes, some surprisingly top-notch talent here, on this little B film!



"The Screaming Skull" features at least four scenes that manage to impress the viewer. In the first, Peggy awakens at night, alone in her bedroom, alarmed at insistent banging sounds coming from below. She goes downstairs to discover their source, and sees the portrait of Marion, standing on the floor in a patch of light. It is a startling moment. In another sequence, that same portrait of Marion is burned in the garden by the newlywed couple, and in the burnt embers of its aftermath is discovered...a grinning skull! In the film's final scene, the skeletal Marion, bedecked in summer dress and sunbonnet, chases after both Jenni and Eric through the moonlit gardens. But the scene that is perhaps the best of all comes at roughly the 27-minute mark of the film, and goes on for a good 10 minutes after that. It is a truly remarkable exercise is slow-burn chills, beautifully brought off by the director, cameraman, composer...and Peggy Webber. In this sequence, Jenni awakens from a nightmare. She somnolently walks downstairs, where she opens a cupboard and sees a grinning skull gaping at her. She throws the skull out of the window and into the rear garden, where the thing bounces unnaturally as if alive. Having cut her hand on that cupboard, Jenni goes back upstairs to clean it off, while the wind soughs outside and a branch scrapes against the side of the house, to the strains of Ernest Gold's deliciously morbid music. Back in her barren bedroom, Jenni hears the repeated sound of insistent rappings on the front door, and again walks slowly downstairs to see what is going on. She opens the front door, to see ... another (the same?) gaping skull on her front doorstep, leering at her! She backs up in fright, her face contorting, and emits a wonderfully strident scream before collapsing in fright. It is a wonderful 10-minute segment of the film, comprising a goodly chunk of its total running time, and again, is a bravura exercise in sustained tension. This one sequence alone, I feel, is justification for recommending "The Screaming Skull" to your attention. The film is a minor one, admittedly, and one that leaves the viewer with several possibly unanswered questions by its end, but for what it is, it does its job quite well. I have a feeling that not too many people got to enjoy those promised free burial services, but those folks probably still left the theater pretty shaken up, still. And at the worst, "The Screaming Skull" might make for a great drinking game one night. Just take a shot every time one of the characters cries "Mickey!"

The Spider (1958)

BIG Trouble In River Falls

[7/10 · 28 January 2021]

As I believe I have mentioned elsewhere, there was more than one reason why Wisconsin-born producer/director/special FX wizard Bert Ira Gordon was popularly known as Mr. BIG. Of course, his acronym alone might have ensured him that title for life, but it was rather the series of remarkable cinematic entertainments that Gordon came out with starting in 1955, many of them dealing with oversized monstrosities, that resulted in this loving appellation. And what a string of films it was: "King Dinosaur" ('55), "Beginning of the End" ('57, and dealing with giant grasshoppers), "The Cyclops" ('57), "The Amazing Colossal Man" ('57), "Attack of the Puppet People" ('58, and going small for a change), "War of the Colossal Beast" ('58), "Earth vs. the Spider" ('58), "Village of the Giants" ('65), "The Food of the Gods" ('76) and "Empire of the Ants" ('77, and supposedly Joan Collins' least favorite film of all the many that she has appeared in). This viewer has fond memories of most of those films, but "Earth vs. the Spider" was one that I had no recollection of whatsoever. I had seen the movie for the first time back in the very early '90s at NYC's great revival house Film Forum, which showed it on that occasion paired with the very suitable "The Screaming Skull" (the film that "Earth vs..." was originally shown with as a double feature when it first opened in September '58). A recent viewing of "Earth vs..." has only served to remind this viewer of what a marvelous entertainment it remains, now more than 60 years after its premiere. Often derided and inevitably compared to the somewhat similar "Tarantula," Jack Arnold's admitted masterpiece from 1955, the film reveals itself to be a genuine hoot all these many years later.



The film wastes no time whatsoever in getting started, and indeed, its entire 73-minute length is fairly compact and fast moving. We see Jack Flynn, a resident of the mountain town of River Falls, driving down a road in his truck before goggling in terror at something in the path ahead of him. The next day, after Flynn fails to return home, his daughter Carol (June Kenney, 25 years old here but playing a high school student nevertheless) and her beau Mike Simpson (24-year-old Eugene Persson) institute a search. They find Flynn's truck wrecked on the side of the road, and enter a nearby cave to see if the possibly injured man had wandered therein. But in that cave they find something else: the skeletons of men, as well as an enormous spider web, into which they fall. And thus, not even 20 minutes into the film, we get to see the titular monstrosity, an enormous tarantula that has been living in the cave for who knows how long. The two narrowly escape and report their findings to the town's Sheriff Cagle (Gene Roth, a sort of poor man's Lee J. Cobb), who of course fails to believe them. But when they tell their story to friendly high school science teacher Art Kingman (Ed Kemmer), and show him a strand of the silky substance that had caused Flynn's truck to crash, an investigation of the cave is mounted. Flynn's body is found in a desiccated state therein, his body drained of its juices, and the monstrous spider is attacked with streams of DDT, apparently killing it. The beastie is brought back to the high school and mounted in the gymnasium, pending transport to a local university for further study. All seems to be well ... until, that is, a group of teens starts to practice its rock 'n' roll number in that same gymnasium, waking the dormant beast and causing it to go on a rampage throughout the town, in classic '50s monster fashion. And matters get even worse, when Carol & Mike return to that cave to search for a dropped bracelet, and the spider decides to return likewise...



Putting "Earth vs. the Spider" over the top are three salient factors. The first is a no-nonsense script from Laszlo Gorog (who had previously worked on 1956's "The Mole People" and 1957's "The Land Unknown") and George Worthing Yates that dives us right into the action and wastes no time on unnecessaries. Yates, at this point, was very much an old hand at this kind of entertainment, having also worked on such films as "It Came From Beneath the Sea" ('55), "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" ('56), "The Amazing Colossal Man," "Attack of the Puppet People," "The Flame Barrier" ('58), "War of the Colossal Beast" and "Space Master X-7" ('58); quite a resume!



And speaking of film credentials, the film also boasts some surprisingly solid acting from a cast that had a fairly good background in this sort of entertainment. Kemmer, possibly the most familiar name in the cast, had distinguished himself playing Buzz Corry from 1951 - '56 on TV's "Space Patrol," and had recently appeared in "Giant From the Unknown" ('58). June Kenney had appeared in Gordon's "Attack of the Puppet People," and Gene Roth had appeared in "The She Demons" ('58) and would soon be seen in "Attack of the Giant Leeches" ('59). Sally Fraser, who plays Kemmer's wife here, a woman who is trapped in her home with a young baby while the giant tarantula bangs on the walls from without, had appeared in "It Conquered the World" ('56), "Giant From the Unknown" and "War of the Colossal Beast," while Hank Patterson, playing the unfortunate high school janitor Hugo, had been seen in what is probably the greatest of all the giant-bug movies, 1954's "Them!"



And, in addition to its tight script and more-than-decent thesping, "Earth vs..." gives the viewer some exceptionally pleasing special FX, courtesy of Gordon & Co. The real-life tarantula that was employed here is nicely photographed in close-up and cleverly placed into its background surroundings, and its rampage through the town is a memorable one. (The fact that I did not remember this wonderful scene from my 1990 viewing is a convincing argument for me to start taking ginkgo biloba to improve that memory!) During that rampage, one unfortunate townswoman gets her dress caught in a car door, and is stuck screaming there while the spider looms over her; it is a wonderful moment in the film! But perhaps even better than the FX used to bring life to the film's monster are those used to convey the cave system that our protagonists wander through and get lost in. Apparently, stills from the enormous Carlsbad Caverns system in New Mexico were utilized for exceptionally convincing and otherworldly backdrops, while Bronson Caves in L.A. (the site of at least 15 famous 1950s sci-fi films, most notably 1953's "Robot Monster") was used for some other shots. Taken together, the no-nonsense script, the acting by the film's principals, and the better-than-average special FX result in one surprisingly decent motion picture. Throw in a few gross-out moments (those skeletons, those desiccated corpses), some rock 'n' roll, some exciting music from Albert Glasser ('53's "The Neanderthal Man," "Beginning of the End," "The Cyclops," "The Amazing Colossal Man," "War of the Colossal Beast," '58's "Monster From Green Hell"), fine B&W cinematography from Jack A. Marta ("Beginning of the End," "War of the Colossal Beast"), and some pleasing touches of humor (for example, the movie theater that Mike works at is showing a double feature of "The Amazing Colossal Man" and "Attack of the Puppet People," which Mike avers "sounds pretty wild"!) and you've got a film that is perfect entertainment fare for both young and old!



The picture, of course, is hardly a perfect affair, and some problems do inevitably crop up. Foremost for this viewer is the fact that no explanation is ever given for how this oversized creature came to be, an oversight certainly not to be found in "Tarantula" or "Them!" Yes, Kingman does mention how important it is that the spider be dissected and studied to ascertain its genetic makeup and thus learn how it came to exist, but that never happens, and the creature's origin ultimately remains a mystery. So no mention of radioactivity or evolutionary mutation or anything like that. It's as if Gorog & Yates could not be bothered with this aspect of their story and just wanted to get to the action ... which they fortunately do. And then there is the matter of the film's hyperbolic title, "Earth vs. the Spider." Unlike "Earth vs the Flying Saucers," in which our fair planet really did seem to unite to combat an extraterrestrial menace, here, the only ones fighting the titular monster are a dozen or so residents of River Falls. Still, I suppose a title like "A Dozen Folks From River Falls vs. the Spider" just doesn't have the same ring to it, right? Thus, the film's alternate title, "The Spider," might be more in the way of truth in advertising. But these are quibbles, really. "Earth vs. the Spider" is a splendid example of 1950s sci-fi fun, and one that I was very happy to reacquaint myself with.

The Ship of Monsters (1960)

Asombroso!

[7/10 · 17 January 2021]

There are certain films that are so outrageous, so bizarre, so very unique or dumbfounding, that the viewer cannot believe what he or she is looking at while watching them. Such motion pictures leave the viewer wondering things like: What were those filmmakers thinking? How can a movie like this possibly exist? Some of those films, such as "The Great Gabbo" (1929), "The Shanghai Gesture" (1941), "Blood Freak" (1972) and "The Worm Eaters" (1977), leave the viewer slack-jawed but with the desire never to see them again; they are unique but either tiresomely boring or unpleasantly repugnant. Others, such as "Plan 9 From Outer Space" (1959), "Gonks Go Beat" (1965) and "Barbarella" (1968), similarly leave the viewer stunned by their outre quality, but with the desire to watch the films again sometime; films that must be placed into that dubious category "so bad they're good." Writing of "Plan 9" is his wonderful reference volume "Cult Movies," Danny Peary tells us "To think that such in inept, berserk picture exists truly boggles the mind." And yes, there is certainly something both endearing and awe inspiring about those bizarre, one-of-a-kind films that still make us want to experience them again ... and again and again. Into that latter grouping, happily, must go the movie that I watched just the other evening, the Mexican wonder entitled "The Ship of Monsters." Originally released in Mexico City in January 1960 under the title "La Nave de los Monstruos," this unique, sui generis experience manages to conflate a singing cowboy, aliens, grotesque monstrosities from other worlds, comedy, a female vampire, musical/dance numbers and some truly delightful/awful special FX into one charming and unforgettable film experience. It is a film that I have seen clips of throughout the years, and indeed, any fan of sci-fi or horror films has most likely heard or read of this stunner from south of the border. Fortunately, in today's Digital Era, the viewing of the film is now a relatively easy matter, as I was happy to discover just recently.



In the film, the viewer learns that all the men of Venus have been wiped out in some kind of atomic holocaust. Thus, the female leader of the planet (Consuelo Frank) sends out a space vessel with the supremely important mission of bringing back males from all over the galaxy to help repopulate the dying world. The two-women crew of this mission consists of the Venusian captain Gamma (Ana Bertha Lepe, the former Miss Mexico 1953, and future star of numerous Santo movies) and Beta (Lorena Velazquez, Miss Mexico 1960, and future star of 1964's "The Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy"), supposedly the best navigator from the planet Ur (which this viewer took to mean Uranus), both of whom are major-league bombshells and appear throughout most of this film wearing one-piece bathing suits and high heels. The mission goes well, and the pair manages to find four alien males that they put into frozen stasis in their ship's hold. But problems arise when the ship's engine goes a bit haywire and the two are forced to make a landing on Earth, specifically in the area of Chihuahua, Mexico. There, they encounter Lauriano (Eulalio Gonzalez), a handsome, song-filled, good-hearted yet compulsive liar and braggart, who lives with his kid brother Chuy (Heberto Davila, Jr.). Passing themselves off as circus performers, Gamma and Beta introduce Lauriano to their robotic servant Torr (as lumbering a tin man as any since the one that appeared in 1954's "Devil Girl From Mars"), stash their four frozen aliens in a nearby cave (for some obscure reason) while they effect repairs, and simultaneously fall for the charms of the handsome Mexican showoff. And just when the viewer begins to think that things cannot possibly get any wilder here, it turns out that Beta has the ability to turn herself into a bat, and is in fact a vampiress who attacks an unfortunate local and drains him of his blood! For this crime, the Venusian leader sentences her to death whenever she should return, declaring "Drinking human blood is the worst crime in the galaxy!" And so, Beta does what any lusty and desperate bloodsucker might do: free the four frozen aliens and, with their assistance, plan to conquer all of planet Earth....



Packed into this fast-moving, 81-minute wonder are four musical numbers, an endless stream of very amusing one-liners, several scenes of goofy romance, two dukeouts between Lauriano and the assorted aliens, and a generous dollop of pleasingly inept special FX. Stealing the show, at least for this viewer, are the four aliens that have been captured by the two space vixens. First up for our delectation is the Martian Tagual, a diminutive, goggle-eyed, enormous-headed creature with a likewise huge (and very visible) corrugated brain. Uk, the muscle-bound cyclops, is very tall and very scaly, the self-described "King of the Fire Planet" (Mercury?), and is rarely seen without some thick white slaver dripping from his maw. Utirr, who calls himself the "Crassus of the Red Planet" (whatever a "Crassus" might be; and is that Mars again?), is a hairy and bipedal monstrosity with poisonous fangs. And lastly, and perhaps most bizarrely, is Zok, a skeletal alien whose race "lost their material form," and whose head is reminiscent of nothing less than a bony rendition of Svengoolie's Kerwyn. My poor powers of description cannot convey to you how truly outrageous these four appear on screen. The Ship of Monsters grows increasingly delirious as it proceeds, never more so than in the scene where Lauriano tries to steal some kind of control device from Beta's belt. Thus, as a distraction while in that torchlit cavern, he begins to sing a love song to the alien vampiress, pursuant to which the two break into a dance number. Mind boggling! Even more flabbergasting: the fact that the robot Torr, whom Lauriano has called Tractorr throughout, eventually winds up falling in love with a jukebox, which our hero strangely has in the living room of his "hacienda"! And the film builds to a socko conclusion, during which we are treated to a battle royale with Lauriano fighting Utirr, Chuy battling Tagual, and Torr duking it out with Uk. (Points off for the mysterious disappearance of Zok; I still can't figure out what happened to his bony presence.) It is all outrageous, wonderful, unique and extraordinary entertainment. Trust me ... you have never seen anything like it!



"The Ship of Monsters" has been directed with an emphasis on fast-moving fun by Rogelio A. Gonzalez from a script by Alfredo Varela, Jr. That script, as mentioned above, contains any number of amusing lines. For example, when Lauriano first sees a few of the alien monsters, he opines "Bunch of rebels without causes here." In regard to the horrendous Utirr, Gamma tells Beta "He's a male, a strange and terrible one, but a male nonetheless." (Hmm, perhaps this viewer would make out alright on Venus!) In a conversation between Tagual and Beta, the Martian tells the voluptuous sexpot "You're ugly. You lack the red beauty of the women of Mars." And when Lauriano first sees the cyclops Uk, he declares "Oh, brother, you're an ugly one. Looks like they carved you out with a hatchet!" As for those special FX that I mentioned, they are of the Ed Wood variety, surely, and like those in "Plan 9," they are endearingly cheesy. When Lauriano accidentally triggers some kind of antigrav effect on that belt's control device and floats into the air, absolutely no attempt is made to conceal the rope from which he is dangling. The creature costumes have been imaginatively constructed using a minimum of pesos, it seems, and the rocket ship's interior is just barely more impressive looking than the one to be found in that Ed Wood classic. The net result of all this is a truly unforgettable experience, and indeed, it seems to me that "The Ship of Monsters" will one day be getting its long overdue cult status. It is the kind of film that can be enjoyed by adults as well as by children. Little ones who are too young to read and follow along with subtitles - and I might add here that the print that I just watched of "The Ship of Monsters" was a very decent one with easily readable subtitles - should still be delighted with the enchanting visuals that this film dishes out in spades. This is the kind of picture that I can see being watched often, perhaps annually. Only the grumpiest of sourpusses will look upon this film with distaste; all others will surely be entertained on some level. As Lauriano himself might declare, it's just "Asombroso!"

The Monster of Piedras Blancas (1959)

A Truly Memorable Monstrosity

[7/10 · 13 January 2021]

It is truly remarkable how a cinematic image can make a lasting imprint on a young and impressionable mind. Take, for example, the 3-year-old me, who witnessed, in a movie theatre, the image of a man falling on a dynamite plunger and causing a bridge to blow up, resulting in a devastating train wreck. It is an image that I have never forgotten, despite all these intervening decades; one of the final scenes, of course, from the great David Lean film "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957), which I have since verified my folks did take me to see, although why my parents deemed a 2 ½-hour war movie appropriate fare for such a young child is another matter. Flash forward five years or so, and we have another lasting cinematic image from my childhood, this one of a bit more grisly nature: a hideous monster advancing toward the camera, clutching in its mitt the dangling head of its latest victim. For an 8-year-old kid, such a proceeding might be truly unforgettable, as it would indeed turn out to be for me and all my fellow baby boomers who thrilled to the film in question, the 1959 wonder known as "The Monster of Piedras Blancas." Back in the early to mid-'60s, this film was shown quite often here in NYC on the wonderful program known as "Chiller Theatre," although it would eventually become virtually impossible to see. But the memory of it has persisted over the decades for this viewer - at least, that one scene has, as well as the memory of a lighthouse of some kind - and I have wanted to refresh my memory of it ever since. Happily, in this modern digital era, the movie is now a snap to experience, thanks to Olive Films' fine-looking DVDs of it, in both standard and Blu-ray editions. Originally released in April 1959 as part of a double bill, along with the long-forgotten "Okefenokee," the film reveals itself to be, all these decades later, a surprisingly decent entertainment, if with some problematic elements. Still, I had a blast watching it for the first time in 50-something years, just the other night.



In the film, a rash of killings has broken out in the quaint California coastal town of Piedras Blancas. Two fishermen, the Rinaldi brothers, have been found, their necks ripped apart, and the local grocer, Kochek (Frank Arvidson), blames the murders on the legend of a local monster. The town's lighthouse keeper, Sturges (John Harmon, an actor whose name you might not recognize despite his 287 IMDb credits!), pooh-poohs such claims, despite the fact that we viewers have already seen him suspiciously leaving dishes of fish near the coastal caves for ... something. When Kockek himself is found dead, his head completely torn off, the town's doctor, Sam Jorgenson (Les Tremayne, perhaps the biggest "name" in this film, who had previously appeared in 1953's "The War of the Worlds" and 1957's "The Monolith Monsters," and who would go on to appear in 1963's, uh, "The Slime People"), and the local constable, George Matson (Forrest Lewis, who had just appeared in 1958's "The Thing That Couldn't Die"), do a little sleuthing around, and find the scale of a strange whatzit in the grocer's store. Aided by young Fred, a budding scientist (and played by Don Sullivan, who that same year would appear in "The Giant Gila Monster" AND "Teenage Zombies"), the team discovers that the scale belongs to a creature known as a "diplovertebron," a prehistoric amphibious reptile that had supposedly gone extinct over 300 million years ago! As the killings continue, including the murder of a little girl, the town's crisis comes to a head, until the monster itself appears to the viewer, a full 50+ minutes into this scant 71-minute affair, when Sturges' daughter Lucy, who has recently been dating Fred (and played by Jeanne Carmen, a former model, pin-up girl, trick-shot golfer, and, supposedly, best friend of Marilyn Monroe), opens the door of her lighthouse home and sees the horrible creature goggling at her in the rubbery flesh....



Though only produced with a budget of under $30,000, "The Monster of Piedras Blancas" looks just fine, and makes good use of its outdoor seaside locales, well shot here in B&W by cinematographer Philip Lathrop. Strangely enough, the town of Cayucos, CA stood in for the town of Piedras Blancas here, and the Point Conception Lighthouse was used in the film, not the Piedras Blancas Light Station itself; don't ask me why. Director Irvin Berwick and producer Jack Kevan, both of whom had worked at Universal Studios, make every dollar pay off here in this, their self-made first of two independent efforts. As for the creature costume itself, reportedly, Kevan salvaged the feet of the Metalunan mutant from the sci-fi wonder "This Island Earth" (1955), as well as the never-used hands for "The Mole People" (1956). The net result is a monster that is somewhat suggestive of Millicent Patrick's legendary Creature From the Black Lagoon, as well as the monstrosities in "The She-Creature" (1956), "It! The Terror From Beyond Space" (1958) and "The Hideous Sun Demon" (1959). The fearsome mug of the Piedras Blancas monster is indeed a nasty one, although the head part of its costume looks somewhat detached from its body ... appropriately enough, I suppose, considering that all of its victims soon wind up in a similar state! Pete Dunn, the man in the monster costume here, lumbers about and beats his chest in ferocious gorilla fashion, making for still another great '50s sci-fi creation.



"The Monster of Piedras Blancas" features a number of truly gripping scenes, including the one in which Lucy opens that door and sees our creature in close-up, with seawater gurgling from its gaping maw, and the one in which Sturges combats the monster high up in the lighthouse. The film offers up some pleasing bits of grossness (at least, they seemed gross when I was a kiddy), including that unforgettable shot of the dangling head, and that same head found in a cave later on, a crab scurrying about on top of it. And it gives us one of the enduring tropes of '50s sci-fi: the sequence in which the monster carries away a screaming young woman (Lucy, in this case), although what it intends to do with her is anybody's guess. The film is, surprisingly, decently acted by its small cast, moves along briskly, and keeps its moments of unintentional risibility to a minimum. It even manages to throw in an homage of sorts to the great 1953 classic "From Here to Eternity," as Fred and Lucy lay in the surf and make out as the waves crash over them. And speaking of Lucy, it is interesting that Jeanne Carmen, who was such a glamour girl in the '50s, is presented in this film as a realistically average-looking character. Lucy is an attractive woman, yes, but her outfits here are surely nothing to draw special notice, and the character strikes the viewer as something of a plain Jane. Yes, she is shown stripping down to do a little nighttime skinny-dipping in the surf, and is later seen standing at her window wearing a brassiere, but for a sexpot performer of Carmen's fame, her character here is surprisingly tame. Carmen, by the way, has a very interesting history/biography that I urge you to look into, and her online comments vis-à-vis Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys, and her exploits with them, will surely fascinate. Anyway, so yes, the film does have many positive aspects that might surprise a modern-day viewer. Still, as might be expected, there remain some problems to be had.



For one thing, the film's script, by one H. Haile Chace, is a lazy one, and fails to explain just where the monster originated to begin with, and why the monster in question loves to rip the heads off of its victims. Okay, the monster has been draining away the blood from its kills, but still, the head ripping strikes one as being a bit ... gratuitous. For that matter, why does the monster not eat its victims whole, as it has been shown to have a liking for the fish and meat scraps that Sturges had been feeding it, sight unseen, over the years? And then there is that conclusion to the film. Can we assume that the monster has been killed or not? And oh ... it appears that the diploverterbron is an actual extinct species, but one that only existed in the swamps of what is now the Czech Republic in central Europe. So how did this one wind up in central California, of all places? But these are minor matters, of course. "The Monster of Piedras Blancas" still remains a nice little entertainment - one of the capper films coming at the tail end of a classic decade for science fiction on the big screen - and one that is of course perfect fare to watch with your favorite 8-year-old. He or she might be grossed out a little by the proceedings therein, but trust me, if my experience with the film is any indication, your little one will never forget it!

The Secret of Convict Lake (1951)

Ford Tough

[8/10 · 27 November 2020]

On September 17, 1871, 29 prisoners escaped from the state prison in Carson City, Nevada, and headed west. Splitting up into two groups, they traveled over the Sierra Nevada Mountains into California, and ultimately fetched up at what was then known as Lake Monte Diablo, in Mono County, where, in a series of gunfights, the convicts and their pursuing posses suffered numerous losses. Ultimately, all the escapees were either killed or recaptured, and the nearby body of water was later renamed Convict Lake, in memory of the historic events. With these facts taken as some kind of a loose background, 20th Century Fox, a full 80 years later, was able to fashion a winning entertainment package, "The Secret of Convict Lake." Released in the summer of '51, the film was only marginally successful, not even cracking the Top 50 spot that year; as a comparison, even the films "Ma and Pa Kettle Back on the Farm" and "Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man" made it onto that list. Still, a look at this noirish Western will surely make any modern-day filmgoer wonder why it did not perform better with audiences back then. The film is intelligently scripted, well acted by its stellar cast, taut and exciting. And for this viewer, its main appeal - indeed, my primary reason for watching it in the first place - is the inclusion of Ms. Gene Tierney, one of my very favorite actresses, here portraying a character with real grit, and looking typically beautiful while doing so.



In the film, our escaped convicts, rather than having a shootout with the pursuing posses right after gaining the area of the lake, fetch up at a settlement that has been left completely in charge of the womenfolk, while the men are away prospecting. (Whether or not that was a wise move is open for debate.) Thus, the five convicts who remain living to see this encampment - Jim Canfield (Glenn Ford), Johnny Greer (Zachary Scott), Limey (Cyril Cusack), Matt Anderson (Jack Lambert) and young, feverish rapist Clyde (Richard Hylton) - are surprised to find that their welcome is not as smooth as might be expected. Indeed, their reception is a chilly one, with the women's group leader, Granny (the great Ethel Barrymore), more than willing to take her shotgun to them, and Marcia Stoddard (our Gene) equally ready to send them back into the blizzardy conditions and to their fate. Ultimately, the cons are allowed to stay for a while in a cabin by themselves; the cabin where Marcia was to have lived with her fiancé, the absent Rudy Schaeffer (Harry Carter), following their marriage. After a day or two, the cons manage to make their presences not quite as resented as at first, and even some of the older women, such as Harriet (Jeanette Nolan) and Mary (pre-Code great Ruth Donnelly), begin to come around. And when Rudy's sister, the man-hungry Rachel (Ann Dvorak, here in her 80th and final film), accidentally starts a fire in the barn, and the cons rush in to help put the blaze out and rescue the animals, they are looked upon with even more favor. But trouble soon looms, when it is learned that Canfield has a secret agenda of his own for being there: He is out to kill Marcia's fiancé, Rudy, whom he blames for wrongfully accusing him of theft and murder, and is also looking for the $40,000 that he believes Schaefer ran off with. And then things become even more problematic, when Clyde attempts to rape Harriet's daughter Barbara (Barbara Bates, who many will remember as Phoebe from the previous year's "All About Eve"), and when Johnny seduces Rachel in an attempt to find out where Granny has hidden the women's guns, in an effort to force Canfield to share the hidden loot. Fortunately, for one and all, the men of the settlement are not too far away, and when they do return from their prospecting trip, the spam really does hit the proverbial fan....



"The Secret of Convict Lake" has been directed by Michael Gordon (who would go on to helm the celebrated comedy "Pillow Talk" eight years later) in a no-nonsense manner, showing an equal facility with fast-moving action and with the more intimate and emotional sequences as well. The film's screenplay, by Oscar Saul, based on a short story by Anna Hunger, is both intelligent and engrossing (an even better screenplay by Saul would be revealed to audiences just a month later, in "A Streetcar Named Desire"), and the film's B&W cinematography, by Leo Tover, is a thing of beauty to behold. Though largely shot in the studio, the wintry sets go far in convincing the viewer that this film has been shot on location. Tover, incidentally, would also have some of his further work spotlighted for audiences the following month, in the sci-fi classic "The Day the Earth Stood Still." The film's score, by composer Sol Kaplan, goes far in moving the action scenes along; Kaplan had also scored another terrific Western a few months earlier, the Susan Hayward vehicle "Rawhide." And so yes ... the fine talents both behind and in front of the cameras combine to make "The Secret of Convict Lake" a genuine sleeper, and one ripe for rediscovery today by a new generation. It is a taut and fast-moving film, and indeed, the entire affair comes in at a scant 83 minutes. The picture features any number of wonderful scenes - I just love the ones in which Canfield and Marcia get to know each other, and the one in which the women defend Barbara from Clyde with the aid of some nastily wielded pitchforks, and the final shootout between the villains and the returning men of the settlement - and ultimately comes off as a very different kind of Western; one that the ladies and the feminists of today might justly celebrate.



And oh my goodness ... fans of the great stars Glenn Ford and Gene Tierney should be especially happy with this one! As for me, I just loved seeing the great actress in both long skirts and riding pants, wielding a shotgun and talking tough; indeed, I don't believe Gene gives us that famous, beautiful smile once in this entire film. It is a fairly grim and serious role for the great Tierney, and the underrated actress carries it off with great professional skill. Tierney had already suffered a number of tragedies in her personal life at this point, but was still a few years away from the breakdown that would cause her to be institutionalized for a period of time, and the two dozen electroshock treatments that she would go on to write so movingly about in her autobiography "Self-Portrait." So this is a Gene a few years past her mid-'40s peak, as regards both roles and beauty, but still very much the consummate pro and still looking mighty gorgeous, whether her hair is wrapped up in a tight bun or flowing loosely. All her many admirers should adore seeing her work here. As for Ford, he is his usual ingratiating self, even though his Canfield character is not a sympathetic one at first blush, unshaven and dirty as he is when first introduced. Still, Canfield does "clean up nicely," and ultimately shows himself to be quite a good egg, and Ford does a terrific job at portraying that inner decency. (Even when playing so-called "bad guys," as he would seven years later in "3:10 to Yuma," Ford was always somehow likeable.) Perhaps best of all, however, in this film, is Barrymore's Granny, who, despite being confined to a bed, still manages to prove herself one of the shrewdest and toughest birds in this picture. "The First Lady of the American Theatre" was 72 when she essayed this role, and was already quite ill herself with the cardiovascular disease that would take her eight years later. Still, she manages to bring to Granny the same smarts and no-nonsense spunk that had characterized her Mrs. Warren character in the great thriller "The Spiral Staircase" five years earlier. As for Dvorak, in her final film, she still looks very attractive at age 40, and easily convinces us that her Rachel character would sell out the others for the love of a bad man. And Zachary Scott, I might add, here makes for a wonderful villain, both smooth talking and ruthless; add the Johnny Greer character to his pantheon of great louses, including, of course, his caddish Monte Beragon in 1945's "Mildred Pierce." Sharp-eyed viewers will also note the presence of Ray Teal at the film's tail end, playing a sheriff who might just as well be the same Sheriff Roy Coffee that Teal would portray on TV's "Bonanza" eight years later.



All told, "The Secret of Convict Lake" is very much a class production, despite being a "small picture" from a major Hollywood studio. It is surely not one of the classic Westerns of the '50s - arguably the greatest decade for that particular film genre - or in the same rarefied league as such contemporaneous films as "Winchester '73," "High Noon," Shane" and "The Searchers," but it yet remains something of an undervalued gem that might just surprise and please those who are newcomers to it. And for all fans of Gene Tierney - who, incidentally, would have turned 100 on the day that I sat down to celebrate with this picture - it should prove to be 83 minutes of wintry heaven. More than highly recommended!

The Devil's Hand (1961)

The Hole Shebang

[4/10 · 28 September 2020]

In the 1943 film "The Seventh Victim," just one of nine brilliant horror films produced by Val Lewton for RKO that decade, a character played by Kim Hunter comes to NYC to look for her missing sister, and discovers that that sister has joined a secretive, devil-worshipping cult in the heart of Greenwich Village. It is a superior horror outing, as are all the other Lewton horror outings, featuring wonderful acting, a sharp and compact script, and - typical for these Lewton affairs - a deliciously eerie atmosphere throughout. Flash forward 18 years, and we find still another film dealing with a secret devil cult hidden away in the heart of a great American metropolis, but with nowhere near the previous film's artful skill and enduring class. That later film is "The Devil's Hand," which was shot in 1959 but not distributed until two years later. Originally released as part of a double bill that included still another forgotten horror affair, "Bloodlust" (yet another remake of the great 1932 film "The Most Dangerous Game"), "The Devil's Hand" quickly sank into relative oblivion, and perhaps justly so. Despite the presence of no fewer than three top-notch Hollywood players in its cast, it ultimately reveals itself to be a rather shoddily scripted, slow-moving, lifeless, cheapjack affair with absolutely no scares, little if any suspense, some confusing plot points, and oftentimes laughable dialogue. I shall try to find something to praise in this shoddy little affair, although that might take some effort on my part.



The film introduces the viewer to a man named Rick Turner, played by the 45-year-old Robert Alda. Although Rick is engaged to be married to Donna Trent (pretty Mexican actress Ariadna Welter), he is disturbed every night by reoccurring dreams of a gorgeous blonde woman who dances before him and beckons to him from the clouds. One day, he feels compelled to walk past a doll shop in a side street of Los Angeles, and notices a doll that is the exact likeness of his dream girl. The owner of the shop, Frank Lamont, played by the great character actor Neil Hamilton, tells him that Rick had ordered this doll days before, and that yes, his order is ready. Rick is understandably confused, as he had never previously been inside this shop before. The following night, however, his dream girl tells him to pick up the doll and bring it to her, which he does, being given an address by the shopkeeper. This blonde, as it turns out, sports the exotic name of Bianca Milan (played by Ariadna's older sister, the ex-Mrs. Tyrone Power, Linda Christian), and is an adept at using the power of thought projection. Bianca, it is also revealed, has seen Rick from afar, has fallen in love with him, and now wants him to join the cult that she is a member of; a cult that worships Gamba, the Devil God of Evil! Rick almost immediately falls under her spell, goes that very night to a meeting of the group in the basement of the doll shop - with Lamont presiding as high priest - and forgets all about his fiancée. To ensure that Donna is put out of the way, Lamont sticks a long pin into a voodoo doll of her, putting Donna in the hospital with heart problems for most of the duration of this film. But when Rick discovers what his happened vis-à-vis his ex-fiancee, he rebels, surreptitiously removing the pin from that doll, and setting himself up for trial by the angered high priest and the jealous Bianca....



Okay, as is my policy, I'm going to endeavor to find something nice to say about the film in question. "The Devil's Hand" does sport at least two interesting scenes to captivate the viewer. In the first, a female cult member is put to the Gamba test. She is placed on an altar beneath a wheel studded with swords, only one of which is real, the others being made of rubber. The wheel is spun and, Russian roulette style, dropped on the possible victim, whose worthiness for sacrifice only Gamba can decide. In the other scene, a spy in the cult, a newspaperman, is put to death while he is driving, a long pin stuck right into his doll face back at the cult temple causing him to drive his car over a cliff. But other than these two scenes, the film is a rather lackluster affair, to put it mildly. "The Devil's Hand" is lifeless and slow moving, and its 71-minute running time feels like much longer. Its script is a lazy one, and we never get to learn anything about our hero Rick: his background, what he does for a living, how he and his fiancée met, etc. Likewise, we are never given any information about the Gamba cult, how it originated, what country it hails from and so on. The viewer feels pretty much nothing but contempt for Rick, who callously dumps Donna in favor of his new paramour. We hope, as the film proceeds, that he is just playing along with Bianca, assuming the part of a vengeful agent of some kind as he attempts to infiltrate the evil cult, but those hopes are dashed when, midway through the picture, he tells his witchy woman, in one of the better-written bits of the script, "Every waking minute you're on my mind. Even when I sleep I can't shake you. You're all around me ... in the air, in the rain and the sunlight. You're as much me as I am. I know what you are. I know what you've made me but it doesn't matter. Nothing does. I can't kiss you without wanting more. I'll never have enough of you. If I thought I'd lose you I'd ... kill you...." And, sadly, we realize that Rick does indeed mean every word he says. Talk about being infatuated, huh? But all told, two decent scenes and one nice snatch of dialogue do not a good film make. Hardly. For the rest of it, "The Devil's Hand" is a rather tiresome affair, and sometimes a risible one. Toward the film's end, which should constitute the most suspenseful and frightening moments of any horror film, when the dozen or so cult members start chanting "Gamba, Gamba" in fear, this viewer could only burst out laughing; never a good sign for a movie whose intent is supposedly to frighten.



Still, don't blame the four lead actors for the end results here. Robert Alda had enjoyed a distinguished film and theater career previous to this film, and he does his yeoman best here, saddled as he is with a subpar script. Alda, of course, is perhaps best remembered for playing George Gershwin in the 1945 film "Rhapsody in Blue," and had performed in at least one horror outing previous to the one here: 1946's "The Beast With Five Fingers." (His son Alan, by the way, was 23 when "The Devil's Hand" was shot in 1959, and had already embarked on an acting career of his own.) Linda Christian looks very nice (although not quite as physically stunning as one would have preferred, given that her Bianca Milan character is supposed to be overwhelmingly beautiful) and her thesping is certainly adequate, if barely. Ariadna Welter, whose work I had previously enjoyed in the great Mexican horror picture "The Vampire" (1956), is unfortunately given little to do other than lay in bed and act listless. But fortunately, we also have Neil Hamilton here, a terrific character actor with an enormous filmography preceding this picture, and who, seven years later, would embark on the role for which he is probably best remembered today, playing Commissioner Gordon in the "Batman" TV series. Hamilton adds what little class is to be found in this piffle of a film, intoning his lines with great intensity, especially during those cult ceremonies. And sharp-eyed viewers will also notice the hulking Bruno VeSota, playing one of the cult members, and his is always a welcome presence. No, I suppose the bulk of the blame for the lameness of this picture must rest squarely on the shoulders of its director, William J. Hole, Jr., whose only other film that I had heard of before is 1959's "Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow." His direction here is flat, styleless and wholly uninteresting. Producer Alvin K. Bubis must also share some of the blame, for his cheapo sets and costumes (a product of Bubis & Hole ... that should have perhaps told me something!), as does the film's screenwriter, Jo Heims, for her lazy script that leaves so many questions unanswered. I must say that that last name surprised me, as Heims is also responsible for the screenplay for one of this viewer's favorite films of all time, 1971's "Play Misty for Me"; a film whose script is sharp, witty, exciting and suspenseful, all of which attributes are wholly lacking in her 1959 screenplay. Go figure. As for the cinematography of someone named Meredith M. Nicholson, let's just say that I could have been given a camera and done just as effective a job myself, and that's not saying much. And while I'm harping ... what's up with the rock & roll music that wholly inappropriately gets this film going, during the opening credits? Wouldn't some eerie or unsettling music have been a better choice, to set the mood and hopefully engender some tension? No such luck. The bottom line: Viewers who are looking for a quality film featuring devil worship in the big city are best advised to watch "The Seventh Victim" for the seventh time and leave this one alone. Unless, that is, they are in need of a good soporific. And may your dreams be better than poor Rick Turner's!

Sea Wife (1957)

Joan, Very Much Playing Against Type....

[7/10 · 13 August 2020]

Perhaps because she incarnated what is thought to be the ultimate "nasty woman" character in TV history, namely Alexis Carrington Colby Dexter, etc., on the hit TV show "Dynasty," from 1981 - '89, many viewers will find it hard to believe that Joan Collins had previously played women every bit as nasty. But such is indeed the case. Even before "Dynasty," Collins had played an Alexis warm-up, Fontaine Khaled, in sister Jackie Collins adaptations "The Stud" (1978) and "The Bi_ch" ('79), and going as far back as her earliest roles, in the British cinema of the mid-'50s, Collins was specializing in women who were decidedly not "nice girls." In "Cosh Boy" (1953), she was a young unwed pregnant woman; in "Turn the Key Softly" ('53), a prostitute. Once arrived in Hollywood, her streak would continue. In the cult favorite "Land of the Pharaohs" ('54), her Princess Nellifer, who lived during some early Egyptian, uh, dynasty, was as duplicitous and scheming as Alexis ever was, and her Crystal Allen character in 1956's "The Opposite Sex" was still another preparation for the "Dynasty" character. How odd, then, to realize that Collins was also more than capable of playing sweet young things, as in 1954's "The Good Die Young" and '55's "The Virgin Queen." And don't even get me started on how wonderful Collins was as the saintly missionary in the classic "Star Trek" episode "The City on the Edge of Forever"! But viewers who are desirous of seeing Collins in what is most likely the most extreme of her "nice girl" roles might be interested in watching her in the 1957 British offering "Sea Wife," Collins' 15th film out of an eventual 71 (as of this writing), in which she plays the part of a nun, no less, and to winning effect. Based on a 1955 novel entitled "Sea-Wyf and Biscuit" by James Maurice Scott, and adapted for the screen by George K. Burke, the film finds the 24-year-old actress opposite some heavy-hitting acting talent but nevertheless holding her own in one of the more unusual roles of her career.

The film opens with a young RAF officer named Michael Cannon (Richard Burton, 32 here and in his 13th film of an eventual 58) returning to England several years after the termination of WW2. He immediately starts putting a series of personal ads in the British papers, in which he states a desire to be reunited with somebody only known as "Sea Wife." In response to these ads, he is summoned to the Ely Retreat and Mental Home in Wandsworth, where he is reunited with a man who he had known as Bulldog (British actor Basil Sydney, who had been in films as far back as 1920) during the war. And then the reminiscences begin, and in flashback, we learn their story. It seems that Cannon and Bulldog had both been on the same transport ship, the San Felix, that was taking refugees from Singapore as the Japanese closed in in 1942. Their ship had been torpedoed by a Japanese sub and quickly sank, leaving the two, as well as a young black man (the ship's purser) and a beautiful young woman (our Joan), in a rubber lifeboat. The four had spent many harrowing days at sea, and had given each other nicknames: Cannon was known as Biscuit, the woman as Sea Wife (a Scottish term for a mermaid, it seems), Bulldog as, well, Bulldog, and the purser only as Number Four (Guyanese actor Cy Grant, supposedly appearing here in his first film, although he HAD made an appearance in 1955's "Safari" in a bit part). As their predicament grew ever more dire, the personality traits of each of the quartet became more evident, and the viewer is soon made to realize that Bulldog is very much a racist, Sea Wife rather saintly in character, Number Four the most levelheaded and rational of the bunch, and Biscuit...well, just a rather ordinary Joe. Eventually, the four fetched up on the shore of a deserted island - it is intimated that they are near the Nicobar Islands, somewhere in the Andaman Sea - where Biscuit declared his love for Sea Wife, to her great discomfiture. What everyone but Number Four did not realize is that the woman is indeed a nun, a fact that, for some rather vague reason, she refused to admit to the men. The four had attempted to build a raft to replace their ruined lifeboat, a task made easier when Number Four discovered a machete buried somewhere on the beach. But Bulldog's distrust of the black man had resulted in great tragedy and a lifetime of regret for the unlikeable character, as events return to the present, and Biscuit's search for Sea Wife reaches a touching conclusion....

Remarkably, this was not the first time that Collins had played the role of a woman marooned on a desert island with three men; in 1953's "Our Girl Friday," her ninth film, which I have yet to see, she was very much in the same situation! The difference, of course, is that in the latter film, her character, being a woman of God, is simply not available to the men's advances. Collins makes the most of her part here, underwritten as it is, and is actually quite credible as the woman who, we ultimately find out in the film's final moments, is actually named Sister Therese. She must automatically be put into the pantheon of filmdom's most beautiful sisters, alongside Jennifer Jones' Bernadette Soubirous in "The Song of Bernadette" ('43), Ingrid Bergman's Sister Mary Benedict in "The Bells of St. Mary's ('45), Deborah Kerr's Sister Clodagh in "Black Narcissus" ('47), Audrey Hepburn's Sister Luke in "The Nun's Story" ('59), Diana Rigg's Philippa in the TV film "In This House of Brede" ('75), and Anita Ekberg's Sister Gertrude in, uh, "The Killer Nun" ('79). Collins is a LOT better than you might be expecting in this role, which is the polar opposite of/diametrically opposed to/light-years distant from Alexis Carrington Colby Dexter, etc. Her Sea Wife is the glue that holds the men together during their travails, and easily the coolest of the bunch when it comes to facing imminent death. And Collins ably holds her own against Burton here, who by all reports was hungover on the set every morning and who tried unsuccessfully to have an affair with his leading lady. And really, given the way Collins looked in the 1950s-and heck, even into the 2000s-who could possibly blame him for trying?

"Sea Wife," fortunately, although it never rises to the level of greatness that the viewer might hope for, yet still features some other commendable qualities besides the thesping of its four leads. Director Bob McNaught, who only directed two other films, the obscurities "Wicked Wife" ('53) and "A Story of David: The Hunted" ('60), brings his film in with a competent if unremarkable style, keeping things taut and compact, with little flab; the entire affair runs to an efficient 82 minutes. Shot in beautiful color and CinemaScope, the film offers much in the way of pictorial splendor, its sunset and starry nighttime scenes while adrift on the high seas being particularly nice to look at. The island of Jamaica is where the picture was actually filmed, standing in for both Singapore (in the early scenes) and that desert island later on, and the beach where our castaways wash up is one that you will wish to visit one day, to be sure. Cinematographer Edward Scaife, who later in '57 would be responsible for the look of one of the finest horror films of the 1950s, "Night of the Demon," does a fine job of capturing the island splendor, as well as the loneliness of days and nights at sea. On a personal note, this viewer happened to visit London for the first time last year, and my B&B was in Wandsworth, where Cannon visits early in the film. No, I did not recognize the building that stands in for the Ely Retreat and Mental Home, but how interesting to see that the Chelsea Bridge that Cannon drives over from Chelsea to get to Wandsworth looks almost exactly the same today, over 60 years later!

Unfortunately, I DID have one major issue with "Sea Wife" - putting aside the relationships between the four main characters not being better explored - and that is the fact that it is a bit hard to believe that Sister Therese would NOT tell her fellow survivors that she is indeed a sister of God. When Biscuit has her up against a palm tree on that desert island, confessing his love to her, while she sheds tears and tells him that she is already promised to another...well, how much easier would it have been for her to just come out with the truth? Her rationale to Number Four that she does not wish to cause problems with the men by confessing her secret just did not ring true for this viewer. It is a secret that Biscuit will never discover, as it turns out in the film's marvelous final moments. "Nobody ever notices the face of a nun," Therese tells her elderly sister as Biscuit passes her by without noticing outside the rest home. And that really is a pity, especially when that face belongs to someone who looks like Joan Collins! The bottom line, I suppose, is that "Sea Wife" is certainly not a great film, but it is surely worth a look, especially for fans of Joan who want to see her in a role VERY much against type....