Happy Easter Triple Play!

PEEPING TOM-1960-A quiet German guy (Carl Boehm) works with a film crew and takes photographs and his own films in his spare time. Unfortunately most of the films are POV shots of him killing women with a tripod like dagger. Other films in his collection show his scientist father used him as an experiment. A female tenant (Anna Massey) befriends him but her blind mother is suspicious.

This is a great unique thriller from director Michael Powell. It also features Moira Sheara (also in Powell’s THE RED SHOES), Esmond Knight and Pamela Green.







SISTERS!-1973-This cult film is Brian DePalma’s first horror outing. It was downhill from there!

Margot Kidder plays French Canadian model separated from her Siamese twin sister who seems to be a psychotic killer. After appearing on a game show called “Peeping Tom” she spends the night with a contestant (while her weird looking husband hangs around outside). The contestant winds up stabbed to death. A local reporter (Jennifer Salt) witnesses the murder but can’t get the police to believe her. The whole thing is very predictable and some of the dialogue is pretty dumb. Also Kidder talks with a French accent that eventually becomes quite annoying.

DePalma hadn’t yet mastered the “ripping off” of Hitchcock but he used other sources (like Thomas Tryon’s THE OTHER and maybe DON’T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT). Also with Charles Durning, William Finley, Barnard Hughes, Dolph Sweet and Olympia Dukakis. DePalma made PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE next.


ONE MILLION B.C.-1940-This Hal Roach produced prehistoric story tells the tale of two cave tribes, Except for some opening intro scenes there is no distinguishable dialogue. The cave tribes’ minimal speech is mostly grunts and hand gestures. QUEST FOR FIRE used the same device 40 years later.

Victor Mature stars as the egotistical Tumak who is banished from his tribe by his father/leader (Lon Chaney Jr.) who rules with an iron hand. Tumak wanders around and eventually meets Loana (Carole Landis) and The Shell Tribe who are less aggressive and like to share things. They fall in love and he takes her back to his people. The special effects are very good and the scenes of real lizards fighting each other in miniature sets were re-used in countless later low budget movies.

The opening sequence features former silent screen star Conrad Nagel relating the story to some travelers but after we meet the prehistoric folk the story never goes back to him.

Lead caveman Victor Mature was one of the worst actors ever to become a star. And he never denied it. Here he was still a contract player but he’d attain stardom six years later in John Ford’s MY DARLIN’ CELMENTINE.

Co-star Carole Landis should have become a star to but languished in B-movies most of her career and committed suicide at age 29 in 1948.

As the head of Tumak’s tribe Lon Chaney Jr. really throws himself into the role. He’d caused a stir just a year before with his poignant portrayal of Lenny, doomed rabbit loving strongman in the movie version of John Steinbeck’s OF MICE AND MEN. A year later his life would be forever changed with the lead in a little horror movie called THE WOLF MAN!

Both Hal Roach Sr. & Jr. are the credited directors. Is this the only time and father and son co-directed a film?

Thanks for reading!