Herc, Bela and Clones!

HERCULES VS. THE MOON MEN-1964-After the success of the two Hercules movies imported from Italy and starring Steve Reeves, many sequels and imitations followed. This originally followed the exploits of Maciste but for US audiences his name was changed to Hercules. He’s played by Alan Steel (real name: Sergio Ciani of Italy). Herc battles alien rock men on “The Mountain of Death”. A local Queen teams up with them but is no match for the legendary strongman. There’s a strange ape like creature with fangs thrown in too.

It’s pretty entertaining despite the bad dubbing and cheesy SFX. Director Giacomo Gentilomo had been making movies (GOLIATH VS. THE VAMPIRES) since 1937 but MOON MEN was his last. He retired from filmmaking and became a painter. The DVD I saw (from Alpha Video) also included a “Hercules Gallery” of posters and lobby cards.



THE PHANTOM CREEPS-1949-This is a highly condensed feature version of the crazy 1939 serial starring Bela Lugosi as the mad genius Dr. Zorka. He invents a lot of gadgets including a huge monster robot with a big head (it was resurrected in the Rob Zombie video “Living Dead Girl”). He also has an invisibility belt, poison gas gun and a new exploding element he discovered. A scene from THE INVISIBLE RAY (in which Lugosi co-starred with Karloff in 1936) is shown when Zorka explains how he found the new element. But if you look closely you’ll see Karloff’s eyes through the mining suit! Bela sneers a lot and really hams it up as he tries to rule the world with only the help of one lone escaped con who betrays him constantly. Even so, Zorka keeps taking him back and trusting him with different jobs! (Maybe the budget didn’t allow for more actors..???) Robert Kent (who also acted as Dennis Bleckly) is the government agent out to stop him who’s nearly killed in every other scene and Bela’s DRACULA co-star Edward Van Sloan plays the leader of some foreign spies who Zorka runs a foul of.



THE HUMAN DUPLICATORS-1965-Gigantic Richard Kiel (soon after EEGAH!) is Dr. Kolos, a visiting alien who’s ordered by his superior (some guy shown only in negative) to clone human beings and conquer the Earth. Doesn’t really seem like a sound plan; guess that’s why it fails. He makes genetic scientist Dr. Dornhiemer (George Macready) and his staff his slaves and begins cloning various scientific types to do some sabotage. But he makes a mistake by kind of falling in love with Dornhiemer’s blind granddaughter (Dolores Faith) leaving her free will intact. Wiseass government agent Glen Martin (ROBOT MONSTER’S George Nader) is sent to snoop around the scientist’s mansion while his grouchy boss (LEAVE IT TO BEAVER dad Hugh Beaumont) and girl Friday (Barbara Nicholls) stand around wondering where he is. Later on the clones rebel again Kolos and Nader has to fight a duplicate of himself (who’s missing an arm). When the clones fall down during fights their ceramic like heads break into pieces. Richard Arlen (who had co-starred in the silent film classic WINGS in better days) is another government agent who hangs around and acts grumpy too.

It’s pretty boring but Kiel’s acting is funny especially when he’s “talking tough” with commands like “Do as I say or I will destroy you!”. Fortunately THD was the last movie made by director Hugo Grimaldi (he only made 3 anyway). He was mostly an editor who dubbed foreign films into English (including GODZILLA RAIDS AGAIN).

Screenwriter/Producer Arthur C. Pierce wrote several low budget films in the early 60’s including DESTINATION INNER SPACE and CYBORG 2087.

Thanks for reading!