Revenge Is His!

J.D.'S REVENGE-1976-This unheralded blaxplotation possession flick has Glynn Thurman as Ike, a hard working cabbie studying to be a lawyer getting taken over by a scar faced New Orleans gangster (named J.D.) killed in a slaughterhouse in 1942. He's coming back because he was framed for a murder.


Ike gets a lot of headaches so a doctor recommends he smoke some weed! He rants and cries, abuses his girlfriend and gives a white female passenger an unforgettable cab ride! Lou Gossett is a flamboyant preacher who may be responsible for setting J.D. up. When the ghost finally takes over completely Ike uses a razor on various gangster victims.

Thurman gives a nice shizo-performance. He had been in COOLEY HIGH the year before and was in Ingmar Bergman's THE SERPENT EGG (with David Carradine) the next year. In 1978 he married Aretha Franklin (they divorced in '84). He still makes occasional TV appearances but this movie is pretty much overlooked.

Producer/Director Arthur Marks made BUCKTOWN (with Fred Williamson) and FRIDAY FOSTER (with Pam Grier) and several other movies but worked mostly in TV.

Thanks for reading!

Naked Mummies

THE MUMMY'S KISS-(2002)-This is sort of a soft-core remake of the original MUMMY movie from 1932! Except the reincarnated mummy in this one is a lesbian princess. But who is anyone kidding? It's all just an excuse to show a lot of women naked, having a good time with each other. Most of the actress appear nude (or at least topless). It even features a flashback to ancient Egypt.

Richard Lynch appears as a professor and wears some weird robes. Mia Zottoli plays the evil title role. Arthur Roberts plays Orisis.

Director/writer Donald F. Glut was known for making clever amateur home movies in the '60's and later wrote for cartoon shows like "Scooby-Doo", "Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends" and "The Transformers". 

Guess he got tired of cartoons...

Thanks for reading!

The Professor-1958

We now move on to another "lost" pilot. A show that should have perhaps stayed lost unless you are easily entertained by nonsense (like me!). It's called THE PROFESSOR  (1958) and I have a hard time believing anyone could have made this thinking it could be sold as a series! It's too bad the director Tom McCain never made another movie. Who knows what hilarity he could have produced? Well...maybe it's just as well....

The story begins in the shoddy little lab of Dr. Wilmer, a dwarfish egghead with a funny voice. He's assisted by a nerdy guy named Mark who looks more like a bad Buddy Holly clone! Wilmer's daughter Betty also seems to assist him but she seems more interested in her newspaper reporter-boyfriend. A very weird government agent in a bow tie comes to visit. The dialogue and interaction between the characters during these scenes is incredibly goofy. The agent eventually relates the story of a Dr. Tristler who through some lab experiment gone awry has turned into a werewolf (his howl is pathetic) and is in fact prowling around the perimeter of Dr. Wilmer's lab! Wilmer and Mark do some experiments with a rabbit and a "shock ray" while elsewhere a "foreign commie" agent meets his (female) American contact in a library. He looks like something out of a silent movie with false moustace and eyebrows. The woman looks like a "typical '50's housewife"....

Meanwhile Wilmer and Mark continue their experiments while Betty waits for her boyfriend. The aforementioned werewolf prowls around outside. The boyfriend shows up for a quick make out session with Betty and a bawling out by Wilmer...

After more stilted dialogue, out of place close-ups and bad acting the two "commies" decide to invade the lab. The werewolf kills the guy and the lady (who is really an undercover reporter) is taken inside the lab. Wilmer gives a little speech about Dr. Tristler being his friend and it's over! Apparently, capturing and curing Dr.Werewolf would have to wait for the next episode!!!

This thing is crazy! Was this planned as some continuing series where the cast would try to cure the doctor? Near the end they do talk about curing him with a portable version of their "shock ray". Did the director know what he was doing? My guess is that this was suppose to be a two parter with the second part never made....

None of the cast ever went on to anything as far as I can tell with the exception of the actor who played the werewolf. Doug Hobart was his name and he was a stuntman and "live spook show" presenter. He also did make-up, SFX and production work on several low budget movies most notably two by director William Grefe: the eerie DEATH CURSE OF TARTU and the giant jellyfish drama THE STING OF DEATH (which featured Neil Sedaka). Pretty scary stuff.....

Thanks for reading!

Ed Wood on TV?

It's usually interesting to see un-aired TV pilots especially if they were made for a series that later made it to one of the networks. GILLIGAN'S ISLAND and THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW were two that featured different cast members but were never shown. The pilot for LOST IN SPACE was never aired but scenes were incorporated into an early episode after the series began.

But then there are TV pilots, some aired, some not, whose story was never sold. What happens to them? Well, thanks to modern age video tape, DVDs and e-Bay many of these unseen shows are surfacing. Most have at least something to offer: an unusual plot, one or two known (or soon to be known) actors, a future director, whatever....

Ed Wood made a TV Western pilot (in color) called CROSSROAD AVENGER in 1953. It featured former cowboy star Tom Keene as "The Tucson Kid", an Old West insurance investigator who is framed for the murder of a local sheriff by a corrupt saloon owner (Wood regular Lyle Talbot). The whole production is pretty sub-par with the actors spouting typical Wood dialogue while guided by Ed's lackluster "get it done quick" direction. A stand out scene is when "The Kid" and a prospector are caught in a night ambush. Instead of taking cover they stand out in plain sight in front of the bad guys and return fire until the prospector is shot dead!

Another ex-cowboy star Tom Tyler ( who also played the banaged lead in 1940's THE MUMMY'S HAND) is the not so hip deputy. It would be his last role as he died the following year. He kind of looks like Patrick Stewart to me!

Several other "Wood veterans" are on hand: the always entertaining Harvey B. Dunn (he plays the police chief in BRIDE OF THE MONSTER) plays the talkitive prospector and Keene Duncan and Bud Osbourne round out the cast. Wood even gives himself the small role as a Pony Express rider at the begining....

Supposedly Wood filmed a sequel and combined the two into an hour adventure. Some feel if this had sold Wood's no budget "classics" would never had been made...

CROSSROADS AVENGER isn't much unless you're an Ed Wood completist but it looks like a masterpiece compared to the next "lost" pilot.......

Thanks for reading!

Cavedog's Law

Hey! I like to watch old TV shows. For the last couple of months I've been watching a crime drama from the early '60's called BURKE'S LAW. It starred Gene Barry as a millionaire LA police captain who solved weird murders. The show was chocked filled with guest stars but despite a usually grisly murder the show was almost always played for laughs (except on a rare occasion). The reason I'm mentioning this is a couple of funny things I found associated with the show recently.

I was watching an episode ("Who Killed Molly" from 1964) where a character referred to Captain Burke as "Captain Kirk". That in itself isn't too strange. But also in that episode there was a character called Mrs. Tribble!

Kirk? Tribble?

Ok, so recently I was watching another, later episode ("Who Killed Merlin?" from 1964) and Paul Lynde (in his second dramatic role on the series) played a character named Dr. McCoy!!!

KIrk? Tribble? McCoy? Was this Gene Roddenberry's favorite show? Ok, I know Tribbles were created by David Gerrold but still....

Interestingly the role of Mrs. Tribble was played by Zasu Pitts in what turned out to be her last role...

Ok, tomorrow I'll have more TV stuff!

Living?

THE LIVING GHOST-1942-Stupid Mongram whodunnit with a former detective (James Dunn) coming out of retirement (after being a phony swami) to solve a murder in an old house. Joan Woodbury plays his love interest and there are many suspects. There's some "haunted house" scenes but it's mainly a comedy. Mongram regular Minerva Urecal has a supporting role.

THE LIVING GHOST was one of eleven movies William "One Shot" Beaudine (whose directing career started in 1915) made in 1942. Star Dunn won a best actor Oscar portraying the father in A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN in 1945. Woodbury later starred in a Brenda Starr serial.

Thanks for reading!

Mr. X Marks The Spot

THE MYSTERY OF MR. X-1934-A series of police killings plague London. The killer uses a sword to run his victims through. An American jewel thief Nicolas Revel (Robert Montgomery) finds one of the victims while stealing “The Breton Diamond”. The police think the killer (named Mr. X) and the diamond stealer are the same person. Revel devises a plot to try and get the police off the trail of the diamond with the help of his cockney cab driver accomplice (Forrester Harvey). The plot kind of backfires as Revel falls in love with the daughter (Elizabeth Allen) of the police superintendent (Lewis Stone) who was on to Revel anyway. It’s talky in spots but well done with a nice climax. The only dumb part is the way Revel figures out the killer’s pattern for his crimes. He figures out in a minute what the police couldn’t solve in weeks!

Director Edgar Selwyn only helmed a handful of movies (his most notable is THE SIN OF MADAME CLAUDET in 1931 for which Helen Hayes won an early Oscar). He was more successful with Broadway musicals he produced and/or wrote. He and his brother built The Selwyn theater in Times Square! Lead actress Allen was in Tod Browning’s MARK OF THE VAMPIRE the next year. For some reason Harvey is often listed as the father of the doomed Maria in James Whale’s FRANKENSTEIN though the role is played by another actor!

Thanks for reading!