When Capt. America Throws His Mighty Shield...

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER-2011-Marvel' s famous WW 2 hero is finally given the big budget Hollywood treatment.

Steve Rogers (Chris Evans from THE LOSERS) is a patriotic wimpy guy who tries several times to join the army but always comes up 4-F. His best friend Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) makes it easily and goes off to war. Eventually a German doctor (Stanley Tucci) picks Rogers to be the US army's test subject in their "Super Soldier" experiment. Hugh Weaving is fine as Johan Schmidt aka The Red Skull who with his Nazi based group Hydra plans to destroy the world. He's assisted by Dr. Armin Zola (Toby Jones from HARRY POTTER AND THE DEADLY GALLOWS) looking a lot like Truman Capote.

Tommy Lee Jones is the skeptical Colonel Phillips and Hayley Atwill (the recent THE PRISONER remake) is the out of place English female officer Peggy Carter. Dominic Cooper is Howard Stark. Cap also gets help from the un-named Howlin' Commandos (Timothy McDonough as Dum Dum, Derek Luke as Gabe Jones, Kenneth Choi, JJ Feild and Bruno Ricci).

Of course it's a great action film and Evans is good in the lead role especially in his handling of the pre-super soldier Rogers. The weird twist ending features Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury. Co-executive producer Stan Lee has a cameo. Great closing credits!

Strange that this well done adaptation was made by director Joe Johnson (HONEY I SHRUNK THE KIDS, JUMANJI) after the overly gory THE WOLFMAN. Whoa! I can't wait for THE AVENGERS!

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Re-Animator Re-Animated

BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR-2003-Dr. Herbert West (Jeffery Coombs) is locked up in prison. A new prison doctor Howard Phillips (Jason Barry) who as a kid saw his sister killed by one of West's resurrected corpses enlists West in an effort to revive his experiments in this US-Spain co-production from director Brian Yuzna.

They revive a patient who becomes just as violent as past "victims". The idiot warden (Simon Andreu) makes a female reporter (Barbara Elorrieta) bark like a dog then kills her. A revived rat causes a lot of problems and one inmate releases all the prisoners from their cells and starts a riot. Meanwhile West and Phillips experiment on the warden to save the life of the reporter. It also features Elsa Pataky as a nurse who has a brief topless scene and Santiago Segura (also in Franco's KILLER BARBYS).

Coombs is still great as the insane but always analytical West but this tries too hard to be like the original and fails by becoming too comical and over top. Yuzna should have quit at 2 instead of making this ridiculous mess.

Western Stooges!

GOLD RAIDERS-1951-In this B-western former silent screen star George O'Brien plays a former US marshal turned insurance salesman named George O'Brien who comes to the town of Red Mesa to protect gold shipments from unscrupulous saloon owner Lyle Talbott. And he is assisted by The Three Stooges! Yes, Moe, Larry & Shemp co-star in this comedy drama which features lots of shoot-outs and face slapping. A sub-plot involves O'Brien's secretary (Sheila Ryan) and her drunken former doctor grandfather (Clem Bevans).

The Stooges are very funny but when they aren't around it's just another low budget western. The saloon shootout at the end is kind of ridiculous and Talbott's stand-in during the final fist fight is very bad. This is the only Stooges full length movie appearance until their first comeback film (HAVE ROCKET WILL TRAVEL) in 1959. It sort of reminded me of Ed Woods' CROSSROAD AVENGER made two years later and featuring Talbott as the villain.

Harry Thomas did the make-up. Fuzzy Knight has a small role as the do nothing sheriff and Monte Blue is also in it. Stooge vet Edward Bernds directed. Thanks to my friend Tony for giving me this!

Larry: Firecrackers?

Moe: That's shooting you, ignoramus. The men out here are rough and tough and love battles.

Larry: Well, I'm weak and soft and I love the Bronx!

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Late Silent

THE GODLESS GIRL-1929-This interesting social drama is sometimes called director Cecil B. Demile's last silent film and first talkie! However the version I saw didn't have the sound part.

Judy, (Lina Basquette) the leader of "The Godless Society", an atheist group spreading across a local school is partially responsible for a huge riot (an excellent sequence) in which a woman is killed. Judy, would be convert boyfriend Bob (Tom Keene using his real name George Duryea) and comic relief atheist Bozo (Eddie Quillan) all go to jail where the men are at the mercy of The Brute (Noah Beery), the sadistic head guard. Ill fated Marie Prevost plays Mame a fellow inmate who befriends Judy. Eventually Judy and Bob escape for a while, declare their love for each other and then are recaptured.

The incredible climax takes place in the burning prison where Judy is trapped and Bob fights The Brute to save her. In the end faith in God and love win out. Many of the cast and crew were burned during the fire sequence.

Star Lina Basquette (widow of Sam Warner) should have been more famous but her career was marred by 9 marriages, legal troubles and 2 attempted suicides. She retired in 1943 but many years later appeared in one last film, Daniel Boyd's PARADISE PARK. Tom Keene became a low budget western star and also appeared in films (sometimes un-credited) under the name Richard Powers. Of course his last film appearance was in a something called PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.

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Whatever Happened to Emby Mellay?

Halloween seems to have passed me by!

TOUCH OF SATAN-1971-In a pre-credit sequence a deformed old lady (Jeanne Gerson) kills a rural police officer. Later a guy named Jodie (Michael Berry) is traveling to California when he turns into a road and stops to eat his lunch by a lake. There he meets Melissa (Emby Mellay in her only movie). She talks about her father's walnut farm and then invites Jodie for dinner. Her parents don't exactly seem enthused to see him and talk mysteriously about what Melissa can and can't do. When Jodie agrees to stay the night he meets grandma Lucinda, the same disfigured old lady from before who clutches a doll and mumbles a lot. When Jodie and Melissa go to town for groceries and get a cold reception from some fellow shoppers, Melissa says it's because she's a witch!

Flashbacks (featuring perennial hillbilly Robert Easton) reveal the truth. In the 1870's Melissa made a pact with the devil to save her sister (the deformed old hag Lucinda) from being burned at the stake. When Lucinda kills another cop things kind of get weird for Jodie who refuses to believe the story. He finds out the truth in the twist finale.

This is a pretty low budget outing but I kind of liked it. It's full of unanswered questions and strange dialogue (like Melissa suddenly saying "This is where the fish lives" while looking at the lake) and although it's mostly talk it doesn't really drag as the running time is fairly short.

Director Don Henderson also made THE BABYSITTER and WEEKEND WITH THE BABYSITTER. The old age make-up was provided by Joe Blasco who later did early Cronenberg and ILSA movies.

I'm not sure if it's available on DVD but Mystery Science Theater has used it, where a lot of people learned about it. I first saw it on late night TV in the early '80's.

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