Lured

LURED-1947-Interesting overlooked murder mystery directed by Douglas Sirk (later known for his glossy Hollywood tearjerkers).

Lucille Ball stars as an American dancer in London who's recruited by a Scotland Yard inspector (Charles Coburn) to be a decoy to help capture a killer who meets his victims via personal ads. Costar George Sanders is his usual suave self and a chief suspect. George Zucco is great as the crossword puzzle solving detective who helps out. Boris Karloff has a one scene in a stand out role as a crazy dress designer/red herring! Other suspects include Alan Mowbray, Cedric Hardwick and Joseph Calleia. Alan Napier is Coburn's assistant.

It's a remake of a French film "Pieges" (PERSONAL COLUMN; LURED's original working title) made in 1939 by Roberet Siodmak with Erich Von Stroheim in the Karloff role. Earlier Von Stroheim was Karloff's immediate successor for the role of Jonathan Brewster in ARSENIC AND OLD LACE on Broadway.

For some reason LURED was not easy to find for a long time but TCM has showed it several times in recent years and Kino finally released it on DVD.

Thanks for reading!

Shorts

In the  middle of Hurricane Sandy so I'll have to keep it short (with some shorts)!

PERVERSION FOR PROFIT-1965-Infamous propaganda film warning of the horrors of adult magazines (called smut) and it's effects on society. It's on screen narrator is George Putnam, at the time a popular radio and TV commentator. It makes some valid points but it's all lost on it's unintentionally funny dialogue. It was produced by real estate developer and financier Charles Keating, later involved in the 1980's savings and loan scandal.

ASK ME, DON'T TELL ME-1961-Interesting short produced by Youth In Service, an early '60's organization that tired to help teenagers in gangs (or jacket clubs). Black, White and Hispanic youth are all involved. There's straight narration but occasionally another guy talks in jive and nice background music by The Five Chips (they do versions of Johnny B. Goode and La Bamba). It's very positive and not the usual propaganda crap.

THE TROUBLE MAKER-1957-Mel, a big mouth liar who likes to spread rumors gets 2 football players into trouble after lying about dating a female student. Not much else happens and at the end the narrator asks "what would you do?". It was directed by Herk Harvey who a few years later made the unforgettable CARNIVAL OF SOULS.

GANG BOY-1954-Badly made but interesting little short about teenager violence as two street gangs (one White, one Chicano) do battle. Danny, the leader of the Chicano gang narrates most of it as he looks back on his life and remembers how he became a "gang boy". Was this the inspiration for WEST SIDE STORY? Producer Sid Davis and writer/director Arthur Swerdloff made several other shorts along this line. Most of them used post-sync dialogue, a device later used to the hilt by Doris Wishman on most of her films.

Take care and stay dry!

Out of Order Review!

Of course since this blog is messed up I have the review for the first installment of this series after two later installments!

WAR OF THE PLANETS-1966-A mysterious signal disrupts the New Year's Eve party on space station Gamma One. Commandeer Halstead (Tony Russel) sends a crew to investigate another space station where the landing party is alive but in a kind of suspended animation ("dead like lightening"...???). The landing party soon joins them. Lt. Jacowitx (Franco Nero,the same year he starred in DJANGO) and Lt. Gomez (Lisa Gastoni) help with the investigation and discover there is an invasion by aliens who are smoky green mist and take over humans. "It's a nightmare and we're all dreaming it...together". The aliens want to relocate to Earth and take over all humans. A lot of time is wasted on a ritual called "The Hosting". It's pretty boring but occasionally funny. Some fire extinguishers become deadly weapon's in the hero's hands. 

The sets and SFX in this Italian space drama look like something out of FIREBALL XL-5! Russel, Nero, Gastoni and Giustini had played the same characters in director Antonio Margheriti's THE WILD WILD PLANET the year before. Margheriti (usually credited as Anthony Dawson on US prints) had already made HORROR CASTLE (with Christopher Lee) and CASTLE OF BLOOD (with Barbara Steele) and went on to make many more. He died in 2002 at 72.

Thanks for reading!

 

Gamma One Returns

SNOW DEVILS-1967-Another crazy art-deco designed Italian science fiction movie directed by Antonio Margherriti (Anthony Dawson in the US prints). 

After a weather station in the Himalayas is destroyed the commander of space station Gamma One Rod Jackson (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart aka Jack Stuart in American prints) is sent to investigate. A woman lieutenant Lisa Neilson (Ombretta Colli aka Amber Collins in American prints) insists on going along because her fiance was a victim of the destruction and she believes he is still alive (“I don't know. Call it woman's intuition, ESP or whatever you want”). Wilbert Bradley is their crazy talking Sherpa guide Sharu. After their “heli-jet” and other equipment are destroyed in a freak accident,the group must go on foot which becomes a 4 person mission when the Sherpa guides (except for Sharu) run away. Seeking shelter in a cave they encounter big bluish hairy “snow devils”. 

They are actually aliens from a dying planet trying to flood Earth and then freeze it so they can live there. For some reason their skin and fur change color in a few scenes. When the group is held captive they somehow escape and drug the aliens. They kill the leader and go back home to find the Earth plagued by storms, floods and polar meltdowns so they must find the hidden alien base before all is lost! 

The buildings, ships and SFX look like Gerry Anderson's FIREBALL XL-5 and the story is similar to one used on TV'S VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA! If it seems a little episodic that's because it's all part of the Italian “Gamma One” space series which also includes the THE WAR OF THE PLANETS and THE WILD WILD PLANET. (last review)

Thanks for reading!

The Wild Wild Review

THE WILD WILD PLANET-1965-In this crazy Sci-Fi space adventure from Italy, a mad scientist (Massimo Serato) is conducting mysterious experiments using human beings while strange aliens disguised as humans kill scientists (and little kids). Most are women have beehive hairdos but one is a bald headed guy with a killer trench coat! American born Tony Russel is Commander Mike Halstead in charge of the Gamma One space station where the action takes place. Lisa Gastoni is Lt. Connie Gomez, Halstead's kind of girlfriend. Franco Nero is Jake, another Lieutenant who helps Halstead go after the mad doc (who has some weird plan to create his own race) and rescue Connie who has fallen into his clutches. It's all very funny with toy cars and rockets, people turned doll sized, female aliens beating up men and lines like “You Helium head”. 

Directed by Antonio Margheriti, it's part of the Gamma One series of space movies. Ruggero Deodato (CANNIBAL HOLOHAUST) was an assistant director.

Thanks for reading! 

  

Puppetmaster

PUPPETMASTER-1989-A prologue set in Nazi Germany reveals that an old puppet maker named Toulon (William Hickey) hides some interesting looking puppets (one walks around in a trench coat with a hook and knife for hands) from The Gestapo and kills himself. 

Years later, group of psychics investigate the death of a guy named Neil Gallagher (Jimmie Skaggs) who killed himself. His wife Meghan seems to think he's dead but not so “dream psychic” Alex (Paul LeMat) who has dreams of Gallagher acting nutty. The group is terrorized by the resurrected puppets including the hook hand trench coat guy and his pals: one with a very small head but huge human hands, one with a drill for a head, a female that upchucks leeches, a kind of jester with a spinning face). After three of the psychics are killed Alex and Meghan discover the truth. It turns out Gallagher did kill himself but came back to life by using Toulon's secret Egyptian rites of the afterlife and wants to live forever. But after he's mean to the puppets they revolt and kill him good. 

This fun (although a little slow story wise) low budget horror movie from Charles Band's Empire Pictures spawned several sequels and even a crossover with another series (DEMONIC TOYS) but I like this one the best. 

Director David Schmoeller had already made two whacked out features: TOURIST TRAP (with Chuck Connors as a psycho) and CRAWLSPACE (with Klaus Kinski as a psycho).

Thanks for reading!

Early Talkie

THE THIRTEENTH CHAIR-1929-This creaky old early talkie features (pre-Dracula) Bela Lugosi as an Inspector (who's not much better than Inspector Cousteau) who investigates a murder that took place during a séance. Conrad Nagel and Leila Hyams are the real stars. They play an engaged couple (he's rich, she's not and hides a secret about her mother). They and several others are all suspects of the murder of a police officer who was investigating another murder. A medium (Margret Wycherly, later James Cagney's mother in WHITE HEAT) may have been in cahoots with the officer in trying to catch the murderer. She's also the mother of the girl but no one knows it. 

This was Tod Browning's first sound film and like most of them around this time it's almost like a filmed play. One scene begins with  the actors waiting for their cue! Holmes Herbert is also in it.  Co-star Leila Hyams was later in Browning's FREAKS (and ISLAND OF LOST SOULS). She made her last film in 1936 and retired. She died in 1977.  

Thanks for reading!

Japan

A PAGE OF MADNESS-1926-This silent film from Japan was once thought to b lost. I'm glad someone found it. It has no titles however and is a bit hard to follow. I admit there were a few bits I wasn't quite sure about until I did some research. 

A janitor works at an insane asylum to be near is wife, an inmate. One day their daughter comes to the place to visit the mother unaware who her father is. Flashbacks tell a back story as to how the mother wound up an inmate and why the father isn't recognized. Other parts seem to be a dream. It features incredible haunting scenes of patient madness and eerie surreal imagines. 

Some critics compare it (usually unfavorably) to THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI. I can't agree. This stands on it's own. Director Teinosuke Kinugasa made many more films including GATE OF HELL in the sound era.

Thanks for reading!

Fear and Desire and Kubrick

FEAR AND DESIRE-1953-Stanley Kubrick's first film isn't as bad as he'd have liked us to believe. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Quentin Tarantino saw this before making RESERVOIR DOGS! 

It's essentially a war story although what war and where it takes place is arbitrary. A group of soldiers are caught behind enemy lines and as they try to weave their way back to allied territory tensions and desires mount. Future director Paul Mazursky makes his acting debut (he was in THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE two years later) as a crazy private who molests a local girl (Virginia Leith, later in THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE). Frank Silvera (also the villain in KILLER'S KISS) is a doomed Sargent. It's hampered by some choppy editing, weird dialogue and stilted acting but it's a low budget film where Kubrick did almost everything (direction,writing, producing, editing, cinematography, sound). And it definitely shows a little of things to come. It would be only 4 years (and 2 movies) later that Kubrick would make PATHS OF GLORY. 

For years it was out of circulation and the story went that the director himself acquired all known prints and had them destroyed. Fortunately this was not the case and although it has yet to be released legally on DVD, TCM showed a newly restored version about a year ago. 

The music was supervised by Gerald Fried who worked with Kubrick on his next 3 films and became a prolific low budget film and TV composer. The script was written by Howard Sackler who years later won a Pulitzer for his play "The Great White Hope". 

Kubrick's then wife Toba was the dialogue director. Problems resulting from the film are said to have lead to the break-up of their marriage! 

Thanks for reading! 

Possession from the '80's

POSSESSION-1981-This is a crazy kind of horror movie that starts out like a Bergman film with lots of soul searching dialogue and over acting. 

Sam Neill (talking like James Mason; it might be his real voice) is Mark, a businessman who returns early from a trip and learns that his wife Anna (Isabelle Adjani, who was in Herzoz's NOSFERATU remake 2 years before) is having an affair. At first Mark seems to be the only one who is unable to cope. He rants and attacks Anna in a restaurant where 2 waiters and 2 cooks have to subdue him. Later he grows a beard and has convulsions. He visits their son and acts weird while rocking in a rocking chair. He very aggressively tries to make her stay with him but that fails. 

When he drops his son off at school he meets the teacher Helen who resembles Anna (Adjani in a dual role). He later confronts her German lover Heinrich (Heinz Bennent, also in films by Truffaut and Bergman), a touchy-feely oddball who won't button up his shirt but he bloodily beats up Mark. Later Anna cracks up, screams, laughs and Mark beats her up! 

She runs out in the street with blood dripping from her mouth and causes an accident. After Anna's dopey friend Margit (Margit Carstensen) shows up and says things like “I love seeing you miserable”, Mark visits a private investigator. It's obvious something is going on with Anna that doesn't involve Mark or her lover. Anna and Mark have a weird discussion in the kitchen while Anna is grinding meat. 

Meanwhile the detective trails Anna to a seemingly abandoned building but Anna kills him when he discovers something strange in the bathroom. Amid more talking, soul searching and fighting it seems Anna is the possessed lover of a slimy tentacled demon (created by Carlo Rambaldi). 

Some might call POSSESSION an art house horror film and go crazy for the over the top acting and Bergman like close-ups and dialogue (I've also read it's an allegory for divorce) but personally I think the director Andrezj Zulawski was having fun with the “art house crowd” and this is a horror parody. The characters act too strange to be taken seriously (especially Adjani's stand-out freak out scene in the subway where she vomits and menstruates and the scene where a demon actually screws her) and most of the killings are comical. 

Neill was the grown up Damien in OMEN lll: THE FINAL CONFLICT the same year. The Polish born Zulawski's next film THE DEVILS (not a horror film) was banned in his homeland. On the commentary for the DVD of POSSESSION he claims Adjani (who won France's equivalent of an Academy Award for her performance) tried to commit suicide after watching the film (I couldn't blame her actually...).

Thanks for reading!

2 O'Clock

TWO O'CLOCK COURAGE-1945-Interesting early low budget film noir from director Anthony Mann. Tom Conway is a victim of amnesia who with the help of a female cabbie (Ann Rutherford) tries to figure out who he is. He might be guilty of murder! A book of matches, a play (called Two O’clock Courage), the actor and actress stars and 500 hundred dollars are all clues. Though it is a serious drama there are some comedic scenes mostly involving a a police inspector (Emory Parnell) and a newspaper reporter (Richard Lane). At a running time of only 68 minutes a lot happens.

Mann made THE GREAT FLAMARION starring Erich Von Stroheim the same year. Tom Conway was also starring in THE FALCON series at the time. Screenwriter Robert Kent later penned many exploitation films for director Edward L. Cahn. 

Thanks for reading! 

   

Fright

FRIGHT-1971-A college student named Amanda (Susan George) babysits a small child for his weirdly acting parents (Honor Blackman and George Cole). She gets spooked a few times by noises and a stranger hangs around the house but she thinks it's her stupid boyfriend (Dennis Waterman) who shows up and tries to frighten her with scary stories. Meanwhile we learn why the parents acted strangely. It turns out Mom is the process of divorcing Brian, her husband (and father of her young son) a paranoid nut who has recently escaped from his mental hospital. After she thinks her boyfriend has been bludgeoned to death, Amanda is “befriended” by “a neighbor” (Ian Bannen) who of course turns out to be Brian. Poor Amanda cracks up but soon realizes he's a psycho who imagines she's his wife, rapes her and terrorizes his child. Bannen really goes bonkers in the finale. 

It's a fairly good psychological drama but a little too long and a blockhead comic police officer character seems out of place. Director Peter Collinson (who died in 1980) had made THE ITALIAN JOB and later did remakes of TEN LITTLE INDIANS and THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE. 

Thanks for reading!

Intimacy

INTIMACY-1966-In this unusual drama, businessman Walter Nicholson (Barry Sullivan) is desperate to get a government contract. He secretly films Washington contractor Jim Hawley (Jack Ging) in a hotel room so he can get something on Hawley to use as blackmail. He sends a prostitute (singer Jackie DeShannon) to woo him but that fails. Later Hawley's alcoholic wife (Nancy Malone; a TV actress who later became a TV director)) shows up but he gets rid of her because he's expecting another woman he's having an affair with. Much of it is Nicholson watching the film in his office and he gets a big surprise when the woman Hawley's having an affair with is his own wife (Joan Blackman who had co-starred with Elvis in BLUE HAWAII)! This is an unusual rarely recognized unique little feature that holds your interest for a while but goes on a little too long. It would have been a great 1 hour TV episode..

Sullivan had been in Mario Bava's PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES the year before. This is probably the only starring role for TV character Jack Ging (and one of his few feature films). Director Victor Stoloff also made a TV movie THE 300 YEAR WEEKEND (1971) which was told in real time. Co-writer Harvey Flaxman later wrote and produced GRIZZLEY.

Thanks for reading! 

Snow!

SNOWMAGEDDON-2011-Killer ice storms reek havoc in the small town of Normal, Alaska (or Canada). A pilot (Laura Harris) and her daughter (Magda Apanowicz; they seem more like sisters) are trapped on a snowy mountain after their helicopter crashes. 

They are rescued by their husband/dad (David Cubitt) but then get caught in an avalanche. The strange happenings seem to be related the a cursed snow globe in the possession of the couple's young son. The usual derivative nonsense this time from director Sheldon Wilson who also made KAW and KILLER MOUNTIAN. 

Thanks for reading! 

Boggy Creek

THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK-1972-This pseudo-documentary (very popular in the '70's) is about a legendary Bigfoot like monster prowling around the swamps in Arkansas. It's mostly staged scenes but the dialogue and narration are funny. 

The narrator (an adult who encountered the monster as a little boy) sets up the other “encounters” by giving background on the characters and their situations before they are terrorized. The songs “The Legend of Boggy Creek” and “Nobody Sees The Sun But Me” are occasionally heard. The narrator says things like “The creeks. He always follows the creeks” and partially blames the creatures attacks on “lonely frustration”.The barely seen hairy beast only attacks one person and mostly kills chickens, dogs and cats plus frightening humans. Since some actors (like Smokey Crabtree and his son Travis) are playing themselves I guess there is a sort of real story to the whole thing. But it's all reenactments including the footage of the “the legend”.

TLOBC was shot and directed by Charles B. Pierce in his film debut. He went on to make other regional films including THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN, THE NORSEMEN and the semi-sequel BOGGY CREEK ll: THE LEGEND CONTINUES in 1984 which despite the title is actually the second sequel. The first sequel RETURN TO BOGGY CREEK is really a children's movie. Pierce was also a set designer for bigger budgeted films and wrote the story for the Dirty Harry installment SUDDEN DEATH in which the catch phrase “Make my day” was first used. 

Music was composed by Bolivian born Jaime Mendoza-Nava, who wrote tons of low budget soundtracks.

Excellent shot of the Bigfoot from THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK:

Thanks for reading!

South Africa

PREY-2007-Peter Weller (he made good movies once, right?) is an engineer who takes his dysfunctional family (teenage daughter doesn't get along with step-mom) with him when he goes to Africa to build a dam. Mom (Bridget Moynahan), daughter (Carly Schroeder and young son (Connor Dowds) go for a tour in a game preserve and wind up trapped in an SUV being stalked by lions. Some poachers help them get water. Meanwhile dad and a white hunter look for them. This South African produced CUJO inspired tale features a lot of arguing, screaming and unrealistic twists. It was directed by Darrell Roodt. 

Thanks for reading!

TV Frankenstein

TALES OF FRANKENSTEIN-1958-This is the pilot for a series co-produced by Hammer Films and Columbia Pictures. German born actor Anton Diffring is Baron Frankenstein trying to create life in his laboratory. A dying artist (familiar TV actor Richard Bull) and his wife (Helen Wescott) want the Baron to help save his life but he refuses. When the artist dies Frankenstein steals his brain and uses it in his monster (stuntman-actor Don Megowan, in make-up resembling Universal's except he has no neck bolts).

When the monster awakes after his latest transplant he turns on the his creator and goes after his former wife. He dies by falling into an open grave after seeing his reflection. It's only 28 mins. long so it moves pretty fast but it's well done and an interesting look at an early TV horror tale. Ludwig Stossel and Peter Brocco are also in it. 

Hammer head honcho Michael Carrerras is listed as producer (TOF was made in between the first two Hammer Frankenstein movies). Director Curt Siodmak (who worked on several films in Universal's original Frankenstein series) does manage to give it a certain "classic" feel despite time and budget drawbacks. Siodmak also directed several episodes of the mysterious 13 DEMON STREET see:http://moviemeltdown.blogspot.com/2009/07/lon-is-messing-with-devil.html . It was written by Henry Kutter and his wife CL Moore, who later became successful Sci-Fi/fantasy authors. 

One story goes that the pilot never went anywhere because the two studios (I've also read Screen Gems not Columbia was the other studio) disagreed on the future of the series.

Thanks for reading (and Thanks again to my pal Tony for getting me this !)

"Water Can Flow Or It Can Crash. Be Water, My Friend." - Bruce Lee

I AM BRUCE LEE-2011-This documentary produced by Spike TV is pretty good but would have been better without the likes of UFC president Dana White (UFC was airing on Spike at the time) who declares Lee created mixed martial arts and celebrities like Mickey Rourke (listed as actor/boxer) and Ed O'Neill (listed as actor/martial artist) telling us why Lee was so great.

 UFC fighter Stephan Bonnar tells how he kicked his brothers' asses and other fighters like Jon Jones and Chung Le pontificate too. Even former boxer Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini (billed as World Boxing Champion) has his say. Kobe Bryant and some dancers reflect on Lee having been the Hong Kong Cha-Cha champion of 1957 and he's compared to Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X! Of course Dan Inosanto, Lee's widow Linda and his daughter Shannon help keep things on track with their insights into his life, his philosophy and the development of his own martial arts style Jeet Kune Do. His stint as Kato of course is talked about and it was nice to see actor/stuntman Judo Gene LeBell be interviewed. But why no interviews with other people who worked with him like Chuck Norris and John Saxon? 

This is biography features a lot of the very interesting black and white interview he did with in 1971 but there's too many celebrities talking trash and too much UFC promoting.

Thanks for reading!

 

No Funny Animated Animals!

2012: ICE AGE-2011-The Asylum strikes again! A giant glacier threatens North America! Maine is wiped out! 

A scientist (Patrick Laborteaux), his wife (Julie McCullough) and their son (Nick AfanasIev) try to reunite with their daughter(Katie Wilson) who's in NYC. People freeze instantly and in the tradition of THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW (and EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS) famous landmarks are destroyed. The family trio winds up flying a Cessna through a twister. Meanwhile the daughter and her boyfriend walk to New Jersey. The government plants bombs but they don't seem to work. The stupid climax involves The Statue of Liberty. 

The acting, SFX and script are all sub-par in this disaster of a disaster movie! 

As of this writing 2012: ICE AGE is the only film directed by Travis Fort. (Keep praying!)

Thanks for reading!

The Horror! The Daughter of Horror!

DEMENTIA/DAUGHTER OF HORROR-1955-”Come with me into the tormented haunted half lit night of the insane. This is my world. Let me lead you into it. Let me take you into the mind of a woman who is mad”. 

So says the unnamed narrator of this weird low budget quickie (this version runs 55 mins.) that seems to have inspiration from both German expressionism and Ed Wood! It features no spoken dialogue, only narration (dementedly provided by Johnny Carson's future late night sidekick Ed McMahon!)

An insane woman called The Gamin (we know she's insane because the narrator says so) wakes up in bed fully clothed. She goes to a dresser draw, pulls out a stiletto and smiles. After encountering a child and seeing a wife beater arrested in the hall of her apartment she buys a newspaper from a smiling dwarf (who else but Angelo Rossitto?) with the headline: “Mysterious Stabbing”. The look on her face seems to say she knows all about it already. She walks down a dark alley and when a street drunk harasses her a police detective (Ben Roseman) viciously beats the drunk with a blackjack while she laughs insanely. Then she encounters a well dressed sleaze with a pencil thin mustache who tries to put the moves on her. After buying a flower from a haunted looking flower lady the detective introduces her to The Rich Man (Bruno Ve Sota). The Rich Man takes her to dinner, then a bar and finally a nightclub (the police detective is also hanging out there) where The Rich Man stares obsessively at a dancer. This all goes on with no dialogue what so ever. Only music and a few sound effects! The mysterious narrator then returns while the pair are driving in The Rich Man's car to inform us that The Gamin is going to have a flashback about her parents. And what a flashback! 

It takes place in a graveyard! Here we learn how her abusive drunken father (who looks like the police detective) murdered her slutty mother after he finds a cigar in an ashtray (apparently dad doesn't smoke) and then she stabs her father to death! We also meet a hooded figure in a suit with a lantern who calls himself (?) "the demon who possesses your soul". He has the voice of the narrator so now we know who's relating the whole thing...

Later she and the Rich Man go to his apartment (the detective is watching them the whole time). He plays the piano and she fixes him a drink but he's more interested in the meal his butler brings him. After nourishment it's time for hanky-panky. But our heroine will have none of it. When he tries to kiss her she stabs him and pushes him out a window. His butler doesn't seem bothered. He just laughs. She runs away but then realizes when she stabbed the Rich Man he grabbed a pendant she was wearing around her neck. Fortunately, she happens to run right into his dead body with the pendant still clutched in his hand! Despite the corpse being surrounded by "the ghouls of insanity" she gets the medallion back but only after cutting off the hand that holds it. She runs away again but the police detective is following her. She escapes him and ditches the severed hand in the flower lady's basket. 

When she is finally trapped in an alley, she is saved by the sleazy guy with the pencil thin mustache who takes her into a night club he owns. He magically dresses her in a gown while Shorty Rogers and His Giants play on stage. She goes out to meet the denizens of the club who are either passed out drunk or jiving spasmodically. Comedian Shelly Bergman (perhaps the only one still alive associated with the production...?) appears briefly as a very frantic one. The Gamin gets into the groove and joins the band on stage. Then the police detective shows up and displays some handcuffs. Once again her madness takes over and everyone in the club accuses her. The Rich Man (minus his hand) even shows up to mock her! Everyone crowds in on her with clutching hands and bizarre close-ups and flashbacks occur. Suddenly she wakes up in bed. Was it only a dream? She opens the dresser draw and there is her pendant wrapped in a severed hand and it's alive!

For years the only thing I knew about DOH is the clutching hand scene which is being shown on screen in the movie theater (the marquee also says BRIDE OF THE MONSTER is showing) in THE BLOB. It's really a weirdly avant garde film noir that's saved by it's short running time. The images presented are strange and must have taken many an audience in the 50's by surprise. 

I read a number of stories about credited director John Parker the most persistent being that he didn't actually exist and featured player Bruno Ve Sota actually made DAUGHTER OF HORROR. But more recent research seems to say that Parker was real and wrote and produced it while Ve Sota "probably" directed it. 

Lead Actress Adrienne Barrett may have been Parker's secretary. IMDB says she made only one more movie THE MORE THINGS CHANGE...31 years later! But since that movie is an Australian production I wonder if it's the same actress? A lot can happen in 31 years I guess. Jazz trumpeter Shorty Rogers was a very well known musician and later became a composer and arranger. He even arranged Ex-Monkee Mike Nesmith's first solo album in 1967. Ve Sota (who's real life wife Jebbie plays the flower girl) appeared in low budget movies and TV. He is the credited director on 3 films including the much maligned but great THE BRAIN EATERS! 

Whew! Thanks for reading (if you read this far!)!

I Just Wanted To Say a Few Words About William Beaudine.

What do movies like THE SPARROW, a silent film starring Mary Pickford, THE OLD FASHIONED WAY with WC Fields, THE APE MAN with Bela Lugosi, SPOOK BUSTERS with The Bowery Boys and THE CHINESE RING with Roland Winters as Charlie Chan all have in common?

Well, they were all directed by William Beaudine, perhaps the most prolific Hollywood director of all time.

Beaudine, from NYC, made his directorial debut in 1915 with a short called ALMOST A KING. Prior to this he had been assistant director to DW Griffin on BIRTH OF A NATION and INTOLERANCE. He made his first full length feature around 1922 and when the era of sound started he'd already had a considerable amount of work under his belt. He found jobs at many of the major studios (Fox, Paramount, Warner Bros.). While shooting a Mack Sennett short he used the pseudonym William Crowley. One story says he did this because he was contractually bound to different studio. Another story says it was because he was "blacklisted" after a clash  with a studio head at Columbia Pictures.

From 1934-1937 he was in England (along with Allan Dwan) making films. It's been said that when he returned to the US he had trouble getting back in with the major studios and so began his work on "Poverty Row" as the 1940's saw Beaudine work almost exclusively for Monogram and Producers Releasing Corp. (PRC) churning out things like the aforementioned THE APE MAN and VOODOO MAN (also with Geo. Zucco and John Carradine), PROFESSOR CREEPS with Mantan Moreland, The East Side Kids series (later reborn as The Bowery Boys), FACE OF MARBLE, LEAVE IT TO THE IRISH and BLACK MARKET BABIES.

In 1945 he directed the notorious "birth of a baby" film MOM AND DAD for Kroger Babb. The Internet Movie Database has this to say about MOM AND DAD in Beaudine's biography: "Some cinema historians say that "Mom and Dad" may well have been, on a return-on-investment basis, the most profitable film in history, grossing as much as $100 million. Babb later recounted that each one of his investors got back $63,000 for each $1,000 invested in the film. In a pre-"Kinsey Report" world filled with ignorance and misinformation--deliberate and otherwise--about biology and sex, "Mom, and Dad" filled a void and turned a handsome profit while doing so (it was playing at drive-ins in the South and Midwest at least until 1977, long after the sexual revolution of the "Swinging Sixties", so potent was the "birth of a baby" come-on to the rural audiences for whom it was made). "Mom and Dad" was likely the top-grossing picture of 1947. The film was so heavily promoted that "Time" magazine commented that the ad campaign "left only the livestock unaware of the chance to learn the facts of life." Until the advent of The Blair Witch Project (1999), many film historians regarded "Mom and Dad" as the purest and most successful exploitation film in history."

Far more notorious for me would be a little project he made in 1952 called BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA where old Bela as a mad scientist must contend with Martin and Lewis impersonators Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo!

By the late '50's Television was in full swing and intruding in nearly every home in America.

Somehow William Beaudine managed to hop on the band wagon and direct TV programs as well, mostly for Walt Disney but he also did episodes of CIRCUS BOY (with future Monkee Mickey Dolenz), BROKEN ARROW, NAKED CITY and RIN TIN TIN. His last two features of course were the double bill of BILLY THE KID VS. DRACULA and JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER.

Beaudine finally did retire in the late '60's and died at age 78 in 1970.

This is just more of an overview of Beaudine's career but it was the best I could come up with in a short time. So watch THE APE MAN tonight and raise a glass to William Beaudine!




 

It's Really His Granddaughter

JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER-1966-A Mexican village lives in fear of the notorious experiments being carried out in a mysterious mansion. It seems Maria (Narda Onyx), the stuck up, power mad, grand-daughter of Dr. Frankenstein is continuing his legacy of monster making, assisted by her cowardly brother (familiar TV actor Steven Geray). 

Meanwhile a bare knuckles fighter named Hank (Cal Boulder) and his partner the famous outlaw Jesse James (James Lupton) team up with “The Wild Bunch” to steal $500,000 from a bank. For some reason the gang leader's drunken brother betrays them to the Marshall (Jim Davis) forcing Hank and Jesse to seek refuge in the Castle of Frankenstein's offspring. Maria decides Hank would be a great subject for her experiments. They want to give him some kind of brain transplant and the tri-color army helmets Maria and Hank wear during part of the process are hysterical! While this goes on Jesse takes time to romance Juanita (Estelita Rodriguez), a local who helps at the lab. 

Hank becomes a hulking zombie with stitch marks around his forehead who is re-named Igor! For a short time he does Maria's bidding but he turns against her in the end. The acting in this one (especially by Onyx as Maria) is far more campy than in BTKVD.

This was the last film made by veteran director William Beaudine who's career started in silent films! He's no stranger to this blog. I figure he deserves his own entry so I'll do that next time! 

Some interesting bits about some of the players: 

Estelita Rodriguez began her career at age 14 in Republic Pictures westerns including several with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. She also had a role in Howard Hawks' RIO BRAVO and was married and divorced from actor Grant Withers. JJMF'sD was her last film. She died at 37 in 1966 of undisclosed causes. (Some say it was influenza..)

Narda Onyx was born in Estonia and was appearing on many TV shows (including a re-occurring role on THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES)  prior to JJM'sFD which is one of her few movies roles. She's also in 1962's HITLER with Richard Basehart in the lead, playing Eva Braun's sister. She died in 1991 at 59.

Cal Bolder was an ex-patrolman who was in some other TV shows and later retired and wrote books. He died at 75 in 2005.

John Lupton was a successful stage actor and star of the TV western BROKEN ARROW. He died at 65 in 1993 of an undisclosed disease...

As for the title..well..Abbott & Costello didn't go to Mars either...

Thanks for reading!

The Wild Weird West

BILLY THE KID VS. DRACULA-1967-Vampirism in the old west. The legendary count (a very skinny John Carradine) set his sights and fangs on early settlers and American Indians. After killing off passengers on a stagecoach, Drac assumes the identity of James Underhill and takes over the Double B Bar ranch where he takes a liking to his “niece” Betty (Melinda Plowman). Fortunately her fiance is Billy The Kid (Chuck Courtenay). The Count flies around like a bat and whenever he's ready to bite someone a red light engulfs his face. He says things like: “You clumsy idiot” and “How dare you interfere!”. After he kills a squaw, Indians go on the warpath. Virginia Christine plays Eva, a superstitious Swedish woman who tries to convince Billy Uncle James is really King of the Vampires. Bing Russell is stupid jealous ranch hand who aids Drac and Richard Reeves is a bartender. Harry Carey Jr. is also in it as is his real life mother Olivia. The atmospheric finale takes place in an old mine where Dracula plans to make Betty his un-dead companion. This is the penultimate feature length film for veteran director William "One Shot" Beaudine. For more on him and his last film credit, see the next entry!

Thanks for reading!