Last One For 2016

THE NIGHT WALKER-1964-This starts off with a narrator talking about dreams. “Fly! Fly! There's death in your dreams”. Trent (Hayden Rourke), a blind millionaire suspects his wife Irene (Barbara Stanwyck) is having an affair because of what she says when she's asleep. He talks about this with his attorney Barry Morland (Robert Taylor) while his wife listens in. Later Irene admits to Barry that she has a reoccurring dream about an unknown lover. When Irene displays her disgust for her marriage she runs away and hubby is killed in an explosion. Irene's dreams start mixing with reality and she meets her dream lover (Lloyd Bochner). But is he real or only in her mind? After she moves into the back of her beauty salon she gets crazy when she sees a shish kabob and Barry accuses her of killing Trent. Her dream lover whisks her away for drinks then marriage in a strange church with a lot of weird looking guests (they are all dummies). Was it real? She and Barry investigate. The dream lover hangs around unseen so you know it's not in Irene's mind. There are other clues that let you know this too. A suspicious assistant Joyce (Judith Meredith) obviously doesn't want to help and she's killed by Irene's husband! A lot of smokey mumbo-jumbo leads to the fact that Barry is trying to drive her insane but a double cross spells his end.

“Gimmick” director William Castle directed this twisting turning psychological drama from a screenplay by Robert Bloch. It has it's moments, although the end I suppose is fairly guessable. Castle made this between STRAITJACKET (also written by Bloch) and I SAW WHAT YOU DID. By this time Castle had all but given up on straight horror films instead making crime dramas and murder mysteries disguised as horror films. Music is by Vic Mizzy. Unusually stars Standwyck (in her last feature film) and Taylor had been married in real life at one time. They were already divorced 12 years when they made this. 

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Bud & Lou

HOLD THAT GHOST-1941-Classic Abbott & Costello haunted house comedy has Bud & Lou (sometimes referred as “the boys”) as incompetent waiters Chuck and Ferdy who are fired from their jobs. While working at a gas station they wind up in the backseat of a mobster Moose Mattson's car just as he's “bumped off”. Since his will stated that who was ever with him when he died would inherit all he had the duo inherit his rundown inn. Another gangster Smitty (Marc Lawrence; later in the duo's HIT THE ICE) believes the mobster's fortune is hidden somewhere in the place and plans to do away with Chuck and Ferdy who are accompanied by a radio actress (Joan Davis), a nerdy doctor (Richard Carlson) and a blonde waitress (Evelyn Ankers) after their driver strands them all together. Though the team does a few routines, a highlight is a kind of violent dance between Costello and Davis.

 Director Arthur Lubin made the first five Abbott and Costello comedies and THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA remake with Claude Rains. Later he did several in the FRANCIS THE TALKING MULE series. Shemp Howard appears as a soda jerk and the Andrews Sisters show up to sing at the end. 

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Good Day, Eh? Not!

THE THAW-2009-In the Canadian Arctic a group is studying global warming's impact on polar bears. A famous scientist David Kruipen (Val Kilmer) is planning to bring an expedition of young people there. He also bribes his reluctant daughter Evelyn (Martha MacIsaac) to come along. At the last minute the group is warned to stay away but they go anyway. The camp residents are infected with a parasite from prehistoric times that lays eggs in human skin. Arms are severed, people vomit and have gapping wounds in this talky not very original production from Canada. 

Writer-director Mark Lewis needs to get a better hobby than making gory derivative horror movies....

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Jersey Devil

THE BARRENS-A dysfunctional family goes camping in The Pine Barrens in NJ where years before dad Richard (Steven Moyer) had an encounter with the Jersey devil. Now he wants to scatter this grandfather's ashes. They are in a group with some others and a stupid guy tells them the story of a woman who gave birth to a devil. Later the family leaves the group and goes on their own. Richard seems rather paranoid and has strange delusions. When they find a mysterious abandoned camp Richard insists they stay there. Later he admits he killed the family dog. Is Richard nuts or has he got rabies from a dog bite? Despite his violent incoherent behavior it turns out there really is a Jersey devil (terrible effect). Only the children survive but no one believes their story. At the end, the sister joins a group going to hunt the monster down. 

Director/writer Darren Lynn Bousman made this disjointed horror film (shot in Canada) a few years after directing several SAW sequels.  

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It's the Pirate Life for Lee

PIRATES OF BLOOD RIVER-1962-Huguenot John Standing (Kerwin Matthews) is sent to a penal colony after being convicted of adultery. He breaks stones, is whipped and hung by his wrists. He escapes but is picked up by a band of pirates lead by LeRosch (Christopher Lee with eye patch and French accent). His crew includes Peter Arne, Michael Ripper and Oliver Reed. John takes the pirates back to his village and no sooner do they get there when they kill one of John's friends. The pirates want to take over the village (where Andrew Keir plays a town elder) and the residents put up a good fight until the pirates capture the women and children. A treasure is found and John and his friend Henry (Glenn Corbett) team up to stop the invaders. Later the pirates revolt against LeRosch and he winds up impaled. No pirate ship is ever seen. 

This color Hammer production was directed (and co-written) by John Gilling who went on to make THE REPTILE and THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES for Hammer. And despite the fact that there's no sea faring this was a big hit in England. Hammer followed this with THE DEVIL SHIP PIRATES (also with Lee, Keir nad Ripper).  

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Charlie Again!

DANGEROUS MONEY1946--Charlie Chan investigates the smuggling of counterfeit “hot” money after a treasury agent (Tris Coffin) is killed. There's many suspects plus annoying comedy bits Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) and chauffeur Chattanooga (Willie Best in his last Chan movie). The main suspects are loud mouth cotton seller Burke (Dick Elliot), knife thrower Kirk (John Harmon), American trader Tao Erickson (Rick Vallin), Brace, the ship's purser (Joseph Allen) and his girlfriend Rona (Gloria Allen), a professor (Emmett Vogan) and The Whipples, upper class twits on an ocean liner bound for Samoa. The killer uses a knife gun. 

This low budget Monogram mystery based on the character created by Earl Derr Biggers (in 1925) was the 39^th story in a series of 47 Chan movies began back in the mid-thirties by Universal Pictures. Star Toler was instrumental in getting Monogram to produce a new Chan series when it was dropped by Fox in 1942. Though still fun, they are noticably lower budget. 

Director Terry O. Morse was also an editor and had directed Karloff in BRITISH INTELLIGENCE in 1940. Later he worked on the US shot scenes in GODZILLA-KING OF MONSTERS. 

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George Pal and The Moon

DESTINATION MOON-1950-In the near future a rocket is set to the moon but doesn't make it. Dr. Cargraves (Warner Anderson) suspects sabotage. Two years later he and the designer of the rocket's engine General Thayer (Tom Powers) convince aircraft honcho Jim Barnes (John Archer) to help gather private investors to back their new design (called “Luna”). However public outcry over radioactivity leakage seems to doom the project. Barnes decides to circumvent all the red tape and take off in 17 hours! He, Cargraves and Thayer enlisted skeptical Joe Sweeney (Dick Wesson) as the radio operator (“It'll never budge”). After some quick goodbyes and just beating a court order not allowing them to go, they take off and head to the moon. All goes well despite trouble with g-force and weightlessness until it's learned Sweeney put too much grease on an antenna and it has to be fixed. So three of them take a space walk on the side of the ship. Thayer is almost sent adrift in space but Barnes saves him with a pretty clever use of an oxygen tank. The group make a precarious moon landing and two of them go out and do some exploring. After everyone treks around Barnes is informed that they wasted too much fuel on their botched up landing and may not have enough to take off. They have to get rid of all non-essential equipment but it's not enough. One of them must stay behind! While the three scientists argue which one of them should be sacrificed. Joe takes it upon himself to be the one but Barnes' quick thinking saves Joe and they all return to Earth heroes. Woody Woodpecker is seen in a film explaining how going to the moon is possible.

Produced by George Pal, DESTINATION MOON is a serious early look into how space travel would be. Its level headed script doesn't go over the top in speculation and employs more science than fiction. This is probably due to the fact that it's based on a novel by the legendary Robert Heinlein who also co-wrote the screenplay! It should be boring but director (and former actor) Irving Pichel puts a lot of good SFX to use and doesn't let all the scientific talk bog down the story line.  

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