Dino-Men

 

 

 (imdb)

UNKNOWN ISLAND-1948-A guy Ted (Phillip Reed) and his fiancé' Carole (Virginia Grey), hired a boat from a tough hardnosed but fairly intelligent captain (Barton McLane; TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE the same year)) and his first mate (Dick Wessell; DICK TRACY VS. CUEBALL (1946)). They want to go to an uncharted island where the guy says dinosaurs still exist. They take along Baxter (Richard Denning), a guy who drinks a lot because he was once on the island. They shove off despite Baxter's warnings and the native crew unsuccessfully tries to mutiny. 

Landing on the island they encounter many prehistoric beasts including Brontosaurs, a T-Rex and a red-haired ape-like creature (uncredited Crash Corrigan). It becomes obvious that Ted cares more about photographing the prehistoric wildlife than anyone's life, including Carole's. Then just when everyone is ready to leave the captain announces he plans to capture the T-Rex alive. The group find a "dinosaur graveyard" and are attacked and the first mate is killed. Later the native crew steal the rowboat, but they all drown. The captain comes down with jungle fever and accidentally burns their supplies. He later kidnaps Carole but Baxter saves her and the captain is killed by the ape who then battles a T-Rex. The survivors make it to the boat and Baxter's heroics win Carole's heart.

 (imdb)

 Terribly cheap color production directed by Jack Bernhard with men in dino costumes, rear projection action and studio jungle sets. Star Virginia Grey had quite a career. She worked with Laurel & Hardy, The Marx Brothers, Abbott & Costello, Rondo Hatton, Johnny Weissmuller and started her career playing Eva in the 1927 version of UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. She and co-star Richard Denning were later in the seldom seen SF film TARGET EARTH in 1954. Co-star Phillip Reed's last role was HARUM SCARUM (1965) with Elvis Presley.

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Ultra Men!

 

 (aminoapps.com)

THE 6 ULTRA BROTHERS VS. THE MONSTER ARMY-1974-For some reason the sun has come dangerously close to the Earth causing droughts. Some kids dance around a temple praying for water. When robbers come to steal, one boy Koh tries to stop them and he's shot in the face and killed. While his friends mourn his death the 6 Ultramen and the mother of Ultra try to rectify his death by fusing Koh with the Hindu god Haruman. He's sent back to Earth to get the robbers and to fix the sun's rotation problem. He finds the robbers and crushes the trio then helps save Koh's friend's life. He also visits the god of the sun (?) and the sun moves away from the Earth. 

Unfortunately some scientists at a missile launching base screw up and destroy the whole facility and in the process release some gigantic monsters living under the Earth! Haruman takes them on and does pretty good until the four on one situation (a fifth monster terrorizes a woman and her kid) proves too much and Haruman is imprisoned in an energy sphere. But it's the 6 Ultra Brothers to the rescue. They free Haruman and beat down the bad boys. After 4 of the monsters are vanquished poor Gomora is left and used as a punching bag by the good guys until Haruman slices him in half! 

Wonderful cheesy effects in this epic that was co-produced and filmed in Thailand. It was the subject of much controversy for years. I apologize if I didn't  get  the whole plot correct (the copy I viewed had no subtitles).

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Beast of The Amazon

CURUCU: BEAST OF THE AMAZON-1956-Rock Dean (John Bromfield), an American plantation owner in Brazil has all his native workers quit because they are afraid of a monster they say lives along the Amazon River. Dean reluctantly teams up with a female doctor Romar (Beverly Garland) who's looking for a potion the natives use to shrink heads to find out what's going on. The beast looks like a mutated version of Toucan Sam but with fangs. Later it turns out their guide (Tom Payne) is impersonating the monster because he's the leader of a group who want to stop “the white man” from invading. 

Filmed in parts of Brazil and Argentina this color production has lots of stock footage and bad SFX. It was written and directed by Curt Siodmak who'd seen better days when writing Universal horror movies (THE WOLFMAN, FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN). 

Lead actor Bromfield had been in THE REVENGE OF THE CREATURE the year before and was later in the TV series SHERIFF OF COCHISE). Garland was in SWAMP WOMEN and IT CONQUERED THE WORLD, both for Roger Corman, the same year.

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