Thunder

 

THUNDER ISLAND-1963-In Puerto Rico, an American hit man Billy Poole (Gene Nelson) is hired by Anita Chavez (Miriam Colon) to kill Antonio Perez (Jose' de San Anton) the former dictator of her South American country. He plots to have another American Vincent (Brian Kelly) take him to an island where his would be victim lives. It also involves Vincent's wife Helen (Fay Spain) and their daughter being used as hostages. 

This forgettable little drama was written by Dean Devlin and Jack Nicholson and lead to executive producer Robert L. Lippert hiring Nicholson to write and direct FLIGHT TO FURY in '64. Director Jack Leewood directed only one other movie but produced a lot more including THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE and LOST CONTINENT. 

Lead actor Gene Nelson began a second career as a director soon after this but continued to act, mostly on TV.

Thanks for reading!

Another Quickie By Corman

THE LAST WOMAN ON EARTH-1960-In Puerto Rico Harold Gern (Anthony Carbone) hides out with his unhappy wife Evelyn (Betsy Jones-Moreland) because he’s been indicated. At a cock fight they are joined by his lawyer Martin Joyce (Edward Wain better known as Robert Towne who also wrote the screenplay). After they go scuba diving they find it hard to breathe. Then they discover their boat driver dead. 

They head back to town and see lots of dead bodies. It becomes apparent that the trio has survived the apocalypse. They hightail it to a secluded villa near a beach and tensions rise due to the two men one woman situation. There's a lot of talk in this 3 day wonder producer/ director Roger Corman made quickly after wrapping CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA (also with Cardone) and THE BATTLE OF BLOOD ISLAND. Strange tragic yet hopeful ending. 

Music by Ronald Stein. It was released on a double bill with THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS. Most copies are in black and white but a faded color version exists at The Internet Archive.

Thanks for reading!

Corman Quickie

THE CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA-1961-A crooked captain Renzo Capetto (Anthony Carbone trying to imitate Bogart) and his motley crew including his girlfriend Mary-Belle (Betsy Jones-Moreland), her dumb brother Happy Jack (Robert Bean) and Pete (Beach Dickerson), guy who makes animal noises (dubbed in) help two Cuban generals illegally transport a chest of money out of the country. A bunch of locals are also aboard though one of them is actually a government agent X-15 (Edward Wain aka future writer director Robert Towne). Capetto decides to do away with The Cubans and blame it on a monster he creates. Unfortunately for everyone a real monster shows up. 

There's lots of dumb comic dialogue (by Charles Griffith), slapstick and non-action in this hastily directed effort by Roger Corman (who has a cameo) and shot in Puerto Rico back to back with THE LAST WOMAN ON EARTH and BATTLE OF BLOOD ISLAND in around 5 days! One of my least favorites. It was planned to be a straight horror movie but changed by Corman at the last minute.

Thanks for reading!

Franky In Space

FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACEMONSTER-1965-Another “classic” bad movie, most of it filmed on Long Island in New York. 

U.S. space ships are observed then destroyed by some aliens: Princess Marcuzan (Marilyn Hanold) and pasty-faced Dr. Hadir (Lou Cutell; as of this writing still an active TV actor). NASA and the army team up to send a man to Mars but instead of using a real astronaut they send Col. Frank Saunders (Robert Reilly), a kind of “synthetic man” made up it seems of human body parts (just like...well you know...). The aliens destroy his ship but he ejects to safety...sort of. 

The aliens land on Earth and one of the crew finds Frank and blasts him. He doesn't die but one side of his face becomes horribly burned. It turns out that the aliens' home planet (never named) had an atomic war (“They lucky ones are dead”) and radioactivity has made the place uninhabitable. They also need “breeding stock” ( i.e.: women) to repopulate. Frank wanders around San Juan and kills a guy. The scientist in charge of the project, Dr. Steele (James Karen), his assistant Karen (Nancy Marshall) and army general Bowers (David Kerman) fly down just as the aliens begin kidnapping women in Puerto Rico (there are scenes actually filmed there!). The princess checks out their first captured “breeder” while Steele and Karen take a motorcycle ride around town. They find Frank in a cave and Steele tries to repair him while Karen goes for help. Unfortunately at that very moment the aliens invade and at a swinging pool party all the women there are taken captive and Karen is kidnapped as well. She's the only one who doesn't go quietly. All the rest of the captured females seem to be quite docile and unperturbed by the fact that they are in a UFO being watched over by its strange looking inhabitants who are treating them as livestock! 

Frank is taken prisoner later on but Karen gets him to save her and the others while he's forced to fight a very dumb looking monster to justify the title. Unbilled Bruce Glover appears as another alien. 

The alien make-up is really bad and lots of stock footage is used to pad out this strange movie. Star Marilyn Hanold (from Jamaica, NY) was the Playboy Playmate of the Month for June 1959. A few years before FMTS she had appeared in another “notorious” horror film THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE. She didn't do much after this except marry a Texas oil tycoon and quit show biz. 

Well known character actor James Karen was also in the experimental Buster Keaton FILM (written by Samuel Beckett) the same year. This was director Robert Gaffney's only effort. He was later the director of photography on SUPERFLY TNT and may have made some uncredited photographic contributions to 2OO1: A SPACE ODYSSEY...

Thanks for reading!