What's That Crawling Across Your Mind?

THE GREEN SLIME-1968-A giant asteroid is on a collusion course with Earth. Members of a crew aboard space station Gamma are sent to investigate. Robert Horton is Jack Rankin the kind of egotistical, hard edged commander who is sent to the satellite to over see things. Richard Jaeckel is Vince Elliot the commander in charge of Gamma who also happens to been a rival of Rankin's. Elliot's fiancée(Luciana Paluzzi ) was also once sweet on Rankin. It seems Vince once made a mistake that cost some crewmen their lives, blah, blah.. The asteroid is destroyed but not before a living green fungus is brought aboard ship.

Although this was made at Toei Studios in Japan and has a Japanese director none of the cast members are Asian (it was a co-production with MGM) but seeing some of the cheesy sets and effects makes you think Star-Man or Rhodan might pop up! The tentacle monsters the slime grows into looks like Syd & Marty Kroft rejects! It's hilarious!

And it doesn't help that the male crew wear toy motorcycle helmets. It's funny to see Horton being a hard ass while wearing one. A briefly seen nurse is played by Linda Miller (Jackie Gleason's daughter). Co-screenwriter Bill Finger was a comic book writer who helped Bob Kane develop the original Batman character. Director Kinji Fukasaku was a busy film maker right up until his death in 2007. His other films include the whacky MESSAGE FROM SPACE, GRAVEYARD OF HONOR and BATTLE ROYALE 1 and 2. It seems the one thing everyone really remembers about this movie is the awesome theme song!

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RIP Irene Kaelin

"It will reach out with it's magnetic arms...."

THE MAGNETIC MONSTER-1953-A strange magnetic force grips LA. Two scientists (Richard Carlson and King Donovan) investigate and find that a dying scientist (Leonard Mudie) was experimenting with a new kind of element ("serranium"). Somehow the element can draw energy from the air and turn it into matter. It starts to grow and could send the Earth off it's rotation! The duo go to Canada to use their cyclotron but run into some opposition. Fans of bug eyed '50's drive in monster flicks might be disappointed as no creature is seen.

Some of the SFX are taken from a 1930's German film called GOLD. Produced by Ivan Tors and directed by Curt Siodmak (creator of THE WOLFMAN) and the two collaborated on the screenplay. Herbert Strock was the editor (and may have directed some scenes). Jean Byron is Carson's wife. Byron Foulger, Michael Fox, John Zaremba, Frank Gerstle, Billy "Whitey" Bennedict, Kathleen Freeman and Strother Martin all have roles. Carlson later was in THE MAZE, IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE and THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. Donovan was in THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS the same year.

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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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