Bela's Ape

THE APE MAN-1943-Crazy Monogram nonsense has Bela Lugosi (in another demeaning post-Dracula role) as Dr. James Brewster, who through unexplained experiments has become half man/half ape. He even sleeps in a cage with a real (man in a gorilla suit) ape! A fellow scientist (Henry Hall, also in THE APE with Karloff) brings Brewster's sister Agatha (Minerva Urecal), a famous "ghost hunter" home to help him out. Unfortunately Brewster needs human spinal fluid to cure himself. His friend won't help so he and the ape go out on nightly jaunts and kill to secure the vital liquid. This is easily done as Brewster can speak ape!

Wallace Ford (from FREAKS and THE MUMMY'S HAND) is a wisecracking reporter who suspects monkey business. Louise Currie (later in VOODOO MAN with Bela and still among the living at the time of this writing) is his photographer who doesn't have much to do until the climax. Jack Mulhall hangs around as a local yokel who's identity is revealed in the dumb comic ending. Emil Van Horn is the gorilla.

THE APE MAN is funny little horror film that doesn't go on too long (64 mins.) and doesn't drag thanks to William "One Shot" Beaudine's brisk direction. The story is by Karl Brown who supplied the story for THE APE! It would have been a lot better without Mulhall's character popping up all the time. Lugosi portrayed the monster in FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN the same year. In 1943 he starred in a kind of sequel RETURN OF THE APE MAN.

THE APE MAN was one of seven movies Beaudine directed in 1943. He also made GHOSTS ON THE LOOSE where Bela met The Eastside Kids!

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Men In Prison

PENITENTIARY-1979-A hitchhiker named Martel "Too Sweet" Gordone (Leon Isaac Kennedy) gets into a fight with two bikers over a prostitute . One of the bikers is killed and Gordone is sent to prison. There he falls in with a lot of violent (but in some respects cartoonish) black inmates. He has a weird fight with his super scary cell mate (Badja Djola) and later on gets involved in some prison boxing tournament run by a white lieutenant (Chuck Mitchell; later in PORKY'S) where the winners in each weight class get a night with a woman. He's trained by an old inmate "Seldom Seen" Jackson (Floyd "Wildcat" Chatman) who says "I'm a man. I ain't no hippy dippy fool". A transvestite comedian Wilbur "Hi-Fi" White plays Sweet Pea.

It's badly photographed, edited and acted but it is a violent, enjoyable ROCKY inspired "blaxploitation" movie. Director/producer/writer Jamaa Fanaka (nee Walter Gordon) made this 3 years after his last movie EMMA MAE and would make 2 sequels both starring the more than one emotion challenged Kennedy who retired in the late '80's to become a minister.

Special note: Two days after writing this review I read director Jamaa Fanaka (nee Walter Gordan) died on April 1 2012!

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Exit Bomba!

THE LORD OF THE JUNGLE-1955-Johnny Sheffield plays Bomba the jungle boy for the last time. He'd played the character in 11 prior movies.

In the convoluted storyline a rogue elephant leads his pachyderm pals on a killing spree wrecking villages and squashing natives. A hunter sent by the government (usual B western star Wayne Morris) wants to kill the whole herd and Bomba must come up with a solution despite interference from Commissioner Barnes (series regular Leonard Mudie) and his niece (Nancy Gale). Bomba fights rear projection elephants and swings on vines while getting help from his animal friends. Paul Picerni (HOUSE OF WAX) and William Phipps (FIVE) are other white hunters.

B-movie vet Ford Beebe directed most entries in the series.

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Happy Evil Year

NEW YEAR'S EVIL-1980-I loved the '80's but after watching this typical
slasher bullshit nonsense I realize why young people today might hate
the decade!

In this story a very famous "rock star" Diane Sullivan (Roz Kelly) is hosting a late night countdown for the song of the year. Her son (Grant Cramer) pops pills and acts weird while people are killed and a stupid band called Made In Japan plays. The killer calls in and plays a tape of him killing a victim while using disguised voice.  Of course lots of characters act like idiots to try and make you wonder who the killer is when it is revealed in the very first killing.

The acting is very bad and the script very cliched but it was mostly typical of the time. There are some
unintentionally funny scenes and the phony punk rock trash disco fans are likened to patients in a mental intuition.

Also with Kip Niven, Chris Wallace (also in DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE), John Alderman and Teri Copley. Director Emmett Alston also made DEMONWARP and several movies with "ninja" in the title. A Menahem Golan-Yoram Globus production.

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Lock Up Your Daughters!

DELINQUENT DAUGHTERS-1944-This movie purports to be a warning to audiences about teenagers running wild due to their parents' uncaring ways. It's similar in style to REEFER MADNESS and I ACCUSE MY PARENTS in it's serious but corny and unintentionally funny tone (It probably also influenced Ed Wood's THE VIOLENT YEARS).

After the suicide of a high school girl a police detective (Joe Devlin) investigates. The innocent June (20 yr. old June Carlson) gets involved in robbery, drinking and wild dancing through her friend Sally (22 yr. old Teala Loring; also in THE RETURN OF THE APE MAN and a couple of BOWERY BOYS movies) at a club called "The Merry Go Round" run by Mimi (Fifi D'Orsay) and sleazebag partner Nick.

One charcter proclaims: "Nobody ever gives a darn about us kids. We have feelings just like adults". Although the script, acting and direction in this sleazy and sappy story are sub-par (Hey! It was produced by PRC!) the worse parts are the night scenes that are too dark to see what's going on! I haven't seen the DVD version shown above but the print I saw was choppy and worn.

Director Albert Herman made a bunch of low budget movies I'd like to see (THE PHANTOM OF 42ND STREET, SHAKE HANDS WITH MURDER) and later did some TV work.

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Watching The Detective!

NICK CARTER-MASTER DETECTIVE-1939-In his first starring role Walter Pidgeon plays Nick Carter, a NYC detective. He's hired by the owner of a defense plant (Addison Richards ) where a new kind of plane is being tested to prevent anymore sabotage by foreign agents. Henry Hull plays the scientist who invented it. After he's killed Carter suspects a nurse (Rita Johnson) but it's really the seemingly nice guy doctor (Stanley Ridges. who was in BLACK FRIDAY with Karloff &Lugosi the next year).

Martin Kosleck and Milburn Stone are spies who pretend to be injured and smuggle out microfilm. Henry Victor (the strong man in FREAKS) is the head of the spy ring. Donald Meek plays a comical private eye/bee keeper who shows up at various times to try and help. The climax takes place at sea with Carter in an aerial duel with the spies' boat. Sterling Holloway and Frank Faylen have small roles.

There's nothing special about this little mystery but it moves along quickly. In fact it almost seems like a an overlong TV show. Oh wait, I forgot TV hadn't been invented in 1939!

The first Nick Carter story appeared as a "dime store" novel in 1886! The persona of Carter was revised several times (like becoming more of a Pulp hero in the early '30's to compete with THE SHADOW and DOC SAVAGE). Several silent films made in France first featured the detective.

After an MGM trilogy Columbia made a serial featuring Nick's son Chick! The character was later again revived in for two movies featuring Eddie Constantine in the lead role. Robert Conrad played him in a made for TV movie in 1972. A radio series ran from 1943 to 1955.

NCMD was only the second full length feature for French born director Jacques Tourneur who in 1942 would direct the classic CAT PEOPLE.

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Slaptick Dictator

THE DEVIL WITH HITLER-1942-This 44 minute slaptick comedy from Hal Roach studios has Gesatan, the devil (Alan Mowbray) trying to save his job as boss of Hell because the other devils want to replace him with Adolf Hitler! He goes to Earth to try and make Hitler (Bobby Watson) do a good deed. Joe Devlin is Mussolini and George E. Stone is Suki Yaki. There's a lot of slapstick, one liners and jokes about executions. The freaky part is when Hitler talks about how horrible concentration camps are!

It's very much in the vein of the 3 Stooges shorts YOU NAZTY SPY! and I'LL NEVER HEIL AGAIN (both made first). Douglas Fowley plays an insurance salesman and Herman Bing is a Nazi astrologer who's executed. Philip Van Zandt, John Miljan and Rudolph Anders have un-credited roles. In the end Hitler is chased by devils with pitchforks and Gesatan promises: "This is only the beginning, folks!".

Director Gordon Douglas had made SAPS AT SEA with Laurel & Hardy the year before and later made THEM!. Watson portrayed Hitler at least 9 times during the 1940's.

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