Corman Giant Size Monsters

DINOCROC VS. SUPERGATOR-2010-More made for TV giant reptilian junk courtesy of Roger Corman and the SyFy channel. A genetics lab working to grow bigger food sources is used by an evil industrialist Jason Drake (David Carradine; the only reason I checked this out) to create a giant crocodile and a giant alligator. A sheriff (John Callahan), his daughter deputy (Amy Holt), a hunter (Rib Hills) and an undercover FBI agent (James Burns) try to stop the scaly pair. Somehow the gang gets the two giganto-reptiles together and they fight each other until they are blown up. The fight is nothing but a computerized update of the famous overused stock footage from One Million Years BC. 

The director Jim Wynorski (under the pseudonym Rob Robertson) has been making mostly direct to video soft core nudie movie takeoffs (THE HILLS HAVE THIGHS, THE BREASTFORD WIVES) and cheesy giant reptile craziness under many fake names for years now and also co-wrote this using the name Jay Andrews (I don't really blame him...)

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Lost But Found

PRIVATE PROPERTY-1960-Two hoodlums, Duke (Corey Allen) and Boots (Warren Oates) use intimation and switchblade to get their way. Duke also rides Boots for still being a virgin. They take a shine to a Ann Carlisle (Kate Manx, the director's wife) who they spot at a gas station and force an old guy (Jerome Cowan) to follow her to her house. Fortunately for them the house next door is unoccupied and they squat there and spy on her and her husband Roger (Robert Wark). Duke's sick plan is to seduce Ann and then turn her over to Boots but it doesn't quite work out that way when Boots winds up doing the dead man's float in the swimming​ pool and Duke is shot to death by Ann. 

Though rather mild and irritating by today's standards, PRIVATE PPROPERTY caused a lot of controversy in its initial release and was condemned by The League Of Decency. It played very few venues and disappeared. So much so that it was thought to be a "lost" film until a print was discovered and restored around 2016. 

PRIVATE PROPERTY was the first movie directed (and written) by Leslie Stevens, a busy TV screenwriter at the time. He went back to TV after the failure of this feature before returning to the big screen in 1966 with INCUBUS, the supernatural Bergmanesque parable with dialogue in Esperanto and starring William Shatner. His last work is on the series THE OUTER LIMITS. Sadly, leading lady Manx committed suicide four years after this was made. Star Corey Allen had been in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE and other films and later became a successful TV director.

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Crime

THE LINEUP-1958-Strange little crime drama about 2 psychotic hitmen Dancer (Eli Wallach) and Julian (Robert Keith) trying to retrieve a cache of heroin from some innocent tourist with the help of their alcoholic driver (Richard Jaeckel). Meanwhile two cops (Warner Anderson and Emile Meyer) track him down. This film noir-ish crime film directed by Don Siegel and written by Stirling Stilliphant was actually based on a TV (and radio) series that ran from 1954 til 1960 and also features future Mr. Dysdale (on TV's THE BEVERLY HILLBILLES) Raymond Bailey and familiar character actor Vaughan Taylor as “The Man”. 

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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.

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Crawling

THE CRAWLING EYE-1958-In Trollenberg, American Alan Brooks (Forrest Tucker) meets The Pilgrim sisters Ann (Janet Munro) and Sara (Jennifer Jayne) when Ann seems to have some psychic connection with the nearby mountains where several villagers have disappeared (one was found decapitated). Alan visits Dr. Crevet (Warren Mitchell) experimenting with cosmic rays who tells him about a mysterious radioactive cloud. After Ann predicts the death of a climber, Alan leads a small group (including a reporter played by Lawrence Payne, later in VAMPIRE CIRCUS) up the mountains to investigate. Another climber who kills two other climbers seems to be possessed. Eventually the small village is terrorized by monsters that resemble giant brains with one eye and tentacles. An air force bomber arrives just in time to destroy the invaders.

An English production, THE CRAWLING EYE has a great script by Jimmy Sangster (who wrote HORROR OF DRACULA and THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN the same year) and good acting but director Quentin Lawrence has too much talk and not enough crawl for me. It's based on a BBC TV production and was known as THE TROLLENBERG TERROR in the UK.

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Senator Billy Jack

BILLY JACK GOES TO WASHINGTON-1977-In this whack job of a movie Billy Jack (Tom Laughlin) is given full pardon by a governor (Dick Gautier) and made a state senator after the incumbent (Kent Smith in his last role) dies. It's really just a phony ploy by a powerful industrialist (Sam Wanamaker) but of course it backfires and Senator Jack with the help of his wife (Laughlin's real life wife Delores Taylor) wants to build a children's camp on land designated for a nuclear power plant. Later Billy is framed by senator Paine (EG Marshall). He almost gives up but the words of Thomas Jefferson and a walk around DC change his mind. He creates a filibuster in Congress and almost dies. Later Paine admits he's a corrupt bastard and Jack and his unreal world live happily ever after. Since this movie is a mess the vice president of the US (Pat O'Brien) does a lot of narration. 

Director,/co-writer/co-producer/star Laughlin blamed the failure of the film on a government conspiracy. Another sequel THE RETURN OF BILLY JACK began filming in 1986 but was never finished.

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Bolt

THAT MAN BOLT-1973-A Karate expert/pro-fessional courier Jefferson Bolt (Fred William-son) locked up in a Macao prison is hired /black-mailed by a mysterious English man named Griffiths (Byron Webster) to deliver 1 million dollars from Hong Kong. When he lands in Las Vegas some mobsters try to kill him, so after a car chase he gets help from another mobster Connie (Jack Ging). At a casino he meets singer Samantha Nightingale (Teresa Graves) and after they have sex she's killed in an attempt on Bolt's life. He hightails it to Hong Kong where things get a little confusing when an Asian assassin is hired by Javanese merchant banker Kumata (Masatoshi Nakamura) to kill Bolt. 

The acting, dialogue and fights are sub-par but it also features appearances by Karate and kickboxing champions like Mike Stone, Kenji Kazama, Emil Farkus and David Chow. 

THAT MAN BOLT has two credited directors. One Henry Levin made his directing debut in 1944 with semi-horror movie CRY OF THE WEREWOLF. In the 1970's he directed several Matt Helm movies. BOLT was one of his last features. The other was David Lowell Rich who started in TV around 1950 and continuing till the mid '60's when he made some feature films like EYE OF THE CAT and THE PLAINSMAN. He went back to TV making many TV movies and in the early '80's returned to some feature film work including THE CONCORDE-AIRPORT '69. 

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