RIP/Mesa Mess

RIP:

https://www.tokyoweekender.com/japan-life/news-and-opinion/kenji-ohba-dies-at-72/

 (imdb)

MESA OF LOST WOMEN-1953-While a narrator (Lyle Talbot) talks about “foolish bipeds”, in Mexico oil surveyor Frank (John Martin) and his assistant Mulcahey (Richard Travis) find two people wandering aimlessly in “the desert of death”. He takes them to an American “Doc” Tucker (Allan Nixon) at the oil plant. The guy, who's a pilot named Grant Phillips (Robert Knapp), rants about “super bugs” and Dr. Aranya, which upsets Mexican guide Pepe (Chris Pin-Martin in his last role). Phillips then relates his story but is interrupted by the narrator who tells the story of Dr. Masterson (Harmon Stevens), who goes all by himself in suit and tie to visit Dr. Aranya's desert lair. Aranya (a very skinny Jackie Coogan with goggle glasses and a wart) uses some kind of tarantula hormone to make “super female spiders with a thinking and reasoning brain that one day might rule the world!”. Masterson doesn't go for the doctor's experiments and winds up in a Mexican asylum but he escapes and goes to a local dive, looking very deranged and acting strange after meeting businessman Jan (Nico Lek) and his fiancé, Doreen (Paula/Mary Hill). 

Somehow one of the spider women, Tarantella (Tandra Quinn; in THE NEANDERTHAL MAN the same year) is a dancer there. Phillips also shows up followed by Masterson's male nurse George (usual ape impersonator George Barrows). While Tarantella is performing, Masterson shoots her. She seems to die. Masterson then forces Phillips to fly everyone, including Jan's manservant Wong (Samuel Wu), to Aranya's hideout. They don't make it, crashing in a nearby forest (?) where the insect women and 2 dwarves (John George and Angelo Rossitto) hang around watching the group. After George is killed, it's revealed Woo is working for Aranya but when he makes his report, the mad scientist has him killed. After Jan is killed by a giant spider, the remaining passengers are taken to Aranya who revivies Masterson to his normal self. Before the future Uncle Fester can do anymore harm, Masterson concocts an explosive to destroy all the heinous goings on. Only Phillips and Doreen (who earlier declare their love) escape. But some of the women are still around... 

MESA OF LOST WOMAN began production in 1951 by one Herbert Trevos. Either the movie was never finished, or the finished product was so bad it never saw the light of day. Either way, a year or so later, Ron Ormond (who was making low budget westerns with Lash LaRue at the time) either bought the film or was hired to “do something with it”. Apparently, the characters of Aranya and his spider babes was added footage. 

Original director Trevos was quite a mystery man at one time. So much so, that some came to believe MESA may have actually been directed by Ed Wood Jr. since there are several “Wood connections”, ie: narrator Talbot, Dolores Fuller and Mona McKinnon are 2 of the spider women) but in recent times, thanks to a letter from his own son, it seems Trevos was a real person who had worked for ADGA in Germany and the US. This was his only effort. The weird musical interludes were written by Hoyt Curtin who later wrote many famous cartoon themes like “The Flintstones”, “The Jetsons”, “Huckleberry Hound” and “Johnny Quest”. His music for MESA wound up a year later in Ed Wood's JAILBAIT! Screenwriter Orville Hampton (THE FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE (1959)) is said to have been a co-writer (with Trevos) but is only credited as “dialogue supervisor”. 

Everyone should see this fiasco at least once because seeing is believing!

Thanks for reading~

Holy Bananas! It's A Girl's Leg!

 

 (imdb)

 COLOR ME BLOOD RED-1965-Frustrated painter Adam Sorg (Don Joseph aka Gordon Oas-Helm) insults a pompous art critic and has contempt for his fans. He's a kind of a jerk who doesn't think much of the gallery owner who exhibits Sorg's hideous paintings. When his girlfriend cuts herself and bleeds on his canvas, he finds just the right shade of red he was looking for. She won't let him use anymore blood, so he cuts himself and paints with his own blood. This weakens him considerably so to finish his painting he kills his girlfriend and uses her hemoglobin. Later the art critic praises the new painting but Sorg refuses to sell it. “I would not like to be that man's psychoanalyst” quips the critic. Back home, he kills a man and woman and uses her blood to create a new masterpiece. 4 dope smoking young people go for a swim near Sorg's house. He asks one of the women to model for him and she goes at night to see him. He ties her up and plans to kill her but her friends arrive and Sorg is shot in the face. 

Sometimes referred to as the last of director Hershell Gordon Lewis' “Blood Trilogy”, this black comedy is pretty funny and the character of artist Sorg is a good psycho. It features lots of blood and bad acting. MONSTER A GO GO was released the same year and of course compared to that COLOR ME BLOOD RED seems like a big-budgeted Hollywood production. 

Lewis' next horror film would be TASTE OF BLOOD in 1967. Star Oas-Helm many years later played Manford, the butler on “The New Monkees” reboot TV flop!

 (imdb)

Thanks for reading!

It Happened Twice?

 

DEADTIME STORIES-VOL. 1-2009-Cheap anthology hosted by George Romero (!).

“The Valley of the Shadows”: A woman leads an expedition into the jungle to find her missing husband. The party is terrorized and killed off by a mysterious head-hunting savage. Guess who? Written and directed by Jeff Monahan, an actor who was in later Romero features.

“Wet”: An alcoholic finds a hand on the beach. A jerky antique dealer (Nick Mancuso) tells him it's the hand of a vicious mermaid he chopped up. The alky brings her back to life and she kills him and the antique dealer or something like that.. Directed by Michael Fischa (MY MOM'S A WEREWOLF (1989))

“House Call”: A mother tells her doctor about her son who's obviously some kind of vampire. Directed by Tom Savini.

VOL. 2

“The Gorge”: 3 spelunkers get trapped in a cave and resort to cannibalism. Directed by Matt Walsh, who was usually a sound engineer.

“On Sabbath Hill”: An arrogant college teacher impregnates a student who's driven to suicide. Her ghost comes back to haunt him or is it in his mind? Probably the best of the lot. Directed by Jeff Monahan.

“Dust”: A security guard gives an untested drug (made of dust from Mars) to his dying wife. It cures her...for a while. This one makes no sense. Directed by Michael Fischa.

Thanks for readiing!

They're Not Scaring Anybody

 

SCARECROWS-1988-A bunch of dumb bank robbers in a hijacked plane go to a cornfield to get their hidden loot. One of them parachutes out planning on taking the 3 million for himself. The others land the plane and go looking for him. He's killed by a scarecrow, then brought back to life and beats up some of his partners until they decapitate him. Scarecrows seem to be running around the cornfield, resurrecting dead people and borrowing their limbs. 

Sound good? It actually sucks. 

The only actor (?) I knew in it was Ted Vernon, the little bald guy from that Florida wrestling movie HAMMERHEAD JONES (1986). Co-written, produced and directed by William Wesley in Florida. Cinematographer Peter Deming had already shot EVIL DEAD 2 (1987) and went on to work with David Lynch and do many high-profile movies like the “Austin Power” series.

Thanks for reading!

Another Time

 

 (imdb)

MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED-2010-Great documentary about exploitation film making in the Philippines in the 1970's. It covers women in prison, blaxploitation, the Blood Island films, collaborations with Hemisphere and New World companies. Plus interviews with John Ashley, Cirio Santiago, Bobby Suraz, Roger Corman, Joe Dante, Jack Hill, Chris Mitchum, Sid Haig, Gloria Hendry, Marlene Clarke, Eddie Garcia, Eddie Romero, Weng Weng and many more. 

Director/co-writer Mark Hartley (from Austraila) made many other documentaries and music videos before making the feature film PATRICK: EVIL AWAKES (2007).

Thanks for reading!

Magic and Wonder at Lincoln Center

 

Palance in Charge

 

 

WARRIORS 5-1962-An American paratrooper (Jack Palance) teams up with 5 Italian soldiers (including Venantino Venantini) and a hooker (Giovanna Ralli) to blow up a bridge to slow down the German army's advance right after Italy has surrendered during WW2. 

This slow-moving Italian production, directed Leopoldo Savona, was presented by AIP in the US. Co-star Venantini years later was in several infamous Italian zombie movies. Star Palance was in BARABBAS the year before and would star in Jean Luc Godard's CONTEMPT the next and have his own short lived TV series “The Greatest Show On Earth”.

Thanks for reading!