The Third and Final

THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US-1956-A new expedition is put together by hot headed Dr. Barton (Jeff Morrow) to go to The Amazon and capture “The Gill Man” in this second sequel to the classic THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (after REVENGE OF THE CREATURE). For some reason Barton wants to change the creature into a new species and has something to do with man living in outer space! Level headed Dr. Thomas Morgan (Rex Reason) just wants to make the world “a happier place”. Barton's spoiled rich wife (Leigh Snowden) gets in the way. When the gill man attacks the small group drug him and accidentally set him on fire. Unconscious they take the poor water breather back to their lab and perform several operations to save him. It seems the fire has burned away his scales and he (?) now has the metabolism of a normal man. They also do an operation that removes his need to breath under water so when he escapes he nearly drowns. Eventually they take the now rather docile creature back to San Francisco and put him in an outdoor cage with some sheep. In a jealous rage Barton kills his deck hand (Greg Palmer) and tries to blame it on the creature who goes bonkers, breaks out of his cage and kills Barton. Shot up and breathing heavy the now “gill-less” man leaves the compound and heads toward the sea (and his apparent death). Whether intentional or not the story really shows “man's inhumanity to monsters”.

 The Gill Man underwater was played by Ricou Browning while on land Don Megowan portrayed him. Usual second unit director John Sherwood makes the best of what he's got to work with in this senseless sequel. He made the more interesting THE MONOLITH MONSTERS the next year. Lead actress Leigh Snowden married singer Dick Contino the year this was released and following the birth of their first child retired from acting.

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Revenge in The Sunshine State

REVENGE OF THE CREATURE-1955-In the this first sequel to THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, Captain Lucas (Nestor Paiva) once again takes an expedition to the Amazon to try and find "The Gill Man". Two guys are looking to bring him/it back to the States. After one of the guys Joe Hayes (John Bromfield) is almost killed underwater, they use dynamite to stun the creature and take him back to an aquarium in Florida. Dr. Clete Ferguson (John Agar) goes to study it. At first The Gill Man is in a coma but when he comes out of it the trouble starts. He/It nearly takes Joe out again but he's held in check by a chain fastened to the bottom of  his tank-prison and put on display with barracudas and sharks. Ferguson meets Helen Dobson (Lori Nelson, in THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED the same year) who's doing her thesis on fish. While their romance booms, the two do reflex experiments on the the creature and he/it seems to take a shine to Helen who feels sorry for the monster. "I pity him sometimes. He's so alone". Eventually the scaly one, in a hormonal rage breaks out of the tank, kills Joe and terrorizes customers. He takes to the country looking for Helen. Locating her briefly he watches her undress and kills her dog. He stalks Helen and Ferguson while they're out dancing and invades the club kidnapping his beloved. He finds having a relationship with an oxygen breathing female a little difficult and when they both need air he falls prey to the Florida police. It looks like he's killed in a hail of bullets and drifts lifelessly away (but we know better). The two air breathing lovers are reunited.

REVENGE's plot of  "The Gill Man in civilization" isn't bad for a sequel especially since the original took place entirely in the jungle. There are some lapses in logic. The aquarium seems to handle the situation all wrong just asking for mayhem. And since the creature was plucked from his natural habitat and placed in a tank to be probed and prodded by "men of science" couldn't they have had a little more sympathy for the green guy? Ok, it was the Fifties....

It was nice to see original director Jack Arnold back for part 2 and this really help avoid some of the pitfalls sequels sometime have. His scenes of the creature prowling around at night are excellent.

Two men portray the creature in this film. Ricou Browning plays him underwater and Tom Hennesy played him on land. Both have cameo roles in the production. Of course Clint Eastwood has one small scene with Agar as a lab tech who can't find a mouse.

Jack Arnold directed both Agar and Paiva in TARANTULA the same year.

THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US would follow...

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Murder Mystery

THE HIDDEN HAND-1942-A rich woman Lorinda Channing (Cecil Cunningham) helps her crazy serial killer brother John (Milton Parsons) break out of jail so she can use him in a scheme to test her relatives' faith. Two uncaring nephews (and their snooty wives) are invited to her house as is her secretary Mary (Elizabeth Cunningham) (who's been made her sole heir), her doctor (Frank Wilcox) and his bitchy nurse (Marian Hill). Mary is engaged to Lorinda's lawyer Peter Thorne (Craig Stevens). Lorinda wants to fake her death with the help of her doctor and a drug but he lets her die. Only she doesn't die and comes back to life and she and bro John start killing. 

Despite the premise this is actually a comedy mystery with secret panels, clutching hands, real eyes behind a painting and too much “scared tatics” from Willie Best who refers to a razor he carries as “my persuader”. 

Director Ben Stoloff started his career in 1920 with a short called PLAY BALL WITH BABE RUTH. I guess it's only fitting that his last work was directing 26 episodes of TV's HOME RUN DERBY! THE HIDDEN HAND is based on a 1934 play “Invitation To Murder” by Rufus King.

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Pre-Perry Burr

PLEASE MURDER ME-1956-Interesting film noirish murder mystery. Attorney Craig Carlson (Raymond Burr) breaks some bad news to his best friend Joe Leeds (Dick Foran), a guy who even saved Carlson's life during WW2. He's is in love with Joe's wife Myra (Angela Landsbury) and she's going to divorce hubby and marry his best bud. Joe takes in all in stride. A few days later he seems to make a decision, writes a letter and asks a friend to mail it. He then goes and visits his wife. A shot rings out and the next morning hubby is dead and Myra is charged with his murder even though she claims self defense. Carlson defends her and she gets off but then he discovers the mysterious letter Joe wrote and Carlson begins to see the error of his ways. 

Clever film also features John Dehner as the prosecuting attorney and Denver Pyle as a detective. England born Director Peter Godfrey was a former actor and by this time was mostly directing for TV.

Burr became famous the next year when he starred in the long running TV show PERRY MASON.

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Body Snatcher

LADRON de CADAVERES-1957-Strange Mexican horror film has a mad scientist Don Panchito (Carlos Riquelme) experimenting with the dead bodies of atheletes and apes in some kind of brain transplant to conquer death. A police captain Carlos Robles (Crox Alvarado) recruits a luchador named Santana (real wrestler Wolf Ruvinskis) to help him set a trap but the wrestler dies in the ring from poison administered by the scientist's henchman. 

The detective's  friend Felipe(Arturo Martinez), who for most of the movie is romancing the detective's secretary, disguises himself as the dead wrestler but is killed and turned into a super strong monster with the brain of a gorilla! Naturally the scientist sends his creation into the ring where kills his opponent and runs amuck as the crowd panics. The creature transforms into an ugly hairy man beast with fangs. He impales the scientist on  hook (great bloody scene) then kidnaps the secretary after a lot of climbing. He's shot by the police and falls to his death.

The director Fernando Mendez went on to make other horror movies like EL VAMPIRO and THE BLACK PIT OF DOCTOR M. Wrestler Wolf Ruvinskis created the superhero Neutron and played the lead in several movies featuring the character. Co-star Martinez was later in the Aztec Mummy series.

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Orlak

ORAK, THE HELL OF FRANKENSTEIN-1962-In this Mexican production, Jaime Rojas (Joaquin Cordero), suspected murderer in jail for a lesser crime helps his cell mate Dr. Frankenstein (Andres Soler) escape. They go back to his castle/lab where a scarred servant waits for them. There the infamous doctor creates a monster Orlak (also Cordero) from dead parts and Rojas uses it to steal and kill his enemies, roaming the streets in a black sombrero and black cape.

This weird black and white version of the Frankenstein story has lots of talk, some romance and a few musical numbers.

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Direct To DVD

DISK JOCKEY-2006-Extremely irritating nonsense about two motor mouthed hit-men trying to local a floppy disk that contains evidence of one of their killings. An ex-partner goes into hiding because he has the disk but hides it in his sister's stomach! It's mostly the two yakking away and one even talks to the camera....

Unfortunately director Zachary Yoshioka made some more direct to video movies after this....

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Bad Babies

THE DEMON'S BABY-1998-The Chinese army discovers an underground tomb full of buried treasure. Among the items they remove is a gold statue of Buddha which unbeknownst to them contains a demon. It falls into the possession of a general (Elvis Tsui) and his four concubines. When they become pregnant along with the ill treated maid Little Fish (Annie Wu) impregnated by Day Six (Emotion Cheung) the cook, the demon possesses them and their wombs become the homes for some demonic killer babies with sharp teeth. Day Six teams up with a very strange priest (Anthony Wong) to do battle against the demon women in a crazy finale directed by Kant Leung.

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