It's Not Baron Barracuda

 

 (imdb)

BARRACUDA-1970-In some hick Florida town, full of grouchy people, Oceanographer Mike (Wayne David Crawford) tries to prove a local chemical company, Jack Chemical is polluting the water. The owner (Bert Freed) has him arrested but nice guy sheriff (BLOOD FEAST's William Kerwin) lets him go. Mike and the sheriff's daughter (Roberta Leighton) investigate. Swimmers are being killed by some deadly fish. When loads of dead fish wash up on shore, the sheriff becomes concerned. Meanwhile, men in dark suits wander around suspiciously. A local doctor (Jason Evers from THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE (1962)) helps the sheriff determine that killer barracuda are on the prowl due to chemicals from the plant. A reporter (dressed to look like Carl Kolchak) also investigates. Another guy in a suit (Harry Kerwin) kills people too. But the doctor is actually behind The Lucifer Project, a government experiment to control people through their blood sugar levels. 

This killer fish conspiracy film by director Harry Kerwin with underwater scenes directed by star Crawford (who also co-wrote and co-produced) is pretty bland.

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Tall Tale

 (imdb)

THE TALL MAN-2012-A small town is plagued by child abductions. Julie (Jessica Biel) is a nurse with a young son who administers to the residents of a trailer park. When her son is taken by “The Tall Man”, she tries to get him back but fails. She's rescued by an FBI agent (Stephen McHattie) who's investigating the disappearances. The story takes a twist here with Julie herself seeming to be the abductor of the children but The Tall Man does exist. 

It's a good premise to a point but the film goes on and on with little plot development until the implausible finale. William B. Davis (from TV's “The X-Files”) is sheriff Chesnut. Producer/writer Pascal Laugier (from France) filmed this Canadian-French production in British Columbia. 

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Sugar Zombies

 

 (the movie database)

SUGAR HILL-1974-After her boyfriend is murdered by mobster Morgan (Robert Quarry), Diana “Sugar” Hill (Marki Bey) wants revenge. She goes to Momma Maitresse (Zara Cully) for help and she summons Baron Samedi (Don Pedro Colley in a great performance; also one of the screenwriters) who sends his horde of cobwebbed zombies to help (“Put them to evil use. It's all they know or want”). One guy is decapitated. Another is fed to hungry pigs. Another is forced to commit suicide and the last is put in a coffin full of snakes. Morgan drowns in quicksand and the Baron takes Morgan's white mistress back to Zombieland with him. One character says “I'm accusing you, honk!”. 

Filmed in Houston, Texas by one shot director Paul Maslansky who later produced the “Police Academy” movies.

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Tekken Too

 

 (the movie database)

 

TEKKEN 2-KAZUYA'S REVENGE-2014-This is a sequel (actually a prequel) to the original (which I haven't seen) which is based on a video game. 

A martial artist Kazuya (Kane Kosugi) with amnesia is forcibly recruited to work as an assassin for a whispering, conceited rebel leader called The Minister (Rade Serbedzija). He puts an explosive device in Kazuya's chest for co-operation. When Kazuya falls in love with Laura (Paige Lindquist), he wants out. While trying to discover his real identity, he meets and fights his new target, Brian Fury (Gary Daniels; FIST OF THE NORTH STAR (1994)) who warns Kazuya to “walk away” after he beats him. Later, Kazuya teams up with the obnoxious Rhonda (Kelly Wenham) who kills the minister when Laura is kidnapped by The Gentek corporation. 

At the corporation Kazuya meets Mishima (Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa) “his father”, the man who “created” him, who says “Your body is a weapon your mind can't control”. It turns out Laura is an android too. After he kills Fury, Kazuya leaves to find Mishima who runs Tekken City and is waiting for Kazuya, setting up another sequel. 

Despite some high spots, this isn't very good but what can you expect from director Wych Kaos, the guy responsible for the insufferable BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER (2002)? 

No direct sequel was ever made.

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Morgan!

 

 (imdb)

MORGAN-2016-A corporate investigator Lee (Kate Mara) goes to a secret facility to check up on their experiments with a bio-genetically created girl named Morgan (Anya Taylor Joy). The head scientist (Toby Jones) says they have things under control but Morgan is obviously a loose cannon who beats up another scientist (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and some of the staff and rips open the throat of a obnoxious visiting psychiatrist (Paul Giamatti). The only one with a level head is Chen (the actress who used to be Michelle Yeoh). When Lee wants to destroy Morgan, the idiotic staff make Lee and Morgan prisoners and Morgan starts killing everyone. Then Lee has to fight Morgan in the woods. Obviously, the wooden, emotionless Lee is not what she seems. Brian Cox has a brief cameo at the end. 

Director Luke Scott has worked mostly in TV.

Never Too Young To Watch A Bad Movie

 (imdb)

 

NEVER TOO YOUNG TOO DIE-1986-Dumb gymnast Lance Stargrave (John Stamos) is the son of spy Drew Stargrave (George Lazenby). After Drew is killed by stupid girly man Von Ragner (Gene Simmons), his father's lawyer (John Anderson) tells Lance his father was killed in a car accident. Lance gets help from his nerdy friend Cliff (Peter Kwong) and saves secret agent Danja (Vanity) from being burned alive. Later, Lance and Danja have a very akward sex scene and then he has to stop Ragnar from contaminating the water supply. 

Planned as part one of a series, it bombed at the box office. Director Gil Bettman also made Sammy Hagar videos.

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Belladonna

 

BELLADONNA OF SADNESS-1973-Unusual Japanese animation is done mostly like painted scenes with only some motion. After being thrown out of her village, Jeanne (voice of Akio Nagayama) is raped by a demon. Later a tiny phallic like devil seduces her. She is made a tax collector and she and her husband Jean (Katsuyuki Ito) are very successful. But her fortunes turn and she is accused of being a witch and banished. Even Jean shuns her. Eventually, she meets Satan who gives her magical powers. It features much erotic, sexual, psychedelic imagery. 

Director Eiichi Yamamoto directed anime classics like KIMBA, THE WHITE LION and ASTRO BOY as well as later classics like SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO 1 and 2.

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Scary Stuff

 

 (The Criterion Collection)

ONIBABA-1964-In this strange Japanese kind of ghost story/horror film, a mother (Noboku Otowa) and her daughter in law (Jitsuko Yoshimura) kill wandering samurai to survive during a a civil war while the son-in-law/husband is away fighting. 

Trouble starts when a friend, Hachi (Kei Sato) shows up and says their man is dead. After helping them kill, he has sex with the daughter in law. Their affair heats up and the mother doesn't like it. When she meets a wandering samurai wearing an unusual mask, she kills him and takes the mask, wearing it to scare the daughter in law from seeing Hachi, who unbeknownst to them has been killed for desertion. When the older woman tries to remove the mask, everything hits the fan. 

This classic spooky supernatural tale was written and directed by Kaneto Shindo. He also wrote screenplays filmed by other directors including Kenji Mizoguchi and Seijun Suzuki.

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The Title Is A Bit Over The Top

 

 (imdb)

THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING-1964-After a plane crash, a car crash, a train crash and people dying and then credits, American Jeff Nolan (NY born low-budget western star Williard Parker) drives through an English village and finds everyone dead. He sets up in a hotel and tries using a TV and shortwave radio. He meets Quint (Dennis Price) and Peggy (Virginia Field), a couple pretending to be married. Then meets Edgar (Thorley Waters) and Violet (Vanda Godsell). No sooner do they all get together when Violet is killed by some weird looking robots, who disappear as suddenly as they appeared. Another couple, Mel (David Spenser) and Nona (Anna Palk) (who's pregnant) show up. 

Later on, Violet turns up, obviously reanimated with white round eyes. Quint kills her and they all decide to leave. When Quint forces Peggy to leave with him, she's menaced by some zombies and Quint is killed. Jeff saves her but then Nora decides to have her baby. While Jeff and Mel search for the transmitter that controls the robots, dead Quint and the robots terrorize Peggy, Nona and her baby Fortunately, they destroy the transmitter. A drunken Edgar comes to his senses and kills Quint. The survivors leave by plane to find others. A full explanation to the invasion isn't given. 

This mysteriously dark, black and white science fiction film was directed by Terence Fisher the same year he made THE GORGON (with Lee & Cushing) and THE HORROR OF IT ALL (with Pat Boone and Dennis Price). It was written by Harry Spaulding who also penned WITCHCRAFT the same year. Robert Lippert was one of the producers.

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Preying Mantis?

 

 (imdb)

THE DEADLY MANTIS-1957-After a lot about radar and the creation of the Dew line, Col. Parkman (Craig Stevens) arrives at the North Pole just in time to hear about an isolated outpost being wrecked. When a plane is destroyed, a large claw is found. A panel of experts led by General Ford (Donald Randolph) is stunned. They call in Dr. Jackson (William Hopper) who's a fossil expert from the Museum of Natural History. He seems to think it is a giant insect on the loose. An old professor (Florenz Ames) thinks this theory is crazy but a giant praying mantis is alive and killing Greenland Eskimos. Jackson goes off to the North Pole but is kind of forced to take the female editor of the museum magazine, Margaret Blaine (Alix Talton) with him. All the men at the pole go ga-ga over seeing her. Parkman in particular. After the men dance with Marge (and each other) the mantis attacks the base. Jackson and Parkman address the situation on TV and the mantis tries to make its way to warmer climates. The Air Force engages it but fail to kill it. Later the mantis invades DC and climbs the Washington monument. It goes to NY and crawls into the Manhattan tunnel (Holland tunnel?). Parkman leads a group into the tunnel and they succeed in killing the now wounded mantis but Marge is almost killed. Parkman saves her (terrible final effect). Also with Pat Conway and Bing Russell.

THE DEADLY MANTIS was produced and co-written by William Alland who had previously produced all 3 “Creature From The Black Lagoon” movies. He got his start in Orson Welles' “Mercury Theater” and played the reporter trying to uncover the meaning of “rosebud” in CITIZEN KANE (1941). Director Nathan Juran (sometimes Hertz), who in 1941 won an Academy Award for art direction, also made 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH and THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS the same year. In 1958, he'd direct ATTACK OF THE 50-FOOT WOMAN!

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Snake Woman

 

 (imdb)

THE SNAKE WOMAN-1961-Dr. Horace Adderson (John Cazabon) is experimenting with snakes and gives his pregnant wife injections of snake venom to cure her insanity. She gives birth to a strange baby girl. Aggie (Elsie Wagstaff), the mid-wife, also the town witch, says it's a demon and tries to kill it. Adderson and Dr. Murton (Arnold Marle) prevent her. The doc takes the baby to a farmer to hide it for the night. However, before Adderson can pick up his kid, the villagers, led by Aggie, destroy his lab and set it on fire. Dad gets snake bit and dies.

20 years later the village lives under the curse of the snake demon with various villagers dying every so often from snake bites. A young Scotland Yard investigator Charles Prentice (John McCarthy) goes to the village to help a former army colonel (Geoffrey Denton). Prentice meets the grown-up baby (Susan Travers) and kind of falls for her but he kills her while she's in snake form and she turns back into a human. Prentice returns to London and his boss burns his report.

Talky mumbo-jumbo directed by Sidney J. Furie (DR. BLOOD'S COFFIN the same year). This British production was written by American Orville Hampton (THE FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE (1960).

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Alucard

 .

 imdb)

SON OF DRACULA-1943-In Louisiana, Dr. Brewster (Frank Craven) and Frank Stanley (Robert Paige) go to meet Count Alucard at the train station but he doesn't show. Meanwhile, Kay Caldwell (Louise Allbritton) waits for the Count (who she met in Budapest) with her sister, Claire (Evelyn Ankers). Kay seems to have some physic rapport with the missing Count. She visits Queen Zimbo (Adeline DeWalt Reynolds) who warns Kay about the Count and says “I see you marrying a corpse”. Then she dies when a bat flies into her hut. Kay's dad, the Colonel (George Irving) throws a party for Alucard (Lon Chaney Jr.), who now watches from outside. He turns into a bat and kills the Colonel. Kay's fiancé, Frank wants to take her away but she seems obsessed with Alucard. Almost from the beginning Dr. Brewster suspects Alucard to be Dracula and gets in touch with Dr. Lazlo (J. Edward Bromberg) who warns Brewster to be careful. After some hubbub over a will with a lawyer, Brewster and Claire discover some things about Alucard spelled backwards. Kay runs off into the swamp where Dracula's coffin rises from the swamp and he appears from a misty fog. They get married and just when Dracula wants to put the bite on Kay, Frank barges in and the Count knocks him down. For some reason, Frank pulls out a gun and shoots the Count but the bullet goes through him and kills Kay. 

Frank wanders the swamp and almost becomes vampire fodder but is saved by a cemetery cross. Frank goes to Brewster and confesses everything. Meanwhile, Alucard/Dracula prepares a coffin for Kay. When Brewster investigates, he finds Kay alive. After Frank confesses again, the sheriff (Pat Moriarty), a judge (Samuel Hinds) and Brewster find Kay dead in her coffin. Lazlo arrives to help. Alucard/Dracula visits them and talks insanely. Lazlo's cross saves them. Later Kay visits Frank in his jail cell and admits she doesn't love Alucard/Dracula. She only used him to gain immorality and now she wants to share it with Frank. With Kay's help, Franks discovers the King of Vampires' hiding place and burns his coffin. The vampire king becomes a skeleton when the sun rises. Frank hightails it to the morgue and promptly sets fire to Kay's coffin (with her in it..). 

Sometimes maligned, this stand alone Universal vampire tale is still a nice entry into their horror catalogue with interesting cobweb opening credits. Some sfx are very good. Not a great title though. Bit roles by George Meeker, Walter Sande, Sam McDaniel & Cyril Delevanti. Director Robert Siodmak (THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE (1946)) does a good job keeping things moving and eerie. Screenwriter Eric Taylor was fairly prolific around this time and among other films, wrote the color remake of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA starring Claude Rains. 

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No End

 

WORLD WITHOUT END-1956-4 astronauts on a spaceship probing Mars have trouble getting home. John Borden (Hugh Marlowe) is the kind of leader. There's also Dr. Galbraithe (Nelson Leigh), Ellis (Rod Taylor) and Jaffe (Christopher Dark). They crash land on an unknown planet that has gravity, oxygen and snow. After they encounter two giant spiders, they bed down for the evening and are attacked by disfigured caveman. Of course, they are actually on the future Earth (after an apocalypse). They retreat to a cave and meet the underground survivors of mankind. A bunch of male fuddy duddies and beautiful short-skirted women all led by Timmak (Everett Glass). The men wear bathing caps. The jealous Mories (Booth Colman) plots to destroy the astros when Borden falls in love with Garnet (Nancy Gates), the leader's daughter. Later they build a bazooka and fight the mutants. Borden then has to fight the mutants' one-eyed leader. Borden wins the fight and mutants and humans live together in harmony. 

This science fiction post-apocalyptic adventure is pretty funny with the astronauts conveniently landing on Earth (no spacesuits), travelling in regular hiking clothes with knapsacks and the weapons being guns and an axe. Still the premise is fairly interesting. 

Paul Brineger, Strother Martin, Mickey Thompson and Herb Vigran have uncredited roles. Sam Peckinpah was the dialogue director. Director/writer Edward Bernds was working on the “Bowery Boys” series around this time and later worked a lot with The Three Stooges.

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Big Monster On Campus

 

MONSTER ON THE CAMPUS-1958-Prof. Donald Blake (Arthur Franz), a college paleontologist receives a dead fish (coelacanth). A student Jimmy (Troy Donohue) doesn't see when his dog drinks some water the fish is in and grows fangs and goes mad. A cut on the doctor's hand and some of the fish water turns him into an ugly caveman killer who promptly kills Nurse Riordan (Helen Wescott) who tries to help him. When the dead nurse is found hanging from a tree and Donald can't remember anything he becomes the number 1 suspect of the investigating police Lt. (Judson Pratt) but eventually he's cleared. 

Later a dragon fly nibbles on the fish and turns into a prehistoric fly. Don kills it but some of its blood drips into his pipe which he smokes and turns prehistoric again, killing a police guard (Ross Elliot). Once again Donald awakens, barefooted with no memory of what happened. Prof. Howard (Alexander Lockwood) and Dr. Cole (Whit Bissell) think he's overworked. Don comes to realize that he might be the killer so he takes a leave of absence in the mountains. Jimmy and his girlfriend spill the beans about the giant dragonfly. Don's girlfriend Madeline (Joanna Moore) decides to visit him while Don is setting up an experiment to prove to himself that he is/isn't the monster. He has a camera and tape recorder set up to document his transformation, which happens. He gets a hold of an ax just in time to terrorize Madeline, who crashes her car. He carries her through the forest but she escapes. 

Don transforms back to human and meets Madeline at his cabin. They check out a picture that was taken and there's the monster wearing Don's loud lumberjack like shirt to which Madeline can only say “Donald, he's wearing your clothes...”! In the finale, Don turns himself back into the killer cave monster so the authorities can shoot him down. They do and of course he turns back into his human form in a long transformation scene. 

Eddie Parker played the actual monster. He played Mr. Hyde earlier in ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1953). If the Hyde mask in that film looks similar to the caveman monster in this film, it's because Bud Westmore and Jack Kevan created both!

This low-budget wonder with some unintentionally funny scenes is kind of saved by the direction of the great Jack Arnold who'd already made several classic science fiction and horror films: IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE (1953), THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954) and its sequel, THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN (1957) to name a few.

Screenwriter David Duncan wrote several other low-budget horror films (THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD, THE LEECH WOMAN and others).

Other Abbott & Costello related notes: Arthur Franz and Helen Weston both co-starred in A & C MEET THE INVISIBLE MAN. Eddie Parker played the mummy in A & C MEET THE MUMMY.

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Westward Ho

 

 (imdb(

RIDE BEYOND VENGEANCE-1966-In Texas, a bartender (William Bryant) tells a census taker (James MacArthur) the tale of buffalo hunter Jonas Trapp (Chuck Connors) who returns after 11 years hunting in Kansas. Unfortunately, he's mistaken for a cattle rustler by rancher Brooks Durham (Michael Rennie) and his two nutty henchmen, Johnsy (Bill Bixby) and Elwood (Claude Akins). They beat him up, brand him and steal his $17,000. While unconscious he dreams about meeting his future wife Jessie (Kathryn Hays) and arguing with his adopted father (Gary Merrill). 

He's rescued by Hanley (Paul Fix). He finds Jessie but she doesn't recognize him and she rejects him, saying Jonas is dead. She's ready to marry Durham. He gets help from a local Mexican (Jamie Farr) to get revenge on Johnsy who's planning to run away with an unhappy wife (Gloria Grahame). After killing Johnsy with a branding iron, he visits his father. Then Frank Gorshin as a ranch hand Tod Wisdom has a standout scene explaining how Johnsy died. Jessie isn't happy with Jonas being around and blames him for the death of her aunt (Ruth Warwick). Then he beats up Buddy Baer! Joan Blondellbernard is Mrs. Lavender, a madame. 

The meandering story line is made up of weird cameos, some related to Connors TV shows. Fix was a regular on “The Rifleman”. Bryant was Gen. Grant on episodes of “Branded” on which Rennie and Akins (who also was in at least one episode of “The Rifleman”) both appeared. Also with Harry Harvey. It's narrated by Arthur O'Connell. Director Bernard McEveety later made THE BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN (1971) and a few other movies but worked mostly in TV. 

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Crabbe Brand

 (imdb)

GUN BROTHERS-1956-A just discharged Calvary Sgt. Pat Santee (Buster Crabbe) meets singer Rose Fargo (Ann Robinson from WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953)) on a stagecoach to Laramie. Pat is going to meet his cattle rancher brother Jubal (Neville Brand), who also turns out is the leader of a band of robbers who hold up the stage. In town, Pat has a big problem with Blackjack Silk (James Seay), a gambler who likes Rose. He starts trouble and the sheriff arrests Pat who escapes but is wounded in the process. An Indian woman (Lita Milan) and Rose bring him to Jubal, whose flunky Shawnee Joe (Michael Ansara) agrees to remove the bullet but it's Rose who actually saves him. The Indian woman betrays the gang to the sheriff as long as Pat isn't arrested. Pat and Rose watch from afar as the posse wipes out the gang, but Jubal escapes and confronts the Indian woman and kills her. He meets up with Joe (who also survived) who convinces Jubal that Pat was responsible for the double cross. 

Meanwhile, Pat and Rose get married in Jackson Hole (Slim Pickens is there) and they do well in the fur trading business. Jubal and Joe go for revenge but Pat convinces his brother he's wrong (using Cain & Abel scriptures). Joe doesn't like it and gets some hired guns. Pat and Jubal make a stand and get the bad guys but Jubal is killed. Also with Ray Bancroft, Walter Sande, William Fawcett, Lane Bradford and Harry Lauter. 

This is an ok standard western directed by Sidney Salkow (TWICE TOLD TALES (1963)) who later was the US director on LAST MAN ON EARTH (1964).

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Twinkle Twinkle

 

 (themoviedatabase)

THE 9^th CONFIGURATION-1980-According to a narrator, after the Vietnam war many soldiers claimed psychosis and authorities thought they were faking so the government set up special facilities to investigate them. This takes place in No. 18, the last of those facilities, where a bunch of nuts (Joe Spinell, Robert Loggia, Alejandro Rey, Moses Gunn) insult each other and Grouper (Neville Brand), the officer in charge. 

An army psychiatrist (Stacy Keach), who imagines the Crucifixion at a moon landing, comes to investigate the inmates including an astronaut (Scott Wilson) who aborted a mission. Later, the shrink makes them dress as Nazis but he's not what he seems. 

Also with Jason Miller, Ed Flanders, George DiCenzo and Tom Atkins. Steve Sandor and Richard Lynch are motorcycle gang members. This very deceptive, psychological thriller was written and directed by William Peter Blatty (author of “The Exorcist”) from his own novel.

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Goodbye to Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy

 

 (wikipedia)

UTOPIA-(aka ATOLL K)-1951-In London, Laurel & Hardy (themselves) inherit a rundown yacht to take them to an island they also inherited. A “stateless man” Antoine (Max Elloy) goes along as their cook. There's also a stowaway named Giovanni (Adriano Rimoldi). They encounter a storm and are stranded on an atoll. Then a narrator explains how the 4 survive. 

In Tahiti, Cherie LaMour (Suzy Delair), a singer, planned to marry a Lieutenant but their engagement is broken. To get away, LaMour goes to the atoll too. After the men all try to impress her, her boyfriend shows up to survey the land. Uranium is found on the tiny island, so in order to keep the island for themselves they dub the atoll “Crusoeland” and make a constitution with Hardy as the president. When the rest of the world finds out about Crusoeland, which has no laws, no taxes and no jails, among other things, folks flock to the island. 

This political satire fails badly but the worst part is Stan Laurel who looks terrible having many health complications. Oliver Hardy also fell ill. The movie was a sordid production with language barriers and a shooting schedule of 12 weeks that ballooned to one year! There were at least 4 writers who worked on the script (including Stan Laurel who contributed gags). Communication was so bad between the team (who's last feature film had been in 1945) and director Leo Joanon that it's been said blacklisted American director John Berry was brought in to help. At least 8 versions exist and somewhere down the road the copyright on this version lapsed making it the most easily accessible of Laurel & Hardy's movies!

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Jack In The Attic

 

 (imdb)

MAN IN THE ATTIC-1953-The mysterious Mr. Slate (Jack Palance) rents a room from Mr. & Mrs. Harley during the Jack the Ripper murders. Slate fits the description, stays out late and talks strangely. His landlady Helen (Frances Bavier; the future Aunt Bee on TV's “The Andy Griffith Show”) suspects him immediately but husband William (Rhys Williams) thinks everyone is just in a panic. Slate takes a liking to Helen's niece Lily Bonner (Constance Smith), a singer who's “the toast of England”. Inspector Warwick (Byron Palmer) looks for fingerprints. Slate, a kind of a confused mamma's boy, almost does in Lily but relents. He escapes in a horse drawn coach with Warwick in pursuit. Although Slate seems to drown, they don't recover his body. 

This fictional account of the Ripper murders is of course based on fact and also on the two film versions of THE LODGER that came before it. One, a 1927 version directed by Alfred Hitchcock and a 1944 version starring Laird Creger and George Sanders. This low-budget production is really held together by Palance's performance. 

Argentina born director Hugo Fregonese does a good job of keeping the mood but sometimes the plot focuses more on Lily than it does on Slate. Star Palance was in SHANE the same year but lead actress Constance Smith's career never took off. Her time as an actress was marred by bouts of drugs and alcohol, a stabbing, jail time and several attempted suicides. She died in 2003.

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The Bat

 

 (imdb)

THE BAT-1959-Mystery writer Cornelia von Gorder (Anges Moorehead) stays in a house called “The Oaks” where evasive murderer “The Bat” committed homicide several months before. Cornelia's maid Lizzy (Lenita Lane) talks about vampire bats. Meanwhile, a bank VP, uncovers a million-dollar bank theft. The prime suspect seems to be Victor Bailey (Mike Steele), an innocent clerk. Then in the Northwest, bank president John Fleming (Harvey Stephens) and his doctor, Malcohm Welles (Vincent Price) are on vacation. John reveals that he took the million and now wants the doc to help him fake his own death. When a forest fire breaks out, the doc shoots and kills John. 

Back at The Oaks, Lizzy talks about The Bat ripping out women's throats and sees a clawed hand at the door. It's apparent a sinister figure is prowling around so the two women barricade themselves in a bedroom and call the police. The figure gets in but is scared away by the cops. Later local police Lt. Anderson (Gavin Gordon) spies Welles experimenting with bats. Cornelia deduces that the embezzled money is hidden somewhere in the house and tries to figure out where. John's nephew Mark (John Bryant) gets involved trying to find the floor plans. A secretary named Judy (former female “Our Gang” member Darla Hood) turns up with testimony that could clear Victor. When it seems like Mark is the culprit, he's found dead in a secret room. The weird lieutenant tries to pin the murder on Warner, the butler (John Sutton), then Judy is killed. The Bat and Welles fight in his lab and the doctor is killed. In the secret room (where Cornelia nearly suffocates) they find a safe. Warner saves the day and the Bat's identity is revealed (it's easy to figure out; there's hardly anyone left). 

This was the third remake of the story which is based on a 1920 stage play based on a 1908 book. Director/co-writer Crane Wilbur (screenwriter of HOUSE OF WAX (1953)) doesn't do much to update the plot so it's rather dated but still entertaining in its way.

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