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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Made For TV Beast

 

 (imdb)

THE BEAST FROM THE BEGINNING OF TIME-1965-A rude, grouchy egotistical archaeologist Prof. Morey and his long suffering assistant Randall discover a 60 thousand year old being, a kind of caveman, buried in the Earth. Morey wants to keep the discovery secret from the University that sponsored the dig and exhibit the find himself for money. He comes up with an elaborate plan to trick the university head and blackmails his assistant to help but a local hick, Henderson horns in. The next day they discover Henderson impaled with a shovel and Randall in shock ranting that they have to rebury their find. The caveman is taken away and just like that Randall is convicted of Henderson's murder. Later the caveman rises again and kills Morey and a night watchman. Dr. Paul and student Charlie search for the creature which is skinny semi-hairy with a deformed face. When somehow Charlie's girlfriend gets involved poor Charlie is impaled by a dinosaur bone. 

This low budget local production was made in Witchita, Kansas by TV station KARD and shown around Halloween in 1965. It was rebroadcast once in 1981. A couple of actors were kids' TV hosts. The acting is terrible but I was surprised at the bloody corpses and severed arm. The director Tom Leahy was a TV horror host known as “The Host”.

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WHY DID THE CAVE MAN HAVE TO DIE?

 

 (Amazon)

DINOSAURUS!-1960-In the South Pacific an American construction company is mining the waters to build a harbor. Most of the citizens seem ok with it but local criminal Hacker (Fred Engelberg) causes trouble. Bart Thompson (Ward Ramsey) is the head of the project and he has girlfriend named Betty (Krisyina Hanson). An explosion unearths some frozen dinosaurs. Lightening brings them back to life along with a Neanderthal man (Gregg Martell). Hacker's abused charge Julio (Alan Roberts) wanders around and the caveman is put to comic effect. He tries to eat a book and has encounters with a mirror and a toilet. While everyone is running for shelter, Julio makes friends with the prehistoric man who helps Julio escape from Hacker. Later Julio and the caveman wind up riding on the brontosaurus. Caveman saves Betty from a T-Rex and takes her to an old mine shaft where she has to ward off his prehistoric advances. Eventually the Bronto and Rex fight falling into quicksand. The caveman dies saving Bart, Betty and Julio from a cave-in. 

This kind of juvenile tale with terrible SFX is a big disappointment as it was produced by Jack H. Harris and directed by Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr., who a few years earlier had presented THE BLOB! 

DINOSAURUS was star Ward Ramsey's film debut. He later had roles in FLOWER DRUM SONG, CAPE FEAR and TV (sometimes uncredited). Kristina Hanson quit showbiz later and became a teacher. Kid star Alan Roberts did a few other movies and TV but as an adult became a truck driver. Director Yeaworth made only one more feature length movie after this but producer Harris went on to produce EQUINOX (1970) as well as John Landis' first movie SCHLOK (1973) and John Carpenter's debut DARK STAR (1974).

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RIP Conrad Brooks (1931-2017)

 

 (IMDB)

JAN-GEL THE BEAST FROM THE EAST-1999-A prehistoric man (Dale Clukey) frozen in ice is lost by a shipping company and comes to life. He's a bug eyed bearded, balding pot bellied oaf who wanders around scaring people and making ridiculous grunts. Sometimes he sounds constipated. He kills a few people but nothing is shown. This movie is so inept,boring and laughable. Feeble attempts at real humor fall flat. The acting, directing and editing are below sub-par. 

Director/writer Conrad Brooks (in several Ed Wood Jr. movies including PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE) plays Conrad Brooks, a Bigfoot hunter. Visible mics are everywhere. The monster kills in broad daylight and in a really crazed scene fights a rubber snake. This probably isn't as bad as Brooks' BLOOD SLAVES OF THE VAMPIRE WOLF but it's a close second. Speaking of second, Brooks made a sequel!

 (nobudgetpodcast.com)

JAN-GEL 2: THE BEAST RETURNS-2001-I have to hand it Conrad Brooks, he's made a movie worse than JAN-GEL! The big caveman returns but this time his head is bandaged and a still photo is used for his first appearance! I guess the original actor wasn't available. This thing contains the weirdest looking bunch of actors I've ever seen.

 (mondocult.com)

(Conrad Brooks and friend)

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The Ape Man Returns (?)

 

THE RETURN OF THE APE MAN-1944-Two scientists successfully keep a man alive in suspended animation for four weeks. Head guy Prof. Dexter (Bela Lugosi) needs a subject who's been frozen for hundreds of years to see if he can make him live again. So he and assistant Professor Gilmore (John Carradine) go to the Arctic to dig for one. They almost give up but a frozen specimen falls into there hands after an avalanche. They take him back to the US and revive him. 

He (Frank Moran) seems wild but Dexter uses a whip to tame him. Dexter plans to put part of a modern human brain into the ape man but needs a volunteer brain. At an engagement party for Gilmore's niece Ann (Teala Loring), he plays the Moonlight Sonata while Dexter decides her fiance Steve (Tod Andrews) would make a good brain donor and drugs him and prepares him for an operation. Fortunately Gilmore is wise to his partner's plan and saves Steve. He also tells Dexter he's mad and wants nothing more to do with him. Later after Dexter tries to tame the caveman with electricity and a blowtorch, the caveman escapes and kills a cop. Dexter recaptures him ("You brainless fool!") but the newspapers report a monster sighting. Gilmore wants to report the caveman to the police but Dexter persuades his too gullible ex-partner that he wants help destroying the creature. Of course instead Dexter uses Gilmore's grey matter to bring the prehistoric throwback under his control. But it doesn't work so well as the new improved cave ape (who can talk) makes a bee line out the front door to his former house. He climbs in a window and plays the piano for Mrs. G. 

Steve suspects Dexter and he and two cops go to his pad. When they check out his lab the cave guy (who'd been recap-tured by Dexter) bursts through his cage behind a fake wall and kills Dexter despite being shot at point blank range several times. Cavey heads back to Gilmore's house and kidnaps Ann. A crazy chase ensues with Gil-ape going across some buildings with Anne (an obvious dummy). He hides out with her in the prop room of a theater until he kills a night watchman. Somehow he goes back to Dexter's lab, a fire breaks out but Steve saves Ann. The End. 

This Monogram quickie was directed by Phil Rosen (PHANTOM OF CHINATOWN) and though George Zucco is listed in the credits as the ape man he only appears for a few seconds when the ape man is first found in the block of ice. Apparently Zucco fell ill just as filming started and was replaced by Frank Moran. It has nothing to do with previous monkey business type horror films from Monogram like THE APE (1940).

Fortunately Zucco got better and teamed with Lugosi and Carradine for VOODOO MAN soon after.

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Cheap Cave Man

THE NEANDERTHAL MAN-1953-In the Sierra mountains a nutty anthropologist Prof. Graves (Robert Shayne) turns his cat into a saber tooth tiger that escapes into the woods and scares a hunter (Frank Gerstle). No one believes him but the game warden George Oakes (Robert Long) convinces vacationing Dr. Ross Harkness (Richard Crane) to help investigate. They go to see Graves but he's off presenting his theory about brains to a group of eggheads who wind up ridiculing him. He gets mad and insults them (“small men, small minds”). Meanwhile Graves' daughter Jan (Joyce/Joy Terry) invites Harkness to stay the night. He also meets Ruth (Doris Merrick) who's somehow engaged to the moody eccentric professor. Oakes and Ross kill a saber-toothed tiger but when they bring Graves to look at the body it has disappeared. Now it's Graves' turn to laugh (he uses the phrase “vacuum of ego”). After he jilts Ruth, he injects himself with a formula that turns him into a simian like caveman and he kills a hunter and his dog. The local sheriff puts together a posse. No sooner does Graves return to his natural human form when he suddenly becomes a caveman again!

While snooping around the lab Ross develops some photos that show Graves' mute maid (Tandra Quinn; later in THE MESA OF LOST WOMEN) becoming a monster. Later professor caveman kills another local and ravages his date (Beverly Garland). The posse chases him down but Neander-Graves kidnaps his ex-fiancée and holds up in a cave. Ross saves her but the prehistoric man is mauled by another saber tooth which Ross created accidentally. Graves dies in bed and transforms back to his homosapien self.

THE NEANDERTHAL MAN was directed by EA Dupont, once a well-respected director in his homeland of Germany (VARIETY, ATLANDTIK). Unfortunately, his Hollywood career never took off and after spending several years as an agent was reduced to making low budget nonsense like this. His direction isn't anything special but Robert Shayne's intense but almost comical mad scientist perform-ance holds it together despite the bad caveman make-up. The close-ups seem to be a time elapsed make-up job ala THE WOLFMAN but when he's running around terrorizing the countryside Shayne seems to be wearing a mask.

The writing team of Aubrey Wisberg and Jack Pollenfex also wrote THE SON OF DR. JEKYLL and THE MAN FROM PLANET X.

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Troggie Dearest

TROG-1970-In England three spelunkers go looking for trouble in some underground caves and find it in the form of a prehistoric man/monster who beats one guy to death. Another guy goes crazy and is taken to a hospital where he's questioned by Dr. Brockton (Joan Crawford in her last motion picture role) who wants to see exactly what terrified him, so she and the third spelunker go back to the cave and she gets her wish snapping a photograph of the “trog” picking up a boulder. An expedition is mounted and Trog (Joe Cornelius in a monkey suit supposedly leftover from 2001!)) appears on live TV! Some people run but others (mostly the police) just stand around when Trog kills a cameraman. Brockton whips out a tranquilizer gun and Trog is captured and put in a cage for study (“For a senior citizen he certainly has a marvelous appetite”). Brockton's daughter Anne (Kim Braden) assists her when Trog plays with toys and listens to classical music. But when a jazzy rock number is played he goes wild! 

Dr. Selbourne (Jack May), a jealous assistant and Murdoch (Michael Gough), a greedy land developer plot to have Trog destroyed. A famous American surgeon (Robert Hutton) performs an operation that makes the caveman have flashbacks to prehistoric times (scenes from THE ANIMAL WORLD (1956) are used). All seems ok until Murdoch breaks into the institute and taunts Trog who escapes, kills Murdoch and terrorizes the small community (he hangs a local butcher on a meat hook). He kidnaps a little girl and heads for his cave. Brockton convinces Trog to set the girl free but the army kills him anyway. 

 This was the second outing for Joan Crawford working for her friend expatriate American producer Herman Cohen. I wonder if she still considered him a friend after starring in this dumb low budget horror thriller? Their first collaboration was BERSERK in 1967. Both have screenplays by Aben Kandel who in the US had written I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF in 1957 for then AIP producer Cohen. Earlier Kandel had written KID MONK BARONI (1952), Leonard Nimoy's debut film. Co-story credit goes to director John Gilling. 

Director Freddie Francis was also a respected and busy cinematographer though at this time he was directing his own films which were usually competently handled but TROG suffers from lack of budget and a rushed story line. This was the real nadir of Crawford's career (although she was on the board of directors of Pepsi-Cola at the time) and though miscast she plays it straight.

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Man In a Dino-Suit

THE LAND UNKNOWN-1957-A Naval science team goes to the South Pole. The group consists of Commander Hal Roberts (Jock Mahoney; TV's Yancey Derringer), Lt. Jack Carmen (William Reynolds), Capt. Burham (Douglas Kennedy) and Maggie Patterson (Shawn Smith aka Shirley Patterson), a woman reporter. The group has helicopter trouble when a pterodactyl hits them. They are forced to land in a hidden sub-tropical area dating to the Mesozoic era. They meet stock footage of two giant lizards fighting. Then they are chased by a T. Rex (guy in a costume) but a strange noise calls off it's attack. When giant plants menace the group Maggie is kidnapped by Hunter (Henry Brandon) who's been living there for years and thinks he owns the place (he's a survivor from a previous expedition). He blows a giant sea shell that scares off the dynos. Hunter wants the men to leave but let him keep Maggie who briefly escapes but runs into a giant sea reptile and faints. Later Hunter gives them a map to find his old helicopter. The guys rescue Maggie and even take Hunter back to civilization.

It seems at one time Universal was planning on THE LAND UNKNOWN to be a big budgeted film to be shot in color with an all star cast and Jack Arnold directing. For some reason the studio cut the budget, the color and the cast turning it into a B movie. Arnold left the project and contract director Virgil Vogel was his replacement. He'd made the equally cheap looking THE MOLE PEOPLE the year before. Screenwriter Lazlo Gorog penned Bert I. Gordon's EARTH VS. THE SPIDER a year later.

LAND really suffers from terrible SFX, too much stock footage and phony scenery but still manages to be more entertaining than boring. In movies since the early '40's actress Shawn Smith also acted under the name of Shirley Patterson. One of her last film roles would be in IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE.

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No Dragons Though

VALLEY OF THE DRAGONS-1961-In 1881, 2 guys are going to have a duel. Hector Sevadac (Cesare Danova), Frenchman  and Michael Denning (Sean McClory), from Ireland are starting their paces when a comet seems to sweep across Earth. At first they think civilization has been destroyed and they are the last survivors. They battle comical looking cavemen and a large phony spider. They also encounter the overused footage of the Earth cracking open and little lizards made up to look like dinosaurs from ONE MILLION BC. When night finally falls and they look up in the sky and see the planet Earth they realize the truth. They have in fact been swept up on the passing comet! 

The duo save each others life and forget their duel and become friends. After much exploring they come upon a tribe of human inhabitants but the group runs away. Eventually Hector is found by Deena (Joan Staley), a blonde haired female of a local tribe. He tries to teach her English (shouldn't he had tried to teach her French?) and of course winds up kissing her.  Meanwhile Michael falls in with another tribe and has his own female problems in the form of cave brunette Nateeta (Danielle De Metz) and Anoka (Mike Lane), her cave guy. He causes trouble but Michael uses a sling-shot to keep him in line.

Later after Hector and Deena frolic (too long) in an underwater love scene they wander into a cave and are attacked by creatures that look suspiciously like The Morlocks (George Pal's version of THE TIME MACHINE was made the year before). Deena escapes the Morlock wannabes but is captured by another tribe. Fortunately it's the tribe Michael has been hanging with.  Just when it seems as if the two tribes are going to fight the nearby volcano erupts more stock footage. When the smoke clears everyone gets together to help rescue some survivors trapped in a cave. Hector creates gunpowder and makes a bomb to destroy the giant lizard guarding the cave! Everyone lives happily ever after on the prehistoric comet. 

VALLEY is a very low budget production with lots of stock footage, super-imposed monsters and jungle and cave scenes obviously filmed in a studio. The biggest surprise though is a cameo appearance by Japan's Rhodan! Yes, a flying creature shown quickly several times is none other than Godzilla's old pal!

Perhaps it shouldn't  be that much of a surprise as one of VALLEY's producers was Al Zimbalist, the man behind ROBOT MONSTER!

Director Edward Bernds made this between THE RETURN OF THE FLY and THE THREE STOOGES MEET HERCULES. Bernds worked a lot with The Stooges and The Bowery Boys as well. He died in 2000 at the age of 94.  

VALLEY is based on the Jules Verne story "Career Of a Comet".

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