Harryhausen

  (imdb)

EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS-1956-Dr. Russell Marvin (Hugh Marlowe) and his wife Carol (Joan Taylor) have a UFO encounter. Later while overseeing Project Sky Hook, Marvin's father-in-law General Hanley (Morris Ankrum) advises him to cancel a scheduled rocket take off. Aliens land and metal robots cause some destruction. It seems their original message was misunderstood so they attacked. Later Martin and Carol, Major Huglin (Donald Curtis) and a police officer (Larry Blake) are taken aboard a saucer. There they see Hanley has been abducted and become the aliens' unwilling spokesman. They want to make Earth their new home as their world is dying. Martin and Prof. Kanter (John Zaremba) invent a sonic gun to kill the aliens. While it's being built, the aliens create some explosions on the moon and saucers attack DC. One is shot down and crashes into The Potomac. The Washington Monument and The Capital are among the buildings destroyed. Mostly caused by the shot down UFOs. 

The SFX (by the master Ray Harryhausen, who goes uncredited!) are the real highlight of this black and white science fiction film directed by the unheralded super-fast Fred Sears who made 8 other movies in 1956 including ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK and THE WEREWOLF. Thomas B. Henry is an admiral and Paul Frees is the voice of an alien. One of the screenwriters was Curt Siodmak.

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The Claw

 

THE GIANT CLAW-1957-Test pilot Mitch Macafee (Jeff Morrow; THE ISLAND EARTH) sees a UFO but no radar picks it up. Major Bergen(Clark Howatt) accuses him of a practical joke but when a commercial airliner goes missing the major has to eat his words. When Mitch and mathematician Sally Caldwell (Mara Corday; TARANTULA) are on their way back to NY when the sighting of another UFO causes Pete the pilot (Frank Griffin) to crash his plane. Mitch and Sally are ok and are rescued by Pierre (Louis Merrill), a woodsman who later says the “UFO” is Carcagne, a mythological Canadian monster. They all manage not to see a giant claw print. 

It's later revealed the “UFO” is a giant prehistoric bird (a bad marionette) which shows up on some weather balloon film. General Buskirk (Robert Shayne) takes Mitch and Sally to Washington DC to meet General Considine (Morris Ankrum). After a missile attack fails, a Dr. Noymann (Edgar Barrier) figures out that the bird is made up of anti-matter from outer space. Sally proposes that the bird is here to nest and lay eggs. And she's right! 

This Sam Katzman production features one of the most comical giant monsters of all time and it was one of the last movies directed by the indefatigable Fred Sears who unfortunately died in 1957 of a heart attack at age 45.

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Death Row

CELL 2455, DEATH ROW-1955-Little juvenile delinquent Whit Whitter (R. Wright Campbell) grows up to become a full fledged murdering thug (William Campbell; Wright's real older brother) gaining fame as the vicious "red light bandit", pistol whipping men and molesting women at local lover's lanes. The smug and unrepentant Witter is eventually arrested and sentenced to death. He wages a successful effort to win stays of execution on death row. It's based on the then well known book by death row denizen Caryl  Chessman (who was executed in 1960 for similar crimes; at the time he was the longest serving death row inmate) although the character's name is changed (Whittier was Chessman's middle name) and a disclaimer says the whole thing is a work of fiction. 

Less workman like than other outings by the prolific Fred Sears, it is unusual for a film at the time to spotlight such a slimy character in a kind of “justice story”. Today most lead characters in movies are slimy assholes you couldn't give two shits about and they are usually the heroes!

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Fred Sears

THE NIGHT THE WORLD EXPLODED-1957-Short (64 minutes) science fiction quickie features an egghead scientist Dr. Conway (William Leslie; also in HELLCATS OF THE NAVY the same year) and his older mentor Dr. Morton (Tris Coffin) who invent a machine that detects earthquakes. When they find  "a big one" is going to hit LA the warn the governor but he ignores them. After the quake hits as predicted the government wants to know more (things haven't changed that much). Kathryn Grant plays "Hutch" the duo's assistant who's sweet on Conway but he doesn't notice. They all go to Carlsbad Caverns to check out some readings. Along the way they discover a new element that explodes when it makes contact with air.

THE NIGHT THE WORLD EXPLODED almost plays like an episode of TV's SCIENCE FICTION THEATER. It was directed (and narrated) by Fred Sears (for a double bill with his atrocious THE FLYING CLAW), a veteran of extremely low budgets who's rapidity rivaled Beaudine and Newfield. He died suddenly at 54 of a heart attack leaving 5 (!) movies (including WORLD) to be released posthumously. Many of them produced by Sam Katzman (as WORLD was).

Grant who got to be Bing Crosby's widow was in THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD the next year.

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It's A Crime!

TEENAGE CRIME WAVE-1955-Two punks (Tommy Cook & Molly McCart) drag an innocent girl (Sue England) into their life of crime. After a botched robbery the girls go to prison but are sprung by the hoodlum boyfriend. They wind up holding an old couple and their college age son (James Griffin) hostage and get very excited when they see their mug shots on TV. A police shoot out puts an end to their “crime spree”. Although this is a pretty standard drama the prolific director Fred F. Sears throws in a few interesting touches. Cook co-starred in MISSLE TO THE MOON the next year.

"To invent you need a good imagination and a pile of junk"-Thomas Edison

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Made Hairy By Science

THE WEREWOLF-1956-An amnesic man turns into a werewolf when he gets excited. He terrorizes a small town where actor/stuntman Don Megowan is the sheriff. Unlike most "wolf man" movies the monster is actually a product of science rather than a curse or legend. Two nutty scientists (S. John Launer and George Lynn) were working with radioactive wolf's blood and used the guy as a guinea pig after he was in an automobile accident. The experiment had to do with some kind of vaccine that would help them survive a nuclear war (well something like that...Hey! This was the '50's. That's all they thought about back then!).

This poses a problem for the sheriff who gets caught between trying to catch a killer and helping an innocent victim. The werewolf make-up is pretty effective when shown in the night time scenes, less so in the day. Considering Sam Katzman was the producer the production values aren't bad either. Steve Ritch the actor who portrays the doomed wolfman is very good. Joyce Holdren (later in THE TERROR FROM 5000 AD) is on hand as Megowan's kind of girlfriend and TV character actor Harry Lauter is his deputy. Gerald Mohr is the uncredited narrator. Unfortunately there's lots of talk but it moves along quickly thanks to the workman-like direction of Fred Sears.

Director Sears was a kind of '50's dynamo turning out 8 other movies (most of them also for Katzman) in 1956 including the far superior EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS and ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK. He also found time to act in over 50 movies! The same year he was hunting hirsute killers Don Megowan also played "The Gill Man" (only on land) in THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US. He appeared in around 40 films (and on TV) and was later in the very strange CREATION OF THE HUMANOIDS!


"Whoever cares to learn will always find a teacher"…German proverb

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