Gorgeous George

 

ALIAS THE CHAMP-1949-Smug stupid Lt. Peterson (Robert Rockwell) of the LAPD is visited by Lorraine Connors (Audrey Long), manager of pro wrestler Gorgeous George (playing himself). It seems George is being threatened by gangster Al Merlo (Jim Nolan) who wants to control pro-wrestling. Later we are treated to a match between George (at the height of  his fame) and Bomber Kulkovic (future character actor Henry Kulky). Legendary ring announcer Jimmy Lennon introduces them. Two gangsters look on. Later Peterson visits backstage but George rebuffs him. "Beat it, Junior you bore me". After having a fistfight with Merlo, Peterson takes Lorraine out to dinner at a club where he gets into a tussle with wrestler Sam Menacker over the affections of singer Collette (Barbara Fuller) who's connected to Merlo. Later when Merlo demands Menacker get a title shot at the gorgeous one an all out brawl erupts between several wrestlers (described by one character as “the grunt and groan boys”) including big lovable Tor Johnson (credited as the Super Swedish Angel). 

Peterson is made wrestling commissioner. In their match Menacker dies and George is arrested for murder! The police commissioner (John Hamilton) isn't happy. Using a film of the match Peterson solves the murder, clears George, stops Merlo and gets Lorraine (and her marbles). It's too bad Gorgeous George wasn't the star of this movie. Without him and the wrestling angle it's just an innocuous low budget crime/love story. Real life pro wrestler Sam Menacker was one of the strongmen who tackled Mighty Joe Young the same year. 

Director George Blair had been making movies since the mid-forties but a few years after this would venture into TV and work with John Hamilton again on “The Adventures of Superman”.

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Clyde Comeback

PERILS OF THE JUNGLE-1953-Clyde Beatty (playing himself) and his friend Grant (Stanley Farrar) go to the Belgian Congo to find wild animals and stumble across a kind of menagerie run by Jo (Phyllis Coates), which she inherited from her father. No sooner are the guys welcomed when there's a fire (started by a foolish native would found a lighter). Clyde handles the 2 escaped lions and saves a worker but the fire wipes out Jo’s business. Enter Gorman (John Doucette), her father's nasty ex-partner who wants to buy her land. She refuses. Clyde decides to help Jo capture a gorilla. They go into the jungle with Gorman in hot pursuit. They do manage to capture a gorilla but a second one manhandles Gorman who's saved when Clyde shoots the hairy attacker. The duo leaves Jo and almost immediately head to Southern Rhodesia where the commissioner (Tudor Owen) grants them permits to hunt black maned lions (they got a tip from Gorman). With their guide Ken (Joe Fluellen) leading the safari they go into the jungle and Clyde kills a lion. Later Grant contracts “sleeping sickness” and they take a chance going through hostile restless natives country.

They meet an old white guy named Grubbs (Leonard Mudie) who says the tribe is holding him against his will but Clyde has his suspicions and he’s right! Grubbs is a thief who’s been stealing the tribe's treasure and he sends the natives after them. When they're captured Beaty gets a knife and holds the king (he’s just a boy) hostage and the group makes its get away, taking Grubbs with them. The scary witch doctor sends out the tribe. Grubbs is speared in the back and the boy-king is set free. It ends with Beaty and Grant going off to hunt black panthers for his circus. 

This slow moving cheapie is put together like two episodes from a TV show and the director George Blair was doing a lot of TV at the time (He'd start directing episodes of THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN the next year).

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Hypnotism Gone Bad

THE HYPNOTIC EYE-1960-This weird shit begins with a woman having her hair set on fire. She also suffers facial burns (“Will I be a monster?”). She seems to have mistaken an open oven flame for a sink. It turns out she is the 12th victim in a series of bizarre mutilations. Detective Dave Kennedy (Joe Patridge) takes his girlfriend Marcia (Marcia Henderson) to see the stage show of a hypnotist much to the chagrin of Dr. Hecht (Guy Prescott). The hypnotist Desmond (Jacques Bergerac) does the usual tricks making subjects think they are in the desert, etc. He also selects three women from the audience to participate in a floating woman stunt. One woman Dodie (Merry Anders) is a friend of Dave and Marcia's and Dave remains unconvinced as to Desmond's powers. Later instead of face cream Dodie uses acid on her face. At another act Marcia volunteers. After she's hypnotized she's wined and dined by Desmond at a beatnik club where a guy reads a beat poem called “Confessions of a Movie Addict” which mentions Clara Bow and THE THING FROM OUTER SPACE. Meanwhile Dave keeps an eye on them. 

When it seems like they have gone back to his apartment for some hi-jinx Desmond's assistant Justine (Allison Hayes; ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN) interrupts and seems to be controlling Marcia through hypnotism. She almost makes Marcia stick her face under a red hot shower but Dave's interference saves her. It seems every woman Desmond has come in contact with has suffered some deformity of the face (but none of them can remember being hypnotized). After he performs his act several times it's revealed that Justine is actually horribly disfigured and taking her revenge out on any beautiful woman Desmond encounters. After Desmond is shot and Justine falls to her death, Dave rescues Marcia and the doctor addresses the audience about being hypnotized. 

This sleazy campy melodrama was filmed in “HypnoVision” by George Blair who also directed several episodes of TV's THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN. 

 THE HYPNOTIC EYE also features the only known film role for Fred Demara who's life story was told in THE GREAT IMPOSTER. Former child star Jimmy Lydon appears as a ambulance attendent.  

Co-scripter William Read Woodfield was also a photographer who gained fame later on for taking pictures of Marilyn Monroe on the set of her last (and unfinished) film. He also co-wrote many early episodes of TV's MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE. 

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Spook Chasers

SPOOK CHASERS-1957-By this time the Bowery Boys series was nearing it's end (this was the 45th of 48 movies made in the series) and it shows. 

Top billed Huntz Hall is moronic Sach and Stanley Clements is Duke (acting more Slip Mahoney-ish this time out). The rest of "the boys" are David Gorcey as Chuck, Jimmy Murphy as Myron, and Eddie LeRoy as Blinky. This time instead of having a landlady to harass or save they hang out in "Clancy's Diner" owned by Louie Dumbrowsky substitute Mike (Percy Helton). When a doctor tells the overworked Mike he needs a rest in the country two crooked real estate agents (William Henry & Darlene Fields) sell him a dilapidated haunted house. However, instead of finding the usual trouble, they find money. It turns out to be the hidden loot of a gangster (Peter Mamakos) who  later shows up (one of his henchman is Ben Welden) to collect. 

It's mostly tired bits of haunted house humor from other comedies (like HOLD THAT GHOST) and Robert Shayne shows up at the end as a detective. Ellwood Ullman scripted it once again and George Blair directed. Blair was also doing episodes of the SUPERMAN TV series at the time.

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Fighting Trouble

FIGHTING TROUBLE-1956-The Bowery Boys redux! 

Now billed as "Huntz Hall and The Bowery Boys" second billed Stanley Clements joins the cast (replacing Leo Gorcey) as Stanislaus "Duke" Covelske. They (along with David (Gorcey) Conlon as Chuck and un-billed Danny Welton as Danny) live in a boarding house run by Miss Kelly (Queenie Smith) who keeps referring to Sach as a genius (which tells you her state of mind). 


To (what else?) raise money Sach and Duke try to get an incriminating picture of a gangster (Thomas B. Henry) for a newspaper publisher. Naturally Sach winds up impersonating a hit man but screws everything up! Adele Jurgens (in at least her third BB appearance) is Henry's moll. Also with Tim Ryan, Laurie Mitchell and Paul Brinegar. 


Ellwood Ullman once again was the screenwriter. Director George Blair began his film career in 1944 but by the mid-fifties was working more on TV (he directed many first season episodes of SUPERMAN). He later made THE HYPNOTIC EYE. The jazzy score is by Buddy Bregman.


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