To The Moon

 

 (themoviedatabase)

FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON-1958-Florida 1868: The International Armament Club, a group whose members profited by making weapons for both sides during the Civil War are about listen to Victor Barbicane (Joseph Cotton) explain that he's invented Power X, an explosive so devastating it's too powerful to detonate on Earth! He plans to shoot a projectile to the moon and test it. Meanwhile industrialist and southern sympathizer Nicholl (George Sanders) wants to stop Barbicane from destroying the world. He has created a metal that could be used to send the explosive to the moon. He agrees to build a casing only because he thinks it will fail. President Grant (Morris Ankrum) tells Barbicane he must not send a charge to the moon because 22 nations see it as an act of war. He gives up Power X and everyone hates him. He breaks with his colleagues (Henry Daniel, Patrick Knowles and Ludwig Stossel) but his assistants (Carl Esmond and Don Dubbins) stand by him. With Nicholl's help, Barbicane wants to go to the moon and back. To slow things down, Ben (Don Dubbins) romances Nicholl's daughter, Virginia (Debra Paget). With Nicholl's help, he, Barbicane and Ben man a rocket into space with Virginia as a stowaway but the flight seems doomed as Nicholl's has sabotaged it. 

Melville Cooper is also in it as well as the voices of Robert Clarke (same year as THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON) and Les Tremayne. This Technicolor science fiction is based on a novel by Jules Verne. It was originally produced by RKO but they went out of business and it was picked up and released by Warner Brothers. It's a farfetched but enjoyable tale with the two leads great when they butt heads. Byron Haskin (THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953)) directed. This would be his last S.F. movie until 1964's ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS.

Thanks for reading. 

Chan In The Desert

CASTLE IN THE DESERT-1942-After a murder at Manderley castle, a mysterious place in the desert with no electricity or telephone, Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) is contacted by a letter from Lucy Manderley (Lenita Lane) to investigate. A guest was poisoned and since she is a descendant of the infamous Lucretia Borgia  everyone thinks she did it. In the pest hole town he meets the locals who are all loonies. The stupid hotel owner (Oliver Blake) says Mrs. Manderley is a witch. When a castle car picks him up Charlie is joined by the snobbish Watson King (Henry Daniell). Once there he meets Mr. Manderley (Douglass Dumbrille), a historian with half a disfigured face he keeps covered, doing research on The Borgias. Manderley gets mad at his doctor Retling (Steve Geray) who says Manderley is perfectly fine. Still he does act rather nutty. Chan also meets Prof. Detheridge (Richard Derr) who once helped him on a case. Also present are Mr & Mrs Hartford (Edmund MacDonald and Arleen Whelan).

When Chan meets Mrs. M she says she never called for his services and the letter he received is a joke. Charlie is ready to depart but the castle car breaks down. Jimmy comes out to the place with an old town psychic (Ethel Griffies).  Before that though a private investigator Fletcher (Milton Parsons) shows up to ask about the poisoned victim. After he's poisoned, everyone tries to convince Manderley that Lucy is an insane murderer. Of course Chan thinks otherwise and later proves that when it seems three murders have been committed it's actually only one! Jimmy spends some time in a suit of armor. 

Harry Lachman directed this one. Thanks for reading!

Next up: CHARLIE CHAN IN THE SECRET SERVICE

This Is A Thriller....

THRILLER-1961-Episode 23-”The Well of Doom”-The wealthy soon to be married Robert Penrose (Ronald Howard, in one of three roles for the TV series) is on his way to a bachelor party accompanied by his family butler Teal (Thorin Thatcher) when they are waylaid by a spooky looking old man named Squire Moloch (Henry Daniell, made up to resemble Lon Chaney in LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT) who claims to be the devil. He's assisted by a giant named Styx (Richard Kiel). Moloch does seem to have supernatural powers. When the butler tries to run away Moloch kills him just by pointing a finger at him. Later Penrose is held prisoner in a dungeon where his fiance' (Fintan Meyler) is also being kept (a flashback shows Styx kidnapping her). Moloch claims to be the former owner of the Penrose estate who Robert's father killed and dumped in a well. The same well Moloch plans to throw Penrose in if he doesn't give up his inheritance. Thinking ahead he rigs the well so if he is thrown in he can climb back up. Since Thriller has hit the airwaves again I won't give away the surprise (though rather pat) twist ending.

The Well of Doom is an effectively eerie piece directed by German born John Brahm who made other fog bound thrillers like THE UNDYING MONSTER, THE LODGER and HANGOVER SQUARE. This was one of 12 THRILLERS he directed as well as 10 episodes of ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS. His last film was the crazy HOT RODS TO HELL. Prolific TV writer Donald Sanford adapted the John Clemons story. Sanford would later write the screenplay to the WW2 epic MIDWAY. Earlier he shared an Emmy for writing the TV special “The Golden Junkman” in which Lon Chaney Jr. gave perhaps his finest performance.

Richard Kiel (who died in 2014) would play a much more memorable TV role as the Kanamit alien in the TWILIGHT ZONE episode “To Serve Man”. As the sinister Moloch, Henry Daniell was coming to the end of his long career (he died in '63) but still found time to be in 4 other THRILLERs. His last role was an un-billed bit in MY FAIR LADY.

Of course THRILLER was hosted by the great Boris Karloff (who occasionally starred in a few). His intro here isn't as good as some others but he still ends with the often used tagline “as sure as my name is Boris Karloff”.

THRILLER was a neglected anthology for years but thanks to a DVD release and it showing up on cable it's been given a second look and should be checked out by everyone!!!

Thanks for reading!

Skulls R Us

Before we leave the low budget realm of 1950's film making (it will be back! ) and the career of Edward L. Cahn let's take a look at the last HORROR film he ever made (this of course includes his last film, a version of Beauty and The Beast which is really a fantasy...). It's called The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake and it's a winner!


The Drake Family is under the curse of an ancient Ecuadorian tribe. In the 1800's Capt. Drake had a certain native village slaughtered. Since then every male in the Drake Family has died mysteriously on his 60th birthday and had his head cut off and stolen! Jonathan (Eduard Franz, later in Cahn's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST) is the last of the line. After it's revealed at a funeral that his recently deceased brother has no head, a police lieutenent (Grant Richards, who usually played villians in director Cahn's films) investigates. He gets some help from Drake's daughter, Alison (Valerie French, who was in many TV shows in the '60's including The Prisoner episode "Living In Harmony") but soon we learn it is all the evil plot of Dr. Emil Zurich (Henry Daniell, former Dr. Moriarty to Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes in the '40's), a specialist in shrunken heads. And he ought to know about heads. He's actually a tribal Indian with a white man's head sewn on his body!

But the real nightmare fuel here is Zurich's servant Zutai (Paul Wexler) a menacing long haired native who's mouth is sewn shut! He kind of looks like Frank Zappa combined with Todd Rundgren!

That's frightening!!

Oddly enough actor Wexler had a played a comic butler role in "The Bowery Boys Meet The Monsters" a few years before......

Anyway it's Zutai who does all the dirty work. He paralayzes his victims with a long poison needle then severs the head with a bamboo knife! Naturally this ritual is kept off screen and mostly just talked about but Cahn really builds up the atmosphere with the weird scenario of chopped off heads, skulls and voodoo dolls. Rather gruesome even in 1960. It moves at a nice clip and is never boring!

Got to love the shunken head!

"Four Skulls" was written by Orville Hampton who wrote many of the films Cahn directed, plus westerns, crazy stuff like "Riot On The Sunset Strip" and TV shows like "Perry Mason" and "Hawaii 5-0". Even "The Scooby Doo/Dynomutt Hour" (Hey! A guy has to eat, ya know!). His last work was on "Fantasy Island" in 1983 although he lived till 1997.

Of course Alfred Hitchcock made a fairly gruesome and eerie black and white film that very same year called PSYCHO!

Don't overlook this little masterpiece. See it with someone you love (or someone who loves good low budget horror movies!!!).

Thanks for reading!

RIP Claude Chabrol....