Karloff in The Wild West

 

 (imdb)

THE WILD WILD WEST-"The Night of the Golden Cobra"-1966-Intrepid government agent Jim West (Robert Conrad) and his equally intrepid partner Artemus Gordon (Ross Martin) meet Mr. Singh (Boris Karloff), maharajah head of "The Golden Cobra", who wants West to teach his sons to kill. He also has a daughter, Veda (Audrey Dalton). West's assignment was to rescue a Col. Mayo (Simon Scott). Of course, Singh has an ulterior motive...

 Karloff is good in the lead, older but still Boris. Audrey Dalton a few years earlier was in three TV episodes of Thriller (One acting alongside Karloff). She also co-starred in the horror movies THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD (1957) and MR. SARDONICUS (1961). One of Singh's sons is played by James Westmoreland who under another name was in THE UNDERTAKER AND HIS PALS, also in 1966. Years later he was one of the asshole cops in DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE (1980). It's all over the internet that English actor Michael York plays another son but it's some other actor with the same name. 

One of 26 “Wild West” episodes directed by Irving J. Moore. Karloff was very active and memorable in the year of 1966, voicing the lead role in the classic “How The Grinch Stole Christmas”, also playing Mother Muffin on TV's “The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.” and appearing 3 movies (including THE GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI)!

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Gore Comedy

 

THE UNDERTAKER AND HIS PALS-1966-In this slapstick gore movie, Doc and Spike, two psychotic greasy spoon diner owners kill women and serve their parts to customers. It's full of phony gore and stupid comedy bits with cartoon sound effects. (One victim is Sally Lamb and they serve her leg. Leg of lamb, get it?) A prissy obnoxious Undertaker (Ray Dannis; also in TV Mikels' THE CORPSE GRINDERS) helps them and tries to rack up business for himself. One scene has a woman beaten to death with a chain. A nosy black delivery guy is axed in the head. Another woman is cut open but this scene is actually real operation footage. Scenes of the undertaker in drag were cut and now there's only one quick scene during the comical end credits. Harry Glass (James Westmoreland using the name Rad Fulton), a PI, looks for them after his girlfriend Sally Poultry is killed. 40's Batman star Robert Lowery has one scene as a customer who pies Spike. It's the only movie directed by TLP Swicewood (also the screenwriter). Westmoreland was later the stupid hero cop in DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE.

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Worth It!

DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE-1980-In this psycho-slasher horror flick the underrated Nicolas Worth plays Kirk Smith a deranged Vietnam vet/photographer who strangles women then takes pictures of them. He even calls a radio psychiatrist (Flo Gerrish) and talks with a Hispanic accent. Later he later convinces a prostitute to call the station and while she's talking to the doctor he kills her. James Westmoreland and Ben Frank play two wise ass detectives trying to solve the murders. I think they were trying to imitate Starskyand Hutch but they are more like Dumb and Dumber.

Worth (who died in 2007 at age 69) gives a tour de force performance, crying, laughing and talking to himself in a mirror. In a stand-out scene he talks to his "father" about how he beat up a pimp. The rest of the acting (made up mostly of TV actors and actresses) isn't as interesting and the story is quite sick (most of the victims die topless) and drags when Worth's not around but his performance makes it worth seeing. (No pun intended)

This was the only movie made by director Robert Hammer. The worst part is that while Smith is a crazed vicious killer the two cops act like jerks and aren't very likable.

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