Everyone Breaks The Law

 

 (imdb)

THE STEEL TRAP-1952-Jim Osborne (Joseph Cotton), a bank VP plans to steal a million dollars from his firm and high tail it to Brazil with his wife, Laurie (Teresa Wright) and their young daughter. They have a million complications on their way but somehow they get to Brazil. When Laurie finds out his real plan she leaves him. Later, despite all his efforts, he decides to return the money. Also with Walter Sande, Jonathan Hale and William Hudson. 

Nice little border line film noir thriller, written and directed by Andrew Stone who had previously made STORMY WEATHER IN 1943 and went on to make THE LAST VOYAGE (1960) and RING OF FIRE (1961). Stars Cotten and Brewer had appeared together in Hitchcock's A SHADOW OF A DOUBT in 1943.

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Baron Bava

 

 (imdb)

BARON BLOOD-1972-Peter comes from America to Austria to discover his roots and learn about this ancestor Baron Von Kleist (dubbed Baron Blood by the locals). At dinner with Uncle Karl and his family, Peter meets Eva (Elke Sommer) and they discuss a witch named Elizabeth Holly who put a curse on the Baron. For some reason, Peter wants to recite an incantation that could bring the Baron back to life. Eva takes him to the room where the Baron died and he invokes it. The Baron comes back as a deformed killer. When the castle is put up for auction a guy in a wheelchair named Becker (Joseph Cotton) buys it. Later they suspect he is the Baron who's restoring the castle complete with impaled victims and a torture chamber with recorded screams. The Baron reveals himself and in his torture chamber. He tortures Peter first. However, an ancient medallion causes the Baron's recent victims to rise and torture him to death. 

Stylish direction from the great Mario Bava, who made this between A BAY OF BLOOD and LISA AND THE DEVIL. It was a big hit in the US.

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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.

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Something's Fishy

 

ISLAND OF THE FISHMEN-1979-Survivors of a shipwrecked prison ship including a Lt./doctor Ross (Claudio Cassinelli; in MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD the same year) and some prisoners have their lifeboat attacked by a sea monster. The survivors of that attack wind up on an island where they find a voodoo altar and one of them declares the island is inhabited by zombies. When a snake threatens them it's shot by a mysterious woman on horseback. She warns them to leave as the owner of the island, Edmund Rackham doesn't want visitors. The group also seems to be followed by a strange frog-like creature. They meet the smug, pompous Rackham (Richard Johnson; in ZOMBIE the same year)  who offers them shelter. Rackham and his wife Amanda (Barbara Bach; THE SPY WHO LOVED ME) obviously have some marital problems. He invites Ross to dinner and while they discuss various things an old man spies on them. Later Rackham watches his smirking head servant Shakira (Beryl Cunningham) perform a voodoo ceremony and then sees her bonding with the frog monster. After one of the cons is killed attacking a woman Ross has his own encounter with Froggy but is saved when Amanda orders it to stop. Ross discovers that a famous biologist Prof. Marvin (Joseph Cotton; in GUYANA: CULT OF THE DAMNED the same year) is in the house too and very sick. He's also Amanda's father. Rackham seems desperate to have Ross keep him alive. Finally Rackham reveals some secrets to Ross. Under the island is the last remnants of Atlantis now occupied by the fish men. There's a huge treasure there but it's too deep. Rackham needs the fish men's help to get it. Prof. Marvin invented a potion that allows him to communicate with the creatures. Amanda can too. But Marvin is actually a mad scientist drummed out of the medical profession for his experiments on humans. Turns out the amphibian inhabitants are actually humans mutated by him. 

This movie isn't great with too many long stretches of nothing happening and some very dark scenes. A lot does happen in the last half hour though as a volcano erupts, Ross almost drowns but is saved by the dying Shakira who Rackham shot when she attempted to kill his wife, Ross and Rackham have two fights, the last resulting in Rackham's bloody death at the claws of the fish men who save Amanda from drowning. She and Ross survive.

Sergio Martino directed this Italian production that played in US theaters under the titles SOMETHING IN THE DARK and SCREAMERS. Both feature a new gory opening sequence featuring Cameron Mitchell & Mel Ferrer. 

The same year he made FISHMEN Martino also made THE GREAT ALLIGATOR which featured Bach, Cassinelli and Johnson. In 1995 he made a sequel for Italian TV "The Queen of the Fishmen". 

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"I've made a lot of junk". ..Joseph Cotten

Americans In Japan (and underwater)

LATITUDE ZERO-1969-This Toho production much like the previous year's THE GREEN SLIME was made in Japan but used several American actors in the lead roles. An American reporter Perry Lawton (Richard Jaeckel; also in GREEN SLIME) and two Japanese scientists Dr. Ken Tashiro (Akira Takarada; from the original GODZILLA) and Dr. Jules Masson (Masumi Okada) are trapped in a diving belt after an horrendous explosion. They are rescued by the crew of the atomic submarine Alpha, under the leadership Captain MacKenzie (Joseph Cotton), a Capt. Nemo-ish guy in an open silk shirt and gold chain who claims his sub is 160 years old! Which is nothing since he's 204! His assistant is Dr. Barton (Linda Haynes), a cutie in a very revealing outfit. He has to abort his mission of studying underwater volcanoes (which caused the diving belt to crash) and rush home because of Masson's head injury. Cesar Romero is the evil Dr. Malic who has one of his subs attack the Alpha. ("How bloody inventive that MacKenzie is") His “companion” is Lucretia (Patricia Medina; Mrs. Joseph Cotton in real life). 

It seems that Malic would have taken over the surface world long ago if not for the efforts of MacKenzie and “Latitude Zero” an underwater paradise/kingdom with a sun, waterfalls and agents all over the world. A new recruit, Dr. Okada (Tetsu Nakamura) who has invented a secret formula, is kidnapped (along with his daughter) by Malic who threatens them with some whacky furry man-bats. He acts very crazy while putting a woman's brain into the body of a lion (man in a suit) he's crossed with a vulture. ("You're a monster!" "No, I'm a genius!") MacKenzie (and his servant Kobo) joins forces with the three land lubbers to invade Malic's island and rescue the doctor. They wear gold jumpsuits with gloves that have flame throwers and lasers built in the fingers. Along the way they are terrorized by a landslide, giant rats and small bats. Eventually Malic is defeated (by his own creature) and Lawton returns to the surface where no one believes his story.

I wonder if Joseph Cotton while making movies like CITIZEN KANE & THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS with Orson Welles ever thought he'd be fighting flying man-bats while shooting a laser from his finger? Probably not, but that's show biz! Cotton doesn't look too happy most of the time despite being protector of the Earth. Romero steals the show as the insane bad guy who really loses it in the end. Medina seemed to be enjoying her role too. There's of course a lot of GODZILLA connections here. GORJIRA star Takarada (who's voice isn't dubbed in this film. He's actually speaking English for a change), special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya (who died soon after this), composer Akira Ifukube and as Malic's winged lion Haruo Nakajima who played Godzilla many times! 

LATITUDE ZERO was directed by the legendary Ishiro Honda who also made the disappointing GODZILLA'S REVENGE the same year. It's a lot like STARMAN with a little of TV's VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA thrown in but the ending makes no sense!

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Rotten Cotten

THE HEARSE-1980-Jane (Trish Van Devere) goes to live at her late aunt’s mansion after an emotional divorce. Most of the townsfolk take an instant dislike to her. Joseph Cotton is the unfriendly real estate agent. A hearse seems to follow Jane around and after reading the aunt’s diary (she was involved in witchcraft) she begins to have weird dreams. She meets an urbane guy named Tom (David Gautreaux) and they have an affair but he has a secret. I’m not exactly sure what to make of the ending. With Donald Hotton as a strange reverend, Donald Petrie and Perry Lang. 

This was one of the last roles for the distinguished Cotton who was also in Michael Cimino’s infamous HEAVEN’S GATE the same year. Director George Bowers was also a film editor.

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The Blog Where Human Timebombs Dwell....

HUMAN TIMEBOMB from 1995 stars Bryan Genesse (who co-starred with Carl Weathers on the 1991 TV crime show STREET JUSTICE) as an FBI agent battling Cuba drug lords. The head mobster plants a micro-chip in him that turns him into an assassin. With the help of a female lawyer (J. Cynthia Brooks) he rebels. Video vet Joe Lara is the control freak villian. The usual car chases, shootouts and explosions abound. Director Mark Roper later did a lot of syndicated TV shows like CONAN THE BARBARIAN and RELIC HUNTER.



What's worst than seeing a bad movie on cable? Seeing a bad movie on cable and then seeing it in the movies a year later under another name!!!

This was my fate when I happened to view a creaky low budget murder mystery called DELUSION on cable one night around 1980. The story concerns a woman (Patricia Pearcy from SQUIRM) who goes to work for invalid Joseph Cotton and people in his household start getting murdered. Everyone's a suspect! Who's doing it? Cotton's brain damaged son? How about his weird grandson? The drunk butler? The gardener? The lawyer? Maybe the maid? Even though the film makers try to be different you can pretty much figure out the twist ending as not many of the cast survive! Gets an A for effort I guess.

But that is not the end!
(It never is...)

A year or so later I went to a double feature at a local theater. For those of you who don't remember, a double feature was when a movie house showed two movies for the price of one! Really! They used to do that! Anyway, I don't even remember what the main feature was but the second feature was called THE HOUSE WHERE DEATH DWELLS. I was all set for some great unheard of low budget tomfoolery and what do I get?

You got it!

DELUSION under another name........

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