Creepy Hand

 

 (imdb)

THE CRAWLING HAND-1963-Mel Lockhart (Ashley Cowan), an astronaut coming back from the moon, seems to crack up and turns ghoul like. Steve Curan (Peter Breck) is in charge of the project and Allison Hayes (in her last movie role) is his kind of secretary. 

After the ship is deliberately blown up, Doc Weitzberg (Kent Taylor) thinks there's some kind of new organism being created. While rollicking on the beach with his gf, Marta (former Miss Iceland, Sirry Steffen), a guy named Paul (Rod Lauren) finds the severed arm of the astronaut. He wraps it up and takes it to his rooming house where it kills his landlady Mrs. Hotchkiss (Arline Judge in her last role). The sheriff (Alan Hale) and deputy (Ross Elliot) investigate. Paul is attacked by the hand but he doesn't killed. The hand seems to possess him. He acts strange and almost kills a restaurant owner (Syd Saylor in his last role). The hand slithers around. Occasionally, “The Bird's The Word” by The Rivingtons is heard. Also with Tristram Coffin and Richard Arlen. 

This cheapy sf horror was produced by Joe Robertson who served the same capacity on THE SLIME PEOPLE (1963) and AGENT FROM HARM (1964). He later got into porno films and wrote and directed 2 movies featuring Ed Wood,Jr., LOVE FEAST (1969) and MRS. STONE'S THING (1970). 

Noted “film doctor” Herbert L. Strock (HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER (1958)) directed. One of the screenwriters Joe Cranston, who later wrote THE CORPSE GRINDERS for Ted V. Mikels, was the father of actor Bryan Cranston. Co-star Rod Lauren had a brief musical career, made a few movie and TV appearances and later married a Philippine singing star. He in 2001 he was suspected of her stabbing murder. He fled to the US and committed suicide in 2007.

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Stuntman

 

 (themoviedatabase)

I'M STILL ALIVE-1940-Self-assured stuntman Steve Bennett (Kent Taylor) insults stuck up actress Laura Marley (Linda Hayes) and it's love at first sight. They get married and everything's fine until Laura gets upset at his stunt work. He decides to quit. Unfortunately, he has a hard time getting on without doing stunts. After a young stuntman is killed, Steve hits the skids and then barnstorms the country. Film producer Walter Blake (Ralph Morgan) tries to help. Eventually, his best friend Red (Howard DeSilva) helps him straighten out his life. Dick Elliot, Selmer Jackson, Sam McDaniels, Herb Vigran and retired silent film director Fred Niblo (as a film director) have unbilled roles. 

Harmless little B-movie directed by Irving Reis (THE GAY FALCON (1941)).

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3 In One

 

(the moviedb.org)

BLOOD OF GHASTLY HORROR-1967-This Independent International production started out as a non-horror film called "Point of Terror", about a diamond heist directed by Al Adamson. Later Sam Sherman got a hold of it, added some murders and music and called it "Psycho A Go Go" and added John Carradine (also in HILLBILLYS IN A HAUNTED HOUSE the same year) as a mad doctor named Vanard who creates a crazed killer (Roy Morton) with an electronic brain. This version also played on TV (edited) as "The Man With The Synthetic Brain". 

Still not satisfied, Sherman added more scenes featuring Tommy Kirk, Kent Taylor and Regina Carroll. Now there's a lot of flashbacks to the original films with 2 cops (Kirk & Arne Warde) investigating murders by a green-faced zombie (Richard Smedley), the original monster from the second film now resurrected by his father (Taylor) to get revenge on Dr. V's daughter (Carroll). Director Adamson appears as one of the robbers in the original film. A strange, pretty unwatchable movie. 

“Directors never direct me. They just turn me loose.”-John Carradine

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Before Purple Rain There Was....

 

 (tmdb)

THE PURPLE HILLS-1961-A drifter named Sheppard (Gene Nelson) shoots Beaumont, a wanted criminal for the bounty but he has to shoot his own horse and can't carry the body back. He buries the body and walks to town. Meanwhile Beaumont's partners in crime Johnny (Kent Taylor) and Chito (Danny Zapien) wait for him but become suspicious when they see vultures. They find his body and plan on collecting the bounty but they are in Apache territory and the tribe liked Beaumont for all the wrong reasons (he sold them guns, booze, etc.). To get the body back Johnny leaves Chito with the Indians and goes looking for Sheppard. Both claim the reward. To settle things the deputy marshal (co-writer Russ Bender) goes with them to the grave but they are accompanied by Amy Carter (Joanna Barnes) and her young charge Martin (Jerry Summers), revenge seeking younger brother of the deceased Beaumont. 

This modest little 60-minute western is actually a remake of a 1915 silent film. This was third film produced and directed by Maury Dexter (THE DAY MARS INVADED EARTH (1962); also with Kent Taylor).

Bad Sheriff

THE BROKEN LAND-1962-In the late 1870's Will Brocious (Jack Nicholson) is being held in jail because his father was an outlaw. Sheriff Cogan (Kent Taylor) is a hard nose operator (he's kind of like a character from a Jim Thompson novel) who's own deputy (Jody McCrea) questions his methods. A dumb guy named Billy (Gary Sneed) is thrown in with Will after being caught stealing a necklace he wanted to give to a local waitress Mavera (Diana Darrin). Dunson (Robert Sampson) is a grouchy guy who gets into a fight with Cogan (an obvious double). Mavera helps the trio escape before she leaves town (Cogan ran her out). Later the guys “rescue” her from a stagecoach and high tail it across the desert with the sheriff in hot pursuit. When his deputy rebels Cogan shoots him and goes after the quartet. He brings them back, killing Billy in the process. Later they expose the sheriff for the no good Union scumbag he is. 

Director John Bushelman was mainly an editor (such as CAT-WOMEN OF THE MOON and several Burt Gordon movies ). 

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Early AIP

THE PHANTOM FROM 10,000 LEAGUES-1955-A weird (man in a suit) sea monster with fins, fangs and big eyes terrorizes some a coastal fishing village. Dr. Stevens (Kent Taylor) investigates when one of the victims has radiation burns. He meets Prof. King (Michael Whalen, later in MISSILE TO THE MOON) who's conducting secretive experiments. Stevens becomes sweet on King's daughter (Cathy Downs) and worries about her safety after a meeting with the monster who is guarding a strange shaft of light.

Meanwhile the Prof.'s secretary (Vivi Janiss) blames King for the death of her son. Phil Pine plays the Prof.'s assistant who's actually working for a spy ring and tries to kill Stevens with a spear gun. This a good low budget horror time waster.

PHANTOM was released by American Releasing Corporation just before they changed their name to American International Pictures. Screenwriter Lou Rusoff wrote many great "B" movies in the '50's including THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED which played on a double bill with PHANTOM.

Director Dan Milner was mostly a film editor but also made FROM HELL IT CAME (with his brother Jack who was PHANTOM's producer) two years later. Music is by the great Roland Stein.

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Three For The Price of One!

BEFORE I HANG-Columbia-1940- Boris Karloff portrays John Garth, an old but benevolent scientist working on a “youth serum”, who’s found guilty of a mercy killing and condemned to die. Before his execution he gets help from a prison doctor (FRANKENSTEIN co-star Edward Van Sloan) and is injected with a new formula. They want to study the effects after his death. At the last minute his sentence is commuted to life. The new formula causes Garth to become about 20 years younger. Unfortunately, they used blood from an executed killer when they mixed the serum. After he kills Van Sloan (and another inmate is blamed) he’s paroled. He wants three of his old friends to be inoculated with the new serum but strangles them instead. His daughter (Evelyn Keyes, who’d been in GONE WITH THE WIND the previous year) might be his next victim!

Her boyfriend is another doctor played by Bruce Bennett who started his acting life as Herman Brix. A former Olympian, Brix starred in the Edgar Rice Borroughs backed THE NEW ADVENTURES OF TARZAN (1935). He changed his name in the late thirties and makes an appearance in another Karloff “mad scientist” vehicle THE MAN WITH NINE LIVES. He was later in MILDRED PIERCE (1945) and TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948). He died February 2007 at the age of 100!

BIH is not really a horror film. In fact it’s more like a standard melodrama except for the presence of Karloff which allowed it to be advertised as a horror film. It’s long on theory but moves along fairly well thanks to the workman like direction of veteran Nick Grinde who’d already directed Karloff (as a good scientist gone wrong) in THE MAN WITH NINE LIVES (1940) and THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG (1939) which BIH co-scripter Karl Brown also worked on.



THE DAY MARS INVADED EARTH-20th Century Fox-1962-This minimilistic, small cast movie was probably made because the director had access to the giant, spooky mansion this talk-fest was shot on. Kent Taylor (soon to be a regular for Al Adamson) plays a brilliant scientist and head of a project to land a probe on Mars. He spends a belated Christmas with his wife (Marie Windsor) and their two children at the mansion. They start to see doubles of themselves and that about explains the SFX. Doubles of every family member appearing mysteriously and confounding the family. Taylor’s double talks to him though and we learn that Martians made of “pure intellect” are invading Earth! The invaders kill the daughter’s boyfriend and Taylor’s scientist colleague (William Mims) and in the end burn up the entire family and replace them. Except for a cheap scene of the probe on Mars during the credits the whole movie takes place at the mansion.

Director Maury Dexter who later on directed the marijuana “classic” MARYJANE and the biker film HELLES BELLES and many episodes of TV’s “Little House On The Prairie”, makes little use of the eerie sets and the “fright” scenes never really come off. Screenwriter Harry Spalding who wrote many other low budget features like WITCHCRAFT (1964) and CURSE OF THE FLY (1965) and the bigger budgeted Disney flop WATCHER IN THE WOODS (1980), provides great scientific dialogue but unfortunately that’s all there is. Dialogue! Taylor made the seldom seen HARBOR LIGHTS for Dexter & Spalding the next year. Then THE CRAWLING HAND!



THE SLIME PEOPLE-Acme Video-1962- I guess actor Robert Hutton got tired of being directed in low budget features like THE MAN WITHOUT A BODY and INVISIBLE INVADERS so he decided to direct one of his own.

He plays a TV sportscaster who helps an old scientist and his two daughters fight off the title creatures. They come from ‘the subterranean depths” and look like cartoonish, walking ears of corn who gurgle a lot. And they throw spears too! Hutton’s group (they are joined by a young hero type played by William Boyce, who resembles Conan O’Brien!) are trapped in the ruins of LA because of a “wall” designed by the monsters. The whole plot is established by the cast viewing some (staged, but often funny) news reel footage. Like in HORROR OF PARTY BEACH, salt plays a role in destroying the monsters! Some scenes take place on cheap sets but the outdoors parts are shrouded in fog (supposedly created by The Slime People), sometimes obscuring the action! A shot of the young guy running up a hill is shown twice. Les Treymayne plays an eccentric author who’s killed in a meat locker. The final scene featuring an army jeep may have doubled the budget!


How about a kiss?

Producer Joseph Robertson (who appears as a drunk ) also made THE THING THAT WOULDN’T DIE. Wife Blair was a co-writer (she also wrote AGENT FOR H.A.R.M. in 1966) and appears as Mrs. Anderson. Co-writer Vince Skarstedt later wrote the screenplay for John Derek’s war drama ONCE BEFORE I DIE (1965).

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