Konga

 

 (imdb)

KONGA-1961-Missing botanist Dr. Charles Decker (Michael Gough) returns to England after spending a year in the jungle with a local tribe. He brings back a little chimp, Konga. This doesn't sit well with his assistant Margaret (Margo Johns) who thinks Decker should pay more attention to her. He's a real analytic clown who also brings back strange plants that he says are partly human. He raises a bunch of carnivorous plants and extracts a fluid from them that he injects into little Konga, who starts to grow quickly. At school, after Decker teaches a class, the Dean (Austin Trevor) calls him mad and wants him to take a rest. Decker is highly insulted. 

Soon Konga grows man size and Decker hypnotizes him to do his bidding. His first victim is the Dean. Later he has Konga kill a rival scientist. Decker is also sweet on student Sandra (Claire Gordon), although he's already promised to marry Margaret, which makes her boyfriend Bob (Jess Conrad) upset. They have a brief fight. Bob becomes Konga's third victim. After Decker puts the moves on Sharon and is rejected, Margret hypnotizes Konga, injects him with more serum and he grows giant size killing her and destroying the lab. The ever-persistent Decker is still molesting Sandra (who gets bitten by a carnivorous plant) when Konga (now Kong size) breaks in, grabs his former master and goes on a rampage. The army steps in and in front of Big Ben Konga is killed in a barrage of bullets and bazookas, after throwing Decker to his death. Konga reverts back to a chimp in death. Sharon's fate isn't told (eaten by the plant?). 

This crazy low budget horror is ok but mostly for its wackiness. It was produced and written by Aben Kandel and Herman Cohen. Both had worked with AIP (TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN & DRACULA, HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER) but Cohen relocated to England to make this and several other films, (a couple with his friend Joan Crawford). Director John Lemont worked mostly in TV.

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Hammer Horror

  (Wikimedia Commons)

HORROR OF DRACULA-1958-Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) goes to Castle Dracula to be a librarian for Count Dracula. No one is there when he arrives but a woman (Valarie Gaunt) appears and asks Harker to help her but she runs away when Dracula shows up. It seems Harker is really there to destroy the vampire. Later the woman shows up again and begs Harker to help her. But when she gets close she tries to bite him. Dracula intervenes. Harker awakes the next day with bite marks on his neck and goes looking for the count's resting place. He finds it and destroys the woman but Dracula wakes up and makes Harker a vampire. Later Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) arrives in town looking for Harker. A helpful waitress gives him some info but he's too late. Dracula is gone and he has to put a stake in Harker. Arthur Holcomb (Michael Gough), the brother of Harker's fiance Lucy (Carol Marsh) doesn't accept the doctor's story of her husband to be's death. Especially since Lucy is kind of sickly and waiting anxiously for his return.

Unfortunately Dracula decides to make Lucy his next conquest. Dr. Seward (Charles Lloyd Pack) thinks she has some kind of anemia. Mina (Melissa Strib-ling), Holcomb's wife asks Van Helsing for a second opinion. He suggests putting garlic a-round the windows but the maid re-moves the smelly stuff and the next day Lucy is dead. Holcomb blames Van Helsing but when his maid's daughter says she talked to Lucy he starts to think differently. He and the courageous doctor find Lucy's resting place and drive a stake into her. While the men search, Dracula puts the bite on Mina. In the great climax Van Helsing and the king of vampires have a memorable showdown. 

This Hammer production was freely adapted from the Bram Stoker novel by Jimmy Sangster and directed with style by Terence Fisher (the two had collaborated a year earlier on THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN; also with Cushing & Lee) and would go to make REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN the same year. Fisher and Sangster would also concoct THE MUMMY (with Cushing & Lee) in 1959 and BRIDES OF DRACULA in 1960 with Cushing reprising his role as Van Helsing. Lee wouldn't play the infamous count again until 1966's DRACULA-PRINCE OF DARKNESS (also by Fisher & Sangster).

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Joan Runs A Circus

 

BERSERK!-1967-Something's up at the circus owned by Monica Rivers (Joan Crawford). A trapeze artist is hanged during his act. Monica seems fairly cold blooded and sees the accident/murder as a box office boost. Her business partner/boy toy Dorado (Michael Gough) wants her to buy out his share. She hires Frank Hawkins (Ty Hardin) as a new tight wire artist. He wants to have an affair with her but she rejects him (it's a switcheroo!). Then Dorado gets a spike through his head. 

The circus people (including Diana Dors & Milton Reid) get together and some of them accuse Monica. A police commissioner (Geoffrey Kean) sends Det. Brooks (Robert Hardy) to investigate. Matilda (Diana Dors) unsuccessfully tries to put the moves on Jack. Little person Bruno (George Claydon) hangs around. Later Monica's troublesome daughter Angela (Judy Geeson) shows up after being kicked out of finishing school. Then Gustavo (Peter Burton) really saws Matilda in half. Angela becomes part of a knife throwing act. When Frank is killed the murderer is revealed and electrocuted. 

This not half bad little murder mystery horror film was co-produced (and shot) in jolly old England by Herman Cohen who in the 1950's had produced several films for AIP including I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN, I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF and BLOOD OF DRACULA. Prior to that he was associate producer of BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA and producer on Abbott & Costello's last feature DANCE WITH ME,HENRY. He later worked with Crawford again on TROG. One story goes that Cohen wanted to cast Joan's real life daughter Christina Crawford in the role that eventually went to Judy Geeson but Mommie Dearest 86'd it. 

Co-producer and co-writer (with Cohen) Aben Kanel had worked with Cohen at AIP and on Cohen's previous England lensed features (KONGA, HORRORS OF THE WAX MUSCEUM and THE BLACK ZOO). Director Jim O'Connolly later made THE VALLEY OF THE GWANGI and THE TOWER OF EVIL.

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Horror?

CRUCIBLE OF HORROR-1971-Michael Gough is Walter Eastwood, the sadistic father of a dysfunctional family who whips his teenage daughter Jane (Sharon Gurney), who he obviously has perverted feelings for), when she steals some money from their country club. His son Rupert (Simon Gough and real life son of Michael) seems to be a carbon copy of him and his wife Edith (Yvonne Mitchell) suffers mental anguish caused by him. One night Edith says to Jane “Let's kill him!”. When he goes away alone for a weekend of hunting Edith and Jane decide to put their plan into operation. They threaten him at gunpoint and drug his booze. When he’s unconscious Edith force feeds him more drugs. Jane is rather disgusted by this but the she remembers all the bad things her father did to her (shown in snippets). They plan it to look like a suicide but 2 scenes seem to say that Gough is still alive. Back home mom and daughter wait for a call. Edith has a weird psychedelic dream. Later when they don't hear anything from the country house they go back there and find their victim’s body has been moved to a large crate! They get rid of the crate and go home. Dad shows up to terrorize them. The next day he’s alive, his usual slimy self with Edith and Jane looking worse than ever. 

Seems the screenwriter Olaf Pooley wanted to be the Harold Pinter of horror...

I don.t pretend to understand what the hell the ending was suppose to represent. It may have been a prank instigated by Walter. Early in the story he has a mask that resembles his face and a shot of him hanging near the end is clearly a dummy. Was this intentional? Director Viktors Ritelis did mainly TV episodes before and after this.

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Troggie Dearest

TROG-1970-In England three spelunkers go looking for trouble in some underground caves and find it in the form of a prehistoric man/monster who beats one guy to death. Another guy goes crazy and is taken to a hospital where he's questioned by Dr. Brockton (Joan Crawford in her last motion picture role) who wants to see exactly what terrified him, so she and the third spelunker go back to the cave and she gets her wish snapping a photograph of the “trog” picking up a boulder. An expedition is mounted and Trog (Joe Cornelius in a monkey suit supposedly leftover from 2001!)) appears on live TV! Some people run but others (mostly the police) just stand around when Trog kills a cameraman. Brockton whips out a tranquilizer gun and Trog is captured and put in a cage for study (“For a senior citizen he certainly has a marvelous appetite”). Brockton's daughter Anne (Kim Braden) assists her when Trog plays with toys and listens to classical music. But when a jazzy rock number is played he goes wild! 

Dr. Selbourne (Jack May), a jealous assistant and Murdoch (Michael Gough), a greedy land developer plot to have Trog destroyed. A famous American surgeon (Robert Hutton) performs an operation that makes the caveman have flashbacks to prehistoric times (scenes from THE ANIMAL WORLD (1956) are used). All seems ok until Murdoch breaks into the institute and taunts Trog who escapes, kills Murdoch and terrorizes the small community (he hangs a local butcher on a meat hook). He kidnaps a little girl and heads for his cave. Brockton convinces Trog to set the girl free but the army kills him anyway. 

 This was the second outing for Joan Crawford working for her friend expatriate American producer Herman Cohen. I wonder if she still considered him a friend after starring in this dumb low budget horror thriller? Their first collaboration was BERSERK in 1967. Both have screenplays by Aben Kandel who in the US had written I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF in 1957 for then AIP producer Cohen. Earlier Kandel had written KID MONK BARONI (1952), Leonard Nimoy's debut film. Co-story credit goes to director John Gilling. 

Director Freddie Francis was also a respected and busy cinematographer though at this time he was directing his own films which were usually competently handled but TROG suffers from lack of budget and a rushed story line. This was the real nadir of Crawford's career (although she was on the board of directors of Pepsi-Cola at the time) and though miscast she plays it straight.

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Moon Men

THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE-1967-A group of scientists investigate a mysterious meteor shower and have their minds taken over by some alien invaders (from the Moon). The leader of the group (Robert Hutton) can't be controlled because he has a metal plate in his head. He tries to discover the secret of the invasion while being thwarted by alien possessed humans. After the aliens release a "scarlet plague" he goes on a one man mission to infiltrate the base. Eventually he meets The Master of The Moon (Michael Gough) and his pals who wear very colorful robes and finds out their true purpose. Jennifer Jayne co-stars.

This low budget Amicus production is based on a novel by American author Joseph Millard called "The Gods Hate Kansas". Director/cinematographer Freddie Francis made TORTURE GARDEN the same year.

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