Who Got The Power?

 

 (imdb)

THE POWER-1968-A space project on human endurance to test how much pain future astronauts can endure is run by Dr. Tanner (George Hamilton). Washington representative Arthur Nordland (Michael Rennie) comes to check things out. He meets the whole team: Prof. Melnicker (Nehemiah Persoff), biologist Prof. Scott (Earl Holliman), genetics Prof. Margery Lansing (Suzanne Pleshette) and eccentric anthropologist Prof. Hallson (Arthur O'Connor), headed by Prof. Van Zandt (Richard Carlson}. Hallson says that based on his findings someone in the committee has an extraordinary power. They really don't believe him but later he's killed by some invisible force. His wife (Yvonne DeCarlo) is pretty upset. Detective Corlane (Gary Merrill) investigates. 

Almost immediately Tanner suspects someone on their committee is responsible. But suddenly Tanner is fired because his background appears to be phony. After having a bad time on a merry go round, he goes to the hometown of Prof. Hallson to discover who the mysterious Adam Hart is. Along the way he meets gas station attendant Bruce (Aldo Ray) and a waitress (Barbara Nichols) and Hallson's parents (Celia Lovsky and Vaughan Taylor). Then Bruce gives him a ride and strands him in the desert. Things get worse when he seeks shelter where the Air Force does target practice. Later he visits Mrs. Hallson, now a drunken floozy who can't remember what Hart looked like. When he goes to visit Margery, he's attacked by Prof. Melnicker, who knows someone is trying to kill them. They are invited to a party by a guy (Ken Murray) and after much useless partying Melnicker dies. They visit Norland who seems to be attacked but lives. Now Tanner suspects Van Zandt. While snooping at Van Zandt's house, a force tries to kill him. After Scott is killed by the police, Tanner has a showdown with the real killer, Nordland, where it's revealed who has the real power. Forrest J. Ackerman has a cameo as a hotel clerk. 

THE POWER is an interesting Sci-Fi movie that keeps you guessing for a while and features a good cast. It was the penultimate film produced by George Pal (WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, THE WAR OF THE WORLDS) and the last directed by Byron Haskin (WAR OF THE WORLDS, FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON). According to Haskin MGM “sabotaged the film” because they wanted to be done with Pal.

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Mr Big Is Back!

  (photo: IMDB) 

TORMENTED-1960-On a coastal island in an abandoned lighthouse, Jazz pianist Tom Stewart (Richard Carlson) let's his former lover Vi (Juli Reding) fall to her death when she threatens to blackmail him with some incriminating love letters which would spoil his upcoming marriage to rich girlfriend Meg Hubbard (Lugene Sanders). 

Almost immediately he starts to feel guilty. He sees VI's corpse floating in the ocean but when he swims out to retrieve it, he finds it's just a pile of seaweed. Then he sees strange footprints in the sand. Meanwhile Meg's very young sister Sandy (Susan Gordon, the director's daughter) performs a magic trick. He has a weird dream where he's menaced by Vi's ghost. Then he sees a disembodied hand wearing Meg's wedding ring. Then Meg's wedding dress is wrapped in seaweed. His blind housekeeper Mrs. Ellis (Lillian Adams) suspects a ghost. A boat operator (Joe Turkel) who brought Vi to the island tries to blackmail Tom. 

Later he has a conversation with VI's disembodied head. At Vi's urging Tom kills the blackmailer. Unfortunately Sandy witnesses the whole thing! The wedding doesn't turn out as they planned either. All the flowers die. Later when Tom goes to the lighthouse and tells Vi she's won but Sandy follows him and tells him she knows he's a killer. Tom plans on pushing Sandy off the lighthouse but Vi's ghost causes him to fall off and die. Tom and Vi are united in un-dead matrimony. Gene Roth and Merrit Stone have small roles. 

Not a bad little low budget ghost story from Mr. BIG himself Bert I. Gordon (Still alive at the time of this writing!).

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Another from 1953 and Based On a Bradbury Story!

IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE-1953-In Arizona, writer Johnny Putnam (Richard Carlson) and his girlfriend Ellen (Barbara Rush) think they see a meteor crash but it's not a meteor, it's an alien spaceship. Helicopter pilot Pete (Dave Willock) takes them to the crash site the next day. Johnny discovers the ship and is almost killed by an avalanche. No one believes him how-ever. He and Ellen have a brief encounter with a one eyed creature. Two telephone line workers Frank (Joe Sawyer) & George (Russell Johnson) get a weird noise on the wires and later encounter the creature. When they next meet Frank he seems hypnotized but it's actually an alien impersonating him. 

Later John catches alien clones of Frank and George stealing. After Ellen is kidnapped, Frank and the skeptical sheriff (Charles Drake) go to the desert where Frank meets an alluring alien version of his girl. Then he encounters an alien who tells him they are only repairing their ship and everyone will be ok if the humans don't interfere. The stupid sheriff who's sweet on Ellen wants to fight them. When he decides to attack. John goes to the mine to warn them. He's attacked by the Ellen clone. Snooping around he finds the alien base and meets a clone of himself. He convinces the aliens to let their captives go and they return to space. 

This eerie Sci-Fi classic (orig-inally shown in 3-D) was only the second full length feature directed by Jack Arnold and was adapted from a Ray Bradbury story by Harry Essex who in 1954 would team up again with Arnold to make THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON!

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Valentino

VALENTINO-1951-Young Flamingo dancer Rudolph Valentino (Anthony Dexter in a good performance) leaves his dance troupe and winds up sleeping on a park bench in NYC. He becomes a dishwasher but when the cook calls him a grease ball they have a fight and he and his friend Luigi (Joseph Calleia) are fired. He becomes a dancing gigolo and falls for actress Joan Carlisle (Eleanor Parker) . Her director Bill King (Richard Carlson) suggests he dance in her new movie. Rudy (referred to many times by critics as “Vaselino”) goes to Hollywood but can't get a job until he crashes the party of a big producer (Otto Kruger). He puts the moves on Joan but she rejects him and marries Bill. Things get touchy when he and Joan are cast as the leads in “The Sheik”. Later they declare their love for each other but Rudy has stomach pains, gets into a fight and marries his girlfriend (Patricia Medina) to save Joan's reputation. He goes back to NYC and dies. The story ends 25 years after his death where a mysterious woman in black visits his grave every year. Phyllis Coates has a cameo. 

This isn't a bad bio but director Lewis Allen seemed to have a problem with the time period. Although it's suppose to be the early '20's, everyone is dressed more like the '50's when this was made.

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Bud & Lou

HOLD THAT GHOST-1941-Classic Abbott & Costello haunted house comedy has Bud & Lou (sometimes referred as “the boys”) as incompetent waiters Chuck and Ferdy who are fired from their jobs. While working at a gas station they wind up in the backseat of a mobster Moose Mattson's car just as he's “bumped off”. Since his will stated that who was ever with him when he died would inherit all he had the duo inherit his rundown inn. Another gangster Smitty (Marc Lawrence; later in the duo's HIT THE ICE) believes the mobster's fortune is hidden somewhere in the place and plans to do away with Chuck and Ferdy who are accompanied by a radio actress (Joan Davis), a nerdy doctor (Richard Carlson) and a blonde waitress (Evelyn Ankers) after their driver strands them all together. Though the team does a few routines, a highlight is a kind of violent dance between Costello and Davis.

 Director Arthur Lubin made the first five Abbott and Costello comedies and THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA remake with Claude Rains. Later he did several in the FRANCIS THE TALKING MULE series. Shemp Howard appears as a soda jerk and the Andrews Sisters show up to sing at the end. 

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The Alamo

THE LAST COMMAND-1955-Jim Bowie (Sterling Hayden) arrives in the Texas/Mexican territory just in time for an uprising of Texicans against Mexico. William Travis (Richard Carlson) tries to convince a committee to resist Mexico's iron fist. When Santa Ana (J. Carroll Nash) rejects the Texicans demands Austin (Otto Kurger) decides it's time to take up arms against them. But when his wife and kid die Bowie becomes a wanderer. Later he and his small group (including Jim Davis and Slim Pickens) decide to fight. Ernest Borgnine is a tough guy named Mike who has a knife fight with Bowie at the beginning of the story and later they become friends. Edward Franz (THE FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE) is the Mexican representative living with The Texicans. Anna Maria Albergetti (an actress I only remember for doing salad dressing TV commercials in the late '60's)is the senorita love interest who comes between Bowie and Travis. Things really get rowdy when Davey Crockett (Arthur Hunnicutt) shows up. Great battle finale at The Alamo. I won't reveal what happens...

Roy Roberts, Virginia Grey, John Russell and Morris Ankrum also have roles.

THE LAST COMMAND was once of the most expensive pictures ever produced by the low budget Republic Pictures studio. It was suppose to star John Wayne as Bowie but he also wanted to direct it. However when the studio hired the workman like Frank Lloyd (IF I WERE KING, BLOOD ON THE SUN) instead Wayne bolted. He'd get his chance to star in and direct his own version several years later with THE ALAMO (some argue THE LAST COMMAND is more historically accurate).

This version has lots going for it. Action, a strong cast and good direction.

Here's Lorne Greene's version of the historical battle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZu5T1VbVs

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A-Mazing!

THE MAZE-1953-Usually underrated horror mystery (originally shot in 3-D) was the last film directed by William Cameron Menzies (also an art director and production designer) who also made INVADERS FROM MARS the same year!

A baronet named Gerald McTeam (Richard Carlson; in IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE the same year) seems quite happily engaged to a woman named Kitty (Veronica Hurst) until he gets a telegram from the mysterious Craven Castle in his native Scotland. He rushes off promising to come back for their wedding in 2 weeks but over a month goes by and she hasn't  heard from him. Eventually she learns that Gerald's uncle has died and Gerald is next in line to take his place.  A few weeks later Kitty receives a letter releasing her from their engagement. But Kitty loves Gerald too much. So she and her Aunt Edith (Katherine Emory; the woman who goes mad after being buried alive in ISLE OF THE DEAD) venture to the fog shrouded castle. There they find Gerald cold and distant having aged prematurely. His dour kind of sinister butler William (Michael Pate) hangs around. Gerald insists they leave but Kitty makes several excuses. Everything seems to revolve around Gerald's midnight jaunts and a giant maze no one is allowed access too. There seems to be one other resident in the castle no one knows about even after Edith has a small run-in with him. Hoping to help Gerald Kitty summons their old friends for a surprise weekend visit. One of them is a doctor and Kitty hopes he can "examine" Gerald and do something for him. He comes to believe Gerald may be insane and should be taken away by force. Later Kitty and Edith enter the maze and discovery the dreaded family secret. The real baron was born in 1750 and is still alive. He's also part frog and part man having never evolved from an amphibian state!

Despite some low budget drawback THE MAZE is a good mystery thriller.  Almost a film noir horror movie I guess. The castle sets are very dark and sinister and though not one of the more memorable screen monsters the frog like baron is eerie until fully seen. His demise is a little ridiculous.
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Apparently although based on a novel by Swiss writer Maurice Sandoz, THE MAZE also takes inspiration from the Scottish legend of Glamis Castle involving a deformed child who was walled up its room.

Hilary Brooke (also in INVADERS FROM MARS) and Robin Hughes (later in THE THING THAT COULDN'T DIE) are two of Gerald's friends who come to cheer him up.

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The Creature From The Black Lagoon

THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON-1954-This “creature classic” from Universal-International (originally filmed in 3-D) takes place in the Upper Amazon (after a brief intro on how the world began) where the fossilized remains of an over sized claw are found. Two research-ers, David Reed (Richard Carlson), a se-rious level headed science guy and Mark Williams (Richard Denning), a crabby hard nose who's more concerned with financial success, head an expedition to check out the find. They bring along Reed's fiancee Kay (Julie Adams) too. Nestor Paiva is Lucas, the guy who steers their “barge”. Whit Bissell is Dr. Thompson, another victim, I mean researcher. Little do they suspect that the creature who's remains they are looking for is still alive and has killed two local native helpers. 

Their first dig doesn't turn out so good so Reed has a plan to visit the uncharted “Black Lagoon”. After only seeing a scaly claw for a few scenes, The Creature finally emerges when Reed and Williams go scuba diving. When Kay goes for a swim, the creature checks her out. On another scuba dive, the duo have a closer encounter with “the gill man” where Williams spears him. Later, after it's obvious his intentions lay with Kay, they use a native drug to capture him and put him in a bam-boo cage. That doesn't last long and he breaks out and does some plastic surgery on Thompson. When they try to leave the creature blocks their path. In their efforts to clear a path Williams is killed. Just when it looks like they'll escape the creature grabs Kay and takes her back to his pad, I mean cave. Before he can do in Reed the Gill Man dies in a hail of bullets...or does he? 

TCFTBL is one of the great monster movies of the 1950's. The creature itself deserves to be right up there with all the other “famous monsters” like Frankenstein & Dracula.

The year before this director Jack Arnold made another movie in 3-D the Sci-Fi themed IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE (also starring Carlson). Producer William Alland was a former member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theater. He played the reporter trying to find out the meaning of “rosebud” in CITIZEN KANE. He'd also produced IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE and produced later Arnold efforts including the sequel THE REVENGE OF THE CREATURE, TARANTULA and THE SPACE CHILDREN. Co-screenwriter Harry Essex had penned IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE and later worked a lot in TV. In 1971 he made his own version of an undersea creature, the whacked out OCTO-MAN. Ricou Browning portrayed the creature underwater, while Ben Chapman was the creature on land. The same year as CREATURE star Carlson directed his own Sci-Fi movie RIDER TO THE STARS. There's a also a memorable musical score by the un-credited trio of Hans Salter, Herman Stein and Henry Mancini.

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"It will reach out with it's magnetic arms...."

THE MAGNETIC MONSTER-1953-A strange magnetic force grips LA. Two scientists (Richard Carlson and King Donovan) investigate and find that a dying scientist (Leonard Mudie) was experimenting with a new kind of element ("serranium"). Somehow the element can draw energy from the air and turn it into matter. It starts to grow and could send the Earth off it's rotation! The duo go to Canada to use their cyclotron but run into some opposition. Fans of bug eyed '50's drive in monster flicks might be disappointed as no creature is seen.

Some of the SFX are taken from a 1930's German film called GOLD. Produced by Ivan Tors and directed by Curt Siodmak (creator of THE WOLFMAN) and the two collaborated on the screenplay. Herbert Strock was the editor (and may have directed some scenes). Jean Byron is Carson's wife. Byron Foulger, Michael Fox, John Zaremba, Frank Gerstle, Billy "Whitey" Bennedict, Kathleen Freeman and Strother Martin all have roles. Carlson later was in THE MAZE, IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE and THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. Donovan was in THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS the same year.

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Sci-Fi '50's

RIDERS TO THE STARS-1954-Scientist Herbert Marshall needs a meteor from outer space. He and a group of scientists set out to find three men to fly rocket ships (with wings) into space to get one. William Lunigan (a busy TV actor at the time) is the scientist most qualified. He’s also Marshall’s son. He falls in love with Martha Hyer while being trained. Richard Carlson (who was in THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON the same year) co-stars and directs as well. I’ve read “film doctor” Herbert Strock directed some scenes un-credited. It’s an early serious science fiction tale (based on a story by Ivan Tors) and it’s in color! Curt Siodmak wrote the screenplay.

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Space and The World

RIDERS TO THE STARS-1954-Scientist Herbert Marshall needs a meteor from outer space. He and a group of scientists set out to find three men to fly rocket ships (with wings) into space a get one. William Lunigan (a busy TV actor at the time) is the scientist most qualified. He’s also Marshall’s son. He falls in love with Martha Hyer while being trained. Richard Carlson (who was in THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON the same year) co-stars and directs as well. I’ve read “film doctor” Herbert Strock directed some scenes un-credited. It’s an early serious science fiction tale (based on a story by Ivan Tors) and it’s in color! Curt Siodmak wrote the screenplay.

BETWEEN TWO WORLDS-1944-Excellent but overlooked fantasy from Warner Brothers.

A group of people is killed during an air raid attack in London. They wind up on a mysterious ship along with a couple (Paul Henreid and Eleanor Parker) that committed suicide. The ship’s steward (Edmund Gwenn) eventually informs them they are dead and on their way to meet The Examiner (Henreid’s CASABLANCA co-star Sydney Greenstreet) who will decide if they will go to heaven or hell (but it’s actually the same place). As The Examiner states “You see my son, you make your own heaven and hell for yourselves on Earth, you only bring it with you here”.

John Garfield headlines as a cynical reporter. George Coulouris is an industrialist who realizes too late money can’t buy everything. Faye Emerson is a fame hungry actress. George Tobias, Isobel Elsom, Dennis King and Sara Allgood are the others. The second half when the groups’ lives are “examined” is the best part. It’s based on the play OUTWARD BOUND first produced on Broadway in 1924 and revived in 1932. Director Edward A. Blatt was usually a dialogue director and directed only three films.

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