Ulmer To The End

 

 

 (imdb)

BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER-1960-Major Allison (Robert Clarke from THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON) is sent into space. He doesn't seem to be gone too long but when he returns the base is in shambles and deserted. He's taken prisoner by some people in "The Citadel". They think he's a spy and put him in a chamber with some bald-headed mutants. However, the leader of The Citadel, The Supreme (Vladimir Sokoloff) has a mute granddaughter Trirene (Darlene Tompkins) who takes a liking to Allison and saves him. (She has ESP too) He also meets 3 imprisoned scientists Kruse (Stephen Bekassy), Boardman (John Van Dreelan) and Russian Markova (Arianne Arden). From them he learns about a plague from outer space and that the year is 2024! There's one scene in front of a blackboard where it sounds like someone farts. After Markova lets the mutants out and there are a few double crosses Allison returns to 1960 to warn everyone of the plague but he's changed a bit. 

This interesting if drawn out little space drama was directed by the great Edgar Ulmer very late in his career. As usual he manages to do a few neat things with the limits put on the movie. He made it back-to-back in Texas with another Sci-Fi cheapy THE AMAZING TRANSPARENT MAN. His wife Shirley was the story editor and their daughter Arianne plays the female cosmonaut. Star Robert Clarke was originally supposed to direct but hired Ulmer. The two had worked together a few years before on THE MAN FROM PLANET X. Screenwriter Arthur Pierce later wrote the bizarre THE HUMAN DUPLICATORS. Female lead Darlene Tompkins co-starred with Elvis in BLUE HAWAII a year later.

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Jerry Warren's Frankenstein

 

 (wikipedia)

FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND-1981-4 balloonists, Curtis Ryand (Tain Bodkin), Dr. Paul Hadley (Robert Clarke), Mark Eden (Robert Christopher; a co-producer) and Dino (Patrick O'Neil) crash on an island. After going through a cave (where a familiar face watches them) they find a woman bound and then meet a whole tribe of scantily clad "native" women who take the men back to their cave. While the men have dinner, the women do a dance. The next day we learn the bound woman was being initiated into the group. A strange force surrounds their camp and the women seem "deep into witchcraft". Then two loonies Jocko (Steve Brodie) and Angus (Richard Banks) show up. They lead the small group to a laboratory complex where they find Jason (Cameron Mitchell), a sea captain held prisoner for 17 years. (his short soliloquy is pretty funny). After he's sedated the group meet Shelia Frankenstein-Van Helsing (Katherine Victor), the great granddaughter of the infamous doctor who created the island and despite being dead still controls it. Her husband Dr. Von Helsing, is a bed ridden old man who has to be jolted into consciousness to babble about the Frankenstein monster being chained to a reef. There are also a bunch of zombie like servants in sunglasses and wool hats. The girls dance some more. The real Dr. Frankenstein (John Carradine) shows up occasionally as a hologram to say things like "The power! The power!". Hadley (under some drug) winds up helping Shelia experiment on the girls (who are the offspring of aliens) to help her senile husband. When the rest of the guys revolt Shelia calls on great granddad who summons his monster (obviously trying to imitate Bela in FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN). 

The ridiculous final fight is very reminiscent of the one in "THE WILD WORLD OF BATWO-MAN", but it's easy to see why. Both were directed by the usually incompetent Jerry Warren. In fact FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND was Warren's first film in 15 years after making “Batwoman” in 1966! (with Victor and Brodie). 

In the end the men escape and tell a colonel (Andrew Duggan) about the island but when they return everything has vanished (??). 

It seems based on another Jerry Warren movie TEENAGE ZOMBIES. This was the third Jerry Warren movie Robert Clarke (THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON) starred in. Warren threatened a sequel but it was never made. He died 1988.

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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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Outrage

OUTRAGE-1950-Do not miss this daring (for the time) drama concerning a rape victim (Mala Powers) and the consequences of her violation. Happy soon to be married Ann (Powers) is the victim of a “criminal assault” by a sleazy fast food worker. Her fiancé (future “Hideous Sun Demon” Robert Clarke) doesn’t care and still wants to marry her but Ann can’t bear to be touched by anyone. She runs away and winds up working at an orange packing plant. A minister, who everyone call “doctor” (Tod Andrews, later in FROM HELL IT CAME)) learns of her past and tries to help her after she viciously attacks a local guy (Jerry Paris) who tries to kiss her. This film is very moving, sad and serious and deserves to be seen a wider audience especially considering it’s subject matter which was quite taboo in 1950!

Powers heartfelt performance won her her next role that of Roxanne opposite Jose Ferrer in CYRANO DE BERGERAC. Actress Ida Lupino who was just about the only woman making movies in Hollywood at the time directed OUTRAGE. She made other interesting films in the early ‘50’s including HARD FAST & BEAUTIFUL ON DANGEROUS GROUND THE BIGAMIST and THE HITCHHIKER and then moved into television directing episodes of such diverse series as THE DONNA REED SHOW 77 SUNSET STRIP HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL THE RIFLEMAN THE FUGITIVE and THRILLER.

Tennis and Menace

HARD FAST AND BEAUTIFUL-1951-An unscrupulous mother (Claire Trevor) goes to all lengths to promote her daughter (Sally Forrest) in the sport of Tennis. She hooks up with a sleazy promoter (Carlton Young Jr.) and tries to break up a romance between her daughter and the man she loves (Robert Clarke, soon to be THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON). This is a great over looked low budget gem directed by actress Ida Lupino. She made six other films between 1949 and 1953 including OUTRAGE (also with Clarke) and doesn't get the credit she deserves. Later she directed many diverse TV shows including episodes of THRILLER, HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL and THE DONNA REED SHOW.



WAR OF THE WORLDS-2005-This plays more like some disaster film than an adaptation of a classic HG Wells novel even though they get The Tripods and their mission correct. Tom Cruise is very miscast as an estranged father trying to save his two kids from the Martian invaders. (He and his son look more like brothers!) As his daughter Dakota Fanning screams a lot. Tim Robbins shows up inexplicitly as a loony living underground with a shotgun. There’s lots of SFX and humans are either vaporized or eaten. If you sit through it look for the cameo at the end by Gene Barry & Ann Robinson, stars of the 1953 version. Morgan Freeman does some narration. Steven Spielberg doesn’t do it again.

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