Who Will Win?

 

 (imdb)

SHAOLIN VS. MANCHU-1984-The Manchus want to get rid of all the Shaolin monks. The Shaolin abbot puts a monk named Rocky (Man-Hoi Ling) in charge. When a prostitute is attacked by soldiers, Rocky saves her but later she says Rocky raped her. He's punished then literally thrown out of the monastery. It turns out Rocky's chief rival, Jouan is a spy for the Manchus who set Rocky up, then kills the abbot. After the Manchus fail to kill his accuser, Rocky takes her to live with his aunt and she spills the beans. The evil spy becomes the new abbot and has monks fighting each other. Mostly everyone gets killed (including a little kid) but Rocky gets revenge. The ending is a little weird probably due to bad editing and dubbing. 

Director Chiu-Jun Lee was also an actor. The DVD I saw also had the trailer which took me right back to the days when movies like this were the mainstay of the Harris theater on 42nd street in NYC.

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Nazis in America

 

 (imdb)

NO ESCAPE-1943-Nazis in America break a forger Torgut Lane (Dean Jagger) out of jail. A guy named Gerard (Ian Keith) makes a deal with him and has his death faked. He's taken to a secret hideout inside a carnival run by Martin (John Carradine; in REVENGE OF THE ZOMBIES the same year) and Bergen (Sidney Blackmer). When he finds out they are Nazis he doesn't want to do their dirty work. He tries to escape but is whipped and his mother's life is threatened. He tries to convince his young “watchdog” Gordon (Bill Henry) to help him. He uses a woman named Helen (Mary Brian) to soften Gordon up. 

Small Monogram production with good cast directed by Harold Young (THE FROZEN GHOST, THE JUNGLE CAPTIVE (both 1945)). Spanky McFarland has a small role. Carradine also played a mean Nazi in HITLER'S MADMEN the same year. Aka I ESCAPED THE GESTAPO.

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Agent Karloff

 

(tcm)

BRITISH INTELLIGENCE-1940-During WW1 German spies are causing much sabotage under the leadership of the mysterious Hans Strendler. British Intelligence is called in to help and send a plane to pick up their best agent but the plane picking him up is shot down. The pilot Frank Bennett (Bruce Lester) is taken to the hospital and nurse Helene (Margaret Lindsey) takes care of him. He seems to fall for her but she abruptly leaves. With good reason she's a German spy! Later she's placed in the home of cabinet minister Bennett (Holmes Herbert), Frank's father where scarred limping butler Valdar (Boris Karloff) seems to be a double agent working with Colonel Yates (Leonard Mudie). 

There are several twists in this patriotic spy story directed by Terry O. Morse whose last work would be the credited director for the added American scenes in GODZILLA; KING OF MONSTERS (1956). One of 9 movies King Karloff appeared in 1940 along with THE TOWER OF LONDON, THE APE and Mr. Wong entries.

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Darro & Moreland

CHASING TROUBLE-1940-Jimmy (Frankie Darro) and Jefferson (Mantan Moreland) deliver flowers for an obviously shady florist. When Jimmy finds out his friend Susie (Marjorie Reynolds; later in THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES with Abbott and Costello) has lost her boyfriend (and job) he decides to find her a new one. He thinks someone named Bill Jones would be perfect. Among other things, Jimmy considers himself a handwriting expert. Saboteur Morgan (Alex Callam) convinces Jimmy he's a G-man and makes Jimmy one too so Jimmy can keep an eye on reporter Pat Callahan (Milburn Stone) who's investigating a murder which Morgan committed. Morgan's assistant is Phillips (Tristram Coffin). Naively Jimmy tries to set Susie up with Morgan. Later Jimmy figures out he's a spy and he and his gang have set a bomb at an airplane factory. Callahan winds up in the hospital but a traffic cop (Joe Devlin) helps him get out. Despite the racial subservient role Jeff is a lot wiser than Jimmy, suspecting trouble and questioning his partner's misguided motives. Director Howard Bretherton made UP IN THE AIR with the Darro-Moreland team (they made 8 together for Monogram Pictures).

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More Chan!

THE JADE MASK-1945-A scientist named Harper (Frank Reicher) has a gas that can turn wood into metal. Naturally the US government is interested in it. So are its enemies. Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) is called in by a local police chief (Henry Hall) to investigate when Harper goes missing. There's enough suspects. A loyal but abused butler Roth (Cyril Delevanti), Harper's assistant Meeker (Hardie Albright), sister Louise (Edith Evanson), housemaid Jean Kent (Janet Warren), Stella Graham (Dorothy Granger) who was assisting Harper on another project and mute handyman/chauffeur Michael Strong (Lester Dorr). Charlie's later joined by number 4 son Eddie (Edwin Luke; the real life brother of Keye) and Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland),who actually stops the murderer from escaping. 

Phil Rosen was back as director and keeps it moving. THE SCARLET CLUE followed.

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Condensed Serial

ROBINSON CRUSOE OF MYSTERY ISLAND-1936/1966-This 12 part serial was originally called ROBINSON CRUSOE OF CLIPPER ISLAND. 30 years after it was first released it was condensed in this short movie and sold to television!

Mala, a Polynesian federal agent (Mala) investigates the strange events on the mysterious Clipper Island after a dirigible blows up and its landing field is destroyed. Foreign spies working for the shadowy "HK" are to blame. They can make a volcano on the island erupt which upsets the natives but their newly returned queen Melani (Mamo Clark) tries to hold things together despite interference from Porotu (John Piccori), an androgynous local high priest. Mala gets in a lot of predicaments, dives into the ocean and is assisted by his St. Bernard Buck (playing himself) and his horse Rex (Rex the Wonder Horse). The acting is bad but not unusual for this kind of thing and Mala kinda sounds like he took acting lessons from Johnny Weissmuller. The funniest part though is the look of terror on the face of the co-pilot when the dirigible is starting to crash in the first scene!

Mala (AKA Ray Mala) was born in the Alaska territory and came to Hollywood at an early age. Besides making around 25 movie appearances, he also worked as a cinematographer. Unfortunately he died of heart failure at age 45 in 1952. One of the directors (Mack Wright) also directed RIDERS OF THE WHISPERING SKULL.

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Country Western Horror Comedy

HILLBILLYS IN A HAUNTED HOUSE-1967-On their way to Nashville, country and western singers Woody (Ferlin Husky), Boots (Joi Lansing) and Jeepers (Don Bowman) spend the night in a haunted house, actually the hideout of some spies lead by Madame Wong (Linda Ho) with her bodyguard Max (Lon Chaney also in the much more enjoyable SPIDER BABY the same year), Gregor (Basil Rathbone) and Dr. Himmil (John Carradine). After Sonny James and his band visit and sing two songs, the group meets Wong and Max. She lets them spend the night and Merle Haggard shows up on their TV set to do a song (Max also makes a appearance). The spies think the yokels are from an organization called MOTHER and use their pet gorilla Anatole (George Barrows; the veteran man in an ape suit who'd “starred” in ROBOT MONSTER) to frighten them. Mother Agent #30 (Richard Webb) shows up and kills Anatole and Carradine. He and Max scuffle. They are all saved by the ghost of a Confederate war general. 

This crazy nonsense is a sequel to the previous year's LAS VEGAS HILLBILLIES which also featured Husky as Woody but has Mamie Van Doren in the Boots role and Jayne Mansefield. Veteran director Jean Yarbrough who had worked with Abbott and Costello and The Bowery Boys was directing episodes of TV's “Petticoat Junction” at the time.

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Bond Take-Off

KISS THE GIRLS AND MAKE THEM DIE-1966-Mike Connors is Kelly, an international James Bond like CIA agent in this tongue in cheek spy drama with comedy overtones, a co-production between Columbia Pictures and Dino De Laurentiis.. 

Kelly is in Brazil tailing a rich industrialist named Ardonian (Raf Vallone) and his connection with some missing women. Ardonian is in league with Red China in a plot to sterilize the US but in actuality he wants to sterilize the whole world except for himself! The missing women are kept in suspended animation until he needs them. Dorothy Provine (THE 30 FOOT BRIDE OF CANDY ROCK) is Susan Fleming, Ardonian's bimbo girlfriend who wears some really weird outfits and has a Rolls Royce with Aston Martin like features. Terry Thomas is her chauffeur who beats up 5 guys. Later, after it's revealed she is with British Intelligence, she and Kelly team up. They wind up in an underground lab where Provine ends up on a rocket. There's some dumb humor (including a slip on a banana peel) but the real highlight of this movie is Ardonian's massive desk and multi-screen TV monitoring system in a couple of scenes. There's great shots of Rio though. 

Beverly Adams (HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI, TORTURE GARDEN) is one of the victims. Connors would star in the long running TV series MANNIX the next year. Co-director Henry Levin made a similar secret agent satire the same year, MURDERER'S ROW with Dean Martin as Matt Helm (which according to Mike Connors he almost played). 

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Mikels' Angels?

THE DOLL SQUAD-1973-A senator and a government agent named Connelly watch a manned space rocket explode after a mysterious voice intones "perhaps next time you'll listen". A computer ("Big Bertha") suggests bringing in members of "The Doll Squad", a lethal all female group of agents lead by Sabrina Kincade (Francine York from Larry Buchanan's CURSE OF THE SWAMP CREATURE). Unfortunately, her first two picks are killed by assassins. It turns out Sabrina's ex-husband Eamon O'Reilly (Micheal Ansara) is behind the destruction in his mad plan to release the bubonic plague on the world! They try to get Sabrina but she burns one guy with a special cigarette lighter. While skeet shooting the senator (John Carter), Connelly (Anthony Eisley) and Sabrina have a big discussion (she says "sex and security just don't mix") and she shows off her min-arsenal. Sabrina eventually recruits an Olympic swimmer (Leigh Christian), an exotic dancer (Tura Santana) and a carnival ticket seller (Jean London).

This was obviously ripped off by Aaron Spelling to make the TV hit CHARLIE'S ANGELS but DOLL has more violence, blood, bad acting and the leads in more revealing clothes. If the TV show had been like this I would have watched every week!

The presence of Ansara brings the movie up a notch. Both he and Eisley were busy TV actors at the time.

It was co-written, directed and produced by TV Mikels a year after BLOOD ORGY OF THE SHE DEVILS. The fights are pretty badly staged but it's far more entertaining than most reviews give it credited for. It also features exploding bad guys, a few gadgets, Rafael Campos and Mikels regulars Herb Robins and William Bagdad. Except for the seldom seen ALEX JOSEPH AND HIS WIVES in 1976, Mikels next low budget exploitation movie would be TEN VIOLENT WOMEN in '83!  Theme song sung by Solomon King.

Cold War 50's

SHACK OUT ON 101-1955-A greasy spoon on the California coast is the setting for this cold war film noir drama and it's cast of characters: short tempered owner George (Keenan Wynn), sexy waitress Kotty (top billed Terry Moore from MIGHTY JOE YOUNG), sleazy cook Slob (Lee Marvin, who was in BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK the same year) and Sam (Frank Lovejoy from HOUSE OF WAX), a professor at the nuclear facility who's also Kotty boyfriend (talk about an odd couple!). Also featured is Whit Bissell as George's friend Eddie who has a fear of blood.

Between the characters talking about their problems and feelings some espionage goes on as Slob is passing micro film from the professor's facility (with the help of delivery man Len Lesser) to unknown agents. One night Kotty hears Sam and Slob talking and realizes her stuffed shirt of a lover is part of a spy ring. Frank DeKova shows up in one scene as a crooked professor who gets killed. Some comic scenes involving Wynn using barbells and scuba equipment are thrown in as well.

It's an ok low budget thriller with Marvin kind of stealing the show especially when he turns violent in the finale. Donald Murphy who later played the mad doctor in FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER has a small role as a federal agent posing as a truck driver.

Director Edward Dein went on to make the vampire western CURSE OF THE UNDEAD. Earlier he made SOUL OF A MONSTER.
http://moviemeltdown.blogspot.com/2010/03/not-that-much-soul.html

I could write another whole entry on co-star Frank Lovejoy, who as I have mentioned before seems to have none of his last name in any of his acting. His love scenes with Terry Moore are awkward at best!

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Paris Playboys

PARIS PLAYBOYS-1954-The Bowery Boys series moved from Monogram Studios to Allied Artists in 1954 and begins with Sach (Huntz Hall) bearing an uncanny resemblance to a famous French scientist who disappeared while working on a secret formula. Some French diplomats (one is played by Robin Hughes, later in THE THING THAT WOULDN'T DIE) invite him to Paris and of course he's mistaken for the real guy by some enemy agents. Although the movie is mostly Hall acting idiotically with a bad French accent, little Louie (Bernard Gorcey) has some funny scenes especially when he dresses to look like Toulouse-Lautrec! Veola Vonn (who was in MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE the same year) is the femme fatale this time and Fritz Feld is a waiter. Edward Bernds and Ellwood Ullman collaborated on the script while William Beaudine was brought back to direct. Ben Schwab produced the series once they came to AA. 

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Bowery Battalion

BOWERY BATTALION-1951-All "the boys" join the army. Their drill sergeant is played by Edward MacBride (the familiar character actor who among other things was in ROOM SERVICE with The Marx Brothers) and is the highlight of this torpid entry.

Sach (Huntz Hall) acts really freaky at times and Slip (Leo Gorcey) tries unsuccessfully to imitate Lou Costello in a drill scene. After getting thrown into the brig for impersonating officers it turns out little Louie Dumbrowsky (Bernard Gorcey) was known as "the fighting corporal" during WW l and knows the plans for a top secret weapon. He's made a colonel and "the boys" become his orderlies. They run afoul of spies but foil them in the end. The last line of the film has MacBride talking to the camera.

Of course Billy Benedict as Whitey, Buddy Gorman as Butch and David Gorcey as Chuck are also present. Usual 3 Stooges foil Emil Sitka has a small role as a clumsy waiter. Once again the William Beaudine-Charles Marion team made this one.


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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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Swinging Around London With Pete and Sam

SALT AND PEPPER-1968-Swinging London nightclub owners Charles Salt (Sammy Davis Jr.) and Christopher Pepper (Peter Lawford) become involved in espionage when 2 British secret agents are killed in their club. Sammy does a very '60's psychedelic number called "I Like The Way You Dance" with Go Go dancers while playing a guitar. Michael Bates is the stupid Inspector Crabbe who believes the team is to blame. The duo (who seem to be smoking in every scene) say lots of hip humorous lines (with some racial humor and jokes concerning the words "fag" and "boy") and get shot at while driving around in Salt's weird car that has some Aston Martin like gadgets. They go to a barber shop and somehow wind up on nuclear submarine and discover a plot to overthrow the English government.

Also with Iilona Rodgers, Graham Stark, Calvin Lockhart and Jeremy Lloyd. This seems to be influenced by the Matt Helm series, I SPY (which Salt makes a reference to), THE MAN FROM UNCLE and even GET SMART. Director Richard Donner went on to bigger things but around this time he was making "Danger Island" segments for THE BANANA SPLITS TV show.

It's a strange mixture of comedy, action, violence and drama written by Michael Pertwee, brother of Dr. Who's Jon Pertwee. Lawford had a role in Otto Preminger's bomb SKIDOO the same year. Both he and Davis were executive producers. It ends with the words: It's Over. But they actually made a sequel in 1970 called ONE MORE TIME (directed by Jerry Lewis!).

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Back for a Bit

Due to personal problems I haven't been posting lately. After today maybe I'll be back on track. This one is very short...




SAMURAI SPY-(1965)-I saw this Japanese period piece on IFC recently. It's a pretty cool sword drama involving two clans who constantly betray each other. Samurai Sarutobi tracks down a spy named Nojiri while the mysterious Sakon has his own agenda. A bit talky but it doesn't take away from the overall plot.

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