Comedy Comp

 

 (imdb)

MGM's BIG PARADE OF COMEDY-1964-Compilation of comedy scenes from the studio starting in the silent era then talkies with parts featuring Marie Dressler, Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo and others. It's also the only time you'll see Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, The Marx Bros, The 3 Stooges (with Ted Healy) & WC Fields in one film! One of 8 comedy compilation films director Robert Youngson made between 1957 and 1970.

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Boo!

THE BOOGENS-1981-Some construction workers accidentally release the title creatures while exploring and dynamiting a mine in Utah. They look like giant shell-less turtles with tentacles but are only seen fully toward the end of the story. Rebecca Balding (from THE SILENT SCREAM) and Fred McCarren (who was in XANADU the year before) star. There's a couple of bloody deaths but there's a long spell of character development and no action like many horror films churned out in the early '80's. Familiar TV character actor Jon Lormer is an old man who knows where "the boogens" came from. It seems every character but the two leads die.

Director James L. Conway made many Sunn Classics pseudo-documentaries like IN SEARCH OF NOAH'S ARK, THE LINCOLN CONSPIRACY and BEYOND AND BACK. He made the UFO themed HANGAR 18 in 1980. After THE BOOGENS he in went into TV.

RIP: Hideki Irabu: 1969-2011.

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Dark and Stormy Crap

DARK STORM-2006-Boring Canadian production involves a secret government project working with dark matter. Two scientists (pudgy Stephen Baldwin and Rob LaBelle) head the project and Baldwin's character becomes electronically charged and there's a lot of talk. The X-Files' William B. Davis is a general who wants to close the project down. The project head is a traitor and dark matter threatens to destroy the world. Director Jason Bourque made shorts and worked in TV before this. I would have had a better time eating Canadian bacon raw than watching this.

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AKA: Horror on Snape Island

TOWER OF EVIL-1972-A stodgy group of English paleontologists go to the mysterious Snape Island to investigate when a Phoenician sword is found after a woman seems to have gone insane and murdered her 3 friends there. A private investigator (Bryant Haliday) goes along too because he doesn’t believe the woman was really insane. Jill Haworth (also in the English made HORROR HOUSE and THE MUTATIONS) co-stars. There’s a lot of talk and bickering about sex and infidelity. The film features an unusual amount of nudity and gore for the time (including a severed head rolling across the floor).

Although star Haliday was a well known London stage actor at the time, he only made 6 movie appearances including DEVIL DOLL, CURSE OF THE VOODOO and THE PROJECTED MAN. He died in Paris in 1996.

Director Jim O'Connolly had made BERSERK (with Joan Crawford) and VALLEY OF THE GWANGI (with Ray Harryhausen SFX) previously.

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Night Fright!

NIGHT FRIGHT-1967-This made in Texas atrocity seems to feature scenes with a monster as an afterthought. It’s very very talky and way too dark. A very skinny John Agar stars as a small town sheriff battling a killer mutant monster that came out of a secret government rocket crash. A lot of local teens (all very bad actors) are terrorized and Agar’s character almost loses it when one of them calls him “fuzz” (“Listen, punk. Don’t call me fuzz”).

The grumbling monster looks like a man in an ape suit except for the head, which is very shiny and plastic looking and resembles a Klingon! An elaborate plan to capture the creature is mostly characters just sitting around waiting! Though the monster is suppose to be big and noisy victims don’t really notice him until he’s right on top of them! Larry Buchanan regular Bill Thurman plays Agar’s deputy who gets killed (Agar had been in 2 Buchanan outings himself). Screenwriter Russ Marker (who also has a role) had made THE YESTERDAY MACHINE but this is 10 times worst. Nothing happens! But what can you expect from a director (James A. Sullivan) who edited MANOS –HANDS OF FATE!!

The same year Agar had a small role in Corman’s THE ST. VALENTINE’S DAY MASSACRE. It stinks but I wonder it if Dean R. Koontz saw this before writing “Watchers"?

One of the young people is played Brenda Venus who went on to write a column for Playboy magazine and was "the muse" to author Henry Miller in the last years of his life. His letters to her were collected into a book titled "Dear, Dear Brenda". 

Final note: The script supervisor on NIGHT FRIGHT was Annabelle Weenick from DON’T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT and Larry Buchanan movies....

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