Vanishing Bride

THE CORPSE VANISHES-1942-Somebody is killing then kidnapping the corpses newlywed brides. 

A young headstrong reporter named Pat (Luana Walters) and her older comic photographer Sandy (Vince Barnett) try to investigate. It's all a fiendish plot by Dr. George Lorenz (Bela Lugosi) who extracts bodily fluid from the dead brides to keep his ungrateful wife, The Countess (Elizabeth Russell) young and vital. Dr. Foster (Tris Coffin) assists Lorenz in a cure for The Countess. Lorenz uses drugged orchids and gets help from “my little family” which includes little Toby (Angelo Rossitto), tough guy Mike (George Eldredge), housekeeper Fagah (Minerva Urecal; also in THE APE MAN with Bela) and her brutish son Angel (Frank Moran) who Lorenz whips. He and his wife also like to sleep in coffins. When Pat is forced to stay at the doc's place for the night she snoops around and sees Angel talking to a dead bride. When Foster sees Lorenz strangle Angel he decides to help Pat by setting up a phony marriage but instead Lorenz drugs and kidnaps her. Before he can make the lethal injection Fagah stabs him to death (he killed her son). When the Countess tries to make the injection Fagah stabs her too. 

This is a typical outrageous Monogram studios Lugosi melodrama with Bela being a pretty cruel guy. Luana Walters is good as the noisy wisecracking lead. Too bad she didn't get better roles. Wallace Fox directed Lugosi in THE BOWERY AFTER MIDNIGHT the same year. He also made several “East Side Kids” comedies. Later he made a bunch of westerns and went into TV. He died in 1958. Sam Katzman was the producer...

Thanks for reading 

Charlie Again!

DANGEROUS MONEY1946--Charlie Chan investigates the smuggling of counterfeit “hot” money after a treasury agent (Tris Coffin) is killed. There's many suspects plus annoying comedy bits Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) and chauffeur Chattanooga (Willie Best in his last Chan movie). The main suspects are loud mouth cotton seller Burke (Dick Elliot), knife thrower Kirk (John Harmon), American trader Tao Erickson (Rick Vallin), Brace, the ship's purser (Joseph Allen) and his girlfriend Rona (Gloria Allen), a professor (Emmett Vogan) and The Whipples, upper class twits on an ocean liner bound for Samoa. The killer uses a knife gun. 

This low budget Monogram mystery based on the character created by Earl Derr Biggers (in 1925) was the 39^th story in a series of 47 Chan movies began back in the mid-thirties by Universal Pictures. Star Toler was instrumental in getting Monogram to produce a new Chan series when it was dropped by Fox in 1942. Though still fun, they are noticably lower budget. 

Director Terry O. Morse was also an editor and had directed Karloff in BRITISH INTELLIGENCE in 1940. Later he worked on the US shot scenes in GODZILLA-KING OF MONSTERS. 

Thanks for reading! 

Fred Sears

THE NIGHT THE WORLD EXPLODED-1957-Short (64 minutes) science fiction quickie features an egghead scientist Dr. Conway (William Leslie; also in HELLCATS OF THE NAVY the same year) and his older mentor Dr. Morton (Tris Coffin) who invent a machine that detects earthquakes. When they find  "a big one" is going to hit LA the warn the governor but he ignores them. After the quake hits as predicted the government wants to know more (things haven't changed that much). Kathryn Grant plays "Hutch" the duo's assistant who's sweet on Conway but he doesn't notice. They all go to Carlsbad Caverns to check out some readings. Along the way they discover a new element that explodes when it makes contact with air.

THE NIGHT THE WORLD EXPLODED almost plays like an episode of TV's SCIENCE FICTION THEATER. It was directed (and narrated) by Fred Sears (for a double bill with his atrocious THE FLYING CLAW), a veteran of extremely low budgets who's rapidity rivaled Beaudine and Newfield. He died suddenly at 54 of a heart attack leaving 5 (!) movies (including WORLD) to be released posthumously. Many of them produced by Sam Katzman (as WORLD was).

Grant who got to be Bing Crosby's widow was in THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD the next year.

Thanks for reading!

Little People, Big Hero

PYGMY ISLAND-1950-Some army officers (one of them is Selmer Jackson)  in DC discuss a jungle plant that could replace rope while newspaper headlines report the disappearance of Capt. Kingsley who was looking for the source of the plant. A flashback then tells us that this is another Jungle Jim adventure as Jim (Johnny Weissmuller) finds the captain's missing dog tags. No sooner does the real story start then Jim is in the water fighting an alligator! While investigating the death of a pygmy Jim discovers the plant is fireproof. The flashback ends and the US army (with THE MAD GHOUL's David Bruce) shows up in Bugandi (?) to check out a group of white Pygmy people and find the missing captain who we also learn is a woman (Ann Savage). She's hiding out with them. Meanwhile a tribe of "bush devils" threatens the little people. A local trader named Marco (Steven Geray) is also after the plant. The bush devils start an elephant stampede and of course it turns out "the devils" are actually foreign agents (lead by Tris Coffin). A gorilla (probably the same one from MARK OF THE GORILLA) attacks Jim and destroys a bridge (with Jim on it!). Billy Curtis leads the little natives (who include Billy Barty & Angelo Rossitto) who save the day when Jim is taken captive. William Tannen and Tommy Farrell are also in it. This is one of the few JJ movies that contains non-jungle scenes. 

Director William Berke was a veteran of low budget movies (and later TV) since 1934. His last work was on 1958's THE LOST MISSILE.

Thanks for reading!

Ma Barker

MA BARKER'S KILLER BROOD-1960-Lurene Tuttle (Mrs. Chambers in PSYCHO the same year) is the infamous lady gangster who raises her kids to be killer/bank robbers after training them to steal from their church's collection plate. She's very mean and calls her oldest son Herman (Don Grady; later in TV's MY THREE SONS) a sissy because he plays the violin (which she smashes). She seems to be so mean and violent because she had to wear homemade “bloomers” when she was young! When her husband protests and lectures her she just laughs at me and throws him out. She plots several heists with her “young-uns” but the sheriff runs them out of town. 

By 1933 she has trained her 4 sons to rob an armored car. Grown up Herman (Donald Spruance) is suppose to kill the guard but loses his nerve and Mom has to run the guard over (twice!) but takes time to slap Herman a few times. Her other “boys” are Doc (Ron Foster), Lloyd (Rex Holman) and Fred (Eric Morris). She sets up a kidnapping for Machine Gun Kelly (Vic Lunden; later The Lobster Man in an episode of VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA). Myrna Dell plays his girlfriend. Ma throws a party where Baby Face Nelson (Robert Kendall) and John Dillinger (Eric Sinclair) show up and son Lloyd and his date (Ginny Barry) sing “Little Joe Carew”. Paul Dubov plays Alvin Karpis, a killer who joins the gang. Tristram Coffin is Ma's second husband a drunk who they force to play Russian roulette (he loses) after he squeals. When the gang kidnaps a banker their trouble starts. Stupidly, Ma hires a sadistic alcoholic doctor (the great character actor Byron Foulger) to change one son's fingerprints and face. When it doesn't work they set him on fire! She's eventually machine gunned by federal agents in Florida where one of the agents compares her to the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. 

The story ends with scenes from another movie and a narrator quoting The Bible. MA BARKER was directed Bill Karns who one year later made 5 MINUTES TO LIVE with Johnny Cash as a psycho hit man. His other output seemed to be devoted to the 1954 TV version of GANGBUSTERS and it's subsequent movie. 

MB isn't bad as a low budget crime drama but it is nasty and violent for the time. The acting and hateful dialogue Ma spouts is very good. The story is choppy though: the fates of two sons are kind of forgotten about until the narration at the end and two bank robbery scenes are suddenly narrated by Ma as if perhaps originally she was suppose to tell the story. I was also shocked at one point in the final shoot out when it sounds like Ma says “I kill ya, ya fuckers”! But re-listening she actually says “ya butchers”... 

“None left his mark. Each left his stain”, so says the sexist narrator...

Myron Healy has an unbilled role as a bank robber. Music composer Gene Kauer's score was also used later in THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS. 

Like many crime dramas of time (and even now) based on real characters this is fictitious. In fact the real Ma Barker is considered to have only been a willing accomplice to her sons' crimes not the criminal mastermind she has been made out to be. Much of her notorious reputation was probably the work of J. Edgar Hoover to minimize the FBI's actions of shooting an old lady.

Thanks for reading!

Angels In Disguise

ANGELS IN DISGUISE-1949-In this more serious than usual Bowery Boys entry, Slip (Leo Gorcey) and Sach (Huntz Hall) investigate the murder of a neighborhood cop and wind up tangling with "The Loop Gang", a a bunch of Chicago gangsters. Slip narrates it after he and Sach have been beaten up. Gabe Dell is a police detective who's on the gang's trail. Mickey Knox and Richard Bennedict are gangsters but the real boss is a clean cut Joe College type (Edward Ryan). 

Billy Benedict, Benny Bartlett and David Gorcey all reprise their roles as Whitey, Butch and Chuck repectively. 

Joe Turkel, Jean Dean and Tristram Coffin are also in it as is Bernard Gorcey as Louie who had yet be the scene-stealer he would become in later story lines.

Director Jean Yarbrough would work with "the boys" again. A few years earlier he'd directed 3 Abbott & Costello vehicles, IN SOCIETY, THE NAUGHTY NINETIES and HERE COME THE CO-EDS. Co-scripter Charles Marion also worked on several A & C movies.

I'd like to know more about the other screenplay writer Gerald Schnitzer who after 1955 has only one isolated credit as as writer/director in 1967 but is listed on IMDB as being born in 1917 and as of this writing is still alive! According to Amazon.com he's written a autobiography called "My Floating Grandmother". 

Almost all of the Monogram series was produced by Jan Grippo, Leo Gorcey's manager.

Thanks for reading! 

    

What A Bunch of Characters!

When i watch a lot of old movies I love spotting certain actors. When I see them I usually yell out their names even if I'm alone. Here's a few of my favorites:



BYRON FOULGER-He is without a doubt my favorite chacter actor! He most often pops up as a neighbor lingering around after a murder has been committed. He might have some comment like "How shocking. She was such a quiet girl", usually giving the impression that he had something to hide that had nothing to do with the plot! He also played clerks, pharmacists, train conductors and was the mad scientist "Dr. Bluzak" in an episode of "The Abbott & Costello Show". In the '60's he showed up in a lot of sit-coms. To read his bio and see his picture go here: http://www.dougmacaulay.com/kingspu...or_last=Foulger



GENE ROTH-If you like AIP productions from the '50's you've probably seen this guy in a dozen of them. He was the cynical but tough sheriff in EARTH VS, THE SPIDER and was the second in command Nazi in SHE DEMONS (oops, sorry..that's not AIP!). He had un-billed roles in many films (a cook, a cab driver) was even in some late period 3 Stooges shorts including OUTER SPACE JITTERS (the one with Dan Blocker as the monster). Here's a picture of him:

TRIS COFFIN-Great name! This guy showed up in many movies billed and un-billed, sometimes as a bad guy or red herring crooked banker. He also played army officers and doomed business associates. He was the star of the Republic serial THE LOST PLANET AIRMEN. Some times billed as Tristram Coffin which is cooler.

Here he is:



Recognize him?



MORRIS ANKRUM-This actor was all over the map in the fifties. He usually played a father or army captain or some kind of scientist. He also was the judge on many episodes of TV's PERRY MASON. Here's his picture:




JOHN ELDREDGE-This actor made many un-billed movie appearances too. He also had a kind of recognizable voice. He played a villain on THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN several times. As movies coincidences would have it, he and George Reeves co-starred in a silly Rosemary Lane romantic comedy in 1940 called ALWAYS A BRIDE!

Hope you recognize some of these gentlemen!