More '50's Madness!

THE THING THAT COULDN'T DIE-1958-In this crazy, creepy Universal International horror film a young woman named Jessica (Carolyn Kearney) works on her Aunt Flavia's farm, mostly divining for water. One day while searching for a well she discovers an ancient chest buried by Sir Francis Drake. Gordon Hawthrone (William Reynolds) shows a lot of interest in the chest (and in Jessica) and thinks it might be a valuable artifact. Flavia (Peggy Converse) thinks only about it's monetary value. Gordon leaves to fetch archaeologist Julian Ash (Forrest Lewis). Meanwhile two ranch hands the mean Boyd (James Anderson) and the dumb but powerful Mike (Charles Horvath) decide to open the chest and take whatever is inside. To their surprise, instead of gold or jewels they find the still alive head of Gideon Drew an evil satanist with special powers. It immediately makes Mike kill Boyd. In a flashback we learn that Gideon (Robin Hughes) was so powerful no one could look him in the eye without coming under his control. Only a special medallion could control him (Gordon found it earlier and gave it to Jessica to wear around her neck). For his heinous crimes a Galleon Captain (Thomas B Henry) has him beheaded with his head put in a separate grave from his body. Back in the present Gideon's head makes Linda (Andra Martin), another woman staying at the ranch, his slave (she puts his head in a hat box). Later it takes over Jessica, changing her whole personality and making the others dig up Gideon's body. When head and body are reconnected it seems like the small party is doomed but the medallion destroys the foul one in the nick of time.

THE THING THAT COULDN'T DIE was one of two feature length films producer/director Will Cowan made 1958. The other was a rock and roll story called THE BIG BEAT which featured several actors from THTCD. They were his only features. Before that he made many musical subject shorts. For a guy who had directed Nat King Cole, Herb Jeffries and The Mills Brothers I'd say Cowan did a hell of a job with THING, even providing an eerie flashback. Making a horror film must have been his ultimate goal because it's the last thing he did movie wise. He died in 1994. 

Star William Reynolds had been in CULT OF THE COBRA and THE LAND UNKNOWN and later co-starred in THE FBI on TV. Co-star Carolyn Kearney was in many TV shows in the 50's and 60's including the very memorable episode of THRILLER called “The Incredible Doktor Markesan” with Boris Karloff and Dick York. James Anderson usually played an outlaw in westerns but had been in Arch Obler's FIVE and gave a good performance in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD a few years later. Of course Robin Hughes is fairly terrifying as the severed head. Hughes showed up in many films around this time THE MOLE PEOPLE, THE MAZE, DIAL M FOR MURDER, even an uncredited role in the Bowery Boys comedy PARIS PLAYBOYS! But to a lot of THE TWILIGHT ZONE fans he'll always be remembered as the Devil incarnate in the episode “The Howling Man”.

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Man In a Dino-Suit

THE LAND UNKNOWN-1957-A Naval science team goes to the South Pole. The group consists of Commander Hal Roberts (Jock Mahoney; TV's Yancey Derringer), Lt. Jack Carmen (William Reynolds), Capt. Burham (Douglas Kennedy) and Maggie Patterson (Shawn Smith aka Shirley Patterson), a woman reporter. The group has helicopter trouble when a pterodactyl hits them. They are forced to land in a hidden sub-tropical area dating to the Mesozoic era. They meet stock footage of two giant lizards fighting. Then they are chased by a T. Rex (guy in a costume) but a strange noise calls off it's attack. When giant plants menace the group Maggie is kidnapped by Hunter (Henry Brandon) who's been living there for years and thinks he owns the place (he's a survivor from a previous expedition). He blows a giant sea shell that scares off the dynos. Hunter wants the men to leave but let him keep Maggie who briefly escapes but runs into a giant sea reptile and faints. Later Hunter gives them a map to find his old helicopter. The guys rescue Maggie and even take Hunter back to civilization.

It seems at one time Universal was planning on THE LAND UNKNOWN to be a big budgeted film to be shot in color with an all star cast and Jack Arnold directing. For some reason the studio cut the budget, the color and the cast turning it into a B movie. Arnold left the project and contract director Virgil Vogel was his replacement. He'd made the equally cheap looking THE MOLE PEOPLE the year before. Screenwriter Lazlo Gorog penned Bert I. Gordon's EARTH VS. THE SPIDER a year later.

LAND really suffers from terrible SFX, too much stock footage and phony scenery but still manages to be more entertaining than boring. In movies since the early '40's actress Shawn Smith also acted under the name of Shirley Patterson. One of her last film roles would be in IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE.

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