THE GREEN SLIME

1969/Director: Kinji Fukasaku/ Writers: Bill Finger, Ivan Reiner

Cast: Robert Horton, Luciana Paluzzi, Richard Jaeckel, Bud Widom, Ted Gunther, David Yorston, Robert Dunham

This is one of the cheesiest and most thoroughly enjoyable B movies ever made in my opinion. I have seen the film several times and it seems to work in similar ways as an anti-depressant. Sadly it seems there is no really good DVD version available yet and the one I got online is a VHS rip that appears to the one every one is unhappy with right now. Hopefully it will be released on a nice wide-screen version here shortly. It is a co-production between the US, Japan and Italy, headed by Japan’s Toei and America’s MGM. There seems to be real and borderline talent involved with the film. Director Kinji Fukasaku is more widely known for his human drama and crime films than rubber monster movies. The completely freaked out theme song was composed by Charles Fox who scored Barbarella and The Incident. The supporting cast is made of foreigners living in Japan at the time, for example, stationed military personal. There is not an Asian face to be found in the entire cast. Ivan Reiner wrote the story and I will be doing a post soon on his Wild Wild Planet, a strange sci-fi adventure made in 1965.

TV actor Robert Horton (Wagon Train) heads the cast with reliable character actor Richard Jaekel sharing in the heroics. Bond girl (assassin Fiona Volpe in Thunderball) Luciana Paluzzi,  as Dr. Lisa Benson,  is the female lead and point of constant friction between Commander Jack Rankin (Horton) and Commander Vince Elliot (Jaekel). Horton’s “thumbs up” character is so totally cocky and arrogant as to defy words. The only thing more difficult to describe is his flawless hair that never loses its shape. He assumes command of Gamma 3 space station as he is the only man for the job, and the job is one that Bruce Willis would have to reinact in 1998’s Armageddon. And that is to advert or destroy a huge asteroid that is on a collision course with earth. The difference is that the asteroid Rankin must contend with looks like a moldy meat ball. The real dynamite occurs between Rankin and Elliot since Rankin and Dr. Lisa Benson used to be lovers (this love triangle was actually cut from some versions since the target audience of kid matinee goers might lose interest, but luckily it is included in most versions for those of us who want human interest and romance along with our fakey rubber monsters) and Rankin basically sees Elliot as a pussy who has no business commanding a space station and has every intention of getting back under the covers with fiery Dr. Benson. But first things first.

He blows the asteroid up with little trouble of course but the crew accidentally bring back a sample of a slimy green substance that covered the rock. In no time the thing is absorbing electricity and multiplying and frying the crew to pieces. Lasers have no effect other than to help the thing reproduce, but for some reason throwing your laser gun into the thing’s single eyeball seems to stop them in their tracks. Problems for guilt ridden Lisa Benson and royal prick Rankin are solved easily enough when Elliot gets his face baked by a monster tentacle. The action is silly but paced well by director Kinji Fukasaku. The monsters are really great to look at make the weirdest (and at times really annoying) sounds you are apt to hear from a movie creature. Japanese sci-fi films of the 60′s often had great miniatures (that were usually destroyed) to look at, but the ones here are really corny, and so all the more fun.

There are lots of laughs at the action and dialog and everyone plays it straight faced and serious. Sure the effects and miniatures are really silly but I defy you to not watch this movie and enjoy it. My brothers and I saw this as kids and we used run around the house as the Green Slime (covered in a green quilt and using it for flaying arms) when we all played hooky from our miserable school in San Antonio Tx. I just wish there were a better version to watch. I did not even bother with vidcaps from the version I have but found some nice stills on line after a little hunting. Included is a nice video from my youtube site  ( http://www.youtube.com/user/billdancourtney, now with over 100 video trailers ) with the trailer and energetic theme song. This singer is as deadpan serious Mr. Thumbs up Commander Rankin when he screams “… will you believe it when you’re dead!”  Are you ready to face the terror of The Green Slime? The horror of giant asteroids? The site of a man’s immovable hair? Then hurry out and get this uranium packed classic now. Ghidorah over at the always controversial and not for the squeamish How to Maintain Your Chainsaw has even promised a review soon, so I hope you can see how vital this film is.

TRAILER AND THUMPING THEME SONG FROM THE GREEN SLIME

ONECHANBARA

2008/Director: Yôhei Fukuda/ Writers: Yôhei Fukuda, Yasutoshi Murakawa

Cast: Satoshi Hakuzen, Manami Hashimoto, Ai Hazuki, Hiroaki Kawatsure

Unlike Rottweiler which is a fairly lame flick but one I can recommend I cannot say the same of this mess of a film called Onechabara (or Oneechabara sometimes) and means something like “sword fighting older sister”. It is based on some role playing video game and the heros are a cowboy hat wearing girl in a bikini, a sawed off shotgun toting gal in black and a school girl samurai. They spend their time killing off hordes of zombies that were the creation of a mad scientist. This seems like it could translate into a reasonable movie really, but real fast this thing turns into a load of total horse hocky and only gets more fetid as the minutes grind away excruciatingly.

(more…)

DISAPPEAR (Shissô: boku ga kanojo o tojikometa wake)

2005/Director: Hideo Jojo/ Writer: Hideo Jojo

Caste: Mei Fujishiro, Kaede, Kazuaki Kubo, Yûya Matsuura, Eiji Nakamura, Masayoshi Nogami, Norihisa Yokokawa

There is not too much about this film on the net really. In fact one site I finally located looking for behind the scenes info simply listed the cast as “Asian actors”. I went through a lot of this stuff out of Japan a few years ago and there is usually not much to distinguish one film from another. I suppose you could classify it as a Japanese “pink” movie, meaning soft core porn and mixed in with some unsettling (to some anyway) violence, though the term “pink film” usually refers to films made during the 70′s and 80′s. I think the current term has become “pinku” but I am open to correction here. This film follows a theme in movies I have personally come to call the “Miranda” formula. Miranda was the name of the female captive in the book and film by John Fowles called The Collector (aka The Butterfly Colletor , directed by William Wyler – who turned down The Sound of Music to direct this film- with Terrance Stamp and Samantha Eggar). Essentially the formula is usually about an obsessed loner or social misfit who kidnaps a young woman for one reason or another. Could be spontaniously or after a long period of rumination and stalking. At first she resists him and hates him, but eventually a sort of Stockholm Syndrome sets in and after he has fed her and washed her and supplied her with toilet paper the victim learns to “love” her captor or to at least connect with him in some way. The theme has been done a few times before in Western films (Sweet Hostage, The Keeper) and  is  not something unique to Japanese cinema. What might be unique to Japan though  is that you get the sense Japanese guys are using this stuff as dating guides.

(more…)

FRANKENTSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD

1966/Director: Ishirô Honda/ Writers: Reuben Bercovitch (story),Takeshi Kimura

Cast: Tadao Takashima, Nick Adams, Kumi Mizuno, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Koji Furuhata

I have been acquiring quite a few movies lately and have been watching a couple a day sometimes and have gotten behind on posting, so I am going to try and catch up with this new category, The Uranium Cafe Double (and sometimes Triple) Feature. I will try to connect two films thematically in some way, and the first entry into the category is simple: the theme is Frankenstein. But these two films are a couple of the oddest in the Frankenstein archives and really are both pretty enjoyable B-movies. The first one is out of Toho Studios and is directed by the great Ishiro Honda. It also starts American actor Nick Adams (the Johnny Yuma TV show) in one of his three films with Toho. He plays scientist James Bowen who is hot on the trail of the Frankenstein Monster (though it is referred to throughout the film as Frankentstein) with the help of his lovely assistant Sueko Togami  (Toho queen Kumi Mizuno) and fellow scientist Dr. Kenichiro Kawaji (who is determined to obtain one of Frankenstein’s members or organs for future research) and is played by fellow Toho regular Tadao Takashima (the link is to a story of Tadao’s battle with severe depression). Check back soon for a review and photos of pretty Kumi Mizuno’s in Ishiro Honda’s Matango (Attack of the Mushroom People). (more…)

COME DRINK WITH ME (DA ZUI XIA)

1966/Director: King Hu/ Writers: King Hu, Yang Erh

Cast: Pei-pei Cheng, Hua Yueh, Hung Lieh Chen

Cheng Pei Pei was a formal dancer who Shaw Brother’s actor, set designer and eventually director King Hu cast as the master sword fighter Golden Swallow in the groundbreaking film Come Drink With Me. She was most recently known as Chow Yun Fat’s antagonist Jade Fox in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Cheng Pei Pei could easily be said to be the first of the sword fighting women and 1966’s Come Drink With Me was her grand entry into the world of Kung Fu cinema. The film followed the tradition of Wuxia (wu=kung fu, martial arts, xia=hero, chivalry) literature and films (wu xia pian, pian being a term for movies) in China. The hero in the tradition is similar to the hero in Japanese Samurai films or the gunfighter in American Westerns. Usually a lone traveler with a code, or on a quest of some nature, confronts a ruthless opponent or gang. There is usually the matter of justice being served or an old score being righted and honor upheld. The film is actually part of a larger tradition of such films from China (Hong Kong) and was not the first one that spawned the genre as is sometimes claimed. The film is memorable for the way the fight scenes are filmed, the way it used music, Hu King’s marvelous sets and of course the lithe and elegant moves of Cheng Pei Pei ( this is the Hong Kong spell/Hollywood spelling of her Chinese name, while the Mandarin pinyin spelling is Zheng Pei Pei,  and is the name she is known by to most Chinese). (more…)

-

-

-

I recievied an invitation from both Chick Young at Trash Aesthetics and Gilligan over at Retrospace to participate in something called a “meme”, but I am so out of touch I have no clue what that is (but that has never stopped me from getting involved before). Seems it originated from Piper and Brian over at Lazy Eye Theatre blog (a couple of the more active LAMBers) and there have been good fantasy film festivals so far by Chick, Gilligan and Barbarella apologist Becca at No Smoking in the Skull Cave. I do not know if Tal at Taliesen Meets the Vampires has contributed as of this moment, but I will plug his excellent site anyway, free of charge. The rules (as laid down by the crew at the Lazy Eye site) are:

(more…)

MORE WOMAN IN THE DUNES HERE >>