Note from Uranium Willy:

QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE

1958/Director: Edward Bernds/Writers: Charles Beaumont, Ben Hecht

Cast: Zsa Zsa Gabor, Eric Fleming, Dave Willock, Laurie Mitchell, Lisa Davis, Paul Birch, Patrick Waltz

Producer of many cheesy sci-fi yarns Walter Wanger had just finished serving a four month prison sentence for shooting his wife’s (Joan Bennet) suspected lover in the leg and crotch – only four months since he successfully pleaded temporary insanity -when he began to put together this project based on a story by Ben Hecht. Hecht’s original story was more of a farce but Wanger wanted it the story to be more serious and turned the production over to Ben Schwalb. Schwalb had worked for Sam Katzman on some Bowry Boy episodes and director Edward Bernds  had done some of those Bowry Boy films and some Three Stooges as well. I guess that is way Queen of Outer Space is sort of an odd little story at best. Many of the props and costumes seem to be left-overs from other sci-fi films – Forbidden Planet, World Without End, Flight to Mars – and the actors are playing it pretty straight but it is a cheese fest from the get go.

The film follows a story line that had already become familiar in previous sci-fi films of  the early 50′s – Cat Women of the Moon, Missile to the Moon (see my reviews at the link), Abbot and Costello Go to Mars, Fire Maidens from Outer Spce and others I will get around to here one day – and that is an adventure built around a group of male astronauts stranded on a planet of beautiful Amazon type women. The women are usually sexually frustrated and really seem to like Earthmen from the USA the best. Crew includes Eric Fleming and Paul Birch and the queen is Laurie Mitchell and her rival is prima donna Zsa Zsa Gabor. Story has it that Gabor was so difficult to work with that Ben Schwalb wound up in the hospital from stress and ulcers. The story’s action takes place on Venus -often the number choice for space amazon adventures – and there is a great spider in the cave sequence that usually accompanies these space maiden films. The color is nice and while the story drags for the most part it is worth the moments when the dialog gets really strange and to see the maidens drooling over the earth guys. The scene at the end where a flock of vivacious and nubile Venusian girls are pawing all over an ecstatic Paul Birch – as egg-head Professor Konrad – sums it all up. Fans of cheesy sci-fi, like myself, will love it. Others may be a bit confused by it all.

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IT CONQUERED THE WORLD

1956/Director: Roger Corman/Writer: Lou Rusoff

Cast: Peter Graves, Beverly Garland, Lee Van Cleef, Sally Fraser, Dick Miller, Jonathan Haze, Taggart Casey

I had originally planned to do this as a guest post Nate Yapp’s awesome Classic Horror site. I asked Nate for a film he needed reviewed and he suggested this one but as I am a master of procrastination way too much time has now gone by and if Nate reads this I apologize. Also my own sites suffer from neglect and regular posting and need to have something added to them once in a while as well. So thanks Nate for the offer and sorry for my scattered brained approach to horror-cult film blogging. I do not think I have the focus to be a dependable guest blogger. If you do not know about his site please go check it out. Like The Uranium Café it focuses on classic-cult-cheese classics and its focus stays primarily on films and offers guest posters a chance to to add a review to the archives. My restless nature has my site venture off into music and comic books sometimes as well and soon I am beginning a new series on movers and shakers behind the scenes of ‘great’ films, music and artwork. Some people in my bulging draft folder now include Sam Katzman, Paul Blaisdell (who did the makeup effects for this posts film), Edward L. Kahn and others. I went through a period of ‘blogging depression’ and apathy.  I think I am over that for now and Uranium Willy is back in the saddle for the time being but no doubt will slip off again.

Today’s post features a film that is surely among the classics of great American cheese. It Conquered the World may be one of the best example’s Roger Corman’s amazing ability to squeeze everything possible from a low budget and tight production schedule. Like many low budget horror/sci-fi films from the period there is a lot of dialog, rather than nail biting action and suspense, to carry the film. Now you either love all this dialog or you hate it. Many people find it all unbearably boring while others, like your humble  reviewer here, find the corny dialog, crazy scientific explanations and pompous messages more enjoyable than the action scenes. Just look at this sample from the film’s ending where  hero Paul Nelson (played by the late Peter Graves) muses over the actions of his misguided friend Tom Anderson (Lee Van Cleef):

He learned almost too late that man is a feeling creature… and because of it, the greatest in the universe. He learned too late for himself that men have to find their own way, to make their own mistakes. There can’t be any gift of perfection from outside ourselves. And when men seek such perfection… they find only death… fire… loss… disillusionment… the end of everything that’s gone forward. Men have always sought an end to the toil and misery, but it can’t be given, it has to be achieved. There is hope, but it has to come from inside, from Man himself.

I think he could have added “Goodnight sweet Prince” at the end there and it would have become as timeless as anything the Immortal Bard himself would have penned.

Paul Wilson and Tom Anderson were one on the same space program whose mission it was to send one doomed space probe after another to the planet Venus. Anderson lost most of his credibility after he informed the program members he has been in contact with aliens on Venus. In many films from this period Venus was the subject of space missions and the visions of life there were varied. Some involved aliens played by Zsa Zsa Gabor even (Queen of Outer Space) and more often than not there were colonies of man hungry curvy,giggly girls just looking for a space ship full of beef cake from Earth. As we already know we are treated to any sort of aliens of the nubile nature in this film. In fact the aliens on Venus are not prone to warming up to intrusions from other planets and they have been in radio communication with Anderson in order for him to tell his fellow earthlings to cool it. Paul has stayed friends with Paul despite his rantings and he and his wife Joan (Sally Fraser who was five months pregnant during the shooting) still go by to see Tom and his wife Claire (played by the always wonderful Beverly Garland in one of her most memorable performances) for dinner and small talk. A lot of the small talk between Paul and Tom takes place around Tom’s ‘high-tech’ radio equipment where he has been in communication with the Venusians for some time. Claire is at her wits end with Tom and his chat sessions with what sounds like nothing but static. Paul is a little more than a bit skeptical himself. Lee Van Cleef plays the obsessed Anderson perfectly. He tries to smooth things out with Claire by promising her soon all things will become clear and she will be rewarded in some way or another. This sort of talk, of course, only makes Claire more uncomfortable.

The command center calls Paul to inform him that a missing Venus probe has returned to Earth and crashed, conveniently, not too far from the base and Paul and Tom’s house. Imagine if that thing had crashed in northern India or Greenland. Paul is soon contacted by a Venusian who piloted the space probe back to Earth. While a superior race we soon realize that they lack the opposable thumbs required to turn little screws necessary in the construction of a space ship. The Vensusians  just stow away on them and then once they arrive on the planet they want to conquer with an invasion force of one they slither off into a dark cave which soon becomes the headquarters for their planetary assault. Soon the command center calls Paul to inform him that a recently missing Venus probe has returned to Earth and crashed, conveniently, not too far from the base and Paul and Tom’s house. Imagine if that thing had crashed in northern India or Greenland how that would have complicated the script. Tom is soon contacted by the Venusian who piloted the space probe back to Earth.  Here the film is a bit reminiscent of Robot Monster, another movie featuring and invasion force of one who hides out in a cave in southern California and wrecks havoc from there on the entire planet. As for our current invader from Venus goes  how better to expedite his conquest thsn to have weird, rubbery little bat like creature emerge out of your alien butt, essentially, and fly off to nip people and turn into submissive slaves who will do all your bidding.

Panic ensues and the locals run down the street of the small town like the citizens of Tokyo fleeing Godzilla. The people who have been nipped by the space bats are fairly easy to detect after a few moments of conversation as they rigidly robotronic in their thinking (insert gag reference to the political party you detest the most here). Paul dispatches anyone and every one who is under alien control and this includes his wife in one of the strangest scenes in b-movie history. The scene has to be seen to be understood. Her death is completely unnecessary as far as I am concerned. But don’t go thinking I am tangled up in some sort of moral struggle over the scene because it is actually pretty cool to see Peter Graves put a slug in the gut of his once doting house wife and then run down to the military base and blow away everyone on duty there as well. Claire has had enough of her husbands delusions. In a frustrated fit at one point she announces to him that …”for a few dollars you can hire a woman who’ll fulfill all your fetishes. And when you get tired of her you can run down to the employment agency and hire another.” Not really sure how that fits into the context of the film as a whole but it is great line. She runs down to the cave to confront the monster on her own. Outside the cave area is a highly trained of wise cracking soldier that include dog faces Dick Miller and  Jonathan Haze providing some comic relief. Of course the real comic relief comes in the form of Paul Blaisdell’s most infamous monster creation. The monster has been iconic actually and represents what is the most enjoyable about the films of Roger Corman and classic low budget sci-fi in general. The comparisons to a stalk of celery are not unwarranted. One story has it that the original creature was so short that Beverly Garland, in a joking mood, basically told it to “take that” and kicked the terror over. Blaisdell decided maybe it would be a good idea to add some extensions to the monster to make it at least a little taller than the lady it was terrorizing.

Now this creature had nearly brought the world to its knees from the dank confines of its cavernous hideaway, but in the end a solitary human with a blow torch ends its reign of destruction. Of course the human is Lee Van Cleef in a pissed off mood now because the celery stalk from Venus killed his wife. It seemed fine to let the creature destroy the rest of humanity but once things get a little personal Tom quips “I made it possible for you to come here… I made you welcome to this Earth… You made it a charnel house”.  A really enjoyable film and one of Corman’s most well known low budget efforts. The entire film was shot in less than one week. The creature came to be known on the set as Beluah and is actually supposed to be a fungus type of life form. Most fans consider it to be their favorite of Blaisdell’s collection of imaginative creations (It! The Terror from Beyond Space, Invasion of the Saucer Men, She Creature). Blaisdell did the effects on Teenagers from Outer Space as well though he is uncredited. If you notice the space ship landing in both films appear to be the same footage. A great cast with immortal dialog and an even more immortal monster. Not to be missed.

Addendum: As Junk Monkey observes in his comment below there was actually a remake of It Conquered the World made with John Agar in 1966 called Zontar, the thing from Venus. I have the film here but have not had a chance to sit down and watch all of it. Skimmed if for quality and it looks okay. There is a story to my trying to acquire the film online and it was a real chore but I finally got it. Junk Monkey provided this link at Internet Archives where you can this rare film in its entirety and not go through the hell I went through to get a free copy.

]]> http://uraniumcafe-the.com/2010/05/31/roger-cormans-1956-classic-it-conquered-the-world-with-peter-graves-lee-van-cleef-and-beverly-garland/feed/ 4 http://uraniumcafe-the.com/2010/05/17/the-re-animated-dead-walk-the-earth-in-1959s-invisible-invaders-2/ http://uraniumcafe-the.com/2010/05/17/the-re-animated-dead-walk-the-earth-in-1959s-invisible-invaders-2/#comments Mon, 17 May 2010 12:43:16 +0000 Uranium Willy http://uraniumcafe-the.com/?p=9786

INVISIBLE INVADERS

1959/Director: Edward L. Cahn/Writer: Samuel Newman

Cast: John Agar, Jean Byron, Philip Tonge, Robert Hutton, John Carradine, Hal Torey

I just am not really into blogging much lately for whatever reason. Not the end of the world if I blog regularly or not I suppose. But since I brought up the subject of the end of the world I can think of no better segue into this post’s film, Invisible Invaders. This is a film I think I saw when I was ten years old or so and have not seen it again until only recently. But it is film that has stuck in my mind all this time for it images of reanimated corpses that have many people have come to feel must have been some influence on later films like The Last Man on Earth and George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. I would not go so far as to say Invisible Invaders is a zombie film in the sense that we today are familiar with zombie films but I would say it serves as a sort of bridge between old time zombie films more modern living dead features. The film resembles more in its concept of alien beings using re-animated corpses to attack and defeat the Earth from to none other than Ed Wood’s Plan Nine from Outer Space which came out later in the same year of 1959. The really early zombie films had zombies that were typically under some sort of ‘voodoo’ type spell and were controlled by some witch doctor or white man who has been in the jungle long enough to learn the rituals necessary to bring a dead man back to life and have said dead man do his bidding. Modern zombies, since Romero and his Italian imitators, are either the flesh eating living dead or humans infected with some virus that drives them into a homicidal frenzy. Invisible Invaders rests somewhere in the middle of these great epochs of the shuffling dead.

While the dead are not ravenous flesh eaters they are still driven to kill living human beings (though not only with their bare hands as we shall see). They are not controlled by a witch doctor but they are manipulated nonetheless by some type of intelligence outside their own instincts. And unlike the army of living dead in Ed Wood’s entertaining Plan 9 (an army of basically Vampira and Tor Johnson) Invisible Invaders features hordes of chalk faced corpses lumbering over hillsides (most of them wearing Wall Street suits) that created the images that haunted me as a little lad. Of course now I am much older and I watch a film like Invisible Invaders not to terrified but to be entertained with outrageously bad acting and dialog as well as gigantic plot holes, confusing stock footage and pretentious, unnecessary narration. Invisible Invaders is indeed a cheese classic by director Edward L. Cahn (It! The Terror from Beyond Space, The She Creature and another living dead classic Zombies of Mora Tau) but it is also a fairly well made low budget sc-fi film with great b/w photography by Maury Gertsman and for the most part a thoroughly enjoyable little sci-fi flick.

The story, like many of the period, centers around the evils of atomic power and research. Almost anything evil found in the films of this period could find their origins in atomic research gone awry. And how much awry can an experiment go than to have a hand held test tube suddenly erupt into an atomic explosion. Such is the case for the driven atomic scientist Dr. Karol Noymann (played by the king of all driven and mad scientists John Carradine). The poor guy is simply holding a test tube and it ‘goes off’ and luckily only kills him. It was a very small atomic disaster I guess. Like an M-80 sized nuclear explosion. The ‘disastrous’ explosion and death of his old friend and colleague pushed another driven scientist, Dr. Adam Penner (Philip Tonge) to give up his career of atomic research and retire back to the quaint little mansion his previous years of devious research have blessed him with to kick back in and mull over his new found pacifistic position in life. He had spent the earlier part of the day with his daughter Phyllis (Jean Byron) and her wimpy boyfriend Dr. John Lamont (Robert Hutton of The Slime People) and they did not hear hedges being moved by some invisible entity or see paths being made in the dirt by the same entity that cannot lift it feet up when it walks. Later while Dr. Penner is home alone pondering the fate of the world he receives a late night visit from none other than his old pal Karol Noymann (a name so riveting that writer Samuel Newman recyceld it from another classic he helped pen, The Giant Claw). Karol is looking pretty fair for a guy who just got blown to shreds in an atomic mishap. Not only that but he has grave news for Dr. Penner and all of mankind; he and they have 24 hours to surrender the Earth to his race of superior being who now live in invisible colonies on the moon (that is why we have never seen them with our big telescopes). His race have been living on the moon for 20,000 years and they have decided it time they invade and conquer the earth. They could have done this during the stone age or bronze age but they figured they would wait until we had developed atomic bombs, jet fighters and machine guns to make it more interesting.

The means by which the aliens will conquer and subdue mankind consists of them basically entering the bodies of dead people and using their lifeless husks as a means to move around cause damage. There are loads of problems with this scenario and I will explore some of them before the post concludes. The aliens are reasonable creatures and offer the humans the 24 hour grace period to submit to their demands. Dr. Penner pleads with Dr. Lamont to go to Washington to convince the politicians and military of the seriousness of the threat. Lamont is concerned with what effect something like this may have on his future career but Penner insists and John figures it is worth a try and soon is off to convince the leaders in the capital that invisible creatures from the moon are on the earth now in invisible space ships and will soon begin inhabiting corpses and will soon conquer all the planet. Surprising as it sounds no one in Washington believes him. Not only do they not believe him but for some reason Lamont’s visit becomes world wide news. Lamont heads back to Phyllis and Dr. Penner with tail between his legs and egg in his face and Penner pleads with the aliens for a little more time. This they grant him and they also offer a couple demonstrations of their awesome powers. First they bring back a military pilot who dies by flying his plane into a huge white X painted on the side of mountain. We do not even need to see this happen since the ongoing narrations tells us almost everything that is happening on the screen. The pilot does not really look too bad for having just been in a fiery plane crash and he lumbers slowly off to a hockey game and not only gets in without a ticket but gets to walk in secure areas and enter the announcer’s box and chocks the announcers to death and gives the Earth fair warning. But another demonstration is needed. So a corpse from an auto accident is re-animated and it shuffles of to yet another sports event and gets in with no ticket and gets into the sports announcer’s box, strangles the announcers and gives the earth some more fair warning.

After two major sporting events have been interrupted the citizens of earth begin to take the alien invasion seriously but it is a little too late. The invasion has began in full force. And if we have any doubts those are belayed by always present the narrator telling us it has began. And if there is still any lingering doubt there is all that convincing stock footage of various disasters like hurricanes and trucks driving off dams. It is well beyond time to get deadly serious about the situation and so the government gets John Agar involved. Mr. Ex-Shirley Temple plays pilot Major Jay. His mission is to get our three protagonists to a secret cave where they will figure out a way to stop the invaders. Along the way the Major shoots a panicked farmer (with a big shot gun pointed at them all) in the forehead with his .45 and it really freaks the others out. Especially poor Phyllis. But after Major Jay explains he was a little freaked by it too. After all the people he firebombed in Korea during the war was different he explains, he never saw their faces. Phyllis must understand because she offers him a cup of coffee and soon she is forgetting all about her wussy scientist boyfriend Dr. Lamont. When it comes down to it most women really want a guy who can plug a farmer in the forehead with a .45 at point blank range so long as he can discuss it with sensitivity over coffee later.

Of course I am not really sure why the team has to hide out in a bunker hidden away in a cave in the side of a mountain in the middle of no where to carry on their experiments but that is what they have to do. Many old sci-fi/horror films of this nature take place inside caves. Robot Monster, The Brain from Planet Arous, It Conquered the World, to name just a few. The cave in Invisible Invaders is a bit different in that the government insures that the cave is packed with everything they will ever need. It it is not in the cave it has not been invented!  The gang set about trying to come up with a solution to how to destroy the slow moving corpses inhabited by the aliens whose weapons, for some reason, will not work in the Earth’s atmosphere. In fact you have to wonder why the combined militaries of the world are having a hard time with these aliens. They cannot sue their high tech weapons on us in our atmosphere. That is not doubt a lucky break for mankind. Plus they cannot remain invisible and must occupy the bodies of dead people. Another lucky break since fighting an invisible entity could be troublesome as hell. The aliens must basically shuffle around and use either their bare hands or man made weapons like handguns. I do not see why flamethrowers and napalm could not kill these guys off (and it does seem the aliens prefer the carcasses of men to women). But the creatures, of course, must be killed off by some esoteric method. But can the small group of researchers find a solution before they kill each other off? The tension is high and Phyllis getting all hot and bothered over flyboy right in front of Lamont does not help. In fact it leads to some old school fisticuffs. And guess what? Whimpy Lamont basically kicks Major Jay’s butt! Well while all this is going on the crew fionally conclude the only method by which to kill the aliens is to spray them with acrylic paint! Yes. This closes the skin pores of the corpse and basically suffocates the alien inside. I still thing napalm and flamethrowers would have worked but acrylic paint it is. This will involve acquiring a test subject of course. How to capture a superior being with the ability to travel through space and conquer worlds? Why not dig a hole in the ground and cover with branches and trick the thing into walking into it? By golly, it works too. The film concludes with some decent walking dead scenes and Earth being saved and Phyllis giving all her attention to a wounded Major Jay (wounded by a pistol packing corpse).

I may poke some fun at the film but it has some moments that make it exceptional cheese fare. The walking dead look genuinely creepy for the time and had the film had a little more of a budget it may have turned out to be one of the great horror classics of all time. There are the obvious problems stemming from the low budget and rushed production, most notable being the unnecessary narration. In most of this sci-fi/horror films the narration adds very little to what is already happening on the screen. You may have scenes with a character opening a door and then have the narrator explain “Jack opens the door”. It certainly made Ed Wood Jr. films fun but in many cases it leaves one feeling stupefied. Another problem with these types of films is the abuse of stock footage. When the plane in Invisible Invaders crashes to the ground it smacks right into a giant X painted on the side of mountain and it is obviously some sort of military training film. And yet it is also these odd little quirks that actually make the film even more enjoyable. If you cheesy old John Agar and John Carradine sci-fi films and have not seen this one yet I suggest you pick it up soon and give a late night viewing. You will not be disappointed.

Not a lot of decent images from this classic to found on the net so

thought I would whip up a few new ones.

]]> http://uraniumcafe-the.com/2010/05/17/the-re-animated-dead-walk-the-earth-in-1959s-invisible-invaders-2/feed/ 3 http://uraniumcafe-the.com/2010/05/04/the-monster-and-the-stripper-revisited-with-comments-and-trivia-from-stars-tim-ormond-and-diane-jordon/ http://uraniumcafe-the.com/2010/05/04/the-monster-and-the-stripper-revisited-with-comments-and-trivia-from-stars-tim-ormond-and-diane-jordon/#comments Tue, 04 May 2010 13:26:14 +0000 Uranium Willy http://uraniumcafe-the.com/?p=9665

I have only received a couple comments from the actual people who make some of the uranium packed motion pictures I review here at the Cafe. One memorable one was a nice comment by Marco Werba who did the score for Dario Argento’s Giallo (a film I liked actually) and just the other day I got two comments from some of the people involved with the Ron Ormond film The Monster and the Stripper (aka The Exotic Ones)which I reviewed here last summer. Not only are the comments from people directly involved in the project but Ron Ormond’s son Tim, who played Timmy in the film, supplied us with loads of great trivia around the film and its makers. He seems like a real nice guy with a sense of old fashioned southern hospitality that the world needs more of. Thanks Tim for these great anecdotes. Also is a short comment from Diane Jordon who played one of the dancer’s in the film. I actually caught her in a screen capture for my post. It is posted here and she is the dancer to the left. Ormond’s films are not for everybody but I liked Monster and the Stripper. Good campy fun and you can tell the people are having fun making it. Posts coming eventually on Please Don’t Touch me and If Footmen Tire You What Will Horses Do. Both Diane and Tim are looking for their friend and co-star in the film Georgette Dante. I posted a picture of Georgette, who did great inb the film, next to the one of Diane. If you have any clue I will try to forward a message to Tim or Diane though I do not have their email. I will figure it out.  For now lets check out their comments and some new screen captures. Thanks Tim and Diane.

From Diane Jordon

Diane Jordon (on the left)                       Georette Dante                           Diane Jordon

I thought that your readers may be interested in an interview that I did that was published in the Summer 2009 #71 issue of VideoScope Magazine. In it, I talked about my my memories of making Monster and the Stripper. John O’Dowd, film journalist and author, wrote the article. I played one of the five chorus girls; I had one line and two costumes! In the photos above, I’m the one on the left, wearing the cone shaped bra and balloon hat! I am trying to get in touch with Pauletta Leeman, who was one of the chorus girls, too. She left Nashville not long after that and I’ve never been able to locate her. She was from Illinois…..that’s all I know! If anyone knows how to contact her, please let me know. Thanks! Diane

From Tim Ormond

I’m Tim O, I’ll check back sometime and leave a good comment, right now just saying that I’d also love to find Georgette and say hi. I did make a serious effort to find her some years back and could not. Georgette was like a sister, miss her. T

Here’s a link to my mom’s memorial page.

http://filmnashville.org/june

I’ll admit to Monster not being one of my favs, though it was a gas working on it. I fell in love (figuratively) with all the girls.

Diane I still keep in touch with. Kathy Binns (one of the dancer) I linked up with about 10 years back, she was a talent agent at the time. Both Diane and Kathy were and still are beautiful women.

Georgette was truly like an older sister of mine, I didn’t look at her as a hot babe, rather a friend, we’d pal around and have a good time. She arranged for me to travel (for a short time) with a carnival she was involved with, those were some interesting and unique memories.

One of the things my dad (and I love him for it) tried to do, was get me a signing career, (that’s my audition in the movie), but at the time I wasn’t interested in signing, plus couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, still can’t. Had I had the interest and talent, we, through my dad/mom had the ear of all the biggies in Nashville.

An interesting piece of trivia is the interiors were made at Trafco (today UMC) which was the media division of the Methodist church, they didn’t particularly appreciate the movie, duh… Flash forward to current years (actually 20 years ago or so) and precisely where Sleepy is in the cage, was where “Crook and Chase” was filmed at the Jim Owens (who bought the studio) studio.

I was in seventh heaven making the film, guess a little bit of a crown prince, surrounded by girls, my dad the director, my mom one of the stars and producers, high times, good memories.

Later, we did an insert of my mom walking down the steps (where she does her fan dance) on top of our house (on the roof), people thought we were nuts, guess we were in a bit. The reason for the fan dance, which had no place in the movie was my mom used to do it in her vaudeville act, so nostalgia.

Did fall in love for a time with Sonia Massey (who played the hippie dancer) the feelings were not returned, but I did see her again at college some years later. Got my share of dates just from the association.

Harris Martin played the painter, he published one of the early newsy mags in. His fav place to hang was Skull’s Rainbow Room.

Okay, got to run now… fun visiting memory lane.

And fyi… my dad and mom were two of the most wonderful people I have ever known, LARGE hearts. Monster wasn’t my dad’s best effort, but it’s still a great memory…

Talk later y’all.. T

One of the things my dad (and I love him for it) tried to do, was get me a signing career, (that’s my audition in the movie), but at the time I wasn’t interested in signing,

that should have read “singing”

Sure post away, having some fun remembering.

Let’s see about some other trivia.

The nice/girl turned bad was going to originally be played by a BABE out of Memphis, she couldn’t act, so my dad had to replace her. Donna (the nice girl) is the wife of Gene (in real life), he played “Bug Eye Baroney”. Great guy, when I last saw him YEARS and YEARS ago, he and Donna lived in Kentucky. He did a one man show at a dinner theater portraying Mark Twain… very good piece.

The Mulcays, the harmonica act, never fitted in any of the Ormond pictures, I believe my dad used them for two reasons. First, they were good and treasured friends from their Vaudeville days, second, if memory serves, the movie came up short of 90 minutes and we needed a quick way to length it. fyi.. the Mulcays were never even on set in Nashville, they filmed it in LA and sent in the footage… lol

Ed Moates, the detective remained our good friend and flying buddy for the remainder of my dad’s life, and WELL into my adult years after that. He was and probably still is the best pilot I know. We partnered with him on an airplane or two.

Ronnie Drake, who played the other detective was a great guy and my singing coach… He couldn’t act, I couldn’t sing, we made a great team. I remember giving him some acting lessons… he was the proverbial “I AM AN ACTOR”, that John (can’t think of last name) used to play on Saturday Night Live.

Jim Rose (he was one of the kids that my mom/bunny was asking what they did, his one line in the film…”nuthin”. He was my high school running buddy. He also appeared in “If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do”.

We used to all (my dad/me/mom/Georgette/sometimes Pauletta Leeman) go to the premieres at the drive-ins, the marquee would read “stars in attendance”. One time we had Georgettes’s mom (also a stripper) come along. Someone shouted something from the crowd (don’t remember what, but some sex thing) and Georgette LITERALLY dove off the concession stand roof and began to fight for her mom. WOW.. a memory.

K.. that it for now. T

Pieces of trivia.

A girl named Jean had a crush on Sleepy, I remember here putting his makeup on and drooling. She and I didn’t like each other, believe we got into a big argument and I told her to FO.. she went and told my dad. I remember him looking at me and smiling.

Exteriors were shot at the Arnold Engineering Development Center in Tallohoma, TN home of one of the world’s largest wind tunnels.

Lynn Fontaine, the pretty red head stripper, was a REAL stripper, working the circuits in those days. She was a knock-out, but couldn’t talk (in an acting sense) those no (or few) lines.

Patty, the stripper who had light bulbs (not flaming tassels like Georgette) on her chest, was later shot (this is hearsay but think correct), by one of her boyfriends.

Still have the costume (but can’t fit into it) that I wore to take care of the monster.

My song (I’ve already admitted to not being able to carry a tune) has been cut significantly from the original (by me) when we made the video version.

I came up with the title “Monster and the Stripper”

Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (or her team) was interested in the movie for their show, but said… “too much strippers, not enough monster”. I met her later at a convention, she had no knowledge of that.

A producer (with significant credentials) contacted me about doing a feature on the life of the Ormonds, but then out came “Ed Wood” and that ended our chance at Hollywood fame.

The yucky mess (representing a spittoon) poured into the mouth of the informer was actually corn syrup, coconut and brown food coloring, actually tasted pretty good. The bad guy hoodlum was Cecil Scaife, his son Joe Scaife was one of the producers for “Acky Breaky Heart”.

The guy that the swamp thing got in the opening credits was Luther Perkins, side man for Johnny Cash. I got to spend an evening with Johnny Cash (Lash LaRue and I were working on a project which Johnny/Waylon/Willie were to be part of) and gave him a copy of the film. He gave me a copy of his book, “The Man In Black”.

The women in the audience who gasped when Sleepy ate the chicken were our Realtor and a friend. She remained our Realtor for years.

Sleepy didn’t have the heart to kill the chicken, so Georgette did it off camera, then Sleepy held it up, as if he had done it.

Any questions, post ‘em, that’s all I can think of. T

THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE

1959/Director: Roy Del Ruth/Writer: Orville H. Hampton

Cast: Beverly Garland, Bruce Bennett, Lon Chaney Jr., George Macready

Lately I have been getting in lots of old horror and sci-fi films I have always heard about but have never seen. I grew up with images in magazines like Famous Monsters of Filmland of films like Invisible Invaders, Gorgo, Not of this Earth (the original) and many others but never caught them on any creature feature shows while growing up. By the time VHS came out I seemed to have lost some interest in these old films and followed a different and often darker path for many years. Now suddenly I find myself drawn back to these often harmless and quaint little gems and recall how Forrest J. Ackerman handled them with such care despite their often corny stories and shabby production values. One film I finally got around to seeing for the first time at the ripe old age of fifty one is 1959’s The Alligator People. Of course before I ever see a film I have an image of the film in my mind and in the case of The Alligator People the actual movie just did not come close. Not for better or worse but the movie was not what I had conjured up in my mind based on old pictures I had seen in horror magazines. For one thing the film should probably be called The Alligator Person since that is about the total number of alligator people we deal with for the most part. There are people covered in odd shaped shrouds that we assume are also alligator people in some state of mutation but nothing much ever happens with them though the images of them being herded about are a bit creepy.

I liked the film (as I like almost all of the films here at The Uranium Café with a couple exceptions) for a few reasons. I love Beverly Garland. She adds something special to any role she played in during her time as a scream queen during the late 50’s and early 60’s. She can act better than most of the gals in this category. She usually played the roles straight and had no problem hamming it up in situations that a bit ludicrous (such as facing off against the celery stalk from Venus in Roger Corman’s It Conquered the World). The film also has Lon Chaney Jr. in one of his most memorable roles as a sleazy, one armed, alcoholic gator hating swamper who tries to slime himself all over Miss Garland in his swamp shack.  The film also features some of the early work of make-up maestro Dick Smith. Smith is known for his work on films like The Exorcist and Taxi Driver but he did not start off at the top. This should be kept in mind as you stare in amazement at the final result of the cobalt treatment fusing man and alligator into one‘horrifying’ monstrosity. The cinematography by 1929 Oscar winner Karl Strauss in the film is exceptional for the genre with high contrasting black and whites that gives it a film noir quality at times. Director Roy Del Ruth did not usually work in the horror sci-fi area and did well enough with a story that could, in the final analysis, only end up a fine cheese classic.

Garland plays Jane Marvin, a woman with a secret past trapped in her repressed memories. The wonders of modern psychology in the form of hypnosis unravel these secrets little by little. Her true identity is that of Joyce Hatton. Joyce was dumped on a train while on the way to her honeymoon by her husband Paul Webster (Richard Crane) after he receives a mysterious telegram. Could the telegram be connected to Paul’s miraculous recovery from devastating injuries he received in a plane crash during the war? Does my stating the matter in the form of question give the answer away? Joyce finally traces Paul’s possible location to a plantation style manor in the Louisiana bayous where Dr. Mark Sinclair has been conducting tissue and limb regeneration research using reptiles, alligators, humans and radiation. In these 50’s and 60’s horror/sci-films radiation was at the root of almost all evils. The house is also occupied by Paul’s protective mother, a bunch of studly guys in tight white t-shirts that keep the patients in line and drunken, bitter handy man Manon (Chaney). Manon simply hates gators and the one thing he hates more is gator people. There are great scenes of laboratories with lots of dials and lights, swamps and snakes and Paul as the result of Manon’s drunken revenge: the Alligator Man. The make up for the creature really is not as bad as most people make it to be. It does not reek of Smith’s later genius either but I sort of liked it. I sort of wish we had seen more of it to be honest and that it was a little more evil. Good guy Paul wrestling with the gator’s carnivorous instincts. But like many films from the period we are treated more to long winded dialogs and scientific theories than to actual monsters. However  The Alligator People is a film that I would watch again because I sort of like those melodramatic dialogs and scientific musings on the benefits and evils of radiation.

THE LAST HORROR FILM aka FANATIC

1982/Director: David Winters/Writers: Judd Hamilton, Tom Klassen

Cast: Caroline Munro, Joe Spinell,  Judd Hamilton, Devin Goldenberg, David Winters, Susanne Benton, Filomena Spagnuolo( Mary Spinell)

I am certain even the most modest horror film fan has heard of Hammer and Bond girl Caroline Munro. Her long brunette hair and statuesque features are simply stunning and she has starred in some fairly memorable horror flicks like The Abominable Dr. Phibes Rises Again, Slaughter High and the shlocky Italian sci-fi film Starcrush. One of her co-stars in Starcrush was New York City veteran character actor Joe Spinell. Spinell’s name may be less familiar to many except for the cognoscenti of b-films. He is more known as a supporting actor and had small roles in The Godfather, The Seven-Ups, Rocky and Taxi Driver before he had his first starring role in the 1980 William Lustig splatter film Maniac. We will get to Maniac in the second part of this double feature and instead will start off with what is sort of a follow up to Maniac pairing Munro and Spinell up again. That film is 1982’s The Last Horror Movie or Fanatic was it was originally released as on DVD. I got a hold of the Fanatic version of the film and not the new Troma release of the movie that is supposed to include a few extra minutes of scenes and some extras including commentaries and interviews. I have to be honest I never listen to DVD commentaries. Simply never. So I do not know if I going to go out of my way to find the Troma release but we will see. I would be interested in the interviews with Spinell’s buddy Luke Walter and Maniac director William Lustig who seems to have stopped directing films (his last being Uncle Sam, which I liked, in 1997) and now produces and is the head honcho at Blue Underground DVD.

I have seen Maniac a few times actually and was excited when I recently read about The Last Horror Movie and that Spinell and Munro had teamed up yet again for a horror/stalker type of film. Of course I expected it to a gore fest like the often over the top Maniac was and was surprised to find that the film was modest in the shock department. There are some gruesome deaths and blood shed to be sure but the film is actually a rather clever poke at slasher film cliches, the world of obsessed fans and the snooty films film makers they pursue. The film is a horror film but is a comedy as well and yet never becomes a wittless spoof. The film was shot guerilla style (i.e. without shooting permits and permission) at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival and that in itself makes the film a curiosity. Slasher type films usually are relegated to a few overused locations, the most notorious being camp grounds or high school/college campuses. The backdrop of Cannes adds a little excitement to the low budget production it would not have been able to achieve in yet another sorority house. And while Munro looks gorgeous as usual and it si fun to look for the fleeting faces of celebrities scuttling from ceremony to ceremony the star of the show is Joe Spinell. He is creepy and pathetic as cab driver and loser Vinny Durand who is beyond hope in his delusions that he is a great film director and that horror queen Jana Bates (Munro) will star in his ‘next’ (actually first and only) horror feature if he could only get the opportunity to talk to her and pitch his idea. He does not get much support from his co-workers or his mom (played by Spinel’s real mother Filomena Spagnuolo). The early scenes of the film of Vinny pleading with his mother to support him were shot in Spinell’s real New York City apartment. Mom just wants Vinny to give up his obsessions and have a plate of macaroni but Vinny is off to Cannes France to meet Jana and shoot his brilliant horror film.

All he has to do now is have the chance to talk to Jana and he is certain she will go along with the project. But first he has to contact her and that is not easy as she is the hot time at this year’s film festival with the judges even selecting her performance in her new film Scream over actresses like Meryl Streep and Jane Fonda. She is always accompanied by her entourage that includes her current boyfriend Alan (played by Munro’s real life husband at the time Judd Hamilton who also wrote and produced the film). Also hovering just outside the shadows is her estranged and former mentor husband Bret Bates.  While the relationship is on the skids Bates still manages Jana and produces her films. As well Jana is the object of adoring horror fans and paparazzi. Vinny begins having melt downs as his attempts to pitch his idea to Jana or her agent are foiled one after the other. Soon bodies start popping up and Jana is stalked by a masked cameraman. Notes are sent telling future victims ‘you have made your last picture show’. Among some of the people stalked and eliminated is director David Winter (formally Mr. Linda Lovelace) who plays Stanley Kline a horror film director with a popular but revolting, in Vinny’s opinion, slasher film.

Now I am trying to change some of my approach here and I am giving less spoilers to films and shorter synopsises. I do not think there is anything terrible about spoilers but I am just trying to do something different for some reviews. I feel it is sort of hard not to give something away here and there but in the case of The Last Horror Movie there are actually a couple little twists and turns that would be ruined if I gave them away now. While the film is low budget it has some clever little moments. It works as a satire of the whole horror film business as well as the superficiality of awards ceremonies in general. In moment we will explore Mania which came out before Last Horror Movie and, as I said already, also featured Munro as Spinell’s object of obsession. While Vinny is obviously an extension or reinterpretation of the character Zito in Maniac there are differences to be sure. I would actually recommend seeing Maniac first then this film so you can see some of the similarities and, I believe, deliberate differences in the characters. Spinell is a bit funnier in this film and the conflicts with his mother who admonishes him constantly for his ‘crazy ideas’ is funny without ever becoming corny or contrived. The last line of the film between Vinny and his mom is worth the wait. An interesting little film.

MANIAC

1980/Director: William Lustig/Writers: C.A. Rosenberg, Joe Spinell

Cast: Joe Spinell, Caroline Munro, Abigail Clayton, Kelly Piper, Rita Montone, Tom Savini

For my article about the William Lustig film Maniac I simply scanned over the disk for some new screen captures and watched a few scenes over to refresh my memory. I will probably rewatch the film in its entirety soon but I have seen the movie a few times in the past and will rely more on my general impressions of the movie from past viewings than from a fresh rewatch. I first rented the film on VHS back when I lived in San Antonio Texas. It was time when I was renting stuff I read from films books I owned, like The Psychotronic Video Guide and my collection of horror books. There was no Internet back then to learn about films. The reason I watched the film was because Tom Savini did the effects and it was a period when I wanted to see every film Savini had something to do with. Sadly the guy now has decided to be an actor rather than a special effects master. In fact even back then he appeared in many of the films he worked on, such as George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead and Martin. Savini’s make up work on this feature are some of his goriest to be sure. One classic scene is almost universally reviled by critics and it features Savini himself getting his head blown off by a point blank range shot gun blast. It still looks horrible three decades later.

Now the real problem with this movie is not Savini’s graphic make-up effects or the over top performance by star and co-writer Joe Spinell. Both Savini and Spinell are great, as is Carolyn Munro as Anne who is pursued by Spinell’s psychotic Zito but it is with Lustig’s often shoddy direction and the overly bleak story by Spinell and C.A. Rosenberg. Of course I still recommend the film. All films here at The Uranium Café are recommended and films I like. But there is some reason I did not want to sit through it yet one time to do a better review. And yet it must say something about me that I have seen the film three or four times already. I just am not in the mood for the film’s despairing atmosphere right now is all. The same issue with the German film Necromantik. I have been wanting to rewatch it for a review but do not want to put myself through the experience right now. And I may be too harsh on Lustig’s direction since the film had a very low budget of about $350,000 and was shot, like The Last Horror Movie, guerrilla style (meaning usually with out filming permits fro locations). But some of the editing and production gaffaws are simply creative negligence. There is one scene near the beginning of the film where Zito picks up a hooker on the street and rents out a hotel room. After minimal foreplay Zito is on top of the gal strangling her to death. Seems simple enough and yet as the scene switched between shots of Zito’s maniacal face and the struggling hooker it is clear that there are two actresses being used in the close up shots. It is stuff like this that could be corrected or avoided with a little patience. And yet those glitches give the film some much needed campyness as the overall tone is unrelentingly grim and depressing.

The story is about a lonely and schzoid landlord named Zito who keeps a collection of mannequins in his apartment. He likes to adorn the mannequins with the scalps of real women and then have conversations with them in his bed. He has monologues  with his dead mother who was a cruel, over bearing prostitute. After a while Zito gets bored with his current bed partner and set off to find a new victim. Any film like this requires suspension of disbelief and acceptance of certain implausibility’s. But the relationship that develops between obviously sleazy Zito and photographer Anne is a little too much. Anne accidentally snaps a photo of Zito and while attempting to retrieve the picture, for whatever reason, Zito develops an appreciation for Anne’s work and soon he and Anne are dating and she actually seems attracted to the scum bag in some scenes. Now whether Zito is a twisted serial killer or not is beside the point. It is stretching things a little too much to think hot looking professional photographer Anne would waste much, if any, time on him or give a damn about any of his opinions on her work. The gore sequences are great if you like that sort of things and Spinell is over the top in a fun sort of way but the film lacks any of the wit or humor found in The Last Horror Movie and one wonders if Spinell is trying to deliver a film similar to Taxi Driver in which he a small role.

An interesting piece of trivia is that the song Maniac, used in the film Flash Dance, by Michael Sembello was inspired by the film. It was not, as some sites report, written specifically for the film. Nonetheless the score was disqualified for an Oscar award after it was discovered it was not written specifically for Flash Dance. In fact some lyrics were altered for the Flash Dance version. Here is an example of before and after Maniac lyrics:

Before:
He’s a maniac, maniac that’s for sure,
He will kill your cat and nail him to the door
After:
She’s a maniac, maniac on the floor
And she’s dancing like she’s never danced before

The movie was released without a rating and it is felt it would have received an X rating at the time of its release for its extreme violence. Spinell wanted to do a sequel to the film but died in 1989. It was certainly a film role only he could pull off. However that has stopped Lustig from sealiong a deal in 2009 to do a remake of the film. I just think one Maniac is enough and who in God’s name could ever weep over a mannequin wearing a bloody scalp the way Joe Spinell could?

]]> http://uraniumcafe-the.com/2010/03/21/the-uranium-cafe-double-feature-slimy-joe-spinell-stalks-poor-caroline-munroe-in-two-films-1980s-maniac-and-1982s-the-last-horror-movie/feed/ 5 http://uraniumcafe-the.com/2010/02/17/1973s-santo-and-blue-demon-vs-dracula-and-the-wolfman-santo-y-blue-demon-vs-dracula-y-el-hombre-lobo/ http://uraniumcafe-the.com/2010/02/17/1973s-santo-and-blue-demon-vs-dracula-and-the-wolfman-santo-y-blue-demon-vs-dracula-y-el-hombre-lobo/#comments Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:13:22 +0000 Uranium Willy http://uraniumcafe-the.com/?p=9123

SANTO AND BLUE DEMON vs. DRACULA AND THE WOLFMAN (Santo y Blue Demon vs Drácula y el Hombre Lobo)

1973/ Director: Miguel M. Delgado/Writer: Alfredo Salazar

Cast: Santo, Blue Demon, Aldo Monti, Augustín Martínez Solares, Nubia Martí, María Eugenia San Martín, Wally Barron

A while back I got in a bunch of Santo and general Mexican horror films from Cinemageddon. I used up much of my precious ratio there to appropriate about a couple dozen films only to find out later more than half were not even dubbed or subtitled. I learned to read the little review section better after this. My ratio still has not recovered and I am sort of burned out with that place and how hard it is to maintain a good ratio. But they do have a great selection of Santos films and I even went back and got a few titles from the first batch over again and was careful to get them dubbed or subbed this time. One of the films I got in was the really great Santo and Blue Demon vs. Dracula and the Wolfman. Blue Demon is Santo’s wrestling buddy and sometimes opponent in the ring, but always friend and equal in crime fighting and saving the world outside the ring. Both actors (who go by their wrestling names) are in their fifties in this 1973 film directed by Miguel M. Delgado and written by luchadora and Mexican horror veteren Alfredo Salazar. The version I have looks nice. It is shot in color but for some reason the later color Santo adventures look cheesier than the atmospheric ones from the 60’s. The old sets were reminiscent of early Universal horror films. Well with this film the fascination with Universal monsters has returned as Santo and Blue Demon face off against none other than Count Dracula (Aldo Monti who battled Santo in Santo and the Treasure of Dracula ) himself and his nefarious sidekick the Wolfman (Augustín Martínez Solares who also played the beast in Night of the Bloody Apes). Delgado would go on to direct the Santo and Blue Demon vs Frankenstein but I have not seen that one yet and not even sure if I have it. If I don’t I will have to get it (damn my CG ratio) and hope that it is as fun as this one was.

One thing I liked about this Santo feature was that the story did not cut to a wrestling match every ten minutes. In some Santo it does not matter how dire the situation if there is a match to be held at the area Santo excuses himself and goes and whoops up on some poor bastard who doesn’t stand a chance and then is back in time to give a similar ass whooping to the bad guy and all his cronies. In SBDvsDatWM (that title is killing me) there are only three wrestling bouts but they go for three full rounds each. I usually prefer to watch all of a film unless I hate it but I confess I hit fast forward on the wrestling matches. The film opens up with a wrestling match and I had a hard time telling who was who for a while but finally figured out Santo was the guy in long pants. We are introduced to Santo’s friend Prof. Cristaldi and his family, his daughter Laura and her daughter Rosita and Laura’s sister Lina. Lina looks to be about 19 or 20 years old at best but this is fifty something Santo’s girlfriend. There is a kissing scene and it is a little weird to see a fifty year old wrestling guy in a silver mask locking lips with a teenager. A little weird is all. Well seems that Prof. Cristali’s ancestor got on Dracula and the Wolfman’s bad sides about 400 years ago when the ancestor got the better of the duo by means of a magic dagger and sealed them up in tombs in Transylvania. But they have been delivered all the way to Mexico in there tombs by the assistance of hunchback Eric (Wally Barron) who hopes that the Count will be gracious with hisa gold in rewarding him for all his troubles. We can figure Eric paid all shipping expenses himself and hunchbacks usually aren’t in the upper pay brackets of any society. Prof. Cristali tells anto of his concerns since the end of some sort of ‘cabalist’ period is coming and the Professor believes this is the time Dracula will execute his plans of revenge. Santo brushes it all of a sick practical joke and assures the professor all is safe and that he will guard the old man and his family. Later that same night Eric attacks the Professor in his own bedroom and carries him back to the secret cave. There the greedy hunchback cuts the old man’s throat and revives both Dracula and the Wolfman with the dripping blood.

Santo decides that this case reeks of the supernatural now rather than bad jokes and figures it is best to call in his old luchadora apl the Blue Demon to help out. First we have to watch a three round match between Blue demon and the amazing Renato the Hippie. Of course the hippie gets his but whooped and soon the old chums are getting out their radio watches and getting ready to save the world from Dracula and the Wolfman. Yes the plan is now larger than simple revenge and soon the scheming pair are changing people into vampires, werewolves and zombies so that after they destroy the Cristaldi family line they go on and do the next logical thing and evil duo would do; rule the world. First the Wolfman has a plan to get inside the Cristaldi family household. First he must change his name to something unassuming and casual like Ruffus Rex in order to blend in. Now he set off to woo Laura Cristaldi and then sacrifice her on the next full moon. When a henchmen suggests they simply kidnap her he rebuffs him with “ that would be too easy”. Yea, why do anything the easy way. He manages to get into the Cristaldi inner circle and kill Luara with little trouble since Santo and Blue Demon are in the parlor too wrapped up in their chess games to notice what is going on in the house they are guarding. Soon the nanny Josefina is bitten by a vampire in her bedroom upstairs and sneaks little Rosita out with her to the secret cave. Later Lina is hypnotized by Dracula outside the window with Santo and Blue Demon right next to her playing chess or reading books and she wanders in a trance off to the secret cave. Later still Santo seems to be losing the chess game and tells Blue Demon he is going to go read some old occult books instead of playing anymore damned chess. While he is in the study reading Blue demon runs outside and is trapped in a net by a bunch of hairy faced wolfmen. He is then drug away to the secret cave and poor Santo is left all alone in the big house looking for all his friends.

Santo manages to find the secret cave and soon he and Blue Demon are doing what they do best; kicking monster butt with their fancy boxing and wrestling moves. To their credit some of the werewolves have some good wrestling maneuvers themselves and land a couple punches but they are no match for these two old luchadora’s. The final showdown is Santo doing a double kick while hanging from a rope to the chest of Dracula and the Wolfman and sending them down into a pit fitted with spikes at the bottom. The two heroes here are well past their prime but they give it all they’ve got and do their own stunts in the film. Hell Santo even smooches on girls young enough to be his daughter. Aldo Monti is a pretty decent Mexican Dracula and is all suited up the traditional Bela Lugosi type attire. Augustín Martínez Solares is a fairly suave woflman and wears some sort of shiny disco shirt (trying to compete with Santo’s spiffy yellow button up sweater I imagine) and the wolfman makeup looks like Paul Naschy’s from the Werewolf vs the Vampire Women. It is a fun ride from start to finish and you can see it in its entirety at this link.

GLI AMORI DI ERCOLE (THE LOVES OF HERCULES or HERCULES vs THE HYDRA)

1960/Director: Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia/Writers: Sandro Continenza, Luciano Doria

Cast: Mickey Hargitay, Jayne Mansfield, Massimo Serato, René Dary, Moira Orfei, Gil Vidal

AKA:
Hercules and the Hydra
Les amours d’Hercule (France)

This film has the dubious honor of having remained in my draft folder the longest of any post draft ever. I would have to double check the date but I am sure it goes back to June or July. In fact the post was the last post I had made before my site was hacked back then and a three week nightmare began. I still have the PDFs and pics in a folder on my hard drive and tried to put the post back together and after I had finished this and a couple other posts lost during the hacker period I sort of forgot about them. The others have been completed and this is the last of the old posts that have been locked up in my draft folder since summer time. Another problem here is that I cannot find the movie file. It is burned on a DVD disc somewhere but I have so many I gave up looking for it for now. Typically I would prefer to fast forward through a film I have not seen in a while to refresh my memory before reviewing but in this case that will not happen. I will refer to the PDF files I made of reviews and my memory of the film, since it did leave and impression. In fact, I want to see it again as it is a fine camp classic and Mickey Hargitay’s beardless Hercules is one of the more unique Peplum/Sword and Sandal performances in the history of the genre. Couple that wit the fact that his co-star in the film is none other than Mrs. Mickey Hargitay herself, Janyne Mansfield, and how can a person go wrong if his inclination is to spend a lazy night on the sofa watching some fine Italian made cheese.

Hargitay did not make too many films and by far his most famous role was in Bloody Pit of Horror (1965) where he hammed it up supremely as the Crimson Executioner. Mansfield was in Italy filming, I believe, Primitive Love (L’amore Primitivo) where Pit was also shot. In fact Italy is where most of Hargitay’s films, many of them peplum, were shot between the period of 1960 to 1967. He and Mansfield shot Loves of Hercules (Gli Amore di Ercule) in 1960 and certainly as the Son of Zeus Hargitay does not have the command of Steve Reeves or Reg Park but as far as peplum fare goes this is one of the better offerings. The original Italian 1962 title of the film is Gli Amori di Ercule and translates as The Loves of Hercules. The film was purchased in 1966 my Walter Manley Enterprises (who had something to do with the production of The Green Slime as well) and the title was changed to Hercules vs. the Hydra. There is not really a hydra in the film but rather a huge three headed dragon. I am not an expert on Greek mythology by any stretch. In fact my education in these matters probably comes from watching these sorts of films. But usually the underworld of Hades, where Hercules descends to in order to clear his name in a murder rap, is guarded by a three dog called Cerberus or something like that. The Hydra was killed by Hercules as one of his twelve labors but the Hydra had nine heads. Anyway after you see this ‘Hydra’ and how cheesy it looks just moving its three heads around, looking as though they are being hoisted around by strings or moved by guys inside the costume with sticks, then you will only be able to imagine how whacky it would have looked with another six heads. But that would have been great in my book. The cheesier the better for a film like this.

Before a little synopsis of the film I will state here that I will avoid all the jokes about males in peplum films having bigger boobs than the female leads or that the women look like drag queens. I love the way Italian women look and the more eyeliner and mascara they wear and the bigger their hair the better. And I like body building and the way the guys look. I once told a acquaintance that I had found the Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary Pumping Iron on DVD here in China and he went into something about how body building films are the most homo-erotic things in the world. What? This is another weird line of ridicule peplum films receive as if there is something wrong with something being homo-erotic, whatever that is. Sounds like a criticism made by someone who cannot do five push-ups. I like the way body builders look and Mickey Hargitay, Mr. Universe of 1955, looks chiseled and tough as Hercules though hardly as imposing as Steve Reeves. Also is the ‘controversial’ issue of the beardless Hercules. I never thought it about really until reading reviews of the film online but I will agree that Hercules does look more like how I imagine him to look with a beard and I think Hargitay would have looked better sporting some face fuzz for the role but their may have been issues with all that. Maybe his beard simply looks crappy or the shooting schedule did not have enough time to allow a guy grow a real Hercules type of beard. We may never know the real reasons why Hargitay was a beardless Hercules. It is one of those mysteries of life that only the Oracle can answer.

The story finds Hercules off somewhere completing the labors imposed upon him by the gods. While away his humble village is attacked by the army of the evil king Eurytus who orders Hercules’s wife Megara (Sandrine) killed in the attack. Big mistake of course. I mean of all the women to order to bump off right why choose the wife of a demi-god who is off completing labors that no mortal man could even consider attempting. Eurytus is soon assassinated himself by the leader of the army Licos (Massimo Serato) who has plans to ascend to the throne of the kingdom of Oechalia which is now being run by Eurytus’s daughter Dianira (Jayne Mansfield). Hercules receives word of the destruction of his village and the murder of his wife but looks more like he found out some neighborhood teenager scratched his chariot. He is to a man to show his sensitive side I guess and he soon storms off to Oechalia and beats down the gates of the city and demands justice. He learns from Dianira that her father himself is dead and that she has inherited his sins and must pay for them with her life. Hercules will not kill a hapless woman but settles, instead, for hurling huge axes at her while she is all tied up to a huge wooden board. The idea is for Hercules to sever her bonds and not plant an axe in her pretty skull. If he does not kill her it means she has been cleansed of her inherited crimes. Of course Hercules does not kill her and she melts in his arms and in no time he has forgotten why he came to Oechalia, to avenage his murdered wife Megara. His grieving period is over and he is falling in love with buxom Dianira. She is having the same warm feeling for Hercules but she is betrothed in one of those pesky arranged marriages to her cousin Achillos (Gil Vidal). Not sure if he is a first cousin or what. Later Hercules’s and Dianira’s love for each is cemented when he saves her from a stampede of cattle and a Quaalude sedated bull. This bull puts up no resistance at all but Hercules insists on killing it with his recognizable dagger which for some reason he leaves at the scene. Bad move since later Achillos and Hercules have a heated argument about Dianira and who gets to love her (Megara is out of the script altogether now). Dianira stops the men from fighting (which would have resulted in Hercules tearing the other guy’s spinal cord from his body probably) and Hercules can’t take it all anymore and decides to leave Oechalia. Later Achillos is murdered and guess whose dagger is surprisingly found in his back: Hercules’s!

Needless to say the real villain here is Licos and he wants to frame Hercules for Achillos’s murder. I am not sure what this supposed to accomplish other than making the citizens of Oechalia have a bad opinion of Hercules. Hercules does not seem to be the guy of guy who will turn himself over to the authorities to be tried and convicted of thrumped up charges. Hell, I doubt id Herucles actually did murder someone you could slap the cuffs on him and drag him away with your larynx still in your throat. Well what it does accomplish is that Hercules set of on a mission to prove his innocence. Seems there is a witness to Hercules being seen after the cow caper without his dagger. Hercules set off to the Underworld to retrieve the witness who will clear up his name and in the course of things encounters numerous monsters and perilous situations. First there is the three headed hydra that loses a head to Hercules’s hacking sword, but it still manages to knock Hercules with one it’s remaining heads and sends Mickey Hargitay into some of his the best acting of his career as his wobbles to and fro like a blind drunk in a tavern staggering to get to the pisser. He is stunned and is whisked off to the underworld’s Land of the Amazons led by Queen Hoppolyta. Hypolyta is given a magic potion by her sorceress adviser Magah that makes the queen resemble Dianira, except she has red hair now instead of black, and soon Hercules is swooning all over the place for the evil queen. The drawback to this romantic situation for Hercules is that the queens lover’s eventually wind up as trees in her orchard of ex-lovers. Back in Oechalia Dianira spurns Lico’s advances and winds up in the dungeon which causes all sorts of political intrigue. Well, causes some anyway. Hercules of course avoid becoming a talking tree but they get their just revenge on Hypolyta and grope her to death. Hercules teams up with a band of Dianira’s supporters and seize back power after he has a struggle with an ape man to rescue Dianira. Of curse everyone lives happily ever after and the name of Hercule’s murdered wife Megara, for whom this entire adventure began, is never spoken again.

I am a fan of peplum and I liked this film. I grew up on the stuff and I do not mind the corny dubbed dialog and the fact that English speaking Mickey Hargitay’s voice is not even his own here. Some people blast the film of course and it is not for every one’s taste to be sure. The version I have looks nice as far as the colors go and the sets are not too bad. I like the huge hydra puppet and the Gumbyesque tree men and it is cool to see Mansfield and Hargitay ham it all together in this enjoyable little camp classic. Included at the bottom are a couple audio samples I lifted from the film as I am testing out some new audio options for the Café. Great bad acting, horrendous dialog,  Mansfield’s cleavage, Hargitay’s cleavage (okay, so I made one male boob joke), fakey monsters and names impossible to remember from one scene to next. A totally uranium charged feature for fine cheese connoisseurs only.

THEME FROM THE LOVES OF HERCULES
Download audio file (HerculesvstheHydraOverture.mp3)
HERCULES TALKS TO THE ORACLE
Download audio file (HerculesvstheHydraHerculesandtheOracle.mp3)

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TODAY’S TANTILIZING THRILLER:

MESA OF LOST WOMEN

THE NEANDERTHAL MAN

1953/Director: Ewald André Dupont/Writers: Aubrey Wisberg,
Jack Pollexfen

Cast: Robert Shayne, Joyce Terry, Richard Crane, Doris Merrick, Beverly Garland, Robert Long, Tandra Quinn (as Jeanette Quinn)

I had heard about The Neanderthal Man for awhile and refrained from seeing it even after I had gotten it and burned it to disk a couple months back. I just figured it would be Z-movie fodder for a commentary here and nothing more. Well it is not only that but it was a pretty enjoyable slice of cheese. The acting is pretty bad but with some decent moments (Beverly Garland plays the waitress Nola), the monster makeup by Harry Thomas (Missile to the Moon, Frankenstein’s Daughter, The Mole Men, Killers from Space and some Ed Wood Jr. classic like Plan Nine from Outer Space and Night of the Ghouls and loads of TV shows including The Munsters) is some of the worst of the man’s career and yet is perfectly campy and likable, and the scientific explanations are golden. I have long been planning an ‘audio excerpt’ style posit here and have done a few experiments and I am sure that the lecture given by Professor Groves to his incredulous colleagues will wind up there eventually. The film was produced and written by the team of Aubrey Wiseberg and Jack Pollexfen who either separately or between them churned out, as writers and producers, some of the greatest horror/sci-fi B-movie classics of the 50′s and 60′s. True classics  like The Man from Planet X, Daughter of Dr. Jekyll, Captive Women, and The Atomic Brain (Monstrosity) and many more.

The film is sometimes called a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story but I think the story is more similar to something like Ken Russell’s Altered States. IN the Dr. Jekyll story there is something appealing and addictive about the character of Mr. Hyde that makes the urge for the timid Dr. Jekyll to trade places periodically reasonable. In Altered States Edward Jessup (played superbly by William Hurt in his film debut) seeks to ‘de-evolve’ not only to man’s primordial past but to some state of consciousness that existed at the time of the big bang. In The Neanderthal Man Prof. Clifford Groves (Robert Shanye/Shane) is content to stop at man’s primordial past. He is convinced that the size of a animal’s brain determines the animal level of intelligence. While his colleagues scoff at him Groves has the last laugh since the idea is in fact true according to modern science. He (or the script writers) makes an error in stating that the brain of Neanderthal man’s was larger than modern man’s and his dubious associates scoff and ask for someh8itng that drives groves off the deep end. What do they ask for? Well how about a little proof. I am actually getting way ahead of myself here but I love this scene of the film so much I got a little impatient.

Better to start at the beginning when a local hunter in California’s Sierra Madres spots a creature that is three times the size of a mountain lion and has what appear to be tusks for fangs. When he tries to retell the story at the local watering hole he is laughed out of the place by the regulars. Well the guy did see a huge cat but it was hardly three times the size of a mountain lion and it did not have tusks. In fact the creature was nothing more than stock footage of an average sized tiger. Later when game warden George Oakes (Robert Long) is driving home from the same bar the creature leaps onto the hood of his car. Now the creature is a stuffed tiger with tusks implanted in its mouth for a shot that lasts about half a second. Oakes manages to get a plaster imprint of the creatures foot print and takes to the office of scientist Dr. Ross Harkness (Richard Crane) who after having a look at the plaster cast gets upset and makes sure Oakes knows he has no time for practical jokes. This is the paw print of a saber tooth tiger which he states has been extinct for millions of years. Actually they have only been extinct for about ten or twenty thousand years but why squabble over a few eons. Harkness goes to the same bar and there meets Ruth Marshall (Doris Merrick) who needs a lift to her fiancée’s place. Her fiancée happens to be Prof. Groves who I introduced earlier. When Harkness and Ruth arrive at this place his daughter Jan (Joyce Terry) informs them that he is away at his lecture for the Naturalist Society or something. At the lecture we get the idea that Groves is not only a driven and obsessed man but his basically a rude prick as well. After the group goes to ridiculous extreme of asking for a little proof to support his theories that Neanderthal man was as intelligent (or more so actually) than modern man Groves storms out the meeting and back to his house where he shows his rude behavior extends to guest in his house and his fiancée as well. He quickly kicks Harkness out of his place and is so cold and distant to Ruth we have to wonder what she sees in him.

Soon Groves is in his basement laboratory shooting up some de-evolution serum that he has already tried on one of his house cats (that explains the saber toothed tiger) and he soon transforms into all the proof he will ever need to convince those blind fools at the Naturalist Society; a dim witted, murderous ape man who roams the country side killing everything its path. He does manage to open the window (unlike the saber toothed tiger which simply jumped through the glass) so in that sense he has the intelligence of a three year child maybe. I mean a modern three year old child of course. Soon Harkness is piecing two and tow together because he continues to hang around the professor’s house and snoop through his lab and photo collection. In that photo collection are some pretty compromising images of deaf/mute illiterate house keeper Celia (Tandra Quinn of Mesa of Lost Women). No they are not of Celia in her undies doing the cha cha for the doctor but they show her in various stages of de-evolution rather than undress. Of course Grove’s already asinine and sour personality is deteriorating more. He totally gives the brush off to codependent Ruth despite her playfully mussing up his greasy hair and calling him a ‘lug’. That’s usually melts my heart even in my most manically obsessed states of mind. The masochist gal leaves his lab letting him know he knows where to find her when he needs another human door mat. The film winds up with Grove’s dying at the claws of his other house cat that Harkness injected with serum earlier in the film as a test (and that saber toothed tiger escaped from the window as well). Certainly not a film to go into with a serious state of mind. The dialog is riotous and the acting labored at best. The character of Prof. Groves is surely one of the strangest mad doctors ever. He spends the bulk of his time on screen grimaces ‘madly’ and insulting everyone in his life. The character of Celia is interesting and the fact the Professor hires a deaf/mute who cannot read or write so he can experiment on her with de-evolution drugs is some indication of his twisted personality. The weird thing is the character of Ruth and exactly what her history with the Professor is. That is never explained and no explanation would suffice probably. The film is only about 78 minutes and not a waste of a night on the sofa at all. I will probably watch this again someday, if for no other reason to ponder the complexities of human love as it is presented between needy Ruth and half human (even without de-evolution serums coursing through his veins) Prof. Groves.