If you do not know who El Santo (The Saint) is he was a real professional wrestler in Mexico who also became a matinee idol and comic book hero. He made some 50 or more films in his career and a few were imported into the US by K. Gordon Murray, most noted for importing and dubbing loads of children’s fairy tale films. Santo in the Wax Museum was one of the more successful Santo films because it was one of them that was dubbed into English. I also have a about six or seven other Santo films here and the other one I watched, Santo and the Diabolical Brain is in Spanish with English subtitles. I don’t know why, but I like some movies more dubbed. Not because I am lazy and cannot read subs, but it really adds to the campiness of the already corny translated dialog, as in the case of many of the Toho kaiju (strange monster) films. And most certainly the dubbing adds to the zaniness of this Santo (called Samson for some reason in the Murray releases, as if gringos can’t accept a Spanish sounding name) film from 1963, made when Santo himself was already 45 years old.

A series of murders and disappearances  are tied to people who have recently visited Dr. Karols’s (Claudio Brook) wax museum. The museum is a strange collection of figures on one floor, ranging from Gandhi to Gary Cooper, but housed in the lower level is Dr. Karol’s collection of infamous murderers and monsters, the pride of his little museum. When photographer Susana Mendoza vanishes Santo is called in by a friend to investigate. The first part of the movie seems to plod along and I almost forgot it was a Santo film, until he arrives on the scene in his trademark silver mask, tights and cape. He rides around in a sports car and has a “Batcave” type laboratory that seems to be located in his apartment. Later when thugs set out to kill him they just come in through his back door. He is renowned for his crime solving abilities but once in a while he has to put the case on the back burner and rush off to the arena to do some wrestling. In fact there are three bouts in the film.

The movie culminates of course with Santo fighting the bad guys and monsters (humans changed into wax figure zombies by Dr. Karol, who plans to somehow destroy the world with them) with lots of wrestling moves. The girl is saved from being turned into a “panther girl” and put in the museums lower floor and in one scene Santo cooks four or five monsters with a vat of boiling wax. Claudio Brook is great as Dr. Karol and in one scene does a classic mad scientist laugh that goes on and on. Santo is really strange as he stands around people’s apartments discussing the case in his mask and with his exposed chest and belly seemingly drawing no special attention from anyone. Like I said the dubbing adds to the fun, especially Dr. Karol’s radio announcer monotone. I liked it a lot and look forward to getting my others Santos films burned so I can lie back on my sofa and be thrilled at the marvel that is El Santo. For cheese lovers only.

SCHOOL OF ROCK

2003/ Director: Richard Linklater/ Writer: Mike White

Cast: Jack Black,  Joan Cusack, Mike White, Adam Pascal, Lucas Papaelias, Chris Stack, Sarah Silverman,  Chris Stack, Lucas Babin, Joey Gaydos Jr., Miranda Cosgrove, Frank Whaley

A few things make this movie a special entry into the now growing list of  Uranium Café  movie commentaries. It is the first entry into my new comedy category. I love a good comedy film and this one is a great one, which I shall expound on further soon enough. I can be really picky abut comedies and find most modern comedies really lacking. Along with being a genuinely funny film it is also more of a popular and financially successful film than most of the selections I pander to here, which typically tend to be rather obscure films for one reason or another. For example, perhaps they are great films, like The Servant or The Collector, but cater to a more selective audience. Or maybe they are just bad films and cater to hardly anyone but people like me who have a streak of masochism in them. I would bet that most readers of the Café have heard of School of Rock (or The School of Rock as it is sometimes listed) whether they have seen it or not. Another thing that sits this film apart is that it falls into a unique category (maybe I should create one with this title) of films I have seen more than ten times.

There is a special reason for this I should explain. Because I was an evil man in my past life and I must work out my bad karma in this one while I still have time I am now teaching ESL (English as a Second Language) in China. When there is a day when I just cannot bear to listen to my lazy ass students I (like any other poor soul trapped in a similar situation) I fall back on the mutli-media learning center or, room with the DVD player and projector as it should be called. One has to be selective about what they show of course and two movies I love to show the most is Eight Legged Freaks and School of Rock, with The Incredibles coming in third. Those films will wind up on the Café in due time. For now we take a look at one of my very favorites films of all friggin’ time… School of Rock.

The film is directed by Texas native Richard Linklater (Slacker, Dazed and Confused, A Scanner Darkly) and written by Mike White, who also stars in the film. It was conceived written with Jack Black in mind as the lead character, Dewey Finn. Dewey is basically a loser with minimal talent but high in the sky rock-n-roll aspirations. He comes from the old school of rock music when the scene was dominated by the likes of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, The Who and all the other truly great bands. His taste is impeccable, but it is his marginal talent and ego-centric attitude that gets him booted from his band No Vacancy. This puts Dewey in a pickle since he was counting on winning this year’s battle of bands and using the cash to sort out his life. Among life’s pressures is the fact he is behind in rent to his roommate and former rocker (from the Goth band Maggot Death) and now substitute teacher Ned Sneebly, played by Mike White. Then to top it all off  there is  Ned’s overbearing girlfriend Patty, who would like nothing better than for Dewey to hit the road, whether he catches up his back rent or not. With his back against the wall Dewey takes on a substitute teaching job meant for the now responsible Ned at the number one private elementary prep school in the state, Horace Green Elementary. He is greeted by the high strung Ms. Mullins-played deftly by Joan Cusack- and is introduced to his class, a collection of serious students all with eyes on ivy league colleges and gold stars on the performance chart. The chart is ripped to shreds by Dewey who exclaims “What kind of school is this!” and he proceeds to assign recess to the class while he watches the clock tick away.

Things change when Dewey discovers a lot of the class are talented musicians and his sites are set once again on the battle of the bands and the $20,000 prize. He gets his gear from his beat up old van and Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love plays as he runs down the hall and prepares to introduce the students to new class project… a live rock and roll show that all schools will competing in and will land the winners a recommendation to a top ranking college on their permanent records. The kids are all perfect comedic foils for Jack Black to play off of. Summer Hathaway is the class “factotor” who is as serious a student as there is and has no intention of being a groupie for Dewey’s project and is promoted to band manager. Zach is the talented but melancholy lead guitarist who is has some home problems with his over controlling father. Lawrence (Larry) is a shy, insecure Asian kid who plays hot keyboards and is assured by Dewey that he is way cool and will be the “bee’s knees” onstage. Katie, called Posh Spice in a great scene, is the steady playing bassist who Dewey teaches to show a pouty face. On drums is class rebel Freddy Jones (“Spazzy Magee”) who struggles with his instrument but is soon studying Keith Moon, Buddy Rich and Ed Shaughnessy. Other classmates include the swishy “Mr Fancy Pants” Billy who designs some snazzy glam rock outfits for the band that sends Dewey into a fit, Tomika, an insecure over weight girl who belts out Aretha Franklin tunes, and a collection of back up singers and security personnel that collectively have a perfect and rare film chemistry.

Needless to say there are hurdles galore with trying to set up the gig with Ms Mullins and the show organizer (Frank Whaley) but in the end they get the chance to play. In a classic scene they celebrate their enthusiasm while Led Zeppelin’s The Immigrant Song blares over Dewey’s van speaker. Jack Black actually begged the surviving band members to use the song. It was a difficult task  given the band’s  reputation for not allowing their songs or logos to be used to benefit someone else’s commercial undertakings. A video of Black begging in posted below.

It is uncovered of course that Dewey is not a teacher and has been pretending to be Ned all along after Patty rats him out and even calls the cops on him. But in a scene “…that is so punk” the kids get the school bus to take them to the “Mozart concert field trip” and pick up a despondent and beaten down Dewey who gets out of his bed and goes out to do the only thing he can do… rock. He admits that Zach is the better player and song writer and they play Zach’s song School of Rock (If You Wanna Be A Teacher’s Pet), rather than Dewey’s epic opus,  Legend of the Rent. They lose out to his old band of posers No Vacancy and again Dewey is shattered, but the kids remind him that rock is not about winning or losing but about putting on one great show, which they did. The movie wraps up the dissatisfied audience chanting “School of Rock…” and they return for an encore of AC/CD’s It’s a Long Way To The Top If You Wanna Rock-n-Roll. The humor continues as the credits roll and when it is all over it is a movie I could easily sit and watch again in a day or two if I had a hankering.

I really am not sure why I do not tire of this film. On one level it is really just a formula film and the type I normally avoid. The characters are stereotyped and the storyline is predictable even before you watch the movie. Losers or outcasts find themselves by the end of the movie by being true to their dreams and doing the best that they can. If only real life were so simple. Everyone’s self esteem is bolstered after performing the song they worked so hard at and against the wishes of everyone else in the film who only wanted to hold them all down. There is not a bad word in the film nor any overtly sexual situations or violence. It is good clean fun and whenever I play it for my students here it is received with enthusiasm. They laugh at all the funny parts (remember that English is not their native language) and get the moral of the story, whatever that may ultimately be. I avoided this movie for a couple years because I just did not think I would like it. The picture of Jack Black with a Gibson SG surrounded by little kids just reeked of corny formula. And on one level it is just that, but it is so well done and so enjoyable I can only say if you have not seen it yet please run out and get it. It is one worth owning. And in a potentially controversial statement I feel much better than Black’s other rock-n-roll movie Tenacious D.

JACK BLACK BEGS LED ZEPPELIN TO USE THE IMMIGRANT SONG FOR

CRUCIAL SCENE IN SCHOOL OF ROCK

THE BRAIN EATERS

1958/Director: Bruno VeSota/ Writer: Gordon Urquhart

Cast: Ed Nelson (also producer), Leonard Nimoy, Alan Frost, Joanna Lee, Jody Fair, David Hughes, Robert Ball, Greigh Phillips, Orville Sherman

This not a film to write home about in any sense of the word-however it is film to do a post on The Uranium Cafe about obviously- but at a mere sixty minutes and featuring an early performance by Leonard Nimoy (billed as Leonard Nemoy) it is not a total waste of time. It was produced by and starring B-movie and TV staple Ed Nelson and directed by character actor Bruno VeSota (the sexually frustrated fat guy in Attack of the Giant Leeches) and so based on The Puppet Master by Robert A. Heinlein that AIP was sued for outright plagiarism. Roger Corman arranged to have the matter settled out of court for $5000 and the promise that Heinlein receive no credit for “inspiring” Gordon Urqhart’s lifeless screenplay. But as I said, the film is not really that bad that it cannot be seen and enjoyed if there is nothing else on.

The story moves along at a tolerable pace and is aided by an often campy and unnecessary narration. For example in one scene we are told that the heroes are visiting the local telegraph station, but there is not need to inform us of this since we can see with own two eyes that they are doing this. But it adds for some laughs, though I assume the are unintended.

The basic story is that the residents of peaceful Riverdale Illinois have not only recently been plagued by violent murders and now must contend with the sudden appearance a huge alien craft that has either come from space or the bowels of the Earth. I am not clear on this. The mystery is compounded when a scientist believed long lost reappears from the craft after some fifty years. Some of the town’s folk have fallen prey to small parasitic organisms that look like little “tribbles” (as in the classic Star Trek episode) with pipe cleaners for antennae that attach to the base of their necks and control their thoughts and actions. Scientist Paul Kettering (Ed Nelsen) is hot on the mystery and even journeys into the alien craft seeking answers, which are not forthcoming. A lot of the action winds up being fist fights or gun battles between the infected and uninfected, or verbal sparring between everyone and the cantankerous Senator Powers (Cornelius Keefe, billed as Jack Hill and so it is not director Jack Hill in an early acting role as is often thought). On a return trip inside the ship Kettering finds another long lost scientist, Professor Cole under total control of the alien creatures and who is played by Leonard Nimoy, but you would not know if not for the voice. The story ends with high voltage wires frying the little brain eaters to death and the hero dying to save the girl.

The movie has potential with the material but does not do too much with it. What have been better is if the people under the control of the creatures were not so apparent. Some act like zombies practically. It would have had more tension had the cast and audience not known who was and was not infected, like in Invasion of the Body Snatchers or The Thing. I would also say a little more violence would have helped, as well as more frightening creatures. To the film’s credit it does not go over board with scientific explanations and long dialogs as is typical of a lot of films of the period. The movie takes itself too seriously and the laughs are unintentional, which can always make for a good time.

The movie poster is one of my favorite, but here is no scene in the entire film like it. There is no woman with vampire fangs and exposed brain, or hordes of people fleeing some terrible monster. In fact the monsters are little fuzz balls that a horde of fleeing people would squash. Can I recommend the film? Sure. It is required cult film viewing in fact, and as I said it is only about an hour in length, about the same time you would spend at the dentist’s getting a cleaning. Our next film seems to operate on a lower budget but in my opinion delivers more of the goods in the action and camp departments. So now that our brains have been eaten, let us see what it is like to have our flesh consumed in The Flesh Eaters.

THE FLESH EATERS

1964/Director: Jack Curtis/ Writer: Arnold Drake

Cast: Martin Kosleck, Byron Sanders, Barbara Wilkin, Rita Morley, Ray Tudor

All the action in The Flesh Eaters takes place on a small island off the Atlantic coast where five people must face a ravenous, microscopic organism that consumes human flesh in a matter of seconds. The budget for the film by director Jack Curtis is obviously very low and according to one story was subsidized by winnings his wife made on a TV game show. The characters are all comic bookishly two dimensional (and not surprisingly since the screen writer was comic book writer Arnold Drake): a mad Nazi Scientist, a drunken former screen queen, a down on his luck pilot, a zany beatnik and a good hearted gal with huge hooters she is not adverse to showing now and then.

The evil Nazi Peter Bartell, played by Martin Kosleck-who made a career of playing evil Nazis-is the man experimenting with refining the flesh eater experiment that was begun during the war. His experiments are interrupted when the plane being flown by studly looking Grant Murdoch (Byron Sanders, most famous for his role as Talbot Huddleston in the soap opera The Days of our Lives) has to land off the coast because of a violent storm. With him are his passengers, jaded former movie idol Laura Winters (Rita Morely) and her assistant Jane Letterman (Barbara Wilken). A rule in low budget sci-fi flicks is “lots of dialog over expensive effects” and this movie follows the rule from beginning to end, but the chat is actually not too bad. The acting is campy and hammy often enough but I get the sense the actors and crew knew this and had a little fun with what they were working with, and so The Flesh Eaters becomes a more watchable and enjoyable ride than The Brain Eaters.

The group is joined later by the most obnoxious character in the film, a beatnik named Omar who rants and raves about “love as the weapon” so often that we feel relieved when he has his entrails eaten from the inside out later with a microbe laced martini made by Professor Bartell. In one memorable scene hero Grant Murdoch must rescue lush Laura Winters who has walked out onto a jetty looking for her booze. He gets some of the flesh eaters (usually holes poked in the film) on his leg and they are removed by Bartell’s pocket knife. They need something to stop the bleeding and in no time sexy Jane Letterman removes her blouse and spends the rest of the scene in her white bra. I think my buddy Ghidorah over at How to Maintain your Chainsaw would appreciate this fine scene.

There are some actually gory death scenes in this film which were ahead of their time for 1964. I have mentioned the demise of Omar the beatnik, and a couple characters have similar explicit death scenes later. One thing that threw me for a loop was that at the end the surviving castaways must deal with a huge rubber monster after an attempt to electrify the microbes only cause them to grow and unify. In a very odd twist the thing that kills the beast (remember in old sci-fi flicks there is usually one special thing that does the beast in, never bullets of course, and it must be found and developed in the last twenty minutes of the film) is human blood delivered directly into the creature’s eye. Strange that a thing that consumes human flesh is killed by human blood.

The photography (by Curtis under the pseudonym Carson Davidson) is actually pretty good, and while the effects are pretty low budget they very effective for the time. The two women are pretty sexy and plump and the tension between super jock stud Grant Murdoch and evil genius Peter Bartell is stereotypical and amusing. This is a good bad movie and of the two reviewed here I recommend this one more highly. Not to missed by enthusiasts of midnight cinema.

TARZAN AND THE AMAZONS

1945/ Director: Kurt Neumann/ Writers: Edgar Rice Burroughs (characters)/ John Jacoby (writer)

Cast: Johnny Weissmuller, Johnny Sheffield, Brenda Joyce, Henry Stephenson, Maria Ouspenskaya, Barton MacLane, Shirley O’Hara

Tarzan and the Amazons was Johnny Weissmuller’s ninth outing as Edgar Rice Burrough’s jungle lord and his youthful and Olympian physique of 1932’s Tarzan and the Apes have long disappeared, though he is still sturdy and imposing. Also gone is sexy Maureen O’Sullivan as Jane. O’Sullivan quit her role as Jane and Tarzan stayed in the jungle with Boy playing Mr Mom while the film makers sorted out what to do. They needed to replace the irreplacable Maureen O’Sullivan. After a couple films absent a Jane Porter (who is abroad in her home of England, though the original Jane was American) she returns to the film series in Tarzan and the Amazons and is now played by the lovely and capable (but not smoldering, as Ms O’Sullivan certainly was) model Brenda Joyce, who it seemed did much like her stint as Jane all of the time and had a short lived movie career. The film was produced by film maverick Sol Lesser and co-produced and directed by Kurt Neumann. The pair would churn out the last of the great, classic Tarzan films for RKO, from 1945 to 1954, the latter ones starring Lex Barker as the ape man. Tarzan and the Amazons is considered by many fans of the Weissmuller films to be one of the better ones technically and certainly the sets and photography are a notch above many of the earlier films. Under RKO and Lesser the Tarzan films worked on much less of budget than they did under mighty MGM, but the films seem to look and feel more authentic for some strange reason. Though Weissmuller is obviously not inclined to want to do sit ups or skip on second helpings he still does a fine job as the monosyllabic Lord Greystoke. Also returning is Johnny Sheffield as Boy who is getting bigger and less boyish and yet is still curious and susceptible to trusting white men from the outside world.

While rafting with Boy and Cheetah, on their way to greet Jane who has returned from England, Tarzan rescues an Amazon girl named Athena from a black panther. She is injured and he must carry her all the way back to the lost city of Palmyria. It is a city inhabited completely by shapely, beautiful white women, except for the high priestess, played by Russian actress Maria Ouspenskaya, who is weather worn and wise to the ways of the outside world. However they trust Tarzan and so his life is to be spared for entering the forbidden city. Of course Tarzan tells Boy to stay put but he follows and discovers the secret passage through the immense mountain range that surrounds Palmyria.

Tarzan and Boy later meet Jane who is accompanied by the “good archeologist” Guy Henderson and his expedition, which of course contains the necessary quota of greed filled guides who will later do anything for gold, including throw knives in the back of pretty Amazons. The expedition becomes interested in a bracelet worn by Jane, which was dropped by Athena and then given to Jane by Cheetah, and link it to a lost civilization and possible untold riches. Jane, fresh back from Britain and tainted still, argues with Tarzan that he is narrow minded and a poor judge of character after he refuses to lead the expedition to the lost city. This is enough to get boy thinking and he decides to lead the expedition there, as he has, once again, become beguiled by western people and their gadgets. The expedition is course captured and will be sacrificed but noble Sir Guy convinces the high priestess of his sincerity and she agrees to release them all. But the bad guys screw it all up and kill Sir Guy and a few Amazon girls and make off with arm loads of gold. The booty helps to slow them down enough so that they get killed off one by one and a couple wind up in quicksand while a stone faced Tarzan watched them sink.

You would have to be a fan of the Weissmuller Tarzan flicks to really get into it all, and I certainly am. I watched about five of them over the last week and loved them all and will try to get a couple more reviews up over time. The movies were simple, usually aimed at an audience of kids, but always had a clear and direct message about  honor and loyalty to the people who trust you as well as the pitfalls of greed and avarice. And of course, never trust civilized white people, just half naked ones of royal descent who now live in the jungle, or sexy ones of a lost tribe of Anglo Amazons. And of course, always trust your faithful chimp

While I was still thinking about the X the Unknown I decided to put together this little clip and then uploaded it to my youtube Video Cavalcade. It is the scene where a studly lab technician uses little persuasion to entice a coquettish little nurse into the radiology room, where in no time she ’s squirming and screaming… but not in ecstasy, rather she is wailing in pure terror as lover boy gets his face burned off by the pile of radioactive mud that has come looking for some radiation to consume. The scream is just fantastic and the death scene is pretty freaky and gory for the time, 1956. Hope you enjoy it and go out to get this early Hammer sci-fi classic.

THE BLOB

1958/ Director: Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr./ Writers: Kay Linaker (writer, as Kate Philips), Theodore Simonson, Irvine Millgate (story)

Cast: Steve McQueen, Aneta Corsaut, Earl Rowe, Olin Howland, Alden ‘Stephen’ Chase, John Benson, Lee Paton, Vincent Barbi

The Blob is a successful combining of the horror and teenage delinquent film genres. While the teens in the film are not really ‘delinquents” in my opinion they are still teenagers and therefore what they say and do is always suspect to the local adults. The film was a success for the time at the box office, which must have really irked new leading man “Steven” McQueen who opted for a one lump payment of $2,500 to $3,000 (depending where you read) rather than 10% of the profits, which went over $4 million. Also it seems the young McQueen appeared promising enough to be offered a three film contract from the film’s producers, but he was so difficult to work with he was released from the contract. He would of course go on to become a film legend in Hollywood. The movie was made outside Hollywood (shot around Valley Forge Pennsylvania) by an independent film company, Valley Forge Films (formally Good News Productions, a company that made Christian films with director Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr ), and it is nicely shot film in deep colors and pretty well acted for a late 50’s horror film.

First I want to say that this film, along with the next feature, X-The Unknown, were two movies that terrorized me as a boy of about 12 or 13. Both movies are about an amorphous substance that is slimy and oozy and can slither, creep and crawl under things or get though ventilator grills easily. This posed a real problem for me at night trying to sleep and I remember covering the heating vents on my floor with encyclopedias to prevent entry, but knowing in my heart that if the Blob (or X) wanted in there was no way I was going to stop them.

The movie opens up with young Steven Andrews (McQueen) putting the moves on the classic “I’m not that kind of girl”  tease Jane Martin (Aneta Corsaut, who was Andy Griffith’s gal on The Andy Griffith Show) up on the local lover’s lane. While Steven assures her his intentions are honorable and she in not just another girl a meteorite (The movie’s working title were, among others,  The Meteorite Monster and The Molten Meteorite) crashes to earth over the nearby hills. An old man played by veteran actor Olin Howland , in his last role, finds the smoldering space rocks and stars poking at it with a stick and soon has his arm covered with a flesh consuming “blob”. Steven and Jane rush him into to town, to Doc Hallen, who in turn, along with his nurse, are consumed and soon the havoc is on. Of course Steven and his teenage friends must contend with the local, skeptical adults and police who all think kids are up to no good and can’t be trusted to be honest (especially when the said high school student, like McQueen, is actually 28 years old!).

People begin disappearing though we really see about four people get eaten. This is my one real complaint about the film. At one point Lt. Dave (Earl Rowe) estimates maybe forty people have died during the night. The movie would have been more exhilarating if we had seen some of these deaths. Luckily the acting, dialog, nicely photographed scenes and cool looking monster help things move along without the visible death scenes.

After lots of futile attempts at convincing parents and cops the truth is revealed when the patrons of the local theater, who were there to see a horror movie of course, come screaming out onto the streets with the ever growing blob on their tails. Steven and Jane seek shelter in a diner after grabbing Jane’s doofy little brother who in one of the best scenes in the movies hurls his “empty” cap pistol at the creature. The blob surrounds the diner and seeks out the five people inside the diner while the rest of the town stands about fifty feet away and watches in horror. I never understood as a kid  why the blob did not just turn on the crowd and absorb all of them. Well, the weakness (all old movie monsters had one special weakness that the hero had to discover by the last ten or fifteen minutes of the movie) is soon discovered… C02 fire extinguishers. The blob is frozen and sent to the North Pole, never to be heard from again until Larry Hagman revived it in his more comical version Beware the Blob in 1972, with stoned hippies like Robert Walker, rather than hot rodding 28 year old teenagers, on the menu.

The movie is very well made and while it is a B-movie it is not what I would call a bad movie, either in a good sense or bad. The catchy title song (coming in downloadable format along with The Green Slime theme in a post or two) was co-written by Burt Bacharach and was a hit song on the radio at the time. A link to a Blob site is given below and this is a true cult classic. A remake was made in with Kevin Dillon in 1988 where the Blob is the product of yet another secret government/military agency with nothing but security and profit on its always evil agenda. Well, I like the space Blob myself and all the mystery it brought with it. The film just looks rich and nice and one can see that McQueen is a real talent in his first film role. Not to be missed. The next film on our Uranium Café Double Feature presentation is about another amorphous, oozing creature who comes not from outer space, but from the center of the Earth in an early Hammer sci-fi film called X-The Unknown.

http://theblobsite.filmbuffonline.com/

X-THE UNKNOWN

1957/Director: Leslie Norman/ Writers: Jimmy Sangster (story), Jimmy Sangster (screenplay)

Cast: Dean Jagger, Edward Chapman, Leo McKern, Anthony Newley,     Jameson Clark, William Lucas

I was really excited to finally find a copy of this film online. Along with the Blob it is a movie that left me afraid to step out of my bed at night for fear something may be lurking and oozing under it, waiting for me to get up and go to the bathroom. Originally slated to be a sequel to Hammer’s Quatermass Experiment (released as The Creeping Unknown in the States) film but when Quatermass creator/writer Nigel Kneale refused permission for use of his Bernard Quatermass character another film was put together that very much resembles the earlier Quatermass film and TV productions. American actor and Oscar winner (twelve O’clock High) Dean Jagger heads the cast with his unique voice and was apparently an attempt to draw in an American audience. The film was the first writing product for production manager Jimmy Sangster, who would later go on to write some of Hammer’s more memorable films as well as direct a handful. Direction on X was begun by American director Jospesh Losey (see my post on The Servant) who was essentially in exile in England after having been blacklisted as a communist sympathizer. Some of his scenes are supposed to be in the film even, but after a few days he was removed from the position for what was reported to be health reasons. Actually Dean Jagger refused to work for an alleged commie lover and so Leslie Norman took over the job.

The film opens in the bleak bogs of Scotland where a group of soldiers are conducting tests looking for hidden radioactive isotopes. The testing is soon interrupted when a fissure opens up and two soldiers suffer sever radiation burns. The matter is brought to Dr. Royston who has been working in his little hideaway on experiments involving radioactivity. When he inspects the fissure he concludes it very well could be bottomless and the area is sealed off. Later two boys are out on a dare and while creeping into the decrepit lodgings of a local hermit one of them encounters something and suffers lethal radiation burns. A canister of Royston’s radioactive experiment is found there, much to his consternation. There is a lot of talking and scientific explanations between the films genuinely creepy moments. Later a medical Lothario sneaks a very willing young nurse into what appears to be the x-ray room and one of the film’s best moments occurs when the flesh melts off his face after he encounters the thing. The nurse goes into one of the best horror film screams on record, so good the scene earned a place on my site’s banner. There is a lot more talking and explaining of theories but the films moves along well enough. The creature is not revealed until the last part of the film and it is not bad really. This is a couple years before the blob and the movie was obviously pinched in the budget department. But when your monster is a pile of radioactive mud you are not worried too much. The thing oozes around and over things in believable fashion and I suppose I wish we had seen more of the mass. The beast is done in of course by a quick scientific method that makes little sense but in all these old movies science is both the monster and savior.

One of the film’s more eerie moments come when a team member is lowered slowly down into the crevasse to look for signs of the creature. There he finds the remains of one of two soldiers who the creature killed earlier. The scene is dark and atmospheric and as a kid it freaked me out even though the soldier made it out alive.

The film is bleak overall and done in a pretty serious tone. Even the obligatory comic relief provided by two soldiers (one played by Cockneyesque singer/comedian-and husband of sexy shrew Joan Collins- Anthony Newley) is eliminated  when they are consumed by the pile of slithering radioactive mud. It is a movie typical of the times in most ways and the evil was something in part man made and in part unknowable. The thing is basically unstoppable, but like the Blob there was a way to destroy it if you only thought hard enough and could hang on until the last fifteen minutes of the film.

Hammer of course will always be remembered primarily for their lushly staged and designed horror films, but they did some other things as well and I think X the Unknown is one of their truly hidden gems. Hidden in a pile of radioactive sludge. A really good movie in my humble opinion and I think most regular readers of the Café will not be disappointed.

AN IMMORTAL SCREAM BY A SUPER CUTE LITTLE BRITISH NURSE

TRAILER FOR X-THE UNKNOWN

TRAILER FOR THE BLOB

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