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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.
1973/Director: Jack Smight/Writers: Don Bachardy, Christopher Isherwood
Cast: Michael Sarrazin, James Mason, Leonard Whiting, David McCallum, Jane Seymour, Nicola Pagett, Agnes Moorehead, John Gielgud, Tom Baker
I was lucky enough to actually see this fine film when it first aired on NBC as a two part movie back in 1973. I had not been able to see it again until only recently when I got a hold of the restored and full length, about three hours or more I guess, Universal Presents Frankenstein: The True Story DVD version. I read that there was an edited VHS version that was based more on the shortened European version of the film but never saw it. Now while the title claims it to be the ‘true version’ I understand that a few liberties were made with the original Mary Shelley story, which I have never read, and we will touch on at least one of those later in the review. I guess to get the final word one may have to go visit Pierre’s Frankensteinia blog, which I did earlier when doing some research for this post but I actually did not find an article there on this most excellent Frankentstein film and hope one appears soon. If there is a post there I apologize in advance and if not beg that one be made someday. The same year that Frankenstein: The True Story came out another made for TV film was released that was written and produced by Dan Curtis that starred Robert Foxworth as Dr. Victor Frankenstein and Bo Svenson. I also saw that version though I would need to see it again to refresh my memory on the story but it too made some claims to being mostly true to the original story. I am not a Frankenstein movie scholar (I am no sort of movie scholar to be quite frank) but I know that 1974 saw the last of the Hammer Frankenstein films with the fairly decent Terence Fisher film Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell which I reviewed here some time ago. Throughout the sixties Hammer had taken the Frankenstein story and did several new things with it and whether those were always great is debatable but it did pump life back into the legend as it also did with Dracula. There is, in my opinion, visual influence on this film version by director Jack Smight from Hammer and even veteran Hammer make up artist Roy Ashton did the effective make up for the monster. After all the fantastic stories and interpretations by Hammer it seemed time to reign the monster back in and recreate him yet once again.
1953/Directors: Ron Ormond and Herbert Tevos/Writer: Herbert Tevos
Cast: Jackie Coogan, Allan Nixon, Richard Travis, Lyle Talbot, Paula Hill, Robert Knapp, Tandra Quinn, Dolores Fuller, Angelo Rossitto
I will agree somewhat with what one reviewer said about Mesa of Lost Women in that it seems to be more fun to read about it and the myths and legends surrounding it than it is to actually watch. Even seasoned cheese lovers seem to have a hard time with this film. I as well have a hard time with it though I have seen it a few times. The film is pretty short, only about 70 minutes, so considering you watch it in two parts it is not that much time out of your life really. The part of this movie, for me, that really makes the experience difficult is the infamously bad film score, but more on that in a moment. The film is often said to look like something Ed Wood Jr. would have created but I am not sure. I have long felt Wood was cast as the worst film director f all time and when a bad film (and Mesa of Lost Women is a bad film) comes along it sometimes is said to look like something Ed Wood Jr. would have done. I have long felt that Wood was a better film maker than the film world in general gives him credit for. But that may be a topic for a special post some other day. Mesa of Lost W omen however does have some connections to Ed Wood Jr. in an indirect way and those tenuous connections have led to speculation that Wood was involved with the project in some way or that he and Ron Ormond worked together. Maybe we can have a quick look at some of those before moving on.
2008/Directors: Marcel Sarmiento, Gadi Harel/Writer: Trent Haaga
Cast: Shiloh Fernandez, Noah Segan, Michael Bowen, Candice Accola, Andrew DiPalma, Eric Podnar, Nolan Gerard Funk
I was simply taken back by the R-rated, independent horror film DeadGirl. I am so tired of PG-13 horror and lost my passion for locating Sam Rami’s new return to horror movie Drag Me to Hell when I read it was PG-13. Of course I will see the film, I simply wanted something that would knock my socks off and usually PG-13 just cannot do that. Deadgirl did. Now I am not saying that this is some super great film. It is fine indie horror film with a cast of essentially unknown faces. I read some reviews that over analyze the film and call it a “sub-standard horror film”. Look the film is basically a horror film about necrophilia and you can criticize how effectively the filmmakers explored their characters motivations and reactions to what they do but in the end it is a film about raping, if not a corpse, a zombie of some sorts. There is gore, action and loads of teenage angst. So if you want to set back and over analyze the film’s intentions and symbolism you may find it wanting. If, on the other hand, you just want to see a couple of screwed up geek boy misfits, and even a couple jocks, have sex with a putrid zombie and get wants coming to them in the end then I can highly recommend this film from directors Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel and writer Trent Haaga. From what I read the movie was not even shot or edited on film but rather employed the same digital technique David Fincher used on Zodiac. I had my doubts about the new digital movie making processes when I read about them a couple years ago but the movie looks like it was shot on real film.
1956/ Director: Edward L. Cahn/Writers: Lou Rusoff, Lou Rusoff
Cast: Chester Morris, Marla English, Tom Conway, Cathy Downs, Lance Fuller, Ron Randell, Frieda Inescort, El Brendel, Flo Bert
The She-Creature is a film that attempted to capitalize on the past life regression fad that swept America in the mid-50’s following the release of the book, and subsequent film, The Search for Bridey Murphy. The book is based on the real-life events (I tend to find most of these “factual” paranormal events are actually more apocryphal than actual) pertaining to a party where hypnotist Morey Bernstein was the entertainment and hypnotized a lady named Virginia Tighe who regressed into her past lives to a time when she was an Irish woman named Bridey Murphy. She would speak in an Irish accent as she recalled her 19th century life. Luckily all these people who have past life regressions seem to select a past life that has the same spoken language I guess and who can’t mimic an Irish brogue. Despite the reincarnation claims of Virginia Tighe being devastated by skeptics the book went on to be a huge best-seller and, along with the 1956 movie, people flocked to the story, and some still believe it to be true, and soon everyone and their cousin were seeking a “qualified” hypnotist to induce a past-life experience. Probably during none of these experiences did the person speak a dead or extinct language like Aramaic or Hopi. Yes, while your humble archivist of B-movie madness watches everything from giant bugs to possessed Japanese school girls he is at heart a skeptic and does not believe in UFOs or past life regressions. All that being said, I really enjoyed this film, made in 1956 like the Bridey Murphey movie, thanks to my uncanny abilities of “suspension of disbelief”.
1968/Director: Ted V. Mikels/Writers: Ted V. Mikels, Wayne Rogers
Cast: Wendell Corey, John Carradine, Tom Pace, Joan Patrick, Tura Satana, Rafael Campos, Joe Hoover
I have to admit that I have been on a real super B-movie or Z-grade film roll for a long while. God knows I watch more of this stuff lately than I can keep up with as far as posting goes. I may soon be shifting gears for a couple posts and do some posts on some other films I have seen lately, like Mr. Majestyk with Charles Bronson, or the Getaway with Steve McQueen or a Japanese film like Woman of the Dunes or Onibaba. For a while comic book and music posts are on the back burner simply because they take a lot of work and I am not sure that that is what people come here for. It is also easy for me to do b-movie posts because I simply love these old B-movies and love writing about them and promoting them. And few Z-grade films have a more special place for me than Ted V. Mikels’ bewildering The Astro-Zombies (sometimes listed as simply Astro Zombies. The poster art says Astro Zombies or Astro-Zombies-with hyphen- while the opening credits say The Astro-Zombies). I picked this up long ago on VHS and saw it a couple times and really knew little about it other than who John Carradine and Tura Satana were. I will have to admit that this film is not fort everyone, but I love it. Yes, there is tons of padding and wasted opportunities. I feel Tura Satana is not used on screen enough and John Carradine is fun as yet another mad scientist but spends too much time tweaking equipment and babbling pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo to his mute and imbecilic henchman and not enough time really being insane and misguided.
But the film is ultimately good and unintentionally campy fun for the super cheese cognoscenti and the dialog is priceless. Whether or not the film was actually intended to be campy or not is a topic for debate I suppose. The dialog is all the more an oddity because the script was co-written by Wayne Rogers, Trapper John from TV’s M*A*S*H. Roger’s was also co-producer and a lot of the property used in the film belonged to him. The film is torn to shreds usually in sites online that I always thought were supposed to pander this stuff. It is a bad film and going into the movie with that knowledge will not make it any better. If you are not a fan of really bad cinema then steer clear. But if you are the type who love seeing greasy haired, stooped over henchmen torment tied up girls in bikinis for no explainable reason, or monsters that consist of phony looking rubber masks with no expression and all of it topped off with the zaniest dialog ever then you will enjoy the time wasted with this grimy jewel. Ted V. Mikels is still alive and working and I read on his website that is actually planning an Astro-Zombies “part III”, to follow the 2002 straight to DVD release Mark of the Astro-Zombies, which starred Tura Satana. This will not be the only film Mikels film to be featured here at the Café. Coming eventually: The Doll Squad (again with Tura Satana), Blood Orgy of the She Devils, and The Corpse Grinders. You have been informed, or warned depending on your personal tastes.
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1968/Director: Ron Ormond/Writer: Ron Ormond
Cast: Ron Ormond, Tim Ormond, Peggy Anne Price, Sleepy LaBeef, Georgette Dante, Ronald Drake, Jack Horton, Pauletta Leeman, Harris Martin
AKA: THE EXOTIC ONES
As hard as it may be for the uninitiated neophyte to conceive there is a class of “cult”* film makers whose technical skill and dubious vision are on a lower rung of the film making ladder than even Ed Wood, Jr.. In fact the title “worst filmmaker of all time” has never really been suitable for Ed Wood, Jr. since there are moments in his films that show some degree of craftsmanship. Of course I am talking apples and oranges here, okay. Tim Burton made an embellished biopic of Wood’s life and career of the technical nature Wood himself could never imagine and I could not imagine myself trying to argue that Woods is a better film maker than Burton. But better does not mean more fun in a kooky sense of course. Burton could make a film that is an homage to bad film making but could never make a film as genuinely bad as Jailbait . Why you ask? Okay, maybe you didn’t ask but pretend you did. Because when Ed Wood, Jr. made Jail Bait or Plan 9 from Outer Space he was trying to make a good film and fell short of the mark. It is the failing to reach the lofty goals of a mediocre film maker that makes Plan 9 so wonderful. I still find most of Wood’s catalog pretty deserving of being watched over when there is nothing else to do with life. I can dust the house or watch Bride of the Monster again. Not a tough decision for me folks.
But in an even more remote and frozen orbit from the world of conventional film making are a band of true outsiders that churned out what are often called Z-Films. If B-Movies refer to films made outside the normal system of film production, distribution and politics of Hollywood on super low budgets with less known actors then Z-Films represent a world even outside the rules and codes of B-Movies and their arcane creators and unknown casts constitute a veritable sub-culture of film making. I doubt anyone sets out to make a “Grade Z Classic” the way Ted V. Mikels did with The Astro -Zombies or Al Adamson did with Dracula vs. Frankenstein but somewhere events beyond reasonable human control (such as the collective lack of any film making talent on the part of the entire cast and crew) come into play. And yet there is something genuinely entertaining about the films of folks like Ray Dennis Steckler, aka Cash Flagg, and even Herschell Gordon Lewis that can provide a certain portion of the population a sound evening of pseudo-surreal film watching. One could argue that this same said portion of the population is in desperate need of shock therapy or even lobotomies but that brings the subject matter a little too close to home to make me feel comfortable. So lets move on and discuss a truly odd film I had the masochistic pleasure of watching recently called The Monster and the Stripper, aka The Exotic Ones by the eccentric Ron Ormond.
* I do not like the term cult movie much lately as it is overused these days but is still most applicable at times. It has become a way to sell unsalable DVDs is all and the term has lost some of the categorical usefulness it once possessed. I long ago removed it as a category description here at the Cafe.
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