3B Theater: Micro-Brewed Reviews

Moments of Pure Cinema Fusion :: The Major Rides Alone in William Wyler's The Big Country (1958)

2012-01-23T14:13:00.011-06:00

By definition, nuclear fusion is the process by which multiple like-charged atomic particles join together to form a heavier nucleus -- usually accompanied by the release of a massive amount of energy, depending on the elements involved. Applying that theory to film, there are certain moments in certain movies when the direction, cinematography, acting, editing, and soundtrack collide and merge into something I like to call Moments of Pure Cinema Fusion.

As the old joke goes, The Big Country proves just that since William Wyler was bound and determined to show us every. damned. square. inch. of it. Don't get me wrong, I love the movie. I love how Burl Ives steals it. I love how Chuck Connors almost steals it. I love Carrol Bakker and Jean Simmons natural beauty against that wide-open backdrop. And Jerome Moross' score ... well, that's just gravy. A kind of gravy that would make you consume your own head if it was covered in it. Case in point, here, as we barrel toward the climax in Blanco Canyon, with the feud between the Terrils and the Hannassey's about to explode in a hail of lead, after a sufficient lead in where reason is chucked clean out the window, things start to percolate around the 1:45 minute mark, and then reach a boil at about 2:45, with total fusion achieved at 3:07:

Video courtesy of le0pard13.

I swear, that look between Heston and Bickford could have vaporized glacial ice. Like I said. Love this movie!

Credit where credit is due: Directed by William Wyler; story by James R. Webb, Sy Bartlett, Robert Wilder; cinematography by Franz Planer; editing by Robert Belcher, John Faure; music by Jerome Moross; starring Charlton Heston, Charles Bickford.

Vintage Review Spotlight :: Charles B. Pierce's The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972)

2012-01-19T03:40:00.010-06:00

Back in the summer of 1971 it was a slow news day at the offices of the Texarkana Gazette and Daily News, when reporter Jim Powell received a phone call from his friend, Dave Hall. Hall was the news director at Texarkana's KTFS radio station, who had received word that something strange was going on up the road a ways in the little town of Fouke, Arkansas. With nothing else to cover, after both newsmen made their way to Fouke, the news trail led them to Bob Ford's house, where he and his family were quickly packing all their belongings into a U-Haul, determined to vacate the area as soon as possible. Obviously, the family was scared. But why? Well, seems that the night before, some thing had come out of the swamp and attacked them!

Powell went on to report that while Ford was out hunting, he was drawn back to the house because of his wife's sudden cries for help. Moving quickly, he arrived in time to take a few shots at a large, hairy creature, with "eyes as big as silver dollars that burned coal red" prowling around the yard, driving it off into the trees. But the creature kept coming back, and this time it tried to break into the house until Ford, despite injuries received battling the creature, including crashing through a door to escape it, managed to drive the creature away again. Abandoning the house, the family took him to a hospital in Texarkana, where he was treated for shock and abrasions. The next day, the only evidence found around the house were some strange footprints and a few broken off saplings. Ford swears he hit the creature, several times, but no evidence of blood was found. The reporter didn't know if he believed the fantastic story, but Powell wrote it up and filed it anyway. Amazingly enough, both the AP and UPI wire services picked up the newsflash and the tale of "The Fouke Monster" soon became a national sensation, and the little town of Fouke was soon overrun with monster hunters, hoping to catch a glimpse of America's newest folk legend. But like its cousin, the Sasquatch, the creature remained maddeningly elusive.

Now, the attack on the Ford family wasn't the first appearance of this strange creature. No. There had been sightings of the beast as far back as 1940; walking along the creek bed here, crossing the road there, slaughtering a few pigs now and again, and at least one documented case of the thing attacking someone while they were taking a crap in an outhouse. Some say it's all a hoax. Others say it's a gorilla that escaped from a derailed circus train. Who knows for sure. But sometimes, usually at night, something big and hairy crawls out of the wetlands along the Boggy Creek and prowls the house-trailers and shot-gun shacks of Fouke, growling and shrieking and making a general nuisance of itself.

One individual who wanted to cash-in on and exploit this new phenomenon was Texarkana's very own entrepreneur, Charles B. "Chuck" Pierce. Pierce was an advertising pitchman by trade, and once the bug bit him, in true independent filmmaking fashion, borrowed money from a friend's trucking company, commandeered an old camera, formed a crew out of mostly high school students, and then set out to make a movie about the creature, Tracking the Fouke Monster. Implementing a documentary style of filmmaking, and using eye-witness testimonials as the basis for his narrative, Pierce added an air of authenticity by having the locals narrate the dramatic reenactments of their harrowing encounters with some truly fascinating results. To read the rest of the review, click here.

Other Points of Interest:

Newspaper ads at Scenes from the Morgue.

Poster campaign at the Archives.

The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972) P&L Productions :: Howco International Pictures / EP: L.W. Ledwell / P: Charles B. Pierce / AP: Earl E. Smith / D: Charles B. Pierce / W: Earl E. Smith / C: Charles B. Pierce / E: Tom Boutross / M: Jaime Mendoza-Nava / S: Vern Stierman, Chuck Pierce Jr., William Stumpp, Willie E. Smith, John P. Hixon, Louise Searcy

Yaaarrrgh! Apparently I'm a Pirate -- And a Criminal One at That According to Some.

2012-01-18T14:00:00.002-06:00

FYI.

Netflix'd :: Clearing Out the Instant Que :: Lets Have a Smashing Prison Riot, Eh Wot?

2012-01-16T02:06:00.009-06:00

After taking a long walk alone, young Ann Turner (Ireland) heads to the local teen hang-out to watch her new beau, Tommy, front his band for an appreciative crowd. Unfortunately, Tommy (Charlesworth) is the ex-boyfriend of Lucy (Britton), who just barely got away with robbing the mansion she used to work at as a maid. Caught in the act by the butler, Lucy's accomplice, Claire (Swanson), manages to bop Jeeves on the back of the head -- but not before he recognized Lucy.

Knowing it's only a matter of time before the heat catches up to her, then, Lucy gives the majority of the stolen jewels to her accomplice, whom the butler never saw, for safekeeping, except for one piece, which she sneakily dumps into Ann's coat pocket. See, the conniving little shit's plan is two fold: first, by implicating Ann, Claire will stay in the clear and the loot will be waiting for Lucy once she's served her time. And second, this will show that uppity Ann what happens to anyone who would dare steal a man from her. And so, fingered by Lucy, coupled with the police finding the diamond bracelet in her coat, with no alibi, poor Ann is probably regretting that solitary walk right about now.

Once Ann is sentenced to three years at the Wilsham Reformatory School for girls, So Evil, So Young doesn't stray a whole lot from the standard good girl gone bad formula. In short order, Ann has a bulls-eye painted on her back by the head guard, Smith (Pollock), a combination of Nurse Ratchet and Evelyn Harper, who prefers the stick over the carrot when dealing with her charges. Of course, then, the head matron is a reformer, who takes a liking to Ann but won't believe her wild story about being framed. And with Smithy on one end of the stick, and Lucy on the other, a familiar figure at Wilsham, with plenty of friends already on the inside, life is hell for poor Ann, who always gets caught finishing the dust-ups her adversary starts, landing her in solitary.

Luckily, Ann finds a friend with an older prisoner, Mary (Whittingham), who is up for parole soon. And with her help, Ann soon learns the rules -- the most important one to never snitch on a fellow inmate for anything. Alas, to celebrate that impending parole, the dormitory decides to have a clandestine going away party but are caught in the act by Smithy. Told this will probably derail her parole, the distraught Mary hangs herself. That's the last straw for several inmates, giving us our required riot as Lucy leads the charge to beat the hell of Smithy, whom the girls blame for Mary's death. Only Ann abstains, going so far as to free another matron taking hostage during chaos that is eventually curbed.

Once order is restored, Ann refuses to name the ringleaders, earning the respect of several others, including one inmate who has proof that Lucy framed her for the robbery. Armed with that information, Ann engineers a jailbreak to get that crucial evidence to Tom and her father, who were already on Claire's trail, namely the obscene amount of money she's been throwing around town. Will she succeed? Will the battered but ever watchful Smithy catch her in the act? Or will Lucy once more screw her over and rat her out?

So Evil, So Young wasn't breaking any new ground for the production tandem of Edward and Harry Lee Danziger. Basically, the film is a remake of the Danziger's So Young, So Bad; a balls-out screed on the horrors of what happens behind the walls of a girl's reformatory. Walls that Paul Heinreid did his best to tear down. Walls that contained the likes of Anne Francis and Rita Moreno in their big screen debuts getting blasted by a fire-hose when they chose to riot. And though there are no fire-hoses here, there still isn't anything that any genre veteran hasn't seen before, story wise. But, when you chuck in that British technicolor and temperament, and that crazily canned, xylophone-heavy spaz-jazz soundtrack, it gives this film such a prim and proper weirdness, subbing in for the usual sleaze, one can only giggle at all the cat-fights and boggle at one of the nicest prison riots you'll ever encounter, making So Evil, So Young a total scream. So, by all means, check it out as soon as possible.

So Evil, So Young (1961) Danziger Productions Ltd. :: United Artists / P: Edward J. Danziger, Harry Lee Danziger / AP: Brian Taylor / D: Godfrey Grayson / W: Mark Grantham / C: James Wilson / E: Desmond Saunders / M: Tony Crombie, Bill LeSage / S: Jill Ireland, Jocelyn Britton, John Charlesworth, Ellen Pollock, Sheila Whittingham, Bernice Swanson

I Love the Smell of Nerd Funk in the Morning!

2012-01-13T15:15:00.004-06:00

T-Minus Two weeks and counting...

Poster art by the Mighty Mighty Mitch O'Connell.

I'm going. Are you?

YouTube Finds :: Flash, Filmation & Freddie for Your Humpday Funk Decimator!

2012-01-11T13:31:00.002-06:00

Video courtesy of assurbanipalsegundo.

Meme Leech :: Thee Better Late than Never New Year's Quiz-O-Rama!

2012-01-09T02:18:00.005-06:00

By all standards and practices, for me, at least, 2011 was pretty damned odious as far as 365 consecutive days go. But, there were a few bright spots scattered hinter and yon, one of them was discovering the musings of The Girl with the White Parasol, via a couple of participated Blogathons. It's always a good read, and now, they've thrown out their first meme. And so, in an effort to give 2011 the middle finger in the rear-view mirror, here are my better late than never answers to TGwtWP's New Year's Movie Meme:

1. What is your all-time favorite Grace Kelly costume?

Though I love this little sleeveless number from the same movie:

There's just something about this simple outfit that wraps-up Rear Window that fogs my glasses up and over completely:

Denim never looked so good, am I right? But, lets face it, she could make a burlap sack look good.

2. What classic film would you nominate for a remake?

I've trumpeted this before and I shall continue to blow hot air until it happens. Directed by Joe Dante; written by John Sayles; produced by Jon Davidson; with a combination of CGI and practical F/X by the late Stan Winston's company. Also, like the original, NOT in 3-D.

3. Name your favorite femme fatale.

Hrrrmmnnn ... that's a tough one, with lots to choose from. I mean, I love the venomous, spiteful and completely whackadoodle Ann Savage in Detour:

And Cathy O'Donnell always breaks my heart in They Live By Night:

But, I'm only deluding myself if I don't give a most deserving nod to Peggy Cummins for Gun Crazy:

4. Name the best movie with the word "heaven" in its title.

5. Describe the worst performance by a child actor that you’ve ever seen:

Eddie "Munster" Furlong is about 98.5% of the reason I give when people look at me incredulously and splutter, "Waitaminute ... You hated Terminator 2? Really? Why?" Even with Linda Hamilton completely spitting the bit as Sarah Connor, and Cocksure Cameron at his absolute worst, that kid just junks the movie and sunk the whole damned franchise for me.

6. Who gets your vote for most tragic movie monster?

7. What is the one Western that you would recommend to anybody?

Right before Henry Hathaway made the original True Grit, he made an offbeat and off the wall western-mystery hybrid called 5 Card Stud. On the surface a vehicle for Rat Pack booze-crooner Dean Martin, the film is a surprisingly violent and broody affair. It also serves as kind of a proto-slasher movie (-- I'm serious), when an unknown killer starts wiping out a group of men who share a sinister secret they'd like to keep buried in the past. (Again, totally serious. More details here.) And if nothing else, you'll get to see Robert Mitchum behind the pulpit again, bringing the fire and the brimstone and the lead to the unrepentant.

8. Who is your ideal movie-viewing partner?

My cat. She doesn't judge -- my viewing habits or the habitual viewing. Yeah, more into solitude, but also enjoy a crowd now and then -- if they're tuned in properly, depending on the circumstances or venue.

9. Has a film ever made you want to change your life? If so, what was the film?

When I caught a matinee of this when I was six or seven years old back in the mid-1970's, all thoughts of being a fireman or a cowboy dried up as I decided, then and there, that I was gonna be a special-effects animator in Hollywood when I grew up. How I wound up here instead of there is still a subject of much conjecture, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. But, between this and an early screening of William Castle's The Spirit is Willing, my love for genre films was cemented and I haven't really been the same since.

10. Think of one performer that you truly love. Now think of one scene/movie/performance of theirs that is too uncomfortable for you to watch.

At first, Bill Murray popped into mind (-- yes, I'm thinking about you What About Bob?), but then I reconsidered and decided to go with someone else. For how bad does a movie have to be that stars Kurt Russell as the illegitimate son of Elvis Presley in a no holds barred actioneer shoot 'em up before I compare it to a sucking chest wound gone septic? This bad:

11. On the flip side, think of one really good scene/performance/movie from a performer that you truly loathe.

I don't know if loathe is the right word but I used to have an irrational hatred of Kim Basinger that I think began with a disastrous screening of Nadine. This opinion held fast and firm until the spell was broken by L.A. Confidential.

12. And finally, since it will be New Year's soon, do you have any movie or blogging-related resolutions for 2012?

Well, I fear that I have really over-extended myself this past year. Raiders of the Lost Archive was founded with good intentions but was practically still-born and is a few days away from permanent extinction as all of the content will be shifted over here to free up space for our new Poster Archive. Alas, I don't think that's gonna be enough as I'd like to narrow my focus even more, meaning a tough, tough decision on The Morgue needs to be made sooner than later. Don't worry, that one will be staying up for archiving purposes, and for those of you needing your classic movie ad fix, again, I'll definitely be making them a regular feature here. Stay tuned.

Ephemera :: Behind the Scenes :: Hail and Happy Birthday to the King!

2012-01-08T02:36:00.005-06:00

Robert Wagner, Elvis Presley and Alan Hale Jr. lounge around the 20th Century Fox commissary circa October, 1956 ... And we'll throw in this live performance of American Trilogy for desert:

You're welcome.

Good Reads :: Cinefantastique presents The Lost Art of Genre Posters (March, 1988)

2012-01-05T23:40:00.015-06:00

The March, 1988, issue of Cinefantastique contains plenty of great articles, including an extensive chat with Dario Argento for a behind the scenes look at the making of Opera, and a review of some forthcoming "effects-laden, off-the-wall supernatural comedy" called Beetlejuice, which the author assures will make a name for some unknown director named Burton. Also featured are Frank Hennenlotter (Basket Case) , Wes Craven (Serpent and the Rainbow), and Stan Winston (Pumpkinhead), and quick-hits on Killer Klowns from Outer Space, The Hidden and Fatal Attraction. But, despite all of that, the reason this issue has been on my radar for such a long time was a pictorial retrospective by Stephen Rebello on "Selling Nightmares" -- or the lost art of movie poster design. And now, finally, I've managed to get my hands on a copy, and well worth the wait doesn't even scratch the surface on this one, folks.

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"Horror and science fiction movies of the '50s unleashed some of Hollywood's splashiest, raciest, and most fondly remembered artwork. Con always ruled the movie advertising game, but for genre movies, no hype was too outrageous, no stop left unpulled ... And looked at today, these posters chronicled our anxieties (about sex, the bomb, the enemy), our mores, our icons ... On poster after poster, mushroom cloud-spawned nightmare creatures thrashed our cities ... Flying saucers buzzed the White House for signs of intelligent life. Another staple image -- the pneumatic, half-nude nymphet cowering behind the beefy chested hero, his trusty gun trained on the approaching Creature -- may yet achieve the status of an era's signature."

-- Stephen Rebello xxxx

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The article itself takes up over sixty pages, highlighted beautifully by the genre poster art in question, and accented by unused sketches and rejected campaigns that is like meth to a cine-junkie like myself. The retrospective also includes a super-ultra-rare interview with Albert Kallis (-- the main reason for my obsession with finding it), who ran American International's art department from its inception and through its hey-dey of the 1960's.

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"At AIP the advertising always came first. What was important was the thrust, the sense of what you were selling and how it would appeal. And [AIP co-founder] Jim Nicholson had the best sense of exploitation I ever encountered in a distributor ... Jim and I would make up most of the titles and kick around the approach. Then, I'd make up a campaign. We'd send the layouts to the theater owners [and] if it looked like they were going to book the picture [then] we'd make it. Invariably, I never saw a picture before I did the ad campaign."

-- Albert Kallis xxxx

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Also feature-interviewed are artists Joseph Smith, Ruth Corbett and Robert Totten, but the majority of the article focuses on, and the other artists gush most about, the incredible contribution of Reynold Brown, the undisputed king of genre posters. (For more on Brown, I also highly recommend the documentary film, The Man Who Drew Bug-Eyed Monsters.) Probably more famous for the work he did at Universal International, including the majority of the iconic poster art for that studio's sci-fi boom of the 1950's, it didn't take Kallis very long to coax Brown, who hated the politics and back-stabbing of the studio system, into being his back-up at AIP.

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"My job was to make a movie seem better than it was -- to make people think a movie was really going to be good ... Sell it, don't smell it."

-- Reynold Brown xxxx

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Now, in this day and age of the internet, with these posters available to view just a few clicks away, may devalue the article in the eyes of some, especially considering what the back issue might cost you. But Rebello just does such a fantastic job -- exhaustive, really, of getting into the nuts and bolts of this craft from concept, to construction, to finished product, and the rueful, taken-for-granted treatment of the artists who seldom, usually never, got any credit for the work of putting butts into the seats back in those days is, I think, well worth the investment. As Kallis himself notes, when a theater owner cornered him at a convention, and offered the best compliment, "If we could only put sprocket-holes on your campaigns, then we'd really have something."

Fractured Flickers :: Bob Hope Tosses the Perfect Strike in The Paleface (1948).

2011-12-30T22:05:00.003-06:00

As with most Bob Hope comedies, the premise of The Paleface is a little -- okay, a whole lot -- convoluted; but, eh, who the hell cares as long as Hope gets to run amok and do his thing, no matter what the character, consequence or setting. And to get to this particular favorite cinematic scene is gonna require some set up first. Here, Hope teams up with Jane Russell in a crackling wild west tale of mistaken identity, gun-fights, and Indian attacks. Russell plays Calamity Jane, who, in an effort to get pardon from the governor for past crimes, agrees to help infiltrate a gang of no-goodniks who are smuggling guns and dynamite to a tribe of hostile Indians. But when her partner is killed, needing someone to take his place as "her husband" Jane tabs "Painless" Peter Potter, a frontier dentist and a cowardly doof of the highest order, as her dupe. But as the film progresses, thanks to Jane's clandestine sharp-shooting skills, Painless soon garners himself quite the reputation as a gunslinger, bringing them both into contact with the gunrunners. However, when their duplicity is discovered, the couple is captured and turned over to those Indians for disposal -- just when the blossoming romance between Painless and Jane finally reached full bloom.

And so, Painless faces a horrible death, with each leg strapped to a different sapling -- think of two catapults, sharing the same load, only firing in opposite directions.

But thanks to a loose boot, something goes wrong with the launch, and instead of getting wish-boned, Painless (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) flies off into the wild blue yonder...

Where, luckily, he lands in a tree.

But Painless best get down quick and act fast with a rescue, or his true love will meet a similarly gruesome fate -- of the permanent hot-foot variety.

Working fast, once out of that tree, Painless bumps into the disgraced Medicine Man, banned from the tribe for botching a certain paleface's execution. Unaware of that fact, and needing a disguise to sneak back into the camp undetected to save Jane, Painless commences with the fool-proof plan to make 'em trade, duds for duds.

But a fool and his plan are soon parted, for the kooky savage wants no part of it and heads for the hills, leading to what I think is the best scene in a whole movie full of great ones, where Hope gives chase, takes up a rock, draws a bead on his fleeing prey, and lets it fly...

*bonk*

"WOHOO!"

Bob Feller would have been proud!
That scene just cracks me up. Every. Damn. Time!

Ah, but even with his perfect/imperfect disguise gained, will Painless be able to save his lady fare? Sorry. For that you'll have to track down and tune into the hilarious and somewhat "explosive" conclusion of The Paleface for yourself -- because there's no way the written word, or any amount of vid-caps, could do it justice. Trust me.

The Paleface (1948) Paramount Pictures / P: Robert L. Welch / D: Norman Z. McLeod / W: Edmund Hartmann, Frank Tashlin / C: Ray Rennahan / E: Ellsworth Hoagland / M: Victor Young / S: Bob Hope, Jane Russell, Robert Armstrong, Iris Adrian, Jackie Searl, Chief Yowlachie

For Your Holiday Hangover, Another Rehashed Review :: Nicholas Webster's Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964). You're Welcome.

2011-12-28T04:51:00.009-06:00

We open on a TV set tuned into the KID Network, whose anchor cheerfully announces that since it’s almost Christmas they have a special report lined-up directly from Santa’s workshop at the North Pole. Sounds like fun, right? Well, no, as we slowly pan around to see who’s watching -- and unless those rumors about sitting too close to the TV are true, we can p'rolly safely assume these green-hued children with the kitchen utensils glued to their heads are Martians. And there is no joy on the Boring Red Planet, where Kimar and his wife-mate, Momar, openly worry about their children, Bomar and Girmar. They won’t eat their food pills; won’t sleep without the help of the sleep-ray; and spend their entire day in front of the tele-screens, watching those silly Earth programs. Case in point, with bedtime approaching, Kimar has to pry his kids away from the screen and set the sleep-ray to full blast.

It’s the same way in households all over Mars, and Kimar doesn’t know what to do until Momar suggests they consult with the ancient Chochem, who's, like, 800 years old and should know what to do. Kimar agrees and calls together the high council, including the spiteful crank, Voldar, to meet him at the endless caves. Once there, Kimar calls to Chochem, and, in a puff of smoke, the wizened old coot appears. And after the dilemma is laid out for him, Chochem says the answer is obvious: the Martian children are rebelling. From the day they are born, they’re hooked into Martian learning machines and are adults before they can walk. Thus, the listless children must learn to have fun. In other words: Mars needs a Santa Claus -- and Larry Buchanan kicks himself for not thinking of this movie first. To read the full, demented review of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, click here.

Happy Holidays :: The 6th Annual All Night Christmas Craptacular Movie Marathon!

2011-12-25T18:00:00.023-06:00

Ho Ho Ho-migod, but its that time of year, already, meaning time for another bout with the Holiday Blues and an all night Booze-Can of film and ferment to kick that funk square in the nethers. Anyways, in picking a theme, thoughts of a Blue Underground Christmas, an evening with Johnny Quest, or a trip through Universal International's sci-fi output were quickly pushed aside for something a little more, well, festive to help smite my melancholy most verily. And thus, I spent the evening with this:

And this...

And then this...

And, yes, even this...

And then, sufficiently boozed up, fearing I'd perhaps had a batch of bad Figgy Pudding (-- thanks a lot, Mr. Cardona), I decided to cleanse the palate, so to speak, with my favorite holiday special of all time.

That's right. It's Johnny LaRue's Street Beef: the Christmas Edition, with LaRrue banished to the frozen hinter streets, where he finally confesses up to his mistakes and is rewarded with the greatest gift of all.

*sigh* I really miss John Candy.

And that about wraps it up ... Feel free to swipe a piece of leftover X-Mas Pie, there, folks. Beyond that:

Happy Holiday, one and all.

Or Bah! Humbug, where applicable.

Rumblings from the Mothership :: Rehashed Reviews :: Sherman A. Rose's Target Earth (1954)

2011-12-23T15:35:00.004-06:00

First bitten by the showbiz bug while rapidly working his way from janitor, to projectionist's assistant, to usher, to head manager at a local theater in his native Detroit, Herman Cohen, after a brief stint in the Marines, and barely in his twenties, then took a job as sales manager for Colombia Pictures' Detroit branch, and later made the move to Hollywood to work in the same studio's publicity department. This was about the same time that fellow Detroiter Jack Broder began re-releasing Universal's old monster movie catalog through his Realart Pictures. And wanting to produce his own films, Broder hired Cohen on as his production assistant, allowing his new hire to learn the nuts and bolts of the trade as Realart quickly and cheaply churned out two films: Bride of the Gorilla, whose production, including the tragic tale of lead actress Barbara Payton and her illicit ménage à trois with actors Tom Neal and Franchot Tone (-- that ended violently shortly after the film was in the can), is a lot more interesting than the finished product, and Bela Lugosi Meets the Brooklyn Gorilla, featuring the horribly -- make that painfully, unfunny antics of the Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis knock-offs, Duke Mitchell & Sammy Petrillo, which seemed to ignite the fledgling producer's life-long obsession with men in monkey-suits. And after a few more co-productions over in England with Nat [no relation] Cohen's Anglo-Amalgamated, Herman Cohen was finally ready to fly solo and make his own movie: Target Earth. To read the full review, click here.

Well, folks, after almost a year of giving me the finger and refusing to work, my old web-building program on my ancient mariner of a computer has magically healed itself. And pouncing on the opportunity before it decides to go tits up again, I'm scrambling to get a few more of these refurbished reviews published for you reading pleasure. Enjoy!

Movie Poster Spotlight :: No, Mr. Bond. Forget the Shaking and the Stirring -- and Get to Mixing!

2011-12-20T16:18:00.012-06:00

Four eye-popping Door Panels for James Bond's
latest adventure, Goldfinger.

Other Points of Interest:

The newspaper ads at Scenes from the Morgue.

Goldfinger (1964) Eon Productions :: United Artists / P: Albert R. Broccoli, Harry Saltzman / D: Guy Hamilton / W: Richard Maibaum, Paul Dehn / C: Ted Moore / S: Sean Connery, Gert Fröbe, Honor Blackman, Shirley Eaton, Harold Sakata, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell, Desmond Llewelyn

Netflix'd :: Clearing Out the Instant Que :: Gone Fishing with Howard :: Man's Favorite Sport? (1964).

2011-12-18T20:40:00.008-06:00

It's a familiar story: Boy meets girl. He's oil. She's water. He's ... Nah. Hold up. He's the water, and she's the oil. Anyways ... He works at a sporting goods store. She works at a hunting and fishing lodge. He's an expert fish angler. She needs to wrangle an expert fishermen. He's written a best-selling book on the art of catching a fish, earning him much publicity in such circles. Thus, she, through his fudd of a boss, has entered him in her lodge's annual fishing contest, hoping for more of the same. He thinks that's a terrible idea. She thinks it's a no-brainer. He adamantly refuses. She can't understand why. He puts his foot down. She proceeds to stomp on it until he relents. And so, our hero is in the contest. But, our heroine still has to overcome one major obstacle:

Her fishing expert has never, ever fished in his life. In fact, four out of his five senses can't outright stand the cold, slimy buggers; with only hearing getting a pass. Nope. Can't stand 'em. Revolted, even. Apparently, seems our boy became an expert behind the sales counter, milking his clientele for all their secrets; a bizarre ponzi scheme of advice on lures, rods and reels. Stuck and thus, taking pity on the poor fraud (-- after using it as leverage to hammer on him until he agrees to take part, 'natch), she has one week to turn this armchair angler into an ersatz Virgil Ward.

But he's kind of a hopeless dope. And she has the mutant ability to trigger a chaos effect on those within her reach. His world is falling apart. She is the root cause of it. He's infuriated by her. She's infatuated with him. He's engaged to someone else. She couldn't care less. Now just stuff all of that into a test tube, and then sit back and watch how these elements react. Will they explode? Or will they gel into some cohesive compound of co-existence?

And so, some ten years after Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the stage is set for Howard Hawks' triumphant comedic comeback, Man's Favorite Sport?. And the stage is set-up beautifully, right out of the gate, with some spiffy animated collage and stencil credits, courtesy of Wayne Fitzgerald:

Originally intended as a remake of the director's screwball classic, Bringing Up Baby, Hawks wanted to reunite stars Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn for this whopper of a fish tale. Obviously, that didn't pan out. Grant was game, but felt he was far too old for co-star Paula Prentiss and gracefully bowed out. Luckily, Hawks found a suitable replacement with Rock Hudson.

Hudson had already flexed his funny-bone in several light romantic comedies, but here proved he was also a very gifted physical comedian that could- and probably should have been explored and exploited more in future projects. And that, with Prentiss' help, makes all the pants-on-fire wackiness to come go down smooth. And speaking of the adorable Prentiss ... as a friend of mine commented upon first seeing Olivia Wilde in TRON: Legacy dudded-up in her digital spandex glory, and how it made her aware of a fetish she didn't even know she had, here, when Prentiss (and co-star Perschy) show up in those skin-tight rubber diving suits, well, lets just say my personal Comics Code rumbled and shifted. Noticeably. Very noticeably...

Now, normally, I'm not a big fan of this kind of third-wheel romantic plot: a seemingly happily engaged man meeting up and falling in love with another woman. And what I object to is how the films usually make the fiance, male or female, an irredeemable ass of the highest order. To me, that's just lazy scriptwriting and makes the decision to dump one for the other so easy one can hardly believe the hero got engaged to them in the first place.

Here, it's kind of reversed. Tex Connors (Charlene Holt), the fiance, seems nice enough but barely shows up long enough to say hello and goodbye. She's so incidental, and with the coming twist that sets up the third act, her character really wasn't even necessary. So one has to ask, Why bother? On the other hand, I freely admit I felt the urge to strangle Abigale Paige (Prentiss) on several occasions as she spastically blusters her way into bowling over Roger Willoughby (Hudson). In short order, in a flurry of stuck zippers, torn dresses, and one disastrous dose of sleeping pills, Paige falls in love, breaks up Willoughby's marriage, attacks him with a circular saw when another one of her hair-brained plans goes awry (-- okay, okay: I thought I was gonna die laughing at that scene), exposes him as a fraud, gets him fired, and then has the temerity to tell him it will never work and runs away once he expresses mutual feelings for her.

Will t'woo wuv win in the end? Usually, I wouldn't give a feh or rat's ass either way, but thanks to the leads I was hooked, and I laughed, a lot, all the way to the not-so-bitter end -- though most of the throwaway bits prove funnier than the overtly staged comedy. (Loved that running gag with the boss's errant hair piece.) Hawks helps, too. And all of his usual staples are there: strong female characters, sharp and overlapping dialogue, an obsession with gadgetry, characters always moving, and using the sets to dictate his scenes instead of the other way around. Add it all up and this one's a definite keeper.

Man's Favorite Sport? (1964) Gibraltar Productions :: Laurel Productions :: Universal Pictures / P: Howard Hawks / AP: Paul Helmick / D: Howard Hawks / W: John Fenton Murray, Steve McNeil, Pat Frank (story) / C: Russell Harlan / E: Stuart Gilmore / S: Rock Hudson, Paula Prentiss, Maria Perschy, John McGiver, Charlene Holt, Norman Alden

Vintage Tuneage :: Sounds of the Season :: The Ventures Get Scrooged!

2011-12-16T03:24:00.005-06:00

Video courtesy of barrygioportmorien1944.

The Ventures:

Don Wilson, Mel Taylor, Nokie Edwards, Bob Bogle, Leon Taylor

Ephemera :: Signs of the Season :: I Never Drink ... Nog.

2011-12-13T12:57:00.003-06:00

Scrooginess .. fading ... cannot ... maintain ... the Grinch. I ... *thud*

"What'd He Do. Throw Her?" :: A 20 Vid-Cap Look at John Llewellyn Moxey's The Night Stalker (1972).

2011-12-10T04:00:00.011-06:00

"Who said Bonnie Reynolds was thrown 22 feet into that culvert. The coroner? I haven't heard about it. Who said this new killing is connected to the Sheryl Hughes murder. The police? Not to me they haven't. Who said Sheryl Hughes died of massive blood loss. The coroner again? No. He hasn't even turned in his report yet. And who, may I ask, said a super-powerful madman is running loose in Las Vegas? Are you hearing voices again, Kolchak?"

As the 1960's rolled along, the notion of monsters went through a paradoxical paradigm shift, from scary and repulsive, to cute and cuddly and complete domestication, with the likes of The Munsters and The Addams Family saturating the airwaves -- even The Flinstones had themselves some new neighbors when the Gruesomes moved to Bedrock. Jumping on that bandwagon, producer Dan Curtis cashed in on this notion by taking vampires, werewolves, witches and other assorted ghouls to the last place you'd ever expect to find them -- in a soap opera, with those kooks from Collinwood lurking in all of those Dark Shadows. But by the 1970's, this premise was running on fumes, and finally sputtered and stalled-out after two theatrical versions of the same (House of Dark Shadows, Night of Dark Shadows) failed to generate enough buzz for a third. But when the series finally closed up its coffin lid for good in 1971, turns out Curtis wasn't done telling vampire stories yet. Not even close.

Finding the near perfect vehicle in The Kolchak Papers, an unpublished novel by Jeff Rice, Curtis loved the contemporaneous notion of a serial killer stalking the neon streets of Las Vegas; a killer whose modus operandi is tearing out his victim's throat and making all of their blood disappear. Call me crazy, But that sounds like some kook who thinks he's a vampire, right? Well, that's exactly what a certain wry and acerbic reporter thinks, too, as he doggedly pursues the story. And through him, we watch as the evidence mounts -- evidence that can only be described as supernatural, and the authorities, despite their best efforts, fail to stop the murderer as the bodies keep piling up -- Kolchak (McGavin) comes to the only conclusion possible: the killer doesn't have to think he's a vampire when he really IS a vampire. Of course those same authorities don't buy it, or, more than likely, don't want to, even going so far to presciently cite Amity's Mayor Vaughn, chapter and verse. (Gentlemen, I believe you are going to ignore this problem until it creeps up and bites you on the neck!) But we know better. And so does our new age crusader, who, in his armor of seer-sucker blue, sneakers, and ratty porkpie hat, mounts his trusty steed (-- a Mustang convertible), takes up his cross and sword (-- make that a stake and hammer), and heads into the night, searching for an unspeakable monster in need of being put down for good -- hopefully, before the next edition's deadline!

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

If I were to assign credit for the character of Kolchak, I would say that Rice sculpted him, [Richard] Matheson smoothed out some of the edges, and McGavin breathed life into him!
-- Dr. SkySkullxxxxx

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

That's a pretty good assessment there, but, truthfully, from what I read, as much I love him, Matheson didn't change a whole lot from Rice's novel when writing the screenplay, so I would add to that equation, and one cannot overlook, the contribution of the square, cinematic-eye of prolific TV director John Llewellyn Moxey, who crafted himself a taut, no-nonsense thriller. Mention should also be made for the fine supporting cast, stocked with rock-solid character actors (Meeker, Akins, Oakland). And a special nod to Atwater, who silently impends the menace as he buzzsaws through countless victims and police officers -- but saves the best for last, when he meets his doom and reveals what a truly pathetic creature Janos Skorzeny is in the light of day. The tele-feature is also a showcase for the city of Las Vegas, itself, a nice time capsule of Sin City before the era of mega-resorts irrevocably changed the skyline to something more akin to Disneyland. And if one thing is noticeably absent from the novel and the screenplay is a mob element, whom I'm sure would have been involved in some sense to take out the killer themselves since having a serial killer in town is definitely bad for business. But not for Curtis and Co. Again: not even close.

The Night Stalker (1972) Dan Curtis Productions~American Broadcasting Company (ABC) / P: Dan Curtis / D: John Llewellyn Moxey / W: Richard Matheson, Jeff Rice (Novel) / C: Michel Hugo / E: Desmond Marquette / S: Darren McGavin, Carol Lynley, Simon Oakland, Ralph Meeker, Claude Akins, Barry Atwater

Ephemera :: Vintage Print Ads :: PBR: The Finest is Always in Fashion...

2011-12-08T13:53:00.006-06:00

(March, 1955)

For optimal viewing, View Link in New Window.

Movie Poster Spotlight :: It Came from Outer Space -- in 3-D!

2011-12-06T13:22:00.006-06:00

Images courtesy of MonsterKid.

(3-D Conversion Artist: Kerry Gammil)

Amazing. Just amazing. I hope, hope, hope that you all have some spare, old-school 3-D glasses lying around the house to make these images pop. (Personally, I've got, like, six or seven pairs scattered around this personalized disaster area.) For optimal viewing, open image in new window.

It Was Epic.

2011-12-03T16:46:00.031-06:00

Approximately one year ago, for my 40th Birthday, me and some friends of mine conspired to invade and commandeer the local Grand Theater for a party and private screening of my favorite film of all time. Here's the highlights:

(That is one gorgeous venue.)

(My folks.)

(Please note the giant cookie.)

(Almost showtime.)

Can't have a proper, classical theatrical experience without a few cartoons first, am I right?

And now, for the main feature...

(After 50 years, finally, a return engagement.)

(Yeah. I can die happily now.)

And the evening ended at the old Alibi Lounge, where, fittingly enough, I was served a giant mug of beer whose head of foam had completely frozen over solid. Now all I need is an electric blanket.

And it was, most definitely. Thanks one and all.

Ephemera :: Signs of the Season :: Go Go Oh Christmas Tree!

2011-12-02T14:14:00.002-06:00

Image courtesy of @AlsBoy.

Now, I'm usually pretty Grinchy during the Holiday Season but this, this made my heart grow ten times today.

Shamless Plug :: Boob Tube'n at the Morgue.

2011-11-29T14:30:00.004-06:00

Just a friendly, shameless plug that we're wrapping up our month long Boob Tube tribute over at our sister site, Scenes from the Morgue. TV shows you remember. Shows you've forgot. Shows you've probably never even heard of are all just one click away. So click already!

Spoiler Alert! :: The Walking Dead :: Can Sophia Finally Come Out and Play?

2011-11-28T02:58:00.010-06:00

Thinking back on it, it couldn't have been any more obvious. The obvious being the final fate of Sophia, the little girl lost, whose search served as the fulcrum and lever that plodded the plot along for the first six or so episodes of this season's The Walking Dead.

I guess the quarter to finally answer that question started spinning for me about a week ago, the day before Thanksgiving, when I met up with several friends, back in town for the holiday, at a local watering hole. At some point, after we caught up, the conversation turned toward the boob-tube, and, eventually, The Walking Dead. And while my friends and I heartily disagreed over Daryl's transformation from redneck peckerwood to redneck peckerwood with a heart of gold, we all agreed that the show needed to stop spinning its wheels and come to a much sooner than later resolution on the Sophia situation, who had been missing since fleeing into the woods and abandoned by Rick in the season's harrowing first episode.

Also, having read the comics, we pondered when the inevitable shit was gonna hit the probable fan with the recently discovered zombies locked up in Hershel's barn. In the printed pages, that ended in a massacre, and with the mid-season finale due this past week, the show was also critically overdue for some full-fledged zombie-chompin'-fu.

With family commitments wrapping things up early at the bar, it was while heading home that night that the quarter picked up some momentum when the notion first hit me as to why, despite the best of efforts, the group just couldn't find Sophia. Perhaps and maybe, just maybe, she was in the one place they hadn't looked yet -- he typed ominously ... But this notion was quickly lost in the haze of the three pints of Scottish Ale imbibed in little over an hour. Thus, the quarter fell silent and the notion flickered to barely a wisp.

But come Sunday, about halfway through the mid-season finale, the quarter cranked up again with a mighty fury, when Hershel takes Rick on a zombie round-up, with two walkers stuck thigh deep in the silt along the river. Wait, Wasn't Sophia's doll found in the same silt along the same river bank, said the quarter as it spun even faster. And maybe all those clues that led the search for Sophia further and further away from the farm were being read backwards, and instead, circled her ever closer? But then where was she? Surely she would have shown herself by now, right?

I honestly thought Dale was going to be the one to go this episode, especially when he passed his ratty hat onto Glen, a symbolic shift of the group's conscience. And while focusing on his confrontation with the rapidly disintegrating Shane, that quarter, now rocketing around furiously in its fight against momentum and gravity and its inability to hold my attention with the true answer, was ignored -- until the climax, where it could be ignored no longer.

Here, in a scene aptly described as "war atrocity footage" Shane breaks the barn door open and the massacre begins in earnest. For those unaware, the misguided owner of the barn kept the undead locked inside, hoping a cure would be found to what ails them. Inside were his wife, step-son, neighbors and friends. Each with a face. Each with a name. Each with a past. Each with no future, alive or dead, as they spill out of the barn into a hail of bullets. And once the bodies stopped falling and the guns went silent, with the soft, scrabbling sounds of something still inside about to make its way out, thoughts of it being Hershel's wife, triggering an ugly confrontation between the two factions outside, where the living ironically tear each other part, were quickly pushed aside. I knew better. And I knew what was in there, even though I didn't want to know what was in there. No. Not what. Who. Who had to be in there.

Well, shit.

And so, I finally let that damned quarter drop. And with that, we have our resolution. What once was lost, was now found. Looking back, this was bound to happen. And it couldn't have been anymore obvious. Now, you'll hafta excuse me; there's something in my eye.

Ephemera :: Random Screen Grab :: Flash Gordon (1980)

2011-11-26T14:54:00.003-06:00

Favorites :: Vintage Tuneage :: But How Do They Know Where We're Going?

2011-11-23T13:53:00.005-06:00

Mike Bockoven and I preparing to embark for Pittsburgh.
9/7/11.
(Artist interpretation.)

Video courtesy of SJ363's Channel.

The Silicon Teens:
Darryl, Jacki, Diane and Paul.
(But not really.)

Spring Break, 1960's Style :: A Beer-Gut Reaction to Where the Boys Are (1960)

2011-11-20T21:56:00.004-06:00

"Gentlemen, the city of Fort Lauderdale is once again under fire from the north. We've survived it before and I reckon we're gonna survive it again. To you newly installed officers on the force, I'd like to give you a little rundown on what to expect. Expect anything. Anything and everything 'cause that's what you're gonna get. Now, Fort Lauderdale is not the only city to be invaded at this time. In Palm Springs and in Newport, from the beaches of the Mid-Atlantic to the snows of Colorado, the students of America are gathering to celebrate the rites of spring. And, if you pardon a pun, you've got that right. They're our future voters, they're citizens of our country, and they're our responsibility. But how the hell to handle them, that's a different manner. Now these kids didn't come down here to break the law. They'll break it for sure, but that's not their main objective. And remember that they are our guests. So, I want every man on the force to try his best, his level best, to try to avoid arresting anyone. I know that this going to take great will power but try. And, above all, preserve your sense of humor. Cause you're gonna need it if you want to survive."

If someone drew a triangle using the bubble-gum pop of Gidget and the knee-deep cheese of the Frankie and Annette Beach Party movies as the base angles, and the steamy melodrama of A Summer Place as the apex angle, and then after adding a little geometry to this triangulum, I think we'd find another coming of age flick set against the backdrop of sand and surf right smack in the middle: Where the Boys Are.

Set in the spring of 1960, as 20,000 college students prepare to descend upon his town, the Ft. Lauderdale police chief (Wills) briefs his men on their upcoming war against "higher education." Meanwhile, four anxious co-eds from a winter-socked mid-western college start their own pilgrimage south, to where the boys outnumber the girls 3 to 1. Good odds for these gals, each with their own goal:

Too tall Tuggle (Prentiss) is on the hunt for a husband, preferably one she can look in the eye without bending her knees both figuratively and literally. Melanie (Mimieux) also has her sights set high, wanting to notch a couple of Ivy Leaguers on her soon to be discarded chastity belt. And while the pugnacious Angie (Francis) will settle for just about anything, Merritt (Hart) isn't really sure what she's looking for, if anything at all, really, romantically speaking.

The film then follows them through the entire week of Spring Break, as the girls go from one bizarre locale to the next, taking in the sun, the suds and the scenery. Along the way, Tuggle falls for the lanky TV Thompson (Hutton), and Angie finds romance with Basil, a myopic bass player (Gorshin), whose experimental combo-band pays the audience to listen to them, dig? The brainy Merrit also finds her match with Ryder Smith (an eerily untanned Hamilton), as they hurl intellectual barbs at one another over the "Stud / Slut Dichotomy" to keep him at arms length, allowing the reluctant Merritt to ease into the relationship.

And as TV's police-band radio constantly updates us on the collegiate shenanigans erupting around them (-- a favorite being a live shark reported in a hotel swimming pool), the couples schmooze, snog, bicker over commitments, fight, break up, make up, snog some more, culminating in climactic calamity at a fancy dinner at a fancy seafood restaurant, where the whole gang winds up in a giant aquarium with the showcase aquabat.

___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

"Why do they (college kids) come to Florida? Physically to get a tan. Also, they are pooped. Many have mono. Psychologically, to get away. And besides, what else is there to do except go home (for spring break) and further foul up the parent-child relationship? Biologically, they come to Florida to check the talent. You've seen those movie travelogues of the beaches on the Pribilof Islands where the seals tool in once a year to pair off and reproduce. The beach at Lauderdale has a similar function. Not that reproduction occurs, of course, but when you attract thousands of kids to one place there is apt to be a smattering of sexual activity."

-- Merrit Andrewsxxxxxx
Where the Boys / Glendon Swarthoutxxxxxx

___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

Author Glendon Swarthout had a steady career writing novels about people going on a journey. They Came to Cordura focused on Pershing's expedition into Mexico to hunt down Poncho Villa, for one example. Another, The Shootist, focused on the end of the journey for aging gunslinger, J.B. Books. But his most famous stories usually added a coming of age factor, with the likes of Bless the Beasts and the Children and his wildly popular Where the Boys Are, a "zany satire on the holiday pursuits of the American teenage girl," which provided the first ever insider look into the annual Spring Break invasion of Florida.

All those books I've mentioned were adapted to the big screen, too, obviously. First published in 1960, MGM quickly turned it around and made a tidy sum off their tiny budget. However, one should point out that George Wells' screenplay only covers the first half of the book, as the second gets even zanier with the radicalization of the group as they raise money to buy guns, with every intention to smuggle them into Cuba to help Uncle Fidel and the Fuller Brush Beard Brigade's revolution.

No, the film adaptation is more concerned with another revolution. And while Where the Boys Are definitely has the wholesome 1950's sheen on the surface (-- beginning with Francis' infectious theme song), down below it makes no bones about poking the taboo of premarital S-E-X right in the eye with a very sharp stick.

From the opening scene, Merritt is duking it out with her college professor over the elder's archaic views of sex and the dating habits of the young American female. But as the film plays out, Merritt has some major issues over the practice of what she's preaching. To make matters worse, the overly naive Melanie has taken her friend's Kinsey-backed advice to heart. And while the film's overall tone is comedic, it can also be downright brutal at times, with poor Melanie usually taking the brunt of it, serving as an abject lesson for the others when she's suckered to a private motel party by a couple of no-goodniks posing as Yale students. When she finally susses out the ruse and tries to leave, it's too late. What happens next is only implied, but there is no mistaking the devastating final result once the hotel door slams shut.

The other girl's relationship problems pale in comparison, but they are the bumps along the way just the same. TV wants to knock-boots with Tuggle but she's determined to wait until she's married. TV takes the hint, and the specter of a long term commitment frightens him off. And knowing that once Spring Break is over means the probable end of their relationship, a conflicted Merritt's hot and cold act is wearing awfully thin with Ryder, resulting in a similar nasty spat. And then things get really twisted when everyone's relationships are saved or cemented as a direct result of Melanie's sexual assault.

Which is why I'm just as conflicted about my feelings for Where the Boys Are. On the surface, I could almost enjoy it unconditionally -- almost. Because underneath, it's mixed message of saying sex is OK but the only one who actively engages in it winds up raped, brutalized and in the hospital is a pretty twisted way to moralize away it's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt. And, well, I kinda have a problem making all of that compute while trying to laugh at an aquarium full of goofballs.

Where the Boys Are (1960) Euterpe~MGM / P: Joe Pasternak / D: Henry Levin / W: George Wells, Glendon Swarthout (Novel) / C: Robert Bronner / E: Fredric Steinkamp / S: Dolores Hart, Paula Prentiss, Yvette Mimieux, Connie Francis, George Hamilton, Jim Hutton, Frank Gorshin, Chill Wills

Wishful Thinking :: THIS is the Muppet Movie I Wanna See.

2011-11-17T02:55:00.009-06:00

Weened on Sesame Street and nurtured by the constant laughs their weekly TV series coughed up, my genuine fondness for the Muppets, my identification with these characters, is so engrained that I always suffer a temporary freak-out whenever I see any behind the scenes photos or video, where some stranger has a hand shoved up their nethers. Not. Right. No. No. No... Weird, yes. But it's true. So, yeah, I'm pretty excited that Kermit, Piggy, Fozzie and the whole gang are making a triumphant return to the big screen next week, and I look forward to a rare excursion to the cinema to check out the movie that appears to be about (-- what else?), the triumphant return of the Muppets in The Muppets.

All well and good, sure, but you wanna know what I'd really like to see? Something that has been percolating in my head for a good long while -- long before those glorious trailers, where James Bobin spoofily plugged his cast into several different features coming down the pike. See, ever since the Muppets tackled Treasure Island, I thought, instead of interpreting the Classics of Literature, why not plug these collective Heads of Knuckle into a remake of a movie? And not just any movie, mind you. But this movie:

Can you see it? Yes? No? Well, if not -- maybe this casting rundown will help sell it...

Emmaline Finch, Mrs. Marcus, J. Russel Finch:
(Dorothy Provine, Ethel Merman, Milton Berle)

Annie Sue, Ms. Piggy, Kermit the Frog
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Neville and Monica Crump:
(Sid Caesar and Edie Adams)

The Great Gonzo and Camilla
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Benji Benjamin and Dingy Bell:
(Buddy Hackett and Mickey Rooney)

Fozzie Bear and Rowlf the Dog
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Lenny Pike:
(Jonathan Winters)

Sweetums
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Otto Meyer:
(Phil Silvers)

Rizzo the Rat
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

J. Algernon Hawthorne:

Terry-Thomas :: The Swedish Chef
(Subtitles required, here, of course.)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Sylvester Marcus (and friend):
(Dick Shawn and Barrie Chase)

Link Hogthrob and Janice
(Can't you just hear Link yelling, "Mama!")
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Captain Culpepper:
(Spencer Tracy)

Steve Martin
(Our Token Human.)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Smiler Grogan:
Jimmy Durante :: Waldorf

Police Chief Aloysius:
William DeMarest :: Statler
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Ray and Irwin:
(Marvin Kaplan and Arnold Stang)

Dr. Bunson Honeydew and Beaker
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Tyler Fitzgerald:
Jim Backus :: Dr Teeth
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

The Rancho Conejo Air Traffic Controllers:
(L to R: Eddie Ryder, Jesse White and Carl Reiner)

(L to R) Beauregard, Pops and Scooter
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Colonel Wilberforce:
Paul Ford :: Sam the Eagle
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

The Cabbies:
(Peter Falk and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson)

Floyd Pepper and the Animal
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

The Duster Pilot:
Ben Blue :: Lew Zealand

The Miner:
Mike Mazurky :: Thog

The Miner's Son:
Bob Mazurki :: Robin

Jimmy the Crook:
Buster Keaton :: Uncle Deadly
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Cameos:

Andy Devine (and friend)...

Mr. Snuffleupogus (and friend).

Jerry Lewis :: Ernie

Don Knotts :: Bert

Jack Benny :: Oscar the Grouch

Edward Everett Horton :: Herbert Birdsfoot

Leo Gorcey :: The Count von Count

Joe E. Brown :: Harvey Kneeslapper

Sterling Holloway :: Tele Monster

And finally...

The Three Stooges:
(Curly Joe, Moe and Larry)

The Three Monsters:
(Cookie, Harry and Grover)

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

I'm probably missing a few characters (-- this five-years-in-the-making post was drawn purely from memory), probably a few obvious ones, too, and a few face-palming matches that I failed to connect, but, truthfully, this thing just cast itself. Wishful thinking, I know, but this would be a whole six-pack of The Awesome.

Ephemera :: Inks and Paints :: Bram Stoker's Fang-In.

2011-11-14T14:34:00.005-06:00

Sadly, this groovy, pre-production artwork by Tom Chantrell is one of the rare good things about Alan Gibson's Dracula A.D. 1972.

Lions and Tigers and Hershells, Oh My! :: The Strange But True Story of Steve Sipek.

2011-11-11T16:41:00.001-06:00

I, like a lot of you, probably, caught the news blurbs coming out of Ohio a couple of months ago, when the area around Zanesville became a tragic safari / killing field after the (to put it mildly) eccentric owner of an exotic animal refuge committed the most bizarre murder-suicide in history when he let all of his animals loose before killing himself. Some 49 animals were hunted down, including 18 Bengal tigers, 17 lions, six black bears, a pair of grizzlies, three mountain lions, two wolves and a baboon.

This tragic and senseless tale also jogged a few memory cells, to another incident back in 2004, with the report of a pet tiger getting loose somewhere in Florida. At the time, I was ready to just write it off as another lunatic with a glamour pet until I heard this particular "lunatic" was a retired actor, who had appeared in a couple of Tarzan knock-offs. This, in turned, stirred up a few more memory cells. But, nah. It couldn't be him.

Could it?

Intrigued, I poked around the interwebs and found the story and an unfamiliar name: Steve Sipek. But then I saw some video of this guy after his tiger, Bobo, was killed, and, sure enough, it was him:

That's Steven Hawkes; Sipek's non de plume when working in film; one of my personal heroes in the world of off-off-offbeat B-movies.

Now, Sipek / Hawkes' story is a strange one, with biblical overtones that includes tales of floods and fire and lions. Born Stjepan Šipek in the little village of Igrišće, Croatia, Hawkes managed an end run around the Iron Curtain and migrated to the United States by way of Canada, where his beefy frame and chiseled features landed him the lead role in a couple of Spanish Tarzan movies. Well, technically, unofficial Tarzan movies because the producers couldn't afford the licensing fees, and so they changed the character's name to Zan.

The first film, Tarzan en la grata del oro (-- a/k/a King of the Jungle, a/k/a Tarzan's Greatest Challenge), was a plagued production. While shooting in South America, a flood destroyed most of the equipment and a lot of the completed footage. To salvage it, the scrambling production moved north for re-shoots and finished the film in the swamps of Florida.

Things got even screwier in the second film, Tarzan y el arco iris (-- a/k/a Tarzan and the Rainbow, a/k/a Tarzan and the Brown Prince), and a helluva lot more dangerous. Also shot in Florida, near Rainbow Springs, this film experience wound up scarring Hawkes for life. In a scene that called for he and his co-star, Kitty Swan (Kitty Svanholn), to be tied to stakes and tormented by savages, a special-effect went awry engulfing the set in flames. Being tied up, of course, the actors couldn't escape. And as the rest of the cast and crew panicked and fled to safety, leaving the actors to burn, as the legend goes, a lion named Sampson braved the flames, freed the actors by chewing through the ropes, and drug them to safety.

Sounds far fetched, I know, but, apparently, according to the script, the lion was supposed to free them in the exact same fashion and was trained to do so (-- without the inferno, obviously.) And after this selfless act, owing the animal his life, Hawkes decided, then and there, to spend the rest of his life caring for abused and disowned big cats.

However, despite Sampson's heroic efforts, both actors were burned badly. (Hawkes sustained burns on over 90% of his body. As for Swan, alas, there isn't a lot of info on her, but this accident effectively ended her film career so one can sadly extrapolate from there). Not wanting to deal with the authorities, the Spanish production company skipped the country, leaving its stars behind to recuperate. With mounting medical bills, then, and desperate for money, Hawkes soon found himself in the hands of Brad Grinter.

Now, Grinter was a part-time filmmaker but a full time nudist. Part of Florida's burgeoning exploitation scene in the early 1970s that thrived on nudie-cuties or horror films with explicit scenes of gore and bodily dismemberment, he had just finished his first feature, Flesh Feast, that contained the last screen appearance of Veronica Lake, a cloned Hitler, and some mutant maggots. But it was his next feature, when he teamed up with Hawkes, that resulted in the most gonzoidal classic of all time, Blood Freak, which includes the following:

A chain-smoking narrator (Grinter), with a nasty hacking cough, who waxes philosophically about stuff that's basically irrelevant to the film; a big, dopey leading man (Hawkes), who's half Arnold Schwarzenneger and half Elvis Presley, and who is seduced into a life of sin and drugs, eats some tainted turkey meat, and is destined to become the big screen's first were-turkey monster; meanwhile, a Bible-thumping, verse-misquoting vixen clad in a mod mini-skirt and her dope-smoking sister, with a thing for thick mascara, isn't sure she can marry a turkey monster -- but is more then willing to have sex with it.

Yeah, Blood Freak is just so incredibly audacious, yet taken so seriously that the mind can only boggle at the sheer magnitude of it. Watch as the actors keep flubbing and butchering their dialogue while they desperately try to not look at the camera, or crack a smile, and fail 90 percent of the time. Marvel at how the cameraman can't keep the action in frame -- or in focus. Plug your ears as the sound-man uses that the same scream, laugh (or gobble) and loops it in over and over and over...

Not making any of that up, folks. In fact, I'm kinda selling it short. For you see, Blood Freak claims to be the world's only giant turkey monster, anti-drug, pro-religion gore film ever made. And I'm here to tell you that it is all that AND a whole lot more. When it was released in 1972, the film barely made a blip on the radar but its notorious reputation and relative obscurity made it a must see for any lover of fermented cinematic cheese. Luckily, the fine folks at Something Weird Video finally got this thing out on DVD for the whole world to see and it's been warping minds ever since.

Some call it the missing link between the gorenagraphic films of Hershel Gordon Lewis and William Graefe and the fundamentalist whackadoodle films of Ron Ormond and Donald Thompson. Some call it blasphemous, some call it ludicrous, others call it awful. I call it something else: the greatest cinematically challenged movie ever made. Worst movie ever? Nay, one of the greatest movies of all time.

A delight for audiences everywhere, then, Blood Freak wasn't the most pleasant experience for Hawkes, though. Seems the production went bankrupt midway so he finished the film out of his own pocket. And what little profits he made were used to help finance his own private sanctuary for abused and abandoned big cats near Loxahatchee, Fla., where Hawkes lived in relative obscurity until one of his animals decided to go for an unsupervised stroll.

Other points of interest:

For a more comprehensive look at Blood Freak, check out my full review at 3B Theater.

Favorites :: Vintage Tuneage :: 2000lbs of Fanged Fury!

2011-11-08T13:45:00.005-06:00

Video courtesy of ME!

Quite Possibly the Greatest One-Minute and
Thirty-Seven seconds of Your Life.

Eddie Angel (guitar), Johnny Rabb (vocals),
Jimmy Lester (drums), Dick Chiclet (bass).

Netflix'd :: Clearing Out the Instant Que :: M'Thinkin' About Spending the Winter in Collinwood...

2011-11-05T04:44:00.017-05:00

That's one episode down.
370 to go...

Muwahahahahahhahhhahhhahh!

Yeah. Consider me hooked all over again.

Recommendations :: Exploitation 101 :: Time to See the Doc(s)..

2011-11-01T12:05:00.008-05:00

Featuring a staggering amount of interviews from folks who worked in front of the camera, behind the camera and behind the scenes in a metric ton of exploitation classics, both domestic (American Grindhouse) and international (Machete Maidens covers the Philippines and Not Quite Hollywood Australia), and packaged together with clips, excerpts and promotional materials into a slick package that would have made Kroger Babb proud, all three of these documentaries are informative, stimulating and hilarious to watch. Highly, highly recommended, folks, and all of them are readily available to watch online via Hulu or Netflix. So, what are you waiting for? Have at them!

The Italian Horror Blogathon :: Luigi Cozzi's L'assassino è Costretto ad Uccidere Ancora!

2011-10-30T06:48:00.010-05:00

After losing another dust-up with his wife, Norma (Velázquez), over her controlling interest of the marital purse strings (-- she's loaded and ready to divorce, he's a leeching free-loader and a philandering deadbeat), the husband, Giorgio (Hilton), storms out of the house, drives off into the night, but picks a lucky spot to cool off, near a canal, where he fortuitously witnesses someone disposing of a body by dumping it and a car into the drink.

How is that lucky, you ask? Simple. For you see, our scheming no-goodnik has no intention of doing his civic duty and informing the police. No. Blackmail is what he intends. And though he has no desire for money, Giorgio is willing to barter for something else. So, What is the price for his silence, then? Simple again. He's willing to keep his mouth shut, and even offers payment for services rendered, IF the killer will kill again and bump off his wife, which would give Giorgio all the loot and the last word on how he spends it.

With such an offer he can't refuse, the Killer (Antoine -- who kinda looks like Peter Weller dressed up as Christopher Lee in Hammer's Curse of Frankenstein) agrees. And their Fargoesque plan to make the death look like a kidnapping for ransom gone wrong goes off without a hitch, with Giorgio firmly establishing a rock-solid alibi at a party -- after one final shag with the wife, who forgives him too late, because she's already dead and just doesn't know it yet (-- firmly establishing what a Douche McTurdburger this Giorgio guy really is). Thus, left alone, the Killer does the dirty deed without much fanfare. And after placing Norma's body in the trunk of her car, he returns to the house to set the stage for the faux kidnapping. Once that is done, all that's left to do is dispose of the body and the debt will be fulfilled. Perfect, right? Well, it would be except for one slight hiccup, signaled by the turn of an ignition key. Which explains why when the Killer returns to the street, the car, and the body, are long gone...

When most folks, myself included, think of Luigi Cozzi, the first thing that most probably pops into our heads is Caroline Munro as the leather-bikni-clad space pirate, Stella Star, who teamed up with Marjoe Gortner, the Hoff, and a redneck Robot sheriff to save the galaxy in the whole six-pack of awesome known to we mere mortals as Starcrash. Cozzi also churned out all those Lou Ferrigno vehicles in the early 1980's, where the former Hulkster took a shot at Sinbad the Sailor and two shots at Hercules -- with the sequel proving even more stupefying than the first, and we all remember how he put a bear into orbit in the first one, right? So, yeah, Cozzi is mostly known for these hair-brained sci-fi and fantasy epics that are goofy as hell and good -- eh, make that great, on those terms, if you catch my drift. And when judged against what came later makes the genuinely impressive quality of his first foray into feature film even more baffling.

By the time he was a teenager growing up in Milan, Luigi Cozzi was already a hardcore science-fiction and horror aficionado, an obsession that landed him a coveted spot as an Italian correspondent for Famous Monsters of Filmland, giving him an outlet to espouse on those films he loved, and even managed to churn out and sell some of his own fantastic fiction. This proved fortuitous, as it led to several contacts in the publishing industry, where he quickly moved up the editorial ladder, which led to more writing on film and a meeting with one of his new cinematic heroes, who we'll reveal in just second.

For all the while Cozzi was putting pen to paper growing up, he was also shooting his own 8mm movies, aping one of his favorite directors at the time, Roger Corman (-- who was in the middle of his Poe cycle by then); some complete with home-made stop motion animation (-- that would come to define most of his later sci-fi output). And as he honed his craft, using his literary contacts, Cozzi landed the rights to Frederik Pohl's The Tunnel Under the World, a satirical, poke in the eye at the world of advertising and market research that the novice director turned into a self-financed, meaning no-budget, avant garde piece of weirdness that became an underground hit in the Continental art-house circuit.

Ironically enough it was while writing about a different medium that brought Cozzi into contact with Dario Argento for that fateful encounter I mentioned earlier. Taking a half-assed rumor that inadvertently predicted the break-up of the Beatles just days before it actually happened, this "scoop" landed Cozzi a job in Rome, which gave him enough clout to pursue interviews with his favorite genre directors. A lone voice, apparently, for no matter how well the films did at the box-office, critically speaking, horror and sci-fi films held a spot barely a notch above pornography. This interview forged a lasting friendship that was cemented when Argento invited Cozzi to pitch in with his latest project, which turned out to be Four Flies on Grey Velvet, another gialli on the heels of his groundbreaking The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Cat o' Nine Tails. (And if you don't know what a gialli is feel free to check out my take on Giulio Questi's Death Laid an Egg, where I do my best to define the truly undefinable.)

Thus, Cozzi helped his friend hammer out a script by bouncing pillaged murder scenarios off of each other to fit that title (-- since it was all Argento had at the time), and was encouraged to hang around the sets while filming commenced, earning himself a spot as an assistant director. This experience, in turn, lead to his first professional directing gig: The Neighbor (Il vicino di casa), which proved to be the most watched (and definitely the best) episode of Argento's TV anthology series, The Door into Darkness (La porta sul buio). And on the heels of that, when producer Giuseppe Tortorella approached Argento to do another thriller for him, Argento, wanting to do something different, declined but gave Cozzi such a glowing recommendation he was soon in the director's chair again for Il Ragno (The Spider), which was eventually tagged with the much more blunt and matter of fact:

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

I'm sick of the unknown killer. You see the hands of the killer. You see the eye of the killer. You see the mouth of the killer. The finger of the killer. But you never see the face until the last shot of the picture. I wanted to start [this] picture with a shot of the killer.

-- Luigi Cozzixxx

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

And that's exactly what Cozzi did, which makes The Killer Must Kill Again less of a gialli and more of a conventional thriller, whose roots can be best described as a mash-up of Strangers on a Train (-- a man blackmailing another into killing his wife), and a book by famed Italian crime-novelist Giorgio Scerbanenco, Al mare con la Ragazza (At Sea with the Girl), where a boy takes his new (and unwitting) girlfriend to the beach with the body of his ex-girlfriend tucked away in the trunk. And that's exactly what happens, here, when two bored teenagers see and seize a golden opportunity (-- namely a set of keys carelessly left in the ignition), and putter off to the beach, blissfully unaware of what's stuffed in the trunk, leading to several scenes where Cozzi really gets his Hitchcock on when the body is nearly but not quite discovered, keeping our couple also blissfully unaware of the danger they're in while the Killer relentlessly pursues them to the beach to get back what he needs.

Meanwhile, thanks to the Killer's cock-up, Giorgio's kidnapping scheme starts to unravel when the cops, led by a wily Inspector (Fajardo), start poking into his ever-fraying story on what happened to his wife when things don't add up at the crime scene. Back on the road, our two teenagers, Luca and Laura (Orana and Galbó), finally reach their seaside destination and follow their noses into an abandoned villa. The girl is charmed by the bizarre decor but the boy has something else on his mind and an itch in his pants, which apparently does most of the thinking for this cretin. Rebuffed, a frustrated Luca is sent out to find some grub. But once he's back out on the road, our boy is delayed when he stops to help a stranded motorist, which is why Laura is all alone when the Killer finally catches up with them, leading to the film's most infamous scene, where Luca, once more thinking with that itch in his pants, and the Blonde ditz (Benussi) he picked up strip and have at in the back seat of the car, while poor Laura is attacked and brutally raped back in the villa by the Killer.

Disturbing and unforgivably explicit at first glance, Cozzi shot and edited this scene together much more skillfully than that on second glance. Yes, the sex between Luca and Blondie is very explicit and titillating but the rape, thankfully, is not. And with his sure and steady hand, with the two scenes juxtaposed, basically, right on top of each other, it's all as tough and nasty and repulsive as it sounds; as it should be, and it's exactly what Cozzi intended and I think he deserves some major props for how he handled it. And what gives that scene even more impact is the quiet (disquieting?) aftermath, when we cut between Blondie casually fussing with her hair while a devastated Laura tries to pull herself back together.

Tough, tough scene, folks, and in lesser hands -- well, I'd rather not even think about it.

And so, using Laura as bait, the Killer waits for Luca to return with the car. Which he does, so he can introduce Laura to his new girlfriend and give Ms. Prissy-Pants the big kiss-off. And, really, can a viewer be blamed, then, for cheering a little (okay, a lot) when Luca proceeds to get his ass kicked and his head caved in by the Killer. But strangely enough, the Killer has no intention of killing the car thieves once he susses out that neither of them realized what's in the trunk ... Well, he wasn't going to kill them until Luca's little roadside tryst comes back to bite all of them on the ass.

E'yup. Guess who finally took a look in the trunk? And so, with his secret discovered, the somewhat reluctant Killer dispatches Blondie most gruesomely with a butcher knife (-- strangely enough, the only really gratuitous violence in the whole picture, though you'd swear there was more). Drained after all that blood-letting, the exhausted Killer slinks off. And with Blondie dead, and worthless Luca beaten senseless, I guess it's up to Laura to save their collective hash -- which she does, in a scene of such Herculean effort that it should be etched in stone in the annals of the Plucky Heroine Hall of Fame.

Thus, with the killer dead, the body recovered, and Laura ready to dump Luca as soon as the Inspector is done taking their statement, all that leaves is that asshat, Giorgio, whose fault all this is, was and ever shall be. Never fear, his goose was long ago cooked, even before the final coda, where the Inspector finally gets his man via the old hoist'd petard.

Technically speaking, Cozzi's episode of The Door into Darkness was also based on Scerbanenco's novel, making The Killer Must Kill Again nothing more, really, than a rehash, where he expanding that nail-biter to feature length. And Cozzi was up to the task, too, with this relentless, near pitch-perfect, suspenseful yarn of constantly overlapping games of cat and mouse, keeping the tension pulled so taut from beginning to end I don't think any amount of hammering would produce a single note -- the piano wire was strung that tight, metaphorically speaking. And for being considered a gialli, the film makes way too much sense, plot-wise. Not a knock on the genre, mind you; just an observation.

In front of the camera, Galbó steals the movie, despite Antoine's best efforts as the stone-faced killer. Aside from Barbara Steele, I'm hard pressed to find a more alluring pair of eyes in film. Galbó just puts all her chips on the table for every role I've seen her in -- this, What Have You Done to Solange, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie and The House that Screamed, she just sells it with everything she's got. And despite those efforts, where she's put through the wringer, a lot, I think she's terribly under-appreciated as far as Gialli-Queens go, which is a damn shame.

When it was finished, despite most of the violence being implied, The Killer Must Kill Again (also released as The Dark is Death's Friend) was hammered so hard by the Italian censors it's release was held up for almost two years. From there, it basically disappeared off the cinematic map and Luigi Cozzi's film career became defined by the interstellar insanity that followed. Fortunately, the fine folks at Mondo Macabro got this lost classic back in circulation in 2004, and I cannot recommend that disc enough. Stuffed with all kinds of special features, including several interviews with Cozzi, the highlight of the disc is a commentary track with the director, where he breaks down the film in great detail (-- I've barely scratched the surface here, and why listen to me when you can hear it from the man himself), including the family oriented financing, with the producer's wife's car playing a pivotal role and the producer's son's girlfriend making a cameo as a corpse. But most importantly, the film, though not as obscure as it used to be, is readily available for all to see. And when you do, I think you'll agree with those of us who have, that The Killer Must Kill Again is relentless, deliciously nasty, and just plain fantastic. And all the credit goes to Luigi Cozzi. Go figure.

There's always room for more giallo, am I right? And that's why this post is part of Hugo Stiglitz Makes Movies' latest endeavor, The Italian Horror Blogathon, where I and several others share their thoughts on anything from gialli to zombies to bad knock-offs -- as long as it's horror and from Italy, it meets the criteria for this blogathon. So what are you waiting for, click on over and start reading the other wonderful entries!

For further reading on more Italian genre films :: My take on Mill of the Stone Women, Death Laid an Egg, The Pyjama Girl Case, A Bay of Blood, and Cannibal Holocaust.

L'assassino è costretto ad uccidere ancora a/k/a The Killer Must Kill Again (1975) Albione Cinematografica~Git International Film~Paris-Cannes Productions / EP: Giuseppe Tortorella / P: Umberto Lenzi / CP: Sergio Gobbi / D: Luigi Cozzi / W: Luigi Cozzi, Daniele Del Giudice, Adriano Bolzoni / C: Riccardo Pallottini / E: Alberto Moro / S: George Hilton, Antoine Saint-John, Cristina Galbó, Alessio Orano, Eduardo Fajardo, Tere Velázquez, Femi Benussi

Favorites :: Vintage Newspaper Ads :: More Signs of the Season (Circa 1964).

2011-10-29T13:13:00.003-05:00

Ephemera :: Signs of the Season :: Paulette Goddard

2011-10-27T20:40:00.001-05:00

Blogathon Revisitron :: Got Ghosts? Then, Who You Gonna Call? The Alan Brady Busters!

2011-10-26T03:58:00.032-05:00

As if I didn't already love this show enough, but, between Robert Petrie consistently breaking off his killer Boris Karloff impersonation, whenever the spookified need presented itself, and his constant referencing to other classic monsters, like Godzilla and Frankenstein's monster, when allegorically appropriate, has me convinced that Dick Van Dyke was probably/definitely a closet creature-feature fiend. (Gooble-goble gooble-goble gooble-goble ... *ahem*) Or at least somebody on The Dick Van Dyke Show was, evidenced by the number of episodes or dream sequences that had more than a slight B-Movie bent:

Hell, I even recall an episode where Rob and Buddy spot a UFO, which leads them to a couple of mad scientists doing diabolical things in a lab tucked away in the depths of the office building. But the best of this hair-brained bunch was an episode called:

Now, this particular chapter begins with the comically creepy and kooky, mysterious and spooky, snowball already formed and gaining momentum as it rolls down the hill, with the writers of the Alan Brady show arriving at a mountain fishing lodge, nestled somewhere in the Catskills. Brought to this wilderness retreat at the behest of their boss / evil overlord to help hammer out the details of a new program Herr Hairless is backing, upon arrival, these city folks, especially Buddy and Sally (Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie), are having a little trouble adjusting to the peace and quiet and the amount of fur hung on the walls that keeps looking back at them. (Huh. You'd think being in the heart of the Borscht Belt old Buddy would feel right at home.) Not sure why they had to be drug out to the middle of nowhere, himself, ringleader Rob (Van Dyke), with help from the wife, Laura (Mary Tyler Moore), encourages them all to make the best of it, but each platitude is quickly shot down by the wisecrackin' and quip-packin' duo.

Then, to make this odious situation even worse, seems there's been a mix-up with the reservations, and, as the Good Book says, there is no more room at the inn. Apparently, their producer, Mel Cooley (Richard Deacon), was too busy ferreting around for Brady and overlooked this less than slight detail; and after fighting bumper to bumper traffic for over five hours just to get there his employees metaphorically get back in the car and run Mel over, with Buddy at the wheel, as usual, backing up and running Mel over again and again and again, just in case there was an insult he missed the first few times.

(And aside from futching the reservations,
Mel also apparently forgot his pants.)

"The Bald Phantom strikes again! Sic 'em, boys!"

Poor Mel. Anyways...

Positive he can salvage the situation, Mel sends everyone else to lunch -- including Cousin Eeyeech, while he and Rob try to sort things out with the manager. And, with the help of a few sawbucks, turns out there might just be one unoccupied cabin left to rent. However, there are a few logistical problems with it. For one, there's only one bedroom. But Rob assures that they can make due with that and a promised fold-out couch. Good enough, but, the beady-eyed manager adds, the cabin might be a little shabby since it hasn't been occupied for almost three years. And why is that? Well, the answer to that question is also the biggest logistical quirk the lodging has.

For you see, the cabin in question is [dramatic pause] haunted.

[Insert maniacal cackle here.]

Mel, of course, reacts to this paranormal revelation with his usual stone-faced consternation. Rob on the other hand...

Telling them to mock all they want, and feeling obligated to give them the whole story, the manager then regales them with the tale of Amos Chantz, a regular guest, who regularly stayed in the very cabin in question. Until one night, three years ago, he up and disappeared without a trace. Local scuttlebutt says Chantz was murdered for his money, but they never found a culprit, the money or a body, and, as the ultimate topper, seems no one has managed to spend a full night in the cabin ever since -- because it's already occupied. Muwahahahhahahhahahhhh...

As one to scare that easily, but not THAT easily, and since it's their only option, with Mel's pushing, Rob agrees to take the cabin on the condition that they don't tell the girls about the [alleged] ghost. Upon reaching the cabin, they find it in much better shape than originally advertised, improving everyone's mood -- a wary Rob included. And as the girls settle into the bedroom, Rob convinces himself that the hokey ghost tale is just that: hookum. However, there's a slight hitch in this hookum-busting...

For Rob has made the mistake of confiding in Buddy about the ghost, who quickly starts channeling Lou Costello, Don Knotts and Curly Howard as he puts on a one man revival of The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. And all of Rob's efforts to defuse this ticking-time-bomb of angst is quickly short-circuited by a knock at the door and the untimely arrival of the gaunt'd woodman dressed in black [genus Crazy Ralph / species Margaret Lanterman].

Apparently, Spooky McCrackpot delivers a cord of wood every night at 9 o'clock sharp and then vacates the premises as fast as possible. This he does, adding a sinister cackle free of charge, but after he's gone, Rob starts to get suspicious.

Finding the deliveryman a little too kooky, having seen this movie already, Rob is now convinced that someone is making a concentrated and deliberate effort to scare them out of the cabin. Because if what he said was true, there'd be three years worth of logs lying around, right? And I think Buddy would have agreed with him, if the fireplace hadn't just managed to ignite itself.

Hookay, after writing that off with a completely rational explanation (a dry log and an old ember flaring up), Rob spends the rest of the evening trying to keep the freaked-out Buddy from blabbering to the girls about their mysterious visitor and the spontaneously-combusting fireplace.

But even after all of that hair-raising excitement, the Petries still find time to be absolutely adorable (and, lets face it, randy as a couple of rabbits). Alas, with the shared accommodations, they have to break it up (-- before the pajamas start coming off, and those separate beds at home ain't fooling nobody, am I right?), with Sally and Laura taking the bedroom, leaving Rob to deal with the couch and Buddy...

Who keeps his shoes on in case he has to make a quick escape when the ghost shows up.

Which he does, maybe, when the front door slowly creaks open, revealing no one; then a nearby rocking chair starts moving on its own. Was this caused by an errant breeze? Who knows. What I do know is a couple of seconds after the rocking chair stops moving, the front door closes up again.

-- Maybe the breeze shifted directions?
-- More likely, the ghost got up and left.

Undaunted, Rob writes it off as nothing, and over Buddy's vehement protests turns the light off for the night.

*click*

Too bad they won't stay off.
(Maybe it was loose ember and a dry light bulb?)

Meanwhile, in the bedroom with the unaware girls, things quickly escalate up the sinister scale when something far, far worse than a flaky lamp and a sentient rocking chair silently makes its ectoplasmically peeping presence known...

[For the record: I so (HEART) Mary Tyler Moore.]

Laura's well warranted hysterics brings everyone together on the fly. Of course, by now, the apparition in the mirror is long gone. Regardless, that's the last straw for Buddy, who demands Rob spill the beans about the haunted nature of their surroundings -- the ghost, the visitor, the fireplace, the lights, everything ... Obviously, this pertinent kept secret doesn't sit too well with the womenfolk; and after piling Laura's encounter on top of everything else, over Rob's protests, ghost or no ghost, the other three decide it would be in their best interest to screw that noise and boot-scoot down the road immediately.

Heading back into the main room, where they find the couch mysteriously folded back up on its own and their bags already packed and waiting by the door, the decision to go is made that much easier. All that this spook-house is missing, says Sally to a still stubborn Rob, is Vincent Price and a thunderstorm. And she barely gets those words out before Buddy opens to the front door to a bright flash of lightning and long peel of thunder. Next comes a rap on the bedroom door, which slowly creaks open -- again, revealing no one inside. Seems Mr. Price blew his cue...

So, with the storm howling outside, making the three mile hike back to the main lodge untenable, Rob decides to call up Mel to send the Jeep for them. Thus, after walking en masse around the cabin to get to it, Rob picks up the receiver and dials. And, really, does anyone at this point think the phone won't be dead?

Show of hands. Anyone? No one? Good. Because it most definitely is, meaning the group is stuck indefinitely.

Which isn't such a bad thing since it leads to another hysterical circumstance / money-shot as our collection of knocking-knees and frayed nerves regroups and hunkers down to wait out the storm. Unfortunately...

The fold-out couch has other ideas...

And in the ensuing chaos after the possessed
furniture tries to eat them...

One by one...

Our group of four becomes three...

Then two...

Until, finally...

Poor Rob is left all alone.

E'yup. All alone.

Well ... except for the Ghost.

Who still ain't talking.

Leaving Rob, and the audience, to ponder just What the hell is going on, here? Is it someone just trying to scare them? That kooky motel manager? Or maybe some other lodge workers, or a local deviant (Spooky McCrackpot immediately springs to mind), who are still looking for the lost loot, with these unwanted guests both in the way and in dire need of being disposed of?

I mean, Eek!

And Eek again!

Then again, perhaps it's Chantz, himself, alive and well, playing dead, spooking off unwanted tourists or would be treasure hunters. Or, hell, maybe the cabin really is haunted? Or maybe, just maybe, all of the above. And as Rob looks to the magic mirror begging for an answer, we get ours:

That's right. It was all a goof. Seems that new show they were brought out to the boonies to work on was nothing more than a blatant Candid Camera knock-off. (Typical Alan Brady lechery, am I right? Don't believe me? Then just ask Uncle Spunky. He'll back me up.) That's right; Rob, Laura, Buddy and Sally were just used as guinea pigs for a dry run on the inaugural episode of Spooky Camera.

"Smile!"

The Ghost of A. Chantz is another great episode directed by Jerry Paris, who seemed to have a knack for getting the cast to really let it fly no matter how absurd the situation. And fly they do. But make no mistake, in lesser hands this kind of material would have fallen flatter than my left rear tire (which I really need to get fixed). Things do get hysterical (on both ends of that spectrum) but the cast never falls into histrionics, which would have sunk it. Amsterdam really shines, here, and I always love it when Moore is allowed to really cut loose and play with the others. And the written word just can't do justice to the zingers and bits of business used to either defuse a situation or push the gas pedal closer to the floorboard. You just gotta watch it to experience the full immersion of what's really going on onscreen. And if nothing else, The Ghost of A. Chantz also provides one of those precious, rare moments when Mel finally, finally, gets the last word in with Buddy, earning that last laugh at his most dreaded nemesis' expense.

This post is the second, and critically overdue contribution to The Dick Van Dyke Show blogathon, originating over at Ivan's truly magnificent Thrilling Days of Yesteryear, which was held aboouuuut three weeks ago. (You can read the first part here.) But, with Halloween rapidly approaching it just seemed be the perfect fodder, which sounds so much better than saying Blogger ate my post. Again. (Which it did. Twice.)

Meme Leech :: Quiz or Die :: I'm Pickin' Up Good Phibeations!

2011-10-22T16:42:00.010-05:00

STUDENTS!

Just look at what we've got cooking up for you!

From the always deviously diabolical proprietor of Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule , I present my answers to Dr. Anton Phibes' Abominably Erudite, Musically Malignant, Cursedly Clever Halloween Horror Movie Quiz. Enjoy!

1) Favorite Vincent Price/American International Pictures release.

Release? P'rolly this:

Produced and released? Definitely this:

2) What horror classic (or non-classic) that has not yet been remade would you like to see upgraded for modern audiences?

I've touched on this before, but I would love to see a remake of THEM! written by John Sayles, directed by Joe Dante and produced by Jon Davidson, with F/X by Stan Winston's company.

3) Jonathan Frid or Thayer David?

David Selby.

4) Name the one horror movie you need to see that has so far eluded you.

I've seen all the sequels, but I have yet to see The Omen.

5) Favorite film director most closely associated with the horror genre.

6) Ingrid Pitt or Barbara Steele?

Nope. Not even gonna.

7) Favorite 50’s sci-fi/horror creature.

8) Favorite/best sequel to an established horror classic.

9) Name a sequel in a horror series which clearly signaled that the once-vital franchise had run out of gas.

10) John Carradine or Lon Chaney Jr.?

Again, not even gonna. Nope. Nosiree.

11) What was the last horror movie you saw in a theater? On DVD or Blu-ray?

Theater: Believe it or not an honest to goodness dusk til dawn Drive In quadrople-feature of The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Dr. Phibes Rises Again, Count Yorga and I, Monster. How appropriate, am I right? Thank YOU, Drive In Super Monster Rama!
On DVD: Time Walker

12) Best foreign-language fiend/monster.

13) Favorite Mario Bava movie.

14) Favorite horror actor and actress.

Actor: Peter Cushing
Actress: Beverly Garland

15) Name a great horror director’s least effective movie.

Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes II. Even before the dog has a flashback to pad-out this sequel with footage from the first, this stolid cash-in had already long worn out it's welcome in my VCR. But speaking truthfully, My Soul to Take was pretty damned awful, too.

16) Grayson Hall or Joan Bennett?

Bennett.

17) When did you realize that you were a fan of the horror genre? And if you’re not, when did you realize you weren’t?

I was aware or monsters before, but I was exposed to special on horror classics on PBS (fairly positive it was hosted and narrated by Vincent Price) around the age of 4, was scared shitless by the same, and have been hooked ever since.

18) Favorite Bert I. Gordon (B.I.G.) movie.

Yes, dammit, Tormented. Deal with it.

19) Name an obscure horror favorite that you wish more people knew about.

In this day and age I don't think anything can be considered "obscure" anymore. I mean, even Hajime Sato's Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell is available on Hulu. Still, every little bit helps. And I've been trumpeting the hell out of this lately:

20) The Human Centipede-- yes or no?

Nah. There are much better (-- see question above) and worse things to look at than that. (See the next question and answer.)

21) And while we’re in the neighborhood, is there a horror film you can think of that you felt “went too far”?

I know Ruggero Deodato gets a lot of grief about the animal snuff in his cannibal atrocity movies, and rightfully so, but René Cardona Jr. is an even worse culprit, considering how many sharks he has killed onscreen for no damned good reason, at all, in, what, damned near all of his films that barely even get a whiff of the ocean? Don't believe me? Try sitting through Tintorera sometime and then report back to me. Even beyond the shark snuff, all of his films are just too nihilistic, even for me.

22) Name a film that is technically outside the horror genre that you might still feel comfortable describing as a horror film.

23) Lara Parker or Kathryn Leigh Scott?

Eh, I was always partial to Alexandra (Moltke) Isles, myself.

24) If you’re a horror fan, at some point in your past your dad, grandmother, teacher or some other disgusted figure of authority probably wagged her/his finger at you and said, “Why do you insist on reading/watching all this morbid monster/horror junk?” How did you reply? And if that reply fell short somehow, how would you have liked to have replied?

About the closest I ever came to this classic scenario was getting caught reading one of Danny Peary's Cult Movie books in study hall by the Nurse Ratchet of study hall monitors. She thought she had me dead to rights until she flipped open the book and it landed on the entry for Rebel Without a Cause. Luckily for me, the book didn't flip open to the entry on Behind the Green Door. *whew*

25) Name the critic or Web site you most enjoy reading on the subject of the horror genre.

As far as I'm concerned, you can't beat the in depth insight of El Santo's 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting.

26) Most frightening image you’ve ever taken away from a horror movie.

I go into why in more detail here, but the discovery of what happened to Dr. Stoner's first lab assistant in Bernard Kowalski's Sssssss, an under-appreciated throwback to 1950's mad science gone amok, and all the implications that entails, is, hands down, the most disturbing thing I've ever seen on film.

27) Your favorite memory associated with watching a horror movie.

Finally, finally, being old enough to stay up with my elder siblings to watch the late, late movie, instead of being sent to bed, allowing me see Killdozer for the first time. Haven't been the same since.

28) What would you say is the most important/significant horror movie of the past 20 years (1992-2012)? Why?

Probably Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later. It helped cement the insurgent zombie movement and helped break the genre out of the permanent slasher rehash malaise it had been stuck in since about 1985 and re-introduced the old fashioned monster movie concept as a viable commodity.

29) Favorite Dr. Phibes curse (from either film).

From the first film:

Dr. Whitcombe getting impaled by the brass unicorn.

And the second film:

Poor Baker getting squished.
Postively gruesome. Even for the good Dr. Phibes.

30) You are programming an all-night Halloween horror-thon for your favorite old movie palace. What five movies make up your schedule?

And that's that. Until next time, boils and ghouls.

Ephemera :: Because I Can.

2011-10-20T02:04:00.002-05:00

(I [HEART] this time of year...)

Favorites :: Vintage VHS :: Columbia's Drive-In Classic Covers!

2011-10-17T01:45:00.010-05:00

Apparently, at some point, the old American International back catalog of films belonged to Columbia, resulting in these spiffy, retro-four-walling poster box covers. Now, I think the majority of the films are under MGM's banner. And it's my understanding that the reason why some of these featured titles have had a DVD release while others haven't is over some lingering copyright issues when Jim Nicholson and Sam Arkoff's split in the late 1960's over Nicholson's divorce, a direct result of his pursuit of actress Delores Hart; a rift over split assets that has been kinda festering since Nicholson's untimely death a few years later. And that's why I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Invasion of the Saucer Men, and several other AIP classics haven't made the digital leap yet. I'm sure it'll happen someday, I hope; but until then we can at least have these on our shelves.

YouTube Finds :: Just When You Thought It Was Safe to -- Ah, Forget It. Just watch!

2011-10-15T02:01:00.014-05:00

As a wise man once said, It started small. Like it always does [from the book of Egg Shen: Chapter Burton, Verse Jack] -- and then quickly spiraled out of control so badly that we all wound up here ... Okay, so, it all began at work several days ago, where I was completely dumbfounded to discover that several of my co-workers were blissfully unaware that there'd been a JAWS 4. And no, JAWS the Revenge didn't ring any bells, either, which led me to ruin YouTube's bandwith, showing all these scoffers this glorious clip of just-add-water WTF...

Video courtesy of AAEJZ.

... and then, well, after watching that giant chunk of stoopidity (-- and, believe it or not, the studio-mandated overhaul ending is even worse), I had to convince them that the film was real and not some internet hoax. (Yes, that's Lorraine Gary. Yes, that really is Michael Caine. Yes, that's the Last Starfighter. No, I didn't know sharks could hover out of water like a dolphin. And, no I didn't know sharks could roar, either...)

Like I said: Even worse.
(Nope. That's not a hoax, either.)

Anyways, as I passed this anecdote on to others more well-versed in the lore of franchise-killing sequels, my good friend Jessica Ritchey threw out this awesome nugget of awesomeness: "It's rare a franchise will produce it's own cheap Italian knock off." And after I stood up and applauded this latest round of brilliant insight (no, really, go read her blog), it got me to thinking about this:

a/k/a Great White, a/k/a The Last Shark; the true Italian busted-block knock-off of the JAWS franchise. So much so, as the legend goes, Universal got an injunction against the film, bringing it's theatrical release to an abrupt end and making a(n official) domestic home video release nearly impossible. But in this age of the internet, after a little poking around, I see that L'Ultiomo Sqaulo is now available, serialized on YouTube -- complete with Turkish subtitles for all of us to enjoy...

Video courtesy of 123jewis.

(At least I think those are Turkish subtitles...)

ATTENTION :: Blogathon Alert!

2011-10-12T14:17:00.009-05:00

There's always room for more giallo, am I right? And that's why I'll be strapping on my black patent leather gloves and sharpening up my favorite kitchen untensil in preparation to participate in Hugo Stiglitz Makes Movies' latest endeavor, The Italian Horror Blogathon, where, and I quote, folks are encouraged to share their thoughts on anything from gialli to zombies to bad knock-offs of more popular movies to really bad exploitation flicks -- as long as it's horror and from Italy, it meets the criteria for this blogathon.

Yeah, definitely in on this one. And what will I be breaking my Baroque womp'n stick over this go-round? Well, though he's mostly known for his wonky, low-fi sci-fi output, Luigi Cozzi also made an outstanding thriller, L'assassino è costretto ad uccidere ancora:

a/k/a The Killer Must Kill Again. Until then...

I'm participating. Are you?