PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Science Fiction Sunday 519

Only one disc of UFO today. The second episode on the disc has another story about the studio activity causing a security leak. This time Striker's 3rd guy, Foster, is up for court martial for selling info to the press. If he's convicted, and he is, he's going to be put to death. Striker and team work to find out what's going on. They find a bugs and cameras in Foster's apartment and that leads them to an industrial spy who only wanted info on the studio. The SHADO info was a bonus. Foster had been working with an actor's agent at the studio, unbeknownst to Foster the agent had put 10 grand into Foster's bank account, and that made him look that much more guilty to the court. It's all so clunky that it annoyed me yet again.

The first episode on the disc had a woman and her lover planning to kill her hubby. Their plans are interrupted by the arrival of an alien. Striker had let a UFO through the defenses in hope of capturing it on Earth but that plan fails. The wife blasts the alien as he breaks into her house. She didn't see it was an alien as there was a drape hanging just in front of the door. I'm certain the drape was put there so she wouldn't be able to see who was coming through the door. It seems so out of place, hanging three feet in front of the door, but you never can tell, some people just have no decorating sense. No matter, bullet holes in the drape would sure look suspicious to a cop when they do show up. The woman and her lover just aren't the type of people who would be smart enough to figure that out while making their plan. SHADO catches them, figures out what they were up to but they'd already feed the woman and her lover an amnesia drug. Now they have to let them go. The last scene has the woman looking at a grave, we never see the name on the grave, but as she walks off she'd joined by her lover. Did they kill the hubby? Who knows. It's just some shit writing. 

So far I'm still not being able to recommend this show to anyone with half a brain. I was talking about this to a friend and he said he had to quit watching Space 1999 because of the writing. Doesn't look good for me, I still have that series to watch.

The Mystery Of The 13th Guest 1943

I found a copy of The Mystery Of The 13th Guest on YouTube today. I hadn't seen it before and after watching a few minutes I decided to continue to the end. It's directed by one of my favorite directors, William Beaudine, and the screenplay is by Tim Ryan, Charles R Marion and Arthur Hoerl. It's based on a novel by Armitage Trail called The 13th Guest. The book was adapted in 1932 as The Thirteenth Guest with Ginger Rogers. I've seen that and it was OK. Trail also wrote the novel Scarface.

In the 1943 movie the Morgan family meets at the bequest of the rich patriarch. They all sit at a table with 13 chairs but there are only 12 of them. Morgan shows the 8 year old granddaughter an envelope and says she will see it again in 13 years, when she's twenty one. Only then will the rest of the family know who gets the cash. Thirteen years later the girl is a young woman, played by Helen Parrish, and on her birthday she's given the envelope. She's supposed to go to the closed up Morgan mansion to open the envelope. She does and some weird things happen. Later she's found dead and the police arrive. Tim Ryan and Frank Faylen play Lt Burke and his dopey sidekick. Dick Purcell plays Johnny Smith, a detective hired by one of the Morgan family. More suspicious stuff starts happening, the family lawyer is found electrocuted and Helen comes back from the dead.

There's a bit of mystery, some creepy old house stuff, and a good bit of humor. It's just about an hour and it moves along quickly, no wasted time there. I enjoyed the thing and would recommend it to those that like that sort of thing. It's pretty much a B programmer but it was fun and I'd be happy seeing it again someday.

Friday Night Movies 710

The Man With Nine Lives is a 1940 Boris Karloff movie. I'd seen it back in 2015 and just this week I picked up a copy on Amazon for cheapish. It cost all of $7.12 delivered to me. I've been in a Boris kick lately, and more to come, so I was glad to find this DVD. 

Boris is a scientist, Dr Kravaal, who's working on curing people by freezing them. It's some made up mumbo-jumbo that had us laughing. Boris doesn't come into the film for a while. Dr Mason, Roger Pryor, opens the movie by freezing a woman and reviving her 5 days later. The head of the hospital has an issue with what happened and he sends Mason off for a vacation.

Here's an interesting bit from the Wikipedia:

Both The Man with Nine Lives and The Man They Could Not Hang were based in part on the real-life saga of Dr. Robert Cornish, a University of California professor who, in 1934, announced he had restored life to a dog named Lazarus that he had put to death by clinical means. The resulting publicity (including a Time magazine article and motion picture footage of the allegedly re-animated canine) led to Cornish being booted off campus.

I never heard of any of that before.

Dr Mason had gotten his freezing idea from a  book that mentions some of the experiments by Dr Kravaal but the doctor disappeared 10 years earlier. Mason takes Nurse Judith, Jo Ann Sayers, with him to the doctor's island home. They find a secret lab and the Doc buried in ice. Kravaal is revived with warm blankets and lots of coffee. He explains how he got frozen and reveals that there are 4 more men frozen in the second room of the freezer.

 

Things get dicey as Kravaal decides to experiment on the men and things end tragically for most everyone on the island. Dr Mason and Judy get rescued and bring the Doc's notebook to the hospital.

I was entertained. I know the science is a joke but Boris was a great mad scientist. He's totally crazy. The production was fairly good and the DVD looked good too. Glad to have added it to my collection.

I'm not sure I'm going to add Dr Alien to my collection. It's a 1986 comedy from Full Moon with David DeCoteau directing. I know him from Creepozoids, Sorority Babes In The Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge, stuff like that.

That's Judy Landers, she's Ms Xenobia, and she's an alien. That's her big blue head up there. Her planet has fertile women and infertile men. She's looking for some human sperm and she's picked Wesley for her test subject. Wesley is played by Billy Jayne, or Billy Jacoby as he was going under then. Some might remember him from Parker Lewis Can't Lose where he played Parker's best friend Mikey. I enjoyed that show, it was better than this movie.

Sadly, Kenneth J Hall's script is weak. He's a guy who does it all, effects, writing, acting, directing and more. A lot of his work was for Full Moon. There's some jokes but they are few and far between. Even the nudity doesn't help enough. You can see Linnea Quigley and porn star Ginger Lynn parading around topless, later they sing a song. Still, it was a bit of fun, I still wouldn't give it more than a 4.

Boris Karloff Collection

VCL put out a four film collection of Boris Karloff movies called Boris Karloff Collection. The four films are all from the last work he did. Karloff died 2-2-69 and some of the films did not get released until after his death. Jack Hill wrote and directed Karloff in LA and the films were finished in Mexico by Juan Ibanez. All the films are listed on the box as being either 89 or 90 minutes, all are in the 73 - 74 minute range. What sacks of shit, huh.

Dance of Death is also known as House Of Evil. It's a 1968 film with Boris as the head of a family. He's called his family together to see who gets some cash. Soon after they start getting killed off. There's a gimmick with some deadly toys but that's a pretty lame subplot. The film didn't get released until 1978.

Fear Chamber is also titled Torture Zone, most of these movies have more than one title. Boris is head of some scientists investigating a volcano. The scientists being back a "living rock" and it turns out that the rock thrives on the hormones produced by humans when they're scared. It's all pretty stupid.

Alien Terror is about an alien invasion back in 1890. The movie was made in 1971 and Boris is a scientist who invents a ray that attracts an alien spaceship. The aliens come looking for the ray. The want to destroy it, thinking that the human race isn't to be trusted with such powerful weapons. It's about the same as the rest.

Cult of The Dead is also known as Isle Of The Snake People or just Snake People. This came out in 1971 and this time Boris is head of a voodoo cult. A snake dancer creates a gang of zombies and sends them to attack people.

None of these are much worth seeing, I only got them because Boris is in them. The set's not that much money. I doubt that I'll ever get around to them again.

The Great McGinty 1940

I don't remember ever seeing The Great McGinty before but it's possible that I'd seen it in the 80s when we first had cable. It's the sort of movie that would be run on Turner Classic Movies and that was a favorite channel then. It's a 1940 Preston Sturges comedy, he wrote and directed it. It was his first directing job, he'd written two previous films and sold this one, for $10, with the provision he'd get to direct. He did a good job. The film won the Original Screenplay Oscar.

It's got Brian Donlevy as McGinty. He's a bit of a hobo and the prefect target for the men under The Boss to hire to vote. Akim Tamiroff plays The Boss and William Demarest plays Skeeters, his right hand man. McGinty takes advantage of the offer and votes 37 times. Now he wants his $74 from Skeeters but the guy's near tapped out at the end of the day. He take McGinty to see The Boss.

One thing leads to another and the next thing you know McGinty is working for The Boss. He rises through the ranks to Governor only to burn his bridges around him. The whole story is told in a series of flashbacks to a drunken guy in a seedy bar in South America.

I lucked out and wound up buying a 7 DVD set of Preston Sturges films for 0nly 7 bucks. I've got 6 more movies to go. Should be fun.

House - House 2

I got a two movie set of House and House II - The Second Story. House came out in 1986 and the sequel the year after. They're horror comedies though the first is less humorous than the second.

House stars William Katt, he's a writer who's aunt just hung herself in her big house. William's wife has left him and his kid disappeared. He moves into the house and soon strange things start to happen. Some sort of monster keeps coming out of the closet and attacking him. William starts having hallucinations about the Vietnam war and it turns out that one of the men in his company is the cause of his current problems. Now he's got to figure out how to defeat the ghost.

House written by Fred Dekker and Ethan Wiley with Steve Miner directing. Fred's next script was for Night Of The Creeps the following year. He directed that movie and it's much better. Fred wrote and directed The Monster Squad which I liked pretty much. Feed wrote the 2018 Predator movie which I haven't seen. Ethan would write and direct House II - The Second Story. I haven't seen the rest of his work and I doubt that I'll see any of it. Steve directed a lot of TV after House, a little of which I have seen. He directed a handful of movies, a couple of which I liked, Warlock and Lake Placid.

House II - The Second Story is more comical but more annoying. I did like Royal Dano as the resurrected corpse. He still likes a whiskey. A young couple, Arye Gross and Lar Park-Lincoln, move into the family house. His annoying friend, Jonathan Stark, and girlfriend, Amy Yasbeck, come to visit. During a party, with a smarmy Bill Mahr, the women leave because of a stupid bit of writing. That leaves Arye and Jonathan to find the crystal skull and save Royal from dying again. I liked the silliness but the script has some stupid things in it.

Neither movie is at the top of it's game, I gave the first a 5 and the second a 4 at the IMDb. That's lower than each movie's average.

Western Wednesday 57

I've been watching the first season of Maverick the last 2-3 weeks. I'd been interested in seeing the series again, I remembered liking it when it was new but hadn't seen it since since. The first season came out in 1957 and there were 27 episodes. The first three episodes were directed by Budd Boetticher. They're my favorites in the first season. Sadly, he never directed anymore episodes.

James Garner plays Bret Maverick and Jack Kelly plays Bart Maverick. James is the only Maverick in the first 8 episodes but after that he's joined by Jack, they alternate episodes and occasionally both of them appear in the same episode. I just don't find Jack as personable as James and don't enjoy those episodes as much, even though they're similar stories. There's a fair bit of humor and some gun shooting. Mostly the Maverick's solve their problems with their brains.

There's plenty of guest stars, you might know some of them: Leo Gordon, Mike Connors, Jay Novello, Stacey Keach Sr, Edd Byrnes, Efram Zimbalist Jr, Ray Teal, Stuart Whitman, Rod Taylor, Gerald Mohr, Morris Ankrum, Ruta Lee, Werner Klemperer, Frank Cady, Joanna Barnes and Claude Akins. I wonder who;s int he second season, seems I'll find out sooner or later.

Science Fiction Sunday 518

I watched two disc of episodes of UFO yesterday. I finished kind of late and didn't get around to posting until now. On the whole I'm feeling pretty disappointed in UFO. It's the scripts that I'm disappointed in, scripts make me cringe at times and yell at the screen.

One of the episodes was about Ed Straker's kid being run down by a car. The kid needs a new drug that's only available in New York. Ed has it picked up and uses a SHADO craft to fly it to London. It's diverted by his second in command and the kid dies. It's all so horribly contrived it's embarrassing to watch. If only Ed had mentioned what he was doing then it would still be on the way, but no, he's got his mouth shut like a moron. The SHADO crew all seem to make some of the stupidest decisions that it's a wonder the aliens haven't taken over all ready.

The whole lot of SHADO seem incompetant at their jobs but Ed seems like he's one of the worst. In one episode Ed has an interview with a woman reporter. She's interviewing the head of the studio not the guy who's head of SHADO. That whole studio plot device seems like such a security risk. Anyway, they just let this woman breeze in without a security check. After the interview is over, Ed and the lady leave his office. A few minutes later, the reporter returns to get her purse and the secretary lets her go into the office alone. The reporter gets her purse and Ed is suspicious when he hears this later. He knows she had a tape recorder embedded in her purse and he's wondering what she might have gotten on it after they left the office. Turns out that the communications guy had paged Commander Straker over the intercom in his office. Quickly they find out that the woman wasn't working for the paper she mentioned. Now I could see a studio not checking the credentials of a reporter, taking her at face value, but SHADO is a secret organization and they should have some amount of background checks. A little later in the show it's found that the reporter has a criminal record. That's the shit that should have been pulled up before she even got to the door. Ed eventually catches her, gets the tape back, only to have her knock him down with a vase and escape with the tape. After a so-so car chase Ed catches her and takes her out for drinks and back round his place for a meal. Yeah, I know. Unbelievable. Even after learning about her past and he lets her go. Why? Who the fuck knows.

Here's the first paragraph, by MartinHafer, from his IMDb comment on the episode.

This is a pretty good episode and it just goes to show you that in this world, there are some very scary people! The show begins with Straker being told my his receptionist that earlier in the day a Miss Fraser had briefly gone into his office to retrieve her handbag. What the ditsy receptionist didn't know is that Fraser is a reporter--and Straker is panicked. When he checks, he discovers that she'd planted a bug in his office--and he begins to worry what she might have overheard. So, much of the show is spent showing Straker as he tracks down this lady--to find out what she knows and what sort of security breach occurred.

Martin seems to have forgotten that the episode begins with Ed having an interview with the reporter. He seems to also have forgotten that the "ditsy receptionist" tells Ed, before the interview, that a reporter is coming to interview him today. What the fuck did Martin see? Was he drunk or just stupid. People often decide to comment on episodes or movies they have seen in the past, it's occasionally mentioned in the post, and in the ensuing time they've forgotten many details. Not that it stops them making shit up commenting. I don't have any issue with people's opinion but when they don't have the facts right, that's annoying. Martin is a top reviewer and it makes me wonder.

Another episode turned out to be a dream brought about by a hot sauna.  It was too bad, it could have been better if it were really happening.

Generally, I'm the most disappointed in this series over any other Anderson production. It makes Space Police look much much better and that was no great shakes. 

Those Mad Mad Movie Makers 1974

Those Mad Mad Movie Makers is a 1974 comedy that's packed with Alice Goodbody. It's original title is The Last Porno Flick. Based on that title and the film's PG rating, I can see there would be a lot of complaints at the box office. The story is about a couple of guys who are trying to make a porno so they can cash in. In order to get some money from friends and family they tell some of them that they're making a religious film. Sadly, we never see any of the sex scenes and the jokes aren't very funny. It's not really worth bothering with, I'd watch the other film again but doubt I'd re-watch this one. It's co-written by Lawrence G DiTillio who would later wrote 4 episodes of Babylon 5. That's some of his best work and some of the most average episodes in the series.

Alice Goodbody 1971

Alice Goodbody is a 1971 soft core film about an accident prone actress who keeps getting hurt on the film set. It's a Health and Safety nightmare. Tom Scheuer is the writer and director and it's his only film. The movie comes in a Blu-ray 2 pack with Those Mad Mad Movie Makers. Alice Goodbody is about average for this sort of thing. The actress is played by Colleen Brennan, under the name Sharon Kelly, who would go onto make a lot of hardcore porn a few years later. Colleen is the best thing about the movie, she's certainly a better actor than a lot of the cast. Most of them are there to get their clothes off and show some skin. The story is silly and poor Colleen get battered every time she's in a scene. They keep giving her a chance to recover but she's got to have sex with members of the crew to keep her job. It's a dirty old town, that Tinsel Town. All in all it was a bit of fun.