PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Bigfoot 1970

Bigfoot 1970 Written and directed by Robert F Slatzer.

A pilot parachutes from her conked out plane only to kidnapped by a Bigfoot in need of a woman to keep his species going. That's Joi Lansing on the left, she's the pilot. The other lady is Judy Jordan, she plays the girlfriend of a biker. The gals are in trouble, the local Bigfoot tribe have kidnapped them for breeding purposes. Or lunch, it's not clear yet.

John Carradine and his business partner John Mitchum are traveling through the same area in search of customers. John M is the younger brother of Robert Mitchum. The biker who's gal was taken by Bigfoot is played by Christopher Mitchum, he's Robert Mitchum's son. Bing Crosby's son Lindsay plays one of the bikers and Doodles Weaver is a forest ranger.

None of them can do much with the dialog, the story or the budget. It's lacking in all respects. The director is lacking a Wikipedia page, his IMDb page lists two feature films and a documentary on John Wayne. I've seen Slatzer's 1968 film The Hellcats. It was a MST3K selection that I saw when it originally aired, I watched it more recently, 2015, when I worked my way through one of those 50 Movie Packs. I gave that The Hellcats a 2.

Bigfoot is about 50% better so I gave it a 3. Still poor. You can watch it at the link above, though why you would...

 

The Burnt Orange Heresy 2019

The Burnt Orange Heresy 2019 Based on the Charles Willeford novel of the same name, screenplay by Scott Smith, directed by Giuseppe Capotondi.

An art critic gets involved with a plan to steal a painting from a reclusive painter. Since it's a Willeford story everything with the plan goes wrong and people start dying. It's a fairly straight forward story and fairly well told. I'd probably watch it again but it would be a while.

I Only Arsked 1958

I Only Arsked 1958 Screenplay by Sid Colin and Jack Davies, directed by Montgomery Tully. A Hammer-Granada production that was based on the TV series The Army Game.

Bernard Bresslaw, Michael Medwin, Alfie Bass, David Lodge, Norman Rossington and Charles Hawtrey are useless army soldiers who are sent to the Middle East to help a King and his oil fields. They get stuck in the middle of coup but bumble their way to a happy ending.

It's a pretty simple and familiar tale with a few jokes, mostly of the physical sort. I liked it well enough but couldn't give it more than a 5 on the IMDb. You can see a copy on YouTube, see link above.

Dalgliesh Series 1 2021

Dalgliesh Series 1 2023 Based on the Adan Dalgliesh novels by PD James, TV series created by Helen Edmundson, written by Helen Edmundson and Stephen Greenhorn, directed by Andy & Ryan Tohill, Jill Robertson and Lisa Clarke. Six episodes, each a two part story, aired in November 2021. A second series just aired last April and a third has been ordered.

Bertie Carvel plays DCI Adam Dalgliesh, Jeremy Irvine plays DS Charles Masterson and Carlyss Peer plays DS Kate Miskin. The stories are set in the mid 70s.

In the first story a nurse is murdered in a nursing school. Everyone has some sort of secrets. In the second story Dalgliesh goes to visit an old friend only to find he's died. He gets involved with a suicide and uncovers some some secrets. In the third story Dalgliesh investigates a double murder in a church. The clues lead him to a rich family with dirty secrets.

Nicely produced and rather dour. They kept my interest to the end but I doubt I'd get around to watching them again.

Science Fiction Sunday 744

Doctor Who 2 Series 9 Episodes 0 - 2

 

Last Christmas December 25 2014 Written by Steven Moffat and directed by Paul Wilmshurst.

   

The Doctor has been trapped by a dream crab and most of the episode takes place in his head. Fun to see Nick Frost as Santa Claus. The Doctor and Clara start traveling together again.

 

The Magician's Apprentice September 19 2015 Written by Steven Moffat and directed by Hettie MacDonald. First of two parts.

 

The Doctor arrives on a war torn planet to save a young boy from a mine field but runs off when he learns the boy is Davros. On Earth all the planes freeze in the sky and UNIT calls Clara at work.

 

They discover it's Missy, she's got the Doctor's confessional dial with his Last Will and Testament. With Unit's help they find the Doctor in 1138. They travel to meet him and all three get a free trip to see the dying Davros on an invisible Skaro. The episode ends with Clara and Missy killed by the Daleks.  

  

The Witch's Familiar September 25 2015 Written by Steven Moffat and directed by Hettie MacDonald. Second of two parts.

 

Of course Clara and Missy aren't dead and Davros is up to his old tricks. Missy hides Clara in a Dalek and Davros piles on the pathos for the Doctor. The Doctor is already feeling guilty for abandoning Davros.

 

The Doctor uses some of his energy to restore Davros but it's a trick and that energy goes to the old and dying Daleks, energized they want to kill the living Dalek's cause they are the universe's dicks. Missy almost gets the Doctor to kill Clara in the Dalek suit, putting her into pole position for being a POS. The Doctor lets her get away and then he goes to rescue Davros.

There was almost 8 months between the Christmas episode and the start of Series 9, there were a couple of prologue teasers before the Series started airing. They are in the DVD set, along with a commentary for the Christmas Episode and 20 mins of behind the scenes material.

Friday Night Movies 944

A Boy And His Samurai 2010 Based on Fushigi no Kuni no Yasubei by Gen Araki, screenplay and direction by Yoshihiro Nakamura. Yoshihiro is the director of Fish Story. That's the only other movie of his I've seen.

This movie is a fish out of water comedy, a samurai from late 1800s Edo is transported to modern day Toyko. Kijima's there for a few months and he learns a different life style. A lady named Yusa takes Kijima in and her son Tomoya bonds with him.

Kijima learns to bake delicious desserts and he gets a job after winning a contest. He becomes too attentive to his job and neglects the family. Things go bad before they get better.

It's a charming movie. It's a bit slow going but I was entertained. It's got a few laughs and some jeopardy. Things end on a good note. You can see a nice copy over on Dailymotion.

The Hyperions 2020 Story, screenplay (with additional material by Mike Timm) and direction by Jon McDonald.

There's way too much dysfunctional family in the story. In 1960 Professor Ruckus Mandulbaum invented a badge that gives the wearer a superpower. He chose two orphan children and a slightly older woman to be his super hero team. Vista didn't adjust well and she ran off after using her power to control people's minds to force the Professor to give up a pile of cash and a special device. She left the Professor her badge.

The Professor got rid of Ansel, taking his badge away, and found more youngsters to replace them. That was in 1965, fourteen years later Vista and Ansel are trying to steal the badges from the Hyperion museum. Vista needs them to recover her daughter from another ex-Hyperion who wants his badge back. The baddie was on the second team, they got tossed aside after a few years and the Professor is hunting for a new team.

Everybody's got daddy issues and they are all in a bit of a mess. The movie is a bit of a mess. There's some jokes but they are a bit few and far between. It's rather slow and the characters are annoying at times. It reminds me how good The Specials is and I should watch it again sometime soon. I'd watch that before I'd get around to The Hyperions again.

Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em Series 1

Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em Series 1 Created and written by Raymond Allen, directed by Michael Mills. The first series aired in February and March 1973. There were two more series after that.

Michael Crawford and Michele Dotrice are a married couple called Frank and Betty. Betty works, Frank can't hold a job. He can't hold much of anything in his hands either. He's a catastrophic force that damages nearly everything he comes in contact with. At his best Frank manages to destroy a multi million dollar computer, at home it's the appliances, furniture, walls, doors, windows that suffer. On their second honeymoon Frank smashes up the furniture and creates a hole in the floor of the hotel. It's havoc everywhere he goes. For the sake of the nation he should be kept in and away from everything and everyone. Frank isn't just clumsy and accident prone. He's somehow mentally challenged, he misinterprets just about everything anyone tells him.

It was a fairly popular show and the havoc is kind of fun but the episodes are the same as each other and the joke wears thin after a series of only 7 episodes. I bought the set and I'm not sure I'll bother with the other 2 series. I'll wait a bit at any rate.

Crime Traveller Series 1

Crime Traveller Series 1 Created and written by Anthony Horowitz, directed by Brian Furnham and Rick Stroud, 4 episodes each. There were only 8 episodes and they aired in 1997

Anthony is a prolific TV writer as well as a prolific book author, about the only ones I had heard of were the Alex Rider series. I've not read his books but I have seen a lot of his TV episodes: Midsomer Murders, Chiller, Agatha Christie's Poirot and Foyle's War. I can't remember what I thought of any of his Midsomer or Poirot episodes, it's been a while since I saw them. Generally both shows deliver good writing, I wish I could say the same for Crime Traveller.

 

That's Paul Trussell as DS Morris, Michael French as DIJeff Slade, Richard Dempsey as DC Nicky Robson, Chloë Annett as Holly Turner and Sue Johnston as DCI Kate Grisham. They all work at the same police station, Holly is the only non-cop, she's a scientist for the police force. At home she works on the time machine her father started. It takes all her money and time but it does work.

She takes Jeff back in time in the first episode so that they can catch a crook. That's pretty much the same formula for each episode. There are time machine complications, police complications and personal drama. Slade is a maverick cop, always breaking the rules and getting into trouble. In the first episode he chased the suspect so hard the poor guy drove his car off a tall parking ramp into the river. They were still dragging the river when the episode ended.

There's some dubious comedy, some gun shooting, some car driving and plenty of running about. The time travel rules are pretty arbitrary and fluid, and that's still less annoying than Slade. He's pretty much a selfish little boy inside. I had a bit of a struggle to get to end of the series. Tiring. It's quite popular on the IMDb, scoring a 7.3, I could only give it a 5. There's a 2004 DVD set but that's long out of print. I found them on YouTube. Glad I didn't buy the DVD.

Legends Of Dinosaurs And Monster Birds 1977

Legend Of Dinosaurs And Monster Birds 1977 Screenplay by Masaru Igami, Isao Matsumoto and Ichirô Ôtsu, directed by Junji Kurata.

 

Made by Toei Company, the studio was inspired by Jaws, the film did poorly in the Japanese theaters but was a block buster in the Soviet Union. It was known in the US as The Legend Of Dinosaurs and it was used in the last episode of the first season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 which was produced by KTMA. That version was chopped up a good bit, the original movie got a US DVD release in 2007 from Media Blasters and that's what I watched.

A woman falls into a cavern, in the Aokigahara region near Mount Fuji, she awakes to find fossilized eggs, one of which hatches. She runs off and scares a construction crew with her hysterics. A geologist called Takashi goes to take a look, while hiking around Mount Fuji he's knocked out and wakes up in the cabin of a family friend. Takashi continues his hunt for the eggs, on the way he meets an old girlfriend Akiko. She's there with her friend Junko, a scuba diver, who wants to dive in the lake where a couple in a small boat went missing.

A diver is injured in the lake, livestock have gone missing, wild theories of living dinosaurs are tossed out to the dubious public. Well, turns out it wasn't a dinosaur, it was two, one of them a plesiosaurus and the other a rhamporhynchus. The pair battle it out and the volcano erupts killing both dinos. It's a bad day on Mount Fuji and the movie ends on a cliffhanger.

I was much more entertained by the movie than on MST3K. It was like seeing a whole different movie, the MST3K version had so much trimmed out of it. It's a more adult film than I thought, there's a bit of gore, mild by today's standards and a brief bit of nudity. I'd watch it again.

I'm not sure why it did so poorly in the Japanese box office. It was Toei's biggest budget, $2.8 million and it didn't even get a third of that back in receipts. It never got released theatrically in the US but it was released to TV in 1987.

Science Fiction Sunday 743

Doctor Who 2 Series 8 Episode 10 - 12

 

In The Forest Of The Night October 25 2014 Written by Frank Cottrell-Boyce and directed by Sheree Folkson.

 

Overnight great forest grow over the countries of the world. The Doctor figures out why and the world is saved by the trees.

 

Dark Water November 1 2014 Written by Steven Moffat and directed by Rachel Talalay. First of a two part story.

  

Danny is killed and Clara wants the Doctor to save him. He finds Danny is at the 3W company's Nethersphere, a repository of souls.

 

The lady in charge is Missy, she's got a secret and the Doctor won't like it.

 

Dream Of Heaven November 8 2014 Written by Steven Moffat and directed by Rachel Talalay. Second of a two part story.

 

It's Cybermen, Missy has an army of them, all over the world, ready to turn the rest of the humans into her Cyberman army. Danny gets turned into a Cyberman and he blows himself up saving the world. No more Danny. Sad.

There was an 5th disc in the set and it's had a 20 min making of for each episode. There were two 45 min featurettes with Peter Davidson, one on making the Ultimate Doctor and one on making the Ultimate Companion. Pretty fluffy stuff.