PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Jerry Warren Collection Volume 1

Jerry Warren started back in the 1940s, he acted in four films, all uncredited, before he directed and produced the 1956 Yeti film Man Beast. He directed 9 other films and 8 of them have been collected in three sets from VCI. If it was a box set it would be a box of stink. The films are part of the Kit Parker film library which VCI puts out. Jerry also bought and hacked up a handful of foreign films, like Terror In The Midnight Sun which he turned into Invasion Of The Animal People. He not a good film maker in anyway, at least from the three examples of his work here. I've seen several of his other films but there are films in the three volumes that I hadn't seen. Not a comforting thought.

Man Beast 1956 Screenplay by B Arthur Cassidy, directed by Jerry Warren. Besides the stuff that Jerry shot there's plenty added mountain climbing footage from an unfinished foreign film that Jerry says is "probably of Mexican origin". Jerry did actually shoot footage in the snow covered mountains a few miles away from LA, he also used the cave in Bronson Canyon. The costume for the Yeti was the ape costume from White Pongo. He had his actors climb the fence of a major studio lot to shoot scenes on their Himalayan set.

It's a story about a woman's search for her brother in the Himalayan Mountains. Asa Maynor plays the woman, she needs to find her brother before the altitude effects his medications and kills him. The brother went up the mountain to search for the Yeti. She misses him at his last camp but meets up with the guide that took him there.

The guide takes Asa's party into the mountains and there's nothing but mountain climbing and death ahead of them. Lucky for her, she manages to get away with her boyfriend. I had to laugh at the guide's reveal at the end of the film. He turns out to be the son of a human and a Yeti, his plan to assimilate the Yeti into society is joyously ludicrous. I got to the end, it does have a bit of entertainment value but it's well below average, Not surprisingly it has a good number of 10 votes on the IMDb, way more 1 votes though. I certainly liked it better than the botch job Jerry did with Invasion Of The Animal People. The original of that film was much more entertaining and might have made better box office just as it was. Why Jerry couldn't see that is a puzzle. From reading about Jerry I don't see a guy with a business plan. He just plowed ahead and did things, but lacked the ability to do them well. The actors he used from the Pasadena Playhouse were a mixed lot but most of them did well enough with the so-so script. I like a lot of these old 50s films and can forgive a lot of the bad film making so I might watch it again someday.

The Wild World Of Batwoman 1966 Jerry wrote the script and directed. He wanted to cash in on the current Batman craze from the TV show with Adam West. He lied to Katherine Victor, promising to make a good film, in color, with plenty of production values but he just couldn't get the money and didn't have the talent to do better. I first saw TWWOB onMST3K.

That's Katherine Victor with her Bat Girls. The casting director hired the Bat Girls from a strip club that got closed after a raid. Katherine had to make her own costume as Jerry refused to spend money for a costume designer. Steve Brodie, Steve Conte and Bruno VeSota have parts in the film but I didn't recognize any other names.

The story is pretty goofy, Batwoman fights crime with her Bat Girls. It's definitely meant to be a comedy but there weren't that many good jokes and the slapsticky stuff is weak. Since I'd seen it a few times from watching it on MST3K I was used to the film and got through it to the end. I might even watch it again.

Curse Of The Stone Hand 1964 Jerry cobbled this together from two Chilean movies that would have been better to see as they were. He added scenes with John Carradine and Katherine Victor. La Casa Está Vacía (The House is Empty) 1945 was directed by Carlos Schlieper and La Dama De La Muerte (The Lady of Death) 1946 was directed by Carlos Hugo Christensen. The later was based on the Robert Lewis Stevenson story The Suicide Club. You can see both films on YouTube but sadly with no subtitles. I haven't looked at the subtitle sites to see if there might be some available.

The framing story with John and Katherine ties the two stories together and makes them appear to have a connection to a particular house and the cursed stone hands within. The first story is about a gambler who's cursed by moving into the place, he looses heavily at a gambling club and is forced to sign a suicide pact. That's the end of him. The other story is about a different family who move into the house, the owner's son starts acting like a dick and uses hypnotism to try to control his brothers fiancee.

The actual footage shot in Chili is fairly entertaining and looked pretty good. The stuff Jerry shot is pretty useless. The movie got bad reviews and Leonard Maltin called it incoherent. I have a feeling that Jerry could have done better dubbing and selling the two Chilean films intact. How Jerry's mind works is beyond me. At least I got to see it. Sadly the 3 films in the set aren't available on YouTube, I guess Kit Parker doesn't want you to suffer from the pain of watching them.

Creepy Creature Double Feature Volume 1

Creepy Creature Double Feature Volume 1 is another VCI release from the Kit Parker film library. He's got a good number of films in that collection but these aren't some of the better ones. They're both passable as entertainment and there's two of them on one disc.

Monster From The Ocean Floor 1954 The first film produced by Roger Corman, screenplay by Bill Danch, directed by Wyott Ordung. Bill would go on to write a huge number of TV episodes and animated shorts. He wrote 20 episodes of the 1967 Spider-Man series and 58 episodes of the animated Sabrina The Teenage Witch series. Wyott only directed one other film, the 1956 Chuck Conners film Walk The Dark Street. He's responsible for penning that 50s SF classic Robot Monster. He didn't have a long career.

Lucky for us Monster From The Ocean Floor is a bit better than Robot Monster. Anne Kimbell plays a young woman vacationing in a tiny Mexican sea side village. While swimming she's nearly run down by marine biologist Stuart Wade and his mini submarine. An abalone diver disappears and Anne sees something huge in the sea. Stuart doesn't quite believe her, suspecting a large octopus or something like that. Little do the two of them know that the local legend of a sea monster is real. The local witch woman plots to sacrifice Anne to the thing they believe to be a god, she enlists the help of local fisherman Pablo, played by Wyott Ordung, to lure Anne to the monster. Eventually things are sorted out and there's a happy ending. Well, except for the few people who got eaten.

It's a fairly decent movie, well enough made for the little cash spent on it, sadly it fails on the monster. Film historian Tom Weaver interviews Roger Corman about the film and talks about the film in audio extras. That was as entertaining as the film in some ways. Glad to have a copy and be able to watch it again someday.

Serpent Island 1954 Produced by Bert I Gordon, written and directed by Tom Gries. Rosalind Hayes hires men to help her find some gold that her great-grandfather had hidden in Haiti. Sonny Tufts plays a marine engineer who's been living as a beach bum. He's the one who figures out that the gold isn't on Haiti but another island in the area. They find the gold but it turns out to be the property of a voodoo cult and guarded by a big ass boa constrictor.

The script is weak, the acting average or below, the film watchable but it's not as entertaining as MFTOF. I'd still watch it again but it's going to be a while before that happens.

Friday Night Movies 800

I'd seen Terror In The Midnight Sun back in 2010 and posted about it. I enjoyed it but hadn't watched it since. Last week I was in DreamHaven, owner Greg mentioned the movie and that there were two different American versions. I was pretty sure I hadn't seen either. I looked and they're not in My Watched Movie List, I don't mention it on my post either. Here's a bit of an explanation of the versions from the IMDb page for the movie. I've added links to the versions I could find online.

Was released in the USA as "Invasion of the Animal People". The film was shortened and scenes with John Carradine were added. Jerry Warren and Virgil W. Vogel are given co-director credit for the U.S. version

The film exists in three English language versions:

• (1) "Terror in the Midnight Sun" is the original Swedish version which was shot in English with a running time of 69 minutes.
• (2) "Invasion of the Animal People" is the title of the original U.S. theater release in which Jerry Warren removed approximately 24 minutes from the 69 minute original version. Scenes of John Carridine and others were shot and added to the remaining footage. The remaining footage was changed around, stock music cues and narration by Carridine were added. This U.S. theatre version ran only 55 minutes.
• (3)"Invasion of the Animal People" was the title retained for the version distributed to television by Medallion. Some of the cut Swedish footage was restored and Jerry Warren shot additional scenes to pad the running time up to 81 minutes, nearly 12 minutes longer than the original version.

Some prints of the original English language Swedish version under the title "Terror in the Midnight" are missing the racy shower scene. This footage was completely removed from the chopped up U.S. version titled "Invasion of the Animal People."

The version of TITMS in the title link above is the version missing the shower scene. The DVD I bought after our conversation has the #1 version, running 69 mins with shower scene, the one on YouTube is 71 minutes. Not sure why, especially since the shower scene, barely a minute plus, is missing. The DVD has a copy of Invasion Of The Animal People, the 3rd version listed above. I wasn't able to find a copy of that to post. TITMS looks pretty good but IOTAP doesn't look as nice, it's a bit fuzzier.

I enjoyed Terror In The Midnight Sun all over again. It's a well made movie with a fairly efficient story. The cast is good, the sets and props are well made, the locations are quite nice at times. The effects are fairly good and so is the monster, considering that it was the only SF film made in Sweden at the time. There might be too much skiing.

The script was by Arthur C Pierce, it was his 2nd feature film, he'd written a short film and an episode of The Silent Service. The Cosmic Man was his first film, I hadn't seen it, I found I'd downloaded a copy some time ago but hadn't ever got around to watching it, I'll be checking that out soon. Pierce followed TITMS with Beyond The Time Barrier and The Human Duplicators. He wrote several other low budget films that weren't always great but were usually interesting to watch.

Terror In The Midnight Sun was directed by Virgil W Vogel, his first three features were The Mole People, The Kettles On Old McDonald's Farm and The Land Unknown. I've seen all of those 3 or 4 times each. After he finished The Land Unknown Virgil started directing TV. After TITMS he only directed on more theatrical feature, The Sword Of Ali Baba, but he did direct several TV movies and lots of TV episodes.

Barbara Wilson plays an Olympic figure skater who is in Sweden. The fellow is Sten Gester, he plays a scientist who joins the fellow below on a trip to investigate a meteor that landed in Lapland.

That's the team there, military men transported them to Lapland. They encounter the big furry monster pretty often. The military men attack on first site but their pistols and rifles are ineffective.

There's plenty of action, mostly skiing but a good bit of monster screen time. The aliens make an appearance or two and eventually things are wrapped up fairly well. There's even time for a bit of romance. I liked the way it looked and would want to watch it again sometime.

I can't say that for the two versions Jerry Warren cobbled together out of his lack of imagination. His added footage is terrible, the writing is poor and everything else about it sucks. He takes a good film and ruins it, twice. He even chose a stupid title for his version. The short version is the worst of the two, at least the TV version has more of the interesting original footage added back.

If Jerry were alive he'd be right in line for a smash in the nut sack from the disinterred skull of Paul Naschy. I'd take a running start on this one, flailing my skull wielding arm like a windmill of bones. Luckily Jerry is dead, he won't have to stand up to the mighty power of Paul Naschy's testicle obliterating skull of vengeance. I'll have a chance to complain more about Jerry in the near future. I just picked up 3 volumes of Jerry's so called work from Kit Parker Films and VCI.

Kaidan Kasane-ga-fuchi 1957

Kaidan Kasane-ga-fuchi is the Japanese title of a 1957 ghost story. It's often called The Depths, The Ghost Of Kasane Swamp or The Ghost of Kasane. It's based on a story called Shinkei Kasanegafuchi by Encho Sanyutei, the screenplay is by Yasunori Kawauchi, the director is Nobuo Nakagawa.

It starts one snowy evening.

A blind masseur goes to collect a debt from a samurai. The samurai goes nuts, kills the guy and has his servant toss the body in the swamp. The ghost of the masseur comes back to haunt the samurai and he kills his wife and downs himself in the swamp.

Twenty years later the orphaned children of the masseur and the samurai have grown up and live in the same town. The son of the samurai is Shinkichi, he's a servant to a shop keeper, the daughter of the masseur is Rui, she's a samisen teacher. The daughter of the shop owner is Hisa, she's in love with Shinkichi, Rui is also in love with him. Omura is a samurai who wants to marry Rui but he's more thug than samurai, she doesn't want to have anything to do with him. He stirs up trouble among the trio and everything goes steadily to hell.

It's no Onibaba but it's fairly good. A lot of these Japanese supernatural stories seem to end poorly for most everyone. This isn't anything different. It's nice and moody and it looks pretty good. You can download a copy at this blog.

The Strange Door 1951

The Strange Door is a 1951 adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson story The Sire De Maletroit's Door. Jerry Sackheim wrote the screenplay and Joseph Pevney directed. The year after this movie Jerry Sackheim wrote the excellent film The Black Castle. I didn't recognize any of his earlier films but I have seen his 1960 movie The Boy And The Pirates and enjoyed it. He wrote some good bit of TV, shows like My Friend Flicka, Lassie, The New Adventures Of Charlie Chan, Science Fiction Theater and Death Valley Days.

Joseph Pevney started in films in 1950 and switched over to TV by 1961. I've hardly seen any of his movies but I've seen a bunch of his TV. He worked on many popular shows from the 60s to the 80s.

In The Strange Door Charles Laughton is Sire Alain de Maletroit and Boris Karloff is his downtrodden servant Voltan. Sally Forrest is Sire Alain's niece Blanche and Richard Wyler (credited as Richard Stapley) is Denis de Beaulieu. Denis is on the run from a mob, they've been tricked by Alain to believe Denis has killed a man. Denis hides in Alain's chateau, not knowing the man is a monster.

Once there Alain intends to force Denis to marry Blanche. It's part of his messed up plan of vengeance on his young brother Edmond. Alan Napier plays Edmond, who's been trapped in the dungeon's for twenty years.

Luckily it's the kind of movie where the baddy doesn't get what he wants. I found it moody and entertaining and thought it was better than average. The Blu-ray looks very nice, I was happy to have picked it up and would watch it again. I enjoyed the Commentary by Film Historians Tom Weaver, David Schecter and Dr. Robert J Kiss.

Horrors Of The Black Museum 1959

Horrors Of The Black Museum is a 1959 British American horror film. Herman Cohen and Aben Kandel wrote the original story and the screenplay, Arthur Crabtree was the director. While Herman was mostly a producer of B films, he did pen several that I've seen, I Was A Teenage Werewolf, How To Make A Monster, The Headless Ghost, I Was A Teenage Werewolf, Konga, Berzerk and Craze. No real gems there, but somewhat entertaining in their way. Aben started writing films in 1932 but only a couple of titles are familiar. He did some TV in the early 50s and then he started working with Herman on a bunch of pictures.

Arthur Crabtree directed 16 movies between 1945 and 1959, this was the last. I'm betting his most beloved film among 50s SF and horror fans would be the 1958 film Fiend Without A Face. It's a darn good one. Arthur directed 12 episodes of the 1958 Roger Moore TV show Ivanhoe. I remember liking that show when I was a kid but the few I've seen in recent years just weren't as entertaining to the older me.

A woman is killed with a pair of trick binoculars, spikes pierced her eyes when she used them. Michael Gough is a crime writer and journalist, he stops in at the police station to have a look at the murder weapon. That's Michael on the right. On the left is Geoffrey Keen, he's Superintendent Graham, the other fellow is John Warwick, he's Inspector Lodge. Long term Brit film fans will know Geoffrey, he's has been in way too many movies and TV shows to mention. John was an Australian fellow who was in the holy grail of TV shows for me, he was a copper in 4 episodes of The Flying Doctor.

Michael has a secret museum of weapons and torture devices in his basement. Michael has an assistant called Rick. Michael is a bat shit crazy murderer.

It's a fairly good film with interesting stuff going on. It's moody and a bit creepy. Good actors with a good script, and plenty of nice locations, sets and props. I thought it was worth a look when I was done. I picked up a DVD and will want to watch it again.

You can try it out on YouTube here, sadly some guys blather on at the start, the middle, and at the end of the picture. You can fast forward them or listen. If you are watching a YouTube video you can use the left and right keyboard arrows to jump ahead, or back, 5 seconds at a time. It doesn't work during the ads.

Cat Girl 1957

Cat Girl is a 1957 British film that's called The Cat Girl in the US. It's written by Lou Rusoff and directed by Alfred Shaughnessy. Lou wrote the fan favs, It Conquered The World, The Day The World Ended, and The Sea-Creature. Alfred was more a writer than a director, he only directed 4 films. I haven't seen any of them but I do have a copy of Six-Five Special, it's some sort of pop music film from 1958.

Barbara Shelley finds out her family is cursed, they turn into leopards when they are jealous and angry. She doesn't believe it at first, after her uncle is killed she starts to think differently. Robert Ayers plays a psychiatrist who is trying to help her. He thinks it's all in her mind and it's not really sure that it is happening to her in real life. There's a real leopard in the story to muddy it up. It's not quite as sophisticated as Cat People but it was entertaining enough. It's short and it moves along quickly. I was glad to have seen it and will have to pick up a copy to add to my accumulation of British films. You can see it at the link in the title above. You might like it. 

Monolith Monsters 1957

I was excited to see that the Monolith Monsters was coming out on Blu-ray. I ordered one before it had dropped in price because it's one of my favorite of the 1950s SF films. It sure looks nice. Makes me wish I had a larger TV. Someday.

The Blu-ray has a different aspect ratio, the box says 2.0:1 and 1.85:1, and aspect ratio is 1.33:1 on the older Universal DVD. I don't think the cropped version looked too bad. There's a lot of head room in the 1.33:1 version. I'll keep both, the Monolith Monsters comes as part of a set of ten movie set, many of which are turning up on Blu-Ray from Shout Factory right now. I don't need all of the new Blu-rays since I have that nice set. Admittedly some of those other movies don't mean as much to me as TMM and I'd rather spend that money, over 20 bucks a Blu-ray, on some movies I haven't seen before.

I was excited that the new Blu-ray had two commentaries, until I heard them. American film historian Tom Weaver doesn't seem to care for the movie much and I was certainly disappointed in his audio track. He has lots of info but his sarky attitude is annoying. Where's the fleshless skull of Paul Naschy when I need it for some ball cracking mayhem. British film historian Mark Jancovich spends much of his commentary talking about other movies and Jack Arnold. I'm still listening to it and right now he's switched to talking about Orson Wells, left wing politics, and Citizen Kane. What the Fuck? He's also pretty poor at narrating his commentary, he "uumms" and "ahhs" continuously, or his sentences trail off into awkward silence. Another disappointment. Oh, Shout Factory, what dorks you are for putting those track on the disc. Still, the movie looks great and I won't have to waste my time listening to those two commentaries again.

Monster From Green Hell 1957

I don't remember ever seeing Monster From Green Hell before. It's a 1957 giant monster movie, written by Louis Vittes and Endre Bohem, direction by Kenneth G Crane. I had heard of the writers, they worked on some decent shows in the 50s and 60.

Crane on the other hand was mostly a film editor, he only directed 4 films, When Hell Broke Loose was next and that was followed by the US scenes used in Half Human, those were followed by The Manster. An odd lot of films, huh, and all of it happened in 1957 and 1958.

The story is about a space test rocket that stays up for 40 hours and then falls into Africa. Some months later the area is plagued with suspicious animal and human death. Jim Davis plays a scientist, one of the men with the rocket, and he suspects the deaths might have something to do with his rocket. He goes off to Africa to investigate.

It's filled with what seem to be endless jungle scenes, so many in fact, they had to borrow some footage from Stanley And Livingstone. The story is fairly good, giant wasps, but the execution is weak. It was fun enough but it knows it's below average and so do I.

Friday Night Movies 733

Up first the 2018 Norwegian disaster movie The Quake. It spends over an hour introducing us to the characters. The main character is a guy who's depressed from surviving the 2015 Norwegian film The Wave. A big wave came and destroyed his town, he managed to save his wife and child but a couple of hundred people didn't survive. Somehow I just don't find a depressed guy an interesting character. It's slowness and draggy scenes make the 108 minute running time seem like crawling time. It takes forever to get to the quake that destroys Oslo's downtown and now that I've seen it there will be no need to buy a copy since I won't want to see it again.

Our second film was the Blu-ray of the 1959 film The Four Skulls Of Jonathan Drake. I'd seen it before and liked it well enough. It's got a script from Orville H Hampton and Edward L Chan is the director. Orville wrote a lot of popular stuff for film and TV. Nothing big time really, just a nice assortment. Edward was no slouch, he directed 128 items, some feature films, some shorts and a bit of TV. The highlight might be It! The Terror From Beyond Space.

The story is about a family with a curse on them. The men die at about 60 and someone steals their skulls. We find out what has been happening and a good cop helps put a stop to that. There's a decent story and good character actors like Eduard Franz, Valerie French and Henry Daniell. The movie doesn't waste much of it's 70 minute running time. The movie is also available as a four pack from Mill Creek. That's a good deal, there are 3 other fairly decent films on the disc.