PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

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.

Friday Night Movies 729

First up The Devil's Nightmare, a 1971 Belgium and Italian horror film. It's got a script from Patrice Rhomm and directed by Jean Brismee. I wasn't sure I had seen it before but once it was going there were a few things that were familiar. Turns out I saw it back in December of 2015 and then forgot about it. It was part of the Pure Terror 50 Movie Pack from Mill Creek. I just looked at that copy, it's fairly decent for a film from Mill Creek. Seems to the the same length. You can check it out in the link in the title above.

Much of the movie was films in the Chateau d'Antoing in Wallonia Belgium. Nice place. The Baron who lives there was married during WW2, we see his pregnant wife give birth to a baby girl in a flashback. The mother dies and the Baron kills the little girl. The movie jumps to 1971 and a woman is killed while taking pictures of the Chateau. The locals think it's the work of a succubus. We learn that the Baron's family has a curse, the first woman of each generation is born a succubus.

A bus full of lost tourists get directed to the Baron's place by a bald man in a field. He says the Baron might let them stay. That's where the succubus lives so you know that won't go so well. The body count rises until everyone wakes up and dies again. What the? It's got a twist ending that wasn't that twisty. There's nothing much original from this one, it's only about average, I gave it a generous 6 on the IMDb where it scores not unrealistic 5.8, I thought it was slightly better than a 5 but who knows.

Director Jacques Tourneur's Night Of The Demon was our second film. I've already seen this several times over the years. It's a favorite and I was interested in seeing the Blu-ray. Looks nice. The movie is based on an MR James story called Casting The Runes. The screenplay is by Charles Bennett and Hal E Chester with an uncredited Cy Endfield. The movie came out in Britain in 1957, it came out in the US the next year under the title of Curse Of The Demon. It was cut by 13 minutes to 82 minutes. In the 80s the film was restored to original length in the US. The Indicator Blu-ray has various versions of the film. We watched the longer British version. 

Dana Andrews is an American scientist. He's come to England to attend a convention of scientists.That's Dana in the middle with Peggy Cummins. Who knew I would see a third Peggy film in such a short time. At the convention a professor, played by Maurice Denham, is to debunk a Satanic cult leader, played by Niall MacGinnes. That's Niall in the clown makeup. He's got a nice mansion from his proceeds as a cult leader. Athene Seyler plays his mother. She's not quite so happy with the whole Satan thing.

Maurice pleads with Niall to remove the curse. He won't and Maurice goes home only to see a giant demon coming through the trees. He panics and drives his car into a power pole, he dies when he touches the downed wires. It turns out Peggy is Maurice's niece. She's fearful of Niall even if Dana isn't. They go to visit Niall at his estate and Niall tells Dana he will die in 3 days.

There's plenty of running about as the rest of the movie plays out. At first Dana doesn't believe in the curse but strange things happen to make him change his mind. Brian Wilde plays a man frightened to a catatonic state is woken up and made to relive his encounter with the demon. He jumps out of the building to his death, rather than live with the demon memories. Some might remember Brian from Last Of The Summer Wine where he played Foggy Dewhurst for a number of years. Dana does his research and finds there is a way to defeat Niall. It's a good trick.

There was some strife on the production side. After Jacques finished filming the movie producer Hal E Chester decided that they should show the demon in the film. Neither Jacques nor writer Charles Bennett were for that addition but it was done anyway. Chester asked if Ray Harryhausen could do the demon as stop motion but Ray was busy. I never knew that and the demon appearing doesn't bother me. I do side with not screwing up a director's vision but the people that would do that sort of thing aren't going to listen to anyone. Even with all that it's still a good picture. Worth a look for the horror fan.

Psychotronica Collector's Set

I bought this 6 film set on a whim. Psychotronica Collector's Set collects the first 3 previous single disc releases into one package and at $24.99 it was cheaper than buying the three singles, especially since the first two single volumes are out of print and gotten expensive. There's a fourth volume in the series single disc with two more movies on it and that's $19.95. I'm not buying that disc, I've seen The Wild Women Of Wongo, and $19.95 is too much to pay for that and Jungle Girl And The Slaver.

Delinquent Schoolgirls 1975 Directed by Greg Corarito, he wrote the script with John Lamb and Maurice Smith. Michael Pataki, George "Buck" Flower, Roberta Pedon, Bob Minor, Stephen Stucker, John Alderman and Colleen Brennan were the names I recognized in the script. It has some nice posters.

Michael, Stephen and Bob are some horny mental institution inmates with a plan to break out and get some poontang. Well, two of them anyway, Stephen plays a camp gay guy, he wants some cock. Michael's escape plan works and they're on the run. They hold up in a house before they arrive at the local girls school. Don't worry, most of the women have left at their end of term, there are a dozen left who are being held over for extra work. The escapees get theirs when they try attacking the gals at a self defense class. They'll soon be happier returning to the asylum. It's a fairly decent film about some crazy guys. It's more a comedy than you might think. The worst guy turns out to be a college professor who drugs the girls and puts snakes on their underwear clad bodies. He'll get his too. At least there's some punishment for the baddies. Might be the best film in the lot. I gave it a 5 on the IMDb.

Dream No Evil 1970 Written and directed by John Hayes. Edmond O'Brien, Marc Lawrence, Michael Pataki, Arthur Franz are the cast members that I remember. Story of a crazy woman who's been abandoned by her father. She think he'll come back to her. She lives with Michael, he's a preacher, and they travel spreading his ministry. Edmond plays her father, he turns up dead one day. She goes to visit him and he rises from the dead and kills the undertaker. She goes to live with him on the farm. We see it as an abandoned dump. Someone eventually comes to get her, she's been killing and needs to be locked up. It's kind of sad and certainly less fun than the other film. Not bad but only a 4 for me.

Mondo Keyhole 1966 Director Jack Hill co-wrote the screenplay with producer John Lamb. It's a rapey roughie about a guy who doesn't want to have sex with women unless he can rape them. He's got an unloved and horny wife. We see a few of his encounters and hear his mind's thoughts on them. Part of the problem with this film is that they try to make some of it real and some of it his fantasy and it hardly works well. Jack Hill's not that great a director and he's not keen on the job. He mentions he was jut a guy for hire and he was doing what Jack Lamb wanted in the commentary for the film. There's plenty of nudity and as Jack points out, no fake breasts. What a time! I gave it a 5, I did like the way the film looked. Jack's a better cinematographer than a director.

The Raw Ones 1966 John Lamb directed this movie. After the Supreme Court said nudity of itself wasn't obscene Jack Hill helped John repackage several short nudist films into a feature length with narration telling a bit of a story. There's plenty of everyone naked. The girls are pretty but it's rather dull after a while. This one got a 4 also.

The Mermaids of Tiburon 1962/1987 Written and Directed by John Lamb. Timothy Carey and Jose Gonzales-Gonzales are the cast names I knew. A treasure hunter encounters mermaids while looking for some gold. The ladies help him find the treasure. It's kind of simple and not much better than a 3 or a 4, depending on how bored you get.

John Lamb wasn't happy with the box office on release and he went back and shot some nude mermaids and reedited the film. It was done poorly and on the cheap. The DVD set includes both versions of the film. Neither one is more than a 4 to me.

Yamboa - Cry of the Bewitched 1957 A Mexican and Cuban film written by Julio Albo and Julio Alejandro, Alfredo B Crevenna is the director. It's 1850 in Cuba and Captain Jorge and his wife Beatriz are expecting a child.

One night Yamboa, the daughter of a murdered witch comes back to the area. The slaves are unhappy and fearful, they were the ones that killed the witch. Signs of witchcraft appear on the plantation and things go downhill from there. More a melodrama than a horror film. Not too bad but a bit dull. I gave it a 4.

The Thing From Another World 1951

After that Sherlock Holmes movie I wanted to watch something better so I put on the new Blu-ray of The Thing From Another World. Even the carrot guy is a better actor than the ones I had just seen. Acting is just one of the many good things in The Thing From Another World. Nice sets, good actors, interesting story, it hits all the marks and it's certainly one of my favorite SF movies. An exciting story about an alien invading the Earth and the men who stop him. He's a tough foe and the men have to be resourceful and cunning. It's a film that certainly should be in any good film collection. The Blu-ray is nice looking but there aren't any nice extras, other than a trailer.

I Married A Monster From Outer Space 1958

I picked up a used copy of I Married A Monster From Outer Space the other day at DreamHaven. Only 6 bucks for a Warner Archive copy in great shape. It's going for prices that range from $38.64 to $79.75, there's an earlier edition that's going from $19.90 to $59.99 today. Does that mean Warner Archives is letting films become unavailable? It doesn't seem to be available on their site. Maybe they're coming out with a Blu-ray. Not that I would buy a copy.

It's a 1958 film with a screenplay by Louis Vittes and direction by Gene Fowler Jr. Louis worked mostly in TV and Gene edited more movies and TV shows than he directed. He directed I Was A Teenage Werewolf the year before IMAMFOS.

Tom Tryon plays a guy who's getting married. Before the wedding he's taken over by an alien being. Tom's wife is played by Gloria Talbot, she notices he's different, colder, less human. Things play out for a while and more aliens take over humans.

Gloria finds out the truth but the police have been taken over. She finds help in her doctor and he rounds up some guys he can trust. They make a hash of the aliens and their spaceship. A dying alien radios to warn the invasion fleet of the danger and the fleet turns away.

I was happy to see it again. I hadn't seen the movie in ages. It's got a nice creepy edge to it and the story is pretty good. Glad I picked this up.