PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 934

Where The Spies Are 1966 Based on the novel Passport To Oblivion by James Leasor, screenplay by James Leasor, Wolf Mankowitz and Val Guest, directed by Val Guest. Niven and Guest optioned the next five Leasor novels but only two of them ever got written. I've not read any of them.

David Niven plays Doctor Jason Love, he's been recruited by MI5 to go to a medical conference in Beirut to contact another doctor. John Le Mesurier plays the MI5 guy MacGuillvray, he'd worked briefly with Doctor Love in WWII when they both were in Military Intelligence. Love is reluctant to go but MacGuillvray offers to buy him a rare Cord automobile to get him on board.

Françoise Dorléac plays a spy called Vikki, her day job is that of international model. She's Love's contact at the airport. They start a bit of a romance. Love misses his plane only to see it explode on take off.

There's plenty of spying activity as the Russian spy Stanilaus, played by Ronald Rudd, gets ready to assassinate the pro-British Prince of Zahlouf. Love turns up and nobbles the Russian's plan. The Russkies kidnap Love and plan to take him to Russia.

Vikki turns out to be a double agent. She does redeem herself by shooting Stanilaus but sadly her modeling career comes to an end when Stanilaus returns the favor. I figured she'd die, it's the mid-60s, there's usually payback for blowing up a plane full of people. Doctor Love escapes and returns home.

I liked the movie well enough, it's more a spy movie like Our Man In Havana than a James Bond thriller. The Wikipedia says it's a comedy adventure film, it does OK on the adventure but it lacks a good supply of jokes. Despite that it's got a fairly decent script, perhaps a bit too long at 112 mins, and cast of good British actors. I recognized Cyril Cusack, Eric Pohlmann, Paul Stassino, Noel Harrison, Alan Gifford, Bill Nagy, Basil Dignam and Nigel Davenport. It's different enough from the average spy film that I'd watch it again.

Dr Renault's Secret 1942 Written by William Bruckner and Robert F Metzler and directed by Harry Lachman.

I wasn't certain that I had seen it before but the title was familiar. I looked at my Watched Movie List but I couldn't see it. Well, I couldn't find it due to a typo when I entered the movie in November 2017. The post I did then is linked in the title above. I still feel the same about the movie.

Friday Night Movies 917

The Wonderful World Of The Brothers Grimm 1962 Based on the biography The Brothers Grimm by Dr Hermann Gerstner, story by David P Harmon, screenplay by Charles Beaumont, William Roberts and David P Harmon, directed by Harry Levin with George Pal directing the fairy tale sequences.

The film was filmed in three panel Cinerama widescreen. The film hadn't had a US video release since the 1989 VHS and the 1992 Laserdisc. The Wikipedia tells of a bootleg Italian DVD. I know I haven't seen it in decades. I'm sure I saw it on TV as a kid. The film's been restored and presented in two versions, letterbox and Smilebox. We watched the letterbox and the dragon sequence on the Smilebox.

That's the Smilebox. Letterbox below.

Laurence Harvey plays Wilhelm and Karlheinz Böhm plays Jacob, Claire Bloom plays Wilhelm's wife and Barbara Eden plays Greta, a young woman smitten with Jacob. Oskar Homolka plays the Duke and Walter Slezak plays a bookstore owner called Stossel. Other members of the cast that I knew were Yvette Mimieux, Russ Tamblyn, Jim Backus, Beulah Bondi, Terry-Thomas, Buddy Hackett, Otto Kruger and Arnold Stang. Stan Freberg does some voices for the Puppetoons puppets.

The Brothers Grimm have taken a writing assignment from the local Duke. They are writing his family history and are nearly at the end of the 6 month project. The Duke is mad because it's not quite finished and he knows Wilhelm has been devoting some of his writing time to the fairy tales he loves so much. The brothers need to get this work done or the Duke won't pay them, he'll toss them out of their house and send them to the debtor's prison.

Wilhelm is a problem, not a practical man, he causes issues, nearly dies and hallucinates fairy tale characters and gives them names. Interspersed with the bio story are three short animated and live action fairy tales. They were nice to watch but the bio stuff was less interesting. I would have liked to see more fairy tales animated instead of incorrect bio info. It's fairly long too, 140 mins.

The Blu-ray looks nice but I'm doubtful I need to add it to my library. I can say the same about our second movie.

Amityville In The Hood 2021 Written by Jeremiah Douglas and Dustin Ferguson, directed by Dustin Ferguson.

Some joker is growing weed in the Amityville house, some guys steal it and take it to California. It's Big M's weed and he follows the weed to Cali. The drug guys have a dust up and kill some people. The weed turns people crazy and they kill other people. Sadly, most of that sort of action takes places off screen. What we have to sit through are some bad actors reading crap dialog from a poorly written script that was never thought through in the first place.

It was hard to sit though without heaping scorn on the film. The movie scores a 1.8 on the IMDb. It's deserving, just about everything about it is poor.

Friday Night Movies 911

Buried Alive 1989 Vaguely based on Edgar Allen Poe stories, screenplay by Jake Chesi and Stuart Lee, directed by Gérard Kikoïne, produced by Harry Allan Towers. Filmed in Botswana and Johannesburg. We watched the new Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome. The image looks alright, there's are interviews with Ginger Lynn Allen and William Butler for extras.

A young teacher, played by Karen Witter, goes to work for Robert Vaughn at his school for troubled young women. These are some annoying bad girls with Ginger Lynn Allen leading the pack. Some women go missing and Robert says they ran away. He tries to come off as caring but he's really a self involved creep. The audience knows that there's someone in a Ronald Reagan mask killing those women and bricking them up in rooms in the basement of the big school building.

Donald Pleasence might be a doctor at the school, the script is unclear. It's generally a poor script. Donald comes off as creepier than Robert. More people die and the new teacher has some weird hallucinations about the murders. She discover one of the bricked up rooms. Arnold Vosloo is a local policeman. John Carradine plays Robert's deceased dad in the teacher's hallucinations.

There's plenty of running about and screaming, a fair bit of violence, a few scares  and an annoying score. Despite that it's somewhat dull at times. I thought it was below average but watchable. Not something I would need to see again.

Samson And The 7 Miracles Of The World 1961 Story by Oreste Biancoli, screenplay by Oreste Biancoli and Duccio Tessari, directed by Riccardo Freda. An Italian and French production with Gordon Scott and Yoko Tani. The film was released in Italy under the name Maciste alla corte del Gran Khan. The American release is from AIP and they cut the original by nearly 20 mins. We watched the original Italian version from the fairly new Kino Lorber Blu-ray. The disc also has the AIP version. The picture looks very nice. There's a commentary by Tim Lucas and some trailers.

Gordon made a half dozen Tarzan films between 1955 and 1960. You can find a nice 6 DVD set from Warner Archive. The films look good and I find them entertaining but I'm a big Tarzan fan.

Though the film is titled Samson And The 7 Miracles Of The World in the West, it's really one of many Maciste films produced in Italy starting with the 1914 film Cabiria.

In 13th century China with Mongol Warlord Garak leads an invading force that controls part of China. There's a resistance force and Maciste joins them to put an end to the Mongol rule. There's plenty of running about in the countryside on horses with oodles of fist fights and sword play. Maciste provides some Herculean feats of strength. There's a bit of romance between Yoko Tani and the rebel leader.

I thought it was a bit draggy at times. It sure made me less interested in picking up the Blu-ray. I've seen the AIP version, I have a copy in one of those 50 Movie Packs from Mill Creek, but it's been so long since I watched it I've forgotten anything about it.

Shark 1969

Shark 1969 Based on the novel His Bones Are Coral by Victor Canning, screenplay by Samuel Fuller and John Kingsbridge, directed by Samuel Fuller. A Mexican American production that's was filmed under the title Caine, it's also known as Man-Eater.

Burt Reynold's a smuggler who's stuck in a small port town on the Red Sea. Manzanillo Mexico is filling in for the Red Sea. There's a story going around that one of the stunt men was killed by a great white shark that got past the shark netting. Life magazine did a story on it and the producers changed the title to Shark! to cash in on the publicity. Fuller quit the picture in disgust. He also said the film was butchered in the editing, he wanted his name taken off the picture, the producers refused.

Burt gets hired by Silvia Pinal to recover some gold off a sunken ship. The area has a lot of sharks floating about, some of them are human. There's a little bit of action and a lot of scuba diving. It's barely average and I can't credit that just to bad editing. You can see it on YouTube. Link above.

Fury At Smugglers Bay 1961

Fury At Smugglers Bay 1961 Written, directed and produced by John Gilling. John wrote a fair number of decent movies, some for Hammer Films, he directed a good number of decent movies too, the same can be said for his TV work.

Peter Cushing is Squire Trevenyan and he lives in 18th century Cornwall. Bernard Lee is Black John, a local scumbag who's in the ship wrecking business. BJ is blackmailing the Squire to keep his trap shut. The Squire's son is in love with a local gal who's father is a thief who's being sent to a penal colony. William Franklyn plays a local thief who's a nice guy at heart. He helps the local gal to put an end to Black John's activities.

It's an average movie with a good cast. There's some intrigue, some fist fights, some sword wavin', a bit of romance and a nice rescue. There's a poor copy on YouTube, a better one on Rarelust, and a DVD that I'm not sure I would need at 15 smackaroonies.

Friday Night Movies 899

The Seventh Curse 1986 Based on Ni Kuang's Dr Yuen novels, screenplay by Wong Jing and Yuen Gai-chi, directed by Lam Ngai Kai. Chin Siu-ho plays Dr Yuen and Cho Yun-fat plays Wisely, a character featured in Ni's Wisely novels.

Dr Yuen has a blood curse and he asks Wisely about a cure. Dr Yuen goes back to Thailand to find the cure and battles the evil sorcerer Aquala. Maggie Cheung plays Tsui Hung, a rich girl playing reporter who gets them in trouble because she's a selfish and unthinking asshole. We were wishing bad things on her. Dick Wei plays Black Dragon, he helps Dr Yuen and Wisely fight Aquala.

There's plenty of martial arts action, lots of gun shooting, explosions, noise and chaos. There's a good bit of magical jiggery pokery, much gore, and some entertaining ghosts and monsters. Wong Jing might not always write a coherent script but he's not shy of throwing everything he can think of into a film. It's funny and deadly serious on top of that.

We watched the new 88 Films Blu-ray from England. Something one would need an all region Blu-ray player to watch in the US. Sadly, no US release so far. It looks great. I was happy to see it again, the last time was in 1996 and that was on VHS. I'll stick it on my want list and hope the price comes down a bit.

The Flesh Eaters 1964 Written by Arnold Drake and directed by Jack Curtis. The cinematography was done by Curtis using the name Carson Davidson. Arnold was a comic book writer who co-created Deadman and the Doom Patrol for DC and The Guardians Of The Galaxy for Marvel. The film was edited by Radley Metzger.

A group of people are flying to Provincetown, a storm causes them to land the sea plane near a tiny island. They find Martin Kosleck there and shelter with him. He's a marine biologist collecting specimens. So he says. There turns out to be a more sinister reason for his presence on the island.

We watched this film at Friday Night Movies night 31 back in 2005. I think I still feel about the film the same way as I did then. Not a great film but an entertaining film. You can watch it on YouTube, link in title.

Friday Night Movies 889

Innocent Bystanders 1972 Based on the James Mitchell novel The Innocent Bystanders, screenplay by James Mitchell, directed by Peter Collinson. Mitchell wrote several John Craig spy novels under the name James Munro. I've not heard of them before. Not planning to look for them either. Spy books are pretty low down the list of genre fiction for me. Collinson directed The Italian Job in 1969 and Ten Little Indians in 1974. I liked both of those well enough but I've not seen any of his other work that I remember.

Stanley Baker is a spy working for Donald Pleasence, they work at one of the spy agencies in the UK. Donald is a nasty man with a plan to sacrifice Stanley as a decoy for his younger agents. Donald is not happy with Stanley, he thinks the man has passed it.

Stanley has to go to Turkey to find a scientist who's hiding. There's plenty of trouble for Stanley, other agents, including those on his side, want him dead and he's kidnapped Geraldine Chaplin. She has clues on the scientist's whereabouts.

There's all the usual sort of spy stuff going on, punch ups, gun shooting, explosions, and plenty of driving around. The action moves from London to Spain and  then to Turkey. Plenty of fairly interesting locations. There's a bit too much personal melodrama between Stanley and Geraldine, it seems to slow the second act down. The movie runs 111 mins and it's pretty slowly paced.

Stanley turns out to be less than washed up, he manages to beat the baddies and the goodies, get some cash and move on. It's was mostly fun to watch. I'd watch it again, good thing because I've bought the Blu-ray, but I'd be fast forwarding through some of that personal drama.

I thought Stanley was entertaining is this movie but a bit less interesting than he was in Hell Drivers. That's my favorite trucking movie. It's a hell of a movie and I'm no big fan of a drama. This one stands out. Stanley is an ex-con who's gone to work for a gravel hauling company. The cast includes Herbert Lom, Patrick McGoohan, Peggy Cummins, David McCallum, Sean Connery, William Hartnell, Jill Ireland, Alfie Bass and Sid James. Here's a copy of the movie on YouTube.

The Great Spy Chase 1963 I watched this last December on a FNM night when we were all kept at home during a snow storm. You can see the post in the link above. I enjoyed the movie for the second time but both other viewers took a snooze during the last act.

Friday Night Movies 868

In Search Of The Castaways 1962 Based on the Jules Verne novel of the same name, screenplay by Lowell S Hawley, directed by Robert Stevenson. Lowell and Robert both worked for Disney in the fifties and sixties. Lowell was the story editor and wrote scripts for the Disney Zorro series. That's always been one of my favorite Disney shows of the era. Robert wrote and directed films in the UK before going to Hollywood in 1939, you might have seen F.P.1. or the 1937 King Solomon's Mines.

In 1957 Robert directed his first Disney film Johnny Tremaine, he would direct 18 more films for them, including Darby O'Gill And The Little People, The Absent Minded Professor, Mary Poppins and Bedknobs And Broomsticks. Plenty of pleasurable memories watching those films when they were new, some we saw in the theaters but many were watched on one of the Disney TV programs or another. Sadly I only saw them in B&W, we didn't have color TV until I was into my twenties. The first time I saw Star Trek in color was on 16 film at an SF convention. 

In Search Of The Castaways has the children of a ship's captain appeal to the head of the shipping company to find their father. Hayley Mills and Keith Hamshere are the kids, Jack Gwillim is their father, Maurice Chevalier is the man who finds the father's note in a bottle, Wilfred Hyde White is the head of the company. It takes a while to convince Wilfred to make the trip but he goes and they have a grand adventure in South America, Australia and New Zealand.

There's plenty of action and derring do, the expedition battles nature and man. There's a giant flood, a tidal wave, a lightning storm and a volcano. George Sanders plays the smooth talking baddie who tricks Wilfred in hiring him, only to steal his ship and turn the rescue party into castaways. Some of the effects looks poor by today's standards but the models and matte paintings are still very nice. They get the job done and it's not something I would complain about. The only thing I would complain about are the songs. I started fast forwarding through them. There's a happy ending and it all looks nice and bright. I was happy to see it and will have to watch it again sometime.

The Great Spy Chase 1963 Written by Michel Audiard and Albert Simonin, directed by Georges Lautner. These are the same fellows that wrote and directed Monsieur Gangster which I just watched a short time ago. The French title of The Great Spy Chase is Les Barbouzes, french slang for spies, it was retitled for the US market. Lino Ventura appears in both films and both films are in release in the US from Olive Films. I watched the Blu-ray of The Great Spy Chase and it looks very nice. No extras though.

Bernard Sachs is a massive arms dealer, he's also a massive guy. All the spy agencies keep an eye on him. He's known to have acquired a number of patents for nuclear weapons. When he dies the spy agencies all want to get their hands on those patents, which are now in the hands of his wife.

All the spy agencies send people around to the wife's Bavarian castle to buy or steal the patents. Lino plays the spy from France, he's been assigned to take the body to the wife. Several other spies are on their trail. Things hot up at the castle as the different groups descend on the place. There's plenty of action, a massive body count, plenty of collateral damage, all slathered in barrels of slapstick. Made me laugh out loud a couple of times. Glad I picked it up.

Sleepy Eyes Of Death 6: Sword Of Satan 1965

Sleepy Eyes Of Death 6: Sword Of Satan 1965 Story by Renzaburô Shibata, screenplay by Seiji Hoshikawa, directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda.

Nemuri Kyoshiro finds himself in the middle of the fall of the Iwashiro Clan. A woman offers herself for some money and he goes along with her. Instead of sleeping with her Nemuri questions her on her choice to raise money. Turns out her son is the heir to the Iwashiro Clan. Trouble is her son's not in the dead Lord's house and an Inspector from the Shogun is coming to see the boy. If there's no heir the clan would be disbanded.

Nemuri is annoyed by her, he leaves her with a gold piece and some harsh words, the next morning he finds out she's killed herself. He vows to help her son, the boy is living with a carpenter and that's what he wants to be. The clan has other ideas and kidnaps the boy with the help of a woman called Orin who's trying to get revenge on Nemuri for killing her brother.

Orin helps the clan against Nemuri but he's way too good for their men, they fall in great heaps on the ground. Orin leads Nemuri into further traps. The one in a temple is quite entertaining.

It's a black mass for Satan with a naked sacrifice. Nemuri slaughters many of the brethren. Nemuri is the son of a Chinese woman and a white missionary. He has a grudge against the missionaries and a general hatred for the rich and powerful.

There's plenty of action as Nemuri is attacked over and over again. He defeats the baddies and kills most of the clan. The boy leaves with Nemuri. Another entertaining entry in the series. Half way through the dozen films.

Friday Night Movies 846

Hercules And The Captive Women 1961 Screenplay by Vittorio Cottafavi, Sandro Continenza and Duccio Tessari, directed by Vittorio Cottafavi. Original title is Ercole alla conquista di Atlantide, in the UK it was released as Hercules Conquers Atlantis, it was also released as Hercules and The Haunted Women. It was released in the US in 1963. The film was made fun of on Mystery Science Theater 3000 in the 4th season. They have a nasty pan and scan version that I first saw in 1992, a few years later I picked up the Warriors Multi Movie set. Fifty sword and sandal action films, mostly from Italy. Today we watched the Blu-ray, wide screen and great looking. The Blu-ray also includes a copy of the MST3K episode.

Reg Park plays Hercules, the rest of the cast are unknown Italians to me. He's drugged by a friend, Androcles the King of Thebes, and taken on an adventure by ship. They wind up on an island where he saves a local princess and kills the god Proteus. The island turns out to be Atlantis and the princess turns out to be a sacrifice to the gods to protect their island. The princess is still on the chopping block unless Hercules can bust up enough stuff for them to go free.

It was a nice looking transfer but the movie is still below average to me. I don't think I'll bother with the Blu-ray, not for the number of times I might want to watch it again. I've already got a couple of copies of it on one or another of those Multi movie packs.

Ulysses 1954 Director Mario Camerini co-wrote the screenplay with Franco Brusati. Mario Bava is the cinematographer, he also directed the Polyphemus segment.

Kirk Douglas is Ulysses and he's been gone from Ithaca for ten years. He went off to fight Troy and failed to return after the battle was over. The palace is filled with suitors demanding the hand of his wife Penelope. Why she can't drive them out as Queen I don't know. We spend a lot of time with Penelope seeing what dicks the suitors are, they drink Ulysses wine and eat his food, all the while boasting who's the best suitor. Someone really needs to kick these guy's collective asses.

Princess Nausicaa finds a man washed up  on the shore of her island home of Phaeacia. We know it's Ulysses but he's lost his memory after escaping the clutches of Circe. He's welcomed by the king and given a room in the castle. Nausicaa falls for him but soon as he gets his memory back he knows he has to go home. He arrives on Ithaca just in time to fight for his wife in a contest. He kills all the suitors and he's reunited with his bride.

I thought it was better than the Hercules movie but I'm not sold on getting a copy. We watched the Blu-ray and it looked very nice.