There were a plethoria of mouldy oldies about tonight and I'm not talkin' about what was watchin' the tv but what was on the tv. Our choices included all sorts of monsters, some of them, as old as us. You'll hear more about the rest in the weeks to come. We picked Sneaky Robots and Murderous Martians to amuse us tonight. The Creation of the Humanoids and It! The Terror From Beyond Space. An unlikely pair brought together by fate and a 20% off sale at DVDPlanet. That's the beauty of movie night, there's often a real variety of choices, that, and not knowing if you're going to be delighted or poleaxed. And speaking of such, I am more delighted than whacked on the noggin with Shangri-la, the Jackie Chan album I am listening to. It's Chinese pop from 1986. I guess I have gotten used to Jackie singing in his movies 'cause this sounds pleasant to my ears. It's kind of bland, I have to admit, but I'm not going to listen to it all the time. I'm guessing it's mostly love songs, some of which are in English. I actually like the Chinese language songs better. Most of them are peppier. English for the love ballads. Doesn't Jackie look cute there in his red outfit. He was 34 then. He'd had a nice string of hit movies. The year before this album he made Police Story which made me a fan. I had just rewatched the latest Police Story movie New Police Story over the weekend. It's out in a two movie set with Jet Li's Black Mask for a fairly low price. I found one on sale for 10 or 12 bucks. I don't remember where. I forget a lot.
I could not remember seeing The Creation of the Humanoids from the title. Turns out I have an ep copy on an old MST3K tape. It's not on my master watched movie list for some reason. Mind you that list is pretty incomplete. Once we got watching it I remembered The Cragis, played by Don Megowan, who also played The Gill Man (on land) in The Creature Walks Among Us. That's the guy who might be the hero if this movie had such a thing. It's hard to even like the guy. Maybe it was that robot guy who was the hero, or the mad scientist. In this 1962 version of a post apoca-future robots are being manufactured to do men's jobs, and some of the robots are human like. But not too human, only 70 percent allowed. There is an anti-robot movement, who have the worst costumes, swaggering about the streets, lording it over the citizens, and thumbing their nose at the police. Some citizens are ok with the robots and a bunch of those are in rapport with their robots. Mentally connected human and robot have a relationship. Not long ago I read something on MSNBC about robots companions being available in the near future. Even for sex they speculated. I could see it. So does this writer from the 60's. Secretly the robots are building near human robots, an illegal 96%, to infiltrate the human world. The Cragis, a leader in The Order of Flesh and Blood, discovers the robot's plot the same day he finds out his sister has gone into rapport with a robot. Betrayed by his own flesh and blood he visits his sister to demand she stop doing that. He insults her robot, but Pax can't be offended, it isn't programmed into him. The sister's friend stops by and falls in love with The Cragis. He too is smitten with the curvatious, yet slim, blonde. They talk all night and press their faces together. It was hard to watch. At 4 am there is an ironic surprise. I won't tell you. You can see the trailer here.
It! The Terror From Beyond Space didn't live up to it's title. The monster came from Mars. The first expedition that lands gets wiped out but for Marshall Thompson. He gets rescued and the crew thinks he killed everyone for their lunch. They load him on board their ship, along with an unseen passenger, and head back to earth. After that it's like the low budget Alien of 1958. The crew gets picked off one at a time. 
They fight back but the creature, who looks pretty bad, is nigh indestructible. They blast it with nuclear power, electricity, bullets, hand grenades and even a bazooka round. Nothing. Flame keeps it at bay for a time. Now the crew believes Marshall didn't kill those people. The truth hurts. The story was written by Jerome Bixby. I have liked some of his science fiction in book form. Here's some pictures, an introduction to the movie by The Film Crew, a trailer, more pictures, and the whole movie. It's only 69 minutes, let me know what you think.
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