PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Captain Z-Ro

I watched the available 24 episodes of Captain Z-Ro and mostly enjoyed them. Years before Doctor Who started meddling in time and space Captain Z-Ro was sticking his nose into the time stream and changing the course of history. Turns out a lot of people got to be where they are with a bit of help from the Captain and his sidekick Jet. That's the Captain and Jet below.

Captain Z-Ro is played by Roy Steffans and he's pretty much the guy behind the program. He created the series with Friedrich Schiller and he wrote all 26 episodes. His other credits on the IMDb list him being an art director on TV productions from 1976 to 1981. He lived to be 98 years old and was married to the same woman for 75 years. Jet is played by Bruce Haynes and that's the only credit he gets on the IMDb. They guys are passable actors and the stories are ok. You get a bit of history, some fake science blather, and a bit of melodrama. Occasionally there's a bit of danger but with a time machine you can always get out of any scrape.

That's the Captain hidden base somewhere on Planet Earth.The series started locally on KRON in San Francisco in 1951 and the episodes were 15 minutes long. They produced a half hour long nationally syndicated show in 1955 and it only lasted for 26 episodes. There are two missing episodes but the rest are all up on the Internet Archive in the Video Cellar Collection. Why they all aren't in the Classic TV section is one of the things wrong with the IA. I like the site but their file arrangement sucks. 

The stories have some interesting figures from history, like Columbus, Daniel Boone, Washington, Marco Polo, King John, you get the idea. Three episodes have a more space orientated story and my favorite was the one with the Roger the robot.

He's the Captain's invention and he's intended for exploration on the surface of Venus. Something goes wrong and Roger winds up in San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf. He runs about the streets of San Francisco and visits Coit Tower, helps turn a cable car and peeks around a corner.

It's mostly good fun but kind of low key. I'd watch them again but probably I won't ever bother. There's already so much to see piled up here, who knows if I would ever get the time to get to it again. I'd watch the couple of episodes with Roger in them at the least. You might like them.

Friday Night Movies 517

Our first film was the sequel Dead Snow 2: Red Vs Dead. It's a 2014 Norwegian-Icelandic horror comedy directed by Tommy Wirkola. He wrote the film with Stig Frode Henriksen and Vegar Hoel who also act in the film. Tommy wrote and directed the 2009 Dead Snow and the 2013 Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. Dead Snow 2: Red Vs Dead starts where the first movie ends but it's got a much more ambitious story and much more humor. The first movie has some people staying in a cabin in the mountains. They uncover a pile of gold coins and accidentally activate the dead Nazi zombies lying in the frozen ground. They've been there since WWII and they're mean and chompy.

Pretty much all the people in the cabin die except for Martin, who's played by Vegar Hoel. That's Martin in the green tracksuit. The two ladies are members of the Zombie Squad and the fellow on the right is Stig Frode Henriksen who plays Glenn. Martin didn't come out of the intact movie intact, he accidentally killed his girlfriend with a hatchet to the throat and he had to cut off his own arm when it got bit by a zombie. He narrates the movie and when the sequel opens up things aren't looking too good. He thought he had given the gold back but the single coin in that fell into his car caused the Nazis to give chase. He nearly gets away but the car crashed when the head Nazi attacked him.

Ørjan Gamst plays Standartenführer (Oberst) Herzog, that him above with some of his Nazi zombie men. They were cursed and Herzog has some supernatural powers to revive dead people and turn them into zombies. Herzog looses his right arm when Martin's car crashes and it's the same one that Martin lost. The zombies get the coin and wonder off. Martin wakes up in the hospital in Talvik, where, to his horror, he finds out that the police think he's killed everyone at the cabin. His finger prints are on the hatchet they found in Martin's girlfriend's neck. Her death really was an accident but no one believes the Nazi zombie story. Martin gets a second shock when he finds out they've re-attached his arm, except, you know, it's not his arm. Martin reacts violently to the news and, breaking out of the handcuffs attaching him to the bed, he kills the doctor. It wasn't intentional, the evil arm of Herzog seems to have a mind of it's own. Martin escapes and more people die by the arm's hand.

Martin gets some help from the Zombie Squad. That's Martin Starr as Daniel, the head of the ZS, and he's excited because he's killed his first zombie. Some might remember Martin Starr from Freaks and Geeks. Martin finds out that the Nazi's have orders from Hitler to destroy the town in vengeance for something that happened in the war. Now revived the Nazis still want to carry out their orders. When it's discovered that Martin can also revive the dead Daniel leads him to a group of dead Russian soldiers that were killed by Herzog and his troops. The Reds and Nazi's fight it out in the town and there's a blood bath. The local town police are a comically inept group who are little or no help at all.

It's a pretty gory movie but there's a lot of dark humor. The locations are in Iceland pretending to by Norway but I couldn't tell. The cast is great, there's plenty of activity and we all laughed a good bit. It's worth a look for the zombie fan and those that like to see the Nazi scum take a beating. There's an open window for a sequel. I'd watch it and I'd watch this one again.

The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery is the 4th and last film in the original series of St Trinian's films. It came out in 1966 and it was written by Frank Launder and Ivor Herbert. Sidney Gilliat and Frank were the producers and directors. The movie opens with a train robbery. The gang hides the mailbags, containing £2.5 million, in a old manor house that's up for sale. They plan to come back when the heat is off. There's a big boss we never see and Frankie Howerd plays the leader of the gang when they're on the job. In another subplot a new Labour Party government has been voted in and the new Education Minister has an agenda. He refunds St Trinian's School For Girls and of course they buy the manor house where the money is hidden. The head mistress of the school, played by Dora Bryan, is also the Minister's secret girlfriend. Dora had been in Carry On Sergeant and she'd turn up in Absolutely Fabulous and 50 episodes of The Last Of The Summer Wine. I've seen the movie and the 3 episodes of AbFab but the Summer Wines aren't here yet.

When Frankie and his gang turn up to collect the loot they are rebuffed by the girls and the staff. They regroup and try to figure out what to do. Frankie sends his juvenile delinquent daughters to the school to find out what's going on. They set up a plan to get the loot back during parent's day. The Education Minister's staff try to investigate the school but they are captured and locked up in the basement.

There's plenty of scheming and the gang gets the money out of the school by pretending to be caterers. The girls give chase when the gang is rumbled. Much of the chase takes place on train tracks. The police eventually get involved but they aren't much help. The girls get the money back and heap the big reward. It seems to take a bit too long to get to the school but once they do the pace starts to pick up. In fact, the film gets speed up when all the trains are chasing each other near the end. It's the first of the series in color and it looks pretty good. It made me laugh, even the second time, and I enjoy the characters. Sadly there won't be any more St Trinian's movies until the 1980 The Wildcats Of St Trinian's and the more recent pair of films. I haven't heard anything good about the Wildcats, and the DVD is $25 on Amazon, but I do like the current series quite a bit. I'll certainly be watching the series again sometime.

Cats Looking

Here's a couple cats from the Tumblr site Epitome Of Shit. It's also called Shredporn, and it got an endless stream of pictures. There's plenty of skate pictures, shredding, but no porn. The cat below is about as close as you get. What a look on his face. The cat above just makes me laugh though I don't think it's real. There's plenty of interesting pictures spread through the stream. I could not get to the end of it after 45 minutes of pretty much continuous scowling down, down, down. There's plenty of cute puppies, big cats, nice outdoor scenes and snowboarders. People from the last 3 or 4 decades, doing various activities.

 

The 39 Steps 1959

I believe I saw the 1959 version of The 39 Steps when I was a teen but I can't be sure. I didn't remember anything in the movie when I watched it a few days ago. It's sort of the same story as the 1935 Hitchcock version but things are changed up a bit. It's more comic than the Hitchcock version and 7 minutes longer. It's color and there's a lot more nice location shooting. It's directed by Ralph Thomas with a screenplay by Frank Harvey. It's based on the novel of the same name by John Buchan. It's got Kenneth More as the main character Richard Hannay. He gets involved with spies and framed as a murderer. He chases around the countryside while he tries to figure out what's happened and why. He gets a hand from some people but he stumbles into the lion's den before the film gets to the end. He finally figures it out and leads the police to the theater where the mentalist spills the beans in what will become his final performance. I enjoyed it well enough and would watch it again.

The Great Buck Howard 2008

The Great Buck Howard was on the shelf at the library and I was intrigued so I picked it up. I hadn't heard of it before but I do like John Malkovich and Colin Hanks. It's written and directed by Sean McGinly who wrote his story from real events in his life. Like Colin's character he spent time on the road with a mentalist. In Sean's case he was road manager for The Amazing Kreskin. I used to see Kreskin on talk shows back in the 1970s, especially Johnny Carson, and Kreskin's had his own TV show. John plays Buck Howard and he's totally into being a mentalist and entertainer. He's quite out of touch with the modern world. When the reporters run off to cover Jerry Springer's car crash, right in the middle of Buck's special event, Buck hasn't heard of him. He plays small halls and often his audience only half fills the room. Buck doesn't seem to mind. He works all the time and at the end of every show he has the audience hide his payment, on a member of the audience, while he goes to his dressing room. Colin goes with him so there's no chance he can pass along a hint on where the money went. When Buck comes out, he finds the money. There's plenty of speculation about how he does it but Buck isn't talking. Kreskin does this trick at the end of his show. He says he's done it 6000 times and only failed to find the cash 9 times. Buck fondly remembers the high points of his career, 30 years ago, and mentions being on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show all the time. He keeps hoping for a big break and one does come but it ends poorly. In the end it's all for the best as Buck is more happy on the road among all the fans that still love him. It's a nice personal story with some jokes and some sadness. It made me think of that Peter O'Toole movie My Favorite Year. Worth seeing.

Science Fiction Sunday 325

After watching Delta And The Bannermen I wondered if producer John Nathan-Turner's goal was to change Doctor Who into a pantomime. He comes pretty darn close in the 147th serial in the nearly never ending series. The story's in three parts and it first aired November 2-16 1987. Sylvester McCoy is the Doctor and Bonnie Langford as Melanie Bush. Malcolm Kohll is the writer and Chris Clough is the director. John Nathan-Turner is the producer and Andrew Cartmel is the script editor.

The Doctor and Mel get involved with Delta and her flight from the evil Gavrok and his Bannermen. Gavrok is killing off Delta's people, she's the last, other than the unborn princess in an egg. Delta hides out on a tour bus full of aliens coming to Earth in the 1950's. Mel travels with the bus and the Doctor follows in the Tardis. The bus hits a satellite near Earth and it winds up in a holiday camp on Barry Island in Wales. Keep an eye out for Stubby Kaye as an American CIA Agent. The holiday camp gets invaded by Gavrok and the Bannermen. There's plenty of fighting and running about. The entertaining Richard Davies plays the camp manager.

The camp handyman falls for Delta and helps them fight Gavrok and his scumbags. The Doc gets a hand from the adorable Sara Griffiths who's sad when the handyman leaves with Delta. She had a thing for him but she got his nice motorcycle and sidecar so she's not too bad off. It's all pretty silly and there's plenty of over-acting and broad comedy. I certainly enjoyed it more than the last serial but I'm partial to silly.

That Sylvester and Ken Dodd above. Ken plays the Tollmaster at the Tollport. Ken was a popular entertainer in the 1960's and he still continues to work. In the 60s he got a record in the Guinness Book of Records for doing the world's longest ever joke-telling session. In 3.5 hours he told 1,500 jokes which is 7.14 jokes per minute. There's a rather low key commentary with Sylvester McCoy, Chris Clough, Andrew Cartmel and Sara Griffith. There's the making of, some location interviews, the 7-8 minute longer 1st edit of the first episode, an interview with Hugh Lloyd, Clown Court sketch from The Noel Edmonds Saturday Roadshow with Sylvester as the Doctor, a short on the comic book stories of the 7th Doctor, trails and continuity, info text, Radio Times listing PDF, a Coming Soon ad for an earlier serial with William Hartnell.

Friday Night Movies 516

At The Earth's Core is a 1976 British film that was produced by Amicus Films. We watched the BluRay which looked a lot better than the previous Midnight Movies DVD. Sperhauk passed that DVD along to me the when he got the BluRay and I watched it a week ago. The BluRay might look better but I'm perfectly happy to have the DVD. I haven't even picked up a BluRay player yet but it's on the list of things to get. I've been looking around and I want one that plays back at 1.5 speed without any annoying icons left on the TV screen. That's the problem with the LG DVD Recorder that I have. It leaves an icon on the screen when running in fast mode and that burns a faint image on my TV if it was left up for a while. I looked up when I had first seen ATEC, it was December 28 2001, and it was at a Friday Night Movie night. We don't often repeat movies, often we just forget. The DVD came out in 2001 and I hadn't seen the movie since then. I'm guessing we watched the same DVD that's now over at my house.

Amicus produced quite a number of interesting films, not all great or anything, but entertaining and watchable. The picked genre material that lent itself to the small budgets. At The Earth's Core is based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel of the same name. I read that years ago and I'm sure I still have copies somewhere in the house to possibly re-read in the future. The screen play is written by Milton Subotsky and Kevin Conner directed the film. Milton was one of the founders of Amicus Productions, along with Max J Rosenberg, and he's also one of the producers. Kevin directed two other Amicus Burroughs's adaptations, The Land That Time Forgot and The People That Time Forgot, and he continues to work in TV to this day.

Peter Cushing, Doug McClure and Caroline Monroe star in this visit to a world deep below the Earth's crust. Peter's a dithering old scientist who's built a tunneling machine that can dig through pretty much anything. Doug is a former student of Peter's and sadly not at the top of his class. He's going along as the crew in the tunneling machine.

It's a nice looking machine, inside and outside. They head off into the earth, pass out from the heat, and go off course. When they awaken they are in a hot jungle with a whole pile of different critters and people to deal with. The first encounter a giant bird like critter that doesn't look so good. Amicus does well on the sets, props and miniatures but fail on some of the monster suits.

Peter and Doug get caught by some humanoid critters and chained to some humans who luckily speak English. They are brought through the tunnels to the Mahars who are big flying reptiles. Sadly the Mahars are poorly made and rather laughable. They control the primitive critters with telepathy and force them to enslave the humans. The humans work or get eaten, not a great lot in life, and Doug vows to bring the Mahars down. That's a couple of another sort of critter below. One of the better suits in the production. The two critters fight to the death in a rather goofy bit of fighting,

Doug makes friends and enemies among the humans, he gathers some of them into a group to fight back. Peter finds out how things work in the Mahars world and figures out a way to finish them off. There's a bit of romance between Doug and Caroline but she won't leave her world when the surface dwellers leave at the end of the movie. It just goes to show that Doug is pretty slow witted. I enjoyed the movie and realize it has it's flaws. It gets a 5.2 on the IMDb and that isn't too far off. It's something to recommend to someone who's already a fan of this sort of thing. My mom certainly wouldn't like it.

All Cheerleaders Die is a supernatural cheer-murder story with cheerleaders against the football team. It also scores a 5.2 on the IMDb and like our previous feature it's about where is should be. The movie is written and directed by Lucky McKee and Chris Sivertson. I hadn't seen anything of either of their other work, except for Sick Girl, an episode of the Masters Of Horror TV program, and I wasn't that big a fan of that. Maddy is a high school girl who tries out for the spot on the cheer team when one of the girls is killed in a fall. Cheerleading is a dangerous sport and people get hurt all the time. Maddy's old pal Leena is a Goth girl who has some witchcraft knowledge. The cheerleaders have a party before school starts and the football team have one too. They all meet in the woods later and things turn ugly. There aren't any character to like much in the movie. Terry, the psycho footballer, punches one of the girls and 4 of them take off in a car with the idea they are going to go to the police. Terry follows them in his car and the chase causes the girls car to go off the road and crash into a shallow river. The guy run off and the girls drown. They are revived by Leena's magic. The girls turn into soul suckers, chomping on the neighbor first, draining his body of blood and turning it into a desiccated husk. The girls show up at school the next day and start getting their revenge on Terry and his pals. It goes on for the rest of the movie and pretty much everyone dies. There's some nice bits and pieces but there's nothing much special about it.  It seems to be divided on the IMDb, people seem to love it or hate it, I'm about in the middle. I found it slow going at first, it lacked something to pull me into the film, but it picks up in the last half. There's a bit of humor and some gore but it's not something I would need to pick up now that I've seen it.

Sea Hunt Season 1

When Sea Hunt got fairly cheap recently I picked up the DVDs from Amazon for the whole 4 seasons. They are DVDRs not real pressed DVDs but that's the state of the business these days, ruined by low-rez streaming and a stupid public who bought into the convenience. They put 7 or 8 episodes on each disc and the image looks ok. The first season started airing September 23 1958 and there were 39 episodes. It was a syndicated show, the major networks all passed on it, and it ran for 4 seasons. It was highly popular and stayed in syndication for many years. I saw oodles of them as a kid but hadn't seen but a couple of episodes in recent times. You can see the series on YouTube.

It was created and produced by Ivan Tors and it starred Lloyd Bridges as Mike Nelson. He's an ex-Navy frogman who's become one of the best known SCUBA divers in the country. His jobs are varied and often dangerous. One of the concerns of the networks was that the episodes would be all the same. There is a certain similar pattern to the stories but the plots are different enough for some variety in the season, especially when you see them a week apart. Watching a whole series in a few days can make a big difference. One week Mike is diving for Marine World, another week he's testing firing pistols under water, another episode has him looking for plants, or fish, in some body of water. Most of the show is filmed in and around LA and over by Catalina Island but they occasionally travel to Flordia to shoot in Silver Springs. Check out this list of Guest Stars. Some of them would be back 2 or 3 times a season playing different characters each time. One gal was in one episode as the young daughter of a scientist and 2 episodes later she's the wife of a rich guy.

In an episode set in Florida Mike gets involved with a magic act. The magician tosses his pretty assistant into the lake. She's wrapped in a straight jacket and chained inside a trunk. She escapes her possible watery grave and pops back up to the surface for a round of applause. Mike goes down to see how the trick was done and confronts the magician with his concerns on the safety of the trick. Mike's big on safety and he's got a good reason, that water will kill you, in many unpleasant ways. This show is the place I learned about the "bends" or Nitrogen Necrosis. It's not the only deadly thing below the surface and we learn a lot about many of them. Mike has a nice sense of fair play and he's always ready to lend a hand. Mike's a member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary and he often gets a call to help with a problem. One time he partners up with a couple of guys to remove some old torpedoes in a bay. They had been there since the war and one of them explodes nearly killing one of the other divers. It's story was a nice lesson on war bound hatred and how difficult it is to move on. It was only 13 years after the war. There's usually a bit of humor and morality mixed in with the story so they aren't too bleak.

They also mix in a bit of stock shots. I bet I've seen Mike, or other divers, look at the same sunken ship 3 or 4 times in the season. There's still plenty of action and adventure to get you to the end of the story. Some episodes are more exciting than others but that's only natural. Mike gets shot at a lot but he's been pretty lucky so far. He can take care of himself. He'd be a good role model. I enjoyed the series and plan to pass the other seasons past the old orbs as soon as I can.

Blackmail Is My Life

 

Blackmail Is My Life is the US DVD title of a 1968 Japanese film called Blackmail Is My Business. I prefer the Japanese title. It's directed by Kinji Fukasaku who's previous movie was The Green Slime. I've seen that film and it's pretty goofy. I haven't seen much of his other work and he's directed quite a good number of films. A lot of genre fans would recognize two of the titles he's directed. Message From Space and The Shogun's Samurai have been largely available on low cost VHS and DVD releases here in the US. Blackmail Is My Life is about a group of young criminals, lead by Muraki, who take to blackmail for a living. Muraki is a waiter when the movie starts. He gets beat up by some Yakuza when he sees something he shouldn't have. Rather than take their hush money he causes trouble and gets a beating for it. He blackmails them for revenge and when it works he starts to blackmail other corrupt rich people. The gang has success until they come up against men in the government. Then things don't go so well. I was entertained, the movie moves along quickly which I like, and there's lots going on. The film is noisy, has a nice look to it, and the story jumps about as the main character narrates what's happened in the past and why he's chosen the life of a blackmailer. Worth a look for the crime film fan.

Doc Martin Series 1

Martin Clunes stars in Doc Martin an ITV series that started in 2007. It's still going on but I hear that the as yet unmade seventh series is going to be the last. The series started in a round about way, Martin played a similar doctor in Saving Grace back in 2000. That character had a couple of prequels on the defunct British Sky Broadcasting. That company closed down and the show got cancelled. The character got re-imagined for ITV by Dominic Minghella who was the creator, and show runner, of the 2006 BBC Robin Hood series. I thought it was an abysmal show and could barely finish the first series. It's so absolutely not Robin Hood that Minghella needed to get slapped. He gets a few good marks for Doc Martin but the RH stank still burns my nasal passages. I see on the Wikipedia that there are 7 different foreign Doc Martin versions. I haven't seen any of them but I'm curious.

The new Doc Martin has an aversion to blood and he goes from being a leading surgeon in London to being a GP in Portwenn, Cornwall. It's actually shot in Port Isaac and it's a really pretty place. This Doc Martin is a crabbier guy than the other Doc Martin. He's a good doctor but he's abrasive and lacks those social skills that lead to having a nice bedside manner. Perfect for a surgeon in London but not so much for the people in Portwenn. They don't accept him any more than he does them. His aunt lives in the town and he'd visited her when he was a kid. He stopped going there years ago for various family reasons that are revealed later. Lucy Punch plays the Doc's receptionist. She's terrible at her job but being a little town in a TV show she gets to stay, even after being fired. Lucy will leave the show at the end of the first series.

There's a romantic interest in Caroline Catz. It takes a while to get going but by the end of the 1st series they have come to like each other a fair bit. Ian McNeice plays a local plumber. The writing is fairly fun and the show moves along rather quickly. There's a bit of drama that gets defused with heaps of comedy. I certainly prefer it to House which I thought was absolutely bleak and uninteresting. I barely could get through an episode of that program. Doc Martin is more fun and I'm going to get the rest of the series from the library.