PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Inner Sanctum Mysteries starring Lon Chaney JR

 

I found the Inner Sanctum Mysteries DVD set at the Nostalgia Zone for 7 bucks. I didn't realize it at the time what a bargain I got but I just looked on Amazon and the set's $35 there. So, lucky me, huh! I was interested in the set because of the Inner Sanctum connection and that all of the movies have Lon Chaney JR in them.  Nice to see him not being The Wolfman for a change. I suppose most people would recognize that Inner Sanctum Mystery is both a book series from Simon and Schuster and a radio show. Only 179 of the 527 episodes are left. I didn't know that Universal Pictures produced a series of 6 movies in the 1940s. All are short, 62 to 67 minutes, but they still have fairly good stories to keep the viewers interest. They all get about a 6 each on the IMDb and that's ok with me. Most of the cast members aren't too familiar with me but I did recognize a couple of names here and there. The head in the crystal ball appears in the first 5 of the films, always giving the same intro.

Calling Dr Death 1943 Written by Edward Dein and directed by Reginald Le Borg. Lon plays a doctor who thinks he's killed wife. Hypnotism is used to find out who the real killer is. J Carrol Naish plays the cop who comes to investigate.

Weird Woman 1944 The Brenda Weisberg screenplay was based on Scott Darling's adaption of Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber JR. It was directed by Reginald Le Borg. Lon marries an "exotic native woman" while in the South Seas. What he doesn't know is she comes with superstition and magic attached. Evelyn Ankers appeared in many of the Universal Pictures Monster movies. Ralph Morgan was Frank "Wizard of Oz" Morgan's brother, he was in a lot of movies over the years.

Dead Man's Eyes 1944 Written by Dwight V Babcock and directed by Reginald Le Borg. Lon's an artist who's accidentally blinded. His fiancé's father is killed and the police suspect Lon. The dead man's will offered his corneas replace Lon's damaged ones. Now a blind guy has to figure out who killed the father. Some might remember Jonathan Hale as Inspector Farnack in 5 of The Saint films. He was in a couple of Charlie Chan films and quite a number other titles.

The Frozen Ghost 1945 Harrison Carter and Henry Sucher wrote the original story that Bernard Schubert and Luci Ward wrote the screenplay from, the director was Harold Young. Lon is a stage mentalist who has an annoying man die on stage. He thinks it was his mental powers that killed the man. It wasn't. He quits the business and goes to work at a Wax Museum. Three different women want his romantic attentions. One disappears and then the police come around. Who done it? You might recognize Milburn Stone, Martin Kosleck, Douglass Dumbrille and Evelyn Ankers in the cast. I know I did.

Strange Confession 1945 Written by Jean Bart and M Coates Webster and directed by John Hoffman. Lon is working on a vaccine for influenza. His boss, J Carrol Naish, takes all the credit and Lon quits. A year later, J Carrol hires him back and sends him to South America to research a mold. J Carrol takes advantage steal the unfinished formula and release it. Lon's sick son dies of the flu and Lon wants some revenge. Milburn Stone, Lloyd Bridges, Mary Gordon and  George Chandler are all in the cast of this one.

Pillow Of Death 1945 Written by Dwight V Babcock and George Bricker with Wallace Fox directing. Lon plans to divorce his wife to marry his secretary. When the wife turns up suffocated Lon is a suspect. After some more suffocations a psychic says Lon is guilty. Lon starts hearing his dead wife talking to him.  

I though all of them were interesting and they kept me entertained with a good mystery. Well worth picking up, especially at the steal of a price I got it for. I also like all these old posters. Be sure to click on them to see them in a bigger size.

The Twilight Zone S5D5 And Extras

Finally finishing up the last of The Twilight Zone discs. Season 5 Disc 5 has 7 episodes from the last season which aired back in 1964.

Stopover In A Quiet Town  April 24 1964

Written by Earl Hamner Jr and directed by Ron Winston. A couple, Barry Nelson and Nancy Malone, wake up in a strange bed in a town with no inhabitants. They do hear someone giggling. Giant Aliens sure can suck. I remember this one from the first time I saw it. There's a nice video interview with Earl Hamner Jr and Nancy Malone.

The Encounter  May 1 1964

Written by Martin M. Goldsmith and directed by Robert Butler. George Takei is a gardener who comes to Neville Brand's house to get a job mowing lawns. Things get ugly and everyone dies. This episode was taken out of syndication in the US. I don't remember ever seeing it before. It's pretty intense and sad. Can't we all get along? I doubt it. No extras on this episode.

Mr Garrity And The Graves  May 8 1964

Written by Rod, from a story by Mike Korologos, and directed by Ted Post. John Dehner is a travelling conman reviver of the dead. He comes to Happiness Arizona to offer his services. He shows them he's not lying by resurrecting a dog that got hit by a wagon. He's also going to raise the dead of the townsfolk. They have mixed feelings about that and offer him cash to leave without doing his job. They all seem to have a really good pile of cash on them. The cost per body is about a 500 bucks each. As John drives out of town with the "dead" dog and his conman partner the dead do rise. Looks like there's going to be less happy in the tow tonight. I didn't remember this one but I liked it more than a lot of the episodes so far. It had a nice sense of humor. There's a copy of the radio drama of the episode as an extra.

The Brain Center At Whipple's  May 15 1964

Written by Rod and directed by Richard Donner. Richard Deacon is computerizing his factories so he can get rid of a lot of workers. It works too well and Robby The Robot takes over his job. Ha ha. Not so funny now, huh, Richard. I didn't remember this one. It's not much of a fun story, industry rarely is. There are no extras on this episode.

Come Wander With Me  May 22 1964

Written by Anthony Wilson and directed by Richard Donner. Gary Crosby is a folk singer looking for new songs. He stops in a small town and get involved with Bonnie Beecher. She sings a song with his death in it and the story comes true. I don't remember this one. I liked it more than some of the others. The only extra is an isolated score.

Here's a bit on Bonnie from the Wikipedia: Bonnie Beecher (born Bonnie Jean Boettcher, 1941 in Minneapolis) is an American actress. She made her TV debut in an episode of The Twilight Zone, "Come Wander with Me". She played Sylvia, Chekhov's love interest, in "Spectre of the Gun", an episode of Star Trek where they re-enact the gunfight at the OK Corral. She knew Bob Dylan during his early career, and may have been the inspiration for his song "Girl from the North Country." She is married to Wavy Gravy.

The Fear  May 29 1964

Written by Rod and directed by Ted Post. Hazel Court is a wealthy fashion editor who had a nervous breakdown. She's taking a break in her mountain cabin when she gets a visit from State Trooper Mark Richman. He's just checking on her but she's a bit of a bitch. He's a nice guy and sadly they are now they're trapped in her cabin by some aliens. Oh, oh, huh. It ends with some silliness. I liked it. I didn't remember seeing it before. There are no extras for this show.

The Bewitchin' Pool  June 19 1964

Written by Earl Hamner Jr and directed by Joseph M. Newman. A couple of children disappear into the swimming pool after their parent tell them they are divorcing. The kids come out of the pool in a creek near a hillbilly shack which is home to a bunch of kids who've run away and an older lady, Aunt T. who takes care of the kids. It looks like a nice place to go. There's a nice interview with Earl Hamner Jr and an isolated score.

The girl's voice sounded weird to me and the Wikipedia says that the audio was no good on the outdoor scenes. June Foray dubbed the little girl's lines because the actress had left town.

The 5th disc has a nice bunch of little short interviews and clips. The first thing up is a bit of footage from The Museum Of Television and Radio. It's a group of people who worked on the show and one of the participants was George Clayton Johnson. Sadly he passed away just a few days ago. I've enjoyed bits of his TV and film work and he's one of the more interesting writers to comment on the extras for this show. The rest of the panel are no slouches either: Billy Mumy, Earl Hamner Jr, Earl Holliman, Cliff Robertson, Marc Scott Zicree, Del Reisman, Richard Matheson, Martin Landau, William Self, Lamont Johnson, Bert Granet, Buck Houghton and Carol Serling. I would have watched the whole thing.

There's more conversations with Rod, an Alfred Hitchcock Promo, some of George Clayton Johnson's Home Movies, an Excerpt from Rod's Sherwood Oak's Experimental College Lecture, season 5 Billboards and photo gallery.

Disc 6 has a copy of the American Masters called Submitted For Your Approval. There were lots of people commenting on Rod and his career. It was fairly interesting and informative.

Well, it's nice to get done with the series and finally store the set away. It took me 2 years and 13 days to get to the end of the 5 year series. Probably be a while before I get to them again.

Tales Of Terror 1962

Tales of Terror is another Vincent Price anthology film, this time with Edgar Allan Poe stories. The stories are Morella, The Black Cat (plus a bit of another Poe story, The Cask Of Amontillado) and The Facts in the Case of M Valdemar. It's written by Richard Matheson and directed by Roger Corman.

Vincent is joined by Peter Lorre, Maggie Pierce, Debra Padget, Leona Gage and Basil Rathbone amongst others. The script is pretty good, there's a nice mix of drama, comedy and horror. It made me laugh. Worth a look for those who like Vincent and horror movies with a sense of humor. Here's a nice picture that shows the cat audition.

There, it was nice to see a movie that was much better than the crap I had been watching earlier in the day. One just can't wallow in filth all the time, huh.

Twice-Told Tales 1963

Twice-Told Tales is an anthology film of Nathaniel Hawthorne stories. It's written by Robert E Kent and directed by Sidney Salkow. The three stories are: Dr. Heidegger's Experiment, Rappaccini's Daughter and House of the Seven Gables. The third of the trio is the only novel and the first is the only story published in the Hawthorne anthology which gives the film it's name. The stuff you can learn off the internet, huh.

Vincent Price narrates the film and stars in all three stories. He's got a nice cast to help him out: Sebastian Cabot, Beverly Garland, Richard Denning and Jacqueline deWit.

 

I don't remember reading any Hawthorne stories in the past so I don't know much about him. I thought the stories were a bit grim, nearly everyone dies in all the stories. It's not too scary though, after all, they made it into a comic. I haven't seen that issue before so I'm not sure what that adaptation might be like. The movie proved to be entertaining. With a good script and great actors to bring it to life, it's not surprising. There's a good batch of sets, costumes and props to flesh it all out. I was glad to have seen it.

Pure Terror 50 Movie Pack Disc 12

Finally to the last disc of Pure Terror 50 Movie Pack. It's got five more movies, and the second and third ones on the disc are the ones I haven't seen before.

 

Manos: The Hands Of Fate is a 1966 movie so poor that nudity couldn't help it. You might have seen it on MST3K at one time. I've certainly seen it more than enough times by now so I didn't bother with it this time.

Fangs Of The Living Dead is a 1969 Italian vampire movie with Anita Ekberg. It's written and directed by Amando de Ossorio who people seem to like for his Blind Dead movies. I've never gotten to be an Italian horror fan and I've seen one after another without any love for the genre. Anita goes to visit her Uncle in his castle. He's a weirdo that whips vampire chicks in his dungeon. She wants to leave but Uncle has a different plan for her. Her fiancé comes to see what happened but he's turned away by Uncle's henchman. She's trapped. It all reminds me relative sure can suck sometimes. There's the usual biting and eventually Uncle vampire burns up. There's a bit of a gag at the end. I hadn't seen it before and now that I have I wouldn't bother with it again.

 

It Happened At The Nightmare Inn is a 1973 Spanish film about two women who run a small hotel. They start killing the women who stay there because they don't approve of their morals. They're horrible scum who deserve their fate. Who would like this crap? People on the IMDb give the movie a 5.6 but it's certainly not the sort of movie that I want to see, that's for sure. I couldn't wait for it to be over. Lucky for me it was the shorter edited version. What a piece of crap.

Scared To Death is a 1946 Bela Lugosi horror comedy that appears in Natural Color. This transfer doesn't seem so natural but there you go. It's Lugosi's only color feature. It's written by WJ Abbott and directed by Christy Cabanne. George Zucco is the head doctor at his private sanitarium. His son, Roland Varno, is married to a shrew, Molly Lamont, who is trouble. She winds up dead, frightened to death, and she narrates how that came about. Bela plays a former stage magician who knew George and Molly in the past. His arrival throws the place into an uproar. Nat Pendleton is the sanitarium's fraidy-cat security guy and Gladys Blake is the nervous nosey maid, both are comic relief. It's not great but it's fun to watch. I wouldn't give it more than a 5 but I'd watch it again.

Bloody Pit Of Horror is a 1965 Italian American production with Mickey Hargitay. Some people come to an Italian castle to shoot covers for horror novels. They break into the castle and the owner, Mickey, tells them to leave. When Mickey sees the gals he decides to let them stay. The camera crew finds the crypt of evil and release the ghost of the Crimson Executioner by accident. He takes over Mickey's body and that starts the torture and killing. Who will survive? Who would care if they did? Not me. It's not really very good but there's a few laughs to be had watching Mickey chew up the scenery as the Crimson Executioner. It's barely better than many of the Italian movies I've seen. I'd watched it a few years back and wouldn't need to see it again. It does have a nice castle.

Between the two discs I added 5 new movies to my Watched Movie List. I wish it had been more but there you go. I think I'll take a break from the 50 movie packs for a while, two in such a short time is mind numbing. Still it gets me to nearly 400 movies for the year. Too bad so many of them are so poor.

Pure Terror 50 Movie Pack Disc 11

Hoping to get through both of the remaining discs in the Pure Terror 50 Movie Pack today. There's 10 movies but I have seen half of them already so I'll skip through those movies for the most part.

 

The Undertaker And His Pals is a 1966 movie that I saw near the beginning of the year. You can read that post here so I don't have to blather on about it. I was happy to upgrade my copy since it is a good piece of sleaze film making.

Night Of Bloody Horror is a 1969 written by Joy N Houck Jr and Robert A. Weaver with Houck directing. Gerald McRaney is a crazy guy who had spent 13 years in an asylum for killing his brother. He's out and he's still fucked up, angry, sullen and maybe murderous. Sadly it's all dull as dishwater. I even guessed who the murder is from the description of the movie. Reminds me that families don't always work out.

  

Anatomy Of A Psycho is another psycho movie, this time from 1961. It's directed by Boris Petroff under the name Brooke L. Peters. Jane Mann wrote the screenplay with alleged help from Ed Wood. They do use music that was originally used in Plan 9 From Outer Space. Ronnie Burns, who plays the psycho, is the adopted son of George Burns and Gracie Allen. Ronnie's brother is on death row for murder and Ronnie believes his brother didn't do it. He keeps getting in one scrap after another until the police have to put him down. Nothing too exciting in this one and hardly any characters to like. Mostly they're people who continually make the wrong decisions.

Green Eyes is a 1934 movie that comes no where near living up to the Pure Terror label on the box. It's a murder mystery based on The Murder of Steven Kester by H Ashbrook. The screenplay is by Andrew Moses and directed by Richard Thorpe. A rich guy, Mr Kester, is murdered at a fancy dress party and it turns out no one really liked the guy. The police get help from a mystery novelist played by Charles Starrett. It's not great but it's entertaining enough. I'd watch it again and that's not something that you can say about most of the movies in this set.

Night Of The Blood Beast is an SF horror film from 1958 that was produced by the Corman brothers. Bernard L Kowalski is the director and Martin Varno wrote the script. An astronaut returns to Earth dead but hosting parasites from space. They reanimate his corpse and start the invasion going. It fails but dying aliens say they will return. It's below average.

One decent movie, one extra sleazy, a couple of average bits and a poor monster movie. Onto the last disc. Yay!

The Big Fat Quiz Of The Year 2015

The Big Fat Quiz Of The Year for 2015 popped up Boxing Day and someone was nice to post it to YouTube. They've been doing this panel show since 2004 and the whole lot are usually up on YouTube. The show is like a big ass pub quiz with flashy lights and comedian panelists. All the questions are related to events in 2015. There are plenty of jokes to go along with the questions. They usually have a lot more laughs than questions and I get a lot more laughs per hour than I would out of most sitcoms and comedy films. I'm talking laugh out loud, now my side is aching, laughs. The value for others will of course be determined in your own brains cells.

As usual the show is hosted by Jimmy Carr. Here's a picture of him for identification purposes. All the guest panelists have their names in front of them. Jimmy hosts a lot of British panels programs and is usually good for a laugh or two. He's not everyone's cup of tea but I enjoy him most of the time. I watch his 8 Out 10 Cats and 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown as soon as they are posted to YouTube. Thanks to all the people who help keep the rest of the world up to speed on their British TV.

Rob Brydon and Jo Brand are the team on the left side of the panel array.

Richard Ayoade and Greg Davies are in the middle.

 

Claudia Winkleman and David Mitchell are on the right side.

You can see they even color coded the teams. There's batches of questions and then some answers and points. At the end a teams wins a trophy with ribbons on it. I don't know if they can keep it. There's a bunch of guests on video asking questions. The Middlebrook School children do one of their plays. The panelists have to guess the story in the play.

I've enjoyed all the episodes I've seen and this one was just as much fun as the ones in the past. This is the 19th episode since 2004. Most years have a couple of shows. There was one last January, an Anniversary show to celebrate 10 years of The Big Fat Quiz Of The Year. The second was the standard year in review quiz that was broadcast on 12-26. There will be a new show 1-5-16 and that will be the The Big Fat Quiz of Everything.

Pure Terror 50 Movie Pack Disc 10

I've got the 10th disc from the Pure Terror 50 Movie Pack. Two of the movies I've already seen, the first one was in the B-Movie Blast 50 Movie Pack I'd just been blogging about and the last one from the Drive-In Classics 32 Movie Pack. The latter is a pretty descent multi-movie pack. It's a better buy, there's plenty of action, nudity and goofy shit going on in those movie. It's much better than this movie set, it fact, it's one of the better ones for those who want to see some cheesy exploitation movies.

 

Terror In The Jungle is a 1968 movie about a guy looking for his child lost in the jungles of South America after a plane crash. It's pretty silly at times and dull at others. The boy amongst the natives who treat him as a god is pretty goofy stuff but the rest is weak. It was in the B-Movie Blast 50 Movie Pack and I certainly don't need the two copies of the movie that I now have. Since they pack so many movies on a disc you can't toss out the movies that you don't need.

The Oval Portrait is a 1972 adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's story of the same name. It's pretty dull and I blame the film makers, writer Enrique Torres Tudela and director Rogelio A. González, for not making a more interesting film. They've made most of their films in Mexico, only working on a few in the US. Enrique is also the writer of Terror In The Jungle. That was a slightly more entertaining film than The Oval Portrait which is about a woman who comes to a big old mansion after the Civil War and gets possessed by a painting of a dead woman. There's a flashback to the Civil war days but it's not all that interesting. More interesting is the same cast and crew made a second Poe adaptation back to back with this film, it's called One Minute Before Death. It scores a 3.9 on the IMDb which is what TOP scores. I gave the latter a 3 because it's all rather dull, even with a man making out with the decaying corpse of Rebecca.

 

Guru, The Mad Monk is a 1970 Andy Milligan film. There's a film maker that needs a good drubbing, he can't make a good film to save his life. Mind you I don't think he really cares. It's supposed to be Medieval times and there's a modern cupboard in one scene, in another the Monk keeps a fire burning in a modern metal BBQ, and in a third the Monk uses a modern hammer and scissors. The cast, while game, don't do anything to change their modern New York accents which is sort of amusing. The gore effects are pretty amateurish. You can get a lot of laughs from this one even if it isn't a comedy. It's only 55 minutes and worth a look because of the level of goofiness in it.

Don't Answer The Phone! is a 1980 film about a Vietnam vet that kills young woman, then he calls a talk radio host to talk about his problems. The police are trailing him and eventually he's toast. "Adios, creep!" says the cop who was after him. It's only so-so. I'm not hard a fan of the mad guy killing women genres, give me some monsters that aren't just disturbed humans.

Another disc down and only 2 more to go.

Science Fiction Sunday 369

There's 8 more episodes of Fireball XL5 on the 3rd disc of the 5 disc set. Here's an image from one of the Fireball XL5 Annuals.

Wings of Danger  February 3 1963

The Subterraneanians from Planet 46 have built a remote control spaceship that fires radioactive bullets. They blast Steve and Dr Venus has to operate to save his life. Once Steve is better he goes to Planet 46 to put those underground creeps in their place.

The Triads  January 27 1963

 

The Fireball XL5 team meets some friendly giants and helps them with their rocket program by remaking their spaceship fuel.

Sabotage  October 20 1963

Some creeps plant a Neutroni bomb on the Fireball XL5's navigation component and kidnaps the screw.

Prisoner on the Lost Planet  March 3 1963

 

Steve follows a radio signal past known space to a planet where an Amazonian Queen is a prisoner. She knocks Steve out and holds the Fireball Jr hostage. Steve kicks her ass. Dr Venus sleeps in a round bed in her Fireball XL5 cabin.

Flight to Danger  February 23 1963

When Lt. Ninety takes his a solo orbit of the moon to win his astronaut's wings his ship's power supply explodes blasting him into space. He floats until the Fireball XL5 chances onto him.

Space Vacation  February 17 1963

On the way to vacation the Fireball Team helps the citizens of Olympus stop a space feud.

Mystery of the TA2  March 31 1963

A derelict spaceship, lost nearly 50 years, leads Steve and pals to Arctan where the missing spaceman has been living as their king.

Robert to the Rescue  March 17 1963

 

The Fireball team is held captive by some aliens in their metal planet and Robert the robot comes to help. He blasts the wall out of the planet and saves everyone.

The stories have their limitations and it's all pretty stilly at times but I got a laugh. Here's a few color stills from the Bonus Feature section of the disc.

  

At The Gate Of The Ghost 2011

I saw a copy of At The Gate Of The Ghost at the library and brought it home. It's a 2011 Thai adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon which was of interest. It's very bright and colorful and mostly a pretty good re-telling of the story. The big change is there's a whole new story thread that adds more back story to the monk and a lot of Buddhist business. In the original, it's a Priest, and there's only a bit of conversation about his lack of faith in humanity and a restoration of it when he hears the woodcutter's story. In the Thai version we spend more time with the Monk, he's getting ready to visit his father in a far village, and he's doubting that he wants to continue as a Monk. We see some of his life as a child. He does leave and when it rains a while later he takes shelter in a cave with a wood cutter and a man they call Undertaker.

The Monk and the Woodcutter tell the Undertaker of their involvement in the trail of the bandit. A Warlord is dead, his wife tells her story, the woodcutter tells his story, the Monk his, the bandit his and a Medium comes in to tell the Warlord's story. They've all got conflicting details in their stories so it's hard to tell who's telling the truth. That's the trouble with people, you never know what the truth is.

It's a gorgeous looking film with plenty of interesting scenery. I enjoyed it and would watch it again.