PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Western Wednesday 40

I picked up a four pack of Randolph Scott Westerns from Amazon. Three are from the 1930s and the other, from 1955, is the only one in color. Three of the films in this set that is based on the novels of Zane Grey. I can't remember ever reading a Zane Grey novel but I have seen plenty of the stories on film. I just wasn't a Western novel reader, in general, until more recently. When I was young I liked Western films, TV shows and comic books, then I kind of lost interest by the 70s. I hadn't totally abandoned the genre, I still would watch the occasional Western. A few years ago I discovered that there were oodles of free Westerns to be watched on the internet and I've watched a shit load of them since. I've also read several Western novels in that same time period. Most all of them published by Whitman and featuring TV and Film characters like Gene Autrey and Roy Rogers.

The Fighting Westerner is a 1935 Western with Randolph as a mining engineer who helps the local deputy solve a murder. First of the three Zane Grey adaptations.

Chic Sale plays the deputy. He does need a lot of help. There's a bit of comedy, some action, and a bit of romance. A bit more humorous than a lot of the Westerns. Fun.

Man Of The Forest is a 1933 Western that has Randolph break up the evil scheme of Noah Beery Sr. There are lions and their cubs in the film. I liked the wooded areas used for the locations. Another Zane Grey. When I was younger there was the Zane Grey's West Society which reprinted 75 of his books in nice hardcovers. You can buy a complete set on Amazon for $455 right now.

Barton MacLane and Buster Crabbe are in the cast. There are the usual antics of a Western of the time and it's fairly good. Randolph has a mustache that I didn't care for but it didn't seem to bother the lady in the blue dress. The villain is pretty villainous and deserved to get blasted.

Rage At Dawn is the 1955 color Western. Randolph is a special agent who's after the Reno Boys who killed his wife. He posses as a train robber to get in with the gang. We've got a good cast, Forest Tucker, J Carrol Nash, Ray Teal, Denver Pyle, Trevor Bardette, Kenneth Tobey, Edgar Buchanan, with Mala Powers as the romantic interest. Once inside the gang Randolph finds out that the local officials are corrupt, taking bribes from the Reno Boys. He soon puts an end to their doin's.

Buffalo Stampede is a 1933 Western based on Zane Grey's The Thundering Herd. The movie was originally released under that name. Randolph and Harry Carey are looking for some buffalo hunters who have kidnapped his girlfriend. The local natives are keen on attacking the buffalo hunters so there's some danger from that. It was fairly good. All in all a nice bunch of Westerns that I might get around to again someday. Who knows.

Mothman 2010

Mothman is one of those teen horror movies where some scummy teens accidentally cause the death of a guy. They were fucking about in the middle of the night in a lake. Rather than report what happened they lie and cover up their involvement. Since it's a movie some horrible retribution comes calling and a lot of them die. It came out in 2010 and the mothman is a grey bit of CGI. There's nothing much that I can recommend about it.

Hell's Labyrinth 2007

Hell's Labyrinth is a 2007 movie that's also known as Carnivorous. Some people are kidnapped and 20 of them wake up in an underground place with monsters and corridors. It's a bit video game and a lot crap. The whole thing is tinted in a dark grey, this is so the shitty CGI looks better. It's all shot in front of a green screen and the IMDb says: Spending long hours in front of the 400 ft. green-screen, caused many of the cast members to temporarily lose their peripheral vision. Actors would run face-first into the screen on a regular basis. Sound's like some Health and Safety issues, huh. Generally the movie isn't that good and I didn't need to see it.

Gildersleeve's Bad Day 1943

Gildersleeve's Bad Day is a 1943 comedy film. It's the second movie with Harold Peavy as The Great Gildersleeve. It's written by Jack Townley and directed by Gordon Douglas. This time Gildersleeve is on jury duty. The trial is for a local robber and Gildy is suspected of taking a bribe. Of course, his attempts to clear his name only dig him in deeper. There's a good pile of jokes and I've grown to like the supporting characters.

Razortooth 2007

I watched Razortooth, a 2007 monster movie, about a giant eel in the Everglades. Doug Swander plays the local animal control officer. He used to be married to the sheriff. A giant eel starts attacking the locals and Doug and the Sheriff have to deal with the carnage and the critter. A college professor is responsible for the giant eel. It was created in the lab, killed a guy escaping, and of course, they didn't tell anyone. The locals posse up and there' s plenty of lunch in the glades for chomping. Toss in a couple of escaped prisoners, four boats filled with campers and you've got plenty for dinner and an evening snack. The CGI is is fair. The actors are average to poor and the script is about the same. It's just more of the same, good for filling in time until you die. It's the kind of movie that I would expect to find in one of those cheap multi movie DVD sets. It's not something I would need to have, I'm not going to watch it again.

Science Fiction Sunday 476

So you know what big liars those cheap-ass, bulk pack DVD production companies are. I picked up the 12 Movie Sci-Fi Pack from Millennium Entertainment. This is a company that's so ashamed of the product they put out they place their name in the tiniest of letters on the disc and nothing by name on the box. They stuck a copyright at the bottom of the piece of paper with all the movie titles and their credits. Hoping I guess that people won't know it's there. No matter, I'm not going to hunt them down and smack them in the nut sack with Paul Naschy's disinterred skull. Not worth the effort for such middle of the road liars. The first movie that popped up on the first of two double sided discs was not Sci-Fi in any way.

The Donner Party is a 2009 movie written and directed by TJ Martin. It's got Crispin Glover, Mark Boone Junior and Christian Kane in a cast of names I didn't recognize. It's just a retelling of the Donner Party story without anyone named Donner. At that it's watchable but I can't agree that it's a 5.2 on the IMDb. Maybe a four. I'd rather watch Cannibal The Musical. That's such a much better piece of entertainment. Still, no SF in The Donner Party. Not even if I spell it Sci-Fi. What's next?

Antibody is a 2002 ripoff of Fantastic Voyage with Lance Henriksen. It's SF but I have already seen it a couple of years ago. It's not to good, especially the second time. It's all ticking time bomb and bad dialog. I didn't even get too far before I started skipping ahead quickly. Better to avoid it.

Dragon Fighter is the 3rd movie on the first side of disc 1. At least it has a SF element in the dragon cloning plot. It's from 2003. Dean Cain joins a remote research lab as head of security. A crazy scientist clones a dragon and it goes crazy and starts killing people. There's a fairly good dragon but the story is pretty familiar. It's a good solid 3 but not much better. Not something I'd recommend to most.

Friday Night Movies 668

Killing Gunther is a 2017 movie about killing a guy named Gunther. He's the top hit man out there so you know it's going to be a hard job. People don't even know what he looks like. A very annoying hitman named Blake wants to rep up in the biz. Blake also wants to pay Gunther back. Gunther  slept with Blake's girlfriend. Taran Killam plays Blake and he's also the writer-director of the movie. Greg told me he was on Saturday Night Live but I haven't seen that show in years. I read on the IMDb that he left the show to make the movie.

Blake gathers together a group of mixed rating assassins who also have a grudge against Gunther. They set off to kill the man with their cunning plan. Arnold plays Gunther but you don't really see him until over an hour has past. Gunther has been keeping an eye on the group and he fights them from time to time. When we finally meet Gunther we see what's been happening from his point of view.

Besides the ongoing fight there are other plot threads, there's a romance between a couple in Blake's gang and a sad bit of business where Blake's old master keeps having heart attacks or some catastrophic body failure. The old master was going to be Blake's backup guy. Like most of the planning Blake did, it was a piss poor idea, poorly executed.

There's a bit of action and stuff does blow up pretty regularly. The script has some weak parts and some gags aren't that funny. It's struggling to get to 5 on the IMDb and I have to agree with the people who voted so far. I liked Arnold, he was fun, but some of the other characters weren't as entertaining. Not something I would need to go buy.

I'd have to say the same about Fightmare, a 1983 horror comedy with Freddy Mayne. You might remember him from The Fearless Vampire Killers where he played the vampire. He was also in oodles of other films in a career that lasted from 1943 through 1997. He died in 1998 at the age of 81.

Frightmare is also called The Horror Star or Body Snatchers. It's written and directed by Norman Thaddeus Vane. I never heard of him before but I hardly keep up on this sort of thing. It's the horror film debut of Jeffrey Combs, a horror fan fav among the FNM night goers.

Ferdy plays an elderly horror star who we meet making a commercial for an displeased director. He's mad at the director and kills him by pushing him off a balcony. A film group honors him, at the ceremony he collapses and later dies. The members of the film group steal the body from the mausoleum and take it back to the mansion the film group uses as an HQ. Ferdy comes back to life and goes some more killing. One by one Ferdy slaughters the members before returning to the grave.

It's got it's moments but the movie, like our first, struggles to get to a 5 on the IMDb. I gave it a 5, I don't think it's really a 6. I doubt I'd ever find one cheap enough to bother buying.

The Lost Tribe 2010

Here's a stinky Predator rip off. The Lost Tribe is a 2010 horror movie about some people stranded on a small island in the Atlantic Ocean. The yacht went down and all of them survived. Only to be killed off one by one by the race of lost humanoids. There had been a research team there but they were all killed off by Lance Henriksen. He's a special hit man for the Vatican, they want to keep these murderous missing links a secret. Too bad they didn't keep the movie a secret but I guess even the Vatican wouldn't give a shit about this crappy script. It's only interesting thing is the Panamanian jungle locations. Mind you, you've probably seen better location shots. Give it miss. Glad I got it from Netflix.

Western Wednesday 39

I watched The Iron Horse today. It's a 1924 film about the building of the transcontinental railway,  It was nominated for the AFI's 10 Top 10 in the Western genre in 2008 but did not make the cut. The Library of Congress says it's culturally, historically, or Aesthetically significant and it's been preserved by the National Film Registry. John Ford was the producer and uncredited director. Charles Kenyon, John Russell and Charles Darnton were the writers.

In the prologue Brandon and Miriam are childhood friends. Brandon's father is a surveyor who wants to build the transcontinental railroad his friend Abe Lincoln dreams of, Mariam's father is a contractor and he's not so sure that it could happen. Brandon and his father go out west to survey a route. They find a pass through the Black Kills that will save 200 miles. Sadly the father is killed by a white man, with two fingers, who travels with the Cheyenne. Brandon, who managed to hide when the men showed up, is found by some men heading west to look for work.

In 1862 Brandon is all grown up when he comes to work on the train tracks. He finds Miriam is due to marry a scummy guy but he can't do much about that. The scummy guy is in league with another creep who wants to sabotage the railroad. He has riled up the Cheyenne and there's quite a few attacks on the rail line. Eventually the bad men are exposed and that two fingered guy gets his from Brandon.

It's all slow moving and melodramatic, the DVD runs about 2.5 hours, and there are longs takes. Occasionally there are some nice vistas but none of it was filmed in the places it actually took place. I found it entertaining except for being so slow. The film looked pretty good, better than most of the films of that era do, and the actors were OK. It's a silent film with OK musical accompaniment. I doubt I would watch it again so I'm not going to bother buying a copy. You can see a good copy of YouTube. You might like it.

I liked The Tall T a whole lot better. It's another Randolph Scott western by Budd Boetticher. They made several films together over the years. It came out in 1957 and the screenplay was written by Burt Kennedy, who adapted a Leonard Elmore short story called The Captives. I got a copy in The Randolph Scott Round UP DVD collection. Six movies on two discs for under ten bucks. It's a Mill Creek re-issue of an earlier 5 film Budd Boetticher collection that is currently 50 smackaroonies on Amazon. There are some extras on that set that aren't transferred over to the Mill Creek set but most people wouldn't care. I didn't think I needed them for that money. People argue that movies on disc will go away but I think they'll wind up at places like Mill Creek and what will go away are the extras from the original releases. If you save up a bunch of DVDs with extras you might use them to retire on, if you live long enough.

The cast is pretty good, Richard Boone, Henry Silva, Skip Homeier, Maureen O'Sullivan, John Hubbard and Arthur Hunnicutt. Randolph is a small rancher, he looses a bet to a man over a bull and has to give up his horse, that puts him on the road when the stage coach passes. They take him to the station but the only thing waiting there are the three bad men, Richard, Skip and Henry, lay in wait. They've already killed the station man and his young son, their bodies tossed in the well. Sadly,the candy sticks that he was bringing the boy are still in his pocket when Skip snatches them away. 

The stage coach driver is killed making a foolish move for his shotgun. The other passengers are the daughter of a rich miner and her new husband are saved from killing when the husband spills that her father is rich. He's hoping to buy his way out of the situation but that won't get him to the end of the movie. Like Richard I too have only contempt for the snake of a man. For some reason Richard takes a liking to Randolph and doesn't kill him right away. That turns out to be a big mistake. It's a good movie, well worth seeing.

Juggernaut 1936

Juggernaut is a 1936 British mystery film that was based on the novel Juggernaut by Alice Campbell. It's also known as The Demon Doctor. The screenplay was written by Cyril Campion, Heinrich Fraenkel and H Flower Mear, Henry Edwards is the director. The IMDb Trivia page says it was one of 200 films that were sold to the early TV industry in 1942, the war slowed the biz down and it's first recorded broadcast was in New York on November 19 1948. I found the movie on a 9 pack of movies at Walmart. It's packed by one of the more lowly video companies, Echo Bridge.  It was only $3.74, which is cheaper than the $5.99 version on Amazon. It's hard to know if that single film disc would be any better in quality since it comes from Alpha Video, another video company with a less than stellar rep.

Juggernaut stars Boris Karloff, Joan Wyndham, Arthur Margetson and more people I never heard of before. Boris is Dr Sartorius, a medical researcher who has only a couple of years to live. His funding gets cut off. In order to continue his work he takes up a small practice with the help of a friend. He's approached by the scummy wife of a rich man and offered enough money to fund his research, if he'll kill her husband. He poison's the man. Joan plays one of the man's nurses, she becomes suspicious and sends the syringe for testing. Everything goes wrong from there.

It's not awful but it can hardly rise above average. Still, I liked the plucky nurse, so I gave it a 5 on the IMDb, where it scores a 4.9 with 178 votes.