PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 678

Lightning Bolt is a 1966 Italian spy movie called Operazione Goldman. It's directed by Antonio Margheriti under the name Anthony Dawson. You might have seen one of his other films, like Battle Of The Worlds, Castle Of Blood, The Wild, Wild Planet, Snow Devils or Yor, The Hunter From The Future. I've seen several of his films, none are great but a few are watchable and sort of enjoyable. Many of them appear in low budget DVD multi-movie packs. Anthony Eisley appears as a secret agent sent to check up on some sabotage in the US space program. Lazio Italy fills in for Florida. Anthony poses as a rich playboy and snoops around the rocket base. He's not a very good spy. He bumbles along and uncovers a plot to destroy the space rockets. The villain was OK but nothing special. That kind of describes the movie too, it scores a 5 on the IMDb. I'm there with that. We watched the double movie Blu-ray and it looked quite nice. Too bad the better looking image wasn't backed up with a good script. I wouldn't recommend it, it's watchable, but there are plenty of better spy films to watch.

I don't think I'd recommend Tobor The Great, a 1954 SF film about an AI robot, to most people. It's watchable and all but don't expect much of anything. It scores a 5.2 on the IMDb and I wouldn't give it a 6. Sometimes I wish the IMDb had a slider to score, then you could have fractions, you could vote a movie π. That's nearly as silly as TTG.

Tobor The Great was written by Philip MacDonald who earlier in his career wrote a couple of Charlie Chan films and a couple of Mr Moto films. He's the uncredited writer on Bride Of Frankenstein. He wrote the 1940 Rebecca, Bogart's 1943 film Sahara, and the 1945 Boris Karloff film The Body Snatchers. After TTG he mostly worked in TV, writing random episodes of shows like Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Celebrity Playhouse, Wagon Train, Riverboat and Thriller.

Lee Sholem is the director. Turns out I've seen or have to see a good bit of Lee's work. He started in 1949 with Tarzan's Magic Fountain and a year later it was Tarzan And The Slave Girl. Next, Superman And The Mole-Men in 1951 and a year later he directed episodes of the TV show Adventures Of Superman and in 1953 episodes of Criswell Presents. He worked on several popular TV shows in the 50s and 60s; The Adventures Of Long John Silver, Whirlybirds, 77 Sunset Strip, Men In Space, Colt .45, Sugarfoot, Bronco, Cheyenne, Maverick and Death Valley Days. He ended with Catalina Caper, you might have seen it on MST3K and that classic Doomsday Machine.

I think the movie is aimed at the kid crowd, though it does get pretty touch and go for the movie's kid when the villains threaten him with a blow torch to make Grandpa talk. Not to worry Tobor will come save the day. You might get a laugh or two out of it, you can find out, there's a link to the movie on the post.

War Gods Collection

You know what a sucker I am for a movie collection, especially a cheap one. War Gods Collection is an 8 movie set from Retromedia. Each disc has two movies, one on each side, and they're of various qualities, print wise, some are widescreen. I'd seen half of the movies but didn't have most of them on other DVDs. It's an odd mix, six of them are Italian Sword & Sandal films and the other two started off as Russian fantasy adventures. The two fantasy films were featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Son Of Samson 1960 The original Italian film is about a guy called Maciste. It was called Maciste in the Valley of the Kings or Maciste the Mighty. In English speaking countries it was called Son of Samson. Mark Forest plays Maciste. He befriends a Prince and helps save his kingdom from an evil woman.

Son Of Cleopatra 1965 Mark Damon's in this Italian Sword & Sandal film. It was common to put an English speaking actor in the main role. Give the film a bigger name to draw people into the theater.  There's a revolt against the government and Mark is in the middle of it.

Hero Of Rome 1964 Gordon Scott is punching people in this Italian S&S film.

Invincible Gladiator 1962 Richard Harrison is the lead in this S&S film about a revolt against a creep in charge. Nothing too exciting though.

War Gods Of Babylon 1962 Howard Duff plays a noble king with a younger and weaker brother. Plenty of fighting and running about in this S&S film but nothing too special either.

War Goddess 1974 It's a S&S film about the Amazons. It's directed by Terrence Young, who's better known for directing Dr No, From Russian With Love and Thunderball. I'd recently seen his 1977 film Foxbat. In War Goddess the Amazons elect a new queen. Every year the Amazon's hire some men to give them babies. This year the queen has sex with the disguised King of Greece and they fall in love. It's a bit funny, there's plenty of nudity, but it's only about average.

The Magic Voyage Of Sinbad 1962 Roger Corman's company bought a 1952 Russian fantasy called Sadko and transformed it into a Sinbad the Sailor movie. This happened a lot in the past.

That's the poster for the Russian film. Nice, huh. It's a vaguely cool film with lots of goofy stuff going on. It's not got a huge budget and technologically the Russians are 10 years behind the times on their special effects. I'd like to see the original. OH, here it is, I just found it on YouTube. I haven't watched it yet but it doesn't look too bad. It's a bit longer, they cut some songs mostly.

The Day The Earth Froze 1964 Here's a 1959 Russian Finnish Fantasy film, originally called Sampo, that was re-edited by AIP. Instead of 91 minutes the US version runs 67 minutes. Like the previous film it was also featured on MST3k.

There's a magical appliance that makes grain, salt and gold. Who wouldn't want that, especially in the days when salt was worth more than gold. It causes some trouble and there's an adventure that goes with it. It might be fun to see the original version.

Not a awful collection, though I might never get back to it, I'm going to keep it for now.

Western Wednesday 45

I found this 3 pack of George O'Brien Western films during the Half Price Books coupon sale. It's one of those Warner Brothers Archive Collections, it's on DVDr. I hadn't recalled running across George before. He's fairly entertaining, he's a big guy with a pleasant personality. I put his other multi movie Warner Brothers Archive Collection on my wish list. It's got 9 movies for 30 bucks. Maybe if there's a sale soon I'll have it.

The Marshal Of Mesa City 1939 The movie was directed by David Howard and the screenplay is by Jack Lait Jr. David directed 46 films in his 11 year career. Many of them were Westerns, three of them are in this set. David died in 1941 at age 45. Jack wrote 7 films and died at 52.

George arrives outside Mesa City just in time to prevent the kidnapping of the local school teacher by the henchmen of the corrupt sheriff. She decided to leave after the sheriff hit on her too many times. He is creepy. Since the stage was damaged in the ruckus George takes the school teacher back to her boarding house. George finds the sheriff has his fingers into the local judge. The sheriff threatens George and George fights back. The sheriff's days are numbered and that school teacher is mighty pretty.

The movie has one of the weirdest shootouts. George and his deputy go up against the sheriff and a few of his henchmen, in the fog. That's George and his deputy on the right, they walk into the fog, you can see gun barrel flashes for a while. Then it's all over and the gang are dead and so is the deputy.

That's his grave. I liked that shot. The camera rises up to reveal the mayor, George and the school teacher paying their respects.

Legion Of The Lawless 1940 The screenplay is by Doris Schroeder and it's directed by David Howard. Doris wrote a bunch of films in her career and then she wrote a whole pile of Whitman Kids novels. I've read several and they were all pretty good.

George arrives in Ivestown to hang up his law talking guy shingle only to find that the town is in the hands of a vigilante committee. The head guy doesn't like the law and he tries to run George out of town. That goes south for him and George has to blast him down in the end. It's a nice tight story. I have to say these prints of the film are fairly decent. All three come on one disc. They're all short, 62, 60, and 68 minutes.

Triple Justice 1940 It's directed by David Howard and the screenplay was written by Arthur V Jones and Morton Grant, the story was by Arnold Belgard and Jack Roberts.

George goes to Star City to be best man at his pal's wedding. He winds up getting mixed up with a bank robbery. There's plenty of Western action and a bit of romance.

All the movies were entertaining and I'd certainly watch them again.

Bavarian Sex Comedy Collection - 4 Movie DVD Set

I picked up the Bavarian Sex Comedy Collection from Hamilton Books. It wasn't that cheap, $15.95, but there are 4 movies.Three are packed on one disc, Bottom's Up 1974, I Like the Girls Who Do 1973 and Inn of 1,000 Sins 1975. The other disc has Run, Virgin, Run 1970, some trailers and some "Rare" radio spots. Trouble is the prints aren't that great looking. It would have been nice if they could have gotten some nice prints and used those but there you go. The first movie is the worst looking and none of them are widescreen. The dubbing is pretty funny and there are lots of naked ladies running around. The plots are simple and there's a certain amount of humor. There's plenty of nudity, someone's always stripping off for a romp in the hay. The acting isn't the best but it's dubbed and that covers up a bit. I enjoyed the movies for what they are, I wasn't sorry to have bought the set, I just wished there were more movies available, and movies of a better quality. Who knows, it could happen.

Loophole 1981

Loophole is a 1981 British heist film. It's based on a novel by Robert Pollock, Jonathan Hales wrote the screenplay and John Quested is the director. Martin Sheen is an architect that loses his job at the start of the film. He's having trouble getting hired when Albert Finney gives him a job redesigning a commercial building. As he progresses it becomes obvious that they aren't renovating. Albert and his team, including Colin Blakely and Jonathan Pryce, are planning to break into a bank across the street. Martin needs the money, Suzanna York plays his wife and she's got some costly plans going on, Robert Morley is his banker and he wants to get paid for the loans he floated. The robbery goes on and the tunnels get dug. It's a bit pokey but mostly entertaining. It gets a 5.9 on the IMDb and I gave it a 6.  I bought a copy cheap somewhere and I'll keep it to watch again.

Dressed To Kill 1946

Dressed To Kill was the last of the 14 Sherlock Holmes films that Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce made. It came out May 24 1946. Frank Gruber and Leonard Lee are responsible for the script and Roy William Neill directs.

A prisoner in Dartmoor Prison creates 3 music boxes with a secret message in the tune. The message gives the location of stolen Bank Of England printing plates. The music boxes are sold at auction to the wrong people. Now the villain's pals are looking for them and they'll murder anyone who gets in their way.

Sherlock and Dr Watson take up the case and just over an hour later the crooks are caught. There's a good villain and some running around. People complain it's one of the weakest of the lot but I didn't think it was much better or worse then most of them. There's a commentary by David Gregory, Richard Valley and Patricia Morison. Patricia was in the film. Now I'm done until I see them again someday.

Bad Boys I & II

Bad Boys is one of my favorite action movies. It's a 1995 buddy movie with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. I'm trying not to upgrade DVDs to Blu-ray but once in a while I break down and pick up a copy of something like Bad Boys. I noticed that the 2 Blu-ray set of Bad Boys I & II was only 10 bucks. The movies look much better than the DVDs I have. I like the first movie much more than the second movie but only because Michael Bay changed his style in the 8 years between these movies. His action scenes became filled with close ups and lots of quick cuts. I find that more annoying than not. I don't think the script is up to the first movies script either. It's still delivers a good action movie with lots of gun fire, explosions and car chases. The first movie was just more fun.

Terror By Night 1946

The 13th of the Sherlock Holmes films with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce is Terror By Night and it came out February 1 1946. It's written by Frank Gruber and Roy William Neill is the director.

Holmes and Watson are traveling on a train to Scotland. They have been hired to protect the Star of Rhodesia diamond. The man with the diamond is killed and the diamond stolen.

As you'd expect Holmes get to work, recovers the diamond, and captures the thief. About the same as the rest. There's just the one left and I'll have to watch some other series.

Science Fiction Sunday 485

Drone Wars is a 2016 SF movie set in a world where alien drones hunt down the remaining human population. Corin Nemec heads the cast and he's in the resistance. There's a gang of survivors who fight the aliens and the resistance. Stupid people who can't get along in the face of a larger threat piss me right off. There's a lot of running and yelling but it's just another potboiler made to help fill the endless schedule on SyFy and streaming sites. I got a copy from Netflix DVD. It hardly seems worth pressing.

The Recall is another alien invasion story. It's from 2017 and it's mostly told from the POV of some vacationing friends in a remote mountain cabin. The TV news tells of some strange weather formations and visits to a military base fill us in that the government knows we've already had some contact with aliens. Wesley Snipes is an ex-astronaut who's gone starin' off into the distance survivalist after his encounter with the aliens. The vacationers have a run in with Wesley, and then, some aliens. The men in the group are fighting all the time, none of them seem to be able to work together, and by the 38 minute mark two of the 5 are dead by their own hands. I hate the stupid in horror films. I guess their stupidity is a good reminder that we're doomed when it comes to alien invasions. I did like the CGI floating alien brain critters and the visit to the alien ship was kind of creepy. Still, there's nothing much to recommend, another time filler for cable and streaming venues.

Twin Peaks Season 1

The price of the newest Twin Peaks series fell and I ordered one. Before I watch it I wanted to revisit the original series. Get the story fresh in my mind. I saw the original episodes a lot when they were new, I had copies on VHS and watched them repeatedly. People were excited about the series, they chatted about it, and they'd get together to watch the broadcast. I know I made 3 or 4 copies of the tapes I had for other people who missed the show.

I got the first season DVD in 2001 and the second season in 2007. Artisan put out the first season but with no pilot episode. I was lucky I kept a copy of the pilot on VHS. Artisan cancelled releasing the second season in 2003. CBS and Paramount released it in 2007. The pilot made it to DVD that same year, both versions are included in the Twin Peaks Definitive Gold Box Edition, along with the complete series. No Fire Walk With Me yet. I did not buy the TTDGBE set, it was pretty pricey at first and there wasn't much new by way of extras. I watched the whole series on DVD a short while after the second season came out and haven't seen them since.

 

 

Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery is a 10 disc set that's got two versions of the pilot, all the episodes of the first two seasons, and the movie Fire Walk With Me. It's big new highlight are the 90 minutes of deleted scenes from FWWM. It's packed with extras, there's new stuff for the Blu-ray, and old stuff from the previous DVDs. There are a few small odd and ends that didn't make it to Blu-ray but the big audio dynamite are the missing audio commentaries. Someone on Amazon said they were owned by Artisan and they didn't license them. It means I want to keep the DVDs too. Oh well, not the end of the world.

So far, I've watched the pilot, it's foreign version, and the first season episodes. I never liked the foreign version of the pilot, there's 15 or so minutes of extra material added near the end so Coop can catch Bob in the basement and wrap up the mystery. I understand, the original pilot is only the intro to the series and the series might not sell. It seems clumsy and wrong when I watch it now. I still think it's nice that they include it.

There are only 7 episodes in the first season. I sure had forgotten a lot of what happened. I remember some favorite scenes. David Patrick Kelly coming home from France with baguettes and the two brothers enjoying their sandwiches. It's still entertaining to watch and I'll get to the second series soon.