PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Uranium Boom 1956

Uranium Boom is a 1956 William Castle film about some uranium miners. George W George and George F Slavin wrote the story and they wrote the screenplay with Norman Retchin. I've been a fan of William Castle since before I knew who he was. The few films that I saw as a teen were only a tiny portion of his work, I'm always running into films I haven't seen. Here's a new one to me. There's another two coming out on Blu-ray in a week and this is reminding me that there's a 8 film Western set that I haven't watched yet.

Dennis Morgan meets up with William Tallman when they have to share a room in a hotel. They want to make lots of money in the uranium boom in Colorado. They find some uranium and Dennis goes to stake the claim while William guards the site.

Dennis meets up with Patricia Medina in town and the two marry. Turns out she's the woman William's been pining for. Patricia isn't interested in marrying William and had told him as much. He thought he'd have lots of money from the uranium and that would win her over. The conflict splits the two men apart. A vengeful William tries to win her back and ruin Dennis's business. Eventually the two men fight enough to become friends again.

I've seen this man logic in so many films over the years. It works well enough here. There's plenty of rock climbing, a few punch ups, some mining, some double dealing, some gun fire, all surrounded by an entertaining script with a nice sense of humor. Enjoyable. You can see the movie on YouTube in the link above. There's also a DVDr available, I ordered one after seeing the movie on YouTube. Looks very nice.

The Riverside Murder 1935

The Riverside Murder is a 1935 British crime film that was based on Les Six Hommes Morts by Stanislas-André Steeman. Selwyn Jepson wrote the screenplay and Albert Parker directed. I picked up a used copy of the DVD when I saw it had Alastair Sim on the cover. It's his first film role and while it's not a lead part, he's got a fair bit of screen time. He plays Sergeant Mac McKay, a bit dim but eager, and he works for Inspector Winton, who's played by Basil Sydney.

Basil had a fairly long career, his first role was back in 1920 and the last 44 years later. You might recognize him from the 1950 film Treasure Island where he played Captain Smollet. He was also in The Hands Of Orlac, the 1948 Hamlet and The 3 Worlds Of Gulliver. I am more interested in his 1959 appearance on The Flying Doctor. It's my holy grail of TV shows. I sure would love to see it again.

Inspector Winton is usually a good bit ahead of Sergeant McKay and there's often a bit of a laugh that goes long with that. They're investigating the death of a rich guy, part of a group of 5 financiers, soon after a second man is murdered. There's plenty of talking as the detectives dig into the lives of the people involved. It was fairly enjoyable and had plenty of fun bits. You can see a copy on YouTube.

Science Fiction Sunday 585

First up, From Amazon Prime, It Came From The Desert, a 2017 SF film about some giant mutated ants in the desert. Marko Mäkilaakso is the director, he wrote the original story and he co-wrote the script with Trent Haaga and Hank Woon Jr. It's a Finland, UK and Canada production that was filmed in Spain.

Some motocross bikers have a rally in the desert. We'd already seen something we didn't see make a man disappear off screen. The young adults are partying it up, plenty of liquor and shenanigans. One guy finds a cave and talks his pal into going inside. The cave is a tunnel and it leads to a fenced off building owned by a military manufacturer.

That's where the giant ants come in. Breed there in a typical cliched secret military product, the giant pricks have gone on the attack, now everyone is dead at the facility. Oh wait, it's the ant's creator, he's still alive, and he's planning series 10. Oops, he was, he got skewered. Before he got his, the creator guy made a reference to the ants being created back in the 1950s. They were spliced with alien DVD, grew up big and strong, then accidentally escaped. They were stopped and contained since. A reference to Them, the giant ants in the desert movie from the 1950s. A better movie than this one.

Remember those partying YAs? The ants need alcohol to breed, something the ant's creator thought would be hard to find in the desert. That didn't work out so well, the giant beasties find the alcohol really quick. They drink the beer and kidnap the YAs, taking them back to their hive as foodstuffs for the nearly hatched eggs.

It's a fair decent looking picture, the CGI ants aren't too bad, I think they can get away with more because they are mutant ants. The script spends way too much time spent with the three main characters. The two guys in black in the photo above are the main characters. The brunet is really stupid and the blond is timid and naive. The woman in the purple top is a bit more grounded and normal. There's a whole romantic subplot that could easily have been jettisoned. They bumble on and manage to put a stop to the creatures. It needs more laughs and less annoying characters. I wouldn't need to see it again.

Kill Command is another SF feature from AP, it's British and it came out in 2016. It's written and directed by Steven Gomez. He turns out to be a better director than a screenwriter. He's created a good looking movie but based his story on AIs going out of control. Sadly, this time the AI is the head of a team of kill bots.

A small group of soldiers are sent to train in the robot's proving grounds. A woman who is heavily computerized comes along to observe. They manage to kill the robots they were after. Then their communication breaks down. They make camp and in the night the sentry disappears. They find his body, it turns out to be bait for a trap, the robots kill a few humans before the human's escape with a smoke screen. The robots herd them along, picking the men off one by one.

There's plenty of great action and the robots look pretty good. The script is weak to me, that's such a tired plot, and some of the dialog would be better left unsaid. At one point we learn that the woman is actually the programmer and creator of the robots. Why they would have sent her in is questionable, especially when she seems so ineffective at any sort of communication, human or robot. She tells the squad that she's made the robots able to learn from enemy attacks and reprogram themselves. They've reprogrammed themselves not to obey her. She laments it was all to save lives. Heard that before, huh. It managed to keep me interested to the end and I might watch it again but I doubt it's going to happen.

Friday Night Movies 785

Trailer Park Shark is a 2017 big ass shark comedy. It's directed by Griff Furst, son of Stephen Furst. Griff wrote the movie with his brother Nathan Furst, Marcy Holland, Matt Muschamp and Xander Wolfe.

The movie is set in a squalled trailer park in Louisiana. A rich scumbag wants the park gone so he hires a stupid scumbag to blow up the levee. It floods the park and most of the trailer park residents are washed away with their trailers. A few survive and to make their day worse, somehow, a big ass hungry shark has come calling. Oh, yeah, he's an electric shark. His electric discharge knocks people out and shorts out electrical systems in boats.

The CGI is fair to middlin', you can see that shark top looks a bit low rez. Generally the physical effects work, the only one that was annoying was the rain effect. They had a physical spray system set up but it was so small you could see where the rain ended on the water. The physical gore is a bit of a step up over the CGI gore. The movie moves along briskly and there's always some new danger and slaughter.

I did like the movies sense of humor. I laughed out loud a couple of times and it was fun to see the scumbags get some chompin' action. Glad to have seen it and would watch it again.

This Is Not A Movie came out in 2011 and the Wikipedia says it's a Mexican experimental SF film. It's written and directed by Olallo Rubio. Edward Furlong plays three different versions of the same character. It's the end of the world and he's in a hotel room in Las Vegas discussing some philosophical stuff with his other selves. It's pretty artsy fartsy but I did get a good laugh out of one part. A physical gag that had little to do with the lack of story. Edward was pretty good as the different personalities. Sadly I wasn't that interested in his internal monologue. I had gotten the DVD cheap and will keep it. I might never watch it again. Who knows.

The Lost Patrol is a 1934 Boris Karloff film. It's adapted from a Philip MacDonald story called Patrol by Garrett Fort, the screenplay is by Dudley Nichols, the director is John Ford. Victor McLaglen, Wallace Ford, Reginald Denny, Billy Bevan, Alan Hale and JM Kerrigan are some of the cast I knew. Merian C Cooper is an executive producer and Max Stein created the music.

It's a WWI film, set in the desert of Mesopotamia, with a troop of lost soldiers. They've been beleaguered by some spirituous Arabs who snipe at them with sad efficiency. The troop find an oasis and camp out, resting themselves and their horses. In the night two men are killed and the horses stolen. The troop are randomly picked off by the hidden enemy. Help arrives in the form of an airplane. The pilot lands and is killed.

As their despair grows Boris goes mad and he becomes a danger to himself and the troop. He's eventually killed by his own delusion. Rescue comes but nearly too late. It's all pretty bleak and horrible. Not much by way of humor going on here. It's very much like a horror movie, the kind with a human monster. It's still better than the other two films. I might even watch it again someday.

Hostile Hauntings 6 Movie Collection

Hostile Hauntings is a 6 movie collection from Pendulum Pictures. It's got 2 DVDs with 3 movies on each, no extras. They are all horror films with one thing in common. They suck.

Films are made up of many parts, the story, the actors, the film makers, the sets, props and production values, all fighting for the few dollars these film makers have. Compound that with a general lack of talent and you've got a product that stinks up the house. I blame the availability of low cost HD video. It looks great, unless you don't know how to light it, understand how to use the camera or understand the basics of film making. Add to that poor attempts to cheaply add physical and CGI effects. Their posters suck too. I've really come to hate the photo shopped crap that the designers crank out. Luckily, some of the films were too embarrassed to put a poster online.

As a collection of mistakes in film making these 6 films are good examples of bad examples. It's almost like they're fighting to be called the worst film in the box. I couldn't pick the worst one. None of them needs to be held up as a shining example of what not to do in film making. We already have enough bad films, best these be forgotten. Here's the list so you can beware if they turn up on some streaming source or TV channel.

The Shunned House 2003 An Italian production about a couple that investigate an old building. Tedious and dull.

The Woodland Haunting 2 2005 An Elvis impersonator in a mental institution tells us about a haunting in Ypsilanti Michigan. Absolute shit.

The Somnambulists 2005 Not even a whole movie, a 24 min short with a 50 minute making of tacked on. Absolutely dull and boring.

Hellbound: Book Of The Dead 2003 Also called Cadaver Bay. Not worth seeing.

The River: Legend Of La Llorna 2006 Terrible looking CGI background and dull story.

Sleep Disorder 2005 Ghost hunting guy has nightmares that cause him mental suffering, We have to listen to his boring conversation with a psychiatrist. Utterly awful in every way.

Drive-In Classics Collection

Drive-In Classics Collection is a 4 disc set that collects four Something Weird DVDs into one package. All four had been released as separate DVDs in the past. Three of the discs have two movies each, the Two Thousand Maniacs disc only has the one movie, all discs have a lot of shorts and bits that Something Weird typically packs into all their DVD releases. Each disc has about 3.5 hours worth of material. The quality of all the video is varied and usually tends to lean to the poor side. Streaks, lines, discoloration, you get a plethora of video noise types. Bad sound too. I got mine for 6 bucks from Hamilton Book, they're sold out but the set is still available from Amazon for 15 bucks. I wouldn't want to pay that now that I've seen it, it's barely worth what I paid.

Speed Lovers 1968 Director William F McGaha co-wrote the story and screenplay with Fred Tuch. They set their movie in the world of stock car racing and they made stock car racing as boring as their characters and their drama. At least it's in color. McGaha plays the main character and he's not that interesting. Someone should punch this movie in the nuts!

Thunder In Dixie 1964 George Baxt wrote the story and the screenplay, William T Naud is the director. It's a bit better than the first film on the disc but still below average. It's another racing movie and the stock footage of the race is also the same footage that Speed Lovers uses, but Speed Lovers is in color and this movie is not. At least it's short, only 73 mins.

Swamp Girl 1971 Jack Vaughn and Jay Kulp wrote the story, Jay wrote the screenplay, Donald A Davis directed. Some locals near the Okefenokee swamp meet up with a blonde girl who's lived in the swamp for her whole life. She has limited contact with other humans, she lives with her grandfather in a shack by the water. An escaped convict and her boyfriend force the blonde swamp girl to take them through the swamp. This is after they've killed her grandfather. They don't have a hope in hell of surviving that trip. It's more entertaining than the first two movies in the set, maybe not intentionally but still I had a few laughs as the crooks struggle to stay alive. Reminds me there isn't any thing attractive about the swamp. It's like it has a big sign that says: Stay Out! I Will Kill You Dead! I'm obeying that sign. I might watch the movie again someday. Check out the version on YouTube by clicking the link in the title.

Swamp Country 1966 David DaLie wrote the screenplay and Robert Patrick is the director. Not quite as good as Swamp Girl but entertaining to the end. In a motel a lady guest gets murdered. Some creep peeks in her window while she's stripping for bed, he comes in the room to rape her, she screams and he strangles her. The man in the next room, played by writer David DaLie, rushes over to find the woman dead. He's caught by the motel clerk waving a shotgun around but we know he didn't do it. The police come, they arrest David, he escapes and heads into the swamp. He survives with the help of some locals. More played for laughs and I did get a few. Lyle Waggoner, of The Carol Burnett Show is the Sheriff's deputy. Another one I might want to watch again someday.

This Stuff'll Kill Ya! 1971 Written and directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis. A scumbag sets up as a preacher and moonshine maker in a hick town. He has a drunken mob for a congregation and he condemns the local liquor salesmen. The feds are after him and the local sheriff is a weak ass man. It's got a poorly written script, it's poorly made, bad images, bad sound, nothing much good about it at all. Boring and in need of speeding up to get to the end. Even the poster is shit.

The Year Of The Yahoo! 1972 Allen Kahn wrote the screenplay and Herschell Gordon Lewis directed. A gaudily dressed country singer runs for political office in this boring and uninteresting film. Absolute crap.

Two Thousand Maniacs! 1964 Herschell Gordon Lewis wrote and directed this hillbilly gore filled bit of nonsense. I'm not in the camp that thinks HGL is a brilliant film maker, he just splashed the gore before it was mainstream and got a rep, he's still a below average film maker. At least it's more entertaining than the two previous HGL films in the set. 

All in all a pretty piss poor collection from Something Weird. I'd hardly recommend it to anyone really.

One Wild Oat 1951

One Wild Oat is a 1951 British comedy that was based on the play One Wild Oat by Vernon Sylvaine, he co-wrote the screenplay with Lawrence Huntington, the director was Charles Saunders.

It stars Robertson Hare and Stanley Holloway, that's them above, Stanley is the guy with glasses. Robertson is a bit of snooty barrister, he has a daughter, Stanley has a son, The kids want to marry but Robertson doesn't like the son so much, he wants to tell his daughter about the young man's shady past and put an end to things. Stanley tells Robertson that he'll reveal Robertson's shady past if he blabs the son's past. They spend the rest of the movie bouncing around in typical farce activity.

Audrey Hepburn has a small role as a hotel receptionist, she had been in a TV movie and three episodes of a TV revue show, this is her first feature film role. I thought the movie was about average, I got a few laughs but it's nothing special.

Science Fiction Sunday 584

Crystal's Shadow is a 2019 SF movie about some sort of alien contact among a bunch of UFO folks. Turns out the aliens have been here before humans came to be. Or something like that. I didn't care for it and wouldn't want to watch it again. It's playing in the free section on Amazon Prime. I mean, really, paying for that would make me feel right ripped off.

Destination Space is a 1959 TV movie about a space station. There's funding trouble after a rocket launch is scrubbed because the station was hit by a meteor. Harry Townes finally convinces a Senate committee to keep the funding going. Then they have some more problems and the movie ends. It was a pilot but it never got made into a series. I guess they didn't get their funding.

Alford Van Ronkel, wrote the script under the name Rip Van Ronkel, the director was Joseph Pevney. The cast includes John Agar, Charles Aidman, Whitney Blake, Cecil Kellaway, William Traylor, Edward Platt, Sam Edwards, Frank Gerstle, John Lormer and Robert Cornthwaite.

 

It's typical low-budget TV fare but they were somewhat ambitious, there's a space center set, a space station set, various locations on the station, a Senate Committee meeting room and plenty of living quarters and gathering places like bars and restaurants. The space station is animated and there are trips back and forth by space suited figures. They pack a lot into the 51 mins the movie runs. It's a step up over typical SF fare of the day, shows like Space Patrol, and I enjoyed watching it. It might have been an interesting series to watch. We'll never know.

There Was A Crooked Man 1960

There Was A Crooked Man is a better than average Norman Wisdom movie from 1960. It's based on a play called The Odd Legend of Schultz by James Bride, the screenplay is by Reuben Ship, the director is Stuart Burge. Norman made the film on his own to try to show his range as an actor. The film didn't do well, the viewers wanted his normally stupid character, and there were American objections about Norman's portrayal of a pushy US General taking British land for the US Air Force.

Norman plays an ex-British military explosives expert who gets forced to blow open a bank vault for a gang of bank robbers. Norman gets caught and goes to jail for 7 years. When he gets out he finds the crooks waiting for him but he's more interested in going straight. He finds the town government corrupt and enlists the crooks to blow up the town. There's a lot that happens between finding the mayor and his cronies are corrupt and the town's explosive end.

Lucky for me, there were some good jokes there. I'm just not that big a fan of Norman's stupid character that much. He's often so stupid, I can't watch him. Sadly, people seemed to like that guy. Oh, well, I would watch this again and I can't say that about most of Norman's work.

Friday Night Movies 784

Since I was home alone I watched the whole of the Weird-Noir Six B-Movies DVD set from Something Weird Video. It's a two disc set with 3 movies to a disc. They are short, 60 to 80 mins in length and mostly fun to watch. Click the links to see the available films on YouTube.

Girl on the Run 1953 Arthur J Beckhard and Cedric Worth wrote the thing and Arthur and Joseph Lee directed. A reporter gets framed for murdering his boss. His girlfriend knows that the real murderer is a criminal boss named Reeves. The reporter and his girlfriend go on the run and they wind up at a circus. The girlfriend gets befriended by Lil, the woman who runs the girlie show, she hides the girlfriend in among the showgirls. The reporter gets hidden by other sideshow people who hire him to be the shill in the boxing show. He takes a good bunch of punches in the ring. For some reason Reeves is bossing the cops around, sometimes the script is a bit goofy, and he's got some criminal activity going on with the head of the circus. Lil has a bit of history with Reeves and he takes a pot shot at her. Eventually the cops get hold of everyone and the real killer is arrested. It's pretty entertaining, lots of interesting characters and stuff going on, they really fill the 64 minutes quite well. Glad to have seen it.

The Naked Road 1959 William Martin wrote and directed this sleazefest. An advertising guy takes a model out for dinner and drinks, he's expecting a bit of fun after, the model is OK with the drinks and dinner but no fun for her. He takes her home and on the way he's stopped for speeding. The cop takes him to a judge who fines him $100, cash. The man hasn't got the cash so he drives back to New York to raise it, the model gets held by the judge as collateral, to be released on payment of the fine.

Three hours pass and another speeder is brought in. He pays the woman's fine and offers her a lift. They stop for coffee and he drugs her, kidnaps her, and tries to force her into a prostitution ring. The model is feisty and stands up to them. They scare her with drug addiction but she's adamant not to join the gang. The boss has a hench man who's a sleazy murdering creep. Turns out the cop and the judge are part of the ring and so are other officials in the area. The advertising guys looks for her but he doesn't find her. A bit of stupidity on the part of the henchman triggers the arrival of cops and the model is rescued. Interesting but one that struggles to get to average. I'd still watch it again.

The 7th Commandment 1961 Director Irvin Berwick wrote the screenplay with Jack Kavan. A man has a car accident and looses his memory, he's found by a travelling preacher who brings him into the life. They have a good bit of success for 7 years but the woman the man left in the accident car finds him and starts to blackmail him. Her plans grow to wanting to marry the man. Her boyfriend doesn't like the plan. It goes downhill from there. I thought the story wasn't that interesting, it seemed overly long movie, 82 mins, and it dragged along. Even though it got a bit more interesting in the last 10 mins it was the least entertaining of the bunch so far. I'd be less interested in seeing it again.

Fear No More 1961 Robert Bloomfield and Leslie Edgley wrote and Bernard Wiesen directed. Mala Powers takes a train, in her compartment she finds a man with a gun and a dead woman. He knocks Mala out and when she awakes the police are there but the dead woman has been moved to the baggage car. She escapes and hitches a ride with a man and his son. Jacques Bergerac plays the man, he meets up with Mala again, takes her to her apartment, where she finds her boyfriend dead, the man on the train is there too. Mala runs off with Jacques and  tells him what happened on the train. She also tells him she'd been a mental patient for a while. They visit the man who sent her on the trip and he doesn't know what she's talking about, the cop that took her off the train is there and he doesn't know anything about it either. At first Jacques is skeptical but when he finds a dead body he becomes convinced something is up. In the mean time Mala finds out about the complicated plan of the head criminal and her part in it. She's going to be the crazy killer and he's going to get his wife's $5 mill fortune. It's got a goofy ending but I enjoyed it for the most part. I'd watch it again. It's a good bit better than the other films in the set. Almost worth the cost of the set.

Fallguy 1962 Richard DeLong Adams and George Mitchell wrote the story and screenplay with Donn Harling directing. A young guy, played by Ed Dugan, helps a guy who was run off the road. The driver is hurt but not enough to stop him from pulling a gun on Ed and forcing him to take him to Sam's house. Sam is part of the same gang, he kills the driver and tries to kill Ed. Ed escapes. The gang meets and plans how to get rid of him. Sam calls the cops and blames the killing on Ed. The cops find Ed right away and the homicide detective's try to crack him. The main homicide detective turns out to be the pal of the head crook in the gang. A car accident gives Ed a chance to escape and it's all downhill for the crooks. They're all on edge waiting for Ed to turn up, they send their killer "The Indian" after Ed. The killer finds Ed and traps him in a warehouse but Ed escapes and the gang proceeds to fall apart. It all works out for Ed, despite getting shot. It's got a rather clumsy script and it isn't quite as entertaining as some of the other films on the disc. I'd still watch it again, someday.

Stark Fear 1963 Dwight V Swain wrote the screenplay, Ned Hockman directed with an uncredited Skip Homeier. Beverly Garland and Skip Homeier are a couple, he's in sales and she's running up the bills. Skip is a cold hearted creep, he reacts badly when Beverly takes a job with Kenneth Tobey. Skip runs off and Beverly goes after him. She runs into trouble but Kenneth shows up and gets her home. She continues looking for Skip and gets into more trouble. Why she's looking for him, I just can't imagine. Skips a creep of the sadistic type but it takes Beverly a while to get it through her head that she should be done with him. She starts working for Kenneth and romance develops. Skip doesn't want anything to do with her but she turns up at the motel he's staying in and a man is killed. More bad stuff happens and despite all Beverly's stupid ongoing behavior it all works fairly well for her in the end. I wouldn't run to watch this one again, Beverly is such an idiot.

Not a bad lump of movies, at least four of them are ones I'd watch again. Better average than some of the multi-movie packs I've seen.