The second volume of Creepy Creature Double Feature has two more 60s horror films of a low budget nature. It's from VCI and it seems to be the end of the series. For films like these I don't mind that they are paired up, saves having two DVDs to store.
The Crawling Hand 1963 Story by Bill Idelson, Robert Malcolm Young and Joe Cranston, screenplay by Bill Idelson and Herbert L Strock, directed by Herbert L Strock. A lot of new film makers working on this and they all have some interesting credits in their later careers.
I recognized Bill Idelson's name from writing episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, he's written a whole bunch of other TV including The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Flintstones, Get Smart, The Odd Couple and more. He wrote a couple of TV films but this is his only feature film.
Joe Cranston was mostly an actor, his only other writing credit is for The Corpse Grinders for Ted V Mikels. Joe's first acting credit was for Space Patrol in 1953, his last was My Three Sons in 1961. Joe's only directing credit is the 1988 movie Turnabout in which Bryan Cranston and Ernest Borgnine take on a Mexican drug lord bothering their small town near the border.
Robert Malcolm Young wrote mostly in TV, shows like It Takes A Thief, Then Came Bronson, Mod Squad, Night Gallery and The Streets Of San Francisco. His other two feature films were Trauma in 1962 and Escape From Witch Mountain in 1975.
Herbert L Strock directed a lot of TV in the 50s and 60s, working on shows like Science Fiction Theatre, Highway Patrol, Sea Hunt, The Veil and Maverick. He directed some low budget SF films over the years, Gog, Battle Taxi, I Was A Teenage Frankenstein, Blood OF Dracula and How To Make A Monster. He's uncredited on The Magnetic Monster and Riders To The Stars.
The men running the space program are having trouble with their second rocket, it's run out of oxygen and the astronaut is telling them to blow it. They do and bits of their man rain down on California. Rod Lauren finds a severed arm on the beach and takes it home. The arm is possessed by some alien force, it animates and kills Rod's landlady. Alan Hale Jr is the local police captain. His men find fingerprints and they turn out to belong to the astronaut. Peter Breck and Kent Taylor are questioned at the Space Program but they play it cagey and don't tell him what's going on with their astronaut. At this point they aren't sure of whats going on. Paul gets taken over by the alien force and attacks people. The arm is hurt and some cats bite it. Peter finds the arm and gathers it up, only for it to escape at the end of the film.
Despite the ending, there's no sequel. It's not a great film but I liked it despite it's weaknesses, somehow it's fairly compelling. They had the core of a good movie but didn't quite pull it off. Some of the yakking scenes are pretty clunky. It's an 89 min movie and there's a bit of filler. I enjoyed Alan Hale Jr and some of the other actors were fairly good. I've managed to sit through it several times over the years, it appeared in the first season of MST3K. I tend to have a soft spot for the 50s SF and horror genres. I think that's partially from growing up in the period.
The Slime People 1963 Screenplay by Blair Robertson and Joseph F Robertson (as Vance Skarstedt), directed by Robert Hutton. Blair didn't write much in her short career, an episode of Bonanza and two features, Agent For H.A.R.M. and The Phantom Gunslinger. She appeared in TSP as Mrs Castillo. After TSP Joseph wrote and directed Love Feast in 1969. It stars Ed Wood as a cross dressing erotic photographer. Joseph wrote and directed a couple of other mainstream films before writing and directing over 2 dozen porn films under the name Adelle Robbins. I know I've seen a few of them but don't remember them.
This is Robert Hutton's only director job and I can see why he didn't direct again. He also stars in this film about subterranean beings that invade the surface to takeover the world. There's too much boring talking and wandering about in the fog that was created by the slime people. Their costumes are pretty poor. Sadly they ate up half the $80K budget. Still, good costumes won't help a dull script much. I had to run this at 1.5 speed in some of the walking about scenes. It too was on MST3K. More fun to watch it there.
One fairly entertaining film and one less so, about average for some of these low budget movie sets. Maybe I'll watch them again some time in the future. Or will I?
I'm pretty sure I've watched "The Crawling Hand" maybe even several times but it was a long, long time ago. Don't remember "The Slime People"
Posted by: Gary | September 02, 2020 at 12:57 PM