PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Fort Algiers 1953

Fort Algiers 1953 Story by Frederick Stephani, screenplay by Theodore St John, directed by Lesley Selander.

Raymond Burr is a powerful Arab Sheik who's just lead his warriors against the French Foreign Legion. The Legionnaires fort was taken and all the legionnaires killed. Yvonne DeCarlo is a secret agent who comes to Algiers to spy on Raymond, her brother was in the FFL. Carlos Thompson was Yvonne's former flame. He's in the French Army and at one point goes under cover to spy on Raymond. The Shiek has gotten the other tribal leaders together for a big push on the French oil fields. There's a big battle at the end of the movie.

There's plenty of desert and horse riding, some of which was borrowed from Outpost In Morocco. Some footage was actually shot in Moroco and Fort Tinihir, most of the rest was a Hollywood studio and the desert around Vasquez Rocks. It's pretty dead average, a typical potboiler with some action, romance and a few laughs. I'd picked up the DVD on clearance and I'll keep it. I might want to watch it again someday. Then again.

Science Fiction Sunday 631

Brave New Jersey 2016 Director Jody Lambert co-wrote the screenplay with Michael Dowling. I watched this on Amazon Prime. It's not strictly SF but it is related.

The movie takes place the night of the Mercury Theater radio dramatization of HG Well's The World Of The Worlds. Tony Hale is the mayor, he's pretty much a wallflower that gets bossed around by everyone. As the movie opens we  meet members of the town, most of them have more personality than the mayor. The day passes quickly and soon the broadcast begins. That sets off a panic and the town's soon in an uproar.

It's a nice mix of mass hysteria and romantic comedy. The invasion brings out the best and worst of the locals and their relationships change, for better or worse. It made me laugh but I didn't feel the need to pick up a copy.

5th Passenger 2017 Director Scotty Baker co-wrote the screenplay with Morgan Lariah and David Henri Martin.

Morgan Lariah plays the comatose woman taken from a space ship's life pod as the film opens. Morgan's in sad shape so Marina Sirtis uses a device to access her memory. The Captain of the ship wants to know what happened to the pod and it's inhabitants, one of which was his brother.

The ship Morgan was on is going to explode and she gets into a pod with four others. It was designed for four, which will cause some complications. There's a lot of tension because Morgan is a non-citizen, someone to be shunned and called a roach, even though she's the most competent space pilot among them. It sounds like a really bad future. The future of the people in the pod is also bad, especially after the appearance of a murderous alien creature.

It was nearly average for me, a poor start put me off a bit. The story gets a trick inserted near the end, I could go either way on it, a lot of voters didn't like something about the movie, it's at a weak 3.2 on the IMDb with 1586 votes. Still, not one I'm going to collect or view again. I watched it on Amazon Prime, you can also see it on YouTube at the link above.

Friday Night Movies 832

Needful Things 1993 Based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, screenplay by WD Richter, directed by Fraser C Heston.

Ed Harris is the sheriff of Castle Rock, Bonnie Bedelia is his girlfriend, Max Von Sydow is a demon. Max has opened an antique shop in Castle Rock. He's got great stuff and the price is cheap, in cash. It's the favors Max wants, those have a great cost. It's why I don't go to antique shops.

I hadn't seen it before, I bought the DVD some time back but it's just been sitting in a box waiting to get watched for a good long while. I'm endeavoring to clean out that box and get those DVDs put in their final resting place other boxes.

I liked the characters and the script was fairly decent. I thought it poked along at the beginning, I'm not always a fan of the melodrama that fills in between the interesting bits before the real action starts. Once Max gets to manipulating the locals things get more interesting, more often. Nice production values, I watch so many low budget films, it's a welcome change to see some money on the screen.

I was glad I picked up the DVD, I enjoyed it more than many SK adaptations. It certainly has a better sense of humor than a lot of the films made from his books. Books that I haven't ever read. I liked it enough to think I might actually try to get back to it some time in the future. Typically, I seem to have liked it more than the critics did when it came out. Oh, well, nothing new there.

Tomorrow I'm going to watch the extended TV version of the film, then I probably don't need to see it for a while. That's good, that box of DVDs aren't going to watch themselves. They have no hands, how could they work the DVD player. The TV version is just over 3 hours long. You can watch the original in the title link above and the long version here.

Psycho Goreman 2020 Written and directed by Steven Kostanski. It's a Canadian film and Steve is part of the Astron-6 Production Company. His previous films include Manborg, Father's Day, The Void and Leprechaun Returns. This isn't an Astron-6 release, it's on the RLJE Films label. They produce a lot of genre TV and film. You can stream PG on Shudder and it just come out on Blu-ray.

That girl in the picture, that's Mimi, she's a real fuckin' asshole. The kid to the left is her brother Luke, she mistreats him something fierce. Mimi mistreats most everyone, she's loud and selfish, she wants her own way and no one can tell her what to do. After a deadly game of Crazy Ball, Luke has to dig his own grave in the back yard. Luke strikes a coffin like box that's got a glowing red jewel on it. Mimi gloms onto that. They get scared when purple light pours out of the coffin.They fill in the hole just in time to go to bed.

The next day the dirt is out of the hole and soon after we meet the Arch-duke of Nightmares. He's been sealed in the coffin for a long time, placed there by The Templars, the powerful alien beings that defeated him and stopped his galaxy destroying rampage. Mimi doesn't care about his backstory but the flashbacks to his past were quite entertaining. Mimi renames him Psycho Goreman, or PG for short, after it turns out that the glowing jewel gives her complete control over him. Now starts the Arch-duke's nightmare. She bosses him about and he threatens her with a slow torturous death. Mimi soon has PG out on the town and some of the locals aren't always fairing too well after their encounter with an alien.

More crazy things happen and there are plenty of laughs. There's a fair bit of gore and the make up effects are mostly pretty good. The film looks great considering it had a budget of $1,500,000 Canadian dollars. Money well spent. I sure plan to watch it over again.

Taskmaster Series 11

The first episode of Taskmaster Series 11 just popped up on YouTube and I watched it. Made me laugh. Greg Davies and Alex Horne host the show. The contestants this series are Charlotte Richie, Jamali Maddox, Lee Mack, Mike Wozniak and Sarah Kendall. They tackled their tasks with a wide range of skills, though there were many zero points given this episode. Hopefully the next nine will be as much fun.

 

13 East Street 1952

13 East Street 1952 Story by Robert S Baker, adaptation by Carl Nystrom, screenplay by John Gilling, directed by Robert S Baker. Robert's long time partner in the film industry, Monty Berman, is the producer. Together they would go on to create and produce the 1960s series The Saint with Roger Moore. One of my all time favorite series.

Patrick Holt robs a jewelry store, gets arrested, and sent to prison. There he befriends a guy and the two of them escape. Michael Balfour plays Patrick's prison pal. Michael leads Patrick straight to the gang he belongs to, where Patrick gets room and board. A job follows and soon enough we find out Patrick's dirty secret. If the head of the gang finds out, that might be the end of Patrick. Same thing could be said of Patrick and the boss's girlfriend. She's young, pretty and, as you'd expect, trouble.

There's a good bit of criminal activity, some fist fights, a bit of gun shooting and a murder. The script is good, nice story that breezed right along. I was quite pleased to see it and would watch it again. I watched the copy on YouTube, there doesn't seem to be a DVD. I would watch it again some time.

A Matter Of WHO 1961

A Matter Of WHO 1961 Story by Patricia Lee and Paul Dickinson, adaptation by Patricia Lee, screenplay by Milton Holmes and Harold Buchman.

 

A man falls sick on a plane bound to London, there's a request for an ambulance. Terry-Thomas works for the London branch of the World Health Organization. He's on hand when the plane lands and the sick man has smallpox. That starts Terry-Thomas on his investigation. Where has that sick guy been, how did he get it, who gave it to him. He's often joined by the sick man's business partner. Their work is hindered by corrupt officials and crooked businessmen. The sick man and his partner are in the oil biz and that attracts a lot of the wrong sorts.

 

It's a nice nix of drama and comedy with a bit of romance on the side. It moves briskly, there's a good mystery and a good cast. There's even a monkey. I thought it was a lot better than average. I would watch it again.

The Love Epidemic 1975

The Love Epidemic 1975 Brian Trenchard-Smith wrote, directed and produced the film, Michael Laurence gets a comedy material credit. Brian's a familiar face to the genre fan with titles like Leprechaun 3, Leprechaun 4: In Space, BMX Bandits, and Dead End Drive-In to his credit. He might not be able to buy a car with that credit but people look at the titles of his films and say, "Ya, I've seen that."

The film's a mix of documentary and sex comedy, there's actual history and medical info about venereal disease sandwiched between raunchy sketches. The jokes were kind of flat, the info kind of gross at times. There's a fair bit of nudity, both male and female, and some simulated sex. It's on the Internet Archive. You can find the link in the title above. I might watch it again, who knows.

Science Fiction Sunday 630

Future Schlock 1984 Written and directed by the team of Chris Kiely and Barry Peak. Kiely and Peak were theater owners in Melbourne Australia and this is the first of four feature films the pair made together. I read it didn't do that well but it did make it to DVD at some point. There's a DVD double feature with Urban Warriors but it's 20 smackaroonies on Amazon, that seems a lot.

In Australia's future the middle class suburbanites have taken over and driven all the non-conformists into a ghetto. The stripped faced couple on the DVD box are in the resistance. They disrupt the suburbanites daily lives with entertaining tricks by pretending to be government officials. The suburbanites are easy to fool and they aren't very good at fighting back. I wonder what the lesson there is?

It's ambitious for a low budget science fiction film, set in the future, and they do well enough with sets, props and make up, though they hide a lot with darkness and smokey sets. It helps that the suburbanites have kept their world like it was still the 1980s and the ghetto is a street with some abandoned buildings on it. Some of the jokes made me laugh, that's always good, I was entertained through out. I downloaded a copy off the Internet Archive, there's a link for it in the title above. You might get a laugh or two. I would certainly watch it again.

Playing Beatie Bow 1986 Written by Peter Gawler and Irwin Lane, directed by Donald Crombie. Another Australian film, the IA said it was SF but it's really more fantasy. Some sort of magic takes Abigail back in time to 1873 Sydney-Town. She has to stay until she helps them restore the family's "gift". It's a gift that will require a sacrifice, when Abigail returns to modern Sydney she learns who paid the price. You can find out who got topped by watching the movie, there's a link in the title above. I probably wouldn't need to watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 831

Plugg 1975 Written and directed by Terry Bourke.I found this on the Internet Archive, in the feature films section. Someone has posted over 300 Australian movies, most of them were posted February 5, they're still up, even though some of them aren't in the public domain. I poked around there for a bit and picked these two to watch. You can watch them on the site or download them.

 

A goofy comedy about a detective investigating an escort agency suspected of prostitution. Plugg is the lowest of the detectives but there's no one else to send on the case. Plugg is a bumbler and a voyeur. Cheryl Rixon is the popular lady at the escort agency and she bangs all of her customers. There's plenty of naked ladies but not many good jokes. My attention often drifted from the story. I got to the end. It's similar in style to The Groove Tube or Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes, but not as good. It's kind of fun to watch but there's always that little voice in the back of your head wishing the jokes, acting and production were better. I might watch it again someday but that might be unlikely.

The True Story Of Eskimo Nell 1975 Director Richard Franklin co-wrote the script with Alan Hopgood. Loosely based on the poem The Ballad Of Eskimo Nell. 

Dead-eye Dick saves Mexican Pete's life and they travel together. Dead-eye is searching for the girl of his dreams, Eskimo Nell, a whore from the north. The pair knock about and eventually heading to Alaska. There's a sort of happy ending. There were a few more jokes than the first film but neither is above average in any way. I might watch it again but doubt it. You can look down the IA page (see the link above) and see all the films from Australia. Maybe one of them is to your liking.

A Royal Scandal 1945

A Royal Scandal 1945 It's a remake of Lubitsch's 1924 silent film Forbidden Paradise. Bruno Frank adapted it and Producer Ernst Lubitsch worked with Edwin Justus Mayer on the screenplay. Lubitsch did all the pre-production and rehearsals but became ill as they were starting to shoot the film, he hired Otto Preminger to finish the job. It was the third last film Lubitsch would make, he died in 1947.

Catherine the Great has dumped her lover, the Captain of the Guards. General Ronsky wants to connect her to his nephew. He's got a plan to depose Catherine and take over. The Chancellor has his own plan, he's got a treaty with France to work on. A rando soldier comes to see Catherine and manages to get past the layers of court. She falls for him and they start a romance.

Good cast, Tallulah Bankhead, Charles Coburn, Anne Baxter, Vincent Price, Mischa Auer, Sig Ruman and a lot of people I didn't know. Good script, plenty of jokes, plenty of running about. I hadn't seen it before, at least that I remember, I really enjoyed it. You can see a copy on YouTube, link in the title.