PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

The Spider's Web 1960

The Spider's Web 1960 Based on the 1954 play by Agatha Christie, screenplay by Eldon Howard and Albert G Miller, directed by Godfrey Grayson, produced by the Danzigers. The play was Agatha's second longest running play with 744 performances. Her longest is The Mousetrap which ran continuously from October 6 1952 to March 16 2020, it closed for the pandemic and reopened May 17 2021, it's had more them 28,000 performances. It was adapted by the BBC in 1956 and 1982, it was adapted by German TV in 1956.

Glynis Johns is married to John Justin, they live in a big manor house and he works for the government. John has a daughter from his first marriage and she's an imaginative 12 year old. John returns home one evening with important news, he's to host a foreign dignitary at the manor house that evening and it's a big secret. He goes off to pick up his guest and Glynis finds a dead guy behind the couch.

Glynis tries to hide the body but the dead guy is heavy. She comes up with a plan and enlists her pals to carry it out. The police show up, tipped off by an anonymous source, and interrupt the plan.

It's a fairly fun bit of business, kind of droll, with a good cast. You might know some of them, Jack Hulbert, Cicely Courtneidge, Ronald Howard, David Nixon, Ferdy Mayne, Basil Dignam, Peter Butterworth, Anton Rodgers and Robert Raglan. I enjoyed it and would like to see the other two adaptations. You can see it on YouTube.

Nightmare City 1980

Nightmare City 1980 Screenplay by Piero Regnoli, Tony Corti and Jose Luis Delgado, directed by Umberto Lenzi. I thought I had seen the movie before but it sure didn't look familiar. It was shot on location in Madrid and in studios in Rome.

A big military plane lands and deformed humans exit with murder on their minds. There had been a recent nuclear accident and these men seem to have been affected. They run fast and bite hard, they need to feed on blood to stay alive. A bullet to the head will also put them down but it doesn't seem to bother them much in other body parts.

The city gets over run and the military fight back. A reporter moves in and out of the story trying to get to his wife. They escape the city but the contaminated follow quickly. Most people are overwhelmed by the horde of deformed. This goes on quite a while and then the reporter wakes from a dream. He goes off to the the airport only to see the plane from his dream land. Three writers and that was the best they could come up with to end the story. That ending is so contrived that there should be a round of smacks to the heads of the film makers with Paul Naschy's fleshless skull.

I found most of it about average for a monster movie but it loses points for the cliched ending. I didn't think there was much to recommend about it, just a lot of scenes of slaughter and some talking heads to fill in the gaps. I got the DVD cheap and I'll keep it. I might want to see it again someday but it seems doubtful.

Science Fiction Sunday 661

Doctor Who 0040 The Enemy Of The World Six part story that aired December 23 1967 to January 27 1968. Screenplay by David Whitaker, directed by Barry Letts. This was Barry's first big directing job, he would direct a few stories and later become a producer for the series from 1969 to 1974. Some great stories happened during those years, as well as the introduction of color filming and larger budgets. He cast Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. Barry continued to direct on the show after he left the producer job in 1974, he took a turn as the executive producer of the 18th series in 1980.

After that he continued to work in TV as a director or a producer. He produced the BBC Sunday Classic Serials for 8 years, working with Terrance Dicks as his script editor. Barry and Terrance had worked together on a good number of episodes of Doctor Who when Terrance was script editor for that series.  Both of these guys are a couple of my favorite people behind the scenes, they did a lot of great stuff for DW. Barry passed away in 2009 and Terrance passed away in 2019.

When I watched the series for the first time in late 2012 the only episode I had to watch was the existing 3rd episode from the Lost In Time DVD Box Set. On October 11 2013 the BBC released the news that the 5 missing episodes had been found in Nigeria. The episodes were released on iTunes and someone was nice enough to copy them and pass them on. Here's that post.

 

I did not see the 'episodes only' DVD that came out November 2013, the Special Edition 2 disc DVD set I have came out in 2018 and it features plenty of extras and enhanced picture quality for the episodes. They look fine to me.

 

I liked the story even better than the first run through. The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria land on a beach and get involved with the locals. Turns out the Doctor is the spit of Salamander, a politician who has some Machiavellian plan to rule the world by creating natural disasters. He moves into the area to help, making the local leader look bad, and winds up running that sector.

 

The Doctor and companions join forces with a group that is against Salamander and helps defeat the evil mastermind. Patrick does a good job as both characters and as usual the rest of the cast is quite good.

  

Salamander had created a secret lab underground, he locked the workers in and created a fiction to keep them there. They believe that the world had gone to war and the surface was heavily radioactive. He keeps them alive to run the machinery to cause the natural disasters. That Salamander is a real baddie and he'll get his soon enough. An enjoyable story for the most part.

 

The commentaries have appearances by Frazier Hines, Mary Peach, Milton Johns, Gordon Faith and Sylvia James. Tobey Haddock is the host for the commentaries, he also hosts a documentary where he interviews people looking for a new bit of information about the story. He interviews some of the people that appear in the commentaries and a few others. He finds some nice bits of info and a nice heart warming story. 

 

There's a nice tribute to the late Deborah Watling. An interview with Philip Morris tells the story of his finding the missing episodes in Nigeria. That same TV relay station turned up copies of the missing Web Of Fear story. I'll watch that next week. The rest of the special extras include a 1991 introduction by Jon Pertwee, a photo gallery, some PDFs of scripts and Radio Times listings, and the 1967 BBC trailer for the story.

Psycho A Go-Go 1965

Psycho A Go-Go 1965 Original story by Al Adamson, screenplay by Chris Martino and Mark Eden, cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond, directed by Al Adamson. It's on a Troma DVD along with The Rawhide Terror. The disc has a commentary by Sam Sherman, he used to make films with Al back in the 60s. Sam was the editor of a Western movie magazine and he got to know Denver Dixon, a long time actor and film maker who started in the silent era. Dixon's real name was Albert Adamson, he was Al's father. In 1935, Al was 6, his father put him into one of his films along with Al's mother Delores Booth, it was one of 3 films she appeared in. It was Albert that introduced Al to Sam  Sherman. Al went on to direct a good number of low budget films. Some are more entertaining than others but none of them can be said to be great.

Psycho A Go-Go was shot and edited together, attempts to sell it were unsuccessful, more material was shot and it still didn't do that well. There are no known actors in it, buyers were looking for names the viewer knows. In 1969 more footage was shot and edited in, turning it into The Fiend With The Electronic Brain. A couple of years later more footage was shot and it was released as Blood Of Ghastly Horror. You have to admire their stick to it of ness, instead of coming up with a good idea in the script stage they kept trying and trying, hoping to fix it. Despite all that Psycho A Go-Go might be one of Al's better films. I haven't seen all of his films, but this is the one that I actually liked.

It's a tough crime drama about a gang of jewelry thieves who cock up a big robbery. Al Adamson plays one of the gang, he's shot by a guard and then killed by the most vicious of the gang members. Roy Morton plays the psycho, he likes killing young women. Unfortunately the diamonds wind up in the back of some random guy's pick up. They track him down but his daughter has already hidden the diamonds in her doll. The family get kidnapped and face some rough treatment before they manage to escape into the mountains. Lucky for them, the dad's brother in law is a cop.

It's by no means a great film, it's about average and watchable, that's way better than average for Al's films in my experience. The script mostly gets you to the end, with a good screenwriter it could stand out. I'd watch it again sometime. 

Friday Night Movies 860

Robotrix 1991 Written by Jamie Luk and Man Sing So, directed by Jamie Luk.

A woman cop is killed when an Arab prince is kidnapped. Her mind is used in a robot body and she helps the police hunt down her killer. Might have been an interesting story line if they hadn't made it a comedy, then hampered it further with a Category III rapey prostitute murderin' subplot. It's poorly told and acted, the jokes suck for the most part. 

The Time Guardian 1987 Written and directed by Brian Hannant.

I couldn't remember seeing this before but I had. It's pretty darn forgettable. My mind still wondered off while watching, despite the nice Blu-ray on view.

Walk The Dark Street 1956

Walk The Dark Street 1956 Written and directed by Wyott Ordung.

Dan Ross returns to LA from serving in Korea. Chuck Conners plays a guy who's brother died in the war. The brother's last letter says he was passed over for promotion by Dan. It also says if anything happens to him it's probably Dan's fault. At the start of the movie we see Dan throw himself down on the ground when he hears a car backfire. It triggers a PTSD like flashback, we see Dan in Korea, the troop is attacked, men scramble for cover. The brother jumps up, exposing himself, he blast the Koreans and is quickly cut down by machine gun fire. There was nothing that Dan could have done to stop the man being killed.

Dan meets Chuck at his home. Chuck offers Dan a chance to make $10,000 in a bet. Chuck's a big game hunter with a bad heart. He's going to die soon and he's always wanted to hunt a man. He's had a special film bullet made up for his rifle. It takes a picture of the person in the sights. If Dan wins he's got a chance to pay off some debts and start fresh. If he loses he's out a grand and only a bit worse off than he is now. He decides to take a chance.

Chuck gives each of them a rifle with a camera bullet. After Dan leaves Chuck takes the camera bullet out of the gun and puts in a real bullet. Chuck leaves some easy to spot clues and Dan chases after them. Their paths cross but neither has a good shot at the other. A woman gets involved and Chuck nearly kills her. His heart is giving him problems and it will be the deciding factor in the contest.

There's a couple of twists and turns along the way and it all ends up in an ironic but though not so surprising way. It's short and brisk and entertaining. You can find it on YouTube or the Internet Archive. The latter has a better copy that I've linked in the title above. It's still not that great but watchable. It doesn't seem to be the sort of film that's going to get a nice restoration.

You May Be Next 1936

You May Be Next 1936 Story by Ferdinand Reyher and Henry Wales, screenplay by Fred Niblo Jr, directed by Albert S Rogell.

Lloyd Nolan is a radio engineer who accidentally blocks the police frequency during a test for a new radio station location. Unfortunately a bank robbery had just occurred and the interruption blocked the description of the robbers and their car. Douglas Dumbrille is the head of the gang, he takes the opportunity to jump out while the other two ditch the car.

Douglas hitches a ride from Lloyd and his assistant John Arledge, by way of thanks he invites the guys to have a drink at his nightclub. Lloyd takes a liking to Ann Sothern, she's singing at the club, and John spills the beans about the transmission interruption. Douglas sees an opportunity and hatches a plan to extort money from the radio station. He kidnaps Lloyd and his gear and sets up the interruption.

The radio station is run by a loud off who blunders his way around, the cops get involved, and Lloyd is framed by Douglas. Lloyd escapes and pals up with Ann and John to catch the baddies.

A quick paced bit of fun. Good script and good cast. You can take a gander at it on the Internet Archive, see link above. I pulled a copy, I figured to take another look some day.

The Dark Eyes Of London 1936

The Dark Eyes Of London 1939 Based on The Dark Eyes Of London by Edgar Wallace, screenplay John Argyle, Patrick Kirwan and Walter Summers with additional dialogue by Jan Van Lusil, directed by Walter Summers. Released in the US in 1940 under the title of The Human Monster.

Bela Lugosi plays Dr Orloff, head of an insurance agency, he also lends money to clients on their policies. Turns out Dr Orloff isn't that to be a nice a guy, he's been murdering some of his client's and pocketing the insurance payout. He used a hulking deaf guy to murder people.

One client didn't tell the Dr about his daughter, she's on her way to visit her father. Greta Gynt plays the daughter and Wilfred Walter plays the deaf hulk. Lucky for Greta an inspector from Scotland Yard, played by Hugh Williams, is looking into the murder of some of the Doctor's victims. There's plenty of activity and some gruesome bits too. A good script with a bit of humor and a good cast to carry it out. Worth a gander for the Bela fan and those that like a crime story. You can take a look at a copy on YouTube in the link above.

 

Science Fiction Sunday 660

Doctor Who 0039 The Ice Warriors Six part story that aired November 11 to December 16 1967. Written by Brian Hayles and directed by Derek Martinus. Linking story by Sue Cowley, read by Frazier Hines.

Episodes 2 and 3 are missing but have been replaced by animation. This was the third serial to be completed with animated episodes. After watching the series the first time I thought it was a darn shame that so many of Patrick Troughton's episodes were missing. He is one of my favorite Doctors.

 

This is a story that I missed the first time I watched the series.  The library didn't have this 2013 DVD, nor the earlier Audio CDs. Today I listened to the audio CDs first, then watched the DVD with the 4 remaining episodes and the 2 animated episodes. After the episodes played through I listened to the commentary track and all the Special Extras.

     

One of the bits of commentary was on the cost of a spool of tape used by the BBC. It was £90 in 1967, that's about $1896 in today's US dollars. That's a lot of cash to sit on a shelf. Makes it less surprising that so many episodes were wiped. A couple of serials back Frazier Hines said he salary was £65 an episode and they speculated that Patrick's salary would be more than a couple of hundred pounds an episode.

 
 

The Tardis drops into a snowy area, the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria pop out and lave a look around. They find they are next door to a large plastic dome.

 

They enter and find it's home to some people working on a project to slow and stop the current ice age. The base is on the verge of being evacuated to Africa.

 

One of the field teams finds a humanoid frozen in some ice and bring it along to the base. The humanoid revives and it turns out he's an alien. His ship and some of  his pals are stuck in the advancing glacier. The alien knocks out Jamie and takes Victoria prisoner. The alien speaks English, he tells Victoria he's from Mars and he's called Varga. 

Bernard Bresslaw plays Varga, he's an old favorite of mine. Some might know him from the many British movies and TV shows he's been on. I first saw him in some of the Carry On... films that played on Canadian TV when I was a boy, he was often a sidekick for Sid James. Bernard was 6 foot 7 inches tall and he made a formidable alien.

 

Scavengers live in the area, that's a couple of them, the guy on the right is Penley and he's played by Peter Sallis. Some might know him from The Last Of The Summer Wine or many other British films and TV shows. The other guy is Angus Lennie, he got a broken arm earlier in the story. Penley helps him to their hut. Scavengers hate the scientists and technology, even though Penley used to be a scientist.

 

Penley goes to the base for medical supplies and he see's Varga and Victoria leave the dome. He follows them and sees Varga attack the head of the project, he stops to help and along comes the Doctor. Back at his base Varga revives 4 more ice warriors. They begin work digging their ship out of the ice.

 

Jamie and Arden go after Victoria. Near the Martian dig site Arden is killed by an alien's ray gun but Jamie is only knocked out. Jamie's body is carried away by Penley. He takes him to his hut where they get a visit from one of the scientists asking him to come back to help with the Ionizer.

  

Victoria manages to escape before the Doctor gets there to rescue her. She gets caught by the Martians again. Penley meets the Doctor and takes him to Jamie. The Doctor visits the Martians and rescues Victoria. Varga is going to attack the base with his sonic cannon. The base is rocked by the blast.

  

The head of the human base offers a truce but one of his men tries to kill Varga and fails. Varga raids the Ionizer for mercury isotopes for his own ship. The glaciers step up their stroll through Britain. Back at the Martian's ship the Doctor uses their own sonic cannon against them, then he breaks it.

 

Back at the base the Doctor helps Penley fix the Ionizer, they blast the Martian ship and it explodes. The blast busts up the ship and the Tardis gang exit stage right for a new adventure.

Another serial I enjoyed. Same for the extras, plenty of good info and entertaining stories there. Sadly so many of the cast and crew have passed away.

Friday Night Movies 859

Nightmare Cinema 2018 Horror anthology film with 5 short films. Various people enter a deserted theater only to see a short film of their own death. Mickey Rourke is The Projectionist in the linking bits. Those scenes are written and directed by Mick Garris.

The films are heavily referential and copy iconic scenes from other horror movies. When the killer/hero in the first short suits up the scene is based on Bruce Campbell suiting up as Ash from the Evil Dead series.

The Thing in the Woods Written and directed by Alejandro Brugués. A crazed killer in the woods slaughters some college age characters. Alejandro is the director of Juan Of The Dead and that's worth seeing.

Mirari Written by Richard Christian Matheson and directed by Joe Dante. A woman has plastic surgery to fix the scaring on her cheek from a car accident. Richard Chamberlain plays the surgeon.

Mashit Written by Sandra Becerril and directed by Ryūhei Kitamura. A demon possesses children in a Catholic school.

This Way to Egress Written by David Slade and Lawrence C Connolly, directed by David Slade. A woman at a doctor's office sees the world decay around her.

Dead Written and directed by Mick Garris. A teenager is killed in a car jacking, he revives and sees dead people.

I liked some segments more than others but overall I thought it was worth seeing. I put the Blu-ray on my Wanted list at Amazon.

Captive Wild Woman 1943 Screenplay by Griffin Jay and Henry Sucher, directed by Edward Dmytryk. A Universal picture it was followed by 2 sequels Jungle Woman and The Jungle Captive. All three films are collected in the 6th volume of the Universal Horror Collection along with The Monster And The Girl. It's a good Blu-ray series from Shout Factory, though kind of pricey. Each film gets it's own disc and a commentary, a couple of the films get a trailer, and all have new 2K transfers. I wouldn't recommend the series for everyone but the Universal Monsters are favorites of mine and I was happy to pick the sets up.  Right now you can find the whole series over at Hamilton books for $42 each. They're usually over $50 each on Amazon.

John Carradine is a doctor scientist who's working with glands as a method of curing deformities. He takes an opportunity to steal a gorilla and turn it onto Acquanetta. John has to kill someone to get the glands to transplant in the gorilla and he's the sort of doctor who doesn't see a problem with that.

Mildred Davenport is Acquanetta's real name, she appeared in 10 movies between 1942 and 1953. She didn't appear in another production until she guested on The Adventures Of Grizzly Adams in 1990.

Milburn Stone is a big game hunter and lion tamer, he's supplies the lions and tigers for Lloyd Corrigan's circus. He's the one who captured the gorilla. Evelyn Ankers is Lloyd's secretary and Milburn's gal. Martha Vickers is Evelyn's sister, she's getting some curing at John's clinic. Clyde Beatty does Milburn's lion taming scenes via footage from The Big Cage and Ray "Crash" Corrigan plays the gorilla.

I thought it was entertaining but I like these old films.