PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Science Fiction Sunday 688

Doctor Who 0087 The Hand Of Fear Four part story that aired October 2 to 23 1976. Written by Bob Baker and Dave Martin, directed by Lennie Mayne.

The Tardis dumps the Doctor and Sarah Jane into a quarry. A explosion knocks them out, when the Doctor wakes up some men are there to help him. They dig Sarah Jane out of the rubble, she's clutching a stone hand, and take her to a hospital.

The doctors at the hospital say she wasn't badly hurt physically, mentally is a different story, she wakes up possessed and proclaiming Eldrad must live. Things get pretty hairy for our heroine as the stone hand gains power and transforms into Eldrad. She's a powerful being that had been nearly assassinated by her people. She's been buried on Earth for 150 million years.

The Doctor takes Eldrad back to her planet, now long dead, and trips her into falling down a bottomless pit. The Doctor gets a call from Gallifrey, he needs to return, alone. He plans to dump Sarah off in South Croydon as she decides she's had enough of her missions in time. He leaves her on Earth but on the wrong street, maybe even in the wrong town.

It was alright, decent story and villain, but hardly a great goodbye to a long running character. Typical of the series though. I was sad to see Sarah Jane go but we'll see her again in her own series. Even sadder is Elizabeth Sladen dying so young.

Doctor Who 0088 The Deadly Assassin Four part story that aired October 30 to November 20 1976. Written by Robert Holmes and directed by David Maloney.

The Doctor has been summoned to Gallifrey, along the way he has a vision of the murder of the President. On arrival he becomes the main suspect when the murder of the president takes place. He'd seen someone pull a gun and hopes that one of the recording cameras have the image of the perpetrator. The recordings were stolen from the camera so the Doctor declares he wants to run for president to save from being executed for murder.

The story eventually reveals that it's The Master behind the assassination. It also reveals that the Time Lords are a mess politically and morally. Best be off Doctor. Sometimes it's true that you can't go home. The Doctor sorts out most of the story and gets to leave. We see the Time Lords watch The Master leave in his Tardis, but they don't do anything. The Time Lords suck for the most part.

Despite the annoying Time Lords I enjoyed the serial.

Doctor Who 0089 The Face Of Evil Four part story that aired January 1 to 22 1977. Written by Chris Boucher and directed by Pennant Roberts.

The Doctor gets a new companion this episode. I enjoyed Leela and her primitive and blood thirsty ways. The story of some stranded astronauts who've been there so long they've forgotten their origins was alright for a story that I've seen done several times over the years.

The stronger part of the story is Leela's, good intro for her character. Looking forward to some more fun next week.

Horror Island 1941

Horror Island 1941 Based on a story called Terror Of The South Seas by Alex Gottlieb, screenplay by Maurice Tombragel and Victor McLeod, directed by George Waggner. The fourth film in the 3rd volume of the Universal Horror Collection. The Blu-ray has a commentary by Ted Newsom that was fairly decent, a still gallery and a theatrical trailer.

Dick Foran is the owner of a small island off the coast of Florida. A guy, played by Leo Carrillo, has a treasure map and he claims the treasure is on Dick's island. Leo only has half the map and another guy has the other half. Leo claims the guy is trying to kill him for his half. That's Dick on the right in the picture above. The others are, left to right, Fuzzy Knight, Leo Carrillo and Peggy Moran. Fuzzy works for Dick on Dick's boat.

Dick gets an idea he can make some money from a treasure island cruise. He gets a bunch of people together and takes them to the island at 50 smackaroonies a head. Soon as they get there strange things start happening and people start to get murdered.

Peggy plays the romantic interest for Dick, poor Fuzzy is just happy to have survived to the end. It's mostly a bit of fun with the expected running about and shouting. There's a decent villain and decent hero. I was happy to see it again and I'd re-watch it down the road. That's the third volume down, on to number four.

Friday Night Movies 888

Doctor Strange 1978 Written and directed by Philip DeGuere. I had forgotten that we had watched this on a previous FNM night. That was back in 2018. Click the link in the title to read that.

I still feel it's just not that exciting. The director was sad it got such low Nielsen numbers but I could see where a lot of people would have bailed on this after sitting through the first half. I don't think Peter Hooten is much of an actor, he certainly doesn't do very well here. The other actors are a mix, John Mills, Jessica Walters and Clyde Kasatsu do well, the rest are weaker by far. Not that they have that great a script to work with.

The Blu-ray does look nice but that isn't enough to make the movie much better. Ironically the second film today, like the film in the 2018 post, made Doctor Strange look a little bit better by comparison.

Bury Me An Angel 1971 Written and directed by Barbara Peeters. It was picked up for distribution by Roger Corman's New World Pictures. According to the Wikipedia, Peeters was the first woman to direct a biker film. Peeters is also credited with directing Humanoids From The Deep. Not a great picture but one that's fascinating to watch none the less.

Corman didn't think Peeters had made the monsters in Humanoids From The Deep nasty enough for his audience, so Jimmy T Murakami and second unit director James Sbardellati were asked to direct a bit more of the rapey monster stuff that Roger wants his audience to have. He did this without telling the other cast and crew, Peeters and Ann Turkel didn't care for the changes and asked to have their names removed from the film, they were refused. Roger, classy or what?

It''s kind of the same for Bury Me An Angel, the exploitative elements are weak for a biker film. Dixie Peabody plays the main character, a biker called Dag. This is her second film, the first was a bit part in the 1970 biker film Angels Die Hard. Peeters worked on that film and it's there she meet Rita Murray, an actor who wanted to producer her own films. In 1971 Dixie had a small part in Night Call Nurses and then worked briefly as a PA on Summer School Teachers. No more acting. It's probably best, she doesn't have the ability.

In Bury Me An Angel Dag's brother is killed by another guy. The brother stole that guy's nice motorcycle and gave it to Dag. She decides to get revenge. After rounding up a couple unarmed goofs for backup and getting some info from a guy, the trio head north. They meet some people along the way, Dan Haggerty was one of them, eventually they find the guy who killed Dag's brother. There's an unsatisfying confrontation with the murderer at the end of the movie.

It's amazing that a movie could fail on so many fronts. Peeters just isn't that good of a director. The film meanders around with nothing happening way too often. The script isn't very good, it's certainly does not make for a good exploitative biker film. It seems more like a melodrama with Dag moping around. Too much time is spent with Dag and her internal struggle over her brother's death. The acting is mostly poor with poor Dixie leading the pack in lack of ability. We were mesmerized by her facial expressions. I think mostly because there wasn't a lot going on up on screen. Oh, well, another one I wouldn't need to buy.

Blue Money 1972

Blue Money 1972 Story by Nick Boretz, screenplay and direction by Alain Patrick. I watched an online copy not the Blu-ray. Not much by way of posters available online. It was cut down by Crown when made and there was a multi pack DVD set that came out ages ago. The negative reports of disc quality on Amazon make me less interested in buying a copy. Nothing else in there I really need to see. I didn't even need to see this movie. The Blu-ray is closer to the original run time of the movie.

It's about a guy, writer director Alain Patrick plays the main character, who is making porn films in California. He's got a pretty wife who seems unable to keep her clothes on, a nice baby, a boat and a sports car. He's being cheated by the film distributors that buy the films him and his partner make and the local police want to bust him for making porn. His wife leaves him and the business falls apart.

It's below average to me. I started fast forwarding a short way into the film. It's just a sad melodrama with plenty of nudity. I wouldn't need to see it again, let this one time.

Murder with Pictures 1936

Murder with Pictures 1936 Based on a story by George Harmon Coxe, screenplay by Jack Moffitt and Sidney Salkow, directed by Charles Barton.

After a gangster gets acquitted his lawyer has a party for him. Someone kills the lawyer at the party.

Lew Ayers is a reporter who gets involved with the major suspect, played by Gail Patrick. He works to solve the murder and save Gail. Lucky for her there's a picture of the real killer. Can Lew get the picture before the killer destroys it. You can find out at the link above. I thought it was alright, fairly good story and a good cast. Worth a look for the crime fan.

The Black Cat 1941

The Black Cat 1941 Based on the Edgar Allan Poe story The Black Cat, original screenplay by Eric Taylor and Robert Neville, with Robert Lees and Frederic I Rinaldo coming with a rewrite to oomph up the comedy, direction by Albert S Rogell.

The third film in third volume of the Universal Horror Collection.

It's an old dark house sort of film with a bunch of family members stuck there waiting for the rich old lady to pop her clogs. It's got a good cast in John Carradine, Bela Lugosi, Basil Rathbone, Milburn Stone, Lon Chaney Jr, Alan Ladd, Martha Vickers, Broderick Crawford, Paul Fix, Lionel Atwill and Russell Hicks.

The script is alright, there's lots of running about and noise. I still find Hugh's character annoying, I didn't care for him the last time I saw the movie. There are a good number of gags and plenty of physical comedy. I enjoyed the movie again but I can't say as much for Gary D Rhodes commentary. Didn't hold my interest at times and I found some of his banter annoying. That's the only extra besides a trailer and a still gallery.

Harry Wild Series 1

Harry Wild Series 1 Written by David Logan and Jo Spain, directed by Rob Burke and Ronan Burke.

Jane Seymour is a retired university professor who takes up crime detection. Her son is a Garda detective and things get tense between them when she takes up mystery solving. A lot of the show is devoted to family drama. Not always my favorite topic. I noticed I started to speed up some of the many conversations that weren't strictly about the case.

Jane gets mugged in the first episode, she doesn't get much help from the Garda. She finds the guy on her own and forces him to help her on the murder investigation. Rohan Nedd plays the young guy. Through the series Jane pushes him to get more education and keep from getting into more trouble. He has a cute sister.

The crimes are varied enough, one takes place over zoom, there's a serial killer who challenges Harry, some one gets murdered while everyone is stuck in an inn during a big storm, a crazy person is drugging and kidnapping people, the usual kind of thing.

Harry's a ball breaker and she's not opposed to illegal methods to get info. She gets in trouble and occasionally needs help from her son. Jane is less annoying than some of the other characters but she does make odd decisions. I did like Rohan and his kid sister. It's supposed to be a bit light-hearted but some of the funny bits aren't very much fun.

A lot of the episodes get 7s and 8s on the IMDb and it averages a 7.0 for the series. I'd only give it a 6 and I wouldn't bother watching it again. I wonder if there's going to be another series.

The Devil's Sleep 1949

The Devil's Sleep 1949 Original story by Danny Arnold and Richard S McMahan, directed by W Merle Connell. An exploitation movie about teens and drugs.

A new lady judge wants to keep the local teens from getting hooked on drugs. Local drug dealers try to use her daughter to blackmail the judge, hoping to keep her from doing her job. She's tougher than that and she's got some pals to help.

It's pretty darn hokey and not overly interesting. You can check it out on YouTube.

The Devil's Agent 1962

The Devil's Agent 1962 Based on the novel Im Namen des Teufels by Hans Habe, screenplay by Robert Westerby, directed by John Paddy Carstairs. A co-production between Britain, West Germany and the Republic of Ireland. 

That's Christopher Lee and Peter Van Eyck, they knew each other in WWII but haven't seen each other in a long time. They met at the train station and had a drink. Peter gets invited to Christopher's place and he does visit. The next day he's picked up by the US Secret Service and asked why he's visiting a known spy and transporting a secret code book to another spy.

The American's force him into the spy business again. Both Peter and Christopher were in military intelligence during the war, Peter went into business when the war was over. Now he's in a new venture and he's living proof you don't have to be intelligent to play. He quickly turns on both sides and tries to play them for his own gain. That won't end well for him.

It was fairly decent but it lacks a strong character at the helm. There's not much action, plenty of talking though. It's a good reminder of the reality of spying, it's mostly not James Bond. You can see if you like it here.

Das Geheimnis Der Gelben Narzissen 1961

Das Geheimnis Der Gelben Narzissen 1961 Based on The Daffodil Mystery by Edgar Wallace, screenplay by Basil Dawson and Egon Eis, directed by Ákos Ráthonyi. There were two versions of the film made by Omnia Pictures Ltd and Rialto Films. The cast and crew were much the same but 3 main characters were played by Joachim Fuchsberger, Klaus Kinski and Sabina Sesselmann in the German version and by William Lucas, Colin Jeavons and Penelope Horner in the English version. Both films were filmed in England at Shepperton Studios and on location. I watched the German version. I would like to see the English version but it hasn't turned up yet.

That's Joachim on the left, he's an airline investigator, the guy in the middle is Christopher Lee, he's a Hong Kong police detective on the drug squad, the other guy is Campbell Singer, he's Sir Archibald of Scotland Yard. They're working on a heroin smuggling case that they soon learn is tied in with the murders of 3 heroin users. All 3 were young women and all worked at a nightclub.

Christopher is a clever and ruthless detective who's not bothered by a bit of torture to get what he wants. Early on Joachim figures out the heroin is being smuggled inside fake daffodils but the evidence is blown up. He sort of works with Christopher but that guy is pretty inscrutable and likes to work alone. There's plenty of murder as the coppers chase the baddies. It's got a decent script with some action, some suspense and some humor. It's a nice looking film that was shot by Desmond Dickenson. I've seen several of the films he's shot. I was glad to have seen it, it's been posted to YouTube and there's a link above in the title.