Indestructible Man (1956)

Directed by:
Jack Pollexfen

Charles "Butcher" Benton (Lon Chaney, Jr.) is a ruthless underworld thug on death row at San Quentin who's about to fry in the chair for his criminal dealings. Butcher swears to get even with both his slimy lawyer Paul Lowe (Ross Elliott) and a pair of low-life criminals; Joe Marcelli (Kenneth Terrell) and Squeamy Ellis (Marvin Ellis), for turning over state's evidence that helped to convict him. He also knows the whereabouts of 600 thousand dollars stolen during an armed car robbery, but refuses to cooperate with the authorities. Butcher's fried in the electric chair and his corpse is shipped off to a medical facility in another state when Dr. Bradshaw (Robert Shayne) is conducting cancer research. Despite an ad campaign promising "300,000 Volts of Terror!," Bradshaw sends 280,000 volts of electricity into Butcher's body instead, but that's plenty to create a monster. Now revived with super-human strength and skin tough enough to deflect bullets, Butcher strangles the doctor and his assistant (at the same time!), escapes the lab, kills two policemen and then chokes a used car salesmen, steals a car from the lot and heads toward San Francisco so he can kill the three men he vowed to kill before being executed.

Lt. Dick Chasen ("Casey Adams" aka Max Showalter) gets involved in both the case and with Butcher's former mistress Eva Martin (Marian Carr), a failed actress now working as a dancer at a burlesque house. Eva is also unknowingly in possession of a map leading to the hidden money. When Butcher shows up looking for it, the cops get word that's he's miracularly returned to life and attempt to hunt him down while he tries to hunt down the three men who betrayed him. Yes, there's a lot of running around in this one. Eventually a posse is organized to chase the revived killer around in the sewers toward an electric power plant for the predictable finale. Giving this a slight noir touch, Lt. Chasen narrates the entire film.

I guess this could be considered a pretty plum latter-day Chaney role. He's given little dialogue; only speaking during his first scene... but hey, that's more than what he was asked to do in either THE BLACK CASTLE (1952) or THE BLACK SLEEP (1956), and gets to make some odd, intense faces while knocking other people around. He picks up one guy and throws him down a flight of stairs, throws another from a high rooftop and even picks up a car at one point! There's some amusing dialogue ("You stinkin' rotten mob piece!"), a couple of nice camera shots, including one inside a trolley car as it goes downhill and some slight makeup effects on Chaney's mug as he becomes disfigured toward the end. Sure, it's silly, low-budget schlock, but it's entertaining enough for what it is, reasonably paced and short (clocking in around just 70 minutes). It originally played theatrically on a double bill with WORLD WITHOUT END (1956).
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Director/producer Pollexfen and writers Vy Russell and Sue "Bradford" / Dwiggins also teamed up to make the schlock-fest THE ATOMIC BRAIN (1964). Lots of DVD releases for this one: It's part of Retromedia's "Lon Chaney Jr. Collection" set (which also contains 1956's non-horror MANFISH and Chaney special guest episodes of the TV shows Lock Up and Telephone Time). It's paired with THE AMAZING TRANSPARENT MAN on Roan Group's "Horror Classics 2" and is also on Rph Productions' "Horror Classics Triple Feature, Vol. 4" along with DEAD MEN WALK (1943) and SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE SECRET WEAPON (1943). In addition, it's available with Mystery Science Theater 3000 "commentary" on a Rhino-released DVD.

★★

Phantom from Space (1953)

Directed by:
W. Lee Wilder

What happens when you want to make a science fiction movie about an alien invader but don't have the money to create an alien? Why, you make it an invisible alien, of course! Over a montage of mostly stock military clips, a monotone narrator gives us a blow-by-blow of a comet hurtling toward Earth, passing through Alaska and Canada before disappearing somewhere over the skies of California. Soon after, people are flocking to the authorities claiming to have been attacked by someone or something dressed in a "flying suit" with a "horned helmet" (i.e. a diving helmet) around Santa Monica. Others claim it's "headless." Your usual assortment of cops ("This guy's walking around in a monkey suit... Killing people!"), scientists and reporters are on the case. They manage to locate it at an oil refinery, it pushes a guy down, runs off and baricades itself in a building. Right before the cops bust in, the alien takes off its suit to reveal its invisible and is then able to sneak off. Analysis of the suit proves it's made from a material... NoT oF tHiS wOrLd... They determine the alien is slowly dying because of our atmosphere and needs his helmet back, but even then things look grim. The alien manages to sneak into the lab, desperately tries to tap out messages and its high-pitched cries can only be heard by a dog named Venus.

This very talky low-budget film takes forever to get going, introducing dull stock character types played by OK but pretty nondescript actors along the way. But if you can make it to around the midway point (no easy feat), it becomes a bit more interesting. The invisibility effects (such as the alien carrying a woman, removing its spacesuit, a gravitating helmet and lifting up a pair of scissors) are passable, but this seems to save its better effects for the very last scene when the alien finally materializes. The cast includes Ted Cooper (who had a bit in THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD), Michael Mark (Corman's THE WASP WOMAN), Rudolph Anders (FRANKENSTEIN - 1970), former "Taster's Choice" coffee spokesman Harry Landers and James Seay, who starred in KILLERS FROM SPACE (1954) for the same director.

Polish-born Wilder is the older brother the much more famous Billy Wilder, writer/ director of such classics as DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944), THE LOST WEEKEND (1945), SUNSET BLVD. (1950) and THE APARMTENT (1960). While Billy was racking up critical acclaim and award nominations (including 14 Oscar nods from 1940 to 1967), W. Lee (or Wilhelm) was off making stuff like this, which was co-written by his son Byron Wilder (who'd go on to become a prolific TV writer himself). W. Lee also made THE SNOW CREATURE (1955), FRIGHT (1956), THE MAN WITHOUT A BODY (1957), BLUEBEARD'S TEN HONEYMOONS (1960) and THE OMEGANS (1968), his final film (he passed away in 2002). Apparently the two filmmaker siblings had nothing to do with one another in real-life; Billy was even quoted as calling W. Lee "a dull son of a bitch."

★★

Mole People, The (1956)

Directed by:

Virgil W. Vogel

During the five-minute prologue, Dr. Frank Baxter, a real-life Professor of English at University of South Carolina, tells us of the various theories about what's really going on in the middle of our Earth. Then the credits cleverly roll out of a steaming hole in the ground and our story begins. Somewhere in Asia (Tibet, I think), archeologists unearth a stone tablet and a child brings them an ancient oil lamp he claims he found near the base of the mountain. A five-man expedition; Dr. Roger Bentley (John Agar), Dr. Judd Bellamin (Hugh Beaumont), Prof. Etienne Lafarge (Nestor Paiva), Dr. Paul Stuart (Phil Chambers) and some other guy who might as well be wearing a red Star Trek uniform, is organized to climb the snowy mountain to look for more artifacts. After scaling for a couple of days and surviving several avalanches, they come across a Sumerian temple carved into the mountainside. The ground starts giving way, Paul falls inside a hole and the rest climb down hundreds of feet to try to locate him. Unfortunately, by the time they get to Paul he's dead and the nameless guy is crushed during a rockslide.

Roger, Jud and Lafarge stumble on underground, locate more artifacts, get pulled thought the dirt down to another level by clawed hands and come across an ancient civilization of light-hating, mushroom-eating albinos who want to sacrifice them to "The Divine Fire of Ishtar." The mole people, led by mole king Sharu (Arthur D. Gilmour) and high priest Elinu (Alan Napier), have enslaved clawed mutants called "The Beasts of the Dark" and force them to do their manual labor. The archeologists are spared their wrath for the time being when they brandish a flashlight, but know they need to try to get out of their pronto or else they'll be killed. Naturally, there's a hot, normal-looking mole woman named Adel (Cynthia Patrick) who strikes Agar's fancy. Can the scientists get out of there alive?

As a juvenile 'lost world' adventure, this Universal production works OK. Napier does a standout job in his role, some of the sets, mattes and makeups (from Bud Westmore) are decent enough and the general idea is pretty intriguing. However, if you have a low tolerance for absurdities, you'll probably want to give this a pass. Why an ancient Sumerian mole tribe would speak perfect English, dress like ancient Romans and have Egyptian hieroglyphics adorning their walls boggles the mind. Where their finely tailored and impeccable duds and herd of sheep come from may also give you a pause. The science is a bit silly, with characters behaving as if the 'great flood' is factual, and it's also saddled with a terrible ending. The mountain climbing scenes economize by stealing footage from the 1929 German film WHITE HELL FROM PITZ PALU.

Director Vogel also made the Swedish abominable snowman movie TERROR IN THE MIDNIGHT SUN (1959). The film got the usual ridicule from the MST3K folks in 1997. In 2008, Universal released it as part of the box set "The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection, Vols. 1 and 2."

★★

Murderlust (1985)

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Los ojos azules de la muñeca rota (1974)

... aka: Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll
... aka: House of Doom
... aka: House of Psychotic Women

Directed by:
Carlos Aured

Out-of-work drifter Gilles (Paul Naschy), an ex-con haunted by visions of strangling women, hitchhikes his way to a small French village called Perrouze. He runs into a mysterious woman with a crippled hand named Claude (Diana Lorys) who claims she and her two sisters are looking to hire a handyman and groundskeeper to do odd jobs at their large, secluded country home. Gilles takes Claude up on the offer, is introduced to the sisters; youngest Nicole (Eva León) and eldest Ivette (Maria Perschy), and gets to work milking cows, chopping firewood and tending to the yard. Everyone in the home seems to have their issues. Ivette is paranoid someone's trying to poison her, is still pining for a man she lost many years earlier and is confined to a wheelchair (possibly due to psychosomatic reasons), Claude is sexually repressed, bitter about her mangled arm and seems jealous of younger sister Nicole, who's something of a nymphomaniac and claims her siblings are forbidding her to leave the home. It seems like Dr. Labor (Eduardo Calvo) and his nurse Michelle (Inés Morales) have their work cut out for them tending to this lot.

It isn't long before the plot complications starting piling up. Nicole seduces Gilles. Gilles seduces Claude. Nicole tries to seduce the doctor. Out of nowhere, a man named Jean (who may be one of Nicole's disgruntled former lovers) attacks Gilles with a knife. Michelle might not be who she claims to be. Gillies definitely isn't who he claims to be. He's actually Alain Dupre, a convicted rapist who tried to strangle a woman and is still fighting off homicidal urges. Meanwhile, a serial killer is running around killing blue-eyed blondes and removing their eyeballs. Just when you think you've got it figured out and all will be revealing during a police pursuit around some snow-covered mountains, the film then begins plot twist mode as several of the suspected killers are offed in quick succession until we come to the out-of-left field resolution.

This complicated horror-mystery is often classed as a giallo. While there are similarities between it and the more popular Italian entries from this time (namely a black-gloved killer and lots of twists near the conclusion), there are also quite a few differences. For starters, it's not nearly as stylish as some of its Italian counterparts. Aside from Gilles's strangulation fantasties, often set to misty, all-white or all-red backdrops, the film may disappoint those looking for more stylish set-ups and elaborate camerawork. Secondly, the film (thankfully) doesn't waste too much time delving into any typically dull and woefully redundant police investigation, which is something I consider a blight to the subgenre and something that keeps the majority of these films from rising above mediocrity. Instead of the cop nonsense, here we get an array of more interesting and better-defined characters, which is certainly a good thing. Naschy and the director (who co-wrote the film together) at least deserve credit for that, even though they let the film get away from them during the final twenty minutes. It's still an involving, entertaining effort with decent acting and better English dubbing than usual.

The original cut U.S. theatrical release title was House of Psychotic Women; a print and moniker retained for most of the VHS prints. What I watched was the original European version (released on the Dutch Midnight Video label), which contains nudity and gore, though actually not a whole lot of either. It does however feature a completely pointless insert scene of a farm family tying up a pig, killing it, slitting its throat and then collecting the blood in a bucket, which serves no purpose other than cheaply attempting to up the shock value. The 2008 DVD release from BCI/Deimos is uncut (and supposedly the best looking print available).

The cast includes Antonio Pica as the obligatory inspector (though as previously mentioned, he's relegated to the sidelines until the end), Pilar Bardem as a gossipy barmaid, Luis Ciges as a drunk and Sandra Mozarowsky. Aured and Naschy also teamed up to make CURSE OF THE DEVIL (1973), HORROR RISE FROM THE TOMB (1973) and THE MUMMY'S REVENGE (1973).

★★1/2

El gran amor del conde Drácula (1973)

...aka: Cemetery Girls
...aka: Count Dracula's Great Love
...aka: Count Dracula's Greatest Love
...aka: Dracula's Great Love
...aka: Dracula's Virgin Lovers
...aka: Great Love of Count Dracula, The

Directed by:
Javier Aguirre

Somewhere in Europe in the late 19th Century, a coach full of passengers (four women and their male escort) are traveling through a mountainous region when they lose a wheel. It rolls downhill, a horse kicks their coachman in the head (killing him) and everyone else hikes to a local sanitarium before nightfall. The sanitarium, where we've already seen a guy get his throat ripped out and another get an axe to the head during the pre-credit sequence, is home to Austrian doctor Wendell Marlowe (Paul Naschy). Rumor has it he's going to fix the place up and start using it again despite its sordid history. Wendell invites the travelers inside and allows them to stay until they can make arrangement to get their coach fixed. But obviously Wendell's not who he claims to be. If you haven't already guessed from the title, Wendell is actually Count Dracula... and he needs a virgin to fall in love with him. It all has something to do resurrecting the skeletal "Countess Dracula," who's being kept tucked away downstairs in the coffin room until the Count gets what he needs.

Of his guests, there's Marlene (Ingrid Garbo), but she's already given up her virtue to their lone male traveling companion Imre ("Vic Winner" / Victor Alcázar). Then there's Senta (Rossana Yanni), who has the hots for Wendell/Dracula, but her sexually aggressive behavior doesn't quite spell out "untouched maiden." Elke (Mirta Miller) is a cowardly whiner, so that's leaves friendly-but-prudish Karen (Haydée Politoff) as the count's primary target. The two go on moonlit walks as he attempts to court her, one by one each of the guests is bitten and transformed into a vampire and a creepy guy named Karkov (José Manuel Martín) lurks the hallways. Eventually, the new vampire gang are taking midnight trips to the nearest village to munch on young ladies, while Karen is kept locked in a cell to function as a convenient blood pump.

This Spanish spin on the overcrowded vampire/Dracula subgenre has some problems (including a sloppy/rushed finale and clumsy use of narration), but for the most part it's a fun, stylish and very entertaining effort. The plotline is old-fashioned in the extreme (not necessarily a bad thing), but spiced up with lots of female nudity (including some mild lesbianism) and blood. The sets and locations are both good, the cast is attractive, it's atmospheric and the camerawork is sometimes great, including wonderful panning shots across the foggy forest. The night scenes are also shot with a handsome blue hue.

This is one title you need to do your homework on before purchasing. A few years ago I bought a copy from a company called Sinema Diable, who used a substandard, dark VHS source print. Their version has complete audio fallout on at least three occasions, several picture rolls and is horribly cropped, beginning as fake widescreen (likely to cut out another company's logo on the bottom) and suddenly switching to full-screen mode a few minutes later. On the plus side, not that I actually want to give them any credit, it seems to be the mostly uncut, 82-minute version of the film. Some of the earliest video and DVD releases run just 72 minutes and remove all of the nudity and some of the violence. BCI/Eclipse eventually stepped in and released the best quality version yet in 2008 under the alternate title Cemetery Girls. It's double billed-with the almost completely worthless Filipino "comedy" VAMPIRE HOOKERS (1978).

★★1/2

Rekopis znaleziony w Saragossie (1965)

...aka: Die Handschrift von Saragossa
...aka: Saragossa Manuscript, The

Directed by:
Wojciech Has

Review coming soon.

★★★