FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN- CASTLE FILMS VERSION.

     FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN: Castle Films Edition.
     A short review.
     Back in the days before video and DVD disks if you wanted to own a copy of a movie you needed a movie projector and a reel (or reels) of film.
      Feature motion pictures on films cost too much for most collectors. So many film fans bought digest versions of feature movies. A feature of say 90 minutes would becut down to about ten minutes on a 200 foot reel.Castle Films was a popular seller of these type of digest movies. Many can be seen on You Tube these days.
     With FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN (1943; With Lon Chaney Jr and Bela Lugosi) Castle films gutted the film of most of it's center.
     The film begins with a spooky graveyard. Two graverobbers break into the family tomb of the wolf man and accidentally bring him back to life.
     When the dead Chaney comes back to life and transform to the wolf man the Castle Films editors clipped in a shot from later in the film of the Wolf man transforming at the hospital. It looks as if the shot is taking place in the tomb.
     The film then jumps ahead to the last few minutes of the feature film. The wolf man falls into the cellar ofthe ruins of the estate of the Frankenstein family and encounters the Frankenstein monster. 
    Lugosi is barely in this cut down version. A stunt man fills in for Lugosi for most of the action scene.
     The editors at Castle Films get the film down to 9 minutes.
   (Review copyright Teel 2011) First printed on Scribd.com

LO-FI PHOTOS

     A few years ago I bought from eBay a 'Spycam'. It was a small pocket size mini DV camera that could take lo- Fi pictures and videos- Sort of like Pixelvision with color.

Photo copyright 2011 Teel

Photo copyright 2011 Teel

     I have grown to like the lo- fi image and will post some more pictures and some video in the future.

surgikill (1989)

     Schlock filmmaker Andy Milligan was known for exploitation movies like THE FLESHPOT ON 42ND STREET (1973) and horror movies like BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS (1970).

     Milligan's last movie was a horror film called SURGIKILL (1989) Which he tried to do in the style of a zany comedy.

THE APE MAN (1941) Lugosi's worst role.

     It's always sad to watch good actors in bad movies. It hurts to see Bela Lugosi in the 3rd rate movie THE APE MAN (1941) Just ten years earlier Lugosi had starred in the classic horror movie DRACULA.  Then ten years later he's playing a mad scientist who's become half man half gorilla.
     Many people would said that Lugosi's worst role was as the Frankenstein Monster in FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN (1943) But that was not Lugosi's fault. He was playing the role as it was written in the script. The monster was blind and could talk. The studio re cut the movie before it was released and removed the scenes of the monster talking and the plot point that the monster was blind.
     This was the only Universal movie where the monster walks with his arms out in front of him. The reason for this was because Lugosi was playing a blind monster who was feeling his way around. With the blind monster plot removed Lugosi just looks silly.

Just ten years after DRACULA (1931) Lugosi is appearing in junk like this.

THE OLD PLAZA THEATER: A short story.

THE OLD PLAZA THEATER

     A beautiful young woman screamed as the masked maniac swung the ax.

     Then the film trailer was over.

     A moment later a worn out film ad for the snack bar was playing on the screen. It was a crudely done cartoon of talking hotdogs urging people to visit the snack bar before the next movie begun.

     The Plaza Street Theater had been there forever it seem. It was an one screen theater on the less fashionable end of Broadway in downtown. It was between a vacant building and a restaurant supply store. At one time it was one of many movie theaters on the block. Now it was the only one left that was not playing adult movies.

     The current owners knew nothing of the history of the movie theater. It had been built during the days of the silent movies and sometime during the 1930's the original owners sold the theater to the grandparents of the current owners who inherited it with the rest of the family fortune a few years back.

     The heirs were surprised to learn that the family owned a movie theater among the rest of the many businesses that their family had interest in.

     Only one family member ever dropped by the theater to look it over and check the books. After that a business manager made a phone call or sent a letter or two to the theater manager a few times a year.

     Shortly before 6 in the morning the last movie ended. At 6 AM sharp Henry the janitor entered the theater and called out as loud as he could that it was closing time and all people still in the theater were to leave now.

     He went along a shook awake the ones who were still sleeping. He hoped that he was not going to have to drag out any passed out drunks this morning. He wanted to get home quickly and have pancakes for breakfast.

     Everyone still there wandered out of the movie theater to face the morning cold of downtown. They were carrying their knapsacks and blankets. Later on that night most of them would return to the theater to watch the movie again and get a spot to sleep out of the cold of the downtown city. Many of the cheap hotels these people use to sleep in were closed down by the city. The city counsel believed if they got rid of the cheap hotels that the homeless that slept in them would disappeared from the city.

     Johnny Barman was the current manager of the theater. He took the job after college. He was 22 and figured it would be a good short term job to take till he was able to get something better more of his liking in a few months.

     He was now 38 years old. Every New Years Eve he promised himself that he was going to quit his job at the movie theater and start his own business. He stopped believing himself a few years ago. His life centered around running the worn out old theater.

     In many ways the old theater was his own business. He ran the day to day operations and owners were only a mysterious voice on the phone that called him up about once a year to see if they were still in business. Sometimes Barman wondered if there really was an owner. He was pretty sure there was because when he would look at the monthly bank statement someone was withdrawing most of the money he deposited into the business account. He always assume it was the home office taking it's share of the net after the bills were paid. He paid the staff and himself from the box office and snack bar profits.

     Working at the theater for the summer was Betty Barman who was Johnny's oldest daughter at 17. She was a short busty blond girl who looked a lot like her mother. Like her mother she spent too much money using the credit cards. Johnny could not make his wife stop over spending but he could make his daughter work off the money she spent on school clothes that year.

     Betty worked the snack bar with Janet Stone. Janet was an old time beatnik artist. She worked at the theater for rent money while she waited for her art to be discovered. She had been waiting for it to be discovered for almost 20 years since she came to work there in the late 50's.

     Ben Chapson ran the ancient projectors of the Plaza Movie Theater for a bit over 30 years. The projection room was his second home up there on the upper level of the theater. The walls was covered with posters and ads from movies that played in the theater over the years.

     Chapson locked himself in the projection room most of the time and rarely talked to the rest of the staff.

     Most of the time he read from paperback novels as the movies played on screen. After seeing movies two are three times in a row he would become bored with them. He saw thousands of movies over the last 30 years.

     He did not own a TV set and did not want to. Movies killed his desire to see films for entertainment. He liked to go to the museum and the library on his day off.

     From the late 20's till the early 50's the theater ran mostly good features from the big studios that use to churn them out like a factory.

     In the early 50's that changed. The theater started to play a lot of sci fi B movies and exploitation movies. The police once tried to shut them down for running a nudist camp documentary once. Now hard core films played in the few other theaters around them.

     Now in the late 70's the theater ran a lot of the same exploitation movies that played in the drive ins.

     One Monday morning Barman got one of his rare letters from the management company that over saw the theater for the current owners.

     It was a short letter thank Barman and the staff for their years of service.

     That was the first line. The next line inform Barman that the theater was to be closed in three month. The theater had been sold to the city as part of the plan to redevelop the downtown area.

     This was the same redevelop plan that turned the theater late at night into a flop house for the homeless.

     The letter inform Barman that he was to give notice to the staff and to sell anything in the theater that was not nailed down.

     The letter upset Barman. He thought the very least them could have done was to give him a phone call to tell him.

     On the last day the theater was open Barman was there at six in the morning to make sure that all was well before locking up the place.

     He watched the men who slept over night in the worn out seats wander away into the streets of the city. He wondered where they would go tonight to sleep. Most of the other theaters closed at midnight.

     Barman swept up the theater to make it tidy and then went up to the projection booth to see if Chapson was ready to go.

     Barman found Chapson polishing the old projectors as if he was coming back that night to use them again.

     They talked as Chapson finished working on the projectors.

     Chapson told Barman that he was going to be 70 the next month. He was going to retire since he was sure no one would hire him at his age.

     Before Chapson left the projection booth he told Barman that he wished he could take the projectors with him.

     Barman walked around the theater one last time to make sure everything was in order before he locked up. He checked the bathrooms to make sure no one was sleeping in one of the stalls again.

     He locked up the front door and walked toward the post office. He had to mail the keys to the management office.

     He was still bitter that no one came down in person to over see the closing up of the theater.

     A few years later when home video recorders became popular Barman open a video rental shop.

     The theater sat empty for many years. Finally it was condemned by the city along with many other buildings on that end of the block. The city sold the land to a group of investors for very little money.

     The theater and the rest of buildings on that end of the block were torn down and a large twenty screen mega theater was built there.

     Within six months the large theater was closed down and the investors went bankrupt.

     The End.

The Old Plaza Theater is Copyright 2011 By Teel. Not to be reprinted or re posted without permission.

THE WILD WORLD OF BAT WOMAN

     Back in 1966 THE BATMAN TV series was big and of course there came the cheap rip offs of the series.
     Producer- Director Jerry Warren made THE WILD WORLD OF BATWOMAN and was really surprised when the publishers of BATMAN comics sued him.
     By the time the law suit was over the BATMAN fad was over and Warren re released the movie under the title SHE WAS A HIPPIE VAMPIRE.
     Like most Warren movies this was a cheap film. He even spliced in shots from the movie THE MOLE PEOPLE into the picture.

An ad for the movie GUILTY HANDS. It's a dark house mystery film from the 30's. The part of the ad that is of interest to me is the square that states 15 cents to 5:30. Now it cost so much to go to the movies that most people wait for the film to come out on cable or DVD. I have been buying a lot of movies from the $5.00 bin at my local Wal-Mart. It's cheaper than going to the theaters. But I do miss the great big screens.

DRACULA'S CHEERLEADERS: A short story.

DRACULA'S CHEERLEADERS.

     Joe placed three plastic bowls on the coffee table in front of the wide screen TV. In the center bowl he poured in a bag of bite size candies. In the two smaller bowls he was going to fill them with microwave popcorn just before the movie started.

     Joe wondered if Ted was going to come tonight. He had not be over for schlock movie night for about five weeks. He had gotten married just over five weeks ago to a woman he meet in church. For the next two weeks after the wedding he would call and say he was not going to be able to make it over that week and not wait for him. He did not call at all the last three weeks.

     Joe wondered if Ted's wife did not want him to come to movie night and leave her alone. She was welcome to come if she wanted. Joe invited her even though she did not seem to type to enjoy schlock horror and sci movies. She said maybe she would come. She did not seem like she really wanted to come.

     At fifteen minutes to seven o'clock Joe made two bags of popcorn in the microwave and filled the two waiting bowls on the coffee table.

     Bill and David were never late on schlock movie night. Tonight the it was ten minutes pass seven and they were not there.

     A few minutes later there was a knock on the door of the apartment and Joe open the door to find Bill alone. Bill always drove David over since David sold his car.

           “Where's Dave?”

           “I dropped him off at his new job.” Said Bill as he walked in and sat on the couch.

          “A new job? He quit that job at the store?”

          “No it's a new part time night job at a burger joint. He's working nights there.”

         “Why did he get a second job?”

         “He needs to help out his parents. They're not doing too well since the market went down. All their retirement funds were invested in stocks.”

         “That's too bad. I guess he won't be coming over for schlock movie night again for a while.”

         “I wouldn't bet on it.” Bill picked up a candy from the bowl. “What's tonight movie from the cinema wasteland?”

         “I found this in a thrift store a few days ago. It called DRACULA'S CHEERLEADERS.”

        “You're joking. I've never heard of such a movie.”

        “I can't find any information about it online. The cover art on the DVD case looks like it was printed on a home computer printer and has an screen capture from the movie. I saw the first few minutes and it looks like it was shot on home video like VHS or something like that.”

        “Is it a pro DVD disk or a home burn job?

        “It's a recordable.”

        “It might be someone's home movie. Maybe a student film.”

        “Well it looks perfect for schlock movie night.”

   Joe put on the movie and they watched it on the big screen television. The movie was as Joe said was shot in a video format of some sort before digital cameras or even the old Hi8 format.

   Who ever shot the film did not use a tripod and could not hold a camera steady to save their life.

   The plot seem to be made up as they shot the feature. A goth girl brings Dracula to life during some kind of an occult rite. Dracula is played by a tall man in bad heavy make up and a cheap looking cape.

   Dracula turns a group of four cheerleaders into vampires during a slumber party and the vampire girls dressed in their cheer leading uniforms seduce some nerds and kill them for their blood in a badly shot scene.

   At the end of the film the father of the goth girl finds the coffins of Dracula and the cheerleaders in the cellar and set fire to them. The prop coffins seem to be made of cardboard and went up quickly.

   The film was less than a hour long. Joe and Bill laughed though the whole the film as they ate up all the popcorn and most of the candy.

   After the movie was over they talked about all the low points of the movie. Bill wished he knew who made the film because he wanted to know if he made another bad movie like it.

About nine o'clock Bill looked at his watch.

       “I got to make an early evening of it tonight. I got to get some things done early in the morning.”

      “I'll see you next week then.”

      “I'm afraid not. I'm taking a night school course starting this week. It's going to be a two year course.”

     “Oh are you finally going to get that degree in business?”

     “Yes. If I'm ever going to take over the family business I'm going to need it.”

     “Well good luck with that. Sometimes I think about taking a class but I never got around to it.”

      “Well they say it's never too late.”

   Bill left and Joe went over to the DVD player and removed the DVD movie and placed it back in it's case.

   He stepped over to a bookcase next to the television. In it was his collection of DVD movies. On the top shelf was the movies he played at the weekly schlock movie night. He placed DRACULA'S CHEEREADERS on the shelf with the others and looked them over. He started to count them.

   There was a hundred and nine movies. They had been watching movies together as a group just about every Monday for just over two years.

   Joe wondered what he was going to do on Monday nights now.

   Just was well he then thought. He needed to cut back on the candy and popcorn anyway.

The End.

DRACULA'S CHEERLEADERS is copyright 2011 by Teel. Not to be reprinted or reposted without permission.

VOODOO HEARTBEAT--A Lost Movie

     Above is poster art for the movie VOODOO HEARTBEAT. I have heard of the film over the years in film journals here and there. I have not seen the film or a trailer for it.
     Like I have always said the poster for an exploitation movie is what sells it. Every time I see that poster I want to see the movie.
     Too bad it seems to be a modern day lost movie.

AN ASTRO ZOMBIE POSTER

A poster for the third rate film classic THE ASTRO ZOMBIES. If you are a bad film fan who never saw THE ASTRO ZOMBIES you really should go and find a copy to see.

DAY OF THE DEAD ITEMS

     This photo features two Day of the Dead figures. Day of the Dead is on November first in Mexico and people believe on that day the spirits of the dead come to visit the living. People on that day go to the graveyard to clean up the graves and tombs of their departed family members and a lot of skull center folk art is produced including painted sugar skulls and figures from every day life such as these. A bride and groom on bikes. This was a center piece at my niece's wedding.

COMIC CON WONDER WOMAN

     Every year at the San Diego Comic Con I see lots of women dressed up as Wonder Woman. A few years back I took this photo of  a young lady dressed as Wonder Woman in one of the many hallways of the Convention Center.

THE CHRISTMAS BOOGEY MAN

     Here in the USA Santa Claus works alone. But in Europe Santa AKA Fathter Christmas travels with a hairy demon called Krampus. Father Christmas gives toys to the good boys and girls. Krampus scares and beats the bad boys and girls.

     Above is an old time Christmas card from Europe of Krampus attacking a bad girl. There is a lot of Christmas cards from old times in Europe like this.
     In the USA they tell kids behave or Santa will not bring you presents. I think threats of Krampus works better.

BILLY THE KID VS. DRACULA (1966)

     I have been convinced for quite a while that many exploitation filmmakers come up with the title for the movie first and work their way up from that.
     The film title: BILLY THE KID VS DRACULA makes you want to see the film. Even tho you are sure it's going to be a bad movie.
     John Carradine the greatest actor to make 3rd rate movies stars in this movie as Dracula. Carradine in an interview said he felt this was the worst film he ever made. Carradine had played Dracula before in the movies HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1944) and HOUSE OF DRACULA (1945). Carradine gave the crappy movie it's only source of class.
     In this movie Dracula is in the old west and posing as the uncle of a young woman who is inheriting a ranch. Her boyfriend Billy the Kid wrecks Dracula's plans.
     My favorite part is the scene where Billy the Kid shoots Dracula and the vampire just stands there. Then Billy throws his gun at Dracula and knocks him out long enough to stake him with a knife rather than the classic wooden stake. (In the novel DRACULA the vampire is killed with a knife in the heart at the novel's end)
    The film is very low budget and shot pretty much like a B western from the 40's even tho it was filmed in 1966.
     The film was released in a double bill with JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER. That film was slightly better made.

Yes this is a real movie.

SCI FI DINE IN THEATER

     About ten years ago I went to DISNEYWORLD and one of the things I enjoyed there was a restaurant called the SCI FI DINE IN THEATER.

     The dining room was done in the style of an drive in movie theater. I am old enough to remember those.
     The tables were all booths shaped like old cars from the 50's and they faced a large movie screen that played scenes and trailers for old sci fi B movies.

CREEPY DOUBLE FEATURE

     Halloween is almost here and I wanted to suggest a creepy double feature for watching in a dark room on that night. Both movies can be downloaded from The Internet Archives for free. www.archive.org/
     The two movies are: CARNIVAL OF SOULS and DAUGHTER OF HORROR. Both are eerie black and white movies that will remind you of  the old TWILIGHT ZONE TV show.
     CARNIVAL OF SOULS tells the story of an woman who survives a car crash and move to a new town where is is fallowed around by a ghostly pale face man.
     DAUGHTER OF HORROR  was first released under the title DEMENTIA. It was an arty movie without dialogue on it's first release. The DAUGHTER OF HORROR release has narration. In this film a woman encounters many weird people one night including Bruno VeSota as a gross fat man and Angelo Rositto. It is rumored that VeSota ghost directed some of the movie. VeSota also directed THE BRAIN EATERS and INVASION OF THE STAR CREATURES.

SEX MADNESS - A VD HORROR MOVIE FROM THE 30'S

     I first encounter the movie SEX MADNESS on the old NIGHT FLIGHT TV show on the USA network back when it was an interesting cable network. You can now find the film on the INTERNET ARCHIVES and on YOU TUBE with little trouble.
     This film was shot in the early 30's in the days before penicillin was invented and VD was hard to treat. There was many untreated people back then who went blind or suffer brain damage.
     The film opens with with a very old man reading the newspaper and saying to his very old wife that he wished the police would do something about the displays of sex. He is talking about the burlesque show of the time. Their son walks in (They must of had him in their late 40's) and tell them that he's going on a date.
     Else where in an office an stereotype lesbian in a suit jacket and tie makes the moves on her co worker and they decide to go to the burlesque show that night.
     The movie then switches to the burlesque show. A bunch of women in tight shorts are dancing. Watching them is the girls from the office. They decide to stay the night together. The son from the open scene goes to a hotel with his girlfriend and a sleazy looking man who watched the show murders a little girl.
     The rest of the film has nothing to do with these people. The film now fallows a dancer from the burlesque show. She has VD and is seeing a doctor who is helping her. But she wants to go home and married her boyfriend. She goes to quack who sells her a fake cure and she gets married.
     Soon after getting married and having a baby things go bad. Her husband is losing his sight and the baby becomes sick. The family doctor in his office tells them that they have VD and demands that the husband admits that he is the cause. The wife breaks down and admits that she is the one who infected them.
     The VD horror films of vintage exploitation movies era are a lot like the AIDS dramas we have now. Since there is no cure there is a sense of doom in the movies. Just like in the early AIDS era when there was no treatments and no one was living very long.
     A lot of people who considered themselves moral attacked the victims of AIDS when if first started killing people saying it was their own fault for their life styles. The same thing happen back in the VD days. People would insist that VD was the results of what they believed was a bad life style and that 'nice' people did not get sick like that.
     Of course there is still people who think that way. Maybe heart attacks are the results of their lifestyle.
     SEX MADNESS is a crudely shot movie with low productions values. I'm sure it played in many grind house movie theaters until penicillin came along.







    

OTELLO AND THE ROBOT- A SCI FI MANUSCRIPT. Novel and Ebook

     Once in a while I think I'm a writer. I just put out on Lulu.com the novel OTELLO AND THE ROBOT: A SCI FI MANUSCRIPT. The novel tells the story of a slacker who leads an aimless life and who is working on a novel about a woman named Otello who meets a robot with no name.
     You can check out a few pages of the novel by going to www.lulu.com/aronaamora - I also have a couple of other books and another novel: I LED ONE LIFE.
     Lulu.com is a publish on demand service and the novel can by bought in paperback form or as a PDF ebook for download.

This is the PDF ebook edition- The print edition as another cover.

    

THE CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION

     The CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION was one of the cheap horror movies made by Larry Buchanan for AIP-TV. It was a color remake of the B movie THE SHE CREATURE.
     The highlight of THE SHE CREATURE was the great costume for the monster which was made by Paul Blaisdell a B movie costume maker who made monsters for the films: INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN, VOODOO WOMAN, THE DAY THE WORLD DIED, IT CONQUERED THE WORLD and had a cameo in the movie THE GHOST OF DRAGSTRIP HOLLOW as a bitter monster movie suit maker. That last film role became true a few years later.
     The monster suit in the CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION looked like a rubber diver suit with scales and a silly looking monster mask with ping pong ball eyes and fangs. It looked like a cheap Halloween mask. This suit was also used in the movie IT'S ALIVE also by Buchanan.

THE EYE CREATURES

     THE EYE CREATURES (1966) was a color remake of the 1950's sci fi comedy INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN. Shot on 16mm THE EYE CREATURES was released as part of a TV package by AIP TV.
     The space invaders of THE EYE CREATURES were men in lumpy suits who wear head masks that featured a bunch of ping pong ball eyes and large open unmoving mouths. Some of the actor did not wear whole alien suits. They wear black tights and monster masks. I guess director Larry Buchanan thought no one would notice.
     This film would be featured on MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000.

SCHLOCK TV MOVIES OF LARRY BACHANAN.

     Back in the 70's and the 80's when local TV would run movies I use to see a lot of the TV movies of Larry Buchanan.
     Larry Buchanan was an exploitation film maker who made a deal with AIP-TV to make some 16mm movie features in color for them to fill out their TV packages.
     Among the films Buchanan shot for AIP-TV was THE EYE CREATURES (A remake of INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN) ZONTAR THE THING FROM VENUS (A remake of IT CONQUERS THE WORLD) IN THE YEAR 2998 (A remake of THE DAY THE EARTH DIED) IT'S ALIVE (Not the one with the mutant killer baby) CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION (Remake of THE SHE CREATURE) THE CURSE OF THE SWAMP CREATURE, and the film he is best known for MARS NEEDS WOMEN.
     Buchanan films were shot for very little money and it shows. The same monster costume is used in both IT'S ALIVE and CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION. All of Buchanan's monsters have ping pong ball eyes.
     After MARS NEEDS WOMEN  the movie THE EYE CREATURES  seem to be Buchanan's best known film. The film is pretty much a scene by scene remake of INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN but lack the great pulp magazine type alien invaders. The film would be featured on the TV show MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000.
     Many of Buchanan movies can be found at the Internet archives. http://www.archive.org/

ANOTHER CAB CALLOWAY CARTOON

     This is from the cartoon MINNIE THE MOOCHER with the voice of Cab Calloway as a ghost scaring Betty Boop and her sidekick Bimbo.

LOST MOVIES

     I heard somewhere that about 70 percent of all silent movies made are lost and about 50 percent of all sound movies. As a film fan I find it depressing to think that a movie would disappear off the face of the Earth after playing in movie theaters  and will never be seen again.
     From time to time they do find some lost movies. Sometimes it's just a few reels or a few minutes of footage like in the case of THE GOLEM (1915) Other lost movies found in my life time are: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM, THE GHOUL, and the 1910 version of FRANKENSTEIN  from the Edison Studios.

    The 1910 version of FRANKENSTEIN was the Holy Grail of lost movies for a long time. No LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT.

     I always like to think that somewhere there is a print of a lost movie waiting to be found.

CAB CALLOWAY and the ST. JAMES INFIRMARY BLUES

     I like the song THE ST. JAMES INFIRMARY BLUES and I like CAB CALLOWAY (You younger readers will remember him as Curtis in THE BLUES BROTHERS) Here he is singing the song in the cartoon SNOW WHITE in a classic surreal scene. 

     This is one of the great comic book covers. It was drawn by L. B. Cole an artist who did a lot of comic book covers. He designed his covers to stand out from the rest. I heard him speak at the San Diego Comic Con one year and he said he would look over the comics on the news stand and if most had dark covers he would do a light one and try to do something different from the other comic book covers so his comics would stand out. He did all sorts of comics but is best known for ghastly horror comics. Too bad the artists on the inside of those comics were often not as good as Cole.

ARAB COKE AD FROM THE 40'S

    
     This is an odd ad for coke cola I found on You Tube- It has a lot of style.

THE MIGHTY MR. TITAN - Exercise cartoon.

     Every year when I go to the San Diego Comic Con International ( Comic Con) I try to catch the WORLD'S WORST CARTOONS  show that plays every year.
     They always start with THE MIGHTY MR. TITAN cartoon show. This was a cartoon made in the early 60's to promo exercise to kids. I remember watching these cartoons when I was a few years old. I never did learn to like exercise.

     The animation in this cartoon is funny. He man Mr. Titan would show an exercise move and they would re loop the same shot of him over and over again as kids on the sound track would count along.

San Diego Comic Con 2011

     I have been going to the Comic Con in San Diego every year since 1975. I only went one day this year but I enjoyed myself and I took a lot of photos which I will post over the next few days.

    Chester Brown the artist writer of the comic book Yummy Fur is shown here at the start of a panel about his latest comic novel- He is holding an Inkpot Award for his work in comics which was given to him just before the panel started.

RED ZONE CUBA aka NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNDO FINE

     Director Coleman Francis is best known for THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS which is I believe the worst film ever released to movie theaters. He also directed THE SKYDIVERS which is a fairly well shot B movie that you can't believe was made by the same people who made THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS.
     Francis made one other movie an adventure film/ crime drama / war picture called RED ZONE CUBA and is also known as NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNDO FINE (MUNDO FINE  means the the end of the world) I have never seen a print of the film under the title  NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNDO FINE so it may have been a production title before release. I have never seen a poster for the film so it must of had a very limited release or went straight to television for the local late night market of the era.
     The production values to RED ZONE CUBA are not as low as THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS but they fall way below the B movie production values of THE SKYDIVERS.
     The screenplay for the movie plays like the first draft of a badly written novel. It tells the story of a mean escape convict named Griffin who joins up with a pair of loser ex cons and the three of them join a group of soldiers who go to take part in the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Their group is wiped out but they escape Cuba and return to the U.S.A. and go on a crime spree. That the film's end Griffin is shot down by the police and the ex cons are arrested.
     The film has a horrible atmosphere of of doom about it.  John Carradine appears at the film's begin and tells a reporter that Griffin ran all the way to Hell which  for tells his death. The ex cons Cook and Lanis who wanted to keep out of trouble and jail end up arrested. They take part in the doom Bay of Pigs invasion. Griffin and Lanis encounter a man who's business is going down the drain and his daughter is a war widow who gone blind. There is a happy reunion between a wounded soldier and his wife who was shot by Griffin. I always thought that scene was an last minute rewrite. The death of both would have been more in the tone of this movie.
     RED ZONE CUBA is a crudely made productions in a kind of blurry black and white that gives the film an accidental arty look. It's as if this was an art house movie gone bad. The title NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNDO FINE sounds like an art house movie title.
     Coleman Francis aside from directing and writing the screenplay also plays Griffin. He is not bad in the role. A better screenplay and production values would have helped.
     But if low budget filmmakers waited till they had money for good production values a lot of movies would have never been made.

WORST THAN PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE

     PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE has been called the worst movie ever made and it is a bad 3rd rate film. In fact I would call it the GONE WITH THE WIND of bad movies. But I do not think it is the very worst film made. I will give two examples of worst movies...
     ROBOT MONSTER was shot in 4 four days without sets for 16 thousand dollars. The monster is a man in a gorilla suit and space helmet. It was cheaper for the productions to use that suit than rent a robot suit.
    THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS. This was the last movie that Tor Johnson would have a feature role in. He plays a scientist who is caught in an atomic blast and becomes a mad killer. That film had no production values. It is a 55 minute black and white movie of Tor Johnson wandering around the desert killing people. The film was shot without sound and voices are cheaply dubbed in would the actors backs are to the camera or off screen.
     Other films to consider for worst movies include: THE CREEPING TERROR, GLEN OR GLENDA and the STARMAN / SUPERGIANT movies from Japan.

COMMANDER USA

     Years ago when the USA CABLE channel was new they use to show old time B movies  in the afternoon  on Saturdays as I recall. These movies were hosted by a comic dressed as a superhero who called himself Commander USA.

     Commander USA was a blue collar type of man who was also a superhero as well as a TV host. It was a rather funny act between scenes of old bad movies. They use to run a lot old Mexican dubbed movies before they disappeared when the copyright laws changed.

       I had the feeling that Commander USA was a has been superhero just trying to pay the rent. The kind of old has beens that appear at conventions and sell old pictures of themselves and their autograph.

    



HARPO CAN TALK

     Over the years when I would see a Marx Brothers movie I would wonder if there was any recordings of Harpo Marx speaking since he always played his roles mute. He even done a TV drama once in which he played a mute man.
     I found this news reel clip on You Tube and have re posted it here. Harpo does say a few words.
     For you younger readers who don't know who the Marx Brothers are go out and find a copy of the movie DUCK SOUP or NIGHT AT THE OPERA.

SCHLOCK MOVIES ONLINE...AND SOME CLASSICS TOO.

     For those of you who collect movies but are on a budget or don't feel like paying more than 25 cents for that classic THE APE MAN there is an online digital library known as THE INTERNET ARCHIVES and you can find it at: www.archive.org/
     The archive features digital books, audio of old music and many old public domain feature movies going back to the silent film age and also the old time 16mm class room films of the 60-70's.
     Most of the stuff in the archives can be downloaded to your computer and burned to a disk if you wish. If you don't have a DVD burner and software you can download software to make VCD disks.They got a few to choose from in the software section and there is also editing software.
     Video CD disks are CDs that can play on most DVD players like a DVD or can play them in your computer CD player. The image is not as good as DVD, It's at a VHS level. There is also Super Video CD that is almost as good as DVD disks. I suggest looking up the subject on Wikipedia.
     There is a lot good movies at the Archives. But since I collect schlock and assume my readers do too I will list a few that you can find and download:
THE EYE CREATURES.
ZONTAR THE THING FROM VENUS.
SON OF INGAGI.
CURSE OF THE SWAMP CREATURE.
CONFESSIONS OF A VICE BARON.
MANIAC (Dwain Esper)
REEFTER MADNESS.
SEX MADNESS (1930's VD horror movie)
RETURN OF THE APE MAN
THE APE MAN
ASSIGNEMENT TERROR
ROBOT VS THE AZTEC MUMMY
FACE OF THE SCREAMING WEREWOLF
TEENAGE ZOMBIES  and many many more movies that you can down load. Check it out.

THE ORGY OF THE LIVING DEAD

     The movie grindhouse were on the way out with the drive ins when I was a teenager. But I still got to go  to a few grindhouses and see good old fashion exploitation schlock movies.
     I went to see the ORGY OF THE LIVING DEAD  triple feature at the Plaza Theater in Downtown San Diego. The Theater is gone now. They replaced it with a big classy shopping mall.
     The three features were re named horror movies from Europe. They were already old movies. THE CURSE OF THE LIVING DEAD aka KILL! BABY. KILL!; THE REVENGE OF THE LIVING DEAD aka THE MURDER CLINIC and  FANGS OF THE LIVING DEAD aka THE VAMPIRE'S NIECE. I don't think this last film was released to the U.S. till that triple feature.

     The film had a gread sleazy looking poster. As I said before an exploitation movie needs a great poster.
  

THE KILLER TOMATOES STRIKE BACK (1991)

      Well I finally made it to YOU TUBE. Some one has posted the movie THE KILLER TOMATOES STRIKE BACK (1991). This was the 3rd of the four Killer Tomatoes movies which started with ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES, and RETURN OF THE KILLER TOMATOES and ended with THE KILLER TOMATOES EAT FRANCE.
      I did two days of extra work on  this movie. Extra work is also known as atmosphere and bit parts. But those two terms are design to make it seem like you are doing more than standing about filling up space on a film set.
     On the first day that I worked as an extra they shot at the SAN DIEGO ZOO. I can be seen in line waiting to get in. My back is to the camera and I am seen talking to a girl. The bonus is that I got to visit the world famous zoo for free later on that day after my scenes were done.
     You can see a close up of my face on my second day during the talk show scenes. I am wearing glasses because I was in the zoo scenes and the casting director told me it would make me look like another person.
     I enjoyed watching them shoot the talk show scenes because  JOHN ASTIN was playing  the villain of the film Prof. Gangreen and I really like watching him perform  his role. JOHN ASTIN is best known for the TV show THE ADDAMS FAMILY.
     Staring in the film was Rick Rockwell a comic best remembered by the nation as the millionaire of the TV show WHO WANTS TO MARRY AN MILLIONAIRE.
      Many people find working as an extra boring. I myself enjoyed watching them shoot a movie.

That's me in the center in THE KILLER TOMATOES STRIKE BACK.

    

PHOENIX COMICON 2011

      I went to the PHOENIX COMICON 2011 on Saturday.
     There I got to see in panels: Vernon (ROAD WARRIOR) Wells, Leonard (STAR TREK) Nimoy, Max (ZOMBIE BOOKS) Brooks, and Stan (MARVEL COMICS) Lee.
      I had my photo taken with ELVIRA (I was a gentleman and looked her in the eyes) She was there at the photo booth for about 15 minutes and took posed for about 60 pictures. I walked into the booth, Said hello, posed for a few seconds and said thank you as I exit to make way for the next person.
      It was a nice photo but I wished I had a few more seconds so I could at least ask her if she was having a good time at the Con. The photo was a birthday present from my sister.

      In the dealers room a group of GHOST BUSTERS fans had a giant inflatable MR. STAY PUFT marshmallow man set up. It was about two stories tall.

ATTACK OF THE 50FT WOMAN POSTER

     As I said before the two most important part of any exploitation movie is the outrageous title and the eye catching poster. The movie production it self seems to be an after thought. With a great title and poster you can sell just about any badly made feature for a quick dollar.

     ATTACK OF THE 50 FT WOMAN is a great example of this kind of  exploitation film sales. The title is great and the poster art is classic. If only there was such a scene in this movie as shown on the poster..
     The film it self is a soap opera with bad sci fi film special effects.
     See the movie for camp laughs but buy the poster and frame it.
   

THE LATE GREAT CREATURE: A Novel by Brock Brower.

     I just learned that the novel THE LATE GREAT CREATURE by Brock Brower is going to be back in print soon in paper book. The novel had been first printed in 1971. There was a paperback edition at the time after the hardback printing but I do not think it had been reprinted anywhere since then.
     This is a good novel for fans of old time horror movies of the era of Karloff and Lugosi.
     The main character of the novel is Simon Moro an old time horror movie actor who is  making an cheap horror movie.
     The strange Moro had made famous horror films such as GHOULANTUA and the GILA MAN series as well as a monster in an unnamed Abbott and Costello movie as a monster.
     You can pre buy the novel on Amazon.com or it's pretty easy to find a second hand copy also from Amazon.

Cover of the upcoming paperback reprint.

THE RETURN OF DR. X (1939)

     THE RETURN OF DR. X is a badly written mystery horror movie of just about 62 minutes. It would have been forgotten today had  not had actor Humphrey Bogart not been casted in the title role as a mad scientist that is brought back to life.
     For most of the motion picture Bogart is in a supporting  role in the film. It is not till about halfway thur the  movie that it is reveal that Bogart is a killer scientist that everyone believes is dead.
     Bogart did not want to make this movie but was force to by the studio heads to make it.
    In spite of the poor screenplay Bogart does the best he could with his role. He tries to make the character interesting. But since he is mostly in the background till about halfway thur the 62 minute film he does not emerge as a full character till near the end of the film. By then it was too late to make the movie interesting.

Humphrey Bogart in his only horror film.

CIGARETTE COMMERCIALS

     Yes there was a time years ago when they use to have cigarette commercials on Television in the United States (I don't know how it is in the rest of the world) These commercials were often funny like the one posted here. These films made smoking look fun.

MUSEE MECANIQUE -San Francisco arcade Museum

     On my last visit to San Francisco, CA I went to Fisherman's Wharf and visited THE MUSEE MECANIQUE.
     Admission to this place is free but it's still going to cost you because this is a museum of old Aracade games, toys, and other coin operated machines going back more than a hundred years and they all still work. You can play any of the aracade games or toys but now the machines have been fixed up to take 25 cent coins instead of the nickels that they use to cost.
     Below is a YOU TUBE video of a puppet show machine at the museum called THE OPIUM DEN.

    

ARANAS INFERNALES (1968) aka HELLISH SPIDERS

     Today is Cinco de Mayo so today's movie review is for a really weird Mexican movie called ARANAS INFERNALES (1968) aka THE HELLISH SPIDERS.
     This film features Mexico's number 2 masked wrestler The Blue Demon. This man was for years a very popular wrestler just behind Mexico's number 1 wrestler El Santo. The two of them often starred together in wrestling men movies but this was a solo starring role for The Blue Demon.
     This was a sci fi film in which the masked wrestler The Blue Demon fights against Spiders from outer space that are invading the Earth. The sci fi movie was shot in a dark moody manner more fitting an old Gothic horror movie than a sci fi movie of the sixties.
     The spiders from outer space are making use of human zombies and in one scene a wrestler fighting The Blue Demon in the ring is revealed to be a zombie when his hand turns into a spider and this spider hand on the end of the wrestler's arm tries to bite The Blue Demon.
     The really insane part of this movie is that the filmmakers used special effect scenes from both TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE  and PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. Most of the flying saucer shots in the movie is from PLAN 9. Both those movies played in the Mexican movie theaters. I have seen Mexican movie posters for both.
      This film was shot in the sixties when both TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE  and PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE were still films unknown by the general public so it was not an attempt at being campy. It was just a case of using stock footage rather than making their own special effects.

Popular Mexican wrestler THE BLUE DEMON

STAR WARS DAY

     Today is STAR WARS DAY.

     Be sure to tell everyone you meet: "MAY THE 4TH BE WITH YOU."

THE WRESTLING WOMEN VS THE AZTEC MUMMY

     As I wrote in another post the most important parts of an exploitation movie is the outrageous title and the eye catching poster.      Film titles like I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, and BILLY THE KID VS DRACULA makes you want to see them in spite in the back of your mind you know that you are being pulled in by a title and poster that you know the film will not live up to in most cases.
     THE WRESTLING WOMEN VS THE AZTEC MUMMY was one of those titles that I would see in the TV GUIDE and wished that we had cable TV. I grew up in an area of San Diego without cable TV and in L.A. they were always playing the English dubbed Mexican imports of K. Gordon Marray.
     I finally got to see the film for the first time in the form of an edited down version from RHINO VIDEO under the title ROCK AND ROLL WRESTLING WOMEN VS THE AZTEC MUMMY. This video version cut the film down to an hour and added funny rewritten versions of old rock and roll songs of the fifties. These songs mostly played over the wrestling ring scenes.
     I later on got to see the film in it's regular English dub version when SOMETHING WEIRD VIDEO released a DVD of it.
     The film features beautiful wrestling women, Chinese stereo type villains and a Aztec mummy monster. And yet it's not as exciting as you would hope for. But then again how could you live up to a title like that?

The Aztec mummy Monster from WRESTLING WOMEN VS THE AZTEC MUMMY.

    

THE KILLER RABBIT

     It's Easter Sunday today and the Easter Bunny makes me think of the Killer Rabbit from the weird cult movie MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL. I will not give away too many details for those who have not seen the movie yet. Let's just say that rabbit is not as harmless as it looks.
     In the stage version SPAMALOT the Killer Rabbit is played by a fluffy hand puppet. Once again not as harmless as he seems.

The Killer Rabbit- Happy Easter Everyone.

USA UP ALL NIGHT

     The USA cable channel use to run exploitations movies. They would of course remove the four letter words from the sound track and cut out the gore and soft core scenes. Most of the nudity would also be cut out. Back in those days they would still show bare butt women in thongs and other on cable.
     USA's showcase for these exploitation moves was USA UP ALL NIGHT. They would show the type of movies that played in the drive ins or went direct to video.
     The show had a few different host but the two I remember were Gilbert Gottfried and Rhonda Shear. The show would play late night on Friday and Saturday and they would each have a show of their own to host. They would appear at the beginning of the show and in between scenes and commercials and make jokes.
     They use to air a lot of movies from Troma Studios and a lot of cheap exploitation movies that you would have been embarrassed to rent from the video store.

REEL WILD CINEMA

     The last TV show that I would look forward to seeing every week was REEL WILD CINEMA which played on the USA cable channel back in 1994 for two seasons.
     I first encountered the show when I accidentally came across the pilot playing on USA. I was changing channels and there was scenes from a STAR MAN movie playing and I thought to myself how could I have missed that listing in the TV GUIDE magazine. I looked in the guide and in the time slot was the three word title: REEL WILD CINEMA and nothing else that would tell you what the show was about.
     Sandra Bernhard was the host of the pilot and aside from the STAR MAN movie clips they showed scenes from NUDE ON THE MOON. The nudity was of course censored.
     I liked what I saw but the next week they did not show it and it was only by accident later on I read in the newspaper that Sandra Bernhard going to host REEL WILD CINEMA which would become a regular series on USA.
     The show would play on Sunday night at midnight or sometimes one in the morning. Maybe USA was hoping to turn the show into a word of mouth cult hit or maybe they were not sure what to do with this show that would appeal only to fans of oddball and exploitation movies.
     Sandra Bernhard would host the show and every week they would show scenes from exploitations movies and often they would show shorten versions of those movies so you got a real look at the movie without seeing the whole thing.
     Bernhard would also interview people each week who worked in exploitation films including Russ Meyer, David Friedman, Roger Corman, Vampira, Tura Satana, and others.
     USA once ran the show on a Saturday night in a early slot to expose the show to more viewers but I do not think that show ever got really high ratings. Except for real film freaks no one would be up watching a show like this at 12 or 1 in the morning on Sunday when most people had to be going to school or work the next day.
     Not only did I stay up I would record the show to re watch during the week.
     Mike Vraney of SOMETHING WEIRD VIDEO  was one of the producers of the show. I keep hoping he will release the show on DVD thur SOMETHING WEIRD VIDEO with the pilot which was never repeated.