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.