GODZILLA'S STAR.

   
     I was in Hollywood CA yesterday and I was walking along the Walk of Fame where the names of famous actors are written unto stars that run down the sidewalk.
     I was surprised to see that Godzilla the monster star of many Japanese films had his own star on the Walk of Fame.

BILLY THE KID VS DRACULA

      I was thinking the other day about how exploitation movies, pulp novels, cheap horror comic books and cheap horror-exploitation VHS/DVDs  have a lot in common. They have catchy titles. Eye catching art and often the book/movie/comic book is a second or third rate work. But you don't find out that part until they get your money.

     BILLY THE KID VS. DRACULA is one of those works. 

     I'm sure that no one went to that film believing that it was going to be seeing a masterpiece in cinema but it manage to be below par as both a horror film and a western. (That last line reads snobby. But sometimes I feel snobby)

    Once again John Carradine is brought in to give a third rate film some class and B movie star power. I always said that John Carradine was one of the greatest actors to appear in third rate movies.      In an interview he said this was the worst film he appeared in. I disagree since the film features him in a lead role. I think that his roles in THE VOODOO MAN and ASTRO ZOMBIES were a waste of his talents. I enjoy both films but he was wasted in them.

     Another film that wasted John Carradine was FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND. It was the last film of director/producer Jerry Warren. Carradine played the ghost of Dr. Frankenstein and I'm sure that all his scenes were shot in one day. He would appear out through the  film in double expose special effect shots and rant silly lines. It was like Lugosi's role in GLEN OR GLENDA.

POOR DEVIL- TV movie

     POOR DEVIL was a TV movie staring Sammy Davis Jr as a minor league demon who convince a man played by Jack Klugman (Best known for the ODD COUPLE) into selling his soul. Davis lets the man out of the deal at the end of the film and Davis' boss The Devil played by Christopher Lee put him to work shoveling coal into the pits of Hell as a punishment.
     This seem to be a pilot for a TV series but nothing came of it.

FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER.

     FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER is one of my favorite 3rd rate movies. 

     The film tells the story of a robot astronaut build by a scientist from human parts who encounters invaders from outer space. At the films end he rescues a group of kidnapped  women from the invaders and then fight space monster of the title.

     The film was known in England under the title of DUEL OF THE SPACE MONSTERS.

CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION and IT'S ALIVE.

     Producer - Director Larry Buchanan shot a group of low budget 16mm movie features for AIP TV and in both CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION and IT'S ALIVE  he used the same cheap rubber suit for  a monster.
     IT'S ALIVE is not to be confused with Larry Cohen's movie about the killer baby.
     Director Buchanan is best remembered for the movie MARS NEEDS WOMEN.

BODY FEVER (1969)

     I think most Coleman Francis fans have heard the story of how director Ray Dennis Steckler found his friend Francis on the streets outside of the Hollywood Market and hired him for a day on his latest film to help him out.

     The movie was BODY FEVER (1969) and is worth looking for to see Francis' scenes. He has two scenes and plays a business man who's laundromat is closing up and hangs around the empty business for some reason.

     

     Francis also appeared in Stecklers' children comedy THE LEMON GROVE KIDS MEET THE MONSTERS (1965) this film was made up of various short films and Francis appears in two very different parts. One as a B movie style gangster and the other part is as an odd man who wears a strange hat. Both movies are worth seeing for Francis fans since he has real roles in them and not just simple walk ons like he had in KILLERS FROM SPACE or THIS ISLAND EARTH.

(Reprinted from THE COLEMAN FRANCIS TRIPLE FEATURE page on Facebook)

LADRON DE CADVERES (THE BODY STEALERS)

Japanese Poster for LADRON DE CADVERES.

     They say that the  LADRON DE CADVERES was the first Mexican movie to mix professional wrestlers and horror movies. El Santo and The Blue Demon would later appear in a lot of these kind of films.
     In the film a mad scientist experiments on a wrestler and turn him into a super masked wrestler that he can control. In the ring the super wrestler removes his mask and reveals that he has the face of a monster which cause a panic in the arena after a woman screams that it was The Devil.
     The print I saw was in Spanish with no subtitles so I do not know why a mad scientist would want to create a super wrestler.

AL ADAMSON'S DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN.

Behind the scenes at DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN. Director Al Adamson in the center.

     DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN is a drive in classic directed by Al Adamson. It features Lon Chaney Jr, Angelo Rossito, J. Carrol Naish and John Bloom a seven foot four inch tall actor as the Frankenstein monster.
     The film was shot in small parts and in the first version there was no Dracula or Frankenstein monster. The monsters were added to the movie later on.
     The film is known in Europe as THE BLOOD OF FRANKENSTEIN and is not to be confused with two other films in Europe that uses the title of DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN and I have seen a VHS video tape of the movie under the title REVENGE OF DRACULA.
     I have also seen ads for the film under the title of TEENAGE DRACULA. Those ads insist that the film is a musical.

THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH.

     The HORROR OF PARTY BEACH is a film that is better seen than read about. It has be be seen if you are a fan of off beat monster movies.
     It is at the beginning a mix of  the beach party/motor cycle gang type of films that were popular at the time in many drive ins.
     The film then takes a strange turn when a garbage boat dumps into the ocean near the beach a few metal barrels of atomic waste which start leaking within seconds and skeletons  on the ocean floor near the leaking barrels form into fish men monsters and they then invade the beach and a nearby town to kill people and turn them into fish monsters like their shelves.
     The monsters are class B movie rubber suits.

FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD

     The Japanese movie FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD is one of the stranger Frankenstein movies made.
     The film starts during World War Two when the Germans send to their Japanese allies the still living and beating heart of the Frankenstein monster to study. The heart ends up in the city of Hiroshima just in time for the dropping of the atomic bombs.
     Years later in Hiroshima a strange looking young man with Frankenstein monster features is found and he turns out to be the Frankenstein monster which regenerated from the living heart.
     The monster boy grows into a giant and fights a giant lizard like monster at the film's end.
     The film would be fallowed by THE WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS in which the monster grows fur giving him an ape like look and another monster regenerates from a part of himself but is evil.
      The release version in the United States would remove all mentions of the monsters growing from the heart of the Frankenstein monster. In the Japanese prints the furry monsters are still called Frankenstein.

THE GIANT CLAW.

     THE GIANT CLAW is one of those B sci fi movies that gave the rest a bad name during the 1950's. The actors made the film before seeing the special effects and were surprised to see that the monster from outer space that they were pretending to react to was a cheap looking Gnoonie Bird puppet.

INVASION OF THE ANIMAL PEOPLE AKA TERROR IN THE MIDNIGHT SUN.

Yeti monster from INVASION OF THE ANIMAL PEOPLE. 

   
     INVASION OF THE ANIMAL PEOPLE aka TERROR IN THE MIDNIGHT SUN was a sci fi film shot in Sweden. It was directed and written by Americans from the United States and was shot in English because they had international sales in mind for the movie.
    The Swedish title was INVASION OF LAPLAND and the film played in Europe under the title of TERROR IN THE MIDNIGHT SUN.
    The rights for the United States was bought by producer director Jerry Warren who re cut the film for the theaters and then for television. Actor John Carradine was added to the film by Warren.
    Many people insisted that Warren's re cut of the film caused it to make no sense. I have seen the Swedish version and it also makes no sense.