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.