FRANKIE AND JOHNNY

Harry Morgan, Elvis, Nancy Kovacks

FRANKIE AND JOHNNY (1966). Director: Frederick De Cordova. 

Frankie (Donna Douglas) and Johnny (Elvis Presley) are entertainers on the riverboat-casino S. S. Mississippi Queen. Frankie's jealousy is ignited when a gypsy fortune teller tells Johnny that a redhead will bring him good fortune, so he zeroes in on Nellie Bly (Nancy Kovak of Jason and the Argonauts). All he wants from Nellie is for her to accompany him when he gambles, but both Frankie, and Nellie's boyfriend -- also Johnny's boss -- Braden (Anthony Eisley), get the wrong idea. Things come to a head when Frankie, Nellie, and showgirl Mitzi (Sue Ane Langdon) all dress up as Madame Pompadour for a masquerade ball, and Braden's associate Blackie (Robert Strauss) comes up with a criminal way of eliminating Johnny as a rival during a rendition of the title tune. 

Sue Ane Langdon and Donna Douglas

Frankie and Johnny could have been a really interesting look at the riverboat scene of the 19th century as well as a trenchant observation of what unruly passions can lead to, but instead it's just an Elvis Presley Picture, although on that level it's fun and entertaining. Elvis doesn't so much act as exude personality, and Donna Douglas -- who just can't eliminate that Elly Mae Beverly Hillbillies accent entirely -- while adequate, pretty much shows why she made no further theatrical movies after this one. On the other hand Nancy Kovack is classy and sexy as Nellie, Langdon is a lot of fun as Mitzi, who also loves Braden, and Harry Morgan [All My Sons] and Audrey Christie [Splendor in the Grass] score as Cully and Peg, a married couple who are friends and co-workers of the title duo. Anthony Eisley of Hawaiian Eye is also very good as boss Braden, and Joyce Jameson has an excellent turn as a drunken redhead whom Johnny thinks might temporarily substitute for Nellie. 

Douglas with Nancy Kovack

Frankie and Johnny comes pretty close to being a bona fide musical -- as opposed to just an Elvis Presley Musical -- because its score has quite a variety of music. The classic title tune is reinterpreted and there's a fine version of When the Saints Go Marching In. Elvis does a superlative job delivering such memorable ballads as Please Don't Stop Loving Me and Angel at My Side. He also has a charming number with a harmonica-playing shoeshine boy, Hard Luck, and a bouncy piece called Look Out, Broadway. (Jerome Cowan appears uncredited as a Broadway producer who likes F and J's act.) Except for Elvis, everyone's singing voice seems to be dubbed. Forget the gorgeous gowns of the ladies, Elvis himself wears one striking and beautiful ensemble after another! 

Verdict: The plot gets a bit bogged down and slightly tiresome, but it's hard to dislike the flick and even harder to dislike Elvis. ***. 

THE WASP WOMAN -- IN COLOR!

Wasp woman goes on the attack! 

THE WASP WOMAN (1959). Colorized. Directed by Roger Corman. 

Sales for Janice Starlin's (Susan Cabot) cosmetic company have been dropping since she stopped using herself in advertisements, but as she's on the wrong side of forty, she figures she has no choice. But when elderly Professor Zinthrop (Michael Mark) tells her that he has come up with an age-defying formula using royal jelly from wasps, she has hope and insists he use her as a guinea pig. At first the results are miraculous, with Janice looking as if she's in her twenties (Cabot was 32 at the time), but when she uses more and more of the formula to remain young, the results are less than felicitous. Janice turns into a horribly mutated wasp woman who attacks and feeds upon various people around her, including a solicitous nurse (Lani Mars) and a very obese night watchman (Bruno VeSota). 

Susan Cabot with Michael Mark

I have always gotten a kick out of this fun Corman cheapie-creepy, and I enjoyed it even more in well-done color! In addition to Cabot's excellent performance, this time around I appreciated Lynn Cartwright as the saucy secretary Maureen, who is given some amusing dialogue and runs with it. Fred Katz' jazzy musical score is a little odd, but it works well enough, and the film is full of a whole host of interesting B movie players: Anthony Eisley of Hawaiian Eye; Roy Gordon from Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman; Barboura Morris from Bucket of Blood; the aforementioned VeSota; and even Aron Kincaid [The Girls on the Beach] as a briefly-seen beekeeper, Roger Corman himself also shows up briefly as a doctor, so briefly that I didn't even notice him! I love the scene when Cabot and Morris have excited, happy girl talk over Janice's new youthful appearance. 

Verdict: Be careful what you wish for! ***.

STAR!

Daniel Massey, Julie Andrews, Richard Crenna

STAR! (1968). Director: Robert Wise.

It must have seemed like a good idea back in the sixties. Let's take the director of the mega hit The Sound of Music, Robert Wise, and team him up with Julie Andrews, the star of not only that film but of Mary Poppins. This was the period of big, long "road show" movie musicals, and everyone must have figured Star! would be one of the biggest and most successful of them all. Boy, were they wrong! Let's get one thing straight at the start. Star! didn't fail because tastes had changed (even if they had); it failed because it was bad.

"Poor Jenny" from Lady in the Dark

Even if The Sound of Music hadn't been based on a hit musical, it had a compelling story line. Star! is not based on anything but the life of Gertrude Lawrence, best known to those of us today as the star, with Yul Brynner, of the wonderful Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical The King and I. She had only a few film appearances, and while she was well-known in theatrical circles, she was perhaps not quite a household name. So Star! was already lacking built-in pre-appeal. Then there was the fact that the only thing Lawrence and Andrews had in common is that they were British; Andrews simply wasn't able to successfully approximate the real Gertrude Lawrence. The sketches and songs early in the picture that are meant to be funny fall completely flat because Andrews, despite her talent, is no Lucille Ball  -- nor Lawrence. Andrews makes a good try at coming off like a tempestuous and difficult diva (which is how the film tries to portray Lawrence ) but she just can't get that far away from Maria Von Trapp.

Spending spree at Cartier's 

Star! provides some basic facts of Lawrence's life, although it fictionalizes and exaggerates a lot and combines two suitors, a banker and a small-time producer, into one character (Richard Crenna). Her other suitors include a military captain (Michael Craig), another actor named Charles (Robert Reed), a show biz type briefly essayed by Anthony Eisley, and a husband named Jack (John Collin), who is nothing much like Lawrence's actual first husband. Her closest relationship is probably with Noel Coward, played herein by a de-sexualized Daniel Massey. (The production saved money no doubt by casting male actors who couldn't command large fees.) The film also details her troubles with debts and taxes that nearly landed her in jail, and one of the best scenes has her dramatically declaiming before a a judge (Murray Matheson of Wall of Noise) in bankruptcy court. Lawrence spent much more than she earned, thinking nothing of, say, dropping into Cartier's to buy whatever she fancied.

"He Never Said He Loved Me"

There are several production numbers in the film, staged by actor-choreographer Michael Kidd [It's Always Fair Weather], but most of them are unmemorable, campy, too-weird, or all three. The "Poor Jenny" number from Lady in the Dark is at least lively, but also staged in a way that is more stupid than inventive. There is a silly number set in a Limehouse brothel that could have used more dancing. The one production number I enjoyed, very well performed by Andrews, was one in which she appears to be a harem girl singing about how her doctor loves all of her separate parts but "He Never Said he Loved Me." It has the whimsy that the rest of the film is lacking. At another point Andrews sings a simple love song on a bare stage and nails it beautifully.

The movie makes the mistake of proceeding as a documentary of Lawrence's life which the lady herself is watching and commenting on. Although this is a widescreen picture, about half the movie uses about only a third of the screen to reproduce black and white newsreels. It's a dumb and pointless approach. But then the whole project was ultimately pointless, laying an egg at the box office, almost killing off Andrews' career, incurring the wrath of bored critics, and doing little to revive interest in the real Gertrude Lawrence, considered one of the greatest theatrical talents of the 20th century -- more's the pity. The movie never even mentions her appearance in the film version of The Glass Menagerie, nor --shockingly -- her triumph in The King and I. 

Verdict: Ten good minutes out of three hours (!) is not enough to save this movie. **. 

THE NAVY VS THE NIGHT MONSTERS

Anthony Eisley and Mamie Van Doren

THE NAVY VS. THE NIGHT MONSTERS (1966). Director: Michael A. Hoey.

A plane carrying scientists and specimens from Antarctica crash lands on an island in the south seas where a Naval base is located. There is nothing inside the plane but the pilot, who is in shock. Lt. Brown (Anthony Eisley) is in conflict with civilian meteorologist Spaulding (the perpetually scowling Edward Faulkner) as the two are both interested in nurse Nora (Mamie Van Doren), while Ensign Chandler (Bobby Van) has a thing for another nurse, Diane (Kaye Elhardt), as CPO Twining (Billy Gray) kibitzes. People begin to disappear and a horribly decomposed corpse is discovered. A scientist named Marie (Pamela Mason) and the base doctor (Phillip Terry), among others, try to figure out what's going on. Apparently some acidic mobile vegetative creature is roaming the island, feeding upon anyone who is luckless enough to get in its path ... Talk about a strange cast: Here is a movie in which we combine a well-known hoofer; the teenage son from Father Knows Best;  James Mason's ex wife, Pamela; Joan Crawford's ex-husband, Terry; the doctor (Russ Bender) from War of the Colossal Beast; Mike Hammer (Biff Elliot as a commander); and the pouty breasts of Mamie Van Doren. Clearly inspired by Day of the Triffids (the poster for Night Monsters looks almost exactly like the one for Triffids) made four years earlier, while also channeling such films as From Hell It Came ( a cursed killer tree) and Voodoo Island (man-eating plants), Night Monsters is watchable and resembles a fifties creature feature. The monstrous trees in this picture remind one of the creature in Womaneater -- who knows? -- it may have been the same prop. The monsters emit eerie noises and the film is undeniably creepy at times. Pamela Mason gets eaten and Billy Gray has his arm torn off in the film's grisliest scene. The movie starts off like a dumb service comedy but quickly picks up. Gerald Zahler's musical score is effective and the acting is mostly competent.

Verdict: Remember to eat your vegetables! **1/2.

THE NAKED KISS

Bald and Beautiful: Constance Towers

THE NAKED KISS (1964). Produced, written and directed by Samuel Fuller.

A prostitute named Kelly (Constance Towers) comes to a small town, Grantville, after a violent incident with her pimp, and briefly hooks up with a hypocritical cop named Griff (Anthony Eisley of The Mighty Gorga). Griff wants Kelly to "get out of town" and go across the river to an establishment of ill repute run by Candy (Virginia Grey). Instead Kelly gets a job working at an institution that helps disabled children. Kelly then meets the hospital -- and the town's -- chief benefactor, the romantic and cultured Grant (Michael Dante). Despite at least one red flag, Kelly finds herself falling for Grant, but he has one highly disturbing secret. The Naked Kiss is superior to Fuller's earlier Shock Corridor, and full of equally controversial material. Of course it's not the first movie to have a hooker for a heroine, and not even the first to look into the subject of pedophilia (Never Take Candy from a Stranger came out four years earlier in Britain). The movie has a very interesting script, but, unfortunately, it descends into melodrama that only cheapens it. Towers is more effective and not as overwrought as she was in Corridor; Eisley is perfectly cast as the slimy Griff; Grey is terrific as ever; and Dante, while his character is essentially a charming if one-note villain, has his moments as well. Patsy Kelly appears as a nurse in the institution. The Naked Kiss, whatever its flaws, certainly has some interesting scenes. There's the opening with Kelly assaulting the pimp who shaved her hair off as her wig falls off of her head and she's revealed to be bald; Kelly's smack-in-the-face purse assault, this time on madame Candy; Kelly's landlady (Betty Bronson of The Locked Door) talking about the soldier she intended to marry but who never came home from the war; and especially the poignant scene when all of the children sing the plaintive melody 'Tell Me Why." Towers, who years later co-starred with Yul Brynner in "The King and I," reveals a lovely voice in this sequence. Edy Williams, who dated Dean Martin, appears briefly as a hooker. In Grantville, the movie theater's marquee reads "Shock Corridor."

Verdict: Good story, but too lurid and superficial. **1/2. 

HAWAIIAN EYE

HAWAIIAN EYE (1959 - 1964).

This popular private detective show set in the Hawaiian islands lasted for four seasons. The agency did security for the Honolulu Village Hotel, among many other cases, and the partners were Tom Lopaka (Robert Conrad), who was half Hawaiian, and Tracy Steele (Anthony Eisley). Later on they had another operative, Greg Mackenzie (Grant Williams), and Troy Donahue joined the cast as the hotel's social director, Philip Barton. The hotel's lounge -- featuring the "exotic sounds of Arthur Lyman" and his rather talented trio --  employed cutesy singer Cricket Blake (Connie Stevens), and a cab driver named Kim (Poncie Ponce) sometimes figured in the action. Hawaiian Eye also had a handsome security man, Moke (Douglas Mossman), and the gang frequently worked with Lt. Danny Quon (Mel Prestidge), who was actually a real-life police officer. Tina Cole appeared in a few episodes as "Sunny." filling in for Cricket.

Among the more memorable episodes: "Two for the Money" guest-stars Mary Tyler Moore in a story about a once-missing daughter who may be an impostor. "Payoff" investigates the possibility that a prosecutor may be on the take. "Echo of Honor" features an excellent Philip Reed in a story of murder and jewel thefts at the hotel. In "Pretty Pigeon" a pretty gal (Diane McBain) goes undercover to help Tom catch a murderer. In "Two Too Many" a man gets a love letter from a woman he claims he has never met. "Passport," features an outstanding performance from Randy Stuart [who co-starred with Williams in The Incredible Shrinking Man] in a story about a hunt for an embezzler (Gerald Mohr) with an estranged wife and daughter; Stuart and Mohr have an especially well-acted scene together. Andrew Duggan guest-stars in "Maybe Menehunes," in which a movie star (Mala Powers) fears her life is in danger. In "Pursuit of a Lady" Greg proposes to a woman (Diane McBain again) who is promptly murdered. "Concert in Hawaii" stars Faith Domergue as the teacher of a young prodigy who is subjected to murder attempts. Finally "V for Victim" features Nancy Kulp in a "Ten Little Indians" type story where tourists are beset by a murderer on an isolated island during -- you guessed it -- a storm that cuts off phones, power, and access to the mainland.

The acting was generally quite good. Eisley [The Mighty Gorga] could come off like an obnoxious bully at times, with Williams heading in that direction, but Conrad was generally pleasant, as was Donahue. Stevens was not bad as either singer or actress but she could be a trifle cloying at times, as could the self-consciously cute Ponce. Other guest-stars included George Takei (wonderful as an operative in Formosa), Jack Nicholson, Tom Drake, Richard Crane, Jeanne Cooper, Chad Everett, Grace Lee Whitney, Dyan Cannon, Biff Elliott, Fay Wray, and Joan Marshall, among others. This was also produced by William Orr, who did Surfside 6, Bourbon Street Beat, and 77 Sunset Strip.

Verdict: Maybe not a really great show, but a good and entertaining one. ***.

JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF TIME

JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF TIME (1967). Director: David L. Hewitt.

A warp in the space-time continuum sends an entire laboratory working on time travel first 5000 years into the future -- where Earth has been decimated by aliens -- and then into the prehistoric past where they try to dodge a supposedly big lizard-dinosaur. Scott Brady plays Stanton, who is skeptical of the whole project until he, too, is hurtled into the future along with former child actress Gigi Perreau as Karen and Anthony Eisley as Dr. Mark Manning. The amusingly named actress Poupee Gamin plays a future-alien -- she had only two more TV/film credits -- and Abraham Sofaer is Dr. Gordon. Lyle Waggoner of the Carol Burnett Show plays another alien, his name misspelled "Waggner." This is the kind of movie that doesn't do much for anyone's career but turn it backwards. The actors give their all, the premise is entirely workable, but this is a tacky production that holds the attention but little else. This was probably influenced by the series Time Tunnel, which debuted the previous year. So similar to The Time Travelers (1964) that some consider this to be a remake!

Verdict: Interesting storyline defeated by low budget and insufficient imagination. **. 

THE WASP WOMAN (1959)

THE WASP WOMAN (1959). Director: Roger Corman.

Very entertaining low-budget horror pic with a terrific lead performance from Susan Cabot as Janice Starling, the head of a troubled cosmetics empire. 40-year-old Starling, who was spokeswoman and chief model when she was younger, figures the answer to sagging sales is to get her youth back, which she does by employing wasp enzymes cultivated by Eric Zinthrop (Michael Mark, who appeared in everything from the original Frankenstein and sequels to Letter from an Unknown Woman). Unfortunately, the injections have the unforeseen side effect of turning her into a hideous, clawed monstrosity with a thirst for blood. Bruno VeSota of Attack of the Giant Leeches fame is one of the victims, and there's a nifty scene when The Wasp Woman attacks a screaming nurse. Anthony (Fred) Eisley is one of the board members and Barboura Morris is appealing as Starlin's secretary. Lynn Cartwright is fun as a receptionist named Maureen who is always bitching about her boyfriend, Irving (she was one of the Venusian gals in Queen of Outer Space). When Janice starts losing her youth you almost start to feel sorry for her. Fred Katz's musical score is effectively jangling.

Verdict: Cheap but zesty. ***.