VALLEY OF THE DRAGONS

VALLEY OF THE DRAGONS (1961). Director: Edward Bernds.

In 1881 Algeria two men, Hector Servadac (Cesare Danova) and Michael Denning (Sean McClory) are about to fight a duel over a woman when the earth shakes in a great cataclysm that they manage to survive. After a time they realize that a comet grazed the earth, as it has time and again in the past, and taken a bit of the planet into space with it, along with a chunk from the prehistoric past. When Servadac and Denning realize what has happened to them, they don't seem all that upset, a problem with both the screenplay and the acting. Most of the movie consists of stock footage of One Million B.C. with Danova [Honeymoon with a Stranger] and Clory [Them] cleverly inserted  into the action. Again we have two warring tribes, two women (Joan Staley, Danielle De Metz), and the big lizard cornering some natives in a big cavern in a hill and gulping down and chewing one of the luckless warriors. Three clips from Rodan are also used to fill in for pterodactyls, as well as what appears to be a prop spider from Bernds' World Without End. Joan Staley is a Ruta Lee lookalike. The premise of the film is good, taken from Jules Verne's novel "Hector Servadac" aka "Career of a Comet," although that did not include prehistoric monsters.

Verdict: The producers wrote the book on "How to Make One Movie Out of Another." **.

THE ASTRAL FACTOR / INVISIBLE STRANGLER

THE ASTRAL FACTOR (aka Invisible Strangler/1978). Director: John Florea.

Roger Sands (Frank Ashmore) is a psychotic who murdered his unloving, self-absorbed mother and while in prison has developed the ability to enter the astral plane, become invisible, and escape. Once out, he runs about strangling women who remind him of his mother and/or who testified against him. Lt. Charles Barrett (Robert Foxworth of Prophecy) is the chief detective on the case, assisted by Holt (Mark Slade); both do a fairly miserable job of protecting the victims, but the killer is highly unusual. The Astral Factor isn't a very good movie, its chief interest being its bizarre C-list cast: Stefanie Powers is Barrett's nutty girlfriend; Elke Sommer is one of the potential victims; Sue Lyon is Sands' mother; Leslie Parrish [Missile to the Moon] and Marianna Hill are two other victims; and Cesare Danova and  Percy Rodrigues also have small roles.  Elke Sommer [Deadlier Than the Male] actually gives a pretty good account of herself as a nervous lady all alone in a big mansion waiting for Roger to show while the cops stand by. The film meanders terribly but there is some suspense at the end. The scientific/paranormal aspects of the script are pretty much muddled.

Verdict: The poster is much better than the movie. **.