GHOST OF DRAGSTRIP HOLLOW

The ginchiest! Jimmie Madden

GHOST OF DRAGSTRIP HOLLOW (1959). Director: William Hole.

"She's the ginchiest!"

"They feel they have to become adults quickly. There may not be a tomorrow."

So these two flip chicks, Lois (Jody Fair) and Nita (Nancy Anderson), have a grudge match in their hot rods because, like, Nita's fella, bad boy Tony (Jack Ging), has a powerful hankering for Lois. Lois, who hardly ever wipes the grease off her face, loves cars most of all, but boy she also digs her steady beau, Dave (Henry McCann). But her old man and his old lady (Kirby Smith and Jeanne Tatum) -- that is, her parents -- forbid her to drive, wouldn't you know? Worse, these hot rod hipsters have to find a new place to hold their groovy costume party -- what to do, man, what to do? Lois' Aunt Anastasia (Dorothy Neumann of Teenage Doll) suggests they use an old, haunted house she owns. But will the flip chicks and their men be able to deal with, like, the ghost?

Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow is a lesser film from AIP, which pretty much tells the story. In addition to the main characters we've got actor/real-life racing enthusiast Tommy Ivo [The Cat Burglar] playing himself, Leon Tyler as Bonzo, and Russ Bender [War of the Colossal Beast] as a reporter digging into the teen hot rod scene. We've also got singer Jimmie Madden, also playing himself, who shows up at the party to warble the forgettable "Tongue-Tied." Paul Blaisdell, (hopefully) affecting a weird, squeaky voice, apparently plays himself as well, and wears the costumes he made for The She-Creature and Invasion of the Saucer Men. He's probably the best thing in the picture. The dance sequences are perfectly amiable, and the movie is dumb if good-natured. After retiring from acting in the late sixties, Tommy Ivo became a professional race car driver.

Verdict: Light years from Citizen Kane. *1/2.

DAY THE WORLD ENDED

"You're dimestore, Ruby, you're cheap!" Adele Jergens and "Touch" Connors

DAY THE WORLD ENDED (1955). Produced and directed by Roger Corman.

"He's a mutation, Rick, a freak of this new atomic world of ours."

After nuclear holocaust, a taciturn fellow named Maddison (Paul Birch) holes up in his valley home with his daughter, Louise (Lori Nelson), whose fiance is missing and presumed dead. Unwelcome visitors looking for food and shelter include hoodlum Tony (Mike Connors, billed as "Touch"), his moll and former striptease "artist" Ruby (Adele Jergens), old prospector Pete (Raymond Hatton of The Three Musketeers) and his mule; and the radioactive, supposedly dying Radek (Paul Dubov of Girls' Town), who is developing a taste for raw meat. A more welcome addition is geologist Rick (Richard Denning), who is able to handle Tony and has a mutual attraction for Louise. Meanwhile a strange mutated creature (Paul Blaisdell) roams the grounds as the others wonder if the threatening rainfall will wipe them all out with radiation sickness. Day the World Ended may use some of the same settings as Attack of the Crab Monsters, but it doesn't have that film's cleverness, imaginative touches, and creepy atmosphere. Jergens offers the zestiest performance as the ill-fated Ruby. Like many films of the period, it suggests that a person can't be decent unless he or she is religious. There's a vague twist ending involving the "dead" fiance, but nothing much comes of this. Filmed in widescreen "Superscope."

Verdict: Even mutations can only do so much. **.

THE UNDEAD

 














THE UNDEAD (1957). Producer/Director: Roger Corman.

 "Keep thy place, malignancy!"

Diana Love (Pamela Duncan of Attack of the Crab Monsters) is a prostitute who is regressed to a past life via hypnotism. Suddenly she finds that she is a witch named Helene living in medieval times and dealing with stuff she never had to deal with in the 20th century -- such as the fact that if she doesn't  die in the past she will have no future lives at all, and presumably this means her current life as Diana -- as well as such folk as Pendragon (Richard Garland, who was also in Crab Monsters), another witch named Livia (Allison Hayes), Smolkin the gravedigger [there's a nifty scene with Helene inside a coffin with a corpse essayed by Paul Blaisdell], and others. Richard Devon as Satan is a little hokey in the prologue, but gets better as the film proceeds. Dick Miller [A Bucket of Blood] is a leper, Billy Barty [The Day of the Locust] is an imp, and Bruno Vesota [The Wasp Woman] is an innkeeper, while Val Dufour plays Quintus Ratcliff and Dorothy Neumann is the elderly witch, Meg Maud. Duncan gives a good performance, and Hayes is as vivid as ever. This is an interesting picture with an unusual plot; it should have been made into a full-fledged fantasy film with FX, monsters, color and the works. As it is, it's entertaining and special fun for Corman fans.

Verdict: It's certainly different! ***.

VOODOO WOMAN

VOODOO WOMAN (1957). Director: Edward L. Cahn.

"We're going into the jungle to bring back a secret recipe for borscht -- there's millions in it, ha, ha, ha!"

For reasons that are never quite delineated, Dr. Roland Gerard (Tom Conway) is trying to make a grotesque, super-strong gorilla-like monster (Paul Blaisdell) out of a pretty native girl, Zuranda (Jean Davis) in the jungle; his wife, Susan (Mary Ellen Kay), has come to realize that her husband is seriously disturbed. In the meantime, a cold-blooded woman named Marilyn (Marla English) has enlisted a guide, Ted (Mike Connors) to take her deep into the jungle looking for treasure -- and a fateful meeting with Dr. Gerard. This is an utterly absurd, but highly entertaining horror flick featuring a vivid Marla English, who also starred in Cahn's The She-Creature and the Bel-Air production Three Bad Sisters. This would be a perfect double-bill with Voodoo Island.

Verdict: Lively, fast-paced, and a lot of fun. ***.

HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER

HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER (1958). Director: Herbert L. Strock.

"An artist must have no fear."

When make up artist Pete Dumond (Robert H. Harris) is let go by the studio because new executives claim horror films aren't making any money, he hypnotizes the actors playing a teenage Frankenstein (Gary Conway of Burke's Law) and werewolf (Gary Clarke of Missile to the Moon and Michael Shayne) into murdering his bosses. Dumond metamorphoses from a kindly professional into a nasty maniac who slaughters anyone who gets in his way. Robert Shayne plays an agent; Morris Ankrum is a cop; Malcolm Atterbury is a security guard; and Thomas Browne Henry plays a director. John Ashley plays himself in a brief musical guest appearance. The last ten minutes, which are in color, feature a lot of Paul Blaisdell creations hanging in Dumond's workshop as examples of his art. In his only starring role in movies, Harris -- a busy television actor of the period --  is excellent, and Paul Brinegar is fine as his cowering assistant Rivero. As you would expect, the make ups are great.

Verdict: Fun primarily because Harris delivers. ***.

THE SHE-CREATURE

THE SHE-CREATURE (1956). Director: Edward L. Cahn.

AIP certainly collected an unusual group of actors for this weird little movie. Chester Morris (who gives a very good performance) is the mentalist Carlo Lombardi, who claims that he can regress his beautiful assistant Andrea (Marla English of Three Bad Sisters) three hundred years into a past life. For reasons that are never made clear Lombardi also regresses her back even further in a -- as he puts it -- "transmigration of the soul of a living woman into her first life body." Apparently her soul first inhabited a female prehistoric sea creature of some kind (at least it keeps coming out of the sea) that is alternately invisible, transparent, and finally very much solid and homicidal, leaving many battered corpses in the movie's best scenes. Timothy Chappel (Tom Conway), whose wife (Frieda Inescort) is a fan of the occult, teams up with Lombardi to make him a household name and both of them rich even as the murders of the she-creature continue. Cathy Downs, the wife of The Amazing Colossal Man, plays Chappel's daughter Dorothy, who is dating Dr. Erickson (Lance Fuller, who was in This Island Earth), another doubting Thomas. Rounding out the cast, Ron Randell is a police lieutenant, Frank Jenks is a sergeant, Jack Mulhall is a lawyer, and William Hudson (from Colossal Man and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman) is a snickering party guest. Paul Blaisdell both designed and plays the she-creature; her appearance is amusing and scary at the same time. This oddly likable movie has atmosphere and some creepy scenes, even if it doesn't make much sense.

Verdict: For monster/horror/B movie aficionados only. **1/2.

FROM HELL IT CAME

FROM HELL IT CAME (1957). Director: Dan Milner. 

Scientists are testing the effects of radiation on the testy natives of a south seas island when a young man is put to death for political reasons after being accused of poisoning his own father. Innocent, he vows to come back from the grave and get vengeance. Before long, a strange tree trunk starts growing out of the spot where the man was buried. This weird tree has a knife sticking out of its trunk somewhat corresponding to the spot where the man was stabbed in the chest by his executioner. Our scientists dig up the trunk, take it to their lab, and medicate it intravenously, bringing it back to life. No one ever comments on the fact that the tree has a face with two eyes and a snarling mouth. Before long the tree is walking around the island clumsily murdering the ones who did him wrong and others who cross his path. The ridiculous looking monster by Paul Blaisdell has some of the charm of his creation for It Conquered the World and might have been moderately scary if it had been brought to life with some decent special effects. The basic idea of walking into a forest unaware that one of the trees is mobile, homicidal, and sentient is creepy, but rarely exploited by this time-waster of a movie. Richard Bernstein's screenplay has a couple of clever ideas in it (the tree trunk has a heartbeat and bleeds green “blood”) as well as a few quirky characters, such as the allegedly cockney widow who runs the trading post and is looking for a new husband. Most of the actors are barely competent, however, and the picture has little if any thrills. It's endearingly dopey in its own way, but not necessarily a lot of fun. Still fifties creature-feature completists will want to own it and may get a kick out of one or two scenes. [Available on video and DVD from Sinister Cinema.] 

Verdict: Too weird for its own good. **.