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! ***.

I MOBSTER

Steve Cochran

I MOBSTER (1959). Produced and directed by Roger Corman.

I Mobster traces the rise and fall of gangster Joe Sante (Steve Cochran of The Big Operator), whose father virtually disowns him and whose mother (Celia Lovsky) eventually follows suit. As a boy (played by an uncredited but talented youngster), Joey was taken under the wing of Black Frankie (Robert Strauss), and later also works for crime boss Paul Moran (Grant Withers of the Jungle Jim serial). Joe takes up with a nice neighborhood gal named Teresa (Lita Milan), who is at first highly disapproving of his activities but ultimately there's no arguing with love. But Joe's ambitions and high-risk lifestyle may become his undoing ...

Saucy Yvette Vickers 

I Mobster is an absorbing crime drama with a fine and charismatic lead performance by the always-under-rated Steve Cochran, who is perfect as Joe. Celia Lovsky does her usual hand-wringing turn as the heartbroken mother; Strauss is quite good as his mentor and associate; and Lita Milan [Never Love a Stranger] turns in a very nice performance as Teresa. Grant Withers also scores as the big boss, and there is a very nice bit by Yvette Vickers as a saucy blond who tries to pay off her gambling debt by coming on to Joe -- fat chance! Ed Nelson, Robert Shayne, Thomas Browne Henry and Bruno VeSota have smaller  parts, and stripper Lili St. Cyr (who is much more attractive than the rather horse-faced Gypsy Rose Lee) does her cameo on stage in a bath tub.

In the long run, however, I Mobster doesn't really rise above all of the hoodlum cliches -- sobbing mother, worried, conflicted girlfriend, rivals and hits -- but the darn thing is too entertaining and well-played for that to matter much. As for Cochran, a hell-raising lover boy off-screen, he died at only 48 under very mysterious circumstances.

Verdict: Fast-paced Corman melodrama with a well-chosen cast. ***. 

THE YOUNG RACERS

Friends or enemies? Mark Damon and William Campbell

THE YOUNG RACERS (1963). Director: Roger Corman.

Stephen (Mark Damon of Young and Dangerous) is a writer who discovers that his fiancee, Monique (Beatrice Altariba), has been seduced and abandoned by a famous Grand Prix driver named Joe Machin (William Campbell of The High and the Mighty). Stephen's initial intention is to write an expose of the married, womanizing sleazeball, and to that end befriends the man and even joins his team. Joe is unaware of Stephen's history with Monique, but discovers it just before the climactic race, with surprising results.

Marie Versini and William Campbell

The Young Racers is an odd, strangely unconvincing picture that somehow manages to hold the attention -- it helps that the pace is fast -- but just never builds up to anything especially explosive (despite the car wrecks in the movie). Mark Damon would have been better cast as the married playboy driver, but he gives a disconnected, unemotional performance -- probably because for some reason his every line was dubbed by William Shatner! -- and Campbell is only somewhat better. You sometimes get the sense that the actors in this were given the script pages only moments before stepping in front of the camera, which may well have been the case. Marie Versini is appealing as Joe's neglected wife, Sesia, but R. Wright Campbell, who wrote the screenplay for this and other Corman films (such as Masque of the Red Death) and was William Campbell's brother, is pretty wooden as Joe's brother, Bob, who hates him but loves his wife. It's no surprise that Wright Campbell never acted in another movie.

Mark Damon

Although Luana Anders [Dementia 13] , who plays Stephen's secretary, Henrietta, can be very effective in other movies, in this she just seems weird, even giving off-kilter line readings. Christina Gregg and Margrete Robsahm make a better impression as two of Joe's girlfriends. Also notable is Patrick Magee, who plays another man whose wife was stolen away by Machin. The action in this veers from Monte Carlo to France to England, and the race at the climax is well-edited and fairly exciting, but this has too much flat acting and a rather inferior script despite its interesting premise.

NOTE: Francis Ford Coppola, who has a bit in this film and was assisting Corman, was allowed by the boss to shoot his own movie with the same crew, set and actors -- Anders, Campbell, and Magee -- as long as it didn't interfere with the shooting of the main picture. The result was the aforementioned Dementia 13, which is lots better than Young Racers.

Verdict: Even Vincent Price couldn't have saved this one. **. 

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (1964)

Jane Asher and Vincent Price

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (1964). Produced and directed by Roger Corman.

When the loathsome and cruel Prince Prospero (Vincent Price) realizes that the plague of the Red Death is beginning to ravage the countryside, he holes up in his castle with his wealthy sycophants and holds a masked ball. Unwilling participants include Francesca (Jane Asher), her father (Nigel Green) and her beloved, Gino (David Weston of Becket), all of whom are toyed with by the devil-worshiping  Prospero even as the prince tries to mold the pious and faithful Francesca into a wanton more suitable for his needs. This does not sit well with Juliana (Hazel Court of Premature Burial), Prospero's lover, who decides to become a bride of Satan instead and pays the ultimate price. In a sub-plot, the dwarf Hop Toad (Skip Martin) gets a diabolical vengeance on Alfredo (Patrick Magee), who dared to strike Esmeralda (Verina Greenlaw), the lovely little dancer and friend of Hop Toad's. When the masked ball begins, Prospero discovers that he has a very unwelcome guest in his midst ...

Verina Greenlaw and Skip Martin 

The Masque of the Red Death is based on two Edgar Allan Poe short stories, the title story and "Hop-Frog." Enough time has gone by since its release to reassess the film and see its true strengths and weaknesses. No, it is not a masterpiece: the screenplay is hokey and pretentious at times; the falcon attack on Hazel Court sort of falls flat; and a tiresome dream sequence for Court's character stops the film dead in its tracks. Still, it is a wonderfully colorful picture, photographed by Nicolas Roeg and with Daniel Haller as production designer (both men later became directors), and the performances across the board are excellent, with even Price's florid, epicene approach working for the character. David Lee's [The Very Edge] score is effective enough but seems derivative.

Verdict: Doesn't quite hold up as well as expected, but still an entertaining picture. ***,

TEENAGE CAVEMAN

Robert Vaughn and Jonathan Haze

TEENAGE CAVEMAN (aka Teenage Cave Man/1958). Produced and directed by Roger Corman.

In what seems to be a prehistoric society, the young son (Robert Vaughn) of the symbol maker (Leslie Bradley) questions the laws of the society as embodied by the crusty "Black-Bearded One" (Frank DeKova). No one is permitted to cross the river into the forbidden territory, but Vaughn's curiosity gets the better of him and he discovers dinosaur-like creatures (courtesy of One Million B.C. and others) and a strange "god" in a kind of bear suit who has a death touch. Pursued by the others of his tribe, Vaughn learns the truth of the world that lies beyond his tiny village ... Anyone who has read Stephen Vincent Benet's classic 1937 story "By the Waters of Babylon" will figure out the twist in this rip-off/variation of the tale, but on its own terms Teenage Caveman is more entertaining than it has any right to be. Vaughn gives a good, solid, dramatic performance and DeKova nearly steals the show in his turn as the dyspeptic guy who thinks anyone who breaks the law should be killed. The film casts Roger Corman's usual troupe of actors, including Jonathan Haze [The Little Shop of Horrors] as the "Curly-Haired Boy" and a spear-wielding Ed Nelson [Attack of the Crab Monsters]. Albert Glasser's typically brassy and effective score may be better than the picture deserves but it ably punctuates each scene in the film's short running time. Robert Vaughn went on to major success on TV's The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Teenage Caveman is similar to Creation of the Humanoids in that both films appear to be post-apocalyptic -- and they are -- but both turn out to take place in the distant past as well. A real film version of "By the Waters of Babylon" might have made a strikingly powerful film, but its ideas have been "borrowed" so often since its publication that it's unlikely it will ever receive an official filming, although a movie with just that title is listed as "in development" on the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB) website. Who knows?

Verdict: Vaughn and dinosaurs. **1/2. 

THE FANTASTIC FOUR/ DOOMED: THE UNTOLD STORY

The Thing

THE FANTASTIC FOUR (1994). Director: Oley Sassone.
DOOMED: THE UNTOLD STORY OF ROGER CORMAN'S THE FANTASTIC FOUR (2015). Director: Marty Langford.

Roger Corman co-produced the first film adaptation of Marvel's Fantastic Four comic book, but whether it was never meant to see the light of day, or if Corman and others were paid off so that this low-budget treatment wouldn't interfere with a big-budget version from Fox (with Marvel in control, which it wasn't with this production), or both, is debatable. Doomed! is a documentary in which various actors and other participants in the production discuss making the film, as well as the disappointment and betrayal they felt when they learned after all their efforts that the film would never be released. Told by Roger Corman that he had received a check for a couple of million dollars, probably not to release the picture, Alex Hyde White (who played Reed Richards and is the son of Wilfrid Hyde-White) remarks in Doomed! that "Everyone did well except us, the people that made the movie." Two brothers even spent their own money putting together an orchestra to play their ambitious score for The Fantastic Four. Apparently, wisely or not, nearly everyone involved with the film was convinced that the movie would be a big, big break for their careers. Unfortunately, that was not the case. This was a Roger Corman film, and the cost of the production was only a million dollars. Hardly enough to make a super-hero blockbuster. Doomed! is an entertaining, well-done documentary bolstered by interviews from personable actors such as Hyde-White and Joseph Culp (who played Dr. Doom and is the son of Robert Culp) and several crew members and creative types.

As for the film itself, it has surfaced in bootleg tapes and is on youtube. The Fantastic Four is not terrible by any means, but it can't compare to the version that eventually emerged ten years later: Fantastic Four. The acting is a mix of solid and professional (Hyde-White, Rebecca Staab as Sue Storm) and the uneven and amateurish (like a high school play) , and one mistake was to include a silly (if well-acted) character named the Jeweler (Ian Trigger) who is sort of an annoying substitute for old FF foe, the Moleman. The FX are uneven, but there is a nifty enough climax with the Human Torch trying to outrun a devastating light beam in order to save New York City. There are confusing elements in the script, and instead of our heroes gaining powers due to cosmic rays, there's something about a space project called "Colossus" that never makes that much sense. There are also odd moments, such as when after the foursome's spaceship crashes on earth, the boys seem to take forever to wonder where Sue is. Joseph Culp's performance as Dr. Doom is problematic -- he has a great voice, but he over-gesticulates and often speaks over-portentously as if he were playing a character in a cartoon. Perhaps the best thing about the movie is an excellent score by David and Eric Wurst with its attractive theme music. Virtually all of the actors in the film went on to have many more credits.

Meanwhile, the big-budget Fantastic Four had a sequel entitled Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and the series was unsuccessfully rebooted with Fantastic Four in 2015.

Verdict: Doomed! ***.
              The Fantastic Four. **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. **.

CRAB MONSTERS, TEENAGE CAVEMEN, AND CANDY STRIPE NURSES -- ROGER CORMAN: KING OF THE B MOVIE

CRAB MONSTERS, TEENAGE CAVEMEN, AND CANDY STRIPE NURSES -- ROGER CORMAN: KING OF THE B MOVIE Chris Nashawaty. Abrams; 2013.

This is a huge, heavily illustrated coffee table book that tells all you could possibly want to know about Roger Corman, his production methods, his character, the people he worked with and who got his start from him, and so on. There isn't much film criticism in the book, however, and there is little astute judgment of the Corman product or what made him effective as a director. A number of snappy, well-directed Corman films aren't even covered. Instead of a straight text biography, Crab Monsters is comprised primarily of chapter introductions that provide an overview, and quotes from those who know and have worked with the famous producer/director. Corman was willing to exploit everyone and everything to make a buck and stay in business, and he reinvented himself more than once. Corman first made adroit little movies like Attack of the Crab Monsters and It Conquered the World, then graduated to the impressive color spectacles of the excellent Pit and the Pendulum and Masque of the Red Death, He made a film entitled The Intruder that was close to his heart but didn't make a dime, and didn't direct a picture for twenty years after his disappointment with Von Richthofen and Brown. His last directorial effort, Frankenstein Unbound, was a disappointment to everyone. Along the way he produced dozens of pictures, capitalized on the biker trend, the LSD trend, the women-in-prison trend, and the sexy nurse trend, among others. After starting more than one film production company, and making mostly direct-to-video features, Corman started working with the Syfy channel, churning out dozens of silly, repetitive monster movies. As a director/producer, Corman's legacy is limited to a comparatively small amount of pictures, with much of his output (especially as producer) consisting of -- let's face it -- pretty forgettable movies, but he did give a lot of people a start in the business. Corman has hired more women than anyone else, though it's uncertain if it's because he's a male feminist or because he can get the gals more cheaply, or just recognizes talent when he sees it. Lavishly illustrated, the book is great to look at, and there are a lot of interesting quotes from a variety of individuals. Unfortunately, some information is repeated a little too much, first in the overview, then in the captions, then in the interviews, but all in all this is a praiseworthy show. Corman received a special Oscar for his body of work and his contributions to the industry. He was a talented director and it's too bad that he didn't concentrate on that more in his later years.

Verdict: Corman devotees will love this! ***.

FILMS I JUST COULDN'T FINISH

Do you ever find yourself watching a film you don't remember and suddenly realize that you've seen it before? Even before Great Old Movies, I kept notes on virtually every movie I had ever seen for years, but at times I'll scratch my head and think to myself: "I saw this before. Why don't I remember it?" The answer is that I never took notes on films I never finished because they were either boring, really bad, or just-okay movies that were simply not my cup of tea. So I wind up watching a movie I never wanted to see all the way through in the first place all over again, sometimes giving up just where I did the last time.

To rectify that I will periodically run these posts listing movies I gave up on and why. These are not out and out reviews -- after all, I haven't watched every second of these films and I skipped or fast-forwarded through parts of them -- so these notes are to be taken with a grain of salt. And please, if somebody has seen a movie on this list that they enjoyed and think deserves a second and/or complete look, let me know!

To begin:

Larry Cohen has done some good movies and some very bad ones, but despite the presence of comic book writer/creator Stan Lee and Young and the Restless star Eric Braeden, The Ambulance (1990) just didn't hold my interest.

I'll look at British actor Paul Massie [The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll] in just about anything -- and try to avoid looking at the rather overbearing James Robertson Justice -- but Raising the Wind (aka Roommates/1961), an English comedy about roommates who are all music students, just didn't work for me.

I wanted to watch 2013's I, Frankenstein as part of a special Frankenstein week on Great Old Movies, but when I realized that this picture had even less to do with Mary Shelley's novel than most Franky films -- the monster gets involved in a war between Lucifer's demons and some demon-hunting gargoyles -- I gave up after twenty minutes. It seemed like just another slick and empty modern-day horror film with CGI visuals. Another Frankenstein (2015), with an actor named Xavier Samuel as the monster, has modern-day scientists crafting a handsome specimen that degenerates and goes on a rampage. The film uses names and concepts from the original but is hardly on the same level; I finally gave up on it.

Bewitched (2005) was a new take on the old TV series with Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell as Samantha and her befuddled fella, who is actually her co-star in a television remake of "Bewitched," in which she essentially plays herself. This actually wasn't totally horrible, and I watched much of it, but I just never had any desire to get back to it. Basically another unmemorable Nora Ephron movie. It may or may not make a difference that even as a kid I wasn't that big a Bewitched fan.

Despite their many differences, I just wasn't gripped by the Spanish-language film The Secret in Their Eyes (2009) nor by its American remake, Secret in Their Eyes (2015), both of which flashed back and forth in time way too much, and seemed both too cutesy and much too contrived.  Neither of them worked for me. I gave up on both after half the running time, flipped forward to the stupid endings, and was glad I hadn't wasted another two hours watching the rest of them.

In Coherence (2013) a group of moderately interesting dinner guests with a comet overhead discover that there's a duplicate of the house -- and everyone inside it -- just down the block. This begins well, but pretty soon just talks itself to death; I watched half of it, got increasingly bored, and gave up. Stretching out a weak, derivative Twilight Zone premise to an hour and a half just didn't work for me.

Grandma's Boy (2006) was an alleged comedy about a not-so-young man who must move in with his grandmother and her two female roommates. During the first half hour or so I admit I laughed once at a vulgar business involving a bathroom and somebody's mother, but mostly this was unfunny and dull, with uninteresting characters and actors aside from the "old" ladies. I gave up on this pretty quickly.

I gave up on Roger Corman's cheapjack imitation of Star Wars, Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) starring a miscast Richard Thomas, after about twenty minutes. It does feature a spaceship with what appear to be massive mammary glands underneath, for those who care.

I gave up on #Horror (2015) about a quarter of a way into the running time as I found the style of the movie to be completely off-putting, and who wants to spend ninety minutes with a pack of annoying "mean girls." A 48 Hours episode that dealt with the true story that influenced this movie was way more gripping.

Ghosts of Hanley House (1968) has the usual group of people trying to stay overnight in a haunted house with a hatchet murderer, but the production values for this are so abysmal I gave up on it pretty quickly. Speaking of horror, I also tried to watch Vampira: The Movie (2006), a documentary about actress and horror host Maila Nurmi, who appeared in the infamous Plan 9 from Outer Space. Although the film features a lengthy interview with the "star" herself, I didn't get past the first third because, frankly, I didn't find Nurmi and her tenuous connection to the likes of James Dean all that interesting.

More to come, I'm afraid.

LAST WOMAN ON EARTH

Robert Towne and Betsy Jones-Moreland

LAST WOMAN ON EARTH (1960). Director: Roger Corman.

Dubious businessman Harold Gern (Antony Carbone), his wife Evelyn (Betsy Jones-Moreland), and his lawyer Martin Joyce (Robert Towne, billed as Edward Wain) are out scuba diving off Puerto Rico when an unspecified disaster occurs that sucks oxygen out of the air and apparently kills everyone in the area -- possibly the whole world. Most sensible people would spend their time trying to find out how widespread the disaster was and if there were other survivors, but instead this trio simply gets embroiled in a rather dull domestic triangle, with Martin thinking it's perfectly okay for him to make time with Evelyn because with the supposed end of the world, the rules have changed. Huh? The pretentious and morally confused script was also written by Towne, who went on to greater fame as a screenwriter of such films as Shampoo and Chinatown. The characters aren't fully fleshed out, going through the motions as the script demands, and the actors are left with not much to work with. Unconventionally handsome, and not a bad actor, sensitive Towne could have had more of an acting career, but it wasn't in the cards. None of the actors gets across the enormity of what has occurred, but just seem to be reacting to say, infidelity on a Club Med vacation. Roger Corman's direction is typically adroit and the picture is fast-paced. But it just adds up to nothing. This was obviously influenced by the slightly superior Five, as well as The World, The Flesh, and the Devil. Ronald Stein's score helps a bit, but this could have used a few monsters. There's some talk about the unchecked growth of the insect population but nothing comes of this.

Verdict: Time-waster with an intriguing if unoriginal notion and little else. **.

SHE GODS OF SHARK REEF

Bill Cord and Don Durant

SHE GODS OF SHARK REEF (1958). Director: Roger Corman.

Lee Johnston (Don Durant) commits murder during the commission of a robbery, and sails off with his brother, Chris (Bill Cord), on the latter's boat in the hopes he can elude the authorities. The two wind up on an island inhabited only by young women and one old lady, Queen Pua (Jeanne Gerson), who presides and reports to  some unspecified "company." After causing one hula dancer, Mahia (Lisa Montell), to be seen as taboo because the lei she puts on him breaks, Chris develops an affection for the gal, while Lee is more interested in getting off the island and stealing a booty of valuable pearls. Will all of them wind up sacrificed to Dangaraka, the shark god? The ladies in this movie don't really appear to be either "she gods" nor "goddesses," if you prefer, but just slightly slow native gals. Cord and Durant get a chance to show off their pecs, and are not terrible actors. The one shark that kills someone looks like a baby that would do minimal damage to someone's arm let alone their whole body. Gerson was Neely's maid in Valley of the Dolls, Montell was in World Without End, Durant starred as Johnny Ringo on TV, and both he and Colt did more than one episode of Perry Mason -- none of them wound up as Corman regulars, however. Ronald Stein's music makes this a little more palatable, along with some strikingly beautiful Hawaiian scenery (at least the cast members got a nice vacation if nothing else). But what this really needed was one of those giant man-eating crustaceans from Corman's Attack of the Crab Monsters, made the year before, or some other carnivorous monster, or at least a really big shark.

Verdict: Pecs and pretties but not a lot happens. **.

"FRANKIE" AND FRIENDS

Boris Karloff as Frankenstein

"FRANKIE" AND FRIENDS.

Great Old Movies has already posted reviews of the classic Universal Frankenstein films, as well as many of the Peter Cushing verions  -- just type "Frankenstein" in the search bar above for them all to come up --  but this week we look at some later films about Frankenstein's monster. First there is a review of Mary Shelley's original novel -- a really great and faithful film adaptation has yet to be made of it -- then reviews of a later Peter Cushing/ Frankenstein entry; a flick with Robert De Niro playing the monster; Roger Corman's Frankenstein Unbound; and others. Mary Shelley could not possibly have known that her creation would explode into all aspects of popular culture -- indeed she might have been horrified!

FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND

Pretty Boy: Nick Brimble as the Monster

FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND (aka Roger Corman's Frankenstein Unbound/1990).

In 2031 a scientist named Buchanan (John Hurt) is developing a kind of disintegration beam that has the side effect of causing severe weather conditions and holes in time. Buchanan winds up back in the days of Victor Frankenstein (Raul Julia) and also encounters Percy Shelley (Michael Hutchence), his girlfriend, Mary (Bridget Fonda), Lord Byron (Jason Patric), and an intelligent if homicidal monster (Nick Brimble). The servant Justine (Catherine Corman) has been accused of murdering little William Frankenstein and Victor refuses to save her by telling the truth about the monster. The formerly callous Buchanan tries to rescue Justine and makes out with Mary (Shelley). It all winds up in a frozen future time period and not a moment too soon. Based on a novel by Brian W. Aldiss (Roger Corman was co-screenwriter as well as director) Frankenstein Unbound emerges as a mish mash of some admittedly interesting ideas, none of which jell in very compelling fashion. Hurt is completely miscast, Julia and Fonda are okay, Brimble does a good job as the monster, Catherine Corman is effective, and Patric makes an interesting Lord Byron. [Some of these real-life characters also appeared in Haunted Summer.] Carl Davis' [Ben-Hur] score is a plus -- much better than the movie deserves -- but the gore scenes are more silly than anything else.

Verdict: Stick with Corman's Attack of the Crab Monsters. ** out of 4.

VINCENT PRICE: THE ART OF FEAR

VINCENT PRICE: THE ART OF FEAR. Denis Meikle. Foreword by Richard Matheson. Afterword by Roger Corman. Reynolds and Hearn; 2003.

This is a very thorough, well illustrated look at the highly interesting career of Vincent Price, focusing primarily on the horror and suspense pictures that made him famous. There are looks at both versions of Tower of London, earlier films such as The Invisible Man Returns and Dragonwyck, his career-altering stardom in House of Wax, his collaboration with Roger Corman in several Poe adaptations such as Pit and the Pendulum, and the mixed bag of terror films that he made in his later years, including the near-classic Theater of Blood and the Dr. Phibes movies. Author Meikle takes a critical look at both the films and the performances -- he's not in love with every movie nor every performance by Price -- and there's much background information about the pictures as well. Meikle is on less firm ground when he writes somewhat awkwardly about Price's sexuality, but the book is attractively packaged, well-written, and noteworthy.

Verdict: You may not agree with every assessment, but this is a real treat for Price enthusiasts. ***1/2.

PHILADELPHIA

Tom Hanks

PHILADELPHIA (1993). Director: Jonathan Demme.

"Everyone in this room is your friend, more than your friend -- family." -- Wheeler to Beckett.

Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks) is a young lawyer in Philadelphia who is going places -- until he gets AIDS. Although he tries to hide it from the partners, he is fired (just as much for being gay as for his illness) on a trumped up charge of incompetence. Turned down by most lawyers for a wrongful dismissal lawsuit, he is finally represented by ambulance chaser and part-time homophobe Joe Miller (Denzel Washington). Although Charles Wheeler (Jason Robards), the head of the firm, is importuned to settle with Beckett, the crusty old lawyer is not about to give in ... Philadelphia, the first major American movie to deal with AIDS and homophobia, is an admirable if flawed motion picture. It doesn't shy away from stark realities such as depicting the illness and its effect on other people; the way that gay partners are not considered "family" in the hospital; invisible gays and closet cases; and difficult questions about so-called "risky" behavior. On the other hand, with so many points to be made on such an issue, the characters sort of get lost, and the viewer probably gets to know Joe Miller better than it does Andrew Beckett. Andrew's partner Miguel (Antonio Banderas) is only given a couple of scenes, remains a distant figure, and worse, the two men seem more like friends than partners -- it's almost as if Banderas was afraid to ruin his "macho" image by kissing Hanks. Hanks [Road to Perdition] won a Best Actor Oscar, and is quite good, even if he's perhaps a bit too "fluttery" on certain occasions [the film seems to show the diversity of the gay male community, and even indulges in some stereotype-busting at times]. Washington [American Gangster], Robards [You Can't Take It With You], and Mary Steenburgen as opposing counsel are excellent, and there's an effective cameo by director Roger Corman as one of Beckett's former clients. As for the music (the main score is by Howard Shore), the soundtrack makes effective use of Maria Callas singing "La mamma morta" from Giordano's Andrea Chenier, although one wonders if either Bruce Springsteen (Oscar winner for the title tune) and Neil Young (composer of the haunting end-title piece "City of Brotherly Love") knew the subject matter before they wrote the songs.

Verdict: Whatever its imperfections this is an often powerful and very affecting picture. ***1/2.

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! ***.

GALAXY OF TERROR aka MINDWARP

A touchy-feely alien gets another victim

GALAXY OF TERROR (aka Mindwarp/1981). Director: Bruce D. Clark. Produced by Roger Corman.

"There's no horror here we don't create ourselves."

A spaceship is sent to a distant planet to see if they can find the survivors of the last expedition. What they find are the remains of the spaceship, some weird creepy-crawly aliens that attach themselves to their body parts, and a giant pyramid-like structure in which they are stalked by half-seen creatures and must confront their own fears. This is an old idea -- astronauts bedeviled by materializations of their own terrors -- but it's also an obvious copy of Alien. The movie has surprisingly good production design, courtesy of James Cameron [later famous as the director of Titanic] and Robert Skotak, and an interesting cast, including Edward Albert, Erin Moran, the ever-brooding Zalman King, Ray Walston as a cook with secrets, Robert Englund [Nightmare on Elm Street], Sid Haig as an astronaut who's murdered by his own severed arm, and Grace Zabriskie as a kind of butch captain, sole survivor of something called the Hesperus disaster (as if any vessel would be named after a famous shipwreck!).  Taffee O'Connell is pursued by a maggot grown to giant size that seems more interested in tearing off her clothing and licking her naked body than it is in eating her. Despite some fairly impressive sequences and decent acting, Galaxy of Terror has a cheapjack look and feel to it, and while not awful, it's not that memorable, either.

Verdict: One of the better Alien imitations, so you can imagine how awful some of the others were. **1/2.

FLYING THROUGH HOLLYWOOD BY THE SEAT OF MY PANTS: SAM ARKOFF

FLYING THROUGH HOLLYWOOD BY THE SEAT OF MY PANTS. Sam Arkoff with Richard Trubo. Birch Lane Press; 1992.

Sam Arkoff of American International Pictures tells how the company was formed, relates behind-the-scenes details of some of its more famous movies [including I Was a Teenage Werewolf and the Roger Corman/Vincent Price Poe pictures], and looks at some of the famous actors and directors who got their start at AIP, such as Jack Nicholson and Francis Ford Coppola. AIP tapped into a huge audience that the majors were ignoring -- teenagers -- and [when that ran its course and even before] developed new genres, such as beach, hot rod and "blaxploitation" movies, that the major studios eventually copied. Like a wise old owl, Arkoff laments how the movie industry needlessly spends millions on [often terrible] movies and how stars' salaries have become hopelessly inflated, along with other cogent criticisms. Arkoff regrets AIP's merging with Filmways, and later quit that group to form Arkoff International Pictures. Author Trubo skillfully allows Arkoff's personality to come through, with the result that the book is not only informative and entertaining, but a darn good read as well.

Verdict: An insider's view of filmmaking, Hollywood and exploitation pictures. ***1/2.

SWAMP WOMEN

SWAMP WOMEN (1956). Director: Roger Corman.

An undercover policewoman, Lt. Lee Hampton (Carole Matthews), poses as a convict in order to find out where the female Nardo gang hid a fortune in diamonds. Put in the same cell as the three tough members of the gang  -- Josie (Marie Windsor), Vera (Beverly Garland), and Billie (Jill Jarmyn) -- Hampton breaks them all out and they head for the diamonds -- secreted in the Louisiana bayou! Along the way the ladies pick up two hostages, spoiled heiress Marie (Susan Cummings) and her supposed boyfriend Bob (Touch Conners, later to be known as Mike Connors). This is actually a fast-paced and very entertaining melodrama bolstered by Corman's brisk direction, some good performances (especially from Beverly Garland as the biggest bitch in the bunch), a few very zesty female-female fight scenes (okay, cat fights!), and lots of swampy atmosphere. A good showcase for "B" movie queens Garland and Windsor, and Jill Jarmyn also makes an impression as the resident sexpot. Matthews isn't bad, but Connors does little else but look good in his rolled-up sleeves. Jonathan Haze of The Little Shop of Horrors has a nice cameo as a pickpocket who pretends to be drunker than he is.

Verdict: This one is a lot of fun and has some suspense to boot. ***. 

IT CONQUERED THE WORLD

IT CONQUERED THE WORLD (1956). Producer/director: Roger Corman.

"For a few dollars you can have a woman who'll fit all of your fetishes."

"It and some others are the sole survivors of a race born too soon."

Dr. Paul Nelson (Peter Graves), who's in charge of a space project, discovers that one of his missiles has been commandeered by a Venusian who is using it to arrive on Earth. Furthermore, Nelson's buddy Dr. Tom Anderson (Lee Van Cleef), is in direct contact with the alien. While Anderson insists that the creature has only benevolent purposes, the alien's first action is to suppress all energy so that no machines work. Then it sends out beasties that resemble small flying manta rays that attach themselves to humans and turn them into mind slaves. Anderson doesn't seem to care that this makes people as emotionless as the Venusian visitor, but his wife (Beverly Garland) certainly does. With a good script and dialogue by Lou Rusoff, It Conquered the World is absurd but zesty sci fi/horror, with an amusingly hideous monster created by Paul Blaisdell. It shares some ideas with Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a better film which was released the same year. Corman briefly used a similar type of flying creature in Not of This Earth the following year. Dick Miller and Jonathan Haze have small roles as soldiers. Graves and Sally Fraser are acceptable as Nelson and his wife; Van Cleef is fine as Anderson; and the ever-reliable Beverly Garland pretty much steals the show with her dynamic performance as Anderson's desperate and angry spouse. Nice score from Ronald Stein. This was remade -- badly -- as Zontar, The Thing from Venus.

Verdict: One of Corman's liveliest and most "fantastic" films. ***.