BACK FROM ETERNITY

BACK FROM ETERNITY (1956). Director: John Farrow.

In this widescreen if black and white remake of Five Came Back (which was also directed by John Farrow), a motley group of passengers survive a crash in the South American jungle, only to realize that only a few of them can fly away and there are headhunters right around the corner. Back from Eternity could have been a terrific, gut-wrenching movie if only all of the dumb "Hollywoodisms" had been excised from the script. True, I've watched plenty of silly if entertaining dumb Hollywood movies, but what makes Eternity worse is that it had so much potential. True, the final few minutes are suspenseful, the acting isn't bad, and the conclusion has a certain power, but otherwise it's not a very good movie. Anita Ekberg [Screaming Mimi] got the lion's share of the publicity, and aside from being beautiful and busty, she's not a bad actress, either (by Hollywood standards, at least), although her American career didn't last long. (She appeared in this before her famous role in Fellini's La Dolce Vita.) Robert Ryan as the possibly tippling pilot is perhaps less effective in this than in other films, but Rod Steiger offers the best performance as a condemned man being brought back for execution. Phyllis Kirk and Gene Barry are effective enough as an engaged couple who have problems, and Beulah Bondi and Cameron Prud'homme are fine as an elderly professor and his wife. Jesse White is Jesse White.

SPOILER ALERT: Now let's talk about those "Hollywoodisms:" Fred Clark is taking Steiger back for execution, but he uses no handcuffs on a supposedly dangerous felon. Kirk and Ekberg have a completely ridiculous "cat fight" over a man that serves only to show the latter in a wet, clinging outfit. Worse still is the whole business with the lovely stewardess, Maria (Adele Mara of Night Time in Nevada). First let's make it clear that Maria is a friend and co-worker of the pilot and his co-pilot (Keith Andes), and is an attractive and really nice person. Saving a little boy (Jon Prevost) from falling out of the plane when a tank smashes open the door, she herself falls to her death in a horrifying moment. There is no scene when Andes tells Ryan what happened. After the plane lands in the jungle, Ryan says to Andes "everyone all right?" to which Andes replies that the passengers were only a little bruised. There's absolutely no mention of brave Maria and her horrible death throughout the rest of the movie, and these are her co-workers!  (A somewhat similar sequence occurred in another plane crash drama The Crowded Sky.) Admittedly, the passengers are having their own problems, but even during a quiet, contemplative moment much later on, when the pious professor and his wife lead everyone in the Lord's Prayer, nobody offers up a prayer for Maria. It's unbelievable, cold-blooded and illogical scenes like this (or the lack of them) and others that make me classify Back From Eternity less as drama than as schlock. Farrow's direction, although the plane scenes are well-handled, also does little to disguise/detour around some moments of really bad acting.

Verdict: The final quarter has its moments but then there's the rest of it ... **.

EVIL DEAD 2

EVIL DEAD 2 (1987/AKA Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn). Director: Sam Raimi. 

Not so much a sequel as a revisioning (and parody) of Raimi's cult hit, The Evil Dead. Ash (Bruce Campbell) is back in a cabin, has to murder his possessed girlfriend again, and then not only has to deal with demons trying to take him over but with the possessed bodies of the cabin's occupants and visitors, including Annie (Sarah Berry), the daughter of a scientist (whose dead, devious wife is rotting and plotting in the cellar). Even more of a comic book than the original, the burlesque, black comedy tone of the film probably made it more influential on the alleged "horror" films (actually gory comedies) that came later. There's a naked, headless corpse dancing ballet in the woods, an eyeball that shoots out of another suppurating corpse and into Annie's mouth, and it becomes very clear that this is nothing that anyone, even the filmmakers, could possibly take seriously. Sporadically amusing and entertaining, but basically too ultimately schlocky to care about. There are some decent stop-motion monster effects near the end. The climax has Ash sucked through a warp into another dimension, setting up another sequel. Bruce Campbell manages to preserve his dignity no matter what shit the script puts him through, acquiting himself nicely in a performance that has to balance [ersatz] horror with humor, and definitely displays star charisma. But while the "Evil Dead" movies may have put him on the map, in the long run they probably didn't do him all that much good. 

Verdict: Some inventive stuff but overall the same old grind. **.

FILMS I JUST COULDN'T FINISH ROUND 3

FILMS I JUST COULDN'T FINISH ROUND 3.

These are not reviews, per se, but notes on films that I watched or suffered through until I just gave up on them for one reason or another. Sometimes I skipped to different sections just to get a sense of what was going on or to see if the film became more entertaining. Not all of these pictures are necessarily bad, they just didn't hold my attention. If you see one on the list that you think deserves another look, let me know.

Forbidden Jungle (1950) has a hunter coming to Africa to search for a boy who was lost in a plane crash and is now living, Tarzan-like, in a village with a kindly older man and a native girlfriend. Half of this dull flick was more than enough.

Seeing that it starred Dennis Morgan, Richard Denning and Paula Raymond -- in a western directed by William Castle, no less -- I figured that The Gun That Won the West (1955) would certainly be of some interest. Alas, this tale of the Army and a few civilians versus the Indians never amounts to much. It's all professionally done, just mediocre and dull.

Secret of the Red Orchid (1962) is a dubbed version of a West German Edgar Wallace adaptation about gangsters ordering wealthy people to pay up or die. I started watching this because Christopher Lee and Klaus Kinski were in the cast, both of whom are dubbed. Lee plays, of all things, an American FBI agent! The movie was simply too dull to watch for more than half an hour.

Cave of the Living Dead aka Night of the Vampires (1964) is actually a dubbed West German-Yugoslavian import (Der Fluch der grunen Augen) about an Inspector investigating the murders of young women in a small village. There is some atmosphere, but not much suspense because you find out what's happening pretty early on. Not terrible, but not good enough to waste time on the second half.

Succubus (1968) is another horrible film directed by Jess Franco. His fans consider this one of his best, which -- judging from this claptrap -- certainly isn't saying much. The plot, such as it is, has to do with an actress who has violent and sexual fantasies. Due to its advertising campaign, it made a lot of money in the U.S., but I pity anyone who actually had to pay for a ticket. I gave up on this dull, slow, pseudo-artsy and pretentious mess after about twenty minutes.

The Wildcats of St. Trinian's (1980) is, I believe, the third sequel to The Belles of St. Trinian's -- after Blue Murder at St. Trinian's and Pure Hell of St. Trinian's -- but I could hardly get through a quarter of it despite the fact that it had the same director as the original. There is no Alistair Sim in this, and a much, much less interesting cast.

Christmas Evil (aka You Better Watch Out/1980) features a demented man who works in a toy factory and goes on a rampage. The whole look and pacing of the film got me to stop watching after about half an hour.

The Curse (1987\) is a version of H. P. Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space with a meteorite in a small town causing mutations. It was directed by actor David Keith. The movie didn't seem entirely worthless but the poor production values and pacing put me off of it pretty quickly. The first adaptation of this story starred Boris Karloff and was entitled Die Monster, Die. It was also poor.

Call Me (1988) stars Patricia Charbonneau as a woman who goes to a bar for a rendezvous with a man she thinks is her boyfriend, and winds up witnessing the murder of a drag queen in a bathroom. Unfortunately, this got less interesting the farther into it I got, which I admit wasn't very far.

The Oxford Murders (2008) is a mystery film about murders involving a professor and author (John Hurt) and a young man (Elijah Wood) who wants to study with him. But then the professor's elderly friend (Anna Massey), with whom Wood is boarding, is found murdered and the professor thinks there will be more killings by an unknown assailant. Sounds good, but who cares? The characters are uninteresting, the story uninvolving, and I couldn't even care who the murderer might turn out to be so I only made it about halfway through this. Hurt and Massey are wasted.

The Colour Out of Space aka Die Farbe (2010) is a German film version of H. P. Lovecraft's excellent novella of the same title, previously filmed as the aforementioned Curse and Die, Monster, Die. The story has been transplanted from New England to Germany, which doesn't work at all, but even worse is the slow pacing and the sparse style which is the complete opposite of the great Lovecraft's florid, Victorian, emotional, atmospheric, and terrifying approach to the material. There is some impressive black and white photography, but I found this so tedious I watched it in spurts. It just wasn't compelling enough to hold the attention.

The Privileged (2013) has a young man and his wife visiting his supervisor and his wife at their home where the former begs to keep his job. An intruder breaks in and gets shot, and the violence escalates as a cover-up begins. This is by no means a terrible movie -- it is well-acted and well-shot -- but it's predictable and minor, and I confess I skipped ahead to the very depressing conclusion.

The Monkey's Paw (2013) is a variation of the famous story that doesn't do nearly enough with the idea and was a bit too slow to hold my attention, despite such talented cast members as Stephen Lang.

There were two spy spoofs that I just couldn't make it through, a 1965 Japanese production entitled Ironfinger and the 1964 American film Spies a Go Go (aka The Nasty Rabbit). I could only make it a quarter of the way through the first one, which seemed as stupid as any American spy spoof, and only a few minutes of the second one, which simply seemed too cheap and moronic to bother with; I skimmed through some of it to my regret.

THE MAFU CAGE

James Olson and Lee Grant

THE MAFU CAGE (aka Deviation/1978). Director: Karen Arthur.

Ellen (Lee Grant) lives with her strange sister Cissy (Carol Kane of Annie Hall), who retains a love for all things African -- they once lived in Africa with their late father -- and who also seems to have incestuous feelings for her sister. Ellen is herself not too tightly wrapped, because she resists the notion of sending Cissy to a therapist for, among other reasons, her penchant for slaughtering her pet apes. Cissy, who is unraveling by the minute, chains up Ellen's boyfriend, David (James Olson of The Andromeda Strain), in the cage where the apes are kept, and you can probably guess what happens next. The Mafu Cage is a film so bad that it seems to exist in its own universe of awfulness, never coming close to a real world or even a cinematic equivalent. It just moves along, ploddingly, throwing idiotic scenes at the viewer, and providing embarrassment for all of its actors, all of whom should have known better. The film reaches its absolute nadir with its scene of poor Carol Kane exchanging sloppy mouth to mouth kisses with a champagne-guzzling orangutan. (I am not joking; this is not an old April Fool's post.)  Grant, Olson, and Will Geer [The Brotherhood of the Bell] as a friendly animal trainer all give good performances; Kane is like her character from the sitcom Taxi on uppers. The script was written by actor Don Chastain (from a play by Eric Wesphal), whose other writing credit was for an episode of As The World Turns. Karen Arthur primarily directed for television.

Verdict: Without a doubt, the worst movie Lee Grant ever appeared in. 1/2*.

NOTE: This review is part of the "Lovely Lee Grant" blogathon co-hosted by Chris of Angelman's Place and Gill of Realweegiemidget Reviews. 

NOT SO GREAT NEW MOVIE: ANNIHILATION

The scientists explore the Shimmer

ANNIHILATION (2018). Written and directed by Alex Garland.

Ex-soldier Lena (Natalie Portman) has not seen her husband, Kane (Oscar Isaac of X-Men: Apocalypse) for a year, when he walks into their home in a daze. Lena discovers that Kane was the only person to ever make it out from an area called the Shimmer, a strange zone that is inexplicably spreading outward from a lighthouse and if unchecked may envelop the whole planet. With a group of female scientists, Lena decides to enter this twilight zone (pardon me) herself, if only to find out what happened to her husband inside and what may be still affecting him. With an interesting premise and a promise of some emotional pay-offs, Annihilation should have been a worthwhile picture, but despite some interesting concepts -- as well as ideas recycled from everything from Invasion of the Body Snatchers to Alien -- the picture is pretty much sunk by a snail's pace, a weak script with both undeveloped characters and ideas, and direction that utterly strips the film of any dramatic punch it may have had potential for. There are mutated creatures, people's minds being screwed up, some quick gore cuts and the like, an occasional burst of minor excitement, but virtually no pay off, and the lethargic score doesn't help one bit. The actors do the best they can with material that may seem (pseudo) intellectual but is actually trite, and the average episode of Star Trek has more suspense. The frequent flashbacks and flash-forwards only pull the viewer out of the main storyline and do nothing to help sustain the creepy atmosphere. Annihilation does get points for being visually striking at times, but that's hardly enough to make this a winner. Admittedly, with some films you're willing to suspend disbelief, but with this picture we're asked to accept that these women, most of whom are scientists, would be sent into the Shimmer without military escorts and without contamination suits on (or even , heck, a rope and pulley with which they can be pulled back out of the zone in an emergency). There is no major military or government presence as you would expect in such a dire situation. It's as if Garland, afraid of making a "typical" sci fi thriller, stripped his movie of sheer common sense, not to mention thrills. Natalie Portman [Jackie] should choose her material with more care, and Jennifer Jason Leigh is positively weird -- too weird -- as Dr. Ventress; neither woman is seen to good advantage in this stinker. This reminds one a lot of Arrival, another recent mediocre science fiction film.

Verdict: Even something like The Atomic Submarine is a lot more fun. **. 

TOTAL RECALL (1990)

Arnold Schwarzenegger

TOTAL RECALL (1990). Director: Paul Verhoeven.

In the future Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) goes to a firm that specializes in implanting memories so you can "remember" the perfect vacation -- a stupid idea* if you ask me --  but when they begin the process on Quaid it develops that he has already undergone a memory-altering process -- he is actually a completely different person from whom he thinks he is. When people try to kill him, he winds up on a mining colony on Mars where in his former identity he was involved in a rebellion against Cohaagen (Ronny Cox of The Car), the sinister master of Mars. Total Recall is what might best be called "schlock sci fi" in that it takes many different elements from science fiction stories, films, and comics, and throws them all together to make little more than an Arnold Schwarzenegger Action Flick. On that level the film is entertaining, and it certainly worked for Arnold. He had appeared in action flicks before but Total Recall is the film that really put him over the top.  This was true, too, of European director Verhoeven [Showgirls], who had previously directed Robocop. Some saw this as an interesting filmmaker "selling out" to Hollywood to make crap, a notion that is pretty much born out by his later film projects. (He eventually left Hollywood to make films more along the lines of his earlier work.)

At one point in Total Recall the running Quaid dodges bullets and a perfectly innocent bystander gets shot, with Quaid using the man's body as a shield and then just throwing him at his attackers. Sure, this may be an act of desperation, but can you imagine Jimmy Stewart or Tom Hanks or even Audie Murphy (a real-life hero as opposed to a Hollywood one) not having any reaction to this? There had always been hard-boiled anti-heroes in movies, but by the time of Total Recall the heroes lost any trace of sensitivity and became not ordinary men up against extraordinary odds, but super-heroes (without the costumes) whose success seemed preordained. Compare that to Tom Hanks in the Da Vinci trilogy -- not great films, perhaps, but the hero is strong, intelligent, and recognizably human.

That said, the last quarter of Total Recall is quite exciting and amusing and has some good FX work, but it's never more than a moron movie. Cox is excellent, Sharon Stone (who later appeared in Verhoeven's Basic Instinct) is suitably sexy, Rachel Ticotin is adept, and Schwarzenegger is Schwarzenegger, which was enough for his fans. Jerry Goldsmith's score is one of his least interesting. Remade in 2012.

* If you know your memories are just implanted and never really happened, doesn't it sort of make it all pointless? What makes memories so wonderful is that they were real. Besides, memories can't compare to the actual experience.

Verdict: Arnold builds up the body count along with his muscles. **1/2.

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! ***.

GIRL HAPPY

Shelley Fabares and Elvis Presley

GIRL HAPPY (1965). Director: Boris Sagal.

Club owner Big Frank (Harold J. Stone) is afraid of what might happen if his 21-year-old daughter, Valerie (Shelley Fabares), goes to Fort Lauderdale for vacation, so he hires singer Rusty Wells (Elvis Presley) to be her secret chaperone. In the meantime, Rusty does his best to romance the more voluptuous Deena (Mary Ann Mobley), but his burgeoning feelings for Valerie get in the way. Girl Happy seems inspired by Where the Boys Are, made five years earlier, which had similar hijinks occurring in Fort Lauderdale. Cliche follows cliche as Elvis and his combo -- Joby Baker [Looking for Love], Gary Crosby [Mardi Gras], and Jimmy Hawkins -- warble some pleasant if minor songs, the snappiest of which is "Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce." Nita Talbot shows up briefly as a sexy dancer, Jackie Coogan is a cop, and Fabrizio Mioni romances both Valerie and Deena as an Italian exchange student. This is another in a long line of crappy Elvis Presley musicals that are often indistinguishable from one another. Presley performs nicely, but his character is rather negative. At first thinking that Valerie is unattractive, he immediately pronounces her a "loser." Fabares has a nice enough figure, but she was clearly told: "shoulders back, chest thrust forward." Peter Brooks [The Girls on the Beach] offers some fun as the intellectual Brentwood Von Durgenfeld, who in movies like this only elicits scorn, especially regarding his preference for brains over beauty. His scene with Nita Talbot provides the movie's only laugh, however.

Verdict: Elvis schlock with a couple of decent tunes. *1/2.

BEACH BALL

Call her Miss Ross

BEACH BALL (1965). Director: Lennie Weinrib.

"Wriggle, wriggle. Dr. Tickle, Dr. Tickle, Right now." -- lyrics.

Dick Martin (Edd Byrnes) tries to raise money to pay for instruments for his band, the Wrigglers, by getting grant money for college under false pretenses. When Susan (Chris Noel). the gal who hands out the grants, discovers the truth. she and her intellectual lady friends put on bikinis and try to get Dick and the guys to stay in school. This is the plot -- I wouldn't kid you. Five minutes into the flick The Four Seasons appear to sing the catchy "Dawn," but, unfortunately, they are never seen again. There are appearances by the Righteous Brothers, the Hondells, and the Supremes, each of whom are given one number except for the last group, who are forced to sing a couple of bad, inappropriate "surfer" songs, although the second one, the title tune, is somewhat less awful than the first. Desperately playing college boys are Aaron Kincaid and Robert Logan, the latter of which appeared with Byrnes on 77 Sunset Strip. Even the worst episode of that series would have been better than sitting through this excruciatingly boring and completely unfunny farce, although the actors are at least enthusiastic. The songs sung by the "Wrigglers" are mostly dreadful, although "Candy, Baby," is perhaps the least dreadful. Rock movies in the fifties generally spent more time on the special guest-stars than the plot -- if only that had been the case with Beach Ball, whose acts have limited running time. If they'd just let Frankie Valli and the fellows sing one number after another, you might not be reaching for that fast forward button. The fellows dress in drag for their final number, and a gag is lifted from Some Like It Hot. A guy asks Logan, still wearing his wig, for a date. Logan removes the wig and says "It wouldn't work out between us." The guy replies, "Yeah, you're taller than I am." He then turns to Kincaid, "what about you, honey?" This little bit of gay humor. albeit unoriginal, is handled with perfect amiability. The movie, alas, is too stupid to ever really amount to anything. Dick Miller has a small role as a cop and is fine. James Wellman, who plays Bernard Wolf, the man who wants the money for the band instruments, is pretty bad.

Verdict: This imitation of the AIP Beach party movies from Paramount is even worse than the originals. *1/2.

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.

THE GIRL FROM RIO (1969)

Shirley Eaton as Sumuru  or Sumitra or Sumanda

THE GIRL FROM RIO (aka Rio 70/aka Die sieben Manner der Sumuru/1969). Director: Jess Franco.

In this pseudo-Eurospy movie and sort-of sequel to The Million Eyes of Sumuru, the arch-villainess who wants women to take over the world has created her own country of Femina. Sumuru (Shirley Eaton) kidnaps people and does other nefarious deeds to raise money for her all-female nation. A private eye named Jeff Sutton (Richard Wyler) has been hired to find his client's daughter, Ulla (Marta Reves), and cooks up a scheme to carry a suitcase allegedly filled with ten million dollars, figuring Sumuru is sure to nibble at the bait and take him to where Ulla is imprisoned. A weird character named Masius (George Sanders) has also heard about the money and orders his hit man, Carl (Herbert Fleischmann). to get it, meaning Jeff not only has to get Ulla out of Sumuru's jail but dodge attacks from Carl and his cronies. "Sumuru" first appeared in several novels by Sax Rohmer, the creator of Fu Manchu, but for some reason she is called "Sumanda" in this even as the closing credits list her name as "Sumitra." By any name, The Girl from Rio is an atrocious film, whose only purpose is to combine a trip to Rio for Carnivale with a tax loss. Eaton does her best, Sanders is as professional (and as wasted) as ever, and Wyler [The Strange Door] is also a capable enough actor, but the movie can best be described as a glorified home movie with terrible cinematography and typically poor Jess Franco direction. Sumuru keeps her prisoners in glass cells, half-naked, and entranced by a hypnotic mist. One scene has Jeff "tortured" by having several women crawling all over him and kissing him. The shame of this is that Rohmer's character was an interesting one, with fascinating aspects, but she's been reduced to a cartoon. The novels definitely had a homoerotic edge to them, although Sumuru was clearly interested in men, but in this movie the only sex she has is with another woman. The title tune is pleasant, although it reminds one of "The Girl from Ipanema." Most of the money for this film seems to have been spent on costumes for Eaton and the ladies. The script is by schlockmeister Harry Alan Towers, who also produced the film. Jess Franco's The Awful Dr. Orloff was not as awful as this. Rohmer's character later appeared in the 2003 film Sumuru.

Verdict: Interminable! *.

SHOWGIRLS

SHOWGIRLS (1995). Director: Paul Verhoeven.

"Must be weird -- not having anybody cum on ya."

Tossed around by life, Noni Malone (Elizabeth Berkley) plops down in Las Vegas where she winds up in a competition with an established star named Cristal Connors (Gina Gershon), leading to a sudden eruption of violence and a new, temporary career for Noni. If this had been a cheapjack "B" movie directed by Hugo Haas and starring Cleo Moore or Beverly Michaels, it might have had somewhat more entertainment value than this bloated vehicle that is over two hours long and never develops a clear cut plot or characters despite the huge amount of money paid to Joe Ezsterhas for his cliche-ridden screenplay. 

For the first twenty minutes or so it looks as if Showgirls might at least be fun, but after awhile you realize that the movie is really going nowhere, and that the writer and director are just throwing things at the audience without any real regard for coherency. Does this movie dissect the debasement and objectification of women, or is it a prime example of that very thing -- Showgirls doesn't have enough on its mind you make you care either way. Cristal seems to have a decided hankering for Noni, leading to her jealous bitchiness, but why then do they practically have a love scene together near the end? (Noni's actions at the very end of the movie are even more inexplicable, but then the movie is often not logical.) The filmmakers obviously want to see lots of naked female flesh and girl-on-girl action (or at least the suggestion of same) but there's no real intelligent attempt to explore lesbianism or bisexuality, or anything else in the movie. (Ezsterhas' take on lesbianism is about on the level of his Basic Instinct. This is the kind of movie in which women are "allowed" to have sexual relationships with each other only if they also fool around with men.) 

The movie is less sexy than vulgar (and not in a good way) and one supposedly erotic pool scene between Noni and producer Zack Cary (Kyle MacLachlan) is unintentionally hilarious. (Zack practically sneers at Cristal because of her feelings for Noni.) The "dancing" in the movie is all motion, calisthenics, and attitude, and nothing that would give Fred Astaire any competition. Some of the acting is okay. Berkley has basically a whole movie to carry on her shoulders, and acquits herself competently, even if it can't exactly be called a great performance. Gina Gershon can do little to make her character any more than a stereotype and a dirty joke. Gina Rivera scores as Noni's friend, Molly, who is gang-raped in a horrible scene late in the movie. On the other hand, Lin Tucci is quite disgusting as an obese entertainer, Henrietta, fond of snapping her breasts out of her dress in a topless club whose customers in real life would probably upchuck at the sight or at least head for the men's room. Alan Rachins is on target as an utterly loathsome self-described "prick" who seems to enjoy demeaning his showgirls, but every (straight) man in the movie is a complete asshole, making the movie almost as offensive to guys as it is to the ladies. There's the nice touch of two of the male dancers being a romantic gay couple (mostly in the background), but that's not enough to make this picture seem like anything even remotely progressive. NOTE: For another interesting take on this picture, click here.

Verdict: Some colorful moments, but pretty dreadful. **.

DIE SCREAMING MARIANNE

DIE SCREAMING MARIANNE (1971). Director: Pete Walker.

Marianne Evans (Susan George) is supposed to be marrying Sebastian (Christopher Sandford) when she finds out that someone stupidly filled in the name of their friend, Eli (Barry Evans), on the marriage certificate -- and it's legal. Sebastian only wanted to marry Marianne because he knows that she's heir to a fortune which is coveted by her father (Leo Genn), and half-sister, Hildegarde (Judy Huxtable). Hildegarde unaccountably has a hankering for the unattractive father, but all of the characters in this are a little weird -- without being terribly interesting. They all wind up on the father's estate where unpleasant things occur. Director Pete Walker normally put together horror items like House of Whipcord but this is more of an un-thrilling thriller with a very low-grade production. George is unlikable as both actress and character, Huxtable is adequate, Evans is somewhat appealing, and Genn [Personal Affair] was probably wondering how he wound up in this mess.

Verdict: Not worth a single scream. *1/2.

HEAR ME GOOD

HEAR ME GOOD (1957). Writer/producer/director: Don McGuire.

"I've always wanted to be a Very Important Freak, Mr. Holland."

A hustler named Marty Holland (Hal March) is down on his luck and hopes to make money off of a beauty contest. Unfortunately, his chosen contestant, Rita (Jean Willes), is on the outs with Marty, as is her boyfriend, an unseen gangster. Marty then hits on the idea of entering would-be stewardess Ruth (Merry Anders) in the contest, and surprises her with an outfit that literally falls apart in front of the cameras. Can Marty and Ruth find true love even though he's a heel?  Don McGuire was an actor who appeared in such films as The Fuller Brush Man before he turned to writing and directing; he was a pal of Frank Sinatra's, but it's unfortunate The Voice couldn't importune Dean Martin to star in the film instead of Hal March, whom I have to assume was also a friend of McGuire's. March was the host of The $64,000 Question quiz show, but is probably best known as the dress-selling cad who tries to make a date with Lucy on an episode of I Love Lucy, but in this movie at least he lacks real comedic flair and is distinctly mediocre. Joe E. Ross of Car 54, Where Are You? does his usual shtick, but Jean Willes [Desire Under the Elms] makes an impression as sexy Rita. The production is almost completely stage-bound, as if it were a filmed play, and is neither well-directed nor well-edited. There are a couple of chuckles but the script is poor; McGuire did better work elsewhere. Don McGuire also starred in the title role in the serial Congo Bill.

Verdict: Fuggetaboutit. *1/2.

KISS KISS BANG BANG

 KISS KISS BANG BANG (1966). Director: Duccio Tessari.

Kirk Warren (Giulano Gemma) is about to be executed when he receives a pardon on the condition that he steal a formula the government wants before it can fall into the hands of the mysterious "Mr. X." Warren also wants to be paid a million dollars and when his liaison balks, decides he'll steal the formula for himself. He enlists the help of several aides, including his girlfriend Alina Shakespeare (Nieves Navarro), pulls off the robbery, then is caught in a cat and mouse game of trying to get paid for the formula as he dodges friend and foe alike. There's an acrobat, a parrot named Socrates, a talking pigeon, and an elderly lady who wields a mean cane. Warren is given a gun that emits laughing gas instead of bullets. Of all the James Bond parodies that were made, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang has to be one of the worst. Gemma, with his male model good looks, makes a convincing enough lover boy and anti-hero, there are some good settings, including Venice, and one decent scene when Warren has to parachute out of a plane onto a mountaintop, but mostly the movie is like one of the worst episodes of Batman and about as funny. It's interesting to note Warren uses a car that can go underwater, as in a much later James Bond movie with Roger Moore. The picture's score has musical diversity but is almost uniformly lousy. A dubbed Italian-Spanish co-production.

Verdict: Unfunny and atrocious. *.

THE MILLION EYES OF SUMURU

Shirley Eaton as the evil Sumuru

 THE MILLION EYES OF SUMURU (1967).  Director: Lindsay Shonteff.

 Back in the 1950s Sax Rohmer, the creator of Fu   Manchu, decided to start another series about a  mysterious master villainess named Sumuru.  There were five books in this series. I've only  read two of the five books so far, and they are  fun, if below the fiendish and suspenseful level  of the Fu Manchu novels. But they are all  masterpieces compared to this woeful film  adaptation. In this Sumuru (Shirley Eaton), like  in the books, wants to create a new golden world  via her female helpmates and doesn't care who  she has to kill to get it. Tommy Carter (Frankie  Avalon) and Nick West (George Nader) are  some kind of agents out to stop Sumuru from various plots and assassinations. Million Eyes is cheap and cheap-looking, but the worst problem is the approach, which is meant to be light, even tongue-in-cheek, like a sixties spy film, but instead comes off as stupid. The shame of it is that Eaton [Your Past is Showing] not only looks beautiful in her dark wig but gives an excellent performance, perfectly embodying Sumuru in a way that would probably have pleased Sax Rohmer. The less said about Frankie Avalon, who wandered in from a beach party movie, and  George Nader [Shannon] the better. Nader was capable of some excellent performances, such as in a sixth season episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, but he doesn't seem to have a clue as to how to play his role in a mish mosh like this. As in the novels, Sumuru has a habit of turning her enemies into stone. Wilfred Hyde-White adds a touch of class as Colonel Baisbrook and Klaus Kinski [Circus of Fear] is sort of fun as President Boong and his double. That same year James Coburn starred in In Like Flint, which was also about an all-female organization trying to take over the world. Maybe the screenwriter was a Sumuru fan.

Verdict: Both Sumuru and Sax Rohmer deserve better. Hell, even Frankie Avalon does! *1/2.

GIGLI

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck

GIGLI (2003). Writer/director: Martin Brest.

A "cute" (that is "nice") hit man named Larry Gigli (Ben Affleck of Hollywoodland), and a pretty -- and nice -- hit woman named Ricki (Jennifer Lopez of Monster-in-Law) team up to kidnap and possibly murder a mentally-disabled youth named Brian (Justin Bartha). And this is an (alleged) comedy? Perhaps in a very wild farce with extremely gifted farceurs this may have worked, but Gigli deserves its reputation as one of the worst movies ever made -- what on earth was Brest thinking (no wonder he hasn't worked since)? Let me make it clear that Gigli wasn't just excoriated because of over-exposure to "Bennifer" -- Lopez and Affleck were lovers at the time -- but because it was a tedious and dreadful picture. To make matters worse -- if that's possible -- there is even some homophobic nonsense with Ricki, a committed lesbian, having sex with Larry simply because the real-life couple had to sleep together in the movie! Al Pacino [88 Minutes] is the best thing in the picture as a maniacal mob boss, but there isn't enough of him to save the movie.

Verdict: If only this had been about Beniamino Gigli, the opera singer. This is beyond abysmal. 1/2 star for Pacino.

BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER

BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER (1960). Director: Edgar G. Ulmer.

Major William Allison (Robert Clarke) flies his plane on a test run and somehow manages to cross the time barrier, winding up in a dismal world 64 years in the future. Due to a cosmic plague from space travel, the inhabitants of the underground city he is taken to are mostly sterile deaf mutes, and there are mutants -- with very wrinkled bald pates -- groveling in a prison pit. People who have escaped the plague are contemptuously referred to as "Scapes." Both the Captain (Boyd "Red" Morgan) and Supreme (Vladimir Sokoloff), who are the rulers, suspect Allison of being a spy, although it's hard to imagine why anyone would want to spy on this pathetic "civilization." Other "spies," whose aircraft or spacecraft also crossed the time barrier in later years than Allison's, include General Kruse (Stephen Bekassy of Black Magic), Dr. Bourman (John Van Dreelen of The Leech Woman) and Captain Markova (Arianne Arden Ulmer, the director's daughter). The most sympathetic person in this futuristic world is Trirene (Darlene Tompkins), who seems to have some psychic power and is hoping to repopulate the world with Major Allison. The other "spies" want to help Allison get back to his time so he can prevent the plague, but perhaps they have something more sinister up their sleeves ... Clarke [The Hideous Sun Demon], who also produced, gives a good performance in this, but the movie is old comic book-level sci fi schlock: dying future societies with horrible mutants were nothing new even in 1960, and a couple of interesting ideas are not well-developed. The acting is generally good, with Arianne Ulmer, who had few other credits, credibly bitchy, and the expressive Tompkins, who was introduced in this picture, poor gal, getting things across with no dialogue; she had a few more credits than Ms. Ulmer. Both Sokoloff and Boyd, who wears a ridiculously long and pointy beard in this, had a great many credits. The ending is rather downbeat, especially given that the Major is a pretty decent guy.

Verdict: Could have used a few monsters to liven things up; Clarke deserved better. **.

WHEN THE GIRLS TAKE OVER

James Ellison and Robert Lowery

WHEN THE GIRLS TAKE OVER (1962). Director: Russell Hayden.

On the island of Hondorica, whose chief export is sugar, prime minister Henri Degiere (Marvin Miller) learns that his daughter, Francoise (Ingebord Kjeldsen), has been kidnapped by the Castro-inspired El Maximo Toro ["The Most Bull"] --  who is played by Robert Lowery --  and taken to his island. Francoise, a hellcat, is really Toro's lover, and it's all a plot to get some rifles from Degiere. Texas millionaire Longhorn (James Ellison) brings a bunch of women to Toro's island, and they shave his beard and somehow defeat him. Or something like that. Others trapped in this mess include Jackie Coogan, as Degiere's assistant; Tommy Cook [Missile to the Moon] as native Razmo; and Gabriel Dell [Junior G-Men] as Henderson, Toro's good right arm. Henderson has a pretty girlfriend named Melesa (True Ellison, James Ellison's daughter, who played Snow White in Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm).The music is okay but the attempts at satire are pitiful and the film hasn't got a single laugh.

Verdict: If only the girls had taken over! 1/2 star.

SHARKNADO

Sharks fly through the air in Sharknado

SHARKNADO (2013 telefilm). Director: Anthony C. Ferrante.

A hurricane picks sharks right up out of the water and sends them flying inland where they cause havoc. Leading the charge against the sharks are Fin Shepard (Ian Ziering), feisty if annoying Nova (Cassie Scerbo), and grizzled "old" George (John Heard). This Syfy channel original may have a unique premise but it's sunk by a bad script and mostly mediocre acting, with fair-to-middling computer FX. A scene when Fin attacks a shark falling out of the air with a chainsaw makes little sense since it's unlikely the shark would even survive the drop. Even if you love monster movies there's absolutely no reason to go out of your way to see this one. Gore-geeks will be disappointed that there are no grisly beheadings or disembowelments.

Verdict: For the most part clumsy and stupid. **.