Creature Features Extravaganza: Missile to the Moon

Welcome back to the blog, girls and boys! So last week was me editing the crap out of two movie review videos. The links are up if you want to see them. This week I was looking at a wide range of creature features and thought we could enjoy those. And by "we" I mean me sitting through some of these turds, giving a humorous take on them and you enjoying the write up. This time around we hit a black & white from 1958.  With action, drama, scintillating dialogue...won't be in it.   But how about a mad scientist, two cons on the run and a rocket scheduled to go to the moon?  This is Missile to the Moon.

Sorority sisters rat out Cindy for stuffing her bra.

With director Richard Cunha (She Demons, Giant from the Unknown, Frankenstein's Daughter, Girl in Room 13 and When Strangers Meet)at the helm, what could possibly be to mock at?

For starters not only does this film feel like Catwomen of the Moon it actually has some of the props from it.

For more than 10 years, building and perfecting it, Dr. Dirk Green (MichaelWhalen of Wee Willie Winkie, The Poor Little Rich Girl, The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues, The Dawn Express, My Three Sons and Sea Hunt) has been working with pre-NASA and the government to build better, superior rockets all the while, building his own rocket as well. Like in his backyard in Utah. No, that was not a joke. The colonel of this mission along with Dirk's assistant Steve (Richard Travis of The Man Who Came to Dinner, Mesa of the Lost Women, Cyborg 2087, Lassie, The Legend of Jesse James and Grand Jury) meet with the good doctor with a face-to-face on the news that the funding for his exploration dreams are getting pulled. Guess you don't want to drop that big of a bomb over the phone.

Hold me closer, tiny Colonel.

Arriving as a retirement dinner, Steve and his fiancee June (Cathy Downs of My Darling Clementine, The Amazing Colossal Man, Perry Mason, Surfside 6, Rawhide and Bat Masterson) feel booze and the dullest conversation possible will ease the tension. The tension that is so thick a f*cking lightsaber couldn't cut through it.   Meanwhile two cons have escaped the hoosegow and are looking for a place to hide on the lam.  Naturally Dirk's SPACESHIP isn't guarded, locked up or even inaccessible so those two thinking it was, I don't know maybe a tree fort hide there. Allegedly has an electric fence around it.  Still love they pull back the curtain to Dirk's pad and boom there's the rocket. So adequate engines, fuel, pounds per thrust and no shielding I saw, yeah his house will catch fire the moment of launch. Totally feasible.

With such craftsmanship one could hardly conclude it is a wooden rocket super imposed on a backdrop. Bet you also didn't know that most spaceships have lots of pegboard and flimsy restraints for car batteries as a means of additional electrics. Yeah me either. 

It's clobberin' time!

The sheriff in hot pursuit of these escaped crooks, just asks Dirk if he can look around his pad and is very noncommittal about the giant rocket in his backyard. I mean he had to have attempted some test flights, right? Calculations and preliminary gauging aside, what about the noise and racket of building the damn thing, prepping a launch platform...you know what? Fine, it is totally feasible. What the hell kind of permits would you need for that??!!!

Dirk looks up in the rocket spotting the two hoods and tells the sheriff no one is around. He bribes them with sandwiches, fruits and a few Cokes then tells them they are going into space whether they like it or not. Yeah Green couldn't build a one man rocket so why not make use of these young punks.

Steve and June start looking for Dirk when the pre-flight computer starts blaring, so they go TOWARDS THE BLAST ZONE!!!

Accidentally stowing away, regardless of extra weight, oxygen, fuel and....sorry sorry. TOTALLY FEASIBLE... The five of them are off to the moon. Thankfully they had just enough spacesuits, masks and O2 tanks at the ready. Funny how the moon looks an awful like region for the Vasquez Rocks and of course off to Griffith Park via the Bronson Canyon and the damn caves!!! Why not the 40 Acres in Culver City??!!

Dirk dies from car battery bonking him on the noodle and with his dying words to Steve he hands him this amulet McGuffin to assure them passage. The foolish foursome go and explore with guns. With scrub brush and cacti!!! Dreaded creatures composed of rock proceed to...walk very slowly but threatening our landing party so they proceed to try and drill them...with combustion pistols that has no atmosphere at all. A vacuum one might say. TOTALLY FEASIBLE!!!

Narrowly escaping the incredibly slow moving creatures our heroes head for the caves. Deep in this labyrinth of bat poop is an oxygenated area of the moon inhabited only by women. Con 1 and 2 start falling for the moon girls almost immediately. That's called being horny.

We need about 4,000 gallons of peppermint oil STAT!!!

So the queen mucky muck wants her space broads shipped to Earth and save their culture, blah blah blah. Oh did I mention diamonds just plentiful on the moon? Solves NASA's budget right there. Methinks Armstrong skipped that detail. Con 2 wants the diamonds and makes creeper eyes at all the girls. Seriously, this cat is a thug. This was shot in the seventies it would be Space exploration exploitation and his character would have raped more than half of the girls.

The plot is more thinly veiled than the moon girls, its subplots go really nowhere and ultimately no goal aside from get back home is even made. Also the killer spider puppet in this bit of nonsense is leftover from the 1955 Tarantula.

So good vs evil, Earth Men made mindless by hormones. Yeah there is no real redeeming value to this flick at all. An upside is Rifftrax via Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett of Mystery Science Theater 3000 made it bearable to watch and the riffs are damn funny.

Hey Lonnie, your balls hurt with your pants hiked up too?

B&W Horror: House on Haunted Hill

Welcome back my good and true readers. As we delve into the terrors of the B&W Horror with the prince of darkness himself. Vincent Price. With the potential for murder, mayhem and most long winded malarkey involving dull dialogue and no ability to move ones arms, how could you not be on the edge of your chair? Well if you are, scoot back and relax. This madness hails from 1958. This is House on Haunted Hill.

They're always after me Lucky Charms.

If you're an eccentric millionaire with great big gobs of money, what do you for a good party? Of course you would give folks the chance to winning the amount of ten thousand dollars if they can make it through the night to a haunted house teeming with pesky poltergeists. But who do you invite? Friends and family? Clearly not. How about a smattering of employees, a columnist, a test pilot and maybe even a shrink? How else can you and your wife be entertained but a gathering almost total strangers.

I will out creep you, John Carradine!  I swear this!

Fredrick Loren (Vincent Price of House of Wax, The Fly, Last Man on Earth, House of Usher, Dead Heat, Catchfire The Heart of Justice and Edward Scissorhands) and his stunning new wife Annabelle (Carol Ohmart of The Scarlet Hour, House on Haunted Hill, Spider Baby, Wild Youth, The F.B.I., Barnaby Jones, Mannix, Caxabu and Branded) are having a potty according to the shrink who cannot pronounce an r, Dr. Trent (Alan Marshal of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, After the Thin Man, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Bourbon Street, Day of the Outlaw, Sugarfoot, M. Squad and Surfside 6) with free flowing liquor, loaded firearms and a gaggle of ghouls said to roam the house. Hope that is iron based rounds and not lead then.

Test pilot Lance (Richard Long of Stranger, House on Haunted Hill, The Big Valley, The Girl Who Came Gift Wrapped, Love, American Style, Nanny and the Professor, The Twilight Zone and 77 Sunset Strip) is a martini away from bad touch and is such a klutz I cannot envision the Air Force entrusting this goober with a 15 million dollar aircraft.

Then I feed the entrails to my dark lord and master. More Scotch?

With odd effects and Elisha Cook Jr acting like a demented, drunkard of the Lollypop Guild telling the party goers (potty) of all the horrors of murder, suicide and madness. This murder mystery is only lacking some pesky kids and a yammering dog. Cook plays Watson Pritchard, a wide eyed leprechaun who is convinced the whole house is cursed with the deaths of the previous owners including his brother that has power come for them all.

In spite of this story being a bit on the dull side, the cinematography is impressive, the cast is fairly enjoyable and it is ripe for riffing (movie mockery) if that is something folks love to spout jokes and comments at a flick.

Keep in mind, Rifftrax beat you guys and gals to the professional punch but no reason you shouldn't have some fun with this cinematic goofiness.

Spanish Colonial Outta Control.

1950s Moon Movies: Project Moon Base

Welcome back folks for Day 2 of 1950s Moon Movies. As mentioned I really enjoyed Destination Moon given it was Robert A Heinlein's writing and technical expertise in Spaaaaaaaace!! Alas while today's film is also written by Heinlein(Rocket Ship Galileo, Have Space Suit-Will Travel, Farmer in the Sky, Starman Jones, Red Planet, Starship Troopers and The Puppet Masters) I still feel the execution of the film may fall on its ear. I just have a hard time believing in a really good run of films unless I take it out of my own personal library but dammit we will give this a try. This is Project Moonbase.

Bullet bras of THE FUTURE!!!

In the far distant future of 1970... General Greene (Hayden Rorke of Father's Little Dividend, Pillow Talk, The Night Walker, I Dream of Jeannie, Police Woman and Arthur Hailey's the Moneychangers) needs perspective bases scouted out but the scuttlebutt is foreign spies are attempting to undermine their mission so has to have his best pilots to investigate.

To the public, it looks like yet another visit to the moon is led by Colonel Briteis (Donna Martell of Abbot and Costello Meet the Killer, Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, Ten Wanted Men, Outlaws, Bonanza and Grace Kelly) needing to be the objective and snap decision maker that she is. (See kids, Robert A Heinlein's novels did their level best to give equality to men and women and show they were capable of every dangerous scenario men were) Briteis is annoyed to with Greene giving her Major Bill Moore (Ross Ford of Challenge to Lassie, Air Hostess, Project Moon Base, Reform School Girl, Assignment: Underwater, The Case of the Dangerous Robin, Rawhide and My Living Doll) as her co-pilot.

Oh God, I farted in my suit and the filter isn't working!

In spite of him being one of the best pilots in the service, Moore and Briteis have some serious friction between them. Moore was passed over for a promotion and is rather pissed that he has to serve under a woman. Imagine such a thing. There is enough sexual tension between these two they could power a rocket themselves. Briteis has difficulties with patching up the radio and tuning it properly and Moore grumbles, talks under his breath and gets the job done. Apparently there is a saboteur on-board the ship that damaged the vessel. Briteis has to put the ship down for repairs. Still when you hear a bit of dialogue like, "Major, I think you're space happy," it may come off as a bit of camp and well you would be correct. My biggest problem of this film is Briteis doesn't even come across as competent and capable but an eager beaver and almost like a petulant girl.

Okay a quick few points to make. While Heinlein was damn progressive, the 1950s could only allow so much via film so yes you have a female leader and for that matter, a female president giving a bit more weight to the writing but, they need to be coaxed or motivated by men. Yup. A woman could manage a position of power but clearly they are so bird brained they need a pat on the head and a treat for a job well done. Charming. The other issues is this was a pilot for a TV serial that apparently didn't get picked up. Most of the costumes and props hailed from Cat Women of the Moon so um... glad they recycled?

Why yes, I am white and doughy but what's yer point?

Now given this is a Heinlein write-up, you can really feel his influence in the female characters but the tropes of their incompetency really detracts the progressive ideals he went with. Methinks some producers couldn't have "broads" outshining the fellas. Ugh. That being said, this is really the building blocks of future female protagonists that can kick ass and smile while doing it. Maria Von Trapp, Leia, Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, Alex Owens of Flashdance, Clarice Starling of Silence of the Lambs,Cher Horowitz of Clueless to name a few.

If anything, Mad Max: Fury Road is hailed a bit too high for doing the very thing that movies have managed for some time now. Creating a strong, intelligent and capable female character is not difficult but above all else, don't forget the heart, writers. 

Sorry can't get Wheel in the Sky out of my head. Damn catchy tune.

Joan Crawford Week: Johnny Guitar

Howdy folks and welcome to Day 4 of Joan Crawford Week. We are a moseyin' into Old Timey West with Ms. Crawford today as we enjoy a Western that gender swaps making Crawford the real hero of the flick and Sterling Hayden the plucky heroine?? With this amazing cast and direction by Nicolas Ray (Flying Leathernecks, On Dangerous Ground, The Lusty Men, Run for Cover, Rebel Without a Cause and Bitter Victory) it is a wonder why this is only a cult classic and not a much more beloved western. This is Johnny Guitar.

BARTENDER!!! I SAID A BOTTLE OF VODKA!!!

Our opening sequence is Johnny Logan (Sterling Hayden of Battle Taxi, Timberjack, The Last Command, The Killing, Valerie and Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb) riding away from a series of explosions through a hillside. I mean this is action hero worthy of his stalwart bad-ass self.

In a town of the outskirts of Sedona Arizona, this cattle town (amazingly enough more than one horse) a smart, aggressive saloon owner and operator Vienna (Joan Crawford of Grand Hotel, The Women, Susan and God, Possessed, Flamingo Road and The Damned Don't Cry) supports the coming track of a new railroad in spite of the rest of the townsfolk declaring it will be the end of their way of life. She even allows the The Dancin' Kid (Scott Brady of Blood Arrow, Shotgun Slade, Five Bloody Graves, Hell's Bloody Angels, Bonnie's Kids and Police Story) and his compatriots to enjoy the saloon, gambling and liquor a plenty.

Crap! Are they mining out here??!!!

The lead cattle rancher with the most head of cattle and acreage, John McIvers (Ward Bond of The Maltese Falcon, It's a Wonderful Life, The Searchers Wagon Train and Rio Bravo) gots a cactus burr in his rear saddle about how Vienna is a doin' things around these here parts are determined to run Vienna out of town and a previous stick-up of the stage coach is a good enough reason to lay blame. Ah, mob mentality. Vienna doesn't give them an inch and refuses to back down with a little bit of help from Johnny Guitar himself they shoo these cowpokes out easily. Vienna and Johny seem to have one of the hotter love/hate relationships as they banter, snark and flirt back and forth through the better portion of the second act until McIvers tells them that they and the Dancin' Kid and crew have just 24 hours to skidaddle or shootin' irons will do all their talking.

Will the Kid and crew give the town a major shoot up? Will McIvers get the surgery needed to pull that stick out of his ass? Will Vienna and Johnny ever make heads or tails of their past and present relationship?

A tiny amount of trivia on the flick. With theme song by Peggy Lee and Victor Young, the instrumental is played throughout the movie. Filmed in Mono this film also used the tired concept of Trucolor prior to Technocolor... Watch it in black and white, folks. So much better and people don't look peach colored that way.

Joan Crawford insisted on her close-ups only to be filmed in the studio, where the lighting could be controlled. Not one of her close-ups was shot on location. Sterling Hayden stated: "There is not enough money in Hollywood to lure me into make another picture with Joan Crawford. And I like money."

Yup, that's me, Johnny.  

Sci-Fi of 1950's Week: Frankenstein's Daughter

Welcome back for Sci-fi’s Week of the 1950’s and I thought let’s tap into a legacy that is Horror and a name that speaks of evil and twisted.  That would be none other than Frankenstein.   Yes thanks to Hollywood and its need to dragging Mary Shelly’s creation through more than its fair share of B-Movie ancestry these films have been put on the screen with their more than fair share of plot holes.  For example, how could an obsessed man mocking God’s work manage to have time to create offspring with a woman.  Surely the skibbling off in the middle of the night to animate the dead would be a turn off for most women but perhaps I am jumping the gun.  This is Frankenstein’s Daughter.

My God, he is still talking.

Elsu: Your father and grandfather never used a spoiler brain.

Oliver Frank: No. The way the female’s brain is conditioned to a man’s world.  Therefore it takes orders where the other ones didn’t.

Welcome to L.A. in 1958 as our movie begins a bushy eye browed creature with giant bucked teeth roams the streets at night just as Suzie (Sally Todd of The Unearthly, The Viking Women and the Sea Serpent, Dragnet, M Squad and G.I. Blues) returns from her date with boyfriend in tow and she shrills at the mere sight of this girl.  Open credits and cut to the next morning as Suzie’s friend Trudy (Sandra Knight of Thunder Road, Tales of Wells Fargo, Bourbon Street Beat, Tate, Surfside 6 and Tower of London) meet up for tennis of which Suzie gabs almost endlessly about this misshapen girl with her killer unibrow and terrifying teeth.   This tale brings about strange and garbled memories for Trudy as if she may have been this monster Suzie spoke of. 

Should a demented madman offer a lady a Tiparillo?

Enter Professor Morton (Felix Locher of Hell Ship Mutiny, Desert Hell, Thunder in the Sun, The Firebrand and California) who is attempting to devise a fountain of youth serum for men and his assistant Oliver Frank (Donald Murphy of Killer Leopard, Shack Out on 101, Lord Love a Duck and Swamp Girl) has a look of contempt for the elder man that would rival most serial killers.  This Frankenstein is the lowest of the low as he spikes Trudy’s drinks with the professor’s formula causing Trudy to metamorphosis into that Neolithic creature of earlier.  He somewhat convinces Suzie to go out on a date with him, tries a little park and necking of which she stomps out of the car.  Rather than apologizing for mixed signals he gets the idea of dropping into low gear and running her down.  Our suave fellow feels a female monster would be more docile and easier to control.  Clearly he needed to rent a copy of Species to point out how that was a bad concept.

Our Frankenstein is cruel, sexist and quite frankly unworthy of the family title yet gets to carry on as he does.   With cliché dialogue about man playing God, the monsters looking a bit on the gooey side and depictions of teenagers in the fifties this straight to the drive-in film is perfect for a bad movie crowd.  If you were looking for a dramatic and clever standing on this age old tale well keep on looking Jack cause nothing really redeeming here.

Gary Busey after the bike accident.

Sci-fi of the 1950's Week: Robot Monster

Hello everyone and yes I know this week has been an odd one but my sinuses are playing merry merry hell with me and it has been a bit difficult to focus.  That in mind I reviewed a brilliant film that captured the mind and soul…two days ago.  This movie however is no cinematic opus but rather it was rated, reviewed and reviled as one of the subject matter for the 1978 book The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (And How They Got That Way).  Granted most of their reasons of such were due to poor film quality, lack of restoration, poor audio and well yes it is also a stinkburger.   Those in mind, take on some emergency rations, prep the charcoal filters for the water and don’t pick a fight with a gorilla like being.  This is Robot Monster.

Dear God, I can barely breathe in this helmet!

Great One: Earth Ro-man, you violate the laws of plans.  To think for yourself is to be like the hu-man.

Ro-man: Yes! To be like the spoiler! To laugh! Feel! Want! Why are these things not in the plan?

Our vivid visual opens with the alien known as Ro-man Extension XJ-2 looking down Bronson Canyon via Griffith Park as he observes he has wiped out all humanity with his Calcinator Death Ray to his Supreme commander known as Great One.  Yeah typical B-movie with no budget response is to give greater description to your nonsensical.   It would appear his calculations were off as 8 humans are alive and well. 

An overtly complicated exposition about developing an immunity to the ray, a scientist, his wife, two daughters, his 8 year old son and 2 pilots are kept safe by this energy curtain developed by  The Professor…I kid you not that is the character’s name in credits but is played by none other than character actor John Mylong (The Devil Pays Off, For Whom the Bell Tolls, His Kind of Woman, Magnificent Obsession and Never Say Goodbye) and this is also Roy (George Nader’s first exposure to film to  later TV and Film gems like: Nowhere to Go, The Man and the Challenge, The Loretta Young Show, Shannon, A Walk by the Sea, The Human Duplicators and Espionage in Lisbon) shows some decent chops versus Ro-Man, slayer of the world.  

Post Apocalyptic Family Robinson.

Okay a quick few comments on this momentous movie.  Once again, projects large and small, Bronson Canyon is made to suffer.  As a spot for caverns and quarries for TV and Film for decades from anything of Bert I. Gordon’s The Magic Sword, Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes and Star Trek episodes to the crazy bunch of the Tremors creators of Stampede Entertainment, this entire movie was filmed in this rather large expanse of geography. 

Now while they were saving money on locations, maybe a continuity director would have been nice.  The wee lad Johnny clearly seen wearing jeans and he enters the cave gets knocked out and over only to awake wearing a pair of shorts.   The Professor is proud to perform a marriage ceremony for Roy and his daughter Alice holding onto a book in his hand one shot and then the next, poof it is gone.

The amusing thing about this terribly done film is that it is beloved by many a bad movie lover and has actually made over a million dollars for the span of its existence.  Given it had only $1000 on the books for production that even a flop can get some love.

Another Craigslist hookup begins with shame.

1950's Sci-Fi Week!!!

Yes, yes I know I have been AWOL for the last few days.  Sleeping habits are being more horrendous than usual so allow me the opportunity to apologize to my readers up front.  I am sorry, gang.   With that in mind I will be doing a collection of films from the 1950's via Science Fiction. Some good, some bad but all fifties.  Why the fifties?  Well considering this is where Lucas, Carpenter, Speilberg and Cronenberg grew up with and influenced my generation, I feel it only fitting and proper to absorb what wild and bizarre may have touched them.

Earthlings! Prepare to be probed...vigorously.

With this in mind we will be experiencing films of Howard Hawks caliber to things like Robot Monster. It shall as always be a grab bag of cheers and jeers so buckle up kiddies, because this one we may never return from...or you know, we will just learn about some films...kinda like any other time.