“In nuclear research, there is no room for lone wolves.”

IMDB lists the budget of this sci-fi meller as an estimated $105,000. Considering how much 1953 dollars were capable of buying on an independent production, that figure seems a sizable over-estimation. The camerawork is good, it has capable performers and a number of sets, but the big stuff is borrowed from a 1934 German film called GOLD, and much stock footage is also used. This is about as threadbare a decent fright film as I can recall until the turn-of-the-century cycle begun with THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT.

THE MAGNETIC MONSTER is the brainchild of Curt Siodmak, who can’t stop reminding us that he is indeed a brain (not DONOVAN’S BRAIN, also his). The film is meant to exist primarily in the realm of scientific ideas, such things not being subject to budgetary restraints. We hear an introductory voice over intoning about modern science, and the potential threats to mankind there in, which would make Nigel Kneal’s head spin. The script is the work of Siodmak and Ivan Tors, but having known Siodmak, I can certainly feel his voice throughout, but there’s only so much sci-fi-chatter one can absorb if one is going to a movie to see something happen. The big act Two crisis, a building imploding, is talked about in the protagonist’s home and never seen (not even its aftermath). The big third act extravaganza, while effective, is the aforementioned borrowed footage.

Richard Carlson, the film’s lead, plays an earnest member of the Office of Scientific Investigation, uncovering potential worldwide atomic threats. We see him with his doting, pregnant wife periodically , so as to lend a domestic, human side to his character, and to introduce a thread of concern about the fate of an unknowing population, vulnerable fetuses, etc., should the threat become a cataclysm. He’s solid, though best when intent on solving the planet-imperiling problem, and less effective when playing the concerned hubby.

Leonard Mudie plays Dr. Denker, a rogue scientist who is lugging around a dangerously unstable element in a briefcase ( REPO MAN anyone?) . He ends up dying of radio-active poisoning on a plane, lending the film such a convincing air of thespian honesty that the gears reverse and the narrative becomes quite compelling, and also upsetting (everyone on the plane is probably contaminated to some degree, a la Mike and Velda in KISS ME DEADLY). From that point on we’ve got a real investment in what’s going to happen. I also liked Mudie two years later as the old health club concierge who gets slapped around mercilessly by bully/gumshoe Ralph Meeker in none other than KISS ME DEADLY.

King Donovan is Carlson’s right hand man, Dan Forbes. Laid-back and contemplative, but devoted to his job, he still somehow manages to communicate a sense of doubt about the usefulness of what these A(for atom)-Men are up to, Carlson included. Playing it real, he gives the spine of the film another solid disc to sit on. He would turn in a highly memorable performance three years later in the original INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. Off-celluloid he was married to Sid Caesar’s TV partner, comedienne Imogene Coca, until his death in 1987.

On the downside cast-wise, Byron Foulger, an interesting character actor who plays agitation well, with tremors in his voice as its pitch rises under duress, feels played to elicit amusement from the audience. Even though he’s a prissy boss, there’s an unwanted caricaturishness in his first act setup of the crisis. Once the A-Men investigate the floor above his store and find a human arm protruding from underneath a pile of boxes, things begin to get grim, and the airplane sequence erases any early missteps in casting/direction.

The tone is docu-drama. Long takes. Voice over. Often newsreel-like grain. One library footage scene of jet planes refueling in mid-air was used to considerably more surreal effect by Stanley Kubrick in the title sequence of DOCTOR STRANGELOVE.

The tight shots of family planning between Carlson and Byron are slightly painful but also integral. And the eponymous monster, with its unleashed appetite, anticipates the hopefully-just-paranoid fears at large today about current scientific experiments which might create an earth-swallowing black hole.

There were a number of super-low budget theatrical releases around this time. Excluding Roger Corman’s vast repertoire, others that come to mind are ROCKETSHIP XM (budget est. $94,000) and FIVE (written, produced and directed by Arch Oboler, and shot in a Frank Lloyd Wright house for invaluable, non-art-directed production value). These three are all of lasting value. Soft historically, perhaps, but worthy nonetheless. And most similar is GOG, very much carved out of the same mold, by some of the same key people, for a budget of $150,000 more allowing for color and the ability to use all their own effects, props, and sets. These two are reviewed currently on FIR’s site, and they belong together for etermity.

GOG. Sounds like…

Remember THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL? The giant robot that walks out of the flying saucer, capable of destroying the earth with a flick of its visor? Its name was Gort. Sounds like…

Now, I don’t know that Ivan Tors picked up on the religious undertones of the Robert Wise film. The critics sure didn’t at the time. Neither did Wise or his producer Julian Blaustein. But three years later and we’ve got another robot with a similar moniker. I’m just sayin’….

GOG was a scary flick for kids. I went to see it several times back in ’54 in 3D. The idea of technology turning on its creators as if it were alive was really frightening. The 3D wasn’t great as I recall, still it’s too bad that, according to IMBD (bolstered by the fact that the film has never played in 3D at the Film Forum in NYC), the one remaining matching set of 3D reels is both faded and out of registration.

I don’t remember the color being this lovely, so maybe what we’ve lost in gimmickry, we’ve gained in picture quality. The art department did a nice and dedicated job thinking out the results of all the applied research. Lighting is a bit TV in its generality, but that isn’t overly bothersome, and probably suits an underground installation.

The plot: in an underground advanced science lab, the individual projects seem to be turning against the technicians, resulting in some nasty deaths by freezing, centrifuge acceleration, extreme sound vibrations, etc. Government investigator Richard Egan comes to visit, looking for an answer to the growing threat. There is no second act demarcation, just a long series of visits to the various experimental chambers to observe the scientists work their wonders, followed by instances in which these experiments turn on their creators. The eponymous robot and his twin brother Magog are introduced about 40 minutes in, and once we see them, we know they’re going to figure into the climax in some insidious way.

The oddly episodic nature of the narrative lives or dies on viewer interest in each new experiment, and on the casting choices. For the most part, I liked the casting, particularly stalwart, practically humorless Egan (LOVE ME TENDER, THE 300 SPARTANS) who lends the proceedings some gravitas. Herbert (PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, THE FLY) Marshall as lab boss Dr. Van Ness, and Austrian John Wengraf as a cold, egomaniacal scientist responsible for the supercomputer and his pet robots, are also grounded and engaging. Wengraf is particularly well cast physically – there are veins standing out all over his forehead, which somehow suggests his high intelligence. And even more interesting, unfriendly as he is, he’s likeable. When the Doctor Who-like robots turn on the humans, he keeps his cool to the bitter end.

Even after all those viewings back in the 50s, I thought the suggestion was that some outer space intelligence was responsible for all the mayhem. Now, I’m not so sure. It seems like someone abroad might have been futzing around with NOVAC, the installation’s super-computer. Several homing devices are discovered hidden in the lab, and although the enemy rocket flying over head is destroyed, no one is ever assigned the blame for placing the miniature devices in the lab. I wonder if, in a longer cut, the saboteur was revealed. In any case, in retrospect it seems more like a commie plot, typical of the times, after all.

As with the same company’s previous (1953), smaller, B&W film THE MAGNETIC MONSTER, GOG’s screenwriters take great pride in trying to entertain us with serious meditations on scientific progress and theory. I can tell you that as a ten year old, all that mumbo jumbo didn’t bother me one bit, or hinder my involvement in the story. Today, though the script’s cerebral speculation is hit and miss, it is laudable that Tors was spearheading a couple of sci-fi flicks such as these. Much of the science still holds up (IBM is on display…as is a Coca Cola mcahine – product promotion I would assume) while other aspects have been invalidated, but that’s okay. 2001 will probably have a hit/miss ratio as well when we catch up to its ideas in practice.

If you can take a double-bill of striking sameness, these two titles, released recently, within a month of each other, from the MGM archives (unintentionally, perhaps) would be a kind of ultimate pairing.

WHERE’S VELDA?

The complete, two-season, 78-episode collection is certainly an exciting event. At first there appeared to be more wrong with it than there was right with it, but for Mike Hammer completists it would, under any circumstances, represent a wonderful unearthing from the treasure troves of early TV.

Initially it felt like a low-rent series, shot quickly, with few takes and insufficient coverage. In the premiere episode – ‘The High Cost of Dying’ – which should be a showcase for what the series is capable of, one of the key actresses (Lynn Allen) flubbed her lines a few times, but rather than go for another take, she and Darren McGavin just kept on gamely plugging away. The dialogue felt clumsily faux-noir (McGavin’s voice over narration sounded as if he was rehearsing for KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER, the horror-noir series which would come his way two decades later). McGavin himself, giving it his best, still seldom radiated the sympathetic notes he was capable of, at least not in that opening episode. And the score was a bit clunky, often mickey-mousing the action. But most distressing of all was the absence of Velda. What Mike Hammer film or series would be complete without her? I hoped that she would show up in the second season, but no such luck.

I then ventured into the second season, to see how the production quality had progressed. The title I chose was ‘”Requiem For a Sucker”. Sounded good, but was pretty much the same quality of the first season premiere. Flaccid and forgettable.

And yet there were nice elements too. Despite a disclaimer refrain about the quality of the materials used, the image was quite nice. There were occasional sound drop-outs, but they barely broke the pace.

Tight as the budgets must have been, the productions managed to fit in nice location work around New York City, as well as in upstate locales, etc., particularly effective as it transported me back to a world over fifty years gone.

Directors tended to be TV journeymen, revolving to keep the schedule going. Boris Sagal worked on many TV series over the years, including Rod Taylor’s ‘Hong Kong,’ which has yet to surface, and boasts one of the most violent fight scenes ever created for the tube (in the episode called ‘Colonel Cat’). But probably Sagal’s ticket to immortality was 1971′s THE OMEGA MAN with Charlton Heston, a camp classic version of Richard Matheson’s ‘I Am Legend.’

The box covers boast about guest stars such as Angie Dickinson, Barbara Bain, Robert Vaughn, Hershel Bernardi, and DeForest Kelley, but overlook such 50s ‘B’ icons as Gloria Talbot, Joan Taylor, Robert Clarke, Allison Hayes, Yvette Vickers, Madlyn Rhue, Tom Neal, Dorothy Provine, and Abby Dalton.

Now Yvette Vickers, who was barely an actress but quite a looker, appeared in some cheapo delights like ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES. She also posed for Playboy, quite wonderfully. Today, sadly, and from today onward, she’ll be remembered for her demise, up in the Hollywood hills, lying on the floor while a nearby standing heater cooked the juices out of her for a year before her mummified body was discovered. Naturally I had to skip to this episode, partially out of morbid curiosity, but also because I liked her looks back in the day.

Well, it’s a good thing I did. ‘Scar and Garter’ was a really fun episode. It didn’t have as much of a rushed feeling, the location manager did a great job securing a quirky, ‘B’-level SUNSET BOULEVARD location, and the script was loaded with mouth-dropping surprises and details. The director of this one was Lawrence Dobkin, who had acted in countless TV shows (as well as features such as THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS) and directed quite a few episodics. I wondered if, knowing the grueling schedule they were up against, the MIKE HAMMER staff & crew didn’t decide to pull a John Ford – two for you, churned out passionlessly, then one for us, treated with care on all levels. Because this one was awfully good, and it was probably even more impressive in ’58.

And Yvette? Well, acting may not have been one of her strengths, but she sure looked great.

I decided that since I’d been third time lucky, maybe I should stay in the game a little longer. This time I went for Allison Hayes in “Mere Maid”, directed by our old friend Boris Sagal, who hadn’t done well by the material in the pilot episode…or maybe it was the material that hadn’t done well by him. But this time we had a strong script with a great first act. Hammer is taking a weekend off upstate at a picturesque lake, and a flirty little mermaid lures him over to her side of the pond where all the wealthy weekenders are hanging out. The plot breaks loose from there, and emotions run pretty wild. Hammer gets to smooch up another doll, and figures out the sly manipulations behind a murder. There’s an obviously staged climactic fist-fight, but otherwise it’s a solid episode, and Ms. Hayes wasn’t at all bad.

I couldn’t stop now. I had to have a gander at Gloria Talbott. Who can ever forget her in I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE, with her striking, pointed features… Well she’s lovely in this one, too (aged 27), and it’s a fine supporting cast. James Westerfield as a corrupt DA was cut out of the M. Emmet Walsh mold, and he’s really solid, as are H.M Wynant as Deputy Moran and Rusty Lane as Sheriff Al Miller. The cinematography is the best yet, with rich blacks and whites, and the narrative generates real fear about Hammer’s safety when he butts heads with purveyors of small town corruption. There was that name again – Boris Sagal. I guess I had to cut the guy a break. Two for three. That’s a good deal in my book.

“Look at the Old Man Go” was next on my hit list. I was captivated from the get-go as it was filmed in my upper West Side Manhattan neighborhood. I’d forgotten why I chose it until I realized that I’d been looking at a very young Angie Dickinson (also aged 27) for a few minutes without even recognizing her. And while she’s good in the episode, and changes flashy outfits several times, the plot was far too convoluted for my nighttime viewing brain. At one point, one of the key players says she can’t follow what’s happening anymore. Amen. And yet it starts off wild like a good noir should, and it’s a plenty fun episode. Reminded me of noirs like THE BIG SLEEP, the ones that keep you involved but in the end it isn’t at all clear what just went down.

As you can imagine, in its attempt to be true to Spillane’s immortal protagonist, there are healthy doses of macho machinations and compromised women in trouble. The general depiction of women in the series is an amusing sign of the accepted behavior and social attitudes of the times, but also it’s as Spillane might have wished it. He so despised KISS ME DEADLY for tampering with his hero. This series tries a bit harder to adhere to the author’s tenets. No matter how rough and chauvinistic Mike was, he did have ethics and often upbraided his clients for asking him to do things that were ethically inappropriate. McGavin definitely portrays that guy. Ralph Meeker’s Hammer wouldn’t have given unethical behavior a second thought.

But I’d love to know what the heck happened to Velda?

What kept this one down in the vaults all these years? QUATERMASS AND THE PIT (FIVE MILLIION YEARS TO EARTH) and QUATERMASS 2 (ENEMY FROM SPACE) have both been in release for quite a while. And now that it’s out, although it bears its original UK release title, I miss it’s American moniker, THE CREEPING UNKNOWN. I saw it several times back in 1956, so the US title has sentimental value for me.

This was a pivotal production for Hammer Films, adapting the popular early Brit TV series into a no-kids-allowed theatrical version. It did great business and steered them away from film noir quota-quickies and into sci-fi-horror and, shortly thereafter, into the Gothic Horror field that would be their bread-and-butter and their legacy.

Val Guest adapted the script and strove to give the film its documentary sensibility whenever possible. He also introduced the Frankenstein-monster-and-little-Maria sequence about midway through, a nice touch, which would be reprised yet again in CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN. There’s only one false note in the entire 82-minute running time, and that is when a drunken female derelict comes into the police station complaining about seeing a monstrous thing. There’s an artificial comic tone to this scene that I’ve noticed in other Hammer films, as if they felt it was a necessary rhythmic break – but they were almost always mistaken.

Nigel Kneale, the author of the original broadcast series’, was so affronted by American actor Brian Donlevy’s brusque, egomaniacal take on his beloved creation that he ranted about it for the rest of his life. Personally I love Donlevy in this, and in its sequel. I think he very much embraced the cold, self-involved and not necessarily humanistic image the Brits had of scientists following the war, a group not to be trusted (along with military and certain governmental types). QUATERMASS AND THE PIT has them all, except that in that 1967 film Quatermass is humanized by Andrew Keir, more in line with how Kneale envisioned him.

In THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT, three men go up into space, but only one comes back, and he’s not who he was when he left. Richard Wordsworth plays Victor Carroon, the doomed astronaut taken over by some monstrous force that has designs on our planet, with a surprising range of emotions. The film has its quotient of creepiness, scares, and upsetting makeup effects. It also has intelligent dialogue, and a strong directorial hand that keeps it moving quickly through its 82 minutes, by far my favorite running time when I was a kid.

I show this film every year in my History of Horror class at the School of Visual Arts, and they always ‘get it’ and enjoy it, applauding appreciatively after it ends. It’s gratifying to see this little sci-fi thriller working its wonders 50+ years since its debut.

BEST FILMS OF 2011 by Roy Frumkes

So much fun to do these, but always hanging over them, for all of us I’m sure, are the possible choices we might have made had we only seen a few more…

THE SKIN I LIVE IN – Almodovar remains one of the world’s great modern filmmakers. Here, his elaboration on EYES WITHOUT A FACE has some great plot twists and revelatory moments.

LIMITLESS – I’m very impressed when Hollywood surpasses itself by giving us intelligent scripts and direction. I couldn’t have cared less about the promise of the film’s log line: “What if a pill could make you rich and powerful.” I mean…who cares? Invisible — now that’s a pill I’d take. But fortunately, the film went way beyond its promise. Editing, cinematography, emotional investment – all terrific.

SOURCE CODE – Same genre, and even better. Duncan Jones does such a fine job realizing the potential of this taut, intelligent, complicated thriller. Jake Gyllenhaal has had two fine performances in a row (the other: LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS). But I must add, I thought it was the worst title of the year. I have trouble remembering it, and I don’t know what it means.

THOR – Kenneth Branaugh, an actor’s director, makes sure his cast shines in this Summer tent-pole extravaganza.

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS – Woody’s done alright since he left NYC. The real-life elements in his latest foray are a bit flaccid, but once you arrive at that gorgeously lit street at midnight, all fantasy breaks loose. The less you know the better, but the EXTERMINATING ANGEL joke is a riot (forget I said that…). The man refuses to make films for lowbrow audiences, though I’m told this was actually his biggest hit.

THE GUARD – What a great screenplay. When I put the DVD in the player, I know I’ll have the subtitles on, but still. Terrific, cynical performance by Brendan Gleeson. Don Cheadle lags a little behind, but isn’t bad.

CAPTAIN AMERICA – I think I’m in a lonely camp with this one, but Joe Johnston has a grip on nostalgia like no other current director. The narrative is thoughtful, the images beautifully framed, and his subdued color palette is simply lovely. I still can’t get over him using Rondo Hatton in ROCKETEER (just out on BluRay), and I thought he got a bad rap on THE WOLFMAN. There was a lot to like in that over-produced film, not the least of which was that he actually paid homage to the Universal original, unlike the remake of THE MUMMY.

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES – On this one I’m going to be boringly redundant. A textbook example of how tight editing can rescue a film from CGItis. And as my friend Tony Lover likes to say, “An E-motion picture.”

THE DESCENDANTS – Affectionately offbeat, uniformly well-acted.

J. EDGAR – DeCaprio and Armie Hammer, I assume, each had their own make-up artists for the grueling older age makeups. Bravo for DeCaprio’s. Too bad about Hammer’s. The film is hurt by this discrepancy in makeup artistry, but the screenplay is all poetry of the kind that graced THE SOCIAL NETWORK last year. And Eastwood…well, I really liked HEREAFTER, which should tell you how I feel about the guy. Much as he’s appreciated, I don’t think he’s appreciated nearly enough.

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO – As good as the original, and the extra fifteen or so minutes helps clarify things. I liked Michael Nyqvist better than Daniel Craig (who was very good), I think the war of the Lizbeths came out a draw, and Stellan Skarsgard gives one of the best supporting performances of the year.

SHERLOCK HOLMES: GAME OF SHADOWS – This is a fascinating one for me. I strongly disliked the original. Not just didn’t enjoy it; I was offended by it. This one I had real fun with. It seems like they solved everything that bothered me, although Downey remains a tad too smarmy. But the gay subtext between him and Jude Law is much stronger and much more satisfying, the villain and the villain’s henchman are better, and the action and set direction are just as good if not a smidge better.

That’s twelve, so I can’t mention THE DOUBLE HOUR, DETECTIVE DEE (I’ll leave that for Mark Gross), HUGO, STAKELAND, and THE SUPER. Not to mention my own THE DEFINITIVE DOCUMENT OF THE DEAD.

BEST AUDIO-VISUAL MEDIA MOMENTS OF THE YEAR

* Paul apologizing for the flying saucer taking too long to leave (PAUL).

* Hopikins taking a cell-phone call during an exorcism (THE RITE).

* The Academy Awards Obit Montage with each of the deceased celebs slowing smiling.

* The house collapsing on Green and his wife (KILL THE IRISHMAN).

* Wilson selling Bunuel on THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL [forget I said that…] (MIDNIGHT IN PARIS).

* Casey Anthony’s expressions on being acquitted (TV – July).

* “I’m not gonna kiss ya!” as delivered by Tommy Lee Jones (CAPTAIN AMERICA).

* Hearing Morricone’s music at the beginning of the new THE THING.

* Caesar realizing something’s wrong with John Lithgow and helping him use his fork correctly (RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES).

BEST DVDS/BLURAYS OF 2011

I CLOWNS (Raro Video)

SILENT NARUSA (Criterion)

ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS, NOT OF THIS EARTH, WAR OF THE PLANETS (Shout Factory)

MOGULS AND MOVIE STARS – 7-PART DOC (Warner Bros)

KISS ME DEADLY (Criterion)

LOST KEATON – 16 SHORTS (Kino)

BEN-HUR 59TH ANNIVERSARY BOXED RELEASE (Warner Bros)

THE ESSENTIAL LAUREL & HARDY SOUND SHORTS AND FEATURES (RHI Entertainment)

CITIZEN KANE DELUXE BOXED RELEASE (Warner Bros)

THE SANDS OF THE KALAHARI (Olive)

And from the various on-line Archives:

THE OUTFIT, PHAEDRA, ROLLING THUNDER, THE WHITE BUFFALO, THE BLACK SLEEP, THE AMBULANCE, BILLY TWO-HATS, QUEEN OF BLOOD, THE BIG BOODLE, MY GUN IS QUICK, DARK OF THE SUN, THE SAINT COLLECTION, HICKEY AND BOGGS, THE MUSIC LOVERS, THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT.

Continue to Mark Gross’ picks…

This film suffers from a textbook case of split personality. I’m not overly fond of Robert Wise’s contribution as director, if in fact he cast the leads, although I’ve read that his first choice for Tony (which went to Richard Beymer) was Elvis, and that would have radically changed my opinion. As it turned out, it was hard to direct the dramatic sequences in the film against the obstacle of inappropriate casting, whereas Jerome Robbins, who directed four of the musical interludes (before he was fired), choreographed some of the most dynamic dance sequences ever put on celluloid.

And so it’s the musical sequences I observed and listened to with the most enthusiasm while watching the BluRay. For sure, musically they outshine the DVD’s acoustics. Even more amazing, there’s a Play function which jumps to the musical numbers and intersperses relatives of the original team, etc., who talk about the sequences. Leonard Bernstein’s daughter, for example, reveals that it was Jerome Robbins, in the opening cityscape dance, who suggested the snapping of fingers. That one inspiration is critical enough that the film wouldn’t have been the WEST SIDE STORY we treasure without it.

Next you can jump from song to song with commentary by Stephen Sondheim. And therein lies another necklace strung with revelations. Originally the Russ Tamblyn-led gang, using comic books as a departure point, went to the moon and back. Robbins nixed it, wanting the dance and body language to say it all.

Also, Sondheim is critical of much of the lyrics, which would be heresy if it were not coming out of the author’s mouth. He particularly is embarrassed by ‘I Feel Pretty’, the lyrics of which he insists are inappropriate coming out of Maria’s mouth, but he was anxious to prove he could create more complex rhymes.

I must comment on the condition of the MGM lion. In both the DVD and BluRay, I’ve never seen that lion so sharply defined. They must have transferred it to 65 mm in a way that intensified the detail of the image. Once you get a gander at the lion, you know you’re in for an exceedingly sharp picture, and you’re not disappointed. The proceeding aerial shots of NYC are sharp as a bell. The sets and locations are shown off to great advantage. The art direction, and the musical numbers, are the finest aspects of the film, and they look and sound great. In fact, the sets actually overshadow and diminish the difficulties with Beymer’s performance. One reservation however: the school dance is bathed in reds, and even though DVD for all intents and purposes conquered ‘bleeding red syndrome,’ both formats still appear to have difficulty with this sequence.

I knew Robert Wise well enough to call him and pose a question or two over the years. He was a nice guy, impressively ambidextrous as a filmmaker, and there are quite a few of his films in my collection, including ones that he personally not only didn’t like, but couldn’t understand why I did (TRIBUTE TO A BADMAN, for example – he really seemed perplexed when I praised it). THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE, THE BODY SNATCHER, BLOOD ON THE MOON, THE SET-UP, THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW, THE SAND PEBBLES, THE HINDENBURG. Those he understood. Well, maybe he was a little perplexed about THE HINDENBURG, too.

I was at Trader Vic’s one night back in ’62, enjoying Kamaina’s, Cho-Cho, and Crab Rangoon, when I spotted Natalie Wood in a gorgeous fur coat walking across the floor toward the entrance. I got up, went over and said hello, and in a most gracious gesture she turned and introduced me to her companion. “This is Jerome Robbins,” she said, and he shook my hand cordially. Quite a moment for me, meeting them in that way. Those were the days. Remind me to tell you about running into Sam Spiegel and Greta Garbo at Tracer Vic’s a year later.

Gory and gruesome for its time, combined with a documentary feeling to the Cornish environment, these qualities have diminished in effectiveness over the decades to the point now where only flaws in story, direction and performance remain.

Sidney Furie exhibits a (very) few stylistic traits he would display to far better effect in later films such as specific shots held an inordinately long time. One, a heart removal operation, doesn’t work, but another, grappling with a fungus-covered living corpse, still packs an ich-y punch. By the time he did LADY SINGS THE BLUES, he had that long take idea down.

The film is an inner-logic calamity. There’s an attempt at mystery early on around the tail-end of the first act – not revealing the killer’s identity, which is odd since we are absolutely sure we know who it is, and by the end of the second act, it’s confirmed that we were right all along.

Kieron Moore (ANNA KARENINA, DARBY O’GILL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE, THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN, THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS) as Doctor Blood, with his buffeted boxer’s face, is a welcome thesp in a film like this. But we never grow to like him, nor anyone else for that matter. Directorial clumsiness, heavy-handed scripting, casting against talent (other roles, not Moore’s or Hazel Court), and perhaps a rushed schedule, do this film no favors. In today’s market, where the scares of yesteryear are no longer visceral, we’re left with an unpleasant experience where once there was creepy horror.

Speaking of Ms. Court, she was quite lovely, but seemed to have an acne problem during the shoot. She’s great to gaze upon nonetheless, but the medical procedures against God argument she lays on Dr. Blood late in the film is not a bit of fun.

The print looks quite good. Grainy, just as I remember it, which adds to the sickening aura, and reasonably subdued colors. Editing, not too good. Coverage, awkward. Interesting to note that the camera operator was Nicolas (THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, BAD TIMING) Roeg, who later gave us a great horror film – DON’T LOOK NOW.

This title was shown no mercy on IMDB, but it’s a decent film with a casual, improvisational feel worth a viewing.

Director Robert Clouse was the man at the helm of the sub-cult classic DARKER THAN AMBER, which features a climactic fight scene so brutal and cathartic that Bruce Lee, on seeing it, hired him to direct ENTER THE DRAGON. This film has no such action sequence, unfortunately, but there are other ‘Clouse’ trademarks. One is his penchant for hiring old Hollywood names for supporting, almost cameo roles. In AMBER it was Jane Russell as the party-throwing “Alabama Tiger’ whose yacht-spawned revelry never ceased, according to that film’s protagonist,Travis McGee. The scene was completely extraneous and deserved excising. NEEDLES has Ann Sothern in a more central role as a nightclub owner who cuts lead actor Joe Don Baker some slack and gets roughed up for it.

I also give Clouse credit for letting the actors loose on the locations and sets, encouraging them to improvise physically. Joe Don Baker’s performance might be seen as method indulgence, but I choose to see it as a directorial gesture, indicative of his willingness to let his cast enrich a somewhat mundane action flick. The choice doesn’t produce spectacular results, but it is fun, and provides little moment-to-moment diversions from the linear, all-too-familiar plot machinations.

Along with Baker as an is-she-a-good-guy or is-she-a-femme-fatale is Elizabeth Ashley. She also is encouraged to imposes her own feelings and pacing upon her role, and I wasn’t bowled over by her choices as I was by Baker’s, yet the freedom she was given certainly allows for some fun moments to creep into the frames. Jim Kelly, an action star of the Bruce Lee era, is inserted for name value in a mainly thankless role. And Burgess Meredith, as a low-key villain (until things go bad for him), wrings all the nuance he can out of the ‘Sydney Greenstreet’ role.

Oh, yes, the film is definitely a re-tread of THE MALTESE FALCON. This time the statue contains needles which can do everything but make you young again. In particular they can restore sexual prowess in a pre-Levitra era. There wouldn’t be nearly as many people killed if it were sought after in our modern time of other, simpler, more affordable solutions.

The film is adventurously filmed and often oddly edited as if coverage was an underlying problem. But the transfer is good, the sound is good, and hopefully I’ve given you a proper balance of its weaknesses and strengths so that you can decide if it’s worth your giving it a look. In case I haven’t quite, then let me add this: if you’re a Joe Don Baker aficionado, go for it. You won’t be disappointed.

This is in a number of ways a unique experience in the period’s output of horror cinema. Cushing and Lee appear together in a distinctly non-Hammer, non-Amicus production, and they interact with each other, and with other cast members, in ways we haven’t previously seen. I attribute this mainly to Arnaud d’Usseau’s screenplay.

D’Usseau was a black-listed writer who, miraculously, found both work and a wife he loved (who he wouldn’t have met otherwise) in Europe after being forced to leave the US. Despite this being one of the nicer endings to a McCarthy period witch-hunt story, he nonetheless never forgave Kazan and the other friendly witnesses who named names and ruined so many careers.

Arnaud was also a good friend of mine in his later years. We would often talk about his European work, about Hollywood films, screenwriting and the blacklist, and truthfully, horror films were rarely a focus of his musings, although he certainly liked the films of Val Lewton. In fact much of the narrative in HORROR EXPRESS unfolds as if it were a multi-drama in the manner of GRAND HOTEL, or a classic Hitchcock-on-a-train-scenario, as if Arnaud preferred writing that kind of script, then surrounded it with a gruesome, claustrophobic, unearthly menace. Unusual as it therefore is, it’s an easily re-watchable treat, affording viewers and fans a glimpse of the two leading horror stars of the era in a vehicle that enables them to stray outside the confines of their normal Sangsteresque scripts.

This was one of Cushing’s first film outings after his wife’s death, whose passing was a crushing blow for him. She had died early on during the filming of BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB (January 14th, 1971) at Hammer, and Cushing was released from his role and replaced by Andrew Keir. Months later, he plunged back into acting, and kept at it, to distract himself from his anguish until he could join his wife in the afterlife. Still, he didn’t think he could rise to the occasion for HORROR EXPRESS, and it was Christopher Lee, apparently, who kept him from bailing out of the project.

The story barrels along with the speed of the Trans-Siberian Express, its sequences clumsily transitioned with shots of the train racing by from various angles and spatial perspectives. This roughness can be largely forgiven when one learns that there was only one train car afforded the director, and that car had to be re-art-decorated after all the scenes to be shot in each car/set were completed. If this bizarre handicap was really imposed on the director, then such a challenge makes the film a text-book illustration of art department and continuity resourcefulness.

A long (over an hour) 1973 interview with Peter Cushing in front of an assemblage of horror fans is rare and enlightening, though not terribly exciting. Cushing speaks falteringly, and the audience waits through a few long-winded and less than rousing responses. But it is the only such track I know of, and I was thrilled to hear his memories about such important events as appearing with Laurel & Hardy in A CHUMP AT OXFORD.

Equally important, a half-hour interview with Bernard Gordon, another black-listed screenwriter who ended up in Spain working with Screenwriter/Producer Philip Yordan and Producer Samuel Bronston on EL CID, 55 DAYS AT PEKING, and HORROR EXPRESS, bringing in other black-listed writers like Arnaud to help build the patchwork scripts that became those films. D’Usseau worked, for instance, on Ava Gardner’s dialogue for 55 DAYS. This is one of the better accounts I’ve seen of the black-list era.

And director Eugenio Martin remembers the making of the film, corroborating some of what we’ve heard all these years. The use of the model train, he recalls, was something the actors enjoyed. I can imagine Cushing getting pleasure from it – he collected model soldiers as a hobby.

This is a personal favorite, and it’s not a guilty pleasure (check out the rating on IMDB). Much maligned on release because of Brando’s legendary misbehavior, because of monumental cost overruns (it was one of the biggest financial earners MGM ever had, but due to its estimated nineteen million dollar budget, never stood a chance of breaking even), and because of the perception that Brando’s performance was a frivolous indulgence (in interviews he claimed he’d taken the role seriously and done his best, and I believe he meant it), it has its odd place in film history. But there are some laudatory qualities that can’t be denied even by its detractors.

It’s a gorgeously mounted production. Shot in 70mm, and a bit stiff compositionally because of the logistics concerning camera movement on board the replica of the Bounty, it is nonetheless endlessly compelling to look at. Likewise the costumes of the ships crew are meticulously attended to, and despite the thousands of flesh-colored pasties used to keep the lady Tahitians from offending the mass audience, it’s a treat on a wardrobe level. The Bounty itself is a feat of period recreation – bigger than the original to allow for camera placement, as well as the installation of engines, etc. And perhaps most prevailing of all its virtues – Bronislau Kaper’s full-bodied score. I remember back in ’62 when I was getting ready to see the film for the first time, I sat in my seat and read the souvenir book purchased in the theater lobby, and was fascinated to discover that I was about to see an MGM spectacle not scored by Miklos Rosza.

The BluRay release of MUTINY is most impressive in its overture and title sequence scoring. On the DVD they are powerful, but the overture is a bit fragmented, a bit lacking in its use of the main theme, and a bit gaudy in the percussion section. Not so with the BluRay, where the orchestration literally makes us feel the waves crashing against the ship. I understood better what Kaper and Armbruster (his conductor) were going for. And my quibbles with the Overture no longer existed. I’ve always felt it was one of the great scores. The orchestra and the cinema speakers were so bountifully utilized. And it’s at its best here, given the strength of your audio system. Woe to the neighbors if you live in an apartment with walls that haven’t been sound-proofed. Those horns hit such peaks, and the bass is so majestic, that Brando had a lot to live up to.

Both releases make great use of the film’s rich color palette. But the BluRay may have viewers suspicious about the shades of dark brown make-up used on the sailors to simulate the effects of the merciless sun. Skin tones are often darker on the BluRay disc. The way I tend to judge home video releases of this film, finally, is in the verisimilitude of the climactic fire sequence. On the DVD I seemed to perceive, for the first time, that the foreground was real fire but the background was rear-screened. Makes sense on a safety level, but it disengaged my willing suspension of disbelief. The BluRay matches the foreground and background colors and dimensionality a little better in this regard.

Seeing the film again, I smiled at Brando’s line to Bligh during the mutiny: “You remarkable pig. You can thank whatever pig god you pray to that you haven’t yet turned me into a murderer.” Could any of the seven screenwriters listed above, except for Brando, have come up with that line? It’s so “You scum-sucking pig!” from ONE EYED JACKS.

And while the supplemental featurettes are enlightening, mainly about the Bounty, the best supplemental I’ve seen about the famous true-life incident came with the DVD of the 1935 version, a little B&W documentary visiting Pitcairn Island over a century later, to find its morose, inbred inhabitants leading tragic, isolated lives. It’s the perfect companion piece to Bunuel’s LAND WITHOUT BREAD.