How to Make a Monster (1958), directed by Herbert L. Strock. This film is something of a sequel to I Was a Teenage Werewolf and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, and like the latter it has one reel in colour. The colour reel is the final reel and here the action takes place inside the make-up artist Pete Dumond’s ((Robert H. Harris) gallery of horrors. The plot has American International Studios changing management, and the new people cut the monster films because the bigwigs think such films are no longer popular. The studio’s make-up artist, Dumond, does not take kindly to receiving a pink slip, and so he sets out to exact revenge upon those who would decry his artistry and deprive him of a paycheck. He concocts a make-up base that allows him to control two young actors who are playing the Frankenstein monster and a werewolf in the studio’s final monster flick. He has them carry out a couple of murders. Then he makes himself up and commits another murder. Later he murders his assistant, the whining Rivero (Paul Brinegar), and threatens to murder the two young actors. Meanwhile the police investigate the murders. All’s well that ends well. The self-referential stuff in the film has its interest.

 February - 1950s low budget sci fi/horror

Unknown Island (1948), directed by Jack Bernhard. Shot in Cinecolour, this film is reminiscent of The Lost World (1925). The story has inspired many films, including King Kong. Willis O’Brien’s special effects for The Lost World are memorable, much more so than the ones created for Unknown Island. The various prehistoric creatures in Unknown Island are clumsy, ponderous, wobbly, rubbery, and unconvincing, some of the worst creatures I have seen. They are so bad that they are a hoot. The hairy red beast that does the most damage is clearly an actor in an ape suit with extra-long teeth. The plot has familiar trappings, including a love triangle that plays out predictably. Barton MacClane as Captain Tarnowsky enjoys overplaying the blustery villain. The film has little to recommend it, unless you happen to be a completest in the rubber-suit-monster films. 

 

Rocketship X-M (1950), directed by Kurt Neumann. This early space-exploration movie is nicely naïve. A mission to the moon, the first using a human crew, goes awry, and the five scientists and technicians on board find themselves in a trip to Mars. On the way, they eat sandwiches, reminisce, dodge meteorites, and even philosophize. The land on Mars where everything has a reddish glow. The also find remnants of an ancient Martian civilization. They correctly surmise that this civilization has destroyed itself by using atomic bombs, and they find the few remaining humans have regressed to the state of primitive rock tossing beings who appear to fear the newcomers and resort to violence. The film sports a cast of familiar actors: Noah Berry, Jr., Hugh O’Brien, Lloyd Bridges, and John Emery. The one woman on board is Dr. Lisa Van Horn (Osa Massen). The four men treat Dr. Van Horn with predictable condescension, even Col. Floyd Graham (Lloyd Bridges) who can’t keep himself from hitting on Dr. Van Horn. The film’s budget was most likely not large, but the designers have made the best of things, and the film manages to look sleek. That the travellers to the stars can stand while their rocket takes off or makes 90 degree turns or avoids meteorites has its charm. Finally, what to say? The film is earnest in its warning about nuclear disaster.

 

Project Moonbase (1953), directed by Richard Talmadge. This is a Cold War film suitable for 1953 and the anti-Communist goings-on in America. The United States has a Space Station and plans to send a mission around the moon in preparation for setting up a Moon Base in order to keep America safe. Accordingly, a rocket goes from earth to the Space Station, and our principals board another rocket and take off for a trip around the moon to reconnoitre. But the bad guys have replaced one of the scientist passengers with an imposter whose mission is to blow up the Space Station. He plans to take over the rocket ship and crash it into the Space Station. Things go awry and the ship lands on moon. After a bit of adventure, the pilot (a woman) and co-pilot (a man) simply remain on the moon as the first people on Moon Base #1. Of course, to make things all right they have a marriage ceremony. Then, via video, they are complimented by the President of the United States, who happens to be a woman. You can see how forward thinking this film is. What happens is supposed to take place in 1970 or thereabouts. The designs of the space station, the rockets, and interiors are not bad, although having hammocks for the members of the space crew as they rocket away from earth is a bit unlikely.

 

This Island Earth (1955), directed by Joseph Newman and Jack Arnold (uncredited). January was western month; February is science fiction/horror from the 1950s. Too many films, too little time. Anyway, This Island Earth is a winner. Shot in colour, this film has just about everything: scenes on earth in the laboratory of Dr. Cal Meachum (Rex Reason) and then in the strange Georgian quarters of the mysterious Exeter (Jeff Morrow), then scenes in space as the aliens take their flying saucer, with Meachum and Dr. Ruth Adams (Faith Domergue) on board, to the planet Metaluna, and then scenes on this planet that is in a war with the Zarghons, and finally a return to earth. The designs are sleek and impressive in a 1950s sort of way. The special effects for the time are top rate. Even the alien monster on Metaluna, although risible, is impressive. The plot has the aliens from Metaluna seeking earth’s uranium, and failing that, they wish to relocate to earth because their planet appears on the verge of losing the war with their enemy, the Zarghons. The Zarghons, by the way, have space ships that guide asteroids equipped with dire explosives onto the surface of Metaluna blowing everything up and creating a nuclear disaster. This film looks great. Perhaps not quite as good as Forbidden Planet (1956), yet it is up there with the best of the 50s science fiction films. We will see the tall craniums of the Metalunans again in Star Trek episodes ten years later. And before signing off, I should mention Orangey the Cat who plays Neutron in the film (uncredited).

 

Riders to the Stars (1954), directed by Richard Carlson. This is one of the many ventures into space taken by films of the 1950s, and it makes clear that America was involved in a space race, fearing that if they did not get to space before other countries (unnamed here) they could be seriously unprepared for the next war. The film uses stock footage, and has much technical dialogue to explain just how space exploration works. The special effects are rudimentary, but they get the job done in a very 1950s sort of way. The film looks good in its use of colour. The cast is impressive, headed by Herbert Marshall, Martha Hyer, William Lundigan, and Richard Carlson. The final fifteen or twenty minutes have their shock value, but on the whole this is a very talky film that holds few surprises. The screenplay is by Curt Siodmak, someone you will know from gems such as I Walked with a Zombie, Son of Dracula, and House of Frankenstein. This is not his finest work, although it is stalwart enough.

 

The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), directed by Jack Arnold. During the wave of 3D films Hollywood turned out in the mid 1950s to lure viewers away from their televisions, we have this creature feature by Jack Arnold. I saw this film in 3D way back in the 1950s at the local Soper Theatre, and the experience has never left. Along with The House of Wax and Hondo, The Creature from the Black Lagoon stays with me as my exposure to 3D. All are worth seeing, but this one (Black Lagoon) is special. I doubt I could have realized just how charged and witty Arnold’s imagery is when I saw this as a boy. This film is Freudian to a degree, filled with phallic images and their counterparts: the sharp-nosed boat entering the lush lagoon, the spear guns, the scuba tanks, the masts, the underwater foliage, and most definitely the creature himself. At the centre of things is a weird love triangle, three male creatures vying for the fetching Kay Lawrence (Julie Adams). The three males are the financier/scientist Dr. Mark Williams (Richard Denning), the good scientist Dr. David Reed (Richard Carlson), and of course the “gill-man” who glides through the water efficiently and pines for Ms Lawrence. The sexual dynamic makes for an intense experience. Also of note is the underwater photography that takes up much of the film’s footage. With this film, Universal studios graduated from its familiar cast of creatures – Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, the Wolfman, the Mummy, and the Invisible Man – and gave the 1950s something new, something that would spawn a host of grisly creatures the in years to come. I have great fondness for this film; so too did Ingmar Bergman who watched it on his birthday every year. One more thing, Millicent Patrick designed the creature and she received no screen credit for this. 

 

Revenge of the Creature (1955), directed by Jack Arnold. A year after he fell for Julie Adams in Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Gill-Man is back, this time falling for ichthyology student Lori Adams. The results are the same, only this time the creature is taken from his Amazonian home to a Sea World in Florida. Here he finds himself chained in a large fish tank for scientists to poke him with a long electric prod while trying to teach him to respond to the word “Stop,” and for the general public to gawk at him. This is rather distressing. As you expect, the Gill-Man escapes, sending crowds of people racing for cover, tossing a car, and generally making life miserable for those who live nearby the large aquarium. All this creature wants is a little affection, and he hopes to receive it from Helen Dobson (Lori Adams). Professor Clete Ferguson (John Agar) has other ideas. This is a Jack Arnold film and so everything plays out impressively. It is just all so predictable, a replay of the first film (the Black Lagoon one). This one does boast a couple of firsts: 1) this is the first time we have a 3D film that is a sequel to another 3D film, and 2) Clint Eastwood appears here for the first time. As sequels go, this one is okay.

 

The Creature Walks Among Us (1956), directed by John Sherwood. Mostly a second unit director, Sherwood here gets to oversee the production, and he delivers the final installment of the Black Lagoon series. This one ramps up the creature-between-two-worlds theme by having the group of scientists locate the creature in the Florida Everglades, inadvertently set him on fire, discover that he has lungs and can breathe out of water, and that underneath is scales he has human-like skin. So they place him in a cage where he can see the ocean and the bathing beauty, Marcia Barton (Leigh Snowden). Marcia is the wife of Dr. William Barton, a scientist who just might be of the mad variety. Marcia is unhappy in her marriage, but she is not much interested in a relationship with the Creature who fancies her, although she does have eyes for another, less mad, scientist, Dr. Thomas Morgan (Rex Reason). We have the, by now, familiar beauty and beast story with an emphasis on human desire. This is a short film, but the creature manages to move from the Everglades to Sausalito, California. It is eventful enough, if predictable, and it is easy to see why this is the last of the Creature films. The creature is very much a figure of the 1950s, troubled, frustrated, seeking stability and a home, delinquent, at odds with others, lonely, misunderstood, and sympathetic.

 

Monster on the Campus (1958), directed by Jack Arnold. I like the title of this film and I like the work of Jack Arnold. This is not, however, his finest effort. Monster on the Campus is a mix-up of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and the Wolfman, with perhaps a smidge of The Beauty and the Beast thrown in for good measure. The plot has Dr. Donald Blake (Arthur Franz) of Dunfield University receive a pre-historic fish from Madagascar. Unbeknownst to Dr. Blake, the fish has been exposed to gamma rays prior to leaving Madagascar. Then the good doctor cuts his hand on the teeth of the fish, called a “coelacanth.” He also fails to notice the blood of a giant dragonfly dripping into his pipe; put that in your pipe and smoke it, Dr. Blake! Anyway, such goings-on result in Dr. Blake reverting to a primitive state and causing the death of a couple of people, including one female student. You can probably figure out the rest yourself. The film does have its wit: the pipe I mentioned, and a door people keep using despite the words “Use Other Door” displayed prominently on it. Trust Arnold to make something out of such tired material. And before I forget, I ought to give a nod to Troy Donahue who plays Jimmy Flanders, a student with a dog. This dog laps up some water that has dripped from the ancient fish, and then grows amazingly long fangs.

 

Man Without a Body (1957), directed by Charles Saunders and W. Lee Wilder. Any film that sets out to give us Nostradamus’s head brought back to life in the 20^th century certainly requires two directors. With a plot device like this, what could go wrong? This film is a combination horror, science fiction, and noir thriller. It boasts a bullying tycoon with a brain tumor, his lovely foreign young woman companion, a doctor who keeps animal heads alive, his pretty but neglected female assistant, and the head of Nostradamus that just near the end finds itself attached to a young doctor’s body and stalking the streets and schools of London at night. The plot turns on the tycoon’s desire to keep himself alive by having the brain of Nostradamus implanted in his head. Nostradamus has the reputation of being the smartest man ever, but when the tycoon asks the revived head for advice with his oil stocks, the advice he receives leaves him penniless. We have a mixing of Frankenstein motifs with cinema noir. Nifty. I think the final 5 to 10 minutes are worth waiting for.

 

The Black Scorpion (1957), directed by Edward Ludwig. The special effects in this one are courtesy of Willis O’Brien and Pete Peterson, and so you can expect pretty good creatures. And your expectations will be, for the most part, met. The scorpions (yes, there is a horde of them) are ugly suckers that drool and sting and pinch and generally behave badly. Especially impressive are the train crash, and the giant scorpion vs giant worm battle deep in the bowels of a volcano. Don’t ask! Some of this is pretty silly, and the story needs an injection of energy and imagination, but the special effects keep getting better as the film progresses. The action begins in the Mexican countryside where a volcano has ravaged the landscape and allowed giant scorpions to escape from deep beneath the earth, but by the end only one giant scorpion is left standing, the Black one, and this creature has travelled to wreak havoc on Mexico City. This beast is dispatched in a manner similar to other beasts in the 1950s. I think, for example, of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953). Notable are the sounds emitted by the array of creatures that parade through this film. I had not known that scorpions, worms, and ants made harsh and sometimes piercing sounds. If my memory serves me, I think Ray Harryhausen created some giant scorpions in the 1960s that resemble the creatures here.

 

The Monster that Challenged the World (1957), directed by Arnold Laven. This is the one about the giant mollusks that grow into immense caterpillars that can live in the sea or on land. These giant caterpillars with their deadly pincers and bulging eyes enjoy sucking the insides out of any human they can find. They manage to find several in the course of this film.Trying to find and destroy these creatures is Lt. Cmd. Twillinger (Tim Holt). Tim Holt here trades his cowboy hat for navy cap. He also sidles up to a young widow, Gail MacKenzie (Audrey Dalton) and her young daughter, Sandy (Mimi Gibson). Near the end of the film, young Sandy unwisely turns up the thermostat in the room where one of these mollusks is being kept in a state of inanimation. The rise in temperature allows the creature to grow into one of these large caterpillars, and it threatens both Sandy and her mother until the intrepid Cmd. Twillinger arrives with a fire extinguisher to save the day. All of this has a certain camp flavour today. The cast, including Hans Conried as a scientist hot on the trail of these monsters, approach their task soberly. The script has a few howlers. The special effects are, perhaps, a cut above what Roger Corman delivers, but only just. In other words, have fun with this one.

 

Machete (1958), directed by Kurt Neumann. I was not going to review this film because it is so weak, but what the heck. This is a potboiler set in Aguirre, Puerto Rico. Scenes documenting the cutting, gathering, and processing of sugar cane hold some interest. The melodramatic story, on the other hand, has little to keep the viewer engaged. The villain is Miguel (Lee Van Cleef), cousin of Don Luis Montoya (Albert Dekker)  who own a large plantation and who has just returned from a business trip to New York with a new bride, Jean (Mari Blanchard). Jean is, I guess, a femme fatale who sets her sights on Carlos (Carlos Rivas), long time protégé of Luis. Carlos has an intended in Rita (Ruth Cains). Passion flares and everything leads to the burning of the cane fields, as we expect. The title of the film suggests something more dramatic than we have, although there are a couple of scenes that involve a machete or two. The ending sets out to be a spectacle and ends wanly. Lee Van Cleef’s Miguel, for some unknown reason, has a limp. Perhaps this simply identifies him as a chthonic figure. Who knows? In this same year, Neumann made his best film, The Fly. As for Machete, ho hum.