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Sunday, November 16, 2014

TWILIGHT ZONE SEASON 5 (1963-1964) (CBS)

This fifth an final season of the excellent Twilight Zone gave us 36 episodes.

Some of the episodes were top notch, most were good, and there were, of course a few that were mediocre. They are as follows....

In Praise of Pip 9/27/63....An alcoholic father wishes he had been better to his son who is dying in Korea. Jack Klugman stars.

Steel 10/4/63....In a future world where boxing has been outlawed, a penniless manager must fight in place of his robot fighter. Lee Marvin stars.

Nightmare At 20,000 Feet 10/11/63....William Shatner stars as a man who sees a monster on the wing of a plane he is on. This is an all time classic show that once seen is never forgotten.

A Kind Of Stopwatch 10/18/63....A man gets a magical stopwatch that actually stops all time, but he learns a very bitter lesson.

The Last Night Of A Jockey 10/25/63....Mickey Rooney stars as a jockey who wishes he were a big man. He gets his wish, but not in the way he wanted.

Living Doll 11/1/63....Telly Savalas stars as a man whose cruel treatment of his stepdaughter doesn't sit well with her new doll. A classic and chilling episode.

The Old Man In The Cave 11/8/63....After a nuclear war, survivors take orders from a mysterious benefactor in a cave. James Coburn stars.

Uncle Simon 11/15/63....A cruel man is taken care of by his cruel Niece. She finally watches him die and is set to inherit his fortune, but there is a catch.

Probe 7, Over And Out 11/29/63....Richard Basehart stars as a man who crash lands on a strange planet an finds a woman is also stranded.

The 7th is made Up Of Phantoms 12/6/63....A trio of National Guardsmen find themselves fighting with Custer and the 7th cavalry. One of my personal favorites.

A Short Drink From A Certain Fountain 12/13/63....Patrick O' Neal stars as an aging man who is desperate to keep his young wife. This is one of the shows that was kept out of syndication for a very long time.

Ninety Years Without Slumbering 12/20/63....An old man believes that he will die if an old clock he looks after stops running.

Ring-A-Ding Girl 12/27/63....A young movie actress comes back to her home town where she is about to play the biggest role of her life.

You Drive 1/3/64... Edward Andrews stars as a man who hits and kills a boy on a bike and then is haunted by his car. Another classic episode.

The Long Morrow 1/10/64.... Robert Lansing stars as an astronaut who falls in love with a beautiful young woman shortly before he is to take a space journey that will last 40 years. Mariette Hartley co-stars. This is another personal favorite.

Self Improvement Of Salvadore Ross 1/17/64....A man will stop at nothing to win a young woman's love. He soon finds he has the ability to trade his youth for money and he soon gets more than he bargained for.

Number 12 Looks Just Like You 1/24/64....At a future time everyone who turns 19 must get an operation that makes them beautiful...and just like everyone else. A young woman rebels and wants her own identity.

Black Leather Jackets 1/31/64....Three tough looking men on motorcycles turn out to be aliens planning the destruction of the entire planet.

Night Call 2/7/64....An elderly woman receives calls from her long dead lover.

From Agnes With Love 2/14/64....A computer falls in love with a technician in this bizarre comedy. Wally Cox stars.

Spur Of The Moment 1/21/64....An aging woman tries desperately to catch up with her younger self and warn her not to make the same mistakes she did. An overlooked, but well made episode.

An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge 2/28/64.... A great French short subject about a hanged man who rope snaps and his desperate flight to get back to his home. A great twist ending.

Queen Of The Nile 3/6/64....An ageless movie actress has a deadly secret. Ann Blyth stars.

What's In The Box 3/13/64....A man sees his life and his secrets played out on his newly repaired TV.

The Masks 3/20/64....At Mardi Gras, a dying man makes his family wear masks with terrifying results.

I Am The Night, Color Me Black 3/27/64....On the day and man is to be hanged for killing a racist, a small town finds the skies are pitch black. Michael Constantine stars.

Sounds And Silences 4/3/64....John McGiver stars as a man who loves loud noises, but gets a rather rude awakening.

Caesar And Me 4/10/64....Jackie Cooper stars as a man whose life is taken over by a wooden dummy.

The Jeopardy Room 4/17/64.... Martin Landeau is a Soviet defector who has three hours to escape from a booby trapped room. A tense and well made show.

Stopover In A Quiet Town 4/24/64....A young couple wake up after a wild party and find themselves in a strange town where nothing is real and the only sound is a little girl laughing.

The Encounter 5/1/64....Neville Brand is a former WW2 vet who hires a young Japanese man to help him clean out his attic, and soon both are trying to kill each other. Another great, neglected episode.

Mr. Garrity And The Graves 5/8/64....A sham artist claims he can bring the dead back to life and the residents of the small western town he comes to pay him very good money not to bring them back. John Dehner stars.

The Brain Center At Whipples 5/15/64....A factory owner puts thousands of workers out of work when he automates his entire company, and it soon backfires on him. A very timely episode today.

Come Wander With Me 5/22/64....A singer journeys to the back woods to find a new song. He soon finds terror instead of music.

The Fear 5/29/64....A state trooper and a fearful young woman fight a huge alien menace. Hazel Court stars with Mark Richman.

The Bewitchin' Pool 6/19/64... Two children find a better life when the d dive into their family pool and come into another world for neglected children who are cared for by an elderly woman.

Thus ended a very successful show for it's creator, Rod Serling. No show ever entertained me more except "Kolchak Tghe Night Stalker".

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO.....

Patricia Barry is 93, Clu Gulager is 86, Joanna Pettet is 72, and Barbara Leigh is 68.

Saturday, November 15, 2014

RIP GLEN LARSON 1937-2014

Very prolific and wildly successful producer passes away.

The man who produced more of the great TV shows I watched when I was growing up than any other human being has died at the age of 77.

To name all of the shows he did would take a huge page, but to list just a few he created include "Alias Smith And Jones", "Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries", "Battlestar Galactica", "Buck Rogers In The 25th Century", "BJ And The Bear", "Tramua Center", "Manimal", "Quincey M.E.", "Knight Rider", "The Fall Guy" and many, many more.

His keen eye for producing series for TV that were hits will never be topped. He died Nov.14th from complications of esophageal cancer.

THE VAMPIRE BAT 1933 (MILL CREEK)

A very well made early horror film.

In a small town a killer is running loose and many suspect a vampire as the bodies have been drained of blood.

The local police inspector, played by Melvyn Douglas is very skeptical of the vampire theory, but a local doctor, played by Lionel Atwill attempts to show him proof of vampirism thru books on the subject.

The locals however want to place all the blame on local crazy Herman Gleib, played by the marvelous Dwight Frye. After they kill him, the killings still continue and it is soon learned that Lionel Atwill is the mad scientist behind the murders. He is trying to feed a strange protoplasmic creature he has in an aquarium.

Lovely Fay Wray is the menaced heroine in this film and she always looks good and it's great to see her in anything.

GILA 2012 (POLYSCOPE MEDIA GROUP)

Fun little homage to 50's monster films.

Jim Wynorski directed this great little film about a giant gila monster roaming the open Texas countryside.

Brian Gross plays Chase Winstead, a young man who is working hard to support his mother and his crippled sister, who suddenly fins himself in a fight against a huge monster. The great music score helps give this film a very nostalgic feeling.

This is basically the same plot of the original 1959 film, but a few changes have been made, of course. A hugely enjoyable creature feature that should be seen by all monster fans, and yes, we do get the mushroom song at the end of the film. The effect of the giant monster is very good, but as usual, the CGI blood effects leave a lot to be desired.

The cast also includes Chase Adams, Adrienne Atkins and Bruce Munson. SEE IT!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO.....

Yaphet Kotto is 75, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad is 69.

Friday, November 14, 2014

MAN MADE MONSTER 1941 (UNIVERSAL)

The first monster film of Lon Chaney, Jr.

Lon plays Dan, a man who has an electrical act in a carnival who is the only person to survive a bus accident. He meets up with two doctors, Dr. Lawrence and Dr. Rigas.

When Dr. Lawrence is out of town Dr. Rigas (Lionel Atwill) uses his experiments to turn an into an electrical monster that kills Dr. Lawrence. Dan is sentenced to death in the electric chair, and sure enough he doesn't die, but becomes a super charged monster.

This is a very fun Universal monster romp that any horror fan will enjoy. The cast is top notch as usual, and seeing Chaney as an electrical man is always cool. Samuel Hinds is the kindly Dr. Lawrence and Anne Nagle is his daughter.

See this film and spend a very enjoyable hour.

HORRIBLE SEXY VAMPIRE 1970 (MILL CREEK)

Odd French vampire film.

A supernatural killer who is a vampire stalks beautiful women but usually throttles them instead of using his fangs for some reason.

The vampire haunts his relative who has inherited the castle and tells him he wants to die and that is the only way to stop the evil. The man's very sexy girlfriend stops by for a visit and she finds herself being marked for death by the vampire.

This is a really obscure film that has not been talked about much and the set from Mill Creek is the only time I have seen this film offered at all. It is slow in some spots, but there are enough beautiful women taking their clothes off to make it worth while.

If you get a chance, check it out.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO....

Sandahl Bergman is 63.

Thursday, November 13, 2014

TO ALL A GOODNIGHT 1980 (SCORPION)

The very first slasher film featuring a killer Santa.

This is the first one and yet it is almost forgotten, but thanks to Scorpion it is back in a beautiful Bluray disc that looks very good.

It's the Christmas break at the Calvin Finishing School for Girls and while most have gone home for the holidays, some have stayed behind. After a bit of partying they find themselves being stalked by a maniacal killer who for some reason wants them dead.

the police are called and yet they are powerless to stop the killer as he keeps killing in very gruesome ways. The ending is somewhat shocking and adds a neat twist to things.

This film was shot in 10 days and had a myriad of problems in production, but it is still a very watchable film. Actor David Hess takes the directors helm in this Alex Rebar scripted film. Both men are very familiar with the genre and handle the topic well.

Jennifer Runyon makes her film debut as the cute female who fights for survival against the maniac. I found myself liking this film a lot. I fully understand rushed productions and the like. This long neglected gem finally makes it to DVD and I hope more people get a chance to see it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO.....

Tom Atkins is 79, and Tracy Scoggins is 61.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

RIP CAROL ANN SUSI 1952-2014

Character actress Carol Ann Susi has passed away.

Though she is more famous for her role as Mrs. Wolowitz, a character never seen but always heard on the show "Big Bang Theory", I remember her more for her marvelous role as Monique Marmalstein in "Kolchak The Night Stalker".

She was only in three episodes, but she made them very memorable. An accomplished actress in many fields she passed away on Nov. 11th after a short battle with a very aggressive form of cancer. She was 62.

VAMPIRE CIRCUS 1972 (SYNAPSE)

One of the best latter Hammer horror films made.

A small European village is quarantined because of the plague, but a mysterious and very small circus manages to get thru and it takes the villagers minds off of the plague for only a small amount of time.

Soon the small village is plagued by ,mysterious deaths caused by Vampires. This is one of Hammer's finest films. The opening 12 minute pre credit sequence is in itself a mini movie about vampire killing children, and then themselves being killed. It's probably the best opening to a movie I have seen in a long time, if ever.

The movie is finally presented here uncut an it is something to see. This offers much more than any other Hammer film simply because of the period in which it was made and the studio had to up the ante so to speak. It worked very well. There are some flaws, but not enough to make the film unwatchable.

If you think you've seen all that Hammer had to offer in these kinds of films and have never seen this you should stop and watch it sometime. The Blu-ray presentation is spectacular.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO....

Valerie Leon is 71, and Rhonda Shear is 60.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

NIGHT MONSTER 1942 (UNIVERSAL)

A decidedly eerie Universal horror film.

Ralph Morgan stars as Kurt Ingston, a man with no legs or arms who owns a very creepy mansion. He invites his novelist friend to the mansion to visit and also on hand is a female doctor who has also been called by Kurt's sister, who is sane, but clearly disturbed.

A string of bizarre murders occurs and the young writer finds himself caught in a very real mystery. The mansion is filled with potential suspects including the Butler, played by Bela Lugosi. The rest of the cast includes Leif Erickson, Lionel Atwill, Frank Reicher, Nils Asther as a Swami who has more to do with the murders than even he suspects, Irene harvey and Don Porter.

This is actually a quite shocking film that will have you intrigued, an if you haven't seen it you'll never guess the ending. When i first saw this film when I was about 7 years of age, I really didn't like it much, but now at my age I can watch it and enjoy it for what it really is...a totally twisted and shocking Universal film that has been overlooked. Beware the Ingston mansion!!