Reviews

I stumbled across this obscure Hammer pirate adventure on Tubi and was greatly entertained by it. The premise is a novel one...a ship of bloodthirsty pirates joins the Spanish Armada on their unsuccessful attack on England. Sustaining damage, the ship deserts the Armada and winds up aground in the remote English marshes near a small village. Led by Christopher Lee's morose Captain Robeles, the pirates convince the villagers that Spain has conquered England and set up shop in the town, using the villagers as slave labor to fix their ship. But things don't go as smoothly as the pirates hoped...

The movie has a great pace and the action never lags for long. When things are in danger of slowing up, a sword fight or a barroom brawl breaks out. Led by sturdy Andrew Keir, the villagers are scheming up a revolt right from the get-go, leading to some brutal retaliation by the pirates. The villagers find an unexpected aid from a disgruntled Spanish nobleman who is revolted by Robeles' cruelty.

Don Sharp was always a good action director who made the most of a low budget and "Devil Ship Pirates" is no different. The cast is very game, with Lee and Keir dominating. John Cairnley, later to be "Jason and the Argonauts", is a fiery young villager who leads the revolt. He gets whipped almost to shreds, but leaps back into action with superhuman vigor. Keep an eye out for Hammer mainstay Michael Ripper as the weaselly pirate Pepe.

OK, not an Oscar contender, but as a low budget period action flick, this worked really well for me.

I saw this film when I was very young and it left quite an impression. The weird "pinging" soundtrack (also found on "The Angry Red Planet" and "Invisible Invaders") always stuck in my head. But I never forgot the monster! One of the coolest "undersea" creatures ever created. I put him right behind The Creature From the Black Lagoon as an aquatic "man in a suit" creature. The underwater scenes with him in particular look great.

The movie itself is average but far from the disaster some others here make it out to be. It looks very much like a "made for TV" movie and seems in many ways like an episode of "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea". There's no shame in that.

As for the cast, they are all sturdy pros, with Scott Brady playing a typical hard-nosed military man. It gives us a chance to see Mike Road, the voice of "Race Bannon" on "Jonny Quest", in the flesh as a diver concealing a tragic secret. I always liked Gary Merrill and Sheree North is real easy on the eyes as a token love interest. One part that is really embarassing is veteran Asian actor James Hong's appearance as a totally cliched Chinese cook. That character should have been left on the cutting room floor.

A painless 90 minutes of entertainment with an outstanding monster and good underwater photography.

This episode marks an end of an era, as it is the final episode written by the great John Meston. As a writer, Meston pretty much carried "Gunsmoke" on his back the first few years on both TV and radio. By the 10th season, new blood was coming in and winds of change were on the way. Meston had a dark, mean style to his writing that pulled no punches and "He Who Steals" is full of that trademark style.

Harold J. Stone, a frequent guest star, plays buffalo hunter Jeff Sutro, a rugged individualist who makes his own law and ignores any other. "Gunsmoke" featured a fair amount of these throwback characters. Ironically, Stone played another lawless buffalo hunter Jim Gatliff in an earlier episode, but while Gatliff was a murderous psychotic, Sutro is more reasonable in his rebellion. At least to start... Stone is great as always in the part.

Young Russ Tamblyn plays young Billy, a green cowhand who is entranced by Sutro's rough ways. He finds his hero worship is badly misplaced when Sutro hangs an innocent man for stealing his horse. The shine wears off an idol pretty quickly when he's covered with blood. Things head downhill to a bloody and inevitable conclusion.

Marshall Dillon and Festus are really just observers as the drama plays out. Festus rather admires Sutro himself, but Dillon knows that his kind is on its way out...just like the buffalo he hunted.

Meston leaves the series on a high note. With his departure, "Gunsmoke" was really never quite the same again.

Marshall Dillon sees himself as an ordinary man just doing his job the best way he knows how. But others look at him differently. To outlaws, he is a fearsome, unkillable foe. To citizens, he is more legend than man.

"Any Body Can Kill a Marshall" is a unique episode that looks at Dillon's legend. Two outlaws, Lucas and Clede, plot to kill Dillon so they can have free reign over Dodge City. Clede ambushes the Marshall at point blank range but fails to kill him. When the two are talking over how they'd like to kill Dillon but aren't sure how to go about it, they are overheard by a strange, shabbily dressed man named Painter. Painter offers to do the job for a flat $200 up front. The outlaws agree and pay the man, who vows he will kill the Marshall the next day.

Painter spends some of his money right away. We see him purchase a gun and a nice suit of clothes, with compliments to the shopkeeper. He shows kindness to a saloon girl and gives her a note to send to somebody the next day. He even compliments Marshall Dillon for breaking up a fight. The following day, he has sworn to kill him...

I won't spoil what happens next as others have done.This is a moody, melancholy episode of "Gunsmoke", made more atmospheric by ominous music. The music was courtesy of the great Bernard Hermann and appeared in several notable "Twilight Zone" episodes. Character actor Milton Seltzer steals the show as Painter, a man both sympathetic and creepy. It's obvious from his laconic personality that he has given up on life. "He just don't care no more!" says Clede. We later discover Painter's motivations and they are not what one would expect.

We see Marshall Dillon through many different eyes in this episode. Miss Kitty is furious with him because he constantly risks his life, telling him "You make me sick!" at one point. Painter discovers admiration for the Marshall, a man he's never met. Clede has almost supernatural terror of Dillon, bellowing at him "Why don't you DIE, Marshall Dillon?". Lucas sees him as an obstacle to be disposed of. Matt might be aware of these viewpoints but soldiers on because that's all he knows how to do.

The ending on the episode is ambiguous in a real life way that most TV Westerns would avoid. This episode is proof again why "Gunsmoke" was on one of the best.

I defy anyone to find a 1950's film more off the wall and unpredictable than this. Even Nostradamus himself wouldn't be able to do it! Calling this campy trash is taking the easy way out. The film has more original ideas than a dozen big budget Hollywood films from the same period that cost a hundred times as much. If you have never seen "Man Without A Body" before, find it on Youtube, where it is presented in complete and pristine form. Then sit back and get ready to be amazed by the entertaining absurdity of it all.

To cover the basics of the plot, an egomaniacal millionaire in the vein of Charles Foster Kane and Howard Hughes is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor after he has head pains and starts answering phantom phone calls. Veteran actor George Coulouris plays Karl Brussard with lots of vigor. Of course Brussard cannot contemplate his own end, so he hooks up with renegade scientist Dr. Merritt, who has found a method of keeping long dead monkey heads alive and in perfect condition.The crazed Brussard has the idea to imprint his mind and personality upon the head of the greatest man who ever lived...the French prophet Nostradamus! After a grave-robbing expedition, the dessicated head of Nostradamus is brought back to life and asks Dr. Merritt and company: "Have they burned all my books?" Despite the cheesy effects, there is something quite eerie about the ease with which Nostradamus adapts to his new situation, saying "I have always lived in the future". Soon Brussard tries to brainwash Nostradamus into thinking he's Brussard, leading to one of the craziest scenes ever filmed.

Meanwhile, there's a lot more going on. Brussard's sexy nymphomaniac mistress Odette, whom he treats like an annoying pet, has hatched a plot to murder the old man with the help of Merritt's assistant Lou. At the same time, Merritt's female assistant Jean tries to get this frosty egghead to thaw out and return her advances. Finally, in an amazing scene, Nostradamus is transformed into a Frankenstein-like monster with a giant paper mache blob encasing his head. This crazy creature goes on the rampage in search of the now-fugitive Brussard, whose company has been ruined due to false stock market advice given by the prophet.

The ending is very abrupt, yet quite appropriate. It seems Nostradamus had foreseen everything all along, resulting in a satisfactory resolution where everybody gets their due.

Despite the cheapness of the production, "The Man Without A Body" holds you in a spell from the get go, with better direction than you would think. This film is begging to be discovered! I wonder if the real Nostradamus could have ever foreseen his participation in a movie like this?

Carl Kolchak is my favorite TV character, hands down. So yes, I am pretty biased towards anything Carl appears in. This pugnacious misfit was an anachronism even in the 1970's...he would have been much more comfortable in the wild-and-woolly journalistic days of the 20's and 30's. He's clumsy...tactless...socially inept...and completely fearless in pursuit of the truth. He gets beaten up, but never beaten down. Plus, I like his hat.

Following the humongous success of "The Night Stalker", it was only natural that a sequel be commissioned. With Dan Curtis and Richard Matheson teaming up on the creative end, there were no worries that "The Night Strangler" would be second-rate or inferior. Even though in many ways it is a virtual remake of the first film, the sequel manages to be even eerier and more frightening, while containing many humorous touches and character bits.

Kicked out of Las Vegas after the Janos Skorzeny "vampire" debacle, Kolchak makes his way to Seattle...just in time for a rash of mysterious murders of young women to break out. The victims have had their throats crushed by a man with incredible strength and a small amount of blood has been syringed out of the base of their skulls. Obviously more than just a typical serial killer is at loose. Digging through the moldy archives of the local newspaper (with the help of Titus Berry, played by the great Wally Cox), Kolchak discovers that every 21 years since 1889, six women have been strangled during a period of 18 days. In each case, the killer was described as having superhuman strength and in some cases looking like a corpse.

When Carl proposes the theory that the same man is responsible for all the killings going back to 1889, he gets the same response he did in Las Vegas: disbelief, silence and stonewalling. His long-suffering editor Tony Vincenzo is driven almost to a heart attack by arguments with Kolchak and pressure from the police and the powers that be.

Kolchak learns that the killer may be lurking in the sinister Seattle "underground"...the remains of the 19th century town buried beneath the modern metropolis. With the help of a sexy belly dancer (cute Jo Ann Pflug), he plunges into the underground in search of the seemingly immortal maniac. The only question is: what will he do when he finds him? The villain in "The Night Strangler" is more interesting to me than the bestial Janos Skorzeny. He is more ghoulish because of his rotted features (depicted in a grisly police sketch) and yet more intellectual, because he is able to speak and articulate his mad reasoning. The scene where Dr. Richard Malcolm, the Night Strangler, converses easily with the mummified remains of his dead family sitting at a cobwebbed dinner table, communicates how utterly insane this genius has become. Richard Anderson, soon to play Oscar Goldman in "The Six Million Dollar Man", gives a chilling performance in his relatively brief scene as Malcolm.

As was typical for all Kolchak vehicles, the movie is full of well-known character actors. It's a joy to watch these old pro's in action. Scott Brady is the belligerent police Captain Shubert, cadaverous John Carradine is the publisher of Kolchak's paper, Al Lewis is a drunken bum lurking in the Seattle underground, and, best of all, the Wicked Witch of the West herself, Margaret Hamilton, is a stern college professor who gives Carl information on alchemy and immortality. She has the movie's best line. When Carl asks if everlasting youth was possible, the professor replies "If it was, I'd be an 80 year old sexpot." The scenes in underground Seattle are terrifically spooky and the sequence where the killer bursts through a glass window to get to a victim had me jumping out of my chair. The mixture of humor and horror was never done better than in the Kolchak stories.

Yes, the story is very familiar and yes, the shouting between characters gets a little overdone, but "The Night Strangler" is nothing but pure entertainment. Check it out and discover why Carl Kolchak is one of the greatest characters ever to appear on TV.

This police procedural is no worse than many others of its era and better than quite a few. Obviously it is following in the steps of "Dragnet" and "Naked City" but emerges as an enjoyable programmer. The best thing about it is the unadorned look it provides into a world now long gone...the lower class New York of the late 40's/early 50's. Here it is in all its seedy glory, from the old-school tattoo parlors to the cheap hotels to the greasy spoons. These old police films are like travelogues to a bygone era and very bittersweet to anybody who dislikes the sanitized, soulless cityscape of today.

Also intriguing is the emphasis on the nuts-and-bolts scientific aspect of solving the crime...in this case, the murder of a tattooed woman found in an abandoned car. Our main heroes, Detectives Tobin and Corrigan, do the footwork, but without the tedious and painstaking efforts of the "lab boys", they'd get nowhere. Although the technology is not in the same league, the cops here use the dogged persistence of a C.S.I. investigator to track down their man.

The way some reviewers have written about this movie, you think it would have been directed by Ed Wood and acted by extras from his movies. What bosh! I enjoyed John Miles as the gangly ex-Marine turned cop Tobin...he had a happy-go-lucky, easy-going approach to the role that's a welcome change from the usual stone-faced histrionics of most movie cops of the period. Patricia Barry is cute and delightful as his perky girlfriend who helps solve the crime. Walter Kinsella is stuffy and droll as the older detective Corrigan. I rather liked the chemistry of these two and it made for something a bit different than the sort of robotic "Dragnet" approach.

The mystery itself is not too deep and the final chase and shoot-out certainly won't rank amongst the classics of crime cinema, but during it's brief running time, "The Tattooed Stranger" more than held my interest.

What you think of "Iceman" depends on your general nature. If you are sentimental and deeply moved by stories of great emotion, you'll love it. If you are hard-edged, cynical and opposed to the least bit of softening in life, you'll think it crass. I know what side of the fence I'm on. I loved the movie and was moved to tears the first time I saw it. It still moves me all these years later.

In the high arctic, the remains of a Neanderthal hunter are found perfectly preserved in ice. To the astonishment of the scientists who handle the remains, the capacity for life still lingers in the body. They return the frozen primitive to life in the 20th century...at least 20,000 years after his "death". The revival of "Charlie" sparks a multitude of moral dilemmas for the scientists. Earnest young anthropologist Shepherd wants to know Charlie as a man and bonds with the primitive. Other scientists want to use the special properties of Charlie's blood to preserve human life...a good goal, but they look at him as a specimen.

When Charlie escapes from the special environment prepared for him, havoc ensues, leading to a powerful ending where he tries to complete the quest he started tens of thousands of years ago.

The tale is simple and heartfelt. John Lone gives an astonishing performance as Charlie. His physical movements and primitive vocalizations completely bring to life a man from the dawn of time. Yet we also sense moments of sadness, anger, humor and family pride from him. Thanks to the Academy's snubbing of fantasy/SF films, which would not be erased until the massive success of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy years later, Lone's Oscar-worthy performance was ignored. You will be amazed by the humanity he brings to the role. Timothy Hutton is earnest and sincere as the moral but naive scientist who tries his best to help his Neanderthal friend.

The movie is not perfect...some of the scientific jargon is overdone and I was incredibly annoyed by James Tolkan's constant gum-chewing...but it succeeds in matters of the heart. The ending is sad yet triumphant. If you think about the situation, it was the best possible ending for Charlie given the circumstances.

Anyone with a heart and a sense of wonder should enjoy "Iceman".

Although I wasn't old enough to see this on its original run, I had the great good fortune to watch it in a theater when it was re-issued in the 70's following the success of the sequel, "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad". You can't overstate the impact this movie has on the big screen, especially if you're a kid.

There's not much I can add to what the other reviewers have said. The collaboration between Ray Harryhausen and Bernard Hermann was one of the best in Hollywood history...Hermann's thunderous scores were the perfect accompaniment to the amazing, fantastic scenes that Harryhausen masterminded.

I did find Kerwin Matthews to be a bland Sinbad...the bearded, swashbuckling John Phillip Law from "Golden Voyage" was much closer to my idea of what Sinbad should be. Sinbad should be a rugged sailor and not a pretty boy prince! But that's a minor quibble and I have to say that Matthews fighting and swordplay skills are excellent.

The barrage of endless computer-generated monsters and scenes that movie-goers are bombarded with today have deadened the sense of wonder that audiences used to have. When the amazing becomes commonplace, imagination is diminished. People today are in large part jaded and cynical...too eager to look for flaws or toss out a snide quip.

The world portrayed here is dangerous and frightening, but full of wonders, marvels and adventure! Let yourself go and try to enjoy it on that level and you will be rewarded, just as Sinbad was here!

For some reason, I remembered this flick more than many other kaiju eiga (giant monster movies) from the same period. In fact, I even have an original "Yog" poster on my wall right next to one for "The Green Slime".

The film is set on a remote tropical island that is being looked at as the possible home of a luxury tourist resort. Funky photographer Kudo (wearing a floppy hat) and his adorable female companion are there to take pictures and check in with some other company personnel on the island. Dr. Mida is there to study marine evolution. And then there is the suspicious acting Obata, who claims to be an anthropologist but is actually an industrial spy.

There is another visitor to the island and this one came from a lot farther than Tokyo. The misty blue space creature Yog (an "astro-quasar" he is called) has fallen to Earth on a space capsule and is now busy turning harmless animals into giant monsters. First of these fearsome freaks is the weird octo-squid Gezora, a plastic-eyed giant that uses its tentacles to walk (stagger is a better word) on land! Gezora sets about killing people and destroying the native huts, but Kudo and pals find a way to defeat the beast.

The only problem is, Yog just jumps to another giant monster. Ganime, a giant crab, is next and then comes Kameba, a titanic tortoise who could give Gamera a run for his money. Not only that, but Yog also takes control of Obata and uses him to sabotage the human's plans.

It's a sticky pickle but the Earthmen find a secret weakness of Yog's that they can use to attack the space monster. Another key to Yog's defeat is Obata...can his mind be turned against the Monster from Space?

The movie is fun and exciting if you're not too demanding. You see plenty of the monsters and even a nasty battle between Ganime and Kameba. Call me nuts, but I thought dialog and acting were a lot better here than other period kaiju films. The characters had more personality...especially Kudo, played by Akira Kubo...and I kind of liked the way every tied together.

Some may be disappointed that no cities get destroyed, but if you're looking for a Japanese monster mash with a bit of a difference, "Yog" will satisfy your craving!!!