ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN

Allison Hayes after she grows to fifty feet

ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN (1958). Director: Nathan Hertz (Nathan Juran). 

"It's a sure thing it wasn't a Japanese gardener." -- The sheriff studying some giant footprints. 

Nancy Archer (Allison Hayes) has a number of serious problems. Being married to the unfaithful "Handsome" Harry (William Hudson) has turned her into a raging dipsomaniac. She has particularly been affected by Harry's affair with Honey Parker (Yvette Vickers), whom he's got stashed in to the local hotel. 

Yvette Vickers and William Hudson

But poor Nancy has a much bigger problem. Driving away in a huff from her husband, who's been eyeing Honey at the bar, she comes across a spherical UFO in the highway. A huge giant man (Michael Ross, who also plays a bartender) steps out of the UFO and makes a grab for her fabulous diamond, the Star of India. Later on Nancy again encounters the giant, with brave Harry leaving her to the big guy's tender mercies. Nancy is later found on top of her mansion's pool house. 

"Something's happened to Mrs. Archer!" Eileen Stevens

If that weren't bad enough, during the night poor Nancy grows into a giantess, almost throwing her hysterical (in every sense of the word) nurse (Eileen Stevens) into conniptions. Then comes the titular "attack," with Nancy bursting out of her elephant chains, tearing the roof off of her mansion, and strutting into town to take care of her husband and "Honey." Has Handsome Harry finally met his match? 

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman is a hoot. It is very clear that the filmmakers, everyone involved in the production, did this with their tongues in their cheeks, and were having fun with the whole concept and all of the characters as well. Playing it straight, more or less, just makes the flick more entertaining. Considering that Nancy is not only rich but rather sexy in her way, one wonders why Harry wants to bother with that tramp, Honey Parker, although it's a possibility that his wife's neurotic qualities might have driven anyone to distraction. Hayes is effectively angst-ridden as Nancy, Hudson is fine as the cold-blooded Harry, and Yvette Vickers nearly walks off with the movie as Honey. After Harry implies that he will murder Nancy so he can run off with Honey, he tells her to "read the papers." Unfortunately, his murderous mission is interrupted by Nancy's abrupt change in size. When Honey next sees Harry, she scornfully states "I read the papers." Vickers is an amusing. sexy vixen who knows her way about a line. Another funny scene (of many) is when Nancy throws her drink at a TV set when the announcer (Dale Tate) intones: "Come now, Mrs. Archer -- A man may ignore a million dollars, but fifty!"

The effects of the movie are catch as catch can. You can see through the giant and the giant-sized Mrs. Archer, but the space man's huge prop hand isn't bad. The movie never tells us what happens to Nancy's bedroom after she "blows up like a balloon," but one can imagine that her expanding body knocked down a few walls and she has to lie on the floor wrapped in sheets. Roy Gordon and Otto Waldis are fun as Nancy's doctors, Frank Chase is a delight as Deputy Charlie, who also has a yen for Honey, Ken Terrell makes a convincing manservant, Jess, and George Douglas is solid as the sheriff. Ronald Stein's evocative score is a decided asset. A 1993 TV remake completely missed the mark because it went for out and out comedy. 

Verdict: Great fun, and a virtual catalog of 1950's Americana. ***. 

HANGMAN (2017)

Karl Urban and Al Pacino

HANGMAN (2017). Director: Johnny Martin.

Detective Will Ruiney (Karl Urban), whose wife was murdered, is a former FBI profiler now working with the NYPD. Ray Archer (Al Pacino), a retired cop, agrees to help Will investigate a series of baffling murders wherein various people are killed and hanged, murders tied into the old "Hangman" game played by children. Traveling with them as they interview people, visit crime scenes, and nearly trip over corpses, is reporter Christi Davis (Brittany Snow). A person is murdered every 24 hours, and the detectives race against time to prevent each new slaughter. 

Brittany Snow

Hangman has an interesting premise, but it just doesn't stand out as a classic serial killer film, especially when compared to tauter moves like Se7en and Copycat. Pacino, who is the only actor billed above the title, employs the same dubious Southern jive/drawl that he used in his last thriller, Misconduct, and it adds nothing to his comparatively disinterested performance. Urban is a bit better, and Snow has at least one good scene when she tells of how she was assaulted and the cop who came after her assailant was shot and killed. Otherwise, her character doesn't add much to the movie.

There is at least one exciting scene, when Will tries to save a man who has been placed, hanging, over a track as a train approaches, and Ray, realizing there's not enough time to do so, opts to save Will instead. Hangman has a workable premise, and is not badly directed or photographed, but despite some back story, the characters are thinly etched, the victims are mostly ciphers, and the killer, with his dubious motives, never emerges as a villain of classic proportions. 

Verdict: Another mediocre Al Pacino "paycheck" movie. **1/2. 

THE HIDDEN HAND

Milton Parsons

THE HIDDEN HAND (1942). Director: Benjamin Stoloff. 

Insane murderer John Channing (Milton Parsons) escapes from an institution by hiding in the back of a police car! He arrives at the mansion owned by his sister, Lorinda (Cecil Cunningham), who wants his help in carrying out a sinister scheme. Convinced that her relatives are only out for her money, she invites them all to her house, fakes her death, and hopes they will all kill each other off -- or become victims of John, who is pretending to be a new butler. Lorinda's secretary, Mary (Elisabeth Fraser) is said to be her main heir, so she becomes a target almost immediately. 

Craig Stevens and Cecil Cunningham

Half an hour into the film's brief running time, the star Craig Stevens, playing lawyer Peter Thorne, who is engaged to Mary, shows up to intercede in events. There are more murders and a bit of skulduggery as well, including sequences with secret panels and trapdoors that overhang deep drops into the ocean. The male relatives are played by Roland Drew, Tom Stevenson, and Frank Wilcox, while the ladies are portrayed by Julie Bishop and Ruth Ford, with Inez Gay cast as the unfortunate maid, Hattie, and Marian Hall as the sinister nurse, Eleanor. Kam Tong is the Chinest servant Mallo, who is one of several people who come to a bad end. 

"I don't like that pigeon." Willie Best

The most likable player is Willie Best, who plays Eustis, the chauffeur. Approaching an agitated raven in his mistress' bedroom, he says, "I don't like that pigeon and he doesn't like me, either." The Hidden Hand is too loopy to work as a serious mystery film, and it isn't funny enough to work as a black comedy, so what we've got is a fairly foolish melodrama with mostly insufficient acting. Even Cecil Cunningham isn't very good, and Stevens [Peter Gunn] has little to do but look pretty. Willie Best does his usual shtick, but he steals the move doing it. Elisabeth Fraser makes little impression as Mary, but Parsons is typically effective as one of his gallery of creeps. 

Verdict: An instantly forgettable so-called comedy melodrama.  **. 

JUNGLE JIM TV SERIES

Johnny Weissmuller

JUNGLE JIM (syndicated 1956 television series. 26 half hour episodes.

After Johnny Weissmuller finished playing Jungle Jim (or himself) in 16 films, he starred in a TV series featuring the character. In the show, Jim had a son named Skipper (Martin Huston)  and a manservant named Kaseem (Dean Fredericks), who was a combination housekeeper and butler. Tamba the chimp got up to mischief on a regular basis, and Paul Cavanagh showed up now and then as Commissioner Morrison. A number of talented black actors were cast as natives.

Dean Fredericks; Martin Huston 

In "Safari Danger" a couple hire Jim to guide them into territory where they can capture  a proboscis monkey, but wind up trying to capture a pygmy instead. In "Gift of Evil" a magical elixir given to the natives only gives them swamp fever. In "White Magic" some natives refuse to let an educated native doctor operate on a little girl who will die if the surgery isn't performed. In "The Deadly Idol" natives worship a totem which turns out to be a live bomb that fell from an airplane and could go off at any minute. "Land of Terror" features a lost prehistoric world where the characters are menaced by dinosaurs. 

"The trouble is most people don't think."

Secret cities figure in two episodes: "Treasure of the Incas" takes place in Brazil with a host of headhunters, and "Power of Darkness" occurs in Nepal where there is a lost city inside of a mountain. There are searches for a lost daughter ("The Silver Locket") and the ever-popular elephant's graveyard ("Fortune in Ivy"), as well as a kidnapping plot ("Precious Cargo") and a story in which precious diamonds are lifted from the eyes of a native idol ("Eyes of Manobo"). "Blood Money" features a wealthy tourist whose spoiled teenage daughter stupidly runs off with a lion cub. Natives sacrifice girls to a giant clam or pearl god in "Lagoon of Death," and Tamba takes center stage in "Code of the Jungle," in which the chimp becomes jealous of a dog that Skipper adopts.

Like the movies, the Jungle Jim TV series is a lot of "B" movie-type fun. While never what one could call a great actor, Weissmuller is perfect as Jim; wide-eyed young Huston makes an appealing sidekick for him; and Fredericks is dignified and professional as Kaseem. 

Verdict:  Entertaining series that makes the most of its low budget. ***. 

ATTACK OF THE MONSTER MOVIE MAKERS

ATTACK OF THE MONSTER MOVIE MAKERS. Tom Weaver. McFarland; 1994.

This book collects interviews, some already published in such magazines as Fangoria, with a variety of people associated with the horror/sci fi genre. These include Hitchcock screenwriter, Charles Bennett, who is billed as the "oldest employed screenwriter;" producer Herman Cohen, who hired Joan Crawford for her last features Berserk and Trog; director Val Guest, of Creeping Unknown and The Day the Earth Caught Fire; actress Susan Hart of Dr. Goldfoot infamy; Candace Hilligoss of Carnival of Souls and The Curse of the Living Corpse, who provides lots of behind-the-scenes details on those pictures; veteran actress Rose Hobart [The Adventures of Smilin' Jack]; Roger Corman actress Betsy Jones-Moreland, who says of Corman, "I wanted to kill him sometimes, but I liked him;" veteran actors Cameron Mitchell and Vincent Price; and lesser- known folk such as actor William Phipps [Five] and screenwriter Harry Spalding [Spaceflight IC-1]; not to mention Kenneth Tobey, who confirms that Howard Hawks was the one and only director of The Thing from Another World; among others.

Verdict: Very readable and interesting series of interviews with lesser (but no less memorable) lights. ***. 

THE MEG

Jason Statham 

THE MEG (2018). Director: Jon Turteltaub.

About twenty years ago or so a novel called "Meg" by Steve Alten was published with a minor splash, primarily because the movie rights had been bought before publication by Disney. The film never materialized, although there were other films about giant prehistoric sharks (species: megalodon), as well as novels, at least one of which was published before Meg. I don't know why the book and film were in developmental hell for so long, but the movie adaptation has finally come out. I remember the novel as being fun but not that well-written. The film may be a slight improvement. 

Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) survived an attack by a gigantic creature and has given up diving, until he receives a call for help. A sub with people he knows on it has been disabled underwater and a rescue mission is required. Taylor manages to save most of the people, but discovers that a huge prehistoric shark has come up from a lower level of the ocean. Then it attacks the floating base ...

To be fair to The Meg it does have some thrilling scenes with Statham heroically taking on the gargantuan creature and saving the lives of his companions. But there are a few obnoxious characters (the cowardly black dates back to Stepin Fetchit and is pretty ridiculous in this day and age), and more than its share of cliches. Gore Geeks will be disappointed that the carnage of the film is tasteful, you don't have people being shredded in living color as in Piranha 3D, but that's okay with me. There is some tension and suspense, but somehow the movie ultimately just doesn't impress that much. The music by Harry Gregson-Williams provides needed atmosphere, the pace is fast, the FX ecellent, and Statham offers a charismatic lead performance, however.

Verdict: By no means a bad movie, but not something you'll necessarily want in your permanent DVD collection, either. **1/2.

WELCOME!

I have been doing the Great Old Movies blog for about ten years -- covering all kinds of movies (primarily but not limited to those that are twenty-five years old) -- but much of the material I have covered can't necessarily be considered "great" nor especially classic. Of course, there are two things to remember: some acclaimed classic films with major stars don't wear well and may actually be rather poor (as you can tell if you've read my blog); and there are lots of "B" movies and genre films, as well as old TV shows, that are excellent. So B Movie Nightmare will be the sister blog to Great Old Movies, focusing on genre films (horror, sci-fi, fantasy, crime and detective, etc.), exploitation items, old, often-forgotten TV shows, and all the stuff that may not necessarily qualify as a "great old movie" but, conversely, may not be that bad at all. In addition, B Movie Nightmare will cover films, TV (as well as the occasional non-fiction book and novel) from all decades, even if I will concentrate primarily on older material. And, of course, I will cover the stinkers, hopefully in amusing fashion. 

Depending on my schedule, B Movie Nightmare will at first come out on a monthly basis, generally the last week of the month, while the first three weeks will be given over to Great Old Movies, (although it is possible that GOM may eventually go on a bi-weekly/twice monthly schedule). This is subject to change. 

The photos directly above are from the following pictures: Attack of the 50 Foot Woman with Allison Hayes; The Brasher Doubloon with George Montgomery playing Philip Marlowe; Bert I. Gordon's The Cyclops; and Jacques Tourneur's Curse of the Demon. The main blog photo up above is from William Castle's Homicidal, with Joan Marshall (as "Jean Arless") and Eugenie Leontovich.