THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH

THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH (`964). Produced and directed by Del Tenney. 

After a ship wreck, some dumped atomic waste combines with skeletal remains to form bloodthirsty radioactive creatures that resemble sea horses and attack humans. The first victim is Tina (Marilyn Clarke), the plain girl who acts sluttish to get attention. Her boyfriend, Hank Green (John Lyon), works with Dr. Gavin (Allan Laurel), to come up with a way to defeat the monsters while drawing closer to Gavin's daughter, Elaine (Alice Lyon, John's sister). Meanwhile the attacks continue, including a "slumber party massacre" in which twenty young women are slaughtered. A trio of women are attacked at the quarry where the monsters have relocated, and two drunk men become victims as well. Gavin's housekeeper Eulabelle (Eulabelle Moore) -- simple-minded perhaps but feisty -- is gently mocked by the doctor for suggesting "zombies" are responsible, but as the creatures are, in a sense, living dead men, (giant protozoas) she's more on target than she realizes. 

The Horror of Party Beach combines a creature feature with a typical beach party movie, with scenes of bathing belles, lame jokes, and songs by a group called the Del-Aires. There's also a brief rumble on the beach and other stock elements of the Beach Party genre. Actually the idea for the monsters and some of the sequences are interesting enough that this might have worked much better as a straight horror picture -- it's the beach scenes and music that give it that campy, schlocky aspect. Another problem is that the mimes who play the monsters in their costumes walk more like dancers than a new species of creature. Still, you might get a bit of a frisson when the monsters creep out of their quarry at night and prowl through the forest. A gangling score and sound FX also help. Del Tenny also directed The Curse of the Living Corpse. 

Verdict: Atomic skulls on the rampage! **1/2. 

MYSTERIOUS DR. SATAN

Robert Wilcox as the Copperhead

MYSTERIOUS DR. SATAN (15-chapter Republic serial/1940). Directors: John English; William Witney. Colorized version. 

Dr. Satan (Eduardo Ciannelli of Monster from Green Hell) wants to conquer the world by use of robots, but for that to happen he first has to wrest away a special remote control device from a scientist named Scott (C. Montague Shaw), who has no interest in giving it to him. Satan eventually kidnaps Scott and gives him a drug to make him compliant, even as attempts at a rescue are made by Bob Wayne (Robert Wilcox); Scott's daughter, Lois, a reporter (Ella Neal); and Scott's plucky secretary, Alice (Dorothy Herbert); not to mention Lois' associate, Speed (William Newell). 

Eduardo Ciannelli as the scheming Dr. Satan

Governor Bronson (Charles Trowbridge) is murdered by Satan, but not before he tells Bob Wayne that he is the son of a late misunderstood vigilante named the Copperhead. As Bronson was like a father to Bob, he takes up the mantel of the Copperhead by literally donning the copper mesh headpiece once worn by his real father to tackle Dr. Satan. Satan is an utterly ruthless sociopath, ensuring the loyalty of his men by forcing them to wear chest devices via which he can electrocute them at will. He also employs a gun that can fire needles containing a fast-acting poison. Ciannelli underplays and is all the more effective for it. 

Lois, Bob and Dr. Satan -- in disguise

For fifteen chapters the heroic gang -- the two women are brave and resourceful -- try to outwit Dr. Satan, rescue Professor Scott, and save themselves from a variety of dire fates. The Copperhead races to get Lois and others off of a ship before the villain can explode it in chapter one. Bob and Lois are trapped in a leaking diving bell in chapter three, and Bob is nearly immolated by a rush of fire streaming from a gas truck on the highway in another chapter. Bob uses his wits to get out of another trap -- the walls of an underground cell closing in to crush him -- in chapter eleven. A suspenseful bit of business occurs in chapter 12 when the villain uses Scott's remote control device to take over a plane and tries to bring it down in order to stop another ally of the Copperhead. A box which presumably has the Copperhead inside it is placed inside a furnace in a later chapter, and the final chapter features a host of agents and police officers being snared by Satan's doom traps in his mansion. 

The Copperhead: stand-in for Superman

Mysterious Dr. Satan, like most of Republic's serials, is fast-paced and full of action and furious, furniture-breaking fight sequences. The Copperhead literally throws himself at his adversaries. As usual there are some absurd moments, such as when a gunsel standing on the sidewalk fires his gun and actually hits an associate who is on the roof of a skyscraper, and an amusing moment when Satan, swathed in bandages, claims his burns are superficial (and yet looks like the Mummy!). Dr. Satan was originally to be an adversary for Superman, but DC Comics withdrew their permission and gave it to Columbia. Republic cobbled together the Copperhead character, who has no powers and is nothing like the Man of Steel, and the following year adapted Fawcett Comics' Captain Marvel for another excellent serial. As for Robert Wilcox, he had a difficult marriage to fellow alcoholic Diana Barrymore, and died of a heart attack in his forties. 

Verdict: Fun, fast cliffhanger serial with a diabolical, classy bad guy and an interesting good guy. ***1/4.

SHE DEMONS

Irish McCalla and Tod Griffin

SHE DEMONS (1958). Director: Richard H. Cunha. Colorized version.

Fred Maklin (Tod Griffin) has been hired by a wealthy man to find a certain island where there have been reports of strange creatures. He has taken along two crewmen and the millionaire's spoiled daughter, Jerrie (Irish McCalla), and they wind up shipwrecked on the very island they seek. They discover that in underground chambers there is a Nazi scientist named Osler (Rudolph Anders), his disfigured wife Mona (Leni Tana) whom he is trying to help, and a bunch of stormtroopers lorded over by sadistic Igor (Gene Roth). Not to mention a whole bevy of women, half of whom have been temporarily transformed into hideous, fanged "she demons" due to Osler's experiments. Mona decides to help the castaways when she realizes her husband has the hots for Jerrie. 

Irish McCalla has no interest in Rudolph Anders' proposal

It's hard to hate the zany She Demons because it does make use of a kind of zesty luridness to pull you along. Victor Sen Yung as one of the crew members still seems to be playing Charlie Chan's Number Two son (or was it number one?), Tod Griffin has an appealing presence and is perfectly okay, but poor Irish McCalla, although she tries, never seems more convincing than an acting student in a high school production. Gene Roth (of Earth vs, the Spider) can give both good and bad performances and in this he's stuck somewhere in the middle. To give Anders the benefit of the doubt, he may have been trying to be colorful in his almost-camp portrayal of the Nazi scientist, but it just doesn't work and he's simply borderline awful. In addition to trying to fix his wife's horribly disfigured face -- we get a look at it in the film's single shock sequence -- Osler is also trying to use lava and thermal energy to create a perpetual motion machine -- or something like that. The She Demons are played mostly by the Diane Nellis Dancers. Poor gals! 

Verdict: You can never have enough She Demons at a party! **1/4. 

KNIFE OF ICE

Carroll Baker

KNIFE OF ICE (aka Il coltello di ghiaccio/1972). Director: Umberto Lenzi. 

Martha (Carroll Baker) has been mute since her parents were killed in a train disaster and they threw her out a window to safety. Now she lives with her Uncle Ralph (Jorge Riguad) and her cousin, Jenny (Ida Galli of The Case of the Scorpion's Tail), as well as the sinister driver Marcos (Eduardo Fajardo of The Murder Mansion), housekeeper Mrs. Britton (Silvia Monelli), and the British maid Rosalie (Olga Gherardi). When Jenny is found dead in the garage, it develops that there was already another blond victim of an unknown killer. Now the police fear that Martha will be the next to be targeted. The main suspect is a devil worshipper named Randy Mason (Mario Pardo), but there are others: the mayor, Father Martin (Jose Marco), and the smooth and attractive Dr. Laurent (Alan Scott), who has been treating both Martha and her uncle. 

Baker with Alan Scott

This is the final collaboration between star Baker and director Lenzi, and it's arguably the least interesting. Although it does work up a bit of suspense towards the very end, the pacing is generally too slow and the characters are not that interesting. Jean Sorel is sorely missed as well, as Martha is given no real love interest. The twist ending to this doesn't quite convince, but the film is well-acted by all. Alan Scott was an American actor who did most of his films in Europe. 

Verdict: Disappointing Baker-Lenzi mystery flick. **1/2. 

THE NEANDERTHAL MAN

Robert Shayne

THE NEANDERTHAL MAN (1953). Director: Ewald Andre Dupont. 

"The restoration of dormant cells of the mind of man."

Professor Clifford Groves (Robert Shayne of The Giant Claw) is either demented or an asshole. He neglects his pretty fiancee, Ruth (Doris Merrick of Sensation Hunters), and is rude to his daughter, Jan (Joyce Terry), while he continues his rather pointless experiments in regression. He has already managed to turn a kitty cat into a sabretooth tiger (although when we see it roaming about the countryside in long shot it seems quite normal), and excoriates a scientific board for not recognizing that the brains of Neanderthal men were as large as modern man's (no one argues that it wasn't Neanderthals who built civilization, wrote Shakespeare's plays, composed Wagner's music and so on). When Groves stupidly injects himself with his formula, he turns into one of the silliest-looking monsters on record and seems mildly upset when he learns that he's killed friends of his while under the influence, so to speak. Which would not make him less culpable in the eyes of the law, although his dumb daughter might disagree.

Doris Merrick and Richard Crane

There have been a lot of mad scientists in horror films, but the one in The Neanderthal Man is one of the stupidest and most immoral. Without her knowledge or permission, Groves drugs the mute maid (Tandra Quinn) and injects her with his formula. (His daughter should be appalled but she still sticks up for him.) Richard Crane plays a scientist who comes to town to investigate reports of the sabretooth; Robert Bray is a rancher and victim; and Beverly Garland -- knocking one out of the ballpark yet again -- is a waitress who witnesses Groves murder her date and who is carried off by him. While the time-lapse photography of Groves' transformation is acceptable, his fright mask and wig are unintentionally hilarious. The true purpose of Groves' ridiculous experiments is never really explained. Robert Shayne's performance is hammy and unmemorable and the direction is completely uninspired. 

Verdict: A regression you can do without. **. 

THE FLESH EATERS

Martin Kosleck, Barbara Wilkin, Rita Morley 

THE FLESH EATERS (1964). Director: Jack Curtis. Written by Arnold Drake. Colorized version.  

Drunken actress Laura Winters (Rita Morley) simply must get to Provincetown to perform, and she hires pilot Grant Murdoch (Byron Sanders) to get her there, dragging along her secretary Jan Letterman (Barbara Wilkin). Unfortunately engine trouble forces them down on a deserted island inhabited by former Nazi scientist Peter Bartell (Martin Kosleck of Agent for H.A.R.M), who is still experimenting with a microscopic lifeform he refers to as "flesh eaters." And he ain't kidding! For unspecified reasons Bartell wants to use electricity to super-energize the little darlings, but this has an unexpected result, causing the creatures to form a conglomerate that is positively huge. 

Byron Sanders and Martin Kosleck

The Flesh Eaters is a wild, gruesome, uninhibited horror story that may not have much internal logic but provides ample opportunity for thrills, amusement and horror. The cast, led by the sinisterly charming Kosleck, is certainly game, and Rita Morley scores as the somewhat overbearing dipsomaniac actress. Although at first he's quite irritating, Ray Tudor is notable as the ill-fated beatnik Omar, whose death figures in the movie's grisliest sequences. There's a splendid scene when Murdoch helps Laura -- trying to grab a suitcase of booze where it got caught in some rocks -- make her way over a pool of sizzling flesh-eaters on a treacherous jetty. The giant flesh eater has mottled, bumpy skin as well as humongous pincers. The score by Julian Stein is not very impressive initially, but eventually it becomes quite effective. Aside from Kosleck, most of the actors had few credits, although Sanders and Morley did work in soap operas. 

Verdict: A clever and inventive monster flick. ***

CAPTAIN AMERICA

Dick Purcell as Captain America

CAPTAIN AMERICA (15-chapter Republic serial/1944). Directors: Elmer Clifton and John English. Colorized version. 

Dr. Maldor (Lionel Atwill of Lady in the Death House) is royally pissed. All he got out of a trip to some Mayan ruins with several associates is a lowly position at the Drummond Museum of Arts and Sciences. Maldor is not about to take this slight lying down, so he uses a drug called the purple death to force the other men to commit suicide and calls himself the Scarab.  And that's just for starters. Maldor has other nefarious plans in mind and has to continually keep dealing with District Attorney Grant Gardner (Dick Purcell of X Marks the Spot) and his alter ego Captain America, who is out to stop him whatever it takes. Maldor uses a "dynamic vibrator" to make an entire building collapse in chapter one, and then uses a stolen "electronic firebolt" to rob banks and the like. He even gets involved with a professor who can bring dead animals and even people back to life. Grant/Cap has a take no prisoners attitude, and it seems as if every other chapter one of Maldor's gunsels is being thrown to his death from a great height. 

Atwill, Gray, Pucell

Captain America is one of the very best Republic serials, with a constant stream of riotous action, fabulous fisticuffs, and some great cliffhangers, including the aforementioned collapsing building, a crushing tractor on a direct path to Cap's prone body, a guillotine that nearly beheads Grant's plucky associate Gail (Lorna Gray), and an ore car that is dropped down a shaft on top of our semi-conscious hero. In one scene Atwill whips John Hamilton when he won't talk, and puts Gail in a case where he intends to employ "mummifying" gas to turn her into a desiccated prune. Gail thinks of a clever way to trap Maldor, making up the name of a doctor which is the Scarab's real name spelt backwards. Purcell and Gray are suitably heroic, but Atwill walks off with the movie with his smooth, amused, and highly sinister turn as the utterly evil and sociopathic Maldor. John Davidson and George J. Lewis are Maldor's primary henchmen, and Jay Novello has a neat scene as a gunsel who comes to a bad end. Mort Glickman's score also works overtime to keep the excitement level up. Gray and Lewis  also appeared together in Federal Operator 99. NOTE: Even though the serial's hero has a different secret identity than in the comic books, this is the very first Marvel Comics movie adaptation.

Verdict: Lots of thrilling fun. ***1/4. 

IT CONQUERED THE WORLD

Graves, Garland, Van Cleef

IT CONQUERED THE WORLD (1956). Produced and directed by Roger Corman. Colorized version. 

Scientist Paul Nelson (Peter Graves of Killers from Space) helped put a satellite in orbit, and when it briefly disappears, his best friend and fellow scientist Tom Anderson (Lee Van Cleef of Machete) insists that a creature from Venus is now aboard it and heading for Earth. Anderson is convinced that the alien is benevolent and will bring about a golden age where foolish emotions are unnecessary. Tom's wife, Claire (Beverly Garland of Gunslinger), thinks her husband is nuts, and Paul argues about the alien's alleged good intentions. Especially when after landing and taking refuge in a cave, the creature blocks all energy and electricity and sends out flying, bat-like animals that briefly attach themselves to certain people's necks and sap their free will -- one of the victims is Paul's wife, Joan (Sally Fraser). Claire finally gets a rifle and decides to take matters into her own hands ...  

The crazed Venusian creature on a rampage

There are an awful lot of things you could quibble about with It Conquered the World, but while the movie is often absurd it is also absorbing. As usual Beverly Garland walks off with the acting honors, although Lee Van Cleef isn't too far behind her with his intense portrayal of a rather naive and delusional scientist. Graves and Fraser are a cut below them, but are adequate. (They have hardly any reaction to a plane crash that occurs virtually on top of them.) Dick Miller and Jonathan Haze are cast as comic relief soldiers and add nothing to the picture, unfortunately. Roger Corman keeps things moving at a brisk pace although the climax is a little dragged out. The Venusian creature may look a little silly and has very limited movement, but Corman manages to get across its malevolence and homicidal intent anyway. The highlight of the film is Garland's impassioned verbal and physical attack on the alien. An uncredited remake was Zontar, the Thing from Venus. 

Verdict: Whatever its flaws, this is a creepy Corman classic. ***.

FOG ISLAND

Formidable adversaries: Atwill; Zucco

FOG ISLAND (1945). Director: Terry O. Morse. Colorized.

Leo Grainer (George Zucco) has a lot to be ticked off about. He believes he spent time in jail because he was framed by certain associates. He also believes that one of those associates murdered his wife. He now lives on an isolated island with his stepdaughter, Gail (Sharon Douglas), and invites all of the suspects there. For their own reasons -- including the possibility of finding a treasure cache -- they all agree. The guests include Ritchfield (Lionel Atwill of Lady in the Death House); fortune teller Emiline (Jacqueline deWit); Grainer's former secretary, Sylvia (Veda Ann Borg of Naked Gun); Doc Kingsley (Ian Keith), who was in jail with Grainer; Kavanaugh (Jerome Cowan of Black Zoo); and others. As the fog rolls in -- and in and in -- people start dying one by one. 

Sharon Douglas and John Whitney

The best -- and best-acted -- scenes have to do with Zucco and Atwill, two excellent performers who make the most out of weak material. Their scenes together are too brief to amount to much, however, and the rest of the creaky movie takes a while to really get going. John Whitney plays a love interest for Gail, who is pretty miserable to him for most of the running time. At the conclusion the picture is enlivened by a death trap sequence in which several of the characters are trapped in a locked underground chamber that is rapidly filling with water. Otherwise this is not that memorable a movie. 

Verdict: The fog machines on the sound stage were working overtime! **1/4. 

THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH

Carroll Baker and Jean Sorel

THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH (aka il dolce corpo di Deborah/1968). Director: Romolo Guerrieri. 

Deborah (Carroll Baker) marries handsome Marcel (Jean Sorel) after only knowing him a few weeks. Marcel had been practically engaged to a woman named Suzanne (Ida Galli) who committed suicide when he left her. Visiting his hometown, Marcel sees signs that his former lover is either still alive or someone is trying to make it look that way. Deborah begins to receive unsettling phone calls and fears for her life. Then there's the angry Phillip (Luigi Pistilli of A White Dress for Mariale), who was in love with Suzanne and is furious at the way Marcel treated her. After Deborah and Marcel rent a truly fabulous house, they run into their neighbor, Robert Simack (George Hilton of The Dark is Death's Friend), who seems to have his own agenda. But then maybe everyone in this movie does -- a sinister plot eventually unfolds ... 

Jean Sorel

The Sweet Body of Deborah is a smooth if minor bit of romantic suspense that has some plot similarities to, of all things, Midnight Lace with Doris Day. Baker is so beautiful, and her character seems so completely appealing,  that it's a wonder anyone would think all she had going for her was her money. As usual Baker and Sorel make a good and sexy team; the couple also appeared together in Paranoia. Galli, Hilton and Pistilli all appeared together in The Case of the Scorpion's Tale. 

Verdict: Reasonably absorbing Italian mystery with an attractive cast. **3/4.