GHOST OF ZORRO

Clayton Moore as grandson of Zorro

GHOST OF ZORRO (12-chapter Republic serial/1949). Director: Fred C. Brannon. Colorized version. 

Ken Mason (Clayton Moore), grandson of Don Diego Vega, the original Zorro, is in New Mexico after the Civil War where Rita White (Pamela Blake) hopes to build a telegraph line beginning in Twin Bluffs. Bad guys George Crane (Gene Roth) and Hank Kilgore (Roy Barcroft), along with a host of other desperadoes, fear that the telegraph will help bring law and order to the territory. Ken is importuned by his buddy, Moccasin (George J. Lewis), to ride as Zorro to combat the various schemes of Crane and the others, and this he does. Explosions, attacks by Indians working with Crane, wagons flying over cliffsides, and more will not keep Zorro and Rita from completing that telegraph line. 

George J. Lewis and Pamela Blake

A sort of sequel to Son of Zorro, this is a cut below that serial but still entertaining and frequently exciting. Marshall Reed and Tom Steele are two of the nasty gunsels, and the latter gets a bit more to do than usual. George J. Lewis proves his versatility, as he often played bad guys as he did in Federal Operator 99 and many others. Pamela Blake was in a number of serials as well as Daltons' Women with Lash LaRue, but in this production she is competent but lacks enough oomph. Cliffhanger serials aren't always logical, but I'm still scratching my head over a scene in chapter two in which Mason/Zorro, riding behind Rita in a wagon, jumps off his horse, climbs a cliff, and somehow manages to jump into said wagon which is now, impossibly, behind him. (If the wagon went around some kind of curve, the logistics of this aren't shown.) Still, Ghost of Zorro is fun.

Verdict: Probably not the last gasp for Zorro. **3/4. 

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. 

EARTH VS. THE SPIDER

EARTH VS. THE SPIDER (aka The Spider/1958). Director: Bert I. Gordon. Colorized. 

For inexplicable reasons a gargantuan bird spider which has been snacking on luckless spelunkers decides to come out of its cave and kill the father of high school student Carol Flynn (June Kenney). Science teacher Art Kingman (Ed Kemmer) instructs the authorities, including laconic Sheriff Cagle (Gene Roth), to fill the cavern with gas. Thinking the huge arachnid is dead, the group takes the creature to the high school, where it  is put on display and wakes up during band practice! As it goes on a rampage, Carol and her boyfriend Mike (Eugene Persson) go into the cave to see if they can find a gift that Carol's late father bought for her birthday. Naturally the monster comes back. Now it's a question if the teens, lost in the cave, will die of starvation or become instant bug food! 

There's something oddly likable about The Spider, Bert I. Gordon's imitation of the superior Tarantula, although one could certainly point to plenty of dumb moments and glaring imperfections. The movie could have been a nail-biter but never achieves that level of tension. The cast generally plays it straight, which always helps, and June Kenney is rather good as Carol. Still the actors have to take a back seat to that spider. Its rampage is quite limited, and the last quarter of the film is a bit on the slower side, but the flick is still entertaining if you like creature features. The color, as usual, adds a new dimension. Albert Glasser's score is effective as well. 

Verdict: A fun big bug movie. **3/4.

ADVENTURES OF FRANK AND JESSE JAMES

Steve Darrell and Clayton Moore as Frank and Jesse James

ADVENTURES OF FRANK AND JESSE JAMES (13 chapter Republic serial/1948). Directed by Fred C. Brannon and Yakima Canutt.

After the events of Jesse James Rides Again, Jesse (Clayton Moore) is reunited with his brother, Frank (Steve Darrell). Although it is hinted that the men may have been up to nefarious doings in their younger days, all they want to do is go straight, and pay back some of their supposed victims, who were actually robbed by a phony Jesse James -- a man named Rafe (George J. Lewis). The James' boys think the answer to their troubles is a gold mine, but Amos Ramsey (John Crawford of Zombies of the Stratosphere), who covets the gold for himself, is working against them every step of the way. Jesse and Frank pretend to be the cousins of sympathetic Judy Powell (Noel Neill of Freddie Steps Out) and they also have banker Paul Thatcher (Sam Flint) on their side.

Clayton Morre and Noel Neill

Although as portrayed herein the James Brothers seem to come from an alternate dimension, Adventures of Frank and Jesse James is another exciting and well-done Republic western serial. There's a thrilling stage coach race in chapters five - six that seems like a blueprint for the chariot race in Ben-Hur, which is no wonder since Adventures' co-director Yakima Canutt helped stage both. Notable cliffhangers include a carriage flying off of a shattered bridge sans horses; a fiery explosion in a mine; Jesse caught beneath a falling plank with embedded nails; the Marshall (Gene Roth) about to see the boys' real signatures on a real estate deal; and Jesse and an assailant punching each other out and falling off a very high cliff. The uncredited, probably stock musical score for this is especially effective. 

Verdict: Another Western winner from Republic. ***. 

THE REBEL SET

Kathleen Crowley and Gregg Palmer

THE REBEL SET (1959). Director: Gene Fowler, Jr. 

Mr. Tucker (Edward Platt of Atlantis the Lost Continent) owns a coffee shop but he has a sideline: he plans heists for lots of money. He enlists the participation of three men whom he clearly thinks of as losers: struggling actor John (Gregg Palmer); failed novelist Ray (John Lupton); and George (Don Sullivan), the screw-up son of a famous movie star. Tucker actually plans his caper very well, and the heist of an armored car goes off without a hitch, until everyone makes their escape on a train and a murder or two occurs ... 

John Lupton and Don Sullivan

The Rebel Set was packaged as some kind of "beatnik" movie, but while there are appearances by stereotypical beatniks in the film, the main characters don't fit into that category and the film has little to do with them. The screenplay for this is not that bad, but the performances are a little too laid-back to give the pic the tension it requires. Don Sullivan essays a very different character from the one he plays in The Giant Gila Monster, but he's versatile enough to pull it off although he, too, underplays too much. Poor Ed Platt walks through the movie as if it were a rehearsal and he didn't know the cameras were filming -- his high water mark really was Get Smart.  Kathleen Crowley with her trademark whiskey voice gives the best performance as actor John's very worried wife, who thinks he's going to appear in a play instead of a robbery. Others in the cast include Robert Shayne, Byron Foulger, and Gene Roth [Earth vs the Spider]. The film was shot by Karl Struss. Probably influenced by films like The Killing and The Asphalt Jungle, it's not in their league.

Verdict: Just misses. **1/2. 

EARTH VS THE SPIDER

The spider saunters past sheriff's office

EARTH VS THE SPIDER (1958). Director: Bert I. Gordon. 

A gigantic bird spider of unknown origin wakes up in a cave and begins eating the locals. One of the first victims is Jack Flynn (Merritt Stone), whose daughter Carol (June Kenney) and boyfriend Mike (Eugene Persson) find his desiccated corpse. Initially put down by gallons of DDT, the spider is presumed dead and put in the gymnasium, until a band's practicing wakes it up and off it goes on a rampage. Now the town has to figure out a way to destroy the monster for good, but are science teacher Art Kingman (Ed Kemmer) and Sheriff Cagle (Gene Roth) up to the challenge?

The deputy: pitiful victim of the giant spider

Earth vs the Spider, clearly inspired by the superior Tarantula, is another of Burt I. Gordon's  (Mr. BIG) monster movies with its usual attempts at characterization, variable special effects work, and a few grisly touches that might have provided shocks for teens in the fifties. The picture has some suspense, a few disturbing moments, and is a lot of fun. Like normal-sized spiders, this monster immobilizes its victims and sucks all the juice out of them, although this business is never actually depicted; we only see the results. The film was supposedly filmed in the famous Carlsbad caverns. The "teens" in this movie were mostly played by adults. Joe the bandleader, is played by Troy Patterson, who was thirty-five at the time! 

NOTE: You can read more about this film and others like it in Creature Features: Nature Turned Nasty in the Movies. 

Verdict: You can't go completely wrong with Mr. BIG! **1/2.