BLACK ZOO

BLACK ZOO (1963). Director: Robert Gordon. 

This long-unseen horror thriller is one of three films producer Herman Cohen did with star Michael Gough (the other two are Konga and Horrors of the Black Museum). Like the others, Black Zoo is lurid, somewhat campy fun. Gough is owner of a zoo as well as member of a weird cult of animal worshipers. Threatened with losing the zoo and his beloved tigers and lions -- who lie around his living room like treasured and pampered guests -- Gough sics his pets on anyone who dares to get in his way. His wife Edna (Jeanne Cooper) has a trained chimp act and wishes that hubby were kinder to the handsome mute boy Carl (Rod Lauren) who helps him with the murders. Gough is florid and easily enraged, but as an actor he puts on a lively, energetic show, and Cooper is excellent and equally energetic. The interesting cast also includes Virginia Grey as a booking agent, Jerome Cowan as an entrepreneur, Elisha Cook, Jr. as a zoo worker, and even Ed Platt ("the chief" on Get Smart) as a detective. One of the most interesting scenes is an funeral for the dead tiger Baron that takes place in a misty forest by night. Cooper and Gough have a great, lively dinner scene that ends in an hysterical (in more ways than one) fight. Cooper played Katherine Chancellor on The Young and the Restless; one of her co-stars on that show was Jerry Douglas, who plays a police lab man in Black Zoo. (He's not very good at his job, however, as he thinks a gorilla is "a member of the chimp family!") What's most surprising about this entertaining picture isn't the final revelation as much as how moving it is. Rod Lauren (of The Young Swingers) hasn't a word of dialogue but his expressive face says volumes. (Ironically, the actor-singer was accused years later of hiring someone to murder his wife.) Script by Herman Cohen and Aben Kandel. Robert Gordon also directed It Came from Beneath the Sea. 

Verdict: Lions and tigers and apes, oh my! ***.

THE CRAWLING HAND

The hand runs amok

THE CRAWLING HAND (1963). Director: Herbert L. Strock. Colorized.

Captain Lockhart (Ashley Cowan) is the latest in a line of astronauts who are taken over by some strange kind of force while out in space. Lockhart's ship explodes, but his severed arm is found on a beach by Paul (Rod Lauren of The Young Swingers) and his girlfriend, Marta (Sirry Steffen), who freaks out. Inexplicably, Paul takes the arm home, where the hand strangles his landlady, Mrs. Hotchkiss (Arline Judge). Then whatever affected Lockhart in space begins affecting Paul. Will Sheriff Townsend (Alan Hale Jr. of Thunder in Carolina) be able to get Paul under control after he attacks Marta or will he have to shoot him? 

Sirry Steffen and Rod Lauren

The Crawling Hand has some interesting elements and could have been turned into a fairly good movie, but it goes in all the wrong directions and is never as creepy as intended. Probably the most interesting thing about it is the cast, which includes the Skipper from Gilligan's Island, former star Richard Arlen, old-time actress Arline Judge, Kent Taylor [The Crimson Key] and Peter Breck as scientists, and Allison Hayes of 50 Foot Woman fame, criminally wasted as a secretary with only a couple of scenes. Tristram Coffin of King of the Rocket Men also shows up for one sequence as a security chief. Rod Lauren gives an uneven performance, but Steffen showed promise; she only had six other credits, though. Herbert L. Strock also directed Gog.

Verdict: Had possibilities, but this doesn't really work. **. 

THE YOUNG SWINGERS

Molly Bee and Rod Lauren

THE YOUNG SWINGERS (1963). Director: Maury Dexter.

Mel Hudson (Rod Lauren) manages a Hootenanny club called the Vanguard. The owner of the building, a witch named Roberta Crawford (Jo Helton), wants the club out of there and employs dirty tricks to get them gone, using her lawyer Bruce Webster (Justin Smith) to do most of the work for her. Her granddaughter, Vicki (Molly Bee), takes over while Roberta is out of town, and strikes up an acquaintanceship -- and more -- with Mel. Can they get her aunt to change her mind? Meanwhile everyone, including Mel, Vicki, Fred (Gene McDaniels), Pete (Larrs Jackson, who also does impressions), and the Sherwood Singers perform some perfectly pleasant numbers. 

Gene McDaniels

The Young Swingers is not a good movie, but at least everyone in it has a more than decent voice, and most sound much better than the pop singers of today, most of whom sound alike (and are auto-tuned on top of it). Rod Lauren sings better than he acts in this -- he seems tranquilized most of the time -- but he was to become more expressive in such films as Black Zoo (in which he played a mute character). Years later he was accused of hiring someone to murder his Filipino wife. Molly Bee first came to fame at 13 warbling "I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus" and had a respectable vocal career with only a few film credits. Larrs Jackson (aka Jack Larson), who does a lousy impression of Groucho but isn't bad at Ed Sullivan and Walter Brennan, had quite a number of credits after this. Of all the singers in this perhaps the most impressive is Gene McDaniels, who sings two snappy numbers and sings them really well. He should have become as famous as Johnny Mathis and others. 

Verdict: Good songs, good singing, but no real story. **1/4.