What was the last movie you saw?

Deathstalker 1983 - Of the super cheap 80s sword and sorcery films I have seen recently (Barbarian Queen etc), this is has the most variety. They throw in some reasonably ok monster stuff so it isn't just an excuse for a nudie show but it's also one of the more gory ones. The lead reminds me of LQ Jones if he was a barbarian.
 
DOOR-TO-DOOR MANIAC / FIVE MINUTES TO LIVE (1961) Bank robber Fred Dorella (Vic Tayback) has a plan to rob a bank by having his accomplice Johnny Cabot (Johnny Cash) hold the manger's wife hostage, so he can leverage a non-violent withdrawal of $70,000.

He had observed the neighborhood and the house where said manager lives, familiarized himself with the bank's early morning activities, etc., but one important item was unknown to him: that bank manager had been planning to divorce his wife and forsake his son (whose existence was unknown to the robber) and marry another woman, that very day.

Moreover, his accomplice, whom a friend had recommended, would use a false claim of being a door-to-door salesman to gain entry into the targets' home, and had a violent streak a mile wide; hence, the title, DOOR-TO-DOOR MANIAC.

The title FIVE MINUTES TO LIVE comes from a song he sang, while awaiting the phone call from the robber, telling him all went as planned. or the heist was off, and he should kill the woman. Her, he gleefully tormented, counting down the minutes, beating her, etc.

The son, 6 year old portrayed by 6-year old Ron Howard had a critical part to play; though I must critique it:
When everything went south, Johnney grabbed the boy, intending to use him as a human shield. Police fired at him, and the boy cried out in apparent pain. Johnny, under the stress of the moment, assumed the boy was dead, and became upset. He laid him on the ground, and attempted to revive him, etc. Now convinced the boy was dead, he lashed-out at the police, accusing them of having killed him.

They shot Johnny, etc., the mother ran out of the house, and the boy comes around the corner, saying he had played dead. At just 6 years old, & in 1961, is it reasonable to expect that

  1. he would know of the idea of playing dead
  2. he would, given the fear, excitement, etc., have been able to pull it off?

:unsure: I think not.
 
The Happiness of the Katakuris - which was 2 hours of Miike Takashi throwing sh*t at the screen and hoping something stuck. Not the worst of his films I have seen. I didn't dislike it as much as his Visitor Q (mind you I don't think I have I have actively hated any film quite as much as I hated Visitor Q ) but I doubt if I will ever want to watch any of this one again.
 
Last edited:
Crime Films of 1949 With One-Word Titles Double Feature

Undertow (1949)

Directed by William Castle before he got into the gimmicky horror film racket. Guy gets out of the army after seven years, goes back to Chicago intending to marry the niece of the shady character for whom he used to work. The shady guy kicked him out years ago, so the cops think he's back in town for revenge. Some hoods frame him for the murder of the shady guy, going so far as to shoot him in the left hand -- ouch! He goes on the run, having to deal with his injured hand as well as the cops out for him. He gets help from a pretty young schoolteacher he met by chance on a flight from Reno to Chicago, and from a guy on the police force who is an old buddy. A little slow to get started, with quite a bit of back story and character development at the start, but it speeds up into a decent little film. Notable for having an African-American character who not only gets to beat up the protagonist (because he thinks, at first, that he killed his boss) but also gets to be the real hero of the film by sending the real bad guy to his doom.



Jigsaw (1949)

Low budget independent flick with a bunch of tiny cameos from big stars who seem to have donated their time for free or cheap. Burgess Meredith as a bartender who says one line, etc. Guy who printed pamphlets for a hate group gets killed. His terrified wife claims it was suicide. Newspaper columnist who was talking to the printer is the next victim. Assistant district attorney, who happens to be engaged to the columnist's sister, investigates. It leads to a crime boss, a nightclub singer (almost mandatory for this kind of film), the artist who painted a poster for the hate group, and a high society dame. There's another murder late in the film, and a violent climax in an art gallery that makes a cop say "It looks like the fifth act of Hamlet." Not a great film; slow, talky and with a confusing plot.
 
Creature of the Walking Dead (1965)

Schlockmeister Jerry Warren takes a Mexican movie (La Marca del Muerto), cuts it to pieces, and adds some cheap new scenes. The plot is simple and familiar. 19th century Mad Scientist seeks the secret of eternal life by kidnapping women and draining their blood. The cops hang him (although apparently they don't find his secret laboratory/dungeon for female prisoners.) Grandson (same actor) inherits the place, finds Granddad's workshop and notebooks. He grabs his corpse out of the family sarcophagus and revives it. Granddad locks up Grandson and pretends to be him to his fiancée. He keeps losing his regained youth, so had to start the whole process of capturing women again. He finally gets to the fiancée, but Grandson has a big fight with him and Granddad goes up in flames. The Mexican scenes are very nicely filmed, even if the plot is corny. The American scenes stand out like a sore thumb; they're static and talky. A lot of the Mexican scenes don't have dialogue. For those that do, the characters are dubbed when they're facing away. When this is impossible, no effort is made at dubbing. The dialogue remains unheard, and we just get the voice of Grandson as narrator telling us what people are saying. A shabby mess, with some interest in the Mexican sequences.
 
Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon AKA The Mansion of Madness (La mansión de la locura, 1973)

Arty Mexican movie (filmed in English) loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe's "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether." Guy goes to investigate a lunatic asylum, it turns out that the director has been replaced by an insane imposter. The simple plot is an excuse for all sorts of surreal images. (A noted surrealist artist supervised sets and costumes.) "Fellini in a madhouse" would be a decent description.
 
Victoria Silverwolf said:
Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon AKA The Mansion of Madness (La mansión de la locura, 1973)

Arty Mexican movie (filmed in English) loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe's "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether." Guy goes to investigate a lunatic asylum, it turns out that the director has been replaced by an insane imposter. The simple plot is an excuse for all sorts of surreal images. (A noted surrealist artist supervised sets and costumes.) "Fellini in a madhouse" would be a decent description.
Click to expand...

Ooh, I looked it up, and it's none other than the amazing Leonora Carrington who supervised. I need to see this!
 
The Thing and The Day the Earth Stood Still are polar opposites in theme.
The first suggests a threat from outer space and the scientist who wants to examine it is misguided-and the military has to set him straight.

The latter is saying the military is the problem and the scientist works with the alien to encourage peace (though threat of violence).
It Conquered the World is a variation on the Thing although it gave the woman character (Beverly Garland) the best role:

"You listen good. I hate your living guts for what you have done to my husband and my world! I know you for the coward you are and I'm going to kill you! Do you hear that? I am going to kill you!"
 
Hercules, Prisoner of Evil (Ursus il terrore dei Kirghisi, 1964)

Offbeat sword-and-sandal epic. Our muscular hero is actually Ursus, but called Hercules in the dubbed version. That doesn't matter much, because this movie has nothing to do with other films about Ursus. The setting is vaguely medieval Central Asia. The people of Ursus are attacked by a monster. (Some reviews call it a werewolf, but it's more a hairy guy with the face of an ape-man.) Meanwhile, an ambitious prince plots to marry the daughter of the murdered Great Khan and use the excuse of the monster to attack the people of Ursus.

The brother of Ursus shows up, and actually has more screen time than his sibling. Ursus is out of action for quite a while, wounded by the monster. There's a twist ending that reveals the reason the monster is around.

Not much strongman stuff, although there is the usual palace intrigue, fighting, and dancing. Overall, worth a look for fans of the genre.
 
The Carpet of Horror (Der Teppich des Grauens, 1962)

Pretty typical krimi. Crime organization is run by a secret boss, who communicates with the underlings via written messages that appear on a TV screen. It's kind of like texting. Unfortunately for the monolingual Anglophone viewer, these are left in German, although the film is dubbed into English. There are also some untranslated written letters that play a part, so I probably missed much of the plot.

Anyway, folks who know too much are killed with things that look like ping pong balls that release poison gas when they are thrown on the floor. (Hence the title, although carpet isn't really necessary.) Our secret service hero and his assistant (unusually, he's played by a black man) try to track down the head villain. Along the way, the niece (Karin Dor) of one of the victims is suspected of her uncle's murder, has a romance with the secret service agent, and gets kidnapped and rescued. There's an explosive conclusion. It's OK for what it is.
 
COMPANEROS 1970 --Franco Nero as a Swedish arm dealer called "the Penguin" by Tomas Milian, a pragmatic Mexican revolutionary. Jack Palance is a former colleague of Nero's who has a pet falcon. They did so many of these that they become interchangeable--was this the one where Palance defiantly walks out of a scene naked? No that is a different one. They have some kind of political message being talked about but I am not really sure what to take away from this--violence doesn't solve anything or maybe it does. The ambiguity works in its favor since you can't be sure what side it is taking other than giving employment to the movie gun and explosive technicians.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread starter Similar threads Forum Replies Date
Toby Frost Lasting Impact? Game of Thrones 26
AnRoinnUltra The last days of the Lóntuisteach Promotions 0
The Judge DISTAFF -- Last Chance to Buy!! Promotions 0
Extollager Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn (1968 novel -- not movie) Classic SF&F 11
N Y: The Last Man, movie or telly series? Graphic Novels & Comics 3

Similar threads


Back
Top