grghull

I hate to trash a movie whose creators seem so sincere in their attempt to craft an old fashioned entertaining movie but the fact is this is a mess. I can't even figure out whether it's supposed to be a "homage" to the black and white drive-in movies of the 50s or a spoof of them. There's so little humor that I suspect we're supposed to take it seriously (as the makers of, say,FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER clearly meant it to be taken seriously) but then we have the lab table made from a beach chair and the silly gags in the strip joint and really, what are we to make of that? And FRANKENSTEIN VS.... lacks even the rudimentary professionalism that ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS or I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN could boast. The acting ranges from adequate to awful, the shot on video production screams student film, and the most baffling things are the monster costumes. The Gill Man, for example, clearly had a lot of attention devoted to it but the head is so obviously a mask just sitting on top of the body, with no attempt to blend it in so that it looks like part of the same creature, that it ALMOST seems to be a deliberate joke. But I don't think it is. I think the makers of this movie just didn't know any better. It's too bad.

And all those ten star ratings! It's nice when your friends try to help out, but please.....

Good movies about the early days of movies are scarce, which is strange and disappointing considering what a wealth of good material exists about that era. Peter Bogdanovich's NICKLEODEON started off pretty well but descended into trite soap opera before it finished. One of the best movies about silent movies is this one, maybe because it has a real feel for the time and the characters and presents them with a certain degree of authenticity. All that aside it's also a lot of fun. Bud and Lou are on form, the supporting cast (especially the great Fred Clark) is good, and the stunts are funny and well executed with nary a CG shot in sight. One of the best things about it is the lively musical score, in part by an uncredited Henry Mancini who recycled some of it for the chase scenes in Blake Edwards THE GREAT RACE. Recommended for slapstick fans.

Times change. Tastes in movies and comedy change. Doubtless most of the other users who reviewed this movie are too young to remember Woody Woodbury at all, but he was quite popular and successful back in the sixties (albeit briefly). I can well remember listening to his comedy albums (a sort of primitive CD, large flat plastic disks that were played on an ancient device called a "record player") and finding them quite amusing, if nowhere near as funny as Bob Newhart or as cutting edge as Jonathan Winters or Bill Cosby. And certainly he seems much more dated now than any of them but even in this movie I still find his humor --- well, pleasantly amusing is maybe the best way to express it.

As for the movie itself: it was one of many attempts by big studios to cash in on the success of the AIP BEACH PARTY movies and probably better than most. It sure had enough talented and recognizable people in the cast including, to my astonishment, a young and very pretty Ellen Burstyn. Certainly FOR THOSE WHO THINK YOUNG is a harmless and genial enough way to spend a couple of hours if you have nothing better to do. There are worse things in the world.

The music score, which ranges from boogie-woogie to a sort of sleazy Vegas romance music, cues you in right away that this is not a movie to be taken seriously. Rod Taylor (as a sort of low-life grifter) and Ed Fury (his muscle-man pal) find themselves prisoners of a tribe of man hungry amazons. Gender bending comedy abounds (male prisoners who've grown accustomed to their fate exchange recipes and complain about not getting their laundry "sparkling", all with swishy mannerisms and camp voices --- very un-PC and funny as hell) along with low-brow slapstick. Viewers tuning in to a movie entitled COLOSSUS AND THE AMAZON QUEEN expecting thoughtful, serious drama will of course be disappointed. Those with more realistic expectations may find this a delight.

I have to chime in with the other two users in singling out Glenn Strange's performance as the high point of this movie. Sure there are lots of the usual Bowery Boys hi-jinks to keep their fans amused, but it's when the hulking Strange shows up in full monster make-up doing a dead-on Huntz Hall impression that this movie really takes off. Who knew the one time Frankenstein monster had this kind of comedy talent in him? Probably my favorite of the series for just that reason.

(I need three more lines to get this posted, which is really a shame because it would be nice to be able to compliment an actor's performance without having to resort to padding --- although since I'm not padding this with "junk words" I hope it will be considered a valid submission. If not, forgive me. I did my best. I myself think brevity is an asset and would like to see it encouraged.)

This is hardly the worst movie ever made or anything like it. It's low budget is painfully obvious and okay, the guy playing the lead couldn't act worth crap. But with a little patience (and a little imagination and an open mind, two things that seem to be in very short supply of late) you can appreciate that this movie had some very creepy moments and some interesting visuals. And to those who feel the need to invoke MST3K (certainly the most pernicious influence on film criticism to ever some along) every time they run into a movie that doesn't instantly remind them of the latest Hollywood blockbuster, I can only say enjoy your smug self satisfaction while you can, because someday (if you're lucky) you'll outgrow it.

I almost caught this movie at a convention is Chicago. Then I read many glowing reviews of it on the net and decided to hunt it down. For what it is (that is a very low budget film shot in New Jersey) it's pretty remarkable. The production design and overall look of the film is excellent, the cast is good, and the story fast paced and inventive (and frequently very funny!). Although I liked the last episode least it ironically had my favorite scenes: one a sort of take-off on Poe's PIT AND THE PENDULEM and the other a wacky dream sequence that reminded me of Tim Burton. If you're a fan of off-beat entertainment I can certainly recommend this.

Watching this movie again recently I was impressed with how efficiently crafted it was. Clearly not meant to be a major feature, MAN MADE MONSTER is nonetheless put together with great skill. I was particularly impressed with how fast they kept the pace and the attention paid to fleshing out the characters. The attempted execution is conveyed only through the reactions of supporting characters who are clearly conscious of the grim circumstances of state approved homicide. Chaney portrays the likable lug turned pathetic victim with real sincerity. He has no idea what's happening to him, and in one of the final scenes his mime reminds me of Karloff's original Frankenstein monster (ironic since when Chaney himself played the monster he had no such opportunity). And Lionel Atwill as a scientist more mad than evil is, as always, a delight. Good movie.

I was hugely disappointed when I finally saw it as a kid, and although I appreciate it a little more now I still think by and large it's not a very good movie. The first fifteen minutes are wonderful. The photography and set design are outstanding and capture the eerie atmosphere of Bram Stoker's novel. These opening scenes are the only ones taken from the book; after that the movie becomes merely a photographed record of a tedious stage play. As has been mentioned previously Universal originally planned to film Dracula as a "super-production" based entirely on the book and starring Conrad Veidt. Had the depression not killed those plans this might well have been the definitive version of the Stoker novel. Veidt was (to my mind) a better actor than Lugosi and physically better suited to the role, and as I said the first fifteen minutes show what a superb job Universal could do when basing the material on the book and not the play. As it is this Dracula is pretty tough to sit through. Hammer's version with Christopher Lee still captures the spirit of the source better than any other I've seen.

Depending on your point of view. I have a dim memory of seeing this rerun on Sunday morning TV when I was a kid (even then it seemed ancient). I picked this up for a buck at a local thrift store. For the most part is seemed very tedious, and the attempts to pass of post war Berlin as other planets reminded me of ALPHAVILLE without the wit or imagination (after all, Godard knew we wouldn't really buy Paris AS Alpahville but assumed we'd go along with the joke --- here they actually seem to be serious). Still some of the imagery is sporadically striking. For a moment I thought the hellish underground scenes might be taken from some German silent film. They had a little of the atmosphere of Lang's SEIGRIED, only done on the cheap. Really this is a curiosity item more than anything. I can't recommend it, but I wouldn't try to dissuade anyone from seeing it either.

Oh --- but Irene Champlin as Dale Arden ---? Dale's MOM, maybe....

I'm not rating this movie because I only saw the last half. I was flipping through channels on a Sunday afternoon and saw Eddy Murphy in a big blue furry animal costume and decided it might be worth a look. I'd seen the first two Beverly Hills Cop movies, thought they were okay, and it didn't take long to realize this was a sequel. Not a very good sequel, though. And I began to recognize a certain trademark style. The editing was sloppy, the action kept switching from comedy to drama within any given scene, nothing really seemed to work the way is was supposed to, and there was a sort of "anything for a laugh" mentality that threw plausibility out the window while still expecting you to take the movie seriously. The pointless appearance of Ray Harryhausen as a bar patron clinched it. "Wait a second," I said to myself, "this must be a John Landis film!" Sure enough the end titles rolled and there was Big John's name on the screen. I used to have high hopes for Landis. I thought American WEREWOLF IN London, up until the ridiculous denouement, was a terrific movie. Now I think he's the most talentless of all the major directors, and ironically his forte seems to be mega-budget comedy, which is probably the genre he has the least talent for. Still, as long as people keep paying to see them Hollywood will keep hiring him to make them. God bless America!

Like many others I watched this movie in small segments before heading off to school in the 60s. I can still remember how thrilled I was at the sight of the first stop motion creature, a woolly mammoth. Friends and I would excitedly compare notes on each morning's episode. Forty years later I have to say I still find the film enchanting. It has a sense of adventure about it that very few contemporary movies do. It also has a simple, clean story line uncluttered by the compulsion to hammer the viewer over the head with CGI gimmicks in every frame. If this movie were to be remade today (as some users have suggested) I think the result would be an inferior product. The stop motion is extremely variable, but there is one scene --- an attack by a giant bird --- that actually outdoes any single shot in Harryhausen's work for fluidity and realism and is miles ahead of any current computer generated work.

And by the way, the poor syncing of dialogue on the Goodtime home video version does NOT reflect the quality of the original film, not even the dubbed American version. It's clearly a technical fault in the transfer. So lay off, you boneheads.

Through the courtesy of cheap DVDs I (like many others) can finally catch up on a lot of old horror movie that no longer play on TV. It's a special delight to watch some of the ultra cheap second features from the 1930s and 40s, and what I'm discovering is that they have a lot more legitimate entertainment value than I would have suspected. Back before there was cable with hundreds of channels to chose from twenty four hours a day a night at the movies was big entertainment, and I can imagine that sitting in a local movie house with all your friends watching a creaky old Monogram melodrama must have been a lot of fun. And some of them are still a lot of fun. INVISIBLE GHOST is a case in point. It had a stylish and inventive director (Joseph Lewis) doing his best with limited resources, an excellent cast, and even production values which must have seemed much better when the film was released because (and this will shock a lot of younger viewers) TIMES CHANGE! Much that seems "cheesy" (how I hate that word!) in hindsight is merely a reflection of the fact that half a century ago THINGS WERE DIFFERENT!

Sorry.

About the cast: Lugosi was fun, leading man/men John McGuire was capable and had a good look, Polly Ann Young looked strikingly contemporary with her lean body and angular features, Betty Compson as Lugosi's wife was genuinely creepy, and Clarence Muse was a breath of fresh air among the stereotypes of the day. I particularly liked his exchange with Ryan the cop who arrogantly demands to know where he was on the night of January 20th (or something like that). Muse merely pauses a moment then asks "Have you had your coffee yet?", effectively putting the cop in his place with a minimum of fuss or show.

(By the way, it was tough to take the actor playing Ryan (Fred Kelsey) seriously, since I'd recognized him from an identical part in a Three Stooges short.)

Although there is much to admire about this wonderful film, including the acting, direction, and stunning (even today) special effects, not enough credit is given to H. G. Wells, the author of the novel on which this movie was based. Many of what are considered typical James Whale "touches" are actually in the original book, including the humor (a description of a pair of pants dancing along a country lane all by themselves) and the mundane requirements of invisibility (keeping the bottoms of your feet clean so people won't detect them, remaining hidden after meals until the food has digested --- ugh!!). Not to take anything away from Whale, of course --- few people could have adapted the book so masterfully. But much credit for the brilliance of THE INVISIBLE MAN should go to Wells, who certainly had one of the greatest literary imaginations of all time.

I'd heard a lot of good things about this movie and I'm pleased to say that when I finally watched it I wasn't disappointed. Aside from an occasional choppy edit there really isn't much to find fault with here --- I'll echo the praise many other viewers have offered for the striking imagery, the acting, and the clever script. The movie features several ingenious plot twist which manage to keep you guessing right up to the last scene. Not a film for jaded slasher fans, of course, but so what. THE AMAZING MR. X was made for more sophisticated palates and can hold its head up beside the works of Val Lewton or Jacques Tourneur's NIGHT OF THE DEMON.

Strangely enough, I didn't appreciate this show when it first aired --- I was too young to get it! I caught up with it later on in early morning reruns (forget which channel) and from then on never missed an episode. This is brilliant vaudeville humor transplanted to the "old west", played for all it's worth by a great cast. Running gags ("Who says I'm dumb??), silly song references (Agarn bemoaning current morals: "In olden days a glimpsed of stocking was looked upon as something shocking..." etc), awful puns (the Roar Chick test) --- what's not to love, it's like the old Bob Hope/Bing Crosby road movies! I doubt it'll ever come back to regular TV but apparently it's available now on DVD so maybe I'll have to dust off the checkbook.....

I'd read about this movie years ago (and nearly bought a DVD at the supermarket, but passed) so I was pleased to see it on PBS last night. It does sustain interest but ultimately isn't very satisfying. Parisian locations are very nice and lend the right touch of authenticity to Simenon's tale, but the most disappointing element is the cast. As the villain (spoiler?) Franchot Tone (who also co-produced) begins well in his quieter scenes but as his megalomania takes over he simply shouts his way through the part. Meredith plays a mousy character he's done countless times (the glasses gimmick would be used again, memorably, in a "Twilight Zone" episode). Most unfortunate is Charles Laughton, an actor I rarely find less than hugely entertaining (even in ABBOT AND COSTELLO MEET CAPTAIN KIDD) who in this film just can't seem to find a handle for his character, coming across as erratic and boring. The only actor who emerges with professional honor intact is Wilfred Hyde White, who shines briefly in a small cameo.

The climactic chase on the Eiffel Tower, however, is a vertigo inducing delight, marred only slightly by unfortunate use of a dummy. A movie worth seeing once, especially for the finale, but not more than that.

The description on the DVD box made this look like a forerunner of the SCREAM or Friday THE 13th movies (madman stalks teens) but if I hadn't read it first I wouldn't have guessed than anyone in the cast was supposed to be under thirty (including the head of the Brady Bunch). It didn't take long to figure out this was a MOST DANGEROUS GAME rip-off made on the ultra cheap. As such it seemed to me that the writing and photography were decent efforts but the direction wasn't up to realizing the potential of either. One or two touches (again, in the writing) were clever and took me by surprise and the accent on the gruesome reminded me of an old black and white horror comic, but all in all the movie didn't add up to much. A respectable failure. Oh, and it has the worst cardboard cave set I've ever seen!!

This is an ultra low budget indie horror film, refreshingly old fashioned and well made for its kind. Some of the settings were atmospheric and the acting was pretty good (although the main villain is kind of stiff he's suitably despicable). I rather enjoyed the leisurely pacing, although it gets more frantic (and goofier) in the last fifteen minutes. The girls were cute and charming and capably acted. But the most unusual aspect of this film is that it's a feminist statement in disguise! It's all about how scum bag "artistes" manipulate gullible young women by holding the lure of fame and fortune over their empty little heads. I was pretty surprised to see this kind of social comment in a cheap indie horror movie --- although that didn't stop the director from showing enough young female skin to keep the fans happy!

I watched this movie last night for the first time since seeing it on the big screen nearly thirty years ago. I remembered it being bad, but I had mercifully forgotten just how bad it is! From the lame attempts to inject an environmental slant to the cartoon characters to the total lack of any sort of excitement, this movie simply has nothing going for it. For a film which was quite expensive in its time the production values are miserable. Kong's island looks just like Hawaii until you get inside the wall (a bunch of sticks) when it becomes just a handful of fake rocks and a miniature tree or two. The scenes where Kong "rampages" through a suddenly empty Manhattan are substantially less fun (and less convincing) than even the worst of the old Godzilla movies. Rick Baker has proved himself the master of the ape suit, but you wouldn't know it from the costume he wears in this thing --- he looks like he should be menacing Abbott and Costello. All in all a movie without a single redeeming quality.

Wait a second, I take that back. Jessica Lange is cute as hell.

Like a few other posters, I consider THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US the best in the Gill Man series. Granted that's not saying a whole lot because I never cared for the Creature films anyway. The concept of an amphibious monster lurking underwater was just way too limited and never really held my interest. Still, in CREATURE WALKS AMONG US he becomes a much more intriguing character due to the plight his human costars impose on him, and Don Megowen's (uncredited) performance as the Creature is very good. Like Christopher Lee in Hammer's THE MUMMY he manages to convey emotion without the benefit of dialog or even facial expressions. And his final rampage through the house is terrific for such a low budget film. There's a real sense of brute power as he smashes everything in his path in his attempt to reach his human tormentor. And like almost everyone else, I find the ending surprisingly poignant.

Like a previous poster I was familiar with this unsold pilot mostly through stills in the old Famous Monsters magazine. I recently picked up a cheap DVD (from Alpha Video, who release a lot of interesting stuff) containing TALES OF FRANKENSTEIN with Corman's THE TERROR as a second feature. TERROR I'd seen many times before, but FRANKENSTEIN was truly interesting. It has the unmistakable feel of a 50s TV show but at the same time is reasonably well mounted and maintains a lot of the atmosphere of the old Universal Frankenstein movies, complete with raging thunderstorms and a laboratory full of crackling equipment. It was supposedly a co-production between Columbia Pictures' Screen Gems division and Hammer films, but there's very little Hammer atmosphere here (except for the costume worn by Anton Diffring as Frankenstein, which looks like Peter Cushing's hand me downs). Don Megowen makes a very formidable Monster, with a flat-topped make-up not unlike the old Karloff monster. Which is strange since Universal usually protected their copyright quite aggressively. At any rate, fans of vintage horror could do a lot worse than check this out.

Which isn't to say it's his best (it may not be better than TRUE GRIT and is nowhere near as moving as THE COWBOYS, just to name a couple) but it is a hell of a lot of fun. When he was a young man John Wayne once said he'd have to retire when he reached forty because after that you couldn't play a believable hero. Well, here he is at 63, still kicking ass with the best of them! BIG JAKE has a sense of self-referential humor about it that I find irresistible (the "I thought you wuz dead?" running gag, for example). Written by the screenwriters of DIRTY HARRY, this movie always struck me as their attempt to send up the larger than life image of The Duke in the most affectionate possible way. Wayne's introductory shot (and the line leading up to it) makes me laugh out loud every time I see it (it was cut from a TNT showing of the movie a few years ago, making me howl with such outrage that my kids cracked up!). The only thing I don't like about this movie is the callousness of much of the violence. I know Richard Boone and his gang are being set up as the baddest of the baddies, but women and children being hacked to bits with a machete is a bit much. Still, not enough to ruin BIG JAKE for me. "Not hardly."

Mainstream directors who try to make horror movies without being fans of the genre frequently embarrass themselves. They think they're bringing something fresh and imaginative to the genre without realizing it's been done before, often better. Mike Nichols' WOLF is entertaining when it examines the effects of lycanthropy on office politics but its werewolf scenes are retreads from old Hammer and Universal horrors. Barry Levinson's SPHERE doesn't know it's "clever twist" is straight out of FORBIDDEN PLANET from fifty years ago. And M. Night Shyamalan's VILLAGE lifts its central conceit intact from Roger Corman's drive-in classic TEENAGE CAVEMAN without, I'm sure, even knowing it. Even the so-called "monsters" looked like the suits in Cormon's old movie. I have nothing against Mr. Shyamalan. I've heard interviews with him and he seems like a good guy. But the ending of his SIXTH SENSE was obvious to anyone who's seen TWILIGHT ZONE a few times, and the ending of THE VILLAGE was just as predictable. I saw it coming from just about the halfway mark, and it frankly made me feel ripped off. He needs to sit down with a bunch of old movies and a stack of FAMOUS MONSTERS and discover that the stuff he thinks he's inventing was invented before he was born. Then maybe the surprise twist of his next movie might actually surprise someone.

This was my favorite movie as a kid. I'm glad to see that it's getting a decent amount of praise here. The rubber monster suit may not hold up that well but when the monster attacks London the movie evokes a sense up panic and hysteria unmatched in any other monster film (certainly not in the American Godzilla, where the hero can calmly converse with a drug store cashier while the a cartoon lizard is destroying New York a few blocks away!). The music score is beautiful and the opening scenes have a fine Irish fish tale atmosphere. It's too bad the film seems to be only available in grainy, murky copies. One thing bugs me: for years I've been reading about "Momma" Gorgo coming to rescue "her" baby, but at no time in the movie is the sex of the parent mentioned! That may have been Dad trouncing Big Ben.