Abandon ship all ye who enter here: The Lost Continent

Now Playing: The Lost Continent (1968)

Pros: Haunting imagery; Good, nuanced performances
Cons: Seems like two very different films spliced together; Sub-par creature effects

Thanks to Gill at Realweegiemidget Reviews and Barry at Cinematic Catharsis, it’s time once again for the great Amicus-Hammer Blogathon (fourth installment), wherein enthusiastic movie bloggers come together to honor the works of these two great production companies.

Since this blog is dedicated to underdog B movies and genre films that live in the shadows of their more celebrated brethren and and tend to be starved for love, I decided to write about a Hammer fantasy-adventure that over the years has gotten lost amid Hammer’s beloved Gothic horrors featuring Messrs. Cushing and Lee.

Debuting a little over a decade after Hammer launched its wildly popular horror cycle with The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), The Lost Continent was one of a clutch of fantasy-adventure films (She, One Million Years B.C., Prehistoric Women, and The Vengeance of She among them) that Hammer produced in the mid-to-late ‘60s featuring lost and/or ancient civilizations.

Although Hammer was still committed to its technicolor Gothics -- Dracula Has Risen from the Grave and Frankenstein Must be Destroyed followed Lost Continent in quick succession -- at this point the studio realized there was plenty of money to be made in fantasy-adventure, especially featuring stars like Ursula Andress and Raquel Welch in various states of ancient/prehistoric undress. (One Million Years B.C. in particular was a hit in the U.S., where the legendary poster of Welch in a prehistoric bikini adorned untold numbers of teenage boys’ bedroom walls.)

Thank you Hammer. Thank you very much.

The Lost Continent, based on a novel, Uncharted Seas, by UK thriller writer Dennis Wheatley (more on that later), suffers from Multiple Thematic Disorder (a term that I made up exclusively for this post; ® pending). MTD is characterized by two or more distinct themes competing for control of the same movie.

In its first hour, the film effectively anticipates a 70s-style disaster movie, introducing the viewer to an assorted cast of troubled characters who sail into a perfect storm of intrigue, jaw-dropping screw-ups and nasty weather.

Eric Porter plays Captain Lansen, owner of a rust-bucket freighter, the Corita, which he is planning to run from South Africa to Caracas, Venezuela in a desperate bid to make a retirement nest-egg for himself. Desperate, because he illegally loaded the Corita’s hold with drums of Phosphor B (white phosphorus), which is highly explosive and has multiple military uses. Some shady types in Venezuela are willing to pay top dollar for the cargo, but there’s one catch -- Phosphor B has a tendency to explode spectacularly when wet, and the Corita is not the most sea-worthy of vessels. What could go wrong?

"Aye Captain, we only have impulse power, the shields are down to 30%, and I canna keep the cargo hold from flooding!"

Sitting on top of the Corita’s explosive cargo is a rogue’s gallery of passengers, each of whom have booked passage on the rust-bucket for mysterious reasons that are gradually revealed as the voyage gets underway:

• Eva Peters (Hildegard Knef), has run away from her abusive boyfriend, a former banana republic dictator, and taken millions worth of cash and bonds with her
• Dr. Webster (Nigel Stock) is a pompous blowhard who has gotten in trouble for performing illegal operations on his patients
• Webster’s attractive daughter Unity (Suzanna Leigh) resents the doctor’s attempts to control her life and the trust fund her wealthy mother left her
• Harry Tyler (Tony Beckley) is an unapologetic drunk who keeps wads of cash in the lining of his jacket
• Ricaldi (Ben Carruthers) is a lean, dangerous looking type who seems to have an unusual interest in one or more of the other passengers
• Serving this motley collection is Patrick the bartender (Jimmy Hanley), who seems a little too cheery considering the circumstances

After some desultory backstory revelations, the film gets down to the disaster you know is coming. Due to the highly illegal cargo, Lansen orders that the ship avoid busy sea lanes. Then, another metaphorical fuse to the powderkeg is lit when the crew finds out that the ship’s course is taking them straight into a hurricane.

First Officer Hemmings (Neil McCallum) and most of the crew are none too happy with the situation, and make it known to the Captain in no uncertain terms. When an accident with the ship’s anchor punches a hole in the bulkhead and water starts flooding into the compartment with the Phosphor B, it’s every man and woman for themselves.

The metaphorical powderkeg finally explodes when the panicky First Officer and many of the crew mutiny. Lifeboats are deployed, shots are fired, and one of the mutineers is killed in a freak, Rube Goldberg-esque manner involving a lifeboat pulley. Yikes!

The Captain, the passengers and the remaining loyal crew members battle to keep the cargo dry, but as the weather gets dicier the Captain finally gives up and orders everyone to abandon ship. Ironically, after a harrowing ordeal on the lifeboat with various survivors violently arguing over limited provisions and one of them becoming an appetizer for a shark, the ocean currents push the boat straight back to the freighter, which has miraculously survived.

Johnson knew he shouldn't have gone back for seconds at the ship's buffet.

At this point we’re about an hour into the film, and so far we’ve seen a pretty good action-thriller with sketchy characters trying to keep dark secrets to themselves, growing suspense involving the cargo and the hurricane, and characters behaving very badly (not to mention bravely) when the Phosphor B threatens to hit the fan.

With only a little over a half hour left in its running time, the film abruptly changes course into high fantasy-adventure territory. The freighter, its propeller and rudder fouled by sentient, blood-sucking seaweed (the Captain almost loses his hand to the unholy stuff), drifts into a graveyard of lost ships stuck in the muck somewhere in the Sargasso Sea.

As time and the movie’s limited budget run out like the sands of an hourglass, The Lost Continent throws everything and the kitchen sink at the characters and the audience:

• Not one, but two (count ‘em!) lost mini-civilizations: one, the descendants of 16th Spanish Conquistadors and members of the Inquisition attempting to sail to the New World; the other, the descendants of Europeans fleeing religious persecution (naturally!)
• Two (count ‘em if you want) extras that get fed to the carnivorous seaweed
• Ingenious lost civilization technology for walking over the killer seaweed, consisting of buoyant footpads and a harness with balloons to keep the wearer upright (?!)
• Three (if you can believe it!) giant creatures -- an octopus, a crab and a scorpion -- that scout their prey with eyes that look like colored car headlights as they prepare to munch on assorted cast members
• A bloodthirsty Spanish boy-ruler, dubbed El Supremo (Daryl Read), and his equally bloodthirsty advisor, an Inquisitor-monk dressed in a dirty cowl with only the eye-holes cut out (Eddie Powell)
• The eye-popping and bodice-stretching cleavage of Sarah (Dana Gillespie), a member of the gentle lost people, who needs the help of the ship’s crew to avoid the clutches of the evil Conquistadors

One upside of getting trapped in the Sargasso Sea is that there's plenty of free parking.

That’s a lot to cram into a paltry half-hour and some change. It’s as if the producers decided in the middle of filming that a simple action-thriller set on the high seas was not going to cut it, and they needed to spice things up with prehistoric monsters ala One Million Years B.C. and some inbred Conquistadors chasing after fair maidens with heaving bosoms. (Robert Mattey, who supervised the Oscar-winning special effects for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, created the monsters for the film, but these creatures are poor cousins to the impressive giant squid of the Disney film.)

The whiplash nature of two movies seemingly spliced together at the last minute is further accentuated by sudden character changes that seem to come out of nowhere. Harry, after spending the first two-thirds of the film staggering around dead drunk and fighting with his fellow survivors over half-empty bottles of rum, suddenly gets stone sober and wields a cutlass like Errol Flynn as he fights off the Conquistadors. (Admittedly, he becomes repentant after throwing one of his fellow lifeboat passengers over the side in a drunken fit, but still…)

And Unity, after her corrupt father becomes shark chum, celebrates by throwing herself at anything or anyone wearing pants. Yes, she’s very attractive and newly liberated, but still…

Unity did not take it well when she learned her luggage ended up on another cruise ship.

Lastly, it takes El Supremo less than half an hour to transition from a sadistic little monster who delights in seeing his subjects tortured and thrown to the carnivorous plants, to a conscience-ridden young boy who wants his new friends to take him away from the hellish prison of his wrecked Galleon.

Amidst these sorry characters, two stand out. In a potboiler like The Lost Continent, by rights Captain Lansen should be a cardboard villain (and a not very bright one at that) -- he’s shipping a highly volatile, highly illegal chemical in a leaky freighter across a stormy ocean in order to sell it to nefarious arms dealers for personal gain. To top it off, he’s sold passage to a collection of desperate characters who aren’t in a position to question the danger they’re in.

But in the hands of veteran Shakespearean actor Eric Porter, Lansen turns out to be complicated and surprisingly sympathetic. He’s determined to see his desperate plan through, and at least thinks he has the competence to make it work, but he also has enough of a conscience that he doesn’t want to see people hurt. (They hurt themselves anyway, but people are like that sometimes.)

The other stand out is Hildegard Knef as Eva. The film sets up her character as a femme-fatale who has cleverly swindled a wealthy politician out of a hefty fortune. But just as we’re ready to judge her, she reveals with a touching mixture of sadness and defiance the very human reason for stealing the money.

Later, on the lifeboat, her quick thinking saves Lansen’s life when she shoots a menacing crew member with a flare gun, but instead of exhibiting the typical movie protagonist bravado, she breaks down with shock and remorse. It’s a very moving and authentic performance.

Hildegard Knef as Eva.

There are two pretty decent movies here masquerading as one. After watching it, I couldn’t help thinking about how you might end the action-thriller that takes up the first hour without veering into lost worlds and monsters. And then there’s the fantastic, hair-raising third act that is so rushed and compressed that it plays like a highlight reel. I wanted to see much more of the mini-world of the Spanish Conquistadors stuck in time, their weird customs, and more fleshed out backstories for El Supremo and the Inquisitor. But that’s another movie.

Whatever its virtues or faults, The Lost Continent is producer-writer-director Micheal Carrera’s baby. Michael, the son of Hammer co-founder James Carreras, was instrumental in ushering in Hammer’s horror renaissance, helping to produce The Curse of Frankenstein, Horror of Dracula, The Mummy and Curse of the Werewolf.

He had a contentious relationship with his father, and in the early ‘60s he formed his own company, Capricorn Productions. But Michael couldn’t stay away from Hammer for long, and leading up to The Lost Continent, he found himself writing and producing One Million Years B.C. (1966), and producing and directing The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964) and Prehistoric Women (1967). 

According to an extensive article on The Lost Continent in The Dark Side magazine, despite Carreras’ heavy involvement in the Hammer horror films, his personal tastes ran more towards the “exotic, adventure and action genres,” and Wheatley’s source novel Uncharted Seas was of interest because it was in the “swashbuckling vein.” (Around the same time that Lost Continent was filming, another Wheatley adaptation, The Devil Rides Out, was underway at a nearby location.The author managed to visit both sets.)

Patrick suddenly regretted ordering the Alaskan King Crab legs.

The production did not go smoothly. Leslie Norman started out as director, but when it became apparent that he wasn’t well, Michael took over the shooting. As the film threatened to go over budget and behind schedule, studio head James put pressure on his son to make changes that would at least deliver it on time. [The Dark Side Magazine, “Monsters, Maidens & Conquistadors,” Issue 223, 2021, pp. 20-21]

The result was the most expensive Hammer production to date, but one that would be eclipsed in popularity and critical reception by that other Wheatley adaptation. It seems clear that the changes Michael was forced to make resulted in a third act that at one and the same time was overstuffed and abbreviated.

And yet, Carreras still managed to tease out of all the chaos the beginnings of a good, rip-roaring action-adventure tale, a couple of solid, nuanced performances, and the weird spectacle of Conquistadors frozen in time. It’s not The Devil Rides Out, but it’s worth a look.

Where to find it: Blu-ray

"Your excellency, I got the tickets for the next showing of The Devil Rides Out."

Have a nice time trip, see you next fall: Todd Tarantula

Now Playing: Todd Tarantula (2023)

Pros: A wild, surreal ride through the dark underbelly of Los Angeles; The actors have obvious fun with their odd, quirky characters; Impressive debut performance by Ethan Walker in the title role
Cons: The unconventional story line and the rotoscope digital effect that makes the film look like a live-action graphic novel may require the right mood (or artificial enhancers - consult applicable state and local laws) for full appreciation

Back in January 2020 I reviewed Loon Lake (2019), a low-budget, independent feature co-produced by director Ansel Faraj and lead actors Nathan Wilson and Kelly Kitko. In the film, a grieving young widower (Wilson) rents a cabin in rural Minnesota to try to put the trauma of his wife’s death behind him, but soon becomes haunted in an entirely different way when he unwittingly invokes the curse of a 19th century witch.

Loon Lake put its own spin on the classic theme of world-weary urban protagonists seeking peace and quiet in the countryside and instead finding horrors they never dreamed of. In contrast, the trio’s latest production, Todd Tarantula, features a prematurely jaded young protagonist who yearns to leave the sleaziness of Los Angeles behind, only to find himself exploring the city’s meanest, darkest recesses by way of nightmarish visions that seem to be propelling him back and forth through time.

Todd (Ethan Walker), with his ‘50s hairstyle and leather jacket embroidered with a stylized tarantula, is an updated rebel without a cause. The estranged son of a rich and powerful LA businessman, Wallander Tarantula, (Douglas M. Eames), Todd spends his days drinking with his sloppy buddy Barracuda (Nathan Wilson) and getting into bar fights.

Todd and his best friend Barracuda are in a rut: drink, fight, sleep, repeat.

Todd wants nothing more than to blow LA for the wide open spaces and freedom of the desert. (At one point as Todd and Barracuda are hanging out at the beach, drinking and admiring the sunset, cynical Todd can’t help but point out it’s the city’s smog that’s responsible for the spectacular sunsets.)

However, Todd’s prize possession and the means by which he intends to escape filthy LA, a vintage motorcycle that his father passed down to him, has mysteriously vanished. To add to the mystery, just before his bike disappeared, Todd discovered the body of a man sprawled out in a pool of blood on the floor of the parking garage. Before he had time to decide what to do, both body and motorbike were gone.

The search for his missing motorcycle takes Todd on a journey into the darkest and weirdest byways of Los Angeles. He starts at the apartment of a psychic friend, Andromeda (Brittany Hoza), whom he hopes can provide clues to his bike’s whereabouts. The wayward son soon ends up at Wallander’s mansion, guarded by a nominally polite but steadfast assistant (Emma West), whose only job seems to be to prevent Todd from seeing his father.

Out of nowhere, Lucifer Grey (David Selby), his father’s ostensible business partner, shows up to offer his help. Decked out in a white suit and hat, wielding a dragon’s head cane, and sporting a permanent, knowing grin on his face, Grey is another in a long line of dapper devils looking for innocents willing to bargain away their souls. He knows a little too much about Todd, including his fraught relationship with his father. Later on, when it’s revealed that the elder Tarantula is seriously ill and Grey is set to take over a controlling share of the family business, Grey’s interest in Todd, especially as the heir to a major stake in the company, appears to be more than casual, to say the least.

Todd will soon learn a valuable lesson: never trust anyone who wears white after Labor Day.

But Todd has resources of his own, including psychic visions that strip away the tinsel from Tinseltown and reveal a sprawling ghost town of high strangeness. In Todd’s alternate reality, lizard people live in tunnels beneath the city, spirits seeking the netherworld haunt the streets at night, and the hot Santa Ana winds that bedevil Angelenos stream out of a cave in the Mojave desert that itself is a portal to Hell.

Todd even has the seeming ability to travel in time, at one point finding himself at the site of the future Los Angeles circa 1852, conversing with its sole residents, the regal Lady Salome (Kelly Kitko) and her dead husband Roberto (Fernando Alvarez), whose talking, animated skull is her constant companion. The foremother of Los Angeles stands perpetual guard at a native-built amphitheater that is a portal for astral travelers (ironically located at the future spot of the Griffith Observatory).

"Alas, poor Roberto, I knew him, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy..."

Lurking in the background of Todd’s visions is Grey, who may possibly be a catalyst for them. Todd will eventually learn of Grey’s keen interest in his psychic abilities, which figure prominently in the businessman’s devious plans.

Todd Tarantula is like the lovechild of an unholy union between an urban dungeons and dragons quest and a ‘50s teen angst movie. To bless the union, Faraj and company digitally rotoscoped the footage in post production to make the colors, characters and scenery pop like a cross between a live-action graphic novel and an acid trip. (While I appreciate the intent of the digital rotoscoping, at various points I found myself wishing for a more standard look, especially when the effect obscured the actors’ expressions.)

So, if we’re tripping along with Todd via the film’s digital effects, can we trust that anything we see on the screen is “real” in the conventional dramatic sense? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it’s all a dream, or the result of a bad batch of weed that Todd and Barracuda got their hands on. Whatever it is, it’s a wild ride through multiple layers of southern California folklore.

Speaking of not trusting your senses, one of the film’s more intriguing obstacles in Todd’s quest is Wallander Tarantula’s assistant Jabez. We never see her in person, only through Todd’s smartphone screen. With her deathly pallor, pulled back blonde hair, and unblinking eyes, Jabez seems like an AI mirage, a cold, unhelpful version of Siri come to simulated life. (It’s a notable performance, especially considering that Emma West wrapped up all her scenes in under an hour on the first day of shooting.) [IMDb]

"Open the Tarantula mansion doors Jabez."
"I'm sorry Todd. I'm afraid I can't do that."

When Todd finally gets past Wallander’s defenses and meets with him face to face, things again are not as they seem. Oz-like,Todd pulls back the curtains to find that his father has made a true devil’s pact with his business partner, and in the process has become a literal prisoner of the technology that Tarantula Enterprises helped develop.

Todd Tarantula reunited a number of the principal people behind Loon Lake, and became Hollinsworth Productions’ first feature-length release since 2019. Like the previous film, actors Kelly Kitko and Nathan Wilson, along with Darin Medders, joined writer-director Ansel Faraj in co-producing.

In Loon Lake, Kitko plays a wronged witch who places a curse on anyone who dares to tread on her grave. In Todd Tarantula, she plays yet another witch of sorts, but this time a much more joyous one in love with nature and the wilderness of mid-nineteenth century California (although, she’s not one to be crossed, as poor Roberto finds out).

There’s a great scene in which Salome, finding out that Todd is from the future, insists that he tell her what’s in store for her bucolic homestead. She has some starry-eyed visions of what’s to come, and Todd walks a fine line in telling her what 21st century Los Angeles is really like.

Lady Salome tries very hard to visualize what southern California will look like in 2023.

Nathan Wilson has a much different role as Todd’s loopy, drug-addled sidekick. In spite of his prosthetic leg, Barracuda can fight his way out of a bar with the best of them -- and then relax, take a swig from the bottle and admire the pollution-enhanced sunset. But his loyalty gets him in trouble when he joins Todd in a nighttime search for the motorcycle in a decidedly sketchy (and haunted) part of the city.

David Selby, veteran of the Dark Shadows and Falcon Crest TV shows, is at his quietly menacing best as Lucifer Grey. It was interesting to find out that Selby was not the first choice for Grey; during the 10+ years Faraj spent in trying to get the film made, a couple of other actors were considered. [IMDb] But Selby occupied the role like it was written for him, and won Best Supporting Actor at the 2023 Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival for his efforts.

Todd Tarantula is Ethan Walker’s debut feature film role. He nicely channels a James Dean sort of vibe, especially in Todd’s encounters with his beleaguered father and the smilingly malignant Lucifer Grey. The only thing missing is “You’re tearing me apart!” histrionics, but then, Todd is way too cool for school to go there. Without giving away too much, the movie leaves a lot of maneuvering room for Walker to reprise the role if that’s in the cards. (I hope Walker got to keep the Tarantula signature leather jacket, because that is one rad piece of apparel.)

Where to find it: Streaming | Blu-ray 

Exclusive Bonus: An Interview with Ansel Faraj

Ansel Faraj developed a great affection for classic films and TV at an early age. He began making films in his teens, and by the age of 20 he was already working with veteran film and TV actors to make feature films. He has written, produced and/or directed dozens of features and shorts including several films featuring the classic-era master criminal Dr. Mabuse, the Detective Adam Sera series set in an alternate reality “Lost” Angeles, the fantasy anthology series Theatre Fantastique, and the H.P. Lovecraft inspired The Last Case of August T. Harrison.

In an exclusive interview for Films From Beyond, Faraj discusses the challenges and rewards of being a truly independent filmmaker who must rely on creativity and inventiveness in the absence of big Hollywood budgets.

Writer/producer/director Ansel Faraj.

Films From Beyond: When you were younger, what attracted you to classic films such as The Phantom of the Opera and the Dr. Mabuse series, and to TV shows like Dark Shadows?

Faraj: Phantom of the Opera was one of the first things I ever experienced. I saw the original Andrew Lloyd Webber show way back when, I was 5 years old, and I was astounded. I just kept thinking "How did they do that?!" and by the end of the second act, I knew I wanted to do the same thing, somehow. And this was long before there was a film version of the musical, so then I became fascinated with the previous films, Claude Rains and Lon Chaney's versions, and that was the gateway into Universal Monster-land and greater classic film in general. My mom was a first generation Dark Shadows kid who ran home from school - actually, she would ditch class to not miss an episode - and she would tell me the various storyline arcs as bedtime stories. I saw HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS first when I was 6 and it rattled me and excited me and I couldn't get enough. When I was a little older, I became familiar with Fritz Lang's MABUSE films as I was exploring film history and Mabuse was a fascinating character. It became a little dream of mine when I was a teenager to make a new film about Mabuse, and then suddenly when I was 20, we were actually making it, with Jerry Lacy as Mabuse.

There are a number of actors with whom you frequently collaborate, including Nathan Wilson and Kelly Kitko, and such Dark Shadows alumni as Jerry Lacy, Lara Parker, Kathryn Leigh Scott and David Selby. How did you make those connections?

We've all known and worked together now for a little over a decade. I met Nathan when I was 19, he auditioned for a comedy I was working on at the time, and we just clicked. Then I told him about Inspector Lohemann in my DOCTOR MABUSE script, and would he like to play it, and he said yes. So that cemented things. As far as the DARK SHADOWS alumni, I contacted Jerry and Kathryn and offered them their respective roles in my film, I had just turned 20, and I think they were intrigued enough by me and what I had to say that very fortunately (and incredibly, at the time) they said yes to the film. Kathryn then connected me with Lara, and I met David at the premiere of my first DOCTOR MABUSE film. The entire experience was totally surreal. I was so young and had never experienced anything like it before, let alone suddenly directing these legendary figures from my childhood. Very surreal and strange and exciting. I've been so grateful, they've all taught me a lot and have all become an extended family for me. Kelly Kitko auditioned for a role in DOCTOR MABUSE 2 and as with Nate, she and I just clicked and after a few more films together, Kelly, Nathan, and I pooled together our wits and formed a production company. The three of us are a very close knit team.

Ansel Faraj and the cast of Loon Lake (2019) on location (courtesy of Ansel Faraj).

The LA area, and Venice Beach in particular, figures prominently in many of your films. What aspects of LA life and culture have influenced your work the most?

I don't know that LA life has really influenced my work... life in LA is very weird. People are phony, vain, self obsessed... I went to a private school when I was a kid and was the lone poor kid around extravagant wealth and celebrities kids and ambassadors kids, and they were all stuck on themselves and money solved most if not all of their problems. It's kind of disgusting. I'd say a good amount of that found its way into TODD TARANTULA, with jaded rich kids and their drug use and full-of-shit attitude. There's a darkness and something occult about LA, you could ask anyone from here and they might not be able to tell you in specific words, but there is an occult energy pulsing through LA. People are made on the sidewalks and just as quickly cut down. But Venice, that's my home turf, Venice is one of the last remaining places in LA that still has this old magic hidden in the gutter. As much as Venice has changed over the years, and it definitely has, there's still old buildings and alleyways and corners where the old city still exists... it's a place where you definitely feel anything can happen, especially the unusual. And there's nothing like a Venice Beach sunset.

How did you channel your creative energies during the pandemic?

Nathan and I sat on the beach and wrote every single day. We wrote about four different feature scripts. And we shot THE THOUSAND AND ONE LIVES OF DOCTOR MABUSE which was a great deal of fun, and a nice way to revisit and put a capper on that world now as a mature experienced filmmaker. We also shot THE MOST HAUNTED HOUSE OF VENICE BEACH, but it didn't release till 2021.

What are the biggest challenges and opportunities of being an independent filmmaker?

Money, and the lack thereof. I keep telling myself, one day I will get paid to do this. Now the writers are striking for this very same reason, the lack of money and the unfair pay. There is no money in streaming, and indie films live and die by streaming. It's awful. Hopefully there will be a positive change for us creatives. The one plus side is you can kind of be your own boss, and decide what movies to make and how, without having to deal with a factory assembly line as most studios and franchises operate, with forty different cooks in the kitchen. But having no money really sucks. You have to be more creative and inventive and careful with your resources. I saw a quote about EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE, how that was "an independent film" but not really, not in my opinion, with a studio like A24 behind them, and they were bemoaning that they only had "$14.6 million budget and 28 days" and I kept thinking - damn what a luxury. I've never even seen that kind of money or had that kind of a schedule before. Must feel nice. I'm over here in the alleyways of Venice among the homeless, or in the forests of Minnesota and we have no money, no marketing department, no extensive crew - it's just us, making a film. That's a real true independent, grassroots way. It's brutal hard work, and most times it is rewarding, but I'd like some of that larger scale "indie" money.

It’s my understanding that Todd Tarantula was quite a few years in the making. What hurdles were there in trying to realize your vision for the film?

Money. No money. Or the money would fall apart. Mostly money. The script was quite large too, a lot more characters and subplots that got streamlined out of the final draft. But also independent filmmaking had changed in the ten years since the film first fell apart. Suddenly there were more filmmaking resources I could turn to, to get crew or locations, versus being alone in my garage, as how I started. So that kind of helped. And by now I had Kelly and Nate and the three of us could figure out how to make what I'd written possible in practical terms. But I still ended up financing the entire production from start to finish by myself. I bussed tables, and bartended, and managed a kitchen after the pandemic to make this movie happen. I'm relieved its finished and exists and I don't have to think or wonder about it again.

Faraj, Brittany Hoza and Ethan Walker on the set of Todd Tarantula (Courtesy of Ansel Faraj).

How would you describe the Faraj Cinematic Universe, and what plans do you have for its future?

[Hahaha] The Faraj Cinematic Universe... you mean the Hollinsworth Productions universe. I have no idea how I would describe it. True independent filmmaking where we're not playing down to the audience, we're inviting them to hop on board and think while having a good time. Right now, we're currently shooting a comedy that's been in development as long as TODD TARANTULA. When I first met Nate, he pitched me this character of a washed up porn star who rides around Venice Beach on a scooter named Nick D. And now we're actually making it, it's quite epic, it's the longest script we've ever shot, and there's about 40 speaking roles, all on location across LA and Venice. It's a comedy, the kind they don't make anymore, titled THE GREAT NICK D. It's an odyssey following Nick D's attempt to resolve his unrequited love with his old girlfriend, who is now this Meryl Streep type A list actress, and he's this forgotten shlub down in Venice. Luckily we began filming before the strike was called, and we're running all summer. David Selby, Kathryn Leigh Scott, Lisa Richards from DARK SHADOWS are in it, Christine Tucker from WILL & LIZ is in it, Kelly Kitko of course is in it - it's a script we're very proud of and feels pretty wild that we're finally making it. There's a few other non "genre" scripts we're developing, making our romance WILL & LIZ was a wonderful breath of fresh air, and allowed me to show off my skills outside of the fantasy/thriller world. I would still love to make our scripts of THE DUNWICH HORROR which has come close to happening several times, and one day finally make my own version of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, but we need proper financing. It will happen, one day.

The Growing Juvenile Delinquency Problem: Village of the Giants

Now Playing: Village of the Giants (1965)

Pros: Interesting cast made up of former child stars, future stars and sons and daughters of acting royalty; Striking images; Catchy music
Cons: Variable special effects and abrupt changes in mood and tone make for a head-scratching experience

Movie blogger Rebecca Deniston at Taking Up Room has done it again with her Fake Teenager Festivus, an opportunity for the blogging community to celebrate all those egregious instances of 20-something-plus actors portraying teenagers in movies and TV.

As she points out in her call for submissions, employing older actors as teenagers has long been a filmmaking tradition for a number of reasons, not the least of which are those pesky child labor laws that limit the number of hours a real teenager can work. And then there’s the need to hire a tutor for the little darlin’s schooling if the production is a particularly long one and commuting is impractical. What a bummer!

Another consideration is the actor’s competence. Like any complex skill, acting requires patience, perseverance, and time to perfect. In many cases, it takes a more mature professional to credibly portray an angst-ridden teenager.

But it’s something of a tight-rope act. Go too far, and you risk turning your “teenager” into an unintentional parody. I was curious about how far filmmakers have pushed the envelope, so I googled “Older actors who have played teenagers in movies.”

Since it’s such a fun topic there are plenty of lists out there, but the most comprehensive one I found was on IMDb with 186 (count ‘em!) entries. According to the list, the all-time age disparity record-holder is O.Z. Whitehead, who was 51 (?!) when he played a school boy in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Other notorious cases are there, like 30-year-old Olivia Newton-John playing 17-year-old Sandy in Grease.

O.Z. Whitehead, the oldest movie teenager ever!
(Seen here in The Grapes of Wrath, 1940)

While mid-to-late 20s is pretty old to be playing a teen, there are 33 actors and actresses on the list who were 30 or older when they were asked to channel their inner teenager. Yikes!

There are no 30+ actors pretending to be teenagers in Village of the Giants, but it does boast several 20-somethings. I chose Village for several reasons:

1. My specialty on this blog is looking at plucky low- or no-budget genre movies that strive to overcome their limitations (or at least thumb their noses at them);
2. It features an intriguing cast, including two childhood heroes of mine, Disney child star Tommy Kirk and Johnny Crawford of The Rifleman fame; Beau Bridges, son of Lloyd and brother of Jeff; and Ron Howard, who at the time was still making cute as Opie on The Andy Griffith Show;
3. Village was written and directed by Mr. B.I.G. himself, Bert I. Gordon, who famously made do with limited budgets and modest special effects in his obsessive quest to make pictures about REALLY BIG people and animals. 

In the spirit of the original Festivus, I plan to air my grievances against this movie (but not in an overly derogatory manner, as this would violate the rules), and demonstrate feats of mental strength in analyzing plot and character development (dinner and the Festivus pole are not included). If you decide to perform your own feat of mental toughness by sticking with this post to the bitter end, just be aware that there will be a quiz. 

Where to begin? First of all, Village of the Giants is a cinematic examination of the tendency of even freedom-loving societies to succumb to authoritarianism in the face of extreme power differentials and high levels of inequality. It also highlights the difficulty in a high-tech society of ensuring that inventors are suitably rewarded while at the same time the benefits of new technologies are fairly distributed. Lastly, it examines the age-old generation gap, and the balancing act that a healthy society must perform between encouraging the enthusiasm of youth and respecting the wisdom of maturity. But more on that later.

Before I get into the airing of grievances, I will try to sum up the plot as succinctly as I know how to.* On the outskirts of Hainesville, Anywhere, USA, a group of spaced-out juvenile delinquents** run their car into a mudslide, and after celebrating the occasion by dancing sensuously in the mud, they hike into the nearby town.

Meanwhile, the town’s child prodigy, “Genius” (Ron Howard) accidentally creates a compound in his basement lab that can grow animals to enormous size, which he not-so-creatively dubs “Goo.” When Genius’ big sister Nancy (Charla Doherty) and her boyfriend Mike (Tommy Kirk) watch a cat and then two ducks accidentally eat the Goo and grow into giants, they immediately recognize the money-making potential, not to mention the implications for the world’s food supply.

Opie, er, um Genius patiently explains the amazing properties of Goo.

A little while later, anybody who’s anybody under the age of 20 (wink, wink) has converged on the local dance club to rock out, including Mike and Nancy, Mike’s friend Horsey (Johnny Crawford), and the delinquent gang led by Fred (Beau Bridges).

Everyone is freaked out when the two giant ducks crash the party and “dance” alongside the kids. Mike dopily spills the beans that the ducks are his, and hints to another delinquent (Harry, played by Kevin O'Neal) that they’re the result of a “million dollar” secret food additive. Harry reports back to Fred, who tasks his girlfriend Jean (Tisha Stirling) with pumping Mike for information, while he tries his charms on Nancy.

The delinquents fail to pry any more information out of Mike or Nancy, but later that night, they sneak over to Nancy’s house and one of the gang (Pete, played by Tim Rooney) breaks into the basement lab. He manages to grab the Goo, but not before setting off a burglar alarm of Genius’ that, among other things, shoots fireworks into the sky.

Mike, Nancy, Horsey and other assorted good kids race over to Nancy’s to confront the delinquents, but in the ensuing altercation Fred and the gang make off with the Goo. The gang retreats to their makeshift hideout in an abandoned downtown theater, where they argue over what to do with the stuff. Peer pressure being what it is, they all succumb to curiosity and eat the Goo, turning into 30-foot-tall giants. (The girls, demonstrating that even delinquents have limits, modestly cover themselves as they quickly outgrow their clothes.)

They fashion toga-like costumes for themselves out of theater curtains, and decide to make a huge impression at yet another teen party at the local park. One of the giant girls grabs Horsey, and he holds on for dear life to her makeshift top straps as she dances around. When Mike objects, Fred sends him crashing into the bushes with one sweep of his hand.

Soon, the sheriff (Joe Turkel) and his deputy show up and demand that the overgrown teens vacate the park. (Somehow, none of the partygoers or the sheriff seem particularly alarmed at the presence of a group of giant delinquents, as if they were more a nuisance than a threat to life and limb.)

The giant teens look down on the puny citizens of Hainesville with disdain.

The next day the sheriff confronts the overgrown youths at their theater lair and tells them to get out of Dodge (er, Hainesville). But they’ve got an ace up their giant toga sleeves: they’ve kidnapped the sheriff’s young daughter and are holding her hostage. Fred announces that it’s a new regime -- adults are out and giant teens are in.

He issues a list of demands, including a 9 pm curfew for adults, public speech must be pre-approved by the group, a work party of adults is to be formed to bring the group food, all communication with the outside world must be suspended, and all guns and ammo are to be rounded up and delivered to the theater. Uh-oh. As they say, power tends to corrupt, and being a giant corrupts absolutely.

Will Mike, Nancy and friends rescue the sheriff’s daughter and overthrow Fred’s tyrannical regime? Will Genius come up with an antidote to the Goo to save humanity from the threat of petulant 30-foot somethings with hormonal attitudes? These are monumental questions.

And now for the airing of grievances…

Extraneous dance numbers. At the risk of sounding like one of the dour town elders from Footloose, there is a lot of dancing in Village of the Giants. I mean… a … lot … The bad teens dance in slow motion in the semi-psychedelic titles sequence, then there’s the sensual mud dancing, then there’s the big party at the dance club with everyone, including the two giant ducks, shimmying to the tunes of the Beau Brummels ***, then there’s a close-up of a go-go dancer (Toni Basil as “Red”), then there’s a reprise of the giants dancing in slo-mo in the park, and then there’s Red dancing in front of Fred and the boys to distract them while some of the good kids try to rescue the sheriff’s daughter… whew! I get it that this is a youth picture, but most of these scenes could have been cut down to size.

On the upside: The slow-motion dancing with the kids decked out in make-shift togas is almost hypnotic, the theme-music has a nice beat, and the Beau Brummels dance club song isn’t bad either.

There is sooo much dancing! So very, very much...

Shifting tone and mood. IMDb lists Village as first and foremost a comedy, but this is not your ‘60s era light fantasy-comedy like The Shaggy Dog or The Absent Minded Professor. Village’s tone veers wildly from light (e.g., cute little Ronnie Howard patiently explaining his experiments using polysyllabic chemical compound names) to dark (kidnapping the sheriff’s daughter with an implied threat of violence) to light again, causing whiplash of the brain. The worst instance is showing the giant ducks happily dancing and flapping their wings at the dance club (cute!), and then in the next scene displaying their giant plucked carcasses on a barbecue spit as the teens gather round to munch on them. Oh the humanity!

Little do they know that they will soon be guests of honor at a community barbecue.

Variable special effects. As mentioned above, filmmaker Bert I. Gordon’s reach for all things BIG in his movies often exceeded his grasp. Gordon reached for the sky in Village, featuring, in addition to the giant teenagers, a giant cat, dog, two ducks and a big-ass spider. In his autobiography, Gordon described a number of techniques he used on Village, including traveling mattes, rear projection, and wide angle shots from a low angle to force the perspective. [Bert I. Gordon, The Amazing Colossal Worlds of Mr. B.I.G.: An Autobiographical Journey, 2009, pp. 72-85]

Unmentioned is the film’s cheesiest and most laughable effect: A pair of 10 foot tall legs, complete with simulated hair, constructed for a scene in which some of the town’s teenagers, riding around on motorcycles and in hotrods, try to lasso and trip up Fred as he steps outside. The legs, which look like they’re made out of paper mache, don’t move at all during the way-too-long scene, making them unintentionally comical (at least I think it’s unintentional).

Another pseudo-effect is filming the giant teens in sloowwww-moootion, emphasizing their ponderous size, while intercutting with shots of the town’s normal-sized citizens scurrying around at normal speed. This makes the normies look like Keystone Kops tripping over each other. It's funny in an odd sort of way.

On the upside: The shots of a panicked Johnny Crawford dangling from the giant girl as she swirls around are memorable (if you're into that sort of thing). Mr. B.I.G. apparently liked this effect a lot, as it’s prominently featured on the original poster.

Fred's giant legs are down for the count after the Hainesville Hot Rod Rodeo.

And now for the Festivus feat of mental strength and acuity…

It’s your turn! From the cast list, can you guess who was an actual teenager at the time and who was not?

• Mike - Tommy Kirk
• Nancy - Charla Doherty
• Horsey - Johnny Crawford
• Fred - Beau Bridges
• Rick - Robert Random
• Merrie - Joy Harmon
• Jean - Tisha Sterling (daughter of Ann Sothern)
• Pete - Tim Rooney (son of Mickey Rooney)

I dare you to witness the far-out grooviness on display here:

Where to find it: The MST3K version is available on multiple streaming platforms; For a rad Blu-ray copy, try here.

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* In other words, not very succinct.
**Juvenile delinquency is not so much a thing anymore, since today’s pressure to cultivate and protect one’s social media image means that a teenager (or pre-teen for that matter) can scarcely put down his/her smart phone long enough to get into trouble.
***The Beau Brummels was a San Francisco rock band formed in 1964. When Village was released in 1965 they were red hot, with smash hit singles Laugh, Laugh and Just a Little debuting that year.

Postcards from Ulysses

Now Playing: Ulysses (1954)

Pros: Kirk Douglas’ energetic performance; Beautiful cinematography, costumes and production design
Cons: Stiff acting by most of the cast; Unnecessary changes to the original story

I may not be a scholar or a gentleman, but every once in a while I enjoy a good movie based on a classic book (actually reading the book, well, that’s another matter). So when I saw that Paul at Silver Screen Classics was hosting another Classic Literature on Film Blogathon, I jumped at the opportunity. When you’re done with the trials and travels of Ulysses here at Films From Beyond, wander on over to Paul’s blog to learn more about film adaptations of classic literature.

Homer’s Odyssey is about the indomitability of the human spirit in the face of setbacks and misfortunes designed by capricious gods to drive ordinary mortals mad (kind of like airline travel these days).

I won’t say that producers Dino De Laurentiis (grandfather of celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis) and Carlo Ponti (one time spouse of Sophia Loren) went through Odyssey-level trials to get their adaptation on the silver screen, but it was no walk in the park either.

The producers wanted to pull out all the stops to give the beloved epic the treatment it deserved, including signing big name American actors Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn (Ulysses and Antinoös respectively). At that point, Douglas had two Academy Award-nominated roles under his belt, for Champion (1949) and The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), and was making another fantasy epic for Disney, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954).

Quinn was also on a roll that year, having been recruited by Federico Fellini to star in what would become one of his great masterpieces, La Strada (The Road, 1954; also produced by Ponti and De Laurentiis).

Studio press releases for Ulysses (the Roman variant of Odysseus) bragged that much of the film was shot on location in and around the coasts and islands of the Mediterranean as described in the Odyssey. Filming was scheduled for Ulysses’/Odysseus’ home island of Ithaca, but the gods intervened with an earthquake that put an end to that idea.

The great German director G.W. Pabst was originally scheduled to helm the project, but he pulled out at the last minute when he found out the producers wanted to shoot it in 3D. Mario Camerini, who was primarily known for the light comedies he directed in the ‘30s (?!), was then brought on board (the film was shot in 3D, but only distributed theatrically in 2D).

When Camerini himself faltered during shooting, cinematographer Mario Bava was tapped to help finish the film, uncredited. Later in the decade, this would become almost routine for Bava. He took over directing duties on two separate occasions for Riccardo Freda, when Freda argued with his producers and abruptly left the sets of I Vampiri (aka Lust of the Vampire, 1957) and Caltiki, The Immortal Monster (1959). Bava was finally given the opportunity to direct upfront, on his own, and the result, Black Sunday (1960), became one of the most influential European horror films of all time.

As befitting an epic, it took a slew of writers, including bigshot American writers Ben Hecht and Irwin Shaw, to commit the cinematic Odyssey to paper. As per usual with film adaptations, story details were changed, compressed, switched around or omitted in order to come up with something that would entertain audiences in under two hours.

Over the years, Ulysses has developed a reputation for being an ambitious failure. In watching the Italian-dubbed, English-subtitled version on Amazon Prime, I found Douglas’ boyish energy and enthusiasm to be one of the best things about the film (even though the voice is not his -- it’s almost like watching a good silent film performance). In contrast, the rest of the cast mostly stand around with their arms at their sides like Greek statuary (but they look absolutely fabulous in the meticulously crafted costumes).

"Step right up gents! String Ulysses' bow and win the fair Penelope!
Who will be first? Don't be shy!"

Others have not been so impressed with the star of the show. Douglas’ portrayal reminded one contemporary reviewer of “a Villanova halfback on summer vacation in the Mediterranean.” [Wendy Wilson and Gerald Herman, World History on the Screen: Film and Video Resource, J. Weston Walch, 2003, p. 3]. A little more charitably, reviewer Tony Thomas thought that Douglas played “the Greek super-hero with brawn and vitality, but all too obviously [looked] like an American actor cast in an Italian picture.” [Tony Thomas, The Films of Kirk Douglas, Carol Publishing Group, 1991, p. 111]

In his book on war veterans in film, Emmett Early is perhaps overly harsh in his assessment of Ulysses, but does give voice to some common complaints about film adaptations of classic works:

“Italians should never be trusted to portray the Greeks’ own Odyssey. [Editor’s note: Ouch!] For one, most of the names are changed. Odysseus becomes Ulysses. Poseidon becomes Neptune, although for some reason Athena gets to keep her Greek name … In this Ulysses the actors are so stiff they seem like Monty Python cartoon figures with their mouths moving. Kirk Douglas plays the war veteran and Anthony Quinn plays Antinoös, the chief rival among the suitors. The script does violence to the story with horrible distortions and plot compressions. For example, when Ulysses is washed ashore at Phaeacia, he has no memory of his adventures or his own identity. As his memory returns, the story unfolds, such as it is. This dramatic ploy deprives Ulysses of his chief attribute, his metis, or ability to deceive. … Kirk Douglas, for his part, made a passable adventurer, but he would have been better off trading roles with Anthony Quinn. Quinn would have made a great Antinoös and Anthony Quinn has the sturdy build that Homer attributed to Odysseus.” [Emmett Early, The War Veteran in Film, McFarland, 2010, pp. 82-83]

Whatever else the movie’s faults, Harold Rosson’s cinematography is not one of them. (On Ulysses’s IMDb page, Mario Bava is only listed as an uncredited camera operator.) Even watching a muddy, standard definition print, you get a sense of how great the outdoor vistas and the moody shadows of Polyphemus's cave and Circe’s lair must have looked on a real movie screen back in the day.

At practically any point in the film, you can freeze it and have something worthy of framing, or maybe putting on a deluxe postcard. Come to think of it, what if Ulysses had taken the trouble during his long voyage to send a postcard or two?...

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