Suboptimal Summer Vacations: Special Giant Monster Edition

Summer vacations aren't what they used to be. A number of unfortunate developments -- sky high fuel prices, increasingly severe weather, arbitrarily canceled flights, crumbling roads and infrastructure, ad nauseum -- have coalesced into a perfect storm that has blown away all the joy and relaxation of the vacation season and replaced it with anxiety and disappointment.

When I was a kid, road trips were all the rage. We'd stuff the station wagon full of luggage, games and picnic lunches and take off for the lake, or some attraction that was far enough away to feel exotic, but not so far as to let the delicate micro-ecosystem of the family break down.

In those days, disappointment was stopping to eat a boring picnic lunch instead of partaking of a real, sit-down restaurant. Today, it's being stranded at the airport at 2 am after your flight has been cancelled, with the food court long closed and nowhere to go.

If it's any consolation, the denizens of the sibling universe adjacent to our own, where monsters are the norm and not just an occasional aberration, also struggle with a variety of issues when they attempt to take hard-earned vacations. And sometimes the setbacks are truly humongous.

The Rhedosaurus was peeved that he was too tall for the Coney Island roller coaster.
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953).

Godzilla had been looking forward all winter to a relaxing cruise, but was furious when he realized that the ship was way too small.
Godzilla 2000 (1999)

Gargantua cursed the slow-as-molasses TSA security line when he realized he had missed his flight.
The War of the Gargantuas (1966)

The 50 Foot Woman was so disappointed with her hotel accommodations, instead of trashing them on Yelp, she decided to just trash the hotel itself.
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)

Ebirah was outraged when he traveled all the way to Australia for a cookout, only to learn that the main course was shrimp on the barbie.
Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966)

Gorgo was looking forward to his first visit to the circus, until he discovered he was the main attraction.
Gorgo (1961)

The Colossal Man was sure he would win big in Vegas, but instead he lost his shirt.
The Amazing Colossal Man (1957)

Frozen with fear: The Man with Nine Lives

Now Playing: The Man with Nine Lives (1940)

Pros: In spite of the low budget and minimal sets, the film maintains great pace and suspense as it winds its way through plot twists and turns; Well acted all-around.
Cons: Scientific purists will guffaw at the script's crackpot take on cryogenics.

This post is part of the "Secret Places and Trippy Houses blogathon" hosted by Rebecca Deniston, whose not-so-secret online lair is the blog known as Taking Up Room. As Rebecca put it in her blogathon announcement,

“One of the most fascinating plot devices in storytelling, whether on the screen or in books, has to be the secret place, whether it’s a literal secret room or a weird house with secret passages, or maybe an underground city, or something that has gone unnoticed. It means that everyone who doesn’t know about these hidden places has to reset their thinking and look at the world differently, which is an interesting mental exercise.”

Not only does The Man with Nine Lives feature a secret passageway and chamber that holds the key to a tragic mystery, it features Boris Karloff as a medical researcher whose ability to look at the world differently is both his biggest strength and weakness.

But first, a bit of background (stop your groaning, this will only hurt a little bit!). We all know that dear Boris was vaulted to worldwide fame when, at the tender age of 43, he first portrayed the classic product of mad science, the Frankenstein monster.

In addition to two more stints as Frankenstein’s creation (Bride of Frankenstein, Son of Frankenstein), the 1930s saw him portraying monsters, both supernatural (The Mummy, The Ghoul, The Walking Dead), and human (The Black Cat, The Old Dark House, The Raven) to great acclaim.

But as Boris aged, producers flipped the script on him, keeping him in the same old familiar horror films, but increasingly making him the creator of mad science instead of its product. And Boris stepped into the roles as if he’d been dabbling with things better left alone all his life.

Many of the roles took advantage of the real life man -- gentlemanly and gracious -- and mixed in a lot of sympathy for the character along with menace:

• In The Man Who Lived Again (1936), Karloff portrays an idealistic scientist dabbling in soul transference who is driven mad when everything he has worked for is upended by an unscrupulous patron.
• In Before I Hang (1940), he’s a kindly physician sentenced to death row for a mercy killing who gets permission to experiment in prison on a new blood serum, with horrific results.
• In Black Friday (1940), he’s a brain surgeon who saves the life of his professor friend by transplanting a portion of a gangster’s brain into the professor, with… horrific results.
• In The Devil Commands (1941), he’s a grieving scientist who invents a means to communicate with his dead wife, with, you guessed it, horrific results.

Boris had this mad doctor thing down cold.

Later, in 1945’s House of Frankenstein, the story that launched Karloff to fame and fortune came full circle when he played Dr. Gustav Niemann, who revives the Frankenstein monster (along with Count Dracula) for his own evil purposes. Still later, In Frankenstein 1970 (1958), he portrayed a descendant of the original Frankenstein who tries to create a new monster even as he hosts a Hollywood film crew at his castle.

1940’s The Man with Nine Lives gave Karloff, who had already experimented with invisible rays and partial brain transplants, a chance to tinker with yet another esoteric mad scientific discipline. In this outing, he plays Dr. Leon Kravaal, an early pioneer in the use of cryogenics (dubbed “frozen therapy” in the film) for treating aggressive diseases.

As the film opens, we’re introduced to medical researcher Tim Mason (Roger Pryor), who has gotten in trouble with his boss at the research hospital for overselling his new frozen therapy as a cure for cancer (the theory being that slowing down the body’s metabolism and functions through suspended animation will kill the bad cells, or something like that.)

Mason talks over his predicament with his trusty (and lovely) assistant Judith Blair (Jo Ann Sayers), speculating that if he could just talk to or get a hold of the notes of Dr. Kravaal, the preeminent pioneer in frozen therapy, he might be able to perfect his own techniques and prove the therapy’s virtues to the doubters.

Mason and Judith discuss marketing strategies for their new Frozen Therapy.™

The only problem is that Kravaal disappeared, along with a group of local men, 10 years ago in a remote town where he had taken up residence in order to conduct his research in peace.

But of course, medical research, especially mad medical research, waits on no man, disappeared or otherwise. Mason and Judith decide to travel to the remote town in the hopes of finding Kravaal’s laboratory and notes that might provide a breakthrough for Mason’s work.

In their quest, the intrepid duo stumble upon not one, but a veritable plethora of secret places. Let’s count them:

1. The island. For maximum remoteness and to get away from the prying eyes of pesky skeptics, Kravaal had located his lab on an otherwise uninhabited island. A requisite superstitious local, the boat rental guy, tries to warn Mason and Judith off of going to the island, ominously telling them of the men who had headed over there and never returned.
2. Kravaal’s ramshackle house on the island, which looks haunted enough to deter anyone except the most curious and ambitious of medical researchers and their eager assistants.
3. The secret laboratory, which the brave pair only discover when Judith falls through rotten floor boards, enabling them to discover the stairs to a secret sub-basement.
4. An ice-encrusted vault off of the lab, containing the frozen, but still living, bodies of Kravaal and the missing local men.

How's that for a laundry list of secret places in one little, unassuming B movie?

Fortunately Amazon delivers to secret remote islands, so Kravaal can keep his lab well-stocked.

In addition to all those secret places, The Man with Nine Lives packs an awful lot of mad scientific jargon, flashbacks, soulful monologues, fraught stand-offs, and who-will-survive suspense into its economical 74 minute runtime.

Even though most of the movie takes place in the claustrophobic confines of the secret lab and frozen vault, the pacing as one secret after another is revealed makes for a very satisfying, edge-of-your-seat watch.

Words can’t adequately convey all the twists and turns the plot takes in this tale of crackpot science, mysterious disappearances, and amazing resurrections (nor do I want to spoil the fun by revealing too much). Suffice it to say that Mason and Judith have stumbled on a frozen tableau of tragedy, involving a dedicated scientist trying to cure a dying man, and the man’s nephew and local officials convinced that the scientist has already killed his patient.

As a result of the confrontation, Kravaal and his persecutors are all frozen together in the secret vault with no one the wiser — effectively having disappeared for 10 years until their accidental discovery.

"Next time I'm getting a frost-free refrigerator!"

Luckily, they’re revived by trained medical professionals — Mason and Judith — who know what they’re doing. But the relief is short-lived as the passionate and single-minded Kravaal is convinced that he’s closer than ever to perfecting his work — and he’s got a whole lab full of human guinea pigs whom the outside world already considers dead. Bwwwwaahahaha!

Okay, that wasn’t fair — nowhere in the film does Karloff/Kravaal do a mad scientist’s maniacal laugh. Actually, The Man with Nine Lives fits very neatly into Karloff’s other roles from this period — that of a gentle, yet dedicated doctor/researcher/scientist whose work is misunderstood by plodding authorities and colleagues, with those misunderstandings (and Karloff’s dogged persistence in spite of it all) resulting in horrific consequences.

Of course, by this time dear Boris could do this sort of thing in his sleep, but it’s still fun watching him masterfully turning from a gentle (if highly dedicated) soul to a monomaniacal agent of destruction who is willing to sacrifice anyone and anything in his pursuit of mad science. (At one point he offhandedly tells Mason and Judith that “This work is worth a thousand lives like his [the nephew’s]).

"This won't hurt a bit!"

Karloff’s/Kravaal’s murderous intensity as he realizes he’s on the cusp of completing his life’s work is a thing to behold. Similarly intense are the performances of the supporting actors playing the arrogant and uncomprehending local authorities (plus the nephew) who intervened 10 years earlier with tragic results, and who wake up from their frozen slumber none the wiser, and far more vulnerable as they realize they’re in the clutches of a madman who views them as no more valuable than lab rats.

There’s a certain satisfaction in watching these self-righteous dullards — Stanley Brown as the nephew, John Dilson as DA Hawthorne, Hal Taliaferro as Sheriff Stanton, and Bryon Foulger as the Coroner — quake in their boots as they contemplate being sacrificed for science (and they’re so good at blubbering and quaking!).

"We're men dammit, not lab rats!"

Roger Pryor as Mason and Jo Ann Sayers as Judith also do a creditable job as the only two you want to root for — at times they seem to be channeling William Powell and Myrna Loy in their own Thin Man-like mystery (in this case, a “Frozen Man” mystery).

Behind the camera, journeyman director and B specialist Nick Grinde manages to extract maximum angst and suspense out of this odd, claustrophobic little film. Around the same time, Grinde also directed two of Boris’ better mad doctor Bs, The Man They Could Not Hang (1939) and Before I Hang (1940) — see my reviews of those two in the post “Hanging out with Boris.” (Somewhat oddly, Grinde would hang up his directing duties by the mid-forties, although he lived many decades after that.)

Screenwriter Karl Brown teamed with Grinde on the same trilogy of mad doctor films. The partnership was a salutary one, as they are among the most lively and unique of all of Karloff’s B pictures.

The three films would make a very entertaining Halloween marathon, and at only an hour and some change for each, that would still leave you time to bob for apples or go on a Halloween scavenger hunt. Just don’t get trapped in some mad doctor’s secret laboratory.

Karloff deals yet again with uncomprehending idiots.

Where to find it: DVD | Streaming

Are we there Yeti?: The Snow Creature

Now Playing: The Snow Creature (1954)

Pros: The hunt for the creature in the shadowy streets of Los Angeles is reasonably suspenseful and the photography sets up a chilling, moody atmosphere.
Cons: The leads are colorless and their characters aloof and indifferent to the point of caricature.

For several years I've been contributing to the Halloween Horrors series hosted by Dustin over at his Horror and Sons website. This year, Dustin teased contributors with themes that they could claim, and once claimed, he revealed the true, underlying theme that they would write about. I chose "Hidden Horrors," which, to my delight, turned out to be cryptid movies. I briefly considered doing something fairly new, but decided to revisit an old B movie from the '50s that I hadn't watched in a long time. This October Horror and Sons has lined up a plethora of outstanding writers covering a very wide range of Halloween movies and topics, so if you haven't visited yet, get on over there.

Ever since I devoured Frank Edwards’ “Stranger than Science” books as a kid, I've had a soft spot for all kinds of paranormal subjects: UFOs, ghosts, inexplicable disappearances, and of course, cryptids.

Over the years, Bigfoot in particular has become a frequent and welcome guest at my house. My wife and I want to believe. We've watched dozens of bigfoot movies, and read dozens more books and articles about The Big Guy. We both saw the 1972 microbudget docudrama about a bigfoot-type creature, The Legend of Boggy Creek, and were creeped out in a big way.

But here's the thing - Bigfoot was not the preeminent bipedal, humanoid cryptid when I was growing up. At least in my neck of the woods, that honor went to the Abominable Snowman (or Yeti as he’s known in more fashionable circles).

Long before Bigfoot started taking big strides across movies, TV and every kind of merchandising item you can think of, his cousin the Yeti was invading the nightmares of Monster Kids and making it fashionable to wear white fur after Labor Day.

My first recollection of seeing a cryptid depiction was watching Hammer's The Abominable Snowman on a local creature feature. The 1958 film, starring Peter Cushing as a kindly botanist and Forrest Tucker as a brash American entrepreneur, is distinguished by showing the Yetis as a gentle, intelligent species who only resort to violence in self defense, and some of the humans as monsters in disguise.

Then there was Rankin-Bass’ animated holiday special Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, which in 1964 introduced Bumble the abominable snow monster to giddy American kids, and has been raising Yeti awareness over the holidays ever since.

Bumble is happily celebrating Christmas in September
 at his home in the big box store.

Somewhere in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s Bigfoot emerged from his hidey-hole and made his run for media fame and fortune to the point that he’s now everywhere you want him to be. But before that, he managed to keep a low profile.

If you do an advanced keyword search in IMDb for “bigfoot” limited to the period 1950 - 1970, the handful of results return mostly movies and TV featuring Yetis, not the classic Bigfoot as we know and love him.

One of those misleading search hits is The Snow Creature, a low budget B picture about the capture of a Yeti, released by United Artists in 1954. Snow Creature is credited with being the first American film to depict the abominable snowman, but worldwide, a Finnish comedy, Pekka ja Pätkä lumimiehen jäljillä (1954), apparently has the bragging rights of being the very first.

While Snow Creature is no classic, at least it made a small step toward popularizing a subject that up to then had been confined to pulp magazines and the occasional news story. The film tells a simple tale: Man meets Yeti, man loses Yeti, man finds Yeti in the storm drains of Los Angeles, where it is moving around undetected.

The film opens with botanist and voiceover narrator Dr. Frank Parrish (Paul Langton) readying an expedition to study plant life (such as it is) in the Himalayas. In addition to rounding up the standard complement of locals and head Sherpa (Subra, played by Teru Shimada), Parrish has enlisted an English photographer, Peter Wells (Leslie Denison) to help document the findings.

Parrish is all business and kind of a killjoy, and Wells is… well, in addition to all the other supplies and equipment, he’s brought along a case of Scotch, because, why not? He sure as hell doesn’t have to lug it himself, and looking for plant life on frozen mountainsides is cold, thirsty work. On the other hand, Parrish admonishes him not to drink in front of the locals - bad for morale you know!

Parrish and Wells relax after a hard day of not looking for abominable snowmen.

Morale plummets anyway when, in mid-expedition, Subra learns that his wife has been abducted from their home down in the lowlands by a Yeti on a midnight stroll. Subra is adamant that they have to drop everything and track the Yeti to rescue his wife, but Parrish, who is skeptical to the core, will have none of it.

Desperate, Subra steals Parrish’s and Wells’ rifle ammo while they’re sleeping. Without the rifle as a dispute resolver, the two can only helplessly look on as the Sherpa turns the expedition into a hunting party.

Parrish, the ultimate scientific drudge, seems to lack any sense of wonder or compassion for Subra, and gripes about getting back to his plants even as it becomes clear that the Yeti does indeed exist. Morale takes another hit when the Yeti conducts a surprise nighttime raid on the camp and kills one of the men.

Undeterred, the men continue to track the creature, who resorts to causing an avalanche in an attempt to escape. After the hunting party takes shelter in a large cave, Subra is excited to find his wife’s necklace on the cave floor. Before you can say “abominable,” the men spot the Yeti with his family -- a missus Yeti and a toddler. In a rage, the Yeti tries to hurl rocks at his tormentors, but only succeeds in bringing boulders down on his family and himself.

But, Eureka!, Wells got a picture of the cryptid family before the cave fell in, and the male Yeti is only stunned. Subra wants to kill the thing that carried off his wife, but Parrish stops him. The hunting party haul their prize back to civilization, where the local authorities are surprisingly accommodating in an “aw shucks, since you found him, I guess he’s all yours” sort of way.

Wells wants to sell his picture and the Yeti to the highest bidders, but Parrish insists that the Yeti be delivered to his employers at the scientific foundation. He orders a special refrigeration unit to transport the creature back to the States in chilly comfort. But stateside, the bureaucrats are not nearly as accommodating. They want to know if the thing is human or animal before allowing it into the good ol’ US of A, and in a head-scratching development, they hire an anthropologist to make the call. In the meantime, the creature has to bide his time in an LA warehouse.

Will the Snow Man melt in the heat and grime of LA?
Inquiring minds want to know!

That meantime is just enough time for the disgruntled snowman to start banging on the sides of the unit, whereupon he tips it over, breaks out, and attacks a security guard before hightailing it into the night (if this refrigeration unit is rockin’, don’t come a knockin’!)

Reports of snowman sightings and attacks (not to mention deaths) start coming in, and Parrish teams up with chief investigating officer Lt. Dunbar (William Phipps) to once again track the wayward creature. The reports suggest that the creature is ranging far and wide through the city streets, yet it’s getting around undetected by the scores of police units on alert. It can’t fly and it’s not invisible, so how?

Then, from Dunbar’s office window, Phipps’ gaze rests upon a large opening to the sewer system. Hmmmm…. Will Phipps and Dunbar be able to track the thing through the dark and the muck of LA’s sewers and capture it before it kills again?

For the complete review, see my post over at Horror and Sons!

Raiders of the Lost Aliens: Maureen O’Sullivan in Stranded

Now Playing: Stranded (1987)

Pros: A low-budget sci-fi thriller that masterfully builds suspense, respects its audience and features solid performances
Cons: Fans of CGI and big budget effects won’t find much to like

Thanks to everyone who has participated in the ‘Favorite Stars in B Movies’ blogathon! This post on Maureen O’Sullivan is my contribution to the effort. If you haven’t already, please explore all the other marvellous posts on famous film stars and their B movie appearances: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3

I have reminisced many times here at Films From Beyond about my Monster Kid days, before the internet era and streaming, before VCRs and time shifting, and even before the advent of basic cable.

Yep, it was just me and the family’s black and white console TV with the rabbit ears antenna that brought in 3 clear channels and maybe another fuzzy one on a good day. But, as an eager young member of the Monster Kid Club, that was good enough. At the height of those salad days, growing up in a small university town in the midwest, I was in TV reissue/syndication heaven.

On Friday nights I had my ‘50s sci-fi movies (broadcast from the big city station 30 miles to the south), and on Saturday nights I eagerly watched the classic monsters (broadcast from the university station in my hometown). While weekend nights generally belonged to the monsters, there were plenty of opportunities to catch family friendlier, but still watchable, action-adventure movies on a number of TV movie matinees (not to mention the local downtown theater).

The Tarzan movies starring former Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller were among the more memorable offerings on those lazy weekend afternoons. Sure, Tarzan was no Frankenstein, Dracula or Wolf Man, but there were enough thrills and chills in those movies to get my 10 year old heart beating just a little faster. (There were even monsters here and there, like the time Boy was trapped in a giant spider’s web in Tarzan’s Desert Mystery).

Speaking of hearts beating a little faster, beautiful Maureen O’Sullivan as Jane Parker joined Weissmuller for a decade-long run in six of the MGM Tarzan films, starting with Tarzan the Ape Man in 1932 and ending with Tarzan’s New York Adventure (1942). The skimpy outfits she wore in those films revealed as much skin as ‘30s audiences were ever likely to see (or for that matter, naive ‘60s TV viewers during the height of Tarzan’s syndicated popularity). O’Sullivan undoubtedly was the first movie crush for thousands (if not a whole generation) of fans (and yes, I was a member of that legion).

In an interview with film historian Tom Weaver, O’Sullivan had a good laugh over the fan mail she received as a result of the Tarzan costumes:

"[Weaver:] In the earliest Tarzan movies, your wardrobe was very skimpy. Did that make you self-conscious at all?
[O'Sullivan:] I didn’t think it was so skimpy. What was it now, I’ve forgotten… the outfit torn up the side? No, I thought it was appropriate for where I was. It wouldn’t have been appropriate to wear at Buckingham Palace, or to church or something [laughs], but it was appropriate for what I was doing. So no, it didn’t worry me at all -- until I started getting mail about it. And I thought, 'Well, people are crazy. They have to write about something.' If they didn’t write about that, then they wrote about how they liked me -- it was one thing or the other. I did get a lot of mail on my costume and I thought, 'Do people really have nothing to do except write to strangers?' [Laughs]" [Tom Weaver, I Was a Monster Movie Maker, McFarland, 2010, p. 185]

Fortunately, the talented Miss O’Sullivan got roles that required more than just baring her legs and keeping Tarzan out of trouble. Even as her mailbox was filling up with fan letters appreciative of her jungle wardrobe, she was donning elaborate period costumes in such prestige films as The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934), David Copperfield (1935) and Anna Karenina (1935).

After the last Tarzan film in 1942, O’Sullivan took a break from acting to devote time to her husband, writer/director John Farrow, and her growing family (ultimately having seven children, six of whom -- including Mia Farrow -- went on to work in movies and TV).

Upon returning to acting in 1948, O’Sullivan made a splash in a starring role opposite Ray Milland in the film noir classic The Big Clock. Several undistinguished B movies later, O'Sullivan settled into guest shots on TV shows and theater appearances until she played an alcoholic show business mother to her real life daughter Mia Farrow in Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters (1986).

While Hannah and Her Sisters and the obscure, low-budget sci-fi drama Stranded (released a year later) might seem to be worlds or even universes apart, they both share the theme of families weathering adversity.

In Stranded, O’Sullivan’s movie family is a small one. She plays Grace Clark, an elderly but scrappily independent woman living with her granddaughter Deirdre (Ione Skye) in a farmhouse on the edge of town (later on we learn that Deirdre’s parents were killed in a car crash).

On a dark and stormy night, what seems at first like a lightning hit that takes out the power instead turns out to be a weird energy beam that has delivered something very strange to the Clark house. Deirdre and Grace, who are upstairs, notice a weird blue light shining from the parlor on the ground floor. Grace bravely grabs a shotgun to confront the intruders, but when it becomes apparent these are no garden variety burglars, Grace and Deirdre hide in a bedroom.

Alien travel advisory: In the U.S. there are more guns than people, so exercise caution!

A tense situation turns tragic when Deirdre’s would-be boyfriend Jerry (Kevin Haley) and his dad Vernon choose exactly the wrong time to stop by the Clark house on their way home from a fishing trip. When no one responds to his calls from the darkened house, Jerry gets worried and grabs a gun from the glove compartment.

Instead of finding Deirdre and Grace, Jerry and Vernon are startled by a tall humanoid figure with long white hair standing in the parlor, a glowing blue crystal hovering in front of her. A weird gnome-like humanoid suddenly jumps up and hisses, and before you can say “guns and surprise alien visits don’t mix,” a panicked Jerry shoots the tall figure. In turn, another figure at the top of the stairs blasts Jerry with some sort of energy beam, sending him flying out the front door. Vernon, grief-stricken and vowing revenge, drags his son’s body back to the truck and hightails it out of there.

The only thing Deirdre and Grace have to fear is fear itself.

When things get quiet, Deirdre and Grace tiptoe down the stairs, lamp and shotgun in hand. The creature that blasted Jerry suddenly intercepts them in the hallway, grabbing Grace’s shotgun and then herding them into the front parlor.

The sight that greets them is surreal: The gnome creature and two other slender, pale humanoids with high foreheads and long, flowing hair are huddled around their stricken companion who is lying on the floor. They look like they could be a family -- one of the uninjured aliens is a young, almost androgynous-looking male, and the other is older, with a stiff, regal bearing. Grace whispers, “They almost look like angels!”, to which Deirdre responds “I don’t think so…” The film’s credits list them simply as Prince (the young alien; played by Brendon Hughes), Sir (Dennis Vero) and Queen (the gunshot victim played by Florence Schauffler).

Surprise alien visits and guns don't mix.

There’s alien-looking, and then there’s alien-looking. In the latter category is the short, squat gnome with a huge creased dome of a head and long whiskers growing out of the bottom of his chin-less face (played to great effect by Michael Balzary, aka Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers fame). The creature seems more like a humanoid pet to the aliens, and just wants to please. After the initial shock, Grace takes to the adorably homely creature, dubbing him “Jester.”

But most alarming is the creature that seems to be the alien family’s bodyguard. Despite having female curves, Warrior (Spice Williams-Crosby) is malevolent-looking, dressed in a form-fitting suit (or is it her skin?) and is mostly faceless with the exception of two large, glowing eyes (not to mention the deadly energy-beam weapon she wears on one arm).

This is not something you want to see in your house at night.

Meanwhile, the aliens and the Clarks are attending to the mortally wounded Queen. Grace deescalates the tense situation, exhibiting clear concern for the alien she calls “dear lady,” saying they need to get her to a hospital (Deirdre patiently explains to her grandmother that “they can’t go to a hospital.”) The Queen passes a brightly glowing blue crystal to Prince before expiring (Sir doesn’t seem to be in the line of succession -- you have to wonder if he’s the Prince Andrew of this royal alien court).

And before you can say “gee, that’s a surprisingly quick response time for a rural area,” multiple Sheriff’s squad cars are pulling up to the house. Even before the sheriff himself (Joe Morton) has had a chance to arrive, Vernon, with nothing but bloody revenge on his mind, goads one of the deputies to seize the day, with predictable results -- the deputy is zapped to death by Warrior, who is only defending her group.

When Sheriff McMahon finally arrives, he realizes he has inherited a cluster-you-know-what, with a dead deputy on the grounds, Deirdre and Grace bewilderingly shouting from the house that they’re not in danger, and deputies who are either too spooked to think straight or are ready to charge the house like brain-dead Rambos.

As if that situation wasn’t bad enough for a newly installed African American sheriff, a caravan of Vernon’s redneck buddies arrive just itching to blast them some aliens to kingdom come. The coup-de-grace is the sudden appearance of a solitary federal agent, Helen Anderson (Susan Barnes), complete in trenchcoat, warning McMahon that if he doesn’t quickly get control of things a military “clean-up” team will do the work for him. It just isn’t his day.

Guns and angry mobs really don't mix.

The best thing about Stranded is that the people behind it realized they didn’t have the budget to make something even remotely resembling Star Wars, so they settled for good writing, believable characters and solid performances. Not only that, but they decided to respect the intelligence of their audience.

For something so low-budget and small scale (just a single location), the film manages to pack a lot of suspense and unease (as well as pathos) into the proceedings. Much is left to the imagination. The visitors don’t arrive in a conventional spaceship, but rather some sort of transporter beam/wormhole that is never explained (and doesn’t need to be).

The aliens don’t speak English, nor is there a convenient Star Trek-style autotranslator. They are mute through most of the film (the implication being that they communicate telepathically), so the actors portraying them have to rely on facial expressions and gestures. Most expressive of all is Jester, the aliens’ “pet,” who wears his simple emotions on his sleeve, so to speak. The “angelic” aliens are a mix of the uncanny (human-looking, yet somehow not), a royal-like reserve, and gentleness.

The visitors’ backstory is communicated first to Deirdre through a series of telepathic images (aided by the blue crystal manipulated by the Prince). The rapid-fire succession of other-worldly images tells a tale of the aliens’ imprisonment, and a daring escape and pursuit by mysterious captors who aren’t shown in their entirety -- just their repulsive, reptilian legs. The sequence is simple and imaginative without requiring expensive effects or indulging in extraneous exposition.

Who needs Star Wars-style holograms when you can just beam what you want straight into somebody's mind?

Somehow, in a cosmic stroke of luck, the escapees managed to beam themselves to just about the only farmhouse in rural America where intruders -- especially such weird-looking ones -- wouldn’t be shot on sight. With their own history of tragedy and loss, Deirdre and Grace aren’t about to greet visitors, especially “angels,” with shotgun blasts.

As a result of their forbearance, Deirdre is given a telepathic glimpse of worlds no human has ever seen before -- not to mention forming a proto-romantic attachment to the angelically handsome Prince -- and Grace forms her own special bond with the alien goofball Jester. But with rival alien assassins on their trail and uncomprehending police with guns encircling the house, the peace won’t last long.

It's the Clarks and their alien visitors against the world (and part of the universe).

Joe Morton as Sheriff McMahon is in a position where, as the new sheriff in town (and an African American one at that), he is made to feel somewhat like an alien intruder in a rural area where racism is still rampant. In his confrontation with the would-be lynch mob, Vernon keeps calling the sheriff “boy,” but McMahon maintains his cool, and his deputies back him up, forcing the mob to back down.

In another example of coolness under pressure, McMahon enters the house to size up the situation and possibly negotiate what looks like a hostage situation. With Deirdre’s encouragement, the aliens give him the same telepathic briefing through the crystal. Outside the house, federal agent Barnes, who has some sort of hidden agenda of her own, suggests to the chief deputy that the aliens are using mind control on the sheriff, and that he needs to be prepared to take charge. With friends like these…

Interestingly, just a few years before, Joe Morton played the title role in the cult hit The Brother from Another Planet (1987), in which he was the alien being pursued by extraterrestrial bounty hunters.

Joe Morton has a moment of sci-fi-induced deja-vu.

Stranded was only the second movie role for UK-born Ione Skye (daughter of ‘60s pop-rock singer Donovan), who debuted in the gut-wrenching River’s Edge (1986). Although she is still working, the height of Skye’s career came with her appearance in one of the great coming-of-age comedies, Say Anything (1989), opposite John Cusack.

On the career flip side, Stranded was the second to last feature film Maureen O’Sullivan made (not counting three TV movies and a series guest shot). With the Grace Clark role O’Sullivan proved she hadn’t lost any of her acting chops, as she seemed to effortlessly combine a bit of steely resolve, a bit of elderly naivete, and a lot of empathy. Perhaps her best scene in Stranded is at the end credits, which are superimposed over footage of a local TV reporter interviewing Grace and Deirdre about their amazing alien encounter. O’Sullivan is completely natural and even a little impish in answering the reporter’s questions. It’s a delightful scene.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the other, behind-the-scenes talents that contributed to this stand-out (but highly neglected) sci-fi drama. Jeffrey Jur’s cinematography is exceptional, making expert use of light and shadow, and avoiding the overly dark, muddled night photography characteristic of other low-budget films. Subtly, the early scenes with the aliens -- when it’s not clear if they're dangerous or not -- are tinged with red, and then gradually, as they gain the trust of Deirdre and Grace, calming blues take over.

The alien design and make-up (credited to Vera Yurtchuk and Brian Wade) is simple yet effective. The Prince and his family seem to be inspired by the Nordic aliens of UFO lore. Warrior looks to be wearing a modified wetsuit, but the large eyes that dominate an otherwise featureless face make her very intimidating. Much less intimidating is Jester, who looks like he could be a cousin to the Ferengi, who were introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation around the same time.

Separated at birth? Top row: Nordic aliens and the Prince. Bottom: a Ferengi and Jester

According to IMDb, director Fleming B. Fuller only directed two other feature films and one TV movie. Stranded is a solid sci-fi thriller that masterfully ratchets up the suspense, stimulates the imagination, and delivers some very good, affecting performances. I don’t know Fuller’s story, but it seems a shame he didn’t do more.

Where to find it: A soft-looking, but still watchable stream can be found here.

A Rolling Reporter Gathers Some Moss: “The Spanish Moss Murders”

Now Playing: “The Spanish Moss Murders,” episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker (S1, E9; first aired Dec. 6, 1974)

Pros: Everyman hero Kolchak runs circles around not one but three clueless authority figures in this episode
Cons: The monster design is just average

This post is part of The 11th Annual Favourite TV Show Episode blogathon, hosted by the talented and knowledgeable Terence Towles Canote at A Shroud of Thoughts. This year's offerings run the gamut of TV genres, and have something for just about everyone.

At the height of the New Jersey Drones flap, while thousands were peering into the night skies, unnerved by all the weird lights that made it seem like there was some sort of alien superhighway above their heads, and the Feds were dismissively insisting “there’s nothing to see here,” I was thinking, where is Carl Kolchak when we need him?

Acclaimed physicist and professional skeptic Carl Sagan once famously said, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Through two made-for-TV movies and a short-lived TV series, intrepid investigative reporter Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) kept unearthing extraordinary evidence of a parallel, paranormal world undreamt of by sober-minded people, from classic vampires, demons, zombies and werewolves, to such exotic manifestations as shape-shifting entities and headless, sword-wielding motorcyclists.

If Kolchak had been on the New Jersey drones case, there’s no doubt he would have discovered the weirdest, most exotic explanation possible for the phenomenon… like flying, shape-shifting Jersey Devils with neon lights for eyes. 

While Kolchak only got two TV movies and one 20 episode season to dig around the dark underbelly of the paranormal world, his exploits would inspire the far longer TV careers of Mulder and Scully in The X-Files. The key to the FBI duo’s success was their Yin and Yang relationship, where Mulder’s insatiable curiosity and Scully’s innate skepticism formed an effective, if often contentious, team. Plus, the sexual tension between the two certainly helped the ratings. By contrast, Kolchak was always going it alone, relying on his own wits and worn shoe leather to bring it all to light.

Carl Kolchak specialized in shining a light into the dark corners of conventional reality.

Kolchak’s editor and foil at the Chicago-based Independent News Service, Tony Vincenzo (Simon Oakland) was certainly no help. Week after week, the relentless reporter would glom onto hints of something unworldly, then nose around like a bloodhound until the uncanny secrets were exposed in spectacular fashion -- and all the while, his boss would huff, puff, wince, gnash his teeth, and plead with Kolchak to stop wasting his time. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Carl Kolchak was born out of an unpublished novel, The Kolchak Papers, by long-time Las Vegas resident Jeff Rice. Rice’s agent recognized the novel’s potential, and before long, it was being adapted by producer Dan Curtis (of Dark Shadows fame) and acclaimed fantasy writer Richard Matheson for a TV movie. Directed by TV and film veteran John Llewlyn Moxey, The Night Stalker (1972) -- featuring newspaperman Kolchak trying to convince unbelieving Las Vegas authorities that they have a super-powered vampire in their midst -- generated the highest ratings ever for an original made-for-TV movie at the time. [Wikipedia] 

Naturally, another TV movie, The Night Strangler (1973) and the TV series followed in quick succession. “The Spanish Moss Murders,” the 9th episode of the series, follows the Kolchak formula to a T.

In classic Night Stalker fashion, the episode opens with Kolchak, looking like he’s been dragged through a mud bath, sitting in a hospital emergency room, narrating recent events into his omnipresent tape recorder.

As always, there are mysterious killings involving unwary victims wandering the streets at night and paying with their lives. The first victim, a young grad student and sleep research lab assistant is accosted on a dark street and crushed to death (make a note of her occupation -- it will be relevant later). The police brush it off as the aftermath of a hit-and-run accident, but Kolchak is skeptical.

It's never a good idea to go wandering the streets at night in a Night Stalker episode.

Which brings us to the puzzling clues that only Kolchak, with his reporter’s sixth sense, recognizes as crucial to the mystery -- in this case, small pieces of vegetable matter that inexplicably show up on each of the victims’ bodies. Relying on shoe leather in an age before Google, Kolchak finds out from a local botanical expert that the stuff is Spanish moss, not exactly common in the northern climes of Chicago.

But the real lifeblood of the series was the intrepid, relentless reporter going up against bumbling, dissembling authority figures, deflating their pretentions with his pointed questions and driving them to distraction with his “What, me? What did I do?” disingenuousness.

Kolchak came into his own during the Watergate revelations and the subsequent collapse of public trust in government. He was a rumpled, one man Watergate committee, making endless runs around authorities sputtering that there was “nothing to see here,” and seeing things -- especially paranormal things -- with a special clarity. (It’s perhaps no coincidence that another rumpled everyman from the era, Columbo, gained huge popularity matching wits with arrogant elites.)

“The Spanish Moss Murders” presents not one but three sputtering, clueless authority figures for Kolchak to run rings around. Police Captain Joe “Mad Dog” Siska (Keenan Wynn), investigating the second strange death involving Spanish moss, is not quite mad, but he’s teetering on the edge, and Kolchak nosing around is not helping matters. He’s so stressed out, that he admits to Kolchak in an unguarded moment that he’s in group therapy. (This was the first of two appearances Wynn would make on the show.)

Capt. Joe "Mad Dog" Siska is driven mad by Kolchak's relentless prodding.

Medical science comes in for a roasting when Kolchak makes the connection between the first victim and a sleep research laboratory that is conducting some sketchy experiments with a subject who has been put in an extended period of REM sleep. (Yes, the victims all have something in common besides Spanish moss, and it all traces back to the sleep lab, but I’ll leave it there.)

The lab director, Dr. Pollack (Severn Darden) is so wrapped up in his research that he seems blithely unconcerned about the health of his prize sleep subject, and he has to be reminded by a colleague of the name of the recently deceased grad assistant who was working for him.

Darden, who made a career out of playing effete doctors, professors and assorted politicians (and was in two Planet of the Apes movies, Conquest of and Battle for), amps up the pompous condescension as his character wearily lectures Kolchak on his all-important research.

(In an amusing epilogue, after all the dust has settled on the murderous events that Dr. Pollack unwittingly set in motion, Kolchak relates that the good doctor “had lost his taste for pure research. He’d shaved off his beard and gone back to Long Island to work in the family shoe business.”)

"To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the opportunity for lots of grant money..."

And then there’s Kolchak’s boss at the news service, Tony Vincenzo. Simon Oakland’s character spent most of the series screwing up his face and blustering at Kolchak as if every interaction with the reporter was the equivalent of a root canal. And yet, Kolchak always returned the next week with his job intact, so there had to be some grudging respect there.

In “The Spanish Moss Murders” we see a somewhat more relaxed boss, determined this time around to be clueless as to Kolchak’s latest crusade (presumably for his mental health). Instead, Vincenzo is fixated on a speech that he will be giving to a civic organization on freedom of the press, to the point that he corrals everyone in the office to drop what they’re doing and listen to him rehearse. In an amusing bit of business, Kolchak distractedly butters up Vincenzo while maneuvering around the office, trying to figure out how to steal away without being noticed.

Tony Vincenzo wears his signature skeptical frown along with a natty tie and vest.

If the lifeblood of the series was Kolchak’s defiance of authority, then the heart that kept it all pumping was the monster of the week. Kolchak: The Night Stalker was a delectable (detestable?) smorgasbord of night creatures, some familiar, like werewolves and vampires, some more obscure.

The obscure monster in "The Spanish Moss Murders" is the Père Malfait (roughly translated as “father of mischief”), popularly known as the Cajun Boogeyman. According to an article on "Louisiana Cajun Folklore" at The Moonlit Road website, the myth of the Père Malfait was imported to Louisiana Cajun country from France, where generations of parents used it to keep their children in line. A cross between Swamp Thing of comic book fame and Bigfoot, the Cajun Boogeyman crushes its victims to death before mysteriously vanishing, leaving only fragments of moss and leaves behind. Like the cinematic vampire, it can only be killed by driving a stake made from the swamp gum tree through its heart.

7’2” Richard Kiel, who made a career out of portraying imposing villains and creatures (and was most famously known for his Jaws character from the James Bond films The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker), was enlisted to step into the Père Malfait suit. Interestingly, he had just been seen the week before as the “Diablero” in episode 8 of the series, “Bad Medicine.” [IMDb]

The Père Malfait prefers the Louisiana bayous, but in a pinch Chicago's sewers will do.

Besides the plethora of monsters, another endearing feature of the series was that for all the effort the intrepid reporter put in exposing and thwarting the various paranormal perils, at the end of each week the evidence would conveniently disappear, and Kolchak would be left with nothing but his verbal notes on his trusty tape recorder. True to both series form and myth, after Kolchak’s encounter with the Père Malfait in Chicago’s dank sewer system, all traces of the creature disappear down the drains.

So, how exactly did a folkloric monster from Louisiana bayou country end up in Chicago’s sewers? You’ll have to watch the episode to find out!

Kolchak and his trusty tape recorder live to fight another day.

Where to find it: DVD | Streaming 

Eurospies in Space: The Wild, Wild Planet

Now Playing: The Wild, Wild Planet (aka I criminali della galassia, 1966)

Pros: The kind of crazy, go-for-broke energy that’s characteristic of ambitious, yet low-budget filmmaking; A plethora of surreal moments requires repeat viewings to take it all in
Cons: Laughably bad SFX, especially the miniatures of futuristic cities and vehicles

It’s often said that we need the bad in order to appreciate the good. What fan hasn’t embraced at least one movie that, despite being completely inartistic, demands repeat viewings and brings a smile every time? This post is part of the seventh “So Bad They’re Good Blogathon” being hosted by Rebecca at her Taking Up Room blog. Almost every genre is represented, so after you visit The Wild, Wild Planet, wander over to Rebecca’s blog for many more guilty pleasures.

1966 was a watershed year for science fiction fans. In September, Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek debuted on national television, establishing a major franchise that's still going like a dilithium crystal-powered Energizer Bunny to this very day. Pitched as a “Wagon train to the stars” by Roddenberry himself, Star Trek was far more than that -- a high concept show that embraced an unapologetically optimistic vision of the future, dealt with sophisticated themes, and attracted fans of all ages.

Around the same time that Roddenberry was launching the Enterprise to seek out new life and new civilizations, Italian director Antonio Margheriti boldly set out on his own mission to make a series of space epics on a shoestring budget and a prayer.

At the dawn of the 1960s, as the space race between the U.S. and the Soviets was heating up, Margheriti raced ahead of the competition to direct Italy’s first space opera, Assignment: Outer Space (aka Space Men, 1960). Then, in the mid-60s, as the two superpowers kept trying to upstage each other with marathon manned missions and spacewalks, Margheriti took on mission control duties for a series of four sci-fi films: The Wild, Wild Planet, The War of the Planets, War Between the Planets, and The Snow Devils.

Co-produced in Italy, Spain and the U.S., and originally intended to be shown on American TV, the films were released in rapid-fire succession in 1966 and early ‘67. Incredibly, by reusing spaceship models and props from previous films, and shooting back-to-back with the same sets and many of the same cast members, Margheriti took only three months to deliver the films.

Wild, Wild Planet was the first release in what came to be known as the Gamma One Quadrilogy. “Gamma One” is a reference to the United Democracies Space Command (UDSCO) space station that is a major set piece in each of the films. [See the blog An Echo That’s Reversing for a rundown of the quadrilogy].

Although set in a nearer future than Star Trek’s 23rd century, UDSCO is a sort of precursor to Roddenberry’s United Federation of Planets. (The space station as a major location and jumping off point for the action also prefigures such series as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Babylon One.)

But what earns the extra “Wild” in Wild, Wild Planet is an overlay of secret agents, conspiracies and a Bond-like supervillain that would have been very much at home in the more conventional spy pictures that were wildly popular at the time. In the mid-60s, the success of the James Bond franchise unleashed swarms of imitators on TV and in theaters, from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964-1968) in the U.S., to Secret Agent (1964-1967) in the UK, to more 007 knock-offs in Italy and France than you could shake a Walther PPK at.

"Of course we're trying to be inconspicuous, why do you ask?"

One clue that the film is not your typical space opera is the opening scene in which the camera pans past various dissected organs enclosed in a group of transparent cabinets, like a futuristic cannibal butcher shop. The organs are part of a research project being conducted by Dr. Nurmi (Massimo Surrato), the weirdly intense head of Chem Bio Med (CBM), a research outfit belonging to The Corporations.

Nurmi is conducting his Frankenstein-like experiments in miniaturizing body parts (?!) on board the Gamma One space station, and station commander Mike Halstead (Tony Russel) is none too happy. Not to mention, Nurmi is putting creepy moves on Lt. Connie Gomez (Lisa Gastoni), Gamma One’s Communications and Control Officer.

Connie is not too sure about a man who's into miniatures.

But soon, Nurmi becomes the least of Halstead’s worries, as Earth is rocked by the mysterious disappearances of a number of its leading citizens, including Halstead’s old friend General Fowler (Enzo Fiermonte). Space Command is called in to investigate.

While Halstead takes charge (including investigating the attempted kidnapping of his own nephew), Nurmi somehow convinces Connie to accompany him to his home base, the planet Delphos, where he can show her his etchings, er, uh, his scientific work and the future he has in store for humanity.

Halstead and his peeps (including a young Franco Nero as Lt. Jake Jacowitz) gradually uncover a fiendish plot involving teams of field agents -- always a beautiful woman accompanied by a tall, pale goon wearing a shiny black cloak and sunglasses -- who stalk their victims and then wrap them up in the goon’s cloak, whereupon they’re reduced to the size of a Barbie doll and hauled away in an attache case (?!).

A big break comes when one of the abductions is interrupted in mid-miniaturization, reducing the intended target, a renowned scientist, to half his normal size. The scientist escapes his kidnappers, but then falls into a deep coma, leaving Halstead and the authorities to wonder who’s next on the list for this extreme weight-loss plan.

"For crying out loud, couldn't you at least have given him a longer hospital gown?"

Meanwhile, Connie is alarmed by what she sees on Delphos. She soon realizes she’s become a prisoner, and that Nurmi’s designs on her are a lot more nefarious than your garden-variety sleazeball’s.

Not being a complete dummy, Halstead traces the plot back to Nurmi, but is stymied by his superiors, who don’t want to rock the boat by confronting a powerful and influential member of the Corporations.

It’s a race against time as Halstead struggles to free himself from the bureaucratic red tape and rescue Connie before she becomes Nurmi’s latest, most diabolical experiment in bio-engineered humans.

James Bondian influences are everywhere in this mash-up of spaceships and eurospies. Nurmi is the quintessential supervillain, suave and creepy at the same time, and as megalomaniacal as they come. Plus, there’s a healthy dose of mad scientist thrown in for added entertainment value, complete with speeches that would make Dr. Frankenstein proud:

“Halstead, you better get used to it. Tissue grafts and transplants are a fact of life. They’re revolutionizing medicine, and will transform mankind. They are the key to a new people, a race of perfect men!”

Like any self-respecting supervillain, Nurmi has an army of minions, including the gorgeous femme-fatales and the bio-engineered goons. At one point, Halstead and company mix it up with Nurmi’s agents, barely prevailing over the women after a lengthy fight scene full of karate chops and judo throws.

Biff! Pow! Zap! Kapow! Wham! Klonk!

And of course, there’s Nurmi’s super-scientific lair on Delphos, which, in typical Bondian fashion, is infiltrated by the Space Command forces at the climax.

Filling in the role of Bond girl is Gastoni as Lt. Connie Gomez, who in an opening scene is shown throwing men around Pussy Galore-style in a martial arts demonstration. She quickly gets Nurmi’s attention, who wants to enlist her in his quest to perfect the human race. (I won’t spoil things by revealing exactly how Connie figures into his plans -- let’s just say he’s mad about her DNA.)

With all that wild, wild genre blending going on, author Matt Blake’s estimate that the film’s piece of the budget pie was only $30,000 (“titchy even back in 1965”) is hard to believe, even given all the recycling of cast, crew and resources. [Matt Blake, Science Fiction Italian Style, The Wildeye Press, 2019, p.31].

On the other hand, viewers might think “where did all that money go?” when they get a look at the model work depicting futuristic cities and space stations. One of the film’s first guffaw-inducing moments comes with an early establishing shot of a cityscape, complete with toy vehicles zipping along an elevated track. It’s on par with a clever 12-year-old’s honorable mention science fair diorama. (Later, a flying car dangling from wires is good for a chuckle or two.)

"And the Science Fair honorable mention goes to..."

But viewers who are undeterred by the cheap toy modelwork will be treated to some supremely surreal moments. Nurmi’s pale henchmen opening up their slick black raincoats to envelop and miniaturize their victims has a distinct exhibitionist vibe to it (or maybe an even grosser vibe, but let’s not go there). Later, when one of the goons is captured, there’s another eeewww! moment when it’s revealed he has 4 arms -- the result of Nurmi’s limb grafting experiments.

And then there’s the end product of the miniaturization. One of Wild, Wild Planet’s more uncanny moments comes with a quick but fascinating close-up of a case full of doll-sized people lying in little foam-lined compartments, their faces covered with tiny oxygen masks.

Also intriguing are all the little background details of 21st century life as imagined in the mid-20th. Prophetically, surveillance cameras and commercial advertising are everywhere. Also prophetic is the government's (i.e., Space Command’s) deference to the powerful Corporations. Less so is the futuristic slang and epithets like “helium-headed idiot!” directed at incompetent bureaucrats by the hot-headed Cmdr. Halstead.

The Wild, Wild Planet is filled with so much weirdness that it’s like watching a live action Hieronymus Bosch painting -- just as you’re wondering what the hell that was, something else comes along to flummox you. And you can’t take it all in with just one viewing.

Supervillains have a fatal flaw: they prefer to brag instead of quickly eliminating their foes.

Some time after the dust had settled on the Gamma One Quadrilogy, Margheriti reminisced, somewhat apologetically, about the experience of making it:

“Two episodes were produced by an Italian TV station, the other ones by an American one. Unfortunately, the stupid producer had the idea of releasing them to the cinema. You can imagine a TV movie from the sixties dealing with space ships and such FX on the big screen. It doesn’t make for a very good impression (laughs). I remember we had three months to shoot the entire series, including the post-production. I directed four complete movies in only three months, and believe me, it was very hard work. For everyone else involved it was a fun project without any real stories or ideas and the results look exactly like that!” [Blake, p. 29]

He needn’t have been so apologetic. Sure, The Wild, Wild Planet is no 2001: A Space Odyssey or Star Wars, but somehow, the combination of low budget and accelerated shooting schedule resulted in a wild, crazy ride that is far more memorable than many of the slick, corporate blockbusters that followed in its wake.

"Hold still, let me get that fly that's landed on your jacket!"

Where to find it: Streaming | DVD