Not-so-Classic Monsters go Trick or Treating

It's almost that time of year again, the time that the old Celts called Samhain, and that today we call Halloween, when the thin barrier that separates our world from that dark place where monsters, ghosts, witches and ghouls rule, evaporates altogether, allowing the denizens to break out, mingle, and generally mix it up. 

Our tradition of dressing up in costume on Halloween comes from the Celts. As the website IrishMyths.com puts it, "[T]he goal of [Samhain celebrants] wasn't to appear cute or strong or extravagant, it was to disguise oneself from -- or perhaps even blend in with -- the supernatural beings that might potentially be crossing over from the Otherworld. That meant adopting a frightening appearance." [https://irishmyths.com/2022/10/14/halloween-costume-history/]

The monsters broke through to our world just in time to join a parade of trick-or-treaters.

Here at Films From Beyond we have a direct landline to the Nether/Otherworld, and have it upon good authority that, these days, the dark denizens are as afraid of us as we are of them, with good reason -- both worlds have more than their share of monsters.

But that hasn't deterred Otherworld monsters from going trick or treating on Halloween. For one thing, they don't have to worry about what costume they're going to wear -- they're already in costume, so to speak. For another, they weren't raised by helicopter parents worried about stranger danger or their little ones stubbing their toes in the dark. On Halloween night, they're raring to go. But alas, Halloween isn't always a joy, even for monsters.

Caltiki the Immortal Monster decided that instead of going door-to-door trick-or-treating, he would wait for the other kids in the neighborhood to fill up their bags, and then just eat them.
Caltiki, the Immortal Monster (1959)

• Caltiki's favorite treat: Eating whole houses, occupants and all.
• Favorite trick: Eating whole houses, occupants and all.
• Best friend to go trick-or-treating with: His cousin, the Blob.
• More about Caltiki at Films From Beyond.

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The Thing That Couldn't Die waited hundreds of years to be dug up so he could go trick-or-treating, but then lost his head when a neighborhood kid accidentally carried it away in his treat bucket.
The Thing That Couldn't Die (1958)

• Favorite treat: Gummy worms.
• Favorite trick: Using his head as a treat bucket.
• Best friend to go trick-or-treating with: His girlfriend, The Brain That Wouldn't Die.
• More about The Thing at Films From Beyond.

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The Brain That Wouldn't Die was fuming when she realized that her telepathically-linked mutant assistant ate all the good Halloween candy and left her with a couple of packets of SweeTarts.
The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962)

• Favorite treat: Four lumps of sugar added to the nutrient broth she sits in.
• Favorite trick: Telepathically commanding the mutant to tear the arms off of people who annoy her.
• Best friend to go trick-or-treating with: Well, not the mutant any more; maybe the Thing That Couldn't Die if he can find his head.
• More about The Brain at Films From Beyond.

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Tabanga the walking tree monster wished he could move faster, fearing that by the time he got to the first house, all the candy would be gone.
From Hell It Came (1957)

• Favorite treat: Miracle-Gro.
• Favorite trick: Hanging a sign around his neck that says "Free Firewood" and then attacking anyone who gets close.
• Best friend to go trick-or-treating with: Donald Stump.
• More about Tabanga at Films From Beyond.

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On Halloween night, the She-Creature walked the length of her favorite beach, but was disappointed when none of the beach house dwellers would answer their doorbells.
The She-Creature (1956)

• Favorite treat: Swedish Fish.
• Favorite trick: Tugging at fishermen's lines and then yanking them off their boats when they try to reel her in.
• Best friend to go trick-or-treating with: Her cousin from South America, The Creature from the Black Lagoon.
• More about the She-Creature at Films From Beyond.

What could possibly go wrong?: Four Sided Triangle

Now Playing: Four Sided Triangle (1953)

Pros: The unique, ironic premise of out-of-control science is still fresh and relevant to our present age; Terence Fisher's direction shows flashes of a talent that would make Hammer world famous for its horror films.
Cons: Some will find the pacing slow and the production design of the laboratory "slapdash."

Terence Towles Canote is hosting his 13th annual Rule Britannia Blogathon over at A Shroud of Thoughts, wherein bloggers are invited to write about any British film or any topic related to Britain's contributions to film. Not being particularly superstitious, I signed on to this year's event with the thought that not only would I write about a British film, I'd write about one in which Britannia indeed rules, at least in terms of its setting and plot.

An obvious choice would be an adventure or war film set at the height of Great Britain's empire, but since this blog is focused on sci-fi and horror, and since I'm not a big fan of empires, you'll have to go elsewhere for that sort of thing. Nope, Four Sided Triangle has no sword fights, broadsides between sailing ships, or any of the derring-do that you might normally associate with a phrase like "Rule Britannia."

In place of daring action, Four Sided Triangle features a daring idea that, brought to fruition by two unassuming British inventors, has the capacity to revolutionize the world economy and life in general. "A load of rubbish!" you say?  "Nothing earth shattering or innovative came out of Britain after it was exhausted by two world wars and could only manage to shed itself of its costly empire!" you say? Well, Hammer Films, and reality, beg to differ.

I'll let Bill Bryson, American expatriate and travel writer, speak to the British innovative spirit (if not their marketing genius): 

"The British are an ingenious race. There can be no question about that. Their contribution to the world's comfort and knowledge are way beyond what, measured proportionately, ought to come off a little island in the North Sea. Some years ago, Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry made a study of national inventiveness and concluded that in the modern era Britain had produced 55 percent of all the world's 'significant inventions,' against 22 percent for the United States and 6 percent for Japan. ... It is remarkable how often Britons invent or discover something of great value, then fail to cash in on it. The list of things invented, discovered, or developed in Britain that benefited Britain barely or not at all includes computers, radar, the endoscope, the zoom lens, holography, in vitro fertilization, animal cloning, magnetically levitated trains, and Viagra." [Bill Bryson, The Little Road to Dribbling, Doubleday, 2015, pp. 148, 150.]

In the first half of the 1950s, before Hammer Films went all in on Gothic horror, the studio echoed that innovative spirit with several black and white sci-fi films. While American sci-fi movie heroes were set back on their heels battling space invaders (It Came from Outer Space, 1953) and giant monsters unleashed by atomic tests (The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, 1953; Them!, 1954), British protagonists were proactively preparing rockets for the first piloted flights into space (The Quatermass Xperiment, 1955; Spaceways, 1954).

Okay, so the spacecraft in The Quatermass Xperiment ended up nosediving into the ground, but still... brilliant!

And most unusual of all (if not quite as glamorous or terrifying), British inventors Bill and Robin (Stephen Murray and John Van Eyssen, respectively) were perfecting their ground-breaking matter duplicator in Four Sided Triangle. The film invests heavily in the romantic notion, so beloved by sci-fi filmmakers and fans, of the lone, eccentric inventor (or mad scientist) making earth-shattering discoveries in his remote laboratory, unhindered by the prying eyes of the uncomprehending masses.

Okay, so in this case it takes two to tango with the laws of science and dance the two step with things better left alone, but there's still a healthy helping of suspended disbelief necessary to accept that these pioneering tech bros have managed to make matter out of energy in a converted barn in the middle of  the English countryside. (AI tech bros take note: Bill and Robin have also apparently figured out how to do their scientific magic without hogging their neighbors' electricity and water. Also noteworthy: the pair's fictional breakthrough predated by several years Andre Delambre's notorious experiments with matter teleportation in 1958's The Fly.)

The men may be scientific geniuses, but in matters of love and life they're a little less whippy. As narrated by the village's kindly (and somewhat busybody-ish) doctor Harvey (James Hayter), in their childhood Bill and Robin had been thick as thieves with a local girl, Lena. Inevitably, the trio had broken up -- the two boys going off to university to learn how to upend the laws of physics, and Lena (Barbara Payton) emigrating to America with her mother (thus explaining the actress' American accent). Just as the geniuses were perfecting their invention, Lena had returned to the bucolic village where she grew up, confiding to the doctor that she considered herself a failure, and had only returned to sell off her deceased mother's things in order to scrape by for a few more years.

Everyone's happy that the childhood friends have been reunited... well, maybe not everyone.

Lena's path veers in a direction she could never have imagined when Bill and Robin demonstrate their matter duplicator to her and Dr. Harvey by exactly reproducing the good doctor's pocket watch. With the success, Robin's wealthy and influential father Sir Walter instantly becomes an enthusiastic investor instead of a reluctant one (the good doctor -- ever supportive of the lads -- had sold his practice to provide more capital for the experiments after Sir Walter had turned his son down, not wanting to throw "good money after bad.")

At this point, Lena has become, in the words of the sentimental doctor, "cook, nurse, confessor, chief bottle washer, and occasional mechanic to those two conspirators." (Patronizing, but then this was 1953.) But unfortunately for Bill, she's not above playing favorites, up to and including handing over her heart to good old, smiling, guileless Robin. And who could blame this woman who, just a short while ago, had been at poverty's door and been so down on herself?

As we learn from the doctor's narration, Bill had been born on the wrong side of the tracks (I guess in this case, the wrong side of the hedgerow), and had grown up with an abusive, alcoholic father. While possessing a brilliant mind, he's also alternately taciturn, impulsive and impolitic, at one point telling his partner he's already bored with their invention and ready to move on. By contrast, Robin is enthusiastic, optimistic and practical (not to mention handsome and rich).

Poor long-faced Bill doesn't stand a chance. Instead of talking to Lena, Bill confides in the doctor about his love for her, and in his hesitation, loses out when Robin and Lena announce their engagement at a dinner party celebrating the team's success.

Handsome, wealthy and charismatic Robin is smiling like the cat that ate the canary.

After the wedding, practical Robin is off to London to negotiate more money, equipment and security arrangements with the government, while Bill stews in his bitter disappointment. But, in the grand tradition of the genre, you can't keep a mad scientist down for long, even a depressed one, and before you know it, Bill, with the aid of the conflicted and worried Doc Harvey, is experimenting with guinea pigs and rabbits to take the invention to its logical conclusion -- the duplication of living organisms.

"I think you know where I'm going with this," Bill tells the doctor, who at first refuses to help with the mad scheme. But sure enough, Harvey's scientific curiosity gets the better of him, and soon he's staring wide-eyed in amazement at the duplication of living beings. Curiosity so overtakes the doc's rational caution that he ends up convincing Lena to submit to being duplicated, assuring her that no harm will come to her. Et tu Doctor Harvey?

Also in the grand tradition of the genre, there is no way this is going to end well, and it doesn't. It's not because Bill, as a true blue mad scientist, has been reckless or careless (as in a fly in the duplicator chamber), but because he has done his job too well. Lena 2 (dubbed Helen) is a perfect replica of the original, right down to her wants, desires and... loves. Oops. Now, all Bill has to do is erase Helen's memories (along with her desires) so that the two can start over. What could possibly go wrong?

"Okay, back to the duplicating board..."

The rustic country setting and the kindly doctor's voiceover narration initially lend an almost quaint fairytale atmosphere to the film. Early on we know a reckoning is coming with the reuniting of the childhood friends, but the mood is as light as the sun on an English meadow. Director Terence Fisher does some interesting shot blocking, giving Bill a physical prominence that suggests that he is the more valuable member of the inventor duo (in one scene in the converted barn laboratory, Bill is standing on a platform, visually dominating the other characters as if his scientific prowess has made him King of his own little world).

But once it becomes obvious that Lena has chosen between her childhood pals, Triangle trades in its day-lit quaintness for the Gothic darkness and brooding that is the hallmark of mad science. As Bill becomes more haggard and desperate in his quest to reclaim (or more accurately, reproduce) his lost love, nighttime takes over, and the barn/laboratory grows darker even as new equipment for duplicating human beings fills up the space.

The production designers go full on Frankenstein with Bill's lair, and the bubbling beakers, lights and assorted levers and dials on the equipment panels harken back to Universal's Gothic labs while prefiguring the Hammer Films domain that Peter Cushing as Frankenstein would thrive in several years later. A couple of shots of Bill's under-lit face as the machinery buzzes and flashes around him, make him seem far madder and ominous than Colin Clive or Peter Cushing. (Interestingly, for all the equipment in the lab, there's nary a computer in sight or a reference to one, even though by the early '50s mainframes were fairly well known in popular culture. It's truly mad, magical science that can create matter out of energy without the help of a computer.)

You can't have mad science without a bubbling beaker.

Of course, every mad scientist needs a loyal assistant, and Doc Harvey steps in as one of the more gentle and erudite assistants to help expedite a barkin' mad scheme. Before there's any mention of duplicating living beings (not to mention beautiful Lena), the doctor is excited at the prospect of cheaply duplicating expensive or rare medicines for the benefit of humanity. But then, his empathy for poor "wrong-side-of-the-tracks" Bill and an innate human curiosity override his caution, and soon he's pulling levers and twisting dials to help in the dangerous work of replicating living things. (You also have to wonder if the doctor is himself smitten with the beautiful creature Lena has become, and would have been as enthusiastic if the human guinea pig had been someone else.)

In real life, Barbara Payton (Lena) was no stranger to love triangles, four sided or of the more conventional kind. In 1951, at the height of her brief Hollywood career, she was sharing her affections with two actors simultaneously, Franchot Tone and Tom Neal, which resulted in a vicious fight between the two men that sent Tone to the hospital. She married Tone, but after only seven weeks went back to the handsome but brutish Neal. Along the way, she wracked up affairs with the likes of Gary Cooper, Bob Hope, John Ireland, Howard Hughes and Guy Madison (not to mention five marriages). [IMDb] Incautiously burning her candle at both ends, she most definitely could have used a machine for duplicating herself.

With scandal haunting her in the U.S., Payton traveled to London to make two films for Hammer, one of which was Four Sided Triangle. While she was very graciously received by Hammer chairman James Carreras and son Michael, unfortunately the two bottom-of-the-bill B movies did nothing for her career, and by the mid-'50s she was immersed in alcohol, drugs and petty larceny; tragically she would succumb to heart and liver failure at the age of 39.

Payton biographer John O'Dowd is pretty harsh on the film and Barbara's performance:

"As the lone American in a provincial setting, Barbara delivered a distracted performance, leading one to believe she had only taken the job as a temporary diversion from her nightclubbing activities in London. ... In a prosaic bit of pap like this, Barbara must have felt she was under no obligation to extend any more than the most rudimentary effort ... and it showed. Additionally hampered by a stagnant, creeping pace and its slapdash special effects (the latter aptly described by author Philip Strick in his book, Science Fiction Movies, as 'flashing lights and cork-screws'), Four Sided Triangle proved a crashing bore and did nothing for Barbara's career." [John O'Dowd, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye: The Barbara Payton Story, BearManor Media, 2006, p. 225]

In the grand tradition of British science, Bill works feverishly on an invention from which he will not profit in the slightest.

On the flip side of fate, Triangle's director and co-writer Terence Fisher would go on to helm some of Hammer's best and most iconic horror films, starting with The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), and following up with a parade of classic monsters: Horror of Dracula (1958), The Mummy (1958), The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960), The Curse of the Werewolf (1961), The Phantom of the Opera (1962), and The Gorgon (1964), among a slew of others.

In writing about Four Sided Triangle, film scholar Peter Hutchings is not nearly as dismissive as O'Dowd, and he finds some interesting character dynamics and ideas in the modest B programmer:

"[F]our Sided Triangle is that rare beast, a pre-1956 British science fiction film. While it follows Spaceways in privileging romantic relationships over scientific investigation, it nevertheless embraces more thoroughly some of the ideas and conventions associated with the SF genre. ... As is the case with those other pre-1956 Fisher films that are distinctive in some way or other, there appears to be conservative tone to the proceedings here. A comment made by the old doctor in Four Sided Triangle might well stand for the aspect of the work generally: 'There is often less danger in the things we fear than in the things we desire.'" [Peter Hutchings, Terence Fisher: British Film Makers, Manchester University Press, 2001, pp. 63, 67.]

While Four Sided Triangle can't be counted among Hammer's classics, this modest black and white film benefits from a unique, ironic premise, and serves as a modern fairytale-like warning that love can't be understood or captured by rationality and science. Maybe in the age of runaway AI simulacra flooding our culture and erasing the boundaries between humans and machines, we need this message more than ever.

"Damn, there's a fly buzzing around the laboratory! Now where did I put the flyswatter?"

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.