Journey to the Center of the Earth

The major studios were still cautious about producing big budget sci-fi. Jules Verne was a safe conservative choice. Journey to the Center of the Earth (JCE) was more adventure fiction or travel fiction than science fiction movie. Verne's novel drew from the science of geology. His literary style was prone to long expository stretches, so the "science" element was more obvious. The 20th Century Fox movie pares away most of that exposition, in favor of action. Nonetheless, geology is the science connection.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Geology professor Oliver Lindenbrook is given a hunk of lava rock by a student, Alex. It turns out to contain a message from Arne Saknussem, an explorer who disappeared years before, on an expedition to the center of the earth. Oliver writes to a swedish expert, only to find out that this expert is mounting an expedition first. Oliver travels to Iceland. Professor Göteborg is found dead, poisoned by Count Saknussem, descendant of the famous Arne, who believes the underworld belongs to him. Carla Göteborg insists on joining Oliver, Alex and Hans. The Oliver and party descend, shadowed by the Count. They find marks left by Arne. The Count fakes some marks to waylay them. Alex becomes separated from the rest. Through travels and travails, they become reunited and have reluctantly had to add the Count to the group. They find the underworld sea. They build a raft to cross it, thereby escaping the giant Dimenodons. A whirlpool at the center of the earth shipwrecks them onto a beach. In a nearby cave, the Count (who has eaten Gertrude) dies in a rock slide. This opens a passage to the ruins of Atlantis. The skeleton of Arne points to a windy shaft back to the surface. It is blocked, however, so Oliver blows it up. This causes earthquakes and lava flows. The four shelter in an asbestos altar bowl. The lava pushes the bowl up the shaft to safety. All are welcomed home as heros, though no one can prove what they saw. Alex marries Jenny. Oliver proposes to Carla.The End.

Why is this movie fun?
The A-level acting and well done musical score are a refreshing treat from a steady diet of B-level sci-fi. The sets and painting build a sense of wonder. The story, while not pure Verne, is well paced and entertaining.

Cold War Angle
The screenplay maintains Verne's 19th century point of view. It is worth noting that they avoided grafting in any Cold War modernism, unlike 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ('54) and From Earth to the Moon ('58) in which the writers inserted a nuclear parallel.

Notes
Sub-Terranian -- The notion that the earth was hollow, or at least had large habitable zones inside it, is ancient. The Greeks imagined Hades' underworld as an alternate world which surface folk could travel to and from. Q.v. Orpheus. The notion persisted until the 1800s. Edmund Halley (of comet fame) thought the earth might be hollow. Leonhard Euler thought there were holes at the poles that connected upper and lower worlds. A Captain Symmes wrote pamphlets and promoted (vigorously) the idea of going to search for these openings. Verne took the notion and ran with it. The idea that the earth had a deep magma layer and a solid core was not proposed until the 1910s.

 Book vs. Hollywood -- The script of JCE was fairly faithful to the spirit of Verne's tale, but not slavishly so. JCE is closer to the novel than Unknown World ('51) which was loosely based on Verne's story. Fox's movie version of JCE added a Disneyesque cute animal (Gertrude the duck) and two women for romantic interest. Verne did not usually clutter his tales with romance. The writers also changed the lead character from a German (Otto Leidenbrock) of Hamburg to a Scot (Oliver Lindenbrook) of Edinburgh. Perhaps it was still a bit too soon after the Second World War to have a German protagonist.

Bottom line? JCE is not an especially science-y sci-fi, but it is very well done. The sets, the music, the acting, all make a fine performance. The story is well written and nicely avoids Verne's penchant for long stretches of exposition. JCE is a great family movie.

The Manster

To better understand the two 70s two-headed-man films, it is worth looking at their direct inspiration. In 1962, there was The Manster -- a horror/sci-fi hybrid. This film was the American release of the 1959 japanese-american production entitled, "The Homicidal Maniac with Two Heads". The American version also ran as The Split. George Breakston was the writer, producer and director. Normally, such one-man-shows fail for lack of supervision, but Breakston had done several such one-man productions before, so avoided the usual pitfalls. Peter Dynsley stars as Larry Stanford, the reporter who becomes the two-headed man monster (Man-ster). Dynsley's real wife, Jane Hylton, plays Larry's wife, Linda.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Under the title and credits, a shadowy ape-man attacks and kills some skinny dipping geishas. The beast returns to Dr. Suzuki's lab. He shoots the beast, who had been his brother. In a cage is a deformed woman, Emiko, who had been his wife. Both, experiments gone wrong. Enter journalist Larry Stanford to interview Dr. Suzuki on his work in evolution. The doctor decides to inject Larry with his new-and-improved serum. Back in Tokyo, Larry becomes more irritable and less interested in making up with his estranged wife, Linda. Dr. Suzuki is in town, and shows Larry the delights of geisha houses. Larry becomes rather debauched and a drunkard. He also becomes smitten with Dr. Suzuki's "girlfriend" Tara. Through all of this, Larry feels a pain in his shoulder. Ian, Larry's editor, tries to get Larry some help (psychiatrist, Dr. Jennsen) but Larry just rampages around. Larry's right hand morphs into a wolfman hand. He rampages around Tokyo, killing random people. At one point, he takes his shirt off to investigate the shoulder pain and discovers an eye. He screams and runs to Dr. Jennsen. At Dr. J's office, the second head sprouts up. Dr. J is killed. Ian tells the police that he thinks the killer is Larry. They go to his apartment, just in time to save Linda from two-headed-Larry. Much chase and pursuit footage ensues. Larry gives them all the slip. Dr. Suzuki tells Tara that he thinks he has a drug solution that will correct the earlier serum's error. It should split Larry into two beings. Tara, fed up with the whole mad scientist's girlfriend gig, leaves to call the police. Dr. Suzuki, full of remorse over his tampering, shoots Emiko and is about to commit hari-kari when Larry enters the lab and knocks out Tara. He is, at first, subservient and obedient to Dr. Suzuki, until the doc jabs him with the new drug. Larry kills Dr. J. He grabs up limp Tara and runs up the volcano. The police pursue, with Ian and Linda too. At the rim of the volcano crater, Larry "splits" into two. His left half being morphs back into mild-mannered human Larry. His right half is a hairy snarling ape-man beast. The beast and Larry fight. The beast throws Tara into the volcano. Larry makes his move then, and pushes the beast into the volcano. Linda rushes up "Oh Larry" and gives him a hug. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
The low budget gives Manster an odd, campy quality, akin to so many cheap horror films of the late 50s. Yet, there is an earnestness to the production which tries to shine through. There are the three iconic scenes which, while not great cinema, are nonetheless very memorable.

Cultural Connection
The depths of the human soul have long been the basis of great science fiction. From Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, through to the 50s' Golden Era, the many aspects of the human psyche have made for great stories. Mankind's "dual" nature -- part civilized, part savage -- gets used often, usually with some "science" as the catalyst that makes the two more distinct. Manster is one of these stories.

Notes
Neo-Frankenstein -- Dr. Suzuki is the classic Frankenstein model of the "mad" scientist. He has a vague notion of his work being for the betterment of mankind (or at least, Science). Yet, he has no sympathy for the individual. Like Frankenstein, he is recklessly leaping into unknown realms, and then surprised that his results turn out so badly. He feels remorse, even repentance at his misdeeds, but too late. He is killed by his own monster. Also akin to Frankenstein, the monster is the result of medical tampering not radiation, as we so commonly the cause in late 50s Japanese sci-fi.

Three Iconic Scenes -- While they may seem cheesy to modern eyes, three scenes in Manster made a big impression on young viewers. The first was Larry discovering the eye on his shoulder. The second was the growing of the second head while in Dr. Jennsen's office. The third was the splitting scene up on the volcano.

B Feature -- The film was titled Manster for some of its American run. In 1962, it ran as the second feature in drive-ins, to Eye's Without A Face, retitled as The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus. Both films dealt with medical doctors dabbling beyond ethics and disfigurement.

The Dark Side -- Breakston's story is a reframing of Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll tale with a 50s spin. Instead of a single man alternating between his good and evil self, Breakston has his character descend from the "good" (civilized, moral, clean-cut, sober) to the "bad" (brutal, licentious, grubby, drunken), and then grow a second head to symbolize the dual nature of man. Note too, that the dark side of man is pictured as an ape. This is an old trope. This is dramatized more clearly by the split near the end. One half is Larry's "good" side (he even returns to being clean cut), while his dark half is savage and hairy. This pairing of good and bad heads would become the foundation for the 70s two-headed-monster films. The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant ('71) would repeat the good-and-evil theme. The Thing With Two Heads ('72) would opt for racism, one black, one white. Note too, that Breakston employed the good-girl / bad-girl trope from Dr. Jekyll. Linda is the virtuous woman (Muriel from 1931) and Tara is the manipulative prostitute (Ivy from 1931).

Metaphor? -- While it can be dicey to read too much into B sci-fi screenplays, it does seem as if Breakston is painting a metaphor about the loss of conservative (50s) values. Larry, the hard working man who wants to lead a proper married life, is enticed (by Dr. Suzuki) into a life of hedonistic abandon (the same as Mr. Hyde sought). There is much drinking and drunkenness, but note the frequent sexual references. There are many geishas, several bathing naked. Tara alludes to having come from the life of a "bad girl." She seduces Larry. And, as such bad girls are apparently unredeemable (too broken to ever be a good girl again), she is killed by the beast. Indeed, one could almost see the film as a metaphor for infidelity. In playing up the sexuality, Breakston seems to be keying off of Paramount's 1931 Jekyll film which was chock full of sexual themes. When the temptress is dead, Larry can be the married man again.

Bottom line? Manster is a peculiar B-grade sci-fi/horror hybrid. A bigger budget and more careful special effects might have lifted it to a minor A film, but the story can be appreciated nonetheless. The film has a cult following and even had "legs" enough to spawn a couple of variations on the theme in the early 70s. Manster made a bigger impression than it might seem.

The World, The Flesh and The Devil

Released the same year (1959) as the grim apocalyptic movie On The Beach, Ranald MacDougall's The World, The Flesh and The Devil (WFD) is also grimly apocalyptic, but not so totally pessimistic. It is also far less remembered. With a cast of just three (Harry Belafonte, Inger Stevens and Mel Ferrer) the story is effectively about loneliness. WFD is sometimes classified as a sci-fi movie. There is no real science in the fiction, beyond references to radiation. Post-apocalyptic movies often were sci-fi, so that may be enough of a connection. WFD is also a social commentary about racism (in both directions).

Quick Plot Synopsis
Ralph Burton, a black coal miner, is checking out an unused tunnel for reports of flooding. He is trapped by a cave in. He can hear rescue crews digging, so he isn't worried even though it has been several days. When the digging stops, he frantically digs himself out. When he reaches the surface, he finds mine complex abandoned. Newspapers in the office tell of an approaching radioactive cloud and mass evacuation, "End of the World." The mining town is empty too. Ralph hot wires a car in showroom and plots his course for New York City. The bridges and tunnels into Manhattan are all clogged with empty cars. On Staten Island, he finds a small motor boat which he uses to cross the river. The city is completely empty. Trash and a few wrecked cars tell of the evacuation panic. Ralph finds a radio station building still running on its generator. He listens to recordings of the end times -- clouds of toxic sodium isotopes and reports of one city after another failing to respond. Ralph decides to make do as best he can. He gathers supplies and a generator to set up a home in an apartment building. He even collects some manikins to provide companionship. Yet, Ralph is not alone. A young woman named Sarah has watched him for weeks, unsure if he was insane or not. When Ralph throws one of his manikins over the balcony, she screams, thinking it was him committing suicide. Now Ralph knows he's not alone. The two begin a guarded friendship as the only two people left alive. Ralph rigs up a generator to Sarah's building (some distance away) Eventually, Sarah develops feelings for Ralph. He, however, remains aloof, unable to reconcile his status as black man in a white man's world, etc. Their uneasy relationship is further disturbed when Ben Thacker pilots his sloop into New York harbor. Ben had been sailing remote seas, so escaped the cloud. But, his deprivation left him very sick. Ralph acts as amateur doctor and nurses Ben back to health. Ralph becomes even more aloof, allowing Ben to woo Sarah. She, however, still has feelings for Ben. Angry at her rebuff, Ben decides the only way to really win over Sarah is to eliminate Ralph. He gets guns and tells Ralph he's going to hunt him down. The two go through an extended man-hunts-man duel in the empty city streets. Ralph sees the "Isaiah Wall" near the UN that quotes the bible verse about beating swords into plowshares. From that, he decides not to fight. Ralph confronts Ben without a gun. Ben cannot kill him, so turns to go. Sarah arrives. She takes Ralph by the hand, then calls to Ben too. The three of the walk, hand in hand, down the empty streets. "The Beginning" zooms in. The End.

Armageddon Survived
The first half of WFD is classic post-apocalypic story telling. The scenes of a huge, once-teeming city totally abandoned, are stark and powerful. Like many other immediately-post-apocalypse stories (e.g. Five (1951), Target Earth ('54), End of the World ('55), etc.) MOST people are wiped out, but a tiny remnant survive to rebuild. Audiences could accept nuclear apocalypses, as long as someone survived. Perhaps everyone imagined that they would be among the survivors. That is what all those bomb shelters promised.

Impact on Sci-fi
Though less well-known, MacDougall's WFD had its artistic influence. Ralph's collecting of manikins for company -- talking to them as companions -- was played up in a more modern "last man" movie: I Am Legend, starring Will Smith. Matheson's novel, "I Am Legend", and its first movie iteration, Last Man on Earth ('64) didn't have this. The second movie iteration of Matheson's novel, Omega Man ('71), echoed the manikin scene just a bit when Heston talks to his bust of Caesar. Owing more to WFD was Heston's powered and fortified home. This looked very similar to Ralph's building -- a lit oasis amid the dark desolation.

Notes
Cold War Message -- Like many atomic angst films of the 50s and early 60s, WFD was a cautionary tale about the devastation lurking just around the corner.

The Title -- The three characters do not somehow fit the three nouns in the title. The title itself was applied to a silent film in 1914 (different story) and to several novels. It comes from the Anglican "Book of Common Prayer." The full quote is: "From all the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil, spare us, good Lord." Rather than looking for congruence with the characters, The deceit of The World is that set of standards and biases of the pre-apocalyptic world that all three of them struggle with. The deceit of The Flesh is pretty clearly the carnal desire as typified by Ben's unchivalrous lust for Sarah. The deceit of The Devil is that notion that one should kill to get one's way. Ben succumbs to this. Ralph almost does. Apropos of the title's origins, it was a fairly famous Bible verse from Isaiah 2:4, "...they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." which breaks the Devil's spell on Ralph. This verse is carved on a curved wall near the UN building in New York.

Based On The Book -- The modern (nuclear) story by Ferdinand Reyher, was based on a 1901 novel by M. P. Shiel, entitled "The Purple Cloud." Shiel's novel is also a last-man-on-earth story, but the agent that wipes out everyone else is a mysterious purple cloud. Reyher updated that part for the atomic angst age. Shiel also had his main character act a bit daft from his isolation and stumble upon a young woman. Shiel's last-man rejected the last-woman, at first, but eventually they got together. Reyher kept this element too, though via different circumstances.

Racism Both Ways -- Reyher and MacDougall put forth a commentary on black-white racism, which was a pretty hot and sensitive topic in 1959. The Civil Rights Movement was gaining media attention. There were lynchings and killings over black men's impropriety (real or imagined) to white women. With that backdrop, having very-white Stevens expressing love for black Belefonte was pretty radical stuff. The close-up at the end, of her white hand clasping his black hand was the sort of thing that got men killed. Yet, the script cuts both ways. Sarah had her banal racism, as exemplified by her comment that she could live wherever she liked because she was "Free, White and 21." But racism isn't just for white folks. Ralph also holds onto his resentment, even though everyone who ever oppressed him was dead. He also holds onto his presumption that black men should not like white women. Ben isn't so much a racist as a ruthless lusting man. He doesn't want to kill Ralph because he's black, but because Sarah won't let go of her fondness for Ralph as long as he was alive.

Corpse-less Doom? -- Some viewers are disappointed (or miffed) that the streets are not littered with rotting corpses. Part of the reason for this was budget. In large part, however, it is a logical part of the story. Shiel's novel did describe boat loads (literally) of corpses, but his purple cloud was an unheralded killer. There was ample warning in WFD of the radioactive cloud. Newspapers and the radio recordings tell of mass evacuations. The bridges and tunnels were clogged with cars, all abandoned as people fled the cloud on foot. There weren't any bodies visible in the streets because everyone left. There could be a few, of those who stayed, but they could easily be indoors. WFD's empty city is much like the empty city in Target Earth was was evacuated.

Bottom line? WFD is well worth watching for its atomic angst flavor, but also just for the visuals and the drama. It is a well-done film. Some may balk at the tidy hand-in-hand ending, but viewers should just roll with how the movie shifts from simple last-man story to social allegory.

On The Beach

It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of On The Beach (OTB) as a voice of the Cold War era. Nevill Shute's '57 novel, and Stanley Kramer's '59 film dared to speak the unspeakable lurking in the backs of everyone's minds -- that ever-present gnawing fear that nuclear war could wipe out all of mankind. OTB feature some big name actors: Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire and Anthony Perkins. Unlike most Hollywood movies, no one lives happily ever after. No one lives at all. It's oddly salient that this review will be posted on the day that some are convinced the Rapture will come (and the end of the world on Oct 21st).

Quick Plot Synopsis
The crew of the submarine USS Sawfish are the lone surviving Americans following a sudden and massive nuclear war. Fallout has killed all life in the northern hemisphere. Australia is one of the few places that fallout has not yet reached, though it is coming. They dock in Melbourne. Life downunder is trying to carry on as before, despite the impending doom and shortages. Captain Dwight Towers (Peck) becomes enmeshed with the other characters. Peter Holmes (Perkins) is a young Australian naval lieutenant. He and his wife Mary have a baby girl. They set up Towers with Moira Davidson (Gardner) as a date. She's an alcoholic shipwreck of a life. Julian Osborne (Astaire) is a former nuclear scientist assigned to Towers for the recon mission. A professor Jorgenson theorized that rain and snow in the arctic might have abated the radiation, showing that Australia might not be doomed. The Sawfish is ordered to go take readings. There are also strange random morse code signals being transmitted from San Diego. Sawfish will check those out too. Sadly, the atmosphere off Alaska is still just as hot. San Francisco is deserted. A crewman from SF jumps ship, preferring to die at home. In San Diego, the transmissions were caused by a window shade pull-string tugging on the telegraph key. There was no one. Back in Australia, things are getting worse sooner than expected. Julian races a vintage Ferrari to win a grand prix race. Dwight finally admits that he loves Moira. Peter convinces Mary that they need to take the government-issued poison pills. Towers and his crew decide it's better to go home and die, so they depart. Moira watches the Sawfish power out of harbor. The streets are deserted. Only the revival banner remains. "There is still time...brother." The End.

Armageddon
Lurking as a subtext in many Golden Age sci-fi, was the fear that nuclear war would wipe out civilization as we knew it. Most stories spun variations on what came afterward. OTB told the simple, horrible scenario that everyone was aware of, but did not want to face -- there would be no survivors. Shute and Kramer dared to show audiences what was behind the curtain of their fears. Every movie of the Armageddon Avoided or Armageddon Survived sub-genre require Shute's scenario as prerequisite.

Cold War Spotlight
Kramer's film did not rant about commies. Instead, he focused on the powderkeg climate of the Cold War. Julian summed it up, musing about how the war might have started. "The war started when people accepted the idiotic principle that peace could be maintained by arranging to defend themselves with weapons that they couldn't possibly use without committing suicide. Everybody had atomic bombs and counter bombs and counter counter bombs. The devices outgrew us. We couldn't control them.. Some poor soul probably saw a blip he couldn't identify and not willing to hesitate lest his country be lost, pushed the button. Then the world went crazy."

Notes
Based on the Book -- Nevill Shute wrote his novel in the mid 50s, as Cold War fears were looming large. Some people feel Kramer's book follows the novel fairly well. Others argue that it does not. Most of the nay-saying centers around details and not overall story and themes. There has always been something lost when a book becomes a movie. There have always been changes or insertions necessary in film adaptations. Overall, Kramer did the book justice.

Doom With Dignity -- Some are critical of how calmly everyone in the story accepts their doom. Chaos and bedlam seem natural enough. Recall the riot scene in When Worlds Collide ('51) when the crowds rush the space ark in hopes of escaping destruction. Instead, Shute and Kramer present a more subtle, resigned view. People go about their lives as if by clinging to normalcy, they could prolong it. Towers does this by always thinking of his family as still alive. Mary clings to hope until the last. Watch for how each character shifts from their coping mechanism to resignation. Shute imagined mankind going out with dignity. Not with hedonistic abandon (ala Prince partying like it's 1999) or brutal riots.

Poignant Moments -- Kramer does a good job of keeping the story from getting maudlin, but there are still moving moments that stand out.
Towers Turns: When Dwight and Moira are at the vacation hotel. He finally lets go of his family, and accepts that he loves Moira. The moment is captured in how the background music of the drunks signing Waltzing Matilda morphs from rowdy discord to smooth harmony. His world became clear and beautiful.
A Chat With Swain: There is one surreal scene in which Yeoman Swain, who jumped ship in San Francisco is, the next morning, fishing off the back of a boat in the bay. The Sawfish puts up its periscope right next to him. Swain and the captain carry on a casual chat -- man to scope -- as if it were quite normal.
Mary's Change: Mary held onto hope the longest of all of them. Viewers almost root for her denial. Peter finally coaxes her into accepting the need to take the suicide pills he has on the tea platter. "Peter, I think I'll have that cup of tea
Julian's Triumph: Having won is first and only race, Julian opts to die with his beloved Ferrari -- the closest thing he had to a friend. He closes up the garage and revs the engine. The smile of victorious memories fills his face.
May-November: Even though he has no navy left to command, old admiral Bridie is still manning his office. He calls in his weakening secretary, Lt. Hosgood, a plain-pretty young brunette who has stayed with him to the end. "Care to have a glass of sherry with an old man?" "No sir," she says softly. "But I would like very much to have one with you....Sir." She smiles, as if acknowledging that there had always been something more to their relationship than pure professional duty.
Banner Power: Near the end, the Salvation Army holds a rally under a banner which reads, "There Is Still Time...Brother". The preacher preaches of being reconciled to God in these last days, to a large and somber crowd. All the while, the tidy band plays a lively rendition of Onward Christian Soldiers. When we see them again, the band is smaller and less skilled. The crowd is scant and just stand silently, as does the preacher. There's nothing left to say. At the very end, when the streets are abandoned, the camera zooms in on the banner, delivering the movie's moral.

Bottom line? Kramer's OTB is a must-see for anyone who wants to understand the mood and mindset of people living during the Cold War era. It is not a happy tale, but it does give voice to the horror everyone knew was hanging over their heads. If modern viewers come away sad or depressed, they'll have come away with a kernel of what was in the hearts over nearly everyone back then -- every day. Those feelings of doom are why giant radioactive ants or martian saucers were palpably scary. 50s views knew the metaphor and knew the real fear.

1959

The last year of the 50s saw a decline in the number of sci-fi offerings -- down from the peak in 1958. The golden era was winding down, but far from finished. This year's sci-fi films were mostly B films by small independents following fairly safe formula plots.

Hideous Sun Demon -- Another nuclear test gone awry. Dr. MacKenna "reverts" to a reptile-man when exposed to sunlight.

Monster On Campus -- A recasting of the Jekyll & Hyde tale. Fluids from a coelacanth cause creatures to revert to "prehistoric" form. A university scientist becomes an ape-man and rampages.

The Robot vs. the Mummy -- A Mexican import, an evil scientist wants the mummy's aztec treasure to fund an army of conquering robots.

The Cosmic Man -- Yet another remake of the TDESS story. A mysterious alien comes to deliver a warning that mankind must clean up our act before venturing into space.

First Man Into Space -- A cocky test pilot flies too high and becomes covered in an impenetrable crust which makes him a murderous monster.

Invisible Invaders -- Invisible aliens inhabit dead bodies in an effort to take over the earth. Developing a sonic weapon is earth's only hope.

The Mysterians -- Dubbed 1957 Japanese movie about aliens who pretend to be peaceful, but really want to control earth and take our women. Red-blooded earth men fight back.

The H-Man -- Dubbed 1958 Japanese sci-fi and film noir hybrid. Nuclear testing has created watery liquid men. They convert whoever they touch to liquid. Can Tokyo be saved?

Plan 9 From Outer Space -- Ed Wood Jr.'s infamous eclectic story about alien invaders who plan to animate dead humans to help conquer the earth.

Destination Space -- CBS pilot for a TV series that didn't happen. Drama among the men and women in the nascent space program.

Teenagers From Outer Space -- Aliens want to use earth as a farm to raise their food: giant lobsters. One of the aliens comes to love an earth girl and helps earthlings defeat the scheme.

Giant Gila Monster -- The title creature rampages around a remote southwest county. Only the plucky hero and his hotrod full of nitro can save the town.

The Killer Shrews -- Yet another science-gone-wrong tale where genetically altered shrews become as big a dogs and eat everything on the remote island. Can the scientists escape?

The Womaneater -- A british scientist feeds young women to a carnivorous amazonian tree so he can extract sap which the natives say will be a fountain of youth.

The Return of the Fly -- Phillipe Delambre tries to clear his father's reputation by rebuilding his machine. An industrial spy causes the same fly-man transformaiton but with a happier ending.

The Alligator People -- A newlywed loses her husband and finds that misguided scientist thinks extract of alligator can help injured people heal faster, but it turns them into alligator people.

The 4D Man -- A scientist exposed to radiation discovers that he can alter the 'time' of his body to pass through walls. He becomes mad with power.

Attack of the Giant Leeches -- Radiation causes leeches to mutate to man size in the swamps of Florida. They take townsfolk to dine on later, until the hero deals with them.

Wasp Woman -- An aging cosmetics magnate, desperate to restore her youth, tries a serum of queen wasp jelly. The predictable side effect causes mayhem at corporate headquarters.

The Atomic Submarine -- Ships are being mysteriously sunk around the arctic circle. The Tigershark is dispatched to investigate and finds an aquatic flying saucer is behind it all.

The Monster of Piedras Blancas -- A lonely lighthouse keeper has unwittingly given a deepsea reptile-man beast a taste for red meat. It satisfies it's appetite on local townsfolk.

Have Rocket, Will Travel -- The Three Stooges star in their first full length film. The bumbling janitors end up in a rocket to Venus where many of their usual gags can play out.

The Giant Behemoth -- The basic Godzilla story, but set in England with London getting trashed. Radiation spawned the beast, but yet more radiation may kill it.

Journey to the Center of the Earth -- Big-budget rendition of Jules Verne classic.


And so ended an amazing golden decade of science fiction films. The number of films would be far fewer in the 60s. Audiences would come to expect more elaborate sets and special effects, such that the 50s style of army-surplus electronics and rubber monster suits would just not cut it any longer.
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The Giant Behemoth

By the late 50s, the rampaging radiation monster was almost a cliche. Nonetheless, producer David Diamond gave us one more. The Giant Behemoth (GB) added nothing new to the trope. In fact, it is more of a hybrid remake of Beast from 20,000 Fathoms ('53) and Godzilla ('54) than anything new. The monster is (again) a dormant dinosaur which imprudent nuclear tests awakened and mutated. The monster rampages through London as most monsters-on-the-loose do. Yet, despite not treading any new ground, GB is a reasonable effort on a small budget. The science part of the fiction is a bit thin. It's mostly a monster-stomps-city movie. Yet the radiation-created-monster is traditionally put in the sci-fi realm.

Quick Plot Synopsis
The story starts with some quasi-doumentary recap of some Pacific nuclear tests. the narrator warns of radiation dangers. A Cornwall fisherman is found dying of radiation burns. "Behemoth!" he says with his last breath. Later, thousands of dead fish line the shores. Biologist Steve Karnes and radiation commissioner Bickford investigate. Local reports of a monster are laughed off until a steamship is found wrecked on the beach. A giant lizard-like footprint proves the monster is real. A paleontologist suggests that the beast will head for fresh water. The Thames estuary is fortified. Despite this, a ferry is attacked and sunk by the beast. London's river front is evacuated. Karnes says the beast is so radioactive, it must be dying. He thinks that a bit more radiation will provide the fatal overdose. A "radium" tipped torpedo is the plan. Meanwhile, the beast emerges and stomps up and down some London streets. People flee screaming. Cars are crushed. People who linger are killed by its projected radiation. It breaks a bridge and falls back into the river. Trackers locate the beast. The mini-sub with its special torpedo is sent in. After some underwater chasing, the torpedo is launched. It hits the beast in its open mouth. The dying monster writhes, and sinks back into the water. London is saved, but a radio report tells of dead fish on America's east coast. The End?

Why is this movie fun?
Fans of the rampaging monster trope will find GB comfortably familiar. The acting is reasonable enough and there are a few points of interest (see below).

Cold War Angle
GB is yet another nuclear cautionary tale. The opening few minutes leave no doubt of that. Like Godzilla, the behemoth is metaphoric for what nuclear fallout will do to civilians. It is interesting that one more nuclear weapon is deemed the solution to the nuclear threat. That is Cold War thinking at its finest.

Notes
Hybrid Remake -- There more than a passing resemblance to the story line in Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. Like Godzilla, which itself was a reworking of the B20K story, the Behemoth is mutated into giant size by radiation and uses its radioactivity to kill. Also like Godzilla, Behemoth is a personification of deadly radiation. This time, it was London's turn to feel the rampage. From the extended shots of panicky civilians running, and the radiation burns, it is clear that the director is modeling what a nuclear attack on London would be like.

Beastly Trilogy -- Eugene Lourie directed Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, itself based on a short story by Ray Bradbury. GB was his second pass at the same story line (more or less). His pass a the third monster-on-the-loose story will be Gorgo in 1961. Interestingly, Lourie began his directing career with B20K and ended it with Gorgo.

Final Bow -- The stop-motion work was overseen by Wills O'Brien, who gained fame for his work on King Kong ('33). One of his pupils, Pete Peterson did most of the actual work. This was O'Brien's last public work. The stop motion work has moments of quality (such as the power line scene) but clearly rushed lesser-quality scenes, (such as the underwater swimming shots). GB was not O'Brien's crowning achievement. The puppet head shots and ferry scenes were not O'Brien's work.

Biblical Proportions -- Though nothing much is done with it, there is much quoting from the book of Job early in the film. Chapter 40 is where the creature called Behemoth is mentioned. In context, the biblical behemoth is not a terrifying tool of wrath or destruction. It is cited as a supremely huge, strong (land) animal. God uses behemoth as an object lesson. If He is powerful enough to create such a beast, and by extension how feeble Job is -- why does Job feel justified in telling God how the universe ought to be run?

Hit Me Again -- A little budget-saving bit of re-use is having the same model car being crushed footage used three times as Behemoth stomps up the streets.

Bottom line? GB is entertaining enough on its own, though not remarkably so. It does have some historical value for 50s sci-fi fans. For folks who like movies about giant monsters stomping up some major city, GB is a worthy installment.

Have Rocket, Will Travel

The next offering of this Digression Week, is not serious. The Three Stooges act, at 30 years old, was a comedy franchise that had almost run its course, as Laurel & Hardy, and Abbott & Costello had earlier. They were revived by Columbia releasing many of their previous short films to television. This brought the Stooges to a new young audience. Have Rocket, Will Travel (HRWT) was the Stooges first full-length film. They appeared in many films, but in HRWT, they were the stars. HRWT is light farcical sci-fi, and almost a lesser remake of Abbott & Costello's trip to "Mars" ('53). Nevertheless, it has some points of interest.

Quick Plot Synopsis
The boys are maintenance men at a rocket lab. Rocket #4 fails shortly after launch and lands not far away. The project director is upset at the failures. He tells Ingrid, the pretty rocket scientist, that the next launch must succeed or funding is cut off. The boys decide to help pretty Ingrid by concocting a super rocket fuel out of just about everything in the lab. They pump the potent brew into the rocket. The director, hearing all the late night commotion, comes to fire them all. The boys hide in the rocket. The director inadvertently ignites the engines. The boys are in space. After some weightless gags, the rocket lands (autopilot) on Venus, which looks much like California. There, they encounter a giant fire-breathing tarantula and a talking unicorn. The unicorn leads them to "the higher form," which turns out to be a robot which took control of Venus long ago and converted all the illogical Venusians to "energy". Since then, however, it had become lonely, so uses the boys as models to create three companion robots. Silliness ensues with two sets of Stooges. The boys escape and get back to their ship. The giant tarantula flames at them, igniting the engines, handily enough. The boys return to a hero's welcome. A ball thrown in their honor goes predictably awry. The three RobotStooges beam in and the three real ones exit the melee. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
One need not be a Stooges fan to find some bits to like in HRWT. As a spoof on 50s sci-fi, it is fun to identify which sci-fi classics are being spoofed.

Cold War Angle
As a comedy farce, there is little attempt to make socio-political commentary.

Notes
Prop Watch -- The venerable old space suits from Destination Moon get yet another mission. For being ten years old, by this point, the old suits are still a sci-fi staple. Note the logo on the helmets. It is the double-lightning bolt logo used by Merex, the diabolical Martian from Zombies of the Stratosphere ('52).

The Other Curly -- Stooge fans already know, but the third stooge in HRWT is "Curly-Joe" played by Joe DeRita. Shemp Howard, Moe's brother, started in the act along with friend Larry Fine. When Shemp left the act in 1932, the youngest Howard brother "Curly" became the new 3rd Stooge. With his signature "n'yuk n'yuk, n'yuk" and "woo woo woo", he was an immediate hit. He remained the star until declining health and finally a stroke in 1946 took Curly out of the act. Brother Shemp rejoined the act until he died of a heart attack in 1955. The search for the new 3rd Stooge settled on Joe DeRita, who was a facsimile of Curly Howard. He stayed with the act throughout the 60s and early 70s. HRWT was Curly-Joe's film debut as the 3rd Stooge.

Ominous Undertones -- Amid the usual stooge set pieces and traditional gags, was a small note of more serious sci-fi. The robot master on Venus was created by the Venusians as their last and greatest wonder. "They let ME, a machine, become the master of their world. Fools deserve to be destroyed, so I destroyed them all and turned them into electrical energy." It makes for a sort of Colossus/Forbin and Krell hybrid. Just a hint of technophobia amid the gags.

Bottom line? Sci-fi comedy is not for everyone. Stooge comedy is not for everyone. As such, stooge sci-fi comedy probably appeals to a pretty small subset. HRWT does show how much sci-fi had become established as a genre.

The Monster of Piedras Blancas

Before moving on to 1960... This first offering in Digression Week, was not an easy film to find. I had passed over it much earlier (when I had a chance for a viewing) on the understanding that it was pure monster, not sci-fi. Well, I was pretty-much right, but a friend suggested it had some shred of sci-fi to it. He was right too. In the gray zone of sci-fi/horror, The Monster of Piedras Blancas (MPB) is much more monster movie than sci-fi. By a slender thread, does MPB cling to the outer edges of sci-fi. Fred is a biologist and hero of the tale. He looks in a microscope and talks of the monster being a missing link for evolution. Remove those bits, and the film would still stand as pure monster movie. MPB is a low-budget echo of Creature from the Black Lagoon. Don Sullivan, who starred in The Giant Gila Monster ('59) is the hero of this story too.

Quick Plot Synopsis
At a remote coastal town, mysterious murders have people in a worried buzz. There is an old legend of a monster, but not taken seriously until grocery store owner Kochek is found decapitated in his store. Fred, a local biochemist and the local doctor examine a scale found at the scene. They decide that the monster is a deep sea amphibian (?). Lucy rushes in. Her father is hurt. They find him at the base of a sea cliff, badly bruised. They take him to the lighthouse to recover. Meanwhile, another local named Eddie is missing. Several searchers are injured when a 7' tall man-monster rushes out of the meat cooler at Kochek's store, carrying Eddie's head. Another scale at that scene proves who killed the others too. Lucy's father recovers enough to tell how, years ago, he sensed something living on one of the sea caves and left fish for it to eat. Over the lonely years, he kept leaving fish, but switched to meat. He stopped feeding it. Accustomed now to red meat, the monster took to hunting people. Armed men search the caves but don't find the monster. That night, the monster comes to the lighthouse. Lucy swoons in her nightgown and the monster carries her out. Her father throws a lantern at the monster. He puts Lucy down and goes after her father. He shoots the monster several times and barricades himself at the top. Lucy summons help. The monster breaks out and throws the father off. Fred faces the monster alone. He notices that the monster doesn't like a flashlight in his eyes. He tells Lucy to turn on the lighthouse light. The monster is blinded, so Fred rifle butts it over the railing, into the raging rocky surf below. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
Beyond the obvious shock techniques and gore, is an intriguing, almost Freudian/Faustian tale. A lonely man feeds a hidden beast. When that beast is not appeased as it had become accustomed to, it rampages, eventually killing the man too. It might be a stretch to say that the monster was (metaphorically) Sturges's own Id in rebellion, but MPB has some entertaining thought potential.

Cold War Angle
As primarily a monster-horror film, MPB draws more from the fears in human nature than fears of communist invasion.

Notes
Son of a Creature -- It is no coincidence that the aquatic man-monster bears a resemblance to the creature from the black lagoon. Jack Kevan, who wrote the story and produced the film, was one of the make-up artists who worked on Black Lagoon. To save money, the big claw hands from The Mole People ('56) were used. Also re-used, were the feet of the Metaluna insectoid mutant from This Island Earth ('55). A bipedal burrowing, reptilian insectoid made him a bit of a platypus of a monster.

Location Location -- There is a lighthouse on the central California coast called Piedras Blancas. It was not the site of filming, however. The lighthouse in the film is the Point Conception lighthouse, on the Santa Barbara channel. It is still there. The double doors which the monster bursts through, are still there, even though the lower platform has since been removed. The town used for filming, Cayucos, is 30 miles south of the real Piedras Blancas, not Lompoc, which is the small town near Point Conception.

Evolution Monkey Wrench -- Fred, the biochemist, insists that they try to capture the monster, not kill it. He calls it an important "missing link" for evolutionists to study. A sentient bipedal amphibian! What havoc it would have wreaked on popular post-Dawinian monkeys-to-man theory. Perhaps this why Fred decides not to try to capture it in the end and just kill it. The monster was a most inconvenient truth.

They ARE After Our Women -- MPB has the iconic abduction scene of the monster carrying off the beautiful young woman. As per custom, she is vulnerably clad and swooned. Since the monster has heretofore decapitated everyone he came across, this abduction is highly noteworthy. A lonely monster looking for love only bolsters a semi-Freudian interpretation.

Bottom line? MPB is classic late-50s monster fare. It's light on the science. Yet, it can be entertaining enough. It may not, however, be too easy to find.

The Atomic Submarine

There was more to 50s science fiction than just rockets and outer space. The nuclear powered submarine was also a hot new technology. The deep sea was mysterious too. Irving Block and Jack Rabin's short story focused on the nuclear sub. The screenplay for Atomic Submarine (AS) turned out to be more of hybrid between horror, sci-fi invasion tale, and the traditional submarine movie genres. Having the effects men from Forbidden Planet, Block and Rabin, helped, but could not completely compensate for the low budget. It seems fitting that the last sci-fi movie of the 1950s was an alien invasion tale. The plot had become stereotypic. A flying saucer and monster-like alien plot the invasion of Earth (surrogates for the earthly enemy Americans already feared).

Quick Plot Synopsis
Ships are being lost, mysteriously, all around the arctic. The US Navy sends its most advanced nuclear sub, the Tigershark, to investigate. Tensions mount as an outspoken anti-war scientist is assigned to the mission. Dr. Nielson is the expert handler for the small experiment explorer sub "Lungfish," for examining seabed evidence. More ships are lost. The crew figure out that the sinkings happen within 1000 miles of the pole. They wait at a gap in the line. They get high energy readings and see a lone light moving underwater. They can see that it is a saucer craft, but are never able catch it. More ships lost. Nielson theorizes that the saucer must return to the pole after each attack to recharge its batteries from the Earth's magnetic field. They position themselves between the last sinking and the pole. when the saucer comes, they try to torpedo it, but this fails. Desperate not to have the saucer outrun them again, they ram it. The bow of Tigershark gets stuck in the saucer's hull. The saucer appears damaged, but is still able to move slowly towards the pole. Nielson thinks it will recharge and escape. With little time left, a crew of five man Lungfish to attempt to cut Tigershark free. At the saucer, they find it has air inside. In the dark and spooky interior, the two frogmen work to free the sub, but die of melting. Commander Holloway hears a voice calling him on. He comes to a dome structure with a tentacled cycloptic alien inside. The alien is studying earth for possible invasion. Holloway shoots the alien in its big eye and runs. He and Nielson return in Lungfish. The alien heals himself. Tigershark pulls free. They pursue the saucer and arm an missile. The saucer breaks free of the ice and zooms toward space. The missile follows, finally finding its target. Earth is saved. Light banter ensues. The end.

Why is this movie fun?
There is a charm in the old fashioned invading-alien-monster-in-a-saucer story. The mixture with the war-movie flavor (submarine setting) is different. Rabin and Block's models add some interest. The minimalist interior of the saucer (pitch black except for lit ramps and catwalks) has a German impressionist feel to it.

Cold War Angle
Aside from the mere presence of a nuclear powered and nuclear armed submarine billed as the "deadliest in the fleet," there is the subdued "moral" to the tale. In the end, even the anti-war advocate has his eyes opened to the very real menace "out there." In the end, it is American military weaponry that nips the threat in the bud. Even the pacifist concedes the value in having brave men with strong weapons to deal with the threat. In the 50s sci-fi tradition, the alien is a stand-in for the feared communist hoards plotting to invade our Eden. Our troops and our nukes will protect us. Rest assured.

Notes
Inspired by the Headlines -- In July 1958, America's first atomic submarine, USS Nautilus, made the first ever transit under the North Pole's arctic ice. This accomplishment was a two-edged sword. If WE could send a sub under the arctic ice, then so could THEY. While the topic was still hot, Allied Artists wanted to push out a quick atomic submarine movie. Shooting took less than two weeks.

Proto-Voyage -- Two years before Irwin Allen's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, AS featured a very advanced nuclear sub, equipped with a mini-sub, and scientists aboard, all engaged in the wonders (and dangers) of the deep. Toho Studios would put out Kaitei Gunkan (Undersea Warship) in 1963 as a third super-sub movie (AIP releasing it in America in 1965 under the title of Atragon). Atragon was more fantastic. Voyage had a much bigger budget and is much better remembered, but AS was the first of the super-subs.

Cargo Subs -- A fascinating detail, easily lost in the action, was the notion of cargo-carrying submarines. In the 50s, nuclear power was imagined to be so cheap as to make the idea seem economically feasible. Trade routes under the polar ice could open markets and reduce costs. The idea was new. In 1916, the Germans dabbled with cargo submarines to evade the British blockade during WWI. The Deutschland was one of two built. Since America was the big customer for German goods, the entry of the US into the war in 1917 put an end to submarine cargo runs.

Ship, Heal Thyself -- The notion of a ship as a semi-lving thing, which can heal itself, was unusual, but entirely new. The Devil Girl from Mars (1953) had a ship that could repair itself, given enough time and raw material. Still, self-healing ships were fairly rare yet.

Hawk vs. Dove -- Dr. Nielson Jr. (played by Brett Halsey) is portrayed as the anti-war idealist. Commander Holloway (Arthur Franz), a proud military man. Nielson and Holloway have running debates over the need for nukes. There was a nascent anti-nuclear sentiment, even in the 50s. AS is a sort of rebuttal.. Nielson is a straw man for the pro-nuke faction. The obvious moral to the story is that in the face of an unarguably hostile threat (the alien, and by analogy, the communists), nuclear weapons are necessary.

Bottom line? AS is a B movie in the classic pattern. It has stern narration, ample stock footage and inexpensive sets. it's unusual venue lends interest. For fans of aliens in saucers, threatening to invade Earth, it is a fun variation on the theme. That said, folks who are not fans of 50s B sci-fi, will likely be unimpressed.

Wasp Woman

Roger Corman, tireless producer/director that he was, put out another of his B movies in late 1959. WW is a much more conventional science-gone-wrong story. It also added to a growing sub-genre of science spawned human-animal monster stories. Leo Gordon, who wrote the screenplay, had just given us Alligator People a few months earlier. It co-ran with Return of the Fly, the famous of the human-animal monster sub group. WW amounts to a female version of The Fly but without the transporter technology. Instead, it's the more customary trope of animal juices turn you into that animal.

Quick Plot Synopsis
(never mind that the credits are over a hive of honey bees)
Research scientist Dr. Zinthrop thinks the royal jelly of the queen wasp holds the key to perpetual youth. He promotes his ideas to Janice Starlin, head of a cosmetics company. Starlin Enterprises has been steadily losing revenue since Janice -- the "face" of the company -- has lost her youthful look over the 18 years at the helm. Janice hires Zinthrop. The rest of the staff are suspicious and skeptical. Most think Zinthrop is a con man or a quack. They plot to uncover the scheme. Meanwhile, Janice does get daily injections of the serum Zinthrop developed. After 3 weeks, looks only a few years younger. Zinthrop has a new serum which is even stronger. She tells everyone to plan for a huge new product release that will save the company, etc. etc. Zinthrop is attacked by one of his test animals. The cat reverted from neo-kitten to savage beast with wing buds. Zinthrop, despondent at his failure, is hit by a car. With Zinthrop missing, and impatient with the slow progress, Janice injects herself with the untested new serum. Now she looks remarkably younger. Everyone is amazed. Not long afterward, Janice develops odd headaches. In the lab on night, Cooper snoops right after one of her injections. Now with wasp(ish) head and claws, Wasp Janice attacks and kills Cooper. She also dispatches a night watchman. A few days later, Janice takes the last dose and again becomes Wasp Woman. She kills the nurse assigned to care for Zinthrop. Bill fights with Wasp Janice to save his girlfriend Mary. Zinthrop throws a bottle of acid at WaspJanice, hitting her square in the face. Recoiling in pain, she falls out of a window and dies. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
It's interesting how 1959 had three human-animal monster stories. Comparing similarities and differences is food for thought. Perhaps not intentionally, the sub-genre dabbles in the fragile essence of what is humanity, vs. the beastly "nature" side, much as Dr. Jekyll did.

Cold War Angle
As with most monster movies, there is little or no Cold War analogy. Instead, there is the usual dangers-of-science moral. There is also the hubris of man thinking he (or she) can trump nature -- with the customary fatal results.

Notes
B Stars -- Susan Cabot, who does a capable job as the ill-fated woman. She also starred in a couple of Corman's prior films, War of the Satellites ('58) and the peculiar film Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent ('57). WW was her last movie role. Corman movies were no way to grow a career. Michael Marks plays Dr. Zinthrop well enough. His trace of russian accent meshing well with the eccentric scientist role. Audiences had just seen him (briefly) as the night watchman in Return of the Fly. He was also conspicuous as Emil, friend of Mr. Franz the puppet master in Attack of the Puppet People ('58)

Prologue Added -- Corman's original cut of WW is said to begin with Starlin conducting the business meeting where sagging sales are discussed. This makes the Dr. Zinthrop character a bit of a shot out of left field, but the movie gets going on its own nonetheless. When WW was released for television in 1962, director Jack Hill filmed several minutes of prologue footage. In it, we see Zinthrop as the eccentric researcher employed by a honey company. Instead of working with bees, he has been working with wasps. His honey farm boss is unimpressed with talk of reversing aging. They sell honey. Zinthrop is fired. This prologue sets up Zinthrop and his discovery (as well as need for a patron), so his appearance at Starlin Enterprises is not so much of a non-sequetor.

Opposite Imaging -- The poster artist may not have read the script or seen the film. His image of a huge wasp with a woman's head is the opposite of what happens. WaspJanice, like FlyAndre and FlyPhillipe before her, had an insect-ish head and claws, but her own human body. Handily enough, she took to wearing black knit pantsuits as the serum was taking over, so she was dressed for the killer role. The poster does give a refreshing twist on the old abduction trope, even if it's not in the movie. Here, it is a shirtless young man in the clutches of the she-monster, instead of the swooning buxom babe.

Vanity Fare -- Instead of the typical naive scientist creating the monster, we have that trope split in two. Zinthrop follows the role of naive scientist who hopes to benefit mankind with risky "science." Unlike most, he shows restraint. He was willing to call it quits when things went wrong. Janice took up the task of the fatal misstep, pushed by her desire to save her company and her vanity as a woman. She pushed nature over the edge.

Bottom line? WW is a fairly predictable science-gone-wrong tale, but capably acted and directed. There are enough entertaining moments to keep WW watchable. For fans of The Fly, it can be an amusing other-side-of-the-coin.

Attack of the Giant Leeches

This is another classic Roger Corman production. In the B-minus movie tradition, it's got lame acting, minimal sets, guys in rubber monster suits and a lot of scenes set in a dark swamp. Corman wasn't trying to produce "art" or delve into social commentary. it's best not to try to read too much into it. Attack of the Giant Leeches (AGL) amounts to a shallow monster flick trying to grab a few box office bucks amid the craze of cheesy drive-in monster fare. There is almost no science in the fiction, beyond some references to radiation from rocket engines. AGL is yet another of those late-50s movies which barely qualify for inclusion in the sci-fi realm.

Quick Plot Synopsis
An old timer in the swamps of Florida sees a strange creature one night and shoots at it. No one believes him back in the small town. Later, he is found dead with strange wounds. No one can find any traces of the supposed monster. Later, the young bimbo wife of a small town grocery store owner and her hunky boyfriend engage in a little semi-adulterous smooching in a car out in the back woods. The husband finds them and forces them at gun point to wade into the swamp. The giant leeches grab them and drag them under. When wife and beau are missed back in town, the husband is arrested for murder. He hangs himself in the cell. Two other old men are looking for the missing bodies, but are also grabbed by the leech monsters. Turns out the leeches have kept the wife, beau, and two old men alive in a "gator cave" in order to keep feeding on them. (the odd wounds) When the two old men and beau's bodies float up (now dead), Ranger Steve searches the lake with scuba gear. The leeches attack him too, but he escapes. The bimbo wife finally dies, falls in and floats up too. The ranger uses a huge charge of dynamite to shock and kill the leeches. It works. The end.

Why is this movie fun?
This is a simple formula nature-monster story. At that level, AGL is not necessarily "fun". It is, however, somewhat amusing to see the 2-dimensional characterizations. The total bimbo wife strains credibility. The Dudly Dooright wildlife ranger is equally incredible.

Cold War Angle
At best, AGL is yet another nuclear energy cautionary tale. Imprudent use of nuclear materials caused the monster. While this is the same origin of Godzilla, the giant leeches lack any wider analogies. They're just monsters.

Notes
More Atomic Monsters -- AGL is squarely part of the radiation-spawned monster from nature sub-genre. It's the same motive plot trope as Them! ('54), Tarantula ('55), and Beginning of the End ('57) but done with less zest. At least it wasn't yet another insect. In AGL, it's "atomic radiation from those rocket engines at Cape Canaveral" that caused the ordinary leeches to mutate into giants (that is, people sized).

Almost Saved -- One intriguing tidbit is seeing that the beautiful young woman actually does die in this film. The 50s had a strong tradition of the beautiful young woman being spared by heroic rescue. The fact that Liz, draped over the rocks in the typically leggy swoon pose, survived in the 'gator cave' for so long, elicits the notion that she, too, will somehow be saved by Ranger Steve. When she finally dies in the end, floating up to the surface, it's a mild disappointment. The pretty ones aren't supposed to die.

Good woman / bad woman -- Steve's wife is the "good" woman. Sensible, faithful, caring. Liz is the "bad" woman. Even though Liz is the trampy wife of fat Dave the store owner, she's young, very shapely and very blonde. All these physical traits suggest that she'll survive. The young males of the audience may have been rooting for her to be saved too. After all, Dave hung himself in the jail cell, so she'd be free of him and available for "the right man." Still, poetic justice is served. Bad girls don't survive. Subtle message: be a good girl and live.

Bottom line? AGL can be enjoyed as a simple, (if some what shallow) monster tale. The swamp setting adds some moodiness. Don't, however, expect the movie to make you go "hmmm..." afterwards. It's simple drive-in fare, not art.

4D Man

While a bit obscure, 4D Man (4D for short) is more of a low A-grade movie than a B-movie. For one thing, it's shot in color. It has some A-grade actors, and some cleanly done optical special effects. As in many sci-fi films, the technology isn't the star, but a plot device to propel a larger human drama. In this case, it gives the main character a special power. How he handles (or mishandles) that power is the meat of the tale.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Tony Nelson is talented scientist who is obsessed with his research, to the point of having a hard time keeping a job. He is trying repeat an earlier fluke success at getting one material to pass through another. (a pencil through steel) He travels to see his brother, Scott Nelson (Robert Lansing). Scott heads up a research lab trying to make a metal stronger than steel -- Cargonite. Scott convinces Tony to accept a job at his lab, but this only complicates the social scene. Scott was about to propose to co-worker-scientist Linda. Instead, Linda falls in love with Tony. Frustrated at all this, Scott goes to the lab late one night and gets into Tony's secret apparatus. He manages to get it to work. His hand passes through the steel. Meanwhile, another lab scientist, Roy, has stolen Tony's notes and is trying to sell the facility's director on the idea, so he can be a chief scientist himself. When Scott and Tony re-try the experiment in the lab, it works, even though the equipment wasn't working. Scott has "the power" all by himself. He tells Tony that he doesn't want anyone to know just yet. A newspaper headline tells of a bank robbery. The next morning, Scott sees that he's aged noticeably. Passing through matter ages him. He rushes to a friend's apartment for help, but when he touches the friend on the shoulder, the friend drops dead, his body aging to a gray shriveled corpse. Scott, however, was young again. His special power also saps life from others. He hides the amplifier so no one else can share his power. Things quickly unravel. Scott confronts his credit-stealing boss and saps him. Scott tries to find solace in a bar, with a floosie, but kills her with a kiss. The police know there's a killer on the loose. Tony tells the police all about it. The police cannot stop Scott, however. He shifts through walls, touches (and kills) policemen, and even a hail of bullets cannot stop him. He just shifts himself and the bullets pass through him. Scott finds out that Tony is trying to build another amplifier, so returns to the lab. Tony, Linda and the police try to kill Scott by turning on the reactor while he's inside it. (this is where Scott hid the amplifier) This fails because he is invincible when shifted. Everyone but Linda flees. Scott tries to talk her into running away with him. While in an embrace, she shoots him with the gun the detective left behind. Unshifted Scott is mortally wounded, but defiantly shouts his invincibility. To prove it, he throws himself into the Carbonite reactor, slowly disappearing into it's walls. The End (?)

Why is this movie fun?
The premise and human-interest angle are interesting and well done. The A-level actors do a good job making their characters believable. Robert Lansing does an excellent job with Dr. Scott Nelson -- both his frustrated awkward "before" self and the tormented-yet-maniacal "after" self. Given how many later movies (or TV shows) would take up the idea of people being able to pass through walls, etc., it's fun to see an early version.

Cold War Angle
This movie isn't an allegory of the Cold War. There is an oblique connection to the dangers-of-science sub-genre. A background element of the Cold War years, is the research lab working on improved materials for the military. Nelson's work isn't with any nuclear weaponry, but how it goes dreadfully is still an understated cautionary tale about how even innocent research can create a killer.

Notes
Phase Two -- The quasi-science behind the premise, is that Scott can (at will) shift the "time" of his body relative to objects, permitting him to pass through them. The more he does this, the faster it ages him. While fanciful, this has a plausibility. The portrayal of "time" as a life force which he can then absorb from others has no plausibility, but it makes for a good plot device.

Drain the Life -- An interesting plot device is how Scott Nelson must drain the life from people in order reverse his own rapid aging. He does this by simply "touching" (merging) with them. The trope of the living sacrificed to prolong another's life, is not unique. It got (and gets) used in low-B movies like She Demons ('58) in which a mad scientist extracts hormones from young women (turning them into ugly demons) in order to keep his sick wife alive. In 4D, however, the "monster" drains life from them by a mere touch. This is a fascinating preview of the Wraith in the Stargate TV series (2005) -- race of beings who must "feed" on living humans in order to survive. The idea still has legs.

Power Corrupts -- Another plot aspect which is not unique to 4D is how the man who acquires some amazing power can't handle it. For the sci-fi world, this appeared in H.G. Wells' novel "The Invisible Man." His special feature tempted him into tyranny. Once a man feels immune to the hand of justice, he commits crimes with impunity. Scott Nelson is no different in 4D. We see his morality drop away and his total human selfishness take control. He gets professional revenge on his credit-stealing boss. He robs a bank and tries to induce LInda to run away with him. At the end, he shouts, "I'm invincible! Nothing can hurt me!" with a well acted mixture of defiance, denial (he'd just been shot) and pleading. An interesting little human psych study of how man might behave if he no longer fears punishment.

Gray Midas -- An intriguing little twist amid the plot was how Scott's power was not totally under his control. By force of will, he could "turn on" his time-shift to pass through walls, but when he stopped willing it, objects were solid to him. At one point, he's trying to grab the door knob to a bar, but keeps passing his hand through it. At that moment, he wanted to be "normal" but his power was not so completely under his control. A little while later, when he wanted some companionship and kissed the B-girl, she screams in pain and turns into an old woman, then dies. Scott was becoming a sort of King Midas who ruins everything he touches. This adds a degree of pity to the character. With the "cool" power, he could never be normal again.

Blob Brother --4D's producer, Jack Harris, and director, Irvin Yeaworth brought us The Blob in late 1958. 4D has some family resemblance. Color, big-name stars, and brassy jazz score. 4D and The Blob may have been shot together in '57. Young Patty Duke plays a bit part of a landlady's daughter, but she looks maybe ten years old -- noticeably younger than she was in 1959. Universal may have intended to release The Blob and 4D Man together, but opted to spread out the releases for better revenue.

Stop the Music -- The score in 4D is heavy-handed brass jazz band fodder. Such jazz was pretty typical stuff of 50s movies which held the Rat Pack and Las Vegas show scene as the pinnacle of cool. The score of 4D seems like a cross between a 007-wanabe movie and the Pink Panther -- but without any of Mancini's style. Given the rather dark story line, the loudly perky jazz seems out of place. Instead of enhancing the story, it intrudes, like someone talking loudly in the theater while you try to watch the flick. Unless the viewer is a fan of such brassy nightclub jazz, it's more likely to be annoying than admired.

Bottom line? 4D is worth the time. It's a modern Midas tale reasonably well done. The science is weak or a tough stretch, but the story can be enjoyed anyway.

The Alligator People

20th Century Fox needed a B movie to run with their Return of the Fly as the A feature. They bought a black and white CinemaScope film from an independent producer (Leewood) and released them together in the summer of 1959. The Alligator People (AP) has a similar people-animal hybrid monster trope, but a weaker story line. At its core, AG is the well-worn tale of a misguided scientist who tries to help mankind but instead creates monsters. Even though not as strong a film as its more famous stable mate, AG still has higher production values than many of the decade's B films. The photography is lush, even though black and white. Beverly Garland stars. Her strong performance makes up for the somewhat tepid acting of the others, Lon Chaney excepted. His portrayal of the drunken creepy Cajun is over the top, not tepid.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Two psychiatrists discuss the case of Jane Marvin. Under sedation, she recalls an entirely different life and identity. The flashback begins. Joyce and Paul Webster are happy honeymooners on a train. Paul receives a sobering telegram. He gets off the train at a mail stop and disappears. A thin shred of evidence leads her to a remote plantation deep in the cypress swamps of Louisiana. People deny knowing Paul, but an odd country doctor, and a mysterious piano playing stranger in the night arouse her suspicions. Meanwhile, we see Dr. Sinclair working in his lab some distance away, on mysteriously hooded (and agitated) patients. Paul, with semi-gatorized face, pleads for a cure. When Paul returns home, Joyce confronts him. He runs out into the rainy night. She pursues, but gets lost in the swamps. Manon (Chaney) finds her and takes her back to his cabin. There, he intends to have his way with her, but Paul interrupts. They fight and Paul brings Joyce home. Doc tells all to Joyce. His experiments with alligator hormones helped injured patients completely heal, but an unknown other hormone also turns them into alligator people. Paul pushes for the cobalt treatment. While on the table getting the radiation, Manon breaks in and rampages. The equipment overloads. Paul is turned into an alligator-headed man. Manon is killed by high voltage. Joyce chases GatorPaul out in the swamp. The house explodes. GatorPaul is swallowed up in quicksand. Joyce is left alone, screaming. Flash forward. The two psychiatrists don't know what to do. Jane has adjusted so well by totally suppressing her former tragic life as Joyce, that they figure to leave well enough alone. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
Beverly Garland puts her heart into the role and is well worth watching. Lon Chaney is entertaining.

Cold War Angle
This is thin, at best. Dr. Sinclair talks of the "power of a cobalt bomb" (his radiation treatment gizmo resembles a big dental x-ray unit) having the ability to remove the beast side of his man-beast alligator people. In the end, that same radiation, in too large a dose, turns a man into even more of a beast.

Notes
Hubris Deserts -- Dr. Sinclair seeks alligator hormones to help severely injured people heal. This, because skink lizards can regrow a lost tail, so reptiles have healing hormones. While partially successful, the hormone (or one within it) causes the patient to become a reptile. As things are getting worse, Dr. Sinclair says, "I feel like I've been playing God and now I'm being punished for it." Hubris gets its just deserts. Like many a misguided movie doctor before him, Sinclair is killed by his creation (in this case the machine blows up the whole house). Thus, AP delivers the traditional moral: mankind shouldn't go messing around with science. This not-so-subtle message is quietly underscored by the psychiatrists who heed the warning and do nothing about Jane (Joyce). Just leave her alone and let her be happy.

Gator Ranger -- Richard Crane plays the newlywed-turning-to-gator. The gator-skin mask, which he wears for most of the film, obscures his looks, but Crane is none other than Rocky Jones: Space Ranger. Crane played many roles after Rocky Jones. It seems a bit of a step down from having one's proud face on the side of a Silvercup Rocket, and star of your own TV series, to swamp freak.

Acme Isotopes -- AP echoes the fine 50s naive wonder at things nuclear. Radiation was the magic catalyst that could make monsters, cure bad breath, save the world from aliens, or destroy it in seconds. Radiation could do whatever the imagination could dream up. Radiation beams from a cobalt isotope are the wonder drug that are the cure for the nasty alligator side effect. Note the innocent ignorance regarding the shipment and handling of such deadly materials. The crate of radioactive cobalt is shipped in a wooden crate, by public train, and left untended at the small town station. Joyce, fresh from a later train uses the crate as a handy bench. Manon muscles the wooden crate into the back of his pickup as if it were full of tractor parts. Deadly isotopes are ordered up and shipped in the Wile E. Coyote idiom.

Gritty Edge -- Once scene in AP pushes the edge of gritty, for mainstream 50s sci-fi. This is the almost-rape scene when Manon "rescues" Joyce from the snakes and alligators in rainy night. He leeringly suggests that she take off her wet clothes. When Joyce declines, he wraps a blanket around her "to keep her warm" but it turns into a grope-fest. He says she "owes him" for saving her. When she screams, he knocks her out with one punch. As she lie unconscious on the bed, he grins as he peels back the blanket. Only GatorPaul's timely arrival interrupts the grimly inevitable. Chaney did a very convincing job as the lecherous creep.

Bottom line? As an independent production, AP is a notch above average. It makes an appropriate double bill with Return of the Fly -- two human-animal monster movies. The plot is little deeper than the usual indie B sci-fi, but the production values are higher. Garland is well worth watching, as usual.

Return of the Fly

The Hollywood money-squeezing machine is obvious in this clearly exploitive sequel to The Fly ('58). Shot in budget-friendly black & white, 20th Century Fox re-used the original sets and a rehash plot, Return of the Fly (RotF) looks like (and was) a quick attempt to squeeze a few more box office bucks from the original's popularity. Fortunately, though, there was enough talent in the group that this sequel has merits of its own. Even though filmed in black and white, the widescreen CinemaScope format has a polish to it. RotF doesn't surpass the original, but for fans of the original, it was another ride.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Phillpe Delambre is determined to vindicate his father by successfully completing the experiment. His uncle Francois refuses to help. Phillipe hires Alan Hines from Delambre Frere, and uses his own finances. The funds run out before the equipment is complete. When Phillipe threatens to sell his half of Delambre Frere, Francois relents and funds the completion. After some tweaking, they use the transporter to "store" and later rematerialize test animals. Alan Hines turns out to be Ronald Holmes, an industrial spy. Ronnie tries to sell the secrets to a shadowy cohort named Max. Before Ronnie can get away with the papers, a British agent confronts him. Ronnie knocks him out and uses the transporter to "store" the body. When rematerialized, the agent has guinea pig paws. The guinea pig has human hands. Ronnie kills rodent and puts dead agent in trunk of his car, which he sends into the river. Phillipe confronts Alan/Ronnie about all the oddities. Phillipe is knocked unconscious in the fight. Ronnie opts to hide Phillipe as he had the agent, but in a twist of malice, catches a fly to put in with Phillipe. Ronnie escapes into the night. Francois rematerializes Phillipe, but he (predictably) has a fly head, one fly arm and one fly leg. There is also a fly with Phillipe's head. FlyPhillipe runs into the night. He goes to Max's and strangles him. He waits for Ronnie to arrive, then strangles him too. FlyPhillipe returns home. Inspector Beecham found and caught the ManFly. Both it and FlyPhillipe are placed in the device and successfully reintegrated. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
Everyone expects the story to somehow get a fly head on a man's body again. RotF manages to do the expected with enough twists and action to make an entertaining movie. The photography has a lush but moody "noir" feel.

Cold War Angle
The only hint of the Cold War is the suggestion of other nations being buyers of defense secrets. The story itself is much more of a dangers-of-science tale.

Notes
Storage Device -- RotF gets credit for highlighting the notion of a transporter device also have a storage feature. The original movie hinted at this, but did nothing with it. In RotF, it was a central plot feature. Once in the mainstream, this storage feature would reappear in later TV shows such as Star Trek and Stargate SG1.

Hollywood Recycles -- Production costs were saved by shooting in black and white, but also in recycling the props and sets from the first movie. Even Phillpe's own basement lab (why is it always a basement?) is full of recycled props.

Prop Splurge -- The one place RotF tried to improve on the original is the fly-head costume. Almost too large, the new fly head looked much more fly-like than the modest fly mask in the first movie.

Car Spotters -- Note the impressive land-yacht limousine at the film's beginning. A 1956 Chrysler Imperial limo. Massive. A more interesting find is Phillipe's little French sports car. Much less common to American eyes, is his 1957 Simca Aronde Oceane convertible.

Killer Flies? -- At one point, feverish Francois urges Inspector Beecham to find FlyPhillipe quickly before the "murderous brain of the fly" takes over. The what? Common houseflies are opportunistic scavengers at most. More vulture than raptor, the fly hardly merited such hyperbole. Perhaps the writers felt the need for more plot pressure.

Bottom line?
Fans of the first movie get another dose, albeit with more emphasis on the horror than the cerebral. There is more shock and mayhem, and very little of the original's exploration of a man's loss of identity. Still, the pace is good and the plot has enough new elements to stand on its own. RotF is an apt sequel.

Womaneater

This is an obscure British sci-fi/horror film that is thin on "science" but also light on the horror too. What it does have is an eclectic blend of Frankenstein and Faust and Jack the Ripper. Womaneater is still a low budget B-film, but does rather well within those confines. There is a little bit of stock footage, but not much. The sets are simple, but sufficient. There is a strong sense of film-noir throughout, as almost none of the characters seem noble or heroic.

Quick Plot Synopsis
A London doctor travels to the upper Amazon because he had heard of a tribe of natives who have a "juju" which can restore the dead to life. He's suffering from "jungle fever" and his cohort is killed by a spear as they come across a native ceremony sacrificing a young woman to an odd "tree" with little wiggling arms.
Five years later, Dr. Moran has the tree (or one like it) in the basement of his manor house back in England. He also has one of the tribesmen, who is repeating the drum ceremony. They sacrifice a young red-head to the tree. Later, Moran extracts an inky serum from the tree and injects it into a heart in big beaker. The heart beats awhile, then stops. The police are trying to solve the disappearance of the red-head. Meanwhile, at a local traveling carnival, a young mechanic takes a fancy to a blonde "attraction" at a hawker's stand. He objects to how her boss talks to her. He punches out the boss. The blonde gets fired. The next day she walks to the mechanic's garage. He suggests Moran's house as a possible housekeeper job. She gets a job there, over the objections of the middle-aged housekeeper, Margaret. Moran stalks the streets of London looking for another victim for the tree. He follows and picks up Judy. He takes Judy to his manor. He and Tanga sacrifice her to the tree. Margaret threatens to leave. She and Moran argue. She tries to stab him with decorative dagger. He chokes her and kills her. Sally tries to leave, but Moran (who's fallen in "love" with her) tricks her and locks her in. He takes her his lab to see his triumph. More serum drained from the tree and injected into a body under a sheet. The heart beats, the lungs breath. The body sits up. It's Margaret. She's an unresponsive zombie, not really alive. Moran furious with Tanga (and his people) for cheating him by sharing only half of the secret. Zombie Margaret drops to the floor before getting to Sally. The police and the mechanic arrive in time to rescue Sally. Moran throws flammables on the tree. Tanga throws a dagger into Moran's back, then kneels before the burning tree. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
The pacing is pretty good for a low budget movie, with several interwoven threads. George Coulouris plays Dr. Moran rather well, keeping the character teetering on the edge of rationality. Joyce Gregg does a good job with the tormented housekeeper. Vera Day, who did Quatermass II the year before, plays the carnival exotic dancer, but does about the worst hula seen on film. The shot over her shoulder, between her pointy bra peaks, of Jack trying to concentrate on the car's wiring, is hilarious. It probably wasn't supposed to be, but it's so completely unsubtle that you can't help but laugh.

Cold War Angle
There's nothing of commies or nukes in Womaneater, whether actual or analogous. This is much more of a faustian tale of science being misused by an arrogant scientist.

Notes
Generic Brownies -- A peek at 50s race-insensitive thinking can be seen in "the natives." They're supposed to be descended from the Aztecs, even though the Aztecs were in Mexico, not the Amazon basin. The natives are of various shades, and include Africans. The feathered garb of the medicine man is aztecish but the ritual chants sound decidedly African. There's no one that looks credibly like an Amazonian native. Instead, they're a mishmash of native peoples. This is pretty typical for 40s and 50s jungle films. All them brownies look alike anyhow, ya know. Who'll notice? In the 50s, they didn't.

Bad Girls -- A surprise, is how misogynist Womeneater is. There are no good women in this story. The beautiful victims are rendered mindless by the hypnotizing drums. Even when the effect wears off just prior to being fed to the tree, they can only scream in fear. They are powerless victims. Margaret is the abused former flame who hangs around, taking the abuse on the presumption that she could have no life apart from Moran. Judy, the bar tramp, is a cheap floosie easily picked up by Moran. As he feeds Judy to the tree he says, "What's a few worthless lives compared to what I'm giving the world. It's turning death into life." Women are cheap tree food. Even the "good" girl, Sally is abused. She's helping Jack work on a car. Just after Jack asks her to marry him, he begins to berate her for not holding the light right and other little blunders (she's no mechanic). Okay, so Jack is a jerk. That's not so odd. The odd part is that Sally accepts all this bad manners between them as representing a normal married life. The subtle message in Womaneater is that all women are low-value creatures who foster dysfunctional relationships.

Faust -- Unlike the archetypal naive scientist who unwittingly creates a monster, Dr. Moran fits the mad scientist mold. He's bent on controlling the amazonian's "juju" which can bring the dead back to life. He's doing it more for his own glory than any sort of altruism. In fact, he's quite willing to sacrifice young women's lives for the "gift" he's planning to give mankind. Not much of a gift at that price. There's nothing redeeming about Moran.

What's in it for Tanga? -- An obscure question is why the native, Tanga, agreed to come to England with the woman-eating tree when he knew all along that his people only shared half the secret of restoring life. He knew Moran's experiments would come to nothing, but played along like a good minion. His angle? He apparently just wanted the tree to be fed young women. This was his religion. The more sacrifices he tree-god received, the better.

Echo of Prohibition -- There's a curious little exchange between Moran and the bartender when Moran is stalking Judy. Moran asks for a whiskey. The bartender asks if he's a member. Moran scoffs and puts some money on the bar. The bartender smiles and pours his whiskey. What was that all about? It's a hint of earlier British culture. In the early 1900s, when the Prohibition movement was sweeping the USA, similar sentiments were astir in England. The British could not come right out and ban alcohol, as the Americans tried. Instead, they banned pubs serving drinks to just anyone. Private clubs, however, could serve drinks, but only to members. London gentlemen did like their clubs. By the 50s, the official private-club laws were a faint formality, largely ignored by both bars and patrons. The little exchange between Moran and the bartender captures that. This is a trivial little nugget as far as the movie goes, but it's a fun little snip of history.

Bottom line? Woman Eater is an oddly noir sort of film. It's a little thin on the "science" for a sci-fi, but no less than other sci-fi/horror hybrids in circulation in the late 50s. It ran as the B film to the American release of The H-Man -- making for a people-eater double feature. Woman Eater isn't a top priority film to see, but has some entertainment value.