ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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* Also released as The Split.

Sci-fi movies were so popular in the 1950s that Hollywood even started importing them from Japan (Godzilla, Rodan, etc.).

This film went that idea one better; a Japanese studio imported actors and directors from America and made a truly weird movie. An American reporter (Larry Stanford) is given an injection by a mad Japanese scientist. An eye starts growing out of his shoulder, and it eventually develops into a hideous head. The side of his body on which the extra head has grown becomes bloated and misshapen.

Tormented by the painful transformation his body is undergoing, the man eventually flees into a forest. Positioning himself between two trees, he grabs hold and pulls splitting his body down the middle! Both halves are complete bodies! One body is a man, the other is a monster. They battle each other near a volcanic pit.

Directed by Kenneth B. Crane and George P. Breakston. This was the first of several two-headed monster movies, and treatments of the concept went downhill. (See: "The Thing With Two Heads" and "The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant").
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Brent Gair]

The star of this movie was Anglo-Canadian Peter Dyneley who voiced Jeff Tracy of THUNDERBIRDS and voiced the famous "5,4,3,2,1" countdown during the opening credits of the show.

[Bud Brewster]

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IMDB has several interesting trivia items for this production.
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~ Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness (1992) pays homage to this film. When Ash has swallowed one of his little dopplegangers, he grows an eye on his right shoulder, which results in him splitting into two beings; Good Ash and Evil Ash.

In this film, the reporter is injected with a serum and later develops an eye, which grows into a head, resulting in him splitting into a good being and an evil one.

Note from me: I've never seen Army of Darkness, nor have I seen Manster. But I might just watch 'em both back-to-back one of these days!

~ This was an American production filmed in Japan using a mostly Japanese crew and a number of Japanese actors. It was shot in English. The film had various working titles, including "Nightmare" and "The Two-Headed Monster."

Note from me: I wouldn't mind watching Japanese movies with English dubbing if the Japanese actors didn't seem to talk so fast that the English version sounded like conversations between overly-caffeinated people with elevated heart rates!

~ Originally released (as "The Split") as the second half of a double feature. The first film was a dubbed version of Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face (1960) (aka "The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus").

Note from me: Well now . . . that must have provided pleasant evengings at drive-ins across the nation!

I mean, all those teenage couples who didn't really go there to watch the movies anyway, so they had no trouble making out with their eyes closed!


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~ For this English-language production, the producers needed two Japanese actors who were proficient in English. They cast Tetsu Nakamura (as Satoshi Nakamura), an actor who was born in Canada and went to school there, but moved to Japan in 1940. They also cast Jerry Itô, who was born in New York, so English was his native language.

Note from me: Japanese studios should have kept guys like these busy making movies in English and then dubbing them into Japanese! That would have made the films more appealing to the American market.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Maurice]

[Bud Brewster]

[Maurice]

[Bud Brewster]

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Ah-ha. That's true sir.

I spend a lot of time on All Sci-Fi having fun suggesting sequels that could have been made to classic movies, so I tend to fantasize about "missed opportunities" in the past.

So, you're right that I was suggesting something the Japanese studios might have done in the 1950s, etc. And, as you said, the idea wouldn't be practical in those days.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

Keep Watching the Skies!, by Bill Warren.

This incredibly-titled film is a bizarre, atmospheric but stupid story about the world's first two-headed monster.

Nothing else about the picture makes much more sense and it is, overall, very bad; but there are a couple of very interesting shots, and one that has a nightmarish impact.

But since all logic and coherence (and most quality) was sacrificed to the dubious idea of having a two-headed horror, the film is only a curiosity.

The story of the production of The Manster would almost certainly be more interesting than the picture itself.

George P. Breakston produced the film and codirected it with Kenneth G. Crane, who edited. The script by Walter J. Sheldon was adapted from Breakston's original screen story, "Nightmare."

The film was made in Japan as a coproduction between United Artists of Japan (their subsidiary Lopert released it in the United States) and George Breakston Enterprises. It wa s shot in English on a low budget, and uses no major Japanese actors.

The Manster might have been entertaining if the absurdity of the story had been emphasized, with imagination; the eye-on-the-shoulder is a genuinely haunting shot, and the film could have used more of that kind of thing. But no one seems to have been very concerned with making something good, only something exploitable.

The silly little apish head sits on Dyneley's shoulder, bouncing when he walks, and except for one memorable shot, looks like nothing more than a grapefruit-sized, lifeless toy. But there is one shot of raincoat-clad Dyneley advancing at the camera: he's snarling, and so is that other head. Now that's a bit unnerving.

But although two-headed monsters were a novelty and still are uncommon, they are basically silly. The Manster is the first serious two-headed monster movie; it isn't good, but these little advances should perhaps be applauded.

Breakston's original story was called "Nightmare," and no wonder; there are few other science fiction-horror films with plots that seem more like they sprang from someone's bad dreams than The Manster. It's too bad the film itself is poor, because it's the nightmarish plots that sometimes click with audiences, such as The Fly or Gremlins.

In fairness, The Manster does have one or two eerie scenes, but the general hangdog air of production, the very poor makeup and special effects, and the inept direction make the outlandish plot even sillier.

[Bud Brewster]

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"And NOW, through the magic of the World Wide Web and All Sci-Fi, we bring you the chilling tale of . . . THE MANSTER!"

The Manster (1959) Horror, Sci-Fi full length movie


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)