ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Three posts that answer questions which have puzzled mankind for centuries!

~ Do strangers have hands?

~ Are sun demons hideous?

~ Do monsters come from a Green Hell?

The answer to all three questions is, of course — "yes". (Kinda anticlimactic, ain't it? )

But I'm sure you guys can come up with better questions which have more interesting answers.

Like for example, "If stop motion animation is such a great way to create monsters, how come they suck in the third movie below?"



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Hands of a Stranger (1962)

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One year after the English-French version of "The Hands of Orlac" was released, Allied Artists produced the fourth version of the popular tale, in which the injured hands of a pianist, (James Stapleton) are replaced by the hands of a criminal.

Each version of this popular story adds and subtracts various secondary characters and plot elements to change the basic plot.

This version puts at least some of the blame for the pianist's mental deterioration on the fact that he can't play as well as he did before. He stalks the people connected with his misfortune: the cab driver responsible for the accident and the doctor who grafted on the criminal's hands.

Irish McCalla ("Sheena, Queen of the Jungle") lends her considerable charms to the film. Also starring Joan Harvey, Sally Kellerman, and Paul Lukather. Written and directed by Newton Arnold.
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The Hideous Sun Demon (1959))



A scientist is exposed to radiation which turns him into a scaly lizard-man whenever he is exposed to sunlight.

Robert Clarke ("Beyond the Time Barrier", "The Man from Planet X", etc.) is both star and director. The film's basic premise must have presented a certain challenge for Clarke as the director; he had to make the monster seem scary even though the Sun Demon was required to make all its appearances in broad daylight.

Fortunately, the monster make-up is fairly good (despite the film's obvious low budget). Although it isn't a full-body suit, it does extend to the actor's waist (as opposed to Lon Chaney, Jr.'s "The Wolf Man", who always looked over-dressed in shirt and pants).

The trailers for "The Hideous Sun Demon" feature the voice of Paul Frees at his most melodramatic. The poster incorrectly lists the title as "Hideous Sun Demon", but the movie's opening credits includes "The" in the title.
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Monster from Green Hell (1957)

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The "green hell" is the African jungle, and the monsters are wasps which become enlarged after being shot into space and exposed to cosmic rays.

When the space capsule touches down in Africa, scientists Jim Davis and Barbara Turner go after it, but their attempts to retrive the insect specimens from the capsule are complicated by the fact that the specimens now prefer to dine on African animals, African natives, and American scientist.

Producer Al Zimbalist and director Kenneth Crane wanted the film to include authentic jungle locations so they borrowed several scenes from 1939's "Stanley and Livingston".

The full-sized mockups of the wasps are fairly impressive, and there are a few very brief stop-motion scenes (poorly done). One scene shows a python attacking a giant wasp. The wasp pulls the snake from around it's neck, pins it to the ground, and pumps it full of poison from long spikes on both sides of its mandibles — instead of a stinger in its tail.

Never mind the fact that wasps don't have stingers in front — these are mutated wasps, so entomologist can just go fish!



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