ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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gort



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What can I say about today’s Featured Threads?

The first one is about a doctor who definitely doesn’t make house calls.

The second as about a smack down between two classic monsters.

And the third is about a tranquil life about a space station which is disrupted a bit of space junk that’s drifting towards them. A nuke . . . :shock;
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Dr. Strangelove (1964)



From Producer-director-writer Stanley Kubrick comes this popular comedy that's sometimes hard to laugh at because it hits too close to home. No effective plot synopsis can be written for such a lunatic yarn, but here are a few highlights.

SAC General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) goes bananas and sends a group of B-52's to bomb Russia, blaming the Commies for a variety of America's problems (including fluoridated water). If the bombs are dropped, the Russians will retaliate, so President Peter Sellers calls a meeting of his advisory, including ex-Nazi Dr. Strangelove (also played by Peter Sellers), who must grab his right hand whenever it habitually flies up to give a Nazi salute.

The Russians succeed in stopping all the planes except the one piloted by a blustery Texan, Major "King" Kong (Slim Pickens), who dons his ten-gallon hat and literally rides his A-bomb down to Moscow.

President Sellers' is shocked by the apparent madness of his own military advisers: they blithely discuss "acceptable losses" in the millions while they debate the male-female ratio in the top-brass fallout shelter.

The closest thing to a sane person in the whole story is a British officer named Captain Mandrake (also played by Peter Sellers!). Captain Mandrake watches in wide-eyed amazement as Colonel "Bat" Guano (Keenan Wynn) shoots holes in a Coke machine because it won't give him a soft drink.

The cast also includes George C. Scott, Peter Bull, and James Earle Jones. Great set design by Ken Adam.

Dr. Strangelove seems to be Stanley Kubrick's way of telling mankind to grow up. 2001: A Space Odyssey is, in a sense, the second half of the statement begun by Dr. Strangelove — as if Kubrick is saying, "This is how were are now (Strangelove), and this is how we should be (2001)."
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Dracula vs Frankenstein (1969/1971)

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You have to give credit to producer-director Al Adamson -- he has a rare talent for getting well-known actors to star in his atrocious movies.

This film (and several other Adamson projects) was put together slowly over a period of years. What Adamson ended up with was a film that features J. Carrol Naish (in his last role) as Dr. Frankenstein, living under an alias while he manages an amusement park (!), Lon Chaney, Jr. (in his last role) is Frankenstein's moron assistant who obediently fetches the heads of young girls.

Russ Tamblyn ("West Side Story", "tom thumb") plays an aging biker. Even Jim Davis (Jock Ewing from "Dallas") has a part in this disaster. And Forest J. Ackerman (editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland) is one of the monster's victims, along with Anthony Eisley ("The Navy versus the Night Monster").

Adamson also manages to insult several famous props from classic films; some of the lab equipment he used is from "The Bride of Frankenstein".

Adamson's busty blond wife (Regina Carrol) is bitten by Dracula (played by an actor named Zandor Vorkov, who looks like Frank Zappa in "Kiss" makeup). Frankenstein also has a dwarf assistant, played by Angelo Rossitto, who starred in the bizarre 1932 film "Freaks".

All in all, a remarkable film from the man who gave the world "Blood of Ghastly Horror".
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Earth II (1971 TV movie)

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Good special effects and a good cast make this TV movie worth watching, even though the story is a trifle dull.

It involves the mostly routine activities of a sizable space station with 2,000 inhabitants. One of the non-routine activities is the astronauts' efforts to deal with a drifting A-bomb that threatens the station.





The cast includes Anthony Franciosa (TV's "Matt Helm"), Lew Ayres ("Donovan's Brain"), Gary Lockwood ("2001: A Space Odyssey"), Gary Merrill ("Destination Inner Space", "The Power"), and Mariette Hartley ("Genesis II"). Directed by Tom Gries.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

If you're not a member of All Sci-Fi, registration is easy. Just use the registration password, which is —

gort



Attention members! If you've forgotten your password, just email me at brucecook1@yahoo.com.
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Behold! A 1971 TV movie about an escape artist who battles evil doers, a Hammer films which tries to do what Universal did much better in the 30s and 40s, and a grade Z movie which is so bad it could have applied for Federal Disaster Relief.
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Escape (1971 TV movie)

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Christopher George ("A Day of the Animals") plays a Houdini-like escape artist who employs his special skills to battle evil-doers. He risks death to prevent the kidnapping of a scientist, then he teams up with the scientist's daughter (Marilyn Mason) and an assistant to battle an evil scientist played by comedian Avery Schreiber. Schreiber plans to turn the world into zombies with a virus he's developed.

The cast includes Gloria Grahame ("Oklahoma", "It's a Wonderful Life"), William Windom, John Vernon, William Schallert , and Huntz Hall.

Director John Llewellyn Moxey allows the film to degenerate into silliness — which comes as no surprise in view of the fact that villain is a famous comedy.
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The Evil of Frankenstein (1964 England)



The third film in Hammer studio's resurrection of the classic Universal horror genre isn't the best of the bunch, but it does have its moments.

Peter Cushing is the famous doctor again, returning to the Old Country after a disapproving priest destroys Cushing's lab. He learns that his ancestral castle has been looted by the local folk.

Cushing and his assistant (Sandor Eles) meet a mute peasant girl (Kathy Wild) who takes them to her cave dwelling where they find the frozen monster. Kiwi Kingston portrays the monster, wearing makeup that looks like a crude caricature of the Karloff version, complete with a huge square head and a line of stitches the size of boot laces running across the top of his head from ear to ear.

Even after they thaw him out, the monster remains in a coma, so Cushing seeks the aid of a mesmerist (Peter Woodthorpe), who uses hypnosis to reactivate the monster's brain.

But Woodthorpe secretly utilizes the monster to commit a series of revenge murders on the locals. (If I had a nickle for every time somebody did [i]that]/i] . . . )

Directed by Freddie Francis, unlike most of the Cushing/Hammer horror films, which were skillfully handled by Terence Fisher.
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Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster (1965)

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[Also released as: "Duel of the Space Monsters" and "Mars Invades Puerto Rico"]

Imagine what director Robert Gaffney might have said in 1965 if someone asked him what film he was working on. "Well, right now I'm directing 'Mars Invades Puerto Rico'."

Steven Spielberg, eat your heart out.

Short synopses: Martian Princess Marcuzan, a beautiful-but-evil agent of the red planet, is on a mission to kidnap Earth women for her depopulated world. She is opposed by an American astronaut, Frank, who is actually -- (better read this slowly or you'll get confused) -- an android who is damaged when his ship crash-lands, causing half his face to be destroyed and turning him into a crazed killer (that's the "Frankenstein" part) until several scientist track him down, rewire him, and pit him against the girl-napping Martian princess.

If you're really into stock footage and rock 'n roll music, here's seventy-eight minutes of pure hog heaven.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)