ALL SCI-FI Forum Index ALL SCI-FI
The place to “find your people”.
 
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   RegisterRegister 
 ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 

The Alligator People (1959)
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4  Next
 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    ALL SCI-FI Forum Index -> Sci-Fi Movies and Serials from 1950 to 1969
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Pow
Galactic Ambassador


Joined: 27 Sep 2014
Posts: 3401
Location: New York

PostPosted: Sat Sep 19, 2015 12:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The most impressive lizard make-up that I have ever seen was the reptile bounty hunter in He Man Masters of the Universe film.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Robert (Butch) Day
Galactic Ambassador


Joined: 19 Sep 2014
Posts: 1437
Location: Arlington, WA USA

PostPosted: Sat Sep 19, 2015 1:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

American actor/puppeteer Pons Maar as Saurod in Masters of the Universe (1987):



You mean this guy?
_________________
Common Sense ISN'T Common
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
Pow
Galactic Ambassador


Joined: 27 Sep 2014
Posts: 3401
Location: New York

PostPosted: Sat Sep 19, 2015 2:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you, Butch.

Not only was the make-up design impressive, so was the armor. Especially the helmet.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17020
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Thu Oct 29, 2015 8:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pow wrote:
Not only was the make-up design impressive, so was the armor. Especially the helmet.


I hadn't realized just how good that makeup was until you mentioned it and Butch proved your point with that fine photo. Very Happy
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Rocky Jones
Astral Engineer


Joined: 17 Dec 2014
Posts: 225
Location: North Texas

PostPosted: Fri Oct 30, 2015 9:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is what I like about this site. You guys are always coming up with oldies I somehow missed, but would like to see. But as for that gator guy, a good moisturizer can work wonders for scaly skin.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17020
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Thu Dec 24, 2015 1:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks, Rocky. We do our best. And we've certainly been at it long enough!
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Rocky Jones
Astral Engineer


Joined: 17 Dec 2014
Posts: 225
Location: North Texas

PostPosted: Sat Dec 26, 2015 9:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I got around to watching this one recently and I do still think a good moisturizer might have helped, but this guy had some major problems. The terminally tacky alligator suit toward the end does more harm than good-- basically sabotaging the film. I suspect theater audiences went from terror to laughter pretty quick about that time. They'd have been better off sticking with Dick Smith's eery skin condition makeup.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Rick
Space Ranger


Joined: 25 Feb 2016
Posts: 106
Location: New York City

PostPosted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 9:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
The terminally tacky alligator suit toward the end does more harm than good-- basically sabotaging the film. I suspect theater audiences went from terror to laughter pretty quick about that time.

Well, adult audiences, yes probably. But I saw this at a Saturday matinee on Valentine's Day, 1960, doubled with RETURN OF THE FLY. Our tatty local theater was jammed, as it was every Saturday afternoon, with a full house of raucous 9-to-13 year olds. I was just barely ten at the time, had fewer than 15 monster movies under my belt, and was thrilled to be able to see a new one. Any new one.

The movie was disappointing to me and my friends, but not the suit. I've read all the comments here, and many elsewhere, terming it "laughable" or "hopeless" or worse. And I can't honestly debate that. But on that Saturday in 1960, no child laughed. Matter of fact, all of the girls and probably some of the boys screamed.

And when we walked home after the double-feature, we spoke admiringly of both the guy with the big Fly head, and the guy with the big Gator snout. We didn't love either of the movies that much overall. But the monsters were just fine with us.

So, sure, it's a laughable monster, to grownups and probably to modern kids. But to kids in the era in which it was made...it filled the bill just fine. Matter of fact, what we liked least about THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE, was too much talk, too little Gator-man.

_________________
Man need not kneel before the angels,
Nor lie in death forever,
But for the weakness of his feeble will.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17020
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 10:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

______________________________________

Ah yes, that magic age of 10 (—ish), when we were the most forgiving theater patrons who ever bought a box of Rasinets from that cornucopia called The Snack Bar and than settled down in the dark to watch horrible things happen to other people, just for the fun of it. Very Happy


_______________


What makes my disappointment in the movie sting all the more is getting nifty shots like this —





— before we finally have to endure less-impressive shots like this!




It sort of makes me wish they'd just made a nice comedy out of the whole thing and written this scene into the script.




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


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Thu Mar 01, 2018 11:39 am; edited 2 times in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17020
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 6:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

_____________________________

I didn't have a local theater in my little home town, so I only went to science fiction movies at drive-ins and downtown theaters in Atlanta when my parents took me, up 'till 1960 when I turned 12 and I started riding a transit bus with a few friends to a town located right next to College Park, a town called East Point.

And since my parents didn't have much interest in the low budget movies (even at the drive-ins), I ended up only seeing the really good ones — but I didn't get to see all the ones I wanted too, so I missed a lot of good ones, too. Sad

Hence I don't have fond memories of those B movies that don't date very well, because I just didn't get the chance to develop those memories.

On a related note, I got a PM from Rick that said the LeRose in Jeffersonville, Indiana, was the theater he went to when he was young. But he'd never had much luck finding pictures of it, other than pictures when it new (years before he went to it), or well after the building had been turned into something else.

I didn't have much luck either, but I did find this less-than-ideal image. I did some contrast adjustment.






After that I went to work on it, painting out the flaws and adjusting the contrast in different sections, to make the finally picture look as good as I could make it.

I ended up with this.[/size]





Riot in Cell Block 11 and the The Bowery Boys Meet the Monster are shown on banners behind the ticket booth, and they both came out in 1954, so the photo was taken that year.

It took me a few hours to created the finished picture, but I enjoyed every minute of it. Does it bring back any fond memories, Rick! Very Happy

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


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Thu Mar 01, 2018 11:39 am; edited 4 times in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Rick
Space Ranger


Joined: 25 Feb 2016
Posts: 106
Location: New York City

PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 10:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Actually, it does, Bud. I have seen that picture before, but not so well refurbished. Thanks.

Probably '54, yes. But by the time I started attending the place in late 1959, they were showing a mix of newish and oldish pics. For example, I saw GORGO there just a few weeks after it had opened first-run at the nicer, bigger theaters across the river in Louisville. But I saw HORROR OF DRACULA (1958) in 1961, QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE (1958) in 1962, and, sometime between 1960 and 1963, the LeRose even brought me THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951) and PREHISTORIC WOMEN (1950).

Matter of fact, I saw RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11 there during those years. So, yes, it's most likely 1954, but not a certainty.

You can see the kids lining up to the right side of the box office (all wearing hats for some reason), and that is the direction that the Saturday afternoon line always took. Oddly, since the line would be composed entirely of kids, there was always perfect order. No pushing, no jumping line. Except for the memorable day that THE KILLER SHREWS was playing. For some bizarre, unknown reason, the queue became a mob. Shoving, pushing, yelling. We were lucky no one was trampled to death.

Thankfully, I was there that Saturday with my friend Craig, who was a head taller than anybody else. So he took my money and his and pushed his way to the ticket window, no doubt injuring a few tykes along the way.

But the most interesting thing of all about that picture to me, is the cop standing at the far right. My father was a local policeman from about '52 to '72 and that just might be him. I can't tell. Sometimes I look at it and think, "nope, no way." Then I'll look again, and suddenly it looks like him. Guess I'll never know for sure.

Thanks for the memories.

_________________
Man need not kneel before the angels,
Nor lie in death forever,
But for the weakness of his feeble will.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17020
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 11:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

_________________

That is yet another wonderful story, Rick! Boy, did I hit pay dirt when I invited you to join All Sci-Fi. Cool

After finding and fixing up a picture of your own fondly remembered theater, Rick, I found an even worse picture of mine, one that needed even more fixing up!

As I mentioned above, I didn't get to go to theaters alone until I was 12 and started riding rapid transit buses with a few friends in 1960. The nearest theater was in East Point, a little town whose southern border was actually College Park's northern one.

That's how close they were to each other. The ride on the bus from College Park to East Point was less than 15 minutes.

The picture below is the best one I've ever found of the East Point Theater . . . but frankly, it's pathetic. The theater had obviously been abandoned by the time the picture was taken — and the photo is cropped so close on the sides that it looks claustrophobic.





So the first thing I did was clean up the picture as best I could . . . and then I expanded the buildings on the sides. Very Happy





That worked out so well I went plum crazy and put clouds in the sky! Naturally I put the name of best movie I ever saw at this theater on the marquee.

And yes — those teeny tiny posters I placed on each side of the entrance actually are drastically reduced posters for "Beyond the Time Barrier". Very Happy

So, through the magic of Paint.net —
The East Point Theater lives again!


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


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Thu Mar 01, 2018 11:40 am; edited 4 times in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
orzel-w
Galactic Ambassador


Joined: 19 Sep 2014
Posts: 1877

PostPosted: Mon Feb 29, 2016 2:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice job on the photo enhancements, Bud!

Rick wrote:
You can see the kids lining up to the right side of the box office (all wearing hats for some reason)...

Could those hats have been publicity giveaways (prison guard hats) for Riot on Cell Block 11?
_________________
...or not...

WayneO
-----------
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17020
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Mon Feb 29, 2016 2:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

orzel-w wrote:
Could those hats have been publicity giveaways (prison guard hats) for Riot on Cell Block 11?

Wayne, I think you've got something there — although the idea of giving away prison guard hats to young boys to encourage them to go see a grim movie about a prison riot is pretty weird.



By the way, this picture of LeRose interior was on the same site with the two pictures I combine above.

Jeez, this is no "neighborhood" theater! The entire building that housed The East Point Theater could fit into this place!




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


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Thu Mar 01, 2018 11:40 am; edited 5 times in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Robert (Butch) Day
Galactic Ambassador


Joined: 19 Sep 2014
Posts: 1437
Location: Arlington, WA USA

PostPosted: Mon Feb 29, 2016 9:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

More than likely they are Dead End Kids/Bowery Boys hats. Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, et al, were very popular with pre-teen boys during the early 1940s.
_________________
Common Sense ISN'T Common
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    ALL SCI-FI Forum Index -> Sci-Fi Movies and Serials from 1950 to 1969 All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4  Next
Page 2 of 4

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group