When Dracula Got Hammered (Part II)

 

Note: The first week of September in the United States is recognized National Blood Donation Week. Please donate, if you can. (I promise it won't go to feed Dracula!)

 

Quoted from Dracula FAQ by Bruce Scivally:

"After being lampooned by Abbott and Costello, it seemed the classic monsters were done for good. As the 1950's dawned, American horror movies were no longer being produced by major studios, but by smaller companies like American International Pictures and Lippert, companies that made cheap black-and-white "quickies"  for the entertainment of teenagers at drive-ins. But in England, one company decided to take a chance on reviving the old gothic monsters in lurid, living color."  

                                                                                                      -from Dracula FAQ by Bruce Scivally 

This is part 2 of a series on the Hammer Films Dracula movies from the 1960's and 1970's. Go to When Dracula Got Hammered: Part 1 if you haven't read it yet, or you may be lost...

 

 

 

 

Dracula Prince of Darkness (1966): 

We got back to having Christopher Lee in his customary role as the dental assistant's nightmare in Hammer Films' 1966 entry in the Dracula saga. Having taken a brief hiatus in the second installment (see previous entry), Lee returned with a vengeance. Yep. The bloodsucker was not truly dead, after all... (Surprised?)

Van Helsing must have been on vacation. Or else he was still tracking other minions of Dracula as he had been in The Brides of Dracula, because he is nowhere to be seen in this outing. Instead we get Father Sandor (Andrew Kier) as a vampire hunter. 

 

 

Sandor is an expert on who (and apparently who is not) a vampire. First we have a brief introduction relating the demise of Dracula at the hands of Van Helsing (as seen in Horror of Dracula), with a voiceover telling us the background:

"After a reign of terror spanning more than a century the king of the undead was finally traced to his lair high in the Carpathian Mountains.Though the decades many had sought to destroy him all had failed.Here at last was an adversary armed with sufficient knowledge of the ways of the vampire to bring about the final and absolute destruction. This then was his fate thousands had been enslaved by to obscene cult vampirism now the fountain head himself perished only the memory remained the memory of most evil and terrible creature to have ever set his seal on civilization." 

We come upon a scene where a group of people are attempting to drive a stake through the corpse of a young girl. They are interrupted by Sandor who chastises them as "barbarians", insisting that the girl is not a vampire, telling them that Dracula himself was killed 10 years earlier.  The priest present refuses to perform the burial, but Father Sandor says he will do it instead.

 

At the local pub a couple of married couples are drinking, at least one of them is. Charles Kent (Francis Matthews) is partying like there's no tomorrow, and buying drinks for the entire pub, albeit with the disapproval of his wife, Diana (Suzan Farmer) and sister-in-law, Helen (Barabara Shelly). Charles' brother, Alan (Charles Tingwell) is a bit more accepting of Charles' nature, or at least is resigned to the fact that he is incorrigible. 

 

Enter Father Sandor, whose first response is to disparage the owner from hanging garlic in the inn. He reiterates that 10 years have gone by and Dracula is dead... not just "mostly dead", but really really dead. He meets up with the Kents and discovers that they are on their way to Carlsbad, the former home of Dracula. An amiable sort at the start, if a bit off kilter, Sandor becomes positively adamant that the four should NOT go to Carlsbad, but won't say why.

 

But the vacationers think Sandor doesn't know what he's talking about and head out,regardless of his warnings. But it seems more than just Sandor doesn't want them to go... neither does there driver, who dumps them out of his cart still 2 km from their ultimate destination. Fortunately there is a castle nearby (one that no one seems to want to acknowledge exists, even Sandor). At this point you or I would probably say "Let's just camp over here under this tree..." But not our intrepid (or clueless) vacationers. They go on up to the castle.

 

Or more specifically, are taken there. They find a driverless carriage, and after boarding it with the intention of using it to get to Carlsbad, the horses on their own take the carriage to the castle. Where it seems at every turn they are expected. It's too bad no one listens to Helen, who is very suspicious of the whole situation. They might have avoided what comes next.

 

It turns out that the castle is inhabited by a servant of the former Dracula, Klove (Philip Latham), and he has some air of mystery about him, and a sort of subdued sinister attitude. This is not just a personality thing. He is actually involved in a plan to revive his dead master (who was reduced to dust in the first movie, which we saw replayed in the introduction). 

 

He dispatches Alan and uses his blood to give Dracula newly revived body, and Dracula's first victim, of course, is Helen. See? She was right to be suspicious...

 

Enter Sandor who, along with Charles and Diana, ends up in a struggle with the revived count. (I guess he wasn't entirely convinced by his own insistence that Dracula was entirely out of the picture...) Safety is assured when Sandor takes Charles and Diana to the monastery, because, as a new twist to the legend is added, the vampire cannot cross the threshold of the monastery unless someone invites him. Unfortunately, even in the monastery the vampire has some of his non-vampiric minions, specifically Ludwig (Thorley Walters), who, somewhat like Renfield from the classic novel, is a bit unhinged and lets him  in.

 

Ultimately we get a new twist on another way (besides crucifixes and sunlight) that can defeat the Count; running water. So Dracula is finally defeated... And if you believe that, I have a bridge I'm selling.  

 

This third film was released on a double bill with The Plague of the Zombies. It originally was budget at £100,000 and pulled in almost $2.5 million in ticket sales. Rotten Tomatoes gives it an 82% approval rating. Some of the critics pointed out there wasn't much new about the film, although one of them noted that the "Instant Dracula" part (where Klove uses the blood of Alan mixed with the ashes of the Count to create a new body) was fairly interesting.

This would make the third and final Hammer Dracula film that Terence Fisher would direct. Those three films, in my opinion are the best of the lot, as we will see. It turns out that production delays were the real reason we didn't get a return of Cushing as Van Helsing. By the time filming began he was obligated elsewhere. Kier, in his place, is acceptable, although hardly has the chops to be a great replacement. 

The film was made at the same time as Rasputin - The Mad Monk, which also starred Lee in the title role, as well as Shelley, Farmer and Matthews. Despite a rather contrived way to revive the Count, this has some things going for it. This despite the fact that Lee's lines in the film consist of only a few hisses. (I guess the revival process didn't include the vampire's vocal cords...)

 

Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (1968):

You can't keep a bad man down (especially if there is money in the sale of sequels...)

So, if you watched the previous film, you know that Dracula had supposedly once again been dispatched (this time by drowning... or something like that). 

A year after an incident at a local church where a young boy found the body of a woman stashed in the church bell tower, the priest finds no one is willing to come to the church to attend Mass. The superstitious townspeople are afraid of going to church because Dracula's castle stands close by and the shadow of it touches the church. 

 

So a Monsignor (Rupert Davies), with the help of the local priest (Ewan Hooper), journey to the castle to perform an ritual exorcism.

 

Unfortunately the priest gets cold feet the closer he comes to the castle, so the Monsignor has to go on alone. While he is performing his rites on the castle a storm blows in. The priest, who has remained back a ways, is startled and falls, cutting a gash on his head. The blood from his wound drips into the river where Dracula has ended up. And, of course, said blood revives the Count.

 

Dracula is incensed that his castle has been defiled by the priest and has his new slave, the priest, dig up a coffin for him. Meanwhile, back at the village a party is underway, Paul (Barry Andrews), who intends to marry Maria (Veronica Carlson), the niece of the Monsignor, is celebrating with the town for her birthday. A lot of this outing centers on Paul and Maria, with the added third wheel of a girl named Zena (Barbara Ewing). Zena is thrown in almost as an afterthought, however. Zena is not Dracula's primary target.

 

What Dracula wants is revenge against the Monsignor, because he put up a giant cross at the doorway of Dracula's castle and performed his religious rites on the place. But instead of getting revenge on the Monsignor himself, Dracula intends to subvert his niece Maria. Ultimately he stops Dracula in his first attempt, but there is still a need to subdue the monster. And that may be a bit of a problem.

 

Because Paul is an atheist. And his would be partner is the now lapsed priest who has become Dracula's stooge. When push comes to shove, although they stake Dracula, neither has the faith to perform the ritual prayer that would end Dracula's reign of terror.

 

Dracula goes back to Maria and kidnaps her, taking her to his castle, where he wills her to remove the cross and chunk it over the parapet. It lands, conveniently, pointing straight up in the ground. Then, in a final battle with the Count, Paul throws him over the ledge, where the vampire lands (guess where...) And THAT ought to do it, don't you think?

 

 

Then again... maybe not...

Dracula Has Risen From the Grave doesn't measure up to The Brides of Dracula in terms of sheer terror. Most of the time is spent on character development of the subsidiary characters, although at least in this outing Lee as Dracula is granted some dialogue.    

Rotten Tomatoes gives this one an 80% rating, and, as would be expected, the franchise is starting to wear thin per the critics. Variety sums up the overall critical view with "[t]he story's slight, the horror and the bloodcurdling essential to these pix is minimal and even Dracula himself appears bored at being resurrected yet again." 

There were changes, as seem to be typical when dealing with Dracula movies. You will remember from the above movie that it was established that Dracula needed permission to cross the barrier into someone's house, but apparently they dispensed with that for this outing because he enters Maria's room without any preamble. Also is the added need for a prayer to be said over the staked Count. (Why the heck didn't they do that  the first time? It might have been over for Dracula by now...)

The production costs went up slightly for  this time. Much of it may have been to secure the services of Lee, but it had a budget of £175,000. There is no indication of exactly how much profit the film made, but wikipedia notes that it was the highest grossing film of all of Hammer Studio's output. An interesting note: In Dracula FAQ, Bruce Scivally notes that Lee wore a ring in the film that had been given to the actor by the renowned Forrest J. Ackerman.

Dracula Has Risen from the Grave was to have been directed, once again, by Terence Fisher, the director of the previous three films, but he had been in an accident earlier, and was unavailable. The services of Freddie Francis were thus acquired for the work. Francis had a decent career as a workmanlike director for Hammer and Amicus, helming such films as The Evil of Frankenstein and They Came from Beyond Space. 

But many of you will know him better as the Academy Award winning cinematographer, which he won for Sons and Lovers in 1960, and Glory in 1989. He was also a BAFTA nominee for cinematography, getting noms for his cinematography on The Elephant Man (which lost to All That Jazz), The French Lieutenant's Woman (which lost to Tess), Glory (which lost to  The Sheltering Sky) and Cape Fear (which lost to The Last of the Mohicans). Clearly he was a great cinematographer, and even though he did not fill that role here, he still had an eye for what he wanted.

Well, tune in for the next installment tomorrow. And get thee to the bloodmobile.

Quiggy

 

 

Lust in Space

 

 

One thing you can be sure of: Men can't do without women. Even men from other planets realize that women are important. Not as viable members of the working society, if you take these two movies into consideration, however.  No, these two movies are firmly entrenched into the concept that a woman's basic usefulness begins and ends with their part in the continuation of the species. You know, "barefoot and pregnant". (Although having them look halfway decent in the process is a bonus...)

I think it's pretty interesting that there were at least two science-fiction movies that had this concept as their basis. (There might have been more, but these are the only two I've ever come across.) Not only that, but both have a theme that some unfortunate accident in the past has caused a situation where all of the women on the invader's planet (in both these cases, Mars) have virtually been eliminated, and the only solution available is to invade Earth and take some hostages back to Mars to continue the species.

Fortunately, for the women, these aren't the little green men normally associated with Mars (see Mars Attacks). They at least look nominally humanoid. (And in the case of the second feature, at least one of them looks like Tommy Kirk {Old Yeller}). 

 

 

 

 

 

Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster (1965):

In the never ending quest to find the most obscure and cheesy movies for The Midnite Drive-In, sometimes I find stuff that really is "way out". It is a given fact that the 50's and 60's were a hot bed of low budget movies, especially in the realm of the drive-in movie. With a few thousand dollars to spend and enough willing actors and actresses hard up enough for a role they would take on virtually anything, you could crank out a movie that was bound to secure a profit.  Maybe not enough for you to retire on, but at least enough to finance your next Schlock Theater entry.

One of the things that always got a draw in those halcyon days was the "invasion" entry, in which some aliens with less than altruistic intentions came to Earth, either to enslave the inhabitants, or just looking for a quick bite on the way home at the Human buffet table. Another thing that drew in the crowds was the next Monster of the Month club entry. Put "Dracula" (or "vampire"), "Terror", or "Creature" in the title and sit back and wait for the crowds.

So including the words "Frankenstein, "Space" and "Monster" in the title and you had the essence of the themes that would draw the necessary crowd to the local drive-in theater.  

It didn't matter that the titular "Frankenstein" had nothing to do with Mary Shelley or the numerous variations thereof in film.  And it didn't matter if the actual "Frankenstein" of the title didn't actually meet the "Space Monster" until the last 5 minutes of the film. At least you got, in the interim, some wacky antics by a midget Spock look alike, and a Martian princess (looking like a refugee from some ancient Egyptian sword and sandal epic) trying to do their own invasion of the Earth.

 

The only thing going for this movie is the bevy of bikini clad women the Martians are trying to capture. And those "Bikini-clad" women don't have to do a damn thing but just appear on screen... they don't even have to act. (It's probably a good bet that if they did, they would have acted rings around some of the actors who actually DID have lines in the film...)

 

The set up is this.  The Americans keep launching missiles into space, but unbeknownst to them, there is a spaceship out there shooting them down. But you can't keep down that good old American "can-do" spirit, so they keep banging away.  Their next goal is to send up a rocket piloted by Col. Frank Saunders ( Robert Reilly).  But the scientists do have one trick ace card up their sleeves.  Frank is not really human.  He's an android.  (The cat is almost let out of the bag when "Frank" seizes up during an interview with the press.  But since this press contingent is a couple of apples short of a pitcher of lemonade, they don't really catch on...)

So, back to the aliens.  The alien contingent is lead by a group of soldiers commanded by Princess Marcuzan (Marilyn Hanold, fresh from her gig as Playboy Playmate of the Month {June 1959}) and her adjutant (psychiatrist?) Dr. Nadir (Lou Cutell). The reason the aliens keep knocking down the rockets the Americans are firing is because they think they have been spotted and the Earth is trying to knock them out of orbit. Which would put a serious damper in their plans...

So just what are the plans?  It seems that there has been a serious war going on back on the home planet. A nuclear war.  With whom, it is never said. But the ultimate result of the war is that all the women on the planet have been killed. (That is one seriously selective nuclear bomb... And what comes to mind is... how was the princess able to escape this outcome?)

The advance alien contingent has come to Earth to attempt to kidnap some Earth women to take them back and "repopulate" the species. How? Well, for one thing every girl has to be "purified", which basically involves them being put on a conveyor belt and sent through some kind of alien CAT scan device, although I don't know what the end result does.   (When they are eventually rescued late in the movie it doesn't look like they've changed much).

 

One of the things that really make you scratch your head is, all these women that the Martians capture seem to be docilely submitting to their capture.  I don't quibble over them not actively trying to resist, after all the Martians have those Whamm-o ray guns that can disintegrate anybody they aim them at, but these women don't even raise up a vocal resistance... I mean, they don't even cry or whine over their situation.  Are the Martians really that much better an option than the Human men they have been around?

Meanwhile, back at the lab, the head scientist, Dr. Adam Steele (James Karen, the only actor you will probably even recognize), and his assistant, Karen (Nancy Marshall), try to track down Frank, who, because he is an android, is sending out signals that they can pick up that he is still alive. Although, since he has taken damage, they know he is not necessarily a stable android. 

 

Karen: What would he do?

Adam: I don't know. It would depend on what happened to him. If he'd had any bad experiences, he might react violently... out of his built-in preservation unit. Anything could happen.

Karen: What you're saying is he could turn into a...Frankenstein...

(You knew they had to justify that title somehow, didn't you...?)

Adam and Karen go out searching for Frank. And thus we get essentially a travelogue, as they cruise around Puerto Rico, showing off the local landscape.  They must not be in too big a hurry to find him, since they are riding a moped.

 

Frank has indeed gone rogue, because he is randomly killing people for no reason at all.  Meanwhile the Martians have opted to land the spaceship on Earth. You have to see the spaceship to believe it.  It looks like something like a beach house shaped like a spaceship with what appear to be pool cues supporting it as it stands. 

 

 

This is so the Martians can better load up their captives.  They hit every beach and pool party in site to take as many women as possible.

One wonders where they are going to go when they've finished their mission.  The princess says that the planet is "unfit for further habitation" as a result of the nuclear war, but Dr. Nadir claims they are looking for women so that they "can repopulate our planet". If the planet is unfit for habitation what is the point of repopulating it?

Eventually Adam and Karen find Frank, and while Adam does some work on him he sends Karen back to base to call in the Army and destroy the spaceship.  But the army's weapons prove to be useless (probably because the pilots in the airplanes couldn't hit the broad side of a barn...) And Karen is captured.  She is put in a cage with Mull (the name of the titular "Space Monster" in an effort to get her to talk.

 

Ultimately it comes down to Frank battling Mull and saving the Earth (all in the space of the last 5 minutes of the movie). And Frank destroys the command console of the space ship and blows it up. And we end with a happy ending as Adam and Karen do another Puerto Rico travelogue.

One of the many titles that this movie has been shown under is Mars Invades Puerto Rico. Which accounts for the brief interludes that I refer to as travelogues (else how would you know where the movie was being filmed?) Along with such titles as Duel of the Space Monsters ( the UK title) and Operation San Juan (again a reference to the location of the film), it is clear the producers had no idea what to do with the film.

 Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster is one of those movies where the plot is intriguing enough, but the outcome that was presented leaves a little something to be desired.  It is entertaining on some levels, but the people involved seem a little less interested in presenting a feature film than they are in just getting something out the door to draw in the unsuspecting audience.  As a feature film it is worth a watch, but I seriously doubt that many of you would return for multiple viewings.  It does however have at least a smattering of devotees.

 

 

 

 

Mars Needs Women (1968): 

There is a message coming from space.  It is very simple. Mars Needs Women. But, as opposed to the previous film, at least initially the Martians aren't out to force women against their will to become Martian mothers. (although, at the beginning of the movie three women disappear from Earth and I bet none of them were asked first...) 

As mentioned above, the first three women just disappear, with no explanation.  One is playing tennis with a male companion The second is on a date with a man and disappears while he is off refreshing his supply of cigarettes at the cigarette machine (remember those things?) The third disappears while taking a shower.  

None of these first three women were asked if they wanted to be volunteers to help out the Martians.  But apparently something happened and the first "abductions" were not altogether successful.  So the Martians have been sending a message.  "Mars needs women".

 

The Martians contact the big wigs in the Armed Forces to tell them of their situation.  Apparently a genetic  problem has cropped up in recent years leading to a male to female ratio on Mars of 100:1. So the representative Martian, Dop (Tommy Kirk), tells the brass they are trying to recruit women to come back with them. Essentially implying the women would be volunteers.  (Except for those first three, however). But the bigwig in charge, Col. Page (Byron Lord), is not so diplomatic and tells Dop to go fly a kite. 

 

Thus, the five Martians land in Houston (Why Houston? Why not?), hide their spaceship and embark on a quest to take prospective women by force.  Well, not physical force, thank God, but they are not averse to using techniques that would still be frowned upon by polite society.  They are going to hypnotize the women.

Each of the 5 Martians goes out to seek his own prospect.  One goes to the local airport and starts stalking a stewardess. One of them goes to a local college football game (which appears to be a home game between the Houston Cougars and the Baylor Bears) and picks out the winner of the homecoming queen competition as his prospect.  

A third goes to (where else) a strip club. Hey, if Dr. Cortner in The Brain That Wouldn't Die could seek a prospective body for his fiancee at one, there must be something to the prospective venue. (And since this is a TV movie, and a TV movie from the late 60's to boot, it's a pretty tame strip club. But you gotta take what life deals ya...) 

 

Meanwhile, Dop is seeking out the brilliant (and conveniently, female, and good looking to boot) genetics scientist, Dr. Marjorie Bolen (Yvonne Craig), who just so happens to be speaking at a conference in town. Dop, as you might expect, and Dr. Bolen hit it off and it seems it might just be that he wouldn't have to hypnotize her; she might just come along willingly, for the scientific knowledge. 

 

 

Meanwhile, the Air Force brass is desperately trying to find out where the Martians have hidden their spaceship.  And before you can say "coincidentally advanced speculation" they determine that the best place for a spaceship from a colder planet would have to be an abandoned ice factory, they figure out, sure enough, that there is such a place in a deserted part of town. (OK, 70's Houston was about 50% smaller than it is today, but I doubt there was much of the town that could be that remote, even back then...)

So the Martians end up having to abandon their mission and escape the frying pan before it gets too hot. Although one really has to wonder... the 5 Martians are bringing back 1 woman apiece, so how that could really help the genetic problem back on Mars becomes a little problematic.  I think 5 more women would hardly make a sizable dent in the mathematical ratio, but never let it be said that logic was a primary factor in these kinds of movies.

Of course, if you were paying attention, at this point there were only 3 (or possibly 4, if Dr. Bolen willingly accompanied them)  But the Martian doctor who was on the crew was with Dop and I guess he didn't feel the urgency to find a prospective woman of his own. Either that, or he was jealous that Dop, who wasn't even a doctor on TV, much less in real life, got to get the human female doctor...

 

Compared to the previous movie, this film has less to give to the prospective viewer in terms of it's plot, and some of the actors seem like they were just there to pick up a paycheck. Bryon Lord as the Colonel is probably one of the worst.  He has a grimace pasted on his face throughout the film that just seems to be saying "Can you just say 'Cut' and get this damn scene over?"  Lord reminds me of the Colonel in A*P*E*, but even Alex Nicol had more emotional range...

Except for Craig, not many of the other players stand out either, and that includes Kirk, who was at least half-way decent in the aforementioned Old  Yeller, but somehow never seemed to find a niche in Hollywood after that film. 

Both of these movies are good enough to watch once, but except for that common theme of aliens needing women, neither would probably be good for much but a few laughs, especially the sexist dialogue that many of the men exhibit when around Dr. Bolen in Mars Needs Women. (And I say that despite the fact that I usually defend a movie that is a product of it's time. That sexist attitude was common in the 70's, so it shouldn't be a big issue if taken in context. But it seems to me they took it a little farther than necessary here.) 

Well folks, the Quiggy household needs women (or at least one woman), but I'm not about to abduct one just to fulfill the opening. Volunteers can apply, however.

Drive safely, folks. 

Quiggy 

 

The Creature (re)Generation

 

So, I was browsing old drive-in ads on Pinterest and found this in an archive.

And I thought, what better way to get a new year's start on trying to get back into this blog.  Both movies have been given the MST3K treatment, so I knew going in that both were pretty shoddy and potentially laughable.  

 

Both movies are a product of the  60's and brought to the US under the auspices of American International, the giant of the drive-in movie world.  Both movies are also originally produced in foreign markets.  The Green Slime came to us from Japan and Reptilicus came to us from Denmark proving that low-budget schlock is not strictly an American product.

 

As far as The Green Slime is concerned it's a co-production with AIP and Toei studios in Japan, but as near as I could tell there isn't one single Japanese actor or actress in the entire production. (Unless thos green slime creatures are really Japanese people in the costumes. At least the Danish produced Reptilicus is handled by an all-Danish cast (none of whom you will recognize (unless you are a devotee of Danish and West German cinema,

 

Both are definitely the kinds of movies that I originally started this blog to bring to light, low-budget drive-in fare that exemplifies some of the main tropes of 50's and 60's drive-in cinema; sub-par acting, ridiculous dialogue and cardboard characters that have no depth.  But both are entertaining in their own right if you like that sort of thing.

The Green Slime (1968):

 

"Is it something in your head?

Will you believe it when you're dead?

GREEN SLIME!" 

(lyrics from the theme to The Green Slime)

The opening song is an indication of what we are in for.  Sounding (to me) kind of like the psychedelic rock that was prominent at the time, it is pretty catchy, but the lyrics are just plain weird.  I was reminded of Iron Butterfly, myself.

 

This movie starts out with a theme similar to later big budget movies you are familiar with (Armageddon and Deep Impact, both from 1998).  Early on one of the characters on a space station, the Gamma 3, mutters somewhat reluctantly, that "Nothing ever happens around here."

Of course, you know from experience that that's when something exciting does happen. Because the next line is another character who says "I'm getting a lot of interference...".  Which of course is is when the $^:+ hits the fan.

The team on the space station has discovered an asteroid which as somehow veered of course of it's standard trajectory and his headed on a collision course with, you guessed it, Earth.  And it's going to cause a butt load of damage if it hits.

The commander of the space station, Commander Vince Elliott (Richard Jaeckel) relays the information back to Earth and his superior decides the situation warrants him calling out from retirement an officer, Commander Jack Rankin (Robert Horton) to go up and take over the reins on a mission to destroy the asteroid.

 

 

Vince

Jack

 

 

 

 

 

 

Warning, Will Robinson! Danger! It seems that Rankin and Elliott are not the best of friends, and the problem mainly stems from the fact that Elliott stole Rankin's girl away from him.  And Dr. Lisa Benson (Luciana Paluzzi) just happens to be on the space station with Elliott.

 

Lisa

(BTW, if she looks familiar, her most famous role, for me anyway, was as one of the Bond girls in Thunderball.)

The egregious subplot of a love triangle is only one of the more ridiculous parts of this movie.  What happens when the crew lands on the asteroid to blow up the thing constitutes what makes up the bulk of this movie.  It seems there is some kind of green slime buried under the rock where they plant the explosives.  And one small loogie sized bit of it gets on one of the crewmen's clothes and is brought on board the space station.

The green slime stuff as the ability to regenerate itself at an alarming rate and eventually becomes a one-eyed tentacled creature that rampages over the space station.  And it's regenerative powers means that every time it is hit and a piece of it comes off, that piece regenerates into another creature.  (Which explains why the movie poster says "The Green Slime ARE coming" not is coming.)

 

GREEN SLIME!

 

The conflict between Rankin and Elliott escalates as each has ideas as to how the invader should be addressed.  And of course there is the ubiquitous scientist on board< Dr. Hans Halverson (Ted Gunther) who advocates keeping one alive so it can be studied.  Just think what it could mean to science and posterity to understand such a creature (that could multiply itself and cover the Earth in just a few days) ...how can we pass up that?

Eventually of course the slime creatures overwhelm the entire space station and the inevitable must happen.  "What's the inevitable?" you ask?

Why, of course, the conflict between Elliott and Rankin over whether the space station should just be destroyed so the creatures can't do any havoc on terra firma.  And he-man heroes that they are, only one can win that battle...

A final note: The Green Slime was a directorial effort by Kinji Fukasaku whose other efforts including being on of the directors of the Japanese sequences of Tora! Tora! Tora!, the classic American-Japanese extravaganza that depicted the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Reptilicus (1961):

Danish miners are drilling in Lapland for copper and discover something unique on the drill bit when it is pulled from the Earth.  Skin and blood!  They also discover a piece of a prehistoric reptile, a tail, which they naturally take to the local scientific institute.

The scientists decide that the best possible solution for their new find is to keep it frozen.Which they manage to do up until someone fails to keep an observation on the controls and the freezing unit fails.  And you know that's not good.

The tail begins rapidly regenerating until gradually the monster has regenerated itself into a complete prehistoric behemoth which the scientists have dubbed reptilicus.  And because it is all powerful (and it is needed to keep the plot going) it escapes.  

 

 

But before the action goes into full swing we are treated to a travelogue of modern day Denmark for some reason.  And briefly a musical number with a song called "Tivoli Nights" none of which has anything to do with the plot.

A lot of the action seems to be culled from clips of maneuvers culled from the archives of the Danish army as the try to get a line on Reptilicus.  But they are making a BIG mistake.  They keep trying to blow it up.  Until one of the scientists (a woman, who is apparently smarter than all the men put together) points out that if they blow it up it will scatter parts of Reptilicus all over the countryside, each with the potential of regenerating into another Reptilicus.

The dialogue and the acting are on par with some of the worst American made low budget flicks of the era.  It makes one wonder how any of these actors ever had a career beyond this.  But they did, albeit, as stated before, entirely in the Danish and west German cinema.

The script was written by Ib Melchior, who not only wrote the story that inspired one of my favorite films Death Race 2000, but was also the director of The Angry Red Planet and The Time Travelers, two films previously reviewed on this blog.

Reptilicus is pretty laughable.  I've read that he resembles a marionette from Howdy Doody, but my opinion is he looks kind of like a reject from Jim Henson's Muppets.  He spits green vomit which is dubbed acid slime by the characters although we never see it hit anything, and the movie never even shows the aftermath of what damage it has done, so we can only take the characters words for it that it does any kind of acid damage.  But it does knock over a few buildings.

 

It has wings, but we never see it fly.  One wonders why it evolved wings in the first place.  Maybe the producers intended to include a few sequences in which the creature battled the Danish Air Force but the Air Force declined to get itself involved in this schlock...

 

One can only thank God that the Danes only made one foray into this giant monster genre.  They were probably better at sticking with dramas like Babette's Feast.

Well folks, time to fire up the old Plymouth (which is still working even after the Covid panic).  Drive safely

Quiggy.