The Brain Eaters.

Review #2433: The Brain Eaters.

Cast: 

Ed Nelson (Dr. Paul Kettering), Alan Jay Factor (Glenn Cameron), Cornelius Keefe (Sen. Walter K. Powers), Joanna Lee (Alice Summers), Jody Fair (Elaine Cameron), David Hughes (Dr. Wyler), Robert Ball (Dan Walker), Phil Posner (the Sheriff), Orville Sherman (Mayor Cameron), and Leonard Nimoy (Professor Cole) Directed by Bruno VeSota (#1202 - Invasion of the Star Creatures)

Review: 

Okay, I wanted to pick a movie a bit out of left field that happened to have a catchy title. It isn't exactly a movie filled with noted names (save for one very brief appearance) or even a big director, but sometimes you get lucky. This was a production that had oversight by who else but Roger Corman, who left himself uncredited as executive producer, but not to worry for this American International Pictures movie, you've got a credit for producer and also lead star in Ed Nelson, who for whatever reason is billed as "Edwin Jackson". Two other key actors must've loved the credit game, they also have alternate names with "Alan Frost" (Alan Jay Factor) and "Jack Hill" (Cornelius Keefe). The movie was directed by Bruno VeSota, who actually had been involved in Chicago television in writing and directing since the late 1940s. He did a variety of acting parts (small or not) in the 1950s, most notably with Dementia [1955] (which may have had co-direction and writing from VeSota, as he later claimed), but he got to direct his first feature film with Female Jungle (1955), which had been distributed by AIP in its "American Releasing Corporation" days after they basically rescued it from being stuck in limbo. VeSota directed one further film with Invasion of the Star Creatures (1962). The movie was written by Gordon Urquhart, although the resulting script seemed a bit similar to the 1951 novel The Puppet Masters (which also dealt with slugs and mind control), as written by Robert A. Heinlein. He sued for plagiarism and got a settlement, although he did not want a screen credit in any shape or form.  

This was a movie that was the B-side of double features with Earth vs. the Spider, if you want to use that as a barometer for the quality. Of course, this is a movie that has a creature made of wind-up toys, fur, and pipe cleaner. For a movie that has a character at one point shoot a gun into a giant metal cone to go along with trying to use the telegraph (hey, at least they didn't try pigeons), it sure is one hell of a boring time. It lacks polish that seems particularly amusing given a runtime of a mere 60 minutes. It has a few tiny eerie moments, mostly in the sequence where the mayor is engaged in a tense standoff with some of the key characters because it actually feels like a movie is going to actually break out before one eventually sinks back into narration (worries over needing the plot to be clear to John Q. Public, 60 Year Old At Large or a trick to get over having poor sound quality - you be the judge) and a general malaise that seems to only move forward when it feels like doing so. You get the yammering from Keefe ("action!"), a middling cast*, the shambling around from doctors about doctor doctor things and the eventual rundown of what the beastly things plan to do. Well, I take that back, they aren't alien, they actually came from underground that want to make a utopia even with the whole putting toxins in the nervous system thing, (as explained by Nimoy and his voice, because he doesn't actually stand up for the one scene he is in). As a whole, it is quite an accomplishment to make Earth vs. the Spider look better on a double feature but it is almost as interesting to have a poster that exceeds the quality of the movie. If you really need to watch something from the old days that you haven't seen yet, you might get something out of it. Or not.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

*At least some of the cast saw better days. Joanna Lee changed course after appearing in four movies to become a television writer, even winning an Emmy Award for writing an episode of The Waltons. Of course, Nelson later became noted for his role on Peyton Place and taught acting in his later days. Keefe was in his last film after plenty of roles in silent films and such. And Nemoy, well....

Airport 1975.

Review #1675: Airport 1975.

Cast: 

Charlton Heston (Captain Alan Murdock), Karen Black (Chief-Stewardess Nancy Pryor), George Kennedy (Joe Patroni), Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (Captain Stacy), Gloria Swanson (Herself), Susan Clark (Helen Patroni), Helen Reddy (Sister Ruth), Linda Blair (Janice Abbott), Dana Andrews (Scott Freeman), Myrna Loy (Mrs. Devaney), Sid Caesar (Barney), Roy Thinnes (First Officer Urias), Ed Nelson (Maj. Alexander), Nancy Olson (Mrs. Abbott), Larry Storch (Glenn Purcell), Martha Scott (Sister Beatrice), Norman Fell (Bill), Jerry Stiller (Sam), and Conrad Janis (Arnie) Directed by Jack Smight.

Review: 

There are quite a few times that you see a sequel to a movie and wonder why there was a second one to begin with. Unfortunately, you know, and I know, the reason that there exists a sequel like Airport 1975 (1974): money. People really couldn't get enough of big stars to go with airplanes in trouble, complete with a title that I suppose was made to sound like it came from the future. It appears that the budget was reduced in the four years since the last film in 1970 (from ten to three million), but this one also managed to make over $100 million, and one can only wonder how rentals would go for this fellow turkey. To be fair, one probably can't blame Jack Smight for his direction here. He did his work in both television and film (starting with the former since its golden age in the 1950s), and this was the eleventh of seventeen films that he would direct from 1964 to 1989, with Harper (1966) generally being the one that stands out among his work. I'm sure you might remember Airplane! (1980) when it comes to its take on the disaster genre...and those little gags that might seem familiar to those who have seen both films, what with a kid that is awaiting a transplant as soon as they make an airplane trip (complete with a doctor calling beforehand to make sure they aren't startled), and a singing nun that plays to the kid. Now, technically Reddy was qualified to sing, because she was actually a singer (with one newspaper outlet describing her as the "Queen of '70s Pop", after all)...so keep that in mind in trying to figure out which one is a parody. That 1980 film also had Ethel Merman in a cameo appearance, while this feature has Gloria Swanson playing herself (if you really want to stretch this around into an oblong circle, Linda Harrison accompanies her...while using a second name as "Augusta Summerland"...yes). I am not playing you for a bit, because Airport 1975 actually features Dana Andrews in a brief appearance, and Andrews had starred in Zero Hour! (1957), which Arthur Hailey had adapted from his teleplay a few years prior while eventually writing the novel Airport...and Airplane! would lift lines from said movie. At least one will get to see the pair of Heston and Kennedy again, because they had co-starred in another disaster film with Earthquake (1974), which was also done by Universal Studios.

So yes, there are a few strange folks present here, whether that means a trio of odd drunks overshadowed by Myrna Loy playing a more eccentric drunk...or Swanson, who had apparently wrote all of her lines. Strangely enough, this may actually be better than the original film, mostly because of one thing: it manages to be so cheesy that it nearly defies reason. It is so self-serious at the weirdest times that one wonders how exactly this was the only film credit for screenplay man Don Ingalls, who specialized in television from Have Gun - Will Travel to Fantasy Island. It sometimes feel like a script that mutated from the bins of television hokum and engulfed any famous person they could find, who I hope managed to enjoy the monetary benefits of this sham spectacle. Heston is technically the star, in that he gets to ham the screen up from moment to moment while doing the bare minimum in charisma and minimal plane involvement. One wonders if he was worn out from the aforementioned film about the earthquake. Kennedy blusters through some shouting in a performance that is probably degraded from what one saw in the first film, although it can be said that in the earlier movie he was more of a helpful highlight (since if you remember, the airplane trouble was somewhere sidelined behind lots of gobbledygook about affairs and the airplane industry). Ah, but the real presence is Black, making her shift into commercial work after a string of noted supporting roles. While it isn't a great performance by any means, I'm sure I wouldn't fare much better at fumbling with the controls and not collapsing into panic with trying to fly a plane over mountains (the attempts at chemistry with Heston is a different story), although older fans might recognize that this isn't the first movie where a flight attendant is shown taking a plane to safety (Julie (1956) starred Doris Day in a noir, of all things). Zimbalist plays the unfortunate pilot that gets to spend half his time on a couch with his eyes closed to makeup, so there is that. Swanson, making her final film appearance before her death in 1983, certainly had to have a fine time here, since I imagine a role spent mostly in a chair talking about oneself would make anyone proud. It isn't exactly a parody of herself, but one can still keep their eyes open to wonder how this "interesting" pairing of famed star to alleged disaster movie came to be. Others have the energy of a broomstick when it comes to really sticking out, most notably with a bored-looking Andrews, or a bedridden Blair, or an oddly complacent Caesar to go with Storch (who might as well have been chosen out of a hat), and it is Loy who really seems to stand out best when it comes to pairing eccentricity to the level of cheese needed. At least there is some sort of inherent danger present here, since the chances of even one important character biting the dust is at 1% rather than the level done from the first film, although it hasn't meant the movie has increased its levels of thrill from before. One wonders exactly how the other two Airport movies turn out in raising (or keeping) the standards of disaster movie excitement, really. Airport 1975 (1974) isn't really an accomplishment in anything, but technically being better than its predecessor in being less boring has to account for something. If one desires a movie packed with ridicule and name actors, one might not go wrong here.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

A Bucket of Blood.

Review #1186: A Bucket of Blood.

Cast: 
Dick Miller (Walter Paisley), Barboura Morris (Carla), Antony Carbone (Leonard de Santis), Julian Burton (Maxwell H. Brock), Ed Nelson (Art Lacroix), John Brinkley (Will), John Herman Shaner (Oscar), Judy Bamber (Alice), Myrtle Vail (Mrs. Swickert), and Bert Convy (Lou Raby) Directed by Roger Corman (#368 - The Little Shop of Horrors, #684 - It Conquered the World, #852 - The Terror, #931 - Not of This Earth, #1007 - Attack of the Crab Monsters, #1039 - Five Guns West, #1042 - War of the Satellites, #1136 - Gas-s-s-s, and #1147 - X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes)

Review: 
Horror and comedy films are generally entertaining on their own, but mixing the two genres together can certainly invite the possibility of something really interesting, particularly if you have a good set of hands on and behind the camera. Roger Corman and an handy ensemble cast are sure up to the task. Unsurprisingly, the budget and time to shoot for this film was fairly low - $50,000 and five days (shooting under the working title of "The Living Dead"). The sets themselves were leftovers from another AIP film, Diary of a High School Bride (1959). Fittingly, the sets would be re-used for The Little Shop of Horrors the following year. Miller, although he was happy with the story and humor from the finished product, wasn't too happy with the production values, noting the mannequins used for the statues and the fact that they didn't put plaster on him (instead using grey makeup) for the last scene. Corman and screenwriter Charles B. Griffith spent a day drifting around beatnik coffeehouses, using observations of the scene along with ideas and reactions to make the basic story, which in some ways resemble Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933).

In any case, this is a pretty enjoyable little movie, shining fairly well with a good degree of black humor and occasional scares that prove efficient for a 66 minute run-time. Perhaps a longer film might've resulted in the characters being fleshed-out a bit more (or perhaps a bit more emphasis on horror), but the material involving the beatniks is pretty funny anyways, as one might expect from people with a bit of pseudo-intellectualism and offbeat nature. Miller does well making this hapless yet ambitious lead interesting to view the film through - after all, he is basically playing a serial killer (with a calling card, no less), but he manages to have the right kind of presence the film needs to go on. The other cast-mates don't have as much time, but they each do decently with their roles when needed, such Morris and her encouraging nature or Burton and his offbeat poetry. The movie has its limits with money and time, but it manages to carry itself with some dark charm through some magic with silly lines and a game cast that make for a good time. Like with other Roger Corman films, this is certainly one to advise for anyone with a curiosity towards some fun that makes for quite a delight.

Rest in peace to Dick Miller, who died yesterday. He was a noted character actor who appeared in several films over six decades of work - appearing in films such as The Terminator (1984) alongside over a dozen films for Roger Corman.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.