Change Your Image
mikemacarthur
Reviews
Mesa of Lost Women (1953)
Hard to stomach but you must see it
Movies that make Ed Wood look...well, less bad. Uncle Fester with a bad eye creates spider girls and girl spiders (the latter are really big.) Shoot a spider girl while she dances (a frightening dance that must be seen)in a bar and she regenerates whatever got wasted in a few minutes and walks out. The big spider is smart enough to rule the world claims Fester but apparently it's a "Rain Man" kind of smart. The special effects are not very special. The voice-over is awful, even for Talbot. (Lyle, not Larry) Yet you must see this film. Your life may depend on it. While Dolores Fuller was posing in the woods as some kind of spider girl, she was thinking up the lyrics to the Elvis Presley tune she penned "Rock-a-Hula Baby." I can tell. Netflix has the movie...no better price than renting.
Eegah (1962)
Brilliant. Simply brilliant.
It is hard to know where exactly to start here. I guess the important thing is that Arch Hall Sr. penned the script for "Corpse Grinders" a 1972 flick about guys making cat food out of corpses. I saw it at the Fairyland Drive-In in KCMO back then, and thought the inane soundtrack might have been done by Frank Zappa as a joke...then started to think the whole film was done by Zappa as a joke... Oh yeah, Eegah. Um...there are no redeeming qualities here. The poor sod who played "Jaws" over and over again in the crappy Roger Moore "Bond" films foreshadows his whole career in this abortion (tall guy makes face, tall guy is really tall and makes face, repeat). Tall yet untalented (seriously a career in basketball back in 1962 should have been possible for this guy even with no coordination. I've seen team lineups for that era) Richard Kiel is like Tor Johnson in Beast of Yucca Flats: not scary, not interesting, and not convincing. The opening credits appear to have been done by several different people, or at least in several different levels of intoxication ("I know! Let's have the lens out of focus for a long time and then let them read the tombstone/sign held by a mummy!") Rock songs in horror films are usually a mistake (the Giant Gila Monster comes to mind), but when a film is so bad that it is in itself a mistake...it's even worse. I'm not going to tee off on Hall Jr. here. He's got great hair. But the falsetto parts when he's singing poolside...simply cannot be described/tolerated. A caveman and teenagers and bad pop tones...I know it sounds like good clean cheese drive-in stuff but be warned: the film was originally titled "Eegah! The Name Written in Blood!" and if you watch this turkey, the blood you write in might be your own.
The Continental Twist (1961)
Twist all Night!
This flick is an absolute howl! Louis Prima's club scene is being muscled out by a mercenary TWISTING GANG. Yes. The gang is being paid to come to his shows and NOT TWIST. They're paid to sit at the tables and look bored, and are not allowed to buy drinks. What's driving this youth gang to such extremes? They want the money so they can buy matching "Twist Club" jackets. Seriously. You can see how the plot would naturally progress right into international art theft and a United Nations Twist Party at a wealthy socialite ball, with Prima supplying the live band. Having trouble making that leap? Here's what you need to know: Louis Prima is primarily a pop star. He used jazz, big band swing, rock and anything else he could get his paws on to provide entertainment and stay current with the trends in music. The twist craze was being jumped on by everybody at the time, and Prima was a natural. Highlights of this flick are actual live performances done by Prima and the band--lots of them. June Wilkinson as his romantic interest is hot, although she was never actually a Playboy playmate--she just appeared in the magazine several times. Google her images and you'll come across at least two huge reasons to see this film (wink). I love Sam Butera, but his nearly whiteface (yes he's white but you'll see what I mean) rendering of Chantilly Lace is perhaps the most painful musical interlude in film history. I really wish Louis had done a flick with the Bowery Boys in a haunted house setting, because this film suggests the potential of such a pairing. This flick will make you Twist all Night, one way or another. Me? I love this film.