What was the last movie you saw?

Monster From the Ocean Floor (1954)

Somehow, despite my hunger for cheap sci-fi/monster movies of the time period, I have just now managed to watch this example, the very first film produced (but not directed) by Roger Corman.

American commercial artist taking it easy on the Pacific coast of Mexico meets cute with Science Guy when she bumps into him while swimming. Actually, she bumps into his nifty little one-man foot-peddled submarine, the coolest thing in the movie. Eventually, we find out that there's a monster dissolving a guy right out of his diving suit and a dog right out of its chain and collar. The very briefly seen critter is a one-eyed, tentacled thing. The film is shamelessly padded with people talking, diving, etc. There's even a scene where Science Guy serenades Artist Girl by playing the guitar and singing "My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose." Although the monster is said to be a result of underwater A-bomb tests, there's also local legends of a creature to which human sacrifices have to be made over the centuries. This leads to a subplot where some guy is sent to sacrifice Artist Girl, but backs out of it because he's a decent sort. Artist Girl is the real protagonist of this thing, suspecting that something bad is going on long before Science Guy has all the evidence shoved in his face. There's nice local scenery and the actors treat everything with total sincerity, so it's not the worst low-budget monster movie ever made.
 
As the Earth Turns (filmed 1937/1938; music added and film remastered 2018)

Silent science fiction film made by a twenty-year-old amateur, later a professional. Set in the "near future," it predicts war raging in Europe. (Not a hard thing to do in 1937/1938.) Radio messages from somebody called PAX warn the world to give up war or have the planet destroyed. The anonymous Mad Scientist proves his power by causing the rotation of the Earth to slow down enough to make the day five minutes longer. Earthquakes, snow in July, and the flooding of North Africa by the Mediterranean Sea follow. Our heroine is the inevitable Spunky Girl Reporter, who gets kidnapped by PAX when she learns too much. Her boyfriend and his scientist sidekick come to the rescue.

Only forty-five minutes long, it definitely looks like the work of a talented amateur. He plays PAX himself, with white stuff in his hair and a scar added to his youthful face. There are a lot of miniatures that never look real, but are pretty nifty anyway. Lots of stock footage and location filming. An interesting artifact.

(Some reviewers suggest this is a modern hoax, and not a relic from the Thirties, but I see no reason to believe this.)
 
Escape From Galaxy 3 (Giochi erotici nella terza galassia, "Erotic games in the third galaxy," 1981)

Just another cheap Italian rip-off of Star Wars? Well, yes, at least at the start. The "King of the Night" is our bad guy. I really hope this title wasn't selected because he's the only black actor in the film. His costume may be the goofiest in a movie full of outrageous threads. It's the kind of thing Liberace would have rejected as too extreme. He destroys the planet and the space station of the good guys. Our heroine, the outrageously named Princess Belle Star, and our nominal hero flee the destruction. So far, it's just an abysmally inept space opera, with special effects stolen from the deliriously entertaining Star Crash. Believe me, this thing makes Star Crash look like 2001. It's sometimes been released as Star Crash II, but it's not a sequel in any sense.

A word on Belle Star's costume. It's an electric blue leotard, but with one leg replaced with transparent material covered with glitter, so her right leg is exposed, as well as her right buttock. The left side of the top of the leotard is also replaced with the same stuff, which would reveal her left breast, were it not for the fact that she's wearing a starfish over it.

Anyway, these two wind up on a planet unlike anything they've seen before. Much later, the bad guy will tell us this is Earth, long after a war destroyed civilization. The locals look like extras for a sword-and-sandal movie. At first they greet the new arrivals by throwing rocks at them, and later capturing them with the intent of killing them. Once the nominal hero saves a little kid from falling off a cliff by floating up to catch him (!) they're welcomed as heroes.

Although they seem 100% human, the pair is completely unfamiliar with things like water and food. They also learn about kissing and sex. Yes, our childish space opera, suitable only for the most easily entertained preteens, has suddenly turned into soft porn, complete with Belle Star shedding her clothing and implied group couplings. Hence the original Italian title. There's also dancing to disco music (!) and a lot of other stuff to waste time.

The bad guy shows up near the end. Our heroes pretend to surrender to him, journeying to his spaceship in their own vessel. passing the time by having sex while a really sappy love song plays on the soundtrack. During the last few minutes of the movie, the good guy uses his new ability to shoot ray out of his eyes, acquired because he's learned about sex (!) to defeat the bad guys. Our lovers return to Earth, although they have to pass through three galaxies (!) to get there.

Despite the insanity noted above, it's pretty boring for much of the running time.
 
Legend of Horror (1972)

Takes an adaptation of Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" from an Argentinian anthology film and mixes it with new American footage. You'd expect that to be a real mess, but the result isn't terrible. Young guy gets sent to prison. His cellmate is an old guy who obviously lost most of his marbles long ago. He's also got a pet rat called Tommy. We get the first part of the Argentinian stuff when the old guy tells his story in flashback. Before the end of this dubbed footage, the two prisoners escape. There are a few scenes in which the old guy stabs a guard, filmed in stop motion animation (called "magicmation" in the opening credits, although the effect only lasts a second or so each time) that look really weird. Then we have the guy flash back to the end of the Poe story. The last few seconds of the film change from black-and-white to color, just to show a tombstone. Not a great film by any means, but not anywhere near as bad as you'd expect from this kind of Frankensteining. Good black-and-white cinematography in both parts.
 
Last night we watched the 2008 remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. Now I know the 1951 film had clunky special effects and the sexual stereotypes usual for the day - but it did at least have strong characters, a clear moral message and a clear ending. IMO the remake has none of these things, and is further muddied by a plethora of special effects and chaotic military flapping about. It seems the writer/drector abandoned drama and character development in favour of a sequence of panicked action scenes. I had trouble believing (!) that a mother's protectiveness towards her son could be indicative of a saving compassion in humanity. For me both the beginning and the ending of the film were very unclear. I thought Keanu Reeves managed impassivity very well, though I also thought the alien Klaatu would probably have chosen the appearance of an older, wiser human being.
 
Victoria Silverwolf said:
Monster From the Ocean Floor (1954)

Somehow, despite my hunger for cheap sci-fi/monster movies of the time period, I have just now managed to watch this example, the very first film produced (but not directed) by Roger Corman.

American commercial artist taking it easy on the Pacific coast of Mexico meets cute with Science Guy when she bumps into him while swimming. Actually, she bumps into his nifty little one-man foot-peddled submarine, the coolest thing in the movie. Eventually, we find out that there's a monster dissolving a guy right out of his diving suit and a dog right out of its chain and collar. The very briefly seen critter is a one-eyed, tentacled thing. The film is shamelessly padded with people talking, diving, etc. There's even a scene where Science Guy serenades Artist Girl by playing the guitar and singing "My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose." Although the monster is said to be a result of underwater A-bomb tests, there's also local legends of a creature to which human sacrifices have to be made over the centuries. This leads to a subplot where some guy is sent to sacrifice Artist Girl, but backs out of it because he's a decent sort. Artist Girl is the real protagonist of this thing, suspecting that something bad is going on long before Science Guy has all the evidence shoved in his face. There's nice local scenery and the actors treat everything with total sincerity, so it's not the worst low-budget monster movie ever made.
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This actually sounds like a hoot - something we would have rented and shared a few pizzas over, in my graduate student days. :giggle:
 
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THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946) This is one WWII film I did not want to watch; but, somehow did anyway. So, there are these 3 veterans, 2 portrayed by big-name actors, & one who actually was in the war, & lost both hands in the process. Well, they meet & become acquainted on a military transport plane going from an Army Air force base to a small Midwestern town. Two of them had inversions during the war; that is, going for prominent jobs to lower ones, or vise-versa. One, Technical Sergeant Al Stephenson (Fredric March) had a white-collar job in a bank, the other, Captain Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) was a soda-jerk in a drug store. The third guy, Petty Officer 2nd Class Homer Parrish (Harold Russell), I do not recall his position in life, but having lost both hands, he must adjust to the changes. His girlfriend, will she still want to marry him, or not? That, as well as the difficulties of going through life without hands. I can tell you, because I was in a homeroom for crippled kids, & there was one boy who had neither elbows nor knees, just stubs. He had those hooks for hands, and such, and the difficulty using them for 'normal' things, such as writing, eating, etc.

The one scene that stuck in my mind was when Derry went to a field covered with partially disassembled aircraft. There were rows upon rows of engines, fuselages, etc.
BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, THE, 23955.jpg


I recall a radio talk show guy talking about the military's overwhelming desire to bring the boys home, and just shoving equipment off aircraft carriers into the sea. Then, just a few years later, needing to build new ones, for the Korean War.

Anyway, this film was intense, though in a much different way, than THE LONGEST DAY, or other such war movies. For these guys, the war would not end.
 
Jeffbert said:
& now, for something completely different:

THE RED BALLOON (1956) As I recall, I 1st saw this in school; this & THE POINT. I get the point of THE POINT, but I do not understand what was the point of THE RED BALLOON. It apparently won various awards & such, & while I do find it interesting (but not fascinating), I don't get it. After reading the wiki page, o.k., that simply did not occur to me. :confused:
View attachment 92460
That kid will die, if he loses his grip on those strings!

So, this little boy finds a balloon whose string is entangled on a lamppost. He frees it, and having found a new toy, soon realizes it is alive, & obeys him. Cute. The older boys want to pop it, & when they do, all the other balloons in town forsake their owners, & flock to this boy.
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Ive seen it two or three times , I don't get this film either nor do I understand it popularly and acclaim..:)

The animated tv show The Critic had Jay Sherman reviews a Steven Seagal film Red Balloon The Revenge. It's a sequel. :D
 
RRR - Tollywood blockbuster action movie that is as wild and over the top as it could be. The mixture of (ahem) mannered acting, high octane action and toe-tapping bollywood music is tied together with a lot of heart, some ludicrous vfx and moustache twirling villains in the shape of the English. It's ludicrous, funny, heart-warming and very silly. Highly recommended.

 
Jeffbert said:
THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946) This is one WWII film I did not want to watch; but, somehow did anyway. So, there are these 3 veterans, 2 portrayed by big-name actors, & one who actually was in the war, & lost both hands in the process. Well, they meet & become acquainted on a military transport plane going from an Army Air force base to a small Midwestern town. Two of them had inversions during the war; that is, going for prominent jobs to lower ones, or vise-versa. One, Technical Sergeant Al Stephenson (Fredric March) had a white-collar job in a bank, the other, Captain Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) was a soda-jerk in a drug store. The third guy, Petty Officer 2nd Class Homer Parrish (Harold Russell), I do not recall his position in life, but having lost both hands, he must adjust to the changes. His girlfriend, will she still want to marry him, or not? That, as well as the difficulties of going through life without hands. I can tell you, because I was in a homeroom for crippled kids, & there was one boy who had neither elbows nor knees, just stubs. He had those hooks for hands, and such, and the difficulty using them for 'normal' things, such as writing, eating, etc.

The one scene that stuck in my mind was when Derry went to a field covered with partially disassembled aircraft. There were rows upon rows of engines, fuselages, etc.
View attachment 92832

I recall a radio talk show guy talking about the military's overwhelming desire to bring the boys home, and just shoving equipment off aircraft carriers into the sea. Then, just a few years later, needing to build new ones, for the Korean War.

Anyway, this film was intense, though in a much different way, than THE LONGEST DAY, or other such war movies. For these guys, the war would not end.
Click to expand...
I enjoyed this film, seen some years ago. Found it more authentic and more compelling for dealing with the aftemath, rather than with medals and glory. I really liked the way these three guys, who otherwise would have nothing in common, have a real bond and support for each other that transcends the different civilian lives they spring from.
 
Conspirators of Pleasure - strange very arty (avowedly so) film about several people with oddly overlapping lives living out their masturbatory sexual fantasies. I don't think any of the characters actually deliberately touch another character during the course of the film. One of the chapters is called 'The postwoman performs her pleasure ritual'. It involved two rubber tubes shoved in her nostrils and an enamelled bowl full of the little balls of bread she had been surreptitiously rolling on her rounds. The little balls of bread are then given to the television newsreader who feeds them to her carp which she keeps under her desk in the TV studio and which suck on her toes as she, in turn, is watched by the electronics expert/newspaper shop owner who has built a multi-armed robot that caresses him as he watches her read the news. At the start of the film he's the one who sold the girly magazines to the man who engages in some really weird chicken voodoo wardrobe related long distance sadomasochistic stuff that eventually gets investigated by the police inspector who gets his jollies from rolling pins covered in fur with nails driven into them. He's married to the newsreader...

It's Czech.
 
The Bubble (1966)

Arch Oboler of Lights Out fame wrote, directed, and produced this oddity. A man and his extremely pregnant wife are being flown in some guy's little plane from somewhere to somewhere, because she's going to have the baby like right now. Despite a storm that blacks out everything, they manage to land at what they think is a runway, but is actually a road lit by streetlamps. Present is a taxicab, which is darn convenient, but the driver just keeps saying "Taxi, Mister?" over and over like a broken record. Somehow they get to a hospital and the baby is delivered safely, although the local doctor doesn't speak at all.

It seems that the whole town is a chaos of structures from different times and places, and the inhabitants are robot-like people who just keep repeating the same actions. At an Old West saloon, the bartender keeps polishing the same glass, and keeps saying "What'll it be, gents?" The saloon's only dance hall girl does a can-can by herself, without music. The pilot takes Zombie Dance Hall Girl with him, I suppose because she's pretty, but she doesn't last long.

It turns out the place is encased in a transparent force field or some such. The rest of the movie deals with out hapless trio's (quartet, with the baby) efforts to figure out what's going on and how to escape. Weird stuff happens. The pilot goes into a thing that looks like a big boulder, sits in a strange chair, and has visions of rubber masks flying at him. As a matter of fact, lots of stuff flies at the audience, because this thing was originally shown in 3-D.

It's like an extended Twilight Zone episode. Obviously filmed with a bunch of sets and props taken from the back lot of a movie studio, it looks like it had a minimal budget. Although there's speculation, we never really get an explanation for the situation, and the ending is anticlimactic. Bombastic music doesn't help, but it's interesting.
 
The Beast With a Million Eyes (1955)

Early Roger Corman production has an interesting idea executed very badly. Over a poor representation of Earth in space, we hear the voice of an alien invader spoil the whole movie. It explains how it's going to take over the minds of animals, then of the weaker humans. Cut to a desert farm, where our second narrator tells us how he's losing money. His very unhappy wife admits that sometimes she almost hates her own teenage daughter. Adding to this dysfunctional family is a mute, brain-damaged fellow known only as Him. An irritating humming noise, which we'll hear way too often, shatters a bunch of kitchenware in the farmhouse. Next come attacks by the family dog, flocks of birds, and a cow. Eventually Him gets possessed by the alien and drags the daughter off to its spaceship (which looks like a big coffee pot.) Things look bleak until Mom and Pop realize that the power of love can drive off the invader.

A very cheap movie that looks very cheap. The animal attacks are not convincing at all. In particular, the family dog just looks like a friendly pooch when it's supposedly so dangerous it has to be shot. Not a good movie.
 
WITHOUT WARNING 1980 -- This is such a good drive-in movie. I saw it at the drive-in when it came out. Kevin Peter Hall played the alien and was the alien in Predator. I have to assume it wasn't a coincidence. The original alien design for the 1987 film was rejected and my guess is someone who had seen this film said why not do an alien like that one. This alien is tougher than the predator because it can get shot and doesn't get even flinch but the predator freaked out when it was grazed in the leg.
The lead is good--Tarah Nutter---not seen her in anything else. The cinematography was by Dean Cundey who went on to do the Thing etc.
I am surprised a sequel wasn't made but I guess one of these days a remake will happen--unfortunately. It should be better known--it came out during the slasher era but it's more like a traditional alien invader monster movie.
 
I haven't seen Predator or its sequels, but the premise, unless I am mistaken, makes it sound like something of a remake of Without Warning.

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A Witch Without a Broom (Una bruja sin escoba, 1968)

Spanish fantasy comedy. Jeffrey Hunter is a professor of history teaching at a university in Madrid. He sees a beautiful blonde sitting in the front row of the lecture hall, but nobody else can see her. She's a witch from the 15th century who's in love with him. Trying to get together with him, she uses her father's time travel amulet, but not very well. What follows is a series of misadventures in the 16th century, the present (the swinging sixties, at a discothèque), the Stone Age, ancient Rome, and the far-off future world of 2019. The latter segment brings Hunter together with the only seven survivors of 1999's World War Boom-Boom [sic], seven beautiful women who plan to repopulate the world with his help. Actually, most of the segments feature Hunter pursued by amorous women; it's sort of a G-rated sex comedy. Not a lot of big laughs, but worth a few smiles. Best described as "cute."
 
Speaking of slasher era ...

Sorority House Massacre (1986; dir. Carol Frank [also the writer]; starring Angela O'Neill, Wendy Martel, Pamela Ross and a few red-shirt boys)

The problem with '80s slashers is that, no matter how intelligent or witty the first reel or two, by the third reel they revert to slashers.

A few things kept me watching: First, a mostly successful attempt to indicate a dream state, a sense of disassociation for the main character as she enters the sorority house, inter-cut with scenes of a patient in a psychiatric hospital going wild. (These scenes also suggest a low budget.) Second, our heroine, again seeming dreamy, a bit dazed, stares at herself in a shared, steamy bathroom mirror, when the young woman in the shower steps out naked, glances at her, grabs a towel and wraps it around herself and exits stage right. No intrusion of camera into shower, no preening for the camera, just out of shower and out of scene. There's a later scene where three sorority sisters try on the clothes of an absent, wealthy sorority sister that again isn't played to work up the male audience. (It does make me wonder, did women in a sorority ever really do this sort of thing, or is our collective imaginations tainted by overworked male libidos? Probably the answer is yes to both.) Fourth, all of these young women look plausible; none look like Playboy models or porn stars; they even look about the right age to be juniors or seniors in college. Lastly, early on short scenes show the main characters in their classes, listening to stuff that obliquely applied to the plot, and at least one of which was amusing enough to make me grin.

All of this works against the promotional photo with the blonde in negligee being ogled through Venetian blinds.

But then, the third reel.

The movie steals shamelessly from Halloween, including musical cues, shots of the slasher stalking, a similar locale and so on, though they didn't incorporate a Dr. Loomis, exactly.

If you're in a certain mood around Halloween, this would make an interesting double bill with another female written/directed movie, The Slumber Party Massacre, which at times is more openly satirical. But checking IMDB, I found that Frank was the assistant to the director on that one. I wish she'd leaned into it even more, but early on this was at least interesting.
 
KING RICHARD AND THE CRUSADERS (1954) The collection of European armies of various nations gathered under King Richard (George Sanders)'s banner is an uneasy one. They have all come to liberate THE HOLY LAND from the infidels. Some of the lords of other nations think Richard ought to be removed from command, & of course replaced by none other than themselves. Treachery is afoot! One such lord has his archer shoot KR with a Saracen-style arrow, with, of course, a poisoned tip. Of all things, Emir Ilderim (Rex Harrison) who is using an assumed name, comes along, & speeds KR's recovery. Rather unlikely, & while I must admit my ignorance about the crusades, :unsure: it seems weird.

But, most importantly, I enjoyed this film. Very colorful!
 
The Watcher in the Woods - which has been on my 'must get round to see' list for a while as one of those 'Interestingly Dark' movies that Disney made in the early 80s: Dragonslayer, Return to Oz, Something Wicked This Way Comes... And it's not bad. Some of the acting is a little to earnest and Disneyish but the atmosphere and art direction is terrific and the camera work is astonishingly good.
 
SEVEN SEAS TO CALAIS 1962 - Rod Taylor as Sir Francis Drake on adventures to discover gold and potatoes. Kind of cheap but dramatically good in an early 60s Italian sort of way.
 
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