What was the last movie you saw?

Aftermath, set in 1945 after the war ended, the place looks very much like firebombed Dresden, but it's set in Hamberg. Superb film.

Pavarotti, documentary film by Ron Howard, also very good.
 
House of Strangers (1934) Edward G. Robinson as the father of 4 boys, now men; 3 work for him; the other is a lawyer. EGR is a banker, has 1 location, and lends money without collateral. He accepts verbal promises to repay; not only bad practice, but the banking regulators really do not like it. So, he is charged with whatever, & his lawyer son realizes he could go to prison. He wants to buy a juror, but is caught; he suspects one of his brothers, none of whom were satisfied with wages papa paid. So, Lawyer goes bye-bye for 7 years; papa constantly writing to him, demanding vendetta against faithless sons, etc. Now, after 7 years, the Lawyer (Richard Conte) comes home; the other three are expecting the worst.

I had a really nice review of this film in the works, but the forum burped and it was lost!


Sweet Smell of Success (1957) Noir Alley. Muller says this film bombed when 1st released; not the type of roles people wanted to see Burt Lancaster or Tony Curtis playing.

BL is J. J. Hunsecker, a Walter Winchell - type of gossip columnist who wants to break up his precious kid sister's relationship with Steve Dallas (not the guy in Bloom County, but Martin Milner; billed as 'Marty'). He wants Sidney Falco (TC), who is a struggling press agent, who sucks up to BL, hoping to advance his career, to do his dirty work.


Cole Younger, Gunfighter (1958 ) Stupid Wikipedia, no page for this film! James Best & his friend are on the run from Blue bellies, & by chance meet CY. JB is friendly toward CY, but the other guy wants to kill or capture him, not only for the $10K reward, but hoping that will make things right with the blue bellies.

I am not much for Westerns, but have a thing for JB. Fairly o.k. film, nothing really outstanding. I have seen much worse. Not as much fun as the Killer Shrews, though!
 
The Blood Beast Terror 1968 Brit. - Set in the early 20th century- we see a guy in the swamp, he finds a body, then a largely-unseen flying something attacks him. Cut to a Prof. lecturing about wasps and moths. Pete Cushing, an inspector, drops in and waits for him to finish. The doorman has large suspicious cuts on his head, what could it mean?
They discuss top student Fisher, who has been killed mysteriously but suddenly a girl screams, there's a huge spider on her arm, but it's a prank by some students. The woman faints, the Prof. slaps the guy responsible and chases him off. Now a sergeant appears outside with another victim found on the heath, still alive but not for long. The Doc has another survivor, Joe - "It was a 'orrible creature... the eyes sir, the wings.."
Are we looking at a giant killer moth? I have no idea, this is pretty good so far. I'm thinking our Prof. knows something. Oh yes, now we see a pet vulture... and then the Prof. going into a room where there's some screeching going on. A giant killer bird?
A naturalist arrives, bearing live specimens of moths from Africa, he gets on well with Prof's daughter. Now they are putting on a play, right in the house, about a Frankenstein-type doctor. More swamp action, then Cushing finds the Prof's secret room, lotta bones in there. More characters arrive, the Prof. has scarpered, it looks like a giant death's-head Moth is what is doing the killings... it needs blood. The Prof's crazed wife sets up the young girl as the next victim, but we know Cushing will figure it out in time. But they set her up using hypnotism, to give blood every day. Aha, a twist, it's not so obvious. Well, well. Clem is croaked in the swamp, Cushing is onto the truth now. There's more mayhem, and we end with the comments:"They'll never believe this at the Yard sir." -- 'They'll never believe it anywhere."
 
Beast from Haunted Cave 1959 - revisiting this after X years, probably reviewed in this thread somewhere already, but: we see two likely-looking suspects, going round taking pictures. We are at 'Happiness Lodge' ski resort.
Our bad guys are gonna blow the mine as a distraction while they rob the bank. Then they are off on a cross-country ski trip. But, at 20 min. our couple is in the gold mine when a mean looking monster appears, all we see is a giant insect leg. Natalie is killed by it, bad guy BF escapes. The safe gets blown, our cross-country expedition gets going, we see a huge insect mandible sticking out, in the freezing cold up on the mountain. We hear convincing monster noises in the woods, a bad guy goes and has a look, and it's Natalie, wrapped up in a cocoon and stuck to a tree. Bad guy is made crazy but doesn't tell anyone what he saw. Now they find weird tracks and our guy still won't tell them what he saw, the idiot.
Our token joker bad guy goes out to build a fire, he's probably done for. Ah, not till a bit later at night; we see him go out into the snow with a rifle, a semi-transparent monster appears, he shoots, a huge untransparent tentacle comes into shot and knocks him down. Later it shows up again, grabs the native guide local gal, bad guy uses a hatchet, then throws a shovel load of hot coals and escapes... but again all we see is tentacles, two this time, swatting them around.
Now bad gal Gypsy and the Cowboy local take off, whilst the robbers are trapped in the cabin by whatever is out there in the blizzard. Our goofy guy goes to the cave where he finds the two women cocooned, the monster steps out, we see it finally, pretty scary, and bad guy is grabbed and cocooned. Gypsy and Cowboy head for the cave to wait out the storm, the two remaining robbers follow them to shut them up. Meanwhile the monster is slurping blood out of Natalie and the others. Cowboy enters the cave, shoots the monster six times with a rifle, no apparent effect. Now he's shot it ten times, and Gypsy is throwing rocks, and now eleven times, and the monster turns away.
The bad guys show up, grab traitorous Gypsy. They enter the bug chamber - monster knocks down both bad guys, but they hit it at close range with a couple flare guns, it burns, screaming terribly as The End appears on screen. We must assume our two bad guys are deceased, but no idea what happened to the 3 cocooned people, as Cowboy and Gypsy wander off out of the cave.
What was that monster?... eh who cares I guess it was just some giant bug-thing with very long octo-arms that lives in a freezing cold cave up on the mountain. The explosion woke it up, right, that's the explanation, it was just some ancient giant thing, not worth mentioning except in the title, I guess. Still, pretty good if you haven't seen it, as such rubbish goes.
 
I saw that a year or two ago; not bad, but unintentionally funny. :giggle:


Johnny Eager (1941) Noir Alley; good coverage of details both before & after the film. Muller notes that this is an MGM attempt at Noir, and as such, it was not nearly as dark as those made by other studios.

An ex-con (Robert Taylor) is posing as a respectable cab driver, to satisfy his parole officer, all the while living as a wealthy crime lord-type. He wants to get the local govt. to change the laws regarding the dog track he is building, and by chance, starts a relationship with the District Attorney's daughter (Lana Turner). He fakes a fight with one of his subordinates, and tells her to use the gun. She shoots the attacker, and believes she had killed him, never realizing and in fact refusing to realize that it was just a 'gag.' Now, he gets his dog track opened, and does his best to dissuade her from loving him. After dumping her, she is agonizing over the thought that she had killed the man. The DA (Edward Arnold) calls for the guy, pleading that he do something about his daughter's grief, knowing nothing about the gag. The ex-con then actually begins to care about the girl, and that leads to his demise.

I had seen this a few times before, but decided that though I was somewhat familiar with it, the Noir Alley treatment made it worth watching again. Not very dark, but it does end with several killings.


Don't Lie (1942) A rather disappointing OUR GANG short film. At only about 15 minutes, I could not even bear to finish it. :poop: It involves 'monkeys' and I have a low opinion of apes, but I am sure that had nothing to do with my disappointment. It was just plain not funny.
 
oh was that not a great one? Can't remember reading it.... anyway, off to take in more B SF here, this one has a 'creature' instead of a
'beast' but we shall see.
 
Fury (2014) Exceedingly graphic, but exceptional WW2 drama about a US tank crew.

The Legand of Awesomest Maximus (2011) If you like very rude and crude humor, then you may enjoy this spoof of "sword and sandal" movies, like Troy, 300 and Gladiator. It was too much for me. I didn't like it. There were a few funny bits of comedy, but it's not my type of film.

Forbidden Planet (1956) One of my all time favorite Sci-Fi flicks. I could hang around with Dr Morbius and Robby all day. Just as long as I stay on the doctor's good side, and never upset him, or get on his nerves. On second thought, I don't think I may see another sunrise again.

"Yo, Robby. Get the grill going, And cook me a steak. Massage my feet first. Hey Morbius. Make a few more robots. I got ideas for my own house. Drop by anytime. Bring dessert."



@J Riff & @AE35Unit - you both would make a good comedy team.

@AE35Unit - Than you for saving me from reading THAT book. It would have been a waste of my time. Fortunately, I named myself after the original title of the 1979 ALIEN film.

I remember, quite a few years back, that I saw in a hobby store, a "glue, build & paint it yourself" model kit of a Xenomorph. It was labeled, STARBEAST.

@J Riff Ever see the 1970 movie, Beast of Blood? How about the 1988 film, The Beast of War?

I'm certain you've seen Night of the Blood Beast (1958) and Blood Beast from Outer Space (1965). I haven't seen the "outer space" one, but I like the title and the movie poster.
 
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AE35Unit said:
@Starbeast I didn't know that about Alien! I also didnt know you could do @Starbeast
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Who knew!? *)........ Beast of Blood.... is... not on youTube, so maybe not. Holy cow... 'The horror head transplant' I better look round for this one.
The Snow Creature 1954 b and w-- - this one starts with a quick travelogueish description of the Himalayas and an expedition there, to study unknown plant life. Doc, his photog asst. and 10 Sherpa porters head on up a rugged mountain, straight up to 10,000 ft. where they make camp and comb the area for interesting vegetation for a couple of days. Meanwhile, back down in the town, some kind of snow guy grabs the wife of one of our porters. People go up and inform the team that Yeti has stolen Subra's woman Tara. The Doc laughs it off, resentment builds. The Sherpas grab the ammunition, and everyone has to go look for the missing Tara, in very rough terrain. They try to radio in, but Subra shoots the set. "Subra only want to kill radio machine."
They hide the repairable radio in a case of Scotch.. but now they hear things outside - "It's just the altitude getting on your nerves." Then huge Yeti footprints are found, they follow them. The Sherpas talk Himalayan, no idea what they are on about, but they go up and up, make camp, and a Sherpa is killed, we see the Yeti guy, he seems to have some kind of winter headgear on but maybe not... looks pretty normal. Yeti starts an avalanche, but they dodge it. They shelter in a cave, then they find Tara's necklace and some animal bones. Yeti appears, he starts a cave-in, knocks himself out, the Doc grabs the guns back and they carry the stunned Yeti back out of the cave. Now they start down at gunpoint, what a couple jerks, leaving Tara behind somewhere. While they sleep, the Yeti awakes, but they swat it with a rifle and inject it with a hypo.
A week later they are down in the town, Doc heads for Bombay, a big fridge is coming to ship the Yeti in. They land in California, and Yeti is inside what looks like a phonebooth, out on the runway, shuffling back in forth in there but we still haven't seen what he looks like. But is he human? Immigration officers hold up procedings to find out if he has a 'calculating brain.' Of course Yeti breaks free, mangles a couple people and escapes. Some cops clear the streets and send a public service announcement -- 'A dangerous killer beast is at large." and wait, Yeti is loose in the city. Ah gee, he is travelling in the storm drains. Now very dull footage of them searching the sewers... they catch Yeti in a net, they shoot him. We don't even get to see Yeti clearly, nobody cares, we don't know what ever happened to Tara. The Doc and the cops trade a bit of inane dialogue, it ends. Don't waste your time on this one.
 
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Which one of those do you resemble most?
Hey, a version of Beast of Blood is comin' in, slowly, but good quality.
Wonder how many flicks have 'beast' in the title, as compared to say, creature or monster.
 
MIB: International [2019]
It was very competent... I've come to consider Chris Hemsworth a great actor - at playing Thor. Whatever his character was called in MIB:I he was playing Thor... there was even a hammer joke, in case we didn't know he was Thor in other films...
On the other hand, at the same time I got this film I picked up a Dirty Harry box set... I have higher hopes for that at least in the early films.
 
probably more rehash, but: Zombies of Mora Tau 1957 B and W - young Jan is returning to her childhood home and whoops her driver runs straight over some weedy-looking guy in the road, and keeps going. At the homestead, Granny tries to tell her, 'you didn't learn such things in school', but she's upset - 'but it was a man, I saw him." Next, a crew of crooks on a boat are coming ashore to rob some diamonds. One of them goes overboard and is pulled back up with his neck broken. A dark figure is shot twice with no effect.
Grannie shows the crooks the graves of previous groups who came to the island looking for the diamonds - 1906 British, 1914 German, 1923 British, 1928 Portugese, 1938 American. These diamonds must he hard to get at, but even having never seen this, I'm guessing the zombies protect them. Then, Granny shows them grave plots - for themselves. The crooks are flustered but aren't afeared of any voodoo so they ain't leaving even after gun moll Mona, wife of our gang leader - George Harrison - falls into a grave and screams about wanting to leave. We learn that the jewels are in a sunken boat. Some Easter Island artifacts are looked at, and the 'walking dead' are mentioned, a few times in this movie. Mercy me - Granny's husband is still around as a zombie, 60 years later, she's seen him. She came back here years ago, to help him return to dust. Suddenly a zombie walks into the room where the girls are, they scream, the captain runs in and starts punching the zombie, biff, whack, kersmack, but absolutely no effect and it hurls him around until Granny walks in with a torch and backs it slowly out the door. Shortly, Jan is grabbed on the roadside and carried away by the zombie they had run over earlier. Good guy diver crook tries to save her, he is swatted down but follows her screaming, to zombie headquarters. Ten zombies, wearing nice, clean, better-fitting clothes than you might see on the street today, are shuffling about, a couple of flares make them retreat and Jan and our diver hotfoot it out of there.
Diver goes down to the sunken boat, but a zombie is there waiting, the air cable is snapped but they manage to pull him back up. Gun moll Mona disappears, they head to the graveyard to find her. In a mausoleum, the zombies arise, but flares hold them back, they drag Mona out but she's cold, says nothing, and stares mindlessly so hey we better put her to bed. Granny points out that she's dead, not breathing but George will have none of that crazy talk. Mona gets up a bit later and of course there is a large switchblade handy, right next to the bed, with which she kills one crew member. They bounce a heavy metal object or two off her head but she's invincible until Granny comes in and they manage to control her using a few candles. They put her back to bed and fill the room with candles.
They build a big fire to keep the zombies in the mausoleum, and dive down with welding torches for the loot. All ten zombies appear down there, but the men get the swag, and are pulled up with zombies hanging off them. The zombies board the ship, but goodguy diver takes off in a launch with the diamonds, the walking dead all follow him. Back at the house, he opens the special trick box of treasure, which is older than the pyramids, and the diamonds spill all over Granny and on the floor. George bursts in, grabs the box and leaves, but the diamonds are not in the box. He and tranced-out Mona go to the launch, but she picks up the box and brains him with it, he's deceased, Mona shambles off with the box.
Diver guy has the diamonds and hey, maybe the zombies only wanted the special box. Granny informs him otherwise. There's a dramatic conclusion on the boat, and we get to see Granny's hubby disappear, just his uniform is standing there empty, it falls, Granny monologues, 'at long last! at long last', the credits roll. From this movie we learn that clothing can also zombify, and that zombies can teleport from their mausoleum to deep underwater. So not a complete waste of time.
 
@J Riff The 1970 Beast of Blood film is a sequel to Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1968).

These movies are part of the "Blood Island" series. The other two are............

Brides of Blood (1968) Horrifying mutations come out at night. Sacrifices are made to the most dangerous of them.

Terror is a Man (1959) Inspired by H.G. Wells, The Island of Dr Moreau
 
Curse of the Faceless Man (1958)

Science types unearth a stone-encrusted guy from the ruins of Pompeii. Pretty darn quickly, he kills the truck driver who is hauling him off to a museum. The Faceless Man goes back and forth from walking around to being completely lifeless. Once again pretty quickly -- this film doesn't waste much time, being only a little over an hour long -- the science guys realize what's going on. Meanwhile, the girlfriend of the nominal hero has dreams about the Faceless Man. Yes, she's the modern version of his love from the volcano days. What follows is pretty much standard Mummy movie stuff. Negative points for a completely useless narrator, who only tells us obvious things, and a bombastic soundtrack. Positive points for a decent monster costume and fairly professional, if low-budget, production. Worth a look for fans of old-fashioned Creature Features.
 
Half Human (1958)

American butchering of a Japanese film from 1955 about an "abominable snowman" type of creature. John Carradine and some other folks talk about what happened in Japan, leading to segments of the original movie. By all reports, the Japanese version was severely edited and the story greatly changed. I'll only discuss what I saw in the American version. An ape-man is encountered in a snowy, mountainous area of Japan. A group of "natives" worship it. Folks who want to capture it for display wind up killing the creature's young child. Cut to new footage of Carradine and others looking at the dead creature. This leads to the ape-man capturing a "native woman", and the inevitable, tragic ending. It's impossible to judge the Japanese version from what's left of it, but the new footage is definitely cheap and lifeless.
 
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