Monday, April 18, 2016
TABONGA! AT THE MOVIES / The Fifties
Before I met Eegah!! in 1959, I saw 67 monster movies with my neighbors, dad and cousins from 1953-59. The thirteen movies I'm listing today were the ones that got to me the most or left a big impression in one way or another. Remember, I didn't see everything and these reflect only films I actually saw at the theater at the time...
VOODOO ISLAND was a pretty creepy movie, with all the killer plants and voodoo curses! And crap, it starred Dungeon Lord, Boris Karloff!
MONSTER ON THE CAMPUS was awesome, Universal had the biggest budgets and it showed. The giant dragonfly was a big bonus and the monster was truly terrifying, especially when he's wielding a sharp ax!
NOT OF THIS EARTH was one of the very best Corman productions, Paul Birch was a great villain, Beverly Garland I was in love with, Johnathan Haze was a wild character, cameo by Dick Miller and the unique Umbrella Monster was created by Paul Blaisdell... A winner!!
Wow, COLOSSUS OF NEW YORK was really something. It's one of those that you had to be there to see at the time, it was eerily haunting in all its black and white glory and weird music.
I remembered that THE FLAME BARRIER freaked me out pretty good, Blobs always occupied a special freak out spot in my overactive imagination!
I was 9 years old when I saw KRONOS, and, it blew my mind. For a sci-fi movie, it had it all. Besides the awesome robot, there were lots of other wild spacey things going on.
ENEMY FROM SPACE will always be my second favorite sci-fi movie from the fifties. I love this freaking creepy flick, Brian Donlevy IS Quatermass!! This card has been signed by the lovely Vera Day!
I like TARANTULA! the best of all the Universal fifties monster flicks. Man, at the time, it hit me between the eyes with a knuckle sandwich! The lab, the very convincing giant tarantula, the victims' gruesome makeup... The cherry on the top was Leo's last scene where his face was melting. That one was one of my top ten scares, it screwed with me for a long time afterwards!
CURSE OF THE DEMON was truly terrifying, like the night scene in the forest with those eerie sounds! When the Demon did appear, well, the goods definitely get delivered!
Man, did I love this flippin' over the top flick, THE BLACK SCORPION was action packed excitement in a stick of TNT! The big screen close ups of the scorpion's face were insane, since they turned the sound way up during those segments!
FORBIDDEN PLANET is my all time favorite fifties movies, that can never change. Holy cow, Robby, the incredible ID Monster, the super science, the fantastic crew, the saucer, Morbius, the sultry Anne Francis, the impossible electronic sounds, the scenery, and, on and on!..
My dad took me to see THE FLY when I was 10, I just was not ready to see the ultimate fifties makeup masterpiece, the twitching head of the monster!.. I thought I was gonna die!! The whole movie is fantastic, with Vincent Price and in colour.
Okay, THE BLOB takes 1st place in fifties scares for me, no shit, it messed with me the worst! Shown above is the sheet music for THE BLOB. I had the 45 single of this classic tune and played the crap out of it! Hope you enjoyed this little fun trip into the past... Tune in Wednesday when Eegah!! comes a knockin'..
IIRC, all of the Quatermass movies were retitled when they were shown in the US. Quatermass II became "Enemy From Space." The TV serials were popular in the UK, but the name was not familiar to American audiences.
ReplyDeleteSome critics were annoyed by the ending of Curse of the Demon. They thought that the monster should not have been shown, and that the ending should have been ambiguous. But the ten year-old in me thought it was cool.
I think the make-up design for Monster On the Campus may have also been used in Abbott & Costello Meet Jekyll & Hyde.
Clint Eastwood had a small part in Tarantula as one of the fighter pilots, and Raymond Bailey (the bank president on The Beverly Hillbillies) appeared briefly as a scientist. What got me was, at the end, the fire from the napalm is still burning and spreading, and looks like it would be as much a danger to the town as the monster was.
Forbidden Planet was a classic. Today, it feels like a Star Trek episode, but it was made a decade earlier. And it was a real science fiction story, not just a Western or a swashbuckler set in outer space.
I have to agree that the 1950s produced some of the best sci-fi movies ever made. The budgets may not have been that of Titanic or Dune, but they made films I love to watch to this day.
ReplyDeleteBTW - Where is "THEM !" ? a classic movie no matter when it was made with a cast of top rate actors.
Hi Lacey - I didn't see THEM! at the theater when it came out and is why it wasn't on the list, agreed though, a great movie!..
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