THE TREE IN A TEST TUBE - "Pete Smith - Interlocutor" (1942)

 

Now here's a right Weird Wednesday item that everybody should see at least once. It's called "The Tree In A Test Tube," and was an American made propaganda film promoting the appreciation of wood in 1942. The amazing Pete Smith is the "Interlocutor" which is a three dollar word that basically means anybody having a conversation. Other completely useless words for the same thing are conversationalist, dialogist, middleman, and in this case interviewer or narrator.

 

The first thing that throws you off is that this short piece of film is in colour. 99% of the work of Laurel and Hardy is in black and white.

Pete Smith starts asking the boys if they know how useful wood is. To me it seems like an odd subject to have to sell the general populace on, but then again, these days we have to have billboards telling guys to be good Fathers, because they can't figure that out on their own!

 

But instead of talking about how good wood is in general, like construction, Pete goes into this whole esoteric diatribe about plastic objects like glasses frames that are made of 60% wood flour.

 Pete Smith Produced 150 short films from the 1930's until 1955 called the "Pete Smith Specialities." What you're seeing here is a shot from his 1941 short called "Murder In 3-D," that included a witch, various monsters, and as seen here, a Frankenstein monster. 

If you'd like a really good dose of what Mr. Smith was doing, and what a great sense of humor he had, then proceed immediately to YouTube and watch this ten minute short from 1944 called

"Groovie Movie."

Trust me, if you like swingin' music and amazing dancing you won't regret it!

The sweat bad in Stan's hat is imitation leather made of plastic.

Stan hands Ollie his pipe, and the bowl is made of wood, and the stem is made of plastic.

Matches and the cover on the matches are both made of wood pulp.

Even when he doesn't have them on, there's wood in Stan's rayon shorts!

The Ski Patrol would be lost without some good wood!

Hopefully, when the war is over, wood will provide a lot of jobs for these heroes when they come home.

Interestingly enough, it's stated on IMDB that Laurel and Hardy's parts for this little film were shot eight days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Not quite The End, here are a couple more of Pete's shorts for your enjoyment!

From 1935, "Donkey Baseball."

From 1944, "Movie Pests."

WHITE ZOMBIE In Color - 1932

Allied Artists just colorized a number of old horror movies available on Prime. Besides this one they also did THE SCREAMING SKULL, THE MANSTER, MONSTROSITY, THE BAT and others. I'll be posting these as we go along. Of course this is a redo of our original black and white White Zombie version which we have already posted.

It stars Bela as 'Murder' Legendre, zombie master. Other stars are Madge Bellamy, Joseph Cawthorn, Robert Fraser, John Harron and Brandon Hurst. The story is about a rich young man who seeks the help of a white witch doctor to lure the woman he loves from her fiancé, but she ends up as a zombie slave instead.

Madeline Short and Neil Parker are in Haiti to have their wedding at Charles Beaumont's plantation there.

After getting through a night of the dead ceremony in the middle of the road, Madeline and Neil are approached by a sinister character who ends up snatching Madeline's scarf from her.

At Charles Beaumont's home, Madeline and Neil have arrived, and a friend, Dr. Bruner, is there to greet the young couple, whose wedding is set for the next evening.

But something is screwy, Charles has set up a meeting with the witch doctor, 'Murder' Legendre that same night. When Charles gets there, he sees zombies turning a huge stone grinding sugar cane as Beaumont watches with disbelief as to what he's seeing.

He's instructed by a zombie to follow him...

Beaumont explains his problem.. He's madly in love with Madeline and wants Legendre to interfere with the wedding tomorrow, so that he can hide her for a month and persuade her to change her mind about Neil.

The only thing that Legendre gives him is this vial and tells him that just a drop of the liquid in a drink or a drop on a rose will put her in a trance and that they can bring her out it later.

And of course, Charles is desperate and puts a drop on a rose before the wedding. Madeline thinks he's just a friend after she met him earlier during a vacation.

As Neil and Charles stand at the door of the crypt, Madeline is put to rest.

I mean, like, Neil is nearly insane with grief and just stays drunk all the time.

Lagendre then has his zombies bring Madeline to his place in her casket.

Neil goes to Dr. Bruner's place for help, and the doctor tells him that his wife may not be dead, she has most likely been put in a zombie state by Legendre.

Beaumont is staying at Lagendre's place and has been trying to get Madeline to respond to him, but to no avail. Charles is confused and frustrated.

When Legendre pours Charles a drink and toasts to the success of their deception, well, Charles has sipped down some zombie juice, poor sap.

Dr. Bruner has been taking care of Neil, who's resting near this location, that's Legendre's castle looming over the Haitian shoreline.

Now the evil double-double crosser has Beaumont as his first 'thinking' zombie, which was probably a huge oversight on his part.

Neil has wandered in and collapsed upstairs. Legendre orders Madeline to go upstairs and stab Neil with a big old knife!!

As she's ready to plunge the knife into Neil's heart, Dr. Bruner grabs her hand, breaking her spell for a moment.

After Neil and the doctor get rid of the zombies, of all things, Beaumont, still thinking, grabs Legendre and tosses him over the edge of the castle.

And we get to watch 'Murder' Legendre plummet to oblivion!! Well, hope you enjoyed this colorized classic, breathing a little more life into it... It was a treat for me.

BATMAN AND ROBIN "Poison Ivy - You Can Look But You Better Not Touch" (1997)

 

Welcome to the first Saturday Night Special of the year 2022. In the case of "Batman And Robin," the word special doesn't necessarily mean good. There are some good Batman movies out there, but this just isn't one of them, unfortunately.

I don't usually talk crap about movies, and I was warned not watch it by a good friend, and I have to say "Batman And Robin" is just not a good movie. Sure, in over two hours you're going to have a few decent moments, but that's about all you're gonna get.

I'm sure "Batman And Robin" is the favorite film of some people, but I think it was mostly a waste of 125 million dollars.

Arnold Schwarzenegger actually gets top billing over Batman as Mr. Freeze. Unfortunately Mr. Freeze is just as stupid as Arnold is in real life.

Uma Thurman is without a shadow of a doubt, the star of the show!

The movie really gets going right about here. It's a gala costume ball, and all of Gotham's finest have turned out for the party!

I think George Clooney makes a good enough Bruce Wayne if he had just been given some decent lines.

Oh, no, did I just give away Batman's secret identity?

 The wonderfully provocative Uma Thurman is the beautiful, but incredibly deadly Poison Ivy.

The crowd at the costume party dig her too! During her entrance the music morphs into a very cool instrumental version of the song "Poison Ivy" that was a big # 7 hit for The Coasters in 1959. I always thought "Poison Ivy" was a song about a girl that would drive you crazy with desire, but Wikipedia states that "Poison Ivy" is a metaphor for a sexually transmitted disease, which I guess makes sense, but I never thought about it like that before. Kind of takes the romance out of the whole concept!!

I want a Gotham City snow globe! Should have asked for one for Christmas!

"She's pretty as a daisy but look out man she's crazy."

 Truer words have never been spoken.

The other interesting person in this film is Jeep Swenson as Bane, Poison Ivey's main man. Jeep Swenson was a legitimate professional wrestler who wrestled using the moniker The Ultimate Solution. Jeep was 6'4" and over 400 pounds when he died from heart failure at the young age of 40.

"A common cold will fool ya, And whooping cough will cool ya, But poison ivy Lord, will make you itch."

 You don't have to think too hard to guess what her name would be if they made this film today!

The Snowy Cones Ice Cream Club is literally cool!

Poison Ivy and Bane are in disguise, but are caught on camera skulking around.

Bruce Wayne gets the call!

"Late at night while you're sleepin', Poison ivy comes a-creepin' around."

 

"You're gonna need an ocean of calamine lotion!

You'll be scratchin' like a hound, The minute you start to mess around Poison ivy."

 

Looks like I ran out of time, and I never even got around to Chris O'Donnell as Robin, and Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl, but that's okay, because the movie would have been just as good or bad without them.