Bela Lugosi in The Phantom Ship

By Doug Gibson

This British 1936 film is a treat for Lugosi fans. He is Anton Lorenzen, a broken-down one-armed sailor who inspires a pity as part of the doomed crew of the Mary Celeste, a ship that in real life in the 1870s was discovered in the Atlantic sans crew.

This film, released in a much longer -- unfortunately lost -- version as The Mystery of the Mary Celeste in Britain, is an entertaining murder mystery. It sort of plays like a rough version of Agatha Christie.

The plot: A captain and his bride (Shirley Grey) set sail with a ragged, rough, sinister ship's crew, including Lugosi, who inspires pity. One by one people start to die. The captain and his wife disappear. Finally only Lugosi's Lorenzen and the sadistic first mate are left. At that point, Lugosi, acting like a 30s version of The Usual's Suspect's Keyser Soze, announces he is the killer, there to avenge a previous wrong. He kills off the first mate but then is hit by a beam of wood and falls into the sea to his death.

Before he dies, Lugosi brags of killing the capain and his wife. That scene appears clunky though. It almost sounds as if Lugosi's voice is dubbed. This is important because the ONLY remaining print is the 62-minute U.S. version, The Phantom Ship. The longer, lost 80-minute version, The Mystery of the Mary Celeste, apparently had an epilogue where the captain and his wife are discovered alive on an island, having escaped death on the Mary Celeste via a raft. It sure would be fun to locate a copy of the lost version. Lugosi biographer Frank Dello Stritto has located director Denison Clift's original shooting synopsis for the film and it includes the island epilogue.

Lugosi is great in The Phantom Ship, which used to be rare but in today's digital world can be found easily and in fact watched for free on the Net. He inspires pathos and pity and then effectively turns cold-blooded killer. He did this very well also in the 1930s The Black Cat, the Monogram Black Dragons and even Ed Wood's Bride of the Monster. Rest of cast is capable and the ship scenes are quite effective for the low budget. Definitely worth a buy. One of Lugois's best late 1930s films. (This film aired on Sept. 17 on UEN's Channel 9 in Utah's Sci-Fi Friday Show)

Killers From Space – Dopey Aliens With Ping Pong Eyes

By Steve D. Stones

It’s hard to recommend a film like Killers From Space, even to die hard 1950s science-fiction fans. The plot and pacing of the film is quite dull and dry, even by the standards of 1950s films. Lots of stock footage of atomic explosion tests, flying airplanes and rear projections of giant insects are used over and over again in the film. Still, the film is worth a viewing if you’re a fan of Miles and W. Lee Wilder, the brother team who brought us The Snow Creature, Manfish and the much more superior and entertaining Phantom From Outer Space in 1953.

Killers From Space stars Peter Graves in the role of American nuclear scientist Dr. Douglas Martin. Dr. Martin’s plane crashes while observing an atomic explosion over Soledad Flats, Nevada. Officials from a local air force base conclude that Martin must be dead after finding no bodies in the plane’s wreckage.

Soon, Dr. Martin turns up at the main gate of the air force base. He can’t recall how he got there or why he is still alive. A doctor examines Martin and finds a surgical scar near his heart that was not there before the plane crash.

While in a hospital bed, Martin later recalls that a group of aliens living below the surface of Soledad Flats took his body from the wrecked plane and surgically saved his life by reviving his heart. This is why a scar was discovered on his chest. He explains to his doctor and some of his colleagues that the aliens have recruited him to help tap some of the nuclear power flowing into the air force base for experiments. The aliens plan to use the power to rule the earth.

Of course none of Martin’s colleagues believe his story and think he is crazy, so he forcefully frees himself from his hospital bed and heads to the local power plant to turn off all the power. This causes another atomic explosion, which wipes out the alien population living under Soledad Flats.

The funniest sequences in the film show Graves running around in a soiled jumpsuit, as giant insects are rear projected on cave walls. When he meets up with the head alien of the group, the alien shows him film clips of what their alien civilization looks like on their planet. The clips are borrowed from the 1936 classic Things To Come. I’m not sure why a 1954 film would borrow clips from a 1936 sci-fi film, but the appropriation is quite obvious and out of place.

A DVD print of Killers From Space was put out in 2000 by Triton Multimedia, which uses green filtered sequences for all the scenes showing the aliens in the film. The DVD also contains director Wilder’s Phantom From Space, and the 1959 classic(k) Teenagers From Outer Space. Goodtimes Video released a double feature VHS tape of Killers From Space in the mid-1980s with Day of The Triffids. The comic geniuses of Mystery Science Theater 3000 also released a Killers From Space DVD under their Film Crew name back in 2005. Happy Viewing!

Broadminded, Invisible Ray, and other films with capsule reviews

By Doug Gibson

I have a conundrum; I watch lots of great cult films but have no time -- at least now -- to review them in depth. So, in the spirit of Leonard Maltin, here are four capsule reviews of some films I've watched recently. I hope in the future to write longer reviews of these films on Plan9Crunch!

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Broad minded, First National, 1931, starring Joe E. Lewis, Bela Lugosi, Ona Munson, William Collier Jr. and Thelma Todd. 3 stars - This semi-forgotten Joe E. Brown comedy (it's not on DVD or VHS) is a treat for cult movie fans who want to watch a pre-Dracula Lugosi. As Pancho Arango, a hot-tempered Latin lover, Lugosi shows his comic skills in dueling with the clownish, wide-mouthed Brown, who pesters him. Plot involves Brown and Collier as playboys traveling across the country and meeting girls. In California the leads fall in love with various blondes, including Munson, who played Belle Watling in Gone with the Wind. Film has funny moments and Lugosi shows his versatile, comedic character acting skills. I caught this long-awaited viewing courtesy of Turner Classic Movies. Opening scene is of a "baby party" for adults that is prurient when one looks at the women, and creepy when looking at the males, especially Brown!
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The Invisible Ray, Universal, 1936, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Frances Drake, Frank Lawton. 3 stars - One of the classic 1930s Universal pairings of Karloff and Lugosi. This film is unique in that it is a science fiction film, rather than a horror film. Karloff and Lugosi are scientists who travel to Africa to find "Radium X," who Karloff has proven crashed into earth millions of years ago. "Radium X" is discovered, but contact with it turns Karloff radioactive, and deadly to the touch. Lugosi prepares medicine that counters the poison, but when Karloff's wife, (Drake) leaves him for an adventurer, Lawton, Karloff, going slowly insane, shirks the medicine and goes on a killing spree. Violet Kemble Cooper is creepy as Karloff's mother. Easy to buy and usually on TCM once a year.
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Blood of the Man Devil, 1965, Jerry Warren productions, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, Dolores Faith. 1 star - This is a so bad it's good film. Trash film producer Jerry Warren took an uncompleted film, finished it with mainly lots of bad bikini dancing, advertised horror legends Carradine and Chaney Jr., and produced an incomprehensible yet compelling mess. Film involves a town of devil worshipers locked in a power struggle between dueling warlocks Carradine and Chaney Jr., who never appear on screen together. How could they? They were making different films! The whole mess is populated with actors who, besides the leads, look nothing like devil worshipers. The plot sort of resembles a dark arts version of Peyton Place with the screen's cheapest werewolf mask. This barely released film, which amazingly has atmosphere, must be seen to be believed. Sinister Cinema sells it. See a short feature on the film here
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Gun Crazy: 1950, King Brothers Productions, Peggy Cummins and John Nall. 4 stars - This low-budget gem is a film noir classic of the lovesick male with a reform school past who falls for the bad girl and follows her to both of their dooms. Cummins and Nall, little-known actors, generate real sparks as greedy sharp shooters who don't have the patience to live a normal life. When she kills in a robbery and the law closes in on them, the claustrophobic atmosphere director Joseph H. Lewis creates is outstanding and final love to the death moments between these two losers is moving. There's a reason Gun Crazy is taught in many film schools. Don't miss it. It's easy to buy and pops up on TV often.

The Crimson Ghost – Skull Masked Maniac Bent On Atomic Power!

By Steve D. Stones

The Crimson Ghost may very well be the greatest movie serial ever made, particularly from Republic Pictures. Both William Witney and Fred C. Brannon are credited for directing The Crimson Ghost. Witney is considered the best of the post-War serial directors. His direction credits include: The Mysterious Dr. Satan, Nyoka & The Tigermen (AKA The Perils of Nyoka), Spy Smasher, G-Men vs. The Black Dragon, Jungle Girl and Daredevils of The Red Circle, among many others.

If you’ve ever wondered where Steven Spielberg and George Lucas get some of their ideas for the action sequences in the Indiana Jones movies, just watch one of the above-mentioned serials by Witney and you’ll see where their ideas come from.

The Crimson Ghost was directed in 1946 and concerns a skull-masked maniac who is determined to steal a secret government device known as the Cyclotrode. The device is able to counteract the effects of atomic energy and atomic-operated machines. The Crimson Ghost plans to use the Cyclotrode to neutralize the power of flying planes in the sky and to break into top-secret government buildings to steal government plans.

Clayton Moore, star of the hit 1950s TV series The Lone Ranger, is one of the Crimson Ghost’s henchmen. Most of the action sequences involve his character and the hero of the serial, Professor Duncan Richards, played by serial regular Charles Quigley.

The Crimson Ghost also stars the beautiful Linda Stirling, star of Tiger Woman and Zorro’s Black Whip, as Professor Richards’ assistant.

A VHS video of The Crimson Ghost was released in the mid-1990s in a colorized and condensed version. Accomics in Florida also sells the colorized and condensed version, as well as the full-length black & white version. I do not recommend the colorized version because it is
condensed from a three hour serial to just ninety minutes. I highly recommend the full-length black & white version.

Fans of the 80s punk rock band The Misfits will immediately recognize the skull face of the Crimson Ghost. His face was appropriated as the band’s logo.

For more information about classic movie serials, I recommend the two-volume book Classic Cliffhangers by Hank Davis published in 2007. Happy viewing!