Attack of The Giant Leeches – Swamp Trash Entertainment

By Steve D. Stones

Miss July 1959 Playboy centerfold Yvette Vickers stars in this 1959 low-budget pot boiler produced by Gene and Roger Corman. Vickers is type-cast as a town tramp unfaithful to her overweight store keeper husband – Bruno VeSota. Vickers played the same role in Attack of The 50 Foot Woman (1957). She shows off her sexy legs by rubbing them with lotion in an opening scene meant to grab the attention of the male viewer.

Local rednecks living near a swamp in the Florida Everglades are being killed off one by one by giant leeches who hide in underwater caverns. A game warden, played by Ken Clark – who looks like he just stepped off the front cover of GQ Magazine, tries to determine the cause of local deaths in the swamp.  With the help of his girlfriend and her father, Clark discovers that a handful of giant leeches living in the swamp are responsible for capturing and killing locals who poach the swamps. Two of the victims are Vickers and her lover, who were lured into the swamp when VeSota discovered the two making out near the shore.

Despite its low budget and lurid subject matter, Attack of The Giant Leeches (aka The Giant Leeches) manages to be a fun little movie to watch. Bernard Kowalski’s direction is solid and the actors seem to do a serious, convincing job. The only thing unconvincing is the giant leech costumes, which are obviously divers with scuba gear poking through the leech costumes. A Wade Williams print of this film cuts out the opening sequence of a swamp poacher shooting a rifle at a giant leech while the credits roll to the Alexander Laszlo score - the same music used in director Kowalski’s 1958 film – Night of The Blood Beast. 

Sadly, actress Vickers was found dead in her Beverly Hills home in the spring of 2010. A neighbor crawled in through her home window after no one had heard from her in months. Her mummified corpse had been sitting in a chair for over six months. A sad ending for a beautiful woman who had great promise as an actress. She will be greatly missed by her fans. See Attack of The Giant Leeches with Vickers’ other film – Attack of The 50 Foot Woman. Happy Viewing!!

Laurel and Hardy's The Big Noise -- not as bad as you think

The Big Noise

by Doug Gibson

"The Big Noise," a 1944 Laurel and Hardy feature from Twentieth Century Fox, directed by Malcolm St. Claire, is generally panned by Laurel and Hardy enthusiasts. In fact, it was listed as one of the "50 worst films" in the Medved brothers book that was popular 30 years ago. But that's all nonsense. "The Big Noise" is not a great film but it's a passable way to spend 74 minutes with a classic comedy team. It's certainly not among Laurel & Hardy's best films. To see those, buy the Hal Roach feature "Sons of the Desert" and the Roach short "The Music Box." But in "The Big Noise," the boys' genius still works at times.

The plot involves Stan and Ollie as bumbling janitors working in a private detective's office. A scientist named Alva Hartley (Arthur Space) calls the agency asking for detectives to guard his bomb, called the Big Noise. The bomb is so powerful it can win World War II for the allies (how prophetic!). L&H want to be detectives, so they pose as such and take on the assignment. Next door to the Hartley live a pack of criminals, who want to steal the bomb and sell it to the Nazis. Somehow a pretty young lady (Doris Merrick) is also there (she's innocent of the plot) and Hartley takes a small fancy to her.

Eventually Laurel and Hardy take off with the bomb with the crooks in hot pursuit. Incredibly, the whole shebang ends in the ocean!

This is just an OK film. L&H fans will be more tolerant. Those unaccustomed to the pair should watch a better entry. The boys were starting to age in 1944 and the physical hijinks suffered. There are funny scenes, though, of L&H trying to relax in a bedroom with beds that come out of the walls and tables that rise out of the floor. A scene where the pair eats food in pill form is flat and unfunny, though.

One scene that works is the pair trying to sleep in a Pullman train compartment. Another unfunny part of the film is an annoying brat in the Hartley house who plays pranks. He's played by child star Robert Blake, who later gained fame as an actor and then earned notoriety after being accused of murdering his wife (he was acquitted). Also, Veda Ann Borg overacts as a chunky matron who has eyes for Ollie. One trivia bit in the film is that Stan, on his accordion, played the popular song "Maisey Doats." According to the film's press book, the pair deliberately cut back on wasteful gags to help with the WWII effort.

To sum up, it's an OK way to kill 74 minutes and should be watched by completists, but there are better L&H outings. Again, though, it's not as bad as you might think.

Blog Log Notes for Sunday, Shemp Howard, The Mummy, etc.

By Doug Gibson

I've been watching more Three Stooges shorts, with an emphasis on assessing "Shemp," the brother who replaced Curly. One reviewer has described Shemp as having a face shaped like a bake potato, but he's more than that. An experienced actor and comedy-man, he was only a slight drop off from Curly and far better than the two who succeeded him, the just-OKs, Joe Besser and Curley Joe DeRita. I wish I could find a copy of the 1950 or so Stooges oater, "The Gold Raiders," via the web. The Stooges have supporting roles to star George O'Brien. The critics love to savage the film, but it's actually quite enjoyable, and lasts less than an hour.

There is a Stooges short from 1951, The Tooth Will Out, that includes Shemp. .... I just noticed that as part of its Sunday Silents on Oct. 7, Turner Classic Movies will air "Headin Home," from 1920. The film, which airs at 11 p.m. MST, stars a very young George Herman "Babe" Ruth. That's a must-see. I know that boxing champ Jack Dempsey starred in silent action serials; wonder if any still exist? Afterwards, TCM airs 1932's "Not Against the Flesh," which is the classic Vampyre under another title.

My daughter and I watched The Mummy, with Boris Karloff. What a tremendous acting job by Karloff, who mixes menacing single-mindedness with genuine terror. I love the mid-budget Kharis Mummy films Universal put out in the 40s, but nothing compares to Imhotep! .... Just found out that the Chapman Branch of the Salt Lake City public library system will show "The Beast of Yucca Flats," on Oct. 25 at 7 p.m. I wonder if that's a first for the film to have such a show date? It's very cool and I hope I can make it.

Below, enjoy this photo of Shemp Howard!

Nosferatu (1922) – A Symphony of Horror

By Steve D. Stones

On the evening of Tuesday October 2^nd, 2012, the Weber County Library Main Branch in Ogden screened F.W. Murnau’s 1922 German Expressionistic masterpiece – Nosferatu. The print shown was the 2007 release by Kino International with the Hans Erdmann score and 1922 intertitles faithful to the original film. It was a great treat to see this classic film up on the big screen this evening.

Hutter, a real estate agent, is assigned by Knock to travel into the Carpathian Mountains to sell property to Count Orlok, a hideous rat looking creature with an elongated body and fingers, living on human blood. Hutter’s coach refuses to take him to Orlok’s estate, so he travels on foot. He encounters the Count driving another coach through the woods. It is here that one of the most haunting shots of the film is seen as the coach travels through a fog infested forest while the print is shown in reverse from the negative. Cheap prints in the public domain omit this creepy sequence.

Hutter arrives at Orlok’s estate to make the sale. While there, he writes letters to his young wife Mina, complaining of mosquitoes biting his neck. He soon discovers that Orlok has trapped him in his Carpathian Castle, and plans to travel to Hutter’s hometown of Wisborg, Germany with coffins filled of his native soil. While on route, the rats in the coffin spread the plaque to all the ship’s passengers, bringing the plaque to Wisborg. Orlok leaves the ship and carries coffins through pointed archways to his destination. Funeral processions of coffins being carried into the streets signals that death and the plague have arrived in Wisborg.

Just before sunrise, Orlok confronts Mina in her bedroom as she sleeps. He evaporates in the sun light after Mina is bitten on the neck. Just before the sunlight fills the room, a reflection of Orlok can be seen in the mirror next to Mina’s bed, which is not in keeping with future depictions of vampire beings who cannot cast a reflection in mirrors. Many scenes show Orlok walking around in bright daylight, such as a famous sequence of him walking across the bow of a ship traveling to Wisborg. 

Max Scheck’s portrayal of Count Orlok is grotesque and iconic, a true screen legend that continues to haunt audiences even today. Scheck’s Orlok is more truthful to Bram Stoker’s vampire in the Dracula novel. More contemporary depictions of Dracula show him as a handsome aristocrat that attracts and repels beautiful women. Scheck’s Orlok is meant to be a frightening creature, avoiding any romantic references.

Stoker’s estate was not pleased with the intentional copyright infringement of Nosferatu to the Dracula novel, so all prints of the film were ordered to be destroyed. Lucky for us, Nosferatu is still in circulation for audiences to enjoy today. German film maker Werner Herzog recreated Nosferatu in 1979 starring Klaus Kinski in the role of Count Orlac. See both great classics this Halloween Season. Also see the 2000 film – Shadow of The Vampire, which is a fictionalized account of the filming of Nosferatu. Happy Viewing!! (Above is artist Stones' work, Vampire Crunch)