Scrooge: The first sound version of Dickens' classic Christmas tale

Scrooge, 1935, 78 minutes, B&W, British. Directed by Henry Edwards. Starring Sir. Seymour Hicks as Ebenezer Scrooge, Donald Calthrop as Bob Cratchit, Robert Cochran as Fred, Mary Glynne as Belle and Phillip Frost as Tiny Tim. Rating: Seven stars out of 10.

This very creaky British version of Dickens' A Christmas Tale can't hold a candle to the 1951, 1984 and 1999 versions, but it's better than the 1938 Hollywood adaptation. It stars Hicks as Scrooge. The British actor had the part down pat. He had played Scrooge for decades on the British stage. Nevertheless, he plays Scrooge as a crochety old crank, which is one of your reviewer's pet peeves. I prefer Scrooge to be played as a smug, self satisfied superior sort, such as Sims, Scott and Stewart portrayed Dickens' miser in other adaptations. The result is that Scrooge's experience is a startling comeuppance for him. Like Saul of Tarsus, he's literally brought to his senses and scared straight through divine interference. But with an old crochety Scrooge, all he goes through seems like a scolding that a child would take from an elder.

But still, this is a must-see version for fans. The London sets are simply marvelous. You can feel Victorian England in this film better than any other version. Also, a pleasant surprise is Calthrop as Bob Cratchit. He is the only Bob Cratchit that's able to stand up to Scrooge. Indeed, early in the film, he mutters of Scrooge's miserliness when denied coal for the fire. The other actors are adequate for their roles. One chilling scene has Tiny Tim (Frost) laying dead on a bed for Scrooge to see during the third spirit visit.

There are some odd twists to the film. Not much is told about Scrooge's childhood, and a really strange scene is with Marley's ghost. To the audience he is invisible, though it's clear Scrooge can see him. There is a scene early in the film, inserted for some reason, of Queen Victoria receiving a Christmas toast from London's leading citizens. The final scene where a changed Scrooge fools Cratchit and gives him a raise has the pair taking the day off, rather than having some smoking Christmas bishop to drink. Scrooge, quite an expressionist film, is a curio of early British filmmaking and certainly worth a rental for the holidays. For decades this film was literally out of circulation, but with the advent of video it enjoyed a comeback and can now usually be found on TV each holiday season and can be purchased. It can also be seen for free on the Web. Go to is www.imdb.com (Internet Movie Database) page to watch the film. Enjoy the film; watch it above!

-- Doug Gibson

THE ASTOUNDING SHE-MONSTER: A Curvy Cutie Invades The Earth!

By Steve D. Stones

What do you get when you combine all the poor qualities of filmmaking, such as bad dialogue, unconvincing special effects, amateur acting, boring long shots that seem to last forever, mismatched stock footage and frequent continuity errors? The result is a film like The Astounding She-Monster. Still, the film has many redeeming cult qualities to recommend it to any cult film fan.

For starters, She Monster was directed by a protégé of Ed Wood named Ronnie Ashcroft. Wood is unaccredited as a “creative consultant” for the film. Ashcroft made a film with all the markings of a Wood film. In fact, if the opening credits were left out, it would be easy to mistake She-Monster for an Ed Wood film. The opening credits even say: “Hollywood International Pictures Presents,” just like the opening of Plan 9 From Outer Space.

The music for the film is by Gunther Kauer. The same music was used for another cult film, The Beast of Yucca Flats. Actor Kenne Duncan, who appeared in Ed Wood’s Night of The Ghouls (AKA Revenge of The Dead), also appears in She Monster. Another Wood regular, William C. Thompson, served as director of photography. These qualities alone make The Astounding She-Monster an immediate cult item.

The film opens with a boring long shot of wealthy socialite Margaret Chaffee, played by Marilyn Harvey, leaving her mansion to drive away in a Cadillac. Chaffee is a wealthy Beverly Hills socialite. As she drives down the street in another boring long shot that lasts forever, she is stopped and kidnapped by Nat Burdell and Brad Conley, played by actors Kenne Duncan and Ewing Brown.

A meteor soon crashes high in the San Gabriel Mountains, bringing with it a sexy space alien in a tight spandex suit, played by Shirley Kilpatrick. Geologist Dick Cutler, played by Robert Clarke, and his dog Egan, witness the meteor crash near Cutler’s cabin.

Burdell and Conley are next seen driving the kidnapped Chaffee to the San Gabriel Mountains. A second woman named Esther Malone, played by actress Jeanne Tatum, appears in the car with them. Malone appears to be drunk. The group is forced off the road by the site of the sexy alien. Why she is called a “She-Monster” in the title of the film is anyone’s guess? She is any thing but frightful. In fact, she is very sexy and beautiful.

The group leaves their car on the road and walks to Cutler’s cabin. Duncan and the group force their way into the cabin and take Cutler as a second hostage.

Conley soon sees the She-Monster starring in the window of the cabin and leaves to investigate. He takes Cutler’s dog Egan with him. He and Egan are attacked and killed by the She-Monster. Burdell goes out looking for him and brings his corpse back to the cabin. The corpse is covered with radium poisoning. Cutler insists on going out to find his dog, but Burdell continues to hold him at gunpoint.

The group finally decides that they must get away from the She-Monster by leaving the mountain in Cutler’s jeep. While driving down the mountain road, the She-Monster blocks their path, forcing them out of the jeep. Burdell is attacked and killed by the She-Monster as he attempts to flee the jeep.

Cutler and Chaffee flee back into the cabin and are met once again by the She-Monster. Cutler throws a bottle of nitric acid on the She-Monster, and she immediately disintegrates. Chaffee notices the She-Monster’s necklace on the cabin floor. Cutler opens the locket to find an important message.

It turns out that the She Monster is an emissary sent by the Council of Planets with a message of peace for the earth. Cutler concludes that the She-Monster only attacked because she was forced to protect herself.

It’s interesting to note that The Astounding She-Monster follows in a long line of alien invasion-themed films that saturated the drive-ins of the 1950s. Hollywood produced many much better films earlier in the decade of a similar theme, such as The Day The Earth Stood Still and The Thing From Another World.

Robert Clarke also starred in The Man From Planet X in 1951, which has a similar theme to The Astounding She-Monster. In Man From Planet X, the alien also attempts to communicate with those who encounter it, but is misunderstood as being an enemy from outer space.

Cult film fans are greatly indebted to Wade Williams for rescuing and buying the copyright of a number of films that would have otherwise been lost or never released on DVD, such as The Astounding She-Monster, Ed Wood’s Night of The Ghouls, The Cosmic Man and Cat Women of The Moon, among many others.

I’m still waiting for a Robert Clarke film festival to come to my town so that I can see Man From Planet X, The Hideous Sun Demon, The Astounding She-Monster, The Incredible Petrified World, Beyond The Time Barrier, Terror of The Blood Hunters and Secret File Hollywood all in one day’s screening. In the meantime I will be satisfied seeing these films on DVD. Watch out for that curvy cutie in a tight spandex outfit!

Review of Muddled Mind: all about Ed Wood's books

Muddled Mind: The Complete Works of Edward D. Wood, Jr., by David C. Hayes, 2009 update, Ramble House Press, http://www.ramblehouse.com fender@ramblehouse.com Reviewer received a review copy.

By Doug Gibson

Depending on your point of view, Ed Wood was either a famous, or infamous filmmaker. What the average Ed Wood fan doesn't know is that Wood wrote a heck of a lot of novels, short stories and news articles; 80 novels, several hundred short stories and a few hundred non-fiction articles. And Wood was a damn good writer, Imagine Elmore Leonard writing without an editor and submitting a first draft. That's Wood.

The tragedy of Wood's life is that he was a drunk; after the mid 1960s most of his written work -- and all of his film work -- was in porn. But even that sleaze had Wood's iconic and unique touch and value. His books and sleazy magazines -- many of which he created all by himself -- are still in demand, fetching big prices for collectors.

It's high time someone provided a detailed overview of Wood's literary output, and Chicago writer, actor, screenwriter and filmmaker David C. Hayes does a pretty good job in Muddled Mind: The Complete Works of Edward D. Wood Jr. It's a reference book of all of Wood's writing; from the semi-sleazy mid-60s tales such as Death of a Transvestite and Devil Girls to the raunchier books and stories and finally the hard-core porn Wood was reduced to writing his final years.

Hayes' book is tongue in cheek at times, with a fictional "co-author," and it's not a deep book, but it's of real value to Wood fans. We learn what an amazing, tireless writer Wood was even with the crutch of alcoholism. For example, he was invaluable to the fly-by-night porn magazine publishers of the 1970s. Wood would write an entire issue of "Tales for a Sexy Night" or another similarly title magazine, and then do again a few weeks later.

In what Hayes describes as The Golden Age, Wood wrote some fast-paced, compact Elmore Leonard-type novels, such as Killer in Drag, Devil Girls and Death of a Transvestite. They are not porn, and must have earned Wood some prestige as a writer, although he was probably lucky to see $2,000 for all three books. Wood's desperate straights made him easily exploitable by low-brow publishers. (Come to think of it, that's also a fate that plagued the actor Bela Lugosi, who, as most know, starred in a few Wood films)

Hayes repeats what I have read in other sources that writing porn is part of what destroyed Wood in the last years of his life. Muddled Mind respects Wood enough to offer critiques on his work to the bitter adult sleaze end. Hayes writes with both humor and respect for Wood. It is amazing that more than 30 years after his death, we are still finding Wood novels, stories and articles (he wrote often under pseudonyms) and it's likely that 50 years from now, we'll still be finding Wood's output. He was indefatigable.

I've saved the best part of Muddled Mind for last. It includes complete copies of three excellent, distinct Wood stories. The first, The Night the Banshee Cried, is a spooky tale of a woman fearing a sinister presence. It's Wood's very credible effort to invoke the atmosphere of Edgar Allen Poe. The next, Pearl Hart and the Last Stage, is a very entertaining fictional essay on an infamous lady stagecoach bandit. Again, Wood manages to capture the spirit of a Zane Grey-type tale.

The last, and best story, To Kill a Saturday Night, is simply brilliant. The tale of a pair of bloviating farm workers contemplating casual murder on their day off will remind readers of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. Both Pearl Hart ... and To Kill ... were written in the 1970s, a time when Wood was sadly, firmly padlocked into lowbrow porn. But even then, an alcoholic semi-bum, the man could still write talented prose.

There is one more treat in Muddled Mind. There is Wood's prologue to an audio version of Plan 9 From Outer Space that was produced by Wood's porn producer Pendulum Press. The audio may have been a reward for Wood's previous workload. Who knows? Wood wrote this prologue after being kicked out of his apartment. Living as a charity case with actor Peter Coe, Wood died days after he penned this friendly, optimistic intro with a lot of literary license. If you love and admire Wood's work, you will get goose bumps reading this. It's nice that Wood was aware, while alive, that there was a young cult following for his work. He deserved that.

Muddled Mind is a great follow up to Wood's literary life after we were teased about it in Rudolph's Grey's excellent oral biography on Wood, Nightmare of Ecstasy. Ramble House is a very tiny press, and Wood fans should be grateful that it is critiquing Wood's writing and searching for more of his works. In fact, Ramble House, under the name Woodpile Press, is selling reproductions of much of Wood's writings. Muddled Mind has a list of the offerings. This is wonderful news and we hope Ramble House keeps rambling. For info on the reproductions, send an e-mail to the address above.

THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON: Be sure to wear sun tan lotion!

By Steve D. Stones 

I have to admit that The Hideous Sun Demon is my favorite low budget monster movie of the 1950s. I would have loved to see this film on a drive-in movie screen in the late 1950s. It would be even more interesting to have seen it on a double bill with another Robert Clarke film, such as The Man From Planet X, The Astounding She Monster or Beyond The Time Barrier. 

Clarke starred in The Astounding She Monster just a year before he directed and starred in The Hideous Sun Demon. He took some of his profits from She Monster and invested them into this film. In his autobiography “Robert Clarke: To B or Not to B: A Film Actor’s Odyssey,” Clarke mentions that he had a desire to create a film similar to the Robert Louis Stevenson story Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. He was impressed with Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde while seeing it in a movie theater at the age of 12. 

He wanted to create a film that would have much more substance than The Astounding She Monster. Viewing The Hideous Sun Demon, it is easy to see some of the similarities of the Stevenson classic. 

One major difference is that Clarke’s character, Dr. Gilbert McKenna, is a victim of an atomic experiment gone wrong. Dr. Jekyll willingly conducts experiments on himself to understand the duality of good versus evil in every man’s soul. Plus, Clarke’s character has a conscience of not wanting to kill innocent victims. 

After his transformation of the Sun Demon and back to Dr. McKenna, McKenna expresses a deep regret for his murder victims. In his own mind, he is a victim himself, and has no desire to want to commit murders while he is in the normal state of being Dr. McKenna. While in a transformed state of being the Sun Demon, McKenna cannot control his murderous desires. 

What makes The Hideous Sun Demon so appealing to me is the unique Sun Demon costume worn by Clarke. It is a truly unique and frightful costume. Clarke claims to have paid $500.00 for the costume. Like Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Clarke transforms into the Sun Demon while wearing his everyday clothes. Many of the production stills taken for the film show Clarke’s trousers drenched in the front and back. This is because the actor was sweating heavily from the heat of the costume. Nevertheless, it adds uniqueness to the creature and makes it more believable, in my opinion. 

Another unique element of Sun Demon is the timeless theme of beauty and the beast. Clarke cast busty blonde Nan Peterson, star of Louisiana Hussy, as a beautiful nightclub singer that Dr. McKenna becomes infatuated with. McKenna falls in love with her, but he knows his love cannot last because of his condition. After a lustful night on the beach with the girl, McKenna abandons her as the sun comes up to transform him into the Sun Demon. 

There is even a love triangle aspect to The Hideous Sun Demon. Dr. McKenna works in his laboratory with a pretty young brunette named Ann Lansing, played by Patricia Manning. In one particular scene, McKenna hides in the cellar of his basement after returning from a murder spree as the Sun Demon. Lansing confronts him in the cellar. She expresses her concern and care for McKenna, but he rejects her sympathies for him. She goes on to say that she loves McKenna and wants to find help for him.

Perhaps the most touching and sentimental scene of the film is when McKenna once again is confronted in a hiding place, only this time by a five year old girl in a 50s poodle skirt. McKenna is being pursued by local police, and hides in a mill near the little girl’s home. She offers to bring him cookies and decides to be his friend. This is the most touching scene of the film. The little girl rushes home to steal some cookies to give to McKenna. Her mother discovers she is about to take the cookies to McKenna, so she calls the local police. 

McKenna flees the mill and immediately transforms into the Sun Demon. McKenna is chased to the top of a giant gas tank, where he meets his death as a policeman shoots him and he falls to the ground. This scene is not unlike the ending of well-known monster movies, such as Frankenstein and The Phantom of The Opera, in which the local townspeople chase the monster and he meets a violent death, only in this case it’s the local police who chase the monster. 

Some critics suggest that the formula of The Hideous Sun Demon does not work because the Sun Demon can only transform into the monster in the sunlight, unlike other monsters, such as The Wolf Man and Dracula, who lurk in the dark.

I disagree with this assessment of Sun Demon. A monster who lurks in the dark is certainly much more scarier than one which is out in the daylight, but The Hideous Sun Demon is not attempting to surprise or scare the audience in the same way that creatures of the dark are known to do. The Hideous Sun Demon is the result of atomic radiation, so he is a victim of his environment, and not a product of the undead coming back to life, such as a zombie or a vampire. 

He is also not a product of several parts of a corpse being assembled together, such as Frankenstein’s monster, so he is not intended to be a monster of experimentation. This is what makes the Sun Demon a unique creature and interesting film.