A few Odds & Ends before we begin :
Tonight I watched an episode of "Tombstone Territory" that had a great cast : Pat Conway, who stars as "Sheriff Hollister", with John Carradine, Dick Reeves and a young Michael Landon as The Bad Guys. I've mentioned Reeves before, he was another neighbor of ours in Reseda who lived right next door to Bill Raynor, the screenwriter for "Phantom From Space" and dozens of TV shows. Both of them lived across the street from us. "Mr. Reeves", as he was known to the neighborhood kids, drove a neat little car called a Metropolitan. His house was always dark at night and it was rumored that he had a drinking problem (he did). We kids used to knock on neighbors' doors for various reasons, usually for some kind of treat. There was The Tomato Lady around the corner who gave us salted tomato slices, and the legendary Cookie Tom, whose backyard abuts Pearl's. He doesn't live there anymore, but in the early 1960s, he had a small potted tree on his front porch that he and his wife would hang homemade cookies on for us to grab. Cookie Tom was an engineer who worked at the Marquardt plant in Van Nuys, where they built rocket thrusters for the Gemini and Apollo programs. So we had some interesting neighbors, and we'd knock on their doors, but Mom always said "don't bother Mr. Reeves". We wouldn't have anyway, because kids sense when something is wrong and Mr. Reeves rarely came out of his house.
But before that, in the 1940s and '50s, he was in literally hundreds of movies and TV episodes. He was a big man with a recognizable face and slanted eyes, and when I see him now on an old show, I get a kick out of it because he lived across the street. Mr. Reeves died in 1967, while we were still living in Reseda. I don't recall his death, but I was only 7, and he lives on anyhow, in great shows like "Tombstone Territory". Conway, Carradine, Reeves and Landon.........now that's a great cast, especially for a Western.
I'm also very much enjoying the weekly Facebook episodes of "The Von Trapped Family", featuring David Gilmour, Polly Sampson and their family, live from inside their barn, which is made up to look like a Greek cafe. Their son Charlie is the host, and every Thursday they play music, read poetry and answer fan questions in addition to promoting Polly's book. David and his daughter Romany open every broadcast with a melody from one of his solo albums that has the progression : A-Em-G-D, strummed slowly with arpeggiated "connector" notes. It's my new favorite chord progression and I can't stop playing it myself. :) If you're a fan of David, Polly or Pink Floyd, or if you just wanna hang out with some friendly and funny English people for a half hour each week, be sure to check them out. :)
I've begun two new books today, "Earth In Upheaval" by Immanuel Velikovsky, building on the theory of catastrophism he first developed in his landmark "Worlds In Collision". I'm only forty pages in, but it's already a mindblower. My second book is "The Temple of Man" by Rene Schwaller de Lubicz, a two volume "life's work" type of achievement that I discovered a few years ago through one of Dr. Farrell's books. It is about the innate knowledge hidden in Egyptian symbolism that leads to the Understanding of Existence - which sounds pretentious no doubt - but de Lubicz was an undisputed scholar in his field of hieroglyphics and he has a lot to say. The trouble, haha, is how he goes about saying it. He's profoundly intelligent, to be sure, but the first time I tried to read the book (in 2017), I had to put it aside. His use of language was so obtuse that I was unable to finish it. Since then, I have read that the translation from the original French may have been a problem, but even on the second go-round, I find myself wondering why he could not have expressed himself more clearly. Perhaps he was smoking something, lol, but in any event, this is a book you absorb, rather than comprehend (though you do that too, slowly & by osmosis). So, to recap : the Velkovsky is a page turner I can pound, but the de Lubicz is more ponderous. It'll take at least a month to finish, maybe longer. Stay tuned. ////
Okay, so now on to the business at hand, tonight I found a film called "Beast From Haunted Cave"(1959). It has the Corman imprint (brother Gene this time, as producer), but more importantly it was written by the great Charles B. Griffith, who wrote many of Roger's classics. We've been raving about Griffith for a couple weeks now, so when I saw his name on the story I knew it was gonna be a good one.
Two guys calling themselves "Mr. Smith" and "Mr. Jones" are seen casing a ski resort in Deadwood, South Dakota. They take some Polaroids of the joint and then meet up at a nearby motel with a big mustachioed dude named "Alexander"(Frank Wolff), who is planning a gold robbery at a mining office nearby. Alexander keeps Smith and Jones on a tight leash because they're a couple of dimbulbs, but he can't pull off the heist without them. Along for the ride is his girlfriend "Gypsy" (Sheila Carol), a space cadet whose running commentary falls into a time warp between the Beatnik and Hippie eras. Alexander doesn't trust Gypsy either, telling her : "Someday I'm gonna shut that pretty mouth of yours". He's a macho bully, but there's gold in them thar safe (in the mining office), so the other three put up with Alexander's tyranny.
Their plan is to create a diversion on the morning of the robbery by setting off an explosion in an abandoned mine. This will draw the town cops away so they can crack the safe and abscond, with two thick gold bars apiece. The foursome relocate to the aforementioned resort, where they will have easier access to the mine via a cross country ski route. Here they meet the proprietor "Gil" (Michael Forest), a ruggedly handsome outdoor type. Gil will also be the group's ski instructor, and it is at this point that Alexander's grip on his underlings begins to slip away, because Gil is also an Alpha Male, very self confident and charming. Right away, Gypsy is attracted to him, causing Alexander to resent Gil's presence. Mr. Jones (Richard Sinatra) is also a problem. He fancies himself a ladies' man, and right away he hits on Gil's little sister Jill, but when he sees it's not gonna happen he switches his attention to the resort's barmaid, Natalie.
That night, he takes her out to the old mine for a makeout session, but he's got a dual purpose in going there : he also needs to plant the dynamite charge for the explosion the next morning. But holy smokes, while he is deep inside the mine, Natalie comes looking for him, and then.........
A Beast appears! We only see it's long, spidery arm at first, but it's got Natalie. There's nothing Mr. Jones can do but run, so he does, and when he gets back to the resort he has no choice but to confess his screw up to Alexander, who's now doubly pissed off. "What moved you to bring a dame there"?!
"I'm sorry, Alexander! That thing came out of nowhere. I wasn't expecting it"!
"What'd it look like? Gil says there's been a cougar on the loose".
"It wasn't no cougar! It was........it was........horrible looking"!
He's right on that score, though we won't discover just how horrible till the end of the movie.
Things are going wrong with the plan now. Gypsy is off skiing with the handsome Gil. Alexander's gotta worry if she's gonna run her motor-mouth and let slip to Gil about the robbery. He's also gotta deal with the contingency of Natalie's sudden disappearance. Nitwit Jones blew it big time by leaving her up at the mine, but maybe when it explodes her body will be buried. Then she'll be forever marked as a missing person; problem solved. Even so, Alexander's gonna have to get rid of Gil at some point. The guy's a Dudley Dooright; sooner or later Gypsy will spill the beans to him and he'll go straight to the cops.
A storm is coming. The robbers are holed up for the night in a cabin halfway between the resort and the mine. With them are Gil and his housekeeper, a stout Indian woman named Small Dove. The gold heist will take place in the morning, the dynamite is set to go off at 9am. But Mr. Jones can't sleep. He's spooked by being so close to the mine.........and the horrible monster inside! He stands watch all night, rifle in hand, ready to fire away if the thing approaches. The others think he's crazy. In their minds it was a cougar that killed Natalie, if not Jones himself.
The robbery goes off as planned, but Alexander still feels the need to get rid of Gil, and a wild night results. Gil knows he's toast and has his own escape plan, which includes Gypsy. Meanwhile, Small Dove has fallen in love with Mr. Smith, but then she is carried away by the Beast and he follows, all the way to the mine, where he is cocooned alongside her. Things are falling apart for Alexander, who now has only the insane Mr. Jones by his side. They make a pact to kill all the others and split the gold two ways, so they head for the mine to fulfill the deed, and.......
Now we finally get to see the Beast, and man, lemme tell ya - you might wish you hadn't. This thing looks like Eddie from Iron Maiden if he was covered in slithery tendrils and had the legs of a spider, and a gross drooling mouth. There's still a Cheesiness Factor involved, so no worries on that score, but it's minor compared with how ugly this thing is, and how terrifying. It's a good thing I never saw this movie as a kid or I'd probably still be traumatised. This is no rubber-suited monster we're talking about but a dripping, drooping, hairy-lookin' "creation" of some kind, photographed and edited to maximum effect. Big time kudos to whoever designed this Beast, and to director Monte Hellman who saves him for just the right moment and then springs him on us full force. Wow!
You wanted a Scary Monster, you got one!
You've got a good story, too (as per usual with Griffith), one that the actors throw themselves into with vigor, especially Frank Wolff as "Alexander" and Michael Forest as "Gil". Griffith has an ear for slightly exaggerated dialogue, the way characters might talk if they were more intelligent than they actually are, or if they had more on their minds. There are classic lines in all of his scripts and there is no shortage here, including a few knee-slappers that you'll want to rewind and rewatch. You get all of that and a great Beast, too. I give "Beast From Haunted Cave" Two Big Thumbs Up. This is one creature feature you don't wanna miss, highly recommended. ////
Well, that's all for the moment. It's now Saturday night. I just had some pineapple to go with my early evening yogurt. Now I will embark on my CSUN walk. Elizabeth, I am glad you got to go to the lake. That's great that you guys don't have all your parks and beaches closed like we do. Thanks for including the sound of the lapping water in your post, it brings the lake all the way here to California. :)
Stay well, thanks for reading and I'll see you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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