Ha! We did it again, we found another Robert Towne movie! Waaaayyy too funny. The movie was Corman's "Creature from the Haunted Sea"(1961), so we found more Roger as well, and actually it was the same cast as last night : Antony Carbone, Betsy Jones-Moreland and Towne, so maybe they shot it back-to-back with "Last Woman on Earth". The beach locale looked similar in both films, but now I'm getting ahead of myself. I just wanted to share my exuberance at discovering another Towne role, because I'm finding him a laugh riot, simply because of the juxtaposition of his Early Screen Career with his Later Hollywood Image. And in "Haunted Sea", he's deliberately funny. The movie is a comedy. In order to watch it, I broke my rule of never mixing humor with horror or sci-fi, but I felt it was worth it in exchange for more Robert Towne. Had he never become such a legendary Hollywood Curmudgeon it wouldn't have mattered. He wouldn't have attracted my attention. But it's the contrast, between who he was as a young man, and a young actor, and his later downturn that's got me hooked.
Towne was quite an actor! In both of the movies we've seen, he's been billed as Edward Wain, and both are Corman films. But Towne shows versatility in playing a world weary cynic in "Last Woman", then taking a comedic role in tonight's picture. That's right, he's a comedian, and a very funny one at that, not unlike a slimmer Chevy Chase, whom he vaguely resembles.
In addition, the screenplay was written by the great Charles B. Griffith, a Corman Collaborator who scripted The Cor-meister's greatest works, including "Bucket of Blood" and "Not Of This Earth". Imagine being Robert Towne, who in the future would write "Chinatown", but on this movie he's not even the most famous writer! It's all too much. The only trouble is that it isn't a very good film. It's certainly not Griffith's best work, nor Roger Corman's, and the whole thing feels improvised as if it was made on a whim. Maybe they did indeed film it while on location in Florida making "Last Woman on Earth". Betsy Jones even wears the same swimsuit in both movies. I'll run down the plot for you, or what passes for a plot, but this movie is mainly just for fun. It's very, very talky, to the point where you stop paying attention to the dialogue and just watch the actions of the characters.
Towne plays "Sparks Moran", aka "XK150" (like the Jaguar, haha). He's an agent for the U.S. Federal Government, on assignment in Cuba (pronounced Koo-buh) to track stolen dough spirited out of the country by fleeing Batista forces, The revolucion has taken place. Castro is installed and everyone has a beard (kinda like now). A Mafioso named "Renzo Capetto" (Carbone) offers to help transport a trunk containing all the gold from the National Treasury, to keep it out of Castro's hands. He will use his boat to take the gold to Florida, in exchange for a fee. The trunk will be guarded by a fleeing Generalissimo and his adjutant, who will sail with Capetto and his crew, which now includes Agent XK-150 (Towne), who is working undercover. Capetto has other plans, however. He's cooked up a clever scheme in which a "Sea Monster" will attack the boat mid-voyage and kill all the Cubans aboard. Then the gold will be all his.
A member of his crew - all of whom are nitwits - is to play the "Sea Monster", in one of the greatest RSM costumes Corman has ever created, haha. Capetto will stall the boat at just the right moment, after the Monster is in the water, and it will climb aboard.
Can you guess what's going to happen? That's right! While Capetto and his gang are carrying out their plan, a Sea Monster does indeed attack and starts killing the Cubans.......but it's a real Sea Monster. That's the joke, and it's played as one. You've gotta see this creature to believe it. Due to the attack, Capetto and company are forced to land on an Uncharted Isle somewhere off the coast. There, the movie falls apart and any attempt to maintain coherency is abandoned. In one running gag, Towne, as the secret agent, keeps hitting on the beautiful Jones-Moreland (wearing the same swimsuit). He's a complete goofball, so she rebuffs him each time with ever-increasing invective : "I would sooner die in a pit of acid than run away with you, Sparks. Why don't you go feed yourself to the piranhas"? I'm telling ya, Towne could've made a career out of playing these types, somewhere between the aforementioned Chase and a Seinfeld character. He should've kept acting!
Another crewmember, who communicates almost entirely by making animal noises (don't ask!), falls in love with a native woman, who won't let him return to his duties. She sends her lovely daughter to distract another deckhand. Looks like she wants to get her hands on the gold, too. The movie is total nonsense by this point, but hang in there because it's only 75 minutes long, and you're gonna get a ten minute Sea Monster finale that will make it worth the wait.
Can you guess who winds up with the gold? Oh man......I wish I could tell ya, but if you use your imagination you can probably guess.
I'm gonna give "Creature from the Haunted Sea" Two Solid Thumbs Up, which it maybe doesn't deserve, but it's so much fun I can't resist. On a "fun scale", I could actually award it Two Big Thumbs, but then it would be reduced by "No Thumbs" on the competency scale, haha, so you have to average them out.
It's not one of Roger Corman's better movies, but it's still a must see - make that a must "Sea"! - because of the Monster and Robert Towne, and everyone else, too. Don't miss it when you have nothing better to watch. /////
That's all for now. I'm back at Pearl's, so it might take me a day to get back on my "workday" writing schedule, but I'll be back tonight at the Usual Time in any event, and we'll watch a movie!
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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