Gonna try to get caught up here, though it might take a few days. Last night, we began another chapter serial, with the awesome title "Zombies of the Stratosphere"(1952). As the first chapter opens, they've landed in Chatsworth Park. Numerous witnesses have reported seeing an object in the sky, so "Special Agent Larry Martin" (Judd Holdren) dons his rocket-powered flight suit, complete with full-coverage helmet (like a knight in a jousting match) and flies, like Superman, across hills and valleys to get the to landing site. The zombies have already split the scene, though, stealing a car to drive over to a scientist's nearby mansion. Lead Zombie "Marex" (Lane Bradford) gives him a choice: "either help us build and deploy an H-bomb or we will report you to your Federal government for giving away atomic secrets." He's insinuating the scientist is a commie. "Why do you need an H- bomb?" the scientist asks Marex. "Because our planet, Mars, has a thin atmosphere and it is hard for us to breathe. Your planet Earth has a rich oxygen supply, but for it to move into our gravitational hold, Earth must be obliterated."
The scientist considers his options. On the one hand, he doesn't really wanna participate in blowing the Earth to smithereens, but on the other, he wants even less to spend the rest of his life in prison, and it appears that the Zombies (who wear Plan 9-style space suits) do indeed have the blackmail goods on him for espionage. In the end he agrees to help them blow up Earth.
Having landed, Agent Martin has now found the scientist's mansion, but discovers that the Zombies have left for Morongo to obtain a shipment of uranium, so he goes to the Chatsworth train depot and asks the station master to derail their train. When that proves to be too time consuming, he commandeers a miniature (and very speedy) one-man tank that just so happens to be parked by the tracks, and races across country to chase the train down. Can he catch it in time to board, and stop the uranium from being delivered? The Zombies (who are not undead; "Zombie" means something different on Mars) have henchmen who wear suits and hats, and no, I did not make any of this stuff up. This is as goofy as a '50s sci-fi serial can get, but one chapter in, and we're loving it. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Zombies of the Stratosphere". The picture is very good.
The reviews might be a little shorter until we get back on track.
The previous night, we had a strange little film called "Devil's Bait"(1959), about the search for a poisoned loaf of bread. I'm not sure what to call it. There's an undercurrent of black comedy; the Hitchcockian string swells and quirky "duck waddle" oboes suggest as much, indicating scenes that are meant to be taken as "deliciously macabre", or to indicate eccentricity. A baker has rats in his flour storage room and calls the owner of his building, who arranges for an exterminator to come out. A ratcatcher named "Mr. Love" (Dermot Kelly) lobbies for the job, and though he's a known alcoholic, he gets hired based on his self-professed expertise. His landlady sees him preparing beforehand and is appalled that he has a bottle of potassium cyanide (illegal in England) but he tells her not to worry, "I've been using it for twenty years and I'm the best in the business."
The owner of the bakery leaves Mr. Love to his work. He's a little squeamish about the poison, but he just wants the rats gone. While Mr. Love is mixing up his cyanide with other special ingredients, a bell rings in the front of the bakery, causing him to drop and shatter his mixing bowl. Needing a substitute, he grabs an old and seemingly out-of-use bread tin, sitting rusty on the shelf. After making the poison, he dips the bread bait, then stuffs it in the ratholes and washes up to take a break. It's 5 o clock, which means Time for a Drink, so he heads to the pub for a large scotch but he's just getting warmed up. Forgetting that he still has to clean up the sink area at the bakery, at which he mixed the cyanide, he drinks until he passes out. When he's awakened at closing time, he stumbles out of the pub and down a hill. Then he slips and breaks his neck and dies.
The police investigate, and trace Mr. Love's movements back to the bakery, where the owner hides the poison bottle and bag, so he won't go out of business (because its illegal) but his wife has already used the bread tin the poison was mixed in to bake bread. She grabbed it, off hand, without thinking. The resulting loaf was sold to a customer that evening, so the baker and his wife, having already lied to the police about the rat problem, now attempt to find the loaf themselves. They go to the customers house and climb through her window, but the loaf in her kitchen is half eaten. Is she dead? Is it even the right loaf?
For the audience, there's is no deadly urgency and only mild suspense because of the aforementioned "quirky" soundtrack and character reactions. The police have been following the bakers, suspecting they've been covering something up, and they catch them red-handed in the window of the customer's house, but it turns out she gave the poisoned loaf to her daughter, who is off picnicking with a friend and her baby. Who will eat the poisoned bread? Will it be the new-born baby?
A strange plot, eh? And whisker-thin. It must've had a 20 page script, but the film succeeds in it's conviction of acting, and the canted directorial style. Everyone is invested, which always makes a difference when your story isn't fleshed out. Watching it, you kind of go "huh?" when it's over, but you'll like it all the way through, so Two Bigs. The picture is razor sharp. ////
Shall we do one more? Yeah, let's.
How about another Find the Poison flick? In "70 Deadly Pills"(1964), five Cockney kids, all around 12 years old, have a clubhouse in an old condemned slum building. They furnish it with discarded treasures found in the street, like an old gramophone and a stack of 78rpm records. They've also got a hog's head (not of real fire, though). They call themselves The Rockets, and one day, a younger boy sneaks into their club when they're away and pokes around, admiring their collection of cast-offs, but while he's up there, two robbers pull into the driveway after nicking a doctor's car. The kid watches as they throw out his medical bag and leave, making plans to come back and re-paint the car later. He goes downstairs to see what's in the bag, and finds a tin of sweets among all the stethoscopes, syringes, and thermometers. The candies were post-exam treats for the doctor's young patients, but mixed in with them, inadvertently by the robbers, is a pack of strychnine pills, 70 of 'em just like in the movie's title. The pills are mixed with the candy and they look just like M&Ms. Now The Rockets have the tin and a discussion begins: how should the sweets be divided? Should the finder get the lion's share, or should it be equal between the lot? Therefore, the plot theme is the same as in "Devil's Bait": find the poisoned food item before it kills. The best part of this movie, however, is The Rockets gang themselves, how they interact and their rituals inside the clubhouse. They're like a miniature Skull and Bones, with their oaths and sacred rules, or maybe Lord of the Flies is a better example. Watching them hash things out is fun, otherwise, from the cops' point of view, it's all "Find the sweets before the kids eat them"! And of course, to build suspense, we see every Rocket almost put one in his or her mouth, only to be interrupted "just in the nick of time!" by someone else, before they're poisoned. One girl finally does eat one of the pills, and I'll leave it up to you to see what happens. Two Big Thumbs Up. The picture is very good. ////
We still have a couple more movies to clear, but we'll get to 'em on another night. Tomorrow night, I may or may not be going to see Eric Johnson in Beverly Hills at the Saban Theater. I have a ticket that I bought almost two years ago (!) when this tour was first scheduled, but Covid was still raging and it was canceled. The weather will decide if I end up going. If it's pouring rain, I'll probably stay home and eat the ticket. I'd hate to miss EJ (one of my Top Ten artists of all time, and Top Three on guitar), but I'm a bit worn out of late, and to be honest I'm long since tired of going to concerts by myself. However, simply because it is Eric Johnson, I'll probably drag myself down there if the weather isn't totally lousy. And if I go, I'll include a Concert Report in the next blog, along with the remainder of our backed-up movies.
My blogging music tonight is Van der Graaf Generator "Still Life", my late night is Handel's Tamerlane Opera. I hope your week is going well, and did you see the Moon tonight, with Jupiter and Venus aligned below it? T'was amazing to behold, like jewels in the night sky. I send you Tons of Love, as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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