Last night we found a Sci-Fi flick with the Cormanesque title of "The Beast with a Million Eyes"(1955), and though Roger Corman co-wrote the screenplay that's where the similarities end, for it has none of the hallmarks of his work. Still, it was very interesting, though more a psychological drama than a typically cheap Rubber Suited Monster Movie. The Kelly family lives way out in the desert in Indio, California, running a date ranch. The movie is filmed on location; there's a big stack of date palms out in the middle of their property. Dad "Allan Kelly" (Paul Birch) runs the operation with just one helper, a big, mute "Mice and Men" guy known only as "Him" (Leonard Tarver). Dad Kelly explains: "We call him that because nobody knows his name, and he can't talk." Early on, we realize that the desert isolation is doing a number on Mom (Lorna Thayer). She's overwrought, in the most melodramatic sense of the word. She's jealous of her daughter Sandy's plans to go to college, which Dad wants for her. "She gets to escape this place," Mom says of "Sandy" (Dona Cole). "I've lost all my best years here. I hate her for it!" Sandy hears her say this, and Mom immediately regrets saying it. "I don't mean it, honey. It's only words." Mom is frustrated and preoccupied. She burns casseroles and cakes in the oven.
One day, when Dad is out in the date field, there's a high whine in the air. The Kellys' clapboard house is shaken like in an earthquake, knocking dishes out of cupboards. In the aftermath, Mom takes a turn for the worse. She thinks the noise was from a plane that buzzed the house. Actually, it's a UFO that's landed in the desert. For us, its appearance was never a secret. As the movie opened, we heard the alien pilot tell us, in a radio announcers voice, that he was coming to take over our planet. Now he's putting his money where his mouth is.
Duke, the family's German Shepherd is the first to be affected. He investigates the whining noise coming from the outlying scrub and turns into Cujo, attacking Mrs. Kelly so savagely that she tries to shoot him, and when that fails, she chops him up with an axe. Fortunately, we are only told about this, and not shown it.
Next come the birds. While out harvesting dates, Dad and Him are viciously attacked, and - listen folks, my theories about directors copying from other films is no joke - this movie came out 7 years before "The Birds", and you can see for yourself the comparisons, of how a seed for Hitchcock's movie could be germinated.
Following that is an attack by a local farmer's cow, who also has to be shot dead. Him has been acting weird the entire time. He spies on young Sandy Kelly when she goes swimming in the irrigation pond. Mom has melted down by now, but when she reconciles with Sandy, she discovers the power of love, and their bond, and the end of their animosity, seems to have an adverse affect on the alien, who's camped out in his spaceship in the hills.
Dick Sargeant of "Bewitched" fame, looking skinny as a stick, plays the local sheriff's deputy. Him hitches a ride with Dick, then - having been irradiated by the UFO (which resembles a combination toaster/milkshake mixer) he clobbers him, steals his squad car, then comes back to the house and tries to kill Sandy, as programmed by the alien. Dad then reveals a secret. To coax Him away from Sandy, he says, "Carl.....Carl... it's me, Alan. Don't hurt my daughter." Him relents (and later dies from radiation sickness), but we learn that Dad knew him all along. His name was Carl. He was in Dad's troop during the war. Dad, the squad leader, made a bad call on patrol that cost Carl "part of his brain, which had to be removed. That's why he cant talk." Mom and Sandy never knew the truth about Carl and now he's dead.
Ultimately, the alien makes it known, through mental telepathy, that he wants Sandy Kelly to help repopulate his planet, which is dying for the usual sci-fi reasons. Dad and Mom realize that - though the family are fearful - they have a human quality the alien doesn't understand, and that will defeat him. It's love, of course. The movie gets super-metaphysical in the last ten minutes, with Broadway actors Paul Birch (Dad) and Lorna Thayer (Mom) emoting for all their worth to explain the meaning of life.
All told, it's a weird one. If the running time were 12 minutes shorter, I'd recommend "The Beast with a Million Eyes" for a Criterion restoration as an oddball classic. The (El) Indio date farm location, with it's old house and outbuildings is reason enough to restore (and recommend) it. The psychological effects on the family go on too long, and weigh on the viewer, but that's the crux of the movie: that the alien wants humans and animals, and all Earth creatures, to hate each other, so that they will kill one another and he can have the planet. In that respect, it's a prescient script. The acting is ultra sincere, and has a spiritual tint. If it had a Criterion restoration I guess I'd give it Two Huge Thumbs Up. Some IMDB reviewers say it's worse than an Ed Wood movie, a complaint I can almost understand, but it's way too intelligent for that. Let's settle for Two Bigs with a must-see recommendation, just because its so weird. One caveat: the picture ranges from good to okay to blurry, but it's very watchable. I wouldn't miss it if I were you. ////
The previous night, in "Outside the Wall"(1950), 30 year old "Larry Nelson" (Richard Basehart) is paroled from the grim and notorious Cherry Hill prison in Philadelphia, after spending half his young life behind bars for murder. He was 14 and in reform school when it happened; he slugged a guard who later died. In the Big House, Larry's been a model prisoner. Upon his release, the warden gives him his 600 hard-earned dollars, a suit of clothes, a bus ticket and wishes him well. Larry has admitted he's scared of living outside. "I don't even know the world. I've heard everything's all sped up."
On his first night out, he sees men fighting on the sidewalk. He almost gets run over by a car. Retreating to a flophouse, he's disillusioned yet again when a job the warden set him up with doesn't pan out. During a brief stint as a dishwasher, a stickup takes place at the cafe employing him, and Larry, having prison-quick reactions, beats up and disarms the assailants. By now, he wants no more of crazy city life and departs for rural Pennsylvania, where he gets a job as a medical lab assistant, based on his similar experience in the penitentiary.
He tries to keep to himself at the clinic, but a hottie blond nurse named "Charlotte" (Marilyn Maxwell) has taken notice of his buff physique, having given Larry his pre-employment physical (Basehart himself is all buffed-out). Charlotte starts coming on to him, but because he went into prison at 14, he knows nothing of women except what the older cons told him: "Listen kid, all they want is money or to run your life, or both." At first he's wary of Charlotte, and there's another nurse, "Ann" (Dorothy Hart) who's just as beautiful and nothing like what he's been told. She's honest, sincere, and likes him for who he is rather than for his body or any potential money he might eventually have (though she knows nothing about his prison past).
Then a monkey wrench is thrown in, to become the main part of the plot. Prior to getting his job, Larry has seen a newspaper headline about a million dollar Brinks robbery. He recognizes the name of the fugitive perpetrator, an older man named "Gus Wormser" (Joseph Pevney) who was once his mentor when he lived on the streets as a child. One day at the clinic, Larry is called on to prep a tuberculosis patient, and it's the same man, Gus the Brinks robber. He now wants Larry to take cash payments to his wife "Celia" (Signe Hasso), who's blackmailing him for one grand per week. "I know you have all that money," she's told Gus, "and you'd better pay up or I'll tell the cops where you are". He's near death anyway, with TB, so it may not matter if he's caught, but he vows to recover. "I want to live to spend my million dollars. Listen Larry, I'll pay you to take my wife's payments to her." At first Larry wants no part of this, wanting to stay as far from criminality as he can get. But when Charlotte the nurse uses her sexual wiles on him, and says "I'm the kind of gal who likes nice things", he gets tempted. so he ends up taking Gus's offer, and he starts delivering the blackmail payments to his wife. But she has a bigger scheme that neither Gus nor Larry knows about. Abetted by three hoodlums, including Harry Morgan as a torturer, Celia Wormser plans to get hold of the entire million dollar Brinks loot, and has her henchmen follow Larry back to the clinic, where they kidnap Gus by slipping him out a windum.
The overall theme here is money-grubbing, which Larry knows nothing about, coming from a hard-scrabble background with no parents. Through bad luck, he ended up in prison at 14. Post-war society has indeed "sped up" during his time inside the joint, and has become materialistic to a degree he doesn't recognize. He can't understand why Charlotte cares so much about the platinum-coated watch he's bought her with Gus's money. "To me, it's just a shiny piece of junk" he says. But it's a status symbol, and that's enough for her to agree to marry him. But nurse Ann is genuine, and when Gus is kidnapped, she helps Larry escape from the clutches of Celia's gang. As much a drama as a Noir, with "the straight and simple life" as the moral, "Outside the Wall" earns Two Big Thumbs Up. Before he became a household TV star with "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", Richard Basehart always got the most dramatic Noir roles. The picture is razor sharp, and the opening scenes were actually shot at Cherry Hill Prison, which looks downright medieval. ////
That's all for tonight. My blogging music is "The Psychomodo" by Cockney Rebel. Shortly after I started hanging out at College Records in 1973, I started buying and reading Melody Maker, an English music weekly published in newspaper form. I swear, it seemed like every MM headline in 1974 was for Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel. Harley was their singer. None of the guys at College Records ever played Cockney Rebel, and I never bought any of their records. Their image was too Glam for me and seemed put-on, and the mere fact that Melody Maker kept trumpeting them was an additional turn-off ("If critics like it that much, it must suck"). Tonight is the first time I've ever heard their music, which I selected out of curiosity. "The Psychomodo" isn't too bad after all, though Steve Harley takes a little getting used to. He sounds like an exaggerated combination of David Bowie and Alex Harvey, with a touch of Bryan Ferry affectation thrown in. He's theatrical, in other words. But overall, the music's not too bad, and Cockney Rebel are decent musicians. Give 'em a shot if so inclined. My late night is Handel's Agrippina Opera. I hope you had a nice weekend and I send you Tons of Love as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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