The novelty of this Republic serial is the nifty atomic rocket backpack that sends our hero, Commando Cody, flying through his adventures, literally. The costume first appeared in King of the Rocketmen (1949). The Commando Cody name begins with this serial, Rader Men From the Moon, which does have a cool futuristic military ring to it. Stuntman Dave Sharpe doubled for Tristram Coffin in King and George Wallis took over the backpack for Rader Men. I am not sure who stunt doubled for him.
Looking to create a character that would be as impressionable (aka marketable) as Spy Smasher, Captain America, and Captain Marvel, Republic used the tagline Commando Cody, Sky Marshall of the Universe–ditto on the cool futuristic military ring. What little kid wouldn’t want a rocket backpack to fly around the house in? The costume reappears in Zombies of the Stratosphere, where more space aliens threaten earth, particularly one notable screen newbie who wound up in a starship later on: Leonard Nimoy.
Choosing the Commando Cody name is explained in Jack Mathis’s Valley of the Cliffhangers.
Entitled Planet Men From Mars until four months prior to production, the serial underwent more basic changes than the alteration from marturiam to lunarium for the ray-gun-powering element, and these primarily dealt with the leading character who was originally called Larry Martin. From a list of names submitted to associate producer Franklin Adreon, Republic prexy Herbert J. Yates chose “Commando” from one entry and “Cody” from another to form his composite choice “not only for this serial but for several more to come.” Through Adreon, all studio personnel were advised of the importance of this creation, which was to be promoted in theaters and on television as well as being capitalized on via the marketing of such items as ray guns and flying suits manufactured under the Commando Cody label.
I was working in The Crypt the other day, cleaning and dusting and making room for new material. Suddenly, my phone rang and I answered it.
“Granny! This is Portia! The Killer Shrews is on TV tonight!” She exclaimed.
‘What? I said. Where? When?”
“On Channel 13 tonight on The Early Late Show! At nine o’clock!” she said.
“Well, come on over,” I said. We’ll watch it.”
Portia is my rather excitable niece, my brother Ambrose’s youngest daughter. Having her over was going to be an experience to say the least. I knew that The Killer Shrews is one of her favorite movies, as is mine, so it ought to be a hoot, two fans absorbing every minute of this “B movie” classic.
She arrived about 8:30 PM and together we cooked up some popcorn and got our drinks together. At nine I fired up the old Sylvania 19” black-and-white TV and we settled in. We had a ball! …
Not to be confused with the Hammer produced Prehistoric Women (1967), this 1950 oddity is notable for its sexploitation angle that’s light on sex but heavy on the cheesecake. Here’s what I suppose the pitch might have been. “We get a bunch of beautiful women together, dress them in furs and go heavy on the makeup and hairstyling, toss in some clubs for them to use to find primitive men as husbands, add the usual battle of the sexes but make sure the guys show their superiority in the end, and, oh…save the budget by leaving out the dinosaurs. That stop-motion stuff gets expensive. And the sets will be dirt cheap, mainly because they are dirt, with some rocks for good measure. It is the stone-age right?”
And thus was born Prehistoric Women. What’s more dumbfoundingly mesmerizing than this movie (which, really, if shown during a midnight show would be perfect) is the 8-page, oversized pressbook that shows more creativity than the production itself. I’m guessing the creatives behind this held their tongues firmly in cheekiness, especially with the narrator lending the fake-science documentary flair that was a pompous addition to some movies in the early 1950s.
Here’s an interview with Creature Features’ John Stanley I did in 2007, all freshly pressed for you.
Yeah, sure, I’ll tell you what you want to know. The whole…gasp…ungodly thing: I was a TV horror host. Yeah, me. The ordinary guy without a monster suit. I was one of those who introduced monster flicks on Saturday night. Horror classics and non-classics sixty minutes before the arrival of the Witching Hour. Yeah, let the truth be heard throughout the dungeon, throughout the castle of madmen: I was a “Creature Features” man (I Was a TV Horror Host: Memoirs of a Creature Features Man, John Stanley).
Creature Features was a popular television horror movie show that aired on KTVU Channel 2 in Oakland and San Francisco, California, from 1971 to 1984. Originally hosted by Bob Wilkins, John Stanley took over in 1979. Local station horror hosts would introduce, comment, and usually have fun with the evening’s movie fare, but Creature Features took things more seriously and included interviews with horror and sci fi notables. The Universal Studios classics, Roger Corman budget movies, Japanese terrors, and anything not nailed down under a coffin lid was fair game for airplay (you needed a rabbit ears antenna back then).
In New York City, one horror host was The Creep (Lou Steele) on Channel 5. Except for his sunglasses and sinister attitude, Steele played The Creep without a dungeon backdrop or creepy make-up. I fondly recall spending a lot of time with The Creep and I’m a better person for it. I probably would be a much better person had I been lucky enough to watch John Stanley’s Creature Features. Although he sported the usual horror host trappings of a tomb-like set and outrageous throne chair, Stanley appeared as a normal nerdy guy who knew way too much about the movies he presented. He also had the most wonderful and interesting celebrity guests to chat with.
He wrote an enjoyable and informative book about his experiences called I Was a TV Horror Host. After I read it, I knew I had to ask him to step into the closet for a little chat. …
Courtesy of It Came From Hollywood is this advance sales kicker for Rick Baker’s work in The Incredible Melting Man. With apparent influence from The Quatermass Xperiment, 1955, The Incredible Melting Man did well at the box office but was panned by critics. Rick Baker, the special makeup effects wizard whose creations appear in many notable horror and sci fi movies (Men in Black, Star Wars, It’s Alive, An American Werewolf in London, etc.), had designed the melting effect to be gradual, with four distinct phases of makeup.
It wasn’t until Baker was well into his work for The Incredible Melting Man that he heard from the Star Wars accountant who informed Baker that they wanted him to make the aliens for the cantina sequence. Baker explained that he was now totally involved in The Incredible Melting Man, but they persisted in their desire for Baker’s talent and asked if he couldn’t work something out. Baker would assemble and set up a crew to do the work with Baker supervising. The team Baker formed consisted of Doug Beswick, Jon Berg, Laine Liska, Rob Bottim [sic], and Phil Tippett, nearly all of whom are stop-motion animators…
…Baker’s work on The Incredible Melting Man consisted of four major latex full-head masks. Each one was altered slightly so that there were perhaps ten different versions of the makeup (Making a Monster, Al Taylor and Sue Roy, 1980, Crown Publishers).
From Paul: “This sumptuous heavy card stock teaser was sent out to exhibitors in the Summer of 1977 in advance of the picture’s Christmas release. I acquired this rare little gem in the Summer of 1985, and the story of how I knabbed it is worth sharing here.
During my youth as a wayward teen, smoking cigarettes and combing my hair to look cool, I used to do other “cool” stuff like rummage through garbage dumpsters behind local movie theaters. The Marquette Theater, one of three local neighborhood theaters in the Marquette Park area on the South Side of Chicago, had closed the year before. During the Summer of 1985, a crew cleaned the place out. Dumping boxes of god knows what into several dumpsters behind the theater. There were boxes of paperwork (which I should have also grabbed) and many other pressbooks and advertising material (which I also should have grabbed but didn’t), but within this pile of “garbage” was this little gem. It caught my eye above everything else because it was something I had never seen before. The cover was beaten to all hell, but the rest looked as mint as it does in these scans. I’ve held onto this since then because the excitement of finding it in a dumpster behind a defunct movie theater was one of the highlights of my life as a collector. Since discovering it in 1985, I’ve never run across another.
The Marquette Theater, to my knowledge based on research, never booked Melting Man. Star Wars played The Marquette for what seemed like forever, so I suppose the management wasn’t keen on kicking the golden goose to the curb to let an astronaut melt on the big screen. This item remains one of my most prized additions to my collection, mostly because it has a story attached to it, and pulling this nugget out to do a fresh, high-quality scan brought back all those memories of being a teen who loved movie marketing and memorabilia but rarely had the bread to buy anything.
Granny Creech digs up the radio spots for The Day of the Triffids…
It is hotter than blazes here in Squirrel Hollow!
I was working in my garden the other day, sweating, cussing and cursing at the top of my voice, when my neighbor and best friend, Esmeree Grimshaw, came around the corner of the house into my backyard. She was carrying a small box.
“Granny!” she exclaimed, setting the box down on my back porch. “What in the world is going on? Why are you yelling so much?”
“These…danged…triffids are driving me crazy! Every summer when I come out here I am faced with pulling up all of these blasted weeds. I don’t know where they all come from. Danged triffids!”
Esmeree smiled gently at me. “Oh, Granny, you’re so silly. Here…let me help.”
So, for the next hour we sat in the dirt, pulling out all the invaders that seem to choose my garden to grow in, year after year. I don’t know how they keep coming back, but they are ugly little critters. I “fondly” call all these ugly weeds and stalks in my garden “triffids”. As we pulled them out, my grumbling continued.
“Well, why don’t you just use salt water to kill them?” Esmeree asked.
We both looked at each other and started to laugh.
“Okay,” I said. “You got me. Enough about triffids.”
“At least they don’t pull themselves out of the ground and chase you,” she said, with a sly little grin.
We went into the house and washed our hands. We cooled off with glasses of sassafras iced tea. Esmeree told me the reason she came by was to drop off a box full of radio spots from The Radio Reaper. She opened the back door and brought in the box she had left on the porch. We spent the next few minutes going through it. Suddenly, Esmeree began to laugh. She handed me a record. “Here’s your next story,” she said.
I looked at the record she was holding and started to laugh, too. “That’s it,” I said. The Day of the Triffids. How fitting!”
The Day of the Triffids is a 1963 British film based on the 1951 novel by John Wyndham. When most of the entire world is blinded from watching a spectacular meteor shower, it is soon discovered that the meteorites contained spores which grow into giant mobile, man-eating plants. The story follows several characters who survive the blindness for various reasons and the trials they face.
The movie features many disturbing scenes of the general populace faced with sudden blindness: streets deserted of vehicular traffic while crowds of people stagger about; a train full of blind passengers crashing into a train station and the ensuing panic as injured passengers desperately grope their way around; and the moment when passengers on an airliner realize they and the pilots are all blind and the realization of their impending doom. Composite shots of burning cities and excellent matte paintings of landmarks and streets with dozens of crashed vehicles, and a shot of hundreds of triffids growing in a giant crater, add to the terror.
When I first saw The Day of the Triffids, I felt I was watching two movies rolled into one. I later found out I was. It seems that, according to the Internet Movie DataBase, the initial film starred Howard Keel and Nicole Maurey and centered on their adventures with the triffids. When production was over, the producers found they didn’t have enough footage to release as a full length movie. So, they brought on Janette Scott and Kieron Moore, created a new storyline set in a deserted lighthouse, and filmed their encounters with the triffids. The two stories were blended together into the movie we have now. It ends with a rather “War of the Worlds” tone as Moore and Scott find out that sea water dissolves and kills the triffids. Sea water, from whence mankind got its origin, now serves as its preserver.
The radio spots are awesome! They reflect the mystery and terror of the movie. Complete with amazing announcers, effective sound effects and music, the spots are some of the best I’ve heard. So, thanks to The Radio Reaper, have a listen and beware the unknown weeds in your garden: They may be…triffids!
Here are 10, 30, and 60 second radio spots to fill you with terror.
The ants invading your summer picnic didn’t come from It Came From Hollywood, but this pressbook did. AIP unleashes Joan Collins–I mean the ants, in this bargain basement production directed by Bert I. Gordon (Earth vs. the Spider, The Amazing Colossal Man, The Magic Sword). The last film in AIP’s H.G. Wells run, which also included The Food of the Gods (1976) and The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977), the ants may be big but the special effects not so much. More thrilling for the female actors than the giant ant props used to attack them was the half-hour trek to the restroom. Filming took place in the Florida Everglades and St. Lucie and Martin Counties during the fall. Wikipedia mentions that actress Pamela Susan Shoop had to go to the hospital after her jaw dislocated during a scream due to the cold weather. Bert I. Gordon took charge of the spfx, but using footage of regular ants against photographic backgrounds and mini-sets, process shots, and static, giant ant, handheld props pummeling the actors, detracted from the movie. IMDb notes this interesting tidbit: “According to Pamela Susan Shoop, the film’s sound man had a fight with director Bert I. Gordon towards the end of the shoot and threw all of its audio tapes into the swamp. They lost everything, so the entire film had to be looped. Because of this, their voices and actions never quite mesh.”
Although Gordon came in for criticism because of the aforementioned shots of bugs crawling over pictures in Beginning of the End, he does worse in Empire of the Ants. As the big ants head for the open door of the refinery [sugar], some of them begin climbing the building–where there is no building. To be charitable, one could suggest that the ants were merely standing on their hind legs, but of course it makes no sense that they would scratch their legs against open air. To represent the ant’s-eye view of things, Gordon simply places a plate with several circles cut out of it over the lens. Needless to say, this is not too impressive. (Creature Features: Nature Turned Nasty in the Movies, Willam Schoell, 2008, McFarland & Company)
Now me, I’d watch the movie just to see that! And Joan Collins getting pummeled by a giant ant prop, of course.
Well, it is summer, so here’s a double bill to splash your world: Teenage Rebellion and It’s a Bikini World. America has always been an unruly mess of generational issues, but the 1960s were as turbulent as today’s social and political morass. However, the 1960s got it right, we just didn’t listen: make love, not war. Seems we just love to make war these days. So imagine it’s a warm summer’s evening at your local, nicely air-conditioned theater. It’s the late 1960s all over again, and the double bill is something your date wanted to see, but you could take it or leave it. You really rather see Frankenstein Created Women, but at least It’s a Bikini World has Sig Haig in it, so there’s that. It also was the last gasp, pretty much, for the beach picture genre of sand, songs, and humor. That teenage rebellion had something to do with that. Now, at this point, you’re thinking why pair both movies? Easy answer: Teenage Rebellion spent much of its camera time on girls and bikini’s on girls. Get the picture? And yes, It Came From Hollywood!
The first person to portray Tarzan in the movies was Elmo Lincoln in 1918. In 1932, Johnny Weismuller assumed the roll and became the definitive Tarzan, although he wasn’t quite the educated man that Edgar Rice Burroughs imagined in his books. Buster Crabbe (Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers) portrayed the ape man in a 1933 serial, and Herman Brix took a turn in 1935. Brix’s serial, The New Adventures of Tarzan, was the only one where Burroughs was involved in the production. Gordon Scott, Ron Ely, and other actors portrayed the jungle lord also. Jane Goodall noted that the Tarzan series had a major influence on her childhood. Jerry Siegel (co-creator of Superman) noted that Tarzan and John Carter of Mars were early inspirations for Superman. As for me, watching the Tarzan movies every Sunday on local television was an essential part of my childhood.
The Master Suspense Thrill Show! See The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus, cringe in terror from The Manster! Ah, the good old days, when two movies were shown back to back for an admission fee that was about 1/15th the cost of today. You could spend a few leisurely hours in a nicely air-conditioned theater, sitting in the balcony, munching on popcorn (or flicking it across the heads of the patrons below) and too many sugary sweets, watching the horror. Now the horror is more likely seated next to you, with someone eating something smelly, that idiot in the front who can’t seem to stop texting, the guy with the pail of Coke and a small bladder, and you looking back toward the concession stand you can no longer afford. Oh, wait, at least you can spend a few hours–no balcony anymore, bummer–watching a single movie that is as long as a double bill. That’s something, I suppose.
This movie review was originally written for Unsung Horrors, edited by Eric McNaughton. I have a few more reviews in the book, but there are dozens upon dozens of reviews, written by We Belong Dead magazine contributors, sharing their passions for those neglected horror movies you should know about.
Watch out! The Manster and his mad companion Dr. Faustus are terrorizing (your city). This thrill show will be the shock experience of your life. Suspense like Hitchcock! Mood like Tennessee Williams! See The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus and The Manster at the Bijou Theatre, NOW! (15 second radio spot copy from the Lopert Pictures Corporation Double Bill Pressbook, The Master Suspense Thrill Show! for The Manster and The Horror Chamber of Doctor Faustus)
Okay, so what if Psychotronic described reporter Larry Stanford’s (played by Peter Dyneley) unwelcomed second head as a “carved coconut”? And so what if Bill Warren doesn’t much care for the movie in his so-big-it-could-give-you-a-hernia-reading-it book, Keep Watching the Skies! (He flatly states it “stunk.”) And, well, yes, there’s that dreadful, awfully written monologue given by Matthews (Norman Van Hawley), Stanford’s newspaper boss, who, after the movie should have ended, reflects with “who really did all these things” and “he was just an average joe” musings. Groan.
And I suppose we can’t easily ignore the stagey acting by Larry’s wife in every scene she’s in (played by Jane Hylton, Dyneley’s real-life wife), but especially when she ruins a perfectly good close-up by telling the Police Superintendent (Jerry Ito of Mothra and Message from Space) “when you find him, will you remember something has happened to him, something he can’t control.”
Sure, you bet. Something that makes him kill again and again and grow hair in the worst places, like some Dr. Jekyll strung along for an acid ride with Mr. Hyde. Only this time he’s dressed in a trench coat splattered with blood and has a homicidal second head calling the shots while his first one downs quite a few of the more intoxicating kind.
But let’s ignore all of that and examine the reasons you should see this movie.
The Manster, Half Man-Half Monster (also titled The Split in Britain) was released to U.S. theaters in 1962, on a double bill with The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus (which the so-darn-picky Bill Warren found “evocative” and “poetic”). A science fiction movie with horror overtone, The Manster is a low budget, noir-ish looking schlock propelled by a crazed Japanese scientist meddling with nature-flavored tokusatsu body horror.
Certainly any monsterkid worth his electrodes will vividly remember the impact of seeing that horror’s result: first, the unblinking eye peering up from Stanford’s shoulder; soon after followed by that homicidal, hairy, coconut-head sprouting from the same spot. You can bet monsterkids everywhere reacted to this in either of two ways, of course: (1) wishing for an eye to pop up on their shoulders, too, so they could bring it to show-and-tell at school (Munsters and Addams Family chit-chat could only go so far, you know); or (2), for the more squeamish among them, clapping hands to their mouths, hoping that the screams they promised they’d never make hadn’t awakened their sleeping parents who had warned, in no uncertain terms, to NOT stay up late and watch THOSE movies on television.
Yes, The Manster is one of THOSE movies that epitomizes 1950s horror. …
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