Sat 5 Mar 2016
Jonathan Lewis Reviews Two MONSTER MOVIES.
Posted by Steve under Horror movies , Reviews , SF & Fantasy films[11] Comments
FIRST MAN INTO SPACE. MGM, UK/US, 1959. Marshall Thompson, Marla Landi, Bill Edwards, Robert Ayres, Bill Nagy, Carl Jaffe, Roger Delgado. Director: Robert Day.
Watching First Man into Space, one cannot help but be reminded of The Quatermass Experiment, in which a rocket ship returns to Earth with an extraterrestrial menace in its midst. The same is essentially true for this surprisingly effective low-budget science fiction flic about a hubristic Air Force pilot who, in his obsessive quest to become the titular first man in space, ends up a victim of cosmic rays or such.
And by “victim,†I mean that his endeavor in the stars transforms into a genuinely creepy looking bloodsucking monster that needs to kill and to feed in order to survive. Although First Man into Space is, at times, exceedingly talky (much like similar science fiction films from the era), it nevertheless has enough chills and thrills to keep the viewer engaged for the relatively scant running time.
The crisp black and white cinematography, while nothing spectacular, is nevertheless much better than in many of the cheapie creature films from the same era. I can’t promise that you’ll love this movie, but I think that you’ll find that it’s a bit better than its title and premise suggest.
CREATURE FROM BLACK LAKE. Howco International Pictures, 1976. Jack Elam, Dub Taylor, Dennis Fimple, John David Carson, Bill Thurman. Director: Joy N. Houck Jr.
For a horror movie, Creature from Black Lake honestly isn’t all that good. For a spunky low-budget thriller, however, this mid-1970s creature feature really isn’t all that bad.
While it’s hardly a classic, the movie simply exudes passion and spirit. Combining both shaky handheld camera effects with creepy music, Creature from Black Lake has campy humor, chills and thrills, and some interesting things to say about the counterculture and the place of Southern whites in American society. Ultimately, however, it’s a buddy film – the story of two University of Chicago classmates who travel down South to investigate the sighting of an apparent Bigfoot type creature in the Louisiana swamps.
Although many of the actors aren’t particularly well known, one of them is certainly well known, especially by Western genre fans. That would be Jack Elam who, in this film, portrays a bearded and often drunk Bayou wild man who has a run in with the mysterious swamp creature.
Elam’s presence in this film, while hardly a highlight of his career, lends the film both comic relief (Elam can be really funny!) and a sense of campy fun. Sometimes a film doesn’t need to be all that good – in a technical sense – to be enjoyable.
March 6th, 2016 at 2:10 am
I agree about MAN, better than it has any right to be. As for the other you lost me at Dub Taylor, an actor I find best taken in very small doses in most cases.
March 6th, 2016 at 2:22 am
Fortunately for you, then, Taylor is in the film for no more than 5 or 6 minutes. But he plays the exact type of character you’d expect him to in a film set in the LA swampland
March 6th, 2016 at 8:41 am
I remember FIRST MAN IN SPACE from a TV screening years back. At the time I only knew Marshall Thompson from DAKTARI, so watching him deal with a blood-drinking monster was rather discombobulating. Rather like its companion film FIEND WITHOUT A FACE, most of this was filmed in England, and particularly Hampstead Heath. Robert Day directed one of my fave black comedies THE GREEN MAN, as well as a load of AVENGERS episodes from the ’60s, and he does a good, competent job here. Actually, the word competent sums this up very well. Not brillian, not a classic, but a very well made B-movie.
March 6th, 2016 at 10:09 am
Marshall Thompson was hardly the most electrifying of actors, but he did three scary sci-fi flicks in a row: this one, FIEND WITHOUT A FACE and IT: THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE.
March 6th, 2016 at 12:35 pm
Thompson’s high point as an actor was probably in THE SNIPER with Adolph Menjou, and as the kid in BATTLEGROUND. He was always competent, and once in a while showed he might have been more in the right roles but he was too easy to cast as the nice guy.
My Dub Taylor thing depends on the role he plays. He can be very good under a director who doesn’t let him run away with his part.
March 6th, 2016 at 3:21 pm
I thought Marshall Thompson a terrific actor who had a high point whenever he was photographed in a picture, but he did not appear in the Sniper. That was Arthur Franz.
March 6th, 2016 at 5:23 pm
Jack Elam’s comedic talents were wonderfully on display in 1971’s SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL GUNFIGHTER with James Garner, a not-as-good sequel to SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SHERIFF. Elam’s final line in GUNFIGHTER is especially memorable.
I also have trouble distinguishing between Marshall Thompson and Arthur Franz at times. I can imagine them competing for a lot of the same roles.
March 6th, 2016 at 9:39 pm
Barry,
Of course. Don’t know why I get those two mixed up.
March 7th, 2016 at 1:04 am
Back in the ’50s, Marshall Thompson and Arthur Franz starred together in World Of Giants, a science fiction/adventure series from Ziv, reputedly one of the more expensive shows of its type up to that time (CBS put up much of the money (it says here)).
Here’s the set-up: Mel Hunter (Thompson) is an American agent who got caught in a chemical/nuclear/something-or-other explosion, and shrank to six inches tall.
The Spy Organization decided to keep Little Mel on the payroll, and paired him up with normal-sized Bill Winters (Franz), who I think was an old partner of his anyway.
Bill would carry Mel around in an attaché case on their various missions; Mel had a little seat-belt chair in the case, and a little door at the base through which he’d exit to do his spy stuff, dodging dogs, cats, household appliances and whatever else loomed up on the back-projection screen behind him.
Thrills and/or chills ensued.
Midway through the run, Marcia Henderson, a serviceable actress of the time, was added to the cast as Mel’s nurse, who joined in the spying as needed.
World Of Giants was produced circa 1958 or ’59; only thirteen episodes were produced – either CBS bailed, or Ziv ran out of money, or something.
Ziv sent the thirteen WOGs into syndication.
I first saw them in 1963, when channel 7, the local ABC station, began showing Sci-fi movies on late Monday afternoons; it was a two-hour slot, the movie (mainly AIP cheapies) took the first 90 minutes, and WOG filled out the slot.
Since I got into collecting stuff like this on video, I’ve kept a weather eye out for World Of Giants; I managed to find a couple of stray episodes on a VHS tape once upon a time, but no luck on the DVD front (I’m not giving up, though …).
So anyway, that’s probably how you got Marshall Thompson and Arthur Franz mixed up; they always seemed to play the same type of parts, and the height issue aside, they did resemble each other.
Sort of …
March 7th, 2016 at 4:28 am
Franz was in a better than average B-horror film which I reviewed here
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=36162
March 7th, 2016 at 4:43 am
Just back from YouTube, where I found the two stray World Of Giants episodes I referred to in #9.
The other 11 shows are still MIA.
I’m still lookin’ …