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I'm from Arkansas (1944)
And I couldn't care less
Oddly enough Lew Landers director of such horrors classics as "The Raven" (1935) and "The Return of the Vampire" (1943) is at helm here bringing forth to us this low-below-low budget tired redneck stereotype filled too musical-hardly a comedy.
After it makes national headlines that Esmeralda a pig gave birth to eighteen piglets multiple visitors overrun the overly southern small town of Pitchfork. Amongst them are - an all male band who grew up there, an all female band who plan on using the publicity for their own advantage, and two spies from an industrial meat factory who were sent in order to find out what "secret formula" caused that many pigs to be born.
With this kind of a ridiculous plot the film takes an extremely lazy route and gives each of it's characters only one clichéd characteristic as an identifier. You have your old fools (Slim Summerville), Cynical gals (Iris Adrian), feisty elderly ladies (Maude Eburne), dashing young men (Bruce Bennett), a somewhat well known musical sensation of the time appearing as themselves (Jimmy Wakely), and it just goes on.
Summerville is enjoyable especially while bantering with tenacious Eburne though to a certain extant as his mumbling southerner Walter Brennan-esque routine gets stale real quick. Adrian never got another main starring role which was lucky since her brassiness here is spread so thin it's pretty tiring after a while, Bennett's nothing special but watchable. Wakley should not have been present at all the action stops dead as soon as there's a musical number and despite them being pleasant to one's ear they're basically noting more than just filler.
At seventy minutes long this tiny and hidden for a good reason picture does provide some entertainment when it doesn't mainly and heavily rely on poor attempts at screwball comedy-like humor.
Bride of the Gorilla (1951)
The Case of the Lesser Wolf Man
This was meant to be an intentionally unapologetic rip-off of "The Wolf Man" made a mere decade earlier starring Lon Chaney Jr. who also appears here and inexplicably so. "Bride of the Gorilla" which holds no production value or any values at all was apparently shot in one week and I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that writer/director Curt Siodmak wrote the screenplay on his way to it's set first day of shooting.
Plotwise very much like in "The Wolf Man" we have a love story, black magic, gypsies, paranoid locals who believe in folklore, and an ancient curse that can turn people into voracious beasts.
Plantation worker Barney Chavez (Perry Maso...Raymond Burr) is having an affair with his boss's (Paul Cavanagh as Klaas Van Gelder) blonde bombshell of a wife (discount Marilyn Mo...Barbara Payton). Thanks to that the boss and his employee don't get along so swimmingly and during a swift scuffle Chavez kills Van Gelder without realizing gypsy Al- Long (Gisela Werbisek) witnessed it all and in-turn she curses him. Afterwards Chavez marries Mrs. Van Gelder but every night he turns into a terrifying havoc causing gorilla which is never shown on screen except by the end when Police Commissioner Taro (Chaney) and Dr. Viet (Tom Conway) hunt him down.
The acting and characters are a mixed bag - Burr comes off rather cocky so as a result when he gets cursed following Van Gelder's murder I simply thought it served him right. Seductive Payton our true main character isn't very likable either seeing how she immediately marries Chavez following Van Gelder's death and when he's starting to act fairly odd her eyes are newly set upon Dr. Viet. Chaney's casting just seems bizarre though he does deliver plus one roots for him as he's the good guy though that is a lazy man's cheap writing trick. the sets, lighting, costumes, score, and cinematography don't provide any kind of atmosphere typically found in horror but than again these aspects aren't executed that badly though average.
To be honest this picture should have been called -Gorilla of the Bride- considering of how little screen time said beast has. The only thing that prevented me from falling asleep while watching was Conway's highly rich tone of voice. At least this made him somewhat useful seeing all he does during those extremely slow and agonizing seventy minutes is to carry a torch for the now Mrs. Chavez. A colossal waste of talent and the audience's precious time.
Bride of the Monster (1955)
It's quite rare to run into a film done so poorly that you actually feel sorry for it
Ed Wood had, has, and will continue to have one of the most lousy reputations out there as far as filmmaking is concerned. This highly incompetent film and science fiction enthusiast managed to manufacture some of the biggest schlock piles that made Roger Corman's early "motion pictures" seem like worth while efforts.
Both written and directed by Wood "Bride of the Monster" presents us with poor, ill, elderly Bela Lugosi as a mad scientist who plans to create an army of atomic super-humans based upon his somewhat successful zombie-like prototype (Tor Johnson) so he can rule the world. With the law, discount Torchy Blane, and another scientist chasing him around Lugosi's shadow of his former self begins to dispose of these unwanted pests by having a giant octopus that's clearly just a rubber puppet devour them.
It's difficult to get a laugh out of any of it considering how visibly miserable and confused the actors appear. Lugosi especially as he mumbles his ridiculously tedious dialogue, Johnson comes off less frightening than what was obviously intended, everyone else float around somewhere between overly over the top and too low-key to be even remotely worthy of mentioning.
Far from being ironically enjoyable this movie is nothing more than an awfully depressing experience mixed with extremely tiny bits and pieces where there's a swift glimpse of whatever bizarre vision Wood originally had. As a man of vision Wood perhaps immersed himself in it so deeply which morphed his perception of the actual dismal reality taking place that is my theory anyway.
Sabu and the Magic Ring (1957)
...or Sabu's Last (and not so great) Adventure
Thanks to taking a few too many pages right out of "Arabian Nights" this tiny piece of childish mess or should I say -these pieces- for you see that unambitious ultra light entertainment was originally meant as two different pilots for an unsold Sabu television series lazyingly drags on all for nothing.
Slave boy Sabu (played by...Sabu) finds a magical ring inside his sleazy master's stable (Peter Mamakos) from which pops up a Babylon tower sized genie (William Marshall). Our villainous master is eager to get his greedy little hands on this magical ornament in hopes of taking over the kingdom as Grand Caliph. With the help of his fruit selling good friend (Daria Massey) Sabu sets out to protect their realm.
One glaring issue this particular semi-motion picture has besides Sabu still portraying the same character he portrayed as a small child some twenty years back which holds a certain uncanny valley feeling to it is it's cheap sets (stacks of pale cardboard) and costumes (small chunks of colorful cloth). Everything else is quite average - acting, "cinematography", effects, and the lot. Hokey describes it best unfortunately so since this could have been a pleasant sendoff for Sabu's standard movie role.
War of the Satellites (1958)
Schlock galore
Mind you I was up until recently only exposed to Roger Corman's work with Vincent Price those Edgar Allan Poe adaptations he made in the 1960's and they were quite good which made me even more eager to get my hands on some of his notoriously, mind numbing, cheaply made science-fiction films he's so wildly known for and by George that short wait finally paid off.
Whatever little there is of its plot concerns humanity's determination to build the first satellite in space despite some nasty warnings coming in from an unknown alien entity. Our three main characterless characters are played ever so over the top by Dick Miller, Sybil Carrington, and grand ham Richard Devon.
Needless to say that there are a few scientific errors - no space suits just regular ole workman's clothing, everything outside earth's atmosphere seems to be spinning faster than a broken teacup in Disneyland, and the spacecraft is apparently made out of cardboard. Not to mention the office furniture and blinking light bulbs labeled "advanched technology" plus whoever's attic it was doubling as a UN conference room.
All of these inaccuracies and generally awfully lousy filmmaking truly provide some highly needed joy. During most of the running time I found myself either laughing hysterically or trying to hold my laughter in so as not to lose track of whatever lunacy was taking place. This is a rotten one obviously but that mixture of utter sincerity in the face of complete silliness manages to save what could have easily been another sci-fi cinematic excrement.
Journal of a Crime (1934)
There are two sides here and none of them is appealing
Considering how simple of a tale this is film wise of course makes the almost inconceivable amount of loopholes and meandering questions left as it ends appear far more ludicrous then the overused plot itself.
As it all begins we see a scorned Mrs finding out about her philandering producer husband and his snotty performer mistress. realizing he wants a divorce the wife sometime later goes to the theater and murders his lover mid rehearsal but it's a bank robber who hid in the place that gets blamed for it. The Mr knows better then the law though and he informs her of his plan - to let her stew in the massive guilt she's feeling until she won't be able to take it anymore.
His "master-plan" goes smoothly until the most downright impossible, implacable, mind boggling event occurs and it's laughably bad.
Credit where credit is due Ruth Chatterton (the wife) does manage to pull one impressive performance of a confused desperate soul but alas thanks to the rather appalling manner both main characters are handled in this screenplay I couldn't for the life of me root for either of them not to mention both. If only it was all from Adolphe Menjou's (the husband's) point of view that way at least one could have felt sorry for them making each other miserable and his odd actions would make more sense had we got to see some form of reasoning behind them instead as an audience we're kept at arm's length from what truly goes on.
The Secret Six (1931)
I won't be surprised if the script originated from a "Slaughterhouse"
While undeniably entertaining "The Secret Six" does suffer from a rather messy screenplay courtesy of Frances Marion that makes the audience feel as though they are random passersby who picked up a few bits and pieces from some strangers' conversation.
The plot which treads on familiar ground as it regards the rise and fall of a gangster (Wallace Beery) whose rise commends as his criminal friend (Ralph Bellamy) brings him in front of a crooked drunken attorney (Lewis Stone) who is also the brains behind a large underworld bootlegging operation. Later on as our main crook nicknamed "Slaughterhouse" begins to climb up the ranks within this gang of low lives by backstabbing pretty much anyone that stands in his way for the top. Two investigative reporters (Clark Gable and Johnny Mack Brown) decide to stop him from getting there with the help of an employee (Jean Harlow) who works at a restaurant operated by the bootleggers as their front.
This is all quite easy to follow despite plenty of lousy dialogue (which the phrase "oh yeah?" makes about 30% of) but it's the final execution itself that's confusing. The movie starts off with us following "Slaughterhouse" for better or worse but then when those two male Nancy Drews show up the picture shifts gear and they become our main protagonists afterwards there's hardly any glimpse of him unless one of these guys is hanging about.
Despite all of that "The Secret Six" does manage to provide lots of entertainment mainly thanks to it's colorful players - Beery is one mean bum, Bellamy fits surprisingly well is this dreary setting, Gable while he doesn't really have all that much to do except spit out his iffy good guy dialogue still manages to give a good show the same goes for Brown, Harlow's character seems like the biggest casualty here since there are little glimpses into her personalty but not much else.
Marjorie Rambeau, Paul Hurst, John Miljan, DeWitt Jennings, and Murray Kinnell deliver highly stellar performances in their supporting roles but there's no doubt that my absolute favorite of the bunch was Lewis Stone he was simply tops. Of course one can't forget the masterful direction by George Hill. All in all very enjoyable could have been a classic if it wasn't for it's so-below-so writing.