Monthly Archives: November 2020

Drive-In Friday: Harry “Tampa” Hurwitz Night!

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A toast! Let’s raise those waxed cups n’ strawed A&W Root Beers to Harry “Tampa” Hurwitz and his return to the big screen with Robert De Niro starring in the remake of Harry’s 1982 feature, The Comeback Trail.

Prior to his tenure as a screenwriter, director and producer, the New York born and raised Hurwitz worked as a professor of film and drawing at several New York institutions, including a prestigious tenure at New York University.

That’s what I get for hiring a high school kid to do the sign. Eh, you get what you $5.00-buck-an-hour pay for, right? Know your “rose” suffixes, kid.

He made his debut as a filmmaker with 1970’s critically-acclaimed The Projectionist — a film noted as the acting debut for a then unknown comedian named Rodney Dangerfield — in a tale about a lonely projectionist (Chuck McCann) who imagines himself in the films he shows. Hurwitz also translated his life-long love of Charlie Chaplin in the 1972 sophomore effort, The Eternal Tramp.

While his films would see distribution with major studios, such as MGM/United Artists (Safari 3000), and major-independents, such as Almi Pictures, a division of Carolco (The Rosebud Beach Hotel), and Compass International (Nocturna), Hurwitz produced and directed 12 pictures, 9 of which he wrote, independently.

His resume features two films produced with a pre-Empire Studios Charles Band: the late ’70s sexploitation pieces Fairy Tales and Auditions. Hurwitz also wrote and directed 1972’s Richard, a social parody on President Richard M. Nixon. He re-teamed with his lifelong friend Chuck McCann in 1982’s The Comeback Trail, a somewhat semi-autobiographical tale about two independent film executives against-the-odds in producing a western with a washed-up cowboy star.

“Rose” BLANK
And the $50 response is . . . “Is a Rose”
The $150 response is . . . “Wood”
And the $500 response . . . “Bud”

What the hell? Napoleon Solo? Well, it was either Match Game . . . or do a film with Harry. Oh, shite . . . say it ain’t so, Solo! The “comeback trail” isn’t paved with Harry Hurwitz films, Mr. Vaughn. Just ask Christopher Lee. . . .

Repeating the semi-documentary cinéma vérité style of 1978’s Auditions, Hurwitz also concocted 1989’s That’s Adequate; a Spinal Tapish tale about a troubled film studio that features an eclectic cast of comedians with Sinbad, Richard Lewis, and Rick Overton alongside a starbound Bruce Willis, Maureen “Marsha Brady” McCormick as a Space Princess, Robert Vaughn as Adolf Hitler (which is “funny” to fringe movie fans, when we remember Vaughn starred in 1978’s The Lucifer Complex), Susan “Laurie Partridge” Dey as a Southern Belle, and Robert Downey, Jr. as Albert Einstein. (Seriously: the film is that crazy.)

Harry’s most significant screen credit was working as one of the five screenwriters on a tale about the 1939 production of The Wizard of Oz, the 1981 Chevy Chase-starring Under the Rainbow for Warner Bros.-Orion Pictures. And we can’t forget Harry dipping his toes in the Blaxploitation pool as a producer with 1983’s The Big Score starring Richard Roundtree and the late John Saxon*.

Harry “Tampa” Hurwitz passed away on September 21, 1995, at the young age of 57 from heart failure while awaiting a heart transplant at the U.C.L.A Medical Center. This Drive-In Friday is for you, Harry. May your films live on for a new generation of video fringe enthusiasts. And they do!

In the ultimate show of respect to Harry’s imagination, on November 13, 2020**, the remake of The Comeback Trail, starring the Oscar acting elite of Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, and Tommy Lee Jones, was realized by writer-director George Gallo of Bad Boys fame.

Way to go, Harry!

Now, Mr. Gallo . . . about that Safari 3000 remake. . . .

Movie 1: Nocturna, Granddaughter of Dracula (1979)

What do you get when you go into business with a noted Las Vegas belly dancer who appeared on TV’s The Beverly Hillbillies . . . then cast Lily Munster, a B-Movie Dracula, and a couple of on-their-way-down ’70s disco stars — and negotiate a deal with MCA Records to release a disco-flavored soundtrack double album to promote the movie?

You get a Harry Tampa box-office boondoggle with John Carradine making back dick jokes. Can Countess Dracula turn her gay singer crush, straight? Do we care?

And to think the Compass International — a studio that had a worldwide hit on their hands with their debut release, John Carpenter’s Halloween — backed this vampire hookers romp. But they also made Roller Boogie, Tourist Trap, Blood Beach, and Hell Night . . . so you know where this disco Dracula romp is heading. Flushing is required.

Movie 2: Safari 3000 (1980)

What do you get when you go into business with United Artists and convince them a Smokey and the Bandit ripoff set on the African tundra will work?

You get a Harry Tampa box-office boondoggle with Christopher Lee frolicking with baboons and the guy who voiced the CP3O knockoff in Luigi Cozzi’s Starcrash. Does the fact that David Carradine is behind the wheel giving us some serious Death Race 2000 and Cannonball vibes save this VHS flotsam? No. And we wished ol’ Dave got off a couple of his dad’s bad dick jokes from Nocturna to compensate for the fact that Stockard Channing’s comedic timing makes the monkeys look good.

Intermission!
With the stars of our next feature on tonight’s program!
Let the tight pants and smoke wash over you!

Back to the Show!

Movie 3: The Rosebud Beach Hotel (1984)

What do you get when you contractually flim-flam cinema’s requisite Count, an ex-Runaway, a B-Movie apoc anti-hero, a washed up Tom Hanks TV sidekick, and wardrobe left overs from Glen Larson’s crap-ass Buck Rogers remake for TV?

You get a Harry Tampa ripoff of Bob Clark’s Porky‘s set in a South Beach Miami hotel. Do the adult film actresses working as topless bell hops for Madam Bobbi Flekman from Spinal Tap’s management team seducing Paco Querak from Hands of Steel save it? Do the cut-rate AOR-synth soundtrack ditties from Cherie Currie save it? No. And we wished Christopher Lee stuck to his original plan of torching the joint for the insurance money.

Movie 4: Fleshtone (1994)

What do you get when Harry Tampa answers paid cable’s call for “after hours” erotic thriller programming fodder for the wee-lads who can’t get dates on Saturday nights?

You get the bassist from the bane of our New Wave existence — Spandau Ballet — as a struggling painter twisting down a soft-core film noir spiral in this final, bitter sweet Harry “Tampa” Hurwitz’s effort completed a year before his death.

Truth be told, Martin Kemp, who been in the acting game in the U.K. since the ’70s before finding fame as a MTV favorite, is pretty decent here (he was in Sugar Town with John Doe and Michael Des Barres) as the noir schlub who can’t stay away from dangerous women who enjoy erotic sex games. And it’s nice to see Tim Thomerson (yep, the one and only Jack Deth from Trancers) on top of the marquee in this who-killed-her potboiler.

Do the adult film actresses that Harry likes to cast for that extra titillation-inspiration and lesbian sex scenes helping? Does the fact that the singularly-named Daniella also starred in Anal Maidens 3 and Assy 2 exciting you? How about those exotic Jo-Berg, South Africa locations?

Eh, a little . . . but in reality, this is probably the best of Harry’s films, courtesy of Kemp and Thomerson giving the material some class, and ’80s U.S. TV actress Lise Cutter isn’t so bad, but she’s not leaving the direct-to-video realms any time soon.

Yes! You Tube comes through in the clutch! You can enjoy Harry’s final film on You Tube. You can watch the other films on tonight’s program via the links in those reviews.

* We honored the career of the late John Saxon with our “Exploring: John Saxon” featurette.

** The Comeback Trail premiered at the 43rd Mill Valley Film Festival on October 12, 2020. It was initially scheduled to be theatrically released in the United States on November 13, 2020. However, due to the affects of COVID on theaters, Cloudburst Entertainment has pushed the release date to sometime in 2021.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies and publishes on Medium.

Mill Creek Sci-Fi Invasion: The Amazing Transparent Man (1960)

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Editor’s Note: The review previous ran on November 4, 2019, as part of our Mill Creek Pure Terror month-long tribute.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Craig Edwards is an award-winning blogger as well as a self-proclaimed Media Guy and a consumer of pop culture for a lot of years. He also writes a great blog called Let’s Get Out of Here! 

Famed low budget director Edgar G. Ulmer helms this science fiction flick which has apparently fallen into the public domain, which resulted in it being available on countless bargain VHS tapes and now in untold numbers of cheapie DVD sets, much like the very one we’re shining the spotlight on.

Former Army guy Krenner (James Griffith), plans to conquer the world with his soon-to-be army of invisible thugs and he is willing to do anything to make that happen. Krenner forces Dr. Ulof (Ivan Trisault) to work to perfect the invisibility machine Ulof invented. He keeps Ulof’s daughter, Maria (Carmel Daniel) as a hostage with the help of his henchman, Julian (Red Morgan). Ulof needs radioactive elements to improve the invisibility machine which are understandably rare and kept under guard in government facilities. Krenner busts Joey Faust (Douglas Kennedy) out of prison to steal the materials he needs. Faust pulls the robberies using the invisibility power – but chaffs working for the dictatorial Krenner. Soon everyone in the house, including Krenner’s girlfriend Laura (Marguerite Chapman) is working some kind of double cross or secret agenda; and it’s readily apparent that no one is particularly likable – so who’s going to be the treacherous victor?

While it’s obviously a very low budget talkfest, there’s just SOMETHING about Edgar G. Ulmer’s movies that interest me. Consequently, I like this little dud which is usually touted as one of the worst of all time. Ulmer only made two more movies before retiring; but his touch is still evident all over this. Sure, it’s low-budget; it’s static; it’s talky – but I’ve seen it now like three times, and I still enjoy it.

I can’t defend the movie – but to me this works – it’s not an epic of production values and amazing effects – though there are a few sprinkled in – but it works as the little sci-fi talkfest it is. If it sounds at all interesting it is worth a look and it’s certainly not hard to find.

Silent Running (1972)

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Visual effects pioneer Douglas Trumbull (The Andromeda Strain, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Blade Runner, The Tree of Life, The Towering Inferno) finally got the chance to direct with this movie and sadly, he didn’t get to capitalize on it

Made for one million dollars, one-tenth the budget of Kubrick’s classic, this movie was helped by all the special effects know-how of Trumbull, who was not originally going to direct it. Lead actor Bruce Dern stated that Trumbull’s creative vision was equal to Alfred Hitchcock, who he had also worked with. And that made the director hot for the briefest of times, as it flopped at the box office.

Trumbull joked “It was just a great experience for me as a filmmaker, but I didn’t know that I was part of an experiment by Universal Studios…to see if it was possible to have a movie survive on word of mouth alone without an advertising campaign.*”

At some point in the future, all that is left of Earth’s ecosystem is floating in space. The crew is ordered to destroy the greenery by the faceless bureaucrats that run what is left of the world and they comply, all save Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern, The ‘Burbs, Hush…Hush Sweet Charlotte, Coming Home), who has taken three service robots and gone into “silent running” around the rings of Saturn, keeping himself as sane as he can and what is left of Earth’s once lush forests blooming.

Written by Deric Washburn, Michael Cimino (the two would go on to write The Deer Hunter and Cimino would spectacularly self-destruct with Heaven’s Gate) and Steven Bochco (who would go on to create L.A. Law, NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues and more), this is a quiet tale of a man whose only companions are the industrial droids he renames Huey, Dewey and Louie**.

The effects in this movie are obviously the draw. The ship Valley Forge was reused on the show Battlestar Galactica years later and still held up as a great looking spaceship, even post-Star Wars. And the haunting soundtrack was by Peter Schickele, better known for doing classical music parodies under the name of P.D.Q. Bach.

Without this movie, we’d have no Mystery Science Theater 3000, as the idea of a man lost in space with only robots to talk to resonated with creator Joel Hodgson. And speaking of inspiration, Trumbull was asked by George Lucas to work on this movie, but passed. Lucas asked if he could use a droid in his film inspired by the robots in Silent Running and Trumbull agreed. Six years later, when 20th Century-Fox sued Universal, claiming that Battlestar Galactica was a ripoff of Star Wars, Universal countersued with the theory that Star Wars ripped off Silent Running.

The Arrow Video release of this film has everything you ever wanted on this film and more. There’ a new 2K restoration from the original camera negative, approved by Trumbull that was created exclusively for this release. Plus, you get a new commentary track by critics Kim Newman and Barry Forshaw and one from Trumbull and Dern. There are also features with film music historian Jeff Bond on the film’s score, Jon Spira exploring the screenplay and Dern on his work in the movie. Plus, the artwork is by Aric Roper, who did the art for Sleep’s “Dopesmoker” album.

This was a film I searched for most my childhood, as we couldn’t just grab a DVD or stream films back then. I always saw photos of it in Starlog and wondered what the robots would look like when they moved.

You can get Silent Running from Arrow Video, who were nice enough to send us a review copy.

*Actually, this really was part of a Universal Studios experiment to try and recreate Easy Rider by giving a million dollars or less to young filmmakers and letting them have final cut. The other films are Peter Fonda’s The Hired Hand, Hopper’s The Last Movie, Forman’s Taking Off and Lucas’ American Graffiti.

**The three drones were played by four bilateral amputees (Mark Person as Dewey, Cheryl Sparks and Steven Brown (he’s also in the biker mover J.C.) as Huey and Larry Whisenhunt as Louie). That means they are either missing both arms or both legs. This was inspired by sideshow performer Johnny Eck. Also, in Italy, the drones are named after Paperino, Paperone and Paperina (Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge and Daisy Duck) because the names for Huey, Dewey and Louie in Italy are Quim, Quo and Qua. Therefore, calling them would have sounding like this; “Vieni qui, Qui,” which would be pretty weird, right?

Unfortunately, Trumbull’s directing efforts didn’t fare much better with 1983’s Brainstorm.

Cup of Cheer (2020)

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Whether you love or hate holiday movies, Cup of Cheer is for you. It’s the story of big city writer Mary, who heads back home to Snowy Heights to write an article about the town’s world famous Christmas cheer. If this is how every Hallmark movie begins, well, this certainly doesn’t end that way.

Directed by Jake Horowitz from a script by Andy Lewis, Mary runs into Chris, the owner of a hot cocoa shop called the Cup of Cheer. Well, not for long, as Chris’s ex-boyfriend plans on shutting down the shop on Christmas Eve. But Mary has a plan to rescue the store and the holiday and the town, as often happens in these movies.

Like I said, some people love these kinds of movies, so they’ll laugh at all of the jokes. And if they hate this genre, they’ll probably find just as much to laugh about. Also, I have no idea what goes into a cup of cheer, despite spending some time searching for recipes. I would guess that after seeing this that it involves hot cocoa. If you have any idea, let me know.

This is now streaming on demand. You can learn more on the official Facebook page.

Mill Creek Sci-Fi Invasion: Hundra (1983)

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Eric Wrazen is a Technical Director and Sound Designer for live theatre, specializing in the genre of horror, and is the Technical Director the Festival de la Bête Noire – a horror theatre festival held every February in Montreal, Canada. You can see Eric as an occasional host and performer on Bête Noire’s Screaming Sunday Variety Hour on Facebook live. An avid movie and music fanatic since an early age, this is Eric’s first foray into movie reviewing.

Preamble:

 Senti-Metal Movie Reviews believes that some things just belong together, like seafood and fine wine, pizza and beer, and of course… questionable B-movies and face-melting heavy metal! 

 A movie might have zero budget, bad acting, and terrible plotting, but just add a pounding metal soundtrack, and it magically becomes an instant party movie masterpiece! 

 Exhibit B:

 Hundra (1983) 

Senti-Metal Soundtrack: Plasmatics – Metal Priestess (1981)

From the description: Born in a tribe of fierce warrior women, Hundra has been raised to despise the influence of men. Hundra finds her family slain and takes a vow of revenge until one day she meets her match.

Hundra was an Italian-Spanish-American production co-written and directed by Matt Cimber, who went on to co-create and direct the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (GLOW) television series. Mr. Cimber definitely seems to have an interest in ass-kicking amazons, because a large portion of Hundra’s running time is dedicated to Hundra (played by the statuesque Laurene Landon) partaking in various forms of ass-kicking combat.

Hundra is the classic tale of an amazon warrior out to get revenge for the slaughter of her “women only” tribe, and also get pregnant in order to repopulate said tribe. And if you think

these sound like conflicting goals…. You would be right.

Therein lies the conundrum of Hunrda… finding that subtle balance between copulating with men to save your race whilst also ruthlessly killing as many men as you can lay your hands, legs, sword, spear, daggers, and arrows on.

Note: I cannot think of a better Metal pairing for Hundra than the classic album Metal Priestess by Wendy O Williams and the Plasmatics. Let’s face it, Wendy O could have literally played Hundra in this movie, and she could have even brought her own wardrobe! 

Try queueing up track 2 of Metal Priestess (Doom Song) right around when Hundra finds her destroyed village. 

The driving force of the movie is the action scenes of Hundra battling various hordes of bumbling men… and a good few of these scenes are played for laughs as much as action. It is worth noting that Laurene Landon apparently did all her own stunts in Hundra, which is pretty damn impressive.

Anytime Hundra gets physical (and this happens a lot) is a good time to jump to the next track in the Metal Priestess album, which kicks as much ass as Hundra herself.

Overall, Hundra is a fun sword and sandal epic with a sorta feminist twist, and I have to stress the “sorta”. While it’s fairly clear from the outset that Hundra will prevail in her quest, there are still quite a few scenes in this movie that were a little too “rapey” for my tastes. I have a feeling that Mr. Cimber may have been using John Norman’s “Gor” books as source material for Hundra because I found a little too much of male dominance / female submission in the overall tone of the film. 

So, aside from those uncomfortable moments, Hundra moves at a pretty good pace and if you, like Mr. Cimber, have an eye for “wrasslin’ she babes”, then Hundra is definitely the movie for you!

Note: Both the movie and the Senti-Metal Soundtrack can be found on YouTube:

Hundra (1983)

Plasmatics – Metal Priestess (1981)

DRIVE-IN ASYLUM DOUBLE FEATURE! LEMORA AND MORTUARY!

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This week, we’re back with Lemora and Mortuary!

Our first movie is a Prohibition-era tale of the supernatural and the religious, so a prohibition cocktail seemed like the right idea.

Astaroth Lady (from this site)

  • 2 oz. gin
  • 1/2 oz. triple sec
  • 1/2 oz. lemon juice
  • 1 egg white
  1. Add all ingredients into a shaker and vigorously with no ice.
  2. Add ice and shake again until chilled.
  3. Strain into a glass.

I absolutely love this movie and am so excited to share it with all of you.

Here’s a drink!

Suburban Swimming Pool

  • 1 1/3 oz. coconut rum
  • 2/3 oz. vodka
  • 1/3 oz. Blue Curaçao
  • 2/3 oz. cream of coconut
  • 1/3 oz. half and half
  • 1 1/3 oz. pineapple juice
  1. Pour all ingredients into a shaker except for the Blue Curacao. Then add enough crushed ice to show above the surface of the liquid.
  2. Shake for twenty seconds to ensure that everything is mixed well, then pour into a glass filled with crushed ice.
  3. Then, gently float the Blue Curaçao into the mix. Enjoy.

You can watch the movies right here:

Lemora

Mortuary: Tubi

Incision (2020)

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Beauty blogger Alexa Landry (Korrina Rico) has a fear of plastic surgery, but now that she’s facing the evil Dr. Cunningham (James Allen Brewer) and his strange family of plastic surgical believers who want to beautify the world — or kill everyone, take your pick — she better get used to dealing with her tomophobia fast.

If you have such a fear yourself (tomophobia is the worry of invasive procedures) or are turned off to gore and body horror, this is in no way the movie for you. It’s full of intense surgical moments that aren’t for the squeamish. And then again, if you’re the kind of filmgoer who is hunting down the truly gory, then good news. This has exactly the blood, innards and facial shredding that you’ve been looking for.

If you were a fan of the Saw films, Costas Mandylor — who played Mark Hoffman in that series — is in this as well.

This was directed by someone named Az, who has another film called C.I.Ape in post-production, and was written by Chris Kato.

Incision is available now on Amazon Prime, iTunes, Google Play and VUD.

Attack of the Demons (2019)

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The year is 1994. This is when a demonic cult who has planned the end of the world will bring their ritual to a music festival in a small Colorado town. Soon, demons will rule the land and three very human people will have to try and stop it.

Sure, you’ve seen this type of movie before. But have you seen it as a cut paper animation?

Attack of the Demons would be an interesting experiment if its story didn’t work, but it actually becomes truly engaging and succeeds because of it.

Director Eric Power also made another animated film called Path of Blood. Here he’s working with writer Andreas Petersen, who also provides the voice of Jeff, to make a movie that would completely fit into the 1980’s direct to VHS era — if it were a live-action movie. Being animated allows it to go wild with its visuals and create a world beyond an everyday budget.

Attack of the Demons is available on demand and on DVD from Dark Star Pictures, who were kind enough to send us a copy to watch.

Mill Creek Sci-Fi Invasion: Rocket Attack U.S.A. (1958)

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“Barry Mahon is magic. And madness, too.”
— Sam Panico, Chief Cook, Bottle Washer, and Master of Vodka Ceremonies

There’s nothing like Russia launching Sputnik, the Earth’s first orbiting artifical satellite, to instill some good ol’ fashioned paranoid propaganda and convoluted espionage conspiracies placed in a melodramatic sci-fi setting to fuel the destructive spread of McCarthyism across America. Sadly, the proceedings are so Ed Woodian in their documentary-styled cheapness and hackneyed dialog that everyone laughed — and probably became “Red Sympathizers” as result.

A male-female team of U.S. secret agents infiltrate the U.S.S.R. as result of British Intelligence (Oy! Is this another “Steele dossier” to bite our arses, mates?) uncovering a Russian plot to bomb America — via intel gathered by Sputnik. The agents fail in their mission to sabotage the attack. They’re killed.

Due to our defective-cum-inaffective counter defense system (Where’s General Jack Berringer?! Flush the bombers!), Manhattan is hit and three million are killed. And since the Russians are cold-hearted war mongers who starve their citizens to fund the military, the peace-loving welfare state of America can’t launch an effective counterstrike.

We all die. Thanks for nothing, Joshua.

Seriously. That’s the movie. And it comes courtesy of . . . Exploit Productions! Seriously. That’s the name of the production company that stitched together this “exploitative” stock footage and voice over extravaganza.

God Bless you, Barry Mahon, we bow to ye. For you gave us The Wonderful Land of Oz and Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny, along with a baker’s dozen of shorts with the word “Nude” in the title, and a rockin’ tale about a ghostly pirate haunting acid-rockers Iron Butterfly at Pirate’s World in Dania Beach, Florida, known as Musical Mutiny.

And we’re thankful this public domain clunker of clunkers is only 64 minutes long. But it was 64 minutes too long for actor John McKay, who made this his fourth and final film. His co-star, Monica Davis, pressed on for a few more years, closing out her career with the bootleggers vs. sheriff vs. local gangsters Drive-In romp The Road Hustlers (1968) — which needs to be put on the B&S About Movies shortlist for a review.

And while you’re at it, General Beringer . . . oh, never mind.

For the discriminating, Barry Mahon completest only, this one is on You Tube and preserved it all of its muddy, digital glory courtesy of Mill Creek’s Sci-Fi Invasion box set.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

Mill Creek Sci-Fi Invasion: Trapped by Televison (1936)

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“Gee, ain’t science great?!”
— Bill collector Rocky O’Neil

Forrest Gump had a box of chocolates. For the movie hound staff of B&S About Movies, we have Mill Creek boxes of DVDs where you never know what you’re going to get. Well, you do know what your going to get: pure programming insanity. Who in their right mind would collate the adventures of Paco Querak in Hands of Steel (which is also available on ‘the Creek’s Pure Terror box set) into the same box set as this Columbia Pictures “who done it” starring former silent screen star Mary Astor, who worked her way up to a forever-remembered role as Brigid O’Shaughnessy alongside Bogey in The Maltese Falcon (1941) (de rigueur viewing for any movie hound reading this). Oh, and she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress that same year for her portrayal of concert pianist Sandra Kovak in (a film that no one remembers) The Great Lie (1941).

Again. Ex-B movie actress-cum-Oscar winner Mary Astor and Joe D’Amoto’s go-to actor George Eastman . . . on the same box set. Pure insanity. Why? Because, outside of the plot backdrop of the “new” technology of television, this isn’t even a sci-fi movie: it’s a Columbia B-movie comedy starring Lyle Talbot, who excelled at . . . B-movie comedies and romantic thrillers (and later co-starred on ’50s TV’s Ozzie & Harriet).

Hey, wait a minute . . . you sure this isn’t a repack of Murdered by Television starring Bela Lugosi? Nope. That was released a year earlier, in 1936. Remember all of those post-WarGames movies in the ’80s obsessed with the “new” technology of home computers? Then all of those “net” movies in the early ’90s? Well, it that was like that in during the Industrial Revolution of the 1930s — with Hollywood obsessed with television as plot fodder.

Anyway, the always dependable Talbot is Fred Dennis, a broke inventor dogged by Rocky O’Neil (Nat Pendleton), a kind-hearted, mobster-backed bill collector. Hey, gang! Fred’s finally done it: his TV camera and TV monitor (a television set) works! His trusted romantic sidekick is Astor’s Barbara “Bobby” Blake (well, the “hot babe with a guy’s name” screenwriting trope had to start somewhere), blessed with a knack for advertising and promotion; she’s going sell Fred’s invention and they’ll be rich. Corporate intrigue — as we oft say around here — ensues, as gangsters, competing scientists, and electronics companies vie for the invention, with Talbot, Astor, and Pendleton — along with everyone’s favorite Lucille Ball clone, Joyce Compton (in that always annoying pillbox hat) — keeping one step ahead of the lighthearted mayhem.

The twist to this oldie: it’s actually pretty good. And you can watch it on You Tube.

The script by Lee Loeb and Harold Buchman (whose resumes stretch from the early ’30s into the mid-70s across TV and film) is well-written from a technological standpoint (there’s no slapstick-crazy Doc Browns pushing junk science flux capacitors) and the acting isn’t that bad. If you’re a Nat Pendleton and Joyce Compton completest — and need a fix of Bela — you can catch them together in the MacGuffin-strewn noir Scared to Death (1947), which, as it turns out, Mill Creek featured on their Pure Terror box set (recapped here). (Oh, and if you’re interested: we covered all of the films in their Chilling Classics set; recapped here.)

What would we do without Mill Creek box sets supplying us with movies? I don’t even want to think of a Mill Creekless world. Do you? But still . . . this movie encased in a box with artwork featuring a futuristic city under destruction by space ships . . . and Dorothy Statten’s name . . . is pure insanity. And we love it.

Now, let me get to work on my new Lifetime-oriented screenplay: Trapped by Phone App.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.