EDITOR’S NOTE: Atlas was on Chiller Theater on Sunday, February 2 at 11:10 p.m. and Saturday, March 14, 1964 at 4:00 p.m.

A movie that caused writer Charles B. Griffith to say, “Atlas was a mess. It was a doomed project.”

Corman was on his way to England to make a film about Gary Powers’ U2 crash called I Flew a Spy Plane Over Russia, based on a script by Robert Towne. Towne got writer’s block after twenty pages. Corman felt like an idiot and left; meanwhile, Griffith was stranded for two years in Israel: “I was involved in an Israeli war picture about helicopters, which never got finished, when Roger decided to make Atlas. This was after Little Shop, and I wanted to make it as Atlas, the Guided Muscle, but Roger wanted to make a Hercules, Italian-type thing. Roger had a deal to shoot it in Puerto Rico, so it was going to be a jungle picture about Atlas and Zeus. Ancient Greece could have jungles, so why not? But I was on my way to Israel because of the helicopter picture that collapsed in the desert. So Roger and I flew to New York together, and we worked on the details of Atlas. Then I boarded a ship going to Israel… I was stranded in Israel for two years, and Roger wouldn’t send me the fare to get out. I wound up doing some pictures in Israel.”

Corman wanted to make this an epic and cash in on the success of Hercules. He did not have the budget to do that.

The shoot was even less fun.

Griffith recalled that the actors “…were very rebellious. Roger was in a towering rage throughout. There was a Greek cameraman and a Greek crew. Nobody knew left from right. The army couldn’t march. They tore the noseguards off their papier-mache helmets so their relatives could recognize them in the picture, with paper hanging down from their helmets. The tips of their spears were hanging down because they were made out of rubber, which I had to have done at a tire shop around the corner of the set. It was a lot of fun…. Roger broke his sunglasses in half and had a temper tantrum. He went a little mad during that picture. We went off afterward and got shipwrecked.”

King Proximates (Frank Wolff, who on Corman’s advice remained in Europe as a character actor in over fifty, mostly Italian-made, films; he cut his own throat in his early 40s, depressed over his divorce; his voice in Milan Caliber 9, his last movie, was dubbed by his co-star in this film, Michael Forrest) and King Talektos (Andreas Filippides) have been at war for a long time. Perhaps they could each choose a champion, and that champion could decide the outcome?

He uses his priestess, Candia (Barboura Morris), and philosopher Garnis (Walter Maslow) to recruit Atlas (Forrest) to be his champion. While Atlas easily wins, Proximates sets up Telekthos, who is put to death, and he takes over the city. Atlas quickly battles back and takes Candia with him, leaving all of this behind for Egypt.

The Greeks also didn’t send enough soldiers, so reshoots had Dick Miller and Corman dressed up. As for the modern ruins in the background, they highlight that the country has been at war for a long time.

Proximates is excellent, though, a bitchy ruler who says things like this:

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Magnetic Monster was on Chiller Theater on Sunday, March 29 at 11:10 p.m. and Saturday, July 18, 1964 at 4:00 p.m., Saturday, February 13, 1965 at 11:15 p.m. and Saturday, June 29, 1968 at 11:30 p.m.

This is the start of Ivan Tors’ Office of Scientific Investigation trilogy, which was followed by Riders to the Stars and Gog. OSI agents Dr. Jeffrey Stewart (Richard Carlson) and Dr. Dan Forbes (King Donovan) are sent to an appliance store to learn why everything is magnetized and the clocks have all stopped working. Could it be the lab above and the dead body? Yes, and Dr. Howard Denker (Leonard Mudie), who has been irradiating an artificial radioactive isotope by the name of serranium, is the real reason behind all of this.

Only the Canadian invention, the Deltatron, can help us. The lead scientist won’t let Stewart use it, so he does what Americans do best. He uses a show of force and makes them comply! We’re saving the world, Mr. Scientist, and don’t have time for your objections!

Directed by Curt Siodmak and an uncredited Herbert L. Strock, who was hired by Tors because he was an editor familiar with using stock footage, the film includes plenty of it, including nearly ten minutes of an underground magneto-dynamo from the German movie Gold.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Hypnotic Eye was on Chiller Theater on Sunday, February 2 at 11:10 p.m. and Saturday, May 23, 1964 at 11:10 p.m.; Saturday, February 27, 1965 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, June 4, 1966 at 1:00 a.m.

Mentored by Ormond McGill — yes, the same person that Ron Ormond took his name from — Gil Boyne “championed the accessibility of hypnotherapy and consistently fought against legislative efforts worldwide to restrict hypnosis to the purely medical professions.” He also founded the American Council of Hypnotist Examiners and the Hypnotism Training Institute. Before that, he served in the Navy during World War II. He was given post-combat therapy based on psychoanalysis, hated it, and developed his own treatment, which combined his spiritual and religious upbringing, past stage hypnosis experience.

His Transforming Therapy method “…incorporated aspects of Regression Therapy and Gestalt Therapy, as well as focusing on the self-healing power of the subconscious mind. It uses a compassionate spiritual approach that simplifies theory in the actual therapy and hones in on allowing the inner mind to construct its own solutions creatively.”

He was also the consultant for this movie, performing live shows between screenings of the film at the opening of the Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco. Then, he went on TV news and talk shows to sell it.

As for the Hypnomagic that this is filmed in, it’s essentially just a character breaking the fourth wall.

Who cares? This movie is awesome.

It starts with a woman washing her hair over the stove and setting her head on fire. This is not the weirdest thing that happens.

Detective Dave Kennedy (James Patridge) is on the case, as ten more women have died this way. His friend, Dr. Phillp Hecht (Guy Prescot), thinks it could be hypnotism. This takes Dave, his girlfriend Marcia Blaine (Marcia Henderson) and her friend Dodie (Merry Anders) to a stage show by the hypnotist Desmond (Jacques Bergerac, who went from acting and being married to Ginger Rogers and Dorothy Malone to running Revlon in Paris). That night, a post-hypnotized Dodie washes her face in acid.

The magician is being ordered around by a woman named Justine (Allison Hayes), who wears a mask to hide her scars, and tries to get Marcia — who has been so hypnotized by Desmond that she makes out with him and goes to a beatnik club to listen to bongo music and the “King of the Beatniks” Lawrence Lipton* — to enter a cool, refreshing shower but turns the water up to boiling. She’s saved at the last minute; the cop shoots the hypnotist, Justine jumps to her doom, and the kindly doctor warns us to never be hypnotized except by a medical doctor.

The last film by director George Blai was written by Gitta and William Read Woodfield, who started Magicana, a trade paper for magicians, and took many of the LIFE celebrity photos. He and partner Allan Balter made Mission: Impossible a success by focusing on conmen working for the government.

Several gimmicks were used in theaters to promote The Hypnotic Eye. Some theaters had balloons with an eye painted on them, while others gave away black dots on cards that could be used in the film. Still others “warned customers with faint hearts to avoid seeing the film, offered free medical supplies in the lobby and provided free admission to nurses, doctors and undertakers.”

When you see the credits, Fred Demara is listed as “Great Imposter ” Fred Demara. That’s because his life story was made into the Tony Curtis film The Great Imposter the same year this came out. Demara had been “…a civil engineer, a sheriff’s deputy, an assistant prison warden, a doctor of applied psychology, a hospital orderly, a lawyer, a child-care expert, a Benedictine monk, a Trappist monk, a naval surgeon, an editor, a cancer researcher and a teacher” as he tried to fit into other lives. By the end of his life, he was living in the Good Samaritan Hospital of Orange County in Anaheim, California, where he worked as a chaplain and even gave last rites to his friend, Steve McQueen.

*James Lipton’s dad!

You can watch this on Tubi.