In The Golden Turkey Awards, the Medveds claim that Arch Hall Jr.’s performance as Tommy is “one of the low points in the history of American cinema” and that he has “a face only a mother could love.” He was sixteen when he made this movie, so that feels like a lot of punching down.
Well, maybe they were mad that their dad never put them in a movie.
Well, Arch Hall Sr. thought his son was going to be a star — even if that son said that he couldn’t sing — and made an Elvis movie starring his boy.
Roxy Miller (Marilyn Manning) drives out and accidentally hits Eegah (Richard Kiel) with her car. When she tells her boyfriend Tom Nelson (Arch Hall Jr.) and her father Robert (Arch Hall Sr.), her dad runs out into the desert to try and get a picture. He disappears, she finds him and he’s learned how to speak to the creature and has learned how it has stayed alive all this time. Of course, Eegah wants to marry his daughter, so he says alright, hoping that they can escape.
When they do, Eegah runs after them and dies at a pool party, but not before Ray Dennis Steckler gets thrown into the water. He would go on to make the next Arch Hall Jr. movie, Wild Guitar.
This was shot in the same Bronson Canyon area that Robot Monster was filmed at. In fact, Ro-Man’s base is the same cave that Eegah makes his home.
My favorite thing in this movie was that the sound recorder screwed up his job, so when Robert yells, “Watch out for snakes!” his lips never move.
Don’t have the box set? You can watch this on Tubi.
American International Television renamed nearly all of the Gamera movies for television. This is really Gamera vs. Viras.
This time, Gamera is defending our planet from aliens. He starts off by destroying one of their ships, but not before an entire planet declares that he is their enemy.
The aliens come back to Earth and learn Gamera’s one weakness: he loves children. They kidnap some kids and force him to do their bidding, but before long, he’s broken loose and is battling all of the aliens at once, who have combined their form into the menace known as Viras.
Daiei was in financial trouble, so this movie suffers from a smaller budget than previous films. But this is where the idea of Gamera protecting kids from aliens and monsters began. Yet it’s also the first of the series to use flashbacks from past films to pad the running time. This will get much, much worse as Gamera would battle on.
There was also an agreement with AIP that an American kid had to be in the movie. They couldn’t find any kids that could speak Japanese, so the studio cast Carl Craig, whose father was an army soldier stationed in Japan, despite Carl having no acting experience.
Don’t have the box set? YOu can watch this on Tubi or download it on the Internet Archive.
I’m obsessed with the packages that were sold to UHF channels in the 1960s. Through these collections of movies, which are almost the Mill Creek fifty packs of their time, these small stations got a ton of films that they could show at any time, however they wanted.
For an example of another syndicated package, check out this article on the Nightmare Theater package.
Embassy Pictures, who created Sons of Hercules, was founded in 1942 by Joseph E. Levine as a distributor of foreign films. He introduced America to Sophia Loren and Godzilla, while bringing foreign movies like Jack the Ripper and Attila: Scourge of God to the U.S., renaming The Second Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World to Licensed to Kill and producing and executive producing everything from Santa Claus Conquers the Martiansand The Graduate to Mad Monster Party, They Call Me Trinity, Magic, The Carpetbaggers and The Producers.
He also spent more than million dollars — more money than 1956’s Hercules cost to make — on the publicity it took to turn Steve Reeves into a star. He also introduced the concept of saturation booking by using over 600 prints of that movie, which at the time was a huge number of prints to be struck, as most theaters only had one screen. He also invested $120,000 on dubbing, sound effects and new titles, but the sword and sandal epic became one of the highest-grossing films of the year and, as you can expect in Italy, creating a whole new genre that would see hundreds of these movies made between 1958 to 1965. They would only fade when replaced by the Italian Western and the Eurospy movie.
Based on the success of the Kirk Douglas movie Ulysses — the idea of The Odyssey also inspired plenty of Italian Westerns where the gunfighter finally makes his way home and finds a different town than he remembered — these movies made stars of Reeves, Reg Park and Gordon Scott. Because so many of them demanded larger-than-life superheroic-looking men, many of them were bodybuilders. And so many of them were part of Mae West’s “Muscleman Review,” including Gordon Mitchell, Mickey Hargitay, Reg Lewis, Mark Forest and Dan Vadis.
Embassy knew that these movies had been popular in theaters and that while that initial success may be waning, local UHF channels had a desperate need for content. They answered with Sons of Hercules, which gave these stations fourteen movies unified with a memorable name, a catchy theme song and a voiceover that starts each movie placing them into the same cinematic universe, even if there was no such connection.
They also edited the films so that stations could air them as one-hour episodes, giving the stations 28 weeks of programming that could be repeated as a full year of a one-hour block. Because none of these movies ever played theaters in the U.S., there was some cachet when they were offered to syndicators.
Thanks to Board Game Geek, I learned that Levine left no stone unturned with these movies. He was an early believer in merchandising movies and Sons of Hercules even had a Milton Bradley board game.
The movies in the package are:
Ursus, Son of Hercules: This is Ursus, a 1961 movie directed by Carlo Campogalliani that stars Ed Fury, who would go on to play the hero in two other movies, Ursus in the Valley of the Lions and Ursus in the Land of Fire. He’s also in The Wild Women of Wongo. This movie has some intrigue for fans of Jess Franco, as the role of the virginal Fillide is played by Soledad Miranda.
Mole Men vs the Son of Hercules: This is really Maciste, the Strongest Man in the World, directed by Antonio Leonviola and starring Mark Forest as Maciste. He battles a subterranean race of albino mole men and a monstrous ape. Gianni Garko also shows up.
Triumph of the Son of Hercules: This Tanio Boccia-directed movie is actually The Triumph of Maciste and stars Kirk Morris, Mr. Italia 1961, and a man born as Adriano Bellini.
Fire Monsters Against the Son of Hercules: Also known as Maciste vs. the Monsters, this stars Reg Lewis as Maciste. He’s called Maxus in the U.S. dub and every time his name gets spoken, it’s a totally different voice saying it. This Guido Malatesta-directed movie was a co-production between Italy’s Euro International Film and Yugoslavia’s Caserbib filmed at Incir De Paolis Studios in Rome and on location in the caves of Ljubljana in Slovenia. In the UK, it was called Colossus of the Stone Age and re-released and retitled at late year of 1975 as Land of the Monsters when it played double features with Revenge of the Gladiators.
Venus Against the Son of Hercules: Mars, God Of War was Marcello Baldi and has Roger Browne as Mars, the god of war, who falls in love with Daphne (Jackie Lane, who left acting and married Prince Alfonso of Hohenlohe-Langenburg). She’s menaced by a carnivorous plant which makes this pretty fun.
Ulysses Against the Son of Hercules: Ulysses against Hercules has Hercules (Mike Lane, former wrestler Tarzan Mike and Frank N. Stein on the TV show Monster Squad) and Ulysses (Georges Marchal) fighting and then teaming up against bird people. It’s directed by Mario Caiano (Nightmare Castle).
Medusa Against the Son of Hercules: Made 19 years before Clash of the Titans, this has Richard Harrison as Perseus in a battle against Medusa. Known in Italy as Perseus The Invincible, it was directed by Alberto de Martino (Strange Shadows in an Empty Room).
Son of Hercules in the Land of Fire: The sequel to Ursus, Ursus In The Land Of Fire as stars Ed Fur and was directed by Giorgio Simonelli (Two Mafiosi Against Goldginger).
Tyrant of Lydia Against The Son of Hercules: Goliath and the Rebel Slave is also directed by Mario Caiano and stars Gordon Scott as Goliath and Ombretta Colli, the future President of Milan, as Princess Cori.
Messalina Against the Son of Hercules: The Last Gladiator has Richard Harrison as Glaucus, a gladiator in the time of Messalina (Lisa Gastoni), Claudius (Philippe Hersent) and Caligula (Charles Borromel). It was directed by Umberto Lenzi.
The Beast of Babylon Against the Son of Hercules: Also known as Hero of Babylon and Goliath, King of the Slaves, this movie has Gordon Scott as Nippur and is about the Fall of Babylon. It was directed by Siro Marcellini, who made the Lola Falana-starring Italian Western Lola Colt.
Terror of Rome Against the Son of Hercules: Maciste, Gladiator of Sparta starred Mark Forest as Maciste, a Spartan gladiator who falls in love with a Christian woman (Marilu Tolo, Roy Colt and Winchester Jack) — where are you Peter Steele? — and must battle monsters and men in the Colosseum. Directed by Mario Caiano, who seemingly specialized in these films.
Son of Hercules in the Land of Darkness: Hercules the Invincible stars Dan Vadis and is one of two movies directed by cinematographer Alvaro Mancori. It’s an actual Hercules movie, a rarity in the Sons of Hercules package!
Devil of the Desert Against the Son of Hercules: A movie of many names, this is also Anthar the Invincible, The Slave Merchants and Soraya, Queen of the Desert. It also stars Kirk Morris — that first name has to be inspired by Kirk Douglas, right? — who plays Anthar. He battles the devilish Ganor (Mario Feliciani) and it has a final battle in a hall of mirrors, which one assumes is taken from Orson Welles’ The Lady From Shanghai. I see you hiding there, director Anthony Dawson, or should I say Antonio Margheriti.
Did you see Sons of Hercules on TV when you were growing up? What was it like? Is there anything I’m missing? I absolutely love that some of these have a trailer that introduces you to all of the sons that you will meet throughout the films with a fast-talking sixties style and song that feels like Batmania being focused on myth.
Hollingsworth Morse went from the casting department at Paramount Pictures to serving under director George Stevens in the U.S. Army Signal Corps. He saw plenty of Europe and helped capture footage of the Battle of Normandy and other significant events of World War II. When he came back to the U.S., he directed plenty of TV, starting with Sky King and ending with The Fall Guy. Along the way, he also made fifty episodes of The Lone Ranger, seventeen of The Dukes of Hazzard, forty six of McHale’s Navy, seventeen of H. R. Pufnstuf and the movie, the “Mystery Island” parts of Skatebirds and Daughters of Satan.
Unlike so many shows of early television, Rocky Jones, Space Ranger was filmed instead of being aired live. That’s why the series has survived and could be edited into movies such as Beyond the Moon, Duel in Space, Forbidden Moon, Gypsy Moon, The Magnetic Moon, Manhunt in Space, Menace from Outer Space, Renegade Satellite and Robot of Regalio.
This is the last time that Rocky (Richard Crane) would be up against his enemy Queen Cleolanta (Patsy Parsons). She stands in the path of him evacuating the planet of Ophecius before a moon destroys everything. She even tries to stay before her assistant makes her leave. Then, she watches as her home is destroyed before apologizing to Rocky and his crew, which includes Venna Ray (Sally Mansfield), Winky (Scotty Beckett), Prof. Newton (Maurice Cass), Bobby (Robert Lyden) and their leader Secretary Drake (Charles Meredith).
After this chapter ended, Cass died of a heart attack and Professor Newton was replaced by Professor Mayberry (Reginald Sheffield). Winky was also changed, as Beckett was arrested after a gunfight with the police and Juliandra, Suzerain of Herculon (Ann Robinson) was picked as the new villainess for the last set of stories.
Don’t have the box set? You can watch this on YouTube.
For an entire article on the space films of Alfonso Brescia, visit this link.
Space is all about computers, at least in Italy in 1977. It’s also very close to when Star Wars was a big deal, so if there could be some cheaply made versions of an already big movie, Italy knew how to do exactly that.
A spaceship’s computer — The Wiz — seemingly saves everyone on-board from a space storm as they are only seeing refractions of the past. Meanwhile, Captain Mike Hamilton (John Richardson, Black Sunday) is being dealt with for slapping around an officer. He’s given the penalty of flying his ship — the MK-31 — to repair a satellite. When he gets there, he sees that they have no idea how to properly fix things and have moved past human sex and now lie on beds and watch light shows instead of messily putting the banana in the ham salad.
He investigates an unstable planet where two flying saucers — disintegrators — are protecting it from being explored. Narrowly avoiding a crash, Hamilton lands on the desert planet and learns that everyone is under the command of a computer. Only one of the people on this sphere survive, coming on board the M-31 while the computer possesses one of the crew who goes on a killing spree. The alien stops them at the cost of his own life and as everyone celebrates, only our hero realizes that the alien machine has now taken over The Wiz.
The cast includes Yanti Somer as Meela. She’s in all of Brescia’s space movies — Star Odyssey, War of the Robots,Battle of the Stars and this movie — as well as Man of the East. There’s also Katia Christine (Spirits of the Dead) as Greta, Maliso Longo (who was also in all of the space movies made by the director) as Halla, Massimo Bonetti as Vassilov, Giuseppe Fortis as Marseille and Italian western actor Vassili Karis as Peter Segura.
Director Alfonso Brescia has all sorts of movies on his list of films, including Naked Girl Killed in the Park, the wonderful Iron Warrior and the demented The Beast In Space. He wrote the story with Aldo Crudo (who made two possession movies in a row, Return of the Exorcist and Beyond the Door) and Maxim Lo Jacano.
In no way is this Star Wars. It’s closer to Planet of the Vampires with a little 2001. That said, I kind of adore it for being that.
Don’t have the box set? You can watch this on Tubi.
Kevin J. Lindenmuth is still making movies as recently as 2015 with The Life of Death. Yet he started his career here, directing and writing a movie that seems to come fully aware and alive from a world already built. It begins with Ivan (Bill White) being told by a woman that he’s about to meet the woman of his dreams.
Ivan, along with his partner Harry (Ed Hubbard), are Demon Immigration Officers that keep the humans safe from the constant threat of demons. They stop a cult from their blood ritual that will open the gates to the other side, only for party people Linda (Anna Dipace), Jennifer (Suzanne Scott), Kirsten (Wendy Bednarz) and Kirsten’s boyfriend Eric (Mick McCleery) to show up and one of them to accidentally bleed and bring all heck to our mudball.
Kristen also might be that dream girl.
This is the kind of movie that seems like it’s going to be one genre film and then successfully flips the script on you at every turn. There’s an astounding scene with a wall full of heads that verbally accost our heroes. And this somehow brings together a demonic story with hardboiled detectives and Men In Black on a budget where none of this should work and it all does.
Like everything Visual Vengeance does, this movie is PACKED with extras. There’s a new director-supervised SD master from 1-inch tape, three commentary tracks (director Kevin Lindenmuth; actor Mick McCleery and Lindenmuth; Tony Strauss of Weng’s Chop Magazine), interviews with Lindenmuth, Laura McLauchlin, Mick McCleery, Suzanne Turner, Sally Narkis, Ralis Kahn, Scott Sliger, Sung Pak and Joe Mauceri, as well as behind the scenes images, Lindenmuth’s early Super 8 films, a trailer, liner notes by Tony Strauss of Weng’s Chop Magazine, a poster and a sticker set.
The art on everything Virtual Vengeance does is incredible. This has a new cover by Stemo, the original release cover and the slipcover has artwork by The Dude Designs.
These are movies released and put together by people that truly love these kind of movies. The Strauss commentary is great and backed up by his essay in the liner notes. He effortlessly moves through how this got made, Lindenmuth having a childhood love of horror encouraged by a grandmother who loved slasher movies and how he worked to constantly keep viewers guessing despite working a demanding editing job while making this.
Directed by William Wyler and written by Joseph Hayes and Jay Dratler, it was based on Hayes’ novel and stage play. That play had Paul Newman in the lead, but Humphrey Bogart was a much bigger star for the movie.
The story is based on the Hill family of Whitemarsh Township, Pennsylvania. On September 11 and 12, 1952,. they were held hostage for 19 hours. Hayes’ storyline was invented and didn’t take everything from the Hill family’s experience. However, Life magazine published an article that had the actors from the play — Newman, Karl Malden and Nancy Coleman — in the actual Hill home. The family sued Time, Inc. over this as they had been trying to stay out of the public eye. They also believed that the article falsely described the actual events while claiming it represented the truth. Mr. Hill told the press that his family had been treated well during the crime while the article said that the family was assaulted. They were rewarded with compensatory damages.
Glenn Griffin (Bogart), his younger sibling Hal (Dewey Martin) and Sam Kobish (Robert Middleton) have broken out of jail and are on the run. They hide out at the home of the Hilliard family, which is Daniel (Frederic March), Ellie (Martha Scott), Cindy (Mary Murphy) and Ralphy (Richard Eyer). Plus, you get Arthur Kennedy as a deputy sheriff who has to figure this all out.
They create a terror-filled situation not just for the family but for the entire neighborhood, killing a garbageman (Walter Baldwin) and Glenn decimating the suburban dream. The exterior of the house is the same from Leave It to Beaver and here’s Bogart, in his last role as a bad guy — he said, “I’m too old to play gangsters.” — and his next-to-last movie making life horrifying for everyone around him.
Glenn and Daniel have the same problems as fathers — well, older brother and father — and yet they come from different worlds. The idea of a home invasion movie remains frightening even today. Imagine how it felt in the post-war 1950s.
Arrow’s blu ray release of Desperate Hours has a brand new restoration by Arrow Films from a 6K scan of the original VistaVision negative. It features extras like a new audio commentary by film historian Daniel Kremer, several appreciations of the film, a new audio interview with Catherine Wyler, daughter of director William Wyler, a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Jennifer Dionisio, an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Philip Kemp and Neil Sinyard and even a lobby card gallery.
Based on the Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel The Gambler, this is a movie of gambling, confidence men, dirty tricks, twists and so many turns.
Director Ron Winston mostly worked in TV, directing episodes of Branded, Hawaii Five-O and McMillan & Wife. There’s a fun cast, including Richard Ng as martial artist Koboyashi, Don Gordon as the protagonist Rooney and Suzy Kendall as the love interest Candace. Oh yeah and Stuart Margolin from The Rockford Files.
It nearly feels like a TV movie and that’s not a bad thing. It also feels vaguely Italian — Massimo Serato from Autopsy and Faith Domergue from Perversion Story are in it — but it’s an American/Yugoslavian production.
I mean, you can do worse than watch a movie with Suzy Kendall in it.
The VCI blu ray of this movie has audio commentary by writer/podcaster Rob Kelly. You can get it from MVD.
El Puro (Robert Woods, Massacre Mania, Lucifera Demon Lover) was once a dangerous and much feared gunfighter. But today, well, he’s a drunk lying low in a nothing town, concerned that a killer trying to make his name by shooting him is behind every corner. He’s treated as a whipping boy by every man in the bar and only Rosie (Rosalba Neri!) — who knew his legend — treats him kindly. She’s been saving money so they can get away from all this.
Or they would, if it wasn’t for Gipsy (Marc Fiorini) and his gang, who are riding into town to collect the ten grand on El Puro’s bounty while also killing grandfathers and assaulting young women. Just as certain that El Puro will find redemption is the fact that Rosie won’t survive. That said, her death is beyond upsetting and sure, one hates when its only the death of a woman that galvanizes a man to action, but trust me, you’ll want him to get revenge.
Also known as The Reward’s Yours… The Man’s Mine; 10,000 Dollars for a Gunslinger and El Puro Sits, Waits and Shoots, this movie was directed by Edoardo Mulargia, who made the giallo Tropic of Cancer and Don’t Wait, Django…Shoot!He also directed two of the movies — Hotel Paradise and Escape fromHell — that were remixed for the Linda Blair movie Savage Island. He wrote the script for this movie along with Ignacio F. Iquino, Fabrizio Gianni (second unit director on The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) and Fabio Piccioni (the writer of Murder Syndrome and the director of The Erotic Adventures of Robinson Crusoe).
Arrow Video’s Savage Guns box set has high definition 2K restorations of all four films from the original 35mm camera negatives, with El Puro newly restored by Arrow Films. Plus, you get brand new introductions to each film by journalist and critic Fabio Melelli, an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the films by author and critic Howard Hughes, a fold-out double-sided poster featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx and limited edition packaging with reversible sleeves featuring original artwork and a slipcover featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx.
El Puro has two versions of the film: the 98-minute cut, presented in Italian and English, and the longer, 108-minute version, presented in both Italian and a newly created hybrid English/Italian mix. There’s also new commentary by Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson, an interview with Robert Woods and a new appreciation of the soundtrack and its composer Alessandro Alessandroni by musician and disc collector Lovely Jon.
Vittorio Sala made the Eurospy film Spy in Your Eye as well as Beach Casanova, Bang You’re Dead and Diamonds Are a Man’s Best Friend. He made this along with the traditional large army of writers, which included Ennio De Concini, Fulvio Fo, Augusto Frassinetti, Giorgio Mordini, Vittorio Nino Novarese and an actual Oscar winner in Ennio de Concini, who won the “Best Original Screenplay” for Divorce Italian Style.
Rod Taylor is Pirro, who has been captured by a tribe of Amazon women along with Glauco (Ed Fury) who is the Colossus of the title. Yes, the hero of The Time Machine in a peplum.
The Amazons are played by Dorian Gray, Gianna Maria Canale, Giorgia Moll and Daniela Rocca. Taylor claims to have rewritten the script and compared this being rereleased on home video to someone founding out he was in porn.
Don’t have the box set? You can download this movie from the Internet Archive.
B&S About Movies 
You must be logged in to post a comment.