Abbott & Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951) / The Fat Man (1951) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - May 15, 1951

Three or so years after the Vincent Price voiced cameo "appearance" of the Invisible Man at the very end of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), the famed comedy returned to the Universal Monster well for this entertaining special effects laden romp. It has a better reputation than most of the other Abbott and Costello movies of the early to mid-fifties, but I have a greater nostalgic affection for Meet the Mummy.

The second half of this double feature is The Fat Man, a film adaptation of the popular radio mystery series of the same name. Whether it was meant to, or would have, birthed a series of films featuring the titular corpulent detective is moot. Dashiell Hammett's imprisonment during the Black List era killed the radio show and, one might suspect, any interest in a cinematic series version.

Fright Flicks - Trading Card #65

Vengeance: The Demon (1988)

AKA Pumpkinhead.
 

The Hand (1981) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - May 14, 1981

The Hand was the second, of only two, horrors films written and directed by Oliver Stone. The first being an under scene oddity from 1974 titled Seizure, which started Jonathan Fried and Martine Beswick.

While I remember the ad campaign, both newspaper and TV spots, and reading about the film in the pages of both The Twilight Zone and Fangoria magazines,  I would not see the film itself until it debuted on HBO.

Although I did part with some coin in the spring of 1981 in order to purchase the source material's retitled movie tie-in edition. I never got around to actually, you know, reading it. So it goes.

While I am on the subject of somewhat embarrassing (to me, at least) admissions. While D-Day had been one of my favorite characters in Animal House (1978), I did not recognize character actor Bruce McGill in this film as the actor that had played that very character. Then again, I was all of 13 or 14 years old at that time and far more interested in Adrienne Barbeau.
 

Alien 3 (1992) - Trading Card #29

Datalog: Approx. 0:200 Hours, Day 3

I heard Kevin give his signal, "Door C9 closed." Then Jude, "Door B7 safe." Someone else shouted that the V Channel was secure. They were slowly driving the Alien toward the Lead Works. But then I heard screams. Chaos. Something must have gone wrong.

The Car (1977) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - May 13, 1977

Star James Brolin is reputed to have quipped that the working, or shooting, title for this film was Wheels. A tongue-in-cheek reference to the at all in no way subtle fact that The Car is a Jaws knock-off. This film, just as yesterday's subject (William Girdler's Grizzly) did, duplicates the narrative structure of Jaws almost point-for-point. The only thing missing here is a problem denying town official. Somebody that emphatically refuses to cancel the town parade because there is no way for that psychopath to drive his measly little sedan into the center of town and through the gathered crowd of townsfolk. Not if the town sheriff (James Brolin) would do his job.

One interesting piece of trivia about this desert set oddity. The script was written by the then writing team of Dennis Shryack and Michael Butler. This creative duo would retrain the desert vistas as location and backdrop for yet another vehicle heavy action-thriller script that was produced and released at the close of the same year. The Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke road movie The Gauntlet.

Fright Flicks - Trading Card #64

Aliens (1986)

 

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) - Soundtrack

While I do not dislike the fifth and final film in the first round of Planet of the Apes movies. Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, the fourth film in the original franchise, is considered to be the last of the truly good ones. Or, at the very least, the last one where the creative team appeared to have made a game effort at having detectable level of creative quality and energy.

Due to the lower than hoped for box office returns on the modest-budgeted Escape from the Planet of the Apes. Conquest was given a smaller budget for its ambitious concept, dramatizing the uprising that would result in the creation of the world and society of the first two films.

Because the budget was low, neither Jerry Goldsmith, who had scored the first and third film, nor Leonard Rosenman, who had scored the second, were approached to compose music for this entry. Instead, on the recommendation of Lionel Newman, Fox's head of music, Tom Scott was hired to score the film.

Faced with a tight post-production schedule, Scott asked fellow composition Lalo Schifrin for advice.

"There was no time to write the sort of full-on orchestral battle scene that I really would have like to do." Scott recalls in the liner noters for the Film Score Monthly release. "Lalo said I should do a row of orchestral events. This was something I had heard him do in other pictures. You'd have ten seconds, for example, of all the woodwinds playing a low, atonal growl, and then you'd have another wall of muted brass playing high, fast staccato notes, and paint these little tone pictures, and that would get you through a great deal of the drama and give the impression that something was going on without having to kill yourself composing and orchestrating."

One thing Scott did not foresee was how the film, which had been shot in a semi-documentary style, would struggle with its harsh tone being a hindrance to maintaining a family friendly rating. Of the first five films, this was only one not to be awarded a G-rating.

Because of all the retooling, most of Scott's score for the film went unused and, in some instances, was replaced with tracks from Goldsmith's score for the first film. Which explains why I do not remember or recall a great deal of music from this particular release.

Grizzly (1976) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - May 12, 1976

While Jaws made me afraid of the ocean and the unseen terrors lurking in its impenetrable depths, Grizzly made me terrified of the potential dangers of camping in the woods. In May or June of 1976, when I was eight or nine years old, Grizzly seemed a tad plausible. Today it just looks and feels like what it is, a quickie Jaws cash grab.

But, like yesterday's The Manitou, there are flashes and glimmers of prowess hinting that director William Girdler was capable of doing more with far better material than he what had to work with here.

Still though the movie, though. And that Neal Adams poster art will never not be awesome to behold.

Alien 3 (1992) - Trading Card #28

Datalog: Approx. 0:2200 Hours, Day 2

The new plan was to flush it out of the passageways into the Lead Works, then drown it in hot lead. We only had one thing to use as bait to coax the Alien out of hiding - ourselves. The 13 remaining prisoners would lead it to the Lead Works, I'd take over from there.

The Manitou (1978) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - May 11, 1978

The film version of The Manitou first dinged my burgeoning horror geek radar when I perused the paperback movie tie-in edition at our local Gemco. I remember being unnerved by the color photos on the back cover and, I believe, that were in the center of the book. It looked far too scary for me.

Years later I would finally catch up with the film on home video, or television, and be both amused and somewhat unnerved by it. While the movie is awash with over the top cheesy zaniness, it also has one or two really effective moments. The best of which, I argue, is the birthing sequence. It really works and also shows that the late William Girdler had legit talent as a director. Who knows what he might have done, if he had he lived.