31 Flavors of Noir on the Fringe to Lure you in! Part 3

☞Read Part: One & ☞Part Two, & Part Four

💥SPOILERS!

21-HE RAN ALL THE WAY 1951

A lonely girl — a man on the run and 72 hours reckless hours that shock you with the impact of unleashed emotions!

Directed by John Berry (Tension 1949), with the screenplay by two victims of HUAC Dalton Trumbo (The Prowler 1951, The Brother’s Rico 1957, Papillon 1973) and Hugo Butler (The Southerner 1945.) Based on a novel by Sam Ross. All three men’s names Berry Trumbo and Butler were struck from the credits due to the blacklist, but have since been restored.

Garfield stars in his final film, as Nick Robey and Shelley Winters as Peg Dobbs. Wallace Ford plays Fred Dobbs, and Selena Royle as Mrs. Dobbs. The incomparable Gladys George is Mrs. Robey. Norman Lloyd as Al Molin. With music by Franz Waxman, it is not overwrought but has a beautiful, restrained melody. The film is shot by prolific cinematographer James Wong Howe ( The Thin Man 1934, They Made Me a Criminal 1939, King’s Row 1942, he shot Garfield in Body and Soul 1947, The Rose Tattoo 1955 Sweet Smell of Success 1957)

While under contract to Warner Bros. John Garfield could have had his pick of any major studio in Hollywood, RKO, 20th Century Fox even MGM wanted him to sign, but being the tough, rebellious everyman, in 1946 he did not renew his contract with Warners, and since none of the other studios would touch He Ran All the Way, Garfield released the film under his own new independent production company with Bob Roberts (Body and Soul 1947, Force of Evil 1948, All Night Long 1962) and Paul Trivers.

In an interview with Look magazine, he said, “I wasn’t carrying a chip on my shoulder at Warners. I appreciated the fact that they made me a star, but they didn’t pick me up from a filling station.”

"When an actor doesn’t face a conflict, he loses confidence in himself. I always want to have a struggle because I believe it will help me accomplish more." "“ John Garfield

A kid from the streets of New York, during John Garfield ‘Julie’s career between Body and Soul 1947 and He Ran All the Way 1951, he did not work in Hollywood when HUAC targeted the actor as a communist sympathizer. Garfield suffered at the mercy of the blacklist when he refused to name names. Criminal considering he not only raised money for the war effort during WWII, but also co-founded the Hollywood Canteen. The stress of the constant persecution he endured led to him suffering a massive heart attack leading to his tragic death at only 39, less than a year after He Ran All the Way.

In 1946, John Garfield a naturalistic actor was box-office gold, ( I think he set the stage for Dean and Brando) having a successful run as a superstar in Hollywood with Humoresque, The Postman Always Rings Twice and Nobody Lives Forever. Garfield was able to transform an unsympathetic guy, into a heavy, might-have-been, and deeply humanize him. And though the fatalistic creed of ‘film noir’ is that no flawed anti-hero can escape their dark destiny, we feel for their consequences.

Film historian Eddie Muller calls Garfield the ‘pied piper’ because he led the way for all the actors from New York’s Group Theater and the Broadway scene. Not only a bold actor on screen, but he was also a terrific stage actor as well having used sense memory a lot.

John Garfield was magic because of his authenticity at playing brooding, defiant, working-class guys, his Nick Robey is a lost soul – living in a claustrophobic nightmare that he can't outrun, that he cannot escape. Even while he's asleep. The nightmares chase him into a frightened sweat.

Set in Southern California over a 72-hour time frame, under the sweltering summer heat, the film opens A fevered dream, running so hard… "my lungs are burnin"˜ up."

Mrs. Robey –“Nick, Nicky you were hollering in your sleep.” Nick- “Alright Mom so I was hollering in my sleep what's wrong with that?” Mrs. Robey –“It's 11 o’clock Mr. Robey you can't lay there all day.”
Nick –“Beat it, blow.” (She rolls the shades up to let the harsh morning light into the room)
Hey Cut that out!"¨

Gladys George is an intense searing beam of deplorable as Nick’s mother who swills cheap beer like a well-oiled lush and treats him like she resents having given birth to her loser son. Mrs. Robey persistingly harassing Nick. Later she even tells the cops to “Kill him! Kill him!”

Mrs. Robey –“If you were a man you'd be out looking for a job.”
Nick- “If you were a man I'd kick your teeth in.” Mrs. Robey “There's coffee on the stove, Don't ever talk to me like that Nick.” Nick- “You've been talked to worse.”
Mrs. Robey –“Only by you dirty punk.” Nick -“Oh knock it off Mom you just got too big a hangover.” (She slaps him) Mrs. Robey –“I'll kill ya if you talk like that.” Nick-(Laughs) “You're losing your punch Mom.”

Continue reading “31 Flavors of Noir on the Fringe to Lure you in! Part 3”

The Bride Wore Black 1968: Jeanne Moreau… Goddess of the Hunt

It’s Time for the Fall 2022 CMBA Blogathon: Movies are Murder!

I’m very excited to participate in this year’s Fall Blogathon! It’s a killer theme with plenty of great features to warm up to on a chilly November evening. Thank you to CMBA for bringing a lot of class and craft to the blogging community!

La mariee etait en noir de FrancoisTruffaut avec Jeanne Moreau en 1968 — The Bride Wore Black by FrancoisTruffaut with Jeanne Moreau in 1968

"No remorse, no fear … The justice of men is powerless. I'm already dead" -Julie Kohler

A blending of French New Wave, classic Hollywood, and Neo-noir, The Bride Wore Black 1968 is François Truffaut’s adaptation of Cornell Woolrich's novel. The film is an homage to the master of suspense Hitchcock, which follows a similar visual journey into unfiltered murder, a pure story of vengeance. Giving an additional nod to the director, the film is scored by Hitchcock's faithful composer Bernard Herrmann, who also worked on Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 (1966). Herrmann’s familiar dramatic flourishes add yet another bow to the orchestrations that helped bring to life Hitchcock’s evocative atmosphere in his long list of suspenseful movies. Herrmann’s style is best described as "Neo-romantic", straightforward, with a simplistic driving rhythm with a ‘neurotic mood’.

Jeanne Moreau's titular Julia Kohler is a classical femme fatale who is simultaneously artfully wicked and possessed of graceful beauty.

The film is a fusion of the Hitchcockian canon, a darkly layered tone of humor and sexuality, and a sumptuous exploration into revenge, with Truffaut leaning further into the staged beauty of murder and not the morality of it.

Truffaut and Jeanne Moreau on the set of The Bride Wore Black 1968.

The above two images from Jules and Jim 1962- show Jeanne Moreau, Henri Serre, and Oskar Werner.

Jeanne Moreau, who gave an astounding performance as the volatile, free-spirited Catherine in Truffaut's 1962's Jules et Jim, is inspiring as the essence of the avenging angel Julie Kohler. Her husband is recklessly shot on the steps of the church on the day of their wedding by a group of men performing masculinity with guns.

Continue reading “The Bride Wore Black 1968: Jeanne Moreau… Goddess of the Hunt”

A Trailer a Day Keeps the Boogeyman Away : Goodbye Andrew Prine Oct 31, 2022

LOOK HOMEWARD ANGEL-GOODBYE ANDREW PRINE

It’s sort of poetic that Andrew Prine left us on Halloween… Though the lanky actor is beloved for his supporting roles in classic Westerns (winning the Golden Boot Award in 2001) both in film and television, I’ll always have a strong affection for his contribution to the B-horror, sci-fi and exploitation genres. I think he had it in his DNA to bring his cocky, seraphic sex appeal to the scary screen. (The Invaders 1967,V mini series 1983 and V: The Final Battle 1984, Star Trek: The Next Generation 1993, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 1995, Weird Science series 1994-98) Later on in his career,  he wouldn’t turn his back on a genre that embraced him, looming grim as the nightmarish surgeon Dr. Hopkins who deals in body parts in the outre gruesome Sutures in 2009, also appearing as Reverend Jonathan Hawthorn in Rob Zombies -The Lords of Salem in 2012.

In the 60s Prine was cast in supporting roles in supernatural oriented television episodes of One Step Beyond 1960, Boris Karloff’s THRILLER ‘The Guilty Men 1960’, ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS ‘The Faith of Aaron Menefee’1962’.

You can catch him in the made for tv movie Night Slaves 1970, Kolchak: The Night Stalker ‘Demon in Lace’ 1975, The Evil 1978, and Amityville II: THE POSSESSION 1982.

Personal Quote[on the 70s exploitation films he starred in] “Then I did a couple of headrollers, and I did them for the money – they paid me a lot of money to do them. I was never a guy who was unhappy on a set. I enjoyed the game, the circus – and I enjoyed the girls. We always had a bunch of fun girls on those movies. The only one I regretted making – I didn’t regret The Centerfold Girls (1974) or The Evil 1978, which turned out to be pretty good. But I didn’t like Terror Circus (1973) [a.k.a “Barn of the Naked Dead”]. When I got into that I thought, “You’ve gone too far, my boy.” I couldn’t imagine my way out of it, though they paid me a lot of bucks. I thought, “Let’s not do this again.”

Here are some clips and trailers from a genre that was keen for his charisma!

SIMON, KING OF THE WITCHES 1971

CRYPT OF THE LIVING DEAD 1973

TERROR CIRCUS aka BARN OF THE NAKED DEAD 1973

THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS 1974

THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN 1976

This is your EverLovin’ Joey sayin’ Andrew Prine gets the “Golden Popcorn Bucket Award” here at The Last Drive in

 

Chapter 5 – Queers and Dykes in the Dark: Classic, Noir & Horror Cinema’s Coded Gay Characters:

There is only one possible end. We are monsters. I don’t like monsters.

Diabolique, directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, based his film on Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac’s novel “Celle qui n’était plus” (She Who Was No More, which Hitchcock attempted to buy the rights to. The original novel is overt in referring to the two women carrying on a lesbian relationship. Clouzot made this more implied in the film. Boileau and Narcejac then wrote D’Entre les Morts” (From Among the Dead) specifically for Alfred Hitchcock, who subsequently adapted to the screen as Vertigo in 1958.

Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1955 French psycho-sexual thriller Diabolique set off a tone of thrillers to come, with its atmospheric looking-glass quality and suggestion of both lesbianism and the supernatural. Véra Clouzot stars as Christina Delassalle, the wife of a cruel headmaster, Michell Delassalle ( Paul Meurisse), at a private boarding school.

His wife, Christina, and mistress, Nicole Horner (Simone Signoret), conspire to kill him and give themselves a perfect alibi. Christina is a fragile sort, with a weak heart, and beaten down by her husband’s physical and mental abuse (he calls her his little ruin). Nicole is self-reliant and aggressive. The two women form a bond with an unspoken tinge of their lesbian alliance. Along the way, Nicole must push Christina to go through with their plans to murder Michel and be rid of Michell, the swine, forever. After his death, there are sightings of him on the grounds of the school. This injects an element of the uncanny into the plot unless there is something more insidious at the core. Throughout the picture, there is a strong sense of Sapphic tension and allusions to the two women’s sexual relationship. In the novel She Who Was No More, the two women were clearly lesbian lovers.

M. Drain Professeur “I may be reactionary, but this is absolutely astounding – the legal wife consoling the mistress! No, no, and no!”

 

Christina Delassalle “There is only one possible end. We are monsters. I don’t like monsters.”

Nicole Horner “If it’s only him, I feel better. I’ll save the grain of sand falling from the hands of providence for my morality lessons.”

Alfred Hitchcock was so impressed with Henri-Georges Clouzot’s French thriller Diabolique (1955) it inspired him to create a dark and psycho-sexual black & white film that would also shock his audience and be a success at the box office.

With his horror film — quasi-noir-tinged Psycho (1960), he engendered a whole new brand of Schadenfreude with his outre creepy film adapted from the story by Robert Bloch about Norman Bates, who personifies the Oedipal relationship between himself and his castrating mother.

The mysterious Mrs. Bates is never seen on screen, except for her voice that croaks out stern remarks from behind her bedroom door. In order to manifest his vengeful mother’s overarching power, he brings her to life by dressing in her clothes and killing anyone Norman has sexual desires for. Norman Bates became the poster boy for the cross-dressing psychopathic killer with latent homosexual tendencies brought about by his over-possessive mother. Though these disparaging visions of gay characters existed on screen, Norman Bates WAS a cinematic prototype and composite of serial killer Ed Gein, who did in fact go on a killing spree in Wisconsin in the 1950s and 60s. Gein wore women’s clothing, and he also wore their skin, sharing Norman’s fascination with taxidermy. He also carried on conversations with his dead mother, which he dug up and kept on the old creepy family farm. In later years, the graphically perverse Deranged (1974), starring Robert Blossom, was released as a direct biographical film about Gein’s life. Later on, it became the interlace of the story, which would be the gory incidentals in 1991, in Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs, where Buffalo Bill would also become iconic and a composite of Ed Gein.

William Castle’s Homicidal 1961 was directed by the king of ballyhoo, who answered Alfred Hitchcock’s horror noir with his own cringe-worthy psycho-sexual film featuring the cross-dressing Jean Arliss as Emily/Warren — another psychopathic gender-bending murderer. The brutal stabbing murder of a justice-of-the-peace sparks an investigation of dark family secrets in a sleepy small town in Southern California. Also stars Glenn Corbett and Patricia Breslin.

A peculiar young man, Warren (Jean Arliss), plots to murder his half-sister, Miriam Webster (Patricia Breslin) in order to collect the family fortune. Miriam is supposed to share her inheritance with her half-brother Warren, who lives with his nanny and now guardian Helga (Eugenie Leontovich), an old woman confined to a wheelchair. Helga has recently been struck down by a stroke and is barely able to move or speak; she can only tap out something like Morse code with her trusty doorknob. Warren is a strange and menacing figure who projects an undercurrent of hostility toward his childhood guardian. Warren and Helga live in the old family mansion where he and Miriam grew up. Helga is taken care of by a pretty blonde nurse, Emily, who seems to have formed a close relationship with Warren.

Miriam Webster: “I remember when we were kids, you took this doll away from me, and I never saw it again.”
Warren: “You want it? Take it.”

Making its departure from gruesome queer killers, Hollywood contributed to the screen another type of threatening’ gay subtext with James Dean, who exuded tragic emotional disturbances, and the tough sensitivity of Marlon Brando, who dressed in worn-out leather to cover up the pathos oozing from his deep eyes and rugged voice. Dyer refers to these actors as the sensitive ‘spectacularized young man.’

In director Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause (1955), a most talked about film with homosexual undertones, particularly from Sal Mineo’s (openly queer) portrayal of Plato. James Dean is on fire with teenage angst as Jim Stark, whose father is an emasculated, weak male figure. There is a lot more light that passes through Plato’s homosexuality, as he exudes more than the hero worship of Jim. There’s a tell-tale scene when Plato is combing his hair in the mirror of his locker, decorated with a photo of Gary Cooper. Jim is walking down the hallway, and as Plato catches sight of him, his gaze is eroticized.

The character of Plato is played as an unstable youth, and Jim comes from a family with a domineering mother who emasculates his apron-wearing gutless father… In 1955, the question of homosexuality still had to be handled on screen as a question of deviance; Plato, therefore, must pay for his transgressions with his life.

There is also a moral warning for parents. Represent good role models of a heterosexual ideal, or your kids might turn out either troubled or queer. It is a cautionary tale about paying attention to heteronormative expectations. In the end, the story is sewn up with Jim grabbing his father as he tells him it’ll be alright.

Ray’s film, with its heavily rendered homosexual subtext, avails itself of dialogue that is easily interpreted as sexually ambiguous. “Are you ready to come out yet?”

In Howard Hawk’s Gentleman Prefer Blondes, 1953 Jane Russell does one of her lively musical numbers which suggests a very tongue-in-cheek hint at ‘gay panic’ when her character Dorothy Shaw is surrounded by a chorus of muscle-bound weightlifters in homoerotic swim trunks that pay Dorothy no mind.“Doesn’t anyone want to play?”

In a more deeply disturbing narrative, director Jack Garfein’s The Strange One (1957) is set in a military boarding school. Jocko De Paris (Ben Gazzara) is a manipulative upperclassman who rules sadistically over the other cadets. The root cause of Jocko’s ambiguous violent schemes is suggested to be his latent homosexuality.

the film wallows in a steamy mixture of homoerotic imagery and verbal innuendo. The mise-en-scene is filled with phallic signifiers, such as towers, trumpets, cigars, flashlights, nightsticks, bottles brooms swords and scores of erect young men marching sweatingly through the night… The specter of homosexuality also envelops the characters of Cadet Perrin, and effete poet who idolworhips Jocko and Cadet Simmons, a Peter Lorre look-alike who refuses to date girls or shower with the other cadets. Ultimately all this queerness is dislplace onto Jocko’s violent sadism, a linkage not uncommon in the ear’s medical discourse about homosexuality… Jocko calls Cadet Perrin a ‘three-dollar bill” and repeatedly towel whips his ass its hard not to read the scene as a metaphoric sodomy wherein (Code-sanctioned) homosocial violence displaces (Code -forbidden ) homosexual contact. The story itself is an extended gloss on secrecy in the barracks centering on a bizzare narrative event that also speaks of homosexuality in barely coded ways.(Jeffrey Sconce)

Tennessee William’s Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) conflated homosexuality with the devouring mother archetype, promiscuity, cruising, pedophilia, and cannibalism. It’s a melodrama that could very easily share the shock scenes and denouement with some of the most gruesome horror films.

Not to forget Vincente Minnelli’s Tea and Sympathy (1956), where John Kerr, sewing with the ladies and removed from all sports, is barely veiled as a homosexual, though the picture throws Deborah Kerr at him in one night’s sexual encounter to awaken his maleness. The film is so uncomfortable with itself because it dares not admit Tom’s homosexuality.

Even as the Production Code authorities attempted to expurgate “homosexuality” per se from the film version of Tea and Sympathy 1956“”focusing instead on the euphemism of its young protagonist’s effeminacy this move fooled few spectators and simultaneously reinforced a stereotypical and reassuring blurring of effeminacy and male homosexuality. (Foster Hirsch-The Dark Side of the Screen)

Where homosexuals are either portrayed as deviants or boys who have had their masculinity neutered for them, lesbians have a symbology all their own. In director Gerd Oswald’s psychotronic cult film Screaming Mimi (1958) starring Anita Ekberg, Gypsy Rose Lee plays exotic night club owner Joann ‘Gypsy’ Masters, a veiled lesbian who runs the burlesque show and looks after her girls.

Exotic dancer Anita Ekberg surrounds herself with her Great Dane… Screaming Mimi.

In contrast to coded characters, in Basil Dearden’s Victim (1961), the outed queer character Melville Farr is played by Dirk Bogard. one of the gay men being targeted by a blackmail plot during the 1960s London, coinciding with the death of a young man, whom Bogard had a fling with. The subject of homosexuality was out in the open in Dearden’s bold 1961 film, which deals with homosexuality as the central plot. Yet it drops the characters into a seedy pit of unsavory intrigue surrounding gay men and their criminal affiliations. Victim is one of the first films dealing with homosexuality directly as the central storyline, confronting some of the issues in a serious manner without demonizing its leading character, Melville Farr, yet trying to examine how being in the closet causes so much psychological turmoil and heartache.

Lesbians are often portrayed as harsh and tyrannical or on the femme side; they’re trashy and beaten down. For example, in director Gordon Douglas’ Tony Rome (1967), After 1961, times were changing, and the Code was forced to ease up on policing the content of pictures coming out of Hollywood. One of the first signs of the lesbian innuendo, with more of a kick to it, was in director Gordon Douglas’ Tony Rome 1967. The equation of lesbian love with tyranny is also the strongest impression we get from that scene between Irene and Georgia (uncredited Deanna Lund) in the caravan.

Georgia, the stripper, might be seen as a lady who gets what she wants with no interference, but she also lives in a caravan with Irene (character actor Elizabeth Fraser). In the film, she plays a dowdy, heavy-set, unspoken lesbian lover (who is credited on IMDb as Irma.) The film doesn’t call their relationship out by name, but the dialogue contains sharp innuendo dished out by the smooth-talking Sinatra, who talks to Georgia about an old boyfriend of hers. Tony’s been trying to track him down. Redheaded Georgia (Deanna Lund), a stripper who’s shacked up with her ‘roommate,’ as abusive and whiny as the men who used to beat her.

Tony told Georgia about her ex-boyfriend: “Maybe he was trying to get into the wrong ballpark.”

After Irene, who seems overly possessive, jealous, unstable, and isn’t the most fashionable 60s lesbian, begins smacking Georgia around until they both fall on the small caravan bed as Irene whimpers that she’s sorry for hitting her.

Tony smirks- “You want the lights on or off?… They’re better off.”

Tony Rome is scattered with a few distasteful scenes, characteristic of late 6os cinema; queers were not portrayed in a very good light. While the film has a groovy 60s vibe, some smart-alecky dialogue, and the presence of Sinatra who plays it cool, the decades’ propensity for painting gays with a dirty brush is ever present in Gordon Douglas’ crime drama.

Lloyd Bochner plays an effete drug dealer named Vic. A brief teaser role that seems to have flown under the gay radar. Bochner portrays Vic with a pretentiously fake obstinance, wears an ascot, and listens to classical music in his kitschy pad. Tony shows up looking for a user who will be trying to score from Vic. After he roughs Vic up a bit, Rome prepares himself a hamburger on the stove and asks Vic in a mocking tone, “How do you like your meat?”

The tyrannical relationships between lesbians in the world of the classic film noir where there was more of a power differential, between employer/employee, etc (Rebecca, In a Lonely Place, Walk on the Wild Side for instance) carry over into films where the lesbian characters are not only visible but they are supposed to be each others’ social equal.

The emphasis on lesbians as working women can exhibit keen elements of cruelty and violence of either the servants or mistresses, as with Mrs. Danvers and the second Mrs. de Winter (Rebecca) and Martha to Laurel (In a Lonely Place). But also the dominance that madams show to the ‘girls’ in their stable. This manifestation of iron-handed emotions leaves us suspicious of what the attraction is to women or the object of their affection.

As the Hays Code began to crumble and it was gasping its last bitter breath, the lesbian character was made visible on screen. This is the case of Dirk Bogard in Dearden’s Victim or with George (Beryl Reid) and Childie (Susannah York) in Robert Aldrich’s painfully revealing exploration of an aging dyke in THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE (1968), where lesbianism is out in the open for the audience but not for the character of Sister George who is a beloved soap opera star for BBC. She tries to make her private life separate from her career as a well-loved nurse on the popular television show. But June Buckridge, who plays the character of George, is compelled to sabotage both her private and public life with her shameless reputation for drinking too much and goosing nuns in taxi cabs. She is a belligerent, self-hating lesbian who is trapped within her private closet, trying to hold onto her girlfriend, who is a wandering woman/child.

The sixties ushered in several interesting films that still cast a veil of secrecy over queer cinema before films became franker with gay subjects as the lead story. One of the most flirtatious and entertaining with more than a queer inkling or attentive innuendo is THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN (1960), a homosocial/partly-homosexual buddy film about men coming together to rob a bank. As the Criterion Collection calls it, “precisely calibrated caper… influences countless Hollywood heist films.”

One of the unprecedented aspects of Dearden’s film for 1960 is not only is the narrative steeped in queer innuendo, but homosexuality also is not tangential to the plot; a few of the main characters are ‘queer,’ and they are not stereotypical.

Director Basil Dearden’s impressively quirky British heist movie stars the accomplished Jack Hawkins as Hyde and equally brilliant Nigel Patrick as Major Race. Hyde is a resentful Colonel who was forced into retirement as he was ‘redundant.’ He recruits an eccentric group of disgraced petty criminals, ex-British army officers, to help him pull off a meticulous bank heist that includes infiltrating a military compound. Hyde has the goods on all of their shady pasts and influences them to accept his offer. Race becomes his most trusted ally and implied lover, who used to run the black market in Hamburg. The film also stars some British greats, Richard Attenborough, Kieron Moore, and Bryan Forbes, who went on to direct, and Roger Livesey. Hyde assigns each one a task that matches their expertise.

Women are rarely seen except for the opening of the picture and are not part of the narrative, merely to illustrate that they are not quite essential or actually a drag on the men’s lives. There are no romantic relationships on the periphery, just Attenborough lusting after a pretty young skirt. For the most part, women are not shown in a good light. They are either whores, shrews catering to their doddering old father-in-law, cling insecure older women being used by Forbes; the rest are bitches. Women are the counterbalance of the film’s antiheroes, who form a homosocial circle. However, I wonder if there isn’t a form of homosocial order within a female assembly, like prisons and convents, that have their own shape of erotic engagement. I might call this experience ‘sapphic-social.’

Gentlemen have a definite undercurrent of sexual attraction between Hyde (Hawkins) and Race (Patrick). Often, the two exchange glances and trade coquetry, while there is a seductive ambiance to many of their interactions, especially when Hyde tells Race to spend the night. He also requests that Race drop the old “˜darling’ bit, and then Race calls him Old Dear instead. Their entire relationship is flirtatious,” and when Race dons an apron and does the dishes with Hawkins, it’s divine.

Race looking at a portrait, “Is that your wife? Is she dead?”

Hyde “Oh no, the bitch is still going very strong.”

“One gets into terrible habits at the YMCA,” and “You’d be surprised where I’ve parked my Caravan.” Race tells Hawkins. Race tells him, “You’re spoiling me.” Hyde tells him, “All my men loved me.”

Kieran Moore is being blackmailed, but it is only implied that he is homosexual. ” Well, there are thrills and “˜thrills’ ” he tells his patron whom he is massaging. There is a reference to him by one of the others that he’s an “odd man out.” And Lexy (Richard Attenborough) acts green around the gills because he has to room with him.

For a gripping, black comedic crime thriller, the more than implied queerness makes The League of Gentlemen, a variation on Boys in the Band, a sort of Boys in the Bank Robbery will do nicely!

Then, in 1962, Peter Ustinov directed BILLY BUDD, which was based on the novel by Herman Melville. Billy Budd stars Robert Ryan as John Claggart Master of Arms, Peter Ustinov as Capt. Vere and co-stars Melvyn Douglas, Paul Rogers, David McCallum, Ronald Lewis, Niall MacGinnis, and Terence Stamp as Billy Budd. Billy Budd is an innocent, naive seaman in the British Navy in 1797. When the ship’s sadistic master-at-arms is murdered, Billy is accused and tried. Claggart ( Robert Ryan) has a ‘queer’ fixation on Billy. Laura Mulvey terms this fixation as a case of ‘scopophilia,’ which describes the psychological tendency towards deriving aesthetic pleasure from looking at something or someone in terms of masculinity/femininity and subjectivity and objectivity.

In her book Epistemology of the Closet (1990/2008), Eve Sedgwick, expanding on earlier interpretations of the same themes, posits that the interrelationships between Billy, Claggart and Captain Vere are representations of male homosexual desire and the mechanisms of prohibition against this desire. She points out that Claggart’s “natural depravity,” which is defined tautologically as “depravity according to nature,” and the accumulation of equivocal terms (“phenomenal”, “mystery”, etc.) used in the explanation of the fault in his character, are an indication of his status as the central homosexual figure in the text. She also interprets the mutiny scare aboard the Bellipotent, the political circumstances that are at the center of the events of the story, as a portrayal of homophobia.

The centrality of Billy Budd’s extraordinary good looks in the novella, where he is described by Captain Vere as “the young fellow who seems so popular with the men””Billy, the Handsome Sailor”, have led to interpretations of a homoerotic sensibility in the novel.

King Rat (1965) written by James Clavell (To, Sir With Love 1967, The Great Escape 1963) directed by Bryan Forbes (Seance on a Wet Afternoon 1964, The Whisperers 1967), and astounding Miltonian cinematography by Burnett Guffey (All the King’s Men 1947, From Here to Eternity 1953, Birdman of Alcatraz 1962, Bonnie and Clyde 1967), framing the prisoners steeped in hell. The scene at the end with the collective wide shot of the hollowed-out men not quite connected to the world anymore or their coming release reminds me of the potent image from Paths of Glory (1957). King Rat is a meditation on humanity when British and American prisoners of war are captured and thrown into a Japanese camp in Changi.

In some of the more subtle homosexual subtexts, King Rat shows Dr. Kennedy (James Donald) using an acid tongue with his male nurse, Stevens (Michael Lees). Kennedy’s hostility is the one trace of homophobia in the picture. “˜Stop trying to pretend you’re Florence Nightingale” and “You shave your legs, and you’re a liar. Forbes himself never showed any homophobia in his work, even considering Cicely Courtneidge as a sympathetic lesbian in The L Shaped Room (1962) and Stevens in The League of Gentlemen (1960).

Director Bryan Forbe’s films came to grips with taboo subjects in his realist style of 1960s cinema, in much the same way Robert Aldrich populated his films with misfits and outsiders — The L Shaped Room examines converging stories and social minefields, including unwed motherhood, lesbianism, and race. Forbe’s work delved into humanity in a microcosmic tableau.

But if one were to look at the film objectively, there would be nothing on its face that couldn’t be read one way or the other. George Segal is Corporal King (‘Rat’) who runs a lucrative black market, always scheming and plotting within his close circle of men, the Guards, and the Malay locals to obtain contraband. His position as a black marketeer helps him transcend his rank within that prison camp.

But freedom meant that he would be stripped of his privilege. King lives a better life than anyone else in the POW camp, but he does bring a bit of release and small obtainables, which, to the desperate, become luxuries for the other men. There is a sharp contrast between his freshly laundered shirts, combed hair, and clean face while other men starve and wear soiled, tattered rags. Pete Marlowe begins to respect King, who he comes to see not only as a clever mercenary but also as someone who brings a bit of dignity to the other men.

James Fox gives an astounding performance as Pete, a gentle, fair-minded, upper-class Brit who is also trying to make the best of his captivity. The men in the camp have very little rations, and the extreme heat is enough to dry a man to dust. There’s also diphtheria, malaria, insanity, and undignified death. They are reduced to animals struggling to survive, so beaten down they’ve lost their soul in their eyes. But in the midst of this hell, the nameless King never shows more than sweaty armpits in his freshly cleaned uniform, while the others are half-naked and emaciated. King has fresh eggs, cigarettes, and deals going on with Japanese soldiers to make a lot of money, which makes him feel like a big man. Back in civilization, he was a nobody, but here he flourishes because he is in charge. In this isolated camp, his cunning has made him the most influential and, at times, predatory of men.

Men can sink to the depths of hell when they are treated like animals. The film is an example of a homo-social dynamic of camaraderie against a common obstacle. Homosocial behavior is often seen in films where men are thrown together and must bond, in particular prison movies and war films, where men are dependent on each other and forced to survive.

It is given in both male and women’s prison movies that there might be a sexual relationship out of necessity. With men, it would be because there aren’t any women, and they need someone to depend on and form a close bond with. But once they are free, they go back to their heterosexuality.

What makes King Rat such a strong film coded with homosexual subtext is the bond that Pete and King form at the very beginning. Forbe’s film never comes out and tells us that the two men have fallen in love. On the surface, it is about a strong friendship that grows between the two. But it is obvious, if you look at it through a queer lens, that there is a romantic dynamic between them. Pete is more overtly queer, while King never lets his guard down to anyone; Pete is the only one he takes into his intimate space.

From the beginning, there’s a subtle flirtation. King doesn’t treat anyone else like he treats Pete. At the first meeting, he makes him a fried egg. Pete comments, when does one have to kiss his ass? The men in the hut turn and look at the two of them curiously. King tells Pete, “Never before meals.”

As Pete grows closer to King, it is more apparent that he is effeminate and is immediately drawn to King. Pete moves very fluidly; while everyone wears shorts or long pants, he wears a traditional skirt and walks like a sylph. Very quickly, he falls under King’s spell. The two men gradually fall in love, and as the film progresses, we can see a strong friendship, but those of us who are either in the know or know what they’re looking at will see the homosexual love story.

Hollywood proposes films that appear heterosexual but have suggestive coding. There are many scenes of tenderness, caring, and affection that speak of homo-erotic desire that hasn’t been consummated but lingers around the two men. Pete has a strong longing for King, but once the prisoners are freed, King pushes Pete away not only because he will lose any identification of great importance but also because he will go back to obscurity. Now, he must bury his homosexual feelings and go back to his straight life.

In one scene, when Pete is suffering from gangrene and might lose his arm, King takes his head and strokes his face passionately, caressing his neck and cheeks. King, who always looks out for himself, pays a lot of money to get the medicine to heal Pete. He sits by his bedside and holds his hand; without his usual dress army shirt, King is bare-chested for the first time. It’s a very homoerotic moment when King sits by Pete’s bed, his sweat glistening by the bedside light.

At one point King talks about how he never got the dolls (women) back home, all the fat men with money got the girls. The mentioning of his heterosexuality is a way to appease the censors and draw away the implication that he might be gay. This qualifies his heterosexuality to prepare for the following moment, where he is stroking Pete’s face, taking it in his hands, and bringing his own face close to his in a moment that might erupt in a kiss. Now that King has just talked about looking at dolls, this can be read as a hetero friendship and not a homoerotic one.

Ultimately when the war is declared over, King must deny and dismiss Pete completely in order to shed his homosexuality. But Pete is devastated “”King becomes cold and cruel. Pete implores him “You called me Sir last nightThe war is over, but you and me, we’re just the same.”

But King has already decided to walk away from their “˜homoerotic friendship’ Peter pleads with him, “People don’t change. I’m not ashamed that you and I are friends. We survived it. Don’t you remember what we had, don’t you remember that? Don’t ask me to forget all that. Otherwise, what’s it all been made of? I’m not different.”

At the very end, Pete actually says King’s (which has merely been his nickname ) last name, which we hear for the first time during the film; it symbolizes the intrusion of the real world on their insulated existence. When King is leaving with the Americans, Pete runs frantically toward him, trying to say goodbye. King looks at him from the truck, and for the last time, he reveals to Pete one lingering stare- a despairing, longing look at Pete to let him know it was real.

Continue reading “Chapter 5 – Queers and Dykes in the Dark: Classic, Noir & Horror Cinema’s Coded Gay Characters:”

BRIDES OF HORROR – Scream Queens of the 1960s! – Part 4: The Dark Goddess-This Dark Mirror

BARBARA STEELE- BLOODY WELL BELOVED

The role Barbara Steele plays in the legacy of Italian Gothic cinema of the 1960s achieving cult status, is arguably her most recognizable contribution to the sub-genre of the horror film. She’s been christened The High Priestess of Horror, Queen of Horror, and The Dark Goddess, the latter, the implication being her prowess is proof there’s a link between beauty (a woman’s power) and evil. Steele’s persona is suitable as a femme fatale, and the sum of her work is extremely feminist.

According to journalist Maitland McDonagh, she is The Face that Launched a Thousand Screams. She is the sadomasochistic Madonna of the “cinefantastique”; the queen of the wild, the beautiful, and the damned.”

“Of all the stars of horror cinema, Barbara Steele may have come the closest to pure myth {“¦} she suggests a kinky and irresistible sexual allure” – (David J Hogan)

“With goldfish-bowl eyes radiating depraved elfin beauty, and what she calls herold, suspicious Celtic soul burning blackly within, Steele played the princess in a dark fairytale.” ‘They sense something in me’ she once said of her fans, but surely it was true of her directors also. Steele followed with ‘Maybe some kind of psychic pain. The diva Dolorosa of the 1910s, reincarnated as a voluptuous revenant.’ – (from David Cairns and Daniel Riccuito for Sight and Sound)

“Angel Carter (1982) named the three surrealist love goddesses as Louise Brooks first and foremost followed by Dietrich and third Barbara Steele. With regards to Steele however, not all the following descriptions emanate from surrealists caught in the grip of amour fou” (obsessive passion).- (The Other Face of Death: Barbara Steele and La Maschera Del Demonio by Carol Jenks from NECRONOMICON edited by Andy Black)

“The very symbol of Woman as vengeful, alien and “˜other’.” (Nicholls 1984)

“Steele perfectly embodies both the dread and the desire necessary to imply alluring and transgressive sexuality.” (Lampley-Women in the Horror films of Vincent Price)

“It’s not me they’re seeing. They’re casting some projection of themselves, some aspect that I somehow symbolizes. It can’t possibly be me.” Barbara Steele quoted-(Warren 1991)

“You can’t live off being a cult.” Barbara Steele

“When did I ever deserve this dark mirror?”

 

Continue reading “BRIDES OF HORROR – Scream Queens of the 1960s! – Part 4: The Dark Goddess-This Dark Mirror”

A Trailer a Day Keeps the Boogeyman Away! The Premonition 1976 – Bright Mother, Nightmare Mother

I saw this obscure chiller during its theatrical release and remember being very effected by its moody, dissonant, and menacing tone. Like many of the horror films that exist in the ether of the 1970s, (Let's Scare Jessica To Death 1971, The Brotherhood of Satan 1971, Don't Look Now 1973, Silent Night, Bloody Night 1972, Lemora, A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural  1973, The Witch Who Came From the Sea 1976, Squirm 1976, The Sentinel 1977, Tourist Trap 1979) this is among those films that left an impression on me.

A supernatural-psychological horror film by director Robert Allen Schnitzer, with cinematography by Victor Milt leads us in a dream state that is not only atmospheric and Kafkaesque it conjures up lucid nightmares for the bright mother, Sheri, and for us.

Raven-haired psychotic Andrea Fletcher (Ellen Barber) has been declared an unfit mother, and unfortunately is released from the mental institution too soon. She immediately goes in search of her little girl Janie (Danielle Brisebois in her first role) who has been adopted by Sheri and Miles Bennett (Sharon Farrell and Edward Michael Bell).

Andrea seeks help from her companion Jude, a former patient at the same hospital, a woeful carnival clown who goes looking for Janie, finding her with her adoptive mother Sheri.

The two wounded souls, Andrea and Jude, restless in their desire to reunite Janie with her birth mother, leads to Janie’s kidnapping. When Andrea snaps, Jude kills her in a fit of rage. Devastated by the loss of her daughter, Sheri has a breakdown and becomes haunted by psychic images of her daughter and Andrea's tortured spirit. Andrea’s insanity reverberates beyond her death and outward like an echo that is picked up by Sheri, whose disturbing visions reveal that she is clairvoyant.

Sheri's husband Miles, an astrophysicist brings in a colleague, Jeena Kingsly a professor of parapsychology, who studies the realms of human consciousness. Kingsly attempts to help Sheri connect to Janie telepathically. The two mothers begin a psychic tug-of-war over the possession of Janie.

Ellen Barber gives a paralyzing performance as the deranged Andrea, volatile and unhinged, she is a dark wraith in her red satin dress and black velvet cameo choker.

The character of Jude is perhaps the most layered. Richard Lynch (The Seven-Ups 1973, God Told Me Too 1976, Vampire 1979 TV movie, The Ninth Configuration 1980, The Formula 1980, Invasion U.S.A 1985, Bad Dreams 1988, Rob Zombie's Halloween 2007) – is an interesting actor, ever present in so many roles, with his interesting angular face, scarred and weathered and blond hair that hangs like a darker archangel, he is oddly sinister-sexy. A hard-working acting in film and television, he is striking often cast in horror and action films, playing odd characters with his unique persona. Schnitzer apparently hired him for his “widely divergent moods” Lynch influenced by legendary mime Marcel Marceau, brought an element of his gestures to the role of Jude.

This is your EverLovin’ Joey saying I had a premonition that you’ll be back to The Last Drive In, very soon! Happy month of October!

BRIDES OF HORROR – Scream Queens of the 1960s! – Part 3

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ELSA MARTINELLI

Euro art house director Roger Vadim adapted Blood and Roses in 1960, from Sheridan Le Fanu’s Sapphic vampire novella Camilla, setting down in contemporary Italy.

A lonely and bitter young heiress – jealous of her cousin’s engagement to another woman – becomes dangerously obsessed with legends surrounding a vampire ancestor, who supposedly murdered the young brides of the man she loved (IMDb).

The role of Carmilla was cast by Annette Vadim and Elsa Martinelli plays Georgia Monteverdi engaged to Leopoldo (Mel Ferrer). Camilla is secretly in love with Leopoldo. He and Georgia host a costume party to celebrate their upcoming wedding, which includes fireworks, that wind up unearthing the grave of Milarka, who is Carmilla’s ancestor, a vampiress. Milarka now possesses Camilla and designs to corrupt the lovers. Although the film is in technicolor, Vadim shoots his impressionistic dream sequence in black-and-white with red-tinted blood.

The film stoked the theme of the lesbian vampire, though not explicit, the trope gained traction in the late 1960s and 70s with Hammer Studios. Martinelli also appeared in The 10th Victim 1965.

Hayley Mills

Hayley Mills comes from acting royalty, she is the daughter of great British actor John Mills and the younger sister of Juliet Mills. I happened to have the good fortune of meeting the gorgeous Juliet Mills twice at the Chiller convention here in New Jersey. I have to say that I’ve never met a more kind and gracious actor who has a profound inner glow. Having already been a fan, I’m even more enamored with her.

Hayley was discovered while at her parent’s home in 1958 by director J. Lee Thompson who immediately cast her opposite, of her father in the thriller Tiger Bay 1959. Her breakthrough performance, winning an award at the Berlin Film Festival and being acknowledged in Hollywood by Walt Disney signed her to a five-year contract. There she starred in Pollyanna 1960 garnering rave reviews and a second hit was for The Parent Trap 1961. She went on to do That Darn Cat! 1965 and The Trouble with Angels 1966.

Mills had been offered the role of Lolita in Stanley Kubrick’s film (1962) but her parents warned off the part fearing the sexual nature of the role would taint her iconic image of purity. Sue Lyon was cast in the role instead, but Mills regretted not taking the part.

in Twisted Nerve 1968, Hayley Mills plays Susan Harper who befriends psychopath Martin Durnley (Hywel Bennett) who appears to be a painfully troubled young man, taking on the persona of a six-year-old boy who calls himself Georgie. His mother (Billie Whitelaw) infantilizes Martin. He has a brother with Down syndrome who has been hidden away in an institution. Georgie becomes fixated on the lovely and patiently kind, who realizes there’s something very wrong with Martin who ultimately goes into a murderous rage.

After Twisted Nerve in 1968, Hayley Mills went on to do more psychological thrillers in the 1970s – Once again co-starring with Hywel Bennett in Endless Night in 1972, and Deadly Strangers in 1975.

ANNA MASSEY

Anna also comes from acting royalty being the daughter of actor Raymond Massey. She is known for her role as Helen Stephens in Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom 1960 starring Karlheinz Bohm as Mark, a disturbed young man who films women as he kills them with a tripod sword so that he can get off on their reactions of terror. Anna plays Helen Stephans, the one girl that Mark feels a connection.

Once Mark is drawn to Helen they begin to spend time together. In Helen’s innocence, she remains out of danger from his dark, deranged eye on women’s suffering.

She also appeared in Otto Preminger’s Bunny Lake is Missing 1965, the psycho-sexual thriller drenched in paranoia. Carol Lynley reports her little girl missing, but there seems to be no evidence that she ever existed. Anna plays Elvira Smollett one of the teachers at the school where she disappeared.

Massey went on to do two more horror films in the 1970s, Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy 1972 and The Vault of Horror 1973 an anthology directed by Roy Ward Baker.

Continue reading “BRIDES OF HORROR – Scream Queens of the 1960s! – Part 3”

A Trailer a Day Keeps the Boogeyman Away! Homebodies (1974) Do You Know Where Your Grandmother Is Tonight?

Homebodies 1974

Homebodies1974 directed by Larry Yust (Trick Baby 1972) features a marvelous ensemble of beloved character actors, Ruth McDevitt ( The Birds 1963, Miss Emily in the 1970s series-Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and a slew of made-for-television movies and popular tv series), Peter Brocco (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest 1975, the ubiquitous Ian Wolfe, William Hansen (Fail Safe 1964, The Laughing Policeman 1973, Francis Fuller (They Might Be Giants 1971)  and Paula Trueman (The Anderson Tapes 1971, The Outlaw Josey Wales 1976). With cinematography by Isidore Mankofsky (Trick Baby 1972, Scream Blacula Scream 1973, Carrie 1976 (uncredited). The film features a snappy song – "Sassafras Sunday" that tags along with the credits.

An offbeat black comedy centered around six unassuming elderly tenants being forced out of their homes, evicted from their brownstone, and victims of gentrification. Led by the impish Mattie (Trueman)…

Mattie's trajectory forces the audience to examine where the line between eccentricity and psychosis lies. – Elizabeth Erwin-Short Cuts: Senior Citizens Rage in Homebodies 1974.

They decide to exact retribution in inventive ways, against the ruthless land developers that want to drive them out and tear down the building. The cast is a curious gang of aged assassins who take down the people (Linda March as the unsympathetic Miss Pollock, Kenneth Tobey, and Douglas Fowley) who are trying to wreak havoc on their quiet lives!

TRIVIA:

Paula Trueman was nearly blind when she acted in this movie. Because of her poor eyesight, the car had to be towed to the scene with Trueman driving an automobile.

Peter Brocco spent some time with blind people to research his character Mr. Blakely

This is your EverLovin’ Joey, a homebody sayin’ hope you’re always in your happy home!

BRIDES OF HORROR – Scream Queens of the 1960s! – Part 2

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JANE ASHER

British-born redhead Jane Asher started out as a child actress who worked extensively in television and film. Her contribution to the horror genre is that of her character, Francesca the unflinching heroine peasant girl who out of six is the only one to survive the plague and begs Prospero to spare her father and brother. She is thrust into the hedonistic Danse Macabre of the castle, as Prospero’s unwilling mistress, in Edgar Allan Poe’s story directed by Roger Corman THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH 1964.

From Roger Corman’s How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime –

“Masque was the most lavish of the Poe films…(part of what made the film so visually stunning with it’s vibrant color scheme is the work of cinematographer by Nicholas Roeg)

Masque was a surreal, philosophical tale set in medieval Italy with Vincent Price playing Prince Prospero, a sadistic debauched Satan worshipper who retreats into his castle and hosts a lavishly decadent ball as his land is ravaged by the Red Death…{…} I had started going out with my Masque leading lady, Jane Asher, and we were having coffee on a Friday. But Jane showed up with a young companion. “Roger”, she said, “I’d like you to meet a friend of mine from Liverpool, Paul McCartney. Paul’s never been on a movie set and he’d like to see what’s happening.” … Jane had been dating Paul but because he was constantly away on tour, she was seeing me in London.” -Roger Corman

She was Paul McCartney’s muse for much of the 1960s; “Here, There And Everywhere” and many other songs were written with Jane in mind. They were engaged for seven months until finally separating in July 1968. -IMDb tidbit

She appeared in the television series – Journey to the Unknown 1968 episode Somewhere in the Crowd. And went on to star in the psychological thriller Deep End 1970, The Buttercup Chain 1970, and the television movie, The Stone Tape 1972. Most notable is her performance in the major motion picture Alfie 1966 co-starring with Michael Caine. IMDb tidbit-By the time she was fifteen, she had appeared in 8 films, made 9 television appearances, over 100 radio appearances, and was in five plays-

Personal quote – “Of all the things I do, acting is the thing that grabs most, but there’s another level on which it strikes me as being a little silly. In the end you’re dressing up and deciding to be somebody.”

Maxine Audley

British actress noted for her perfect diction and for her excellent acting range in classical plays on stage, on television, and on radio. Her contribution to the 60s horror genre is her marvelous performance as Mrs. Stephens in Michael Powell’s subversive Peeping Tom, who can see Mark Lewis’ psychopathic personality clearly though she is blind. She has the instinct to feel that she and her daughter are in terrible danger.

Peeping Tom 1960, The Brain 1962, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed 1969.

Michiyo Aratama

Beautifully shot, suffuse the landscape with haunting and uncanny stories that are chilling in Masaki Kobyashi’s- Kwaidan 1964.

Continue reading “BRIDES OF HORROR – Scream Queens of the 1960s! – Part 2”

A Trailer a Day Keeps the Boogeyman Away! Monstrous Dark Blobs & A Stone Encrusted Soul!!

Caltiki, the Immortal 1959 & Curse of the Faceless Man 1958

CALTIKI, THE IMMORTAL MONSTER 1959

Italian director Ricardo Freda's atmospheric horror/sci-fi film is reminiscent of Nigel Kneale's The Quatermass Xperiment 1955 and directed by Val Guest. Caltiki puts forth the mythology that a once in every seventy millennia comet streaks through the sky to wreak its terrifying radiation on an ancient carnivorous muddy blob that devours the flesh off the bones of its victims in quite revolting style. When researchers, a team of archaeologists studying ancient Mayan ruins, bring a slimy chunk of the blob back to the lab for further study subjecting it to more radiation, it grows to an immense size and crawls and sweeps across the countryside to swallow up everything in its path. A particularly shocking scene for 1950's, is when the unlikable Max (Gerald Haerter in a role that would have been perfect for Martin Kosleck) runs back to steal gold has his arm sucked clean by Caltiki leaving the remains of a gruesome skeletal arm.

Curse of the Faceless Man 1958

Director Edward L. Cahn, perhaps one of my favorite B-Movie directors of the 1950s, brings us an encrusted boogeyman from Pompeii. Double billed with It! The Terror from Beyond Space 1958, Curse of the Faceless Man.

Quintillus Aurelius a slave in Ancient Rome,  was destroyed along with the city of Pompei when Mount Vesuvius erupted. After the stone man is recovered by archaeologists, he goes on a rampage smashing people that stand in his way of being reunited with his reincarnated love, actress Elaine Edwards.

This is your EverLovin’ Joey hoping that your October is filled with more treats than tricks!