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| Mysterious Island; Captain Harding's FABULOUS Adventures | |
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| Topic Started: Jan 19 2009, 09:36 PM (2,189 Views) | |
| panzer the great & terrible | Aug 4 2009, 03:23 PM Post #76 |
Mouth Breather
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You got that right. It's a pointless argument anyway. As the caterpillar said, "When I use a word it means exactly what I want it to mean, neither more nor less." I happen to like Mysterious Island because it makes me laugh. There's no law that says it makes everybody laugh. |
| We Wear Short Shorts Flying Purple People Eater | |
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| toddgault | Aug 5 2009, 06:57 AM Post #77 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Aren't most argument's pointless when you actually look at them? To be honest I don't know whether I like Mystery Island or not, all I've ever seen of it is Chapter Two on the Icons of Horror: Sam Katzman Collection. My original comment was that going by Gravy's synopsis of the first four chapters, the serial doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Next thing I know, I'm getting defensive and argumentative. Maybe it's time to switch from coffee to that tea with sleeping bear on the box. |
| Todd Gault..........Serial Buff | |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Aug 5 2009, 07:45 AM Post #78 |
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Mouth Breather
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For an obscure Sam Katzman serial, it sure has generated talk. For my money, the real Katzman dud is The Adventures of Sir Galahad, which had such potential and lived up to none of it. Making Sir Bors into a comic sidekick meant that Galahad, who isn't even a Sir until the very end, is always being rude and condescending to a guy who outranks him. A little thing, but it drives me up the wall. And then there's the mystery villain who isn't. A maddening serial with one redeeming cliffhanger where the hero gets et by a tree. You just know the resolution's going to be wonderful, and then it isn't and you're back in Jungle Sam Land. |
| We Wear Short Shorts Flying Purple People Eater | |
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| toddgault | Aug 6 2009, 05:05 AM Post #79 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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The weakest Katzman I've seen so far is Adventures of Captain Africa. The title character, who resembles The Phantom, isn't the main character, that's a secret agent dressed in the Desert Hawk outfit. There is no villain, just lots of unnamed agents for a foreign power, most of whom are captured off screen at the end. |
| Todd Gault..........Serial Buff | |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Aug 6 2009, 07:16 AM Post #80 |
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Mouth Breather
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Captain Africa has such an awful reputation that I've never seen it and don't plan to. |
| We Wear Short Shorts Flying Purple People Eater | |
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| toddgault | Aug 6 2009, 08:27 AM Post #81 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Ah, but has a friend once told in college about Pink Flamingos, you haven't really lived until you've seen on it. |
| Todd Gault..........Serial Buff | |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Aug 6 2009, 11:16 AM Post #82 |
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Mouth Breather
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Pink Flamingos -- maybe, but I'll watch Captain Africa right after I watch Young Eagles. |
| We Wear Short Shorts Flying Purple People Eater | |
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| toddgault | Aug 7 2009, 07:07 AM Post #83 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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To be honest, after having seen Pink Flamingos in college, I wished I had just been satisfied to have never really lived, some images can't be erased, and that movie's 80 minutes of stuff you wished you had never seen. |
| Todd Gault..........Serial Buff | |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Aug 7 2009, 09:39 AM Post #84 |
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Mouth Breather
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I feel your pain, todd. |
| We Wear Short Shorts Flying Purple People Eater | |
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| Laughing Gravy | Sep 7 2009, 07:06 AM Post #85 |
Revered in the UK
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Our story so far: Four big, strong handsome Union soldiers and one big, strong not-so-handsome war correspondent are blown from a Confederate POW camp in Richmond to a mystical place called “Mysterious Island”, although it could’ve more accurately been called “Nutsy Cuckoo Land”. See, it’s got natives in Mickey Mouse suits, chunky pirates who sailed away a couple of weeks ago for no reason we could discern, invaders from outer space including a very Pretty Lady, and a Wild Man in a leisure suit. Jules Verne wrote this, did he? Last week, the Volcano People drowned Cap’n Harding, seemingly. This week's, Chapter 4: "Wild Man at Large!" Neb leaps into the water (utilizing a tricky diving maneuver we used to call a “screaming belly flopper”) and rescues Cap’n Harding from that fabulous adventure known as "drowning". Meanwhile, several of the Volcano People are captured by our heroes, who decide to simply let ‘em go, torture being forbidden by any tenets of decency known to civilized man, as we all know. While the Wild Man peeks through the bushes, our reunited gang of merry Johnny Reb Killers question the good Cap’n Harding about his fabulous adventures; where’s he been? What’s he been up to? The Cap’n tells them, "I'm not sure, but I'll tell you all about it when we get to friendlier territory." So they all walk about 3 steps to the left and make camp; the Cap’n advises his men, "When I woke up I was in that meadow where the Volcano People found me." Bert responds, "Neb calls them Volcano People." Uh…. Huh? Gideon also tells Harding of the existence of a strange girl, who “has the appearance of one from another planet." What, baggy leotards with wrinkly knees make you from Jupiter? Sheesh. The Cap’n points out that the island is volcanic, and that an undersea continent with its citizens might’ve risen from the volcano. Uh…. Huh? Oh, wait a minute! I get it! Harding is referring to the previous comments. Now this whole scene makes sense: Earl Turner, the editor of this serial, was clearly smoking marijuana and pounding back scotch straight from the bottle when he edited this chapter, which is why Bert tells the Cap’n that the natives are called Volcano People AFTER the Cap’n uses that term, and why Harding theorizes where the natives come from in the middle of a conversation about the Pretty Lady from Outer Space. Our new motto In The Balcony: “If you can actually stay awake during a Sam Katzman film, you’ll discover lots of dumb mistakes and goofy stuff!” Moving right along, our heroes go looking for a cave for shelter; instead, they find a ramshackle, tumble-down cottage. The Pretty Lady from Outer Space (PLfOS), whose name is Rulu according to the opening credits and so that’s what we’re going to call her from now on because “PLfOS” turns out to be servicemarked by the Pornography Laserdisc Fans of Susquehanna, and you KNOW what a lawsuit-happy group THAT is, has followed them and she tells her Spider Men, “Now we know were the Earth people will live. Time for a message from our Leader!" They all turn on their heels and march away. Great scene. Inside the hut ("Looks like somebody's been living here,” Bert helpfully volunteers), they find – a door that leads to – a cave! And in the back of the cave a door that leads to – another cave! And in the back of THAT cave there’s a stairway that leads to – ANOTHER door! And that door? That door, my friends? THAT door leads to – to – well, actually nobody can get it open, so th’ hell with it. Let’s see what is in one o’ those caves. Oh, great! Crates full of guns and ammunition. “But we can’t eat ‘em,” Bert says, and that kid is really, really starting to get annoying. It’s okay, though, they don’t have to eat the rifles after all: here’s a chifferobe with a drawer full of sandwiches neatly wrapped in wax paper. While they argue over who ordered the roast beef and who ordered the turkey & swiss, we peek in again on Rulu, who’s listening to unfathomable static on the radio and jotting down notes in her notebook. Great scene, again. Okay, so back to our heroes, who have made a neat pile of the food they found. "Now there are five of us,” Cap’n Harding says. “This food should last a month or so,” he adds, pointing to the 10 sandwiches. Outside the hut, Top the Wonder Dog spots the spying Wild Man and barks at him furiously. Bert grabs a gun, drops a handful of bullets down the front of his pants (well, he does) and goes out to see what's wrong. Reaching the exterior of the shack, he pets the dog, says, “What's the matter, boy? Hungry?" and heads back inside, no doubt worried that the rest of them are going to eat all the sandwiches. Later, or maybe right away, who can tell in this thing, Bert decides to go hunting, since he has bullets in his pants and all. Gideon finds a notebook and asks Neb to help him build a writing desk and chair. Pencroft and Harding poke a stick into the ground in some sort of goofy attempt to figure out where they are. As they watch the shadow change positions, Harding opines that this is proof positive that they are somewhere in the South Pacific, approximately 4,000 miles from the U.S. coast. Well, he IS an Army Engineer, I remind you. Meanwhile (a LOT of things happen at exactly Meanwhile O’clock in this serial) the Wild Man jumps Bert, who, using all the skill in hand-to-hand combat he’s picked up in four brutal years of fighting for his country, flops to the ground and screams “HEEELLLPPPP!” in a voice dripping with girlishness. Pencroft and Cap’n Harding rush to rescue him (it only takes a second; apparently, he went hunting right behind them and their stupid stick) and they capture the Wild Man of Mysterious Island. While they question him, the mysterious guy in the Cap’n Video Ranger Officially Licensed Space Helmet™ appears from the door they couldn’t get open, and tiptoes up and listens to the interrogation. The Wild Man is really, really sorry for the trouble he’s caused. "I must've lost my mind" he tells them. He claims that he came to the island on a pirate ship; he’d been captured from his merchant ship but when he refused to join the pirates they’d marooned him here. The pirates, he tells them, left a store of supplies "in a canyon not far from here" and leads Gideon and Pencraft to where the cache is hidden. Well, “hidden” may be a little strong a word, because it’s a mountain of neatly-wrapped packages, all perched precariously atop a jagged cliff, looking just like the Grinch’s stolen load atop Mount Crumpet. The Wild Man cuts the rope holding the supplies and Gideon gets all crushed up. Yikes! The narrator, by the way, in telling us to be sure to not miss the next action-filled episode, lets drop that the Wild Man’s name is “Ayrton”, and that was real nice of him to recognize that nobody watching this thing can keep track of anybody and we were gonna need a little assist from the great Knox Manning. Don't fail to see the next peril-packed episode of MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, "Trail of the Mystery Man!" It's online now at http://www.inthebalcony.com/cliffhanger/. Edited by Laughing Gravy, Sep 7 2009, 12:37 PM.
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12:28 AM Nov 28
