| Welcome to In The Balcony. We hope you enjoy your visit. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Plus, you'll be eligible for the monthly $1 million prize. (Not really.) Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
| Monster that Challenged the World / The Vampire; June, 1957 | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Oct 1 2016, 05:46 PM (232 Views) | |
| Laughing Gravy | Oct 1 2016, 05:46 PM Post #1 |
|
Look for In The Balcony on Facebook!
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
![]() ![]() The Monster that Challenged the World (1957) Dir. Arnold Laven The Vampire (1957) Dir. Paul Landres ITB Strange Science Cinema #089/090 Ah, time again to take the fabled Balcony time machine to that magical year of 1957 for a one-two punch of sci-fi horror, courtesy of United Artists. First up is The Vampire, a very good example of how the gothic horrors of the '30s and '40s became Science Gone Amuck in the Atomic Age. When the town's recluse scientist dies of a heart attack, he bequeaths the pills that had resulted from his research into "primitive behavior" to the town's doctor, who (a) mistakes them for aspirin and takes two of them when he has a headache, and (b) must be the worst doctor EVER. The pills, you see, are extremely habit forming (you MUST take them at 11 p.m. or suffer a fate so terrible, they don't tell us what it is) and cause the takee to turn into a scaly-skinned monster who lives on human blood. The doctor terrifies his nurse and young daughter, kills an old lady (but not her dog), and performs various other anti-social acts before being dispatched in some way other than the ol' stake through the heart, I can tell you THAT. Million-dollar Dialog: Worst Doctor EVER: "I guess we're having an epidemic of heart attacks." Coroner to the Sheriff: "The problem with YOU, Buck, is that you're over-anxious. I guess you ain't had no excitement since Abe Hibble axed his mother-in-law." John Beal is the unlikely leading man, whose vampire looks like no other I've ever seen - he looks more like a lizard man with smeared lipstick. Familiar faces include Kenneth Tobey as the Sheriff, Herb Vigran as a cop(!), and Dabbs Greer as a psychology professor. An okay movie that seems like a rehash of Monster on the Campus, except a scientific "Whoops!" creates a vampire instead of a werewolf, and except that this movie was made first. Intermission included some snack bar ads (although I can't imagine eating a chilled pickle at the movies), the trailer for next week's movie Curse of Frankenstein (which was s'posed to be this week's movie, but our time machine went awry) and a Casper cartoon called Boo Bop, in which America's most beloved Friendly Ghost tries to help the spirit of Schubert finish his Unfinished Symphony(!). Crazy stuff, these cartoons. That brought us to our co-feature, and a great favorite of ours, The Monster that Challenged the World. Naval Commander Tim Holt tried to woo pretty Naval secretary Audrey Dalton while the base is under attack by - get this - giant snails. Yep, giant snails. GIANT SNAILS. And the best part may be the oh-so-serious scientist leading the brain trust into the secret life of mollusks: Dr. Hans Conreid! Yeah, this is a GREAT movie. The mollusk (and there're a lot in the movie, but I'm pretty sure they only built the one and reused it) is a great big mechanical thing that oozes what appears to be gallons of semen as it sinks its jaws into unsuspecting prey (and you have to be VERY unsuspecting to let a 12-foot-high SNAIL sneak up on you, in my professional opinion). Jody "Deadhead" McCrea is one of the sailors, but he doesn't live long enough for most people who aren't me to go, "Hey! It's the big dumb guy from the Beach Party movies!" Gordon Jones is a cop, just like he was on The Abbott & Costello Show. Mimi Gibson is the little girl who shouldn't be allowed to roam around the base unsupervised. Million-dollar Dialog: Dr. Conreid: "Commander, I find that people are always jumping to wild conclusions regarding atomic reaction. Science fact and science fiction are NOT the same." The combination of truly effective monsters, dried-up victims (they look like the California raisins), and the appealing Mr. Holt and Miss Dalton make this truly one of the best of the '50s monster movies. In 2016, you can find The Vampire on an MGM Midnight Movie DVD (paired with The Return of Dracula) and The Monster that Challenged the World on a superb Kino Blu-ray. |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
![]() |
|
| « Previous Topic · 100 Years in the Balcony · Next Topic » |





![]](http://z2.ifrm.com/static/1/pip_r.png)





6:32 AM Jul 11