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The Cyclops / Daughter of Dr. Jekyll
Topic Started: Oct 16 2016, 10:43 AM (335 Views)
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The Cyclops (1957) Dir. Bert I. Gordon
Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (1957) Dir. Edgar Ulmer

ITB Strange Science Cinema #092-093
ITB Shock Theatre #185

Yeah, other guys with a time machine would go back and invest in Apple or ask out that cute high school cheerleader who 30 years later asks you, "I always wondered why you never asked me out, I had SUCH a crush on you!", but not THIS guy: I go to 1957 and watch monster movies in their original double-feature form. I'm funny that way.

We arrive in our seat just to hear the announcer telling us that Dr. Jekyll is dead and he can't turn into a werewolf (huh?) no mo' while a werewolf asks him, "Are you SURE?!?!?" and we know we're in for a hell of a ride, although we're completely unprepared for the jacket John Agar is going to be wearing. Seems he and Gloria Talbott are engaged to be wed and have showed up at her ancestral home to announce that fact to guardian Arthur Shields, but he's bound by law to reveal her family curse to her, and soon werewolf murders (huh?) start reoccurring and she's wakin' up with blood on her nightie so she wants to hang herself instead of getting married (were I betrothed to John Agar, I'd feel the same way) but John is gonna get to the bottom of it, and it's not Miss Talbott's bottom he's gonna find underneath all that werewolf hair (huh?).

Ulmer does what he can with a stinko script and John Agar, which ain't much. The werewolf (huh?) is revealed during the opening credits so there's really not much of a surprise to be had, and in worst Cat People tradition the monster doesn't appear until the final moments as we are s'posed to care about whether or not Gloria's nuts or a real monster. John Agar wears a barber-pole jacket that is the single stupidest piece of clothing in the history of movies, I kid you not.

Million-dollar Dialog:
Our romantic couple is looking for a hidden passage in the wall.
Gloria: "Do you know what I hope I find?"
John: "A treasure?"
Gloria: "No - a bathroom."

(I know y'all think I make this shit up, but WATCH the movie and you tell ME.)

I always thought that Arthur Shields looked and acted so much like Barry Fitzgerald that Father Barry should've sued him, and I just discovered today doing my usual in-depth background research on the film (googled it, five, six seconds tops) that they were BROTHERS. No, really. Huh.

By the way, the werewolf (huh?) shows up again during the closing credits to argue with the narrator some more, so don't leave too early, much as you'd like to.

We've got some snack bar ads (including how to keep pests away at the drive-in, although the most obvious one - "Show Daughter of Dr. Jekyll" - is omitted), a Casper cartoon (Spook and Span; our favorite Friendly Ghost tries to give a pig a bath, and yes, that's the cartoon, MAN were they runnin' thin on plots) and the trailer for next week's million-dollar movie, The 27th Day, which I've never seen (and scarcely even heard of). It looks like a rip-off of The Day the Earth Stood Still, though, so that's okay.

On to The Cyclops.

Gloria Talbott (Again? Huh?) is looking for her fiance Bruce, who vanished in Mexico after a plane crash three years earlier. She suckers three guys into helping her, a Clark Gable-wannabe who is madly in love with her; a pilot who likes dough, see, and Lon Chaney, Jr., a nut who is looking for uranium so that he can get rich. Lon wears coveralls and looks a lot like Goober Pyle's drunken uncle, Gopher Pyle, if you ask me.

Anyway, they hit this remote valley, where they find giant animals, movingly portrayed by real-life animals (a mouse, a hawk, a couple of lizards, that sort of thing) who have been blown up optically and who, in best Bert I. Gordon tradition, you can see right through. Oh, yeah, and they locate Bruce, who is 25 feet tall, has a half a melted face and one silly eye, and who snarls and chases them around a lot, although he sure is nice to Gloria.

Million-dollar Dialog:

Lon, speaking truly: "If only I'd known what a bunch of IDIOTS I was gettin' tied up with!"

Gloria's pal, watching the giant stand there snarling: "Look! He's trying to remember something!"

The Cyclops preceded the two Amazing Colossal Man films, and in fact, the second one, War of the Colossal Beast, is practically a remake of this one, right down to the similar makeup (and the same guy wearing it). Chaney's a hoot as he staggers about looking for radioactive ore; when he finds it, he holds it in his greasy palm and them bitches about how the radiation is going to change them all into giants. Watch Gloria Talbott, fellers; no matter which blouse she wears, it's torn in the exact same spot on the shoulder. What HAS she been doing? And why did Allied Artists release a double-feature with the same leading lady in both? What th' heck is goin' ON here?!?!?

I'll be honest, I enjoyed The Cyclops WAY more than the last time I saw it, but heck, that could maybe just be a little bit a-cause I watched it right after Daughter of Dr. Jekyll.

Million-dollar Ridiculous Hype:
Producer-writer Jack Pllexfen: "I made sure to be careful that any elements in Daughter of Dr. Jekyll could be traced back to Robert Louis Stevenson's original story."

In future years, you'll find the Jekyll film (not to be confused with anything else) on DVD from All Day Entertainment in a Special Edition crammed with bonus material (no, really, it is). The Cyclops is available from Warner Archive, who restored a missing 6 sec. sequence that's totally gross: the giant guy pulls a gunky spear out of his one eye. Ewwwww.
"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
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