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| Viking Women and the Sea Serpent / Astounding She-Monster; December, 1957 | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 19 2017, 10:09 AM (321 Views) | |
| Laughing Gravy | Mar 19 2017, 10:09 AM Post #1 |
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![]() The Saga of the Viking Women and their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (1957) Dir. Roger Corman American-International Pictures 106 min. / B&W / 1.66:1 DVD from Lionsgate, 2006 The Astounding She-Monster (1957) Dir. Ronnie Ashcroft Hollywood International Pictures, distributed by AIP 102 min. / B&W / 1.37:1 DVD from Image Entertainment, 2000 ITB Strange Science-Fantasy Cinema #114-115 And so, we close out 1957 with the 43rd and 44th motion pictures from that magical year in our sci-fi/fantasy retrospective (the full list is HERE in case you're interested, you nosy parkers) and what more fitting way to move into the wonders of 1958 than with one more AIP drive-in double feature. First up is The Astounding She-Monster, titled no doubt as a nod to the same year's hits The Incredible Shrinking Man and The Amazing Colossal Man and no doubt soon to be followed by The Ginormous Thing of Some Sort or The HOLY-CRAP-DID-YOU-SEE-THAT Monster. A trio of rather inept kidnappers, including a very nervous gunman, an alcoholic moll, and an over-the-hill former Republic serial villain, grab a beautiful heiress, but their getaway is interrupted by a giant light from outer space, bringing a glowing white out-of-focus woman with the touch of death to our planet. The villains and their captive hole up in a mountain cabin with a nice guy and his dog and make several attempts to get away, all foiled by the glowing out-of-focus lady and her death touch. Eventually, mostly everybody dies, but the hardy survivors hatch up a half-ass plan to knock off the She-Monster. They discover too late her REAL mission to our world, which was to bring us the equivalent of interstellar good advice. Million-dollar Dialog: Narrator: "Being kidnapped could be termed almost normal for a wealthy socialite." Million-dollar Dialog that Sounds like Current Political Commentary: Kidnapper: "You're only a criminal when you're in the minority. Now, you take a criminal like Hitler was. Surround him with a million other crooks and whataya got? The ruling party of a country. And nobody thinks you're a crook anymore." Incredibly poorly made chiller; produced, written, and directed by Ronald V. Ashcroft, who had no talent for any of the three responsibilities. He didn't seem to know that the camera can move, or that you can have differing POVs, or anything. There are long sequences in which two characters talk and the camera does nothing except offer several minutes of a wide shot of the room (the only set in the picture). When they run from the cabin, the cast runs up the road for what appears to be more than a mile... but then the She-Monster appears, and they turn around and they're still only a few steps from the cabin door. Day and night flip-flop back and forth every time the camera angle is changed during the chase sequences. The bear footage (yeah, there's a bear) was so poorly done that they ended up draping a bear rug on head criminal Kenne Duncan and making HIM play the bear. We laughed all the way through this thing. Derisive laughter, too, let me tell you. It stinks. Apparently, Ashcroft borrowed $18,000 to put this crap together, and conned American-International into paying him $60,000 for the negative. And they all ended up making money on the deal! Funny world, ain't it? The She-Monster, by the way, has no lines (she screams once or twice) but that glowing effect is actually kinda cool if perhaps not quite up the lofty goal of being astounding. Robert Clarke, Shirley Kilpatrick, and Marilyn Harvey round out our cast, which is why we scarcely need mention them. Intermission time brings us the usual snack bar ads (and nope, I still won't eat pickles with Orange Nehi during a movie), a quite appropriate-for-the-season cartoon, The Emerald Isle (1949), in which we the audience follow the bouncing shamrock to sing "McNamara's Band", and the trailer for next week's million-dollar epic The Bride and the Beast. Wow! And that brings us to Roger Corman’s The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (shortened to Viking Women and the Sea Serpent by AIP so it'd, y'know, fit on a poster and theatre marquee). While Corman likes to dismiss this one, it’s actually a fun movie, although you’ll have to find amusement in the cast and the laugh quota inherent in the film, not in the story. All of the men of a Viking tribe have disappeared across the great waters, so their lovesick ladies decide to build a boat and go find ’em. They run into a whirlpool and a giant sea monster before sailing their ship to Bronson Canyon, where they find a tribe of mean and cruel barbarians who are keeping the Viking men chained up in a cave. Believe me, folks, I really would’ve liked to spend a little more time on the plot, but sadly, that’s all we’ve got to work with here. The Viking women are all gorgeous 1950s starlets, including such favorites as Abby Dalton (Rock All Night), Susan Cabot (The Wasp Woman), June Kenney (Teenage Doll) and Sally Todd (The Unearthly). Jonathan Haze of Little Shop of Horrors fame is along for the ride, too, as a hot-headed young Viking anxious to prove his manhood, which you’d think wouldn’t be too difficult considering that it’s him and three dozen horny and nubile young women living alone in the village, but what do you expect from Seymour Krelboing, anyway? Brad Jackson plays the leader of the Viking men, and you’re surprised that (a) they elected him leader, or (b) that the women went to find him in the first place. He’s dull and not very good in a fight. On the other hand, what lonely Norse lady wouldn’t want to snuggle up to hunky Gary Conway, sans his Teenage Frankenstein makeup, all rippling muscles in his li’l Viking pelts and dyed blonde hair? Richard Devon, who played Satan in Corman’s The Undead, is Stark, King of Barbarians (Ooh! Good name!) and has a son who’s a sissy, which matters not in this report but looms large in the film itself. Million-dollar Dialog: Stark, King of Barbarians: "Once the sacrificial fires have been lit, the storms demand their victim! See? Already the storm god licks his lips at the coming feast!" The picture is stolen by Miss Cabot, the only dark-haired Viking woman, who first schemes with King Stark to rub out her rival for the dull guy’s attentions, then calls down the wrath of Thor when her plans go awry. She’s by turns funny, mean, sexy, and pouty, and she blows the higher-billed Abby Dalton out of the water. Viking Women and the Sea Serpent is a goofily enjoyable movie despite its many shortcomings (as Corman put it, “When working on a low budget, you are better off with material that does not depend primarily on spectacular special effects”) and at least it has viking women and a sea serpent, so you're gettin' your money's worth, sort of. |
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6:32 AM Jul 11