“From the Files of Dr. Strangefilm…” Archive
Dr. Strangefilm | From the Files of Dr. Strangefilm...
Folks, a good doctor knows that valuable insights and knowledge may be gained from consulting with one's colleagues. That's why, over the past four days, yours truly has been deeply immersed in the '50s Monster Mash Blogathon hosted by Nathanael Hood over at Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear (click here for a list of participating sites and films), where such vintage creature features as The Alligator People, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Robot Monster and Tarantula are getting their Internet due. Now, I'm not a big believer in numerology, but as this marks case file number 22, it seems more than a little appropriate that my own humble contribution to Nathanael's horror hoe-down should be linked to the number two. For example, what happens when two directors, working for studios representing two countries, put their heads together (hint, hint) to create a monster movie? The answer is that twice-weird U.S./Japanese wonder, 1959's The Manster.
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Dr. Strangefilm | From the Files of Dr. Strangefilm...
After dealing with such a serious case of '60s celluloid psychedelia as last week's Wild in the Streets, your humble doctor must confess that I did not intend to go down those smoke-filled corridors again for a while. Two things, however, convinced me to put on my tie-dyed scrubs and step right back into the operating room. First, Nathanael Hood announced that, over the next three days, his entertaining Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear blog will be sponsoring a Roger Corman Blogathon (click here for a list of participating sites and films), saluting the career of the writer/director/producer/B-movie icon/Academy Award recipent. I could hardly call myself a connoisseur of off-the-wall cinema if I didn't take the opportunity to offer up my own small contribution and pay tribute to the man behind such drive-in favorites as A Bucket of Blood, The Little Shop of Horrors, X! The Man with X-Ray Eyes and many others. And second, my DVD copy of Wild in the Streets just happened to be a double feature, with the flip side being none other than Corman's 1970 end-of-the-world sci-fi/comedy Gas-s-s-s.
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Dr. Strangefilm | From the Files of Dr. Strangefilm...
It seems as though nothing gets the blogosphere buzz going like a spirited political debate (Weinergate jokes, anyone?). And while it's been a long-standing (two years this month) tradition here at the Strangefilm practice to eschew discussions on politics, yours truly has to admit I'm a little disappointed that cymotrichous tycoon Donald Trump opted not to run for the Republican presidential nomination last month. Not that I ever would have voted for him, mind you, but a Trump White House campaign would certainly have been one of the strangest in American history...perhaps the strangest since the fictitious one depicted in today's "youth run amok" case file, 1968's Wild in the Streets.
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Dr. Strangefilm | From the Files of Dr. Strangefilm...
Those of you who are students of history as well as off-the-wall moviedom may be aware that this coming weekend marks the 66th anniversary of V-E Day. It was on May 8th, 1945 that the Allied nations accepted Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender, thus ending World War II in Europe. The order to surrender came from newly installed German president Karl Dönitz, whose predecessor--Führer and failed Charlie Chaplin impersonator Adolf Hitler--had blown out what little brains he had with a Walther PPK pistol nine days earlier. As everyone knows, shortly after taking his own life, his and new bride Eva Braun's bodies were burned outside the Berlin bunker. And that was the last the world saw of Adolf Hitler...or was it? Not according to this month's head case, a 1966 (Or is that 1963? Or 1971? I'll explain as we go along.) Fourth Reich retch-fest of a sci-fi/espionage flick entitled They Saved Hitler's Brain.
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Dr. Strangefilm | From the Files of Dr. Strangefilm...
As anyone who's been in a shopping mall the last two months can attest, the Christmas season is upon us once again. And within the strange cinema community, that means it's time for the annual debate over which of two vintage holiday-themed movies is the more bizarre. Last year we looked at the first contender: Santa Claus, the Mexican import from 1959 in which the titular jolly old elf teams up with Merlin the magician to stop Pitch, one of Lucifer's more flamboyant devils, from spoiling the Yuletide of boys and girls around the world...or at least of boys and girls in Mexico City. Now, if a south-of-the-border St. Nick is able to defeat one devil, then surely a good old-fashioned, made-in-the U.S.A. Kris Kringle can triumph over, say, a whole race of alien invaders, right? Well, that's what we're going to find out now, because this year's Christmas plum is none other than the 1964 kiddie curiosity Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
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Dr. Strangefilm | From the Files of Dr. Strangefilm...
Now that Robert Rodriguez has turned his faux Grindhouse trailer for Machete into an effective feature-length film, I'm cautiously optimistic that Eli Roth will be able to do the same with his own "preview" project, the wonderfully over-the-top slasher send-up Thanksgiving ("White meat...dark meat...all will be carved"). And it's about time, too, because on the horror movie calendar, the fourth Thursday in November has suffered from a distinct lack of attention compared to other holidays. Valentine's Day (My Bloody Valentine), April Fools' Day (the punctuation-challenged April Fool's Day), Halloween (Halloween, natch), Christmas (Silent Night, Deadly Night), New Year's Eve (New Year's Evil) and even generic birthdays (Happy Birthday to Me) all have their blood-soaked cinematic takes. Thanksgiving, though, has been sorely lacking in such gory goings-on...or has it? Well, your doctor has found a true Butterball of a bad movie that may not be specifically related to the day, but will definitely have you thinking turkey, in every sense of the word.
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Dr. Strangefilm | From the Files of Dr. Strangefilm...
Yours truly regrets his absence from these pages of late, but I was called away from my regular practice to attend a symposium in Vienna on whether The Human Centipede was indeed, as its director claims, "100% medically accurate." Now, I don't intend to go into great detail on that film here--as much for readers' sensibilities as for the fact that I may still be suffering from jet lag--but you have to admire an effort that can garner reviews calling it everything from "a hitherto undreamt-of Everest-peak of offensiveness" to "a must-see for coprophiliacs and spanking enthusiasts." What Centipede didn't have, however, was theater owners refusing to show it, civic groups protesting it, or entire countries banning it. No, all these things happened nearly eight decades earlier, to what is still considered one of the strangest movies ever produced by a major studio. Our case today is director Tod Browning's 1932 sideshow shocker Freaks.
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Dr. Strangefilm | From the Files of Dr. Strangefilm...
It's interesting to look at how the careers of Hollywood's James Cagney and Japan's Godzilla (history of sorts) kind of paralleled one another. Both started out in movies playing irredeemable bad guys, and neither was really considered a candidate for leading man status because of their stature. As the years passed, however, audience demand saw both thespians grow into the role of antihero and eventually become full-fledged good guys, a move that some say also caused each to lose a bit of the edge that made them popular in the first place. Why, each even found time to perform an occasional on-screen dance routine (check out this clip from Godzilla vs. Monster Zero if you don't believe me). One thing that Cagney never had to do, though, was appear in an unfunny, made-for-kids parody of his earlier work where he has to teach his goofball son and a friend lessons in self-esteem, which is the role the Big G had thrust upon him in 1971's Godzilla's Revenge.
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Dr. Strangefilm | From the Files of Dr. Strangefilm...
Hollywood often gets a bad rap for squeezing blood from stones (or beating dead horses, or whatever colorful metaphor one wishes to use) with ill-conceived and unnecessary sequels, but you have to give them some credit for allowing many of the truly classic films to stand alone. It was TV, not the movies, that gave us the Gone with the Wind continuation Scarlett; Frank Capra didn't bring back Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed as an elderly couple ignored by their grown kids in It's Still a Wonderful Life; Warner Bros. didn't go through with a proposed Casablanca sequel entitled Brazzaville, and John Waters abandoned plans for his Pink Flamingos reprise, Flamingos Forever, after Divine's untimely passing. With all that in mind, whose bright idea was it to make a follow-up to the quintessential cult movie, The Rocky Horror Picture Show? None other than RHPS creator Richard O'Brien, as it turns out, and what eventually evolved into 1981's Shock Treatment overcame a number of obstacles to emerge as...not as bad a film as one might expect.
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Dr. Strangefilm | From the Files of Dr. Strangefilm...
Okay, all you students of singular cinematic experiences. This latest case file opens with a pop quiz. Paper and pencils are not required, and no cheating off the person sitting next to you. Ready?
1. What movie won the very first Golden Raspberry (Razzie) Award for Worst Picture in 1981?
2. What was the first and only movie to be directed by a TV paper towel spokeswoman?
3. What movie did a post-Olympics, pre-Kardashians Bruce Jenner allegedly turn down the lead role in 1978's Superman to make his first big-screen appearance in?
4. What was the first movie musical to feature a number where an actress sings to a gymnasium full of scantily-clad he-men, oblivious to her charms, as they work out?
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Dr. Strangefilm | From the Files of Dr. Strangefilm...
This month marks the 40th anniversary of Paul McCartney's 1970 announcement that he had left The Beatles, effectively signalling the foursome's end. To fans at the time, this was the darkest day in Fab Four history. It turns out, however, that it wasn't even the darkest of the '70s...and I'm not talking about when the lads turned down Lorne Michaels' generous $3,000 offer for a 1976 reunion on Saturday Night Live. No, the moment that Beatlemania truly packed it in, jumped headfirst into a waiting grave, and started shovelling dirt on itself came in July of 1978, when film and record producer Robert Stigwood--who helped bring The Who's Tommy to the big screen and was riding high on the box-office hits Saturday Night Fever and Grease--looked to repeat his success with the premiere of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Problem was, Tommy had all four Who members starring and performing in it, the next two films had John Travolta's screen presence, and Sgt. Pepper's had...Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees!?
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Dr. Strangefilm | From the Files of Dr. Strangefilm...
It's Easter week, weird movie buffs, and that's always a big to-do in the Strangefilm household. There are such time-honored holiday traditions as the coloring and hiding of eggs (hopefully to be found within the same month), the consuming of massive quantities of chocolate animals and baked ham, and of course the annual viewing of the 1972 MGM scare opus Night of the Lepus. The uninitiated of you out there might be wondering what a fright flick could possibly have to do with Easter. Well--and look away now if you DON'T want the identity of the film's monster revealed--in a cinematic universe filled with attacks by mutated and over-sized bees, grasshoppers, spiders, scorpions, octopi, sharks, lizards, alligators, snakes, shrews, bears and every other sort of predatory creature, Night of the Lepus was the first such feature to depict what happens when a town is overrun by giant, rampaging, carnivorous...rabbits.
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Folks, a good doctor knows that valuable insights and knowledge may be gained from consulting with one's colleagues. That's why, over the past four days, yours truly has been deeply immersed in the '50s Monster Mash Blogathon hosted by Nathanael Hood over at Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear (click here for a list of participating sites and films), where such vintage creature features as The Alligator People, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Robot Monster and Tarantula are getting their Internet due. Now, I'm not a big believer in numerology, but as this marks case file number 22, it seems more than a little appropriate that my own humble contribution to Nathanael's horror hoe-down should be linked to the number two. For example, what happens when two directors, working for studios representing two countries, put their heads together (hint, hint) to create a monster movie? The answer is that twice-weird U.S./Japanese wonder, 1959's The Manster. 
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