Dimension 5 (1965)
Directed byFranklin Adreon
Written by Arthur C. Pierce
Starring Jeffrey Hunter, France Nuyen, Harold Sakata
United Pictures Corporation produced nine films between 1966 and 1968, with the idea that they’d quickly make their way to TV, where they’d be attractive thanks to name actors (even if past their prime) and color photography. Two of those nine UPC pictures, Dimension 5 and Cyborg 2087 (both 1966) have been announced for DVD and Blu-Ray release early next year.
Cyborg 2087 (1966)
Directed byFranklin Adreon
Written by Arthur C. Pierce
Starring Michael Rennie, Wendell Corey, Warren Stevens, Eduard Franz, Harry Carey, Jr.
Both films were directed by Franklin Adreon from time-traveling scripts by Arthur C. Pierce. Pierce wrote a slew of low-budget sci-fi pictures: The Cosmic Man (1959), Beyond The Time Barrier (1960), Women Of The Prehistoric Planet (1966) and more. A weekend retrospective of his work would be a real hoot — and would allow you to spend time with the likes of John Agar, Mamie Van Doren, Scott Brady and John Carradine.
1966 was quite a year. You had Pet Sounds, Revolver and Blonde On Blonde to listen to and cheeseball movies like these to watch. Those were the days.
The Hannibal 8 
I ride out of town for a week and all hell breaks loose…Usually I check in on “50 Westerns” only now and then, or else I’d be totally consumed and never get anything done. Being born in 1951 I missed out on 50s Westerns at theater level, and my Western experience was strictly through television with Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Sgt. Preston, Maverick, Bronco, Restless Gun, Sky King and countless others. When 50s Westerns began to appear on television around the early 60s I was at that time more concerned with Famous Monsters magazine, various Shock Theaters, Godzilla, The Outer Limits, The Avengers, The Man From Uncle, James Bond, the latest Hammer film and what Vincent Price was going to do next. The idea of watching a Western from 1956 seemed dated and hokey…so, I guess what I’m trying to say is that the whole era of adult Western film entertainment from the 1950s somehow escaped me. I caught up with things in the early 60s with THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, ONE-EYED JACKS, THE ALAMO and RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY, and had previously seen 1940s series Westerns (Hoppy, Gene and Roy & others) on television, but that gaping hole of many outstanding Westerns of 1950s was left undiscovered…until I stumbled across Toby’s site a couple of years back and have since been spending most of my cherished hard earned cash on Western DVDs catching up with my lost past. …..Toby, you mention Steve Judd. He, of all people, would want you to see the job through. Sometimes we just have to step back a little and think things out. Then everything kind of sorts itself out. No one wants to see “50 Westerns” shut down for any length of time. I know I don’t always comment as much as I’d like to, but I’ve learned so much about an era of Western filmmaking that I’d pretty much written off as inconsequential. And…..john k, most of what I’ve learned to like about 50s Westerns has come from your enthusiastic and knowledgeable comments, your recommendations and your absolute love for watching a low budget gem and recognizing it’s true worth. Your comments would surly be missed by everyone who enjoys 1950s Westerns, so I’m not even going to remember your suggesting riding off into the sunset.
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I’ll probably buy these two, even though the movies are hopelessly cheap and bad.
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“Hopelessly cheap and bad” — that’s a good thing, right?
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Thanks so much Richard,
john k is more or less retired from FWOTF time to move on.
I wish you were far more regular on that site-I always enjoy reading
your comments and hopefully there will be lots more of them in future.
Between the two of us we’ve been keeping The Hannibal8 going
but things are improving-it’s a gem of a blog.
Toby might publish my contribution to the McCrea blogathon but then
that’s it.
Those Sixties cheap Sci-Fi things need further investigation-a very
strange bunch:
WOMEN OF THE PREHISTORIC PLANET,THE HUMAN DUPLICATORS,
CASTLE OF EVIL,DESTINATION INNER SPACE,THE CRAWLING HAND
and so on.
As far as Rennie was from DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL in
“Cyborg” at least he was not as far as DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN
(aka ASSIGNMENT TERROR)
This Euro special (often credited to the once mighty Hugo Fregonese)
had pompous aliens reviving various Universal Monsters to spread panic
among Planet Earth.A “must” for one of your bad movie good wine
evenings Richard.
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The Hannibal 8 has taken much longer to hit its stride than 50s Westerns did. The conventional wisdom with blogs is that the more specific ones are able to find a loyal following faster, and that seems to be the case here. One genre and one decade is pretty specific — anything I like that doesn’t fit the other category, that’s pretty broad.
It is growing, however, and that’s a very cool thing. Thanks to everyone who’s egged that growth on.
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As fate would have it an outfit called Media Blasters are going to
release the other DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN early 70’s flick on
Blu Ray.
This Al Adamson “special” featured the last screen appearance of greats
J Carroll Naish and Lon Chaney.
The aforementioned DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN was the UK title
for ASSIGNMENT TERROR. I saw that film on a double bill with
DIE SCREAMING MARIANNE a Pete Walker classic…those were the days!
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Dracula Vs Frankenstein is a terrible movie. Not in the good-bad sense, but just plain bad-bad. (I wrote the liner notes for its laserdisc release.)
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Richard,
After a little thought,I thought I’d explain more about my “retirement”
from FWOTF.
I regret getting political over there but with the ever devaluing pound
it’s a sore point-I cannot rule out griping about it again.
My main contention,apart from a rather objectional contributor was the
lack of “back up” from other British followers of the blog.
I feel most UK Western fans rarely buy anything-they are more than happy
with their extensive collections lof “off air” recordings.
That’s why contributors like yourself and Mike Kuhns are most welcome-
they keep Western releases alive by actually buying them.
Horror Sci Fi fans are another matter-there seemingly is nothing
that they will not buy especially in high definition.
Kino are going to clean up with these two releases and there’s lots
more to follow.
I only wish there was enough interest to see equally obscure Westerns
get released by Kino like for instance the following which have never
even had a DVD release:
THE CANADIANS,THE DEERSLAYER,THE FIERCEST HEART,
JACK SLADE,RETURN OF JACK SLADE,AT GUNPOINT,LAST OF THE
BADMEN,THE TALL STRANGER,HELL CANYON OUTLAWS,
RIDE THE MAN DOWN,THUNDER IN THE SUN,THE GREAT MISSOURI RAID,FLAMING FEATHER,THE MAVERICK QUEEN,THE LAST COMMAND
ROAD TO DENVER,SANTA FE PASSAGE…I could go on and on but I won’t.
I know lots of these have been picked up by Hollywood Scrapheap,
but an official release,especially by the likes of Kino is always going to
be the better option-especially on Blu Ray.
Anyway,Richard,thanks so much for your kind words and I’m sure we
will cross paths on the H8 many times in the future.
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As much as I hate the political aspects of this whole thing, the economics of it are very very appropriate here. If Old Western DVD A doesn’t sell, there might not be an Old Western DVD B, and if Old Western DVD B doesn’t sell… You see where I’m going.
Lucky for us, the recent releases have included a number of must-haves, so it’s very easy to continue to make our case for putting these things out on DVD.
Boy, do I want a widescreen Maverick Queen!
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john k….I’ve got books, DVDs, CDs stacked all over the place. I’ll never get through all of them in my lifetime; it drives my wife crazy. I’m not rich by any means, but that doesn’t seem to slow me down from accumulating. RETURN OF DRACULA is on its way as I write this. I already have it on VHS and on a flipper disc. But the price dropped down on Amazon, and so I “clicked”. Even though I do not have Blu-Ray player yet, I know the time to replace my current DVD player is right around the corner and so I’ve already bought some of my absolute favorites (THE WILD BUNCH, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, etc.) in Blu-Ray format. Sometimes I’ll watch a movie as soon as it arrives, sometimes it may sit for years. But I always feel good about making a purchase because I know that I’m encouraging sales of what I enjoy watching, so that more of the same will follow. And I truly want to have the product as my own even though it may take me a couple years to get around to watching it, but I’m watching movies constantly (maybe even too often) and so I know its time will come.
DIMENSION 5 and CYBORG 2087 will be must buys of course, I feed off such “trash”… As for DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN, ASSIGNMENT TERROR is one that I’ve never had the opportunity to enjoy. I’ve seen it on television decades ago and have it on VHS & a crappy DVD, and it’s always the same color-faded, full screened, heavily edited incoherent version. Maybe that’s how the movie is suppose to play, but to me it just seems that chunks (edited for commercials???) are missing… Al Adamson’s mess, on the other hand, I enjoy a lot. Truly a bad movie, mind boggling in every aspect. I even bought William Lava’s soundtrack CD and also have a copy of David Konow’s biography SCHLOCK-O-RAMA, THE FILMS OF AL ADAMSON. And even though I can laugh and shake my head at the unbelievable incompetence, I really enjoy watching such films and admire someone like Adamson (and his father Victor before him) for getting such no-budget schlock actually made. Such visionaries are my heroes. The same goes for Phil (ROBOT MONSTER) Tucker. I’ve just finished Anders Runestad’s outstanding nearly 700 page book I CANNOT, YET I MUST dedicated to Tucker and the making of his “bad film” apocalyptic classic ROBOT MONSTER. The Hollywood fringe is well covered within, Ed Wood, Lenny Bruce, Timothy Farrell. Even Tucker’s CAPE CANAVERAL MONSTERS gets a chapter…The latest Good Wine, Bad Film festival (me and my buddy, some festival) a couple months back took in a Giullano Gemma Western, BLOOD FOR A SILVER DOLLAR, a couple HANZO THE BLADE samurai films from Japan and Fernando Di Leo’s violent crime-action film RULERS OF THE CITY aka MR. SCARFACE starring Jack Palance. A good time was had by all (two of us)………. john k, it’s great knowing that you’ll still be contributing online. Your observations and comments are irreplaceable and you always update us readers with what’s going on in the DVD market. Forget the retirement from 50s Westerns. You’re too knowledgeable to remain quite.
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Richard W…..
Look who’s talking…after the above I would say it’s you who are
irreplaceable!
I often wish that there was some sort of “Eurotrash” imprint that gave us
in double bills a constant flow of Euro Horror,Spaghetti’s,Peplum
and all manner of Spy Flicks.
I remember ASSIGNMENT TERROR as being great fun and the chance
of a full-English language version I guess is too much to hope for.
ASSIGNMENT TERROR apart from Rennie and Whirlybirds’ Craig Hill
(who also made several Spaghetti’s) also starred the prolific Karin Dor.
Another Karin Dor flick I enjoyed at the time was THE BLOOD DEMON
(aka The Terror Chamber Of Dr Sadism) also starring Lex Barker
and Christopher Lee. This stylish Gothic Horror which borrows
liberally from Poe is only available in shortened bad quality Euro
DVD’s.Visually the film is a treat and certainly needs a proper
restoration.
Needless to say ASSIGNMENT TERROR or THE BLOOD DEMON
would fly off the shelves if Kino or some other forward thinking outfit
were able to obtain complete restored versions of these films.
Richard,I too am far from rich but always seem to find the
available cash for essential purchases despite the pound never lower.
I’m glad Toby,sort of agrees with me regarding often poor sales
on Western discs,I doubt if any RegalScope Western is strong
enough to sell as a single feature but a double bill say for instance
Paul Landers’ LONE TEXAN coupled with FRONTIER GUN might
hit sales targets.On the other hand should Kino be able to get such
RegalScope gems as BACK FROM THE DEAD,UNKNOWN TERROR
or SPACEMASTER X7 they would get strong sales as single features.
I like this Landres kick Toby is on at the moment both here and over at
FWOTF and I might add that my copy of RETURN OF DRACULA has
just been mailed to me.
Interestingly,DVD Beaver has just given a favorable review to
NIGHT OF THE GRIZZLY which features Toby’s first commentary
for Olive Films-hopefully more will follow.
I also don’t know what sort of influence Toby might have over the
cats who operate re-issue imprints-but one things for sure he certainly
will not be short of great suggestions.
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A good friend and I went through a very long Euro-trash phase in the 90s, and I thought The Terror Chamber Of Dr Sadism was very cool. (By the way, we found that such films went well with BBQ Fritos corn chips, a truly wretched snack food.)
John, you should know better than to bring up the Regalscope films, since I have a special soapbox standing by for just that subject. Twin bills of those things would be terrific, especially if the price point worked out well for both the consumer and the label itself. (I’m giving some serious thought to that 16mm print of God Is My Partner on eBay.)
Looking forward to your thoughts on Return Of Dracula. I thought it looked great, though I like The Vampire better as a film.
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One odd thing on Kino’s Facebook page,some cat has
asked about the chance of CASTLE OF EVIL,THE DESTRUCTORS
and DESTINATION INNER SPACE-from the same outfit that gave us
the two soon to be released flicks.
Kino say that they are not on their radar-which is most odd as
CYBORG 2087 and DIMENSION 5 most certainly are.
I wonder what yardstick they use for their “radar” as far as
trashy movies go.
Richard, I have not yet embraced 3D home viewing,although I’ve
purchased several discs that have alternate 3D 2D versions.
As mentioned previously I’m excited about THE MAD MAGICIAN
package from Timeless because the addition of the two Three
Stooges 3D shorts.
I’ve just requested on their Facebook page FORT TI (also Columbia)
which I’d love to have in high definition-even though I cannot play the
3D version.
At any rate Twilight Time seem to be slowly going through the
Columbia 3D library-FORT TI is arguably the best of these.
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As for Euro-trash, high on my wish list is a legit USA release, pristine & in widescreen, of all the Edgar Wallace thrillers from Germany. These wacky convoluted films from the early 1960s were a bizarre mix of horror, sci-fi, film noir and THE AVENGERS slickness, usually featuring a demented masked Master Criminal of epic proportion. Pulp entertainment just doesn’t get any better! Retromedia has put out a handful of nice looking double feature sets in widescreen, but there’s so many more of these Krimi films that I’d just love to see. And add quality DR. Mabuse releases (1960s) to the list as well! A nice book (with lots of photos) covering these films would also be more than welcomed. I have David Kalat’s book THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. MABUSE & it’s recommended reading, but a good overview of all the Krimi Films is sorely needed.
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Toby,
Always liked RETURN OF DRACULA (UK title The Fantastic Disappearing
Man) but THE VAMPIRE is a pretty cool movie as well.
I’m constantly amazed how some of these Lippert “RegalScope Plus”
movies played as main features in UK cinemas.
I missed at the time SON OF ROBIN HOOD supported by
FRONTIER GUN and that played as a major circuit release.
Wouldn’t that make a sensational DVD/Blu Ray double bill.
According to Hollywood Classics website a 4K master of SON OF
ROBIN HOOD exists-not the wretched 4×3 horrid release from Fox
Cinema Archives.
THE DEERSLAYER in all its ‘scope Technicolor glory went round the
London fleapits often coupled with the RegalScope combat flick
UNDER FIRE starring Rex Reason,Harry Morgan and Steve Brodie.
Again a sensational double bill with much appeal,I would have thought
SIERRA BARON with lovely Alex Phillips photography is another
Lippert special only available as a Fox Archives 4×3 and that’s a real
shame.
Kino Lorber have informed us that they have no intention of releasing
any of the A.C.Lyles Westerns and that’s also a shame-they would look
beautiful in high definition in to coin your phrase “cool Techniscope”
I’m still living in hope for a Toby lottery win so some of these issues
can be sorted….hey! Toby..I don’t even know if you actually DO
the lottery..
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Thanks, John K, for pointing me to look at this thread. Horror is not my thing really (except for the super “Incredible Shrinking Man” and similar fare) but a high level of discussion and amusing asides certainly is!!
I am really enjoying Richard’s background stories here about his overflowing collections (of everything) and his wife’s consequent despair (all sounds horribly familiar!!!).
My DNA is obviously put together the same way – LPs & CDs (well over 2000), books (will the floor give way?!) & DVDs (over 2000 films and over 4000 classic TV episodes)……..
Coming from the same era probably has a lot to do with it. I was born in 1947 & just had a birthday so I am fortunate that I did grow up knowing some of the 1950s westerns as they came out. Being 4 years older than Richard made the difference there. But like him I grew up on all the great TV western series, whilst also catching up on TV with Scott, McCrea, Murphy, Calhoun westerns from just a few years back (at the time).
John K’s list of unreleased westerns that we need to have is spot on….we can only hope that someone out there with influence reads all this. I am still hoping I may yet live to see ‘scope releases of “AT GUNPOINT”, “DAY OF THE BADMAN”, “THE MAVERICK QUEEN” etc.
Keep it coming, John & Richard. So enjoyable (not to mention interesting and knowledgeable).
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