Blu-Ray Review: The Creeping Flesh (1973).

Directed by Freddie Francis
Produced by Michael P. Redbourn
Original Screenplay by Peter Spenceley & Jonathan Rumbold
Director Of Photography: Norman Warwick, BSC
Film Editor: Oswald Hafenrichter
Music by Paul Ferris

Cast: Christopher Lee (Dr. James Hildern), Peter Cushing (Professor Emmanuel Hildern), Lorna Heilbron (Penelope Hildern), Jenny Runacre (Marguerite Hildern), George Benson (Professor Waterlow), Kenneth J. Warren (Charles Lenny), Duncan Lamont (Inspector), Harry Locke (Barman), Hedger Wallace (Dr. Perry), Michael Ripper (Carter), Catherine Finn (Emily), Robert Swann (Young Aristocrat), David Bailie (Young Doctor), Maurice Bush (Karl), Tony Wright (Sailor), Marianne Stone (Assistant), Alexandra Dane (Whore), Larry Taylor (Warder), Martin Carroll (Warder), Dan Meaden (Lunatic), Sue Bond

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My junior year in high school, on the last day before the Christmas break, there were all sorts of activities going on around the school. The one I remember, since it’s what I chose to do, was The Creeping Flesh (1973) running in the auditorium. The girl I was sweet on at the time was not near as excited about it as I was!*

Of course, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are some of the biggest names in horror movies of the 60s and early 70s, thanks largely to their terrific work for Hammer Films. Pairing them had been a cinematic sure thing since 1957’s Curse Of Frankenstein, and Tigon signed them both for The Creeping Flesh. They also put one of the UK’s best horror directors at the helm, former cinematographer Freddie Francis.

In Victorian England, anthropologist Emmanuel Hildern (Peter Cushing) comes home from Papua New Guinea with one hell of a souvenir — the ancient skeleton of a giant humanoid (delivered by Michael Ripper). He learns that while he was away, his wife passed away in a mental institution run by his psychiatrist half-brother (Christopher Lee). Cushing’s daughter (Lorna Heilbron) had been told her mother died long ago.

One evening, Cushing gets a bit of water and begins to clean the skeleton, first washing off its hand. Almost immediately, flesh begins to form on a finger, which Cushing quickly chops off.

Playing his typical obsessed, absent-minded, well-meaning scientist, Cushing wonders if evil is a disease — and if these cells can point to a cure for evil in the world. Soon, a serum is prepared using blood from the regenerated flesh and the tests go drastically wrong.

Of course, we’re all waiting for the skeleton to get wet and go on a rampage. But not so fast, there’s all kinds of other stuff going on. Maybe Cushing’s daughter is inheriting her mother’s madness (she was really a drunk and a harlot). The conniving Lee is chasing after money and notoriety — which he thinks he can have, if he can just get ahold of his brother’s giant skeleton. Naturally, Lee has it stolen — during a rainstorm.

If all this sounds like The Creeping Flesh is uneven, it is. Its plot goes all over the place, making for a very fun ride.

Peter Cushing is terrific in a part that must’ve been a lot of fun to play. Lee has a smaller part (why is he billed first?), but he’s always great as pompous, elitist swine like this.

Peter Cushing and Freddie Francis

Freddie Francis seems to be having a lot of fun stylistically here. POV shots from inside the skeleton’s head are cool — repeating a technique he used in another Cushing-Lee picture, The Skull (1965). He does a great job of keeping the narrative working as it zigs and zags from one weird plot point to the next (with the help of editor Oswald Hafenrichter). Francis’ films are often handicapped by lackluster scripts, and The Creeping Flesh shows what he could do with something better.

Here in the States, The Creeping Flesh is part of a Mill Creek Blu-Ray set called Psycho Circus that also includes Francis’ Torture Garden (1967), an Amicus anthology film with Cushing in it, and Brotherhood Of Satan (1971) with Strother Martin, L.Q. Jones and Ahna Capri. All three pictures are pressed onto a single disc, which seems fine. They were distributed by Columbia back in the day, so they have the typically top-notch transfers that the studio licenses to Mill Creek. I love the 70s-era film grain so perfectly presented here in The Creeping Flesh.

There are no extras, except for a reversible cover. I really like the cover (above) that makes use of each film’s original poster art (also used for the disc’s menu).

The Creeping Flesh is a lot of fun, and in my case it’s slathered with a heavy layer of nostalgia. The disc here is quite nice, and since it gives you another Francis-Cushing picture looking just as good, turns out to be a bargain. It’s certainly recommended for fans of such stuff. 

*My English teacher was in charge of picking the movie. He showed me a short list and asked what he should go with. Completely selfishly, I encouraged him to go with The Creeping Flesh. This is still the closest I’ve come to one of my goals — curating some sort of retrospective or festival!

Blu-Ray News #361: Rock Around The Clock (1956).

Directed by Fred F. Sears
Produced by Sam Katzman
Starring Bill Haley & His Comets, Alan Freed, The Platters, Tony Martinez & His Band, Freddie Bell & His Bellboys

Was sure stoked to see this this morning. Sony has announced an October Blu-Ray release for Sam Katzman’s Rock Around The Clock (1956). 

Katzman could smell a trend a mile away and he pounced on Bill Haley and His Comets after his tune in Blackboard Jungle (1955) became a sensation. This picture concocts a pretty phony story about the origin of Rock N Roll music.

Katzman and director Fred F. Sears, along with Haley and Alan Freed, would be back in theaters soon with Don’t Knock The Rock (1956). That one has a slight edge since it adds the great Little Richard to the mix — he does “Long Tall Sally” and “Tutti-Frutti.”

A Sam Katzman picture making its way to Blu-Ray is always something to celebrate. This one’s highly, highly recommended.

Stooge People #1: Del Lord.

As soon as I could read, I started paying attention to the names that popped up again and again in the movies I liked — Sam Katzman, Roger Corman, William Witney, Joe Kane, Edward L. Cahn and on and on.

I’d see the same names over and over every weekday afternoon during The Three Stooges shorts. Didn’t know what these people did, but if they hung out with the Stooges, they must truly be giants among men. And I want to make sure we remember them.

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Delmer “Del” Lord (October 7, 1894 – March 23, 1970)

Delmer Lord left his home town of Grimsby, Ontario for New York City with the idea of working in the theater, Instead, he ended up in Hollywood, working with Mack Sennett and appearing in a few of the Keystone Cops shorts.

Behind the camera, Lord was a master at car gags — crashing ’em, blowing ’em up, etc. — and became a director for Sennett.

Mack Sennett: “Putting a pie in Del Lord’s hand was like handing Rubens a brush and palette. He was an artist to his fingertips.”

Sennett had to close his Keystone Studios during the Depression, and Lord eventually made his way over to the Hal Roach Studios, where he directed things like The Taxi Boys shorts. After Roach, Lord did shorts at Paramount. Next, in the summer of 1934, Lord was working as a salesman at a relative’s car lot. Jules White happened along, looking for a car, and hired Lord to make shorts for Columbia, including some of the earlier Three Stooges films.

Del Lord was the best director of The Three Stooges — he made over three dozen of their shorts. Consider a few of the Stooges pictures he directed (and sometime wrote): Three Little Beers (1935), We Want Our Mummy (1939), A Plumbing We Will Go (1940) and Three Pests In A Mess (1944). His Stooge films probably set the pattern the other writers and directors followed.

After his time with The Three Stooges, Lord made a handful of Columbia shorts with folks like Hugh Herbert, some Judy Canova features (also at Columbia), and the second Bowery Boys picture, In Fast Company (1946), for Monogram. It’s one of their best. He passed away in 1970. 

His features are fine, but they don’t have the pacing and knockabout genius he brought to the shorts. Lord was probably one of the finest directors of shorts, period. Some of his films are now over a hundred years old! 

Teen-Age Crime Wave (1955).

Directed by Fred F. Sears
Produced by Sam Katzman
Screenplay by Ray Buffum & Harry Essex
Story by Ray Buffum
Director Of Photography: Henry Freulich
Film Editor: Jerome Thoms
Music by Mischa Bakaleinikoff

Cast: Tommy Cook (Mike Denton), Molly McCart (Terry Marsh), Sue England (Jane Koberly), Frank Griffin (Benjamin David ‘Ben’ Grant), James Bell (Thomas Paul Grant), Kay Riehl (Sarah Wayne Grant), Guy Kingsford (Mr. Koberly), Larry Blake (State Police Sgt. Connors)

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Following up on the July 7th birthday of both Sam Katzman and Fred F. Sears, let’s take a look at Teen Age Crime Wave (1955).

You can say what you want about Katzman’s movies, but it’s hard to knock his eye for a trend, his gift for cashing in on something topical or newsworthy, or his ability to get a movie on the screen in record time. With Teen Age Crime Wave, he built a picture around the rising problem of juvenile delinquency (“ripped from the headlines!”) in the mid-1950s.

Teen Age Crime Wave was clearly inspired by the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency — the folks who decided comic books lead to criminality on the part of America’s youth. (Remember the whole Seduction Of The Innocent thing?) That was just too good for Katzman to pass it up.

The falsely-convicted Jane (Sue England, above, on the bed) finds herself headed to juvie after she’s railroaded by a couple of wayward teenagers — Mike Denton (Tommy Cook) and Terry Marsh (Molly McCart). Miles springs Terry while she’s being transferred to prison  — killing the driver and taking Jane with them at gunpoint. 

Holding up in the farmhouse of the kindly Grant family, about 45 minutes outside LA, we end up with a bit of a Desperate Hours kind of thing as the delinquents hide from the cops while they wait for a friend to aide their escape. Denton is desperate and volatile, and you expect something to go dreadfully wrong at any minute. 

Oh, and it’s the day before Thanksgiving, and the Grants’ son arrives from college for the holiday — and Terry takes a shine to him.

Jane Koberly (Sue England): “You’re dirt, Terry. He’d never touch you!”

The police, aided by Jane’s dad (Guy Kingsford), figure out where the gang’s hiding out, leading to a chase and fight atop the Griffith Observatory.

Made on the cheap, and very quickly, Teen Age Crime Wave is probably a better movie than it ought to be. The performances are solid across the board, with the prize going to Molly McCart, who brings plenty of pathos to her role as the never-had-a-chance Terry.

The lovely Sue England appeared in two Elvis movies: Loving You (1957) and Clambake (1967). As usual, the “teens” appear to be at least in their mid-20s.

Fred F. Sears (pointing, in cap) on location at Griffith Observatory.

Fred F. Sears’ direction is solid and assured, and he builds the tension very well over the picture’s 76 minutes — with the help of editor Jerome Thoms. Sears was an A-worthy director who never got out of the B’s. (His untimely death is a well-covered tragedy around here.)

Katzman’s films from this period really benefit from the producer’s arrangement with Columbia, which put big-studio resources (including leftover sets from much bigger films) to work on small-studio product. It’s a perfect combination that died when the studios ditched B pictures in favor of television. 

To some, Teen Age Crime Wave ain’t much, and I can understand that. But as a huge fan of Katzman’s sizable output — and as someone convinced that Sears “could’ve been a contender,” this little picture is an overlooked, maligned little gem. My only complaint is that these two guys didn’t make 27 more movies just like it.

Happy Birthday, Sam Katzman.

Sam Katzman
(July 7, 1901 – August 4, 1973)

The great B-movie producer Sam Katzman was born 122 years ago today. This photo appeared in Life magazine in 1953. Sam is surrounded by Billy Curtis, Julie Newmar and Zan Murray — and Tamba, the chimp from the Jungle Jim movies. Not sure who’s in the gorilla suit.

Today’s also Fred F. Sears’ birthday. He was one of the directors in Katzman’s unit at Columbia. 

Blu-Ray News #349: Film Focus – George Peppard (1968-1974).

Two Imprint posts in a row. This time, they’re pulling together a Blu-Ray set (limited to just 1,500 copies) of four cool pictures starring George Peppard.

P.J. (1968, AKA New Face In Hell)
Directed by John Guillermin
Starring George Peppard, Gayle Hunnicutt, Raymond Burr, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Brock Peters, Susan Saint James

Peppard’s a PI in this “neo-noir” (whatever that is), no doubt inspired by the success of Harper (1966). There was a string of mid-60s detective movies like this, and I’m a big fan of ’em. Peppard gets set up in a murder plot by a big businessman (Raymond Burr) and his mistress (Gayle Hunnicutt).

From the outstanding cast (character parts makes movies like this) to Loyal Griggs’ Technicolor and Techniscope cinematography to the 60s modern sets to Neil Hefti’s terrific score, cool ness just drips off this film. John Guillermin also directed Peppard in The Blue Max (1966) and House Of Cards (1968).

I’m super-stoked to be doing a commentary for it.

Pendulum (1969)
Directed by George Schaefer
Starring George Peppard, Jean Seberg, Richard Kiley, Charles McGraw

George Peppard’s a Washington, DC, police captain in this one, accused of murdering his wife and her lover.

The Executioner (1970)
Directed by Sam Wanamaker
Starring George Peppard, Joan Collins, Judy Geeson, Oskar Homolka, Charles Gray

After he’s almost killed while on assignment, an MI5 agent (Peppard) sets out to prove one of his contacts is a double agent. 

Newman’s Law (1974)
Directed by Richard Heffron
Starring George Peppard, Roger Robinson, Eugene Roche, Abe Vigoda

Newman (Peppard) is an honest LA copy accused being on the take. He sets out to prove his innocence and uncovers a nasty conspiracy. This came out shortly after Peppard’s Banacek series wrapped up.

George Peppard’s movie-star looks kept him from being the actor he wanted to be, and he’s mostly known today for The A-Team, but he was a very good actor when he had a good part. This set, absolutely packed with extras, is gonna be a good one. Recommended.

Blu-Ray News #345: Jack Armstrong, The All-American Boy (1947).

Directed by Wallace Fox
Produced by Sam Katzman
Starring John Hart, Rosemary LaPlanche, Claire James, Joe Brown, Jr., Charles Middleton, Jack Ingram

I was so happy to find out about this one! VCI is bringing the 15-chapter Columbia serial Jack Armstrong (1947) to Blu-Ray in August.

Based on the radio show, it stars John Hart as Jack Armstrong. Made not too long after Sam Katzman took over Columbia’s serials, it’s got secret island hideouts, radiation and natives. Can’t wait to see this in high definition.

Happy Birthday, Adele Mara.

Adele Mara (Adelaida Delgado)
(April 28, 1923 – May 7, 2010)

Adele Mara was under contract at Republic Pictures from the mid-40s through 1951. She was in pictures with John Wayne, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, William Elliott, you name it. Prior to Republic, she’d been at Columbia, where she appeared in everything from I Can Hardly Wait (1943) with The Three Stooges to Crime Doctor and Blondie movies.

Later, she was in stuff like Curse Of The Faceless Man (1958) and lots of TV.

Today’s Vocabulary Lesson.

Here’s a chance to brush up on your Captain Video lingo. This was done to promote the Columbia serial Captain Video: Master Of The Stratosphere (1951). Produced  by Sam Katzman, the 15-chapter “Super-Serial” was based on the TV show Captain Video And His Video Rangers.

Dialogue Of The Day: The Wrong Box (1966).

Bryan Forbes’ The Wrong Box (1966) is a very funny movie — a terrific cast in a very dark comedy of errors. It’s a shame it’s not better known, and it seems unfair that it played the UK in Technicolor, but Columbia released it in the States in Eastmancolor.

Michael Finsbury (Michael Caine): I never knew my parents. They were killed in a balloon ascension.

Julia Finsbury (Nanette Newman): Well, I only knew mine vaguely. My father was a missionary. He was eaten by his Bible class.

Michael Finsbury: Your mother?

Julia Finsbury: She too. They never eat one without the other.