God Bless You, Turner Classic Movies for this April's Friday Night festivals of films from the oeuvre of the late Roger Corman.....the tireless producer-director of hundreds of low budget exploitation movies and unlikely mentor of some of cinema's most brilliant talents along the way....(Scorsese, Cameron, Ron Howard, Jack Nicholson, Francis Coppola and so many more....)
There aren't enough hours in the day to cover Corman's voluminous output, but we took the time to sample three of his earliest films. No one's going to mistake them for timeless epics, but each one was bore the classic Corman stamp.....make 'em fast, cheap, fun to watch, then move on to the next two or three....
The Beast With A Million Eyes (1955) is, until the film's last few minutes, an unseen alien invader who remotely controls birds and animals to wreak lethal havoc on the few cast members Corman could afford.
Maybe that's why the alien, ensconced in a metallic teapot with blinky lights, picks a lonely date farm in the middle of a desert to set up shop. Its primary victims, a farm family and their creepy mute handyman run afoul of pre-Hitchcockian bird attacks, a mad dog and madder cow and more blinky lights and woo-woo sci-fi sound effects.
The acting falls one level below Ed Wood Jr. (with the exception of reliable busy character actor Paul Birch) but the alien monster reveal's a hoot......a floating eyeball superimposed over a toothy booga-booga puppet. And the earth family learns staying together makes them stronger, along with what doesn't kill them.....2 stars (**).
Five Guns West (1955), if nothing else, boasts a kickass western title and not a bad storyline set-up either. As the Civil War rages in the Southwest, the Confederate army pardons five due-for-hanging prisoners, sending them out to grab a traitor and a chest of stolen gold. Naturally, they're all out to double-cross each other at a moment's notice.....
The take-charge leading man (John Lund) has to somehow wrangle two trigger happy brothers, a snaky card shark, and an old cattleman to complete their mission. Showdown time arrives at an abandoned mining town still populated by a drunken old Stagecoach agent and his lonely niece (played by Oscar winner Dorothy Malone). You can also spot able Corman regulars Jonathon Haze ("Little Shop of Horrors") and once again, Paul Birch ("Not of This Earth") And yes, that's Michael 'Touch' Connors (of the long running "Mannix" TV show) as the no good gambler.
Very standard western stuff, but we couldn't help wondering what a blistering little shoot 'em up like this would have been in the hands of James Stewart directed by Anthony Mann......2 stars (**).
Teenage Doll (1957) plunges right in to that ripe recipe for making big bucks from the drive-in theaters and their teen customers.....delinquents!
The girls and guys in the gangs are equally dangerous here, especially wild-eyed, hot tempered 'Hel' (Fay Spain). Hel hath plenty 'o fury as she and her gang girls go on the hunt for harmless Barbara (June Kenney) whom they blame for the death of one of their members.
Spain clearly takes command as this little movie's fierce MVP and the pace and plot suffer when she's not there on camera to pepper the bubbling melodramatic stew. Both delinquent genders finally rumble amid an auto junkyard before the cops show up to calm down all the nasty doings, spoil sports that they are.
Not by any means one of the best of the teens-gone-wild 1950's cheapies, but it serves as a good enough example of Corman's cut-print-moving-on filmmaking. .....2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2).
(And stay in touch with the BQ as we continue to cover the onslaught of the vast Corman inventory.....we wouldn't dare miss it and either should you!)
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