CORMANIA! BQ TOURS THE MAD, MAD, CHEAP, CHEAP WORLD OF EARLY ROGER CORMAN.....

 

The Beast With A Million Eyes (1955), Five Guns West (1955), Teenage Doll (1957)

         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. 

All of this is riotously scored to the most bombastic public domain classical music that Corman could get his hands on....in case you're wondering how in the world a film this cheap could afford a pounding symphonic soundscape.....

         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!)

    

BRACE FOR IMPACT! BQ BOARDS ALL FOUR 'AIRPORT' MOVIES AND WONDERS WHERE WAS THE TSA WHEN WE REALLY NEEDED THEM.....

     Fasten your seatbelts, kids......it's going to be bumpy flight! Grab your boarding passes, neck pillows and 3 oz. bottles of shampoo, cause this trip lasts the entirety of the 1970's......

First destination....

Airport (1970)

       For producer Ross Hunter, slick purveyor of glossy, glitzy technicolor'd crowd-pleasers ("Imitation of Life", "Magnificent Obsession", "Pillow Talk") this one became his Magnum Opus and a roaring box-office success.

      Consider this an amazing feat, given that 1970 continued the enormous upheavals in the cinema arts, with a youthquake of fresh new taboo breaking filmmakers, audiences and a studio system crumbling faster than ever. 

        Writer-director George Seaton smoothly scripted and directed this polished-to-a-shine soap opera based on Arthur Hailey's bestseller about a barely averted airline disaster. And Ross Hunter filled up the cast with as many stars and familiar faces as he could lay his hands on. Besides reigning superstars Burt Lancaster and Dean Martin, you could also spot a pile of 'Hey! Isn't that....?' beloved characters actors in every supporting role.

         Lancaster's the harried airport manager multitasking through multiple crises in the middle of a raging snowstorm. Martin's the footloose pilot with a wife he's tired of and a devoted stewardess (Jacqueline Bissett) he's impregnated. Everyone's got marital woes, including a poor sad waitress (Maureen Stapleton) whose depressed, anguished husband (Van Heflin) has boarded the plane with a bomb in hopes of getting her a huge life insurance settlement.

         We can't even begin to catalog the many little side stories unfolding among the corny, but vividly drawn players here.....(including reliable George Kennedy as gruff but lovable Chief airport engineer Joe Patroni, Helen Hayes as a sly geriatric stowaway, and Jean Seberg as Lancaster's loyal assistant and budding mistress.) George Seaton and Ross Hunter assemble the whole package together with that sparkling glaze of Hollywood studio product, a throwback to the kind of movie all of America flocked to in the 30's, 40's and 50's.

          Call it corny and obvious all you like, but lots of people found themselves thoroughly entertained by its old fashioned professionalism and eager-to-please attitude. (That forceful driving music score from Alfred Newman was more icing on the cake....)

           Come to think of it....we loved all its retro charms too.  4 stars (****).

           Check to see if your life preservers are under the seats, 'cause it's a straight plunge downward from here on...... 

Airport 1975 (1974)

        And now we come to the shameless cash grabs as Universal Studios began to squeeze those cash cow udders and glide to more big buckolas by hopping on the wings of 'Airport's enormous success. 

         Naturally bigger and better disasters were needed to befall this airplane.....(something more cinematic than a distraught Van Heflin exploding himself out of the plane's toilet)

          The subsequent 'Airport' sequels were each stand-alone stories unrelated to (but 'inspired by') the Arthur Hailey novel. As a touchstone connecting them, only George Kennedy's 'Joe Patroni' airline tech appears in the next three films (though his job, backstory and screen time change in each one).

          Universal bigwig Jennings Lang took over producing the rest of the series......this mogul certainly didn't lack instincts for showmanship and spectacle, but he didn't much care how ridiculous and unintentionally funny the results might turn out. 

           In that regard, 'Airport 1975', steeped in literally overblown hilarious melodramatics, caricature performances and playing like its own 107 minute blooper reel, became an instant prime target to lampooning.  Mercilessly mocked, much of it became the inspiration for the no-holds-barred spoofery of 1980's 'Airplane' comedy.

            Karen Black, the most over-employed, ubiquitous leading actress of the 1970's plays the plucky, stalwart stewardess who's forced to fly a 747 after a small plane swipes a jumbo hole in its cockpit, sucking out the poor co-pilot and severely injuring the pilot.  Desperately talking her through the '747-For-Dummies' instructions are boyfriend Charlton Heston....which, as you might imagine, doesn't much comfort the passengers who scream out, "The stewardess is flying the plane!!"

           And speaking of the passengers, what a ripe for satire bunch was on board here. There's Norman Fell, Jerry Stiller and Conrad Janis as three drunks who can't hope to compete with elderly Myrna Loy chugging whiskey-and-beer boilermakers......a singing nun (pop singer Helen Reddy) serenading a gravely ill little girl awaiting a much needed kidney (played by Linda Blair, minus the 360 head rotations). And let's not forget comedian Sid Caesar and best of all Gloria Swanson, stretching her range to play.....Gloria Swanson. 

            And all you nailbiters, prepare yourselves for breathless scenes where Heston, unable to part oncoming mountains like Moses, tries lowering himself into the cockpit as he's tethered to a helicopter flying along side the plane......

            Yes, it's all as foolish and funny as it sounds, but moviegoers lapped it up for the major hoot that it was, prompting.......get a grip on your armrests....yet another 'Airport' movie. But 'Airport 1975' in its own goofy way, became a perfect emblem of bloated, clueless Big Studio product of the 70's. 

            We still smiled all the way through it. 3 Guilty Pleasure stars (***).

           Now hold tight to your styrofoam noodles....we're about to go from in-flight to a really deep dip in the pool......the Bermuda Triangle...

Airport '77 (1977)

           Little or no pleasure to be had here, guilty or otherwise.  This third entry, connect-the-dots dreary, plods along with the usual Universal machine tooled efficiency and by the time it's done (and the last cast member rescued), you wonder why you watched it all.

          Jack Lemmon's on hand to pick up an easy paycheck as our pilot and his plane's hijacked by thieves after a priceless art collection on board.  They gas Lemmon and the passengers into sleepy-bye, and try steering the plane toward some island to unload the goods. But oopsie, in the fog they clip an oil rig and go crashing into the ocean. The plane sinks into the drink, putting everybody in danger of going glug glug before any rescue effort can even find them. Cue the 'who's-gonna-live-or-go-belly-up' survival sweepstakes. 

          For star gazers, there's Joseph Cotton, Olivia de Havilland and Christopher Lee (in a rare sympathetic role.) At least the always superb Lee Grant gets some jollies tearing through her role as an obnoxious shrew you just know is destined for the terminal list. The rest of cast are talented enough folks, but generally not very interesting minor leaguers.

         A blah 2 star (**) waste of time, this one. Even George Kennedy's Patroni is hardly in it, as if he saw the script in advance. 

         Clutch those little bags of pretzels, everyone.....here comes the worst fight of all.....

The Concorde...Airport '79 (1979)

         We could almost believe the rumor that Universal, embarrassed and shamed by this last entry, tried marketing it as a comedy.....(but that ploy would've only worked well with 'Airport 1975')

       Stupid beyond belief and clumsily plotted, it's fitting the final 'Airport' plane was a Concorde, a supersonic gas guzzler, larger and faster than Rodan on the hunt for Mothra. This behemoth was so expensive to service and maintain, tickets had to cost $30,000 a seat to help pay for its upkeep. (One of the last of these horribly crashed, killing all on board and four on the ground.....so the Concorde followed the Tyrannosaurus straight into the tar pits...)

         An international flavor to the cast enlivens things a little. French superstar Alain Delon, tried breaking into American cinema as one of the pilots, but it's a nothing role for him and he does nothing with it.....not even when he's romancing ultra-hottie Sylvia Kristel, soon to cavort naked through multiple soft core 'Emmanuelle' sex romps. 

         The cast line-up is all over the place...plenty of familiar TV faces like Eddie Albert, Susan Blakely, Avery Schreiber, Martha Raye, John Davidson, Jimmy "J.J. Walker  and God help us, Charo. And some quality folk pop up too.....David Warner, Mercedes McCambridge, Bibi Andersson, and Cicely Tyson.

          Robert Wagner's a scummy corporate CEO and secret arms dealer whose nasty secret's discovered by the reporter he's romancing (Blakely). So much for love....Wagner re-programs his spiffy new combat drone to blow up the Concorde while Blakely and the rest of the cast is aboard and in flight. 

         Fear not! Our trusty new pilot is.....none other than George Kennedy's good old Joe Patroni. But evidently a Patroni from an alternate universe since Joe 2.0 suddenly has an extensive background as a veteran combat pilot with Vietnam experience. Avoiding the relentless drone, Joe steers the massive plane into 360 barrel roles, taking the entire cast on one crazy Six Flags ride after another.

          You'd think the passengers would've had enough of the Concorde after Joe manages to land the plane in Paris, almost hurling off the runway before it's caught in a safety net. Are you kidding? Get real, this is an Airport movie. Off they go again to complete their flight to the Moscow Olympics, conveniently forgetting they spent the first half of the trip rolling upside down. Way to compartmentalize, guys......

           But scumbag Wagner, still afraid Blakely will spill the beans on him, has a mechanic rig the cargo hold door to open in flight.......which of course it does, not only ripping gaping tears in the plane's floor, but sending the cabin into that passenger favorite, the 360 funhouse roll.  (A special Little Dutch Boy award to Eddie Albert, whose seat, with him in it, gets jammed into one of the holes.)

            It's up to our hero, Joe 2.0 to save the day by skirting over the Alps to find a long, long patch of snow he can safely plow the Concorde into without ramming the Matterhorn.

            Don't get too excited thinking you'll laugh yourself silly at all of this as much as "Airport 1975". The film simply lacks that kind of dopey energy and the cast members only dutifully perform their tasks so as to pick up their checks and go home. So Universal's Hail Mary to market the film as a farce could only make everyone think they'd lost their minds.

            One amazing credit did, in fact, stagger us - the script for this rambling circus came from Eric Roth.....the screenwriter of 'Killers of the Flower Moon', 'Dune Part One', 'Munich', 'The Horse Whisperer' and Forrest Gump'. Huh???  Well, everyone has to start somewhere......

      1 star (*) (for those barrel rolls only). 

       BQ thanks you for flying with us and hope to see you again soon......maybe to cover movies where everyone stays on the ground.......  

         

        

'THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE' (1992 & 2025 VERSIONS).....33 YEARS YEARS LATER, SCARY POPPINS STILL FLIES HIGH......

 The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (1992)

The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (2025)

      Look out, here they come.....nannies from hell, insidiously inserting themselves into upper class households, gaslighting the hapless mom and making the clueless husband think his wife's gone all the way cuckoo.......

       In the 33 years that separate director Curtis Hanson's gripping thriller and director Michelle Garza Cervara's remake for Hulu, you can view a stark example of how much society and filmmaking have changed over three decades.

      Hansen's film, a huge hit upon release, functions as a lean, mean thrill machine, with minimal subtext and plenty of "ooo" and "uh-oh" moments for an audience to gasp, cheer and even enjoy a tension releasing laugh in a few places. 

       And as expected for Hollywood, the film ushered in a flood of copycats ....the'_____from hell' genre. (Fill in the profession - Neighbor from Hell, Cop From Hell, Landlord From Hell, Doctor from Hell....etc, etc.....) 

        Amanda Silver's script for the 1992 film started off with a killer set-up. An expectant mom (Annabella Sciorra) is groped and molested by her Ob-Gyn (John De Lancie).Her going public about the incident brings out other similarly attacked victims, prompting the doc's indictment and suicide. This abrupt reversal of fortune leaves his pregnant trophy wife Peyton (Rebecca De Mornay) flat broke, homeless and suffering an emotional and physically agonizing miscarriage. 

       So guess who's now fully psycho and looking for payback on the woman responsible for leaving her life in ruins?

        De Mornay, seizing the day here, becomes the beating dark heart of this movie, smearing on a thin veneer of normality..... under a new last name, she worms her way into the household to tear the happy family apart and steal their newborn. But whenever her Sweet Nanny mask slips off, the ferocious yet sly predator comes out to play.......and a cringing audience eats it up until the film finally delivers a satisfying comeuppance. 

          We're happy to tell you that all these years later, the film's still a hoot and a half to watch,with the added bonus of seeing Julienne Moore in a small but strong supporting roll.  A fun time and still a 4 star (****) popcorn munchin' theme park ride.

            And now we come to the similar in some basic ways but wildly different in others, remake.

            The cast, at least, couldn't be more perfect and ready to rumble......Indie Scream Queen Maika Monroe ("It Follows", "Longlegs") as the suspicious nanny and pulp horror veteran Mary Elizabeth Winstead ("Death Proof", "The Thing" 2011 sequel) as the victimized mom. 

        While we appreciate that Micah Bloomberg's screenplay for the reboot goes out of its way to give both actresses way more tragic backstory for their characters, the film's higher aspirations of serious drama only dilute it as a thriller.

       Unlike Curtis Hanson's full speed ahead pacing of the original film, the new 'Cradle' immerses itself in moody, gloomy unease. The film strains to link predator and prey together in equally shared horrific episodes of their past. The stakes are effectively deepened, but anyone expecting the wham-bam jolts of the first film will probably find this one a chore to sit through. 

        We cannot fault the performances, though. Monroe carefully avoids De Mornay's crowd pleasing theatrical villainy, preferring a more subtle passive-aggressive stance. Winstead, a seasoned player in chiller cinema, doesn't hold back on her escalating hysteria as Monroe slowly but surely takes her life and sanity apart. These two gifted talents do strike some sparks in their scenes together, but as we've already pointed out, overall the film never comes anywhere near the propulsive energy of its predecessor. 

        BQ's advice on these films (both available on Hulu).....all thriller addicts shouldn't miss the 1992 movie, a 4 star barn burner....(****).

       Devoted fans of the two actresses of the 2025 movie will definitely want to check it out. But for us, it's at best, a nice try 2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2).

       (Perhaps some enterprising film festival programmer will one day schedule a Nanny-thon, featuring  the two 'Cradles', the two Nanny Mcfee movies,  the two Mary Poppins movies, 'The Nanny Diaries', 'Uptown Girls', 'Mrs. Doubtfire', 'The Pacifier' with nanny Vin Diesel, and finishing up with murderous Bette Davis in the Hammer horror, 'The Nanny'....what a night that would be....bring popcorn and diapers (in case there's a shortage of bathrooms....) 

       

        

'THE SEVEN RED BERETS'......SPAGHETTI 'DARK OF THE SUN', CASHING IN ON CONGO CARNAGE.....

 The Seven Red Berets (1969)

     It's fair to say that 1968's "Dark of the Sun" a Congo mercenary adventure directed by Jack Cardiff, still resonates with both film buffs and filmmakers today......

      The film, which took violence and torture to then unheard of levels in the year of its release,  remains a favorite of directors Martin Scorsese  and Quentin Tarantino (who used excerpts from its haunting score in "Inglorious Basterds".)

      Guess who else took notice.....those tireless Italian pulp purveyors who'd wasted no time flooding the world with countless knockoffs of Sergio Leone westerns.  Surprisingly, only a few of these multi-nation co-productions sought to make their very own 'Dark of the Sun' imitations......and we couldn't wait to dive into this one when we found its availability on multiple streaming services. 

        "The Seven Red Berets", an Italian-West German production directed by Mario Siciliano, sticks close to the basic 'Dark of the Sun' tropes.

         Everything's in place here.....battle-hardened mercenaries on a perilous trek through the blood soaked Congo uprisings of the early 1960's. Their primary mission - secure valuable documents that fell into the hands of the insanely violent Simba rebels, (and if possible, rescue a captured woman journalist, whom we earlier saw being gang raped by the Simbas in the film's prologue.

           As in 'Dark of the Sun', don't look for any historical accuracy here. 'Red Berets' only agenda involves serving up 90 minutes of unrelenting slaughter and assorted atrocities......you can already sense that most of these mercs are doomed, along with vast amounts of Congolese natives who get regularly machine gunned and blown apart with grenades.

           But also, don't expect the professional artistry, craft and acting skill that went into 'Sun' here either......any more than you'd expect a Sergio Leone amount of quality while you're watching some cheapo spaghetti western wanna-be titled "Santuco Kills For a Dollar and change"

          On the plus side (which you know we always burst blood vessels trying to search for in even the worst of movies).....some very beautifully composed scenery shots and the always effective charismatic Ivan Rassimov  (the 'go to' guy for Euro-trash Grindhouse macaroni.) Here he lends his striking, vulpine presence to the lead role of a dissolute soldier of misfortune with his own tragic, haunted past.....and acquits himself fine as an anti-hero.

          And we have to give the producers some credit for the sheer nerve on display at the film's opening....daring to throw in a quote from Martin Luther King as the film kicks off its spectacle of piling up African bodies.  Brass balls indeed.....maybe they should've thrown in quotes from Gandhi, Mother Theresa and Mr. Rogers while they were at it......

          A tough one when it comes to final recommendations and rating. Seekers and cinephile curators of low rent 1960's Euro-junk will want to view it at least once.....or anyone curious enough to discover something-sort-of-similar to 'Dark of the Sun'. For those folks, 2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2).

          For everyone else?  Merely a 1 star (*) diversion if you can't find anything else on TV and don't like the book you're reading.....