This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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Rita Hayworth
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

Post by Rita Hayworth »

RedRiver wrote:I wonder what's on tonight.

It's the Monolith Monsters - a 1957 Sci-Fi Fantasy Thriller

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Link and I suggest that you should bookmark it for easy reference.
http://svengoolie.com/
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mrsl
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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.
Love and Rest in Peace to one of the good guys - Leonard Nimoy.
Anne


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* * * * * * * * What is past is prologue. * * * * * * * *

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Rita Hayworth
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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mrsl wrote:.
Love and Rest in Peace to one of the good guys - Leonard Nimoy.

I just can't believe that he is dead. I adore him.
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Rita Hayworth
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

Post by Rita Hayworth »

Invisible Agent - 1942 Film


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I'm kind of intrigue by this movie that Svengoolie has this week. I haven't seen this movie at all.
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Rita Hayworth
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

Post by Rita Hayworth »

KING KONG VS GODZILLA

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It was on SVENGOOLIE last night and because of the commercials, the commentary by Svengoolie himself, and the editing done by the production staff it's kind of lost it's charm because the last 15 minutes of the film is all we want. According to many sources this movie ranked pretty high for a Godzilla flick - but Svengoolie made it marginal at best and having said that I lost interest in this film until at the very end of it. I wished they made his show 3 hours long so that the whole movie can be show without interruption and that's would been better for it. It was an average film at best.
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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I don't think any of the later Kong adventures were really good. Fun, maybe. Not truly good filmmaking.
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Rita Hayworth
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

Post by Rita Hayworth »

The Evil of Frankenstein (1964) Film will be on SVENGOOLIE this Saturday - I'm passing this movie up. I have seen it 3 times in the past 5 years and gotten tired of it.
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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You're right, Rita fan. "Evil" is an entertaining Hammer entry. One of the better ones, even. But I won't be watching it again either. Svengoolie's program is good for people who only watch once in a while. Maybe they haven't seen all the movies half a dozen times!
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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Rondo Hatton is back this weekend in JUNGLE CAPTIVE! I don't know the history of this movie. I believe it's the final installment in a trilogy of "wild woman" stories, on the heels of Acquanetta in CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN. I've probably seen this one at one time or another, but these days one will pass for another. I can always watch Rondo, my brother's favorite actor!
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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That Rondo! I like JUNGLE CAPTIVE. My favorite of the "Ape Woman" thrillers. Not that there's much to distinguish one from another. But this one seems to move from shock to shock a little more casually. It's like, "OK. We know what we want. Scary stuff. Excitement. Rondo! The Hell with all the chit-chat!"

"Shut-up and get over in that closet!"
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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Lon Chaney, Jr in MAN MADE MONSTER? Have we seen this recently? Have I seen it at all? I honestly don't remember! Wikipedia says it was Lon's debut in Universal horror. The story synopsis sounds delightfully campy. This is going to be a big day for me. The Kentucky Derby, the library's celebration of Orson Welles' 100th birthday, and this intriguing little number. I'll file my report tomorrow!
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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RedRiver wrote:Lon Chaney, Jr in MAN MADE MONSTER? Have we seen this recently? Have I seen it at all? I honestly don't remember! Wikipedia says it was Lon's debut in Universal horror. The story synopsis sounds delightfully campy. This is going to be a big day for me. The Kentucky Derby, the library's celebration of Orson Welles' 100th birthday, and this intriguing little number. I'll file my report tomorrow!
Image
A happy-go-lucky Lon Chaney, Jr. as Dynamo Dan the Electric Man.

I can't wait to read your account of your adventures, Red. I had never seen this movie either.

Fearing that Svengoolie would be trotting out something horrendous like Abbott and Costello Meet Casper the Ghost last night, I was delighted with Man Made Monster (1941). Lon Chaney, Jr., wearing his best whipped puppy look, played "Dynamo Dan, the Electric Man," a side show performer whose act using electricity seems to have made him immune to the harmful effects of large amounts of voltage. This proves to be a real boon when a bus that he and his fellow carnies are riding on slams into a pylon during an electrical storm. All other passengers are goners but Dan is okay, if out of work and worried about when his unemployment check will come (who knew that carnivals in the '40s kept such careful employment records).

His remarkable survival attracts the attention of an annoying reporter (Frank Albertson, whose career must have been going through a lull), a benevolent scientist (Samuel S. Hinds) and his not-so-well-meaning crypto-fascist co-worker, played by Lionel Atwill, who uses his cold fish eye to good effect. Hinds hires Dan to help him in his research into electrobiology by studying his body, but anyone can see the gleam in Atwill's eye when he spies a chance "to go further than man was meant to" in his experiments when the cat Prof. Hinds was away. Hinds' niece (Anne Nagel, with a killer shellacked '40s hairstyle) is also the two researchers' secretary and she befriends the doofus Dan, but she is soon involved with the reporter, who couldn't find a story if it didn't sit up and shock him.

Image
Lionel Atwill and his human night light victim, Lon Chaney, Jr.

The closest relationship that Dynamo Dan develops is with an endearing terrier, whose playfulness and growing wariness signals the effects of Atwill's evil experiments on the poor, haplessly cheerful guy turning him into a zombie with a spark. The most moving moment in the film comes between pup and Dan near the end of the movie, making me realize that the other characters are mere cardboard, while Chaney's sweet, simple character and the tenderness exhibited by the dog have considerably more dimension.

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Frank Albertson's dumb reporter trying to shake some sense into the bewigged and benighted Anne Nagel.

I won't give more away, but this was fairly interesting since the actors were generally very good, and the story hints at the dehumanization caused by both the scientific and fascist developments in a world at war (WWII is never mentioned, but it's there for sure). There is some fine cinematography by black and white great Elwood Bredell (Phantom Lady, The Killers, The Unsuspected), and framed by director George Waggner, who was approaching a career height later in this year. The zap, crackle and pop of the electrical equipment of Kenneth Strickfaden, the eccentric hobbyist who created the cockamamie huge electrical stuff that graced most Universal movies from Frankenstein on, adds immeasurably to the dark and sinister atmosphere of the claustrophobic lab in this story. BTW, this is one of the few times that I thought Svengoolie's insertion of a voiceover describing Chaney as a Human Night Light was apt--and funny. Apparently this movie was the first time that Lon played a monster, that he worked with legendary makeup man Jack Pierce, and that this film led to their subsequent collaboration in the superbly entertaining The Wolf Man later that year, which was also directed by George Wagnner. Man Made Monster was said to be the cheapest production made at Universal in '41--though I suspect that it made back its dough pretty easily--and that not a dime was spent on Anne Nagel's hairdos.

The 57 minute Man Made Monster (1941) can be seen here in its entirety:

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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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I recommend MAN MADE MONSTER without reservation. Not even in the "so bad it's good" vein. This is an entertaining, exciting programmer. Much like the comic books I loved as a child, the story explodes in the first shot. (Are you paying attention, modern filmmakers?) Instantly, you get the origin of the main character and the source of his "super powers". No time is wasted developing complex and thoughtful story elements. The man is F-ing electric! That's story enough!

Lon is not a bad guy. Like Larry Talbot, he's afflicted with something he can't control. Also like Larry, no good can come of it. His condition is manipulated by that prime candidate for a malpractice suit, Dr. Lionel Atwill. Directed to kill for Lionel's purposes, Lon winds up in the electric chair. But then, he's already fully charged, so...

This is a no budget thriller. My guess is, it didn't win many Oscars. But it flies through its 57 minutes (minus a barrage of corn by Svengoolie and his own lab assistants) with a crashing pace and a high energy level. It gallops to a dramatic and satisfying conclusion. Very much worth watching!
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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I share your opinion about the pacing and tautness of the story, Red. Modern moviegoers have to conflate everything. I don't think it a bad film thanks to the central characters, but couldn't they have gotten rid of the reporter and niece? I suppose they are there as "normal people," to help the audience see the contrast between the two disparate scientists and the tragically isolated, natural man, played so eloquently by Lon (who is such a powerful actor).

Isn't it interesting that Samuel Hinds and Frank Albertson later played father and son in It's a Wonderful Llfe?
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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As Svengoolie pointed out, Frank Albertson played Sam Wainwright (Hee-Haw!) in the Capra film. Harry Bailey was played by Todd Karns.
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