Tag Archives: Anthony Cardoza

Bonus Horror On The Lens: The Beast of Yucca Flats (dir by Coleman Francis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Since today would have Tor Johnson’s birthday, it only seems appropriate to share a bonus Horror On The Lens.  This is the one film in which Tor Johnson starred, 1961’s The Beast Of Yucca Flats.

The Beast of Yucca Flats is a thoroughly inept film that makes next to no sense and has massive continuity errors.  It’s a film that also features Tor Johnson as a Russian scientist who gets mutated by radiation and becomes a monster, but not before taking off almost all of his clothes while walking through the desert.  For that matter, it’s also a film about a family that comes together though adversity — namely, being shot at by the police after the family patriarch is somehow mistaken for Tor Johnson.  And finally, it’s the story of how a dying monster can find comfort from a rabbit and that’s actually kind of a sweet message.

Here’s the thing — yes, The Beast of Yucca Flats is bad but you still owe it to yourself to watch it because you will literally never see anything else like it.  Plus, maybe you’ll be able to figure out what the whole point of the opening scene is.

Because I’ve watched this film a few times and I still have no idea!

Enjoy!

Horror On The Lens: The Beast of Yucca Flats (dir by Coleman Francis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Beastyuccaflats

Since Tor Johnson’s birthday was just 9 days ago, it only seems appropriate that today’s Horror on the Lens should be one that he starred in, 1961’s The Best Of Yucca Flats.

My friend, the writer and chef Tammy Dowden, claims that this is the worst movie ever made.

Well, technically, she may be right.  The Beast of Yucca Flats is a thoroughly inept film that makes next to no sense and has massive continuity errors.  It’s a film that also features the legendary Tor Johnson as a Russian scientist who gets mutated by radiation and becomes a monster, but not before taking off almost all of his clothes while walking through the desert.  For that matter, it’s also a film about a family that comes together though adversity — namely, being shot at by the police after the family patriarch is somehow mistaken for Tor Johnson.  And finally, it’s the story of how a dying monster can find comfort from a rabbit and that’s actually kind of a sweet message.

Here’s the thing — yes, The Beast of Yucca Flats is bad but you still owe it to yourself to watch it because you will literally never see anything else like it.  Plus, maybe you’ll be able to figure out what the whole point of the opening scene is.

Because I’ve watched this film a few times and I still have no idea!

Enjoy!

Horror Film Review: The Beast of Yucca Flats (dir by Coleman Francis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tick …. tick …. tick …. tick

The clock is ticking throughout the 1961 film, The Beast of Yucca Flats.  There’s only so much time left for someone who is trying to escape from a repressive, communist regime.  There’s only so much time that one can spend wandering through the desert before he starts to succumb to the heat and has to remove almost all of his clothes.  There’s only so long that the police can search before they get trigger happy and go after the wrong guy.

Tick …. tick …. tick …. tick

The Beast of Yucca Flats opens with a woman stepping out of the shower and getting attacked and strangled by someone hiding in her house.  Who attacked her and why?  How does it relate to the rest of what we see in this film?  Was this a flashback or a flashforward?  I’ve watched The Beast of Yucca Flats a few times and I don’t know.  Perhaps it’s just a sign of the randomness of fate.  Who knows how to control the whims of the universe?  Or maybe director Coleman Francis was just looking for an excuse to bring some nudity into the film.  As enigmatic a figure as Coleman Francis may have been, he undoubtedly understood that importance of selling tickets.

Tick …. tick …. tick …. tick

Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson is perhaps best known for his work with Edward D. Wood, Jr.  He was Lobo in Bride of the Monster.  He was the police detective who was raised from the dead in Plan 9 From Outer Space.  By most accounts, Tor was a nice guy with a good sense of humor but he was also a hulking and intimidating physical presence and he had a difficult time delivering dialogue.  However, Ed Wood was not the only director for which Tor Johnson worked.  He also worked with Coleman Francis, playing Joseph Javorsky in The Beast of Yucca Flats.

Tick …. tick …. tick …. tick

Joseph Javorsky is a Russian scientist who has defected to America and who is carrying a briefcase full of not just nuclear secrets but also evidence that the Russians have already landed on the Moon.  Russian agents follow Javorsky out to Nevada and assassinate his American contacts and his bodyguard.  Javorsky wanders into the desert and, due to the heat, he has to remove his clothing to survive.  This film allows you to see more of Tor Johnson that you’ve probably ever wanted to see.  Unfortunately, Javorsky wanders into an American nuclear test and is mutated into a monster who is motivated by rage.

Tick …. tick …. tick …. tick

It’s hard not to feel sorry for Javorsky, who seemed to have the best motivations when it came to defecting to America.  He’s turned into a monster and finds himself being pursued through the desert by the police and a father who worries that Javorsky has kidnapped his children.  Tor Johnson is thoroughly miscast as a nuclear scientist but if you can overlook the fact that he’s Tor Johnson wandering around the desert, he actually is a sympathetic figure.  His niceness comes through, even after he starts to turn into the beast.

Tick …. tick …. tick …. tick

The Beast of Yucca Flats is not a film that makes any sort of sense, not in the usual way.  It works if one views it as being a filmed dream but let’s not give director Coleman Francis too much credit.  While the dubbed dialogue and the narration and the odd performances all create a surreal atmosphere, there’s nothing to indicate that any of that was deliberate on Francis’s part.  If anything, one gets the feeling that Coleman Francis mostly made this movie so he could fly his airplane over the desert.  The Beast of Yucca Flats may not be good but that final scene of poor old Tor reaching out to the rabbit still brings tears to my mismatched eyes.

Horror On The Lens: The Beast of Yucca Flats (dir by Coleman Francis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Beastyuccaflats

Since today is Tor Johnson’s birthday, it only seems appropriate that today’s Horror on the Lens should be one that he starred in, 1961’s The Best Of Yucca Flats.

My friend, the writer and chef Tammy Dowden, claims that this is the worst movie ever made.

Well, technically, she may be right.  The Beast of Yucca Flats is a thoroughly inept film that makes next to no sense and has massive continuity errors.  It’s a film that also features the legendary Tor Johnson as a Russian scientist who gets mutated by radiation and becomes a monster, but not before taking off almost all of his clothes while walking through the desert.  For that matter, it’s also a film about a family that comes together though adversity — namely, being shot at by the police after the family patriarch is somehow mistaken for Tor Johnson.  And finally, it’s the story of how a dying monster can find comfort from a rabbit and that’s actually kind of a sweet message.

Here’s the thing — yes, The Beast of Yucca Flats is bad but you still owe it to yourself to watch it because you will literally never see anything else like it.  Plus, maybe you’ll be able to figure out what the whole point of the opening scene is.

Because I’ve watched this film a few times and I still have no idea!

Enjoy!

Red Zone Cuba (1966, directed by Coleman Francis)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

An escaped convict named Griffin (Coleman Francis) meets up with two other men (Anthony Cardoza and Harold Samuels) and, for some reason, all three of the fly down to Cuba where they join up with the mercenaries who are planning on overthrowing Castro during the Bay of Pigs invasion.  That doesn’t work out so, after escaping from a Cuban POW camp, they decide to fly back to America so that they can rob a mine.  Along the way, they shoot several people and they run into John Carradine who gives them a ride on a train and also sings the film’s theme song, Night Train to Mondo Fine.  “He ran all the way to Hell,” Carradine says about Griffin, even though Griffin spends most of the film either flying or moving at an ambling gait.

Red Zone Cuba is best known for being one of three Coleman Francis films to be showcased on Mystery Science Theater 3000.  Watching this film with Mike and the Bots commenting on the action is a lot of fun.  Trying to watch it without Mike the and the Bots is a different experience all together.  I always assumed that the plot seemed incoherent because I was distracted by Mike, Tom Servo, and Crow talking through the film but it turns out that the plot is incoherent regardless of how you watch the film.  Coleman Francis tried to make a tough and gritty desert noir but the only part he got right was the desert.  There’s a lot of desert in this movie.

Red Zone Cuba is a painfully slow movie but at least John Carradine’s in it for a few minutes.  A reporter shows up to interview him about the three men who rode his train all the way to Hell and Carradine answers his questions with the type of grim determination that briefly fools you into thinking Red Zone Cuba is going to be better than its reputation.  Carradine exits the film quickly, though.  He got his paycheck and then headed off to his next role, leaving Coleman Francis to carry the weight of the film.

Red Zone Cuba is a slow mess of a film that’s not even entertainingly bad but I do have to wonder: was this the first narrative film to use the Bay of Pigs as a plot point?  Hats off to Coleman Francis if it was.

 

Horror On The Lens: The Beast of Yucca Flats (dir by Coleman Francis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

BeastyuccaflatsMy friend, the writer Tammy Dowden, claims that 1961’s The Beast of Yucca Flats is the worst movie ever made.

Well, technically, she may be right.  The Beast of Yucca Flats is a thoroughly inept film that makes next to no sense and has massive continuity errors.  It’s a film that also features the legendary Tor Johnson as a Russian scientist who gets mutated by radiation and becomes a monster, but not before taking off almost all of his clothes while walking through the desert.  For that matter, it’s also a film about a family that comes together though adversity — namely, being shot at by the police after the family patriarch is somehow mistaken for Tor Johnson.  And finally, it’s the story of how a dying monster can find comfort from a rabbit and that’s actually kind of a sweet message.

Here’s the thing — yes, The Beast of Yucca Flats is bad but you still owe it to yourself to watch it because you will literally never see anything else like it.  Plus, maybe you’ll be able to figure out what the whole point of the opening scene is.

Because I’ve watched this film a few times and I still have no idea!

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbtmICspboo