Whenever it’s time to share this film for Horrorthon, I have a little story that I like to tell:
Enter singing.
Little Shop.…Little Shop of Horrors.…Little Shop.…Little Shop of Terrors….
When I was 19 years old, I was in a community theater production of the musical Little Shop of Horrors. Though I think I would have made the perfect Audrey, everybody always snickered whenever I sang so I ended up as a part of “the ensemble.” Being in the ensemble basically meant that I spent a lot of time dancing and showing off lots of cleavage. And you know what? The girl who did play Audrey was screechy, off-key, and annoying and after every show, all the old people in the audience always came back stage and ignored her and went straight over to me. So there.
Anyway, during rehearsals, our director thought it would be so funny if we all watched the original film. Now, I’m sorry to say, much like just about everyone else in the cast, this was my first exposure to the original and I even had to be told that the masochistic dentist patient was being played by Jack Nicholson. However, I’m also very proud to say that — out of that entire cast — I’m the only one who understood that the zero-budget film I was watching was actually better than the big spectacle we were attempting to perform on stage. Certainly, I understood the film better than that screechy little thing that was playing Audrey.
The first Little Shop of Horrors certainly isn’t scary and there’s nobody singing about somewhere that’s green (I always tear up when I hear that song, by the way). However, it is a very, very funny film with the just the right amount of a dark streak to make it perfect Halloween viewing.
So, if you have 72 minutes to kill, check out the original and the best Little Shop of Horrors….
Today’s horror on the lens is the 1957 Roger Corman-directed, sci-fi “epic,” Not of this Earth.
Paul Johnson (Paul Birch) may seems like a strange character, with his stilted way of speaking and his sunglasses and his overdramatic reaction to any and all loud noises. Paul could us be an eccentric. Or, he could be …. NOT OF THIS EARTH! Actually, his habit of draining people of their blood and sending weird, umbrella-like creatures out to attack his enemies would seem to suggest that the latter is probably true.
Listen, it’s not easy being a blood-sucking alien. I mean, sure, there’s always seems to be people stupid enough to show up at your mansion so that you can drain their bodies. Paul is lucky that he doesn’t exactly seem to be surrounded by brain surgeons. But sometimes, things happen. For instance, someone might show up from your home planet and demand an immediate transfusion! What is an alien to do?
Watch this low-budget but undeniably entertaining film to find out! And be sure to especially keep an eye out for the great Dick Miller, who reportedly improvised his role as a vacuum cleaner salesman. (Before going into acting, Miller actually did sell vacuum cleaners door-to-door.)
“Man is a feeling creature, and because of it, the greatest in the universe….”
Hell yeah! You tell ’em, Peter Graves!
Today’s Horror on the Lens is 1956’s It Conquered The World. Graves plays a scientist who watches in horror as his small town and all of the people who he loves and works with are taken over by an alien. Rival scientist Lee Van Cleef thinks that the alien is going to make the world a better place but Graves understands that a world without individual freedom isn’t one that’s worth living in.
This is one of Corman’s most entertaining films, featuring not only Graves and Van Cleef but also the great Beverly Garland. Like many horror and science fiction films of the 50s, it’s subtext is one of anti-collectivism. Depending on your politics, you could view the film as either a criticism of communism or McCarthyism. Watching the film today, with its scenes of the police and the other towns people hunting anyone who fails to conform or follow orders, it’s hard not to see the excesses of the COVID era.
Of course, there’s also a very persuasive argument to be made that maybe we shouldn’t worry too much about subtext and we should just enjoy the film as a 50s B-movie that was directed with the Corman touch.
Regardless of how interpret the film, I defy anyone not to smile at the sight of ultra-serious Peter Graves riding his bicycle from one location to another.
Here, for your viewing pleasure, is It Conquered The World!
Future serious actor Robert Vaughn made his film debut in 1958’s TeenageCaveman. Directed by Roger Corman, TeenageCaveman tells the story of a rebellious young man (that’s Robert Vaughn) who chooses to defy his father’s warnings and venture beyond the caves and into “the forbidden zone.” He’s told that monsters roam in the forbidden zone and indeed, at least one of them does. However, neither the Teenage Caveman nor his father are prepared for what lies at the heart of the forbidden zone.
(What will he find out there, Dr. Zaius?)
Robert Vaughn later said that, out of all the bad films that he made, this was the worst. Personally, I think he was being a bit too hard on the film. It’s not good but it is definitely fun. Along with watching all of the dinosaur stock footage, you get to wonder how a caveman — especially a teenage caveman! — could possibly have such perfect hair. Even more importantly, if you stick with it, this film has a twist ending that has to be seen to be believed.
The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent. That’s the title of this one and it’s far too long for a 67-minute drive-in feature. Maybe Roger Corman thought he could fool people into thinking the movie was better than it was by giving it a pompous sounding title.
A group of Viking men leave on a voyage and never come back. After waiting nearly a year, the remaining Viking women vote to set sail and look for them. Leading them is Desir (Abby Dalton) and she even welcomes the bad-tempted Enger (Susan Cabot) onto their boat. The last remaining male Viking, Ottar (Jonathan Haze), also joins the quest.
The Viking women (and Ottar) have barely set sail when a “giant” sea serpent rises out of the water and strands them on an island. The Viking women discover that their men are being held prisoner on the island. Even if they can rescue their men from King Stark (Richard Devon), the sea serpent still waits for them to try to return.
The Saga of the Viking Women and yadda yadda yadda is a remarkably cheap-looking epic. A major film about the Vikings was scheduled to be released by United Artists and Corman, determined to get his movie into theaters first, shot the film in ten days and for $65,000. Irving Block and Jack Rabin, two special effects experts, promised Corman an amazing sea serpent and instead delivered what appeared to be a water-proof puppet. The Sea Serpent only appears in two scenes and Corman doesn’t allow us a very good view of it. It looks like something you could have picked up at Toys ‘R Us back in the day.
There’s nothing convincing about the movie, from the costumes to the combat to the serpent. This was one of Roger Corman’s early misfires though, released on a double bill with the Astounding She-Monster, it still made money. People love Vikings.
Who wouldn’t love to see a movie where a youngish Jack Nicholson played a French soldier who, while searching for a mysterious woman, comes across a castle that’s inhabited by both Dick Miller and Boris Karloff?
In Roger Corman’s 1963 film The Terror, New Jersey-accented Jack Nicholson is the least believable 19th century French soldier ever. However, it’s still interesting to watch him before he became a cinematic icon. His performance here is rather earnest, with little of the sarcasm that would later become his trademark. Boris Karloff is, as usual, great and familiar Corman actor Dick Miller gets a much larger role than usual. Pay attention to the actress playing the mysterious woman. That’s Sandra Knight who, at the time of filming, was married to Jack Nicholson.
Reportedly, The Terror was one of those films that Corman made because he still had the sets from his much more acclaimed film version of The Raven. The script was never finished, the story was made up as filming moved alone, and no less than five directors shot different parts of this 81 minute movie. Boris Karloff’s scenes were filmed first, with the other actors performing in front of a body double during their scenes. Among the many directors who filmed bits and pieces of TheTerror: Roger Corman, Jack Hill, Monte Hellman, Francis Ford Coppola, Coppola’s roommate Dennis Jakob, and even Jack Nicholson himself! (Despite this number of directors involved, Corman received the sole directorial credit.) Perhaps not surprisingly, the final film is a total mess but it does have a definite historical value.
(In typical Corman fashion, scenes from The Terror were later used in the 1968 film, Targets. In that film, Karloff plays a version of himself, an aging horror actor who watches The Terror and dismisses it as being “terrible.”)
“You finally did it! You blew it up! …. Goddamn you to Hell!”
That’s right. Just as how the original Planet of the Apes showed us what the world would look like centuries after a nuclear war, 1957’s Day The World Ended shows us what things would be like in the weeks afterwards. And guess what? It wouldn’t be a lot of fun.
Day The World Ended starts with the bombs dropping and mushroom clouds forming in all of their fearsome glory. (Oppenheimer may have hated his greatest achievement but aesthetically, the atomic bomb is still an impressive invention.) Jim Maddison (Paul Birch) and his daughter, Louise (Lori Nelson), manage to survive by camping out in a steel bunker that Maddison built especially for the moment. As a former Navy commander, Maddison understood that the world was on the verge of nuclear war and he also understood that only those with discipline would survive. He’s filled with bomb shelter with supplies and he’s told Louise that only the two of them can use the shelter. Anyone else is out of luck.
Unfortunately, people keep showing up at the shelter and asking to come in. And while Maddison is prepared to leave them outside with the fallout and the mutants that have started to roam the desert, Louise just can’t stand the thought of leaving anyone to die. Reluctantly, Maddison starts to allow people to join him and his daughter. Some of them, like geologist Rick (Richard Denning), are a good addition to the group, Rick is actually an expert in uranium mining and a potential husband for Louise. (Louise has a fiancé but he’s missing. She keeps his picture by her bed. The picture, of course, is actually a photo of director Roger Corman.) Unfortunately, not everyone is as likable and well-intentioned as Rick. Lowlife hood Tony (Mike Connors) and his girlfriend, Ruby (Adele Jergens) show up and continue to act as if they’ve got the police after them even though the police were probably atomized with the rest of civilization. And finally, there’s a man (Jonathan Haze) who is transforming into a mutant and who develops a strange mental connection to Louise.
No one said the end of the world would be easy!
Day The World Ended was Corman’s fourth film as a director and it was also his first film in the horror genre. (It’s actually a mix of science fiction and horror but whatever.) The film was enough of a box office success that it inspired Corman to do more films in the genre. Seen today, it’s obviously an early directorial effort. It lacks the humor that distinguished Corman’s later films. In fact, the film is actually a little bit boring. Watching a film like this really drives home just how important Vincent Price and his energy were to Corman’s later films. This film doesn’t have an actor like Vincent Price or Boris Karloff or even Dick Miller, someone who could energize a film just through the power of their own eccentricities. Instead, Mike Connors, Paul Birch, and Richard Denning all give dull performances as the survivors. This is a historically important film because, without its box office success, Corman probably would have stuck with doing B-westerns and gangster films. Filmgoers should be happy that audiences in the 50s were drawn in by the film’s title and their own paranoia about nuclear war. It’s a film that one appreciates as a piece of history, even if it doesn’t quite stand up to the test of time.
X: The Man With The X-Ray Eyes (1963, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Floyd Crosby)
Eyes. They’re one of the most important parts of our body but they’re also frightening easy to damage. Unlike the heart or the liver or the brain, they don’t have a protective covering of skin and bone. They sit exposed and are easily injured. They can be ripped out of one’s head, which is a scary thought. As well, they tend to grow weaker over time. I love my multi-colored eyes and I think they’re one of my best features but I still spend a lot of time wishing that they weren’t quite as vulnerable as they are. I often say that I’m blind without my contacts or my glasses. That’s not quite true, of course. I can see enough to get by if I forget to put in my contacts but I still have to do a lot of squinting, enough so that most people can take one look at me and say, “You forgot to put in your contacts, didn’t you?” In my case, my eyesight has definitely gotten even worse over the past few years. I’ve been told that’s normal but it still freaks me out. I worry about waking up one day and not being able to see anything at all.
Director Lucio Fulci, a diabetic who was slowly going blind during the final years of his life, was infamous for including scenes of eyes being either pierced or gouged out in his films. The New York Ripper even featured one scene where an eye was slit in half with a razor blade. (This occurred in a close-up, no less!) In Joe D’Amato’s Beyond the Darkness, there’s a scene where a mad taxidermist replaces the eyes of his dead fiancée with glass and for me, that’s one of most disturbing elements of the film. Horror directors understand the vulnerability of the eyes and the sadness when life is extinguished from those eyes. Eyes are said to be the windows to soul and when those eyes are lifeless, it’s a reminder that a living soul is a fleeting thing.
Perhaps that’s why 1963’s X: The Man With The X-Ray Eyes is such an effective work of art. Directed by Roger Corman, the film tells the story of Dr. James Xavier (Ray Milland), a doctor who has developed eye drops that, when taken, allow one to have x-ray vision. Dr. Xavier claims that the eye drops will allow doctors to more easily diagnose their patients and certainly, he has a point there. His friend, Dr. Sam Brant (Harold J. Stone), points out that the eyes are directly connected to the brain and that using experimental eye drops on them could potentially drive a person mad. Dr. Xavier proves Dr. Brant’s point by losing his tempter and accidentally pushing him out of a window.
Ah, x-ray vision. It all starts out fun. Dr. Xavier is performing miracle surgeries and seeing what everyone looks like naked. (The swinging jazz party scene is a classic example of how 60s B-movies teased audiences while never quite showing everything.) But once he’s forced to go on the run from the police, Xavier finds himself making a living as a carnival psychic while still trying to refine his eyedrops. Xavier’s sleazy manager (Don Rickles) tries to turn Xavier into a faith healer but, with Xavier’s x-ray vision growing more erratic and more intense, Xavier ends up running off to Vegas with a former colleague, Dr. Diane Fairfax (Diana Van der Vils).
And again, it’s all fun and games as Xavier uses his powers to cheat at cards. But then the megalomania kicks in and, after Xavier basically announces that he’s cheating, he finds himself being chased through the desert by a police helicopter and freaking out as more and more of the universe is revealed to him. Much like a Lovecraftian protagonist who has been driven mad by the sight of the Great Old Ones, Xavier finds himself overwhelmed by the center of the universe. At a tent revival, a preacher shouts, “If thine eye offends thee, pluck it out!”
The film’s final image is a shocking one and it stays with you. (There were rumors that the film originally ended with Xavier shouting, “I can still see!” but Corman himself said that never happened.) Even without that final image, this would be one of Corman’s best films, a surprisingly intelligent and rather sad story about a man who, in trying to see what is usually hidden, was driven mad by what he discovered. Ray Milland was well-cast as Dr. Xavier and watching him go from being a somewhat stiff but good-hearted scientist to a raving madman at a revival is quite an experience, a testament to the vulnerability that all humans share. In the name of science, Xavier goes from being a respected researcher to being chased through the desert by a helicopter. The man who wanted to be able to see everything finds himself wishing to be forever blinded. Sometimes, the film suggests, it’s best not to be able to see everything around us. Sometime, the mysteries of the universe should remain mysteries and the rest of us should respect our own vulnerabilities.
Have you ever woken up and thought to yourself, “I’d love to see a movie where a youngish Jack Nicholson played a French soldier who, while searching for a mysterious woman, comes across a castle that’s inhabited by both Dick Miller and Boris Karloff?”
Of course you have! Who hasn’t?
Well, fortunately, it’s YouTube to the rescue. In Roger Corman’s 1963 film The Terror, Jack Nicholson is the least believable 19th century French soldier ever. However, it’s still interesting to watch him before he became a cinematic icon. (Judging from his performance here and in Cry Baby Killer, Jack was not a natural-born actor.) Boris Karloff is, as usual, great and familiar Corman actor Dick Miller gets a much larger role than usual. Pay attention to the actress playing the mysterious woman. That’s Sandra Knight who, at the time of filming, was married to Jack Nicholson.
Reportedly, The Terror was one of those films that Corman made because he still had the sets from his much more acclaimed film version of The Raven. The script was never finished, the story was made up as filming moved alone, and no less than five directors shot different parts of this 81 minute movie. Among the directors: Roger Corman, Jack Hill, Monte Hellman, Francis Ford Coppola, and even Jack Nicholson himself! Perhaps not surprisingly, the final film is a total mess but it does have some historical value.
(In typical Corman fashion, scenes from The Terror were later used in the 1968 film, Targets.)
“Man is a feeling creature, and because of it, the greatest in the universe….”
So says scientist Paul Nelson (Peter Graves) towards the end of 1956’s It Conquered The Universe. Paul may be a scientist but he understands the importance of emotion and imagination and individuality. He knows that it’ll take more than just cold logic to save humanity from destruction.
Unfortunately, Paul’s best friend, Tom Anderson (Lee Van Cleef), disagrees. Tom worked at Los Alamos. Tom helped to develop the atomic bomb. Tom is convinced that humanity will destroy itself unless a greater power takes over. Tom feels that he has discovered that greater power. Tom has recently contacted a Venusian and invited it to come to Earth. Upon arriving, the Venusian promptly disrupts all electrical power on Earth. It sends out bat-like creatures that inject humans with a drug that takes control of their minds and turns them into a compliant slaves. Paul tells Tom that robbing people of their free will is not going to save the Earth but Tom remains committed to the Venusian, even as it becomes obvious that the Venusian’s main concern is with its own survival.
It Conquered The World is very much a film of the 1950s. Along with tapping into the era’s paranoia about nuclear war and UFOs, it also features Peter Graves delivering monologues about freedom and the inherent superiority of the human race. When Paul confronts Tom, he not only accuses Tom of selling out the Earth but he also attacks Tom’s patriotism. When Tom’s wife, Claire (Beverly Garland), confronts the alien and orders it to leave her plant along, she does it while wearing high heels and a tight sweater and holding a rifle. The one female scientist (played by Karen Kadler) spends most of her screentime being menaced while wearing a white slip and there’s a platoon of bumbling but unbrainwashed soldiers hanging out in the woods. If one looked up 1956 in the dictionary, there’s a very good chance this film would be the definition.
At the same time, the film’s story feels like a metaphor for modern times. When the Venusian-controlled police turn authoritarian and start threatening to punish anyone who questions their orders, we’re reminded of the excesses of the COVID lockdowns. When the editor of the town’s newspaper is shot by a policeman who says that words are no longer necessary in the new world, it’s hard not to think of all the writers, commentators, artists, and ordinary citizens who have run afoul the online cancellation brigade. When Paul is reduced to riding a bicycle from place to place, it’s hard not to think of the environmental Luddites, with their hatred of anything that makes life more convenient. When Tom rationalizes his activities by saying that humanity must be saved from itself, he’s expressing an opinion that is very popular among several people today. Tom’s embrace of cold logic feels very familiar. Of course, today, people don’t need a Venusian to order them to accept authoritarianism. Instead, they’re more than happy to do on their own.
It Conquered The World was directed by Roger Corman. It was his eighth film as a director and it remains one of his most entertaining. As one might expect from a low-budget sci-fi film, It Conquered The World produces it’s share of laughs. It’s hard not to smile at the sight of the extremely serious Peter Graves peddling his bicycle from location to location. (It doesn’t help that Graves never takes off his suit or loosens his tie.) And the Venusian simply has to be seen to be believed:
At the same time, It Conquered The World holds up well. Lee Van Cleef and Beverly Garland both give performances that transcend the material, with Van Cleef especially doing a good job of paying a man struggling to rationalize his bad decisions. It Conquered The World holds up today, as both a portrait of the 50s and 2024.
Through the Shattered Lens 