4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films is just what it says it is, 4 (or more) shots from 4 (or more) of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films lets the visuals do the talking.
Today would have been the 100th birthday of the legendary filmmaker, Roger Corman! And that means that it’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Roger Corman Films
Not Of This Earth (1957, dir by Roger Corman, DP; John J. Mescall)
House of Usher (1960, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Floyd Crosby)
The Masque of the Red Death (1964, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Nicolas Roeg)
The Trip (1967, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Archie Dalzell)
Today would have been Peter Graves’s birthday. Here he is, delivering one of the greatest monologues ever written, in Roger Corman’s It Conquered The World:
Today would have been Peter Fonda’s 86th birthday.
This scene is from Roger Corman’s 1967 film, The Trip. Corman dropped acid himself before filming Peter Fonda doing the same thing in this film. Regardless of how one views Corman’s cinematic recreation of Fonda’s experience with acid, The Trip is considered to be one of the first nuanced drug films. While it doesn’t endorse drug use, it also doesn’t descend into the hysterics of a film like Reefer Madness. Interestingly enough, the script was written by Jack Nicholson.
Here is Peter Fonda, exploring the city on LSD, in The Trip:
Today’s scene that I love is from the 1961 Roger Corman-directed Edgar Allan Poe adaptation, The Pit and The Pendulum!
Not only is that pendulum nightmarish as Hell but check out that set design! One can see that Corman definitely took some inspiration from the work being done in the UK by Hammer. Watching this scene, it is easy to see why Corman devoted so much of the early 60s to directing Vincent Price in various Edgar Allan Poe adaptations.
4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films is just what it says it is, 4 (or more) shots from 4 (or more) of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films lets the visuals do the talking.
217 years ago today, Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts. From his humble beginnings as the son of two struggling actors, Poe would go on to become one of the first great American writers. (It’s been said that, when Charles Dickens first traveled to the United States in 1842, he specifically wanted to meet Edgar Allan Poe. Unfortunately, it appears that popular story my not be true but it’s still a good story.) Poe was controversial in life and even his death generated more questions than answers but no one can deny his strength as a poet and as a prose writer. Both the detective and the horror genres owe a huge debt to Edgar Allan Poe.
Today, in honor of Edgar Allan Poe’s legacy, TSL presents 4 shots from 4 films that were inspired by the work of Edgar Allan Poe!
4 Shots From 4 Films
House of Usher (1960, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Floyd Crosby)
Pit and the Pendulum (1961, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Floyd Crosby)
The Raven (1963, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Floyd Crosby)
The Masque of the Red Death (1964, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Nicolas Roeg)
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, for #ScarySocial, I will be hosting 1957’s Attack of the Crab Monsters!
If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag! The film is available on Prime and Tubi! I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy!
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking.
Are we alone in the universe? To help us consider that question, here are….
4 Shots From 4 Films
The War of the Worlds (1953, dir by Byron Haskins)
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.)
