Tag Archives: Stanley Adams

Horror on TV: The Night Stalker (dir by John Llewelyn Moxey)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Long before he achieved holiday immortality by playing the father in A Christmas Story, Darren McGavin played journalist Carl Kolchak in the 1972 made-for-TV movie, The Night Stalker.  Kolchak is investigating a series of murders in Las Vegas, all of which involve victims being drained of their blood.  Kolchak thinks that the murderer might be a vampire.  Everyone else thinks that he’s crazy.

When this movie first aired, it was the highest rated made-for-TV movie of all time.  Eventually, it led to a weekly TV series in which Kolchak investigated various paranormal happenings.  Though the TV series did not last long, it’s still regularly cited as one of the most influential shows ever made.

The Night Stalker is an effective little vampire movie and Darren McGavin gives an entertaining performance as the rather nervous Carl Kolchak.

Enjoy!

Horror Film Review: The Norliss Tapes (dir by Dan Curtis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

1973’s The Norliss Tapes begins with a disappearance.

David Norliss (Roy Thinnes), a California-based journalist, has vanished.  Before he disappeared, he had started work on a book that would have detailed his own adventures investigating the paranormal.  Though Norliss vanishes, he leaves behind several audiotapes in which he discusses some of the frightening things that he has seen.  Searching for clue about Norliss’s disappearance, his editor, Sanford T. Evans (Don Porter), sits down and listens to the tapes.

(Incidentally, Sanford T. Evans is a wonderful name for an editor.  It’s a name that just says, “My father knew Hemingway and I went to the University of Pennsylvania as a legacy.’)

As Evans listens to each tape, we watch the story unfold from Norliss’s point of view.  In this film, we watch as Norliss investigates an incident in which Ellen Sterns Cort (Angie Dickinson) claims that she was recently attacked by her dead husband, James Cort (Nicki Dimitri).  James was an artist who, in his final days, became obsessed with the occult and fell under the influence of the Mademoiselle Jeckiel (Vonetta McGee), a mysterious woman who claimed to appreciate James’s art and who gave him a scarab ring that he insisted on being buried with.

Norliss interviews Ellen and investigates her story.  He’s far more sympathetic to the idea of James having returned from the dead than the local sheriff (Claude Akins) is.  Of course, the sheriff has problems of his own.  Dead bodies keep turning up in his county, their skin gray and their bodies drained of blood.  Hmmm …. I wonder if that could have anything to do with James Cort and his scarab ring….

The Norliss Tapes is a pretty simple film.  Norliss shows up and then basically waits around until James Cort makes an appearance.  The film only runs 72 minutes and it’s very much a pilot for a television series that never went into production,  Apparently, each episode would have featured Stanford listening to a different tape and hearing about David Norliss and a weekly guest star dealing with some sort of supernatural occurrence.  Director Dan Curtis was also responsible for the cult television series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and The Norliss Tapes feels very much like a dry run for that show.  The main difference is that Roy Thinnes’s David Norliss is nowhere near as nervous as Darren McGavin’s Carl Kolchak.

That said, the exact details for what’s going on with James Cort are almost ludicrously complicated.  It turns out that James Cort is not only trying to cheat death but he’s also helping an ancient Egyptian deity invade our world.  It’s best to ignore the nonsense about the Egyptian Gods and instead just focus on how creepy the undead James Cort is.  With his hulking frame, his gray skin, and his nearly glowing eyes, Cort is a truly frightening monster and he’s certainly the most impressive thing about this movie.  What makes Cort such an effective villain is how angry he seems to be.  Whenever he’s on screen, he’s either bursting through a door or chasing someone.  He’s pure nightmare fuel.

The Norliss Tapes never became a series but it did do well in Europe, where it was released in theaters.  The Norliss Tapes still has a cult following, not bad for a failed pilot.  Who knows what other adventures David Norliss could have had?

Horror On The Lens: The Clones (dir by Lamar Card and Paul Hunt)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Today it is science fiction, tomorrow it will be science fact….”

So declared the trailer from 1973’s The Clones.  

One of the first films to be made about cloning, this movie tells the story of Dr. Gerald Appleby (Michael Greene), who discovers that there’s another version of him living his life.  Dr. Appleby and his clone both find themselves being pursued by two government agents (Gregory Sierra and Otis Brown) and a mad scientist (Stanley Adams).

The Clones requires some patience.  It moves at its own deliberate pace and there’s quite a few scenes of Dr. Appleby running through the desert.  That said, the film builds up to wonderfully twisted conclusion and the final roller coaster shoot-out makes everything more than worth it.

Ever since I first saw this ennui-drenched film in 2012, I’ve been recommending it to people.  I’m happy to share it with you today!

 

The TSL Grindhouse: Dixie Dynamite (dir by Lee Frost)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Georgia!

Yes, the 1976 film Dixie Dynamite is supposedly set in Georgia but it’s hard not to notice that all of the hills and mountains in the background look like they’re from California.  The story features two sisters, Dixie (Jane Anne Johnston) and Patsy (Kathy McHaley), who go into the moonshine business after their father drives his car off a cliff.  Their father was the best moonshiner in the business and they aim to carry on his legacy, despite the efforts of Sheriff Marsh (Christopher George) and banker Charlie White (R.G. Armstrong).  Blowing up their stills and threatening to auction off their land isn’t going to stop these two from doing whatever it is exactly that they’re doing in this film.  Eventually, the sisters steal a bunch of dynamite and start blowing stuff up.  Normally, I’d say “Woo hoo!” but this film even makes random explosions seem as boring as the 4th of July in Canada.

Warren Oates plays Mack, a motocross champion who occasionally helps the daughter’s out.  At least, I think he’s helping them.  To be honest, it’s not always easy to tell what Mack’s purpose actually is in this story.  He tends to show up randomly, usually after all the action has ended.  He’s kind of a useless friend, to be honest.  Warren Oates brings his rough-hewn charm to the roll and you’re usually glad to see him, if just because the actresses playing the sisters are genuinely lousy, but you’re never quite sure what he’s doing there.  Watching the film, one gets the feeling that Oates just dropped by the set whenever he felt like it and filmed a scene or two.

It’s really not that crazy of a possibility.  Actor Steve McQueen makes a cameo appearance in this film, riding a motorcycle and challenging Oates.  McQueen didn’t make many films in the 70s.  Let’s consider some of the films that he turned down: The Great Gatsby, Jaws, Apocalypse Now, The Driver, The French Connection, Sorcerer, and Hard Times.  None of those films appealed to McQueen but he was still willing to show up for a day’s worth of shooting on Dixie Dynamite.  Of course, McQueen does go uncredited.

This is an odd film, full of slow spots that not even actors like Warren Oates, Christopher George, and R.G. Armstrong can make up for.  Director Lee Frost was best-known for his softcore exploitation films and Dixie Dynamite is full of odd transitions and jump cuts, leading me to suspect that the film was originally meant to be a lot more like a typical Frost film before it was decided to go in a PG-direction as well.

Perhaps the oddest part of the film is that the daughter’s final scheme to get revenge on the sheriff and the banker involves stealing two dead bodies from the local morgue.  The bodies are made up and dressed to look like Dixie and Patsy so that the sisters can fake their own death.  I can understand that and even give them credit for hatching a clever plan.  But I still find it weird that the film never really explains how the bodies were stolen or why they were in the morgue in the first place.  What are the chances that Patsy and Dixie would head down to the morgue and find two look-alikes?

The film features dynamite, Warren Oates, and corpse-stealing  but it’s still incredibly dull.  That’s just weird.

Horror on the Lens: The Night Stalker (dir by John Llewelyn Moxey)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s horror on the lens, we have a real treat!  (We’ll get to the tricks later…)

Long before he achieved holiday immortality by playing the father in A Christmas Story, Darren McGavin played journalist Carl Kolchak in the 1972 made-for-TV movie, The Night Stalker.  Kolchak is investigating a series of murders in Las Vegas, all of which involve victims being drained of their blood.  Kolchak thinks that the murderer might be a vampire.  Everyone else thinks that he’s crazy.

When this movie first aired, it was the highest rated made-for-TV movie of all time.  Eventually, it led to a weekly TV series in which Kolchak investigated various paranormal happenings.  Though the TV series did not last long, it’s still regularly cited as one of the most influential shows ever made.

The Night Stalker is an effective little vampire movie and Darren McGavin gives a great performance as Carl Kolchak.

Enjoy!

Horror on the Lens: The Norliss Tapes (dir by Dan Curtis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Norliss Tapes (1973, dir by Dan Curtis)

Today’s Horror on the Lens is The Norliss Tapes, a 1973 made-for-TV movie that was also a pilot for a television series that, unfortunately, was never put into production.

Reporter David Norliss (Roy Thinnes) has disappeared.  His friend and publisher, Stanford Evans (Don Porter), listens to the tapes that Norliss recorded before vanishing. (Stanford Evans, it must be said, is a great name for an editor.)  Each tape details yet another paranormal investigation.  (Presumably, had the series been picked up, each tape would have been a different episode.)  The first tape tells how Norliss investigated the mysterious death of an artist who apparently returned from the grave.

For a made-for-TV movie, The Norliss Tapes is pretty good.  It’s full of atmosphere and features a genuinely menaching yellow-eyed zombie monster. The film was directed by Dan Curtis, who was responsible for several made-for-TV horror films and who also created the deathless TV show, Dark Shadows. Curtis also directed a few feature films. Burnt Offerings, for instance, will be forever beloved for its scene of annoying little Lee Montgomery getting crushed by a chimney. If you ever get a chance to listen to the director’s commentary that Dan Curtis recorded for the Burnt Offerings DVD release, you must do so. Curtis comes across as the crankiest man on the planet and it’s actually kind of fascinating to listen to. His irritation when Karen Black keeps asking him if he knows the name of the actor who played the ghostly chauffeur is truly an amazing thing to here. (For the record, the actor’s name was Anthony James, he also had important supporting roles in two best picture winners — In The Heat of the Night and Unforgiven — and yes, he was one of the best things about Burnt Offerings. Karen Black knew what she was talking about.)

But back to The Norliss Tapes!

Admittedly, this is not the first Halloween in which I’ve shared The Norliss Tapes with our readers. Back in both 2015 and 2021, The Norliss Tapes was one of our “horrors on the lens.” Unfortunately, there’s only so many good quality, public domain horror films available on YouTube so, occasionally, a movie is going to show up more than once over the years. But, as long as it’s good film, who cares?

Enjoy The Norliss Tapes!

Horror on the Lens: The Night Stalker (dir by John Llewelyn Moxey)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s horror on the lens, we have a real treat!  (We’ll get to the tricks later…)

Long before he achieved holiday immortality by playing the father in A Christmas Story, Darren McGavin played journalist Carl Kolchak in the 1972 made-for-TV movie, The Night Stalker.  Kolchak is investigating a series of murders in Las Vegas, all of which involve victims being drained of their blood.  Kolchak thinks that the murderer might be a vampire.  Everyone else thinks that he’s crazy.

When this movie first aired, it was the highest rated made-for-TV movie of all time.  Eventually, it led to a weekly TV series in which Kolchak investigated various paranormal happenings.  Though the TV series did not last long, it’s still regularly cited as one of the most influential shows ever made.

Anyway, The Night Stalker is an effective little vampire movie and Darren McGavin gives a great performance as Carl Kolchak.

Enjoy!

30 More Days of Noir #7: Hell Bound (dir by William J. Hole, Jr.)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Like so many film noirs, 1957’s Hell Bound opens with a narrator.  As we watch scenes of a group of thieves robbing a Naval ship of World War II narcotics, the narrator explains to us what each criminal is doing and how their plot will hopefully lead to them getting rich.  Again, this is something we’ve seen in a countless number of film noirs.  What makes Hell Bound unique is that the narration keeps going long after one would expect it to stop.  And the expected cops and federal agents are never introduced….

That’s because we’re watching a film within a film!  Jordan (John Russell) has made and produced the film himself, all to convince a gangster named Harry Quantro (Frank Fenton) to support his plan to …. well, to rob a Naval ship of narcotics.  Jordan promises that the real-life theft will go just as smoothly as the theft in the movie!  And, it must be said, Jordan’s movie was really well-made.  He hired actors and everything.  Harry agrees to give Jordan his backing on the condition that Jordan use Harry’s girlfriend, Paula (June Blair), in the operation.  That, of course, means that Jordan won’t be able to use his own girlfriend, Jan (Margo Woode).  That’s going to be awkward.

Anyway, Jordan starts to assemble his crew and they’re the typical film noir collection of misfits.  One of the more fun things about Hell Bound is that it’s full of odd and eccentric characters, the types who would you actually expect to find trying to rob the U.S. Navy of narcotics in the 1950s.  My favorite character was the blind drug dealer named Daddy (Dehl Berti).  He has the perfect attitude for someone who had the luxury of not having to see the damage caused by his professions.

Of course, there’s no such thing as a perfect plan.  Whenever you get a bunch of criminals together to pull off the perfect heist, there’s bound to be some betrayals and some paranoia.  We’ve all seen the ending of Goodfellas and we all know what the piano coda from Layla means.  Complicating matters is that a big part of the scheme requires Paula to fake being an ambulance nurse and that means that she’s going to have to work with an honest ambulance driver named Eddie Mason (Stuart Whitman).  Eddie is a good, working class guy who just wants to help people and make the world a better place.  How can Paula go through with her part of the plan when she’s got Eddie looking at his hands and saying that he wants to use them to be a healer!?

I really liked Hell Bound.  I wasn’t expecting much from it but it turned out to be a really effective and clever 50s film noir.  Clocking in at 70 minutes, it doesn’t have any time for excess padding or anything else.  As soon as the film-within-a-film comes to an end, it jumps right into the action and it doesn’t let up.  Add to that, you’ve got John Russell giving a tough and gritty performance as the wannabe criminal mastermind and then you’ve got Stuart Whitman managing to make his self-righteous character likable and June Blair doing a great job as the femme fatal.  Hell Bound is bit of an unsung classic, a tough and gritty film noir that packs a punch.

 

Horror on TV: Kolchak: The Night Stalker 1.7 “The Devil’s Platform” (dir by Alan Baron)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight’s episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker is a fun one!

In this episode, Kolchak investigates a series of mysterious deaths that seem to involve one very ambitious politician (played by Tom Skerritt).  Kolchak’s investigation leads him to believe that not only has the politician made a deal with the devil but that the politician also has the ability to transform himself into a killer dog!

Agck!

That’s Chicago-style politics for you,  I guess.

This episode originally aired on November 15th, 1974.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC394BrBmGw

Horror on TV: Thriller 2.4 “The Weird Tailor” (dir by Herschel Daugherty)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of Thriller, we see what happens when an aspiring sorcerer (George MacReady) accidentally kills his son.  In order to brings his son back to life, he has to have a special suit made by the weird tailor of the title (played by Henry Jones).

This is one of the better episode of Thriller.  For once, the use of the word “weird” in the title is not a misnomer!  This one was written by Robert Bloch, who adapted his own short story.  It originally aired on October 16th, 1961.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO4JK90dQss