This fine ensemble western, based on Akira Kurosawa’s Shichinin no samurai (Seven Samurai), relates how the titular group of adventurers and guns for hire are employed to defend a much-abused Mexican village from the depredations of an outlaw band. Yul Brynner as Chris, aided by Steve McQueen as Vin, recruits the team, including slick, knife-wielding …
Read the full post →“<em>The Magnificent Seven</em> (UA, 1960)”
Aliens threaten Earth, and it’s up to a group of scientists and the revivified skull-headed Golden Bat to fend them off. The titular superhero got his start in a kamishibai (paper theater) back in 1931, and this kiddie-oriented movie (also known as The Golden Bat) delivers the goods in terms of action and effects, even …
Regina Torné stars as Marlene, a woman who turns to scientist Dr. Favel (John Carradine) when her husband suffers a heart attack. The mad doctor promises he can save her husband, but only via an experimental treatment, one that has dire side effects for Marlene. She then must take to killing in order to obtain …
Lucio (Vittorio Gassman) and Riccardo (Adolfo Celi) visit a ski resort with their wives but devise a plan to shunt them away so they can try their luck with the snow bunnies they’re seeing all around. Unfortunately for Lucio, his efforts to woo a blonde he has seen (Beba Loncar) get him mixed up with …
This science fiction-comedy stars Jim Varney, initially as his character Ernest P. Worrell, but then as the evil mad scientist Dr. Otto, as well as an assortment of other characters across a variety of places and times, as hero Lance Sterling (Myke R. Mueller) and his much-smarter assistant Doris (Jackie Welch) attempt to foil the …
Read the full post →“<em>Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam</em> (1985)”
Tom Barton (Tom Tyler) searches for his missing brother, a marshal who has been replaced by a fake, and helps the young woman (Carol Wyndham) whose family stage line is the target of crooks who may be responsible for his brother’s disappearance. As usual, Tyler is an engaging hero, and there are some reliable performers …
Max Terhune steps in as Lullaby in this, the second of the long-running series of Three Mesquiteers movies at Republic, and his character is soon joined by ventriloquist’s dummy Elmer, a fixture in Terhune’s performances both in this series and others, whom Lullaby wins in this film by beating a carny at three-card monte. The …
Read the full post →“<em>Ghost-Town Gold</em> (Republic, 1936)”
Three guys who sneak aboard a yacht end up traveling with a criminal on the run and shipwrecked on a remote island after the vessel is attacked by a giant crustacean. One young man is searching for his brother, and the presence of crooks on the island, as well as Godzilla asleep in a cave, …
Read the full post →“<em>Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster</em> (1966)”
A man is murdered aboard a train carrying an assortment of refugees and suspicious characters as it heads to Shanghai, after Nazi agents have evinced an interest in securing a map that the victim has stolen, one that shows important military facilities. Major Vinpore (J. Edward Bromberg) investigates, while two long-separated folks (Kent Taylor and …
Read the full post →“<em>Halfway to Shanghai</em> (Universal, 1942)”
