Tag Archives: 1960s

The Pit And The Pendulum (1961)

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 80min Classic horror movie about both a pit and a pendulum, directed by Roger Corman, written by Richard Matheson using a title by Edgar Allan Poe, with Vincent Price (134)

Recap

After the death of his sister, Francis Barnard visits his brother in law Nicholas Medina and is shocked by just how brazen everybody lies to him about her death. Is Nicholas truly mourning or are these just crocodile tears? He decides to stay the night, and that’s when it starts to get spooky.

This is the second movie of the so-called “Corman-Poe-Cycle”: Corman wanted to make movies with slightly higher budgets, especially with better sets, and wanted to use the fame and reputation of Edgar Allan Poe to market these films. Nerds like me were always complaining that the movies were named after Poe’s works, but never sticked to their actual plots. So I thought, yeah, well, I shall give it ⭐⭐⭐⭐, because it has Vincent Price and nice sets and in a way even the status of a classic.

Boy, was I wrong! So I shall give it ⭐⭐⭐⭐ alright, but much unlike before I shall not complain about how this is not Edgar Allan Poe. Yes, it all starts a little slow, and Vincent Price, while as enjoyable as usual, goes thoroughly over the top in a way that does not necessarily improve the movie. And no, I have no idea how horrific this horror has been back in the 60s,but for today’s standards it’s all quite tame and maybe even a little lame. So this movie may be a little old, but on the other hand I didn’t remember nor expected that such an old movie would make such clever use of surprising plot twists. I tip my hat to Richard Matheson who never was as famous as Poe but sure could spin an entertaining yarn.

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Johnny Cash In Saint Quentin (1969)

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 60min One of the most legendary concerts ever.

Recap

One of the most legendary concerts ever happened when the original Man In Black went to prison. Of course you could say that everybody can play a concert in jail as a PR stunt. But who does? Johnny Cash, that’s who. You don’t even have to be into Country & Western because he rocked, and he has had an attitude.

Of course, concert videos were not quite the fashion back then, but at least they were smart enough to record a documentary and a live album. The video of course is the original TV show and playlist 2 the live album. Playlist 1 merges the high quality album audio with the TV footage video.

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The Little Shop Of Horrors (1960)

⭐⭐⭐ 72min Classic horror comedy directed by Roger Corman with an early appearance of Jack Nicholson

Recap

Seymour is the hapless employee of a flower shop who is nursing a beautiful plant that he calls Audrey Junior after the colleague he is simping for. The shop isn’t doing so well until Audrey Junior becomes its attraction. Trouble is that that she is a carnivorous and dominant plant, bullying Seymour into being her butcher.

This is one of those horror movies that use comedy to make up for their lack of skill, budget and effort. This is not bad in itself, many okay and even good movies do this, and as usual the comedy indeed improves the quality of this one. However I watched the 1986 remake first, which had been diligently crafted by the man who had put his hand in the colon of Luke Skywalker’s jedi instructor. This remake today is a classic of timeless elegance, one of the 100 best movies ever made, so in comparison it makes the original look old, not vintage old, but geriatric.

So apart from being remade by Frank Oz, this has only two things going for it:

There is a legend that Roger Corman made this to win a bet. He had claimed that he could make a movie within only two days, and indeed it was made within two days in the studio plus some nightly outdoor shooting.

Also, in this one there is a very early appearance of a ridiculously young Jack Nicholson.

So I must say that this movie is barely okay. Especially for its historical value it is quite fit for nerds, but it just really didn’t age well.

A good way to quickly compare both movies is to compare the dentist scenes of the original with Jack Nicholson (Bonus 1) and the remake with Steve Martin and Bill Murray (Bonus 2)

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Godzilla 3: King Kong Versus Godzilla (1963)

⭐⭐⭐ 91min Monster: Godzilla, King Kong and Oodako (giant octopus)

Recap

So there is this pacific island where they use red berries to pacify their King Kong. In Japan the big money decides that the red berries will be their next killer product and that King Kong will provide the public relations. In the meantime, a godzilla iceberg melts, releasing its contents.

This is the third Godzilla movie, which means that most people call it a “Showa Era” movie even though “Showa” does not mean “rubber suit” (it means that Hirohito was the tenno back then). Of course, the newer Godzillas with the better special effects have their own charm, but for nostalgic reasons I like the old, silly ones very much.

What I watched was the american edit, which means that part of the original plot was replaced with an american newsman. Some will say that the original was too much of a comical satire on capitalism. Who knows, maybe making fun of capitalism was forbidden in America back then? Or maybe the comedy just wasn’t funny enough? I often get the impression that for the Japanese being funny is just like eating dairy: they think it’s western and exotic and they want it so badly, but they are just not good at it.

Either way, this is a silly old suitmation monster movie. I watched the american version, I enjoyed it, and I won’t be going out of my way to see the original edit.

Recommended only for people who enjoy suitmation monster movies.

(Besides, about 75min into the movie we see the original inspiration for the movie Up (2009))

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Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964)

6 yankees are the guests of honor at a southerner celebration. Directed by godfather of gore Herschell Gordon Lewis. 83min imdb

Recap:

So there are these hillbillies who use fake detour signs to lure a half dozen yankees into their town to be the guests of honor at their celebration. They are celebrating the war crimes the yankees committed 100 years ago, and the guests of honor are urged to play games like “horse race” or “barrel roll”.

Herschell Gordon Lewis was the godfather of gore because he was the businessman who had the idea that a cheaply made color movie with loads of blood would make a decent profit. This makes his first gore movie Blood Feast a historical document, but not much of a good movie. This one, however, is different. It is a cheerful celebration of violence, there is not one slasher running around, earnestly doing his chores, these are 2000 maniacs gleefully enjoying refreshments, snacks and sadism. It is this glee that in some scenes makes the violence even harder to bear while in other scenes it provides a bit of comic relief. I am glad that this trope hasn’t been overdone by now and that this movie is still fresh and enjoyable.

Movie 83min

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Santo Contra Los Zombies (1962)

Santo battles an evil scientist and his zombie henchmen. With small parts played by Black Shadow and Gory Guerrero (father of Eddie). 85min imdb

Movie 80min with captions

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Recap:

He wears a mask, he wears a cape, he drives a fancy car and he has a secret hideout with superior technology. But since he is not Batman, he wears no gloves and touches everything with bare hands, including evidence that is later examined for fingerprints.

Basically the plot is about a policewoman and a policeman who search for a missing voodoo expert, and about a mad scientist who controls a small army of zombies. But there is also this masked dude who does a whole lot of fighting in the ring, uses his batcave surveillance stuff and wrestles zombies. All in all he has not much more dialogue than Arnold Schwarzenegger in, say, Conan The Barbarian. But then, fists speak louder than words, and Santo not only dominated lucha libre for decades, he also had a movie career that Hulk Hogan or The Miz can only dream of, and his comic book outlived him for three full years.

Best of all: this movie is fun! It maybe is the best pre-Romero zombie movie I have seen by now and I am looking forward to watching more lucha libre movies.

The Brides Of Dracula (1960)

Vampire lord count Meinster hypnotises a young teacher and invades the school she’s teaching at. With Peter Cushing. 85min imdb

Movie 103min

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Recap:

So there is this young teacher on her way to a boarding school for girls, and she meets poor count Meistner who is chained by his evil mother. She frees him, and now the count who is indeed a vampire has access to a hypnotised teacher and an entire girl school. Good thing that van Helsing is on his way.

No Dracula in this one, no Christopher Lee, a quite nice movie for everybody who loves vampires, Hammer or Peter Cushing, but absolutely nothing special. Especially since the only version I found is of not so good quality, image wise.

The Incredibly Strange Creatures (1964)

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies.

Three young people visit the carnival where an evil voodoo lady is looking for new zombie material. Directed by Ray Dennis Stecker. 82min imdb

Movie 80min

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Recap:

The story mostly consists of an endless stream of song and dance acts. As intermissions, we see two young man and a young woman visiting the carnival. Eventually one of them is hypnotised by a voodoo lady and becomes a mixed-upzombie, committing murders at her command.


This movie is quite notorious, so I guess sooner or later I had to see it. Well, I’m glad it’s over. Many people say that this is a fascinating movie, like they just can’t believe how bad it is. Well I don’t have to believe it, I have seen it with my own eyes. What I haven’t seen though is why this is supposed to be so-bad-that-it’s-good. I guess some people appreciate Steckler’s recklessness to just grab a camera and go for it. And yes, I understand people who want to make movies so badly that they just make them, even if they don’t have a budget or a story or a clue. However, in this case I cannot enjoy the result, because nothing really happens. There’s nothing really interesting or entertaining about it. Even when there is the zombie action it’s just too little, too late.

Rat Pfink A Boo Boo (1966)

67min

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Hybrid film that starts as a thriller and then becomes the poor man’s Batman TV show.

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Review:

First half of the movie: a woman is stalked and threatened by three thugs. Her boyfriend sings a song. When she is kidnapped, her gardener is hit with a hammer. Her boyfriend sings another song. Then boyfriend and gardener hide in the closet.

Second half of the movie: boyfriend and gardener come out of the closet, dressed up as the crime fighters Rat Pfink and Boo Boo.

On imdb you will find many reviews that pretend that this is one of the best movies ever, but that’s just not true. Indeed this movie is done with love and dedication, it’s true that this movie is better than, say, Fantastic Four 2 or Superman 4 or Spiderman 5, but then, most movies are, and in the end director Ray Dennis Steckler is not very much better than Edward D. Wood. This movie is fun to watch, it’s refreshingly original, and it’s so much better than those movies that are just made for the money, but…..

Well, it’s just not a good movie. It’s two halfmovies that don’t fit together really well. I tried to give it 4* but it didn’t feel right.

By the way: it’s true that this won a Golden Turkey Award, but the category was only Worst Title Of All Time. And before you ask: I’ve read a trivia that claimed that the N and the D were lost in animation.

⭐⭐⭐

John Cleese On How To Irritate People (1968)

68min

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A pre-python TV show with John Cleese

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Review:

This is an evening TV show with John Cleese, a nice assortment of sketches. It’s funny, yes, but when half of the Monty Python crew is gathered, we are used to a little more than just “it’s funny, yes” (you are not? Well I am, spoiled little brat that I am). All in all it’s a good but rather conventional 70s TV show. But hey, this is from 1968, so who knows, maybe they were ahead of their time then already? Anyways, I list and link it here because you know what we fanboys are like. What if this was some lost media stuff where Cleese, Booth, Palin and Chapman are doing these TV sketches long before the Flying Circus? I sure would die to see it. So I think it’s better that is NOT lost. Gentlepeople, I present you what may not be the greatest show in the world, but I guarantee you that it’s a highly interesting historical document and about 100 times funnier than anything that Adam Sandler or Kevin James could ever come up with.

⭐⭐⭐

Mission Stardust (1967)

95min

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Italian trash flick that both started and ended the movie career of Perry Rhodan.

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Review:

Perry Rhodan is the first man on the moon, well, the first human anyway. Because shortly after touchdown he discovers a shipwrecked spaceship of the Arkonides. Those are the rulers of a huge interstellar empire, their technology is advanced beyond human imagination, yet they have become so lame and lazy that they don’t even think of fixing their ship or even cure the cancer of their commander Crest. Rhodan thinks that it might be a good thing if the aliens owed him one, so he offers to take Crest to an African oncologist. Together with Thora, a hot tempered alien Amazon, they use an arkonide shuttle to land in Africa, where soon African army and a gang of gangsters are after the extraterrestrial technology.

Well, that’s the story of the movie, anyway. In the original story, Rhodan landed the shuttle in the desert Gobi and had a hard time preventing world War 3 when China, America and Russia tried to have the alien technology all for themselves. Trouble was that in 1967 nobody even thought of big budget space operas, so the plot was downsized to what the budget would permit, and it showed. The owners of the franchise never sold any movie rights ever again.


Oh well, the movie sure doesn’t do any justice to the biggest science fiction franchise ever, but in comparison to other space flicks of that Era it isn’t even too shabby. Yes, I’ll say that it’s entertaining in its own way.

⭐⭐⭐

And just for the hell of it: a Playlist with a selection of official and inofficial Perry Rhodan Music.

Spider Baby (1967)

81min

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Classic Thriller about an insane family with Lon Chaney Jr.

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Review:

After the father of a family died, his driver took care of the rest of the family. All members of this family were born with a genetic anomaly that, as soon as they hit puberty, caused their mental and physical degeneration. Now that the father is dead, soon distant (and sane) relatives arrive and bring a lawyer and his assistant to grab whatever they can. The situation escalates quite quickly.

“The maddest story ever told” they claim in the opening credits, and in 1967 this may very well have been true. This movie is indeed quite insane and aged very well. Today it is a classic that just doesn’t get enough love and attention.

Talking about love: I love the part when the lawyer’s assistant talks to Lon Chaney Jr. about movie monsters with special emphasis on the Wolfman. Take a bow, Mister Chaney.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Blood Feast (1963)

67min

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A caterer collects body parts for a Egyptian-style cannibal feast. First gore movie ever, directed by the notorious Herschell Gordon Lewis.

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So there is this woman who wants to organize a party for her daughter, and the caterer promises her an Egyptian dinner that hasn’t been cooked for thousands of years. Trouble is that the caterer is a lunatic serial killer and cannibal who wants to celebrate a mass for the Egyptian goddess Ishtar.

The story is stupid, the actors are terrible, and the blood, well, the blood. They shot this movie in color to show the blood, but the red paint that they used looks so totally fake, like, hey, don’t worry, it’s not real, it’s just a movie.

However, you can and maybe should watch this, because this flick by Herschell Gordon Lewis is said to be the first slasher movie ever, so at the very least this is a historic document.

⭐⭐⭐

Manos: The Hands Of Fate (1966)

70min

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The story of a cultist with handprints on his cloak. Contender for the worst movie ever.

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Review:

A family on a road trip takes a wrong turn and ends up in the house of a weirdo with handprints on his cloak and his creepy servant. The master’s hobby is to magically enslave women and the servant is kind of jealous because he gets no woman for himself.

This is one of the worst movies ever, and the good thing in comparison to Plan 9 From Outer Space is that it’s in color. On the other hand, the latter at least had some (sort of) celebs in it.

Watching bad movies can be fun, but watching this one is more of a dare or punishment.

⭐

The Batwoman (1968)

The Batwoman: La Mujer Murcielago (1968) 80min Spanish sound with English subtitles VPN:D ⭐⭐⭐

A mad scientist wants to conquer the world with the help of fishmen. To create a prototype, he abducts and kills luchadores, because they are the best source material for the creation of fishmen. Batwoman investigates.


Needless to say, this movie is NOT canon, it’s a cheap Mexican exploitation flick and it’s fun to watch unless you hate both superheroes AND trash movies. Of course this Batwoman is not as hot as Ruby Rose, but at least this movie is ENTERTAINING!

Ogon Batto: The Golden Bat (1966)

Ogon Batto: The Golden Bat (1966) 73min Japanese sound with English subtitles VPN:D ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Evil aliens want to dump an asteroid on planet earth. However earth scientists manage to resurrect Ogon Batto, a superhero from ancient Atlantis.

Japanese 1950/60s SF entertainment for children, that’s nothing new you might say. However, this movie is made well (not worse than similar movies) and I happen to like superheroes. And this superhero is a really special one because he made his first appearance in 1931, yessir, that’s 7 years before Siegel&Shuster equipped Nietzsche’s Superman with spandex and a cape.

I’ll say this is a “should see” because if you (as a normal person) miss this movie, well, that’s your problem, not mine. If, however, you (as a supernerd) watch it, you’re in for a treat.

Night Of The Living Dead (1968)

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 96min First modern zombie movie, by George R. Romero

Recap

Famous last words: “They’re coming for you, Barbara.” says Johnny before he gets killed by the first modern zombie ever seen on the screen. Barbara escapes and hides in a seemingly empty house, but she is in a state of shock and of not much use, so the rest of the story focuses more on Ben, another survivor who actually has what it takes to deal with the apocalypse at hand.

This is of course not the first zombie movie ever, that was White Zombie, but this is the first modern zombie movie, with zombies that are not voodolated, but with living dead who feast on human flesh and turn their victims into more zombies. So I guess I must give this movie full score for being not only extremely well done and entertaining but also an important historical document.

Ach, and before I forget: do you remember how some people complained about fast zombies in later movies like Zack Snyder’s remake of Dawn Of The Dead? Well, about 8min into the movie we see the very first modern zombie moving quite swiftly. Just saying.

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