Shitty Movie Sundays: The Amazing Transparent Man

The Amazing Transparent Man movie poster58 minutes! Are you kidding me? We here at Missile Test enjoy filmmakers who show brevity in their storytelling, but a 58-minute running time is a little bit extreme. Perhaps director Edgar G. Ulmer should be praised. After all, most shitty movie directors of the era would have just thrown in stock footage or long establishing shots to pad the running time. But not Ulmer. His film is so Spartan that viewers will even notice some scenes with dialogue were trimmed. I applaud Mr. Ulmer for trying not to waste anyone’s time, but still…58 minutes!

Released in 1960, The Amazing Transparent Man is a bizarre combination of film noir and science fiction. The film follows Joey Faust (Douglas Kennedy), a career bank robber who is serving a long stretch in a penitentiary. As the film opens, we see Faust escape from prison, aided in his escape by Laura Matson (Marguerite Chapman). Faust doesn’t know why the escape was arranged, only that he’s being taken to a home in the countryside. Continue readingShitty Movie Sundays: The Amazing Transparent Man”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Detour

What viewers have with Detour, the 1945 flick from screenwriter Martin Goldsmith (adapting his own novel) and director Edgar G. Ulmer, is drive-in schlock disguised as film noir.

Tom Neal plays Al Roberts, a nightclub piano player in New York City. He’s in a relationship with singer Sue Harvey (Claudia Drake). She gets bitten by the California bug and leaves New York to try and make it big in Los Angeles. Not long after, Al, penniless and unhappy with playing in clubs, decides to hitchhike across the country to join his love in sunny LA. Continue readingShitty Movie Sundays: Detour”