I am shocked by this movie. Shocked, I tell you. Bewildered. Astonished. Flabbergasted. Not because Attack of the Puppet People is a great film. Oh, no. My surprise comes from the fact that despite this being a film from Samuel Z. Arkoff’s gristmill, American International Pictures, and despite it being produced and directed by shitty movie auteur Bert I. Gordon, this film does not suck. It’s low-rent, to be sure, and there are more than a few amateurish moments scattered throughout, but this flick is at least as good as contemporary television sci-fi. Continue reading “It Came from the ’50s: Attack of the Puppet People”
Some of Those Responsible: John Agar
It Came from the ’50s: Revenge of the Creature
The folks at Universal Pictures must have been surprised when their 1954 schlock monster flick, Creature from the Black Lagoon, turned out to not only be good, but also a moneymaker. Turnaround was quicker back then, so just a year later producer William Alland and director Jack Arnold were able to premiere a sequel.
From a screenplay by Martin Berkeley, Revenge of the Creature follows another scientific expedition to the black lagoon. Nestor Paiva returns as Captain Lucas, the skipper of the boat the team takes. This sequence is brief. The creature is captured quickly and taken to the Ocean Harbor Oceanarium in Florida, to live out the rest of its days as the star attraction.
Meanwhile, Professor Clete Ferguson (John Agar), learns of the creature’s capture and makes his way to the oceanarium to study it. There, he takes on an ichthyology student, Helen Dobson (Lori Nelson), as his assistant. The two also provide the film’s requisite romance.
Ferguson wants to find out if the creature is intelligent. The experiments require diving into the tank where the creature is held. It’s risky work, but that’s good for the viewer. Because, beyond what I’ve already described, there is no other plot. The creature is caught and being studied, and both filmmakers and audience are waiting around for something to happen. Continue reading “It Came from the ’50s: Revenge of the Creature”
Giant Monstershow: Tarantula
For a giant monster flick, there isn’t a whole lot of giant monster in 1955’s Tarantula, the film from director Jack Arnold and screenwriters Robert M. Fresco and Martin Berkeley. An adaptation of a Fresco teleplay for Science Fiction Theatre, the main action in the original plot surrounded the efforts of scientists to develop a synthetic nutrient. Not happy with the progress of the experiments, the scientists tested the nutrient on themselves, with horrific results. I’m not sure of the process involved, but at some point in the mid-1950s, someone involved in the production thought, “Hey, what if we took that TV episode we made a couple of months back, and added a giant tarantula?” Continue reading “Giant Monstershow: Tarantula”