Finding Something New to Say About “Attack of the 50 Foot Woman”

The original Attack of the 50 Foot Woman from 1958 was one of my “gateway drugs” into low-budget cinema, so I’ll be scraping it again to find something interesting to say about it for this upcoming blogathon. Stay tuned!

Movie Poster Collection: Eva Bartok Melodramas!

This fetching young woman is the late Hungarian actress, Eva Bartok (1927-98), who had a 16-year career in front of the camera between 1950-66. We saw her last in Spaceways (1953). Bartok may have had a child by way of Frank Sinatra from an affair in 1956, but other than that bit of gossip, she’s more-or-less forgotten

Movie Poster Collection: The Sci-Fi of Willie Wilder

Wilhelm (“Willie”) Wilder, who lived from 1904-82, was an interesting director mainly known for his eight film noirs and for being the estranged, older brother of Billy Wilder. Willie also left an interesting sci-fi legacy which I’ve tried to capture the outlines of here. We first bumped into his Phantom From Space when we looked at

Movie Poster Collection: Jackie Coogan Flicks

In our last poster collection we ran into Jackie Coogan in Mesa of Lost Women (1953); here are several of his other films. Best known as “Uncle Fester” from the original Addams Family sit-com (1964-66), he was, however, on film from 1919 to 1984, after being discovered by Charlie Chaplin himself when Coogan was just 5 years old.

Varan the Unbelievable’s Unbelievable US Edit

Having just watched the 1958 kaiju film Varan the Unbelievable, and then listening straight away to the gang at the KaijuCast  podcast discuss this film at length brought me face-to-face with my pet peeve about this genre: US editions that rewrite the film from whole cloth. In this case, it was clear that the Japanese edition of

10 Awesome Drive-In Movies

Originally posted on Anti-Film School:
Today, a little over three hundred drive-in movie theaters remain sprinkled throughout the United States. This means that many Americans are not lucky enough to have a drive-in movie theater close by their home. In the drive-in’s heyday, small production companies would release B-movies tailor-made for the drive-in audience. There…

Frankenstein’s Daughter (1958)

The Flesh Eaters: Hittin’ the Lovin’ Spot for 50 Years

After Cinema Catharsis mentioned The Flesh Eaters (1964) as an October 2013 quick pick, I knew I had to check it out.  It’s a nice early period gore flick that stands the test of time as a decent thriller.  Originally released in 1964, even though it was made in 1960-61, it was one of the follow-ups to

Films I’ve Seen Lately #2

This time around, I thought I’d just keep track of everything I’m watching over the past month or so.  No rhyme or reason, as usual–just stuff I run across on YouTube, Netflix, my cable on-demand service, and stuff I see refs to in Twitter and elsewhere. Christine (1983) Fun flick from John Carpenter adapting a

Celebrating The Blob and Its Festival

Another post, and another blogathon entry! This time, for some standup folks ambitiously soliciting comments on the Turner Classic Movies summer line-up.  I have the privilege of offering a little something on one of my all time favorite sci-fi films of the 1950s, The Blob:  “Starring Steve McQueen and a cast of exciting young people! [that we cannot