Brazen adulterers, punished with hellfire

Partway through both of the films at hand, we get characters who commit flagrant, unrepentant infidelity. They don't just cheat, they do so without a hint of remorse, and right in front of their heartbroken spouses. Then at the end, these adulterers are cast into the fires of hell...or at least a reasonably close approximation thereof.

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This is Not a Test

Grade: D+

It's tempting to remember This is Not a Test as being a better movie than it really is. Certainly, it's ahead of its time in a few ways -- for starters, in depicting a nuclear war as unwinnable madness. Add to that its portrayal of authority figures as clueless and stupidly dictatorial, and its intense, thoroughly downbeat ending, and you've got a film that, by the standards of the day, is surprisingly frank and grim.

But let's be honest with ourselves: most of this movie was a real uphill slog, poorly paced and scripted, and not especially well-acted. For instance, while it made sense for the Deputy Sheriff to be a dumb galoot, Seamon Glass makes him such an insufferable, heavy-handed dolt that most of his scenes were almost unendurably annoying to sit through. The hipster character's sub-beatnik patter was embarrassing, the psycho killer was totally tacked-on, and really, none of the characters were engaging enough to care much about.

There are some loopy moments that help to liven things up. Chief among them are two (TWO!) distinct scenes with totally bizarre, unexpected animal killings; the second one makes some kind of sense, but the first one comes completely out of left field, and may be unfeigned à la Pink Flamingos. Still, despite its ambitions (and potential), This is Not a Test just isn't executed well enough to deliver on them.

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The Manster

Grade: C

If it hadn't lost steam so completely at the end, The Manster would easily have been among the most enjoyable movies we've seen so far in this 250-pack. It's tautly paced, tightly constructed, and (contrary to some reports) mostly well-acted.

Peter Dyneley is thoroughly engaging as reporter Larry Stanford, who begins the movie planning to return home from a long-term assignment in Japan. Stanford starts out as a genteel and loving husband, and turns into a belligerent, hard-drinking boor who cheats on his spouse (played rather twitchily by Jane Hylton, who was also Dyneley's wife offscreen).

Dyneley does a better job of capturing a drunk's slurred diction, without overdoing it, than any other actor P. can recall. (Maybe he just got hammered on gimlets right before the scene.) He also has the prematurely aged face of an alcoholic: we laughed when his character claimed to be thirty-five, but afterward we were astonished to read that Dyneley himself was only a few years older than that -- we'd thought him close to fifty, at least. (Same thing with his wife, actually.)

Like This is Not a Test, one of The Manster's strongest assets is its candor; the movie deals with infidelity, murder, prostitution, alcohol abuse, and other dark themes in a refreshingly straightforward way, at least by 1959 standards. Sure, there are some clunkers in the script, but unlike so many of its companions on this box set, the film has real momentum, thanks in large part to good directorial technique. (Another reviewer saw The Manster as an allegory for alcoholism, which is an interesting idea.)

Too bad it all falls apart at the end. After an hour or so of psychological drama, the film degenerates into your standard monster-movie fare: a pointless chase sequence that lasts ten minutes or so, followed by an unsatisfying climax, and capped with a hilariously stupid closing speech. Ah, well, it was fun while it lasted.