Trading in that one-way ticket for a round trip

As these movies prove, it's one thing to go on a journey to a strange land -- but finding your way back can be quite a different matter.

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The Lost City (Parts 1 & 2)

Objective grade: D-
Camp value bonus: B-

This feature version of The Lost City (1935) was specifically edited for Mill Creek for inclusion on the Nightmare Worlds box set. They were apparently expecting a typical 70-80 minute serial reduction, and in fact, there were already several existing feature versions around, all of them two hours or less. But thanks to a miscommunication, the film editor instead assembled this 204-minute epic, which includes just about all of the content in the serial's 12 chapters, minus the chapter titles (except for Chapter 1) and recaps.

So what we have here is a very rare bird indeed: not just original editing/authoring work from Mill Creek, which is unusual enough to begin with, but something that literally isn't available anywhere else. Kinda cool. (Note that the division into halves is totally arbitrary; I suspect Mill Creek just needed to be able to count it as two movies for purposes of their "50 movie box".)

As for the film itself, what can we say, really? It's slapdash in every conceivable way; they literally wrote the script as they went along, and the production and acting are thoroughly half-assed. The villain is amazingly, hilariously useless throughout the second half of the movie, quite literally "phoning it in" -- apparently because the actor was thoroughly drunk (he died shortly after filming) and basically got written out of the script.

But the notoriety attached to The Lost City mostly has to do with its racial politics, which really have to be seen to be believed. The simplest way to describe it is that all the black characters are either: (a) seven-foot zombies in Afro wigs; (b) scrambling, subservient, superstitious savages; or, (c) part of a tribe of spider-worshipping white midgets (I kid you not), thanks to a magic serum that transforms the natives from black to white.

Given all this, The Lost City should be approached with caution, but I suspect most people will find it too ludicrous and over-the-top to be genuinely offensive. There are some dull stretches, and at 3 1/2 hours it's probably best watched over two nights (as we did), but if you're not too put off by its treatment of race, it's a genuine camp classic.

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Rocky Jones, Space Ranger: Menace From Outer Space

Objective grade: C-
Camp value bonus: C+

Edited together from three episodes of the 1950's Rocky Jones TV show, this good-natured space opera has lots of gee-whiz charm, some decent visual effects, and not much else, really. Invented slang and neologisms abound ("Super-stellar!" is a popular one), as do plenty of inadvertent double-entendres, starting with the trick Rocky uses to defeat his first adversary.

Rocky's various cohorts are mostly stock characters, cardboard cutouts in performances that range from hilarious to grating; as so often happens, the only one who shows a hint of having real acting chops also turns out to be the one who met a scandalous and untimely end. So it goes.

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Maciste In Hell (1925)

Grade: B+

We won't say much about this one, except to note that P. had heard good things about this infernal saga, and it lived up to the hype. Maciste all'inferno was allegedly the inspiration for Fellini's directorial career, and you can certainly see why would've blown a young moviegoer's mind; visually, it's quite spectacular, full of eye-popping set pieces and special effects.

The version on this set clocks in at 60-odd minutes long, and was taken from a Grapevine Video release (it even has their logo on a couple of the intertitles). The score, meanwhile, was a loose assembly of classical pieces, including the opening movement of Schubert's "Unfinished", that exactly duplicated the pieces used on The Lost World; since it's generally much more appropriate here, we're guessing that it was probably initially put together for Maciste...but maybe it was just serendipitous coincidence and we're just gettin' all Dark Side and Oz on you, man.

There's apparently an uncut version out there somewhere that's about a half-hour longer, but hasn't been released on commercial DVD, and only circulates between traders. We'll reserve final judgment until we see that version, and/or a copy with a proper musical score.