Study abroad

In these films the hero has a long way to go (such a long way to go). Heck, he even uses air currents to get there.

However -- unlike Christopher Cross's beloved anthem -- he "rides like the wind" not to ditch the girl and "be free again", but to win her heart and loins.

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The Lost Jungle (1934)

Grade: D+

Now this was a weird one -- though once we discovered The Lost Jungle was actually an edited serial, things made a whole lot more sense. Even before we got into the thick of it, we knew something was up, as not every day does an animal troupe share top billing:

Yes, The Lost Jungle is an entry in that niche genre, "animal trainer as action hero". Have we seen more of these in the box? It feels like we must have, but 220+ movies later it's hard to be sure.

We don't know too much about Clyde Beatty, whose act seems to have become the template for all lion tamers and big cat performers. (He didn't originate the whole chair-as-defensive-weapon thing, but it became indelibly associated with him.)

Onscreen he's portrayed as a decent sort by the standards of the time. For one, he's a fervent supporter of animal welfare, willing to use fisticuffs against anyone who brutalizes his performers -- as we learn right away: when evil trainer Sharkey (Warner Richmond) brandishes a 2x4 and tells a tiger "Don't you start with me or I'll knock every tooth out of your head!", Beatty reminds him of the categorical imperative.

Beatty gets close-up shots, White Zombie-style, to signify the mesmeric power (animal magnetism?) that lurks in his eyes...



...though these days, it draws more attention to his hairstyle, whose meaning as a signifier has seen some changes in the last 85 years or so, from "manly man" (we guess) to "skate punk" to "Tom Villard". At least it keeps this jolly good Obergefella from being another IWGIH.

Of course you can't dedicate an entire feature, let alone a serial, to animal training and haircuts -- not even if you throw in a gang of gee-whiz kids ready to applaud Beatty's every move. Not even if one of them is Mickey Rooney!

So soon enough we get the MacGuffin, in the form of Beatty's girlfriend Ruth (Cecilia Parker). The two of them clearly love each other, no doubt bonding over their shared admiration for comically wide men's belts.

Even so Ruth, despairing of his obsession with the animals and failure to propose, decides to go on an expedition to the "South Seas" with her father (Edward LeSaint), a sea captain, and Professor Livingston (Crauford Kent). This expedition is in search of Kamor, a lost island that's allegedly the "real cradle of civilization" -- and the Professor will know it's the right place when he finds, we kid you not, "an island bearing the fauna of both Africa and Asia".

In other words: lions and tigers, in the same place. How conve-e-e-enient, as the Church Lady would say. That ol' lampshade got a real workout back then.

Back in the States, a heartbroken Clyde throws his all into a new, high-risk act that adds Ursidae to the mix. This gets his publicist pal Larry (Syd Saylor) a bit twitchy --

-- but despite Sharkey's meddling, things work out: this is a family film, after all, and could hardly bear a grisly ending for Clyde.

Condensing 12 chapters and four hours of footage into a single feature film isn't an easy task, and truth be told, the editors did a pretty good job of it. But there are inevitably weird corners in the narrative, threads that get dropped abruptly, and set-pieces that seem to have had a disproportionate amount of attention lavished upon them --

-- like Clyde's journey by dirigible in search of Ruth et al., who by this point have disappeared. Needle in a haystack, sure: but you'll never believe where he crash-lands!

Ultimately everything in The Lost Jungle is a pretext for Beatty's big-cat routines -- though apparently a couple chapters involved gorillas in some way, and we're not sorry to see those get left on the cutting-room floor.

While it doesn't end up making much sense, and the film suffers from a certain lack of charisma across the board, it has more than enough content to keep us from groaning too much as we watched.

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Colossus and the Amazon Queen (1960)
[aka La regina delle Amazzoni]

Grade: D-

Oh, great, just what the world needed: a "funny" peplum. Right from the start, the soundtrack makes it clear that something is askew in this one. A fumbled fanfare in the opening scene sets the tone:

Next comes a massive stadium fight, set to a hyperactive big-band jazz accompaniment, wherein Glaucus (Ed Fury) emerges as the last man standing.

Alas, his victory doesn't last, as his friend Pirro (Rod Taylor) sells him out to a couple visiting merchants. They offer to pay handsomely if he can convince Glaucus to join them aboard their ship full of strong men -- a task Pirro accomplishes by clocking him on the head (we guess, since it's not shown) in the aftermath of a massive, chicken-related bar fight.

Once Glaucus regains consciousness, he raises hell again, before Pirro sabotages the boat to convince him to calm down and go with the flow. Along the way Glaucus meets Sofo, the Egyptian, with whom he hits it off -- though Sofo clearly knows something he doesn't.

When the ship lands, the men's mission is revealed: to guard a huge cache of treasure against pirates, in exchange for a share of said treasure (allegedly obtained from natives ignorant of the value of gold). First, though, let's have some food and wine!

MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Derring-Do) would approve of this message, frequently seen in peplum: it never goes well when Hercules or his progeny get into the wine. And when a squadron of armed warriors arrives, things are looking grim for the unconscious big guy.

For these first fifteen minutes, Colossus and the Amazon Queen seems like a typical peplum at heart. Sure, the gods are absent and the tone is pointedly lighthearted (how could it not be with tubas and xylophones on the soundtrack?).

Still, we expected the usual fare -- even after the arrival of that most unwelcome of filmic abominations, an overdubbed talking parrot, who chides Glaucus as he wakes from his stupor: "Shameful! Athletes taking dope these days!"



Instead, though, we get a tired role-reversal sex comedy, as Glaucus et al. find themselves in the clutches of the Amazons, a society where women are warriors and men are worriers. Do you like tall skinny dudes in drag, chirping in effete voices about how they "just can't understand [why] I never seem to get my wash as dazzling as yours"? Does that prospect make you laugh your sides out? If so, this is the film for you.

For the rest of us, Colossus and the Amazon Queen doesn't really have a reason to exist. It's certain to offend some, and won't amuse the others, so who's left? People who like to watch sexually frustrated queens lounge around and drink wine? We suppose it's cheaper than doing the same thing at a Caribbean resort.

And now, since you're not depressed enough, have a screenshot of a couple of starved-looking bears tied up outside a cave. Score one for Mr. Beatty, who would never tolerate this.

But hey, at least the parrot almost gets it. Almost.

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Laser Mission (1989)

Grade: C-

OK, first of all, check out this title card, which couldn't be more of its time if it tried. We only wish we could show you the way it "lasers" onto the screen.

Setting aside the question of how the hell a film from 1989 ended up on a Mill Creek set -- is it licensed? Public domain? Was it even possible to screw up your copyright in 1989? -- the first thing that caught our eye about Laser Mission was the presence of Brandon Lee.

Thanks to some combination of half-remembered advertising for The Crow and a couple viewings of his father's films, we had the impression Brandon was some sort of 1990s emo kid, perennially brooding and fey, like Edward Scissorhands meets Robert Smith meets that international student who dresses like an anime character.

Well, not exactly:

There is a dash of Depp in there, sure, as well as his father who (how did we not know this?) had a significant amount of European ancestry. But we were reminded above all of the strong-jawed presence of Evil Dead star Bruce Campbell -- maybe with a dash of Hwil Hweaton in there too, especially around the eyes (and certain line readings). Plus, of course, dude is jacked.

Laser Mission is quintessential late-1980s straight-to-video trash, and Lee is determined to have a hell of a lot of fun making it. Unfortunately, he doesn't get much in the way of good lines: when he falls through a ceiling and lands on someone's dinner table, he notes how he "just dropped in to say bon appetit!", if that gives you a sense of the caliber of writing we're dealing with here.

The other "name" actor is Ernest Borgnine, who sports a threadbare Russian accent, doesn't get much screen time, and seems happy just to be there. That said, if you'd told us there was also a cameo by Michael J. Fox --

-- we might have believed you.

The makers of Laser Mission seem to have taken "cheap name recognition" as their watchword, as they hired David Knopfler -- the other Dire Strait -- to compose the music, but apparently didn't pay him for more than one song.

So if you somehow fail to pick up on what Lee's character Michael Gold does for a living, the soundtrack is happy to fill you in, as almost anytime there's music in Laser Mission, you've got Knopfler's strained, Señor Cardgage-esque voice, chuntering away:

He's a mercenary man
Mercenary man
Mercenary man
Yeah, mercenary man

It's another earworm, but only through sheer repetition, from opening credits to ending credits. We even hear the little, faux-flamenco nylon-string guitar interlude multiple times.

The MacGuffin in Laser Mission is a huge diamond that can be used to build a superweapon, and if your brain hasn't been taken over by "Mercenary man..." you can probably guess why Borgnine has a Russian accent, and why Gold's pursuing him. Like many MMs, Gold is a master of disguise, transforming himself into Latin American stereotypes on a moment's notice:

He soon joins forces with Alissa (Debi Monahan), an animal sanctuary worker who's unexpectedly competent with firearms and vehicles -- a fact not lost on Gold, who asks the natural question: "You carry a gun and you're not afraid to use it. You can outdrive the best of them...Who are you and who are you working for?"

The response he gets -- "I'm hot, I'm tired, I'm hungry and I'm thirsty and I'm walking around in these high heels all day and I have blisters on my feet!" -- is petulant and defensive. Hardly the reply of a secret agent, right? (Right?)

But the bad feelings don't last, and their brief love scene later on (oh, c'mon, that's hardly a spoiler) is, blessedly, one of the few times we hear music other than "Mercenary Man" in this film.

Gold's merry chase takes him to Cuba -- where he nearly gets guillotined -- and ultimately to the fictional African country of Kabango, which we presume to be a stand-in for Angola. Logically enough most of Laser Mission was filmed right next door, in Namibia and South Africa. This leads to some absurd scenes in which Michael and Alissa get dumped in (we're guessing) the Namib desert without food or water --

-- and somehow manage to amble their way to safety. One can only imagine the smell, especially since, as we assume you've noticed, Alissa wears the same blue dress from start to finish.

Comic relief is provided by a wacky pair of conscripts, Manuel (Pierre Knoesen) and Roberta (Maureen Lahoud), who stay on Gold's trail throughout the film but never quite seem to want to pull the trigger. Roberta also has a seriously revealing wet T-shirt scene, leaving us to wonder whether Monahan refused and Lahoud was drafted to fulfill the first half of the T&A requirement.

What's left to say? The bad guys are evil, the hero invulnerable, and the actual Africans are relegated to cannon fodder status or, at best, given brief cameos (including Ken Gampu of The Gods Must Be Crazy, as a concierge who bitterly complains about freeloading foreigners).

It's all what you'd expect, doesn't make that much sense, and we can only hope Brandon Lee had a great time in Namibia, since he didn't get much time to begin with. Who would've thought Ernest Borgnine would outlive him by nearly two decades?

Mass murder? Gee whiz!

Whether or not you think these next two films are classics, they're certainly sci-fi. So unlike some we've seen recently, they've more than proven their bona fides for purposes of this box set (or subset).

They're also brimming with the kind of gee-whiz enthusiasm that makes 1950s offerings fun -- even if there's a surprisingly grim undercurrent to some of the proceedings.

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Teenagers from Outer Space (1959)
(filmed in 1957)

Objective Grade:  C-

Sincerity Surplus: A-

If you nose around the Internet, you'll find snarky reviews of Teenagers from Outer Space that seem to use some pre-existing review of Plan 9 as their template. Heck, their titles both end with "...from outer space". Just remove the references to Ed Wood, Béla Lugosi, and angora sweaters, and substitute Tom Graeff, plus something about lobsters and ray guns. And you're done, right?



But that would be an injustice, because -- unlike Ed Wood's plodding, talky films -- Teenagers from Outer Space moves along briskly and almost never succumbs to endless exposition. Dare we say it, this is actually a competently-directed movie, and at least in terms of pacing, a surprisingly well-edited one.

Of course Teenagers from Outer Space also has some monumentally silly aspects, and let's get those out of the way right upfront. The aliens speak English, the film's title is totally off the mark, most of the actors have little command of their craft, the beards are faker than a six-dollar bill, and the final shot is unintentionally hilarious.

Some of the special effects are actually rather ingenious, but it's patently obvious that the big bad monster is, indeed, just a lobster in silhouette.

None of these things really detract from the experience, though: quite the contrary, because when it comes to the factors that make a "bad" movie fun to watch, Teenagers from Outer Space is almost a perfect storm. When we laughed, it was almost always with affection and without contempt, because most of the film's laughable things are simply a product of being broke. Laugh at Plan 9 or Manos and you feel dirty, but somehow the laughs in Teenagers don't demean the film or anyone in it.

Why? Well, again, it's the crisp pace, which gives the film credibility even when people are fighting giant lobster shadows. But it's also the film's remarkably effective combination of sincerity and brutality. People in Teenagers from Outer Space are kind and trusting folks, and always willing to help a stranger (even when it repeatedly imperils them).

On the other hand, for a 1950s sci-fi movie, Teenagers has one hell of a body count, starting with the little dog that gets snuffed by haughty alien assassin Thor (Bryan Grant).

Begin a movie by killing a dog for basically no reason, and you send a message that no one's off-limits -- not even women and children. We didn't keep an exact count, but the total number of casualties approaches 20, though we can't get into details without spoiling the film's ending.

The other ace Teenagers has up its sleeve is Dawn Bender (aka Dawn Anderson) as girl-next-door Betty Morgan, a gentle soul who falls in love at first sight with tortured alien Derek (David Love aka Charles Robert Kaltenthaler). Bender apparently had a significant career as a child actress before retiring in her 20s and becoming a schoolteacher, and Teenagers from Outer Space was her last film.

And that's a shame because she's something of a revelation here. It's as though Betty has wandered in from several decades prior, or later, as her whole persona has nothing in common with the pinched faces and bullet bras of her era. With her wide-open eyes and girlish voice, she's arrestingly vulnerable, yet smart and resolute: note that Betty kisses Derek, not the other way around -- something that was a big deal back then.



And, with an attractive figure and unexpectedly hipster haircut, one imagines she'd turn a lot of male heads (and not a few female ones) in a Williamsburg bar.



What we're trying to say is that Ms. Bender seems to have had "it", depending on your definition of "it". It's not just that she's pretty, but that she exudes warmth, kindness, optimism, honesty -- and somehow does so without being cloying in the least.

She's not even our type, really, but it's hard to deny the magnetism of her presence onscreen. And if you're going to build a movie around an alien who's caught between his home world and the appeals of Earth, you'll want to cast a female lead whose magnetism makes that conflict thoroughly believable.

Very few actresses can pull that off, even under ideal conditions; that Dawn Bender does it in a shoestring production suggests that she deserved a far more storied career, if she wanted one...

...and maybe she didn't. Nothing wrong with growing old gracefully while teaching young'uns.

So, to our delight, Teenagers from Outer Space turns out to be a jewel. It may not be as jaw-dropping as, say, Maniac, and it certainly isn't a "good" movie in the usual sense, nor can all of its missteps be chalked up to budget. But it's one of the most fun, endearing, sincere, and oddly memorable films we've seen in this box, and deserves more respect than to be grouped with the fetishistic incompetencies of Ed Wood.

It's a terrible shame that Tom Graeff didn't get another chance. From all accounts the failure of Teenagers from Outer Space crushed him, and he committed suicide in 1970. Yet there's some real talent here, and given the obscenely poor trash pumped out by major studios then and now, it's not at all a stretch to believe he could have forged a real career had the cards just gone his way.

Instead, what we get isn't even a cautionary tale -- what did the guy do wrong, except dream? -- but just a tragic one. Someone oughta fire the writer.

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Crash of Moons (1954)

Grade: C+

Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, we haven't seen the likes of you in a long, long time. It's astonishing to think it's been over nine years since we watched Menace from Outer Space, the other TV-to-feature-film adaptation included on Mill Creek's 250-pack.

With that long an interval between reviews, we'll freely admit we don't remember much about Menace...that is, beyond the sad story of actor Scotty Beckett, who plays Rocky's sidekick Winky, and went down in a blaze of abject self-destruction that has to be read to be believed.

Yet it seems like a pretty safe bet that Crash of Moons is the better of the two Rocky Jones edits we've seen. For one it has a compelling and (nearly) implacable antagonist in Cleolanta (Patsy Parsons), a queen -- er, sorry, a suzerain -- who makes no apologies for wanting complete control over her planet and people, and has no interest in making nice with outsiders.

The premise of the story arc is an interesting one, too: two inhabited "gypsy moons", wandering through space and sharing a thread of atmosphere as they revolve around each other, are on a collision course with Cleolanta's planet Ophiuchus. (Well, one of them is, anyway.)

It's not really clear how the moons stay warm -- tidal forces, maybe? -- but, given what we now know about rogue planets and brown dwarfs, at least this is a plausible basis for hanging a tale.

The cast wisely accents the middle syllables in the moons' names, which helps to downplay the obviousness of calling them -- ahem -- Posito and Negato.

We wrote that Menace from Outer Space was weighed down by wooden acting and neologisms, but whatever reason, there's a lot less of that here. True, some characters are irritating, like space couple Bavarro (John Banner) and Potonda (Maria Palmer) --

-- and especially their infant offspring, whose constant mewling gets far more screentime than it deserves. Maybe the vague hints that the child is prophetic pay off in a later episode, but here, they're just a red herring.

Still, at least by TV standards, the sets and visual effects in Crash of Moons are surprisingly good at times, even thoughtful. In particular, when two celestial objects (I wonder which?) collide late in the movie, we see a momentary flash of lightning right before impact. That's a really nice touch, and knowing When Worlds Collide had already come out in 1951 doesn't undermine the point: they could've gotten away without doing that, yet they made the effort to do it. Kudos.

Compared to Menace from Outer Space, there's quite a bit more edge to Crash of Moons: not only are Rocky and his gang faced with execution at one point, but another plot device has a character attempting to kill thousands of people. No points for guessing that it didn't pan out, but that would've been quite a body count.

None of this rises beyond the basics, but -- quoting ourselves here! -- if you seek family-friendly entertainment for your visiting home-schooled relatives, you could do worse than Crash of Moons.



As long as you don't mind that half the gadgets look like repurposed sex toys, that is.

(Scroll back up and look at those two shots of Vena and Rocky holding "communicators". Kinda seems like they went down to the local "adult entertainment" store and bought a couple "marital aids", doesn't it? Shades of Mythbusters!)