Bad Cinema Diary TM The “A” Pages from Abbott to Axe ABBOTT & COSTELLO GO TO MARS (1953 - aka On to Mars; Rocket & Roll) dir: Charles Lamont; w/ Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Mari Blanchard, the Miss Universe Beauties. Two hapless workmen accidentally launch themselves in a rocket; they land in New Orleans and think it’s Mars. But then they’re hijacked by two escaped cons and end up on Venus -- but think it’s Los Angeles. They never do make it to Mars. Okay, the plot doesn’t really count. But this flick at least eschews the retreaded skits and night club song numbers in favor of a well-paced comic script full of good gags. The best moments come from just Bud & Lou clowning around, instead of contrived situations. Good old fashioned fun. ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET DR JEKYLL & MR HYDE See the Jekylls & Hydes page. ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948 - aka Brain of Frankenstein; Abbott & Costello Meet the Ghosts) dir: Charles T. Barton; w/ Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Lon Chaney, Bela Lugosi, Glenn Strange, (Vincent Price’s voice in a cameo). Actually, it’s more like Abbott & Costello meet House of Frankenstein. The wolfman enlists the boys’ help in hunting down Dracula & Frankenstein’s monster, which have just been shipped to a sideshow copyright©2009 Bruce V. Edwards Bad Cinema Diary TM in Florida. Meanwhile, a mad doctor lady is plotting to stick Lou’s brain into the monster! Bud & Lou are in top form for this one, and Bela even gets into the spirit and goes along with the gags. Chaney, on the other hand, is still seriously playing the angst-oozing life of tormented Larry Talbot. Odd, I like the tone on this one even though I’ve always been a bit irritated with Universal’s later monster pictures, wherein they refused to treat the monsters seriously. But here, they’ve become cartoony celebrations of the originals -- a tribute rather than an insult. And the whole thing is a great way to have fun on a lazy Saturday afternoon. ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET THE INVISIBLE MAN (1951) dir: Charles Lamont; w/ Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Nancy Guild, Arthur Franz, Adele Jurges, Sheldon Leonard. A pair of fledgling PI’s help a framed boxer clear his name -- said boxer having used the self-same invisibility serum made famous in the Invisible Man movies to escape the police. Predictable invisibility gags follow. A mediocre outing for A & C; fun, but not one of their best. ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET THE KEYSTONE COPS (1955) dir: Charles Lamont; w/ Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Fred Clark, Lynn Bari, (Mack Sennett cameo). In the silent movie era, Bud & Lou are wannabe filmmakers who get mistaken for stuntmen. The plot occupies less than half of the film, the rest is just a series of random sitcom gags that could have been written for any comedy team. It has a few good moments, but mostly it’s a waste of their talents. Fred Clark, on the other hand, gets a good role and the best scenes. ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET THE KILLER, BORIS KARLOFF (1949) Dir: Charles T. Barton; w/ Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Boris Karloff, Lenore Aubert. A simplistic murder mystery farce, but it’s saved by good gags & a good performance by Lou as the hapless bellhop who’s been framed for the murder. The title, obviously, banked heavily on Karloff as the co-star, but his role is actually quite small, with only one scene of any substance. copyright©2009 Bruce V. Edwards Bad Cinema Diary TM ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET THE MUMMY (1955) dir: Charles Lamont; w/ Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Marie Windsor, Michael Ansara. While in Egypt, Lou swallows a sacred amulet and Bud gets framed for murder (by Lou, but it was an accident!). So they end up getting chased around by the police, a slinky criminal-broad, mummy cultists, and eventually the mummy himself. This one is pretty mundane formula -- it’s just a string of recycled slapstick skits sandwiched between song & dance numbers. Nonetheless, the gags are good, one of the dance routines is actually quite inventive, and the flick manages to be mildly amusing. ABBY (1974) prod & dir: William Girdler; w/ William Marshall, Terry Carter, Austin Stoker, Carol Speed. No skin; no gore. A preacher's wife gets possessed by a Nigerian sex-demon, so she talks dirty and throws people around -- and then she is rather undramatically exorcised with a mixture of Christian and African iconography. Intended to be the blaxploitation version of Exorcist of course; it's a bit of a schizoid flick -- part of the time it seems to be making a stern effort at being seen as a respectable drama -- but spends the rest of the time layering on cheese, sleaze, and thickly sliced ham. Although it has quite a few boring bits, there's enough here to be a lot of fun. The worst part is really the ending, which is the most ordinary and unexciting thing they could think up. ABLAZE (2000) dir: Jay Andrews (aka Jim Wynorski); w/ John Bradley, Ice T, Amanda Pays, (Cathy Lee Crosby, Tom Arnold, Edward Albert, Michael Dudikoff in bits). No skin; no gore. The blurb on the box promises us the pursuit of a deadly serial arsonist -- and indeed that’s the first five minutes. We get a terrific car chase scene and a fun performance from Ice T -- and that’s the end of that. The credits roll, Ice T disappears, and the flick dissolves into a randomly scattered collage of melodramas featuring kids playing with matches, corrupt businessmen, a pregnant lady, a crusading doctor, and the remarkably unrealistic exploits of noble firemen. copyright©2009 Bruce V. Edwards Bad Cinema Diary TM Eventually, the movie reveals itself as a randomly scattered and remarkably unrealistic disaster movie when the refinery blows up and burns down the city. All the explosions and stunt-work shows that they obviously had a budget on this one -- they should have spent something on the script. This thing is so unconvincing and poorly written that it’s not just bad, it’s tacky. [Thanks to the sharp memory of reader Gunnar for pointing out that all of the special effects on this flick (and apparently much of the plot) were ripped from the earlier disaster flick City on Fire (1979); given the dreadful quality of everything besides the explosions, that does explain a lot.] AB-NORMAL BEAUTY (2004 - Hong Kong) writ & dir: Oxide Pang; w/ Race Wong, Rosanne Wong, Anson leung. No skin; mild gore. A young art student, a victim of abuse and emotional starvation, stumbles across the perfect subject for her photography: dead people. The obsession quickly spills over into schizophrenia, but just when she thinks she’s found a path out of madness, she hits a few speed bumps and discovers that she’s not the only one in town with a dangerous fascination for the art of death. It’s a moody and effective psycho-thriller with a few unexpected twists. The overall impact is dulled considerably by an unimaginative ending and subtitles that only vaguely approximate English. But the cast & photography are excellent, and it’s graced by the best suspense flick score since Bernard Herrmann. If the script had carried more real impact, this would have been a classic; nonetheless, if you’re a fan of Hitchcock or giallo, it’s well worth checking out. ABOMINABLE (2006) writ & dir: Ryan Schifrin; w/ Matt McCoy, Haley Joel, Christien Tinsley, (cameos for Dee Wallace Stone, Jeffrey Combs, Lance Henriksen). One bit o’ skin; some gore. Bigfoot goes postal -- a wheelchair-bound mental patient, a gaggle of tittering girls, and some colorful local characters try to keep from becoming a midnight snack. Although it starts with an attempt to mimic Rear Window, it does turn into a nice old fashioned monster movie. There is some padding and some artificial tension cheap-shots, but they can get away with that because of good characters, a great cast, and a nice level of copyright©2009 Bruce V. Edwards Bad Cinema Diary TM suspense. The only problem I had was with the critter himself -- oh, the effects for the ‘bominable were excellent, it’s just that he looked exactly like a cross between Jack Elam and Gossamer (that hairy thing from the Bugs Bunny cartoons) -- he made me giggle. Which I’m guessing wasn’t the reaction the filmmakers were hoping for. Oh, well -- it’s still a fun flick. the ABOMINABLE Dr PHIBES See Dr. Phibes. the ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN (1957 - Britain - aka The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas; The Snow Creature) dir: Val Guest; w/ Forrest Tucker, Peter Cushing. An obsessed British scientist joins a shady hunting party that is seeking the secret home of the Yeti. And they find it, too -- but they slowly begin to learn that the roles of horrid beasts and civilized people have been reversed. It’s a capable little film, with some successes. However, it’s marred by excess padding, small & unconvincing sets (they only had one rock to climb, so they kept climbing it over & over from different angles), bad matte paintings, and the usual tepid British pacing. But the characters are good and Nigel Kneale’s script shows a little originality. A good enough flick, if you cut it some slack. ABRAXAS: Guardian of the Universe (1991) writ & dir: Damian Lee; w/ Jesse Ventura, Marjorie Bransfield, Sven-Ole Thorsen, (Jim Belushi bit). No skin; no gore. Jesse Ventura plays this really dull super-cop of the galaxy who is 11,000 years old and is on a mission to Earth to stop a really dull renegade super-cop and save some really dull Earth- child who can think powerful thoughts.