Now,
Disc 10
Monster From a Prehistoric Planet
An expedition to gather exotic animals for a publishing magnate's theme park nets a baby "Gappa." Only the creature's monstrous parents don't like that their child's been taken away and head to Japan to save it.
The formula of these kaiju/sci-fi monster movies is endlessly entertaining. The tribal culture that's lived with the monster for generations, the imperial hubris that disdains the culture's knowledge of the monster, the competing interests fighting over who'll profit from the monster, and then crap gets smashed! Woo-hoo! That's what we came here for mofos! Sure, the monster looks like a pigeon cross-bred with a lizard that's choking on a starfish, but it wouldn't be kaiju if the monster didn't look kind of stupid.
The movie can be pretty shocking though. A female scientist is asked why she isn't at home making babies and the film has Japanese people in blackface. There is some craziness going on here.
A woman returns to claim her inheritance after her father dies only to learn there is a theat stalking the house that may soon claim her life as well.
A not-overly-involved story of broken promises and double-crosses. The violin trick got me. That was pretty inventive. This movie's pretty okay. Just try not to cringe at the antics of the black driver.
The Ritz Brothers play a group of private detectives hired to protect an attorney from a serial killer called "The Gorilla," only there may be more secrets in the house than they anticipated.
The movie's okay if you can ignore the painfully unfunny antics of the Ritz Brothers. They're like a low-rent Three Stooges, and the Stooges can be had cheap. The plot itself involves a variety of people posing as other people and the ample use of secret passages. Those parts are kind of fun. Also the maid/cook/whatever is kind of funny too. To top it off, Bela Lugosi plays the menacing butler.
A man falls to his death from the balcony of his penthouse apartment and two reporters covering the story start to wonder if it was an accident at all.
If you cut out the comic relief you'd have a really good movie. As it is, it's just a pretty good mystery where the villain is revealed to be secretly related to someone who'd been crossed by the victims. Not bad. The reporters have a snarky, screwball comedy relationship going on and you don't see that in movies anymore.
Next time, the penultimate disc, Disc 11. I'm almost loathe to reveal what's on it. I will say it features my favorite movie so far from this set.
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