PD Project Update

Attack of the Monsters
The Phantom Planet
and Warning From Space
are now all available in MPEG2 format from the Internet Archive.

PD Project Part 12

Disc 12
• Colossus and the Amazon Queen (1960) runtime: 1:23:32

  Glauco and his friend Pirro find themselves on the island of the Amazons during a dispute over the succession of the throne. They'll need all their wits and the help of their friends to escape with their lives.
  This is just bizarre. A movie about Amazons from 1960 is going to be strange by definition, but this is even weirder. I'm not wholly sure what's going on a lot of the time. Characters make references to lines and scenes that aren't in the film. It's not clear if those moments were cut due to bad editing or if it's just a matter of poor translation.
  Also, despite the Amazons, or maybe because of them, this movie is way campier and much more homoerotic than the Hercules movies. That's not to say it's not without it's charm though. The film, or at least the translation, seems to revel in the campiness and the goofiness it affords. You get the impression a lot of the shots were cut just before everyone started cracking up. While there is a juvenile sensibility to the film that grows wearisome, it's that same sensibility that lends it a certain innocence. There's a hint of an eyebrow-raised snarkiness throughout, as though the movie's making fun of itself and inviting you in on the joke. It's nice sometimes to see something that's just goofy fun.
  Archive.org Page.
  

• Eegah! (1962)

  A caveman is discovered in the desert and kidnaps a young woman.
  Another one of those movies I didn't watch again. Not only had I seen it on MST3K, I'd also seen it on The It's Alive Show. It's just a purely incompetent movie. Nothing's done right which makes it much creepier and funnier than the producers ever intended it to be.
  I'm in the process of uploading this film to the Internet Archive.
  Wikipedia article
  This was episode 0506 of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and can be purchased on its own: Mystery Science Theater 3000: Eegah!

• Cosmos: War of the Planets (1978) runtime: 1:28:53

  A spaceship makes an emergency landing on a planet after intercepting a mysterious signal only to find the planet ruled by a robotic monster.
  The movie is trying to be a high-tech John Henry tale. The hero, Capt. Hamilton, resents having his life and actions dictated by machines. He thinks humans are innately and eternally superior. However the world his lives in is governed by a supercomputer and every act, even sex, is performed via machine. Think Woody Allen's Sleeper but in earnest.
  So naturally the planet they land on used to be home to a great civilization that eventually let robots do everything for them--including designing and building new robots. Robots revolted, destroyed the society and now have their eyes on Earth.
  Overall not a bad idea--hell, it was great in 2001--but it's so poorly done. The movie drags along, beats you over the head with its at best muddy anti-technology ideology (how do we travel to space without it?) and, like the malevolent computer intelligence, refuses to die. The amazing thing is there are some remarkably rough jump cuts in the film. The original version may have been longer. Yikes.
  Archive.org page
  AVI Archive.org page
  Wikipedia article
  

• Destroy All Planets (1969) runtime: 1:29:47

  An alien race comes to Earth and tries to seize control fo Gamera to acheive their conquest.
  At what point did every Gamera movie just become a montage of previous Gamera movies? This one opens with Gamera destroying the alien spaceship, then there are two annoying kids being pricks (always with the goddamn kids in these Gamera films) and finally the aliens trap Gamera in some ray and read his mind searching for weaknesses. Of course this takes the form of a replay of his two previous adventures which eats up a good twenty minutes of screen time.
  So the aliens kidnap the two kids and use them as hostages to force Gamera to take the mind-control probe. Later, while Gmaera is destroying Tokyo (not new footage by the way. Old footage from the first Gamera movie--the black and white Gamera movie), the aliens demand the Earth surrender or they'll kill the two kids. So the world agrees to surrender rather than let the boys get hurt. Two boys. While Tokyo is being leveled and other cities are sure to follow. Even little kids wouldn't swallow that crap.
  Of course Gamera overcomes the aliens with the help of the goddamn kids who then proceed to shout Gamera's name over and over again as he faces down the aliens' final assault--a giant squid with a pointy head. Just as the beast stabs Gamera again and again with its head, so too do the voices of those children feel like a knife forever leaping into and out of my ears. A fitting way to end the Sci-Fi box--ninety minutes of unwatchable crap that finds ever-new ways to fail to meet my already lowered expectations. Well done movie. Well done.
  Archive.org page.
  Wikipedia article
  

That's it folks! That's the end of the Sci-Fi 50 Movie Mega Pack. Next time I'll have all the additional films added to the Internet Archive and a nice handy-dandy list of all 50 films with links to those that are free. Then I'll start on the Horror 50 Pack. Ugh.

PD Project Part 3

Side A: All Gorillas! Side B: All Gamera! It's like a Sesame Street record brought to you by the letter "G" and a steaming pile of crap!

Disc 3
• King of Kong Island (1968) runtime: 1:25:00

  A mad scientist experimenting with mind-controlled gorillas kidnaps a girl. Now a mercenary the scientist tried to kill earlier must rescue her.
  There's something between "nothing" and "no good" happening here. The hero is a mercenary! The movie opens with him overseeing a payroll robbery gone wrong. Then, an eternity and a half later when the movie's moved on to it's plot, the hero refuses to rescue the girl until he's offered a chance of revenge against some other enemy he's made, but he still has to be paid. To save the defenseless girl. Who's the daughter of his friend. Who he watched grow up. And who seems to be in love with him. Ewwww.
  The repeated and literal subjugation of women in the film is pretty creepy, though it does explain why guys like Russ Meyer and Roger Corman ended up making "women who kick ass" films--the alternative is boring. And here's a clue to how much effort was put into the film itself--the title that comes up on screen is just "Kong Island," there are very few gorilla scenes in the movie (hence very little "Kong") and it doesn't take place on an island. I think this film molested my brain. I'm pursuing charges.
  This is still under copyright no matter what the Wiki page says: V2376P292/1988-06-15
  Wikipedia article
  

• Bride of the Gorilla (1951) runtime: 56:27

  A plantation manager murders his boss so he may marry the boss's wife. But a witch witnesses the murder and curses the manager to transform into a gorilla.
  Another flick I saw first on The It's Alive Show. It's a simple enough story (man being driven mad by native curse) and Raymond Burr plays it well. The mystery isn't so much in finding out what's going on but in finding out how much of it is in Burr's head. Plus there's something inherently satisfying in seeing someone wearing a bad monkey suit. In fact, I will endorse any candidate who gives a speech while wearing a gorilla mask.
  This film was already on the Internet Archive which means I didn't have to think about it beyond writing this little review.
  Archive.org page
  Wikipedia article
  

• Attack of the Monsters (1969) 1:19:51

  A UFO takes two boys from Earth to Terra--a planet in Earth's orbit on the other side of the sun. There they find the remains of a highly advanced civilization and its two remaining survivors. The survivors control giant monsters and are plotting to take over the Earth. Gamera, the giant flying fire-breathing turtle must save the children and our planet.
  A film that makes you pray for death--either your own or that of the oh-so-precious children in the film. A nonsensical dub paired with the inherent silliness of the original film doesn't help. Also the incompetent pan-and-scan performed on the movie, a pan-and-scan that neither pans nor scans but rather cuts within a shot, only adds to the actual pain of watching. You feel like you're high and suffering intermittent black outs. One hell of a bad time, but credit where credit is due--the villains' plans for the kids start with eating their brains and there ain't nothing wrong with that.
  Now I'd like to step back and speak in defense of Gamera. It's easy to make fun of this "friend of children." Indeed, you should. The entire enterprise is so goddamn ridiculous from start to finish. Gamera's just silly. But that's what I love about him. I first saw Gamera movies on Captain USA way back when I was a kid, and even then I had no delusions that the films were good. In fact Gamera is probably why I didn't do drugs when I was a teen--what could be stranger than a 200-foot-tall turtle with tusks that breathed fire and could fly? I know people who've seen some crazy stuff on acid, but not that crazy. And it's because of Gamera that I learned to appreciate the bad, to laugh at the absurd. More than with any comedy, you get to take life less seriously when watching something as campy and ridiculous as Gamera. It's like cinematic candy--it's not good for you, you feel kind of sick when it's over, but sometimes you just want to gorge on it.
  I think this movie is still under copyright though I couldn't find a specific document number. An Attack of the Monsters shows up on several copyright forms online, but it's not clear to me what those forms are listing or if they refer to this particular Attack of the Monsters. However, there is an avi on the Internet Archive. If I can get the Archive staff to confirm the PD status, I'll upload my DVD copy.
  Archive.org page
  Wikipedia article
  A different dub of this movie was used for episodes 0312 and K08 of Mystery Science Theater 3000. 0312 can be viewed on GoogleVideo. Both can be downloaded from the Digital Archive Project.

• Gammera the Invincible (1966) 1:25:16

  A skirmish between Russian and American planes in the arctic results in the detonation of an atomic bomb which awakens Gammera (sic), a 200-foot-tall fire-breathing turtle.
  The first Gamera film, apparently released before the English spelling of the name had been decided upon. Like the first Godzilla movie, there are several new American clips spliced into this film, though not nearly so many as in Godzilla. File under "it's always about us." Whereas Godzilla used Raymond Burr to essentially narrate the story and ease the task of dubbing (as well as to cut out the anti-a-bomb stuff), Gammera's new footage is about what the American military thinks of the situation and how they plan on responding. Then the Japanese handle things themselves. Further strangeness, Gamera, like Godzilla in his first film, is a monster that must be defeated. However Gamera has a child advocate who insists Gamera isn't evil. Though he may be "friend of children," even in this first film, he's kind of a dick to everyone else.
  I think this film is still under copyright, though as with Attack of the Monsters, I'm not entirely sure. It appears on two documents whose meanings I don't understand. There is a copyright entry for the song featured in the film which is the only thing in the film worth sampling and re-using anyway, so the question is moot.
  Wikipedia article
  A different dub of this movie was used for episodes 0302 and K05 of Mystery Science Theater 3000. 0302 can be viewed on YouTube (in 10 parts). Both can be downloaded from the Digital Archive Project.

I'll be back next time with Disc 4: four more films including one about Santa Claus, one about teenagers and two about Rocky Jones, Space Ranger! Only two are PD.