The 30 Foot Bride Of Candy Rock (1959)

Starring Lou Costello, Dorothy Provine, Gale Gordon, Jimmy Conlin, Charles Lane
Directed by Sidney Miller
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A rubbish collector in a town where every business is owned by a local tycoon secretly dates the tycoon's niece, but changes come when she is exposed to atomic energy and grows to a tremendous size.

The first film to star Costello without longtime straight man Bud Abbott (following the end of their partnership), and the only solo film Costello made before his death, is a real oddity.  Costello doesn't have a straight man in the cast to react off of, and instead serves as a genial sad sack hero in opposition to Gordon's corporate villain, who's launching a campaign for governor with a television crew in town to profile him.  It's definitely a comedy, but there's not many laughs due to a weak script, although there's certainly no lack of outlandish moments.  Louis DeWitt, Jack Rabin, and Irving Block, who provided special effects for a great number of 1950s films, do the same here, and do a more than serviceable job of making Provine appear 30 feet tall.  The highlight is an overhead shot of a giant barn with a hole in the roof exposing Provine as she takes a shower from Costello with a hose at the top of a ladder.  Comedy is attempted via scenes of an army troop convinced the giant Provine is an alien plotting an invasion, and a computer Costello's designed and programs by spouting technobabble to it.  Again, I hardly laughed but it's a good natured enough picture and there were a number of sequences and exchanges that made me smile.

Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (1920)

Starring John Barrymore, Brandon Hurst, Martha Mansfield, Charles Lane, Cecil Clovelly
Directed by John S. Robertson
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

Dr. Henry Jekyll, frightened of succumbing to his baser impulses, develops a formula to unleash his darker half, but soon becomes dominated by the persona he calls Edward Hyde.

This early silent adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's novella is at the very least intriguing, differing quite a bit from later filmings of the story.  I didn't find it to be particularly well-directed, but Barrymore is outstanding as Hyde, in a less bestial but still grim makeup, with long hair, menacing teeth, and bony fingers.  Hunching over, and exposing a pointed-looking cranium, the actor offers quite the contrast to his more reserved portrayal of Jekyll.  That image is showcased in a very memorable sequence where we see a ghostly apparition of Hyde, with Barrymore's head superimposed on a giant spider that creeps onto Jekyll's bed.  Another item of interest is the casting of Hurst as the father of Jekyll's sweetheart, and the script's defining of him as a rogue who encourages Jekyll to yield to temptation, very opposed to the prim and proper stuffed shirt portrayed in the Paramount and MGM adaptations decades later.