The Vampire (1957)

Starring John Beal, Coleen Gray, Kenneth Tobey, Lydia Reed, Dabbs Greer
Directed by Paul Landres
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

After murders shock a small town, its doctor suspects himself, convinced his accidental ingestion of a scientist's experimental pills have turned him into a monster.

We have here a compelling little sci-fi/horror thriller, efficiently directed by Landres on what must have been a tight budget.  Beal anchors the film as the affable and genial doctor who finds his life turned upside down, and can't help but capture the audience's sympathy in a quality performance.  Plenty of familiar faces from 1950s films and television are featured in the supporting cast, including Coleen Gray, Herb Vigran, Kenneth Tobey, and Paul Brinegar, but the best support comes from Lydia Reed as the doctor's charming daughter, and Dabbs Greer as a scientist and friend to Beal's character, who tries to apply common sense to his predicament.  Gerald Fried's foreboding score is a perfect accompaniment to the picture, and although the monster makeup isn't anything we haven't seen before, it's more than serviceable to a film which primary strength is its story and its characters.

The Phantom Planet (1961)

Starring Dean Fredericks, Coleen Gray, Anthony Dexter, Francis X. Bushman, Richard Weber
Directed by William Marshall
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

In the distant future, an Earth astronaut is stranded on a mobile asteroid, home to a tiny race with advanced technology who are in a war with the fearsome Solarites.

An independent science fiction film impressively mounted on a limited budget, the picture presents some unique visuals against the background of an eerie and otherworldly musical score.  Although per IMDB the score was assembled from stock music, it seems integrated and well-suited to the picture.  The visuals include rocket ships, Fredericks shrinking within his space suit, an unusual alien makeup for giant actor Richard Kiel in one of his earlier roles, spaceships encased in a fiery exterior, a pre-Star Trek detention cell with a powerful forcefield, gravity plates that disintegrate whatever touches them, and more.  Fredericks makes a fine leading man for this adventure, and Bushman, a prolific actor with work going back to the silent era, is distinguished as Sessom, the leader of the tiny aliens.  It may not stand on the same level with the more polished sci-fi productions of the era, but it does bring a unique new tale to the screen and one that's entertainingly presented.

The Leech Woman (1960)

Starring Coleen Gray, Grant Williams, Phillip Terry, Gloria Talbott, John Van Dreelen
Directed by Edward Dein
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A cruel endocrinologist who has driven his aging wife to alcoholism brings her along when he learns of a drug that reverses aging in the African jungle, but she will soon turn the tables on him.

With a plotline remarkably similar to The Wasp Woman, Roger Corman's sci-fi shocker that also involved a woman who recaptures her beauty at a terrible price, this isn't a particularly good picture, but it is a fun one, with Gray revenging herself upon Terry, and stalking men in order to maintain her youthful beauty.  The makeup on Gray for both her aged and youthful selves is well-done and convincing, so that when her transformation does take place, it's striking and memorable, although masked by clouds of white smoke.  While Gray's not bad, Estelle Hemsley, as the ancient woman who reveals her secrets to Terry's sleazeball doctor, probably gives the best performance in the movie, projecting dignity and grace, something not present in any of the other characters.  Notable as the film that brought Universal-International's science fiction movies of the 1950s to an end, it doesn't compare to their earlier triumphs, but I still enjoy it.