Monster From Green Hell (1957)

Starring Jim Davis, Robert E. Griffin, Joel Fluellen, Barbara Turner, Eduardo Ciannelli
Directed by Kenneth G. Crane
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A pair of scientists discover the rocket they sent into space carrying ordinary wasps has crashed in the African jungle and cosmic radiation has mutated the wasps into deadly giants. 

Although the hunt for the wasp monsters in the African jungle was actually per IMDB filmed at California locations, including Universal Studios and Bronson Canyon, the filmmakers for this low-budget production do a creditable job of passing them off as African locations, integrating the needed stock footage fairly well.  The special effects, by Louis DeWitt, and Jack Rabin, along with the uncredited, per IMDB, Irving Block, Wah Chang, Jack Cosgrove, and Gene Warren, bring hulking wasp puppets to life, and animate them somewhat with limited stop-motion.  The puppets are certainly fearsome, but these wasps inexplicably never leave the ground, and a climactic volcanic eruption is poorly rendered.  Albert Glasser's score does add the appropriate notes of menace for the giant wasps, and the film is more than watchable although at times not very well paced.  As for the cast, Jim Davis, later to become better known for his role on TV's Dallas, is grim and expressive enough in the lead, but fine character actors Vladimir Sokoloff and Eduardo Ciannelli are wasted in limited roles.  The production should be given credit for largely avoiding racial stereotypes, although the jungle natives are still scripted to give in to their fears and superstitions.

Super-Sleuth (1937)

Starring Jack Oakie, Ann Sothern, Eduardo Ciannelli, Alan Bruce, Edgar Kennedy
Directed by Ben Stoloff
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A movie star who aggravates the police by insisting he's a smarter detective, suddenly finds his life in danger when a notorious killer targets him.

More comedy than mystery, this picture's harmless light fluff that's a fun diversion, but not much more, with a nice supporting cast in Sothern, Ciannelli, and Kennedy, but each would go on to better showcases.  Built around Oakie's charming blowhard character, he's amusing enough, but the screenplay spends more time trying to point out his own failures to recognize the killer, then building suspense as to who that might be, revealing the villain fairly early.

Mysterious Doctor Satan (1940)

Starring Eduardo Ciannelli, Robert Wilcox, William Newell, C. Montague Shaw, Ella Neal
Directed by William Witney & John English
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

In this movie serial, Bob Wayne dons the mask of The Copperhead, passed down to him by his crime-fighting father, in order to oppose the plans of Doctor Satan, a brilliant evil scientist.

One of my favorite movie serials, and one of the best, from top serial directors Witney & English, with great stuntwork, fine music, and Ciannelli perfect as the clever and calculating villain.  The early chapters are by far the finest, but  I enjoyed hanging around through the later chapters to see the storyline play out to the final conflict in Doctor Satan's lair.  According to Wikipedia, this serial was originally intended to be an adaptation of the exploits of comic-book hero Superman, but the rights fell through.  One wonders if Ella Neal's character, a reporter named Lois, would have been Lois Lane in the original serial, and had a more substantial role- for the bulk of the serial, she's just hanging around her father's laboratory to answer the phone.

The Mummy's Hand (1940)

Starring Dick Foran, Peggy Moran, Wallace Ford, Eduardo Ciannelli, George Zucco

Directed by Christy Cabanne

(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

An out-of-work archaeologist and his partner try to find a backer for an excavation of an Egyptian tomb, unaware that's it under the protection of an evil high priest and an ancient living mummy.

This is Universal Pictures' follow-up to the classic horror film The Mummy, but it's not a sequel, instead repurposing footage from that film to present a tale of a new mummy, this time a lumbering servant to George Zucco's sinister high priest, who controls the tana leaves that must be brewed to keep the mummy alive.  Tom Tyler, probably best known for playing the title role in the terrific Adventures Of Captain Marvel serial, plays the mummy here, and is not particularly fearsome, except when shot in close-up, with the actor's eyes blacked out in the film's eeriest effect.  Still, I love this film, which amps up the comedy considerably for a horror movie, and features a great villainous turn by Zucco, a fantastic Egyptian sacrificial chamber set, and lots of fun foreboding music re-used from Frank Skinner & Hans J. Salter's score for Son Of Frankenstein.