Starring Tim Holt, Audrey Dalton, Hans Conried, Barbara Darrow, Casey Adams
Directed by Arnold Laven
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)
A Navy commander spearheads an investigation into the mysterious deaths of divers in California's Salton Sea, and discovers giant radioactive mollusk monsters are to blame.
Not a great movie, but a lot of fun, with horrific and convincing looking monsters, although they don't really resemble mollusks that closely, as a video presentation during the movie makes painfully clear. Presumably giant puppets patterned after the ants in the 1954 classic Them!, the creatures unfortunately don't have much mobility which limits their effectiveness on screen, but they're so scary looking, and with Heinz Roemheld's foreboding music accompanying their attacks, they definitely make a creepy impact. Star Tim Holt was on the downhill side of his career, and looks like he's carrying a bit of weight, but he's a fine enough choice for the picture, and although his scenes with Dalton as a widowed secretary pining for him are a bit clumsy, they came off for me all right.
Showing posts with label Hans Conried. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hans Conried. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Sunday, March 27, 2016
The Twonky (1953)
Starring Hans Conried, Billy Lynn, Gloria Blondell, Ed Max, Janet Warren
Directed by Arch Oboler
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)
While his wife is away on a trip, a college professor finds his life taken over by their new television set, which has incredible abilities not to be found in any other set.
Arch Oboler is probably better known today for his acclaimed radio plays than his films, although most of both took place in the world of science fiction, as this does. The concept of the film is a winning satire, contrasting how television dominates people's lives by creating a set for the film which never broadcasts a single program, but is soon controlling Conried by deciding what he should read, what he should listen to, and following him around on actual walking legs. Before long, it also is incapacitating anyone trying to remove it from Conried's house by turning them into mindless zombies. As clever as that approach is, unfortunately the screenplay spends too much time on Lynn's character, a mediocre football coach who speaks silly nonsense, including a never explained comparison of the female gender to french fried potatoes. The end result is a film with promise that squanders it by trying to be amusing and failing.
Directed by Arch Oboler
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)
While his wife is away on a trip, a college professor finds his life taken over by their new television set, which has incredible abilities not to be found in any other set.
Arch Oboler is probably better known today for his acclaimed radio plays than his films, although most of both took place in the world of science fiction, as this does. The concept of the film is a winning satire, contrasting how television dominates people's lives by creating a set for the film which never broadcasts a single program, but is soon controlling Conried by deciding what he should read, what he should listen to, and following him around on actual walking legs. Before long, it also is incapacitating anyone trying to remove it from Conried's house by turning them into mindless zombies. As clever as that approach is, unfortunately the screenplay spends too much time on Lynn's character, a mediocre football coach who speaks silly nonsense, including a never explained comparison of the female gender to french fried potatoes. The end result is a film with promise that squanders it by trying to be amusing and failing.
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