Showing posts with label Irish McCalla. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Irish McCalla. Show all posts

Friday, October 29, 2021

Announcing the winners of this year's Halloween Costume Contest at Shades of Gray!

The annual Shades of Gray Halloween Staff Party is over, and the judges have decided the winners of this year's costume contest! Here they are!

Virgina Bruce Halloween pin-up
Honorable Mention:
Virginia Bruce for "The Latest Batgirl Reboot"

Irish McCalla as Sheena
Honorable Mention:
Irish McCalla for "Alec Baldwin"

Dancer in Halloween photo-shoot
Third Place:
Janie Doe for "Scary Story"

Dancer Oksana Bondareva
Second Place:
Oksana Bondareva for "Wallflower"
 
Dorothy Lee as Robert Woolsey
First Place:
Dorothy Lee for "Robert Woolsey"

Grand Prize:
Fenfang and Huan Hong for "Me & My Shadow"

Monday, June 14, 2010

Picture Perfect Special:
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle

It's 45 years ago this year that Irish McCalla (whom some call statuesque and others curvacious) donned a leopard skin bikini and starred in the syndicated television series "Sheena: Queen of the Jungle". The creation of comic book industry pioneers Will Eisner and Jerry Eiger, Sheena was the female character to star in her own comic book, appearing in the summer of 1938 and beating Wonder Woman to market by several months. She was featured regularly in comics until the mid-1950s when her title was cancelled just before she made the jump to television. Her latest comic book incarnation is from Devil's Due Publishing. As for the television series, McCalla stated in interviews that she wasn't hired for her acting talents but rather for her athleticism and ability to "swing from vines." (And, of course, her ability to fill a leopard skin bikini.) Irish McCalla as Sheena

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Picture Perfect Wednesday:
Kiss me, I'm Irish!



Born Christmas Day, 1929, Irish McCalla was a pin-up model-turned-actress who is best remembered for her roles in "She Demons," "Hands of a Stranger," and her starring turn as Sheena in the 1950s television series "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle." She retired from acting in 1962 and found great success as a painter. She created over 1,000 paintings and limited edition lithographs, some of which are on display at the Los Angeles. She passed away in 2002 at the age of 72.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Now they've gone too far!
Nazis are turning sexy chicks into monsters!

She Demons (1958)
Starring: Irish McCalla, Tod Griffin, Victor Sen-Yung, and Rudolph Anders
Director: Richard Cunha
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

An obnoxious an rich girl (McCalla) and two of her daddy's employees (Griffin and Sen-Yung) are shipwrecked on an uncharted island. They must fight fight for survival against a Nazi mad scientist (Anders) who has harnessed the secret of perpetual motion and is using it and processes he perfected in the WW2 concentration camps to steal the beauty of native island girls (who like all native girls only want to dance) and transferring it to his wife, in the hopes of restoring her fire-ravaged body. The process reduces them to horribly mutated, violent monsters.... you know, She-Demons!

A scene from "She Demons"

My summary gave away the element that almost earned this film a Four Rating. It's going along likea fairly standard, low-budget castaways-on-a-jungle-island-with-monsters-and-a-hot-babe movie when suddenly Nazis appear on the scene. And they're not just any Nazis... they're led by a mad scientist Nazi who, although his research is dedicated to restoring his wife's beauty (at the expense of a bevvy of hot bikini-babes) he immediately wants to do the horizontal mambo with Aryan beauty Irish McCalla.

That strange turn resulted in this film perhaps being the greatest combo of B-movie/exploitation movie/"grindhouse" movie mainstays ever made. (Uncharted island, jungle inhabited by strange creatures, a mad scientist transforming humans into beasts with his weird experiments, Nazis--sadistic, whip-weilding Nazis no less--a wife with a disfigured face who only Weird Science can restore, wise-crakcing colored sidekick, and exploding volcaones. All this movie needed was a flying saucer, nudity, and lesbian vampires, and it might have been been the Platonic ideal of crappy movies.)

Of course, it would need better acting and something resembling decent dialogue to truly be worth viewing. Only Rudolph Anders as mad scientist Colonel Osler was any good here, because he went waaay over the top with smariness and superior attitude. Irish McCalla did an okay job, because her character was so obnoxious that I wanted Osler to turn her into a She-Demon because it would shut her up.

On its own, "She-Demons" is not worth your time or money. It might be odd enough to be a secondary feature for a Bad Movie Night, but if you are going to get it, look for a DVD multipack that includes it and one or two movies you know are good. That way, this becomes a "bonus feature", and you've gotten your money's worth.



Tuesday, December 22, 2009

'Hands of a Stranger' is a predictable thriller

SPECIAL NOTICE: When I watched this film and wrote this review in January of 2007, I was on a variety of pain meds due to an accident and subsequent surgery. I've since misplaced my copy of this film, so I have been unable to verify if I was too kind or too harsh on it. Anyone care to set the record straight if I missed the mark? 

Hands of a Stranger (1962) 
Starring: Paul Lukather, James Stapleton, Joan Harvey, Larry Haddon, and Irish McCalla 
Director: Newt Arnold 
Rating: Five of Ten Stars 

Vernon Paris (Stapleton) is a brilliant young pianist who is maimed in an accident following the concert that was to be his final stepping stone to classical music stardom. After finding himself unable to save the hands, an unethical surgeon (Lukather) decides to use his experimental transplant technique to graft the hands of an unidentified corpse onto the young man. The operation is a success… but things end far from happily.
   
“Hands of a Stranger” shares many elements in common with the 1935 chiller “Mad Love," but it is completely devoid of the half-asked metaphysical questions that pop up in its predecessor. The source of the trouble here is never in doubt—it’s a combination of impatience and outright nuttiness on the part of the pianist. 

Although thoroughly predictable, populated by nothing but stock characters being portrayed by actors of average talent, and very much full of both Ham and Cheese on multiple occasions, “Hands of a Stranger” nonetheless entertains, because the viewer becomes interested in where Vernon’s madness will take him next. 

The slow build from melodrama to horror movie is also nicely and smoothly executed, and the film’s pacing and short running time shows that the director at its helm knew how not to outstay his welcome—there’s not a stitch of padding to be found, anywhere.