'The Amazing Transparent Man' not worth seeing

The Amazing Transparent Man (1960)
Starring: Douglas Kennedy, James Griffith, Marguerite Chapman, Ivan Triesault, and Red Morgan
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Major Krenner (Griffith), the insane commander of a mercenary army forces an ex-Nazi scientist (Triesault) to perfect a process to turn living things invisible. He breaks Joey Faust (Kennedy), a famed bank robber out of prison to use him to do double-duty as a final field test and to steal an unstable radioactive isotope that will make the invisibility process more effective. But the psychopath failed to take into account the stubborn nature of the sociopath... and the now-invisible Faust runs wild.

"The Amazing Transparent Man" is a title that reflects more the hopes of the filmmakers than the actual end result. Joey Faust is one of the least amazing invisible men I've come across, being devoid of imagination or ambition and merely setting his mind to using his invisible state to resume his career as a safe-cracker. In some ways, Faust's lack of ambition seems to mirror that of the screenwriter behind this film. The script offers a constant promise of better things to come, yet the writer never manages to capitalize on those ideas.

This is a film that could have successfully merged sci-fi with film-noirish crime thrills in a way similar to the classic "The Walking Dead", or it could have heighten the horror present by bringing to the fore the darkness in the soul of an otherwise good person with the captured scientist becoming as ruthless as the heroine in "The Man Who Changed His Mind" in an attempt to save a loved one. At the very least, director Ulmer could have tried to live up to his own proven ability to direct movies that take full advantage of the darkness within the characters featured, like he did with "The Black Cat" and "Strange Woman".

I mention those films, because they all came to mind while I watched "The Amazing Transparent Man" as I saw opportunity after opportunity for some good slip by. The actors all give performances better than the script deserves and the same can be said of the technical crew, but nothing they do can make up for the fact that the film's story only works because the main characters behave the way they do or the story would fall apart, and the police are so dumb that even Inspector Clouseau would be embarrassed on their behalf.

What really does the movie in, though, is the inability of Ulmer or the writer to take advantage of the horror situation they've set up. Neither Major Krenner nor Joey Faust are used to their fullest potential as characters... neither exhibiting the dark and foul nature that their dialogue implies they possess and that other characters claim they have. Faust ultimately emerges as an interesting character because he takes on the hero mantle for no reason other than Krenner has ticked him off, but Krenner comes across as idiotic rather than evil; he's the leader of a mercenary army who is supposedly adept at forcing others to do his bidding by knowing their weak spots and exploiting them ruthlessly, yet he picks a man with no attachments to speak of and no concerns beyond fulfilling his own desires to be the subject for the ultimate trial of the invisibility process. That's the act of someone who is not crazy, but stupid.

The ultimate demonstration of incompetent story-telling in this film comes when the secret behind a locked door around much build-up has taken place is revealed. Supposedly, Krenner is keeping the young daughter of the ex-Nazi scientist prisoner in the room, but he forbids anyone to enter it. When Faust finally does break it open, there could have been an opportunity for tragedy, horror, or even pathos. Instead, it's anti-climactic disappointment. The gun over the fireplace might have gotten fired, but the only thing that came out of the muzzle was a flag with "Bang!" written on it.

"The Amazing Transparent Man" can be found in several sci-fi and horror-oriented DVD collections of old movies. You should save it for a time you've watched everything else whatever set you encounter it in has to offer.

Mediocre Gothic Thriller with a Goofy Title

Terror Creatures from the Grave
(aka "Cemetery of the Living Dead")(1965)
Starring: Walter Brandi, Mirella Maravidi, Barbara Steele, and Alfredo Rizzo
Director: Massimo Pupillo (credited to producer Ralph Zucker)
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

An attorney (Brandi) answers an urgent request to prepare a will for a country doctor living at an isolated estate. When he arrives, his strange wife (Steele) and neurotic daughter (Maravidi) tell him the doctor couldn't have written the letter as he's been dead for over a year. Before he can sort out the mystery, the doctor's old friends start dying as well, apparent victims of the ghosts evil sorcerers who spread a plague across the land 500 years ago.

We are informed during the main credits that "Terror Creatures from the Grave" was inspired by the writings of Edgar Allan Poe; it certainly bears more resemblance to them than several films that have claimed to be based on them (such as several Lugosi vehicles from Universal), I think I'll still have to go with the Real Thing over this movie.

The film's hero, an attorney visiting a house of secrets and madness, certainly feels like he stepped out of a Poe story, and Barbara Shelley, yet again playing another two-faced, treacherous bitch who causes not only her own downfall but also that of pretty much the entire cast, also could easily have been a Poe character, but the film never quite manages to be as creepy as a Poe story. It has some nice moments, but in general in plods along too slowly to generate any real sense of dread and fear in the viewer. The mystery of a dead man writing letters in intriguing, the array of characters present clearly set the stage for some Very Bad Things, but the film wastes too much time with overlong establishing shots and with too many meandering scenes for it to really add up to anything.

Except for roughly the last ten minutes. When the Plague Spreaders FINALLY make their appearance, we finally get some real spookiness. Although the climax is ultimately a bit rushed and relies a bit too much on the Deus Ex Machina, it's a pay-off worth waiting for. Steele's death scene is especially chilling and well-filmed.

(Oh... I don't think it's much a spoiler to reveal that Steele is the villainess and that she comes to a bad end. It's her place in most films she appeared in, and it's pretty obvious from the outset.)

There's nothing in "Terror Creatures from the Grave" that you haven't seen done better elsewhere, but it's main offense is its mediocrity. Fans of Barbara Steele will enjoy it more than most, but even for those it's not worth going to far out of your way for. But if present in one of those movie mega-packs, which is where I came across it, it's a bit of harmless filler that's worth checking out when you're in the mood of nightgowns and candlesticks and creepy castles.

An airplane drama that's too earthbound

Robot Pilot (aka "Emergency Landing") (1941)
Starring: Forrest Tucker, Emmett Vogan, Carol Hughes, Evelyn Brent, and William Halligan
Director: William Beaudine
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A test pilot (Tucker) and a weather man/bush-pilot-turned-inventor (Vogan) have developed a prototype for a new kind of autopilot they believe will permit flawless remote-controlling of aircraft, thus allowing for bombing raids against the Nazis and Japanese without endanggering pilots. However, interference from enemy spies and an aircraft manufacturing mogul's ditzy, self-important daugther (Hughes) may well spell doom for their project before it ever gets off the ground.


"Robot Pilot" is an avation/sci-fi film with of heavy doses of coy, cute romancing and goofy comedy. Unfortunately, much of the comedy falls completely flat, partly because of changes in society in the 65 years since the film was made, and party because it just isn't very funny. (There's a "simple-minded Mexican" comic relief character whose scenes drag on and on and on. His stchick is actually somewhat more amusing when Evelyn Brant mimics him in a later scene. If fact, the funniest scenes in the film usually involve Brent, who is definately the most talented actress in the film.)

The simple story moves fast enough for the viewer to not get bored, nor to have time contemplate the implausibility of some of the plot developments. This may be damning with faint praise, but "Robot Pilot" is one of the best films William Beaudine films I've seen. If there had been less ethnic humor and more intrigue and drama, it might have ennded up with a Five or Six rating.


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'Frozen Alive' is a sci-fi crime drama

Frozen Alive (1964)
Starring: Mark Stevens and Marianne Koch
Director: Bernard Knowles
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

In "Frozen Alive" a pair of brilliant scientists (Stevens and Koch) are on the threshold of perfecting cryogenic suspended animation for human beings. On the very night the pair decides to cross a scientific line and freeze Stevens, his shrewish wife is found shot to death in their apartment. The police believe that the scientist had himself frozen in the hopes of escaping justice. As evidence mounts that he did indeed murder him, Koch is faced with the choice of letting her beloved co-worker be successfully revived to face the police, or commit murder herself by sabotaging the revival process and let him escape the humilitation.


Primarily a German production, this light-weight sci-fi drama features a truly interational cast--British, American, and German. The acting is all quite good, despite the fact that the dialogue the actors are working with leaves a lot to be desired, and the script does have a number of holes and weakpoints in it. The best part of the film is the climax, which is a slight twist on the "ticking clock" model, and a great use of letting the audience know more than the characters on-screen do.

"Frozen Alive" is a good addition to a "B-movie Night." line-up... not something to lead with, but worth having in the mix.

Action almost unknown in 'Unknown World'

Unknwon World (aka "To the Center of the Earth") (1951)
Starring: Victor Kilian, Bruce Kellogg, Marilyn Nash, and Otto Waldis
Director: Terry O. Morse
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A group of obnoxious scientiest and their boorish, wealthy patron hop in their nifty drilling, amphibeous under-earth ATV--the Cyclotram!--to explore deep underground, hoping to find a place where humankind can retreat to in case of a nuclear disaster.


Never has so little happened during a "let's go looking for the underground world"-type movie. I think I can safely say that, despite the high bodycount among expedition members, the enterprise undertaken by the characters in "Unknown World" is the least eventful, most uninteresting, and ultimately pointles journey to "inner-earth" that any fictional characters have ever undertaken.

There's no much here, exept a slighly more scientific take on what explorers might find deep underground--as in, no monsters, no nubile, scantily clad queens of Atlantis, no nothing. And, frankly, if you're going to make a movie about guys drilling their way to the center of the Earth, you better damn well give me some monsters and nubile barbarian queens at the far end! ("The Core" would have been better if there had been babes in loinclothes and little else at the end of that trip, too.)

'Night of the Blood Beast' had promising script, but not much else

Night Of The Blood Beast (1958)
Starring: Michael Emmet, Angela Green, Ed Nelson, John Baer, Georgianna Carter, and Tyler McVey
Director: Bernard L. Kowalski
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Things go from bad to worse for the scientists at an isolated observation post maintained by the US space program. First, they have the sad duty of recovering the body of an astronaut(Emmet) from the wreckage of a crashed experimental spacecraft (which they helped design). Then, they find themselves cut off from the rest of the world by a mysterious magnetic disturbance. But when the dead astronaut is restored to life by alien microbes that are breeding in his bloodstream, things are at their lowest. Well, until the parent alien shows up to check on its incubator and engage in some murderous mayhem.


"Night of the Blood Beast" has all the makings of a truly fun sci-if horror movie. It's a film that could due with a remake by a talented filmmaker with a good cast, as it could be lots of gory fun. "Evil Dead" but with aliens is the possibility that is lurking within this film.

However, what presently exists is this movie, something that's barely worth watching. While it's a fine example of how to make a film with very little money--small cast, limited sets and locations--but also of how editing can ruin a movie. Although it only runs 62 minutes, "Night of the Blood Beast" seems far longer than that, because nearly every bit of dialogue is punctuated with a pause, almost every scene runs longer than it needs to, and whenever the characters venture outside in search of the creature menacing them, it's like we get to see their entire two-mile hikes.

Of course, this could be the fault of the director rather than the editor. Bernard L. Kowalski also directed the slow-moving, almost-as-boring "Attack of the Giant Leeches" (review here). Like that other movie, this one has some nice moments--such as when our heroes return to the lab to find one of their number suspended from the ceiling with his head missing--but most of the movie is just a little too slow to be interesting.

It is, however, a near-perfect vehicle for a "Mystery Science Theater 3000"-type bash-fest if you and your friends are into that sort of thing. The cheap sets and effects, the goofy monster costume, the agenda and methods of the would-be alien overlord, the interactions between the characters, and, just as importantly, the many pauses so-pregnant-we-may-need-to-deliver-the-next-line-by-C-section, are all ripe breeding ground for witty and caustic commentary. (I'd be surprised if this film wasn't featured on the MST3K show.)

Nazi scientists plot revenge on England

Counterblast (aka "The Devil's Plot") (1948)
Starring: Mervyn Johns, Robert Beatty, and Nova Pilbeam
Director: Paul Stein
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A Nazi scientist (Johns) escapes from a British prison camp and murders and assumes the identity of a bacteriologist recently returned to Britain after decades abroad. In this guise, he continues developing deadly biological weapons as part of a plot to avenge Germany's defeat in WW2. Pressure on him grows, and risk of exposure becomes ever greater, as another scientist (Beatty) becomes suspicious, he is forced to take a well-meaning woman (Pilbeam) on as an assistant, and other Nazis start to press him to speed up his research. Will something give before a deadly plague is unleashed upon the English countryside?


"Counterblast" is a well-acted, well-written thriller. The complexity of the characters, particularly Johns' Nazi scientist, makes the film even more engaging and elevates beyond so many other similar films. Pilbeam, in one of her last roles before her retirement from screen acting, puts on an excellent show as always, as the young woman who travels half way around the world to take a position with the man she believes to be an old and good friend of her father's, only to find herself increasingly isolated and ever deeper involved in a deadly and monstrous research project. As in other roles she played, she projects a charming mix of vulnerability and independence. She is the perfect foil for the handsome, romantic Beatty... and it's easily believable that the young doctor would fall in love with her as quickly as he does.

"Counterblast" is a rarely seen post-WW2 drama, but I think it's worth tracking down, particularly if you are a fan of Nova Pilbeam (an actress whose work isn't given the recognition it deserves).

Dr. Mabuse returns from pop culture limbo

The Return of Doctor Mabuse (1961)
Starring: Gert Frobe, Daliah Lavi, and Lex Barker
Director: Harald Reinl
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Chief Inspector Lohmann (Frobe) finds his vacation plans interrupted when he is called in to investigate a bizarre murder. When he himself is targeted for death, he finds the case getting stranger and stranger, with clues pointing to a conspiracy that reaches from the quiet halls of a local church, to a nearby prison, to mobsters from faraway Chicago... and perhaps even to the involvement of the megalomaniacal criminal mastermind Dr. Mabuse.


"The Return of Dr. Mabuse" is a light-weight crime thriller with Saturday matinee cliffhanger and James Bondian overtones, including a villain with a plot to conquer the world through the application of weird chemicals, science, and brainwashing. It's an entertaining film, if a bit predictable, and one that is probably enjoyed more by kids and those "young and heart" than by jaded viewers who find kicks in picking films apart. (Although I think even jaded viewers will be entertained by the Delivery Truck of Doom, and will enjoy guessing at what character is Dr. Mabuse in disguise.)

One major downside to this film is that the acting seems a bit wooden, but I'm not sure how much of this is the fault of inferior actors used for the English dubbing. Frobe is certainly a better actor than one gets the sense of here, and I recall his previous outing as Inspector Lohmann as being even better than his turn as the Bond villain, Goldfinger.



Trivia: This film revived a pulp fiction villain that had slipped into into obscurity, but which had first been brought to the screen in films directed by legendary German filmmaker Fritz Lang between the years of 1922 and 1933. During the 1960s, six Mabuse films were released, before the evil doctor once again retreated into one of the many dark recesses of the pop cultural universe.