Witness the birth of the modern zombie

Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Starring: Judith O'Dea, Duane Jones, Karl Hardman, Marilyn Eastman, Keith Wayne, Judith Reilly, and Kyra Schon
Director: George Romero
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

When the dead rise to eat the living, a small group of people board themselves up in a house and attempt to hold out against an army of hungry zombies.

"Night of the Living Dead" is perhaps one of the most effective horror movies ever made. While its budget constraints are occassionally evident, and the acting leaves something to be desired at times, it still emerges as one of the scariest, most intense, films ever, with near-perfect pacing, great camera work, and sparse but effective set design and special effects. It's also arguably the most influential film of modern times, and many creators of horror and suspense films from the past 20 years probably owe quite a bit to Romero for inspiriation.

The key to the films success is that it incorporates a bit of the morality play aspect that exists at the core of most horror movies with a complete sense of claustrophobia and a certain doom. Although a national (possibly worldwide) disaster in unfolding, the action of movie is mostly confined to a single house, and the threats that those barricaded within come not only from the undead hoard outside, but also from each other as their various character flaws are explosed and amplified due to their situation. (Of course, it also features one of the most disturbing zombie flesh-eating scenes that have ever been put on fillm... if you've seen the film, you know what I mean, and if you haven't yet, you will know as soon as the moment happens.)

Despite recognizing this as a true classic fillm, I also admit it's not perfect. In addition to the acting, there's a couple of plot holes. I recently watched the movie again, and I still find the opening cemetary sequence strange beyond words, and I still am not certain what Barbara's ultimate fate is. (One thing I am certain of is that it's not a racist movie. I watched the film again, because I heard how it was supposed to have racist undertones throughout--undertones that are fully exposed at the film's climax--and since I'd never noticed that, I figured I'd watch the film again. Well, I'm here to tell you that anyone who finds racism in this movie is probably a racist themselves who are engaging in a bit of projection.)

This film is one of the most commonly found in the massive DVD multipacks, and it is a highlight of every package it's in; it plus one or two additional movies you're interested in will make the set worth its purchase price.

If you haven't seen this classic and are a fan of zombie movies and horror movies in general, this is a must-see. It's the original of the "modern zombie" and a damn fine movie to boot.

Halloween is Coming...

... and be sure to look to the shadows. Sometimes, they will tell you that things are not always as they seem this time of year!

One of the greatest haunted house movies

The Legend of Hell House (1973)
Starring: Roddy McDowall, Clive Revill, Pamela Franklin, and Gail Hunnicutt
Director: John Hough
Rating: Ten of Ten Stars

A parapsychologist (Revill) travels to Balasco House--also known as "Hell House" and reported to be the worst haunted house in the entire world--with his wife (Hunnicutt) and two psychics (McDowell and Franklin) in order to gain indisputable, scientific evidence for the existence of ghosts and other supernatural phenomena. But the evil that dwells within the sprawling mansion never gives up its secrets easily....


"The Legend of Hell House" is one of the greatest haunted house movies ever made. It works, first, because the director and cinematographer manage to convey the sense that the house itself is alive and a character in the movie, and, second, because of the great peformances of the stars, and, third, because it features a script so tight that not a single line of dialogue or action on the part of the characters doesn't feed into the suspense and horror of the film--horror that keeps mounting until the final twist at the movie's end.

This is a movie where everything is done right. The cinematography and lighting is supreme, the actors are all perfect in their parts--with Roddy McDowall as the reluctant psychic shining even brighter than the rest--and the pacing is perfect throughout.

I wish the producers and directors of moden horror movies (particularly ghost movies) would take a look at "Legend of Hell House". This film is far scarier than any ghost movie of recent vintage.

Something pretty on this Musical Monday

Halloween is coming. Here's something pretty to soothe your nerves. Maybe.

In Memory of Norm Breyfogle, 1960 - 2018

Artist Norm Breyfogle, perhaps best known for his work on "Prime" from Malibu Comics in the 1990s; and "Detective Comics", "Batman" "The Creeper", and other DC Comics titles starting in the late 1980s has passed away at the age of 58. Here are a few of his drawings in honor of his memory.

Princesses of Mars, Part 26

It's time for another visit to Barsoom and to seek an audience with the Princesses of Mars. Let's hope they don't kill us!

By Jason Adams & Buzz

By Bruce Timm

By Arthur Adams

By Frank Brunner

The 'Ocean Swells' bring laughter

Ocean Swells (1934)
Starring: Zeffie Tilbury, Dorothy Granger, Carol Tevis, Grady Sutton, Cully Richards, Landers Stevens, and Edgar Dearing
Director: George Stevens
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

While on a once-in-a-lifetime vacation on Catalina Island, three laundry workers (Granger, Tevis, and Tilbury) pose as high society ladies. When the two younger ones meet a pair of handsome rich men (Richards and Sutton), and are mistaken for relatives of a wealthy yacht owner, the women decide to take full advantage of the situation. Unfortunately for them, the wealthy young men are also just posing...

The sixth installment in RKO's "The Blonde and the Redhead" non-series series (a "non-series" in the sense that while the same core performers are featured in most of them, they are playing different characters in each film) is different from previous ones in a couple different ways. First, June Brewster has been replaced as the Redhead by Dorothy Granger. This change is hardly noticeable, except Granger's comedic timing is better than Brewster's (which could go a long way to explaining why Granger's career continued into the 1950s and Brewster's was essentially over at this point). Secondly, the actual lead here is Zeffie Tilbury, both in the sense that she's the instigator of plot complications as well as portraying the character with the most lines and screen time. Usually, its some lie or clever idea from one of the "girls" that gets them in trouble. It's only fair that Tilbury should get to take center stage in this film--she had been performing on stage and in films for 20 years when this film was made--but it's still an unusual move, given the formula of the series.

"Ocean Swells" is a comedy of errors and it's very amusing even while being absolutely predictable. From the moment "Auntie" (Tilbury) promises that she's going to hook her young friends (Dorothy Granger and Carol Tevis) up with rich men, viewers have a sense of where this film is going to end up. As is often the case in the "The Blonde and the Redhead" series, the stakes keep getting higher and the situation gets more and more complicated as the film unfolds, and so the viewers continued attention is assured to be held.

The film's funniest moment come during the "seduction" scene between Tevis and Grady Sutton; it plays with the height difference between the two actors--with Tevis barely clearing 5' and Sutton being over 6' tall and Sutton playing his typical romantically challenged character. That one scene is worth a whole Star in my rating, by itself.

It's a pain for the butler, but you'll laugh while he suffers

Just a Pain the Parlor (1932)
Starring: Harry Sweet, Monte Collins, Cecil Cunningham, Billy Gilbert, and James Donlan
Director: George Marshall
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A butler (Collins) must try to make an Olympic athlete, who is the very definition of a dumb jock (Sweet), presentable for a high society party.

"Just a Pain in the Parlor" is a silly little movie that runs 20 very fast minutes. It consists mostly of slapstick humor revolving around servants attempting to clean up a simple-minded houseguest so he be shown off at a can party being hosted by the snooty lady of the house (Cecil Cunningham). If you're a fan of Laurel & Hardy shorts, I think you'll like this one. As it was unfolding, I was put in mind of Hardy playing the beleagured butler and Laurel the dimwitted athlete. The only part that of this that didn't feel like a Laurel & Hardy film was the ending.

Since this isn't a Laurel & Hardy film, how did the actual performers do? Everyone did a fine job, and although the story and situation put me in mind of a Laurel & Hardy film, none of the performances did... well, almost none. Harry Sweet does a bit where he jumps up and gloms onto people who touch his tie that really put me in mind of Stan Laurel due to the rest of the film. One thing I particularly appreciated was the understated way Monte Collins behaved throughout the picture. He was mostly calm and steady and in control of himself (if not the situation he'd been thrust into), just like you'd expect a butler to be. Collins isn't the usual type of actor who played butlers in these kinds of comedies, but I think that made him even more effective as the film's only straight man.

The only negative with this movie is that the gags get repetative. I know comedy can be about repetion, but with "Just a Pain in the Parlor", they don't only milk some of the gags until dry, they salt them and smoke them and turn them into joke jerky. This problem is not severe enough to ruin the film, but it did keep me from giving it a Seven Rating.

In celebration of Speak Like a Pirate Day

Yarr, me maties... here be pittures o' lady pirates and even some pirate booty shorts!

Maureen O'Hara

Kay English

Dorothy Sebastian

Wynn Gibson

Gwen Lee

Claudia Dell

Frances Drake (the most suitable lady pirate of all)

For more Talk Like a Pirate Day inspiration and goodies, be sure to check out this treasure chest full of novellas by Robert E. Howard, comics, roleplaying game scenarios, and some fiction vignettes from the host of Shades of Gray, Steve Miller! Click here for more!

'The Plot Thickens' with a new Hildegarde

The Plot Thickens (1936)
Starring: James Gleason, ZaSu Pitts, Louise Latimer, Owen Davis Jr., Barbara Barondess, Paul Fix,  Arthur Aylesworth, Lew Kelly, Agnes Anderson, and Richard Tucker
Director: Ben Holmes
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

When a wealthy man with a mysterious background (Tucker) is shot to death in his car, but is found the next day sitting in his study, the mysteries that need to be solved by homicide detective Oscar Piper (Gleason) and his friend Hildegarde Withers (Pitts) keep expanding and multiplying. Who's the mruderer?; the damsel in distress (Latimer), the jealous boyfriend (Davis)... or perhaps this time it was actually the butler (Aylesworth) who did it? And how does the mysterious Frenchman, with whom the victim was seen arguing, and the victim's connection to an unsolved art heist fit into the picture?

With "The Plot Thickens", the fifth movie in the "Hildegarde Withers" series of mystery-comedies, ZaSu Pitts becomes the third actor to play the school teacher amateur detective and semi-official consultant to New York City's homicide squad. Since the excellent first installment, "The Penguin Pool Murder", each film that followed has fallen short its prececessors. I sat down to watch this one hoping that pattern wouldn't hold.

And for the most part, it didn't. While it's no "The Penguin Pool Muder", it's a far better film than the previous two entries in the series and almost as good as "Murder on the Blackboard". The humor is still not as strong as it was during the first couple of films, but the mysteries present here are meaty and plentiful--something the script-writers mostly manage to pull off without triggering my common complaint of the film seeming rushed or too crowded with characters. The screen-writers also restored the character of Oscar Piper to what he had been in the initial movies, which was a cranky but intelligent detective, instead of the dimwitted incompetant bully he was portrayed as in "Murder on the Bridle Path". The writers also reinstituted the personal relationship between Oscar and Hildegarde, which had almost been forgotten in the previous two films; they may not be romantically involved, but they are at the very least friends beyond the context of the grim task of catching killers.

On the downside, I think ZaSu Pitts may have been miscast as Hildegarde Withers. I can't say how someone for whom this is the first encounter with the character might view her, but it took me a while to get used to Pitts in the role. This isn't because Pitt's a bad actress, but it's because she isn't as forceful a presence as either Edna May Oliver or Helen Broderick who portrayed the character before her, and as a result she is overwhelmed by James Gleason's blustery Oscar Piper. By the end of the picture, I had gotten used to the more sedate (but equally sharp-tongued). Pitts and Gleason were far better together in "The Crooked Circle" where they are the best part of a forgettable film.

To a small degree, Pitt was also badly served in her first outing as Hildegarde by a bizarre tendency that was introduced for the character in the previous film: She steals items from crime scenes for no good reason--and in this instance it might actually have threatened the police investigation of the case. I think the writers were trying to capture elements in the initial films where she also picked up items from scenes, but these were obvious clues and she grabbed them to perserve them. It this film, the item she absconds with had no obvious connection to the murder until later, and she seems to take it only because it was an interesting item on the murder victim's desk.

In the end, though, Hildegarde's cleptomania is only a minor issue. A far bigger problem with the film is its resolution. While the pieces come together and all the plots and mysteries as solved, I was left with two questions that I don't see an answer to: First, why was the body moved? Second, how did the killer manage to commit the murder? If the writers had even attempted to offer plausible explanations to either of those questions, "The Plot Thickens" might have rated a low Seven of Ten Stars instead of the Low Six I am giving it.