They also did a rather forgettable version of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA with Herbert Lom as the Phantom. And they did two different takes on Jekyll & Hyde: THE TWO FACES OF DOCTOR JEKYLL and DOCTOR JEKYLL AND SISTER HYDE. The latter, as you might guess, adds a sex-change to the transformation, so that Jekyll transforms into a beautiful (but evil) woman. It's supposed to be more fun that TWO FACES, but, alas, it's one of the few Hammer films I've never seen. I keep hoping that it will show up on TCM someday, but it's guess it's not in their library. And, oddly, Hammer only did one werewolf movie: THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF with Oliver Reed (based on "The Werewolf of Paris" by Guy Endore). I guess vampires and Frankenstein sold more tickets. And maybe THE INVISIBLE MAN required too many special effects?
Isn't it just? And, btw, I second your recommendation for CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE. Despite the title, it's only barely a sequel to CAT PEOPLE, or even a horror movie, really, but it's an odd, poetic, fascinating little movie. Not a bad directorial debut for Wise.
Has anyone else lost TCM due to changes in their cable package? For long as I can remember TCM was always one of those core channels that was available even on the lowest level basic cable package. Not any more for me! While part of this maybe that I moved 4 months ago. Meaning I needed to change from Time Warner to Charter. I am fairly certain I was getting TCM through Charter when I first moved. Now it's saying I need to upgrade to get that channel. I am really annoyed. I do not watch that much cable to pay for much beyond the basic channels. But TCM was one I often did watch and was always included.
I have Brighthouse and it's still part of the basic package here. Though that may change soon with the merger of Charter, Brighthouse, and Time Warner.
Indeed, which is why they'll do it (along with their contemporary-feeling "Let's Movie" campaign), to draw in a generation that won't watch black-and-white movies. But, to me, TCM has always been era based, rather than age based ("Happy birthday, Swashbuckler, you are now eligible for TCM"). True, they seem to have expanded their On Demand service in the past couple of months, which is great. And their app selection has always been great, especially for short films. And most of which I have on DVD anyway.... That sounds like a challenge. Yes, that's a big disappointment. More period-based werewolf movies would have been quite welcome to me.
Censorship had something to do with the lack of werewolf films going forward. According to The Hammer Vault, censors cut 5 minutes of The Curse of the Werewolf (a film already in your face with abuses of many kinds) but even in its final form, cuts did not matter-- Sometimes, a formula does not fit for certain subject matter. TCotW was a solid entry (well, I love Hammer horror, so that might be a biased view), but compared to Hammer's other updated takes on Golden Age cinema movie monsters, its not exactly revolutionary as Horror of Dracula or The Curse of Frankenstein had been. At the time, Universal's The Wolf Man still cast a long, formidable shadow over the sub-genre that had not faded in the 20 year gap between Lon Chaney Jr. and Oliver Reed.
Watched Horror Express and what a weird movie that was. I can see where Who Goes There? might have been the base but it certainly goes in its own crazy direction. Not sure if I hadn't read that beforehand that I would've made a connection though. It seems possible that it could've arrived there independently. It'd be interesting to read the book that Wikipedia says is the source of the claim to see what it has to say on the matter.
Possible programming change: I just tried to program my DVR for this movie, and the cable company's schedule says that a different movie will be showing in this time slot, a 1975 "documentary" about "ancient astronauts" called The Outer Space Connection, narrated by Rod Serling and produced by Alan Landsburg (producer of Leonard Nimoy's In Search Of...). However, the TCM website's schedule still promises The X from Outer Space. I'm hoping the cable guide just has incorrect information. The last time this film was scheduled, it was pre-empted in favor of a Mickey Rooney marathon following Rooney's death. It'd be a shame if it were pulled yet again.
Or both our cable services are getting info from the same source. Although Zap2It also lists The Outer Space Connection. But TCM's own site still says The X From Outer Space, and I'd expect their own listings to be more reliable than someone else's.
FWIW, Xfinity/Comcast is listing The X From Outer Space on 10/17. I don't know what will actually air but the "Outer Space" er, connection if you will, between the titles makes me wonder if there wasn't an issue with parsing the names. I've seen tv listings be wrong sometimes between two movies of the same name, maybe something similar is happening here (hopefully).
Oh, man... That silent version of The Wizard of Oz was not good. It was a completely different story than the book -- Dorothy was secretly the princess of Oz who'd been spirited away to Kansas as a baby, her three companions were just farmhands who donned disguises in Oz, the "Tin Woodman" (Oliver Hardy) was a villain and rival to the "Scarecrow" (director Larry Semon), and more than half of the film was just slapstick antics on the farm before the storm finally came and whisked them to Oz, where the story subsequently unfolded in a completely different way than the book. The tale was framed as a toymaker reading the book to his young daughter, but he would've had to be illiterate and a complete liar to tell the story this way. Plus, even just looking at it as an original silent comedy, it wasn't all that good. The story was padded and rather incoherent. It couldn't seem to make up its mind who the good guys and bad guys were; initially, Auntie Em was kindly, Uncle Frank was a mean bully, and Oliver Hardy's farmhand character was relatively sympathetic, but then Frank suddenly became an ally to Dorothy and Hardy a villainous suitor and sellout to the Ozite villains, and Auntie Em just disappeared from the story and was implicitly killed in the storm that destroyed the farm while the others were whisked off to Oz. And then there's the racist humor, centering around a black-stereotype comic relief character whose African-American performer was actually credited as "G. Howe Black." Ugh. According to Ben Mankiewicz's host segments, Semon was a prominent silent comedian in the day and intended Oz to be his masterwork and legacy, but it bombed at the box office and was, of course, completely overshadowed by the Judy Garland film 14 years later.
By the way, it's not TCM, but the IFC cable network is showing a bunch of sci-fi/horror B-movies on weekends this month, starting tomorrow: http://io9.gizmodo.com/ifc-unearths-a-treasure-trove-of-cheesy-b-movies-for-it-1787552260
Yeah, I'm working my way through Tobe Hooper's Salem's Lot miniseries that I recorded last night and haven't seen since its first run in the 1970s, and it's just as good as I remember so far, better maybe even. It's not on that list, and not necessarily a B-movie either.
^^ I remember that as being pretty good, I think. That was the one with David Soul, right? That schedule looks pretty good, despite being a lot of repeats. I've wanted to see Invasion of the Neptune Men for a long time.
Yep. Also starring James Mason and (as the vampire) Reggie Nalder, the Andorian ambassador from "Journey to Babel." There was a remake a few years ago (with Rob Lowe?). It wasn't bad, but not nearly so memorable and less faithful to the book.
I just watched Frankenstein. This is the first time I've seen the original film in quite a while, so it's almost a new experience. Man, that Carl Laemmle guy was full of himself -- his name is on the title card of the film three times! Whereas poor Mary Shelley gets credited as "Mrs. Percy B. Shelley." And Karloff is credited as ?, although his real name gets revealed in the end credits (a trick repeated with Malachi Throne in Batman: "True or False Face"/"Holy Rat Race"). It's surprising how few preliminaries there are -- the film just jumps right into the grave robbing and brain theft before even giving basic exposition. And the ideas about "normal" and "abnormal" brain structure determining who was a criminal were pretty ludicrous, even without the added touches Mel Brooks and Marty Feldman would later provide. The idea that the monster had a "criminal" brain didn't even really play into the story, because the monster wasn't evil so much as lashing out in response to torment and not knowing his own strength. It's interesting how much the unspoken portrayal of the monster as sympathetic clashes with the dialogue about how he's an evil that must be destroyed. But maybe that was intended by director James Whale, as an allegory for the persecution he must have faced as a gay man in deeply intolerant times. All in all, it's an impressively directed film with some nice character work, though I found Mae Clarke's performance as Elizabeth quite poor. The set of the watchtower/lab is spectacular, and the camera work is impressive for such an early film. The climactic chase suffers from some very wrinkly sky backdrops, though.
And now I've watched The Bride of Frankenstein, and it's a bit odd to watch them back-to-back, since there are a few continuity changes. The crochety elder Baron Frankenstein, Henry's father, who was alive and well in the happy-ending epilogue of the first film, now seems to have died rather abruptly between films, even though this one picks up before said epilogue and more or less overwrites it. The burgomeister is abruptly a completely different person, the Frankensteins suddenly have a comic-relief maid they didn't have before, and Elizabeth is suddenly brunette, long-haired, and English, as well as a much more expressive actress (even to a fault). Still, it's a good continuation. There's a plausible explanation for the Monster's survival and some nice advancement of the story, especially with the Monster getting character growth and becoming more sympathetic as well as more articulate (Karloff might not have liked the Monster learning to speak, but I did). Dr. Pretorius adds some purer mad-scientist villainy in contrast to the conflicted Henry, and while the scene of him showing off his tiny creations is a bit goofy and incongruous raises countless unaddressed questions, the special effects are quite remarkable for 1935. Another advance in the four years since the first film is that Hollywood now had the technology to dub multiple audio tracks together, allowing the kind of incidental music over dialogue scenes that wasn't possible at the time of the original. And Franz Waxman's score here is one of the most iconic and famous scores of its era, not only from this movie but from its frequent reuse as stock music in many other film productions, notably the Flash Gordon serials. (And it's worth noting that Joe Harnell's theme for the creature in the TV series The Incredible Hulk is identical to the last 4 notes of the Monster's 5-note motif here.) If there's a disappointment here, aside from the sometimes-excessive comedy, it's that the title character has so little to do. She just stands there, looks around, sees the Monster, screams, and then dies. Maybe that's why they gave Elsa Lanchester the additional role of Mary Shelley in the prologue. That prologue is another thing that bugs me, since I don't agree with its premise that Shelley was making a moral statement about the evils of playing God. (I think it was more like a commentary on parental irresponsibility and neglect, and on societal persecution of the different. It was also an extrapolation of real scientific questions that were being asked at the time about the boundaries between life and death, prompted by recent advances in galvanism and the resuscitation of drowning victims.) I feel (or maybe I read somewhere?) that the prologue must've been added to appease the moralists and censors by stressing a "godly" message, as well as by underlining that the story was imaginary rather than blasphemous.