^Um, then maybe Teletoons has an exclusive license to show them in Canada so TCM had to pre-empt them?
That sounds plausible to me. Can't imagine two different Canadian channels would have the rights to air them . ...
^I guess that's a problem arising from TCM's move to showing more modern movies from time to time. Back when they were just showing really old stuff, they wouldn't have been likely to run into any such conflicts.
Batman Serial Chapter 1 gets off to a great start with Batman sitting at his executive Batdesk with fancy leather visitor's chair. I like love interest Linda as well, she's attractive and has just enough spunk to come off as a real person without overdoing it. My favorite line is when the corrections officer tells them that her uncle left in a black sedan. Well, that narrows it down! Granted the serial was black and white but it feels like every car back then was black (please don't bother looking up to show me how I am wrong...). Or white! The license plate gadget and quick color change was fun. Speaking of gadgets, the remote control zombie skull cap with video(!) and the radium atom smasher helped sell the superhero/comic book elements. It even looked like the "Japanese Cave of Horrors" hideout opened with some kind of hand sensor. There's some unfortunate elements and I don't know what the later episodes show but it was made during the war and the Japanese and their accents aren't so different from what would be done had they been Germans. It's funny how movie fights always used to solely consist of throwing haymakers at each other. It must have been quite refreshing to see Kato in The Green Hornet or even James Kirk give someone a judo chop. Surprising in this modern day to see Batman and Robin bested by three or four thugs. I love the cliffhanger, Batman falling through the air to his doom is about as classic as could be asked.
I've got this on DVD, however it's been a while since I watched it so I don't remember exactly-- but I seem to remember a voiceover in the first chapter that was really ugly. It was definitely a wartime thing, but it went beyond the casual sign-of-the-times stuff that you usually see.
Very well. I have at least one Don Winslow Pulp reproduction as well as the serial on DVD. Also, amusingly, he was one of my Mother's big crushes when she was a teenager.
i liked that there was an instance of Superdickery when Bruce used the radium gun to make Alfred soil his britches. Probably makes him clean all the bat's guano off the bat's desk in the bat's cave as well. Otherwise Chapter 2 of The Batman was pretty standard serial filler.
Above all else, the stuntman for Douglas Croft (Robin) was horrible. He's like some squat, rough dwarf with clumps of hair glued to random areas of his legs. Then, there's his hair... That guy has to be one of the most obvious stuntmen in film history, as Croft was a think, clearly young actor--completely different than the bar brawler hired for stunts.
Caught a bit of The Cyclops, pretty hokey. Some of the FX work is just horrible with poorly superimposed "giant" iguanas that you can see the scenery poking through. The actual cyclops makeup was pretty decent for the period/budget. Is it me or did these cheapy b-flicks seem to always get some really hot actresses? Caught the end of The Magic Sword and is typically creaky as older sword and sorcery kind of movies were back in the day. The highlight had to be hearing the dragon's TIE fighter engines. I don't think it kind of sounds like them, I'm pretty sure they were actually lifted from this movie (or they were sourced from some common library at least).
I think the worst movie for those translucent superimpositions is Attack of the 50-Foot Woman. I usually enjoy B-Grade special effects, but in that case it really compromises my ability to enjoy the film. It would otherwise be near the top of my list of favorite B-Movies.
Well, Attack of the 50-Foot Woman is just generally a terrible movie, and not even in a fun, campy way. The titular giantess doesn't even appear onscreen until the last five minutes of the movie, unlike say The Amazing Colossal Man, which at least delivers a Colossal Man before the movie is almost over! The title (and movie poster) are a hundred times more memorable than the actual film . . .
Indeed. Sometimes a lot of them. I only got to see about five minutes of Fu Manchu yesterday; hopefully they'll put this one up on On Demand. Their On Demand selection has not been great lately.
April: WED 4/1 6:30 PM: Jack and the Beanstalk ('52): The Abbott and Costello version. FRI 4/3 8:00 PM: The Wizard of Oz ('39) SAT 4/4 12:15 AM: Tarzan and His Mate ('34): The second, and raciest, Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan film. 10:00 AM: Batman ('43): Chapter 5 of the serial. 12:15 PM: The Corsican Brothers ('41): Douglas Fairbanks as psychically linked identical twins, adapting the Alexandre Dumas tale. SUN 4/5 2:15 AM:The Hunger ('83): Vampire tale with David Bowie and Susan Sarandon. 4:00 AM: The Vampire Bat ('33) TUE 4/7 8:00 AM: The Adventures of Robin Hood ('38) WED 4/8 4:00 PM: Five Million Years to Earth ('68): aka Quatermass and the Pit. THU 4/9 3:45 AM: Sinbad the Sailor ('47): With Fairbanks and Maureen O'Hara. 8:00 PM: My Blood Runs Cold ('65): William Conrad-directed thriller that may or may not be about reincarnation, and thus may or may not belong on this list. But it's based on a story by Star Trek writer/producer/director John Meredyth Lucas, so what the hey. SAT 4/11 10:00 AM: Batman Ch. 6. SUN 4/12 3:15 AM: Macabre ('58): William Castle thriller. 4:30 AM: Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story (2007): Documentary. MON 4/13-TUE 4/14 8:00 PM: King Kong ('33) Midnight: The Birds ('63) THU 4/16 3:00 PM: Miranda ('48): Glynis Johns as a mermaid, in sort of a proto-Splash. 6:00 PM: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir ('47) SAT 4/18 10:00 AM: Batman Ch. 7. 12:15 PM: Children of the Damned ('64): Indirect sequel to Village of the Damned. 2:00 PM: Attack of the 50 Foot Woman ('58) TUE 4/23 2:00 PM: The Mystery of the Wax Museum ('33): Thriller later remade into... 3:15 PM: House of Wax ('53): The more famous Vincent Price version. FRI 4/24 8:00 PM: Forbidden Planet ('56) SAT 4/25 7:30 AM: Son of Kong ('33): Comedic quickie sequel to the original. 8:45 AM: Rodan ('58): The first non-Godzilla kaiju film from Toho, and the first in color. 10:00 AM: Batman Ch. 8. SUN 4/26 2:15 AM: Deathdream ('72): Resurrection horror film making its second appearance on this list. 6:15 PM: Sleeper ('73): Woody Allen's dystopian-future comedy. MON 4/27 6:00 PM: The Corsican Brothers encore, capping a day-long marathon of Dumas adaptations (also including The Fighting Guardsman, two versions of The Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask, and The Count of Monte Cristo). WED 4/29 1:15 AM: Here Comes Mr. Jordan ('41): Reincarnation film later remade as Heaven Can Wait.
What? No Cheech and Chong's Corsican Brothers? Good mix for April, some familiar and some not so much. I'm curious about The Hunger, watched it when I was young because I watched anything HBO marked with an "N" for nudity and it used to seriously creep me out. I'm curious if it maintains that unsettling feel now that I'm older.
That's only 10 years old, it hasn't had the time to become a classic. Lately, I feel compelled to note that's a joke....