From Zombos' Closet

Comic Book Back Covers: Revell's Endangered Animals

There's some cool stuff to be found on comic book back covers...Our Fighting Forces, Vol. 21, No. 152, 1974...

Movie Review: Mesa of Lost Women (1953)

Zombos Says: Poor (but hilarity abounds)

Leering dwarf faces keep intercutting at inappropriate times, producing an effect not unlike the subliminals inTerror in the Haunted House. The spider women, with the notable exception of Tarantella, all dress like extras in She. Adding to the Woodian confusion, if you look quickly enough, you will see Mona McKinnon (Plan 9) and Dolores Fuller (Glen or Glenda?, Jailbait) among them. (Bad Movie Report)

There are movies that act like ridicule magnets. Anyone who has watched enough television or eaten too much popcorn at the cinema can easily name at least one special instance of ignominy felt from being spectator to a cinematic catastrophe, or feeling resentful from having time, better spent elsewhere, sinfully squandered and ticket money regrettably wasted.

Then again, there are people like our neighbor, Paul Hollstenwall.

“Wasn’t that a hoot,” said Paul, pulling up the collar of his raincoat and pulling down the brim of his hat.

No, wait a minute, I was only imagining he was standing in front of a sleazy theater. I adjusted my mental eyesight better. After watching the movie he brought over, Ron Ormand’s Mesa of Lost Women, I needed to do a lot of adjustment. We were in Zombos’ library and Paul was sitting on my left, dressed in his usual brown tweed sport coat, faded jeans, and worn Pumas. Zombos was sitting on my right and—wait, where’d he get off to?

“More like a howler,” I told Paul. “I’m not sure what jarring close-ups of leering dwarves, non-speaking hoochie cooch-dressed women, and a hairy spider with eight legs that doesn’t move them--the legs I mean--much, has to do with the title. No, wait, come to think of it, just about everybody was lost most of the time, including me and Jackie Coogan as the mad scientist Dr. Aranya, hanging out in a cave and doing what I’m still not sure of.”

“He was mutating spiders into giants and mutating women with his spider venom,” supplied Paul.

“Why? And why were those women and dwarves constantly underfoot? It doesn’t make sense.”

“He’s a mad scientist. What’s to make sense? Don’t they always mutate, create, or destroy things in horror and sci-fi movies? Because they’re crazy, I mean. The movie’s definitely a double-biller for a drive-in, so adding some feminine pulchritude kept eyes peeled on the screen more than Aranya or loopy Dr. Masterson (Harmon Stevens) would have.

Paul had a point. And he actually used the word pulchritude in a sentence.

“What surprises me is how good the cinematography is compared to the rest,” I said.

“That is because the directors of photography were too good for this dreck,” said Zombos, entering the library. “Ice cold mint juleps should be arriving just about…now.”

The bell on the library’s dumbwaiter buzzed. I headed over and extracted the drinks. Chef Machiavelli’s mint juleps would have even satisfied Tennessee Williams.

“The photography,” continued Zombos, “was done by Karl Struss and Gilbert Warrenton. More than adequate for this otherwise incompetent opus." He took the glass I handed to him and sat down on my right. "All that desert photography made me thirsty.” He took a sip then continued.

"Judicious use of dissolves, wipes, and recall the first meeting between Dr. Masterson and Aranya in the cave laboratory. That set was the size of a walk-in closet. Yet look at how they moved our view left to right, from in front of the lone lab table. It gave depth and liveliness to a tight and narrow space."

"Shame they couldn't clip the cantina scene with Tarantella (Tandra Quinn) doing her endless tarantella," I quipped.

"No!" Paul said. "She's so dark and mysterious. Don't forget she's really a spiderized woman."

"Well, she certainly had the legs for it, even if only two of them. Now, maybe you can tell me what Masterson going all loopy and weird was about?"

"He goes dopey after Aranya injects him with a drug," said Paul, "to stop him from interfering with Aranya's nefarious work—"

"—Making dwarves and spiderized woman. Okay then, what about the cantina scene? He shows up, sits down with a couple of perfect strangers, watches Tarantella dance—how'd she get there in the first place?—and dance. And dance some more. Said spiderwoman glares at him while he talks to the couple, a man and woman who don't know him from Adam. And he talks, and talks some more. And then they leave the cantina. He insists on them all taking a plane ride, with a little persuasion from his gun, the plane engine catches fire and conveniently they all crash land on Aranya's mesa." I stopped to take a breadth.

"Did you notice how the pilot did not turn his steering wheel at all during the flight," said Zombos. “He must have graduated from the Plan 9 school of method acting."

I continued. "Now they're all on the mesa, along with that giant spider that doesn't move much, and assorted dwarves and pretty women who stand around like a chorus in a Greek tragedy, only they don't say a word. We even see them, most of the time, standing a scant few feet away from everyone else, but everyone else doesn't see them at all. Then Wu, the token Chinese guy, buys it in the woods. Of course he has to mutter a proverb or two before getting killed about being killed, which is why they needed him in the first place I guess. And I think the mesa set was even smaller than the lab." 

"Indeed," added Zombos. "When the pilot takes out his penlight to light the way through the woods, everyone keeps moving back and forth through the same narrow path, holding hands."

"Then more close-ups of grinning dwarves and pretty women ensemble standing around an arm's length away while the pilot and the woman from the cantina hit it off by the campfire. Out of the blue he's telling her what kind of woman he likes and they kiss." 

"At least much humor ensues with one fellow jumping TOWARD the nearly comatose giant spider when he sees it, and let us not forget the effusive potential for derisive commentary throughout," said Zombos.

"So," I summed up, "we've got a music score that runs rampant from the get-go, ignoring the action on screen much of the time, a confusing triple bypass flashback going on between characters to tell an already incoherent story, and a crummy script that opens up a world of mirth in the viewing, not to mention some bizarre scene cutting and papier mache mise-en-scène. Oh, and I shouldn't forget the ponderous Criswell-styled narration to aid in our understanding of this nonsense."

"And deliciously potent mint juleps to make it all go down agreeably," said Paul.

We all drank to that.  

Professor Kinema's Favorite Movie Toss Off Lines

A Fool There Was (1915)

The Vampire (Theda Bara) to one of her victims: "Kiss me, my Fool!"

Hold Your Man (1933)

Eddy (Clark Gable): “Listen, Sweet Meat, how about you and me getting together tonight, huh?”

Ruby (Jean Harlow): “I like your nerve!”

Eddy: “That ain’t all you’re gonna like. Wait’ll you see how I grow on you.”

Ruby: “Yea, I can imagine, just like a carbuncle.”

A Night at the Opera (1935)

 

At the beginning of the Stateroom scene, Ravelli (Chico) to Tomasso (Harpo): "Hey Tomasso, wake up, they're gonna fix-a the bed."

Room Service (1938)

Miller (Groucho Marx) to Davis (Frank Albertson) introducing Faker (Harpo Marx), who is standing with his mouth agape: “This is Mr England, the brains of the organization. That’ll give you an idea of the organization.”

The Thing From Another World (1951)

Scotty (Douglas Spencer) to Captain Hendry (Kenneth Toby): "Let me get a picture, before someone makes a salad out of him (the Thing)."

La Strada (1954)

The Fool's (Richard Basehart) final words after a fight with Zampano (Anthony Quinn), while clutching his head: "Hey, you broke my watch!"

Dr Strangelove, or, How I Learned to Stopped Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

General Ripper (Sterling Hayden): "Mandrake, were you ever a prisoner of war?"

Mandrake (Peter Sellers): "Yes, Jack, I was."

General Ripper: "Were you tortured, and did you talk?"

Mandrake: "I don't think they wanted me to talk, really. It was just their way of having a bit of fun, the swine. It's just that they make such bloody good cameras."

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

Clyde (Warren Beatty) to CW (Michael J Pollard): "Go get your pants on, boy. We're gonna take some pictures."

Point Blank (1967)

Brewster (Carrol O'Conner) to Walker (Lee Marvin): "This is a corporation, we deal in figures, we never see cash! I've got about $11 in my pocket."

The Flim-Flam Man (1967)

Curley (Michael Sarrazin) to Sheriff Slade (Henry Morgan) about Mordecai Jones' (George C Scott) release: "Give him his suitcase. He needs it to keep his balance."

 

 

Mexican Lobby Card: La Venganza De Tartu

La Venganza De Tartu 1966

 

Mexican Lobby Card: Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter

The lobby card is colorful, especially with an emotive Boris Karloff Frankenstein's Monster face staring at you.

The Crater Lake Monster (1977) Pressbook

Frogs (1972) Pressbook

In the 1970s, movies and television episodes started appearing warning us of dire consequences from our disregard for the environment and mother nature (remember Silent Running?). It's a shame we didn't listen then, and we're playing dumb now.  Frogs has my vote for one of the best horror movie posters ever done. "Today the pond, tomorrow the world!"

Tales From the Crypt Guide to Bidding, Buying, Booking

The 1972 Film Bulletin Pre-Search on Tales From the Crypt: Guide to Bidding, Buying, Booking.

First Men In the Moon (1964) Herald

 That purported "actual close up photo of moon" looks a little cheesy to me.

Hercules Against the Moon Men (1964) Pressbook

I included the herald for this pressbook, which contains the Smash! bodybuilding exercises; though I'm not sure you'll need to pump up before you see this movie. Love the moon monster photo op display.

Haunted Collector Premiere Episode

Zombos Says: Good

I don’t fully buy into the haunted-objects-causing-disturbances premise of Syfy’s new reality-based spook show, Haunted Collector: it smacks too much of Warehouse 13 and that Canadian television series, Friday the 13^th (a deal with the devil produces cursed antiques), only they have Robey and Allison Scagliotti to emote dramatically. In Haunted Collector there’s only John Zaffis and his paranormal team, and they’re surprisingly so down to earth when finding possible culprits, you wonder what all the fuss is about. Zaffis doesn’t even lock up his collection of troubling artifacts. He keeps them in his basement. Can he sleep soundly at night without all that bad mojo giving him nightmares? I didn’t see him using any of that purple Warehouse 13 neutralizing goop, so I wonder.

I’m part skeptical and part susceptible: I had an incident with an old hand-crank Victrola back in the 1960s. Long story short, it came into the house, weird things began to happen (including shadows where none should have been), and my mom had it taken out of the house. Where it went I’m not sure, because it was placed in the trunk of a car—and that car disappeared shortly after that.

Two cases are investigated in the premiere episode: the first in a Louisiana home and the second in a Connecticut library.

In Louisiana, other-worldly irritations like footsteps, voices, and cold spots are upsetting Jill. When Zaffis arrives, his team pulls out the EMF detectors, and Beth—who is not a psychic, just very sensitive—focuses on a clown jar, which is creepy as hell (I’d have chucked it into the garbage immediately, EMF or not). An EVP question “do you want the tenants to leave” produces a clearly heard Yes, making Jill a lot more upset. A large cold spot on the kitchen floor has the team going under the house to find a box with a mud-caked 1950s gun in it. Jill has no qualms letting Zaffis add the gun to his collection.

In Connecticut, a library is so haunted the kids are too scared to go in. The usual claims of seeing apparitions, voices without bodies, and an old, non-electric typewriter that dings on its own have the team doing their EMF sweeps and investigating the library’s history. One interesting part of the investigation involved the team going old school and hanging rope around the typewriter, to see if the strands moved. Videotaping and EVP’ing also were employed, especially around the typewriter, which showed high EMF readings. I think at this stage, after so many episodes of Ghost Hunters, the constant explanations of EMF and EVP are superfluous and unwelcome time-killers. Maybe word balloons or some other informational popup instead of having Zaffis and his team explain them EACH TIME THEY USE THEM could be used instead.

What will keep me watching this series is the detective work: there’s a mystery to be solved in each case and a revelation of the perpetrator to be made. Zaffis and his team seem quite capable at handling that. And I’m hoping they run into an old Victrola: I’d really like to know what happened to it.

Scanners (1981) Pressbook