This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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[TikiSoo]

Well I watched last night...



...and recognized it enough to know I had seen it as a kid. This is a movie that's better watched with Svengoolie interruptions - to keep your interest through distraction!

This movie's effects are embarrassingly bad, far worse than any Godzilla movie. There is no story and the acting is terrible. Not even worth watching for Russ Tamblyn who gave a most obviously resentful performance.

This movie illustrates exactly that an actor's performance is directly tied to his/her THOUGHTS. Like Garbo's famous last scene in Queen Christina where she stares off (instructed to) "think of nothing-the audience will fill in the blanks."

I have actually used this technique and people always "see" whatever I'm thinking - I'm no actor, so it must be just the way humans subconsciously communicate. And Tamblyn was not only unengaged but behaved annoyed speaking with tight lips & zero connection with his fellow actors.

Sure, acting in that movie must have been an embarrassment, but movies are forever. Some A list actors in F grade disasters have elevated the movie solely by their performance.

[TikiSoo]

Maybe I disliked Svengoolie after seeing 2 hours of really fun Stooges beforehand.
Most notable among the couple of classic Hitler spoof shorts were '52's HE COOKED HIS GOOSE with the Stooges playing adversaries instead of a trio in the most unbelievable scenario: Larry is the ladies man that's fooling around with Moe & Shemp's girls!
(I heard the phrase "clumsy ox" from this short and used it throughout my childhood)

But the real standout was '58's SWEET & HOT with Joe Besser & Muriel Landers. Seems like I'm the only one who likes Joe Besser - finding him engaging & funny. He actually did a very charming song & tap dance in this.

But Muriel Landers as Besser's sister was a total treasur...such fun to see & hear her sing in a Stooges short!

[LiamCasey]

This month on Svengoolie...

3/4: The Curse of the Werewolf (1961) w/ Clifford Evans, Oliver Reed, Yvonne Romain and Catherine Feller. And directed by Terence Fisher.

3/11: Island of Lost Souls (1932) w/ Charles Laughton, Bela Lugosi, Richard Arlen, Leila Hyams and Kathleen Burke. And directed by Erle C. Kenton.

3/18: Konga (1961) w/ Michael Gough, Margo Johns, Jess Conrad and Claire Gordon.

3/25: Blood of Dracula (1957) w/ Sandra Harrison, Louise Lewis, Gail Ganley and Jerry Blaine.

...and not an Oscar nominee in the bunch!

[LawrenceA]

I'm pretty sure Konga was up for best gorilla picture.

[Swithin]

I'm pretty sure Konga was up for best gorilla picture.

You're thinking of Kongo (1932).

[EP Millstone]

I'm pretty sure Konga was up for best gorilla picture.

Not quite!

Konga was up for Best Music.

Synopsis: Inspired by The Pied Piper of Hamelin, this 1940 Horror-Musical is about a crazed Cuban Conga drum player who uses his evil power to drive people mad. Unfortunately, it lost to Pinocchio.

Trivia: The stylized spelling of the title was a typographical error that was too costly to fix.

[Swithin]

I think I prefer Roz and the Brazilian sailors.

[Dargo]

I think I prefer Rob and the Brazilian sailors.

This of course being a sort of reprise and a send-up of a scene in the 1942 comedy My Sister Eileen in which she starred.

(...just watched it all the way through for the first time a few weeks ago on TCM...entertaining little movie)

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[EP Millstone]

Island of Lost Souls is one of those horror films that is too good to be shown -- and ruined -- on Svengoolie.

IMO, it is the best version of all of the adaptations of H.G. Wells' novel The Island of Dr. Moreau.

Bela Lugosi, financially strapped and in dire need of work, was cast in the minor, undistinguished role of The Sayer of the Law ("What is the law? . . . Are we not men?"). Unrecognizable beneath a faceful of fur, Lugosi nonetheless was able to overcome the role's limitations by investing his "manimal" with a (literally) tortured humanity during his Big Dramatic Moment when The Sayer rebelliously challenges his "creator":

"YOU! . . . You made us in the House of Pain! You made us . . . THINGS! Not men! . . . Not beasts! . . . Part man! . . . Part beast! . . .THINGS!"

. . . whereupon The Sayer's fellow things -- roused and emboldened by Its speech -- set upon the actually bestial Dr. Moreau
(a Mephistophelian Charles Laughton) and savagely, horribly, and vivisectionally repay him in kind for the cruelty and suffering he inflicted on them.

[TikiSoo]

[jameselliot]

Konga with the man you love to see rage, Michael Gough, is on Sven March 17. This movie is a good fit for his show.

[Intrepid37]

I remember a thread like this from back on the TCM boards. I believe it was started and steadily kept up by Nipkowdisc.

Does anyone know if Nip made it to here after TCM message boards shut down?