The Adventures Of The Spirit!

The Adventures of the Spirit is not a Republic serial, nor even a Columbia one. It fell to amateur filmmaker Don Glut to at long last bring Central City's protector to the screen, albeit not necessarily the big one. The movie is shot in five chapters and of course in the climax of each chapter the Spirit is seemingly killed or about to be killed. He faces a villain Glut names the "Black Avenger" who wears a hood and sends out his minions. 

The first of these is a robot played by an impressive toy, the second is a Wolfman using a Don Post mask, the third is a Mummy using props from actual films owned by superfan Bob Burns who plays many of the parts. The fourth and final menace in this silent film is Frankenstein's Monster played by Glenn Strange using a mask made especially for him to promote Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. The Spirit (played by Glut of course) is pretty hapless in most of these chapters and needs saving by such classic stalwarts as the Green Hornet, Captain America, the Shadow and Superman. Even Rocketman makes an appearance. 

(Art from this cover used in title cards.)

I Was a Teenage Movie Maker - Don Glut's Amateur Films is an exceedingly strange movie package. Don Glut is well known to my generation of comic book fans as a prodigious writer of comics for most of the major publishers such as DC, Marvel and especially Gold Key. But when he was a youngster, he was apparently a relentless moviemaker. The movies he made were the stuff you'd expect from kids at first but later they became much more refined.  

The Adventures of the Spirit is only a tiny part of the overall collection of handmade films produced by Glut. There are hours and hours of homemade movies about dinosaurs, classic monsters, and even more superheroes. Glut's films even got mentions in Famous Monsters of Filmland.  The DVD also has a pretty lengthy documentary hosted by Don Glut himself explaining how his various films came to be over the course of his life. Audio commentaries accompany the films as well. 

To get a look at the documentary check out this link. 

It was when Glut finally headed off to film school in California, that he continued to make weird but fascinating films, often with the help of other film fans such as Bob Burns, notorious for his own roles as Tracy the ape in Ghost Busters. Glut also made movie serials in the tradition of the classic Republic films and even was able to attract pros like Roy Barcroft, Kenne Duncan and Glenn Strange to play roles for him. Some of those films, made on locations such as the famous Bronson Canyon (my favorite place on Earth) were even shown on local Chicago television. 

If you're a "Monster Kid" or sympathetic to the cause you might find this interesting. Watching the all the movies can be a chore, but there are many charms to be discovered. 

There is also a paperback book which enhances the documentary and the films themselves. I should also note that it has just been announced that Don Glut has won The Bill Finger Award. 

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The Naked Monster!

The Naked Monster (once called Attack of the B-Movie Monster) is one of those works prompted by fan adoration and nostalgia and consequently must be seen and judged on those terms...somewhat. I say that to say this, this is not a very good movie in most of the traditional ways that one might mean that statement. But it is a cavalcade of monster fan wonderment, filled to nigh overflowing with images from past movies and the actors who made them. The movie operates in an oddball fictional universe where most if not all of the monster and alien invasion movies you've ever seen are real and that the heroic folks who helped save the planet from these threats are all up and around in locations like Santa Mira and Winnerden Flats.

The movie's lead is the great Kenneth Tobey who was important in several movies such as It Came From Beneath the Sea, Strange Invaders, and The Thing from Another World. It is as "Colonel Patrick Hendry" from the latter movie he portrays in this movie. Alongside him from the same flick are Robert Cornthwaite and George Feeneman. The former in his role as Dr. Carrington and the latter as the narrator of the movie.

From The War of the Worlds we get Les Tremayne as "General Mann" and Ann Robinson as "Dr. Sylvia Van Buren".

From The Return of the Creature both John Agar as "Clete Ferguson" and Lori Nelson as "Helen Dobson" make a showing.

The Monster from Piedras Blancas is represented by two folks playing similar roles. The keeper of the lighthouse and his wife are played by John Harmon and Jean Carmen, though in this brief appearance they are husband and wife and not father and daughter. Harmon was the god-father of Wayne Berwick who was the son of Irvin Berwick who wrote and directed The Monster from Piedras Blancas.

From Beyond the Time Barrier appears as "Major Allison" portrayed by Robert Clarke.

From The Indestructible Man we get Robert Shayne (left above) as "Professor Bradshaw".

Paul Marco who famously played "Kelton the Cop" in several of Ed Wood's epics, most famously Plan 9 from Outer Space comes to a grisly end in this movie.

"Scream Queen" Brinke Stevens is the true star of the show along with Tobey and has probably the most screen time. A bunch of that time is making really bad puns (which I enjoyed mightily) and a teensy bit of it was presenting some totally gratuitous nudity. One scene simply says that her character takes a shower, a pointless (as far as the plot anyway) diversion, though I for one found it very entertaining. The Weird Tales above feature Stevens on the cover and has a story by her inside. This issue appears in the movie at one point.

Lots of other cameos are spread throughout by the likes of Forry Ackerman, Bob (The Gorilla Tracey) Burns, Gloria Talbot, and Lennea Quigley (who engages in some delightful gratuitous nudity of her own). This is a riot of images and characters in a movie made over a twenty year period on the ultra cheap.

The eponymous monster was at one time early in the production a stop-motion creation, but that was deemed unworkable when the project expanded to feature length and a stunningly miserable costume is substituted. It makes one pine for the subtle creations of Paul Blaisdell. Sadly many of the veteran cast members who donated their time to the projected died before it was completed. The producer and director Ted Newsome (who appears in the movie much as William Castle did many years ago) put the film together bit by bit over too many years. 

The movie is almost like a moving collage of monster-movie images lifted from too many different films to count, and blended with new footage with little success. This is a wannabe bad movie made badly at times, but it has a fondness for the genre at its heart which keeps it pumping along. I cannot in any way recommend this movie save to those steeped in the love of 50's monsters like me, because only someone with that affliction can truly appreciate this ramshackle bit of cinema.

This is a Dojo classic re-post.  

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I Was A Teenage Movie Maker!

I Was a Teenage Movie Maker - Don Glut's Amateur Films is an exceedingly strange movie package. (It was my Halloween treat for myself.) Don Glut is well known to my generation of comic book fans as a prodigious writer of comics for most of the major publishers such as DC, Marvel and especially Gold Key. But when he was a youngster, he was apparently a relentless moviemaker. The movies he made were the stuff you'd expect from kids at first but later they became much more refined.  

There are hours and and hours of homemade movies about dinosaurs, classic monsters, and later superheroes. Glut's films even got mentions in Famous Monsters of Filmland.  The DVD also has a pretty lengthy documentary hosted by Don Glut himself explaining how his various films came to be over the course of his life. To get a look at the documentary check out this link. 

When Glut finally became an adult and headed off to film school in California, he continued to make weird but fascinating films, often with the help of other film fans such as Bob Burns, notorious for his own roles as Tracy the ape in Ghost Busters. Glut also made movie serials in the tradition of the classic Republic films and even was able to attract pros like Roy Barcroft and Glenn Strange to play roles for him. Some of those films, made on locations such as the famous Bronson Canyon were even show on local television. 

If you're a "Monster Kid" or sympathetic to the cause you might find this interesting. Watching the all the movies can be a chore, but there are many charms to be discovered. 

There is a companion book for this collection, but I was unable to acquire a copy alas. 

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Batmania - Rat Pfink A Boo Boo!

If perchance you are a Batman fan and have not seen Rat Pfink a Boo Boo from 1966, you have a rustic gem yet to discover. This is a movie by low-budget schlock master Ray Dennis Steckler and weirdly it's at times his most restrained and suspenseful movie and also his most zany and hilarious. That's simply because we have two movies in one here. It begins as a restrained movie of true suspense with a beautiful woman being harassed and attacked by three truly repugnant thugs. This trio of villains select their next victim by random from the phone book and begin a campaign of terror by following and confronting their unsuspecting target. But when after several rather tense encounters they do finally kidnap her the movie switches gears in a stunning fashion.

There had been no indication at all that the woman's boyfriend and her gardener were in fact a somewhat low-rent dynamic duo called "Rat Pfink" and his pal "Boo Boo". Their thrift shop homemade costumes notwithstanding, they then hop in a motorcycle with a sidecar and follow the baddies to rescue the damsel in distress and the movie gets weirder and weirder from that point on. 

To call Rat Pfink and Boo Boo (or its official title of Rat Pfink a Boo Boo -- Steckler declared it was not a mistake) a good movie is a crime against cinema. But to hail this raunchy jaunt as an entertaining movie is a totally on the mark. Batmania fans will revel in the obvious homage to the actual "Dynamic Duo" who were dominating pop culture for a time in the late 60's and there are many other aspects of the movie that make it a hoot. Bob Burns, longtime sci-fi and horror fan and collector and defacto inheritor of the mantle once worn by Forry Ackerman is in this flick in his ape costume called "Kogar". He shows up in the riotous finale when the movie takes another wide swing into yet another direction. 

This movie was made over a very long time to make, essentially when Steckler had the money to continue and that explains the changes in some characters both physically and also suggests why the movie veers off course so stunningly at times. The movie stars Steckler's wife Carolyn Brandt as "Cee Bee Beaumont" the damsel and Ron Haydock (under the name "Vin Saxon") as "Rat Pfink" and the boyfriend. Haydock was a comic book fan contributing to a number of fanzines in his time and was also an early rock and roll singer with a few minor tunes to his credit. He sings four numbers in this movie. "Boo Boo" is played by Titus Moede, a Steckler regular who actually went on to have a tiny career in regular material. The odious and menacing "Chain Gang" features a few Steckler regulars as well with Mike Kannon as "Hammer" and James Bowie as "Benjie", and one-timer George Caldwell as "Linc". 

If you're a fan of Steckler's work than you've seen Rat Pfink a Boo Boo as it's one of his most famous alongside the psychotronic hit The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. But unlike that movie which had a small budget, this one has almost no budget being produced out of Steckler's pocket for the most part with the help of his friends. It's not only a noirish black and white film but a silent movie as well, since Steckler always shot his movies silently (all the equipment he could usually afford) and added sound later. In this wacky thing that works to its benefit giving it a fun shlocky feel like a badly dubbed foreign film. If you see no other Steckler movie I can sure understand that, but everyone who has ever heard of Batman needs to see this one. 

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