Going Ape

 

 

 

 

 

This is my entry in the So Bad It's Good Blogathon hosted by Taking Up Room

 

Star Wars people are bonkers. I've heard that quite a number of Star Wars fanatics will buy a ticket to a movie that is going to have a preview of the newest Star Wars  movie during it's opening previews, watch the preview, then leave the movie without watching the movie they paid good money to enter the theater. That's just nuts, if you ask me.

And yet, I paid good money in 2001 to go to see Swordfish, a movie I had no desire to see, in actuality. I paid my admission with the express intent of seeing the preview of Tim Burton's new movie, Planet of the Apes. The difference is I actually stayed to see the movie. (I'm a fanatic, but I'm not insane...) Swordfish, BTW, is a terrible movie, and the only highlight, for me, was seeing Halle Berry topless. Swordfish might be someone's idea of a good entry for the So Bad It's Good blogathon, but definitely not for me.

On the other hand, the preview of Planet of the Apes was a success. that is if it was meant to attract me as a patron. Having been a fan of the older five movies, and having great hopes for the advancement of technology to make the apes look even more realistic than those of the 70's Apes  movies, I have to say I was totally entranced by that brief three or four minute preview.  And, of course, I was first in line to buy a ticket to the first showing when the movie finally hit the theaters... Literally, I was there about 30-40 minutes before the box office even opened.  

The road to this remake was a bit rocky. It had originally been slated to be produced in 1988. The original idea was to produce a sequel to the first 1968 Planet of the Apes, apparently ignoring the four sequels that followed that first movie.  The story would have taken place in a future of that timeline, with a character named Duke, who was a descendant of Charlton Heston's character, Taylor, leading a human revolt.  Thankfully we were saved from having Tom Cruise in the lead role of that pre-production. It was ditched because of a shakeup in the studio executives of 20th Century Fox Studios.

Future tries at creating the movie went through some interesting changes. Both Sam Raimi and Oliver Stone were interested, and one of the more intriguing ideas about a plot involved everything having been predicted, including the rise of the apes to power, through some kind of interpretation of a Bible Code. (Remember the popular 1997 book by Michael Drosnin, The Bible Code? Apparently this plot drew some inspiration from that book...) This version would have had Arnold Schwarzenegger in the lead role.

Through the various tries at getting the film off the ground, both Roland Emmerlich and James Cameron were in talks to direct. Eventually the director became Tim Burton. The script itself, however, was not completely set in stone. According to wikipedia the script was still being hashed out even as sets for the movie were being built. The good thing is that Rick Baker, makeup genius extraordinaire, had been on board from even the earliest tries at the remake. Having been a fan of Baker ever since An American Werewolf in London, I personally had high hopes for convincing prosthetics.

 

 

 

Planet of the Apes  (2001): 

Captain Leo Davidson (Mark Wahlberg) is the liaison between the experimental chimpanzee trainees for the space program. Basically, he works with one chimpanzee, Pericles, training him how to operate the controls of the scout ship of the space program. He has an affinity with  Pericles, much more than he really has with his co-workers, or even his commanding officers. On the space station Oberon, Leo is the connection with his charge and is Pericles' guide.

When a strange anomaly appears in the vicinity, Leo's superiors tell him to send his chimp out in a space pod to investigate. Leo objects, insisting that he be the one sent out instead of the guinea pig chimp, but is overruled. Pericles disappears. Ostensibly to do some work to try to figure out what happened Leo goes to another pod, but ultimately takes command of the situation and launches the second pod. And he too ends up losing contact with the Oberon.   

When Leo gets out of the space anomaly he has somehow been sent some 3000 years into the future. He crash lands in the jungle on a strange planet. "Strange" is the key word. He finds himself caught up in a chase as native humans are running in terror. What are they running from? Why, militaristic apes of course.

Leo

 

Leo, along with several others, ends up being captured. Limbo (Paul Giamatti), an orangutan who is a slave trader, is the ape in charge. He is not impressed with this new collection, and is especially not impressed with Leo, who doesn't seem to be as fatalistic towards his capture as the others. 

Limbo

 

Ari (Helena Bonham Carter), a chimpanzee with a decidedly liberal "all species should be treated equally" attitude, buys both Leo and a native girl, Deanna (Estella Warren), to work in her house. Ari is the daughter of a political bigwig, Senator Sandar (David Warner).

 

Deanna

Ari

 

Sandar

 

 

 

Ari is also the source of attraction for the military bigwig, General Thade (Tim Roth), although she has no love for him. Politically they are on opposite ends of the spectrum as Thade hates all humans, and would be entirely at home with the idea of exterminating every human from the planet. 

Thade

 

Leo. independent soul that he is, works at trying to escape from his captivity. He eventually succeeds, in the process taking Ari and her friend, General Krull (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), as hostages. Leo finds a device from his own time that seems to indicate that a rescue party from his old ship is somewhere nearby. It turns out that that somewhere is also the location of the legendary "Calima", the place where the religious sector of the ape society believe life began.

Chased by Thade and his adjutant, Attar (Michael Clarke Duncan), Leo heads to the remote area. There he does not find the hoped for rescue party; instead he finds the remains of the Oberon which seems to have been there for thousands of years. And the source of the name "Calima"... 

 

Ultimately, it turns out that the Oberon tried to follow Leo into the anomaly, but this anomaly is some kind of unstable wormhole that transports people through time, but cannot be controlled enough to say where the people will end up.

 

In the end, many humans come to follow Leo, whom they think is some kind of hero, and do battle with the entire ape army. That is, until Pericles arrives in his space pod.

This film was disparaged viciously on it's release. Right wing political stooges like Rush Limbaugh got in the fray by claiming the film was anti-American. At least one report I heard made a big deal out of the ending of the film. (Spoiler alert! If you want to watch this film first stop reading and come back after you've seen it.) 

You see, at the end of the movie Leo manages to escape and pilot the space pod back to his own time. Or so it would seem. But when he crash lands on Earth, he ends up near what looks like the Lincoln Memorial. Only instead of Lincoln, it is General Thade.  The ending was made a bit confusing (like how did Thade escape from his "prison" at the end and somehow also travel back in time?) But the big whine that I heard was from those same right wing stooges, like the aforementioned Limbaugh, who howled bloody murder over making their hero, Lincoln, into an ape.

The ending was the only part of the movie that was in tune with the original novel, however. Every one knows the iconic ending of the 1968 movie, but in the Boulle novel the main character also escaped from the planet, only to arrive in his own time to find that the apes were in charge there, too. I think the ending of the film was supposed to be meant as a cliffhanger, and the next film in the series would have explained what happened (as in how Thade escaped from the planet to go hrough his own time portal and create another alternate universe). . However, due to the negative reception of the first one, a follow up movie was trash canned.

There are several callbacks in this film to the original, including a cameo (uncredited, by the way) of Charlton Heston, who plays General Thade's father. He utters a line: "Damn them! Damn them all to Hell!". And Attar gets to be the center of another callback when he tells Leo "Get your stinking hands off me, you damn dirty human!"

The film, believe it or not, was actually a success, financially. It made about $250 million more than it's budget. Which means it cracked the top 10 of money makers for 2001. Not bad, considering that this year's output included the first installments of both Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings, the top money makers for 2001.

But critical reception sunk the film. Most critics gave it negative reviews, and John Wilson and co, at the Razzies named it the worst sequel or remake of the year. The Rotten Tomatoes rating for the film stands at 43%, but admits "this remake...can't compare to the original...but the striking visuals and B-movie charms may win you over." And that basically is how I feel. The plot leaves a little to be desired, but it was effective as a visual form. Until the CGI enhanced trilogy of recent years came along, it was a fairly good presentation of apes. Thanks to Rick Baker for his work there.  

Well folks, time to fire up the old Plymouth. Hopefully I won't run into some time portal on the way home, but just in case, I think I'll stop at the store and buy some bananas...

Quiggy

 

 

Gorilla Of My Dreams

This is my first entry in the It's In the Name of the Title Blogathon hosted by Realweegiemidget Reviews and Taking Up Room

 Way back in the early 2000's, I was in the habit of ordering a pizza on Saturday nights.  On one occasion the pizza place I did business with had a deal.  Pizza and a Movie.  What the deal was, you order a large pizza and along with it came a DVD of some movie,

They only did it a few times. It probably wasn't all that profitable. You didn't get a big budget gonzo movie. To be honest, the ones I got in those deals were public domain movies that I could have gotten anywhere on multi-disc sets for a few dollars.  I only have two of them, now, 20 years later.  One was Abbott and Costello meet the Mummy, (which came with a bonus episode of the TV show The Munsters, so it must've been a Halloween promotion.) The same thing could probably be said about today's movie. 

...I mean Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla? Just Lugosi's name suggests horror.  Unfortunately for Lugosi, he got typecast, although given the career he had under that typecast, I would have been happy with it, even if, as I have heard, he wasn't necessarily so happy. But at any rate, even if it wasn't for Halloween, it was a decent bonus to go along with pizza.

The DVD itself, I mean, not necessarily the movie on it.  But, as I've said before, I enjoy low budget trash as much as those huge budget epics, sometimes even more so. I like pushing the envelope and see if I can get a reaction from people.  

A few of the movies I've reviewed over the course of the history of this blog fall into a category of what I would call "Really??? That's your movie choice?"  (I can imagine the consternation of some of my fellow bloggers with the choices I came up with to join heir blogathons.)

Case in point.  A few years ago I posted a review of a double feature: Billy the Kid vs. Dracula and Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter  (both directed by the same guy who directed today's feature, BTW). Neither of these movies would be on the radar of most people (in fact, most people have probably never even HEARD of them).

So back to the focus of today. Some interesting tidbits of trivia:  Sammy Petrillo, half of the comedy duo of Petrillo and Duke Mitchell, got his start because Jerry Lewis saw him perform and liked the almost dead-on imitation of Lewis that Petrillo had perfected and gave him his first role (as a baby version of Jerry Lewis on his own TV show}.  But apparently there was a falling out at some point, because by the time this movie came out, Lewis was ready to sue over the obvious similarity between the two characters and his and Dean Martin's comedy pairings.

William Beaudine, famously referred to as "One Take Beaudine" for his tendency to stay on budget by going with the first take of filming no matter how bad, is often ranked with Ed Wood as one of the worst directors to ever come out of Hollywood (Make room, Ed...). He had a huge career. From 1915 until 1970 he directed over 400 movies.  None of which are all that memorable. He did direct a slew of movies featuring The Bowery Boys, so those who are interested in 40's and 50's comedies may have seen his films (albeit maybe not know it was him behind the camera...)

Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla was one of the movies that Martin Landau watched to get a feel for Bela Lugosi in preparation for his role as the actor in Tim Burton's biopic of Ed Wood. Landau commented on Beaudine's film that it was "so bad it makes Ed Wood films look like Gone with the Wind. " (Ouch!) 

Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952):

First thing you notice in this film is the title sequence. After the movie title it lists the cast. "Introducing Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo" comes immediately after the title, followed by a list of the rest of the cast that merited getting listed, including the major roles played by Charlita as Nona and even Ramona as Ramona (the chimp).

Missing from the cast list is Bela's name... Wait a minute! I thought this was Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla... Is Lugosi not in it? Well, you get his name in the title, so maybe that counts for saying "Starring Bela Lugosi"...

The movie opens with one of those old-style documentary featurettes, featuring some stock footage of jungle creatures and a voice over: "This is the jungle..." which ends with the camera on two bearded men lying on the jungle floor while the announcer says "Who are these men? What can they possibly be doing in this cruel tropical wildness?"

The men are Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo (playing themselves), a comedy/singing duo who were on their way to do a show for Armed Services personnel, but end up on the jungle floor.  Waiting to be discovered by... what else... jungle natives. 

Duke and Sammy

The head medicine man (Milton Newberger) is insisting that they kill them (At least, that's what I think "hoo li ga vahntay" and slicing his hand across his throat means...) But the two have a savior in the person of the daughter of the chief, Rakos (Al Kikume) of the tribe who doesn't want them to be killed (OK, so that is what the medicine man is insisting..) Instead they get cleaned up and shaved.

Upon awakening, the two introduce themselves to their savior, Nona (Charlita) and the rest of the tribe. And the real reason that Nona has saved them from sacrifice becomes evident... she has the hots for Duke.  And her baby sister, Saloma (Muriel Landers), has a likewise attraction to Sammy,

Nona and Rakos

Saloma

Dean and Jerry, I mean Duke and Sammy, perform a song from their act for the tribe, with Duke singing one of the two songs featured in the film, " 'Deed I Do".  But they want to get off the island and back to civilization.  Fortunately (coincidentally..) for them, Nona works part time helping a scientist on the other side of the island, Dr. Zabor (Bela).  

Dr Zabor

Seems that Dr. Zabor is working on some experiments in the science of evolution.  And (plot point that drives the last half of the film) Zabor also has the hots for Nona. (Of course, he does.) So Nona takes Duke and Sammy to meet the Doctor.  Who lives in a fairly creepy mansion on the other side of the island with his native manservant, Chula (Mickey Simpson).  Nona is not only acquainted with Dr. Zabor, she also works part time  as his laboratory assistant.  (Which explains how the doc has become so enamored with Nona, she's always hanging around his lab doing assistant things.

Zabor has a monkey named Ramona, who is probably a potential victim of his nefarious experiments in the future.  Ramona takes an immediate shine to Sammy, but Sammy, of course, does not consider Ramona to be much of  an improvement over Saloma...

The first thing that Zabor notices about the two is Nona seems to have an interest in Duke, which makes Zabor a little jealous... (A little?)  So since the doc has his secret experiments on the study of evolution (you know the science that says man was originally a variation of the ape in it's past), he decides to use his knowhow to eliminate the competition.

How?  His experiments have been on how to reverse evolution.  Or at least that's what his ultimate goal is.  He experiments first on Ramona (I told you see was going to be a victim...)  He injects Ramona  with is serum and ends up with a monkey that has reverted to an earlier life form.  He tells Chula that now he can turn a man into a gorilla.  But don't worry Chula, he has another victim in mind to test out this serum...

But the problem is that the serum he used on Ramona did not last, and before he can show off the results of his success, Ramona has reverted back to her normal self.  (And, see, all those tears you were crying for poor Ramona turn out to be tears too soon...)

The terror is only just beginning however.  Remember how I said Zabor wanted Nona for himself and was getting a little peeved that Duke was getting somewhere with her when he couldn't?
  Well he gets Chula to kidnap Duke and, while Sammy and Nona have gone back to the village to look for him, Duke is stuck in Zabor's cages, having been injected with Zabor's new and improved serum. Which is a resounding success.  Duke is transformed into a gorilla, played, as usual, by that whiz who made his living doing gorillas in the 50's movies; Ray Corrigan. I think it was his suit, so it was probably in the contract that he would be the one to wear it... (You didn't REALLY think it was a REAL gorilla, did you...?)

When Nona and Sammy return. Zabor tries to convince that the gorilla is really Ramona.  But Sammy eventually becomes convinced otherwise.  See, even though Duke has become a gorilla physically, he still retains the mind and intelligence of Duke and takes various steps to try to convey the situation to Sammy.  Which may take a bit of effort, since Sammy is a couple of marbles short of a hopscotch game.

While trying to figure out how to resolve the situation another gorilla appears on the scene. The new gorilla turns out to be a female gorilla whose hormones go into overdrive on seeing Duke.  The two manage to escape and get back to the tribe, but they have been followed by Zabor, who has his eyes set on killing Duke.  Sammy jumps in front of duke to save him, but the doctor ends up shooting Sammy instead.

And then, in the classic ending, it all turns out to be a dream. Sammy dreamt the whole thing and everyone he knows was actually a part of the dream (shades of The Wizard of Oz!!), which it turns out he was having while waiting to go onstage with Duke as part of their act.  Nona and the chief were an act that involved, apparently, a trainer and her gorilla, which was actually the chief in a gorilla costume. Chula is apparently a bouncer.  And the guy who is in charge of the theater? None other than Zabor. 

The End.  And since there are no closing credits, Bela is STILL not credited as having been a part of the movie....

Folks, this is one of those films that requires that you leave your brain at the box office and just go in with only your eyes, because you won't need the rest of your body.  Entertaining?  On one level, yes.  But if you are a big fan of the Martin/Lewis pairing, you may have some issues with the more than obvious imitation by Petrillo trying to do Lewis. Which may convince you that Lewis had a good reason to get annoyed by the act.  Of course, this kind of thing couldn't have much to keep it afloat.  Sammy only had 5 roles in movies and Duke only had 9 and as near as I can tell, this was the only one that paired them together.

After this movie, Bela Lugosi was only able to get work with Ed Wood.  Only 4 movies before he passed away and three were with Wood.  A sad ending for man who had a great career scaring the bejeebers out of people for years in his heyday. 

Well, time to get the next boat out of the theater and get back to civilization.  Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

   .

Is That a Banana in Your Pocket?

 

 

 

 

Come one, come all! See cardboard buildings demolished with a single swipe! Thrill to a gigantic ape doing an interpretive dance to the soundtrack! Look in awe at cheesy attempts at 3d effects from a film that isn't actually filmed in 3D!  Be astounded by the numbers of fleeing citizens that are able to pack the back end of a pickup or a bus!

 

 

 

 

 

A*P*E (1976)

In 1976 one pf the big blockbusters from Hollywood was Dino DeLaurentis' remake of the classic King Kong.  As per usual, there was production of cheesy low-budget knockoffs that attempted to cash in on the blockbuster, and this being no exception, a company in Korea tried to beat DeLaurentis to the punch.  Hence A*P*E.  

A*P*E had all the elements of King Kong (except production values, special effects, good name actors, etc.)  The biggest name on this film was actually Joanna de Verona (who later made her name as Joanna Kerns).  This was her first feature film (and apparently her last).  She must have been so devastated by the film that she transitioned to TV and for most of the rest of her career was only in TV productions.  Her big role was as the mom in the TV series Growing Pains.

A*P*E starts out whiz bang as the title character is already captured and being transported as the show pony (ape) for an attraction in a theme park.  The people on the boat transporting the ape are confident that the drugs used to keep the ape subdued will last for 5 0r 6 days.  (boy are they wrong.)

The ape escapes in the water and does battle with a large shark (a la Jaws) then goes ashore where he begins to demolish every cardboard building in site. The US Army, led by Col. Davis (Alex Nicol) originally doubts the rumors of a giant ape, then dismisses it as being some publicity stunt being done by a local film production company.

The film company is on hand with its current star Marilyn Baker (De Verona/Kerns).  Marilyn's lover, a reporter named Tom Rose (Rod Arrants) is on hand as a romantic interest and the resident hero.  

 

 

 

 

Eventually both the Americans and the Korean army are convinced that the ape is real and make attempts to try to capture it before it destroys the entire cardboard countryside.

 

 

Of course, since this movie is trying to cash in on the blockbuster, the ape eventually finds and falls in love with Marilyn and captures her.  Leaving Tom to try to rescue his enamorata as best he can.

About a third of the movie is watching the guy in the cheap ape suit do some kind of interpretive dance in the wilderness while being attacked by critics in helicopters who think his show ought to be shut down before it makes it through its first run.

 

 

Part of the fun in watching the film is looking for the zippers that show up occasionally in the ape suit.  Ed Wood would have been proud of how the production company made use of the films interminable scenes of found footage of Army maneuvers as scenes of the Army trying to move into position to capture/kill the ape.

 

There seems to be some rumor that the film was originally released in #D, but maybe it was originally intended that way but they ran out of money.  There are several scenes, especially towards the end, where things come at you on screen, Styrofoam  rocks flying at the screen and gun barrels pointed directly at the screen.

The best scene is probably the one many people have seen if they've seen anything from this movie, the ape shoots the finger at the helicopters trying to shut down his one ape dance show.

Well folks that's it for this time.  Drive safely. 

Quiggy

Planet of the Apes "The Liberator"

This is my entry in the Favourite TV Episode Blogathon hosted by A Shroud of Thoughts

As a kid I was fascinated by science fiction.  In the 70's, when I was growing up, science fiction was a rarity on network TV.  Most of the successful ones managed to stay on the radar because they kept it in the modern day and didn't over inundate the public with any outre science or implausible concepts.  The Six Million Dollar Man comes to mind.  (At least I didn't think a bionic man was too implausible, anyway).But I never really considered this show to be science fiction because Steve Austin was just James Bond with some added cybernetic features.

The really cool shows lasted only one or two seasons at best.  Logan's Run for instance, which was based on the movie of the same name, managed to air only 14 episodes.  Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and the original Battlestar Galactica only lasted a bare two seasons.  And one of my favorites, Project U.F.O. ( which was really about Air Force investigations in UFO sightings, and thus not technically sci-fi, but I still rank it as such) also only had a short two season run.

A far cry from other decades.  In the early days of TV there were quite a few sci-fi shows (although admittedly some had similarly short runs).  Compare that to today when there are quite a few TV series that had extended runs, not even including any of the Star Trek franchise shows.  There are about a dozen sci-fi shows currently on various formats, such as network TV, internet, and cable stations.

Planet of the Apes was based on the hit movie series.  The original movie hit the big screen in 1968 (coincidentally the Year of the Monkey in Chinese 12 year zodiac cycle).  I did a review of the five movies in 2016 (again a year of the Monkey) which you can find on this blog.  In 1974 (not a year of the Monkey, but what the hey...) CBS brought the idea to TV.  Instead of just one lone astronaut doing the gig against those "damn dirty apes" this featured a pair of astronauts, teamed with a friendly chimpanzee on the run from the authorities represented by the scientist apes and the army apes.

The series opened with the episode called Escape from Tomorrow which established the crash landing of three astronauts from 1980 on what is Earth in 3085.  One of them, named Jones (actor unknown), died in the crash.  The two survivors, Alan Virdon (Ron Harper) and Peter Burke (James Naughton). were taken by Farrow (Royal Dano) to a cave.  The future Earth, much like the movie series from which it sprung, was now dominated by intelligent apes.

One particular change from the movies (the first two, which take place on the future Earth) is that the humans can talk and converse with the astronauts.  (In the movies they were mute savages, sort of a transfer of status from modern Earth in which humans can talk but apes can't).  The series starts out pretty good.  It seems to gravitate towards a moralistic theme in most of the episodes, however.  This was the mid-seventies, remember, and on the back side/decline of racial discrimination that was one of the predominant themes in the news (the other being the Vietnam War).

Over the course of it's brief run, Alan and Pete, along with Galen (Roddy McDowell), are on the run from the prevailing ape society, including the gorilla General Urko (Mark "Sarek" Lenard) , who wants to kill them, and Zaius (Booth Coleman), the orangutan scientist who wants them captured alive so they can be studied.  (Roddy McDowell, by the way, is an actor who is probably more well known for his appearance as an ape in this and 4 of the 5 Planet of the Apes movies than he is for all of his appearances as a human combined in his career)

The series only lasted one season (and in my admittedly vague memory, I don't even think all the episodes that were made were aired, at least in my part of the country).  When I finally was able to get the complete run on DVD a couple of years ago, I only remembered seeing the first 8 episodes. The powers that be tried again a year later with a cartoon series, but that only lasted one season, too.  Apparently people were willing to pay money to see apes on the big screen, but thought that the concept was just too boring stacked up against the story of a half-Chinese monk's  travels in the Old West (Kung Fu on ABC) and the travails of a black junk dealer (Sanford and Son on NBC).


 I definitely don't remember the episode I am reviewing today.  And there is some debate on the internet whether the episode even aired at all, which makes this one a natural choice to choose for someone like me.

 The Planet of the Apes: "The Liberator":

As usual, Burke and Virdon and Galen are on the run.  A village in the country is approached by a party of Apes.  A deal has been struck in the past history of the village that they will supply 5 people periodically to the apes as slaves to work.  The village usually tries to supply the slaves by capturing people outside the village (called "Meadow people"), but in order to fulfill the obligation, sometimes villagers have to draw lots to be added to the 5.

On this occasion, one of the villagers, Clim (Peter G. Skinner), decides he really doesn't WANT to be a slave and tries to run.  Outside the village he encounters our heroes who hide him from the chasing apes.  Clim lies to the group telling them the apes are chasing him for some sick idea of a sport, and takes them to his village.  Clim thinks he is in the clear because he has brought two new potential outsiders to be slaves and Burke and Virdon are imprisoned and prepared to be in the next batch of slaves given to the apes.

But Brun (John Ireland), the head of the village  and it's religious leader has other ideas for Clim.  He says the gods must decide his fate and brings him to the temple.  As Galen watches, Clim dies in the temple, without ever having been touched by Brun.

Miro (Ben Andrews), Brun's son, goes out to hunt down more meadow people to add to the next slate of slaves.  Meanwhile, Burke tries to put the moves on one of the female captors, Talia (Jennifer Ashley) in an effort to try to get her to free them.  But Talia is in love with Miro and the two plan to be married, so that idea falls flat.

When Galen tries to rescue Burke and Virdon he falls into disfavor with Brun, who despite the fact that Galen is an ape, refuses to release the two human captives and now holds Galen captive awaiting the decision of the impending arrival of the gorillas.  Miro gets sliced on his arm by one of the meadow captives and is rescued from impending death by the medical knowledge of Virdon and Burke.  So when Talia is chosen by lots to be among the next batch of slaves to go with the gorillas, and with his father refusing to allow him to take Talia's place, Miro arranges for the escape of our heroes on the condition that they take Talia with them

Cornered at all angles, they decide their only avenue is to head to the temple where Clim died.  It turns out that the temple originally was a place where they created some fairly toxic nerve gas, something along the lines of the same stuff the Nazis used to gas concentration camp victims in WWII or it is supposed to be a parallel to the Agent Orange used in the Vietnam War.  This is what has caused the death of renegades like Clim over the years, although the claim is made by Brun that the "gods" have decided their fate.

Whether or not Brun actually believes the "gods" have determined the fate of the victims is pretty much decided when our heroes discover a cache of clay pots that have been used to collect the gas.  Brun plans to use them when he has enough to attack ape villages and kill them.  The usual platitudes of how war doesn't solve anything come out from Burke and Virdon, as well as how the gas that brun has collected would also kill humans, but Brun is determined to keep his plan alive.

The episode ends rather satisfactorily with our heroes ending up continuing on their goals, and of course with the potentially deadly weapon cache destroyed.  While most of the episodes tended to beat you over the head with their barely disguised political agenda, this one tended to be a little more interesting, especially with the mystery of how Brun and his "gods" actually managed to keep the people under his thumb.

The entire series can be found online, or if you are interested, it is available as a DVD collection.

Quiggy

Bad Movie 101

Quiggy:  Today, class, we are going to look at the seamier side of cinema, and view what are arguably two of the worst movies ever made.

Blog Reader: (groans)

Quiggy:   Now it's not all that bad.  Think of it in terms of how NOT to do a movie.  The two movies in question are examples of low budget, both in effects and in script.  You've heard the old saying that if you gave a monkey a typewriter and an infinite amount of time it would eventually turn out the works of Shakespeare?  Well, these guys didn't have to wait near that long.  And they didn't even have to use a monkey.

Blog Reader:   So what are the movies?

Q:  The movies in question are Santa Claus Conquers the Martians  and  Robot Monster.

BR: I vaguely remember hearing about Robot Monster.  Isn't that the one where they were so cheap they used a gorilla suit with a diving helmet for the head?

Q: Yes, indeed, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.  The first movie is Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.  The first thing you'll notice is the title of the movie in the opening credits is actually rendered as Santa Clause Conquers the Martians. And the title song is a ditty called "Hooray for Santy Claus".  Why the discrepancy in name?  Possibly because the real Santa Claus threatened them with litigation...? So: Lesson #1 in Bad Movie 101:  Production values are unimportant.

BR: Cool.

Q:   On Mars,  Bomar and Girmar (Boy Martian and Girl Martian, get it?) are bored Martian kids.  They stare all day at television which gets good reception because the programs they watch are Earth programs.    Momar (Mom Martian) tells her husband...

Kids are the same all over

BR: (interrupts) I know! It's Dadmar!

Q: No, it's Kimar.  You see, he's the king.  It's good to be king.  He gets to make all the decisions.  So: Lesson #2 in Bad Movie 101:  You don't really have to get creative with the names.  Anyway, Kimar and his council, including Voldar, essentially the villain of the piece...

BR:  "Voldar"?  Why not "Vilmar"?  Like Villain Martian?

Q:  Like I said, names don't really matter in Bad Films.  Anyway, Kimar and Vilmar...I mean Voldar...

BR: (snickers)

Methuselah's grandfather, Chochem

Q:   ...go to visit Chochem, the ancient wise man living in a cave.  Chochem tells them that all the kids on Mars are suffering from the lack of being allowed to be kids, and that they need a Santa Claus to help them. Kimar and his council, rocket scientists one and all apparently, hop on a rocket ship to go to Earth to kidnap Santa Claus. Why not send soldiers or agents?   Lesson #3 in Bad Movie 101:  The less actors you have to utilize, the cheaper the budget.

Space travel on a budget

BR:  That rocketship looks like a trash can with a bowling ball attached to it.

Q:   Good observation.  Which brings us to Bad Movie 101 Lesson #4.  No need to spend money on props.  Just whatever you can scavenge from the store room will work.  There is a stowaway on the ship in the form of Dropo, a character who provides some comic relief (as if the movie needed any, but Dropo becomes important later).

Dopemar (Dropo)

Q: When Kimar and crew arrive to Earth, they use their search cameras to find Santa.  But it's Christmas time and there are hundreds of Santas on every street corner.  It seems the Martians didn't do any research before they left.  Voldar, being grumpy, probably because his mustache looks like a caterpillar crawled up his nose, exclaims...

"All this trouble over a fat little man in a red suit."

Q:  The Martians decide they'd better land and get more info.  Meanwhile the US armed forces have detected the spaceship.  They send out everything they've got: Essentially the movie uses free films of Air Force and Army maneuvers.   Bad Movie 101 Lesson #5.  To save money use any and all archived film you can to flesh out your story without actually having to spend money. The Martians activate a radar-proof screen to hide themselves, and land.  They capture two kids out all by themselves and force them to tell them where Santa is.  The Martians activate their robot to help them.  The robot makes Robbie the Robot from Forbidden Planet look positively space age.  See Lesson #4 above.

No, its not Robot Monster. It's....TORG!

Q:  Suffice to say, the Martians succeed in kidnapping Santa, despite the malfunction of their robot, which essentially becomes an oversized toy after entering Santa's workshop.  This Santa has to be seen to be believed. He looks like Santa, but has a weird laugh that can give you the creeps.  And he never says "Ho ho ho." (Here again, did the real Santa threaten to sue them if they made him seem like the real Santa?) But Santa does end up captured and taken to Mars.

BR:  You mean there won't be any more Christmas on Earth?

Q:  Hold on.  The second half of the movie has Santa and the two kidnapped Earth  children on Mars.  They set up a workshop that's all automated.  Voldar makes several attempts to try to kill Santa.  Why, because he's the Grinch... (Didn't you notice?  They're both green and mean...)  Of course this would be a bad movie indeed if Voldar were successful in killing Santa.  But hold on to the end because there's a Three Stooges ending that as to be seen to be believed.  And Mars gets its own Santa in the form of Dropo, so the real Santa can go back to Earth.

Martian Santa

Q: OK, kiddies, off you go to lunch, but be back in time for the second half of the class.

Q:  Welcome back to class, kids.  Hope you had a good break because now we are going to talk about what many people consider the worst movie of all time, even worse than Plan 9 From Outer Space.  I'm talking about, of  course, Robot Monster.

BR:  Oh, goody, the scuba diving gorilla.

Beneath the Ocean of the Planet of the Apes?

Q:  Yes.  You will note that although nearly every person in the movie is just as unknown now as they were before the movie was made, there is one name that should be familiar: Elmer Bernstein, who did the music for this piece of schlock.

BR:   Elmer Bernstein?? You mean the multi-Oscar nominee Elmer Bernstein?

Q:  The one and the same.  This was early in his career, and if you watch, you'll note than not too much of his talent was needed.  Anyway, the movie starts out with two kids who are the most annoying little brats ever, playing games.  We are introduced in short order to two scientists who are examining caves for archaeological artifacts, and then to Johnny's mother and older sister.  They kids and mom are on a picnic, and after eating they take a nap.

"Mom, there any cole slaw left?"

BR:  A picnic?  In the desert?  Who would have a picnic in the desert?

Q:  Apparently the producers needed a cheap location, so they just used the outskirts of a place in Nevada.  Lesson #6 in Bad Movie 101.  Find the cheapest locales for your filming.  Saves on transportation fees. Anyway, Johnny wakes up from his nap and runs back to the cave, but the scientists aren't there.  While he is there there is a crackling noise and a blinding light and Johnny hits the ground, apparently re-enacting the "Duck and Cover" routine he was taught when a nuclear bomb is dropped.  And then some footage of a couple of dinosaurs fighting each other.  Remember Lesson #5?  Here's more cheesy archived films.  Not sure where they came from, but they look like they were salvaged from Ray Harryhausen's scrap bin.

Big smile for the camera

Q:  In the next scene Johnny gets up and and  at the mouth of the cave are two cheesy looking machines.  One is apparently what the credits at the beginning termed as the Million Bubble Machine. (at this point it might be pertinent to tell you the original movie was released in 3D.  I guess those bubbles made it look pretty exotic).  While Johnny hides, Ro-Man comes to the front of the cave and uses one of the machines to report to his superior.  Guess what?  His superior looks exactly like him.  In fact, I think it's the same actor in the same gorilla suit and the same diving helmet...  Which reinstates Lesson #3 of Bad Movie 101.

Boss-Man

Q: Every time there is static in the neighborhood, you know Ro-Man is near.  Ro-Man learns  from his superior that, rather than all "Hu-Man" beings having been eliminated, there are still 8 left.  Ro-Man's superior berates him for being incompetent and tells him to find the remaining eight and eliminate them.  Meanwhile we discover that the scientist is actually Johnny's father....

BR:  Wait a minute.  Didn't Johnny ask his mother earlier when they were going to get a new daddy?

Q:  Very observant.  Lesson #7 in Bad Movie 101.  Don't let minor details like plot consistency get in the way of the story.

Q:  In the continuing story, we find that George, the older scientist, and Roy, the younger scientist developed some kind of vaccine that had a side effect of making the humans who were injected with it invisible to Ro-Man's detection machines.  which is why he is having to search for them by foot.  Meanwhile, Roy, the assistant scientist, whom everyone though had been killed by Ro-Man reappears.  Together with Johnny's big sister, Alice, who is a brilliant scientist in her own right, build a machine to try to contact people in a space station in Earth's orbit.  But Ro-Man finds out and destroys it, then taunts the remaining Hu-Mans.

BR:  It looks bleak for the remaining human race...

Q:  Well, there is hope.  Roy and Alice get married...

A match made on Earth

BR:  Adam and Eve?

Q:  Remember, this is the 50's.  Such sentimentality was common.  Plus Roy couldn't get his groove on unless he put a ring on it.  So the two go off on their honeymoon and little Carla, the younger sister follows, but she gets the brushoff and told to go back.  Unfortunately Ro-Man gets to her first.  Then it's one down and five  to go.  Ro-Man then comes across Roy and Alice.  He kills Roy and takes Alice back to the cave to get his own groove on.

A match made on Planet Ro-Man

BR:  Eeewwww!

Q:   Then Ro-Man's superior kills him because Ro-Man refuses to kill the girl.  And then Boss Ro-Man unleashes a lightning storm on Earth like you wouldn't believe, which includes some more footage of claymation dinosaurs (including the ones seen earlier in the film), but does have the ultimate effect of finishing off those pesky Hu-Mans.  Which leads one to wonder; If he could do that all along why did he need Ro-Man on Earth in the first place?  Then Johnny wakes up.  It was all a dream.... or was it?

Q:  Well that's it for this class on Bad Movie 101.  Time to toddle off to bed.  You need nap time in order to grow up to be Good Movie directors, not Bad Movie 101...


Quiggy

Footnote:  I had fun writing this piece, and I hope you enjoyed it, but I think I'll probably go back to my regular way of writing this blog after this.

Q.