FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY

Fifty Years Ago Today was Saturday, May 4, 1974… no one was saying “May the Fourth Be With You” today because STAR WARS, introducing “the force,” was still three years in the future… An all-female Japanese team reached the top of the Himalayan mountain Manaslu in Nepal, becoming the first women to climb an 8,000 m (26,000 ft) peak…. Cannonade, ridden by jockey Ángel Cordero Jr., won the 1974 Kentucky Derby, the 100th running of the event, at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky….

I was living in Louisville at the time, with my girlfriend. We decided that, at least once in our lives, we should experience the Kentucky Derby in person. Unfortunately, we picked this year. The 100th running. The same year that EVERYONE else decided to go.

Seating at the Derby comes in two forms:  the rich folk sit in the stands, like human beings. The lesser peons crowd into the infield, the grassy area within the track itself. Being decidedly lesser, that’s where we were. 

Normally, the crowd in the infield is estimated at about 100,000 people. That’s a lot already, but this year--being the 100th running after all-- the infield crowd was about 250,000. Of which, the girlfriend and I constituted about .000008 percent. Was it crowded in there? Need you ask?

It took us a long time just stumbling around to find a free spot to roost. And “free spot” doesn’t really cover it. We were able to place our picnic blanket on the ground, but had to sit on it squeezed together, with our knees drawn up to our chins. But that’s all right because I spent very little time there. Almost immediately we decided that I’d better hustle off and find us some hot dogs and beer. So off I went. It was much, much later when I returned. Thankfully, I’d been smart enough to make a careful judgment of just where we were in that mass. Still, I wandered a bit.

But we had our yummies as the day’s races proceeded. We couldn’t see a thing from where we were. Horse racing was only an unlikely rumor. Too many heads and bodies between us and the track. 

Pretty soon I figured if we wanted to get a bet down on the Derby, we’d better do it soon because it was going to take a while to get to the betting booth (thankfully this did not require crossing the track and entering the grandstands because temporary booths had been erected in the infield). 

So off I went, and, yeah, it took quite a while. But eventually I reached the booth and … stood in a humongously long line. Ultimately, decades later, the bets were placed and I headed back to our blanket, arriving there just before Derby time. By craning the neck and jumping up and down, I got a millisecond glimpse of a horse’s head zipping along. I’ve always believed that I saw Cannonade, the eventual Derby champ, but I can’t swear to it.

Immediately after the Derby, the infield emptied almost as if by magic. By the time the next, and last, race of the day was run, we had a clear uninterrupted view. Of a race nobody gave a fig about. 

Hey, but we were at the 100th Derby, so…ya hoo. And, no, I didn’t bet on the winner.

Today’s movie, courtesy of cable TV, came from Channel 4, Indianapolis-Bloomington. This station, along with Cincinnati’s Channel 19, were the clear winners of Best Monster Movie Provider, cable TV division.  Channel 4 was the home of long-long-running horror host Sammy Terry, but he held sway generally on Friday nights. For this Saturday we were flying solo with….

THE FROZEN DEAD

Yessir, a Nazi zombie movie. Probably the first of breed. And didn’t it spawn such a lovely lineage??

Ladies and Gentlemen! Presenting Dana Andrews, shining star of the silver screen, hero of  LAURA and THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES in his newest, greatest  screen sensation--THE FROZEN DEAD!! 

Well, I mean…Joseph Cotten went from CITIZEN KANE to LADY FRANKENSTEIN. Henry Fonda from YOUNG MR. LINCOLN to TENTACLES. John Carradine went from GRAPES OF WRATH to..well, you pick ‘em.

I did meet Dana Andrews once…but that’s a story for another day. Eat your heart out, peasants..

Honestly, I have zero--as in ZERO--memory of watching this movie that night. It was on Channel 4, I definitely would have tuned in, and I did enter it on my glorious list of monster-movies-seen. So, yeah, I watched it. And, no, I don’t remember it. So this is either going to stir long-frozen memories, or, more likely, it’s going to seem like a true first-time watch. Ooooh, exciting. Let’s find out.

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Dana’s scientific wonder is called “Instant Freeze”.  Hmm, I sense commercial possibilities…

A question more likely for a refrigerator commercial than for a horror film: “What of your recent defrosting successes.”...

Dana’s assistant, Karl, is a master of laboratory busy work. Nothing needs to be done, but there’s just so much to do! …

Aside from the unavoidable frozen Nazis idea, some of the science sounds almost credible…

How does Anna Palk (who dat?) rate top billing with Dana Andrews?  Did they think she was about to blossom into another Julie Christie? Was she somebody’s girlfriend? I dunno. I mean she’s not a bad actress and she’s quite pretty but still…

Gee, do ladies really wear push-up bras to bed? How cinematically thoughtful of them…

The movie actually gets off to a moderately interesting start, but about 25 minutes in it assumes a snail’s pace and never really recovers…

The detached arms hanging on the wall are less an homage to Cocteau’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST than an insult to that classic wonder…By the way, I once played an arm sticking out from a wall. Well, I guess my arm played the arm, but… Another story for another day…

Between this and BRAIN THAT WOULDN’T DIE, we now have proof positive that all living, severed heads have telepathic powers. W.H. Donovan didn't even need a whole head…

The American doctor is a surprisingly willing accomplice. And really terrible at keeping a secret. And not much of an actor. And he looks less like a romantic lead than Eb from GREEN ACRES…

I’ll grant you, though, that the pale blue head in a box is genuinely kind of creepy…

For your horror film bingo card:  living head

  Nazi zombies

  Evil lab assistant named Karl

Overall, it’s not a good movie (SURPRISE!!), but it’s also better than expected. Certainly better than it has any earthly right to be. And that IS a surprise. Still--not good.

FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY

Fifty Years Ago Today was Saturday, May 5, 1973…it was a big day in our locality. Jeffersonville, Indiana, where I lived, was immediately across the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky. In most senses, Jeff was a suburb of Louisville (just don’t tell any Jeffersonvillians that I said that). So the doings of Louisvillians were our doings as well and today was the biggest day of the year in our area. It was Derby Day! As the day began, things looked good for the race favorite, Sham. But, unfortunately for that nice horsie, there was a tall, beautiful stallion in the field name of…Secretariat. Arguably—and frankly there’s not much argument about it—the greatest thoroughbred racehorse of all time…

Secretariat in mid-flight.

And me? Still married, still between shows, probably working a lot for my dad. Just bein’ an electrician, working long hours, bringing light and heat and power for the toaster to middle America! God bless me!

Today’s movie showed up on Channel 32’s late movie. I was looking forward to this one. It was one of the last films of The King of Horror, Boris Karloff. This night I got to see…

THE SORCERERS

I had no chance to see this in a theater, though I came close. One evening, late 60s, I took a long country drive. This led me toward Paoli, Indiana. I’d passed through the area several times a couple of years earlier when I was doing a show nearby. But this night, I just needed a nice drive and I remembered the roads being good and the countryside attractive, so off I went.

On my way home, I passed the Paoli Drive-in Theater. There, on the marquee, I could read THE SORCERERS. Having heard of it from the monster magazines, I knew it was something of a big deal because of Karloff.

I’m not sure, after 50 years, why I didn’t just pull in and see it that night. Best possibility: Some of these small drive-ins only opened on weekends, so maybe it wasn’t even open that night.

Couple of days later, I drove back to Paoli, in hopes of seeing the movie. The drive-in was open, but an entirely different, and not interesting, bill showed on the marquee. Thus, u-turn and straight home. That was my only shot at seeing THE SORCERERS at a theater.

Between it starring Karloff and my having a short history of missing it, the movie was a double-dang must-see for me.

I enjoyed THE SORCERERS that night but wasn’t blown away. And 50 years later, never having seen it again, I remember almost nothing about it. I can envision Karloff sitting in a small, sad apartment…and, yeah, that’s about it.

So it’s high time to see it again, and here we go…

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It was nice and very surprising to see Karloff walking so much and so well. Strolling through London streets, even with a cane, he seems almost nimble. Most of his latter-year movies find him either in a wheelchair or looking very much as if he should be in a wheelchair…

He does look old as the hills and, probably for the first time in his long career, he seems to wear no makeup at all. His true dark complexion is on full display, blotches, bags, wrinkles and all. Ironic, I suppose, because did any major actor spend more of his screen time buried under gloop and grime?…

                                    Ah, Boris back where he belongs--in a mad lab.

This movie, much more than the highly vaunted WITCHFINDER GENERAL, makes me regret the too-early loss of Michael Reeves to the movie world…

The acting is topnotch, at least in the leading roles. Catherine Lacey and Ian Ogilvy are excellent and Karloff is even better, bless him. The old trouper still getting it done. In fact, apart from TARGETS and his small role in COMEDY OF TERRORS, this is probably the best film performance in the last decade of his career. He’s very good…

At one point, Ian Ogilvy speaks the line, “I have my own personal Open Cesare.” Of course, this should be “Open Sesame.” No idea if one should blame Ogilvy or the script, but it does make his character sound a little dopey…

The speeding motorcycle scene is pretty good but kind of dangerous. Clearly it was shot guerrilla style with Ogilvy and his leading lady actually on the bike. I doubt the movie’s insurers (if there were any) would have approved…

A bonus from the movie: ultimate British bird Susan George has a 

one scene role and is both decorative and effective.

The movie is obviously extremely low-budget. Matter of fact, between the skimpiness and the plot line, this could almost have served as the fifth of Boris’s Mexican movies. If not, that is, for the acting and the sheer smarts of the thing…

But it’s not all Peaches and Sunflowers. Some of the sound recording is pretty bad (the result of low budget and real locations, I assume), some minor role actors aren’t really up to it, there are a few slow, unfilled moments (not enough meat on the script to go around), the locations have the benefit of being real, but are, nevertheless, small and tight and drab…

Of course, it doesn't end well.

But all those negatives are outweighed by the genuine talent and energy of its very young director and its very old star.

                                                  Meanwhile, monsters were everydamnwhere.