I have never really been a fan of the invisible man story, at least a deliberate one. I can appreciate Ellison’s, but I never really got Huxley’s. The power of invisibility has obvious and usually lurid connotations. I know what I would do if I were invisible, and so do another million formerly pimply-faced, comic book-reading, men around the world. So when I come into a film knowing that it is already a poor excuse of a story I don’t really like, I can’t expect much. The Amazing Transparent Man was a film that hit drive thru’s across the nation in 1960, and features Marguerite Chapman in her last role in a feature film. No, I’ve never heard of her either, but she has a star on the walk of fame and she was in about 20 films throughout the 1940s, so she gets honorable mention, even though she doesn’t do much here.
The film begins with an escaped convict chased by the baying of dogs, who eventually finds his rescue in the form of a convertible driven by a sultry woman. By playing the old drunk-husband-being-ferried-by-his-doting-wife routine, the two quickly escape a police blockade. I immediately wish that this film will continue like the episode of the Twilight Zone that began the same way, but ended in the man and woman being pets/dolls to a child of a giant alien race. The message in that Twilight Zone is actually one of the most misogynistic, but I wouldn’t want to ruin it for you. Anyway, I digress. This film is nothing like that Twilight Zone episode anyway. The man asks the woman why she broke him out. “You’ll find out soon enough, when we get to where we’re going,” she informs him. They soon arrive at an old house in the country after day break.
The ex-con has quickly changed into a tuxedo at some point, and gets eyed down by a cowboy-hat-wearing guard outside the house. Laura, the sultry woman, has brought the criminal, Joey Faust, to the presence of an ex-major of some unknown military background. Major Krenner has brought Faust to his company for Faust’s renown as an expert safe-breaker. The cowboy hat is named Julian, and quickly makes his strengths known by informing Faust that one shot from his rifle will rip his spine right out of his body. The Major has plans to con Faust into breaking into a government facility to steal nuclear secrets. Krenner then introduces Faust to a scientist who has developed a ray that utilizes every spectrum of light to examine all tissue and structure of the human body. Dr. Ulof dutifully reads his cue cards and informs the men of the dangers of x-ray, alpha, beta and omega radiation. The doctor joins the men in their lead barrier after strapping a guinea pig on a table beneath the ray. Exposing the guinea pig to the ray turns it completely invisible to the eye. A door next to the ray interests Faust, and the Major becomes tight-lipped and looks constipated. “It’s no concern of yours,” he informs Faust.
While Faust sleeps, Julian stares in at him from the other room while reading gun magazines. The restless Faust awakes and fixes himself a drink, then opens his door to in turn take a coy peep at Julian. Faust lures Julian into his room by knocking at the side of the door and immediately knocks him out. A really cool screen wipe is accomplished when Faust uses his bed sheets to cover Julian and in turn the camera. He takes Julian’s gun and sneaks upstairs to the ray, and the door in which he was so interested. While investigating the door, the doctor comes from behind a divider to stop Faust. Apparently the Major is blackmailing the doctor and making him sleep in a twin bed next to a nuclear reactor. The Major keeps the doctor’s daughter behind that locked door near the ray to keep him in his employ, and the doctor begs Faust to open it. Faust is having none of it, thinking of his own problems, and his own daughter, whom he believes to be safe for the time being. When the doctor challenges Faust’s lock-picking skills, Faust perks up, not willing to let himself be bested. “I can open that thing blindfolded!”
Before Faust can open the door, a gun-toting Laura stops him and brings him back downstairs. Faust attempts to bribe Laura to his side, but Julian wakes up and knocks him out. It seems all sides are under the thumb of Major Krenner, and are willing to consider all options. Laura and Julian protect Faust when the Major returns, and Laura informs Faust that she’s willing to turn to his side, in exchange for the money Faust offers for her turning over the ray. The next morning, Major Krenner approaches Laura and takes issue with her helping Faust of course. He begins slapping Laura quite a bit, telling her to lay off the vodka. This further turns her interests towards Faust, who himself employs a no-slap, heavy boozing policy. The Major and the doctor still get Faust on the table down under the ray and are ready to begin the procedure.
Faust’s invisibility allows him to take advantage of the situation. Not being strapped down like the guinea pig, he immediately jumps off the table before the group emerges from the lead barrier. Of course the first thing he does as an invisible man is what any red-blooded invisible man would do – he begins kissing Laura on the neck. Then he plants a sucker punch into Major Krenner’s stomach and tells him that the deal’s only going to work on Faust’s terms.
While Faust enjoys his success at breaking out the nuclear X-13 material out from the government vault, the doctor and Krenner are upstairs debating the safety of using X-13 in the ray and the sustained doses of radiation poisoning that the guinea pig and Faust must endure to become invisible and then get turned back. You see, the guinea pig has died, but Krenner sees a win-win situation for him. If Faust dies from the radiation poisoning, he won’t be able to blackmail Krenner anymore, and testing the X-13 on Faust will allow the doctor to create a more powerful ray, one that will eventually be able to turn entire armies invisible. Krenner comes downstairs to inform Faust that his next heist must be done in broad daylight. The security has been tripled on the nightshift, but maintains the same personnel during the day. On the way to the government vault, Faust decides to knock over a bank, but unfortunately his heist is blown by his becoming visible again. A half-bodied Faust is soon identified by a bank teller.
Faust returns to the country house after leaving Laura behind with her cut of the bank money. He attacks Krenner and locks him in the room the Major has been keeping the doctor’s daughter in. When Laura returns, Julian tries to stop her, but she informs him that Julian’s son who has been the source of Krenner’s blackmail is already dead, and that Julian is just a puppet at this point. Julian, the doctor, his daughter Marie and Joey Faust leave the house and are planning to escape to somewhere the doctor can repair Faust’s disappearing state. The doctor informs Faust that they will both die from radiation poisoning, and they should stand up to Krenner to stop him from his dream of creating an invisible army. Before Faust can retrieve Laura from the house, Krenner shoots her during the escape and Faust realizes it’s time to approach Krenner. Krenner throws acid on Faust and then sets up the ray to be used on him, but Krenner, in his need for success, tries to return to the safe to get all the research data. While doing so, the X-13 is exposed to the ray and the house is destroyed in a nuclear explosion.
Meanwhile, the doctor, his daughter and Julian have gotten away, and when the FBI and local law enforcement begin examining the nuclear fallout from the blast, they bring Dr. Ulof to them for questioning. He explains the maniacal plans of Krenner to the detectives, and suggests that they let the wishes of that madman die with him. He yearningly looks to the camera and asks the viewer, “What would you do?”
The film is short, with a run time of about 57 minutes, and wasn’t a giant waste of time. I actually enjoyed the anti-nuclear message and the obvious ending that is employed by this 1960 film. It’s pretty obvious that the threat of the Cold War seeps its way into almost every aspect of the culture, and shitty drive-thru movies are no exception. But like I said, I knew exactly what Faust would do the minute he turned invisible, attempting to make time with a WWII era starlet.
Rating: 2 X-13 canisters out of 5.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
50 Movie Pack: SciFi Classics: Part 4 - She Gods of Shark Reef
Roger Corman, the most famous of B-list directors, influenced so many directors and actors of the 20th century that even James Cameron, during interviews for Terminator, remarked that he attended the “Roger Corman School of Film.” Corman was exclusively known for his cheap and quick fixes to film problems. Today’s film was directed by Corman, who claimed that he could shoot, edit and complete a film in three days, and could have directed a film about the fall of Rome using two extras and a sagebrush. So obviously, She Gods of Shark Reef immediately presents itself with such quality. In fact, IMDB notes that Corman would usually shoot two films on location after securing permits, and this was the second of the two he filmed in Hawaii in the late ‘50s, the other being Naked Paradise, essentially making She Gods of Shark Reef a second rate B movie.
I particularly dread this entry. In fact, the first five minutes of this film are what pushed this entire project into hiatus, so dismal and boring they were (at least as far as I remember them). But now I feel that forging on is something I have to do. Like the scientists contained within films throughout history, I must ask myself, "But what if we can," and not merely state that "this endeavor is physically, chemically, and ethically impossible."
The biggest turn-off immediately presents itself as the lack of quality in the transfer. It looks like the film was transferred from a rubber band onto VHS, then somehow scraped onto a DVD. Everything visual about this film, from the color to the frames, makes me want to vomit. But let's get on to the action. The film begins with two men – one in turban, the other in khakis – swimming up towards a dock, and climbing on top to stick a knife in a guard. This allows them to acquire guns from a container, but before they can make off into the night, another guard in a safari hat approaches and scares off turban man. Safari Hat and the khaki swimmer throw down some fisticuffs and eventually Safari Hat gets knocked out. As the khaki man swims away, a narrator speaks (the khaki-wearing swimmer, himself), describing his trip from the guarded docks to the other side of the island, where he and his brother took a schooner that eventually stranded them on a reef. This quickly cuts to film of two men and a woman swimming with some sharks and fish – the woman carrying a knife, while more women in long boats approach the scene. The knife-wielding woman cuts through a shark like butter, then manages to grab the blonde brother. She and her friends eventually help both brothers into their boats. Apparently in the confusion another one of their colleagues has died (I am assuming the turban man, though I think they call him John.)
The leader of the women on the island, Queen Pua, (I am assuming that these women are the titular She-gods) tells them that they are not welcome and that they will depart on the first boat that comes from the main land. Christy and Lee Johnson are apparently brothers on a “freelance” marine biology mission and tell the leader such. The Island Company is apparently these women’s benefactor, and deals in pearls. After telling the men this, the leader goes and flies a red and yellow flag, sending message by semaphore, which for no reason is defined by Christy to his ignorant-of-semaphore brother Lee.
Apparently, Lee Johnson is on a quest to get somewhere, but blonde-haired Christy is the more level-headed of the brothers and tells him that he’s had just about enough of hearing about his quest. However, Christy does immediately take interest in the leader’s description of the Shark God who guards the opening of the reef.
After fishing to no success one afternoon, Lee and Christy are finally treated to some food, and some fine island dancing by the women on the island. This is of course all frowned upon by Pua, who continually cites how many company policies these two ne’er-do-wells must be in violation of. The savior of the men, named Mahia, has taken quite a liking to Christy, and when she places a lei around his neck, Pua runs out and yells about taboos, and pulls all the women away from the Johnson men. Apparently the fact that she saved the men when the shark god was angry (hungry) has put Pua into the ultimate piss-fit. Christy convinces Mahia that she was meant to save him – that the gods brought her to them the day she saved the Johnson brothers. They then kiss, and stroll through some beautiful island backdrops while Pua stares on. After Pua gives Christy some lip he decides that maybe he should get off the island with his brother Lee and the catamaran Lee just so happened to find hidden in some underbrush.
Unfortunately, Christy runs back to the village to say goodbye to Mahia, the ultimate mistake for any man in a black and white sci-fi film, and witnesses a creepy ceremony wherein the women of the island, led by Pua, ask for forgiveness from the shark gods. At this point the shark god, some spirits of the dead, Jesus Christ, and the Pearl Company itself are completely upset with Mahia and her people. No sign from these malevolent beings is given at the end of the forgiveness ceremony and Pua informs Mahia that the next day she and others will swim with the fishes, literally. The female sacrifices are brought out to the reef to be tied and drowned near the sharks, but not before Christy Johnson gets to them and saved Mahia from death, swimming her back to shore on a surfboard. Pua and her teams of catamaran rowers chase Christy back to the shore. Chris and Lee attend to her while Pua runs off to make some more flag-talk.
Pua eventually follows the men to their secret catamaran and realizes their intention of leaving and taking Mahia with them. Before Pua can keep Mahia hidden somewhere on the island, the men approach Pua and Mahia struggling in the grass. Mahia tells them that the boat is coming sooner than expected and that they must leave now. Lee begs Chris not to bring Mahia with them, saying that he is merely using her as an ace in the hole to escape. Lee then runs to the island’s pearl depository and makes off with a bag of pearls. They leave the island with Mahia and a tied up Pua. On the boat, Lee shows them that he merely took maps from the safe, and none of the pearls. At it gets dark they decide that their only chance is to land on the reef and wait until morning to continue. At this point, Lee’s dark past is brought up, as he is apparently wanted for killing a man while trying to smuggle those guns from the opening scene. His status as a criminal is what has had the two men nervous about the entire time. Lee swims back to the island from the reef to actually steal some pearls this time, but leaves one of the island women badly beaten. When he returns to Chris and Mahia on the reef he brags about stopping the woman and proceeds to get into a fist fight with his brother.
Lee gets away but is soon tailed by a shark, and while messing with his makeshift sail, he falls into the ocean, a precarious few yards from Tangaroa, the Shark God, himself. Mahia and Chris attempt to save Lee but to no avail. They swim back to the reef and sail off into the sunset, leaving Pua behind on the reef, only for her yelling to poor Mahia to go unheeded. Mahia tells Chris that they will finally leave the evil behind them.
This film stood out to me as one I will unfortunately find a lot of during my time watching these films – a “just bad” entry in the annals of science fiction history. I always hope for either a hidden gem or a “so bad it’s good” situation, but this film is actually too boring and regular to be either. The writing and story are solid – there are actual themes – Mahia and Chris are both up against evil in their lives to which they are innately tied. The existences of a pearl company as a malevolent force in Pua’s life, and the belief in the Shark God which is present in all the lives of the island women are interesting developments in the film that don’t seem to go anywhere. The film could explore these tropes, but if it did, it would be too long; the quality of the film itself being nearly aggravating and unwatchable. I hope that the next few films do not suffer from this same yellowed, unloved quality that immediately gives any viewer a head ache and the need for strong, strong alcohol.
Rating: 1She Shark God out of 5
I particularly dread this entry. In fact, the first five minutes of this film are what pushed this entire project into hiatus, so dismal and boring they were (at least as far as I remember them). But now I feel that forging on is something I have to do. Like the scientists contained within films throughout history, I must ask myself, "But what if we can," and not merely state that "this endeavor is physically, chemically, and ethically impossible."
The biggest turn-off immediately presents itself as the lack of quality in the transfer. It looks like the film was transferred from a rubber band onto VHS, then somehow scraped onto a DVD. Everything visual about this film, from the color to the frames, makes me want to vomit. But let's get on to the action. The film begins with two men – one in turban, the other in khakis – swimming up towards a dock, and climbing on top to stick a knife in a guard. This allows them to acquire guns from a container, but before they can make off into the night, another guard in a safari hat approaches and scares off turban man. Safari Hat and the khaki swimmer throw down some fisticuffs and eventually Safari Hat gets knocked out. As the khaki man swims away, a narrator speaks (the khaki-wearing swimmer, himself), describing his trip from the guarded docks to the other side of the island, where he and his brother took a schooner that eventually stranded them on a reef. This quickly cuts to film of two men and a woman swimming with some sharks and fish – the woman carrying a knife, while more women in long boats approach the scene. The knife-wielding woman cuts through a shark like butter, then manages to grab the blonde brother. She and her friends eventually help both brothers into their boats. Apparently in the confusion another one of their colleagues has died (I am assuming the turban man, though I think they call him John.)
The leader of the women on the island, Queen Pua, (I am assuming that these women are the titular She-gods) tells them that they are not welcome and that they will depart on the first boat that comes from the main land. Christy and Lee Johnson are apparently brothers on a “freelance” marine biology mission and tell the leader such. The Island Company is apparently these women’s benefactor, and deals in pearls. After telling the men this, the leader goes and flies a red and yellow flag, sending message by semaphore, which for no reason is defined by Christy to his ignorant-of-semaphore brother Lee.
Apparently, Lee Johnson is on a quest to get somewhere, but blonde-haired Christy is the more level-headed of the brothers and tells him that he’s had just about enough of hearing about his quest. However, Christy does immediately take interest in the leader’s description of the Shark God who guards the opening of the reef.
After fishing to no success one afternoon, Lee and Christy are finally treated to some food, and some fine island dancing by the women on the island. This is of course all frowned upon by Pua, who continually cites how many company policies these two ne’er-do-wells must be in violation of. The savior of the men, named Mahia, has taken quite a liking to Christy, and when she places a lei around his neck, Pua runs out and yells about taboos, and pulls all the women away from the Johnson men. Apparently the fact that she saved the men when the shark god was angry (hungry) has put Pua into the ultimate piss-fit. Christy convinces Mahia that she was meant to save him – that the gods brought her to them the day she saved the Johnson brothers. They then kiss, and stroll through some beautiful island backdrops while Pua stares on. After Pua gives Christy some lip he decides that maybe he should get off the island with his brother Lee and the catamaran Lee just so happened to find hidden in some underbrush.
Unfortunately, Christy runs back to the village to say goodbye to Mahia, the ultimate mistake for any man in a black and white sci-fi film, and witnesses a creepy ceremony wherein the women of the island, led by Pua, ask for forgiveness from the shark gods. At this point the shark god, some spirits of the dead, Jesus Christ, and the Pearl Company itself are completely upset with Mahia and her people. No sign from these malevolent beings is given at the end of the forgiveness ceremony and Pua informs Mahia that the next day she and others will swim with the fishes, literally. The female sacrifices are brought out to the reef to be tied and drowned near the sharks, but not before Christy Johnson gets to them and saved Mahia from death, swimming her back to shore on a surfboard. Pua and her teams of catamaran rowers chase Christy back to the shore. Chris and Lee attend to her while Pua runs off to make some more flag-talk.
Pua eventually follows the men to their secret catamaran and realizes their intention of leaving and taking Mahia with them. Before Pua can keep Mahia hidden somewhere on the island, the men approach Pua and Mahia struggling in the grass. Mahia tells them that the boat is coming sooner than expected and that they must leave now. Lee begs Chris not to bring Mahia with them, saying that he is merely using her as an ace in the hole to escape. Lee then runs to the island’s pearl depository and makes off with a bag of pearls. They leave the island with Mahia and a tied up Pua. On the boat, Lee shows them that he merely took maps from the safe, and none of the pearls. At it gets dark they decide that their only chance is to land on the reef and wait until morning to continue. At this point, Lee’s dark past is brought up, as he is apparently wanted for killing a man while trying to smuggle those guns from the opening scene. His status as a criminal is what has had the two men nervous about the entire time. Lee swims back to the island from the reef to actually steal some pearls this time, but leaves one of the island women badly beaten. When he returns to Chris and Mahia on the reef he brags about stopping the woman and proceeds to get into a fist fight with his brother.
Lee gets away but is soon tailed by a shark, and while messing with his makeshift sail, he falls into the ocean, a precarious few yards from Tangaroa, the Shark God, himself. Mahia and Chris attempt to save Lee but to no avail. They swim back to the reef and sail off into the sunset, leaving Pua behind on the reef, only for her yelling to poor Mahia to go unheeded. Mahia tells Chris that they will finally leave the evil behind them.
This film stood out to me as one I will unfortunately find a lot of during my time watching these films – a “just bad” entry in the annals of science fiction history. I always hope for either a hidden gem or a “so bad it’s good” situation, but this film is actually too boring and regular to be either. The writing and story are solid – there are actual themes – Mahia and Chris are both up against evil in their lives to which they are innately tied. The existences of a pearl company as a malevolent force in Pua’s life, and the belief in the Shark God which is present in all the lives of the island women are interesting developments in the film that don’t seem to go anywhere. The film could explore these tropes, but if it did, it would be too long; the quality of the film itself being nearly aggravating and unwatchable. I hope that the next few films do not suffer from this same yellowed, unloved quality that immediately gives any viewer a head ache and the need for strong, strong alcohol.
Rating: 1
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