Category: Movie Discussions
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Madhouse (1981)
James Cameron once claimed that producer Ovidio G. Assonitis hired only American directors so that studios would finance his movies, then claimed they were incompetent so he could fire them and direct the movies himself. He’s entitled to that opinion; it happened to him with Piranha II: The Spawning (1982) and it also happened to…
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The Mansion of Madness (1973)
La mansion de la locura (1973) was a Mexican production; however, it was filmed in English, then dubbed into Spanish. This tells me that I picked the wrong version of the film to watch. Recently released on Blu-ray by Vinegar Syndrome, The Mansion of Madness is called Edgar Allan Poe’s The System of Doctor Tarr…
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A Page of Madness (1926)
How Wikipedia can offer two complete paragraphs describing the plot for A Page of Madness (1926), I’ll never know. I don’t usually like to call attention to the fact that I’ll occasionally glance at Wikipedia for background information or trivia. In this case, though, had I not read the plot summary, I would have absolutely…
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Tales That Witness Madness (1973)
Friday night I reclined in my chair and pushed “Play” to start streaming Tales That Witness Madness (1973) on Amazon Prime. Although the temperature has warmed in Minneapolis and I’ve stopped wearing additional clothing when I watch TV, the movie (a first time watch) fell over me like a warm blanket… like a was experiencing…
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The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
It seems like I’ve always known the story of Dorian Gray. I never paid it much attention, though, until I watched Penny Dreadful on Showtime and was a bit smitten by Reeve Carney. I’m certain that’s what caused me to finally watch the classic film for the first time, which I did a few years…
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Ladybug Ladybug (1963)
During the opening credits of Ladybug Ladybug (1963), a blurry image of a hand holding a stopwatch comes into focus. It’s simply the elementary school principal, John Calkins (William Daniels), telling students that their achievement test has ended. However, when the civil defense alert sounds in his office and the yellow light means there will…
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This is Not a Test (1962)
Not a made for television movie, This is Not a Test (1962) was nevertheless never released in theaters and aired on TV sometime in 1962. In it, Deputy Sheriff Dan Colter is instructed to set up a road block in the mountains in an undisclosed location, probably California. He’s simply following orders so sincerely has…
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The Lost Missile (1958)
Talk about dedication to a project. On the first day of filming The Lost Missile (1958), director William Berke suddenly died of a heart attack. Not missing a beat, his son, Lester Wm. Berke, completed the film. However, I imagine most of the work fell upon the supervising film editor, Everett Sutherland, because much of…
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The Killer of Dolls (1975)
From the seed of an interesting idea grows The Killer of Dolls (1975), a movie as crazy as it is deranged. It comes from writer/director Michael Skaife, who failed to delight me with The Butcher of Binbrook (1971.) I can find little about this movie or its creator; however, simple IMDb research shows he made…
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Howling II: …Your Sister is a Werewolf (1985)
Howling II (1985) is a direct sequel to Joe Dante’s 1981 werewolf film, The Howling. When last we saw television news reporter Karen White (Dee Wallace), she was turning into a pretty white werewolf on screen. Howling II opens at her funeral. Among the mourners are her brother, Ben (Reb Brown), a reporter assigned to…