To the beat of the jungle drums it’s Burl, returning to the land of Cunha! Ha ha, we’re all very familiar with, and fond of, his work I’m sure, particularly the Great Quartet of Fifty-Et, which includes Giant from the Unknown, Frankenstein’s Daughter, Missile to the Moon, and the movie I’m gabbing about today, the exotic, buxotic, quixotic She Demons!
The plot is largely lifted from Eyes Without A Face, or would have been if Eyes Without A Face hadn’t come out a year later, ha ha! It seems that there’s been a Gilligan’s Island-style marine mishap, and the castaways include spoiled debutante Jerrie, played by beauteous Irish McCalla, most famous for playing the title role in Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, and who, a trivia, was born exactly the same day as the great Dick Miller! The boat captain and generic hero type is Fred Macklin, played by Tod Griffin, who had, after all, already appeared in She Devil so should have known what to expect on this island! There are a couple of crew fellows too: Sammy Ching, played by Victor Sen Yung, famous for his role as number one son Jimmy Chan in the Charlie Chan film series and who also appeared in movies like Moontide, Soldier of Fortune and The Killer Elite; and Kris Kamana, played by Charles Opunui, who had appeared, very briefly, as an “Eskimo” in The Thing From Another World!
After exploring the beach, which looks a lot like Paradise Cove in Malibu, they venture into the island’s interior, which looks a lot like Griffith Park! Unfortunately their buddy Kris suffers a mishap that leaves him chock full of spears, ha ha, and it’s soon revealed that the perpetrators are a group of goochy-faced ladies who like to dance around and attack anyone who happens along! And these ladies, instantly dubbed “She Demons” by our intrepid castaways, turn out to have been created by Colonel Osler, of course!
But who is Colonel Osler? Well, he’s played by Rudolph Anders, who’d essayed plenty of Nazis and other assorted evil Germans before this, and was Dr. Louis Dupont in The Snow Creature, and here he delivers a particularly rootin’-tootin’ performance as a Mengele type guy acting out of the usual maniacal uxoriousness, which of course he’s happy to drop as soon as he claps eyes on Irish! It seems Osler’s wife Mona, played by Leni Tana from Torn Curtain, was involved in a lava accident and needs a replacement face, and local island ladies figure in this treatment somehow, and whenever the procedure fails, as it constantly does, the result, somehow, is a She Demon! The filmmakers don’t really explore the medical whys and wherefores of this, however!
Of course Osler has his Igor figure, here called, imaginatively enough, Igor, and played by familiar face Gene Roth of Strange Illusion, Jet Pilot and Zombies of Mora Tau; he also has a number of generic sub-henchmen who all try to keep their faces in those frowny expressions Nazi henchmen always seem to wear in B pictures! Ha ha! And as the island’s volcano gets rumblier, and Fred and Sammy are captured and tortured while Jerrie is captured and wooed, and then everybody escapes with help from the bandaged Mona, who has finally recognized what a monster her husband is (and whose face, partly revealed near the end, is genuinely gross), and Osler rants and raves and grins and grimaces, and the She Demons keep dancing around, we come to realize just how long 77 minutes can seem!
Nevertheless, I liked this little movie! After all, it starts from a pretty solid foundation, because I’m naturally fond of these little 50s programmers and always enjoy the world of Cunha! In the first half of the movie Jerrie is a supremely annoying spoiled rich girl, but it’s rewarding as she transforms into a regular person! Sammy, for his part, is just a regular sidekick sort of a guy instead of the Asian caricature I was fearing, and that was good too! He’s goofy, but also resourceful and brave! And then it’s always nice to see Nazis on the receiving end of a lava shower, ha ha! It won’t make you change your religion or anything, but you’ll probably enjoy the movie, so I give She Demons two powder-blue cashmere shorties!
Uxorious Bumpkins Rejoice! Burl has once again treated us to the fun-house of bewilderment that is the language of English! I have not seen uxorious used in any for in print in an ol' blue dog's age! I am pretty sure I have not heard it spoken in conversation or even tedious academic lectures by learned men with their beards, clucks of disapproval and furrowed brows (And I have a Master's Degree! In Science! Sorry, it's not science, just Music!)!
ReplyDeleteI am certain I am darn uxorious, having been married to an erudite, creative, free - spirited yet level - headed, kind - hearted, jazz - playing foxy - minx of a wife woman for approximately 36 years, 10 months, 22 hours 38 minutes and 27 seconds. Compared to her, I'm a jazz - playing, Denebian Slime - Devil! I am a mere William B. Williams to her Sammy Maudlin! Boy, I'm sure lucky I was smart enough to not marry that She Demon© I was dating before I met her!
I have seen a few of The Big Cuhna's laborious, yet entertaining movies. I didn't know that Victor Sen Yung was in a Big Cuhna Movie! He brings zest and moderately gleeful zeal to all the Chan films he is in! I loved him bringing genteel honor and peacefulness to the gritty, suspense packed goings on in "Moontide"!
Kudos to you, Burl, for bringing up "Gilligan's Island" similarity to "She Demons"! I can imagine the hapless Gilligan and pals stumbling into the She Demon© encampment. Eventually, we see Gilligan on an elegant platter on a bamboo and gaffing tape table with a shiny red apple under his snoot! Fierce Yet Alluring She Demons© gyrate with loosely choreographed abandon around the crude table! Next, we see the Vituperative Yet Sultry She Demon© Queen -President dancing provocatively with a Poignant Reasonably Gilligan - Shaped Facsimile Skelton Bone Dance Partner while she exudes mawkishly macabre pride by wearing the Gilligan Hat! At sundown, on the pier on the touristy side of She Demon© Island, the camera leads us to an elaborate kiosk with various hair clips, and haunted voodooey She Demon© accoutrements made of Skipper Bones! Before the commercial break: Two Lesser She - Demons, that vaguely resemble Mary Ann and the other one, patiently display the spotless glass case with the Professor's Gently Used Spectacles while bedecked in Mrs. Howell's finest bejeweled bracelets and necklaces made of Thurston's dentures! It's a She Demon© Sale - A - Bration!
I always enjoy your reviews - especially the reviews of 50's monsterfests that are packed with "Cheepnis" that Frank Zappa and The Mothers sang about with such verve on the Roxy and Elsewhere Live album back in the '70's. I hope you find good health and copious amounts of time to write with your usual obvious pleasure, expertise, alacrity, humor and rampaging wit, perhaps while surrounded by a soothing cloud of luminous effluence and maybe some nice fruit juice or cider on an elegant platter on a crude table made of bamboo and gaffing tape!
Ha ha, what a comment! I can't tell you how much I enjoyed it! I thank you for your kind words of praise, and I certainly said "ha ha" as I read your Gilligan extrapolations! I'm an uxorious sort myself and also was dating a She Demon before being lucky enough to meet the lady who consented to be my wife! It was twenty years ago this summer in fact, so I'd better remember that day when it comes along, ha ha!
DeleteI further enjoyed your invocation of 'Cheepnis," which of course was composed as a tribute to the great Roger Corman joint It Conquered The World! Ha ha, terrific film!
Anyway, best of wishes to you! I will keep writing, but don't be too worried at any dry patches this summer - they will hopefully be made up for by the occasional flurry of several reviews at once!
Continued - Bumpkins Rejoice Part 2: Electric Boogaloo! It's hard for me to find the words to phrase it eloquently, but somehow I find the fact that Ed Wood could sustain the enthusiasm for his art in the face of ridicule...comforting! Of course, my first encounter with Corman was the scintillatingly colorful, so - called "Poe Cycle" with the multi faceted, self styled number one Raconteur In America Vincent H. Christ! After viewing "Bucket Of Blood", "Carnival Rock" "Attack Of The Crab Monsters" I found inspiration and, yes, comfort in my impression that Corman was ostensibly out to make a buck, yet was able to effortlessly sneak in multiple little artistic moments of clunky zeal! I seek out and treasure performances by his "Stock Company" of Dick Miller!, Melle Welles, B R U N O Vesota, Jonathan "Purple" Haze, et al. Somehow, these movies (and a host of movies I have discovered or "re - discovered by looking through a lens you suggested) help me cope with things and focus my attention in a positive way.
ReplyDeleteI would like to comment more often but professional obligations, family and the capricious demands of our cat leave me little time for my verbose nabobery!
I'm currently in a metropolitan hospital monitoring my 87-year-old mom through the night, thus I have some time to write (although putting together well structured, organized thoughts without a score of needless parenthetical observations along with a smattering of malarkey, tomfoolery and shenanigans: The Big Three) is a challenge when you have to stop every few minutes to keep your Mom from yanking out her IV in her sleep!
I publish a weekly newsletter for my church choir! I have two delightful English professors that sing in it! Each week after I send it,
I surmise they debate which one of them gets to restrain me and which one gets to stab me in the neck with their favorite red ink pen! "Murderous Editors: From Outer Space?" Sounds like a movie I need to watch! I could really use a Murderous Editor tonight, or a couple slugs of Rhubarb Gin!
Sometimes I suspect I come across less like a mild-mannered jazz musician, trumpet/voice teacher and choral conductor and more like a low - wattage version of Hunter S. Thompson (who was a fellow Kentuckian, by birth)! I haven't read his stuff for 20+ years! (Did he abuse parentheses and hyphens to the same patience stretching degree as I?)
Skoal, Brother! (Ending of a 1970's TV commercial featuring sturdy Running Back of the NFL's now defunct Houston Oilers, Earl Campbell for "Skoal", a vile 'smokeless tobacco product' which now is the provenance of BaseBall Players across the cornfed width and breadth of the US of A!!)
D'oh - I meant for this to be a short, succinct reply!
Have a splendid summer!
I certainly hope your mother improves and becomes as comfortable as possible! My parents and in-laws are octogenarians as well, so of course there are increasing health issues and I can relate to what you're saying! My best wishes to her and to you!
DeleteI'm very pleased to hear enthusiastic talk about Corman and of course Dick Miller, who was in fact a friend of mine! Ha ha, I don't have many celebrity pals, but he was one of them! He was my favourite actor long before I ever met him, though!
Tell your English professor editors that there's a movie-reviewing weirdo who uses only exclamation points as punctuation and has a propensity for making up his own words who enjoys your writing just fine without their red-pencil shenanigans! And tell them I said ha ha!
Meanwhile, have a terrific summer! I'm hoping to put out at least one more review in this dwindling month before the next set, whenever that is!
As I mentioned I have time on my hands to write for the moment! Sadly (or perhaps fortuitously for the reading public at large), the above comment (Bumpkins Rejoice Part 2: Electric Boogaloo") was preceded by Part One until upon discovering the comment was WAY too long for the site to publish, was clumsily copied, cut, then LOST! By me!!! OBLITTERATTTTED!!
ReplyDeleteIt had ramblings about Zappa's "Cheepnis" leading to a pursuit of the "Inverted ice cream cone/pup tent affair" movie, Paul Blaisdell, some books, and prurient juvenile remembrances of the Small Town Kentucky Drive - In that played only "Gator", "White Lightning" and the original "Walking Tall" on an infinite loop. Fortunately, a few years later they started showing superb movies like "The Shining", "H. O. T. S" and Doctor Tongue's House of Slave Chicks"/"Chicks In Their Underwear"! There was much more, now it is gone gone gone!
It's like a friend of mine used to say: "darn".
Ha ha, guess what! Your comment may have disappeared from here, but it did somehow make it to the shadowy inner workings of this blog! It's a splendid comment - I'm a big Paul Blaisdell fan too, and in fact there's a biography of him that's worth a read! Here's your missing comment:
DeleteYou are welcome! I think "Cheepnis" (and the references to the "inverted ice cream cone/pup tent affair" referred to as "Bertha" by cast and crew, I think) was the spark that lit a passion in me for low budget movies! It has just been in recent decadess that I had the wherewithal to see many of them and amassed a decent collection of DVD's. Growing up in the holler in Kentucky we only got three glorious channels of TV and the nearby Drive - In showed only "Gator", "White Lightning" and "Walking Tall" on a continual loop, even during daylight! Luckily by the time I was a teen they started showing other movies like "The Shining" followed by "H. O. T. S." followed by "Dr. Tongues House Of Slave Chicks (AKA "Chicks In Their Underwear")! It was during those days that I discovered the joys of beer (Sometimes me and my pals were able to score some Molsons which we felt enhanced our lame attempts to emulate our heroes, Bob & Doug MacKenzie) and movies. Later, I discovered other joys at the Drive - in! EE - YOW!! As an easily amused teen, I derived most of my enjoyment by finding faults and general easily mocked moments in the occasional "late show" dud - fest (watched with friends on "The Hilltop" that got a luxurious five and a half channels!).! The advent of home video, cable, satellite and i n f i t e streaming services allowed me to finally see the "menacing carrot" that I now know was created with haste by the feisty spark plug, Paul Blaisdell.
At some point, perhaps after seeing Tim Burton's "Ed Wood", I began to develop a sort of demented affection for the low budget spook shows and other genres! I began to try to see what was out there besides the inscrutably wacky, yet budget stretching Roger Corman monster flicks and the earnest but flawed Ed Wood
Plan Nine"! Starting with a rather thick, enchubulated tome called "B - Movies" (by some long forgotten author that had the enervating habit of reminding readers that "B - Movies" were not necessarily shoddy works of blazing garbage, they were semi - precious nugget stones with a smattering of artistic merit which when viewed... blah, blah, words...soon enough his/her earnest exhortations got through to me and I began to pick up on some of the charms of those grainy, snow cone bummer forgotten films of the forties and fifties)! And after a lengthy, parenthetical, time collected other books! The books three pages on the "Charlie Chan" series did inspire me to track down "Meeting At Midnight"/"Black Magic". A random chance viewing of this on a rainy summer day when I was seven gave me mental terrors that hot me to this day: the villains scheme of luring hapless victims into an empty 32 story elevator shaft through voodoo hypKnowCess mumbojumbery, leading to a piteous yelp as they flounced into the inky abyss has caused me to eschew elevators since then! Since most of the Chan movies are now readily available I have had a chance to view the classically sly shenanigans of comic stalwart Mantan Moreland along with the various Chan - sons - the surprisingly mercurial Sen Yung, Benson Fong and the invigoratingly placid Key Luke. For the past few years, when I have moment, I diligently wade through the various movie sites looking for movies to share with my wife and kids, although they are grown and sharing movies with their permanent persons!
I am so glad to have stumbled into the linguistically complex yet edifying prose - blog of Burl!