Horror in suburbia! The cult films from Merton Park Studios

My local horror film factory...

Merton Park had one of the many small suburban film studios spread around the outer reaches of London. They flourished when there was a demand for different weekly movies with full-length supporting B-movies. The government also had a tax incentive that ensured a regular proportion of films in British cinemas had been produced in Britain.

Operating between 1929 and 1967, Merton Park Studios had a long-running success with adaptions of Edgar Wallace crime dramas. But when I noticed the studios' name also cropping up on horror movies, I was excited that a few world-famous cult films had been made locally. Not necessarily 'cult' because they were any good, though!

Perhaps the best-known movie to be made here is the King Kong knock-off Konga, which used a 'man in a suit' years before Dino De Laurentiis visited Skull Island. It's a cheap monster movie but great fun for Michael Gough's cruel character and shouty performance. The guy in the gorilla suit is continually hilarious.

Of course, it's a different story from King Kong in that a scientist turns a baby chimpanzee into a giant gorilla (!!?). Konga doesn't climb the Empire State Building, he stands next to Big Ben while the army launch rockets past him. Well, actually Croydon High Street stood in for Westminster. I love the fact that places local to where I live have been seen around the world because of these films. (Full review of Konga here).

Low-budget producer Herman Cohen (Berserk!, Black Zoo) also shot Horrors of the Black Museum at Merton Park, also starring Michael Gough. It's infamous for the eye-gouging binoculars which caused a stir in 1959, with accusations of 'sadism' from film critics. The story's finale was filmed in South London's Battersea Funfair, just before Gorgo flattened it.





The other horror films shot at Merton Park Studios may be less familiar...

Ghost Ship (1952) is an early drama made at the studios, but with extensive location work. It's an amateurish suburban mystery which pads out the running time at every opportunity. The saving grace is that this is the earliest film I've seen to star Hazel Court - predating even Devil Girl From Mars. Amazingly, it's on DVD in the UK.

Another B-movie quickie, made to support Horrors of the Black Museum, The Headless Ghost (1959) was also produced by Herman Cohen. Drearily-paced and unfunny, the only saving grace is having a spectral Clive Revill, a twist on his turn as a ghostbuster in The Legend of Hell House. Plus there's an uncredited appearance by Janina Faye (Horror of Dracula, Day of the Triffids). This is also on DVD in the UK!





The Projected Man (1966) and Devil Doll both starred Bryant Haliday, who had a short run of leading horror roles (with Curse of Voodoo and Tower of Evil). On DVD in the UK (but edge-cropped to 16:9 - only the UK VHS has the full 2.35 widescreen Techniscope image)





Devil Doll (1964) will only work if you're freaked out by ventriloquist dummies, but Dead of Night (1945) did it better. This is also inspired by Svengali, but John Barrymore did it better. William Sylvester (2001: A Space Odyssey) and Yvonne Romain (Curse of the Werewolf) in the cast help considerably. On DVD in the UK.

Hopefully the 'hospital' location in Invasion (1965) is still around for me to visit. In the story, the building is cut off from the outside world when two (Japanese?) aliens visit Earth. Invasion is a good example of the 'pub invasion' genre, where Earth-shattering events take place while witnessed from a confined space. 

First contact is made with a handful of humans, as opposed to the whole world like in The Day The Earth Stood Still. This scenario is of course perfect for low budgets (see also The Man From Planet X, Devil Girl From Mars, Target: Earth, Night of the Big Heat, and The Earth Dies Screaming). It stars the late Edward Judd of First Men In the Moon, Island of Terror and The Day the Earth Caught Fire.

While I'd once rated the golem horror IT! (1967) as one of the worst British horrors of this era, I've actually changed my mind since seeing the recent DVD. It stars the ever watchable Roddy McDowall and Jill Haworth. Full review here.

 

But The Frozen Dead (1966) is pretty bad. Plodding action and a complete waste of a good Nazi zombie idea. Bizarre that a young Edward Fox (The Day of the Jackal) plays a mute zombie soldier. An extensive use of locations makes me wonder whether this was shot after the studios had closed - the interiors look like they might have been locations too. Maybe not as bad as The Blood Beast Terror (a killer moth) and The Vulture (a were-bird).

Merton Park's best known non-horror film must be The Leather Boys (1963). A 'kitchen sink' drama set in the South of England for a change. Rita Tushingham (from A Taste of Honey) accuses her new young husband that he'd rather hang out with another motorcycle buddy than stay at home with her. 

The original book was a little more explicit at hinting at the relationship between Colin Campbell and Dudley Sutton's characters. The movie is affectionately heralded for its snapshot of many bygone London locations, including bikers' hangout, the Ace Cafe, which is still there today.

Timeslip (aka The Atomic Man, 1955) stars Faith Domergue (This Island Earth) and Peter Arne in a twisty high-tech (for 1955) thriller that makes British B-movies look respectable! Full review here.





The Case of the Mukkinese Battle Horn (1956) is only twenty minutes long, but deserves a special mention for the blossoming talent that it captured. There's an early multiple role for Peter Sellers (Dr Strangelove, The Pink Panther) as well as an early producer's role for Michael Deeley, long before he made The Italian Job and Blade Runner.  It's also the best visual record of the influential humour of The Goons radio show. This short but very funny film is the rare jewel in Merton Park Studio's filmography. For a full illustrated review, follow the above link.

MERTON PARK FILM STUDIO HORROR FILMS

The Ghost Ship (1952)

Horrors of the Black Museum (1959)

The Headless Ghost (1959)

Konga (1961)

Devil Doll (1964)

Invasion (1965)

The Projected Man (1966)

IT! (1967)

The Frozen Dead (1967)

This week, I visited the only building still standing from the studio complex. The Long Lodge (the long black building near the bottom of the map) was used as the studio's headquarters. The neighbouring Leather Bottle pub, (at the bottom left of the map) is also still around. The lodge can be found on the Kingston Road, opposite a small parade of shops between Raynes Park and Wimbledon, and has two commemorative plaques outside (pictured) which I feel rather sells it short.

For more information, here's a recent article by movie expert Tise Vahimagi, about the Edgar Wallace thrillers that were shot at Merton Park Studios.

The British Movie Forum has a short thread about the studios, through which I found the rare floor plan.

LOFT (2006) Kiyoshi Kurosawa's toys in the attic

LOFT
(2005, Japan, Shi no otome)

A young writer is sent to a remote house to concentrate on her next novel. But she notices some strangeness happening in the house opposite. Like a handsome man carrying what looks like a dead body in a sheet. Intrigued by both him and what he's doing, she investigates the house and discovers a 1000-year old corpse. The mummified body might also be connected to why she's started vomiting up black mud...

Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Kairo (Pulse) helped lead the J-horror boom - with even more creepiness than Ring and matching it's shock moments as well. I've kept trying his movies, enjoying Sakebi (Retribution) despite not fully understanding it. Kurosawa's films seem to fit inside the horror genre, but often meander into the world of arthouse, where symbolism and mood are often more important than story. I've enjoyed his films by immersing myself in their atmosphere, without concentrating too much on the intricacies of narrative and character and what he's actually trying to say.

But I'm annoyed with Loft. Spoiling a perfectly fine horror film in the last segment of the film. While slow-moving, there's plenty of scares and creep-outs, but suddenly the characters are acting all, well, out-of-character and the cameraman seems to, well, fall over. It then gets back on track after a strange series of creative freakouts, but the final capper to the whole film hangs on a very poor special effect, that could almost be an intentional joke, and a pratfall. I'm not amused.

You'll have probably seen the leading actors - Miki Nakatani as Reiko the writer, also played Mai in Ring and Ring 2 as well as starring in Memories of Matsuko. Etsushi Toyokawa as the distinctive-looking professor was also the black-clad super-baddie in Yokai Daisenso - The Great Goblin War.

This reviewer for Cinema Strikes Back identifies elements of satire in the film - I wish I'd known beforehand. But even accepting that the director is playing with the genre, there are several sloppy scare moments that simply look mis-timed (like the hand on the corner of the window, featured heavily in the posters).


Unsurprisingly, this hasn't been rushed into a DVD release in the west, despite the director's cult reputation and the intriguing trailer. I found this on DVD in Malaysia (from PMP) which has very good English subtitles, but the picture has been savagely cropped from widescreen to full screen by simply lopping off both sides (a crude 'centre-cut' to adapt the widescreen image to old-style TVs). Not the best way to see a carefully visual film, but the only subtitled DVD I know of.

Loft is one of those films that I'll need to read more about before I stand a chance of appreciating it. In the meantime, I'd better take a break and try out one of Kurosawa's non-horror movies. Tokyo Sonata looks very promising...

MY BLOODY VALENTINE (1981) - 28 years later...

MY BLOODY VALENTINE
(Canada, 1981)

This beats Friday the 13th, any day of the week!

I'm pretty sure I saw this supporting Friday the 13th - Part 2 in a Bournemouth cinema while Lady Diana and Prince Charles were getting married (July 29th, 1981). The Royal Wedding was on every TV in the country and I wanted to escape somewhere until it was all over...

The original My Bloody Valentine has always been a solid horror movie, but the many shock moments were severely castrated by censor cuts. Practically every kill is cut down so much that you barely know what has actually happened. What was worse is that there were some great colour photos of the make-up effects in Fangoria magazine showing us what we'd missed.

Through the years, each release on home video - VHS, laserdisc, all the way upto the first Paramount DVD release - I was hoping for some cut footage to reappear. But even the DVD was the same censored version.

Then in 2006 came the entertaining and fact-packed documentary about the 80's slasher movie genre, Going to Pieces. In the DVD extras was the tantalising news that the director of My Bloody Valentine, George Mihalka, had held onto the uncut version. Thankfully this has lead to a full restoration.

Now, I've finally watched the Special Edition, released on DVD earlier this year, ending a 28 year wait to see the version that I'd always wanted, with all the scenes promised in those early issues of Fangoria. This new version is a slasher that surpasses the early Friday the 13th movies on almost every level.

In Valentine Bluffs, a Canadian mining town, preparations for a Valentine's Day party are underway. But the Sheriff and the Mayor are getting nervous because the last time they had such a celebration, a lot of folks got killed by an insane miner brandishing a pick-axe. They haven't celebrated the occasion for nearly twenty years, until now. As February 14th gets closer, it looks like the date is indeed cursed. Also, the biggest Valentine's party picked the worst location possible, near the entrance to the town's coal mine...

Near the start of the story, someone gets a rhyming Valentine card and a gory present that feels exactly like the end of the 'Poetic Justice' segment if Tales From The Crypt (1972), in turn based on the EC horror comic story. But after that it's a familiar blend of sexed-up youngsters (miners, not minors) and gory mayhem, right down to the barman who could be a close relation of Friday the 13th's Crazy Ralph. "It could be you!" is his way of saying "You're next" to die horribly, rather than a prophecy of a lottery win.

Like Friday the 13th, I didn't recognise any of the actors, and the atmosphere is helped enormously by extensive location filming, that keeps everything looking real, even though some of the acting isn't. The leads are all very strong, with stern silent hero-type T.J. (Paul Kelman) looking a lot like a young Rufus Sewell. My least favourite is the goof-off character who manages to make all his friends laugh by making the worst jokes possible.

But My Bloody Valentine is very different from Friday the 13th in many ways. The drama actually works, with the older townsfolk looking very nervous about the town's nasty secrets, and two of the miners caught in a painful smalltown love triangle.


While Tom Savini's effects for the first Friday were convincing, they were barely glimpsed. The murders in My Bloody Valentine are more complex and sustained, often with a 'double-whammy'. They take the more realistic take that murder is often prolonged and painful. At the same time they dreamt up some unique kills for the slasher genre. Even the photos of the body being dragged along the ground, a pick-axe skewering the jaw of the victim, look remarkably convincing.

The scene in the showers is famous for its pay-off, but I found the build-up particularly unsettling, with prolonged takes of the victim being carried along, held by her head, shown from the point-of-view of the murderer, shining his helmet-lamp into her terrified face. Yes, it's intense and horrifying - in Friday the 13th it's almost over before it begins.

The FX are remarkably convincing for the most part, at a time when everyone was trying to perfect prosthetic gory effects to top the last. For the first time I noticed a hand 'wobble', in the game where two macho miners play the 'stabbing the table between the fingers' game (also used in Aliens). Looks like they were using a very convincing prosthetic hand - I thought they found a couple of experts to do it for real!

While the many of the characters are 'up for it', and this is an unofficial entry in the get drunk, 'have-sex-then-die' genre, sex is treated far differently than the usual half-naked girl wandering around with a knife. The opening scene cleverly confuses expectations in an underground triste, the best pool player in town is a flouncy-looking blonde, when the hero is in a fight the women don't just stand around and cower - they join in, and my particular favourite, a guy actually gets a condom out before sex. This is so very rare in movies nowadays, let alone 1981! It's a more adult attitude, and a bucking of the cliches. After watching a lot of horror films, I've gotten very tired of the cliches.


Lastly, while Friday the 13th took three films to sort out the iconic look of Jason, My Bloody Valentine hits the ground running with the awesome image of the miner dressed in black, with a gas mask covering the face. The pick-axe completes a really scary look. But with most of the blood diluted by censorship (Friday the 13th had cuts as well), the film disappeared without a sequel, maybe because it didn't have a catchy ad campaign, and the killer doesn't have a nick-name. I don't know why, but it didn't catch on - but now it's one of my favourites of the slasher genre.


The new Special Edition Lionsgate DVD has the option to watch both the original cinema release or the new restored version - both work seamlessly. There's also an interesting interview with the director and a couple of the cast, (why build sets when everything you need is 2000 feet underground?) and Ken Diaz (The Thing, Pirates of the Caribbean) and Tom Burman (The Manitou, The Exterminator, Grey's Anatomy) talk about how their impressive special effects were done.

The restored, original trailer of the 1981 My Bloody Valentine is here on YouTube...

I'm a Horror Blogger - official!

Zombo's Closet of Horror is a blog that casts a wide eye over the genre - my recent favourite was a look at the family who built their own full-size recreation of The Munster's mansion...

Zombo has cleverly realised that bloggers love talking about themselves, and regularly invites horror specialists to write about motivations and interests. I was recently invited to join the party and Zombo, John Cozzoli, published it today. Thank you very much for the opportunity, John.

Read it here... Meet The Horror Bloggers - Black Hole Reviews

BERSERK! (1967) - circus horror with Joan Crawford and Michael Gough

BERSERK!
(1967, UK)

I think he got the point...

This isn't as complex or as successful as Circus of Horrors (1960) but it does have the hook of being a whodunit and an early serial killfest. Both familiar traits with other Herman Cohen productions (like Horrors of the Black Museum) and those German Edgar Wallace krimis. It was also one of the first late-night horror movie experiences that I had as a teenager, making quite an impression. So much so that, every Friday night, I have an urge to watch Berserk!

Berserk! isn't a 'must see' classic from horror history, but there's enough here to please fans of Joan Crawford horror (Straitjacket, Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?), Michael Gough (Konga, Batman Returns), and sixties Brit horror. It's interesting to see a 'creative serial kill' horror with so little blood in it, considering what would happen a few years later...



The curtain opens on a huge circus that's down on its luck. That's until high wire act Gaspar the Great takes his last gasp and is hung by his own tightrope. (In the height of bad taste, his swinging body swings across the screen to reveal the title of the film!) Further accidents in the circus (involving knives, tent pegs and circular saws) prove morbidly good for business, so who could be benefitting from the murders?

There are two main elephants, sorry, elements that prevent this from any wider cult fame. Too many scenes of circus acts used to pad out the running time and reduce the intricacy (if I dare use that word in this context) of the plot. The footage, actually of the famous real-life Billy Smart's Circus, serves only to remind us of when circuses were all about rare, endangered species of animals doing silly tricks for laffs. This is great for kids, but really bad for an adult horror.


Then there's the bloody awful 'comedy song' from the circus 'freaks'. These freaks are unspectacular in both freakiness or acting ability, contrasting sharply with a coachload of British thespians, fronted by Robert Hardy, who can at least breathe life into the stilted and childish dialogue. Try not laughing as you listen to Crawford announce, "Phyllis Allan and her Intelligent Poodles!". An Oscar for OTT horror-acting should also be awarded to the murderer, for the fantastic final freakout - a shrieking schizoid performance that still reminds me that it shocked me as a teen.


Unintentional amusement comes from Joan Crawford's neck always being in shadow, no matter where she's standing. Ty Hardin keeps getting shirtless, a reminder of what passed for beefcake back then. This is balanced by young women in colourful corsets, no mean feat for an already chubby ex-starlet Diana Dors.


Joan Crawford is the star, but was winding down her acting career, dividing her time between lower-budget horrors for Herman Cohen and William Castle, and an increasing amount of TV (The Karate Killers, Spielberg's pilot episode for Night Gallery). Her next film with Cohen and Gough would be her last... Trog. This was my introduction to the films of Joan Crawford - a cruel way to start, considering she had started in silent movies and become one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.

Robert Hardy, as the police detective investigating the circus, is still acting (Cornelius Fudge in several films of Harry Potter). Joan Crawford's junior love interest Ty hardin was in I Married a Monster From Outer Space. Ex-saucepot Diana Dors plays a nosey troublemaker and later appeared opposite Vincent Price in Theatre of Blood. Young Judy Geeson became a welcome fixture of seventies TV and cinema (Star Maidens, Hammer's Fear in the Night, and the Alien rip-off Inseminoid).

Last released in America on DVD-r (by WarnerArchive above), Berserk! is also on a region 2 PAL DVD in Spain (cover art below). Besides Spanish, there's an English audio option without subtitles, but the aspect is 1.33 fullframe, where as the Warner disc is advertised as 1.85 anamorphic widescreen. 

It would would blend in perfectly to an all-nighter of Trog, Circus of Horrors and the Black Zoo! 



Some great behind-the-scenes photos from Berserk! can be found on HermanCohen.com.

A big thank you to Miles for the info and the Japanese poster art.

THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG (1939) serial killer Karloff

Part of the Boris Karloff Blogathon organised by The Frankensteinia Blog.

I can't enter the blogathon without taking time to just talk about Boris. There are some actors who I will watch literally anything with them in. They're always good, even if the film isn't, but a lion's share of Boris career were at least half decent horrors, no mean feat for such a long career in the genre. He somehow made the films better, or maybe made bad dialogue sound believable. Maybe he had the power to change things (like dialogue or his character) for the better. He always changed his appearance - hairstyles, colours, beards, moustaches, scars - you can easily name a Karloff film from photographs of his character. For instance, in The Man They Could Not Hang, his shock of straight white hair and dark eyes is instantly recognisable from this film only.

The actor I most compare him to is Peter Cushing, another brilliantly intensive actor who could make corny sound good, the unbelievable sound real - a real talent in surreal and supernatural horror. Perhaps they were too similar to appear together, they certainly had the opportunity when Boris returned to England at the end of his career, when British horror was still flourishing. They were both British, both mainly in the horror genre, both gentle gentleman offscreen. Unafraid to do horror for fear it would damage their career, they recognised that typecasting was a good, steady earner.

I had a shock the day I saw a Boris and Bela movie at the Castro Cinema in San Francisco, I think it was 1998. It was a very rare chance to see a vintage horror, The Black Cat (1935), on a huge screen. As Bela Lugosi's name came up at the start, there was a cheer and applause. When Boris' name came up there wasn't a single sound from the audience. I was so shocked. The supposed rivalry between the two actors was still being fought in the magazines of horror fandom. I know that Bela was very much seen as the underdog of the two. But for a horror audience to snub Boris like that, so unanimously, I assumed it was some sort of anti-British sentiment. How rude!

To me his career eclipsed Lugosi's in terms of creativity, range, longevity and sheer quality. Lugosi usually played the same character and rarely changed his appearance, not even for Dracula (White Zombie and Dead Eyes of London are the only exceptions I can think of). He repeatedly picked dreadful projects, even early on in his career when he was world famous. Don't get me wrong, he's a huge part of the horror genre and I love watching him, but if you ask me to choose between his films and Boris, there's no contest.

THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG

(1939, US)

This starts like a typical Karloff 'mad doctor' yarn, but takes an interesting sharp turn halfway, into the world of creative serial killings!

Characteristically, Boris plays a scientist tinkering in medical experiments, until the lawmen bust in and ruin everything. In the courtroom, the jury are intent on sending him to the hangman, rather than considering the scientific facts of the case. Angry that his breakthough work to help humanity has been mistaken for murder, without the chance to clear his name, he turns a vengeful eye on the judge and jury, threatening them to an early grave, despite his impending execution...

The court scenes and the climax in the mansion are in handsomely constructed sets, the courtroom filled with extras. A larger budget is also in evidence compared to many of his later mad doctor 'b' movies. The well-defined black and white camerawork also implies that there was time to light the scenes carefully and creatively. There's even an unusual tracking shot that tilts out of a dutch angle as it pulls back.

The story is an early example of a madman working his way through a well-prepared shitlist (like the Vincent Price classics The Abominable Dr Phibes and Theatre of Blood). It also verges on the teritory of The Cat and the Canary as his intended victims are assembled together in an old dark house and told the order that they will die (a trick of Dr Fu Manchu). There's even a murder method that was repeated decades later in Dr Phibes Rises Again.

Fast-moving and visually rich, this is one of Karloff's best thrillers which didn't rely on movie monsters. The story is dramatically strong enough to sustain the scientific shortcomings at the centre of the plot. The lively and convincing cast are consistently good, though short of familiar faces. And I always love it when the dead return to torment the living...


After a long exile on VHS, this film is newly out on DVD - the pick of the 'Icons of Horror Collection' boxset, (pictured at top).


For those in the mood for more Karloff, there's a rare screening of The Man Who Changed His Mind a 1936 mad doctor movie made in Britain, also starring the spunky Anna Lee (Bedlam and In Like Flint). At London's BFI SouthBank on Thursday, December 3rd.

The lobby card above is from the excellent The Walter Film Gallery.

More thrills with Boris can be found in my extensive look at his much later Die Monster Die (1965).

SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN (1970) quite a scream, actually

SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN
(1969, UK)

I was buying horror film magazines before I was old enough to see the films. After seeing the photostory in For Monsters Only magazine (really great photo spreads) and reading the Peter Saxon book The Disorientated Man, I was oh so very ready to see Scream and Scream Again when the opportunity arose on late night TV in the late 1970s.

I wasn't disappointed - dismembered body parts, gallows humour, nudity (well, that dodgy 'naked young woman on a mortuary slab' nudity) and an essential cast. Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, sorry, Sir Christopher Lee and Vincent Price all in a movie together (but not all in the same scene though).

The unusually splintered storyline is carried over from Saxon's novel. A runner clutches his chest and passes out in the street, only to wake up in a strange hospital room where he discovers he's now missing a leg. A rogue general is murdering his way into power in a takeover bid of an unnamed Eastern bloc country. A serial rapist who murders his victims and drains them of blood, is loose in London, preying on young women he picks up in 'happening' nightclubs. Three isolated storylines that gradually intertwine.

The story structure leaves the audience scrambling in the dark for clues for much of the film, also trying to follow a large cast of characters. But it's fun, fairly vicious for the time, and it eventually starts to make sense.


The three giants of horror, Cushing, Lee and Price, later appeared onscreen together in The House Of Long Shadows (1983). Any of them in a film usually makes it worth seeing. But besides the big three, there are other familiar faces for genre fans - keep an eye out for Peter Sallis (Wallace & Gromit, Taste The Blood of Dracula), young blonde Yutte Stensgaard (Lust For A Vampire), young blond Christopher Matthews (Scars of Dracula, Blind Terror), Michael Gothard (The Devils, Lifeforce) and the deadpan wit of Alfred Marks - an unusual straight role for this expert comedy actor.

When the film eventually hit VHS, and even for a while on TV, it had a re-scored soundtrack, with groovy library music replacing songs by The Amen Corner (the nightclub band) and a less effective synthesizer score replacing the original. The same problem that Witchfinder General had until very recently. Thankfully the original music was restored and the picture remastered in widescreen for MGM's DVD double-bill with The Oblong Box, which is also well worth seeing. The film is in anamorphic widescreen and includes an original trailer (chock full of spoilers, mostly using shots from the climax).

If you want a slightly mad, fast-paced, seventies mystery with outbursts of violent horror and a screeching car chase, here it is. You'll even see that most cliched of sexual symbolism, the suggestive fondling of the sportscar gearstick...



For Monsters Only cover courtesy of Monster Magazines blog (because I can't lay my hands on my own copy right now). Once again the cover art was by Gray Morrow.

MURDERS IN THE ZOO (1933): pre-code horror finally on DVD

MURDERS IN THE ZOO
(1933, USA)

I don't write as often as I should about vintage horror. Even though I regularly watch and enjoy many of them, they're harder to recommend to a potential new audience, without explaining and excusing the history of movie production, acting techniques and, er, history. But I'm delighted when any good horror film finally becomes available again, after too long an absence - this has only just been released DVD. It's one of my favourites and can even be enjoyed by today's horror standards.

It contains two of my favourite shock moments in horror cinema, one of my favourite horror stars, and is a prime example of pre-code movies.

'Pre-code' was a period of American cinema where horror movies, dramas and thrillers were pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable in an entertainment that was unregulated and open to all ages. In 1935 the Hayes Code clamped down on what could and could not be shown in movies, an overly restrictive and puritanical wad of rules that even dictated the movies endings. The code wasn't successfully challenged until the 1950's.

The UK had had a hugely negative influence on horror films in the mid 1930s. The British market was a major source of income for Hollywood, but was attempting to ban and boycott sadistic horror films. A major reason why subsequent horror films were more humorous, more supernatural and more watered-down for many years.

Pre-code movies are cherished as being from a brief period of early sound films that dealt with tough subjects, demonstrating that drugs, sex and violence are certainly nothing new in entertainment. Without them there's a false impression that everything loosened up in the 1960s, not the 1920s and '30s.


Murders in the Zoo starts with a startling scene where Atwill is dealing with an amorous admirer who's been seeing his wife. He ensures that it will never happen again, and that the unlucky fellow never gets a chance to brag about it either... Collecting wild animals for the zoo, he's about to return from the forests of Southeast Asia, where the laws of the jungle are on his side.

Back in the USA, his wife (Kathleen Burke) continues to lead him into trouble, meaning that he'll have to commit a string of perfect murders where the animals take the blame... With lions, tigers, crocodiles and poisonous snakes around, how hard could it be?

I was delighted to see this on late night TV in the mid-1980s with a group of friends. While we'd been expecting a fifty-year old, polite, palatable, creaky old horror film, we were surprised at its brutality. The cold-blooded and surprising murders are capped with the use of actual dangerous animals. One scene couldn't be done today, when the cheetahs, lions and tigers all start fighting with each other - no way of faking that! What also adds to the film are the leading actors interacting with the animals, not always using stand-ins. The story still holds up today with it's clever 'perfect murder' method...


The villainous Lionel Atwill isn't as well known as Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff, but starred in many horror films of the period and is still much loved by fans of vintage horror. His talent lay in playing professionals with an alternate sinister side, though he played a goodie in his first horror movie Doctor X. He made two more horror films with Fay Wray (the star of the original King Kong), but as the villain - in The Vampire Bat and Mystery of the Wax Museum. The last of which was later remade in 3D and in colour with Vincent Price recreating Atwill's role, House of Wax (1953).

After Mark of the Vampire (the remake of Lon Chaney's lost London After Midnight), Atwill joined the Universal Studios 'team-up' horror sequels, where the paths of Dracula, the Wolfman, Dr Frankenstein and his creature kept on crossing. Starting with Son of Frankenstein (1939), in which he created an indelible characterisation of Inspector Krogh, the one-armed policeman who'd fought the creature and lost. Kenneth Mars spoofed him and his wooden arm brilliantly in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein (1974).

It's good to see Randolph Scott in a suit for a change. Most of his long career was played out in westerns, even getting a namecheck in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles (1974). It takes a little getting used to, seeing him in a horror film - like getting John Wayne in Psycho. Though Scott did star in a another big fantasy film, as the love interest for She (1935). Here he plays a veterinary scientist, meaning he has to wrangle some pretty large snakes - very impressive, Randolph.

Playing Atwill's wife, Kathleen Burke is instantly recognisable for her huge eyes. She'd debuted as the 'Panther Woman' in another Pre-Code classic The Island of Lost Souls the year before, another influential horror that's still without a DVD release.

But top of the bill is Charles 'Charlie' Ruggles, a comedy actor whose long career endured on into the 1960s, appearing in many classic TV series (Bewitched, The Munsters, The Man From UNCLE) and Disney films (The Parent Trap, Son of Flubber). While he doesn't get too much in the way, his not-very-funny business is at odds with the rest of the film, and is probably the reason that this horror isn't as highly regarded. But without him, the film would be well under an hour!

Murders in the Zoo was later remade by Herman Cohen in one of his best British Michael Gough horrors The Black Zoo, aka Horrors of the Black Zoo (1963). This hasn't had a home video release either, despite ranking alongside other similar productions like Horrors of the Black Museum and Konga that are rarely out of circulation.


Murders in the Zoo was missing from home video since the US release on VHS in the 90s. Only last month was it remastered and released on DVD from the TCM Vault in association with Universal Studios, in a similar service to the recent Warner Brothers Archives releases, where a limited number of DVDs are manufactured, just to see what the demand is. More news on these titles here. I'd be disappointed if this new approach isn't successful, and that there are only a handful of people left in the world who want to see these films - a scary prospect that too few people are interested in vintage horror.


There's another opinion of Murders in the Zoo at 1000 Mis-spent Hours and an amusing scientific analysis from And You Call Yourself A Scientist.

Here's a quick starter guide and a list of Hollywood's daring Pre-Code movies over on DVD Beaver.

BARBARELLA (1968) the Ultimate Guide - Part 2: Cast and Characters

Further to my first posting (an illustrated introduction and review) on the 'way out' 1968 movie Barbarella, here's a look at the main characters and the actors who played them...

Barbarella (Jane Fonda)

Barbarella is sent out alone on a mission, with the Earth President confident that her skills as both an astronaut and a resourceful adventurer can single-handedly take on an unknown planet and the Universe's most destructive weapon. Though she appears to be a typical blonde (certainly in the comic strip), her naivety is shared by all Earth people of the 40th century, in a society where there is no war, and sex is now cerebral and not physical. She flies her spaceship, Alpha 7, alone - she's a top-level astronavigatrix. Though unused to fighting, she adapts quickly to using weapons from Earth's Museum Of Conflict. Like the hippy children of the sixties, she's open-minded and not judgemental of the debased inhabitants of the strange new planet she explores. She has no problem having sex with anyone she's only just met. Just as well, because this frequently happens.

Jane Fonda is fantastic as Barbarella - the role called for a beautiful, sexual actress who excels at both drama and comedy, and could walk the fine line of space adventure and tongue-in-cheek! By the time the film was released, Fonda had rebelled, against America's involvement in Vietnam and for feminism. This was of course at odds at Barbarella's publicity campaign, monopolising on Fonda's near-nakedness and the character's knack for being exploited by almost everyone she meets.


The film marked an end to Fonda's lighter, comedy roles. She pushed immediately towards tougher parts, with the depression-era They Shoot Horses Don't They?, then the hard-edged thriller Klute, where she played a prostitute. Beginning a period where she distanced herself from the "pornographic" comedy. She continued with a mix of political (Coming Home, The China Syndrome), dramatic (Julia, On Golden Pond) and back to comedy films (Fun With Dick and Jane, California Suite, Nine To Five). Nowadays Barbarella is a long, long way from scandalous, and Fonda talks about it like just another one comedy.

Jane Fonda is still acting (Monster In Law) but is also an active blogger, and Tweeter! If you want to know more about her very full life, ensure you read her autobiography 'My Life So Far', and not any of the many unauthorised biographies.

Pygar (John Phillip Law)

Barbarella's main ally is Pygar, a blind angel, an ornithanthrope (part man, part bird). He's trapped in the Labyrinth that surrounds the city of Sogo, because he's lost the will to fly. Like Barbarella, he's sexually attractive but also naive to the evil forces of the City of Night.

John Phillip Law doesn't overplay Pygar's blindness or his innocence. He spends the whole film dressed only in a feathery loincloth and a huge pair of wings (a heavy attachment that could actually flap). Law was cast while shooting Hurry Sundown with Fonda, after a string of supporting roles in Hollywood. Immediately after Barbarella, Dino De Laurentiis cast him as another comic strip character, Italian this time, as the lead in Mario Bava's Danger: Diabolik. Apart from Barbarella and Diabolik, he's best remembered as Sinbad in Ray Harryhausen's The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. His acting career lasted till the very end, when he sadly passed away last year.

The Great Tyrant (Anita Pallenberg)

The Great Tyrant rules the city of Sogo with a leather glove. Her citizens are dedicated to committing evil acts for sexual and violent pleasure, feeding the Mathmos with negative energy that powers the city. A very green source of energy, if you think about it. Her Black Guards (made only of leather) suppress any opposition to her rule. She likes to disguise herself as an ordinary citizen and 'play' with her subjects. She also has a fondness for doubling up words, calling Barbarella "Pretty-Pretty".

Anita Pallenberg's performance sounds better than it looks, even though her outfits are just as seductive and spectacular as Barbarella. Pallenberg famously had her voice overdubbed by another actress, who makes her sound sensual, suggestive and far more expressive. One of the few good articles ever written about the film appeared in Video Watchdog #23, a review of the laserdisc edition. Italian movie expert Tim Lucas named the voice artist as Fenella Fielding (the villainess in Carry on Screaming), so I doubt that it was the similar-sounding Joan Greenwood, who is credited on IMDB.

Pallenberg's other famous role was as Mick Jagger's girlfriend in Performance, reflecting her famous dalliances with the members of the Rolling Stones. Never serious about movies, she's now a fashion designer.

The Concierge (Milo O'Shea)

The Black Queen's right hand man (here he is, putting his right hand to good use) is the Concierge. He dishes out extra special punishments and tortures to the most difficult of the Great Tyrant's enemies. His specialties range from the high-tech Excessive Machine (a musical prison that lethally amplifies orgasms) to the good old-fashioned whip. He can be recognised from his cummerbund that looks like the Sydney Opera House!

The Concierge is played by the villainous-looking Milo O'Shea, an esteemed Irish actor who made his name on the stage and in high-powered dramatic roles, like the adaption of James Joyce's Ulysses, but ended up being well-known for comedy on TV and film (like the inspector in Theatre of Blood). He initially underplays his villainous role, but easily hits the heights when he needs to.

O'Shea recreated the role, years later, in the video album Arena for 80s pop band sensation Duran Duran. A specially re-edited compilation of the band's promotional videos, supplemented by specially shot linking material. Clips from the film were also used in this moneyspinning, straight-to-video extravaganza directed by Russell Mulcahy (Highlander, Razorback) who shot many of the bands most famous and expensive videos.

Dildano (David Hemmings)

Dildano hides in the bowels of Sogo, plotting a revolution against the Black Queen, while not quite having enough resources or organisational skills to pull it off. He's passionate about his cause, but inept, forgetful and accident-prone. At least he knows how to make love the new-fashioned way...


David Hemmings was a late addition to the cast, when a key comedy scene was reshot (more about that in my forthcoming article on missing scenes). At the time, Hemmings was internationally famous from his role in Blow Up. But after a spate of starring roles, he shifted into directing, including a movie adaption of James Herbert's The Survivor (1981), and then many TV episodes (all on film), including The A-Team, Airwolf (in which he also starred in the pilot as Airwolf's creator), Magnum P.I. and Quantum Leap. He ended his career by returning to acting, appearing in Gladiator, and The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, before passing away in 2003.

Professor Ping (Marcel Marceau)

Professor Ping is the unofficial leader and advisor in the Labyrinth, cheerfully helping the exiled as they disintegrate into nothing, or integrate with the rock walls of the maze. While brainy enough to fix Barbarella's spaceship, it takes him a while to deduce that she's of female origin...

Bizarrely, it's a verbose role for the world's most famous ever mime, Marcel Marceau. He had a brief spate of speaking roles in movies, including William Castle's Shanks. and Mel Brooks' Silent Movie! Ironically, Marceau is dubbed by another actor here, I think it sounds like the versatile voice actor Robert Rietty, or maybe Ping lookalike Geoffrey Bayldon (Catweazle, Asylum).

Mark Hand (Ugo Tognazzi)

The Catchman is a hairy wanderer of the ice and forests of Weir, the snowy wilderness not far from Sogo. The habitat shows that Planet 16 isn't one of these Star Wars planets that has the same climate all over (a scientifically inaccurate whimsical throwback to Flash Gordon's Universe). The ice sheet contrasts with the balmy and arid labyrinth, hot enough to grow orchids. Here Mark Hand nets roaming wild children to provide unwilling slaves for Sogo. He mentions this all very calmy as he's chatting up Barbarella. He's also not great at repairing spaceships, though his self-propelled sailboat is still running smoothly.

Ugo Tognazzi plays this cameo role, in a cast that mixed Italian and French actors with English and American. Again he's an actor who could ably play drama and comedy. The only other film I've seen him in was the original French movie of La Cage Aux Folles, where he played the bisexual lead, a role replayed by Robin Willams in The Birdcage.

The President of Earth (Claude Dauphin)

Finally Dianthus, the President of Earth, gives Barbarella her mission via a video screen communicator at the start of the story. He's enamoured with Barbarella and looking forward to meeting her in the flesh, though not worried enough about her safety to spare her any assistance (like his own security force) for the dangerous mission. What he says goes, but it doesn't always make sense.

The last star in our line-up was the celebrated French actor, Claude Dauphin (Grand Prix, Phantom of the Rue Morgue). I'm assuming that his performance as the Earth President was dubbed into English by another actor, despite his many international roles. He's now buried in the Pere Lachaise cemetery in the outskirts of Paris.



Of all the above actors, only Fonda, O'Shea and Pallenberg are still around. Lower down the cast, the credits are still incomplete for the many actors who dubbed the film for the English-language version. Like who did Barbarella's spaceship computer Alphy? Or the cool calming voices of the Chamber of Ultimate Solution - the forerunner of Futurama's suicide booth?



My next article about Barbarella will be an illustrated guide to her many costume-changes, a running gag throughout the film.

Part 1: My review and overview of the Barbarella phenomenon

Part 3: Barbarella's many many outfits
Part 4: Missing scenes
Part 5: Set Designs

Universal Studios unlocks the movie Vault

In a similar arrangement to the flourishing Warner Brothers 'Archive' collection, where rare movies have been made available only from an online store, the WB Shop, Universal have started a similar arrangement. Teaming up with Turner Classic Movies, the first five releases in the new 'Vault Collection' are rare black-and-white horrors, including the must-see Murders In The Zoo (1933), a favourite of mine which I'll review shortly after another viewing.

Other good news is that both collections now appear to be available for purchase outside of North America. Initially, the Warner Brothers Shop wasn't open to international customers, but this restriction appears to have been lifted. Amazon.com is now selling these Warner DVDs and the TCM online store is also open for business outside of the US, but the $12 shipping fee (for one DVD) drives the price of these titles up considerably. Conveniently, TCM online also offers the Warner Brother Archive titles.


Warners continue to add titles to the Archive catalogue (which I previewed here), and I'm attempting to updated my older reviews to indicate that their 'Not On DVD' status has been revoked. For instance the movie Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, in my overview of TV horror. This unusual creepy nightmare, starring Kim Darby (who shone in True Grit) was last seen on home video on VHS.