INVASION (1965) - the prototype for Spearhead From Space

 

INVASION
(1965, UK)

A Doctor Who story - without Doctor Who!

If you liked The Earth Dies Screaming or Night of the Big Heat, with their minimal alien invasions and earnest British reactions, this is for you. A far less well known entry into the genre, not seen on home video since VHS (above). The story parallels and predates the first Jon Pertwee Doctor Who adventure...

A series of minor electrical malfunctions are shrugged off around the edge of town in south-east England. But an Army tracking station thinks an unidentified rocket has crash-landed in the woods. Then a couple driving home from a party hit someone walking in the middle of the road, and wearing a strange, silver, rubber suit...

Even the lowest-budget British sci-fi from the 1960s is graced with solid acting and tight monochrome cinematography. The night time exteriors of Invasion have extra punch for not being faked with day-for-night filming.
 

The Frank Chickens started out as a garage band... 

The limited special effects are functional, mostly propped up by stock footage and only used where absolutely necessary. To compensate, the cast all play this 'first contact' scenario for real, though they snap into the extraordinary concept rather quickly!

Like an underwritten episode of the original Outer Limits, the situation quickly grips and draws you into the story. Every actor is on form and every character counts. Even the radar operator who tracks the UFO. Usually a thankless one-line role, but here someone with messy habits, a trashy taste in pulp fiction and a lax attitude to his commanding officer. He even thinks the blip on his screen might be an off-schedule car ferry!

Barrie Ingham and Glyn Houston puzzle over a strange rocket 

Meanwhile, the (gasp) unmarried couple run over a stranger with their car. The argument over whether they should leave him to die is chillingly real. This isn't a children's film, and there are several more plot-driven shock moments.

This is one of leading man Edward Judd's run of sci-fi adventures. He previously looked hot and sweaty in The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961, reviewed here). He also fought aliens in Island of Terror (1966), and the awesome Ray Harryhausen version of H.G. Wells' First Men in The Moon (1964). His moments of tenderness aren't nearly as convincing as his take charge, 'I know what I'm doing - I'll sort this out right now' attitude.

Valerie Gearon plays a blood specialist at the same hospital, where the wounded stranger is taken. In her first scene, she's allowed the time to show that her character really doesn't want to stir from a place by the fire to rush to an emergency at work. 

Also nice to see Barrie Ingham without his silver Thal wig, as seen in Doctor Who and the Daleks (1965). Here he's an Army man caught up in a potentially dangerous threat from outer space.

The aliens are played by South East Asian actors, like Yoko Tani (above). I wonder why?

This was the first feature film directed by Alan Bridges, who later made The Shooting Party (1985) and an aborted 1987 version of Stephen King's Apt Pupil, that would have starred with Ricky Shroder.

According to 'Doctor Who - The Seventies' (published in 1994), writer Robert Holmes recycled the core elements of his script for Invasion when he wrote the Doctor Who story 'Spearhead From Space' (1970). Specifically an injured alien (The Doctor) being analysed by medical doctors at a remote hospital. Gosh.

But while most Anglo Amalgamated movies of this period have made it to DVD, I last saw Invasion on late night TV. It was on VHS in the UK, but has never on DVD. I wonder if Network DVD have this in their vaults...

The BFI website has a few clips and more production stills from Invasion.

Invasion is one of the films made at the long defunct suburban Merton Park Studios, where Horrors of the Black Museum and Konga were filmed. More of the low budget Merton Park horrific mayhem is listed here.

 

KONGA (1961) - attack of the giant hypno-gorilla-chimp

KONGA
(1961, UK/USA)

UPDATED, November, 2013

Years of late night TV showings have kept Konga alive in the memories of 'bad monster movie' fans. Less gruesome but just as enjoyable as Horrors of the Black Museum, this was made by much the same production team, at the same studio. It may be a pale rendition of King Kong, but even official Kong movies continued to use a man in a suit for 25 more years. Furthermore, I believe Konga is the first giant gorilla to grace the screen in colour, debuting the year before Toho's King Kong Vs Godzilla.

While many horror reviewers rate it very low (like half a star), I think they're missing the point. Konga shouldn't be taken so seriously. For the continuously fractious antagonist, the restrained and polite teenage students, the completely ignored science (a baby chimp mutates into a giant gorilla), and the explosive overacting duels between Michael Gough and his co-stars.


Dr Decker returns from a disastrous African research trip with some rare plants and a baby chimp (no problems with customs, strangely). After making some outlandish, long-winded claims to the press about crossing the scientific divide between plants and animals, he soon finds himself in conflict with the Dean of Essex College, where he lecherously lectures. Continuing with his researches to prove his claims, he breeds his giant plants and injects their sap into the monkey.


But I'm telling you the plot. Needless to say, the chimp/gorilla can easily be hypnotised to sit in the back of a van and leap out and murder the doctor's rivals. But everything goes tits up when a giant-sized Konga rampages through suburbia...

Michael Gough is as over-the-top as the strain on his heart will allow, but still gets upstaged by the gorilla suit. Young pop singer Jess Conrad plays the student rival for the object of his affections, and a young Steven Berkoff (with hair!) is one of his college colleagues. Jack Watson (Vault of Horror, Tower of Evil, The Wild Geese) plays a rather wooden detective with the worst line in the whole movie (it's in the trailer). George Pastell, fresh from ordering Christopher Lee about in The Mummy, again flashes his turban. Probably cast because he's good at getting throttled...

The tone is alternately sedate and dramatically frantic. Schizophrenically switching between wholesome family values, and as much outrageousness as producer Cohen can get past the censor - with a teacher ravaging his buxom student, the doctor shooting a cat at point blank range (twice), as well as murder, mayhem and the wanton destruction of modelwork.


While Gough acidly pontificates on what he does and doesn't like in a relationship (I'm reminded of Kenneth Williams without the laughs), it's all a bunch of lies to keep his assistant off the subject of marriage while he lusts over a double-D student. I also realised that Gough talks for most of the movie. Loudly.

But there's isn't a dull moment with all the bad science, bad drama, man-eating plants (well, woman-eating plants) and many of your favourite plot points from many other Cohen productions. Heavily influenced by the strong-headedness of Dr Frankenstein, acting above the law in the name of science, this at least beats Willard to the routine where the murderer chauffeurs around killer animals.

Some of the compositing matte work is still impressive - to this day, you still can't easily say how they did every single shot. But the obvious modelwork and repetitive use of the limited techniques are what stick in the memory. Oh yes, and the gorilla suit. Besides the extremely expressive eyes, lit better than Joan Crawford, this shows precisely what's lost when you don't have a dedicated gorilla expert inside a gorilla suit. He shrugs, he strolls, he rolls his eyes, just like a grumpy stuntman... every close-up of Konga makes for great comedy. He always cracks me up.


The carnivorous plants in Dr Decker's greenhouse are also impressively animated. Not quite as bizarre as the shadowy mutations in Die Monster Die! but these get much more screen time. Some snap, some wiggle, some just look extremely phallic in an otherwise repressed post-1950s atmosphere.

OK. It's a bad movie with a monkey-suit, but it can't be dismissed as a kiddie flick because of its barely restrained sexual obsessions, and occasional sadistic violence. The ending even achieves a little poignancy. After all, in everything bad, there's always a little good.

I get an extra kick from this film, knowing that it was shot near to where I live. The locations include the streets around Merton Park Studios (see the previous entry), Croydon High Street (standing in for Westminster), a college in Putney (for 'Essex College'), and of course the forest field trip to Hammer Studio's favourite, Black Park. I think I'm even starting to recognise certain trees in there.

Part of Konga's rampage can still be visited here - over the road from what's left of Merton Park Studios...

Konga was last released in 2007 as an MGM Midnite Movies DVD double-bill with the equally bizarre Yongary. I watched it on this 2005 edition (pictured above), a nicely-restored 1.66 letterbox edition (non-anamorphic). No extras or Konga trailer though.

2013 UPDATE: the UK finally got Konga with the nicest looking DVD to date, from Network (above) - rich colours and a wider-framed aspect - now also presented in anamorphic 16:9 widescreen. It includes rare photos, the trailer and a brand new introduction by teen star Jess Conrad.

Network Distribution's page for the 2013 DVD of Konga, including the original trailer...



Here's an interview by Tom Weaver with writer/producer Herman Cohen on the making of Konga. This was a big budget for Cohen, inflated by the optical special effects work).
Konga US DVD reviews and screengrabs at Giallo Fever, at DVD Drive-In, and even Konga comic books at The Uranium Cafe.

My article about other cult movies shot at Merton Park Studios.

KONGA (1961) - filming location found!

Finally found a local horror movie location...

I recently visited what was left of Merton Park Film Studios, close to where I live, and wrote about its run of low-budget horror movies such as Horrors of the Black Museum and Konga. The full article is here, including a list of the cult movies shot there. But I couldn't find any recognisable locations from any films there, or in any nearby streets. I've continued to search among photos and the films themselves and found my first recognisable match. No big deal, but after years of looking, my first success. Admittedly it's not in quite the same league as Frankenstein's lake...


This shot of Konga towering over a parade of shops represents a scene from the film - but publicity photos like this were rarely frame enlargements. Like the bewildering and misleading photos and lobby cards for the older Godzilla movies, this will have been a literal 'cut and paste job', taking two photos and gluing them together. This was the standard practice at the time to represent a film's special effects. Below is a frame from the film itself.


And here's the location as it stands today...


It was easy to find - I remembered these shops over the road from the studio headquarters, known as the Long Lodge - the only building that still exists 40 years after closing its doors as a film studio. In the photos, the wall on the left is the side of the Long Lodge itself. Even the street lighting (at right) is in roughly the same place as 50 years ago, when Konga was made.


Here's a closer look - so many of the building's features, like the chimneys and brickwork, have remained unchanged. They're all still shops!


Looking right, the shops curve round a corner away from the main road, (there's the new street light) to another location used in the film, for several shots of crowds running past parked cars and shops (framegrab below).


While the story was set in an unspecified part of London, Konga was supposed to rampage to the Houses of Parliament. Producer Herman Cohen couldn't get permission to film there (so he claimed) and used Croydon High Street instead (a suburban town a few miles away from Merton Park Studios) for scenes of the crowds and army gathering to watch Konga pose in front of Big Ben. The shopping centre in Croydon has since had so many facelifts that I've had no luck finding any locations from the cheap but memorable climax. I'm also trying to find the mad doctor's (Michael Gough) house from the film.

I've marked the location on Panoramio, which adds photos to Google Maps.

My review and more photos from Konga, linked here...

More about Merton Park Studios and their horror movies, here...

TIMESLIP (1955) aka THE ATOMIC MAN - British B-movie still packs a punch!

TIMESLIP
(1955, UK, aka THE ATOMIC MAN)

The best reason to watch this is for leading starlet Faith Domergue at her most delectable, here proving she's also good at light comedy. She starred in Timeslip in the same busy year she also headlined in two absolute classics - the incredible, must-see This Island Earth (alien-abduction, bug-eyed monsters) and Ray Harryhausen's giant octopus rampage It Came From Beneath the Sea.


Timeslip isn't as spectacular as either of those, but compensates for its B-movie budget with a snappy story full of new-fangled ideas, for the time: nuclear radiation, atomic terrorism, plastic surgery and even a far-fetched sci-fi concept... The various twists are easy to see coming now, but are realistically handled and sprung on the audience as a series of surprises.


A man with no memory is fished out of the Thames. He seems confused and certainly doesn't think he's the nuclear scientist which ace reporter Mike Delaney thinks he resembles. Despite being told to lay off the case, Mike and his photographer/girlfriend investigate further this dangerous, possibly catastrophic plot...

The nuclear sub-plot still preys on our paranoia today, and is dealt with as a realistic thriller, rather than the giant monster mutations in Tarantula or Quatermass. It's low-budget, but never looks as tatty as its B-movie status, helped by an A-list cast taking it seriously. I actually found the climax exciting...


Like the Quatermass films, the story of Timeslip had previously been produced on TV (in 1953), but was nothing to do with the 1970 children's series of the same name. The original story was written by Charles Eric Maine, who also wrote the sci-fi novel that was later adapted as The Mind of Mr Soames (1970) starring Terence Stamp.

Admittedly I watched this because it was made at Merton Park Studios, but it's more tightly made than many of their later horror films. No surprise that the director Ken Hughes went on to helm such huge productions as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) and Cromwell (1970). He was also one of the five directors on the zany Casino Royale (1968) and ended his career with a horror - Terror Eyes (1981).


Faith Domergue gels effortlessly with co-star and love interest Gene Nelson, who plays a renegade reporter (and wannabe detective action hero). There's certainly one careless and unintentionally funny moment - after Nelson has been carefully nursing a wounded arm for scene after scene, his stunt double suddenly leaps into a fight with both fists flailing! Nelson stayed with acting for decades, mainly on US TV, but also directed episodes of many classic shows, including the classic Star Trek episode 'The Gamesters of Triskelion'!

Peter Arne is one of the most recognisable faces, (Straw Dogs, The Oblong Box, Return of the Pink Panther) here in a pivotal dual role as the mysterious 'Isotope Man'. Arne gets some great showcase scenes and his scarred, scared face reminded me strongly of Leslie Banks as Count Zaroff in The Most Dangerous Game.

Another actor surprised me by just opening his mouth. Out came the distinguished voice of Colonel White, from Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967)! Donald Gray also voiced the eerie Captain Black in this special effects heavy TV series. I'd listened to his voice for 40 years but never seen his face in action before! The series was rebooted recently using CGI motion-capture rather than 'Supermarionation' puppets, and with an all-new voice cast.

Brit-com fans may delight in seeing a pre-'Carry On' Charles Hawtrey providing a couple of moments of very loud, scene-stealing comedy relief.


I thought it would be hard to find Timeslip nowadays, but Turner Classic Movies (in the US) have it for sale, and hopefully even show it occasionally. (The frame-grabs you see here are from an old TV broadcast, and not the DVD).

But beware, there's also a Sonny Chiba film being sold in the US under the title Timeslip, though it was called G.I. Samurai in a previous DVD release. The UK children's TV series Timeslip is also out there on DVD - which certainly caught my attention in the 1970s, though the method of time travel was a little primitive - crawling between two posts! Rather like Phantasm, now I come to think of it...

For more films shot at Merton Park Studios - see my recent article...

THE CASE OF THE MUKKINESE BATTLE HORN (1956) - a missing link in spoof comedy

THE CASE OF THE MUKKINESE BATTLE-HORN
(1956, UK)

Before Airplane, The Naked Gun, and even Monty Python, were The Goons...

Why is this not on DVD? It's like it disappeared completely. Constantly funny and fantastic, hysterical and historical! The roots of popular surrealist British comedy stems from The Goon Show - a hugely popular radio show that combined the talents of Peter Sellers mad knack for comedy voices and the startlingly inventive scripts of Spike Milligan. While several attempts were made to catch their insanity on film, this short feature is by far the most successful. The Goons had to disband when Peter Sellers movie career took off.

Insane comedy, where the actors often sent up their own movie, dates back to the silent genius of Buster Keaton, through The Marx Brothers movies and Olsen and Johnson's live-action looney toon movie Hellzapoppin'. In Britain, it was The Goons that took surreal and satirical comedy to extremes, inspiring the TV comedy of Monty Python's Flying Circus among many others. Hence Spike Milligan's cameo in Life of Brian, an onscreen tribute.

The Case of the Mukkinese Battle-Horn takes The Goons brand of comedy an important step further. Not only does it attempt to visualise a few of their famous radio characters, it adapts effortlessly into film. Fast-paced gags, asides to camera, lampoon, and twists on movie conventions. It's a clear forerunner of the straight-faced send-up of movie cliches, later monopolised by Airplane! and The Naked Gun, some of the most successful comedies ever. It hits a fast gag-a-minute pace that every comedy hopes for.

In fogbound London, a priceless but unwieldy antique disappears from a museum. A bumbling detective (Peter Sellers) and his dimwitted assistant (Spike Milligan) eventually investigate ("A robbery? Anything stolen?"). The trail leads to a pawnbrokers shop that has not three but four balls hanging outside ("Business must be good!"). From Scotland Yard to sleazy Soho, which of their suspects would steal this priceless musical monstrosity?

Superintendent Quilt is an obvious forerunner of Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau character, who first appeared in The Pink Panther (1963), and then in the even better A Shot In The Dark (1964). The series often featured Sellers' love for heavily disguised characters, buried under wigs, moustaches, humps and hats. These props are also on display in Battle-Horn as Sellers portrays his effete boss Assistant Commissioner Jervis Fruit (in blond wig, above) and the crumbling hunchbacked pawnbroker Henry Crun. While made up as caricatures, his performances aren't overplayed like his co-stars. There's still a sense that these could be real characters, and Sellers is ready for acting them out on the big screen.

Besides playing his enthusiastic but stupid sidekick, writer and lunatic Spike Milligan successfully visualises his beloved character Eccles, an absolute idiot. His star turn in the film is as an unemployed silent movie actor...


Leading Goon member Harry Secombe is notably missing (the producer suggests that he wanted too much money). But he's ably replaced by multiple-personality TV comedian Dick Emery (above left), a big influence on Harry Enfield's TV sketch shows. Emery effortlessly fits into the madness, and it's a great shame he didn't collaborate further in anything else this mad. Harry Secombe had appeared in the previous Goons movie Down Among The Z-Men but it never impressed me as being nearly as successful or funny, strung out to feature-length - wedging Goons characters into a standard formula Brit-com. Secombe's better remembered as a powerful singer, and his role in Oliver! ("You want moooooore?").

The highlight for me is to see Sellers perform onscreen a regular Goon Show character - the very, very deaf and dusty, senile, doddering Henry Crun. While trying to tempt a cat out of a gramophone using a saucer of milk, he fails to communicate with his equally deaf and senile (offscreen) wife Minnie.


Trivia-wise, this short film also marks Michael Deeley's first production credit. He went on to produce, among others, The Italian Job, The Deer Hunter and Blade Runner, no less. In his amusing, recently published autobiography, he mentions Battle-Horn as the first film he ever produced - an unsuccessful attempt to pilot a Goons TV show to the US.

Battle-Horn took its structure and presentation from the Edgar Lustgarten Scotland Yard true-crime short films, which were also being shot at Merton Park Film Studios. More about the horror films also shot at Merton Park here.

The entire script is online here.

Apologies for the poor screengrabs, but I haven't found a better way to illustrate this.


It was a kick to see this in the cinema as a supporting feature when Monty Python and the Holy Grail was first released. Very little else came close to being a suitable second film.

The Case of the Mukkinese Battle-Horn used to appear on TV, but has since disappeared from view, surfacing once on home video on VHS (pictured). I'd hope this gem would be enjoying a better showcase by now. Not a broken one with a brick in it.

The British Film Institute have screened it recently, using a print donated by Michael Deeley. Hopefully they will also restore and release it for wider consumption...

There's a short clip on YouTube here...

IT! (1967) - the golem from Merton Park Studios

IT!
(1967, UK)

Not the one with the killer clown...

 I wouldn't have bought this on DVD if IT! hadn't been on a double-bill with The Shuttered Room. But seeing a decent presentation of IT! has actually increased my appreciation of IT!. I used to dismiss this as one of my least favourite British horrors, but now IT!'s looking better than ever.

IT!'s still not great, but IT!'s never boring. I'm fascinated that IT! was made close to where I live. IT!'s also the only English-language movie about the golem, the mythical avenger from Jewish legend (more about the golem movies here).



After a warehouse fire, the museum owners are relieved and a little perplexed that a statue has survived completely unscathed. A further surprise is that the statue can be reanimated, follow orders and is virtually indestructible. Knowledge is power, but the only one who knows about it has small dreams, using the golem to get his boss's job and the girl of his dreams.

Quite an ambitious story for Merton Park Film Studios, this also has recognisable locations, by the River Thames at Hammersmith Bridge and in front of the Imperial War Museum. There are even a few visual effects of varying success, though nothing to match the potential scale of the story - especially in the climax. There's some simple modelwork on display and IT! has an impressive monster suit.



An added twist is that the man with the power is a little bit Norman Bates. He still keeps his mummified Mum around the house - a dessicated corpse almost more impressive than the golem outfit. I'd assumed that IT! looked melted because of the warehouse fire, but we soon learn IT!'s indestructible! I'm now guessing that the film-makers couldn't breach any copyrights by using the look from previous golem movies, hence the very different face.



With so much meat for a horror story, the film falls short by lacking in atmosphere and pulling its punches with any action scenes. There's plenty of murder but it's unimaginatively shot and mostly offscreen. It it wasn't for a semi-nude scene by Jill Haworth, IT! could easily pass with the lowest rating.



The fun is in the cast - Roddy McDowall is the main man, the year before he became his most popular screen character - an ape. As Cornelius, then Caesar, then Galen in the Planet of the Apes franchise, where he appeared in four of the original five films, as well as the TV series. He was also no stranger to the horror genre (like The Legend of Hell House, Fright Night) and is as famous for his voice (The Mad Hatter in Batman: The Animated Series and VINCENT in The Black Hole). Here he's at his paranoid best, especially in a nightmare scene that illuminates his character's obsessions far more than his dialogue does.

The obsessional love interest is Jill Haworth, who found fame in Exodus, but soon slipped into genre roles. She was in the classic The Outer Limits ('The Sixth Finger' episode), as well as Tower of Evil, and my favourite of hers The Haunted House Of Horror. In IT! she's less pro-active than her other roles, reduced to the classic 'mummy carrying a girl' cliche that ad-men loved to use in their posters.

Canadian-born Paul Maxwell was getting plenty of work in the sixties, adding an authentic North American accent to movies aimed at the international market. Here he gets some onscreen heroics to match his macho voice, which was so useful for beefing up Gerry Anderson's puppet characters. Maxwell voiced Steve Zodiac, the space-hero of Fireball XL5 and Captain Grey from Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. Here's a chance to see him in the flesh.

Horror fans may spot a young Ian McCulloch, before he became one of TV's original Survivors and famously battled the Zombie Flesh Eaters, but he barely gets a word in, in this his movie debut.



The movie has been digitally remastered anamorphic widescreen, and definition and Eastmancolour have never looked better. IT! is on a double-bill DVD with the Lovecraftian The Shuttered Room (pictured above).

Now I'm off to look around for the strange castle used in the climax - it's got to be around here somewhere...

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.