Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 184: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Fantasy Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 169

January-February 1960

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Journey Into Mystery #56

Cover by Jack Kirby 

"I Brought Zog Back to Life!"  (a: Don Heck) ★★1/2

(r: Where Creatures Roam #6)

"I Spent a Night in the Haunted Lighthouse!" 

(a: Joe Sinnott) ★1/2

(r: Fear #4)

"I Planted the Seeds of Doom!"

(a: Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule) ★★1/2

(r: Where Creatures Roam #6)

"I Shrunk Away to Nothing!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Where Creatures Roam #6)

A gigantic snow-white monster encased in a block of ice suddenly appears in the North Atlantic. Helpfully, the thing's name, "Zog," is etched into the ice. The world's leading scientists counsel the world powers and strongly advise that the creature not be tampered with. For if it should escape its enclosure, the world would be in peril!

Scientist Charles Burton does not agree with his colleagues; Burton believes the thing should be released and then studied for hostile behavior. No one will listen to him, not even the huge audience that watches him argue his position on the Ed Sullivan Show. No, it will be up to Burton to discover if Zog is a rampaging beast or a passive visitor. Burton rents a plane, drops a "thermo-liquifying bomb" on the behemoth, and screams "I Brought Zog Back to Life!"

The military catches Burton and he's quickly sentenced to die for treason. Just as he's about to be ventilated, the execution is halted and Burton is brought to a council room where the brass and a select set of scientists are watching Zog on a TV broadcast. Remarkably, the beast is not destroying everything in its path--quite the opposite. Zog dips below the surface and rises several minutes later, once again encased in ice with the word "Zog" above its head. Burton finally sees the truth: Zog is an alien who got lost in space, landed on Earth, and quickly froze itself. You see, its home planet is made of ice and the word "Zog" is not its name but rather the equivalent of our "SOS." At least that's what know-it-all Charles Burton theorizes.

Hard to argue with the guy who lays it all out so clearly in the final panels of "Zog" in a speech so well thought out you wonder why Chuck didn't know all this before he thermo-bombed the big guy. I enjoyed this one despite the fact that it's the rare giant monster story where the destruction is imagined rather than played out. Don Heck isn't an artist I would associate with giant monster tales but his work here is okay.

John is fascinated by the old abandoned lighthouse and his buddies tell him the word on the street is that... it's haunted! Later that day, John is at sea in a small boat when it capsizes during a brutal storm and he's forced to swim to the lighthouse. Once inside, John looks around but finds no ghostly figures. Those arrive shortly thereafter on the ghostly boat that anchors just off the dock. John hides and witnesses a terrifying scene: ghost pirates ransacking the lighthouse and loading provisions onto their ship. The next day, John screams "I Spent a Night in the Haunted Lighthouse!" to his friends and, of course, they laugh... until he produces a life preserver labelled The Flying Dutchman! 100% predictable, but the sight of the pirates loading ghostly cargo onto their ship is pretty cool. What's in the crates? Where are they stored in the lighthouse? Do the provisions replenish themselves automatically?

While being chased by the dinosaur-like creatures on Planet X-41, astronaut Hank Garnett barely has time to stop and pick some of the exotic flowers he finds along the way. Once he makes it back to Earth, Hank finds the seeds absorb a whole lot more water than Earth seeds but eventually grow to be gorgeous flowers. Hank gets a brainstorm: why not sell the thousands of seeds that fall from the flower and make a bundle? Just as things are looking up for Hank, he gets back to his luxury apartment to witness an awe-inspiring event: his flower transforms into one of the dinosaurs of Planet X-41! Before Hank has to time to scream "I Was the Guy What Planted the Seeds of Doom!" he's being chased around his apartment by a T-Rex. 

Luckily, the beast collapses due to dehydration. "Of course!" reasons Hank, "Back on X-41, it rains every fifteen minutes!" With luck, Hank is able to round up the thousands of seeds he sold and he tosses those and the big guy into his rocket ship and heads for X-41, having learned that there are some areas of botany man was never meant to tamper with. Hey, it's a dopey strip, but it's got all kinds of energy and the twist, that the dinos grow from flowers, is an original one. I love how, in the final panels, Hank and his fellow astronauts agree that they should be more careful with what they bring back from now on.

At the same time Brad becomes bored of the world around him (having experienced adventure in every port in the world), he gets word that his brother is gravely ill and must have costly surgery. To work up the dough, Brad answers an ad placed by Professor Ace, whose new machine will revolutionize... something... if he can just get it to work! He needs guinea pigs, which is where Brad comes in; Ace will pay Brad ten grand to be zapped by his gizmo and shrunken down to microscopic size. The egghead has zapped animals in the past but now he wants to go for the gold. The only problem is, none of the test patients ever came back!

"Hang it!" exclaims Brad, "I'm in no matter what!" When Brad gets laser-beamed by the Shrinkobob, he vanishes immediately and, sure enough, keeps shrinking. Eventually, he ends up in an alternate universe version of Earth and wonders if he'll ever see his real home again. "I Shrunk Away to Nothing!" must be some sort of Marvel milestone as it's the first (that I can recall) to posit the theories of Earth-1 and -2 and... The only question I have is: why does he stop shrinking right there? Shouldn't he keep minimizing?-Peter

Tales of Suspense #7

Cover by Jack Kirby & Christopher Rule

"I Come from the Shadow World!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Strange Tales Annual #1)(r: Chamber of Chills #14)

"I Know the Power of... the Genie!" (a: Don Heck) ★★

(r: Crypt of Shadows #15)

"My Name is... Robot X!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★

"I Was Trapped Inside of the Martian Maze!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★

(r: Tomb of Darkness #15)

"I Fought the Molten Man-Thing!" 

 (a: Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Journey Into Mystery #15)

A shadow man from another galaxy lands on Earth ahead of an invasion armada to see if earthlings have the type of weapon that can defeat the intruders. "I Come from the Shadow World!" Casey, a really smart but "ordinary" electrician comes up with a way to destroy the beast and save the planet. Some nice Ditko graphics but a pedestrian script. I'm not sure why the world's biggest-brained scientists couldn't come up with the kind of elementary trap Casey devised. 

After her Pop puts her over his knee and gives her a good spankin' (where was Wertham when we really needed him?), naughty little Nancy wishes with all her might and a genie appears in her bedroom (Wertham material again), granting her as many wishes as his new boss can make. Once she's exhausted the little stuff (relocating the Eiffel Tower and flooding the Sahara), she wishes that she were the only person left on Earth. That gets old after a while and she tells the genie she wants it all to be back the way it was before he popped in. The genie agrees but warns he will not be back since little Nancy has exhausted him! Wish granted, Nancy hears her father warning her he's about to put her across his knee. A fun little tongue in cheek fantasy, "I Know the Power of... the Genie!" veers from the usual formula and makes a precocious pre-teen the ultimate power in town.

In the lame "My Name is... Robot X!," it's 1990 and master criminal Joe Kane begins using a robot to help him with his heists. The big tin guy hates what he's doing, but Joe is his boss, so he keeps right on bending bars and breaking open safes. That is, until his joints rust due to a lack of oil right in the middle of a heist. Looks like Joe's crime spree will have to be put on hold. In 1975, the Martians have put trade talks on hold until we simple earthlings can figure out how to get out of their mystery maze box. Earth's smartest scientists give the box a crack, but no dice. Looks like we'll have to do without those Martian hovercrafts for one more year. "Hang on just a sec'!" exclaims simple spaceship steward, Will, "Can I have a go at this thing?" And just like that, Willy becomes the only man who doesn't scream "I Was Trapped Inside of the Martian Maze!" 

After a particularly harrowing close call, pilot Frank Harper loses his nerve and turns in his wings. His boss talks him into taking a vacation and thinking the situation over. Frank agrees and heads to the Pacific island known as Napuka for a little R 'n' R, but his beach time is interrupted by the eruption of the island's long-dormant volcano. Out of the lava lurches the Molten Man-Thing (or "Man-Thing" for short), a living glop of lava that heads for the nearest native village.

Using the intuition of a pilot, Frank realizes that lava cannot just get up and walk, so something must be inside the beast, something like a living engine. Frank manages to lure the thing into a wind tunnel at a local airstrip. The cool air proves to be too much for lava thing and it heads back to its home inside the volcano, leaving Frank to explain the scientific hows and whys to a bunch of natives who have no idea what he's saying. That's OK, though, I was having a hard time making heads or tails of the baloney he was spouting, too. Like all the best Atlas monster destroyers, Frank just happens to know what makes this one tick. The Kirby-Ditko team (I see lots of Kirby but very little Ditko) do what they can on "I Fought the Molten Man-Thing!" but there are way too many talking heads and not enough Molto.-Peter

Tales to Astonish #7

Cover by Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko

"He Waits for Us in the Glacier!" (a: Don Heck) ★1/2

(r: Strange Tales Annual #2) (r: Where Creatures Roam #2)

"We Met in the Swamp!" (a: Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #5)

"I Lived a Ghost Story!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★1/2

(r: Where Monsters Dwell #5)

"I Saw the Other World!" (a: Dick Ayers) ★

(r: Fantasy Masterpieces #1)

"I Spent the Night with the Thing on Bald Mountain!" 

(a: Steve Ditko) ★★

(r: Where Creatures Roam #2)

While cruising near the North Pole, an atomic sub encounters a giant glacier and uses gamma rays to melt through it. This releases a giant creature that lifts the sub up and then uses mental telepathy to tell a strange story. The creature explains that it is an alien from another planet and it has spent a million years waiting for the major life forms on Earth to die out. First, the dinosaurs disappeared, then cavemen, and on through the various civilizations of mankind that warred with each other. The creature warns that atomic weapons could finally wipe out the human race and, when they do, it will rise from the glacier and claim Earth for its planet. The creature fades from sight and the sub commander ponders its warning.

"He Waits for Us in the Glacier!" is a combination of a boring history lesson and a cautionary tale. The story is nothing new, but Don Heck draws a nice giant creature.

A reporter journeys deep into Black Tree Swamp to interview an old man named Lem Whipple, who spends his time looking up at the sky. Lem explains that he's waiting for aliens to return and confesses that "We Met in the Swamp!" Years ago, an alien ship landed in the swamp and got stuck. Six aliens emerged and offered Lem their greatest treasure in exchange for tools to free the ship. He complied and they gave him a box and took off. Once Lem realized that, when the aliens return, it would be to conquer mankind, he vowed never to look inside the box and to keep watching the skies until it was time to sound the warning about the aliens' return. The reporter opens the box to find only air, which Lem realizes is the most important thing to anyone traveling through space.

A bit of a letdown, but I'm enjoying this new Atlas development where Ditko inks Kirby. Look at the face of the man on the cover--pure Ditko, while the giant creature is all Kirby. In this story, Ditko succeeds in smoothing some of Kirby's rough edges and improves some of the faces without taking too much of the Kirby style away.

A real estate agent named Howard tries to talk a prospective buyer named Lang out of purchasing the old Greenwood place because it's haunted. Lang insists on checking out the house and agrees to spend a night there. At night, ghosts appear and make a believer out of Lang. The next day, he tells Howard he wouldn't buy the house for anything. That night, Howard heads to the Lang house and joins his fellow ghosts, glad that they avoided having a human move in.

"I Lived a Ghost Story!" reminds me of the sort of tale found in 1970s Charlton ghost comics--safe, corny, and not particularly well illustrated.

A cameraman runs into the street, shouting "I Saw the Other World!" Explaining that he's discovered a parallel dimension, the cameraman says he found a most unusual camera the day before. When he took random photos on the street and developed them, he saw an ultramodern city and concluded that it exists side by side with his own. The cameraman supposes that the camera came from that world, but the man he's talking to doesn't believe him. Just then, the sky gets dark, a lightning bolt strikes, and a hand emerges from an electrical force field and grabs the camera. The man that the cameraman was talking to has also disappeared! The cameraman thinks he imagined the whole thing. In the parallel dimension, the man who disappeared is now in the position of the cameraman, trying to convince a stranger on the street that another dimension exists.

Dick Ayers's art is even worse than Paul Reinman's, and this four-pager was a bit confusing at the end. I finally figured out what happened, though. The big hand coming from the sky reminds me of a Batman story with a big green hand coming out of the sky.

A successful sculptor named Anton George moves to a castle atop Bald Mountain in Central Europe, where he creates giant statues of two figures representing Good and Evil, locked in battle with each other. During a storm, the Evil statute is struck by lighting and springs to life, chasing George around the castle before grabbing him and hurling him at the Good statue. Good suddenly comes to life and puts George down safely before battling with Evil, a fight that ends in both falling to their death. George wonders what caused Good to come to life and save him from Evil.

For my money, Steve Ditko is single handedly making these comics worth reading at this point. "I Spent the Night with the Thing on Bald Mountain!" is really stretching things as a title, since the mountain is never identified, the statute is hardly a "thing," and the sculptor spends a few minutes being chased by it--hardly "spending the night." In any case. Ditko gives it his all and makes it worth a look.-Jack

Strange Tales #73

Cover by Jack Kirby & Bill Everett

"Grottu, King of the Insects!" (a: Jack Kirby & Bill Everett) ★★

(r: Strange Tales Annual #1)(r: Where Monsters Dwell #3)

"I Saw the End of the World!" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★1/2

(r: Fantasy Masterpieces #3)

"I Was Captured by the Mole Men!" (a: Don Heck) ★★★

(r: Monsters on the Prowl #14)

"I Am a Walking Time Bomb" (a: Paul Reinman) ★★

A reporter named Frank receives an urgent telegram from his friend, a scientist named Lynn, alerting him to the biggest story of the century! Frank hops on a jet plane and soon is with Lynn, who tells him that an African native wrote to Lynn about an army ant that is as big as a house and has human intelligence! Frank and Lynn voyage for three days to Mombasa, Kenya, before making their way into the jungle.

The native, Kasenga, tells them that, months ago, Commies came to Kenya and conducted an atomic bomb test. Not long after, the natives saw a swarm of army ants, and one of them was "Grottu, King of the Insects!" Grottu led the army ants on a path of destruction and communicated by mental telepathy. Frank, Lynn, and Kasenga soon locate the army ants and Grottu and find that they are headed to Mombasa to destroy it! The men convince everyone to evacuate the city, but when the ants arrive, Grottu leads them to the port. It plans to spread destruction to other countries! Luckily, Frank has a plan. He lures Grottu to a warehouse, where a huge amount of sugar is dumped on top of him. The rest of the army ants come scurrying for the sugar and smother Grottu, killing him and eliminating the menace.

I was remined of D.W. Griffith's 1909 short film, A Corner in Wheat, where the villain is smothered by a load of grain dumped on top of him. I guess we've officially reached the Atlas era of giant monsters created by atomic blasts, and it's a relief to read something other than alien invasion stories or tales about people who suddenly develop powers and want to use them to get rich quick. Everett's inks let Kirby be Kirby and don't alter the panels quite as much as Ditko's inks do.

When a scientist figures out how to build a time machine, the scientific community says it's too dangerous and the military shuts him down. He begins to work in a hidden cave and builds the device, with which he travels to the future, stopping in 2009, 2109, 2209, 2959, etc. What he finds is that the development of civilization goes in an endless loop, with mankind advancing, going backward, and advancing again. In the end, he finds himself back in his lab, again figuring out how to build a time machine.

Ditko's regular panels are good enough, but his depictions of the scientist in his time machine, traveling through space and into the future, really stand out in "I Saw the End of the World!" Ditko's first Captain Atom story would hit the stands a month later, and I see strong similarities in this tale to that later work.

A young detective in the NYPD argues with his more seasoned colleague about the merits of acting quickly or taking time to think. Just then, a subway guard rushes in to report the disappearance of a subway train filled with passengers between 42nd and 59th Streets! The detective goes underground to investigate and finds a tunnel branching off from the regular line. He follows the tunnel down into the Earth and comes face to face with the  mole men! The detective manages to escape capture, board the subway train, and guide it back onto the regular line, arriving at the 59th Street station. To his surprise, the passengers are not happy, informing him that the mole men were members of an advanced race that was going to share knowledge about how to live underground, something that could come in handy in case of an atomic war. The young detective, chastised, admits to his older partner that sometimes it's not good to act without thinking.

This is the kind of story I've been waiting for! Although the end is a bit much, there's some thought behind what happens and Heck's art is above average. In a sense, the writer takes bits and pieces of Atlas cliches and weaves them together into something that seems new and more interesting.

A robot from Xenon Major lands on Earth and makes his way to the U.N., where he announces that "I Am a Walking Time Bomb" and he will explode in 24 hours! The choice is to surrender to the other planet's conquering forces or to be utterly destroyed. People are skeptical, so the robot is taken to a hospital for examination, where he is surprised to see that Earthlings care for their elderly. On Xenon Major, people are killed when they're too old to work. Out on the street in NYC, the robot is again surprised when a mother protects her child; on Xenon Major, no one risks his life for another. Eventually, the robot decides that people of Earth should be left alone and he heads speedily home to explode and destroy his own unworthy planet. At the U.N., representatives of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. shake hands, promising to stop their conflict.

Not as good as the story before it, but still not bad! Reinman's art isn't as strong as Heck's at this point, and the story features some of the cliches we've come to expect from Atlas, but perhaps the new, six-page length allows the writers to develop their themes a bit more.-Jack

On Thursday...
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And Next Week...
At Long Last!
Gorgolla, the Living Gargoyle!!!


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The 100 Chapter 2: 98 and 97

Who doesn't love a list?

I devour the BFI Best Films of All Time list whenever they deem it necessary to revise and (invariably) disagree with most of the findings, but I still get a kick out of browsing. Same with Rolling Stone's inane Best 100 Albums (how does Sgt. Pepper drop from #1 to #24 in the latest incarnation?); the anger I feel subsides when I see they've put a couple of Aerosmith albums on the list! We all disagree with that number one but we keep right on scrolling through each choice.

This project, which has been percolating for quite a while, originated from the constant back-and-forth "good-natured bickering" between John Scoleri and myself. John invariably loves everything and I hate it all (for more of the discourse, I advise one and all to pick up a copy of bare•bones print magazine and read our debates about streaming and movie theaters to get a taste). I began to think it would be fun to compose a Favorite (as opposed to Best) 100 and compare our selections. Making it even more tantalizing, I managed to talk the third head of Ghidorah, Jack Seabrook, into participating. This could be interesting, since John's never seen a movie the two Georges (Romero and Lucas) didn't have a hand in, and Jack usually favors the flicks that have words at the bottom of the screen (dis-moi que j'ai tort, Jack!). I, on the other hand, can't wait to educate these two gentlemen as to what constitutes good cinema.

Every Thursday for 50 weeks (Christmas week off!), we'll count down our picks two at a time. We're hoping this will generate discourse outside of our trio. Let us know just how crazy we are. This is going to be fun! —Peter

Sorcerer (1977)

Starring: Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal

Directed by: William Friedkin

"We're carrying three cases each. One is enough to blow out your fire; six cases will blow out the whole field. That means you don't think all the trucks will make it, one of us is a backup."

Yep, this is one of those legendary late 1970s flicks that very nearly bankrupted a studio, but I won’t dwell on things that matter like a really dumb title, a lousy soundtrack, internal squabbles, Friedkin’s ego, its snail-paced first hour (which at times is cut to resemble a cheap Godfather rip-off — I’m not saying that was Friedkin’s design but that’s what it looks like, so sue me) and Roy Schieder’s… um… multi-layered performance. Put all that aside and you’ve got about an hour of the most white-knuckled cinema you’re likely to encounter, an hour that makes you forget any of the film’s shortcomings.

Four guys have to haul some very iffy and (evidently) out-of-date nitro 200 miles across South America on some likewise out-of-date roadways in two rundown trucks to extinguish an out of control oil fire. One bad shake and the cargo and crew will go blooie. 

The legendary 12-minute bridge scene, with its rain-distorted nightmarish imagery, is just as creepy as anything in Alien and as exciting as anything in Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s not as consistently good as the first adaptation of Georges Arnaud’s The Wages of Fear (which may or may not be discussed further at a later date), but it’s certainly a movie that will stay with you for a while.

        

I think the first time I ever saw Sorcerer was in the early 1980s on a VHS tape at the insistence of a cinephile buddy of mine who insisted this was Friedkin's masterpiece; it remains one of those flicks I'd love to see on a big screen. —Peter

Remarks from the Gallery

Jack: I've never seen Sorcerer. I'll have to keep an eye out for it!

John: I'm a fan of Sorcerer. I was a fan of the haunting  Tangerine Dream score before I ever saw the film. And my first viewing was at a 35mm screening with Friedkin in attendance. And yet as much as I like it, it didn't make my top 100, so I'm glad I'm able to laud it here. 

Theatre of Blood (1973)

Starring: Vincent Price, Diana Rigg, Ian Hendry

Directed by: Douglas Hickox

Vincent Price plays Shakespearean actor and noted ham Edward Lionheart, who is thought dead after a leap from a balcony into water after he is denied an award by the London critics. Saved by a bunch of homeless winos, Lionheart goes on a killing spree, murdering each of the drama critics using methods from Shakespeare's plays. In the end, Lionheart and his daughter Edwina, played by Diana Rigg, are killed as his beloved theater goes up in flames.

On rewatching this film for the first time in many years, I was on the verge of giving up after the first few murders, but once things really get going the movie is a hoot. Vincent Price is terrific, spouting lines from Shakespeare and hamming it up in one disguise after another; my favorite is when he impersonates a gay hairdresser and wears an afro and sunglasses! Rigg is lovely and lovable as ever, though her disguise as Lionheart's hippie assistant in the string of murders, wearing a curly wig, a bushy mustache, and sunglasses, is kind of silly.

Ian Hendry is especially good as Price's nemesis, a critic named Devlin, and it's neat to think that he and Rigg were both connected to The Avengers in the '60s.

My wife's comment: "piece of horror trash." —Jack

Remarks from the Gallery

Peter: A golden Vinnie, one I always thought of as Phibes 3 (in fact, Phibes director Robert Fuest was offered but declined). I never got to see this one in the theater as it was rated R. I'm amazed this was released by United Artists and not AIP, a studio that was swimming in this stuff in the early to mid-70s. 

John: Though I own a copy, I haven't seen this one since the Creature Feature/Chiller Diller days. It has always been one of Vonna's favorites, so perhaps it's time to revisit it.

Night of the Creeps (1986)

Starring: Tom Atkins, Jason Lively, Jill Whitlow

Directed by: Fred Dekker

"What is this? A homicide, or a bad B-movie?"

Fred Dekker's feature film debut was a highlight of mid-80s VHS viewing for me. It starts off as a '50s sci-fi flick, in black and white, before transitioning into a glossy, colorful '80s teen-comedy/horror hybrid. While his 1987 follow-up, The Monster Squad, probably has a larger following, I am fonder of everything he accomplishes with Creeps. 

Tom Atkins is perfectly cast as a hard-boiled detective (and a rookie cop in the film's '50s opening) who finds himself having to deal with the dark events of his own past when a couple of well-meaning if naive college students inadvertently unthaw a cryogenically preserved human specimen. Creepy space slugs turn those whose brains they possess into homicidal dead folks. The film is populated with characters named after famous horror film directors: Romero, Cameron,. Raimi, Craven, and Carpenter Hooper! The dialogue is witty, with Atkins given no shortage of great lines, including the tagline, "I've got good news and bad news girls. The good news is your dates are here . . . (The bad news is) . . .  They're dead!"

As horror comedies go, this is up there with Evil Dead 2 and Return of the Living Dead as each skillfully balances the two. Regardless of how funny it may be at times, the stakes are real for our characters. And a special shout out to the delightful Jill Whitlow, who portrays the perfect, good-hearted sorority girl with a flamethrower! The DVD and Blu Ray releases offer two endings: both are entertaining, but the theatrical ending is the perfect way to wrap things up, in my opinion. -John

Remarks from the Gallery: 

Peter: I'm not a child of the 1980s like John and I didn't frequent many horror flicks after 1979, but I did see this at the Saratoga Six and remember being mildly amused. I've never revisited it since. 

Jack: I pretty much stopped watching new horror movies in the early 1980s when they got too gory and explicit for me. I've never seen this one. This project is going to be very interesting! I want to see if our lists start to overlap at some point.

The Car (1977)

Starring: James Brolin, Kathleen Lloyd, Ronny Cox

Directed by: Elliott Silverstein

Lauren (Kathleen Lloyd): Hey, you! Why don't you get outta your big ugly car, huh? We'd like to see                                                  what you look like. I'd like to see what a creep like you looks like!

The Car is a goofy horror flick that’s never gotten its due outside of hardcore horror/exploitation buffs. Upon delivery, it was labeled a ripoff of Jaws (granted) and Duel (doubly granted) and slid into obscurity after a couple weeks of fair-to-middling box office. But the movie has so much more to offer than a lot of the quickies that were released in the late 1970s. It’s got a solid performance from James Brolin, still looking for his first leading man hit (he’d done well with Richard Benjamin in Westworld but tanked in the disastrous Gable and Lombard) and some incredible stunt driving but, most importantly, a “couldn’t-give-a-shit” attitude. 

What is this unstoppable monster of metal and why is it menacing this small desert town? Could it be related to the ancient Indian burial grounds on the outskirts? Who knows, because that cliche is never introduced. Is it the devil? Why would he bother coming up and wasting his time driving a Lincoln instead of a ‘vette? Probably cuz it ain't the boss himself. The biggest surprise, of course, is that Holy Shit! moment in the middle of the flick where Kathleen Lloyd gets her face-to-grill with the black Lincoln and joins the exclusive club of Terminated Lead Actresses formed by Lee Remick the year before. 

I saw this opening weekend (and probably five more times) at the legendary Almaden Twin, where you could see a double feature for one entrance fee of a buck. Saw the Go Ape marathon there at least a half-dozen times. The Twin was a dumpy little theater that held probably 300 seats but it was, for me, a paradise for a half-decade.—Peter

Remarks from the Gallery

Jack: I feel like I must have seen this long, long ago, but I can't be sure. It sounds like the kind of John Carpenter/Roger Corman flick that I'd enjoy.

John: Great flick. Like Burnt Offerings, I always thought of it as a TV movie, and only learned years after seeing it that it was actually a theatrical feature. I'm a big Brolin fan—I'll have more to say about him soon... but I can't believe you brought up The Car without mentioning the haunting car horn that signaled the arrival of this devil on wheels!

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

Starring: James Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles

Directed by: John Ford

Why are aging senator Ransom Stoddard and his wife Hallie back in the Frontier town of Shinbone for the funeral of Tom Doniphon, a rancher? Stoddard tells a reporter the story of how he arrived in the town 25 years ago as an idealistic young lawyer, and how he eventually came to be known as The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, a ruthless, bloodthirsty gunslinger. Of course, there's more to the story, and finding out what really happened is the movie's climax.

Filmed on a soundstage in black and white due to budget restrictions, the movie remains a delight. Stewart and Wayne are probably 25 years too old for their roles, but it doesn't matter, since they each give outstanding performances. Vera Miles is not just beautiful, but a strong actress as well. Lee Marvin is loathsome as Liberty Valance, and the film is packed with great character actors who inhabit their roles fully, such as John Qualen, Edmond O'Brien, Andy Devine, and Jeanette Nolan.

The movie drags a bit after Valance is shot, but the final revelation is shocking and casts everything that happened up to then in a different light. My wife's comment: "Everyone in that movie turned it up to 11!"—Jack

Remarks from the Gallery: 

Peter: This was a tough one for me to leave off my list. I love it like I love most of the Ford/Wayne films but, goldarnit, I can only pick 100 movies! What's a guy to do? There's at least one Ford/Wayne on my horizon (and my pick will surprise no one), so that almost makes up for my exclusion of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

John: I never was a big John Wayne fan... he always seemed to be more of a presence than an actor to me. And while I respect his work in Rio Bravo and The Searchers, this is one (of many) that I never sat down to watch. 

Phantom of the Opera (2004)

Starring: Emmy Rossum, Gerard Butler, Patrick Wilson

Directed by: Joel Schumacher

"Softly, deftly, music shall caress you. Hear it, feel it, secretly possess you."

Yep, I'm an unabashed fan of the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical. I've seen it several times. While I enjoyed the Wicked movies, I would say that Phantom is the best adaptation of a musical to film. Gerard Butler is a good enough Phantom, but it's Emmy Rossum (Christine Daaé) who is the real star here. She steals every scene she's in and delivers my favorite performances of the songs that I've heard, besting even original stage star Sarah Brightman.

Joel Schumacher is hit or miss director for me; I loved The Lost Boys and loathed his Batman sequels. I'd offer up that Phantom of the Opera is his masterwork. The production design is amazing; from the main stage of the Paris Opera House to the Phantom's catacombs, to a snow-filled cemetery where an epic sword fight unfolds. If you've never seen the play, this is a great introduction to the songs and set pieces. Even if you're anti-musical, you might give this one a chance. -John

Remarks from the Gallery: 

Peter: Oh, I did give this a chance, John, and thought it was Harlequin romance nonsense, not quite as bad as the Robert Englund garbage foisted upon us in the late 80s but nowhere near as good as the Chaney/Rains/Lom versions. I do like me some Emmy Rossum but otherwise bleccccccch. For what it's worth, I don't think Joel Schumacher ever had a masterpiece, though A Time to Kill is a solid Grisham adaptation.

Jack: I saw this on Broadway twice (I think) but I never saw the movie version. I do love some of the songs. I'm a big fan of the silent movie with Lon Chaney!