Let's hear it for the not-very-famous wrestler Fabulous Freddie Valentine, a man who follows his dreams. Including that of being a filmmaker, which is one of the many things he does under his slightly more familiar name by birth, Fred Olan Ray.
Sure, most of his low to Z-budget movies are not very good — see: Biohazard (1985), Venomous (2001), et alia — but give the man credit: he may be doing what he loves badly (well, "badly" most of the time), but he is doing it and living from it. Remember that the next time you're slinging burgers at McDs or preparing to earn your rent money by wiping the smegma off your john's Oscar Meyer as your own dreams slip further and further away...
We don't know who had the original idea for the movie, director Fabulous Freddie Valentine or regular TV-movie scribe Mark "Amazing Onionhead" Sanderson, but the inspiration is obvious: here, instead of Snakes on a Plane (2006) with a slumming name star having fun, we have snakes on a submarine, with no-name actors and slumming lower-echelon stars desperate to pay their rent.
German trailer to Silent Venom:
But if Snakes on a Plane fully embraces its low-culture, grindhouse roots (who can possibly forget the well-aimed snake bite to the blonde's naked nipple?) to become dumb exploitation fun, Silent Venom prefers an attempt at low-budget TV-level seriousness and wallows within a sphere that could be described as "family appropriate". (Indeed, despite the singular female character's mania to have a shower on the sub, we never even get a discreet skin scene.*) Much like the older, campier, faster, more violent and far-better science-fiction movie Space Marines (1996), Silent Venom comes across as a kiddie film without kids in the cast. Thus, how much you will enjoy this movie depends on how much you like commonplace TV movies and movies aimed at family audiences.
* Krista Allen, who plays the singular female character, has taken nude showers in other film projects — like in the super cheesy horror movie Haunted Sea (1997 / trailer). That film is a sleazier reinterpretation of Roger Corman's horror comedy Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961 / trailer / full film).
Considering this D2V movie's TV-movie and family-audience vibe, it is easy to understand why some claims have been made that Silent Venom is an oblique remake of an obscure CBS movie of the week, the long-forgotten Fer-de-Lance (1974 / full movie), starring David Janssen ([27 Mar 1931 – 13 Feb 1980] of Cult of the Cobra [1955 / trailer], The Swiss Conspiracy [1976] and Moon of the Wolf [1972]). That said, while the somewhat dull and not too fun Fer-de-Lance and the somewhat dull but occasionally fun Silent Venom do share some basic plot similarities (specifically: snakes on a submarine), we see Silent Venom as influenced less by that slab of CBS flotsam than an older, better-known TV series: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964-68). The underplayed-but-present concept of oversized "mutant snakes" fits well into that series general science-fiction orientation — monsters on the sub were not unheard of in that series — and one could easily imagine the manly main trio of the sub, Commander James O'Neill (Luke Perry [11 Oct 1966 – 4 Mar 2019] of American Strays [1996], below from his turn as a disgraced homophobic preacher in the TV series Oz [1997-2003]) & Lt Commander Houston Davies (John L. Curtis) & Eddie Boudreau (Anthony Tyler Quinn), along with some recognizable-name special guest star, having a new low-budget adventure every week. The only thing in Silent Venom that ultimately undermines that concept is that the movie ends with Luke Perry's character's retirement.
Silent Venom opens on a Pacific island that looks a lot like California scrublands, where we meet the movie's asshole-you-want-to-die, Jake Goldin (Louis Mandylor of The Prometheus Project [2010]), get to watch two non-characters die — one by snakebite, the other by being eaten by a huge, mutated snake in a scene as laughable as anything found in The Snake King (2005) — and meet Jake the Assistant's hot herpetologist boss, Dr. Andrea Swanson (Krista "Can't Act MILF" Allen of Feast [2005 / trailer]), who wears tight string tops and is conducting nefarious military experiments and mutations on poisonous snakes. Then, on a generic military-office set, we meet Commander James O'Neill (Perry), whose moment of integrity has cost him his career, being given a chance to save his retirement by Admiral Bradley Wallace (Tom "I Take Every Job I Do Seriously" Berenger) by delivering a decommissioned, and thus unarmed, submarine to somewhere in Asia.
And so it comes to pass that when Dr. Swanson and Jake have to evacuate the island due to incoming Chinese, O'Neill's sub is the only possible option. Being the capitalistic, egocentric scumbag that he is, Jake smuggles some two dozen deadly snakes (including two giant mutant ones) aboard. Of course, as soon as the sub starts playing cat and mouse with a Chinese war fleet, they promptly escape and start killing sailors.
Okay, Krista Allen is seriously miscast as the herpetologist, but her character is relatively unimportant to the movie; that they even cast such a hot actress in the role is only to add some sexual tension between the tightlipped and sleepwalking Luke Perry, something that only truly ignites during an oddly funny scene in which Commander O'Neill slowly unwraps deadly snakes off Dr. Swanson (only to toss them carelessly aside): director Fabulous Freddie Valentine films the scene as if it were an act of teasing foreplay — not that the tease ever pays off.
Jake Goldin, on the other hand, is truly well cast and successfully channels the irritating immaturity of his annoying younger-brother shtick of My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002 / trailer) and its sequels, like the last, My Big Fat Greek Wedding III (2023 / trailer), whence the image below comes, to be the guy you're truly happy to see die; Goldin is so naturally unlikable (but for one inexplicable scene in which he takes umbrage at the sexism of young — and soon dead — sailor Rhodes [Haran Jackson]) that you could almost believe that he must be like that in real life. (But then, who knows, maybe he is.)
Berenger, in the stock part of the good man back at the base, is on screen more than one might expect for what was surely a one-day job, but as always he doesn't let on in any way that he knows he's in a crappy movie. (Rather unlike Perry, whose dry, tired characterization of Commander O'Neill often comes across as the result of a subliminal desire to be anywhere but in the movie.)
Silent Venom is more than slightly padded in more ways than one. Not only do most scenes drag out in TV-movie fashion and the two-part credit sequence way too long, there is an overdose of stock-footage submarine shots. And the whole cat-and-mouse subplot of the sub trying to avoid being detected by the evil Chinese seems less relevant than casual padding of a narrative that really had nowhere else to go once the snakes get released.
Likewise, considering how much easily damaged technical equipment is found on a sub, a lot of guns are shot rather pointlessly at snakes, most of which — all but the two big mutant ones — are not exactly a big target. Still, it's fun watch the snakes disappear and reappear: much like how all the bite victims (but for the galley cook) seem to get beamed into the sickbay, the timing of the snakes' appearances is immensely inconsistent — for example, the snake canister is barely opened and one is seen slithering on Jake's bag and under Dr. Swanson's towel — and they almost seem to appear and disappear at will, like when they basically are just suddenly there between Boudreau and Dr. Swanson when the two are running down the subway corridor.
In short, Silent Venom is as flawed as any other Fabulous Freddie Valentine movie but slightly more enjoyable than many, providing you can harness your inner-child and enjoy it for what it is in its core: a family-appropriate TV movie.
The really young ones and people suffering ophidiophobia might find the flick terrifying, especially since it obviously uses a lot of real snakes (all but the mutated ones), but everyone else will see the movie as harmless fluff that offers nothing new and no surprises. No way necessary viewing, Silent Venom passes the test of possible TV viewing when stuck with the kids or with nothing else is at hand. But don't bother searching this one out, because it sure ain't that good.
We've had the accidental (dis)pleasure of watching a Joseph Lai/Godrey Ho production before, the last time being back in 2022, when we suffered our way through Golden Destroyers, a cinematic fiasco made a year earlier than this cinematic abortion here. Even if it probably is not, Golden Destroyers at least has the appearance of being a stand-alone, "real" project, unlike this mess, which is obviously edited-together footage — it even includes an exchange (a "face-to-face" conversation) between two characters in which one is outside in a park and the other is inside a room — and is less a movie than, possibly, a failed CIA-financed ploy to stupefy the VHS-viewing population of the world (it seems doubtful that Ninja Hunt ever made to any cinema anywhere).
Trailer to
Ninja Hunt:
It our review of Golden Destroyers, we scribbled in furor that the movie is "an absolutely appalling film about which one should probably not write, for any description of the idiocies and awfulness that permeate every aspect of this patchwork movie cannot help but make the movie sound more entertaining than it is. Sometimes bad films are simply bad, and Golden Destroyers is an exemplary film in this regard." A statement that is easily 100% applicable to Ninja Hunt. But then, from what we have picked up along the way, it would seem that few if any Joseph Lai and/or/cum Godfrey Ho "movies" are truly worth watching as a "movie".
On the other hand, as an experience of unintentional surrealism, an experience of a total lack of cinematic talent, or anything remotely indicating a respect for the media or genre, or even an interest in attempting to create anything but the cheapest of disposable product, Ninja Hunt, like many a demented Lai/Ho pieced-together project, is a one-of-a-kind of experience that, despite the unintentional but hearty laughter it sometimes induces, verges on visual and mental torture. It is one of those movies that makes you feel truly guilty, that really gives you the depressing feeling that you are indeed wasting your life, and that if you watch crap like this it should be you who has terminal cancer instead of [put in name of your afflicted friend or family member here]. And as we all know, life is way too long.
Like too many ninja movies back in the day they were popular, Ninja Hunt is populated only by Caucasian ninjas, none of whom appear to be particularly graceful or talented in the martial arts. Likewise, the dull narrative, as to be expected from a movie less scripted than edited, offers 90 minutes of insensibility in which diverse characters separate and converge and disappear, and diverse narrative tangents are picked up and dropped or simply change, with everything continually punctuated by nonsensical fight scenes or scenes of bad dancing or women playing rock-paper-scissors in a room decorated with Playboy centerfolds.
Nothing occurs in Ninja Hunt that might enliven the "narrative" events, but often things transpire that unintentionally engender great mirth. This is in particularly true about the ninja fight scenes, with their endless slow-motion cartwheels done by men wearing fashion-faux-pas polyester ninja suits that hide their faces so that stunt men can do the cheesy gymnastics and jump about like gravity-defying spastics. As to be expected, the two big final showdowns — to tie the main two diffuse storylines together, separate showdowns occur at the same time between normalos and between Good Ninja Dickson and Bad Ninja — like any and all fights scenes before, are neither thrilling or interesting, nor well choreographed or shot.
In regard to what Ninja Hunt is ostensibly about, the disparate events and characters concern ever so faintly (as in: with the tangibility of a fart) a non-sensible plotline about a VHS containing the recipe for a special drug, DAK10, which turns those who take it into crazed killing machines. (Interestingly enough, throughout the entire movie, the drug is never actually produced or taken by anyone.) Stolen by black-clad Ninjas led by a leader dressed in a hilarious bright yellow outfit with Joan-Crawford shoulders (played by "Sruart Smith", the plan is to sell the recipe-containing VHS to the some gangsters that like to play rock-paper-scissors and do petty crimes. The CIA, in any event, sends in Ninja Dickson (a wooden and disinterested Richard Harrison) to get the VHS at all costs...
The relationship and gangster drama concerning the taxi driver Aaron (supposedly working undercover for Ninja Dickson) and street kid Billy and bordello mother Rachel (Ninja Dickson's ex, now screwing the gangster boss Campbell) and gangsters appears to be taken from an even more-obscure 1983 Taiwanese movie Cuowu de jiaobu sheng a.k.a. The Wrong Steps. The rest, meaning the stuff featuring Ninja Dickson (when not played by a disguised double), in an interview, Richard Harrison, who was known to choose his projects based on what new country the project would take him — even if it meant working for someone like Joe D'Amato, the director of Erotic Nights of the Living Dead (1980), amongst other trash, as the porno poster below reveals — when talking about his working with Ho and Lai, indirectly reveals why he looks so disinterested, if not annoyed: "I went to Hong Kong to work for them, and even though the quality of the [two] films were very poor my wife and I enjoyed Hong Kong very much, and the crew was mostly made of nice people. [...] Mr. Lai contacted a friend who was a tax man and was told I owed quite a bit of money in taxes. When I showed that my contract stated I would not be responsible for any taxes in Hong Kong, the man said it was not valid. I agreed then to do another film for Mr. Lai to pay the taxes. There was no script, only sides. Nothing made any sense [...]. Also, during this last film or films, our living conditions were not good. My first call came from Germany, telling me how bad the films were and they had only bought them because they trusted me. I have no idea how many films they made from my last filming, but some say as many as ten.* I put a lot of trust in friendship, so it hurt more than just professionally."
*Some sources say "at least twenty-four different [ninja] movies"...
Ninja Hunt is less a movie than it is a waste of celluloid, and it no way merit anyone's time, not even that of the most brain-dead ninja-movie completionist. At best, it is a 90-minute visual vomitorium produced by "filmmakers" who, like Donald Trump and the contemporary Republican party, wholeheartedly believe that P.T. Barnum was right when he said "There's a sucker born every minute," and who want to milk those suckers for as much as they can.
Don't be a sucker, watch some other Richard Harrison* movie instead...
*For those of you unfamiliar with Richard Harrison: "Born in May 1935 in Salt Lake City, Utah, actor and model Richard Harrison enjoyed a long career in films until his retirement in the 1990s. Much like his contemporary Ed Fury, Harrison started his career as a physique model in the 1950s and graced the covers of numerous magazines. The extremely handsome Harrison made his film debut in the campy science fiction effort Kronos (1957 / trailer). [...] While he was getting steady film work, Harrison's career wasn't in the fast lane. So, in 1961 he headed to Rome and became a star in a string of sword and sandal films. [...] Harrison ran with the sword and sandal genre until it died out in the mid 1960s. Unlike some of his contemporaries, he easily made the transition to other film genres, including spy films and spaghetti westerns. [drkrm gallery]" A cult name among bad-film aficionados, not to mention fans of vintage beefcake (though, unluckily, unlike Ed Fury he does not seem to have ever shown the full monty), the average Richard Harrison genre movie will entertain you, particularly his earlier stuff — but in between, be prepared for stupefying crap like Ninja Hunt.
Considering the amount of quirky laughs found in Anthony C. Ferrante's feature film directorial debut, the flawed but at times somewhat scary ghost story Boo/Scream and Run (2005), it really is not all that difficult to comprehend his evolution into a contemporary auteur of intentionally "bad" but entertaining TV "horror" comedies like those of his Sharknado series (Sharknado [2013 / trailer], Sharknado 2: The Second One [2014 / trailer], Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! [2015 / trailer], Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens [2016 / trailer], Sharknado 5: Global Swarming [2017 / trailer] and The Last Sharknado: It's About Time [2018 / trailer]).
With that mostly entertaining and harebrained franchise pretty much flogged deader than the bleached bones of a decade-dead horse by the time it ended, for his first follow-up genre film, Ferrante turned his attention away from what might be today's second most popular horror "monster" (killer sharks) to today's most popular genre monster: MAGA Republicans the flesh-eating zombie. But as perhaps to be expected, he decided to once again lean towards the cheesy and ridiculous — like, for real: who can take a title like Zombie Tidal Wave seriously? Unexpectedly enough, however, despite the cheesy title and the more than occasional intentional laugh the movie induces, Ferrante's movie is also often played more straight than deadpan.
Trailer to
Zombie Tidal Wave:
Considering that Zombie Tidal Wave is set amidst the coastal beauty of Krabi, Thailand, it is almost a bit surprising that Ferrante didn't manage to get a bigger name star* to join the project than his regular, somewhat thespian-challenged but pleasantly DILFy lead actor Ian Ziering (of all the Sharknado flicks & other fine stuff like Tyrannosaurus Azteca [2007 / full movie]), the former husband of Playboy Playmate (Sept 1997) Nikki "Generic Blonde" Ziering (seen below).
But as Ferrante films are not meant to be Academy contenders, Ziering's thespian skills are more than good enough for his character Hunter Shaw, a manly boatsman ready to leave paradise in manly pursuit of maintaining his manly freedom. (He, of course, goes through enough character development over the course of the film to realize, at the end, that love and family is worth more than manly freedom.) Ziering, in any event, is never overshadowed or upstaged by any of his co-stars, all of whom treat the filmic material with aplomb equal to his.
*See, for example, the paid-vacation films Croc(2007) and/or Amphibious 3D (2010). But in all likelihood, within the US of Abnormality itself, and unlike in Old Europe, Ziering is probably a "bigger" name than either Michael Madsen or Michael Paré.
The a.k.atitle Zombie Tsunami might be a better title, alliteration-wise, but Zombie Tidal Wave could well be a small nod to a much earlier cult film that also features undead rising from tropic waters, namely Shock Waves (1977). Director Ferrante, who has among his earliest film credits a brief appearance in the less-than-laudable zombie movie The Dead Hate the Living! (2000), fills ZTW with an occasional nod to that and other "classics" of the genre (a music group appears named The Fulcis, after the director of Zombie[1979], for example, and elsewhere there is a boat propeller scene that easily trumps the scene it refers to in Zombie Holocausta.k.a. Dr Butcher MD [1980]) that it is almost a surprise that he didn't manage to have a character say something along the lines of "They're coming to get you, [Name of Choice]."
But for whatever allusions might be found in ZTW to earlier movies, and despite the movie's ridiculous title and basic premise, the flashes of camp and the occasional off-the-wall idea or ironic scene, as already mentioned, much of the movie plays out pretty much like a serious zombie flick. The result is a slightly schizophrenic zombie movie that is in no way a highpoint of the genre but that will more than satisfy the average zombie-flick fan, particularly since ZTW is surprisingly gory for a contemporary genre film, television or not. (That said, ZTW is surprisingly gory primarily when the scene involves the blue-skinned and blue-blooded zombies and not the red-blooded, turned-by-bite zombies; particularly the latter rely on bad CGI.)
A tight film that doesn't waste much time on anything extraneous, once the paradisaical setting is set an earthquake promptly rips a crack in the ocean's floor, releasing the first of the long-submerged, blue-skinned zombies. While in Shock Waves, the select zombies from the sunken ship inhabiting the waters were the product of NS experimentation in producing perfect soldiers, the untold numbers* released from the sunken ship in ZTW are the product of Big Pharma experimentation in creating... something. They breaststroke into the coastal town of Emrys Bay, and before you know what has happened, everyone but the film's steadily shrinking core group of survivors seems to have turned. The little plot the film has concerns how the groups or individuals separate and re-gather, survive or die, and, ultimately, put an end to the zombie outbreak of zombies that are unable to decide whether they should shamble or run but want flesh more than brains.**
*Throughout the film and in any given scene, the numbers of the blue and/or bitten dead change indiscriminately. The tidal waves, for examples, are dotted with thousands of swimming dead, but the numbers on shore hardly reach the hundreds. And later, during the wood-chipper scene, the huge mass that breaks through the gates is inexplicably reduced to less than a half dozen that easily get tossed in the machine.
**Ever notice, though, how zombies seldom ever actually finish a single meal in any zombie film? Here, too, they tend to eat a bite or two before pursuing their next mouthful of fresh meat.
On the whole, ZTW offers few surprises but some good fun one-liners, a lot of mostly poor CGI effects and some decent practical ones, and some dumb and fun ideas. (Ever see a drummer fighting off zombies with drumsticks? He doesn't do it for long.) The mandatory opening scene revealing that zombies are out and about and underwater, featuring a marriage proposal never completed, is cookie-cut but handled better than, say, the virtually identical but zombieless scene in Amphibious 3-D. The big surprise of the flick is the first of the "good guys" that gets bitten and subsequently becomes one mean, near unstoppable zombie... those who subsequently do or don't die and turn is less surprising. The dick of the film, a self-righteous rich guy named Blaine (Lincoln Bevers), offers one of the best scenes by proving that his future bride Connie (Natasha Hardegen of Appetite for Sin [2022 / trailer] and The Envy of Everyone [2022/ trailer]) is replaceable.
Zombie Tidal Wave: a fun one for non-demanding zombie fans and those who like contemporary intentionally "bad" film. Two partially eaten thumbs up!
Allison Hayes (6 Mar 1930 – 27 Feb 1977) was an American film and television actress and model who could perhaps be described as a poor man's Jane Russell (21 Jun 1921 – 28 Feb 2011) — ironically, seeing that Russell was actually born to white trash and Hayes was decidedly middle class. Born Mary Jane Hayes in Charleston, West Virginia, her father, William E. Hayes, worked for the Navy and her mother, W.E. Hayes's second wife Charlotte Gibson Hayes, appears to have been a homemaker. The family later moved to Washington, D.C, living at 4127 New Hampshire Avenue NW. She attended the Academy of the Holy Cross before entering public school, and graduated from Calvin Coolidge High School in 1948. As Miss District of Columbia, she represented D.C. in the 1949 Miss America pageant, which she did not win. She did a stint as a radio co-host, then worked on local television, and enrolled in the Catholic University of America (majoring in music), all the while working as a model (36-23-36).
In 1953, after doing a screen test for Warner's in NYC, she was approached by a Universal talent scout visiting D.C., which eventually led to her signing a seven-year contract at UI. Despite an auspicious beginning in a Douglas Sirk slab of costume melodrama and a Tony Curtis swashbuckler, Allison Hayes quickly became a B-movie staple. On the big screen, she never managed to leave the realm of low-budget films and second features, but on the small screen she was busy as a guest star and working on soaps.
A lifelong health fanatic, she regularly took vitamins and supplements, which was to be her undoing: at the advice of the homeopathic quack Dr. Henry Bieler (2 Apr 1893 – 11 Oct 1975), "an American physician and germ-theory denialist", she began taking calcium supplements made from the bones of horses. Unluckily, they were also contaminated with lead, and by the time she stopped taking them she could barely walk, was losing her hair, and was extremely ill. She later developed leukemia, from which she eventually died.
The beautiful and striking actress with an amazing figure would probably be forgotten today were it not for the trash classic, Attack of the 50-Foot Woman (1958), in which she plays the titular character. Her death led the FDA to introduce (non-enforceable) regulations guaranteeing quality standards in supplements — but as late as 2003, two out 15 products tested by the nongovernmental testing agency ConsumerLabstill had high levels of lead in them.
Allison Hayes,a true Babe of Yesteryear, had her career and life cut tragically short. A wasted life would like to honor her with one of our typically meandering career reviews of her short but surprisingly busy movie-making career, beginning with:
Once a big maybe, but we here at a wasted life say a definite not. "What an unusual noir — combines juvenile delinquency, family values, yearning for a better life, murder, robbery, and blackmail. And there's a homely girl they all call 'Ugly'. [Letterboxd]"
As imbd astutely states, "Jack Arnold reigns supreme as one of the great directors of 1950s science-fiction features. His films are distinguished by moody black and white cinematography, solid acting, smart, thoughtful scripts, snappy pacing, a genuine heartfelt enthusiasm for the genre and plenty of eerie atmosphere." (In 2009, his The Incredible Shrinking Man [1957 / trailer] was even selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress — the first, we are sure, of other movies to follow.) With Girls in the Night, Jack Arnold (14 Oct 1912 – 17 Mar 1992), who had previously directed numerous shorts as well as a few feature-length quasi-documentaries, made his fictional feature-film directorial debut — he went on to direct untold popular true classics and trash classics, as well as more than a few forgotten movies, like his final feature film, The Swiss Conspiracy (1971).
As for Allison Hayes, she officially made her feature-film debut the following year in Francis Joins the WACS, and this movie here is not usually found on most of her filmographies — the reason being that the uncredited appearance is contested.* But look around online and you'll find more than one site lists her as having appeared in this movie.
*Unlike the appearance of Dolores Fuller, who appears, uncredited but validated, in this movie as a "woman at Sorority Clubhouse Party".
There is a contingent out there who insist that she (four years after, in real life, representing Washington, D.C., in the 1949 Miss America pageant) plays the beauty contest contestant Angela Schultz. Others tend to believe the more-watertight assertion that Angela Schultz is played by an uncredited (and totally forgotten) Valerie Jackson, otherwise known as Miss Montana USA 1952. We tend to think it's Miss Montana and not Miss DC parading across the stage in the movie — we're talking about the girl at the far left in the movie still below, and that is not Allison Hayes — but for the sake of doubt, we're including this movie here as a "big maybe but probably not".
This rather forgotten teen delinquent noir was scripted by the rather forgotten Ray Buffum (8 Aug 1904 – 13 Dec 1980), whom some might remember as the man who wrote such fine trash as Teen-Age Crime Wave (1955 / trailer), The Brain from Planet Arous (1957 / trailer), Teen-Age Monster (1957 / trailer) and Island of Lost Women (1959 / full movie). Shot mostly on location on New York's East Side and in Brooklyn, Girls in the Night features a cast of mostly newcomers and unknowns, and was the feature-film debut of both the movie's Good Gal Hannah Hayes (Patricia Hardy [23 Dec 1931 – 20 Aug 2011]) and Bad Gal Vera Schroeder (Jaclynne Greene [30 Oct 1921 – 31 Jul 1993]), among others.
Speaking of Bad Gal Vera, she's the movie's noir element: she a nasty and conniving female who does the dirty to everyone, and almost dies as a result. "The tomboyish Vera is the most complex figure in this piece: calculating, full of sexual longing, clamouring for attention. She is attracted to Irv, and at first is subservient to his every whim. After the murder however, he is wrapped around her little finger, and must cater to her demands, lest she implicate him with the crime. Throughout most of the picture, Vera is commonly referred to in the second person as 'Ugly'. (Try getting that one out of the gate today.) But fret not, viewers, for in the end credits when the voice of Universal contract player Jeff Chandler (!) introduces the young newcomers, it is revealed that actress Jaclynne Greene isn't as homely as her fictional character. [The Eclectic Screening Room]"
For a blow-by-blow explanation of the plot, check out the AFI Catalog. A streamed-down plot can be found at YouTube: "A morbid and rugged look at life in the tenements of New York City. Chuck Haynes (Harvey Lembeck [15 Apr 1923 – 5 Jan 1982]) and his girlfriend, Georgia Cordray (Joyce Holden [1 Sept 1930 – 21 Jan 2022]), plan to rob a fake beggar (Paul E. Burns [26 Jan 1881 – 17 May 1967]) of a supposed fortune, but Irv Kellener (Don Gordon [13 Nov 1926 – 24 Apr 2017]) and his girlfriend, Vera (Jaclynne Greene), have the same idea also, and get there first, but end up killing the old man. And Chuck and Georgia are the prime suspects."
The full movie:
Prior to making films, and while he was still a film critic, François Truffaut was moved to write: "[...] Girls in the Night, which leaves us in an intermediary state between surprise and delight. [...] Through the author's tenderness for his youngsters (and without sentimentality), through the incredible violence of the fight scenes, through the dynamism of the whole, the beauty of the relationships among the characters, the tone of this film swings between Becker's Rendez-vous de Juillet (1949 / trailer) and Nicholas Ray's Knock on Any Door (1949 / trailer). Each scene, whether it is the first (the very lively election of Miss 43rd Avenue in a neighborhood movie theater), the last (a very carefully controlled chase), or yet a prodigious dance scene in a sleazy club, makes us think that it was the one that the author treated the most lovingly; the directing of the actors (all newcomers) is perfect. [...]"
BTW:
Another non-name beauty of note found in the photo further above of the beauty pageant line-up is
the dark-haired middle girl . That (uncredited) contestant
is no less than Tandra Quinn (27 Mar 1931 – 21 Oct 2016), whose non-career of
less than a half-dozen bad movies includes her memorable performance in the truly
surreally terrible non-movie that is Ron Ormond's The
Mesa of Lost Women (1953). (A memorable "movie" which also features a about three seconds of Dolores Fuller.)
Trailer
to
The Mesa of Lost Women:
Francis Joins the WACS
(1954, dir. Arthur Lubin)
Released 30 July 1954. Currently available at the Internet Archives, and embedded here further below. 24-year-old Allison Hayes, now a contract player at Universal, made her feature film acting debut in an extremely minor speaking role in the fifth installment of Universal's Francis the Talking Mule franchise — namely, she plays Lt. Dickson (or maybe "Lt. Dixon"), a part that almost never gets mentioned in any review we can find, even if they mention Allison Hayes's presence itself.
For that, Raz's Midnight Macabre explains her big scene in Francis Joins the WACS: "Allison played 'Lt. Dickson', who arrives at the WAC encampment late one night and finds herself in the same barracks at Peter (Donald O'Connor). It's all a misunderstanding, but Allison strips down to her slip and screams appropriately when she discovers she is sharing a room with a man. She doesn't have an encounter with the titular animal, though."
Financially, Francis Joins the WACS outdid all the prior Francis films except the first one, Francis (1950 / trailer). That first film, and thus the franchise, was based on the 1946 novel Francis by David Stern III (2 Sept 1909 – 22 Nov 2003), who also adapted his novel for the first film.
Trailer to
Francis Joins the WACS:
Director Arthur Lubin (25 Jul 1898 – 11 May 1995) directed all Francis films except the last one, Francis in the Haunted House (1956 / full film), which is generally the most reviled of the series, if only because none of the regulars took part in it. Director Lubin, best remembered today for his six Francis movies, his five Abbott & Costello movies (including Hold that Ghost [1941 / trailer]), and for creating the TV series Mister Ed (1961-66) — about a talking horse, should you not know — made rare forays into the type of movies a wasted life likes, specifically: The Spider Woman Strikes Back (1946), with Rondo Hatton (22 Apr 1894 – 2 Feb 1946) & Gale Sondergaard (15 Feb 1899 – 14 Aug 1985); the anemic 1943 version of Phantom of the Opera (trailer); and the lesser Karloff and Lugosi programmer, Black Friday (1940 / trailer), in which neither "star" plays a lead role. Lubin also directed Turhan Bey in three wonderfully tacky if somewhat racist movies, the first being White Savage (1943 / full movie). One of the more "forthright" of Hollywood's "open-secret" directors, Lubin had a long and happy "roommate situation" with an unknown "lifelong bachelor" named Frank Burford, the main inheritor of Lubin's multi-million estate when Lubin died while in a coma, a possible victim of serial killer Efren Saldivar.
The plot of Francis Joins the WACS, from Teenage Frankenstein: "Through a wacky mishap, Lieutenant Peter Sterling (Donald O'Connor [28 Aug 1925 – 27 Sept 2003] of Pandemonium [1982 / trailer]) is called for duty in the WACS. At first, he's proven to be a bumbling incompetent, finding himself increasingly emasculated by a series of smart, capable women. Don't get your hopes too high for any subversive feminism here, as everyone must all band together with Sterling whipping them into shape for an upcoming drill against the male corps. Francis the Talking Mule appears to occasionally chastise Sterling or figure as a convenient plot device. [...] The jokes are all obvious groaners, but they're delivered with skill and timing by Donald O'Connor, Chill Wills [18 Jul 1902 – 15 Dec 1978], and the rest of the cast. The real reason why this entry is guaranteed permanent cult status is for being possibly the ultimate showcase of '50s cheesecake [...]."
The cheesecake: Julie Adams of The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954 / trailer) and more; the legendary Mamie Van Doren (The Girl in Black Stockings [1957]); popular WWII pin-up Lynn Bari (of The Amazing Mr. X [1948], with Turhan Bey); Joan Shawlee of Willard (1971 / trailer), The Wild Angels (1966, with Dick Miller), the guilty pleasure that is Conquest of Space (1955 / trailer) and more; Playboy's Miss October 1958 Mara Corday (above) of Tarantula (1955 / trailer), The Giant Claw (1957), The Black Scorpion (1957 / trailer) and Girls on the Loose (1958 / trailer); and the unknown Karen Kadler (17 Nov 1929 – 15 Nov 1984) of The Beatniks (1958 / trailer), The Devil's Messenger (1962 / trailer), The Spectre of Edgar Allan Poe (1974 / full movie) and It Conquered the World (1956, with Dick Miller).
Francis Joins the WACS —
the full movie:
"[...] Kids who have grown up with CGI talking animals might find it interesting to see how natural Francis' mouth movements are, even if they don't synch up with the words. Francis himself is an interesting character: a know-it-all who can helpful while also being sarcastic, and a mischief-maker who tends to disrespect authority when authority isn't deserving of respect. He's a fixer, and a breaker; a team player, and a maverick. The relationship he has with Peter is also one that's complicated. Peter never claims to 'own' Francis or think of him as a pet, and Francis never thinks of Peter as his master. They're friends who just happen to be from different species, and they aren't inseparable. Sometimes they end up at the same place by coincidence. In other words, there's some very subtle friendship and relationship modeling to be found here — even if people do seem to faint an awful lot when they discover a mule can talk. [Family Home Theatre]"
So This Is Paris
(1954, dir. Richard Quine)
Released 15 December 1954 — not a remake of Ernst Lubitsch's silent So This Is Paris (1926 / full film).
The director, future gun-to-the-head suicide Richard Quine (12 Nov 1920 – 10 June 1989), was a former actor (e.g., Life Returns (1934 / full film) turned feature-film director (e.g., Bell Book & Candle [1958 / trailer] and Hotel [1967/ trailer]) whose career survived the forgotten WTF cinematic flop that is:
Trailer to
Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad (1967):
The technicolor So This Is Paris is the only musical that Tony Curtis (of BrainWaves[1982]) ever starred in. Both Playboy's Miss October 1958 Mara Corday and Allison Hayes are found in this musical comedy, but Corday has the bigger, more-important role and even made it onto some of the original posters, if in small print. Of her own performance in the film, Mara once said, in Tom Weaver's It Came from Horrorwood: "I thought I looked extremely well [sic] in that one, and I thought I was a pretty authentic-sounding French girl. Universal liked it so much that they sent me on tour [...]."
The most common plot description online is more or less as follows: "Three sailors on leave — Joe (Tony Curtis), Al (Gene Nelson [24 Mar 1920 – 16 Sep 1996], the director of Hand of Death a.k.a. Five Fingers of Death [1962 / trailer]) and Davy (Paul Gilbert* [27 Dec 1918 – 13 Feb 1976] of Women of the Prehistoric Planet [1966 / full film]) — head for Paris with one thing on their minds. Joe pursues chanteuse Colette D'Avril (Gloria DeHaven [23 Jul 1925 – 30 Jul 2016] of Bog [1979 / trailer] and the possibly lost Zodiac Murders [1975]), who proves to be more than she appears; Davy is pursued by sexy cashier Yvonne (Mara Corday); but the blonde, Suzanne Sorel, (Corinne Calvet [30 Apr 1925 – 23 Jun 2001]), Al rescues from a purse snatcher rewards him with kisses, then vanishes without telling him her name. Romantic complications and resolutions follow in true musical comedy fashion."
*Gilbert and his then wife, Barbara Crane, adopted two children during their marriage, one of whom grew up to be Melissa Gilbert, who people still remember from that terrible TV show, Little House on Prairie (1974-83). In her autobiography, Gilbert says that though she had always been told that Paul Gilbert died of a stroke, he had actually killed himself when he could no longer withstand the chronic pain of injuries sustained during WWII.
Somewhere along the way, some friends of Suzanne's show up for a few moments of pulchritude: Ingrid (Myrna Hansen of Black Caesar [1973 / trailer] and Cult of the Cobra [1955 / trailer]), Carmen (Allison Hayes) and Christiane (Christiane Martel of Adam and Eve [1956]) — Hayes is the only name of three that didn't make it in small print onto the poster.
So This Is Paris is generally considered fluffy and forgettable. As Derek Winnert says, "The cast seems aware of the rather derivative nature of the enterprise, with a script borrowing ideas from On the Town (1949 / trailer) and An American in Paris (1951 / trailer), and consequently performs with a general lack of enthusiasm. Even Curtis, in his only musical, fails to add the much-needed injection of star quality this sort of venture depends on, though he remains game and appealing. But Gene Nelson's dancing and choreography are the standout."
Main title to
So This Is Paris:
In American Prince, Tony Curtis' autobiography, the actor has more to say about his leading lady that he does about the movie, including: "Gloria [DeHaven] was a beautiful, gracious woman, and I wanted her badly. When we were doing the picture, she let me know it was okay for me to come after her, so between shots we started a relationship. This was one of the only two times I actually fell in love with my leading lady (although I enjoyed many a romance that didn't involve love). I really felt deeply about Gloria. [...] She never once put any pressure on me to get a divorce and marry her. It would have driven me to distraction if she had, but she was much too classy for that."
A sequel of sorts was planned, and even announced, but despite the general success of So This Is Paris when released, So This Is Rio never happened...
Released 18 Dec 1954, Sign of the Pagan could perhaps be the film that became Allison Hayes's first stumbling block to a Hollywood A-film career.
Director Douglas Sirk nee Hans Detlef Sierck (26 Apr 1897 – 14 Jan 1987), of course, was very much an A-film director — though his actual reputation as an auteur only came about in the late '60s, after his retirement. John Waters is among the directors that claim him as an influence.
Sign of the Pagan was Sirk's follow-up project to Magnificent Obsession (1954 / trailer), one of the classic soapy love melodramas of the '50s. (Here at a wasted life, we have never been able to sit through the full movie.
Trailer to
Sign of the Pagan:
Detlef Sierck, in any event, had been a successful theatre director in Germany prior to the rise of Nazism, and he made a couple of films in Germany before fleeing with his Jewish second wife Hilde Jary (22 Aug 1899 – 15 Jan 1989) to the US in 1937, where she became a housewife and he became Douglas Sirk, starting his US career with Hitler's Madman (1943 / full movie). His first wife, the minor actress Lydia Brincken (25 Dec 884 – 25 Aug 1947), a fervent National Socialist, remained in Germany with their son, Klaus Detlef Sierck (30 Mar 1925 – 22 May 1944) who became a minor Nazi kiddy star but died on the Front in Ukraine.*
*According to the website Tablet, soon after Klaus Detlef Sierck's second-to-last movie, Kopf Hoch, Johannes! (1941, poster above), in which he stars as the titular Nazi, Johannes, who becomes an exemplary Nazi, "Klaus Detlef Sierck, [...] fell into disrepute with Goebbels [...]. Goebbels suspected him of being homosexual. The young man, by 1942 all of 17 years old, enlisted in the Wehrmacht and died fighting in 1944. His father searched for him after the war ended when Sirk returned to visit Berlin."
Sign of the Pagan was scripted by Oscar Brodney (18 Feb 1907 – 12 Feb 2008) and Barré Lyndon (12 Aug 1896 – 23 Oct 1972), both of whom did more entertaining trash stuff: Brodney worked on Alan Smithee's absolutely terrible Ghost Fever (1986 / trailer) and the sleazy 1000 Convicts and a Woman a.k.a. Fun and Games (1971 / trailer below), while Lyndon — a.k.a. Alfred Edgar Frederick Higgs — wrote Dark Intruder (1965 / trailer), The War of the Worlds (1953 / trailer) and worked with Jimmy Sangster to scribe The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959 / trailer).
Trailer to
1000 Convicts and a Woman:
Dennis Schwartz has the plot to Sign of the Pagan: "Set some 1,500 years ago, when a weakened Rome was divided by two emperors, Theodosius (George Dolenz of The Strange Death of Adolf Hitler [1943 / full movie]) in Constantinople and Valentinian (Walter Coy of I Eat Your Skin [1971 / full movie] and Cult of the Cobra [1955 / trailer]) in Rome. The barbarians were attacking the empire, only to be bought off by secret treaties forged with Theodosius. The ruthless pagan Attila the Hun (Jack Palance of Craze [1974 / trailer] and so much more), representing evil, rides down from the north with his long-suffering daughter Kubra (Rita Gam [2 Apr 1927 – 22 Mar 2016] of the WTF No Exit [1962 / trailer] the WTF The Gardener a.k.a. The Gardener of Death a.k.a. Seeds of Evil [1974 / trailer]) in tow to unite the barbarians to attack Rome and then Constantinople. Jeff Chandler (15 Dec 1918 – 17 Jun 1961) is Marcian, the good brave Christian centurion captain, later made a general by the smitten sister of Theodosius, Princess Pulcheria (Ludmilla Tcherina, the famous ballerina's voice was dubbed by an unknown American actress). The stalwart Marcian, Rome's Christian defender, will fight and defeat Attila's advancing hordes, someone he knew well since he was earlier his captive. Attila will neurotically blame his defeat on the Christian God. Marcian will rise from the son of a sandal maker to marry Princess Pulcheria and become emperor as the seers prophesized."
"Jack Palance seizes the screen as Attila, rampaging from one studio set to another, barely giving Jeff Chandler a chance to shine as the hero of the piece. Palance dominates every scene he's in — which is most of the picture. [...] Lavish in places, the emphasis is on characterization instead of action set pieces. The historical Attila is pilfered along with the appropriate amount of creative license. Themes of paganism vs. Christianity abound in both the boisterous speeches spilling from Palance's lips and Sirk's operatic visual style. [Cool Ass Cinema]"
Music to
Sign of the Pagan:
"Although it's an overall forgettable film, Sign of the Pagan does open strongly, transporting the viewer to a mystical past, an era of Romans, Byzantines, and Huns. [...] There are costumes a plenty and an atmosphere, although stagey, of intrigue. But the magic doesn't last. For a film whose poster promises a lot of action and adventure, the movie is remarkably talky. One has to sit through a lot of scenes involving court intrigue and Attila's fretting about whether or not to attempt to conquer Rome before finally arriving at a final battle sequence which, while enjoyable enough to watch, is simply not long or elaborate enough to make up for a lot of empty dialogue that preceded it. [Mystery File]"
Allison Hayes plays the part of Attila's slave wife Ildico; she is not on screen a lot, but she plays a major role in the movie's resolution. The movie, BTW, does not follow the traditional narrative of Attila drinking himself to death on their wedding night but, rather, takes its inspiration from the Germanic and Norse versions of his demise.
And why might Sign of the Pagan have became the first stumbling block to a Hollywood A-film career? Well, "Allison and Jack Palance were reported to be dating. However during the filming of Sign of the Pagan, Allison accused Jack of holding her too roughly and bruising her ribs in their first love scene. He had even kissed her with such passion, he split her lip with his teeth. She threatened to bring a lawsuit against him and U-I for the incident. The picture was finished under strained conditions. [Raz's Midnight Macabre]"
In those pre-#MeToo days, making waves had repercussions. Like being pulled from an upcoming project — not that there is any proof that that's why it happened...
In the photo above, a Palance happy about the joys of the pre-#MeToo age, surrounded by several U-I beauties. Counterclockwise, L-R: Mamie Van Doren, Mara Corday, Sara Shane, Karen Kadler, Allison Hayes, Colleen Miller. The poster below, like the poster at the start of this entry, is by one of Germany's great poster artists, the Czech-born Bruno Rehak (21 Jan 1910 — Aug 1977), about whom little can be found online.
Smoke Signal
(1954, dir. Jerry Hopper)
Released March 1955. One that got away — uppity women get punished.
In the trade press, Allison Hayes had been announced as having the lead female role in this western, co-starring with Dana Andrews, whose career as an A-film leading man was just starting to wane; but on 20 May 1954, AP released the news that Piper Laurie (22 Jan 1932 – 14 Oct 2023) was replacing her on the Universal-International production directed by Jerry Hopper nee Harold Hankins Hopper (29 Jul 1907 – 17 Dec 1988).
Trailer to
Smoke Signal:
BTW: "Piper Laurie [...] lost her virginity to future President Ronald Reagan. []... The Carrie (1976 / trailer) star was just 18 when she landed her big break in 1950's Louisa (poster below) opposite a then-39-year-old Reagan. The actor was divorced from his first wife Jane Wyman and had still to date his future second wife Nancy Davis. [Fox News]"
The plot to Smoke Signal, as found at Wikipediaon 31 Jan 2024: "Cavalry officer Brett Halliday (Dana Andrews of Laura [1944 / trailer] and The Frozen Dead [1966 / trailer]) is facing a court-martial for treason over his defection to a Ute tribe that has been making raids on soldiers. After a bloody attack at the fort, survivors ford the Colorado River in boats, fleeing for their lives. They include the captain now in charge, plus Laura Evans (Piper Laurie of The Faculty [1998 / trailer] and Return to Oz [1985 / trailer]), daughter of the dead commanding officer, and Lt. Ford (Rex Reason of The Creature Walks among Us [1956 / trailer] and This Island Earth [1955 / trailer]), who is in love with Laura. Capt. Harper (William Talman of The Hitch-Hiker [1953 / full movie]) is intent on bringing Halliday to justice. Ford falls to his death from a cliff while fighting with Halliday, who helps the others fend off another attack. A grateful Capt. Harper can't bring himself to set Halliday free, but hints that he will not interfere if Halliday should escape. Laura hopes to see him again as Halliday gets away."
Smoke Signal "[...] ends up quite a traditional escape-from-the-Indians movie. We get the dangers of the great outdoors picking off some people, the Ute Indians picking off others, issues over trust, a man riddled with hate that he will ignore the truth which is in front of him, some romance and just a touch of humour. For the most there isn't anything new going on here but it does a good job of making us question if Brett Halliday is trying to help Harper and his men or whether he is in fact leading them in to a trap whilst also making us question Capt. Harper's orders as he seems blinded by his own hatred of Halliday. [...] When director Jerry Hopper and cinematographer Clifford Stine gives us some scene-setting shots of the river and the Grand Canyon, the movie has a real majesty. Sadly those studio shots in front of a projection are cheap looking and the close-up work is just standard, which is a shame. And it is also a shame that the characters and the acting are also quite ordinary with Douglas Spencer ([10 Feb 1910 – 6 Oct 1960] of The Thing from another World [1951 / trailer]) in the part of a fur trapper ending up stealing many a scene with the most entertaining performance. [Movie Scene]"
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