An American science fiction directed by Lesley Selander, starring Marguerite Chapman and Cameron Mitchell.
A reporter and some scientists are on a space mission to mars. Along the way, their ship is hit by meteors and damaged. They crash land and find human Martians who let them fix their ship, but plan to take it from them when repairs are complete.
I kind of like these cheesy, old science fiction flicks. The more quaint their notions of space travel and other planets are, the better. In this one, the astronauts put on bomber jackets and oxygen masks to go out onto the surface of mars. The plot was pretty standard and (as always) I thought of a simple way to solve the problems and negate the film. If the Martians had asked for help, the astronauts could have arranged it. Their planet was running out of a precious resource and when it was gone, they would die. Why not ask the Earth people to help you? Characters aren't really the focus of films like this, but I found the women quite attractive. There were some serious editing issues. This included at least 3 scenes with obvious and jarring jump cuts in them. I really like the bright and saturated colors of movies from this era and wish that type of thing would fly now. Modern movies are too HD, CG, dark and "super-realistic" for me. I would trade it all for 1980s puppet monsters and 1940s Cinecolor film in a second. I rate this adequate because it was quaint, colorful and kind of held my attention, but I wouldn't watch it again.
An American adventure film directed by Terry O. Morse.
A team of scientists tries to find an inhabitable location underground in case a nuclear war occurs. The 5 scientists get into a vehicle known as the Cyclotram which can drive, dig and navigate through water.
This wasn't very good, but it didn't hurt to watch. The black and white video was clearly defined and the sound didn't have any major problems. The plot was almost interesting, but the characters showed relatively little depth. It's style reminded me of '50s instructional videos and sitcoms for some odd reason. The underground world discovered by the scientists was of a passable design and the sets looked alright, but not good. I'm rating this o.k. because it's alright if there's nothing else to watch. You may want to watch this if '50s adventure films are your thing.
An American drama directed by Curt Siodmak, starring Raymond Burr, Lon Chaney Jr. and Barbara Payton.
A woman's husband is poisoned by a gypsy. He gets jungle fever and wants to spend the night in the rainforest killing things.
It would have been o.k. if there had been even one scene showing the husband rampaging through the jungle, but there were none. It was what I shall now dub a "talking movie" in which dialogue and words are the only action. They talked about rampaging through the jungle, but it was never shown. Any film that coins a phrase to describe how bad it is can only be rated shit.
A Mexican American western directed by Elliott Nugent, starring Mickey Rooney.
The younger of 2 brothers searches for his elder sibling in Mexico, where he supposedly owns a silver mine. Come to find out, the older brother is an outlaw. A ranger teams up with the younger brother to capture the older without being killed by him and save the woman the outlaw has selected to marry.
The only thing that I agree with is the younger brother complaining about having bad luck with women and always getting the big ones. He refers to them as whales and I can sympathize. The rest of the movie sucked pretty bad. Mickey Rooney is too much of a pansy to be in a western and the plot wasn't all that great. What it really lacked was style. What I mean by this is that you could turn the film on at any point in it's duration and even if you've seen it, not be able to identify it. I'm rating this bad, but no hard feelings. It's just another bit of the rough that I have to pass in my search for diamonds.
An American war film directed by William Cameron Menzies.
Old friends face each other on opposite sides of the civil war and a mutual love interest is caught in the middle.
Yet another old and boring movie. The audio and video quality weren't too bad, but the plot did not hold my attention. In fact, I barely heeded the film at all. As with Gone with the Wind, I was bored to tears immediately. I'll just rate it poor and move on.
A western directed by Richard Thorpe, starring Burt Lancaster.A cattle herder causes multiple types of trouble for people he knows when he overdraws a bank account, gives the money to a woman who will not identify the father of her child, starts a fight between the woman's brothers and his brother and then tries to sell his boss' cattle behind his back.The plot was complex and the characters were hard to keep track of. The style was definitely unclear and the production value was bad. Since I can't say anything nice about this film, I'm rating it bad.
An American action western directed by Harold F. Kress, starring Lassie.Lassie is given to a boy by a gold miner and exhibits poor health. The buy returns her to the miner, only to find out that he had an accident and that's why Lassie wasn't eating. The boy and the man sent to watch over him mine gold with the gold miner and get quite a bit of it. The guardian schemes to take all of the gold for himself, but Lassie disagrees with this.The canine actor played a good female lead. Since dogs can't cross-dress, nobody noticed that Lassie was male. The film was very mediocre except the ending, which I won't spoil. I myself was slightly amazed by the acting dog. The poison scene would land a human thespian an award. I'm rating this adequate because I was slightly amused.
An American comedy directed by Vincente Minnelli.A man's oldest daughter is pregnant and everyone looks to him to solve all of their problems.The film was decently made and the characters played their roles well. Everything was alright technically, but I just didn't like it. This being a matter of taste and personal opinion, I'm rating it poor.
An American musical romance directed by Stanley Donen, starring Fred Astaire and Jane Powell.A brother and sister dance team visit England and both find romantic interests there.The plot was exceedingly simple, but the execution was good. The choreography was absolutely brilliant, with moving belts that the dancers stood on and moving set pieces. There was even a scene in which the male lead danced with a coat rack that was genius. Also, there was a scene in which the same man danced in a room that was turning over so that he could dance on the walls and ceiling. I don't usually like musicals or romances, but this was done so well that my prejudices didn't hold up. I'm rating it good.
An American war film by Robert Pirosh.A unit of Japanese American soldiers is lead by a Texan officer who starts out as bigoted and prejudiced, but soon learns that his unit is one of the best.I don't get war films. They all seem the same to me. The only part that I "got" about this one was what I typed in the plot description. This film gets musical instrument points for ukuleles. I think ukuleles are great and I believe that the actors were really playing them. That brings this up to an o.k. rating.
An animated fantasy directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson and Hamilton Luske.A girl falls asleep and dreams of a fantasy world where nothing makes sense.Being a Disney film, this obviously has new world order programming all through it. I'll just do the easy stuff here as I'm sure there are many alice in wonderland exposes out there.When Alice falls down the rabbit hole, everything turns upside down (reverse naming of government organizations) and nothing makes any sense (look around the world we are in). The first clear illuminati character she meets is the elite puffin. He stands on a rock getting dry while he orders his followers to run around a flooding area to get dry. Later, he proposes drastic measures to get Alice out of the white rabbit's house when she is too big. He does not participate in the procedures until he is the only one working on the problem after the problem is gone. Is this ringing a bell to anyone yet? One of the workers that the puffin snags is a reptilian hybrid. Enough said. During the walrus and the carpenter bit, on the calendar in the oyster bed, the letter R is emphasized. This is a reference to the Rosicrucian secret society. Later in the film, Alice sees many anthropomorphic creatures in the forest. They are all doing something to lead her off course. This is a reference to the mainstream media, as she is looking for a path, but one of the creatures sweeps it away. At the end of the film, Alice meets the queen of hearts, a tyrant and a dictator. It would be un-American to leave a tyrant in control, but notice what happens in this American film: Alice leaves and the tyranny continues. I'm not going to go into drug references, as the film (the tea party especially) is full of them.I'm rating this film adequate because I kind of like it and it also has freemasonic symbolism to talk about. This might be a good starting point for an education in symbolism, as the film is rife with it.
