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| THE
OLD DARK HOUSE |
| 1932:
Boris Karloff plays the mute butler in a houseful of madmen
where a group of travellers are waylaid on a lonely, rainy night.
Director James Whale (Frankenstein) has the film dripping
with atmosphere and touches of the same dark sense humour that
would later pervade Bride of Frankenstein. Not for everyone
- its characters are deliberately strange, and it shows its
age a bit more than the Frankenstein movies - but great
for anyone who enjoys a good 'dark, stormy night' story, since
this is probably the best of that type.
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| ONE
MILLION B.C. |
| 1940:
A prehistoric saga with all the dramatic power of two - no,
maybe three - Flintstones episodes watched in succession!
And who needs stop-motion when you can have hairy elephants
and pigs with horns? Made about seven years after King Kong,
this caveman epic uses back-projected lizards and guys in dinosaur
suits (their details often obscured by conveniently located
trees) to tell the story of an exiled member of the cruel rock
tribe and his journey to find the peaceful shell people. The
film's footage of fighting lizards showed up in about ten zillion
other z-movies, including Robot Monster, Night
of the Persons,
and Horror of the Blood Monsters.
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| ONE
MILLION YEARS B.C.
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| 1967:
Remake of the above is probably more notable for Raquel Welch's
best-selling cavegirl poster (seen inThe Shawshank Redemption)
than anything else. The score & photography are both pretty
good, though, with great views of expansive natural vistas that
far surpass the studio backlot jungles of the 1940 version.
Also groo-vay are Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion special effects,
which inlude a giant sea turtle. Back |
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Text
copyright 2000 by Conall Pendergast.
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