Commission sketch

 

Commission sketch

A Quick Look: X (1963 - color)

   Ray Milland was once one of the major stars in Hollywoodland, having received an Oscar for his tortured performance in THE LOST WEEKEND. Some great movies and the wonderful teleseries Markham followed, but in the early 60's a career slide began ever so softly. In 1962, Milland directed and starred in PANIC IN YEAR ZERO, one of the scant handful of movies to deal realistically with atomic war. It was a fine film, but genre fare typically meant an actor wasn't on top anymore. "X" came shortly after, and is seen by many fans as Milland's real last hurrah. The onscreen title is simply X, but the film is known as X - THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES. In it, Milland plays a scientist who seeks to unlock the spectrum of vision beyond the narrow band we use. He experiments on himself and, as the title indicates, he ends up with x-ray vision. At first, this is a marvelous development, but soon it begins to cause more problems than anything else. When a murder rap is slapped on him, our hero flees underground and ends up working at a carnival sideshow. Before long, he's hitting Vegas to scrounge up some funds for further research when his cover is blown... Director Roger Corman serves up one of his more ambitious efforts here. Both cynical and earnest, the film is inventive, gripping, and sports one of Milland's signature roles. Sadly, a decade later would see him playing the living head of a bigot surgeon grafted onto Rosie Greer's neck.

A Quick Look: UNKNOWN TERROR

   UNKNOWN TERROR remains one of the more obscure 50's monster/science fiction thrillers. Originally released in Regalescope, the film tells of a journey to a jungle laboratory built above a vast cavern populated with a fungus which invades and consumes all living tissue. Similar in some ways to the more exciting CALTIKI, THE IMMORTAL MONSTER, the two films can kinda fade together in your memory if you haven't screened one in a while. I'm due for another look at UNKNOWN TERROR, myself, but my recollections are of a film rather bland until it's final reels. Of course, a wide-scope movie suffers from being cropped for television. If a scope version exists, I'm not aware of it yet. Just the same, I'd love to see such a film get the full treatment!

A Quick Look: THE HELL AND BACK (1955 - color)

TO HELL AND BACK was the (sanitized) big screen adaptation of Audie Murphy's autobiography of the same name. Murphy plays himself, supported by a number of familiar character actors, in all the production value Universal International can muster. This may be one of the earliest big-budget war epics to feature Patton tanks as German Panzers or Tigers, a practice which quickly became the norm -with the apparent promise that, "if you overlook the shape of the enemy tanks, we'll make up for it with big spectacle." Murphy was seen as something of a runt, but eagerly enlisted when the War came to America -lying about his age in order to join up, as did several young men. By War's end, the tenacious Murphy had fought in nine major campaigns and been wounded three times. Audie was the highest-decorated combat soldier of the War, earning 33 medals and decorations from the US, France, and Belgium -including America's highest honor, the Metal of Honor. He is credited with no less than 240 kills. Seemingly ageless, handsome, and talented, he eventually got into acting, and made for a good leading man. Of all his films, though, no doubt his most personal was TO HELL AND BACK.

A Quick Look: OPERATION KID BROTHER (1967 - color)

   One of the most notable, though sadly obscure, spy epics is OPERATION KID BROTHER. Sean Connery's brother Neil was talked into becoming an actor and his first major assignment was to play the brother of 007. Neil Connery plays Neil Connery, brilliant surgeon and hypnotist drafted into secret service when his skills are required to defeat a criminal organization. Although his name is Connery, he's the brother of you-know-who, and thus quickly falls into the pace of things. With Neil are Barnard Lee and Lois Maxwell, M and Moneypenny of the James Bond franchise. Clearly, they're playing the same parts under civilian code names (Miss Maxwell really enjoyed the chance to be a more active part in a mission than she ever got to be in the Bond films). The magic of OPERATION KID BROTHER is that the producers could've gone the cheap road and made a cheesy quickie to cash in on Bondmania, but instead produced a lush, legitimate spy adventure which is easily among the best Europe ever produced. When Sean Connery decided to leave the role of James Bond, Neil was suggested to EON as a suitable replacement. That would've been a pretty good idea, but as history shows, EON passed. Neil acted in a few other things, but never had another starring role in a major motion picture (his next, and next-best, part was as the hero's sidekick in THE BODY STEALERS). And because Italian pictures were shot MOS (minus optical sound), the finished film doesn't even feature Neil's voice! The actor fell ill and wasn't able to attend the recording session.