Santa Claus (1959)

94 Minutes

Director: Rene’ Cardona

Writers: Adolfo Torres Portillo, Rene’ Cordona

Before Cuban born  Rene’ Cardona hit his low budget directorial stride in the 1960’s with messy horror exploitation shockers such as Dr. Doom, Night of the Bloody Apes and Mexican wrestling absurdities like Santo and the Vengeance of the Mummy and Santo Contra Los Cazadores de Cabezas ( “Head Hunters”) he directed this tender, warm hearted, and absolutely bizzaro Santa Claus film which relies heavily on Christian lore and literally elevates Santa to the celestial heavens above the North Pole in a floating crystal palace lined with silver and gold. From this vantage point he can keep his eye and ear focused on all the children of the planet. He is assisted by an absent minded wizard Merlin and a cheerful group of small children from all over the world. The opening scene introduces the children in what looks like a hastily thrown together Worlds Fair exhibit hosted at Disneyland. “Here are gathered the boys and girls of different races and creeds,” explains the omnipresent narrator, “They have come from many lands to help Santa bring joy and happiness to all of the Earth’s children.” They all sing and play music from their native lands and do so rather poorly. But what really catches the eye in Santa’s “Toyland” is the observation tower where a giant pair of lips reports, a creepy master eye surreptitiously observes, and a very big disembodied human ear listens. A machine the “Dream Watcher” is also employed to see into a child’s dreams.  Pee Wee would have a blast in this place!

The Master Eye

The Conflict: In Hell, Lucifer assigns his minion Pitch with sabotaging Santa’s mission lest he be forced to eat chocolate ice cream instead of his required diet of hot coals.  A long dance routine of Lucifer’s minions – reminiscent of the Right of Spring dance in the Big Lebowski -   punctuates how serious he is about ruining Christmas. For Santa’s part, we know who he answers to and it’s not the FISA court and it’s not Dick Cheney but a higher power. One of the first things we see Santa do in his palace is fuss with his miniature nativity scene to get the baby Jesus positioned just right before his trip to earth. But Santa is also burdened with a punishment: If he doesn’t get his shit done by dawn his four hardworking Mexican reindeer will turn to dust!! Why only four? The others are in an ICE detention facility if you know what I mean. Santa f-ing Christ I love the tension in this story.

Pitch Blows

The Principle Players: Still in his crystal palace, Santa uses the Dream Machine to enter the mind of a rich Mexican child who wants nothing more than to be loved by his self-absorbed parents. He dreams of waking on Christmas morning and rushing downstairs to find two giant boxes next to the Christmas tree. Guess what’s inside? Is it Mr. and Mrs. Pee Wee Herman? No, you guessed it:  His parents covered in blood. No, of course not, his parents covered in love and smiles. Santa then focuses the Dream Machine on a poor Mexican girl named Lupita. She wants nothing more than a doll. She is in the midst of her own Devil dream brought on by Pitch who blows on her – yes that’s what he does in this movie he blows on things to fan the flames so to speak - to induce a dream filled with creepy life size rag dolls emerging from 11 boxes into a room of fog to dance  around poor little Lupita begging her to steal what she so covets. But Lupita resists because she is poor and good hearted and too ignorant to understand the advantages of white collar crime.  Finally, there are three bad boys whom Pitch nudges to throw rocks through a department store window to get what they want. Easily influenced by the Devil they don’t deserve shit and Santa doesn’t bother to look into their minds at all but levels a stern warning from his crystal palace. This scares the boys and they skidaddle but their naughty impulses are nigh abated. Oh well F them.  As a result, Pitch easily corrupts the boys as the story continues and later, when on earth, Santa will give them nothing but coal. Sooooooo Santa eventually gets his ass into the sleigh and sets off from his crystal palace larded with presents and a bag of tricks to distribute judgement.

Santa’s Got a Brand New Bag: Santa’s bag of tricks consist of a magic electrified key that will unlock any door on the planet, a beautiful flower with which to appear and disappear and “The Powders for Dreaming”   that enable post hypnotic suggestions for those he decides need it. In the interest of time, money, and your own sanity the story sticks to the five kids introduced in Act 1.

Santa Gives Hope to Some: Santa drops by each of the kids houses and makes a special visit to the rich kids’ parents at a hoity toity restaurant. He wards off pitch at each turn except with the 3 bad kids. Granted the bad kids’ parents are never present but should they be punished for shitty parenting? Santa does however give extra attention to the rich kid. While his parents are out on the town Santa visits the somber child at his home with his heart aching for his parents to come home and be with him on Christmas Eve. He induces a dream state in the child and reminds him that his parents truly love him and will see the error of their ways. He then shows up as the waiter at the posh dinner the parents are attending and,  as with the movie Ben Hur, we never see Jesus’ err Santa’s face, but we do see his arm extending a “Cocktail of Remembering” to the rich and forgetful SOBs. They partake and remember they miss something, their beloved child and rush home post haste to be with him. Santa then makes it to Lupita’s house where her parents look really depressed about their abject poverty on Christmas Eve. What can they do? The mother clutches her cross and prays for a miracle.  Her prayers are answered as Santa leaves a doll on the door step. No time for dreams, lectures or cocktails just a doll that mysteriously appears at the nadir of their holiday misery. Not actually seeing Santa, the mother then thanks Jesus for the doll and at least one night of drunken recriminations is postponed. Two snowy white Merkins. Check it out over the holidays.

THE END

Teenagers From Outer Space (1957)

Writer, Director, Producer, DP:  Tom Graeff

Special Effects: Paul Blaisdell (uncredited) Tom Graeff

Filming locations: Hollywood, USA

Alien teenagers – who apparently age faster on their planet – land in Hollywood to determine if Earth is suitable grazing land for their food stock. Turns out, after some initial confusion concerning nitrogen, the “gargons” will grow a thousand (or a million it’s not quite clear) times larger than their original size and do so really fast depending upon how much they eat (isn’t that always the case!) And these are not your average milk brained ungulates. They are, wait for it………Maine lobsters! You are familiar with the theory of panspermia and the existence of extremophiles aren’t you? There could be lobster everywhere in our puny universe. After all they are uniquely built for extreme and diverse environments. Give them wings and they are triphibians - man-eating, voracious, triphibian lobsters the size of houses sweeping the planet like a plague of locust. But enough of that. There is a fly in the drawn butter. One of the teenagers Derek (David Love) is pissed off.

I hate my Father!

 He informs us he didn’t know his parents (an important plot point) and was raised in a cubicle! I mean holy shit we can all identify with that. He describes their way of life as dehumanizing; an engineered existence of eugenics and selective breading.  Derek is pissed because, perhaps on the long trip during bathroom breaks, he read a book that tells of the way it was before a nasty autocratic dictatorship took hold. It tells of a better time before they went from planet to planet depopulating the inhabitants with their miraculously sweet tender enormous gargons. It’s a book about freedom and happiness the size of a little red book, or a pocket bible, or a tiny diary with ideas for shell fish and wine pairings randomly scribbled down.  Also inflaming Derek is shipmate Thor (Bryan Grant one of the movies investors), who is a raging psychopath with deplorable interpersonal skills who supports the whole kill the weak feed the strong thing. He uses a “focusing disintegrator ray” to kill the first living thing he sees, a pet dog. Distraught Derek attempts a mini-mutiny against the crew but screws up and must scamper away like the liberal idealistic rat he is almost being turned into a skeleton in the process. Thus the scene is set for David to get to know and save the human race. He is taken in as a border by a sweet young lady Betty Morgan (Dawn Bender) and her Gramps (Harvey Dunn who was in Ed Wood’s Night of the Ghouls two years later - Go Gramps!) In his pursuit of David, Thor kills 6 people in one afternoon as we see a skeletons drop like WW II French soldiers. In the meantime the one gargon, part of their initial test stock I guess, has become very big and is killing cops and such. At one point on a hill on the outskirts of town it rears up on its tail and screams bloody gargon murder. Luckily Derek knows just how to tap in to the local electric power substation with his ray gun while Betty calls the electric company to implore them to ramp up the power and zap! One fried gorgan. BUT WHERE IS THE BUTTER!!  Derek falls for Betty and they kiss. But it is a bitter sweet kiss AND THERE IS NO BUTTER.

Sacrificial Image from an Outsider Film

There are several car chases – with some cool looking cars – and Derek eventually surrenders to Thor repenting of his liberal freedom-loving ways. Then the reveal that Derek is the supreme ruler’s son. The supreme ruler, having been advised of the gargon favorable environment, is leading an invasion force – something like a large alien lobster version of a cattle drive I guess – and asks that his son Derek guide them in. But, perhaps swayed by his love for Betty and the other wonderful humans,  Derek sends them straight into the ground Blue Angels Style sacrificing himself in the process.

This movie, with all its low budget silliness, has a very down beat feel. There are no hot rods, malt shops, DJs or sock hops and these things would have cost money that wasn’t around. Still the sad back story of Derek who, only a short time after finding out who his father is, sends an entire fleet of  spaceships to their doom in a final suicidal blaze is a bit bleak to say the least.

The DIY director Tom Graeff (who also plays news reporter Joe in the movie) had enrolled in the UCLA Theatre Arts program as a teen. He made a 16 minute humorous recruiting film for Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa CA that was narrated by Vincent Price. He made a few other short films and worked as Roger Corman’s assistant on the set of Not Of This Earth. He then secured the money – in part from Bryan Grant who played Thor and his good looking wife Ursula who played the university secretary – to film TFOS working the same year that I Was and Teenage Frankenstein and I Was a Teenage Werewolf were released.

Of course the movie with its down beat feel and bottom basement effects didn’t make much more than the original investment. Two years later Graeff took out a full page ad in the LA Times proclaiming he was to be called Jesus Christ II (everyone deserves a sequel especially a director.) The next year Graeff filed to legally change his name to Jesus Christ II. This was opposed by the always vigilant and senseless Christian Defense League and he was denied. He then, apparently, left for the east coast returning to Hollywood in 1964 to work as an editor on the low budget film The Wizard of Mars. After trying to pedal the script for the unbelievable sum of $500,000 insinuating that Robert Wise and Carl Reiner, amongst others, were involved in the project he was outed by LA Times columnist Joyce Haber as JC II. This put an end to his Hollywood career.

Jobless and with no prospects he moved to La Mesa CA not more than two miles from my residence and committed suicide with carbon monoxide in his garage.

According to Wikipedia in a 1993 interview with Scarlett Letter magazine, Bryan Grant and wife Ursula stated that Graeff and co-star David Love were romantically involved. Shortly after the article many like-minded fans began to refer to him as the gay Ed Wood (no reference for this claim.) There is one line in the movie that struck me as Ed Woodish spoken by Derek to Betty: “You are not familiar with the focusing disintegrator ray? It projects an isolated beam which separates the molecules of living material in chain reaction…all but the solids, the skeletal braces.” That aside one can certainly read into the movie a definite outsider’s point of view. Disowned by parents, love unconsummated, harassed and condemned by colleagues. The IMBD message board says a biography is in the works. Let’s hope so. Three butter soaked Merkins. Check it out.

The Cosmic Monsters (aka The Strange World of Planet X) – Available on YouTube

1958

75 Minutes

Distributors Corporation of America

Director: Gilbert Gunn

Writer: Paul Ryder

6’ 4” Forest Tucker (Sargent O’Rourke from F Troop) plays scientist Gil Graham with all the gravitas and swagger of John Wayne. Graham and Dr. Laird, played by Brit Alec Mango, are running experiments in a basement somewhere in the English countryside to create ultra-intense magnetic fields. Attractive French born Gaby Andres plays the lovely lab assistant and is the eye candy Forrest fawns over. Sadly their chemistry, to be perfectly scientific, is a little on the ph side. So, the British Government wants to know if the magnetic fields can be used as a weapon. Turns out they can! They cook and powderize aircraft alloy. Problem is this tesla coil, or whatever it is, cooks other things – like bums – at a distance. It also creates a major shit storm in the ionosphere allowing cosmic rays to bombard the Earth’s surface turning the burnt bum into a psycho killer and, more importantly, creating ginormous carnivorous bugs!

 Enter “Mr. Smith” played by Martin Benson the man crushed in the car in the movie Goldfinger.  He befriends a little girl in the woods is kind to her and she directs him to a local pub. Once there he explains to Forrest he is from another planet and that the magnetic rays brought down one of their crafts. Forrest doesn’t bat an eye as they discuss what’s next in a local pub.

Although coming too late in the movie the giant bug effects are above average and, I think, there is a gecko in there somewhere. As for the acting Forrest’s performance, though steady, is uninspired. If they’d ginned up the romance between Tucker and Andres, and brought on the bug battle about 15 minutes earlier, this would be much more memorable. Still you should check it out. Two and ½ Electrifying Merkins.

The Cape Canaveral Monsters

The Cape Canaveral Monsters – Available on YouTube

1960

69 Minutes - What a Bargain!

CCM Productions

Director: Phil Tucker

Writer: Phil Tucker

Another lovable oddity from the mind of Phil Tucker who brought us the existential machinations of Robot Monster.  Described as one of the reds-under-the-beds cycle of films, we have a couple driving home from the beach being followed by squabbling aliens in the form of two balls of light. They are killed in a car accident, the man losing his arm, and their dead bodies are inhabited by the extraterrestrial interlopers. A familiar trope, the aliens aim to halt our space program and clear the way for an invasion force.

There is certainly creativity and innovation at work here no matter what you think of the production values. As cheaply as the car accident was pulled off the arm hanging out the rear window is still creepy. This movie was intended for theatrical release but never made it and was sold to TV in the early 60s. I was maybe ten when I first saw it and was mesmerized. I knew there was a space program and I knew they were blasting rockets from Cape Canaveral (Cape Kennedy from 1963 – 1973.) So I was very excited about the reference to Cape Canaveral, the stock footage of failed rockets, and the inclusion of evil aliens with ray guns. What I distinctly remember was the use of pig latin to vex the aliens (at the age of ten who could forget that.) Radium from a wrist watch and litmus paper are also put to good use. It was and is hilarious. What I didn’t catch was the sexual innuendo and endless quarreling between the alien couple Hauron and Nadja played by Jason Johnson (Invasion of the Saucer Men) and Katherine Victor (Mesa of Lost Women, Zombies.) He has a body with one arm and misses his laboratory back on wherever.  She says she never wanted him as a partner and chides him for never really feeling comfortable in the body of an earthling. When she harps on his armlessness being a handicap, he basically tells her to f-off. Meanwhile their leader tells them – via an intra-galactic, rotating potato-chip-radio – that they must “prevent the humans from discovering space flight for a few more months” to “clear the way for an invasion force.”  He then goes on to say they need more human bodies for experimentation, particularly female bodies, as the ones transported during the first mission all arrived dead. So WTF are they doing with those female bodies? (Although one of the first widely reported alien abduction cases wasn’t until 1961 involving Betty and Barney Hill, many were reported prior to that (See Killers from Space for the earliest movie reference.)

The Epitome of Practical Effects

Nadja and Hauron’s shitty relationship is set against the all American wholesomeness of space engineer Tom Wright played by Scott Peters (Panic in the Year Zero, The Saved Hitler’s Brain) and number one girl AND fellow scientist Sally Markham played by Linda Connell (daughter of the cinematographer starring in her only role.) Their love and devotion is taller than a Saturn 5 rocket and best enjoyed while double dating with best friends Bob and Shirley; but back to the female specimens. There is a scene that involves the kidnapping, sedating, electroshocking and freezing of Shirley that is also creepy and suggestive. What stands out is a shot where Nadja unhooks a sedated Shirley’s bra while Hauron leers at Shirley’s nude back (I do remember that three hook bra - it looked like my mom’s…..EECK!).  After freezing Shirley they sedate Bob and amputate his arm to sew onto Hauron’s body then transport both of them back to their planet! Of course there is nothing that explicit as this was American television in the early 60s, but I forgot all this shit!

Ixnay on the Onerbay

Oh, and the final shot is worthy of an Edward D. Wood Jr. honorable mention. Priceless.

One final note, Brian F. Wood plays a funny local hick with a shotgun. Sadly this was his only film credit as well. A must see on a double bill with Robot Monster. Three All American Erkinme. Check it out.