Monster From Green Hell (1957)

In those wild and carefree days of the late 1950s, long before America had put a man on the Moon, a scientific project is examining the effects of cosmic radiation on living beings... by sending up rockets loaded with test animals!

Unfortunately, one vessel goes off course, exposing its subjects to an extended dose of radiation, and causing the rocket to crash somewhere in Africa.

Six months later, square-jawed scientist Dr Quent Brady (Jim Davis, who would go on to star in Dallas) and his associate Dan Morgan (Robert Griffin) read newspaper reports of  supposed monsters wreaking havoc near where they believe their lost rocket might have ended up.

Naturally, they head off to investigate, speculating that there might be some connection with the consignment of wasps sent into space on the doomed ship.

Their journey from the coast to Central Africa is long and arduous, and they find themselves and their bearers plagued by hostile natives, insufferable heat, dehydration, contaminated water, et al before they even get to the missionary station on the edge of the region known as Green Hell, where these "monsters" are said to be.

Unfortunately, their arrival at the missionary station coincides with the death of the 'saintly' Dr Lorentz (Vladimir Sokoloff), who had been investigating the monsters himself.

Our heroes' bearers have had enough and scarper, but Dr Lorentz's daughter, Lorna (Barbara Turner), persuades local villagers to take their place - on the condition that she can accompany Dr Brady's expedition into the Green Hell.

Turner seems a bit lost here but she would later write the screenplay for the killer-dog movie Cujo, so I can forgive her anything.

Monster From Green Hell is a must-watch for aficionados of kitsch, 1950's B-movies that are so awful they're hilarious.

Spliced together with stock wild animal footage and scenes from 1939's Stanley and Livingstone, California stands in for Central Africa... and it's quite obvious.

The narrative structure of Monster From Green Hell is an object lesson in bad storytelling, from giving away the appearance of the kaiju-sized killer wasps within the first 10 minutes (thus destroying any sense of mystery as to what our heroes are tracking) to committing the cardinal sin of cinema: a deus ex machina resolution that the protagonists had absolutely no hand in.

Spoilers for a six decade old movie, but the wasp queen and her drones are all wiped by a volcanic eruption (which, of course, our heroes had nothing to do with) before they can multiple and take over the world.

The way the story unfolds the destruction of the giant wasps would have occurred whether or not Dr Brady had been hunting them. 

Even though Monster From Green Hell only runs for 71 minutes, and starts off very breezily, director Kenneth G Crane's pacing is all over the place, with the extended journey through Africa taking up an inordinate amount of time, for instance. Then, with only 10 minutes or so to go at the climax of the piece, the movie suddenly switches to an almost pointless "explorers lost in maze of underground tunnels" story.

You don't come to a B-movie expecting character development and there's certainly none on display here, with pretty much everyone simply being walking mouthpieces for the lines of Louis Vittes and Endre Bohem's screenplay.

The giant wasp model, though, is a classic of the era, which is probably why Crane decided the audience should get to meet it long before the main characters do. 

However, I'm not sure that wasps have pincers, but I guess that's part of the mutation that caused them to balloon up to Godzilla size.

The size of the giant wasps seems quite flexible, and we rarely see more than one at a time, leading me to think - right up until the final act - that there might only be one giant wasp, despite Dr Brady's insistence that there was a swarm of them.

It also feels rather odd that Brady and his team are able to track the wasps by giant footprints they leave in the dirt. It's never stated outright, but I decided in my headcanon that due to the creatures' enormous size their fragile wings aren't powerful enough now to lift them off the ground.

The restored print of 1957's Monster From Green Hell, for the most part, is striking in its crisp black-and-white, although there are still scenes with the odd scratch down the centre, but then the film is 65 years old and I doubt it's been treated with any particular reverence until it was cleaned up for its physical media release a few years ago.

It has now been officially released online (see above) by Film Masters.

This version of the movie also comes with a slightly random, but nevertheless oddly delightful, colourised final sequence... when the heroes watch as nature does what they couldn't.

PROJECT 60: Back To The West

Good news for PROJECT 60 and the land of Dead Man's Hand. My latest couple of painted posses are galloping back to me from professional painter, Matt of Glenbrook Games Painting Service.

As shown above, the two sets - produced by Great Escape Games - are The Family (a group of well-armed, militant religious zealots) and A Fistful of Clints (five different Western characters played by Clint Eastwood).

Next up will probably be The Quick and The Lead, a collection of eight gunfighters, based on the excellent Sam Raimi Western, The Quick and The Dead.

While these are sitting, patiently, in my gamesroom, I'm not yet sure if I'll send them to Matt before Christmas or not.

As to the Judge Dredd miniatures mentioned last time, I continue to snatch up sets I don't already own that I see on eBay for a reasonable price. However, given that Warlord has killed the line off, the prices are already starting to rocket upwards on the secondary market.

I'm looking at this as a more long-term project now, as I really ought to concentrate on one thing at a time. And that one thing is Great Escape Games' excellent Western skirmish game.

Dead Man's Hand remains my primary PROJECT 60 objective on the wargaming front, even though my plans to put together all the buildings I've purchased for the setting have been temporarily scuppered by my misbehaving spine.

I still have just over a year to 'complete' PROJECT 60, and - health-willing - I aim to devote more time to it in 2026. Particularly, the time I'd planned to spend on it THIS year!

THROWBACK THURSDAY: BEST. PRESENT. EVER!

Back in 2016, I turned 50.  It would be quite gauche to list all the amazing presents I got from friends and family for successfully reaching my half-century, but I have to share with you this incredible gift that Rachel gave me.

She commissioned a one-of-a-kind piece of art from DC Comics artist Des Taylor (also one of the co-hosts of Sky Television's DC Fancast), featuring not only a race between television's Flash and Supergirl, but also a cameo by my very own Acrobatic Flea!!!

Does this make the Flea part of the DCU? Probably not, but I can dream.

The picture now hangs in pride of place at the top of our main staircase.

In pride of place

At the time, Des presented Sky One's sadly short-lived "Arrowverse" companion show, DC Fancast, along with Bec Hill and Rick Edwards, recapping and discussing episodes of The Flash, Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl.

This was where I came to appreciate his art and mentioned this to Rachel, as my "special" birthday was approaching.

Currently Des is probably best known as the creator of Titan Comics' Scarlett Couture, as well as being a frequent contributor to one of the best online comic book resources, 13th Dimension.

With the picture, Des included some of his initial sketches as well, so I also have wonderful black and white illustrations of the Flea, Flash, and Supergirl, which I still need to get framed at some stage.

The Brain from Planet Arous (1957)

 

A spectral alien entity of pure intellect, the interplanetary supervillain Gor (voiced by Dale Tate) from the planet Arous, comes to Earth and possesses the body of pioneering nuclear research scientist Steve March (John Agar).

Steve and his buddy Dan Murphy (Robert Fuller) investigate anomalous radiation readings from the ominously named Mystery Mountain out in the heart of the New Mexico desert.

There they come across a recently-blasted new cave formation and inside they are attacked by the non-corporeal brain creature Gor, who fries Dan and takes control of Steve,

Steve returns home after a week's absence, but his fiancée Sally Fallon (Joyce Meadows) is immediately suspicious by his increased libido. And the disappearance of Dan, of course.

Steve's story that he has "gone to Las Vegas" seems flimsy at best. But I guess this was the 1950s!

The brilliant John Agar as Steve March

Eventually, the local sheriff, Wiley Pane (Tim Graham), challenges Steve about the whereabouts of Dan... and meets a similar fatal end.

Using a combination of his own nuclear-based superpowers and Steve's contacts at the highest echelons of America's military, Gor has hatched a plan that would not only give him control of planet Earth but allow him to strike back at his homeworld and then take over the universe! Bwahahaha!

Gor

However, hot on Gor's heels is a police officer/bounty hunter from Arous called Vol (also voiced by Dale Tate), who's possibly not the sharpest tool in the box: needing a body of his own to possess, he passes on Steve's hard-done-by, but loyal, fiancée Sally and her dad, John (Thomas Browne Henry), and instead chooses their family dog, George!

The clock is ticking, as Gor - through Steve - demonstrates his incredible powers to the American military at the White Sands Missile Range, before delivering an ultimatum to the major nations of the world.

Luckily, for Earth, Vol has revealed his species' Achilles Heel to Sally, but the window for delivering the death blow is very small, and Sally's plan to save the planet is rather reckless.

Vol

A breathtakingly bizarre piece of retro, Atomic Age sci-fi, 1957's The Brain from Planet Arous was previously available in 2022 as both a special edition Blu-ray and DVD, featuring a crisp 4K transfer, and has now been officially released online (see above) by Film Masters.

First off, major kudos to John Agar - former husband of Shirley Temple and later a stalwart of B-movies such as The Mole People, Revenge of The Creature, and this - for an impressive turn as Steve March, particularly when Gor is driving the meat-suit. 

A truly unnerving villain, Agar demonstrates a subtle mastery of the sly sneer and maniacal grin, and somehow manages to be both the bad guy and the good guy of this pulp adventure.

With a runtime of a mere 70 minutes, The Brain never risks outstaying its welcome, and perhaps deserves to be held up as exemplar of tight pacing in this age of overly-long and unnecessarily padded "epics".

The deft directorial touch of Nathan Juran becomes obvious when you realise he would go on to direct such classics as The 7th Voyage of Sinbad  and Attack of the 50-Foot Woman the following year.

Nevertheless, even with its brief duration, the protagonists of this delightful B-movie still manage to spend an inordinate amount of time eating and saying the name "Mystery Mountain" (seriously, it needs to be a drinking game).

Ray Buffum's script delivers a surprisingly coherent rationale behind Gor's plan, which makes a lot more sense than Vol eschewing a human body for a canine one. 

All I can imagine is that he'd seen how Gor's possession of Steve turned him rather horny (quite shocking, I thought, for a 1950's movie, but then you just have to consider the name of their homeworld to see where this came from) and Vol simply preferred the idea of getting belly-rubs while he was posing as Georgie the doggo. 

"Oh, He’s Football Crazy! He's Football Mad!"

"This is turning into an obsession now, isn't it?" joked my old pal Nick when I shared my purchase of the (controversial) new autobiography of former Lioness goalkeeper Mary Earps, signed by the legend herself.

Nick was referring to the recent surge in my fandom for women's football (which has resulted in Rachel telling her friends - with tongue-in-cheek - that she has become a "football widow").

The thing is, I'm never really been a football guy. I'm not even a sport guy. I'll watch baseball when I can (I'm British though, so it's a rare treat when a game comes on that's available for me) and, for some reason, I absolutely love international football, especially when England are playing.

I guess it's like my passion for the Olympics, I enjoy seeing athletes at the peak of their game - competing on a broader arena than just the weekly slog of domestic league tournaments.

I simply had no interest in the sport at club level.

It’s not as if I haven't tried.

As a youngster I read football magazines and comics (I was a big Roy of The Rovers fan and even converted one of my Subbuteo teams to his Melchester Rovers).

When I was working Matt and Nick would take me to the occasional Plymouth Argyle (their team) match and once I went to uni I even attended a couple of Bournemouth matches on my own, as my first residence was just round the corner from their ground.

I even used to watch Fantasy Football League with David Baddiel and Frank Skinner, but I suspect this was more for the fact that the hosts were two of my all-time favourite comedians than the subject matter.

But none of this actual football made any lasting impact on me.

That is, except when it comes to the national squad playing in a major tournament - the men's or the women's teams - and I find myself invariably glued to the TV.

For those couple of hours I'm a veritable football pundit.

This was taken in Rachel's old flat
about 20 years ago!

I'm not even sure how (or why) I acquired an official England Umbro top in the first place, but I now dutifully wear it whenever it feels appropriate to throw my weight behind our country. 

However, one of the 'problems' I've always had generating any enthusiasm for watching team sports is, even pre-brain damage, I have no capacity for retaining the details of what I've just watched.

Give me a superhero movie and I can tell you the minutiae of the plot a year later, but the moment I step away from a sport's match, either on TV or at a sports ground, I couldn't even tell you what the final score was... let alone who scored, or any fancy passing combinations.

That was always Matt and Nick's ability: they could regale you with trivia from football matches several decades or more earlier, with encyclopaedic accuracy.

I have to say I always envied them that. Not the specific facts that they were recounting, but simply their ability to know with such confidence the details of an event from such a long time ago.

However, now, in the wake of the women's second, back-to-back, victory at the Euros, and the increasing coverage of women's football my interest has skyrocketed.

My treasured Euros prize!

Strangely coinciding with my recent decline in physical health (which has also contributed to a rapid decline in interest for one of my oldest passions, roleplaying games) and my adoration for key stalwarts in England's line-up, such as goalkeeper Mary Earps, and, most particularly, the amazing Lucy Bronze (who played through our recent, triumphant Euros campaign with a broken leg), I now find myself actually drawn to weekly, club football as well.

I don't know if it felt like discovering a whole new sport to me or that I was getting in on the ground floor (neither of which, of course, are actually true), but I can now be found watching regular games, reading match reports, catching up on YouTube clips of thrilling game moments etc.

Because of my massive fanboying over Lucy Bronze - and knowing nothing about the state of the teams in the Women's Super League - I elected to follow Chelsea (Lucy's team) and see how that went.

It turns out Chelsea are, probably, the strongest team in the league (which was a bonus for me, I guess), with a squad that features a large number of Lionesses.

So, now, I watch - when accessible through our Sky TV package - weekly Chelsea league games and the occasional UEFA Women's Champions League match (when Chelsea are playing, that is) on Disney Plus.

I've been pestering my family for an official Lucy Bronze England jersey for my birthday or Christmas - but they are ridiculously expensive (£99 plus shipping), so I'll be sticking to my increasingly tight Umbro shirt for the moment.

Meanwhile, there’s definite irony in the fact that, given my current state of disability, I won an “official Adidas match ball” in a Women’s Euros sweepstakes, via Amazon, back in late July (see picture above).

I had been entering a ton of competitions in the hope of winning myself the Lucy Bronze England football shirt (so I didn't have to employ puppy dog eyes and quivering lip on Rachel).

Future Shock! The Story Of 2000AD (2015)

Released on DVD in 2015, Future Shock! The Story Of 2000AD is a gleefully foul-mouthed oral history of Britain's foremost home-grown comic book.

Through a series of talking heads, the documentary charts the comic's growth from its birth in the depressing and anarchic days of the late 1970s.

After 2000AD's founder Pat Mills' first attempt to kick back against the turgid state of boys' comics - Action - had been crushed by the establishment, he realised that sci-fi was a better avenue for his style of storytelling.

Eventually, the success of 2000AD attracted the attention of American comic book companies, particularly DC, and the local talent was quickly poached (Brian Bolland, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison etc) and 2000AD began to suffer because of this.

And it's not really until the title was brought by video game company Rebellion in the year 2000 that the comic started to regain some of its former glory.

A veritable galaxy of comic book talent appears in this documentary, from Pat Pills, Alan Grant and John Wagner, to Grant Morrison, Dan Abnett, Brian Bolland, Kevin O'Neill, Carlos Ezquerra, and Dave Gibbons, to name but a few.

First and foremost this is a historical document, presenting the story of the title, its struggles, its inspirations, and the targets of its subversive satire, but it's also a joyful celebration of a counter-culture icon, a scrappy little niche comic book that has endured for decades, and retained its uniquely British accent, despite occasional great adversity.

It also looks at the enduring legacy and influence 2000AD has had on the comic book landscape (interviewees from DC Comics acknowledge there'd be no Vertigo imprint without 2000AD, for instance) and cinematic aesthete (pointing out that Robocop was a better Judge Dredd film than the first actual Judge Dredd film etc).

Growing up with 2000AD, this was the first comic I read regularly. I still fondly remember the 'free gifts' with the first few issues (a Frisbee, 'bionic' stickers etc) and, in those post-Star Wars days, early strips like Dan Dare and, of course, Judge Dredd had a massive impact on my imagination, my writing, and eventually my gaming.

FOURTEEN DAYS TO GO!!!

Photo by Polina Tankilevitch

All being well, if the stars are right and the wind is in our sails, this blog should will go live in two weeks!

Please, for the sake of your neighbours, contain your excitement!!!

Record-Setting Halloween Visitors Are Surprise Exercise Boost

Some of Rachel's wonderful decorations

Halloween this year was a wildly busy affair at our house. In a span of around two hours, we had almost 150 young trick-or-treaters (in 48 groups) knocking at our door for their requisite sweet collection.

We got the impression - from some of the accompanying parents - that kids were being ferried into our street by car (there certainly aren't 150 younglings living around here). Clearly our neighbourhood has gained a reputation for the quality of its Halloween bounty.

This also meant pretty much every time I'd sat back down in my recliner after helping Rachel hand out some sweets, there would be another knock or doorbell ring and I'd have to heave myself back onto my feet (often carrying Alice at the same time). Not an easy task, given my current physical state, but I certainly hit my quota for "sit-to-stand" exercises this week! Hit - and exceeded! 

Alice doesn't really do costumes - but seemed okay with a bandana

My walking is definitely showing signs of improvement, but is still way off normality. I'm getting round the house more-and-more unaided, but still holding onto walls, furniture etc

I had an appointment with an NHS physio, but after he had taken my extensive medical history almost half my time slot had been taken up and we then had to rush through a selection of more exercises to add to my busy fitness schedule.

I love our National Health Service, but they really need to do something about syncing up all their computers to share details of a patient's history - to avoid having to retell it every time you interact with a new hospital, department, doctor etc

Rachel also insisted that I monitor my blood pressure for a week (as had been recommended during my recent hospital visit) and it turned out to be rather on the high side (a concern given my aortic aneurysm two decades ago).

So, I rang my GP to book an appointment - about updating my blood pressure medication - only to be told she couldn't see me until December!

Luckily, I already had an earlier date (the middle of this month) booked for something else and so told the receptionist I would use that slot instead. There was then a minor kerfuffle over switching the "reason" for my visit as, apparently, the doctor will only see you for one complaint per visit!

My main assistance on the road to recovery remains my weekly trips to "biscuit club", the strength and stability class run by the charity Involve. There's only three of us in the class, which means we get expert, personalised care and instruction. The course runs until early next year, but Rachel is insistent - because she sees all the good this is doing me - that I find another, similar class to join afterwards.

Meanwhile, I'm still awaiting a date for my steroid injections in my spine.

Maybe next year we'll go more hardcore with our costumes!

PULP PICTURE OF THE MONTH: The Phantom (1996)

The Phantom has all the ingredients of a true pulp classic: Oriental pirates, mysterious native tribes, a plucky heroine, a quest for supernatural artifacts, feckless treasure hunters, sexy sky pirates (led by Catherine Zeta Jones), lost islands, corrupt city officials and a costumed comic book hero.

The year is 1938 and evil American business tycoon Xander Drax (Treat Williams) will do anything he can to lay his hands on the three Skulls of Touganda, which when brought together can generate an unstoppable energy force, and it's up to "the Ghost That Walks" aka The Phantom (Billy Zane) to ride out of his cave lair on the island of Bengalla and stop him.

Stylistically heavily influenced by the Indiana Jones movies of the '80s, The Phantom is harmless hokum but not without some moments of extreme silliness - such as why Kit Walker (Zane) can enter an otherwise empty room and then The Phantom appears and no one realises they are one and the same person?

And what would have happened if the first two magical skulls had been brought together in a room without a convenient giant map on the wall? How would they have indicated the location of final skull then?

Some of the film's special effects (for instance, the view out of Drax's office window is clearly a painting and not a very good one), and stunts, are rather dated and let's be honest: The Phantom's purple body suit and domino mask may work in the comics, but look rather suspect in the flesh.

The climatic duel between The Phantom's magic ring and the power of the skulls, as wielded by Drax, pushes the corny cheese factor just a bit too far and the whole story is probably too simplistic for modern audiences, but the film still manages to evoke the feeling of the pulp era Saturday morning serials.