THE TEMPLE OF GOD ROBERT

"13 Ghosts" (classic silly horror film)

2011-11-01T16:28:00.000-07:00

I'd forgotten all about 13 Ghosts, that is the original 1960 version. This film finds itself as one of the crowning jewels of "what was hokey horror films," from the 1960s.
Way back when, in those almost forgotten years of a Baby Boomer's youth, we used to go to the Kid's Saturday Movie Show in my hometown. Most times they would show Godzilla movies, or a Tarzan movie...or just about any movie which kids, aged 10 to 15 might enjoy. It was here, at the Saturday shows, that I found great joy in, especially since it got me away from the house. It also introduced me to some great Hollywood hokey shows, which was, I will have to admit, the food kids loved to consume the most.

13 Ghosts was one of the many films we watched at the Saturday Kid's show at the local theater. Back then, such stuff wasn't hokey, hell, we didn't even know what hokey meant until we were adults. All we knew was that we were given a treat with these cool movies.

random science fiction movie pictures

2011-06-06T21:33:00.000-07:00

above: Anne Francis (publicity still) and from Forbidden Planet

It's been THIS long ago?

2011-04-13T21:30:00.000-07:00

Wow, I can't believe my last post here was in December of 2010.

A lot has gone on since around Sept. 2010, a lot more worry, a lot more stress, a multitude of panic attacks and hardly any time for my "science fiction" habit and this blog.

There's just not enough time for everything I have to do, which means, in total, that there's never enough extra time for me to attend to this blog.

I will be adding some new content ASAP, I've been thinking about time travel again, and a few other trains of thought. If the next few entries aren't my own written words, then there will be some more info over movies or other forms of entertainment which are attached to the science fiction genre (or also the "fantasy" type).

I'll be back as soon as that "extra time" pops up... lol

WTF? Howard the Duck? What a totally ridiculous movie!

2010-12-29T13:34:00.000-08:00

Yeah, ok, it was a slightly good and/or entertaining film---but still, a duck and Lea Thompson?

Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone

2010-12-19T17:44:00.000-08:00

Destination Moon - a hokey but really cool movie

2010-12-08T19:42:00.000-08:00

lapse in entries

2010-11-10T17:36:00.000-08:00

I have tried to write and/or update my blog as frequently as I can, however the "real world" nearly always seems to cause problems, don't it?
In the works are at least three entries over some films, and perhaps some more science-fiction artwork and even maybe some science-fiction movie posters.
Being busier in the real world that I really prefer to be, has taken me away from what I really enjoy, and that's doing this blog. Well, ok, doing this blog is #3...many years ago I wrote what I call "my trilogy," I have, for the past two years been trying to transfer it from printed media to digital, since I only have the printed copies. In the process I am doing a rewrite, that always seems to be the thing; unsatisfied with the story, so do a rewrite. Not that it will be a lot different from the original, just a bit updated and changed somewhat.
Anyway I fully intend on doing some entries here, if even they are something as simple as movie posters or artwork.
Thanks to those folks who have come here and also have come back...I appreciate it.

monsters and aliens LOVE our earth women!!

2010-10-21T22:32:00.000-07:00

We all know it is true, there is certainly no doubt about it; monsters and aliens love our earth women.
There must be something very special indeed about our women, here on earth, which would drive monsters and aliens wild.
Back in the 1950s and 1960s...Hollywood would tell the whole world that monsters and aliens love our earth women and would do whatever they had to do, to get ahold of them...even if that meant going to war with earth!
Here is a selection of movies which prove the point---monsters and aliens love our earth women!

{note: these are not in any particular order}

Read more »

weird retro-film, "The Mysterians" {Japan 1957}

2010-09-25T19:55:00.000-07:00

I somewhat remember this film, it falls under the main genre of science fiction, with it being in the sub-genre of: aliens want our {earth} women, and will go to unusual lengths in getting them.

Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia Organa

2010-08-07T22:27:00.000-07:00

Carrie Fisher as Princess Leiah Organa

{two more pix!}

Yes indeed...Princess Leia Organa was a Baby Boomer's science fiction fantasy girl. I remember when Star Wars first came out, I was in college in a small north Texas town, where the line to see the film went around the block twice over. I believe that in the first two weeks of its release my friends and I must have seen the film about twenty times.

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Four of my favorite robots; Robby the Robot and Robot B9, Gort and Maria (and etc robots)

2010-07-23T15:22:00.000-07:00

These are four of my favorite "retro" robots; Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet, Robot B9 from Lost In Space, then there's Gort from When The Earth Stood Still and one of the original robots, Maria from Metropolis.
Also here in the entry will be some retro robot art and a couple of honorable mention sort of things.
Read more »

"They Live" by John Carpenter, starring Rowdy Roddy Piper

2010-07-06T23:57:00.000-07:00

Even before The Matrix, and before V {the original tv show in 1983}...there were aliens amongst us...and Rowdy Roddy Piper discovered the truth!

Read more »

Star Trek -- Mudd's Women

2010-06-27T21:48:00.000-07:00

Ah yes, one of my very favorite Star Trek {tos} shows, this one full of the great Gene Roddenberry innuendo and psychology, at its best; I'm talking about the one titled--Mudd's Women.

cool science fiction artwork # 2

2010-05-14T21:18:00.001-07:00

Macho Vampires vs. Twilight Vampires

2010-04-16T13:41:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up, the vampires of those days were the best ever and were true beasts, the real "creatures of the night," blood thirsty soulless monsters. And no, regardless of the mythologies which state (questionably) that they could go out in daylight...on cloudy days, in the shadows and all that rot---these vampires would die from sunlight. A good stake to the heart would kill them, sunlight would either fry them or they would implode. Ah yes, those were the days when vampires were vampires---nowadays the vampires are emo, pale skinned and glitter in sunlight.
At least the mythology of the werewolves as the one mystical beast which was the "natural enemy" of the vampire and could actually kill them, has stayed true.

really cool space artwork

2010-04-07T19:08:00.000-07:00

{click on picture to bring it up to original size}

"Panic In The Year Zero" - An Apocalyptic Masterpiece

2010-03-13T02:10:00.000-08:00

This film came out in October 1962 and was perhaps one of the very first apocalyptic films to be produced, it would help to spawn a whole genre of "end of the world" films. In an era when the biggest fear was the atomic bomb, and the "Evil Empire" known as Soviet Russia---Panic In Th Year Zero certainly was a film which portrayed our culture well. Unfortunately this film was also widely overlooked, almost ignored and certainly never really gained the glory it should have. How so oddly, almost cosmically coincidental that this film was released the very same month that the world held its collective breath during the "Cuban Missile Crisis."

Time Travel - "The Dead Daddy Paradox"

2010-03-09T09:00:00.000-08:00

It was in the 8th grade that I was introduced to "time travel," nearly every Baby Boomer was introduced to it via a "classic" literature class when we had to read H.G. Wells' The Time Machine. Personally, even as a 14 year old, I didn't really like the story all that much. Then one late Friday night they showed the Rod Taylor movie version; that was when I really got into science fiction and time travel.
Many years later, while in college and taking a philosophy course, we got into a discussion concerning time travel, it was the ever-continual, atypical discussion: "what would happen if you were to go back into time and kill your father..." a preposterous theory to say the least. It is one of the basic argumentative paradoxes of time travel.

Yvette Mimieux and a Morlock!!

Rod Taylor

revisiting "you call THESE guys vamires?"

2010-02-24T16:54:00.000-08:00

After receiving a few comments over my "You Call THESE guys vampires?" concerning the "fact" that vampires basically explode when hit by direct sunlight, letting me know that I am in-error concerning this...I am doing a revisit to that particular entry.

hokey hollywood #04 -- Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers { cold war films! }

2010-02-07T13:32:00.000-08:00

Yet another hokey science fiction film that many of us Baby Boomers watched, either at the cinema or on late night tv. I just love the old paranoid-driven science, with its hidden "anti-commie" propaganda.

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers is an American black and white science fiction film, directed by Fred F. Sears and released in 1956. The film is also known as Invasion of the Flying Saucers. It was ostensibly suggested by the non-fiction work Flying Saucers from Outer Space by Donald Keyhoe. The flying saucer effects were created by Ray Harryhausen.

Plot

The film is set in 1956, a year before the first satellite, Sputnik I, orbited the earth. "Project Skyhook," a U.S. effort to launch a dozen satellites, is visited by a flying saucer. A misunderstanding leads to the aliens being fired on, and they retaliate by destroying the project site, killing everyone except the two principal characters, Dr. and Mrs. Marvin (a scientist and his wife/secretary). The sequence of events quickly spirals out of control and leads to a full scale invasion. Flying saucers attack Washington, D.C., Paris, London and Moscow. In the end, the alien saucers are defeated over the skies of Washington by a device using high-power sound coupled with an electric field that stops the saucers' propulsion systems.

Wikipedia; Earth Vs The Flying Saucers

Cast

Hugh Marlowe as Dr. Russell A. Marvin
Joan Taylor as Carol Marvin
Donald Curtis as Maj. Huglin, Liason Officer
Morris Ankrum as Brig. Gen. John Hanley
John Zaremba as Prof. Kanter
Thomas Browne Henry as Vice Adm. Enright (as Tom Browne Henry)
Grandon Rhodes as Gen. Edmunds
Larry J. Blake as Motorcycle cop (as Larry Blake)

Directed by	Fred F. Sears
Produced by	Charles H. Schneer Sam Katzman
Written by	Donald E. Keyhoe (book) Curt Siodmak George Worthing Yates Bernard Gordon
Starring	Hugh Marlowe Joan Taylor
Music by	Mischa Bakaleinikov
Cinematography	Fred Jackman Jr.
Editing by	Danny B. Landres
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	July 1, 1956
Running time	83 min.
Language	English

hokey hollywood #03 -- The Creature From The Black Lagoon

2010-01-28T20:31:00.000-08:00

Now wait, I must admit that in truth, The Creature From The Black Lagoon is not really all that hokey, maybe just a little bit, but not a whole lot.
The first time I saw the film was when I was about twelve years old, at the local cinema on a Saturday. When I was growing up, the local cinema had a "Saturday at the Movies," for kids, as long as you were ten to fourteen and had the money to get in, you'd be able to see all sorts of monster movies, horror movies and science fiction movies.
The Creature From The Black Lagoon was one of the movies we got to see at the movies, now see, this is where the "hokey--not hokey" part comes into play. Just like the Godzilla movies and others in the genre, for pre-teen and some teens...movies like this were not hokey at all.
In truth, this film falls into that rather unique genre of horror and science fiction film which on the surface is a hokey Hollywood film---while deeper down it has darker representations of the culture/society, of the 1950s. Don't forget that a large majority of "hokey science fiction" films were made in the 1950s, which were, historically speaking, in The Cold War era.

I heard that a remake is in the works for this film, I surely hope that unlike other remakes of excellent, hokey films from the 1950s, that the remake is well made. When it comes to remakes of decent cutting-edge science fiction of the 1950s, 1906s the remakes have been very disappointing.

Wikipedia; The Creature From The Black Lagoon

Creature from the Black Lagoon is a 1954 American monster film directed by Jack Arnold, and starring Richard Carlson, Julia Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno, and Whit Bissell. The eponymous creature was played by Ben Chapman on land and Ricou Browning in underwater scenes. The film was released in the United States on March 5 1954.

Creature from the Black Lagoon was filmed and originally released in 3-D requiring polarized 3-D glasses, and subsequently reissued in the 1970s in the inferior anaglyph format (this version was released on home video by MCA Videocassette, Inc. in 1981). It is considered a classic of the 1950s, and generated two sequels, Revenge of the Creature and The Creature Walks Among Us, each a year apart. Revenge of the Creature was also filmed and released in 3-D, in hopes of reviving the format.

PLOT
A geology expedition in the Amazon uncovers fossilized evidence from the Devonian period of a link between land and sea animals in the form of a skeletal hand with webbed fingers. Expedition leader Dr. Carl Maia goes to see his friend Dr. David Reed, an ichthyologist who works at a marine biology institute. Reed persuades the institute's financial backer, Mark Williams, to fund an expedition back to the Amazon to look for the remainder of the skeleton. They go aboard a tramp steamer called the Rita, which is captained by a rude old codger named Lucas. The expedition consists of Dr. Reed, Dr. Maia and Williams, as well as Reed's girlfriend Kay Lawrence and another scientist named Dr. Thompson. When they arrive at Dr. Maia's camp, however, they discover that his entire research team has been mysteriously killed while he was away. Lucas suggests it was done by a jaguar, but the others are unsure. The audience is privy to the attack upon the camp, which was committed by a living version of the fossil the scientists seek.

Cast
* Antonio Moreno as Dr. Carl Maia
* Ben Chapman as Gill-man (land)
* Bernie Gozier as Zee
* Henry A. Escalante as Chico
* Julie Adams as Kay Lawrence
* Nestor Paiva as Lucas
* Perry Lopez as Tomas
* Richard Carlson as Dr. David Reed
* Richard Denning as Mark Williams
* Ricou Browning as Gill-man (underwater)
* Rodd Redwing as Luis
* Whit Bissell as Dr. Edwin Thompson

bizarre...weirdo science fiction & horror film posters

2010-01-16T15:18:00.000-08:00

{click on image to bring it up to it's original size}

Technorati Tags:
the last man on earth, vincent price, i've lived before, reincarnation, barbarella, jane fonda, jock mahoney, the incredibly strange creatures, ann harding

Hokey Hollywood -- The Man From Planet X

2010-01-13T21:09:00.000-08:00

An alien visitor arrives at an observatory on the moors of Scotland. Unike most aliens from the time, the alien came to Earth asking for help to save his dying planet. None of his pleas for help were listened to, and both the alien and the spaceship are destroyed by the military.

A hokey Hollywood film, which takes place in Scotland...one of those "invading aliens come to earth to dominate mankind" genre; fact is, this is another one of those excellent Cold War "fear the Commie" genre of films.

As usual, in these kinds of 1950s-1960s low-budget science fiction films, it plays off of the fears of the politics of the "Democratic governments vs Commie government," and the fears of the citizens of these democratic countries. It is a pretty good example of a propaganda film, where in the end, as everybody knows; good defeats bad and everything is wonderful.

Cast
Robert Clarke as John Lawrence
Margaret Field as Enid Elliot
Raymond Bond as Professor Elliot
William Schallert as Dr. Mears
Roy Engel as Tommy the Constable
Charles Davis as Georgie, man at dock
Gilbert Fallman as Dr. Robert Blane
David Ormont as Inspector Porter
June Jeffery as Wife of missing man
Franklyn Farnum as Sgt. Ferris, Porter's assistant (uncredited)

Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer
Produced by Jack Pollexfen
Aubrey Wisberg
Written by Aubrey Wisberg
Jack Pollexfen
Starring Robert Clarke
Margaret Field
Music by Charles Koff
Cinematography John L. Russell
Editing by Fred R. Feitshans Jr.
Distributed by United Artists
Release date(s) 9 March 1951
(San Francisco)
7 April (NYC)
27 April (general)
Running time 70 minutes
Country United States
Language English

Links
Wikipedia; The Man From Planet X

Monster Hunter; The Man From Planet X

Star Trek - an odd observation over the Enterprise

2009-12-06T21:44:00.001-08:00

“These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise, it's continuing mission to explore a strange new world, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.”

the women of ROCKY HORROR PICTUER SHOW

2009-11-21T15:07:00.000-08:00

Susan Sarandon as Janet

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Magenta, Janet (Susan Sarandon) and Brad (Barry Bostwick)

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Patricia Quinn as Magenta

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Nell Campbell & Patricia Quinn

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"Little Nell" Campbell

LINKS:

Wikipedia; Rocky Horror Show

Rocky Horror Show

Rocky Music