I have been grabbing a bunch of movies off of the TCM channel lately. Just browsing, and having my Tivo record them. Some absolute gems (Casablanca in HD is better than my DVD copy), and – to put it bluntly – turds.
Now, I like me soe film noir, and some B films, so I am not a snob, but there are a few that I have captured that just plain suck.
Beneath the Planet of the Apes
While I enjoyed the original Planet of the Apes, and I recorded it and three of the sequels, I just got around to watching the second installment in the series.
And, I can assure you that is is a festering, steamy pile of shit. Charlton Heston wanted nothing to do with this bomb, and was coaxed to reappear with a small cameo part. His instinct to avoid it was spot on. It is terrible.
I would like to add, that the role of Nova is degrading to all women. Truly awful.
One million BC
Shot in 1940, this is your classic tale of prehistoric life. Supposedly at the time it was released, it was hailed as leading edge in effects. That part of the film is actually OK.
What is really shitty? The “people” are all white, well groomed, and well clothed. Let’s ignore the humans and dinosaurs side by side nonsense (about 65million years of error there) but the people, and their interactions are just ludicrous.
I made it through about 40% of the show.
Creature from the Black Lagoon
I remembered this movie from my youth, that as a 5 year old, I watched this on the KTVU Friday Night show, “Creature Feature” and being scared to death of it.
So, it was with some nostalgia that I clicked on it to be recorded.
This movie was awful. The premise is that a hidden lagoon deep in the Amazon jungle is where a human evolutionary branch led to the “creature”. A party of archeologists and marine biologists goes to investigate, and – well – silliness happens. The creature kills a few people, the female role (Played by Julia Adams, who went on to, well not much in her career) just gets on your nerve (she seems to have a different wardrobe for each scene), and the rest of the party is a bunch of unsympathetic characters.
This rates a solid D-
Summary …
I could go on. There was an Orson Welles movie that was utterly forgettable (Touch of Evil), and others that aren’t worth the time to write about. But there is plenty of good things there as well.
