"A Metallic Vampire, Stalking the Earth!"

KRONOS (1957)
Directed by Kurt Neumann
Starring:
Jeff Morrow - Dr. Leslie Gaskell
Barbara Lawrence - Vera Hunter
George O'Hanlon - Dr. Arnold Culver
John Emery - Dr. Hubbell Eliot

KRONOS opens with a shot of the New Mexican night sky, some appropriately unearthly Theremin music to get us in the mood, and a light streaking across the star-littered heavens. Cut to a shot of a lone truck humming along peacefully through a pleasant desert night. Alone. With soft, twangy music playing. Then as now, this spells alien invasion and death of local yocal. Sure as hell, a light flashes, streaks, and envelops the driver’s face in a very nicely done effect, and we are off to the races. An alien presence has possessed the driver, as one can easily tell by the blank eyes and the odd body posture, all indicating the absence of a relaxed, animated soul.

Alien light eventually comes to reside in Dr. Hubbell Elliot, chief egghead at a very a top secret, hush-hush atomic research facility in the desert (whose fortress-like security the possessed pickup jockey breaches by conking the guard with a pipe-wrench. Sometimes the simplest solutions really are the best).

Scientists at the facility have been tracking the path of a monstrous asteroid, which they investigate once it has splash-crashed into the Gulf of Mexico. Dr. Elliot/Alien telepathically summons forth from the hissing water a colossal, monolithic edifice - two cubes connected by a shaft, which moves by the rhythmic pumping of undercarriage pistons. We learn from Dr. Elliot (who occasionally can shake off the alien control after “shock treatments” administered by the medical doctor at the facility) that this awe-inspiring structure is an energy eater, a giant machine of the alien’s design, sent to devour earth - to turn “all energy into matter” to feed their home planet, which has been become depleted.

One of the beautiful constructs of the film is this incredible machine, towering and teutonic, which is labeled KRONOS by the eggheads after the Greek God that literally ate his foes. Like KRONOS, it is God-like in its size and power, suggesting perhaps worship as one possible strategy for appeasement. The sound and animation effects are good, if perhaps a bit too strictly mechanical, and the machine makes a bee-line for a nearby atomic stockpile, pistons smashing all in its path. While much of KRONOS' destruction is caused the old fashioned way, (stomping and tromping) the scene where the machine sends out tendrils of electricity and actually eats a power plant is tremendous. The final scene is a real whopper, too, as KRONOS horribly consumes itself in a well-orchestrated crescendo of effects. Radiation Cinema at its finest!

Chief scientist Dr. Leslie Gaskell is Radiation Cinema icon, Jeff Morrow, who was often called on to give the magnificent, ridiculous science of these movies a structured credibility. He had the voice of a newsman delivering harsh news, and a cubist forehead so heavy it crushed his eyes into joyless, browed slits. He is a serious, ultra-serious man. I can’t recall Morrow ever smiling in this picture, and if he did I am sure I averted my gaze out of respect for a shameful moment. No, Mr. Morrow was a 1950s man of logic and science, not easily distracted. Few actors before or since could give an expository speech with the panache of Morrow, and he certainly delivers the goods here. Particularly effective is Morrow in the “aha” moment, when he grasps and explains how KRONOS can be beaten (“By reversing the polarity, we can turn KRONOS’ power on itself!”). The film makers, presumably Director Kurt Neumann, did serve Morrow very, very poorly in one scene, however, when they but his box frame in a pair of shorts. They would have looked more natural on a Xerox machine.

On hand as well are George O’Hanlon and Barbara Lawrence as Dr. Arnold “Arnie” Culver and Vera Hunter respectively. O’Hanlon is perhaps Radiation Cinema’s first computer geek, back in the day when the term “computer” meant an entire wall of a large room covered with pairs of spinning reel-to-reel tapes which produced a noise level requiring earmuffs. O’Hanlon, who became immortal later in his career as the voice of George Jetson, serves up the comic relief. He has named his computer/wall SUSIE (Synchro Unifying Sinometric Integrating Equitenser) and often talks to it encouragingly: “C’mon, old girl, don’t let me down now!” or “SUSIE’s going into a differential phase.”

Barbara Lawrence as Vera Hunter is . . . well, it is not immediately clear what she does at the facility. She doesn’t were a lab coat, walks around the lab in heels with cigarette held artfully in hand, wearing a tight dress, and doesn’t seem to understand anything scientific. Morrow flatly ignores her except as a romantic interest, looking right through her at moments of serious inquiry or research. O’Hanlon, though, often patiently pushes up his glasses and explains things. A girlfriend, perhaps, spending a day with the boys?

OK, I’m being a smart ass. She’s a glorious fifties babe, is what she is, pure and beautifully simple, and it doesn't matter a good goddamn why she's there. In fact, only a spoilsport would ask. We accept her as an “assistant” even though she doesn't seem particularily helpful, spending most of the film in a very sexy snit because Dr. Gaskell (Morrow) can’t seem to find the time to take her to the movies what with this alien machine stamping through fields of Mexican peasants. Yep, she's stunning – as is only fitting for female lab assistants in Radiation Cinema. The afore-mentioned director redeems himself completely for the “Morrow in shorts” disaster by putting Lawrence in a bathing suit. Back in the fifties, woman didn’t even need bikinis. Watching her run along the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, even Morrow can be forgiven a carefree mood.

For me the performance than gives this classic its energy comes from John Emery as the tortured alien incubus, Dr. Elliot. His sweating, dark-eyed angst is positively Shakespearean, rivaling the torments of Lear or Hamlet. He has his moments when he is able to shuffle of this alien coil by the inducement of high-voltage, and his struggle to regain his soul is Oscar material. The alien, we learn during a late scene, is actually a creepy, liquid sludge much like blood, which leaves the unfortunate Dr. Elliot in its crackling, electric death throes. Great stuff and for my money, one of the scariest aliens ever presented in film; scary because, as a life form, it seems truly alien.

Footage from the Trinity Test at White Sands is used to great effect twice in the film. First, when fighter pilots hit KRONOS with “an atomic barrage” which KRONOS actually sucks back into itself, devouring the energy; and again when the creature ultimately devours itself and explodes.

I love this movie and can’t imagine life without it. I know for a fact that you will treasure it, too. - Radiation Cinema

Zombies Given Atomic Brains by Nazi Doctor!

CREATURE WITH THE ATOM BRAIN (1955)
Directed by Edward L. Cahn
Starring:
Richard Denning as Dr. Chet Walker
Angela Stevens as Joyce Walker
S. John Launer as Capt. Dave Harris
Michael Granger as Frank Buchanan
Gregory Gaye as Dr. Wilhelm Steigg

This is one of the wonderful "Clover Productions" produced my Sam Katzman during the 1950s, after the legendary film maker left Monogram. The Clover cycle of pictures done for Columbia during this period were Katzman's finest work, and there are a few reasons why I consider this picture his most memorable.

First and foremost, a Katzman picture always had a humdinger of a story concept, something guaranteed to put "butts in the buckets." With this picture, he deserved to be very proud of himself. Ready? Are you sitting down? Okay . . . American gangster, Frank Buchanan, is deported to his native Italy after associates testify against him. While in Italy, Frank runs into a an ex-Nazi doctor in hiding who, as luck would have it, has developed a process in which he can re-animate corpses. The good doctor can produce voice-activated zombies powered with atomic brains.

The problem is, the process is very expensive and his work has all but been abandoned. Frank has a ton of money, though, and it's a match made in heaven! Frank drags the old Nazi back to America with him, looking for a little payback with a gang of atom-brained zombies (let me say right now, if you are reading this with a contemptuous sniff, leave this blog immediately and go google Francois Truffaut).

Another thing that makes this film rank high in the Katzman cannon is story writer, Curt Siodmak, who also wrote the script for The Wolf Man and Donovan's Brain. Siodmak was born in Dresden, Germany, but ran quick like a bunny to England after hearing Joseph Geobbels give one of his patented "I'm crazy as a shithouse rat" tirades against the Jews. Siodmak also wrote the script for several sci-fi classics, which will be covered in this blog, among them Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers and I Walked With A Zombie.

After a murder or two, enter Dr. Chet Walker. Helping the police, Dr. Walker discovers, just as he suspected, the "so-called blood" found at the scene of the crime is, in fact, radioactive! Chet Walker is played with his usual professional polish by Richard Denning, who was the go-to-guy for many a sci-fi "B" picture. An actor of great range, he could be a convincing, pipe-smoking domestic, as in this picture, or a has-been drunk looking for one last shot at redemption, as he was in the 1948 forgotten but great Unknown Island (filmed in Cinecolor!). Angela Stevens as Joyce Walker is on board as the token, stone-cold-fox, 1950s eye-candy, but is given very little to do other than represent "wife." Katzman and Director Edward Cahn have given us a sort of symbolic domesticity, something to contrast with the evil rot of the atom-powered dead men and Nazi men of science. Yet we don't linger with Joyce long because, well, domestic bliss never kept them eating popcorn through a double feature.

There is a tactile, gritty quality to the effects, a feel of reality to certain moments, that are sure to produce grimaces or grins, depending on your temperment. Take, for instance, the first murder, seen in shadow, where an atomic-brained zombie lifts a victim over his head and snaps his back like a stalk of celery (with appropriate sound effects); or the great scene where Nazi doctor, in full radiation suit, lifts a dripping atomic brain from a large beaker (it looks like a softshell crab with stiff legs). There is also a norish quality to the film, shadows and light doing much mood work.

Throughout the film there is a terror and angst over the very concept of anything atomic. It is a terrible, un-natural force, giving a surreal, soulless life to the dead without any hint of divine spark. Once these corpses get stuffed with a Dr. Steigg atomic noodle, they become supermen; bending steel bars, snapping spines, walking through bullets (a nice scene has a cop's service revolver punching holes in one of the zombies' suit coat). They stare straight head, walk with a shuffle, and can only speak if Chambers speaks through them remotely, watching them on a large, fancy TV set. Ultimately, despite the fact that the Nazi doctor and American gangster wear radiation suits every time they pop a dome, "radiation sickness" becomes a real factor.

The message is loud and clear: atomic power cannot be harnessed for anything good. It represents decay, death, life without God, insanity and self destruction. Now that makes great Radiation Cinema and a two popcorn-bucket good time!

In this film, art is a gruesome mirror of life: After WWII, American authorities recruited many German scientists (who had been if not worked for Nazis to the States to development America's space program; and in this Katzman classic, an American gangster brings an ex-Nazi madman/scientist to our shores, financing his horrible experiments to further his plans of revenge. Soidmak must have loved that.

Without doubt, Sam Katzman was one of the heroes of Radiation Cinema. Not only did he invent the term "beatnik," he also imployed actors and directors of the Hollywood blacklist consistantly through the era when few had that kind of chutzpah. 'Nuff said.

This classic is a movie treat. See it. Love it. WATCH THE TRAILER BELOW!