Sci-Fi's Greatest Hits (YouTube video links).

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Another YouTube project in the works!

I grew up with science-fiction movies from the so-called Golden Age (from the start of the 1950s to roughly the middle of the 1960s) and one thing you notice when you watch a lot of them (especially the low budget, youth-oriented stuff) is a wealth of pop tunes from obscure combos intended to appeal to teenage sensibilities. Back before the internet was a thing, I'd collect the movie audio tracks from TV broadcasts and save them on cassettes for later replay; for a long time, that was the only way to re-experience a movie you happened to like. As a sideline, I sorted out a lot of these cheezy musical numbers and saved them on separate audio cassettes; I had about five 60-minute tapes jammed full of this nonsense, which gives you some idea of how prolific the trend was. Now that YouTube allows for more convenient access, I'll be doing some of the same thing online: here's the first, a rather generic-sounding dance number from "Frankenstein's Daughter", which I've spiced up with edited visuals from the film. If you've never before seen this picture, you'll get a good idea here of what highlights to expect.

https://youtu.be/gMY6R7yT_94

I intend to do a lot of these, maybe one a week. Will post additional links as soon as I get something new done.

 

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"Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" is a syrupy romance ballad written to open the popular, if rather dim-witted, Irwin Allen sci-fi adventure yarn of the same name. "Unbelievable" and "inconceivable" are apt adjectives indeed to describe his attempts a compelling cinema. I still manage to enjoy this and his equally vapid "Lost World" remake on certain levels; the man had a knack for putting iconic images onscreen. Nothing could possibly redeem "The Swarm", however.

https://youtu.be/4McRoltE3FA

 

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"War of the Gargantuas" is an enjoyable kaiju movie made all the more entertaining by the inclusion of a wacky lounge song called "Feel in my Heart" (better known by its chorus refrain, "The Words Get Stuck in my Throat"). It's sufficiently notorious that the rock band Devo did their own version in the '70s, while another appears in an episode of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon series, "Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated". The romantic language and metaphors are all cracked beyond serious consideration, though performed perfectly straight.

https://youtu.be/3tblpGXAOt8

 

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"Monster A Go-Go" is one of those no-budget mid-'60s horror films everybody loves to hate on. I can't quite bring myself to go quite that far, but its flaws are easy to see: poor sound quality, minimalist monster concept (really tall guy who kills by "radiation"... that is to say, invisibly with no gore effects), minimal monster makeup (facial blisters for the meager handful of times he's onscreen; unaccountably, they disappear entirely in the last scene), and a plot that doesn't just go nowhere, it actually shifts into reverse. It does, however, offer up a rather kickass title tune with intentionally dopey lyrics and an infectious beat. I'd have preferred it with at least one more stanza, but it certainly does everything it needs to.

https://youtu.be/_-LcfxZZtRE

 

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Sir Lancelot (Lancelot Victor Edward Pinard) was a calypso musician who also had a high-profile acting/singing role in Val Lewton's "I Walked with a Zombie", along with a few other film projects. One of these was 1957's "The Unknown Terror", a fairly cheezy sci-fi/adventure flick whose fungoid monster menace was made out of detergent soap suds; Sir Lancelot memorably performs "You Got to Suffer to be Born Again", an ersatz West Indies folk tune that offers an important clue about hidden archeological ruins. The song feels quite authentic... Sir Lancelot might have written it himself, but I couldn't find a source to confirm that.

https://youtu.be/6btZ-J968dM

 

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Going way out on the evolutionary tree limb for a new, never-before-used monster, 1966's "Sting of Death" introduces us to a Portuguese man o' war-slash-human hybrid which maims and murders obnoxious teenage party-goers at the remote home of an Everglades biological research scientist. When they aren't being stung to death or drowned, the small crowd of entitled teens prance and dance about to pop tunes provided by legendary singer/songwriter Neil Sedaka, who slums it in this low-budget trifle, but does so memorably. "The Jellyfish Song" (also known by its refrain, "Do the Jellyfish") tries to introduce a new gimmick dance craze, but so far as I know it never took off. Sedaka does give it his all, though.

https://youtu.be/p9nIJ34V2Jw

 

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San Francisco's Dixieland band master Turk Murphy provides the title song for this 1973 over-the-top low budget parable about the perils of show business success (with the emphasis on suck, though of the parasitic, undead variety). Slacker handyman Alabama stumbles upon the long-lost professional paraphernalia of vanished legendary stage magician Carter the Great and gets the itch to become a smash-hit performer himself ("Alabama, King of the Cosmos!") However, certain unsavory forces have been waiting for this very eventuality... they'll help to realize Alabama's dream, but at the fearful cost of their own horrific agenda. Before the movie's over, predatory promoters, a vampire cult, a Nazi mad scientist, a voodoo witch doctor, a multi-ton elephant and the apparating Carter himself will all become involved. "Alabama's Ghost" unwinds fever-dream fashion, with an eccentrically hallucinogenic plot, wildly unrestrained acting and (of course) dynamite title music.

https://youtu.be/b0PuvHBooiw

 

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1965's "Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster" looks a bit antique, what with its monochrome aesthetic and movie serial design sensibilities. It was part of the last wave of the sci-fi movie properties to be filmed in black-and-white; the trend from the mid-60s on was toward color cinematography, both in the movies and on TV. I've always had a bit of a soft spot for this picture, having walked a couple of miles into town to see it when I was a monster-mad 12-year-old. Newspaper ads were enticing indeed: scarred-up murder-machine robot takes on the alien ship's hulking resident voracious monstrosity! Their slugfest turned out to be only a minute or so long and obscured by smoke. All the same, I thought it was a kick! This romantic ballad, less so. Not that I found the tune to be particularly offensive... it fit in nicely over a travel montage. I just never had all that much use for it. Not until now:

https://youtu.be/qdzgW2aOZ4M

 

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Ray Dennis Steckler's "The Incredibly Strange Creatures That Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies" is doubtless better recognized for its title than any other aspect of it. I enjoy this 1964 movie more than general consensus suggests I should. It's chock full of songs and dance music, but precious few tunes are allowed to play through uninterrupted by cutaways to the plot (which involves Ray being zombified into mass murder by a swirling pinwheel. Ray is ridiculously easy to hypnotize.). Happily, one of my favorites escaped the ravage: "Shook Out of Shape", a Twist-obsessed rock trifle belted out by carnival cutie Carol Kay. Her infectious energy is perfect for covering up the screams of vagrants having their faces melted off backstage.

https://youtu.be/w70YjeBz0Qw

 

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Mention 1961's "Reptilicus" to anyone who's seen it, and memories will immediately come flooding back of a sea serpent puppet being marionetted around a miniature cityscape while vomiting up neon-green mucus. One might also recall the rubber faced janitor character with the odd obsession with an electric eel. "Reptilicus" was a US/Danish coproduction, with somewhat different versions of the film being put together for the partners' national audience: in the Denmark print, Reptilicus doesn't spit green slime and the handyman (Danish comedy actor Dirch Passer. Your acceptance of his performance may hinge on just how funny you find Jerry Lewis to be) has additional scenes and a song number. Not this one, though. "Tivoli Nights" might well have been commissioned by the Copenhagen tourist bureau, as it extolls the romance of Tivoli Gardens, a popular Danish amusement park with a long, long history (it opened in the mid-19th century). The song doesn't relate to the story in any way... the plot has to stop dead for this interlude to take place. I don't exactly hate "Reptilicus", but it's awfully hard to really like the movie. A better realized monster would have worked wonders.

https://youtu.be/m92zOuauBq4

 

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US movie producer Sid Pink, instrumental in making "Reptilicus", entered into another Danish collaboration for "Journey to the Seventh Planet", a space exploration tale that features actor John Agar ("Sands of Iwo Jima") in a supporting role. For me, the high point of the movie is a one-eyed stop-motion animated giant rodent monster the spacemen encounter in one of the caves of Uranus. The scene doesn't last long, but it is entertaining. Aside from this bit of excitment, the pace is leaden and the acting (aside from the always amiable Agar) is overly mannered. It's tough to judge these performances fairly, as most of the dialoug has been dubbed. The title song doesn't come along until the end credits, and like the rest of the production it's sedate and thrill-free, analogizing the nail-biting stimulation of an interplanetary mission to syrupy love play. "Our love" may be "beyond compare", but every other aspect of the relationship falls short.

https://youtu.be/XmsZhn-jiFM

 

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"The Undertaker and his Pals" is a wise-ass little gore film made in the mid-'60s and featuring, amid the splattered catsup, the inclusion of a rather shocking scene of actual open-cavity surgery. This crude exploitation gimmick was doubtless included to bolster notoriety, though it may likely also have been seen as a cost-cutting alternative to mocking-up a human torso. The movie's tone is comedy-oriented and rather sneering; I'm not the biggest fan of snark, but for me this all works fairly well. Again, the song is saved to play over the end credits. "I cut in, cut up and cut out!" brays the obviously hedonistic, and probably sadistic, gravelly vocalist in barely-concealed guttural argot. I have no idea who wrote or performed the poisonous little ditty... I couldn't find a source to admit that such a song even existed. To be fair, not a whole lot has been written about this production at all.

https://youtu.be/vAxX6xEVf6c

 

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Our second selection from "Frankenstein's Daughter", "Daddy-Bird", is far zippier and more fun than "Special Date". It's also a bit more difficult to understand, belted out rapid fire and filled with animal allusions like Daddy Bird, Mama Bear and other such cool-cat phrasing. Plenty of rhythmic doo-wop chanting by the backups, too. Practically the same exact length as the first song, but you're getting a lot more music for your dime.

https://youtu.be/X67ouK3dQe4

 

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Godzilla grew a social conscience around 1971 and decided to take on industrial pollution in "Godzilla vs the Smog Monster". The movie's full of trippy counter-culture elements, such as a glittery disco nightclub with throbbing, full-wall TV screens and a body-painted go-go dancer, animated vignettes making pointed social observations, a rave on top of Mr. Fuji, for which the organizers set a big bonfire alight (I'd have thought that the smoke would contribute to air pollution, but that possibility seems to have eluded everyone) and best of all for our purposes, an anguished protest song meant to move us to action. "Save the Earth! Save the Earth!", the lyrics command. Godzilla obeys by unleashing his atomic breath and sizzling the enemy to cinders! Take that, pollution!

https://youtu.be/MoSARGS4-98

 

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Richard Kiel's outlandish size limited his acting opportunities to those of giants and monsters for the most part; he was able to bring a measure of nuance to many of these stock roles, but it was often an uphill struggle. In 1962's "Eegah!" (that's his name; don't say it, scream it!), he's cast as a centuries-old caveman living an isolated existence in a California desert until he falls for the first girl he sees: spoiled rich-girl Roxy, who nearly runs him over. Roxy already has a fella, budding teen idol/gas jockey Tommy, who takes it none too kindly when the lass and her dad are shanghaied to Eegah's cave for a pre-nuptial get-together. Eventually, Tommy does rescue them and Eegah develops a Kong complex, tracking his lost love back to civilization, which goes about as well as you'd expect. Eegah's approach to courtship consists primarily to uncouth groping, so we're fully on dad's side when he looks askance at it. On the flip side, Tommy (played by Arch Hall Jr., who's dad, the film's director, Arch Hall Sr., seemed convinced that his lad was going to be the next Elvis) is fairly charm-free himself, leaving audience sympathies up to who has the most compelling back-story. Since Tommy has virtually none at all, the laurels go to Eegah. Roxy seems to feel some amount of this herself: during the desert escape, she looks wistfully back at the forlorn giant in unquestioned concern; when he faces off against armed cops toward the end, she pleads for compassion. It's doubtful she could ever serve as any kind of appropriate mate for the big brute, but her heart had clearly been touched by him. Kiel does his best to earn that empathy by emoting like mad in every scene he's allowed to. He doubtless would have succeeded better if crude grunting caveman squawks hadn't been dubbed into his voice-track at every opportunity.

As part of his cover as a rock-and-roll prodigy, the mostly charisma-challenged Hall Jr. had been provided with a number of tunes to warble throughout the film. "Vicky" and "Valerie" are the only ones that play through without interruption; he performs one of them poolside and the other out on the trail, and each time he begins strumming his acoustic guitar, an invisible female chorus sounds in melodic backup. The songs (written by Hall Sr.) didn't need any contrivances to sound ridiculous; this one, "Vicky", is the more sedate of the two and I was able to style it as a heartfelt tragedy for the video. Successfully? Well, you can work that out for yourselves:


https://youtu.be/5ow1a95s2n0

 

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Any male my age was by default a Three Stooges fan when he was a kid. I still love the "boys" and consider them my favorite comedy team amidst fierce competition (the Marx Brothers would take second place). When Columbia Studios quit making Stooges short subjects in 1959, the team shifted into feature film mode, with several popular titles such as "Have Rocket, Will Travel", "The Three Stooges Meet Hercules" and "The Three Stooges in Orbit". Others, like "The Three Stooges Meet Snow White", "The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze" and "The Outlaws Is Coming" failed to impress me, though they too have their fans (except for "Meet Snow White"; I've never met anyone who cared for that film). "Have Rocket, Will Travel" was the first and featured a really cool space travel storyline. It also had a title song, which the boys sang themselves. The tune was split up into three sections, kinda tying the movie together with stanzas at the beginning, middle and end. I've stitched them all together for easy appreciation:

https://youtu.be/pTDJjYdg5lM

 

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"Riders to the Stars", released the year of my birth (1954), is a mostly successful attempt at serious science fiction cinema, with scenes of team selection and training for the world's first manned space mission unfolding in credible, thoughtful fashion. That it's let down by a stodgy tone and abysmal spectacle (the concluding special effects scenes of rockets and asteroids in flight are truly horrendous) don't necessarily repudiate the approach, but they do make the finished project a chore to sit through. The picture starts off with a title song, wherein the vocalist rhapsodizes about the heavenly qualities of human romance. I've never been overly fond of this oft-used theme, but this one is well orchestrated and (blessedly) brief.

https://youtu.be/ancJqc_5VRU

 

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1958's "The Hideous Sun Demon' flips the werewolf script from nighttime to daytime influence, as a horrendously flawed atomic scientist (he's a lush, a womanizer and a pathetic self-pitier) triggers regression into a savage-instinct reptile persona whenever he's exposed to sunlight. Easy problem to avoid... simply stay indoors from dawn to dusk and continue your presumed scientific passion without risk to yourself or others. But that isn't for our boy; he prefers to endanger everyone with ill-advised nocturnal jaunts to seedy bars for seedier company to break up his terminal boredom. Sure enough, he's caught outside after sunrise more than once, the second time resulting in a homicide that puts him on the run. The lizardman suit (full to the waist) is a very cool design, helping to give this movie a cult patina, while the concluding ten minutes, set amidst the giddy elevations of industrial stairways and ladders, is a nail-biter. All in all, a tidy mouthful of creature cinema and a solar-derived monster mechanic that's remained unused outside of homage.

The featured song, "Strange Pursuit", is a lounge number performed in one of the disreputable haunts. While outwardly only a somewhat haunting love ballad, it assumes prescience once our "hero" becomes a fugitive.

https://youtu.be/aSNJImuxEss

 

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"The Beach Girls and the Monster" (better known to me as "Monster from the Surf", an alternate title) is a middling creature feature that becomes a middling something else after its Big Revelation. It's foray into surf culture is ankle deep... the view of guys on their boards is strictly beachside, with no deeper delving into the mechanics of the sport or explanation of what makes it appealing than we'd get as spectators. Further, the activity's segregated by sex: the guys show off their skills in the waves, while the gals stay on the sand, gyrating decoratively to go-go tunes and keeping the hotdogs warm for their Big Kahunas' convenience. It's strictly an outsider's perception of youth activity, one meant to seem tuned-in but instead insults with bottom-line inspired simpering. That said, the trio of tunes it offers aren't bad, but the first of these, "Dance Baby Dance" is betrayed by the movie's cynicism. "Ride, baby, ride" it exhorts... a clear invitation to share the risk and thrill of the open ocean. Except that we never see a single surfer girl in the entire film. Ride, baby, ride but as a backseat passenger; dance, baby, dance while I attend to business... that's all the more importance you were meant for.

https://youtu.be/A_rdRaUfbBA

 

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If you count by the number of times I've sat down to watch it, "Creature from the Haunted Sea" is one of my favorite movies ever. I find its parody element to be sharp, the characters constantly amusing and the story convolutions intriguing no matter how many times I watch them unfold. It is indeed a slapdash little trifle that Roger Corman made for practically nothing when he found he had film left over from a production he'd finished shooting in Puerto Rico. The actors were repurposed, the script was written on the spot, the monster (one of the most unconvincing ever committed to celluloid) is made of fish netting, swim fins and bric-a-brac. I don't care. If I'm able to suspend disbelief, the whole movie could have been made with plastic army men and it won't have mattered. Once the titles roll, I'm onboard.

The musical number was added after the initial shoot (along with other footage) to stretch the barely hour-long picture to acceptable length for TV. It's a highlight, as far as I'm concerned. Betsy Jones-Moreland's character, Mary-Belle Monahan, performs a leisurely torch song to distract approaching coastguardsmen being set up for murder by her crime boss boyfriend. Mary-Belle is totally unapologetic about her bloodlust and avarice, but evinces a sort of wistful nostalgia as she sings. One wonders how many of the sentiments were meant to be autobiographical.

https://youtu.be/UEDyx_Wkhc8

 

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For those who haven't seen it, "Dr. Goldfoot and his Bikini Machine" is a jolly '60s sendup of spy cinema, with Vincent Price hamming it with every ounce of his considerable charisma, plus terrific backup from the rest of the cast. It carries a distinctly familiar vibe from AIP's earlier Beach Party movies and, in fact, not only stars Frankie Avalon as the nominal hero, but slips BP regulars Annette Funicello and Harvey Lembeck into amusing one-shot bits. If ever you're pining for 88 minutes of undemanding fun, you could do a whole lot worse than this! That gags are light, but they're a mile a minute and just about every one of them hits! The opening titles sequence is dense with wit and invention, featuring claymation from "Gumby's" Art Clokey and the silky-smooth sound of The Supremes! Worth viewing for this, if for no other reason! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66de6c-x6QU

https://youtu.be/1h7bm_xU8U8

 

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Credited to The Little Eskimos, a children's vocal group that I assume wasn't professional (they don't attempt any harmony or any complex rhythm), "Hooray for Santa Claus", the tune that plays over the opening and closing credits of "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" is bouncy and exuberant. The holiday movie to which it's affixed likewise plays fine, though you'd never know that from its reputation. Would-be film scholars like to snark on it, but I'll be hanged if I can find any grounds for complaint. Aside from rather watery-green greasepaint on the Martians' faces, it's aesthetic works well for adolescent sensibilities (I can say this with some confidence, having seen it during its theatrical opening as a 12-year-old), while its plot manages to be exciting and risk-filled, though non-threatening in any real-world sense. Its themes concerning the folly of minimizing childhood and the futility of trying to "borrow" happiness may sail past younger viewers without consequence; such messages are easier to appreciate in later life. Which means it should make for good family viewing... if ever it's given a fair chance.

https://youtu.be/gRcdQGeBm7o

 

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A second musical selection from 1962's "Eegah!" makes almost two too many; these interludes are worthless except to make mock of, but for that purpose they're priceless! Number two on the V-girl song list (hero Tommy croons about Vicky and Valerie, but offers not a note on the topic of his actual girlfriend, Roxy. I wonder if he's trying to tell her something...), its mechanics are broken in a far more fundamental way than the first. It contains a lot of pointless puffery about the way he'd fritter away countless millions he hasn't got on a lot of useless courting accessories that she probably wouldn't want (why blow a "billion dollars" on posies when that cash could supply unending security?) in lyric language so fractured it barely registers as human. Descriptions simply aren't sufficient; one really has to hear it in person to fully appreciate the horror.

https://youtu.be/ysmOawgG8nY

 

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I remembered there was a big musical number in one of the Universal "Frankenstein" films, but couldn't pinpoint which one until I'd resolved to plow through each of them in pursuit of it. Happily, I chose right the first time: the joyful, rousing "Faro-La, Faro-Li" takes place in "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man" an otherwise bland horror movie with no scares and little interaction between the two featured iconic monsters until the very end. It did, however, mark what is generally recognized as the start of the very first "cinematic universe", with monster crossovers taking place in three more Universal features ("House of Frankenstein", "House of Dracula" and "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein") to varying degrees of effectiveness. Trouble was that a sameness in tone was bleeding the series entries of any distinction, not helped by the practice of repeating bits from film to film: Dracula's ring scene in "House of Frankenstein" (easily the silliest of the Universal monster pictures, not excluding the comedy "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein") is virtually the same as the piano scene from "House of Dracula". Also frustrating was the studio's insistence on separating the monsters into individual vignettes rather than let them mix it up together, as fans would have hoped for. Until the Abbott and Costello entry finally got the formula right, the lumbering Frankenstein monster and Larry Talbot's werewolf persona swatting at each other in the final few minutes of "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man" is about as close to the promise of a shared universe as Universal came. For me, the New Wine festival, with its "Faro-la, Faro-li" refrain, will remain the film's true highlight, and I was surprised to find out that I'm not alone. An online search revealed several different treatments of the song including, of all things, a karaoke version. So, if you happen to like this, you can sing it yourself at the next party you attend!

https://youtu.be/2S8k5KsSQVk

 

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"Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Mo"... edgy language, considering the social context, but what else what you expect from the ultimate "youth rebels" motion picture! As it turns out, the song expresses amorality of a different stripe, of picking out a paramour one can bleed dry of resources with the most minimal effort, then abandon. The movie really doesn't deal with that evil either and is more a rage-oriented examination. Teenage high-schooler Tony (Michael Landon, in a star-making turn) has an anger problem, constantly getting into knock-down fights and pummeling friends who tick him off. Authority figures all want him to get help and direct him to the worst possible place: drug-aided psychotherapy from outwardly respectable Dr. Brandon, who is, in reality, a crackpot with out-there sociological theories he's just dying to explore at Tony's expense. Brandon's injections turn the lad into a slavering werewolf bent on blood-thirsty murders... it should hardly come as a surprise that the movie doesn't end well for much of anyone. The song's lax attitude, plus its peppy beat, make it a welcome alternative to the syrupy romance drivel generally expected from such pictures. That I'd like to clobber the kid making these putative sleezy pronouncements is a secondary matter.

https://youtu.be/evnEJZoDkp4