The Giant Gila Monster (1959) - Sullivan shines in Kellogg's low-tech Texas drive-in classic

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Stong colors, a giant reptile monster and rock & roll hits are promised on this poster for Ray Kellogg's The Giant Gila Monster

  
A giant lizard monster wrecks havoc in rural Texas, but local hot rod racing teenage mechanic Chase Winstead is intent on defeating the destructive killer!

The Giant Gila Monster is written by Jay Simms (The Rifleman (1960-63)), based on a story by co-writer/director Ray Kellogg (The Killer Shrews (1959)).
The film objectively speaking could be claimed to deserve a zero ♥ rating, but subjectively speaking this is an absolutely absurd and highly appealing piece of curiosa: Its interesting 'special effects' are based around a Mexican beaded lizard (a reptile that is only related to the actual Gila monster lizard the title refers to), as it attacks a model train in a key action scene. Constantly drunk, quite entertaining rednecks roam in the chummy sheriff Jeff's district. But star Don Sullivan (Seven Guns to Mesa (1958)) as Chase takes the cake! Qualifying as perhaps the cheesiest performance ever put to film, Sullivan is off-puttingly cutesy, gallant and helpful, but his singing is unforgettable: He sings three songs that he composed himself, which may make you laugh, cry or simultaneously laugh and cry. In The Mushroom Song he sings 'And the Lord said, Laugh, children, laugh ...' Hear the divine piece of nonsense here.

Watch an original trailer for the movie here

Cost: 138k $
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertain
[The Giant Gila Monster premiered 25 June (Dallas, Texas) and runs 74 minutes. Produced by drive-in theater owner Gordon McLendon, the film was shot in Dallas, Texas around January 1959 back-to-back with The Killer Shrews (1958), also directed by Kellogg and starring Sullivan. The films were hailed as the first films produced and shot in Dallas and as the first films made to premiere as double features. The theatrical gross is unknown but could have been impressive, since the film received national and international distribution, reaching at least Argentina, Mexico and the UK. Kellogg returned with My Dog, Buddy (1960). Sullivan returned in The Rebel Set (1959); Lisa Simone (Missile to the Moon (1958)) in Wagon Train (1959, TV-series), The Dennis O'Keefe Show (1960, TV-series) and theatrically in her last credit, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962) as uncredited 'French Party Girl'. 3,285 IMDb users have given The Giant Gila Monster a 3.5/10 average rating.]

What do you think of The Giant Gila Monster?

Flesh Feast (1970) - Veronica Lake's madcap maggot exploitation swansong

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An appropriately ghastly, sensational poster for Brad F. Grinter's Flesh Feast

Two villainous doctors conduct dubious science with maggots and stolen corpses in a cellar laboratory with the aim of rejuvenating an expat top Nazi! - Yikes!

Flesh Feast is written by Thomas Casey (Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things (1971)), who also photographed the film, and co-writer/co-producer/director Brad F. Grinter (Blood Freak (1972)). It is a schlocky, ultra-cheap grade Z film, - but it has a certain attraction, if you approach it with low expectations, (or none.)
Psychedelic elements and hot ladies are combined with maggots, dangling, putrefying body parts and former major Hollywood star Veronica Lake (Sullivan's Travels (1941)), whose infamous last film this is, (she even co-produced it.) She plays a grotesque part, which she nevertheless pitches into full throttle. Lake seems genuinely mad in Flesh Feast.
The script is almost terrible, and the film bores in stretches. SPOILER Its Hitler/maggot end scene has to be seen to be believed!

Watch a short trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertain
[Flesh Feast was released 20 May (USA) and runs 72 minutes. Shooting took place in Miami Beach, Florida on a tiny budget. Rice was used to pass off as a sea of maggots in closeup shots. Despite its R rating, it was shown with 'GP' and 'PG' ratings printed on it in parts of the US, where it also continued playing on double and triple bills all the way up to 1983, likely accruing a very healthy gross over the years. Grinter returned with Devil Rider! (1970). Lake never acted again and died from hepatitis at age 50 in 1973. 513 IMDb users have given Flesh Feast an average 2.2/10 rating.]

What do you think of Flesh Feast?

F for Fake (1973) - Welles' eccentric fakery meditation is a trip

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Legendary filmmaker Orson Welles seems to be inspecting an invisible diamond, while a beautiful woman in a flying blue dress appears beside the title on this mysterious poster for Welles, Gary Graver, Oja Kodar and François Reichenbach's F for Fake

Master Wisconsinite filmmaker Orson Welles (Touch of Evil (1958)) wants to tell us of the master of forging great paintings, Elmyr de Hory, who lives in Ibiza and is a very charming and eloquent man.

F for Fake is written by Welles and co-director Oja Kodar (Jaded (1989)) and directed by Welles, Gary Graver (Veronica 2030 (1999)) and François Reichenbach (Do You Hear the Dogs Barking?/¿No Oyes Ladrar los Perros? (1975)). It is also about fake biographer Clifford Irving, Howard Hughes, Picasso and Welles himself (of course). The film is a mix of documentary, experimental film, biography and fakery, which some, for lack of a better term, have coined a 'film essay'.
F for Fake is relayed in a somewhat fatiguing Godardesque New Wave editing style, where the image is frozen about twice a minute, (to more or less of an effect.) It is a film of and with cock-and-bull stories, artistic eccentricity and critique of the hunt for phonies and imitators. Welles clearly identifies with the outsider figure Elmy. F for Fake is rambling at times, something of a curiosity item and probably mostly for cineastes and Welles-fans.

Related posts:

Orson Welles: Catch-22 (1970) - Nichols wages war on war with ensemble cast in absurdist adaptation (supporting actor)
Casino Royale (1967) - The packed spy spoof frontrunner, a film very much of its time (starring actor)
Mr. Arkadin/Confidential Report (1955) or, The Mysterious Past of the Great Gregory Arkadin 
Citizen Kane (1941) - The cold elephant on the shelf

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertain
[F for Fake premiered in September (San Sebastián Film Festival, Spain) and runs 88 minutes. Shooting took place in France, including Paris, and in California and Nevada from 1972 - 1973. The details are mired in doubt, as all involved are unreliable in relation to statements concerning the film, which took its basis in fakery very seriously. The film was not released before 1975 and 1976 in most of its few release countries. Elmyr de Hory committed suicide in December 1976, upon learning that the Spanish authorities had agreed to turn him over to the French, (his death has, however, also been doubted.) The film sold 182k admissions in France, the only box office fact known about the film, which is unlikely to have covered its cost alone. Roger Ebert gave it a 3/4 star review, equal to its rating here. Welles returned with one last regular feature, the posthumous The Other Side of the Wind (2018). Graver returned with And When She Was Bad... (1973). Kodar returned with Jaded (1989). Reichenbach returned with Hildegard Knef and Her Songs (1975, documentary) and with feature Do You Hear the Dogs Barking (1975). F for Fake is certified fresh at 88 % with a 7.79/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of F for Fake?

Child Bride/Child Brides/Child Bride of the Ozarks/Dust to Dust (1938) - Revier's dubious curio

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An original, boding poster for Harry Revier's Child Bride

QUICK REVIEW:

A female teacher in the Ozark mountains talks against village stupidity and the custom of taking a child bride, but she encounters strong resistance.

I saw this short (62 min.) feature from the Internet Archive, where it is in public domain, and the copy there is, unfortunately, terrible, both image- and sound-wise. But it is an interesting and unusual film, controversial for its lengthy scene of its 12 year-old star Shirley Mills' (The Grapes of Wrath (1940)) skinny dipping.
It has therefore been labeled an exploitation film by many, (undoubtedly also due to its suggestive posters like the one above), but it is also an honest rejection of the unnatural marriage system depicted. - Although, of course, its blending of the two is highly unusual, questionable, and, for many, hard to take.
The film's cast also includes one of the little people of Tod Browning's Freaks (1932). Among its oddities counts also its ending, SPOILER in which the girl is allowed to avoid the marriage and be in love with her half-brother!?!
It is directed by Harry Revier (The Revenge of Tarzan (1920)) as his penultimate film (out of 26, including a few shorts.)

This collage of stills from the film also includes some from the notorious nude swimming scene:

This original trailer seems to lend something to the exploitation argument: 'Sextastic' the film was actually sold as ...

Cost: Estimated 24k $
Box office: Unknown
[Reportedly, the film ran the 'exploitation circuit' for many years. The controversial elements got past the Hays Office, because the film was made independently and claimed to be educational. It is now available free and legal right here.]

What do you think of Child Bride?
If you've seen other films by Revier, how was/were it/they?

Circus World/The Magnificent Showman (1964) - Hathaway and Bronston's grand, ill-fated curio

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This poster for Henry Hathaway's Circus World seems to promise John Wayne going through a flaming hell in the film

QUICK REVIEW:

An American circus director, who loves the circus and hates superstition, wants to transfer his success to Europe, but after a peculiar ferry accident, he is left with nothing and has to fight his way to his goal using all his talents.

Circus World (The Magnificent Showman in the UK) has nice effects and a good Dimitri Tiomkin (The Guns of Navarone (1961)) score, but its plot is strangely unfocused, perhaps because it seems to have been constructed around the plan to capture the contemporary success of circuses and create a spectacular hit by doing this, rather than around a story which was interesting in and of itself. The film has three story credits and three different screenwriter credits, among them master screenwriter Ben Hecht (Notorious (1946)). It is a story that develops without much nerve into a rather convulsive melodrama.
- This along with seemingly endless circus performances, (the film is 135 minutes long.) Producer Samuel Bronston (El Cid (1961)) must have had an erroneous faith in the magic of circus, which I for one don't share. (And I don't seem to be alone, judging by the numbers below.)
The odd ending SPOILER about swinging around cements the dubious impression left behind by Circus World.
The film was haunted behind the camera during its laborious shoot, (lasting from September '63 to February '64), as star John Wayne (True Grit (1969)) was in the early stages of his lung cancer, which he would require an operation for soon after the film, and co-star Rita Hayworth (Gilda (1946)) was in her early stages of Alzheimer's disease, drinking heavily, missing her schedule and forgetting her lines.
It was directed by Henry Hathaway, who would direct Wayne some years hence in his career's golden swan song, the only movie he received an Oscar for, the great True Grit.

Related review:

Henry Hathaway: Airport (1970) or, A Genre Is Born (sequences)

In lieu of a trailer, - not available on Youtube, strengthening the impression of a brushed-away flop, - here's one of Dimitri Tiomkin's Globe-nominated songs from the film

Cost: Estimated 9 mil. $
Box office: 1.5 mil. $ (North America only)
= Huge flop
[Unless Circus World was a flaming success internationally, (which would have almost certainly been reported somewhere), it turned out a gross miscalculation and was most likely a film that most involved were happy to put behind them as soon as possible. It seems even its rights holders still believe so, because it hasn't been released on DVD in America specifically, only on an all region DVD.]

What do you think of Circus World?
Other circus movies that you've seen?

The Villain/Cactus Jack (1979) or, The Wackadoodle West!

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The cartoon-style western poster for Hal Needham's The Villain

QUICK REVIEW:

Arnold Schwarzenegger (Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)) is Handsome Stranger, who has to help Miss Charming with a money transport, while Cactus Jack fights "Indians" and tries to get the money!

Kirk Douglas (Spartacus (1960)) really does what he can in the title role of this slapstick western spoof by legendary stunt-man/director Hal Needham (Smokey and the Bandit (1977)). Schwarzenegger is odd and looks hilariously clueless in his campy cowboy-outfit. The film is mostly pretty bad; forced and weird. Very little gets introduced or explained. The flirt between Arnold and Swedish Ann Margret (Grumpy Old Men (1993)) is charmless and without legs.
Made three years before Schwarzenegger's breakthrough (Conan the Barbarian (1982)), this film is interesting mostly as movie curio. It was released in the US as The Villain and in the UK and Australia as Cactus Jack. Its Looney Tunes/Blazing Saddles (1974))-inspired crazy comedy falls through, while the overly instructive music keeps on telling us that it's all just gaga fun.
- A few of the Indian scenes, with Paul Lynde (Bewitched (1965-71)), - whose last acting credit this was, - as Indian chief 'Nervous Elk', are admittedly funny. You can see one of them in the clip below.

Ann Margret and Kirk Douglas in Hal Needham's The Villain

Arnold Schwarzenegger in Hal Needham's The Villain

This is also the film in which Kirk Douglas does this

... and this

Watch a 2-minute clip with Ann-Margret, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Paul Lynde as the Indian chief from the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown

What do you think of The Villain?
And Needham's directorial brand of low-brow entertainment?