A Tragic Vampire and A Killer Tree Today we take a look at two movies I discovered while perusing Warren’s invaluable KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES: THE VAMPIRE (1957) and WOMANEATER (1958, but not released in the U.S. until 1959). First, THE VAMPIRE. This is an unassuming little movie (sometimes called MARK OF THE VAMPIRE on tv; it’s not to be …
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Old School Satanists Dennis Wheatley (1897-1977) was one of the world’s best selling authors from the 1930’s to the 1960’s. He wrote historicals, World War II adventure, espionage, and occult novels. THE DEVIL RIDES OUT was actually his second novel (1935). A direct sequel to his first book, THE FORBIDDEN TERRITORY (1933) a straight adventure which employed the main characters, …
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FIRE MAIDENS OF OUTER SPACE, OR IS THAT “FROM OUTER SPACE”? Both, as it turns out. But beware of this movie, under either title. How can you go wrong with a movie named FIRE MAIDENS OF (or FROM) OUTER SPACE, you ask? Let me count the ways. There’s the story. The screenplay. The acting. The so-called special effects. The direction. …
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What Is The Best Blob Movie Of The 1950’s? THE BLOB was not the only blob movie of the 1950s. By “blob movie” I mean a movie in which the antagonist in a big squelching tub of goo that flops around and ingests whatever it can roll down. Examples are X THE UNKNOWN; the Quatermass movie THE CREEPING UNKNOWN (arguably) …
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Wales: My Triumphant Return 1972 was a watershed year for me. I’m not really sure I can explain how it was back then to you young’uns reading this on the intertubes. I grew up in rural upstate New York. We had television, with six channels. Radio. Oh, and something called “books.” That was pretty much it for the contemporary information …
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97 Pounds I Really Didn’t Want To Spend After one night at the Royal Crescent, we moved to Marshal Wade’s House (George Wade, Bath MP who obtained the rank of Field Marshal in the army), which is right in the heart of downtown Bath. I didn’t take any pictures because we had stayed here before (I should have), so have …
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How I Almost Spent My Spring Vacation As long-time readers of this blog know, your humble Cheese Magnet correspondent rarely complains (much), but, as a general query to whomever it is in the universe who is in charge of germs, WOULD IT BE TOO MUCH TO ASK TO KEEP THEM THE HELL AWAY FROM ME FOR A COUPLE OF WEEKS? …
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Obligatory Apology Post Sorry for the long silence. Your humble Cheese Magnet correspondent has been working his fingers to the bone. I’ve signed on with Green Ronin to do a number of blog posts on the Wild Card series (You know all about that, right? The series, I mean.) and I had to get three months worth of posts …
Wasted Youth (Part 1)
Yes, that guy is wearing underpants on his head.
Great Fight Scenes of Cinema #1
Frampton comes alive in mortal combat with Steven Tyler.
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PULP COVER FRIDAY PRESENTS: The Longest Running Hero Pulp What character had the longest running pulp title? The Shadow? Doc Savage? The Spider? Nope. Nope. And nope. Personally, I wouldn’t have gotten this one, myself, though astute readers (ie, ones who have glanced at the side image) know the answer. But really. The Phantom Detective? Knock me over with a …
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Pulp Cover Friday Presents: ERB! Edgar Rice Burroughs was a gateway author for a great number of science fiction fans of my age, and he and Andre Norton were the ones who drew me into the genre. In celebration of the incipient release of JOHN CARTER, I thought we’d take a look at the initial appearances of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ …
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Quick! What was the first science fiction movie of the 1950s to be remade? I’m thinking that you’re all guessing that it was a ground breakingly awesome conceptual dream, like maybe FORBIDDEN PLANET or THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD with all its fancy naturalistic dialog or maybe even EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS with those cool Harryhausen saucers crashing into …
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Pulp Cover Friday Presents: BEFORE DOC Kind of a misleading title, but it sounds good, so I’m going with it. As many of you know, Lester Dent was largely responsible for the Doc Savage phenomena of the 1930s-mid1940s, but like many other pulpsters of his time, he didn’t stop at writing one puny novel a month. I’d love to see …
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Pulp Cover Friday Takes A Last Ride On The Dime Train One last look at DIME MYSTERY this week. In fact, we go to the end of the line, where the zine actually costs .25 and its title has been changed to 15 MYSTERY STORIES The covers — and story titles — lose some of their zest, though, oddly, Egyptian …