Nan Grey was born Eschal Loleet Grey Miller on July 25, 1918 in Houston, Texas. On a vacation to Hollywood with her mother, a friend persuaded her to take a screen test. She began a career in motion pictures starting that same year.
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Peter Cushing, OBE (26 May 1913 — 11 August 1994) was an English actor and a BAFTA TV Award Best Actor winner in 1956. He is mainly known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein, Sherlock Holmes and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, among many other roles. He appeared frequently opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally Vincent Price. A familiar face on both sides of the Atlantic, Cushing’s best-known roles outside the Hammer productions include Grand Moff Tarkin in the original Star Wars movie (1977) and Dr. Who in Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks — Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. (1966), films based on the Doctor Who television series.
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Fresh graduates from detective school, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, get their first case – recapturing the escaped killer, Tommy Nelson. Nelson, however, the typical “convicted of a crime that he didn’t commit” – and has a scientist friend give him a dose of the Invisible Man formula, giving him a race against time to find the real killer — before the formula drives him mad. But Abbott and Costello are there to help …
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No one will mistake King Kong vs Godzilla for high art …. And that’s fine; it doesn’t pretend to be anything other than enjoyable silliness. It’s two men in rubber suits, fighting in choreographed style — shades of professional wrestling. The movie has a comically foolish executive decide to use King Kong for advertising. And he decides to bring the real deal to Tokyo. At roughly the same time, Godzilla is released from an icy tomb. He heads back to Tokyo for the inevitable slugfest.
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In The Curse of Frankenstein, Baron Victor von Frankenstein is facing execution for the murders that he has committed. He tells the story of how he came to this point, telling his story in flashback. The story of how he learned to reanimate the dead. In an act of hubris, he decides to go beyond that He constructs a composite man from a variety of parts looted from corpses. Along the way, his amoral decisions cause death and misery. He has alienated his best friend and fiance … Who come by to say farewell.
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Instead, we see the Earth Defense Force fighting a mostly losing battle against various giant monsters seen in previous movies, including:
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Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors was Amicus’ first attempt at an anthology of 5 horror stories, with a very good framing device. The entire film takes place on a train, where 5 gentlemen — total strangers — sit together and wait to reach their destination. To pass the time, these passengers each have their futures foretold by a 6th individual; a quiet, mild man named Doctor Sandor Shreck (Peter Cushing) — Shreck being the German word for “terror”. He relies on a deck of Tarot cards to tell the future. The Doctor instructs each reluctant participant to tap the deck three times; after, the first four images dealt tell the listener his fate. While an extra fifth card explains how it can be avoided. The five stories foretold are:
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There are certain movie cliches, and the 1950’s is possibly best known for the science fiction “giant monster” movie (ie. Kaiju). It often served as a morality story, about the dangers of atomic energy, unexpected consequences, and fear of the future, using ordinary animals that have been mutated to giant size to tell the story. It’s been told many times since, but never better than in the first movie of its’ type, Them!
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