Stuff I Grew Up With: SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron (1993-1995)

I remember first seeing an advertisement for this show on Cartoon Network when I couldn't have been more than six or seven years old. I didn't really think much about it since I was so young but one Saturday afternoon, I ended up actually catching an episode (ironically, it was the very first episode of the series: The Pastmaster Always Rings Twice). At that point, I mainly only watched classic cartoons like the Looney Tunes and wasn't used to this type of serious action show. But, I guess something must have hit a chord with me because I began watching the show whenever it was on and eventually, I became a big fan. Nowadays, I look back on this show with much more appreciation than I did when I was a kid (as is the norm with most stuff we saw as kids). I truly consider it one of the best and most underrated cartoons of the 90's. Hell, even that's not doing it justice. It is freaking awesome!

The show takes place in Megakat City, which is inhabited by anthropomorphic feline-people called Kats. The city is often under attack from evil villains and monsters and their main protection is a vigilante duo called the SWAT Kats. The SWAT Kats, T-Bone and Razor, are the aliases of two former pilots who work as mechanics in a hangar outside of the city. They're often contacted by Deputy Mayor Callie Briggs whenever trouble brews but neither she nor anyone else know who they really are. The leader of the city's military-like law enforcement organization, the Enforcers, Commander Feral, despises the SWAT Kats, seeing them as dangerous vigilantes who must be brought to justice. In the end, the SWAT Kats usually end up not only saving the city but Feral himself from time to time.

As with any successful TV show, the best thing about SWAT Kats was its varied ensemble cast of heroes and villains. Chance/T-Bone, voiced by the great Charlie Adler, is the pilot of the SWAT Kats. He's an incredibly skilled pilot and very brave, refusing to eject whenever their jet, the TurboKat, was in danger, knowing it could get them out of danger. He was my personal favorite of the two because of his tough, never say die attitude and his sense of humor. Jake/Razor, voiced by Barry Gordon, is the weapon specialist of the team, always sitting in the back seat of the cockpit and using his sure-shot expertise to take down bad guys. He's definitely the more tactical of the two, always trying to come up with a plan instead of just charging in like T-Bone often would. What always comes across with these guys is that they were very close friends; one would give his life for the other without a second thought. Mind you, they are quite competitive with each other, often partaking in challenges like pepper-eating contests, G-force tests, and the like but it was all in the spirit of two friends ribbing each other. Their likable personalities and close friendship with each other is what made them such great characters and why you wanted to see them succeed.

The SWAT Kats' biggest supporter was Callie Briggs, the deputy mayor of the city. Voiced by Tress MacNeille, Callie was the one who did the real work for City Hall, whereas the real mayor was more concerned with playing golf and had Callie write all his speeches. (Now that I think about it, that bugs me. She should be the mayor, not this putz! We'll get to him later.) What I liked about Callie is that she was a lady who wasn't a coward. She did scream when  she was attacked but often fought against villains herself when she needed to. Sure, she did need to be rescued by the SWAT Kats many times but you got the feeling that she would not go down without a fight. She also trusted the SWAT Kats completely, despite what Feral would say, and even when they were framed in one episode, she gave them the benefit of the doubt and helped them clear their names. In fact, she genuinely cared for them, shedding a tear when it seemed like they were killed in one episode. She was just a caring person. On top of all that, she was an anthropomorphic cat and yet was so damn sexy it was ridiculous. (Granted, "furrys" tend to freak me out most of the time but with characters like her, I can see how some people become part of it. Meow!)

Command Feral, voiced by Gary Owens, was without a doubt the least likable of the show's good guys. He's the leader of the Enforcers and as such, is really arrogant and hot-headed. He despises the SWAT Kats, writing them off as dangerous vigilantes who should let the real authorities protect Megakat City. In fact, you eventually discover that he's the very reason the SWAT Kats exist. Chance and Jake were once Enforcers themselves but while pursuing their archenemy Dark Kat, Feral ordered them to fall back and leave Dark Kat to him. When they refused, Feral swiped their jet away with his own, causing it to crash into Enforcer headquarters. Feral kicked them off the force and demoted them to junk-men to pay off the bill for the damages... damages which were mainly his fault! Because of the grudge between them, the SWAT Kats generally mock him as incompetent, which he and the Enforcers honestly are and the fact they're infinitely better than him may be the real reason why he despises them so much. And yet, despite his unlikable blowhard attitude, I can't help but admire his devotion to protecting the city. I also love his voice; Gary Owens' voice really is what you'd expect a commander to sound like.

In the second season, Feral's niece, Lieutenant Felina, voiced by Lori Alan, was introduced. As a kid, I honestly never liked her as much as Callie. But once I saw more episodes with her, I warmed up to her. She's as hot-headed as her uncle but trusts the SWAT Kats, often helping them fight villains. She often said that she wouldn't take "No" for answer (which she never did), would stand her ground against danger, and proved to be quite a skilled pilot herself. She's definitely no damsel in distress!

Of the other supporting characters, the most irritating was Mayor Manx, voiced by the great voice actor Jim Cummings. As I've said, Callie did all the paperwork and wrote all of Manx's speeches, whereas he cared mainly about improving his golf game. He was an absolute coward, running and cowering in fear whenever danger arose. At one point, he even pushed Callie out of the way so he could get to safety first! What a cowardly asshole! I loved how, even though he was supposed to follow his orders, Feral knew Manx was a fool whose antics would probably get someone killed. The only time Manx did anything brave was when his chance for reelection was in danger. It was clear this guy was only the mayor because it was a cushy job that offered a lot of benefits and one where he wouldn't have to do anything. I know he was meant to be a comic relief character but he just gets on my nerves.

Other notable characters were Ann Gora, voiced by Candi Milo, star reporter for Kats Eye News, whose ambition for getting good stories would often end with her and her cameraman Jonny (Mark Hamill) getting caught in the middle of a dangerous situation and needing to be rescued. Dr. Abby Sinian, voiced by Linda Gary, was curator of the Megakat City Museum of History and a really good source of information. Like Callie, she was every bit as brave as she was beautiful and never panicked in the face of danger. As seen in one episode, she's not above getting down and dirty at an archeological site. I actually liked her character and wished the show's writers did more with her, like putting her in the situations more and having her be proactive with the SWAT Kats instead of just sitting around the museum for pure informative purposes. There was also Professor Hackle, voiced by George Hearn, a well-meaning old scientist who ended up unknowingly turning two gangsters into deadly cyborgs. Finally, there was Lt. Commander Steele, voiced by Hal Rayle, an arrogant high-ranking Enforcer who hoped to replace Feral as commander but was actually almost as cowardly as Mayor Manx and even got airsick during a tense battle (which caused Feral to say, "And you want my job?", which makes me crack up every time).

The show also had an interesting lineup of villains as well. The SWAT Kats' biggest enemy was Dark Kat, voiced by Brock Peters, a seemingly demonic criminal mastermind who planned to turn Megakat City into Dark Kat City, which often involved destroying the city with weapons such as powerful bombs and other terrorist-like schemes. His henchmen were bizarre, purple bat-like creatures called Creeplings. As I mentioned earlier, he was the villain Chance and Jake were pursuing when they got get kicked off the Enforcers. My personal favorite villain was Dr. Viper, voiced by the legendary Frank Welker. (Seriously, look up this guy's track record. It's just amazing!) In a flashback episode, you find out that he was once a scientist Megakat Biochemical Labs but when he tried to steal a new type of mutagen, it spilled on him and changed him into a half-snake creature. With his expertise in biology, he created hideous monsters to help him try to conquer the city and turn it into Mutation City. In fact, his monsters killed quite a few innocent people. Then there was the Metallikats, Mac and Molly Mange, voiced by Neill Ross and April Winchell, husband and wife gangsters who were turned into cyborgs. Like Bonnie and Clyde, their main intentions were to rob banks, as well as kill Mayor Manx for denying their parole when they were in prison. The two of them often bickered but they clearly did truly care for each other at the end of the day. The Pastmaster, voiced by Keene Curtis, was an undead sorcerer from the Dark Ages who tried to warp Megakat City back to that time period in his first appearance, often tried to conquer the city in his own time, and marry the Queen of the city, who was an ancestor of Callie. (He once went after Callie in the present because of that.) Notable recurring villains included Hard Drive, voiced by Rob Paulsen, a technology thief who used a special coat to become an energy source and use electric lines to travel into buildings; Rex Shard, voiced by John Vernon, a convict exposed to the radiation of a special diamond mining machine and changed into a creature made of crystal and able to turn anything he touched into crystal; Madkat, voiced with great zeal by Roddy McDowall, a former comedian who went insane and fused with the spirit of a mad jester like himself, with the power to warp reality to his will; and the Red Lynx, voiced by Mark Hamill, an undead fighter pilot whose goal was to kill Mayor Manx, the ancestor of his greatest enemy, the Blue Manx.

The animation was another aspect that put this show above most cartoons of the time. At first, some of the character designs and movements were a little suspect to be honest but as the show went on and the animators honed their craft more, it became very impressive. The animation on Dr. Viper's mutations were particularly awe-inspiring. It's also apparent that the creators may have used a different team of animators for different shows or even for different parts of the same episode because the look of the characters and the way they moved tended to change slightly from one to the other. (But that tends to be the norm with most cartoon series.)

The music by Richard Stone has to be some of the best, adrenaline-pumping music ever composed for a cartoon. The main title music for each season's opening sequence alone was enough to get you pumped. I always preferred the score for the first season's main title because it starts off scary, turns to frantic as you see Megakat City being attacked, and then becomes kick-ass as the SWAT Kats hop into their jet and take care of the problem. The second season's main title, in keeping with the ramped up look and tone of that time of the show (which I'll elaborate on shortly), was hard edged rock music throughout and while it is good, it didn't hit me as classic as the first one did. The main theme for the SWAT Kats themselves changed between seasons and the second season didn't play certain music cues that I really liked, which disappointed me. Besides great action music, Stone was adept at composing creepy, atmospheric music for the show's scarier moments. Take the music that plays in the opening scene of the very first episode, The Pastmaster Always Rings Twice, where two graverobbers are digging in a cemetery. Really eerie music. Or the freaky as hell music that played for Dr. Viper and similar villains. Finally, there was some nice, smooth music that just fit the tone of the job Chance and Jake did as mechanics as well as the idea of two buddies just hanging out on some downtime.

As I mentioned, the show's second season is quite different from the first. It was always seemed to be much more hard-edged, with tougher character designs, more emphasis on shadow and shading in the design of the show itself, and even the actors voiced their characters in much tougher tones. The animation was also much different and smoother than before. In fact, the show looks and feels like an anime in the second season. This second season didn't begin airing on Cartoon Network until a little bit later, as I remember, although I do remember catching one episode of it on TBS. While the second season had some great episodes, I never liked it as much as the first, mainly because that was the one that I saw more often (but that's just me).

Favorite Episodes

The Pastmaster Always Rings Twice: As I said, the first episode ended up being the first one I ever saw and it was a great intro to the series. Two grave-robbers accidentally release the Pastmaster from the coffin he was imprisoned in and he proceeds to try to send Megakat City back to the Dark Ages. The opening scene in the cemetery is very creepy, you get introduced to the SWAT Kats' friendly competitive nature with each other, the Pastmaster unleashes a Godzilla-like dinosaur and pterodactyls on Megakat City as well as sending the SWAT Kats back to the time of the dinosaurs. The climax where the SWAT Kats return to the present and take down the Pastmaster is just all kinds of awesome and Stone's music just adds to it.

The Giant Bacteria: A pilot named Morbulus, who has an extra set of eyes in the back of his head(!), is shot down by the SWAT Kats after attempting to destroy all of the city's oil refineries. He manages to escape and meets Dr. Viper, who transforms him into a disgusting bacteria monster. Viper plans to use the monster to raid Megakat Biochemical Labs and obtain a mutagen he can use to take over the city. This episode is downright disturbing. The scene where Viper changes Morbulus into the bacteria monster is quite nightmarish and the monster divides into two new monsters whenever it's split in half. One scene in particular that was a source of confusion was one where the monster attacks a farm and devours a cow (which you see in shadow). The farmer comes out to see what's going on and after he sees the monster, it always cut to the shot of Viper leading it into the sewers. On a recent DVD release, the missing section was restored where, once again in shadow, you see Viper actually feed the farmer to the monster. I can guess that part was deleted because it was way too shocking. There's also a scene where one of the bacteria monsters attacks a subway car and apparently kills all the passengers inside! Really dark imagery for a cartoon meant for kids.

The Wrath of Dark Kat: Dark Kat steals the materials he needs to build a nuclear bomb to destroy the city and after Feral sneaks aboard his ship to stop him, the SWAT Kats are faced with not only stopping the villain but saving the guy who kicked them off the Enforcers. I didn't really appreciate this episode when I was a kid but as I've gotten older, I've come to really like it. This is the episode that has the flashback where you see Chance and Jake get kicked off the Enforcers and become the SWAT Kats. The ending battle in the air between the SWAT Kats, the Enforcers, and Dark Kat is really awesome.

The Metallikats: As the title suggests, this is the episode that introduces Mac and Molly Mange. After returning as the Metallikats, they kill their former crime boss and proceed to embark on a plan to kill Mayor Manx for denying their parole. The action scenes in this episode are really top notch. A highlight is when the Metallikats fire a relentless heat-seeker at the SWAT Kats and the guys have to do everything they can to shake it. This is also shows how awesome Callie is. She takes on the Metallikats herself (she calls Molly a brass bimbo at one point!) and later helps Razor fight off Mac.

The Ghost Pilot: A old war bi-plane is pulled from Megakat Bay and when it's put on display at the museum, the spirit of the pilot, the evil Red Lynx, is resurrected and wreaks havoc as he tries to kill Mayor Manx, a relative of his old enemy, the Blue Manx. I like this episode because you find out that Chance/T-Bone has always admired the Red Lynx and therefore, he has to take down someone he's admired. This is never really brought up as a dilemma but just the thought of it is cool to me. Mark Hamill does a great job as the voice of the Red Lynx, who is quite a threatening villain. As always, the final battle is great and Manx is the one who ends up saving the day!

Metal Urgency: Prof. Hackle reactivates the Metallikats in order to reprogram them from their evil ways. Needless to say, the plan doesn't work out and the two robots escape. They eventually discover who the SWAT Kats really are and when they hijack two enormous robots, the boys must stop them before they reveal their identities to the world. That very dilemma is why I like this episode. I also like the fact that even though Feral puts out an arrest warrant for them, when the Metallikats offer to tell him who the SWAT Kats really are in exchange for their freedom, he declines, saying, "I don't make deals with scum." I like that because it shows that Feral does have good intentions, despite his attitude.

Enter the Madkat: An insane former comedian escapes from the asylum and finds a jack-in-the-box which houses the spirit of an ancient mad court jester. The two fuse together to become Madkat, a powerful jester whose magic proves to be quite powerful, even for the SWAT Kats. Roddy McDowall absolutely steals this episode as the voice of Madkat. He is just hilarious. This is also one of the few times Feral actually acknowledges that the SWAT Kats saved him, which also makes it a standout in my book.

Katastrophe: After their plans are both thwarted by the SWAT Kats, Dark Kat and Dr. Viper team up, along with the Metallikats to destroy the SWAT Kats once and for all. Just the sight of these four villains working together as a team makes this a great episode. The climactic scene, where the SWAT Kats try to save Mayor Manx and Callie from the villains is great because the villains turn on each other and the fight is awesome. This is also the episode that shows that Callie truly cares for the SWAT Kats because she sheds a tear when it seems like they're destroyed at one point. Also, this one seems to end with the death of all the villains (although, they all would return eventually).

Mutation City: This is the episode of the second season that I saw most often as a kid. Dr. Viper floods the city an ooze created from a chemical he stole, which turns all animals and plants it touches into mutants. This is where you learn that T-Bone can't swim and that comes into play during the middle of the episode and the ending. T-Bone is also bitten by one of the mutants and eventually becomes one himself. It culminates with Dr. Viper mutating into a giant, Godzilla-like monster and Razor having to fight him by himself in a really great action scene.

Razor's Edge: While battling Dark Kat's new, spider-like machine, Razor misfires two missiles and blows up a building, injuring two civilians in the process. Razor is so shaken by this that he can't bring himself to fight anymore, which may be the city's doom because Dark Kat plans to destroy it with his new weapon. It's easy to see why I like this. Stories like this are always great because they give more depth to the characters. Razor is clearly rattled when he discovers he accidentally hurt two people and it's very touching. The best scene is when he goes to the hospital to visit the two civilians but discovers that it was a setup to destroy his confidence. The final scene of the episode is really triumphant as well.

The Origin of Dr. Viper: This short episode, one of four that were put in pairs for a show, reveals how greedy scientist Dr. Elrod Purvis became the twisted mutant, Dr. Viper. Although I like it, I see this episode as a missed opportunity because it's so short and a story like this should have been used for one episode or even a two-part one. Still, it's interesting to see Viper before he was mutated. He comes off as really slimy and shifty as Purvis and Welker even does a Peter Lorre type voice for him.

The Dark Side of the SWAT Kats: While out for a test flight in a thunderstorm, a stray lightning bolt sends the SWAT Kats into an alternate dimension where there are a pair of evil versions of themselves that work for Dark Kat and they're mistaken for them by Feral. It's weird that nobody in this dimension can tell the good SWAT Kats from the bad ones because they look and sound completely different but anyway, this is a great, unique episode. You even find out that in this dimension, Callie is evil and working with Dark Kat. (This evil version actually looks ugly, just so you can hate her even more.) The ending scene with Feral is hilarious as well.

Yeah, SWAT Kats was an awesome show but after the second season, it was abruptly cancelled. Why? I'm not completely sure but I think that idiot Ted Turner accused the show of being far too violent for kids. That annoys me because the dark edge of the show is what made it and other cartoons of the time awesome. Our generation didn't feel like we were being talked down to and that these shows were treating us like adults by giving the impression that characters actually died, some rather gruesomely from what we could gather. It's just annoying and sad that this great show had to end way too soon because of dumb adults thinking that shows like this could inspire kids to commit murder. Are you kidding me? There wasn't even a DVD release until like 2010 and even then it wasn't perfect (although I think another release is planned at this time).

Today, SWAT Kats remains a cult favorite among those, like me, who saw it growing up but to the general public, it's not very well known. I honestly believe that if it hadn't been cancelled so soon, it would be as popular as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There was some talk of reviving the show and since classic cartoons like Voltron and Thundercats have been revived in recent years, maybe SWAT Kats will too at some point (though I kind of doubt it). Anyway, those who know and love the show will have fond memories of this ass-kicking cartoon for the rest of our lives and for those who are interested in seeing it, by all means do so. Cartoons don't get much cooler than this!

Movies That Suck: The Prodigy (2005)

The first time I tried to watch this movie, it did something to me that few movies before it have: it beat me. This movie 113 minutes long and before the 45-minute mark, I turned it off. This was due, no doubt, to another awful movie I'd seen earlier that day and when this started, I just couldn't watch another generic independent film. I turned it off and didn't come back to it until recently when I released this would be a good candidate for Movies That Suck if I watched it all the way through. This time, I powered through (even though I paused it many times to get a drink or go eat something, which, to me, is a sign that the movie isn't keeping my interest) and I was right. This movie is bad. I'm well aware that this was a very low budget independent film that went straight to DVD and while I commend somebody for trying to do an action movie with what little money they had, the end result is still not good. Before we go on, I'd just like to add that I didn't buy this. I was at a horror convention and some young women were handing out free DVDs so I just figured, "Why not?" That's one of the few good things I can say about this movie and it doesn't even have anything to do with the movie itself!

The movie is about a small-time enforcer named Truman who's been rather hot-headed and violent his entire life. During one operation, a mysterious man dressed entirely in black with a hood and wearing night-vision goggles kills many of the mob guys, including some of Truman's friends and almost kills him. A month later, Truman is having nightmares about the event but he now has a girlfriend that he truly does care about to take his mind off things. When Truman gets a job to find a man who kidnapped his boss' nephew, he discovers that this assassin is a legend among the criminal world and he's apparently got big plans for Truman.

This whole movie is just generic from top to bottom. The very premise of the movie involving mobsters and hit-men has been done time and time again and much better I might add. I don't mind action movies with this kind of setting but you've got to have a good story with it and this one just isn't worth it. It's unoriginal, has a bunch of plotholes, makes no sense, and is not interesting in the slightest.

The acting and dialogue don't help it either. Holt Boggs as the lead, Trum, is not a charismatic character. He tries to act all tough and mentally tortured but he's completely one-dimensional, doing nothing but screaming and shooting people. The story is supposed to be about him finding his place in the world and maybe leaving his violent life behind but there's no empathy for the guy so it doesn't matter. Matt Beckham as Truman's best friend, Pat, is even more unappealing. While they do act like friends, we're never told why they are so. Pat tries to come across as that funny sidekick but there's one scene where he beats a guy within an inch of his life, even when it's clear he knows nothing. Pat just keeps beating him and beating and when Truman has had enough and walks away, Pat hits the guy again before following him. What did that mean-spirited scene accomplish? Nothing other than prove that Pat is a sadistic asshole. I know they're part of the mob but even Truman is disgusted by what Pat did to that guy. One character that I kind of liked was Ash, played by Diana Lee Inosanto. She's a friend of Truman's who has information about the assassin that's stalking him. I don't know why but she's quirky and funny enough to where I kind of liked her... and she gets killed in the second scene she's in.

Mirelly Taylor as Truman's girlfriend, Nicki, seems like a nice enough girlfriend and it's hinted that she could help Truman escape from the violent world he's part of. But, at the end of the day, she doesn't really do much to be memorable. Another friend of Truman's, King, played by Lawrence Varnado (who I swear reminded me of Charles S. Dutton when I first saw him), is someone who's had a bad run-in with the assassin in the past and was the only one who survived. He reluctantly tries to get Nicki away from the city so the killer won't get her but he ultimately fails. Again, not a bad character, but comes off as a cliche in the end. There's Marc Jeffreys as the mob boss JT, who is so cliched in characterization and portrayal (think The Sopranos) that he's not worth talking about. Ricky, played by Marc Hebert, is the nephew who's kidnapped by the assassin and his scenes where he's held captive would make you think you're watching a Saw movie rather than an action flick. It's that typical dark, dungeon-like setting where Ricky is tied up, tortured (he's already lost an eye and, while we don't see it actually happen, we see later that his legs have been cut off) and almost gets away before being dragged back inside and killed. Not much else to say about that. There's not much to say about Danny (Jay Moses) who I think was Truman's younger brother but I'm not sure. It doesn't matter. He gets killed at the very beginning of the movie. There are other characters (one of which is played by Dameon Clarke who voiced the evil Cell in the Funimation dub of Dragonball Z) but I don't remember who was who and I don't care.

Now let's get to the assassin: Rains. It turns out he takes his name from The Invisible Man and Claude Rains, the actor who played the title role in that film (he even at one point uses the alias Jack Griffin, the actual name of the title character of that film). He's meant to be this boogeyman among the crime world; a mystery that people wonder is real or not. He's also portrayed to be a menacing terrorist-like character who plants hidden cameras everywhere and can watch your every move. He's had his eye on Truman for a while and he says that what convinced him that Truman was the right choice to take his place was when he watched an interrogation video of Truman when he was a kid and he said he didn't feel sorry for beating up this other kid. I honestly didn't find him to be menacing in the slightest and even found him to be a joke. For one, he's apparently killed several times and yet just gets up. Granted, he could be wearing body armor beneath his suit but that doesn't explain how, in one scene, after he's been shot and is apparently dead, he gets up and comes up from behind Truman (who'd momentarily turned away from looking at him) all without making a sound. Not only that but he's placed so many little cameras everywhere that you have to wonder how he knew somebody was going to be there at a certain time. Is he psychic or something? And some of those cameras are in places where it would be hard to put them there without being seen. One thing I will give the filmmakers is that at the end of the movie, Truman apparently kidnaps the wrong man when he breaks into a motel room where Rains is supposed to be hiding. After almost killing the guy, he lets him go when it seems like he's the wrong man but it turns out he isn't. That surprised me, I must say. I also have to commend them for not having it be Truman's father, because I was expecting them to do that. Still, Rains, like almost everything else in the movie, just doesn't work.

The dialogue in this movie is as bad as most of the acting. My biggest complaint is that there are so many F-bombs in this movie that you'd think Rob Zombie wrote it. I honestly get sick of hearing "fuck" said every other word. Many writers, Zombie included, seem to think that's how people really talk or that it's edgy. It's neither. In fact, it feels childish, like a little kid who discovered the word "fuck" for the first time and is saying it constantly. I just find it annoying, like the writer can't think of any way to make the movie mature other than to swear a lot.

The very look of the movie is generic and the action scenes and editing make it clear how low budget it is. The film has either a blue tint or brown tint depending on what time of day it is, which I get tired of seeing just because it's used so much. The action scenes themselves could be good if the editing wasn't so quick and crazy that you could tell what was going on. Often during an action scene, the movie will suddenly shift in look. I can't explain it very well but there are moments where it'll look like a low budget TV show or like it was filmed with a regular camera (if you've seen the movie, you'll know what I'm talking about). I'm guessing they did this to make the action look faster or more dynamic but it just looks unprofessional. Now not all of the action scenes are bad. There are some fights which are choreographed decently and look fair enough but they still can't save the movie.

While the story is, as I said, forgettable, it does have some interesting points to it that could have made for a fair movie if done better. Truman is a character who seems to really hate the violent world he's a part of and Nicki may be able to help him escape from it. Rains also talks to Truman through recordings about him finding his niche in the grand scheme of things and Truman does seem to understand his capacity for bloodshed and compassion in his life. The ending, where Truman confronts the unmasked Rains and where he ultimately kills him (with Rains saying that he's so proud) and leaves to take his place as an assassin (we assume) could be interesting if the movie leading up to it was done better. But the cliched plot and uninteresting characters behind it make you just not care.

Other than some decent parts of the music score, there's not much else I can say about The Prodigy. I'm not saying that this movie is entirely bad because it's not that original. Quentin Tarantino often takes old ideas and makes good movies out of them. The point is that you've got to do something interesting with those old ideas. This movie just doesn't do that. It's generic, has an uninteresting story (although, as I said, there are some potentially good concepts in it), and the characters are cliched and forgettable. I feel bad slamming an independent movie because I can imagine it must be difficult to make on but that's honestly how I feel. Sorry, William Kaufman (the director), but this just isn't good.

The Directors: Jack Arnold. Monster on the Campus (1958)

Back at the beginning of the 2000's, AMC had a Saturday night section of programming called American Pop, where they would show old movies as well as clips from an old 60's, Ed Sullivan-like variety show called Hullabaloo. Each month, they would usually pick a theme and run with it. One month, they picked the theme of 1950's teenage exploitation films and Monster on the Campus was one of the films it showed. I knew nothing about this film when I first sat down and watched it, just that, judging from the trailer they showed, it looked like a fun, if silly, monster movie. I was even more surprised to see that it was directed by Jack Arnold, since I didn't think it looked like something he would do. This film is kind of the end of two eras: not only was it Arnold's last science fiction film but it was also the last in Universal's cycle of 1950's monster flicks.

Dr. Donald Blake, a professor of biology at Dunsfield University, receives a perfectly preserved coelacanth for study. However, the day that it arrives, the dog of the student who delivered it drinks some bloody water dripping from the thawing fish and suddenly turns vicious, forcing Blake to lock him in the kennel. Shortly afterward, Blake cuts his hand on the teeth of the primitive fish and accidentally dips the cut in the water. After he becomes ill and passes out, a nurse drives him back to his house and is killed by an unknown person. The police and Blake try to figure out who killed her, and Blake discovers that the coelacanth has bizarre properties, which could explain what happened to the dog... and expose Blake himself as the monster who killed the nurse.

By the late 1950's, the cycle of monster movies that had been popular throughout the decade was beginning to peter out (it would be pretty much over by the mid-1960's). Suffice to say, this movie was very low budget because of that and you can tell. The special effects and makeup designs aren't terrible but they are below most of the quality standards for Universal. Jack Arnold does work his magic, however, and manages to turn in an entertaining monster movie despite the lack of resources and silly premise. But inevitably, when compared to his past sci-fi flicks, this movie doesn't even compare and it's kind of sad that this was his last science fiction film.

Our lead, Dr. Donald Blake, is played by Arthur Franz. As with most scientists and doctors in Arnold's films, Blake is not a mad scientist but rather an inquisitive man interested in evolution. He's absolutely obsessed with the coelacanth that's been delivered to him as well as figuring out what caused the dog Sampson to go crazy for a brief period of time. When the possibility of a half-human throwback roaming the campus is presented, he's eager to prove that it exists and disprove old theories. Even though he often neglects her due to his work, he does clearly love his fiance, Madeline, and he's good enough to resist the advances of the school nurse. Eventually, he discovers that the coelacanth's blood can cause a reversion of the evolution process due to its being preserved with gamma radiation and that also leads him to discover that he is in reality the creature that killed the nurse after he became contaminated with the blood. Franz's performance may not be the absolute best but he does seem like he's trying. The only really problematic part is how dense Blake is about him being the monster. Even though he loses consciousness twice and wakes near each murder site with his clothes torn, it doesn't occur until very late in the game that he himself is the monster. Even most people who are werewolves in movies figure it out after the first transformation!

There's not much to Joanna Moore's role as Madeline Howard, Blake's fiance. She honestly doesn't know if she believes his theory about there being a prehistoric monster roaming around and even does suggest that he may be overworked. But other than her obvious caring for Blake, she doesn't do much and is the typical bland woman in these types of movies, ending up being carried off by the monster and screaming at him. Judson Pratt plays Lieutenant Mike Stevens, the head of the murder case. I don't know why but I just like this guy, even though his investigation doesn't turn up anything useful and his theories about the murder end up being completely wrong. I guess I like him because he does come across as a good cop determined to figure out what's going on, even if he has the completely wrong idea. There's also Troy Donahue as Jimmy, the student who delivers the coelacanth to Blake and whose dog becomes affected by the blood, as well as Nancy Walters as his girlfriend, Sylvia. Honestly, neither of these kids are that interesting, especially Donahue, whose performance is really monotone and bland. The other actors are okay but nothing special, with Helen Westcott as Molly Riordan, the nurse who tries to make a pass at Blake and is ultimately killed by his monster half; Alexander Lockwood as Prof. Gilbert Howard, head of the institute and Madeline's father; the ever reliable Whit Bissell as Dr. Oliver Cole, the campus' physician who's ever the skeptic; and Ross Elliott from Tarantula as a bodyguard signed to protect Blake.

There are actually three monsters in this movie. As I said, the first is Sampson, the German shepherd who becomes a throwback to an ancient species of wolf after drinking the coelacanth blood. What's weird about him is that, other than becoming extremely ferocious, the only thing that happens to him is that his canines become very long. After what Blake discovers about the coelacanth, you would think that Sampson would have actually turned into an ancient wolf. The second monster is a dragonfly that absorbs some of the coelacanth blood when it lands on it and shows back up after growing two feet across. The model they use for the giant dragonfly is not very convincing and you can clearly see the wires that are holding it up. Still, it is a bit more in line with the properties of the blood, unlike the dog's transformation.

Finally, there's the half-human, half-ape anthropoid that Blake becomes when he's contaminated with the blood. The first two times he changes, we don't see what the monster looks like. Also, both times are accidental; the first happens when he cuts his hand and puts it in the water surrounding the coelacanth and the second happens after he kills the dragonfly. Some of the dragonfly's contaminated blood accidentally drips into his pipe and he transforms when he later smokes it. After that, he discovers that the colecanth was preserved using gamma rays, which, through an arbitrary theory I can't even begin to comment on, cause whomever or whatever ingests the blood to devolve into a primitive form. It's not until Blake describes how someone could have become infected by cutting themselves on the coelacanth's scales or teeth that it hits him that he could be the monster. Franz does a great bit of acting when the realization hits him and he becomes momentarily calmed when he suggests it couldn't happen twice accidentally. That's when he looks at his pipe and remembers a foul smell coming from it right before blacking out the second time and realizes it's the smell of the coelacanth's blood. That's when he goes to Prof. Howard's summer cabin to try an experiment by injecting himself with the coelacanth blood and seeing if he changes. Needless to say, he does and this is when we finally get to see what the real monster looks like.

The monster is a bizarre looking half-man, half-ape creature played by stuntman Eddie Parker. His face is rather silly looking to be honest but I can't help but like watching this weird creature fumble around the cabin and run around attacking people. Some of the noises he makes are hilarious and sound like retarded speech, whereas most of it is yelling. When he first transforms, he curiously picks up an axe and starts swinging it around like a little kid who discovered something new. He also seems to still have feelings for Madeline because just when he's about to kill her, he stops when he sees her pretty face and instead tries to carry her off. He does brutally kill a forest ranger who tries to save her by hitting him right in the face with the axe. He's ultimately killed by the police and that's when everybody realizes that not only that there really was a monster but that it was Blake all along. To show Blake transforming into as well as back from the monster, they use the good old Wolf Man technique of lap dissolves, which always makes me smile just because it's so classic.

The clearest sign that this was a low budget, last minute cash-in on a dying trend is the music. There is not one bit of new music composed for this movie. It's all music from previous movies. Most notably, the music for the opening and ending credits are the same from Tarantula, as well as most of the music from that movie overall being used. You can also hear some music from The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Monolith Monsters, and even some music from horror films as far back as the 1940's. While it's all good music and used very well, it does make it even clearer that this was a really cheap movie.

All in all, Monster on the Campus is a fun, silly monster movie but it's hardly a classic. Most of the characters and actors are a bit bland, there's no original music, and the special effects, while not horrible, are awfully dated. There's no other way to view it other than as a movie that came near the end of the road for a beloved cycle of movies and was more than likely outdated even by that time. As I've said before, Jack Arnold kept on directing after this movie but never again returned to science fiction. While he himself never explained why, one can guess that, after The Incredible Shrinking Man, he probably had nothing else to give in that genre. Or since Monster on the Campus was when Universal decided to stop making sci-fi movies, he could never find another studio that was interested and he just stopped trying. Either way, it was the end of a really great era for monster movies, as well as that of a man who made sci-fi a great genre.

The Directors: Jack Arnold. The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

For many, this is Jack Arnold's best movie and it probably is. It is the film where everything he'd been working on came to a head and crystalized to a clear point. The book Monster Madness was where I first came upon this film. At first, I was a bit disappointed since there really isn't a monster in the movie but as I read the plot, I realized that this could be a very frightening scenario. I later saw some clips of the movie on an AMC documentary about 1950's sci-fi and was really intrigued by what I was seeing. I finally saw the movie when I bought a DVD collection of Universal's 50's sci-fi flicks when I was twenty. While this movie isn't my personal favorite of Arnold's (again, that's Creature from the Black Lagoon), I do think this has to be his crowning achievement in his filmmaking career.

The story of this film is interesting because it has different phases and sections. It begins with the main character, Robert Scott Carey, enjoying a vacation with his wife Louise. While sunbathing on a small boat in the middle of the ocean, Carey comes into contact with a strange cloud (Louise was below deck at the time, so she wasn't affected). Six months pass without incident but one morning, Carey notices that his clothes don't seem to fit. He visits a doctor, who dismisses his initial fears that he's getting smaller but one night when he kisses his wife and sees that he's not taller than her anymore, he realizes that he's shrinking. Eventually, he becomes too small to drive, has to quit his job, and, desperate for money, has to let the press know about his condition. When he's just three feet tall, the doctors find an antidote to what's causing him to shrink but he's stuck at three feet. He meets up with a small woman who works as a sideshow attraction and she inspires him to accept his fate at being stuck at that height. That's when the antidote stops working and he begins shrinking again, eventually becoming small enough to be seen as food by his pet cat and becomes trapped in the cellar by the cat. Now, with his family believing that he was killed by the cat, he must try to survive in the cellar, as he continues to shrink.

My synopses of movies usually aren't that long and detailed but I felt I had to write that in order to get across the various "chapters" of the film's story. It's an interesting idea when you think about it. At that time, sci-fi movies were all about animals turning into giant monsters after being exposed to radiation so Richard Matheson came up with the idea of it having the opposite effect on humans! (The radiation itself doesn't cause him to shrink, actually. It's the combination of it along with some pesticides he accidentally got sprayed with.) I also find it frightening because of how gradual the man's shrinking is. First his clothes simply seem not to fit, then he notices people he used to be taller than are now of equal height with him, his wedding ring slips off his finger, etc. He eventually becomes like a dwarf and later is small enough to be menaced both by his cat and a spider. When something like this is a slow-burn that builds and builds instead of it being instant, I feel that it's much scarier because you become apprehensive about what's going to happen next.

Grant Williams plays the title character, Robert Scott Carey. This had to be a real challenge for him as an actor because he has so many different ranges of emotions he had to go through in this film. He starts out enjoying his vacation with his loving wife but his world is turned upside down when he begins shrinking. I've felt that the only flaw in his performance is when he discovers that he's shrinking. While he is scared, he's just not as freaked out as I think I would be if that was happening to me. I'm not saying he should be on the floor, kicking his heels but I do think he should play it a bit more scared instead of being a little monotone about it. Other than that, his performance is great throughout. When he's down to just three feet tall, he becomes angry with all the attention given to him by the media and he feels like a freak. He takes it out on his poor wife and while he does apologize, he does realize he's losing her. When he meets the young dwarf woman who works at a circus, she gives him the confidence to accept his being stuck at three feet and for a brief period, he's content. But that doesn't last long when he starts shrinking again.

By the time he's small enough to live inside a dollhouse, he's become very tyrannical towards Louise, yelling at her when she rattles the inside of the dollhouse by simply walking. He also becomes paranoid of her leaving him, asking her where she's going and if she'll be right back. That's when their cat gets into the house and begins chasing him, wanting to make a meal out of him. He ends up trapped in the basement and becomes determined to survive, to conquer this strange new world. At one point, he laughs in hysterics, which then turns to frustrated sobbing when he can't get out through the grating of the basement window. He's a prisoner, as he himself narrates, as he's done throughout the entire film. That's another layer of his performance. He tells us what he was going through emotionally during the entirety of the film, adding to what we were already seeing. His feelings are so complex that I guess we needed this narration to fully understand what was going on, especially the ending, which I'll comment on shortly.

The only other important character in the film is Scott's wife, Louise, played by Randy Stuart. She's a very loving and devoted wife, despite what begins happening to her husband and how he lashes out at her. She's determined to stick with him, no matter what happens. The key moment is when she tells Scott that as long as he has his wedding ring, he still has her. As soon as she gets through saying that, the ring slips off his finger: not so subtle foreshadowing of what will eventually happen. When she believes that Scott has been killed by the cat, she mourns him and becomes very depressed, feeling like he needed her and she wasn't there. She's convinced by Scott's brother to leave the house forever and forget what's happened. It's ironic because when she and Charlie, the brother, go downstairs so she can get one last thing, Scott is literally right under their noses but they can't hear him because he's so small. After that, Louise leaves the house and we never see her again. She never found out that Scott was still alive. (Richard Matheson did write a screenplay for a sequel where Louise begins shrinking but the movie was never made.)

Even though she's only in the movie for a very brief period, I did like Clarie, the dwarfed woman played by April Kent. She's the one who's sympathetic to Scott's problem and does give him some hope for the future. She encourages him to continue writing his book chronicling his shrinking and she says that it's well done. In the original novel, their relationship became romantic but in the movie, it's treated as simply a friendship. It's too bad Scott started shrinking again. If he had stayed at three feet, maybe he could have had a happy life with her.

The very visual design of this movie is quite an accomplishment. It's obvious that they just built ordinary objects and furniture larger than normal to make Williams look small but after a while, you spend so much time with him that you forget about it and totally buy it. The most impressive production design is when Scott becomes trapped in the basement and has to use everything at his disposal to survive: nails and threading needles become weapons, a matchbox becomes a shelter, drops of water from a radiator become a fountain for him, pieces of cheese and cake become a buffet, a match becomes a torch, etc. It's all very well done and totally believable. There are some scenes where the effects are a bit obvious, like an actor being in front of a screen to make something look smaller or gigantic but, on the other hand, there are some scenes, like when the three foot Scott is walking among normal sized people, where I have no clue how they did it. They had to have used a real dwarf for the shots where you can't see Williams' face. That's all I can think of.

While there are no monsters in this movie per se, the family cat and a spider do become monstrous to Scott when he becomes the size of an insect. The aforementioned cat, which had been portrayed as a loving pet with a sweet meow, becomes a very threatening creature when he attacks Scott in the dollhouse, snarling really loud as he does so. The facial expressions that the cat gives as he menaces Scott are quite alarming, even more so when you realize this used to be a cat that loved him. And when Scott becomes trapped in the basement, he has a hungry spider as an enemy. The spider is menacing whenever it appears, always accompanied by a threatening music theme. At one point, it chases Scott into his matchbox shelter and frantically tries to get inside to eat him. Scott realizes that he has to kill the spider because its web is around a piece of cake that he needs for nourishment. The final battle between the two of them is exciting. Scott's initial plan to hook the spider to a thread tied to a pair of scissors and send them both falling off the box when he pushes them goes awry when the thread gets snagged on the way down. The spider is particularly threatening here because it starts growling and roaring as it attacks. You can't help but think of Arnold's Tarantula when you watch this section. Scott eventually kills the spider when it's on top of him by stabbing it with a nail.

The ending of this film is not your typical ending. It's not sad or tragic or even happy but just ambiguous. After killing the spider, Scott is so weak that he collapses and when he wakes up, he's now small enough to slip through the window grating he couldn't get through earlier. According to a soliloquy in his narration which closes the film, he realizes that no longer how tiny he gets, he'll still matter in the scope of the universe and accepts his fate. He's now curious about what lies ahead of him in this vast new world. And with that, the film ends. I had to sum up what I believe the ending means because I'm sure some people would watch the movie and wonder about the ending. From what I can gather, that's what the ending is supposed to mean.

The music for this movie, by the usual team of Irving Getz, Hans Salter, and Herman Stein, is also well done. It starts with an interesting, trumpet solo for the opening credits and ranges from shocking, to sympathetic, and full of wonder. The theme for the spider is very threatening, as it should be. (That theme was reused for Monster on the Campus when the aforementioned monster is finally seen in all of his glory.) My favorite piece of the score is at the end, when he journeys into the vast new universe before him and the music is not somber but full of wonder at the adventure that lies before him.

Undoubtedly, The Incredible Shrinking Man has to be Jack Arnold's greatest work. The acting, writing, and effects are all so well done that it's quite remarkable. It's also a shame because after this film, it seemed like Arnold felt he had done the best he could do with the genre and his last sci-fi flick, while enjoyable, was very typical and didn't come close to being this profound.

The Directors: Jack Arnold. Tarantula (1955)

The trailer for this movie was one of many that I saw on that classic video compilation, Fantastic Dinosaurs of the Movies. The trailer for Earth vs. The Spider (which was just called The Spider in the trailer) was also on that compilation and of the two, I took to Tarantula more simply because it looked cooler and the tarantula wasn't constantly screeching like the giant spider in that other trailer. I finally saw the movie when I was twelve when I bought many classic monster movies on VHS. When I watched it, I did enjoy it but it wasn't quite what I was expecting. While I do consider this film to be one of the best giant bug movies that was made in the 1950's, it's obvious that Jack Arnold wasn't content with just doing that type of film.

A horribly deformed man is found dead outside the small desert town of Desert Rock and when he's brought in, he's identified as Eric Jacobs, a scientist working with Prof. Gerald Deemer in a house outside of town. He seems to have died from acromegaly but Dr. Matt Hastings, the town's local physician, isn't so sure because of how quickly he became deformed. Unbeknown to him and the rest of the townspeople, Deemer and his assistants have been working on a powerful nutrient to end the world's food shortage problem and have tested it on several lab animals, causing them to grow to enormous sizes. When Deemer's other assistant, who has also become afflicted with acromegaly, goes crazy and attacks him, an enormous tarantula is set free from the lab and begins stalking the countryside, eventually growing to be as big as a house. The tarantula begins eating livestock and humans, and now Hastings must find a way to help destroy the monster before it destroys the town.

This movie doesn't start at all as you would expect it to. When the Universal-International logo comes up, you hear a slightly sped up version of the Creature from the Black Lagoon main title and then you see the desert. The deformed Eric Jacobs then appears and eventually dies in the hot sun. Until the title Tarantula came up, I thought I'd gotten the wrong movie and thought it was like The Creature Walks Among Us! Like I said, I don't think Arnold was satisfied with just doing a typical giant bug movie. The first half of the movie involves Dr. Hastings and the local sheriff trying to solve the mystery of how Jacobs' acromegaly came up so quickly and what Deemer is working on at his laboratory. Hastings then becomes involved Stephanie "Steve" Clayton, a lab student who's aiming to work with the professor and he learns through her more of what Deemer is doing. There's also a subplot with Deemer having been injected with the nutrient by Paul, his other deformed assistant, while he was unconscious and slowly begins to develop acromegaly as well. With all of this, if it weren't for the constant glimpses of the ever-growing tarantula, you'd forget that it was even part of the movie. The tarantula doesn't even begin to make an impact on the plot until the second half of the film, when it grows big enough to kill livestock and people. Even then, it's kind of superfluous to the overall story. The main plot is about Deemer's experiments and the tarantula is just one part of it that's gotten out of hand. The main characters don't even see it until the movie's almost over.

If you're thinking that I was complaining about the film, you're wrong. I was just noting how odd it was for a giant bug movie to render the actual monster secondary to the plot. I actually think that's kind of smart, to be honest. Since the movie's called Tarantula, you know you're going to see a giant spider but the movie slowly builds up to when you finally see it in all its glory and by that point, you're ready for it and it doesn't disappoint. You might think the movie might be boring since you don't see the tarantula actually cause destruction until fairly late in the movie but Arnold's direction is good enough to keep you interested the whole time.

John Agar returns from Revenge of the Creature to play the lead in this film, Dr. Matt Hastings. As I said in my review of that film, I don't think Agar was the best actor in the world but in this movie, he's actually quite good. As Hastings, he's a charming, likable physician who's dedicated to his work and is determined to solve something that he knows doesn't add up. He does seem to become a bit distracted with courting Steve, the lovely assistant to Prof. Deemer, but he's always on call whenever he's needed. He's also good enough to warn the sheriff when he discovers that there's a giant spider loose in the countryside and tells him to get the state police as well. It's also his idea to get the local air force to drop napalm on the tarantula, which ultimately kills it.

Stephanie "Steve" Clayton, the assistant to Prof. Deemer, is played by the incredibly beautiful Mara Corday. She's different than most women in sci-fi movies around this time because she's an educated science student who's come out to the professor's lab to earn her master's degree. There's even a bit of commentary on the women rights issue that was going at that time, with Hastings jokingly saying, "I knew it. Give women the vote and what do you get? Lady scientists." There's also a statement made because her nickname is a man's name. Other than that, there's not much to say about Steve. She's kind and very curious about the professor's work but by the end of the movie, she is running and screaming from the tarantula, albeit briefly.

The most interesting character in the film, and the best acting job by far, is Prof. Deemer, played by Leo G. Carroll, who also appeared in many Alfred Hitchcock movies. Deemer is a mysterious person, charming but has an aura about him that makes people realize there's something he doesn't want them to know. Although he's conducting dangerous experiments, he's not a mad scientist at all. He intends to help people by finding an end to world hunger. He's well aware of how dangerous his experiments have become but he hides it from the authorities so he can eventually overcome the problem. Unfortunately for him, one of his crazed, acromegaly-stricken assistants injects him with the nutrient, causing him to slowly develop the disease as well. He eventually confesses to Hastings and Steve that the isotope he used to bond the nutrient caused the acromegaly in his assistants when they injected themselves (and is what caused the animals, including the tarantula, to grow to enormous size). Deemer eventually becomes horrifically deformed by the disease but is killed by the tarantula.

Good old Nestor Paiva plays Sheriff Jack Andrews, who enlists Hastings to help him when Jacobs' deformed body is discovered at the beginning of the movie. He's not quite as jokey and is a bit more serious than Lucas in Creature from the Black Lagoon but he does have a sense of humor about him. Even though he asks Hastings to help him, he doesn't like all the inferences he makes toward Deemer lying about what happened and becomes more than a little peeved when Hastings performs an autopsy on Jacobs' body and finds that it was simply acromegaly. However, he's good enough not to hold a grudge and enlists his help again when livestock and people start turning up dead. The only other noteworthy cast member is Ross Elliot as Joe Burch, the high-strung head of the local newspaper. He's not too happy when the sheriff forgets to tell him about Jacobs' death, although he doesn't come across as an asshole. He's actually kind of funny, especially when he hears Hastings suggest that there's a giant spider roaming the countryside (until he sees it for himself, of course). And as he did in Revenge of the Creature the same year, Clint Eastwood has an early, uncredited role as the leader of the jet squadron that ultimately brings the tarantula down. He's wearing a pilot mask so you can't see his face but trust me, it's him.

After dealing with water environments for his two Creature movies, Arnold decided to go back to the desert setting he'd used in It Came from Outer Space. I find the desert used in this movie to be much more spectacular and well-photographed than the one in that film. The atmosphere may not be quite as creepy as that film but there are some great moments. In one scene, Hastings and Steve are enjoying the scenery by a large rock formation when a rockslide suddenly occurs. After they leave, it's revealed that the slide was caused by the tarantula but later, Hastings come back to find out what caused it. As brief as that scene is, the music does help give it an air of mystery as he searches for something strange around the formation. Before that when he and Steve are driving away, he tells her that there are many times in the desert where rocks just move for no reason. (I can vouch for that. I've been in the wilderness in areas where things just move for no reason.) There's another great moment at night when this rancher's horses are in their corral when they suddenly sense the tarantula and become panicked when it appears on a nearby hill.

The special effects used to create the tarantula are actually very well done. Even though it's obvious how it was done, with a real tarantula being matted into the shots to make it look gigantic, it's done with skill and there are only a few instances where you can see a mistake. They also use some well designed models for closeups of the tarantula's face and they even have it let out a loud growl when it attacks. (Honestly, even though I think Them! is a better film overall, I think the actual monster here is pulled off much better than the giant ants in that film.) My favorite scene involving the tarantula is near the end of the film where it slowly approaches the Deemer house and Steve continues working in her bedroom, unaware of what's going on. The music starts off simple enough and builds and builds as the tarantula gets closer to the house, becoming very frantic when its head appears right outside the window. Steve doesn't see it until it's practically on top of the house and it tears it to pieces. Steve manages to get out but Deemer, who's become hideously deformed by this point, is devoured by the tarantula and you actually see its huge fang get him. I also have to mention the makeup effects used to create the acromegaly deformities. They're quite impressive, especially the way Deemer looks before he gets killed. The same guy plays both Eric Jacobs and Paul Lund when they appear deformed at the beginning of the film, which made me think it was the same character the first couple of times I saw the movie. Like Deemer, really good makeup jobs on both of those.

The music by Herman Stein also adds a lot to the movie. I'm not sure how much of it was composed specifically for this movie and how much of it is previously recorded but either way, it all fits together very well. The opening credits music is one of my favorites as well as the ending music (both of which were used again for Arnold's final monster flick, Monster on the Campus), and the music used for the action scenes, including the attacks by the tarantula, all work very well. I already described how suspenseful and tense the music made that scene with the tarantula getting closer and closer to Deemer's house. I'll even say it: this music in this movie is some of my favorites ever used in a 50's sci-fi movie. Very skillfully composed and orchestrated.

From what I can gather, the general opinion on Tarantula is split: some like it, others don't. While it may be one of the most unusual 1950's monster movies and not Arnold's best film, I do think it's one of his finest. The acting is good, the effects are well done, the setting is utilized very well, and the music, especially, is superb. If you like these kinds of movies and haven't seen this one, I'd advise checking it out; just be prepared for a not so typical monster movie.

The Directors: Jack Arnold. It Came from Outer Space (1953)

Funny thing about this movie. Back when I was a little kid and reading those Crestwood House books about classic monster movies, I would read the list of books on the back of each. It Came from Outer Space was listed right below The Deadly Mantis and I thought that was all one movie: The Deadly Mantis: It Came from Outer Space. It took me a while to figure out that those were two separate movies. (Again, I was a moron when I was a kid.) Another ironic thing about this movie was that it was the first sci-fi movie Jack Arnold directed and yet it was the last one I ever saw: as late as when I was twenty-two. I'd heard a lot about it and read up on it, so I was intrigued. While it's not my favorite of Arnold's movies, I do think it's worthy of being regarded as a science fiction classic.

One quiet night in a small desert town called Sand Rock, Arizona, a mysterious object violent crashes in the near an old mine in the desert. John Putnam, an amateur astronomer, and his girlfriend go to investigate the crater and when John walks down into the center of it, he comes across an enormous spaceship. However, the ship is buried by a rock-slide and John's story is ridiculed by the townspeople, including the sheriff. But his story gains credibility when strange things begin happening in and around the town, including bizarre creatures appearing briefly in the night and people disappearing only to return acting strange and distant. John, being a firm believer, comes in contact with the aliens who tell him to warn the townspeople to stay away while they repair their spaceship. But the hotheaded sheriff's inability to wait may end up dooming the town.

This movie wastes no time in establishing a mood. When you see the familiar Universal-International logo, you're immediately hit by the eerie, theramin-heavy score and the first thing you see is the spaceship flying through the night sky, coming straight at the camera and exploding, revealing the title It Came from Outer Space. As this was Universal's first 3-D film, that must have been a jolting way to start it off. It's not even the actual scene, just a way to introduce the 3-D. The movie also starts right then and there, with no other credits. It's only at the end of the film that you get the credits you expect in a 50's film. That's commonplace nowadays but being a movie from the 50's, that really surprised me about this flick.

One thing this movie does incredibly well is creating an eerie atmosphere. The desert setting is used very well, with many camera pans across it that give you the feeling that something's out there (and, of course, we know something's out there). In one scene, John Putnam describes how, even though the desert looks barren and dead, it's really alive, waiting to swallow you up. In another scene where he joins an electrician who's listening to strange sounds in the telephone wires, John is told that when you work in the desert for very long, you hear and see strange things, like the wind whistling to you and such. Both of these scenes contribute to the atmosphere of the location. The desert has always been a strange place, according to them, but it's now even creepier because we know there's something roaming around out there that shouldn't be there.

The aliens themselves and the effects that come with them are also effectively created. We get many looks at the aliens as they really are: they basically look like walking masses of flesh with one enormous eye in the center. They do have arms, although you can't see them in the DVD release because of the aspect ratio. In addition to their looks, they have rather ghostly properties. They're apparently able to glide around, sometimes fast enough to get in front of moving cars, and when they abduct people, they surround them in mist. They're able to take the form of the people they kidnap, which looks particularly bizarre in one moment when you see the mist one alien creates form into a human hand. However, as would be repeated in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the aliens are not very good at seeming normal when they take human form, talking in robotic, echoing voices and seeming emotionally attached. Another precursor to Body Snatchers is when two women who have romantic attachments to two impersonated men notice how odd their lovers are acting and know something's wrong.

The most unusual effects in the film are the POV shots from the aliens that we often see. It looks downright bizarre, like a pulsating form of tunnel-vision with bubble-like characteristics on either side. (Apparently, this technique was created by blowing a specialized type of bubble around the camera lens.) The aliens also leave glowing, phosphorus-like trails that eventually fade out. So, all in all, the aliens in this film are very bizarre and downright creepy for sure.

The lead character, John Putnam, is played Richard Carlson, who, of course, would also star in Creature from the Black Lagoon the following year. Putnam is portrayed a curious amateur astronomer whose need to discover new and unusual things is piqued to the maximum when the spaceship crashes. Of course, no one believes him when he says he saw a spaceship in the crater, even a scientist whom he studied with. That's when we find out that Putnam has always been treated as an outsider by most of the townspeople because of his radical ideas and this alien business doesn't help his reputation with them. There's also a lot of friction between him and the sheriff, who is very protective of Putnam's girlfriend Ellen, and he doesn't want Putnam to drag her down with him in this alien craziness. But Putnam is undeterred. He knows what he saw and wants desperately to find out what the aliens are and what they want. He eventually does come into contact with them and even though they're wary, they trust him enough to tell him to warn the townspeople to stay away while they repair their ship. He also convinces the aliens to show him their true form and when the eventually do, he's horrified by their hideous look. Now he knows why the aliens won't show themselves and he's determined to not only help them get away but also to save the town from the destruction the aliens will cause if they're attacked.

Putnam is also good enough to enter the mineshaft where the aliens are hiding and try to warn them of the mob that's now coming for them. At first, the aliens feel that they have been betrayed and decide to destroy the town with a powerful weapon they possess. Putnam reasons with them and tells them that if they'll release the people they've taken prisoner, it'll show the mob that they mean no harm. The aliens do so and with that, the mob is stalled, the aliens are able to repair their ship, and leave just as swiftly as they came. The movie ends with Putnamsaying that they're not gone for good; it just wasn't time for mankind and their race to meet. To the very end, Putnam knows that the aliens never meant any harm.

Ellen Fields, Putnam's girlfriend, is played by the lovely Barbara Rush. Even though she, like many of the townspeople, doesn't necessarily believe Putnam when he says that he saw a spaceship in the crater, she does stick by him. She's even a lot braver than most women in these types of movies because when Putnam first goes down into the crater, she tries to follow him but he immediately nixes the idea. She also risks losing her job as a schoolteacher by running around with Putnam, looking for aliens. Eventually, she's captured by the aliens and is imitated by one of them (while wearing a rather sexy dress, I might add). That particular alien actually tries to trick Putnam into falling to his death in a pit in the mine when the aliens believe that he has sent a mob after them. Putnam is forced to kill that alien and she, along with the one imitating Frank, one of the telephone line repairmen, are the only two characters in the film who are killed. The real Ellen is eventually released by the aliens along with the other captured townspeople and rejoins her lover.

Charles Drake plays Sheriff Matt Warren. As previously stated, he's one of the many townspeople who thinks Putnam is crazy when he says he saw an alien spacecraft and doesn't like Ellen being involved with him. Warren does say that he used to know Ellen really well but it's never made clear if they ever had a relationship. Either way, he's very protective over her and doesn't want her to be ridiculed as well. But when strange things start happening that he can't explain, Warren has to face facts that there are aliens roaming around the desert. Unlike Putnam, he doesn't trust the aliens at all and fears that they may be lying, that they're actually planning some sort of attack. Their kidnapping Ellen further complicates things and Warren finally snaps, leading a mob to raid the mine the aliens are hiding in. Even though the mob does kill one of the aliens, they let them leave when their ship is finally repaired.

One thing that's unique about this movie is that the aliens are not evil creatures who've come to conquer the Earth. In fact, they never intended to land here in the first place. Their ship has been damaged, forcing them to make an emergency crash-landing and use their powers of imitation to get the necessary parts to repair it. They know full well that humans would be horrified by the way they look and would undoubtedly try to destroy them. Even Putnam, who is sympathetic to them, is revolted when one of the aliens shows itself to him. After that scene, Putnam has a conversation with Warren that drives home the main theme of the movie: tolerance. Whenever we come across something that we don't understand, we react with fear and destroy it. Putnam points to a spider crawling across the ground and asks Warren why he fears. Then he asks what he would do if it came too close to him. Warren proves Putnam's point by going over and stomping it. He tells him that's why the aliens are doing everything to stay away from the townspeople while they repair their ship. Later when Putnam confronts the aliens in the mine, one alien that has turned itself into him decides to destroy the town because he feels they've been betrayed. He says, "All we needed was time!" and apparently, these fearful humans couldn't even give them that. However, Putnam manages to make the aliens understand that they need to prove that they mean no harm and that's when they set their captives free. The aliens needed to trust one human as much as they needed him to trust them.

This was based on a story by the legendary Ray Bradbury and even though Harry Essex is credited with writing the screenplay, Bradbury's original treatment was actually kept with little changes here and there, while Essex took the credit. He has said that it was always his intent to write a story where the aliens weren't evil but he did give the studio a choice by writing an outline with evil aliens as well as what the final film became. Needless to say, Universal decided to go the more interesting route. Whether or not this was also Bradbury's intent, one who knows film history can't help but derive Cold War paranoia and xenophobia from the movie's story as well. Of course, as I said, three years later Invasion of the Body Snatchers would take the concept and really hammer it home.

The film's eerie music score was composed Herman Stein, Irving Getz, and Henry Mancini, who did many scores for sci-fi movies at that time. As Dimitri Tiomkin had done in The Thing from Another World as well as Bernard Herrmann in The Day The Earth Stood Still, the composers for this movie made extensive use of the theramin, mainly to signal the aliens' presence, even when you don't get the POV shots. There's also a lot of music in this film that you would hear in future Universal sci-fi flicks, like the threatening music that plays when the alien reveals itself to Putnam, the music that plays when the aliens finally leave at the end, and what plays over the ending credits. I'm not sure if any of that music was originally composed for this movie but this is the earliest film I can think of hearing it.

It Came from Outer Space may not have quite the amount of fame and critical acclaim as Creature from the Black Lagoon or The Incredible Shrinking Man but there's no denying that it's an effectively simple sci-fi movie. The characters are likable, the atmosphere is eerie and moody, the alien effects are quite chilling, and there's a great message of tolerance in the movie as well. Not my absolute favorite that Jack Arnold did (that would be Creature from the Black Lagoon) but I think it was definitely good enough for him to establish himself as a great sci-fi director.

The Directors: Jack Arnold. Introduction

Here's my first entry in a series I'm going to call The Directors, where I look through the filmography of a filmmaker I greatly admire. Here's how this series works: I will review many films in a director's track record but, with few exceptions, I usually won't talk about every single, solitary film the person has ever made. This could be because either every single film the person has made isn't available to the public; some of the films are part of a franchise and I've already discussed it; some of the films don't stand out and are rather forgettable; or simply because I just don't like those particular films. That may disappoint some of you but, hey, it's my blog so deal with it! (I hope you know that last part was sarcasm.)

Anyway, let's talk about our first subject in the series: Jack Arnold. While you may not recognize the guy's name, if you're a fan of 1950's sci-fi, you should know his films. He practically invented the genre the way it was during that time period, with classics like It Came from Outer Space, his most well known film, Creature from the Black Lagoon and its first sequel, Revenge of the Creature (which I've already reviewed), Tarantula, one of the best giant bug movies of the time, and The Incredible Shrinking Man, which many consider to be his best film. He was a science fiction fan when he was growing up and his love of the genre comes through in his films. He also tended to inject his films with subtle social commentary, some of which was unheard of at the time (like the subtle environmental message in Creature from the Black Lagoon). Interestingly, Arnold's technique of inserting the commentary into these sci-fi flicks was easy to do because, according to the man himself, William Alland, the producer of many science fiction movies at Universal in the 1950's, was only interested in special effects and whether the movie would sell. (Alland, at the same time, said he liked Arnold because he "never got original ideas"!)

Even before his groundbreaking science fiction, Arnold was already an up-and-coming filmmaker; his first film, the documentary With These Hands, was nominated for an Oscar in 1951 for Best Documentary. in 1959, he directed The Mouse That Roared, one of the earliest films to feature Peter Sellers as well as one of the first to make him popular (Sellers, not surprisingly, played multiple roles in the film). Arnold was also a prolific TV director, helming episodes of such popular shows like Perry Mason, Peter Gunn, Gilligan's Island, and The Brady Bunch. His entire filmography in general is interesting. Besides his sci-fi films, he did a teen exploitation film High School Confidential; No Name on the Bullet, a Western with Audie Murphy; a soft-core sex romp, Sex Play; and even some blaxploitation flicks in the 70's (one of which has a title so outrageous that I don't think I can write it!).

As with most people, I first came to know Arnold when I saw Creature from the Black Lagoon and as I watched more 50's sci-fi flicks, I kept seeing his name pop up. After researching about him, that's when I discovered what an influential and, sadly, vastly underrated director he was. For some reason, after he made Monster on the Campus and The Space Children (both in 1958), he never returned to the genre he excelled in. He never said why. His last feature film was The Wackiest Wagon Train in the West in 1976 and he continued working in television until he retired in the early 80's (he was offered a remake of Creature from the Black Lagoon around 1982 by John Landis but the film was never made). He died in 1992 from arteriosclerosis at the age of 75.

My main interest in Jack Arnold is his science fiction from the 1950's and that's what we'll discuss here. Since I've already reviewed the two Creature from the Black Lagoon movies he directed, we'll go through It Came from Outer Space, Tarantula, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and finish up with Monster on the Campus. If you know who Jack Arnold is, I hope you enjoy my personal feelings toward his best films or if you're just getting to know the guy, I hope this will inspire you to find these movies if you've never seen them before. Either way, hope you enjoy this first entry in my Directors series.