Is it a Western?
Is it a Horror?
Is it a Sci-fi?
NO!
It’s a monster case of Teenage angst!
Produced by Jacques R. Marquette, Dale Tate
Written by Ray Buffum
Music by Walter Greene
Cinematography: Taylor Byars
Edited by Irving M. Schoenberg
Distributed by Marquette Productions Limited
Running time: 65 minutes
Budget: $57,000 (approx.)
Cast
Anne Gwynne: Ruth Cannon
Stuart Wade: Sheriff Bob Lehman
Gloria Castillo: Kathy North
Chuck Courtney: Marv Howell
Gil Perkins: Charles Cannon
Norman Leavitt: Deputy Ed
Gabe Mooradian: Fred Fox
Stephen Parker: Charles Cannon as a Boy
Jim McCullough Sr: Jim Cannon
Frank Davis: Man on Street
Arthur Berkeley: Man with Burro
Trailer
One day while Charlie goes to help his father at the mine, a strange object falls from the heavens, killing Jim and badly injuring Charlie.
Later on, after the long-awaited discovery of a rich gold vein in the mine, Ruth goes into town with an ore sample to have it evaluated by the assayer, Fred Fox.
While the ore sample is being appraised, Ruth dines with sheriff Bob, who has long held hopes that Ruth will move into town and accept his offer of marriage. Suddenly, Bob's deputy, Ed rushes in to report that a dead man has been found outside of town. When Ed mentions that this killing is similar to an unsolved murder that occurred the year before, Ruth quickly puts two and two together and comes up with her son, Charlie as being the culprit.
Ruth soon learns that the mine strike is successful and genuine. She then decides to negotiate a deal to buy Fox's house at the edge of town, hoping that this will be a positive environment for Charlie.
When Ruth returns home, she finds Kathy passed out in the closet where Charlie has hidden her. After reviving Kathy, Ruth admits to her that Charlie is her son and offers to pay Kathy $500 a month to remain silent about him. Ruth also suggests that Kathy become her companion which would help to explain how Ruth could be in possession of so much money.
A few days later, Kathy meets her boyfriend, Marv Howell, who is obviously only intent on using her to obtain money. When he discovers the $500 in Kathy's purse, he assumes that she has stolen it. He then threatens to expose her and takes the money.
While overhearing Bob once again proposing to Ruth, Kathy works on Charlie’s jealousy and anger by convincing him that Ruth wants to abandon him.
Points of Interest
The film was made as a cheap half of a double feature with The Brain from Planet Arous (1957).
Cinematographer Jacques R. Marquette kept production costs low by shooting the picture himself and hiring an inexpensive director who actually wound up quitting the day before principal photography was to begin, claiming that he had been offered a 14-week contract by a major studio. Marquette’s solution to this development was take over the job himself, making this his only film as director. The job of cinematographer was given to a new cameraman whose first job was on this film!
The new director of photography was inexperienced in shooting “day for night,” and so the entire first day's "day for night" shooting had to be scrapped because an acceptable image could not be printed from the resulting underexposed camera negative.
Cinematographer Jacques R. Marquette kept production costs low by shooting the picture himself and hiring an inexpensive director who actually wound up quitting the day before principal photography was to begin, claiming that he had been offered a 14-week contract by a major studio. Marquette’s solution to this development was take over the job himself, making this his only film as director. The job of cinematographer was given to a new cameraman whose first job was on this film!
The new director of photography was inexperienced in shooting “day for night,” and so the entire first day's "day for night" shooting had to be scrapped because an acceptable image could not be printed from the resulting underexposed camera negative.
Anne Gwynne
Charlie was played by stuntman Gil Perkins who was over fifty years of age at the time and was a former “Wolf Man” and “Frankenstein” monster double from the Universal horror classics of the 1940s.
Gloria Castillo who we saw in Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957) probably gave the best performance in the film as the scheming and ruthless waitress. She wound up being more of a “Teenage Monster” than was Charlie!
The film’s most important feature is its portrayal of what teenagers often find themselves dealing with: unfamiliar and complex feelings and emotions; inappropriate and destructive ways of dealing with problems such as lashing out at those around them; exploring relationships with the opposite sex; holding naïve notions of Love; feelings of betrayal, etc.,
Teenage Mutant Monster
Times were tough when you were just a kid,
And no matter what your father said or did,
Your mother was there to make things right
And pierce the darkness with her light.
Lucky strike dreams kept nightmares at bay
Until death descended and to your dismay
You waved goodbye to unhappy childhood
And took up a path much misunderstood.
While Tree of Life sheds days like leaves of Fall
You become so strong and grown so tall,
Yet still just a child but not quite an adult,
But what you’ve become, it’s not all your fault.
You cannot live in a world that shuns difference
And recoils in horror from your appearance,
Nor can you comprehend the world’s cruel taunts
With a mangled mind that knows not what it wants.
Why is that you manage to destroy
That which you only wish to enjoy?
What are these rushes of rage and frustration
Each an uncontrollable and terrible sensation?
You act as if to confirm prevalent perceptions
Of you and your kind’s apparent aberrations;
Solutions are sought to keep you out of the way:
A cramped, cribbed and confined castaway.
Resentment rises and roars out disobedience;
Impulse impels you to seek out experience,
To be caught in the seductive embrace of temptation
That she-monster of deception and self-destruction.
Jealousy reigns not knowing who or what to believe,
Lately learning those you know and love may deceive,
Worsened by a love that excuses all that you’ve committed
Of crimes for which you have no right to be acquitted.
“There atop a cliff, I the precipice await
You Monster, pushed there by many hands of Fate,
Guided by your own footsteps toward the abyss,
To put an end to your internal apocalypse.”
©Chris Christopoulos 2017
No comments:
Post a Comment