Ghost in the Invisible Bikini 1966 ***

Dir: Don Weis

Stars: Tommy Kirk, Aron Kincaid, Boris Karloff, Nancy Sinatra, Harvey Lembeck, Monstro the Gorilla

This is not the most obscure of films, but in terms of what it provides for bizarre enjoyment, it's tops. This is considered one of the AIP "beach" films, but it's missing several ingredients - there's no Frankie, no Annette, and no beach. But it compensates, does it ever, with Boris Karloff, Basil Rathbone, and a haunted house, just for starters. Not an awful lot of movies have scenes of biker gangs, go-go bikini dancing, ghosts, gorillas, dungeons and wax statues, but this one does, and more.

The main plot involves Karloff as elderly Hiram Stokely discovering he is dead and that he has to do a good deed or he goes to the bad place. So he oversees a weekend get together of relatives to make sure the inheritance goes to the right place. One thing leads to another and soon groups of teens are doing the monkey and every other current dance out by the swimming pool, to the swinging sounds of Nancy Sinatra and the Bobby Fuller Four. The song performed there, "Geronimo", is probably the best song in the picture, per se, but a couple of the other songs are well worth it due simply to their strange incongruity. For instance, at one point baddie Basil's daughter, the shapely Sinestra, is supposed to use her feminine wiles to fool heir Kincaid into drinking some poison. Only trouble is, gee whiz, Sin loses her glasses and ends up singing her song to a suit of armour, shimmying nicely all the while.

A circus caravan with a gorilla shows up, and then Eric Von Zipper and his bikers as well, and soon all sorts of hallway hijinks are taking place in the mansion as secret passageways are uncovered. Everyone winds up in the secret dungeon where, after some Perils of Pauline action with a mill saw - in which a young heiress is nearly cut off from the will, as it were - all is well and the youngsters start a kah-razy dance party in the dungeon. Oh, yeah, and all the while the former Mrs. Stokely, who died many years ago, is appearing as a ghost in an invisible bikini.

This is no masterwork of acting, and there are practically no close-ups, except on Boris, with many extended stationary longshots. But the flick is definitely groovy fun.

Cat-Women of the Moon 1953 ***

Dir: Arthur Hilton

Stars: Marie Windsor, Sonny Tufts, Victor Jory, The Hollywood Cover Girls

Man makes a small step onto the moon for the first time and finds a society of telepathic women living in caves where there remains a breathable atmosphere. The women plan to steal the earthmen’s rocket and use their powers to take over the world, but first they must perform a strange space pilates to wonderful music by Elmer Bernstein that sounds more Biblical epic than space movie, but those are just some of the unconventional elements that makes the film a lot of fun. (Bernstein did the score for Ten Commandments, thus the Biblical epic connection.) We got a revolver brought along on the rocket ship, we got throwing a cigarette onto the bright side of the moon where it explodes into flames. The olden days when space was magic and exotic. There are also giant spiders on quite visible wires, and some space-double entendres: “If you take me on board your rocketship I’ll let you into my cave of gold.” Or something along those lines, I might have bent it a little. There’s even a bit of a love triangle among the astronauts which, given the news of a few years ago, turns out the be the most prescient element. The movie seems very fantastical, but it is taking place in space...it just might be that in 1969, the "future" year when the film takes place Cat-Women were found on the moon, only the government doesn’t want you to know. For all we know, this film may be a documentary presented as fiction to hide the truth in plain sight. Space may be as magical as we always thought, but who’s funneling the info?

Weng Weng For Your Height Only 1981 ***

Directed by: Eddie Nicart

Stars: Weng Weng, Max Alvareado, Mike Cohen

Never mind what the poster says, in the version I watched this diminutive superspy is usually called Agent Double O. He's irresistible to the ladies and he uses his small size to his advantage in hand to hand combat, swinging on a rifle that a thug's holding in order to kick that same thug in the face, for instance. I quote from some of the notes by Ian Jane on the Filipino phenom, contained in the "Appreciation" section of the DVD:

"A role model to all of us, his adventures prove that the human spirit can overcome any obstacle that gets in your way, and if you can't, a swift punch to the balls goes a long way..."

Even without its unusual hero and unique fight scenes, this would be a fairly surreal foreign action film. The overdubbing is a lot of fun as those responsible have the bad guys speaking in bad Bogie impressions and like forties gangsters, saying things like "poimanently". Lots of flamboyant late seventies attire is another highlight, worn while dancing to a bogus ripoff of "Boogie Wonderland".

Manos: The Hands of Fate 1966 **1/2

Dir: Harold P. Warren

Stars: Tom Neyman, John Reynolds, Harold P. Warren, Diane Mahree

One of the most polarizing films in b-dom, some b-aficionados consider it too genuinely bad to be a b-classic, others regard it very highly, including one Quentin Tarantino who according to IMDB actually owns an original print of it. It's almost a dead cert that it influenced David Lynch in some way with its long shots, surreal qualities and creepy characters. My own feeling is that it is a b-classic but that unlike say Plan 9, Spider-baby, or Faster Pussycat, is not one that can be watched over and over, at least within a short span. Partly this is due to what makes it so distinct, the very loooong slowly paced scenes, which are kind of mesmerizing in their bizarreness, and may be some unintentional realism you don't see in most movies, in the sense that life often happens at a slow pace. I seem to remember that Hitchcock once said something about how melodrama is life with the boring parts taken out...by which definition Manos may not be melodrama, but it is a distinct work, and how many things can you say that about?

Some performances deserve credit. Tom Neyman plays the "Master", and is quite genuinely intimidating with his glaring eyes and his scowl. He is a cult leader who has a whole bevy of wives who go into some kind of trance or standing coma during the day time. One of the things that is most made fun of in the film is how strange the speech of the wives is, as when one is discussing the fate of some intruders into their secret hideaway and first wants to spare the woman, then in the next sentence declares that they all must die. But I rather think that, while it may be due more to ineptness than design in the writing, it actually reflects the off-kilter mental state of thralls of a cult, so is actually more convincing than if everything they said was consistent.

Probably by now the films most famous element is the unforgettable character Torgo, portrayed by John Reynolds in a reported drug induced stupor. His uneven way of phrasing such lines as "The master would not approve" have become iconic. Reynolds sadly died shortly after the shoot, so it is nice he has achieved some immortality as a subject of - if I can juxtapose these words - fond derision.