Well a couple of opening house-keeping notes; first, I ‘m sorry I missed last week (just in case anyone noticed); a conspiracy of the internet services here at school and World of Warcraft served to rob me of my internet for the weekend.
Also, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m still playing with the format of these reviews; here I’m trying a new format. See what you think.
So; episode 103; Mad Monster. I wasn’t very excited about reviewing this one; I hadn’t heard much about it, and what I had heard was that it was one of the weaker episodes in the series.
Well, to an extent that’s true; the riffing is sparse and often weak; sometimes to the point that I pretty much forgot that it was there at all. The good news, however, is that they were watching a type of movie which I enjoy quite a bit; the black-and-white monster on the loose movies from the thirties and forties. This one is actually a kind of fun little movie; it stars George Zucco as a Mad Scientist who believes he can turn humans into animal-human hybrids (read: Wolfmen). Of course he was laughed at, and now he plans to unleash the proof of his theories (played by Glenn Strange) on his doubters. Sound familiar? Of course; this plot was used I don’t know how many times in movies like this all the way up to the present day (just watch one of those ‘original features’ on Sci-fi sometime. No, on second thought, don’t). Still, the film’s very clicheness adds to its charm, as does a fun performance by Zucco, who was an old pro at this.
Again, the film was preceded by ‘Commando Cody.’ Again, this is a rather lame serial, but for me any serial is fun, so I enjoyed this part; and it involved some good quips.
Below are my thoughts as I watched:
Immediately go to commercials from opening song; interesting.
Opening segment; the Mads discuss how they went mad. This reminds me of ‘Narbonic’ and is pretty darn funny.
Nice invention exchange; really had fire on the brain.
Again, no bots until the theater.
“I’ve got to get wheels for you sometime.” Joel to Tom.
So, the aliens have to reload their ray guns?
I like how Cody just strolls out after punching out those two guys.
Again, I love serials.
Those are some goofy-ass helmets the humans have.
“Earth-chair! Earth-chair!” – Crow
Hey! The moon-men’s helmets will later be found on Ro-Man!
That moon-car looks like it’ll tip over any minute.
“Maybe you could use the gun. You know, the big one that blows up things? Like moon-cars perhaps?” –Tom.
Hey, this exact same death-trap was used in Captain Marvel – they even use stock footage from that one! Lots of it! That is more than a little off-putting, as Captain Marvel is one of the best serials of them all and seeing stock-footage from that one in this one is…annoying (a few seasons down the line, we will get the mother of all ‘good-movie-in-bad-movie’ stock footage).
First Host Segment; Tom hits on a blender. Josh is great! “Nobody drinks from my gal! I’m in love and you’re drinking from her!” Classic! This one is really funny.
First film by Sam Newfield; he’ll be showing up with some regularity.
I don’t know why, but I love the way Crow says “He’ll have him housebroken soon, and it WILL be painful!”
The sound in this movie is terrible; it’s so hard to understand what they’re saying!
That’s Glenn Strange as the monster/handy-man. Strange is probably best known for being the Frankenstein Monster in ‘House of Frankenstein’ and ‘Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein.’ It’s his image, not Boris Karloff, that most people think of when they think of Frankenstein; the stiff, slow, arms-outstretched monster.
“A cure for baldness at last!” – Joel.
“Now Bing-o is his name-o!” – Tom.
Again, how many variations of this plot have there been over the years? Probably thousands.
One of their thankfully rare political jokes; identifying the wolf-men with Republicans.
“I’ve revolutionized shaving forever!” – Tom
Strange is pretty stiff, but I kind of like his character; I like those simple, gentle strong-guys.
And George Zucco as the mad scientist. Zucco mostly played mad scientists like this, although he is best known as Prof. Moriarty in ‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.’ Again, he’s a lot of fun.
“Gardening always takes a back-seat to science! Always!” – Tom
Zucco is very good at these high-class, but genuinely mean characters. I like the way he casually insults Glenn Strange’s Pedro. And again, I like Pedro; his moaning that he wished he was educated is cliché, but a nice cliché.
So how does Zucco intend to direct his werewolf of vengeance? Of course, that’s a common problem in these things.
“That felt good. Now I’m going to go turn my daughter into a woodchuck.” – Tom
Joel calls Tom Crow! They seem a little annoyed.
Hey did they actually…I think they actually killed the kid! That takes guts in films like these!
So, what was the point of sending him out to kill a random person? And why did the wolf-man just kill one person?
Second host-segment; not so funny. They just talk about eating people. Mildly amusing, but I tend not to like these pure-dialogue segments, particularly this early.
Oh, yes, they did kill the kid.
This reporter-hero guy is annoying as hell. He’s been on screen for about a minute and I hate him already. I’m having visions of the scene in ‘The Shootist’ when John Wayne interrupts an equally annoying reporter by sticking a gun in his mouth. Unlikely, but I can dream, can’t I?
Oh, another thing I like about Glenn Strange; I like the way he looks around when he sits in the nice city apartment, completely ignoring what the two scientists are saying.
Thus far the riffing is sparse and mild enough to be almost unnoticeable. Fortunately, the movie is lame as all get out, but watchable enough.
“It’s injection time!” – Tom
I like their riffs trying to guide the scientist to Pedro. “No, it’s not outside!”
Okay, this transformation took way longer than the previous ones! I think I smell padding.
“Finally, I get my harmonica back.” – Crow
Reporter hero again.
But now Pedro again. Ah, better. Strange is stiff, and not a particularly good actor, but he really isn’t too bad here. And Zucco is good too. The girl, though, is just stiff.
Zucco’s yelling speech here is hilarious, especially since he’s trying to reassure his daughter.
Gah, reporter guy! He jokes about the monster to the guy whose daughter got killed. If I were that guy, I’d smash that lantern on his insensitive head.
So, why is the wolf-man out at all? Oh, he reverted without Zucco’s knowledge. That could have been set up a LOT better.
Servo says it well; “Pedro took a shotgun blast to the chest, but he’s afraid of a whip, something’s wrong.”
I love the way Zucco has to climb ONTO Pedro to give him his shot!
God, I hate the reporter guy. And he’s stupid too. “I saw another murder done the same way. Maybe they’re connected.” Gee, yah think?!
So, this guy is the girl’s boyfriend? No, wait, this guy is ANYONE’S girlfriend? I over think this romance thing, don’t I?
Oh, please let Zucco’s comments be foreshadowing! Something about “I will show you the results of my research,”
Third Host Segment; Joel switches the bot’s heads. “You turned us into mutants for a PUN Joel!” Their complaints and final decision to conquer the world are pretty funny. It is surprising to see Joel just turn them off like that, though.
Okay, there’s not a lot of time left and there’s still three scientists left to kill; they’d better hurry it up (and get the reporter while you’re at it).
Dead Meat Scientist pronounced ‘secretive’ “see-CREE-tive.“
Dead Meat Scientist: “You’re crazy!”
Tom: “Uh, I wouldn’t say that to him if I were you.”
Good advice, Tom.
Again, Zucco is a lot of fun here.
“Why does he have to kill them to prove his point? Couldn’t he just show them a pie-chart or something?” – Tom
Zucco gets a big maniacal laugh moment. Good times.
You know, where is this film set anyway? Why is there a tropical swamp-land around Zucco’s house? This looks like the set from ‘The Most Dangerous Game.’
Why was the wolf-man carrying the dead guy anyway? Wait; he’s still alive? What? So the Wolf-man attacks him while he’s driving, knocks him unconscious and carries him around the swamp a while, then drops him. What?
“You turn your gardener into a beast, your garden goes to pot.” – Crow
And they bring him to Zucco’s house. Well, this sort of blows his whole plan up in his face.
“Now I’m gonna have to kill him all over again.” – Joel.
Good, Zucco’s getting mad at the reporter (for no real reason, but he doesn’t need one). I hope he kills him!
Wait, so she can’t put two and two together; Pedro is acting strange and he was with the guy when he was attacked. This girl is dense as a black-hole.
Uh-oh, they’re leaving the girl alone.
“Hey, it’s Skipper! Dad lied when he said he ran over her with the car!” – Joel.
And now she’s poking around the lab. Ladies, if you ever stumble upon anything that remotely resembles a secret lab, don’t poke around. RUN!
Reporter: “I haven’t even started to be unpleasant!” Yes, you have, buddy!
What the…so lightening goes through the window and ignites the chemicals on the desk…nope, not contrived at all.
No, Pedro! Not yet! There’s still the reporter guy to kill! You won’t be able to kill anyone after you kill Zucco!
So, we have a werewolf who strangles people?
Why does reporter guy get top billing? Zucco is in it about twice as much (thank goodness).
Final segment: Ram Chips. Weird discussion by the bots. Really weird. This sounds almost ad-libed.
Final analysis; a serial, a fun movie, and a couple of good host segments makes up for lack-luster riffing.
5/10.
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