At last, the final episode of Season 1! What a relief! While I have enjoyed my journey through the early days of MST3K, it must be said that the far lower quality of the writing was a bit trying at time, as was the presence of Dr. Earhart instead of TV’s Frank.
So, anyway, the final episode, the Black Scorpion (in retrospect, I really should have saved ‘Women of the Prehistoric Planet” for now, since it was really the last episode, and obviously so. Oh well). This is one of the better films they viewed, primarily because of the great stop-motion effects from the master himself, Willis O’Brien (for those who don’t know, he was the man who created King Kong). Other than that, however, it’s a pretty standard big bug film from the fifties, of which there were dozens. This one stars (obviously) scorpions. This instantly endears the film to me, since I’m a big scorpion fan. I wouldn’t want to find one in my shoe, of course, but from a safe distance I think they’re some of the coolest creatures in the world; they’re little monsters in the best sense of the word, with their sharp claws and arching tail.
The film further endears itself by the presence of Mara Corday. One of the few recurring actresses in fifties sci-fi, Ms. Corday was probably the best looking of the bunch, with her rather exotic beauty. Fans of the period all know and love her, and she almost always scores a film points just by being there.
Richard Denning is another familiar face, having co-starred in ‘Creature From the Black Lagoon’ as the mean scientist. He plays the hero here, a scientist (of course) sent to investigate volcanic eruptions in Mexico (where everyone habitually speaks English). He kind of reminds me of John Agar here, only much less smug and annoying. He’s teamed with a Mexican scientist who doesn’t really do much except act as a buddy, has a meet-cute with Mara, and discovers that something is really wrong apart from the eruptions. Anyway, long story short, giant, prehistoric (possibly mutated) scorpions have been released and are tearing up the countryside. Denning and his friend (and a very annoying stow-away kid) track them to their lair (in a very cool sequence) and seal them in, but some of them get out and the biggest one kills the others and attacks Mexico City, where it is killed by an electrical cable fired into its throat.
The film is kind of fun, and things move along well. The scorpions look awesome (except for some very silly close ups of a slobbering model that O’Brien clearly had nothing to do with), and Corday and Denning are old pros and keep things going. The riffing is pretty good, but not outstanding, and the host segments are generally middle of the road.
Thoughts while Watching
Wohoo! Last episode of Season 1!
The sound’s a bit off in this tape. Nuts.
Opening: The bots are throwing Joel a party. It’s kind of weird; they just kind of stand there and frugue. It’s pretty amusing.
Invention exchange: The mads are mutated. The make-up on Dr. Earhart is surprisingly good; he looks really freaky. Joel has a giant party favor. It’s pretty funny, especially how Dr. Earhart has the exact same invention as Joel.
Dr. F. gets a film fact wrong; he says the effects are by Ray Harryhausen; as Joel and the bots will soon learn, they were by Willis O’Brien; Harryhausen’s mentor and the creator of King Kong.
Joel: “Guys, get out of the way, that’s why you’re dying!”
Joel and the bots are roasting giant hot-dogs over the volcano! They were pretty weird back then.
Typically rugged American scientists. And they give some naked exposition. The one guy looks kind of like John Agar (as noted above, it’s actually Richard Denning).
Ah, I love these old fifties sci-fi flicks; the manly, genial, though slightly-condescending scientist heroes, the black-and-white, the long discussions on Science…good times.
They use the sound-effects from the classic ‘Them!’ are reused here, plus some random roars.
Servo: “I’ll just move this high-tension power line with this piece of metal. Just let me dip it in water first.”
Wreckage, mysterious happenings, ect.
Crow: “…and a card saying ‘Black Scorpion wrecking service’”
Wait, why is the policeman on the radio speaking English? And why is he Paul Frees? I guess maybe they’re ‘really’ speaking Spanish.
The first canned applause. They’ll do this every time the Mexican scientist is mentioned by name (and a few other times).
‘Tense’ scene where they think there might be a rattler somewhere. In the deserted village. Why are they searching for it, then? Well…so they can find the baby who is the sole survivor. And a pretty happy baby, all things considered.
They find the dead cop when a tree randomly falls.
Wait, did I just hear a cue from ‘Godzilla?!’
Well, so much for the ‘they’re really speaking Spanish’ thing.
Now the baby starts crying! His village and family are horribly devoured and he just sits there and plays with his rattle, but the instant he hits town, he bawls his head off!
Servo: “The Milling About Festival continues well into the night.”
First host segment: Cross-cultural learning experience. Cambot translates their pseudo-Spanish. “Please end this stupidity; I’m hemorrhaging.” Pretty good.
Hero leers at the girl. Incidentally, these are the magical zoom and alternate-angle binoculars you see in these things.
By the way, the girl is played by the very beautiful Mara Corday; she was in a few of these things and always a welcome presence.
Mara: “You’re very kind!”
Crow (as the other guy): “No he’s not, I’m kinder!”
Joel (guy looks at a rock): “What? ‘Thou shalt not ki?’ what does that mean?”
I love how all the guys take their hats off for Mara. Ah, for a better time…
Joel (after Mara’s ‘rousing’ speech to her men): “Ah, looks like the answer’s no.”
Hah! The scientist looks like the werewolf from ‘Mad Monster!’
Servo: “The Great Valasco; juggler, sword-swallower, and pathologist extraordinaire.”
Servo (as the Mexicans charge on horseback): “Don’t forget the Alamo! No, we can do better, uh, Davy Crocket is a dork! No, uh remember…”
Man those big Mexican houses are awesome!
Annoying kid. For some reason filmmakers put a lot of them in movies like this.
Servo: “Meanwhile, back at the dog.”
Crow: “Jerry Mathers as the Beavero.”
Hero starts flirting with the girl.
Crow: “Let me put my new Leonard Nimoy album on; he sings ‘the Ballad of Bilbo Baggins’”
Man, I would pay good money for that.
Yeah, the scorpion is still alive after being encased in lava. Right. And it squeaks!
Hero: “You know, I could throw this scorpion out the window and then we’d really be alone.”
Servo: “Well, except for the dog, the cook, the small boy, and your friend.”
The Scorpions show up and eat the line men. The effects here are really good; except the just plain goofy close-ups of the scorpion-face mock-up.
Servo: “The line’s been bugged!”
Servo: “Look, Kid, the dog obviously doesn’t like you!”
The kid has to be told to run away from the huge monster
Joel: “Mrs. Butterworth, help!”
Second Host segment: The bots discuss Joel’s odd habits, like sleeping and shaving. Gypsy shows up dressed as the Black Scorpion. She eats Servo. It’s pretty good.
The scorpion attacks the village, etc.
Apparently the Scorpion is supposed to be prehistoric. Yeah, bugs were big back then, but not THAT big!
Crow: “And we have giant, forty-foot pincers! No, wait, that’s the scorpions.”
Mara insists on helping, mostly so they can keep her in the film. The fact that they provide some semblance of reason for her to be there is more than some films like this do. Frankly, though, it’s Mara Corday; you don’t need a reason to keep her on screen.
Crow (as the kid lists what he can do): “Yeah, yeah, we know you’re super-boy. Too bad you can’t act.”
Lots of golf jokes here, for some reason. They’re pretty amusing, but it’s kind of odd that they stick with the bit so much.
They pretend to be standing on the edge of the crater; it’s pretty clear they’re just on a slight hill.
The standard ‘why you?’ speech. Ends with a kiss. Frankly, I think going down into a deadly, monster-infested volcano would be worth it to kiss Mara Corday.
Joel: “Uh, Hal, why don’t you go and stand next to the creature so I can get a sense of scale?”
Crow and Servo do a lot of Jacque Cousteau (I’m assuming) here.
Oh, come on; the cage is about three-foot square; how did the kid hide out in there? Incidentally, I’m going to again reinforce how annoying this kid is. It’s bad enough when the kid is just talking, but now he’s stupidly endangering our heroes. And they can’t just let him die, because he’s a kid!
They all act shocked when hearing that the guy who had earlier fell in the volcano is dead. Again, he fell into a *volcano,* what did they expect?
Lots of scorpions. This is a pretty cool sequence.
Monster fight! Scorpion versus worm! Awesome! Now scorpion against scorpion! Now a really big scorpion!
Joel (as guy keeps taking pictures): “Make sure they can see us, thanks.”
Trap-door spider goes after kid! Get him, get him! (yeah, likes that’s gonna happen)
Scorpion attacks the cage!
Joel: “Oh, well, this isn’t good, not at all, I mean, I’ve seen good before and it didn’t look like this. You remember that bad thing we saw, well, it looked like this.”
Guy rides up on the cord.
Joel (after the guy is brought up): “Well, how was it?”
Crow: “Oh, I’ll send the rope back down for you, I promise. By the way, can I have your bike?”
Wait, to scale that was a HUGE explosion!
Hero guy seems kind of sure of himself with the girl. Especially considering it’s, you know, Mara Corday. Still, Richard Denning is more appealing than some fifties heroes I can think of (coughjohnagarcough).
And they bring Mara along to the defense council meeting. This is an observation, not a complaint.
Third Host Segment: they talk about Willis O’Brien. They give some pretty good info here, and are pleasingly respectful (and the little Joel model is cute). It’s a pretty good segment.
Crow does a few Dr. Strangelove jokes here.
Joel: “It’s Walt Disney and friends!”
Ah, they worry about the ‘panic’ that would result if the populace found out about the monster. How many variations on that theme have there been?
Joel: “Hey, look at me, I’m a rubix-cube all of a sudden.”
Ah, a train-attack; one of the standard scenarios of monster movies.
They used stock-footage from earlier in the movie!
They use the same shot of the train entering a tunnel FOUR TIMES in less than two minutes!
Man, the effects here are awesome!
Servo (as the train crashes into the scorpion): “Hey, this isn’t my fault, I’m taking no kind of pay-cut for this!”
Joel: “Uh, we at M-Track would like to apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, this hardly ever happens.”
Man, this is an awesome sequence.
Crow: “Now for you folks playing at home, keep in mind scorpions, unless genetically mutated, do not growl.”
More Paul Frees; that’s three roles for him in this film: the narrator, the police radio-man, and the news announcer.
Panic scenes, etc. God, I love this stuff!
They ran out of money here…(they just matte the scorpion’s silhouette in; it looks SO bad).
Joel: “You are looking live at blasted-out Balagro Stadium, where just in a few minutes, puny local authorities will attempt to take on a giant, blood-thirsty, genetically-bloated scorpion!”
Joel: “A fabulous arsenal is assembled; tanks, fire-power, snow-plows, chevys…huh?”
Servo: “Well, the missiles didn’t work, let’s send in the bulldozers.”
The scorpion looks awesome here, but the fight is really repetitive.
The sergeant is really stupid here; in fact, everyone involved is really stupid; he grabs the electric harpoon-thing and no one thinks to turn it off in time.
And hero-guy takes the harpoon. Of course he hits directly.
Why are the tanks still shooting at it? It’s dying and they have no effect anyway.
And the Scorpion is dead.
Wait, is that one scientist suggesting they make an antidote ‘in case they ever come back?’ Uh, I think the main problem is the fact that their fifty-feet long, not their venom!
Closing segment: letters. Mildly amusing, especially the letter to Crow. The last we see of Dr. Earhart, he steps off stage waving briefly. I’m not sorry to see him go, but it’s still a little bittersweet (again, meaning no disrespect to Josh Weinstein, who I thought did a great job as Servo, but Dr. Earhart just doesn’t work for me).
Movie Quality Rating:
1. The Crawling Eye
2. The Black Scorpion
3. Mad Monster
4. Moon Zero Two
5. The Crawling Hand
6. The Corpse Vanishes
7. Untamed Youth
8. The Slime People
9. Project Moonbase
10. Women of the Prehistoric Planet
11. Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy
12. Robot Holocaust
13. Robot Monster
Conclusion: A fun movie (did I mention it has Mara Corday?), some decent riffing, and okay host-segments make for a good closer to season 1.
Final Rating: 7/10
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