Merritt Stone Movies
In this fun-filled adventure-fantasy, a rookie knight embarks upon a valiant quest to save a princess who has been captured by a malicious magician. Along the way he must battle the usual assortment of dragons, ogres and other mythical beings. He is assisted by a good witch who gives him a magic sword. Unfortunately, the magic fails and suddenly he must find his own magic from within. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Basil Rathbone, Estelle Winwood, (more)
In this low-budget, campy horror film, a murderous pianist pays for his crime when body parts from the lover he pushed from a lighthouse come back to haunt him just before he is to marry a prominent socialite. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1958
A man driving along a lonely back road at night is suddenly startled by what he sees, and is promptly killed by something that crashes through his windshield. The next day, in the nearby town of River Falls, teenagers Carol Flynn (June Kenney) and Mike Simpson (Gene Persson) decide to go looking for her father, who didn't get home last night. They find his wrecked truck and enter a nearby cave to begin searching for him. There they find his blood-covered hat and other signs of human remains and, as they go deeper inside, suddenly get trapped in a huge web -- then they spot its maker, a spider the size of a small house. They manage to escape and alert the county sheriff (Gene Roth), who doesn't take them seriously but does heed the warning of Mr. Kingman (Ed Kemmer), the science teacher at the local high school, to bring a pest-control crew along with his deputies, and a tanker loaded with DDT. They encounter the creature, and, after losing one of their men, dispatch it with the insecticide. Kingman persuades the sheriff to bring the carcass into town so that he can arrange to have it studied, leaving it in storage at the high school recreation room, for lack of anywhere bigger to keep it. As it turns out, the creature isn't dead, just stunned. As the local rock & roll band rehearses, the giant spider comes to bloodthirsty consciousness, breaking out of the building and ravaging the town. Bullets won't hurt it -- as Kingman says, you could punch holes in it all day without hitting a vital spot -- and the town is soon cut off when the telephone lines are knocked down. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ed Kemmer, Gene Persson, (more)
Released by RKO, Sword of Venus was independently produced by "B"-flick mavens Aubrey Wisberg, Jack Pollexfen and Albert Zugsmith. Set in the early 19th century, the film stars Robert Clarke as Dantes, the son of the legendary Count of Monte Cristo (the film, in fact, was released in Britain as Island of Monte Cristo). Like his father before him, Dantes is cheated out of his vast estate by villainous conspirators. This time, however, Dantes is able to turn the tables on the bad guys before too much damage can be inflicted. The heroine of Sword of Venus is played by Catherine McLeod, whom baby-boomers of the 1960s will recall as the woman in the Anacin commercials who uttered the immortal phrase, "Mother, PLEASE! I'D RATHER DO IT MYSELF!" ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Clarke, Catherine McLeod, (more)
- 1953
Port Sinister was produced by the team of Aubrey Wisberg and Jack Pollexfen, whose chief claim to fame was the 1951 sci-fi "sleeper" The Man From Planet X. Soldier of fortune Tony Ferris (James Warren) leads an expedition to an island threatened with extinction by a volcano. No, Ferris isn't crazy: it is his belief that the eruption will reveal a fortune in buried pirate treasure. Surrounded by highly suspicious-looking characters, Ferris can trust only his longtime companion, Jean Hunter (Lynne Roberts) -- and even she doesn't seem too trustworthy. Originally distributed by RKO Radio, Port Sinister was re-issued by Realart Pictures in 1961 under the title Beast of Paradise Isle. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Warren, Lynne Roberts, (more)
- 1953
Legendary German director E. A. DuPont didn't have much luck lining up worthwhile projects in Hollywood. DuPont's 1953 potboiler Problem Girls is set in a seedy private school for emotionally disturbed young women. The school's operator (Helen Walker), working in concert with the athletic instructor (James Seay), schemes to pass off a drug-addicted girl (Susan Morrow) as the heiress to an oil fortune. Luckily, school psychologist John Page (Ross Elliot) gets wind of the scheme; unluckily, this puts Page next in line on the villains' ever-mounting "hit list." Essentially an excuse to parade a group of buxom young starlets across the screen, Problem Girls was a far cry from such earlier DuPont films as Variety and Atlantic. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Helen Walker, Ross Elliott, (more)
