Tor Johnson Movies

This groaner from profoundly untalented "auteur" Coleman Francis involves the scenario (one couldn't exactly call it a 'story') of a tubby Soviet scientist (Tor Johnson -- who else?) who is pursued by nefarious agents into a nuclear testing area, whereupon an A-bomb blast infuses him with enough radiation to power a small Midwestern town. Supposedly transformed into a rampaging monster, Tor looks exactly the same, albeit with tattered clothing and a constipated expression. In the fine tradition of The Creeping Terror and Coleman Francis's own Red Zone Cuba (starring the director himself, who resembles Tor's scrappy older brother), this is shot with virtually no dialogue and overlaid with hilariously pretentious and obtuse narration... the phrase "a flag on the moon" pops up so often it could be used in a drinking game. The most enjoyable aspect of this movie is its remarkably short running time. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

Night of the Ghouls (which was also known as Revenge of the Dead) was Edward D. Wood Jr.'s first attempt at making a horror film without any contribution, either in a true performance or through the presence of archival footage, from Bela Lugosi, who had died three years earlier. The plot, which was as confusing as most of Wood's scripts, seems to make it a sequel to Bride of the Monster and, to a lesser degree, Plan 9 From Outer Space, incorporating events and characters from both, including Paul Marco's portrayal of the ubiquitous Officer Kelton. (Indeed, some Wood scholars have referred to the three movies as a group as "the Kelton trilogy," since he is the only character to turn up essentially the same in all three films.) Duke Moore, who portrayed the detective lieutenant in Plan 9 From Outer Space, is back in this film, and now he seems to be identified as a specialist in bizarre and unusual cases, making him sort of Ed Wood's distant precursor to The X Files' agent Fox Mulder and The Night Stalker's Carl Kolchak. This time there are strange goings-on, including disappearances and ghostly apparitions, at a mysterious house in a remote part of town. It turns out that this is the same house (rebuilt) and the same locale where Bela Lugosi's mad scientist was creating zombies in Bride of the Monster, and that Tor Johnson's Lobo is still there, somewhat the worse for wear. Instead of a mad scientist, however, the man behind the mayhem is a phony mystic named Dr. Acula, played by ex-cowboy actor Kenne Duncan. None of it makes too much sense, as though anyone needs to be told that, knowing that this was an Ed Wood movie, but parts of it are fun in that unique way that Wood's movies can be -- the strange word usages and dialogue patterns, as well as odd characterizations, mismatched shots, and incomprehensible plot elements all weave their eerie spell on the viewer willing to absorb them. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In this espionage thriller, Communist agents pursue a fleeing activist for "Voice of Freedom" from Bulgaria to the United States. Along the way he falls in love with a supportive nurse who helps him recuperate from an injury. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Given its cast and director, it is disheartening that The Black Sleep isn't any better than it is. Basil Rathbone heads the cast as Sir Joel Cadman, who uses a mind-controlling drug known as "The Black Sleep" to place brilliant scientist Gordon Ramsay (Herbert Rudley) under his control. Cadman needs Ramsay's intellect and expertise to aid him in a series of mysterious, covert experiments involving brain transplants. Evidently Cadman has already endured a few failures, as witness the present feeble-minded state of his former "volunteer" Mungo (Lon Chaney Jr.). Ramsay and heroine Laurie Munro (Patricia Blake) finally learn what Cadman is up to when they stumble upon a dungeon full of his previous "experiments," including a demented, emaciated man (John Carradine) and a blank-eyed monstrosity (Tor Johnson). In his last mainstream film, Bela Lugosi essays the thankless role of Cadman's mute servant. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

With its incoherent plot, jaw-droppingly odd dialogue, inept acting, threadbare production design, and special effects so shoddy that they border on the surreal, Plan 9 From Outer Space has often been called the worst movie ever made. But it's an oddly endearing disaster; boasting genuine enthusiasm and undeniable charm, it is the work of people who loved movies and loved making them, even if they displayed little visible talent. In Plan 9, alien invaders attempt to conquer the world by raising the dead, starting with an old man dressed in a Dracula costume (Bela Lugosi, in a few minutes of left-over footage grafted into this film), his much-younger and well-proportioned wife (Maila "Vampira" Nurmi), and a remarkably overweight police officer (Tor Johnson). Often funny and consistently entertaining (if almost always for the wrong reasons), Plan 9 From Outer Space is an anti-masterpiece if there ever was one, and as Criswell so brilliantly puts it, "Can you PROVE it didn't happen?!?" Its legendary director Edward D. Wood Jr. was played by Johnny Depp in Tim Burton's 1994 biopic, Ed Wood. One of the DVD releases of Plan 9 From Outer Space includes the documentary Flying Saucers Over Hollywood: The Plan 9 Companion, an exhaustive and entertaining look at the making of the film that runs a half-hour longer than the feature to which it pays tribute! ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This highly fanciful but immensely entertaining biopic stars Tony Curtis as legendary magician/escape-artist Harry Houdini. Janet Leigh, Mrs. Tony Curtis at the time, co-stars as Houdini's wife Bess, while Angela Clarke is seen as Houdini's mother. The film follows Houdini's progress from sideshow entertainer to high-priced prestidigitator, and also touches upon his fascination with the occult--and his efforts to expose phony mediums. Philip Yordan's script (based on a book by Harold Kellock) suggests that virtually every portentous occasion in Houdini's life occurred on Halloween day, including his death from peritonitis in 1926. The facts of Houdini's life seldom get in the way of Yordan's story; while general audiences won't spot too many discrepancies, professional magicians tend to howl with laughter at some of the film's intentional boners. Example: In real life, Houdini's appendix was fatally ruptured by a punch to the stomach; in the film, he injures himself by accidentally bumping into one of his props, the sword-studded "Temple of Benares" trick--which hadn't yet been invented in 1926! Still, it's fun to watch Tony Curtis wriggle his way out of some of Houdini's most baffling escape routines (both Curtis and Janet Leigh were carefully instructed on the set by professional magicians, who swore the stars to secrecy concerning the tricks of the trade). For a more accurate slant on Houdini's life, see the 1976 TV movie The Great Houdinis, starring Paul Michael Glaser and Sally Struthers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Damon Runyon's Broadway fable The Lemon Drop Kid was filmed twice by Paramount Pictures, but only the 1934 version with Lee Tracy paid more than lip service to the original Runyon story. The second version, filmed in 1951, was completely retooled to accommodate the talents of Bob Hope. Known far and wide as the Lemon Drop Kid because of his fondness for that particular round, yellow confection, Hope is a bookie who finds himself deeply in debt to Florida gangster Fred Clark. Magnanimously, Clark permits Hope to head to New York to raise the money--but he'd better have the dough ready by Christmas, or else. Ever on the lookout for Number One, Hope decides to exploit the Christmas spirit in order to get the money together. With the help of unsuspecting nightclub-singer Marilyn Maxwell, Hope sets up a charity fund to raise money for an "Old Doll's Home"--that is, a home for down-and-out little old ladies. He claims to be doing this on behalf of big-hearted Jane Darwell, but he has every intention of double-crossing Darwell and all the other elderly women by skipping town with the charity funds and leaving them at the mercy of the authorities. By the time Hope has seen the error of his ways and tries to do right by the old dolls, Maxwell's boss Lloyd Nolan has decided to muscle into the racket by using the ladies' home as a front for a gambling casino. To set things right, Hope finds it necessary to disguise himself as a fussy old spinster at one point. The best line in the film goes to William Frawley, playing one of many Broadway toughs who are being pressed into service as street-corner Santas. "Will you bring me a doll for Christmas?" asks a little girl. "Naw, my doll's workin' Christmas Eve" is Frawley's salty reply. The Lemon Drop Kid is the film in which Bob Hope and Marilyn Maxwell introduced the enduring Yuletide ballad "Silver Bells", written (reportedly in a real hurry) by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Frank Capra's only MGM film, State of the Union was adapted by Anthony Veiller and Myles Connolly from the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse. Spencer Tracy plays an aircraft tycoon who is coerced into seeking the Republican Presidential nomination by predatory newspaper mogul Angela Lansbury. Campaign manager Van Johnson suggests that, for appearance's sake, Tracy be reunited with his estranged wife Katharine Hepburn (replacing Claudette Colbert, who'd ankled the project after a pre-production donnybrook with director Capra). Realizing that Tracy and Lansbury are having an affair, Hepburn nonetheless agrees to grow through the devoted-wife charade because she believes that Tracy just might make a good President. Her faith is shattered when Tracy, corrupted by the Washington power brokers, publicly compromises his values in order to get votes. Only in the film's last moments does Tracy prove himself worthy of Hepburn's love and his own self-respect by admitting his dishonesty during a nationwide radio-TV broadcast. Much of the biting wit in the original Broadway production of State of the Union is sacrificed in favor of the director's patented "Capracorn," but the film is no less entertaining because of this. As usual, the supporting cast is impeccable, from featured players Adolphe Menjou (whose off-camera political arguments with Hepburn threatened to shut down production at times) and Margaret Hamilton, to bit actors like Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer and Tor (Plan 9 From Outer Space) Johnson. Because the television rights to State of the Union belonged to Capra's Liberty Films, the picture was released to TV by MCA rather than MGM's syndication division. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Road to Rio was the first of three "Road" pictures jointly produced by stars Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. On the run from the law again, musicians Bob and Bing stow away on an ocean liner. They try to come to the rescue of heiress Dorothy Lamour, who is doomed to an arranged marriage to caddish George Meeker. All gratitude and effusions for their assistance, Dorothy surprises Bob and Bing on their next meeting by slapping them in their faces and declaring "I hate you! I loathe you! I despise you!" The explanation? Dorothy is being hypnotized by her scheming aunt Gale Sondergaard, who has set up the marriage for mysterious mercenary reasons of her own. When Dorothy is "herself" again, Bob and Bing smuggle her off the ship and into their Rio de Janeiro hotel room. The boys plan to save Dorothy from her unwanted marriage by passing her off as a nightclub singer, and themselves as band leaders. Trouble is, they have no band. Enter the Wiere Brothers, three Rio street entertainers. Bob and Bing hire the threesome on the spot, unmindful that they have booked themselves into Nestor Paiva's nightclub on the promise that they're delivering an American band. Since the Wieres speak only Portuguese, Bing teaches each brother an American phrase by rote: "You're in the groove, Jackson", "You're Telling Me," and "This is Murder." Naturally, it isn't long before the boys' ruse is discovered, and this coupled with the newly hypnotized Lamour's threats to have Bob and Bing arrested, leaves our heroes broke and stranded once more. Still, they pose a menace to Sondergaard, thus she contrives a method of disposing of them. Hypnotizing them both, Sondergaard orders Bob and Bing to kill each other. They snap out of the spell just in time, but still there's the problem of rescuing Dorothy. And now there's a new angle: mysterious stranger Frank Puglia informs the boys that the only way to stop the wedding is to retrieve (pause; a furtive glance left; a furtive glance right) "The Papers." Said papers are in the possession of Sondergaard, obliging Bob and Bing to show up at the pre-nuptial festival in disguise (with Bob in drag). Managing to hypnotize Sondergaard's henchmen Frank Faylen and Joseph Vitale, Bob and Bing uncover the precious Papers, and Dorothy is saved. But how can those papers stop a wedding? We won't give away the surprise, nor will we tell you whether Dorothy ends up with Bob or Bing, nor even what the heck Jerry Colonna is doing in the picture leading a cavalry charge. Not the best of the "Road" pictures, Road to Rio is nonetheless one of the most memorable--and quotable (how many of your high school pals used to confound the teacher by declaring "You're in the groove, Jackson"?) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Lost in a Harem is arguably the best of Abbott & Costello's trio of MGM films; it's certainly the silliest, with any number of nonsensical plot twists and sidesplitting gags. This time, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello play Pete and Harvey, two American magicians stranded in a mythical Arabian Nights kingdom with songstress Hazel Moon (Marilyn Maxwell). Our heroes and heroine become involved with the trials and tribulations of Prince Ramo (John Conte), who hopes to rightfully reclaim his throne from his evil usurping uncle Nimativ (Douglas Dumbrille). Alas, the villain is armed with a pair of hypnotic rings with which he forces everyone to do his bidding: his most anti-social act is to kidnap and hypnotize the entire Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra! Pete, Harvey, Ramo and Hazel risk death at every turn to thwart Nimativ, encountering a giant guard (Lock Martin, later to play the robot Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still), a gibbering lunatic (Murray Leonard) and a bevy of harem beauties along the way. The film's sets and costumes, as well as the more elaborate musical numbers, are "borrowed" from the recently completed MGM superproduction Kismet. While the plot is for the birds, Lost in a Harem is saved by the fast-and-furious antics of Abbott and Costello. And as a bonus, this is the film in which Bud and Lou, accompanied by Murray Leonard, perform those deathless burlesque classics "Slowly I Turned" and "Mike's Place." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Singer Bob Haymes (not Dick Haymes, as has sometimes been reported) heads the cast of Columbia's Swing Out the Blues. The film is partly a parody of The Goodwill Court, a popular radio problem hosted by advice-dispenser "Mr. Anthony". The host of a "What's your problem?" radio hour tries to smooth the romantic path of singer Rich Cleveland (Haymes) and his socialite wife Penelope (Lynn Merrick). The fly in the ointment is Dena Marshall (Janis Carter), who has set her sights on the handsome Rich. Much of the film's humor is dispensed by the Vagabonds, a zany singing group that comes across as a combination of the Yacht Club Boys and the Ritz Brothers. If the fellow playing "Larry Stringfellow" sounds familiar, he should: Arthur Q. Bryan was also the voice of Elmer Fudd in the Warner Bros. cartoons. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This fourth entry in MGM's Thin Man series could just as well have been titled "Nick and Nora Charles Go to the Races". Officially retired from sleuthing, Nick Charles (William Powell) does his best to be a dutiful husband to his lovely wife Nora (Myrna Loy) and a good father to his young son Nick Jr. (Dickie Hall). But when murder rears its ugly head at the local race track, Nick is called in by Major Jason I. Sculley (Henry O'Neill), head of the New York athletic commission, to help solve the case. As usual, there is no shortage of suspects: This time the "rogue's gallery" includes high-rolling gamblers Link Stevens (Loring Smith) and Fred Macy (Joseph Anthony); Link's hoity-toity girlfriend Claire Porter (played by legendary acting teacher Stella Adler); two-bit tout "Rainbow" Benny Loomis (Lou Lubin); reporters Whitey Barrow (Paul Kelly) and Paul Clarke (Barry Nelson); and Clarke's sweetheart Molly Ford (Donna Reed). Highlights include a zany episode on a department-store merry-go-round, an outsized brawl at a fancy sea-food restaurant, and the inevitable gathering together of suspects in the offices of police lieutenant Abrams (Sam Levene). The flippant nature of Shadow of the Thin Man can be attributed to screenwriters Irving Brecher and Harry Kurnitz, both longtime friends and associates of comedian Groucho Marx. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

W.C. Fields plays Ambrose Wolfinger, the henpecked husband to end all henpecked husbands. A widower, Ambrose married a second time only to provide a mother for his pretty daughter (Mary Brian). What he got was an overbearing harpy of a wife (Kathleen Howard), a fussy and imperious mother-in-law (Vera Lewis) and a shiftless brother-in-law (Grady Sutton). Ambrose plans to attend a much-awaited wrestling match, but can't get the day off of work. He lies for the first time in his life, telling his boss that his mother-in-law has died. En route to the wrestling meet, Ambrose suffers one mishap after another, from a string of traffic tickets to an encounter with a runaway tire. He gets to the match just in time to miss the whole thing, and ends up bruised and battered on the sidewalk. Meanwhile, his home is being deluged with flowers, offered in sympathy for his "dead" mother-in-law who is very much alive but not amused. When his boss discovers the deception, he fires Ambrose. The poor man returns home to face the cold stares of his wife's family. They goad and harass him until he can stand no more: when brother-in-law insults his daughter, Ambrose punches him out (a scene that always results in audience cheers) and tells everyone else where to go. Soon after, his anxious ex-boss calls up; only Ambrose can decipher the important messages left behind on his cluttered desk, and would Ambrose like to come back to work? His loyal and loving daughter negotiates a hefty salary hike for Ambrose, and the film ends with Our Hero assuming his proper role as head of the household, with his obnoxious in-laws literally left out in the rain. An uproarious "worm turns" farce, Man on the Flying Trapeze was an expanded version of 1932 Mack Sennett two-reeler, Too Many Highballs, and a partial remake of Fields' own silent feature Running Wild (27). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide