1960 - CIRCUS OF HORRORS, what passed for a horror film in the early 1960's.

Well they really went for it with Circus of Horrors.  Or went for it as about as much as they could for an early 1960's horror film,  A maniacal plastic surgeon has developed a new surgical technique that unfortunately has a side effect of disfiguring one of his patients.  He goes on the run and ends up at a defunct circus.  He gets the brilliant idea of performing plastic surgery on criminals to hide them from the police.  Lots of plot later the circus ends up in London where the plastic surgeon who now runs the circus kills off anyone who might reveal him to the police.

We get lots of scenes of women getting transformed into beautiful babes before that are knocked off by the surgeon.  For good measure there is a nasty bear in the circus who occasionally gets out of his cage so he can maul someone.  There's also a knife throwing act that doesn't end well for the woman on the receiving end of the knives.  

The film has quite a cast.  Perennial bad guy Anton Differing plays the plastic surgeon.  Donald Pleasence plays the original owner of the circus and he's not around very long.  Yvonne Romaine was in a lot of Hammer films.  She's a lion tamer who doesn't have much luck taming one of the lions.  Yvonne Monlaur played the daughter of Donald Pleasence.  I remember her as one of the future brides in Brides of Dracula.    

Circus of Horrors was photographed in very bright colors by Douglas Slocombe.  Slocombe went on to work with Steven Spielberg on the first three Indiana Jones films.  He was a major factor in the success of that series.

The screenplay was by George Baxt, the running time is 87 minutes.

1969 - THE SOUTHERN STAR aka L'Étoile du sud)

The Southern Star is supposedly based on a book by Jules Verne although I doubt Verne wrote any bathing scenes for Ursula Andress back in 1884.

The plot has American George Segal who is engaged to Ursula Andress in pursuit of a legendary diamond in West Africa.   Through a lot of rather contrived plotting they are on the run from a corrupt police official and his officers.  Things come to head when everyone ends up at a camp run by a corpulent Orson Welles in another "where's my paycheck," performance.

 

This is not a great movie but I guess if you are in the mood to watch a movie shot on location in Senegal with lots of wild animals running around and Ursuala Andress doing a nude scene, this is the film for you.  George Segal plays it light and loose with an attitude of I know this movie is preposterous.  Orson Welles probably turns in the most amusing performance he was always a real scene stealer in other director's films.

The director was Sidney Hayers who had extensive experience in TV and film with action scenes.  The oddest thing about this film is the involvement of legendary cameraman Raoul Coutard.  Coutard has always been associated with the French New Wave working with Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut and later with Costa-Gavras.  I guess even Coutard had to make the house payment just like everyone else which can be the only explanation for his involvement in this film.

 The film was written by David Pursall and Jack Seddon. The running time is 106 minutes.

1962 - NIGHT OF THE EAGLE, women really are witches

A film version of Fritz Leiber's horror/science fiction classic novel called Conjure Wife, Night of the Eagle is an excellent film about witchcraft and the occult.

The film was written by Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson, two very good writers who had worked with Rod Serling on The Twilight Zone.  The director was Sidney Hayers and the producer was Albert Fennell, these two men were associated with the original Avengers TV show in England. 

The beauty of this film is that for the most part the occult and witchcraft stuff is played very seriously but left open in such a way that you could make an argument that the witchcraft is basically a manifestation of the characters psychological state, the "it's all in their head thing."  The film gets away with this trick with clever writing and good acting.


I haven't really heard of any of these actors but that also works in favor of the film, no big name stars to muddy up the narrative of the story, their acting is also very good too.

The filmmakers add an action climax towards the end and kind of wrap up things a little to neatly, but this is a film after all and audiences like action in their films, otherwise this would be an occult chamber piece.  They do manage to retain the overall mood of creepiness throughout the story.

The director Sidney Hayers did a good job on this film but his career never really went anywhere.  He ended up in the United States directing lots of crappy TV shows like Lobo, Baywatch and Knight Rider.

90 minutes.