As there seems to be a demand for information and caustic commentary regarding movies which are so bad that they somehow attain a certain level of grandeur, I will employ this ongoing feature to present some of the dopiest and most absurd movies imaginable.
Giant from the Unknown (1958) ✪ ½
The “giant” in this low-budget horror shocker is Buddy Baer, the boxer-actor brother of Max Baer, the boxer-actor who is such a pivotal character in Cinderella Man (reviewed on page 7). Buddy Baer was 6′ 6″, almost tall enough to be convincing as Vargas, the Spanish conquistador known as “The Diablo Giant,” who awakens from suspended animation to wreak havoc on a small California mountain community.
The film’s first half is actually pretty good, as the townspeople discuss the local curse, a local rockhound (Ed Kemmer) becomes the prime suspect and a visiting archeologist (Morris Ankrum) and his lovely daughter (Sally Fraser) provide the key to the mystery. But once the Diablo Giant is awakened (wasn’t he awake earlier to commit the atrocities mentioned by the townspeople?????), the story becomes routine and awfully silly. It has one other asset, however; it doesn’t end when most films would. The Giant somehow lives through an attack by the townspeople (I guess his armor stops bullets) and nearly escapes into the wilderness.
The Giant’s makeup was designed by the legendary Jack Pierce, who conceived the makeup for the Mummy and Frankenstein’s Monster nearly thirty years previously. And while this is pretty silly stuff, it’s kind of fun.
The Kid from Texas (1939) ✪ ✪
One of the oddest westerns I’ve ever seen offers Dennis O’Keefe as a loudmouth cowpuncher whose dream is to play polo on Long Island. Polo! When his horse, Lone Star, is sold, he follows it east and gets a job attending it. Romantic (and slapstick) complications with the new owner (Florence Rice) arise, but he sticks to his guns until he humiliates himself in the big polo match by socking his chief rival for her affections.
He (along with publicist Jack Carson) joins a bankrupt rodeo show and mount the world’s first polo match between “galloping cowboys and savage Indians.” The rodeo polo show becomes a huge success, leading to more romantic complications with rodeo star Okay Kinney (Virginia Dale), which are finally resolved during a charity event. The best moments of this goofy time capsule are delivered by Buddy Ebsen, who plays O’Keefe’s pal Snifty. Ebsen dances during one scene, even putting his foot in a bucket!
Escape of a One-Ton Pet (1977) ✪ ½
When I found this old VHS tape, I just had to buy it. The one-ten pet of the title is a Hereford bull, raised by a very nice 14-year old girl (Stacy Swor), who wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up. Her father’s ranch is going broke, however, and the bull, named Percy (for perseverance!) faces sale and slaughter.
This well-intentioned family film demonstrates that life on a ranch is not all fun and games: a cougar kills a couple of the four-legged ranch residents and is hunted down; Percy faces imminent slaughter because he cannot breed (words like castration and semen are bandied about); the girl tends to Percy rather than attend her high school prom. But, hey, it all ends well when a kind-hearted rancher donates the cash need to give Percy an operation (to clear his tubes). No, I’m not kidding. In fact, the film’s final line is delivered by the girl to the bull, joyfully exclaiming this fact.
Mama’s Dirty Girls (1974) ✪
Lots of big stars have one or two films that just defy any rational explanation for ever having been made. This sleazy melodrama is Gloria Grahame’s cinematic skeleton in the closet. She portrays Mama Love, the homicidal mother of three beautiful teenage daughters. She marries men for their property, then the older girls help kill them off.
While the sleaze factor is high (all of the women except for Gloria appear nude), it is also quite stupid. The latest husband is too busy trying to murder Mama to notice that she is trying to do him in, and vice versa. By the crazy climax, only the youngest, innocent daughter remains alive and unscathed. Certainly Gloria’s worst feature film, though Prisoners of the Casbah (1953) is awful as well.
The Black Scorpion (1957) ✪ ½
This entry came late in the “mutant bug” cycle of 1950s monster movies, but you might think a giant scorpion would be a terrific choice. You’d be wrong. Willis O’Brien, the man who designed and animated King Kong, worked on the stop-motion effects, some of which are very good. But the film blew its budget and ran out of money long before O’Brien could sustain his movie magic.
Close-ups of the ridiculous, slavering scorpion head kill any mystery about the creature, and the story occurs in the desert regions of… Mexico. There’s a dull human story that repeatedly interrupts the action, which concludes with the titular black scorpion facing the Mexican militia in a soccer stadium. With more money, this could have been a classic.