Crampton Watch: Poison (2001)

Watched:  09/27/2026

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jim Wynorski

Always a good sign when a movie has been given multiple names.  This one is listed as Poison (2001) on IMDB, but is also listed as Thy Neighbor's Wife, but I found it - for free - on Amazon as Midnight Vendetta.  

Why did I find it?  I was thinking "man, it's been a while since I watched a Barbara Crampton movie."  And while I am not gearing up to see *every* Barbara Crampton movie, stranger things have happened.  

Youth Watch: Untamed Youth (1957)

Watched:  09/26/2026

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First, I believe

Director:  Howard W. Koch

This movie exists to accidentally stumble through two important social issues, but was mostly there so we could watch Mamie Van Doren shake it in various states of (un)dress.

It's a movie capitalizing on the rising issues of juvenile delinquency and the exploitation of agricultural workers.  In this case, those workers are delinquent young adults (not teens) who get pinched by the local law for breaking minor infractions or all-together made up infractions.  Then they are pressed into service as indentured servants.

Bug Watch: Tarantula (1955)

Watched:  09/25/2026

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jack Arnold

The only issue with this movie is John Agar.  

I mean, there's the general issue of John Agar being John Agar and I'm still mad about how he was to Shirley Temple.  But he's also a terrible actor.  He has  exactly one line delivery, whether he's inappropriately abandoning his medical practice to hit on Mara Corday or a tarantula the size of a battleship is walking toward him.

And it's a shame, because the movie has a few other actors - Leo G. Carroll who is dialing it in, and is still acting circles around him - and Mara Corday, who is doing her best to get Agar to do something other than just stare straight ahead and speak in a clipped, 1950's manly voice.

The plot:  a guy suffering from a horrendous disease (acromegaly) is found in the desert outside a small Arizona town.  He's traced back to being the science-pal of Leo G. Carroll.  The two are performing experiments in a McMansion on the edge of town.  Agar is suspicious as the town doctor.  And rightfully so, as it turns out Leo G. Carroll is using atomic power to...  well, he has a guinea pig the size of a rottweiler and a tarantula the size of a beach umbrella (why?  Just...  why?).  

Anyway, there's a third fellow in the house, and he also has acromegaly and fights Carroll, which causes a fire and the tarantula escapes.

About this time, Mara Corday shows up, way overdressed for all the science she's about to do.

Honestly, the tarantula looks amazing for the 1950's.  It's almost all done with post-production compositing, dropping a real tarantula over the top of other real film.  Simple enough, but effective.  And there is a big puppet tarantula for a few key scenes, but unlike The Black Scorpion, it's used sparingly (and borrowing heavily from King Kong).  

I actually recommend this one, with the caveat that I recommend it within the framework of what it is.  Them! is still the best one of the "atomic mutant animal" movies to me, narratively.  But it feels *pure* in what it is, a mad scientist movie with a big 'ol monster and a dullard of a lead with a knockout playing "woman".  I mean, it checks all the boxes.  And knows to get out as soon as the threat is neutralized.

I will admit, I lost a bit in the end looking up what kind of jets they were showing and was right, they showed two separate jets.  (always check the Internet Movie Plane Database).  I will take partial credit for recognizing one as The Shooting Star, but failing to remember it's "the Lockheed P-80".  

But, look, this is a 1950's sci-fi feature with a horror bent.  You're not here for Academy award-winning acting or scripts.  But it is fun.  Especially when Agar isn't on screen.

I dunno.  It's a movie about a tarantula that keeps changing sizes because scape is hard, but it's very large.

And I have now seen every movie mentioned in "Science Fiction / Double Feature" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  Please clap.

Stanwyck Watch: Jeopardy (1953)

Watched:  09/23/2026

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Sturges

I don't know how you can't be blown away by Barbara Stanwyck.  Just an incredible talent.  I might be a fan of, say, Marie Windsor, but I know when someone got Stanwyck, she was going to deliver in a way maybe only 1 or 2 of her contemporaries could.*

It's not like our preferred mode of horror and thrillers these days isn't "nice suburban people suddenly confronted with someone who will kill them".  And Jeopardy (1953) is absolutely in that mode.  

Anyway, this isn't a deep drama.  It's a fast-moving noirish thriller with a small cast, life or death stakes, and proof that kids are just bent on self-destruction, and keeping them safe is probably more trouble than it's worth.

Stanwyck co-stars with first Barry Sullivan, who plays her husband.  They're on a roadtrip from southern California into Mexico to go fishing with their young son, do some camping in a remote spot Sullivan found long ago.  

SPOILERS

Kubrick Watch: Barry Lyndon (1975)

Watched:  09/21/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Stanley Kubrick

Somehow I'd never seen Barry Lyndon (1975).  I assume some part of my brain would look at the film and say "it won't be fun, and it's 3 hours" and would tap out before I could hit play.

In the past 20 years or so, the common wisdom I received in the 1990's - that the movie was dull or not Kubrick's best - seems to have evaporated and the film has received serious reconsideration.  But aside from "people in ruffles cavort in what looks like the second half of the 18th Century", I had no idea what the film was about.  That said, every film student knew that Kubrick's movie was shot with very special lenses, using only candlelight in many scenes -something unheard of in film production.  And I knew Barry Lyndon was supposed to be one of the most visually stunning movie ever produced, which... I mean, Kubrick.   You get that as part of the package.

Doc Watch: Film Geek (2023)

Watched:   09/15/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Richard Shepard

It's always weird to watch a documentary about someone talking about themselves and their family.  In this way, the recent award winning doc by Mariska Hargitay My Mom Jayne absolutely works.  As her mother Jayne Mansfield passed when she was so very young, it's really about her learning about her own mother decades after the fact.  She just happens to have the best possible access to Mansfield's history.  But she also is clear eyed about remaining objective and talking about it when she isn't and what it means to live with that legacy.

Film Geek (2023) tosses anything like objectivity out the window in the first minute of the film, and you're just along for the ride as film maker Richard Shepard recounts his youth in 1970's and 1980's Manhattan, which was a whirlwind of movie mania and NY-based Gen-X childhood.  This is paired with our director/narrator trying to unpack how movies tied him to a father he wants to present as a romantic rogue and bon vivant and his mother as a saint.

Catch-Up Watch: Polite Society (2023)

Watched:  09/11/2026

Format:  Peacock 

Viewing:  First

Director:  Nida Manzoor

I'd seen a trailer for Polite Society (2023) when it was coming out, but theatrical windows are short, and I missed it.  Since then, I believe it was Stuart who rec'd it, and I'd had it loosely in the back of my head to watch, meanwhile forgetting why I wanted to see it or what it was about.

Well, whatever I thought it was about, the movie kind of defies genre or expectations at multiple points, and I mean that in the best way.  It's like someone took good ideas and stitched them together into exactly the movie they wanted to make (no, I don't know who Nida Manzoor is exactly, but she also did the series We Are Lady Parts in England, which got good notices).  

Pirate Watch: The Sea Hawk (1940)

Watched:  09/10/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Michael Curtiz

Look, names of directors get forgotten, but Michael Curtiz was one of the best to get behind a lens, making some of my very favorite films - and they may be your favorites, too.  Casablanca, Mildred Pierce, Adventures of Robin Hood, White Christmas, Flamingo Road, and another Errol Flynn pirate movie - Captain Blood.  

And, man, I still am unclear how they filmed these things, with their huge ships, falling masts, flashing sabers and swashing buckles.  The Sea Hawk (1940) merges the scale of Captain Blood and Robin Hood - two prior Curtiz/ Flynn productions with palace sets, huge galleons and more.  

Pat Boone Noir Watch: The Yellow Canary (1963)

Watched:  09/08/2026

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  First

Director:  Buzz Kulik

All I knew was that The Yellow Canary (1963) starred Pat Boone and Barbara Eden, two people I could not imagine paired, let alone in a noir film.

From the intro and outro, my takeaway was that Eddie Muller had gotten involved with preserving this movie because it seemed so unlikely.  Famously squeaky-clean singer and sometimes actor Pat Boone had agreed to play a philandering, jack-ass pop star (a Bizarro-world version of himself) who is married to Barbara Eden and somehow (against all imaginable odds, and my basic understanding of the world) finds that boring.  

Windsor Watch: Abbot and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955)

Watched:  09/06/2026

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Charles Lamont

Confession time:  I haven't really enjoyed Bud & Lou since I was a kid.  I remember we'd check out 8mm projectors and film from the library and watch their movies and have a good laugh.  I was six.

Subsequent attempts to watch the classic comedy duo have gone less well.  

But, of the main ingrendients, I do like two other things:  classic movie monsters and Marie Windsor.  And, I figure - two out of three things in this movie?  That ain't bad.

Our plot:  Bud & Lou are semi-stranded in Egypt and get involved with a cult, an ancient mummy, a murder and shady characters looking to make some money.  

I dunno.

Dolly Watch: Straight Talk (1992)

Watched:  09/06/2026

Format:  Amazon?

Viewing:  First

Director:  Barnet Kellman

I kind of remember a spate of these sorts of sweet, fluffy, cotton candy movies coming out for a minute.  I think a lot of this sort of thing has made its way to TV or streaming, and that's cool.  

The draw of Straight Talk in 1992 was "want to see Dolly Parton be nice for 90 minutes?" and in 1992, if it didn't have a robot, Wesley Snipes, a serial killer or an alien in it, no, I did not want to see your movie all that bad.  High school me didn't think about Dolly Parton one way or another, so high-school me took a pass.  And that's too bad.  My mom would love this movie, and we never agreed of movies then or now.  I think I'll call and recommend it to her later today.

Colonialism Watch: Outpost in Morocco (1949)

Watched:  08/30/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR from Marie Windsor day

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Florey

Outpost in Morocco (1949) was part of Marie Windsor day on TCM's Summer Under the Stars.  She's not the lead, that's George Raft, but she plays a Moroccan princess for all intents and purposes.  

Look, I'm utterly ignorant when it comes to Morocco aside from being able to find it on a map (I double-checked, and I was right!  Thanks, Casablanca for leaving that tidbit in my head!).  I don't know its history, and I don't know the culture.   

I am aware of the French Foreign Legion, its kind of wild history and reputation for taking in folks at the end of their rope.  In this story, Raft plays a Captain who is supposedly awesome at his job when he isn't out romancing the ladies.  He's sent to an outpost to deliver Windsor to her father, who is a regional leader.  Windsor goes to France every year for six months and has been summoned home early.  

Product Liability Law Watch: Coyote vs. Acme (2026)

Watched:  08/30/2026

Format:  Regal Cinemas

Viewing:  First

Director:  Dave Green

First:  yes, this is the *completed* movie Warner Bros. was going to just shelve for a tax write-off and then sold to Ketchup Entertainment when word got out and the PR around the move became quite bad.  Yes, I have thought the people who currently own Warner Bros. are absolute chuckle-@#$%s and why having MBAs run your entertainment companies all but guarantees the worst results.

Second:  I almost took a pass on writing this post as, at its heart, Coyote vs. Acme (2026) is a product liability law movie.  And our good pal, JimD, is an actual product liability attorney with a rich history of doing his own blogging.  And I was going to make him go see the movie and write up a post, but assigning homework to friends does not seem like a good way to maintain a pal-ship.

Tim Curry Watch: It (1990)

Watched:  08/29/2026

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  First

Director:  Tommy Lee Wallace

It (1990) has long loomed large over the world of horror media.  The book was a big deal, but I never read it.  Honestly, I'm unsure I've read any Stephen King since middle school and the book of It was 1000+ pages, and thusly avoided.  When the TV movie of It showed in November of 1990, I completely missed it.  No idea what I was doing, but I know what would have been happening that Fall, and my eye and interests were elsewhere.

Since, I have not seen the movie as the 3-hour run-time has been a bit of a deterrent.  Still, that's much shorter than taking in two movies as the new version of It was released into cinemas in the 2010's. 

But with this week's passing of Tim Curry, I figured now was the time to finally see the movie.  

SPOILERS

Marxist Watch: A Day at the Races (1937)

Watched:  08/26/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First?

Director:  Sam Wood

I know I've previously seen the back half of A Day at the Races (1937), but I'd not seen it all the way through, I guess.

This one takes the Marx Bros. back to Florida where Chico is working for a Sanitarium that is struggling , but hoping for investment from their wealthy patient, Margaret Dumont.  Maureen O'Sullivan has inherited the sanitarium and her boyfriend, a singer, buys a race horse to try to win money to save the place for her.  Groucho plays a veterinarian who Dumont thinks is her doctor, and he comes to the sanitarium.  Harpo, a jockey.

This one felt a little slow to get started, but then had some amazing stuff.  They really understood every scene is funnier if a horse runs through before the end.

Windsor Pirate Watch: Hurricane Island (1951)

Watched:  08/25/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Lew Landers

So, it's entirely possible that the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was somewhat inspired by this B-movie, Hurricane Island (1951).  I'm not saying it is, directly, or there aren't substantial differences, but....

I'm also not sure watching a movie just because it has Marie Windsor in it is wrong, but..!  It was Marie Windsor day on Summer Under the Stars on TCM. This one is also a pirate movie, and, in theory, is based on one or two real historical figures.  Well, it has Ponce de Leon, which is kind of exciting.

Theoretically, this is about Ponce de Leon's search for the Fountain of Youth.  But in this movie, it's about a wounded Ponce outsourcing his adventuring to a husky Captain Montalvo (John Hall) who de facto leads the expedition into the island of Florida (it's like 1513, and I don't think they know dick all about the actual Florida coastline yet).  

Marxist Watch: The Cocoanuts (1929)

Watched:  08/19/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR hosted by Eddie Muller

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Florey and Joseph Stantley

Apparently the first-ish Marx Bros. movie, The Cocoanuts (1929) is also an early talkie.  So, yeah, someone said "we're adding sound!" and someone said "What people need is to keep up with Groucho and then have Harpo say nothing.  Ever."

The movie is more interesting than laugh out loud funny - but it sure feels like a draft of what was to come and what would work for the Marx Bros. for years to come.  Playing scrappy underdogs not above some lightly criminal doings, but with hearts of gold, the Marx Bros. are dropped into a scenario where Groucho plays someone who has fallen backwards into legitimacy, while Chico and Zeppo show up on the scene to see what they can shake loose, moneywise, from a collection of wealthy people.

Unstuck Watch: Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)

Watched:  06/16/2026

Format:  TCM - first ever showing on the network

Viewing:  First

Director:  George Roy Hill

It's been many years since I read Slaughterhouse-Five, or the Children's Crusade: a Duty Dance with Death. So long ago that all I can say for certain is that it was post-2000 and probably before this blog was founded.  I was just old enough reading it to know my WWII history and a bit embarrassed I'd not read it earlier in life.

But Vonnegut is, hopefully, something that works for you no matter your age.

As it's been a while since I read the book, I won't spend energy comparing and contrasting.  Instead, I'll just suggest watching the movie Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) sometime if you've already read the novel.  If jumping straight to the movie, it also can't hurt to pre-load your knowledge of the last year of World War II in Europe, to get what audiences in 1972 would have likely known just through cultural osmosis.  Things like "oh... Dresden" may not mean as much to some folks here in 2026 and all that you would know is coming.

I won't get into whether what Billy experiences is real or not.  Y'all can make your own decisions and I don't think the answer is that easy.

Ghost Watch: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

Watched: 08/16/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR (Alicia Malone hosting)

Viewing:  First

Director:  Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Considered a bona fide classic, I knew the basics of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), but had never managed to get around to the film.  I had no predictions going in - just knew it was a romantic comedy about a widow who moves into a house haunted by the ghost of a former sea captain played by Rex Harrison.

I'm not sure how *funny* this movie is.  It's *charming* and there's humor, but it's more of what Alicia Malone, hosting with TCM, rightfully included into the now very popular genre of Supernatural Romance.  

Gene Tierney plays a widow (Mrs. Lucy Muir) and mother to a young Natalie Wood.  She has some income from her husband's holdings in a gold mine, and so chooses to leave her in-law's house in London to move to the sea-side and live a new life - pushing against turn-of-the-century decorum.  

Mental Health Watch: Bedlam (1946)

Watched:  08/14/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Mark Robson

Well, this is *weird*.  Somehow, unintentionally, I watched two movies by the same director in the same day, the other being Valley of the Dolls.  Mark Robson everybody.  Apparently he made Patty Duke cry a lot.  I wonder if he made Boris Karloff run away weeping.

This is an historical drama with large dollops of political commentary and a dash of the horror film - we do have Boris Karloff in the movie, after all.

The movie is essentially about a young woman, Nell (Anna Lee), who is the protegee of the porcine Lord Mortimer.  Mortimer is a rich idiot living well in the world of 1770's-ish England.  He sees himself as a generous fellow, and one of the things he does is employ Sims (Boris Karloff) to manage a lunatic asylum, which has a different name, but is commonly called Bedlam.  

"Bedlam?" you say.  "Doesn't that mean chaos... or... crazy...?"  Yes.  And guess where we got that word, humans of 2026?  Yeah, the English language is a wild ride and I am sure this will make some well-meaning people very cross, indeed.

Anyway, two things happen.  1.  Nell considers herself a stone-hearted jerk immune to the suffering of others, surely a useful tool in an era where people were in rags begging for scraps as you rolled by in your gold plated wagon pulled by local urchins.   She visits Bedlam, which the rich do for their personal amusement.  Back in these days we called the mentally ill "idiots" and "fools" and it was all a good time. However, Nell is horrified.  Shit is bad in the badly run lunatic asylum.   2. She meets a Quaker who was also there to take work as a mason.  He says "I can tell you're secretly a good person", which she denies.

However, Nell *is* a good person with a conscience.  She seeks to use her favor with Lord Mortimer to improve the lot of the inmates, but Sims convinces Mortimer this will be costly and if he spends the money, he'll lose favor in the Royal Court (of King George.  Boo.  Go, America!).  

Sims contrives to have Nell put in the asylum.  

There is *a lot* going on here which, 20 years ago, would have seemed like a hyperbolic echo of the misguided ways of the past, and now just feels like "oh, yeah, totally".  Rich people?  Who can't see other people as human?  Almost impossible to imagine.

It's a good movie!  Well acted, hits all the right beats, tells the story in 80 minutes, in-and-out.  This sort of movie is my bag, baby.  And Karloff's fate is some prime "Val Lewton was here" stuff.