Joan Colins Top Ten

 Watched The Stud the other day so thought I’d do a Joan Collins top ten - films only! No TV

1) Revenge (1971)- Really good vigilante film about a family who’ve lost a daughter to murder. The person accused of it is let off and they kidnap him but... did he do it? Collins is good as always.

2) The Girl on the Red Velvet Swing (1956) -20th  Century Fox had Collins under contract as their version of Elizabeth Taylor. This was devised as a vehicle for Marilyn Monroe who wouldn’t do it so they put in Collins - a very good real life murder story and Collins is excellent. Probably her best movie at Fox (though Island in the Sun is entertaining I picked this over that one because she gets a lead.)

3) The Square Ring (1953) - Based on an all-male play about one night in a boxing stadium by Aussie Ralph Peterson - this added some female characters including Joan Collins. Her part isn’t good but she suited low rent criminal tales and the film is entertaining. (She had a similar small role in The Good Die Young)

4) Cosh Boy (1953) - Entertaining Lewis Gilbert melodrama about a juvenile delinquent with Collins lovely as his naive girlfriend.

5) Turn the Key Softly (1954) - A British crime film with female protagonists! This is a three-girl movie about women getting out of prison, an excellent idea, and Collins is very good as an ex call girl

6) Tales from the Crypt (1972) - Gloriously fun anthology horror movie from Amicus - I wish they’d still make them - with Collins having a high old time.

7) Up in the Cellar (1971) - Kind of a sequel to Three in the Attic (1968) directed by Ted Flicker who made The President’s Analyst. Collins and Larry Hagman are very funny, easily stealing the movie from the random lead.

8) The Stud (1978) - Terrific exploitation. Trashy melodrama story which says something about the class system giving it some depth, terrific disco soundtrack (10CC, Hot Chocolate), great casting, lots of sex. Reminded me of 70s Oz films like Petersen - director Quentin Masters was Australian. Joan Collins shows off her body a lot and has lots of sex. Oliver Tobias is handsome and can act- why didn’t he become a bigger name?  Lots of fun.

9) Empire of the Ants (1977) - You can’t call this a good movie but it’s impossible to dislike - Joan Collins as an evil property developer fighting Giant ants and their human allies (no kidding). Where’s the TV series based on this, come on, I’m not kidding.

10) The Big Sleep (1978) - Why did Joan Collins become a star in the 1980s? Because during the 1970s she was consistently the best thing about her not very good movies. Alfie Darling was one. This is another.

Movie review - "Empire of the Ants" (1977) **

 Giant ant movie from the 1970s. Joan Collins shows some potential land buyers around, they're attacked by giant ants, they run to safety, but find the townsfolk are under thrall of the ants. I really liked this twist.

Interesting cast - Collins, Robert Lansing, Robert Pine (Chris' dad, the sarge from Chips).

It's not a very good movie but it's impossible to dislike.

Movie review - "Earth vs the Spider" (1958) **1/2

Fun Bert I Gordon movie about some teenagers who discover a giant spider living in a cave. Unusually for an AIP teen film the hero is actually a teacher - their local science teacher. However there is still plenty of teen action (the heroine is looking for her father, who has become spider food) and scenes with adults (esp the sheriff) not believing those crazy kids.

The effects aren't as good as Tarantula but they pass and it gives good value - the spider in a cave, attacking teens at a dance, scenes of adults blowing it up with explosives and DDT. There's also some cute in jokes with characters talking about going to see Attack of the Puppet People.

Movie review - "Attack of the Puppet People" (1958) ***1/2

Excellent Bert I Gordon movie - Mark McGee claims it was his best and although I haven't gotten all the way through his back catalogue yet it's not hard to see why. It's helped by an excellent performance from John Hoyt as a creepy toy maker who likes to shrink people into toys. Hoyt is a different sort of star for this kind of movie - normally you get some cackling mad scientist a la Vincent Price; Hoyt's mild mannered kiddie-fiddler-esque nutter is far more believable and scary (and Hoyt gives an excellent performance).

The influence of The Incredible Shrinking Man is again obvious (as it was in Gordon's The Amazing Colossal Man) but also The Bride of Frankenstein - particularly, the sequence where Dr Pretorious shows off his little creatures.

June Kennedy is a likeable heroine and John Agar does his normal solid 50s sci fi leading man duties. There is some great atmosphere and one or two decent effects. Unfortunately the limited budget does hurt it in the end - it really needs a big set piece, like a fight with a spider or something, and/or big finale... and that never comes. So it sort of ends - the finale is very anti-climactic.

Still, the photography is excellent, the ideas strong and it's a lot of fun to watch. (Gordon fans will also appreciate the scene where Agar and Kennedy go watch The Amazing Colossal Man at the drive in.)

Movie review - "The Amazing Colossal Man" (1957) **1/2

Charles B Griffith was hired by AIP to work on the script for this but tried to make it a comedy and was booted after one day - while I love Griffith and the resulting script would have been a lot of fun, it was probably the right decision. This sort of story - atomic radiation making something blow up in size - is always best played straight without any winks at the audience or Griffith like craziness.

This feels very similar to The Incredible Shrinking Man in tone and structure - Glenn Langan is touching as the poor bastard who gets caught in an atomic cloud and blows up to a massive size. Director Bert Gordon and his co writer Mark Hanna made the right choice I feel in putting Langan's relationship with fiancee Cathy Downs center stage so the piece always has an emotional element. I felt for Langan's character, a brave bloke who suffers a terrible accident then suffers more - when he goes on his Frankenstein/King Kong-esque rampage the audience's sympathy is firm with him.

The low budget means its really not that much of a rampage - it's through Las Vegas but he doesn't knock over any high buildings and there are few extras. The movie is very cheesy, but it does have heart and was fun.

Book review – “The Fast and the Furious: History of AIP” by Mark McGee

Highly entertaining and informative look at the famous movie company, written with passion and insight from McGee. Sometimes he assumes knowledge on the part of the reader which the reader mightn’t have – for instance, starting with a “controversial” quote from Charles B. Griffith that Arkoff was nicer than Nicholson – only strong AIP buffs would have known that Nicholson had the more ethical reputation. But it’s a lot of fun, and and a great read – I wish the book was twice as long. In particular, I wish there was more on AIP in the 70s, and more talk about other key executives (there is some on Louis Heyward, who ran AIP England in the late 60s, but not enough; there is nothing on Larry Gordon, who was in charge in the early 70s).

I’m griping. Among the many positives are it well evokes all the colourful characters who worked there: Sidney Pink with his dodgy Danish films, sfx master (kind of) Bert I Gordon, hack Edward Cahn, film buff Alex Gordon, the under-appreciated Herman Cohen. Of course there’s Roger Corman, the man who really got AIP going, and helped them kick up a notch (although he had nothing to do with their breakthrough film, I Was a Teenage Werewolf - that was Cohen).

The AIP history breaks neatly into several categories.

(1) Early days – starting out as ARC, forming the relationship with Roger Corman, finding it’s feet (a lot of Westerns were made). 

(2) The late 50s double bill glory days – they had their big smash in Werewolf, and created a series of double bills still beloved by buffs, especially the JD and sci-fi films. 

(3) Stepping up in the early 60s. AIP cleaned house in the late 50s and decided to step up with the Poe pictures. This kicked off a big cycle for them, as did the Beach Party movies – they also became skilled at exporting from overseas, particularly Italy. 

(4) Late 60s – increasing respectability, with more and more films made in England and Europe. There was a second Poe cycle, Louis Heyward became more involved, Nicholson lost equal footing in the company after his divorce, Roger Corman’s films were more popular although he was becoming increasingly annoyed with the company. This period ended with AIP going public. 

(5) The 70s - Corman left to set up New World, becoming AIP’s most effective competition, then so did Nicholson to work at Fox (he died soon after), but AIP still went quite strongly, enjoying success with blaxploitation, car movies, thrillers. That decade saw them having their biggest flops (The Wild Party, A Matter of Time, Meteor) and their biggest hits (The Amityville Horror, Love at First Bite, Dressed to Kill, Walking Tall). Then Arkoff made the mistake of selling the company to Filmways - he soon quit and AIP was wound up.

Lots of great anecdotes - Sidney Pink making a film with everyone speaking in Danish, the cheap methods of the early days. (McGee includes the story of making The Intruder - was this an AIP film?) My favourite involved making a horror film in Spain, being worried about censors so they tell the local censors they'll made Abe Lincoln in Illinois and having an actor dress as Abe Lincoln hang around the set!

Movie review – “War of the Colossal Beast” (1958) **

Sequel to The Amazing Colossal Man (which I haven’t seen yet) has the amazing man back from the dead. He is captured and put in an aircraft hanger, tied down – at which point (this was 30 minutes in) I realised “oh yeah they’re going for a King Kong type thing”. It took that long for the penny to drop because up until then the sense of adventure and mystery had been mild, with some bad low budget 50s acting (particularly by the girl who plays the Man’s sister and her love interest army officer; they have this great scene where he says her job as an ad copywriter should take her mind off things and she says she’ll never be able to write the words “gigantic” again). We don’t even see the Man until 20 minutes in – although it is kind of cool to see Glen Langan with his twisted face make up and nappy and all the 50s sfx. After that though things pick up – there’s a flash back to the Man’s adventures from the first film, and he goes on two rampages, winding up holding a bunch of kids in a bus. It’s a shame they couldn’t deal with the tragedy of the lead character more – have him fall in love with someone instead of his dull sister. I enjoyed it more as it went on and it was more about the Man; loved the ending where it briefly flares into colour.

Movie review - "Village of the Giants" (1965) **1/2

Really fun, silly mixture of 60s teen film and sci-fi: little Ronny Howard (that Ron Howard) invents material which causes creatures to grow. Its stolen by some high spirited teens (led by Beau Bridges, that Beau Bridges) who take over the town. The classic sort of film which falls into the not-as-bad-as-you-think-but-not-as-good-as-it-could-have-been.
Positive virtues: the cast (also including Tommy Kirk in the lead, Johnny Crawford, Ron Howard’s dad Rance as deputy, Mickey Rooney’s son Tim – he looks like him - and Ann Sothern’s daughter Tisha Sterling), the performances, some social commentary (Bridges and company want to take over from the adults), the special effects, the music (including the groovy theme song and the Beau Brummels – the nightclub they perform at is actually the Whiskey a Go-Go).
There are two decent action sequences: one when Kirk and company use their cars to try and capture Bridges, and a replay of the David and Goliath battle when Kirk takes on Bridges with a slingshot, plus a pretty good fight where Kirk and his girlfriend kill a giant spider.
I also loved all the random moments – especially all the go-go dancing (there’s go-go dancing over the opening credits, then in the first sequence, then in the night club, then at a party, then when the kids become giants (when they realise they're giants and can do anything they want... the first thing they do is go-go dance) - and when the good kids have to distract the bad kids they send in Toni Basil to... you guessed it... go go dance); I love the way Kirk suddenly has two random dorky looking friends out of nowhere (one of them is fat and looks like Drew Carey) and how when giant geese go and dance in the club no one is really fazed; there's also plenty of giant cleavage, and a brunette member of the gang who seems to disappear for periods at a time.
There is also some pleasing clashes within Bridges' gang (Bridges isn't as keen as some others to take over).
Frustratingly under-developed in parts though - we could have seen more why Bridges clashes with the adults, more with the landslide (some adults are away others are around - but the town doesn't feel cut off), Bridges and his gang lack a plan (surely they would try to do something really cool being giants - knock over a building or something - but the filmmakers seem more interested in having characters hang off giant breasts), Kirk (whose character, while brave, is a bit of an Uncle Tom to be honest - and he was only interested in exploiting the formula for money not anything altruistic) runs around in little shorts a lot of the time; also the fight with the giant spider indicates a whole other, possibly more exciting direction the film could have gone in (but they probably blew their sfx money on the breasts).
There is a genuinely funny end gag.

Fansite for the film is here

Book review - "Flying Through Hollywood by the Seat of My Pants" by Sam Arkoff

Hugely entertaining memoirs from one of the founders of AIP. Well, hugely entertaining if you love AIP films like I do. Arkoff is at times a bit defensive about the movies he makes, dismissively talking about arty-farty pictures and auteurs. Some of his stories concerning the Corman films are already v familiar if you've read books on Corman, including his autobiography - but Arkoff is also strong on non-Corman films, working with filmmakers like Bert Gordon and so on.

The book is also strong on AIP in the 70s - not a heavily documented era because by the early 70s Jim Nicholson died and Corman had left. (Mark McGee doesn't pay it that much attention in his history of AIP). AIP still went strongly during those years, though they seemed to be an industry follower now more than a pioneer (eg blaxploitation, kung fu, CB movies). Arkoff did miss out on some big hits, such as Easy Rider and The Trial of Billy Jack - but then he never made a Last Movie or Master Gunfighter.

AIP faltered when he sold out to Filmmways. Arkoff also talks a little about his post 1980s career. He made some films I really like such as Q and Up the Creek, but was not very profilic, certainly nowhere as near as he was with AIP. There is a moral in that for all successful independent producers.

I really liked the book a lot, and any serious AIP fan must read it along with Mark McGee's book.