Son of the Revenge of the 31 Days of Cheese Day 1 Monster X
Well the Oscar nominations are out and Turner Classic movies starting up their 31 days of Oscar When they will show only films that were nominated for or won and academy award until early March. Granted this does take in a bit more territory that you’d think (the god-awful 1967 Doctor Doolittle got an Oscar for its song Talk to the Animals much to the dismay of the crowd attending the ceremonies that night) but still there is a very very serious earnestness to the choices made for the Oscar, especially best picture, the idea being film is a serious art form, and the best films are serious films.
Well okay but I think you’re missing something there. Like the wildness and near white light surrealism that b-movies and genre films can bring to the screen. Is the great art? Well maybe not but these films are worth a look during Hollywood’s annual orgy of self love goes on. And so, without further ado we bring you the Son of the Revenge of the 31 Days of Cheese.
Day 1 – X From Outer Space 1967
Made during the monster boom in Japan and the height of the really swinging part of the sixties this is a rather, no strike that, is a very odd film putting tropes from monster movies space operas and adding love triangle sauce into a blender and hitting “make it confusing”.
We start off with a rousing song over the credits about the wonders of space and the earth then we see a miniature of a Cape Kennedy style space station – there is a helicopter flying in. The music is a jazzy sort of lounge music theme that we will hear A LOT . The copter lands and it turns out is carrying atomic fuel for the rocket. We learn this when the two janitors (or whatever) loading the atomic fuel into a station wagon (?) almost drop it. Everybody around them flips out – the German looking professor type that arrived with the helicopter waves giger counter at the fuel, it’s okay he says and folks breathe again. You know you might what to get more guys or better equipment than a Toyota station wagon if you’re going to be mucking about with stuff that goes boom if you drop it.
We cut to a briefing for the flight of AAB Gamma (and we will be hearing that name a lot as well – after I saw this film my dreams were filled with someone saying “AAB Gamma come in AAB Gamma this is FAFC.” Over and over and over again). The astronauts are – I still have that name problem so it’s the Heroic Captain (HC); Blonde lady scientist; the Space doctor and the radio man and buffoon who is painful to watch. Anyway these heroes are told that the last few mars flights (I guess this means they are going to Mars) have been lost and they think it’s because of UFO’s. I unsure of the exact number – Five pops into my mind for some reason but the point there is something hostile up there that is destroying our space ships. The reaction of the crew is sort of ‘oh ho hum’ and then after a quick series of good byes they are off to the ship laughing and joking – the buffoon makes some sort of joke about Blonde Lady’s heartbeat but it’s laughed off (it will turn out Blonde Lady Scientist (BLS) has a crush the heroic captain – which will in the end affect the plot not a whit.
The ship takes off to the sound of the lounge music and we follow along as the crew banters back and forth about nothing in particular – this film although it clocks in at about 90 minutes plays one hell of lot longer – these scenes where nothing happens are part of the reason.
Then two things happen – one the doctor gets sick then the flying saucer UFO appears looking more like a meat pie, the brave commander tries to pursue but cannot and eventually they make tracks for the moon.
On the moon is the third leg of the romantic triangle Michiko who spends most of the moving pouting about something or other – she has the hots for the captain but it seems something is wrong between them. Who they are to each other and what happened is not explained. It’s almost a leitmotif of this film, things that are not explained.
Arriving on the moon, the head doctor of the Moon station one Doctor Stein announces that the doctor has space sickness and cannot proceed with the mars expedition.
Meantime – Blonde Lady Scientist (the ever infallible IMDB says her name is Lisa – which is easy to type) so anyway Lisa, the Buffoon, Michiko and the Heroic captain are what? Examining the footage of the flying saucer, having a conference with the folks back on earth about this which is as far as we know the first confirm encounter with alien beings? Fixing the ship? Ah no – they first eat – it is interesting to note that the buffoon sits at a table by himself stuffing his face and then they go out on the moon’s surface and HC and Michiko start bouncing up and down. This makes Lisa sad somehow. She turns away.
Then the girls take a shower – now however they don’t bounce. Lisa says something that causes Michiko to turn up the water and pout into the stream of water. As this is going on HC and the Buffoon are taking a bath in artificial water (please don’t ask it’s not important)
Then they go drinking with Dr. Stein – apparently like winter duty in the Antarctic the only way to keep from going crazy on the moon is to drink, like a lot. And once again I have the same questions here as when watching the green slime – did they need to bring the bottles? That seems a waste of weight unless they are making the bottles on the moon and in that case these folks are pretty far gone. There is some pointless stuff where HC who seems to have been having a serious conversation with a scotch bottle rebuffs Lisa’s request for a dance (the buffoon chimes in and they start dancing) and the it is announced that Dr. Stein will take the place of the sick doctor. Stein takes the news with ill grace. In fact he starts to complain loudly about going to Mars.
The next day, the crew, one assumes well hung over takes off for Mars with Dr. Stein complaining all the time about everything especially the food – it gets so even the heroic Captain has had enough and tells stein to put a sock in it. I’m not sure I understand why Dr. Stein wasn’t beaten with Pipes and sent out of the air lock. Michiko pouts a bit before the ship takes off just to make sure we all know she’s troubled.
Shortly after liftoff we have small asteroids hitting the ship one of which punctures the ship and in the explosive decompression the Buffoon’s butt gets stuck in the hole. They equalize the pressure – the buffoon now has a very strange mark on his ass one assumes and then the UFO returns – and then the ship’s propulsion system is covered with foam, half the fuel is suddenly gone and the ufo is lurking outside and dr. Stein is having a nervous breakdown and babbling about food. The film’s tone starts to get manic like the drugs have just kicked in.
On the moon Michiko volunteers to be on the rescue rocket, which the moon base commander shrugs off saying something to the effect well they are probably dead but if they aren’t we’ll need to know if they are in serious trouble before we send up a rescue rocket.
Meantime Lisa and HC have gone outside the ship to try and clean off the foam from the ship – as they do this Lisa discovers what look like ping pong ball sized spore looking things in the foam. Being a scientist, she collects one of the spores along with some of the foam material. In a monster movie, this is never a good idea, as will be shown shortly.
After some time a rescue rocket with Michiko and more fuel arrives – the ship again escapes the UFO which makes it’s last appearance in the film if memory serves me. I have watched this film three times now and have fallen asleep at precisely the same time each time I’ve watched (right about here as a matter of fact) so I’m working under a handicap here.
Anyway with the new fuel AAB Gamma is able to escape the UFO and return to earth. They have not reached Mars but they know that flying saucers are the cause of the other ships disappearance (a face they seem to take pretty nonchalantly – we actually hear zilch about the UFO after this).
And this have this little space spore with the foam – this they seem excited about – but not to the point they are going to do anything about it. They leave the foam and spore in its container and go off to Par-tay! More hep music more booze and then a phone call – there’s been a break in or something at the spore room.
Back at the spore room we see that the container has shattered there is a melted hole in the floor that doesn’t have a bottom and a foot print that looks like a chicken’s – what does it mean? Could there have been an alien inside the spore? Nobody knows, after Lisa gathers what’s left of the foam and the spore cover and puts it in a container the folks head out for more booze.
This film needs an intervention.
As the group – Lisa, Michiko, Buffoon and Heroic captain reach the night club – suddenly the lights go out and then – finally – the Monster appears. And begins a rampage that goes on a rampage – why the monster goes on a rampage is not explained – but that is after all what monsters do so off it goes.
About the Monster, which is named Guilala. or some such – (as part of this movies not explaining things the reason it’s named that is never explained). It looks like, well, attach a starfish head to a some sort of mutant green chicken/man mutant looking thing add antenna and there you are. It’s not the most inspired design choice. And the actor inside can’t see as you see a thing the way the suit is built him throw the head backwards from time to time during a shot trying to get a look as to where the hell he is on the set through the eye slits in the costume.
On a technical level the city destruction is not as good as Toho’s during the same period, - Toho always gave a sense of place to what was being destroyed and one trick they had was that the building models had an interior structure so that the buildings would collapse in real looking manner – now you never forget that there’s a man in a suit there but it is an example of the need for manic attention to small details with regard to monster movies.
Anyway the monster goes hither and yon fighting vast hordes of model tanks and jet fighters – in this case the F 104 starfighter – others have noted that more than one plane crashes into X but considering the starfighter was built for high altitude interceptor work – with teeny weenie little wings and the need to maintain a high air speed at all times it wouldn’t do very well as a tactical monster attack plane. Sorry just being an airplane geek for a second.
Back at the FAFC lab Lisa comes to the conclusion that the foam from the spore casing absorbs energy and that if they can produce enough they will be cut off X’s access to energy.
But they need to go to the moon to do this – no I don’t know why and I got tired of asking.
They make the foam and return after some discursions that are very boring to discuss frankly by this time I wouldn’t cross the street with this folks they are obviously snake bit. Oh yes the flying suacer shows up once again does sort of evil things and then leaves.
As the foam arrives on earth and is distributed to the air force X shows up at the FAFC and in order to lure it away the Captain and the buffoon load the fuel for the space ship on a truck. However before that happens Lisa apparently throws herself under heavy lab equipment. It’s another of this film's weird moments – we don’t see the accident but are informed by Michiko after which we see Heroic Captain and the rest try to lift what looks like a huge printing press off of Lisa’s leg. This accomplished – with the roars of Monster X in the background – the men then take to the jeep and waste about 10 minutes with the beast chasing them. I hate to think that this was the inspiration for the scene in Jurassic Park with Jeff Goldbloom starts saying “faster, must go faster” as the t-rex is chasing them but the heroic captain spends most of the time yelling at the buffoon to drive faster so who knows?.
In the end the duo hop off the jeep x gets the fuel and wanders away for a few moments then
Lisa who was last seen in great pain and barely able to move – and Michiko show up and they all watch Monster X get doused with foam – which causes him to shrink back to round ping pong ball size. Lisa puts the spore back in its’ carrier. It is then shot back into space.
The film ends with Lisa saying that she has learned a lot about love from X (huh? What?) And that she will not tell Heroic Captain that she loves him as Michiko also loves the Cap. We see the happy couple holding hands and the music swells and the film ends.
Awfully silly at times with painfull comic touches it seems much much longer than its 90 minute running time.
Enjoy with takeout chicken.
Well okay but I think you’re missing something there. Like the wildness and near white light surrealism that b-movies and genre films can bring to the screen. Is the great art? Well maybe not but these films are worth a look during Hollywood’s annual orgy of self love goes on. And so, without further ado we bring you the Son of the Revenge of the 31 Days of Cheese.
Day 1 – X From Outer Space 1967
Made during the monster boom in Japan and the height of the really swinging part of the sixties this is a rather, no strike that, is a very odd film putting tropes from monster movies space operas and adding love triangle sauce into a blender and hitting “make it confusing”.
We start off with a rousing song over the credits about the wonders of space and the earth then we see a miniature of a Cape Kennedy style space station – there is a helicopter flying in. The music is a jazzy sort of lounge music theme that we will hear A LOT . The copter lands and it turns out is carrying atomic fuel for the rocket. We learn this when the two janitors (or whatever) loading the atomic fuel into a station wagon (?) almost drop it. Everybody around them flips out – the German looking professor type that arrived with the helicopter waves giger counter at the fuel, it’s okay he says and folks breathe again. You know you might what to get more guys or better equipment than a Toyota station wagon if you’re going to be mucking about with stuff that goes boom if you drop it.
We cut to a briefing for the flight of AAB Gamma (and we will be hearing that name a lot as well – after I saw this film my dreams were filled with someone saying “AAB Gamma come in AAB Gamma this is FAFC.” Over and over and over again). The astronauts are – I still have that name problem so it’s the Heroic Captain (HC); Blonde lady scientist; the Space doctor and the radio man and buffoon who is painful to watch. Anyway these heroes are told that the last few mars flights (I guess this means they are going to Mars) have been lost and they think it’s because of UFO’s. I unsure of the exact number – Five pops into my mind for some reason but the point there is something hostile up there that is destroying our space ships. The reaction of the crew is sort of ‘oh ho hum’ and then after a quick series of good byes they are off to the ship laughing and joking – the buffoon makes some sort of joke about Blonde Lady’s heartbeat but it’s laughed off (it will turn out Blonde Lady Scientist (BLS) has a crush the heroic captain – which will in the end affect the plot not a whit.
The ship takes off to the sound of the lounge music and we follow along as the crew banters back and forth about nothing in particular – this film although it clocks in at about 90 minutes plays one hell of lot longer – these scenes where nothing happens are part of the reason.
Then two things happen – one the doctor gets sick then the flying saucer UFO appears looking more like a meat pie, the brave commander tries to pursue but cannot and eventually they make tracks for the moon.
On the moon is the third leg of the romantic triangle Michiko who spends most of the moving pouting about something or other – she has the hots for the captain but it seems something is wrong between them. Who they are to each other and what happened is not explained. It’s almost a leitmotif of this film, things that are not explained.
Arriving on the moon, the head doctor of the Moon station one Doctor Stein announces that the doctor has space sickness and cannot proceed with the mars expedition.
Meantime – Blonde Lady Scientist (the ever infallible IMDB says her name is Lisa – which is easy to type) so anyway Lisa, the Buffoon, Michiko and the Heroic captain are what? Examining the footage of the flying saucer, having a conference with the folks back on earth about this which is as far as we know the first confirm encounter with alien beings? Fixing the ship? Ah no – they first eat – it is interesting to note that the buffoon sits at a table by himself stuffing his face and then they go out on the moon’s surface and HC and Michiko start bouncing up and down. This makes Lisa sad somehow. She turns away.
Then the girls take a shower – now however they don’t bounce. Lisa says something that causes Michiko to turn up the water and pout into the stream of water. As this is going on HC and the Buffoon are taking a bath in artificial water (please don’t ask it’s not important)
Then they go drinking with Dr. Stein – apparently like winter duty in the Antarctic the only way to keep from going crazy on the moon is to drink, like a lot. And once again I have the same questions here as when watching the green slime – did they need to bring the bottles? That seems a waste of weight unless they are making the bottles on the moon and in that case these folks are pretty far gone. There is some pointless stuff where HC who seems to have been having a serious conversation with a scotch bottle rebuffs Lisa’s request for a dance (the buffoon chimes in and they start dancing) and the it is announced that Dr. Stein will take the place of the sick doctor. Stein takes the news with ill grace. In fact he starts to complain loudly about going to Mars.
The next day, the crew, one assumes well hung over takes off for Mars with Dr. Stein complaining all the time about everything especially the food – it gets so even the heroic Captain has had enough and tells stein to put a sock in it. I’m not sure I understand why Dr. Stein wasn’t beaten with Pipes and sent out of the air lock. Michiko pouts a bit before the ship takes off just to make sure we all know she’s troubled.
Shortly after liftoff we have small asteroids hitting the ship one of which punctures the ship and in the explosive decompression the Buffoon’s butt gets stuck in the hole. They equalize the pressure – the buffoon now has a very strange mark on his ass one assumes and then the UFO returns – and then the ship’s propulsion system is covered with foam, half the fuel is suddenly gone and the ufo is lurking outside and dr. Stein is having a nervous breakdown and babbling about food. The film’s tone starts to get manic like the drugs have just kicked in.
On the moon Michiko volunteers to be on the rescue rocket, which the moon base commander shrugs off saying something to the effect well they are probably dead but if they aren’t we’ll need to know if they are in serious trouble before we send up a rescue rocket.
Meantime Lisa and HC have gone outside the ship to try and clean off the foam from the ship – as they do this Lisa discovers what look like ping pong ball sized spore looking things in the foam. Being a scientist, she collects one of the spores along with some of the foam material. In a monster movie, this is never a good idea, as will be shown shortly.
After some time a rescue rocket with Michiko and more fuel arrives – the ship again escapes the UFO which makes it’s last appearance in the film if memory serves me. I have watched this film three times now and have fallen asleep at precisely the same time each time I’ve watched (right about here as a matter of fact) so I’m working under a handicap here.
Anyway with the new fuel AAB Gamma is able to escape the UFO and return to earth. They have not reached Mars but they know that flying saucers are the cause of the other ships disappearance (a face they seem to take pretty nonchalantly – we actually hear zilch about the UFO after this).
And this have this little space spore with the foam – this they seem excited about – but not to the point they are going to do anything about it. They leave the foam and spore in its container and go off to Par-tay! More hep music more booze and then a phone call – there’s been a break in or something at the spore room.
Back at the spore room we see that the container has shattered there is a melted hole in the floor that doesn’t have a bottom and a foot print that looks like a chicken’s – what does it mean? Could there have been an alien inside the spore? Nobody knows, after Lisa gathers what’s left of the foam and the spore cover and puts it in a container the folks head out for more booze.
This film needs an intervention.
As the group – Lisa, Michiko, Buffoon and Heroic captain reach the night club – suddenly the lights go out and then – finally – the Monster appears. And begins a rampage that goes on a rampage – why the monster goes on a rampage is not explained – but that is after all what monsters do so off it goes.
About the Monster, which is named Guilala. or some such – (as part of this movies not explaining things the reason it’s named that is never explained). It looks like, well, attach a starfish head to a some sort of mutant green chicken/man mutant looking thing add antenna and there you are. It’s not the most inspired design choice. And the actor inside can’t see as you see a thing the way the suit is built him throw the head backwards from time to time during a shot trying to get a look as to where the hell he is on the set through the eye slits in the costume.
On a technical level the city destruction is not as good as Toho’s during the same period, - Toho always gave a sense of place to what was being destroyed and one trick they had was that the building models had an interior structure so that the buildings would collapse in real looking manner – now you never forget that there’s a man in a suit there but it is an example of the need for manic attention to small details with regard to monster movies.
Anyway the monster goes hither and yon fighting vast hordes of model tanks and jet fighters – in this case the F 104 starfighter – others have noted that more than one plane crashes into X but considering the starfighter was built for high altitude interceptor work – with teeny weenie little wings and the need to maintain a high air speed at all times it wouldn’t do very well as a tactical monster attack plane. Sorry just being an airplane geek for a second.
Back at the FAFC lab Lisa comes to the conclusion that the foam from the spore casing absorbs energy and that if they can produce enough they will be cut off X’s access to energy.
But they need to go to the moon to do this – no I don’t know why and I got tired of asking.
They make the foam and return after some discursions that are very boring to discuss frankly by this time I wouldn’t cross the street with this folks they are obviously snake bit. Oh yes the flying suacer shows up once again does sort of evil things and then leaves.
As the foam arrives on earth and is distributed to the air force X shows up at the FAFC and in order to lure it away the Captain and the buffoon load the fuel for the space ship on a truck. However before that happens Lisa apparently throws herself under heavy lab equipment. It’s another of this film's weird moments – we don’t see the accident but are informed by Michiko after which we see Heroic Captain and the rest try to lift what looks like a huge printing press off of Lisa’s leg. This accomplished – with the roars of Monster X in the background – the men then take to the jeep and waste about 10 minutes with the beast chasing them. I hate to think that this was the inspiration for the scene in Jurassic Park with Jeff Goldbloom starts saying “faster, must go faster” as the t-rex is chasing them but the heroic captain spends most of the time yelling at the buffoon to drive faster so who knows?.
In the end the duo hop off the jeep x gets the fuel and wanders away for a few moments then
Lisa who was last seen in great pain and barely able to move – and Michiko show up and they all watch Monster X get doused with foam – which causes him to shrink back to round ping pong ball size. Lisa puts the spore back in its’ carrier. It is then shot back into space.
The film ends with Lisa saying that she has learned a lot about love from X (huh? What?) And that she will not tell Heroic Captain that she loves him as Michiko also loves the Cap. We see the happy couple holding hands and the music swells and the film ends.
Enjoy with takeout chicken.
Labels: Bad Moives - 31 Days of Cheese
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