Sex kitten Mamie Van Doren takes top billing in this chaotic film based on Murray Leinster's The Monster from Earth's End. Just two years before Ms. Van Doren played Bubbles La Tassle in an episode of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and two years later she played Moana (no, not Disney's Moana) in Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women so her role in this film fit very nicely into the Van Doren oeuvre.
Joining her in this flick are Anthony Eisley (Hawaiian Eye), Billie Gray (Father knows Best), song-and-dance man Bobby Van (Kiss Me, Kate), and Pamela Mason, who had appeared with Van Doren in College Confidential and Sex Kittens Go to College. Further down on the cast list was Biff Elliot, who had played Mike Hammer more than a decade before in I, the Jury.
An expidition to Antarctica finds some strange tree specimins, which they take back to a Navy base in the South Seas. How could they have known that these were killer, acid-secreting trees that lived by night? B-movie terror ensues.
This little charmer was scripted and directed by Michael Hoey, although he had uncredited directorial assistance from Ramah of the Jungle actor Jon Hall and B-movie SF writer and director Arthur C. Pierce. Pierce also did some iuncredited work on the script for Hoey.
For the curious, the book was far more entertaining than the movie.
See what you think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iHtgl2Gy7o
Pierce was the no-budget (and little-talent) Kubrick/Robert Wise of 1960s skiffy movies.
ReplyDeleteHm. If Marilyn Monroe's best film might be KNOCK ON ANY DOOR or, I suppose, SOME LIKE IT HOT (never much cared for that one), and Jayne Mansfield's perhaps THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT or IT TAKES A THIEF (haven't seen the latter, but read tolerable things), did Mamie Van Doren ever have a best film?
Todd, every one of her films was a breast film. Wait. I'm sorry, I misread your last sentence.
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