Director: Edward Bernds
Four men find themselves abandoned millions of miles away from home on a planet inhabited by women hellbent on destroying Earth. Their response, of course, is to call them dolls while gawking at their chests. Queen of Outer Space is the brainchild of the shockingly esteemed writing team of Ben Hect and Charles Beaumont, who imagine a society ruled by women who haven’t had the pleasure of a man’s love. Some of the men’s dialogue—”Why don’t you girls knock off all this gestapo stuff and try to be a little friendly?”—straddles the line between familiar 1950s chauvinism and genuine satire of gender politics, with the men occasionally coming off as buffoons in their nonchalance towards the feminine threat. That is not to say that Beaumont intended to write a postmodern feminist fable, but the dynamic between the sexes is more interesting than a purposely idiotic genre film might lead one to expect. The picture has the advantage of recycling costumes and sets from better sci-fi films and, in CinemaScope, it actually looks relatively first rate despite the micro-budget. One’s enjoyment of the picture will correlate directly with how much they smile at the title, but even cynics should be amused by exchanges like: “Perhaps this is a civilization that exists without sex.” “You call that a civilization?!”
Filed under: Reviews | Tags: 1954, edward bernds, the bowery boys meet the monsters
Director: Edward Bernds
Following in the tradition of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and The Cat and the Canary, The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters places the titular clowns in a horror setting in which each laugh is complimented by an equal scare. It’s an effective blend, thanks in particular to the outlandish cast of monsters–man, beast, and machine alike! Without access to Universal’s cast of creatures, the filmmakers invent a bizarre family which includes a pair of scientists (John Dehner and Lloyd Carrigan) who want to transplant human brains into both a gorilla and a robot, a racy vampire (Laura Mason) who seems as interested in sex as she is in a meal, and a mischievous grandmother (Ellen Corby) who wants the boys to satiate her man-eating plant. It’s fairly low-grade slapstick and clearly shot on a shoestring budget (there are only a few sets in the whole picture), but it’s fairly irresistible for its offbeat cast of grotesqueries. Leo Gorcy and Huntz Hall do an admirable job at rehashing Abbott and Costello routines–much of the humor derives from the two being oblivious to the dangers around them–and the brief running time keeps things from growing stale.
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