Tag: Billy the Kid vs. Dracula

The Medusa Touch (1978)

THE MEDUSA TOUCH (1978) *1/2
I could only empathize with Richard Burton’s character in The Medusa Touch in one way.

At some point during The Medusa Touch, I realized that I was seeing a cinematic disaster before my very eyes and I began staring right back at the screen especially when Burton’s John Morlar trotted out his telekinetic powers. Through my telecinematic eyes, I flashed back on Billy the Kid Vs. Dracula when the Old Count, played by veteran John Carradine, overacted with his eyes just like Burton did 12 years later. I laughed at both films more than I have at films that were aiming to make me laugh and failed.

Whether or not one appreciates The Medusa Touch boils down to how one feels about the film’s heavy flashback structure and the Burton lead performance.

I don’t know, personally speaking, I soured on the flashbacks by about the third time Lino Ventura’s French detective Monsieur Brunel encountered a character who recalled a past event, normally a disaster, involving John Morlar at various evolutionary stages in his telekinesis. We know, though, with dread certainty that whenever there’s a flashback, somebody’s going to die. Morlar’s parents, his wife and her lover, Morlar’s neighbor, Morlar’s enemies at school, et cetera. Of course, the deaths grow progressively in number and more sensational until Morlar crashes planes into buildings and reduces cathedrals to rubble.

As far as Burton’s performance, I never felt much of anything for John Morlar and that blame falls on the shoulders of the man who could be both one of the best and one of the worst actors in the world before his death in 1984. I feel even more admiration for Sissy Spacek’s work as the title character in Carrie, after watching Burton go down in flames in The Medusa Touch. Spacek creates such overwhelming empathy for her character that we get caught up in the predominantly teenybopper melodrama and we truly care about what happens to Carrie White. We don’t want to see any more misfortune befall this character, and we are on her side when the pigs’ blood flies late in the picture. Morlar could not even rouse me to a superficial hatred that immediately disappears at the end credits, and by all rights he should have. I just heard Burton mouthing dialogue and being guilty of worse overacting with his telekinesis.

Not only does Morlar have telekinesis, he’s apparently unstoppable. Nobody can kill him in this picture, though two main characters give it the old college try. Morlar takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Simply unbelievable. Morlar spends almost the entire movie in a hospital bed on life support and that helps explain why Burton gives his performance basically in flashback; it should be mentioned though Morlar’s brain occasionally causes the attached monitor to go schizoid. Nobody casts a star the stature of Burton and then have him bed ridden for the film’s duration.

Between telekinesis and invincibility, I found little to believe in during The Medusa Touch. I just wanted it to be over so I could quickly begin the healing process.

Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952)

LUGOSI GORILLA 1953 OWENSBORO

BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA (1952) Three stars

They don’t make bad movies like BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA any more and that should bring sadness to genuine bad movie connoisseurs everywhere.

It was filmed in six days with a mighty mighty production budget of $12,000. (I have read other reports that have the film down for nine days and $50,000.)

William “One Shot” Beaudine (1892-1970) directed BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA and his credits between film and TV amounted to a staggering 372 with his final theatrical features JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN’S DAUGHTER and BILLY THE KID VS. DRACULA both released in 1966. Beaudine’s directorial career began in 1915, the year of D.W. Griffith’s landmark feature THE BIRTH OF A NATION; in fact, Beaudine assisted Griffith on both THE BIRTH OF A NATION and INTOLERANCE (1916).

Beaudine is not the only legendary Hollywood figure associated with BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA.

We have, of course, Mr. Lugosi, no stranger to bad movies, especially in the later stages of his career. He always played a good game, though, and never failed in elevating anything that he was in. One of the all-time greats, Lugosi (1882-1956) even gave great performances in death in both the Kinks’ “Celluloid Heroes” (“Avoid stepping on Bela Lugosi / ‘Cause he’s liable to turn and bite”) and especially Bauhaus’ “Bela Lugosi’s Dead.” MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA does not represent peak Lugosi, of course, and it’s not even as good Lugosi as Ed Wood’s GLEN OR GLENDA and BRIDE OF THE MONSTER, but any Lugosi is still good Lugosi.

Martin Landau, who earned an Academy Award for portraying Lugosi in ED WOOD, said that he prepared for his role by watching BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA three times (hopefully not in a row). Landau said the film was so bad that it made Ed Wood’s films seem like GONE WITH THE WIND by comparison. Now, there’s a pull quote for the ads: “Makes Ed Wood’s films seem like GONE WITH THE WIND.”

Lugosi made THE GORILLA in 1939 with the Ritz Brothers and Lionel Atwill and THE APE MAN in 1943, a film directed by Beaudine. All three ape films are public domain.

No, please wait, we have not even got to the best part yet. There’s nightclub duo Sammy Petrillo and Duke Mitchell, who play themselves in BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA. They are really playing Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, though, and you might be forgiven for mistaking Petrillo for Lewis and Mitchell for Martin if you missed the opening credits.

I raised my grade by at least one star once I found out that Martin and Lewis considered suing Petrillo and Mitchell for appropriating (misappropriating) their act for BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA.

From a 1952 story by the United Press’ Aline Mosby, “The latest ‘Martin and Lewis’ are Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo. They look, talk, laugh, and sing like Dean and Jerry, and they’re in the movies now, too. … Mitchell and Petrillo have the same haircuts, expressions, gestures and even ancestries of Martin, who’s Italian, and Lewis, who is Jewish.”

Mitchell and Petrillo insisted they did not see any resemblance. (Despite the film poster, “They look like Martin & Lewis … You’ll not know the difference … but they are really SAMMY PETRILLO DUKE MITCHELL.”)

After stating that Charlie Chaplin was the only original comic and everybody in show business is a combination of everybody else anyway, Petrillo added, “If it wasn’t for Minosha Skulnic, Harry Ritz and Gene Bayless, Jerry Lewis wouldn’t have an act. And that trick he does with his upper lip he got from Huntz Hall.”

“I’m a combination of Billy Daniels, Billy Eckstine and Sarah Vaughn,” Mitchell said. “Sometimes I get up to sing and I feel like Vaughn Monroe. Nothing’s original in show business. Who do you think Martin is? Crosby. Mel Torme’s like Sinatra, and he did all right.”

Mitchell and Petrillo only made BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA and Martin and Lewis split in 1956 after 17 films together beginning with MY FRIEND IRMA (1949).

Mitchell died in 1981, Martin 1995, Petrillo 2009, and Lewis 2017.

BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA is one of those movies where you can remember Leonard Maltin’s entire review, let’s see here, “BOMB. One of the all-time greats. Mitchell and Petrillo (the very poor man’s Martin and Lewis) are stranded on a jungle island, where Lugosi is conducting strange experiments. Proceed at your own risk.”

After positive reviews for THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN, KING KUNG FU, THE KILLING OF SATAN, and TROLL 2, I see no problem writing one for BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA, although I have mentioned that it’s a bad movie several times. C.M.A., that’s all, folks.