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Thursday, July 12, 2012

Don't Open That Door! #4: The Black Scorpion (1957)

Hey, column #4 is up on PopMatters right now! Take a look.

This might be the most outlandish one yet... and I mean that in a good way, of course. Set in Mexico for no apparent reason, this movie features extensive miniature work supervised by Willis O'Brien, the guy who did the trick with 1933's King Kong. Needless to say, the model work is pretty good, and there's also plenty of it.


The human actors, on the other hand...

Here's the start of the column:

"Unprecendented earthquakes are raining destruction—not to mention ash and lava—down onto Mexico, and it’s up to heroic geologists Dr. Scott (you can tell he’s a scientist by his pipe) and Dr. Ramos to visit the benighted area and offer what help they can. Soon they start finding wrecked homes, smashed cars and dead bodies; the town of San Lorenzo is thick with rumors of devil bulls and missing people. Stranger still is the mysterious Senorita Alvarez, a planation owner whose Mexican accent keeps cropping up and then disappearing (and is gone completely after the first half hour). There’s nothing to be done, of course, except to stand around wondering what the heck’s going on, which everyone does for far too long. Especially once the little kid shows up..."

Read the rest here. And of course, Facebook Likes and shared links are much appreciated, as are Tweets and Google+ +1s and everything else. Thanks folks!

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