The Flying Serpent


Movie Notes from the Rust Belt..........

Youngstown, Ohio

I had an hour to blow, so I fired up the ROKU device and went straight to Pub-D-Hub. Took a look into the Sci-Fi/Horror category and went into the “F” section. It's alphabetical, you see, and next to the Frankenstein stuff, I tripped across that 1946 thriller, The Flying Serpent.

Like all decent movies made in 1946 that last for less than an hour, this one was released under two names (in my business, we call this an alias—you can call it anything you want), so The Flying Serpent is also known as Killer With Wings.

Pretty straight forward here. Nutty scientist finds an ancient Aztec killer bird/lizard thing and captures it for his use—no, we don't know how he caught it. He just did. Oh, he also found a dump load of Aztec treasure, and every time someone gets close to the treasure, he unleashes the bird-thing—OK, they call it the Aztec God Quetzalcoatl—and it kills the offending treasure-hunter. Sucks their blood like a vampire, too, further complicating the hunt for the killer, dontcha know.

There's way too much plot getting in the way here—there's a Coroner's Inquest led by an investigative reporter who's in love with the mad scientist's step-daughter, and live radio broadcasts of the hunt for the killer, and ….gee-whiz.....it just goes on and on.

Anyhow, I'm pretty certain that Geraldo Rivera saw this picture just before he decided it would be a good idea to look for Al Capone's secret vault under the Lexington Hotel in Chicago on live TV. I'm also pretty certain that the Japanese movie establishment learned all they needed to know about flying creatures for their Godzilla movies by watching this piece of celluloid.

Stars, and I use the term loosely, include all the regulars of the time—Combat wounded WWI Veteran George Zucco as the mad scientist, Ralph Lewis as the early Geraldo, Hope Kramer as the love interest, and a host of others.

As if this stinker wasn't quite enough, in 1982, Larry Cohen re-made this thing and named it “Q”. “Q” starred Michael Moriarty, Candy Clark, David Carradine, and Richard Roundtree.

Having not seen “Q”, I can't really comment, but the fact that it was made is enough of a reason to see the original. Have a look.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Very Simple Request

In the late 1970s (that would be during the Carter administration and THAT gas crisis), I drove a Datsun 1200 for a while.   It was a good, small, simple car, and I could afford it even though I had virtually no money. As I recall, it had 12 or 13 inch wheels, no power anything, a four cylinder engine, and a four speed manual transmission.   It was light weight with no amenities.   None.   It had an AM only radio and a tinny little speaker.   No air conditioning either—can you imagine?   No AIR??   On the freeway, when larger cars would pass, the jet wash would buffet the car slightly after the larger car passed.   It was orange, and it routinely got 35 to 50 MPG.   40 to 50 on the freeway and 35 to 45 around town.   When the tires wore out, it was about as expensive as putting new tires on your bicycle.   If it needed brakes, it was about as expensive as putting brakes on your bicycle.   Did I just repeat myself? Here's what the car did.   It provided reliable transportation
Read more

Karma

I see that the Marlin's Scott Cousins has been placed on the 15 day disabled list with a "lower back strain", and has been replaced on their active roster by Hanley Ramirez.  And that the Marlins are 3-18 since leaving San Francisco. Karma's a bitch.
Read more

Spring Training

It’s a sad season for fans of the SF Giants. Sad. I have no idea who these guys are—I read that they have employed 17 big-league coaches. Jeebus...17 coaches. The general behavior of the club is the same as an expansion club that’s trying to decide who it wants to be when it grows up. I also read that they’ve signed so many players and coaches that they’ve run out of jersey numbers and have issued “0” and “00”. Now, I don’t know if all that’s true, but I do read the McCovey Chronicles, and one of their pieces on the web site this week is entitled “ Which Fictional Character Do You Want To Manage The Giants?”. So it’s not just me. Fictional Character to manage? One of their suggestions was Elle Woods, and I think that’s just dandy. E ven at that, baseball in general is in trouble…..Currently over-regulated and over-sanitized with way too many “metrics” . Players are over-paid causing ticket prices to rise out of the range for a regular guy (such as myself) to go to game
Read more