Children Of The Damned (1964)

Scientists discovers that there are six children who each have an enormous intelligence. The children are flown to London to be studied, but they each escape their embassy and gather in a church. 

Children of the Damned is a 1964 science fiction film, a thematic sequel to the 1960 version of Village of the Damned. It is about a group of children, with similar psi-powers to those in the preceding film, but enabling an opposite interpretation of the children as a more good and more pure form of human instead of evil and alien.

Children of the Damned has generally been considered grossly inferior to Village of the Damned.  I don't know if I agree with that.  In Village of the Damned the children were the result of alien insemination (presumably) and were simply evil. In Children of the Damned they are the result of a jump in evolution and they, themselves, are unsure of who they are and why they are here.

The Plot.  A study, led by the United Nations results in bizarre and alarming findings. Six children, from all corners of the world, score unusually high on intelligence tests. It becomes even more remarkably when it seems that none of them has a father and all of them have label mothers. One mom even declared her boy is `not from this world'. While psychologists and other prominent scientists from all over the world search for explanations, the group of prodigies together seek shelter in an abandoned church….Things are getting more and more frightening when it turns out they're telepathic and able to hypnotize humans with their minds and eyes…

Bring me pork fried rice and a kabob.

 Rather than the aliens invaders of the first film, the children here are a human super-species, socially and intellectually incompatible with the rest of humanity. They don't seem to mean any harm, but their eerily cold and quiet presence provokes the authorities into a fearful contemplation of what they might do. John Briley's adult and intelligent script takes an insightful look at how our inherently insecure systems of authority might hunt and destroy that which merely suggests a challenge to their control.

The cast is excellent. Ian Hendry and Alan Badel as the two conscientious scientists trying to fathom the children's secret, are terrific. They bounce Briley's sometimes caustically witty lines between them with a delightful, naturalistic touch. The rest of the cast play it for keeps too, imparting a sense of urgency and, as with Alfred Burke's government man, icy menace.  The children themselves are surprisingly well played. No brattish over-acting here. Instead, the group of young, multi-racial actors exude a perfect sense of other-worldly calm, and, when necessary, chilling ruthlessness.

Paul we need to talk about how goofy your choice of attire is.

 The lead kid is named Paul and as a super genius, the dude doesn't dress himself very well.  Pull your socks down son. I hope mankind doesn't evolve to dress like that.  There is also a mix of kids.  We have the Indian kid, black kid and Chinese kid. They're not all blond haired and creepy eyes this time.

The production values of the film are excellent. In particular the stark black and white cinematography of Davis Boulton gives the film a strong sense of atmosphere and menace throughout which helps the film immensely. The production design of Elliot Scott give the film the same feeling as the cinematography, especially in the form of the destitute church the children come to occupy for much of the film. One element that improves in this film is the score by composer Ron Goodwin that, after a rather mixed result in the original film, is never out of place and put to good use throughout. The success of the production values helps the film out immensely.

Paul....lose the tie son.  You're 5.

Opinion about which of the 'of the Damned' films is better is seriously divided, but given the choice, I would always go for the freaky, blonde-haired and undeniably malevolent mutants of 'Village' over the normal looking, multi-cultural, and possibly benevolent saviours of mankind from 'Children'.  Viewing it is not a bad way to spend an evening.

Village Of The Damned (1960)

In the English village of Midwich, the blond-haired, glowing-eyed children of uncertain paternity prove to have frightening powers.

Village of the Damned is a 1960 British science fiction film by German director Wolf Rilla. The film is adapted from the novel The Midwich Cuckoos (1957) by John Wyndham. The lead role of Professor Gordon Zellaby was played by George Sanders.

In the small English village of Midwich everybody and everything falls into a deep, mysterious sleep for several hours in the middle of the day. Some months later every woman capable of child-bearing is pregnant and the children that are born out of these pregnancies seem to grow very fast and they all have the same blond hair and strange, penetrating eyes that make people do things they don't want to do. 

This is an absolute masterpiece of paranoia, sci-fi style. The acting is superb, especially by the late and under-appreciated Mr. Sanders, whose compassion and intellect sets the tone for this quiet and somewhat sad little tale. The lovely Barbara Shelley as Sanders loving wife is sweet and totally believable. Indeed, the townsfolk are all very realistic and approachable, kind and simple folk who don't really deserve the wrath of the spooky children who have invaded their small town. Young Martin Stephens, who also turned in a creepy performance in the ghostly masterpiece "The Innocents" is every bit as creepy here as George and Barbara's "son."
 

Beware the stare that will paralyze the will of the world.

Special praise must also go to the director and photographer, Wolf Rilla and Geoffrey Faithful, who give the movie the detached air of a documentary. The script, credited to Stirling Silliphant, George Barclay and Rilla, is an excellent adaptation of a fine book, "The Midwich Cuckoos" by John Beynon Harris. Fans of this movie will want to read it. The book has many enjoyable details that were necessarily and wisely cut from the adaptation. To note one difference, the children in the movie are psychically linked: what one knows they all know. But in the book, the boys are psychically linked with the boys, the girls with the girls; but there is little or no link between the two sexes. The reasons for this are fascinating.

The funniest part of the film was the dude that looked just like the country singer Lyle Lovett. I kept waiting for him to break out in song. 

Lyle Lovett looks over the situation.

Lyle Lovett surrounded by those creepy kids.

"Village of the Damned" is a mysterious and scary horror movie, with an original story in the style of "The Twilight Zone". The plot is intriguing and has not aged. The performances are excellent and the simple special effect of the eyes of the children associated to their performances is frightening.  Village of the Damned is a good way to spend an hour and a quarter one evening. Very creepy.

What Demonic Force Lurks Behind Those Eyes?

 Trivia:

The eerie effect of the children's glowing eyes was created by matting a negative (reversed) image of their eyes over the pupils when they used their powers.

Originally begun in 1957 as an American picture to star Ronald Colman, MGM shelved the project, because it was deemed potentially inflammatory and controversial, specifically due to its sinister depiction of virgin birth.  

The blond wigs that the children wear had a built-in dome to give the impression that they had a larger than normal cranium. 

The source novel is called The Midwich Cuckoos. This is because when cuckoo birds lay eggs, they deposit these eggs in the nests of other birds, who then raise the cuckoo chicks as their own. Compounding the insidious nature of this process, the cuckoo chicks often murder their nestmates in competition for food and parental attention.  

Ronald Colman was originally supposed to star in this film. He passed away in 1958 and was replaced by George Sanders, who had married Colman's widow Benita Hume in 1959 

The map co-ordinates for Midwich, given over the radio when pilots are being advised to avoid the local airspace, refer to the real life village of Woodmancott in Hampshire.  

Blue Hawaii (1961)

Chad Gates has just gotten out of the Army, and is happy to be back in Hawaii with his surf-board, his beach buddies, and his girlfriend. His father wants him to go to work at the Great Southern Hawaiian Fruit Company, but Chad is reluctant. So Chad goes to work as a tour guide at his girlfriend's agency 

Blue Hawaii is a 1961 American musical romantic comedy film set in the state of Hawaii and starring Elvis Presley. The screenplay by Hal Kanter was nominated by the Writers Guild of America in 1962 in the category of Best Written American Musical.

Let me just say that you cannot fuck with young Elvis.  Not the old, fat, drugged out Elvis.  Young Elvis was cooler than the other side of the pillow.  The ultimate Elvis Presley musical of the 1960's-and the biggest box office success of his entire Hollywood career. 'Blue Hawaii' is the one that certainly hit the highs with it's blend of comedy, romance, music, scenery and a bevvy of beauties! 

Elvis Presley rides the crest of the wave

An Elvis movie wouldn't be an Elvis movie if he didn't chant his way through a number of songs and with 'Blue Hawaii' this culminated in a total of fourteen.  Elvis will pull out a fucking guitar and belt out a song anywhere.  This film, with its big budget and great soundtrack, laid the groundwork for the Elvis movies made later. Unfortunately, as Parker had negotiated a percentage of each film, it didn't take him long to realize that the faster and cheaper they made them, the more money for him and, by extension, Elvis.  The soundtrack is quite possibly the best of any Elvis movie, with such gems as "Can't Help Falling In Love," the toe-tapping "Rockahula," "Hawaiian Wedding Song" and an abbreviated but still enjoyable rendition from Elvis of the traditional Hawaiian classic, "Aloha Oe."

Elvis was in top form here - handsome, slim, and boyish. A far cry from the overweight, ostentatious, muttonchopped, rhinestoned, caped and bell-bottomed joke he became a decade later. The rest of the cast was good, with the exception of an over-the-top Angela Lansbury and a cold, unmusical Joan Blackman.

Ecstatic romance...exotic dances...exciting music in the world's lushest paradise of song!

The story is a sparse affair concerning Chad, a returned G.I. who wants to make his own way in life but whose overbearing mother (Angela Lansbury, great as usual) wants only to hear of him working in the family's pineapple business. Chad figures out a way to get a job with a tourist agency taking advantage of his knowledge of the islands, but a crisis involving one of his underage charges threatens to cut his new career short.   "Blue Hawaii" was clearly intended as wholesome family entertainment, but there are two points at which it might cause some raising of eyebrows today. The first is the (presumably) unintentional double entendre which occurs when Maile asks Chad whether he can satisfy a teacher and four teenagers. The second comes when Chad picks Ellie up, puts her across his knee and gives her a good spanking.  You read that correctly.  A 17 year girl is hell bent on singing into Elvis's mic.

Say my name bitch.....

Blue Hawaii marks the height of Presley's singing and film career. The Beatles hadn't come on the scene yet, the King was still ruling the roost on the record charts and his films were grossing big box office.  Definitely a must see for Elvis fans and a watchable one for non-Elvis fans.

Elvis is, as usual, surrounded by pussy.

Trivia:

Turn the sound up loud when Chad (Elvis Presley) is first seen leaving the plane and you will hear hundreds of screaming fans who were watching the shoot.

Angela Lansbury, who played Elvis Presley's mother, was only 35 years old when the movie was filmed, a mere ten years older than Elvis. 

The closing scene, where Elvis Presley is getting married by the pool, was shot at the Coco Palms Resort on Kauai, where Elvis was staying when filming the movie.

Approximately seven minutes before "The End," Maile (Joan Blackman) kicks Chad (Elvis Presley) out of her room on Kauai, then peeks through the blinds. Briefly in her view is a couple paddling a canoe. The woman, blond and seated in front, is pop singer Patti Page. How Patti paddled her way into being an extra came about because she was then married to Charles O'Curran, a choreographer and music stager for many films produced by Hal B. Wallis, including this one. 

The red MG roadster which opens the film was often seen in the first half. Presley liked the 1960 MGA 1600 MkI so much that he bought it. It now resides in Graceland at his car museum with his motorcycles, Cadillacs, Stutzs and other vehicles.

 Juliet Prowse, Elvis Presley's co-star in G.I. Blues (1960), was signed to play Maile, but she wanted to use another studio's make-up artist and have the studio pay to fly her secretary to Hawaii. When those conditions were refused, she pulled out of the film.

Elvis Presley gave his famous ukulele from this film to Hank Garland, nicknamed "Sugarfoot." Garland was one of the top session guitar player during the 1950s in Nashville. He recorded with Elvis and toured with him from 1958-1961. Elvis etched his initials into the ukulele for Garland. During his 1961 Hawaiian benefit concert (for the Arizona Memorial), Elvis was quoted as saying that Garland was "one of the finest guitar players in all of the country." 

The soundtrack album for this movie is not only Elvis Presley's most successful chart album, but it is also the #1 album overall for 1961. "Blue Hawaii" spent 20 consecutive weeks at the #1 spot on Billboard Top LPs chart in 1961-1962 (a record to be broken only in 1977 by Fleetwood Mac's "Rumors" album), and it stayed on the charts for 79 weeks.

Unsure why Elvis is singing to a group of dudes. 

 Jenny Maxwell, who plays Ellie Corbett, was later the victim of a famous never solved murder when in June of 1981 she and her husband, prominent attorney Ervin "Tip" Roeder were gunned down at the entrance to their Beverly Hills condo. Police were never able to develop a viable suspect or motive for the double homicide. It was eventually written off as a botched robbery but it is worth noting that at the time of the murder Roeder was aggressively campaigning to reopen the investigation into the death under mysterious circumstances of another prominent actor, Nick Adams. Adams death was ruled an accidental drug overdose but many of his friends, including Roeder, didn't accept this explanation believing that Adams had probably been murdered.

Joan Blackman was in two movies with Elvis Presley 

Film debut of Pamela Austin.

You can't stop love

Topper (1937)

A fun-loving couple, finding that they died and are now ghosts, decide to shake up the stuffy lifestyle of a friend of theirs.

Topper is an American comedy film starring Constance Bennett and Cary Grant which tells the story of a stuffy, stuck-in-his-ways man, Cosmo Topper (Roland Young) who is haunted by the ghosts of a fun-loving married couple.

A fun-loving couple, wealthy Long Island socialites George and Marion Kerby (Cary Grant & Constance Bennett), return from the dead after a fatal car accident in their flashy roadster to help a henpecked husband Cosmo Topper (Roland Young). Cosmo is the Wall Street bank president where George is on the board of directors, as the largest stockholder. The change of life for the middle-aged Cosmo comes when over his overbearing wife Clara's (Billie Burke) objection, he buys George's reconditioned convertible speedster. He's soon haunted by the ghosts of George and Marion, who want to do Topper a good deed so they can leave the Earth and be free from their state of limbo. Their good deed involves loosening up the staid banker. The friendly ghosts are sometimes visible and sometimes can't be seen but can be heard. Their carefree ways supposedly make Cosmo a better man and brings him closer to his wife, but also brings chaos to his once orderly life.

The wound him up and let him run...Riot!

With a fine cast and some good and occasionally impressive special effect camera tricks, this is a decent fantasy feature. It makes its main gimmick work well, while also telling a light but interesting story about the main characters. The idea of ghosts returning to interact with the living is a simple and familiar idea, but in this movie it works pretty well.  

The 'ghost' effects are very good technically for their time, and they are used effectively in the story. There is a lot of variety in the various visual effects, and they show some clever ideas and careful planning. Only a couple of times do the seams show.

Roland Young is the perfect Topper - henpecked, confused, and a nervous wreck. He's a man dying to break free of his shackles, and he's always envied George and Marion's lifestyle, even though it killed them. His frustration and unhappiness make him sympathetic, and the audience is with him all the way.

You shouldn't drink & drive. 

Topper is one of those films that probably could do with a remake.  If you've never seen this movie, treat yourself.  From one spooky set up to the next, Topper is a cure for the blues, be it fisticuffs with cops, or turning a hotel inside out, it is quite simply a delicious piece of 30s comedy pie.  

Constance Bennett Showing a man a good time was her daily "Good Deed"

Trivia:

The fancy finned-back car driven by the Kerbys was custom built by the Bohman & Schwartz Co. using a 1936 Buick Roadmaster chassis. Originally the producers had in mind to use a coffin-nosed Cord, but it wasn't large enough. In the custom-made Buick there were special compartments for camera equipment, etc. The Buick resembles a Cord, but the supercharger pipes on the side were just decorations (a Cord comes with an actual supercharger). After filming the Buick was bought by the Gilmore Oil Co. and was used for promotional purposes for many years. It was updated in 1954 with a Chrysler Imperial chassis and drive train. The car driven by Cosmo Topper is a 1936 Lincoln Model K.  

Arthur Lake, the elevator boy/bellhop, went on to star as Dagwood Bumstead in the "Blondie" movies and TV series. 

The commercial and critical success of this film led director Norman Z. McLeod to include much of the principal cast in his next film, Merrily We Live (1938). Constance Bennett, Alan Mowbray, and Billie Burke all received major parts in McLeod's next work, with Mowbray reprising his role as a stuffy butler and with Burke again playing the matriarchal head of a household.  

This was the first black & white film to be "colorized" in 1985. 

Second film appearance of Lana Turner; she was uncredited and had no lines.

Oh, George, I can see right through you.

Producer Hal Roach wanted W.C. Fields and Jean Harlow to star as, respectively, Cosmo Topper and Marion Kerby, but neither was available at the time.

This is the first of three films that Hal Roach adapted from a Thorne Smith novel. 

The easiest part of the shoot for Cary Grant and Constance Bennett was the many special effects scenes, which only required them to record their lines while special effects artists made the various items they moved, from fountain pens to a pair of frilly lace panties, appear to move on their own.

In addition to the stress of her career problems, Constance Bennett was dealing with her sister Barbara's alcoholism, which left her short-tempered on the set. She also was frequently late. 

The entrance to the Seabreeze Hotel, where Topper and the ghosts check in for a little fun, was filmed in front of Bullocks Department store on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.

A production still for the film included Natalie Moorhead in the film, but she was not in the viewed print and her role may have been cut from the released film. 

Hal Roach immediately wanted Cary Grant to play George Kerby, but he had difficulty getting the actor to agree to play the part, since Grant was concerned about the supernatural aspects of the story. Assurance from Roach that the screwball aspects of the story would be played up - plus a fee of $50,000 - were sufficient to convince Grant to do the film.

Songwriter and pianist Hoagy Carmichael makes an uncredited cameo appearance, early in the film, as the piano player in the sequence where George and Marion are on the town the night before the meeting at the bank. He introduces the song "Old Man Moon", which is sung by George and Marion (It's also sung later by Three Hits and a Miss). It was Carmichael's screen debut. As the couple leave the bar, George says "(Good) night and Carmichael replies "So long, see ya next time." 

The music in the scene where the bell boy trips over the curb as topper leaves the hotel and again as topper "rises" from the dead, the background music heard is the eight note theme later used in the Harry Potter series.