Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer: Gloria Victor and Dolores Reed in space girl costumes.

I love 50 sci fi, I even love cheesy 50s sci fi, but this film is really, really bad. And not in a MST3K kinda way.

Virtually unwatchable as a couple of bozos do their best "hip cat" impression of Abott & Costello.

Chessecake can usually save cheesy sci fi, such as in "Cat Women On The Moon" but it can't in this case. This film requires a mute button and fast forward feature.

That said, I could watch Gloria and Dolores walk around the space ship for about an hour or so.

Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer: Reed Diamond plays a man suffering from amnesia who's been in a mental asylum for over a decade after he was found wondering the back roads with blood on his hands. The doctors want to test out an experimental new drug that'll return his lost memories if it works. But when the drugs give him hallucinations of a demon, he chooses to escape instead. While outside he befriends a young boy whose stepfather (Greg Grunberg) mistreats his mother, won't let her near the darkroom in his basement & acts suspicious in general.

While the general 'mystery' of the film is a tad easy to identify way before it's revealed, I found Mr. Diamond's acting to be enthralling enough to keep my attention throughout. (In the interest of full disclosure, I've been a huge fan of his since Homicide and his brief, but extremely pivotal, role in The Shield up through Journeyman & Dollhouse) Not a great film nor a good one, but serviceable enough. Although I did like it better than the previous films that I've seen from Director/writer Michael Hurst (Room 6, Pumkinhead 4, Mansquito)

Eye Candy: one fleeting pair of boobs in a hallucination

My Grade: C-

Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer: Richard Dreyfus is not the star here. He has about three 20 second cameos and what is Gene Barry doing all over this movie? No idea, the director was probably his brother! This is a movie that makes no sense whatsoever. The inept writer/director (same dude) butchered up everyone's talent with his horrendous uh...work. I got the DVD for a penny so can't complain! But it's weird!And it makes you feel weirded out and in not a good way. This was the 70's and looks like the director was on a bad acid trip and wanted everyone to experience what it's like to be inside his head. It has a somewhat interesting and controversial concept, but like a scratched record, it quickly plays foul. It has that "Manson family on acid" vibe to it.

I have no idea how the other reviewer got all they did out of this movie? Maybe they worked in it back when? At any rate, be prepared to lose 80+ min of your life you'll never get back. Yes, it's that awful!

Problem: Write a positive movie review.

Answer:
Bette Davis' electrifying performance is such that it is hard to remember the other female players. They were as perfect in their parts as Davis was in hers - they just didn't have as much to do. Some of the reviewers felt that the book was so much better - it was but to give the film it's due, to condense a 600 page book down to 83 minutes is no mean feat. The first part of the book didn't even make it to the screen - it told of Phillip's childhood, then moved to Germany and Paris, where Phillip had gone to try to make good as an artist. It also chronicles his first romance - with Fanny Price, who kills herself when she realises Phillip cannot return her feelings of love. It is a wonderful book but rambling and I think that anyone who does not think too highly of the film should read the book and will realise how good the film is.

After realising that he will only ever be a mediocre painter, Phillip Carey (Leslie Howard) comes back to England hoping to take up medicine. When out at a tearoom he meets a sullen waitress, Mildred (Bette Davis). Even though she has no interest in him and basically treats him like dirt, Phillip is obsessed. It is so hard to watch his efforts at trying to find any civility in this vicious shrew. In one scene she promises to meet him in a second class railway waiting room, when they almost miss each other, she berates him with "why would I wait in a second class waiting room when there is a first class one available". You just want to shake him. The only time she is pleasant to him is when she tells him she is going to marry another man, a coarse sales- man, Emile Miller (Alan Hale). With Mildred out of the picture, he meets Nora (Kay Johnson) a lovely woman, who writes romantic novels under a male pseudonym. She jokes about the popularity the books enjoy among servants (in the novel he had seen Mildred reading them.) Nora gives Phillip all the love and confidence he needs but he is incapable of returning her love. When Mildred returns (Miller didn't marry her and she is having a baby), of course he takes care of her and helps her with the baby (in the film it is treated as an object - always called "baby", never given a name or gender) - she repays him by running off with his best friend.

At the hospital he meets Sally Athelny (Frances Dee) who is visiting her sick father. He begins to visit her home and for the first time in his life gets a sense of family. Then surprise! surprise! Mildred returns like a bad penny and surprise! Philip takes her in. But he has changed and feels only disgust when she tries to show gratitude the only way she knows how. Then follows one of the most vicious, verbal fights on film with phrases such as "you cad, you dirty swine", "I only kissed you because you begged me" and "when you went I wiped my mouth, I WIPED MY MOUTH"!!! In the book a lot of Mildred's stock phrases such as "you're a gentleman in every sense of the word", "I don't mind", and "Mr. High and Mighty" were associated with prostitutes and when Phillip meets her for the first time he is struck by that.

The end of the film shows Phillip (being truly free of Mildred in the only way possible) now free to love Sally. Again in the book Sally tells Phillip that she thinks she is having a baby but that just makes him more sure of his love. That ending, like Mildred's "sickness" could not be in the film - even a pre-code one.

Kay Johnson was always called on to play sensible, believable women - which she played to perfection as she was obviously sensible herself. Her Nora was the woman Philip should have stayed with. Frances Dee was one of the most beautiful of screen ingenues. She was obviously being groomed for stardom with some roles that proved she was not just a pretty face ("The Silver Cord" and "Blood Money") but when she married Joel McCrea her career started to peter out. Her Sally did not push her talent to the limits. Apparently Leslie Howard was not very helpful to Bette Davis on the set - he was annoyed that an English actress was not given the part. He used to throw her her lines "whilst reading a book off camera". He did start to take an interest when a newspaper reported "the kid was running away with the picture"!!!

Highly, Highly Recommended.