Frankenstein Meets the Spacemonster aka
Duel of the Space Monsters is supposed to be bad. So bad its good? I don't know because I've never seen it but if anyone wants to add a quick review to the comments then we'll all be slightly better off for it.
And a coloured still for publicity purposes.
Steve
I haven't seen the whole thing, it's pretty tough going and I lost quite a bit of enthusiasm for the project when it became apparent the girls in Bikinis wouldn't be showing up in great numbers.
ReplyDeleteI doesn't really work as a drama or narrative at all but it has some nice aspects to it, which seem mostly due to the way it's production values impinged on it. For instance, there's not much dialogue, either because it wasn't written or studio time was limited, so to extend the running time they've included some quite lengthy interludes. Now because practically all the location stuff is filmed without synchronized sound, these are musical interludes. Think -Man from Uncle- for a clue to the kind mid sixties hep sounds they use. There's also some nice black and white photography, mostly on set in the invaders space ship but the quality is inconsistent, with really weird framing on some cuts. It's the only film ever seen with a close up shot framed so the subject's eyes are below center aspect while they're delivering lines.
Stock footage abounds but some is quite interesting, things like a Saturn 1 or 1B launch form the Kennedy Space Center, complete with mission talk, you can even recognize the iconic voice of Gene Kranz. There's also a nice interlude early on, documenting the space themed tourism in Florida.
What I saw of the film kinda works in a Seventh Seal kinda way, the sort of thing you watch to during a bout of insomnia I never got through that film either.
Cheers for that. If it drifts by on the TV I'll give it a watch but it sounds like I shouldn't make any great effort
ReplyDeleteComparing this awful film to The Seventh Seal (a film I personally adore) made me smile--especially as I can see where you're coming from. Anyway I just compared a cheesy French John Carpenter rip-off with a Kurosawa film, so we must be on the same wavelength! I saw this one years ago and I, too remember it being quite a tough slog-through. If that third pic down were a better rwpresentation of the movie overall I'm sure it would have been more entertaining (probably for all the wrong reasons!). :)
ReplyDeleteI've got a lot of film watching to do to catch up with you guys... but don't wait for me to do so. Keep on filling in the blanks. I'm always interested in people's thoughts and memories of the stuff I cover over here. Some films are classics and some of them are just classics if you watch them at the right age.
ReplyDeleteI usually do not subscribe to the so-bad-it's-good concept. I manage to find something of genuine value in films as generally bad as "Journey to the Seventh Planet" or "The Wizard of Mars". But this one is watchable only for its badness - I believe it was released in some markets as "Frankenstein in Puerto Rico" or some such... Look at the spaceship. Look at that third shot with the bald guy with pointy ears and the girl in a bikini. This is bad in a good way.
ReplyDelete...The secrets to go all the way and this film seems to do just that
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