Started this on August 31st and the goal is to write up one section a day which will mean this post will have the usual reviews of an American TV series plus a trio of older movies. If all goes well this will be published on September 4th and it being a holiday weekend wanted a pair of days off so writing this up early so there wouldn't be two days in a row without a post. This now makes it a year since I revived this series which I began in late 2018 and had five posts at the time. Not sure why I didn't continue on with these posts and glad I began it up again for it's allowed me time to work in other posts. Plus you readers seem to be enjoying these posts which are much more than just mini reviews, I think the intros to movies and dramas are often the most interesting parts of a post. Over that year have been averaging 3.5 posts a month but soon may get back to doing recaps for an entire series. Not a post for every episode but a post where I could discuss 3-4 shows and have been musing about that for a while but have been stagnant on thinking of a format that will work.
Also have been beginning these posts with a favorite of mine and often yours of a woman who hasn't been heard from in a while. Can't say that about Miku, the posts for her have slowed down yet I try to do as many as possible for her. She'll be celebrating birthday #24 on September 10th and will have a post a few days after that or perhaps after the September 19th TGC show which she'll be attending. I do read all comments, may not respond to all but if possible will do so. A recent comment was a heads-up about Miku and how in October she'll be releasing her second photobook, think she may be the first Hina member to have two. Have seen a few of the promo pictures and did those make my cold water bill hit a zenith, whewwww!!!! In Miku's next post will have more info on the book which was set in Austria, Erika from Nogi went to Germany for her first book though she was born there. Will also have photos from the book and it wouldn't surprise me if this is also a graduation photobook, two weeks before the book's release is when Hina's 18th single is coming out. I did make a prediction earlier this year that Miku may be gone by the end of the year and though I hate to see my favorites leave she has what it takes to have a successful solo career.
Speaking of photobooks another favorite of ours also has one coming out in October. She could be that 'long lost favorite' for today that has been forgotten about and am referring to Miona, for a year have been wanting to do a post for her but it had become close to impossible. I've been a bit critical of Miona's career since leaving Nogi five years ago and I'm so disappointed on how things worked out yet she has been someone I've secretly rooted for as I do like her quite a bit. Miona has made the yearly faves list four times and on the 'All Time Faves' list she ended up in the thirteenth position plus for a while was close to being my top Nogi member. So I have been bummed out by her lack of success and to me some of the blame lies with her agency as they've given her some rotten roles and advice. But today isn't the time to talk about that and I'm hoping her next post(s) will be positive but unsure when those will be. On October 15th Miona will be hitting the age of thirty and on that date will be releasing her first photobook in five years so am hoping I can do a post for her in about two weeks plus have another around her birthday. The first four photos below are advance ones for the book and she's never looked like that before in the first pic! She went to Croatia for the photo shoot and that has to be a first for an Idol, the others below are from her second book. Miona's last post was done in the Spring of 2025 and didn't realize she had any last year. The posts had slowed down but it seemed in 2022/23 and the first bit of 2024 was able to have a post for her every 3-4 months.
Let's finally get to my current viewings and I don't include everything I watch. Do so for dramas but only include about half the movies I view with the main reasons being this post would be so long, take a while to write up plus sure you readers would nod off after three mini movie reviews. What I do is try to have the best of the bunch and also make them all from different countries, the three for today are from America, Japan and England in that order. I also watched another American movie from 1968 titled "Daughters of Lesbos" which was kind of sleazy yet interesting and it was only 55 minutes. One other was quite a good film and may have that in a future post, title of that movie was "The Man and the Monster" from 1959. It was a Mexican horror film and had an interesting plot which was of a very talented pianist wanting to be the best player in the world. However the pianist who was named Samuel always played second fiddle to a woman named Alejandra until one night when he was visited by the Devil! Samuel sold his soul to the demon to become the world's best but there was a catch, Samuel had to play locked up in a room as when he tickled the ivories he would turn into a Werewolf! That was a neat film, a goal of mine is to have more of these posts with themes, say only films from Mexico or dramas from a certain country, etc. EDIT: Do have an unintentional theme for today which is that everything I viewed was in B&W, most things are that I watch but this could be the first time no reviews were of a color drama or film.
Did themes early on for this series as most of the mini reviews were for older Japanese movies but glad I've expanded my horizons and am doing posts for many other countries. For instance will have a review soon for a Finnish movie and have never seen one of them. The same had been true for it's neighbor Sweden but two months ago did view a pair of terrific thrillers from the 1960's but smaller countries don't have nearly as many movies as America, Japan, England and other bigger nations. Let's finally get to the reviews for this post and how I really wish I can finish this post by the 4th as I would like to take a day or two off. Will begin with what could be my all time favorite American TV series and have gotten into the habit of starting off with a U.S. show as I have so many boxsets. Not sure what will be up for the next September post(s), did start on season three of "Vampire Diaries" and those four episodes I viewed were quite good but am itching to begin on a new series but am baffled on what it could be? What may be wiser is to start finishing off TV series so I could be leaning to the third season of "Babylon 5" or even the original "Superman" series from the 1950's and that would be for its fourth season..... sometimes it's so difficult making a selection....
If you've been reading these posts then here's a series that needs no introduction as I've included this in four previous posts. "Gunsmoke" is my all time favorite American show and for someone who is such a fan of gravure models, J-Pop Idols and Japanese movies you wouldn't think an ancient Western would be my number one show! But it has been for a while and the pics at the top are the boxset I bought close to two years ago. Knew of this show but had never seen an episode nor knew much about the cast so bought this on a whim which I do often but at $175 it was the most expensive boxset I've ever purchased! But well worth the dough as there's 635 episodes on 143 discs, that adds up to 440 hours of episodes plus there's many special features for the later seasons. "Gunsmoke" is the longest running Western and one of the longest running American shows of all time, it aired from 1955 to 1975 and probably could have gone on for a few more seasons. I'm halfway through the seasons as now number ten is completed but those had 375 episodes or over 37 a season. The last ten averaged 26 episodes a season as TV did change, most shows did have over thirty episodes a season but as time went on there were fewer each year. This tenth season aired from September 1964 to May 1965 and had 36 episodes which were in Black and White. The show didn't begin airing in color until season twelve so that's going to be such a shocker to me, above are some promo pics for season ten and the ones in color weren't too common for the show.
For seasons three through six "Gunsmoke" was number one in the ratings but then began a decline, season ten ranked 27th in the ratings yet I thought this was just as good as the other seasons. When it was #1 the show's episodes were 26 minutes in length but in season seven they increased to 51 minutes a show, these days an episode is 42 minutes because of all the commercials! But in season thirteen the series had a resurgence and was in the top ten for viewership for another six seasons. It's hard to review certain types of TV shows and this is a prime example of that. Of the 375 episodes in the first ten seasons there was only a single two part story and 373 stand alone stories/episodes. That's not a problem to me and sure most others but there's no way I could review each episode but in a way it is an easy show to talk about as not much has changed over ten seasons. Only one major character left who was Chester Goode who was played by Dennis Weaver. He departed during the ninth season and Chester was Marshal Dillon's deputy, he was my favorite character in the first few seasons. Most viewers tuned in to watch James Arness as Marshal Matt Dillon and he was such a likable lawman, extremely tough yet also very fair. When the series ended in 1975 Arness was 52 in age and people who were around in the 1870's/80's didn't live nearly as long as they do these days so that could have been a reason the plug was pulled but there were four(?) TV movies that came out in the 1980's. So through ten seasons not much has changed as there's no ongoing storylines like most other TV series and in a way that's a positive.
"Gunsmoke" did feature many known guest stars and often they were the main focus of the stories in the ninth and tenth seasons so that could be another reason for the ratings falling but as mentioned they did climb back. But those guest stars added in much to the stories and it is nice seeing different faces, I'm often curious about some guests and look up to see what else they've appeared in. Burt Reynolds did become a major star though I've never seen him in anything else. He played the role of Quint Asper in the show and he left after this season but seemed to only appear in half the episodes. Besides Marshal Dillon the only other cast member to appear in all twenty seasons was Doc Adams, he was almost 71 in age when the show ended. Miss Kitty was in the first nineteen seasons but took off the twentieth though would have returned if the show continued on, more on her after the photos. In season nine Festus Haggan became a regular character and he was played by Ken Curtis, he was the Marshal's new deputy and remained until the series ended. So that about sums up this show and of course I highly recommend this series but can understand if it may not appeal to many reading this and it's a series I usually wouldn't have checked out but glad I did. The huge advantage to not having an ongoing storyline is you can take long breaks between seasons as there's not a thing you need to remember. So think to stretch this out will be watching a season every other month which means I may not finish this until the Spring of 2028! After the pics is a highlight video of Marshal Dillon's best fights, in real life James Arness was a very tall man as his height was 79 inches which was used to his advantage as Arness played two gruesome movie monsters before "Gunsmoke" began.
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As a bonus have two mini sections in this post for my top two women from the 1950's to the 70's or at least my top English speaking pair. Will end off with the other gal who could be my number one from that period, right on her tail is Amanda Blake and this is now the fourth time I've had one of these sections for her which come right after talking about "Gunsmoke". Amanda was 26 in age when the series began in 1955, she was there for nineteen seasons or 1974. She took the twentieth season off but would have returned if there was a 21st season which could have happened but didn't. Perhaps my tastes are more different than I thought for the women from a generation or two ago as I think they are much more attractive than the gals today, plus they're much more humble and down to earth. Someone like Amanda also had much more classiness and wish these Hollywood divas of today would start emulating such woman as Amanda and there were also many more like her. One other thing is that Amanda was so alluring and what a figure she had, have said that she was such an underrated beauty but perhaps back in her days she wasn't and sure not many of us below the age of fifty know much about her, will have more things in future posts.
Such as a mini review for her 1953 movie "Miss Robin Crusoe" and sure by the title you know what it's about. Will feature this movie in a post that doesn't have a write-up about "Gunsmoke" so perhaps will do so in a few weeks. This was under-the-radar B-movie but those are often my favorites, have just skimmed through to take some screenshots and get an idea of what it was about. I've never read the original novel nor have I seen the movie but have a general clue on what it was about. Amanda played the role of Robin Crusoe and she ended up being shipwrecked with one other man who she quickly ditched. The island did have many natives and as some of the screenshots show Robin quickly had to become adept at using swords and a rifle, the year was 1659. After a while another man washed up on the shore of this not-deserted island, the pair did stick together but up until the point I watched weren't a couple. So will continue on with this in the near future, if I had to pick one woman in history to be stranded with Amanda would be near the top of my list! After watching 375 B&W episodes of "Gunsmoke" this is the first time I had seen Amanda in color and I wasn't disappointed, she was 24 in age when this was filmed. There was no trailer for the film so will skip having a video but below are a poster and lobby cards for the movie. EDIT: Also just obtained a 1956 "Alfred Hitchcock Mystery" episode that Amanda appeared in, that too will be in a future post. Hmmmm, sure not one reader would want to see it but a combo post with Amanda and the bottom woman Barbara would be such a unique one and sure no one in the history of the Internet has ever done one.... or thought of it!
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Wanted to include that top movie poster as it's from Belgium and wonder if they have any sort of film industry? Many times have said Horror is my favorite genre which could be expanded to Mystery and Supernatural themes as not every Horror flick has a lot of gory scenes. Another huge fave genre of mine are older Noir films from the late 1940's until the mid 1960's, in the last post for this series had two mini reviews of Noir films. For today have another pair, this first one is an American movie from 1952 while the next will be from Japan and that came out exactly a decade later. Been trying to have movies that I had never seen though I have viewed this one but it was at least five years ago and had forgotten every single thing that happened. Over 80% of the movie was set on a train and that was common many decades ago, it does add a lot more eeriness and suspense to the story but really can't have movies like this one these days. Almost forgot again to give the movie's title which is "The Narrow Margin", it was released on May 2, 1952 and there was a remake done in 1990. The main (unlikely)hero was a LAPD detective named Walter Brown, he was played by Charles McGraw who is on the left below. With Brown is his older partner detective Gus Forbes(Don Beddoe) who was only in the first ten minutes of the film. The pair traveled to Chicago and their mission was to bring a woman named Frankie Neall to LA, she's in the third, fourth and many other screenshots below. She was played by Marie Windsor who was 32 in age when this was filmed, she was a very tall actress as her height was 69 inches and she was quite the alluring woman. **** Plus she was involved in such a twist in the plot at the end which most didn't see coming. Frankie was traveling to LA to testify to a grand jury in the murder case of her husband Jake Neall who was a big time mob leader, she would also be bringing a list of all his associates! Which would destroy so many lives which meant Brown and Forbes were Frankie's escort from Chicago to LA but they had one huge advantage which is that no one knew what Frankie looked like.
But the pair were tailed to Frankie's apartment, as the trio were leaving to catch the next train bound to LA Forbes was shot in the hallway of Frankie's building. Brown gave chase but couldn't catch the killer but did wing him, time was of the essence so off to the train station went the pair. With the mob not knowing what Frankie Neall looked like Brown had her check herself in alone while he went to a different train entrance, that ruse did work. But two mob goons named Dence and Kemp tailed Brown to the train and were also on the voyage which was to be an exciting ride! Frankie did have the compartment next to Brown but was ordered never to leave it which she didn't, though quite attractive Frankie was one pain in the neck and Brown really couldn't stand her. The goon Dence was able to enter Brown's compartment but found no trace of Frankie, he later searched her room but Brown had hidden her away for a few minutes. But it was just a matter of time until the mob goons would find Frankie Neall and why wouldn't the LAPD or the Feds have sent more than just two men to protect such an important witness? Another woman soon became a key figure to the story, she's the blond woman below who was traveling to LA with her eight year old son Tommy. Her name was Ann Sinclair who was played by Jacqueline White, she was born in November 1922 and is still alive today so her age is currently 103!!!! Ann and Brown kept bumping into each other but for a while never realized who the other person was, Ann thought Brown was some arrogant and bumbling buffoon! Used Unlikely Hero above for Brown because while he came out on top at the end he almost blew this case and was responsible for someone getting slain. Not knowing what Frankie looked like Dence and his associate Kemp figured Ann had to be the mob leader's wife as she and Brown were spending so much time together. Back in her compartment Frankie also thought that scenario may be happening which would make her safer but it put Ann's life in danger!
Final segment and because of the possible identity mix-up Brown told Ann about his mission of bringing Frankie to LA for the trial. But in a huge bombshell Ann told Brown..... She was the real wife of Jake Neall and it was her who would be testifying at the trial! The Feds had thought of the plan which was an ingenious one but only worked partially as while Ann was telling Brown about herself the two mob goons broke into Frankie's compartment. They discovered she was an undercover Chicago policewoman and had been on this mission to confuse the mob which it did, also to see if Brown and Forbes were on the up and up. Dence and Kemp killed Frankie whose real name was Sarah Meggs but Dence was soon trapped by Brown and the pair had quite a boxing match. Dence was the loser and led away by an undercover railroad detective named Jennings so there were more than two agents on the case. A third mob goon was sent to the train and boarded before it reached LA but Brown and Jennings were able to keep this man plus Kemp away from Ann Sinclair and the train arrived safely in LA. There Ann refused police protection and wanted to go straight to the courthouse, in another twist she revealed there was no mob list on her as Ann had sent it to the DA the previous week! The movie ended with Brown escorting Ann to the courthouse and once again I picked out such a terrific movie to view! Most Noir films aren't too long and this was 72 minutes in length which means they zip by and was able to watch the next movie for today right after this one. I enjoyed this immensely and while no award winner it was a winner all around to me as there was plenty of mystery, darkness, plot changes and suspense so if you've never viewed one of these older Noir films this is a good place to start. After the screenshots is a trailer for the movie and the dark haired Marie Windsor certainly will keep most eyes glued to the screen! She died one day before her 81st birthday in December 2000 and her film career lasted close to forty years.
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Not quite a Noir film like the above is but this 1962 Japanese film "Gang vs. Gang" is darn close to being such a film, it's half Noir and half Yakuza. The above review was the length I've been striving for, three paragraphs with some trivial info, details about the cast and a review which explains all of the key highlights without spoiling it too much if you decide to view it. A shorter movie length helps, the above was 72 minutes in length while this is 85 minutes, this is such an obscure film that there's no trailer on YT and it's been a while since that happened. The above review had a Belgian poster for an American film and right above are some Italian posters for a Japanese movie! One of my favorite actors from the 1960's, early 70's was Koji Tsuruta, this was one of his first starring roles as he played the lead of Kenji Mizuhara who was just sprung from prison after spending five years there as he took the fall for his gangster boss. The movie wasn't twenty seconds long when an attempt was made on Mizuhara's life when he was exiting the prison, he was winged in the left arm but it wasn't too severe. That wasn't a warm welcoming for our semi-hero Mizuhara who a week later paid a visit to his old boss Kitamura who was the leader of Tokyo's Kimori-Kogour mob. Before he entered prison Mizuhara had been promised by Kitamura he would have a high ranking position after his sentence was served for he had taken the fall for his leader's crime, Mizuhara was also promised he would be next in line to lead the gang! But his once close comrades all had short memories and none recalled those promises which Mizuhara expected, he took out a pistol and winged Kitamura though could have killed his old boss. Mizuhara said it was a warning and he would return, once he left his bitter gang rival Namikawa(Tetsuro Tanba)finished the job and shot Kitamura to death!
The next day Mizuhara read that news and how Namikawa gave some tips to the police that Mizuhara may have been involved in Kitamura's murder. Namikawa is now the leader of the Kimori-Kogour gang so Mizuhara's prison release was perfect timing but now the semi-hero had the police and his ex-gang mates breathing down his neck! But out of nowhere came a trio of saviors who were the Yanagisawa family whom Mizuhara had never heard of but the trio approached him with an offer. The family was led by the elder uncle Yanagisawa who had raised his brother's children Yuri and Kanaya. Tatsuo Umemiya played the role of Kanaya, he was one of my favorites from the period of 1968-75 and this was one of his first films. While Mizuhara was doing his five year prison term the Kimori-Kogour Yakuza clan had branched out to sell drugs and it was by far the gang's biggest moneymaker. Yanagisawa knew most of the details and like Mizuhara wanted to take the gang down for good but it was never revealed why the elder Yanagisawa wanted to do so. He considered himself to be a 'planner' and never gets into the action but did so at the end. Yanagisawa's plans were to disrupt the Kimori-Kogour's lucrative drug trading with the help of Mizuhara, his ultra kawaii niece Yuri(Yoshiko Mita)and his nephew Kanaya but it was only four against a tough Yakuza clan! The quartet went right into action and did do a solid job at making life miserable for the gang's dealers and they also intercepted a few shipments but this is a huge organization, after taking out many of the lowlife dealers/distributors the team was aiming for the killer blow! How to do that came from a Kimori-Kogour clan member Otani who the new leader Namikawa wanted to eliminate and now this gangster wanted his revenge!
He told Yanagisawa that the main plant/warehouse which holds 80% of the gang's drug supply is located in a remote section of Hakone which is about forty miles west of Tokyo. The Kimori-Kogour gang would empty out the bottom 90% of a propane tank and in that empty space load into it drugs, they kept the top full of propane in case they police stopped their deliveries. The final 25 minutes of this film that lasted for 85 were of Mizuhara, Yanagisawa, Yuri, Kanaya and Otani traveling to Hakone and stealing a vast amount of propane tanks loaded with drugs. If successful that would bankrupt the gang and also would probably be the end of them but as mentioned why did Yanagisawa have a grudge against them as he was a law abiding citizen and not a member of a rival gang? The heist at first was successful but checking the plant/warehouse that day was the new gang leader Namikawa along with some of his henchmen, they discovered what had taken place and it led to an exciting climax where there were no winners! Namikawa's car chased the truck carrying the cylinders of drugs through the Hakone mountains and what didn't make sense was that the gangsters were firing at the truck, one errant hit to a propane cylinder meant all the drugs would go up in flames!
It was a long chase scene but eventually Namikawa and his thugs were cornered and slain by Mizuhara. However during that chase Yanagisawa fell off the truck and was run over, Kanaya had been the driver and he had somehow been shot by one of Namikawa's goons, Otani too was taken out during the long chase. Which meant only Mizuhara was left, waiting for the truck in a separate car was Yuri who picked up the injured Mizuhara for he had been shot also. Need to add in that all the propane/drug tanks had exploded so it appears that was the end of the Kimori-Kogour gang. Yuri drove Mizuhara away but with only a minute to go in in the film their car veered off the road into a ravine, a few seconds later both died and that's how the from ended. With NONE of the main cast alive and so often a solid Noir movie ends on such a note, Mizuhara was a somewhat 'hero' yet the world may never learn about what truly happened. This was a solid movie, not the best nor worst but one I enjoyed plus the cast did feature many favorites of mine. There's no trailer for the film so will skip having any videos, after the screenshots is today's third and final movie review.
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Being cut off worried Bernard who told his commanding officer about that and soon rushed off to Midwich. Just before entering the village Bernard met the policeman just below, when the officer crossed the Midwich border he too passed out! Soon arriving were the troops and according to them, plus a plane overhead checking out the area, only Midwich was showing no life. When the plane descended to about a thousand feet the pilot passed out and the plane crashed in the village, that'll be one of several deaths. But at about 2:50 pm everything in Midwich seemed to be back to normal, everyone had arisen and had no clue what took place, neither did Bernard or his army of soldiers and doctors. Also in the dark was Gordon Zellaby who was a professor of science, soon all was forgotten but two months later a dozen events happened which may be tied to this two hour 'blackout'. Midwich is a small village without a lot of women between 18-32 or your main child bearing years, there were about a dozen and what happened two months after the 'blackout' was that the dozen women were all pregnant! And it appears all became that way on the same day and time according to the village doctor Willers, that day of course was when the entire village had passed out at the same time. Before I forget need to add in the Army nor any scientists were able to find out what exactly happened, the same occurrence took place in at least four other regions on Earth. Of those dozen pregnant women two hadn't even had sex and did that baffle the doctor Willers! The professor Zellaby's wife Anthea(Barbara Shelley) was also pregnant and the pair had been trying to have a child for years with no success. Everything about these pregnancies was advanced as the babies were all born in their seventh month and all weighed over ten pounds. Plus their aging was accelerated as it appeared to Willers the dozen babies were aging three times faster than a normal human!
At that point the movie fast forwarded three years, instead of being three in age the dozen were now nine and most had an IQ of 180+. All had blonde hair, talked so similar which was with a monotone voice and gave off such creepy vibes to the villagers. The smartest of the group was David, the son of George and Anthea Zellaby and he was also the unofficial group leader. Of course the parents of David were at such a loss, what do you teach someone smarter than Einstein(!)and while George said it was Anthea's son he wondered was it really his own child? That was another mystery no one could answer, how did the twelve children get conceived and while it wasn't admitted think most thought it was the work of Aliens! This was only a 77 minute movie so there was very little filler and the action zoomed right by, viewing the screenshots below will help you understand the story better. Most parents and villagers were at their wit's end on what to do with the children, George had a solution which was approved by the Army after a pair of 'tragedies'. The first was when a car almost hit a child and the three others with her were so upset with the driver Ronald Pawle. As you can see in many screenshots the children's eyes can light up, when that happens they can control a mind. For coming so close to hitting a child the group wanted revenge on Ronald, they hypnotized him and a few seconds later he crashed his car into a wall with a distraught Anthea witnessing the scene. But at the hearing about the 'accident' the children had also used their eyes to hypnotize Anthea and she said nothing out of the ordinary happened as far as what the children did. The furious brother James Pawle said it was all hogwash and the children should be punished, an hour later they forced him to raise his shotgun to his head and pull the trigger, that too is in a below screenshot which go in order of the action.
Final paragraph and after that George told the Army and English government the children would live and be schooled at a village building, George would oversee the dozen odd yet advanced children. On the same date as when the residents of Midwich passed out the same happened in four other locations at the same time and also resulted in the pregnancies of similar children. One group was born in Australia but all died shortly after birth, another group was born in the Yukon but the villagers killed the children. Two groups were born in Russia and know that one of those groups of children had recently been killed for the citizens feared for their lives. Which was happening in Midwich, George was able to observe how the children's 'powers' were increasing and soon they may be able to make a plane crash that could be miles up in the sky! Without telling a soul George Zellaby planned to blow the building up that housed the children and in an oddity that same night the villagers were planning on burning the children to ashes! George had come up with a lame excuse that sent his wife Anthea and her bother Major Bernard away to London but she made a U-turn and the pair witnessed the explosion which killed her husband and the dozen children. They could read minds but George kept thinking to himself Brick Wall in an effort to block the children from reading his mind and knowing there was a bomb in his briefcase. When they did figure that out there was only two seconds to detonation, the last screenshot shows what happened to the building that had no survivors. I give this movie an extremely high recommendation, a horror film doesn't need a lot of gore to be frightening as this movie proved. The story was excellent though not everything was explained, the cast was also superb plus there was a lot of suspense, it was fast paced and there were some horror scenes that were effective, being a B&W film gave it a more eerie feeling. Following the screenshots is a trailer for the film and after that have one more mini segment.
Hope this doesn't sound morbid or whatever as it's hard to put these thoughts into words. One negative about watching older films from 1950-75, which is my favorite period of films from all countries, is that the cast is now so old. Or perhaps even dead for if an actress was thirty in 1960 she'd be in her nineties these days so many are sadly deceased. My all time woman may very well be Barbara Shelley and seeing as how I'm such a huge fan of gravure models and J-Pop Idols that may come as such a shock. She died in 2021 but was 88 in age and not many of us may make it that far. I was not around when Barbara was in her prime but better late then never as I'm so glad I discovered her and many other actresses from that period of time I mentioned. Barbara was such a stunner though didn't need to dress too skimpy to get our blood boiling as it did to Dracula! Actresses back then were much more classier, reserved, had better acting skills, were humble and to me looked so darn attractive as she proves above, so didn't Amanda Blake who was discussed earlier in the post.
This is the fourth film of Barbara's I've reviewed, "Village of the Damned" was the best though all were fine films. Have another pair coming up and not sure which will be reviewed first, one is a horror flick from 1964 titled "The Gorgon" which also starred Christopher Lee, Barbara did three films with him. The bottom two pics above are from the 1967 sci-fi/horror movie "Quartermass and the Pit" aka "Five Million Years to Earth", that one looks to be a winner to me! Barbara starred in so many horror movies in the 1950's and 60's so she was considered the first British 'Scream Queen'! The first two photos below are promo ones from "Village of the Damned", the others are screenshots of her character Anthea Zellaany. Who gave birth to one of these creatures(!) and doesn't she look so darn alluring(?), the answer is an easy yes to me and the way she looks in the bottom few pics is much more alluring than leaving so little to the imagination though the posts for gravure models won't be stopping anytime soon! After the screenshots is a tribute video that was added to YT after Barbara's 2021 death at the age of 88, it has scenes from her films and in the description rightly says she was the First Lady of British Horror!
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