Christopher-Lee Movie Reviews

Whoever wrote this script must've watched too many Gilligan's Island eps. Joe Lara's incredible talent was wasted in this film.The other actors/actresses deserve hazard pay for attempting to act in a film suitable only for the limited intelligence of a pubescent l2-year-old.

All too frequently, big budget Hollywood films sport an impressive cast of well-known actors whose talents go to waste is a mess that leaves the audience shaking its head at its ineptitude. Such a waste of big stars can happen on a low budget film too. In PRESENCE, director Tommy Lee Wallace takes the acting ability of popular film and television star June Lockhart (LASSIE, SERGEANT YORK), Joe Lara, and future bimbo star Nikki Cox and totally misuses their talent in a movie that was supposed to fighten but wound up as merely amusing. The plot involves the time honored cliche of a group of scientists, military men, and bikini wearing CPAs stranded on a lost island when their plane crashes only to find that the island had been inhabited by CIA spooks running forbidden bioharazrd experiments. Naturally, the experiments had gotten out of hand, creating scaly-like creatures right out of THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. As if this was not incredible enough, the survivors meet a tribe of natives who seem to have wandered off from the set of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. You would think that with so many model types in bikinis, such a movie ought to have at least one or two love interests. Model Kathy Ireland bounces her locks around without entangling any man. PRESENCE is so full of cheesy scripting and unbelievable plotting that the eggs that Hollywood lays in its big budget disasters are not limited to them alone. The best part: Kathy Ireland in a bikini. The worst part: everything else.

RELEASED AS A PILOT FOR A SERIES "DANGER ISLAND" AS THE ORIGINAL TITLE. REASON FOR MY 5 STARS IS BECAUSE MY OLDEST BROTHER PLAYED FRANK. AND JUNE LOCKHART WAS MARRIED TO ONE OF MY MOTHERS BEST FRIENDS FROM HER CHILDHOOD DAYS. ANYWAY, THE MOVIE IS WORTH WATCHING BUT PLEASE ONLY EAT FRESH FRUIT WHILE WATCHING IT, DAY OLD FRUIT SPOILS FAST. THE FILM, WELL THINK OF IT AS ED WOODS VERSION OF GILLIGANS ISLAND

Jayne Mansfield stars in this low-budget British melodrama about a tough strip-joint owner (Leo Genn) and his girl Friday (Mansfield) who must contend with a take-over move by hostile hoods in the sleazy Soho district of London.

Mansfield is surprisingly effective in this straight dramatic role, but the real reason she's in the film is for the semi-nude dance number she does. Scenes from this dance were featured in a 1967 Playboy article.

But evidently this video is the export version for the beknighted American audience of the uncut British original. Mansfield is clearly not semi-nude in a transparent gown here. The gown is very modest and demure in this edition. Be advised.

The image and sound quality of this VHS tape are just average. I recommend it only to nostalgia fans.

The director of this film, Terence Young, became much better known a few years later as the director of the James Bond films Doctor No, From Russia With Love, and Thunderball,

if you like nudity this is a good movie no plot

Typical 1950's tale about a broken hearted sweetheart and the goat farmer that left her for his favorite goat, Nellie. The movie is a bit too long and a bit slow in the beginning. However, once the goat farmer begins his lust-filled affair with Nellie, things heat up and the almost prophetic themes begin to boil together much like a lovely soup. Easily the greatest performance is once again handed in by Marlon Brando who portrays a rebelious , meatball eating priest named Father Rhodes.

This is not really a review, as I haven't actually viewed this version, but I can explain why you feel as though you have only seen half the movie. This was made in England as a six-part television series, with each part running thirty minutes - hence the running time of the entire thing would be three hours. If it is true that this tape only runs for a little over an hour, then it must be missing quite a large part of it.

This is a fairly well done movie that shows just how hard Charlie Chaplin's growing up years were. The movie shows his family falling apart and him nearly living on the street most of the time. The acting is well done and there are some humorous parts in it.

One odd thing about this movie is that the package says it is 60 minutes long when it is actually at least an hour and a half. The movie is suddenly cut off at the end with the words "To be continued". As the words disappear and the tape stops you feel like you spent an hour and a half watching only half of the movie. They apparently were planning to make a part two. As far as I can tell they never did. Because of this fact I would not recommend this movie to most people.

I just finished watching Young Charlie Chaplin. The tape does say it is 60 min. long, but in reality it runs 160 minutes! Once you get to the part of the tape that says "to be continued", just fast forward a bit and the rest of the story is on the tape. The acting was very good. Twiggy was excellent, as was Ian McShane.

This video looks like it was put together in someone's basement with a Commodore 64. The production values are of the poorest quality, but they look good compared to the awful script they force Christopher Lee to mouth.

The film clips look like they were copied from TV trailers and Lee has a blue chromakey halo around him. The only way I can figure they got him to appear in this bottom-of-the-barrel production is that his taxes were due and he was strapped for cash.

The content ignores the history of both print and film science fiction, instead larding on purple prose to cover poor research.

Don't waste your time or money on this one.

This DVD contains mostly Trailers and some behind-the-scenes shots and small interviews (like the one with Yul Brynner about "Westworld") from SF movies of the last century, narrated by the great Christopher Lee (with his pleasant voice). There are also some rather rare clips (like the ones from "Fire Maidens from Outer Space" or "The Mysterians").

The 99 minutes are divided in 8 parts of about 12 minutes each with the following categories: Aliens, Time Travellers, Mad Doctors, Robots & Computers, Sci-Fi Lunacy, Lost Worlds, Future Worlds and Weird Worlds.

And yes, it sometimes looks like it was made with the good ol' Commodore 64, but that's rather charming in a certain way ;-)

If you want an overview of SF movies of the last century or you find pleasure in a so-called "Best of" then this is for you. Especially when you can get it at a low price.

I get a big laugh out of watching inferior low-budget horror-science fiction films that feature major stars who once appeared in great movies. "End Of The World" is such a film.

Aliens have come to Earth and taken over the bodies of a head priest(Christopher Lee) and a group of nuns at a convent. A scientist has discovered the extraterrestrials and they force him to steal a device that will enable them to return to their home planet. After the scientist brings this device to them, the aliens suddenly reveal that they don't plan to leave quietly.

"End Of The World" is one of Christopher ("The Wicker Man") Lee's worst films. Lew ("All Quiet On The Western Front") Ayres, Macdonald ("Shadow Of A Doubt") Carey, Sue ("Lolita") Lyon, and Oscar-winner Dean ("Twelve O'Clock High") Jagger are other stars who waste their considerable talents on this film. They obviously made this movie just for the money. The special effects are both laughable and cheesy, and the aliens actually look like leftovers from TV's "Star Trek." The opening scene is both violent and inept. Also, the extraterrestrial characters are masters of disguise and possess the power to destroy anything in their path, so I don't fully understand why they needed the scientist to snatch the device; they could have stolen it much more quickly by themselves. I have also rarely seen a movie that is so inappropriately-titled. The name, "End Of The World," is a giveaway that the movie is certainly going to be at least about the threat of Armageddon, but the film only deals with this issue in the LAST FEW MINUTES before the closing credits! The screenwriters seemed to have merely tacked on this theme at the very last minute, and viewers are left feeling much more cheated than shocked.

"End Of The World" is only for diehard Christopher Lee fans and those who enjoy laughing at bad movies. For a respectable Christopher Lee-science fiction movie, wait for George Lucas' upcoming "Star Wars: Episode II."

Just like in "Deep Impact" and "Armageeden" this film is all about the world threatening to end, but not with metiorites, and their are some frightening scenes that are shown happening around the world, and a space view of the earth, and their are no people who are about to die saying goodbye to their families and it doesn't have a happy ending. This film is rated PG and (thankfully) their is no profanity whatsoever, and not as much violence. But that final scene is MOST DEFINATLY rated R!

Okay, I know this movie isn't a "classic." But I enjoyed seeing Christopher Lee in a story of a lone priest who finds a bizarre "other world" at a diner late a night. A steaming coffee machine accident and electrocution by neon sign... original ideas abound in this mixture of genres. Sure it's cheap, but if you don't enjoy the sci-fi elements, at least you can provide your own "Mystery Science Theater" commentary!

If you're like me, and love seeing new or new-to-you Sherlock Holmes movies, please do not be conned into viewing this one; it's a real spirit-breaker.

Even at two hours, the film is an hour too long, and yet it still feels like it takes five hours to watch. As the previous reviewer commented, the editing down of the four hour mini-series is atrocious, ham-fisted, and done with no skill whatsoever. This results in huge gaps in the story that make no sense when the characters refer to a previous event that wound up on the cutting room floor.

There are few if any examples of Holmes' methods, and even Lee seems tired and bored with the proceedings. Patrick Macnee serves as an okay Watson, but he too seems bored with the whole thing. Morgan "Old Navy Chick" Fairchild ranges from alright to downright hammy as Irene Adler, and one wonders why such a young-ish babe would be hot for the grandfatherly-by-comparison Lee. Engelbert Humperdinck seems in search of "The Love Boat", the show he probably thought he was going to be guest starring on when he found himself in this insult to Sherlockia instead.

And as for the mystery, you simply will not care who did what or why because the movie will cast you into a somnambulic state long before the first twenty minutes elapse. If by some miracle your brain can struggle out of this movie-induced torpor for but a moment, all you can think of to say is, "End, movie! END!" Purgatory could not last any longer than this movie, unless in Purgatory they make you watch this movie twice.

A certain professor of mathematics, known to the followers of the world famous consulting detective, must surely have been at work here in an evil attempt to denegrate the hallowed name of Sherlock Holmes!

Avoid like Richenbach Falls!

I originally wrote the four hour miniseries (with considerable help from British author H.R.F. Keating) as "Sherlock Holmes and the Merry Widow," and in it Irene Adler was starring in a Vienna Opera Company production of "The Merry Widow" when she and Sherlock Holmes meet up once more. I used various subplots from "The Merry Widow" as subplots for the actors/singers performing in the produciton, so that the effect was that these people were having affairs, etc., in real-life that reflected those in the opera they were performing. Also the subplot between Holmes and Sigmond Freud concluded with a scene on a fast moving train in which Freud gives Holmes a Rorschach test in which all the words Freud shouts out remind Holmes only of famous clues in his famous cases. The main subplot had Holmes and Irene meeting each other again and exploring their dysfunctional relationship with the help of Freud, and finally getting it on! The main mystery -- a spy story -- was based very loosely on Conan Doyle's "Bruce Parkington Plans." Soon the production company discovered that "The Merry Widow" was still under copyright. So they changed the operetta the cast would be performing to "Der Fledermous." So now we had the cast of "Der Fledermous" living out subplots from "The Merry Widow." Then the company moved the production site from Budapest to Luxenbourg where they have no old-fashioned looking trollies, so the most important sequence from the "Bruce Parkington Plans" had to be dropped. Then Englerbert Humperdink walked out midway through shooting, so his subplot stops halfway through. Then the brilliant director refused to edit and include in the final film the scene where Freud adminsters the test to Holmes, so that the Freud subplot leads nowhere and that key scene is missing in the Holmes-Irene love story. The mini at four hours was an abomination. But if that isn't bad enough, the company hired someone without the slightest interest in coherence to cut the mini down to a two-hour video. The end result is completely incoherent, the worst piece of filmmaking I've ever seen. Even Ed Wood couldn't have equalled it.

However, the same year another miniseries was made in Zimbabwe called "Sherlock Holmes and the Incident at Victoria Falls" that worked, even though the script (also by me) wasn't nearly as good as this one started out to be. A vastly better director and a vastly better set of locations made all the difference in the world. I'd recommend you get that one instead. -- Bob Shayne

This is the same film as the other video you have listed by this title. See my review there.

If you're like me, and love seeing new or new-to-you Sherlock Holmes movies, please do not be conned into viewing this one; it's a real spirit-breaker.

Even at two hours, the film is an hour too long, and yet it still feels like it takes five hours to watch. As the previous reviewer commented, the editing down of the four hour mini-series is atrocious, ham-fisted, and done with no skill whatsoever. This results in huge gaps in the story that make no sense when the characters refer to a previous event that wound up on the cutting room floor.

There are few if any examples of Holmes' methods, and even Lee seems tired and bored with the proceedings. Patrick Macnee serves as an okay Watson, but he too seems bored with the whole thing. Morgan "Old Navy Chick" Fairchild ranges from alright to downright hammy as Irene Adler, and one wonders why such a young-ish babe would be hot for the grandfatherly-by-comparison Lee. Engelbert Humperdinck seems in search of "The Love Boat", the show he probably thought he was going to be guest starring on when he found himself in this insult to Sherlockia instead.

And as for the mystery, you simply will not care who did what or why because the movie will cast you into a somnambulic state long before the first twenty minutes elapse. If by some miracle your brain can struggle out of this movie-induced torpor for but a moment, all you can think of to say is, "End, movie! END!" Purgatory could not last any longer than this movie, unless in Purgatory they make you watch this movie twice.

A certain professor of mathematics, known to the followers of the world famous consulting detective, must surely have been at work here in an evil attempt to denegrate the hallowed name of Sherlock Holmes!

Avoid like Richenbach Falls!

I originally wrote the four hour miniseries (with considerable help from British author H.R.F. Keating) as "Sherlock Holmes and the Merry Widow," and in it Irene Adler was starring in a Vienna Opera Company production of "The Merry Widow" when she and Sherlock Holmes meet up once more. I used various subplots from "The Merry Widow" as subplots for the actors/singers performing in the produciton, so that the effect was that these people were having affairs, etc., in real-life that reflected those in the opera they were performing. Also the subplot between Holmes and Sigmond Freud concluded with a scene on a fast moving train in which Freud gives Holmes a Rorschach test in which all the words Freud shouts out remind Holmes only of famous clues in his famous cases. The main subplot had Holmes and Irene meeting each other again and exploring their dysfunctional relationship with the help of Freud, and finally getting it on! The main mystery -- a spy story -- was based very loosely on Conan Doyle's "Bruce Parkington Plans." Soon the production company discovered that "The Merry Widow" was still under copyright. So they changed the operetta the cast would be performing to "Der Fledermous." So now we had the cast of "Der Fledermous" living out subplots from "The Merry Widow." Then the company moved the production site from Budapest to Luxenbourg where they have no old-fashioned looking trollies, so the most important sequence from the "Bruce Parkington Plans" had to be dropped. Then Englerbert Humperdink walked out midway through shooting, so his subplot stops halfway through. Then the brilliant director refused to edit and include in the final film the scene where Freud adminsters the test to Holmes, so that the Freud subplot leads nowhere and that key scene is missing in the Holmes-Irene love story. The mini at four hours was an abomination. But if that isn't bad enough, the company hired someone without the slightest interest in coherence to cut the mini down to a two-hour video. The end result is completely incoherent, the worst piece of filmmaking I've ever seen. Even Ed Wood couldn't have equalled it.

However, the same year another miniseries was made in Zimbabwe called "Sherlock Holmes and the Incident at Victoria Falls" that worked, even though the script (also by me) wasn't nearly as good as this one started out to be. A vastly better director and a vastly better set of locations made all the difference in the world. I'd recommend you get that one instead. -- Bob Shayne

This is the same film as the other video you have listed by this title. See my review there.

Weak entry in the Hammer Horror film series finds Christopher Lee playing the evil alter-ego of Dr. Jekel in this somewhat over-acted, weakly plotted film. The ending is predictable with the Good Doctor meeting a terrible ending. And terrible is something this movie was.

I had read some good things about this early Hammer Film, but I was ultimately disappointed by it. There isn't much in the way of menace, and the story of an ugly, but good Dr. Jekyll turning into a handsome, but violent Mr. Hyde never really takes off. Most of the plot is taken up with a rather unbelievable affair between Dr. Jekyll's wife and his best friend (played by Christopher Lee). There are far better Hammer Films available. Even from the same year as this film 1960, both "The Brides of Dracula" and "The Curse of the Werewolf" are sure to strike your fancy.

I had waited for a long time to finally see this films and I would say some of my expectaions were met and some were not. The film begins with Dr. Jekyll speaking of his theory that each person has an inner self that could be set free. He then proceeds to inject himself with a concoction that transforms him into the suave, but evil Hyde. Hyde then goes off trying everything Jekyll would not and he tries to come between the affair his wife is having with his best friend. Eventually Hyde gets more daring and Jekyll and Hyde have the unavoidable battle for the same body. I give credit to Hammer foa different approach, but it never really covers any different ground that is explored in any other Jekyll-Hyde movie. There are no new revelations or solutions just a different kind of Hyde with the same results. He may be more dangerous than the typical beastly Hyde because he is much more cunning, but we never really get any sense of that by the film's end. Usually Jekyll is a brilliant scientist who goes step too far with his curiosity, but this Jekyll seems like a dull and lonely man who is just unhappy with his life and he would never have the stregnth of character to win out over a dark half. The film does hit more than it misses, but I think it could have been a bit stronger in the story department. Paul Masse is hot and cold, he handles the Hyde part fairly well, but Jekyll seems fairly unbelievable and the transforamtions are just fair. Christopher Lee contributes one of the best roles he ever had for Hammer, it is a shame he didn't get more of the sharp dialogue he recieved here, he handles it beautifully. Dawn Addams is fairly good as Jekyll's wife, I always thought Hammer's leading ladies in the late 50's and very early 60's were worlds above most of the actresses they used later on. The source print used here looks washed out, it is faded in the bright parts and too dark in other places. This is a shame because I am sure this film once had the same vibrant color of other Hammer made at the same time. Still this film is worth seeing.

Undeservedly overlooked at this year's Oscars, this is actually a retitling of a film called 'Hell Mountain', and has all the hallmarks of a tedious cash-in. You'd be half right; while nothing to do with the 1983 classic, as post-apocalyptic soft-porn B-movies go, it's not at all bad. And, believe me, I've seen enough to know how bad it *can* get. Fortunately, CH3 is set in a future where fertiliser and guns are in short-supply, but civilization still has an abundant supply of thongs and hair-stylists. The plot/excuse has a village exchanging their nubile young girls with an evil (and disfigured, natch) man who runs the fertiliser mine. This peeves one of the boyfriends, who looks like Kyle McLachlan, but sadly possesses none of the quirky wit. Oh, and all teachers bar one have been exterminated.

I generally love women-in-prison films because I really enjoy that whole genre of vulnerable young imprisoned girls being preyed upon by bad-girl-cellmates, evil lesbian guards, and that always lustful female warden. This one DOES have the lustful female warden (but not enough of her), and there is one guard who just might be a lesbian, but the rest of it is disappointing and falls flat. For one thing, there are WAY too many guys in this film! Big mistake!

Basically, in the future women will be enslaved to work the salt mines, but one girl in particular has a boyfriend on the outside who wants to break her out. And, of course, he does. The best scenes (in my opinion) involve the beautiful, older female warden and the two young, blonde female sex-slaves she keeps for her private pleasures. I really liked it whenever those three were on the screen. Unfortunately, that was only twice, and too briefly at that. Of course, there's also an obligatory shower scene, but the women all kept their clothes on!?! What fun is that? Granted, their outfits were skimpy... but really! I liked the scene, but like the film itself it COULD have been a LOT better!

very nice if you a WIP-B flicks fan. very good picture quality with famous faces playing minor roles, it must be hard 2 earn money in holywood these days. the plot is weak but for genre fans it is an entertaining 90 minutes of nothing

For the record, this tape contains "Hercules In The Haunted World" and "Hercules And the Captive Women."

All of the Hercules movies from the 1960's have developed something of a cult following. All are mind-bogglingly stupid, so poorly acted they had to be overdubbed and feature some of the worst special effects in the history of cinema (barring, of course, the collected works of Ed Wood--in a class of his own.) Park, a Mr. Universe and a well-spoken, elegant man in real life, is, like Steve Reeves, exceptionally handsome, but wooden beyond belief. That said, these pictures are worth a quick look. There is something almost touchingly naive in their technical inepititude. Though made by grownups, they reflect the deepest wishes of teenage aboys everywhere. Without fail, Hercules defeats the bad guys, gets the girl and looks incredibly macho throughout. Now that's wish-fulfillment of the highest order.