The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on July 31, 2021

HEAT LIGHTNING, from 1934, is another of those great early 30s Warner Bros. pictures that, despite its short running time, has far more entertainment value than most two hour-plus blockbusters made today. Aline MacMahon plays Olga, a no-nonsense woman who runs a gas station/lunch counter/auto camp   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on July 29, 2021

Nearly every film director with a major association with the cinema of the fantastic has been the subject of a major biography, including James Whale, Tod Browning, and Ishiro Honda. Now Terence Fisher is finally the recipient of an extensive look at his life with Tony Dalton's TERENCE FISHER--MAST   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on July 21, 2021

BLACK WIDOW is the first movie I've seen in a theater this year. It's not because I've been afraid to go, or wary of the experience. If the entertainment conglomerates would put out things that I actually want to see, I'd go all the time. But the pickings at the...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on July 18, 2021

I'm currently reading TERENCE FISHER--MASTER OF GOTHIC CINEMA, written by Tony Dalton. It appears to be the volume on the life and works of English film director Fisher, best known for his several Hammer horror films. One of the best features of the book so far is that it gives...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on July 12, 2021

Frank Dello Stritto's THE PASSION OF THE MUMMY is in the same vein as his earlier works, A WEREWOLF REMEMBERS and CARL DENHAM'S GIANT MONSTERS. All three deal with the lives and adventures of famous classic horror film characters. In the earlier two volumes Frank revealed the "actual" exploits of...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on July 10, 2021

Has any other film director written a novel based on one of his movies? Someone might have done it before...(one must realize that even though George Lucas is credited as the author of the novelization of STAR WARS, the book was actually written by Alan Dean Foster). When I wrote...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on July 4, 2021

EAGLE IN A CAGE, released in 1972, is another obscure film I stumbled upon on the Tubi streaming channel. It dramatizes the beginning of Napoleon Bonaparte's exile on the small island of St. Helena in 1815. The movie has a strong cast of acclaimed actors (Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud, Billie...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on July 2, 2021

HAMMERHEAD (1968) is another of the many James Bond-like spy/adventure films made in the Sixties. This one stars Vince Edwards as Charles Hood, an American who works as a Special Branch operative for England. Hood is tasked to infiltrate the organization of a shady character named Hammerhead (Peter   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on June 27, 2021

LISBON is a 1956 feature made by Republic Pictures, and filmed in Portugal. I bought the Kino DVD of it for a very low price from Edward R. Hamilton Booksellers, mainly because it stars two of my favorites, Claude Rains and Maureen O'Hara. An American smuggler based in Lisbon named...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on June 26, 2021

Perhaps the strangest entry in Severin's THE EUROCRYPT OF CHRISTOPHER LEE Blu-ray box set is CHALLENGE THE DEVIL, a 1963 Italian film so obscure that most Lee fans have never heard of it, let alone seen it. The movie is a bizarre concoction, with a first act that has something...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on June 21, 2021

One would think that from the title, and the disc cover (above), THE TORTURE CHAMBER OF DR. SADISM is a grisly example of torture porn or a long-lost Jess Franco movie. It's neither--it's actually a dark fairy tale, set far in the past in a European neverland. The film is...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on June 20, 2021

COMMANDOS is a 1968 Italian-German co-production dealing with a secret mission in North Africa before the Operation Torch landings in late 1942 during WWII. The movie stars Lee Van Cleef, who at this time was at the height of his popularity as a Euro movie action star, and Jack Kelly,...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on June 14, 2021

Kino Lorber continues its exemplary series of home video releases of rare German films with this Blu-ray of the 1929 silent THE WOMAN ONE LONGS FOR. This movie is notable for being an example of Marlene Dietrich in a starring role before THE BLUE ANGEL. Many assume that Dietrich had...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on June 13, 2021

In March I wrote a blog post on a film called KELLY THE SECOND, which was a full-length feature produced by Hal Roach. NOBODY'S BABY, a 1937 movie made after KELLY THE SECOND, was also produced by Roach and released by MGM. This one has Patsy Kelly and Lyda Roberti,...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on June 12, 2021

Severin's THE EUROCRYPT OF CHRISTOPHER LEE Blu-ray box set features the first authorized home video release of the 1964 film CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD. The movie was filmed in Italy, but the main creative forces behind it, producer Paul Maslansky and writer/director Warren Kiefer, were Americans. S   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on June 5, 2021

Christopher Lee is a legend of English Gothic cinema--but he's also a legend of Euro Gothic cinema, which is made abundantly clear in this new fantastic Blu-ray set from Severin. THE EUROCRYPT OF CHRISTOPHER LEE COLLECTION collects five rare and somewhat obscure films that were made in continental   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on May 31, 2021

TIMESLIP is a 1955 British science-fiction film known as THE ATOMIC MAN in the U.S. There's not much sci-fi here--the movie is more a tale of Cold War industrial espionage. A man is dragged out of the Thames, with a bullet in his back. Doctors save the man, but for...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on May 23, 2021

A Jess Franco movie starring Christopher Lee is one thing. But....a Jess Franco movie starring Christopher Lee--and Mark Hamill?? And one where Hamill plays a Wehrmacht officer during WWII?? The movie is NIGHT OF THE EAGLES, an extremely obscure (and extremely low budget) European production from 1   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on May 22, 2021

Made in a decade known for outlandish, cheesy action flicks, WILD GEESE II (1985) is a rather straightforward adventure/espionage tale that might have been more entertaining if it had been cheesier. In 1982, a large news network hires mercenary John Haddad (Scott Glenn) to spring Rudolf Hess (Laure   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on May 17, 2021

Until recently, I had only seen this 1973 film once--on a "CBS Late Night at the Movies" broadcast, probably sometime in the 1980s. I didn't remember much about it, other than I was disappointed with Christopher Lee's small role. My latest viewing of DARK PLACES didn't improve my judgement of...   read more