Jamie Lee Boards a Terror Train; The Animals Have Their Day

Jamie Lee Curtis.

Terror Train (1980).  When a cruel college prank goes awry, its victim, Kenny, seemingly has a nervous breakdown. Three years later, the prank's perpetrators have become senior pre-med students, one of whom has hired a steam-driven train for a masquerade party. After almost everyone has boarded the train, a student named Ed is secretly murdered. The killer rolls the corpse under the caboose and dons the disguise—a Groucho Marx mask—worn by Ed. Thus, all the party attendees think that “Groucho” is Ed…and not a revenge-minded homicidal psycho.

The killer in disguise.

The Canadian-made Terror Train was one of the first slasher films made in the wake of Halloween’s box office success. Helmed by veteran Roger Spottiswoode, it’s an efficient thriller that generates a reasonable amount of tension. A key plot point has the killer donning the disguise of his latest victim. It also features an effective twist at the climax, which—while not original—nevertheless comes across as a mild surprise.

In her third "slasher film", following Halloween (1978) and Prom Night (1979), Jamie Lee Curtis stars as a surprisingly tough heroine. Her character may regret her role in the ill-fated prank and even feel sympathy towards Kenny, but she's willing to take on the killer at the end. The supporting cast is stronger than usual for this type of film with Ben Johnson as the train conductor, Hart Bochner as a manipulative student, and David Copperfield in his only dramatic role as...a magician. If actress D.D. Winters looks familiar, that's because she became Prince's protégé Vanity.

Terror Train isn't an undiscovered gem. It's an average thriller made on a modest budget, but by people that know how to make this sort of thing.

Christopher George as Steve.

Day of the Animals (1977). When the Earth's ozone layer starts depleting, it has an inexplicable effect on both domestic and wild animals living in high altitudes. It transforms them into bloodthirsty killers!

That's bad news for a group of vacationers participating in a two-week wilderness trek through the mountains led by guides Steve (Christopher George) and Daniel (Michael Ansara). After the group fends off an attack by a single wolf, it begins to splinter. Matters get worse when one of the hikers, a bigoted executive (Leslie Nielsen) with a huge ego, convinces some of the group to follow him instead of Steve. Pretty soon, the humans are fighting for their lives as they face mountain lions, bears, birds, snakes, wild dogs--and each other.

Leslie Nielsen.

Made two years after Jaws (1975), Day of the Animals is often mentioned with other ecologically-themed films where Mother Nature rebels against humans (e.g., Grizzly, Frogs, Food of the Gods, The Pack, etc.). That's a shame, because it's better than those drive-in efforts; indeed, for most of its running time, Day of the Animals is a tidy suspense film with solid acting. 

Unfortunately, it starts to unravel when Leslie Nielsen's bizarre executive strips off his shirt and starts acting like a mad man. Sure, Nielsen has a field day overacting and spouts some memorable dialogue (to a young boy: "You little cockroach! You gonna tell me about survival?"). However, his performance ruins the second half of the movie (for a more serious take on a similar character, see Sands of the Kalahari).

Lynda Day George and hair.

The rest of the cast acquit themselves satisfactorily and it's fun to see: Lynda Day George (Chris's wife) as a reporter whose blonde hair always looks perfectly coiffed; Ruth Roman as an overbearing mother; Richard Jaeckel as a well-meaning professor; Paul Mantee (Robinson Crusoe on Mars) as a former football player; and a young Andrew Stevens.

The animals prove to be adequate thespians, too, especially the bear and a pack of wild dogs that attack near the climax. The latter scene does leave one with a lingering question: Why are all the wild dogs in the pack German Shepherds?

Project X: A Bit of Mission: Impossible, a Pinch of Forbidden Planet, and a Dash of Jonny Quest

Chris George as Hagan Arnold.

One of William Castle's final films as a director, the seldom-shown Project X is a science fiction film brimming with innovative ideas--perhaps too many.

Set in 2118, it has a team of scientists trying to retrieve a forgotten secret from deep inside the mind of government agent Hagan Arnold (Christopher George). As a safety precaution prior to taking on an important mission, Arnold was injected with a drug that would erase his memory if tortured by the enemy (extreme pain activates it). The problem is that, shortly before he lost his memory, Arnold reported that Sino-Asia had developed a weapon that would destroy "the West" in fourteen days. But only Arnold knows what the weapon is and it's locked away in the bowels of his brain!

Greta Baldwin in the "kinery"--where
they turn milk into pills.

To stimulate him into remembering, the scientists provide Hagan with a "matrix"--a false identity complete with memories. They place him in an "anxious environment" by making him a bank robber in the 1960s hiding out with his cronies at an isolated house in the country. Every night, they affix electrodes to his brain and "watch" his subconscious memories, trying to gain information. Meanwhile, there's a mysterious man (Monte Markham) in the woods who's spying on Hagan and a pretty blonde at the nearby "kinery" that quickly befriends the amnesiac spy.

I originally saw Project X on network TV in the early 1970s. My memories of it turned out to be a little false as well. I recalled solely the portion of the plot in which the scientists create the fictional world for Hagan--a trick employed effectively in multiple episodes of TV's Mission: Impossible as well as the excellent James Garner outing 36 Hours (1964). But, as it progresses, Project X takes several unusual turns, even unleashing a sort of id monster reminiscent of Forbidden Planet near the climax. Best of all, the "secret weapon"--when revealed--turns to be a diabolically ingenious one.

A Hanna-Barbera scene.

Unfortunately, a protracted running time, a low budget, and an overabundance of bright ideas keep Project X from standing alongside superior late 1960s sci fi efforts like The Power and The Forbin Project. Certainly, director William Castle deserves kudos for taking an out-of-the-box approach to keeping the production costs reasonable. He employed animation studio Hanna-Barbera to design some of the sequences visualizing Hagan's memories. Thus, in lieu of using miniature models to represent an underwater prison, we get an animated sequence. Sometimes, this works amazingly well and other times...well...it looks like a scene out of Jonny Quest (which it was in one sequence).

Henry Jones admires a brain.

The screenplay was adapted from two novels by Leslie P. Davies: The Artificial Man (1965) and Psychogeist (1966). Another Davies novel, The Alien (1968), served as the basis for the 1972 thriller The Groundstar Conspiracy, which also features a central character with amnesia.

I haven't read Davies' books, but hope his plots are tighter than Project X. Honestly, I can't imagine that any security team would be as inept as the one that guards Hagan. First, they don't re-route the telephone, thereby allowing a potential enemy agent to call Hagan--twice. Then, they let Hagan wander off from the house on his own and interact with a contemporary woman (which should have destroyed the illusion of the 1960s). These are mistakes that the IMF would never make!

Still, despite its flaws, Project X remains a sporadically interesting sci fi feature. And, as mentioned earlier, the enemy's plan to destroy Western Civilization is a decidedly clever one.

Start with Ray Milland, End with George Clooney

Sylvia Syms defending Ray Milland.

Hostile Witness (1968). A London barrister (Ray Milland) suffers a nervous breakdown when his adult daughter is killed in a hit-and-run accident. When he recovers, he's framed for the murder of a colleague who may have driven the car. For half its running time, this now-forgotten film sets up an intriguing courtroom drama. Unfortunately, the rest of Hostile Witness goes flat--with no one to blame but Ray Milland.

As director (it was his fifth outing in that capacity), Milland doesn't know how to tighten up the rambling drama. As the film's star, he overacts, especially his pivotal trial scenes. I was also bothered by the introduction of a character from the barrister's past late in the plot. It just didn't seem fair to inject a new suspect at that point.

The film's highlight is Sylvia Syms as another attorney (a far brighter one) in Milland's firm. Of course, she earlier starred in a much better movie about a barrister--one being blackmailed in the then-controversial Victim (1961).

(For a more in-depth review of Hostile Witness, check out the write-up at Lindsay's Movie Musings.)

18 feet? No, he's not! He's
estimated at 15 feet tall in the film.

Grizzly (1976). There were several "animal attack" movies in the wake of Jaws and this one was probably the best and certainly the most successful at the boxoffice. That still doesn't mean it gets a ringing endorsement. But let's be honest, if you're watching a movie called Grizzly, then your expectations are probably not very high.

The always likable Christopher George stars as Kelly, a park ranger who has to battle the title bear and a supervisor afraid of losing business even while guests are being eaten (yes, that subplot was ripped off from Jaws). Kelly also has to struggle with some laughably bad dialogue, such as this exchange with his supervisor:

Kelly:  It's not a bear! It's a grizzly! There is a difference.

Supervisor: A bear is a bear.

Kelly: A bear is not a bear, believe it or not.

That's not even the most memorable line in Grizzly. That would go to Andrew Prine who berates Richard Jaeckel's character by telling Kelly: "You got a dime? I wanna call your mama. I mean, does she know that you're running around in the woods, tryin' to act like a bear...you smell like one...you scratching around on the ground like one? I mean, does she know you're making a damn fool of yourself?"

A young Clooney--without
grizzly bear.

All three actors fare better than Joan McCall, the film's female lead who inexplicably disappears midway through the plot. Interestingly, she and her husband co-wrote a belated 1987 sequel to Grizzly that was called Predator: The Concert. As you may have guessed, it was about a grizzly attacking folks at an outdoor concert. The musical performances were shot in Budapest before production difficulties shut down the filming. You can view some of the footage on YouTube--although there's no grizzly in it. However, the cast does include Deborah Raffin, Louise Fletcher, Laura Dern...and a young George Clooney.

Chris George and The Rat Patrol

One of the most iconic images on television in the late 1960s was of a jeep flying over the top of a sand dune and--thump!--landing on the ground. Why was that so memorable? Well, there was a guy standing on the back of the jeep holding onto a machine gun! This eye-catching opening let viewers know that The Rat Patrol was going to be anything but boring. At a scant 30 minutes per episode, this World War II action drama never lets up.

The premise wasn't exactly believable. It followed a squad of four Allied soldiers (two per jeep) who conducted raids aimed at disrupting Rommel and the Germans during their operations in the Sahara. The four leads could be identified easily because they all wore different hats: Sergeant Sam Troy (Chris George) donned an Australian bush hat; Sergeant Jack Moffitt (Gary Raymond), the British member of the squad, wore a beret; Private Mark Hitchcock (Lawrence Casey) favored a Civil War cap; and Private Tully Pettigrew (Justin Tarr) usually wore a helmet.

My favorite was Chris George...and it wasn't just because he was incredibly handsome. The first year of the show was filmed in Spain and, during one of the stunts, a jeep fell over on Chris. I read about the incident in the newspaper, which mentioned the name of the hospital. I tracked down the address and wrote my first fan letter. He sent a great photo, signed in blue ballpoint (no stamped signature for Chris) and it hangs on a wall in my home to this day.

My favorite episode is from Season One and is called "The B Negative Raid." Moffitt is seriously wounded and has a rare blood type. Troy needs to find a donor. The only one he can find with the rare blood type is in bad guy Hauptmann Dietrich's desert headquarters and the guy just happens to be an American deserter. (The deserter dies in the end protecting Troy and Moffitt, so he redeems himself...just so you know what happened.)

When The Rat Patrol was over, I still followed Chris George’s career, whether he was low-budget flicks like The Day of the Animals or featured in a supporting role in a John Wayne film like El Dorado (he and the Duke were friends). Chris and his wife, Lynda Day George, also appeared regularly in made-for-TV films. Sadly, Chris George died of a heart attack in 1983 at the age of 52.

The other members of The Rat Patrol had modest careers after the show ended its two-year run in 1968. However, Hans Gudegast, who played the show's heavy, changed his name to Eric Braeden and became of one daytime television's highest-paid actors on The Young and the Restless.