Big Bang Weary

With bad boys and bad toys Bay engages
We're annoyed, don't enjoy his road rages
Yet he digitally renders
Unabridged fender-benders
He's employed to make noise for his wages.

David Cairns

Another ridiculous movie moment from Michael Bay.

Bay, Humbug!

Bay's schtick is a mite overdone
Each flick he'll ignite and yell "RUN!"
Think 'excrement, loud'
With fx well-endowed
His pictures more frightful than fun.

Avoid the movies of Michael Bay like you would a sharp stick to the eye.

I Saw Commies Killing Santa Claus

You chumps thought that Christmas was back
But, lump it, it's under attack!
Not from Socialist Dems
that the White House condemns
But Trump and his Putin-backed PAC!

Surly Hack

"Tom" Turkey

Folks scowl at his work, though it's cracking
Cry foul! That's no jerk they're attacking
Peeping Tom freaked 'em out
And it bombed, there's no doubt
Mr. Powell's too quirky for backing.

David Cairns



Top: Director Michael Powell, Pamela Green, and Susan Travers on the set of Peeping Tom (1960), the film that tanked his career. Above: Powell appears in the film as the father of the tortured protagonist. Part of the The Late Show, the late films blogathon at Shadowplay.

The Right Snuff

The camera prodding and poking,
Some damsels are shot as they're croaking
Woo hoo! What a scandal!
It's too much to handle
Your license to film they're revoking.

Brenda Bruce sees death in the lens in Peeping Tom (Michael Powell; 1960). Producer/director Michael Powell's career in the UK never recovered. Part of the The Late Show, the late films blogathon at Shadowplay. 

Rank and Vile

After Rank, second-tier films you're cranking
You're at Anglo? Career must be tanking!
This flick with Carl Boehm
As a sick Peeping Toehm
Makes nerves jangle with fear as he's shanking.

David Cairns



This is part of the Late Show: The Late Films Blogathon, being held at David Cairns' Shadowplay.

Rank and Anglo refer to British film companies. After a long association with the Rank Organisation, in 1960 director Michael Powell made Peeping Tom at Anglo-Amalgamated. The film starred Austrian-German actor Carl (Karl) Boehm as a a serial killer who murders women using a portable film camera which also records their dying expressions of terror.

From Wikipedia:
The Rank Organisation was a British entertainment conglomerate founded by industrialist J. Arthur Rank in April 1937. It quickly became the largest and most vertically integrated film company in the United Kingdom, owning production, distribution and exhibition facilities.

Anglo-Amalgamated Productions was a British film production company, run by Nat Cohen and Stuart Levy, which operated from 1945 until roughly 1971 (after which it was absorbed into EMI Films). Low-budget and second features, often produced at Merton Park Studios, formed much of its output. It was the UK distributor of many films produced by American International Pictures (AIP), who distributed AA's films in the United States.

Peeping Tom Foolery

Blending painting, performance, and score
Michael Powell made films that don't bore
Brits called it "bad taste"
But, oh, what a waste
That Mike couldn't make many more.

From Wikipedia: Although admirers would argue that Powell ought to rank alongside fellow British directors Alfred Hitchcock and David Lean, his career suffered a severe reversal after the release of the controversial psychological thriller Peeping Tom, made in 1960 as a solo effort. The film was excoriated by mainstream British critics, who were offended by its sexual and violent images; Powell was ostracized by the film industry and found it almost impossible to work thereafter.

This lim on Peeping Tom (Michael Powell; 1960) is part of the The Late Show, the late films blogathon at Shadowplay.

Box Sore

The President stood in his box
Was booed like a pestilent pox
He thought, "This is weird...
I ought to be cheered...
The game's being broadcast on Fox!"

Tumbling Tumbleweeds

Intermission Impossible

Enough with the giant spiders and bugs. We're taking a break. See you soon.

Roadkiller

“Massive spider runs out of control!”
Someone dial up the Highway Patrol!
The job should be offered
To Broderick Crawford;
We can’t have bugs breaking parole.

Paul Truster



Top: Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955) Above: Broderick Crawford starred as Police chief Dan Mathews on the television series Highway Patrol from 1955 to 1959.

Primitive and Proper

The Doc gets perverted at work
Though no jock, chases skirts, likes to lurk
Is it blood from a fish
Makes him cuddle this dish?
Runs amok, rips his shirt like a jerk.

David Cairns

Madeline Howard (Joanna Moore),is attacked by her fiancee, Dr. Donald Blake (Arthur Franz), when he turns into the Monster on the Campus (Jack Arnold; 1958).

Caveman on Campus

At the scientist ignorance gnaws
Asking "Why?" he must figure the cause
Can we limit or purge
Our most primitive urge?
Are all guys sexist pigs with big paws?

Dr. Donald Blake (Arthur Franz) injects himself with plasma from a coelacanth, "...a living fossil, immune to the forces of evolution," reverts to a caveman and becomes the...Monster on the Campus (Jack Arnold; 1958). With stunt double Eddie Parker and poor Joanna Moore.

Schlock Formations

Most of movieland's freakiest dramas
Are improved by these bleak panoramas:
Giant spiders gone ape
And some guy, out of shape
Looking groovy and chic in pajamas.

David Cairns

Scientist Leo G. Carroll (or his stunt double), afflicted by acromegaly, wanders out into the desert in Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955).

The Doctor is In...toxicated

One side of his face has been sinking
An eye's out of place and keeps blinking
He's badly depressed
Too sad to get dressed
He hides, in disgrace, and starts drinking.

Scientist Leo G. Carroll, deformed by acromegaly in Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955).

The Man From Drunkle

She comforts her pitiful boss
The dummy just sits, at a loss
Though his tests seem to work
A big pest goes berserk
And, glum, he's been hitting the sauce.

Mara Corday assists Scientist Leo G. Carroll, afflicted by acromegaly in Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955). Title by punchline drunk Jim Siergey.

Invitation to the Ants

In the fifties, these creatures prevail
'Cause they're nifty, each big as a whale
Giant hideous ants
Make the kids crap their pants
Although thrifty, B-features have scale.

David Cairns

Giant ants threaten humankind in THEM! (Gordon Douglas; 1954).

Gore In Store

An attempt to increase farmer’s yields
Proves disastrous without proper shields.
Now the ravenous ‘hoppers
Are clacking their choppers;
Don’t let them attack Marshall Field’s!

Paul Truster

Grasshoppers attack Chicago in Beginning of the End (Bert I. Gordon; 1957). Marshall Field’s was a famous department store in the city.

Cheapjack Web

In its trap you'll get stuck and...oh my
It'll tap you and suck your bod dry
Once awakened by rock
It'll make with the schlock
It's the crappiest, yucky sci-fi.

Teenagers Eugene Persson and June Kenney are stuck in the web of a giant tarantula in Earth vs. the Spider (a.k.a. The Spider and Earth vs. the Giant Spider; Bert I. Gordon; 1958).

Shock Hop

So this spider crawls out of a hole
And discovers it hates rock and roll
The kids aren’t attracted
To the grumpy arachnid
He can’t help it – he just prefers soul!

Paul Truster



A rock band practicing for a school dance awakens the title tarantula in Earth vs. the Spider (Bert I. Gordon; 1958).

Say No to Bugs

The worst kind of flicks to get bit in:
These cursed drive-in quickies, ill-written
Starring bugs grown audacious
And both ugly, voracious
Blood-thirsty, thick-coated with chitin.

David Cairns

Earth vs. the Spider (a.k.a. The Spider and Earth vs. the Giant Spider; Bert I. Gordon; 1958). Title by naysayer Donald B. Benson. 
Limerick Lexicon: chitin noun; a tough semitransparent horny substance; the principal component of the exoskeletons of arthropods

Vengeance is Them's

The fashion was critters that kill
They'd smash, grab and skitter at will
These giants bore scars
From highways of cars
That mashed them to bits on the grille.

The Big Bug sci-fi monster craze of the 1950s spawned many films. Insects strike back in movies such as THEM!, Tarantula, Beginning of the End, and Deadly Mantis (pictured).

Ant Eaters

Their pincers are sharp as they hug me
I wince as they carve up and mug me
They prefer Man to feces
So it's curtains, dear species
These insects are starting to bug me.

THEM! (Gordon Douglas; 1954). Title by David Cairns, who is getting antsy.

Delinqu-Ants

Either commies attack, or it's bugs!
Kids read comics, talk back, and take drugs!
We're all going to pot!
It's a galling Red plot!
So moms, give them smacks and not hugs!

Sandy Descher wanders through the irradiated desert in THEM! (Gordon Douglas; 1954). Title by missing delinquent David Cairns.

Do You Dig Graves?

Call for Graves when the danger gets mortal
He will save you from spray that's aortal
When bugs run berserk
This mug goes to work
You'll be saved, though his "range" makes me chortle.

David Cairns

Beginning of the End (Bert I. Gordon, 1957) stars Peter Graves of Mission Impossible fame, here protecting Peggie Castle from the giant grasshoppers that attack Chicago.

Monster Yuck Rally

You can't reason with insectoid threats
Killer bees ain't directed like pets
Waving feelers, THEM! come
Giant gila looks dumb
Wrecking cheesy and second-rate sets.

David Cairns



A giant prehistoric scorpion is freed by an erupting volcano and battles tanks and helicopters in The Black Scorpion (Edward Ludwig; 1957). Featuring stop motion animation created by Willis O'Brien.

Blanket Coverage

Her trauma’s beyond all endurance
(And she may need that treatment with currents);
But the doctors’ first task
Is, as always, to ask:
“Does this cute little mite have insurance?”

Paul Truster

William Schallert and James Whitmore rescue Sandy Descher, traumatized by THEM! (Gordon Douglas; 1954).

Pajama Gamey

He reels, filled with dread and disgust
It feels like his head might just bust
He wanders all night
Till dawn's early light
Reveals that he's dead in the dust.

Okay, so Prof. Deemer is NOT dead at this point in the movie. Don't make me show you my poetic license. Leo G. Carroll in Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955).

Crawl of the Wild

Gigantic arachnid, oh my!
Tarantula blackens the sky!
This insect's appalling!
Your skin begins crawling!
A panic attack--then you die!

A creepy frame from Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955).

Beauty Parts

All horror, or science-based dramas
Use torridly eye-popping mammas
These drive-in wet dreams
Provide piercing screams
What's more, they look fly in pajamas.

Ross Elliot, Nestor Paiva, and scream queen Mara Corday in Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955).

Genus Enlargement

Just how will we feed the poor saps?
By powerful breeding, perhaps?
Unceasing, he tries
Increasing the size...
And now the world needs bigger traps.

Leo G. Carroll tries to find an answer to the food shortage in Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955).

Growth Industry

The doctor, a humanitarian,
Had approaches one might term contrarian;
His cry was ‘more meat!’
But the task had him beat
Next time, Doc, try something agrarian.

Paul Truster

Scientist Leo G. Carroll seeks a solution to world hunger in Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955).

Physician Congeal Thyself

This nutritional breakthrough is stalling
As its side effects prove quite appalling;
Deemer’s New Wonder Diet?
There's few that will try it!
Its stock, like his features, is falling.

Dr. Deemer’s a very sad case
With his eye and his ear out of place
Though his motives were pure
He himself needs a cure;
It’s no fun for a doc to lose face.

Paul Truster

Leo G. Carroll as Professor Gerald Deemer in Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955).

Intention Headache

This friendly old guy's understandable
He intends to make spiders expandable
Starvation would end
All his patients distend
And we'll end in an outsize great mandible.

David Cairns

Scientist Leo G. Carroll seeks a cure for world hunger in Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955).

Body Trouble

One effect of the harmful injection
Is it wrecks Leo's charming complexion
Then his bones start to grow
And, once grown, start to show
We suspect in alarming directions.

Leo G. Carroll is injected with his experimental growth serum in Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955).

Hoarse and Buggy

A spider now dwells in your house
A giant-from-hell hairy louse
No rarebit-fueled dream
In terror you scream
Get insect repellent and douse!

Mara Corday reacts to the Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955).

Carpet Diem

Are you nuts? Don't recline on the rug!
Your cute butt's in the line of a bug!
Get up, gal, we're not joking
Soon its talon starts poking
And your guts like cheap wine it will chug!

Mara Corday poses in a striking still from Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955).

Ick-speriment!

It creeps through the scrub and the thistles
It’s hungry and covered with bristles;
The drive-in crowd cheers
Every time it appears
While Mara Corday provokes whistles.

Paul Truster



Mara Corday adds the sex appeal to Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955); with Leo G. Carroll.

Not Waverley, but Drowning

You've seen him command men from U.N.C.L.E.
Now he's been at the glands, so this junk'll
Not show Leo be charming
(Could he be more alarming?)
He's obscene, an expanding carbuncle.

David Cairns

Leo G. Carroll in Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955).

The Pituitary and the Pendulous

 

Poor Leo to hormones, exposed
Can see that his form's discomposed
All awry, he's a grower
One eye higher, one lower
That's really abnormal. He's hosed.

Reviewing poor Leo's complexion
We peruse a bad scene of abjection
His pituitary gland
Got Critically panned
For this crude facial feature selection.

David Cairns

Scientist Leo G. Carroll  in Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955).