Post by teleadm on Sept 17, 2019 12:23:28 GMT
Edgar Georg Ulmer was born 115 years ago in Olomouc, in what is now the Czech Republic. As a young man he lived in Vienna, where he worked as a stage actor and set designer while studying architecture and philosophy. He did set design for Max Reinhardt's theater, served his apprenticeship with F. W. Murnau, and worked with directors including Robert Siodmak, Billy Wilder, Fred Zinnemann and cinematographer Eugen Schüfftan. Little did he know that some of his movies would later, after he had retired, be subjects of cult followings by prominent film scholars and critics,
Ulmer came to Hollywood with Murnau in 1926 to assist with the art direction on Sunrise 1927.
The first feature he directed in North America, Damaged Lives 1933, was a low-budget exploitation film exposing the horrors of venereal disease. His next film, The Black Cat 1934, starring Béla Lugosi and Boris Karloff, was made for Universal Pictures. Demonstrating the striking visual style that would be Ulmer's hallmark, the film was Universal's biggest hit of the season.
However, Ulmer had begun an affair with Shirley Beatrice Kassler, who had been married since 1933 to independent producer Max Alexander, nephew of Universal studio head Carl Laemmle. Kassler's divorce in 1936 and her marriage to Ulmer later the same year led to his being exiled from the major Hollywood studios.
Consigned to the fringes of the U.S. motion picture industry, for a time Ulmer specialized first in "ethnic films," in Ukrainian, Natalka Poltavka 1937, Cossacks in Exile 1939, and Yiddish, The Light Ahead 1939, Americaner Shadchen 1940. The best-known of these ethnic films is the Yiddish Green Fields 1937, co-directed with Jacob Ben-Ami.
Ulmer eventually found a niche making melodramas on tiny budgets and with often unpromising scripts and actors for Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC), with Ulmer describing himself as "the Frank Capra of PRC".
His PRC thriller Detour 1945 has won considerable acclaim as a prime example of low-budget film noir, and it was selected by the Library of Congress among the first group of 100 American films worthy of special preservation efforts.
PRC also hired him out to make special short documentaries, fighting germs and tuberculosis, as well as commericals for Coca-Cola.
In 1947, Ulmer made Carnegie Hall with the help of conductor Fritz Reiner, godfather of the Ulmers' daughter, Arianné. The film features performances by many leading figures in classical music, including Reiner, Jascha Heifetz, Artur Rubinstein, Gregor Piatigorsky and Lily Pons.
Ulmer did get a chance to direct two films with substantial budgets, The Strange Woman 1946 and Ruthless 1948. The former, featuring a strong performance by Hedy Lamarr, is regarded by some critics as one of Ulmer's best.
He directed a low-budget science-fiction film with a noirish tone, The Man from Planet X 1951. His last film, The Cavern 1964, was shot in Italy.
Ulmer died in 1972, at the age of 68, in Woodland Hills, California, after a crippling stroke.
The moving image collection of Edgar G. Ulmer is held at the Academy Film Archive. The film material at the Academy Film Archive is complemented by material in the Edgar G. Ulmer papers at the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library.
Her follows some exaples of Ulmer's directorial career:
Menschen am Sonntag aka People on Sunday 1930, co-directed by Robert Siodmak from a screenplay by Billy Wilder.
The film follows a group of residents of Berlin on a summer's day during the interwar period. Hailed as a work of genius, it is a pivotal film in the development of German cinema and Hollywood. The film aqlso features the talents of Curt Siodmak (story) and Fred Zinnemann (cinematography).
Damaged Lives 1933, a Canadian/American Pre-Code exploitation film with a screenplay based on the French play Les Avariés (1901) by Eugène Brieux.
The film was shot at General Service Studios in Hollywood for the Canadian Social Health Council.
The Black Cat 1934, a pre-code horror film starring Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, David Manners and Jaqueline Wells.
It became Universal Pictures' biggest box office hit of the year, and was one of the first movies with an almost continuous music score.
The Black Cat is considered by many to be the one that created and popularized the psychological horror subgenre, emphasising on atmosphere, eerie sounds, the darker side of the human psyche, and emotions like fear and guilt to deliver its scares, something that was not used in the horror genre.
Thunder over Texas 1934, directed by Ulmer under the alias Joen Warner. It starred Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams, Marion Schilling and Helen Westcoat.
A Western produced by two nephews of Universal Pictures head Carl Laemmle, Arthur and Max Alexander's Poverty Row Beacon Productions.
Tomorrow We Live 1942, a crime drama starring Ricardo Cortez, Jean Parker, Emmett Lynn amd William Marshall.
Tagline: His hobby was collecting women... and he called himself the Ghost... the guy they couldn't kill.
Produced by Seymour Nebenzal for PRC.
Girls in Chains 1943, a crime drama starring Arlene Judge, Roger Clark, Robin Raymond and Barbara Pepper.
When a teacher loses her job because her brother-in-law is a racketeer, she takes a position at a girls' reformatory.
Isle of Forgotten Sins 1943, a South Seas adventure with gold, greed and a monsoon.
The film was shot at Corriganville movie ranch in six days at a cost of $23,000.
Ulmer, who was a production assistant on F. W. Murnau's Tabu: A Story of the South Seas found 200 miniature trees from John Ford's 1937 film The Hurricane and wrote a South Seas story based on ideas he had while filming Tabu.
Bluebeard 1944, based on the famous French tale "Barbe bleue", that tells the story of a violent nobleman in the habit of murdering his wives and the attempts of one wife to avoid the fate of her predecessors.
It starred John Carradine, Jean Parker, Nils Asther and Ludwig Stossel.
Dennis Schwartz from Ozus' World Movie Reviews gave the film a grade A, "Though not exactly a horror story, more a psycho serial killer tale that turns out to be a spellbinding chiller that mixes sleaze with thrills in an inventive way that only a great filmmaker such as Ulmer can get away with".
Strange Illusion 1945, a crime noir drama starring Jimmy Lydon, Sally Eilers, Warren William and Regis Toomey.
According to noir historian Spencer Selby the film is "a stylish cheapie by the recognized master of stylish cheapies".
Detour 1945, a crime noir drama starring Tom Neal, Ann Savage, Claudia Drake and Edmund McDonald.
In 1972, Ulmer said in an interview that the film was shot in six days. However, in a 2004 documentary, Ulmer's daughter Arianne presented a shooting script title page which noted, "June 14, 1945-June 29. Camera days 14.". Moreover, Ann Savage was contracted to Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) for the production of Detour for three six-day weeks, and she later said the film was shot in four six-day weeks, with an additional four days of location work in the desert at Lancaster, California.
While popular belief long held that Detour was shot for about $20,000, Noah Isenberg, in conducting research for his book on the film, discovered that the film's actual cost was upwards of $100,000. The film made a million at the box-office.
Contemporary screenings of Detour were not confined to grindhouse theaters. In downtown Los Angeles, it played at the 2,200-seat Orpheum in combination with a live stage show featuring the hit Slim Gaillard Trio and the Buddy Rich Orchestra. Business was reported to be excellent despite a transit strike.
The Strange Woman 1946, a drama noir romance starring Hedy Lamarr, George Sanders, Louis Hayward and Gene Lockhart.
Hedy Lamarr and producer Jack Chertok formed a partnership to produce this film, released through United Artists.
The film went over budget by $1 million but was a moderate success at the box office.
The Wife of Monte Cristo 1946, adventure swashbuckler starring John Loder, Lenore Aubert, Fritz Kortner and Charles Dingle.
Tagline: SHE CHALLENGED MEN WITH HER BEAUTY...CONQUERS THEM WITH HER SWORD!
It was successful at the box office, PRC wise.
Her Sister's Secret 1946, a drama taking place in New Orleans during Mardi Gras during WWII, and starring Nancy Coleman, Margaret Lindsay, Phillip Reed and Felix Bressart.
The film was produced by Producers Releasing Corporation. They increased their usual film budget for Her Sister's Secret, referring to it as their "first million-dollar production" in advertising.
The film was restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive, with funding provided by The Film Foundation and The Franco-American Cultural Fund. A fine-grain was recently struck from the original nitrate negative, from which a new negative and superb new print were produced. Among other earlier exhibitions, the new print was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in November 2014.
Carnegie Hall 1947, a music drama starring Marsha Hunt, William Prince, Frank McHugh and Martha O'Driscoll with as themselves Jascha Heifetz, Harry James, Vaughn Monroe, Ezio Pinza, Lily Pons, Fritz Reiner, Arthur Rubenstein, Risë Stevens, Leopold Stokowski and others.
A mother (Marsha Hunt) wants her son (William Prince) to grow up to be a pianist good enough to play at Carnegie Hall. The son would prefer to play jazz with Vaughn Monroe's orchestra. But Mama's wishes prevail and the son appears at Carnegie Hall as the composer-conductor-pianist of a modern trumpet concerto, with Harry James as the soloist.
Ruthless 1948, a drama noir romance starring Zachary Scott, Louis Hayward, Diana Lynn and Sydney Greenstreet.
Rrecently, film critic Glenn Erickson gave the film a positive review, writing, "Financed as a one-shot project by an agent-turned producer, Ruthless plays its quietly subversive theme right out to the bitter end. It has excellent performances by a cast of not-quite big stars, some of them recently relieved of studio contracts. Its main player is the biggest surprise: Zachary Scott gives the performance of his career ... Ruthless is the Edgar G. Ulmer picture that shows him operating with a decent set of cinematic Tinkertoys, and he does very well indeed".
The Pirates of Capri 1949, and Italian/American international co-production swashbuckler starring Louis Hayward, Binnie Barnes, Mariella Lotti and Massimo Serato. Made on locations in Italy.
Recently, TV Guide wrote "Great action scenes and clever direction by Ulmer pull this one out of the doldrums".
The Man from Planet X 1951, an independently made black-and-white science fiction horror film, starring Robert Clarke, Margaret Field, Raymond Bond and William Schallert.
The film went into production on December 13, 1950, at Hal Roach Studios in Culver City, California, and wrapped principal photography six days later. In order to save money, the film was shot on sets for the 1948 Ingrid Bergman film Joan of Arc, using artificial fog to change moods, plot locations, and to hide the lack of backdrops and staged landscapes for the outdoor scenes.
The alien can communicate using only modulated musical sounds, a concept used three decades later in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Murder is My Beat 1955, a noir mystery starring Paul Langton, Barbara Payton, Robert Shayne and Selena Royle.
A police detective helps a singer heading to prison for the murder of a man she claims is still alive.
The Naked Dawn 1955, a western action crime drama starring Arthur Kennedy, Betta St. John, Eugene Iglesias and Charlita.
In Mexico, at the dawn of the automobile, modern bandit Santiago burglarizes train freight cars and falls in love with a poor farmer's wife.
It was shot in 10 days.
François Truffaut cited this film as an inspiration for the characters in Jules and Jim.
Ironically, this movie was made by Universal, the company that once kicked Ulmer out.
The Daughter of Dr Jekyll 1957, horror fantasy starring John Agar, Gloria Talbott, Arthur Shields and John Dierkes.
A young woman discovers she is the daughter of the infamous Dr. Jekyll, and begins to believe that she may also have a split personality, one of whom is a ruthless killer.
Production of the film began in early November 1956, about eight months before its release. It was filmed in widescreen format with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Talbott said in an interview that the actual shooting time was "something like five to seven days" and that most of the filming took place "not on a stage, but in a house" on 6th Street in Los Angeles, near Hancock Park. She said that passing traffic can occasionally be seen through a window in the background of interior shots.
Nonetheless, despite its shortcomings, some critics still find the movie enjoyable, calling it "immensely silly" and "more amusing than anything" as well as "delightfully daffy" and "an awful lot of fun".
Hannibal 1959, an Italian historical adventure starring Victor Mature, Gabriele Ferzetti, Rita Gam and Milly Vitale.
Despite being an Italian production the film was mainly financed by American studio Warner Brothers.
During the Second Punic War in 218 BC, Carthaginian general Hannibal attacks the Roman Republic by crossing the Pyrenees and the Alps with his vast army.
The film existed in two versions, a 95-minute version released in non-English speaking European countries, and a 103-minute version released in the USA and other English speaking territories.
The films tagline was "Jump on! Hang on! Here comes the avenging Hannibal and his crazed elephant army!"
The Amazing Transparent Man 1960, Sciance-Fiction starring Marguerite Chapman, Douglas Kennedy, James Griffith and Ivan Triesault.
A crazed scientist invents an invisibility formula. He plans to use the formula to create an army of invisible zombies.
The film was made by Miller Consolidated Pictures, which gave it a brief release in 1960. It was then picked up by American International Pictures and released again later in the year.
The movie has been a subject on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Beyond the Time Barrier 1960, Science-Fiction starring Robert Clarke, Darlene Tompkins, Arianne Ulmer and Vladimir Sokoloff.
Made back-to-back with Transparent Man in Dallas Tx. at the Texas Centennial Exhibition Fair Park buildings.
In 1960, a military test pilot is caught in a time warp that propels him to year 2024 where he finds a plague has sterilized the world's population.
Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader wrote, "Even on this despairing level of fly-by-night filmmaking, Ulmer's treatment remains resolutely personal, and the film, though visually slack, emerges as something terse, resourceful, and expressively icy".
aka Journey Beneath the Desert 1961, a fantasy adventure starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Haya Harareet, Georges Rivière and Rad Fulton.
A helicopter crashes in the desert, and the crew winds up in the underground city of Atlantis and get mixed up in a slave revolt.
Ulmer replaced Frank Borzage who had left the production due to illness.
aka The Cavern 1964, a war drama starring John Saxon, Rosanna Schiaffino, Larry Hagman and Brian Aherne.
Drama during WW2 in Italy where a mixed group of people get trapped inside a cave after a bomb raid. But can they co-operate? And will they survive?
An Italian-West German-American co-production, distributed by 20th Century Fox.
Final film of director Edgar G. Ulmer.
Thanks for watching!
Thoughts, ideas, oppinions, lists, favorites and/or anything else Edgar G. Ulmer are very very welcome!
Ulmer came to Hollywood with Murnau in 1926 to assist with the art direction on Sunrise 1927.
The first feature he directed in North America, Damaged Lives 1933, was a low-budget exploitation film exposing the horrors of venereal disease. His next film, The Black Cat 1934, starring Béla Lugosi and Boris Karloff, was made for Universal Pictures. Demonstrating the striking visual style that would be Ulmer's hallmark, the film was Universal's biggest hit of the season.
However, Ulmer had begun an affair with Shirley Beatrice Kassler, who had been married since 1933 to independent producer Max Alexander, nephew of Universal studio head Carl Laemmle. Kassler's divorce in 1936 and her marriage to Ulmer later the same year led to his being exiled from the major Hollywood studios.
Consigned to the fringes of the U.S. motion picture industry, for a time Ulmer specialized first in "ethnic films," in Ukrainian, Natalka Poltavka 1937, Cossacks in Exile 1939, and Yiddish, The Light Ahead 1939, Americaner Shadchen 1940. The best-known of these ethnic films is the Yiddish Green Fields 1937, co-directed with Jacob Ben-Ami.
Ulmer eventually found a niche making melodramas on tiny budgets and with often unpromising scripts and actors for Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC), with Ulmer describing himself as "the Frank Capra of PRC".
His PRC thriller Detour 1945 has won considerable acclaim as a prime example of low-budget film noir, and it was selected by the Library of Congress among the first group of 100 American films worthy of special preservation efforts.
PRC also hired him out to make special short documentaries, fighting germs and tuberculosis, as well as commericals for Coca-Cola.
In 1947, Ulmer made Carnegie Hall with the help of conductor Fritz Reiner, godfather of the Ulmers' daughter, Arianné. The film features performances by many leading figures in classical music, including Reiner, Jascha Heifetz, Artur Rubinstein, Gregor Piatigorsky and Lily Pons.
Ulmer did get a chance to direct two films with substantial budgets, The Strange Woman 1946 and Ruthless 1948. The former, featuring a strong performance by Hedy Lamarr, is regarded by some critics as one of Ulmer's best.
He directed a low-budget science-fiction film with a noirish tone, The Man from Planet X 1951. His last film, The Cavern 1964, was shot in Italy.
Ulmer died in 1972, at the age of 68, in Woodland Hills, California, after a crippling stroke.
The moving image collection of Edgar G. Ulmer is held at the Academy Film Archive. The film material at the Academy Film Archive is complemented by material in the Edgar G. Ulmer papers at the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library.
Her follows some exaples of Ulmer's directorial career:
Menschen am Sonntag aka People on Sunday 1930, co-directed by Robert Siodmak from a screenplay by Billy Wilder.
The film follows a group of residents of Berlin on a summer's day during the interwar period. Hailed as a work of genius, it is a pivotal film in the development of German cinema and Hollywood. The film aqlso features the talents of Curt Siodmak (story) and Fred Zinnemann (cinematography).
Damaged Lives 1933, a Canadian/American Pre-Code exploitation film with a screenplay based on the French play Les Avariés (1901) by Eugène Brieux.
The film was shot at General Service Studios in Hollywood for the Canadian Social Health Council.
The Black Cat 1934, a pre-code horror film starring Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, David Manners and Jaqueline Wells.
It became Universal Pictures' biggest box office hit of the year, and was one of the first movies with an almost continuous music score.
The Black Cat is considered by many to be the one that created and popularized the psychological horror subgenre, emphasising on atmosphere, eerie sounds, the darker side of the human psyche, and emotions like fear and guilt to deliver its scares, something that was not used in the horror genre.
Thunder over Texas 1934, directed by Ulmer under the alias Joen Warner. It starred Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams, Marion Schilling and Helen Westcoat.
A Western produced by two nephews of Universal Pictures head Carl Laemmle, Arthur and Max Alexander's Poverty Row Beacon Productions.
Tomorrow We Live 1942, a crime drama starring Ricardo Cortez, Jean Parker, Emmett Lynn amd William Marshall.
Tagline: His hobby was collecting women... and he called himself the Ghost... the guy they couldn't kill.
Produced by Seymour Nebenzal for PRC.
Girls in Chains 1943, a crime drama starring Arlene Judge, Roger Clark, Robin Raymond and Barbara Pepper.
When a teacher loses her job because her brother-in-law is a racketeer, she takes a position at a girls' reformatory.
Isle of Forgotten Sins 1943, a South Seas adventure with gold, greed and a monsoon.
The film was shot at Corriganville movie ranch in six days at a cost of $23,000.
Ulmer, who was a production assistant on F. W. Murnau's Tabu: A Story of the South Seas found 200 miniature trees from John Ford's 1937 film The Hurricane and wrote a South Seas story based on ideas he had while filming Tabu.
Bluebeard 1944, based on the famous French tale "Barbe bleue", that tells the story of a violent nobleman in the habit of murdering his wives and the attempts of one wife to avoid the fate of her predecessors.
It starred John Carradine, Jean Parker, Nils Asther and Ludwig Stossel.
Dennis Schwartz from Ozus' World Movie Reviews gave the film a grade A, "Though not exactly a horror story, more a psycho serial killer tale that turns out to be a spellbinding chiller that mixes sleaze with thrills in an inventive way that only a great filmmaker such as Ulmer can get away with".
Strange Illusion 1945, a crime noir drama starring Jimmy Lydon, Sally Eilers, Warren William and Regis Toomey.
According to noir historian Spencer Selby the film is "a stylish cheapie by the recognized master of stylish cheapies".
Detour 1945, a crime noir drama starring Tom Neal, Ann Savage, Claudia Drake and Edmund McDonald.
In 1972, Ulmer said in an interview that the film was shot in six days. However, in a 2004 documentary, Ulmer's daughter Arianne presented a shooting script title page which noted, "June 14, 1945-June 29. Camera days 14.". Moreover, Ann Savage was contracted to Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) for the production of Detour for three six-day weeks, and she later said the film was shot in four six-day weeks, with an additional four days of location work in the desert at Lancaster, California.
While popular belief long held that Detour was shot for about $20,000, Noah Isenberg, in conducting research for his book on the film, discovered that the film's actual cost was upwards of $100,000. The film made a million at the box-office.
Contemporary screenings of Detour were not confined to grindhouse theaters. In downtown Los Angeles, it played at the 2,200-seat Orpheum in combination with a live stage show featuring the hit Slim Gaillard Trio and the Buddy Rich Orchestra. Business was reported to be excellent despite a transit strike.
The Strange Woman 1946, a drama noir romance starring Hedy Lamarr, George Sanders, Louis Hayward and Gene Lockhart.
Hedy Lamarr and producer Jack Chertok formed a partnership to produce this film, released through United Artists.
The film went over budget by $1 million but was a moderate success at the box office.
The Wife of Monte Cristo 1946, adventure swashbuckler starring John Loder, Lenore Aubert, Fritz Kortner and Charles Dingle.
Tagline: SHE CHALLENGED MEN WITH HER BEAUTY...CONQUERS THEM WITH HER SWORD!
It was successful at the box office, PRC wise.
Her Sister's Secret 1946, a drama taking place in New Orleans during Mardi Gras during WWII, and starring Nancy Coleman, Margaret Lindsay, Phillip Reed and Felix Bressart.
The film was produced by Producers Releasing Corporation. They increased their usual film budget for Her Sister's Secret, referring to it as their "first million-dollar production" in advertising.
The film was restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive, with funding provided by The Film Foundation and The Franco-American Cultural Fund. A fine-grain was recently struck from the original nitrate negative, from which a new negative and superb new print were produced. Among other earlier exhibitions, the new print was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in November 2014.
Carnegie Hall 1947, a music drama starring Marsha Hunt, William Prince, Frank McHugh and Martha O'Driscoll with as themselves Jascha Heifetz, Harry James, Vaughn Monroe, Ezio Pinza, Lily Pons, Fritz Reiner, Arthur Rubenstein, Risë Stevens, Leopold Stokowski and others.
A mother (Marsha Hunt) wants her son (William Prince) to grow up to be a pianist good enough to play at Carnegie Hall. The son would prefer to play jazz with Vaughn Monroe's orchestra. But Mama's wishes prevail and the son appears at Carnegie Hall as the composer-conductor-pianist of a modern trumpet concerto, with Harry James as the soloist.
Ruthless 1948, a drama noir romance starring Zachary Scott, Louis Hayward, Diana Lynn and Sydney Greenstreet.
Rrecently, film critic Glenn Erickson gave the film a positive review, writing, "Financed as a one-shot project by an agent-turned producer, Ruthless plays its quietly subversive theme right out to the bitter end. It has excellent performances by a cast of not-quite big stars, some of them recently relieved of studio contracts. Its main player is the biggest surprise: Zachary Scott gives the performance of his career ... Ruthless is the Edgar G. Ulmer picture that shows him operating with a decent set of cinematic Tinkertoys, and he does very well indeed".
The Pirates of Capri 1949, and Italian/American international co-production swashbuckler starring Louis Hayward, Binnie Barnes, Mariella Lotti and Massimo Serato. Made on locations in Italy.
Recently, TV Guide wrote "Great action scenes and clever direction by Ulmer pull this one out of the doldrums".
The Man from Planet X 1951, an independently made black-and-white science fiction horror film, starring Robert Clarke, Margaret Field, Raymond Bond and William Schallert.
The film went into production on December 13, 1950, at Hal Roach Studios in Culver City, California, and wrapped principal photography six days later. In order to save money, the film was shot on sets for the 1948 Ingrid Bergman film Joan of Arc, using artificial fog to change moods, plot locations, and to hide the lack of backdrops and staged landscapes for the outdoor scenes.
The alien can communicate using only modulated musical sounds, a concept used three decades later in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Murder is My Beat 1955, a noir mystery starring Paul Langton, Barbara Payton, Robert Shayne and Selena Royle.
A police detective helps a singer heading to prison for the murder of a man she claims is still alive.
The Naked Dawn 1955, a western action crime drama starring Arthur Kennedy, Betta St. John, Eugene Iglesias and Charlita.
In Mexico, at the dawn of the automobile, modern bandit Santiago burglarizes train freight cars and falls in love with a poor farmer's wife.
It was shot in 10 days.
François Truffaut cited this film as an inspiration for the characters in Jules and Jim.
Ironically, this movie was made by Universal, the company that once kicked Ulmer out.
The Daughter of Dr Jekyll 1957, horror fantasy starring John Agar, Gloria Talbott, Arthur Shields and John Dierkes.
A young woman discovers she is the daughter of the infamous Dr. Jekyll, and begins to believe that she may also have a split personality, one of whom is a ruthless killer.
Production of the film began in early November 1956, about eight months before its release. It was filmed in widescreen format with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Talbott said in an interview that the actual shooting time was "something like five to seven days" and that most of the filming took place "not on a stage, but in a house" on 6th Street in Los Angeles, near Hancock Park. She said that passing traffic can occasionally be seen through a window in the background of interior shots.
Nonetheless, despite its shortcomings, some critics still find the movie enjoyable, calling it "immensely silly" and "more amusing than anything" as well as "delightfully daffy" and "an awful lot of fun".
Hannibal 1959, an Italian historical adventure starring Victor Mature, Gabriele Ferzetti, Rita Gam and Milly Vitale.
Despite being an Italian production the film was mainly financed by American studio Warner Brothers.
During the Second Punic War in 218 BC, Carthaginian general Hannibal attacks the Roman Republic by crossing the Pyrenees and the Alps with his vast army.
The film existed in two versions, a 95-minute version released in non-English speaking European countries, and a 103-minute version released in the USA and other English speaking territories.
The films tagline was "Jump on! Hang on! Here comes the avenging Hannibal and his crazed elephant army!"
The Amazing Transparent Man 1960, Sciance-Fiction starring Marguerite Chapman, Douglas Kennedy, James Griffith and Ivan Triesault.
A crazed scientist invents an invisibility formula. He plans to use the formula to create an army of invisible zombies.
The film was made by Miller Consolidated Pictures, which gave it a brief release in 1960. It was then picked up by American International Pictures and released again later in the year.
The movie has been a subject on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Beyond the Time Barrier 1960, Science-Fiction starring Robert Clarke, Darlene Tompkins, Arianne Ulmer and Vladimir Sokoloff.
Made back-to-back with Transparent Man in Dallas Tx. at the Texas Centennial Exhibition Fair Park buildings.
In 1960, a military test pilot is caught in a time warp that propels him to year 2024 where he finds a plague has sterilized the world's population.
Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader wrote, "Even on this despairing level of fly-by-night filmmaking, Ulmer's treatment remains resolutely personal, and the film, though visually slack, emerges as something terse, resourceful, and expressively icy".
aka Journey Beneath the Desert 1961, a fantasy adventure starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Haya Harareet, Georges Rivière and Rad Fulton.
A helicopter crashes in the desert, and the crew winds up in the underground city of Atlantis and get mixed up in a slave revolt.
Ulmer replaced Frank Borzage who had left the production due to illness.
aka The Cavern 1964, a war drama starring John Saxon, Rosanna Schiaffino, Larry Hagman and Brian Aherne.
Drama during WW2 in Italy where a mixed group of people get trapped inside a cave after a bomb raid. But can they co-operate? And will they survive?
An Italian-West German-American co-production, distributed by 20th Century Fox.
Final film of director Edgar G. Ulmer.
Thanks for watching!
Thoughts, ideas, oppinions, lists, favorites and/or anything else Edgar G. Ulmer are very very welcome!
