The Revenge of the Creature

(a dorky, spindly-looking scientist does a stupid trick concerning a mouse and a cat in a cage for John Agar)
Mike (pointing at the scientist): Hey, look who it is!
Crow (with a shot of the cat looking creepily into the camera): Punk.
Servo (when the scientist takes the mouse out of his pocket): Seeing as how I have a .44 Magnum in my pocket, the most powerful handgun in the world.
Crow (after the scientist’s scene): That guy’s bad. This is his first and last movie.

Yep, that scientist was none other than…Clint Eastwood! A really young Clint Eastwood making his screen debut! In a crappy John Agar B-movie, no less! Crow’s “Punk” line is pretty funny, especially when you don’t get the Dirty Harry reference (“Do you feel lucky? Do you…punk?”) and think that the cat’s saying it to the camera. Ha ha ha boy am I tired.


(some stock footage of the Amazon, with a shot of a bird in a tree)
Tom (singing): Nockety-nockety-now-now-now…

This may be a veiled reference to Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. In the schoolhouse scene, the students are incessantly singing something similar to Tom’s tune. And, hey, there’s a bird.


(the swamp thing takes down an egret)
Crow (singing): Egrets I’ve had a few…

While not a movie reference, I mention this because for some reason it took me so long to realize that Crow was parodying Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” (“Regrets/ I’ve had a few”). I don’t know why it took me so long. Maybe because Crow mis-emphasized it (gotta lay the blame on somebody and it sure as hell ain’t gonna be me…)


(Dead fish float on the Amazon River)
Tom: Hey, check this out (singing) Eidelweiss, Eidelweiss…

The song “Eidelweiss” was used in The Sound of Music (it's sung by Christopher Plummer in one of the more touching scenes of the film). The Chicago River (in Chicago, 'natch) was/is so polluted that fish were/are often found floating belly up. The connection? I've heard the river being referred to "Aleweiss" or "Edeilweiss", but don't have a lot of facts on me. If anyone knows more about it, send me a message.


(a shot of a shark swimming around)
Tom: Fine, I’ll do it myself—(singing) duh dum…duh dum…duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh…

He’s singing the theme music for Jaws. It’s about a coastal town that is terrorized by a huge, man-eating shark. Steven Spielberg directed it, while Richard Dreyfuss and Rod Schneider starred. John Williams did the score for Jaws, and also the scores for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Schindler’s List.


(John Agar is talking to his girlfriend on the dock overlooking the ocean, or a lake, or some body of water)
Crow: And now the Creature has a scene with Cary Grant…

Cary Grant, as much as I love him, was in a lot of chick flicks in his later career—An Affair to Remember being the main one that comes to mind. Not to say that chick flicks are a bad thing (I myself like Sleepless in Seattle and Only You), but Mike and the ‘Bots were probably squelching on the fact that John Agar is having a sappy romance scene with his girl on the dock. It could be a reference with Charade, where Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn flirt on a boat, but I wouldn’t call that a chick-flick. More like “taut, Hitchcock-ian thriller”. Brief Trivia Tidbit: if you see a photo of Cary Grant smiling, look closely at his teeth. Something isn’t quite right. He’s missing a front tooth. When he was a kid, he chipped it while ice-skating. He was afraid of telling his dad so he went to a Dentist’s School and had it pulled. The remaining teeth pushed together, and his dad never found out. Hell, I thought it was interesting.


(Bobo the Monkey explains to Mike and the ‘Bots that monkeys now rule the world. At one point Mike growls, “You did it. You finally did it…It’s a madhouse! A madhouse!” You can see a half-buried Statue of Liberty outside of Bobo’s house-place.)

It’s all poking fun of Planet of the Apes. Mike’s line first came from Charlton Heston in the original. The monkeys weren’t as stupid as Bobo though. It’s all pretty funny.


(John Agar pumps medicine into a dead fish for the creature)
Mike: Fish-spotting.

Ref to Trainspotting, a very good Scottish movie (directed by Danny Boyle) about a group of heroin users in Edinburgh. Loads of sex, loads of drugs, loads of disgusting things (like the dirtiest toilet in Scotland), and loads of good music. The soundtrack is great, the dialogue is great, and this movie made a star out of mah boy Ewan McGregor (I’ve got a lot of “boys”, see. It’s hard to explain). Not for the weak-hearted. Go see it, especially if you’re some punk kid thinking of going into drug paraphernalia.


(divers are wrestling the Creature while dramatic music is playing)
Crow (singing): Camelot…

Camelot was a Lerner and Loewe Broadway musical about, well, Camelot, and the Knights of the Round Table. On its first run in 1960, it starred mah boy Richard Burton as King Arthur, Robert Goulet as Lancelot, and Julie Andrews as Queen Gertrude. It did incredibly well and I think Burton won or was at least nominated for a Tony award. Then it was made into a movie starring Vanessa Redgrave as Gertrude and Richard Harris as King Arthur. Unfortunately it turned out to be a bomb—one of those it-did-so-badly-that-the-studio-nearly-tanked movies (in the same vein as Doctor Dolittle). But I personally think it actually wasn’t that bad. I think you’ll find me saying this about a lot of “bad” movies—specifically, “I don’t know, I liked it.” Visually entertaining (though a little bland in other aspects) like most big-scale 1960’s movies were (see Doctor Zhivago and Far from the Madding Crowd). Vanessa Redgrave actually had an affair with the Franco Nero, who played Sir Lancelot in the movie, and begot (Biblical term) a child from him. So art imitates life, I guess (except, Gertrude and Lancelot never had a child. Oh well.) In any case, I consider it a good movie. I mean, how bad can a play that makes use of the term “happy-ever-aftering” be?


(the Creature is swimming)
Tom: Esther Williams didn’t age well…

Esther Williams was the famous swimmer in a number of musicals—I think they were called “underwater ballets” or some such thing. She was primarily a diver, although she was good in the choreographed underwater sequences. She made a couple of movies with Busby Berkeley, including Take Me Out to the Ballgame (in a rare non-aquatic role) and Million Dollar Mermaid. Berkeley was a genius when it came to choreography (on both land and underwater)—he made a large number of musicals, the most famous being 42nd Street (with the famous, rousing speech Warner Baxter gives to Ruby Keeler: “You’re going out there a youngster, but you’ve got to come back a star!”) and Gold Diggers of 1933 (in which Ginger Rogers sings “We’re in the Money” in Pig Latin—pretty cool stuff; I’d like to know how long it took her to practice). Esther Williams is still alive (she’s one of those “living legends” one hears so much about) and actually had a successful book written about her not too long ago. There’s also a new DVD comprised solely of Busby Berkeley sequences, so you can get the goods without going through the often corny, clichéd plotlines of the movies.


(the Creature is taunting some tourists)
Tom: Come on, come on, put up your dukes! I can take you with both hands tied behind my back!

He said the above in the unique voice of Bert Lahr, or more specifically, Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. He says those lines in his first scene, when he’s trying to scare Dorothy, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow. One thing I like about The Wizard of Oz: the Cowardly Lion’s tail. Sometimes it stands up on its own, sometimes you can see the string holding it up and pulling it up and down. Sometimes it’s dragging on the ground, sometimes it’s bouncing around so much you think Lahr’s going to lift up the ground. I wonder if Lahr (or anyone in the film, for that matter) just stopped what they were doing, looked around at the others’ costumes, and the set, and themselves, and just asked aloud, “What the hell am I doing here?” I know I would.


(Chris the Dog is sitting with Helen)
Tom (in a doggy voice): Can we watch My Life as a Dog again?

My Life as a Dog actually doesn’t have that many scenes with a dog—maybe two or three, and those are at the very beginning. It’s a 1980’s Swedish movie about a little boy who goes to live with distant relatives after his mother gets sick. He has to leave his dog at home, and spends most of the narration thinking about him, and about the Russian astro-mutt Laika, who had recently been shot into space. If you happen to see this movie in the video store (and don’t mind reading subtitles), then rent it; it’s very good. I myself laugh whenever someone calls out, “Ingmar!” Just how they say it; it’s hilarious.