Category: Directed by Jack Arnold
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The Swiss Conspiracy opens with a lengthy title card and voice-over explaining—broadly—the Swiss banking system. Then, the movie’s opening titles, an absurdist, almost silly montage of Swiss postcards, set to composer Klaus Doldinger’s least funky music in the film. Doldinger’s score is always fun and cool (and often quite good), even when it doesn’t precisely…
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Atrocious “family” “comedy” about Tony Randall dragging his family into his experimental underwater house of the future to prove the validity of the project to boss Jim Backus. Janet Leigh plays Randall’s wife (she could’ve done a lot better); she’s terrified of water. Their kids are in a band. The band comes along (including very…
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The Incredible Shrinking Man is an enormous feat. It succeeds thanks to director Arnold, writer Richard Matheson, and star Grant Williams. Arnold’s arguably got the greatest successes; he carefully lays the groundwork for the film’s eventual startling visuals. To get to the startling ones, Arnold’s got to get through some absurd ones. Only the first…
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Revenge of the Creature has three parts. The first part involves Nestor Paiva (the only cast member from the original to return) and John Bromfield as the guy who’s going to capture the Creature, the second part involves Bromfield, John Agar and Lori Nelson all studying the Creature in captivity, the third part has Agar…
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Almost all of Creature from the Black Lagoon is a compelling mix of science fiction, workplace drama and horror. The Creature makes a great “villain” because there’s nothing human about him (except maybe his fixation on leading lady Julie Adams) so it’s possible to both fear him and to understand leading man Richard Carlson’s scientific…
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Science may make monsters, but the morale of the story–according to Tarantula anyway–is the Air Force will always be there to bomb such monsters back to the Stone Age. The problem with Tarantula is fairly simple… it’s not a movie about a giant tarantula. Oh, it might have room for one, but to make the…
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Richard Carlson and Barbara Rush see a spaceship crash and can’t get anyone to believe them until it’s too late and the aliens start messing with the townsfolk. Arnold’s got a few big directing missteps (he races through every scene and doesn’t know how to compose shots on his sets). Simultaneously too short (at eighty…
The Stop Button 