Radar Men from the Moon Chapter One: Moon Rocket (Fred C. Brannon, 1952)

Stand by for Rocket Action

A long, low time ago when people would talk to me (for I was but young and death was just a dream) I reclined supine upon the old couch while off sick from school and watched the flickering shadows dancing before on the television screen - shadows of a bygone age.  I was very young, and we must be talking about the late 1980s - certainly before 1991 and the release of Joe Johnston's fabulous yet oft-forgotten pulp period spectacular The Rocketeer - as this was my first exposure to the jetpack-bedecked, bullet helmeted sky-soaring hero the Rocket Man, in the form of a morning television repeat of the 1949 serial chapter play King of the Rocket Men.

Also my introduction to the concept of an episodic monochrome movie serial (a genre which has since become a favourite of mine, with such choice gems as Adventures of Captain Marvel, Atom Man vs Superman, Undersea Kingdom and the unfortunately problematic and Japanophobic Batman), my glee at the discovery of this heretofore hidden style of filmmaking, with all of its literal car-goes-over-a-cliff cliffhangers and cheat 'he rolled out of the car at the last minute in a new edit you just didn't see last time' resolutions was tempered somewhat by the fact that I would only see an episode or two - they were being screened each weekday morning as opposed to once every Saturday like on their cinematic debut - before the illness passed and I was forced to return to school desolate in the knowledge that I could not know precisely how Jeff King and his amazing aeronautical adventures would triumph over the evil Dr Vulcan.

A few years later, of course, The Rocketeer would be released, and would rekindle to my inexpressible joy my fondness for this character (and also my burgeoning thing for Jennifer Connelly, the seeds of which had been sown at a tender age when I first saw Labyrinth, but that's another story).  It would be a long time before I learned that there had been other similar such serials featuring the masked rocketeer, such as 1952's Radar Men from the Moon (which replaced Tristram Coffin's Jeff King with George Wallace's Commando Cody), the same year's Zombies of the Stratosphere (starring Judd Holdren as Larry Martin, and featuring an early appearance by Mr Spock himself Leonard Nimoy) and Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe (Holdren again, this time as the eponymous Cody) in 1953 - all of these serials being directed (or in the final run's case, co-directed) by orginal Rocket Men head honcho Fred C. Brannon.  Clearly, thought I, a number of individuals had come to possess and utilise the famous rocket pack after the 'King of the Rocket Men' himself Jeff King - including Larry Martin, The Rocketeer Cliff Secord and Commando Cody himself - but there again I did always like maintaining a fictional continuity in my head.  I blame Doctor Who fandom.  The name of 'Cody' would become familiar again during the mid to late 2000s when George Lucas' 2005 Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith introduced the similarly monikered clone trooper Commander Cody (not to be confused with the 1970s country singer) whose story would be furthered in the animated TV series The Clone Wars.  Having just recently finished watching the debut season of another television series set in Lucas' galaxy far, far away The Mandalorian, which featured another helmeted and booster-packed hero, I thought it was high time to raze the walls that time constructed and finally get back to some classic Rocket Man movie serial action.

In the opening chapter, 'Moon Rocket', we begin with a montage of stock footage representing a swath of destruction across the United States - replete with spinning newspaper headline reports - akin to the campaign of terror waged by Stupor Duck's imaginary arch-nemesis Aardvark Ratnik ("I blow up buildings, bridges, trains!  Everywhere ruin and destruction!").  The government agent Henderson (Don Walters) brings news of these terrible events to the laboratory of Commando Cody and his scientific co-workers Joan Gilbert (Aline Towne, who would go on to play the very similar role of Sue Davis in this story's semi-sequel Zombies of the Stratosphere) and Ted Richards (William Bakewell).  These incidents have been discovered to be of an atomic nature, but not the work of an atomic bomb but some kind of atomic ray emanating from the Earth's sleeping satellite.  As Cody and his indefatigable team have been working on an experimental rocket ship capable of achieving a lunar landing, they are tasked with discovering the root cause of this extraterrestrial terrorism.  Strapping himself into his trusty leather coat, backpack and helm ensemble, Cody traces the location of the latest incident - the destruction of a governmental supply train - and is able to examine the ray gun responsible for America's entry into the Star Wars (no, not Ronald Raygun).

Rocketing in their space-age rocket ship from Earth to the moon (via intra-lunar space that is conspicuously bright and starless, just like the sky), the team discover the lunar city ruled by the malevolent Retik, monarch of the moon (Roy Barcroft), who reveals that these incursions have been but a softening up of the Earth's (for which read 'America's') defences in preparation for an invasion.  Pulling his trusty revolver from his belt, Cody is outmatched by Retik's atomic disintegrator gun...

To be continued...

Star Wars: Underworld - A XXX Parody (Dick Bush, 2016) [NSFW!]

Loving you long time, in a galaxy far, far away...

While George Lucas' long-mooted TV series set in his long time ago galaxy far, far away Underworld may never have reached our screens - despite years spent in development hell with scripts being reportedly worked on by everyone from Life on Mars' Matthew Graham to Battlestar Galactica's Ronald D. Moore - such trifling matters have never stopped the veritable juggernaut that is the pornographic parody.  From studio Digital Playground (and the initials 'DP' are quite, quite appropriate for the subject matter) and prolific director Dick Bush, Underworld - A XXX Parody does exactly what it says on the tin - taking the mooted setting of the seedy underbelly of Lucas' Star Wars settings to spin a tale of the lowlifes and subculture of the universe, though with the navicomputer's co-ordinates firmly set on masturbation rather than midichlorian or Mandalorian.

Opening with the usual canonical opening roller caption, the scene is set establishing that - in a move that surprised me by pulling (not that way, not yet) from the now-defunct Legends literature - the Order of the Black Sun rules the clubs and brothels of Coruscant.  Here we are introduced to the Togruta bounty hunter Danni Ora (Aria Alexander, looking very fetching in red and white body paint, montrals and head-tails, and making my wet dreams of a live action adult Ahsoka Tano come true [and quite hard]), who is presently working as bodyguard for spoiled senator's daughter Tyleah Daivik (Eva Lovia, proving - as if Femi Taylor in Return of the Jedi and Natalia Tena in The Mandalorian already haven't - that Twi'leks are 'teh sex').  After being persuaded by her coquettish charge to join her on the dancefloor for some spice-fueled bumpin' 'n' grindin', Danni finds herself passing out from all the Corscanti disco sherbet and therefore completely misses out on the raid on the nightclub by kidnappers who blast the boozed up patrons and spirit Tyleah away.  Waking later feeling like death among the actual dead, Danni is greeted by fellow bounty hunter Dengar (British army man stud Luke Hardy, playing a younger version of the briefly-glimpsed Empire Strikes Back character, very much the Ewan McGregor to the Original Trilogy's Maurice Bush [what?  Yes, i'm taking this seriously as canon!]), who is happily stripping the corpses of their valuables and lifting drinks from the empty bar.

After establishing that the Black Sun organisation are undoubtedly behind the snatching, Danni pleads Dengar for his help by persuading him that he's not the only one feeling 'thirsty' ("You know, some people tell me i'm a tall glass of water...") and positioning herself provocatively atop the bar counter clad in her doubtless practical for bounty hunting garb of strips of PVC and buckled heeled boots.  Showing a flimsiness of armour that clearly isn't Beskar steel, she easily pulls away his codpiece and eagerly and noisily slurps on his cable before flipping over with her head dangling over the bar top to receive a face fucking.   After alternating between doggy-style and standing - and is it wrong that perhaps the most arousing part was when she began to fellate her own head-tails, demonstrating that she could give a double BJ without any problems? - they return to oral for the win finish, but are rudely interrupted when the kidnappers return to the scene of the crime.  Having to hurriedly hide behind the bar, they overhear the villains stating that they're holding their "screamer" of a hostage in the slum district before having their position (Dengar on his back, Danni with her face in his crotch) given away by the fact that Danni just can't stop herself chowing down on that man meat.  After blowing the pair of criminals away, Dengar finishes being blown away by Danni who gratefully accepts the mouthful of goo that she's been so eager for.  The twosome then decide to join up to rescue Tyleah, as Danni is cock-a-hoop for both Dengar's aid and his "blaster" (as she calls it whilst gleefully eyeing his groin).

 The second scene opens with the bound and gagged Tyleah being led through the alleyways and spice dens of Slum District 311, replete with headless burning Artoo units like the flaming metal trash cans one sees cinema hobos gathered around, by burly henchmen Zeb (Monty Don - no, not the gardening one) and Aiden (Juan Lucho) who argue about who has the most powerful weapon - subtly, yes? - until the Twi'lek temptress mentions just how rich and powerful her father is.  Deciding that they'd rather have fun than work for Black Sun, the guys swiftly switch sides and slip their bounty out of her slinky dress to admire her beautiful blue breasts.  Dropping to her knees betwixt them, Tyleah takes each tackle in her mouth, tickling the tips with her talented tongue, before assuming the position for a good old spit-roasting.  Shot by both sides taking lengths inbetween both sets of lips, Tyleah's turned as the sides switch at half time (you'd think who takes heads and who takes tails could be decided by a coin toss, really) and alas the illusion of alien orgasm is slightly spoiled by the body paint slightly peeling away as her pussy is pounded - but what're you gonna do?  The sweaty session concludes with both dudes delivering their doses over her face, before she takes advantage of their exhausted distraction to shoot one of them with his own gun.  Before the situation can escalate, the feared leader of the Black Sun, Kendra Veris (the very sexy Alessa Savage, devilishly alluring in purple-red pigment, leather corset and thigh high boots) arrives and dispatches the second lackey herself for daring to defy her orders about "fucking with the merchandise".  She then ominously warns Tyleah that she fully intends to get her money's worth out of her: "I know just  the place for a girl like you..."

We then return to the adventures of Luke Starkiller Danni and Dengar as they search the slum areas for signs of their errant quarry.  Observing Kendra taking out the trash, i.e.: dragging out the corpses of the spent henchman (who had quite literally came and went) and dumping them behind her spice store, Dengar decides to pump her.  For information.  It's not too soon before the villainous vermilion vixen is slurping on his nutsack and devouring his dong-gar, then sliding down her leather booty shorts to have her foxy hole fingered and fucked.   A spot of queening from the underworld queen follows, Kendra straddling the face of the prone pathfinder before moving on down to mount him reverse cowgirl and pounding him with her purple pudenda until his pecker parps its puke.  Sated, Kendra happily fulfills their quim pro quo by volunteering the information that shes sold Tyleah ("that Twi'lek bitch") to the Black Sun's vigo Nash Thracken for his own personal use.

Episode IV of our salacious saga takes us to Level 3125 of Coruscant and the Black Sun brothel, brimming with bawds and Bothans, where horned and horny patron Rayfe (Nick Moreno) is refusing to go home and  rethink his life by dispensing death sticks to the scarlet-maned Mara (ravishing redhead Ella Hughes, showing that unlike the sequel trilogy this movie is ready to give us an auburn-tressed character named Mara).  The jade - see what I did there? - accompanies him to his room where his appointment awaits in the shapely form of a bright pink hued Twi'lek named Nikana (gorgeous Polish anal queen Misha Cross).  As Nikana performs a sultry dance that would have had Jabba filling his palace with drool, Mara proves that she's good for sucking on more than just death sticks by filling her face with gobbler's knob before lying back to stroke herself watching as Nikana takes over on oral duties - getting a thorough deep throat fucking and devouring the swordsman's rapier to the hilt.  She then proceeds to accept Mara's open-legged invitation by burying her face in ginger minge while having her pink rump pumped, giving the 'rear entry permitted' green light for Rayfe to plumb the depths of her rusty Moff's badge while she laps at Mara's luscious labia.  All the while, this menage is being witnessed by a hog-tied Tyleah, who is off-limits to regular customers as the exclusive reserved property of Thracken.  Perhaps spurred on by her fellow Twi'lek's plight, Nikana ends the session by producing a curved blade and slashing Rayfe's throat in revenge for her subjugated people, leading to a catfight to the death with Mara who ends up with a length of steel rather than meat buried in her.  Le petite mort followed swiftly by le grand mort.  Seems fair.

Next Danni and Dengar decide to infiltrate the brothel, with the delightful Ms Ora (not Rita) donning an even more revealing outfit than her usual one - which seems scarcely possible - that consists of a few leathern straps and is utterly fetish-tastic.  After catching the eye of the clientele, Danni is handed over by Dengar, who is posing as her pimp, and is quickly ushered into the company of Nash Thracken himself (Nacho Vidal himself) where she is reunited with Tyleah.  Liking the idea of a bit of playtime with "the senator's daughter and the cheap whore", Thracken is swiftly getting gobbled good as he thrusts his shaft between Tyleah's thighs intercrural style while Danni laps at his bulb.  A great mutual blowjob follows, with Nash taking turns to alternate his cock between both girls' slobbering mouths in the greatest union of red, white and blue since the founding of flags.  As the Twi'lek mounts him cowgirl and the Togruta sits on his face, the grateful godfather's tackle and tongue both get a thorough workout.  A nasty bout of coitus interruptus is narrowly avoided only due to noshin' Nash pumping his generation juice all over Danni's tits just before being distracted by a hubbub from outside - a diversion that she quickly takes advantage of, punching him and delivering an elbow to the gut (usually one has to pay extra for the rough stuff, so I really don't know what he's complaining about).  Dengar then makes his entrance, taking out Nash with his blaster (his actual gun, not his tallywhacker).  The trio emerge into the brothel's foyer, now strewn with the corpses of clients Dengar's dealt with, apart from one supine survivor who gets trodden on by both Tyleah and Danni in their stiletto heels, spat on and called "Bantha poodoo" - again, some of us will pay good money for this type of thing - before Dengar delivers the coup de grace of a laser to the head and leads his liberated ladies outside.

As the triumphant trio come full circle and return to where it all began at the Dealer's Den cantina ("It's like poetry", said a certain G. Lucas, "it rhymes!"), their celebratory round of drinks is interrupted by a recalcitrant Kendra with her bounty hunter minion (Marc Rose).  The pretty purple putain apologises to Danni, admitting that the Black Sun is weak and offering the chance to join together in a new alliance of bounty hunters.  Tyleah and Danni decide to test her commitment to this new covenant on Coruscant via a three-way bout of snogging and fingering which can't fail to catch the attention of the room's two male members (and I mean that most euphemistically, folks!) and the bounty hunting blokes soon get in on where the action is.  After the ladies once again prove their sword swallowing skills (and i'm sorry to harp on about it, but Christ does Alessa look gorgeous when she's slurping on a nutsack), the ladies take turns being taken over a table until both Kendra and Danni take her henchman's hummus all over their faces and Dengar delivers his donation directly into Tyleah's twat in a move I like to call a 'Corellian creampie'.

Quite frankly, my dear, you had me at Misha Cross, Ella Hughes and Alessa Savage (if the third scene is described in a little less detail than the others, it's because it's really quite difficult to write things down whilst masturbating furiously).  If Stella Cox and Joanna Angel had been involved too, I think i'd probably be endlessly watching it on an eternal loop and outdo that kid who pissed off Alec Guinness by saying he'd watched Star Wars over 100 times.  Packed to the gills with sly canonical references and greedy (if not Greedo) girls, this comes in at a definite seven sexy Kylo Rens out of ten.  With more lapping and necking than 'Lapti Nek', I couldn't give a XXX for anything else.

Canon.

The House in Marsh Road ([a.k.a.: Invisible Creature] Montgomery Tully, 1960)

The House of the Four Wynds, or: Patrick the Protective Poltergeist

Irish-born director Montgomery Tully may not have had the most spectacular career in the history of cinema, but as the man behind the lens on such offerings as 1960's The Man Who Was Nobody (probably my favourite of all the brilliant Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre quota quickies) and 1967's The Terrornauts his name tends to bring a smile to my thunderous features like a surprise appearance by an old old friend long unseen.  Whilst the majority of Tully's output would be in the realms of crime thrillers and mysteries, he had already dipped his toes tentatively into the realm of  the fantastic film with 1958's The Electronic Monster (alias Escapement) and would go on to helm the 1962 full moon murder mystery Out of the Fog (alias Fog for a Killer) before ending his career in 1967 with the double tap of The Terrornauts and the sci-fi disaster movie Battle Beneath the Earth.

The House in Marsh Road is a 1960 offering from Wimbledon's Merton Park Studios based upon a novel by prolific and multi-pseudonymed author Laurence Meynell, and opens by introducing us to David Linton (Tony Wright) and his long-suffering spouse Jean (Patricia Dainton) as they go about their obviously regular routine of fleeing their latest lodging house without paying the proprietress of the property (Olga Dickie).  David is ostensibly an author, but is more interested in idling and soaking himself in booze whilst procrastinating his purported penmanship (sadly, I can kind of relate to the dude, even though he be an undoubted douche - sometimes I can put off writing things for weeks and would rather have a drink instead.  Still, my emotional wounds are deep and he's just a knobhead, so I win).

Whilst the dosser and his dear are dodging the debts for their digs, Jean receives the unexpected news that she's come into an inheritance - a house names Four Wynds, located out in the wilds of the countryside on the lonely Marsh Road.  Arriving to inspect their bounty of a rambledown manor, the pair are greeted by the also-inherited Irish housekeeper Mrs O' Brien (played by Anita Sharp-Bolster, recognisable to any fan of Dan Curtis' cult Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows [or 'The Vampire, the Witch and the Werewolf' as I like to call it] as line-fluffing mystical crone Bathia Mapes).  Mrs O' Brien welcomes her new overlords employers, but informs them of the house's resident presence 'Patrick'.  David scoffs, not believing in any spirits that don't come in a bottle, but Jean soon notices small events such as chairs being moved and starts to give credence to the tale.

Whilst Jean embraces the idea of residing in her new abode, David is of the opinion that a house is not a home and more than eager to make some money by selling off the property and begins to grow more grudgeful of his bride the more she resists the idea.  Spending most of his time carousing in the local village inn while Jean settles in at Four Wynds, he is pointed in the direction of local lady Mrs Stockley: an accomplished typist who can help him get on with his work by transcribing his scribblings.  David finds Valerie Stockley to be just the diverting antidote for his writers' block, as she's far from the prim and bookish widow he might have imagined - being a blowsy blonde played by platinum bombshell '50s pin-up Sandra Dorne.

Growing steadily infatuated with the voluptuous Val and ever more estranged from Jean, David begins to plot a spot of uxoricide - after all, with the dull and ghost-believing missus out of the way, he can inherit the house then sell it on for a big pile of cash which can then roll about on naked with the new Mrs Linton Mk II.  What could possibly go wrong?  Well, for a start there's the small matter of the friendly spectre.  The titular creature (no, not Ms Dorne, I mean Patrick - the eponymous Invisible Creature of the movie's alternate name) foils David at every turn: when he gets Jean stumbling drunk and then attempts to engineer an 'accidental' fall down the house's elevator shaft the lift gate clangs shut just in the nick of time.  Patrick also foils plan B of poisoning Jean with an overdose-laced glass of milk by utilising his silent powers of telekinesis to point to the danger of the noxious fluid, probably permanently putting her off dairy.  Which will be of health benefit to her in the long term as well as the immediate future, really.

As Jean flees her lethal and quite literally toxic relationship, running back to London ('Heave on - to Euston / D'you think you've made / The right decision this time?'), David finds himself trapped in the house he hates with a vengeful shade and finally receives divine justice (or at least, supernatural justice) via a bolt from the blue that sends the house on Marsh Road up in flames.  Frightening lightning indeed.

Featuring a supporting cast of familiar faces from the period such as Sam Kydd, and whisking by at an enjoyable 70 minutes, The House in Marsh Road is a diverting little piece that I can definitely recommend checking out - it's available along with fellow curio The Monkey's Paw (Norman Lee, 1948) on a nice twin-spin DVD from the ever reliable Renown Films.