DICK MILLER (8 is great)

The time we met Dick Miller - and 8 to go on this sheet.

5:58 PM. Starting with a triple play of Dick Miller:

From the Egyptian Roger Corman festival August 27, 2006 description: my comments in RED BELOW.

Sunday, August 27 – 7:30 PM

Triple Feature! Dick Miller Night! Dick Miller In Person With Actress Beverly Garland!

BUCKET OF BLOOD, 1959, MGM Repertory, 66 min. After LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, this ranks as probably director Roger Corman’s most famous early effort, with a wonderful Dick Miller as mentally-challenged Walter Paisley, a waiter at a beatnik café jealous of the artistic types making up the clientele. When Walter accidentally kills his landlady’s cat, on a whim, he covers it in clay. Passing it off at the cafe as a genuine sculpture, he is proclaimed an artistic genius. But he soon realizes he will have to produce more ‘works of art’ if he is to hold onto his cherished, new reputation. Soon Walter resorts to aping Vincent Price in HOUSE OF WAX, killing people and covering them in clay to serve as his newest creations. With more appearances by then Corman regulars, Barboura Morris, Antony Carbone and Ed Nelson. And look for future game show host, Bert Convy as a doomed narc! Discussion following with actor Dick Miller and actress Beverly Garland.

Cisco Pike's take: One of Corman and Miller's best, threadbare sets only add to the isolation and insanity of poor old Walter Paisley. Carbone is always a kick for me, the Bogie on a budget charisma he exudes, and love Bert Convy as the requisite "doomed narc" - damn disturbing still, funny and creepy.

Grade: A

Miller was great live too, I don't remember Garland having much to say.

Ultra-Rare! NOT OF THIS EARTH, 1957, Allied Artists (Paramount), 67 min. Dir. Roger Corman. Sunglasses-wearing Paul Birch, resembling nothing so much as a cranky middle-aged businessman, is really a vanguard agent for a race of alien vampires! Birch’s planet, wracked by years of nuclear war, suffers from anemia that is rendering the population extinct. He hires feisty nurse, Beverly Garland (in one of her most charismatic 1950’s roles) to be on constant hand to give him much-needed transfusions. But Birch also does a little freelance bloodletting of his own. Morgan Jones is Garland’s rock-jawed motorcycle-cop beau, Jonathan Haze Birch’s smart-aleck punk chauffeur and Dick Miller a hip, fast-talking vacuum cleaner salesman. This impossible-to-see drive-in chiller is one of the holy grails of lost 1950’s sci-fi! NOT ON DVD!

Cisco's take: Good stuff, cool and cold blooded; not much Miller, but what's there is choice!

Grade: B+

Ultra-Rare! WAR OF THE SATELLITES, 1958, Allied Artists, 72 min. Dir. Roger Corman.
Satellites and sputniks were all the rage in late 1950’s headlines. When the first satellites launched, Corman promised his backers he could have a film with the word "satellite" in the title into theatres within 60 days. Given the go-ahead, he rapidly conjured this imaginative, lightning-paced and ultra-low budget thriller about an alien spaceship intent on blowing up every Earth satellite entering the interstellar ether. Dick Miller and Susan Cabot are the erstwhile heroic couple doing battle with the space villains, most notably incarnated in the takeover of pioneering scientist, Dr. Van Ponder (the magnificent Richard Devon who played Satan in Corman’s THE UNDEAD). NOT ON DVD!

Cisco's take: Kinda dull in spots, but cheesy fun - nice to see Dick play the stalwart good guy, but it's not nearly as fun as his character parts.

Grade: B-

Overall take: Dick Miller ROCKS! (see above)

CP