In the words of Gilbert & Sullivan: ‘Oh joy! Oh rapture unforeseen!” Despite all the gloomy news lately, when this gloriously schlocky Blu-ray of The Slime People & The Crawling Hand (VCI) came in the mail, those were the exact words I wanted to shout out to the threatening heavens.
Neither title could possibly be considered a genre classic. Even as a kid when I saw this double-bill at a local theater in 1963, I knew they both were junk. But incredibly enjoyable junk. And as the years dwindle down to a precious few, I look back at these two bottom-of-the-barrel titles with great affection. I mean, just the titles alone immediately bring a smile to my face on the darkest of days. If only to flashback seeing it as a youngster in a cinema with the manager getting on the loudspeaker threatening to turn off the film if “you damn kids don’t calm down!” In those days parents would just dump their little ones off at the movie theater and the unruly brats would run hog wild during the films.
First up: The Slime People (1963), directed and starring former Warner Brothers leading man- Robert Hutton, who plays Tom, a pilot, landing his small plane through a fog bank at a seemingly deserted L.A. airport. A station wagon shows up with a scientist- Professor Galbraith (Robert Burton) and his two daughters- Bonnie (Judee Morton) and Lisa (Susan Hart). When Tom asks what the hell is going on, Bonnie explains, “Well, first the Slime People came. And then the army came to fight them…And they lost.” They drive to a deserted TV studio and watch some films explaining more of how these creatures emerged from underground and created a protective dome over the city and changed the temperature so that they can live above ground, blanketing the city in a dense, impenetrable fog. The fog occasionally is so thick you can’t even see what’s happening in the movie. The creatures are actually kind of cool-looking with pointy, prehistoric heads and lots of scales and covered with a layer of slime, carrying spears. They could only afford about three costumes so they keep refiguring them to make it look like they are everywhere. Tom Weaver interviewed Robert Hutton for “Return of the B Science Fiction and Horror Heroes,” who admitted that a stunt man who played one of the monsters was drunk all the time, “and he was very good as a slime man because he stumbled around and it looked real good!”
The motley crew meet up with a marine- Cal (William Boyce), who actress Judee Morton confessed was real cute, but “a jerk.” They also cross paths with an eccentric older man carrying a pet sheep (Les Tremayne), who rolls his eyes and is skeptical that there really is any killer “Slime People.” He is in for a rude awakening. Eventually the survivors take shelter in a butcher shop meat locker. (Supposedly the owner of the shop let them film there but kept the shop open at the same time, frightening the customers).
Not surprisingly, Leonard Maltin, in his movie and video guide, called this a “Bomb,” but boy, it’s so ridiculous and funny and includes bursts of idiotic dialogue that will have you spitting out your drink. Like when Bonnie is kidnapped by a creature and Tom says, “Now look, we have to follow their trail. Footprint, slime, anything.”
The Crawling Hand (1963). Rod Lauren plays Paul Lawrence, a science student out frolicking on the beach with his Swedish girlfriend (Sirry Steffen) when he finds a dismembered astronaut’s arm in the sand. He gets a shower curtain and brings it home only to have the severed arm crawl into his landlady’s bedroom and strangle her. The fingerprints from the crime scene are sent to Washington and they match up with an astronaut thought to have died in an exploding spacecraft. Two scientists (Peter Breck and Kent Taylor) head there to investigate. Meanwhile the roving, detached arm attacks Paul which transforms him into a creepy looking ghoul with black circles under his eyes and a lust to kill.
With Allison Hayes (Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman) and directed by Herbert L. Stock (I Was a Teenage Frankenstein). Alan Hale Jr. (Gilligan’s Island) plays the town Sheriff. The Rivingtons’ “The Bird’s the Word” plays on the jukebox while Paul strangles the elderly soda shop owner. The film ends at the town dump and involves a broken bottle and some incredibly voracious cats.
The film made for an early (quite funny) episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and unfortunately this is the one movie that actor Rod Lauren is mostly associated with. He’s really way over the top and pretty terrible in the film. And the thing is- he can be quite good on screen in other films and TV episodes. The baby-faced, good-looking Lauren’s real life tragedies are more horrifying than one frame of this delightfully dumb film.
Roger Lawrence Strunk (aka Rod Lauren) was born in 1939 in Fresno, California. By the time he was 20, the brooding, good-looking young man had been discovered by RCA records, his name was changed and he was groomed for stardom. His one big hit was “If I Had a Girl” in 1960 which hit 31 on the Billboard chart. He even performed on The Ed Sullivan Show. His voice was actually quite mellow and smooth and he certainly was better than other manufactured teen idol crooners like Fabian. His album “I’m Rod Lauren” is surprisingly terrific, but as a singer he never quite took off.
He had better luck on the big and small screen. He starred as a suspected teen killer on trial in “The Test” on Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1962. His moody, angst-ridden performance is excellent in this thought-provoking episode, alongside seasoned actors Brian Keith and Eduardo Ciannelli.
Terrified (1962) is genuinely creepy, with great atmosphere and surprisingly offbeat in an interesting way. Rod Lauren plays a student doing his thesis on “fear,” based on an incident where his good friend was driven mad (and institutionalized) when he was abducted by a black-hooded figure who nearly buried him alive, pouring wet cement over him. This mysterious assailant hides out at a deserted, old fashioned, wild west ghost town. Rod Lauren is determined to catch the fiend and spends a frightening night there, trying to survive a cat and mouse group of games with the hooded killer. He’s nearly drowned, covered in spiders and even taunted with a hangman’s noose. I really loved the idea that the killer was hell bent on frightening his victims to death and Lauren is quite good in the film.
The Young Swingers (1963) Mean old Aunt Roberta (Jo Helton) wants to tear down the Vanguard Club- where young people meet to hear folk songs and rock ‘n roll- to build a skyscraper. Her pretty songbird niece Vicki (Molly Bee) falls for handsome Mel (Rod Lauren), the crooner who sings there. Can this club be salvaged? Gene McDaniels (“A Hundred Pounds of Clay”) performs “Voice on the Mountain” and Rod Lauren gets to sing “I Can’t Get You Out of My Heart” in this hellish hootenanny.
The Gun Hawk (1963) Rod Lauren sings the theme song: “A Searcher for Love,” in this moody B-Western. He plays a card shark and drifter named Reb (“short for Rebel”) who becomes enamored of a gunslinger Blaine (Rory Calhoun) and follows after him. He ends up removing a bullet from Blaine’s right shoulder in the desert after Blaine guns down the two men who killed his father- “that drunken old fool.” They ride on horseback to Sanctuary (“a little speck of dust on the Mexican border”). Sanctuary is like the hotel in the John Wick films where you aren’t allowed to draw your weapon in town. Ruta Lee plays Blaine’s long-suffering love interest. Blaine rules Sanctuary, and is fearfully known there as “El Gavilon” (the Hawk). Rod Cameron plays the decent sheriff who begrudgingly heads to Sanctuary to arrest his old friend Blaine. Reb’s attachment to Blaine is strangely obsessional in the way Sal Mineo’s Plato was to James Dean’s Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause. It builds to a tearful High Noon-like shootout in this weirdo western.
Black Zoo (1963) Another twisted, perverse, Herman Cohen (produced and written) horror flick, starring Michael Gough as the fiendish owner of a private zoo. He terrorizes his poor wife (Jeanne Cooper) and staff, dresses his chimps in clothes and has a psychic connection with his other animals, who he sends out to kill when needed. Rod Lauren plays the studly, soulful-looking mute handyman Carl. Michael Gough has a field day as a diabolical monster of a man. He even invites all the big cats into the house at night and plays the organ while they lounge on couches. He also attends meetings of a cult of animal fanatics called the “True Believers.” Lauren is actually quite heartbreaking as the traumatized young mute. And Elisha Cook Jr. chews the scenery as a sadistic animal caretaker, who enjoys teasing the Siberian tiger. Boy, do you pray he dies a violent death in the film, and, mercifully, you get your wish.
Rod Lauren flew to the Philippines to appear in John Derek’s war drama Once Before I Die (1966) starring his then-wife, statuesque beauty Ursula Andress. It was there he met beloved, award-winning Filipino star Nida Blanca, who was crowned “The Fairy Tale Queen” for her popular Cinderella-like romantic musicals she made in the 1950s, often co-starring Nestor de Villa. Nida Blanca was equivalent to America’s Doris Day and Nestor de Villa was an accomplished dancer and compared to Gene Kelly. They starred together in many films and even reunited in the 1980s for three films. Lauren and Nida Blanca were married in Las Vegas in 1979 and relocated to Manila.
They stayed together for many years but Lauren’s drug use and spending habits finally caused Blanca to disinherit him. On November 7, 2001, Nida Blanca’s body was discovered in her car. She had been beaten and stabbed 13 times. Philip Medel was arrested for the crime and confessed to police that Rod Lauren had masterminded the plot, angered that his wife was writing him out of the will. Medel recanted his statement 4 days later saying he’d been beaten by the police for that confession. By then Rod Lauren was in America caring for his dying mother. Authorities in Manila attempted to have him extradited but were unsuccessful, and the suspicion that he was the cause of his wife’s death haunted the rest of his life.
In 2007, 68-year-old Rod Lauren was basically a vagabond, staying in and out of men’s shelters and drinking heavily. On July 11th he jumped from the second balcony of the Tracy Inn in California, and his broken body was discovered in the parking lot. It’s such a sad end to the life of this baby-faced, talented singer. Not to mention what seemed at first like a fairy tale marriage to Nida Blanca, almost mimicking her 1950s films, which ended more like the horror films Rod Lauren appeared in.
It was hard not to think of this while watching this sparkling new Blu-ray of The Crawling Hand and looking at Lauren’s sweet, innocent face on screen. I guess it’s always going to be like that quote from the 1945 film noir classic Detour: “That’s life. Whichever way you turn, fate sticks out a foot to trip you.”
Boy, the Rod Lauren story sure took an unexpected and dark turn! Yikes!
Rod Lauren–what a beautiful baby face! Yet he was an artist who played such gruesome roles in film. Perhaps his life became an instance of life imitating art. In any case, it is a tragic story. I loved learning such obscure facts about him, but just focusing on his gorgeous, brooding eyes was candy.