Beginning of the End is a 1957 American science fiction film produced and directed by Bert I. Gordon. It stars Peter Graves, Peggie Castle, and Morris Ankrum. An agricultural scientist, played by Graves, successfully grows gigantic vegetables using radiation. Unfortunately, the vegetables are eaten by locusts, which quickly grow to a gigantic size and attack the nearby city of Chicago. Beginning of the End is generally known for its "atrocious" special effects, "and yet," writes reviewer Bill Warren, "there is something almost compellingly watchable about this goofy little movie".
"Homer the Heretic" is the third episode of the fourth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 8, 1992. In the episode, Homer decides to forgo going to church and has an excellent time staying home. His behavior quickly attracts the wrath of God, who visits him in a dream. The chalkboard gag from this episode was a reference to the previous episode "A Streetcar Named Marge", which had made controversial references to New Orleans.
"Treehouse of Horror IV" is the fifth episode of the fifth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons and the fourth episode in the Treehouse of Horror series of Halloween specials. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 28, 1993, and features three short stories called "The Devil and Homer Simpson", "Terror at 5+1⁄2 Feet", and "Bart Simpson's Dracula".
Craig Stevens was an American film and television actor, best known for his starring role on television as private detective Peter Gunn from 1958 to 1961.
Night Monster is a 1942 American black-and-white horror film featuring Bela Lugosi and produced and distributed by Universal Pictures Company. The movie uses an original story and screenplay by Clarence Upson Young and was produced and directed by Ford Beebe. For box office value, star billing was given to Bela Lugosi and Lionel Atwill, but the lead roles were played by Ralph Morgan, Irene Hervey and Don Porter, with Atwill in a character role as a pompous doctor who becomes a victim to the title character, and Lugosi in a small part as a butler.
The Black Scorpion is a 1957 black-and-white Mexican-American giant arachnid horror film from Warner Bros., produced by Jack Dietz and Frank Melford, directed by Edward Ludwig, and starring Richard Denning, Mara Corday, Carlos Rivas, and Mario Navarro. The film's stop-motion animation special effects were created by Willis O'Brien. In the film, volcanic activity releases giant prehistoric scorpions from the earth. They wreak havoc in the rural countryside and eventually threaten Mexico City.
Starflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land is a 1983 television film directed by Jerry Jameson and starring Lee Majors, Hal Linden, Lauren Hutton, Ray Milland, Gail Strickland, George DiCenzo, Tess Harper, and Terry Kiser. The film also features an all-star ensemble television cast in supporting roles.
Naftuli Hertz "Nathan" Juran was an Austrian-born film art director, and later film and television director. As an art director, he won the Oscar for Best Art Direction in 1942 for How Green Was My Valley, along with Richard Day and Thomas Little. His work on The Razor's Edge in 1946 also received an Academy nomination. In the 1950s, he began to direct, and was known for science fiction and fantasy films such as Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. He was also the brother of quality guru Joseph M. Juran.
Matinee is a 1993 American comedy film directed by Joe Dante. It is about a William Castle-type independent filmmaker, with the American home front during the Cuban Missile Crisis as a backdrop. The film stars John Goodman, Cathy Moriarty, Simon Fenton, Omri Katz, Lisa Jakub, Robert Picardo, Kellie Martin, and Jesse White. It was written by Jerico Stone and Charles S. Haas, the latter portraying Mr. Elroy, a schoolteacher. Despite critical acclaim, the film was a box office failure.
William Alland was an American actor, film producer and writer, mainly of Western and science-fiction/monster films, including This Island Earth, It Came From Outer Space, Tarantula!, The Deadly Mantis, The Mole People, The Colossus of New York, The Space Children, and the three Creature from the Black Lagoon films. He worked frequently with director Jack Arnold. Alland is also remembered for his acting role as reporter Thompson, who investigates the meaning of "Rosebud" in Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941).
The Brain from Planet Arous is a 1957 independently made American black-and-white science fiction film, produced by Jacques R. Marquette, directed by Nathan H. Juran, that stars John Agar, Joyce Meadows, and Robert Fuller. Distributed briefly by Howco International in late 1957, the film appeared in 1958 on a double feature with Teenage Monster.
The 1950s mark a significant change in the definition of the B movie. The transformation of the film industry due to court rulings that brought an end to many long-standing distribution practices as well as the challenge of television led to major changes in U.S. cinema at the exhibition level. These shifts signaled the eventual demise of the double feature that had defined much of the American moviegoing experience during Hollywood's Golden Age of the 1930s and 1940s. Even as the traditional bottom-of-the-bill second feature slowly disappeared, the term B movie was applied more broadly to the sort of inexpensive genre films that came out during the era, such as those produced to meet the demands of the burgeoning drive-in theater market.
The Land Unknown is a 1957 science fiction CinemaScope adventure film about a naval expedition trapped in an Antarctic jungle. The story was allegedly inspired by the discovery of unusually warm water in Antarctica in 1947. It stars Jock Mahoney and Shirley Patterson and was directed by Virgil W. Vogel. The film's low-budget special effects include men in dinosaur suits, puppets and monitor lizards standing in for dinosaurs.
"Treehouse of Horror XVIII" is the fifth episode of the nineteenth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 4, 2007. In the eighteenth annual Treehouse of Horror episode, Bart harbors Kodos the alien in "E.T., Go Home," Homer and Marge are husband and wife assassins who try to take each other out in "Mr. & Mrs. Simpson," and Ned Flanders is given God-like powers during his demonstration on the wages of sin in "Heck House." It was written by Marc Wilmore and directed by Chuck Sheetz. Maggie Simpson does not appear in this episode.
The Black Castle is a 1952 American gothic horror film directed by Nathan H. Juran and starring Richard Greene, Boris Karloff, Stephen McNally, Rita Corday and Lon Chaney Jr. It was produced by William Alland. The film was made in the United States but premiered in Sweden.
This Is My Street is a 1964 British black and white kitchen sink drama film directed by Sidney Hayers and starring Ian Hendry, June Ritchie, Avice Landone, John Hurt and Meredith Edwards. The screenplay is by Bill MacIlwraith from a novel by Nan Maynard. It concerns a bored housewife living in a run-down inner city London house who begins an affair with her mother's lodger, who lives next door.
Terror in a Texas Town is a 1958 American Western film directed by Joseph H. Lewis and starring Sterling Hayden, Nedrick Young, and Sebastian Cabot.
The Big Boodle is a 1957 American film noir crime film directed by Richard Wilson, and starring Errol Flynn, Pedro Armendáriz, Rossana Rory, and Gia Scala, filmed in Cuba.
The Body Snatcher, is a 1957 Mexican horror film directed by Fernando Mendez who also co-wrote the film with Alejandro Verbitzky.
Alix Talton was an American actress. Today's audiences probably know her best as the catty career woman in the Bill Haley musical Rock Around the Clock (1956).
