Brilliant and touching

A Brilliant Conflict

This is an astonishing documentary that will wring your heart while it bends your mind

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Despite being 50% Country music concert film, this debacle which is a sad swan song for the likes of Basil Rathbone and Lon Chaney, Jr. (John Carradine somehow continued on into the 70s without missing a beat) has everything from a giant gorilla (pet to Chaney, Jr.) to espionage/counter-espionage criminal shenanigans (Rathbone, Chaney, Jr., and Carradine are in cahoots with Linda Ho's Chinese agent, Madame Wong to steal an atomic formula). This follows Ferlin Husky and Joi Lansing, country singers headed to Nashville along with their agent, Don Bowman, who happen upon cops shooting it out with mobsters (!), literally in the path of gunfire! Nonetheless the trio drive into a desolate ghost town, needing a place to rest until a storm (and night) blows over, and the gas station attendant tells them of the Beaugard mansion which could provide just that…what the attendant fails to tell them (it just kinda slips through his mind until the very moment they scat!) is that the mansion is supposedly haunted! So you have Husky as Woody Wetherby, Joi as Boots Malone, and Bowman as Jeepers (yes, Bowman's name is Jeepers), finding their way to the mansion, doing a run-through when not going into musical interludes. Our villains have added bedsheet ghosts and bat managed by wires, a werewolf mask on a dummy in the closet, and creepy sound effects to hopefully give the "invading hicks" the jolts, figuring once they realized this mansion was seriously haunted they'd hit the bricks…well, they don't get the point. So you have the gorilla snatching Boots, taking her to the secret room where the villains are hiding (they have equipment, like monitors to spy on areas of the house and grounds outside, telephone to keep in touch with their Chinese contact and provide the atomic formula, and controls to set off their haunted tricks), while Woody and Jeepers try to look around the house to find her. Soon an agent for the US government (they could only afford one, I guess), Jim Meadows (Richard Webb) comes looking for the enemy agents as well. Joining forces with Woody and Jeepers, Meadows will embark on a rescue mission and also hope to capture the villains. Chaney, Jr. has an Iron Maiden he'd like to imprison Boots in, but it seems all the spikes have been removed so all it could do was hold her inside (but with what I never determined). There's a scene where Rathbone and Carradine decipher Boots Malone's (believing she's a spy against them) name…that's kind of the microcosm of the comedy you get with this "film". I won't even try to go around the obvious no matter if there were times I enjoyed myself: this is a turkey in every shape and form. It gives way to a final thirty minutes of country music jamboree, for heaven's sake…for country music fans of the old school, this might be a fascinating curio (it even has Merle Haggard sing a couple songs). But for us horror fans of the great icons of the genre, this is a rather unfortunate example of what the industry was doing to them…this is what the likes of Rathbone, Chaney, Jr. and Carradine were subjected to. Not long before this Lugosi was treading in the excrement of Ed Wood, while Karloff was trying to maintain any semblance of credibility with Corman. Some will undoubtedly find reason to enjoy just seeing the icons together, but watching Rathbone trapped in a bedsheet, scrambling on the floor as Husky tries to wrangle him is a rather pitiful sight. Chaney, Jr. gets into his labcoat, with his badge, but neither is really needed as he enters an office complex (I reckon this was supposed to be a top secret atomic outpost, but only the janitor and one more suit are in the whole building which isn't even highly guarded!), gets the "formula" (later to be determined as a trick), and escapes without a hitch! At least the house of the film is fun with all its cobwebs, rickety stairs, aged furnishings, and dilapidated conditions. The "hillbillys" of the film are engaging enough personalities, with Joi still blessed with impressive curves and bust (sadly, she'd succumb to breast cancer in the coming years, cutting her life and career short). For whatever reason, the idea of gorilla dated back to the 30s, an act that inexplicably didn't tire until perhaps the 60s before mercifully being extricated from the genre. There's bad continuity (day for night, or sunny, blue skies opposing the supposed thunderstorm brewing, is all screwy and this Civil War hat one and off Jeepers' head is noticeable in one scene), odd decision making (why would Chaney and Ho decide to just leave the three alive when they could easily dispose of them?), rough comedy (Rathbone mentioning how a trip to a dry climate would be good for his sinuses, the mentioned Boots Malone spy name decipher, anything with the gorilla), and country music infiltration providing ammunition for pundits to place this right in "worst film ever" lists. If anything, it *is* a candidate. Yarbrough, a veteran director of film and television, might have made this, but his career was thankfully long enough to survive with rep still somewhat intact.

Of the 13 feature films in which John Carradine and Lon Chaney both appeared, 1967's "Hillbillys in a Haunted House" was not only the last, it was one of the few where they actually shared any scenes (shot under the working title "Ghost Party"). Joined in villainy by a game, 74 year old Basil Rathbone, the three actors offer the only real novelty to this tired rehash of old dark house clichés, dragged down by its abundance of country music. A sequel to the successful "Las Vegas Hillbillys" (note the spelling!), retaining stars Ferlin Husky and Don Bowman, but replacing the absent Jayne Mansfield with the equally photogenic Joi Lansing. En route to Nashville for a good old fashioned jamboree, the trio break down and have to spend the night in a house that's not really haunted; its actually the home base for spies trying to steal a top secret formula from a local rocket base. John Carradine alternately scowls and grimaces as Dr. Himmil, when he's not mercilessly teasing the gorilla Anatole belonging to Lon Chaney's Maximillian, who goes undercover by getting past an unsuspecting janitor (all he gets for his trouble is a formula combining nitroglycerin and antihistamine!). As Gregor, Basil Rathbone shares most of his scenes with Carradine, using phony ghosts and noises to try to scare off their dimwitted intruders, whom they mistake for agents from M.O.T.H.E.R. (Master Organization to Halt Enemy Resistance). A genuine ghost closes out the spy stuff at 67 minutes, leaving the final two reels open for yet more musical numbers. Chaney is clearly having a grand time, and Rathbone too, while poor Carradine has to remain sullen for the most part, fewer opportunities to be funny (he did enjoy stealing Anatole's banana!). As bad as the film's reputation is, consider how much worse it would have been without its heavyweight cast of screen villains.

Country and western singers Woody Wetherby(Ferlin Husky)and Boots Malone(Joi Lansing)along with their manager Jeepers(Don Bowman)are on the road to Nashville and a star-studded jamboree. They decide to get some rest and avoid a storm by taking refuge in an old empty mansion. Before long they realize the mansion is haunted; what they don't know is that it is also the headquarters of a spy ring led by Madame Wong(Linda Ho). Her minions are played by Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine and Basil Rathbone in one of his last movies. The last twenty minutes or so is the Nashville jamboree featuring Sonny James, Merle Haggard, Molly Bee along with Woody and Boots. Even Jeepers does a comedy number. Sit back with a Moon Pie, Pork Rinds and a cold RC Cola and enjoy.

I recently learned about this movie when I saw a documentary entitled "The Fifty Worst Movies" and since I am a glutton for punishment, it sounded like it would be so bad it was funny. Well, after seeing this film, it is so bad that it's just plain awful. Seeing the movie to make fun of it isn't really possible--it just stinks so badly! Towards the end of their careers, Basil Rathbone, Lon Chaney and John Carradine would star in just about anything--and this film is the proof. It's a combination horror movie, Country Music marathon and spy movie!! Yep, your eyes aren't playing tricks on you! Talk about awful! The film begins with old-time Country singer Ferlin Husky and his friends driving to Nashville for a concert. You know it's going to be a long ride when one of the friends is named "Jeepers" and they start the film with one of the worst songs I can remember. The problem was that it was very obvious that they were just moving their lips and the song literally sounded like it was recorded in a tunnel. In fact, all the songs in the film (and there were MANY) sounded this way. Throughout the film, they'd break into song in the darnedest places and most ridiculously inappropriate moments. And, at the end, when there was no more plot, they just had about 6 songs in a row by a variety of long-forgotten Country stars. The net effect was a lot like watching an extended episode of "Hee-Haw" without all the corny jokes.As far as the aging actors go, they were spies (naturally) who lived in a haunted house and had a killer gorilla (obviously a guy in a costume). None of it made a bit of sense and the film made BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA look like Shakespeare in comparison!! Dumb, pointless and absolutely painful if you hate old-time Country music. This is a chore to watch!