Ubiquitous
2024-09-23 08:30:41 UTC
What we have here is a different type of mutant monster. It's not a giant ant
from the sewers of Los Angeles or a humongous scorpion from Mexico. It's a
manster. You know, part man, part monster. The unlucky title creature is
Larry Stanford (Peter Dyneley), a brash American reporter who hopes to land a
front-page story about some startling new developments in the field of
medical experimentation. Yeah, well he gets his front-page story all right.
You could say he IS the story. Ol' Larry becomes an unwitting guinea pig for
the evil Dr. Suzuki (Tetsu Nakamura) who drugs his tea and injects him with a
mutation serum. First, Larry experiences a personality transformation. He
becomes a surly alcoholic with an insatiable lust for women. Another side
effect is worse; he develops a hairy right claw that wants to kill, kill,
kill.....and does. Even Larry's own wife, Linda (Jane Hylton), isn't safe
from her husband's crazed behavior. Then, things really get weird. Is that an
eyeball emerging from Larry's left shoulder? Pretty soon he's sporting an
extra head that looks like an angry pineapple but his own head ain't so
pretty either unless you like fangs and excessive facial hair. The slobbering
is a nice extra touch. We won't reveal anything else except The Manster
proves two heads AREN'T better than one.
The Manster followed in the wake of such successful Japanese science fiction
thrillers as Godzilla: King of the Monsters (1956) and Rodan (1956) and may
very well be the first Japanese-American co-production. The film was a
collaboration between producer/writer George Breakston, director Kenneth
Crane (Monster From Green Hell, 1958), and uncredited co-director Akira
Takahashi who later moved into acting and made a name for himself in a
Japanese movie genre known as "pink films" (soft-core pornography like Boko!,
1976). As a result, The Manster was filmed in English, using a mixture of
American, Japanese-American and English speaking Asian actors.
The star of the film, Peter Dyneley, has one of those faces you've seen
before but just can't place. He's been in everything from MGM costume epics
like Beau Brummell (1954) to Bob Hope comedies (Call Me Bwana, 1963) to
Charles Bronson westerns (Chato's Land, 1971) to blaxploitation films like
The Split (1960). But he's an unlikely choice for a leading man and in The
Manster he comes across like a sleazy used car salesman, not an international
reporter for a major newspaper. Whether he's insulting his boss or furiously
repelling his concerned wife, Larry deserves that second head and all the
trouble it causes. But Dyneley's performance actually works better if you
think of him as a man having a mid-life crisis; his boozing, whoring and
general don't-give-a-damn-behavior seems perfectly right for a man going
through a major change of life. That usually happens when you sprout a second
head. By the way, another two-headed protagonist also figures prominently in
How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989), a black comedy about the you-know-
what profession starring Richard E. Grant as the mastermind behind a pimple
cream campaign.
But even if The Manster didn't have Dyneley's hilariously off-the-mark
performance, it would be required viewing for fans of exotic schlock. It's
the bizarre makeup effects, the unpredictable plot turns, and the space age
pop soundtrack by Hiroki Ogawa (is that a theremin under the title credits?)
which gives the film an unearthly quality. Our favorite scenes are the
touching farewell between Dr. Suzuki and his former wife who is now a failed
experiment (nice makeup!) in his basement laboratory and the climactic battle
between the "two heads" which ends in the most startling sequence in any
grade B horror film. The Manster was originally released in the U.S. on a
double bill with Georges Franju's macabre masterpiece, Eyes Without a Face
(1959), which was re-titled The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus in its English
dubbed version. The Franju film is pure poetry while The Manster is slapdash
surrealism making the double bill the weirdest two-headed creature of them
all.
Producer: George P. Breakston
Director: George P. Breakston, Kenneth G. Crane
Screenplay: William J. Sheldon
Art Direction: Noboru Miyakuni
Cinematography: David Mason
Makeup: Fumiko Yamamoto
Special Effects: Shinpei Takagi
Film Editing: Kenneth G. Crane
Original Music: Hiroki Ogawa
Principal Cast: Peter Dyneley (Larry Stanford), Jane Hylton (Linda Stanford),
Tetsu Nakamura (Dr. Robert Suzuki), Terri Zimmern (Tara), Norman Van Hawley
(Ian Matthews), Jerry Ito (Police Superintendent Aida), Toyoko Takechi (Emiko
Suzuki).
BW-7em.
by Jeff Stafford
--
Let's go Brandon!
from the sewers of Los Angeles or a humongous scorpion from Mexico. It's a
manster. You know, part man, part monster. The unlucky title creature is
Larry Stanford (Peter Dyneley), a brash American reporter who hopes to land a
front-page story about some startling new developments in the field of
medical experimentation. Yeah, well he gets his front-page story all right.
You could say he IS the story. Ol' Larry becomes an unwitting guinea pig for
the evil Dr. Suzuki (Tetsu Nakamura) who drugs his tea and injects him with a
mutation serum. First, Larry experiences a personality transformation. He
becomes a surly alcoholic with an insatiable lust for women. Another side
effect is worse; he develops a hairy right claw that wants to kill, kill,
kill.....and does. Even Larry's own wife, Linda (Jane Hylton), isn't safe
from her husband's crazed behavior. Then, things really get weird. Is that an
eyeball emerging from Larry's left shoulder? Pretty soon he's sporting an
extra head that looks like an angry pineapple but his own head ain't so
pretty either unless you like fangs and excessive facial hair. The slobbering
is a nice extra touch. We won't reveal anything else except The Manster
proves two heads AREN'T better than one.
The Manster followed in the wake of such successful Japanese science fiction
thrillers as Godzilla: King of the Monsters (1956) and Rodan (1956) and may
very well be the first Japanese-American co-production. The film was a
collaboration between producer/writer George Breakston, director Kenneth
Crane (Monster From Green Hell, 1958), and uncredited co-director Akira
Takahashi who later moved into acting and made a name for himself in a
Japanese movie genre known as "pink films" (soft-core pornography like Boko!,
1976). As a result, The Manster was filmed in English, using a mixture of
American, Japanese-American and English speaking Asian actors.
The star of the film, Peter Dyneley, has one of those faces you've seen
before but just can't place. He's been in everything from MGM costume epics
like Beau Brummell (1954) to Bob Hope comedies (Call Me Bwana, 1963) to
Charles Bronson westerns (Chato's Land, 1971) to blaxploitation films like
The Split (1960). But he's an unlikely choice for a leading man and in The
Manster he comes across like a sleazy used car salesman, not an international
reporter for a major newspaper. Whether he's insulting his boss or furiously
repelling his concerned wife, Larry deserves that second head and all the
trouble it causes. But Dyneley's performance actually works better if you
think of him as a man having a mid-life crisis; his boozing, whoring and
general don't-give-a-damn-behavior seems perfectly right for a man going
through a major change of life. That usually happens when you sprout a second
head. By the way, another two-headed protagonist also figures prominently in
How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989), a black comedy about the you-know-
what profession starring Richard E. Grant as the mastermind behind a pimple
cream campaign.
But even if The Manster didn't have Dyneley's hilariously off-the-mark
performance, it would be required viewing for fans of exotic schlock. It's
the bizarre makeup effects, the unpredictable plot turns, and the space age
pop soundtrack by Hiroki Ogawa (is that a theremin under the title credits?)
which gives the film an unearthly quality. Our favorite scenes are the
touching farewell between Dr. Suzuki and his former wife who is now a failed
experiment (nice makeup!) in his basement laboratory and the climactic battle
between the "two heads" which ends in the most startling sequence in any
grade B horror film. The Manster was originally released in the U.S. on a
double bill with Georges Franju's macabre masterpiece, Eyes Without a Face
(1959), which was re-titled The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus in its English
dubbed version. The Franju film is pure poetry while The Manster is slapdash
surrealism making the double bill the weirdest two-headed creature of them
all.
Producer: George P. Breakston
Director: George P. Breakston, Kenneth G. Crane
Screenplay: William J. Sheldon
Art Direction: Noboru Miyakuni
Cinematography: David Mason
Makeup: Fumiko Yamamoto
Special Effects: Shinpei Takagi
Film Editing: Kenneth G. Crane
Original Music: Hiroki Ogawa
Principal Cast: Peter Dyneley (Larry Stanford), Jane Hylton (Linda Stanford),
Tetsu Nakamura (Dr. Robert Suzuki), Terri Zimmern (Tara), Norman Van Hawley
(Ian Matthews), Jerry Ito (Police Superintendent Aida), Toyoko Takechi (Emiko
Suzuki).
BW-7em.
by Jeff Stafford
--
Let's go Brandon!