Sound of Horror (1966)

Somewhere in the hills of rural Greece, a Professor Andre, trying to unearth a hidden treasure trove of priceless artifacts, is setting off dynamite inside an isolated cave. As the legend goes, these antiquities were stolen decades ago and then passed down by several generations of thieves until they were all (allegedly) hidden away from the plundering Nazis when World War II broke out.

First getting wind of this secret-stash while fighting in said war, Andre (Casas) and his old platoon pals, Asilov (Philbrook) and Dorman (Bódalo), got their hands on part of a map that led them to this particular cave. Thus, while those other two track down a lead on the other half of parchment that hopefully has the 'X' that marks the actual spot, Andre, accompanied by his niece, Maria (Miranda), and fellow archeologist Stavros (Piquer) have been excavating around rather blindly. And so far, they have only managed to unearth the mummified remains of a ‘neanderthal' and a fossilized egg of some unknown dinosaur.

Unbeknownst to our trio, however, this latest blast unearthed not one, but two, dinosaur eggs; one of which rolled away unseen while the other is taken back to the cottage they've been squatting in, where they find Calliope (Gaos), the cook and local doomsayer, warning them to abandon this fool's quest and the cave, which is, according to local superstition, an accursed place of evil.

Meanwhile, Asilov and Dorman have triumphantly returned with the other half of the needed map. And while Maria gets acquainted with Asilov's latest girlfriend, Sofia (Pitt), and their hired driver, Pete (Fernandez), who, frankly, seems more interested in his car than the girls, the rest of the men return to the cave where, sure enough, Andre was digging in the wrong place. And so, moving a few paces to the left, they start digging again and soon come upon another obstruction that calls for more dynamite -- and after seeing some pictures of these fragile artifacts alleged to be hidden here, one can only wonder what will be left of them once these idiots finish blasting them out. 

Leaving Stavros behind, who's been busy examining that mummified caveman, the others return to the cottage for more explosives. Again, no one notices the other dislodged egg, which quietly cracks open, regurgitating something covered in goo that quickly and mysteriously disappears. But we do hear its harsh and hungry cries as it quickly draws a bead on the unsuspecting Stavros...

A ripping yarn of treasure hunting, explosions, shrieks in the night, and a rampaging dinosaur that we cannot see, the history behind the production of Sound of Horror (1966) is very fluid and in a constant state of flux. For just when you think you've gotten a handle on it and things start to cohere, you unearth another nugget that lays waste to the existing fossil record, cinematically speaking. Thus and so, to start from the beginning, we need to talk about Sam Abarbanel.

Now, Abarbanel had worked as a promoter for Republic Pictures before serving a hitch in the infantry in World War II. And when he got out of the army, he moved to Los Angeles and started working as an independent publicist, promoting such films as High Noon (1952) for the majors and Hot-Rod Girl (1956) for the minors along with several imports like La Strada (1954) and The Red Balloon (1956) in-between. He even took the plunge into feature filmmaking, producing the exploitation-minded Prehistoric Women (1950), which boiled down to a battle of the sexes amongst a segregated tribe of cave-dwellers, which he shared a co-writing credit with Gregg Tallas -- who directed the film, and who would also play a part in our featured feature today. 

See, around 1963, Abarbanel hooked up with a Spanish outfit, Zurbano Films, where he produced a couple of frijole refritos westerns shot in Mexico -- Los pistoleros de Casa Grande (Gunfighters of Casa Grande, 1964), and El hijo del pistolero (Son of a Gunfighter, 1965).  And around this same time, he concocted another film with Callas to cash-in on the American monster movie boom of the late 1950s, which were finally showing up in Spain, for producer Gregorio Sacristán: El sonido de la muerte -- The Sound of Death. 

To realize this eerie opus, enter Spanish filmmaker, José Antonio Nieves Conde. Apparently, Conde was a movie buff since childhood but was pursuing a law degree when the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, which found him on the Nationalist side fighting for Franco. When the war ended, Conde abandoned college and got a job as a newspaper film critic, eventually serving as the senior editor for several film fanzines, making contacts with several directors, who eventually nudged Conde behind the camera, which resulted in Surcos (1951), where a rural family moves to the city and comes to ruin. And while the film kinda boils down to a propaganda piece for Franco's dictatorial regime, it's still championed as one of Spain's greatest films. After, Conde's films started having troubles with the censors and the Church for broaching taboo subjects, which derailed his career for a while, leaving him ripe for the plucking to direct a certain independent horror movie. 

Now, to add even more confusion, we also need to talk about Samuel Bronston. Born in Russia, Bronston had migrated to the United States in 1939, where he caught on at MGM. But it wasn't long before Bronston formed his own company, Samuel Bronston Productions, which cut its teeth on a couple of bio-pics for Jack London (1943) and John Paul Jones (1959). However, Bronston's biggest claim to fame came in the 1960s with a series of large-scale, Cinerama blockbusters, involving star-studded cast of thousands, including King of Kings (1961), El Cid (1961), and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964). 

To save costs on these massive and monumental productions, Bronston struck a deal with Franco and set-up shop in Spain, building a gigantic studio in Las Rozas, just south of Madrid. This, obviously, brought a lot of money into the local economy. And other producers, also looking to save money, filmed in Spain using Bronston's facilities as well, including Ken Annikan for his World War II misfire, Battle of the Bulge (1965); a film Dwight D. Eisenhower himself denounced for its glaring historical inaccuracies; a film that was shot, edited, scored and released in just a staggering eight months; and a film that still came in under-budget, whose surplus, as one unearthed rumor has it, was partially skimmed off and commandeered to finance The Sound of Death, which also utilized several of Bronston's locations, including the central cave, which leaves me to boggle that the cavernous home for Casper the Killer Dinosaur might also have served as the tomb for our Lord and Savior in King of Kings. Noodle that for a bit, why don't ya. Wow. 

And on top of all of that, there's even some confusion when trying to actually date the origin of The Sound of Death, too. Some sources say it was released in 1964, others 1966. Even its American debut is in dispute as either 1967 or 1968, depending once again on your source. Regardless, it did get here. 

Now, it should be noted that producer Sacristán made this type of genre picture for the express purpose of an easy international sale. And he immediately found a buyer with Europix Consolidated (-- later morphing into Europix-International), who repackaged El sonido de la muerte as the bottom bill for Mario Bava's Operazione paura (1966), re-tagging them as Sound of Horror and Kill Baby Kill. 

Europix had already imported several Euro-Shockers, turning La lama nel corpo into The Murder Clinic (1966) and Il mostro di Venezia into The Embalmer (1965), pairing that last one up with La Sorella di Satana a/k/a She Beast (1966) for a fantastic double horror-terror show. Given the same ballyhoo, Sound of Horror and Kill Baby Kill were unleashed as 'The Big SQ Show', promising you'd Shiver 'n' Quiver and Shake 'n' Quake with each elapsed reel. 

This combination proved quite the hit and Europix kept cashing in, selling the features off for TV syndication, where it was packaged with several other fright films throughout the 1970s on many a Creature Feature program. But Europix kept re-titling and re-releasing their features theatrically, too; most notoriously as a Drive-In triple-bill avalanche of grisly horror -- “The Orgy of the Living Dead.” 

Also of note, Europix used the same dubbing studio (-- most likely, Titra Sound,) as many other imports, as we hear the same voices at work here in numerous Godzilla movies, vintage anime, spaghetti westerns, Hercules and his progeny, and the far flung denizens of Gamma One.

Getting back to the film proper, aside from that convoluted origin and its notoriously transparent monster, Sound of Horror's biggest claim to fame is the two burgeoning Cult Movie Queens leavened into the cast. 

Born in Spain, Soledad Rendón Bueno was one of six children. And to help the family make ends meet, she started flamenco dancing for a traveling troupe of entertainers at the age of 8. Bitten by the showbiz bug early, she decided to become an actress, drawing her new stage name, Miranda, out of a hat. And the newly christened Soledad Miranda immediately found work as a background dancer or bit player in a couple of Spanish films, soon drawing the attention of American producer, Sidney Pink, who cast her in The Castilian (1962) and the fairly under-appreciated revenge drama, Pyro: The Thing Without a Face (1963), before she wound up in Sound of Horror. 

After, her career kinda stalled until she entered Jess Franco's orbit, where she became his personal muse for Count Dracula (1969), Vampyros Lesbos (1970) and She Killed in Ecstasy (1970). Alas, this tale ends tragically. For just when it appeared that her career was really gaining traction, Miranda was killed in an auto accident while en route to sign a multi-picture deal with Franco's producers in August, 1970.

Soledad Miranda / Ingrid Pitt  

As for her co-star, born Ingoushka Petrov in Warsaw, Poland, at the age of five, Ingoushka and her mother, who was Jewish, were sent to a concentration camp when her father, a noted engineer of German descent, refused to help the Nazis with their V2 program. There, the family survived for nearly three years before making a harrowing escape, spending the rest of the war hiding out with partisans and sympathizers. Her father and an older sister were sent to a different camp but also survived and the family was eventually reunited.

When the war ended, Ingoushka found herself in Berlin on the wrong side of the wall. Salvation came when she married an American GI, Laud Roland Pitt, and migrated to the United States around 1950, taking the name, Ingrid Pitt. This marriage did not last long, however, and Pitt soon moved back to Germany, where she studied acting at the famed Berliner Ensemble, honing her craft onstage until making her screen debut in Sound of Horror. A few uncredited parts followed until her big break came starring opposite Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood in Where Eagles Dare (1968). Hammer and Amicus came calling after that, and the rest is Horror Queen history. 

Both women are simply gorgeous, Miranda hauntingly so, with Pitt already showing a brassy edge. Sadly, all they're really used for in Sound of Horror is set dressing and sounding boards for the men to schmooze or to reassure themselves when the crap hits the fan and their dreams of fortune and glory run into an invisible raptor out for blood. That, and a couple of Bouzouki-fueled dance numbers that serve no purpose other than to show off some ... *ahem* ‘assets’ and kill off a reel of film. 

Which brings us to the real star of our show: the invisible monster; who is not only an invisible dinosaur hatched out of a centuries old egg with the metabolism from hell, but an invisible dinosaur vampire as it seems hell bent on slashing open all of its victims to drink their blood and leave the rest of the body intact and uneaten. No. Really. Cheap on the surface, and absolutely silly everywhere else, at least in theory, but still, once one realizes how much Sound of Horror presages the shrieking POV crash-cut attacks of the forest demons of Sam Raimi's Evil Dead (1981), which prove just as effective in 1960-whatever as far as I'm concerned, your perspective kinda changes. 

With each attack, we hear the beast first with its trademark shriek, starting with Stavros as he's torn to pieces in the cave, never knowing what hit him. This is a bit of a shock as Stavros, a man of science, who would normally be the heroic voice of reason set against the fortune hunters, was the seemingly obvious romantic interest for Maria. Well, think again. 

From there, the movie follows a familiar pattern as the survivors hole-up in the cottage and start bickering on what to do. For, they have no means to track the monster laying siege on them, and they have no means of escape thanks to a temperamental automobile that refuses to start and no time to find out why before becoming dino-kibble. This rising tension is then short-circuited somewhat by the intrusion of the actual romantic interlude, where Pete forgets the car long enough to hook up with Maria. This is then followed by the rational-explanation portion of our program, until the proof (-- remember that other egg?), hatches above the fireplace. Luckily, this hatchling is quickly dispatched, rather gruesomely, before it can engage its bio-camouflage and escape. 

But, after some dubious exposition as to why they can't see the creature (-- but none, oddly, on its rapid rate of development), once its established and accepted, there are a few original twists that follow, especially when these hardened veterans, with their goal so close to hand, actually side with the superstitious Calliope, who convinces them to abandon the area as soon as possible after citing how hard it is to spend all that loot when you're dead. And so, it's decided to make another run for the car come morning. 

Alas, Calliope does not heed her own advice when she carelessly retrieves some water from the nearby well and gets shredded quite horrifically. Later, Andre meets the same fate, whose motives for clandestinely going back to the cave are a little muddled -- Was he taking one more shot at the buried treasure? Or was he trying to seal the monster inside it? For whatever reason, he doesn't make it.

Again, I cannot stress how savagely effective and unsettling these attack scenes can be. Watch as the unseen monster howls, and its victims, none of whom go quietly, scream for their lives as we hear their clothes and flesh ripped open and slashed to pieces for untold minutes until they finally and mercifully succumb. (Poor Stavros is split open from pelvis to hyoid.) And though we never really get to see the monster, we do see the damage as it is dished out and the ghastly end results of those claws and teeth. 

Thus, it isn't all as laughable as you'd think. Kudos to editor Margarita de Ochoa for making this work so well, and composer Luis de Pablo, whose pulsing riffs really drive the terror home. In fact, the only time the film really falters is with the fleeting glimpses we actually do get of the beast, which, honestly, looks like a close-up of one of those old rubber monster-knobs I used to stick on the end of my Ticonderogas back in grade school. 

"Raaarrrgh!"

[In Unison/]  "Raaarrrgh!" [/In Unison]

Anyhoo … When the crap really hits the fan, the creature manages to sneak inside the house (-- don't ask), which also leads to their eventual salvation as our heroes finally find a way to track the thing due to some footprints found in the spilled flour on the kitchen floor. Thus, a trap is set, leading to a fairly hilarious sequence when Asilov and Pete chuck a couple of axes at the monster, which then stick into nothing and start moving around. But then, somewhat inexplicably, the creature's blood turns visible once bled out, leading our group to believe the thing was mortally wounded. And so, they make another run for the car and finally manage to get it started. 

Once safely away, however, the front windshield soon becomes occluded with blood! That's right. The monster was hiding on the roof of the car the whole time! And while the others abandon the vehicle, the wounded Dorman sacrifices himself by staying behind, igniting several petrol cans, which explode, immolating him and the monster both, allowing the survivors to walk to safety. Hooray! 

I guess when all is said and heard, Sound of Horror gets an enthusiastic passing grade from me. But! I also freely admit the film is wildly uneven and it's overall plot makes not one lick of sense. At all. It takes some time to get properly going, too; and when the monster isn't attacking our characters, they spend way too much time navel-gazing on how they all got here and taking political shots at the superpowers, bemoaning how the Atomic Age has basically rendered everything pointless when we can all go *poof* at the push of a button. Not to mention all the time wasted on repetitive reconnoitering sequences as characters cover the same ground, go to the cave, or load and unload everybody into the car only to abandon it, again and again and again -- like when Calliope goes to the well not once, but twice, and we get to see her every step before she meets her doom. 

Still, I can at least safely say Sound of Horror is a lot better than its dubious reputation as that 'el cheapo horror flick with the invisible monster in it.' Don't believe me? Well, you could always just watch and then not see it for yourselves. 

Originally posted on March 1, 2014, at Micro-Brewed Reviews.  

Sound of Horror (1966) Zurbano Films :: Viñals Distribución :: Europix Consolidated Corp. / P: Gregorio Sacristán / D: José Antonio Nieves Conde / W: Sam Abarbanel, Gregg Tallas, José Antonio Nieves Conde / C: Manuel Berenguer / E: Margarita de Ochoa / M: Luis de Pablo / S: James Philbrook, Arturo Fernández, Soledad Miranda, Ingrid Pitt, José Bódalo, Antonio Casas, Lola Gaos, Francisco Piquer

Confessions of an Opium Eater (1962)

"There is no poison in a green snake's 

mouth as in a woman's heart."

Our fevered delirium of a tale begins along the foggy Pacific coast somewhere near San Francisco, circa 1902, where just offshore, the crew of a Chinese junk hastily works to offload their latest shipment via a large cargo net. But the reluctant cargo in question is strictly human: oriental women, kidnapped and brought to America to be sold, at auction, for opium. 

Rendezvousing with another, smaller boat, these human traffickers then brutally dump those women over the side, onto the other ship's deck, without much thought for their fragile “merchandise.” Seems they weren't as sneaky as they thought as a coast guard frigate is rapidly closing in. And after a brief exchange of fire, the junk takes a direct hit and explodes. No apparent survivors. 

Meanwhile, on the other, undetected vessel, the shanghaied prisoners are hastily chained together and rowed ashore. But once they reach the beach, these slavers are then bushwhacked by another group of armed men. Now, while the captives try to escape during the confusion and bloodshed, at this point, we’re not really sure if this is a rescue or just an attempt to hijack the merchandise. Either way, one of the girls, whom we’ll come to know as Lotus (Kim), almost escapes by hiding in the surrounding dunes. But she’s soon spotted and chased down by one of the bad guys, who is in turn intercepted by the apparent leader of that second faction.

Thus, Lotus continues to flee away from the beach as those two fight, with the slaver eventually winning out. But as he turns his lecherous attention back on the girl, in the first of many bizarre left turns, Lotus is suddenly saved by the timely intervention of a white stallion, who rears up and angrily knocks the evildoer off a cliff! (Which concludes in a rather spectacular dummy death plunge.) Okay, so, I think, maybe, the color of the wild horse was to show this second group were actually the good guys as the slavers are routed and this does, indeed, prove to be a rescue. But then the original buyers finally show up for the expected delivery and gun down the victors. Thus, most of the girls are recaptured but at least Lotus is safe -- for now, he typed ominously...

Our scene then shifts to San Francisco, Chinatown, where the local constabulary are hurriedly cordoning off that section of the city and won't allow anyone to enter. And we soon find out why, through a plot-specific newsie, who reveals a Tong War is about to erupt between those who run the human auctions and those who oppose them.

Enter Gilbert De Quincey (Price), mercenary for hire, dope-addict, and amateur philosopher. Ignoring the barricades, De Quincey dodges a dive-bombing seagull, which then falls dead at his feet, as he cautiously enters this no man’s land, making his way along the deserted, wind-swept streets until he reaches his destination: an antique shop owned by his contact, Chin Foon (Ahn). Here, De Quincey reveals his tattoo of the Moon Serpent to gain entrance, signifying that he and Chin Foon are both loyal to Ling Tang, who rules Chinatown with the money and opium he rakes in by holding those unwilling bridal auctions.

A mysterious recluse, no one knows for sure how old Ling Tang really is. In fact, no one has actually seen the man for over a decade. Meaning we have ourselves a secretive ancient warlord, who runs a hidden base of operations somewhere beneath the streets of Chinatown, opium wars, fighting tongs, missing women, and now an Anglo adventurer who’s about to get mired into something that’s way, way, way over his head. And is all of this brewing trouble in little China starting to sound kinda familiar to everyone else..?

When the creative tandem of Jack Pollexfen and Aubrey Wisberg's sci-fi film, The Man from Planet X (1951), managed a modest profit, they immediately wanted to strike again while the box-office fires were still hot. And to help launch their next feature, the post-apocalyptic Captive Women (1952), they brought in a third party to help finance it; a fella by the name of Albert Zugsmith.

Now, as a filmmaking entrepreneur, Zugsmith was kind of a gold-plated enigma, wrapped-up in a soiled toilet paper conundrum. Born in 1910, after college, with a law degree tucked in his back pocket, Zugsmith went to work for a newspaper. Starting out as a cub reporter, the man quickly moved his way up through the ranks and by 1935 started his own paper, The Daily World, in his native Atlantic City, where he served as managing editor and publisher. And by 1939, Zugsmith started brokering sales for media properties -- newspapers, radio networks, and, eventually, television stations, making millions off of those commissions.

Thus, as his fortune grew on that front, Zugsmith was also still practicing law. And in 1947, he was famously approached by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster to represent them in a landmark creative rights lawsuit against National Periodical Publications (DC Comics) over profits generated by their creations, Superman and Superboy. Here, Zugsmith would win a split decision in the year-long trial, losing out on The Man of Steel claim due to some fine print in a work for hire contract, but proved the publisher had no legal claim on Superboy. Despite this setback, Siegel and Shuster would continue their fight for creator’s rights and would eventually settle the matter out of court in 1975.

Thus and lo, by the time the 1950s rolled around, Zugsmith had two things on his mind: one, that ton of money currently burning a hole in his pocket; and two, always a film buff, a burning desire to get into the motion picture business. And after Pollexfen and Wisberg gave him an in with Captive Women -- the three would form American Pictures Corporation together, Zugsmith went solo on his next feature; a paranoid Cold War hysteria piece for Columbia called Invasion U.S.A. (1952) -- and in hindsight, his version of America being overrun by Communist paratroopers was pretty-damned hysterical.

Then, after a few more genre pictures for APC -- Sword of Venus (1953), Port Sinister (1953), Zugsmith was lured over to Universal International, where he set his sights a little higher with Douglas Sirk’s Written on the Wind (1956) and a couple of really solid noir pieces -- The Tattered Dress (1957) and Slaughter on 10th Avenue (1957). But at the same time, Zugsmith was also backing Jack Arnold's sci-fi classic, The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), and The Girl in the Kremlin (1957), where Zsa Zsa Gabor was mankind's last hope against Uncle Joe Stalin's new reign of terror (-- by apparently shaving every woman bald for … reasons).

Also around this time, Zugsmith was dabbling with a few ideas of his own. And while filming the western Man in the Shadow (1957), the producer gave one of his stars -- and favorite drinking buddy, Orson Welles, a script for an unrealized project of his called Badge of Evil, which eventually morphed into Touch of Evil (1958), which turned out to be one of the last American films Welles would direct, as no other studio would touch him.

Suddenly a hot commodity, MGM soon came calling with a six-picture deal, resulting in a string of drug-addled juvenile delinquent pictures, including the seminal High School Confidential (1958), Girls Town (1959) and The Beat Generation (1959), for which lawyer Zugsmith managed to secure the copyright on the term “Beat Generation'' before Jack Kerouac and John Holmes knew what hit them. All three films also featured Zugsmith's new favorite starlet, Mamie Van Doren, and the producer wasn’t done with her yet.

See, as was his schizophrenic nature, the producer followed these exploitation pieces up with a couple of hormone-fueled goofball comedies -- College Confidential (1960), where Steve Allen subs in for Dr. Alfred Kinsey to unlock the not-so-secret sex-life of college coeds, and the completely hair-brained Sex-Kittens Go to College (1960), where Van Doren plays a Two-Gun-Toting-Tassel-Twirler from Tallahassee, who’s trying to escape her past as a stripper by becoming a college professor who likes to discharge firearms in public as not to draw attention to herself. There's also a refrigerator-box robot and a monkey banging on a typewriter (-- I'm gonna assume he's working on the script); and then Uncle Fester showed up; and John Carradine dances the Charleston; and I think I just saw Vampira; and oddly enough, Conway Twitty was there, too, summing it all up in song.

Anyhoo, wanting to push things even further, Zugsmith's next sex-farce, The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960), which he co-directed with star Mickey Rooney, was condemned by The Catholic League of Decency. And after that kiss of death, the major studios stopped calling. This was too bad, as the movie’s pretty harmless -- even for the time of its release. And if it had to be condemned, at least denounce it for being too silly -- not for being blasphemous. I mean, I ask you, How blasphemous could it really be to have Martin Milner and Van Doren running around in a plastic version of the Garden of Eden in their birthday suits while Rooney's devil tempts them with an intoxicating apple, amIright? And then came Dondi (1961), based on a popular syndicated cartoon strip, which proved to be both a critical and box office disaster -- and its reputation as one of the worst films ever made was well earned indeed.

Zugsmith was fairly washed-up after that back to back, two-punch fiasco, but he still had one more feature left in him for Allied Artists before he went full-bore into the burgeoning Nudie-Cutie and sexploitation scene with things like The Incredible Sex Revolution (1966), Psychedelic Sexualis (1966), and Two Roses and a Golden Rod (1969). And luckily for us, this last hurrah was Confessions of an Opium Eater (1962) -- released on TV as Souls for Sale; a bizarre, almost avant-garde exploitation piece that Zugsmith had firing on all cylinders from the get-go, which just gets weirder and weirder the deeper our protagonist gets into the underbelly of Chinatown.

Hired by Ruby Lo (Ho), Ling Tang’s second in command, De Quincey was brought in as some hired muscle to help quash the rebellious factions and recover one of those girls lost at the beach -- the prized girl in question being Lotus. Now, De Quincey finds Ruby Lo at the funeral of George Wah (Loo). Turns out Wah was a crusading newspaper editor who constantly spoke out against these illegal auctions; and he apparently did more than just write about them, too, as we recognize his memorial photo and realize it was Wah who got killed at the beach while trying to save Lotus.

Curious as to why she's attending the funeral of her enemy, Ruby Lo explains with an old Chinese proverb; and it almost makes sense in a “keep your enemies close but your friends closer” frame, but with the way she keeps evading De Quincey's questions about Wah, you also sense there was something more intimate between those two that, well, wanted to make love and not war. Too late now, and still waiting for a straight answer, just as our bickering duo set foot outside the funeral home, the Dragon Flag is dropped -- the signal that the Tong War is now on like Donkey Kong; and as all hell breaks loose around them, Ruby Lo ducks into a passage and then slams the metal door shut behind her, leaving De Quincey to fend for himself.

Dodging the violence as best he can, our boy makes his way to the Chinatown Gazette where George Wah worked. Inside, De Quincey finds a secret room where Wah's people have hidden Lotus. Suddenly, a sizable chunk of Ling Tang's tong breaks in and finds them. Unexpectedly, considering who hired him, De Quincey grabs the girl and they escape to the sewers via another secret passageway. (And which side was he on again?) But those foot soldiers soon catch up and they snatch the girl back, while De Quincey is clobbered over the head.

Left for dead, our protagonist eventually wakes up, suspended in the air, hanging from a hook snagged by his coat collar. Not appreciating being treated like a side of beef, De Quincey is soon joined by Chin Foon and a mysterious masked man, who accuse him of treachery. Technically, Foon has little room to talk on that subject, as he reveals his allegiance to George Wah. Seems Foon also knew that Wah had hired an old gun-running friend of his to help break-up Ling Tang's stranglehold on Chinatown -- a friend who looks and acts just like our boy. Here, when De Quincey admits to playing both sides to double his money, Chin Foon and his silent partner vanish in a puff of smoke.

After managing to free himself, De Quincey soon discovers he's somewhere in the rat’s nest of catacombs beneath Chinatown. And a strange place it is, too, as the man explores further and stumbles upon a chamber of suspended bamboo cages filled with three half-starved women. As to why? Well, it seems that if a husband grows tired of his wife and doesn’t want her ghost haunting him forever, in lieu of killing her, all he has to do is lock them in one of these cages, let them starve to death, and then his conscience is clear thanks to this morbid technicality. One of the three was already dead, but De Quincey frees Lo Tsen (Kido) and Baby Doll (Moray), a dwarf who tires of her husbands quickly, after they agree to show him where the auctions take place.

Led to a warehouse, as the girls distract the guards, De Quincey finds Lotus inside, suspended in another cage. But the Mongol guards return and chase him off before he can free her. Finding refuge in a bathroom -- that's not just any bathroom, where, as the toilet triggers a secret panel that leads straight into an opium den, De Quincey buys himself a pipe, lights up, and then drifts off to la-la land.

We’re then treated to an extended montage of twisted imagery meant to represent the power and influence of the poppy -- represented by a bunch of stock monster footage from almost all of American International Picture's back catalogue. (No. Honest! I saw the Voodoo Woman, the Viking Women's Sea Serpent, a Saucer Man's hand, Bert I. Gordon's Giant Spider, the Screaming Skull and a whole lot more.) And then the film starts to get really weird (-- as if it wasn't weird enough already?!), when De Quincey suddenly wakes up and finds himself surrounded by Ling Tang's men.

Still under the influence of the opium, a bizarre, and eerily silent slow-motion chase scene ensues as he tries to get away. Now, I'm gonna get more into this sequence later in the wrap-up, but for now: let's just say De Quincey doesn’t make it, is once more subdued, and awakens in the presence of Ruby Lo, who reveals that she, too, has been playing both sides. Apparently, while she was embezzling money and munitions from Ling Tang, she was also having a torrid love affair with George Wah. As she’s monologuing, De Quincey almost escapes her clutches but, as usual, only winds up knocked unconscious again.

This time he wakes up in one of those suspended cages with Baby Doll; both under the guard of some giggling idiot and his royally pissed off cat, who reveals the prisoner's gloomy fate by sliding a panel open, revealing a tank of water, where a drowned woman silently floats, a massive stone tied around her neck. (I had assumed this was Lo Tsen -- until she shows up later during the climax.) Laughing boy then torments them further by opening another peek-hole, revealing the latest bridal auction is about to take place just on the other side of the wall.

Then, as the festivities begin, we get to watch a bunch of old men hoot and ogle over a cache of nubile young women, who they force to dance before they'll open the bidding. This provocative display also provides enough of a distraction for De Quincey, who manages to kill the guard, allowing him and Baby Doll to escape. Once free, they immediately head for Ruby Lo’s secret stash -- along with her stolen loot, her vault is full of fireworks, munitions, gunpowder, and, for some reason, a trussed up Lo Tsen. After freeing the girl, De Quincey breaks open one of those kegs and begins to spread the black powder all over the rest of the explosives.

Meanwhile, back at the auction, one of the old coots gets a little too curious about the latest lot, tugs on her hair, and discovers the girl is bald. This triggers a massive snit amongst the buyers over the merchandise being damaged and they all demand to see Ling Tang -- for only his personal assurance will prove this auction was on the level. And so, for the first time in ten years, Ling Tang finally makes a public appearance. With his elderly features hidden behind a mask, he calms everyone down and introduces Lotus -- the prized lot of the auction. This quiets the crowd, the bidding starts, and the old badger who doesn’t like bald women had the highest bid until it's discovered the packaged opium he planned to use as payment was phony.

With that, the old man removes his disguise, revealing he was really George Wah -- back from the dead! At almost the exact same moment, De Quincey blows the explosives in the vault. Turns out he and Wah had the whole thing planned out this way from the beginning (... riiiiiight). And as Ling Tang’s compound goes up in smoke, Wah, Lotus, De Quincey, Lo Tsen and Baby Doll regroup and escape to the war-torn streets. Too exposed and soon surrounded, with their only chance to get away safely being through the sewers, our band scurries down the nearest manhole but, alas, Lo Tsen and Baby Doll are killed bringing up the rear.

Once in the sewer proper, Ling Tang himself confronts them. Now, the sharp eye will notice that Ling Tang is sporting a rather nice pair of pumps as he and De Quincey tangle, allowing Wah and Lotus to escape. As their struggle intensifies, De Quincey knocks the mask off, revealing that Ling Tang was really Ruby Lo this whole time! Seems the old guy actually died ten years ago and she just assumed his role. 

After that revelation, they both fall into the drainage water and are swept away by the current, locked in each other’s embrace. And as they tumble off toward the unknown, De Quincey ponders whether his current predicament was fate, destiny, or just another drug-induced dream.

You know, by the end credits of Confessions of an Opium Eater, you, as a viewer, might just be confessing to having hit the pipe yourself a few times. It’s that weird. And wonderful. Wonderfully weird. And this contact high can honestly be traced all the way back to the film’s source material.

Based loosely on Thomas De Quincey’s autobiographical book of the same name, this tale first saw print in serialized form in London Magazine, running from September through October, 1821. And though it was originally published “anonymously” in the periodical, when it was released in book format as Confession of an Opium Eater in 1822 De Quincey finally put his name on it. A laudanum (opium) addict himself, De Quincey broke his story down into two parts: The Pleasures of Opium, dealing with the factors that led to his addiction and the welcome escape the drug provided, while the second, The Pains of Opium, dealt with the price to be paid for the same narcotic addiction -- insomnia, nightmares, frightening visions, and physical deterioration.

“The sense of space, and in the end, the sense of time, were both powerfully affected,” said De Quincey about his time under the influence. “Buildings, landscapes, were exhibited in proportions so vast as the bodily eye is not fitted to conceive. Space swelled, and was amplified to an extent of unutterable infinity. This, however, did not disturb me so much as the vast expansion of time; I sometimes seemed to have lived for 70 or 100 years in one night; nay, sometimes had feelings representative of a millennium passed in that time, or, however, of a duration far beyond the limits of any human experience.”

And while the book was popular and made De Quincey both rich and famous, his vivid prose was criticized from the very beginning by his detractors for glamorizing the use of opium. Somewhat ironically, his seminal work was also considered a clinical document on the drug. Or as Judson Lyon put it in his biography of De Quincey, “Since there was little systematic study of narcotics until long after his death, De Quincey's account assumed an authoritative status and actually dominated the scientific and public views of the effects of opium for several generations."

Now, as a wise-cracking robot once noted on Mystery Science Theater 3000, in reference to Village of the Giants (1965) allegedly mutating out of the H.G. Wells’ novel, Food of the Gods, Zugsmith’s Confessions of an Opium Eater was based on De Quincey’s book in that “they were both written in English.” Scripted by Zugsmith regular Robert Hill -- Female on the Beach (1955), Raw Edge (1956), the film dropped the source author's first-hand account of a narcotic addiction and traded it in for some straight-out pulp adventure instead with a heaping dose of the “Yellow Peril” on top, as Hill apparently broke into a fortune cookie factory and then scotch-taped all those little pieces of paper together for the majority of his dialogue.

Marketed as a horror movie by Allied Artists, Confessions of an Opium Eater was, indeed, more of an action-adventure yarn straight out of the old Republic serials, while maintaining the tenuous of threads to the source material by making Gilbert De Quincey the great, great grandson of the author. Now, with that Yellow Peril taint, I fully realize this film promotes some pretty rotten stereotypes; but if you can manage to keep all of that in historical context the only real problem I had with the film was that ending. It seemed a bit contrived with the double-revelation and was kinda disappointing after such a great build up, where being forced to really pay attention as to who was double-crossing who goes all for naught. 

Zugsmith would serve as both producer and director on the film, and he kept the action moving well enough. And to help keep him on course, his crew was littered with many other notable genre veterans. Behind the camera, Joseph Biroc -- The Killer that Stalked New York (1950), 13 Ghosts (1960), made everything stark, dark or murky, making it hard to keep your bearings; couple that with Eugene Lourie’s -- The Colossus of New York (1957), The Giant Behemoth (1959), cheap but effective art direction on all those secret passages and death-traps and Albert Glasser’s -- Beginning of the End (1957), The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), eerie electronic score, which was once more cranked up to about eleven, their efforts more than overcompensate for Hill’s shaky, misdirecting script, resulting in something rather unique that is hard to explain let alone define.

I honestly wouldn’t know where to begin to try and decipher all the strange imagery and symbolism that permeates this film. I mean, What was that white horse all about? And the dead seagull? Or that whole kite thing? (You'll know it when you see it.) But the best and most jolting stream of images comes during De Quincey's attempted getaway while under the phantasmagorical influence of the opium. 

Here, Glasser’s sinister score suddenly drops out, and after a slow-motion roof-top chase, a talking bird is shot, which detonates in a cloud of feathers, and then brace yourselves for the scene in the butcher’s shop and the decapitated boar’s head. Again, What in the good-god-hell was that all about?!

I’m also convinced Confessions of an Opium Eater had at least some influence on John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China (1986). And this is not a slight, nor should it be construed as a knock for theft on Carpenter's film. No sir. I enjoyed the heck out of that movie, too, but there are just far too many similarities to deny the obvious, right down to the earnest but completely in-over-his-head hero.

As a proto-Jack Burton, Vincent Price does seem a bit out of place as an action hero, but he handles it rather deftly -- hell, anything the guy does is good; and he would do it again a couple years later in The Last Man on Earth (1964), which I still contend was the best adaptation of Richard Matheson's pulp-classic, I Am Legend. Linda Ho was equally great as the vicious Ruby Lo, as was Yvonne Moray as the pithy Baby Doll. The rest of the cast -- Richard Loo, Phillip Ahn, June Kyoto Lu, Caroline Kido, were all fine but their characters were sold short by that script as filmed.

I first encountered Confessions of an Opium Eater some thirty years ago, as Souls for Sale, when it brought up the rear of an overnight triple-feature on TNT with The Giant Behemoth and The Hypnotic Eye (1960) -- back in the glory days of Monstervision and 100% Weird. And while it has since made the digital leap through the Warner Archive, I still have that VHS tape and treat it like a museum piece; a reminder of how awesome the SuperStations used to be instead of the infomercial whores they are now. Still, I am thankful and will always be grateful to the network for introducing me to this bona fide gonzo classic, and I encourage you all to catch up with it, too, as soon as possible.

Originally published on April 28, 2000, at 3B Theater.

Confessions of an Opium Eater / Souls for Sale (1962) Photoplay :: Allied Artists / P: Albert Zugsmith / AP: Robert Hill / D: Albert Zugsmith / W: Robert Hill, Thomas De Quincey (novel) / C: Joseph Biroc / E: Robert Eisen, Roy Livingston / M: Albert Glasser / S: Vincent Price, Linda Ho, Richard Loo, June Kim, Philip Ahn, Caroline Kido