Strange and weird films from long ago

[Richelle-H]

I was motivated to start this topic by some spontaneous memory regurgitation. The really odd thing about it is that both films were released in 1953: One on my actual birthday the other toward the end of the year. Both received terrible reviews from the critics, the later one ran for barely a week.

I find it somewhat strange to remember both these films in the same recollection, for I did not see either the year they were released, but somewhat later in my childhood. It could be the connection of having Hans Conreid in both films (in one he is the lead, in the other he is the title character.

Okay, so after I waffle on about these films, I thought it would be somewhat interesting if --- A: others recall having seen either of the films (not expecting many here to have seen either) and B: sharing an equally strange and obscure film that you have retained in your core memory.

Okay, I will do this in the order of release, although I am quite certain I saw the latter film first and the earlier film some years after.

Has anyone seen: "The 5,000 Fingers of Dr, T". and original Screen musical from Dr. Seuss, Starring the husband and wife team of Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy, along with the afore mentioned Hans Conreid and Tommy Rettig (child star of the 50s who was best known for the TV series Lassie). It is a Technicolor musical and is very Seussian visually, probably more than any adaptation since, given that it was an original story for the screen. You will not find this anywhere for easy viewing, which is a shame. This is one very odd film indeed, but I remember it fondly.

The second film is "The Twonky". It is an odd sci-fi satire/commentary written by Arch Oboler from a short story written by Henry Kuttner with an assist from his wife C. L. Moore (both of them published science fiction authors) with a screenplay by Arch Oboler (he wrote many scripts for the radio drama Lights Out which I would listen to on very low volume, under the covers, when I was supposed to be sleeping, from the ages of 5 to 9. The film is an odd story about a TV possessed by some entity from the future and bedevils the character played by Hans Conreid. I have a clear core memory of the TV set stalking Conreid's character across the floor of the living room. I'd like to see it again because of the scrambled imagery in my head, but that is extremely unlikely as it is now 72 years old and its original run in a paltry number of theaters was extremely short. Still....

Okay, I am finished here and the thread is now open if anyone has anything to share. Keep in mind that I have seen so many films in my 79+ years that I doubt you will find something I have not seen, but I can always hope.

 

[Outdated]

Keep in mind that I have seen so many films in my 79+ years that I doubt you will find something I have not seen, but I can always hope.

How familiar are you with the Australian film industry?

We've produced some classic hit movies over the years but we've also produced a lot of very strange movies. A great number of Aussie movies never got screened in the US for censorship reasons. And not just because of language, they also display cultural concepts that were unacceptable to a very religious society.

Sunday Too Far Away is a cultural classic and it was a big hit with the ladies back in the day.
Sunday Too Far Away (1975) 6.9 | Drama

Walkabout is one of the stranger movies, starring a very young David Gulpilil.
Walkabout (1971) 7.6 | Adventure, Drama

30 Best Australian Movies of All Time | Man of Many

 

[velociraptor]

I doubt you will find something I have not seen, but I can always hope

That sounded like a challenge. I have both films you mentioned on my PLEX server. Have seen both. Twonky is, uh, trippy for sure.

 

[tkcartoonist]

I'd like to see it again because of the scrambled imagery in my head, but that is extremely unlikely as it is now 72 years old and its original run in a paltry number of theaters was extremely short. Still....

Ask, and ye shall receive.

Anyway, my personal pick (which I have on Blu-ray) is House, a weird little Japanese horror flick from 1977. I'm sure I can think of more later: I've seen and heard some strange stuff.

 

[Hypnalis]

The Twonky

I remember the story quite well.
It would be shadow-banned in 2025 for being too close to the truth /lol.

In the story one TV is "upgraded" by someone who built Twonkies in future, and was accidently and temporarily sent back into the past.

IRL there would be a lot of people wishing they could make a neo-Marxist variant compulsory in every home /lol.

 

[TBRS1]

I saw Dr. T when I was way too young to realize it was a comedy, and was... puzzled, to say the least.

When my kids were young, I got a VHS of it for them. I thought they would enjoy being puzzled as well, and they were.

It's a family favorite.

We frequently do shots of pickle juice at family gatherings, and Mr. Zabladowski is a greatly respected hero.

 

[Mary Terry]

How familiar are you with the Australian film industry?

We've produced some classic hit movies over the years but we've also produced a lot of very strange movies. A great number of Aussie movies never got screened in the US for censorship reasons. And not just because of. language, they also display cultural concepts that were unacceptable to a very religious society.

Sunday Too Far Away is a cultural classic and it was a big hit with the ladies back in the day.
Sunday Too Far Away (1975) 6.9 | Drama

Walkabout is one of the stranger movies, starring a very young David Gulpilil.
Walkabout (1971) 7.6 | Adventure, Drama

30 Best Australian Movies of All Time | Man of Many

I loved Walkabout. Another interesting film is "The Gods Must Be Crazy" from South Africa, about an Aboriginal man who finds a coke bottle.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

I loved Walkabout. Another interesting film is "The Gods Must Be Crazy" from South Africa, about an Aboriginal man who finds a coke bottle.

I also was very touched by Walkabout. The Gods Must Be Crazy was great. I see very few films.

Another great Australian film is Rabbit-Proof Fence.

An old but great Russian film is Burnt by the Sun.

 

[Outdated]

Another interesting film is "The Gods Must Be Crazy" from South Africa, about an Aboriginal man who finds a coke bottle.

The Gods Must Be Crazy was great. I see very few films.

Gods Must Be Crazy (actually a French film) became a trilogy but like all of these things the second isn't as good as the first and the third movie is a waste of time. The first is an all time classic.

There's quite a few good South African movies and one I always liked was District 9.

An alien spaceship crash lands in South Africa and the Sud Africaans take in the aliens as refugees, but this creates all sorts of social problems so they reintroduce apartheid to cope with the situation.

Side note that amused me, the South Africans also call them Prawns, not Shrimp.

District 9 (2009) 7.9 | Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller

 

[Judge]

"Strange" (in the eye of the beholder) can be interesting.

In no particular order:

"Zardoz" (1974)
"The Thirteenth Floor" (1999)
"Fahrenheit 451" (1966)
"Walkabout" (1971)
"The Happening" (2008)
"The Night Porter" (1974)
"Caligula" (1979)
"The Ninth Gate" (1999)
"The Entity" (1981)
"Communion" (1989)
"Apocalypse Now" (1979)
"Event Horizon" (1997)
"Demon Seed" (1977)

 

[Neonatal RRT]

Rosemary's Baby
The Island of Dr. Moreau
The Body Snatchers
The Planet of the Apes
Logan's Run
2001 A Space Odyssey
1984
The Pit and the Pendulum
The Wax Museum

 

[Richelle-H]

How familiar are you with the Australian film industry?

Quite familiar as it turns out, and not just all the mad max movies. I have seen maybe 75 to 80% of the films listed in the link at the bottom of your post. Truth be told, I have seen BMX Bandits and I wonder if you have seen that? One of Nicole Kidman's and I can say for a fact that she has improved mightily from that 1983 performance.

Rosemary's Baby
The Island of Dr. Moreau
The Body Snatchers
The Planet of the Apes
Logan's Run
2001 A Space Odyssey
1984
The Pit and the Pendulum
The Wax Museum

I have seen all of these multiple times, and I do not think of them as either strange or weird. I have seen the reboots and subsequent sequals of a couple of these. I have seen many films originating from other countries as well.

"Zardoz" (1974)
"The Thirteenth Floor" (1999)
"Fahrenheit 451" (1966)
"Walkabout" (1971)
"The Happening" (2008)
"The Night Porter" (1974)
"Caligula" (1979)
"The Ninth Gate" (1999)
"The Entity" (1981)
"Communion" (1989)
"Apocalypse Now" (1979)
"Event Horizon" (1997)
"Demon Seed" (1977)

Seen all of these and I agree strange and weird is down to the beholder and in my head not one of these is strange or weird. I am someonewho saw an animated version of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell Tale Heart" as a short before "From Here to Eternity" the year they were both released. I do not know what my Grandmother was thinking when she took me to see them in 1953 in a theater in Lancaster, California, of all places.
*End of Response*

 

[Richelle-H]

I was raised at the drive-in. I saw many films during my childhood from the back seat of my parents car, where they expected me to fall asleep, but never did. I saw all kinds of films from that back seat, from 3D weaterns to "The Bridge Over the River Kwai" at the age of 11. In the fifties there also seemed to be more than a few weird double-bills, where the early film was family oriented and the second film was a B-grade science fiction film. Most notible of these was a reissue of "The Wizard of Oz" partnered with "Gog" and "Hans Christian Anderson doubled with "Them".

Funny about those two double bills, my mother refused to stay for "Gog" even though I lobbied hard to stay. However, she was a big fan of James Arness so we stayed for "Them" and that film (watched many times since) became the first in a very long line of science fiction, horror, fantasy, etc..

I could go on, but I think everyone has a pretty good idea of the kind of mature film-freak I have become.

Cheers for all that have participated. You haven't thrown but one or two films at me that I have not seen to date, but I have seen many of similar nature and only one or two that rise to my level of weird or strange. I guess a good example would be the films of Yorgos Lanthimos, I mean: have you seen "The Lobster", now that is weird and strange.

 

[Outdated]

Truth be told, I have seen BMX Bandits and I wonder if you have seen that? One of Nicole Kidman's and I can say for a fact that she has improved mightily from that 1983 performance.

Yes, that was a common kids movie played on TV every Christmas here. She's only about 2 years younger than me and I had a mad crush on her for many years. Until about 20 years ago anyway, she dramatically lost weight and ever since has looked like a recovering drug addict.

However, she was a big fan of James Arness so we stayed for "Them" and that film (watched many times since) became the first in a very long line of science fiction, horror, fantasy, etc..

Many years ago I worked with a man from Singapore named Lawrence. One day I asked him what his real name is and he said "It's Lawrence.". I asked him if kids in school teased him much about having a funny foreign name and he said "Not as much as my brother, his name is Olivier." His mother loved western movies.

 

[Richelle-H]

Just now finished watching a film that is exactly the type of film I have great fun stumbling onto. That film would be from Japan, released in 1977, and I gather did not do well in the U.S., at the time, but has since become a cult film (and with good reason). This film is completely bannanas (you'll undertand that reference better if you watch it to the end ).

Title: HOUSE
Director: Nobuhiko Ôbayashi

This was the director's first feature after doing comercials.

Anyone else seen this? Here is a link to the IMDB page:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076162/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_11_tt_8_nm_0_in_0_q_%20House

 

[Dagan]

The earliest, crazy films that I recall watching are the Japanese Yokai films like, 100 MONSTERS. That one and several others from the same studio were recently put on Shudder for streaming. They still hold up well enough. They are quite disturbing at times.

 

[SusanLR]

The first drive-in movie I saw was The Mummy-1959. My parents took me with them when I was only two at that time.
They probably thought I wouldn't be old enough to get it, but I did.

Two other movies that come to mind when I was older that I thought strange were The Hand- starring Michael Caine
1981 and Magic- starring Anthony Hopkins 1978.

 

[velociraptor]

I'm loving all the titles being tossed around in this thread. So many good memories for me. Found a few films I have missed that are being added to my playlist for the next night when back pain keeps me up.

 

[Hazel_1914]

Roman de Renard (1937), a stop motion film about the medieval story of Reynard the Fox. Based on stories from old French fable, done in a slightly horrifying taxidermy critter style, like F.W. Murnau meets Wes Anderson.

Sir Henry at Rawlinson End. Directed by Mr Vivian Stanshall of the infamous Bonzo Dog Band. It is as bad and as good as you think it is.

 

[UFO]

The 5000 Finger of Dr. T and The Twonky are both available in YouTube without signing in.

To me strange and weird means a little bit more overall surreal than most of mentioned flicks (2001 turns weird only during last few minutes, for example). Too bad that my expertise is focused on movies made late-70s and after, missing most trippiest productions of 60s, and I have avoided movies that are giallo flicks, or anything that has been described as "artistic", in a fear of wasting valuable two hours of my life to something boring that I am not even supposed to understand.

Okay... About surrealism and general weirdness... Wes Anderson -movies, Donnie Darko, Naked Lunch, Videodrome, Tetsuo, The Fountain etc. are most likely familiar, but how about these:

Seconds (1966) - An office rat half accidentally gets involved with a company (similar to The Game from 1997) that wipes out of his whole previous existence and replaces it with another.

Greener Grass (2019) - Socker mom and picket fence neighbourhood satire.

Interstate 60 (2002) - Superficial (by my opinion) but entertaining lightly surreal road movie.

Highway to Hell (1991) - Probably less odd-ball horror comedy than I remember, but I thought this would still be worth of mentioning.

Jacob's Ladder (1990) - Quite sure that this is familiar movie, but...

Mirrormask (2005) - Fantasy movie written by Dave McKean and now infamous Neil Gaiman. Despite of strong dosage of surreal visions, it is not much of "WTF I just saw?"-movie. But I thought mentioning it as it seems to be rather forgotten flick.

John Dies at the End (2012) - I don't remember much of this movie, so this might actually be too "mundane"...

The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985) - Creepy and surreal animation. Again, could be more "mundane" than I remember.

Mandy (2018), Willy's Wonderland (2021) and Dream Scenario (2023) - Not exactly the most weirdest flicks of the list, but they are Nicolas Cage -movies which is usually a plus (thought his character in Willy's is the only strange and weird aspect of that movie).