cult film freak: russell johnson

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Written by James M. Tate / 4/06/2026 / No comments / creature , fifties , horror , pamela duncan , richard garland , roger corman , russell johnson , science-fiction

PAMELA DUNCAN & RICHARD GARLAND IN CORMAN'S 'ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS'

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAbZnGg5D824A505E4szq3DtzfvK09UP0d-0QZy7BdCdcx92qOHnolI0WBsPD2yCsi204j2cf5AUjwoiQhQ9OydbpmchYe2G1GPZ3kD13e04r-9LYEor4nQIkKge8YQaszONTmAtXCANP3R2tSysBHIW3jDcdsEs_TkRyEaI4nVL-KhudnTyF7wQfK5AjP/s1794/Screen%20Shot%202025-10-20%20at%205.53.45%20PM%202.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="696" data-original-width="1794" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAbZnGg5D824A505E4szq3DtzfvK09UP0d-0QZy7BdCdcx92qOHnolI0WBsPD2yCsi204j2cf5AUjwoiQhQ9OydbpmchYe2G1GPZ3kD13e04r-9LYEor4nQIkKge8YQaszONTmAtXCANP3R2tSysBHIW3jDcdsEs_TkRyEaI4nVL-KhudnTyF7wQfK5AjP/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-10-20%20at%205.53.45%20PM%202.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Year: 1957 Rating: **</td></tr></tbody></table>It's a shame Roger Corman's remote island thriller ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS winds up so convoluted because leads Richard Garland and Pamela Duncan have an intriguing presence and story-line, investigating strange behavior of crabs on an island where two former colleagues vanished... The problem is that Corman goes the THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD route by loading too many characters, including future GILLIGAN'S ISLAND professor Russell Johnson with Ed Nelson and more than half a dozen others: so when ghostly voices begin calling out from beyond, transforming nuclear-era science-fiction into a kind of slow-burn horror, there are way too many cooks to concentrate on how any single actor/actress can actually matter.

creature, fifties, horror, pamela duncan, richard garland, roger corman, russell johnson, science-fiction

PAMELA DUNCAN & RICHARD GARLAND IN CORMAN'S 'ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS'

Year: 1957 Rating: ** It's a shame Roger Corman's remote island thriller ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS winds up so convoluted because ...

EDWARD G. ROBINSON IN 'BLACK TUESDAY' WITH PETER GRAVES

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLsr2xPZRlVR6CW-WjB5o7xr8m1JZ_4Qi3N_dKEXny3hVuGVoN5ro0ZvG3aa53lMeSbFDVBDh4vvcH1ZO5zZe8m3cfkcYzOeBg8QXDs14C5hgSY5UZqquOjEykwJp6zVhsO_XNhf0353aHiakiADr-9G6d-4rf64teh3IH-mvzEY-RzKRifGacc-PgQYPr/s1684/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-08%20at%209.13.57%20PM%202.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="878" data-original-width="1684" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLsr2xPZRlVR6CW-WjB5o7xr8m1JZ_4Qi3N_dKEXny3hVuGVoN5ro0ZvG3aa53lMeSbFDVBDh4vvcH1ZO5zZe8m3cfkcYzOeBg8QXDs14C5hgSY5UZqquOjEykwJp6zVhsO_XNhf0353aHiakiADr-9G6d-4rf64teh3IH-mvzEY-RzKRifGacc-PgQYPr/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-08%20at%209.13.57%20PM%202.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Title: BLACK TUESDAY Year: 1954 Rating: ***1/2</td></tr></tbody></table>By the 1950's, twenty years after pioneering the crime/gangster genre, Edward G. Robinson was a kind of elder statesman of the subject... although sometimes he'd play good guys, even cops...But in BLACK TUESDAY he was back in the previous decade's KEY LARGO mode... an antagonist so vile, everyone surrounding him, here in the initial death row prison setting, is good by comparison: making this crime film very noir...

edward g. robinson, fifties, film noir or melodrama, jailbreak, jean parker, kidnapping, milburn stone, peter graves, russell johnson, warren stevens

EDWARD G. ROBINSON IN 'BLACK TUESDAY' WITH PETER GRAVES

Title: BLACK TUESDAY Year: 1954 Rating: ***1/2 By the 1950's, twenty years after pioneering the crime/gangster genre, Edward G. Robinson...

DIRECTOR JACK ARNOLD GROUNDS 'IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE'

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcbbJmjDy07eVm8H2txEwjDzl4LDWwcYQMNatENP38gZr3ZhWKtKsPBpa27MjwdFwEFF2sG7HgH0ug1OZHv4mT0XOA3Q2ypkrEILKBdXuRLIlS0oFuDJ9a-zgBGb1QCIWAL8ziWfIfADzz0roow2XB2Te8-9IQKjhrqUPIj3Fyz0-WrilMsRQ8FaqE2xUA/s2740/Screen%20Shot%202026-01-04%20at%208.29.36%20PM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1520" data-original-width="2740" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcbbJmjDy07eVm8H2txEwjDzl4LDWwcYQMNatENP38gZr3ZhWKtKsPBpa27MjwdFwEFF2sG7HgH0ug1OZHv4mT0XOA3Q2ypkrEILKBdXuRLIlS0oFuDJ9a-zgBGb1QCIWAL8ziWfIfADzz0roow2XB2Te8-9IQKjhrqUPIj3Fyz0-WrilMsRQ8FaqE2xUA/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202026-01-04%20at%208.29.36%20PM.png"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Barbara Rush in IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE Year: 1953 Rating: ***1/2</td></tr></tbody></table>The same year as the theatrical WAR OF THE WORLDS, where what resembles a meteorite lands on Earth and turns out being aliens that the entire region witnesses, amateur stargazer Richard Carlson is all alone in what's half a theory: while it's fact that something landed into the desert ground, only HE realizes what's really inside it...And Jack Arnold was beginning a great career as Universal's science-fiction/monster b-movie director, and while the near-future TARANTULA, THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN and both CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON features, IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE is more slow-burn than exciting, and while somewhat short on outright thrills and suspense, the story's told so conventionally and unpretentiously it all seems completely natural, providing Arnold a natural fit for bringing farfetched down to earth...

barbara rush, fifties, horror, jack arnold, kathleen hughes, richard carlson, russell johnson, science-fiction, thriller

DIRECTOR JACK ARNOLD GROUNDS 'IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE'

Barbara Rush in IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE Year: 1953 Rating: ***1/2 The same year as the theatrical WAR OF THE WORLDS, where what resembles a...

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