Caught up in the movie

MST3K Central
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Weirdly, The Killer Bees. Got hooked in by the mystery haha.

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The Killer Bees is adapted from a novel. It makes me wonder how much they stuck to it- but not enough to read the novel.

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23

Parts for sure. And Overdrawn At The Memory Bank, but I think that’s mostly my adoration for anything with Raul Julia taking over.

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24

Quite a few, actually, but just one example.

Fugitive Alien. In fact, I enjoyed the idea of the story so much that I tracked down the trilogy of books (by Edmond Hamilton) which were the foundation of Fugitive Alien and Fugitive Alien 2. And I highly recommend them. They’re fun little books. No longer in print, though.

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25

So it’s a double movie-length English language dub of a Japanese TV show based on an English language novel? This is like the Hamlet episode!

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I agree with optiMSTie on all the Russo-Finish ones. They stand up on their own just for the sheer “differentness” of their sensibilities compared to western European and American films of the time. They’re all fascinating watches. “First Spaceship on Venus” falls into this category too, especially given how multicultural it is for the time.

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It’s apparently actually a full-season Japanese series that was edited down to movie length and dubbed by the one and only Sandy Frank, but yes, it does bear unfortunate resemblance to Hamlet. :smiley:

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28

Speaking of reading, the first story of “This Island Earth” is available in Jim Wynorski’s anthology, They Came From Outer Space. I remember reading it and thinking, “Hey! It stops when Cal gets on the plane! Where’d the rest come from?” But then I found the other two stories in a different collection.

TCFOS also has The Fly, a version of The Thing From Another World, The Fog Horn (which sorta became The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms) and The Sentinel (which sorta became 2001).

AFAICR, This Island Earth is the only MST feature in the book. But then, not a lot of MST features were based on books were they? Or made by people who could read? (I kid!)

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Ooh, this one too – one of my favorite episodes! It was really ambitious for the time and I think the creators did a great job. It straddles the line for me of “caught up in the movie”; good enough that I could watch it unriffed, but the guys also do a great job with it. So much ripe fodder for riffing, and they strike just the right balance of shredding it … with love.

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Well, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank is based on a book. Hamlet (obviously). First Spaceship on Venus is as well. Fu Manchu (well, the original was a book). The Day the Earth Froze. Outlaw of Gor.

That’s all I can think of. :slight_smile:

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I’m pretty sure “Hamlet” is based on some Stratford-based improv group.

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32

I assume you mean The Deadly Bees. I understand that original novel is more of an old-school detective novel. Fun Fact: Co-writer Robert Bloch (yes, THAT Robert Bloch) had originally envisioned Hargrove and Manfred being portrayed by Christopher Lee and Boris Karloff respectively. It would certainly explain why Doris is so eager to get into Hargrove’s pants.

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33

Kitten With A Whip is a pretty faithful adaptation of the pulp novel by Wade Miller. The Screaming Skull bears only a passing resemblance to its namesake story by F. Marion Crawford, though there is wife-murder in that too. And both The Land That Time Forgot and At The Earth’s Core are based on novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

More tangentially, Time Of The Apes borrows heavily from Planet Of The Apes, which began life as a French novel by Pierre Boulle. One could argue that Ian Fleming is somewhat responsible for the existence of Operation Double 007. And Lost Continent is one of dozens of movies that rip off Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World.

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It’s The Screaming Skull for me!

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35

I heard Edward de Vere was brought in to punch up the script.

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Anyone who has read material that can definitely be attributed to Edward de Vere would know that he couldn’t punch up a screenplay for an episode of My Mother, the Car. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Quite a few, actually. My two favorites, Space Mutiny and Jack Frost, I watch as much for the movies themselves as I do the riffing. I do also enjoy This Island Earth, the Screaming Skull, The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, a few of the Gamera movies, and a couple others that aren’t springing to mind right off the top of my head right now. I’m one of those weird people who likes to deliberately watch bad movies (you should see my collection of them) simply because I find them enjoyable and funny and I can turn my brain off.

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38

Hmm… perhaps I was thinking of Marlowe… or maybe Bacon. Sir Francis being most famous for his Beggin’ Strips commercials. Finger forever on the pulse of the theatrical arts, that one!

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39

I like his Screaming Pope paintings as well. Francis Bacon was a true polymath.

FrancisBaconScreamingPope

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40

I had never actually seen that. Now I won’t sleep for days.

(That’s a good thing in my case. :smiley: :sleeping:)

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