Thursday, March 10, 2016

MOOM PITCHER REVIEW! HALF HUMAN STARRING JOHN CARRADINE!

If ya wanna know where Half Japanese got their moniker look no further'n this neat if screwy collision of an authentic Toho production Ameriganized by additional footage featuring famed Oscar winner John Carradine filling in the details that we didn't see on screen because well, people would probably be more drawn to a film with his name on it than they would one with Akira Takarada. Then again his name didn't help MYRA BRECKENRIDGE out any now, diddit?

Whadevva it is HALF HUMAN's a great mish mosh of a mid-fifties sci-fi flick with some quickie additions that kinda make ya wonder why Carradine and his cohorts just didn't discuss the entire Japanese portion of the film themselves and spare us the foreign footage if they wuz gonna be so cheap about it. But hey, why quibble over what is essentially a good moom having to do with this scientific skiing expedition who just happen to tangle not only with an actual Yeti and his son, but the remnants of a long-lost primitive society living in the mountains about two or three steps up from prehistoric conditions, or maybe five up from Italians.

My print's a great and worn out one obviously taken from a VCR tape which makes it even more mid-seventies UHF-Tee Vee exciting, and really who can complain about the film even with Carradine narrating practically the entire thing (like I said, cheaper 'n dubbing) while the story bends and weaves in ways that maybe would have benefited w/o the additional footage (but like I said, over here Carradine's name's probably gonna move a whole lot more tickets 'n Takarada's). But when all's said and done and I've sat through this thing with all of the attention span of your typical baby-boomer-era Saturday Afternoon Barbershop Kid...since when was the Abominable Snowman ever in Japan???

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