00 Week: Spelled like Yes?

DR. NO

1962

Directed by Terence Young

Written by Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, and Berkeley Mather (based on the novel by Ian Fleming)

Spoilers: severe

Note: runs a bit longer than I'd have preferred, mostly thanks to the inefficiencies of getting a retrospective of a film series of this magnitude started

American Gothic Week: Determined to prove a villain

TOWER OF LONDON

1962

Directed by Roger Corman

Written by Leo Gordon, F. Amos Powell, and Robert E. Kent

Spoilers: the Plantagenets don't make it

American Gothic Week: The notion of that identity which at death is or is not lost for ever, was to me, at all times, a consideration of intense interest

TALES OF TERROR

1962

Directed by Roger Corman

Written by Richard Matheson (based on the stories "Morella," "The Black Cat," "The Cask of Amontillado," and "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" by Edgar Allan Poe)

Spoilers: moderate

American Gothic Week: The rigid embrace of the narrow house

PREMATURE BURIAL

1962

Directed by Roger Corman

Written by Charles Beaumont and Ray Russell (based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe)

Spoilers: moderate

G-d Week: My son, do not regard the Lord's discipline lightly, nor be weary when reproved by Him, for the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives.

BARABBAS

1961 Italy/1962 USA

Directed by Richard Fleischer

Written by Christopher Fry (based on the novel by Par Lagerkvist)

Spoiler alert: somewhere between moderate and high

Cardboard Science: Five brave men go to probe the mysteries of Uranus

JOURNEY TO THE SEVENTH PLANET

Cardboard Science returns for 2016 with the worst old crappy sci-fi film we've so far reviewed.

1962

Directed by Sid Pink

Written by Ib Melchior and Sid Pink

With Carl Ottosen (Eric, some brand of mission commander), John Agar (Don), Peter Monch (Karl), Ove Sprogoe (Barry), Louis Miehe-Renard (Svend), and Ann Smyrner (Ingrid)

Spoiler alert: moderate