arel_1

Sorry, but I don't see anything racist here--I just see crows, who are of course black, parodying humans, who come in all colors, and they are no more representative of real people than Lucy and Desi were representative of all redheads married to Cuban bandleaders or Laurel and Hardy or the Three Stooges were representative of all white men. They are funny and happen to be black, not black and therefore funny. There's a difference. (Just for the record, that's how I judge all ethnic humor: is it humor that happens to be ethnic, or is it an insult veiled in humor? I can chuckle at Chico Marx's pseudo-Italian because there's no insult intended in most of his movies--he exaggerated and put a funny spin on what he'd seen growing up. Those "scaredy-cat black sidekick" characters, however, leave me cold because it's implied that they're scared BECAUSE they're black, which is just not true to life.)

I caught up with this on TCM as part of their October 2012 schedule. It's really not that bad, given that it was made on a budget of about two shillings thruppence and someone decided to tack on that ghastly footage in the gentlemen's club to pad the length. Granted, it's not quite the story Poe wrote, but taken as an old-dark-house thriller that just happens to be about the House of Usher... Anyway, I've seen worse photography in higher budget films, the amateur actors in the story proper were reasonably competent (especially young Gwen Watford, who went on from this film debut to better things in film, on stage, and on the Beeb), and the climax closeups were quite convincing--as well they should be, since many of the closeups came from WWII newsreel footage carefully edited.

This is one you have to watch with the time frame in mind. It started out as a Japanese TV series back in the days when George Reeves was playing Superman, and is of comparable quality. I also find it reminiscent of early Doctor Who in some ways, notably the council of extraterrestrials at the beginning.

I find it strange that Ken Utsui doesn't like to talk about having starred in this. He certainly has nothing to be ashamed of, not in his acting or his athletics! He was a fine-looking young man in the 1950s, and did a good job of playing a superhero (including keeping in shape for the role, which I seem to recall a certain Mr. Shatner having had problems with a decade later!)