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I had thought that this black-and-white film, shot on a shoestring in 1966 in the "wilds" of northern New Jersey (and starring your reporter in a minor role as a 26-year-old "truckman" or film van driver), had been lost to history, until I saw it for sale in one of those megamovie catalogs which occasionally grace my mailbox. Naturally I ordered a copy, not only to prove to my friends that I once was young, but also to recapture the exciting tension between the hero, Captain Celluloid, and his archenemy The Master Duper (and assorted nefarious henchmen known as the League of Film Pirates). The Duper's plan was to hijack shipments of classic films (e.g., the uncut "Greed") on their way from private vaults to museums, duplicate them, and sell them to panting film buffs the world over. Our film was shot as a serial (in four consecutive episodes, each ending in a "cliffhanger" for Captain Celluloid) and the whole thing lasted less than an hour. I think we hoped at the time that theaters would go for a revival of the serial genre, but tastes in the mid-60s ran more to "Bonanza", and as far as I know we never were commercially released, certainly not on a wide scale. Nevertheless, the fight scenes between the two protagonists remain as exciting as the mid-level Republic efforts, and we mostly did it for free on our days off from our various jobs in NYC. My review title sums it up, at least for me. Still, we had fun, we were actually making movies, and watch out for that hypnotic ray---it paralyzed me every time!

In 1951, American sci-fi legend Ray Bradbury followed up his best-selling book "The Martian Chronicles" with another collection of vignettes entitled "The Illustrated Man". Had this film been made then--in black and white, with second-string actors--it paradoxically might have been creepier and more compelling than this low-budget Technicolor opus starring Rod Steiger (in the title role) and Claire Bloom, which emerged 18 years later at the height of the psychedelic 60's. Steiger and Bloom are a stolidly professional acting team (at that time in the last year of their 10-year marriage, which shows in some of the frequent clinches); Robert Drivas (out of TV, nice eyelashes) tries his best to hold his own with the two pros. Steiger stumbles out of a Depression-era landscape into the temporary camp set up by fellow drifter Drivas next to a lake that could have been created by Edgar Allan Poe. He is searching for the mysterious woman who a year earlier had covered his entire body with "skin illustrations" (DON'T call 'em "tattoos"!!!) which curl around his torso like a Fillmore concert poster run amok-- getting him to sit still for the needle in return for vague promises of future sexual fulfillment with her. However, she has disappeared and now The Illustrated Man is shunned by society, because her illustrations tell disturbing tales to those who will watch. Three are featured in this film, perhaps the most well-known being the first: "The Veldt", about a virtual reality children's nursery with its very own pride of lions which seem to be continually feeding on...something. The second story, about a shipwrecked rocket crew seeking shelter on a perpetually rainy planet, has the best special effects and gives an idea of what the 50's version of this movie might have been like. The final vignette ("The Last Night of the World") is slight and continues the message of man's inhumanity to man (or, in this case, his children)...heavy, dude. Steiger, Bloom and Drivas are in all three "insert" stories as well as the main narrative connector, so you find yourself hoping they'll change accents and/or hairstyles in the next story to relieve a talkiness that at times becomes tedious. The ending is particularly 60's. Definitely worth watching, but if you like low-budget Bradbury, "Fahrenheit 451" gets the nod.