320 - THE UNEARTHLY (1957; NR; 73m)

a.k.a. NIGHT OF THE MONSTERS (working)
a.k.a. HOUSE OF THE MONSTERS (working)

originally co-billed with
517-BEGINNING OF THE END

Shown with Shorts:
320S1-Posture Pals;
320S2-Appreciating Your Parents

Ad: "LURED! To the House of Monsters!"
Ad: "An Army of Mutants on a Mission from Hell!"

Plot: A mad scientist inserts an extra gland into captive patients, hoping for immortality but getting mutants instead.

Prod/Dir: Brooke L. Peters a.k.a. Boris Petroff
(Anatomy of a Psycho; Shotgun Wedding)
Scr/Sto: Jane Mann (Anatomy of a Psycho)
Scr: Geoffrey Dennis a.k.a. John D.F. Black (Shaft)
Cin: Merle Connell (Cape Canaveral Monsters; The Devil's Sleep)
Ed: Richard Currier (701-Night of the Blood Beast)
SFX: Harry Thomas (Killers From Space; House on Bare Mountain)
Cos: William Zacha (TV's Green Acres)
M/U: Harry Thomas (701; 103-The Mad Monster;
109-Project Moon Base; 423-Bride of the Monster;
602-Invasion USA; *616-Racket Girls; 618-High School Big Shot)
PMgr: Betty Sinclair (201-Rocketship X-M; actor/Crazy Knights)
ADir: Dan Hall (The Vampire Bat; The Blue Gardenia)
Set: Mowbray Berkeley (The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll; Affair in Reno)
Prop Master: Tony Portoghese (Plan 9 from Outer Space)
Sound: Philip Mitchell (315-Teenage Caveman; 607-Bloodlust!)
Sound FX: Morton Tubor (ed/The Girls on the Beach)
Score: Henry Vars (Battle of Bloody Beach; Flipper)
MSup: Michael Terr (score/607; 210-King Dinosaur;
610-The Violent Years; 613-The Sinister Urge)

Professor Charles Conway / John Carradine*
Mark Houston / Myron Healey
(704-The Incredible Melting Man; Cattle Queen of Montana)
Grace Thomas / Allison Hayes
(*106-The Crawling Hand; 511-Gunslinger; 806-The Undead)
Dr. Sharon Gilchrist / Marylyn Buferd (Queen of Outer Space)
Danny Green / Arthur Batanides (802-The Leech Woman)
Natalie Andries / Sally Todd (317-Viking Women)
Lobo / Tor Johnson*
Dr. Loren Wright / Roy Gordon (319-War of the Colossal Beast)
Captain Rogers / Guy Prescott (The Hypnotic Eye; Fort Massacre)
Jedrow / Harry Fleer (414-Tormented; Shock Corridor)
cop / Paul MacWilliams (Hell on Devil's Island)
girl / Gloria Petroff (director's daughter; Two Lost Worlds)
largest mutant / Karl Johannsen a.k.a. Karl Johnson*
na / Raymond Guta (The Young Captives; The Bonnie Parker Story)

Classic Tor line: "Time for go to bed."

Trivia: Born Richard Reed Carradine, legend has it that JOHN CARRADINE (1906-1988) appeared in more movies (estimates range 200-500) than any other actor. Besides 320-THE UNEARTHLY and 619-RED ZONE CUBA, some of note are: 1956-Around the World in 80 Days; 1967-The Astro-Zombies; 1966-Billy the Kid Vs. Dracula; 1935-Bride of Frankenstein; 1956-The Court Jester; 1964-Curse of the Stone Hand; 1940-The Grapes of Wrath; 1967-Hillbillies in a Haunted House; Horrors of the Red Planet; 1944-House of Frankenstein; 1953-Johnny Guitar; 1970-Myra Breckenridge; 1986-Peggie Sue Got Married; 1977-Satan's Cheerleaders; 1976-The Shootist; 1939-Stagecoach; 1956-The Ten Commandments; and 1978's The Vampire Hookers. The Carradine family is quite interesting: his grandfather founded the Holy Rollers; his father was a newspaperman; his mother a physician; his sons Robert, Keith and David all have had success in films and/or television.

TOR JOHNSON (1903-1971) was born Tor Johanssen in Sweden. By 1935, he changed his last name and appeared in his first film, The Man on the Flying Trapeze starring comedic great W.C. Fields. He would continue to make a decent living wrestling professionally as well as appearing in some 17 films.

Lumbering, bald Tor played lumbering, bald Lobo in THE UNEARTHLY, in 423-BRIDE OF THE MONSTER, and again in Wood's Night of the Ghouls (1958). In perpetual typecasting, he played lumbering, bald characters up through his last film, 621-THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS. Listen, Tor funny too...in 1956, Ed Wood was desparate to get more financing for his infamous movie, Plan 9 from Outer Space. In order to get in good with a potential backer, local preacher Rev. Lyn Lemon, most of the cast and crew agreed to be baptized in a swimming pool. Tor decided to play a joke on the preacher, and told Ed to watch when he was getting dunked. After the third dunk, Tor stayed on the bottom of the pool, and momentarily scared Rev. Lemon into thinking he was drowning! (The preacher did invest in the movie, in hopes that the profits would help him finance religious movies). At the opening of Plan 9, when Bela Lugosi walks out of the house, sad for his dead wife...that house was Tor Johnson's.

Also in 1956, Tor was in Bela Lugosi's last movie, The Black Sleep (with John Carradine and Lon Chaney, Jr). Tor's other films include: 1943-Swing Out Blues; 1944-The Ghost Catchers (with comedy team Olsen and Johnson; no, Tor not that Johnson); 1944-Lost in a Harem (starring Abbott and Costello); 1944-The Canterville Ghost (with Charles Laughton); 1948-Behind Locked Doors; 1948-The Human Gorilla; 1949-Alias the Champ; 1950-Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion; 1951-The Lemon Drop Kid (with Bob Hope); 1953-Houdini (starring Tony Curtis); 1953-Road to Rio (with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby); 1956-Carousel; and 1957-Journey to Freedom. He also made an appearance on Groucho Marx's TV show, You Bet Your Life, and was the villain Naboro on a non-MSTed episode of TV's Rocky Jones, Space Ranger.

Tor and Greta Johnson's only child, KARL JOHNSON a.k.a. KARL JOHANSSEN, who also appeared in THE UNEARTHLY and later in Plan 9, would for a while work for the San Fernando Police Department. The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) is looking for Karl or any of Tor's five grandchildren, probably for distribution of his residual checks.

Decades after his death, Tor Johnson continues to gain new fans. His mask is a perennial Halloween favorite. Monster Comics have published two great comic books featuring beloved Tor: Tor Johnson, Hollywood Star; and Tor Love Betty (as in Betty Page). Obsessed fans can visit Tor's grave at Eternal Valley Memorial Park in Newhall, California.

For more Tor, check out The Tor Johnson Web Page.

Last Updated: 6/21/1999