BEST OF MAY 2025

Balladeer’s Blog’s annual end of year retrospective continues with this look at May’s best.

MINNIE’S BOYS (1970) – My review of the original production of this stage show about the hilarious comedy team the Marx Brothers. Click HERE.

FORGOTTEN TELEVISION – Frontier Circus (1961-1962) about a circus traveling the wild old west HERE; The Great Adventure (1963-1964) dramatizations of historical action HERE; Everglades (1961-1962) about a law enforcement ranger whose beat is the Florida Everglades HERE; and Together We Stand (1986-1987) starring Dee Wallace, “Short Round” and Elliott Gould HERE.

THE MICHIGAN BRIGADE – A Memorial Day look at this Union Army Cavalry unit from the Civil War. Click HERE.

JOHN DEREK: HIS SWASHBUCKLER FILMS – The man who married Bo Derek, Ursula Andress, Linda Evans & Pati Behrs also starred in swashbuckler movies like Rogues of Sherwood Forest (1950), The Sword of Monte Cristo (1951), Prince of Pirates (1953) and The Adventures of Hajji Baba (1954). Click HERE.

ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION – A Trip to the Moon by Mr. Murtagh McDermot (1728) a clever man encounters various life-forms on the moon HERE; The Mad Scientist (1908) about the title character and his inventions unleashing an incredible war in the U.S. HERE; and Wonderworlds (1911) an Earth crew explores our solar system and then the Alpha Centauri system HERE.

THE SILENT FILMS OF ALICE GUY-BLACHE – This pioneering woman was for a time the only female director in the industry. I reviewed her works from the 1890s to 1920, including comedies, dramas, westerns, black cast movies, love stories and horror movies like Esmeralda (1905) – the first known film adapting The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Click HERE.   

APOCALYPSE CULTURE (1987) – Before the internet there were books like this collecting some of the most daring, iconoclastic, demented and just plain perverse writings of the late 20th Century. Click HERE. 

BATTLE BRICK ROAD – This independent graphic novel series begun in 2020 sets sci-fi versions of Dorothy Gale, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, T.O.T.O. and the Lion in the post-apocalyptic land that resulted from Operation Zephyr (O.Z.). Click HERE.

THE AUTOMATIC MOTORIST (1911) – A British-made silent short film (6 min 30 sec) about a robotic chauffer who gets his inventor and his sweetheart into a series of misadventures. Click HERE. 

TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY YEAR CONTINUED – From the 1985-1987 pre-MST3K bad movie show: The Hypnotic Eye (1960) HERE; Ghosts of Hanley House (1968) HERE; Monster from Green Hell (1957) HERE; Supernatural (1933) HERE; and Trunk to Cairo (1966) HERE.

THE GREAT GARLOO: VINTAGE MONSTER TOY FROM 1961 – You can see it HERE.

PSYCHOTRONIC – Michael Weldon’s magazine from the period when home video was beginning to make some of the more outrageous horror, sci-fi and exploitation movies available for general audiences. All it took was a trip to the local video store. Click HERE.

OGROFF (1983) – Also released under the title The Mad Mutilator, this bad low-budget horror film from France featured a typical 1980s slasher preying on victims, then clashing with zombies and a vampire (Howard Vernon himself). Click HERE.

THE FANTASTIC FOUR AND INHUMANS VS ARKON AND XEMU – A lauded multi-part story from the 1970s. Introduced Marvel’s cosmic character Gaard. Click HERE.

WHEN JIM RHODES WAS IRON MAN – The 1980s run from when Rhodey replaced an off-the-wagon Tony Stark as Iron Man. Plus Obadiah Stane, the Mandarin and more HERE.

SECRET SOCIETY OF SUPERVILLAINS – The 1970s DC Comics series about some of their biggest villains forming a team and clashing with heroes like Green Lantern, Manhunter and Captain Comet. They also faced Darkseid himself. Click HERE. 

BRITISH SUPERHEROES FROM THE 1960s – I looked at male and female heroes like Gadgetman, Cat-Girl, Tri-Man, Danger-Maid, Janus, Winged Schoolgirl, England’s very different Iron Man plus the superheroine called Justice. Click HERE.

ELEVEN MEDAL OF HONOR RECIPIENTS FROM WORLD WAR ONE. Some real-life heroes for a change. Click HERE.

KAPITAN MORS CONTINUES – I reviewed more of the 1908-1911 text stories about this German sci-fi hero.

Think Euro-Dime Novels. Stories 21-25 HERE, 26-30 HERE, 31-35 HERE, and 36-40 HERE.