The Vulture

After an ancient legend / curse seems to have come true, a nuclear scientist (Robert Hutton) does his best to solve the mystery. Scotland Yard are also on the case, but consider the facts to be too fantastic to be believed.

In THE VULTURE, superstition merges with mad science to produce the flying monster of the title. Is it absurd? Yes, but that takes nothing away from its entertainment value. In fact, it only adds to it. This is especially true since everyone plays their roles straight, solemn, and serious. Especially Mr. Hutton, whose character is on a crusade to track down the marauding mutant, right from the start. Broderick Crawford is on hand as the skeptical American zillionaire.

Special Note: Watching Mr. Crawford being lifted off his balcony is one of the rib-tickling reasons to watch this opus!

Extra Points: For the amazing woo woo music!

A mostly-forgotten film from an era when such fare was more commonplace. Worth a watch on a lazy Saturday afternoon...

Though it starts in suitably spooky fashion, this British-Canadian co-production soon flounders on its own ineptitude. A mysteriously open grave in a village on the Cornish coast is linked to an old manuscript which describes the corpse as a 16th-century Spaniard buried with a chest of coin and a pet vulture, vowing vengeance on a local family. Then strange things and deaths start to occur among the modern descendants. The husband of a young women in the family has a far-fetched theory that is so absurd to believe in this context, and the acting and dialogue deteriorate with the story. The vulture-thing flies around cackling, which gives you some idea of what passes for scares in this B-movie.

The Vulture is a rather tedious movie for the most part, with lots of talk and very little action, but the basic premise is so supremely daft that it results in one or two priceless moments of unintentional hilarity that no fan of bad horror movies will be able to resist.

The film opens in Cornwall, as teacher Ellen West (Annette Carell) takes a late night walk home through a reputedly haunted churchyard; her stroll is interrupted by something monstrous emerging from a grave and flying away, leaving the teacher in a state of severe shock. After hearing about the incident, and doing some investigative work, American nuclear scientist Eric Lutens (Robert Hutton) concocts a crazy theory involving a centuries old Spaniard, a box of treasure, a bird of prey, and an experiment involving 'nuclear transmutation' which he believes has resulted in a half-man/half-vulture creature. The police aren't convinced, but it turns out he's on the money, and the vulture is intent on revenge, targeting the family of Eric's wife Trudy (Diane Clare).

After the well-executed opening scene in the churchyard, The Vulture settles into monotony for quite some time, as writer/director Lawrence Huntington fleshes out his silly story, providing exposition about his creature and the reason for its grudge, as well as introducing an obvious red herring in the form of Melcher (Edward Caddick), a crazy albino sexton. It should be blatantly obvious who the real culprit is: antiquarian Prof. Hans Koniglich (Akim Tamiroff), who is the only other option once Melchor has been discounted -- he walks with the help of two canes, wears a large cape (perfect for concealing wings and feathers), and he's German!

No doubt due to budgetary limitations, there is very little of the actual vulture in the film, but what we do get is pure comedy gold, as a large pair of ridiculous looking talons drop into frame, grabbing hold of its victims shoulders to carry them away to its lair. Also rather amusing is the fact that the film would have us believe that Windsor is on the doorstep of Cornwall, Eric and Trudy repeatedly making the five hour journey in a matter of minutes.

3.5/10, rounded up to 4 for IMDb.

I haven't seen this since I was a kid, but I remember:

The leading man played a scientist who pronounced "nuclear" and "nuke-you-lar" through the whole film.

It was about some giant mutant vulture but they were too cheap to get a whole bird (fake or real), there was just this pair of big rubber bird feet that landed on the shoulders of bit actors and supposedly carried them off.

The whole thing was so dreadfully low-budget that I think the people at Mystery Science Theater 3000 should have a good look.

One night several years ago I programmed my VCR to tape "Rodan" in the middle of the night and the thing didn't shut off. This movie was on afterwards, so I accidentally had it on tape, too. There is nothing about this movie to recommend it. Akim Tamiroff was a good character actor in a number of good films. This is not one of them. I used to have the dialogue from this movie on my answering machine, because it was so goofy. Someone called one day and thought it was from "Plan 9 from Outer Space" so that should give you some idea of the caliber of film we are talking about here. The acting is bad, the music is bad, the special effects are, well, not very special. Unless your VCR accidentally tapes this movie or you are a hopeless insomniac, should you find that this movie is on late one night... go to bed. You'll be much happier in the morning.