This film has grown on me over the years, ever since I first saw it on TV at 3am, even though its filled with endless talk, improbable characters and situations, and one of the sillier-looking "mutants" to come out of low-budget 1950's cinema.
Nuclear War has struck, and an assorted collection of survivors gather in what looks like a comfortable home in the San Fernando Valley. Paul Birch ("Not Of This Earth") attempts to keep order, and ensure their survival. His daughter is pretty Lori Nelson ("Revenge of the Creature"), who quickly bonds with Richard Denning, a blond, Aryan looking actor originally from Poughkeepsie, NY, that you just know is going to represent decency and the post-apocalyptic forces of morality. Needless to say, the bad guy is dark, swarthy Mike "Touch" Connors (as far from "Mannix" as you can get!). His girlfriend is dance-hall floozie Adele Jergens, who was always great in anything I ever saw her in, and sexy too (she was married in real life to Glenn Langan, who played the bald, whiny giant in "The Amazing Colossal Man"). There's also an old guy with a donkey who enjoys making moonshine and sharing it with his "pal", the donkey--- Nuclear War or no Nuclear War! Obviously, gritty realism isn't this film's strong suit.
There's a lot of talking, and more talking, and an occasional fist-fight. There's also Paul Blaisdell as the "mutant", who may or may not be all that's left of Lori Nelson's former "main squeeze". Blaisdell did the costumes and performed in them for a great many of these 1950's horror films. They were pretty hokey and fake looking, but as a kid, I loved them, and still get a kick out of seeing them. I mean, let's put it this way--- I'll always prefer low-budget nonsense...but fun nonsense...with one of these rubber-suit wearing "monsters" in it from the 1950's over the computer-generated snore-fests they're routinely churning out today.
This isn't one of Corman's more inspired productions, but...like I've said...I've grown fonder of it as the years pass, and it does have its fair share of entertainment value. If for nothing else, catch it for the sexy Lori Nelson (she couldn't really act, but she was sexy), or the sexier Adele Jergens (she could act, and was very sexy, even if "Touch" Connors's character doesn't think so), of if you've always wanted to see the guy who played "Mannix" portray a slimy, murderous gutter rat (and where did the nickname "Touch" come from, by the way?). It won't be a film to everyone's taste, but I'll still take it any day over "Independence Day" or "Transformers" or whatever multi-million dollar junk Hollywood is currently foisting on the sheep-like public as "entertainment".
