Sleepy-eyed Tom Poston (now best known for his role on 80’s sitcom Newhart) plays Professor John Jones, a bachelor who cares only about raising his pretty teenage niece Cynthia (television actress Zeme North), and otherwise pays little attention to the world around him.
Movie zotz series#
Alas, only a fraction of that is realized.Ĭastle teamed once more with screenwriter Ray Russell, adapting a novel by Walter Karig (who had contributed to the Nancy Drew series under the pseudonym “Carolyn Keene,” which had been used by various Nancy Drew ghost writers). Since the plot involves a magic coin that grants its owner fantastic powers, it should offer plenty of opportunities for cinematic expression and creativity. At a glance, Zotz! seems like the perfect vehicle to achieve this. He had become famous for his horror films, but his career, which stretched back to the early 40’s, had touched all sorts of genres it was time to reestablish himself as a capable, and flexible, director. And yes, this is a comedy, which was a change of pace that Castle sorely needed. Lady Liberty turns to Castle and expresses bewilderment at the title of his latest film: “What’s ‘Zotz’?” This kind of pre-credits zaniness is pretty par for the course for a 60’s farce, but it’s unusual (and amusing) to see a studio’s mascot wilfully profaned. Still, this is exactly the sort of film where one of his cameos wouldn’t seem out of place, and he can’t resist a very brief appearance, seated on his famous director’s chair at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen while the Columbia “Lady Liberty” logo is displayed. At no point in the film does Castle himself appear to ask you to lift up your coin and scream “Zotz!” at the screen, or any such nonsense. Mind you, Zotz! still had a promotional gimmick, but it was non-intrusive: Zotz “magic” coins were distributed to the populace, and children were encouraged to go see the film in order to figure out how their coins worked.
Or perhaps he needed to make a film like this to prove that he wasn’t just a low-rent P.T. With his next film, Zotz! (1962), it seems Castle was regaining his self-confidence. His public persona was obligating him to sabotage his own filmmaking or perhaps he was losing confidence in his own ability to tell a story that was engaging in and of itself (I would argue, for example, that 1959’s House on Haunted Hill survives just fine as entertainment without a prop skeleton leaping up into the theater, or your living room). Sardonicus had a good story to tell, but Castle didn’t trust the audience to be absorbed by his storytelling talents. Cinema, at its best, isn’t a circus sideshow it’s storytelling. Sardonicus didn’t need a Choose Your Own Adventure-style ending (which was a cheat anyway).
Homicidal(1961), however, did not need a “Fright Break,” and Mr. That is, The Tingler (1959) and 13 Ghosts (1960) saw their gimmicks organically integrated into the content of the films. Gimmicks had made him famous, but they were becoming a prison, and starting to harm the content of his films rather than enhancing their enjoyment. Sardonicus(1961) was about one gimmick too far for the great schlockmeister. When last we checked in with William Castle, I suggested that Mr.
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