There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.
Sometimes, though, you got to do some pretty ugly things to make a buck…
The Man Who Turned to Stone (1957)
Distributed by: Columbia Pictures
Directed by: László Kardos
Some places you just don’t want to find yourself in.
Like prison.
Especially in a facility where the inmates keep dropping dead…
Our film opens at the La Salle Detention Home for Girls; as this is a studio film from the 1950s, you can just stop imagining that this will make a good companion piece to go with Chained Heat, thank you, but anyways…
We open in a ward set up more like a hospital than a prison, with everyone bunking in the same room. We get a few moments of the newest detainee, Anna (Barbara Wilson), crying in her bed. Two of the longer serving prisoners, kind and comforting Tracy (Jean Willes) and rough and sarcastic “Big” Marge (Tina Carver), attempt to help her adjust to her new situation, or at the least stop sobbing so a girl can get some sleep…
Suddenly, there’s a scream out in the yard. Everyone on the floor is awoken and can do no more than stare out the windows as one of their own is dragged off by Eric (Frederick [von] Ledebur), a member of the staff the rest of the women fear.
We watch Eric grab the young woman, who’s overcome with terror and take her in his arms into the main house. He then proceeds to carry her up the stairs, where the rest of the staff are waiting for him…
This worries everyone who heard the screams, but no one is willing to assure anyone. When Anna and Marge go to the infirmary, Mrs. Ford (Ann Doran) isolates them both from the general population when they try asking questions.
Tracy gets a more sympathetic hearing from the facility’s social worker Carol Adams (Charlotte Austin), who got her position through personal connections with the governor. She’s moved by Tracy to at least look into the matter. However, her inquiries get shut down by Mrs. Ford and Dr. Myer (Victor Varconi), placing her under the staff’s suspicion.
While a film Carol set up a for the inmates to watch plays, Eric uses it as cover to go to the infirmary and scoop up Anna. We follow him upstairs where the staff is gathered where the head of the facility, Dr. Murdock (Victor Jory), tries to assure her that Anna’s in no danger. She doesn’t buy it, though, so Murdock has her bound and placed in a liquid-filled tub, while Eric gets put in an electric chair.
After the movie, the rest of the inmates find Anna, positioned to make it look like she hung herself. There’s an inquest, where Carol (prompted by Tracy) tries to raise questions about Anna death. For her efforts, Dr. Myer takes it out on Carol by making suggestions that she wasn’t up to the task of spotting a suicidal individual. He goes so far as to manipulate a psychologist who was at the inquest, Dr. Jess Rogers (William Hudson), to back up his claims, and make it easier to bounce Carol out.
Just as Carol’s packing up her desk to go, however, Jess walks on in. He’s been sent to La Salle to do a proper examination of conditions at the facility, which Carol assumes is an effort to whitewash the whole affair. She challenges Jeff to do a proper job of getting to the bottom of things, and he agrees with her one hundred percent.
As magnanimous as this act appears on the surface, it’s here that the film makes a particularly unsettling choice. After having set up Carol as the main hero going up against the institution, in comes Jess who takes over the film, because the dudes are here now to fix things. It makes watching the rest of the movie harder, having just chucked aside its hero to replace her with a man that would be more acceptable to the convention of the day.
Nonetheless, it’s his spotlight now, and Jeff makes quick headway in both figuring out there’s something fishy actually going on, and making enemies of Myer and his gang. He gets a break when he finds the group’s weakest link, Cooper (Paul Cavanaugh). As luck would have it, Cooper is tired of sticking around with Myer and company, because after a few hundred years everyone can get tedious…
We find out through Cooper’s notes, which he leaves in a dead drop for Jess to pick up, that the whole group, Myer, Eric, et al., have been around for a few centuries. They all studied under the Comte de Saint Germain, who taught them the process to extend their lives. The process is less exercise and diet, and more hooking up young vibrant things to a tub out of which their essences can be drained and given to our villains.
The process is not guaranteed to give everyone the same benefits, though. Eric, unfortunately burns through all sweet essence he receives from the treatments quickly. At one point, he gets so desperate for another hit right away that he tries to grab Tracey from the infirmary to get a refill:
Speaking of unsatisfying, this film leaves a lot to be desired. Kardos does a workman like job directing this B-grade film (teamed as the bottom of the bill under Zombies of Mora Tau when it was initially released), and gives the threadbare sets and props enough of a shine to not look too cheap. Willes and Carver appear to be the only members of the cast who enjoy their roles enough to put much effort into it, though everyone else still shows up and works with what they got.
If this sounds like the screenwriter wasn’t entirely happy to have written this work, that’s actually a pretty good guess. Especially considering the circumstances…


Bernard Gordon with Eugino Martin on the set of Horror Express, 1972
The screen play is credited to Raymond T. Marcus, which was a pseudonym under which Bernard Gordon wrote. Gordon worked his way up from reader and story editor to having scripts of his own getting made, but had the bad luck of being a starting scribe during the McCarthy era. It was a time of misery, when some politicians among the Republican party trafficked in fear and abused prosecutorial power for their own ends-
Must. Resist. Obvious. Comment…
Gordon was called before HUAC but never testified, as the committee suspended his scheduled hearing before he could appear. Just being on the suspect list, though, was enough to make him toxic to the studios, especially after he was named to the committee by producer William Alland. His first script he had to submit under the Marcus pseudonym was for Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, and between then and the release of 55 Days in Peking in 1963 he either wrote under the Marcus nom de pen or received no credit while his friend and collaborator Phillip Yordan was the only named scribe on a project.
For Gordon, this script was an act of survival. Rather than leave the business, as the anti-Communist brigades wanted, he stayed on, in hiding but still there. It may not have been his best work, but it was still something in his field that allowed him to keep going, in the face of forces that wanted anyone that challenged them silenced. Just this act of being able to write was a stand against bigotry and suppression, no matter the quality of the final work.
That’s never a great place that you want to find yourself in…


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