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After hearing that mystical toymaker Andre Toulon has managed to create a troupe of sentient, living puppets, Nazi underling Dr. Hess sets his sights on exploiting Toulon's powers for the glory of the Reich.
A precocious girl, her nasty parents, two punk-rock losers and a weak-kneed salesman inadvertently become the guests of two ghoulish senior citizens in their dark, haunted mansion.
In 1826 British-ruled India, the secret Cult of Thugee demonstrates their worship of their goddess, Kali, by the mutilation and mass murder of thousands of Indians while pirating the shipments of the British East-Indian Tea Company. As the British military leaders play down the implications of the piracy and disappearances, a lone captain realizes that they are not just coincidence and sets out to uncover the source of the deviltry, at the risk of his career. Based on history.
Muscle Beach was shown in competition at Cannes in 1949 and won a prize at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 1951. The short became a cult favorite, screening at film clubs around the world. Strick used an army surplus movie camera to shoot the film during weekends in the fall of 1948. The songs in “Muscle Beach,” composed and sung by political folk singer Earl Robinson, with lyrics by screenwriter and poet Edwin Rolfe, accent the film’s three-movement structure as it transitions between soaring gymnastics shows, flirty beachgoers and children playing near the now-demolished pier at Ocean Park. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2009.
