Anybody ever heard of a film called Invasion of the Dead Umbilici?
I was flipping through Danny Peary’s book, Cult Movies, recently; and came across an entry for this film. It does not appear in the book’s table of contents, and in fact, the pages about Invasion appear to have been added at the last minute, perhaps at the time of the book’s construction. They seem to have been pasted on top of other pages, but it does not appear that they were added after the book was made–they are obviously bound with the other pages, and their edges line up perfectly, which leads me to believe they were inserted before the pages were trimmed by the printer. Curiously, the essay about the film goes over the page, but when you turn the page, you’re in the middle of the essay about Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
I’m tempted to think that Invasion of the Dead Umbilici was included by somebody at the printer’s, who knew of (or made) this film, and inserted reference to it in Peary’s book as a way to publicize it. But I can find no reference to it at all on the net–not in IMDB, nor in Wikipedia, nor by using any kind of Google search. Further, its people–the actors, director, producer, etc.–don’t appear in IMDB searches. Or their names are so common that they do appear, but are obviously not the ones associated with this film (they are born after the film was supposedly made, for example).
According to the description of the film’s plot, and the accompanying essay, it is some sort of science-fiction/spy thriller involving Russian scientists, and the American journalists who stumble across the secret Russian project. Its date is 1961, and it was made by Oppenheimer Films, with Ernest Kensway (or Kenway) directing. Solomon Harvey was the producer, and the film starred Lawrence Krysak, Richard Tate, and Gloria Campbell, among others. Note that some of the cast may have been recruited locally–apparently the film was shot in Kaiserdale, Ohio.
Anyway, anybody ever heard of this film or these people?