Video courtesy of Josh Hadley.
The Truth is Out There: A Tribute to Charles E. Sellier Jr.
Hangar 18 (1980) Schick Sunn Classic Pictures / P: Charles E. Sellier Jr. / AP: Bill Cornford / D: James L. Conway / W: Ken Pettus, Thomas C. Chapman, James L. Conway, Stephen Lord, David O’Malley / C: Paul Hipp / E: Michael Spence / M: John Cacavas, Bob Summers / S: Darren McGavin, Robert Vaughn, Gary Collins, James Hampton, Pamela Bellwood
Video courtesy of FuzzyTVMemories.
The Truth is Out There: A Tribute to Charles E. Sellier Jr.
Beyond and Back (1978) Schick Sunn Classic Pictures / P: Charles E. Sellier Jr. / D: James L. Conway / W: Stephen Lord, Ralph Wilkerson (book) / C: Henning Schellerup / E: Kent Schafer / M: Bob Summers / S: Brad Crandall
The Truth is Out There: A Tribute to Charles E. Sellier Jr.
In Search of Noah’s Ark (1976) Schick Sunn Classic Pictures / EP: Raylan D. Jensen / P: Charles E. Sellier Jr. / AP: Frances Guenette / D: James L. Conway / W: James L. Conway, Charles E. Sellier Jr., David Balsiger (book) / C: Stephen W. Gray, George Stapleford / E: Sharron Miller / M: Bob Summers / S: Vern Adix, Brad Crandall
Those of you who’ve followed my ramblings on the web since the beginning are probably keenly aware of my irrational fear of Bigfoot. And right here, is the root cause of my psyche-trauma: Charles E. Sellier Jr.’s The Mysterious Monsters. At the ripe old age of five, Peter Graves took me by the hand and asked me if I liked to watch gladiator movies. No. Wait … That’s not right. He asked me if I believed in the Loch Ness Monster, Yetis and peeping tom Bigfoot (Bigfoots? Bigfeet?), and then showed me all the proof I needed that there was something sinister lurking in that large shelter-belt of Evergreens just outside our house.
Video courtesy of AmericanThrowback.
The Truth is Out There: A Tribute to Charles E. Sellier Jr.
The Mysterious Monsters (1976) Schick Sunn Classic Pictures / EP: David L. Wolper, Raylan D. Jensen / P: Charles E. Sellier Jr., Robert Guenette / AP: James L. Conway, Frances Guenette / D: Robert Guenette / W: Robert Guenette / C: Tony Coggans, Erik Daarstad, David MyersFrances Guenette / E: Earle Herdan, Robert K. Lambert / M: Ruby Raksin / S: Peter Graves
One of the quieter patron saints of schlock cinema, Charles E. Sellier Jr. was kinda of a throwback to the old barnstorming and roadshow days of Dwain Esper and Kroger Babb. Probably best known to the masses for the ruination of Christmas with his controversial but, in the end, harmless holiday slasher, Silent Night, Deadly Night, but we children of the 1970s remember him more for his rash of crypto-zoological, strange phenomenon, and eccentric historical docudramas, where Brad Crandall or Peter Graves would guide us on a tour of the inexplicably unexplained with the likes of Beyond and Back, The Mysterious Monsters, The Bermuda Triangle, In Search of Noah’s Ark and Hangar 18.
Back in the day, through his Sunn Classics productions, the producer would wrap a film and then hit the road and 4-Wall them around the country, where they would wind up at your local theater for one week, and one week only, maybe two. Yeah, to say Sellier Jr. was a bit obsessive on the mysterious and unexplained would be a bit of an understatement. He found a kindred spirit in director and scriptwriter Robert Guenette, who oversaw half of these films already mentioned and also guided The Unexplained: The UFO Connection and The Man Who Saw Tomorrow to the big screen. They just don’t make ’em like that anymore. *sigh* And so, please enjoy this tribute to the man and his movies.
Charles E. Sellier Jr.
(1943-2011)
Your Tour Guide.
Scenes from the Morgue 
