"Replicate" and "clone" are in, "remake" in Hollywood and "revive" on Broadway; to the dustbin with "copy," "duplicate," "reproduce." Whatever the word à la mode, Michael Bolton and others make a nice living covering top forty oldies arrangement for arrangement, along with numerous acclaimed actors who fall into reprising themselves of years ago. Their success says it is off base to ask why, to wonder if the world really needs another faithful-to-the-original repeat performance. To judge by laughter, the screening audience wholeheartedly enjoyed The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, so who are we to question? And yet . . .

Part of the release package, the seven-minute 1937 Skeleton Frolic opens the program, a Ub Iwerks color cartoon from his hiatus from Disney but really a redoing of the first "Silly Symphony" segment, The Skeleton Dance, eight years earlier. The mood or period set, the black & white feature follows immediately.

One problem is that the film cannot make up its mind, fish or fowl? Publicity has it "spoofing . . . the best of the B-Movies" yet a few lines below as a "completely straight-faced . . . affectionate re-creation," with writer-director-star Larry Blamire taking the latter tack, "not a spoof of B-movies -- it is a B-movie." The marketing campaign will include trading cards and a hint that this is a half-century-old print uncovered by a buff.

Purposely avoiding the advanced contemporary SFX of George Pal and filmed in "new miracle Skeletorama" with a focal plane of about two feet, the film opts for the Flash Gordon-Captain Video-Tom Corbett school. Spaceships resemble rusty boilers fitted with cardboard fins; wing-collar space suits are designed by Michael Rennie's Klaatu tailor after Elvis' gold-lamé phase, and the powerful transmutatron looks like a souped-up grease gun; the plastic Skeleton's support bar is plainly visible, as are metal joints and puppet strings out of Ed Wood. Hilariously stilted, slow and contraction-less, dialogue is peppered with Holy Molys, non-sequiturs, simple-minded Science and animal-being and alien English: "Thank you very mich" and (for "sit down") "fold yourself in the middle."

Done for minimal dollars in Bronson Canyon and Lake Arrowhead, CA, the hokey film revolves around four couples: earnest Dr. Paul and Betty Armstrong (Blamire and Fay Masterson); space aliens Krobar and Lattis (Andrew Parks, Susan McConnell); nasty scientist Dr. Roger Fleming (Brian Howe) and, created by him from four furry animals, "Animala" (Jennifer Blaire); and, in effect, the ludicrous Mutant Beast (Darrin Reed), who will embrace the title's Skeleton in a dance of death.

For different ends, each twosome seeks rare radioactive atmosphereum, fallen in a recent "meteor" (technically, meteorite). Helped by his '60s-vapid wife and looking like a Boy Scout Bill Clinton, altruistic Paul wants to "benefit mankind in many ways, some of them good." Hoping to return home to planet Marva with their unpredictable pet mutant, needing the element to repair their damaged craft, the extraterrestrials transparently transform themselves into "normal" terrestrial couple the Taylors, Bammon and Tergasso. Ruthless stop-at-nothing Fleming will use the material to gain world power, not suspecting that, brought back to life, the disembodied-voice Skeleton has a different sinister agenda (including marriage to the Bride of the Skeleton). And, of course, the Mutant Beast will be smitten by Beauty.

If it sounds familiar, it is, down to the final platitudes about peace among peoples of different planets. End-credits include the now-unused (and lamented) device of clips of each actor with real and character names indicated and the promise/warning, "coming soon: 'The Trail of the Screaming Forehead.'"

For what it is, The Lost Skeleton is nicely done. It's knowledgeable and sometimes quite funny. An MTV generation will be exasperated, but old-timers can get a kick out of revisiting their youthful fare. Once one realizes what it is all about, however, the last part drags. One appreciates the respectful affection that went into this, the bits culled from jewels like The Day the Earth Stood Still or Creature from the Black Lagoon, from kitsch like Plan 9 from Outer Space, and scores of other Bs. But, while artists have traditionally felt free to imitate, and often improve, this try is not really worth the candle. It has been done already, in a seriousness that is now equally laughable, so for the money (mine, at least) it is preferable to see the TV and cinema originals. 

(Released by TriStar Pictures and rated "PG" for mild language.)