BF: That's the same green monster suit in IT'S ALIVE and SWAMP CREATURE, right?

LB: Oh, yes. We couldn't afford anything else. We put new ping-pong balls in the eyes. We could afford that. And maybe sprayed it over again with paint, or maybe wet it down or something.

BF: And which films are your favorites?

LB: I'd say STRAWBERRIES NEED RAIN, without a doubt, and certainly from a fiscal standpoint as to paying the mortgage for a number of years, FREE, WHITE & 21. It was a surprisingly big success for us.

I loved HARLOW AND HUGHES and I'm going to try to do something about that one. I'm going to talk to Uncle Sam and see if I can get it and get it back into theaters.

REBEL JESUS will be fine when I can put a new, contemporary frame on it. It was never really completed. Bob Jessup shot it in Techniscope. He shot the t.v. series DALLAS. REBEL JESUS was his first job and I got him for $200 a week. He's very expensive now.

We wanted to give it the contemporary frame that'd be necessary to make the thing work, but the money man/owner said, "I like it the way it is, don't change it." And I said, "But it's not completed." So now I own the picture and I'm thinking seriously of working on that.

REBEL JESUS was in 1972 and it only needs a week's work. I grew up in a religious orphanage and we were forced to study the life of Jesus and, although I'm not that religious myself, I am at least an authority on the Nazarene. There are very few things I'm an authority on, but that's one of them.

BF: Have you any amusing anecdotes which happened during shooting, perhaps involving Billy?

LB: Well, let me give you one Billy was involved with. Billy, John Agar and I had gotten to be pretty friendly by the time we did CURSE OF THE SWAMP CREATURE. We were out in the swamps and, by that time, John was pretty anxious to get back to L.A. He was tired, and even though we're both Aquarius and both born on the same day, we started fighting, arguing with each other.

I'm an easy-going character and I don't like to do that. So Billy was trying to keep us apart all day long and John said, "When that sun goes down, I'm going home." My contract said that if I went beyond six o'clock I had to pay him for another week. So I worked my tail off that day.

We probably did ten or fifteen minutes worth of cut screen time that day. John was really rushing, too, and at the very last cut before the sun went down, he walked. Although we were friends, he walked.

The entire day's work was lost in the lab! I had to go and take everything else out and rework the film because I couldn't bring John back. I didn't have the money.

Funny thing is, I brough John Agar back for one more called HELL RAIDERS, which was a little war picture made after SWAMP CREATURE. I can't even remember the year. John played a typical cigar-chewing lieutenant lead. It worked out pretty well.

Another incident happened during REBEL JESUS. My Tunisian liaison was just a young boy they assinged to me to intrepret fo me. The government gave me a Mercedes and gave him a Mercedes to work with and I went to scout locations for the picture.

We shoot 300 miles into the desert where there's nothing but nomads and once in every 40 or 50 miles you'd come to a gas station. Well the liaison, whose name was Hameed, went ahead of me and I stopped at a gas station. I was still on French francs.

He filled up the tank and told me how much it was and into my next hundred miles into the desert, I figured out in my head that because I was still on French francs, I had paid $180 to fill that tank. And I was so mad that when I saw Hameed, I said, "Where were you? I just paid $180 to fill the tank of this Mercedes!"

And he said, "Mr. Buchanan, 'tis past."

And then he proceeded to give me his whole philosophy: 'tis past, it's gone.

So that became the watchword in the movie. Every time a generator would blow or whatever, everyone'd say, "'Tis past." It became a running joke, so that's why I want to make the name of my book 'TIS PAST, OR HOW I FOUND TUNISIA, LOST GOD AND GOT OUT OF THE PICTURE BUSINESS.

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Mr. Buchanan's autobiograhpy has been published by McFarland Press since this innerview was conducted. It is entitled IT CAME FROM HUNGER. Meantime, check out our own selection of great Buchanan flicks starting with THE EYE CREATURES. More coming soon, including ZONTAR, THING FROM VENUS!