Saturday, September 29, 2012

REFRESHMENT TIME AT THE DRIVE-IN!! - "Hot Dog!!"

Hey, before Summer's over, let's head on back over to the drive-in threatre one more time!!!

First things first, got to get some refreshments, and to get you in the mood, here's the opening instrumental from the perennial 1967 drive-in fave,
"Catalina Caper" done up right by those "Rhythm of the Rain" guys, The Cascades!

"Hot Dog!" "And they said the word!" All filler and some kind of meat rolled up into a tube, and served up au naturale! Just shows to go you how resilient the human body really can be!

Fill it up with onions, ketchup, mustard, and relish, and wrap it up like a baby's butt! That hot dog on the left looks like it has teeth!!

Voilà! Get yourself a soda pop to wash it down, and hope the movie is boring enough that your best girl will want to pick the onions out of your teeth with her tongue!!

Meanwhile, your kid brother and his psycho best pal are getting their bellies full before the movie gets going! Hopefully this weenie roast doesn't burn the whole place to the ground!! After all, how would they explain that to Mom??

These boys don't need no stinkin' buns or condiments! Just get those puppies choked down before the main feature starts, cause they sure don't want to miss even one second of something like "Attack Kung-Fu Girls!"

Friday, September 28, 2012

UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS / Ivan Tors Productions - 1956

It's Friday wif' Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. We gots a fairly rare flick from Ivan Tors who was trying to capitalize on the UFO scare going on in the good old US at the time, poster sez it shows color footage kept 'top secret' until now! Ivan Tors also produced THE MAGNETIC MONSTER, RIDERS TO THE STARS, GOG, SCIENCE FICTION THEATRE, THE AQUANAUTS and FLIPPER.

Eegah!! made a fun lil' soundclip for our approval, soooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button there next to the atomic trap door, NOW, Rufus The Gnat! Here's the audio for... UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS!

Tom Towers was hired to give authenticity to this semi-documentary, he was the Aviation Editor for the LA Examiner...

The US Dept. of War, the Pentagram!

Flying saucers are everywhere in the headlines and on the air waves... I was stationed at Fort Lewis in '68 and woke up to Mt. Rainier's majesty every morning, but, never saw any UFOs!

Fake UFO photos were a big fad, even Joe's getting into the act!

Dig it, free coffee for all those alien visitors from outer space!

This kid with the space helmut looks a lot like Tabonga at that age! One time, like in '62, Eegah!! and I dressed up as a psycho clown and a D. J. type villain with a make-up kit his mom got us and then walked to a liquor store and played the pinball machine, I used the right flipper, Eegah!! used the left flipper. The place was connected to a bar and a few drunks came out to take a gander at us!

Here's the part in the soundclip where the old guy tells the reporter about noticing his tie color... "But, you didn't come out of a flying saucer!"

One plane cracks up as they're reporting a saucer sighting, so, there had to be a death ray involved. EARTH vs THE FLYING SAUCERS came out the same year.

There's a lot of pointing up into the sky in this flick.

Life Magazine even featured flying saucers in an article, which was a big deal. Funny thing though, Truman is shown on the cover here, but, that issue actually had Marilyn Monroe on the cover!

The hunt for UFOs is on!!..

The big climax is that tired old archive footage of the cluster of objects roaring past the water tower, in 8mm color, wow!

Well, there you have it! My dad always said that UFOs were man made, I agree... Happy Birthday to Eegah!! and my son, Erik!

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

TOO HOT TO HANDLE - Eric Spear/Bill McGuffie - "Playgirl After Dark" (1960)

Tonight's feature was originally titled "Too Hot To Handle," but by the time it got to the shores of America, it had already been renamed as the much more insipidly stupid "Playgirl After Dark" which as far as the movie is concerned, actually has no meaning at all!

Okay, I feel kinda ripped off! As you can plainly see, "Too Hot To Handle" was originally released in glorious colour! Now down here in The Dungeon, we love black and white flicks as much, or more than anybody, but if it was in colour to begin with, it sure would have been nice to see it that way, but I guess it has something to do with getting it played on the TV before any colour broadcasts existed!! A year earlier the undisputed #1 blonde bombshell Marilyn Monroe was in a comedy entitled "Some Like It Hot!" Just let me know if you think it's some kind of odd coincidence that "Too Hot To Handle" was released the following year!!!

The weirdest thing is that this is not a bad movie, and it has Jayne Mansfield AND Christopher Lee in it! What a wonderful pair of icons to see on the big screen together!!

Leo Genn is strip club owner Johnny Solo, and that's just the way he likes it, alone! How old do you have to be to know what Leo is doing with his hands? Something quite popular with the kids back in the day that has never been resurrected again as far as I know! Check this out! Leo was in the beyond classic 1956 film "Moby Dick," and his character was known as Starbuck, which means that everything in his possession would be Starbuck's!!

Christopher Lee's character is known as Novak, and he is not only Johnny Solo's right hand man, he's also the MC at Johnny's strip club in Soho known as "The Pink Flamingo!" I wonder what was more eclectic in 1960, Soho, or New York's Greenwich Village?

Jayne Mansfield has the role of Midnight Franklin, Johnny Solo's main squeeze, and the top act in his club!! Johnny's nickname for her is 12 O'Clock!!

"Too Hot To Handle" could easily be considered a film noir musical! Jayne does 4 numbers, and there's a good portion of 4 or 5 of the other girl's acts! The guys in the audience are obviously impressed with Jayne's abundant talents! Va-Va-Voom!! Smoke 'em if you gottem!!

The Soho guys in this act are getting way overheated themselves! The too cool title song, "Too Hot To Handle" was written by Eric (FROZEN ALIVE) Spear, and Bill (DALEK'S INVASION EARTH: 2050 A.D.) McGuffie! Jayne also performs "You Were Made For Me," "Monsoon," and "Midnight!" So why would you change the title to "Playgirl After Dark" when the title song is obviously called "Too Hot To Handle?" Beats the Hell out of me!!

I'm thinking there was some kind of identity crisis in 1960 swingin' England!

Dirty Novak gets a little uptight when Sheldon (13 Demon Street) Lawrence as Diamonds Dielli, the owner of the club across the street named "The Diamond Horseshoe" shows up to talk a little turkey, since Novak is working all the angles and both sides of the street!!

A ransom note is then delivered to Johnny via hatchet mail, but after they make the delivery, the hoodlums find only a satchel full of Midnight's pictures, and no money!

Johnny Solo's got all kinds of class strippers in his joint!! Not as classy as in "The Monster And The Stripper," but class just the same, like this gal and her original 'maybe I'll get out of bed today' act!!

I don't think I need to explain the quantum phenomenon that breaks the conformal symmetry of the classical theory of this scene!

Midnight's act is quite interactive! I hope they kept a doctor on the premises or at least an ambulance out in the parking lot!!

Diamond's boys were pretty pissed off about the whole money switcheroo, and bust up Johnny and his place pretty bad!

But Johnny Solo's a tough old geezer, and if he gets the jump on you instead of vice versa, he's a got a pretty good right, and one mean bitch-slap of a left!

There's only one word to describe this scene, BUSTED!

And now you know where the term 'headlights' is derived from! Good lighting!!

Johnny was pretty cool for the most part, but sometimes he was a cold-hearted sumbitch, so after he basically pimps out one of his girls to one of his fine upstanding customers who turns out to be a psycho, everything goes into the toilet!

The jig is up, and Johnny Solo's gig is over!

Honestly, I didn't realize Jayne Mansfield was such a well-rounded actress! This is not the tale of some high-pitched ditzy blonde, but the story of one strong-willed woman in a sleazy environment! There's no actual nudity, but it's a very well made and risque film for it's time! As a final notation, let me just say that Director Terence Young went on to direct three of the best ever James Bond movies, "Dr. No," "From Russia With Love," and "Thunderball" and maybe that makes more sense!

Here's one last reminder of why they need to release this film in glorious Eastman colour!!!

Monster Music

Monster Music
AAARRGGHHH!!!! Ya'll Come On Back Now, Y'Hear??