Monday, November 5, 2012

FIRE MONSTERS AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES / E.U.R. Cinematografica - 1962

It's Monster Monday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. What we gots is a sword and sandal tale with 'monsters' in it's title, but, it's about wandering strongman Maciste, Maxus in the US, who comes upon two warring tribes, the Sun worshipers and the Moon worshipers. He saves the leader of the Sun tribe from a monster, then, when the Moon tribe kidnaps the Sun tribe's women, Maciste is called on for help. Not so much about monsters, though. This Mexican lobby card was the best poster I could find for the post!

Eegah!! sent us over a lil' soundclip from the movie to examine, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button there across from the Berserker Dalek, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula! Here's our audio offering for... FIRE MONSTERS AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES!

Get ready for some psychedelical colored photos for this one, those old Euro color prints can do some weird tricks when you make corrections on them in Photoshop!

While he's just wandering around, Maciste comes across the leader of the Sun worshipers and his woman being attacked by a monster from the lake. He tosses a spear directly into the eye of the poor thing, killing it! Why couldn't they just go around?!

They are then captured by the Moon worshipers and are taken to the son of leader for punishment. Maciste don't take crap from nobody!! Reg Lewis is the man, Reg has only 5 acting credits which includes playing a slave in THE BRASS BOTTLE...

Love this shot!..

Maciste meets his mate, Moah, played by beautiful Margaret Lee, who has 75 acting credits including PSYCHO-CIRCUS, SPY PIT, GHOSTS - ITALIAN STYLE and VENUS IN FURS.

I chose this shot because it's just cool and I love boids!

Bring in the dancing girls and bring on the eclipse of the Moon! Moon worshipers at work...

A couple of nice pics of Reg tearing the Moon worshipers' place apart with his bare hands!

Maciste and Moah get themselves into quite a predicament, having spears tossed at their heads and all!! Luckily, something goes awry with the ceremony and the place explodes, causing the ground to open up so that they can make their escape.

I included this wild picture from a fight scene just for it's surrealistic value!

Later, Maciste and Moah are awoken from their nap by one of the few monsters in this flick! Maciste battles the damn thing to it's death, natcherly!

And, the bad guys get whut's comin' to 'em! Tune in again Wednesday when Eegah!! brings you who the Hell knows what!!

Saturday, November 3, 2012

DRUMS OF FU MANCHU - "CRUEL, INSIDIOUS IN HIS MAD SCHEME TO CONQUER ASIA!" (1940)

Tonight I'm here to discuss a very popular fellow, Sax Rohmer's Dr. Fu Manchu, a character who has well stood the test of time, and just might be immortal! It's the"Drums Of Fu Manchu!" Can you hear them beating? If you can, then that's not a very good sign for you, because it means that Fu Manchu and his minions are on the way to get you, and that can be quite an uncomfortable position to be in. Look over on the sidebar, out of almost 1500 movies, Fu Manchu's name consistently pops up as one of the most popular of all, in fact our stats show him to be more popular than Frankenstein and Dracula combined! The mystique of Fu is undeniable!

The "Drums Of Fu Manchu" was a 15 episode serial put out by Republic Pictures in 1940! It was re-released in 1943 as an edited down 69 minute feature film!

Fu Manchu has been played by many an actor over the years, and in this particular version he was portrayed by Henry Brandon, who among his 171 film and TV credits was in everything from "The Outer Limits" to "Mr. Ed!" Henry could do it all!

Fu Manchu's arch nemesis was Sir Nayland Smith, who this go round was played by William Royle. William's first film role was as the prosecuting attorney in "Reefer Madness," and he died shortly after this series was completed!

Sir Nayland Smith's right hand man was Robert Kellard as Allan Parker who was in a slew of cowboy movies, and ended up his career in 10 episodes of the "Lone Ranger" show as different characters! From what I can see in this series, he must have been quite the stuntman too! The rest of the main cast was fleshed out by Gloria Franklin as Mary Randolph, and Luana Walters as Fu's daughter Fah-Lo-Suee!

Like all serials, "Drums Of Fu Manchu" would leave it's viewers hanging for a week, to make sure the kids would be really excited to come back a week later to see how their heros managed to escape a certain fantastic death that would never happen or the series would be over prematurely!

In chapter three, Allan Parker and Mary Randolph were surely doomed, as they were stuck in an airplane headed into the mountains that was running out of gas after Fu Manchu had jumped out with the only parachute, but somehow they made it!

Chapter four took a page from Edgar Allen Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum," and you just know Allan is going to get sliced in two by the ever lowering massive blade!

And so it goes, week after week, as Fu Manchu tries to find all the keys to the tomb of Genghis Khan, which will allow him to first take over the all of Asia, and from there continue on to conquer the world! Fu Manchu is by no means a small thinker!! This is one cat with some lofty expectations! Fu Manchu has at his disposal a group of characters called dacoits who are zombie-like killers he has brainwashed into doing his every bidding! In this particularly interesting episode, in an effort to get the drop on Nayland Smith, the dacoits do a very effective job of posing as museum dummies.

Fu Manchu is fiendishly clever, and in this episode, he makes a mask of Allan that he wears to elude the authorities in order to sneak out of the country. Meanwhile, Allan is left behind, bound and gagged and left with a bomb as his best friend! "Drums Of Fu Manchu" is available these days in a two disc set. Episodes one through six are on the first disc

The first six or seven episodes are sheer dynamite, but for me, once the action moves to Asia, I started to lose interest. Mind you, all these episodes were never meant to be watched in one or two settings, but were intended to be stretched out over the course of almost four months, and that makes a big difference!

To read the definitive story of Fu Manchu and his cohorts through history, look no further than this piece written by Douglas McEwan titled "Many Men Smoke..." Take your time and read the whole thing, you will not be disappointed!!

I liked the earlier episodes better because they seemed more personal. Fu Manchu was not on his own turf and had to be trickier to accomplish his evil tasks, and there was no military involved. Once they got to Asia, the whole operation got larger. I just happen to like the simple one on one type stories better!

These are some great titles, you've got to admit!!

"Drums Of Fu Manchu" is a fun ride, and is available on Netflix! It's a two disc set, so you can still spread it out over a week or so by the time you get them both mailed to you!

I'll leave you with this picture of John Merton as Loki, one of Fu Manchu's main Dacoits, so you at least have an idea of what to expect! John Merton played a henchman in more movies than most people were even in! One last thing,  I never did figure out how come every time Fu Manchu was about to strike, his victims would hear the beating of the drums!  They never did show a drummer, and if he was so sneaky, why did he want to let them know he was coming anyway? It just all adds to the mystery of the man known as  Fu Manchu!!

Friday, November 2, 2012

THE DEVIL'S SLEEP / Screen Art Pictures Corp. - 1949

It's Friday JD Day with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. Timothy Farrell plays drug dealer Umberto Scalli, he would go on to play the character two more times in RACKET GIRLS (1951) and DANCE HALL RACKET (1953), all produced by George Weiss, who also produced GLEN OR GLENDA.

Love that tagline... Today's Moral MENACE !.. Daring expose of the devil drug traffic in 'Bennies', 'Goofies' and 'Phenos' as it really exists!

George Eiferman is brought in after his Mr. America title win in '48 to give some real class to the production. Eegah!! sent over a soundclip from the pool party with it's swinging music in the background, sooooo, push the big red 'GO' button located directly behind the tiki god, NOW, Rufus The Gnat! Here's our audio offering from... THE DEVIL'S SLEEP!

It's a simple story - The head of an illegal drug ring uses a women's health spa as a front for his sleeping pill racket. Lita Grey plays Judge Rosalind Ballantine, she's starting a campaign against 'Goofies!'

Scalli and his pal eyeball the hot babes exercising at his health club. Dudes, the one looks like an old fat guy!

The pool party is totally keen, listen for it in the soundclip! Bob spills the beans to Scalli's pusher pal at poolside.

We get to hang around in the girls locker room quite a bit...

George Eiferman shows up to help out at the club, he puts this wise guy in his place with a simple handshake!

George lets wise ass get the 'lighter' suitcase of weights to carry!

Actually, there is one hot chick in this flick, the one getting into the see-thru sauna!

At the evening pool party, the girls are getting hopped up on some Goofies and are acting all goofy!

Scalli has his stooge take pictures of stoned nekkid women during the party, to use for blackmail purposes!

Hey, not too bad for a hack!

George finds evidence that Scalli's dealing drugs on the side, using the health club as a front...

It's touch and go before the cops arrive and break up all the fun. Scalli goes to jail!

Monster Music

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