Wednesday, December 26, 2012

TENSION - "Everybody's Got A Breaking Point" (1949)

For most folks, the day after X-mas is about relaxation because it's all over, but down here in The Dungeon, since we don't know how to relax, it's all about finding more subjects to torture and creating TENSION!! Time to go back to the year 1949, when life was simpler but also sometimes undeniably a lot more complicated depending how you look at it!

Great title card to go along with Barry (PYRO) Sullivan as Detective Collier Bonnabel's introductory narration! The music in "TENSION" was composed by André Previn, one of the most versatile musicians in the world, who can easily transiton from Classical to Jazz and Pop, a truly brilliant musician whose career spans eight decades!

What was he talking about? Oh, that's right, Tension and how to get people to SSNNNAPPPPP!!!!!

This is the great Richard Basehart as milquetoast pharmacist Warren Quimby! Anybody who grew up in the 60's will remember Richard for his 110 episodes of "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea" as Admiral  Harriman Nelson! He was also in the "Twilight Zone" as Adam Cook in the episode titled "Probe 7, Over And Out!" Richard also had the role of Ishmael in the classic 1956 feature "Moby Dick," and in 1962 had the starring role in a movie called "Hitler!"

Warren Quimby's total bitch of a wife Claire is played by Audrey (Lady In The Lake ) Totter! Almost always a bad girl in most of her roles, Audrey was the personification of a femme fatale in this film and many others! Her career waned when bad girls were no longer fashionable in the Disney world of the 60's!

Warren takes Claire to see the charming house he wants to buy her out in the suburbs, but she wants nothing to do with it, and won't even get out of the car! She likes it in the city where the sugar daddies are prevalent!

Claire leaves Warren to go live with a rich guy in his beach pad, so he takes he frustrations out on the bowling alley!

The man with the money that she so craves, Audrey's new beau is Barney Deager as played by Lloyd Gough! Lloyd's career came to a screeching halt in the early 50's for about 10 years when he and his wife were blacklisted for their left-wing political affiliations! He bounced back in the 60's and was in "The Outer Limits" episode "Cold Hands, Warm Heart" as a General Claiborne, and was in 26 episodes of "The Green Hornet" as Mike Axford!

When Warren comes around to try and stake a claim back on his wife, not only does Barney Deager kick sand in Warren's face, he knees him in the nuts for good measure, and has to think twice about not killling him!

Warren decides he's going to kill Barney, and to do that he needs to set it up perfectly, so he decides to take on a whole new look and personality! Ditching his glasses and getting some of those new high-tech contact lenses is a good place to start!. He then goes and gets himself a new apartment, and tells the people who live there that he's a traveling salesman, and that's why he's not around during the week! He plans on killing Barney as this new person, and then disappearing without a trace!

The pharmacy where Warren works provides some of the busiest looking scenes you're ever going to see. Look, there is stuff and more stuff literally everywhere!!

Growing up in California, I don't remember the California Crazy chain of gas stations, but I guess it existed!!

In his new digs, Warren meets his neighbor Cyd Charrise as the warm, pretty, and intelligent Mary Chanler! Sometimes you wonder why actors and actresses change their names, Cyd Charrise was born Tula Ellice Finklea, does that answer your question? Cyd Charrise was a brilliant classically trained dancer who was in a bunch of musicals! She was such an amazing dancer, her legs were insured for five million dollars in 1952!! Warren is so obsessed with killing Barney, he can't really even conceive of being in a new relationship!

Warren breaks into Barney's pad, and is just about ready to do him in when Barney wakes up! Warren suddenly realizes what a fool he is, changes his mind, and finally decides that he will be happier if he just lets the whole thing go, and start a new life with Mary, who, unlike his wife, is somebody who actually likes him!!

But since this isn't a love story, before Warren can get around to hooking up with Mary, Claire shows back up with her bags in hand! Somebody has killed Barney, and she needs a place to hide, she needs Warren to take her back!

Warren finally does what he should have done in the beginning of the film, he slaps the shit out of Claire, and she's not happy about it one bit!

The sweet science of boxing was particularly popular in the 40's and 50's and always makes for a good back drop for a scene! Here our narrator Barry Sullivan and his partner, William Conrad as Lieutenant Edgar Gonsales question Barney Deager's man-servant! William Conrad obviously went on to star in his own TV show "Canon" for 121 episodes, and was no slouch in the narration department himself as he narrated "Rocky And His Friends," "The Fugitive," "Tales of The Unexpected," and "Buck Rogers In The 25th Century!"

Mary Chanler in the meantime has been left on hold, and innocently goes to the police to file a missing persons report on the man she has fallen in love with! Oops! Bad move!

The cops were already trying to put the squeeze on Warren for the murder, so Detective Bonnabel takes Mary out for a cup of coffee, so she can see that her boyfriend isn't who she thinks he is! Yeah, it's starting to get a little tense!!

If you listen to the opening narration again, you'll hear Lieutenant Bonnabel say that sometimes you have to do things like romance or kiss your suspects to get them to give you the information you need. Claire really thought that her and Bonnabel were going to run off together, but boy did she have a surprise coming when that rubber band finally snapped!! Unorthodox detective work to say the least, but very effective!!

Monday, December 24, 2012

THE TWILIGHT ZONE / Nightmare At 20,000 Feet - 1963

It's Xmas Eve 2012 Monday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. We've done so many posts (over 1500 now!) that it's hard to come up with something special for any occassion, but, we should all agree that you can't go wrong with Rod Serling and the Shat! And, Richard (THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN) Matheson is the writer.

This is one guy you enjoy being lectured by! Rod was a boxer and all around angry guy, his ultimate problem was peaking too early in his career.

Eegah!! sent over a spooky lil' soundclip for our cabin pressure, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button there in the atomic mirror, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula! Here's our eariffic earclip for... Nightmare At 20,000 Feet!

This is Bob Wilson and his wife, Julia. He has just been discharged from a sanitarium where he spent the last six months recovering from a nervous breakdown, on an evening not dissimilar to this one, on an airliner like the one in which he's now flying home in! Half a year ago, his flight was terminated by the onslaught of his mental breakdown, and, tonight, Mr. Wilson happens to be in the darkest corner of the Twilight Zone...

As Bob gazes out his window on the rainy night, he sees something walking around on the wing of the airplane!.. A freakin' gremlin!! In a panic, he pages the stewardess!

The stewardess ends up bringing him a cup of water to take his medication with!

Later, he has the curtain closed to help him relax, but, he cannot help himself, he has to open the curtain to satisfy his nagging curiousity!

This time the plane's Flight Engineer, Ed (EARTH vs THE SPIDER) Kemmer, gets involved but sees nothing on the wing. Bob's starting to feel all alone in Weirdsville!

His angst mounts, so, he carefully grabs the revolver out of the napping Air Marshall's holster and goes back to his seat...

As the mischievous gremlin comes closer, Bob opens the emergency exit and is nearly sucked out while he empties all six rounds into the thing! Wounded, it falls off the wing. Nick ( the Devil's desciple in THE STORY OF MANKIND) Cravat plays the gremlin.

... 'Nuf said?!

Bob's taken out on a stretcher again, but, this time... He's not crazy!

Saturday, December 22, 2012

BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN (1971); “Come in, children”

Well, I've been needing a break for a while, so renown writer for SCREEM and Shock Cinema magazines, Greg Goodsell has volunteered to sit in for me on this pre-Xmas outing with a special presentation about Santa, I mean Satan, so Enjoy!!

Greg Goodsell here after a long absence --welcome to the nefarious BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN (1971), or as it was originally titled COME IN, CHILDREN. This is from the same people who brought you the sci-fi classic, A BOY AND HIS DOG in 1975. BROTHERHOOD, while a fascinating misfire -- is no classic. We’ll discuss further – Anyway, the legendary Jaime Mendoza-Nava composed this film’s chilling score – full of children’s choirs and such.

Here is one of the film's most original ideas: in a small California town, there is a rash of families being killed off, and it's being accomplished by all these satanically inclined children whose toys come to life and kill people! Check out this toy tank –

AAAAAH! It suddenly becomes real and crushes a husband and wife to death trapped in their car! Their pleas of distress are profoundly disturbing, and almost too much to bear!

After the once-proud nuclear unit is crushed into pate, these evil kids scoop up the toy, since reduced to normal size! If you want to unnerve a motion picture going audience, one fail-proof thing always works! Take some squirmy, hyper-active kids and make them stand perfectly stock still! Need we cite examples? THE SHINING, WHO CAN KILL A CHILD, VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED –

Here we go, another quasi-perfect nuclear unit -- it's only semi-perfect because the father is not married to his girlfriend, and he has a precocious little girl from a previous marriage who loves to play pranks on them -- dripping strawberry Snow-Cone on them with everyone thinking it's drops of blood at first! Ha! Keep that in mind for the later gore scenes!

HA! Yes, BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN is firmly in the genre of "evil kids" movies -- THE BAD SEED, THE OMEN and ORPHAN. Everyone secretly admires an especially wicked child, it seems.

Dad finds the family crushed into kitty litter, and so must alert the authorities –

And who should the voice of the law be but the illustrious character actor L. Q. JONES? Jones is best known for his work with director Sam Peckinpah, and was the producer of this film. He got his actor friends Bernard McEveety to direct and Alvy Jones to act!

Whassup? Well, this small Californian town is suffering from a rash of family homicides and child abductions, and nobody knows what to do! Seeing as the town's law is comprised solely of Jones and a flunky, the killings continue! There's an even bigger problem now -- acting legend STROTHER MARTIN is the town's not-so kindly sawbones! "What we have here is a failure to communicate," indeed.

We switch straight away to two rotten kids at play in a yard. They're up to no good!

The kids then say grace with their clueless parents, who are unaware that God has turned His back to them and their town.

Here we go again; the girl's doll comes to life and throttles mom and dad! This murder scene, unlike the one with the tank, is not very well done! After the dolly kills ma and pa, it sheds a tear! What does it all mean, other than making for an odd, arresting image?

A-HA! The town's oldsters are secretly conducting Black Masses, grasping candles from hooded figures and declaring, "Nothing that I have is not thine!" Could it be ... I don't know -- SATAN?

Yes, it's all a part of an evil scheme of the town's senior citizens to regain their youth! The group here is the most persnickety group of Satanists since 1968's ROSEMARY'S BABY, from which this movie stole more than a handful of ideas!

Nifty Mario Bava-esque scene involving fog and a churchyard.

With all the deaths and murder, a spare room in an office full of blocked ice serves as an impromptu morgue. The bloody bag at the top of this scene is presumably all that's left from the family in the car that was crushed at the beginning. BLECH!

Say you love Satan? Dame Alice, played by magnificent actress Helene Winston obviously didn't, as she allowed her grandchild to be baptized into Christianity and her coven is very nonplussed! Winston was brilliant in this production company's later A BOY AND HIS DOG!

In the words of Gomer Pyle, SURPRISE SURPRISE SURPRISE. Strother Martin is also the coven's leader! But you knew that all along, didn't you?

And here are all the little dears, assigned their own little alcove, awaiting soul transplantation.

In spite of being in the clutches of absolute evil, the town's children find time for some birthday cake and a lively party!

Uh-oh, the coven gets ready for the next phase!

Will the evil coven get its way? What do you think? Sorry gang, but Eegah!! And Tabonga! only grant me 22 stills out of a movie replete with striking image after striking image. Final analysis? BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN has top-drawer acting talent, superb photography, strangeness and atmosphere – but a lot of it falls surprisingly flat! The similar, but far lower-budgeted MESSIAH OF EVIL (1972) is more fondly remembered today as a result. Hey, you could do worse --

Monster Music

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