MARC MATO, AGENTE S077 - Benedetto Ghiglia - "Espionage In Tangiers" (1965)

We love a good Spy flick down here in the depths of depravity known as The Dungeon, and the weirder the better, or as they say in France, C'est quoi ce bordel, or something close to WTF?! Tonight's feature is a pretty good example, and it's called "Marc Mato, Agente S077" or "Espionage In Tangiers!"

You can't have a good Spy flick without a crazy professor and some sort of newly perfected ray gun device! This is professor Grave as played by Alfonso Rojas, a man with a saucepan of Spaghetti westerns under his belt, including this freakin' great title, "Go Kill Everybody and Come Back Alone!"

This go round the professor is a good guy, and it's up the the saviors of freedom to protect his invention from the bad guys on the other side!

Take the Ray Gun, and insert that chunk of a chip, and Wow, what power!! Now you see it, now you don't!

Add one dose of playboy secret agent, and we're ready to roll!! This round, the man of the hour is an Argentinian actor who was born as Héctor González Ferrantino, but acted as Luis Dávila, in the role of Marc Mato, or Mike Murphy Agent S. 077, just depending on how you want to look at it! I never could figure out how these guys knew what name to answer to when it came time for roll call!

Welcome back to the future! Sometimes I feel like I should be writing for "Arts and Architecture" magazine!

Marc/Mike is sent on assignment to Tangiers, and what a small world it is! José Greci as Lea is on the wrong side of the law on the very case he's working on, and is also on the plane too! How is that possible? What an amazing coincidence!! José Greci was born with the first name Giuseppina, and why she changed it to José, I don't know, must be some kind of story there! She doesn't look like any of the José's I know!

After landing, Mike/Marc doesn't even get out of the airport before somebody's got their sights zoned in on him!

Things don't get much better when he reaches his Hotel, seems that room 213 has the welcome wagon out, and Mike/Marc isn't thrilled with the free hors d'oeuvres they're offering!

If nothing else, this movie has some beautiful classic cars in it!

Tangiers is a large city in Morocco, and a couple of miles outside of town there's a place called "The Cave Of Hercules" that is a big tourist attraction because they claim Herc spent a night there before trying one of the 12 labors he had thrown at him by Apollo! This is a quite similiar situation to the 12 or more labors Marc/Mike himself is going to have to endure if he wants to crack this case!

Tangiers has long been a center of spying, smuggling, art, and literature, all thrown into a vast melting pot full of beautiful women, intrique and violence! Mix it all up, and you've got an interesting highball that's got a kick, but goes down smooth!!

Mike/Marc has come up with a new and interesting technique to extract information from not The Penguin, but The Kingpin!

Laser Rays and two way mobile video, these cats were way ahead of their time!! The way out soundtrack was created by Maestro Benedetto Ghiglia of "Pigpen," "The Wildcat," and "Psychout For Murder" fame!

I lost count of the fight scenes in this film, but I will tell you this, I was just getting ready to use the quote from Brother Ray's "Let's Go Get Stoned" about "messing up the man's place", and I wanted to get it correct so I Googled it, and wherever I went, there was a popup that said I was over the millionth visitor, and it shut down my computer, so take my advice and don't search for that! The Curse of Ray Charles lives on!!

Perla Cristal landed the role of the very sinful Madeleine! By the luck of the draw, today is Perla Cristal's 73rd birthday!! Happy birthday Perla!! You probably also remember Perla for her roles in the Dr. Orloff movies, and "The Fury Of The Wolfman!!

Hey Man, turn around, you can't drive like that, you're going to get us into a wreck!!!

Pretty cool dungeon scene replete with pumped in water much to Mike/Marc's chagrin!!

Anybody up for a rollicking game of "Twister?"

Another long chase scene at the end culminates on a beach and a rope ladder that seems to go on forever!

The evil Boss and the girls are feeling pretty smug about their achievements.........

.......Only to be foiled by the professor who now has snapped, and completely lost his mind, and screws up the whole thing!! Fun movie and it's a double feature DVD combined with "Assignment In Rome!" You can't go wrong!!!

HERE COMES TOBOR / TV 1957-8

Tonight we have another failed TV pilot, this one trying to exploit that awesome Dumont Robot... TOBOR!!!

Seemed like a natural for the TV boy crowd, but fate is a fickle finger! It was to have been a weekly adventure where Tommy Adams, played by Tommy Terrell, and TOBOR would encounter and fight against espionage in the scientific community. Tommy has a top-secret clearance since he can communicate mentally wif' TOBOR! This was Tommy Terrell's only role, ever. "...He never even had a chance!"

Super heavyweight composer (430 credits!!!) Howard Jackson did the music for this show and TOBOR THE GREAT and are his only ventures into science fiction! He worked almost exclusively on shorts and documentaries in the forties and fifties, but earlier worked on movies like PARAMOUNT ON PARADE, NIGHT ANGEL, SUPERNATURAL, COLLEGE HUMOR, MIDNIGHT CLUB, LADY FOR A DAY, GIRL WITHOUT A ROOM, EIGHT GIRLS IN A BOAT, BOTTOMS UP, WE'RE NOT DRESSING, DIZZY DAMES, LONESOME TRAILER, THE LONE WOLF RETURNS, MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN, BLAZING SIXES, DANCE CHARLIE DANCE, BLONDES AT WORK, MR. CHUMP, BOY MEETS GIRL, GIRLS ON PROBATION, TORCHY GETS HER MAN, THE COWBOY QUARTERBACK, DEAD END KIDS AT MILITARY SCHOOL, GRANNY GET YOUR GUN and TEAR GAS SQUAD!

It's time to bring in our lil' pal, Rufus The Gnat, as you all know is the offical 'GO' button pusher on Moldie Oldie Monday, here at The Dungeon! Rufus, push the button and start tonight's Eariffic Earclip!.. HERE COMES TOBOR!!

The soundclip starts with Prof. Adams, who's Tommy's uncle, talking about his latest invention. The Professor is played by Arthur (20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH) Space. Arthur Space, what a great name!!

After that, the episode begins...

Speaking of THE ATOMIC SUBMARINE, Tabonga will be doing a new post of that title around Halloween, so stay tuned for it and much more!

Tabonga swears on a stack of mint FMs that a white '56 Ford Fairlane convertible is an 11! John Agar had the same one in TARANTULA and I had the Post Cereal premium set you sent away for that included that model!

Here's the big shots trying to operate their consarned newfangled invention!

Robots are good at horseshoes, the ringer is TOBOR's. Great use for a billion dollar contraption, babysitting!

These guys think it's cute! And, what do they care about government waste anyway, look what they're driving, a chick magnet!

Tommy's smarter than all those guys put together!

I think where the series was lost was when they tried to explain some of the props they were going to use as scientific instruments! TV producers thought the kids would probably just laugh.

Davey sez... "Hell, I made one of them stoopid thangs in wood shop one time!"

While inside the missile that's to take TOBOR into space, Tommy gets carried away with his farewells and the lid slams shut on him! ...OOOPSIE!!!

TOBOR holds Tommy in his lap as they blast off into space!

Oh crap, what the hell am I going to tell Chuck and Jeanne...

A lot of scenes were very dark and it was hard to tell what was going on at times, expecially when they were in space with the pirates. Space Pirate Dr. Ohm was played by Franz Roehn, Franz (looking up at TOBOR) was also in TOBOR THE GREAT, THE FLY, FRANKENSTEIN 1970 and MR. SARDONICUS.

And, for any of you out there that still don't believe that TOBOR is a real robot, just check out those credits! So there, that should put an end to that ridiculous rumor!

...Ghoulnight, Everbloody!!