Friday, August 12, 2011

ISLAND OF LOST WOMEN / Jaguar Productions - 1959

Welcome to Friday Night Drive-In with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. Tonite's offering is a nearly unknown 71 minute flick featuring the atomic-flamethrower wielding, Alan Napier!

The Turkish poster was soooo bad that I decided to show this 100% WEIRD logo instead! Back in the early nineties, I recorded about 200 movies during it's run, this feature is one of them! I loved that crazy program that aired on TNT.

The music is by Raoul Kraushaar and Dave Kahn. Raoul composed music for UNKNOWN ISLAND, PREHISTORIC WOMEN, BRIDE OF THE GORILLA, UNTAMED WOMEN, BOMBA AND THE JUNGLE GIRL, ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET CAPTAIN KIDD and the movie with my all time favorite sci-fi theme... INVADERS FROM MARS!! Dave Kahn worked in various music department capacities on these TV shows... JOHNNY RINGO, MISTER ED, THE ADDAMS FAMILY, PETTICOAT JUNCTION, GREEN ACRES and THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES!

Since it's Friday, that means our littlest Dungeon Helper and officially certified button pusher is none other than... The one and only, Rufus The Gnat!! Yay '4' Rufus!.. So, let's get things going with our soundclip, push the big red 'GO' button, now, Rufus!! Here's... ISLAND OF LOST WOMEN!

The story goes like this... While flying to an international news conference, radio commentator Mark Bradley and his pilot, Joe Walker, are forced to make an emergency landing in their Beechcraft 18 on an unchartered island in the Pacific. They find the island is inhabited by Dr. Paul Lujan and his three scantily clad daughters: Venus, Mercuria, and Urana. Dr. Lujan is a nuclear scientist who has dropped out of society because he thinks that man is on the path to total annihilation, and, is the reason why he and his daughters live on the deserted island.

I wonder what happens when you 'push' those buttons, or, even just one of them?

Alan Napier will always be known as the butler, Alfred, in the classic 1960s BATMAN TV series with Adam West and Burt Ward. He also played The High Priest in THE MOLE PEOPLE and the very clever, Dr. Druzik, in Dungeon favorite, MASTERMINDS.

Mark and Joe meet the inhabitants of the island... The girls, this time from left to right, there's Urana, Venus and Mercuria.

It doesn't take long for Mark to figure things out!..

Now, wait a second... Three girls!.. Two guys!..

Mark learns about pops' little atomic flamethrower, the hard way!

And, he destroys their airplane with the weapon! Actually, the doctor just doesn't want the boys to leave and then tell authorities of his whereabouts.

Looks like the girls are going to turn in their chess pieces for some... Wait, are they in the Batcave?!

In most sci-fi movies, there's a time when the 'mad' scientist tells the interested intruder all about what he's up to, which is only meant to clarify things for the viewer and set up the 'you know too much' scenerio.

That's right, Bunky, fooling around with atomic crap is both complicated and nutty, so, don't you ever forget it!

There's an exciting part where Mark has to protect Venus from a shark!.. The dude (stuntman) kills this big shark with a freakin' knife, for real!

You hear in the soundclip where Joe explains over the loud speaker that he's now the doctor's prisoner. Joe and Mark have built a raft and are planning another departure, so again, the doc simply ain't gonna let it happen.

They probably didn't plan this panty shot...

When the girls finally turn against dad, one thing quickly leads to another!

See the one big white circle back there with the smaller ones? Well, it's in the wrong place!

Sooo...

Run like Hell, the whole damn place is gonna blow!!..

KA-EF'FIN-BLOOIE!!!

The lighting looks good here, has an authentic 'blast' appearance!

"All I wanted to do is bust some little old atoms!" ~ Quote by Omar in THE FLESH EATERS.

7 comments:

  1. WoW!

    "100 Per Cent--- WEIRD" !!!
    You watched those, too?!?!

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  2. SHARK!!!

    it's always weird to see Napier being evil, i grew up with his Alfred...

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  3. Quote from the story: "'Teach us how to make love,' they said, and turned Paradise into Hell!" Pretty much the story of my life...

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  4. It is unquestionably true that Alan Napier's greatest fame was as Alfred the Butler, a role that barely skimmed the surface of his talent. But this man, who was a personal friend of James Whale, had a career in fantastic cinema second to none. Look at just these sample credits:

    The Invisible Man Returns, Cat People, The Uninvited, Hangover Square, Isle of the Dead, Sinbad the Sailor, Lured, MacBeth( The Orson Welles version), Tarzan's Magic Fountain, Tarzan's Peril, The Strange Door, Julius Caesar (Brando version), Moonfleet, The Mole People, The Court Jester, 6 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 3 episodes of Boris Karloff's Thriller, The Premature Burial, 1 Twilight Zone, 2 episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Marnie, Mary Poppins, The Loved One, 3 Episodes of Night Gallery.

    And that's just a few of his almost 150 credits. Napier was ubiquitous in classic Hollywood.

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  5. I just watched "The Strange Door." It pissed me off when they killed Alan Napier's character, and I'm just getting ready to watch "Hangover Square" today, so look for more of Alan's work here soon!

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  6. Check out My Fair Lady. Henry Daniell died during the shoot, so even though his part was always a very small one, he is replaced within the film by Alan Napier, but they did no reshooting. They just magically turn into each other, and hope that the part is too small to notice. Napier was the better part of a foot taller than Daniell.

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  7. Alan wrote an autobiography in the seventies, which his family allowed me to organize for publication. "Not Just Batman's Butler" is out now.

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