Wednesday, November 30, 2011

LA CASA DE LAS MIL MUÑECAS - Carlos Camilleri - Don Black & Mark London - Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers - "House Of 1000 Dolls" (1967)

"House Of A Thousand Dolls" has too many bonus Dungeon elements in it for me to say anything bad about it! It's NOT the best movie ever made, but any fan of the genre or the characters involved should go on and jump in head first! So, as The Routers would say in 1962, "Let's Go!"

Just like these tourists, this freakin' movie was driving me nuts, and here's the reason why! When I was getting ready to write this, I was looking at the stills, and one of them was for the music credits, and a song called "House of a 1000 Dolls" performed by Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers! Well, since I'm a recently converted apostle, expounder, and supporter of the Cliff Bennett experience, I couldn't figure out what was going on because I couldn't remember hearing a real song during the movie, so I went back and watched the whole thing again, and no song! So I was like WTF?! I went to IMDB, to see if anyone wrote about it and where the song was, and there was a review where a gal had written that the song wasn't on the VHS tape, and I guessed the copy I have has the same problem, so then I went on a search for the song by itself, and finally came up with this, I hope you dig it: "House of a 1000 Dolls" by the amazing Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers!

"House Of 1000 Dolls" has an amazing cast that includes Dungeon regular Maria Rohm as Diane! I don't know why, but I get Maria and Rosanna Yanni mixed up for some reason! I think it's the Jess Franco connection!

Next up is Dungeon Hero George "Jerry Cotton" Nader as Stephen Armstrong!

Welcome to Tangiers! Here's the bad news, this is one of the good guys!

Everybody knows good guys finish last, dead last in this case!!

The story revolves around Vincent Price as Hypnotist Felix Manderville, and Martha Hyer as his lovely assistant Rebecca! They work for the Mob and in their act, they disappear young women from around the world, and turn them into sex slaves in a high dollar brothel in Tangiers! You know, regular every day stuff!!

To get into the exclusive club, you have to have one of these stupid little dolls as kind of a pass key!!

Once inside the club, the patrons get a two-way mirror's view of the international bevy of beauties, aka, The Dolls!!

Look familiar? José Jaspe is the pimp/bodyguard/enforcer Ahmed! I'm sure you've seen him in one his other 121 roles in flicks like "Póker De Ases," or "A Stroke Of A 1000 Millions."

In Tangiers, they still celebrate the traditional annual event known as "The Ritualistic Burning of the Buick!"

The Dolls are a feisty bunch, and I'm not sure if this is her or not, but one of them, Caroline Coons, has become a very successful artiste, and at one time managed The Clash, and took photos used on Clash and Police records!

Every film like this has to have the seemingly incompetent police officer, and this one trying to hassle George Nader is Wolfgang Kieling as Inspector Emil! Wolfgang had a great career in German film, and in one of his few forays into Hollywood, he was Hermann Gromek in Hitchcock's "Torn Curtain!"

Two of the Dolls try a valiant escape to no avail except recapture and torture!

Martha Hyer's not a name you normally associate with the term psychotronic, but when you realize she was in everything from "Abbott & Costello Go To Mars," or "Pyro...The Thing Without A Face," to Bikini Beach," "First Men In The Moon," and "Picture Mommy Dead," you might want to give it another thought!

I just like this shot of Vincent Price, and this is still the anniversary of what would have been his 100th birthday as of the 27th of the last May!

You gotta know things are going to start getting ugly when they try and disappear George Nader's wife Marie, as played by Ann Smyrner! The Danish beauty had roles in some great Dungeon classics like "Journey To The 7th Planet, "Reptilicus," and "Kommissar X - Drei Gelbe Katzen!"

"The Queen of Hearts she made some tarts all on a summer's day; The Knave of Hearts he stole the tarts and took them clean away. The King of Hearts called for the tarts and beat the Knave full sore. The Knave of Hearts brought back the tarts and vowed he'd steal no more." - Lewis Carroll

I think this would be the only film that Vincent Price and George Nader appeared in together! That fact by itself is enough reason to seek out this movie!

Classic portrait of George Nader!!

Marie and Diane watch in horror as information is extracted from one of the other Dolls! Besides Caroline Coons, the gals fleshing out the cast and credited simply as "and the Dolls" are Andrea"The Cups Of San Sebastian"Lascelles, Ursula"Il Vostro Super Agente Flit"Janis, Karin"LSD Flesh Of Devil"Skarreso, Loli Munoz, Marisol, Jill Echols, Monique Aimé, Sandra Petrelli, Lara Lenti, and Francoise Fontages who never appeared in other films, and finally Kitty Swan who was in some real zingers like "Barbarella," "Deadlier Than The Male," and "Wild, Wild Planet!"

While George sorts it all out, I almost forgot that besides the killer theme song that was written by Don Black and Mark London and performed by Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers, the rest of the music in the film was by Modernist composer Carlos Camilleri who only had one other composing credit, "Sax Rohmer's The Castle Of Fu Manchu." Carlos went on to be the Professor of Composition at the Toronto Conservatory of Music, and ended his career as a Professor of Music at Malta University!

You know we don't normally do videos, but the first time I saw this, over at René Claude's blog Pour15 Minutes D'amour, I was blown away. To do a Beatles' cover "live" with horns, and knock it out, well, it's something everybody should see and hear at least once! Ladies and Gentlemen, Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers!!!!

Monday, November 28, 2011

THE SLIME PEOPLE / Joseph F. Robertson Productions - 1963

Welcome to Monster Monday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. Tonite's offering is a redo of a post we did way back in July, 2007! This is a top-10 bad movie for me, I love it to death...

It stars Dungeon fave Robert Hutton, who also directs, and was shot mainly in Lancaster, California. Worth noting, the other movies produced by Joseph F. Robertson are THE CRAWLING HAND and AGENT FOR H.A.R.M.

Whotta tagline ~ "Up from the bowels of the earth come... THE SLIME PEOPLE!" ~ On a nostalgic note, I used to own that very nice 1-sheet poster shown there.

Lou Foman gets the composing credit, and, it's his only one!.. But, you can enjoy the soundclip anyway!

Lettuce bring in our fuzziest little Dungeon helper and button pusher, what else, Ralphie The Tarantula!.. Howdy there, Ralphie. Welp, according to the nuk-u-lur sun dial, itz tyme zu machen die Show gehen! So, push the big red 'GO' button there by the dirty laundry chute, now, Ralphie! Here's our Eariffic Soundclip for... THE SLIME PEOPLE!

Robert plays TV personality, Tom Gregory. Here, he talks to Prof. Galbraith and his lovely daughters, Lisa and Bonnie. Robert was also in THE MAN WITHOUT A BODY, THE COLOSSUS OF NEW YORK, INVISIBLE INVADERS, THE VULTURE, THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, TORTURE GARDEN, CRY OF THE BANSHEE, TROG and TALES FROM THE CRYPT! Awesome!!

Tom hitches a ride with the Galbraith's back to their place and they discover lots of death and destruction along the way. I wonder how her arm get draped over the door? There's a great impossible scene in THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS where Tor's in the back seat of that weird looking VW, choking the girl, when in actuality, he's supposed to be outside the car! By the way... Flag on the Moon!

KTTV Reporter Vince Williams interviews a local lady who has actually seen a monster kill somebloody! Vince is also in the studio introducing this segment!! I'm pretty sure that the woman is Blair Robertson, wife of Joe (I assume), and, writer of the movie!

Here's a rare photo of the poor sap that got trapped/frozen in the fog wall! Guess who? Right, Vince Williams!!

If anybody's listening, this is no joke!

As far as I can tell, the intoxicated bum in the studio was played by none other than Joseph F. Robertson, himself! This character always reminded me of Benny Hill.

Les Tremayne plays eccentric writer, Tolliver. We fondly remember Les in THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, FORBIDDEN PLANET (narrator), THE MONOLITH MONSTERS, FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON (countdown announcer), THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS, THE ANGRY RED PLANET, KING KONG vs GODZILLA (narrator American version) and CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION! He also did tons of TV cartoon voices.

One day on the set, the smoke machine caught fire and exploded!

Tolliver has a close encounter of the 3rd kind with a Slime Person and changes his flippant attitude!

This part makes little or no sense, why are they trying to get away from people?! That lady bringing up the rear there looks like she could cause some problems!

Back at the market, Slime Boy tries to get inside, only to get it's slimy hand amputated by the door!

This part sends me to Flipsville! Bonnie has been kidnapped by the Slime People, so, Tom and Cal have driven up into the hills to try and find her. They jump out of the car at a random spot as a diversionary tactic, then, roll down a hill and come to rest at the bottom. They start hiking in an arbitrary direction in super thick fog. As they walk along, Tom notices something on the ground and picks it up. Behold, it's a lock of Bonnie's hair, so, they gotta be hot on the trail!! Like I said, Flipsville! Even crazier is, they find her and get her back!

It never hurts to have some arty shots!

Robert goes hand-to-hand with one of the Slimeballs!

This piece of crap is what's causing all the problems?! Anyway, you can watch and hear it let big foggy farts, burps and belches!

Prof. Galbraith grabs one of the creature's spears and chucks it at the infernal contraption, causing it to blow sky high!!

Immediately (and, incredibly), the fog disappears and the creatures just fall over dead!

Here's our real heroes, the dudes dressed up like THE SLIME PEOPLE, Bob Herron, Jock Putnam and Fred Stromsoe!

When the fog disappears, two of the things just croak and fall over, but, the last one faces up the hill and rolls straight back over it's big back fin, and then lands flat on it's face! They had to plan the stunt that way because it's totally hilarious when you notice it!

Of course, the Army shows up immediately to take credit!

Monster Music

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