MOONFIRE - Marty Robbins - "The Wheel Of Life" (1970)

 Welcome to the newly ordained WTF?! Wednesday down in The Dungeon! Tonight's feature film, dear friends, was a movie we've had on our want list for over 5 years without a clue as to where to obtain a copy! Finally in the last few months I tracked one down, and then, lo and behold, when I started writing this tonight, I went to IMDB to check a couple of facts, and found out that "Moonfire" streams on Amazon for $2.99 or free if you have one of them fancy 'Prime' accounts, so now it's just up to you whether you're ready for something like this or not! I know I sure wasn't!! On the WTF?! Meter, "Moonfire" gets a 10 for sure!! It's got it all! When I first read about "Moonfire" they said something about truckers vs nazis, so I envisioned something like a cross between "Surf Nazis Must Die," and "Mad Max," but I was wrong, way wrong!!! Not even close!!

Here's what I think! Somebody had the big idea that if they had a star with some kind of name recognition (Richard (GOG) Egan), a bigger than life former major sports figure (Sonny Liston), and a theme song by a former #1 hit maker (Marty Robbins and his 1959 hit song "El Paso"), that there was no possible way that they could go wrong! I'm pretty sure that they lost their ass on that bet!! A curious note, just for the record, when most songs in 1959 were clocking in at 2 or 3 minutes, "El Paso" was 4 minutes and 38 seconds long, an AM radio breakthrough later taken to the max on FM by "The End" and "In A Gadda Da Vida!"

Remember!! This is THE "Most Authentic Trucking Movie" ever made, and that claim just might still hold true to this day! Here's a tasty morsel of the music to get you in the mood! Arriba, Arriba, Honk, Honk!!!!

Richard Eagan's got that kind of a face where you know you've seen him many times before, but you just don't know exactly where! Multiple western roles and two TV shows in 1962 and 63 with different titles, but where Richard played the same character, Jim Redigo were "Empire," and "Redigo!" Richard won a Golden Globe award in 1954 for "Most Promising Newcomer - Male," but in "Moonfire," he's just collecting a paycheck!

Two T's just wasn't enough, so here ya go kids, the authentic Triple T Truck Stop! (Or is it four?)

 So what the Hell is going on here anyway? I watched the movie and I still don't know, so it's going to be difficult for you! A space capsule drops down in the middle of the Mexican desert, followed by a parachuteer to retrieve something! Guy seems lost, I don't know!

 The dude on the left is a Nazi named Fuentes played by Dayton (Jack The Giant Killer) Lummis, and the guy on the right is his bandito accomplice Jesus as played by Jose (KRONOS) Gonzales-Gonzales! Jose is also responsible for the little ditty you'll hear in the soundclip that isn't Marty Robbins! They've got some completely different shit going on, but this space capsule deal just kind of literally dropped into their lap!

You would have thought that he would have had a better plan!

Believe it or don't, but this is a picture of me taken in the same exact year!

Jeez, nobody said anything about Percy Dovetonsils being in this movie!

Pickle Shot Charles Napier on the left is trucker Robert W. Morgan! Charles is a story all unto himself, with almost 200 credits to his name including a bunch of Russ Meyer films where he earned the nickname Pickle Shot for being in one of the first movies ever that included male frontal nudity! To further the legitimacy of this film, Charles actually worked for a trucker magazine called "Overdrive" in the 70's! True to form, Charles passed away in Bakersfield, Calif. just a couple of years ago!

Robert W. Morgan's partner and driving buddy is known as The Farmer and was played by former World Heavyweight Championship boxer and all around mysterious guy, Sonny Liston! I'm assuming that I'm not the only person who finds it odd that these guys all choose to work with no shirts on, but then this IS an authentic trucker movie!

The Sonny Liston story is, and will always be, the kind of life that history is made of!

With a record of 50 wins and 4 losses, Sonny destroyed Champion Floyd Patterson in their first meeting to claim the title of being the first person to ever knock out the reigning Champion in the first round! In a dismal rematch the following year, Patterson lasted a mere 4 seconds longer than in their first fight! It was after that when it started getting weird! In a championship defense against Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali), Sonny was winning when something got in Clay's eye! Then suddenly, Liston quit, claiming a shoulder injury! In their rematch, Liston went down by a phantom punch that nobody saw in the first round, and lost his championship forever! Five months after this movie was made, Sonny Liston was found dead in Las Vegas at the age of 38! The truth will probably never be known!

Stupid racist biker didn't know who he was dealing with and got taken out in the first second of the first round!

You never see 'Standard' any more, it's all 'Chevron' these days! Now this is an authentic truck stop picture fer shure!

Next stop! MEXICO!!

Nothing says Truckin' like a couple of 16 wheelers side by side barreling down a dusty road together!!

 Stoopid freakin' Nazi guy who I thought was calling all the shots follows the truckers out into the boondocks and gets his car stuck in sand! Luckily for him, the guys carry a forklift around with them to unload their cargo, and are able to help him out!

 After he graciously thanks them, he then tries to shoot them, and in an unprecedented move I've never seen before, they ram his car with the forks, and then lift it up and over the edge of a cliff and gone!  Auf Wiedersehen Idiot!!

Acting or not, you really get the vibe that Sonny is thinking, "Amigo, this might be a movie, but you better get that gun out of my face before I kick your fucking ass!"

Now this is a shot that I truly believe is worthy of a caption contest! I just dare you! WTF!?