Wednesday, January 24, 2018

GARGOYLES - "Watch Out" (1972)

Good Grief! It's time for another WTF!? Wednesday in The Dungeon!

Tonight's feature was a 1972 TV movie called "GARGOYLES"! As a real movie, it sucks, but as a TV movie, it's more interesting than most! If "GARGOYLES" was 30 minutes long, then I would give it five stars, but since the other 42 minutes are useless, it's more like a one! This is one time when being number one doesn't make you a winner!  It does have it's moments though, like this title card is awesome!

That sign sure couldn't be more prophetic!

Just a fun Father and daughter day out! Here's Cornel (The Devil's Hairpin) Wilde as Dr. Mercer Boley, and his lovely daughter, Jennifer (Midnight Cowboy) Salt as Diana Boley! Jennifer was also Eunice Tate on 67 episodes of "Soap!"

Good olde "Uncle Willie's Desert Museum!" Too bad it just ain't been the same since they moved the highway!

Not too bad of a moon shot!

Mercer Boley is a writer who specializes in myths and legends, and Uncle Willie's got one to tell about that skeleton back there behind them! Woody Chambliss is Uncle Willie, and he probably had more than one story to tell since he was the olde Sergeant Pepper in the movie "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band!" Somehow Salt and Pepper are here together in this scene! It's funny how those things just happen!

Jennifer Salt stopped acting in 1990, but from 2013 - 2016. she produced 37 episodes of "American Horror Story!" This shot proves she had the creds!

Something attacks Uncle Willie's while he's telling the story and the whole place goes Ka-Blooey!

Uncle Willie gets killed and the Boley's take off like a bat out of Hell! Unfortunately, it seems like a bat out of Hell is also after them! Those are some powerful claws!

 This looks like a shot right out of "Twin Peaks!"

Grayson (Satan In High Heels) Hall as the owner of the Cactus Motel, is the epitome of hot in a 1972 TV movie!

 
..... GOOD MORNING!!!!

 This Gargoyle fellow was just trying to get his skull artifact back, but he ends up getting creamed by a truck just like in "The Creep!"

"GARGOYLES" was obviously not the height of Cornel Wilde's career, but the guy walks around for about 10 minutes with no shirt on, and he was in pretty good shape for a 60 year old dude! This is about as sexy as TV movies got back then!

Now if the whole movie looked like this, it would have been amazing! In fact, it was good just to see an actual monster again!  But...............

Yeah, I think it's pretty weird that the only black actor in the whole movie is essentially The Devil, but on the other hand, he's also the coolest character in the movie!

Carlsbad Caverns have never looked better!

Bernie (Blacula) Casey is the Boss Gargoyle, and Diana makes his blood boil!
We lost way too many cool people last year, and Bernie was one of them! Talk about being multi-talented, Bernie had 79 amazing acting credits, and that was after being a professional football player for the San Francisco 49ers, and the Los Angeles Rams for 8 years, but what he really liked doing the most was painting! Sadly, Bernie Casey passed away on September 19, 2017 at the age of 78!

 It turns The Gargoyle on when Diana reads to him, and it's just about to get real sleazy but.........

..........Mrs. Gargoyle isn't digging this action at all, and that's pretty much for all rights and purposes, where the story ends!

9 comments:

Dr. Theda said...

One of my Favorite films from my childhood !!! Great pics !! and a very good post...!!!!

EEGAH!! said...

Thanx Doc! Glad you liked it! We aim to please!

Tommy Ross said...

Excellent post!

MDG14450 said...

I was looking for an excuse to rewatch this--you just gave it too me.

For me, Jennifer Salt will always be Grace Collier from Sisters.

Grant said...

After playing those very dignified characters in things like DARK SHADOWS, it's always funny to see Grayson Hall play such a stereotyped motel landlady. She must have really enjoyed that.

KD said...

MDG14450:

Same here! I'll always remember Jennifer Salt first from SISTERS. But, I did see GARGOYLES when it premiered on network broadcast TV back in '72, and was suitably creeped-out. That and KILLDOZER were two of the made-for-TV oddities of the time, along with my favorite bizarre TV offering at the time, A COLD NIGHT'S DEATH.

Grant said...

I've always liked Jennifer Salt on the soap opera parody SOAP. (She also played the girlfriend in the flashback scenes of MIDNIGHT COWBOY.)

I'm sorry to hear about Bernie Casey. As far as "genre" films, he was also very good in BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE and THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES.

Randall Landers said...

This is really one of my favorite "TV Movies" of all time. Extremely well cast, and an interesting premise. Yeah, it drags UNBEARABLY at times, but you know, when you're 11, you tend to look past those things and stare at Jennifer Salt. :)

The Del-Aires said...

Terrific post -- wonderful TV movie from back in the day. How can you not like a film where the gargolye costumes were designed by Stan Winston (I think he won an Emmy for this movie?) and their leader's voice was dubbed in by Vic Perrin (Outer Limit's control voice)? Definitely makes me want to re-watch this today! Also, wasn't this a pilot for a possible TV series that (obviously) didn't get picked up by the network?

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