THE GIANT CLAW / Columbia - 1957 / Music by Mischa Bakaleinikoff

Tonight we have some classic 'schlock.' When the big-wigs at Columbia saw the final cut, they basically had a big heart attack!! Part of the movie had been farmed out to a Mexican company for creation of the space vulture and the filming of it's parts including the models. Columbia execs were expecting something closer to FORBIDDEN PLANET! Instead, what they got was a pretty damn good Mexican monster flick!

Seriously, you can't get a title card better than that!! The awesome Mischa Bakaleinikoff is our music conductor for this title. Mischa has 148 composing and... get this!.. 402 credits from the music department! WOW!!.. Now, give a listen to tonight's classic offering... Big Bird and Small Talk!!

SOUNDCLIP NOT AVAILABLE

There are 7 uncredited composers that contributed to this project including Max Steiner and Marlin Skiles!

Jeff Morrow plays Mitch MacAfee, the pilot who first saw the bird. He says "Its as big as a battleship!" even though it didn't show up on radar! Then, we also have the beautiful Mara Corday playing Sally Caldwell. Both actors have already been featured here at The Dungeon! The second still shows Mitch's weird theory about a spiral pattern the bird is flying, because that the placement of the X'es correspond to where the thing had been sighted!.. Looks like a straight line to me! Did they have LSD in 1957?!

Here's Mitch and Sally as they mix love with space monsters at his bachelor pad!

Nice series of stills, and, it happens to more than just this guy!

Get real, how in the hell's that thing gonna help??

I love these posed shots as people at the beach watch the space bird pass overhead!

A good 'n' ugly shot of the thing as it... err... she works on a nest!

Great stuff here as the teens race along the highway, they have a salt shaker so they can put salt on the tail of the big bad bird if it comes around!.. What a setup!!

I'd bet that these three shots show the reason for some of the angst the producers felt as they sat there watching this turkey! Top pic shows the hot rod on a string before a firecracker blows it up! The second still shows the bird flying away holding a string of train cars!!! Those would be hot dogs in any cartoon!

Mitch finally gets his infernal 'anti-matter' demolisher working, so, they mount it in the rear end of a WW II bomber! Get this, the Generals take over the piloting job! Those were real men back then! And, no wonder, that's Robert Shayne and Morris Ankrum there!

VIOLENT MIDNIGHT - Wilford L. Holcombe - "Psychomania" - Molly Scott - "Black Autumn" (1963)

Seems like everybody knows about the Del Tenney produced and directed films like "The Horror Of Party Beach", "Curse Of The Living Corpse" and "Zombies" aka "I Eat Your Skin", but you don't hear a lot about this film, "Violent Midnight", that he didn't direct, but was the producer for!! Made the year before his other films, Del must have spent a lot of time on the set with director Richard Hilliard, honing his directorial skills. Richard Hilliard besides writing this film, also wrote and was the cinematographer for "The Horror Of Party Beach."

Here's the basic premise, you've got an artist who's not right in the head because he shot his father, you've got a violent hothead rebel, an old teacher pervert, and a school full of girls, and somebody is going around killing people!! It's greasy and sleazy and really quite the twisted tale!! Kaye Elhardt has the role of the very statuesque model Dolores!!!

James Farentino was actually prettier than Sylvia Miles!!!

The last time I wrote about Del's "The Horror Of Party Beach," I was lamenting what a shame it was that the cool rockin' bar music in the background of the two drunks scene was barely audible, now I know why!! They had used that same music originally in this film only a year earlier as a recurring theme, so now, we get to hear an extended version of the music loud and clear, and even including some cool horn breaks and sax solos!! The music here is credited to one Wilford L. Holcombe who also got credits on "Curse Of The Living Corpse" and Richard Hilliard's other non-horror outing, "Wild Is My Love" but Wilford didn't get any credit for "The Horror Of Party Beach" for some reason!! So, Here You Go!!! it's one of my favortie pieces of Music From The Monster Movies and a genuine treat for all you guys and ghouls!

All right, what do we have here? The artist actually kicks the biker rebel's ass!! It will come back to haunt him just as you would suspect when James as Charlie Peron sneaks up later and smacks Elliot upside the head with a two by four!!

Although having acting on a bit of TV, this movie was the film debut for both James Farentino and Dick Van Patten! As a matter of fact, they have a fight scene, and Dick Van Patten throws a pretty good punch!

Dick's got one of the coolest cop cars ever, a 1959 Chevy!!

So Dolores the model got murdered, and Dick had to go to James' grimy apartment to question him! You can see Sylvia is there to back up his story!!

Lee Phillips does a great job as Elliot Freeman! Here he waits for his sister to arrive on the train! Great portrait of the artist!!!

Meanwhile back at the school, the Professor does some learning himself!! Seems he's very interested in the subject of anatomy!!

Wow, those are some swim suits!!! The gal on the left is Sheila Forbes as Janet 'Lolita' Terhune and, the gal on the right is Margot Hartman as Elliott's bland sister Lynn Freeman!!

Along with some of the gals at the school, this place is kind of developing a bad reputation!!!

James gets very lucky and gets to hook up with bad girl blonde bombshell Lorraine Rogers as Alice more than once, and it's not hard to figure that she's going to be trouble!!

This film also included an appearance by prominent 60's folksinger Molly Scott, who you can read all about at her site! She also has a ton of cool fotos and stuff, but for some strange reason, I didn't see any reference to her appearance in this movie. I guess it wasn't her proudest moment, but we like it!!! Molly is a very fascinating person, and still quite active today, so for an xtra special treat, go check out her 'sound of light'!!! Your head might just fall off!! Here she performs another alternative title to this film, "Black Autumn"!!!

James is just a little ticked off at Sylvia, so he rips off her earrings as a sign of affection!!! Her face is almost distorted to 'Jokeresque' proportions!!!

I sure prefer the alternate title "Psychomania", that really describes it well!! This movie is available on Netflix and Amazon and should be in your library too. 5 Thumbs Up!!! Who do you think the killer is???

THE LOST CONTINENT - The Peddlers - "Sacrifice To Giant Jaw-Snapping Mollusks" (1968)

Happy All Freakin' Saints Friday!! Tonight we've got what I consider A special treat for this 2008 Countdown, a title used many times over the years, "The Lost Continent," this particular version coming from 1968! Director & Producer Michael Carreras rocks! Just check his credits!!

I wasn't really familiar with this film, and a couple of years back one late night I ran into a series of odd German lobby cards I'd never seen before on the Internet, and I, as the consummate film fan couldn't figure out where these particular monsters, balloons, and boobs originated from, but luckily, recently I found this strangely classic film on Netflix, and the rest is prehistoric history or hysteria as it were! English pop singer Dana Gillespie plays the part of Sarah!!!

So, this slimy cast of characters sets off to sea, kind of like in "Gilligan's Island" only for a slightly longer cruise, and each and every one has a background that wouldn't allow them to be on a normal ship!!

Eric Porter is "The Boss" or in nautical terms, "The Captain"!!!

I smell a mutiny on the way!!!

The phosphorous cargo seems to be a bit of a problem, since if it gets wet, it explodes!!! YOW!!!! Even The Captain had issues!!!

"Desolation Row!"

Freaky!!!!


And Freakier!!!!

"OUCH!!!!!"

And then after all that, you still have to deal with this pinhead jerk and his followers!!!

So, here we go people, me and Tabonga are old, and yet, sometimes we have never even heard of super amazing bands like the guys that did the soundtrack for this film, The Peddlers!!!!! The world is a mess, I know the names and music by heart of people like Debbie Gibson and The BeeGees, but I'd never heard of The Peddlers until I researched this film!! OWWWWWW!!!!!!!
The Peddlers were a three piece band so way far ahead of the pack, they sound much more like the 90's band Morphine, with the haunting vocals of the late Mark Sandman, than their contemporaries Emerson Lake and Palmer! The Peddlers are still so very cool to this day, and you should go out of your way to get anything by them that you can get your grimy little hands on!!

Here's like a studio version of this haunting ultra cool and smooth tune!!!!

In The Studio

NEUTRON vs THE DEATH ROBOTS / Estudios América, Mexico - 1962 / Music by Enrico C. Cabiati

Tonight Tabonga present one his favorite flick, NEUTRON vs THE DEATH ROBOTS! In Mexico say 'Los Autómatas de la Muerte.'

Worst title card ever!!.. Music man Cabiati know his stuff for sure, long resume start in 1939! He also work on SANTO flick!.. Now give big listen to excellent Theme & Extras! To Tabonga, sound kinda like FLASH GORDON theme from 1954 TV, have 'hero' feel to it.

So, on good side of track there smart Professor and crime fighter NEUTRON, The Atomic Superman! Great name!! But, Professor have bad news for him, he think bad-boy science dude Dr. Caronte still alive, not dead!!

Professor right, on wrong side of track Dr. Caronte live and well! Also have lil' buddy Nick for helping out evil plans, here he showing Nick all cool new junk he have! In middle pic robot man not form right, he turn into three rock!!..

Typical Mexican monstruo flick where music at night club play important role! Here Nora sing her song, she is famous star. For whole movie she have her three lover boys in audience who all in love with her and act like school boys! One is Neutron and you have to guess! In the meantime... Here's Nora!

Then, real fun start, Dr. Caronte send out Nick and robots to suck blood and steal. Last pic show Nick crawl under robot leg!! Thing like that why Tabonga love this flick!!

Back to club, guys getting all horny and Nora have to divert attention to unknown trio who play classic tune. The Unknown Trio and The 3 Musketeers!

Dr. Caronte big spoil sport and kidnap Nora with Neutron look-alike robot. Then, Neutron try to take neutron bomb with spikes he find to professor for disarming, but Dr. Caronte show up to get bomb back!

All hell break loose when Neutron turn around and smack Dr. Caronte with quick atomic move!! Then they fight and fight and fight and fight... Then they go on wild car chase back to Dr. Caronte lab and they fight there!! Finally Nick pull big lever and bring down house on doctor as Neutron barely escape. So, maybe Dr. Caronte not dead again!! ...Get it??

We end with classic sinister portrait of Nick!

GOO'NIGHT EVERBLOODY!!