CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON / Universal - 1954 / Music by Mancini, Salter & Stein

This is The Dungeon's 650th posting! The next two Sundays are going to have George Pal movies, so, get ready for those! We did THE MOLE PEOPLE last night, so, we'll just keep the dial tuned to the same channel!

Tonight's excellent Universal movie probably features their finest creature, and, they have designer Milicent Patrick to thank! Her other uncredited creature design credits for Universal are The Mutant in THIS ISLAND EARTH, The Alien in IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, and, the monster masks in ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE... She was also an actress.

Again, Universal uses bits and pieces from their uncredited composers Mancini, Salter and Stein that we've already written about before. If you didn't really know yer stuff, it'd be hard to discern the difference among a number of their themes in the fifties like THE LAND UNKNOWN, THE MOLE PEOPLE, THE THING THAT COULDN'T DIE and MONOLITH MONSTERS.

Let's take a trip to THE BLACK LAGOON!

You would have probably heard that eerie keyboard right about here.

When you find the fossil of an unknown creature in the Amazon, well, you get a bunch of people together and go lookin' for stuff, no?

Good call, bringing along Julie (Julia) Adams!!

Nice album cover!

Its a good thing Julie's got TWO hunks to keep an eye on her!.. Love those guys!

Lots of posters tonight. And, why not, they're great!

That's one tricky Creature!

WATCH OUT FOR THOSE CLAWS!!!

The background in the poster actually looks like the Amazon.

You better have some backup if you go up against the Creature!!

Alas, poor Creature, but, you'll be back!!

Super 8 artwork von Deutschland!!

THE MOLE PEOPLE - Joseph Gershenson - "Like Nothing Your Eyes Have Seen Before" (1956)

Nothing quite says I love you sweetheart like "The Mole People." And you can thank director Virgil Vogel for that!!

"The Mole People" starts off with an introduction by USC English Professor Frank Baxter, who had quite a little career going, generally playing himself! To me, it sounds like Dr. Phil completely swiped Frank's style and speech technique!! The less than spectacular soundtrack was pieced together by music supervisor Joseph Gershenson using music composed by Heinz Roemheld, Hans J. Salter, and Herman Stein!

We'll be the greatest partners, buddies, and pals, Hugh Beaumont as Dr. Jud Bellamin and John Agar as Dr. Roger Bentley carry the whole thing!!

It wasn't easy either, pretty dang difficult set to get to!!

Those dark caverns made for a great opportunity for some awesome lighting, and cinematographer Ellis Carter took full advantage of it!

So they had to go way up and then come back way down and ended up here!!

They're so tired, John is sleeping with his head on a rock, or at least he was til that big mole hand came out and got him!

Going down!! First floor, ladies lingerie!!!

If nothing else, this movie proves without a shadow of a doubt that the ancient Sumerians were a bunch of uptight pricks!!

The Sumerians want to kill John and Hugh, but because they have the power of light, they are able to convince them they were sent by The Gods!!

So they are free to roam around, but you can bet those sneaky Sumerians are spying on them and planning on stealing their weapon of mass destruction, the almighty flashlight!! Watch out guys!!!

John Agar reciting prose with background music played by Cynthia Patrick, as Adad, on her Sumerian Gibson Custom XG mandolin, is probably the romantic highlight of the film!

Then it's time for still yet another one of those wild and krazy ritualistic traditional Sumerian let's all get together, eat some mushrooms, and run around in circles until some one falls down, dance routines! Yeehah!!

Come on in, the sand's fine!!!

Jack Kevan, who gets credit for the mole masks was up to his elbows in design and makeup over the years, having had something to do on all 3 of the "Creature" titles, "Monster On The Campus", "It Came From Outer Space", "Monster Of Piedras Blancas", "This Island Earth" and even a couple of Abbott and Costello films! Now that there's some "Monster" history!!!

LA GUERRA DEI ROBOT - Marcus Griffen (Marcello Giombini) - "Stratostars" (1978)

It's a Freaky Funky Friday The 13th, and since it just doesn't get much better than that, let's get it on with tonight's feature outta Italy, "La Guerra Dei Robot" or "War Of The Robots"!!!!

Although he had been writing music for the movies since 1961, the incredible Marcello Giombini, working, and getting credited here as Marcus Griffen, hadn't really worked in any horror of sci-fi genres until the mid 70's. You're going to really like Marcello's electrosonic score! It's not quite like anything else we've heard around beautiful this area, lately!

Is it real difficult to tell this movie was made in the 70's?? Check out this cat's space robe!

There is no shortage of less than macho lookin' dudes in silver suits and blonde wigs. I think they would have looked spacier if they had those multi-coloured wigs like the girls at "The Crazy Horse" in Vegas!!

Then the newly crowned champion of the "Universal Innerstellar Wrasslin' Federation" steps in to show off his stuff!!

It's just like some kind of "Krazy Dream," all of a sudden everybody's disco dancing, I mean Kung-Fu fighting to the beat! Hah!!

These guys remind me a lot of an English band from 1965 called "The Hullaballoos!" They all had long bleach blonde hair or wigs, and their songs all sounded like Buddy Holly covers!! Rave on!!

Um, very interesting "Star Wars" was released one year earlier than "War Of The Robots!" Imagine that!!

The maximum veritable epitome of Spaceness, 1978 Italian style!!!