THE PENTHOUSE - Lisa Shane - "World Full Of Lonely Men" (1967)

After a long absence, due to a thing called work, Greg Goodsell has returned to The Dungeon! Tonight's feature is a British bit of psycho-babble called THE PENTHOUSE from 1967! This very 1960s poster seems to give away a good part of the film's story, and this installment may have quite a few spoilers. You should see it anyway!

And so it begins -- THE PENTHOUSE is a psychological horror film without blood or physical mayhem. Think it will work? You bet your boots! I've always felt that this feature had a J. G. Ballard-ian vibe to it. For further information, read his novels High Rise and Concrete Island. An interpretation from director David Cronenberg on his novel Crash rattled quite a few cages back in 1996.

With a cast of five, it's important that we introduce all our players and give them justice! The blonde beauty you see before you is popular Eurotrash starlet Suzy Kendall. She's appeared in such fare as TO SIR, WITH LOVE, worked with Dario Argento in THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE and is perhaps best known for her participation in the proto-slasher TORSO! She appeared, if that can be the word, in BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO as recently as 2012 -- a film which gently mocked Italian horror films of yore.

Very little is known about Terrence Morgan, who had a mere four other acting roles after appearing in this film! To cut to the chase, Morgan plays Bruce, and Kendall plays Barbara, and they're having a clandestine affair in the aforementioned structure.

As a certain cartoon dog would exclaim, Ruh Roh! It's Tony Beckley as Tom and Norman Rodway as Dick! The two, after taking the stairs all their way up to the penthouse (puff, puff, puff) insinuate themselves into the domicile and begin a long session of sadistic fun and games. We'll get to Harry, who compliments Tom and Dick later.

Brunet Beckley was a durable British character actor who worked with Peter Sellers in RE-VENGE OF THE PINK PANTHER in 1978. He would rejoin Kendall in 1971 IN THE DEVIL'S GARDEN. Blond Rodway has an acting career in TV and movies more than a mile long, and in his own way makes this film!

Ruh Roh indeed! Things go pretty south really fast as one of the disgusting duo produces a knife! Such begins one of the most harrowing home invasion scenes this side of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE! -- which has some surprising similarities with this film.

The odious pair are unafraid to wave a knife around, but no worries -- they have no intention of marking up Kendall's lovely face ... wink, wink, nudge, nudge. On a more serious note, THE PENTHOUSE was the first feature film for TV director Peter Collinson. He would go on to direct one of my very favorite Hammer horrors, the tragically misunderstood STRAIGHT ON ‘TIL MORNING. Tragically, he dropped dead of a heart attack – at the far too young age of 44 – in 1980.

Yes, the scumbags want to get Kendall good 'n' drunk first! Candy is dandy but liquor, as they say, is quicker --

C'mon love, you're not going to decline some hospitality from two dangerous psychopaths who've crashed your illicit love shack, are you? DRINK UP!

An avant-garde cover for a jazz album. The crocodile pictured here figures into a later conversation -- wait for it!

All tied up with nowhere to go, in the manner of Jerry Lewis at the hands of Sandra Bernhard in Martin Scorsese' THE KING OF COMEDY, Bruce puts on a brave face -- but his inherent cowardice begins to become very evident!

Its little wonder why Rodway had such a lengthy career in movies and TV -- oozing menace, he could conceivably play Mr. Hyde without makeup! Based upon the play “The Meter Man” by Scott Forbes, the film takes swipes at Britain’s classist system, as well as the British practice of “molly-coddling” prisoners.   

                   
Ms. Kendall gets down to the business of showing some skin and substantial nudity -- rather daring for the film at the time of its release, 1967! We'll be seeing a lot more of Kendall later on in the film!

BANG! What did I tell you? 

Beckley waves his trusty switchblade at Bruce, while Bruce keeps up his stiff upper lip resolve! It is here that Beckley begins his long, eloquent soliloquy -- concerning the crocodile, as referenced by the record cover. Beckley waxes eloquent on how baby crocs were onetime popular pets by children, and how parents flushed them down the john, where the poor, benighted crocs had to stay alive in a sewers to survive, becoming even more savage and a threat to society as a result. Do we hear a reference to Britain's notorious class system going on here?

Kendall, reborn from her boozy ordeal as a Venus in furs, decides she's sick and tired of Bruce's crap -- she knows he'll never leave his wife and kids for her -- and begins to wave that switchblade around! YIKES!

And now the fun really begins! Harry, who Tom and Dick have referred to repeatedly through the siege appears -- and Harry turns out to be horror movie icon MARTINE BESWICK! If you need an introduction to this fantabulous Seventies scream queen icon -- you're on the wrong website. Beat it…

Usually cast in dominatrix-styled roles, Beswick is devastating -- and wonderful in a gray business suit and glasses, in lieu of the slinky get-ups featured in her other roles. This confirms that Beswick was criminally underused during her brief acting career!

ANYWAY ... Beswick informs the couple that she is Tom and Dick's parole officer, and that they have failed her! In fact, she's bringing them back to personally apologize! I tell you, Beswick is only in the film's last 13 minutes, but her eccentric, hilarious performance is the perfect payoff!

Tom, Dick and Harry lean in for a personal exchange, and --

-- the laugh is on the adulterous couple, as well as the audience! Was there any doubt that she was one of them?

The terrifying trio mete out their final verdict! The thing is -- they know full well Bruce isn't going to say anything that would reveal his affair, costing him his career and marriage! Tonight's fun and games has BEEN ON THEM!

Tied up again with no place to go, the adulterous couple are sadder -- but wiser! They escape unharmed, but things aren't going back to what they once were, that’s for sure!

Kendall dumps her loser boyfriend as a torch song plays ... So much for being the other woman! The “World Full of Lonely Men,” as Lisa Shane croons, but the way Brucie acts, he’s destined to be a very lonely man!

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE / Paramount Pictures - 1931

It's another Monsterous Monday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. This story by Robert Louis Stevenson has created some thrilling moments in the cinema, with titles like DER JANUSKOPH (1920), DR. PYCKLE AND MR. PRYDE (1925), ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET DR. JEKYLL, SON OF DR. JEKYLL, DAUGHTER OF DR. JEKYLL, THE TWO FACES OF DR. JEKYLL, DR. JEKYLL AND SISTER HYDE, including Eegah!! and Tabonga's lost 8mm comedy horror masterpiece from 1959, DR. HEKYLL AND MR. JYDE! This great looking 1931 film had an incredible $1,140,000 budget!!

Eegah!! sent over this soundclip from the movie for our listening enjoyment, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button there next to the smoking lab beaker, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula! Here's our audio offering for... DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE!

Dr. Jekyll lives a charmed life, besides being a famous doctor, he gives lectures and is an accomplished pianist!

And, he's got the perfect girlfriend (soon to be fiance), so, what could possibly go wrong?..

Being a good doctor, he helps a damsel in distress who has hurt her leg by carrying her up to her room.

Ivy, the local barfly, flirts with the doc by tossing her garters in front of him before she gets naked under the covers! The fun ends there when the doctor's friend walks in on them.

If this isn't a great shot, then, I guess I don't know what a great shot is!

Welp, here's mud in yer eyeball!

I swear, when I was watching some of the transformation scenes, I kept having flashes of Jerry Lewis in THE NUTTY PROFESSOR!

The first thing Hyde does is go to the bar and have a drink. Lucky for him, Ivy shows up there, unlucky for Ivy, he blackmails her into being his lover!

Not knowing he's also Hyde, Ivy goes to the doctor and shows him the marks on her back from her sexual encounter with the wild man. Jekyll makes a promise to himself that he will never use the potion again.

Then it happens, he doesn't need the potion, now, he can change into Hyde through his own emotional stress. He shows up at Ivy's place and kills her!

He proves to his friend that it's really Henry Jekyll under all that makeup by transforming back into him!

But, the genie's out of the bottle and Hyde sets his sights on his next victim, Jekyll's beloved fiance!

FANTÔMAS - Michel Magne - "Super Thief & Master Lover" (1964)

I admit it, I'm a sucker for movies with one word names, what the strange fascination is, I have no clue, except it means I get to watch some extra cool European flicks. There's a whole slew of them, some we've done, and some are yet to come. When one word says it all, that's as good as it gets, like "KRIMINAL," "SATANIK," "DIABOLIQUE," or tonight's feature, "Fantômas"!!!

Yes, believe it or not, there was a time when people would stand outside of department store windows, and gawk at the wonder of that miracle called TV!! The dynamite music in the background is by composer Michel Magne, who wrote the music for the trilogy of 60's Fantômas flicks, as part of his 89 film scores before passing away at 54 in 1984!

There's been quite a crime wave going on, and some ultra mysterious cat named Fantômas is the guy behind it all, but it's okay, because this guy being interviewed on the televison, Commissaire Juve, has it all under control!

Or that's what he'd like you to think anyway!

A journalist by the name of Fandor decides to write a fake article and interview with Fantômas to create some action! One minute he's in his cool bachelor pad, and the next..........

....moment he finds himself regaining consciousness in some vast underground digs!!

Enter onto the scene, the one and only Fantômas!! And he's pissed!!

The character of Fantômas has a unbelievable rich and colourful history in French film-making dating ALL the way back to 1913 and the film entitled "Fantômas - À L'Ombre De La Guillotine!" Next, there were three versions titled strictly "Fantômas" in 1920, 1932, and 1947!

There was this 1964 version and two followup sequels with the same basic cast, "Fantômas Se Déchaîne" in 1965, and "Fantômas Contre Scotland Yard" in 1967, and I guess there's one planned still for this year, and I counted at least 13 more titles that have come out over the years, and yet Fantômas is still basically an unknown commodity in America!

Another thing that is quite interesting is that many of the versions of "Fantômas" have actors playing more than one part, like in this series, Jean Marais not only plays the journalist Fandor, but he is also, yeah, you got it, Fantômas!! When Fandor reawakens in his loft, he thinks the whole thing was just a nightmare, but then oh, F, where did this F come from?

Here's where the rub comes for me! Louis de Funès as Commissaire Juve is just as obnoxious as Hell! Check this guy out, and it will be very clear to you why they love Jerry Lewis in France! Maybe there's something wrong with my funny-bone, but sometimes I just don't get it!! A little bit would be okay, but it just goes on for too long, and he's a reoccurring character, so he's pretty hard to avoid!

Another reoccurring character in the films is the steady girlfriend of Fantômas, Lady Beltham!

This time around Lady Beltham was played by Marie-Hélène Arnaud, a Chanel model who graced the cover of Life Magazine in 1957!

So here's the deal, since Fantômas can assume the identity of virtually anybody, he's decided to look like Fandor, go out and get in a lot of trouble, and Fandor gets blamed! Nice collection of heads, I mean masks, you gotta admit!

Commissaire Juve has issued the challenge to Fantômas to try and steal a bunch of jewels!

There's going to be a big fashion show with super models wearing the jewels, unfortunately the Commissaire can't even control his own people!

So after Fantômas pulls off that little stunt, he then puts on a mask that makes him look like the Commissaire himself!

He goes to a threatre where they are having a show about Fantômas, and riddles the place with bullets from a machine gun in front of tons of witnesses!

I've got to admit that it's pretty funny when the witnesses put together a police sketch, and it comes out looking exactly like the Commissaire!!!

I love this shot of the stunned witnesses when they discover that the Commissaire is also the culprit!!

Lady Beltham gives Fandor and his girlfriend Hélène played by Mylène Demongeot, an escape vehicle, but they soon find out she's no lady as the car careens out of control down a steep mountain road!

The gorgeous Mylène Demongeot has continued her acting career right up into 2011! She is also a published author!

The film ends with a long involved chase scene that includes everything from stolen cars to trains to motorcycles!

The authorities and Commissaire Juve don't stand a ghost of a chance! Fantômas owns his own private submarine, and the dumbass Commissaire can't remember how to swim, but he'll get saved somehow, remember there's still two more sequels!! If you ask nicely, you can probably get any Fantômas flick you want to see over at "The Web Of Mystery"!