HIGH SCHOOL CAESAR - "Mob Rule In A High School" (1960)

This week's Saturday Night Special is a classic juvenile hot rod film from 1960 called "High School Caesar."

 

Dungeon Hero John Ashley is a spoiled little rich kid named Mat Stevens. He's "Cool as a freezer, that's why they call him Caesar!" IMDB has his name as Matt, but according this poster, I beg to differ.

 

This is Mat's girlfriend Lita Owens as played by Daria Massey. Search as hard as you want, but all you're going to basically find about Daria is, "She was an actress," and a list of her credits. There's a Facebook click bait page based in Nigeria, that says she died last year, but I wouldn't go there unless you're really on the prowl for a virus! 

(After I threw out that challenge, our pal KD found this old newspaper clipping abour Daria. It doesn't really add any new info, but is still interesting as Heck! The movie mentioned in the article titled "The Magic Brain" was actually "The Magic Ring.")

 

The rockin' soundtrack was written by the phenomenal Nicholas Carras who composed the music for an incredible array of films like "Missile To The Moon," "She Demons," "Date Bait," "Frankenstein's Daughter," "The Astro-Zombies," and more!

 

The High School election is rigged, and Mat has his pals making sure that he wins!

 

 

Mat's best friend is called Cricket, and he wants to go out with this special blonde he likes named Wanda, and Mat guarantees that she will be Cricket's girlfriend, except Wanda has other plans!

 

 

The kids are all hanging out drinking Cokes at their favorite joint called The Wagon. That's Wanda on the far left. Wanda was played by Judy (Adventures Of Superman, Magnificent Obsession) Nugent.

 Mat's rich parents are out of the country, so he's running all kinds of rackets at the school. He's even mean to the service people employed by his parents.

It's gotta be depressing to be twenty-six, and still be in high school. That's how old John was when he made this film!

The most important thing in life to Mat is to keep his hair slicked back.

 

 

The kids all decide to have a hot rod race! Mat tells everybody that there is a $2.00 entry fee to race, and when they balk, he tells them that the winner will get this special coin that he has.

 The guy who was running for President against Mat wins the race, and the coin, but after the race is over, Mat with Cricket in the car, run Kelly off the road.

 

Kelly dies in the accident, and Mat retrieves his coin, and then Mat and Cricket will deny knowing anything about the accident.

 

One of Mat's rackets is that he sells stolen tests to any kid who has five bucks, and doesn't want to fail. A new test comes up that he needs a copy of, so he sends his goons to the office to get it!

The two dummies almost get caught by the Principal, and it really pisses Mat off!

This shot is iconic 1960! A stud and two dolls!

 

Wanda is walking down the street, when Mat forces her into the car. Cricket is in the driver's seat, and Mat tells him to take a hike. He tells Cricket he wants Wanda for himself and that Cricket can now have Lita. Cricket's not happy, but leaves anyway. In the meantime, the coin falls out of Mat's pocket.

 

Wanda has the coin and gets away, and takes off running, and at first Mat pursues her on foot, and then in his car! At one point she hides under this bridge with Mat standing right above her.

 

Meanwhile Crickets heads back to the club, and when he gets there he tells all the kids that Mat killed Kelly, and in the meantime Wanda goes back to the rest of the kids, and tells them that Mat had Kelly's coin. Steve (Agent For H.A.R.M.) Stevens is Cricket.

 

 

Mat gives up on finding Wanda, and heads back to The Wagon where they are supposed to be having a big birthday party for him, but nobody's there.

 

 

The kids all turn on him, and the guy who owns The Wagon calls the cops, and the blasphemous reign of the mighty Caesar is put to an end, once and for all! Kind of reminds me of recent political events, just on a smaller scale!

OPERA - Dario Argento (1987)

 This week's classical Mercredi feature is another monsterpiece from the Maestro Dario Argento!

"Opera," what a great simplistic one word title!

But this is a Dario Argento film, and in Dario's world, nothing is even remotely close to simplistic!

I'm just gonna come right out and say it, this is not one of my favorites of Argento's films, because many scenes are quite disturbing, and horribly violent, and yet you keep on watching, because Argento's movies can be as hypnotizing as they are repulsive!

I found the star, Cristina Marsillach's performance to be completely stiff, even though she wasn't dead, just as I suspect Argento must have wanted it, or maybe it's just because she's a Libra!

Dungeon fave and Dario Argento's main squeeze, Daria Nicolodi is in there of course!

I'm sure this one shot cost more than one whole movie we made!

Blame it all on the curse of Lady Macbeth!

I really could have got along without about twenty minutes of slicing and slashing!

The music in "Opera" is really interesting, and was not what I expected at all!

It bounces back and forth between real opera and metal madness by Steel Grave and Norden Light!

Some of the music is by Brian and Roger Eno, and......

......Some of it is by Bill Wyman and Terry Taylor!

You can find the soundtrack to "Opera" on vinyl or cd on Discogs for a mere pittance!

It's Argento's eye for shots like this that keep me coming back!

To make sure you can't close your eyes to the horror in front of you!

Steel Grave - "Just Push The Play Buton"

I should have counted how many different types of horror are!

The rest of the soundtrack was created by Maestro Claudio Simonetti!

As a last resort, sometimes shooting motherfuckers is the only option you have!

But when that doesn't work!

Well, here we go again!

Lo and Behold, Look what I just found on YouTube, so if you so desire, you can come to your own conclusions or concussions, however you want to look at it.
 Just don't let your kids watch it!

TENEBRE - "Darkness" (1982)

 The Saturday Night Special this week is another one of those non-stop laugh fests from the twisted mind of the Maestro Dario Argento!

 The original title was "Tenebre" but they changed it over to "Tenebrae" so you English speaking peoples could understand it better!

"Tenebrae" has a religious connotation but is also Latin for 'Darkness.'

"Tenebrae" has quite a cast that includes Anthony Franciosa as famed author Peter Neal. Over the course of his fine career, Anthony, also known as Tony, starred in at least five different TV shows from the 60's to the 80's including ""Valentine's Day," "The Name Of The Game," "Search," "Matt Helm," and "Finder Of Lost Loves."

Peter Neal has gone to Rome to promote his new novel called "Tenebrae."

There are so many pretty girls in this film that's it's hard to keep up with them!

Usually by about the time you get acquainted with a character, they get murdered in some grisly fashion usually including a straight razor or an axe!

John (The Evil Eye, Queen Of Blood) Saxon has the role of Peter Neal's agent!
With 198 credits under his belt, John is still working today, and has two new films in pre or post production!

The stories about the filming of "Tenebrae" could be made into a movie themselves, like the one about why Daria Nicolodi had the role of Anne, and how her new found relationship with her co-star Anthony Franciosa irritated the Hell out of her main squeeze Dario Argento!

 

Lara (Satan's Wife) Wendel is lovely as ever in the role of Maria Alboretto, an innocent young lady extremely persecuted!

Movies like this drive me crazy because the subject matter is so ugly, but the filming of it is so beautiful! There's one incredibly amazing 2 1/2 minute crane shot from the outside of a building that took three days to shoot! That's how meticulous Argento is!

"Tenebrae" crosses enough lines and is so grisly that it was banned in England until 1999, and was also banned in Germany for at least 25 years!

The hand of the killer in a black leather glove that is seen in a number of scenes, is the hand of Dario Argento himself!

Poor Maria is not only murdered!

She is persued first by a relentless Doberman Pinscher that can seemingly jump over, or scale every fence known to man! You really want her to get away, but you just know it's not going to happen!

Flanked by Daria Nicolodi as Anne, and Christiab Borromeo as Gianni, Peter Neal thinks he's got the whole thing figured out!

Just waiting even takes on whole new meaning when Dario Argento is running the show, and only Argento can make something as boring as just sitting around into something interesting!

The music is performed once again by Goblin, as they did in "Deep Red" and "Suspiria," but this time they are credited as the individual players Massimo Morante, Fabio Pignatelli, and Claudio Simonetti, instead of Goblin, because the drummer was no longer with them and owned the rights to the name Goblin!

 

 Daria Nicolodi is the reason I watched "Tenebre," and this last scene will show you why!

Despite all the horror films I've watched, I'm still not a big fan of stilettos, axes and straight razors, but Dario Argento always takes it to another level, and that's all I'm gonna say!

You can read all about it in this very extensive Wikipedia article!