"House Of A Thousand Dolls" has too many bonus Dungeon elements in it for me to say anything bad about it! It's NOT the best movie ever made, but any fan of the genre or the characters involved should go on and jump in head first! So, as The Routers would say in 1962, "Let's Go!"
Just like these tourists, this freakin' movie was driving me nuts, and here's the reason why! When I was getting ready to write this, I was looking at the stills, and one of them was for the music credits, and a song called "House of a 1000 Dolls" performed by Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers! Well, since I'm a recently converted apostle, expounder, and supporter of the Cliff Bennett experience, I couldn't figure out what was going on because I couldn't remember hearing a real song during the movie, so I went back and watched the whole thing again, and no song! So I was like WTF?! I went to IMDB, to see if anyone wrote about it and where the song was, and there was a review where a gal had written that the song wasn't on the VHS tape, and I guessed the copy I have has the same problem, so then I went on a search for the song by itself, and finally came up with this, I hope you dig it:
"House of a 1000 Dolls" by the amazing Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers!
"House Of 1000 Dolls" has an amazing cast that includes Dungeon regular Maria Rohm as Diane! I don't know why, but I get Maria and Rosanna Yanni mixed up for some reason! I think it's the Jess Franco connection!
Next up is Dungeon Hero George "Jerry Cotton" Nader as Stephen Armstrong!
Welcome to Tangiers! Here's the bad news, this is one of the good guys!
Everybody knows good guys finish last, dead last in this case!!
The story revolves around Vincent Price as Hypnotist Felix Manderville, and Martha Hyer as his lovely assistant Rebecca! They work for the Mob and in their act, they disappear young women from around the world, and turn them into sex slaves in a high dollar brothel in Tangiers! You know, regular every day stuff!!
To get into the exclusive club, you have to have one of these stupid little dolls as kind of a pass key!!
Once inside the club, the patrons get a two-way mirror's view of the international bevy of beauties, aka, The Dolls!!
Look familiar? José Jaspe is the pimp/bodyguard/enforcer Ahmed! I'm sure you've seen him in one his other 121 roles in flicks like "Póker De Ases," or "A Stroke Of A 1000 Millions."
In Tangiers, they still celebrate the traditional annual event known as "The Ritualistic Burning of the Buick!"
The Dolls are a feisty bunch, and I'm not sure if this is her or not, but one of them, Caroline Coons, has become a very successful artiste, and at one time managed The Clash, and took photos used on Clash and Police records!
Every film like this has to have the seemingly incompetent police officer, and this one trying to hassle George Nader is Wolfgang Kieling as Inspector Emil! Wolfgang had a great career in German film, and in one of his few forays into Hollywood, he was Hermann Gromek in Hitchcock's "Torn Curtain!"
Two of the Dolls try a valiant escape to no avail except recapture and torture!
Martha Hyer's not a name you normally associate with the term psychotronic, but when you realize she was in everything from "Abbott & Costello Go To Mars," or "Pyro...The Thing Without A Face," to Bikini Beach," "First Men In The Moon," and "Picture Mommy Dead," you might want to give it another thought!
I just like this shot of Vincent Price, and this is still the anniversary of what would have been his 100th birthday as of the 27th of the last May!
You gotta know things are going to start getting ugly when they try and disappear George Nader's wife Marie, as played by Ann Smyrner! The Danish beauty had roles in some great Dungeon classics like "Journey To The 7th Planet, "Reptilicus," and "Kommissar X - Drei Gelbe Katzen!"
"The Queen of Hearts she made some tarts all on a summer's day; The Knave of Hearts he stole the tarts and took them clean away. The King of Hearts called for the tarts and beat the Knave full sore. The Knave of Hearts brought back the tarts and vowed he'd steal no more." - Lewis Carroll
I think this would be the only film that Vincent Price and George Nader appeared in together! That fact by itself is enough reason to seek out this movie!
Classic portrait of George Nader!!
Marie and Diane watch in horror as information is extracted from one of the other Dolls! Besides Caroline Coons, the gals fleshing out the cast and credited simply as "and the Dolls" are Andrea"The Cups Of San Sebastian"Lascelles, Ursula"Il Vostro Super Agente Flit"Janis, Karin"LSD Flesh Of Devil"Skarreso, Loli Munoz, Marisol, Jill Echols, Monique Aimé, Sandra Petrelli, Lara Lenti, and Francoise Fontages who never appeared in other films, and finally Kitty Swan who was in some real zingers like "Barbarella," "Deadlier Than The Male," and "Wild, Wild Planet!"
While George sorts it all out, I almost forgot that besides the killer theme song that was written by Don Black and Mark London and performed by Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers, the rest of the music in the film was by Modernist composer Carlos Camilleri who only had one other composing credit, "Sax Rohmer's The Castle Of Fu Manchu." Carlos went on to be the Professor of Composition at the Toronto Conservatory of Music, and ended his career as a Professor of Music at Malta University!
You know we don't normally do videos, but the first time I saw this, over at René Claude's blog
Pour15 Minutes D'amour, I was blown away. To do a Beatles' cover "live" with horns, and knock it out, well, it's something everybody should see and hear at least once! Ladies and Gentlemen, Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers!!!!
Our story starts with a dire warning from the International community when it comes to dealing with wascally wabbits! 
The music is by Jimmie Haskell, who's had a pretty interesting career as a composer. He did the music for SURF PARTY, WILD ON THE BEACH, THE WICKED DREAMS OF PAULA SCHULTZ, DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY and a flick near and dear to us at The Dungeon, ZACHARIAH! He also worked on Krofft's DR. SHRINKER for Saturday morning TV. 
Here are Rory (MOTEL HELL) Calhoun as Cole, our man Stuart (DEATHWORK) Whitman as Roy, Janet (PSYCHO) Leigh as Gerry and what's his name back there. Roy and Gerry are zoologists there to help Cole figure out an ecologically sound way to deal with the varmints on his property. 
Let's not forget about DeForest Kelley who plays the pouty, Elgin Clark. Imagine, being named after a clock and have the last name of a candy bar! 
Some of the other farmers, though, just like to watch things blow the Hell up... 
Lesson: Don't stop your stupid truck in East Podunk late at night just to check your damn load! 
...SEE!! 
Looks like the Lepus have a bad case of THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN! 
Hey, and this looks like it could be from a new version of THEM! 
When I saw this shot of looking up from inside the hole, I decided to put up my painting from 1985 called EXTERMINATORS: 2062, because of the likeness. 
...A few more explosions before we move along. 
Hell, they're no messier than most people! 
Hewp, wabbits on da' wun! 
They break into the general store and grab a few snacks! 
Really nice miniature work! 
Looks like the director's going to yell 'cut' here in a second! 
Ahhh, the good old days, when things were a bit simpler. 
Attention! Attention! Ladies and gentlemen, attention! There's a herd of killer rabbits headed this way and we desperately need your help!.. Officer Lopez needs everbloody to leave the drive-in and go to a designated area so they can line their cars up side by side and form a headlight wall to repel the oncoming horde. 
Meanwhile, back at the junction, the electric company prepares a high-voltage death trap for the lumbering mutant invaders! 
And... Here they come!! 
KA-EFFIN-ZAP-A-ROONIE!!!
