THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG / Weird! Horrifying! Fascinating! - 1939

When Dr. Savaard's experiment in cryonics is interrupted by short-sighted authorities, his young volunteer dies, and he is condemned to death. He vows vengeance on those people, if he can survive his own hanging... Man, that's one nice insert poster from Columbia Pictures.

It stars Boris (FRANKENSTEIN 1970) Karloff, Lorna (VALLEY OF THE ZOMBIES - Lived to be 99 years old!) Gray, Robert (MYSTERIOUS DOCTOR SATAN) Wilcox, Roger (SCARED STIFF) Pryor, Don (BEWARE SPOOKS) Beddoe and Ann (THE GREEN HORNET - Ended her career with 379 acting credits!) Doran... What in the heck is VALLEY OF THE ZOMBIES?!

Here's Dr. Savaard in his lab, preparing his volunteer patient for his experiment to bring the dead back to life. His assistant has brought him the final machine to complete his list of needed equipment. His nurse, Betty, is against the experiment, that's her boy friend there on the table. She gets locked out of the room so she goes to the police.

Is this a cool shot or what?!

Betty is frantic at the police station, saying that the doctor has committed a murder! Newsman 'Scoop' Foley is there on other business, but thinks he's got another scoop here!

Police Lt. Shane has his boys break into the doctor's lab. The experiment has been interrupted and the patient cannot be brought back from the dead now, as the doctor is taken away...

The doctor tries to persuade the jury to understand how important his work is for humanity. He even tells them about how the authorities are responsible for the man's death because of the interruption. But, the doctor is asked one simple question... Did you kill your patient? And he answers, yes. That's enough for the jury to come up with a guilty verdict, so, it's off to the gallows with him...

The doctor's assistant claims the body, and so, it's off to the lab! Doc's brought back and is filled with hate and revenge for the ones that are now his enemies. I don't know why but the first still reminds me of SON OF FRANKENSTEIN. Boy, that's one I loved when they showed it on late night chiller theater TV in the fifties!

The doctor sent out invitations using the DA's name to get them there. No one knew the doc was alive and the group wants to know if he had anything to do with six of the jurors that were found hanged... Savaard tells them, I'm legally dead, how could a dead man hang anyone?

Then the fun begins, he informs the crowd that they are all going to die tonight, and the DA will be first, exactly at 7, others will die every 15 minutes after that... And, there is no escaping from his house.

The DA starts to flip out and tries to leave. The doctor tells him.. DO NOT TRY TO LEAVE! A little reverse psychology can go a long way!

Then it's this guy's turn, he's tricked into answering the phone only to get a spike into his brain!

Then Betty's up to bat. The doctor turns off the lights and Betty becomes the target. She tries to hide but the doctor fires a rifle at her, but misses.

Savaard is hiding in a special room where he taunts the group over a loud speaker.

Wouldn't you know it, his daughter shows up, she didn't ever know he was alive again. He tells her to leave but she goes around to the front gate and threatens him saying she's going to open the gate, and he'd better turn the electricity off if he cares for her. He tries to flip the switch, but it's too late! Also, the doctor takes a bullet.

Daughter is rushed to the lab where her father brings her back to the land of the living.

After everyone leaves the room, the doctor takes his rifle and shoots up his lab, leaving the machine destroyed. A physician comes back into the room and asks Savaard why he destroyed his machine, and, the doctor keels over dead before he can respond...

So like, check in again on Wednesday when Eegah!! will try and satisfy your horror tooth again, here at The Dungeon!!..

THE ORSON WELLES SHOW - "Unaired Pilot" (1979)

I've got a great Saturday Night Special for you this evening, yet another unaired pilot that will just leave you scratching your head in wonder how it couldn't have possibly been sold to a network. No wonder I stopped watching TV back in those days because they weren't airing the cool stuff like this!

Orson Welles is just crazy brilliant cool, and fun to watch and listen to!

If I had to make a choice of five people from history to have dinner with, I'm pretty sure Orson would have been one of them!

"The Orson Welles Show" was done in a fairly straight forward talk show format, except they never show Orson and his guests in the same frame, at least as far as I can remember!

It's pretty damn funny, and they make like it's a coincidence that Orson and his first guest Burt Reynolds are both wearing red shirts!

Burt tells some truly funny stories and does a bit of an impersonation of Cary Grant!

Next guests up are The Muppets with Gonzo doing the cue cards!

Fozzie and Kermit get interviewed by Orson!

It's a crack up because it's all so serious!

Sometimes I get bored with a 30 minute or less show, but this show was 90 minutes long and felt like it got over too soon! It's that good!

Here's something you will never see again on a TV show, Orson Welles smokes at least three cigars over the course of 90 minutes!

Time to let the magic begin!

Sawing a woman in half wasn't good enough for Orson, he had to go for thirds!

Another Orson Welles feature you should absolutely see is his pseduo-documentary from 1973, 

"F Is For Fake!"

Not to be outdone by The Muppets, the next guests are the two main men behind The Muppets scene, Frank Oz, and Jim Henson!

Last but not least on the show is the beautiful Angie Dickinson, who doesn't say much, but instead is Orson's assistant in a couple more magic tricks!

In the "Don't Try This At Home" department, Orson's last trick is one that fatally failed when another magician from another time attempted it!

It's a form of Russian Roulette where Orson has to tell Angie when to stop firing before she hits the live shell.

 Pretty Dramatic no doubt and you finally stop wondering why they couldn't sell this show!

Unfortunately Orson picks the wrong time to stop and is hideously killed by the speeding bullet!

Just kidding, but I'm sure Orson would have loved to have been carried off dead, and you didn't find out until the next week that it was all just a trick!

Find out for yourself at the amazing and always free Internet Archive!

And while you're there check out the equally amazing radio shows by the guy who told me about this show,

LORD LITTER!

ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN / "The Mind Machine" - 1952

In today's super adventure, a mobster kidnaps a scientist and takes possession of his invention. The crook then uses the device to damage the minds of people testifying before an investigative committee, and the victims die a short time later. Superman races to find the mobster before Lois Lane testifies at the committee hearing.

Dr. Stanton is working on his invention to help mental patients for the betterment of mankind... Three mobsters enter the lab where they take the machine and doctor away after knocking the doc's assistant to the ground, and they warn him, do not call the police if you ever want to see your boss again!

The assistant goes to the Daily Planet and sees Clark who he knows him from a press conference where the doctor told the public about the machine. Clark takes an interest in the kidnapping, of course!

Here's the hoodlums at their hideout. There's Curly, Lou the boss and Al. They're reading the newspaper which has a classified ad that has a reward for whoever knows the whereabouts of the doctor. Lou knows it's a trap, so just grabs the doc and has him warm the machine up.

He tunes it in on the investigative committee where the witness is ready to name names in the criminal activities in Metropolis.

But the second he's ready to say, Lou Cranek, the mob boss tells him to say that he's never heard of the person, then the man goes into a psychosis and leaves the courthouse...

The man then gets super paranoid, he goes into the street and commandeers a woman's car and drives like a bat outta Hell trying to get away from Clark and Lois, the lady faints. He drives into the country and stops after the car gets a flat. He sees a bus with children in it and steals it while the driver is trying to fix the brakes. Lois and Clark show up in their little Nash Rambler. Clark tells Lois and the bus driver to go chase the bus while he stays with the fainted woman... He then changes and Superman takes off.

Our hero stops the bus, and when Lois and the bus driver show up...

They find the man dead in the driver's seat!

It gets really weird about here, Clark and the doctor's assistant (who's flying the plane) use radar to try and locate the place the doc's located. Since the mind machine uses so much power, they finally locate the place. So, Clark punches the pilot and knocks him out, puts the plane on auto-pilot and jumps out.

Lois is testifying before the committee, as soon as the viewer becomes clear, Lou can give her a deadly command...

Luckily, Superman shows up just in the nick of time. Al fires away with his gun but to no avail.

As Superman toys with the gangsters, Dr.Stanton destroys his devilish machine.

Al breaks a vase over Superman's head, then gets knocked on his ass!

He tells the doctor to call the police for him because he has one last thing to do, land the airplane safely as it just ran out of gas...

Of course everyone wants to know where Clark was during the whole ordeal... Tune in again tomorrow for another dose of what you need, here at The Dungeon!!..