MONSTROSITY In Color - 1963

Here's a recently colorized sci-fi flick, originally filmed in 1958, it wasn't released until 1963 because the money ran out before production was finished, followed by years of re-editing until the producers were ready to release it. Alternate title is THE ATOMIC BRAIN.

The story's about a wealthy old woman who plots with a scientist to have her brain transplanted into a sexy young woman. It stars Marjorie Eaton as Mrs. March, Frank Gerstle as Dr. Frank, Frank Fowler as Victor, Erika Peters as Nina, Judy Bamber as Bea and Lisa Lang as Anita. Also, Bradford Dillman was the narrator.

We start with this guy, one of Dr. Franks weird experiments, who also serves as his helper when needed. The MST guys refer to him as Stephen Stills!

Here's Dr. Frank's latest creation, a walking dead girl.

Mrs. March is interested in such things, as she plans on getting a body like that one soon...

Speaking of bodies, Mrs. March is waiting impatiently for her assistant, Victor, to return from the airport with three European women that she can pick out her new body from...

Mrs. March has the girls strip down so that she can check out what she'll look like in a few days from now.

Probably the most disturbing thing in the movie is the way she looks at the girls, with pure delight, fantasizing about the way she's going to look! The girls think she's a little weird, and they have no idea what she has in store for them.

Anita is the odd girl out, Dr. Frank has a special experiment he wants to perform on her, like, giving her a cat's brain!.. Hmmm.

Well, Anita gets her cat brain and immediately scratches one of Bea's eyes out! Then later, Anita falls off the roof to her death!

Bea is kept under sedation by Dr. Frank until he can give her a new eye later on.

Nina begs Victor (who hates Mrs. March) to help her, which he does. He has her sign the legal papers so that she will inherit the estate...

But, guess who was standing behind the curtain? Victor gets it in the back!

So, it's time for the operation to put Mrs. March's brain in Nina's body.

So, Nina wakes up to find out that Dr. Frank put the old lady's brain in the cat!! How?? Then Dr. Frank decides he needs to get rid of Nina to get the inheritance. He goes into the radiation room to get it prepared for Nina, but...

The cat with Mrs. March's brain locks the door behind the doctor, flips a switch, drops some levers and pushes the 'danger' button. Crap, he should not have shown the old biddy how the damn thing is operated, oops!

Now it's the doctor's turn to face the atomic music!

The place is starting to shake as the atomic machine goes into self destruction. Bea gets to the lab and helps Nina get loose.

But, Bea sees her new eyeball and goes to look at it, and gets a face full of fire and radiation!

Goodnight sweet Bea!

Nina barely gets out of the place alive, before...

The place goes up in flames! Nina runs away, followed by the cat with Mrs. March's brain! Well, there you go.. don't play with atomic matches, kids!

COOL SERIALS & LESSER KNOWN HEROES (1930's, 40's & 50's)

 

This electrifying Saturday Night Special is all about the serials!

Serials were a big deal in the 30's, 40's, and 50's, but these days they're about as popular as 8-track tapes. We've covered a lot of the cool ones that featured colorful characters like Captain Video, Commander Cody, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Captain Marvel, Superman, The Batman, and The Green Hornet, but there are some lesser known heroes I know we'll probably never get around to, but I'm about to remedy that a bit!

 

In 1934, Jack Muhall played a hero who was also a race car driver in a twelve chapter serial called "Burn-'Em-Up' Barnes."

 

In 1936, there was a character named "The Clutching Hand." "15 Thunderbolt Chapters," now how cool is that? 

 Republic Studios were responsible for many of these serials, and in the "The Fighting Devil Dogs" from 1938, the United States Marine Corp were the heroes.

In 1940, Republic Pictures decided to turn it around a bit, and used the name of the villain instead of the hero as the title for the serial!

Dr. Satan was "CRAZED WITH THE LUST TO KILL" or at least that was what the tagline said.

  The hero of this series was actually named Copperhead and was played by Robert Wilcox.

 

Villains were big in 1940, and "Drums Of Fu Manchu" was another 15 episode serial brought out by Republic. 

 

 

Also from 1940 was "The Green Archer," which seems like it's going to be a period piece, but isn't. Based on an Edgar Wallace novel, it's modern times, but older weapons are used by the hero, such as a box and arrow!

 

 1942 brought us a new hero, a fellow named "Spy Smasher." Seriously, who is going to fuck with a guy named "Spy Smasher?" 

 

 

If you're a spy guy, and you're not in the mood to get smashed, I suggest you get the Hell out of town!

 

"Secret Agent X-9" was a serial from 1945 that starred Lloyd (Sea Hunt) Bridges in 13 thrilling episodes.
 

You can actually buy a freakin' 27" X 40" replica of this poster from Walmart for $19.98, and while I normally would never give a plug to Walmart, that's one Helluva deal!

 

In 1966, they decided to try and recycle the 1946 serial titled "The Crimson Ghost" into "Cyclotrode X," and while I give them a lot of credit for trying, you have to admit "Cyclotrode X" sounds a lot like it could be the next Covid variant!

There were many more colorful heroes and villains in serials over the years like Dick Tracy, Tarzan, Zorro, The Masked Marvel, The Black Widow, Spy King, and Don Daredevil. The list goes on and on and on. Probably 90% of them can be found on YouTube or The Internet Archive so there's no excuses for not watching them instead of the drivel they choose to air on TV these days!

In 1947, television was pretty much responsible for the demise of the serial, now it's time to turn the tables.

A GUMBY ADVENTURE / "Toy Crazy" - 1956

Here's a story from the first season, my cousins and I watched the crap out of Gumby for years. It was kinda crazy-cool, you know, like, different...

This display is up in Gumba's kitchen, GUMBASIA is a 3 minute short from a year earlier that shows off Clokey's clay animation chops, done over some jazzy music, it's available online for viewing.

It's Gumby's birthday, he's stuck in a dream mode where he changes into whatever he's dreaming about. Gumbo decides to bring him out of his sleep by playing loud music. Man, they got a pretty sweet layout at their place.

Our little guy finally gets up and is reminded that it's his birthday today! And, he gets to go to the toy store and pick out something he wants...

Let's see, hmm, do I want a doll?..

Gumby does his gliding around mode to save time. He messes around with a few instruments but they're too damn big!

Pokey is late to the show, he wants to help Gumby figure out what to get for his birthday.

In the meantime, Gumby decides he want to look at a robot, way up high.

He shimmies up a pole and is ready to check out the robot when Pokey finally shows up... Wow, check out the contortion Gumby's making here! It looks like they put his face on his backside?!

I think what's cool sometimes is they show toys from that era. Like that Custer's Last Stand item there, you'd get like 80 small plastic figures for 99 cents, I had two sets of the army guys and would play a marble game with them.

Pokey wants Gumby to try out a rocking horse! Now, how in the Hell could they ever get that thing back to the house?!

Gumby and Pokey go for a ride in a Jaguar roadster.

They have to stop for a toy train that's coming by. I'm pretty sure they used this train in another adventure, called a trick-track-train I believe. where the train only has a certain amount of track that adds and subtracts as the train moves along.

Gumby tricks the train into going in the back of a Rescue Squad van, he slams the doors and tells Pokey to follow him home...

But Pokey drives under a loader and gets buried in sand. Gumby helps dig him out. In the meantime though...

The trick-track-train escapes from the back of the van.

They go back to Gumby's place only to discover that the train has escaped!

Gumby's upset, but dad tells him that he'll pick him up another train the next day. Gumby and Pokey then chow down on some good old clay birthday cake!!