THE THING THAT COULDN'T DIE / Universal - 1958 / Music by Joseph Gershenson

Now, here is weird little flick from Universal about evil dude that lose body and try to get it back! One time, Rodan write script called HEAD OF HORROR that have head looking for body too, but take place in old gold mine!.. Not cigarette, bling!

Joseph Gershenson was music supervisor and use uncredited composer Irving Gertz, Henry Mancini, Hans J. Salter + Herman Stein. Universal had tricky way to save $$$ by recycling. Listen and you will hear sounds from THIS ISLAND EARTH and TARANTULA!

Eegah! make nice soundclip tonight, so why not give listen!.. SOUNDCLIP NO LONGER AVAILABLE

This flick have very strange cast of character! Charles Horvath play Mike the big dumb guy as Carolyn Kearney do some divining with a stick! Guess what?.. Right, she find box buried in ground!

Big stupid Mike open box and find something creepy inside, The Thing! So, The Thing hypnotize him, Mike then go stomp cowboy pal a good'ern!..

Thing make Mike take him to peek at gurlies sleeping but Andra Martin pick up weird vibe and wake up!

For big laugh, Thing hide in hat box and scare living crap outta gurl.

Finally they locate coffin, pendant make body reanimate, add head, and... viola! Back in business!!

William Reynolds use pendant to force evil complete Thing back into coffin...

Title very deceiving!.. IT DIE!!

Ahhh, nothing like a perfect ending!!

SPACEWAYS - Ivor Slaney - "Mystery in Space" (1953)

Interesting from a historical perspective, "SPACEWAYS" is not too darn exciting on multiple levels. I'm told this was Hammer's first ever Sci-Fi movie, but I think that's stretching it a bit, maybe some of it is in space, but this really is just a mystery, and trust me, Edgar Wallace does them up a whole lot better! This is literally just a space opera!! I'd call it a Science Mystery Tale, but it was 1953, so what do you expect??? So, as long as you don't get too excited about it, you'll probably like this movie!! The music is pretty standard fare for composer Ivor Slaney, with just a touch of spaceiness!

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Pretty elaborate launching area they have set up!

Eva Bartok as Dr. Lisa Frank, and Howard Duff as Dr. Stephen Mitchell!! Howard Duff isn't exactly exciting, but he is quite adequate in this role!

Wow! Are you impressed?? Pretty fancy space stuff they've got for 1953, a mere three years later, the saucers would be attacking Washington D.C.

Oh, Yeah, the other story; this is Howard Duff's wife Vanessa, played by Cecile Chevreau! She's a real you know what, and she's actually smiling in this picture, but without her, there's no plot you see, because she's so unhappy with her husband, she's going to split with one of Howard's science guy buddies, and leave Howard holding the bag, and getting accused of killing them and stuffing their bodies into the spaceship before it took off into space, like they deserved!

She gets what she's got coming to her!!

So Howard had to go into space to clear his name, and Eva sneaks along in the other suit because she loves Howard as much as Vanessa didn't! No Monsters! Well, except Vanessa was pretty much a female dog she beast!!!!!

EARTH vs THE FLYING SAUCERS / Columbia - 1956 / Music by Mischa Bakaleinikoff

This one's for Annie!!

It looks like we're bumping it up here in 2009!! Take, for example, tonight's classic offering, complete with a cool little bonus at the end!

Monster Music Maestro Mischa Bakaleinikoff is a favorite here at The Dungeon, he weighs in with 404 music department credits!!! Get this, his very first credit was for a movie called THE YOUNGER GENERATION from 1929!! A few other titles he worked on are THE VAMPIRE BAT, AIR HAWKS, THE THROWBACK, THE LONE WOLF IN PARIS, CRY OF THE WEREWOLF, THE UNKNOWN, CIGARETTE GIRL, SUPERMAN, JUNGLE JIM, BEWARE OF BLONDIE, CAPTAIN VIDEO, KILLER APE, SCREAMING MIMI...

Oh, he worked on a lot of Ray Harryhausen projects too!! But, for now, here's EARTH vs THE FLYING SAUCERS!!

Hugh Marlowe and his hot new wifey Joan Taylor are working on a secret space project for the government. Her dad is the general, played by the uncanny Morris Ankrum!

But, as always in the fifties, monsters from outer space come to Earth and ruin everything!

Their presence is felt around the world...

Did I mention, they like to blow things up!!

And, they have bad-ass robots that shoot death rays?!..

Well, they certainly do, George! And, it hoits!!

They take turns trying to figure out who's under the helmet by asking a series of embarrassing questions...

These three stills are from the most distressing part of the film. Hugh and Joan get to witness the general after his mind is stolen by the aliens, then tossed from the saucer!! Paul Frees did the alien voice!

For revenge, Hugh comes up with this infernal contraption, and, that spells the end for the space invaders!

Poetry in motion...

I saw a clip on TV news about 10 years ago where a flying saucer was seen and photographed around Mexico City, and, guess what, it was one of these!.. Whatta hoot!!

Is this an awesome shot, or what?!

OOOH, DAAAMMN!!

Of course, Joan just can't get Hugh's mind off those pesky aliens... Now, its... "I wonder if they'll ever be back?"



Okay, here's something we've had hanging around for the right moment, and, well, now seems right! I noticed its a bit louder than the soundclip, so, maybe turn it down a little... Later.

DINOSAURUS! - Ronald Stein - "Julio Meets The Neanderthal Man" (1960)

I always thought that "Dinosaurus" was a tricky little title, just adding that one little syllable was pure 1960 genius! Leave it to Jack Harris to come up with something like that, and I love any title that has balls enough to use an exclamation point! Right on!!

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Lucky for us they spend a lot of time in the cantina in this film, and Hey, isn't that bad guy Mike Hacker there in the middle, leaving the joint?

Diabolical and despicable Mike is played by none other than Folksinger Fred Engleberg in his last film performance! Remember Fred? He was the guy singing the song in the TV studio in "The Lost Missle." What a great actor, what happened to that guy?

Hard to find much info on except he recorded a couple of albums for Elektra Records in the 60's! He doesn't seem to want to offer up that much biographical information, because it sure is scarce! Too bad he doesn't perform in this movie!

Our hero Ward Ramsey as Bart Thompson and Kristina Hanson as the lovely and charming Betty Piper relax in the cantina to the soothing sounds of some calypso band nobody bothered to credit!! The rest of the soundtrack is composed by the irrepressible A.I.P. stalwart, Ron Stein!

Probably the best possible idea is to leave the local drunk in charge of the dinosaurs that have been discovered and dragged up on the beach!!

There's a lot of stuff going on in this movie, including this Neanderthal man running around with his comedy act!!

Veteran actor Gregg Martell lends his own particular humour to this film, like this one scene where he's peeping in this lady's window and they scare each other!!

The lady ran out of the house screaming, so the cave man decides to try on some of her clothes! Eegah!! could take this guy easily, I have no doubt!!

This is what happened after he flushed the toilet! This is really some funny stuff!!

Then the movie takes another turn when the Neanderthal man meets the little boy Julio, and they become best buddies!! Life is good!!

Nice compact cel phone, circa 1960!!

I can't believe Kristina only ever did one more film and that was 19 years later, she's so classically classy! Check out that look, as Gregg inspects her!!

The locals all gather for the annual T-Rex BBQ and Rib shindig!

Okay Kids, see how bad smoking can be for you! So Don't do it! Thank-You!! Visual effects by Marcel Delgado!!

Gee Julio, I'm sorry about what happened to your cave man buddy and all, but little dude, look around you, you really ain't got it that bad, so snap out of it!!

I honestly can't believe, out of all the cool footage they shot for this movie, they used the cheapest looking toy shot for the lobby card. Oh, well, nobody's perfect!!