THE GIANT GILA MONSTER In Color / Hollywood Pictures - 1959

Welcome to Friday Night Drive-In here at the Dungeon! Our feature, THE GIANT GILA MONSTER, is the follow up to last Friday's post, THE KILLER SHREWS, and was originally double billed with it. Again, these two are the only movies Hollywood Pictures ever made. Also filmed in Tejas.

Great tagline!.. "Only Hell could breed such an enormous beast. Only God could destroy it!" What?.. God is nitroglycerin?!

The flick starts with this teaser scene, we're introduced to the Gila Monster as it takes advantage of teens making out to a swingin' tune on the radio, exactly like at the start of BEGINNING OF THE END two years earlier!

The music is by Jack Marshall, he only had a total of 22 composing credits, mostly TV, between 1958-69 but includes a few good titles like THUNDER ROAD, MUNSTER, GO HOME!, TAMMY AND THE MILLIONAIRE and KONA COAST!

Dungeon helper Ralphie the Tarantula sez he's pumped and ready to push the big red 'GO' button and start our show rolling, right off the cliff!.. THE GIANT GILA MONSTER!

Life used to be a lot simpler, and some would say, better... Like, Tabonga!!

Hey! Gimme a snort of that there... Sodi pop!!

Shug Fisher plays the booze hound Old Man Harris, Shug was a member of the Sons Of The Pioneers!! Other movies he can be seen in are THE YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS, SAN FERNANDO VALLEY, UTAH, MAN FROM OKLAHOMA, SONG OF ARIZONA, UNDER NEVADA SKIES and THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE!

Desmond Doogh plays the hitchhiker in his only film role! Jeez, maybe the Giant Gila Monster really ate him!!!

"Hey man, you can't drive this car!" Chase informs disc jockey Horatio Alger 'Steamroller' Smith, played by Ken Knox. Ken had three acting credits that include MY DOG, BUDDY and BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER!

The gang go out looking for their missing friends in their hot rods, what else?

Come and give auntie a kiss!

They find the car, but no bodies! Chase's girlfriend, Lisa Simone, helps to get the car to the top of the ravine. Lisa was also in MISSILE TO THE MOON!!

Later that evening, our scaly fiend decimates a gas truck!

When you star in such fiftie's classics as TEENAGE ZOMBIES, THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS and CURSE OF THE UNDEAD, you're a Dungeon Hero like Don Sullivan here! Hey, the guy sings and he got to make out with Jeanne Carmen!!! Nu'f said!

Shug sees something very weird on his way home, the Gila Monster derailing a train, but he's not sure if it isn't just the booze!

'Steamroller' gets the party started, looks like everbloody's gonna have a good time!!

Chase is interrupted just as he's getting to the good part!

Chase grabs some nitroglycerin at the local storage shed. It's hard to believe that it doesn't blow when he leaves to find the monster, he gets scratch and then drives 90 mph down some back roads in Texas!.. C'MON!!!

Four... Three... Two... One... KA-EFFIN'-BLOOIE!!!

Sweet dreams, you Giant Gila Monster, you!!

KONEC SRPNA V HOTELU OZON - Jan Klusák - "Hotel Ozone" (1967)

Hiyah Kids, Hiyah, Hiyah! For this weeks installment of WTF? Wednesday, I've got a real snoozer of a movie for you out of 1960's cold war Czechoslovakia, that translates as something to the tune of "Late August At The Ozone Hotel", and if you are in the mood for a nap, then this movie is your Diphenhydramine HCI! I know, I know I promised you the 750 times more exciting "Robo-Vampire," but it just so happens that I lied! So, WTF? This is what you get!

To be fair, when you've been living on a steady diet of "Hellzapoppin," Mexican wrasslers, and the Three Stooges, and the testosterone level on an arty flick like this is way down there south of the border in the negativo departmento, what's a guy supposed to do, but rest his eyes for a little while?

I really had hoped the end of the world would be more exciting than this!!

Time and time again, we're faced with the same old question, just because it's the future, does it really qualify as Science Fiction?

You know, like in that famous film festival in the south of France!

There isn't much of a story line in this film, nuclear holocaust, with only a handful of survivors, just trying to get by, day by day by day by day by day, and it's basically the perennial snail going for a joyride on the back of a turtle, but seriously, a lot of people really like this film for it's starkness, desolation, and underlying overtones. A lot of people like to watch paint dry!

So what if it was in musical comedy in colour, and these two gals were Jayne Mansfield and Jane Russell, but the pace, and everything else was the same.........I dunno...probably wouldn't have been any better!

The composer of the music for "Konec Srpna V Hotelu Ozon" was a gentleman by the name of Jan Klusák, who had a nice career in film that ran from 1960 to 1991, composing music for Czechoslovakian movies like "Revenge," "Chasing The Cat," "Krik" and "Strop!"

I read somewhere that somebody said this lady had the most beautiful expressive face they'd ever seen, and I agree, but is that really enough to base a movie on? I guess!

It's the end of the world, why should it be anything but slow and depressing, there's just not a whole Helluva lot to do! At least they have horses, and they do eventually meet an older male of the species still surviving, but it takes a lot of patience to get that far into the future!

MANIAC / Roadshow Attractions - 1934

Welcome to Moldie Oldie Monday here at the Dungeon, with your host Tabonga and his little Gnat helper pet, Rufus! Tonight's feature is very moldie, a strange one from 1934 that clocks in at only 51 minutes!

Alternate title is SEX MANIAC! Tagline reads... "He menaced women with weird desires!" The plot goes like this... "An ex-vaudeville actor gifted at impersonation assists a mad scientist to reanimate corpses and soon goes mad himself."

Part of the Roadshow Attractions lineup, a lineup that included TEN NIGHTS IN A BARROOM, THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT, NARCOTIC, MODERN MOTHERHOOD, INYAAH Jungle Goddess, MAN'S WAY WITH WOMEN, THE MARCH OF CRIME, HELL-A-VISION, MARIHUANA, HOW TO UNDRESS IN FRONT OF YOUR HUSBAND, SLAVES IN BONDAGE and they produced WILD WEED in 1949!

Where the music came from is anybloody's guess since there's no reference in the credits or at IMDB! Well, makes my work easy...

So's, wif'out any further delay and all, here's that cute lil' Rufus pal, ready to push again that big red 'GO' button to start our Eariffic Earclip for... MANIAC!

R.I.P. Tabonga's best friend, Freddie Cat, 6-19-10. I'll miss that little face...

I thought this was interesting, sez Phyllis Diller plays Mrs. Buckley! Guess what, not our Phyllis!.. n'yuk n'yuk!

Shades of Frankenstein. It's not very healthy when the doctor and student are both coo-coo.

If you don't like things the way they are, then use that god-given second amendment solution, especially if you're flippin' nuts!

According to this clinical explanation, the dude has a problem, or two... or three!

Bill Woods plays Don Maxwell, the MANIAC, but it is believed that "the 'Bill Woods' who is credited as playing Maxwell appears to be William Woods, a Los Angeles makeup artist whose skills would have been of great assistance to the plot of the film."

When Don takes the doctor's glasses off to complete that last bit of deceptive detailing, the doc blinks as they're removed!

..PEEK-A-BOO, I SEEEE YOU!!

Remember, Don's winging it!

In fact, Don is so delusional, he shoots up this poor dupe up with battery acid!

So, the guy turns into a Mr. Hyde type and goes out to do his evil deed.

In the meantime, Don needs to get rid of the doctor's body. He unwittingly seals a black cat up with him! Man, they're ripping off everbloody!!

~ INTERMISSION ~

Three 'fun' pics from the flick!

Probably the best part of this flick is that there's, yes, nudity in it!.. And, why not?!.. Nuf' said!

Don gets instructions from his friends at Area 51!

Criminy Sakes Alive!!!

The cops finally arrive and break up the cat fight, then the cat that got buried with the doctor yowls and helps them uncover this weird mystery fueled by a few twisted nerves.

When you're insane, everbloody's crazier than you!!.. Shout out to GB!