THE TRIP - The Electric Flag - "Groovy Gravy" (1967)

This movie is a trip!! Let's just start with the poster! "The Trip" is a movie filled with all kinds of colorful psychedelic imagery, so why not make the poster black and white, that makes so much sense!

So welcome to Trips Wednesday, and don't forget to fasten your straightjacket, the next stop is the looney bin! "The Trip" is a film made by Roger Corman that is quite confusing! It touts the dangers of drugs, but yet you need to be stoned to be able to get through it! Less than a movie, "The Trip" is more like one long music video, and would be better suited to playing on a big screen TV in the background at your next party than actually sitting down to watch! The music is great, and I have always loved the soundtrack, so my recommendation is to go buy a cd, and forget about watching the movie itself!

It's not talent that stops "The Trip" from succeeding! How's this for a power trio, Peter Fonda, Dick Miller, and Bruce Dern! All wasted in more ways than one!

This is the way hippies used to play "Word" on the street! Of course, they had kind of a limited vocabulary!

Wowzers, birds of paradise and a god's eye all in the same shot, now that's psychedelic!!

Dennis Hopper smoking a joint, now that's really a stretch of the imagination!

The music for this trip was created by the San Francisco band, The Electric Flag lead by blues guitarist Michael Bloomfield, and keyboard player Barry Goldberg! They were joined by an amazing array of talent ranging from Buddy Miles on drums, Harvey Brooks on bass and Nick Gravenites on vocals and guitar, to Peter Strazza, Marcus Doubleday, Herb Rich, and Stemzie Hunter on horns! Here's just a small sample of the wonders they were capable of creating! It sounds like everything from Miles Davis playing with a circus band, to the grunginess of Hapshash And The Coloured Coat featuring The Human Host and The Heavy Metal Kids!

When you start hallucinating President Lyndon B. Johnson, you know you're on a bad trip!!

If I was high on acid and I saw Bruce Dern grinning at me like this, it would freak me out, no doubt!

Another hallucination I've never been fortunate enough to have is a naked chick in the dryer at the laundromat!

One of the best lines in the film comes out of the mouth of Barboura Morris when she asks an obviously over the top stoned Peter Fonda if he'd like to help her fold clothes!

Some shots are very trippy!

Some shots should have been left on the cutting room floor!

It's said that they were originally was going to use the music of Gram Parsons' International Submarine Band in the movie but Roger Corman decided it wasn't the right kind of music for an L.S.D. experience, so whose idea was it to use Dixieland music in one of the last scenes? Talk about inappropriate, I didn't get that part at all! In my world Dixieland is about as far away from psychedelic as you can get! Even Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass or Mantovani is more psychedelic than Dixieland music!

Too bad The Rolling Stones' "Shattered" didn't come out until 1979, cause that would have worked!!

SON OF KONG / RKO Radio Pictures - 1933

It's Monsterous Monday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. We gots a fun little follow up to the awesome KING KONG by RKO studios, and, with a nice budget of $250,000, filmed on Santa Catalina Island and the Channel Islands of California. The lobby card is a nice example of some of the beautiful artwork created in the thirties.

Eegah!! sent over a musical soundclip from this flick, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button there behind the invisible force field, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula! Here's our audio offering for... SON OF KONG!

After King Kong's rampage in New York, Carl Denham is a shattered man, creditors are poised to put him in prison! So, he decides to join up with his pal Captain Englehorn and escape New York on his ship. On the way to the dock, Denham uses a novel disguise!

At one stop, Denham and the captain decide to see a show with a musical monkey act! You take what you can get that far away from civilization and all..

Helen Mack plays Helene Peterson, here, she follows the monkey act with her rendition of "The Runaway Blues" as heard in the soundclip!

After her father is killed, she stows away on the captain's boat, then, there's a mutiny by the less than friendly crew.

Denham, Helene, the captain, the cook and the murderous Captain Helstrom are dropped off near Skull Island in a lifeboat. They try to land on the beach but are confronted by hostile natives and forced to find another place to land.

The movie was billed as a comedy, little Kong got a boo-boo while fighting a giant bear so Denham cautiously bandages his finger for him! I remember seeing this movie on TV in the fifties, loved the fact that he befriends the humans!

Curious, he watches them while they have a tender moment near the fire.

Later, little Kong knocks down a giant door on the side of a mountain to let Denham and Helene explore the interior, and, they find many treasures inside.

In a satisfying moment, this sea creature appears and chews up Captain Helstrom after he falls into the water!

There is a cataclysmic earthquake and the entire Skull Island starts to disappear under the ocean! Just before it does, the Son Of Kong holds Denham above the water where he's able to be rescued!

In the saddest moment, you can see his bandage still on his finger before he goes under...

TEENAGE DOLL - Roger Corman - "Tempted...Tarnished...Violently Thrown Aside! (1957)

Tonight's Saturday Night Special is a tribute to the filmmaking skills of Roger Corman entitled "Teenage Doll!"

My only gripe with this Roger Corman masterpiece is the title! It's not very indicative of what the film is really about! The TV title "The Young Rebels" or something even grittier would have probably generated more box office success!

The set designer for "Teenage Doll" was Robert Kinoshita, the man who created two of the most celebrated robots in cinema history, Tobar The Great, and Robby The Robot!!

Roger Corman is responsible for bringing us some of the best titles in all of Sci-Fi and Horror film history! "Teenage Doll" was his 17th film and was preceded by the classics "Monster From The Ocean Floor," "The Beast With A Million Eyes," "Day The World Ended," "It Conquered The World," "Attack Of The Crab Monsters," "Not Of This Earth," and "The Undead," and Roger was just getting rolling!! Amazingly enough, Roger Corman still has four movies coming out this year!!!!

The music throughout "Teenage Doll" was created by Walter Greene who wrote the music for a plethora of Woody Woodpecker, Chilly Willy, and Pink Panther cartoons etc etc!

"Teenage Doll" starts off with the death of a girl gang member!

The very innocent looking new girl in town as played by June Kenney as Barbara Bonney, is the one who gets pinned with the murder, but I'm not here to describe the plot of this film to you, I want to talk about the characters in the movie!

There are four people in "Teenage Doll" that have fairly small parts who would go on to be the heart and soul of quite a few of Roger Corman's films! Ed Nelson pulls double duty in this movie, as both this blind man, and as a cop! Ed was also in the Corman classics "Attack Of The Crab Monsters," Invasion Of The Saucer Men," "Teenage Cave Man," The Cry Baby Killer," "Night Of The Blood Beast," "The Brain Eaters," and of course, one of the main reasons we made a movie and created this blog, "A Bucket Of Blood!"

Fay Spain as Helen, the leader of the girl gang called "The Black Widows" and one of the stars of the movie was not part of the Corman stable! This scene that shows her living in filth with her little sister reminded me of the dirty little kid in the meth freak's house in "Breaking Bad!" Sadly, Fay left this world at the very young age of 49 from cancer!

In 1957, this shot  was probably almost grounds to get an X rating, if they would have had ratings back then!

A 25 year old  Barboura Morris had the small  role of Janet, one of the gang girl's sister! Barboura was also in Corman's "Teenage Cave Man," "A Bucket Of Blood," "The Wasp Woman," "X: The Man With The X-Ray Eyes," "The Haunted Palace," "The Wild Angels," "The Trip," and "The Dunwich Horror!" Barboura also checked out way too early from cancer at the age of 43!

The dubiously coiffed Dorothy Neumann, as Barbara's Mom, Estelle Bonney, was also not part of the Corman crew, but did have the role of Anastasia Abernathy in "The Ghost Of Dragstrip Hollow," and was 'the landlady' in the "Twilight Zone" episode titled "The Landlady!"

Paul Bryar as Helen's scumbag Dad was also not part of the Corman troop, but had been acting since 1937 with some 357 credits to his name, everything from "Twilight Zone," and "The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis" to "Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid!"

This is the reason why Paul had his face in his hands, and she's not his daughter! You figure it out!

 After this film June Kenney went on to be in Roger Corman's "The Saga Of The Viking Women And Their Voyage To The Waters Of The Great Sea Serpent," and "Hot Car Girl," and also in Bert I Gordon's "Attack Of The Puppet People" and "Earth Vs. The Spider!"

Richard Devon as Detective Dunst has a discussion with Ed Nelson in his other role in this film as a police officer! Richard Devon had the role of Satan in Corman's "The Undead," and was also in Roger's "The Saga Of The  Viking Women And TVTTWOTGSS," and "War Of The Satellites!" Awesome non-Corman appearances were in "Blood Of Dracula," and the "Twilight Zone" episode called "Dead Man's Shoes!"

That brings us to the big man in a small role, the always amazing Bruno VeSota as the 'fat witness!" Besides being in non-Corman greats like "Dementia," and  "Daddy-O," Bruno was also in numerous Corman classics like "The Undead," "War Of The Satellites," "A Bucket Of Blood," "The Wasp Woman," and  "Attack Of The Giant Leeches!"

"Teenage Doll" is a great little film available from Netflix that clocks in at just a little over an hour! When a movie has a girl gang named "The Black Widows," and a guy gang named "The Tarantulas" vs "The Vandals" and "The Vandalettes" and all the aforementioned talent, you know there is no possible way to go wrong!