DEVILS OF DARKNESS - Bernie Fenton - "Zora" (1965)

"Devils Of Darkness" starts off with an astounding musical gypsy dance sequence as good as any filmed just to get you going, kind of like an appetizer at a Basque restaurant!!

The simply amazing music for "Devils Of Darkness" is some of the most solid we've ever had a chance to listen to lately, but do a search on composer Bernie Fenton and your results will be this blog and a lot of blank links! He only has credits for one other movie that he did before this one, "Tomorrow At Ten!" Born in 1921, he worked with a number of bands as pianist, including Johnny Claes before joining Oscar Rabin in 1942. He was with the Tito Burns Sextet and played in the Johnny Dankworth Quartet with Joe Muddel and Laurie Morgan. In the 80s and 90s he was featured with the Glenn Miller tribute band!

The hipsters are just too much, and really stoned has always been very hard to capture on film, because nothing works as well as your own imagination!! Just wait til those bongos kick in!!!

Here's some super cool jazz with some Dave Brubeck stylings and some sexy conversation about scrambled eggs and non-stick pans!!

There's something unmistakably beautiful about British birds, like nowhere else on the planet except maybe Oildale!

Sometimes, I wish I could show you so many more of the great stills, and then I realize, oh, yeah, watch the movie!!! Is this a great smoking tiki still or what????

I LUNGHI CAPELLI DELLA MORTE (The Long Hair Of Death) - Carlo Rustichelli -"Heavy" (1964)

"Long Hair Of Death" has possibly the stupidest English title via translation ever, and you'd expect it to be an early heavy metal freakfest! 

 

Sounding totally tongue in cheek like it was from a lost Spinal Tap performance, the "Chanting Monks And Organ Theme" is always a surefire winner. 

 

My favorite part of this whole thing is that the composer, Carlo Rustichelli, who was born on Christmas Eve, 1916, and who composed music for something like an unimaginable 251 films, also worked using the names Joan Christian, Jim Murphy and on this movie.........Evirust! He had one acting role in a movie that was released Sept 28, 1973, called "The Three Musketeers Of The West" where, of all things, he played a hillbilly band leader!!! Carlo passed away on Nov 13, 2004, but left a legacy so immense that it would take another lifetime to try and catch up on all of it!! 

 

This film is another one of 9 million movies that the beautiful Barbara Steele made in the 1960's! Actually Barbara made about 25 films in the 5 years from 1961 to 1966! Busy woman and some short shoots!! She was having a bad day in this shot!

THE GREEN SLIME - Charles Fox & Toshiaki Tsushima "Battle Beyond The Stars" (1968)

"The Green Slime" is a Japanese film, but instead of a solo star like Raymond Burr or a Nick Adams, the whole cast is Caucasian. It's also a very cool film with horrific monsters and an equally horrifying love triangle! "You don't love Vince, you pity him! You love me!!" 

 

Classic case study in how because of circumstances beyond your control, like being in outer space with a bunch of monsters and morons, "sometimes you just have to get along!" The stupid too small helmets were a really bad wardrobe choice! 

 

This musical bit starts with some stupefyingly TJB loungey background music and a conversation from further out than space, that's followed by some squeaky squawky monster scenes with some more cool space music, and ending with, "Now, Lieutenant, take her down" followed by a short reprise of the amazing theme song, sung by the drummer for the surf band "The Challengers," Richard Delvy, delivering one of the best vocals of all time! 

 

Just look at them! These guys don't stand a chance!!! 

 

As anyone who has ever watched a Power Rangers episode knows, posing is very important!! Case closed! 

 

"After the Destruction of Space Station Gamma: Big Military Operation"

L'AMANTE DEL VAMPIRO (The Vampire And The Ballerina) - Aldo Piga - "The Vampire's Dead" (1960)

I keep saying that it just doesn't get better, or that this is the best yet, and just as far as pure music is concerned, this song by Aldo Piga from the 1960 Italian classic, "The Vampire And The Ballerina," is no exception, and it really doesn't get much better, throwing you a variety of styles and moods in just a little over 3 minutes of pure inspiration that only had to end because Louisa fainted!! 

 

This is probably the best choreographed and talented dance group since The Diane Nellis Dancers in "She-Demons." 

 

Stretching to the music, gazing pensively into the fire and thinking about how she wishes her boyfriend was hot like Tabonga!!

 

Besides the fantastic music, this movie is obviously worth seeking out for the dance rehearsal numbers alone! Here is "The Vampire's Dead!"

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY - "The Stargate" (1968)

Approximately 88 minutes out of 141 in "2001: A Space Odyssey"are without dialogue! As people walked out of the theatre, they couldn't stop talking about this series of colorful shots of shooting though space! To this very day, they still haven't stopped!!! 

This would have been a good opportunity to put in some killer rock music, and that really would have taken this film to an even higher level than it has already attained, but Stanley opted for whatever you want to call this, it's not exactly music, but more like The sounds of shooting through space at 80 gazillion miles a second!!!

These shots of Keir Dullea as Dr. Dave Bowman are some of the best Hollywood ever had to offer! 

The process that was used to create these wild, kaleidoscopic images is known as "Slitscan Photography". It was developed by Douglas Trumbull, one of the special photographic effects supervisors on the film! 

Haven't seen it lately? Now's a good time to try it again, it's still as confusing as ever!! Don't know what I'm talking about? Go get a copy!!!

RYMDINVASION I LAPPLAND (Terror In The Midnight Sun) - Allan Johansson/Brita Borg/Golden Gate Quartet/Unger/Herbert - "Midnight Sun" (1959)

"Terror In The Midnight Sun" is right up there with "Dementia" in the musical quality department! Okay, it's not the greatest movie in the world, but when was the the last time you got to hear some good Lapplander music anyhow? 

 

If Lapplander music isn't your bag, the super cool theme song is sung by The Golden Gate Quartet, one of the most successful Jubilee Gospel groups of all time. They also sang one of the all-time classic wartime tunes, "Stalin Wasn't Stallin'" which kinda goes like this, "Stalin wasn't stallin' when he told the beast of Berlin, that he wouldn't be contented until he had driven him from the land, so he called the Yanks and English, and proceeded to extinguish, Der Fuhrer and his vermin, that is how it all began!" Whew! The Golden Gate Quartet is the bomb, and a lot of their work was A Capella, so it's too sweet to hear them with musical backing!! Hallelujah Brothers and Sisters!!! 

 

Based on an olde Swedish song written by Gustaf Unger with English lyrics by Frederic Herbert, "The Midnight Sun Lament" is sung by 1950's Swedish Pop Queen Brita Borg, and the rest of the soundtrack is jazzed up by her husband Allan Johansson, a fellow member with her in the Swedish jazz vocal group, "The Flickery Flies," and Harry Arnold, another great Swedish composer! 

 

How much musical talent can you pack into one movie? Wow!!! 1950's Lapplanders Gospel Swedish Jazz Pop, now that's What's Happening!!! 

 

And, not to forget, a really big, pretty scary monster to boot!!! He does kind of look like a giant hairy penguin, but ............... 

 

He's pretty scary when he gets right in your face!! Aaarrrgghhh!!!!! 

 

Now as much as we love Jerry Warren, it's kind of hard to forgive him for not using the theme as sung by The Golden Gate Quartet, in his "Invasion Of The Animal People" version, and at least in this case, I think it's safe to say, that the original was better than Jerry's version, but at least he got another payday out of it and got this awesome film a little more exposure, and "Invasion Of The Animal People" does have a great title card!!!! Viva La Jerry!!!

THE GHOST GOES GEAR - Spencer Davis Group/Joan Shakespeare - "Polly Put The Kettle On, The Drum Floated Away" (1966)

"The Ghost Goes Gear" comes across like the bastard son of "A Hard Day's Night" and "The Ghost Of Dragstrip Hollow," but not near as good as either one of them! Kind of like one long and very annoying Spencer Davis music video variety show, the music is very good, of course, but the film is full of extremely irritating secondary characters who are in the movie for no reason but to bother you. 

 

If the band's manager, and his constant cloying, "Spencer, Oh Spencer" isn't bad enough, you've got that other old man, and let us not forget about Polly, and can you believe they made Steve push the wheelbarrow. I guess it figures, he was the youngest! 

 

I was really going to slam Sheila White's portrayal of Polly as being one of the worst and aggravating performances ever put on film, but after doing some research, I figured out that she was only 16 at the time, and it was her first ever performance, so probably, the blame really lies with the lame director who was telling her and the others to act so cuckold, it really grates on my nerves and she looks like she needs to wash her hair! 

 

Spencer Davis just keeps on smiling and Polly just keeps on gyrating!! There is literally a ton of music in this film, but some of the"Chasing The Drum Down The River" and "Polly Dancing In The Kitchen" music is the best, and stuff you've probably never heard before. Sounds a lot to me like a bit of what the future Traffic would sound like. Maybe it's just the sax, but there are some good grooves, and if you don't have to watch the maddening other characters, you can really enjoy the music, and you have Joan Shakespeare to thank for a lot of it! 

 

There's about 87 more songs in this movie including some Acker Bilk, The Lorne Gibson Trio, David Berry, The Three Bells, St. Louis Union, and M6! We might do more sometime, maybe not! It gets to be a bit much when the whole movie is music!! As bad as this movie is, anybody who loves 60's music like we do should get a copy, and it's usually available on Amazon for less than 10 bucks!!