TORTURE GARDEN - Banks/Bernard/Martell - "I Hardly Knew The Man" (1967)

"Torture Garden" is a series of twisted tales of terror with a tricky ending brought to you by Amicus and director Freddie Francis. Out of the four stories, only one has cool jazzy music, and it is really excellent, like you could expect Art Farmer or Frank Strozier to step up and take a solo at any second. Composers Don Banks, and James Bernard get credit for the music, but Phillip Martell was involved too. By looking at his resume, I think James Bernard might be responsible for a lot of these swingin' scenes, having more of a jazz mentality in his compositions. 

 

And let's not forget to give a big thanks to the eye of Freddie Francis stalwart, Cinematographer Norman Warwick!! This is a great ferris wheel shot!!! 

 

Timothy Bateson as the carnival barker went on to be, among a bevy of other things, the voice of The Worm, The Four Guards, and Goblin in "Labyrinth", and has been seen recently as Kreacher in "Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix!" Go Timothy!!! What an awesome career! 

 

Here we have 60's bombshell Beverly Adams on the right, as Carla making a total mockery of her friendship with Millie played by Nicole Shelby! Nicole went on to be a regular on The Benny Hill TV Show. Beverly did some early surf movies before she went evil here & went on to marry Vidal Sassoon, had a reoccurring role in Dean Martin's Matt Helm movies as "Lovey Kravezit", and continued acting well into the 90's on TV and the movies!! 

 

This club is so cool, they even have a living snowglobe! Now if only a giant monster had reached in and grabbed it & shook it up, that would have been extra cool!! 

 

There's a lesson to be learned here, don't get drunk and start shooting off your big mouth, because you never know who is listening, Mike! 

 

Burgess Meredith does a splendid job as "My name is Diablo, Dr. Diablo!" 

 

"There's something going on, that I don't want to know anything about!!!"

GLI AMANTI D'OLTRETOMBA - Ennio Morricone - "Piano And Strings" (1965)

It's not often we get requests, but I must admit this was a little piece we let slip, I just didn't think it was that exciting the first time I heard it, but now after several listens, I'm glad 'anonymous' suggested we include it. 

 

This is really a gorgeous tune, and it's just long enough to not be annoying! Barbara has just sat down to play the piano and her lover is coming up the stairs. 

 

She's starting to get ready for the biggest mistake of her life!!! 

 

The Ennio Morricone Strings start to flourish right about the time they embrace!!! These were definitely happier times for them!!! 

 

And this all happens at the very beginning of this wicked movie! You have no idea what is in store, but to put it bluntly, it ain't pretty!! A true bloody horror classic!!!

KING OF KONG ISLAND (Eva, La Venere Selvaggia) - Roberto Pregadio - "The Evil Suite" (1968)

"Kong Island" was another one of those movies that had so much interesting music, that I really became fascinated by it, and now this will be the third and final presentation, something we call, "The Kong Island Evil Suite"! If listening to this segment doesn't make you want to see this movie, you are a zombie, and they will be able to control you with this brainwave device, just like they do with the monkeys! 

 

It's kinda mixed up, as you can tell from the original Italian title, the movie is really about Eva, the jungle girl........ 

 

.......but no, it's really about Burt/Brad, no, it's about the evil Albert Muller, played by the notorious Marc Lawrence, but where's Kong? 

 

Nice distorted buzzing guitar licks combined with kalimba, crazy wild percussion, and clever dialogue from the evil doctor like, "You'll have the honor to be the first man to be my slave, come on, come on!" and stuntman/muscleman Brad Harris, who had quite a successful carrer as director/actor in the golden age of 'Sword & Sandal' movies, later comes back with the oh, so clever retort, "Now, I'm gonna kill ya, I'm gonna give ya what's comin' to ya!" 

 

If you mess with good people like Brad Harris, this is what happens to your stuff!! Evil people and selfish drivers of the world, let this be a warning to you!! Wake up before it's too late!! 

 

We love this movie, put us on any island with some monkeys and some savage women, and we're ready to take on all the evil in the world!! It's fun to watch, the music by Roberto Pregadio is whatever is way beyond cool! We should all try and seek out some of the other films he composed for, because I'm sure they are all remarkable, although finding some of this stuff can be kind of like a scavenger hunt!!

GLI AMANTI D'OLTRETOMBA (The Faceless Monster) (Nightmare Castle) - Ennio Morricone - "Nightmare" (1965)

The real name of this film is Italian, "Gli Amanti D'oltretomba" and is an early outing, and one of a handful of films between "A Fist Full Of Dollars" and "For A Few Dollars More" that composer extraordinaire Ennio Morricone composed the music for on his way to almost 500 titles!!! Wow!!! He was just getting warmed up!!!! The film opens with this ponderous organ music that if it went on much longer, would start getting under your skin! Ennio's version of "Phantom Of The Opera" music!! 

 

The music in this "Nightmare Sequence" sounds like a cross between "2001" and "The Mask!" Yeah, it's that weird, and not to forget you still get more of those wraithlike soaring angelic voices from above, to top it all off!! 

 

This movie really needs to be seen to be fully appreciated, and since you have so many titles to choose from, it should be easy to find, unless you don't have a face!! 

 

I do believe Barbara is really starting to look like Morticia right about here, and her boyfriend, well, he's just sick!! 

 

Sometimes we obsess over Barbara Steele, but it's simple, she was the best!! 

 Tabonga and I were talking for about 20 minutes one night about this movie, I was telling him how I had just watched this movie called "The Faceless Monster" and that Barbara Steele was in it again, and that she looked good as a blonde, and he proceeds to tell me how he just saw another movie in which she was blonde called "Nightmare Castle." Well, when we started talking about how there was a scene in both movies where they get electrocuted on a bed, we knew something wasn't right.

BLUE DEMON CONTRA LAS DIABOLICAS - El Klan - "That's A Wrap" (1968)

"Blue Demon Contra Las Diabolicas" had so much music in it, it's almost like a Mexican "Help" without The Beatles, and with Blue Demon and El Klan instead!! Any music not by El Klan should be credited to the composers Gustavo César Carrión and Ernesto Cortázar Jr. whose combined credits are over 350 films, with Gustavo having over 315 film credits by himself!!! Aiieee!!! 

 

Would somebody please, get this poor girl some more Tequila!!!! 

 

The combined effect of "The Klan" the Tequila, and whatever else they've ingested kicks in right about here!!! 

 

We actually had 3 more pieces of music from this film, but there was some repetition, so I trimmed them down, and mixed 'em up for your enjoyment so we can move on, because there's still a lot more we got to cover. We really did think our work would have been done by now, but besides what we have in the can, Tabonga just found another unbelievable 28 titles washed up on the beach, & I found another 13 buried in the desert out near Onyx, so I guess we have a way to go yet! Who woulda thunk???  

"Blue Demon Contra Las Diabólicas"

HANDS OF A STRANGER - Richard LaSalle - Red Norvo Quintette - "How's Your Mother" (1962)

What a great classic, and one of the few, that actually gave title credits to the individual members of the jazz band playing on one of the songs. The main soundtrack was composed by Richard LaSallee who among a minion of other projects, composed the music for the ever so obscure "The Day Mars Invaded Earth" and "Diary Of A Madman!" Yow!! 

 

"Hands Of A Stranger" has got a lot of good things going on for it, as if having the hands of a killer with a mind of their own grafted onto your body wasn't enough. My, how the recorded media that all you kids take for granted today has changed!! 

 

But then again, some things don't change, like sharin' a smoke, or sneakin' down the alley with Sally! Sweet! 

 

You've got this hot little scene with a 25 year old Sally Kellerman and a very lucky Michael Du Pont and a way killer tune by The Red Norvo Quintette called "How's Your Mother?" blowing in the background! As I said before, the Quintette was actually credited in the film, and included members Red Norvo, Jerry Dodgion, John Markham, Red Wooten and Jimmy Wyble. 

 

Okay, all you people that are scared of clowns might want to leave the room right about now, cause it's a "Psycho-Carny Freakout"

 More stinkin' clowns, this time in the guise of evil carnival games!! 

 

Very sweet diabolical carnival sounds, smells, and sights, the funhouse is merely the entrance into the madness and the house of wild delights!!

THE MASK - Louis Applebaum & Myron Schaeffer - "Put The Mask On Now" (1961)

For all our friends from "Like Dreamsville," here is another, and the final installment of "The Mask," a chilling 3D psycho-delic nightmare from the North!! We've written about it before, you can find it in the archive, but I will tell you this........ 

 

PUT THE MASK ON NOW!

 PUT THE MASK ON NOW!!

 Trust me on this one, this film would have scared the frozen snot out of you back in 1961, and it's still eerie as hell to this day! I get the heebie-jeebies just writing about it!! The combined musical composition skills of Louis Applebaum and the wacky electronic genius of Myron Schaeffer makes for a pretty heady stew. Be very careful listening to this stuff, we will not be responsible!!! 

 

PUT THE MASK ON NOW!!! 

 Sweet Dreams!!!!