THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE - Stanley Black/Monty Norman - "Front Seat To Tomorrow" (1961)

The 1961 film, "The Day The Earth Caught Fire" is a pretty cool, I mean hot UK title that is well worth seeking out, if nothing else for the music alone. We've written about Stanley Black before for his work on "The Crawling Eye" & "War Gods Of The Deep," but really, his career goes so much further than that since he'd been working in the movies since 1937!

SOUNDCLIP NOT AVAILABLE

Any guy who grew up in the 50's was in love with Janet Munro at least once, because of her roles in Disney classics like "Darby O'Gill & The Little People" and "Swiss Family Robinson." She was born on September 28, 1934, was voted "Miss Televison" in 1958, and as you can see, by 1961 she had grown up quite a bit. Janet had turned to much more serious roles, and it wasn't well accepted, and her popularity waned dramatically! Sadly, Janet Munro passed away at 38 in 1972! What a sad day!!

Monty Norman, who gets credit for the 'Beatnik' music in this film was nowhere near as productive as Stanley Black, but I'd be willing to bet that he's made a heckuva lot more money since besides this music, his other main composition was the theme for the James Bond film, "Dr. No," a piece of music that has been used as part of the theme in each and every James Bond film made since, including the latest one, "Quantum of Solace!" Those royalty checks gotta be rolling in even as I'm writing this!! Way to go, Monty!!!

As far as this 'Beatnik' music is concerned, it sounds a lot more like Dixieland to me, and the end of the world rioters are more like a gang of drunken Nawlin's musicians in a Madi Gras parade!

The main man throughout this whole ordeal is played by the fine veteran actor Edward Judd! Ed's had about enough of all this madness by this point, and sets in to do some right fine ass whupping!!

He punched that dude right out the door, and he falls down the open elevator shaft! I don't get this part, it's the end of the world, and suddenly she cares when some guy falls down an elevator shaft! Oh, well!! You're all going to be dead soon anyhow!! You didn't care about nothing 5 minutes ago!!

One last toast before becoming toast themselves!!!

Will the earth be saved or Will the earth be doomed???

I don't know, can anybody tell me where the exit is???

ZINDA LAASH (The Living Corpse) - Tassadaque Hussain - "Dracula In Pakistan" (1967)

That caption says it all!!! So tighten up your straight jacket one more notch, because "Tonight Will Be A Beautiful Dream!!" for all of you!!

The story of Pakistan's "The Living Corpse" starts right here!

Dr. Aqil Harker drinks that krazy lab stuff and turns into a vampire!

Of course, then he has to initiate his beautiful assistant!!

And then, of all things, the movie actually begins!!!

I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and tell you that "Zinda Laash" has some of the most fascinating music of any we've written about since "El Rostro Infernal!"

It's so cool that I don't even need to tell you who this guy is and what's about to happen to him!!

I will tell you that the music composed by Tassadaque Hussain is all over the place. Now, don't forget this movie was made in 1967 Pakistan when I tell you that the first part of the music is a swingin' cartoonish version of the "Mexican Hat Dance" that is followed by some off-beat spaghetti desert guitar driven sand surfin' instrumental akin to something by Al Perry, followed by some spy lounge world pop psycho snake charming music with a drum solo!! Yeah, That's right!!

Hypnotizing, Isn't she???

AND...... That was all before The Band comes on!!!!!!

Hey!!! "When Youth and Beauty are combined in one, All is Forgiven, All is Fun!!!" Hey!!!

"All is forgiven, All is fun!!!!" P.A.R.T.Y!!

Then the movie goes all Buñuel on you, same people, different time, now it's all modern, zzup??

Then they fry the Pakistan Dracula and it's all over, but what a workout!!!

I love this movie, and If you like swingin' wild weird world music as much as I do, then this is by far the current movie of choice for you!!!

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD AND THE MONSTERS / Azteca Studios Mexico - 1965 / Music by Raúl Lavista

Tabonga finish off week with 'nother flick from Weirdsville. This time from south side...

Tabonga show all three title: Original Mexican title 1962, K. Gordon Murray title 1965 and theatrical re-release title year unknown.

Flick pretty much a musical!! Lot o' clumsily translated lyric for you listening enjoyment tonight! Music man Raúl Lavista have 274 composing credit including LA LOBA which Tabonga have on order! RED, TOM, STINKY, EVIL QUEEN AND MONSTERS!! Sound like Mighty Mouse singers!

Story about bad Queen who jealous of Red Riding Hood. What she want is kill Red with monsters!

Wow, look at great set and costume!! Top pic look like freakin' Dali painting!!

Red actually opera singer in disguise, and she have all the moves. Oh, there Tom, Stinky and White Fang too!

Flick have some really ugly part. Torture very popular for Dick Cheney, but should not show to kids. Monsters tell kid, "We boil you alive!" or "We gonna skin you!" Turn Tabonga off, big time!..

CARRUMBA!! Big dumb robot from SHIP OF MONSTERS and ROBOT vs THE AZTEC MUMMY show up in tonight fairy tale! Viva la Mexico!!

Then, after Red let loose, kid play pinata party with oaf who have them captured in cave!

Oh, and Queen have kool mad lab to make monster!!

Here monster dude catch Red and gang in cave! But, 30 second later Tom start him on fire with torch and then he get beat up by kid slapping him hard!

Queen' henchmen ready to saw giant and big bad wolf in half! Wolfie spit on bad guys for comedy relief. Finally, Red come in and save dude' sorry asses! So, Red and gang save the day... Hooray!

THE REPTILE - Don Banks - "Ilizardization" (1966)

I don't know what it is with me and Hammer Films, they just don't ever seem to put me in the mix!! Every time I sit down to watch one, I get real excited because they look so classically and colorfully fantastic, but then about half or two thirds through the movie I generally lose interest for some reason or another! "The Reptile" is no exception! It starts off like a house on fire with Charles Spalding getting killed by some monster and dieing a gruesome horrible death, all quite mysteriously! The music is provided by Mr. Don Banks, who had quite an impressive run from 1964-67 that included titles like The Evil of Frankenstein", "Hysteria", "Die, Monster, Die!", The Frozen Dead" and "The Mummy's Shroud!" A lot of Don's music is just dark and foreboding, instead of cool and rockin' or swingin' and largely orchestrated, and that's mainly the reason we haven't written about more Hammer films here! "The Reptile" just kind of slides in because of some terrific sitar music, and I'm not even really sure who gets the credit for that!!

Usually crazy guy's bring a bit of comic relief to the table, this cat, John Laurie as Mad Peter is just generally annoying!!

Australian born Ray Barrett had a nice career than included the voice of John Tracy in over 30 episodes of "The Thunderbirds" and he was also the voice of DJ Ricochet and many of the other voices!!! And did you check out the lugs on that cat??

So here's the deal, your brother wills you his farmhouse, and you're told he died of a heart attack, but all the locals are really uptight when you arrive, including your new rich neighbor, one of those guys with Dr. in his name, who just walks into your house looking for his daughter and then talks rude to you, but when you need help, he always tells you, he's not that kind of Doctor, but then invites you over for supper, and of course you go!!!!

So, here's where the sitar music comes into the scene, after dinner when his beautiful daughter Anna plays some awesome music for you, the Doctor freaks out and smashes the sitar right in front of you, so you decide to excuse yourself and go back to your new house! That's right about where they lost me, this movie is over, you people are nuts, and I'm outta here!! Exit stage left!!!

Last year, the lovely Jacqueline Pearce moved to South Africa to help take care of orphaned Vervet Monkeys.

Accomplished Indian actor Marne Maitland takes the role of The Malay quite seriously, and played guys with names like Turk, Ismet, Abdul, Ganga, El Karish, Majarajah, Hassan, Pandit, and Gaafar and many more for 41 years before passing away in 1991!

The beautiful girl is the monster, and everyone else in the movie can die, I just don't care!!

Roy Ashton's makeup for "The Reptile" mask is quite a bit more effective and scary, when it's just a little blurry, I think you'll agree!!