STAR ODYSSEY / Italy - 1979 / Space Overture

Welcome to Saturday Afternoon Flick w/ Tabonga... Today we gots super end-of-cycle 108 minute! space opera from Italy 1979. Cycle of fifties-style sci-fi actually was dead around 1975 or earlier! The big budget movie 2001 from 1968 basically spelled the beginning of the end of the 50 cent special effect. Then, STAR WARS came out in 1977 with more trend setting effects and storyline. But, what a great bunch of stills, wow!! Original title is Sette Uomini d'oro Nello Spazio. Alternate title are CAPTIVE PLANET, METALLICA and SPACE ODYSSEY!

Music by Marcello Giombini again, he was here at Dungeon just last Saturday with MURDER MANSION! Scroll on down if you miss that one!

Synthesizer was very big deal in 1979, but sound very dated here... SPACED ODYSSEY!

Space is the place, man!! Hey, that one dude look like Goldust!!

Hero Dirk Laramie always attract attention wherever he go!

Seem like future going to be pretty weird an' fun...

You gotta be kidding!!

Red Zone (Cuba).

Dirk cheat when playing cards, he can see right through 'em!

There is good reason why bad guy stick together!

Hey, look, Don Post MOLE MAN mask from 1964!

These guy on same team?!

Bad guy' robot look like cute chubby cherub!.. Weird! Seem they should be maybe, scarry?! People not gonna take you serious when say you trying to take over universe!!

Earth robot look like Twiki an' act like have IQ of maybe 22... Tabonga want to know this, why even try??! What is freakin' point if all they can do is act stupid and hold up show!

Go to show you, very hard to win fight against blonde gurlie robot!

Robutt try to cheat on Gurlbot, he want relationship outside species parameter.

Dirk go into space and blow up bad guy all to hell...

Wow, that some hero welcome!

Tabonga leave you wif' horny robot lovers, they dreaming about making lil' nut and bolt bot!

LA NOCHE DE LOS BRUJOS - Fernando García Morcillo - "Vampire Panther Women" (1973)

For my money, "The Night Of The Sorcerers" is really just a soft-core horror exploitation flick, not exactly our Forté, and don't rent it for your kids, because I'll tell you what you will end up with. Three chicks and two dudes go into the jungle, meet one other dude, are told to stay away from the haunted voodoo panther girl zombie graveyard at night, don't heed the advice, the guys get killed, and all the girls get turned into the Panther Women Voodoo Vampires, and somehow along the way they manage to have at least two of the women getting their clothes whipped off, and at least 5 or 6 other drawn out nude or naked lovemaking scenes! If that's your bag, you're gonna love this film, but I've said this before and I mean it this time, this is possibly THE worst film I've ever seen! Unlike most of the movies presented here, this one didn't even have any dialogue of interest. The last posting of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" had better dialogue, and it was a silent movie! I Digress!

Actually, it all starts here, even before the title credits with this mondo bondage sadomasochism whipping and decapitation!! Now, I know that sounds really bad, but the good news is Bárbara Rey comes back as a very happy Vampire Panther Woman!

Jack Taylor has been in a number of scary movies, and here portrays Prof Jonathan Grant until he dies a slow and horrible death!!

Then we get down to the real meat of the plot, the unpacking of the psychedelic chaise lounge chairs and smoking scenes! That's Loreta Tovar as Carol, who we just saw a couple of days ago, on the left, joined this week by María Kosty (as Liz, the boss's daughter) on the right!

The fourth female member of the cast is Tunika played by Kali Hansa! You probably remember Kali from her roles in "Le Journal Intime D'une Nymphomane" as Gaby Herman or "Les Exploits Erotiques De Maciste Dans L'Atlantide!" Whoo, Whoo!!

Loreta wears the traditional 'hiking through the jungle' garb and is told by Tomunga, who I like to call laffing boy for some reason, not to come back to the mystic shrine at night, because that's when the Panther Girls come out!!

So of course Loreta has to go back at night to take some pictures!

In the meantime these guys all came back from the grave!

And... Out pops Bárbara Rey as the Panther Woman, overplayed and overacted to the maximum!! Hi!!

This time Panther Woman gets to do the whipping and the beheading, because she took over from the native guys and is now The Patrona!!

So now we've got two Panther Women running around, and international inquiring minds everywhere want to know, who does all their stylish fashion, and who puts all those zombies back in the ground and covers them up every night?

Oh, who cares as long as Bárbara and Loreta keep running around, leaping and bounding through the jungle together!!

These Panther Vampire girls are way too smart and strong for the truly stupid guys! Imagine that!!

Then of all the dang things, Loreta goes back and gets María, and María doesn't even notice Loreta looks a little different because she took sleeping pills!

Bárbara and Loreta welcome María to their secret little club where she gets the special treatment, the two for the price of one deal!!

Tunika has been so busy screwing Simón Andreu, the one guy who makes it to the end of the film, and getting raped, and stabbing laffing boy, that she missed the whole vampire party, and is totally surprised by Loreta and María's new look!!

Still looking incredibly fashion conscious even in death those Panther Women turned out not to be so tough after all!!

Tunika and Simón Andreu finally manage to escape to a safe and happy ending!!

The music is by another very respected composer around here, the genius Fernando García Morcillo, a man we've written about before, and someone you'll be hearing more from in the future! His work on this particular film is mediocre by comparison to something like the outstanding "El Secreto Del Dr. Orloff," but more interesting than this movie itself!