SVENGALI / Warner Bros. - 1931

Welcome everbloody, to Wednesday Oldie Moldie B+W Bijou Theater Flicktime, here at the Dungeon... Today's feature is a very nice production from Warner Bros. in 1931, less than 2 years after the introduction of sound in movies!..

John Barrymore (The Great Profile) stars as Maestro Svengali, he falls in love with a 17 year old model, Trilby (Marian Marsh), then hypnotizes her to sing and eventually she marries him! There are even brief flashes of nudity, it's a Pre-Code film! After SVENGALI, Barrymore followed with another similar film the same year, THE MAD GENIUS. Warner Bros. paired him and Marsh in that one too!

Music in Svengali is classical oriented as you will soon hear. Uncredited music director is David Mendoza, he has 94 credits and worked from 1925-46 with titles like SWEET KITTY BELLAIRS, THE NAGGERS AT BREAKFAST, GOING WILD, I LIKE YOUR NERVE, THE MAD GENIUS, KISSING TIME, NO CONTEST!, GYPSIE SWEETHEART, NUTVILLE, MELODY MASTER: RAH, RAH, RADIO.. HIGH, WIDE And HANDSOME, RHYTHMITIS, THE BACKYARD BROADCAST, SHEIK TO SHEIK, TOOT SWEET, ATTIC OF TERROR, STOCKS AND BLONDES, ZERO GIRL, TOYLAND CASINO, THE HUMAN BOMB, PUBLIC JITTERBUG NO. 1 and SEEING RED!.. Great titles!!

So, on wif' da show!.. Tabonga' pet, Ralphie The Tarantula, took vitamins this morning and he say he ready to be pushin' that big old red 'GO' button and start our Eariffic Earclip 4 tudae...

And, he dood it, so here's ...SVENGALI!

Start with Maestro Svengali looking for singer. This lady sound like hurt animal, and it grate on eardrums! Not great... grate!

He tell her she stink!

She get so upset, she drown self in river!.. Story is part comedy.

John can really ham it up here, singing in the tub is a natch!

He look like some kind of psycho Abraham Lincoln!

The super sexy 17 year old art model, Trilby!! Remind Tabonga of back when he was in art school and could smoke in class!

Svengali notice that she gots a beau!

Through telepathic control, he imposes his will on Trilby's mind...

His thoughts travel to her bedroom over Caligari-style miniature sets by great set artist, Anton Grot!

The spell works and she joins him.

Luckily, we get a nice pre-code look at Trilby in art class!!

After the marriage, they tour together...

Trilby and Svengali are followed around by her ex, he knows their schedule because of newspaper announcements.

At the end, Svengali dies in the pulpit and she follows him to the grave!

NECRONOMICON - GETRÄUMTE SÜNDEN - Friedrich Gulda & Jerry van Rooyen - "Paroxysmos" (1968)

Seems like "Necronomicon - Geträumte Sünden" or as it was called in the U.S., "Succubus," is a whole lot of folk's little darling out of the whole roster of Jesus Franco films, but suckin' buses is just a little too arty for me, unless it's a Blue Bus, of course!

"Succubus" kinda gives me a chill, even though it's in the Mediterranean and made by one of my favorite directors with a cast of perennial greats, what in Hell could possibly go wrong?

Maybe I've just watched too many films lately, but for me this one lacks something in the testosterone department!

This is what I'm talking about, this is what those people were watching so attentively. This is exhilaration! Nuts to that!

The remarkable Janine Reynaud disagrees with me, but that's okay because she has a hip platter plopper!

Just like in all of Jess Franco's films, the music, supplied by Friedrich Gulda and Jerry van Rooyen this outing, swings like a noose in a breeze, exotic to erotic, and straight into the deposit box!!

Michel Lemoine is willing to argue that some of what is happening is not that bad, and I have to admit that's a very astute assumption from a man with a name very similar to a woman from my past that looked a bit like Janine Reynaud!

Janine and I have a lot in common, amzingly enough, at this point in the film, we were both doing exactly the same thing! How's that for coincidence?

Adrian Hoven, who we last saw in "Cave Of The Living Dead" not only was one of the stars, but was also one of the producers of this movie!

Wow! Like a pit stop on a delusional road trip to a castle made of sand, "Succubus" is all about eye catching candy and mind numbing games!

Permanent Dungeon stalwart Howard Vernon was not used to his full potential here, so he also gets credit as the still photographer! Howard, I don't think that's how you use a camera!!

Gotta give credit where credit is due, nice record collection!!

Just like Adrian's trying to do at this party, this movie is supposed to make you think, and it worked on me! I was thinking how much I really liked "Oily Maniac!"

How much fun is one person allowed to have??

Janine isn't drunk, in point of fact, she is actually doing a new dance called Do The Carpet!!

Uh, Oh, things are starting to get out of control around here, somebody call Webster Webfoot!

They even had time to have guest appearances by Frankenstein and Godzilla! What an Aurora of a deal!!

Is this heavenly scene just perfectly soft, senuous and sexy enough for you?

Weirdsville, just straight out Weirdsville!

Now it's time to prove how scary this whole fantasy business can be, look, a woman is screaming!!

That's right folks, believe it or not, that girl just did a cartwheel across from one side to the other right before your very eyes, is that incredible or what?? You can see how impressed the rest of the crowd is, as they can barely contain their excitement!! Have you ever noticed how similar the words excitement and excrement are?

It's a Jess Franco film in a mind staggering location, what else to you need to know?

BLOOD OF GHASTLY HORROR - Jimmie Roosa & Don McGinnis - "Echo Of Terror" (1972)

Al! Al! Al!! What a story! For the longest time I thought Jerry Warren was the The King of cut and slash film making, but with the film "Blood Of Ghastly Horror", Al Adamson has easily become the rightful heir to the thone, and if you make it through this masterpiece of crap, you might want to find yourself situated near one too, as you might find you have a need to puke! I'm surprised Al didn't try to save even a few more pennies, and shave down the name to the abbreviated, more accurate, and appropriate title, simply "Ghastly!"

The IMDB got it wrong this time, "Psycho A Go-Go" and "Blood Of Ghastly Horror" are not the same movie!! "Blood Of Ghastly Horror" is 85% "Psycho A Go-Go," not figuratively, but literally. Al took his own film from 7 years earlier, "Psycho A Go-Go" and basically used it as one big flashback, then added a few minutes of meaningless footage and bullshit at the beginning, a few inserts, and a different ending.

The music by Jimmy Roosa is outstanding, but Al cut out all the cool Linda Clarke songs featuring the vocals of Tacey Robbins, but thank the Lord that he also cut out the nauseating "Swanee River" songs by that obnoxious minstrel pull-string doll! That alone makes it worth forgiving! Added music for this feature was by Don McGinnis who would go on to work on a lot of TV cartoons in the 80's about characters like The Potato Head Kids, My Little Pony, and the Muppet Babies! Starting to make sense??

Al must have paid "The Stars" John Carradine and Tommy Kirk for far less than a day's pay, probably around $79.00 a piece, as they just have a few lines and are out of there! Exit stage left!

Here's what Al can do with a used hard hat, a piece of styrofoam, the seat belt out of his car, and 37 cents of wire! Voilà!! Instant Mad Lab!

Only Al's wife, Regina Carrol, would be a good enough sport to put on all this makeup and not get paid!

A lot of the brilliant cinematography by the genius Vilmos Zsigmond that made the first film a standout is still intact, but the new added footage shot by Louis Horvath is a total mess, with the actors consistently out of frame. Sloppy, not arty! Looks to me like when Al says "Action!" it's kind of like playing hide and seek, ready or not here we go!! Hey Wild Al, wait for me to catch up, I haven't even started the camera yet!!!

You have to be able to appreciate the fact that this film is devious, but classic Al! If you haven't seen "Psycho A Go-Go" you might fall for this fiendish concept, but if you have seen "Psycho A Go-Go," then you're in for an ultra serious case of deja vu or bad acid flashbacks! One great thing about this film is that it makes you realize how fantastic some of Al's other films are. Al's "Dracula Vs. Frankenstein" is like "Avatar" compared to this movie!

Like Lenny Bruce, Tommy Kirk became a martyr whose career died for your sins. Blacklisted in the 60's for things that nobody would even bat an eye at today, the oh so horrible acts of treasonish behaviour, being gay, and smoking pot, I think this is right around that same time that Tommy's career had sunk so low, he was willing to do almost anything for money, including being the Grand Marshall of the annual Delano Harvest Holidays parade!!