THE BEAST WITH A MILLION EYES / San Mateo Productions - 1955

Welcome everbloody to Friday Frights with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon... Tonite we gots the first ARC picture from Nicholson/Arkoff, filmed in desolate Indio, CA, with a whopping $23,000 budget, Roger Corman is executive producer! BTW... Roger has produced 395 projects to date!

As far as I'm concerned, this story was stolen from an EC comic written and illustrated by Al Feldstein from about 1953. It goes like this... A space craft lands in the California desert. Then, the alien creature inside takes over the minds of some local humans and animals and is able to control their actions, including, using them to create terror. He 'sees' through their eyes, get it?

The artwork used during the credit roll is awesome, the artist did more of the same for other Corman flicks including BEAST FROM HAUNTED CAVE, IT CONQUERED THE WORLD, NOT OF THIS EARTH and ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS. If anybloody knows the name of the artist, please leave a comment! In the bottom still, you see that Jonathan Haze was production manager. A year earlier, Jonathan had a part as the Mexican fisherman in the Corman flick, MONSTER FROM THE OCEAN FLOOR.

The maniacal, beat your brains out theme music is by John Bickford. Now, get this... This was the only film he ever worked on! But, you will notice in later Corman movies that the same manical, beat your brains out theme music is replicated time and time again even with their other composers.

Now it's time to bring in that fuzzy wuzzy lil' Dungeon hunchback freek, Ralphie The Tarantula. Ralphie walked all the way from over there (6 in tarantula miles) to push the big red 'GO' button once again and begin our Eariffic Earclip for... THE BEAST WITH A MILLION EYES!

Narration and voice of the Beast is by Bruce Whitmore, and, is the only movie he ever worked on!

Having a date farm in Indio isn't exactly wifey's idea of living... Here's Paul Birch and Lorna Thayer as Allan and Carol Kelley, she's going a bit stir crazy, being so far away from civilization and all...

Here's... 'Him!'

Guess what 'Him' likes?... 'Him', the deaf-mute helper, usually walks around with a scowl on his face and an axe in his hand!

'Him' also likes to watch teenage daughter, Sandra, go skinny dipping in the river!.. Jus' kidding, she has a one-piece bathing suit on!

As the space craft lands in a nearby sand dune, the loud sonic sound destroys a few of Carol's priceless treasures as it passes overhead!

Allen hops in his '41 Ford Woody and drives over to see if his neighbor, Ben, is okay, since the phone lines are down. Ben is played by Chester Conklin, Chester ended up with a whopping 306 screen credits!!

'41 Ford Woody shout out to Dungeon pal, Teddy 'Bar', since he used to own one of them thar critters!

The family dog goes out to the sand dunes and finds the ship, and after receiving instructions form The Beast goes back home and attacks Carol! So, she has to kill it!

Loved those wind spinners when I was a little one!

Ben tells his cow, Sherry, to behave herself, right before she comes out of the barn and mows him down!

I put this still up to show what dressed up style for teenage girls looked like in 1955!

Another surprise, that's Dick Sargent as Deputy Larry Brewster, right before 'Him' clobbers him from the back seat! Larry is Sandra's boy friend.

'Him' defies The Beast and pays with his life.

The Beast works on Allan and Carol, but they fight back, now united as one, not afraid of the powerful force it's able to impose on their minds. Finally, The Beast falls over... Dead!

They watch as the space craft shoots back into space, never to be seen again, conquered by the simplest of things, good old love!

Ghoulnight Everbloody!!..

NIGHTMARE IN WAX - Kantor/T-Bones "Lookin' For The Wax Rainbow" (1969)

"Nightmare In Wax" is a weird, brutal, slow, but still fairly likable movie on a couple of different levels. The music is cool, it stars another Dungeon great, Cameron Mitchell, and has a killer title card!!!

The serious non-rocker music for the film was composed by Igo Kantor. Igo only composed the music for 10 movies, but he worked as music editor on a lot more. Probably his coolest credit would be as music coordinator on 53 episodes of "The Monkees" TV show!

"Nightmare In Wax" is like an early California Giallo film, and just maybe they thought they could recapture the work Cameron did in "Blood and Black Lace," but without Mario Bava and his team at the helm, it's a completely different game!

This movie is like one long public service announcement all about the dangers of smoking!!

And especially the hazards of talking shit and smoking are explored, and what happens when fire and alcohol are mixed with no respect for human safety!

"Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette........"

"Puff, puff, puff, and if you smoke yourself to death...

"Tell Saint Peter at the golden gate that you hates to make him wait, but you just gotta have another cigarette!!" - Merle Travis

Dumb Hollywood detectives couldn't even figure out who was knocking at their door on Halloween!!

Basically, "Nightmare In Wax" is a sick flick about a sick fuck, and a guy who really knows how to hold a grudge! Unbelievably, Cameron Mitchell had already been acting for 24 years by the time this film came out! He had been a stage actor that interrupted his career to become an air force bombardier in World War II. Not that it should have been unexpected, Cameron died in 1994 from lung cancer at the age of 75 after being in some 233 titles!

Much of "Nightmare In Wax" was filmed at the "Movieland Wax Museum" not too far from Disneyland if I remember correctly...

...because Yes, I was there a few years before they even had colour!! I don't know who the kid with me is!!

Cameron is the mad waxkeeper Vincent Renard, and his trick is that he injects people he doesn't like with some crap that keeps them alive, but motionless! It makes for some very lifelike dummies! They are also very zombielike, and can be manipulated by Vinnie when he wants to!

Time to meet up with Cam down at Gazzarri's, one of the hippest clubs on the strip! Gazzarri's, where the house band in the 60's was The Doors, and in the 80's it was Van Halen, but tonight it's those "No Matter What Shape Your Stomach's In" kinda guys, The T-Bones, joined here by The Gazzarri Dancers in their solo film outing!

More influential than Buck Owens or Merle Haggard, the best thing to ever come out of Bakersfield, Calif. was the Mosrite guitar! If you want that just right sound, you'll never go wrong with a Mosrite! The list is huge, The Ventures, Little Jimmy Dickens, Kurt Cobain, The Strawberry Alarm Clock, The Cars, Tom Petty, The Pyramids, Spinal Tap, Duane Eddy, Don Rich, Johnny Ramone, Elvis, and even Jimi are just a few of the musicians, along with 100's of other country and surf bands, who have played Mosrites over the years!

The chicks really dig The T-Bones, and you can tell from this little soundclip that they were making a pretty good transition from an instrumental hit group to a vocal pop band!

In the 70's, most of the T-Bones guys were that band with the hard to dismember name, Hamilton, Joe Frank, and Reynolds that scored pretty big top 40 soft rock hits with "Don't Pull Your Love," and "Fallin' In Love!"

Victoria Carroll doesn't seem to have a lick of rhythm in her whole body, but I'm not sure it's not all an act, because this is one talented gal!

Victoria has had a wonderful acting career, and has also done a ton of cartoon voiceovers with stuff like "The 13 Ghosts Of Scooby Doo," and "Yogi And The Invasion Of The Space Bears" etc, etc, ad nauseum, and her husband Michael Bell did a buttload of voices for cartoons like "G.I. Joe," and "Transformers!" Boy, I'd like to hear some of the conversation at that dinner table!!!

Victoria has quite a diverse range and look, and takes her Go-Go girl character from bimbo to dead in a short amount of time! This whole scene where Vinnie is driving around with her dead body is pretty damn creepy!!

The cops ain't gettin' any smarter!!!

Unfortunately, "Nightmare In Wax" is really stupid lookin' and slow the other half of the time, but then that's why God created fast forward!!

The end of the movie poses the age old question, how can a person go insane when they are already freakin' crazy out of their skull anyway??

I don't know what good it will do, but I'm going to send a few bucks to the Red Cross! You might want to think about it too!