Welcome to Friday Night Drive-In with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. Tonite's offering is one of those flicks that has lots of guest stars, something that become really popular in the seventies. Stars like Neville Brand, Aldo Ray, Whit Bissell, Della Reese, Greydon Clark and Nehemiah Persoff.
The story goes... Arnold Masters is a mental patient behind bars for a murder he didn't commit. At the prison, he learns astral projection from a fellow inmate, then, upon his release, he uses the power to bump off the people responsible for his arrest and even a butcher who overcharges for his meat!
You'll hear the narrator repeat this insightful theory by noted physicist Sir James Jean in the soundclip, as quoted in
Time Magazine, no less! ...Who the Hell's Sir James Jean?
The cool music is by William Kraft, a percussionist with a grand total of 6 composing credits... That's probably him playing the drums in the soundclip.
Since it's Friday, you know what that means!.. Well, maybe you don't, but, it's time to bring in our littlest of all Dungeon helpers and button pusher, sure 'nuf,
Rufus The Gnat!.. So, then, lettuce get the show on the road! Push the big red 'GO' button right there in front of your nose, or, whatever it is...
NOW, Rufus!! Here's...
PSYCHIC KILLER!
Jim Hutton plays prison mental patient, Arnold Masters, wrongly accused of murder. Tall at 6' 5", Jim was in a few major movies like THE GREEN BERETS and HELLFIGHTERS, but, unfortunately, died at age 45 from liver cancer in 1979.
Arnold is friends with this sweaty weirdo, an uncredited Sheldon Lee playing... 'Inmate.' He has serious psychic abilities...
and, problems!
This shot is killer!! Before the tortured inmate goes on the ultimate astral projection, seen here, he gives Arnold the key to a box full of secrets on how to use the power to exact revenge on his friends!
One of the key elements to attain the astral state is this here pendant. Something you can get at any head shop!
Arnold likes to read before he head trips, after smoking a big hooter of Panama Red, of course!
Showing this photo for nostalgic reasons alone...
The seventies was cruel to actors like Whit Bissell, like here, where he has to do a hot sex scene with this topless broad. I watched this part carefully, Whit never once stopped gazing directly into her eyes!
Weird... If it was me, I'd be looking
directly at her boobs! But hey, that's just me. One of the oddest things, Whit plays the evil doctor in both I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN and I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF, and, the movies played together as a double bill!
This nurse teases the crap out of this patient since he can't move. Could this be considered torture, since the old buzzard could possible die of a heart attack from all the excitement?!!
Minutes later, the nurse gets a visit from Arnold's evil side while she showers. She was the nurse that let his mom die while he was behind bars.
Then, he appears in the rear view mirror of one of the people responsible for him going to jail.
He makes the guy run over a motorcycle cop, then, makes the poor sap drive off a cliff!! Gee, if I had that kind of power, I know what
I'd do with it!!
The cops, Paul Burke, Aldo Ray and Julie Adams, get in on the action, they're secretly keeping an eye on Arnold from across the street.
Here's a good gag, right out of Popeye and Bugs Bunny cartoons!
While he's in a trance, the gang do a few tests on him!
Neville Brand plays Lemonowski, the greedy local butcher, and, he's next on Arnold's list! He gets his via that whirring, carcass cutting band saw blade coming toward him... Ever closer, and closer!..
Things don't go too well for Arnold at the end, he catches the whole damn place on fire!.. Oh, and, he threw up a little bit.
The perfect ending, the cat inherits the pendant! Tune in tomorrow for another 'special' posting with Eegah!!..
Great title, great film! I don't think Laird Cregar could make a bad movie if he tried, so his films are real easy to watch, so just sit back and enjoy the madness that is "Hangover Square!"
Speaking of madness, somehow they kind of left out that part of this historical statement! George would probably have had better luck if he had lived in number 13!
There's been a murder, and the viewer is left without a doubt who the killer is! It's not whodunnit story, but more of a why he does it story. The ending is inevitable! Laird Cregar is George Harvey Bone, a classical musician whose fine tuned ear cannot stand the sound of any cacophonous disturbance. Noise just makes him go off the deep end! I have the same reaction to disco music!
I had to get drunk last night just to put me in the right frame of mind to write this. Oh, my head!!
Here he is again, a guy we've been seeing a lot of lately, the amazing Alan Napier as Sir Henry Chapman. Yet another excellent film that featured Alan Napier will be showing up here in the future, "The Strange Door!"
It's no mystery, and George Harvey Bone has these spells where he blacks out, and he's not even sure what he is capable of doing. Rightfully so, Mr. Bone questions his own sanity!
The story could have been much shorter, because right about here George Harvey Bone turns to Dungeon stalwart George Sanders as Scotland Yard's Dr. Allan Middleton for help, but Dr. Middleton assures George that he's all right and although he has problems, he is not a murderer! Wrong!
George decides to go to Bailey's Brewery for the Smoking Concert! The music for "Hangover Square" was composed by the more than amazing Bernard Herrmann! It's kind of difficult to fathom that Bernard Herrmann's first movie was arguably one of THE best movies ever made, Orson Welles's "Citizen Kane, and yet, that was probably not his greatest achievement! Mr. Herrmann worked together with Alfred Hitchcock on some of Alfred's best films that included "Psycho," North By Northwest," and "Vertigo." He also wrote the music for 17 episodes of Alfred's TV show, "Thriller." He also wrote the music for seven episodes of "The Twilight Zone," not to mention the classic films, "The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad, "Journey To The Center Of The Earth," "Jason And The Argonauts," and the list goes on and on.
The Smoking Concert is smoking hot!!
And all the guys are digging it a lot!! Yeehah!!!!!
The local favourite is Netta Longdon as portrayed by Linda Darnell! She sings, she dances, she does everything but roll on her belly like a reptile!
The music is light and fun, and is a nice break for George Harvey Bone, who I could not find a real reference to in The British Catalogue of Music. You're more than welcome to download and read it yourself at the Internet Archive!!
The rousing singalong song that Netta performs is called "Have You Seen Joe" with music by Lionel Newman, and lyrics by Charles Henderson! These two cats were no slouches either, Lionel won an Oscar for his work in "Hello Dolly," and Charles has diverse musical credits that run the gambit from "The Ghoul" to "Bambi!"
Classic and classical make contact!
Laird tries to explain to the cat that you're not supposed to look at the camera, but it's all to no avail!! Give the cat some credit, at least it doesn't wave at the camera!!
Linda Darnell is amazingly drop dead gorgeous, and is as beautiful as any woman to ever grace the silver screen, and she also has the ability to play a horrendous two-faced bitch! Linda Darnell was born Monetta Eloyse Darnell in Dallas, Texas and sadly died at the age of 41 in a house fire. Between the two of them Laird Cregar and Linda Darnell only lived a combined 72 years! How's that for wrong?
George writes Netta a couple of songs that are helping out her career a lot, and she keeps playing him for the fool, and he keeps falling for it!
Some workers drop a load of metal pipes that makes so much noise it literally drives George insane again!
With the help of George's beautiful compositions, Netta has worked her way up the talent pole quite nicely! My how terminology has changed!
The truth finally rears it's ugly little head, and George loses it when he finds out that Glenn Langan as suave Eddie Carstairs, is really Netta's true love and lover!! Yes indeed, that is the same Glenn Langan who 12 years later would be "The Amazing Colossal Man!"
Fairly morbid in retrospect, but lucky for George, the locals are having their annual Fawkes Day Celebration and Bon Fire, and everybody is encouraged to bring a dummy to burn. George's donation just happens to be the broken body of Netta!
Most of the time I don't get around to opening the mail until the weekend, and this is pretty much what my desk looks like!
Just like Caesar fiddlin', George plays on while the joint burns down to the end!
As is normal, I guess my timing is a little off. From what I read, "Hangover Street" just played on TCM last Saturday, too bad I didn't know, or I would have given you a head's up. Hopefully, they'll be running it again real soon! It can also be found on Netflix!
