THE WAR OF THE WORLDS / Paramount Pictures - 1953

Welcome to Monster Monday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. Tonite, we have a real monster classic from 1953, the movie with a phenomenal budget of $2,000,000!! This calibur of production would usually get a write up in LIFE Magazine, about the only place you could find any information for a horror or sci-fi film. Thank God for Forry Ackerman and FAMOUS MONSTERS!!

**A little reminder, if you haven't lately, check out our Movie TV Radio 13 there to the right, for some monsterously swingin' tunes from some of our monster movie posts!

The music is by the great, Leith (OUTER LIMITS) Stevens. Our soundclip concentrates on the music at the square dance, so, there's no telling who's responsible for that stuff...

Letz bring in our little fuzzy Dungeon helper and button pusher, what else, Ralphie The Tarantula!.. Howdy there, Ralphie! He's here to start the show, sooo, wif'out further adieu, push the big red 'GO' button located directly behind you, now, Ralphie! Here's some sounds from... THE WAR OF THE WORLDS!

It all started with a meteor...

Squares at the square dance... Having real square fun!

Gene (THE 27th DAY) Barry plays Dr. Clayton Forrester and Ann Robinson plays Sylvia Van Buren. Ann also played in the TV series and the 2005 film version, WAR OF THE WORLDS!

Well, so much for that white flag angle!..

Great futuristic looking Martian war machine design, with it's death ray and all. In the original story giant machines walked around, and, one of their devistating maneuvers was simply to stomp on the ground when people were present!

Portrait of Les Tremayne as the guy in charge, Major General Mann.

Sylvia's uncle is about to find out that quoting lines from the Bible has little or no meaning to invading Martians!

After crashing in their plane, Clayton and Sylvia make their way to the safety of an abandoned country home.

A war machine sends down a device to view inside the house.

...YUCK!!!

Hey, boss!.. Look whut I stole for you'se, Queen Hoity Toity's crown!

They play around with the Martian monitoring eye device after getting it hooked up to their lab equipment.

A YB-49, aka Flying Wing, drops an A-Bomb on a flock of Martian war machines, but, they come out unscathed because of their impenetrable dome shields.

Had to show this cool 1950 Dodge Panel Wagon!

It looks like all is lost, there's just no place to escape to!

This is a pic added by a request from Scrubjay - LA City Hall getting blasted!

Then, suddenly, the attack comes to a screeching halt!

Around the world, war machine after war machine crashes to the ground as all Martians succumb to our mighty, mini Earth germs!

SIE TÖTETE IN EKSTASE - Manfred Hübler and Sigi Schwab - "She Killed In Ecstasy" (1971)

Enough with the giant rabbits already, here's this week's Saturday Night Special, "Sie Tötete In Ekstase," "She Killed In Ecstasy," or as it is better known, The Soledad Miranda Show!

"She Killed In Ecstasy" is a film written and directed by Jesus Franco! Jess Franco doesn't have ornate sets built, he just finds cool places to shoot his movies!

Prophetic, since Soledad's life was cut so short, so soon! She only lived to be 27, her death was the result of a car accident!

Soledad is the very happy and content wife of Dr. Johnson, none other than Mrs. Johnson! Dr. Johnson was played by Fred Williams!

"proneness to cancer, cardiac insufficiency, general physical and mental deterioration" and Soledad Miranda!

Life is sweet, good smokes, fine wine and Soledad Miranda's butt!

Speaking of butts, these four intolerant buttholes have driven Dr. Johnson to the edge, and are now in the process of giving him a little shove! Back row left to right, we have Paul Müller as Dr. Franklin Houston, Ewa Strömberg as Dr. Crawfish, and Howard Vernon as Professor Jonathan Walker! In the front row is home boy himself, Jesus Franco as dumb Dr. Donen!

His radical medical concepts not accepted, Dr. Johnson takes things into his own hands, and makes the final decision to exit stage right!!

The snappy music that accompanies Dr. Johnson and his lovely wife's spiral out of control was composed by Manfred Hübler and Sigi Schwab! These two also worked together on "Vampiros Lesbos," and Sigi also composed the music for another Soledad Miranda classic, "Der Teufel Kam Aus Akasava!"

Born Soledad Rendón Bueno on July 9, 1943, Sole chose to act under the name of Susann Korda sometimes, like in this film!

Just as when life doesn't imitate art, in this film Soledad loses her husband, in real life, it was her husband that lost her!

Mrs. Johnson has decided to take revenge on the four who caused her husband to kill himself, and you might say she's just a little crazy!

To make it all that much more interesting and to give Miranda more opportunities to take off her clothes, Mrs. Johnson will seduce each one of her victims before biting their heads off!!

Dungeon regular Howard Vernon is the first one to step into the on deck circle. I guess if a person had to choose the circumstances leading up to their death, making love to Soledad Miranda first wouldn't be that bad of an option!

But then again, getting stabbed multiple times by a beautiful maniac doesn't really seem like any Swiss picnic neither!

Mrs. Johnson doesn't have any problem swinging both directions, so disposing of that bitch Dr. Crawfish is no problemo at all!

Soledad Miranda was in over thirty films from 1960 to 1970 and also released two yé-yé pop records in the mid-1960s! Her husband, José Manuel da Conceiçao Simões was a Portuguese race car driver, and ironically, he quit driving so he could have a safer job, only to lose his wife to an automobile accident!

Dr. Houston is the third scumbag to go down! We've been seeing a lot of unique uses for scissors around here lately! What a handy tool!

Despite being a cold blooded killer, Mrs. Johnson is still fragile, quite vulnerable, and naked too!!

Since it's his movie, Jesus saves himself for last, and I suppose that's why his name is Dr. Donen, Gone!