THE SPACE CHILDREN / Paramount Pictures - 1958

Welcome to Monster Monday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. We have a unique little blob flick directed by Jack (THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN) Arnold that I actually saw when it came out. It's all about an alien intelligence that aborts a rocket launching with the help of children. This is a redo of a post we did back in June, 2008.

Although a nice poster for the kids, I consider this kind of sci-fi artwork just plain weak.

The music's by Van Cleave, Van also worked on these projects.. THE LEMON DROP KID, A PLACE IN THE SUN, THE CADDY, SCARED STIFF, THE COURT JESTER, LIL' ABNER and THE BELLBOY. This is one of my very favorite sci-fi themes from the fifties!

Letz bring in our fuzzy little fiend and button pusher, Ralphie The Tarantula!.. Ralphie's here to start the show, so, push the big red 'GO' button there by the coin-operated atomic dish washer, now, Ralphie! Here's the theme from... THE SPACE CHILDREN!

It stars Peggy (THE SCREAMING SKULL) Webber, Johnny (VILLAGE OF THE GIANTS) Crawford, Michel (LAWRENCE OF ARABIA) Ray and Adam (FEAR STRIKES OUT) Williams. Get this, Michel Ray quit acting in 1964, was a member of the 1968 UK Olympic Ski Team, then inherited over 50% of the Heineken Beer empire in 2002!

The family's trailer house interior was THE LONG, LONG TRAILER set! Saw that one in '53, we all loved Lucy at our place!

All the dads are working on a secret rocket program, where, the kids can walk right up and take a good look at what's going on!

Here's the lil' brain blob from space coming in for a landing, you can barely make it out there in the beam.

Wow, Russell (IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE) Johnson plays one of the biggest ass holes!! It's kinda hard to watch him at times.

The little bitty brain beckons it's mini minions...

Numbnuts here tries to smash the thing with a rock and gets paralyzed for his effort!

Russell plays Joe Gamble. Anyway, Joe gets what's comin' to him and has to go away for awhile. Check it out, he was going to wallop his stepson with that freakin' branch!!

Dad sneaks into the cave to see what's causing his kids to act against his authority. But, of course!

So, dad spills the beans to the military about the mysterious brain from space.

Jackie (MESA OF LOST WOMEN) Coogan plays Hank Johnson, he catches his daughter, Eadie, having a little telephathic chat with her new friend. Eadie's played by Sandy Descher, the little girl wandering around in the desert in THEM!

Ever since the kids have been bringing the thing McDonalds, it's really been putting on the pounds!

Nice looking composite shot!

The brain causes the rocket to fizzle out before it can cause the forseen damage it predicted.

The kids stand in defiance as the military shows up, ready to take care of the thing in the cave their way, deep six.

Although this scene where the organism takes off is definitely surrealistic, it looks sooo bad when the hard shadows are cast onto the matte painting in the background!

The big brainy blob shoots back into space, from where it came... I'll let you figure out your own analogy.

DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE - Les Baxter, Guy Hemric & Jerry Styner - The Supremes - "The Bikini Machine" (1965)

Here's the deal, Bruce Springsteen is NOT one of the 100 best guitar players of all time, Jennifer(Clutch Cargo chin)Aniston can't hold a candle to women like Linda Darnell and Allison Hayes in the hotness department, and "Dr Goldfarb and the Bikini Machine" should probably be a candidate for worst movie of all time just for the sheer amount of talent that was wasted on it! Per capita, it's worse than "Manos," and the saddest part is, I'm NOT kidding!

Wait a minute!! It's all starting to make sense now! "Dr. Goldfoot" was released on November 6, 1965, and the first Acid Test was held in Palo Alto, California in November of 1965. (LSD was legal in the United States until Oct 6, 1966) I'm starting to see a pattern, No, I'm starting to see a lot of patterns, and they're starting to move!

The honourable Vincent Price is Dr. Goldfoot! I'm beginning to think Vinnie would do almost anything for a buck, as long as he got to hang out with a bunch of young, beautiful women in gold bikinis!

Dr. Goldfoot is a nefarious character Hell bent on taking over the entire world with the help of his army of female robots! Where do these guys get these ideas, and what the heck is that blonde packing??

It's like a Disney movie gone horribly wrong or a 'G' rated film for adults, and yet it was popular enough that they made a sequel, "Dr. Goldfoot And The Girl Bombs!" 60's culture Pop icons Frankie Avalon and Susan Hart start to mix it up until Dr. Goldfoot throws her switch to off because he's the wrong guy! Frankie probably holds the title of being in the most movies with the word 'Bikini' or the word 'Party' in it! Besides this film, there's "Operation Bikini," "Beach Party," Muscle Beach Party," "Bikini Beach," "Pajama Party," "Ski Party," and "How To Stuff A Wild Bikini!"

The real target was Dobie Gillis, I mean Dwayne Hickman as Todd Armstrong, the Nation's Wealthiest Man! Dwayne was so young looking that when he started his teenage Dobie role, he was already 25 years old! "The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis" ran for 147 episodes from 1959 to 1963, and I think I've seen every one of them! As a child actor in the 40's, Dwayne was in films like "The Boy With Green Hair," and "Mighty Joe Young."

Pretty cool looking 1964 Dodge Dart convertible!

Susan Hart's robot needed to have some reprogramming done! Besides being THE "Ghost In The Invisible Bikini," a 'Bikini' movie that Frankie Avalon wasn't in, Susan was Lily Kilua in the upcoming "Ride The Wild Surf," one of the few surf movies that was actually kind of serious and not a beach party flick! Probably one of Susan's biggest roles ever, was she was the real-life wife of AIP president James H. Nicholson right up to his death! In his recent post, Tabonga neglected to mention that Susan Hart also had the role of the daughter Bonnie Galbraith in "The Slime People!"

Looking at the band in this club scene immediately brings to mind Brian Horrorwitz and The Ubangis banging out the theme to "Green Slime" for some reason! In reality, who knows who these guys are. It sounds like maybe Sam Butera and the Witnesses, but your guess is as good as mine. The main music in "Dr.Goldfoot And The Bikini Machine" was written by Dungeon Master Les Baxter!! The main theme song, "The Bikini Machine" was written by Guy Hemric and Jerry Styner and performed by The Supremes, who are usually associated with Motown, not Malibu or Fisherman's Wharf!

On the left is Jack Mullaney as Dr. Goldfoot's assistant Igor! Jack was always the fourth guy in every threesome! He had a continuing role as Peter Robinson in the 60's TV series "My Living Doll" with Julie Newmar, and he was also the star of a strange TV show that ran for almost two years, where he was an astronaut named Hector who got sent back to the Stone Age with his buddy Mac!

Dr. Goldfoot is trying to get the rich man and the robot drunk so that he can gain control of the whole Armstrong fortune!

I can't get enough of Susan Hart turning off and on!

These people are all very tricky! In this movie Dwayne Hickman plays Todd Armstrong and Frankie Avalon plays Craig Gamble, and in the movie "Ski Party" Dwayne Hickman plays a character named Craig Gamble and Frankie Avalon plays a guy called Todd Armstrong! What a bunch of weirdos!

"Dr. Goldfoot And The Bikini Machine" was orignally supposed to be more of a musical comedy, but then they cut out most of the music!

Dr. Goldfoot's Dungeon, unlike our own, is stocked with characters from other AIP features, Annette Funicello and Harvey Lembeck!!

And they finish the whole thing off with a rehashing of Vinnie's role in "The Pit And The Pendulum!" Can we just have one big collective WTF!??

You can find it almost anywhere, including streaming on Netflix! Prefect film for the holidays, it makes no sense at all!!