THE ANATOMIST / Associated-Rediffusion Television - 1956

It's Friday Fright with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon! What we gots is the English TV version of the infamous Burke and Hare (body snatchers) story. It focuses on the Dr. Knox character, the man who wants fresh corpses for his classes. It stars the great Alastair Sim as Dr. Knox, Diarmuid Kelly as Burke and Dungeon fave Michael Ripper as Hare...

Eegah!! sent over a nice lil' soundclip from the production, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button located there next to the atomic soda fountain, NOW, Rufus The Gnat! Here's our audio offering for... THE ANATOMIST!

Dr. Knox starts the program off with some insight into skulls, it happens to be one of the finest examples they've ever examined!

Dr. Knox teaches anatomy classes, thus, the title... THE ANATOMIST!

Burke and Hare are a pair of lowlife entrepreneurs out to make a few illegal bucks helping out local doctors with dead bodies to work on... Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

Dr. Knox is actually a loveable old kook at times!..

But, whenever the doc gets blunt with one of his students, or, they get dumped by their girl, they go running for the comfort of a busty barfly in the nearby pub.

Burke and Hare, up to their devious deeds as usual!

One of their sugardaddys cuts them off due to their incompetence...

So, they grab the easiest target available for some quick cash from Dr. Knox, if you catch my drift!

When it's discovered by students that the girl was murdered by the two creeps, well, all Hell breaks loose!

LA DONNA IL SESSO IL SUPERUOMO - "Fantabulous" (1967)

Tonight's special Pre-Turkey Day flick is brought to you once again courtesy of Brian Horrorwitz over at the Trash Palace. I do hope that's where you plan on spending all that Black Friday dinero, cause you're damn sure to get more bang for your buck! This 1967 Italian film is titled "La Donna Il Sesso Il Superuomo," or roughly translated, "The Woman, Sex, and Superman!"

But the real title in English is "FANTABULOUS!" That's a hybrid combination of fantastic and fabulous, and the insane theme song of the same name is by some krazy kat named Alessandro Brugnolini who as far as I can tell was a jazz composer and saxophonist. I have no idea who is doing the whacked out vocals! Just dig it!!

It's pretty easy to spot the bad guys, they all wear sunglasses at night!!!

The head cheese on the evil side is Adolfo Celi as Karl Maria van Beethoven! I think he's got a chip on his shoulder because his Mom gave him a girl's middle name! Always stirring up trouble, Adolfo was Largo in "Thunderball," and  Ralph Valmont in "Danger: Diabolik!" Adolfo checked out in 1986!

There's a couple of things you need to know about "Fantabulous"  There is a lot of dialogue, which leaves me out some, since it's all in Italian, and when they feel like it, they throw in crazy collages of super heroes and cartoon imagery! They also use a lot of stock footage to flesh out the whole thing!

PTUNG!? An arrow through the head AND a can of beans!!

Can't go wrong with girls and guns!

And indeed this film contains a "Fantabulous" bevy of beauties!

So, what's it all about Ralphie?? Richard Harrison is some poor schmuck named Richard Werner! In the beginning of the movie, after he finishes making love to his girlfriend Judi West as Deborah Sandor, he gets scooped up by all those guys in the sunglasses, and taken off to this place where he is held captive, but he doesn't know why! After a couple of days he tries to escape and ends up in this room full of weird balloons, that he uses to float to safety, so he thinks! But as it turns out, it was just a set up to see how tricky and free form thinking he was, so they could tell whether he was the right guy chosen to be turned into Fantabulous, the Superman!

So they implant a special capsule into his head that does indeed turn him into a Superman! After not being able to land any lead roles in America, in 1961 Richard went to Italy to be in "The Invincible Gladiator!" It was all Sword and Sandal, and spaghetti westerns for almost 20 years after that, and in the 1980's Richard Harrison was in at least 20 movies that had the word ninja in the title!

They can't freeze him!!

And they can't burn him, he is truly indestructible!!!

Here's what one guy looked like who didn't pass the test!!!

Next, they had to strengthen his mind and his will power!! So they test him to see if he has got the balls to machine down these innocent civilians standing on the other side of some plexiglass!

Time for more Pop cartoon imagery, and at one point they even use some uncredited music from the first Mother's of Invention album, and the song, "Help, I'm A Rock!"

Like I said, it's very wordy, and my Italian is terrible at best, but there are Russians and Americans and other Euro military characters melded into the mess, and I'm pretty sure Mr. van Beethoven has his sights set on world domination in some form!

When Fantabulous sees himself as a doll on TV, it brings him back to reality and his former self a bit, and he takes off lickity split to find his girlfriend again!

After another rousing sex session (Deborah has a big sign above her bed that says "I Like Sex!") and some questionable 60's fashion, Fantabulous returns to van Beethoven!

Torn between worlds, Fantabulous is forced to make the final decision as to where his loyalty lies, the boss or the bed, and the musicians just keep on playing the same song over and over but in different variations! If there was ever a truly quintessential WTF?! movie, this one is without a doubt a top contender!!!!!

RED PLANET MARS / Motion Picture Center Studios - 1952

It's Martian Monday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. What we gots is a well made movie that pits America against the USSR during the rise of the Cold War. It stars Peter Graves in his 7th film appearance with a great supporting cast and is fairly lengthy at 87 minutes.

Eegah!! has sent over a musical soundclip for our approval, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button located next to the mini squid tank, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula! Here's your audio taste of... RED PLANET MARS!

The complicated story starts like this... An American scientist, Peter Graves as Chris Cronyn, has contacted Mars by radio and is receiving information that Mars is a utopian world, also, Earth's people could be saved if they return to the worship of God.

There's doubt about the messages being genuine though, an ex-Nazi working for the Soviets claims he was duping the Americans with his own messages all along.

Marvin Miller plays Soviet chief Arjenian. Marvin has one of the very best narrator voices ever, we remember him as the voice of Robby The Robot in FORBIDDEN PLANET and THE INVISIBLE BOY and was John Beresford Tipton'S faithful assistant Michael Anthony in 206 episodes of THE MILLIONAIRE.

Chris goes to the military with the messages, that's Morris (FLIGHT TO MARS) Ankrum, then, Walter (THE NAVY vs THE NIGHT MONSTERS) Sande, Peter (IT CONQUERED THE WORLD) Graves and Andrea (BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS) King in the scene.

How cool is that?!

Eegah!! and Tabonga! both grew up with Voice Of America just west of their village!

Lavish for 1952, a TV built into a fireplace trimmed with a picture frame.

As the Russians admire their giant posters of Lenin and Stalin, the building suddenly bursts into flames, a pretty clear sign that God was not siding with them!

The little Nazi creep shows up at the science lab and shoots up the place because he just can't deal with the truth!

We are left with a thoughful spiritual message from Mars, the planet!