THEY LIVE / Alive Films - 1988

It's Monster Monday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. Our feature stars my personal wrestling hero, Roddy Piper. I remember when we first got cable TV in 1980, Vince McMahon and the WWF hit the scene with the coolest junk ever, and, the Iron Sheik was champion! There was Bobby Heenan and his antics, announcer Mean Gene Okerlund, Hulk Hogan, Jesse The Body, Andre The Giant, Junkyard Dog and many more, but, my favorite maniac was definitely Roddy...

Eegah!! sent over a soundclip depicting a bleak future in LA as Roddy wanders the streets, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button next to the special X-Ray Specs, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula! Here's our audio offering for... THEY LIVE!

Roddy plays Nada, an out of work construction worker, he's forced to stay at a homeless shelter in east LA. He hooks up with Frank, played by the very talented, Keith David. At this very moment, Keith has 13 projects either in post or pre-production!! That's amazing. He also played Childs in Carpenter's THE THING.

Nada gets his hands on some special dark glasses a resistance group has created to actually be able to see through the aliens' electronic veil.

Nada cannot believe what he's freakin' seeing! I dig these monsters the most, Eegah!! should like the bottom pic.

In a satisfying moment, Nada calls out this old bat at the market!

Meg Foster plays Holly. She seems to have a genuine visceral dislike for Roddy in this scene where she pushes him through her bay window.

In one of the longest fight scenes in film history, Nada does everything he can to convince Frank to put the glasses on.

The boys get new hi-tech contact lenses and invade an alien event that will send Earthling to the alien planet to be farmed. Even though Roddy dies at the end, he takes out a main broadcasting component that creates the electronic veil! Now the aliens can be seen for what they really are!!

Fox News is immediately exposed!

This rich alien cat at the bar seems a little confused.

And, this horny Earth girl gets quite a surprise!

D.O.A. - "Nobody Dies For Free" (1950)

Time for the Saturday Night Film Noir Super Special, tonight featuring a clever little film from 1950 starring Edmond O'Brien, "D.O.A!"

Now I'm figuring it's safe to assume that everybody knows that "D.O.A" stands for Dead on Arrival! If not, well now you do!

"D.O.A." starts off with Edmond O'Brien as Frank Bigelow walking down a long hall, but it's really going to be a short haul, because Frank Bigelow has just found out that he's been poisoned!

Because of the nature of the poison that Frank has been poisoned with, and because there's no antidote after about 5 hours, when Frank finally gets to the Homicide Division, he is literally a walking, talking dead man!

So let's go back to the beginning, Frank has been called to go to San Francisco on some business, and he has to leave his secretary/lover behind to watch over the office! Frank's Girl Paula Gibson is played by Pamela Britton! Pamela doesn't have a lot of credits, but she has some good ones!! Pamela had the role of Dagwood's wife Blondie in 27 episodes of the awesome TV series "Blondie" that was based on the Sunday morning newspaper comic! Pamela was also Mrs. Lorelei Brown in 62 episodes of  "My Favorite Martian!" In 1974 Pamela started having headaches, so she went to see a doctor, two weeks later, she was dead at the age of 51, the victim of a brain tumor! Life's not fair kids!

You might wonder what those funny swizzle stick noises are in the little sound clip I've provided you with, it's just that whenever Frank sees a hot chick, that's the noise somebody decided to add to the sound track! It's so cartoonish, it really makes you wonder WTF!

So Frank is asked to go along with some party people he met at his hotel, and they head off into the night for some music and more libations! They end up at a club called "The Fisherman" and man, the joint is jumpin'!

The band is smokin' hot, and that's an understatement! The maniacal sax player is Van Streeter! Van led a group called Von Streeter and his Wig Poppers! He's joined on stage by Cake Witchard on drums, the amazing Shifty Henry on bass, Ray Laurie on the piano and Teddy (Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte) Buckner on trumpet! Believe it or don't, the raucous music they created wasn't even good enough for the producer who overdubbed another band led by Maxwell Davis! What a krazy world!!

Here's yet another far-out fact! That krazy kat digging the music in a small bit part was none other that Hugh (Wyatt Earp) O'Brian! "The Life And Legend Of Wyatt Earp" was just a small footnote in Hugh's career, but it went on for 227 episodes from 1955 to 1961!  Unfreakingbelievable!

So, how's it feel? You just got into town, you're getting drunk with a bunch of strangers, and one guy's wife is hanging onto you like a starfish on a pier! The air's starting to get a little thick!

Then some super mysterious mofo shows up, and slips something weird into your glass, unbeknownst to you!

Gee, this drinks tastes kinda funny! Hey, Bartender bring me another drink, and wash the glass this time!

Frank Bigelow wakes up the next morning feeling like shit, and he's got some kind of gut feeling that this isn't your run of the mill hangover!

Frank feels bad enough that he goes to see a doctor, and that's when he finds out he's been poisoned by some luminous toxin that has no cure after a certain length of time! His library card has essentially expired!

Now he's got nothing better to do than try and find out what it's all about, and why it happened to him! I love this shot!!

The game is on, and Frank ends up going to L.A. where he starts to put all the clues together!

"D.O.A." is filled to the brim, and overflowing with talent! Here's the great Neville Brand as psycho henchman Chester! What do you think? Does he look just a little bit crazy? Neville was so talented, he could be a tough guy killer in one movie, and warm and fuzzy in another one!  His roles ranged everywhere from this film to "That Darn Cat," with stops in "The Twilight Zone" in the episode called "The Encounter," to 56 episodes of "Laredo" as Reese Bennett, to George Fromley as "The Mad Bomber!"

Time for one last good-bye! He knows it's the end, but she doesn't!

So there you go, "D.O.A." is one movie I don't mind telling you the ending, because, nothing has changed since the beginning of the film! Frank Bigelow is still a dead man, and this is one movie that doesn't have a happy ending!

"D.O.A." is a classic piece of film noir! I got my dvd copy for a dollar from Target, you are even luckier, and can watch or download it for free from The Internet Archive, and that's exactly what I suggest that you do immediately, if not sooner, before your time runs out too!

VIAJE A LA LUNA - Brooks y Enríquez - 1958

It's another Friday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. We have a great little bizarro Mexican musical comedy with a ton of stars that also appear in many of their horror movies. The title translates to "Trip to the Moon," but, in Mexico this would actually mean "Living on the Moon," which is Mexican slang for "Being a little crazy." In this movie, two entertainers are trying to hide from their public for a short time and end up staying at a madhouse hotel(?), where they are mistaken for being crazy! After encountering all the characters that are staying there, they decide to escape.

Eegah!! sent over a nice little musical soundclip for our enjoyment, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button there next to the Moon Missile, NOW, Rufus The Gnat! Here's an earfull of... VIAJE A LA LUNA!

The beginning is very cool, showing this great fifties Mexican art as the narrator explains how the Moon is responsible for certain behavior in human beings...

In order to get away from their adoring fans, entertainers Arau (shown at top) and Corona have a bunch of masked men show up at the end of their performance so that they can make their escape, confusing the women.

Arau and Corona end up at supposedly a 'resort' hotel. It doesn't take long before things start getting a little weird!

Then, from their bedroom window, they watch a strange dance number by the beautiful Kitty de Hoyos, who also starred in LA LOBA and ADVENTURE AT THE CENTER OF THE EARTH.

Capulina and Viruta show up as firemen, just in time to douse everyone with water!

I remember seeing Chabelo on Mexican TV even in the nineties, with his crazy little voice.

Here's Kitty as a blonde with glasses, promoting her new book.

Then, as Cleopatra, Kitty does another dance number.

After Kitty and her people leave the stage, Arau and Corona do a comedy dance routine with the strange looking lady, Vitola!

And, Borolas, playing a detective, finds what he was looking for the whole time! This rare movie is available at Amazon.