THE MONSTER AND THE GIRL - "Gorilla Suit Blues" (1941)

If you have one nostalgic bone in your body, you've got to miss the good olde 'Gorilla Suit' days of yesteryear! I know I do! I waited a long time to see tonight's feature film, because "The Monster And The Girl" is a hard little movie to hunt down, but it's worth the effort!

"The Monster And The Girl" is not as lively as "The Monster And The Stripper," but then how could it be, but it's a good little film.  This is almost the most basic story line you could ever imagine, but just like three chord rock songs, simplicity can be perfection if properly applied!

The 'Girl' in the title is the enchanting Ellen Drew as Susan the bad penny Webster! Ellen bantered around Hollywood for a couple of years in the 30's doing uncredited or bit parts sometimes using the name Terry Ray in roles such as secretaries, switchboard operators, and party guests, but in 1941 she was in "The Mad Doctor" with Basil Rathbone and then in 1945 she co-starred with Boris Karloff in "Isle Of The Dead!"

This is the story of a small town brother and a sister who really have a close relationship, maybe too close! Scott Webster is the post office working, organ playing in the church brother as played by Phillip Terry of "The Leech Woman" fame!

But Susan is tired of small town life, and leaves her brother behind to move to the big city, where she almost immediately falls in love with a scumbag con man!

Said scumbag con man is Robert Paige as the charming Larry Reed! Robert's 87 credits include "Hellzapoppin,'" "Abbott And Costello Go To Mars," and "Son Of Dracula!"

Susan marries Larry, and wakes up the next morning and this guy is in her room! So, just what the Hell is going on here? Her husband has disappeared and Susan needs to pay for the wedding party and the room, and the only way she can do that is to work for these mobsters entertaining men! This guy is Giuseppe Maria Spurrin-Calleja, ask consummate bad guy, Joseph (Johnny Cool) Calleia!

Susan breathes the words, "WTF?"  I think most men would agree, women always look beautiful when their hair is not perfectly coiffed!

Cut! Back to the first picture!  Where'd the story go? Scott Webster is in court for a murder he was framed for, when he was trying to find Larry Reed! His sister Susan is in court testifying, and telling the whole back story, but the court doesn't believe it, and Scott is sentenced to death..........

.........But he is given one last option! He can give his brain to science!! Enter the always great George Zucco as the mad scientist with a plan to transplant a man's brain into a gorilla for the good of mankind!

If this gorilla looks like he has a little more character than your run of the mill simian, it's because it's makeup artiste Charles Gemora inside that skin! Besides his many appearances inside a gorilla suit, Charles was also the Martian in "The War Of The Worlds," AND the alien in "I Married A Monster From Outer Space!"

I'm thinking that the headline "Mangle Murderer Strikes Again" to this day has never been used again! The monster is on the loose, and George Zucco doesn't seem to notice or care at all!

The last movie we tried to make was titled "Voodoo Club!" We only got about 25% done when the whole thing imploded, but we were planning on using a gorilla in some of the final scenes, so I started looking into costs of gorilla suits, and this is what I found out!

On the left is a gorilla suit you can buy for about $100.00, and the gorilla suit like the one on your right is what you can rent for a week for about a thousand bucks!

The gorilla busts out seeking revenge, and reeking havoc on the mobsters that besmirched his sister, and got his human brain put inside a gorilla's skull! In this scene, this one hoodlum is feeling a little paranoid after a couple of his buddies have been knocked off, and he turns the radio on and up loud, and the swinging music by the prolific Gerard (Dr. Cyclops) Carbonara kicks in. This guy was so far down that after the gorilla crushes him, one of his mobster buddies comes in an shoots him too!

Hard to believe by today's standards, but at one time not that long ago, gorillas were just as popular as vampires and werewolves!

Here are some classic comic covers to illustrate how popular gorillas were in the 40's, 50's, and 60's

Well, just like the rest of the Bozos in the gang, Larry Reed gets what's coming to him too!

Susan's a little slow, but by the time it's over, she figures out that it's her brother inside that great big ape's head! To put an exclamation point on the whole subject, here's a catchy little ditty from a musical pal of ours!
          
                             Glen Armstrong - "Gorilla Suit Blues"

SUGAR HILL / American International Pictures - 1974

Hello and welcome to Mafia Mauling Monday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. We gots a Wild 'n' Weird movie from AIP where they mix Blaxploiation wif' Zombies and create a bad day for the crackers in the Texan Mafia, filmed in Texas. The tagline reads... Meet SUGAR HILL and her ZOMBIE HIT MEN...The Mafia has never met anything like them!

Eegah!! sent over a little soundclip of the theme from this flick, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button there next to hungry atomic ants, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula! Here's our audio offering for... SUGAR HILL!

The story starts when Sugar's man is killed by some mafia thugs because he refused to sell his nightclub to them! Sugar Hill is played by Marki Bey, she has 12 acting credits from 1970-79 and that's it. She had a part in one episode of CHARLIE'S ANGELS.

Here's Robert Quarry as Morgan, asswipe leader of a bunch of Texan thugs and behind the murder. This film brought an end Robert's 4 year reign as a horror star at AIP, which began with COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE. Vincent Price and him both left the studio that same year.

Sugar returns to her roots and contacts Mama Maitresse, who then summons up a gang of zombies buried in the woods to do Sugar's bidding... Nothin' better than sweet revenge!

Here's how the crackers running the show in Texas get things done, wise guy threats.

Here's the zombie taxi! All the driver had to do is tell Morgan's man that.. "The boss wants to see you!" And, he gets in, because, you know, when the boss calls, you obey... Then, you drive him to the zombie hangout for some fun! So Simple.

Laughing boy realizes he's been duped 101, and, finds Sugar there instead of Morgan. Then, in one of my favorite parts, the zombies toss him into a pen full of starved hogs!! ...Sweeeet!!

As Sugar cuts up this jerk's voodoo doll with a razor, he dies when she slashes the doll's neck!

Just threw this one in for fun... Man, girls are lucky!

Did I mention that there are also female zombies?.. No? Check out the wild bottom photo, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET didn't come out for another ten years... Freakin' copy cats!

After Morgan's gang is descimated, it's his turn as he gets the foul taste of his own medicine!

This is funny, guess what happens to Morgan's girl and that gang of horny zombies?!

And, if you're curious about the theme tune, here's the skinny...

AGENTE 077 MISSIONE BLOODY MARY - Morricone/Graf - "Bloody Mary" (1965)

 Well, I'm going to go Super Secret Agent Spy Saturday for a couple of weeks on ya, so break out the vodka and the tomato juice; I just hope you are as big a fan of Euro James Bond Wanna Be Spy films as I am! Most of these films have basically everything you could want out of a movie, there's Technicolor AND Techniscope, and that's a lot of tech stuff, and if nothing else, you gotta admit,  'Agent 077' is pretty clever!

The theme song for "Mission Bloody Mary" was written by Ennio Morricone and Maurizio Graf, and also performed by Maurizio Graf! I was looking up Bloody Mary for some reason, and I came upon this pub site in Wisconsin where they make these awesome Bloody Marys with a massive amount of meats, cheeses, and pickles etc on skewers! Yes, there is a God, Bloody Mary Party here I come, Check it out!!

This type of movie reminds me of those cheap records you'd find at Woolworth's or the corner grocery store back in the sixties that would try and play off of The Beatles phenomena, and put out 99 cent records with guys with their hair combed down over their forehead with names like "The Buggs," or "The Four Beagles and the Liverpool Whigs," and just like those records, the second hand version ain't really half bad!

Speaking of records, it's obvious these people were not teenagers or they would have been listening to The Beatles instead of Nat King Cole!

Ken Clark is Agent 077 Dick Malloy! This was the first of three films in a series about Agent Dick, the other two being "From The Orient With Fury," and "Special Mission Lady Chaplin!" Ken was also in "Love Me Tender," "Attack Of The Giant Leeches," and "12 To The Moon!" After about 7 years in Hollywood, Ken packed it up and went to Italy where he got much better roles! Dick's girlfriend is Franca Polesello who was also in "Hercules Vs The Mole Men," "Operation White Shark," "LSD Flesh Of Devil," and  "Tarzana, The Wild Woman!"

So why did they have to break up Dick's little love affair? A bomb has been hijacked, and it's up to him to figure it all out! Everything else is petty details!

Every secret agent has to have some kind of nifty trick something, and Dick is presented with a pistol that holds 9 shells instead of 8. You don't have to be a rocket surgeon to figure out that later in the movie, after Dick fires 8 shells, some thug is going to unsuccessfully think that Dick's out of ammunition!

This is the bomb in question! It's really kind of cute, like maybe it could double as a pepper grinder or a fancy blender!

It's time for Dick to make the scene down at the night club called Screaming Desire or something like that!

The actress playing the stripper in the club was also a strip tease artist for real besides being an actress! The Eurasion goddess Mitsouko was also in a real James Bond movie, "Thunderball!"

As part of her act, Mitsouko needs a little help getting her top off! A Dymo labelmaker message proves this is no chance meeting!

I had a choice of two last pictures of Mitsouko to show you, one where she was alive, and one where she was dead, for obvious reasons, I chose alive! Unfortunately Mitsouko didn't, and sadly committed suicide in 1995!

Dick Malloy faces trouble at every turn.......

.......But he never seems to get distracted from getting the job done! The lovely Helga Liné has the role as Dick's romantic foil!

When you can get a location like this for almost nothing or free, use it!

As cool as it was, in 1965 the Chevrolet Corvair was outed by Ralph Nader as "the leading candidate for the un-safest-car title," which essentially killed production of the vehicle forever, and a reputation it's tried to shed for decades!

"Run, Dick, Run!!"

 

There's also lots more action and excitement like this fight scene! I liked "Mission Bloody Mary," and I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of trouble Dick can get into next time! Until then, go make yourself a Bloody Mary! A Tu Salud, Cheers, and Später!!