THE AMBUSHERS - Hugo Montenegro - "Here It Comes" (1967)

"The Ambushers" released in 1967 is the third leg of the Matt Helm superfecta after "The Silencers," and "Murderer's Row!" The Fourth in the series is "The Wrecking Crew!"  "The Ambushers" is silly, stupid, and ridiculous, and I enjoyed every stinking minute of it!

Down in The Dungeon we just dabble with Dino info, but if you really want to know more about the man, then head on over to the I Love Dino Martin site,  you will not be disappointed!

Women, women, and more women, and after they run out of women, there's more women, and they're all beautiful!

The Guv'ment had a different kind of space program going on before anybody ever set foot on the moon! A perfect flying saucer, but not from space, but from right in the good ole U.S. of A!

But, as always, they're not the only ones who want to play, and the saucer is brought down on it's maiden flight by some powerful anti-gravity magnet ray emanating out of Mexico!

Inside the saucer in the pilot's seat is Janice Rule as Sheila Sommers! Janice was in the "Twilight Zone" episode titled "Nightmare As A Child" as Helen Foley, and also in one of the strangest films I ever saw, "The Swimmer" starring Burt Lancaster! On the right is the man who wants to rule the world, and thinks hijacking this here saucer is a good starting place, Albert Salmi as the nefarious Jose Ortega aka Leopold Caselius! Albert has the rare distinction of being in not just one, but three "Twilight Zone" episodes, "Execution," "A Quality Of Mercy," and "Of Late I Think Of Cliffordville!"

We're trying to keep it down to 20 stills per movie, but I just couldn't do it on this one, so I decided to double up more than usual! I think you'll be able to understand and recognize the reasons why!

One of the newest contraptions they've developed at the Intelligence Counter Espionage Rehab Center is a bra, that when the strap is loosened, it shoots a bullet! Luckily for Matt Helm, it was only loaded with blanks this time!

Cutie Pie Beverly Adams shines in the role of Matt Helm's secretary Lovey Kravezit in the first three flicks, but she wasn't in the forth one for some reason! Beverly was also in "How To Stuff A Wild Bikini," "Devil's Angels," and "The Torture Garden!"

This is a demonstration of how the hand-held version of the anti-gravity magnet ray works!

Matt Helm's boss James Gregory as MacDonald fills him in on what's going down south of the border! I love the fact they're watching a 16mm film of a boxing match in his office, and Matt's eating popcorn just like he's at the movies! James Gregory was also in two "Twilight Zone" episodes himself, "Where Is Everybody," and "The Passerby!" This was the third time James played MacDonald, but he too was left out of the fourth film!

The sponsor for the fight is the Montezuma Brewing Company, and the owner is up to his ears in corruption and greed, and it's up to Matt to get to the bottom of it all! Here's what the jingle sounds like with an extra minute of some of the cool background sounds created by Space Age Pop star, and early moog stylist Hugo Montenegro!

Here's a look at a couple of Hugo's album covers!

Next Stop, Viva La Mexico!

The familiar face of  Kurt (Land Of The Giants) Kasznar is Quintana, the owner of the Montezuma Brewery! When Matt Helm goes out on assignment, his undercover job is that he's a freelance fashion photographer, and he's here to do a photo shoot with a revived Sheila Sommers as his wife, since she's the only one who can identify Jose Ortega! You wouldn't know it by looking at him, but Kurt Kasznar was nominated for a Tony Award for his contribution to the Broadway version of "Sound Of Music" in 1960!

I thought this was original, a member of this band has guns built into his maracas that are used in a feeble assassination attempt on Matt Helm!

Way ahead of it's time, information is sourced back to MacDonald via some future electronic system!

I read that Janice Rule said that this was THE worst movie she was ever in, and that she deeply regretted it! Too bad, because the fact that she looks so out of place is one of the things that makes this movie!

When pipes get shot during a gunfight in the brewery, Matt Helm takes a second to savor the situation, and decides to wet his whistle with some free suds! Not much later, he finds himself in a vat of beer with a Quintana who can't swim!

"The Ambushers" was never meant to be taken serious, and this scene involving a firing squad fumbling around looking for a match for their intended victim Matt Helm's last cigarette request could have just as easily been in a "Three Stooges" episode!!

The sensational Senta Berger is bad girl Francesca Madeiros!! Senta is still cooking today, and her career dates all the way back to 1950's German Krimi-Thrillers like "The Terror Of Doctor Mabuse!" Awesome!!

Some of the outfits these gals are wearing in this movie will flip your lid! Here's a prime example as Jose Ortega proceeds to remove some of Sheila Sommers' clothing by using his special anti-gravity magnetic ray gun that now apparently manages to work on anything, metal or not!

It's mainstream 1967, so there's no nudity in "The Ambushers" at all, nothing really close actually, but they didn't have a problem lining the walls of Jose Ortega's pad with paintings, not photos, of nude women, which I guess made it artistically okay! Still kind of crazy, if you ask me!

Dino rides off into the sunset with his girl of the moment Sheila Sommers, but even though they went through a lot together, Matt Helm's a free spirit and will be moving onto higher ground! You can just see it on his face!!

The closing scene features Dino and one last girl, and one last joke! The're listening to some of Dino's music, but she just can't get into the mood until a song by Frank Sinatra comes on! I bought the 4 disc set called "Matt Helm Lounge" on Amazon years ago, and it seems a bit pricey now, but I saw they stream "The Ambushers" for $2.99, and that's probably your best bet these days!

GODZILLA vs. GIGAN / Toho Eizo Co. - 1972

It's Giant Monster Monday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. Seems amazing that we still haven't posted this one starring the big guy, Godzilla. We're introduced to Gigan, pal to the now gold Ghidorah, and, what has a deadly buzz saw mid section. Godzilla brings his pal Anguirus along for back up!

Eegah!! sent over a nice musical sound clip from this monstrous movie, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button there by the giant monster footprint, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula! Here's our audio offering for... GODZILLA vs. GIGAN!

The story involves a comic book artist landing a job in a building that's a large replica of Godzilla, located at a theme park.

The big boss has a chair with a chrome half moon back, hey, that seems pretty cool! Our hero's in the back, his conversation with the boss has been interrupted.

Wow, the boss's assistant's a sharp dresser, that is one snappy color combo.

Thing is though, the place is a secret headquarters for aliens who plan on using giant monsters, including Godzilla, to conquer the world for them!

There's plenty of destruction to go around, great shots during the rampage at the oil refinery!

Our heroes escape the building using a zip line just before Godzilla arrives. Then, the big guy's greeted with a laser blast to the face!

Revenge is sweet when the bottom floor of the headquarters is filled with TNT!!

The aliens revert to their original form when dying, yuck, big old ugly cockroaches!!

Gigan and Ghidorah don't fare much better, Big G is pissed and ready to stomp 'em a goodern!!!.. Who knows what lurks in the mind of Eegah!! this coming Wednesday?

THE PENTHOUSE - Lisa Shane - "World Full Of Lonely Men" (1967)

After a long absence, due to a thing called work, Greg Goodsell has returned to The Dungeon! Tonight's feature is a British bit of psycho-babble called THE PENTHOUSE from 1967! This very 1960s poster seems to give away a good part of the film's story, and this installment may have quite a few spoilers. You should see it anyway!

And so it begins -- THE PENTHOUSE is a psychological horror film without blood or physical mayhem. Think it will work? You bet your boots! I've always felt that this feature had a J. G. Ballard-ian vibe to it. For further information, read his novels High Rise and Concrete Island. An interpretation from director David Cronenberg on his novel Crash rattled quite a few cages back in 1996.

With a cast of five, it's important that we introduce all our players and give them justice! The blonde beauty you see before you is popular Eurotrash starlet Suzy Kendall. She's appeared in such fare as TO SIR, WITH LOVE, worked with Dario Argento in THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE and is perhaps best known for her participation in the proto-slasher TORSO! She appeared, if that can be the word, in BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO as recently as 2012 -- a film which gently mocked Italian horror films of yore.

Very little is known about Terrence Morgan, who had a mere four other acting roles after appearing in this film! To cut to the chase, Morgan plays Bruce, and Kendall plays Barbara, and they're having a clandestine affair in the aforementioned structure.

As a certain cartoon dog would exclaim, Ruh Roh! It's Tony Beckley as Tom and Norman Rodway as Dick! The two, after taking the stairs all their way up to the penthouse (puff, puff, puff) insinuate themselves into the domicile and begin a long session of sadistic fun and games. We'll get to Harry, who compliments Tom and Dick later.

Brunet Beckley was a durable British character actor who worked with Peter Sellers in RE-VENGE OF THE PINK PANTHER in 1978. He would rejoin Kendall in 1971 IN THE DEVIL'S GARDEN. Blond Rodway has an acting career in TV and movies more than a mile long, and in his own way makes this film!

Ruh Roh indeed! Things go pretty south really fast as one of the disgusting duo produces a knife! Such begins one of the most harrowing home invasion scenes this side of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE! -- which has some surprising similarities with this film.

The odious pair are unafraid to wave a knife around, but no worries -- they have no intention of marking up Kendall's lovely face ... wink, wink, nudge, nudge. On a more serious note, THE PENTHOUSE was the first feature film for TV director Peter Collinson. He would go on to direct one of my very favorite Hammer horrors, the tragically misunderstood STRAIGHT ON ‘TIL MORNING. Tragically, he dropped dead of a heart attack – at the far too young age of 44 – in 1980.

Yes, the scumbags want to get Kendall good 'n' drunk first! Candy is dandy but liquor, as they say, is quicker --

C'mon love, you're not going to decline some hospitality from two dangerous psychopaths who've crashed your illicit love shack, are you? DRINK UP!

An avant-garde cover for a jazz album. The crocodile pictured here figures into a later conversation -- wait for it!

All tied up with nowhere to go, in the manner of Jerry Lewis at the hands of Sandra Bernhard in Martin Scorsese' THE KING OF COMEDY, Bruce puts on a brave face -- but his inherent cowardice begins to become very evident!

Its little wonder why Rodway had such a lengthy career in movies and TV -- oozing menace, he could conceivably play Mr. Hyde without makeup! Based upon the play “The Meter Man” by Scott Forbes, the film takes swipes at Britain’s classist system, as well as the British practice of “molly-coddling” prisoners.   

                   
Ms. Kendall gets down to the business of showing some skin and substantial nudity -- rather daring for the film at the time of its release, 1967! We'll be seeing a lot more of Kendall later on in the film!

BANG! What did I tell you? 

Beckley waves his trusty switchblade at Bruce, while Bruce keeps up his stiff upper lip resolve! It is here that Beckley begins his long, eloquent soliloquy -- concerning the crocodile, as referenced by the record cover. Beckley waxes eloquent on how baby crocs were onetime popular pets by children, and how parents flushed them down the john, where the poor, benighted crocs had to stay alive in a sewers to survive, becoming even more savage and a threat to society as a result. Do we hear a reference to Britain's notorious class system going on here?

Kendall, reborn from her boozy ordeal as a Venus in furs, decides she's sick and tired of Bruce's crap -- she knows he'll never leave his wife and kids for her -- and begins to wave that switchblade around! YIKES!

And now the fun really begins! Harry, who Tom and Dick have referred to repeatedly through the siege appears -- and Harry turns out to be horror movie icon MARTINE BESWICK! If you need an introduction to this fantabulous Seventies scream queen icon -- you're on the wrong website. Beat it…

Usually cast in dominatrix-styled roles, Beswick is devastating -- and wonderful in a gray business suit and glasses, in lieu of the slinky get-ups featured in her other roles. This confirms that Beswick was criminally underused during her brief acting career!

ANYWAY ... Beswick informs the couple that she is Tom and Dick's parole officer, and that they have failed her! In fact, she's bringing them back to personally apologize! I tell you, Beswick is only in the film's last 13 minutes, but her eccentric, hilarious performance is the perfect payoff!

Tom, Dick and Harry lean in for a personal exchange, and --

-- the laugh is on the adulterous couple, as well as the audience! Was there any doubt that she was one of them?

The terrifying trio mete out their final verdict! The thing is -- they know full well Bruce isn't going to say anything that would reveal his affair, costing him his career and marriage! Tonight's fun and games has BEEN ON THEM!

Tied up again with no place to go, the adulterous couple are sadder -- but wiser! They escape unharmed, but things aren't going back to what they once were, that’s for sure!

Kendall dumps her loser boyfriend as a torch song plays ... So much for being the other woman! The “World Full of Lonely Men,” as Lisa Shane croons, but the way Brucie acts, he’s destined to be a very lonely man!