GIBEL SENSATSII - "The Robots Of Ripley" - (Loss Of Feeling) (1935)

Greg Goodsell here! It's 1936 -- all the promises of a "Worker's Paradise" in Russia has gone down the porcelain convenience as the entire globe is gripped in the Great Depression! People are going hungry and morale is at an all-time low. What to do? Well comrades, the thing to do is to rush out a bit of agit-prop that combines science-fiction and melodrama into a project called THE ROBOTS OF RIPLEY in order to placate the proletariat!

Yes, the fine folks at Sinister Cinema have made this long-forgotten Russian sci-fantasy film available to the English-speaking peoples of the world for the first time! But as we shall soon see, there are some issues to be found with this presentation -- with all apologies to Mr. Greg J. Luce.

NOW -- here is the problem I have with this version of the film: there are no subtitles, but merely inter-titles such as these that vaguely explain away the film's action! How half-assed can you get? On the other hand -- since the majority of this film's dialogue is long, dry, political diatribes, maybe that's a good thing!

It's Russia in an indeterminate near-future, and factory workers are at their wit's end! In a bit of interesting set design, in lieu of the expected assembly lines as invented by that capitalist exploiter Henry Ford, the workers in this film work on spinning Lazy Susans! As expected, they get dizzy pretty darn quick and productivity suffers!

A little mechanical assist is needed … The gentleman at the extreme left is our erstwhile inventor, Ripley! Playing a most American musical instrument, Ripley controls his army of mechanical men with hot jazz riffs!

And here is the big boy! Ripley's robots are about one-and-a-half stories tall and emit a sound like a lawn mower going over gravel! They're UGLY and NOISY things!

Music soothes the savage automaton!

A machine of many talents, this robotic prototype entertains the capitalists with a version of the Hawaiian hula dance!

Indeed, while speaking out against capitalistic decadence, there are a lot of nightclub scenes in ROBOTS OF RIPLEY -- almost as many as in a Jess Franco film! There seems to have been a bit of Weimar Berlin going on in Moscow at this time! Sure beats community sing-alongs and conversations revolving around tractors, I guess --

OOoooops! I take that back! As this hideous little homunculus proffered by a nightclub vendor proves that there was a lot of surrealistic art going on at this time as well! The Nazis, up and running at the time this film was made would have snatched this puppet out of the vendor's arms and thrown it into a bonfire, a foremost example of "degenerative art!"

It wasn’t always this way. Ripley first introduced his mechanical men with this cute little prototype to meet with labor's approval at the worker's colony. Since this is a communist film, the workers are SUPPOSED to be the good guys – but I don’t know --

This tiny robot dances merrily and knows his way around a sewing machine. The Forces of Labor react with great anger -- this robot will take away jobs from humans who toil for 12 hours a day without rest for 15 cents an hour! NYET! they say, and send the cute little feller tumbling to the ground, whereupon he breaks into a million pieces.

Poor little prototype robot, thrown to the floor by the forces of labor!

So they up and squeeze in another nightclub scene. Hey, where else are we going to fit in some music, pretty girls and long legs to hold the audience's attention?

The Russian version of Joel Grey exhorts his countrymen to drunken excess and debauchery!

Ripley addresses his troops after dark after a riotous night on the town!

Soused to the gills, Ripley leads his robotic army in a surrealistic dance -- Cue The Music!

Here we go! A very important part of the plot -- a telegram -- is presented in Russian, with NO subtitles! GRRRRRRRR.

A giant worker robot is introduced to a member of the general public -- aaaaaaaaand it doesn't end well. No, it doesn't.

HOOOO-kay, here is where things get a little weird. In perhaps a nod to Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS (1925), the wicked greedy capitalists now send out the robots to destroy the worker's colony! The question, as in Lang's film is -- WHY? So they can destroy the infrastructure which has ensconced the bad guys in luxury all these years? Please 'splain.

Ripley tries to turn back the tide -- but his sax is broken and he gets trampled by his army of automatons! AAAAAH!

Yup yup yup. This is what happens next. The robots trounce all the capitalist pig dogs and the world is left in chaos, in much the same way as the Bolshevik Revolution did way back when. But seriously folks, 14 years into the 21st century and the issues surrounding labor and management remain highly complex ones, not served by the simplistic cowboys-with-white-hats versus the cowboys-with-black-hats arguments as proffered here. Back to the drawing board, comrades! This is Greg Goodsell -- signing out.

FUGITIVE ALIEN / Sandy Frank Enterprises - 1987

It's Freakin' Fugitive Friday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. What we gots is here is actually a collection of episodes from a Japanese sci-fi TV show strung together to create this special effects extravaganza that was eventually ripped to shreds by the clever MST crew! Shown above is the VHS cover art, no poster is available.

Eegah!! sent over a sound clip from this whacked out flick for our earjoyment, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button located next to the x-ray laser sword, NOW, Rufus The Gnat!.. Here's a taste of... FUGITIVE ALIEN!

The alien invaders make it to Earth and do a fly over just before they lands and start a super science battle with the unprepared earthlings!

Here's the super villain leader, he likes his men to wear blond wigs even though he would obviously never consider dawning one of the silly things himself!

Love this shot of one of the aliens breaking the glass at this five & dime store.

One of the aliens jabs his x-ray laser sword right through this poor disco dude!

The aliens have some top shelf psychedelic drugs to groove out on between battles.

When you die in space, no one can smell you void your bowels... Just kidding, this clumsy spaceman is rescued and brought back to life on the ship, so, ha-ha!

EARTH FIGHTS BACK!!!..

The Earth ship lands on a distant planet to try and find help in defeating the invaders...

They hook up with this fancy Dan, and, the only guy in the universe that can give them a hand with their special request.

A lot of the story is about the bad guys hunting down the fugitive alien that escaped and joined the Earth Team. Tune in tomorrow when the Virus Man has a special post just for you!..

ARRRIVA DORELLIK - Margaret Lee - "Crash-Sci-Sci-Patapum" (1967)

Well, the Wednesdays just keep getting weirder down here in the Dungeon, and this week's installment and the end of this fine month is no exception! It's called "Arrriva Dorellik" and was also released in English as "How To Kill 400 Duponts!" There's some things I don't get, like supposedly "Arrriva Dorellik" is a spoof of  "Danger:Diabolik," but "Arrriva Dorellik" was released first in October of 1967, and "Danger: Diabolik" was released in January of '68! How's that work?

Comedy is a funny thing!, or sometimes it's not! If you try too hard, it doesn't work, and there's always that fine line between funny and stupid! In my humble opionion, "Arrriva Dorellik" crosses that line, but then again, everything's subjective, you might find this movie hilarious as Hell!!

Terry Thomas as Inspector Green of Scotland Yard is a guy who without a doubt is an acquired taste, and Terry's humour, just like some recreational drugs, can make for quite the uncomfortable experience if you get too much! "Arrriva Dorellik" amounts to what might be considered an overdose at times!

Goofy, bratty Dorellik is played by Johnny Dorelli. Johnny obviously had something going on for him, he was married to the beautful actress Catherine Spaak for seven years! Just in case you didn't notice, if you combine Johnny's last name Dorelli with Diabolik, you get Dorellik! What a coincidence!

Just like Matt Helm, Dorellik is a real ladies man, and all the chicks dig him the most!

Just like Diabolik, Dorellik is a master of disguise! Here he poses as a switchboarder, and a street artiste! Personally I just think he likes to dress up in women's clothes and wear wigs!

The painting he was working on really pisses off this police officer when he sees it!!

The entrance to Dorellik's secret underground pad is pretty cool!

Agata Flori is Dorellik's secretary Charlotte! Ironically, she was in another spy farce we've got coming up soon,"Operation Kid Brother!"

The basic premise of this movie, and the reason it also sports the name "How To Kill 400 Duponts," is that Dorellik has been offered a job! For a fat paycheck, he has to kill off hundreds of heirs to the Dupont family fortune, not just one or two, but hundreds!

The more than Magnificent Margaret Lee is Dorellik's on again, off again girlfriend singer Baby Eva, and for me the movie finally became interesting when Baby Eva and the GM break into a rousing rendition of "Crash-Sci-Sci-Patapum" written by none other than Castellano-Pipolo-Nohra & Pisano! One syllable in the title for each one of the writers on the song! Crazy is right! Here's just a couple of other things I have to say about Margaret Lee: "Super Dragon Secret Agent," "Bang Bang You're Dead,", "Psycho-Circus," "Kiss The Girls And Make Them Die," "Dick Smart 2007," "Spy Pit," "OSS 117-Double Agent, and "Venus In Furs!" She's a keeper!

In an effort to make Eva jealous, Dorellik waltzes in with four ladies on his arms! He later admits he paid them!

Try as I may, I couldn't dredge up any information on The GM, but I can at least give you this good shot of the band! These guys rock!!

I was doing all right, but then it got to the part where Dorellik was disguised as an African man with a stuffed Tiger on his back that was supposed to be sedated, but alive, and that was about as much as I could take!

For no apparent reason, out of everything that is supposed to be funny in this movie, this shot cracked me up! They look like a bouquet of flowers!

I will admit that this poster or whatever the Hell it is, is funny!!

For a much better satire on "Danger: Diabolik, I suggest you check out "RATOLIK" instead!