THE SHADOW OF THE CAT - Hammer Studios - "That Damn Cat!" (1961)

Great title, Good movie, Bad copy, so it goes, and welcome to another classic Saturday Night Special pretty damn deep down in The Dungeon!

"The Shadow Of The Cat" is so obscure I could only find a copy in England! Who knows now, it might stream any number of places, but at the time, I couldn't find it anywhere, hence the quality of tonight's feature!

Catherine (The Sorcerers, The Mummy's Shroud) Lacey is the not very well liked but very rich Ella Venable! You don't need to know much more about her, she's about to be murdered! She's reading Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" to her beloved cat.........

TABITHA!!

A high percentage of the films we've written about here have had a gimmick of some sorts, and what makes "The Shadow Of The Cat" stand out from a ton of other movies of the same ilk is what I'm going to call "Cat-O-Vision," or shots from the cat's perspective!

This print was so bad, I wasn't sure at first if it was just a bad video transfer or an actual planned effect, but it became pretty obvious fairly soon!

The storyline is that Ella Venable's husband has solicited the help of his servants to kill off his mean and spiteful wife and share the profit, but the problem lies in the fact that Tabitha has witnessed the whole thing, and it worries everybody a lot!

Another shot through Tabitha's eyes shows them burying Ella in a shallow grave in the swamp!

André (Professor Bernard Quatermass) Morell is Ella's vile husband Walter Venable, and he has got some bad feelings about that cat! He knows she knows, and he's really worried about it!

The beloved UK "First Lady Of Horror" Barbara Shelley is Ella's niece Beth Venable! Beth along with other family members were summoned to the Venable home after Ella's disappearance, and although Tabitha won't have anything to do with anyone else in the house for good reasons, she doesn't have a problem being normal and affectionate to Beth because Beth is the only nice person in the whole house!!

They're chasing poor Tabitha all over the place without any success, but she eventually gets hungry, and they trap her!

Andrew (The Gay Lady) Crawford plays the killer butler Andrew! Besides being a murderer, Andrew is also an idiot! He is left with the task of disposing the bagged cat in the swamp, but as he was merrily running off to do the nasty task, Tabitha fell out of the loosely tied bag! The cat runs off into the swamp and onto a small floating branch where Andrew follows her, and almost immediately gets sucked up into some quicksand and his deserved departure!

The maid Clara who was also in on the whole deal freaks out when when she spots some muddy cat tracks from the recently deceased feline! Clara was played by Freda (Brides Of Dracula, Monster Of Terror) Jackson!

Tabitha just keeps watching and waiting!

Walter never admits to the rest of the family members that he is responsible for Ella's murder, but he solicits their assistance to kill that damned cat, and he will share a large portion of the re-written will with them! Ella's original will left everything to niece Beth, but before she was murdered, Ella was coerced into re-writing her will leaving everything to asshole Walter! This shot shows the group looking at the body of the maid Clara who just fell down the stairs and died after she tripped over the cat! William (Island Of The Burning Damned) Lucas is Jacob Venable, Richard (Village Of The Damned) Warner is Edgar Venable, and last but not least, bitchy Vanda (The Earth Dies Screaming) Godsell (Not Goodsell) is Louise Venable! What a pack of cards!

Maybe I can get some guvment money if I do a public service announcement! Kids! Do you really need a good reason to never smoke? Just take a good look at this picture! Unless you'd like to look like this for the rest of your life, never start, but if you have, then stop smoking right now! It's never too late!!

Walter's got a bad ticker, so maybe the other Venables will get a better cash out if a window is left open and the cat is accidently allowed to enter his room!

This dumbfuck Venable chases Tabitha all the way up onto the roof!

"The Shadow Of The Cat" is a great movie for people who love cats and despise stupid greedy people, and I think that was the intention!

ONE MILLION AC/DC / Canyon Films - 1969

I'll end my January posts with this unbelievably terrible little nudie caveman flick written by Ed Wood and filmed at the Bronson Caves, Bronson Canyon and Griffith Park. Read the blurb by Ed on the poster! He would go on to write LOVE FEAST, VENUS FLYTRAP, NYMPHO CYCLER, DROP OUT WIFE, THE SNOW BUNNIES and THE BEACH BUNNIES before his death in 1978 at age 54.

Here's a sound clip from this super schlock boob fest for your approval, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button over by our pile of plastic dinosaurs, NOW, Rufus The Gnat!.. Here's a taste of... ONE MILLION AC/DC!

Gary Kent stars as Olaf the caveman, seen here with his cave girlfriend. Gary is an amazing guy, besides his acting credits in movies like THE THRILL KILLERS, PSYCH-OUT, THE SAVAGE SEVEN, TARGETS, SATAN'S SADISTS and THE MIGHTY GORGA, he has 24 stunt credits, 6 writing credits, 5 directing credits, 8 production manager credits and 2 movies in post production!

I dunno, when you cast this guy as the clan leader, you lost me! Better hope the latrine is outside or there'll be a lingering stank in the cave that would kill a dinosaur!

There's the hippie cave artist who paints sexual positions and flashes the peace sign!

Here are the two realistic terror lizards that like to mess with the cave clan.

There're lots of scenes like this, topless chicks running through the woods at Griffith Park...

And sometimes, they're just plain naked!

It would be derelict in Ed's duty to not have at least a few cat fights with lots of skin showing!

They even use colored clips from ONE MILLION B.C. to fill in the blanks for prehistoric critters.

WHAT THE EFF?!!........

Olaf gets to sing the song at the end of the sound clip as he goes out to slay the lizard!

We're back tomorrow with more mayhem from The Dungeon Crew!

ÖLDÜREN ÖRÜMCEK - The Turkish Spiderman (1972)

Welcome to another Wacky Wild & Weird Wednesday in The Dungeon, and they don't get much wackier or weirder than these 70's flicks outta Turkey, and tonight's feature is definitely no exception!!

"ÖRÜMCEK" means Spiderman I guess, but this guy is more like some Japanese Power Ranger than he is like an American comic book! The theme song, and the music that comes on every time Spiderman kicks ass is totally pilfered from the instrumental break and drum solo from Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," chopped up and regurgitated!

You get a lot of scenes like this in Turkish movies! Easy access to cool catacombs for guys on a budget!

Wow! A secret hiding place nobody has noticed for years because it blends in so well with the rest of the wall!

"But I don't know how to howl like the Wolfman!" (There's no sub-titles, so I just have to guess at what they're saying!)

As far as I have been able to discern, the word Patrón means the exact same thing in Turkish and in Spanish! The Patrón is The Boss, and he does not like to be disturbed or sign autographs when he's working!!

Time for a little break, and a minute from this lovely songbird!

The audacity of these swine, bugging The Boss when he's working again! Can't they see he's busy? What's wrong with these fools? (Doesn't this kind of look like a scene from Dr. Caligari?

Make no mistake, the party was on in 1972 Turkey, even if the musical instruments seen are not the same ones heard! This dancing gal was hot!

Finally Spiderman makes the scene, and he's got some serious interrupting to do!

The cool thing about this Spiderman compared to the American Spiderman is that when it gets right down to it, he'll just pull out his gun and shoot you, no screwing around!

While I'm on the subject of screwing around, these guys still haven't figured out not to bother El Patrón when he's working! No damn wonder he's pissed off all the time!

Here's a nice portrait of Örümcek aka Spiderman!

You've got to admit they've got some real lookers in Turkey! Just good luck trying to figure out what their names are!

The Police drive Ramblers! Can't go wrong there!!

Turkish Spiderman unmasks for the pretty lady, and she let's him know that she's not a Three Stooges fan!

These two go at it, and Turkish Spiderman doesn't take off anything except his helmet!

"Here I come to save the day!!!!"

This couple goes back to that hidden brick chamber to get the treasure, and the booty too! Spiderman shows up and kills them both!!

This would be the picture Turkish Spiderman would have used for his Facebook profile pic I'm sure!

In Turkey, I don't think they have a Boss's Day, and if they do, this day wasn't it! At least he won't have to worry about ever being disturbed again! Cabeza Shish Kabob! Okay, so where else can you download it or watch it for free? Only at The Internet Archive as far as I know!!