FALLGUY - Jaime Mendoza-Nava (Theme) - Tony and Joe - "The Duck Walk" (1962)

Stomp, shout, and work it on out, cause it's Whipping Boy Wednesday, and a movie about a poor schmuck who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and turned into being nothing more than...........

 ......A Dupe, a Patsy, a "FALLGUY!" 

That too cool theme song was written by Jaime Mendoza-Nava, a man with some credits to match his chops! Just a couple of Jaime's credits include ORGY OF THE DEAD, EQUINOX, GARDEN OF THE DEAD, HOUSE OF TERROR, you know, all those places you don't want to go!

"Fallguy's" got everything! It's got whores!

It's got clearly marked buildings!

 And it's got a local dive called "Kordanes" where all the kids hang out! Makes me hungry just looking at that "Fried Shrimp" sign!

The kids at "Kordanes" are rocking out to the novelty song recorded in 1960, and released on Gardena Records by Tony(Johnny J. Colonna) and Joe(Buddy Motola), "The Duck Walk!"  If you wanna see the 45 sleeve and record label, then cruise on over to 45cat! It's worth the trip! These are the kind of scenes that made me want to do this blog from the get go! Quack, Quack!!

 Joe Cool leaning on the jukebox is Ed Dugan as the fallguy Sonny Martin! This would be Ed's only filmed acting gig!

 Sonny tells his best girl he has an appointment, and he has to split, but rest assured, he will be back in an hour, but he's not going to make it!

On the way to his appointment, Sonny is passed on a windy road by a couple of fast moving cars shooting guns! When one car goes over the side, Sonny goes down to see if he can be of any help! The guy in the car just happens to be a big mob boss, and he pulls a gun on Sonny, and makes him drive to the house of a Doctor friend of his! Before he can be treated, he pulls the gun, there's a scuffle, and the Doctor shoots and kills him! Sonny manages to escape from the house and runs like Hell!!!

One of the few real actors in this independent Donn Harling Production is George Mitchell, in fact, George might have more appearances on "The Twilight Zone" than any other actor I can think of! He was in all these episodes, THE HITCH-HIKER, EXECUTION, JESS-BELLE, AND RING-A-DING GIRL! George just might also hold the record for being in the most "Twilight Zone" episodes with hyphenated titles! George is the Big Boss Carl Tamin, and just like that other big boss guy in "The Turkish Spiderman," Carl doesn't like to be bothered when he's working either!

Pretty slick bachelor pad Carl has! These three have got it all figured out! Joining Carl on the left is Dr. Sam Johnson played by Don Alderette in his solo outing, and in the middle is corrupt and crooked cop, the Police Chief as played by Louis Gartner! Louis has some interesting numbers, he was only in two movies, FALLGUY, and THE STUNTMAN! He was born in 1928, and died in the reverse year, 1982!

I guess this out of work basketball player needed a 15 minute job!

Nice shot of the dash and the AM radio in this car!

Carl the Boss is so distracted by the ladies, it's hard to figure out how these guys get anything accomplished!

While there's a lull in the story, might as well throw in a good old fashioned catfight to lively things up a bit! They're fighting over Carl, of course!

They're trying to have a very serious business meeting with murder on the agenda, and the Boss just cannot believe what the Hell is going on!

Sonny is on the run, and ends up here!

You know you're in trouble when they send 'The Indian'  out to get you!

Sonny finally convinces Dr. Sam's daughter the hard way that he's not there to hurt her! Madeline Frances is June Johnson in her only theatrical appearance!

The stupid Police Chief starts shooting his gun into the house and he wounds Sonny and June. This scene where the Doctor is trying to revive his daughter looks like something in a real cheap Frankenstein movie!

Carl almost falls into an empty elevator shaft, but that would have been too difficult to film so....

.........He trips and falls down a short flight of stairs instead! Either way, he's dead!

After everything gets sorted out, and Sonny is off the hook, Sonny and June fall in love, and he sees her off at the airport when she goes back to school! It's easier for Sonny to fall now because he only has one leg after getting his kneecap blown off by 'The Indian'! "Fallguy" is just one of six "Weird-Noir B-Movies" available from Something Weird in a tight little package and a giveaway price almost too good to be true! A good investment if you have about 8 hours to kill and want a little more bang for your buck!

THE POWER / George Pal Productions - 1968

Here's a wild and weird movie from George Pal, the guy who brought us DESTINATION MOON, WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, CONQUEST OF SPACE, THE TIME MACHINE, ATLANTIS, THE LOST CONTINENT, THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM, 7 FACES OF DR. LAO and DOC SAVAGE: THE MAN OF BRONZE and directed by Byron (FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON) Haskin. Check out the amazing lineup of actors listed on the poster.

Here's a little sound clip from this action packed sci-fi flick, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button located there by our Atomic Power Unit, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula!.. Here's... THE POWER!

The theme uses this elaborate Asian instrument to create some mystery right off the bat.

George Hamilton plays Prof. Jim Tanner, he's working on mind control experiments for a large research company.

The heads of the research meet in their modern conference room. There, they discover that someone has extra sensory perception and telekinetic powers.

Whoever the person with The Power is, he's screwing with Prof. Tanner by causing hallucinations with a fear chaser!

Tanner tries to escape the madness but is stopped by this crazy Ventures 'Don't Run' sign!

Aldo Ray looks so cool in this nice looking Jeep, he takes Tanner way out into the desert and leaves him there after almost running over him!

Later, Tanner goes to a party and is entertained by an unknown hippie band, then, things get a little weird! As heard in the sound clip, whoa!!

Tanner's next adventure has him flooring his convertible Plymouth in a race to nowhere!

He ends up in the drink and barely escapes by unlatching the cloth top on the car.

Then, we get to find out who the man with The Power is... Michael Rennie as Arthur Nordlund.

For his next trick, Norlund puts Tanner through Hell, even though it's only in his mind!

It gets worse and worse for Tanner until the truth comes out...

Tanner is Norlund's equal and also has The Power! Norlund cannot survive after Tanner makes his heart explode by causing it to beat at a hyper accelerated rate... Game over, man!!

We'll see you again on Wednesday with more wild and weird flick reviews just for you!

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!