Saturday, May 23, 2015

A TRIBUTE TO CARL HEINZ JAFFÉ - Part Three - The Brit-Cop TV Shows

 Welcome to Part III of our Dungeon tribute to the one and only Carl Heinz Jaffé, enabled once again by his Grandson Michael, who was kind enough to provide us with all this material!
Isn't this a great portrait??

I've learned a lot about Carl Jaffé over the last few weeks, and I'll tell you one thing, he was the consummate actor! He loved what he was doing, and he was very happy to be working in a trade of his choice, and it shows in all his work! Long before movies or TV, Carl was a stage actor. This is a great shot of him in costume circa 1934,  probably in Berlin!

But let's get to the action, in 1957 Carl was in a short film called "The Case Of The Smiling Widow," one of 39 short films in the "Scotland Yard" series made between 1953 and 1961, and distributed as cinema B features! Carl had the role of an art dealer named Christopher Nicholls!
 This poster is courtesy of The Radio Sounds Familiar Website!

"Here is a rare never before seen PR still from the episode" courtesy of Michael Jaffé!

In 1959, Carl was in season two, episode six of the TV series titled "The Third Man! This episode was called "Barcelona Passage," and his character was named Jahn! The star of the series was Michael (The Day The Earth Stood Still) Rennie!

In the 1960 Patrick McGoohan series titled "Danger Man," episode two titled "Time To Kill," Carl had the role of a Professor Barkoff!

In Michael's own words more or less - "CHJ starred in several brit cop-shows in the 50's that were also anglo-US TV station productions. He would usually be cast as the mysterious foreigner with a certain continental style, or sometimes as a suspicious, or even petty-criminal wise-guy."
"From 1961, here is "The Square Mile Murder" from the "Scotland Yard" - series of dramatic TV episodes introduced by ex-brit 'Scotland Yard" dick Edgar Lustgarten; doing a kind of Alfred Hitchcock mystery intro to each programme... all made at the English Merton Park studios (sadly demised since 1967)."

 "The guy 3rd from right holding CHJ's arm is Mr. Stanley Morgan; who among other claims to fame was the croupier who leaned over Sean Connery's 007 shoulder in Dr. No to give him a message. The above photo is from my own private collection BUT: Stanley Morgan has the titled PR image on his website." - Michael Jaffé

"The Spanish poster for the Scotland Yard Film "The Case of the Smiling Widow" is clearly important enough to the Spanish Cultural Attaché for it to have a place in the Spanish Cultural Archive...!" 
Carl Jaffé was a fascinating man with 88 acting credits to his name, and over the last few weeks we've touched on only 11 of them, hopefully one of these days his autobiography will be released, and the whole story will be told! Thanks again Michael!

Friday, May 22, 2015

TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE / Trick Or Treat - 1983

I know Halloween isn't for another 5 months, but, here's the pilot episode from this long running TV series, it's all about the town miser, Gideon Hackles played by Barnard Hughes, who spends Halloween hiding IOU's in his house he has rigged up to scare the local kids that search for them to pay off family debt. With a name like Gideon Hackles you know there's something wrong with him!

I've got a wild little sound clip for your approval, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button over by our haunted mouse hole, NOW, Rufus The Gnat!.. Here's... TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE!

Timmy and his dad pay a visit to Mr. Hackles to pay off some debt, Hackles owns everyone in the town through his IOU scheme, the one thing that makes him happy. He also requires the kids in the community to visit his house on Halloween...

He hides the pile of IOUs in the attic, and, if a child finds them without running out of the house in fright first, their family will be debt free! Weird photo.

From his upstairs spook room, he runs an array of flying creeps and has plenty of sound effects to scare the crap out of the kids.

Now it's time to put some fear into Timmy, who comes close to finding the bundle of IOUs before running out of the house where his dad takes him home without the treat.

Then, a Witch shows up unannounced and Hackles doesn't quite remember where she came from, and, she's holding his precious bundle of IOUs!

Hackles also wants to know who the heck this guy is! What's going on around here, anyway?!

All Hell breaks loose when the Devil shows up to dish out punishment on old Mr. Hackles...

When Billy shows up for his turn, the Witch drops the bundle of IOUs and all of Hackles' money bags into his hands, bringing our tale to a happy end! My only question is... Why wouldn't you move to a different town if this one was run by a crook? Anyway, we have a nice treat for you tomorrow, be there or be cubed!

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

ONE OF THE TWISTED ROOTS OF DWRAYGER DUNGEON! (1965)

 I was going through some olde junk the other day looking for something to put on eBay, when I found this list of movie titles I made when I was in high school! It was a definitive list of Sci-Fi and Horror films I had seen up to that point on my journey to see every film ever made in those genres! It's all thrills and no frills!

It looks like I started listing them by character at first, Frankenstein movies, Vampire movies, Mummy movies etc!

Typewriters were obviously a lot more difficult to make corrections on than computers!

Still trying to keep things in categories, an effort that was doomed from the start!

A lot of these movies I saw on TV! We had a very limited amount of stations back then, like five! My grandmother used to get the L.A. Times newspaper, and every time we'd go visit, I'd look at the TV guide section of the paper, and drool over how many cool movies were playing every Saturday night on Los Angeles TV stations! We were lucky to get to see one on a weekend!

Most of these movies we've written about, but there are a couple on the list we still haven't gotten around to!

I don't remember why I hand wrote the last of the titles, probably just got lazy! As you can well see, using the typewriter wasn't exactly a perfect medium for me even though I could supposedly type 40 words a minute! (I think that included 30 errors a minute!) Too bad they didn't have blogs back then!!

Monday, May 18, 2015

ALIENS / Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation - 1986

Here we go with a new week of mayhem, here at The Dungeon!.. Here's my favorite of the Alien flicks, this time Ripley joins a team of rowdy Space Marines on a rescue mission to the now partially terraformed planet LV-426 to find out why all communication with the colony there has been lost.

We have a little scary fun sound clip for your approval, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button located there by our empty alien pod, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula!.. Here's... ALIENS!

Here we are on LV-426 before the mystery begins, there's a small colony of workers trying to terraform it into a habitable planet for future generations.

But, there's a problem. A few of the people go exploring the planet and eventually come across the giant spaceship from the original movie and all Hell breaks out after they explore a cave and make a terrifying discovery.

So, when contact is lost with the colony, a team of Space Marines is sent to see WTF! is up.

After they get out of hibernation, the gang stretch and get ready for the landing on LV-426.

To kill some time before the landing, Bill Paxton's unwilling character plays this little knife game with the robot played by Lance Henriksen!

Bill gets all the best lines in the sound clip. Here they are making the drop into the atmosphere of their destination, LV-426.

After the crew lands safely they start investigating the complex for clues. They find quite a few in the lab besides the melted iron grates in the industrial area.

Then, Ripley discovers little Newt who has been hiding successfully from the deadly creatures.

In order to save the Marines from the attacking nightmares, Ripley pilots the troop transport in one wild ride through the tunnels!

Here's something you never want to see, an empty container that had a live facehugger in it!!

The things capture and hide Newt in their slime but Ripley finds and rescues her from a fate worse than death. One note, I don't understand why the slime here doesn't burn her skin considering what their drool can do...

To make sure that this batch of pods doesn't cause any more problems, Ripley torches them!

Holy shit!!.. Mama Alien is really pissed off, Ripley killing her little things and all. So, now she wants to settle the score with our heroine!

These two shots are totally amazing... 'Nuf said!!

Anyway, Ripley and the monster fight it out good on the spaceship, but Mama Alien and the machine fall into a receiving pod where again, Ripley has to get away from the thing while it has her foot and press the button that opens the door where the vacuum finally pulls the poor thing out into space, bringing our story to an end... Be back Wednesday when we return with more fun from The Dungeon!!

This just in from our Dungeon mate Greg Goodsell - Hollywood stalwart Eric Caidin of Hollywood Book & Poster has passed away. We will miss you Eric...

Monster Music

Monster Music
AAARRGGHHH!!!! Ya'll Come On Back Now, Y'Hear??