DER FLUCH DER GELBEN SCHLANGE - "The Curse Of The Yellow Snake" - Edgar Wallace (1963)

 It's Edgar Wallace Wednesday down in The Dungeon, and tonight's feature is called "Der Fluch Der Gelben Schlange," or auf Englisch........

 "The Curse Of The Yellow Snake!"

 "The Curse Of The Yellow Snake" is a bizarre little film! It's got all the regular players starting with Joachim Fuchsberger who I always like, but he basically always plays himself, sometimes as a cop, sometimes on the other side, and sometimes in the middle, like right here!

 Another regular player in these German Edgar Wallace films is Werner Peters! Werner usually plays the same kind of character too, normally, a sweaty nervous two-timing loser, and he's very good at it!

 This is the pragmatic shot! If it works, use the living Hell out of it!

These two gentlemen are half brothers, Pinkas Braun as Fing-Su/St. Clay on the left, and Joachim Fuchsberger as Clifford Lynn on the right! They don't like each other!

It's a story about two brothers, one with a Chinese Mother, and......

.........Two sisters, except one of them is really a neice! I had to go back and watch the beginning again to figure it all out myself!
Doris Kirchner and Brigitte Grothum are the sisters!

Clifford Lynn and his brother couldn't be more different! Cliff's an easygoing nice guy, and his brother Fing-Su iis more interested in world domination, and the secret to that is a little sculpture called the Yellow Snake! The Chinese think that whoever has the Yellow Snake will have all the power, so there is fierce competition for it!

While these guys are running around, it gives me a good opportunity to do something I haven't done in a while! The music in this film is composed by Krimi-Classic composer Raimund Rosenberger, and it's so odd, you just need to listen to this 42 second snippet! I'm not sure if the guy thought that sounded Chinese or what, but he obviously was an early electronic wizard of some sort! I can't say I know what the Hell is going on, but you can Check it out for yourself right HERE!

Yes, they really did use this shot!!

That would have been some tough extra work for me! If I stay bent over like that for more than 30 seconds my back starts killing me!

There's lots of Chinese knives in this movie, and they use them for all kinds of purposes....

 ..............even delivering the mail!

So that gets this new year started nicely I think! They had the golden serpent hidden for years to keep it from the bad guys! In the end of the movie, they just break it to stop the power grab, and that's that! Let's just hope it wasn't a copy and that the real one isn't in Asia some place where it could fall into the wrong hands, or maybe it already has!

A HIT OF UNHAPPY NEW YEAR HORROR MOVIES

Here are three horror movies from the eighties that have an Unhappy New Year's theme, you know, to celebrate the New Year!.. Whatever the Hell that means!!

First is TERROR TRAIN, in this story, a masked killer targets six college students responsible for a prank gone wrong three years earlier. Unfortunately, the gang's currently throwing a large New Year's Eve costume party aboard a moving train! After roles in HALLOWEEN, THE FOG and PROM NIGHT, this was the next flick Jamie Lee Curtis would appear in. Man, she looks so young!

Then we gots NEW YEAR'S EVIL. During a New Year's Eve celebration in Los Angeles, a disc jockey receives a phone call saying that when the New Year countdown hits zero in each time zone, someone will be murdered! And, she will be the last one to die!!

Last one is BLOODY NEW YEAR... Here, five shipwrecked English teenagers take refuge in an island hotel that is decorated for New Years. The problem is that it's early summer, and the walls themselves are striking out against them!.. What the Hell?!!

So, I guess we're ready for another fun filled year, here we go, at the Dungeon!

IMPACT - "Wanted By Two Women! One For Love! One For Murder!" (1949)

Welcome to the last 2017 Saturday Night Special in The Dungeon! I wanted to get out of here with a movie that had some impact, so I chose.....

"IMPACT!"

 "The force with which two lives can come together, sometimes for evil, sometimes for good!"

Quatermass himself, Brian Donlevy is Walter Williams, a wrench turner turned big shot in a San Francisco corporation!

 He loves his wife dearly, but she is a ruthless and hateful two-faced bitch as played by Helen (Nightmare Alley) Walker!

 How often do you get to see two greats like Brian Donlevy and Thomas Browne Henry in a scene together? This was only Thomas Browne Henry's sixth film appearance and quite a few years before his awesome run of movies that included "Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers," "20 Million Miles To Earth," "Beginning Of The End," "The Brain From Planet Arous," "Blood Of Dracula," etc. etc.

 This scene of real San Francisco looks like a fake backdrop!

 The 1947 Packard Roadster convertible was a sight to behold!

 Am I going to pass on a shot of Brian Donlevy and a Pabst Blue Ribbon sign? No Way!

 Walter Williams' wife has a boyfriend!!

 These four shots lay out the basic premise of the story except for a couple of small details like Walter Williams didn't die, and the lover did!

Charles (Heaven Can Wait) Coburn is great as the police detective! Charles didn't start his big screen career until he was sixty, and from what I've read, would be in big trouble today, because this lovable olde galoot had a well-known penchant for pinching the bottoms of ladies of all ages!!

 Going somewhere lady??

 The lovely Ella (Phantom Lady, Brute Force) Raines is the proprietor of a gas station in a small town in Idaho where the wandering dead man Walter Williams shows up!

 They should have made this into a Coca-Cola ad!

24 cents a gallon for gas, and that included six cents tax!

 Not too unlike talk radio today, this was the face of radio in 1949!
Hollywood gossip columnist Sheilah Graham played herself!

 That's a damn fine lookin' volunteer fire truck!

 I'll leave you with this shot of the mysterious maid Su Lin Chung, as played by amazing Anna May-Wong, THE first Chinese-American movie star, and a story unto herself! See you next year!

A FIFTIES SPACE CADET DUNGEON SALUTE TO 2017!

This is my last post of 2017, since these great space cadets saved the world numerous times in the past from space invaders and goons on Earth, I'm letting them give a goodbye salute to 2017! And hopefully, they will keep up the good work and protect us from 2018! All I can say is... THANK YOU, YOU CRAZY, BRAVE GUYS AND GALS!!

Here are Judd Holdren, Aline Towne, Gregory Gaye and Craig Kelly from COMMANDO CODY: SKY MARSHAL OF THE UNIVERSE. They will go anywhere in space to right a wrong!!

Let's give a big hand to Ed Kemmer, Lyn Osborn, Nina Bara and Ken Mayer from SPACE PATROL, it's always great to see this very popular gang in action!

Don't forget the gang of Frankie Thomas, Al Markim, Jan Merlin and Jack Grimes in TOM CORBETT, SPACE CADET, love this shot as they analyze a situation in space...

ATOM SQUAD starred Harrison Sheppard, Robert Courtleigh, Robert Hastings and Bram Nossen, they are a top-secret planetary defense organization faced with challenges from evildoers and malfunctioning machines alike!

Here's ROD BROWN OF THE ROCKET RANGERS getting some help putting his gloves on! Stars Cliff Robertson!, Bruce Hall, Jack Weston! and John Boruff - On 22nd-Century Earth, the Rocket Rangers are a celestial defense organization, battling interplanetary evil from their headquarters on Omega Base!

Here's our Galaxy Bureau gang in FLASH GORDON solving another epic adventure, this time on Earth! Stars Steve Holland, Irene Champlin, Joseph Nash and Henry Beckman whose job is the stability of the universe!

And then, we have the super popular ROCKY JONES, SPACE RANGER starring Richard Crane, Sally Mansfield, Scotty Beckett and Robert Lyden. Cruising the galaxy in the Orbit Jet, the Space Rangers defend Earth against space-bound evil doers!

CAPTAIN Z-RO gets the last word - Hey all you bad guys out there... Better watch out! This fun series stars Roy Steffens, Bruce Haynes, Jack Cahill and Richard Glyer.

Okay, Eegah!! is here tomorrow and I'll be back on Monday to start the new year, you little Space Cadets out there!!