IT TAKES A THIEF - "The Three Virgins Of Rome" (1969)

This Saturday Night Special is episode seven from season three of the great 1960's TV show "It Takes A Thief."

For this episode they left Universal Studios in California and headed to Rome, Italy for a more authentic location!

"The Three Virgins Of Rome" has a real Eurotrash look and feel to it!

There's going to be an big outdoor exhibition of some famous paintings, so Al Mundy has been hired to stop them from getting stolen. His Father, a noted international art thief known as The Panther just happens to also be in town. Coincidence? Not likely!

I'm sure part of the reason this is such a good looking episode is because the Director is none other than Jack Arnold, the man who directed some of our all-time favourite monster movies like "It Came From Outer Space," "Creature From The Black Lagoon," "Tarantula," "The Incredible Shrinking Man," and "Monster On The Campus," to name a few!

Using International Dungeon fave Karin Dor as Angela was also a stroke of genius!

The pretty cool cast also includes Victor Buono as as Mr. Kent!

I read that Victor Buono at one point was close to 400 pounds in weight, and I believe it from the looks of him in this photo! He was also 6'3" tall!

They come in all sizes. On the complete other end of the scale, Davy (Satan's Harvest) Kaye, the gentleman in the middle, was only 4' 11."

Robert Wagner and Karin Dor make quite an attractive couple!

I really think you could plug Joachim Fuchsberger and Natalie Wood into the same two roles and get away with it! Wouldn't that be interesting?

Just in case you wondered, there are no real "Three Virgins Of Rome" paintings!

Now that is a tricky hiding place!

Time for a word from our sponsor, "Spa-Fon" cleaning products. If you can't get it out with "Spa-Fon," it's permanent!"

So here's where it gets a little slightly unbelievable!

They float "The Three Virgins" away with helium balloons!

And land them safely in this field!

Right!

Here's the cover of a great 7" 45 single by pianist Dave Grusin!

I didn't have any "It Takes A Thief" music to listen to, so I listened to this killer soundtrack from the movie "Robbery," written by John Keating to get me in the mood!

No matter the role, Karin always looks freakin' amazing!

Lord Litter in Berlin was the one who told me about this great episode, so, from the both of us,
 "Cheerz!"

SPACE THING / A Peek Into The Year 2069 - 1968

In today's story, a man is reading Sci-Fi mags in bed, his wife wakes up and seduces him. After a close encounter of the fourth kind, he then falls asleep reading another mag. In his dream, he comes from an alternate world, and after taking a space taxi from his mother ship, he boards an alien ship in space and has disguised himself as an alien to fit in. The captain is a woman and there are plenty of adventures with sexy gals to be had!

So, here's James Granilla in bed reading one of his his sci-fi pulp magazines, he's absolutely fascinated with the stories. his wife threatens to throw them in the trash! He starts reading a new story when he dozes off and starts dreaming away...

Here's the space ship he's in, a model of the good old Star Ship Enterprise!

This thing stars Karla (FIREBALL 500) Conway, Steve (DRIVE-IN MASSACRE) Vincent, Merci (ERIKA'S HOT SUMMER) Montello, Dan (Dude has 5 acting credits, all in 1968!) Martin, Fancher (THE HEAD MISTRESS) Fague and others.

In his dream, he's Colonel James Granilla, and, he would like permission to enter the space ship! The sexily clad woman is the commander of the ship, the guys are dressed in plain old blue jumpsuits. (thank you lord!)

Colonel Granilla watches the crew do their thing in space and notices all the hot chicks!

You get a lot of this stuff too! Must be hard being a woman, it's sooo mystifying and all...

The Colonel also gets to join the crew for lunch! Great use of plastic there!

Then, they're forced to land on an asteroid! In a scene out of THE ANGRY RED PLANET, we see the landscape out the port window. The rocks look like chewed up cauliflower!

So, one of the guys has to go out and explore the place. After carrying an air tank around for a while, he realizes that the air is breathable.

The Colonel and the female commander enjoy a little romp in the sunlight.

The guys in the crew are super jealous of the man in gold, and this one tries to take care of the problem. Trouble is, the Colonel is too quick and too smart for him.

This shot blows my mind!.. Genius!!

It turns out that the Colonel's mission is to destroy the alien space ship and the crew, before his race is attacked by them!

He looks at a photo of his son to remind him what his race is fighting for!

So, he blows everything up!!.. Tilt, Game Over!

This girl gets a C- in hand held endings. Tune in tomorrow when we'll add another one to the heap, here, at The Dungeon!..

HOLLYWOOD STEPS OUT - "Ciro's Was The Place To Be" (1941)

It's a Holly Weird Wednesday in The Dungeon, and tonight's short feature is a 1941 cartoon called

"Hollywood Steps Out." And where do the rich and famous go in 1940's Hollywood? 

A club named Ciro's!

Ciro's opened on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood in January 1940, and it closed its doors in 1957!

In the 1940s and 1950s, It was one of "the" places to be seen!

 In 1968, Ciro's became a rock and roll club called It's Boss, then Ciro's Le Disc in 1965, and The Kaleidoscope in 1967. It became the Comedy Store in 1972! Much of the information I have came from Wikipedia, and if you want to keep free information alive, then you should send them a buck or two, because otherwise the internet is going to turn back into what it was before there was no internet!

There is probably not another nightclub location in history that has hosted a variety of talent this magnanimous over the years!

I'm talking about people like Cab Calloway, Frank Sinatra, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye, Bob Dylan, Billie Holiday, Spike Jones, Little Richard, Carmen Miranda, Ike and Tina Turner, etc. etc. etc! The list goes on and on and on!

Here's an album by Dick Dale and his Del-Tones from 1965 that was recorded live at Ciro's!

One of the most amazing things about this cartoon is that there are only credits for four animation artists who have only about 800 credits between them! So let's give them credit first thing!

The winners are William Scibner, Ben Shenkman, Robert McKimson, and Virgil Ross!

Some of these caricatures are simply amazing, so let's get this party started, first up, here's Cary Grant!

Johnny Weissmuller checks his coat!

If I'm counting right, Johnny Weissmuller was the star of  twelve different Tarzan movies before moving on to be Jungle Jim!

Paulette (Modern Times, The Ghost Breakers) Goddard is the coat check girl!

Here's James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, and George Raft enjoying the nightlife at Ciro's!

Harpo Marx gives cigarette girl Greta Garbo a hot foot to which she responds.....
 "Ouch."

Probably the most disappointing of all the caricatures is the Frankenstein monster. I mean, look at those feet, it's just stupid!

The Three Stooges are pretty realistic!

Oliver Hardy is so big that he gets to dance with two girls at once!

Peter Lorre is just lonely!

Clark Gable is following around this blonde all night long!

But for some reason she turns out to be Groucho Marx in drag!
In the original release, Clark Gable gives Groucho a kiss anyway, and says "I'm a BAD boy," but it was cut because Gable thought it would damage his career!

For decades, 8433 Sunset Boulevard has been the place to be, unfortunately, I've never been there!