METEOR - "There's No Place On Earth To Hide" (1979)

Tonight's Woeful Wednesday feature is a 1979 Sci-Fi Disaster movie called "Meteor."

I was not really familiar with this film, but I found it streaming on Amazon Prime for $3.99.

If you choose "no rush" shipping when you buy something, Amazon will give you one dollar credit, so I saved up my credits because I wanted to see a movie with Natalie Wood in it, and honestly, she has not been in a lot of movies that we discuss around here, so I really wanted to see this one, and if you don't use your credits in a certain amount of time, they expire! A couple of other one word Natalie Wood titles I'm saving up for are "Peeper," and her last film made in 1983 titled "Brainstorm."

Since Natalie Wood had such a very short life, it's a good thing she got started very young. She was only four years old when she had her first role as Carrie in the 1943 war film, "The Moon Is Down."

In "Meteor," she plays a Russian translator named Tatiana Donskaya. That might seem like an odd role for Natalie, but she was actually of Russian descent, was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko, and spoke Russian.

"Meteor" is jam packed with talent, besides Natalie Wood, it starred Sean (James Bond) Connery, and Brian (Family Affair) Keith. Believe it or not, Brian Keith was also fluent in Russian!

More amazing talent was provided by Jane and Peter's Dad Henry (The Grapes Of  Wrath, The Boston Strangler) Fonda as The President, and Karl (Phantom Of The Rue Morgue, Streets Of San Francisco) Malden as Harry Sherwood.

 

Martin (Mission Impossible) Landau is also in there as the generally pissed off General Adlon.

 

Forty-one years later, and I think everybody who lives in Russia or the U.S.A. should watch this movie. Maybe it would convince us all that we're in this together.

 

The basic story is that a meteor of epic proportions is heading towards earth at a rapid speed, and is set to collide, and most likely destroy the world within a week. The U.S. and the Russian governments both have 'top secret' satellites flying around armed with nuclear weapons aimed at the other country, so what they need to do is cooperate, open up and  tell the truth, and both turn their fire power towards the meteor if there's any hope for civilization as we know it! In the meantime smaller pieces of the meteor are splintering off and causing all kinds of destruction just to give us a taste of what is yet to come!

The meteor splinters hit a ski resort in Switzerland hard!

In the story, 12,000 skiers are killed by a massive avalanche while competing in this marathon!

In Hong Kong, the splinters cause a massive tsunami that also kills thousands!

In each location, the movie cuts to one family or group of people conducting their daily affairs when the disaster strikes, and what happens to them.

"Meteor" turned out to be a real 'Disaster' movie, costing over $20 million to make, but was a huge flop at the box office.

The United States' satellite is called Hercules, and this one here, the Russian one is, called Peter The Great!

"Dig Those Crazy Sperms!"

Why is it that they just don't make people like Natalie Wood and Sean Connery any more?

I liked this scene in the cafeteria, where they go and sit down in front of two space themed pinball machines.

The meteor looks like a giant monster about ready to gobble up the Earth!

Then Sean Connery gets the word.......and it goes something like this, "A large splinter is headed towards the Easter Seaboard"

And he asks..."And when is it scheduled to hit?"

"Right about now!!"

 

After that splinter hits, the adventure really starts as the cast is stuck in subway tunnels and gets covered with mud! I don't know how much they got paid, but I don't think it was enough!

According to the IMDB, this four minute scene was shot in a swimming pool at MGM Studios, and cost a half a million dollars. Shooting was delayed for two days after Sean Connery got some kind of respiratory illness, Karl Malden got buried in the mud twice, and Natalie Wood almost got sucked into a pump before it was over.

Talk about disaster, they also claim that the financial failure of "Meteor" is considered to be a large factor in the downfall of American International Pictures.

The "Meteor" was five miles wide. The speed it was heading towards Earth was thirty thousand miles per hour. It was a sad day! Glad it didn't happen!

THE FABULOUS BARON MUNCHAUSEN / A Trip To The Past And Future! - 1962

Boy, this is one complicated story so I won't get very heavy into that, ah jus' lack dem purdy pitchers!.. Anyway, multi-talented Czech writer/director Karel Zeman enriches this version of Baron Munchausen with awesome visuals and a variation of the story by adding the future of space travel into it to compare the two different worlds....

We start in the future, a spaceship has left Earth on its way to the Moon...

The astronaut, Tommy, finds an old rocket that has crash-landed on the Moon, then he meets the famous dreamer, Baron Münchhausen, along with some other dreamers from the past, who are also there on the Moon!

The Baron takes Tommy back to a past time on Earth to show him what it was like to live back then. Looks like they are somewhere in India.

They do a lot of travelling around, and, there's usually some element of danger involved, which naturally makes for a lots more interesting watch.

There's a battle between two armadas with the Baron's ship caught in the middle. At the end of the destruction the Baron is satisfied even though his own ship was sunk, because, all the other ships were destroyed too! I'll be damned if that isn't the most awesome ship sailing there, wow!

So, the Baron, Tommy and the Baron's Princess are swallowed up by a giant fish. Inside, they meet other people living there as the fish heads for frozen territory.

In another scene, he hangs out with a giant Rok and has another wild and weird adventure.

This still is so darn beautiful..

A theme throughout the movie is the appearance of a sparkler, and when it does appear, there is great progress in the history of the world. The spark appears again while the Baron entertains old friends. So, the Baron causes the place to blow sky high, go figure! The bottom pic shows the castle coming apart just before it goes KA-BLOOIE!!

Tommy and the Princess shoot off into space wearing battle armor but the spark changes them into spacesuits with rockets on them!! The two head toward the Moon.

The Baron crashes down while sitting on his chair and rolls down a hill, he's back on the Moon!

It's a happy ending on the Moon, Tommy has his space ship and Princess gets a bouquet of flowers from the Baron... Wow, what a trip, catch this one when you get a chance. Tune in on Wednesday for more who in the Hell knows, here, at The Dungeon!!..

KOMISSAR X - DREI GELBE KATZEN - "Death Is Nimble, Death Is Quick" (1966)

This Saturday Night Special was the second of three "Kommissar X" flicks starring Tony Kendall and Brad Harris that were all made in 1966.

The first "Kommissar X film of 1966 was titled "Kiss Kiss, Kill Kill," and the third one was called "So Darling, So Deadly." This one is titled "Kommissar X - Drei Gelbe Katzen" and was released in English as "Death Is Simple, Death Is Quick." The real translation would be Three Yellow Cats, but it was never released with that title. There were at least three more "Kommissar X" movies in 1967, 68, and 69.

6' 4" Dan (High Plains Drifter) Vadis is a guy called King! He's a karate killer!

A big fit guy, Dan played Hercules in a couple of films, and somehow died at the age of 49 mixing alcohol and opiates! 

Whenever King gets ready to throw a death punch on somebody, he always has to put his headband on first. It's just part of the deal!

This poor bastard doesn't stand a chance.

Curly, Moe, and Larry are up to no good. The guy in the middle's nickname is Nitro, because he likes to carry little vials of the stuff around and blow up things.

Are they looking up at a hidden tape recorder, or are they just looking up?

Just in case you didn't know, that's Tony Kendall as Joe Louis Walker, aka Kommissar X on the left, and bad Brad Harris as Captain Tom Rowland on the right!

This transition shot is really surreal. This was a fate that was meant for Joe Walker!

Three movies in exotic places in one year. Seems like a pretty good gig to me!

I'd have to pass on running along the edges of rooftops though.

They waited all day to get this shot, but it was worth it!

They've got a whole army of trained fighters who are all women, but they never show them except when they're working out like this.

Sealed up behind bulletproof glass, and getting gassed would make almost anybody whine, and offer to give up their million dollars, but King doesn't care.

 

This Mexican lobby card shows King throwing the guy's dead body off the bridge and into the water.

Wow, I didn't know they had intercontinental video telecommunications back in 1966!

King tries to pull the same stunt on Tom Rowland, but Tom punches the bulletproof glass, and the gas escapes! What a stud!

King was putting on his headband and just getting ready to deliver the death blow to Tom Rowland when he decides he was an adversary worthy of a battle, so they head off to this holy temple inside a mountain.

It's a pretty good fight, but I guess since there's a few more movies, you know who is going to win.

The two lead female roles are Ann Smymer on the left, and Michèle Mahaut on the right.

 Ann Smymer was born in Denmark and was in some classic European favourites like "Reptilicus," "Journey To The Seventh Planet," "Mission Stardust," and "House Of A 1000 Dolls."

Michèle Mahaut was born in Vietnam, and was also in "Mission To Hell," and "Bikini Paradise" among her five film credits.

This is.....THE END!