REVENGE OF THE ZOMBIES - "The Corpse Vanished" (1943)

It's a Zombie Zaturday Night in The Dungeon, and a classic little film from 1943 called...

"Revenge Of The Zombies," starring John Carradine!

So what exactly is a zombie? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a zombie as a will-less and speechless human held to have died and been supernaturally reanimated. Over the years the term has come to describe a member of any overzealous group, like political parties, religious fanatics, or any blind followers of anything! The first movies with zombie-like characters date back to the 1920's and two films, "Príchozí Z Temnot," and "Svatebni Kosile," but it looks like the first film to actually have the word zombie in the title was the 1932 feature "White Zombie" starring Bela Lugosi. 

In between "White Zombie" and "Revenge Of The Zombies," came "Revolt Of The Zombies," "King Of The Zombies," and "I Walked With A Zombie."

Just like vampires and werewolves, what zombies can and can't do is all up to the writers. Unlike say "The Walking Dead," these zombies take orders and have job skills. These two know how to hammer stuff! The chief zombie on the right known as Lazarus was played by the legendary James Baskett, the man who played Uncle Remus in Disney's "Song Of The South."

John Carradine is Dr. Max Heinrich Von Altermann, a Nazi scientist working on perfecting a zombie army! His dead wife Lila is played by Veda Ann (Scared Stiff) Borg, and was just a pawn in the game.

It's a lot of work keeping dead people alive.

You need lots of fancy equipment like this!

As a little kid, I absolutely loved Gale Storm because of her TV shows, "My Little Margie," and "The Gale Storm Show." She was only 21 when this film was made.

Here's a pretty cool shot of two of the black pioneers of filmmaking, Mantan Moreland and James Baskett.

Dead or alive, Lila looks pretty comfortable.

This is a cool shot of one of the best cowboy actors of all time, Bob Steele, and John Carradine together!

Every time Mantan turns around, it seems like he's stumbling onto another body!

Madame Sul-Te-Wan as Mammy Beulah just keeps laughing! 

Madame was also in "King Kong," "Mighty Joe Young," and "King Of The Zombies."

Sybil (Midnight Menace) Lewis as Rosella, and Mantan go out for a walk.

Love the painted swamp backdrop!

Mammy Beaulah gets Lila to spill the beans, she's dead and she wants revenge on her rat dog husband!

I think your pal might have had too much to drink!

Great shot of John in the lab.

"Okay, you got me, I give."

What do you mean the zombies only listen to you now?

For a dead woman, you gotta love that smile!
Revenge is Sweet!!

DUNGEON POST #3000! - HOW TO CURE A PAIN IN THE NECK / Robert Tinnell: Monster Kid Home Movies - 1978

Here's another one of those Monster Kid Home Movies, keep on reading if you'd like to know how to cure a pain in the neck!..

Yeah, this is our 3000th post alright!

So, this cute little girl is walking down the street, minding her own business, when...

A Dracula shows up!.. Hey, it's daytime, leave it up to those stupid kids to change the rules!

Lil' Drac bites her on the neck, but, she seems to enjoy it in a curious sort of way. I wonder what kind of direction she got before they started shooting.

Then, our two heroes appear, they find the girl lying on the ground and after inspection, they determine that she has been bitten by a Dracula! One of them pulls out a cross, it's time to find that Dracula and destroy him... A cross is probably something a Monster Kid would have in his pocket on any given day.

The kids have a hunch to go to the basement. it's not long before the vampire attacks hero 1 from the shadows!!

The fight is on and the little bloodsucker seems to be winning the contest!

In a tricky move, our guy pulls out the cross, which incapacitates Drac.

Then they pull out the heavy artillery and drive a stake through the evil monster's heart. And, that's how you cure a pain in the neck!!

We end with this very cool felt cut out, post #3000 is on the books. Join us again tomorrow for post #3001, here, at The Dungeon!!..

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!