THE FAT MAN - "Radio's Great Detective...Now The Screen's Super Sleuth" (1951)

 This week's Saturday Night Special is an interesting film on multiple levels, one being that it was directed by future horror gimmick-meister William Castle!

 The gimmick here is that the lead role is really a fat man, a character created by Dashiell Hammett, the author of "The Maltese Falcon."

"Let's see, who shall I kill today?"

The poor unsuspecting dentist is then murdered........

.....And unceremoniously dumped out the window!

All because of some stupid dental records!

So, now we have to backtrack to find out what's going on!

The joke was making chefs look like surgeons in the middle of some serious operation!

Jayne (Undercurrent) Meadows is Jane Adams. She worked for the Doctor when he was alive.

Jayne was married to the extremely funny Steve Allen and was older sister to actress Audrey (Alice Kramden) Meadows.

J. Scott Smart is "The Fat Man," Detective Brad Runyon. He played the role on radio for five years before they decided to make it into a movie.

"The Fat Man" has a great cast that includes Rock Hudson as Roy Clark, a down and out guy who needs some dental work real bad!

A couple days later, he's rolling in the dough, and a few more days after that, he comes up missing!

"The Fat Man's" rather strange partner is Clinton Sundberg as Bill Norton!

The stunning Julie London has the role of Pat Boyd, Roy Clark's future wife!

Actually my favorite part of the whole movie is this scene where "The Fat Man" asks Pat Boyd if she'd like to dance, and the big guy goes out and cuts a mean rug! He's pretty light on his feet!

It wasn't exactly love at first sight for Pat and Roy!

 

But they warm up to each other pretty fast, and the next thing you know......

.........They get married, and he disppears!

The million dollar caper includes heisting an armored car, and making off with the daily receipts from the track!

Sure guys you don't look the least bit suspicious!

The world famous clown Emmett Kelly plays a clown named Deets using a different makeup from his normal routine!

Yeah, it's a little slow in places, and at times, it feels real odd, and then you remember,

Oh, Yeah, William Castle!

LIGHTS OUT / "The Deal" Some Deals Are Made To Be Broken - 1951

Hello der!!.. Today we have a crazy little story from early TV, it's all about a man who makes a deal with a mysterious businessman in order to rid himself of his high maintenance wife, and to set her up with a rich gentleman that will be able to make her happy!..

This thing stars Tom Ewell as Charlie Drome, Anne Bancroft (as Anne Marno) as Helen Drome, Martin Gabel as the Agent and Joseph Wiseman as the Croupier/Devil. Really nice job on the title card!

Of course our narrator pal Frank Gallop pops in to say... Turn out them got-dang lights!..

Here're Charlie and Helen Drome, all Helen can talk about is the fact that Charlie promised they'd soar like eagles after they got married but it's like they're holed up in a chicken coop! She needs material things to make her happy... Anne was 20 years old at this time, what a beautiful lady she was.

The couple live above Charlie's book store, there, he meets up with an agent for a wealthy client who will pay Charlie $50,000 for Helen! Because of course he's very attracted to her and can give her everything she ever wanted. And Charlie knows that he could never make her happy, so, he signs the contract. But, he wants a $10,000 advance to take Helen out for a night on the town, which he's given.

They end up at the roulette wheel in a casino, Charlie wants to see if he's lucky at gambling tonight since he gots some loot in his pocket... And of all things, Charlies wins every freaking time, what the Hell!

The next morning Charlie tells Helen the whole story about the arrangement he made for her, because that's how much he loves her!!

But now, Charlie wants out of the contract, he's changed his mind!.. The agent leaves to tell his client about the situation.

Charlie goes up to tell Helen what has happened when someone enters the book store. Sensing possible trouble, Charlie grabs his revolver...

It's the damn croupier (dealer at roulette wheel) from the casino!! He informs Charlie that he let him win the money, how else could he win like that! Charlie feels threatened so he pulls out his gun and empties it on the guy to no effect. Charlie's really confused when the 'man' tells him that the deal is off. It's like this... He knows Helen has fallen back in love with Charlie, and after all, the Devil has his pride too. He won't take a back seat to a loser like Charlie, so, farewell... Join us tomorrow for more kuhl junk, here at The Dungeon!!..

THE FRIGHTENERS - "The Minder" (1972)

This Weird Wednesday's offering is not only weird, it's stark, tense, and taut!

"The Frightener's" was made in the early 70's, and was billed as a 'horror anthology' series, but from what I saw in this first episode, it's not the kind of horror you would expect, but deals more with the horrors of people and personalities, kind of like the world today! 

There are no monsters or vampires or flying saucers in this series, instead, these are stories of the horrors of the mind, and are more like serious depressing drama than horror!
Once again, this show is something I would never have even heard of if it wasn't for Lord Litter in Berlin! Thanks pal!

The story begins with a well-planned jailbreak, and goes South from there!

Tom (Dr. Terrible's House Of Horrible) Bell is the man they call Bender

Kenneth J. (Dr, Blood's Coffin, I, Monster, The Creeping Flesh) Warren is the bad and bald Cyril, the angry guy they're breaking out!

All seems to be going well at first!

The one slight bit of comedy is when they're wheeling Cyril out, they do run his extended broken foot into the front door, ala The Three Stooges!

From there on, it's mostly Cyril is this room pissing and moaning about everything!

The problem is this guy Bryan (Oh Lucky Man!, Alien 3) Glover as the prick named Porter. Bender has a previous run-in with him in jail, and he is expecting Bender to off Cyril for him once and for all!

When Bender ceremoniously empties his clip in slow motion, you know he has no plans to follow through on the killing of Cyril!

The last member of the main cast is Warren (A Clockwork Orange) Clarke as Bender's easy going partner Ronnie!

Two things stand out, number one is a good part of why this show is so stark is that is it totally devoid of any background music!

Number two is that if you don't have a good handle on understanding people talking with a Cockney dialect, you're not going to know half of the details of the story. Even though it's in English, they should still have sub-titles for us foreigners!

Bottom line is, everything's a mess at the beginning all the way to the end as you can plainly see! I'm going to try and watch another episode, but I'm not really expecting the general mood of me or the show to change!