THE BLUE GARDENIA - Nat King Cole - "Blue Gardenia" (1953)

No monsters tonight, but here's a classic from one of the olde masters of the cinema, and the Director of "Metropolis," Fritz Lang! Most anything I've read about "The Blue Gardenia" is pretty negative, and it seems that most brilliant scholars and film critics pan it for various reasons, but all will agree on at least one point, and that is that it's a very well made movie! Personally, when I watched it recently, I thought it was pretty dang freakin' awesome! Check out how smoggy the sky was in L.A. in 1953!! I kind of remember the first time we ever went to Disneyland, once you got over the hill into Los Angeles, it was almost like somebody was choppin' scallions!!

In the mere span of 59 years, this is how much phone technology has progressed! How many women were out of a job when there were no more operators needed? Just imagine you needed tech support for your computer, and you had to go through an operator before you got to talk to that person in India! "Sorry you were on hold for 97 hours, how can I help you???"

This is Ann Southern as telephone operator Crystal Carpenter! Ann had been in the business since 1927, and she had her own memorable TV show, "The Ann Southern Show" for 93 episodes from 1958 to 1961! She also had a reoccurring role on "The Lucy Show" as Rosie Harrigan, the Countess Framboise! She is being sketched by calender pin-up artiste Raymond (Godzilla, King of the Monsters!) Burr as the quasi-lecherous Harry Prebble! That's Crystal's phone number that Harry has just written in on his sketch!

Times are tough! Crystal has two roommates in her apartment! Except when she's running the switchboard, Crystal has a cigarette hanging off her lip the whole movie!! In the background is one of her roommates, Jeff Donnell as Sally Ellis! You gotta love her, Jeff's real name was Jean Marie Donnell, but she dug the "Mutt and Jeff" comics so much, she changed her first name to Jeff! So, Gee, what do you think about this? Jeff landed the role of George Gobel's wife Alice for four seasons, she played Gidget's Mom in two films, and she ended her career as Stella Fields for eight years on the soap opera "General Hospital!" In the movie, Sally is a big fan of reading mysteries, and gets real excited when the newest "Mickey Mallet" novel is released! I thought she was going to be big part of the 'whodunnit' part of this film, but then I didn't write this story!

The third roommate is Oscar winning actress Ann (The Magnificent Ambersons) Baxter as Norah Larkin! Ann Baxter's Grandfather was the ultra famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright! Among Ann's countless roles, she was Olga, Queen of the Cossacks and/or Zelda in seven episodes of the "Batman" TV series! Norah is having a birthday, and her boyfriend is a soldier stationed in Korea! She's going to sit down and have a glass of champagne, and read the letter she received from him days earlier! She's been saving it for just the right moment!

This is the point where the whole mood of the movie changes! Happy Birthday! I'm in love with someone else!! Here's a little correction I don't think anybody else has ever made, in the letter, Norah's boyfriend says "I remember when we were kids in Bakersfield, and I worked vacations in San Joaquin Valley." Excuse me, Bakersfield is IN the San Joaquin Valley! Isn't that like "You can't be in two places at once if you're not anywhere at all!?" Ignorant jerk!!

As fate would have it, greasy slimeball Harry attempts to put that phone number he got from Crystal to good use! Unfortunately, the wrong roommate answers the phone!

I can't find it in writing anywhere, but you can't tell me this isn't the amazing Sid Caesar walking through the scene at The Blue Gardenia Club, in what would have been one, if not the earliest time he was ever on the silver screen! Hey Sid, drop us a line if you're out there, and clear it all up!

Right here, I had originally quoted about five lines from a song on an LP at least 50 years old, by a prominent UK band that shall remain nameless, that described this scene prefectly, and because of that, this post was removed by Blogger because of a complaint of copyright infringement! It's pretty amazing, but out of all the things on the internet, that got somebody's attention! You can't blame Blogger, they have to cover their ass, but it's surreal to think this whole blog could disappear for something that innocent, but oh, well! Remember kids, it wasn't a picture, an mp3 or a video, just a couple of song lyrics! It's tough having fun sometimes, so be careful!!

The song "Blue Gardenia" was written by Bob Russell and Lester Lee, and arranged by Nelson Riddle! The rest of the soundtrack for the film was written by the Maestro Raoul (Billy the Kid Vs. Dracula, Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter) Kraushaar!

I even read something by somebody that "Blue Gardenia" wasn't even a good song by Nat King Cole, and I beg to differ again! In reality, unlike any one hit wonders, I don't think Nat King Cole ever sang a bad song in his life, unless you want to count the 60's Pop hit, "Lazy, Crazy, Hazy Days Of Summer," which still, compared to something like Sammy Davis Jr.'s "The Candy Man," rocked! "Blue Gardenia" is no exception, and Nat's smokey sweet and sultry voice is as beautiful as ever!

Bring on the booze, extra strong Polynesian Pearl Divers that come on like Pineapple Piledrivers!!

Six drinks later, "Can I get high from one of these?"

So they head on back to Harry's studio pad, and gee, I wonder what's on his mind, as he now opens up a bottle of champagne! By the way, the chances of an unexpected cloudburst like this in Southern California are about 365 to 1!!

Harry's horny, but Norah was just trying to wipe out bad memories, and is not ready for his heavy duty come on, so before she blacks out, there's a bit of a struggle! When she comes to, Harry is dead, beat to death with a poker!

There used to be milkmen, and this is the way they used to deliver newspapers! They didn't have time to come in and drop them off, they'd just fling the doors open wide, and throw them in!! The headline screams "Painter Of Calender Girls Murdered In Studio Mystery!"

The rest of the movie is divided up between Norah, and these two guys, trying to get to the bottom of this story! On the left is the talented Richard (13 Rue Madeleine) Conte as investigative reporter Casey Mayo, and on the right is George (freakin' Superman) Reeves as Police Captain Sam Haynes! Richard Conte had the role of Edward Hall in the "Twilight Zone" episode titled "Perchance to Dream," and was on a roll with his performance as Detective Butter on the TV show "77 Sunset Strip!" There's a lot of things I don't remember some times, and one of them was that George Reeves was in "Gone With The Wind!"

Smog control I guess, another thing I never knew before was that, in L.A., it was illegal to burn your incinerator after dark!

A lot of people knock the end of this movie, and it is admittingly weak and fairly predictable, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a really good story up to that point!!!

In the end, Justice prevails! You can find "The Blue Gardenia" on Netflix!! JUSTITIA SEMPER TRIUMPHAT!!!

TALES FROM THE CRYPT / Amicus Productions - 1972

It's Friday Night Horror Theater with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon... What we gots is another Amicus anthology, this time they took five stories from the pages of fifties pre-code EC horror comics. Actually, two stories are from Tales From The Crypt, two stories are from The Haunt Of Fear and one story is from The Vault Of Horror! After the implementation of the Comics-Code in January, 1954, EC and other horror comic publishers were forced to tame everything down to 'boring' or not be published. Everything turned to total crap, so, EC put all their effort into MAD Magazine, because, magazines were exempt from the code! We salute William Gaines and the many awesome artists and writers he employed!

Like with ASYLUM, Amicus uses creepy old classical music to their advantage, here, it's Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D minor! Sooooo, wif'aus further adieu, you can push the big red 'GO' button right there, NOW, Rufus The Gnat! Here's our classical soundclip for... TALES FROM THE CRYPT!

Dungeon favorite Freddie Francis directs this anthology about five people who get separated during a museum tour and end up trapped in a crypt with a mysterious cryptkeeper. They are all shown their dubious futures and given the option of avoiding their fates by not living out the rest of their lives!

AND ALL THROUGH THE HOUSE: Sexy Joan Collins hates her husband, she murders him on Christmas Eve to collect on his life insurance policy, but, ends up being attacked by a psychopathic killer dressed up as Santa Claus!

Oliver (THE FROZEN DEAD) MacGreevy plays Santa... Scary Xmas, everbloody!!

REFLECTION OF DEATH: Ian Hendry plays a guy who leaves his family for a younger woman, played by Angie Grant.

As they drive off into the night, their car crashes into a ravine, and, after Carl manages to escape the burning wreckage, Susan's nowhere to be found! He eventually realizes (people are repulsed by him) that he was killed in the wreck and is now a walking corpse. He suddenly awakens and is relieved that the whole thing was only a dream, but then, the car crashes exactly as it did in his dream and the horror is now real!

POETIC JUSTICE: A ruthless property developer (and, dick), played by Robin Philips, feels that his elderly neighbor, the kindly old dustman played by Peter Cushing, is an eyesore to the community. He launches a smear campaign against Peter, hoping that he will sell the property to him cheap and leave the area for good.

He commits suicide instead!

Peter had a few more skills than some people realized.

The greedy stinking little bastard is counting his dough when he hears something creeping around in his dark room...

Peter has returned a year later to give Robin's father a special Valentines Day gift!

WISH YOU WERE HERE: Ruthless business tycoon played by Richard Greene is declared bankrupt by his lawyer, but, his wife has discovered a statuette which can grant three wishes!

After he's killed in a car crash, wifey wishes her husband back to life, to live forever!

However, his body has been embalmed and that only means one thing... He must live in eternal agony... Forever!!

His wife tries to end the suffering by chopping him up with a sword, which only means that the pain gets even worse!

BLIND ALLEYS: Selfish Nigel Patrick takes over the running of a home for the blind, he uses funds allocated to the needs of his patients for his own comfort. He won't even buy them a few blankets! Patrick Magee is a helper.

When his neglect results in a death, Patrick and the other patients come up with a devious plan for revenge. First, they have to separate the German Shepherd from it's master with a trail of meat scraps...

After they starve the dog, Nigel gets trapped in a corridor lined with razor blades, and, when he tries to squeeze through, they let the hungry dog go, to feast on it's tasty master!!

And, if you try and escape your fate, you'll fall into this pit to a burning Hell!

Ralph Richardson plays a very British version of EC's Cryptkeeper!

DIARY OF A MAD HOUSEWIFE - Alice Cooper - (What's The Consequence To Be Free?) (1970)

"Diary Of A Madman" with Vincent Price came out in 1963, and was a pretty scary movie, so when "Diary Of A Mad Housewife" came out in 1970, I had high hopes for a similar viewing experience! Boy, was I wrong! Not that it's a bad movie, and even though some of these characters really deserve it, nobody gets killed or even modestly threatened, because "Diary Of A Mad Housewife" is not a horror movie, unless you count the horrors of a modern society! So why is this film on this site?

Here's the happy couple! Richard (WESTWORLD, CATCH-22) Benjamin as stick up his ass attorney Jonathan Balser, and Carrie (THE FURY, TRICK OR TREATS) Snodgress as his misunderstood wife Tina Balser!

The prefect family with the prefect spoiled and brattiest kids on the face of the planet, but there's something weird going on here, between the two of them, Frannie Michel as Liz Balser, and Lorraine Cullen as Sylvie Balser, they only have a total of 6 more acting credits! This film might have had that kind of effect!

So off the Balsers go to party with the innest of the in crowd, and it's pretty obvious who needs to smooze, and who would rather just go back home!

At the arty farty coolest of the cool party they couldn't get The Velvet Underground, so the next band of choice was none other than ALICE COOPER!!

Tina Balser is totally turned off by the sexual arrogance of Frank (DRACULA) Langella as hip author George Prager!

Alice Cooper "Pretties For You" one more time!! That pillow over there turns into one monstrous pillow fight!! The Alice Cooper band was fleshed out by Michael Bruce on guitar, Glen Buxton on guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass, and drummer Neal Smith!

You'd have to be John Holmes to be a bigger dick that Richard Benjamin in this flick!

At the next "Be there of Be square" party they go to, Tina Balser runs in to George Prager again, and he starts really coming on strong to her! Her stupid husband is just so proud of the fact that she can hang with somebody so intellectually superior, nothing else matters!

This is what it looks like when rich dicks are sick!

I once knew a really nice older man named Richard Peters! One of the last times I saw him, he was wearing a Cox cable hat! He had no idea!

In 1970, if you were exceptionally cool, you had one of these power shoe shiners!

You know you've made it when a Nobel Prize winner steals your shit! Jonathan throws a big party to try and impress the top of the heap, but as luck would have it, everything he pays big bucks for is already passé, and the omelets by the best chef who didn't show up, are already last year's model! Who the Hell serves omelets at a party anyway? Unless they had caviar and lobster in them, I make a better one here every Sunday morning for about nine thousand dollars less!

Very simple but effective shot from Director Frank Perry and Cinematographer Gerald Hirschfeld!

Tina finally cuts loose, and lets her husband know how she really feels about all his bullshit!!

The seductively sweet and stunning Carrie Snodgress (For years I thought it was Snotgrass), undresses and gets dressed again at least 4 or 5 times in this film, and that's not such a bad thing! Carrie was rocker Neil Young's girlfriend for four years, and was the Mother of their son Zeke! She passed away in 2004 at an age of 59, which I consider very young!

The last word is that if Tina was really such a mad housewife, she would have pulled out a giant butcher knife and done away with both her annoying husband, and her eloquent and embarrassing assholish lover, and got away with it, but instead she ends up in therapy with Peter (THE DREAM TEAM, THE MONITORS) Boyle! I doubt it's a coincidence that this film is almost impossible to find!