WOMAN IN THE MOON / Fritz Lang-Film, Universum Film - 1929

It's time for a trip to the Moon, 1929 style, here's Fritz Lang's epic silent film that thrilled the audiences way back when. An interesting note... Hitler banned this film because the spaceship was nearly identical to V-2s that were constructed in secrecy by the Third Reich at the time. And, the film shows a countdown to launch of a rocket, it was not just the first countdown used in a movie but the first one ever!

We have a sound clip of the theme for your approval, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button located there by our lunar pod, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula!.. Here's... WOMAN IN THE MOON!

The first half of the movie before the launch is a little boring, but is full of odd characters like this super frau here, smoking a cigarette!

Our hero has located a gold deposit on the Moon and plans on retrieving it, but how?..

Well, by building an awesome rocket ship to get him and his crew there, what else?

And... Away they go!!

The young boy has brought along a sci-fi pulp magazine to show everyone what could happen to them if the Moon was inhabited by monsters!!.. Love it!

Is this a cool shot or what, there were four great cinema photographers on the project.

The landing is going to be a little rough, so, you'd better hold on for dear life!

The old professor grabs a spacesuit and runs off, he just can't wait to find that there gold!

Our hero and the kid take a little walk after they discover there is air on the Moon and that they don't really need a spacesuit to burden them.

There are lots of natural wonders to be discovered as they explore the lunar surface and some of the subterranean caves.

It's not long before the crew starts fighting among themselves which could very well doom the expedition.

Weight is a problem now for the return trip back to Earth and some of the crew will have to remain on the Moon in order for the others to make it back.

So, the boy and a few others launch the ship back to Earth, leaving...

Our hero there, alone, to live out the rest of his life in loneliness.

But, the woman decides to remain on the Moon with our hero, making for a bittersweet ending... We'll be back here on Wednesday with more just for you!

A TRIBUTE TO CARL HEINZ JAFFÉ - Part Three - The Brit-Cop TV Shows

 Welcome to Part III of our Dungeon tribute to the one and only Carl Heinz Jaffé, enabled once again by his Grandson Michael, who was kind enough to provide us with all this material!
Isn't this a great portrait??

I've learned a lot about Carl Jaffé over the last few weeks, and I'll tell you one thing, he was the consummate actor! He loved what he was doing, and he was very happy to be working in a trade of his choice, and it shows in all his work! Long before movies or TV, Carl was a stage actor. This is a great shot of him in costume circa 1934,  probably in Berlin!

But let's get to the action, in 1957 Carl was in a short film called "The Case Of The Smiling Widow," one of 39 short films in the "Scotland Yard" series made between 1953 and 1961, and distributed as cinema B features! Carl had the role of an art dealer named Christopher Nicholls!

 This poster is courtesy of The Radio Sounds Familiar Website!

"Here is a rare never before seen PR still from the episode" courtesy of Michael Jaffé!

In 1959, Carl was in season two, episode six of the TV series titled "The Third Man! This episode was called "Barcelona Passage," and his character was named Jahn! The star of the series was Michael (The Day The Earth Stood Still) Rennie!

In the 1960 Patrick McGoohan series titled "Danger Man," episode two titled "Time To Kill," Carl had the role of a Professor Barkoff!

In Michael's own words more or less - "CHJ starred in several brit cop-shows in the 50's that were also anglo-US TV station productions. He would usually be cast as the mysterious foreigner with a certain continental style, or sometimes as a suspicious, or even petty-criminal wise-guy."

"From 1961, here is "The Square Mile Murder" from the "Scotland Yard" - series of dramatic TV episodes introduced by ex-brit 'Scotland Yard" dick Edgar Lustgarten; doing a kind of Alfred Hitchcock mystery intro to each programme... all made at the English Merton Park studios (sadly demised since 1967)."

 "The guy 3rd from right holding CHJ's arm is Mr. Stanley Morgan; who among other claims to fame was the croupier who leaned over Sean Connery's 007 shoulder in Dr. No to give him a message. The above photo is from my own private collection BUT: Stanley Morgan has the titled PR image on his website." - Michael Jaffé

"The Spanish poster for the Scotland Yard Film "The Case of the Smiling Widow" is clearly important enough to the Spanish Cultural Attaché for it to have a place in the Spanish Cultural Archive...!" 

Carl Jaffé was a fascinating man with 88 acting credits to his name, and over the last few weeks we've touched on only 11 of them, hopefully one of these days his autobiography will be released, and the whole story will be told! Thanks again Michael!

TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE / Trick Or Treat - 1983

I know Halloween isn't for another 5 months, but, here's the pilot episode from this long running TV series, it's all about the town miser, Gideon Hackles played by Barnard Hughes, who spends Halloween hiding IOU's in his house he has rigged up to scare the local kids that search for them to pay off family debt. With a name like Gideon Hackles you know there's something wrong with him!

I've got a wild little sound clip for your approval, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button over by our haunted mouse hole, NOW, Rufus The Gnat!.. Here's... TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE!

Timmy and his dad pay a visit to Mr. Hackles to pay off some debt, Hackles owns everyone in the town through his IOU scheme, the one thing that makes him happy. He also requires the kids in the community to visit his house on Halloween...

He hides the pile of IOUs in the attic, and, if a child finds them without running out of the house in fright first, their family will be debt free! Weird photo.

From his upstairs spook room, he runs an array of flying creeps and has plenty of sound effects to scare the crap out of the kids.

Now it's time to put some fear into Timmy, who comes close to finding the bundle of IOUs before running out of the house where his dad takes him home without the treat.

Then, a Witch shows up unannounced and Hackles doesn't quite remember where she came from, and, she's holding his precious bundle of IOUs!

Hackles also wants to know who the heck this guy is! What's going on around here, anyway?!

All Hell breaks loose when the Devil shows up to dish out punishment on old Mr. Hackles...

When Billy shows up for his turn, the Witch drops the bundle of IOUs and all of Hackles' money bags into his hands, bringing our tale to a happy end! My only question is... Why wouldn't you move to a different town if this one was run by a crook? Anyway, we have a nice treat for you tomorrow, be there or be cubed!

ONE OF THE TWISTED ROOTS OF DWRAYGER DUNGEON! (1965)

 I was going through some olde junk the other day looking for something to put on eBay, when I found this list of movie titles I made when I was in high school! It was a definitive list of Sci-Fi and Horror films I had seen up to that point on my journey to see every film ever made in those genres! It's all thrills and no frills!

It looks like I started listing them by character at first, Frankenstein movies, Vampire movies, Mummy movies etc!

Typewriters were obviously a lot more difficult to make corrections on than computers!

Still trying to keep things in categories, an effort that was doomed from the start!

A lot of these movies I saw on TV! We had a very limited amount of stations back then, like five! My grandmother used to get the L.A. Times newspaper, and every time we'd go visit, I'd look at the TV guide section of the paper, and drool over how many cool movies were playing every Saturday night on Los Angeles TV stations! We were lucky to get to see one on a weekend!

Most of these movies we've written about, but there are a couple on the list we still haven't gotten around to!

I don't remember why I hand wrote the last of the titles, probably just got lazy! As you can well see, using the typewriter wasn't exactly a perfect medium for me even though I could supposedly type 40 words a minute! (I think that included 30 errors a minute!) Too bad they didn't have blogs back then!!