TALES OF TOMORROW / "The Invader" - 1951

Now, here's a shocking little production about five people on an ocean expedition looking for rare sea plants. A 'meteorite' hits down near their boat, and what happens next is unexpected...

This thing stars Eva (THE MAD MAGICIAN) Gabor, William (in two episodes of LIGHTS OUT) Eythe, Edgar (4D MAN) Stehll, Salem (I LOVE YOU, ALICE B. TOKLAS!) Ludwig and Ferrell (DARBY O'GILL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE) Pelly. Very sad about William Lythe, died at age 38, and considered a victim of Hollywood.

The story starts with Burroughs pulling up a basket full of a rare sea weed that his diver had found. His son Roy is there with his fiancée, Laura.

It is very strange that pops is mean to his son and won't let him help with anything and is just simply mean with him constantly. Laura logs in the catch.

Chandler, the diver, eventually makes it back to the surface and gets help removing his gear.

Even Chandler is a jerk with Roy, calling him junior, and tells him to give his dad the message, he's not doing any more diving, he wants to go to port and have some fun.

The crew then witness something falling out of the sky. They watch as the thing splashes down into the sea with a bang near their ship!

They establish that the object came down in a zig-zag trajectory and it couldn't possibly be a meteorite, and, must be a spaceship from another world! Chandler refuses to dive down to see what's on the sea floor, and of all things, Roy says that he'll do it...

He wants to prove to his dad that he can contribute to the expedition, but Laura's frightened about Roy agreeing to the dive, and that unknown object down there.

Roy makes it to the bottom where he sees something and heads off towards it...

Roy returns to the surface and reports that it was just a meteorite, not a spaceship. He has a hard edge to his demeanor now, and is very short with his dad who's proud of his accomplishment.

McQueen is the first one to go, he sees Roy for who he really is and dies from the alien's touch!

Ho boy, no kidding! Laura then receives the death touch from the deadly invader! He's already taken care of Chandler.

When the lights go out, we can see Roy as the alien. Very underwhelming! So, when the lights go out, William had to run over to a makeup artist who, as quickly as possible, makes him into an alien and get him back to the camera! That's just horrible! 

Burroughs gets to see some of the victims!

The alien tells the old man that everyone is dead, including Roy, and that he plans on getting to the mainland to continue his mayhem and destroy the people of Earth. 

But the tricky old codger comes up with a plan to get rid of the threat. He cuts a gas line and then splashes the invader with an acid or something, causing him to fade into the darkness, just like this post!

HIGH SCHOOL CAESAR - "Mob Rule In A High School" (1960)

This week's Saturday Night Special is a classic juvenile hot rod film from 1960 called "High School Caesar."

 

Dungeon Hero John Ashley is a spoiled little rich kid named Mat Stevens. He's "Cool as a freezer, that's why they call him Caesar!" IMDB has his name as Matt, but according this poster, I beg to differ.

 

This is Mat's girlfriend Lita Owens as played by Daria Massey. Search as hard as you want, but all you're going to basically find about Daria is, "She was an actress," and a list of her credits. There's a Facebook click bait page based in Nigeria, that says she died last year, but I wouldn't go there unless you're really on the prowl for a virus! 

(After I threw out that challenge, our pal KD found this old newspaper clipping abour Daria. It doesn't really add any new info, but is still interesting as Heck! The movie mentioned in the article titled "The Magic Brain" was actually "The Magic Ring.")

 

The rockin' soundtrack was written by the phenomenal Nicholas Carras who composed the music for an incredible array of films like "Missile To The Moon," "She Demons," "Date Bait," "Frankenstein's Daughter," "The Astro-Zombies," and more!

 

The High School election is rigged, and Mat has his pals making sure that he wins!

 

 

Mat's best friend is called Cricket, and he wants to go out with this special blonde he likes named Wanda, and Mat guarantees that she will be Cricket's girlfriend, except Wanda has other plans!

 

 

The kids are all hanging out drinking Cokes at their favorite joint called The Wagon. That's Wanda on the far left. Wanda was played by Judy (Adventures Of Superman, Magnificent Obsession) Nugent.

 Mat's rich parents are out of the country, so he's running all kinds of rackets at the school. He's even mean to the service people employed by his parents.

It's gotta be depressing to be twenty-six, and still be in high school. That's how old John was when he made this film!

The most important thing in life to Mat is to keep his hair slicked back.

 

 

The kids all decide to have a hot rod race! Mat tells everybody that there is a $2.00 entry fee to race, and when they balk, he tells them that the winner will get this special coin that he has.

 The guy who was running for President against Mat wins the race, and the coin, but after the race is over, Mat with Cricket in the car, run Kelly off the road.

 

Kelly dies in the accident, and Mat retrieves his coin, and then Mat and Cricket will deny knowing anything about the accident.

 

One of Mat's rackets is that he sells stolen tests to any kid who has five bucks, and doesn't want to fail. A new test comes up that he needs a copy of, so he sends his goons to the office to get it!

The two dummies almost get caught by the Principal, and it really pisses Mat off!

This shot is iconic 1960! A stud and two dolls!

 

Wanda is walking down the street, when Mat forces her into the car. Cricket is in the driver's seat, and Mat tells him to take a hike. He tells Cricket he wants Wanda for himself and that Cricket can now have Lita. Cricket's not happy, but leaves anyway. In the meantime, the coin falls out of Mat's pocket.

 

Wanda has the coin and gets away, and takes off running, and at first Mat pursues her on foot, and then in his car! At one point she hides under this bridge with Mat standing right above her.

 

Meanwhile Crickets heads back to the club, and when he gets there he tells all the kids that Mat killed Kelly, and in the meantime Wanda goes back to the rest of the kids, and tells them that Mat had Kelly's coin. Steve (Agent For H.A.R.M.) Stevens is Cricket.

 

 

Mat gives up on finding Wanda, and heads back to The Wagon where they are supposed to be having a big birthday party for him, but nobody's there.

 

 

The kids all turn on him, and the guy who owns The Wagon calls the cops, and the blasphemous reign of the mighty Caesar is put to an end, once and for all! Kind of reminds me of recent political events, just on a smaller scale!

LADY VAMPIRE / Richard Olson - Monster Kid Home Movies - 1968

We have a short class today with this little four minute Monster Kid Home Movie by Richard Olson from the year Eegah!! and Tabonga! went into the Army. I always have to make a title cards for Richard, something they overlooked with his movies. The beginning has a few totally dark pans and it's hard to see what's going on with the figures, but, you know... Kids!! The photo is of a teenage girl going to her window, in case you were wondering.

Then, another figure appears... Now, this is weird, that will be the only time there is a girl in the story. It's very dark but I guess she bites the guy on the neck, and...

He turns into a Dracula! There are some cool shots of Richard walking with a nice red glow on him, but dark. I thought, wow, I hope they keep it up because it gives it a nice eerie effect, not bad for some kids!

Like this shot, and that x-ray there was used in another lil' movie of theirs.

But then it happened, now, too much light! A lot of the time it's hard to get a decent still (for the rest of the movie) because these little jerks are moving around like maniacs!! Okay, here's the haps.. Those are two robbers in the living room, picking up dollar bills laying all over the place! Huh? They're stuffing it all in their pockets. Before this though, one of the robbers had choked out another kid on the couch!

I showed this pic because of that ceramic skull in the background. Hey, nice lid!

Now get ready!!.. This is the dreaded.. Choker!! The face of a brutal killer! It is sooo funny to see this little guy wearing his uncle's hat.

Now wait a minute! If this is all taking place in the living room, where in the Hell are we?!

Richard shows up to settle the score, as a blood sucker, frightening the intruders.

He puts this guy out quickly, so that...

He can get to that little shit, the Choker! This pic is funny!

Richard's teeth have like 3" fangs, and at the very end of the scene, they fall out before the camera operator cuts!!

It's a nut house to the end as Richard just wrassles with the two dummies!