LURED - "Killer Bait" (1947)

 

Tonight's Saturday Night Special is a fun and very interesting film from 1947 that features Lucille Ball in a non-comedic film noir, with an all-star cast!

 

"Lured" was directed by Douglas (Written On The Wind) Sirk, and that in itself should be enough to make you want to see it, and I seriously doubt you will be disappointed when you do!

Lucy is an American named Sandra Carpenter who has come to London searching for a better life. She works as a hostess in a dance club full of lonely men willing to pay anything just to dance with a woman.

She doesn't really like her job, but then, who does? One of her fellow dancers has just become a victim of a weird serial killer who meets his victims through the personal columns, and then sends the police cryptic Baudelaire styled poems before each murder happens, just to mess with them!

 

So Sandra is enlisted as bait to try and flush out the killer. She is to be watched all the time by members of the force to guarantee her safety.

Sandra has to meet all kinds of strange men under strange circumstances in strange locations.

One of her first encounters is with a very odd old dude named Charles van Druten as played by Boris Karloff. I've seen a lot of films with Boris Karloff in them, and I'll tell you one thing........

............I think this is one of the most bizarre roles Boris has ever had!

Charles is a fashion designer, and this is an outfit from one of his finest hours!

He has a mini-theater set up in his flat with a dog and a mannequin as his audience.

Sandra decides that Charles is off his nut a little, but is not a serial killer by any means!

The mood changes quickly, and it appears that Charles night be a little more than just eccentric!

Sandra is saved by a stranger who has a big tussle with Charles who then falls down some stairs and we never see or hear from him again!

Sandra is then shuffled off into a car with another weirdo in it!

The weirdo turns out to be George Zucco as Police Officer H.R. Barrett, who was also the one who saved her from Charles. It was really refreshing to see George Zucco in the role of a quasi-comedic crossword-puzzle-junkie police officer instead of some dour and menacing villain!

After that, every one of the gentlemen that Sandra meets has the potential to be the killer, and if they are not that guy, they are usually into something equally against the law, or just losers in general.

Alan (Terror By Night) Mowbray is the creepy butler Lyle Maxwell who is up to his elbows in graft, but he's not a serial killer!

Sandra is sent a note and a ticket to a concert by an admirer called Music Lover, and in a pretty funny scene she waits for the seat next to her to fill up. When this guy sits down she slyly tries to find out if he's the guy, but it turns out he's in the wrong seat!

 

I should be showing you shots of some of the other great actors in this film like Charles (Around The World In 80 Days) Coburn as Inspector Harley Temple, and the star of the film, George (Village Of The Damned) Sanders as Robert Fleming, and Sir Cedric (Uncle Simon, The Forms Of Things Unknown) Hardwicke as Julian Wilde, but there's not room for everything, and I just really like this shot of Lucy and George better! It's such an odd pairing!

Joseph (Touch Of Evil) Calleia as Dr. Nicholas Moryani is an extremely likely suspect, but despite all the nefarious activities he's into, he's not a serial killer! Joseph was in two very cool gorilla movies, "The Monster And The Girl," and "The Gorilla."

It's very mysterious that Lucy was 5' 7½" but Sandra's I.D. card shows that she was only five foot six.

Sandra is just about to get married to Peter Fleming when she finds this photo of her dead friend who had been abducted in the drawer of her future husband's desk, so they finally have a suspect. Too bad he's not the serial killer either! Tanis (Spook Busters) Chandler had the role of Lucy Barnard.

In the end, the serial killer makes a move on Sandra Carpenter, but Police Officer Barrett is there too, and the case is finally solved, the murderer is revealed, and Lucille Ball gets to go on to entertain us for years in "I Love Lucy!"

THRILLER - "Yours Truly, Jack The Ripper" (1961)

 

It's a Whopping Good Time Wednesday down in The Dungeon, and this week I've got a wild episode of the killer TV show "Thriller" for you!

I never have time to plan things, so let me take a second and tell you how this works. In my many emails with Lord Litter in Berlin, he is always asking about or suggesting shows for me, since a lot of this is new to him, having never aired in Germany the first time. He was watching "Thriller," and I told him that it was right up there with my favourite shows like "The Twilight Zone," and "The Outer Limits," and then I realized we had never written up a "Thriller" before!

 

So, after looking at who was in different episodes, I decided I wanted to watch episode 16 from the first season because not only did it have The Shat in it, but Donna Douglas of "The Beverly Hillbillies" was also in it, but there was only one problem, I don't have a copy, nor could I find one, so I decided to watch something else that had to do with Beverly Hills, and that was Episode 28 also of season one, titled "Yours Truly, Jack The Ripper."

 

The host of "Thriller" was none other than the phenomenal Boris Karloff who does an outstanding job, just like he always does, no matter what the assignment!

 

The story begins in the 1800's in jolly olde England.

 

Jack continues his nefarious ways, by preying on the ladies of the night!

The first victim was played by Jill (The Third Man) Livesey.

 

Flash forward to 1961 New York, and suddenly it's all happening again!

Pamela (Mutiny In Outer Space) Curran is the second victim.

 

It was at this point I realized that this story penned by "Psycho" author Robert Bloch was almost exactly the same story as "The Night Strangler" I watched recently that was written by an equally talented Sci-Fi writer Richard Matheson. This is also the same story that Robert Bloch used to write the "Star Trek" episode called "Wolf In The Fold."

 

Joan Blondell's younger sister Gloria (The Twonky) Blondell, has the role of ex-burlesque star Maggie who discovers the body. Maggie makes a point of letting the authorities know that they need to get her name right, because she used to be a star. Gloria was the voice of Daisy Duck in a couple of Donald Duck cartoons, which seems natural, because she is quite animated.

 

John Williams is Sir Guy, a British authority on the crimes of Jack The Ripper, who tries to explain to the police, just as Kolchak did, that he believes this modern day Jack The Ripper is the same guy who did it decades before. Of course no one believes him, at least not in the beginning.

John played William Shakespeare in "The Twilight Zone" episode known as "The Bard."

In 1954 John Williams was in Hitchcock's "Dial M For Murder" with Dungeon Hero Ray Milland who directed this episode of "Thriller."

The police don't give much credence to Sir Guy's theories and might possibly believe it's Jack's son or grandson, but not the same man, so Sir Guy and Police Psychologist Dr. John Carmody, join forces to try and figure this thing out, and they start by going to some of the Bohemian places they think might attract Jack. The Doctor is played by Donald (13 Ghosts) Woods.

Sometimes being an artiste can be frustrating!

Adam Williams is the creative artiste named Hymie Kralik who has great imagination. He dooesn't know why he sees his model surrounded by all these ominous objects, it's just a vision he has. Adam was in two episodes of "The Twilight Zone," The Hitch-Hiker," and "A Most Unusual Camera."

As it turns out, Hymies gruesome vision comes true, and his model Arlene is the next victim. Arlene was played by Nancy (The Black Castle) Valentine.

 

There's nothing much more fun than a funeral in the rain!

The Doctor and Sir Guy head on over to a strip club that Sir Guy has determined is the place where the next attack will occur according to the pattern he's laid out. Sir Guy is unfamiliar with the concept of a strip club, and the Doctor has to explain to him that you sit, get a drink and watch young ladies disrobe. And that brings us to the star of the show, a woman named Beverly Powers, aka Miss Beverly Hills.

Beverly Powers was a popular and a very real life stripper and actually performed as Miss Beverly Hills on stage in clubs.

 

Bev was also in movies as herself, and numerous films where she

 played strippers and showgirls, often named Beverly Hills.

 

This was Beverly's on screen debut, and she went on to be in three Elvis movies, "Viva Las Vegas," "Kissin' Cousins," and "Speedway."  

Bev was also in "The Comedy Of Terrors," "Brides Of Blood," and "Invasion Of The Bee Girls."

The guys and the gals in the audience love her act and applaud like crazy!

I normally avoid using any nude pics on this blog in order to keep it open to all ages, but I had this old pic of Miss Beverly that is so nothing by today's standards, so I thought I'd show you what they couldn't on TV in 1961.

Sir Guy was 100% correct, and Jack or John, or whatever his name is, just might still continue to live to this day!

LOONEY TUNES / "Porky's Road Race" - 1937

Here's one that I saw many times back in the fifties on TV, a little Frank Tashlin gem written by Tedd Pierce and stars good old Porky Pig in his early days...

Boy, what a deal with the prize money! Movie stars are out in force here and they include popular actors like Charlie Chaplin, W. C. Fields, Boris Karloff and others. The voice talent are Elvia Allman, Dave Barry, Mel Blanc, Billy Bletcher, Joe Dougherty and Tedd Pierce.

Porky is soooo proud of his midget racer, even with it's two little puny cylinders!

W. C. Fields has already had a run in with Charlie Chaplin and sees a damsel in distress. It's Edna May Oliver (the original Miss Jane Hathaway), and her car isn't running very good at all just before the big race.

Then we see Borax Karoff hard at work on his sleek black number 13, with its 36 cylinder engine. He really enjoys his oil!

And, the race is on!!!

It's not long before Borax pulls out tacks and torpedo bombs to get rid of the competition.

Edna May is being passed by the other racers so quickly, that...

Her car is eventually stripped of its parts and she's now cruising on a frame and wheels!

It seems impossible, but Porky's little racer overtakes Borax's mighty speedster!

While going through a tunnel though, Porky ends up in number 13 and Borax ends up in Porky's little racer. Borax gets to the draw bridge first and pulls the lever that raises the bridge.

Porky hits the ramp and flies through the air, and beats Borax by a nose at the finish line!

After Borax crashes, the ambulance comes and they take Porky's damaged racer away, leaving our villain just laying there!!

So, just before the judges put the winner's crown on Porky's head...

Edna May comes flying through the coronation crowd and the crown gets put in its proper place!! You go girl!.. Check in tomorrow with Eegah!!, here at The Dungeon!