THE NIGHT STALKER - "A Real Horror Story" (1972)

 Before the TV series "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" premiered in 1974, there were two Kolchak movies made for TV, "The Night Stalker" in 1972, and then, "The Night Strangler" in 1973.

Welcome to the Wild Wednesday version of life in The Dungeon.

It doesn't take a lot of thought to know this film was shot in Las Vegas!

"The Night Stalker" is very similar to the first episode of "Kolchak: The Night Stalker." A lot of women are being murdered on a regular basis, but the big difference is that instead of Jack The Ripper, the culprit in this story is a real-life vampire.

Lucky Carl Kolchak, he has a beautiful girlfriend named Gail Foster, and she's played by lovely Carol Lynley who was exactly 20 years younger than Darren McGavin.

 

 

"Why can't I figure this out?"

The dead bodies just keep piling up, and nobody wants to hear about Kolchak's vampire theories.

"The Night Stalker" has a great cast that includes Claude Akin there in the middle as Sheriff Butcher. Claude Akin probably played more Sheriff's than almost anybody in his career, including Sheriff Elroy P. Lobo. He was also in two episodes of "The Twilight Zone," "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street," and "The Little People." 

Kolchak has a tendency to get frustrated and take it out on himself!

How often do you get to see two guys that played the same character in their careers acting together? Well, that's what you have here. Both Darren McGavin and Ralph Meeker were also Mike Hammer at one time or another. Ralph was Mike Hammer in the epic "Kiss Me Deadly" in 1955, and Darren McGavin was Mike Hammer in the TV series of the same name in 1958 to 1959.

Here Ralph plays Kolchak's buddy, FBI agent Bernie Jenks.

This is about as sexy as Carl and Gail's relationship gets, but before it's over, he actually asks her to marry him.

Yet another body drained of blood with big chomp bites on her neck!

A witness is finally able to give a description of the slayer.

Looks like a vampire to me! Barry Atwater is the vampire known as Janos Skorzeny. Barry Atwater was also in "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street," and was in an episode of "The Outer Limits" called "Corpus Earthling." Barry was the kind of actor that could be in five episodes of "Gunsmoke" as characters with colourful names like Paw Yewker, Harp, Ed Eby, Jesse Daggett and Mr. Bowen.

The vampire needs a lot of blood, and since he can't kill everybody, he sometimes has to make a withdrawal from the local blood bank.

The cops were ready for him this time, but despite getting shot something like 30 times, he still gets away! Maybe Kolchak is onto something with this vampire business.

Another Dungeon hero Elisha (House On Haunted Hill, The Black Zoo) Cook Jr. has a small part as Mickey Crawford.

How many times can they catch this guy, and how many times can he possibly get away? The opportunities are endless!

Just like in the tale of "The Ripper," Kolchak discovers where the villain lives, and decides to go it on his own, but this time he comes armed to the teeth with a crucifix and a wooden stake and mallet!

It's just before dawn, so Kolchak is able to fend him off, and buy himself a little time.

Kolchak is just a reporter, not a policeman, and if they would have just believed him, he wouldn't have found himself in such a precarious predicament!

The sun comes up, and Carl Kolchak has to take business into his own hands!

He gets the story, and feels like this is the one that he will be able to retire on, but instead, the story gets squashed, they send Gail out of town and won't tell him where, and he's told that if he doesn't get out of town immediately, they are going to press murder charges against him.

Sounds about right! What a way to treat a hero!

BEWARE! THE BLOB - Mort Garson/Randy Stonehill - "Son Of The Blob" (1972)

It's not often you get a chance to do back to back blobs, but tonight just happens to be one of those times, now the only thing is I wish they were good blobs, but oh, well, you can't have your blob and eat it too! So, for a couple of days, this is the "Official Blob Blog," unless of course Deb over at the WFMU Ichiban blog gets the same notion, so without further adieu, and as The Routers would say, "Let's Go" with "Beware! The Blob!"

So just what the Hell do we got going on here anyway? Godfrey Cambridge as Chester Hargis has just returned from the frozen wastelands and brought home with him a sealed container he found, and his stupid wife has taken it out of the freezer and set it on the kitchen counter. Guess what? The Blob's inside! That's it, might as well, go to The End, because that's the story..........

.......But there are a few details I neglected to mention! Chester's cat and his wife and himself have all paid the ultimate price for stupidity, and without a doubt, the Price ain't Right! They've also unleashed The Blob again! The beginning is really cool, with Chester watching TV, and Ed McMahon doing his "Daughter Of Horror"("Dementia") narration from the film that was on the movie screen during the theatre scene in the original "Blob," before he gets it himself! Executive producer and co-writer Jack Harris was also the producer of the original 1958 classic "The Blob!" I think it's kind of an homage to himself, in a blatant attempt to create another cult classic! It should come as no surprise that Jack Harris had bought the rights to "Dementia" also!

This couple are the main two characters that the story revolves around, Robert Walker as Bobby Hartford, and Gwynne Gilford as Lisa Clark! Robert Walker was "Ensign Pulver" in the 1964 movie "Ensign Pulver," he was in "Easy Rider," and in 1974 he had the role of Edgar Allen Poe in the "The Spectre Of Edgar Allen Poe!" Gwynne was in "Fade To Black" and "Masters Of The Universe!" They both also did a ton of TV shows over the years!

The abundance of talent in "Beware! The Blob" is beyond amazing, and a veritable Who's Who of 70's Pop Culture but, for all right wing nuts and porpoises, es macht nichts! Where else to start than with Tiger Joe Marsh? Tiger Joe was the World Heavyweight Wrasslin' Champ in 1937, and was the model for the iconic Mr. Clean! Shall I stop there, do you want to submit already?

Too bad, no quitters allowed! That's Dick(108 episodes of "Eight Is Enough")Patten there as the scoutmaster holding the toilet paper roll! Do you really need to know why? Dick's still working today!

This is the amazing comedian and actor Shelley Berman as the annoying hair stylist! Shelley was also the stoned hep cat leaning up against the wall in "Dementia!" Is it all starting to make sense now? Shelley is also still working today!

Even Bono is here in his first ever performance, no, actually it's Del Close as the one-eyed bum! Del Close was one of the original Merry Pranksters, and a big proponent of improvisation, which brings me to another subject, improv! There are many scenes in "Beware! The Blob" where it is pretty obvious the director just said roll camera, and the actors did what people do, just ad lib! Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, that's just the nature of that nasty little beast!

And when you've got actors like Burgess Meredith on board, why bother wasting a script on them? If for nothing else, Burgess Meredith will always be held in adoration for his 21 episodes of "Batman" as The Penguin!

I'm bound to leave out somebody, but it won't be Carol ("Blue Denim"-"Hound Dog Man"-"Pleasure Seekers") Lynley or Larry (The Father of Christian Rock Music) Norman! Carol is still around today, but Larry isn't!

The guy in the ape suit was Gerrit Graham in only his third role! Gerrit was also Beef in "Phantom Of The Paradise," Freddie in "Tunnel Vision," and Stanley Putterman in "Terrorvision" just to name a few!

I'll stop here with none other than Cindy ("Laverne and Shirley") Williams and Randy Stonehill, another Christian Rocker, who can be heard performing "Captain Coke" as Cindy tokes away! They're in a drainage tunnel because the acoustics sound groovy in there! Everything in this movie is bassackwards, the stoners are all straightedge, no wonder it's not right!

The cops end up getting it!

The kids almost get it, but miraculously escape!!

The smart-ass guy in the monkey suit gets it!!

And even the manager of the bowling alley gets it before it's over!

The main theme for "Beware! The Blob" was written by Mort Garson, who in 1963 penned the #1 hit for Ruby and the Romantics, "Our Day Will Come!" As you will hear, Mort was also a moog synthesizer freak and released one of the strangest LP's of 1967 entitled "The Zodiac: Cosmic Sounds-Celestial Counterpoint with Words and Music." I'm pretty sure I still have a copy somewhere!

Many of The Blob scenes are shot from the POV of The Blob itself, and The Blob doesn't even have any eyes, so how is that supposed to work?

Last but not least, the Sheriff was played by Richard Webb! Richard knows a lot about authority, because he was Captain Midnight in 39 Episodes of "Captain Midnight," and he was also Deputy Chief Don Jagger in 29 episodes of "Border Patrol!"

"Beware! The Blob" was directed by that oh so famous "Dallas" maverick, none other that J.R. himself, Larry Hagman! If it looks like TV, and it smells like TV, maybe it should have been a TV sit-com, then it might have made more sense! Never a quitter, Jack Harris would indeed bring back "The Blob" in 1988!!!