GOG / Ivan Tors Production in 3-D / 1954 / music by Harry Sukman

Tabonga here!.. Tonights we have metal and rivets gone berserk... "Science is never frightening, Miss Merritt." 

 

Great artwork! This show that music dude have umlaut, so not pronounced "Suck, man!" Bu

t, this is theme for PSYCHO KILLER ROBOTS??!!! What gives?!.. GOG's THEME?

 This how they test windshield wipers in 1950s!! 

 

Everybloody want to get into act!.. Flick shot at real Air Force base! 

 

At least doctor and Tabonga have two things in common!... 

 

Whoa, Escheresque!! 

 

'80s New Wave Dude can't get 'Thingama-bob' tuned!!.. AND, NOW SMOKING!!! 

 

Patty Duke dad get paid $250 for two day work!.. Hey, not really get killed, just acting! 

 

GOG take on anyone, anywhere, anytime!! 

 

Uh, oh... Not bad enuf, there is also woman driver robot MAGOG! Look, she already crash into GOG!!

 Good night, everybloody... Blue cosmic dreams!

ROBOT MOVIES OF THE FIFTIES!!

Here's a look at the movies from the fifties that have robots in them. Up to that point the robots were more goofy and awkward looking than anything, but, in the fifties that all changed... Thank you lord!

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL from 1951 is our first entry. Gort changed the game, his giant presence and futuristic look was a thrill and a half for all the kids back then!

It's almost unbelievable that ROBOT MONSTER from 1953 was shot in 3-D, it seems that the bubbles from the million bubble machine were the main focus of the 3-D effect! But, there's nothing quite like this movie, wow, what an acid trip!

TARGET EARTH from 1954 was a strange little flick, although there's supposed to be an invasion of robots, they only made one robot for the production! Great poster though.

TOBOR THE GREAT came out in 1954, I love this movie, Tobor was a masterpiece of design by the Republic studios. My favorite part is when the spies try to enter the grounds and our heroes turn on the battle attack soundtrack with strobe lights to disorient the intruders!

DEVIL GIRL FROM MARS also came out in 1954, this time, our invaders land in the English countryside to spread terror. Her robot's name is Chanti, and, it has a penchant for disintegrating things!

GOG come out in 1954 and was shot in color. Gog and Magog were robots like no other, designed to help out in the lab with an array of deadly features!

Ahh, my favorite fifties movie. FORBIDDEN PLANET from 1956 featured the greatest robot, Robby, he was a ton of fun! I saw this and the remaining titles at the theater at the time, how freakin' lucky was I...

KRONOS hit the screen in 1957, I'm telling you that seeing this thing at the time was totally amazing. Everything about the movie kept my interest, and, freaked me out a little, too!

Loved THE INVISIBLE BOY from 1957, they brought back Robby for another exciting kids' movie, this time he's controlled by a machine taken over by aliens!

COLOSSUS OF NEW YORK in 1958 was another terrific movie, man, the robot was mind blowing. Of course, he turns evil and must be destroyed at the end. And, we've also reached the end of the post! Tune in Wednesday for more cool junk from the Dungeon Gang...

WITHOUT WARNING - "The Story Without A Name" (1952)

 This Saturday Night Special was a muchly appreciated recommendation from KD, and lucky for me and you, I was able to find a decent copy of it on YouTube to watch!

 "Without Warning" might seem like one long 77 minute public service announcement...........
............ but it's a really good one!

 There's basically two ways to do this. People are getting killed and the time in the movie is spent trying to figure out who is doing it, or you've got people getting killed, you know who the killer is, and the movie is about seeing how long it takes them to get caught!

"Without Warning" falls into the latter category, as you are introduced to the killer in the first few minutes!  

This particular killer has a bit of a unique modus operandi, he uses a pair of garden shears!

The grisly murder is  in all the headlines!

In the meantime, the cops start a manhunt!

 No, it wasn't the milkman who did it!

 Then all the weirdos come out and start confessing to murders they didn't commit! One idiot goes nuts choking that doll to demonstrate how he murdered the girl! (He was too stupid to know she was stabbed to death!)

 The geniuses in the lab helped with a lot of the investigative work back then!

 So here he is! He's a normal enough guy for being a gardener!

Adam Williams as Carl Martin was a staple on TV for three decades and was on "Science Fiction Theatre," "Thriller," "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," and two episodes of "The Twilight Zone," "A Most Unusual Camera," and "The Hitch-Hiker."

 Carl Martin spots himself another possible victim! We don't know much about why he does what he does, but we do know he likes blondes!

 So here's the message to all the beautiful young women in the world, don't trust strangers, even if you are a two-bit floozie, because something really bad might happen to you if you're not careful about the kind of people you hang out with!

 Well, she was not listening very good at all!

 He takes her where all guys go on their first date!

Like Nowhere'sville Daddy-O!

What did I tell you?

Angela (Creature With The Atom Brain) Stevens gets credit as the 'blonde!'

 The two cops investigating the case are played by Edward Binns who was also in two "Twilight Zone" episodes, "I Shot An Arrow Into The Air," and "The Long Morrow," on the left. On the right is Harland (Donovan's Brain, The Monster That Challenged The World) Warde!

The plan is to send out all these blonde gals out to the local dives, and see if they can flush out this creep! Of course, they will all each be closely watched by a plain clothes cop for safety!

 Marilee (The Rifleman, Rawhide) Phelps is the next potential victim!

Adam does a good job of being a lying sleazeballl!

 It looks like they are finally going to catch this bastard, and then he notices he's being followed!

 This time he leaves a weird clue, a steel suppository!

 Byron Kane is the Police chemist. 

What he's doing here is actually making a cup of coffee!

Byron was not only an actor, but he was also the associate producer of the "Peter Gunn" TV series. He was in "Gog," "The Monster That Challenged The World," and "The Twilight Zone" episode titled "From Agnes - With Love."

 Sure made me wonder where they found this ramshackle shack overlooking the highway that they used as Carl Martin's home!

 When they finally catch the rotten sumbitch, well, that's the end of the story!

 See you in Hell Carl, you piece of garbage!

 

  "Without Warning" has got an awesome cast, a swingin' soundtrack, and here's the place where you can watch it,

Para Nada, Gratis, like Free, so why not?

BLACK ANGEL - Fairchild/Brooks - "I Want To Be Talked About" (1946)

I have a lot of Mexican friends named Angel, but this is the first "Black Angel" I ever met, and if you like an excellent film noir with great music, then do yourself a favour, and track yourself down a copy of this film! I give you my written guarantee that the only regret you'll have, is not having seen it sooner!!

If you live on a steady diet of monster movies, there's a good chance that some excellent actors are going to get missed out on! I don't know, Dan Duryea was never a character who stood out in my mind, but after watching this film, he'll never be anonymous in my brain again! This guy can act! He did have the main role as Al Denton on the "Twilight Zone" episode "Mr. Denton on Doomsday," besides 114 other roles that included 59 episodes on one of the first nightime soap operas "Peyton Place" as Eddie Jacks! In "Black Angel" his character is drunken but very talented songwriter Martin Blair!

June Vincent was the actual reason I searched out "Black Angel" after I watched her killer performance as Marcellina in the recently reviewed "The Climax," and the neat thing is, what a great idea that was! Born Dorthy June Smith, this gal is a keeper!! Her character in this film is Catherine Bennett!

Then when I found out that Peter Lorre was also in "Black Angel," that's when it became a complete no brainer!!! Has Peter Lorre ever been in a bad movie? I sincerely doubt it! And as PC as it isn't, Peter literally smokes his way through this whole movie!

I try to keep this down to about 30 pictures or less, but for this movie I had at least 50 I wanted to use! Is this not beautiful or what?

Martin's ex old lady is Constance Dowling as singer Mavis Marlowe! The only horror film Constance was ever in was "Gog!" Mavis is one of those kinds of people who has her own portrait on her dresser! Mavis is also murdered this night in time!!

Two of the guys that would be seen at the scene that night were Mavis's ex, Martin, and creepy club owner Marko!

Classic "Highway Patrol" Broderick Crawford will be the guy investigating the whole mess! About this same era, my buddy Whitey Thomas and Broderick would go out drinking in Hollywood, and pretend to get into fights with each other just for fun! What a gas! Me and Tabonga did that same thing behind the teacher's desk in the 8th grade, and we got two week's detention for it, not to mention the extra week we got for talking in detention!

Martin was madly in love with Mavis, and had written hit songs for her, but that just wasn't good enough for a woman, who, in the vernacular, would be commonly referred to as a female dog, or a bitch!

Enter into the scene one of Mavis's dumbshit lovers that she was blackmailing, John Phillips as Kirk Bennett! John was on the set of a couple of cool films, as Matt in "Superman And The Mole Men," and as a detective in "Francis And The Haunted House," and "How To Make A Monster!" Murder Scene Rule Number One, if there's a gun, DON'T TOUCH IT STUPID!! Too late!!

Well, you can see where this is going real fast! Kirk Bennet is on a fast track to the death chamber!

Catherine turns to Martin for help, and they conspire together to figure out who killed his ex-wife if it wasn't her husband!

Because Martin also saw Marko that night, and because Marko is a very shady character, they go to his club "Rio's" to check the whole scene out!

It just so happens that Marko is auditioning new acts for his club, so in an effort to get closer to the man, Martin cleverly whips out some new tunes, and lo and behold, Catherine is a great singer too! June didn't really sing in "The Climax," but here it's actually her voice singing the Edgar Fairchild/Jack Brooks piece titled, "I Want To Be Talked About!" Jeez, Edgar Fairchild wrote the classic "I Can't Get You Out Of My Mind," and Jack Brooks is responsible for Dino's classic "That's Amore!" Two songs I just have to think about, and it's just like dropping the needle on a platter!

Apologies to Steve Martin, but compared to the talents of this annoying banjo player, Martin and Catherine's act is an enormous breath of fresh air! The banjo player is Wally Webb in his only big screen appearance!

You almost forgot this was a murder mystery, didn't you? Martin and Catherine are an overnight sensation!!

Martin quit drinking ever since he met Catherine, and he's not feeling too bad about himself right at this moment! Suddenly he's at the top of the world again, liquor cabinet or not!

Reality check! And this is what's so great about this film! The new couple is successful and basically in love, but they cannot forget what the original purpose of their meeting was, to stop an innocent man from being executed!

Besides movies and music, one of the other favourite things we dig down here in The Dungeon is the sweet science known as boxing! And just to prove that tough guys need milk, here's former Middleweight Champion of the world Freddie Steele in the role of Lucky, the manager of Marko's club! I have this conversation every day, MMA fighters are a bunch of wussies compared to the real fighters of the past! Check it, Freddie's record was 125 wins with 60 KOs, 5 losses, 11 draws, and 1 No Contest! That's more grueling fights than 10 or 15 of your best MMA fighters combined! Talk about No Contest!!

Here's a Freddy Steele card from my personal collection!

As Robert Palmer would later say, "Lookin' For Clues," but unfortunately Catherine gets busted! Peter just keeps on smoking! The Big Problem is Marko didn't commit the murder, so all this time and effort spent on trying to get information is for naught!

Such a shame, under different circumstances, it could have been so good!

Catherine remains true to her husband, and Martin returns to the bottle, it's probably one of the saddest love stories on record! Good thing it was only a movie!

Sorry, Time Won't Tell, and neither will I!!