THE SPACE CHILDREN / Paramount Pictures - 1958

Welcome to Monster Monday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. We have a unique little blob flick directed by Jack (THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN) Arnold that I actually saw when it came out. It's all about an alien intelligence that aborts a rocket launching with the help of children. This is a redo of a post we did back in June, 2008.

Although a nice poster for the kids, I consider this kind of sci-fi artwork just plain weak.

The music's by Van Cleave, Van also worked on these projects.. THE LEMON DROP KID, A PLACE IN THE SUN, THE CADDY, SCARED STIFF, THE COURT JESTER, LIL' ABNER and THE BELLBOY. This is one of my very favorite sci-fi themes from the fifties!

Letz bring in our fuzzy little fiend and button pusher, Ralphie The Tarantula!.. Ralphie's here to start the show, so, push the big red 'GO' button there by the coin-operated atomic dish washer, now, Ralphie! Here's the theme from... THE SPACE CHILDREN!

It stars Peggy (THE SCREAMING SKULL) Webber, Johnny (VILLAGE OF THE GIANTS) Crawford, Michel (LAWRENCE OF ARABIA) Ray and Adam (FEAR STRIKES OUT) Williams. Get this, Michel Ray quit acting in 1964, was a member of the 1968 UK Olympic Ski Team, then inherited over 50% of the Heineken Beer empire in 2002!

The family's trailer house interior was THE LONG, LONG TRAILER set! Saw that one in '53, we all loved Lucy at our place!

All the dads are working on a secret rocket program, where, the kids can walk right up and take a good look at what's going on!

Here's the lil' brain blob from space coming in for a landing, you can barely make it out there in the beam.

Wow, Russell (IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE) Johnson plays one of the biggest ass holes!! It's kinda hard to watch him at times.

The little bitty brain beckons it's mini minions...

Numbnuts here tries to smash the thing with a rock and gets paralyzed for his effort!

Russell plays Joe Gamble. Anyway, Joe gets what's comin' to him and has to go away for awhile. Check it out, he was going to wallop his stepson with that freakin' branch!!

Dad sneaks into the cave to see what's causing his kids to act against his authority. But, of course!

So, dad spills the beans to the military about the mysterious brain from space.

Jackie (MESA OF LOST WOMEN) Coogan plays Hank Johnson, he catches his daughter, Eadie, having a little telephathic chat with her new friend. Eadie's played by Sandy Descher, the little girl wandering around in the desert in THEM!

Ever since the kids have been bringing the thing McDonalds, it's really been putting on the pounds!

Nice looking composite shot!

The brain causes the rocket to fizzle out before it can cause the forseen damage it predicted.

The kids stand in defiance as the military shows up, ready to take care of the thing in the cave their way, deep six.

Although this scene where the organism takes off is definitely surrealistic, it looks sooo bad when the hard shadows are cast onto the matte painting in the background!

The big brainy blob shoots back into space, from where it came... I'll let you figure out your own analogy.

SOME NEAT ALBUM COVERS FROM MOVIES & TV SHOWS (1956 - 1987)

The original concept of this blog was to be 'music from the monster movies,' so I think it's about time I showed you some of the record soundtrack album covers to go along with some of those movies! Welcome to The Dungeon! Up first from 1956, is the wild electronic soundtrack by Louis and Bebe Barron for one of the best movies of all time, "Forbidden Planet." As cool and ahead of it's time as this music was, it's still hard for me to imagine anybody taking this record home and listening to it over and over. It was perfect for the movie, but it's just not that kind of music!

I was going to strictly do records from movies we've written about here, but I'm making the exception for these two "Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer" records, just because it's Mickey Spillane we're talking about here, not some ordinary chump!!

 "The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad" from 1958 had a magnificent score by Bernard Herrmann!

"I Married A Monster From Outer Space" came out in 1958, but this 'soundtrack' CD wasn't released until 2012. I still included it here since it's one of our favourite movies!

This LP was a 1964 release of music from the TV series "Burke's Law." The double entendre here is that the composer's name was Herschel Burke Gilbert. Tricky, right?

Piero Umiliani was a gifted composer we have featured here many times, and I'm sure this 1965 album for the movie "Operazione Poker" is a swingin' affair! Five aces in the deck, you gotta love it!

"The Satan Bug" came out in 1965, but this hard to find CD by Jerry Goldsmith wasn't released until 2007.

This fantastic record of music by Peter Thomas for the German Space Patrol, "Raumpatrouille" was released in 1966. I'm pretty sure that autographed CD's can still be purchased from BSC Music for a very reasonable price.

This seven inch 45 from 1966 by Nelson Riddle featured the "Batman Theme" written by Neal Hefti from the "Batman" TV series, and the flip side was another composer play on words, called "Nelson's Riddler!"

In 1967 "Bedazzled" came out, and this soundtrack LP came out the following year. Most of the music for the movie was composed by Dudley Moore himself. What a talented guy he was!

This is the cover for a 2016 vinyl LP they released of the 1967 film "Mad Monster Party" featuring music composed by Maury Lewis and Jules Bass, with some spoken word from Boris Karloff, and the title song sung by Ethel Ennis as can be heard right here!

This 1968 soundtrack from "Danger: Diabolik" is composed by Maestro Ennio Morricone and features the awesome song "Deep Down."

The prolific Bruno Nicolai is another Italian composer we've featured on these pages a number of times! This 1972 LP featured the music from the film "All The Colors Of The Dark!"

This CD for the 1973 film "The Satanic Rites Of Dracula" composed by John Cacavas, came back from the dead in 2011.

Sun Ra and his amazing Intergalactic Solar Arkestra came out with this movie and record called "Space Is The Place" in 1974, and is a must-see for any true fan of music!

"Suspiria" from 1977 is a Dario Argento movie we haven't got around to yet, but I wanted to include this cover just because I like the "Creepers" band called Goblin!

"The Monster Club" came out in 1981, with this very fun and listenable soundtrack featuring B.A. Robertson, The Viewers, Night, UB-40, Expressos. The Pretty Things, John Williams with the Douglas Gamely Orchestra, John Georgiadis, and Alan Hawkshaw!

Last but not least comes "Evil Dead II" from 1987, and music from Joseph Lo Duca!

Pretty Crazy, huh?