THE 3 WORLDS OF GULLIVER / Columbia Pictures - 1960

It's another Monsterous Monday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. Ray Harryhausen worked on THE 7th VOYAGE OF SINBAD prior to Gulliver, MYSTERIOUS ISLAND would come next. This famous Jonathan Swift story's about Dr. Lemuel Gulliver, a bored man with ideas of leaving his small village to persue bigger dreams. He takes a boat to India but during a storm he's washed off the deck and ends up on an island inhibitated by tiny people. The next place he visits has giant people, so, in the three worlds of Gulliver he's normal sized, a giant and a mini man.

Eegah!! sent over this very musical soundclip by composer Bernard Herrmann from the movie, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button over there next to the giant amoeba, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula! Here's our audio offering for... THE 3 WORLDS OF GULLIVER!

Kerwin (JACK THE GIANT KILLER) Mathews plays Gulliver, Jo (13 GHOSTS) Morrow plays his befuddled fiance, Gwendolyn. Has a ring to it, Gwendolyn and Gulliver...

This is probably the most famous scene from the story. What strikes me here is that he's on the beach, laying on sand, I don't think those ropes or stakes would really do anything to prevent him from easily getting up!

Gulliver becomes a popular giant among men, he can be very helpful when it comes to doing the big jobs!

He even prevents a war by scaring off the invaders and towing away their war boats!

In celebrating their victory, the lil' ones do their own version of a hat dance!

After leaving the land of little people, he lands on the shore of giant people! Lo and behold, Gwendolyn is already there, living in her own doll palace!

Gwen and Gull are attacked by this oversized squirrel, he's saved when the little girl that found him drops her pig-tail into the hole he's trapped in!

The movie just wouldn't be complete without this giant chess set.

Gulliver's captors turn on him and he has to do battle with this big ol' mean as Hell gator!

Gulliver and Gwendolyn escape and it's a harrowing adventure until they can barely get away. That's them in the basket.

Luckily, they make it back to the land of normal sized junk!!

MOST DANGEROUS MAN ALIVE - Louis Forbes - "The Steel Monster" (1961)

Well, here we are winding down this 2012 Halloween Countdown, and for this Wednesday night's weirdness, I've got a little known jewel for you from 1961 called "Most Dangerous Man Alive!" I like this film a lot, it's simple, gritty, and effective!

As the film gets rolling, Ron Randell as Eddie Candell has just managed to escape on his way to the big house! Aussie born Ron was in a string of  "B' movies, played the Police Lieutenant in "The She Creature" and was Henderson James in the "Outer Limits" episode titled "The Duplicate Man!"

Ron's character in this film, Eddie Candell, was at the top of his hoodlum game, when he got framed by his associates for a murder he didn't commit!

Even the darling Debra Paget as Linda Marlow turned against him, committed perjury, and testified in court that Eddie was the one who did the dirty deed! Debra was also in "From Earth To The Moon," "The Haunted Palace," and the upcoming "Tales Of Terror!"

After escaping, Eddie is wandering around aimlessly when he blindly stumbles onto a nuclear test site, and is exposed to a bunch of radiation! These two shots are as seen through the bunker window!

"Most Dangerous Man Alive" is chock full of talent, like this pairing of Morris Ankrum, and Tudor Owen as the cop and the doctor scientist! With some 265 titles to his credit, Dungeon Hall of Famer Morris Ankrum just might hold the record for being in the most actual classic Sci-Fi and "Monster" movies, I'm talking titles like "Rocketship X-M," "Flight To Mars," "Red Planet Mars," "Invaders From Mars," "Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers," "Kronos," "Beginning Of The End," "The Giant Claw," "Half Human," "Giant From The Unknown," and "How To Make A Monster!"  No slacker himself, Tudor Owen was in "Jack The Giant Killer," (musical version coming up next month) and in the "Twilight Zone" episode called "No Time Like The Past," he played the Captain of "Lusitania!"

Since Eddie's been out of the picture, Anthony Caruso as Andy Damon has taken over the gang and is the guy calling all the shots! He's also sleeping with Linda Marlow! Out of his 248 credits, Tony Caruso didn't have a lot of horror in his portfolio, but if the studios need somebody that looked Italian, Latino, Native American, Arab, or some other darker ethnic persuasion, his was the number they would call!

Now that Eddie has escaped, Linda just knows he's going to come and kill her, but Damon won't let her run away, so she tries drowning her sorrows in alcohol!

Eddie finally shows up, and the guys pump about 10 or 12 slugs into him, and since the gang doesn't know what happened to him, they don't understand why bullets won't phase him, they just know they don't like it!

Eddie turns to ex-girlfriend Elaine Stewart as Carla Angelo for some truth and understanding, and a place to hide out!

It's pretty easy to see why Eddie was so taken with Carla, in the October 1959 issue of Playboy, Elaine Stewart had a pictorial spread that included racy photos like this!

Meanwhile, the gang is hanging out, playing cards, and playing the piano, and the girls are dancing to keep busy! The cool piano music in "Most Dangerous Man Alive" was written by five time Oscar nominated composer Louis Forbes! Louis was the music director for "Gone With The Wind" and was the composer of the soundtracks for "The Bat," and "From Earth To The Moon!"

Since they can't shoot him, Damon gets the bright idea to slip a rope around Eddie's neck when he shows up, and push him out an upper story window!

But being a man of steel, it is no problem for Eddie to turn the tables, and push these two cheap thugs out the window instead, where they plummet to their death!!

My favorite part of the whole movie is that despite everything, including having his shirt ripped to shreds by that explosion, Eddie never takes off his tie! Never, not once!!! It just proves what a dapper character he is, I guess, but I think it's hilarious!!

Still fearing for her life, Linda Marlow makes one last desperate attempt at calming Eddie down!!

And Damon and the gang try one last frantic attempt to eliminate Eddie by shocking him with 10,000 watts of electricity, but of course that is unsuccessful too! It just pisses him off more!!

Finally, the authorities figure out that the only way they can eliminate Eddie is to break out the freakin' flamethrowers!!!! One last interesting note, one of the writer's of the original story called "The Steel Monster" was the original vampire cowboy actor, Michael (Curse Of The Undead) Pate!

The flamethrowers work for some reason, I guess because they needed to end the movie!
Great little film, catch it if you ever get half a chance!!!

5 AGAINST THE HOUSE - "Life Of The Party" (1955)

Welcome to "What A Cast Wednesday" in The Dungeon! 

Tonight's feature is called "5 Against The House!" Tricky title, but not exactly what the movie's about, but then that would be splitting hairs!

"5 Against The House" has a Dungeon all-star cast without a doubt starting with Guy Madison! Good lookin' Guy Madison was born outside of Bakersfield, California in a little hole in the wall called Pumpkin Center. Some 95 years later, the place has done nothing but shrank, and is almost non-existent today! The following year after this film was made, Guy would be in two classic movies, "The Beast Of Hollow Mountain," and "On The Threshold Of Space!"

Kerwin Mathews would go on to be Captain Sinbad, Gulliver, and Jack the Giant Killer in the 60's!

From the 60's to the 90's, Brian Keith wasn't just on, but was the star of at least six television shows ranging from "Family Affair" to "Walter and Emily!!"

Alvy Moore provides the lame comic relief! Alvy was in almost every TV show ever made in the 60's including the "Twilight Zone" episode called "Showdown With Rance McGrew as 'The Man On The Stool!'

And the icing on the cake is Kim Novak in her 4th film! I'm only got one word to say about Kim, "Vertigo!" Unlike all the male stars of this film, Kim is still around and will be celebrating her 85th birthday on February 13th of next year!

To this day, Reno still claims to be the "biggest little city in the world," and I guess it's pretty hard to dispute since there are no real parameters to that declaration!

 "5 Against The House" is just fun to watch as a period piece! To say that casinos have really changed over the years would be a huge understatement!

If these college kids look it a little olde to you, you have to remember that this is set after the war!

 

Kim absolutely kills this song called.....
"Life Of The Party"
Too bad she's not really singing it. The real vocals are by big band vocalist Jo Ann Greer, who was 'the ghost singer' in a handful of other movies too!

The guys think her performance is heaven on earth, and don't really care if it's her singing or not!!

Cool looking shoebox!

Nice frame! Reminds me of "The Graduate"

 

Just like Rio or New Orleans, Reno is having their big annual celebration and everybody in town dresses up like cowboys, so it gives the guys a perfect reason to wear disguises so they can pull off this caper! That's William (The Killers) Conrad on the right as the casino worker! Besides being "Cannon" and "The Fatman," Bill Conrad had a huge career as a narrator on TV shows like "Rocky And His Friends," "The Fugitive," "Tales Of The Unexpected," "Buck Rogers In The 25th Century" etc etc!

Drugs, Smokes, and Show, what more could you possibly need?

The author of the original story, a gentleman known as Jack Finney, also wrote perennial favourite, "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers!"