THE BEAT GENERATION - "Way-Out Parties Beyond Belief!" (1959)

Tonight's Saturday Night Special is the result of my reinvigorated interest in Vampira and her very cool career, and the path led me here, because in 1959 Albert Zugsmith, produced four movies that were all very fascinating for a number of reasons, but what I found most interesting was how they used a large number of the same actors in all four movies (Ala Roger Corman), and then each film also had it's own group of other special individuals.

Let me try and explain.
No slouch in the production department, Albert Zugsmith had already produced three of my favorite movies, "Written On The Wind," "The Incredible Shrinking Man," and "Touch Of Evil," before this, and in 1958 he produced "High School Confidential," starring Russ Tamblyn, but also in the cast were Mamie Van Doren, Ray Anthony, Jackie Coogan, Charles Chaplin Jr., and Norman Grabowski who would all be in his next three or four movies too, along with a lot of other notable names like Vampira!

The first movie of the 1959 series was "Night Of The Quarter Moon," and the second one was "The Beat Generation."
The third movie was called "The Big Operator," which I'll tell you more about on Wednesday, and the fourth was called "Girls Town."

So rather than try and explain all the complex intricacies of this movie called "The Beat Generation," I'm just going to introduce you to some of this crazy amazing cast!
Steve Cochran has the lead role in this film, and is the co-star of "The Big Operator."
He was also in the "Twilight Zone" episode titled "What You Need."
At the age of 48, Steve sailed off in his yacht to Guatemala, but died of a lung infection before he ever got there.

 Looking as good as ever, in this film, the versatile Mamie Van Doren plays a slutty tramp, but in "The Big Operator," she's Mrs. Everyday Housewife. She was also in "Girls Town."

 Ray Danton is a nasty serial rapist in this film, and in "The Big Operator," he plays an evil hit man called The Executioner. Personally, I like Ray better when he plays more humorous characters.

Jackie Coogan, aka Uncle Fester, is in three of the four movies. In this one he's a cop, In "The Big Operator," he's a crook!

 At this point in time, no one knew what an impact the cartoon character's of Charles Addams' world would have on pop culture. Did you know that when Maila Nurmi developed her Vampira character, one of her main influences was the wife in The Addams Family cartoons, who at that time, wasn't even known as Morticia yet? 

In "The Beat Generation," Maila was a beat poetess, and in "The Big Operator" she plays a hip gallery owner! She doesn't get enough screen time in either movie in my humble opinion!

 I also find it fascinating that in both movies, she is billed as Vampira. That would be kind of like billing Bela Lugosi as Dracula I think.

 
Trumpet playing band leader Ray Anthony is in all five of Albert Zugsmith's 1958-59 films!
Ray also performed the original theme song in Zugsmith's "The Incredible Shrinking Man."


Famed accordionist from Fresno, Calif, Dick (Daddy-O) Contino is also in "Girls Town."

 Just like me, Albert Zugsmith must have been a big music fan, because all of these films have music in them. Cathy Crosby performs a song in all but
"The Big Operator."

 
Margaret (13 West Street) Hayes was also in "Girls Town."


 Bill Daniels is also in three of the four movies, but he was also better known as a singer!


One of the characters working in all four of the 1959 Zugsmith films was the comedy relief guy Norman Grabowski. Not exactly a household name, Grabowski as they call him, is one of the most important people in this movie, especially to hot rod fans around the world since he was literally the creator of the T-Bucket style of hot rod. He also designed Kookie's hot rod in "77 Sunset Strip." That bit of information makes this pose a lot more understandable! Four to the floor and pedal to the metal!!

That brings us to another category! Charles Chaplin, Jr. was not only in all five of the 1958-59 films, he was also one of many actors used by Albert Zugsmith who were children of other very famous stars, in this case, Charlie Chaplin!


Robert Mitchum's son James or Jim, who has a stunning resemblance to his Dad, was also in "Girls Town!" Not in this movie, but other actors like this are John Drew Barrymore and Harold Lloyd Jr.


Albert Zugsmith either really liked music, or he knew that it really gave a film that extra punch, so when he wasn't using musicians as actors, he was using musicians as musicians, like Louis Armstrong.
In "High School Confidential," there was an appearance by Jerry Lee Lewis, and The Platters show up in "Girls Town."
Also, the main soundtrack for "The Beat Generation" was written by the guy who also did most of the music for Mr. B.I.G., the swingin' Albert Glasser!


And that brings us to a list of all the various and sundry actors and musicians of all ilks who make up the balance of very interesting characters in these movies like Fay (Hercules Conquers Atlantis) Spain!

Irish (Sheena: Queen Of The Jungle) McCalla!

Professional boxer turned actor, Slapsie Maxie Rosenblum! And the list of characters in the five films goes on and on with names like Michael Landon, Nora Hayden, Mel Welles, Julie London, Dean Jones, Agnes Moorehead, Nat 'King' Cole, Frank Gorshin, Mickey Rooney, Mel Torme, Jim Backus, Jay North, Leo Gordon, Paul Anka, Elinor Donahue, Gloria Talbott etc. etc. etc.
If you watch "The Beat Generation" and "The Big Operator" back to back, it can surrealistically seem like it's a continuing story. Steve Cochran quits his job as a cop and divorces Fay Spain, and Steve and Mamie Van Doren get married and have a kid, while Ray Danton goes from serial rapist to hit man, and Vampira never notices any of it because she's way too cool!!

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?

THE NUTTY PROFESSOR - Les Brown - "The Greatest Drink Since Dracula Discovered Bloody Marys" (1963)

Welcome to yet another Saturday Night Special in The Dungeon! Tonight's feature is the classic 1963 adaptation of Robert Lewis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" as portrayed  by one of the most popular guys in France, Jerry Lewis! Pre-ratings, "The Nutty Professor" is like a Disney movie for adults! It's insipidly stupid, but just plain fun to watch!

I watched "The Nutty Professor" a couple of weeks ago and it was the reason I got sidetracked on the whole lengthy film history of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

 The great Jerry Lewis is Professor Julius Kelp, the Dr. Jekyll character in the movie!

 The Professor is trying to get into shape, but the workout is not working out too well!

 In a literal walk through scene, Dungeon Super Hero Richard (Eegah!!) Kiel, strolls through the gym just to set up....

 .........this short but uncomfortable encounter with Julius!!

Without his thick glasses on, Julius bowls over a group of kids he thought were bowling pins and is very excited that he got a strike!

 In the older Dr. Jekyll movies, the transformation would have stopped here, but in the hipper 1963 version, there's time for one more change!

Who shows up after that? The ultra cool Mr. Buddy Love!

 The Hyde character is no killer, but he does have quite an attitude problem! I've often heard that Jerry Lewis wasn't always the nicest guy in the world, and Buddy Love might be a little closer to the real Jerry than the goofball we all grew to love! Comedian/Actor Buddy Lester is the sarcastic bartender feeding it back to him.

 Lucky Jerry gets to have Stella Stevens as his love interest!
Maybe he did the casting himself!

 I think you get the point! The poster besieged me not to give out too much information, so I think I've gone too far already!

 This is a great shot!!

 The music by Les Brown and his Band of Renown swings from start to finish, and makes the party complete! Here's about a minute and a half from the ending credits! Pretty sweet!

 When Mr. Cool Buddy Love's voice starts reverting back to the nerdy squeak of Professor Kelp, the crowd of new and adoring fans are shocked back to their senses when he reveals the truth and changes back completely to his former self!

In an otherwise classic tale, the 1960's nerdy guy wins the gorgeous gal in technicolor with cool music! It's about three bikinis, and two surf bands short of being a beach movie, 

but that's all right with me! I liked it almost as much as when I was fifteen!