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?

AGENTE 3S3: PASSAPORTO PER l'INFERNO - Piero Umiliani - "Agent 3S3: Passport To Hell" (1965)

Time for some more mid-week madness, and another one of those 60's Italian secret agent movies you all love so much! Welcome to another installment of What Else Are You Doing Anyway Wednesday, down in The Dungeon!

Some secrets should remain secret, and that's just what we got going on here!

Kill a woman in a trenchcoat to retrieve this microfilm!

That Agent 3S3 is one Helluva tough guy!

 A Small strip of litmus paper keeps him from drinking any poison beverages!

On the Beach!!

Dead Guy!! Mr. C I believe!

The music in this thrillfest is by one of the kings of spy and secret agent movies, Mr. "Mah Nà Mah Nà" himself, Piero Umiliani, and the title song "Let Me Free" is sung by Edith Peters, an actress who wasn't really known as a singer, and who is also, interestingly enough, not in this movie!

 Make it into a drinking game! Get this movie from Cult Action, and every time there's a closeup, you have to take a drink! With beer, you'll probably make it to the end of the movie, with tequila, probably not!

 Phone's ringing, but I don't wanna get up!!

 Ear piece monitoring device way ahead of it's time!

 Stinky dead guy Mr. A. has been dead for a year!

Sneaky cameras monitor everything!  Lots of people being watched by the people that are watching those who are also being watched by the other watchers!

 Broach with a broadcast signal gets lonely ride in the back seat of a car!

 Leg up leg show!

 

Tricky makeup case shoots dangerous poison darts into the jugular vein of it's victim!

Suddenly it's a 1950's sitcom!

 I will shoot your ass, and you will be dead, and the world will be a safe place to live once again!

This is The End, my friends!

OPERAZIONE POKER - Piero Umiliani - "Nice Pair" (1965)

Roger Browne was off my radar at first because he was mostly a 'Sword and Sandal' guy for years, but after watching a couple of his spy guy films like this, I'm starting to really like the guy, and that brings us to tonight's feature, "Operation Poker!" The instrumental genius once again responsible for the swingin' swanky music is the "Mah Na Mah Na" man himself, the Maestro Piero Umiliani! What a phenomenon!

This is pretty interesting, the word operation is seen here four times, with four different spellings! Operation, Operacion, Operazione, and Operatie, but no matter what language you're talking in, Poker is still Poker! The universal way to lose your ass!

Not exactly Tex Ritter's "Downtown Poker  Club!"

So here he is, Roger Browne as secret agent S1-14, aka Glen Foster on the prowl! Don't know why, for some reason on IMDB, they have his name as Glenn Forest.

This is a unique way to get your girl to go with you, knock her out cold! I've watched this a couple of times now, and I'm still not sure why he did it!

The heartbreaking Helga Liné is Diane, Glen Foster's girlfriend! Yabba Dabba Doo!!

Suddenly people like this agent start dying in all kinds of strange ways! There was a trip wire hooked up to the accelerator pedal and I'm not sure he didn't get shot right square in the crotch!

And this woman is always round whenever it happens!! Carla Calò aka Carol Brown as the twisted Russian agent responsible for all the executions!

Then every once in a while when the sub-titles kick in for a few minutes, you get stuff like this, arguably the worst pickup line of all time!

Here's a little scene featuring one of the best gadgets I've seen in a while! When Glen hits the button, the whole ass end of this '56 Chevy ejects, and the would-be assassin is thrown over a cliff to his well deserved death!

There's way too much going on in "Operation Poker" for me to try and attempt to explain much, and it's awfully twisted too. Glen's got his girlfriend Diane, and he's got orders to get friendly with this Austrian Ambassador's daughter Helga! They are both beautiful and to me can look very similar at times, and if that's not bad enuf, Diane's played by Helga Liné, and Helga is played by José Greci! It would have been a whole lot easier if Helga could have been Helga!

Glen gets some good help from his muscleman pal Omar as played by Bob Messenger (Roberto Messina)!

I'm not sure, but this might be the first time I've ever seen somebody in a fight scene put a real piledriver on his opponent! Roberto is pretty tough!

 

"Operation Poker" is supposed to be set in Malaga, London, Vienna, Geneva, Copenhagen, and Casablanca, but I think it was all filmed in Spain and Italy. This looks like North Korea's vision of the future!

 

Omar gets shot in the back, and you think it's curtains for him, but as you can see, he's doing fine!

Glen finally gets to the root of the problem. This is the device that enables his poker playing friend Parker to win all the time, and is also why the Russians, Chinese, and Vietnamese are all at each other's throats!

When this little x-ray camera hidden in a tie clasp is combined with a special pair of contact lenses, the wearer is enabled to see through not only cards, but walls!

Naturally Glen Foster puts them to good use immediately!

The reason that selfies never existed until just a few years ago, was that it was something that was virtually impossible to do with a camera like this!

The bonus feature is you get a free mini-tour of the Tuborg Brewery!

The last laugh is on the pig in the tank that these three are peering in on!

I just had to add this other version of the poster for it's classical use of four aces! "Operation Poker" is a winning hand in a world of mediocre jacks or better, and the jokers are wild! Where's the place to find it? Cult Action, or The Trash Palace, Of Course! Actually, just go ahead and get one from each place, and give one to friend! They'll love you forever!