THE BIONIC WOMAN - Season 02, Episode 07 - "Black Magic" (1976)

 Tonight's Saturday Night Special is from the 1976 TV show, "The Bionic Woman" starring the beautiful Lindsay Wagner!

 In 1976 I had a black and white TV that got about 3 1/2 channels, so it's a good thing I have friends in Germany like Lord Litter to remind me of what I missed! "The Bionic Woman" is a fine example!

 "Black Magic" was episode number seven from season two of "The Bionic Woman" and has a brilliant cast which makes it really easy to watch!

 Any 1970's television show that was intelligent enough to use the talents of Vincent Price is okay in my book, and in "Black Magic" he even plays more than one character!

 The poor man's Boris Karloff, the always entertaining Abe Vigoda, plays the butler named Barlow. A couple years later and Abe would star in his own detective series called "Fish!"

 Vinnie plays both Manfred and his dying brother Cyrus Carstairs! After Cyrus dies, The family is called together for the reading of the will or what Cyrus considers to be a scavenger hunt, winner take all!

 Besides money, Cyrus also had guv'ment secrets, and now it's up to "The Bionic Woman" aka Jaime Sommers, to make sure they don't fall into the wrong hands! Jaime poses as a hippie/gypsy niece that nobody has seen since she ran off to join the circus 18 years earlier!

 Is that a wolfman hiding in the bushes?

 The Stimson House is a 43,560 sq ft house located at 2421 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90007. It was built in 1891, and has been the location of many a movie!

 Great portrait of Vinnie as Cyrus Carstairs!

 Richard Anderson is Oscar Goldman, "The Bionic Woman's" guiding light! Richard was Chief Quinn in "Forbidden Planet!" What else do you need to know?

 Julie Newmar and Lindsay Wagner together, what, is this some kind of dream come true?

 This great ensemble shot besides Vincent, Julie, Abe, and Lindsay, also includes William Windom as Warfield, and Hermione Baddeley as Aunt Tess! Among his 253 acting credits, William was in two "Twilight Zone" episodes, "Miniature," and "Five Characters In Search Of An Exit!" Hermione worked in film and TV from 1927 to 1985. Pretty damn incredible!

 Cyrus made a video will. Commercial VHS and Beta tapes were being produced for the first time in Japan in 1976 also.

 Vinnie gets to do another bit as Cyrus on tape!

 Is it any wonder that as a teenager I was totally enthralled with Julie Newmar?

 I really like Lindsay as this character too. Her and Julie, it's almost like Mary Ann and Ginger!

 This is just a great shot of Vincent Price at the bottom of the stairs in The Stimson House!

Another great shot of Lindsay! 

 And one last shot of Vincent!

Pretty obvious this is not a normal TV show!

When it's all said and done, the Carstair family ends up at the same restaurant as Jaime and Oscar who are trying to avoid eye contact. The family gets up to join them, and the ending credits roll!

BATMAN - "Minerva, Mayhem, and Millionaires" (1968)

It's the eighth day of The Month of Mayhem, so what better way to celebrate than with the series finale of the "Batman" TV show from 1968!

So what the heck can I say about Batman that hasn't been said a million times before?

This was the last episode of the 60's TV series, and it was titled as you can see, "Minerva, Mayhem And Millionaires."

These people were crazy! The first season had 34 episodes, and in the second season, they cranked out 60 episodes in about seven months! Season three ended here after 26 more episodes! They might have been just a little burned out!

We were raised on Superman and Batman comic books, so when this TV show came on, we were more than ready. It was corny as Hell, but you just had to love it!

I think the Batman TV series was the premiere example of campy crap!

This was Pop Culture at it's finest hour!

This series finale featured a spa where the customers not only got their hair washed, they get their brains washed too, and for free!

Minerva was played by the timeless Goddess Zsa Zsa Gabor. She affixes this gizmo to the customer's head and then they spill the beans as to how to get to their hidden monies!

All she has to do is turn it on, and ask them a question and they will tell her everything she needs to know to be able to easily rob them later!

Don't you love it that this cat still has his shoes and socks on! He deserves to lose all his money to Minerva!

Dungeon Queen and iconic Hungarian beauty Zsa Zsa Gabor passed away at the age of 99 a couple of years back in 2016! From Orson Welles' "Touch Of Evil" to the 1958 classic "Queen Of Outer Space," Zsa Zsa always added something special to the mix! She will never be replaced!

Adam West was Batman, and boy was he good at it!

Most actors can't act like this and get away with it, except maybe The Shat! Adam also passed away not that long ago at the age of 88 in 2017. What a guy!

Minerva's guards and henchmen were William (Grave of the Vampire) Smith as Adonis, Al (Dracula's Dog) Ferrara as Atlas, and Mark (Doomsday Machine) Bailey as Apollo! Yvonne (her only role ever) Arnett is Aphrodite, and the guy in the middle is Jacques (Gigi) Bergerac as Freddie the Fence!

Minerva even lures Bruce Wayne into her lair so she can extract his secrets too!

Great shot! Batman and Robin look like they're going to a Toga party!

What the Holy Hell Batman? They put them in a pressure cooker!

Alfred and Bat Girl get there just in time to save the boys from getting cooked alive like a couple of lobsters!

Well we all know what happened to Batman after this!

The legend and the stories have continued in film on a regular basis for fifty years now, and honestly, I don't think they will ever stop making Batman something or another for the rest of eternity! 

Unless one of these evil thugs finally does him in for good, Batman will outlive us all, and maybe even the roaches too!

AGENTE SEGRETO 777 - INVITO AD UCCIDERE - "Secret Agent 777 - A Ticket To Die" (1966)

This weeks Super Spy Secret Agent feature is what you might call different, so let's get this crazy 7 train rolling with three times more sevens for your money and something that's usually a good thing to see on a slot machine, the cousin of the beast, 777!

It's titled "Agente Segreto 777 - Invito Ad Uccidere" and was released in English as "Secret Agent 777 - A Ticket To Die!" Do you think that the fact that The Beatles had a massive number one hit a year earlier with "Ticket To Ride" had anything to do with it?

This is Tiziano Cortini as Lewis Jordan, Agente 777! Tiziano also acted using the pseudonym Lewis Jordan in most of his credited roles! 777's life is a mess! After 14 years as a spy, he has been drummed out of the ranks because for being medically unfit, and he needs money! He knows that there's a secret formula floating around out there, and he figures if he has it, he can sell it to the highest bidder! There's only one problem, the formula is divided into 3 parts, and he's not quite sure where they all are, but he's got some leads!

He knows the first piece of the puzzle is in this "Van Gogh-like" artiste's studio, so he quickly goes there and shoots the guy and retrieves what he is looking for!

777 is kind of a loose cannon, sure, he's only killing bad guys, but he's being pretty rogue about it, and it's upsetting a lot of the people around him! They must have had some money to burn on this movie, because they destroyed a couple of cars in fiery blazes!

Pretty cool Volkswagen Bus ambulance, but I'm not too sure about the colour of that paint job!!

This is Claudie (Flashman, Crossplot) Lange as Elsie, 777's main squeeze! She seems to have a set of birthmark buttons on her breast that he needs to put in the code in order to enter, or something like that!

Part of the reason 777 needs money is because of his high standard of living! He dwells at the "Excelsior Palace!"  I don't know if I'd call it a palace, but it's a pretty fancy pad!

This guy is spying on 777, and off screen there's an Asian guy spying on this guy!

777 enlists the help of an old buddy, but while the guy is talking to 777 from a phone booth, this giant claws comes down and scoops up the telephone booth he's in and unceremoniously drops it back on the cement where the guy is pronounced dead on the scene!

The secret agent guy bosses tell one of 777's old pals to check up on what he's doing, because they don't trust him. On the left is Umberto (Mr. X) Raho as agent Linus Jericho, but in the English version, his name is Clyde! 777 challenges Clyde to a very intoxicating version of the game normally known as Checkers!

Just like everything else in this movie, they don't exactly explain the rules, but as far as I  can tell, it's like Beer Pong without the ping pong ball! Now that would be a good reference point! Needless to say, Clyde gets exceptionally fucked up, and 777 has to put him to bed, and then he hangs with him, they're that good of friends!

Here's one thing you'll never see James Bond do, pop a pill!! It turns out that maybe part of 777's health problems are connected to the fact that he's a speed freak! Can you spell Benzedrine?

So let's get this straight! 777 is a cold-blooded desperate killing machine with no job, no money, and a drug habit, what a prefect 1966 role model!

Do not throw a knife at the dude, that really pisses him off, just like throwing peanuts to a monkey in a zoo, and then it turns around and pisses on you, only this time it is lethal!

Clyde is told by the boss that it's necessary to take 777 out, and even though Clyde protests a little, the bottom line is that he's a company man, and he'll do whatever he's told to do whether it means killing his best friend or not!

Here they are, two pieces of the secret formula puzzle that when put together contain secrets that will bring world powers to their knees!

Hélène (My Friend, Dr. Jekyll) Chanel as Jeanne Cartier, 777's supposed partner shows her true colours!

Lucky for triple seven, Clyde loved him more than Jeanne Cartier!

Honestly, I don't know, "Agente Segreto 777 - Invito Ad Uccidere" is an unrelentless tough and gritty movie! Compared to 007, I guess # 777 was quite a bit down the line! I'll bet there's a lot of other cool untold stories from  Agents 13, 69, and 666 etc. that will never be told! What a shame! Once again, where can you get it? Cult Action Films is the only place I know of!