TARANTULA / Universal - 1955 / Music by Henry Mancini & Herman Stein

This is a great movie! Best blue screen effects of the monster movies produced in the US. Japan always had the best effects overall, though. So, the music is by an uncredited Henry Mancini & Herman Stein. Mancini did it all in his amazing career, including the soundtrack for THE THING THAT COULDN'T DIE!! Stein did tons of uncredited music, many are Universal horror and sci-fi classics from the '50s! He did TV stuff like LOST IN SPACE, THE TIME TUNNEL, and, the last music he did was for... BLAZING STEWARDESSES! Here at DD, we think that a lot of the Universal monster movie music was way too orchestrated, devoid of any real 'hip' or 'youth' element. Because of their unwillingness to experiment, we just consider them some of the less interesting pieces. We're not complaining, just saying... Here's TARANTULA MUSIC! Oh, sorry about the photo quality, sometimes you gotta use what you have! 

 

Never pass up a chance to show a '55 Fairlane convertible driven by John Agar! Actually, he just got out of his airplane, too!! Not bad for a country doctor! 

 

WOW!.. This make up by Bud Westmore is the best!! Freakin' weird, man!.. You can see the resemblence in two other Universal movies Bud did, ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE and MONSTER ON THE CAMPUS! 

 

After destroying the lab and letting the tarantula escape, Paul gets ready to shoot up the doctor with the deadly serum, right before he, then, keels over and dies!! 

 

Hey, Mara's back!.. And, John's totally slick as usual! 

 

Mara gets to work with Leo, or 'Topper' as we knew him from TV. 

 

Cigarettes were nothing but cool back then!!.. Oh, and, hats too! 

 

Symtoms from the shot are starting to appear!.. Shocking!

 They find some pools of slime in the fields after cattle and horses were horribly slaughtered by the unknown killer!.. So, what does John do?!.. That's right!.. HE TASTES IT!!

 After exposing the whole story to John, Leo is really feeling the effects of the serum... He sums up the success of the 'nutrient' experiment as... "All's lost!" 

 

The ultimate 'peeping Tom!' *I know, crappy still, but, that is the Tarantula staring into her room!! 

 

I saw this movie at the theater in 1956 with THE WEREWOLF!.. This image of Leo almost made me faint, I'm not kidding! The make-up job here is unbelievable!! 

 

Yep, we give the last line tonight to our pal, Clint Eastwood!! He also appeared with Agar in REVENGE OF THE CREATURE, which, we've already posted. 

 

Somehow... Humans win again!!

THE WEREWOLF / The Trailer - 1956

I saw THE WERWOLF along with TARANTULA in 1956 as a double feature, a real roller coaster ride for an 8 year old. TARANTULA freaked me out the most, watching Leo G. Carroll melt before the Tarantula gets him! But I digress... So, THE WEREWOLF had great transformation scenes, some of the best. And yes, we do see it happen before our very eyes with this special Punkin Stuffer, just for you!

Yeesh, those hairy hands with sharp lookin' finger nails!

And............ EEK!! Is That Teeth?!

That's right, two atom-age scientists are responsible for this man-made thing from Hell.

They turn a measly Man into a deadly snarling BEAST...

Making the 10,000-year-old-werewolf-horror-legend come true! What more could you want? You just gotta see this movie, c'mon!

In case you were wondering...

With Dan Megowan?? Dude, his name in Don Megowan, not Dan! Don played the Gill Man in THE CREATURE WALKS AMOMG US the same year.

Joyce Holden also starred in one of my favorite movies, TERROR FROM THE YEAR 5000, saw it with Eegah!! in 1960 at the theater. BTW, Joyce died in January of this year at age 91.

Steven Ritch worked in TV mostly with 48 acting credits from 1950 to 1962.

Without a doubt, the scene in the jail cell with the two evil doctors scared the bejesus out of me, it is still super creepy even today!

Well, if you come see the movie, you'll see the most exciting hunt...

That ever tracked down Man... Or Beast! You see, sometimes he's just a man, sometimes he's a freaking Werewoof Beast!!

Don't miss it, coming to a theater near you in 1956! GFL with that one! There you go, a special Punkin Stuffer for a Friday.

HAVE ROCKET--WILL TRAVEL - Duning/Styne - "Somebody Dropped A Rocket" (1959)

"Have Rocket--Will Travel" is an insane movie for sure, but the most insane part is that it is almost impossible to find a copy for some damn reason, I mean come on, it's the freakin' Three Stooges! Doesn't every person alive deserve to see everything ever done by the Three Stooges or what? What's wrong with the world today? (Breaking News!! I searched for almost two years to find a copy of this movie, and as I wrote this, I just found this Crackle site where "Have Rocket Will Travel" streams full screen beautifully, Enjoy, because this is your lucky day!) The world is redeemed for one fleeting moment!!

Sweet stock shot to get things rolling, and set the scene at the "National Space Foundation!"

Our heroes Larry, Moe, and Curly-Joe are the Maintenance Men at the facility, that reads, I.E. janitors, three each! I don't think I have ever in my life had anybody tell me that they thought the Three Stooges were gay! They just slept together because they were good buddies! It didn't have to be sexual back in the 50's! And to think people want to talk crap about SpongeBob!

A dud rocket lands by their living quarters with a monkey in it, and when they get digging to get to the hatch, Moe bends the pick on Curly-Joe's head! Kids, don't try this trick at home!!

This is so stupid, it's one of my favorite gags, where they are trying to lift up a hatch door, that they're standing on!!

They finally get in to save the monkey and there's this cute scene where Curly-Joe and the monkey are making faces at each other....

....and right at the cut, the little sumbitch puts his head down and bites Curly-Joe right on the hand! Tabonga told me that both Curly-Joe and Joe Besser admitted that they didn't dig being Stooges that much, because they got hurt too much, and I believe it!! The original iconic Curly Howard died way back in 1952 and was never in a full length Stooges flick! His position was then filled by Shemp Howard (the original third member), Joe Besser as Joe, who quit after two years because he didn't like getting hit, and finally Joe DeRita as Curly-Joe!

The boys take a lab coffee break with beautiful scientist Anna-Lisa as Dr. Ingrid Naarveg, who they are very smitten with!

I just like this shot of the three of them!! Moe Howard was 62 years old when this film was made!

In order to help Dr. Ingrid, the boys invent a new rocket fuel by putting everything in the lab including popcorn in a big vat. Larry accidentally becomes a victim of the big switcheroo, and drinks some of the rocket fuel!

The music for "Have Rocket--Will Travel" was conducted by another Dungeon fave, Mischa Bakaleinikoff, who might be the all time champion of composers with a massive 458 credits either as Composer, Musical Director, or Composer of stock music!

Their launch into space was one big mistake, and then they land on Venus, which looks suspiciously like the foothills of California!!

Wonder where they got this idea, the movie, "Tarantula" was made 4 years earlier! Well, at least they mixed it up a little and made this Venusian tarantula be able to shoot death rays at their butts!

The original theme song music was written by George Duning, and the lyrics were written by Stanley Styne, and the song is reprised here after the boys meet a Talking Unicorn on Venus, and find out they can breathe!

The Talking Unicorn leads them to this totally bitchin' Venusian Space Car that was probably a Mercury, since they were the only company cool enough to have cars named The Comet, or The Meteor. Shows you where it got them since Ford decided to drop the whole Mercury line as of this year!

Next they are taken to see the Grandmaster of Venus, the big guy in charge, The Talking Robot!!

First thing the robot does is shrink them down to size, and put them in a bird cage!

Then the big boss robot does a mind meld on them, which creates an exact set of duplicated evil Stooge robots, who chase them around for a while until they are able to finally escape, get back past the giant tarantula again, and blast off back to earth! Whew!!

Once safely back on earth, the boys are treated like the heroes that they really are!

But these are The Three Stooges we're talking about, so before you know it, Larry's on his knees getting stomped on the dance floor, Curly-Joe gets a face full of cake, and a spring stuck on his butt, and like always, Moe just loses it!

Nadia Sanders is the tall and gorgeous calm before the storm!

And then before you know it again, all Hell is breaking out at this high society party, and everybody is getting involved, but it's not like it was unexpected!

The evil robots followed them all the way back to earth, so the boys ditch the whole scene, steal the Mercury, and head back out into space and The End!! It's a beautiful moment!!