VALLEY OF THE DRAGONS - Ruby Raskin - "Big 'Uns" (1961)

I almost forgot how many BIG monster movies were made way back when, but we've sure run into a slew of them lately!

Tonight's feature was directed by another Dungeon fave, Edward Bernds, and the only thing this movie is missing, is "The Stooges" themselves. Was there ever a giant spider in a "Three Stooges" episode? You tell me!! Thrilling, immediate, and intense, yes, but is that what Ed was shooting for, or just Jules Verne tongue in cheek?

Finally we are offered a glimpse at the ultra rare missing link between Man and Tabonga!! As you can obviously see, this guy has a stick growing out of his back!! Or, is that his tail??

I remember seeing a photo in a 1950's National Geographic magazine of a painting of some cave men up on a bluff fighting a dinosaur below with torches. It just proves the true historical accuracy of this film! Great shot!!

Tell me this guy doesn't have it made, "Hey, come on over here and let me have another hit off of that toucan!"

Sorry buddy, but I don't want to dance, I don't know how to explain it to you, but I dig chicks!! OK? Don't take it so hard!!

In 1967, genius composer Ruby Raskin won a technical achievement Academy Award for the production of a Composers Manual for Motion Picture Music Synchronization!!! Besides his work in film, he has worked on lots of TV shows from "The Muppets" to "The Undersea World Of Jacques Cousteau.

Inquiring minds just want to know, Where's Curly?"

GORGO / King Brothers UK - 1961 / Music by Angelo Lavagnino

We're keeping the color flowing!.. Tonight's classic is another giant dinosaur movie directed by Eugene Lourie. The 3 King Brothers put together a pretty nice production, and, boy, when FAMOUS MONSTERS of FILMLAND featured GORGO on the cover, well, those were some great times!

Italian composer Angelo Lavagnino had an amazing career, seriously, with 200 composing credits alone, starting in 1948 (a great year, incidently!). The films he worked on are almost entirely Italian. The theme gets sappy, but, there's no love interest!.. Theme and Dorkin

IMPRESSIVE!

Joe, here, sees something!! Too bad it doesn't look like he's under water!

Here's William (2001) Sylvester, Bill (THE GENIE) Travers and child actor Vincent (THE THREE LIVES OF TOMASINA) Winter. It's one strange triangle they have going here! To start with, William is an alcoholic and Bill is an abusive ass!.. And, even the kid can be a pain at times!

Here's one for Eegah!!.. Cheers!

I just love this shot! I think its the white walls on the trailer!

The guy on the right is Dorkin. If you're a MST3K fan, then, you probably know all the great 'Dorkin' jokes they did when they cut this one up!!

Yow, the things they could pass off as entertainment back in 1961!.. And, Dorkin's a high class guy!!

But, when they try to string up Xmas lights on Gorgo, man, that's the limit!!

I cannot remember the last time you could get a banana at the circus!!.. And, those two ladies crack me up!

That cannot be comfortable!

I think they just figured out that Gorgo... is a baby!!

Yep! Pretty much!.. Here comes the BIG one!

Tough guy London punks start crying for their mommies!!

DAAMMMNN!!.. No wonder!!

JEEZ!!!

I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!.. DO WHAT?!!

Gorgo KO's Big Ben!! (And, the crowd goes wild!)

Yeah, where's your cotton candy, now?!!

Great still! Gorgo's up there with Coca Cola and a coo-coo clock!

RAWK!! RAWK!!

THE SILENCERS - Dean Martin-Elmer Berstein-Vicki Carr - "It's All About Dino" (1966)

"The Silencers" is not really a 'monster movie', but it looks fantastic, has hot music, is crazy, cool, has psychotronic elements and Dean Martin! What else do you want or need? And besides all that, we needed some color, damnit! Dino as Matt Helm is casual, calm and he's collecting every man's dream!! For anything and everything else you want to know about Dean Martin, please head on over to our new pal's pad, I Love Dino Martin!!! In the meantime, here's the lowdown on tonight's feature! Forgive me if I didn't use your favorite picture, this movie just had too many shots to choose from!!

Cyd Charrise sings the title song from "The Silencers"!! Well, actually Vicki Carr is the one who is singing. Cyd mimes the title song from "The Silencers!" The music was written by Elmer Berstein and the lyrics were written by Mack David!!

There's a series of short pop standards sung by Dino in this opening dream sequence with parody lyrics provided by Herbert Baker. It's like, you know, "Like Dreamsville, Man!" (Not to be confused with the terrific blog up there in the links by the same name!)

Dino and the stunning Daliah Lavi as Tina, and/or Cowboy at the Slaymate club and we get the treat of hearing "Santiago" by Sarita played by Cyd and/or Vicki, again written by Berstein and David!

A pensive moment with Dino and Tina!

Man, look at Matt Helm go into action, chop, chop! Take that sucker!! Custom cars in the movie including Matt's station wagon courtesy of The real Boss, George Barris!!!

Stella Stevens looks fantastic through the whole movie. She's gorgeous and hilarious and has a range of facial expressions beyond belief. I captured a ton of photos and she looks great in all of them, no matter what she's doing!! Her and Dean work great together!

The "backward gun trick" is funny, and even though they do it like four or five times in a row, you'll laugh every time!!

If Victor Buono had just a little more makeup on, he would have been a lot scarier! Oh, man, what a drag, Dino got dirty!!!

Matt Helm rocks!!! Now we gotta try and find a copy of "The Ambushers!"

II MOSTRO DELL'OPERA - Aldo Piga - "L'amore Mostro" (1964)

Composer Aldo Piga's work is so consistently amazing cool, that it's scarier than some of the films he composed for!

We've written about Maestro Piga before for his awesome work on "The Vampire And The Ballerina" and "Terror Creatures From The Grave", and that's only the tip of the veritable cocktail ice cube, so if you missed it the first time, go back through the archives for a real treat! His work on this very obscure film "Il Mostro dell'opera" is wild, and goes from the sinister laffing song thru some roaring 20's styling sounds right into some of the most down and dirty big band imaginable until the director say "No, No, No!!!" But, No, it doesn't stop there, instead it heads off right into the upper reaches of the stratosphere and one of the craziest sounding swingin' thriller jazz scores you've ever heard, that will lock your skull into overdrive only moments before Mr. Mostro gets fried, but don't worry, it's okay, he deserves it!!

These are the girls that he terrorizes!!

Sorrowly, to our knowledge, this film was never released in English, severly hampering it's chance of any widespread distribution!

So you've got all this great music, and then, the phantom/mostro dude takes all the girls down into the basement and shackles them to the wall, and then,......He Gets Out The Big Pitchfork!!!! I don't know, maybe that was part of the distribution problemo too!

Loosely based on Gaston Leroux's "Phantom," a story that everybody knows by now, this obscure movie is very hard to find a good copy of, so the pictures here aren't that great, but the sound makes up for it!!! 6 minutes and 16 seconds of sheer joy! Dig in cats!

When Aldo Piga passed away way back in 1994, Italy and the world lost a major talent! Hopefully we can help keep his memory alive!!

ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS / Allied Artists /1957/ Music by Ron Stein

Tonight have great Allied Artists classic ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS, maybe Tabonga's fave Corman '50s flick! Film in mostly Bronson Canyon, everything film there!! Charles B. Griffith do the writing. Then, Dungeon favorite Ron Stein doing music!! We have winner!! CRABENSTEIN

Nice title card!

Tonight feature big "nukuler" blast like last night!!.. WHEEEEEEE!!!

Cool, make fish look like that!

Swimming in fish tank!

Oh, look, it Pamela Duncan!!

And Professor!!.. What gives?!.. Where Gilligan?!

Russell (The Space Children) Johnson, Richard (Bev's husband) Garland, Leslie (Teenage Caveman) Bradley.

If you not want to get giant crabs!..

Throw grenade!!

If that not work, throw more!!

And if that not work, run like hell!!

Okay, here funny story!.. At beginning, Ed Nelson blow up in airplane, then Beach Dickerson get kill by giant crab... Well, that Ed and Beach under there working giant crab!!

Pleasant dream and good night everybloody!!