THE THREE STOOGES in SPOOK LOUDER - Thomas Ravenscroft - "Three Blind Mice"

For tonight's Halloween Countdown feature, we have what amounts to more of a What The Heck Wednesday than WTF?! but we're talkin' about The Stooges here, so it doesn't really matter now, does it? I'll tell you one thing that's really WTF?! more than anything about a lot of the old Three Stooges shorts, they were almost entirely devoid of music! The theme song for this episode was "Three Blind Mice," a nursery rhyme written in 1609 by English composer Thomas Ravenscroft! Later on they would use a weird version of "Listen to the Mockingbird" written by Septimus Winner in 1855, and "Pop Goes The Weasel" was also used!

"Spook Louder" starts off in the office of Special Investigator J.O. Dunkfeather, who was played by Lew Kelly, one of those guys that movies couldn't do without, a man with over 200 movie titles, many uncredited, in such classic roles as the stagehand in "The Mad Ghoul," or the bartender in "The Mummy's Tomb!" Here he is the teller of the tale!

In this episode, Larry, Moe, and Curly are door to door salesmen. I don't know who the mysterious tall gal is!

Curly demonstrates the weight reduction machine they are trying to pawn off on the unsuspecting public!

They end up at the spooky house of a Mr. Graves, and are greeted by his butler, played by Charles Middleton, probably best known for his role as Emperor Ming the Merciless, in the "Flash Gordon" serials!

Graves explains that he needs to go to Washington to demonstrate a Death Ray he has invented, and asks the boys to house sit for him! Graves was played by Theodore Lorch, another veteran of the "Flash Gordon" series, and more Stooges! His very first role was the title character in a 1908 short titled "Shamus O'Brien."

Larry, Moe, and Curly end up having to deal with these spy guys lead by the guy in the middle, Stanley Blystone, who just might hold The Dungeon record for being in 517 different titles of movies, shorts, and TV shows! The list goes on forever!

The boys get spooked by some piano music, since they are supposed to be in the house alone, but it turns out to only be a "Kitten on the Keys! That's also the name of a 78 I own by pianist Freddie Slack!

Stanley Blystone finds himself on the receiving end of the first pie thrown!

A creepy hand takes Moe by surprise!

I got him, I got him!! Curly is clueless to the fact that he's got Moe, and not one of the intruders!

Curly gets a balloon on a string, with a face on it, stuck to his posterior, and manages to not only scare himself, but the other two Stooges too!

Another good shot of Curly when he gets scared by a mummified body!!

The spies close in, but The Stooges have a bomb that Curly lights accidently, and blows up just enough of the joint to scare the spies away!

The boys are the ones to get the final pies thrown at them by some mysterious unidentified character, and then it's over! The Three Stooges made almost 200 of these shorts! Curly was in the first 97, and there is no reason why you shouldn't try and see each and every one of them! They're everywhere!

ELECTRIC ZOMBIE DIRGE / Hermanos Guzanos

Here's a catchy little dirge from 1988 for all you zomboids out there! It's by the Dungeon's very own monsterous house band, Hermanos Guzanos...

eLeCtRiC zOmBiE dIrGe!

MARK OF THE VAMPIRE / MGM - 1935

Hello everbloody, welcome to a special Halloween Moldie Oldie Monday, here at The Dungeon! Tonight's feature is directed by Tod Browning and stars two Lionels and a Bela!

This film had 20 minutes edited out because of incestuous scenes, thus leaving a few holes in the plot and coming in at a measley 60 minutes. And, the budget was over $300,000! Browning had a way of really pissing off those MGM execs!

The uncredited stock music was composed by Jack Virgil. Most of Jack's credits come from the Music Dept. He worked on films like THREE ROGUES, ALICE IN WONDERLAND (1933), THE THIN MAN, OPERATOR 13 (cool!!), MAD LOVE, A NIGHT AT THE OPERA, LAST OF THE PAGANS, THREE LIVE GHOSTS, BEG, BORROW OR STEAL, RADIO HAMS, BOMBER'S MOON, BELLE OF THE YUKON and THE SHOCKING MISS PILGRIM.

Here's our lil' Dungeon helper and shelf duster, Rufus The Gnat, to be pushin' that big red 'GO' button yet wonst again... and start our Eariffic Earclip a-rollin' along! So, hit the button, Rufus!!.. MARK OF THE VAMPIRE!

The story is very involved, so all I'll say is that Count Mora (Bela) and his daughter Luna (Carroll Borland) are blamed for the murder of a prominant citizen by the townspeople. They are thought to be vampires living in a castle. Lionel Barrymore, as Professor Zelen, tries to bring some sanity to solving the crime.

Above, a party to celebrate the birth of a child...

What a great graveyard! Art direction was by Cedric Gibbons, cinematography was by James Wong Howe.

This outsider gets a lesson about local vampires from the inn-mates.

Here's Count Mora and daughter Luna, just wandering around in their castle for no apparent reason... Well, except to make the audience suspicious! There's actually a bat there.

To prove Eddie steals from only the best, here's Luna standing by a roadway and she scares the bejesus out of some travelers! Raise your hand if you're familiar with the scene in NIGHT OF THE GHOULS where Harvey B. Dunn and his scaredy-pants wife encounter the identical situation!

Some interesting trivia... "Allegedly, Carroll was fascinated by Lugosi when saw him as Dracula at the Fulton Theater in Oakland, she wrote a novel called "Countess Dracula" and sent it to him. He called her to play Lucy, Dracula's favorite victim, on stage. Later he gave her the role of Luna Mora in the film Mark of the Vampire." She only had 5 acting credits including SCALPS in 1983 and BIOHAZARD in 1985 and was a Pisces.

The Count decides to get in on some of the action... Hubba, hubba!

More excellent graveyard scenes!

That creepy part near the end of the soundclip is where the Count tears into the scene, and it is very weird!!

Another standout scene is where Luna transforms from a bat to her human form as the organist plays on!

Three nice stills involving windows!

Professor Zelen finds some interesting things in the Count's basement!

The bat effects used in this movie were as good as it ever got for them little critters, until there was CGI!

This twist ending will make your head spin!!!.. Get it?

Ghoulnight Everbloody!!

Nothing Sez Halloween Like Robots!!!

Here's Halloween Wallpaper #02 for your desktop pleasure! The Dwrayger Dungeon Robot Family on parade!!!

SH! THE OCTOPUS - Heinz Roemheld - "That Music Will Be Your Funeral March When You Hear It Again" (1937)

"Sh!The Octopus" is a fantastic little piece of cinematic history. It clocks in at right under an hour, so they didn't waste a lot of time on filler! Watch this movie, and be amazed at what they could do way back in 1937! A big Thanx to Prof. Grewbeard, for turning us on to this timeless early monsterpiece!

It's essentially not much more than a stage play, and it all starts in this creepy olde lighthouse!! The cast is very modest and consists of basically only nine players, but each and every one of them is a character!

The first trick of the film is the fact that they try and convince you that there is actually a story, but your mind keeps telling you that it doesn't make sense, and there's a reason for that! The movie immediately starts off with John Eldredge as Paul Morgan, showing up as the new resident of the lighthouse! John was in an incredible array of classic films! Here's just a handful: "The Black Cat," "Invaders From Mars," "Francis In The Haunted House," and "I Married A Monster From Outer Space," and his TV appearances go on forever. He was Harry Archer in 36 episodes of "Meet Corliss Archer," and also in 3 episodes of "Science Fiction Theater," 4 episodes of "Adventures Of Superman," and everything else from "Twilight Zone" to "Mr. Ed!" What a career!!

Right out of the box, something is amiss as a dead body is found hanging and dripping blood in the centre of the lighthouse!

It's not long before The Octopus is sighted for the first time, and the viewer is left wondering just what in the heck is going on here?

Enter the main players, Detectives Kelly and Dempsey, who are about to be drawn into this whole convoluted mess that's just getting started over at the olde lighthouse! These shots always crack me up, because the guys have to sit so close together! Detective Harold Kelly on the left is Hugh Herbert. Hugh wrote over 150 plays and vaudeville sketches and was the original "Woo Woo" guy that inspired Daffy Duck's shtick! It's 1937, and it sure as Hell looks like he's texting!

On the right is Allen Jenkins as Detective Dempsey! Allen was raised in the theatre, and also has a credits list as long as your arm, as sidekicks, cabbies, and gangsters with colorful names like Off-Beat Davis, Willie "The Knife" Corson, and Skeets Wilson. He also was the voice of Officer Dibble in all the "Top Cat" cartoons!

The music for "Sh! The Octopus" was composed by Heinz Roemheld, who might hold the Heavyweight Dungeon Crown for credits, with 420 titles in the music department, and with 258 of those as composer, mostly for stock music starting in 1929 with "Tarzan The Tiger" and ending in 1966, with "Let's Kill Uncle, Before Uncle Kills Us"

Detectives Kelly and Dempsey, through no fault of their own, end up investigating this rather strange murder, at this rather odd location! Dempsey's lookin' like Stallone in this shot!

Again, are you expected to understand anything that's going on here? Not really, that just wouldn't prepare you for the end properly!

Here is the cryptic note from The Octopus! "Don't fail."

Everybody's a suspect, including Elspeth Dudgeon as Nanny! She was the Gypsy's Mother in "The Bride Of Frankenstein" and the woman whose skunk was stolen in the 1933 classic "Zoo in Budapest." Elspeth, now there's a name you don't hear every day, and her last name is almost Dungeon!

Captain Hook gets attacked by The Octopus! The character of Captain Hook was played by George Rosener whose first role was in the 1930 feature, "The Doorway To Hell" in the role of a guy named Slick!

What a great shot from Cinematographer Arthur "Number 99" Todd!

So you got all that now, there will be a test later! Left to right, Hugh Herbert, John Eldredge, Allen Jenkins and George Rosener; what an amazing array of talent!!!!

Those four are joined by Nanny and the rest of the cast for what seems like the final crescendo. There's Marcia Ralston as Vesta Vernoff, Eric Stanley as Police Commissioner Patrick Aloysious Clancy, Margaret Irving as Polly Crane, and Brandon Tynan as Captain Cobb.

Then what you think is just a good old fashioned comedy turns into a full blown freakshow as Nanny reveals her true evil and nefarious identity!!

Probably not what you were expecting at this point, the freakin' lighthouse is totally demolished by an explosion!!!

Even though this movie is 73 years old, I still feel bad about giving away the ending, so I'll just say, the reason it never had to make sense was because it was only a dream!!! What a movie!!!!!