Friday, February 22, 2013

DOUBLE EXPOSURE / Greyhill Productions - 1983

It's another Friday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. We gots a wild little flick all about a photographer for a men's magazine who's disturbed by his recurring dreams, he thinks he may be killing his models by various gruesome methods because the city's being terrorized by a slasher that's stalking and murdering women in LA.

Eegah!! sent over this cool little soundclip from the flick, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button over there by the Stairwell To Hell, NOW, Rufus The Gnat! Here's our audio offering for... DOUBLE EXPOSURE!

The LA cops keep coming across murders that are just plain bizarre, even by their standards!..

Michael Callan and James Stacy play brothers, Adrian and B. J. Wilde, photographer and stunt car driver. An interesting note, besides being married to Connie Stevens and Kim Darby for short times, in 1973, James was in a motorcycle accident and had to have his left arm and leg amputated! Also, his girlfriend died in the crash...

At this shoot, Adrian bludgeons this sweet tart with the aluminum handle of the pool sweep... Or, did he?!

Adrian and his new model at another shoot at his bro's race track.

I'm not sure what's going on here, but, I like this photo!..

I'm not sure what's going on here, but, I really like this photo!..

Of course, there's lots of partying going on. That's Robert (THE VELVET VAMPIRE and THE DEEP) Tessier as what else, an arm wrestling bartender!

Adrian has another episode at the next shoot and wraps this garbage bag full of rattlers around this gal's pretty face! He then goes home and has a talk with himself!

Decent make up job here as the cops pull the dead rattlers out of the bag!

It's wild 'n' weird to watch James mud wrestle with a hot chick. Unfortunately, after his career, James has ended up on National and California state sex offender registries.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

DICK TRACY - "And The Dirty-Thug Known As Splitface" (1945)

Welcome to World Class Wrasslin' Wednesday with the spotlight this week on one of the masters of the art, and one Helluva nice guy,  the wrestler known as Iron Mike Mazurki!

Also known as "Dick Tracy, Detective," you used to be able to find movies like this for 99 cents down at the Dollar Store, but now with today's modern technology, all you have to do is go to the amazing Internet Archive and download yourself a copy for nothing! Life is good!

The coolest thing is that "Dick Tracy" is actually a pretty good movie, and clocking in at just one minute past an hour doesn't give the people who made it any time to mess around, so it's just pretty much 61 minutes of thrilling action and adventure!

People are always longing for the good olde days, but it wasn't even safe to walk the streets alone back in 1945!

And whatever you do, don't look back! Just to show you what a tough guy Splitface is, his first victim is an innocent school teacher!

This is possibly the first known reference to rap in Pop Culture!

Once the word gets out, the newspaper headlines go completely insane!!

This movie might be called "Dick Tracy," but Splitface really shines as the star, and maybe that's because to me Morgan Conway doesn't really look that much like Dick Tracy! He does a good job in the role, but his look just wasn't quite right! The following year Morgan also played Dick Tracy in "Dick Tracy Vs. Cueball!"

Now Anne (ZOMBIES ON BROADWAY) Jeffreys on the other hand, is perfect in the role of Tess Trueheart! In fact, she's downright smokin' hot! Anne is even going to be in a film coming out next year called "Le Grand Jete!"

So here he is, big Mike Mazurki as the evil Splitface! Just in case you didn't know, Mike was a very intelligent and witty man, but being 6' 5" and looking mean as Hell and intimidating, he got typecast as bad guy bruisers for years, and was very successful at it!! Mike continued to wrestle even through the years that he was acting!

Is this a great shot of Splitface sneaking up on Tess Trueheart or not?

Does this look like the face of a man who graduated with a Bachelor's Degree at the top of his class? In 1965 Mike established a non-profit fraternal organization called the "Cauliflower Alley Club" that has honored wrestlers everywhere, gives out scholarships and has a benevolent fund that helps out retired wrestlers!  In the last 14 years, they have given out over $40,000.00 to anybody associated with wrestling who is in need! Anybody can become a member for a small donation, and if you're interested,  you can look them up at The Cauliflower Alley Club!!

Dick Tracy and Tess Trueheart make for quite a handsome couple! Other characters appearing with Dick Tracy over the years haven't been as lucky! Check out some of these names: B.O. Plenty, Frizzletop, Lottie Latte, Acres O'Reilly, Blowtop Jones, Breathless Mahoney, Chuck Hole, Gravel Girtie, Habe Corpussle, Hammerhead, Measles Enog, Miss Rinkles, Piggy Butcher, Piston Puss, and Wormy Marron! And that's just barely scratching the surface!

Great name for a mortuary! The author and illustrator of the Dick Tracy comic strip was Chester Gould, a man with a wild imagination! Dick Tracy premiered October 4th, 1931 in the Chicago Tribune, and even though Chester Gould is long gone, Dick Tracy still continues to run in newspapers all over the world!

Mr. Deathridge is going to need a mortician himself after Splitface got done with him!!

Look at those amazing angles! The awesome cinematography was done by Frank Redman!

Splitface tangos with Tess Trueheart!

And then he tangles with Dick Tracy!

Mike Mazurki's own cauliflower ear is the centerpiece of the iconic logo for the Cauliflower Alley Club!! May his memory live on forever!

Monday, February 18, 2013

CRUCIBLE OF HORROR / Abacus Productions - 1971

It's another Mayhem Monday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. We gots a film starring the great Michael Gough, in fact, Michael's real life son and daughter play his son and daughter in it! This is the only film Abacus ever produced, and, they did the special effects for LIFE OF BRIAN. By the early seventies, seems like a lot of the horror films just started going with sadistic bastards for main characters. It does have atmosphere. Some of the keywords for this flick are.. Back from the dead, dead body in car trunk, daughter kills father, riding crop, stolen money, murder of father by mother and strict father. The tagline reads... The nightmare never ends!

Eegah!! sent us over a soundclip that sums everything up real swell, sooooo, you can push that big red 'GO' button there next to the the little green 'KAPUT' dial, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula! Here's our audio offering for... CRUCIBLE OF HORROR!

Michael was in many great British horror films like... HORROR OF DRACULA, HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM, KONGA, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, BLACK ZOO, DR. TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS, THE SKULL, THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE, BERSERK and TROG! Okay, TROG wasn't that great... He died on my birthday in 2011 at the grand old age of 94!

His wife paints portraits of her sadistic bastard husband.

It's all in the eyes you know!

The daughter is into the occult and mixes up a special drink for her father dearest!

Wifey has had enough of the abuse and takes matters into her own hands with a freakin' shotgun at point blank!

You never realize how heavy a body is until after it's deceased and have to move it around!

They have to put the body in a crate, get the crate into the small station wagon, drive far into the hills and dump it down a ravine... PHEW!!!

The girls are paranoid as crap, Michael makes his way back to the land of the living and makes their lifes an ever-lasting Hell!!

Saturday, February 16, 2013

BEAT GIRL - John Barry - "Wild For Kicks" (1960)

Welcome to Part Two of "Beat Week Down In The D!"

Just  like "The Beatniks,"  "Beat Girl" was a film made in 1960! Go figger what people had on their minds back then!! I want to call it Beat Obsession!!! Besides beat, music, and the year 1960, these two films don't have a whole lot in common except young people trying to live a non-conformist lifestyle either full-time or part-time! One big difference is that "Beat Girl" was made in the UK!

Gillian Hills is Jennifer Linden, the "Beat Girl!" You might remember Gillian from her role as "The Brunette" in "Blow-Up!" Dancing there behind her is Oliver Reed as "Plaid Shirt!" You gotta love the names of the characters in this movie or you'll never get anywhere! This was the second film Gillian was in, and Oliver's 11th!

As "Beat Girl" gets rolling, Gillian's Dad has just brought home his new wife Noëlle (Neither Seen Nor Recognized) Adam as Nichole! The Father is played by David (The Hundred Pound Window) Farrar!

One major problem for stepdaughter and stepmother is that they are not that very much different in age, but boy, are they from different worlds!

And people say it's not cool to wear socks with sandals, who do they think they're fooling?

Jenny's Dad is an architect and the family is quite well off, but at night she changes clothes an sneaks out to be with her low-life friends down at the "Off-Beat Club!"

The "Beat Girl Theme" was written and performed b John Barry of "James Bond" fame and has been recorded at least two other times by The Omega Men, and The Broods, and probably a lot more if I had to guess!

Oliver Reed looks pretty S T O N E D!!

Looks like a lot of fun to me!! Some of the other kids that hang out with Jenny have names like Dodo, Honey, Duffle Coat, and Green Pants!!

The story line builds around the fact that Jenny's Step Mom had a sordid past as a stripper that she has kept secret from Pops, so Jenny ventures across the street to the "Les Girls" club to dig up more dirt on Nichole! That's Nigel (The Face Of Fu-Manchu) there as Simon!

The always marvelous Christopher Lee has the role Kenny King, the owner of the strip club, and Jenny catches his eye immediately!

The multi-talented British sensation Adam Faith has the role of Jenny's friend Dave and performs a couple of very cool songs like "Made You" once again written by John Barry!! Sadly Adam left this world in 2003 at the age of 62, the victim of a heart attack!

More than anything, "Beat Girl" is a movie about music, and all the music is great, and that is good enough for me!!

Jenny has all her friends over for a party while her Step Mom is asleep upstairs! That's like lighting up a cigarette while sitting in the back seat of your parent's car and thinking they're not going to notice!

Me, Tabonga, The Brain, and Skitch Ion had a public access TV show back in the 90's called "Off-Beat," and we had the roles of the Offbeatniks, who were beatniks in space!  Is it all starting to make sense now?

Crazy kids decide to play chicken with a railroad train! Maybe not crazy as much as they were stupid!!

Kenny tries to talk Jenny into doing some dancing for him, but the Kenny and Jenny Show was not meant to be!!

Everything has to come to an end, especially in the movies, I think you know where this disaster is headed!

"Beat Girl" was originally released as "Wild For Kicks," and in the "You Can't Believe Everything You Read Department," No, Jenny never wanted to be a stripper! That tagline is just pure sensationalism, but irregardless, "Beat Girl" is a great film if you dig music and the 60's and unlike a whole lot of other cool flicks we've showcased here, it can actually be found on Netflix among other places, and that's exactly what I suggest you do!!

Monster Music

Monster Music
AAARRGGHHH!!!! Ya'll Come On Back Now, Y'Hear??