ORFEU NEGRO - "Cast Your Fate To The Wind" (1959)

 

Welcome to yet another installment of Weirdo Wednesday! Tonight's feature is an Academy Award winning film based on a classical tale of romantic tragedy titled "Black Orpheus!" Before he made movies, Director Marcel Camus was a Professor of Sculpture and Painting, and it shows in this film!

 

The French film "Orfeu Negro" is based on the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice as played out in 1959 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil during Carnival!

If you had to choose a place to shoot a movie that was a lot of fun in 1959, it would either be Rio or New Orleans. Today it would probably be Vegas!

One of the reasons that "Black Orpheus" won an Oscar in 1960 for Best Foreign Film is because it's just fun to look at! No, not fun, it's actually beautiful!

All the bright colours of Carnival matched up with an almost endless stream of batucadas will hypnotize you if you're not careful!

 

And then it's all juxtaposed to the stark sleek angles of the city itself!

Eurydice is played by the lovely and oh so innocent looking Marpessa Dawn! Marpessa was born in Pittsburg, Pa. but moved to the UK as a teenager.  This was her first starring role!

To fans of schlock 50's horror, Marpessa was 'the native girl' in the 1958 classic "The Woman Eater!"

This is Orpheus, the regular guy trolley car conductor, as played by Breno Mello! When he first spots Eurydice, it's literally love at first sight! Breno was a native of Brazil, and was only ever in five other movies! In the 'kind of strange department,' Marpessa and Breno passed away within weeks of each other in 2008!

Orpheus is engaged to Mira as played by Lourdes de Oliveira, who could dance her ass off, but was only ever in one other movie, but Eurydice is where his thoughts lie!

Eurydice on the other hand, has problems of her own and is being pursued by some unknown stalker, and it's really pretty creepy!

It's a very festive time, and everybody is in costume for Carnival, so Eurydice's cousin Serafina gets all dolled up as a lampshade!

Okay, this dude genuinely creeps me out! This is the ex-lover of Eurydice who is pursuing her through the streets and alleys of Rio dressed as Death! The costume, the way he moves, it just all adds up to creepy, and here's why! This guy, in reality, is athlete and actor Ademar Da Silva, and why wouldn't you want a guy like Ademar chasing you through the streets of Rio? Well, if he looks just a little muscular it's because he won the Gold Medal in the Triple Jump at The Olympics in 1952 AND 1956! He also at one point held seven world records! Not the kind of guy you'd want chasing you!

There's no screwing around here, these people know how to party!!!

Death just hangs back and watches! That's the other creepy part, because everybody's in costume, nobody, not even Death, is suspected of being a little weird!

This pretty much says it all, "Black Orpheus" will make your head spin!

It's not just Death, it's a slow, torturous, purposeful Death, and he just keeps getting creepier!

In a nutshell,  when it's over, this is what life's all about, just one long vacant corridor!!

If there is any hope in the world, it rests with the children!

The music used throughout "Black Orpheus" was composed by two of Brazil's many musical geniuses, Luiz Bonfá, and Antonio Carlos Jobim! Three years later, Vince Guaraldi would have a massive hit with his "Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus" single, "Cast Your Fate To The Wind!" All of Dave Brubeck's music is very cool, and Dollar Brand's "Cape Town Fringe" is understated brilliance, but "Cast Your Fate To The Wind" is one of the coolest from the first time you heard it to the last time you heard it, and will be forever!

THE LUCIFER COMPLEX / James Flocker Enterprises - 1978

It's Nazi Clone Monday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. We gots a little flick starring Robert (TEENAGE CAVE MAN) Vaughn, Merrie Lynn (LOVE AT FIRST BITE) Ross, Keenan (LASERBLAST) Wynn and Aldo (PSYCHIC KILLER) Ray in a 1976 production never released to theaters, going directly to TV in 1978! Above is the un-exciting original VHS box art. David L. Hewitt is a writer/director for this effort, we remember David's directing in MONSTERS CRASH THE PAJAMA PARTY, THE WIZARD OF MARS, JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF TIME, GALLERY OF HORROR and THE MIGHTY GORGA.

Eegah!! sent over a rockin' little soundclip from this flick, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button there next to our atomic powered clone contraption, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula! Here's our audio offering for... THE LUCIFER COMPLEX!

The story starts with a dude wandering through the mountains who stumbles onto an underground bunker (that still works) where he reviews a number of laser discs that tell the history of war. When he checks out the sixties disc about the Viet Nam war and the protests, he watches hippies playing music at a happening, as heard in the soundclip.

Robert Vaughn plays Glen Manning, an agent that gets captured by a group of modern Nazis after he ejects from his disabled jet. There was also Glenn Manning in THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN and WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST.

Glen sneaks out of his room and goes exploring the compound. He finds this room full of people in capsules, the clone thing is starting to make sense. Bottom photo shows Glen saving gal pal April from going under the Nazi scalpel!

April is treated brutally by the Nazi Bitch as Aldo just stands there. That's the name in the credits... Nazi Bitch!

Glen locates an American Sherman tank and ends up blowing the crap out of the compound and the freakin' Nazis as they scramble!!

Then, it's time to meet Hitler's evil clone and hear his new plan for world conquest 2.0!

He turns a death ray on his own henchman and blows a hole in his ugly face!!

Keenan is the American who's also part of the conspiracy, Glen and April watch as Keenan (he has no name in the credits) dies in front of them.

The guy watching the discs notices that there's another Keenan now! I'll let you figure this part out, it should be pretty easy! The wandering guy leaves and continues wandering... Tune in Wednesday for Eegah!!

DICK SMART 2007 - Mario Nascimbene - "Atomic Dick" (1967)

Yeah, it's exactly what you would think! Welcome to stage three of Super Spy Saturday Night down in The Dungeon! I find it quite novel that all three of the movies had one major thing in common! They all had Seven in the title, you know like 007, but just not quite! 077, Upperseven, and now 2.007, Uum, Very Interesting!

So just exactly what is it that makes Dick Smart! What the Hell did you expect with a title like that? The original title was "Dick Smart 2007," but some smart dick changed it to "Dick Smart 2.007" for some reason!

It appears that some upper echelon government official got a bad batch of viagra and he's out for revenge!

Dick Smart is about fashion! I love these shoes!

Dick Smart is about super cool music composed by the Maestro Mario (Vacation With A Gangster) Nascimbene! Mario, of course, will long be remembered as being the inventor of the 'Mixerama,' the predecessor to the sampler! I'm pretty sure that's what you'll hear in the short sound clip, because there's sure something weird going on!

Richard (The Strange Door) Wyler is Dick Smart, one suave dude! His job is secondary to all his other flirtatious ambitions! He gets a million dollars a job, so he has to work extra hard!

Dick's sidekick, pain in the ass secretary Jeanine Stafford is played by Rosana (Kiss The Girls and Make Them Die) Tapajós! Dick would be limp without her!

Dick Smart is about fancy top of the line high tech equipment and gadgetry like this! You better be damn certain you know what you're doing when you push that button!

Dick Smart is about being in Rio De Janeiro, and Dick Smart ain't no dummy!

The marvelous Margaret Lee is Dick Smart's foil, Lady Lister! Margaret has a great roster of films to her credit starting with "Colossus Of The Stone Age" in 1962, and continuing  with "Secret Agent Super Dragon," "Psycho-Circus," "How To Kill 400 Duponts," and "Venus In Furs" etc.

Not only does Lady Lister have to deal with Dick Smart because she has a nuclear coal to diamonds scheme, she also has to deal with the most evil McDiamond on the other side!

When tying her to the front of his boat doesn't work, McDiamond decides to throw Lady Lister overboard connected to a rather big weight!

Dick Smart to the rescue in his Vespa Alpha Gyro-Copter motorcycle submarine! Now this, dear friends is a very cool vehicle! Land, sea, or air, the Vespa Alpha does it all!!

Oh Jeez, this time they decided to torture Lady Lister by putting a glass dome on her head and tapping it with a hammer to beat her into submission with sonic overload!

In one kraazy scene, Jeanine shoots and kills Dick Smart, but the movie's not over, so you know they're going to revive him some way, and they do!

In the Hokey Pokey department, the theme of beautiful women with automatic weapons is still popular to this day, and that's what it's all about!

For a cheap ass, I mean low budget, film Lady Lister's Coal to Diamonds lab is pretty sophisticated!

Is this a great place to leave it or not? So that's it, "777!" If I was you, I would head on out to your favorite casino ASAP, because with the current position of the moon and stars, the odds are in your favor!!! Just like this movie, if you win, remember where you heard it, and if you lose, don't blame it on me!