MISION SUICIDA / Puerto México Films - 1973

It's Suicidal Mission Monday wif' Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. We gots our hero, Santo, in a flick from about half the way through his 21 year movie career. Get this, Santo officially retired from wrestling/acting at the age of 65!! After nearly 50 years years without ever being seen without his trademark mask, he appeared on the Mexican TV talk show "Contrapunto" on January 26th, 1984, where he unmasked for the first time to reveal his face! Then, sadly, Santo passed away from a heart attack less than two weeks later at the age of 66. His funeral was attended by tens of thousands of fans and many wrestling identities and was laid to rest at a mausoleum in Mexico City, wearing his silver mask!

Eegah!! sent over a little soundclip of the theme, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button there by the suicide note, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula! Here's our audio offering for... MISION SUICIDA!

The crooks use a simple mirror to communicate with the boat of illegal goods ready to unload!

Great shot of our hero relaxing after flying in for more scheduled wrestling matches.

In the late sixties, Eegah!! had a gray '56 Chevy with a phone in it!

Santo and his gal pal make a hasty getaway in their vintage white Corvette!

As a bonus, direct from the night club, here's this cute girlie singing... A COOL LIL' POP TUNE!

Here's a good look at actor/writer, Fernando Osés, in yet another role as a killer henchman!

This looks pretty serious!

I really love this shot with the blue desk top and all.

Here are our two good girls, Lorena (SANTO vs THE VAMPIRE WOMEN) Velázquez and Elsa (THE CHAMPIONS OF JUSTICE) Cárdenas in an interesting shower scene, and, both of the lovely gals are still working today!!

Another weird shot to just stop and stare at!

What a way to go!!!..

Another cool shot showing Santo and his girls sharing a ride in this seventies gold Corvette!

In a subplot, this guy gets an unwelcomed backwards nazi tatoo on his forhead and is thusly incriminated in the crimes!

A souvenir for his special gal pal... Tune in Wednesday for more Eegah!! insanity!

THE HUMAN DUPLICATORS - "Made To Kill Or Love On Demand" (1965)

Welcome to another Saturday Night Special down in The Dungeon! Unlike a lot of movies we've showcased here, "The Human Duplcators" is indeed special in many ways starting with this cool poster that has absolutely nothing to do with the movie at all, and contains one giant omission!

"The Human Duplicators" is a sonofabitch of a movie to try and find these days, but with a little luck, and a lot of perserverance, you just might find a copy, and believe me, it will be worth the effort!

Yeah, I know it looks like a Tiffany lampshade or a spinning top, but that's just because these aliens have class!

Okay, let's get this space story spinning! Here's Dungeon Super Hero Richard Kiel coming in for a landing on earth as Dr. Kolos! Opening scene, big space alien, back it up a little, do you see Richard Kiel's name on that poster anywhere? Yeah, me neither! Sinful! It's amazing because he's not the star, but he IS the real main character! Nary a mention, I still can't believe it! And besides that, he's the biggest character on the poster! Incredible!

Richard Kiel is indeed a true hero, scraping his way to somewhere close to the top, and then basically out of a job! At 7' 2" I guess they just couldn't find enough roles for him, but Richard's roles in weirdass cult movies is unsurpassed! Here's just a partial list: Richard was The Solarite in "The Phantom Planet," Richard was Kanamit in the "Twilight Zone" episode titled "To Serve Man," Richard was the one and only Eegah in frickin' "Eegah," for Christ's sake, Richard was the Giant in "House Of The Damned,"  and Richard was also in "The Nutty Professor," "The Nasty Rabbit," and "Two On A Guillotine" and that was all before "The Human Duplicators" was made! Of course his most famous role is that of Jaws in the 007 film "The Spy Who Loved Me!"

Pretty interesting that "The Human Duplicators" was made one year before the first "Star Trek" episode ever appeared on TV! Beam me down Boss!!

Basically, the aliens need the Professor that lives in this house because he's working on some sort of cloning device. The aliens need stuff, so they want duplicated doctors to steal it for them! It's a long way around, but that's one way to get there! It would have been simpler to just hire a bunch of thugs! As you can see, Kolos towers over manservant Thor as played by John Indrisano! John was one of those kinds of guys who managed to parlay a whole career out of largely uncredited bit parts as Bartenders, Referees, Chauffeurs, etc in almost 200 productions! John was also a professional welterweight boxer with a record of  47-8-1 who went on to be a referee for over a decade and an adviser in many a boxing film! No, his name's not on the poster either!

After rendering Thor the butler stupid, Kolos explores the house and discovers a young lady playing the piano! It's the lovely daughter of the Professor of the house, darling Dolores Faith as Lisa Dornheimer! Dolores was also in "The Phantom Planet" as Zetha, and then in her third movie, she got a starring role! I'm not sure it did much for her career because it was titled "V.D." and that doesn't exactly stand for Valentines's Day! Dolores had exactly 13 acting credits until she lost faith and decided to do something else!

It's pretty surprising that the Professor can keep his mind on the job, but then he is a professional! The Professor was played by another powerhouse of entertainment history, George Macready! Among a ton of other credits, George was in all four of the 60's classic TV Horror and Sci-Fi shows, "Thriller," Twilight Zone,"The Outer Limits," and "Night Gallery!" His last role was in "The Return Of Count Yorga!" I honestly don't know who the two knockout assistants are, but it's a good guess that one of them is Alean "Bambi" Hamilton!

Ok, this movie hasn't even got started yet! The cloned doctors are breaking and entering and killing too, so it's time for Secret Agent Glenn Martin to step in! Glenn Martin is played by yet another Dungeon Super Hero, George Nader! Try that little search window over there and you'll get at least nine references to George Nader, and I still haven't done all the Jerry Cotton films yet! The talent in this movie will make your head spin, standing across from George is his Boss Austin Welles as played by Hugh Beaumont! Hugh had a massive and varied career, but will be known for all eternity as Ward Cleaver, the Father of The Beaver! 234 episodes of "Leave It To Beaver," that's difficult to even comprehend!

One of the more lesser known blonde bombshells of the 50's and 60's was Barbara Nichols, here as Austin Welles' secretary, and Glenn Martin's girlfriend Gale Wilson! With her wiseguy Brooklyn accent, Barbara was in a different league than a lot of the other girls! Barbara was Liz Powell in the "Twilight Zone" episode titled "Twenty Two!" Unfortunately, she died way too young at the age of 47 of liver failure after being in a couple of auto accidents!

Is this just a great shot of George in a phone booth or not? I love how atmospheric the background is, and the foreground looks like a watercolour painting! This is a good spot to insert a little sound from the club where Glenn is getting ready to meet Gale! The music in "The Human Duplicators" was pretty much stock music of the time! They just had somebody really good picking it out!

Glenn sneaks into the Professor's pad, and finds masks of the suspect thiefs!

Then he opens a few coffins and finds more than a few surprises!

Here's a bit of a progression in the duplicating process! I think this is Kim Satana in her one film outing, no relation to Tura! Either that, or it's Kim Sattin, Tura Satana' sister!

 

One thing about these clones is that although they are tough to fight, they do break easily! It's like their heads are like one of those stupid and creepy porcelain dolls!

In an effort to make Richard Kiel look like he's 8 feet tall, they have him standing on the top step so it makes George Nader at 6' 1" looks like a midget!

Everything is now officially out of control. The Duplications have taken over, and even the Professor and his assistants aren't real any more! They caught Glenn sneaking around, and now it's his turn to get doubled up!

Meanwhile, Kolos has fallen deeply in love with Lisa Dornheimer, and is not willing to go along with the demands of the Duplications to make a copy of her! He only wants the real thing!

They don't really care what Kolos thinks and proceed with the operation anyway!

It's not too complicated to figure out what happens in the end! "The Human Duplicators" was about the funnest movie I've seen lately on multiple levels! It's like the Woodstock of  'B' movies, it's got that much talent in it, so catch it if you can, and if you just happen to not like it as much as I did, then Go Duplicate Yourself!

THE SON OF DR. JEKYLL / Columbia Pictures Corp. - 1951

It's Rare Flick Friday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. We gots the Son of Dr. Jekyll back to try and vendicate his father's legacy in a city with citizens that don't trust him either!

Eegah!! sent over a lil' soundclip sans music for our earjoyment, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button next to the Big Book of Abnormalities, NOW, Rufus The Gnat! Here's a taste of... THE SON OF DR. JEKYLL!

Louis Hayward plays Edward Jekyll, son of the infamous Henry Jekyll, he has just been discharged from medical school for unorthodox experimentation. He's met by family friend, Dr. Lanyon, at his father's old house. He finds a book of his dad's studies (of which he knows nothing about) and learns about his experiments on human abnormalities.

The public gets all whipped up by Edward's presence and attack him in the newspapers with a front page splash and very nice illustration of Mr. Hyde! Strange murders begin to happen and Edward is the suspect, naturally.

Undaunted, Edward starts replicating his father's experiments to prove that he was correct in his theories.

In a weird little scene, Edward believes he has changed into Mr. Hyde but it turns out to be an hallucination, and, is the only 'monster' part of the movie.

He tries to convince a small crowd of friends of the theories' validity by changing into Mr. Hyde right before their eyes. He fails miserably!

Then, the man behind the murders comes forward, it's Dr. Lanyon, who's trying to frame Edward and get the house which is still in a trust.

Of course, the place catches on fire, Edward is pulled from the burning building but Dr. Lanyon has to jump from the roof to avoid the flames!

Tune in tommorow for a super-special post from Eegah!!.. THE HUMAN DUPLICATORS!!!!!