Saturday, October 18, 2014

HELL'S BELLS - Walt Disney - Ub Iwerks - Carl Stalling (1929)

Not to be confused with the 1969 biker flick "Hell's Belles," and "The Roughest Ride In Town"..........

............Nor the 1980 hit single by AC/DC, This Saturday Night Special is a Silly Symphony of a different colour!!

Forty years before "Hell's Belles," and 51 years before "Hell's Bells" came the original Disney Cartoon of the same name, give or take an e or two, drawn by the master Ub Iwerks! The only difference is that this one is actually about Hell!!

Welcome to Hell!!!

Here's a good shot of the legendary three-headed hound known as Cerberus, the guardian of the gates of Hades! You just know that this guy has got some serious fleas!!

It seems silly to say that Satan is just chillin' under these circumstances, so I guess I'll say that Satan is just heatin'!!

Satan has all these little devils running around doing things, this group is the band!

The band members have an odd array of instruments, and once again, the genius of Carl Stalling is the force behind the music!

Then, after a little shadow dancing, the performance starts in earnest!

"Hell's Bells" is essentially a musical, and the little devils are quite graceful! The music they're dancing to should sound very familiar to any fan of 1950's and 1960's TV, because it is the "Funeral March Of A Marionette" written by Charles Gounod that is the exact same song that was used as the theme song for 10 years on one of the most classic TV shows of all time, "Alfred Hitchcock Presents!"          

This dance number goes on for the majority of the cartoon!

Ub must have loved this gag, after the little guy runs into the wall and gets accordioned, he takes a step back, and then proceeds to do it again!

Man, this is making me thirsty, nothing like some fresh squeezed hot milk from one of the devil's cows!

Here's a good close-up of the big guy in charge, Satan, Beelzebub, the angel of darkness also known as Mephistopheles! He not only rules the Underworld, he cheats at cards, and is a nasty drunk too!!

The Devil gets all pissed off and starts taking it out on the little guys for no reason at all! I could make a gazillion comparisons here, but I'll just leave it right there!

After brutally feeding one of the little guys to Cerebus, Satan then goes after another one, but this one isn't going for it! Satan chases him to the edge of this cliff, but there's a tunnel and he manages to come back around and push the Devil over the edge!

I guess for the Devil to burn in Hell is pretty appropiate!

"Burn, Baby, Burn!"


There are 13 more days until Halloween, but for now......
....this is indeed THE END!!

There are more than a couple versions of "Hell's Bells" streaming on Youtube,  Here's the link to just one of them!!

Friday, October 17, 2014

LIGHTS OUT: The Martian Eyes - NBC - 1950

It's Halloween Countdown Friday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. Here's a fun little episode starring Burgess Meredith from the early horror TV series that was originally a very popular radio show from the 1940s.

Eegah!! sent over a fun little creepy sound clip for our earjoyment, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button over by our own Atomic Eyeball, NOW, Rufus The Gnat!.. Here's a taste of... THE MARTIAN EYES!

Here's your host, Frank Gallop, setting up this little sci-fi tale about life on other planets and the possibility that aliens could already be here, living on Earth!

Burgess Meredith plays the very strange Professor Lyman, he's convinced that Martians are on Earth and that he can see their 3rd eye with his special infra red glasses. He's telling Mr. Sorrel, a photographer, all about his weird theory and that he's been following the other guy there in the bar and convinced that he's a Martian! The stranger then suspiciously walks up behind them as they watch him in the mirror.

And, by the way, Blogger The Gremlin is back, randomly tinting some of the photos sepia again! What a maroon!

Here's Pat O'Malley as the bartender, he had a small part in INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and is often confused with the very popular Disney actor, J. Pat O'Malley.

The stranger then follows Sorrel to his place and wants to know what he's up to!

Professor Lyman sneaks in a conks the stranger on the head, killing him, because, you know, he's a freakin' Martian! Lyman tells Sorrel that he's going out back to dig a grave for him!!

Confused as Hell, Sorrel then has to deal with a nosey cop who's interested in photography!

After the cop leaves, Sorrel decides to snap a photo of 'the Martian' with his special infra red Kodak (remember them?) film, to get a look at that 3rd eye!

In the meantime, Lyman tells Sorrel to bring the body out back to be buried.

Sorrel goes back in the apartment to take a glance at the Martian's extra eye in the photo, and, guess what?!.. Right, there's no 3rd eye!!

Professor Lyman comes up the steps and tells Sorrel that the graves are now ready!

Frank Gallop then exposes his own 3rd eye just before blowing out the candle!.. More Halloween Countdown on its way tomorrow!

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

BETTY BOOP - The Fleischer Brothers - "Is My Palm Read" (1933)

 Well, the Countdown's about halfway done, so before it's too late here's some scary stuff from 1933, Betty BOO!p style!
You can find Halloween wallpaper like this and lots of other cool stuff at the Betty Boop Pictures Archive!

Now it doesn't sound like a very scary title, but "Is My Palm Read" is filled with all kinds of ghosts and other weirdass unexplainable phenomena, and it's all brought to you courtesy of those wacky guys, the Fleischer Brothers, with Dave doing the directing, and Max doing the producing!

The only member of the cast that gets any credit is the marvelous Mae Questel who did Betty's voice in over 150 different films! If that's not enough, Mae was also the voice of Olive Oyl too and a ton other voices like Sweet Pea and Little Audrey too! I'm just assuming there is a shrine to her somewhere, and if not, why not??

This is about as sweet and innocent as Betty Boop has ever looked! She looks like she's going to church on Easter Sunday!

Betty is all decked out because she's going to get her fortune read!

Here's how perverts Bimbo and Koko assist Betty, by looking through her dress when the light is right!

Bimbo predicts Betty's future using a crystal ball, and there never is any palm reading, just the Fleischer's taking a little artistic license with different factions of mysticism!

First thing that shows up in Bimbo's crystal ball is a butt nekkid baby Betty, followed by this ship that is just about to go under!

Betty was on that ship and she's about to find herself on some strange desert island, where even the waves reach out and pat her butt as she's washed ashore!

"Is My Palm Read" exploits two genres of film that would turn out to both be very popular, Jungle movies, and Horror movies!

How can you go wrong with ghosts in the jungle? Not possible! (Except maybe for Clutch Cargo!)

This living 'Hut Of Horror' snatches Betty right up and deposits her inside!

More ghosts, and a spider makes web bars on the window so that Betty is trapped!

Betty's pretty resourceful, she writes help on a board and burns it in the fireplace, and the smoke sends out the distress call in very nice cursive handwriting!

Bimbo picks up the signal and is able to rush in and rescue Betty and  make himself look like the big hero!

Back at the parlor, Bimbo then reveals to Betty that he is the psychic reading her future!

But then out of nowhere, the ghosts show up for real this time and drag Betty and Bimbo back to the jungle prophecy!

Betty and Bimbo lead the bevy of ghosts on a wild chase through the jungle......

..........that culminates in a hollow log that Betty and Bimbo are able to exit, but the ghosts get bounced on by Bimbo one by one and go down to the bottom of the gorge to their untimely demise for the second time!

Here's a parting shot that will also make for some fine wallpaper from another completely unrelated cartoon, "Have You Got Any Castles" from 1938 that I was going to do for the "Countdown To Halloween," but decided against! It's not really a scary cartoon, but there was this one small scene that included this killer Gruesome Foursome that I just couldn't leave behind!

Monster Music

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