KOROLEVSTVO KRIVYKH ZERKAL - "Kingdom Of Crooked Mirrors" Part Deux (1963)

 Greg Goodsell back again – here is the second installment to the classic Russian fairy tale film, KINGDOM OF CROOKED MIRRORS. Check an earlier post to bring you up to speed if you’re unaware on this one – you don’t check back every day to see what we’ve cooked up for you? For shame!

Our twins must make it past these fearsome giants in a clever forced perspective shot.

Yet another delightful matte painting! Pay attention to the spider at the right, it's a recurring motif --

Here is the helpful chambermaid. Perhaps tiring of her subservient status, and sick of her servitude to King Torrap (parrot spelled backwards), she aids our two plucky heroines! Viva la revolution!

Oh my! Some Soviet-style sentiment just snuck by the censors!

Here's the plan! She disguises the gals as pages to sneak into the king's antechamber!

There's that spider again! Yaaaaah!

Decadent capitalists bend the ear of our nefarious king!

Here we go! Mr. Doat (that's Toad backwards) enters the scene -- he's as flamboyant as any villain on the old Batman TV show of the 1960s!

AH! It's the lovely and lethal Queen Elitper (that's Reptile spelled backwards) giving us her patented Bette Davis eyes!

Doat and Elitper have a convo and you know it can't be any good! Watch out, kids!

In the meantime, Dneirf is kept hostage at this Spider themed prison! Looks like the most boring ride in Disneyland, if you ask me!

This shot makes me cringe. My longstanding fear of heights, I suppose.

Yippee! Yet another matte painting!

Here we are at Doat's digs, and just by the look of things, it's leading up to one hell of a wild ride!

The bad guys shouldn't be quick to have a toast -- our two little girl heroines are out to foil them at the last minute!

It's the twins to the rescue!

Will Doat and Elitper beat the girls in time for evil to triumph? This is a kiddie film, whaddya expect?

THERE! Evil has failed! Phew!

Which key to unlock Dneirf with? They're both identical in this crazy mirrored universe!

Here we go! The girls rescue our hero and sing a song about universal friendship and brotherhood. "What country are you girls from?' he asks them. “Why, the best country in the whole wide world," one of them says.

Not so fast, there buddy! The kids have won out and we're on our way to a happy ending!

And there you have it! KINGDOM OF CROOKED MIRRORS is a delightful fantasy that should be seen on one of myriad DVD versions with English subtitles.

CURSES! Foiled again -- and with that, your humble narrator Greg Goodsell must bid adieu.

Bye bye now!

THE BABY / Quintet Productions - 1973

It's WTF!! Friday, here at The Dungeon!.. Here's a little gem from 1973 that's a twisted piece of shit (literally) and everyone in the movie is totally freakin' insane. Not my favorite flick, gives flicks a bad name, got this copy off TCM Underground.

Eegah!! sent over a swinging sound clip from the Baby's Birthday Party for our approval, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button over by our electrified baby crib, NOW, Rufus The Gnat!.. Here's a little taste of... THE BABY!

Blogger screwed up some of my photos again so I deleted them...

The story's basically about a social worker, Ann, who is sent to investigate the Wadsworth family, they seem fairly normal at first, there's the mother, two grown daughters and a diaper wearing baby. There's a problem though, the baby is twenty-one years old!!

Here are just two reason I find this flick so disgusting, a friend comes over, she sneaks into Baby's room so that she can change his diaper and ends up breast feeding him!!! She's caught by the mom and daughters and pays a dear price for her actions.

One of the daughters loves to taunt and tease her baby bro!

Happy Birthday, Baby!! You can count the candles to verify his age!

Then, at the party (as heard in the sound clip), there's this pot smoking pervert who tries to put the make on Ann, so, she puts him in his place!

After being drugged and beat up by mom and the girls, Ann escapes from the basement and kidnaps Baby. She takes him to her house where she lives with her mom! This flick is all about extreme motherly instincts as far as I can tell!

Ann sends a letter and photo to let mom know that she took Baby and he's safe with her.

Mom and daughters go to Ann's house (return address on the envelope) to get their kid but it's a set up! One daughter down, one to go...

Okay,, two daughters down and mom to go!

We find out that Ann's mom is nothing more that an overprotective, knife toting killer!

After burying mom and the daughters in the back yard, Ann introduces Baby to his new brother, who is non other than Ann's husband, victim of a brain injury!!

We're back tomorrow with more fun from The Dungeon Gang!..

KOROLEVSTVO KRIVYKH ZERKAL - "Kingdom Of Crooked Mirrors" (1963)

 Greg Goodsell here – sorry I’ve been gone so long, but I’ve been bogged down with this thing called life. Anyway, here we go down the rabbit hole for the exquisite Russian fantasy film KINGDOM OF THE CROOKED MIRRORS.

 There have been a lot of Russian fairy tales made into movies, but this one should be especially accessible to western audiences as it’s short, funny and constantly amazing! Dig in! 

And so it begins -- these rotten Russian kids are poking their heads through a lattice showing a film intended for adults only when our heroine Olya (Olga Yukina) remembers she's running late and she needs to make it to Grandma's house!

Switzerland had 500 years of peace and Democracy and WHAT DID IT GET THEM? The cuckoo clock!

Here is Olya, our Soviet heroine, all precious in pigtails, before she mounts her most surrealistic adventure!

Her sweet Russian grandma-ma tells her she needs to be a bit more conscious of her actions and to keep up appearances! Kind of interesting to find such capitalistic sentiments in a Russian kiddie film!

All this blue and red gel lighting -- it appears that some Mario Bava movies made it past the Iron Curtain!

Like her British counterpart Alice, our plucky heroine ventures into what lies behind the mirror! Love the Caligari-esque frame this is in!

BANG! She meets her identical twin (Aylo – Olya spelled backwards because she’s in the mirror, right?) within the land of the mirror! No worries! They become fast playmates and go on a rollicking adventure! Aylo is played by Olga’s real-life twin sister, Tatyana Yuina!

This is just the beginning of all the surrealistic eye candy as the twins descend a staircase and the titular Kingdom unfolds on them in this fashion!

Beautiful matte painting I just HAD to share!

Yes -- it's THE KINGDOM OF THE CROOKED MIRRORS! Beautiful shot!

The fun has just begun as we are introduced to the Kingdom's colorful -- and very pompous and arrogant citizens!

Alejandro Jodorowsky's latest film, THE DANCE OF REALITY, has quite a few characters that look like they could have stepped out of this movie.

I'll bet you a sawbuck that these wicked stepsisters are men in drag!

So many wonderful matte paintings! I'm going to use up my pictorial allotment but I JUST DON'T CARE!

Here we meet poor put upon "Dneirf," which is Friend" backward -- we're in a mirror world, remember? And the plucky twins set out to free him from enslavement, setting the story in place!

Boorish capitalists make Dneirf earn his wage!

The decadent party-goers all have a distinct Eighties "vibe" to them, with their poofed up hair -- but this is 1963! I guess Russian filmmakers were prescient!

Girls just want to have fun!

Well – KINGDOM OF THE CROOKED MIRRORS is so wonderful, grumpy ol’ Eegah said I could do this in two parts in order to share all the wonky visuals found herein! So tune in on Saturday for more Soviet surrealism as we conclude – THE KINGDOM OF CROOKED MIRRORS!