LA CARA DEL TERROR - José Buenagú - "Face Of Terror" (1962)

It's time for yet another Saturday Night Special, and tonight's feature is a good one, in fact, it should probably be considered a classic!

The original title released in 1962 was "La Cara Del Terror," but the English version released two years later in 1964 was "Face Of Terror!"

Write out of the box, there's something fishy going on around here!

Fernando Rey is Dr. Charles Taylor (Sure he is, you can tell by his accent) Fernando had freakin' 242 acting credits to his name before heading on to higher ground in 1994! How about "La Próxima Vez Que Vivamos," or "Si Te Hubieses Casado Conmigo" for starters, or one of my faves, Luis Buñuel's "That Obscure Object Of Desire?" Dr. Taylor was at the Institute of Mental Health to try and get them to let him use disfigured patients as guinea pigs for his new plastic surgery procedure, but he is turned down because he won't turn over all the financial rights to his experimentations!

One of the patients, Lisa Gaye as the horribly disfigured Norma was out wandering around and heard what the good Doctor was trying to do, so she hides in his car, and when they get back to his lab, she talks him into trying his new treatment on her or else she is going to end it forever! The Doctor doesn't know that she is also a bonifide nut job! Lisa Gaye was an American actress who was everywhere on TV in the 50's and 60's and her choice of movie roles literally rocked with "Rock Around The Clock," and "Shake, Rattle, & Rock!"

The Doc gets her fixed up real good, and then he gets a call, and finds out who she really is, so rather than go back to the psycho ward, she whacks him in the head so bad that he doesn't remember anything for weeks!

Norma grabs the money out of the Doctor's wallet and gets the Hell out of town on the next bus after she gets herself some new threads!

So everything's groovy, Norma's looking good, and she got the job, and the Doctor's not dead! No foul, no great harm!

It's right at this spot that this movie achieved classic status in my book matching that of "Frankenstein's Daughter," and "How To Make A Monster" in the musical number department!
The musical credits go to a rather obscure José Buenagú, and I have no clue who any of these musicians are, but this song is nothing less than prefect! Hit It Guys!!!

The crazy rich playboy that falls in love with Norma the first time he sees her is played by Virgilio Teixeira! Virgilio was Ali in "The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad," and sin and bad are what he has on his mind here too!!

But everything's not perfect in Krazytown! Norma's face is breaking down, because the material used on her face was never fully tested, and the Doctor had determined that it dried too fast, so she has to constantly be putting this special formula on it!

The burnt out dim bulbs that call themselves cops can't even recognize the new girl in town even though they have a picture of Norma with them! They have their suspicions, but .....

The guy that gave Norma her new job at the Blue Cove Inn expected something in return, but this wasn't it! Unfortunately for Norma, he also broke the flask that contained the rest of her special facial fluid!

The cops are hot on her trail, so Norma accepts the playboy's marriage invitation, and to get out of town faster, she insists that they elope as quickly as possible!

The playboy finally gets a good look at his new blushing bride and is so repulsed, he jumps out of the car! Norma takes the bull by the horns, and runs over him!

The original reason that Norma was in the mental hospital is because she is a homicidal maniac! She's come back to visit the now recovering Doctor, because she wants more of that damn fluid!

The Doctor's girlfriend shows up just in time for a good old fashioned CAT-FIGHT!

Bam! Norma nails her one in the head with the big overhanging operation light!

Somehow after she takes a massive glass shard to the back, her face turns back to normal like she was a werewolf that had just been killed!

"La Cara Del Terror" is available from Sinister Cinema or Amazon for next to nothing! What are you waiting for?

RAW MEAT / Harbor Ventures, K-L Productions - 1973

It's Eff'd Up Friday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. We gots a British flick about police trying to solve a mystery concerning abductions and grisly murders under London in the Tube subway tunnels between Holborn and Russell Square. It stars Donald (FANTASTIC VOYAGE and THE MUTATIONS) Pleasence as Inspector Calhoun and Norman (A HARD DAY'S NIGHT) Rossington as Detective Sergeant Rogers.

Here's a sound clip from this wild movie for your approval, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button over by our pile of corpses, NOW, Rufus The Gnat!.. Here's a taste of... RAW MEAT!

Again, bad things are happening at this subway station, people just seem to disappear into thin air. Inspector Calhoun and Detective Rogers go over the subway building plans, looking for any clues to help them in their efforts.

Then, we get to see rats gnawing on corpses in the maniac's underground lair... YUCK!

And, here are a few more gruesome looking inmates just hanging around!

Chris Lee pops in to check up on the Inspecter's progress on the case, he's from M15.

You get to see plenty of scenes like this, it's dark, dank and probably a little stinky. I remember reading the Weekly World News in the eighties about some ancient grave in Eastern Europe that was dug up and all the people involved in the excavation contracted The Plague!

The poor maniac doesn't even get a credit! But, he does get beaten to death by our hero.

Then, the Inspector and his crew finally discover the underground boneyard...

And, all the unburied bodies therein!! Tune in tomorrow when we're back with more 4 U.

HOT CARS - Les Baxter - "Sucker Bait" (1956)

Normally when you see the words "Hot Cars," you think of souped-up hot rods and hot chicks, and that's sure what this poster looks like, but No, that's not it! Welcome back to Weird-Ass Wednesday outside in the parking lot of The Dungeon, and tonight's red light special.........

"HOT CARS"

"Hot Cars" is a truly unique movie about used car lots selling stolen cars, or literally, "Hot Cars!"

To make it look legit, they used real car lots, and gave them credit at the end! Robert(Invasion Of The Body Snatchers) Osterloh is the owner of this lot, Big John!

Now isn't this iconic America circa 1956? Handsome John(Revenge Of The Creature, Curucu, Beast Of The Amazon) Bromfield as the recently fired used car salesman, Nick Dunn, and his dear lovely stay-at-home wife Jane, as played by Carol Shannon. I don't know why, but Carol looks very familiar to me although she was only in 5 TV shows besides this movie. I must have seen them all!! Nick and Jane have a sick baby boy named Davy who is always off camera! I guess that's how they saved the money up to finance the big climax!

Bow House!

For some, the number one blonde bombshell of the 1950's and 60's was Joyce Renee Brown, aka Joi Lansing! Sometimes it's hard not to agree! Here's some creds: "Touch Of Evil," "Atomic Submarine," and "Hillbillies In A Haunted House!"

You might not know his name until now, but with 310 acting credits, Dabbs Greer as the snoopy Detective Davenport, has a face you will recognize if you've ever watched anything on TV from 1950 to 2003!

Joi Lansing died from breast cancer at the very young age of 43, but she still outlived both Marilyn Monroe (36) and Jayne Mansfield (34) by almost a decade! Besides her movie roles, some of her TV roles are forever too, like Shirley Swanson on "The Bob Cummings Show," and Gladys Flatt on "The Beverly Hillbillies!"

Nick Dunn just needs a shoulder to cry on, and Joi's character Karen Winter seems overly available!

Nick doesn't realize yet that Karen is the best girl of the crook who hired him! He's about to get set up to take a fall, but he doesn't have a clue! Sucker bait is right!

That claw of Karen Winter's might as well be around Nick's throat!

Detective Davenport has been murdered, and all the evidence points to Nick, but Oh, Yeah, he has an excuse, and his wife doesn't even care if he was with another woman as long as it means that he didn't kill anybody, so he admits that he was at Karen Winter's apartment! I like the way this shot is set up!

Another great shot shows the Detective questioning Miss Winter who denies she even knows Nick Dunn! Nick tells them he can identify the furnishings in the bedroom without going in there, but everything has been changed, and he looks like a dunce!

The music in the hot theme and throughout this film is by one of the Dungeon Super Faves, the phenomenal Les Baxter! You like horror movies, you like 60's surf movies, then Les Baxter is THE man!! Here are just the movies that Les composed for in the random year of 1963 : THE YOUNG RACERS, THE RAVEN, THE EVIL EYE, A BOY TEN FEET TALL, OPERATION BIKINI, X: THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES, BEACH PARTY, BLACK SABBATH, SAMSON AND THE SLAVE QUEEN, I TABÙ, and THE COMEDY OF TERRORS!

I would imagine that cinematographer William Marguiles gets credit for stuffing a camera inside the dashboard! Mark(The Pharaoh's Curse)Dana is tough guy Smiley Ward! Both Mark Dana and Joi Lansing were also in the 43rd of 48 Bowery Boys movies made also in 1956, called ironically "Hot Shots!"

Great cast, great music, but what makes this movie truly unique and historically significant is that it ends up in Santa Monica at magnificent Pacific Ocean Park!

The Sea Serpent Roller Coaster is the stage for what is in my humble opinion the best fight scene I've ever seen on a roller coaster!

You would think they would have had to use green screen to get shots that look this good, but as far as I could tell, it's all live action footage!

Freakin' Smiley gets what's coming to him!

I found "Hot Cars" streaming on Amazon Prime, and you can too! It's compact at just over an hour long, and a roller coaster ride that's well worth taking!