WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO AUNT ALICE? - Gerald Fried - "Grave Consequences" (1969)

Welcome back to The Dungeon! Sometimes doing this can be a real chore, but not tonight! "What Ever Happened To Alice" is indeed a Saturday Night Special! I will just never understand why films this good are so hard to find!

 "What Ever Happened To Aunt Alice" was released in 1969, and is arguably one of the best of the lot in the Who, What, Where, and When films! The music for "What Ever Happened To Aunt Alice" was created by Dungeon Hall Of Famer Gerald Fried! Here's just a portion of Gerald's accomplishments: THE VAMPIRE, DINO, THE RETURN OF DRACULA, THE FLAME BARRIER, I BURY THE LIVING, CURSE OF THE FACELESS MAN, THE CRY BABY KILLER, THE LOST MISSILE, HIGH SCHOOL BIG SHOT, and THE CABINET OF CALIGARI, and it just doesn't get much better than that, and this killer theme will explain just how off kilter this man, and this movie really were! Enjoy it kids, this is one of my favourites!

 Geraldine Page is Clare Marrable! Her husband has just passed away, but she doesn't care, because she's just happy to be rich! Unfortunately she didn't know that her husband was up to his neck in debt, and all she got out of the deal was his stamp and his butterfly collection! She is now broke and homeless, and the only person she knows is her nephew in Arizona!

There's not a lot of mystery to this film! It's some time in the future now and Clare is living quite nicely in the boondocks of Arizona!  She has acquired a nasty habit of hiring women to care for her, talking them into putting their life savings in her bank account so she can invest it for them, and then bashing their heads in and burying them in the desert!

 "What Ever Happened To Aunt Alice" is literally the Cadillac Margarita of movies! Number one, Clare has a penchant for just sitting around sipping Grand Mariner liqueur, and she has blue agave cactus growing all over her property! In fact, I'm going to pour myself a shot of Grand Mariner right now just to prove it!

It was tough trying to decide which shot of this line of pine trees to use, they cut to them so many times! The reason being that each one (and you can see they are different ages) is a burial plot for one of many of Clare's housekeepers!

Geraldine Sue Page is, and I quote the IMDB because this is very interesting, "considered by many to be one of the greatest American actresses of all time," and if this movie is any indication, I agree with them 100%! She damn sure plays a mighty fine homicidal nut job!

Rosemary Forsyth as Clare's newly acquired neighbor Harriet Vaughn reminds me too much of a girl I knew back about the time this movie was released! I thought it was pretty damn funny that the next movie that Rosemary was in was titled "Some Kind Of A Nut," like Clare wasn't already nutty enough!

I'm not showing you a lot of shots of different cast members in this film because how can I not give you this shot of Clare with a weird ass clown painting in the background! C'mon, just try and tell me that's not freaky!

The always magnificent Ruth Gordon is Alice, Clare's newest hire! What Clare doesn't know is that Alice was a good friend of Clare's last housekeeper that vanished mysteriously, and she is really trying to figure out what the fuck is going on! Dunno why, but I'm enamored with Geraldine's hand in this shot!

 A record player and bottles of booze in the same shot will always be a Dungeon favourite!

A stray dog named Chloe has been terrorizing Clare by having a penchant for digging around her pine trees!  Clare traps Chloe in a shed and tries to kill her with a hatchet, but when Chloe bears her teeth, Clare has second thoughts, and Chloe is free again! Chloe was played by a dog called Spike! With only four credits, Spike had a pretty spectacular career. Besides this film, there was "The She-Creature," "Old Yeller," and "A Dog Of Flanders!"

These days it's risque to show two 13 year old boys kissing, but back in 1969, it was pretty nutzoid to see an 11 year old kid smoking a cigarette and spying on his Mom making out with the new guy in town! Michael Barbera is Jimmy Vaughn, Clare's new Neighbor Harriet's son! I think this was Michael's only movie appearance, but he was all over the TV from 1968 to 1980!

What did I tell you? Now Clare's having a blended Margarita! If she would have just added the Grand Mariner, she could have been credited with drinking the first Cadillac Margarita!

No matter the subject matter, when you have great actors and great cinematography, you're going to end up with a pretty damn good movie, and that's what you have got here!!

When Clare is confronted with the truth by Alice, there's a big battle and I think one of the best action screen captures I have ever got! 

"What Ever Happened To Alice" is one of the few movies that I don't mind telling you what happens in the end, because the title already has told you! 

 Freakin' Clare is now totally outside her mind! She has decided that her neighbor knows what she has been up to, so she invites her and her son over for a drink (FULL OF SLEEPING POTION)! If it's not bad enough that she knocks out  an innocent woman and her child, she then proceeds to move their drugged bodies back to their home and set it on fire! Clare IS NOT a nice person!!

 Jimmy and Harriet are saved and what's left of the cast gives Clare the big evil eye that she deserves!

The awesome twist to the ending is that the stupid stamp collection that Clare's husband left her was worth $100,000.00, and she could have lived comfortably and would have never had to become a serial killer! Great movie, but not exactly worth the 40 dollar DVD's available on Amazon! Hopefully somebody will re-release this thing some day!

THE MURDER MANSION / Mundial Film, Tritone Cinematografica - 1972

It's Friday Fright at The Dungeon! Check out the storyline of this Spanish Italian production - People get stranded on a foggy night.. They're forced to seek refuge in creepy old house.. The house is in an isolated area.. It's located next to a cemetery.. The owners of the house are super weird.. The house is rumored to be haunted.. The guests are disturbed by very strange goings-on.. Gee, how original!! Nice poster, original title is MANIAC MANSION.

Here's a sound clip from this Euro flick for your approval, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button over by our haunted I scream room, NOW, Rufus The Gnat!.. Here's a little taste of... THE MURDER MANSION!

It all starts with a Mustang verses a motorcycle road race, the cycle wins the contest.

But when a cute hitchhiking gurlie enters the scene, the dude in the Mustang seals the deal.

There's this damaged hot chick that likes to tease the viewer but never delivers the goods!

Did I mention the fog?.. Anyway, this group of travelers make their way to the old mansion.

Once they get inside, they see that other travelers have already arrived there and are making themselves comfortable near the fireplace.

This very interesting painting is hanging in the picture gallery, hmmm...

Look at this freakin' party!! What the Hell, I thought the place was supposed to be secluded!

For sex, this is what you get!

Jeez, talk about over reacting to a bloody nose!!

I really dig this shot, even if it's only a dummy hanging there to scare the crap out of anyone stupid enough to explore the creepy caves and walkways under the place.

The big buff chauffer doubles as a masked monster that likes to beat up the guests!

It turns out that everyone's absolutely out of their minds and psycho bitch rubs out the whole family!.. Thank you!! Tune in tomorrow when we'll dig up more Dungeon Treasure just for you!

THE GIRL IN BLACK STOCKINGS - "She Made Every Inch Pay Off!" (1957)

Welcome to Wanton Wednesday down in The Dungeon!

Tonight's feature from 1957 is called "The Girl In Black Stockings!" Why it's called that makes about as much sense as the taglines and the poster! At least it's a fairly good movie despite itself!

This party pooped out when they found some young woman murdered! I love this shot of the party goers staring down at the dead body!

This is the kind of gear you used to have to lug around if you wanted to simply take a picture!

Here he is again, and I got it right this time, Ron Randell as paralyzed and wheelchair bound rich son of a bitch Edmund Parry! He might not have the use of it, but Edmund is a real prick! Actually, considering his condition, it's kind of understandable, but he's still a jerk, no matter what!

Marie (Cat-Women Of The Moon, Abbott And Costello Meet The Mummy, The Day Mars Invaded Earth) Windsor is Edmund's loving sister, and enabler Julia Parry! Together they own and run the Parry Lodge kind of in the middle of nowhere in Kanab, Utah! (The Parry Lodge is a real place! The names haven't been changed to protect the innocent!)

Water therapy in the Lodge pool just pisses Edmund off!

Here's an awesome ensemble shot of the main cast members, and what a great cast it is! Marie Windsor and Ron Randell as the Parrys, Anne (Gorilla At Large, The Graduate) Bancroft as Beth Dixon, John (Maverick, Rawhide, Bonanza) Dehner as Sheriff Jess Holmes, and Lex (Tarzan's Magic Fountain, Tarzan And The Slave Girl, Tarzan's Peril, Tarzan's Savage Fury, Tarzan And The She-Devil) Barker as David Hewson!

What, you say, Mamie Van Doren is not one of the main cast members, with her face and body plastered all over the poster! Actually Mamie has a pretty small role, as side character Harriet Ames!

Larry (Harum Scarum) Chance is drunken Indian Joe! He has a knife that's covered with blood, and he's quite a bit tetched in the haid, but Joe is no murderer! On another note, the music in "The Girl In Black Stockings" goes from mundane to swingin' and is all a product of the genius mind of Mr. Les Baxter. It's mostly all in the background, but here's a small but tasty sample, more or Les!!

From this to cell phones in a little over 50 years!

 Bonanza's Dan (Hoss) Blocker has a small but memorable role as a bartender!

Speaking of cell phones, this shot cracks me up!  I swear it looks like Hoss is checking his cell phone in 1957!

 This is a pretty gripping scene when this little girl spots the next victim's body in the pool!

Okay, they had to show Mamie off a little bit, but check out the robe on the guy who is with her!!

It's not often you get to see a shot of two guys with flips in their hair!

As Sheriff Jess talks on the phone, he mindlessly fiddles with the knife that might be the potential murder weapon! If his face looks a little familiar, it's because John Dehner had 285 acting credits to his name! There's no place to start or stop, so I'll just tell you the three "Twilight Zone" episodes he was in: "The Lonely," "The Jungle," and "Mr. Garrity And The Graves!"

Mamie has a little too much to drink, and flirts with, and tries to play around with Edmund a bit at dinner! That little stunt basically earns her a one way ticket to a hole in the ground!

Beth is supposed to be in love with David who is going to take her away, but when she's left alone with Edmund, she shows signs of not being right in the head! Go figure!

So there you go! Got an hour and 15 minutes to kill? You can't go wrong here! Just don't expect a movie about a girl in black stockings of any of the other taglines, and you won't be disappointed! Big kudos to Amazon Prime for streaming a nice clean version of this classic film, and to all a good night!