HOT SATURDAY - "I'm Burning For You" (1934)

 Welcome to the Saturday Night Pre-Code Special down in The Dungeon! Before the "Code To Govern The Making Of Talking, Synchronized and Silent Motion Pictures," was enacted on June 13, 1934, it was anything goes! That's why you can watch silent movies, and wonder in disbelief that there was nudity, when the rest of society was still pretty much draped from head to toe! I don't have time to tell you all the details, but here's a couple of highlights of what had to stop! In the "Crimes Against The Law" category, 01 - "The technique of murder must be presented in a way that will not inspire imitation." But what they really wanted to crack down on was partying with alcohol and basically anything that had to do with sex! So you have stuff like "Scenes of passion should not be introduced when not essential to the plot!" So you get the idea, somebody suddenly got a moral stick up their butt, and movie making was changed until 1968 when the code was replaced by the MPAA film rating system! All you comic book fans will know that the same basic thing happened to comic books in 1954 until the early 2000's! Marvel abandoned the comics code completely in 2001!

What a fitting title for this Saturday Night Special!

Just another sleepy little town!

Here's Nancy (The Devil's Holiday) Carroll as the super sweet and pleasant bank worker Miss Ruth Brock!

Here's Cary Grant as the swanky playboy Romer Sheffield!  How cool do you have to be to wear a completely white suit? As cool as Archibald Alexander Leach, Cary Grant's birth name!

 Ruth's sister Annie steals her drawers, so she strips them off her, and takes them back! This is obviously a breach of future rule VI, COSTUME - 2. "Undressing scenes should be avoided, and never used save where essential to the plot."

 DITTO!!

 Not many guys could get away with wearing an ascot like that either, but Cary Grant always gets away with it effortlessly! This scene is an obvious breach of future code rule 4. "The use of liquor in American life, when not required by the plot or for proper characterization, will not be shown!" What a bunch of spoil sports!

Here's about 2 minutes of  "I'm Burning For You" written by Arthur Johnston and Sam Coslow, and sung by this unidentified road house torch singer! I'm sure it commits some kind of sin!

 VII DANCES - "Dances suggesting or representing sexual actions or indecent passion are forbidden!"

Big time cowboy-western actor Randolph Scott plays Bill Fadden, Ruth's old flame from seven years earlier!

Ruth Brock gets wrongfully accused of spending the night at Romer's pad, and the catty rumor mill cranks into high gear!

Ruth is fired from her job for her supposed infidelities so she goes out in the rain to find Bill Fadden who is on a dig up in the mountains! It starts raining like Hell, and before she can find the cave he's dwelling in, she passes out from exhaustion!

 See how they like to twist everything around! Bill innocently undresses Ruth to dry out her clothes and get her warm, but it turns into another evil sexual innuendo!

 She's naked under there, so I'm pretty sure that would violate future rule VI. COSTUME - 1. - "Complete nudity is never permitted.This includes nudity in fact or silhouette, or any lecherous or licentious notice thereof by other characters in the picture."

Bill and Ruth were all set to get married until he falls into all the traps of gossip and lies, and he ends up driving Ruth into the arms of Romer Sheffield who doesn't mind at all because he was madly in love with her anyway! 

I got this movie from Amazon! It's included in a nice three DVD set called "Pre-Code Hollywood Collection" that includes a total of 6 movies, and a copy of the whole "Code To Govern The Making Of Talking, Synchronized and Silent Motion Pictures," so you can bet this won't be the last of the Pre-Code thrills around here! If you don't want to own it, but you still want to watch "Hot Saturday," there's a nice version streaming for free right here on YouTube!

THE MONSTERS OF PAUL BLAISDELL - Part 2

Welcome back for Part 2 of the amazing work of Paul Blaisdell. Part 1 focused on all his major creations, now, we'll take a look at the other work in his portfolio...

Paul's first monster was a rubber puppet for the Corman production of THE BEAST WITH A MILLION EYES in 1955. Although the posters for the movie were some of the best ever conceived, the movie itself didn't even come close in delivering the goods. This movie always reminded me of a story by Al Feldstein in EC's WEIRD SCIENCE Comic from around 1953.

Paul came up with a totally unique flying insect umbrella alien for Corman's NOT OF THIS EARTH in 1957. Lucky me, I saw this one with my neighbors at the theater when it was released, back when kids would walk 5 miles to the show and back with no complaints.

Again in 1957, Paul played the part of a corpse in Corman's THE UNDEAD (Eegah!! had the 1-sheet). They even threw in his little bat things from IT CONQUERED THE WORLD.

1957 was a very busy year for Paul. Bert I. Gordon had him construct the giant needle used to inject Glenn in THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN. I'm pretty sure Paul and wife Jackie also made the miniature furniture and food props.

Paul also had small acting parts in these two 1957 JD flicks for Alex Gordon.

In 1958 Herman Cohen used Paul's personal collection of masks and heads in the climax for HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER. The priceless pieces were burned without the knowledge or permission of Paul, needless to say it was one dirty trick played on him. Burn in Hell Herman Cohen, you sorry sack of shit...

Paul was back with Bert Gordon in 1958 for EARTH vs. THE SPIDER, another one I saw at the time. Paul created the shriveled up motorcycle cop, a victim of The Spider.

Also in 1958 him and Jackie worked on ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE (saw this one too) where they created some of the props and designs.

Then, Paul helped Roger Corman out again with the construction of the Beastman creature for TEENAGE CAVEMAN in 1959. It looks like parts of the monster from NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST were used in the making of this thing.

Columbia reused the costume from IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE for the aliens in INVISIBLE INVADERS in 1959, but, this time they're white.

Paul then created the horror magazine FANTASTIC MONSTERS OF THE FILMS in 1962 and included Devil's Workshop where he showed you how to make your own little monsters!!

Paul was only 55 when he died in 1983, he lived out the years after his movie career as a carpenter in the friendly little community of Topanga Canyon.

THE ONE EYED SOLDIERS - "The Most Deadly Plot Ever Snatched From The Minds Of Evil!" (1966)

Welcome to another rousing round of Weirdsville Wednesday down in The Dungeon! Tonight's presentation is a perfect example of why some movies are so doggone hard to find! From the title I expected a cool army of cyclops monsters, but no such luck!

Honestly, if I had to come up with a one word description for "The One Eyed Soldiers," it probably would be WEIRD, but this time, that's not necessarily a good thing! "The One Eyed Soldiers" is basically just one very long chase scene!

I caught these two guys walking out before the movie even started!

The star of "The One Eyed Soldiers" is veteran cowboy TV actor Dale Robertson! Early in his career, Dale also played Sinbad in "Son Of Sinbad!" I'm not quite sure what he's doing in this movie, but he's supposed to be a journalist on a trip to a central European country called Nassaum, but I think the writers meant Nauseam!

Dale's female interest is Luciana Paluzzi as the daughter of the man who knows the secret of the one eyed soldiers! How's this for an assortment of credits? Luciana was in "Muscle Beach Party," "Thunderball," and "The Green Slime!"

Guy Deghy is a fellow known as The Fat Man! As you can see, he had the ability to take up the whole screen! Among other things, Guy was also in "The Mouse That Roared," "The Mouse On The Moon," and "Devil Doll!"

The big man in charge of the bad guys is Mile Avramovic as the evil dwarf also known as "The Twisted Shape Of Death!" He's got a serious 'little man' complex! Mile was only in one other film, a 1983 movie titled "How I Was Systematically Destroyed By An Idiot!"

Andrew (Jason And The Argonauts) Faulds has the role of Colonel Ferrer, and he's out to catch this fat man!

When the Colonel spots a fat woman on a bicycle crossing a bridge, he just knows that it's the guy he's looking for, so he goes as far as exposing her to prove it, but she actually is a woman also played by Guy Deghy! I told you it was weird!

There's so much odd stuff happening in this film that you're not sure if it's a comedy or not, like this scene where Guy gets bit by an empty suit of armor!

The evil dwarf and Luciana come face to face, and she scratches his face good!

I think he was going to poke her eyes out, but he couldn't reach her without a stool!

To show you how evil he is, the dwarf mingles with a bunch of masked kids in a parade! 

When you need to hide, you can't ever go wrong by hiding in a prostitute's room! Prostitutes are loyal, they'll never rat you out to the authorities!

Luciana won't give it up, so the dwarf resorts to other methods of obtaining information!

Here's one of the soldiers, so what's the big deal? He's got two eyes!

But then Luciana reveals, that if you get up on this little platform, and look down on the statues at  just the right angle, it looks like they only have one eye! Bingo!

There's a key hidden in the wall in a direct line with the statue's eyes that will open the lock to the millions of dollars everyone is so concerned about!

The final showdown is between the evil dwarf with a machine gun.........

................and the fat man's best buddy, a mute with no ears! The mute was played by Mirko (The Last Mission Of Demolitions Man Cloud) Boman!
If that's not weird enough for you, then take a listen to this short clip of music from the movie, and try to understand why they're playing circus music for the ending credits!