BLOODSUCKERS FROM OUTER SPACE / One Of Those Productions - 1984

In the quest to include in our Dungeon Cyclopedia as many wild 'n' weird movies as we possibly can, well, there are times when we just have to take a hard kick to the nuts in order to move things along. That's the case with today's WTF!! piece-o-crap. I dare any of you out there to watch it, a cruel punishment. There's a big difference between comedy and parody, THE THREE STOOGES is comedy, this is definitely not comedy even though it's billed as such... It's soooo bad, it's STUPID BAD! Check out some of the moronic dialogue in the sound clip to verify.

The scream you hear at the beginning of the sound clip is how you'll feel after you watch it!

The teaser has our big farmer out working in the yard when a weird loud noise from nowhere surrounds him and he turns into the first victim, a freakin' bloodsucker from outer space?

I have a sound clip from this thing for your approval, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button located there by our crap movie shelf, NOW, Rufus The Gnat!.. Here's... BLOODSUCKERS FROM OUTER SPACE!

I think this weird dude is Uncle Joe (I paid no attention while watching) and you can hear him in the sound clip tell y'all whut he lurnt by watching Fox News!

The military joins the local medical team to try and solve the bloodsucker problem. Funny? NO!

Our curious hero and his girlfriend visit the farm to try and get some answers about those pesky bloodsuckers. They get no answers from the busy farmer, so, go into the house to see the wife. Nice place, comes with a tom turkey!

Hey, nice paint job too!.. Who's your decorator, Dracula?! Love that bottom photo, looks like a postcard from Hell....

Not sure what's going on here besides a fight, but, looks pretty interesting.

Our hero grabs a chain saw and lops off the farmer's forearm, then, splits with his girlfriend.

I really like this shot, a bloodsucker piloting that classic Chevy dump truck looks cool.

This weird looking guy shows up sometime during the movie to confuse things!

The most interesting thing about this flick is the fact that they scored Pat Paulsen to play a cameo role as the horny American president. We love Pat!.. Eegah!! is up tomorrow with our last post for January...

SHAKE, RATTLE AND ROCK! - James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff (1956)

So next up in my series of rock and roll in the movies is a great little James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff film from 1956 called "Shake, Rattle & Rock!" This film is a time capsule that features rock and roll in transition, and makes me realize how much we should all appreciate how much producers James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff have done over the years to further the cause of rock and roll! They were either premiere exploiters of the genre, or just incredible fans of music, but either way, these guys were on a cutting edge that probably doesn't get recognized often enuf! In fact, and I'll go out on a limb here, but won't fall off, in the real world, James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff should also be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! Roger Corman is another one who also falls into this same category!

Enough Talk, Let's Rock!!

Well, everybody should know who Fats Domino was, and more learned people will know who Big Joe Turner was, but the rest of this musical lineup is pretty obscure!

The basic premise is that Touch (Voodoo Woman) Connors is trying to promote a rock and roll TV show called "Rock, Roll, and Shake," but a small group of local fuddy-duddies are trying to get the whole thing shut down because it is totally decadent! Somebody thought that jitterbug dancers Rosie and Carlos were good enough to include in the credits, but as far as I can tell, their career petered out after this!

 Now you know the secret to the dynamic Fats Domino sound; piano, guitar, drums, bass, and four sax players!! Fats Domino has been one of my favourites for years, and why not? Everything he touches is gold!!

 Annita Ray performs "Rockin' On Saturday Night"
Annita went on to sing with the very successful Las Vegas lounge band led by Ray Anthony!

Here's Annita performing with Ray Anthony at Harrah's a few years later!

On the left is Percy Helton as the uptight funeral director! Percy also played a funeral director in "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte!" He was also in two "Twilight Zone" episodes, "Mute," and "Mr. Garrity And The Graves!" On the right is Raymond (Invasion Of The Saucer Men) Hatton! These two are some of the misguided folks trying to shut down the whole rock and roll scene!  Actually Ramond enjoys it, but he has to go along with whatever stand his wife takes!

You might not recognize the face of Sterling Holloway, but everybody should recognize his voice! Not only was he the voice of The Cheshire Cat in Walt Disney's "Alice In Wonderland," and  "Kaa, the snake" in "The Jungle Book, he was also the voice of Winnie The Pooh in numerous features! I'll always remember Sterling as the bumbling Waldo in the 1950's sitcom "The Life Of Riley!" He was also the TV repairman in the "Twilight Zone" episode, "What's In The Box?" In this film, he's the coolest hep cat on the block, but in reality, Sterling was 51 when this film was made!

Big Joe Turner with Choker Campbell and his band rock the joint! If I didn't like Fats Domino so much, I would say that Big Joe's songs are the best of the bunch!

 Tommy Charles was a big band crooner with the Horace Heidt Orchestra, and his crossover to the rock and roll scene was doomed from the start!  In fact, a few years later, as a radio DJ, he helped lead the 'Ban The Beatles' crusade after John Lennon said that 'The Beatles were "bigger than Jesus!"
Here's a clip of Tommy performing "Sweet Love On My Mind!" It's not the best music in the movie, but it  might be the most interesting!

The whole scene goes to court to determine if rock and roll gets to continue or not! These squares are part of the prosecution's case!

 Part of the defense is that music and dancing had been around forever including flappers from the 1920's, and then it turns out that one of the people leading the charge to rid the world of rock and roll used to cut a pretty mean rug herself! Georgianna Fitzdingle as played by the Marvelous Margaret (Duck Soup, Zotz!) Dumont now has to literally face the music!

In an eternal search to find the roots of everything sleazy, I'm heading off to Las Vegas for a couple of days! Wish me luck! If you want to watch "Shake, Rattle and Rock" while I'm gone, you can find it for free at the Internet Archive!
Now that's a winning hand!

EEGAH!! & TABONGA! AT THE MOVIES 5 / The Early Sixties

Eegah!! and I got to see a lot of early sixties horror and sci-fi movies at the theaters, we were lucky little monsters... I'll post a few more of these 'At The Movies' recollections in the future.

THE TIME MACHINE was a fantastic movie, the photos and hype in Famous Monsters made it a very special event. It was produced by George (WAR OF THE WORLDS) Pal and it shows. The Morlocks were a creepy little pack of crazies that kept the suspense high.

We had a fun time watching this insane flick, THE WASP WOMAN had lots of atmosphere and excellent acting from the stars. Great poster, but, check out that makeup monstrosity! The story was written by super bad guy actor, Leo Gordon.

We saw THE MASK in 1961 and were treated to a movie like no other, wow. We kept our 3-D glasses for years and probably sold them on eBay or something... Put the Mask on, Now!.. PUT THE MASK ON, NOW, MUTHERFUCKER!!

I love ATOM AGE VAMPIRE, one wild Euro flick, it's up there with THE DIABOLICAL DOCTOR Z. The music and transformation scenes are so cool, they snipped frames out of the footage in the shots to give a jerky look, very clever and freaky.

DINOSAURUS! employed stop motion animation for the dinosaurs but threw in a caveman and a kid for fun. We enjoyed the scenes with the caveman the most, especially Eegah!!

A SWINGIN' AFFAIR - Dick Dale and the Del-Tones - "Romance That Zings" (1963)

Here's a real Saturday Night Special for you, from 1963, a little movie called

 "A Swingin' Affair!"

I think I'll spend the next few weeks on rock n roll in the movies, and "A Swingin' Affair" is a damn good place to start! In my book, you can't go wrong combining two of the world's finest arts, the sweet science of boxing and surf music together! Doesn't really much matter about the rest of the movie!

Here he is, The King Of Surf Guitar, Dick Dale, and here's just a taste of what Dick did best!

I know it doesn't seem possible, but just like Link Wray, Dick Dale is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It is truly sinful!!

Lots of mediocre bands like ABBA, AC/DC, The Beastie Boys, KISS, Green Day, etc have been inducted into the Hall, but some of the true original innovators have been left in the dust! It just doesn't make sense! Maybe it all derives from Jimi making the statement that once you're experienced, "You'll never listen to surf music again!" He was dead wrong on that one!

These are the majestic Del-Tones!

Dick Dale was also in four other movies, "Let's Make Love" with Marilyn Monroe, and "Beach Party," "Muscle Beach Party," and "Back To The Beach" with Annette and Frankie!

William (Born Losers, It's Alive) Wellman Jr. is Johnny Kwalski, also known as  Kid Gallant 

Kid Gallant is a pretty good boxer, and this victory makes his record move to 10-0. His trainer can get him some bigger and better fights, but he's reluctant to move up for personal reasons!

The boxing scenes are filmed quite realistically!

Arline (The Crawling Hand) Judge has the role of Marge, Kid Gallant's Mom!

Suzan Sturtbridge as Leslie is one of the girls making Johnny's life complicated!

This would be her third and last acting gig! She was also an uncredited cheerleader in one movie, and in one episode of the "Ozzie and Harriet" TV show as a sorority girl!

Just because of it's sheer simplicity and the year it was made, "A Swingin' Affar" reminded me a lot of "The Yesterday Machine!"

I really didn't know that Dick Dale also ever performed as a vocalist until I saw this movie!

In this framed shot, he's singing the title tune, "A Swingin' Affair!"

The whole story in a Texas pecan shell is that even though Johnny is a successful prizefighter, he's trying to keep it secret from the rich kids at the college where he's trying to get into a fraternity. He thinks he would be blackballed if they ever found out, but just the opposite happens in the end!

Sandra Gale (The Glory Stompers) Bettin is Johnny's girlfriend Sally. She is too lowbrow to go to the school, but she works in the cafeteria! When Johnny invites Leslie to the prom instead of her, she turns it on so the President of the fraternity asks her to the big dance!

Instead of taking Sally out, Johnny takes out his fraustrations in the gym instead!

The whole fraternity pledge routine is kinda creepy!

They're going to let Johnny in, but now he needs to come up with $700.00 fast, so he talks his manager into getting him into a bigger fight, even though he knows it's going to blow his cover!

So it's Kid Gallant against the up and coming championship contender Freddie Martini in an action packed 10 rounder!

It's a good, but tough fight, and even though Johnny loses in a split decision, he ends up getting lots of respect from all the chicks, and all the fraternity loser guys, and he can go back to dating Sally, and continue his life without all the secrets that were tearing him apart!!