ROPE - Alfred Hitchcock - (1948)

 It's the first of June, it's already hot as Hell, and..........it feels like something is tightening around my throat!

 Tonight's classic thriller falls squarely into the department of "It's all been said before, it's just my time to say it!" But, if you just happen to be that one person who doesn't know about tonight's feature, but now you do, then my job is done!  

 I saw "Rope" as a student of film back in the mid seventies! My teacher couldn't stop babbling on about how the movie was shot in just one shot, and what a tremendous achievement that was, and you know what, he was absolutely correct! The only time they do a fade to another shot is when they had to change out the roll of film! It's really quite amazing!

 Why is this guy getting killed? It really doesn't matter because "Rope" isn't about something that happened, it's about lies and deceit!

Far ahead of the curve, "Rope" depicts a gay couple way back in 1948! It was also Alfred Hitchcock's first colour film! Many of the movies he made after this were still in black and white!

"Rope" is a stage play that goes against the grain of Alfred's total film philosophy that movies should be a montage! The small cast includes Edith (The Soul Of A Monster) Evanson as Mrs. Wilson, the maid!

The less than happy couple are John (Gun Crazy) Dall, and Farley (Strangers On A Train) Granger!

The guys murder their friend basically just to prove they can do it, leave his body in a chest in the living room, and then entertain their friends, and the victim's girlfriend, her ex, and the victim's family for dinner! Pretty sick! The girlfriend and her ex are Joan (Dragstrip Riot) Chandler, and Douglas (Waterfront) Dick!

Bernie Sanders, I mean Sir Cedric (Uncle Simon in the Twilight Zone episode "Uncle Simon Polk") Hardwicke as the victim's Father, and his sister Constance (Perils of Pauline) Collier show up for the party!

And so does the ever popular Jimmy Stewart, as Rupert, one of the guy's ex-professors!

They could have gotten away with it if they hadn't invited Rupert to the party, but they had to push it to the edge, and now, they have to pay!

The trunk containing the body is the centerpiece of the party, it's just that the guests don't know it!

No, it's not Jello Biafra's hat! It's the hat of the dead man handed to Rupert by mistake, and now it's time for all the lies to become truth!

Alfred Hitchcock's cameo is very difficult to find in "Rope!" Look out the window, and you'll barely be able to make out Alfred's classic silhouette as a flashing red neon light off in the distance!

If you'd like to know about each and every one of Alfred's cameos, there's an awesome site called The Hitchcock Zone that showcases them all with very cool screen caps!

So Rupert comes back and confronts the boys with the truth, and it doesn't take much imagination to figure out where it goes from there!
No shit, if you're looking for a bargain, I bought a 37 DVD Box set of Alfred Hitchcock films for 65 bucks from China on Ebay, and the quality has been quite good so far! It comes with Chinese sub-titles, but you can turn them off, and I can't even imagine what they think about it, but I'm pretty sure, in the next 50 years, we'll find out!

NIGHTMARE IN BLOOD / Xeromega - 1977

Here's a wild one, it was filmed in the bay area including Half Moon Bay, where we used to vacation back in the early sixties. The story's about disappearing attendees at a horror-film convention in San Francisco. It turns out that the guest of honor, Malakai, is a real vampire, and his henchmen are kidnapping the convention guests! A horror writer and an Israeli Nazi-hunter set out to stop him before everbloody's dead.

I have a sound clip for your approval, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button located there by our haunted coffins, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula!.. Here's a sample from... NIGHTMARE IN BLOOD!

A lot a time is spent in the San Francisco Comic Shop, our heroes' thinkin' spot. Ahh, the good old days, simple pleasures and plenty of that there eye candy!

Our guys end up on a local TV horror show to discuss the bloody murders.

Here's a warning for Eegah!!.. He's our resident golfer, and, many of his balls end up in the rough! I just want to let him know that there are maniacs out there just looking to slice up anybloody who loses their balls in the rough!!

Welp, in SF, if you're planning on hunting Draculas, you'll need this lightning bolt talisman!

Malakai sleeps in his coffin all day, then get's up to go work in his lab with his two little helper goons. There are always plenty of things to do, like...

Injecting this dude in the brain with a special double needled syringe... Fun stuff!

Our heroes use Malakai's own lab amenities against him and his pals, one dude gets a jar full of acid thrown on him! OUCHIE!!

Malakai gets the Star of David stuck to his head and he goes into freak out mode, looks like the little guy did the job!

But, to make sure, they bring in the big sharp stake to finish off the Dracula! Eegah!! takes the reigns on Wednesday, no telling what he will have for us, so, until then...

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Boris Karloff (1957)

 I consider this to be a super "Saturday Night Special!," and any true lover of classic horror films will agree, no doubt!

Enjoy this modest homage to Dungeon Superhero Boris Karloff!

"This Is Your Life" was a 1950's 30 minute TV series that did just what the title suggested, a surprise retrospective of classic character's lives, a REAL reality TV show!

"This Is Your Life" was on from 1957 to 1961 and featured people like Dick Clark, Jayne Mansfield, Kirk Douglas, Jesse Owens, Connie Francis, etc., and on this particular night....

Mr. Boris Karloff!

The basic premise was that they would bring people on the show to be part of a surprise for somebody else, and then turn the tables on the unsuspecting victim! Boris was set up! They bring out an old an elementary school buddy from his past, Jeffrey Taylor, and they have a glorious nostalgic interchange!

Doesn't it just make you just feel good to see Boris Karloff smile?

Just to see Boris in all these classic shots is worth the price of admission!
There's no need for words!

Maybe I'm screwy in the head, but I just don't honestly think that there will ever be a group of people making movies to match the magnitude of Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr., Peter Lorre, John Carradine, and Vincent Price! It would be like somebody running a mile in one minute, I just don't think it's possible no matter how much technology runs amok!

Makeup artiste extraordinaire Jack Pierce also shows up in a really neat sequence!

Jack Pierce did not only create Boris's makeup in "Frankenstein," he was also responsible for the makeup in "White Zombie," "The Mummy," "The Invisible Man," "The Black Cat," "Werewolf Of London," "The Wolf Man," "Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man," "Son Of Dracula," The Brain From Planet Arous," etc. etc. The list goes on and on!

With these five photos of Boris, I rest my case!

How awesome is it to see a photo of the man who was Frankenstein, The Mummy, and The Ghoul, goofing on his wife!

In the last segment, Boris's daughter Sara makes an appearance!

I love this shot of Father and daughter together!
The best part is you can watch it for free, right here; it might just be some of the best 24 minutes and 53 seconds of your life!

The Origin of DWRAYGER DUNGEON / 2 Monster Dudes - 1964

Back in 1964 Eegah!! and I were both sophomores in high school, Famous Monsters was our moniker and so we decided to create our own little Monster Magazine. DWRAYGER is a combination of our last names, we printed out the pages on a freaking lo-tech ditto machine, making a limited run of about 20 copies of each page. There are 3 known copies still in existence, making them pretty rare collectibles...

I did a 2-color cover of CURSE OF THE DEMON, one of our favorite flicks. One note, we never got around to doing the Marvel Spider-Man feature, we dudded out there.

Here's our Monster Quiz, simple questions if you knew anything about monster movies. You will need to click on all the pages with text to easily be able to read them.

This is a generic Werewolf I created for page 3, there were tons of werewolves by 1964.

This is page one of our movie reviews, yeah, they're not real professional, but, we were comedians, not historians. You'll notice that both EEGAH! and FROM HELL IT CAME ended up on the list, pretty funny when you think about it.

More crappy movies, goofy reviews abound!

The last page of reviews ends with our little 2 minute 8mm movie we made one night, our review was spot on. Unfortunately, the movie is lost somewhere in Delano, CA.

My drawing of creepy old NOSFERATU as he creeps around somewhere in your house!

Here are our 'original' stories, stupid as Hell, but, fun to read...

My drawing of a generic Ghoul, love the word, ghoul.

Last page is a drawing of a Movie I saw at the Theater in 1957 with my neighbors, a great way to end the show. Check in again tomorrow when Eegah!! makes his splash.