LE SPIE UCCIDONO A BEIRUT - Carlo Savina - "Secret Agent Fireball" (1965)

In my opinion, nothing quite says the holidays like a damn good spy movie, and tonight's Saturday Night Special is just that, a movie about a spy who doesn't even have a number!!

In English, it's called "Secret Agent Fireball," and why the Hell not, because that pretty much tells the whole story in three words, and that makes my job real easy!!!

The Music in "Le Spie Uccidono A Beirut" is pretty much a swingin' affair from start to finish, with lots of stops for snacks in between! It was composed by the maestro extraordinaire Carlo Savina, who is also responsible for the music in such classics as "Assignment: Outer Space," "War Gods Of Babylon," "The Unnaturals," "Fangs Of The Living Dead," "Mr. Superinvisible," and "Night Of The Damned," etc. etc.!
And just in case you don't believe me, here's the music from the opening credits for your enjoyment!
Consider it an early X-Mas present!

Richard (Kronos, Fantabulous Inc) Harrison is Bob Fleming, aka "Secret Agent Fireball," and he's always working overtime!

I have a hatred of scenes with big curtains in the background that turn any room anywhere into a fancy office! It's just a personal peeve of mine!

"Secret Agent Fireball" is an action packed film with lots of one handed Judo chops that take out a guy in one serving!

This is what a tattoo shop looked like in 1965!

Besides action, "Secret Agent Fireball" has lot of other entertaining features like this on stage cat fight!

The posh crowd in the club goes wild!!

This club has another interesting feature! There's a phone on each table so each patron can just make random calls and talk anonymously or flirt with another table! You know it was all the rage!

Cool VW bus ambulance!

 I just donated a couple of bucks to Wikipedia to keep their doors open, and so should you so you can have easy access to information like the fact that this is the Amphicar Model 770  marketed in the United States from 1961-1967. The Amphicar offered only modest performance compared to most contemporary boats or cars, featured navigation lights and flag as mandated by Coast Guard — and after operation in water, required greasing at 13 points, one of which required removal of the rear seat. 

Cool but not too convenient!

These guys thought they were pretty neat monitoring a hidden microphone in Agent Fireball's Hotel room until he yelled into the microphone!

More entertainment!

And time for even more entertainment, but this time with a local flavor!

Insult the locals, and you're liable to find yourself in an uncool knife fight duel!

Black cars are rare these days, I wonder what happened! This black '57 Ford sure looks awesome!

Ending action movies is a bitch! They all try to come up with something super spectacular, and they usually go on for way to long! So hijacking a helicopter full of whiskey...........

.......And throwing said bottles at the escaping evildoers, and then shooting the spilled whiskey, causing it to spark and explode is not out of the question!

You can thank Cult Action for this one!!

KATHERINE VICTOR - Her Horror & Sci-Fi Movies From 1953-81

Welp, it's another Featured Female Friday, here at The Dungeon!.. Katherine Victor was born Katena Ktenavea in the Hell's Kitchen district of Manhattan in 1923, she grew up in Los Angeles and began her acting career on stage and radio in the late 1940's. She then made her film debut in the ultra campy sci-fi flick, MESA OF LOST WOMEN, in 1953. Later, she starred a series of roles in Jerry Warren's impoverished productions, and, felt that the stigma of being a regular in Warren's movies stymied her mainstream acting career (I agree!). Katherine was always busy outside of acting, in modeling, real estate and in various jobs in the animated cartoon industry... Get this, she was paid a measly $300 for acting in TEENAGE ZOMBIES and a paltry $450 for her role in CAPE CANAVERAL MONSTERS!

I cannot tell you how much I love this mind-boggling kitsch masterpiece, MESA OF LOST WOMEN from 1953! There's just nothing quite like it, wow!! Katherine has a small role at the beginning as the taxi driver and as a Spider Woman (which I've never noticed myself).

Her second acting credit was for a small cut-in role in Warren's made for TV movie, INVASION OF THE ANIMAL PEOPLE in 1959, by cutting up TERROR IN THE MIDNIGHT SUN and adding new segments. I swear, Barbara Wilson is so damn beautiful and talented in this movie! Obviously, Jerry repackaged it in a double bill with his gawd awful, miserable ass, TERROR OF THE BLOODHUNTERS, for, I guess, the drive-in circuit... Save even more money (Jerry sez) by printing a single poster with both flicks featured on it!

Katherine's third acting role was for Jerry's TEENAGE ZOMBIES in 1959, my favorite of all the Warren dumpster dives! Features music from KRONOS!! Funny to me...

Then, she stars in Phil (ROBOT MONSTER) Tucker's made for TV sci-fi classic, CAPE CANAVERAL MONSTERS in 1960. Maybe that's why you can only find this make believe poster of it! This is another bad movie that's near and dear to my heart...

Five years later, it's back to work at Jerry's Joint for another redo/reshoot/recut of two Spanish speaking Chilean titles. Katherine and others are used to bring in English speaking characters to explain (complicated) things since the narrator was already being overworked in CURSE OF THE STONE HAND in 1965! Horrid movie!!

Jerry was really losing it by the time he was working on CREATURE OF THE WALKING DEAD, also in 1965!.. Katherine was brought in for the same thing as Stone Hand, try and make some sense of the whole freakin' thing!.. GFL!!

Here's a real dud, HOUSE OF THE BLACK DEATH in 1965!.. The producers didn't like what director Harold Daniels had done with the film, so, they hired Jerry to come in and finish it. Along with Katherine, there's Lon Chaney, John Carradine and Dolores Faith in the flick!

Jerry lets the thrills rip forth with THE WILD WORLD OF BAT WOMAN in 1966. Katherine stars as Bat Woman in this bad LSD trip from the early hippie days.

Lastly, she stars as Dr. Frankenstein's daughter in this totally insane 1981 Jerry Warren production, FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND, along with John Carradine, Robert Clarke and Cameron Mitchell. I could strangle this movie!!

Alright, so, here are three cool pics of Katherine to enjoy...

Okay, be back tomorrow as we close in on the end of 2016, yo!

THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD - Ray Harryhausen - "The Miracle Of Dynarama!" (1973)

 Welcome to another Wild and Woolly Wednesday in The Dungeon! 

How's this for a cool Zodiacal poster?

There were four Sinbad movies from 1958 to 1977. "The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad" was number three. The second film in the group titled simply "Captain Sinbad" in 1963 was done by a completely different production company from the other three, and is the only one that has no connection to Ray Harryhausen! Four different good looking guys played Sinbad in those four movies, Kerwin Mathews, Guy Williams, John Phillip Law, and Patrick Wayne!

"The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad" is basically a 15 year old sequel to the 1958 feature, "The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad!" 

There's lots of hocus pocus mumbo jumbo, because otherwise, there would be no story!

"The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad" has a solid cast that includes Tom (Dr. Who) Baker as Koura, an evil man with the power to create life like this little fellah!

"The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad" is basically a puzzle story used to showcase the talents of the master of stop motion animation, Ray Harryhausen! Ray also co-wrote and co-produced the film, so it all makes sense!

Dungeon Prom Queen Caroline Munro as slave girl Margiana, is more than happy to leave her master and go out on the high seas of adventure with Captain Sinbad! This movie came right in between "Dr. Phibes Rises Again," and "Captain Kronos - Vampire Killer" in Caroline's career, so now you know why she's the Queen! Caroline has two films set to be released in 2017, "Cute Little Buggers," and "315 Wicked Way!" We hope they slay the box office!

I'm sure the conversation went something like this: Ray Harryhausen says, "Wouldn't it be neat if the wooden figurehead on the front of the ship came alive?" and everybody else says, "Hell Yeah!!"

This is the kind of shot I set as my wallpaper on a regular basis!

Marvel decided to take a chance on Captain Sinbad too. Their "Worlds Unknown" was set to feature science fiction stories, but when it got to number seven, they totally switched gears and went with a Captain Sinbad story! The number eight issue of "Worlds Unknown" also featured a "Golden Voyage Of Sinbad" story! That's as far as it went! There was never an issue #9 or any other titled "Worlds Unknown!"

This comic came from down under, and that explains why it's so much more wild than the other one!

This is one of the most unbelievable group of  'natives' I've ever seen! Looks more like a meeting of the local chapter of the "Alice Cooper Fan Club!"

 

Douglas (Nayland Smith) Wilmer is a cat named Vizier, and his burden is that he has to wear this metal mask all the time because his face was horribly disfigured  in a fire!

Out of nowhere, Sinbad needs a distraction from the natives, so he tells Vizier to take off the mask, and it scares the living crap out of everybody!

Kali, a real Hindu Goddess, does a mean boog-a-loo at the hands of Ray Harryhausen!

The six-armed Goddess cuts a pretty mean rug, but the fun and games are all over when she sprouts six swords too!

More royal creds for Caroline are "The Abominable Dr. Phibes," "Dracula A.D. 1972," "At The Earth's Core," "The Spy Who Loved Me," "Starcrash," "Maniac," "The Last Horror Film," and "Slaughter High!"

As this Cyclops Centaur lusts after Margiana, I think it's safe to say in retrospect, that this movie was made in 1973, and The Sex Pistols hit the scene in 1975.........

........................and I'm pretty sure this is where Sid Vicious got his hair style from!

Let's have one last round of applause for a damn fine looking couple, John Phillip (Diabolik) Law, and Caroline (Stella Star) Munro!

Ray Harryhausen changed the name of his effects company from Dynamation to Dynarama because I'm sure it sounded more dynamically dynamite! He did the stop motion effects in two more movies after this, "Sinbad And The Eye Of The Tiger" in 1977, and "Clash Of The Titans" in 1981!" He passed away in 2013, and that's it! There will never be another!