FRENZY - Alfred Hitchcock - "A Shocking Masterpiece" (1972)

Welcome to another X-mas Saturday Night Special in The Dungeon! Your present tonight is a wacky-ass film made by Alfred Hitchcock in 1972, and was the first Hitchcock film made in the UK since 1956! It's very cool how the poster artiste incorporated neckties into the composition!

It's called "FRENZY" my frenz, and frenzy is defined as "a period of uncontrolled excitement or wild behavior," and I must say, I think that fits it just fine!

It starts off with another victim of a serial necktie murderer, who we find out, rapes his victims before strangling them! I could be wrong, but I think that this is the only Alfred Hitchcock movie that ever had nudity in it!

This guy, Jon (The Vampire Lovers, The Horror Of Frankenstein, Breaking Glass) Finch as manic veteran heavy drinker Richard Blaney seems like a likely suspect!

Jean Marsh has a small role as a secretary to Richard Blaney's ex-wife! From "The Unearthly Stranger" to "Dr. Who," and "The Tomorrow People," Jean has done it all! Very early in her long and varied career, she was in the "Twilight Zone" Episode entitled "The Lonely!"

There's no mystery as to who the killer really is, Alfred let's that cat out of the bag at the very beginning! It's Richard Blaney's nice guy buddy, hard working Robert Rusk as played by Barry (Twisted Nerve, The Guru) Foster!

Robert Rusk's next victim is his pal Richard Blaney's Ex-wife, and that's not going to go well for Richard, who just got fired from his job, and is known to be a hot head!

I think this is interesting, the Ex-wife is played by Barbara Leigh-Hunt who was Lady Macbeth in a 1970 TV series called "Macbeth," and Barry Foster played Hamlet in a TV series by the same name in 1961!  It just shows you the quality of the talent in this crazy movie!

This is Babs, Richard Blaney's co-worker, kind of girlfriend, but not really!

Babs Milligan is played by the delightful Anna (Peeping Tom, Bunny Lake Is Missing, Tales Of The Unexpected) Massey.

Richard and Babs are on the run, and they're not very welcome in the home of Billie (The Flesh And The Fiends, Twisted Nerve, The Omen) Whitelaw! Not at all!

Hot on the case is Alec (The Witches, Gangs Of New York) McCowen as  the very hungry Chief Inspector Oxford! If I did the math right, Alec will be 92 next May! Intently watching the Chief Inspector chow down is his right hand man, Sergeant Spearman! The good Sergeant is played by Michael (Bedazzled, Man In A Suitcase, Hammerhead, A Clockwork Orange) Bates!

This is a really good movie but this is my favourite part! The Chief Inspector is devouring this breakfast of eggs, sausage, bacon and ham, because...........

.....................This is what his loving wife is serving him at home on these great willow pattern dishes!

Yeah, it's really gross!

On to the main dish, quail with grapes!

I love this shot! He's pounding the booze so he can face this Gawdawful meal, and she has no clue, and thinks the food is great!

Meanwhile, here's one way for a psycho killer to relax, because, after all, it is a tough job!

Babs meets up with Richard Rusk, and because she needs a place to stay.....

No, Babs, No, don't go in that door!

Too late, she didn't lsten!

The whole next scene is like something out of a Three Stooges episode! Richard Rusk disposes the body of Babs, but then realizes his pendant is clutched in her stiff hand and he has to go and try and get it out of the back of a truck hauling potatoes!  He's pulling on her dead body and gets a foot in the face for his trouble!" It's really pretty hilarious!

I do like this shot of  the sly but depraved killer!

An off-duty Sergeant Spearman comes to the Chief Inspector's home to give him some information and Mrs Oxford offers him up a Margarita! You just have to listen to her tell him the ingredients! Mrs Oxford was played by the glorious Vivien (Alfie, The Offence) Merchant!

After Sergeant Spearman dashes off without finishing his drink, Mrs. Oxford disposes of it for him! Vivien is absolutely hilarious, and in the truly sad, but life imitates art department, Vivien actually ended up having a severe drinking problem, and died at the early age of 53 from cirrhosis of the liver! Too bad, I would have loved to have a Margarita with her!

Just for kicks, here's a poster from a completely unrelated movie from 1945 with the same title!

Dude looks pretty frenetic all right like evil X-Mas!

"I thought "Frenzy" was a fun ride, so I'm going to go get back in line and do it again! Amazon has DVDs for about 10 bucks, if you have any real friends, it would make a perfect Joy To The World gift that I'm sure they will cherish, and if not, then just blame it on me! You can't lose!

THE FUGS - "FRENZY"

MARIE WINDSOR & MARA CORDAY - Their Horror And Sci-Fi Movies From 1953-66

Here are two gals that were in some classic horror and sci-fi movies, even though they only have seven titles between them. We'll start with Marie Windsor...

Marie was born Marysvale, Utah, she attended Brigham Young University and trained for the stage before she began playing leading roles in B pictures in the late 1940's. Her best work was in the "film noir" category, most notably her role as the manipulative, double-crossing wife of Elisha Cook Jr. in THE KILLING in 1956, which earned her Look Magazine's Best Supporting Actress award.

CAT-WOMEN OF THE MOON hit the screens in 1953, Marie played a strong, adventurist female on a trip to the Moon with a bunch of guys. It was later remade as MISSILE TO THE MOON.

She scored a fun gig in Universal's ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE MUMMY in 1955, she plays the wicked Madame Rontru, and keeps the boys on their toes! Check out that 'Not Suitable For Children' warning on the poster!!

Marie then starred in the nap-inducing, weak sci-fi flick, THE DAY MARS INVADED EARTH in 1963. It's so boring that Eegah!! didn't even remember seeing the freaking thing, and I barely remembered seeing it myself!!

She played Madame Corona in the 1966 slasher movie, CHAMBER OF HORRORS, with Patrick O'Neal as... The Slasher! This was Marie's last movie in horror and scj-fi films...

Here are some swell photos of Marie, the last one is from CAT-WOMEN OF THE MOON.

That's one sexy looking lady from THE KILLING there in the second photo! Now, to Mara...

Mara Corday was born in Santa Monica, California, she was a dancer in the chorus line in "Earl Carroll's Revue" at the showman's theater-restaurant in Hollywood. Modeling led to wider exposure and ultimately to TV roles and bit parts in low-budget movies. As a Universal-International contract player, she was in most every type of B picture that the studio made. She gave up acting in the early sixties to concentrate on her marriage and motherhood, and had 17 tumultuous years as the wife of actor Richard Long.

Mara starred as 'Steve' in the great Universal movie, TARANTULA, in 1955, playing Leo G. Carroll's sexy lab assistant at his house of horrors in the desert!

Then, she starred with Jeff Morrow in the hilarious, THE GIANT CLAW, in 1957. Can you believe that Dell came out with a comic?! Well, there's your proof!..

Lastly, she starred in THE BLACK SCORPION in 1957, what a great movie for a nine year old monster nut to see when it came out, like for me! It really left an impression!

So, we'll finish up with a few photos of Mara posing for us...

Tune in tomorrow when we're back, with even more from... The Dungeon!

TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED - Roald Dahl - Season 01, Episode 01 - "The Man From The South" (1979)

 So, if this isn't what you expected, then you've come to the right place!

Welcome to Dwrayger Dungeon where the unexpected comes naturally, because even we,

 don't know what we're doing!

"Tales Of The Unexpected" was on British TV from 1979 to 1988, and I just heard about it last week for the first time from our Berlin epistolarian, Lord Litter!
What a guy!! 

"The Man From The South" was the first episode of the first season!

 Roald Dahl was a very interesting cat, and hopefully is enshrined somewhere for all his contributions to Pop Culture over the last 50 years that most people don't even know about!  Let me try and fix some of that!

Roald Dahl is an enigma indeed! He wrote tons of thriller/horror short stories, and he was the host of the Pre-Twilight Zone TV series, that I still think is one of the weirdest TV shows ever produced, 

"WAY OUT!"
He also wrote Children's stories like the original "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," of which he was stripped of his duties for failing to make the deadline, and after it was completed by David  Seltzer, Roald disdained the rewrite so much that he would have nothing further to do with it!
He was said to have coined the word 'gremlin' during World War II, and he made up nonsense words that are now part of the English language like 'Oompa Loompa,' and 'Scrummdiddlyumptious!'

This is a completely different kind of  unexpected tale from 1961, and has nothing to do with this show at all!

 Accept respect, expect decept!

                     What exactly did you expect?

 I'm watching this show, and suddenly something happened that was totally unexpected!

It was like some kind of deja vu! I knew I had seen this before, but the problem was that I knew the story, but I didn't recognize any of the characters! So you start wondering how senile you really are, before you realize that this is a remake! 

 "The Man From The South" was written by Roald Dahl and is the exact same story that was portrayed on "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" starring Steve McQueen and Peter Lorre in 1960, but back then, who was gonna notice that 19 years later? The scene has changed from Las Vegas to Jamaica, but the story is the same!

 José (Dracula's Dog, Dune) Ferrer has the role that Peter Lorre had, and Michael (Twin Peaks) Ontkean has Steve McQueen's role!

 It's a very simple story about a sucker bet, with the winner getting a Jaguar, and the loser ending up minus a pinky!

 Both versions include these two accessory characters! This time, it's Cyril (Dr. Who) Luckham, and Pamela (Superman III, Spitting Image, Bloodbath At The House Of Death) Stephenson!!

 Honestly, I don't even like this story! It's okay, but the first version was good eough! I'm looking forward to seeing what else Roald Dahl has to offer!

 So, light the lighter 10 times and win the Jag, or get your little finger cut off!

 Five!!!!!

 Six!!!!!!

 And up pops the wife, as played by Mexican actress Katy (High Noon, One-Eyed Jacks) Jurado!

She chides her husband for being a moron, and tells the kids that he doesn't even own the Jaguar, she's the owner........

 .......And she's got the keys to prove it!!!

I've got over 50 more episodes  of "Tales Of The Unexpected" to watch, so I suspect you can expect to to be unexpected again some time real soon!
I guess you can call anybody anything, because I always though that William Castle was the "Master of the Macabre!" Kind of like those signs that say 'Coldest Beer In Town,'
who really knows, and how do you prove it?

BLADE RUNNER / Ladd Company, The Shaw Brothers - 1982

Here's a movie directed by the awesome Ridley Scott, and, the story goes like this... In the futuristic year of 2019 (Whoa, during Trump's rule), Los Angeles has become a dark and depressing metropolis, filled with urban decay, where our hero, ex-cop, Deckard, is a "Blade Runner". Blade Runners are people assigned to assassinate "Replicants", what are androids that look like actual humans. When four Replicants commit a bloody mutiny at the Off World colony, Deckard is called out of retirement to track down the criminals. As he tracks them, he comes across another Replicant, Rachel, who evokes human emotions, and becomes involved with her.

As Deckard closes in on the leader of the outlaw Replicants, his hatred toward artificial intelligence makes him question his own identity, including what's human and what's not human!.. Good luck with that!

Here are some of the stars in this amazingly visual production... Harrison (STAR WARS) Ford, Rutger (THE HITCHER) Hauer, Sean (DUNE) Young, Edward James (WOLFEN) Olmos, Daryl (SPLASH) Hannah and many more.

The aerial shots above the city are simply stunning, tasty eye candy wherever you look!

It's hard to tell where things begin and end! For me, this is some kind of ultimate surrealistic claustrophobia! Man, you just can't get away from it...

Inside, things are just as busy! Hey, nice shot of some sexy prostitutes there!

Here's Deckard at work, interrogating some chump from the streets about something... The minimalism is a nice relief from the constant busyness.

This is Rachael, a Replicant!!

At least, smoking is still legal. 2019 is only two years away, so, it's funny how wrong they got it! It doesn't even look that different today than it did back in 1982!! What the Hell...

Of course, Deckard has a ton of adventures on the way to the conclusion. I really dig that restaurant the most!..

Rutger Hauer plays Roy Batty, bad-ass leader of the Replicants! Here, he crashes through a wall to get to his victim!!

Deckard goes for a spin with Edward James Olmos, in a freakin'... Spinner!!

At 117 minutes, the scenes go on and on, crime is always afoot somewhere in LA, 2019!!.. Okay then, a wise man would tell you, be back on Wednesday for more from The Dungeon!!