IT HAPPENED TOMORROW - René Clair (1944)

 "It Happened Tomorrow" is a romantic comedy fantasy romp made in 1944, and perfect for a Weirdsville Wednesday Valentines Day in The Dungeon!

 Director René (I Married A Witch) Clair gets all the big credits!

It starts with a big 50th wedding anniversary party, but the happy couple is having a bit of a tiff because he wants to tell their story to the whole family, and she would just as soon keep it private!

So he writes it out, and quite an interesting story it is! It's a story about how a man gave him a newspaper that showed the news 24 hours into the future!

I want you should focus on this, "Know Your Future!"

Jack (If I Had A Million) Oakie and Linda (Hangover Square) Darnell are The Great Gigolini and The Enchanting Sylvia respectively!

I will admit that the only reason I wanted to watch this movie was because Linda Darnell was in it! One of the best things to come out of Texas, I love Linda Darnell, and it's way beyond sad that she died some 53 years ago at the age of only 41 in a house fire!

Dick Powell is Larry Stevens, the guy who gets a chance to see into tomorrow, and the lucky stiff who gets to hook up with Linda Darnell! Dick has three stars on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, one for motion pictures, one for TV, and one for radio! That's a fairly amazing accomplishment!

John Philliber started his short career in the movies at the age of 70 in 1943. He racked up eight credits before passing away in 1944 at the age of 71.

John is Pop Benson, the man with the power!

Larry Stevens gets newspapers from Pop Benson for three days in a row with future news, which causes the story to unfold. Larry will find out later that Pop Benson had passed away three days earlier!

Larry finally gets smart and decides to go to the horse races since he now has the ability to know who the winners will be!

Then.......He sees this article in another section of the paper that says he's been murdered!

It was fun to watch the whole wagering process! Pretty weird, women were not allowed in this area of the racetrack at all!

In the end, they go to the races and win a lot of money and Larry Stevens.........

..........Tries desperately to avoid the place where his doom was predicted, but he fails miserably, because you can't change your own destiny, but lucky for Larry, sometimes the media doesn't report the news correctly!!

Heureuse Saint Valentin, Nous Vous Aimons Tous!!

FOUR MOVIES RICHARD E. CUNHA DIRECTED In 1958!

Today we take a look at the four movies Richard E. Cunha directed in 1958, and wow, it's a pile of low budget gold for all of us kiddies out there!! Richard and his friend Arthur A. Jacobs plunged into shoestring exploitation productions in the fifties by forming Screencraft Enterprises and cranking out a few classic horror and sci-fi flicks themselves! I couldn't live without some of this great junk!

First up is SHE DEMONS, it stars Irish McCalla, Tod Griffin, Victor Sen Yung, Rudolph Anders and Gene Roth in a story about a small group of shipwreck survivors who wash up on an uncharted tropical island. They're captured by an ex-Nazi Colonel and his henchmen who also have imprisoned a bevy of beauty contest winners!! The Colonel has been extracting a glandular substance from the girls to inject into his wife, who suffered gruesome facial disfigurement, in efforts to restore her beauty!

The schlocky but effective (for 1958) monsters were created by makeup artist, Carlie Taylor.

Then we have GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN, starring Ed Kemmer, Sally Fraser, Bob Steele, Morris Ankrum and Buddy Baer. This horror story's about a very large, scary, smelly, degenerate, Spanish conqueror that's freed from suspended animation during a lightning storm, then goes on a killing spree in a small mountain town.

Buddy was a perfect choice for the monster man! Jack Pierce does the excellent makeup job.

Jeez, what can I say about MISSILE TO THE MOON other than... I love it! This wild 'n' weird movie stars Richard Travis, Cathy Downs, K.T. Stevens, Tommy Cook, Gary Clarke, Nina Bara, Michael Whalen, Laurie Mitchell and my dream girl, Sanita Pelkey!! The story's about two escaped convicts that are caught hiding in a rocket and forced to help pilot the ship to the Moon! The scientist is secretly a moon being and wants to return to his home. His partner and his fiancé stowaway on the ship by accident and become part of the adventure!

The great Harry Thomas does the makeup, but, no telling who created the Rock Creatures. The Giant Spider was modified and reused from CAT-WOMEN OF THE MOON.

Okay, this is my favorite one of the four! Freakin' FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER takes the cake for me, man, it gots everything to satisfy that fifties craving!! Stars John Ashley, Sandra Knight, Donald Murphy, Sally (woo woo) Todd, Harold Lloyd Jr. and Robert Dix in a story about Dr. Frankenstein's insane grandson, who attempts to create horrible monsters in modern day L.A. Famous Monsters also came out in 1958, this is the kind of movie that made kids want to get made up like monsters and run around the neighborhood trying to scare people, like me and Eegah!! You have to realize that it was a real craze at the time!

Harry Thomas was responsible for the two monsters, like in KILLERS FROM SPACE, he used ping pong ball eyeballs for those fright eyes on Sandra! He also was misled on the Frankenstein Monster makeup and Sally Todd Looks like a dude!!

Phew!.. So, hope you enjoyed this magic year for Mr. Richard E. Cunha, I did. Get ready for anything when Eegah!! invades The Dungeon on Wednesday! Later, dudeskis...

COMANCHE BLANCO - William Shatner - "White Comanche" (1968)

It's a Shaturday Night Special in The Dungeon, because if you thought "The Intruder" was strange, just wait until you see The Shat in "White Comanche!"
On top of everything else, the music in "White Comanche" is not like anything you're ever likely to hear in a cowboy movie now or ever again, and was written by French composer Jean Ledrut! Listen to this short segment, and let me know if you disagree!

 "Comanche Blanco" or "White Comanche" is a Spanish film made in 1968 that stars William Shatner in the role of two brothers that are half white and half Comanche. One leans one way, the other goes to the other side! It's also well known as "Rio Hondo!" Here's the whole story in one sentence!
 They don't like each other!

Ladies and Gentlemen, without further adieu, here's William Shatner again in another one of his underappreciated but amazing accomplishments!

This is The Shat as gunslinger Johnny Moon!

 This is The Shat as Johnny's brother Notah Moon, an unmercilessness killer, and the leader of a small group of Indians that are more like an 1800's biker gang than a tribe!

 They could have just done it up right and ended it right here, but Johnny tells Notah to meet him in four days in a little town called Rio Hondo, and they can settle their differences once and for all! Notah's girlfriend is pretty Perla ("Espionage In Tangiers!") Cristal as White Fawn.

 You gotta admit that Bill makes a damn fine lookin' cowboy!

 As an Indian, not so much! 

Curiously enough, Notah never puts on a shirt at any time in the movie, but he does like to eat Peyote, which was interesting, but of no consequence. Unlike a lot of films that feature the same person as more than one character, the only scenes that the two brothers appear in together, one of them is off in the distance and is an unrecognizable stunt man!

The small but mighty core cast includes Joseph (Citizen Kane, Soylent Green) Cotten and Rosanna (Kiss Me Monster) Yanni! Sure, it might not be their finest moments, but this is a cowboy movie, what do you expect? I was raised on a steady diet of western movies and TV shows, and "White Comanche" isn't all that bad, believe me!

 I read somewhere that they called "White Comanche" one of the worst 100 movies ever made! Whoever said that has evidently not watched as many bad movies as me, because this really doesn't deserve that rating!

 "White Comanche" has some classic looking shots like this that make it easy to watch!

 On a Dungeon Pop Culture Scale of one to ten, having William Shatner and Rosanna Yanni in  a scene like this together is at least a nine and a half!

This shot of Bill and Joe is so cool, it doesn't even look real!

 Rosanna Yanni just might be Wesen! She's not really that good looking, and she's not that great of an actress, but she's got something red-blooded guys just have got to have!

 If there is a genre of film making called "Early Spanish Western Giallo" then "White Comanche" is a leader in the field! I think it's either five or six guys who get shot right between the eyes like this!

 They break the cardinal rule when an innocent kid gets killed in the crossfire of a shootout!

 I had to watch this sequence four or five times in a row. That guy back there gets shot and topples over that bale of hay head over heels! It's pretty slapstick!

 Aw, Damn! He's back!

 Just like Adam Cramer, Notah has to deliver a sermon to his followers to get them all fired up to take over!

For the final duel between the twin brothers, they both go shirtless, so you'll just have to guess who wins!

 Jeez, life without William Shatner would go on, but it sure wouldn't be the same!

MUNCHIES / Golden Rain Productions - 1987

Well, I guess that one good Corman production deserves a crappy one! Roger is producer on this small puppet monster flick that were so popular in the eighties, like GREMLINS, CRITTERS, GHOULIES, HOBGOBLINS, BEASTIES, TROLL and more!! This story goes like this... A space archaeologist (huh?!) discovers a "Munchies" in a cave in Peru! His evil twin brother and snack food entrepreneur kidnaps the creature, but, when chopped up, they regenerate into many new creatures, and, they are freakin' mean little ass holes!

This thing stars the great Harvey (THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW) Korman in a dual role of good and evil brothers. The rest of the cast are pretty much second string actors...

Bad Harvey and his partner in crime go to their snack food factory to deliver the Munchie he took from his brother. His helper's having some trouble figuring out what the Hell's going on!

So, worker dude has to deal with the little monster after breaking out of its jail... Must be time to chop up this stinkin' little piece of garbage!!

The pieces come to life and they end up with the rifle, you figure how that could have happened. You can tell, they have a twisted sense o' humor!

They love going through your shit, and, if you don't like it...

Thankfully, there are some hot chicks for us and the Munchies to drool over!

Oh look, how cute!!.. The little guy gots the Munchies!

Here's another classic shot from the eighties, a cute girl bent over exposing herself for all the kiddies (and Munchies) out there in Filmland...

We'll end the fun with this great shot of a Munchie out of control in a car, watch the Hell out!! So then, the only question is, what in the Hell will Eegah!! have for us tomorrow?