CRIME AGAINST JOE - "That's him....that's the man who attacked me!" (1956)

Tonight's Wild Wednesday feature is a 1956 film directed by Lee "Rollem" Sholem entitled "Crime Against Joe." Lee Sholem had a reputation for having a no nonsense, let's just get this done, attitude! For example, "Crime Against Joe" was scheduled to be shot over the course of seven days. Lee Sholem finished the shoot in five days, hence the nickname "Rollem."
This poster is an amazing piece of exploitation art, and has almost nothing at all to do with the picture. To me the poster projects Julie London as the victim, when she is really the hero, and is just wrong in it's entirety!

One of the greatest things about watching movies from the 50's is you get killer shots like this!

Manly man John Bromfield is Joe Manning. If you like jungle horror films, then John is the man. He starred in "Manfish," "Revenge Of The Creature" and "Curucu, Beast Of The Amazon." Like cowboy TV shows? John was also the star in 78 episodes of "The Man From Cochise."

A depressed Korean war veteran, and wannabe artiste, Joe Manning lives at his Mom's house!

Out of frustration  he just tossed some red paint on this painting!

Joe's Mom supports him, and he calls her by her first name Nora, not Mother or Mom. 

Nora Manning is played by Frances (The Lost Missile, The Night Of The Hunter) Morris.

Joe just might have a bit of a drinking problem!

Filmed entirely in Tucson, Arizona, this was Duke's Drive-In circa 1956!

This is Duke's Drive-In today!

Joe really shouldn't be driving!

A couple of months ago, I told you all about Julie London, and her role in "Nabonga!"

In "Crime Against Joe," Julie plays a carhop named Frances "Slacks" Bennett! It's kind of surprising that they didn't film another Jungle movie with John and Julie instead!

Welcome to the world famous Pago-Pago Lounge, a tiki bar in a Tucson, Arizona.

 In this movie it's called the Pango-Pango Club, because that is the proper pronunciation of Pago-Pago.

The Pago-Pago is no longer open, and at one point turned into the Aku-Aku, and then the Ports O Call. No longer a lounge or restaurant, I read that it is scheduled for restoration!

The singer in the bar is Alika Louis as Irene Crescent in her sole acting performance! She performs  the cool tune "Looking For A Man."

There are a lot of jealous people in this story! The barkeep doesn't like Joe hitting on Irene so he punches his lights out in front of the bar. This cowboy, an old schoolmate of Joe's, witnesses the whole thing!

Joe is wandering around in the middle of the night in a drunken stupor when he stumbles on this pretty gal out sleepwalking. Joe tells the concerned Father, and is given a cordial but brisk thank-you!

So while Joe's out stumbling around town, somebody murders Irene Crescent, and she was found with this high school pin clutched in her hand that Joe and all his classmates received upon graduating.

All Joe has to do is produce his own, and he's in the clear, but who knows where it might be? It's been a few years since he's seen his, and isn't real clear where it's at.

Besides Slacks, Joe's only got one friend who believes in him, Henry Calvin as the cab driver Red Teller! There's only one problem, even though Joe and Slacks aren't an item, Red's still a little jealous just because he's been in love with her for years.

For all you "Zorro" fans, Henry was Sgt. Demetrio Lopez Garcia in 81 episodes of that show!

Looking through the high school yearbook for clues! At this point, almost any of these guys seem like they might be murderers!  Besides the cowboy, there's a politician named Ralph Corey, and a lawyer who are also possible suspects.

George Niles seems like a good candidate, especially after he tries to run Slacks over with his car!

The Father of the sleepwalking girl will not substantiate Joe's story because he thinks it would be too embarrassing for his daughter. She's tired of his overbearing jealousy, and gives him both barrels!

The daughter was played by Patricia (The Black Sleep) Blair. Patricia was also Rebecca Boone in 118 episodes of  the "Daniel Boone" TV series!

Slacks and Joe go to the high school reunion dance for the class of 1945, and while they are at the school, they sneak off to the records office to see if the records show any aberrant anti-social behavior in any of Joe's classmates. 

Uh, Oh, the jig is up, and not only are Joe and Slacks going to finally find out who the killer is, the viewer is about to find out at the same time, but........

.......I think this movie is short enough,

 and good enough, that you should just find out on your own!

Moral of the story....Don't drink and drive!!!

LOONEY TUNES: Porky's Party / A Bob Clampett Cartoon! - 1938

I'm in the mood for some humor today, and for good reason... Here's a great WB cartoon directed by my favorite director, Bob Clampett. What's interesting is that the writer is unknown, not even listed on IMDb!

The story starts with Porky receiving a present from his Uncle Pincus Pig. It's a silk worm from the Orient, and if you want it to perform, you say... Sew!

Porky gives it a test, but when the little worm starts knitting bras, panties and other items for women, Porky stops the show when he puts it in his pocket.

After Porky gets cleaned up in the bathroom, his pooch Black Fury decides to check out Porky's hair growing formula that just happens to be 99% alcohol...

Black Fury chugs on the bottle and after he's good and drunk, he pours the formula all over his head in his stupor! Love those rubbery Clampett images.

Porky's two friends arrive, a penguin and a goose. Porky gets punked by the goose when they shake hands at the door!

The silk worm starts knitting again when Porky says that his friend was soooo crazy!

The worm knits more women's lingerie so Porky tosses it away, right into the penguin's ice cream! The worm starts making silk top hats and the penguin gets one stuck in his head!

The goose tries to help with the only way a cartoon character knows how!..

Back in the bathroom, Black Fury decides he needs a shave. The electric razor chases him out of the room and he finds Porky at the party table. Everyone thinks Black Fury is a mad dog!

The guys all run as fast as they can away from Porky's pooch!

The penguin has a tussle with Black Fury in the bed and when the dust settles, they realize that he's fine, he's not mad at all...

But, the prnguin still has a problem with that damn top hat and the goose helps out yet again!

Th, th, that's all folks! Tune in again on Wednesday when we continue down the old dusty Dungeon trail, just the way you like it.

A Tribute to Carl Jaffé - Part 5: USA-TV

Welcome to our second Saturday Night Special Tribute to Carl Jaffé. We have so far,

explored the genres of Sci-Fi, Spies, Brit-Cops and last week World-War 2.

Now we’re going to have a look at a medium that – broadly speaking - didn’t exist until the

early 1950s; Television. In the early days, TV companies broadcast shows live; recording

technology almost happened by accident and didn’t evolve to a usable industry standard

until the mid ‘50s – although the USA (as with so many technologies of the 20th century) was

way ahead of the UK in this.

British TV companies co-operated with US distributor and broadcast networks because they

recognized the huge earnings potential that awaited any successful program that could be

syndicated. Ironically, many ‘made-for export’ productions found their way back to the UK as a US import!

All this was only possible due to rapid recording technology advances. That a fair quantity of

material has survived is quite remarkable, matched only by the sad fact that a major volume

of programs are lost forever as a result of UK TV companies’ VT re-cycling/archive wiping

policies of the late 1960s through early 1980s’ thankfully reversed due to the emergence of

the then revolutionary home-video market.

TV allowed different treatments to be experimented with and therefore allowed Carl to

expand his repertoire beyond those areas we have already explored; although familiar

themes were still seen. We hope you enjoy the selection Grandson Michael Jaffé has sent

over from his London archives for which images are currently available.

So we are proud to present just a few surviving examples of Carl’s TV appearances, from

the ’50s thru ‘70s. He worked with some well-known and famous actors of the era; and at

least one of Hollywood’s greatest; Buster Keaton.

1953-54 – Douglas Fairbanks Presents

 After a glittering Hollywood film career; Fairbanks entered the exciting new TV world,

fronting this popular ‘Rheingold Theatre’ series dealing with subjects designed to appeal to

the more ‘serious’ viewer.

First aired on NBC, Jaffé appeared in 4 episodes.
The highlight was sharing star-billing with one of Hollywood’s all-time greats – Buster Keaton; making his TV debut and (rarely for Keaton) a speaking role.

 1955 – The Vise

A popular series of B-thriller programs produced in the UK by the then renowned ‘Danzigers’

as a special series for ABC and not aired in the UK until 1960.

Incredibly, of the 40 episodes produced, very few remain, and even more incredible, one of them is the one episode that Carl Jaffé starred in. We hope to bring you more images when they become available from London.

1957 – Wire Service

Crime and maverick detective themes exploded onto screens with advent of TV as it equally

suited a tight short-story self-contained program, or a longer tale split into weekly episodes;

a format that remains the backbone of series programming today.

  Carl starred in one show

alongside established names including Anton Diffring.

1957 – The New Adventures of Charlie Chan

 The inscrutable detective in probably his best incarnation as delivered by the inimitable Carrol Naish....

 ....and ably assisted by the world’s greatest ‘No.1 son’James Wong; still performing today!

1959 – The Third Man

 Michael Rennie was the lead in TV’s adaptation of the iconic character, with Carl Jaffé playing a stereotypical mystery Eastern European.

The series also starred Jonathan Harris, who would later find fame as the eccentric Dr. Smith in Irwin Allen's seminal 'Lost In Space'

The UK’s BBC (PBS – Public Broadcasting Service equivalent) collaborated with NTA (National Television Associates) and first aired in the US in October 1959.

1960 – Danger Man

6 years before Patrick McGoohan embarked on his most famous (and for many perplexing to this day) TV show: the iconic and beguiling ‘The Prisoner’ it was preceded by the stylish ‘Danger Man’ capturing the new mood of a brave new decade. 

 Jaffé starred in a single episode in one of his

shortest roles being assassinated within 90-seconds of the opening credits; although his character is pivotal to the whole premise of the story. Here are more photos!

1961 – One Step Beyond

An early example of the clutch of paranormal mystery themed programs to emerge in the 1960’s; the most famous being The Twilight Zone. 

Carl Jaffé wears the Nazi uniform once more in a tale about

revenge and retribution.

The Anglo-US collaboration era of these seminal shows only lasted a few years as their commercial performance didn’t yield the level of success that either the US or UK operators aspired to. 

Competition resulted in a proliferation of TV productions from both sides of the Atlantic and, coupled with further technology advances a new golden TV age emerged which set the new high standards and formats still used as basis reference even in the digital age.