Wednesday, April 10, 2019

JOHN KLING'S ABENTEUER - "Deutscher Geheimagent" (1965-1970)

 Tonight's Wacky Wednesday edition is something I just found out about yesterday!
It was a German TV show that ran from 1965 to 1970 that was titled "John Klings's Abenteuer (Adventure)."
My good friend in Berlin Lord Litter told me about it and said it was a show that he was watching a lot of lately. He sent me a YouTube link of a trailer with some music and stills that you can check out, because honestly, you can search as much as you want, but you're not going to find out a lot about John Kling unless you're in Germany!

 John Kling was a popular German pulp magazine hero from 1924 to 1939 and then again from 1949 to 1954. It appears that there were many different authors. Because of these novels, 26 new John Kling adventures were broadcast in the sixties on German TV. 
Karl Heinz Zeitler wrote half of the TV episodes!

"Prost!!"

Hellmut Lange had the lead role as secret agent John Kling!

John Kling's sidekick was Uwe Friedrichsen as Jones Burthe!
Both Hellmut and Uwe worked almost strictly in German TV and movies, so they are not really familiar faces in North America.

Most of these pulps have terrific covers like this!

I couldn't find any DVD's available anywhere, so these shots come from the short trailer on YouTube!

Angenehme Fahrt!!

Check this out!!
Composer Gerhard Narholz went on to write music for "The Ren & Stimpy Show," and "SpongeBob SquarePants" and a lot lot of other cool stuff too!

I know, I was shocked too!

Over the course of 26 episodes, I think there's probably quite a lot of this......

.........And you know, secret agent stuff!

If the TV show was anywhere near as cool as these pulp covers, it must be pretty fun to watch!

I like this twin fire engines shot!

German Amazon has a 4 DVD set of "John Kling's Abenteuer" for sale for EUR 55,34....+ postage.
However much that it is.........but you're still going to need to know how to speak German!

IMDB is almost devoid of information too, but they do have this one very nice still!

So that's it for John Kling! You'd think in this day and age of information overload, we could at least get to see TV and movies from other countries a little easier! Unfortunately, even the information autobahn has still got a lot of unpaved kilometers!
At least we get to know about it, but too bad we don't get to see it!

Monday, April 8, 2019

DEMONS III The Ogre / What Happens When The Nightmares Of Your Childhood Suddenly Become Reality? - 1988

I've already posted DEMONS and DEMONS 2, so, here we go with number 3... This is a story about Cheryl, an American novelist tormented by nightmares since she was a child. She rents the Trifiri Villa in Italy with her husband Tom and son Bobby, where they travel to for vacation. Cheryl is writing her latest novel about an ogre that horrifies her since her childhood and soon finds out that all her fears are starting to come true!

Here's the family arriving at the Trifiri Villa, seems like a pretty nice place, so far...

Suddenly, we're in a flashback where Cheryl (as a child) is wandering through the place. The painting stretches out toward her, and after she goes into the the rooms below, she sees this freaky skeleton hanging from the ceiling, and, it moves!

Darling, wake up and go back to sleep!

Cheryl goes into town where they don't accept credit cards, but, she scores a friend, Ann. She invites Ann over to the villa for dinner and to meet the family.

But, Cheryl can't stop thinking about some of the strange things that are beginning to happen. She starts exploring the basement area...

Cheryl decides to go into town to see if any of the locals know anything about the villa, you know, in the 'strange' department. This old kook just happens to be doing a painting of the villa that has a slimy egg sack with a demon hand hanging down, floating over it! Cheryl freaks out...

This kitchen area catches my eye, that refrigerator, tiny stove and huge butane tank just look a little weird in there!

In the meantime, Ann decides to explore the basement area and gets the treat of her life!

The Ogre is a giant, the makeup is freakin' great, man, I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of his rage, like in the top photo!

Tom slows the monster down after he rolls a gigantic barrel of wine down a ramp, breaking in its face, allowing Cheryl and Bobby to escape to the outside.

Her and Bobby jump into the Jeep and run the motherfucker down, then drives back and forth over the Ogre until it's dead, then, it disappears!! So, that's that, now, all you have to do is show up on Wednesday when we return with more Dungeon Cargo!..

Saturday, April 6, 2019

FIVE GOLDEN DRAGONS - "Time Of Our Lives" (1967)

The soup du jour for this Saturday Night Special is one of the most bizarre films I've seen lately! I've seen a lot of weird movies, but "Five Golden Dragons" is right up there at the top, especially in the category of bigger budget movies! They have nothing in common, but for some reason, this film reminds me of William Castle's "13 Frightened Girls," I guess just because it's so odd!

They claim it to be an Edgar Wallace story, which would explain a lot, but IMDB only credits Harry Alan Towers and Peter Welbeck as writers!

I've always been a big fan of Bob Cummings, because I used to watch his TV show "Love That Bob" aka "The Bob Cummings Show," all the time as a kid, and in the context of that show, I always thought he was hilarious, but in "Five Golden Dragons," he just seems lost! In fact, about half the time, he doesn't even seem to know that he's in this movie!

What's much more important than the five dragon characters is the trio of Euro beauties used in "Five Golden Dragons!" It gets pretty confusing too since Maria Perschy seen here is a character named Margaret!

And Maria Rohm is a gal named Ingrid!

And Margaret Lee is a club singer named Magda!
So out of three actresses, two are named Maria, and two are named Margaret!
The two Marias are of Austrian descent, and Margaret Lee is British.

Maria Perschy's Margaret is the first to go!
 I don't usually notice screw ups, but it's hard not to notice Margaret's dead eyes blinking as the scene ends.

You know it's got to be an Edgar Wallace film because Klaus Kinski is in it, looking as cool and weird as ever in his Pee-wee Herman polka dot bow tie!

Here's the original mock up for the title card!

This movie has got everything including a rickshaw chase scene!

Almost every moment Bob Cummings is on screen is awkward especially when he's in a scene with Margaret Lee.

One thing I really liked about "Five Golden Dragons" was there were three songs performed in the club. Two songs were performed by Margaret Lee and....

..........Yukari Itô also gets a chance to do a number!
I was just wondering if they did this because of the popularity of the song "Sukiyaki (Ue o Muite Arukou)" by Kyu Sakamoto. "Sukiyaki" reached number one on the Billboard charts in the United States in 1963, and has sold over 13 million copies worldwide!

Robert Cummings was in the "Twilight Zone" episode titled "King Nine Will Not Return," and if you want to see him in a better role than this, then go watch Hitchcock's "Dial M For Murder!"

I think this was the second guy that got tossed off a building!

Finally, it's time for the "Five Golden Dragons" to show up. Five guys who are so rich and powerful, they run everything, but this is going to be the first time they ever meet!
The first dragon is Dan (The Bamboo Saucer, Black Angel) Duryea!

Brian (The Creeping Unknown, Quatermass II) Donlevy is dragon number 2.

Sir Christopher Lee is dragon number 3.

And looking like he'd rather not be bothered, George Raft is dragon number four!

 There's still time for Klaus Kinski's character to eat it!

So, yeah, these super rich and powerful men get together, put on these stupid costumes, and play a sophisticated game of Russian Roulette, kind of, except nobody found the bullet!

Dragon number five finally shows up too!

I saw at least five different posters from around the world for "Five Golden Dragons," and only one of them even had a picture of the star of the movie, Bob Cummings in it, and even on that one, he was very small!
The big sell was these four guys, and those three girls!
Just Weird!!

Monster Music

Monster Music
AAARRGGHHH!!!! Ya'll Come On Back Now, Y'Hear??