THE MAD DOCTOR OF MARKET STREET - "Genius - Or Fiend?" (1942)

The first Saturday Night Special of the year 2021 is a cool little classic titled "The Mad Doctor Of Market Street," that was made in 1942, and clocks in at just a minute over and hour, which in my world, is exactly how long any film should be.

 

This is a tale of a Doctor who isn't intentionally bad, but becomes a killer when his whole world turns to shit, after a patient of his dies from his experimentation!

Indeed "The Mad Doctor Of Market Street" is a Universal movie, and if Universal Studios ever opens back up, I'm sure you would be able to recognize this set on the tram ride.

The classic Lionel Atwill is Dr. Ralph Benson, and when I say classic, I'm talking "House Of Dracula," "House Of Frankenstein," "Man Made Monster" etc.

Dr. Benson is working on trying to bring people back from the dead. He just paid this poor stiff a thousand dollars to be put under, but something has gone wrong, and he can't bring the guy back from the dead as planned!

The Police get involved, and Dr. Benson bails, and disappears into the night!

Next thing you know he shows up on this ship headed to Australia!

The authorities somehow know he's on this cruise, and they're pretty sure he has changed his identity, but even though all he did was shave off his beard, still nobody recognizes him.

Benson hears this Detective talking about him, so he pushes him overboard to shut him up!

Una (The Maltese Falcon) Merkel as Aunt Margaret, provides a lot of the delightful comedy relief, and in this scene, she is going around telling everybody what she heard about the man overboard, and the man who did it, even the murderer himself!

Next thing you know, the ship is on fire and engulfed in flames, and everybody has to get loaded into the life boats.

One lifeboat that has Dr. Benson, a couple of crew members, Aunt Margaret and her niece Patricia, and a big palooka named Red Hogan in it, washes up on the beach of some island in the middle of nowhere, and they don't get the warmest welcome in the world from the locals.

Patricia was played by Claire (The Black Cat) Dodd, and Red was played Nat (Scared To Death) Pendleton who won the heavyweight wrestling silver medal in the 1920 Olympics.

One of the native women on the island is sick and dies, and Dr. Benson miraculously brings her back to life, and stops the natives from throwing all their asses in a big bonfire. Actually she had just had a heart attack, and was not dead, and the shot of Adrenalin he gives her, snaps her back to life!

 

Now the natives think Dr. Benson is a God!

Here's a great shot of the supporting cast. The other two guys are, on the left, John (I Married A Monster From Outer Space, High Sierra) Eldredge as Ship Officer Dwight, and Richard (The Falcon In Danger) Davies as Jim, the Deck Stewart and Patricia's lover.

Jim and Patricia are falling in love, and Dr. Benson doesn't like it, so he chooses Jim for his next 'bring 'em back to life' experiment!

The only way that Patricia can save Jim is to marry the Doctor!

The natives put a nice wedding ceremony together for them.

In the end, everything goes completely to Hell for the Doctor. In a failed escape attempt, Dwight ends up drowning one of the native boys, and when the Doctor cannot resuscitate him, the natives all turn on him, realizing that he's a phony, and not a God after all.

In the confusion, the rest of the gang manages to escape, and a rescue team spots them just in time, lands on the beach, and scoops them up and takes them up and away to safety, and the Doctor is left behind to fend for himself, which is not going to go well for him at all.

MERRIE MELODIES / "Horton Hatches The Egg" - 1942

Well, here we are on New Years Day, 2021, and things are still extra coo coo in Stupid-Ville. So, why not check out this awesome WB cartoon directed by Bob Clampett. Michael Maltese wrote the story based on the Dr. Seuss book, with the voices of Sara Berner, Kent Rogers, Mel Blanc, Frank Graham and Bob Clampett. There were also 12 animators, a layout artist and a background artist on this project.

The story starts with Maysie, she's laid an egg and is totally bored with just sitting there, and wants to get back to doing whatever she wants...

Then, Horton comes wandering by, he's merrily singing the "Hut-Sut Song" that he can't remember the words to. Something funny, Horton's a pink elephant!

Maysie gets Horton's attention and tells him that he could do her a big favor by sitting on her egg while she takes a break. But Horton says, it doesn't make sense, your egg is so small and I'm so immense!

After buttering Horton up, Maysie convinces him to sit on the egg, says that she'll be back after a quick vacation and flies away with her suitcase, tennis racquet and golf bag in tow.

Cautiously making his way to the egg, Horton finally settles in.

And he sat, and he sat, and he sat, and he sat, waiting for Maysie to return.

And he sat all that night through a terrible storm.

Lazy Maysie's sunbathing on the beach, wondering if she'll ever go back...

Winter rolls in and Horton still repeats.. I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful one-hundred percent. A-Choo!

In the spring all the animals laugh at him for the absurdity of the whole thing.

Then, three hunters quietly approach Horton with their elephant gun...

He heard the men's footsteps, he turned with a start! A rifle was aiming right straight at his heart!

The hunter's decide that Horton sitting on an egg was perfect for a sideshow attraction at a circus, so, it's off to the big city on a boat.

I have the Looney Tunes Golden collection which all their cartoons, on 24 discs, are the original uncut versions. Here, the Peter Lorre fish says after seeing Horton on the ship.. Well, now I've seen everything.. He pulls out a gun, puts it to his head and fires! Like on TV in the fifties and what I grew up with.

Horton's sweating under the big top as he continues to faithfully sit on the egg.

Maysie just happens to be flying by when she drops her ice cream cone and swoops down to see what's going on at the circus below. Inside, she sees Horton and realizes that he was the one sitting on her egg. And now that it's starting to hatch, she wants it BACK!

But, what breaks out of the shell is nothing less that an elephant bird! And the little thing definitely knows who it's pop is.

It's a totally happy ending, Maysie gets shut down and Horton and baby are sent back to the jungle, where they sing the "Hut-Sut Song" together!! So, tune in tomorrow when Eegah!! will have something for us!

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. - "The Project Deephole Affair" (1966)

Tonight's Wildly Vain Wednesday feature is an episode of "The Man From U.N.C.L.E."

My Editor in Berlin, Lord Litter, is currently enjoying this show immensely despite these horrid times, because "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." was never shown in it's entirety in Germany when it originally aired.

"The Project Deephole Affair" was from Season two of "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." and was the 26th episode and aired on March 18, 1966.

This is one of those shows that I take for granted that everybody already knows about, but you'd be surprised how much popular culture has been left behind by society today!

But then again, it was fifty-six years ago!

The core cast members of the show were Robert Vaughn, David McCallum, and Leo G. Carroll.

But for me, the real star of this episode was Barbara Bouchet as the villianess Narcissus Darling! Not only is she vain, she's also totally self-absorbed, and has a completely inordinate fascination with herself!

The other awesome guest star is Jack Weston as the deadbeat down and out Buzz Conway! Jack is another one of those special people that among all his roles, he was actually in two episodes of  "The Twilight Zone," "The Bard," and one of my all-time favorites, "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."

Barbara lives up to the name of her Narcissistic character by constantly primping and priming herself while admiring herself in the mirror!

I might just make a painting of this shot because I think it's very cool, but if I don't, I'll always think I should have!

Ralph J. Rose has the role of a Dr. Remington, a guy who the T.H.R.U.S.H. agents just can't wait to get their filthy hands on. Ralph had six credits to his name, for shows like "The Addams Family," and "Gunsmoke," and "The Andy Griffith Show."

Narcissus might be a self-centered egomaniac, but she does look good from all angles, and has the goods to back it up!

The big bad guy running the show is Leon Askin as Marvin Elom. For a large man, Leon must have had a strong heart, because he lived to be 97 years old. His 137 credits went all the way back to 1950, and included stints working with Superman, Dr. Mabuse, and Sherlock Holmes, and he was in "The Outer Limits" episode "The Inheritors Part 1." Being of Austrian descent, it might have been easy for him to play the role of General Burkhalter on 67 episodes of "Hogan's Heroes."

As it should be, Narcissus just can't get enough of herself!

So what happens is that Buzz Conway gets mistaken for Dr. Remington by T.H.R.U.S.H, so the U.N.C.L.E agents use him as bait, but he's not very happy when he finds the real Doctor dead in his hotel room closet.

But it was just a set-up to scare him, and the knife is fake.

Buzz decides to split the scene via an open window, but doesn't like the height much.

Even though I don't really like to fly much, I can still appreciate a good picture of a 1960's airliner in flight like this!

Wait a minute! I thought Hotels weren't supposed to have thirteenth floors!

Narcissus just keeps on doing her vanity thing, and the joke never gets old!

T.H.R.U.S.H. has a plan to create an earthquake along the San Andreas fault, and make California fall off into the ocean, and takes credit for the 9.2 earthquake in Alaska that claimed 131 casualties two years earlier in 1964.

But in the end, Marvin creates his own personal tsunami when he falls into an open elevator shaft!

So that's it for me and 2020, and I say Good Riddance, go away, take all your crap with you, and don't come back!