THEY CAME TO BLOW UP AMERICA - "What Else Do You Need To Know" (1943)

 

I was crusin' and perusin' the Internet the other night, and I rolled up on this poster that made me feel like what in the Hell is that, so that's why this evening's Saturday Night Special is...

 "They Came To Blow Up America!"

"They Came To Blow Up America" was made in 1943, but WWII didn't end until 1945, so it was still a time of bolstering up the public!

This nasty Nazi named Ernst Reiter has been caught, and is now totally out of the game!

The F.B.I is replacing the real Ernst Reiter with a man named Carl Steelman! Carl is played by George Sanders in what might be one of my favorite roles for him.

Secrecy is SO important, Carl has to even lie to his parents!

George looks pretty freakin' suave as a nazi!

Liesl Handl as Helga Lorenz has already maxed out her ration of stockings, and is in jeopardy of not looking good. She is also of Austrian descent and is totally anti-nazi.

Carl's got some extra credits, so he decides to help the pretty lady out, and purchases them for her!

Scheiss! The authorities have monitored Carl and Helga's every move, and now he has to explain himself, and not blow his cover!

 

This is my worst nightmare! Terrorists setting fires! Right about the same time, the Japanese were working on their deadly Fu-Go balloon bomb campaign. Luckily, it was mostly a failure, but what a mean spirited concept!

The Winston Churchill dart board at the Nazi headquarters is quite novel!

So Carl has got himself quite a problem. He's had to convince his own parent's that he's a Nazi, then he's had to convince Helga that he's not, only to pretend that he is again when they take her away, and then rescue her, and scurry her off to safety!

This newly developed mini-bomb is going to be very helpful!

The bomb is set to go off in many different ways. This time it's based on speed!

Carl puts the bomb in the car of the Nazis chasing him and Helga, sets the bomb to go off at 75 MPH, and then leads the guys on a high speed chase. When they hit 75, the car explodes and the chase is over.

A really sick, but pretty funny scene happens when the wife of the real Ernst Reiter shows up at Carl's hotel room, and discovers her husband is not who he is supposed to be. Carl then has to scramble, and go tells his Nazi boss that his wife is insane, and she doesn't recognize him any more, and is a danger.

So, when she goes to blow the whistle on Carl, they totally don't believe her, and immediately put her in an institution! Dennis (Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man, She-Wolf Of London) Hoey is tremendous as the vile Colonel Taeger.

Big Ward Bond as the head of the F.B.I. finds out that Carl's Father has made himself physically ill by worrying about his son being a Nazi, so he lets him know the truth, but he's not supposed to tell anybody else, not even his wife or it might put Carl's life in jeopardy!

Carl's Dad feels better immediately after getting the news that his son is a hero, not a zero, and gets up out of bed and decides to smoke a cigar, when his Doctor shows up. He's so excited, and feels like he has to tell somebody, so he tells his trusted Doctor, who just happens to be a Nazi sympathizer, and now Carl's life is really on the line. What a dumbass!

When they find out the Frau Reiter wasn't crazy, but was telling the truth, the Colonel goes to talk to her. She gets so mad and reads him the riot act, which only gets her the ultimate reward for being true to the party, he has her shot! Frau Reiter was played by the stunning Russian actress Anna Sten, who Samuel Goldwyn had poised to be the next Marlene Dietrich, but it never panned out!

Yeah, that's great Doc, thanks for all your help.... you're under arrest you rat bastard!

A pretty decent copy streams on YouTube for free, and it's only an hour and thirteen minutes long, so what are you waiting for?

FLASH GORDON / "The Lure Of Light" - 1955

Here's another wild adventure starring Steve Holland, Irene Chapman and Joseph Nash as Flash Gordon, Dale Arden and Dr. Zarkov. Back in the day, this was my favorite show and I watched it every day after school, laying on the couch. Filmed in Berlin.

In this story, the Galactic Counsel has released Queen Tridentia from prison, she's the person that started the last galactic war. The president of the counsel believes that the Queen is no longer a threat, not realizing that she wants to steal the plans for a rocket ship that can travel faster than the speed of light, to go back in time and alter the course of the last war!

Here's the gang talking to a scientist that claims he has invented a device that will make a spaceship travel faster that the speed of light, enabling the pilots to go back in time!

He says that he wants Flash to be the one to test the theory in his ship, but Dr. Zarkov and the Commissioner are against the plan, it's just too crazy of an idea...

Then, just released from prison, Queen Tridentia comes into the room. It doesn't really look like she learned her lesson.

Before they test the theory though, Flash gets the job of returning the Queen back to her own planet, ready, set...GO! Love Flash's long sleeved shirt with that lightning bolt on it.

Back on her planet, the Queen makes plans to get her hands on the secret rocket plans!

Two hooded figures knock Flash out and kidnap Dale. Flash blames himself because he told Queen Tricentia about the plans when he took her back to her planet, and, Dale knows the details!

On the way back to their planet, the Queen's henchwomen interrogate Dale. And when Dale would not answer a question, she slaps her HARD, for REAL!

Then Dale's put in a chamber with hardly any oxygen in it, the Queen wants to get the plan by torturing Dale into submission.

Back at the ranch, the scientist programs Flash's ship to be capable of faster than light speed if activated, then Flash and Dr. Zarkov head out to the Queen's planet.

The Queen is now teasing Dale through a speaker, reminding her of how great oxygen is. And finally, Dale says that she'll tell them what they want to know...

But, Dale changes her mind, says she's rather die than give her the plans... OOPS!

Flash and the Doc show up, and...

They find Dale, DEAD!!.. There's only one thing to do.

Flash orders the scientist to activate the faster than light speed device!

After they reach 186,700 miles per second, the ship changes configuration and our heroes go back in time. Now, this is science FICTION after all.

They get back to the situation before the chamber incident. Dale is fine, the Queen and her henchwomen are going to prison. This was a fear-fraught episode!

THE SET-UP - "This Human Punching Bag Has Moxie" (1949)

 

It's a Wow Wednesday down in The Dungeon, like Wow, I didn't see that coming! "The Set-Up" is a movie made in 1949 that I didn't know anything about until just a couple of days ago.

 Before that I only knew "The Set-Up" to be what you ordered at the basque restaurant if you didn't want an entree. "The Set-Up" consists of  French bread, pickled tongue, green salad, cabbage soup, salsa, marinated tomatoes, spaghetti, French fries, and bleu cheese if you ask for it, so why would you need more?

 

Although I don't watch it much any more, I was a huge boxing and kick boxing fan for a couple of decades back in the 80's and 90's. I don't watch MMA because I don't think it's right to hit a guy when he's down, so that's never clicked with me!

"The Set-Up" is 100% a boxing movie, and quite possibly even though many people like don't even know about it any more, it just might be the best boxing movie ever made!

I've never been much of a Robert Ryan fan, but that has changed dramatically after watching "The Set-Up," and now I'm gonna tell you why!

George Tobias is a trainer named Tiny, he's going to a meeting to sell out his boy. He trains a journeyman boxer name Stoker Thompson. He doesn't feel a need to tell Stoker to take a fall, he just figures it will happen anyway, so why complicate things? Besides so much more, George will always be remembered as Abner Kravitz in "Bewitched."

When was the last time you saw a couple making out in a cafe?

 

Tiny tells this sleazeball guy named Danny not to worry about it, it's a sure thing. Danny wants to make sure, or his Boss, a tough guy known as 'Little Boy' will be mad, and is likely to throw a tantrum!

Danny was played by Edwin (The Incredible Melting Man) Max.

Robert Ryan is the washed up, over the hill, down on his luck boxer known as Stoker Thompson. All Stoker wants is a chance. If he could just throw the perfect punch one time, then he'd have an opportunity to have a bigger match, and maybe he could earn $500, and he and his wife Julie could settle down and get a little place somewhere.

Julie's just afraid that some day Stoker will get knocked down, and never get back up! Julie was played by Audrey (Tension) Totter, who usually was a bad girl in the movies, quite unlike Julie.

It's showtime, and Stoker is off to work.

Two of the boxers sharing Stoker's dressing room are young men with stellar careers, Darryl (The Tingler) Hickman as Shanley, a boxer in his debut match, and the black guy is James Edwards in his first on screen appearance. James is the man who broke the mold of the shiftless black man, and brought dignity to the characters he portrayed like this boxer Luther Hawkins.

It's a greasy, gritty life, but somehow there's still time for "Thrilling Love."

Stoker is ready to go!

And so is his opponent, the up and coming Tiger Nelson!

Hal (Tobor The Great) Baylor is Tiger Nelson. 

Hal was also 'Mercury' on the "Batman" TV series!

'Little Boy' and his girlfriend Bunny can't wait to collect all the free money they know they're going to get! Lynn (Canon City) Millan is Bunny and, Alan Baxter is 'Little Boy.' Alan was in "The Outer Limits" episode titled "O.B.I.T."

A round in a boxing match is three minutes long, and this was a four round fight. According to his trainer, Stoker will go down and not get back up in the third round even if he can.

What happens next is just crazy amazing. The rounds are almost all in real time, and it was at this point I thought, gee, these two fellows really look like they know how to box!

After the third round, and Stoker's not going down, Tiny and his cut man Red decide they better evacuate the building before the fight is over, and 'Little Boy' and his crew get their hands on them.

Red was played by the always entertaining Percy Helton who had a phenomenal career that spanned seven freakin' decades, and he had 237 titles to his name that included "Spook Chasers," "Head," and "Kiss Me Deadly." He was also in two episodes of "The Twilight Zone," "Mr. Garrity And The Graves," and "Mute."

As it turns out, I wasn't far from wrong. Robert Ryan boxed in college and was 5-0, with three knockouts. He also boxed during the three years he was in the Marines and won a championship.

Hal Baylor had an amateur boxing record of  52-5, and went on to fight as a professional with a record of 15-8, so these two knew exactly what they were doing, and put on one Helluva show!

Stoker goes down once!

He goes down twice!

 

But he keeps getting back up, and the next thing you know is that Tiger is spread out on the mat, and Stoker wins the fight. That all would have been fantastic, except for the fact he was supposed to lose again.

It's all about timing! Bad timing in Stoker's case!

After the fight, Stoker meets up with "Little Boy,' Tiger and Danny. He tries to explain to them that he was never told that he was supposed to take a fall, but they don't care, and beat the crap out of him.

Dreamland? Dreams crushed or Dreams come true, either way,

Stoker still believes there's a place for him and Julie somewhere, and I hope he is right!