WOODY WOODPECKER - "Secret Agent Woody Woodpecker" (1967)

It's a Woody Woodpecker Wednesday in The Dungeon, and a 1967 Cartune from the studios of Walter Lantz called......................

 

 

........."Secret Agent Woody Woodpecker!"

 I've been watching a lot of secret agent and spy movies lately, so why not a secret agent cartune too? Cartunes is what Walter Lantz called his cartoons, and he produced 604 of them, so who are we to argue? There's a lot of good ones, but we probably won't ever get around to all of them.

 

The Villain is this nefarious and dirty character named Louie The Litterbug.

Louie's chronic litterbugging has got the Police in a frenzy, and they are left with no choice!

It's time to call Secret Agent Woody Woodpecker in on the job!

Woody comes racing to the rescue in his Peckermobile!

But Louie can see him coming a mile away, and has got Woody in his sights!

Woody has got all kinds of cool secret agent gadgetry at his disposal like this built in ink pen that sprays Louie with ink. (It was probably a much bigger mess to clean up that Louie's littering!)

Now Woody's going to use this giant pencil and eraser to "rub out" Louie!

And since it's a cartune, it works!

But that doesn't stop Louie, and in no time at all, he's back at it, scattering Litter all over the place!

 

This is 1967, and Woody has a drone to use! Drones were developed in the 1930's, but radio controlled drones wouldn't come into real use until the 1970's, and the 80's.

Woody also has something akin to an Apple watch! Pretty high tech for a woodpecker!

They do this gag twice, or actually four times. The first time, Louie gets an anvil that he drops off a rooftop dropped onto his own head because he came downstairs too fast, and they thought it was so funny, they decided to do an 'instant replay.'

A minute later, Louie gets this telephone pole dropped on his head, and even though he runs like a mile to get out of the way, he still gets boinked on the head, and again, they do an 'instant replay!'

Louie gets caught in the trash where he belongs!

But Yes, he escapes again! He is incorrigible!

Before he gets caught Louie parts Woody's hair real good with this pistol!

Louie  goes to jail, and Woody ends up in the cell next to him, because the Police gave him a letter, and after he opens it, the dummy tosses it on the ground, and is arrested immediately for littering! 

Boy, would the jails be full today if that still happened!

I'm not a big fan of these 'limited animation' cartoons that came into favor in the 60's. Growing up with the awesome animations of Popeye and Superman, these stylized flat cartoons were quite a disappointment, but if they had some good jokes, gags, and puns like this one, they were still fun!

THE TWILIGHT ZONE / "Probe 7, Over And Out" - 1963

Here's a little sci-fi tale written by Rod. What's interesting is that the first episode of OUTER LIMITS aired on Sept. 16th 1963 and this one aired on Nov. 29th a few months later. It's possible Rod wrote this one because of the overwhelming popularity of  OUTER LIMITS that The Twilight Zone was now competing with.

The story is about Colonel Cook who has crashed his rocket on a distant planet with no chance of being rescued because America is on the verge of a nuclear war with Russia (not named).

Richard Basehart plays Colonel Cook, he's unable to repair his ship in any manner, and has his right arm in a sling from the crash. He has just had a chat with the General back on Earth (luckily the communication equipment is still working) and it looks like he's stranded there.

The planet is very similar to Earth and Cook's able to breath the air. He leaves the ship and starts calling for anyone near him to come and be greeted by an Earth man! But to no avail.

Back in the ship, the General tells Cook that things look grim on the war front, and if the other guys start anything, we'll retaliate in spades!!

Cook goes outside again and finds a drawing in the sand. What in the heck!

The Colonel starts calling out for whomever made the drawing to come out so that they can meet him. And, he gets a big rock in the face for his effort!

He gets knocked the Hell out!!

When he wakes up in the morning, he sees something or someone sneak into the ship.

He grabs a piece of iron and tells whoever to please come out of the locked compartment. That doesn't work so he says that he's going outside and wait there for them to come out.

Someone comes out of the ship and makes a break for it, but Cook chases them and finds out that it's a woman! After gaining her confidence, Cook finds out that her name is Eve (and his first name is Adam!!). Antoinette Bower plays Eve, I couldn't remember why she looked familiar, until I saw that she was in freaking SUPERBEAST, and a few other horror movies. She was mainly a TV gal.

Now get ready for this... It turns out she is the only person left from a war on her planet and also crash landed her spaceship on this planet! See where this is going?

After he scares her off again, Cook returns to the ship and listens to the last message from Earth. He didn't hear it the first time because he was knocked out all night. Anyway, the General wishes him well, back on Earth, both countries have destroyed each other, so, that's that!

The next day, Eve shows up at the ship, Adam has a bag for collecting food and they both set off exploring the area together! 

They come to a spot with an apple tree...

Eve picks one and hands it to Adam. Well. there you go, a happy ending as you would expect from this great series...

THE CHASE - "The Black Path Of Fear" (1946)

 

Just from the looks of this Turkish poster, you know right away that there's something strange going on! That's why this Saturday Night Special is "The Chase!"

"The Chase" starring Robert Cummings came out in 1946, and while there have been other films with the same title but different stories, like the Marlon Brando version in 1966, or the Charlie Sheen version in 1994, the 1946 version is the one you really want to see.

A down and out veteran finds a wallet full of money, and after pinching enough to buy himself some breakfast and a cheap cigar, he decides to return the wallet to the owner whose name and address he found inside.

As it turns out, the owner, a man named Eddie Roman is quite wealthy!

But before he can talk to Mr. Roman, he has to get by his henchman/partner named Gino, who was played by Dungeon Mega Hero, Peter Lorre! Peter is great in this sinister role, just as he always is!

Another Dungeon Hero, Robert Cummings, is the honest vagabond veteran Chuck Scott. Four years earlier, Robert was in an equally paranoid adventure as Barry Kane in Hitchcock's "Saboteur."

 

Steve Cochran has the role of a two-bit gangster posing as legitimate businessman Eddie Roman. Steve was in "The Twilight Zone" episode titled "What You Need." In 1965 at the age of 48, Steve sailed off for Guatemala, but died of a lung infection before he ever got there.

Eddie Roman is a punk, and likes to slap women around!

Chuck Scott gives Eddie his wallet back, and is rewarded for his honesty with a chauffeur job driving for Mr. Big Shot!

Not knowing anything at all about his new boss, Chuck thinks he's landed himself a pretty good deal!

It doesn't take him long to figure out that Eddie Roman is not exactly the guy he pretends to be, especially when he finds out that he has an accelerator pedal and speedometer in the back seat where he can control the speed, and scare the crap out of the driver!

These are not the smiling faces of two guys you can trust!

 

Because they will literally feed you to the dogs if you don't do what they ask!

Michèle (The Strange Madame X) Morgan as Eddie Roman's wife Lorna is not a happy camper. She didn't know Eddie was a dirty rat and a crook when she married him, and now she wants to find a way to get away from him forever. Maybe the new chauffeur will be the answer to ending her nightmare!

Chuck and Lorna come up with a plan to go to Cuba where hopefully Eddie will never find either of them.

But once they get to Cuba, everything goes to Hell in a hand basket in no time at all. It appears that Eddie has people watching them wherever they go!

Chuck and Lorna have now officially fallen in love, and then, out of nowhere, she gets a knife in the back and dies on the spot!

Of course, Chuck is the number one suspect!

Chuck escapes from the Police, and now, "The Chase" is on!

Chased through the streets of Havana, Chuck is allowed to hide behind the door in this prostitute's apartment, as the cops go door to door searching for him. When he asks her why she helped him, she replies "I hate cops." The actress who played the prostitute was Yolanda (Shockproof) Lacca.

There is a picture of the real killer taken by the photographer in the restaurant where the murder happened, but before Chuck can get to him, he's murdered, and the photo is destroyed.

"The Chase" goes on until Chuck gets shot in the chest, and he wakes up disoriented in this room.

I'm not going to tell you what happened after that, but it did confuse the heck out of me, so you're just going to watch it yourself! And the cool thing is you can do it right here! 

 "The Chase"