A Trailer a Day Keeps the Boogeyman Away! Dracula’s Daughter (1936)

“She gives you that weird feeling!”

DRACULA’S DAUGHTER 1936

One of the truly great classic horror films packed with atmosphere and a Gothic undercurrent of sensuality Dracula’s Daughter directed by Lambert Hillyer (The Invisible Ray 1936, Convict’s Code 1939) stars Gloria Holden as the imposing Contessa Marya Zeleska and Edward Van Sloan who reprises his role as Professor Van Helsing. Irving Pichel plays the menacing Sandor and Otto Kruger is Doctor Jeffrey Garth, Marguerite Churchill is Janet Blake, and Nan Grey is the bewildered Lili, also co-starring Hedda Hopper as Lady Esme Hammond. Jack P. Pierce did the special make up effects and Vera West was responsible for the fabulous wardrobe.

Based on Bram Stoker’s story, ‘Dracula’s Guest’ this film is an unsung sequel to the 1931 Universal classic starring Bela Lugosi.

Dracula’s Daughter takes up where Dracula ends off, opening within the walls of the dark and somber mansion.

The mysterious Countess Marya Zaleska is indeed Dracula’s daughter, she is faithfully accompanied by her attendant Sandor. They burn her vampiric father’s body during a Black Mass. Though Dracula has been reduced to ashes, Zaleska is is still not free of her father’s curse. She is still bewitched with his blood lust, and a sexual longing, which is only hinted at as an artistic murmur, yet the story never quite rhapsodizes the true nature of her sapphic proclivities.

At first her gaze is set on the beautiful blonde streetwalker Lily, who is hired as a model, but soon after Lili discovers the secret of this curious and enigmatic woman who wants the young girl to do more than merely pose for her. The scene where Zaleska hypnotizes Lili is enthralling. ‘Do you like jewels Lili? These are very old and very beautiful.’

Zaleska reaches out for help from a psychoanalyst Doctor Jeffrey Garth who she feels might be able to help with her unholy cravings. Zaleska becomes obsessed with Garth, and she eventually kidnaps his assistant and fiancÃ©e Janet Blake who is taken to Dracula’s Castle in Transylvania where she is held hostage as bait to get Garth to come to her.

Holden who has a dark, unearthly and stunningly swarthy looks, works well as the believable bloodline to Lugosi’s eastern European mannerisms that imbued the classic character of Universal’s Dracula. Dracula’s Daughter is quite an unsung classic, and should be seen by all fans of the genre, it’s a jewel, very old and very beautiful!

Your very old and very beautiful-MonsterGirl

the clip joint: Olga’s House of Shame (1964)

“Only a fiend could do what Olga did to twelve young girls!”

“An unspeakable nightmare of eroticism!”

OLGA’S HOUSE OF SHAME (1964)

Brought to you by the fabulous folks at Something Weird Video, Directed by Joseph P. Mawra or as he’s also known

Olga’s House of Shame tells the story of a brothel matron Olga (Audrey Campbell) who gets runs out of New York City so she takes her show on the road to a deserted ore mine where she can run her criminal empire and prostitution ring in peace.

Followed up by Olga’s Dance Hall Girls

Hey how’d this poster get in here? â‡§

Here’s the scene where the girl just ‘doesn’t know!‘

Never shameful but always playfully yours-MonsterGirl

A Trailer a Day Keeps the Boogeyman Away! The Name of the Game is Kill! (1968)

THE NAME OF THE GAME IS KILL! [1968]

Also known as ‘The Female Trap’

Written by Gary Crutcher who gave us Stanley (1972) the man loves snakes, and Featuring the song-“Shadows”
Performed by The Electric Prunes

I keep coming across these great obscure creepy shockers from the 1960s. Often starring actors like Tab Hunter and Susan Strasberg. This bizarre theatre of lunacy was directed by Gunnar HellstrÃ¶mÂ

The Name of the Game is Kill! is a nice contribution to the psychotronic -cult-cinema genre, just because of the hostility, the great casting and the psychedelic music alone.

It’s an odd offering featuring some even more bizarre characters- three sisters, Susan Strasberg who plays Mickey Terry, Tisha SterlingÂ who plays Nan Terry and Collin Wilcox Paxton as Diz Terry.

I love Collin Wilcox, I think she is one of the most underrated character actresses, so it’s nice to see her here with Tisha Sterling and Ms Strasberg doing what she does best, playing a quiet, deeply composed box of kindling with layers and layers of mood and intuitive style.

Jack Lord of Hawaii Five -O fame plays a stranger, a Hungarian traveler named Symcha Lipa (Sim) who is passing through an isolated town and hooks up with the peculiar Terry family run by matriarch and patriarch Father and Mother Terry, theÂ androgynous T.C Jones (you remember Nurse Betty in Alfred Hitchcock Hour’s An Unlocked Window she/he was also in 3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt 1964 as Henry.)

The girls invite Sim to their home for some hospitality. Mother Terry lives with her three beautiful daughters and a menagerie of poisonous snakes and tarantulas.Mickey is friendly and welcoming but the other two sisters exude a malicious venom themselves. When Sim almost dies, he winds up in the hospital being warned by local SheriffÂ Fred Kendall played by Mort Mills not to get involved with the Terry family. Of course Sim doesn’t listen…

The Name of the Game is MonsterGirlÂ finding you delicious goodies to feast your eyes on.

A Trailer a Day Keeps the Boogeyman Away! 2 Tales of Matrimony On the Treacherous Rocks!

“An Absolute Ball”

X, Y and ZEEÂ 1972

Elizabeth Taylor wears the role of Zee Blakeley, a Machiavellian temptress, who is married to the wealthy yet miserly, miserable, and misogynistic architect Robert, played deftly by Michael Caine who partakes every bit in the nasty psycho-sexual game playing their afflicted marriage has manifested over the years.

Zee is wild, possessive, and cunning, and Robert is melancholy, brutish, and at times downright violent. Longing for a change he pursues the lovely Stella played by Susannah York, who he meets at a party given by a friend, the bird-like, arty, jet-setting, gold LamÃ©, pink fluffy-haired Gladys (Margaret Leighton) who collects people and things for her ‘cocktail parties’ strewn with beautiful types, fags, artists and anyone with a title attached to their name.

Life and love are cutthroat in this film, and Taylor’s portrayal of Zee is unnerving and difficult to watch at times, as she fluctuates between venomous seductress and wounded little girl. York as always is like a fawn from the eldritch woods with those dreamy eyes. But talk about eyes, no one has a pair that arrests you quite like Elizabeth Taylor.

Liz Taylor — *Elizabeth Taylor* as the beautiful, tumultuous Zee Blakeley…

Once Robert decides to play house with Stella and leave Zee to wallow in her jealous vitriol, Zee goes on an orchestrated rampage to try and destroy their burgeoning romance, uncovering the shell of sweet Stella exposing that she has some secrets of her own. Written by Edna O’Brien, and directed by Brian G. Hutton who also directed Taylor in the thriller, Night Watch 1973, another equally disturbing film about the deep-rooted ugliness and danger of an ill-fated marriage.

With fabulous Costume designs by Beatrice Dawson.

Next up…

SUCH GOOD FRIENDS 1971

Such Good Friends film poster — **Such Good Friends title design by Saul Bass**

“The little black book that became a national bestseller.”

Based on the novel by Lois Gould, with a screenplay by Elaine May using her pen name Esther Dale, and an uncreditedÂ Joan Didion (A Star is Born 1976, Panic In Needle Park 1971) Directed by the omnipotent Otto Preminger.

Dyan Cannon is Julie Messinger a New York housewife who finds out that her husband magazine editor Richard (Laurence Luckinbill Boys In the Band 1970) has been cheating on her because he ‘doesn’t like her feet.’ She stumbles onto his little black book with the names of several ‘women.’

Nina Foch, plays Julie’s mother an annihilating, narcissistic harpy who criticizes her about everything.

When Richard winds up in a coma from complications stemming from a simple mole removal, Julie’s good friends gather around her for support. Including an impromptu cocktail gathering in the blood donor ward of the hospital…

It’s a biting, black comedic sexual romp through the self-explorative 70s, with a fabulous cast of characters.

Co-starring the wonderfulÂ James Coco as Dr. Timothy Spector, Jennifer O’Neill, as Miranda, Ken Howard as photographer Cal Whiting, Louise Lasser, Burgess Meredith, Sam Levene, William Redfield, James Beard, Rita Gam, Lawrence Tierney, and Doris Roberts. And an uncredited Salome Jens as a Blood Donor at the hospital and Joseph Papp and his Shakespeare Theatre.

Nurse-“Have you ever had venereal disease?”

Blood Donor-“No I was never even in the tropics!”

It’s been a ball-MG

A Trailer a Day Keeps the Boogeyman Away! Goodbye Gemini (1970)

“Jacki and Julian have evil twins. Each other.”

GOODBYE GEMINI (1970)

Based on the screenplay by Edmund Ward and the novel ‘Ask Agamemnon’ by Jenni Hall, the film stars British cutie Judy Geeson as Jacki and Martin Potter (Fellini Satyricon (1969),Satan’s Slave 1976) as brother Julian, who play incestuously menacing twins that wear flashy clothes and travel with a creepy black teddy bear in tow, whom they talk to. They insert themselves into high society circles, scheming and submerging themselves in the underground Swinger scene in London.

The murderous siblings kill their landlady right before they get themselves invited to a party where all the ‘swingers’ hang out. Bi-sexual brother Julian is a little too enamored of his sister Jacki, and is quite possessive of her affections. Once they attract gambler Clive Landseer (Alexis Kanner) who is heavily in debt, the deadly sequence of events unfold, as Clive manipulates Julian into helping him concoct a plan of blackmail and ultimately murder. The film’s flash and trash derives it’s sensationalism from the inhabitants of ornamental transvestites, swingers, and the beautiful people of London’s counter-culture.

It’s and obscure film from director Alan Gibson who worked on Journey To Midnight (1968) and a few of the episodes in 1968-1969 for the resulting tv series that followed called Journey to the Unknown Gibson directed another psycho-sexual thriller Crescendo (1970) Of course there’s also his, The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973) and Dracula A.D. (1972)

It’s an interesting moody and untempered piece of psycho-sexual 70s fare, that also co-stars veteran British actor Michael Redgrave as James Harrington-Smith, Mike Pratt asÂ Rod Barstowe, Marian Diamond as Denise Pryce-Fletcher and Freddie Jones as David Curry. Peter Jeffrey playsÂ Detective Inspector Kingsley, and Daphne Heard is Mrs. McLaren.

The film features songs from the soundtrack, “Nothing’s Good and Nothing’s Free”, “Forget About the Day” with music by Christopher Gunning and lyrics by Peter Lee Stirling. Both performed by Peter Lee Stirling. Plus “Goodbye Gemini” Written by J. Alexander Ryan and Rick Jones , performed by Jackie Lee and “Tell the World We’re Not In” Written by Denis King and Don Black , performed by The Peddlers

Goodbye just for now, from your Cancerian MonsterGirl

Ida Lupino: The Iron Maiden Part II – Lupino revises her role in Women in Chains ( tv 1972)

WOMEN IN CHAINS 1972 ABC Movie of the Week

Follow up to :

WOMEN’S PRISON (1955) Part I

Women’s Prison or Young and Willing (1955)aka
The Weak and the Wicked (original title)

capturfiles_48 — **Amelia van Zandt in Women’s Prison *Ida Lupino’s* first incarnation as a brutal prison matron.**

CapturFiles_5 — **Chief Cell Block Matron Claire Tyson is portrayed by the steely *Ida Lupino* The Iron Maiden extraordinaire.**

Now, it’s 1972 and IDA LUPINO reprises her role as brutal chief matron of her cell block, the new distinction is that of Claire Tyson. Tyson is a modern transformation from her original role as Amelia van Zandt in Women’s Prison 1955. She is as wicked as her last incarnation as cruel prison Matron, possessing that reptilian stare that could smack down the orneriest of Glory Stompers, Cycle Savage, Devil’s Angel, or Mini Skirt Mobber, on a rampage, with just one look from those cold-blooded eyes.

Directed by Bernard L. Kowalski (Attack of The Giant Leeches 1959), produced by Edward K Milkiand, and written by Rita LakinÂ (Peyton Place, Mod Squad) With a collection of 7os actresses to fill up the septic green environs of the prison system with their archetypal guises, The sage, and kindly old timer, the tough loner black female outsider, a woman, but a ‘black woman’ doing time for her old man, in the pecking order there’s also the disturbed sylph who wanders aimlessly until provoked by any random act, and of course, let us not forget the essential queen bee who has a direct pipeline to the savage Claire Tyson. New in the mix is the bewildered new fish who has to learn the ropes fast if she’s to survive, and the renegade newcomer undercover, who dares to challenge the system’s status quo.

CapturFiles_17 — Parole officer Sandra Parker/ Sally Porter played by the unsung wonderful *Lois Nettleton*

This ABC Movie of the Week entry stars the great Lois Nettleton as Sandra Parker an employee of the parole department who decides to go undercover as Sally Porter, so she can infiltrate Tyson’s den of maltreatment and sadistic foreplay that she wages over and engenders in the inmates of her cell block. After witnessing the result of a brutal beating death of one of Sandra’s parolees a returning inmate at the prison, Sandra plants herself undercover to try and unearth the prison brutality and bring it to light. She wants Claire Tyson prosecuted for the death of Ginger Stratton.

Continue reading “Ida Lupino: The Iron Maiden Part II – Lupino revises her role in Women in Chains ( tv 1972)” →

A Trailer a day keeps the Boogeyman away! The Mini-Skirt Mob (1968)

“They’re hog straddling female animals on the prowl.”

THE MINI-SKIRT MOB (1968)

Diane McBain plays Shayne the ruthless head of a motorcycle gang who is obsessed with punishing and getting her ex-lover Jeff (Ross Hagen) to come back to her no matter what it takes. Shayne ignites a sadistic onslaught against her ex-lover and his new bride Connie.(Sherry Jackson)

061120064218_d6dz6izyo5 — *Patty McCormack* as little Rhoda Penmark in Mervyn LeRoy’s 1956 psychological thriller THE BAD SEED

Also starring The Bad Seed’s 1956 nefarious little psychopath Rhoda, Patty McCormack as Edie, Shayne’s younger, naive yet ethical lil sister. Cast includes Harry Dean Stanton as Spook and Jeremy Slate as Lon. With a score by Les Baxter that makes this cheesy 60s exploit more fun.

“Nothing is more vicious than a scorned, guilt ridden blonde!”

MonsterGirl back on the prowl!

Their Leotards are so Mod-ern! The Outer and Inner Space Femme

Alraune Brigitte Helm — **Daughter of Destiny 1928 Brigitte Helm-Alraune**

anne-francis and Robby — **Anne Francis Forbidden Planet 1956**

AnneFrancis — **Anne Francis-Forbidden Planet 1956**

catwomenfrommoon — **Cat Women of the Moon**

Fire Maidens 2 — **Fire Maidens of Outer Space 1956**

FireMaidens of Outer Space — **Fire Maidens of Outer Space 1956**

metropolis_dancing-maria — **Metropolis 1927 dancing Maria Brigitte Helm**

phantom_planet_u_03 — **The Phantom Planet 1961**

plan9FromOuterSpace — **Plan 9 From Outer Space 1959**

Things to come copy — **Things to Come 1936**

things to come — **Things To Come 1936**

She-Monster2 — **The Astounding She Monster**

planetoffemaleinvaders-1956 — **Â Planet of Female Invaders -Mexican sci-fi!**

santovmartianinvasion-1966 — **Santos vs the women martian invasion 1966**

MonsterGirl from Planet Earth , present day!

A Trailer a day keeps the Boogeyman away! Girls on The Loose (1958)

Girls on The Loose 1958

Directed by Paul Heinreid and Starring Mara Corday, Lita Milan, Barbara Bostock, Joyce BarkerÂ Abby Dalton, and Mark Richman as Lt Bill Hanley.

They were tough, hard as nails…mean!

Vera, the brain, who was a sucker for any man!

Agnes who is chicken!

Maria who had sticky fingers and a thirst like a fish!

Joyce… strong as an ox!

and Helen, singing and dancing Helen. Who fell in love with a cop and made the mistake of wanting to go straight?

“If you ever say that again, if you ever think it!… I’ll ram these scissors right through you, you thick ugly slob!”

MonsterGirl now in Jersey bids you all a warm, I’m back!

Ida Lupino: The Iron Maiden of Prison Noir: Part One ‘Women’s Prison’ (1955)

Ida Lupino: Actress/Director – The Iron Maiden of Prison Noir

“State’s prison, all prisons look alike from outside, but inside each has a different character. In this one"¦ caged men"¦ separated only by a thick wall. From caged women"¦

The system is wrong but it goes on and on and on"¦”

WOMEN’S PRISON 1955

Directed by Lewis Seller, and written Crane Wilbur, (He Walked By Night 1948, The Bat 1959, House of Wax 1953) with the screenplay and story by Jack DeWitt.

Ida Lupino plays Amelia van Zandt the sadistic borderline, psychotic Warden/Matron of a co-ed women’s prison. She is a total institutionalist, exerting strict regulations, with no gray area for sentimentalism. For van Zandt it’s about the cold hard road to rehabilitation… her way… the hard way.

Lupino has described herself as “the poor man’s Bette Davis.” Ida Lupino moved to Hollywood from England, after filming I Lived with You starring the beautiful Ivor Novello. (The Lodger 1927). She started to make some noise as the hard-edged dame in the 40s, starring in 2 powerful Noir films They Drive by Night (1940) and High Sierra (1941), both starring opposite one of my all-time favorites, Humphrey Bogart.

She starred in two other memorable films which are great contributions to classic Film Noir, Road House 1948 and On Dangerous Ground 1952. For more info about Ida Lupino, the actress, and how she got started as a prolific director of film and television you can read more about her here.

Lupino, while a uniquely beautiful woman, has a face that can convey heartlessness, a hollow shell of a woman, and a militant spinster. ‘The Iron Maiden’, is what I’ve dubbed Lupino for these two particular interchangeable roles.

Women’s PrisonÂ is swathed with an ensemble of various Noir Femmes as the rough and weathered inmates. Jan Sterling, Audrey Totter, and Hugo Haas regular Cleo Moore.

There’s also the wonderful Juanita Moore, Vivian Marshall, Mae Clarke, Gertrude Micheal as Chief Matron Sturgess, and one of my favorites, Phyllis Thaxter as the ‘nice girl’ thrust into a ‘bad situation’ who almost loses her mind from the claustrophobic and oppressive iron grip van Zandt keeps on her and the rabid choke hold she keeps on the jugulars of the other female inmates.

And don’t let Thaxter’s role fool you, I’ve seen her play ruthless psychotics in her own right on Boris Karloff’s Thriller episode air date Nov. 6th, 1961Â The Last of The Sommervilles as the conniving sociopath Ursula Sommerville. Interesting connection…Ida Lupino not only wrote the script for the episode but directed it as well!

Phyliss Thaxter Thriller — Thaxter is the cunning Ursula with Martita Hunt as the eccentric Celia Summerville.

Although a gritty Noir ‘women in prison film…Â could easily sway into the campy territory, Lewis Seller’s Women’s Prison stays very steady on a course of lensing the social implications of a corrupt and brutal institution that extols credit for keeping the female riff-raff out of the community while perpetuating the hard line, and struggle that many of these women face on the outside. Beating them down, and objectifying them as sexless social misfits who need to be kept away from ‘men’ and out of a ‘decent’ society.

Amelia van Zandt is the hyper-exemplification of what can happen when too much power is given agency and allowed to culminate into a destructive force. van Zandt is the linchpin of brute force, and the submission required in order to control a group or perpetuate an ideal. The fact that she is female illustrates that it does not only have to be a patriarchal institution that can break a women’s spirit. It is here that elements of class and social capital come into focus and play a role in predetermining their fate.

Lupino’s character is similar toÂ Hume Cronyn’s sadistic and unempathetic Capt. Munsey in Jule’s Dassin’s Brilliant Brute Force 1947:

File created with CoreGraphics — Is that a lead pipe Captain Munsey or are you just REALLY happy to see me?

In a way, van Zandt is just another ‘Boogeyman‘ created by an institution that dehumanizes its individuals.

Women’s Prison illustrates what happens when absolute control is given to a person or persons and that control goes unchecked, allowing their private or misguided motivations, mental health, ability to lead, and quite simply the lack of understanding about the human equation to dictate the terms of the human condition in/of an isolated/insulated environment.

Continue reading “Ida Lupino: The Iron Maiden of Prison Noir: Part One ‘Women’s Prison’ (1955)” →