Here’s another mash-up using my song Fade To Black which appears on my album The Last Drive In Â
blended lovingly with the brilliance of Corman’s film style and Price’s epic performance!
Swing Low Sweet Pendulum!!!!!!! Lovingly Yours, Joey (MonsterGirl)
Here’s to Beauty and Here’s to the Beasts!!!!!! Jo Gabriel (MonsterGirl)
Here I have utilized various scenes from Jack Clayton’s film The Innocents 1961 starring Deborah Kerr as the terribly repressed Miss Giddens, based on the Gothic novel The Turn of The Screw by Henry James.
I Shudder For The Clouds Have Tempted Madness appears on my album Fools and Orphans!
Sending out Shudders to you all !!!!! Jo Gabriel (MonsterGirl)
Here is my film mash-up with scenes from Robert Aldrich’s masterpiece of Grand Hag Cinema Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) using my song Sweet Charlotte off my lo-fi instrumental album The Last Drive In !
Dedicated to the memory of the immortal Bette Davis! Love Joey (MonsterGirl)
Take a story by Edgar Allan Poe adapt it to the screen by Richard Matheson, let Roger Corman get his hands on it, then turn it over to the inimitable and urbane Vincent Price, and see several memorable masterpieces of the 1960s unfold in glorious color. One of my favorite Poe pieces Fall of The House of Usher! The marvelous film score is by Lex Baxter, and production designed by Daniel Haller (Die Monster Die 1965, The Dunwich Horror 1970)
Price inhabits the character of Roderick Usher with his ineffable agility to be both fierce and sympathetic all at once. Tortured by a family curse, a mysterious and tormenting affliction that makes even the slightest sound, taste, sight or touch abject torture for his senses, experience them so acutely that it’s maddening.
The story opens with Philip Winthrop played by Mark Damon arriving at the Usher estate seeking his beloved Madeline (Myrna Fahey) While Roderick spirals into a broken and stricken man, Madeline becomes catatonic. Reluctantly Roderick relates the history of the Usher family curse to Philip, hoping to send him away and spare Madeline and himself from any further anguish. They can never be together.
Also underlying is a very strong incestuous undercurrent to Roderick and Madeline’s relationship. The Ushers are doomed to go insane and die a horrible death!
See this Gothic tale of madness brimming over with ancient curses, torture, incest, premature burial and necrophilia!
The atmosphere, the effectively creepy paintings by Burt Shonberg ,set design, cinematography by Floyd Crosby who also worked on Pit And The Pendulum 1961 and High Noon 1952)both beautifully photographed…
And the use of color that Corman uses in his pallet create these Gothic pieces based on the master Poe, offering a deliciously sinister realm, that is both haunting and terrifying at times.
Happy Trailers MonsterGirl!
Directed by Jack Clayton (Room at The Top 1959, Something Wicked This Way Comes 1983) and based on the Gothic novel set in Victorian England The Turn of The Screw by Henry James. Adapted for the screen by William Archibald and Truman Capote!
Beautiful Lady- Deborah Kerr
Starring the great refined lady of cinema Deborah Kerr as Miss Giddens, the sexually repressed governess to two impish children Miles and Flora played masterfully by Martin Stephens (Village of The Damned 1960) and Pamela Franklin (Legend of Hell House 1973, And Soon The Darkness 1970 plus too numerous films and television series appearances!)
Miss Giddens is hired by the children’s uncle (Michael Redgrave) to hold the reigns over them at their isolated estate, assisted by Mrs Grose, (Megs Jenkins) the kindly housekeeper.
Shortly after Miss Giddens takes charge, she is soon haunted by visitations from the spirits of the former governess Miss Jessel (Clytie Jessop) and her lover, the sadistic valet Peter Quint (Peter Wyngarde)
Convinced that they are possessing the souls of the children. Giddens sets out to exorcise these ominous characters, but at what risk?
Is she truly seeing ghosts or is she spiraling into a world of utter madness?
An absolutely stunning chiller that is not only nihilistic in its atmospherics but darkly riveting til the very end!
Here is the song mash-up I did use my piece off the album Fools and Orphans called I Shudder For The Clouds Have Tempted Madness & scenes from The Innocents (1961)!
Happy Trailers MonsterGirl!
Writer/Director Curtis Harrington’s (Night Tide 1961, Games 1967 What’s The Matter With Helen 1971) space fantasy about a female alien specie emblazoned with a silver 60s bee hive hairstyle and a proclivity for drinking blood and laying eggs, takes over the crew of a rescue ship sent to Mars. Starring the swarthy John Saxon, as astronaut Allan Brenner Basil Rathbone as Dr. Farraday Judi Meredith as Laura James Dennis Hopper, Paul Grant, Florence Marley as Alien Blood Queen, and a cameo spot for Forrest J Ackerman as Dr. Farraday’s aid.
A crew of daring space explorers landing on Venus…are captured by long-limbed beauties! They take them to their leader…the queen of outer space.
They are the only men on the whole planet. Oh boy! But!!!… Will they ever be able to return to Earth?????
Starring Zsa Zsa Gabor as Talleah, Eric Fleming as Capt. Neal Patterson, Paul Birch as Prof.Konrad, Dave Willock as Lt. Mike Cruze and Lisa Davis as Motiya, Laurie Mitchell as Queen Yilana, and Barbara Darrow as Kaeel. Directed by Edward Bernds and written for the screen by Charles Beaumont from a story by Ben Hecht.
Happy Trailers MonsterGirl -who doesn’t hate the male animal…
Who doesn’t love a good teeth grinding ‘Women in Prison’ movie! I know I can’t resist. And so I thought I’d pay a little tribute to two fabulous guilty pleasures of mine starring actress/director Ida Lupino!
The incredible Ida Lupino
I’ll go further in depth as to Ida Lupino’s extraordinary contributions to film and television when I do the full post!
The first film Women’s Prison 1955 is a taut Prison Film Noir piece starring the ineffable Ida Lupino who gives a stunning portrayal of a brutally sadistic prison warden Amelia van Zandt who holds sway over these chained women, slowly exposing herself to be a psychotic, as she institutes her savage brand of rehabilitation!
The film stars Jan Sterling as Brenda Martin
Phyllis Thaxter (One of my favorite character actresses)as Helene Jensen a nice girl in prison on the verge of an irreversible nervous breakdown!
Juanita Moore as Polly Jones
Mae Clarke as Matron Saunders
and Lupino’s real life husband Howard Duff as the sympathetic Dr. Crane and Warren Stevens as Glen Burton the man who can’t keep his mitts off his fellow inmate wife!
Then once again…now in that glorious made for tv color!!!!!!
Lupino reprises her role as the equally brutal Claire Tyson in THE ABC MOVIE OF THE WEEK !!!!!!!
The film stars 70s tv and drama staples Lois Nettleton , Jessica Walter, and Belinda Montgomery
Lois Nettleton plays parole officer Sally Porter who goes undercover to expose prison brutality at the hands of the vicious matron Clair Tyson! The film also stars Neile Adams, Hazel Medina, Kathy Cannon, BarBara Luna and the great Lucille Benson.
Also coming here at the Drive-In Part 2 of Screaming Mimi and MonsterGirl Asks Film Scholar Aviva Briefel
One of William Castle’s
most memorable classics of horror featuring one of Castle’s Barnumesque  gimmicks dubbed Emergo! An inflatable glow in the dark skeleton attached to a wire which floated over the audience during the final moments of the film.
Unfortunately instead of causing shivers and screams, the audience would hurl candy boxes, soda cups or any other objects at the poor hard working skeleton. So much for the amazing miracle of Emergo! Still William Castle knew how to engage his audience, and as far as I’m concerned his work is as relevant and captivating today, setting the stage for remakes and copycats abound.
The film stars the ever urbane Vincent Price as Frederick Loren who is now on his 4th wife, Annabelle played by the sultry Carol Ohmart.
Loren has invited 5 unrelated guests to a rented house for a ‘Haunted House’ party. He dares them to stay the entire night, in which all of them desperate for money, will receive $10,000 clams. Each guest is offered charming party favors…guns displayed in little coffins, what fun!
The house has a violent history as owner Watson Pritchard (the very familiar face of character actor Elisha Cook Jr.) terrified and gradually sotted, relates the history of the house to everyone. At midnight the caretakers Mr and Mrs Slydes will lock the doors there by trapping the guests in this frightening and treacherous haunted house on a hill.
Will they survive a night of mayhem, ghosts, mystery and murder!!!!!
Also starring Richard Long as Lance Schroeder, Alan Marshal as Dr. David Trent, Carolyn Craig as Laura Manning, Julie Mitchum as Ruth Bridgers, Howard Hoffman as Jonas Slydes and Leona Anderson as the iconic image of the blind Mrs. Slydes.
Happy Trailers MonsterGirl!
l
Don’t worry these Trailers take care of themselves! MonsterGirl