Yes or No are we at the mercy of our fate, or do we choose our own path? One of my favorite episodes of the show. Featuring the song ‘Queer’ off my album Hunting Down The Ceremony Volume One.
Yes or No? MonsterGirl ( JoGabriel)
The gritty and uniquely sexy Robert Mitchum brings to life the terrifying role of psychopathic religious fanatic Harry Powell in Night of The Hunter 1955. Co starring Shelley Winters as the widow whose children refuse to tell Harry where their real father’s hidden money is. Also starring the wonderful Lillian Gish. Scripted by James Agee.
Directed by the great Charles Laughton, it was his only film, yet is it one of the most memorable, suspenseful, elegantly simple and grim masterpieces of American cinema to date.
‘The Fever’ air date Jan.29, 1960 Written by Rod Serling, Directed by the great Robert Florey and starring Everett Sloane as the angry, feverish and ‘moralizing’ Franklin Gibson…it’s man vs machine…or is it…a monster! And money is the root of all evils…
“The nightmare terror of the slithering eye that unleashed agonizing horror on a screaming world!”
A mysterious radioactive cloud hides giant eyeball monsters with tentacles leaving a trail of bodies with no heads and a town in mortal peril… The Crawling Eye (1958) was penned by Jimmy Sangster and stars Forrest Tucker, Laurence Payne, and Jennifer Jayne.
A LOVECRAFTIAN NIGHTMARE…..!!!!!!!!!
Karloff stars as Professor Henry Morlant a fanatical Egyptologist who rises from his tomb to seek revenge!
Also co-starring Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Ernest Thesiger, and Ralph Richardson. Directed by T. Hayes Hunter.
Happy Bump in the Night-Yours Truly…MonsterGirl
A Woman and a Tattered Dress…that exposed a town’s hidden evil!
The Tattered Dress is a story actually utilizing the Noir canon of misdirection. The film appears like a melodramatic pulp fiction courtroom drama, yet its muted focus on the object as Charleen Reston and the ensuing crime is a ruse. The film wrings out the real underlying quality of its psychological thrust which winds up telling a very different story in the end.
This is a soft sleepy noir court drama that takes place in a wealthy Nevada desert town and might be considered quite the departure for Jack Arnold who is beloved for his memorable contributions to some of THE best 50s sci-fi cautionary tales. The imposing gigantism in Tarantula (1955) The vast shots of sand and open expanses left me wondering if the large ghastly spider would come creeping out yet again from behind a bolder in The Tattered Dress. Arnold is actually very well known for his contributions to the Western (No Name On The Bullet 1959) as well as several vintage television series such as Peter Gunn, Rawhide, Perry Mason, Mod Squad, and It Takes a Thief.
I particularly love Arnold’s transcendental masterpiece The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) and his colonial-inspired science fact/fiction study of the savage jungle reaches with The Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954).
To his sympathetic alien castaways in It Came From Outer Space (1953) But consider that Arnold is also responsible for High School Confidential (1958) The Glass Web (1953), Girls In The Night (1953), Man In The Shadow (1957), and The Mouse That Roared (1959), you see that he is a very versatile filmmaker with a vision toward social commentary.
JACK ARNOLD
George Zuckerman wrote the story, and faithful Hollywood makeup artist Bud Westmore was on the makeup crew. Albert Zugsmith produced the film.
The film’s music is sensational. The overall vibe that swings between pulp melodrama orchestra and burlesque jazz invigorates the script. The score utilizes a blues-style Burlesque/Show-Tune Jazz using bassoon, oboe, horns, clarinet, piano timpani bass, viola, and a brass section.
Frank Skinner is responsible for the music, and Joseph Gershenson supervises it. With an uncredited musical contribution by Henry Mancini. (Charade 1963) Mancini was a genius known for countless film scores and musical direction for television. He died in 1994
It stars Jeff Chandler (Broken Arrow 1950 Merrill’s Marauders 1960 and Return To Peyton Place 1961) as the egocentric top criminal attorney James Gordon Blane, Jeanne Crain (State Fair 1945, A Letter To Three Wives 1949, Leave Her To Heaven 1945 and Pinky 1949) as his wife Diane, Jack Carson (Arsenic and Old Lace 1944, Mildred Pierce 1945 & Cat On A Hot Tin Roof 1958) as Sheriff Nick Hoak, Elaine Stewart as Charleen Reston, Phillip Reed as Michael Reston, Gail Russell (The Uninvited 1944, Night Has A Thousand Eyes 1948 and Angel and The Badman 1947) as Carol Morrow, Edward Platt (the Chief on Get Smart) as Journalist Ralph Adams, George Tobias (American theater, film, and television character actor well known for his role as Mr. Kravitz on Bewitched) as Billy Giles, Roger Corman regular Paul Birch as Prosecutor Frank Mitchell, and the familiar, omni present television and film character actor Edward Andrews as Lester Rawlings a seedy, pompous defense attorney.
Jeff Chandler is stone-like; in fact, his features are rather chiseled, making him look unreal, more like a marble statue spouting lines. Yet there’s something in his face that is equally compelling at times. It’s hard for me to divine it. Having done plenty of war and western films, I’m not as familiar with his work, such as Cochise in Broken Arrow 1950 or Away All Boats 1956. I want to acquaint myself with his work more as I don’t want to stop on The Tattered Dress and assume Chandler doesn’t possess a range to his acting. He was the leading man opposite Joan Crawford in the melodrama Female on the Beach in 1955.
Back to The Tattered Dress!
Original Air Date"”16 December 1973
Robert Culp plays Dr. Bart Keppel an opportunistic “motivational research specialist guru” who uses subliminal cuts to commit murder. But Lt. Columbo is onto him right from the beginning as usual!
Starring Peter Falk as the inimitable & tenacious, underestimated and hyper perceptive Detective Columbo who always comes prepared with thoughtful anecdotes about his family and his ever present cigar. He’s shabby “like an unmade bed” but always lovable. The episodes are rooted in class conflict as Lt Columbo often inhabits the role of David up against the entitlement ridden criminal who thinks they’re a Goliath yet are no match for such a subtle and agile minded wit.
Just a quick note about Peter Falk, one of my favorite actors who created one of the most memorable characters of all time.
On June 4 2009 wife Shera Danese released a press statement asking for Falk’s privacy after a very public battle over conservatorship by his daughter. He has since retired from the business, due to illness and Alzheimers. I write this blog quote in honor of my admiration for his past work over the years, and wish the man peace and contentment on his journey.
MonsterGirl
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