THE WRESTLING WOMEN VS THE AZTEC MUMMY

     As I wrote in another post the most important parts of an exploitation movie is the outrageous title and the eye catching poster.      Film titles like I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, and BILLY THE KID VS DRACULA makes you want to see them in spite in the back of your mind you know that you are being pulled in by a title and poster that you know the film will not live up to in most cases.
     THE WRESTLING WOMEN VS THE AZTEC MUMMY was one of those titles that I would see in the TV GUIDE and wished that we had cable TV. I grew up in an area of San Diego without cable TV and in L.A. they were always playing the English dubbed Mexican imports of K. Gordon Marray.
     I finally got to see the film for the first time in the form of an edited down version from RHINO VIDEO under the title ROCK AND ROLL WRESTLING WOMEN VS THE AZTEC MUMMY. This video version cut the film down to an hour and added funny rewritten versions of old rock and roll songs of the fifties. These songs mostly played over the wrestling ring scenes.
     I later on got to see the film in it's regular English dub version when SOMETHING WEIRD VIDEO released a DVD of it.
     The film features beautiful wrestling women, Chinese stereo type villains and a Aztec mummy monster. And yet it's not as exciting as you would hope for. But then again how could you live up to a title like that?

The Aztec mummy Monster from WRESTLING WOMEN VS THE AZTEC MUMMY.

    

THE KILLER RABBIT

     It's Easter Sunday today and the Easter Bunny makes me think of the Killer Rabbit from the weird cult movie MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL. I will not give away too many details for those who have not seen the movie yet. Let's just say that rabbit is not as harmless as it looks.
     In the stage version SPAMALOT the Killer Rabbit is played by a fluffy hand puppet. Once again not as harmless as he seems.

The Killer Rabbit- Happy Easter Everyone.

USA UP ALL NIGHT

     The USA cable channel use to run exploitations movies. They would of course remove the four letter words from the sound track and cut out the gore and soft core scenes. Most of the nudity would also be cut out. Back in those days they would still show bare butt women in thongs and other on cable.
     USA's showcase for these exploitation moves was USA UP ALL NIGHT. They would show the type of movies that played in the drive ins or went direct to video.
     The show had a few different host but the two I remember were Gilbert Gottfried and Rhonda Shear. The show would play late night on Friday and Saturday and they would each have a show of their own to host. They would appear at the beginning of the show and in between scenes and commercials and make jokes.
     They use to air a lot of movies from Troma Studios and a lot of cheap exploitation movies that you would have been embarrassed to rent from the video store.

REEL WILD CINEMA

     The last TV show that I would look forward to seeing every week was REEL WILD CINEMA which played on the USA cable channel back in 1994 for two seasons.
     I first encountered the show when I accidentally came across the pilot playing on USA. I was changing channels and there was scenes from a STAR MAN movie playing and I thought to myself how could I have missed that listing in the TV GUIDE magazine. I looked in the guide and in the time slot was the three word title: REEL WILD CINEMA and nothing else that would tell you what the show was about.
     Sandra Bernhard was the host of the pilot and aside from the STAR MAN movie clips they showed scenes from NUDE ON THE MOON. The nudity was of course censored.
     I liked what I saw but the next week they did not show it and it was only by accident later on I read in the newspaper that Sandra Bernhard going to host REEL WILD CINEMA which would become a regular series on USA.
     The show would play on Sunday night at midnight or sometimes one in the morning. Maybe USA was hoping to turn the show into a word of mouth cult hit or maybe they were not sure what to do with this show that would appeal only to fans of oddball and exploitation movies.
     Sandra Bernhard would host the show and every week they would show scenes from exploitations movies and often they would show shorten versions of those movies so you got a real look at the movie without seeing the whole thing.
     Bernhard would also interview people each week who worked in exploitation films including Russ Meyer, David Friedman, Roger Corman, Vampira, Tura Satana, and others.
     USA once ran the show on a Saturday night in a early slot to expose the show to more viewers but I do not think that show ever got really high ratings. Except for real film freaks no one would be up watching a show like this at 12 or 1 in the morning on Sunday when most people had to be going to school or work the next day.
     Not only did I stay up I would record the show to re watch during the week.
     Mike Vraney of SOMETHING WEIRD VIDEO  was one of the producers of the show. I keep hoping he will release the show on DVD thur SOMETHING WEIRD VIDEO with the pilot which was never repeated.

NIGHT FLIGHT - U.S.A. cable show

     One of the few TV shows that I miss is NIGHT FLIGHT. This show use to play late night on the U.S.A. cable network back in the 80's.
     This was a 4 hour show that featured a weird mix of  old strange movies, short films, cartoons, film clips, music videos and all sort of odd movies in one place. Now you have to search thur You Tube to found such a mix of odd footage.
     Among the films I saw for the first time on NIGHT FLIGHT was REEFER MADNESS, COCAINE FIENDS, DAMAGE LIVES, SEX MADNESS and I  WAS A ZOMBIE FOR THE F.B.I.
     They also ran moves like J-MEN FOREVER, ANDY WARHOL'S FRANKENSTEIN and ANDY WARHOL'S DRACULA.
     This was a great show for fans of odd and strange films as well as music video fans.
     The show had many fans who missed it when it went off the air and since then there has been various collections of of clips from the show on homemade DVDs. These underground collections are made up of home video tape clips of the show from various sources. Some collections run as long as one hundred hours of film clips.

The NIGHT FLIGHT logo. The enter sign for late night entertainment.

ROCKET TARZAN

     As a fan of odd movies I keep my eyes open for new ones to see. I came across a poster online for a movie called ROCKET TARZAN (1963) It seems to be a Bollywood film from India. I thought the film poster might be fake but there is a few listings for the film on some film websites.
     The director is credited on the poster as B.J. Patel. According to the IMDB.com he directed a few Indian motion pictures but there is no information there of this movie.
     I searched for the film on YOU TUBE and found a film clip of a Bollywood musical dance number from a film under that title but still no real information about the film.
     I hope to find the film someday. I want to see if the film matches it's oddball title.
    

Poster to the Indian movie ROCKET TARZAN (1963)

ASTRO ZOMBIES POSTER.

     Posters use to be very important in the exploitation movie business. The posters just about always mislead the ticket buyers into believing that they were going to see something was exciting or even good.
     This poster to the ASTRO ZOMBIES is not really too misleading. The film does have a cool looking monster like the one in the poster and some good looking girls do get attacked by the Astro Monster.



This poster and Tura Satana was the best parts of THE ASTRO ZOMBIES.



ISMAIL AND ABDEL MEET FRANKENTEIN (1954)

     ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEETS FRANKENSTEIN was a huge hit for the comedy team and Universal Studios. The film played around the world and like all big Hollywood hit movies there was copycats and ripoffs.
     HARAM ALEK (1954) aka: SHAME ON YOU (Title in English) and ISMAIL AND ABDEL MEET FRANKENSTEIN (Home video / DVD title) Was shot in Egypt and is mostly a scene by scene copy of the Abbott and Costello film. This film featured Ismail Yasseen and Abdel Fatah Kasri.
     I saw this film on some sort of an Arabic You Tube type site that is no longer up. There was no subtitles but I could fallow the film because it pretty much copies the Abbott and Costello film closely.
     The Frankenstein monster in this film is played by a big man dressed in black clothes and wearing a mask. The mouth of the mask is set in a wide grin. He looks like a cousin of Herman Munster.
     The Wolf Man is under the spell of the Vampire in this film and returns to normal once the vampire is killed off.
     There was another copy of ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEETS FRANKENSTEIN made in Mexico called FRANKESTEIN, EL VAMPIRO Y COMPANIA (1960)  I will write about that another time.

The Monster from ISMAIL AND ABDEL MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1954)

SUPERMAN IN NEW YORK CITY

     The first time I visited New York City in 2003 I saw this manikin of Superman in the window of some office building. I'm sure I was not any where near the offices of DC comics. So I don't know why they would have a full dress figure of Superman in a display window.
     My sister took the photo below of me standing next to the display window. When I posted  the picture on Myspace and later Facebook I wrote the caption "Superman and me- I'm the one in black."

Superman and me- I'm the one in black.
New York City (2003)

SAMSON VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN (1962)

     Masked wrestlers are popular in Mexico and the most famous of the Masked Mexican wrestlers was El Santo (The Saint) who had a long career as both a wrestler in the ring and as an action film star in a long series of movies in which he played himself as a masked wrestler who fights against both crime and monsters.
     One of the best known of El Santo's movies was the horror movie EL SANTO CONTRA LAS VAMPIRES (1962) In which El Santo battles a group of vampire women who want to turn a living woman into vampire to join their group.
     One of the highlight scenes in this film is in the wrestling ring. Santo is wrestling with another masked wrestler who has been replaced with one of the vampire women's henchmen. Santo rips off the mask of the henchman and he has the face of werewolf. Not a whole head mind you just the face of the actor is made up and he is bare chested. This werewolf does not even have a lot of chest hair. The police jump into the ring once the werewolf is unmasked and he escapes by turning into a bat and flying off.
     Producer K. Gordon Murray imported this movie to the United States and when the film was dubbed El Santo's name was re dubbed as Samson. The film was re named SAMSON VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN and played for years on local television broadcast. Speaking of dubbing even tho Santo's name is changed for the English version you can still hear the Mexican crowd in the wrestling scenes chanting the name Santo.
    

Mexcian wrestler El Santo in the movie SAMSON VS THE VAMPIRE WOMEN.

THE ASTRO ZOMBIES (1968)

     THE ASTRO ZOMBIES (1968) is one of my favorite 3rd rate movies. It's a sci fi horror spy movie.
     In the movie a mad scientist (Played by John Carradine in a role that waste his talent) is making 'Astro men" from dead bodies and one of his experiments is running around killing people. The man made monsters in this film wear arty style skull masks. It's a cool monster that is under used in the film.
    A group of spies are looking for the mad scientist and his secrets of making astro men. The spies are lead by the late Tura Satana. Satana was best known as the mean bitch leader of a girl gang in Russ Meyer's FASTER PUSSYCAT KILL!KILL! Satana off screen was a popular asian / native american stripper. This was one of her few movies roles and she should have had more time on screen.
     Looking for the astro killer and the spies are a group of American agents who are lead by Wendel Corey in his last screen role.
     The astro monster in this film is a head of his times. He is solar powered with a storage battery mounded on his side incase he is in the dark. In a fight with an agent the battery pack is knocked off and the zombie runs away holding a flashlight to the solar panels mounted on the forehead of his skull mask.
Directed by Ted V. Mikels.
Written by Ted V. Mikels and Wayne Rogers (Yes from the M*A*S*H TV series)

Tura Satana and an astro zombie.

WOLVERTON'S THE BRAIN BATS OF VENUS

     Basil Wolverton (1909-1978) was an artist best known for his funny 'grotesque' humor comics. He did work for MAD MAGAZINE, PLOP COMICS and created Lena the world's ugliest woman for Al Capp's LIL ABNER comic strip. Wolverton won a contest Capp held to draw the world's ugliest woman for the comic strip.
     But aside from all the funny comic stuff Wolverton did he could also do pulp magazine style artwork for sci fi comic books. Oddly he drew monsters in his sci fi comic stories in the same style he used in his funny humor comics. But there was often nothing funny about these monsters and mutants.
      His best known comic story in this style was a story that appeared in the comic book WEIRD TALES OF THE FUTURE in 1953. The story was THE BRAIN BATS OF VENUS.
     In this story a space man crashes his spaceship on the planet Venus and his co pilot die in the crash.
     On Venus he encounter a group of flying parasite monsters that attache themselves to the creatures of Venus. One of the Brain Bats attache it self to the corpse of the dead spaceman and turn him into a zombie. The Brain Bats want to take the now repaired rocket ship back to Earth and turn more human beings into zombies.
     You can find issues of WEIRD TALES OF THE FUTURE at http://www.digitalcomicmuseum.com/ be sure to give them a donation they do a great job of posting great old public domain comic books.

A couple of panels from THE BRAIN BATS OF VENUS  by Basil Wolverton.
Printed in WEIRD TALES OF THE FUTURE (1953)

INVASION OF THE ANIMAL PEOPLE (1959)

     INVASION OF THE ANIMAL PEOPLE (1959) was shot in Sweden and in English with international release in mind. The film was called RYMDINVASION I LAPPLAND  in Sweden and is known in Europe as TERROR IN THE MIDNIGHT SUN. The film has also been released under that last title on the video / DVD home market.
     The film was directed by American director Virgil W. Vogel  who directed the B movie THE MOLE PEOPLE and the screenplay was by American Arthur C. Pierce.
     Director / Producer Jerry Warren bought the U.S. rights to the movie and when he released it to the movie theaters he had butchered  it like he did many other films he imported into the Untied States. He cut the about 70 minute film down to 55 minutes including about about ten minutes of footage added by Warren which includes footage and narration by John Carradine the Shakespeare of 3rd rate movies.
     When Warren sold the movie to TV he re cut the film again and added back the footage he removed the first time around and kept the footage he shot for the American released and now the film is 80 minutes long. I have not come across the 55 minute theater version but I would like to see it to compare it to the Swedish and the U.S. Television print. SOMETHING WEIRD VIDEO put out a DVD that has both the Swedish cut of TERROR IN THE MIDNIGHT SUN and Warren's INVASION OF THE ANIMAL PEOPLE television cut version.
     Many people attacked Warren's version saying that he had re cut the film in a manner that caused it  to make no sense. I have seen both version and the Swedish version also makes no sense.
     In the Swedish version a space ship lands out in the middle of nowhere in Lappland and some bald headed space men in black robes hang around in the ship. Along comes a group of scientist to investigate the ship and out of no where comes a giant shaggy ape man  like monster who walks around up right and carries around a woman who needs help until a group of villagers attack and set fire to the monster in a badly does scene using a large burning prop that barely look like the giant monster even in long shots.
     In the Warren version the woman the monster would encounter is sent to a mental hospital after an encounter with unseen aliens that causes her to go briefly insane and the police have to pick her up for her own safety.
     You can find the un Warren version of this movie at the Internet Archives ( http://www.archives.org/ ) under the title of TERROR IN THE MIDNIGHT SUN. Their print is missing the very short shot of a bare butt woman in the shower. The print from SOMETHING WEIRD VIDEO is uncut and has an interview with the producer of the film who tells a lot of good stories about the making of the movie.

A worm eye view of the monster from INVASION OF THE ANIMAL PEOPLE