Wednesday, April 13, 2016

YOUNG COUPLES ONLY - Studio 57 - The Dumont Television Network (1955)

Tonight's feature was off my radar until a couple of days ago, but then again, that's what this is all about! That saying, welcome to another wacked-out Wednesday the 13th in The Dungeon, and a weird little TV show from 1955 called "Studio 57" on the Dumont Television Network! Never heard of Dumont before, then check out this bit of information from Wikipedia!
In a nutshell, Dumont was one of the world's first TV networks, but for various reasons discombobulated after a couple of years, and given all the respect a pioneering network should deserve, most of their programming was destroyed in the 1970's!
So let's get this ball rolling!

The DVD I have was bought from Sinister Cinema, and I have no idea why they shortened the title to "Couples Only!"

The reason I wanted to see "Young Couples Only" was because it stars Dungeon fave Peter Lorre, and for me, any movie with Peter Lorre in it is worth watching!

Barbara Hale has tons and tons of acting credits, mostly on TV, but she will always be remembered for her ongoing appearance through five decades as Della Street on the"Perry Mason" show! She was in 271 episodes of Perry Mason from 1957 to 1966 alone! Barbara will be having her 94th birthday next Monday on April 18th, and we wish her all the best!!

In this story, Bill Williams is Barbara's husband! Bill's first movie appearance was as an uncredited theatergoer in "King Kong!" He played Kit Carson" in the 1950's on TV for 103 episodes and he was also in "Space Master X-7," "Spaceflight IC-1: An Adventure In Space," and "Night Of The Zombies!"

Hello down there!!!!

I read on IMDB that in the original short story written by fabulous author Richard Matheson called "Shipshape Home," the janitor was described as looking like Peter Lorre, so what better person to actually play the role than Peter himself?

So this story is just rolling along, and then it suddenly gets really weird when Barbara's character notices that Peter the strange janitor in their apartment building has a third eye in the back of his head! Pretty cool for 1955!!

Her response was pretty predictable!

I read a review that said this was not a good performance by Peter Lorre, and I beg to disagree! In my little world, there are no bad performances by Peter Lorre! Just his presence in a film or TV show makes it worthwhile in my humble opinion!

Kinda freaky when the couple's little dog disappears!

Barbara says she came upon a secret room in their apartment building that housed a bunch of odd machinery! At first her husband doubted her, but when he sees it in person, he changes his tune!

Peter might not look too tough, but he's a lot stronger than Bill thought!

Thank God this policeman shows up to save the day! If you were making a movie, in the 40's, 50's or 60's and you needed somebody to play a military man, a police officer, or a bartender, Paul Bryar was the man to choose! Paul had an amazing total of 375 credits! Most actors today probably can't even count that high!

Oops, looks like Paul's not going to be able to save the day after all!

And now, the happy couple realize they are in deep shit!

And they are not alone! Not only is the whole building being launched into space, this whole city block is going along for the ride too!

Up, up, and away!! (And this ain't no beautiful balloon!)

8 comments:

TABONGA! said...

WOW!!!

Randy Landers said...

Did they say why the city block was being launched into space? Was it a case of A FEASIBILITY STUDY (a la THE OUTER LIMITS)?

EEGAH!! said...

It wasn't real clear cut Randy! The whole block was full of only young people, so it had to do with procreation, but it seemed like the whole block was launched just to show the puny humans there was no escaping their destiny! No place to run, and no place to hide! Their fates were sealed!

Lacey said...

Did Richard Matheson write Feasibility Study ???

Just found this over on Youtube.
I'll watch it tonight.

Thanks as always.

Grant said...

That would also make it a little like another Outer Limits story, THE INHERITORS. But yes, A FEASIBILITY STUDY is the obvious one to think of.

EEGAH!! said...

Joseph Stefano was the writer of "Feasibility Story" Lacey.

Unknown said...

I enjoyed this immensely...

Anywhere where they say discombobulated which is actually their comments here...

I take my hat off for them.

Heads up we only landed on the moon because there were so many year episodes like this where people started to think and be inspired and then take physics and then engineering and then rocketering!


These guys are so sexist but that was normal then.

EEGAH!! said...

Thanks Unknown Person! It's always cool to have vocabulary appreciated!

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