THE DAY MARS INVADED EARTH - Richard Lasalle - " Strange Invisible Astro-Energy Unleashed Leaves Mankind A Human Shell As It Destroys His Body And Brain!" (1963)

Tonight's Saturday Night Special is one of those hard to find kinds of movies that's just been swept under the rug for some reason, but in our world, just like a lot of cars, it's a real classic!

So let's set the Wayback Machine to 1963, and let's get this over with before it's the end of the world! The future is now, and as far as you know, today just might be "The Day Mars Invaded Earth!"

The opening scenes of "The Day Mars Invaded Earth" show a Mars Rover Robot cruising the surface of Mars in an effort to obtain more knowledge about the red planet!

It doesn't take more than about 40 seconds for the exploratory craft to suddenly and mysteriously go up in flames! I guess they learned one thing, there's atmosphere on Mars, other than that, the project is a pretty dismal failure!

Meanwhile, back on good old Terra Firma, it's time to get back to the drawing board, and start all over again! The music in "The Day Mars Invaded Earth" was a product of the genius mind of the composer Richard LaSalle who was also responsible for the music in a wild array of films  ranging from "Hands Of A Stranger" and "Diary Of A Madman," to "Superbeast" "Daughter's Of Satan," and "Pirahna!!!"  Here's just a taste of the spooky and eerie Richard had up his sleeve!

The entire cast of "The Day Mars Invaded Earth" consisted of exactly 10 people, but what an amazing and pretty much all-star cast it is, starting with Kent Taylor as hard-working government worker Doctor David Fielding!!  Dr. Fielding was in charge of the whole Mars project, and he's feeling pretty dejected!

Next up is wild William Mims as Dr. Fielding's partner, Dr. Web Spencer! William was in almost all of the classic TV westerns of the day like "Cheyenne," and "Have Gun - Will Travel," and directly after this movie he was in the "Twilight Zone" episode titled "The New Exhibit" as Dave! He was on five "Wagon Train" shows as characters as colourful and varied as Esteban Perez, and  Gurn Meeker! Other roles include a strip bar patron on "The Fugitive," a one-armed miner on "Bonanza," and he was General Grant on three episodes of "The Beverly Hillbillies!"

Marvelous Marie Windsor has the role of Clair Fielding, Dr. Fielding's lonely wife! Marie was in "Cat-Women Of The Moon," "Abbott And Costello Meet The Mummy," "Swamp Women" "Chamber Of Horrors," and "Freaky Friday" just to name a few, and she was Nellie Majors on two episodes of the "Batman" TV series!

These are the Fielding kids, Gregg Shank as Rocky Fielding, and Betty Beall as Judi Fielding! As active as the adult actors all were, that's how inactive these kids were! Between the two of them, Gregg and Betty only have a total of five credits, unless you want to count this picture twice, then it would be six!

Dr. Fielding is dedicated to his work, so he's a pretty crappy Father and husband! Their big project just failed, so it's time to go back home and patch things up a bit! Dr. Spencer agrees!

And then this 1962 Plymouth Fury station wagon enters the scene! What an awesome ride!

This is how cool you could be in 1962 if you wanted to be! I'm not sure if those rims would have been available in '62, but this black Plymouth Valiant is pretty damn sharp nonetheless!

It was at this point in the film that I realized that somebody involved with this movie, and I don't know if it was the Director Maury Dexter, or the Cinematographer John M. Nickolaus Jr., or both, but somebody had a penchant for shots that were shot from behind! At first I thought it was a fluke, but I'll let you be the judge! The strange thing is that it starts and ends with that Plymouth Fury! Weirdsville! BTW, this series of photos basically tells the rest of the story!

Some of the footage that wasn't shot from behind includes this shot that looks like Marie Windsor is standing on the end of the diving board of an empty swimming pool! If the estate looks at all familiar to you, it's because it's the Greystone Park and Mansion in Beverly Hills that has been used in scores of movies like "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte!"

The Martians can infiltrate and duplicate the bodies of their unsuspecting victims at any given time, and the Fielding family is ripe for the picking! Those Martians are devious little fuckers! They couldn't do it with every character, but in the case of Judi Fielding, they solicited the help of Betty Beall's twin sister Barbara!! Barbara only had 5 credits too, including this movie! I'm sure the Beall sister's would have some interesting stories to tell!

This blog wouldn't exist without characters like Kent Taylor! I would venture to say, that sadly, Kent Taylor is virtually unknown today, but without guys like him the cinematic 30's, 40's, 50's and 60's wouldn't have been the same! Why? THE NIGHT OF JUNE 13 (1932), IF I HAD A MILLION (1932), DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY (1934), GIRL IN 313 (1940), 58 episodes as BOSTON BLACKIE on TV from 1951 to 1953, THE PHANTOM FROM 10,000 LEAGUES (1955),  and THE CRAWLING HAND (1963) just to name a few! After that, Kent and his pencil-thin mustache went off into Krazy Town Al Adamson Land, and he ended his amazing career with an epic run of the best of the worst ever, like BLOOD OF GHASTLY HORROR, BRIDES OF BLOOD, SATAN'S SADISTS, THE MIGHTY GORGA, HELL'S BLOODY DEVILS, BRAIN OF BLOOD, ANGEL'S WILD WOMEN, and GIRLS FOR RENT! The man deserves some kind of posthumous award! He did it all, and this is a great closing shot of him!

"The Day Mars Invaded Earth" starts off on a sour note, the Fielding's marriage is a shambles, and Judi's boyfriend Frank gets murdered before it's over, so there's really no reason to expect a happy ending, and if you don't, then you won't be disappointed!

EXTRA TERRESTRIAL VISITORS aka THE POD PEOPLE / Almena Films - 1983

It's WTF! Friday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. Man, do we have a brain twister with this fog laden mess of a movie!! It seems like a cheapie American flick, but, it's not, it was filmed in France! Original title is LOS NUEVOS EXTRATERRESTRES... Go figure!

Eegah!! sent over a lil' musical sound clip for our earjoyment, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button located next to the big old pod, NOW, Rufus The Gnat!.. Here's a taste of... EXTRA TERRESTRIAL VISITORS!

Most prints of the movie are crap, like this one! The MST gang kicked this one's ass real good.

A shot of the alien spaceship, a chunk of rock, as it closes in on the Earth, but, the poster shows a freakin' flying saucer!.. Hey, what gives?!!

A backwoods baffoon finds the nest of pods in a cave and starts busting them open with his staff! What do you think happens to him when mom shows up?!..

Here's the dude singing in the sound clip, his name is Rick. According to the guys in the control room, he's simply... The Best!! You can judge for yourself..

Rick and his friends head out to the great outdoors for some camping in their Winnebago.

In the meantime, this Kedso Kid finds a nice big pod in the cave (spaceship!) and takes it back to his house, then hides it from his parents like in...

A hippie chick on the campout gets attacked, so, they try to revive her with a swig of whiskey.

Hell, one good swing deserves another 'round here, so, YEE-HAW, YA'LL!!.. Hey, where's Buck?

The baby in the pod hatches and in a matter of a few minutes, it's half grown! So, Kedso Kid pulls out his Simon game and shows the thing how it works.

The little monster gets so excited that it ends up walking on the ceiling! Had to show the little Tuxedo kitty watching the antics from under the bed! I love kitties, I happen to have only seven of them!!

Definitely, the best part of this terrible flick (got a whopping 2.1 stars at IMdB) is this shower scene, even if you don't see any of the good stuff. Mom has shown up, looking for her little bambino!

Kedso Kid says goodbye to the Pod People and they just wander away into the forest! WTF!!.. Tune in tomorrow when Eegah!! will be here for show and tell with a rare title from 1963 that has the word MARS in it!

CROSSPLOT - "Dirty Double Dealer" (1969)

"Crossplot" didn't quite knock me out like I thought it would, but then, what does! New Zealander John Rowles sings the title song written by Les Reed and Barry Mason! John is most popular in his home country for a song he wrote about his sister entitled "Cheryl Moana Marie!" The main soundtrack was written by Stanley Black!

 It was fun to see what Roger Moore was doing in between Simon Templar and James Bond anyway!

 Roger Moore is Gary Fenn, a London ad executive and his idea of what's going to be the next big thing!

 There seems to only be one little problem! He shows this picture to the investors without realizing somebody switched photos for some reason! Now, he's forced to track down this girl, and he's only got 48 hours!

 Nope! Not here!!

 His search leads him to this psychedelic hippie club!

 Roger Moore gets a chance to show off his comedic side!

  Claudie Lange shows off her two best sides too as the gal in the photo, the mysterious Marla Kugash!

 When Gary Fenn comes to, he has no idea where he is, how he got there, and why there's what's left of a joint of marijuana in his ashtray! What he does know is that he's in trouble!

Marla Kugash finally gets a chance to show that she's got what it takes!!

 For some reason (They thought she overheard something important), Marla is being pursued by some very unsavory characters!

 Nice setup! Just to keep the viewer in suspense, we get this shot of Gary Fenn on a train, but it turns out only to be a stupid kid with a squirt gun!

 From this point on, it's pretty ridiculous! I thought I nodded off for a second and somebody changed the channel! What's this, an outtake from "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?"

 One of the most absurd chase scenes of all time!

Equally absurd is the fact that Martha Hyer gets co-star billing, and her character is basically unneeded, and her on screen time amounts to what I'm going to guess is about 10 minutes!

 My favourite part about "Crossplot" is that from this point on, Marla Kugash pretty much grazes herself to the finish!

 All that running around, and Marla didn't get a chance to eat anything for about 20 hours! A girl gets hungry, and she is Hungarian!

After all of that, Gary Fenn finds something to gnaw on himself!!