Monday, April 18, 2011

THE MANSTER / Lopert Pictures Corp. - 1959

Welcome to Monster Monday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon! Tonite we gots one of the very first monster movies Eegah!! and I saw together, and, we liked it! Compared to THE INCREDIBLE TWO-HEADED TRANSPLANT and THE THING WITH TWO HEADS, this flick kills!

For the unfamiliar, the story goes like this... American reporter, Larry Stanford, is sent to interview an eccentric Japanese scientist working on weird experiments in his mountain laboratory in Japan. The doctor realizes that Larry is the perfect subject for his next experiment, so, he drugs and injects him with a serum. Eventually, Larry transforms into a hideous, two-headed Manster.

The music is by Hirooki Ogawa, who had a total of 27 composing credits with titles like THE MAN IN THE MOONLIGHT MASK, THE MONSTER GORILLA, THE CHALLENGING GHOST, THE LAST DEATH OF THE DEVIL and DIARY OF A MAD OLD MAN...

Okay then, let's bring in our lil'est Dungeon pal, Rufus The Gnat, so that he can push the big red 'GO' button over there and start our Eariffic Earclip for!.. THE MANSTER!

This is the sadistic Dr. Suzuki...

He even experiments on his own family members!

Now, he has to kill and dispose of another one...

The twisted doctor gets ready to inject his serum into reporter, Larry Stanford. Larry's played by British actor, Peter Dyneley. Peter had many TV roles (was the voice of Jeff Tracey in the 'Thunderbirds' TV series) and was in these movies... HELL BELOW ZERO, THE INBETWEEN AGE, FEMALE FIENDS, HOUSE OF MYSTERY, CALL ME BWANA and THE EXECUTIONER. He died at the young age of 56 in 1977.

While out partying with the doctor's lovely assistant, Tara, Larry starts to feel the effects of the serum in the bath house.

But, after a couple of bottles of saki, Larry's feeling no pain! That's Kinji Hendrix there on the electric Shamisen!

No, Larry's not having an LSD flashback!!

Then, of all things, his wife pops in for an intervention. That doesn't make Larry happy at all! Jane Hylton plays his wife, Linda, they were married in real life.

Larry gets a bad omen from the local Shaman.

...DIRTY BARNACLES!!!

Linda gets to meet her new bed mate, Bobo!!

Back at the ranch, things still ain't goin' that great!

Larry shows up to settle the score with Dr. Suzuki. In fact, that's what Larry just said to him... "What's up, doc?"

Larry kills the doc, knocks out Tara and then carries her to the erupting volcano!

Face it! If that thing was attached to you, you'd want it off, too!!!

A few moments from now, the thing tosses Tara into the volcano! Maybe that's why this is the only flick she was ever in.

After the separation, Larry changes back to himself, only then to have to fight the monster to it's death!

George Wyman plays the separated monster, George also had a part in BATTLE IN OUTER SPACE that same year.

Here's my very own Mexican lobby card from this cool movie!

Ghoulnight Everbloody!!..

1 comment:

Prof. Grewbeard said...

i need a Martuni- that's a musical martini...yum da dai, yum da dai...

Monster Music

Monster Music
AAARRGGHHH!!!! Ya'll Come On Back Now, Y'Hear??