Curtis Threesome

 

 (imdb)

DEAD OF NIGHT-1977-TV movie trilogy by director Dan Curtis and screenwriter Richard Matheson, narrated by John Dehner. 

 In "Second Chance"-A guy named Frank (Ed Begley Jr.) restores an old car that had been in a car crash (killing two people) in 1926. While driving it on a back road, he's transported to 1926. His car is stolen and he's stranded but the next day he's back in his own time. He meets Helen (Christina Hart) and her father (EJ Andre) & mother (Ann Doran) who have the exact same car. It seems Frank may have changed the past. From a story by Jack Finney.

In the second story "No Such Thing As A Vampire"-Prof. Gheria (Patrick Macnee) calls on his friend Michael (Horst Bucholtz) to help his daughter Alexis (Anjanette Comer) who he says has been attacked by a vampire. Elisha Cook Jr. is his butler. This has a good twist ending. From a story by Matheson.

"Bobby"-A woman (Joan Hackett) uses witchcraft to try and bring back her dead son. He (Lee Montgomery) comes back but wants to murder mom. His "friend" shows up in the finale. Based on the WW Jacobs classic short story "The Monkey's Paw". 

Director Dan Curtis made this a year after the feature film BURNT OFFERINGS. It's very good (especially for TV) but is usually pushed aside in favor of his earlier anthology TRILOGY OF TERROR (1975). 

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Pre-Perry Burr

PLEASE MURDER ME-1956-Interesting film noirish murder mystery. Attorney Craig Carlson (Raymond Burr) breaks some bad news to his best friend Joe Leeds (Dick Foran), a guy who even saved Carlson's life during WW2. He's is in love with Joe's wife Myra (Angela Landsbury) and she's going to divorce hubby and marry his best bud. Joe takes in all in stride. A few days later he seems to make a decision, writes a letter and asks a friend to mail it. He then goes and visits his wife. A shot rings out and the next morning hubby is dead and Myra is charged with his murder even though she claims self defense. Carlson defends her and she gets off but then he discovers the mysterious letter Joe wrote and Carlson begins to see the error of his ways. 

Clever film also features John Dehner as the prosecuting attorney and Denver Pyle as a detective. England born Director Peter Godfrey was a former actor and by this time was mostly directing for TV.

Burr became famous the next year when he starred in the long running TV show PERRY MASON.

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How Could I Forget This One!

THE BOWERY BOYS MEET THE MONSTERS-1954-The (over-aged) Boys (in their 34^th outing!) want to get a nice place for local kids to play baseball. Slip (Leo Gorcey) and Sach (Huntz Hall) contact a Dr. Gravesend (John Dehner) who owns the lot. Of course Gravesend is actually a mad scientist with a sister Amelia (Ellen Corby) who keeps a man eating plant, a wacky scientist brother Anton (Lloyd Corrigan) and a niece Francine (Laura mason) who's a vampire. Their butler Grissom (Paul Wexler; later the scary Indian head hunter in THE FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE) sometimes becomes a hairy fanged monster. Gravesend wants Sach's pea brain for his gorilla and the brother wants Slip's brain for his robot. After terrorizing Sach, the robot has a fight with the gorilla and Sach turns into a rather scary monster who almost kills Slip.

It's pretty dumb but it's probably the one entry in this series that stands out the most because of the horror setting (at least it did when I was kid!). Yet somehow I forgot to review it when I did a whole bunch of Bowery Boys movies a few years ago!The other regular “boys” Chuck (David Gorcey) and Butch (Bennie Barlett) are there as well as Bernard Gorcey as Louie. Director Edward Bernds (who made JUNGLE GENTS with the team the same year) co-wrote it with usual BB scribe Elwood Ullman.

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Stanley Before The Bowery

DESTINATION MURDER-1950-Stanley Clements (6 years before replacing Leo Gorcey in The Bowery Boys series) is Jackie Wales, a telegram delivery boy who kills a man for club owner Mr. Armitage (Albert Dekker) who likes to talk in the third person. The dead man's daughter Laura (Joyce MacKenzie) suspects Jackie and begins dating him. Later she gets a job as a cigarette girl in the club where manager Stretch Norton (Hurd Hatfield) puts the moves on her. Armitage's mistress (Myrna Dell) gets Jackie involved in blackmail and eventually his own murder. It turns out Norton is actually the brains of the operation. 

After Jackie's killed (it's not shown; his character seems to have just been written out) it turns into a revenge love story focusing on Laura and her relationship with Norton. 

 Star Joyce MacKenzie played Jane to Lex Barker's Tarzan in TARZAN AND THE SHE DEVIL. James Flavin is a police lieutenant and John Dehner is another suspect. Future star of THE WEREWOLF Steve Ritch has a bit role. 

A great vocal band Steve Gibson's Red Caps plays in the club. You can read about them here: http://home.earthlink.net/~jaymar41/redcaps.html

There's actually a lot of strange twists in this little murder mystery directed by Edward L. Cahn a few years before he made some of the greatest low budget horror and Sci-Fi movies of all time.

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