THE HOUSE THAT WOULD NOT DIE - TV Movie (1970)

Time for another Wretched Wednesday down in The Dungeon! 

Tonight's feature is a made for TV movie from 1970 called 

"The House That Would Not Die!"

So after about two hours of research or one Google search, I came up with this little bit of information about movies that were made for TV. The first one was called "The Killers," and starred Lee Marvin and included Ronald Reagan, but it was deemed to be too violent for television, so they released it to movie theaters instead, so the first made for TV movie that actually aired on television was "See How They Run" starring John Forsyth and Senta Berger! Both of those movies came out in 1964!

Nice lady and her nice niece move into old haunted Southern country home!

 Whoa! Pretty scary!

 Nope! It's just Richard Egan as the neighbor fellah!

The nice lady was Barbara Stanwyck! So what we have here is a movie length TV show which is basically a combination of  "Empire/Redigo" starring Richard Egan, and "The Big Valley" starring Barbara Stanwyck but with a mildly scary story line!

When TV movies started coming on television back in the 60's, we used to avoid them like the plague, because with TV censorship, there could be no cussing, no sex, no real slashing or bashing, and in a nutshell, they were just generally boring compared to the real thing. Watching "The House That Would Not Die" has not changed my opinion one iota!

This is what they considered to be violent and scary!

They paid Richard Egan an extra 13 bucks for his ability to give the look!

They had a scary seance scene that made Ed Wood's "Night Of The Ghouls" seem downright exciting, and that's not easy to do!

The Director of Cinematography must have been Arty Shatz!

Michael (Logan's Run) Anderson Jr. has the part of the young man who looks like this!

Kitty Winn's first role ever was in this movie as a possessed person. I guess it prepared her pretty good for her parts in "The Exorcist," and "Exocist II."

Richard Egan also gets a little possesed, and that's about it!

For me, The End couldn't come soon enough, but the good news is that it's not titled "The Movie That Would Not Die!"

If you really like your action to move at the pace of a soap opera, then you might really enjoy "The House That Would Not Die" a lot, but if you don't, then a nap might be much more exciting!

WOMEN OF THE PREHISTORIC PLANET - 1966 / MST3K Version

This is a little weird, when our pal Randall Landers left a comment on the John Agar post about not being able to find this title, I was browsing through my MST collection and found it there, season 1... Even if our MST pals appear at the bottom of the screen, we can now add this little title to our big list of posts!

MST hit the airwaves back in 1988, after 10 seasons, they ripped their way through 197 films that each had around 300 jokes (or, is it 600?) each! You do the math.

Joel Hodgson plays Joel Robinson, he gets shot into space by his bosses played by Trace Beaulieu (on the right) and Josh Weinstein. Joel spends his time in space with his robot pals, Tom Servo, Crow T. Robot and Gypsy.

This movie stars Wendell (AGENT FOR H.A.R.M.) Corey, John (NIGHTBREED) Agar, Keith (SPACE PATROL) Larsen and Merry (THE HYPNOTIC EYE) Anders. The story goes like this... A space ship crash lands on the third planet of a distant solar system, killing all hands except for a boy named Tang. The rescue ship arrives some 20 years later, one of the crew, a girl named Linda, meets Tang and falls in love with him. And, our crew encounters strange creatures on this somewhat familiar world.

Okay, so, lets get this out of the way... This movie sucks!

Anyway, our heroes are on their way to locate a missing crew from a previous space mission, meaning, there's plenty of yakkity-yak about what could have possibly happened to them.

So's you know, the spaceship's name is COSMOS III... The poster shows the saucer from THIS ISLAND EARTH but this one looks like a toy from the forties... Whatever.

In a flashback, Admiral King, played by Wendell Corey, tells the tale of the mission that crashed 20 years earlier... Pow!, right into a miniature lake!

Back to now... We're getting ready to land on the third planet of the distant solar system!

John and the gang cross deadly streams and the like, a fun cheap thrill when one guy falls in.

They find an old mad lab full of weird shit!

It's hard to make out but dude has a big stuffed spider on his back! When the guy shoots the spider, it explodes and fills the whole place with smoke! I'd bet that the guy in charge of explosives effed up!

People get frisky, you know... But, that very cool toilet seems to be out of place!!

Joel and the Bots try to dismantle a doomsday satellite they find next to their ship and it turns them into Isaac Asimov characters. They have til the end of the show to get the job done.

The earth's a shakin' like a B and it looks like mother nature is now in charge. It's time to gather up the crew and get the Hell out of Dodge!..

Good news!!.. Washer's fixed, grab the towels!..

Anywho, Linda gets to stay with Tang and the crew in the COSMOS III jet off into space, back to their home planet, out there somewhere.

Then, Admiral King finishes his tale... The planet they're leaving is called... Get ready... EARTH!!.. Mofo!

There you go Randall, glad to get this one under our belt, too bad the movie's so bad. We'll end with this double bill with a version of NAVY vs, THE NIGHT MONSTERS, also from 1966...

MAKE THAT SPARE - (1961 -1962)

 
 Bowling and Wrasslin' were two of the most popular pastimes of the 50's and 60's! Tonight's Saturday Night Special offering is a tribute to bowlers everywhere, because just like golf and a lot of other things, bowling is not as easy as it looks on TV!

 "Make That Spare" was only a 15 minute TV show that was made to fill in time after boxing matches which tended to end after 45 minutes leaving a gap in programming that needed to be filled! The host was Johhny (Rock Around The Clock) Johnston!

Tonight's roll off is between two seasoned veterans, Jim Schroeder and......

.....................Jerry McCoy!

The game goes like this, the bowlers each have a chance at five frames of spare Hell, and whoever gets the most points gets a prize, plus a chance at the super spare shot!

If you've ever bowled, you'll know how difficult this is!

Both these guys were able to split these two pins!!

That's a damn good shot!

A lot of people think bowling is a sport for low-brow drunken dullards, but let's face it, you have to be drunk to try and attempt a shot like this! I saw a chart that listed the 10 most difficult spares to try and pick up, and they averaged under one per cent! That's why good bowlers throw all strikes!

Believe it or not, both Tabonga and I have been on bowling leagues at one time or another in our life, not together or even in the same decade, but we've both suffered the fever!

 

The winner of the contest got a shot at winning this Mustang if they could make this almost impossible spare! Unfortunately Jerry didn't make it!

So it turns out that in the end, Jerry was the real McCoy!

"Hang On Sloopy" indeed!!