The William Castle Memorabilia (Part 3)

And now, a message from the director of The Tingler, Mr. William Castle.

Today's post, which is presented in TEXT-O, is the exhibitor's instruction manual for the PERCEPTO gimmick for William Castle's classic film The Tingler!

I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO IT!

Well, luckily I have this PERCEPTO manual, and now I will forever know how to "do it".

So, in The Tingler, Vincent Price is this semi-evil doctor whose main goal in life is to prove that a creepy lobster-like creature grows in your spine when you are scared. And of course, he calls this spine tingling crustaceany thing The Tingler!

INTERESTING FACT -- The Tingler is the first film to show the movie-fied effects of the psychedelic drug LSD in a scene where Vincent Price freaks out on acid. 

WANNA SEE?!? OF COURSE YOU DO!!

When they originally showed the film in theaters, the great William Castle came up with an almost completely insane (and hilarious) gimmick -- during a scene where The Tingler gets loose in the theater, the theater owners would SHOCK certain seats with a joy buzzer type contraption which he entitled PERCEPTO! Genius. I can only hope that one day I can be PERCEPTO'd.

As you can see, this manual was sent to all the theater owners by Columbia Pictures to show them how to hook up these crazy things to the seats. They were apparently powered by car batteries, and controlled from the projection booth. They were cued by a moment where the screen goes black and Vincent Price yells...

"THE TINGLER IS LOOSE IN THE THEATER! 

EVERYBODY, SCREAM! SCREAM FOR YOUR LIVES!"

There was another part to the gimmick as well. The theater would hire a couple of girls to scream and freak out, running around the theater and fainting during the "SCREAM FOR YOUR LIVES!!" scene. They would then be dragged out on a stretcher by a couple of ushers, while the audience freaks out, or laughs at them for being stupidly scared.

GAH! I WANT TO SEE THIS IN A THEATER IN 1959! GIVE ME A DANG TIME MACHINE, YOU LAZY SCIENTIST JERKS!

You can download the PERCEPTO manual for The Tingler HERE!!

Oh, and if you're looking for an early Christmas gift for me, well you can just go buy me a Tingler.

Enjoy! And don't forget to SCREAM!! SCREAM FOR YOUR LIVES!!

A New Leaf -- Lobby Cards

So, in 1971 there was this movie called A New Leaf. It's one of the best comedies of all time, but almost nobody has seen it, because... well, I'm not sure. It is insanely hilarious. 

It's the story of a rich guy played by Walter Matthau who runs through his entire inheritance and decides to go against his better judgement (and perhaps attraction) and find a rich woman to marry... and kill. He eventually finds and marries the extremely annoying (but insanely rich) Henrietta, who's played by the writer and director Elaine May. 

This is by far, Walter Matthau's greatest role. He plays the stuck up rich snob role perfectly. His total annoyance with everything, but mostly with Elaine May's hilariously annoying character, is brilliantly performed.

To me, this is a perfect film.

Unfortunately, almost nobody knows about this classic. The film was taken away from Elaine May during post-production and more than an hour of the film was cut, including an entire subplot with a blackmailer. And just like Elaine May's other films, The Heartbreak Kid and Ishtar (yes, really), it's been sadly under-seen and underrated by the majority. But, hopefully that'll change soon, when it's finally released on DVD and Blu-Ray... thanks again to the gods at Olive Films.

Since it's finally being released on a digital format, I hereby present to you the awesome original lobby cards from this amazing movie. Enjoy!

The Girl in Gold Boots Memorabilia (Part 4 of 3)

So you thought the last post was the end, eh? No more of that stuff that movie about go-go dancers and drugs? You thought it was the end of my Girl in Gold Boots stuff, didn't you? Didn't you?!

Well, so did I. But then these things appeared on the electronic bay interweb site, and obviously I had to purchase them. 

So here we go, four more of the promotional photos from Ted V. Mikels' Girl in Gold Boots!

The ¡Three Amigos! Novelization

Hello there El Guapos and Guapettes, and welcome to today's post -- the ¡Three Amigos! novelization!

I don't have to tell you how much I love this film, since I'm sure you already know.

The novelization... well, not so much. It pretty much takes everything funny about the film and turns it into something like a depressing reenactment from America's Most Wanted. The jokes fall flat, the descriptions are terribly unpleasant, and for some reason they make Lucky Day a kind of abusive, self-centered jerk, which is kind of soul-crushing. 

One thing the author should be commended for though, is for doing the impossible -- making the "My Little Buttercup" song completely unbearable. Although, that's not really something to be proud of.

The best thing about this book (besides the photos) is the inclusion of a few of the deleted scenes in the story, including the introduction of the Amigos in the studio mansion and their interactions with their butler and maid. They also include the extended scene of the Amigos meeting with Harry Flugelman that's on the Blu-Ray which is pretty groovy, if you ask me.

Oddly, in the photos section of the book, they include a photo from a deleted scene that's not even represented in the book. It's a photo of Lucky and Ned tied to some sort of obscure torture device while Dusty shoots at what is apparently El Guapo.

Well, that's pretty much it. I'm not going to scan the entire book for you, because

     a) That'd take me a really long time.

     b) I don't feel like it.

     c) You can get the book for ONE PENNY on Amazon.com.

I did, however, scan the photo pages and, well, here they are.

CLICK on the photos to enable the ENLARGE-O-MATIC PHOTO EMBIGGENER®!!

A closer look at the photo from the deleted scene.

Have fun, I guess.

Beyond Westworld "Sound of Terror" Teleplay

Today's super insanely radical magnificentness is the script for the "Sound of Terror" episode of the short-lived TV series Beyond Westworld!!

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Hey, Jeremy. There's no TV show called Beyond Westworld! Would they really make a TV show based off the Westworld and Futureworld movies? No! That's crazy! YOU'RE CRAZY! STOP TORTURING ME WITH OBSCURE CRAP!"

Well, I hate to break it to you, but yes, they did make a TV series based off the Westworld/Futureworld movies... and it was awesome!

Okay, so it wasn't that cool. But still! A Westworld TV series? I'd watch it. And I have, thanks to the healing power of bootleg DVDs. It's an odd little obscurity with a premise that really forces you to suspend disbelief to the extreme.

In the show, a mad doctor named Simon Quaid (who used to work for the Delos parks) has created and programmed a bunch of androids to integrate into society as humans and do his bidding to help him in his mission to conquer the world! Yeesh... why can't mad doctors ever use their powers for good?

Anyways, there's these spies, John Moore and Pamela Williams, and their mission is to find these androids and destroy them! Cool, huh?

Obviously the show didn't last too long. Actually, they only produced 5 episodes and 2 of them never aired in the US. The premise for the show is pretty fun, but it really has nothing to do with the Westworld series of films, except for the name "Delos" and the crazy, murderous robots. 

It's too bad the show didn't have too much to do with the films, though. I think that Westworld is one of the most fun and interesting Sci-Fi movies ever made, and it's one of my all-time favorites. Unlike most people, I really like the sequel Futureworld, too. But then again, I'm weird. Also, I will watch, and inevitably fall in love with anything starring Peter Fonda and/or Stuart Margolin.

Now... back to the show! 

So the script we have here is from the final aired episode -- "Sound of Terror". In this episode, the evil Simon Quaid steals some Uranium from a nuclear power plant with the help of an android member of the rock group Power and Ruth to sell to a terrorist named Hakim Fadar, so John and Pamela follow the band around and thwart Quaid's plan of world domination! Super groovy. 

Check out the episode preview (and title sequence) below!

  

I really enjoy the writing in this script, especially the description of the band, which dresses them up like some weird mixture of Jefferson Airplane and The Village People.

 Man, I just love reading about shaking butts...

I especially love the dialogue that's given to the members of the band, which is very similar to a lot of the corny 70s and 80s After-School Special stuff. It doesn't make them cool, it just makes them sound like your regular old rockstar stereotype, saying all sorts of random colloquialisms that NOBODY SAYS. Well, that is unless real, actual people in the 70s called their name their "handle" and talked about getting their "kicks" a lot.

The episode ends just like your basic 70s/80s TV series with the one thing about television that  will never, ever get old -- The FREEZE FRAME! God, I love those.

I think it's a pretty fun episode with lots of music and action and spying, but it apparently wasn't fun or action-packed or spy-ful enough for everyone else, since the show was cancelled after this episode aired.

The show hasn't really been seen too much since it was cancelled (except for bootlegs), but apparently that will change in the near-ish future, since the geniuses at the Warner Archive say their going to release it on DVD! Then you can buy the DVD and watch it and read the script at the same time! Hooray for multitasking!

You can download the Beyond Westworld "Sound of Terror" teleplay HERE.

Bombs Away!