Randy (right) and Richard way down on Level 31 hosting The Texas 27 Film Vault
Balladeer’s Blog continues its marking of the FORTIETH year anniversary of the sadly neglected cult program The Texas 27 Film Vault. Thanks to my endless research through VERY old newspapers and other sources here’s a look at the very first bad movie offered up and mocked by Randy and Richard, our machine-gun wielding Film Vault Technicians First Class (EO6).
ORIGINAL BROADCAST DATE: Saturday February 9th, 1985 from 10:30pm to 1:00am. Broadcast throughout Texas and Oklahoma.
SERIAL: There was no serial due to the length of the movie plus the Host Segments with Randy and Richard.
MOVIE: Trunk to Cairo (1966). If the only bad movie show you know is MST3K think of: Operation Double 007, Danger: Death Ray and Secret Agent Superdragon.
Audie Murphy, America’s most decorated soldier of World War Two, was okay in westerns or military films but he is laughable as a pseudo-suave James Bond wannabe in this flick. For starters his voice is so mild and his mannerisms so meek that he comes across like Ned Flanders: Licensed to Kill!
Menahem Golan (as in Golan-Globus Productions) directed and produced this flick that was distributed stateside by American International Pictures, so this was a royal wedding of sorts in terms of psychotronic cinema.
Murphy plays Mike Merrick, a CIA agent who is assigned to work with Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad in order to infiltrate an Egyptian base. A Nazi war criminal scientist played by the very British George Sanders is working with the Egyptians to build rockets capable of wiping out Israel, Europe and the United States. Marianne Koch portrays Helga Schlieben, the scientist’s (Sanders) daughter. Continue reading
IRON MAN Vol 1 #169 (Apr 1983) 
Tony’s personal pilot and friend Jim “Rhodey” Rhodes, who had been a supporting character in the series for years at this point, catches Tony drinking even more after the meeting. Iron Man’s old supervillain foe Magma, his tank and troops attack Stark’s Long Island HQ. 
THE MAD SCIENTIST: A TALE OF THE FUTURE (1908) – Written by Raymond McDonald, a pen name for two Canadians – Raymond Alfred Leger and Edward Richard McDonald. An unusual aspect of this novel was the publisher’s offer of a thousand-dollar reward for any reader who deciphered and provided the best breakdown of a coded message in the story. 
OGROFF aka The Mad Mutilator (1983) – This thoroughly bizarre French movie whose maker somehow conned horror icon Howard Vernon into appearing is easily one of the worst films ever made. Norbert G. Moutier owned a video store in France and published a horror fanzine. 
RIDDLE OF THE SULIOTEN MOUNTAIN – Kapitan Mors and his crew land their air ship on a mountain on a Greek island between Korfu and the Ionian Isles. A Suliot sponge diver sees the Luftschiff land and informs the villainous autocrat who imposes his own iron rule on the locals. 
Welcome to another one of Balladeer’s Blog’s posts about ancient Greek comedies, this one written by Cratinus, who was one of the Big Three of Attic Old Comedy with Aristophanes and Eupolis the other two. 
Today, actor and director John Derek is remembered mostly because of his wives – Bo Derek, Ursula Andress, Linda Evans and Pati Behrs. 
ROGUES OF SHERWOOD FOREST (1950) – John starred as Robin, Earl of Huntington, the son of Robin Hood. When Richard the Lionheart passes away in 1199 A.D. King John (George Macready) returns to his old ways of oppressing and heavily taxing the citizens. He also imports an army of foreign mercenaries faithful only to him, not England. 
The Great Garloo was a two-feet tall remote controlled “monster” toy from Marx. Garloo could be controlled to walk, bend down and pick up things. For adults, boring, but for kids, it must have been the best gift they got that year. 
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