In the middle 1980s/ Way down on Level 31 … There was The Texas 27 Film Vault. Balladeer’s Blog continues its salute to the FORTIETH anniversary year of this neglected cult show that debuted on Saturday February 9th, 1985.
ORIGINAL BROADCAST DATE FOR THIS EPISODE: Supposedly Saturday March 30th, 1985 from 10:30PM to 1:00AM. Broadcast throughout Texas and Oklahoma.
SERIAL: Prior to showing and mocking the movie Randy Clower and Richard Malmos, the show’s machine-gun wielding “Film Vault Technicians First Class” (EO6) showed an episode of the notoriously campy sci-fi serial The Lost City (1935). That serial featured a super-scientific city lost in the middle of the African jungle plus zombified “giant” African tribesmen, ray-guns, a slinky femme fatale and a tribe of pygmies.
There’s also a Great White Hunter as the hero and a mad scientist whose inventions include a machine that turns black people into white people!
And with typically tasteless Hollywood racism, the “colorization” is considered a REWARD for tribesmen who serve the mad scientist well! All this plus BOTH William Boyds in one serial!
THE TUNNEL WITH THE MINIATURES OF FILM VAULT DOORS.
FILM VAULT LORE: One eye-catching element of The Texas 27 Film Vault was the POV shot and miniatures for the fictional Film Vault that Randy, Richard, Ken “Tex” Miller, Joe Tyler and Laurie Savino worked in.
Randy Clower was kind enough to provide me with the behind-the-scenes photo shown above right.
THE MOVIE: Monster From Green Hell was one of the many, many “Big Bug” films of the 1950s. Most of those “bugs” on the loose were mutated to giant size by atomic radiation but in this flick it was cosmic radiation instead which was the culprit.
Two scientists at a desert testing lab featuring the WORST “paintings masquerading as scenery outside a window” in film history are launching rockets with various life forms aboard. They do that to test the effects of exposure to cosmic radiation on those life forms. One of their rockets malfunctions and crash-lands in the “Green Hell” portion of Africa after exposing its wasp passenger to cosmic rays for over 40 hours. Continue reading
Before MST3K we had The Texas 27 Film Vault. Before Joel and Mike we had Randy and Richard. Before Pearl we had Laurie Savino. Before Devil Dogs, Observers and Deep 13 we had giant rats, Cellumites and Level 31.
Since Randy Clower still outranked his co-host Richard Malmos (until a few episodes later) in the fictional Film Vault Corps (“The few, the proud, the sarcastic”) their relationship often featured the type of abusive “Host and Second Banana” dynamic like that between Dr. Morgus and his lab assistant Chopsley or Zacherle and his wife My Dear or Dr. Forrester and TV’s Frank. 
THE MOVIE: Supernatural starred Carole Lombard and Randolph Scott in a campy and hilariously bad story of possession. When serial murderess Ruth Rogen is executed her spirit winds up inhabiting the body of Lombard’s character Roma Courtney, a wealthy socialite. 
IT’S A BIRD … IT’S A PLANE … IT’S SUPERMAN! (1975) – It’s the bomb that asks the musical question “How many Lembecks can you handle?” Even the most die-hard Superman fans would have a hard time forcing themselves to watch all of this made for tv movie version of the 1966 stage musical. 
Despite music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Lee Adams and script by David Newman & Robert Benton this Superman musical was Broadway’s biggest flop in history as of the 1960s. It’s no great shakes in its televised form, either. 
In the middle 1980s/ Way down on Level 31 … 
SERIAL: Radar Men from the Moon was the current serial being shown. This episode of The Texas 27 Film Vault featured Chapter Nine titled Battle in the Stratosphere. During the 12-week run of this serial one of the behind-the-scenes crew (no one remembers who at this point) would dress as Commando Cody, the hero of the serial, and occasionally interact with Randy and Richard during the comedy sketches. 
FILM VAULT LORE: This was supposedly the favorite episode of the Film Vault Corp’s effects man Joe Riley, which is why he used the title The Hypnotic Eye for his post-T27FV television show, episodes of which are online.
SCREAMBOOK (1984) – Ever see a feature length horror film written, produced and directed by a 13-year-old? And with nearly all the roles – of all ages – played by fellow teenagers? Obviously, I’ll be grading this flick on a curve in this review. 
THE DEATHMASTER (1972) – In between his pair of movies as the vampire named Count Yorga the one and only Robert Quarry starred as a vampiric Charles Manson wannabe in this film. The Deathmaster starts out with a great bit that wouldn’t look out of place in a Jean Rollin horror flick from France: the huge, hulking Barbado (Le Sesne Hilton) plays eerie flute music, seemingly luring ashore a sea-tossed coffin. This casket holds our “Deathmaster” – a vampire called Khorda. 
Balladeer’s Blog continues its marking of the FORTIETH anniversary year of the neglected cult show The Texas 27 Film Vault, which debuted on February 9th, 1985. 
SERIAL: Before showing and mocking the movie our members of the Film Vault Corps showed and mocked a chapter of Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940). 
HOST SEGMENTS: Some potential dispute here. Dr X-Rae thinks that this was the episode that showed Randy and Richard seeming to quit the Film Vault Corps (“the few, the proud, the sarcastic”) and through an oddball series of events, winding up in front of a firing squad … and getting shot! 
SERIAL: Before showing and mocking the movie machine-gun toting Randy and Richard, as members of the fictional Film Vault Corps (“the few, the proud, the sarcastic”) showed and mocked another chapter of the Republic Serial Radar Men from the Moon (1952).
THE MOVIE: Blood Beach (1980) was one of the least effective horror films of the 1980s. It had a half-decent premise – a monster beneath the sand at a California beach sucking victims down into its hellish maw – but squandered that premise with incredibly slow pacing. 
WEREWOLVES ON WHEELS (1971) – You just knew this was the movie I would start with. A biker gang hassles a group of Satanists in the usual biker way in films. The Satanists get revenge by cursing some of the bikers to start turning into werewolves and preying on the others. 
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