Tag Archives: Entertainment

February 9, 2017 · 2:35 am

TEXAS TWENTY-SEVEN FILM VAULT: THIRTY-SECOND ANNIVERSARY

Happy Anniversary to The Texas Twenty-Seven Film Vault, one of the pre-MST3K Movie Host shows. Yes it was Saturday night February 9th, 1985 that this program debuted in Dallas, Texas, in the same studio that would later be used for Joe Bob’s Drive-In. Here is an encore presentation of my EXCLUSIVE 2011 interview with Randy Clower, one of The Texas Twenty-Seven Film Vault‘s co-creators and co-hosts. 

Clower (right) with co-host Richard Malmos as “Film Vault Technicians First Class” on The Texas 27 Film Vault

Before MST3K there was THE TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT! Before Joel and Mike lovers of bad movies had Randy and Richard! Before Pearl there was Laurie Savino! Before Devil Dogs, Observers and Deep 13 there came Cellumites, giant rats and Level 31.

In the mid 1980s The Texas 27 Film Vault was the show to watch on Saturday nights for wry mockery of Golden Turkeys preceded by episodes of vintage Republic Serials like Radar Men From The Moon and Canadian Mounties vs Atomic Invaders.    

The Texas 27 Film Vault is one of the great unsung Movie Host shows of the 1980s and I was thrilled to get this exclusive interview with Randy Clower, co-star and co-creator of this legendary cult show from the Dallas/ Fort Worth area. “The Film Vault Guys” as they were often called by us fans, or “Vaulties”,  established the pattern that a few other Movie Hosts have since followed. Continue reading →

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February 8, 2017 · 12:30 pm

SHADOW THEATER (1990-1991)

 Shadow Theater was a terrific series hosted by Robert “Freddy Krueger” Englund. Everyone over the age of 30 remembers a time when you couldn’t just go to the internet to get your fix of info and footage from fringe and/ or obscure horror films. This program was a nice once-a- week documentary look at movies for the Psychotronic- minded.

An additional plus about the show was the way it treated viewers to behind-the- scenes facts and rare interviews with some of horror’s most daring filmmakers without having to attend a fan convention. (It’s a joke! Lighten up!)

Robert Englund displayed the same macabre charm he would employ when hosting the Horror Movie Hall of Fame ceremonies later in the decade. He didn’t copy his patented Freddy routine, but rather Continue reading →

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February 5, 2017 · 11:42 am

GIRLS ON PROBATION (1938) ON THE TEXAS TWENTY-SEVEN FILM VAULT

Girls on Probation

Girls on Probation

In the middle 1980s/ Way down on Level 31 …

Before MST3K there was The Texas 27 Film Vault! Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of this neglected cult show from the 1980s with another review of an episode where an original air date can be determined. My interview with some of the original cast, my research through VERY old newspapers and emailed memories from my fellow Vaulties are helping in this attempt to reconstruct elements of the show’s history.

EPISODE ORIGINALLY BROADCAST: Saturday March 2nd, 1985 from 10:30pm to 1:00 am.

FILM VAULT LORE: This is the 2nd oldest episode I’ve reviewed. The oldest episode was the February 9th, 1985 airing of Trunk to Cairo with Audie Murphy. Special thanks to my fellow T27FV fan Jessica for the serial episode and a comedy sketch from the episode.

One of the comedy sketches in the show was a mock commercial for Blue Arrow Bus Lines, the fictional bus line in the movie. The phony ad hyped the bus line as the Official Bus Line of female fugitives on the run.

Lost CitySERIAL: Before showing and mocking the movie machine-gun toting Randy and Richard of the fictional Film Vault Corps (“The few, the proud, the sarcastic”) showed and mocked a chapter 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 the “colorization” is considered a REWARD for tribesmen who serve the mad scientist well! All this plus BOTH William Boyds in one serial! 

THE MOVIE: GIRLS ON PROBATION (1938) was one of the countless Warner Brothers B-movies that future president Ronald Reagan starred in before his career in politics. Reagan had just been inaugurated  for his second term less than two months earlier so the Reagan jokes from our Film Vault Technicans First Class no doubt flew hard and fast. The Texas 27 Film Vault also showed Bedtime for Bonzo, another infamous Reagan pic, but I have yet to narrow down the exact date of that episode.  

Reagan is the Continue reading →

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February 1, 2017 · 4:52 am

ATTACK OF THE BEAST CREATURES (1983)

For more bad movie reviews click here: https://glitternight.com/bad-movies/

attack-of-the-beast-creaturesATTACK OF THE BEAST CREATURES (1983)- Category: A neglected bad movie classic that deserves a Plan 9-sized cult following.       Some passengers from a Transatlantic liner get shipwrecked and marooned on an uncharted island filled with acidic ponds and streams plus a whole tribe of the titular creatures who all look even sillier than the doll that attacked Karen Black in Trilogy Of Terror.

And it’s the 1920s for no reason whatsoever! Nothing in the story has Continue reading →

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January 31, 2017 · 5:00 am

EDISON’S CONQUEST OF MARS

Edison's Conquest of Mars 2

Too late Edison learned the awful price to be paid for repeatedly asking if his bikini made him look fat.

From 1898 it’s Garrett P Serviss’ work of science fiction.

PART ONE – After the Martian invaders from H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds and Serviss’ own Fighters From Mars died from exposure to Earth germs, astronomers around the world realized the ordeal wasn’t over yet. All indications were that the Martians were readying another fleet of spaceships to attack the Earth. CLICK HERE   

PART TWO – Thomas Alva Edison reverse-engineered the Martian space craft. The nations of the Earth then banded together to build an entire fleet of similar vessels and take the war to the Red Planet. President McKinley, Queen Victoria, Kaiser Wilhelm and other heads of state from around the world attend the global summit. CLICK HERE   

PART THREE – After a monumental effort the Earth has a space-fleet of its own, equipped with Edison’s Disintegrator Rays as weaponry. With Edison commanding the flagship and with military men and scientific geniuses from around the world as an officer corps the Earth Fleet departs the Earth. CLICK HERE    Continue reading →

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January 30, 2017 · 10:00 pm

BAD FILM – OVERLORDS OF THE UFO (1977)

Overlords of the UFOREMEMBER THIS FLICK FROM THE 2010 BALLADEER’S BLOG FILM FESTIVAL?

OVERLORDS OF THE UFO (1977) – Category: Hilariously lame “documentary” about conspiracies, the paranormal and/or the supernatural    This little honey comes from the muck and slime encrusted bottom of the cinematic barrel of movies that followed in the wake of the ridiculous Chariots Of The Gods.

None of these schlockumentaries are very convincing about their subject matter but this flick is so outrageously inept that not even the Ancient Aliens team would be suckered in by it … maybe.

Early on the fun kicks into high gear with mismatched stock footage of Continue reading →

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January 29, 2017 · 11:55 pm

BAD MOVIE: JUST IMAGINE (1930)

Just Imagine 2 4way

The world of 1980.

JUST IMAGINE was one of those true oddities that make bad movie culture so much fun.

This uproariously campy sci-fi relic started with a comparison of life in America in 1880 and 1930, the year the movie was released.

From there it provided a speculative tale about life 50 more years in the “future” of 1980. The lame special effects, failed predictions about the future, typically stiff acting for a 1930 effort and – worst of all – a few unbearable SONGS make this a true Bad Movie Classic deserving of a Plan 9– sized cult following.   Continue reading →

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January 26, 2017 · 1:34 am

ASSIGNMENT: TERROR (1969)

 I’ve been getting emails requesting that I review this movie, but I already did in 2010. For the folks requesting it, here it is again.

ASSIGNMENT: TERROR (1969) – If they gave a Nobel Prize for bad movie premises this baby would easily wind up wearing one of those big medallions around its neck! Spain’s King of Horror (and John Belushi look-alike) , Paul “Jacinto Molina” Naschy is in this film playing his recurring character, tormented lycanthrope Waldemar Daninsky.

The premise of this movie is that aliens plan to conquer the world by frightening humanity into submission by scaring us with monsters. Call me crazy, but I think Continue reading →

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January 25, 2017 · 1:56 am

AMSTERDAMNED (1988)

Amsterdamned

Amsterdamned

AMSTERDAMNED (1988) – Well, this will be an unexpected twist for regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog. Usually I review bad movie classics that don’t have the following they deserve, but in this case I’m reviewing a film that has a reputation for being bad, but really isn’t.

I’ve meant to write this review for awhile now. Amsterdamned is one of those films on the “must see” list for many of my fellow bad movie fans. I felt that way for years, too. After all, the film is from the same director who did The Lift, the hilariously bad “killer elevator” movie that I reviewed long ago on this blog. It also Continue reading →

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January 20, 2017 · 9:05 pm

MARIKAS (421 B.C.) – ANCIENT GREEK COMEDY

EupolisBalladeer’s Blog presents another look at an ancient Greek Comedy. This time around it’s one written by Eupolis who – along with Aristophanes and Cratinus – was one of the Big Three of Attic Old Comedy.

MARIKAS (c 421 B.C.) – This was the second comedy to emerge in the new subgenre of Attic Old Comedy called “the Demagogue Comedy”. Aristophanes led the way a few years earlier with The Knights, his comedy attacking the politician Cleon. The play Marikas finds Eupolis attacking the demagogue Hyperbolus, whose reputation for character assassination by way of overstatement lives on in our language by way of the word “hyperbole”.  

As with most ancient Greek comedies Marikas has survived only in fragmentary form. Those fragments, along with contemporary references in surviving works, provide what is known about the play. Marikas, the title character, was used by Eupolis to represent the politician Hyperbolus the same way Aristophanes had used the Paphlagonian to represent Cleon in The Knights.

The ancient Greek comedies made a point of breaking the fourth wall on a regular basis (despite the way so many people have convinced themselves that that is a “postmodern” development) and Marikas opened up with a character assuring the audience that the play they were about to see was NOT just a rehashing of The Knights. Continue reading →

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