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
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