Over the past few days, I watched two fun old movies, both for the first time. As it happened, they were both black-and-white, kind of sci-fi spooky movies, that were made in the late 50s, with a mainly teenage cast. At least, the actors were supposed to be teenagers. The first was The Blob, which was the Svengoolie showing last Saturday. The second was Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow.
I'm guessing that many of you have seen The Blob. I hadn't before the other night. Strangely enough I thought I'd seen it, because I'd seen so many clips of the movie over the years. I was certainly aware of the thing that looked like a growing glob of jelly/jello and how it slinked around.
This movie was surprisingly good! I thought the actors were pretty believable. The Blob stars Steve McQueen, who looked like an older teenager because he was 28 at the time of filming! His little "teenage" girlfriend in the movie (Aneta Corsaut) was 25. An interesting piece of trivia about her is that she went on to be Andy's girlfriend/wife Helen Crump on The Andy Griffith show.
Speaking of the Andy Griffith connection... Svengoolie put together a funny little song comparing The Blob to The Andy Griffith Show:
I'll try and not give much away about The Blob, because maybe some of you haven't seen it and would like to. So without spelling out the plot, I'll say that this movie has something to say about people coming together to solve a problem. Those who kept calm and kept an open mind about different solutions to solving the blob problem, did well. The frantic, paranoid, and close-minded characters had more challenges. It's interesting how even the most crusty characters could manage to work with the more likable main characters, when there was a common enemy. I think that's pretty realistic!
Now, onto the Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow. I'm as certain that most of you haven't seen this as I am that you have seen The Blob! I actually looked this movie up on YouTube after seeing the poster art on Pinterest:
I thought the poster was so cute that I had to see the movie! I'm really glad I did, because it was a lot of fun. This is one of those Rockabilly teen movies with hot cars and (according to a few mens' comments on YouTube) some hot chicks. Well, one girl in particular:
Some of you might agree that she could almost be a young Vampira, with a different look of course. I say that because she's tall and thin with high cheekbones and a certain confidence. This actress is Sanita Pelkey. She was hilarious and had some of the best lines in the movie. But my favorite character was Aunt Anastasia Abernathy:
Basically, the movie revolves around a group of kids who like to work on cars. A girl named Lois stands out as being incredibly cool and independent. She's the rare female who's working on cars like the boys, and also likes to race them. I'm guessing Lois would have been pretty rare in 1959.
Lois has an understanding mother and an insanely uptight (to the point of being funny) father. She also has an Aunt Anastasia, who she's riding in a car with above. Basically, Lois' father would like her to stop racing cars, dating boys, and probably age in reverse! He decides she shouldn't drive at all while Aunt Anastasia visits.
This leads to all kinds of hilarity as Lois has a party and then sleepover at her family's home, since she can't go out. At that point, Lois' father would probably have loved it if she'd driven away!
If you're wondering where the supernatural element comes in here, there isn't much of one. Aunt Anastasia has a haunted house, which she allows the kids to use as a meeting place/party central. A few haunted high jinx occur. Mostly, this movie is just cool teenagers with more old slang than you can shake a stick at. I mostly understood what they were saying. You'll get the idea. It's fun and cheesy. And like a lot of movies from this time, there's some music involved. I think this could actually have been a musical if a few more songs had been added.
So, if you'd like to just relax your brain and have a fun time, give Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow a watch! And if you haven't gotten around to seeing The Blob yet, definitely watch that too.
I couldn't find the entire Blob movie online, but I have the next best thing! Or maybe an even better thing? I happen to love this song. Be warned, though... This song will not leave your head for some time.
Click Here to allow that Blob earworm into your mind!
(I'm inserting those "Click Here" links because I know those who get my blog in email form can't see the videos.)
Can you believe Burt Bacharach was involved in writing this song?
If you listen to it while watching this gif, you can almost imagine the blob dancing along to the music! I'm doing that right now, actually. 😁 He's managing to keep the beat.
P.S. ~ I've been meaning to pass along a hilarious man's YouTube channel to you guys. The hilarious man is named Heywood Banks. He sings catchy songs and he's a real mood-lifter. I looked Heywood up online because I saw his photo in the paper. I thought the expression he was making in that photo was so funny that he was bound to be entertaining. I didn't even realize that he wrote songs until I looked him up! A link to his YouTube channel:
Do you ever wander around the library, hoping just the right book or movie will jump out at you? I do that and have had pretty good luck! My latest random find was the movie The Ladykillers. I'm talking about the one from 1955, not the newer remake with Tom Hanks. I doubt I'll even watch the new one because I'm pretty sure it would pale in comparison to the original.
When I first saw the DVD case, I thought it was a movie about Nosferatu! Because there was Sir Alec Guinness, looking so gaunt and sallow, wearing what are clearly fake choppers. Next to Guinness with his Nosferatu look, is Herbert Lom. Doesn't he look like he's channeling Dr. Evil? This was clearly a DVD I needed to check out.
I loved The Ladykillers! It's super funny, and gets funnier as it goes on. Some might say it's funny in a dark way. I'll give you the basic premise, because I don't want to spoil any of the surprises. I'll just tell you more or less what you'd read about it on the back of the DVD case.
You can tell he's loving every minute of this.
For me, this is basically Alec Guinness' movie. I might watch some scenes of it again, just to see him in action. Guinness plays a character named Professor Marcus. The Professor is a deranged criminal who seems pretty confident that he's covering that up with his elegant, polite, professor act. While working on a bank robbery, The Professor needs somewhere to stay. He decides to rent a room from a sweet, elderly lady named Mrs. Wilberforce. He tells her that his musician friends will be visiting from time to time to practice. His friends carry instrument cases, but that's about as close as they get to being musicians.
It's implied that the other men are also criminals, although you're not told exactly what they've done in the past. I liked that their previous crimes weren't spelled out and that I was left to figure some of it out. I also liked that any violent moments were implied. You're able to put together what happened without seeing the details. That's something I like about older movies, that you're asked to use your imagination.
As I write about it now, it occurs to me that if I'd known what these guys had done in the past, they might not have seemed so funny. And I probably wouldn't be laughing as much if I'd seen the violence play-by-play. That would have broken up the mood for sure! Somehow this movie manages to walk the line of funny and dramatic without ever seeming uneven.
The "musicians" are all very different, as you can see. There's the nutty one, the tough guy, the one that could fill in as Watson in some Sherlock Holmes movie, the typical gangster, and the young, goofy guy. (Played by Peter Sellers!) This photo shows the characters' personalities perfectly.
I don't think I'm spilling the beans too much by telling you that the men carry on with the robbery they've planned and that Mrs. Wilberforce gets wise to it. Not that it took a whole lot of deduction on her part! After that, Mrs. Wilberforce is a problem for them, and you can guess how they choose to deal with her from the title of this movie.
I won't say anything beyond that, except to say that for me, that's when the movie gets extra funny and surprising. I'm really tempted to mention a few parts, but I'll make myself stop here.
I didn't manage to find The Ladykillers in its entirety online, not for free anyway. It's on one of those paid sites for $1.99:
I bet you guys could also find it at your local library. It stands a good chance of being at the library since it's been around for a while and it turns out a lot of people think it's a classic. If any of you have seen this movie already, I'm happy to discuss it in the comments!
I'll leave you a moment with Mr. Charming, himself:
I was thrilled to see how well stocked our local Michaels store was with Halloween goodies! I looked down the aisles and had that excited feeling I'm sure you all have when you see shelves fully stocked with Halloween goodies. Adrenaline rush!
I inspected the aisles and took some photos of my favorite items. Michaels had lots of skull/skeleton stuff and what I'd call a Victorian Gothic theme. There were also a few funny things, like this:
That tree has this expression like "What the heck happened to me?" It looks like he was sheet webbed. They went really heavy on the cotton/debris.
I bet you've all seen these pictures before. The ones that start off normally enough (although I think these two look pretty creepy to begin with).
Then as you walk past, the picture begins to change...
Boo!
This set of keys was surprisingly heavy. I guess I expected them to be made of foam or something. They'd work with a dungeon type theme.
I saw a few pumpkins I liked. This one had that kind of mercury glass thing going on. I just noticed a bunch of little me's reflected in it. Haha! It's like little, distorted funhouse mirrors.
What do you think of this as a pumpkin color? It's definitely nontraditional!
There were some ceramic pieces, ready to paint.
I was just reminded of something similar I saw on Tumblr recently. So that's where this is from - this one isn't my picture. Not sure who took this, actually. If someone reading this is the photographer, let me know and I'll give you credit!
Haha! Actually, there are a lot of cool Halloween wedding ideas out there. But I somehow doubt Michaels was suggesting people customize their weddings with these skulls.
OK, back to my photos. My favorite ceramic item on the shelf was this skull. I'm pretty sure it's the same as the ones someone else photographed above.
I'm not really sure what these are. Spiders suspended in a colorful gel? Cute little coffin boxes anyway.
Have any of you tried these candy corn lights? I've seen these the past few years in stores and wondered what they look like lit up. They have the potential to look pretty cool I think!
I love these cut wood decorations. I have a little haunted house like this that I painted last year.
My favorite cut out on the shelf was this coffin. It's so intricate. I assume these light up in many colors, the way my little haunted house does.
Lots of leaf garlands. I was looking at these, thinking how someone could be hiding behind the display. I was probably thinking that because of those people you see in those moss/leaf suits. Those Ghillie suits. Years back, some kid a town over got in trouble for sitting near people's porches at night, wearing a Ghillie suit. Can you imagine?
Check out that Poison bottle. Good to know it's organic and unfiltered. 😜
And those Bat Wings are "100% Pure" No additives in the Bat Wings.
I liked this spider ribbon. I assume it looks kind of transparent when you unwind it. The gold skulls are cool too.
Michaels had some Halloween candy out by the cash register. Cute little emoji Dracula suckers.
Some really cool Sugar Skull tins, which I assume have little skull shaped candies inside. I might be on the lookout for these during my After Halloween Haul.
I was amused by how many displays had been messed with in this Michaels! Like this skeleton who I'm pretty sure wasn't hoola-hooping to begin with. I saw a little killer whale toy posed to eat a house in a Christmas village display too. There were a handful of funny things that made me think a kid had been left to entertain themselves. 😁
This is a nice lead in to the skull/skeleton section of this blog post. As you'll see, they had a nice selection!
How cute is this little guy? He went with one of the Halloween towns.
He'd probably just been to the "Reaper Motorcycle Company" here:
Another cool miniature was this hearse led by a skeleton horse.
A different take on the skeleton horse with a sugar skeleton driver.
I couldn't help making my own display! He looked good by the cemetery gates.
Haha!
Glamorous.
These dapper guys went with the Victorian type Halloween decorations.
More of that mercury glass look. This had more of a bright red glow than you can see here. It reminds me of some old medicine bottles.
Yoga skeletons. I like any figurine doing yoga.
This one has some attitude!
"Ladies..."
They had a few things with a velvety covering, like this mirror. This one reminded me of a cameo, probably because I have an actual necklace that has a skeleton lady cameo with a fancy frame.
A pretty cool skeleton hand mirror. This might be another Haul purchase. Writing this blog post is feeling like a way for me to bookmark some favorite items in my mind. You can see some little witches dancing in the reflection.
Conga line rats!
On their own, I'm not sure what's going on. Is a lone skeleton rat begging for something? What would a skeleton rat have to beg for? And those books would in scale have to be pretty tiny! I know I'm giving this some extra thought, but still! I need a little explanation here.
The perfect transition from skeletons to black cats...
There were also some cat costumes for sale. Can you imagine a cat wearing this?
And not to be outdone...
My favorite cat of the day was at the Marshalls store next to the Michaels.
How cute is this!?
Marshalls had their own version of the crackled glass skull. I love the color!
And how cute is this? A "Spirits" and "Cheese" board! If your cheese cubes start moving around on this, you're in trouble. 😉
So, have you guys been seeing any cool Halloween stuff for sale? I didn't see any Halloween items out at Target the last time I was there, which was maybe a week ago. I'll keep my eyes on everyone's blogs, because I see some of you have been posting your Halloween finds.
P.S. ~ I was listening to this Halloween music mix while putting this blog post together. Thought you might enjoy it too!
13 Vintage Halloween Hop Songs from the 1950's, & 60's:
