It Came From Weirdsville...

Weirdsville is perhaps a town that remains uncredited on that folded up map you have tucked away inside of your glove compartment, but in cinema's universe, this town is alive and jumpin'! If you'd like to take a holiday there it can be arranged  by seeing some of the following :

Cat Women of the Moon (1953). Now this would be Sonny Tufts' surreal schlock-fest that was oh so bad it was oh so good for ya. Mr. Tufts had a most uncanny and unusual backstory - an accomplished opera singer and musical theatre bigwig was he, for starters. Sonny didn't leave being a thespian out of his professions equation, as he would star himself in this spaced oddity and earlier star in the war drama So Proudly We Hail (1943). Cat Women From The Moon was a 3-D entry that centered on an octet of surviving sweeties after the collapse of their ancient civilization. As anemically budgeted as this picture was - it certainly did have plenty of heart! One of noir's very special darlings, Marie Windsor stars here, but ever so much to her chagrin, this would be a moment she would have sooner forgotten, ( but really Marie, it wasn't that bad after all ) !  This was honestly quite compelling given its genre and the places it really could have gone.

          Boy George stole my makeup sense!


And how about this for some schlockenspiel?

                   Eat your heart out Dante!

From Hell It Came, and don't be shocked if it literally did. This 1957 screamer was brought to you by Dan Milner, yes, that Dan Milner, who directed over a baker's dozen of Popeye episodes and The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues (1955), and blimey, this guy never stopped working! Another godawful yet wonderful yarn involving a falsely accused prince of murder - who in some South Seas island tribal ritual, for his death penalty, would be stabbed and later buried most conventionally - inside of a tree stump. Please don't worry though, as instant reincarnation is thematic in Weirdsville , that probably won't be the last you see of this dead man in a tree now, will it? And its name will be Tabanga!


And just when you thought it was safe to buy a house without someone already living inside your kitchen wall :

          I come with the house, like it or lump it!


It's bad, bad, bad Bad Ronald (1974). And personally, one of the favourite televisual memories of my 1970's youth. Where else can you find Kim Hunter letting the Oedipal bells ring so proudly for her murdering bugger of a teenage son? Why, she will just go to any and all lengths to cover the crime - and that she does, and with some strategic grout and spackle, who would be the wiser? In fact when it all comes down to brass tax, and Ronald (Scott Jacoby) is being sought after by every cop in town - the only safe refuge for him is in that makeshift room. And as per Murphy's Law, it would make its expected appearance, and would come down harder than the 'long arm of', seeing to it that not long after Ronald settles into his comfy sheet-rock lair, Mama would take ill and need to go to hospital. Sadly, after undergoing a surgical procedure which would not prove successful, she would not be coming home - and there would be Ronald, still beyond the wall, and not in the right space to make any such mortgage payments. Eventually, the reality of realty would take over, and a new, very WASPish family, headed by Dabney Coleman, its breadwinner - would be just so pleased they could get such a bargain of a house, and would decide to buy up quickly this little fixer upper. Three pretty blonde teenage daughters and a peephole in the pantry - need I continue? This one still has the ability to give one those bejesus fears, even if viewed in adulthood, and that's what makes this one a proper house on the corner of Weird Lane, Weirdsville.

          Recently,  I have  heard these digs are on the market again.


And last but not least - how about this weird number :

 
                So here's not looking at you kid?


Casablanca (1942)... oh, I must be in Weirdsville myself!