MI5 presents: Where Were They Before?

[Miss Interoceter]

Yes, this time the game twists uncomfortably around and asks, what were these people doing before that brought them to this point in their pathetic little lives? And why was it important enough to put onto film? Point being, whatever they were doing before, was probably a lot more interesting than the hour and 30 minutes we were forced to watch. And you have a choice this week! No not soup or salad, but close. Short or Feature. Is this getting to be a lot to remember? Should I write it down? Anyway.

For the short, we will be considering, "A Date With Your Family." With my beloved Hugh narrarating, the perfect unruffled family meal becomes an exercise in torture. But what led up to it? You tell me. Be creative. Cause you know, that counts, and all.

Secondly, the Feature Film to consider is, "The Head That Wouldn't Die" or was it Coudn't? Anyway, you know, 16th century Spanish guy, Jessica, and Aunt Flavia and the others. What in the heck brought them all out to that god forsaken piece of ground and do you think that maybe Aunt Flav-O-Flav had a deal going with that historian guy long before we came along? Again, a good place to be creative is here.

Do one or the other or both if it suits you. We'll have winners for both. Just play! Great prizes as always. Play to find out what!

[losingmydignity]

Poopie! I haven't seen either of these...

Can I do The BRAIN that wouldn't die? Please? Please!?

Oh, wait, everyone died at the end of that one.

[Miss Interoceter]

Okay, lmd gets a makeup assignment. You and you only may do Brain that wouldn't die. But remember, it wasn't what happened after this week. It's what they were all doing BEFORE the movie really got going.

[losingmydignity]

Oh, boy. I love homework!
;D
Watch this space...

[NewGirl731]

Okay Interocitor, this is tough...

I have to go with Date With Your Family, because I haven't seen the other one.

Are we talking just prior, or awhile back? I'm going with a little of both here.

Just prior, Mom was sitting playing with whatever the hell yarn deal she has. She's been sitting there in fact since about 8:30 that morning. Brother and Sister just got off the Whites Only bus from school. Ah, the glory of being white in the segregated south back then, I tell ya!! Jr. is actually a ventriloquist dummy, so he was in his suitcase until Brother took him out after school. Father was, what's this? Father was with a 14 year old Polynesian prositute prior to coming home? Let's just not think about it.

Awhile back, before Brother, Sister, and Jr., let's take a look at Father and Mother. Father was actually raised in a Nazi Youth camp near the German Alps. 4am naked roll call in December, torture of the smaller camp attendees, propaganda movies all day Sunday, all pleasant memories for Father!

Mother was a southern belle debutante. She was admitted for several years to an asylum after having feelings of attraction for the colored gardeners son. She underwent several bouts of electric shock therapy, and will continue to be heavily medicated for the rest of her life.

No one's sure how Brother and Sister were ever conceived - Father has no memory of it, and Mother's not talking. Mother insists there's a third child, so to appease her and end the crying jags, the family bought Jr., actually a ventriloquist dummy. Brother does the voice.

[losingmydignity]

Boy, I am tardy. Miss I has already gone and posted a new MI. Really, I had it all typed up and ready to post but some locusts and preying manti ate it. Honest. But that's a story for next time...

Now, remember, Miss I only gave me permission to do Brain TWD and what happened before the film began.

Well, through my usual contacts in the Deep 13 time machine, I journeyed southward to that fateful morning just before the opening operation.
Actually it wasn't terribly interesting. The Doc forgot to wash his hands again and the Mrs. soon to be panned, Jan, had her hair dooed and spent all the morning under a head, uh, hair dryer.
That's it. I went back farther and saw the Doc's High School yearbook where he was listed as "most likely to get ahead."

I still wasn't satisfied. So I started thinking. What about that poor pin-headed shlub in the lab's back room. YOu know, the room with the little door at a level convient for the creature inside to stick his arm out of and grab master when he gets a chance. The guy with the zipper on the back of his neck. Who was that guy? Where did they get him, indeed, where do they get all those poor lab rat-men who excell so well in being transformed into beasties and baddies, the Moreau rejects of the B mad world...Carradine's bevy of furry Unearthlies, Atomic Brain's Stephen Stills meets Larry Talbot prowling security, Zucco's Strange (love) , the J. Carroll Nash's (sp?)of this world.

Not only did I find out who he was, but also had answered another long night of candle burning question: Where do the mads get all that lab equipment?

Here is the story: simple and true.

The year is 1934. A Dr. Hjalmar Poelzig has been redecorating his futuristic mad lab in honor of impending guest Dr. Verdegast. (there's a black cat involved but it's a little too much to get into right now) But where to get the needed stuff? Those cut little electros that go zappity zap. The test tubes that foam on cue, or smoke, or glow, etc. You know what I'm talking about. He needed this stuff. But there was nowhere to get it and having his place art decoed had to suffice.
Poelzig escaped his exploding house and vowed it would never happend again...
He formed Poelzig's Gizmo Supply Company and, after a slow start supplying phantoms who creep and the like, things BOOMED in the 50's. He took on a team of delivery men.
Now one of these men, whom we will call CF to protect his innocent identity, was his best and brightest and took on P's most important deliveries. In less than a decade he delivered a great big hydraulic press to one scientist (during the delivery CF told the man's wife, who was signing the papers, "Careful now, don't get any ideas about putting your husband's head in there, hah, hah" and she gave him the strangest look!); something called an inter...o...meter....or something...to another guy, though what was the big deal it was just a flat screen tv set; a bunch o stuff to a bunch o guys and girl named Steve in some damn remote place near LA; a godawfully weird-looking washing machine kind of thing to some horny old lady and her Mad friend in a Selznick like house (where one of CF's colleagues disappeared); to some surgeon who kept an awful lot of snarling nasty dogs and was named Orloff or Z or Mabuse (funny, he had no mirrors in his castle)...or whatever. Who cares!
All that really matters is that fateful night when a simple-minded Poelzig employee, our CF, walked into the house/lab of our nutty doc and assistant from BTWD. The rest is hysterical, uh, history.
One more thing: he did escape the fire at the end. In fact, he was quite a celebrity for a night and went on to direct several motion pictures before dying under mysterious circumstances.
But that, my friends, is a subject for a future story...