Ask some sociologist as to who had the greatest impact on the Baby Boomers growing up and they'll probably name Dr. Spock.  But those of us who grew up on bizarre Mexican kiddie films and monster flicks know better.  The real answer to that question is...

PART ONE

By ROB CRAIG

(Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part series on film producer K. Gordon Murray by Rob Craig.  Rob is the brains behind a fantastic Website that pays tribute to one of the most neglected genre film icons of them all--K. Gordon Murray, the man who brought Mexican horror and kiddie flicks to Baby Boomers back in the Sixties and Seventies.  Rob Craig has been obsessed with odd film since age three, when he walked in on
his father watching Daughter Of Horror on TV in 1957. The madwoman opened the drawer, and inside was a human hand! Everything since has been sort of a letdown, but Rob especially loves the dingy, dark movies of K. Gordon Murray, Jerry Warren, Larry Buchanan, Andy Milligan, Phil Tucker, and yes,
even the over-promoted Ed Wood! Favorite films are Night Of The Ghouls, Robot Monster, and Teenage Zombies. Favorite actress: Katharine Victor! Favorite Actor: Gomar the Ape Man!
You can visit Rob's wonderful Website here.)

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, (Miami Beach!) lived an amazing man. Some say he could turn crap into gold! Others called him the devil himself! From obscure beginnings, this charismatic and canny fellow would eventually become known all over the world as the "King of the Kiddie Matinee!"   Eventually he would be remembered as the man who introduced Mexican horror films into American theaters and televisions.

His name is K. Gordon Murray. Those not immediately familiar with his name, have surely heard of his legendary films--Santa Claus, The Brainiac, Shanty Tramp, Wasted Lives, Puss 'N' Boots and Curse Of The Doll People among them.

Murray was a Miami, Florida-based producer and distributor of low-budget motion pictures. From the late Fifties through the mid Seventies, Murray released approximately 66 films. Murray imported, redubbed and released some 30 horror films. Murray released over 20 fairy tale films to a "Weekends Only" matinee audience, virtually creating the highly lucrative "Kiddie Matinee" marketing niche. Murray released about a dozen exploitation films, risque adult dramas designed both for drive-ins and adults-only grindhouses.

Murray's films are unbelievable, hilarious, pathetic, terrible, in many cases hard to describe and almost impossible to believe. Once you have seen a K. Gordon Murray film, you are not likely to forget it. And, as Bela Lugosi might say, "I don't know if this is a blessing, or a curse!"

Born the son of a funeral director, Murray had a fascination with a death and the circus since his earliest days. Curiously, Murray’s films all have a sense of the carnival and a touch of the morbid. Even the fairy tales tend to be creepy, and his famous, lurid marketing campaigns came as close to circus ballyhoo as anything ever seen.

Although his fairy tales and horror films were more numerous and popular, K. Gordon Murray began and ended his career as film producer with the staple of the independent producer: The exploitation film. These films range from corny nudey movies to tedious foreign melodramas to surreal, lusty backwoods marvels.

Following the lead of exploitation giants Kroger Babb, Dwain Esper and George Weiss, Murray leaped into the circus-like atmosphere of exploitation cinema sometime in the Fifties, after a successful stint as a traveling carnival entrepreneur.

Murray’s first venture was to rerelease a forgotten 1949 religious "epic", The Prince Of Peace. Soon following were redubbed foreign potboilers like Children Of Love and Wasted Lives: The Birth Of Twins. The latter was Murray's first bonafide "hit", due largely to the insertion of shocking childbirth footage and a built-in come-on for "sex manuals", which were sold at the refreshment stand!

During the early Sixties, Murray's energies seemed to be focused on his far more successful string of fairy tales for children, and his exploitation releases for the period, including Call Me Bad, Eve Or The Apple, The Turkish Cucumber, and The Price Of Sin, were nothing special, box office-wise.

In 1966 Murray formed a production arm designed to make original films for the drive-in market. He hired Cuban director Jose "Pepe" Prieto to helm his first two "original" productions, Shanty Tramp and Savages From Hell, two priceless South Florida potboilers that were very successful in numerous releases, and still hold up today as torches of B-movie brilliance.

In the early 1970's, Murray made two last stabs at exploitation infamy, The Daredevil and Thunder Country, but both were failures at the boxoffice, and thereafter Murray confined himself to still-popular reissues of his fairy tales, and TV sales of his horror film package.

Although Murray did well with the exploitation pictures, it was one fateful day in 1959, when he signed an agreement to purchase eight fantasy films from Mexico, that K. Gordon Murray sealed his destiny--soon, he would become "The King of the Kiddie Matinee."

The first fantasy Murray chose to release in North America was the bizarre and beautiful Mexican holiday fantasy, Santa Claus. A singular cross between a Luis Bunuel art film and a cheesy Saturday morning kid's TV show, Santa Claus is one of the most memorable and bewitching films of the genre. Made more accessible more bizarre by the US dubbing, the film was an immediate hit when released in 1960.

With Santa Claus, Murray came up with a radically new concept in the marketing of children's films. Combined with heavy "saturation" TV advertising, paid for entirely by the producer, Santa Claus, and subsequent children's films, were leased to theatres on a strictly weekends-only, matinees-only basis.

Up until this time, studios leased their product to theatres for all show dates, both weekend and weekday, both matinee and evening. This exclusionary policy by Murray in regards to new film releases was immediately embraced by the theatre owners (and soon copied by other studios, Disney foremost), creating the uniquely 1960's phenomenon known as "the Kiddie Matinee."

The period between 1960 and 1965 was when Murray's reign as "King of the Kiddie Matinee" was at its peak. Mexican films such as Little Red Riding Hood, Puss 'N' Boots and Rumplestiltskin were huge successes, and Murray's shrewd reissuing of Santa Claus every three years or so (for three decades) also proved extremely lucrative.

Some of the most memorable of the kiddie matinee films were the Mexican fairy tales, originally done by Roberto Rodriguez productions, and dubbed faithfully by Murray. Puss 'N' Boots, Little Red Riding Hood, Tom Thumb, and Little Red Riding Hood And The Monsters are wild, expressionist films, running more like horror films than fantasies, fondly recalled by anyone who’s seen them.

In fact, the Mexican fairy tales which Murray released are so creepy and full of gothic touches, one is tempted to call them "horror films for children". In Little Red Riding Hood, our heroine battles not only an evil skunk and a predatory wolf, but giant spiders, killer crocodiles, and Satan himself! In the mind-boggling sequel, Little Red Riding Hood And The Monsters, there is a veritable parade of horror-film icons, including witches, demons, animal people, a robot, a vampire, a dragon, and the  Frankenstein Monster himself! In Little Boy Blue And Pancho, our hero stumbles onto a mass grave, and has to fight off evil poachers. In PUSS ‘N BOOTS, an evil ogre tortures prisoners while his hideous demons terrorize citizens in the Haunted Forest. This is strong stuff!

Needless to say, these unique and entertaining fantasies were very popular in their original theatrical releases, and did well for thereafter on television.

Murray's success during this period was so impressive, he was courted by both NBC Television, and McDonald's Hamburgers (!) for possible tie-in projects. (Due to fast-fading boxoffice receipts at least, neither partnership materialized.)

In an attempt to further stretch the legacy of super-hit Santa Claus, Murray hurriedly shot three original "Santaland" featurettes with the mythic holiday icon, and released them to theatres as part of a double feature package with another of his fairy tale films.

In order to assist the connection between these original, threadbare productions and the comparatively lavish imported fairy tales, Murray had fashioned his own costumes of two beloved characters from the Mexican fairy tales: Stinky the Skunk and the Ferocious Wolf.

In the early Seventies, the big movie studios and major exhibitors got together and came up with a contractual clause stating if an exhibitor won a bid on a picture, it had to play on weekends as well as during regular weekday playdates.

This move effectively killed the Kiddie Matinee in one fell swoop, which dwindled to minuscule proportions in the mid-to-late 1970's, and was virtually unheard-of by 1980.

Murray's fairy tales range from the beautiful to the terrifying, from the cryptic to the unforgettable, from the quaint to the avant-garde, from the primitive to the post-modern. They are assuredly K. Gordon Murray's legacy to film history, comprising a singular "Wonder World" for which we are in profound debt.

Next Month: Mexican Monsters Invade America!

 Thanks, Rod.   This first article is sure to remind many Monster Boomers of the peculiar "kiddie movies" their parents dragged them to--the ones that were scarier than some horror films! 

Article copyright © Rod Craig.   Visit his Website.  All the amazing K. Gordon Murray movie artwork in this article and elsewhere in this issue (and more) can be found at his  Website...so visit it, already!

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