1/ Murray imported, redubbed and released some 30 horror films, primarily from Mexico.
2/ Murray released over 20 fairy tale films to a "Weekends Only" matinee audience, virtually creating the highly lucrative "Kiddie Matinee" marketing niche. These films were either redubbed imports, rereleases of older films, or original productions.
3/ Murray released about a dozen exploitation films, risque adult dramas designed both for drive-ins and adults-only grindhouses. These included imported foreign films and original productions.
In addition to highly successful theatrical releases, Murray's films also have enjoyed continued exposure and popularity on TV throughout the 1960's and 1970's, and to a lesser degree on home video. The current status of most of these films is obscure, as Murray rarely copyrighted his product. Most of the films then, fell into the public domain for many years. Due, however, to the recently-passed GATT treaty, in which formerly public domain films have a generic retro copyright assigned to them, many of the films are now held in limbo in which they are no longer in the public domain, nor are they available for licensing by the original owners. Thus, some of these films are becoming extremely difficult to obtain, except through the video "gray market".
THE KING OF CULT FILM
We like to think of a "Cult Film" thusly:
1/ any film that has taken on a life of its own, long after its intended purpose (i.e. original release) has expired, that is, any film that becomes more interesting as it ages.
2/ any film that is so unusual, unique or bizarre that it compels one to watch, often against good judgement and popular opinion.
3/ any film that, as opposed to the "art by committee" groupthink that describes all Hollywood product, reflects the particular aesthetic vision of its maker(s), and this vision, however warped or botched, is clearly visible in the finished product.
As every film in his large output meets these criteria, we nominate K. Gordon Murray as "the King of Cult Film"! Murray's films are unbelievable, hilarious, pathetic, terrible, in many cases hard to describe and almost impossible to believe.
UNDER THE BIG TOP
THE ANTI-DISNEY
DEATH GOD
Nevertheless, there is beauty to be found in the films of K. Gordon Murray. It may be twisted, murky, even morbid, but it is there: in the exotic and alien foreign imagery; in the florid, frenetic dubbing; in the rhapsodic, promise-the-moon boasts of advertising; in the curious, pervasive obsession with death in all forms.
What Murray's films were selling, more than anything, was the hope, in narrative form, of transcendant spiritual dreams (i.e faith) conquering the terrors of certain annihilation (i.e. death). Thus, Murray is assuredly a pivotal apocalyptic filmmaker, even religious, and his works, to a film, are primal battles between life and death, between good and evil.
There is no Murray film that does not illustrate this eternal spiritual battle vividly and fundamentally, and many films bring these dueling forces to life in shockingly literal and overt terms.
The comforting certainty that good, that is life, tends to win in the films does not void the fact that the battle was hair-raising, fraught with doubt, in fact much too close to offer any real comfort at all.
This observation suggests one thing only: evil is exceedingly powerful, a crafty and vicious foe, extremely devoted to crushing good. This is the fuel of all modern horror, and indeed, the
inspiration for the classic fairy tale. Murray's horror and fairy tale titles all have a demonstrable (and ofttimes quite horrible and muscular) evil to taunt and torment our heroes. Even exploitation films like SHANTY TRAMP and SAVAGES FROM HELL have "Good" only winning at the last minute, by the skin of its teeth, and, one might suggest, almost by accident. This is not a reassuring lesson.
Thus, it is safe to call all of Murray's product "dark", in the term's most romantic narrative and philosophic sense. Even when the Doll People have been destroyed, one still gets the creeps thinking of their absolute perversity. Even when Red Riding Hood and her friends have defeated the evil Queen, one is still shaking in one's boots at the memory of the parade of grotesques our heroes had to brave in order to prevail. Even when the virgin is saved from the carnal clasp of the Savages From Hell, we get the sense that the Law was only barely stronger than the brawn of the wicked, and in fact, victory may have been virtually, mere luck.
Murray's films, then, reflect the qualms of the skeptic, and the dread of the pessimist, and thus are very modern in their anger and despair. Whereas other low-budget fantasies, chillers and exploitations of the era were often bright and happy trifles, the offspring of Murray's Wonder World tended to be grim, creepy affairs, certainly engrossing, but rarely reassuring or uplifting.
This makes the films of K. Gordon Murray all the more compelling and memorable, one might even say indelible. 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!" Indeed...
THE OCCULT CONNECTION
It is not surprising, then, that Murray's films have always held especial appeal to those individuals and groups whose theological aspirations tend towards the dark side.
For instance, rumors persist about a Long Island devil cult which, primarily in the late 60's/early 70's, worshipped K. Gordon Murray as a demon incarnate, and held rituals based on telecasts of his films out of Manhattan TV stations.
I recall going to Mark Ricci's great Memory Shop in Greenwich Village in the early 70's, to browse through movie material. I inquired about the Murray fairy tales, and Ricci produced, from behind the counter, a small box full of original 35mm trailers, posters, press kits and 8x10 stills from many of the Murray fairy tales. This mouth-watering collection included such rarities as the rare pressbook for LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD AND THE MONSTERS, with the alternate title LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD AND THE FUNNY FUNNY MUNSTERS.
As I perused this box of treasures, I asked what he was asking for the items. Ricci got visibly nervous and said, "Oh, no! I can't sell ya these! I gotta save this box for that Long Island group. They get first dibs on all the Murray stuff! If it got out that I let you even
look at this stuff, they'd get me!" I thought this an odd comment, so I glanced at Ricci to see if he was laughing. He was not.
About five years later, at a NY Star Trek Convention, I ran across a fanzine which ran a column dealing with the occult and movies. Most of the article dealt with underground filmmakers like Kenneth Anger). At the end, there was a very odd reference to MurrayFilm: "A New York City-based devil-worshipping cult, which also deifies filmmaker K. Gordon Murray and his horrible imported Mexican films, reportedly holds rituals during telecasts of his films on Channel 7 WABC-TV." Likely nonsense, but what an odd thing to report!
THE LEGEND GROWS
If you were an even luckier (?) child, you might have suffered through PUSS 'N BOOTS in a cold theatre on Thanksgiving weekend, wondering when the grimacing, screeching abomination would end. And then, leaving the theatre, you would be unable to forget the creepy film for weeks, wanting to tell anyone who'd listen what a god-awful, unholy and marvelous thing you had seen!
Luckily, the horror films and fairy tales are relatively easy to locate on video, thanks to a 2002 release of the Murray catalog by Something Weird Video, in conjunction with Exclusive International Pictures.
Several of the Murray "grindhouse" films are still amongst the missing, a somewhat unusual occurrence in this age of trash film revival and video resurrection, yet we have hope that they too will be resurrected!
WACKY, WEIRD & WONDERFUL
It's hard to find a definitive list of films produced and/or distributed by Murray. Even the exhaustive www.IMDb.com doesn't catch them all. Our list is most likely not complete either, but contains titles that have never been listed before anywhere else, so we feel it is about as complete a list as exists at present.
What follows are K. Gordon Murray productions, broken down into three specific categories: the Fairy Tales, the Horror Films, and the Exploitation films. Each link will take you to a page containing all the titles in that category, with further links for each film.
Each title has its own page, including (hopefully) full production credits, cast listings, synopsis, review, and images from the film or its marketing material, as well as interesting notes about the film's production and history.
1922: Born Kenneth Gordon Murray in Bloomington, Illinois, the winter home of touring circus performers, Murray was the son of a funeral director.
1938: At high school age, Murray hung around the visiting circuses.
1938: Murray's first job in Showbiz was as a casting assistant for MGM, hiring munchkins for THE WIZARD OF OZ. Murray made ends meet by driving the family hearse. He was also the drummer for a local band, which is how he met his future wife.
1942: Murray's first independent business was a portable bingo game, mounted in a burial tent borrowed from his father, set up in a fairgrounds in Illinois. Soon, Murray added a carnival ride and an ice cream machine; "Murray's Fair" was very successful.
1944: Murray purchases an aging carnival, "West's Wonder Shows," in Illinois, renames it "United Liberty Shows". The show was contained on 15 ancient railroad flat cars with busted couplers. Murray chained the cars together when the show traveled by rail from town to town. Murray billed himself as "The Youngest Owner in Show Business".
1945: Murray took his earnings from the carnival, and went into a joint venture with his father, into a movie theatre construction firm.
1949: Murray moved to Hollywood with Irene. Worked for Cecil B. DeMille to promote the new movie, THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH.
1950: Disenchanted with Hollywood, Murray and wife moved to Miami, Florida, and formed K. Gordon Murray Productions.
c1957: Murray begins to release exploitation films, including THE PRINCE OF PEACE and CHILDREN OF LOVE.
c1957: Murray leased THE PRINCE OF PEACE (a 1949 passion play about the life of Christ, from Wichita, KS) from exploitation legend Kroger Babb (along with the film's promotional van), and successfully rereleased it.
1959: Murray purchased 28 horror films and 8 children's films from Mexico, and thus began the first wide-scale dubbing of foreign films ever undertaken. He invented/refined the "looping" process of dubbing, now the film industry standard.
1959: Murray's first lucrative film release was WASTED LIVES: THE BIRTH OF TWINS, in which he took an Italian "hygiene melodrama" called THE MOST WONDERFUL MOMENT, added an on-screen sex-manual promotion, spliced in an ancient childbirth reel, and dubbed it into English. The release was highly successful, largely due to an aggressive promotional campaign that included the "Sex Manuals."
1960: Murray released the Mexican fantasy SANTA CLAUS, using saturation TV advertising paid for by the producer (an unprecedented move), and a rigid promo plan for theatres: Weekend matinees only, 3 showings, per day, etc. The pressbooks even warned theatre owners: "This is a tried and true formula for money-making. If you will not follow the program as outlined herein, DO NOT BOOK OR PLAY THE PICTURE!!!" Also, Murray instituted a one-price admission policy (50 cents), so that "Every Person is a Child to see SANTA CLAUS!"
The film became a huge money maker, in its first release and subsequent releases every three years, and is the only film in US history (with the possible exception of Disney's SNOW WHITE & THE SEVEN DWARFS) to be profitably released theatrically every several years for THREE decades!
1961: Murray released the Mexican fantasy LA SONRISA DE LA VIRGEN as LITTLE ANGEL, with a filmed intro by TODAY SHOW host Hugh Downs.
1962: Murray took a 1956 Spanish sex film, LA DIANA CAZADORA, dubbed and released it as CALL ME BAD.
1963: Murray purchased 8 kiddy films, plus the sex comedy DIE TURKISCHE CUCUMBER, from Germany.
1964: Murray had his own Stinky the Skunk and Ferocious Wolf suits fabricated by a Miami costume shop, along the lines of the characters in the Mexican Little Red Riding Hood movies. The US Stinky and Wolf made live appearances at special matinee showings of the Riding Hood
movies, as well as starring, with Puss n' Boots, in a trilogy of cheaply-filmed US Santa Claus featurettes for Murray's growing Kiddie Matinee market.
1965: Murray formed Young America Productions, to distribute his dubbed Mexican horror movies. Murray released several of the films theatrically, in double-bill packages to drive-ins, and throughout the 60's, leased all 28 to American International Television for TV horror-film packages.
1965: Murray released his first German fairy tale, RUMPELSTILTSKIN, to huge success.
1965: The NBC-TV network approached Murray for a possible weekly Sunday Night series called THE WONDER WORLD OF K. GORDON MURRAY, which would feature condensed versions of his many fairy tale movies. The series never got beyond the planning stage.
1966: Murray released his second German fairy tale, THE GOLDEN GOOSE, to grim returns.
1966: Murray forms a production arm designed to make original productions for the drive-in market. He hires Cuban director Jose "Pepe" Prieto to helm the exploitation films.
1967: Murray's first original production, SHANTY TRAMP, was released as an X- rated sex film, and did extremely well. (Murray sold this film five years later to Jerry Gross' Cinemation Industries, who rereleased an R-rated version to great success.)
1967: Murray leased a 1957 Made-for-TV musical fantasy, THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN, starring Van Johnson and Lori Nelson, and released it theatrically, to disastrous results. Murray's Kiddy Matinee market was dying.
1968: Murray released another German fairy tale, THE SHOEMAKER AND THE ELVES, to poor returns. A rerelease of RUMPELSTILTSKIN fared no better. Yet another German fairy tale, THE DONKEY, THE TABLE AND THE STICK was released, and promptly pulled, due to controversy over the poster art, which showed a donkey crapping diamonds out of its ass. Murray decided to release the remaining 4 German fairy tales directly to television, where they quickly faded into obscurity, and remain lost today.
c1970: With his booty as exploitation film producer extraordinaire, Murray entered the lucrative Florida real estate market.
1970: Immediately preceding the release of one of his last children's features, MOTHER GOOSE' BIRTHDAY PARTY, Murray and fast-food giant McDonald's announced plans to produce a group of children's features together. McDonald's backed out, soliciting instead TV producers Sid &
Marty Krofft (H.R. PUFNSTUF) to create a series of children-oriented TV commercials featuring super-clown Ronald McDonald and other costumed fantasy characters, obviously inspired by Murray's Mexican fairy tales.
1972: Murray decided to make another original exploitation production. His comeback film, THE DAREDEVIL, was a big flop.
1974: Murray made THUNDER COUNTY, his last original production. It also was a relative failure at the boxoffice.
1970s: Murray became a contractor for the state of Florida, building many industrial parks throughout Miami, many of which are still standing.
c1969-1976: Murray leased 12 Mexican horror films (including THE VAMPIRE and THE WITCH'S MIRROR) to Doug Hobart, a movie f/x artist. Hobart traveled the South with the films, in a show called, "The Fifth Dimension." Hobart would do live "Vampire" appearances, and hand out
"Blood Cocktails" to audience members.
1979: Murray died of a heart attack on December 30th (while watching a Pittsburgh Steelers football game), at the age of 57, the same age and date as his father...
all written contents copyright © 2001 - 2004 by Rob Craig unless otherwise noted, all rights reserved
K. Gordon Murray was a Florida-based producer and distributor of low-budget motion pictures. From the late 1950's through the mid 1970's, Murray released approximately 66 films, which can be broken down into three categories:
The term "Cult Film" has become as meaningless a term as "Outsider Art," watered down to the point of impotence. Cult Film can imply anything now from films with occult overtones, to any film that stinks, to any film that has a following of fans. Just as the term "Independent Film" now means nothing more than any product coming out of a major studio that didn't cost more than $20 million, Cult Film is a term that has lost its meaning.
Born the son of a funeral director, Murray had a fascination with death and the circus since his earliest days. Interestingly, his films all have a sense of the carnivalesque and 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.
Murray's release of several fairy tale movies, including the highly successful LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD and PUSS 'N BOOTS, made him popular with large theatre chains. In some cities, Murray's boxoffice grosses for his fairy tale movies were far higher than similar Disney product. Murray got a reputation as "The Anti-Disney", for the inferior quality of his films, but was admired (and envied) in the industry for his aggressive, highly successful marketing campaigns.
As opposed to, say, the work of cult film god Ed Wood, the films of K. Gordon Murray are decidedly un-aesthetic. Or rather, if there is an aesthetic, it is obscure and slapdash, a shoddy, involuntary aesthetic, the unwitting product of the cynical and careless.
One cannot look at much of Murray's product without thinking, "these flicks are really weird, unearthly, morbid, creepy, unholy, etc." Indeed, even the fairy tales have an eerie, unwholesome look about them. Many of Murray's horror and fairy tale films feature severe occult activity, including prayers to devils, satanic cults, and the invocation of evil spirits.
Murray's films have always been popular, since they were first broadcast on TV in the early 60's, and inhabited American movie screens at about the same time. Which of us baby boomers does not have a fond memory of first stumbling upon DOCTOR OF DOOM at 1am on Channel 7, rubbing our eyes in disbelief, chuckling at the almost surreal dubbing, applauding the ridiculous mock-gothic atmosphere of the unruly film?
The films of K. Gordon Murray are certainly this, and more. Murray is one of the most fascinating independent filmmakers of the 60's (although his releases span 1958-1974, and possibly beyond). Much of his output is lost and/or shrouded in obscurity. Some of this is Murray's doing, for he rereleased films constantly, sometimes using different titles for the same film. Murray rarely copyrighted his films, and many fell into public domain obscurity. Others were sold to television, and were shown for years, until their schlocky, corny quality (in addition to most of them being in black and white) made them too antique for TV packages.
A BRIEF CHRONOLOGY
(compiled by Charles Kilgore, with additional information by Rob Craig, Roy Jonas and Sheldon Schermer)
