This has driven me nuts for the last 25 years. Seen a couple of times on British TV in the 70’s in the afternoon, in color (I think), an anthology comedy consisting of three stories (I think), made in the 1960’s (I think). No idea of stars, no memory of the content of the other two stories, just a strong memory that the first story was about a woman in an English country house with pet tarantulas whose offspring were giant spiders (large dog sized). The climax involved the British police raiding the house and comically fighting the spiders, hitting them with bed pans, etc, simple effects that I remember being accomplished by shooting real spiders in a miniature house. I have tried to find any information on what this film might have been over the years, but with no luck. Any ideas?
This is really a stretch, and probably not right, but your description reminds me a little bit of “Kiss of the Tarantula.” I don’t remember it that well. Some details are off, but some are similar. There’s a woman who lives in a funeral home which could look like a manor house. She loves her pet spiders, and although I don’t remember any of them as big as dogs, I remember some scenes where the perspective used makes the spiders look really big.
It’s something to eliminate, at least. Good luck!
Hi, thanks so much for replying, I appreciate it. I will check up on “Kiss of the Tarantula”. This is an itch that has been driving me nuts for ages. Sometimes I think I imagined it, but certain shots are very clear in my mind-a policeman with a long handled bed pan strikes at a giant spider, in the next cut a real tarantula is hit by an (obviously miniature) bed pan prop. At the end after all the giant spiders are killed, the woman holds her two (normal sized) pet tarantulas and says something like “We will just have to start again” and the two tarantulas do a little ‘dance’ (achieved by reversing the film back and forth). I don’t know why this got lodged in there as a kid, but it did, and now I can’t shift it until I find out what it was. Thanks again for the reply.
O.K. it isn’t “Kiss of the Tarantula” (1976). The film I remember isn’t a horror movie, but a comedy. The spider story is only one of three, and I don’t think the other two stories had any fantastic elements, which is why I only remember the stuff with the spiders. The film may have been about deadly women who kill their husbands, and the first story was about a spider woman.
I, too, have trying to remember the name of this film. Thanks to information you have in your question, I am sure the film is “The Secret of My Success” from 1965. I am so happy to know that I did not hallucinate this film.
Yours,
HP
Dear HP! What a great Christmas present! Yes, you are right it is “The Secret Of My Success”! I checked the poster on Google (Frank Frazetta) and there in the background is the scene I remember. A bit more Googling and I tracked down the clip to confirm. A twenty five year old itch scratched at last! Huge thanks HP, this will be my best Christmas present this year. I know what you mean about hallucinating-I had started to believe that I had mixed up two separate films in my head, or just imagined it. It seemed so unlikely-a 1960’s comedy with giant spiders, how would that get made? But it did, and we saw it and we are not crazy. Of course, it is not available on DVD-so the search continues…
Thanks HP! Register for the site if you want us to track your Solves.
Wow, I just realized the initial post was from 2014!