K. Gordon Murray

K. Gordon Murray (1922-1979) was an American producer, most notable for his redubbing and re-releasing of foreign fairy tale films for U.S. audiences. He is often cited as the "King of the Kiddie Matinee". Murray also marketed many of the "SANTO" films popular in Mexico , changing SANTO'S name to Samson and dubbing them in English. (SOURCE:,; IMDB).

Among his more famous contributions are "Little Red Riding Hood" (1960), "Little Red Riding Hood and the Monsters" (1962), "Rumpelstiltskin" (1955), "The Golden Goose" (1964) and "Santa Claus" (1959), which he also narrated under the pseudonym "Ken Smith".

Life

Born in Bloomington, Indiana, where many of the leading circus performers of the time spent their winter seasons, Kenneth 'Kagey' Gordon Murray, son of an Irish-American funeral home director, occasionally spent his boyhood in the company of those struggling artists. By his teenage years, Kagey had set up a 'corn game,' what would today be known as a bingo parlor, in one of his father's cemetery tents. He then took that corn game out on the road with West's World Wonder Shows Carnival, eventually rising to the position of manager. During the winter season at Bloomington, Murray set up a network of quasi-legal slot machines. In that capacity, he had a talent for smooth-talking the authorities. By the late 1930's, Murray was using his circus friends' various connections to aid a casting director to hire little people to act as Munchkins in the 1939 MGM movie, "The Wizard of Oz". Shortly afterward, Murray married his longtime sweetheart, Irene, a college graduate from Illinois State University. In 1949, Ken and Irene settled in Hollywood, where none other than Cecil B. DeMille himself hired Murray to help promote his circus epic, "The Greatest Show on Earth". Ultimatly, the Murrays moved to Miami, where Ken launched K. Gordon Murray Productions, making several deals with such top pioneers in exploitation filmmaking as Kroger Babb. He often changed the titles of his movies, giving them more sensational, more emotionally charged monikers, in order to sell them in a better way. The movie Santa Claus made so much money, that it is the only film in U.S. history (with the possible exception of Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs") to be released profitably in theaters every few years for three decades. When Murray saw this, he started to dub more children's fairy tale films into English, and by the end of the 1960's, he had been hailed by film critics as the "King of the Kiddie Matinee". To promote these films, he hired a local costume shop to create costumes for his two leading mascots: Stinky the Skunk and the Ferocious Wolf, both of whom appeared in a series films based on the story of Little Red Riding Hood. In all, Murray would release over 60 movies in only 15 years. Towards the end of his life, Murray ran afoul of the Internal Revenue Service, which seized his films and took them out of circulation. But on December 30th, 1979, before he could even take the IRS to court to reclaim his movies, K. Gordon Murray suffered a fatal heart attack. He was 67. In a bitter ironic twist, he had died on the same date, and at the same age, as had his own father.

Films

* The Prince of Peace (aka "The Lavton Story")
* Why Girls Leave Home (aka "Secrets of Beauty")
* Children of Love (originally French)(1953)
* Mother Holly (Frau Holle) (1954)
* King Thrushbeard (1954)
* Hansel and Gretel (1954/II)
* Rumpelstiltskin (1955)
* The False Prince (1957)
* The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy (1957)
* Wasted Lives (1957) (originally "The Most Wonderful Moment", an Italian film)
* Little Angel (1958) (presenter)
* Naughty New York (1959)
* Santa Claus (film) (1959) (presenter)
* Count Frankenhausen (aka "The Bloody Vampire")(1962)
* The Turkish Cucumber (1962)
* Little Red Riding Hood (1960/1963)
* Bring Me the Vampire (1963)
* Santa Claus and His Helpers (1964)
* Santa's Enchanted Village (1964) (writer)
* The Golden Goose (1964)
* Magic Land of Mother Goose (1965)
* The Swamp Of The Lost Monsters (aka "Swamp Of The Lost Souls") (1965) (originally "El Pantano De Las Animas", Swamp Of The Spirits, 1956)
* Wrestling Women vs a Mummy ("Las Luchadoras Contra La Momia")(1965)
* Santa's Magic Kingdom (1966) (writer)
* The Big Bad Wolf (1957/1966)
* Pied Piper Of Hamelin (1957/1966)
* Shanty Tramp (1967) (writer)
* The Doctor Says (aka "The Doctor Speaks Out, The Price of Sin, Wages of Sin") (1968)
* Savages from Hell (1968) (writer & composer)
* Curse Of The Doll People ("Munecos Infernales") (1968)
* Shoemaker And The Elves (1956/1968)
* The Princess and the Swineherd (1953/1968)
* Santa's Giant Film Festival of the Brothers Grimm (1969)
* Santa's Fantasy Fair (1969)
* Witch's Mirror (1960/1969)
* Mother Goose' Birthday Party (1970)
* Jack & the Beanstalk (1970)
* The Daredevil (1972)
* Thunder County (1974)

External links

* [http://www.kgordonmurraymovie.org "The Wonder World of K. Gordon Murray"] documentary site includes an EXCLUSIVE "teaser" trailer for the upcoming feature-length film dedicated to the man who brought you the cult classic's... "SANTA CLAUS", "The Brainiac", "Shanty Tramp", and the US english-language debut of the infamous mexican masked wrestler known as "El Santo" (though renamed by Murray as "Samson").

*imdb name|id=0615096|name=K. Gordon Murray
* [http://www.kgordonmurray.com The Wonder World of K. Gordon Murray]

According to IMDB (INTERNATONAL MOVIE DATA BASE ) K.Gordon Murray died of a heart attack being in debt to the IRS .