Movie Ads of the Week: HELL UP IN HARLEM vs. THAT MAN BOLT (both 1973)

How big of a star was Fred Williamson on Friday, December 21, 1973? Big enough for two of his action vehicles to open in New York on the same day! American International unveiled HELL UP IN HARLEM, their quickie sequel to BLACK CAESAR, opposite Universal's internationally shot karate/superspy flick THAT MAN BOLT. The Daily News even pitted the two films against each other by running their opening day ads on the same page.

The Endangered List (Case File #124)

BLACK CHARIOT (1971)

Starring
Bernie Casey
Barbara O. Jones
Richard Elkins
Gene Dynarski
Pauline Myers
Michael Warren

Written, produced and directed
 by
Robert L. Goodwin

A
Third World Distributors & Malcolm Berkley
presentation

View-Master: THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE

We haven't done a View-Master post in a while, but you can read Chris' review of THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE packet in the latest issue of Cinema Retro (Vol. 8: #24), on sale now!

Movie Ad of the Week: SWEET KILL (1972)

Those fine folks at the IMDb have Curtis Hanson's SWEET KILL listed as a 1973 release, but we've found an opening date of March 15, 1972 for the sexy psychothriller on two screens in El Paso, TX (The film was submitted to the MPAA in 1971 as SWEETKILL). After playing through the rest of the year and failing to set box-offices ablaze, Roger Corman reportedly had Hanson shoot additional nude scenes so SWEET KILL could be reworked into a sexploitation movie and re-released as THE AROUSERS. This is the version that was released on VHS by Embassy Home Entertainment in the '80s and is now available on DVD from Shout! Factory (misleadingly packaged and being sold under the SWEET KILL handle and advertising campaign). The ad below is from the May 16, 1973 opening of THE AROUSERS in Findlay, OH. Jim Hillier and Aaron Lipstadt's 1981 book Roger Corman's New World (BFI Dossier #7) lumps SWEET KILL/THE AROUSERS together in the same entry, with a May 9, 1973 release date and no indication that two different cuts of the film exist.

Movie Ad of the Week: JOSHUA AND THE BLOB (1972)

John C. Lange's animated 7-minute short JOSHUA AND THE BLOB (1972) -- a follow-up to his JOSHUA IN A BOX (1969) -- was acquired by Jack H. Harris Enterprises, submitted to the MPAA for a G rating, and used as an added bonus with SON OF BLOB (a.k.a. BEWARE! THE BLOB) for some theatrical bookings.

Movie Ad of the Week: LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON (1974)

Duke Mitchell's THE EXECUTIONER -- better known as MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE -- carries a 1978 release date on the IMDb, but above is the ad for its world premiere as LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON at the Globe (a Times Square porno house) on December 19, 1974. By August of '75 it had been retitled MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE and was playing the Skyway Drive-In in Las Vegas (co-feature: WHITE LIGHTNING) as well as two theaters in Washington, D.C., where it was co-billed with VOODOO HEARTBEAT.

Movie Ad of the Week: STAG MODEL SLAUGHTER (1975)

Mike Decker of Just For the Hell of It! (J4HI!) sent us this cool ad mat a couple of weeks ago to use for a future "Updating the IMDb" entry, but the title is so rare that we thought it should get its own post. American International Pictures released Pete Walker's HOUSE OF WHIPCORD beginning in November 1974, but by July '75 it had been retitled STAG MODEL SLAUGHTER by United Producers for select territories like Texas, where we found it co-billed with HELL HOUSE GIRLS, a re-release of SCHOOL FOR UNCLAIMED GIRLS (AIP's version of Robert Hartford-Davis' THE SMASHING BIRD I USED TO KNOW). United Producers performed another facelift on Walker's film and in December '75, a year after its stateside debut, it was re-released again as THE PHOTOGRAPHER'S MODELS, paired with HOOKERS REVENGE (a retitling of THEY CALL HER ONE-EYE) on a double bill that played successfully through the rest of the decade.

Mystery Movie: HOUSE OF TORTURE (ca. 1982)

When the dusk-to-dawn drive-in ad to the right (from Altoona, PA) was included in one of our random movie ad posts over two years ago, someone wrote to us and asked if we knew the true identity of the second feature, HOUSE OF TORTURE. We did not, but thanks to our old pal Nathan Miner -- the former editor of the fanzines Bits 'N' Pieces and The Drive-In Theatre Newsletter -- we know it now! Nathan mailed us the summer '94 issue of The Drive-In Theatre Newsletter (Vol. 2, No. 2), which features a great article by Ohio-based writer Jim Swarts entitled "Into the Drive-In Void!" Swarts attended a few dusk-to-dawn shows at drive-ins around Canton and Akron in the early '80s, including a "5 Deranged Features" program that included HOUSE OF TORTURE, which turned out to be Herschell Gordon Lewis' THE WIZARD OF GORE (1970) with a new title card spliced into the opening credits.

CREATURE FROM BLACK LAKE (1976) was shown on the same dusk-to-dawn program, as was SCREAMS OF FLESH AND BLOOD, which was revealed to be the John Carradine-hosted trailer compilation THE BEST OF SEX AND VIOLENCE (1981). However, what was advertised as THEY’RE COMING TO GET YOU -- the title of Sergio Martino's ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK (1972) when Independent-International released it in the U.S. in 1976 -- was actually Al Adamson's DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN (1971), also an I-I release, with a new "THEY'RE COMING TO GET YOU" title card spliced into the opening credits.

But wait! It gets better! NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST, another Independent-International title, was also on the same program. Normally this would mean the 1975 werewolf vs. Yeti movie starring Paul Naschy, which I-I released in the U.S. in 1977, but -- according to Swarts -- what was actually shown was Ted V. Mikels' THE CORPSE GRINDERS (1971) with its title cut off and no new title card inserted in its place.

Swarts also describes a "Gore Galore" all-nighter he attended at the Gala Twin Drive-In, where only two of the five "hits" listed in the ad below -- BLOODEATERS and INVASION OF THE BLOOD FARMERS -- were actually shown. BLOOD ORGY turned out to be Andy Milligan's THE GHASTLY ONES (1968), NIGHTMARE IN BLOOD wasn't the John Stanley movie but rather the Al Adamson biker flick HELL'S BLOODY DEVILS (1970), and BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHER was Kent Bateman's THE HEADLESS EYES (1971) instead of Andy Milligan's BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS (1969).

This all-nighter in Cleveland ran all of the movies advertised, but other dusk-to-dawn shows that played across Pennsylvania and Ohio (and parts of Wisconsin) during the 1981 and '82 drive-in seasons evidently did not. Does anyone else remember catching "5 Deranged Features" or similar, questionable programs in the early '80s?