3-DEMENTIA! coming to Philadelphia on July 16th!

3-DEMENTIA! is a series of cinematic events spotlighting rare 3-D movies from the last 40 years – First screening to take place at International House Philadelphia on July 16, 2017

For nearly twenty years, Exhumed Films has been the premier cult movie cooperative in the Philadelphia area, screening literarily hundreds of horror, sci-fi, and exploitation classics on the big screen. Now, Exhumed Films brings their audience a new dimension in genre cinema: 3-DEMENTIA! Is a major retrospective of 3-D films from the past four decades. The 1970’s and 1980’s saw a resurgence of three-dimensional movies, particularly in the realms of horror, science fiction, and action/adventure films. Some of the most infamous and beloved 3-D titles in history were released during thisera; the majority have not seen the light of the projector bulb in over 30 years, but they are ready to be re-discovered! 3-DEMENTIA! will spotlight some of the most famous films from the era, as well as some extreme rarities.

The first 3-DEMENTIA! screening will take place at International House Philadelphia’s Lightbox Film Center (3701 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia PA 19104) on Sunday, July 16. This five film marathon begins at 12 noon and runs until approximately 10:00 PM. Tickets are $40 for general admission to all five movies. The features will be projected from original 35mm film prints using state-of-the-art 3-D technology and high quality 3-D viewing goggles.

Exhumed is also pleased to announce that filmmaker Worth Keeter, who shot more 3-D films than any other director in history--will be on hand to introduce two of his movies and discuss the heyday of 3-D mania!

3-Dementia! will feature the following flicks:

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III 3-D
1982 / 35mm / Dir. Steve Miner / 95 minutes
While not necessarily the most original installment in the series, FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III is arguably the most influential slasher sequel of all time due to its introduction of the iconic hockey mask that would soon become a horror movie hallmark. Moreover, FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III features some of the most entertaining 3-D gags in cinema history. The story, though, is nothing new: unstoppable killer Jason Voorhees, apparently recovered from his injuries at the end of the last film, finds a new slew of torpid teens to terrorize.

TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS
1983 / 35mm / Dir. Ferdinando Baldi / 97 minutes
The 1981 3-D Spaghetti Western COMIN’ AT YA! was a financial success that effectively started the 3-D resurgence of the 1980’s. The filmmakers behind that hit followed it up with TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS, an action/adventure film clearly inspired by RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. Tony Anthony stars as a soldier of fortune that assembles a team of thieves with the goal of stealing a set of mystical gems. The quest leads them to creepy caves and booby-trapped fortresses, setting the stage for a series of inventive 3-D gimmicks. Indiana Jones it ain’t, but TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS is nevertheless an enjoyable artifact from a bygone era.

ROTTWEILLER
1983 / 35mm / Dir. Worth Keeter / 89 minutes
Producer/actor Earl Owensby created a series of low budget regional genre films throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s, and even built his own soundstage in North Carolina to accommodate his productions. When the 3-D craze of the early 1980’s began to take hold, Owensby quickly jumped on the bandwagon, bringing along his longtime collaborator, director Worth Keeter. Their first foray into the realm of 3-D was ROTTWEILLER (aka DOGS OF HELL), a horror thriller about a murderous pack of killer canines. Owensby stars as a small town sheriff who must defend the community against a group of deadly dogs that have escaped from a secret military project. If you love “Animals Attack” movies, then ROTTWEILER in 3-D is not to be missed!

HIT THE ROAD RUNNING
1983 / 35mm / Dir. Worth Keeter / 92 minutes
Worth Keeter and Earl Owensby followed ROTTWEILLER with HIT THE ROAD RUNNING, an action-packed 3-D car chase comedy that takes obvious inspiration from SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT and THE DUKES OF HAZZARD. Owensby once again stars, this time as Beau Jim Donner: a fast talking, fast driving “good ol’ boy” who returns to his hometown to free his uncle and neighbors from the clutches of a corrupt land baron. Hijinks—and lots of car crashes—ensue. Exhumed Films is proud to welcome Worth Keeter to what is surely the first theatrical screening of HIT THE ROAD RUNNING in nearly 35 years!

REVENGE OF THE SHOGUN WOMEN
1977 / 35mm / Dir. Mei Chun Chan / 98 minutes
The Hong Kong martial arts film REVENGE OF THE SHOGUN WOMEN (aka 13 NUNS) tells the tale of a group of women who are assaulted and degraded by a gang of bandits. In order to protect themselves from future attacks, our heroines become masters (mistresses?) of martial arts, and it is not long before they seek out vengeance against their attackers. Featuring a plethora of projectiles popping off the screen, REVENGE OF THE SHOGUN WOMEN is definitely one of the impressive 3-D features ever made.

ABOUT EXHUMED FILMS
Since 1997, Exhumed Films has been providing the Philadelphia and South Jersey area with a dedicated horror and cult repertory cinema experience like no other. Through their ongoing double features and highly anticipated special events like eX-Fest and the annual 24 Hour Horror-thon, Exhumed Films' commitment to bringing audiences the best of genre cinema, exclusively on film, is unprecedented in the region.

Aside from screening hundreds of different films and literally thousands of vintage trailers and shorts, Exhumed Films has also hosted such prestigious guests such as director John Waters and the late, great "Godfather of Gore” Herschell Gordon Lewis, and co-presented musical performances by filmmaker/composer John Carpenter and the legendary Italian progressive rock band Goblin.

*For more information about 3-DEMENTIA! or Exhumed Films, please visit our website at www.exhumedfilms.com, or our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ExhumedFilms.

Movie Ad of the Week: SUPERSONIC SUPERGIRLS (1973)

SUPERSONIC SUPERGIRLS, the super unwatchable sequel to the 3-D box-office smash THE STEWARDESSES (1969) and also known as INTERNATIONAL STEWARDESSES, opened in 22 theaters in the New York tri-state area on October 5, 1973. Advertised with a fake R rating, the movie was slapped with a real X rating by the MPAA three weeks later, but that was just the beginning of this movie's strange and confusing history. We thought our review from a few years ago would finally convince the brains at the IMDb that this movie actually exists and isn't a re-release version of THE STEWARDESSES, but no, after years of listing SUPERSONIC SUPERGIRLS/INTERNATIONAL STEWARDESSES as a.k.a.'s for the '69 smash, they've now deleted both sequel titles from the database altogether. As bad as it is, SUPERSONIC SUPERGIRLS is a real movie that was released and re-released under various titles and in different versions, so it should have its own entry. Below is what we know about the movie, collected from 3-D Filmmakers: Conversations with Creators of Stereoscopic Motion Pictures by Ray Zone, 3-D Movies: A History and Filmography of Stereoscopic Cinema by R.M. Hayes, and our own research and viewing of the film. It's enough to start an IMDb entry.

SUPERSONIC SUPERGIRLS (1973)

Written and directed

by

Alf Silliman, Jr.
[Allan Silliphant]

Produced by

Chris J. Condon

and

Allan Silliphant

Executive Producer

Louis K. Sher

CAST

Mary Pat Bonney (Candice)

Phyllis Denicke (Pixie)

Goncha Ondemir (Mira)

Peggy Church (Deeanne)

Corona Faora (Pam)

with

Adrienne Stroud

Delana Bissonette

Sally Stevens

Maurice Reese

Vicky Christy [Victoria Silliphant]

Kathy Francis

Kitty [Kathryn] Holcomb

Filmed in
StereoVision
(Single strip side-by-side .67:1
and optically converted to
over-and-under 1.75:1)

Presented in
3-Depix

Optical Conversion
by
Marks Polarized Corporation

in
Eastman color

RCA Photophone recording

Filmed on location in the U.S.,
Portugal, West Germany,
Italy, Greece, Hong Kong

A
StereoVision International, Inc.
production

Released by
Sherpix, Inc.

Running time: 91 minutes
MPAA rating: X

Release date: October 5, 1973 (New York, NY)

Re-released as
INTERNATIONAL  STEWARDESSES
beginning in May 1974
by Rumson Film Distributors

Also known as
THE STEWARDESSES, PART II
SST
AIRLINE!
THE STEWARDESSES, PART III
JET SET
MR. HOWARD'S CRAZY AIRLINE

One-Sheet of the Week: MAGNIFICENT BODYGUARD (1982)

FEI DU JUAN YUN SHAN (1978)

U.S. release in 1982 as MAGNIFICENT BODYGUARD

Also known as MAGNIFICENT GUARDSMEN, MAGNIFICENT BODYGUARDS, EYE OF THE DRAGON and MASTER OF DEATH

The Endangered List (Case File #79)

ILLEGAL?

The last legal barrier to show ECSTASY ’72 in theatres in the United States is down. We shall continue to defend your right to see it!

OBSCENE?

We believe war, atrocities, starvation, overpopulation and killing
are obscene, and the act of love is not.



SECRETS OF ECSTASY '72 (1971)

a.k.a. ECSTASY '72, ECSTASY '71, LOVERS' ECSTASY
and ANATOMY OF A DANCE

A
Trans-American Films
release

A
United Producers
presentation

MPAA rating: X
Running time: 98 minutes

B&W/color

Partially shot in Optovision 3D
(Dual-16mm single-strip/side by side, 35mm blowup, 1.37:1)

One-Sheet of the Week: THE SURFER GIRLS (1978)

THE SURFER GIRLS (1978)

Released in "StereoVision 4D" with a bogus R rating in 1978

Officially rated R by the MPAA in 1980 for a 3-D re-release under the title KAHUNA! in '80/'81

Re-released "flat" by MPM as THE SENIOR SNATCH in 1982

Also known as HAWAIIAN FANTASY and THE SURFER GIRLS AND THE KAHUNA LEGEND

Our one-sheet was apparently used for a "flat" showing. Note the "ONE WEEK ONLY" and "OUTRAGEOUSLY SEXY!!" tags that have been pasted over "STEREOVISION 4D."

LOVE IN 3-D (1973)

Because he helmed only five of the thirteen SCHOOLGIRL REPORT movies, I had mistakenly dismissed Walter Boos as little more than producer Wolf Hartwig’s backup director for those rare occasions when the mighty Ernst Hofbauer was unavailable. If Boos is remembered at all today, it’s because of his outrageous softcore EXORCIST cash-in MAGDALENA, POSSESSED BY THE DEVIL (U.S. title: BEYOND THE DARKNESS), but I think a full career reassessment is in order now that I’ve seen the eye-popping LOVE IN 3-D. Not only is it his magnum opus, but it surpasses ANDY WARHOL’S FRANKENSTEIN as the best of the “adults only” 3-D movies of the 1970s. Boasting a fully deserved MPAA rating of X, the episodic West German production was released stateside by Dimension Pictures in 1974, with a re-release in 1977 handled by Monarch Releasing. The field sequential 3-D print reviewed here under the title FIRST KISSES is missing credits and chapter titles but otherwise seems complete.

Top-billed Ingrid Steeger, the impossibly cute blonde who lit up many a Hartwig and Erwin Dietrich production of the period, plays nice girl Peggy in a 3-part story that neatly forms a framing device for four other stories all involving different characters living in an apartment building in Munich. “Love in Schwabing, Part 1” opens with Peggy’s arrival to apartment-sit for her sister Dagmar (Evelyn Reese), who is grabbing one last roll in the sack with her boyfriend before hopping a plane to Africa for a week-long business conference. The couple bangs away in front of Peggy while Dagmar’s parrot tosses out witticisms like “Cock-a-doodle-doo! Everybody screw!” and “Polly wants to crack her!” The sequence would be interminable in any other movie, but Boos and cinematographer Klaus Werner are smart and technically savvy enough to pack the scene with more amusing effects than can be found in the entirety of THE STEWARDESSES and its terrible sequel combined. By the time Steeger turns to the camera to wink at the audience -- blinking her eyes in mock focal readjustment instead -- the film’s playful tone has been firmly established.

“The first thing is to find a job!” Peggy coos as she strips down for a hot, soapy shower. “There must be something I can do!” Luckily, Dagmar’s boyfriend is too screwed-out to work a garden party with his bartender buddy Manfred (Achim Neumann), so Peggy goes in his place as a barmaid. Their employment is compromised, however, when Manfred assaults a couple of guests who toss Peggy into a swimming pool with a bunch of naked revelers. After a hair-raising ride back to the apartment, Peggy kisses Manfred goodbye and agrees to see him again for a proper date.

In “The Rope Trick,” slick womanizer Hugo (Nico Wolferstetter) spies the gorgeous model Nita (Dorith Henke) sunbathing nude on the patio below his apartment window. He locks her outside and steals her clothing with a fishing rod while she dozes. When she awakens and realizes she’s trapped outside with no clothing, he comes to her rescue by throwing a rope down to her so she can climb up to his window -- his bedroom window.

Zaftig barmaid Fanni (Dorothea Rau) flirts constantly with her drooling male customers, much to the annoyance of her boyfriend Ted, who decides to teach her a lesson in “The Revenge.” While Fanni excites every man in the bar, from good-looking Bob the Cop to the oversexed Enrico the Italian (Rinaldo Talamonti as usual), Ted hooks up with mouth-watering Indian beauty Susu (Anik Ellahee) as a ploy to make Fanni jealous.

Of course, once he gets to Susu’s place, Ted quickly forgets all about Fanni. “Hey, I want to do it Hindu, like the common sutra!” he tells Susu.

“The Kama Sutra!” she corrects him.

“Yeah, that’s the book!” Ted exclaims. “It says in there that a Hindu man should be able to make it at least four times a day! With you, baby, I would do it forty times a day!” (Meanwhile, Fanni and Bob the Cop are doing it forty different ways in Ted’s bed).

“Like Krishna, you see your quarry in sight, but can you shoot your arrow straight and true?” Susu asks teasingly as she peels off her panties.

“With a target like that I can’t miss!” Ted replies, hungrily eyeing her hip-to-hip hair pie. Once his taste of India is satisfied and Fanni gives Bob the Cop a happy ending, the two jealous lovers end up back in each other’s arms planning a four-way with their new bed partners.

In “The Frightful Experience,” sweet young Lissy (Ulrike Butz) goes to comfort her older friend Rosy (Elizabeth Volkman), the supposed victim of a sexual assault. Rosy ends up describing the experience in such detail that it becomes a reenactment designed to seduce the pretty (and pretty dumb) Lissy. Highlights include bondage, slow-motion bouncing on the bed, and an appearance by Rosy's horny husband George.

Peg, in a miniskirt that leaves nothing to the imagination, decides to surprise Manfred at his job in "Love in Schwabing, Part 2." Manfred works as a gymnastics instructor, and when Peg walks in she catches him getting a little too touchy-feely with one of his sexy students. There are some great 3-D effects in this segment -- and did I mention Ingrid Steeger in a miniskirt?

Christina Lindberg fans will be in heaven during “Neighbor on the Left,” the longest and best story. The only time Inge (Lindberg) and her boyfriend Rudi (Konstantin Wecker) don't fight is when they're having sex. Otherwise, they yell and throw things at each other until their "neighbor on the left" starts banging on the walls. While arranging a window display at her retail job, Inge catches the eye of a young man who humorously pursues her for a date. She finally relents and has a wonderful time with him at an amusement park (leading to some nice 3-D effects on a rollercoaster and a dark ride). Three guesses who the new beau turns out to be.

Peg forgives Manfred and decides to surrender her virginity to him in “Love in Schwabing, Part 3.” A low-flying airplane chases them away when they attempt the hookup in an open field, so they return to Dagmar's place, only to find that she's returned from Africa early and is already back on the bedsprings with the boyfriend. So they kick it out on the patio, with amusing results.

When Boos and Werner aren't hurling everything they can find at the camera, from punching bags and pillows to buckets of water and flying panties, they make damn sure that every shot highlights depth of field, whether it's a car swerving between trees or a person walking from one room (foreground) into another (background). Needless to say, they pay special attention to the process during the many hot sex scenes, putting all the other softcore 3-D films of the '70s to shame. This is the real deal, and the current crop of directors making so-called 3-D movies could learn a lot from watching this funny, filthy, five-star classic.

Gay Love in 3-D

INTERNATIONAL STEWARDESSES (1973)

In 1968, pioneering 3-D filmmaker Chris Condon and business partner Allan Silliphant were awarded a patent for the world’s first single-camera 3-D motion picture lens, the Magnavision 3-D, which renders two anamorphized images side-by-side on each frame of 35mm film. To demonstrate the lens’ capabilities, they made a feature-length softcore sex flick in 3-D that went on to break box-office records. THE STEWARDESSES not only became the 6th highest grossing film of 1971 and one of the most successful independent movies of all time, but it revived 3-D for a while by proving the format could be a viable one for low-budget filmmakers. Condon and Silliphant then sank a million dollars into an all-commuter airline and were too busy with business matters to oversee the post-production of SUPERSONIC SUPERGIRLS, the sequel to their high-flying hit. According to an interview with Condon in Ray Zone’s 3-D Filmmakers: Conversations with Creators of Stereoscopic Motion Pictures, the cost-cutting measures of distributor Louis K. Sher -- whose Sherpix company had made a mint with THE STEWARDESSES -- rendered the finished film unwatchable:

The editing was turned over to a third party, and they did a terrible job on editing it. And what’s worse, they decided to release the film in the above-and-below 3-D format using the [Mortimer] Marks system. In order to have a format that’s 1.33:1 above-and-below you’re destroying half the light coming out of the projection lamp house because you’re not covering the full aperture. You’re only covering the center part of it with two small images with one above the other.

We had nothing to do with that. Lou Sher was just talked into that by the Marks Company. They said, “If you use this system, Mr. Sher, you won’t have to send anybody to the theaters.” That is totally false. So they made about thirty prints of SUPERSONIC SUPERGIRLS in the above-and-below process. But the worst part about it is that the images were misaligned. You couldn’t watch the movie. The spacing between the two images was off from scene to scene. You eyes cannot tolerate vertical parallax. So they had to scrap that movie.

We made another one, using some of the outtakes from the second movie, and it was called AIRLINE! That film was never finished. We did the work print, but we never finished it because we ran out of money.

I do want to finish AIRLINE! It’s got a lot of good stuff in it. It’s funny and it has beautiful girls. And it was shot in about eight different countries. (Zone, p. 9-10)

INTERNATIONAL STEWARDESSES is not referred to at all in Zone’s book and SUPERSONIC STEWARDESSES is written off as an unreleased film when in fact the two are the same movie. SUPERSONIC SUPERGIRLS opened in 22 theaters in the New York tri-state area on October 5, 1973 with a fake R rating, but was awarded an X rating by the MPAA three weeks later. As INTERNATIONAL STEWARDESSES, it did get playdates in many parts of the U.S. beginning in May of 1974 and continuing through at least half of 1975 -- but this turned out to be only the beginning of this film's confusing history. According to R.M. Hayes' excellent book 3-D Movies: A History and Filmography of Stereoscopic Cinema, a version titled THE STEWARDESSES, PART II was announced in 1979, the title was changed to SST in 1980, and then new scenes were shot for the AIRLINE! version in 1984, but it still wasn’t “finished.” Reportedly outtakes from the original cut were mixed with the new footage to create THE STEWARDESSES, PART III in 1987. To complicate things even more, the original INTERNATIONAL STEWARDESSES surfaced again in the early ‘90s as JET SET, while recent publicity from Condon’s StereoVision International refers to a version of this thing as MR. HOWARD’S CRAZY AIRLINE (Meanwhile, the occasionally reliable IMDb -- which claimed for years that INTERNATIONAL STEWARDESSES and SUPERSONIC STEWARDESSES were alternate titles for THE STEWARDESSES -- has now wiped all traces of these titles from the database!). Condon’s treatment of INTERNATIONAL STEWARDESSES over the past 35 years has been disrespectful, to say the least, and after suffering through its 90 excruciating minutes I can understand why. It’s a dreary, depressingly awful movie with no memorable 3-D effects to speak of, making the filmmaker’s talk of “above-and-below” and “vertical parallax” thoroughly meaningless in this context.

The plot, such as it is, has twelve of the most qualified stewardesses from Global Airlines chosen for a grueling 3-week promotional trip around the world in the prototype Condor SST supersonic airplane. Global’s parent company, Hillman Industries, is financially involved with the plane’s manufacturer in England, and Henry Hillman himself -- the eccentric, reclusive Howard Hughes-type head of the company (first seen wearing sunglasses and wolfing down McDonalds takeout in his bunker-like penthouse apartment) -- has committed himself heavily to options on the Condor. In order to prevent a takeover at the next shareholder meeting, Hillman needs to pre-sell fleets of the Condor to airlines around the world.

Of course, this is all just an excuse to show pretty young women walking around Lisbon, Madrid, Rome, Athens, Bombay and Hong Kong in sub super-8 sightseeing footage or wiggling on hotel beds in poorly shot sex scenes. Every opportunity for a cool 3-D effect is squandered. When a sadistic passenger tortures a nude stewardess with a lit cigar, you’d think there would be a shot of the guy sticking the stogie in our faces. Think again! When the stewardesses attend a bullfight, you figure it has to lead up to the bull charging at us in 3-D, right? Wrong! When a young couple gets it on while hooked up to a computer at the Institute of Sexual Research, you’ll swear the boring bump-and-grind will pay off with some kind of neat 3-D gag involving fire extinguishers or springs popping out at us. Nope! Even the film’s most perverse moment -- a stewardess’ realization that the senator she’s just seduced is a creepy crossdresser -- fails to take the next logical step and give us the money shot (which in this instance would be his hands emerging from the screen as they wrap around her throat).

An extended sequence in which the Condor is forced to land in the Middle East provides one nice 3-D belly dance and little else of interest. Crown Prince Omar woos one of the stewardesses, while his father (who looks like a wizened Arthur Avenue wiseguy at a Halloween party) spies on the other Global girls undressing one-by-one as warm-up to the servicing of his 40 wives. The sight of the elderly king running from room to room with a tent pole under his robe is supposed to be funny, but Condon and director Silliphant are so bereft of imagination that they again miss a 3-D opportunity by not having him run toward the camera with his bobbing bat. Hopeless! And the payoff for this labored stupidity? A meeting between the stuffy British airline manufacturer and the king, who says -- with no trace of an accent -- “There’s a man in your country, a Mr. Hugh Hefner of Chicago, and I believe he flies a large black plane continually with an entourage of beautiful women, and this is most interesting. I would like to emulate this, in my own fashion of course. Is it not true that your machine is twice as fast and twice as big as Mr. Hefner’s?” I don’t know about you, but my sides are splitting.

Let’s not forget the wacky Hillman, who hides inside a crate that’s loaded onboard the Condor SST at the start of the trip -- and isn’t seen again until the end, when he emerges for a final joke that misfires as badly as all the others. Maybe if Alan Abel had played the part in bandages it would've been amusing. Hell, you're better off reading any chapter of the Clifford Irving book than sitting through INTERNATIONAL STEWARDESSES, which to these eyes is just as big a hoax.