Movie Ad of the Week: RUN RUN, JOE! (1974)

This widescreen Carlo Ponti production, filmed mostly on and around the island of Ischia as JOE AND MARGHERITO, was originally set to star Franco Nero and Peter Fonda in the respective titular roles, but when the chase comedy went before the Todd-AO lenses in late summer 1973, Keith Carradine had replaced Nero and Tom Skerritt was in the Fonda part. The pseudo Cinerama world premiere was held on April 11, 1974 ("Nothing in this Carlo Ponti presentation either requires or exploits the wrap-round presentation" sniffed Russell Davies of the Observer) at the Casino Theater in London, the same venue where the world premiere of a real three-strip Cinerama film, HOW THE WEST WAS WON, was held a dozen years earlier. By the time this two-hour-long Giuseppe Colizzi joint reached the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood on August 28, 1974 the title had been changed to RUN RUN, JOE! Los Angeles Times critic Kevin Thomas wrote, "The only thing that sets [it] apart from all the other mindless celebrations of violence and destruction is that it was shot in Cinerama." The film made only $7,500 at the Dome and was pulled from U.S. release.

Movie Ad of the Week: JULIE DARLING (1985)

The sleazy erotic thriller JULIE DARLING, directed by Paul Nicolas and starring Anthony Franciosa and Sybil Danning, opened in 47 theaters in the New York tri-state area on May 3, 1985.

Movie Ad of the Week: JUNGLE WARRIORS (1984)

JUNGLE WARRIORS, starring everyone credited in the ad above -- but not Dennis Hopper -- opened in over 50 theaters in the New York City area on November 23, 1984.

Movie Ad of the Week: WARRIOR QUEEN (1987)

Prolific pornographer Chuck Vincent had been alternating between hardcore adult films (FAREWELL SCARLET, ROOMMATES, JACK N' JILL) and R-rated drive-in fare (SUMMER CAMP, HOT T-SHIRTS, PREPPIES) for over a decade before he cast Donald Pleasence opposite Sybil Danning in WARRIOR QUEEN, a sexploitation take on THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII that actually recycles some of the climactic death and destruction footage from the 1959 Steve Reeves film! Co-starring Rick Hill from DEATHSTALKER, Josephine Jacqueline Jones and porno star Samantha Fox, Vincent's version was shot in Italy and produced by Harry Alan Towers and Joe D'Amato. Boris Vallejo painted the movie poster, which doesn't look much different from the ones he was doing for Roger Corman around the same time (the DEATHSTALKER series, BARBARIAN QUEEN, AMAZONS, NAKED WARRIORS). Seymour Borde & Associates opened the R-rated, 69-minute cut of WARRIOR QUEEN in Chicago, New York and several other major cities on January 23, 1987. The unrated videocassette from Vestron runs 10 minutes longer.

Movie Ad of the Week: "Four Times the Terror"

The previous Cannon four-pack movie ad that we ran -- The First Annual Chop-Saki Festival -- proved so popular with TOS readers that we decided to dig up another one. Here's "Four Times the Terror" from 1980, not long after Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus purchased the company from co-founders Dennis Friedland and Christopher Dewey. DRACULA'S LAST RITES (1980) is Dominic Paris' LAST RITES, the only film on the program that was acquired during the Golan and Globus regime. The second feature is Piers Haggard's BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW (a.k.a. SATAN'S SKIN), starring Patrick Wymark and Linda Hayden, first released by Cannon in 1971 on a double bill with BEAST IN THE CELLAR. Feature #3, BLOOD FEAST, is actually Emilio Miraglia's giallo THE LADY IN RED KILLS 7 TIMES/THE RED QUEEN KILLS 7 TIMES (1972), with Barbara Bouchet and Sybil Danning, which Cannon originally released in the U.S. in 1976 on a double bill with this program's final feature, BLOOD BATH (a.k.a. TERROR NIGHT IN THE CITY), a New York-lensed anthology horror flick by Joel M. Reed that co-stars Harve Presnell, Doris Roberts, Sonny Landham and P.J. Soles. Although this ad carries R ratings for all four features, the latter two were actually awarded PG ratings by the MPAA.

IN TROUBLE (1971)

In my review of FRÜHREIFEN-REPORT back in February I erroneously credited the producer-director team of Wolf Hartwig and Ernst Hofbauer as the makers of the West German abortion report IN TROUBLE when the real culprits were producer Rob Houwer and director Eberhard Schröder. Despite what the IMDb and other online sources claim, however, this is not the movie that was released in the U.S. by Group 1 Films as GIRLS IN TROUBLE (1974); I have no idea what that movie’s true identity is, but I’ve seen the trailer and it’s definitely not IN TROUBLE, which was actually released stateside by United International Pictures in 1974 as THE JOY OF LOVE. With nothing in the ads to indicate this film’s true subject matter, drive-in patrons expecting a sexy skin flick were probably gagging on their green meatball sandwiches 10 minutes into this thing.


The original title translates into English as PARAGRAPH 218: WE HAVE ABORTIONS, MR. PROSECUTOR and refers to the German law criminalizing abortions. In all fairness, despite its share of sleazy and queasy moments -- I’d expect nothing less from screenwriter Günther Heller, who also penned FRÜHREIFEN-REPORT and all of the SCHULMÄDCHEN-REPORT films -- IN TROUBLE seems to have a feminist idea or two in its head and isn’t the reprehensible garbage it would’ve been in the hands of Heller-Hofbauer. Pic opens with blonde stunner Sybil Danning being taken into a room of a doctor’s office, helped out of her clothing and into stirrups for an abortion while two narrators with conflicting agendas address the viewer:

MALE NARRATOR: “A woman who destroys her embryo or consents to the destruction of her embryo by another is liable to be punished by law. The attempt is punishable. Any other who destroys the embryo of a mother-to-be is liable to be punished by law. When giving a mother-to-be the means for destroying the embryo or procuring the same is liable for punishment under the law.”

FEMALE NARRATOR: “The worldwide abortion laws were created by man centuries ago. The women concerned were not consulted. Today, women have begun to revolt. Modern woman wants to be consulted on all subjects concerning her life and welfare. Therefore, the blow for equality has been struck. The females of the world are beginning action to erase the archaic laws of subjection. The most important undertaking is to free the woman’s body from the courts of law. Women must have the option of their pregnancy without the shadow of outmoded laws. The female revolution has begun!”

Cut to a courtroom, where elderly amateur abortionist Mrs. Wilson (played by Rosl Mayr, a regular in these films) and young Krista Bernard are on trial for terminating Miss Bernard’s pregnancy. The film then follows the standard “report” format, presenting ten or more case studies having something to do with the hot-button topic of abortion.


1. We follow Krista to Mrs. Wilson’s apartment (which is strewn with baby dolls) and watch as the crusty old woman spreads the mother-to-be out on a kitchen table, goes to work on her with a big pair of tweezers, and then sends the poor girl home to hemorrhage and nearly die.

2. Gabby Bennett, a 13-year old schoolgirl, is on her way home with a Mother’s Day cake when she is pulled into a car by three creeps, driven to a remote area and raped. Pregnancy results, and when her outraged parents try to arrange for a special abortion, they’re denied permission and told that Gabby will just have to give birth. A clinic in Sweden eventually takes care of the problem.

3. The half dozen members of a bowling team who have been sleeping with the p.y.t. Anita are dismayed to learn that she’s pregnant, and all try to handle the abortion in their own wacky way: one guy gets her to jump out of a barn into a pile of hay, another lets her ride bare-assed on the back of his motorcycle as he drives it over potholes and down bumpy roads, a third makes her sit in a barrel of hot water, etc. It turns out Anita’s not pregnant at all, just faking it to squeeze money out of the mostly married louts.

4. We follow a mobile abortion clinic (a panel truck with a dirty operating room in the back) to several of its drop-off and pickup points. A gynecologist then appears onscreen to explain some of the things that could go wrong during an abortion: “One goes in and pulls something. A tiny leg breaks off. Then we get something else in the forceps. There are other problems. The body comes and the head is too big. It won’t come out. To get it out, we have to crush it.”

[I doubt too many guys scored at the drive-in while this one was playing]

5. Sexy secretary Ula Sanders is impregnated by her slimy married boss, and heads to England to get an abortion; the names and addresses of a dozen London abortion clinics scroll by slowly on screen as she arrives in town. On her way to the clinic, she meets Mr. Right, they decide to have the child, and they all live happily ever after.

6. This one has Günther Heller written all over it. An American soldier in Europe brings his pregnant German wife to a sleazy doctor who takes one long, lustful look at her fine face and bodacious bod and agrees to perform the illegal abortion. Tip: if there’s a bar in his office and he has to pour himself a stiff one before he operates, you should probably seek a second opinion. The not-so-good doctor locks the husband out of the operating room, drugs the wife, swigs booze while snapping pictures of her exposed crotch, rapes her while she’s in the stirrups, and then performs the abortion so the couple can’t legally do anything to him without incriminating themselves in the process.

7. Rebelling against her strict religious upbringing, 16-year old Swiss Miss Angela Seberg (whose father is the town mayor) indulges in premarital sex, gets knocked up, then conspires with her scandal-fearing mother to go behind dad’s back and coerce the family doctor to perform the abortion. Their sourpuss priest gets the last word.

Back in the courtroom, Mrs. Wilson is sentenced to 2 years in prison and Krista gets 3 months under paragraph 218. Minutes later, the judge gets into a car driven by his wife, who's played by – surprise! - Sybil Danning, who we saw undergoing the abortion at the start of the film. “The female revolution has begun.”

One-Sheet of the Week: THE RESORT GIRLS (1973)

URLAUBSREPORT – WORÜBER REISELEITER NICHT SPRECHEN DÜRFEN / HOLIDAYS REPORT / SWEDISH LOVE GAMES / WHAT TOUR GUIDES CAN'T TELL YOU (1971)

U.S. release in 1973 as THE RESORT GIRLS