Happy Birthday VONETTA MCGEE

Twenty years ago

Temple of Schlock #15

January, 1989

SUMMER CAMP by Richard Woodley

Richard Woodley is the go-to writer for paperback adaptations of sports-related movies -- he’s novelized the BAD NEWS BEARS series, SLAP SHOT, BLUE CHIPS, and THE FISH THAT SAVED PITTSBURGH, among others -- so I shouldn’t have been too surprised to learn that his young adult novel Summer Camp is also a novelization. Unlike all the others he’s written over the years, however, this one was adapted from a script that never got filmed. With the Bill Murray star vehicle MEATBALLS cleaning up at the box-office and LITTLE DARLINGS, GORP, STUCKEY’S LAST STAND and the R-rated Chuck Vincent effort SUMMER CAMP picking clean whatever was left, the last thing anyone needed during the 1979-‘80 movie season was another comedy set in a summer camp. Based on a screenplay by former actor Michael Norell (Captain Stanley on Emergency!) and published by Dell in April of 1979 -- two months before MEATBALLS hit theaters -- Summer Camp is aimed more at younger kids, relying on swirlies, snuggies and bad breath jokes for its laughs instead of sex, drugs and bathroom humor. Why it never got made is anyone’s guess, although I suspect the producer(s) took one look at the overcrowded playing field and decided to forfeit (Golan & Globus of Cannon Films killed their proposed camp comedy SUMMER SCORE around the same time). Summer camps would soon become the preferred mise-en-scène for massacres rather than mirth thanks to FRIDAY THE 13TH.

Camp Smilin’ Through, celebrating its thirty-third -- and possibly last -- summer of operation, has been losing more and more of its clientele each year to the larger, more modern and affluent camps in the area. In order to show the late owner’s greedy son that Smilin’ Through can still turn a profit (and prevent him from selling the land to condo developers), camp director Jack "Steamboat" Scarborough and his wife Annie "Tugboat" invite twenty tough, rowdy, mostly minority orphans to stay at the camp on the state’s dime. “My name is Luscious Moncrief, and I can whup any honky in this camp,” snarls the first orphan off the bus. White flight reduces the number of original kids to twenty by the next morning, creating two equal factions of children who are at each other’s throats until they settle their differences during the expected “Field Day” sports competitions (the camp equivalent of the “senior prom” climax in high school movies) and ultimately learn to respect one another. Myriad subplots include the search for a missing youngster, Steamboat’s awkward relationship with his teenage son Chet, a budding romance between two kids chosen to edit the camp’s newspaper, and “Crazy Wilson and his Hound of Death,” ghosts that supposedly haunt the surrounding woods but are actually a wise old Native American and his friendly dog, who live in a nearby cave. Two snuggies and a prolonged swirlie go to anyone who hasn’t already guessed whose land deed saves the camp at the end.

The target audience in 1979 would’ve enjoyed Summer Camp as a movie, but Woodley’s adaptation is hampered by the same flaw that plagues most comedy novelizations: it takes too many words to set up and execute what is visually a two-second cutaway or sight gag, so by the time the readers get to the end of the paragraph, they’ve already guessed the punchline. On top of that, Woodley’s saddled with wayyyyy too many characters from the first page on. It’s hard to take Steamboat seriously when he complains about having only thirty-three kids staying at the camp; at least he doesn’t have to slog through three chapters of backstory for all thirty-three of them, plus every single camp counselor! In a book that’s barely 175 pages long, it takes the first thirty to get everyone to the camp, and when the orphans arrive at the halfway point we get introduced to twenty more kids. And like summer camps themselves, the book is a breeding ground for nicknames, so the reader has a dozen or more of those to contend with as well. In a film this wouldn't even be an issue, but for what’s supposed to be a quick-read YA novel it’s a pain in the ass. To Norell’s credit, he handles the racial aspects of the story honestly, openly and fairly by giving the orphans as much humor, depth and intelligence as the other kids. I also like the fact that Steamboat is a likable, three-dimensional character when too often the camp directors in these movies are either tyrants or buffoons. Summer Camp had the potential to be a pretty good movie -- certainly no worse than MEATBALLS, and a good deal better than the others. File this one under “m” for missed opportunity.

Excellent tribute to Donald Westlake over at The Rap Sheet

The Rap Sheet blog has posted a wonderful 2-part tribute to our favorite author, Donald E. Westlake, as well as additional comments from Max Allan Collins. Please pay respect to the Master by following the links below.

NOBODY RUNS FOREVER: A LAST GOOD-BYE TO DONALD E. WESTLAKE, PART I
http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2009/01/nobody-runs-forever-last-good-bye-to.html

NOBODY RUNS FOREVER: A LAST GOOD-BYE TO DONALD E. WESTLAKE, PART II
http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2009/01/nobody-runs-forever-last-good-bye-to_11.html

HIS SUPPORT WAS UNCONDITIONAL by Max Allan Collins
http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2009/01/his-support-was-unconditional.html

Happy Birthday MOTOWN RECORDS

The Endangered List (Case File #16)

CONVENTION GIRLS(1978)

'Convention Girls'... How a B-Movie is Born

by Alex Ben Block

[The Detroit News, Tuesday, June 27th, 1978]

“I remember saving my lunch money in high school so I could go buy film and lights for my 8 mm camera,” recalls Joseph Adler, 36, the bearded producer-director of “Convention Girls.”

Born in New York and raised in Miami Beach, Adler says he always knew film would be his life: “At first I wanted to be an actor until I found out there was someone behind the camera. Then I wanted to direct.”

After two years at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh studying drama, he moved to New York University film school where he graduated in 1962. His first job was with a large New York commercial producer. For nearly three years he worked as an assistant production manager and film editor, quitting in 1967 to make his first feature film, “Fun Lovers.”

A parody of teen-age beach blanket bingo films, “Fun Lovers,” Adler recalls, “wasn’t campy enough for teen-agers, or sophisticated enough for adults.” In other words, it bombed.

Back in New York, Adler became a producer at a large ad agency, where he oversaw the making of dozens of commercials. “The late 60’s were an exciting time in advertising,” he recalls. “People were taking chances, experimenting.”

After three years, he had raised enough money to make his second low budget feature, a horror film called “Scream Baby Scream.” Shot in two weeks on location in Miami Beach, it eventually made a small profit. By then, though, Joe Adler had returned to making commercials.

“Directing commercials has really been the bread and butter,” says Adler. “Because when you work independently there has to be a way to survive between pictures.”

After running his own commercial company for several years, Adler gave it up three years ago to make his third low budget feature. This time it was to be his epic, a special film about two dozen characters who come together during a toy makers’ convention at a Miami Beach hotel. “Conventions are so indigenous to Miami it intrigued me,” he says in retrospect. “I wanted to do something more serious than previously, a multi character study. It was a story that brought together many different people from many places and many different businesses for one short, intense period of time.”

Through C. Vernon Kane, who gets credit as executive producer, Adler raised nearly $500,000 from a small group of wealthy Miami investors. For a screenplay he turned to Trudy Gertler, 29, who had never written a script before, although she had published a number of short stories.

“One of my ideas was to bring a woman’s viewpoint to the film because I think it is interesting what women in business have to deal with,” Adler says.

The film’s original title was “Conventions,” a play on words meant to mean both the meeting of toy makers and the set of rules that dictate our lives. It had 20 major roles and 60 speaking parts, which Adler now views as a mistake because it became too much to handle.

By the end of shooting Adler was nearly broke. Instead of spending his time on editing and post-production, he had to go back to work directing commercials for Associated Filmmakers International, a Miami production company. He spent nights and weekends over a movieola picking shots and scenes, splicing and cutting to try and tell a story.

Eventually he had several offers to distribute the film. He chose EMC Productions, a 3-year-old company whose last distribution effort in this market was “Naked Rider.”

Adler’s agreement included a title change to “Convention Girls,” which EMC president Harry Gurwitch considered more salable, and an ad campaign designed to sell the sex aspects of the film. Two ad campaigns were actually devised for testing, one using cartoon characters and the other girls in various compromising poses with ad copy about how the film, which is relatively mild in its presentation of sex, might offend community standards.

The film opened in Oklahoma City in February with the cartoon ads and flopped. It opened a couple weeks later in San Antonio, Tex., with the ad campaign now being used in Detroit and immediately began doing surprisingly good business. Playing 17 theaters in Dallas the following week it grossed $78,000.

Why isn’t Adler’s name mentioned in the ads? “It’s a marketing philosophy we’ve adopted,” explains John Chambliss, a former Detroiter who is now senior vice-president of EMC living in Los Angeles. “Unless you have a big, big star, the value of the name has diminished. We’d rather use the ad space to place art work and copy lines that help sell the film. Names just don’t mean anything anymore.”

Chambliss says by feeding data from the early extensive market tests into a computer, his company can estimate within five to seven percent how much business a film will do in a particular market. Then they gauge their ad budget to the predicted grosses, putting the heaviest emphasis on television commercials, then radio ads and newspapers.

“Television is totally important to us,” says Chambliss. “Whatever the quality of the film, whatever the subject matter, television is proving to be the most powerful selling tool.”

Chambliss claims it is important to use TV not only to grab an audience fast not only to beat word of mouth on a mediocre film like “Convention Girls,” but also because of pressure to keep a run short. He says the major studios may not be making more movies, but they are running their hits longer and on more screens than ever, creating intense competition for playing time.

Adler, who is now in pre-production on a story about cocaine runners in Florida in 1928, says he doesn’t mind seeing his serious work sold as a raunchy comedy: “Sure, there were a lot of considerations, but the main thing was getting it out so people can see it. Anyway, some of the great filmmakers made B-pictures. People like Roger Corman, who is just beginning to be recognized as a cult figure, know how to bring in a picture on a tight budget.”

One-Sheet of the Week: JANGO (1973)

DJANGO (1966)

U.S. release in 1973 as JANGO

The Szurek Zone: A SCREAM IN THE STREETS (1973)

A SCREAM IN THE STREETS (a.k.a. GIRLS IN THE STREETS) is a wild & wooly exercise in the outrageous that comes to us courtesy of Harry Novak’s Box-Office International. Well, it certainly looks as if shot on a low budget with a Kodak Brownie, although most of the acting is more acceptable than usual for this kind of thing. And it is fun in a weird way. The film may not be great art, and much of it looks put together by sick but harmless minds; it’s a sleazeaholic’s must-see, and at times, one can’t help but wonder if anybody intended it to be taken seriously. It does exude raw energy, and I absolutely dare you to call it boring.

The ultimate in lowbrow approach is thrown up at us as the opening credits are read aloud by an off-screen announcer. We then enter into a yarn about an apparently non-gay transvestite (shown ONLY in drag) with an unbalanced mind who goes first on a rape spree, then graduates to a “kill for kicks” spree and finally to a “kill for necrophilic kicks” one. Intercut with this is a fragmented “spanking” scene having nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the story, featuring characters who never appear before or after. It’s just thrown at us out of the blue! It’s also the most brutal (belt on bare ass), graphic, realistic screen spanking I’ve seen; the female victim is convincing, but doesn’t give the impression of having a good time, which makes me wonder if it was unsimulated or even expected and ad-libbed. The shocker comes when the viewer realizes that the unbilled “spanker” closely resembles the drag queen out of costume.

While the killer transvestite runs around committing dirty deeds, a couple of right-wing Dirty Harry clones who keep running into varied and sundry sex deviates, have a remarkable tendency to stumble on robberies and dope deals in progress quite by accident, NEVER take a prisoner alive, and show no qualms about their casual, trigger-happy law enforcement techniques. They run around trying to track the transvestite down while single-handedly verifying the worst “police brutality” reports. Although I doubt it was meant that way, this is one of the most anti-cop movies I’ve seen in ages and will hardly do anything positive for public relations. Like I said, it’s not great art, but the non-stop absurdity will blow your mind.

Happy Birthday WALTER HILL

This Week on 42nd Street -- 1982

Here are the double and triple features that played the Deuce twenty-seven years ago this week. Theatres are listed in east-to-west order.

North side of the street

Victory: PLEASURE SHOP / SENSUAL ENCOUNTERS / PAINFUL DESIRES

Lyric: SHARKY’S MACHINE / WOLFEN

Times Square: BEYOND THE GATE / ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13

Selwyn: GRADUATION DAY / PARTS: THE CLONUS HORROR

South side of the street

New Amsterdam: DRAGON FROM SHAOLIN / FISTS OF VENGEANCE

Cine 42 – Theatre I: SEVEN GRAND MASTERS / MYSTERY OF CHINESE BOXING
Theatre II: WORLD OF DRUNKEN MASTER / ENTER THREE DRAGONS

Harris: RAGTIME / VICTORY

Liberty: FIGHTING MAD / DELIVER US FROM EVIL

Empire: 18 FATAL STRIKES / MASTER OF KUNG FU / YOUNG DRAGON

Anco: DAWN OF THE MUMMY / KILL OR BE KILLED

NOW SHOWING -- January 9th, 1969

Here are some of the movies that were in theatrical distribution forty years ago today (January 9th, 1969) and quite possibly were playing at a theatre near you!

ALADDIN AND HIS MAGIC LAMP (matinees)
ANDY WARHOL'S FLESH
THE BOSTON STRANGLER
THE BROTHERHOOD
BULLITT
CAMELOT
CANDY
THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
CHARLY
CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG
FACES

FINIAN'S RAINBOW
FIREMAN'S BALL
THE FIXER
FUNNY GIRL
GONE WITH THE WIND (re-release)
THE GRADUATE
GRAZIE ZIA
GREETINGS
HELLFIGHTERS
THE HIGH COMMISSIONER
I LOVE YOU ALICE B. TOKLAS
ICE STATION ZEBRA
THE IMPOSSIBLE YEARS
JOANNA
KILLERS THREE
THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE
THE LADY IN CEMENT
THE MAGUS
THE NIGHT THEY RAIDED MINSKY'S
THE OUTDOORSMAN
PIERROT LE FOU

SECRET CEREMONY
THE SERGEANT
SHAME
THE SHOES OF THE FISHERMAN
SKIDOO
STAR!
THE SUBJECT WAS ROSES
THE TINDER BOX
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
UP TIGHT
YELLOW SUBMARINE

BLONDE IN BLACK LEATHER (1975)

Reviewed by Nathaniel Poggiali

A mysterious leather-clad figure on a motorcycle rides into a deserted rural town in Italy, to the tune of Riz Ortolani’s harmonica-driven score. The figure is Miele (Monica Vitti), a motor-mouthed pathological liar supposedly traveling to meet her gangster boyfriend, “Big Louie.” Miele brushes open the swinging doors of a laundry service -- cue spaghetti western music for comic effect -- to find long-suffering Claudia (Cardinale) being groped by her abusive husband (the kind of sleazy pig who runs his hand up a skirt while keeping one eye on his girlie mag).

Fortunately for Claudia, Miele is a persuasive free spirit who inspires the laundress to abandon her hubby and flee to Naples. What follows is a mostly unfunny road trip, with Miele’s dishonesty increasingly transparent as Claudia gains confidence and proves the savvier of the pair. It all climaxes in a Naples casino for a sporadically amusing sequence where our heroines -- granted good fortune by a talisman -- win big at roulette, levitate playing cards, and beat up the local mafia.

Filmmaker Carlo Di Palma was a talented cinematographer for Michelangelo Antonioni (RED DESERT, BLOW-UP, IDENTIFICATION OF A WOMAN) and Woody Allen (HANNAH AND HER SISTERS to DECONSTRUCTING HARRY), but as the director of BLONDE AND BLACK LEATHER he does pedestrian work. Of course it doesn’t help that the script is so lazy, feeling at times like a lesser Terence Hill/Bud Spencer comedy with a gender switch; no surprise to learn the writers of ALL THE WAY, BOYS! and IO STO CON GLI IPPOPOTAMI (I’M FOR THE HIPPOPOTAMUS) were responsible, or that one chunk of slapstick plays out in a movie theater showing TRINITY IS STILL MY NAME.

Probably the only thing to recommend this lame comedy is the chance to see Vitti and Cardinale together: the combination of their beauty and charm might be enough for a lazy Sunday afternoon. However, if you’re a fan of Vitti’s distinctively sexy, throaty voice, you’ll be disappointed to learn that it’s been replaced in the English version by that of genre vet Carolyn De Fonseca. Roger Corman acquired the U.S. distribution rights for BLONDE IN BLACK LEATHER, presumably because Vitti is his favorite actress, and gave this a brief theatrical release in 1977 through his New World Pictures. Released on VHS in the '80s by Charter Entertainment.

The Endangered List (Case File #15)

"My fellow Americans, I come before you tonight..."

THE PRESIDENT'S WOMEN (1976)

The alternate version of FOREPLAY (1974)

"'Four Play' May Be Affected By Supreme Court Ruling"

NEW YORK – One of the first films to be directly affected by the Supreme Court ruling on obscenity is “Four Play,” which recently began filming in New York by 10/10 Productions. The film utilizes four separate screenplays, with four different directors, casts and crews, although some of the technicians are overlapping from one episode to another when schedules permit. The segments are being filmed in consecutive order.

Producer Carl Gurevich, former athlete and president of his own insurance company, wanted to produce a low-budget picture depicting a series of funny and erotic sexual fantasies. The original concept was that of a hardcore epic, but it was decided to tone it down following the Supreme Court decision. The individual scenarists, Dan Greenburg, Terry Southern, Bruce Jay Friedman, Jack Richardson and David O’Dell, as well as the directors, were in favor of an all-out sex fantasy. Gurevich admits, however, that the actors involved would not have participated in the original version.

The budget rose from $50,000 to major proportions as the concept changed and the stars were signed. As the production of the second episode neared completion, Gurevich learned to his dismay that Barbara Harris, signed for the next segment, was suddenly unavailable. Academy Award winner Estelle Parsons was immediately contacted and agreed to replace her. Gurevich maintains a no-nonsense attitude, insisting on paying everyone by check as soon as filming is completed.

The episodes for “Four Play” are:

“Norman and the Doll,” by Greenburg, directed by Robert McCarty, with Pat Paulsen, Susie Bond, Deborah Loomis, Shelley Plimpton, Paul Dooley in a story of a lifesize doll with a mind of its own;

“Vortex,” adapted by Richardson from a story by Friedman, directed by Bruce Malmuth, with Jerry Orbach, Cia Lozell, Carmen Alvarez, George S. Irving, about a man who goes back in time to attempt the seduction of his former girl friends;

“Inaugural Ball,” by O’Dell, directed by John Avildsen, in which Zero Mostel and Estelle Parsons as the President and the First Lady are told by a kidnapper that their daughter will be released if they engage in an obscene act on national television;

“Twice on Top,” by Southern, directed by William Caxton, starring Rip Torn in a comic allegory dealing with society’s evils and female innocence.

(Boxoffice, 8/20/1973, p.E-1)

According to interviews with Avildsen, Malmuth, and Odell that are included on the Troma DVD of FOREPLAY, Terry Southern's twelve-page script for "Twice on Top" was so avant-garde and "out there" that producer Carl Gurevich scrapped the plans for a fourth story. Instead, footage of Professor Irwin Corey would be sprinkled throughout as a framing device that would also pad the running time. FOUR PLAY, therefore, was no longer a "Four Play" but a "Three Play," and when it was released in 1975 as FOREPLAY it got very little theatrical play. [Note: "Norman and the Doll" became "Norman and the Polish Doll" in the final cut of FOREPLAY]

Because Avildsen's "Inaugural Ball" was the longest of the three stories -- and also the one with the most exploitation value -- it was decided that FOREPLAY would be more commercial if Avildsen expanded his segment to feature length by shooting new footage of Mostel, Orbach and Paulsen that would tie the three segments together. The title for this cut would be THE PRESIDENT'S WOMEN, to capitalize on the Woodward-Bernstein book All the President's Men and the Alan Pakula film adaptation, which was released in April of 1976; THE PRESIDENT'S WOMEN hit theatres two months later. Ironically, another Avildsen film - ROCKY - ended up beating ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN for Best Picture that year, with Avildsen taking home the Best Director award.

THE PRESIDENT'S WOMEN begins in the future with the BBC reporters interviewing the now elderly, wheelchair-bound ex-President Mostel for a TV show called Going Down in History (ex-First Lady Parsons succumbed years earlier to T.O. -- "Terminal Orgasm"). The events in "Inaugural Ball" are shown in flashback. In the added footage, Orbach and Paulsen are apparently Secret Service agents assigned to the ex-President; "Vortex" and "Norman and the Polish Doll," their respective stories, are shown as flashbacks as well.

On the DVD Avildsen claims that FOREPLAY had a regular run in New York City in the '70s, but THE PRESIDENT'S WOMEN didn't roll through the Big Apple until January of 1981, when it played one weekend at the Thalia as a "premiere," on a double bill with ACTING OUT, another Carl Gurevich production that ended up being acquired by Troma. Janet Maslin trashed both Gurevich movies in the New York Times and Bill Landis called THE PRESIDENT'S WOMEN "a horrid, unfunny, misogynist intended comedy" in Sleazoid Express.

SCHLOCK-SHOCK by The Evil Twin

Here's another installment of SCHLOCK-SHOCK by Barry "The Evil Twin" Wooldridge. This panel first appeared twenty years ago in Temple of Schlock #15 (January 1989). Enjoy!

PUSHING UP DAISIES (1973)

Four down-on-their-luck crooks -- Maddux (Ross Hagen), Kelly (Kelly Thordsen), Wilber (Hoke Howell) and A.J. (Eric Lidberg) -- drift from one small town to the next sticking up various businesses for chump change until Kelly and A.J. are caught and sent to a prison work farm. Maddux and Wilber bust them out with machine guns blazing, wasting half a dozen guards in the process, and the brainless crime spree is resumed. The four rob a bank while dressed in nun’s habits for no particular reason, then hop on motorcycles and take off across the desert for Mexico. After shooting it out with two state troopers, killing one and seriously wounding the other, they cross the border and blow all their loot on tequila and whores until the police arrive to take them in dead or alive.

Originally titled FIVE MINUTES OF FREEDOM, this superficial crime tale co-written by actor-producer Hagen and director Ivan Nagy needed a lot of script polishing to bring characters and situations into focus. Threadbare storyline plays like BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID meets THE WILD BUNCH, with motorcycles instead of horses and no comprehension of the themes of those films or what made them resonate with viewers. The comical tone established during the pre-credit intro vanishes the moment Thordsen and Lidberg's characters are incarcerated. Credit sequence, in which a black prisoner is harassed and killed by a sadistic redneck guard, might've been effective in another movie but comes across as just pointless in this one. Having the crooks dress up as nuns to rob a bank likewise serves no purpose, except to provide an eye-catching graphic for the film's poster and ad slick (Pic was released by Cannon in 1973). At least two of the four protagonists appear to be war veterans -- Maddux at one point claims to be an ex-Green Beret -- but they can't cut it as civilians and are even worse as criminals. There's no place at home for their kind of training, yet even this idea is only hinted at and never explored. Performances are fine considering the thesps have not much to work with and the action scenes well handled, but the cheap, grungy, claustrophobic sets are a detriment (interiors were shot entirely at Studio One in Hollywood) and Michael Neyman's unattractive photography doesn't help. Christopher George, fifth billed in the newspaper ads, actually does an uncredited cameo as a gas station attendant who gets knocked unconscious and robbed by the gang. Biggest thrill offered is the sight of busy character actor Thordsen, who almost always played cops (and usually in silly live-action Disney movies), in a lead role as a shabby lawbreaker.

One-Sheet of the Week: THE SCHOOL THAT COULDN'T SCREAM (1977)

COSA AVETE FATTO A SOLANGE? (1972)

U.S. release as TERROR IN THE WOODS in 1975 and THE SCHOOL THAT COULDN'T SCREAM in 1977.

INTIMATE PLAYMATES (1974)

The blog got a few hundred hits earlier this week for our coverage of THE TEENY BOPPERS, so here's another Ernst Hofbauer masterpiece for all you dirty old men out there. This one was originally titled WENN DIE PRALLEN MÖPSE HÜPFEN, which by my best attempts yields an English translation of -- strap yourselves in -- WHEN THE BOUNCING PUGS HOP. If “möpse” isn’t a German euphemism then I’m afraid at least one story about a bunch of little curly-tailed, wrinkle-faced doggies is absent from the heavily truncated tape we screened here at the Temple. Or else the German-English translators I used were totally wrong. Regardless, I'm now sorry I didn’t assign this review to the Keeper of the Pit, doggone it. *

Framing device for the usual smut show has young stud Peter taking the desirable Annie to his uncle’s apartment, ostensibly to knock boots but instead to subject the increasingly frustrated fräulein to one ribald tale after another. A dentist next door and the nosy, elderly landlady downstairs contribute to the fun. The butchered print that was once available from Alpha Blue Archives (as a 2-on-1 tape with Joe Sarno’s DADDY DARLING) runs a mere 54 minutes, shows plenty of scratches and liver spots and contains only five stories; how many others got chewed up in drive-in projectors over the years is anyone’s guess.

1. Helen, a beautiful virgin, gets tipsy in a nightclub and is swept off her feet by Juan, a smoothie who deflowers her and then splits. After a period of intense depression and promiscuity, as well as a lesbian relationship with her friend Annie, Helen finds true love with Ernest -- a virgin she deflowers.

2. A poor but jolly old man discovers that his granddaughter is planning to marry Tony, the son of the richest man in town, Fritz. Unfortunately, Fritz will only let the girl with the largest dowry marry his son. Tony and the girl’s grandfather steal Fritz’s trousers while he’s sacking some other guy's wife and refuse to return them unless he okays the marriage.

3. Sultry student Ruth has an affair with Fred, her art professor, but ends the relationship when she catches him frolicking in the paint with three nude blondes. She meets George, who is Fred’s son, and they fall in love. Ruth and George marry, but Fred seduces her again and soon she’s sleeping with both father and son.

4. Ennio (Rinaldo Talamonti), who works at the pizzeria, is dating Elsie, a virgin who always tells him “you can knock at the door all you want but you can’t come in!” One night he starts knocking on the door while they’re in her Volkswagon and…well, if I say any more I'll spoil it for you. Talamonti turns up in a number of these Hofbauer pics and the guys who do his English dubbing always crack me up.

5. Last and best story, at least in this abbreviated version, has business partners Horatio and Oskar cheating on their wives with each other’s wives as well as the sexy owner of the local massage parlor.

In the U.S. the film was released as INTIMATE PLAYMATES in 1975 by Hemisphere Pictures and received the company’s usual treatment at the time: all credits were lopped off to avoid easy identification, a new title card was spliced in, and an ad campaign was whipped together with bogus names in the billing block and a photo of an actress who never appears in the actual movie. When Hemisphere president and founder Kane Lynn died and the business fell into the hands of outsiders, Hemisphere vice president Roger Cahn started his own company (SRC Films, Inc.), took control of INTIMATE PLAYMATES and several other movies, and became the exclusive distributor of the SCHULMÄDCHEN REPORT and Erwin Dietrich films in the U.S. SRC continued the practice of releasing softcore imports with interchangeable titles and ad campaigns well into the 1980s. The MPAA site lists NAUGHTY FRESHMEN as an alternate title for INTIMATE PLAYMATES, but SRC also used that as a front for SCHULMÄDCHEN REPORT 11.

* The MILO AND OTIS jokes about pugs and pussies would’ve been flying fast and furry-ous! Heck, maybe I’ll ask him to fetch a copy anyway jest to chew on as a bone-us!

This week on 42nd Street -- 1983

Here are the double and triple features that played the Deuce twenty-six years ago this week. Theatres are listed in east-to-west order.

North side of the street

Rialto: ROAR OF THE LION / FIVE DEADLY VENOMS / CHALLENGE OF THE NINJA

Lyric: THE DARK CRYSTAL / CONAN THE BARBARIAN

Times Square: MASKED AVENGERS / SLICE OF DEATH

Selwyn: TOOTSIE / SILENT RAGE

South side of the street

Cine 42 – Theatre I: THE TOY / RETURN OF THE DRAGON
Theatre II: FISTS OF FURY II / SNAKE FIST FIGHTER

Harris: AIRPLANE II / ALIEN

Liberty: SAVAGE MAN, SAVAGE BEAST / BRUTES AND SAVAGES / FACES OF DEATH

Empire: DEATH STROKE / DEATH CHAMBER / ENFORCER FROM DEATH ROW

Anco: STILL OF THE NIGHT / FORCED VENGEANCE

STRONG TOGETHER (1980)

Hot barely rates a footnote in sources like John Clemente’s Girl Groups but the 3-member pop/R&B group put out three LPs, had a Top Ten hit with “Angel in Your Arms” and even starred in their own feature-length movie, STRONG TOGETHER. Press releases for Hot’s first album stressed the multicultural makeup of the group -- one black (Gwen Owens), one white (Cathy Carson), one Hispanic (Juanita Curiel) -- a novelty in the 1970s but something that wouldn’t be blinked at today. Owens and Carson met in the early ‘70s and first began performing as Sugar & Spice, touring with the Wolfman Jack Shock & Rock Review and appearing on Bill Cosby's short-lived Cos show in 1976. The two hooked up with Curiel in 1977 and were signed to Big Tree Records as Hot.

Anyone curious enough to read this review will have STRONG TOGETHER pegged as a problem production before the opening credits have finished. First announced as WE CAN BE STRONG TOGETHER in November 1978, after Hot’s second album came out and failed to set the world on fire, the film went through another four title changes -- STRONG TOGETHER, STRONGER TOGETHER, JUST NOT THE SAME WITHOUT YOU and RUNNING HOT -- before receiving spotty theatrical exposure as SMOKEY AND THE JUDGE (from Cinematic Releasing Corporation, distributor of LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET). Home video releases were under the SMOKEY title (Sun Video Corporation) and also MAKIN’ IT (Academy Home Entertainment). If the movie was ever assigned an MPAA rating, it was under yet another title that I don’t know about. Hot’s third album is titled Strong Together and sports a movie tie-in blurb on its jacket, so unless anyone tells me otherwise I’ll consider STRONG TOGETHER the legit handle.

Slapdash story begins as a drama with Owens and Carson meeting and forming a singer/songwriter team while doing hard time in a women’s penitentiary. Production seams show immediately as Owens’ character gets no backstory but Carson is shown being framed for a botched jewelry heist in a strange flashback that looks like footage from an unfinished film (“special guest” Wade Preston, star of the ‘50s TV series Colt .45 and numerous Italian productions, gets 5 seconds of screen time here as a mobster). Out of sheer boredom, Owens joins a dating service a few weeks before she’s to be paroled and attracts the interest of music industry fringe dweller Morris Levy, played by comedian Darrow Igus from CAR WASH and the Fridays television series (a black guy named Morris Levy -- come on, laugh, that’s comedy). Owens gets out of the slammer first and shows up with Curiel to pick up Carson when she’s paroled a few weeks (months?) later. The two share the same button-down, sexually frustrated parole office (A’leshia Brevard) who takes an instant disliking to them and proceeds to drop in and out of the story with distracting regularity. Igus disappears from the movie after he gets the women a roadhouse singing gig in a hick town called Pitts, only to show up again at the very end. Other characters are introduced and then dropped, such as Carson’s hunky blonde love interest, an indication that production was shut down or re-shoots were required when not everyone was available. Even Curiel, who has maybe three lines of dialogue in the whole movie, is absent from the screen for the bulk of the action involving Owens and Carson’s run-ins with the bumbling Sheriff Cutler (Gene Price) and horny Judge Maddox (Joe Marmo), the law and order in Pitts. Rory Calhoun, another special guest, appears for two minutes as an L.A. record executive judging a talent contest at the roadhouse; it’s as if he just wandered into the bar with some friends, was asked on the spot to do the role, shrugged and said “what the hell.”

No scene flows smoothly into the next. Characters appear to be having conversations with each other, but most scenes are shot as if the actors aren’t even in the same location together. People exit the frame by walking toward the camera, then swerving right or left to squeeze past the camera. Every room has wood paneled walls. The expected car chases seem like an afterthought, with inept stunt work. There are long stretches of G-rated stupidity until a reference to THE DEVIL IN MISS JONES or a joke involving “pederasty with a pig” is suddenly thrown in to stir things up. Beautiful women stay fully clothed while the unattractive sheriff and obese judge are stripped to their underwear twice and even tied to each other in a sexual position. And just when you think this damn thing can’t get any loopier, toad-like character actor Hy Pike shows up in not one but two scene-stealing roles. What a friggin’ mess.

On the plus side, the women of Hot perform five songs and manage to stay above the amateurish material they’re stuck with; Owens and Carson look especially comfortable and may have had prior acting experience. Supporting talent plays the stupid material broadly but not badly. Blame for this one rests solely on the folks behind the camera. Producer Harry Hope’s previous credits include the Al Adamson films DEATH DIMENSION and SUNSET COVE, while writer-director Dan Seeger edited the miserable MY BOYS ARE GOOD BOYS.

(Carson, Owens and Curiel display their gold record awards

for "Angel in Your Arms")

HOT Discography

Singles

“Angel in Your Arms” (1977, #6 Pop, #29 Soul)
“The Right Feeling at the Wrong Time” (1977, #65 Pop, #58 Soul)
“You Brought the Woman Out of Me” (1978, #71 Soul)

Albums

Hot (Big Tree Records, 1977) U.S. #125, Soul #28

If That’s the Way You Want It…You Got It (Big Tree Records, 1978)

Strong Together (Big Tree Records, 1980)

Strong Together (LP track listing)

1. Taking My Love for Granted *
2. Slippin’ Up Slippin’ Around *
3. One Man’s Woman *
4. If That’s What Love is All About *
5. We Can Be Strong
6. Borrow Me *
7. If You’re a Friend
8. You’ve got to be Strong (to be the Other Woman)
9. Take a Little Time Out
10. Gonna Get You into My Heart
11. I Don’t Wanna Be Around When the Hurt Comes

* denotes songs heard in the movie

NOW SHOWING -- January 2nd, 1973

Here are some of the movies that were in theatrical distribution thirty-six years ago today (January 2nd, 1973) and quite possibly were playing at a theatre near you!

ACROSS 110TH STREET
AVANTI!
BELINDA
BLACK GIRL
BROTHER OF THE WIND
CONVICTS' WOMEN
DEEP SLEEP
DELIVERANCE
DUMBO / LEGEND OF LOBO (double feature)
FELLINI'S ROMA
FIDDLER ON THE ROOF
FILLMORE
FUNNY GIRL
THE GETAWAY
HIT MAN
IMAGES
LADY SINGS THE BLUES
LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUDGE ROY BEAN
LITTLE MOTHER
LITTLE SISTERS
LOVE, BOCCACIO STYLE

MAN OF LA MANCHA
MEATBALL
THE MECHANIC
MARIGOLDS
MOM AND DAD (re-release)

THE NEW CENTURIONS
THE NOTORIOUS CLEOPATRA
OFFICE GIRLS
PETE 'N' TILLIE
THE PINK ANGELS
THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE
PRISON GIRLS
RAGE
THE RULING CLASS
RUN TO THE HIGH COUNTRY
1776
SEX IN THE COMICS
SEXUAL FREEDOM IN BROOKLYN
SEXUAL PRACTICES IN SWEDEN
SHAMUS
SIV, ANNE & SVEN
SLAUGHTER
SLEUTH
SNOWBALL EXPRESS
SOUNDER
SUBURBAN WIVES
SUCH GOOD FRIENDS
SUMMER OF '42
SUPER FLY
TALL TIMBER
TEENAGE FANTASIES
TRAVELS WITH MY AUNT
TROUBLE MAN
ULZANA'S RAID
THE UNHOLY ROLLERS
UP THE SANDBOX
THE VALACHI PAPERS
VANISHING WILDERNESS
THE YOUNG PASSIONS
YOUNG WINSTON