Sunday, October 25, 2020

Movie Ads of the Week: Budd Boetticher in '72



Budd Boetticher's last two films, both shot several years earlier, finally saw the light of projectors in 1972 (albeit in limited release). ARRUZA, his problem-plagued, decade-in-the-making documentary about bullfighter Carlos Arruza, arrived in Los Angeles on May 24, 1972 -- six years after Arruza died in an automobile accident.


Two months later, A TIME FOR DYING -- the director's last feature, and also Audie Murphy's final film -- showed up at one Staunton, VA drive-in on a double feature with the concert film BLUEGRASS COUNTRY SOUL on July 26, 1972. This playdate was three years after the film was made and over a year after Murphy perished in a plane crash.

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

The Endangered List (Case File #168)




JINSEI GEKIJO
(1972)

aka THEATRE OF LIFE

Starring
Muga Takewaki
Jiro Tamiya
Hideki Takahashi
Tetsuya Watari
Yoshiko Kayama
Mitsuko Baisho
Hisaya Morishige
Junzaburo Ban

Directed
by
Tai Kato

Screenplay
by
Tai Kato
Haruhiko Nomura
Yoshitaro Nomura

Based on the novel
by
Shiro Ozaki

Produced by
Yoshiji Mishima
and
Yoshitaro Nomura

Cinematography by
Keiji Maruyama

Music by
Hajime Kaburagi

Running time: 167 minutes

A Shochiku production

Honolulu premiere: November 1, 1972
New York premiere: May 12, 1974

Sunday, October 18, 2020

Movie Ad of the Week: QUEEN OF FIST and FIST ON THE WATERFRONT (both 1973)

The Taiwanese kung fu film SHAN DONG LAO NIANG (1973) opened in San Francisco as QUEEN OF FIST on October 24, 1973. The distributor, Pacific Grove Films, sold the film to Crown International Pictures...
...which released it nationally with a new ad campaign under the title KUNG FU MAMA beginning in April 1974.
Pacific Grove followed it with another Taiwanese martial arts movie, HUANG PU TAN TOU (1972), which hit the Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco as FIST ON THE WATERFRONT on December 12, 1973. Within a few months, Pacific Grove changed the title...
...to SHANGHAI CONNECTION, and found national distribution for this film and three others -- BRUCE LEE AND I (a.k.a. FIST OF UNICORN), KUNG FU - THE BROTHERS and KUNG FU MASTER, BRUCE LEE STYLE -- through Goldstone Film Enterprises.

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Mystery Movie Solved! HOUSE OF SHAME (1979)



A decade ago we posted a Mystery Movie entry about the "Double Dose" combo of "two smash shockers," both of which were mysteries to us, and six years later we learned that GIRLS IN BONDAGE, the latter half of the combo, was another retitling of THE CULT. It took another four years but we now have the first movie ID'd thanks to our friend Don Zessin, who recently screened one reel of HOUSE OF SHAME and then called us to report that it's DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS! This is great news -- and not surprising, since DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS and THE CULT (a.k.a. THE LOVE CULT) were both originally released by Maron Films Ltd. and were even booked together in some situations, like this playdate at the Rochester Drive-In in Rochester, NY on November 3, 1971...

Thanks again, Don! Hopefully we'll meet up next summer for one of those great Drive-Insanity screenings at the Skyline Drive-In.

Sunday, October 11, 2020

Movie Ad of the Week: THE STUDENT BODY (1976) a.k.a. VALIUM HIGH (1978), WET & WILD (1981), and CLASSROOM TEASERS (1981)



There was an uncut Planet Video cassette of THE STUDENT BODY in the Temple library for many years -- a plastic clamshell case with a pink paper insert (looked kinda pretty) -- so we were never exposed to the shortened version that Continental Video released on a double feature tape with JAILBAIT BABYSITTER a couple of years later. Unfortunately, that shorter cut became the standard until Code Red's double feature JOCKS/CLASSROOM TEASERS disc came along three decades later and restored seven or eight minutes of running time to this interesting drive-in drama, which was filmed in Kansas City in 12 days for under $250,000 and peddled on the exploitation circuit as a wacky sex comedy. One thing about it that always stood out, at least to us, is a nicely executed long take during a pool party scene about 15 minutes into the film, which resembles the long take in TOUCH OF EVIL during the search of Sanchez's apartment (no doubt thanks to cinematographer Gary Graver and the influence of his mentor, Orson Welles). Above is the ad for its Miami opening on April 23, 1976.

The distributor, Surrogate Releasing, began life as Centaur Releasing, launched in June 1973 by Irvin Dorfman in New York and Frank Moreno in Los Angeles to release INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS. The two had been indicted earlier in the year on obscenity charges involving the motion pictures TEEN-AGE FANTASIES and LITTLE SISTERS, both released by Dorfman through his Unique Film Distributors, Inc. Centaur followed INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS with TEACH ME, BLOOD ON THE SUN, THE SWINGING CHEERLEADERS, THE GIRLS WHO DO, THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT DIE, and SWITCHBLADE SISTERS, and then changed its name to Dandrea Releasing to avoid confusion with Peter Traynor's Centaur Films, which was being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. By the time THE STUDENT BODY was released in March 1976, the company's name had changed again, to Surrogate Releasing, though they did retain the Greek mythological creature as their logo. The above ad is from Philadelphia on September 15, 1976.


Apparently the film was sub-licensed to Empire Releasing, which changed the title to VALIUM HIGH for a reissue in 1978. Empire was a short-lived distribution outfit based in New York and run by Walter H. Durell, formerly the division manager of Allied Artists in Kansas City and the national sales manager of Film Ventures International. Other Empire releases include SUPERVAN and JAILBAIT BABYSITTER. The above ad is from Miami on June 30, 1978.


The VALIUM HIGH ad campaign was recycled by Empire a few months later for...
...SUBSTITUTE TEACHER, the U.S. release of the Italian sex comedy LA SUPPLENTE (1975) starring Carmen Villani and Dayle Haddon.
We were unaware that WET & WILD! was another alternate title until Temple contributor Mike MacCollum brought the ad above to our attention. CJ Ruff Film Distributing, which handled sub-distribution for New World, Centaur/Surrogate and other companies, opened this triple bill in Indianapolis on May 29, 1981.


Motion Picture Marketing (MPM) also had the film in circulation in 1981, under the title CLASSROOM TEASERS, with model Patty Kotero (later known as Apollonia in PURPLE RAIN) front and center in the advertising. The ad above is from Bismarck, ND on June 4, 1981.

Sunday, October 04, 2020

Movie Ad of the Week: Hideki Takahashi on stage

Nikkatsu contract actor Hideki Takahashi, star of the studio's popular Crest of a Man series, made guest appearances at the Nikkatsu Theatre in Honolulu during the weekend of April 1-3, 1966 to celebrate the venue's one year anniversary as well as to promote his latest action film, CHICHIBĂ› SUI KODEN-HISSATSU KEN (a.k.a. LIVING FOR THE SWORD, KILLER SWORD, SAGA FROM CHICHIBU MOUNTAINS: ASSASSIN'S SWORD), which was opening under the questionable English translated title KEN...THE SWORD.