Movie Ad of the Week: NEXT! a.k.a. THE NEXT VICTIM (1971)

In the early 1970s, several European productions were announced in the trades as coming soon from Gemini Pictures International. In addition to making their own films, Gemini acquired some completed European productions with the intention of starting their own distribution outfit, Gemini Releasing Corporation. For help in the U.S. market, they signed a deal with distributor Mel Maron to handle their pictures stateside through his Maron Films Ltd., but only two of the films -- Harry Kümel’s DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS and Sergio Martino’s THE SECRET VICE OF MRS. WARDH -- ever saw the light of day under this agreement.

THE SECRET VICE OF MRS. WARDH opened in New York on August 6, 1971 as NEXT! (above) and returned to area theaters four months later as THE NEXT VICTIM (below) on December 10, 1971.

The president and founder of Gemini was Howard J. Zuker, a producer under his birth name but more familiar to movie fans as a character actor under the pseudonym Zack Norman (ROMANCING THE STONE, CADILLAC MAN). If you read Variety in the '80s you'll remember his CHIEF ZABU ad, which ran for at least four years.

TOUCH ME NOT, a moderately engrossing potboiler starring Lee Remick that was filmed in Barcelona, was scheduled as the third Gemini/Maron release in March ‘72, but Maron filed for Chapter 11 in August of that year and the remaining Gemini films suddenly faced an uncertain future. Announced as an Avco Embassy pickup in late 1973, the U.S. and Canadian rights to TOUCH ME NOT were instead acquired by Wolf Schmidt’s Atlas Films sometime in 1974 for a first-quarter ’75 release. It was retitled THE HUNTED in '76 before its sale to television.

ZENABEL, a sexy action-comedy co-directed by Ruggero Deodato and Mickey Knox and starring Lucretia Love, John Ireland and Lionel Stander, was released in the U.S. as THE NAKED GENERAL by Starmaster International in 1974...

...but the others weren’t so lucky in that they bypassed American theaters entirely: LA PENTE DOUCE (U.S. title announced as THE SWEET DECLINE); L’ETREINTE a.k.a. GISELE (U.S. title announced as IMPULSION); the spaghetti western LA TAGLIA è TUA...L’UOMO L’AMMAZZO IO / THE REWARD'S YOURS...THE MAN'S MINE (U.S. title announced as EL PURO); the offbeat World War II story E I CANNONI TUONANO ANCORA/AND THE BOMBS KEPT FALLING (U.S. title announced as THE DARK OF THE DAY, then WHICH WAY DO YOU DIG?), starring Zuker/Norman, Martin Priest and Robert Woods; and most notably LE MOINE/THE MONK, written by Luis Buñuel and starring Franco Nero, Nathalie Delon and Nicol Williamson, which actually got released in Canada as a sexploitation pic titled CONFESSIONS OF A FEMALE MONK.

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.

One-Sheet of the Week: TOWER OF SCREAMING VIRGINS (1971)

DER TURM DER VERBOTENEN LIEBE (1968)

U.S. release in 1971 as TOWER OF SCREAMING VIRGINS

The Endangered List (Case File #26)

THE CULT (1970)
a.k.a.
THE LOVE CULT, TOGETHER GIRLS,
THE MANSON MASSACRE, GIRLS IN BONDAGE

Starring

Blaisdell Makee

Debbie Osborne

Sean Kenney

Candice Roman

Cindy Barnett

Barbara Caron

Ingrid Moore

Vicki Peters

Fern Tom

John Vincent

Robert Warner

Tom Welch

Uschi Digard

Written and directed

by

"Kentucky Jones"
[Albert Zugsmith]

Produced by

Tony Anton

Cinematography by

Robert Maxwell

Makeup

Nora Maxwell

Sound

Clark De Will

Still Photographer

Joe Bardo

Assistant Camera

Ken Gibb

Grip

Rocky Pebbles

Script Supervisor

Pamela Eddy

Released by Duffy Films, Inc.

(Maron Films Ltd.)

Later handled by Howard Mahler and Newport Releasing

Released with a self-imposed X rating in 1971

MPAA rating in 1976: R

The first quickie cash-in on the Tate-LoBianco killings, THE CULT was made in California sometime in 1970 by a producer and director who hid behind pseudonyms and never did reveal their true identities (Cinematographer Robert Maxwell, who had previously shot THE RAMRODDER, a softcore western that was filmed at the Spahn Ranch and co-starred Manson associates Bobby Beausoleil and Catherine Share, died in 1978 at age 54). The word on the street is that Albert Zugsmith was "Kentucky Jones," and his involvement with increasingly seedy product around this time seems to back up the rumors.

THE CULT was acquired for release by Maron Films Ltd., the new company formed by veteran New York distributor Mel Maron, a former sales manager for MGM and UPA. Some of the films released by Maron Films include B.J. LANG PRESENTS, DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS, GODZILLA’S REVENGE, ISLAND OF THE BURNING DOOMED, TOWER OF SCREAMING VIRGINS, TOYS ARE NOT FOR CHILDREN, and NEXT! Maron also started a subsidiary company, Duffy Films Inc., to handle soft-X features like THE CULT, which was set to premiere in Philadelphia on February 26th, 1971 (It opened in Atlanta the following March as THE LOVE CULT, and made the rounds as TOGETHER GIRLS in early 1973). Despite a splashy start, Maron Films was in Chapter 11 bankruptcy by August of 1972, and Maron moved on to a sales manager position at Group 1 Films; he later was the president of Cinema Shares, World Northal, Almi Pictures and finally Castle Hill Productions. THE CULT languished in obscurity until shortly after the TV movie HELTER SKELTER hit the airwaves in April of 1976, when it reappeared as THE MANSON MASSACRE from Boston-based distributors Newport/Hallmark, who kept it on double and triple bills into the 1980s.

As of now, the only version of THE CULT that is available is a German-language print with no English sub-titles. Hopefully a print with the original English language soundtrack will surface eventually.

From the "What's Your Beef" column in the Times Record of Troy, NY (8/12/76), an angry response to a triple bill of THE MANSON MASSACRE, TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE and SISTERS...

"My beef is the movie 'The Manson Massacre.' This movie was not even 45 minutes in length, if that; had nothing to do with Manson; had no plot; and was nothing like they advertised in the paper. A lot of people were really ripped off. How can we stop this false advertising?" -- Linda Kern, Troy

“Manson: Bad”
by Mary Strassmeyer
(Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 11, 1976, p. D-2)

THE MANSON MASSACRE is an assault on the sensibilities.

One-third of the film is devoted to Ivor, the film’s pseudonym for Charles Manson, picking up the girls who are to become members of his “family.” One-third delves into the psychological reasons why the girls are attracted to him and the psychological reasons behind his actions. The final third is devoted to the “family’s” murders.

In THE MANSON MASSACRE, the murders are accomplished not only with knives but also with whips and instruments of medieval torture. Along with the usual blood and gore, there are also gouged-out eyeballs brightening the screen.

While the girls commit the murders, Ivor rests in a casket in a hearse parked in the driveway. There is one moment of black humor – when the girls, covered with blood, climb into the hearse to be with their leader, Ivor asks, “How did you get the catsup on you?”

Two-thirds of the film are in color. The flashbacks, giving the reasons why family members act the way they do, are in stark black and white. That is all they deserve. Ivor, for instance, turned out the way he did because he hates his mother. Why? The hate grew out of an incestuous relationship with her.

I was the only one in the theater for a weekday matinee performance.