Mystery Movie solved! GIRLS IN BONDAGE (1979)

Over six years ago, we posted a Mystery Movie entry for the HOUSE OF SHAME/GIRLS IN BONDAGE double bill in which we surmised that one of these films, probably HOUSE OF SHAME, was a re-titling of THE CULT (a.k.a. THE LOVE CULT, THE MANSON MASSACRE and TOGETHER GIRLS), #26 on our Endangered List. It turns out we were partly correct. Thanks to the tireless efforts of T.O.S. correspondent Mike MacCollum, who attended the Pandemonium Picture Show event at the Skyline Drive-In in Shelbyville, IN this past weekend, we now have confirmation that GIRLS IN BONDAGE is another title for THE CULT. Thanks, Mike!

One down, one to go. Now what film do we think is hiding behind the HOUSE OF SHAME title? Our guess: THE HOUSE THAT VANISHED.

Mystery Movie: THE HOUSE BY THE HILL (1977)

Our pal Jon Putnam brought this latest installment of “Mystery Movies” to our attention a couple of months ago. A Newport/Hallmark release that made the rounds during the 1977/1978 release year, THE HOUSE BY THE HILL borrows the tag line and title design from THE HOUSE BY THE LAKE (1976), but doesn’t appear to be a re-titling of that movie; the ad below is from the Boston opening on September 28, 1977, just a few months after THE HOUSE BY THE LAKE passed through the area. We know that it isn’t a re-titling of HORROR HOSPITAL, THE SCHOOL THAT COULDN’T SCREAM (WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SOLANGE?) or LAST HOUSE – PART II (BAY OF BLOOD/ TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE), since we’ve found those listed in different cities as co-features. We’re also pretty sure that it isn’t THE NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS/LAST STOP ON THE NIGHT TRAIN/NEW HOUSE ON THE LEFT, since Newport had that in circulation in late ‘77 under the title THE X-MAS MASSACRE. Two possibilities are THE HOUSE ON STRAW HILL and THE HORRIBLE HOUSE ON THE HILL, but those were already making the rounds under alternate titles and from different distributors – TRAUMA (Entertainment International) and DEVIL TIMES FIVE (Seymour Borde), respectively – right around the same time.

The most likely suspect is THE CULT (1971), which Allied Artists was playing on the drive-in circuit as THE MANSON MASSACRE from 1976 to ’78, co-billed with everything from FRIGHT and ALICE, SWEET ALICE to LAST SUMMER and TWILIGHT’S LAST GLEAMING -- and because THE HOUSE BY THE HILL’s co-feature throughout New England (Newport’s sub-distribution territory) was another Allied Artist release, TEENAGE GRAFFITI, we’re just about ready to put money down on this one. Besides, THE CULT is still our favorite guy in this unsolved case, and no one has come forward to dispute our assertion that the film’s mystery director, “Kentucky Jones,” is actually Albert Zugsmith. We’re sure this will all get cleared up someday, but until then, we’re hoping someone will come forward with more information on THE HOUSE BY THE HILL and the whole Hallmark/Newport/Central Park/Parker National connection.

Movie Ad of the Week: BREAKFAST AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE (1975)

Almost a year before its May 1976 rollout in New York, Los Angeles and St. Louis as DON'T OPEN THE WINDOW...

...with an advertising campaign that ripped off Avco Embassy's marketing for SOMETHING TO HIDE (1976), including unlicensed images of co-stars Shelley Winters and Linda Hayden...

...American International Pictures and Hallmark Releasing slipped Jorge Grau's NON SI DEVE PROFANARE IL SONNO DEI MORTI / LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE (1974) into one 42nd Street theater as BREAKFAST AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE, with a completely different (and more original) ad campaign.

Movie Ad of the Week: XMAS MASSACRE (1977)

Newspaper ad from San Francisco, where Aldo Lado's L'ULTIMO TRENO DELLA NOTTE (1975) was known as XMAS MASSACRE. Bryanston Releasing first put this out in May 1976 as LAST STOP ON THE NIGHT TRAIN before Newport/Central Park acquired it for re-release as XMAS MURDERS and THE NEW HOUSE ON THE LEFT. It's available on DVD as THE NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS.

Movie Ad of the Week: THE CATAMOUNT KILLING (1975)

World Premiere - Wednesday, December 10, 1975 - Bennington, VT

LOLA BABY (1967) -- Happy Birthday Lola Falana!

First of all, we’d like to wish the lovely and talented actress-singer-dancer Lola Falana a very happy birthday today (b. 9/11/42). We were hoping to have The Lola Falana Show in our sweaty little hands by now, but Video Service Corp’s 2-disc collection of Ms. Falana’s mid ‘70s variety show doesn’t hit stores until October 6th and because we’ve never lifted a finger to get on any company’s DVD screener list, I’m afraid there’s no birthday cake for us at the moment. We’ll just have to fill up on the main course -- which happens to be spaghetti.

[Above: A sub-distributor's Boxoffice ad for one Washington, D.C. playdate]

A few years after her Broadway debut in the Sammy Davis, Jr. stage hit Golden Boy but before Vegas, Hollywood and Playboy came a callin’, Ms. Falana from Philadelphia was something of a pop star in Italy and even managed to top-line a couple of movies, including a Euro western. It’ll never cut it as a serious genre piece but as a star vehicle LOLA COLT (FACE TO FACE WITH EL DIABLO) isn’t half-bad. Falana handles the action scenes surprisingly well, has fun with her wildly anachronistic musical numbers, and is a good enough dramatic actress to not look foolish with someone else’s lackluster line readings emerging from her mouth. She also looks beautiful in nearly every frame, whether she’s belting out songs in a skimpy showgirl outfit or kicking up dust in her cowgirl costume. Despite the fact that she was blasting away bad guys six years before Cleo and Coffy made it fashionable, LOLA COLT (or LOLA BABY as the English print reviewed here is titled) took a decade to reach American theaters, arriving in 1976 as THE BLACK TIGRESS soon after Lola landed a lucrative deal pitching Tigress perfume for Faberge. Released by Hallmark/Newport (the company that brought you “It’s only a movie…only a movie…only a movie…”), it played double bills with BORN BLACK and MAN-EATER (a.k.a. SHARK) before fading into obscurity, around the same time Tamara Dobson replaced Falana as the Tigress spokesmodel.

[Above: A Tigress perfume ad autographed by Lola Falana, currently framed and hanging in the Temple library]

When the stuffy white women of Santa Ana confront beautiful black showgirl Lola Gate not two minutes after she steps out of a stagecoach that’s just arrived and one of them sneers “We don’t need your kind around here,” it’s impossible not to see the racial implication of the situation. Yet it’s all knee-jerk reaction on the part of American viewers who saw SERGEANT RUTLEDGE, THE SCALPHUNTERS, DUEL AT DIABLO or any other western with a prominent black actor in the cast, because here there is no racial implication. Lola and her three white colleagues are sexy showgirls, and by “your kind” the townswomen simply mean prostitutes (although that isn’t explicitly stated either). Race is in fact the furthest thing on the minds of screenwriter Luigi Angelo and director Siro Marcellini, as the color of Lola’s skin is not mentioned once. The story is pure formula -- Lola rallies the locals against a greedy Anglo villain known as “El Diablo” while flirting with the town’s handsome young (white) medical student -- and I guarantee you the movie would’ve been forgotten 40 years ago if it weren’t for the anomalous casting of a black American woman in the lead. The role could’ve been played by Nancy Sinatra, Lesley Gore, Rita Moreno, Annette Funicello, Brigitte Bardot or any Italian beauty with a decent voice and it would’ve been the same movie.


In addition to its colorblindness, the film is also surprisingly tame, despite a bogus R rating that frequently turned up on its stateside ad campaign. Considering that both of Falana’s major studio Hollywood productions -- THE LIBERATION OF L.B. JONES (1970) and THE KLANSMEN (1974) -- were totally preoccupied with race and went out of their way to show her naked and being manhandled by her co-stars, LOLA COLT is probably the one film she can safely run for her children and grandchildren today without embarrassment. And while we’re on the subject of children, let’s consider this film’s target audience for a moment. Sure, adults who love westerns may have bought tickets, and I bet a lot of men were lured in by the stunning and exotic lead actress, but LOLA COLT seems ideal for young black girls who rarely - if ever - get the chance to see a strong black woman in the wild west strapping on a six-shooter and taking care of business (The movie about "Stagecoach Mary" Fields, which Pam Grier was attached to over 30 years ago, still hasn’t been made). Reality hits them in the face too soon as it is, so why screw up pleasant escapist entertainment such as this with trash talk and racial epithets? LOLA COLT could be the celluloid equivalent of a summer afternoon spent playing with black Barbie dolls in between games of double-dutch, slide and Miss Lucy. And besides, it’s certainly not the worst spaghetti western I’ve ever sat through.


[Available from European Trash Cinema]

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.

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.