The Endangered List (Case File #10)

THE LIMIT (1972)

CAST

Yaphet Kotto (Mark Johnson)

Quinn Redeker (Jeff McMillan)

Virgil Frye (Kenny)

Corinne Cole (Judy)

Ted Cassidy (Big Donnie)

Pamela Jones (Margret)

Gary Littlejohn (Pete)

Irene Forrest (Delores)

Nancy Ashe (Waitress)

John Bellah (Pickup Truck Driver)

Frank Belt (Man in Restaurant)

Ed Cambridge (Police Captain)

Vic Canupe (Bartender)

Bobby Clark (Man in Bar Fight)

Douglas Forward (BMW Driver)

Richard Hale (Man in Park)

Stuart Herschman (Messenger on Beach)

Joyce Hutton (Girl in Park)

Peaches Jones (Woman in Station Wagon)

Richard Kennedy (Man in Bar Fight)

Natascha Kotto (Carol Southern)

Fred Krone (First Drunk)

Buddy Panisary (Gas Station Attendant)

Jack Perkins (Second Drunk)

Frank Roh (John Woods/Mr. America)

John Roh (Boy with Kite)

Diane Regis (First Virgin Girlfriend)

Uma Tresoff (Second Virgin Girlfriend)

CREDITS

Producer/Director: Yaphet Kotto

Assistant Director: Hansen

Associate Producer: Frank Roh

Assistant to Producer: Douglas Forward

Production Coordinator: Kelly White

Original story: Yaphet Kotto

Screenplay: Sean Cameron

Director of Photography: Fenton Hamilton

Camera Operators: Manny Whitaker, James Edwards

Camera Assistants: Franko Guerri, William Forte

Film Editor: Norman Schwartz

Assistant Film Editor: Freeman Davies, Jr.

Sound Technician: Jack Reed

Script Supervisor: Patricia Motyka

Lighting Gaffer: George Rumanes

Lighting Assistant: Canton McMillian

Best Boy: Skip Troutman

Key Grips: William Raleigh, Bud Schindler

Grip Technician: William Leven

Costumer: Nancy Brown

Action Coordinators: Gary Littlejohn, Troy Melton

Chrysler Automobiles courtesy of Chrysler Corp.

BMW courtesy of Ocean View Motors, Santa Monica, Ca.

Mr. Kotto's wardrobe furnished by Mr. Guy, Beverly Hills.

Miss Jones' wardrobe furnished by Gazebo, Beverly Hills.

Hospital sequence made possible through the cooperation of Parkwood Community Hospital

Running time: 90 mins.

Color

MPAA rating: PG

PLOT

High tension builds from the outset when Mark Johnson (Yaphet Kotto) and Jeff McMillan (Quinn Redeker) have their first encounter with the chopper gang, the Virgins.

Mark, black and Jeff, white, are Los Angeles motorcycle police officers, close friends both on and off duty. But Mark has no way of knowing that this chance meeting with the Virgins will one day nearly cost him his life.

The Virgins, like most motorcycle gangs, are a motley group. Their leader, Big Donnie (Ted Cassidy), has been riding a long time and beginning to feel, inwardly, that there is a better way of life. With him on his chopper is his pregnant girl friend, Judy (Corinne Cole). Most hostile of the group is rebellious Kenny (Virgil Frye) who is scheming to replace Big Donnie as the Virgin's leader.

Mark is an extremely strong person who seldom loses his cool. When, during their first confrontation, Mark advises Judy to give up riding or risk endangering her unborn child, Big Donnie senses Mark's gentleness as well as strength and begins to look at him in a different way and with a new respect.

Big Donnie's respect for Mark becomes more evident after each encounter between the Virgins and the two cops. He finally confesses to Judy, who has taken Mark's advice and stopped riding, that he would like to quit the gang.

However, as Big Donnie's admiration for Mark grows, so does Kenny's hostility. This, coupled with his envy of Big Donnie's position as gang leader, finally manifests itself and endangers both Mark's girl friend Margret (Pamela Jones) and Judy.

With some of the gang members, Kenny breaks into Margret's house looking for Mark. When he doesn't find him, he vents his anger and frustration by beating Margret. He follows this up by persuading Judy to break her promise not to ride a chopper until after her baby is born. Rashly, she seats up behind Kenny, who roars off at full throttle.

DEATH HAS MANY DOORS

Reviewed by Evan C. Price

Ed Hunter was just a teenager when he tracked his father’s killer through Chicago, aided by ex-carny Uncle Ambrose in the Edgar Award-winning Fabulous Clipjoint (1947). Fredric Brown’s Ed and Am Hunter series follows Ed’s development as a professional detective and his transition to adulthood. In The Dead Ringer (1948) uncle and nephew are employed in a traveling carnival and investigate a bizarre series of murders; the heart of the story, however, is Ed’s failed relationship with a young dancer. In The Bloody Moonlight (1949) Ed and Am find work as operatives, and Ed is sent to a small town in southern Illinois to solve his first case without Am’s help. In Compliments of a Fiend (1950) the uncle disappears and Ed is on his own again, searching for Am and trying to determine if he was kidnapped.

Death Has Many Doors (1951) is the fifth novel and the first in which Ed and Am are in business for themselves, as co-owners of Hunter & Hunter Detective Agency. The two are spending a lot of time reading and playing cards when they’re not finding numskulls who skip town in cars that haven't been paid for. Then beautiful young Sally Doerr arrives with a humdinger: she claims Martians are plotting to kill her.

Thinking he's been put on by an associate, Am declines and advises the young woman to see a shrink. Ed, however, is attracted to Sally and after conversation over drinks concludes she’s pretty stable outside of delusions involving little green men. Ed agrees to spend an evening in the woman's apartment for her protection. Following a troubled night on the couch, Ed awakens to find the woman dead - victim of a weak heart. The detective suspects Sally’s heart attack and her fear of being stalked by Martians are connected. Someone (probably human) scared her to death. Then Sally’s sister, Dorothy, shows up at Hunter & Hunter looking for help, claiming she’s had a premonition she will die that evening....

In earlier novels Ed was flawed in interesting ways. Any long-time mystery reader will guess the identity of Am’s kidnapper in Compliments of a Fiend, but it is fun seeing the young operative make mistakes and work under pressure to put it all together. His behavior seemed reasonable considering age and experience.

Why, then, does Ed become a total moron in this book? Haunted by Sally’s death, guilt-ridden even as Am assures him it was beyond his control, Ed allows Dorothy to place both of them in danger after taking so many precautions over the long evening to protect her. When Dorothy finally (predictably) perishes during a midnight swim, I had trouble getting behind a detective so sloppy and stupid.

Brown once told an interviewer that he penned mysteries only to pay the bills, preferring to write science fiction. Though Brown’s whodunits are usually excellent -- including some of the Ed and Am titles -- Death Has Many Doors seems like it was written in a state of boredom. The author’s distinctive conflict of fantasy versus logic has nothing compelling to offer. An extraterrestrial angle isn’t developed beyond creepy phone calls and Ed’s surprise by someone in a Halloween mask. The addition of a hypnotist is a cheat. Even worse, Ed’s theories as to how Sally might have been frightened are smarter and more believable than the actual solution! Small wonder there wouldn't be another Ed and Am novel for eight years.

In 2002 Stewart Masters Publishers issued an anthology collecting the first four books. A second volume never surfaced, and remaining titles -- Death Has Many Doors, The Late Lamented (1959), and Mrs. Murphy’s Underpants (1963) -- are still out of print.

LOVE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD (1964)

This early nudie from the Lee Frost/Bob Cresse team, long considered “lost,” was released last Tuesday on DVD under a different title, with no fanfare whatsoever. The actual title on the print is LOVE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD, with the shiny new computer generated alias added at the bottom of the screen to justify its use on the packaging. The photo gallery on the DVD includes no ad mats, 1-sheets, lobbies or any other promotional material carrying the LOVE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD title, or the new title for that matter. An essay included on the disc claims that the new title is a “roadshow title,” without explaining the difference (if any) between the roadshow version and any other version of LOVE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD, or why the DVD company is releasing the movie under the roadshow title instead of the one that’s actually on the print. Whatever. This is an issue to be settled between the DVD’s producers and the rights holders they’re apparently trying to bypass.

Never before available on DVD or any other home video format, LOVE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD will delight Frost-Cresse buffs but won’t win the pair any new fans beyond a handful of ‘60s nudie newbies unfamiliar with their diseased m.o. At a lean 61 minutes, the film is a sampler basket of Cresse’s most notorious obsessions -- bondage, Asian women, lesbianism, spanking -- nicely photographed by Frost as a series of loops and then assembled to form a loosely structured joke with a sourpuss punch line. Just how amused you’ll be by the joke, if you even recognize it as one, will depend on your previous experiences with the gruesome twosome's output and whether or not you consider voyeurism a subject serious enough to warrant the mock REEFER MADNESS treatment it's given here. The theme is hammered home in the first two images: a close-up of leading man Forman Shane’s eye, followed by a medium shot through Venetian blinds of a woman undressing. Shane plays college jock Jerry, whose spurned sexual advances toward gal pal Shelia ("You only love me for my meatloaf!") doom him to a life of stag films, porno shops, prostitutes and a lot of window peeping. The voiceover during the Tijuana whorehouse scene is hilarious enough on its own, but when Frost cuts to a shot of Jerry getting an eye exam you'll swear there's a rimshot on the soundtrack. Centerpiece of the film is a sorority initiation in which two pledges are led into a room on dog leashes, tied up, blindfolded, stripped and then tormented with knives (fittingly enough, the same room was used again for SLAVES IN CAGES). Best sequence takes place in a peepshow booth and shows typically Frosty contempt for the audience, as the stag film Jerry watches grinds to a halt every minute, forcing him to dig another and still another coin out of his pocket. I laughed both times I watched it. Hell, I'm laughing right now just thinking abou-- [*click*]

Dammit!

OK, I know I have one ... more ... quarter ... in ... here ... somewhere...

One-Sheet of the Week: SAFARI EXPRESS (1976)

SAFARI EXPRESS (1976)

U.S. release in 1981



[Do you think Biba the Wonder Monkey had the same agent as Palance, Andress and Gemma?]

HARRY AND THE BIKINI BANDITS

The title and the Robert McGinnis artwork hooked me, but what made the sale final was the fact that Harry -- as pictured on the cover -- bears more than a passing resemblance to tough guy actor William Smith. Indeed if this had been produced as a movie in the early 1970s, Smith would’ve been perfectly cast as the macho, carefree and conniving Harry Bullmore, a.k.a. Captain Harry Hook, who makes the national press when he sets sail from New York with an all-girl crew in an old bucket called the Jezebel, destination the Bahamas. The news reaches all the way to Peckinpaugh, Nebraska and the eyes of his 17-year-old nephew Clayton Bullmore III. Hungry for action of any kind -- but preferably the female kind -- Clayton leaves home against his father’s wishes and meets up with the Jezebel in Miami, only to find that the five-girl crew has been whittled down to one: his Uncle Harry’s foxy Chinese bedmate, Miss Wong. Luckily, the broken-down Jezebel is such a conversation piece (and aging beach bum Harry a natural chick magnet) that Clayton is soon playing footsy with Charity Smeeton, a blonde British beauty they find adrift in a rubber life raft, and sepia stunner Elvira McGee, the kept woman of a U.S. senator. Meanwhile, Harry is cuckolding the millionaire owner of a hugely popular hamburger franchise, who trails behind the Jezebel in his fully-equipped yacht Charisma.

Author Basil Heatter settles into a relaxed, humorous R-rated groove for the first act, but switches gears around page 60 when Harry’s shady, diminutive business partner Grogan arrives in Nassau and Clayton finds out the two are planning to rip off the new Paradise Island Casino by replacing the freon tanks in the building’s air conditioning unit with nitrous oxide! Heatter is a decent writer but I suspect his real strength was in the pitch; fully cognizant of what was selling books for publisher Fawcett Gold Medal in 1970, he gleefully crammed everything he could into Harry and the Bikini Bandits. Building upon the marina milieu of John D. MacDonald’s popular Travis McGee mysteries, the story is told first-person by a horny 17-year-old, exactly what Lawrence Block had done successfully the same year with his first two pseudonymous Chip Harrison books. The heist is straight out of a Richard Stark novel -- Parker and Grofield had ripped off an island casino a few years earlier in The Handle -- and all the other bells and whistles (beatniks/hippies/dropouts, pot smoking, exotic beauties, interracial sex) had been staples of trash fiction for years. The result is the paperback equivalent of a late ‘60s drive-in movie from American International Pictures, which is pretty much all I wanted from a book titled Harry and the Bikini Bandits in the first place.

'INGA' in Multiple

NEW YORK -- "Inga," starring 18-year old Swedish actress Marie Liljedahl, will open a multiple engagement tomorrow at 20 showcase theatres in the metropolitan area, following its 19-week run at the Rialto on Broadway.

(Motion Picture Daily, 4/22/1969, p.2)

Detectives Seize Film

CAMDEN, N.J. – Camden County detectives seized an alleged pornographic film, "The Rape of a Woman and Her Daughter," which was being featured at the Venus Art Theatre in suburban Haddon Township after being granted a search warrant by Camden County Court Judge Frank C. Italiano. The county Prosecutor's Office said, after the film was confiscated, that the movie might possibly provide a link in the bizarre rape-slaying of one girl and the rape and burying of another.

(Boxoffice, 6/2/1975, p.E-3)

NOW SHOWING -- December 12th, 1971

Here are some of the movies that were in theatrical distribution thirty-seven years ago today (December 12th, 1971) and quite possibly were playing at a theatre near you! [Damn, there were a lot this week!]

ADIOS, SABATA
ALL ABOUT SEX OF ALL NATIONS
AND NOW MIGUEL
THE ANDERSON TAPES
ANGELS, HARD AS THEY COME
THE ANIMALS
THE BAREFOOT EXECUTIVE
BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS
BELIEVE IN ME
BILLY JACK
BLESS THE BEASTS AND CHILDREN
BLOOD MANIA / POINT OF TERROR (double feature)
BRAIN OF BLOOD / THE VAMPIRE PEOPLE (double feature)
THE BUS IS COMING
CAPTAIN APACHE / A TOWN CALLED HELL (double feature)

CARRY ON CAMPING
CATLOW
CENSORSHIP U.S.A.
CHANDLER
CHROME AND HOT LEATHER
CINDY, THE ALL-AMERICAN GIRL
COMETOGETHER
THE CROSS AND THE SWITCHBLADE
CRY UNCLE!
THE CURIOUS FEMALE (R-rated version)

DESPERATE CHARACTERS
THE DEVILS
DIARY OF A MAD HOUSEWIFE
DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (re-release)
18 CARAT WOMAN
THE EXOTIC DREAMS OF CASANOVA
FEMALE FELONY
THE FRENCH CONNECTION
FRIENDS
GAMES MEN PLAY
GINGER
THE GIRL GRABBERS
GLEN & RANDA
GONE WITH THE WIND (re-release)
THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD (re-release)
HERCULES AGAINST THE MOON MEN / BLACK TORMENT (re-release)
HOFFMAN
HONKY
HOTTER THAN HELL
JENNIFER ON MY MIND
THE JESUS TRIP
KLUTE
KOTCH
THE LAST RUN
LE MANS
LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH
THE LION IN WINTER (re-release)
LITTLE BIG MAN
THE LIVING DESERT / THE VANISHING PRAIRIE (double feature)
THE MAGIC CHRISTMAS TREE (matinees)
MAN IN THE WILDERNESS
THE MARRIAGE OF A YOUNG STOCKBROKER
THE MINX
A NEW LEAF
THE NINE AGES OF NAKEDNESS
THE OMEGA MAN
ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH
1,000 CONVICTS AND A WOMAN
PEKING BLONDE
PETER RABBIT AND THE TALE OF BEATRIX POTTER
PINK GARTER GANG / GIRLS FROM THUNDER STRIP (double feature)

PLAY MISTY FOR ME
PREACHERMAN
PRIVATE DUTY NURSES
THE RA EXPEDITIONS
THE RAMRODDER
THE REINCARNATE
RING OF BRIGHT WATER
SANTA AND THE THREE BEARS (matinees)
SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS (matinees)
SCROOGE
SEE NO EVIL
THE SENSUAL MALE
SHAFT
THE SICILIAN CLAN
THE SKIN GAME
SOMETHING BIG
SON OF LASSIE (matinees)
SOUL TO SOUL
THE STEWARDESSES
SUMMER OF '42
SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY
10 RILLINGTON PLACE
THEY CALL ME TRINITY
THX 1138
THREESOME
THE TODD KILLINGS
TOGETHER
TOKOLOSHE
TORA! TORA! TORA!
T.R. BASKIN
WELCOME HOME, SOLDIER BOYS
WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HELEN?
WHO DID COCK ROBIN?
WITHOUT A STITCH
WOMEN IN CAGES
WUTHERING HEIGHTS
YELLOW SUBMARINE (re-release)
YVONNE FROM 6 TO 9

Robert McGinnis' KISS KISS, BANG BANG art

One of the things I enjoy so much about Shane Black's screenplays is that his love of reading -- especially his interest in mysteries and pulp paperbacks -- always manages to cut through the gunfire, explosions and wall-to-wall wisecracks, and it's what ultimately makes his work so distinctive. You can't watch Bruce Willis as Joe Hallenbeck in THE LAST BOY SCOUT without thinking of the hardboiled private eyes of the past, while LETHAL WEAPON and THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT owe quite a bit to Warren Murphy's action series writing of the '70s. Black's directorial debut from 2005 -- KISS KISS, BANG BANG (written under the title YOU'LL NEVER DIE IN THIS TOWN AGAIN) -- is broken into chapters named after Raymond Chandler novels, but the story is based on Bodies Are Where You Find Them, one of the many Mike Shayne mysteries written by the prolific Brett Halliday. The artist most associated with Halliday's novels, Robert McGinnis, was hired to create cover art for the mock paperbacks referenced in the movie, and the four postcards below were distributed at sneak preview screenings of KISS KISS, BANG BANG. Enjoy!

The Endangered List (Case File #9)

THE FEMALE RESPONSE (1973)

CAST
Raina Barrett (Leona)
Jacque Lynn Colton (Rosalie)
Michaela Hope (Sandy)
Jennifer Welles (Andrea)
Gena Wheeler (Victoria)
Marjorie Hirsch (Marjorie)
Roz Kelly (Gilda)
Lawrie Driscoll (Karl)
Edmund Donnelly (Mark)
Todd Everett (Gary)
Richard Wilkins (Tom)
Phyllis MacBride (Rachel)
Suzy Mann (Ramona)
Curtis Carlson (Alex)
Herb Streicher a.k.a. Harry Reems (Max)
Anthony Scott Craig (Caller)

Richard Lipton (Leland)

CREDITS
Produced by Richard Lipton
Directed by Tim Kincaid
Director of Photography: Arthur D. Marks
Music Composed by Bill Reynolds
Music Arranged and Conducted by Manny Duran
Screenplay by Tim Kincaid and David Newburge
Film Editing by Graham Place and Arthur Marks, Atlantis Films, Inc.
Sound by Graham Place
Art and Sculpture by Richard Corben, Aaronel De Roy Gruber, and Jamie De Roy
Hairstyles Created by Albert Brown

A Filmpeople Presentation
A Richard Lipton Production
A Trans-American Release
Running Time: 89 minutes
Aspect Ration: 1.85:1
Rating: R

Color by Movielab

SYNOPSIS

A newspaper columnist with firm ideas about feminine freedoms, Marjorie (MARJORIE HIRSCH) is fired by her editor for expressing her libertarian views in her column. Convinced that her employer was no longer in touch with today's morals and acceptance of the sexual revolution, she begins a probe of public attitudes and instigates a seminar in sex among a representative group of young women.

Sandy (MICHAELA HOPE), a free-living young hippie, denounces the restrictions of married life to the girls at the seminar and describes as an example an afternoon spent with Gary (TODD EVERETT), a young man who picked her up as she was hitchhiking to a country bungalow she maintained. She explains how she introduced him to some drug-boosted love-making as the pair spent an interval in the surrounding forest.

Social restrictions have no bonds on Victoria (GENA WHEELER) who forthrightly describes herself as a high-priced call girl. She declares that she sees nothing wrong with an occupation in which she is handsomely paid for making love to the most sophisticated men in New York. However, she does admit that it becomes boring at times and does not eliminate the possibility that she might one day settle down.

Such an existence fascinates Rosalie (JACQUE LYNN COLTON) who admits that she doesn't have the body to be a successful prostitute. In fact, with her weight problem, any affair with a man would be a relief from her virginal state.

The problems of a suburban housewife are expressed by Leona (RAINA BARRETT) who relates the boredom of life with a husband who has allowed his professional ambitions and drive for material gain to interfere with their emotional life, relegating love making to a routine duty.

Gilda (ROZ KELLY) reveals her interest in the offbeat propositions described in the ads of the underground press. She expresses shock at their audacity but it doesn't discourage her from determining to investigate their erotic possibilities. Responding to one of the ads, she finds herself imprisoned in a bed and bound at the wrists by her co-respondent. Another attempt finds her with a young man (RICHARD LIPTON) who insists that she must dress up like his mother and treat him like an infant in order to relate to her sexually.

Resentment of the masculine image forces Andrea (JENNIFER WELLES), a pretty blonde socialite, to tease the men she meets, luring them on then coldly cutting them off at the peak of their interest. Her technique backfires, however, when, spurning the advances of a young garage mechanic, she is raped by him in her shower. But, rather than an ordeal, she finds she enjoys the experience.

Rosalie, too, finally gets into activities more satisfying sexually when she joins a group of swingers who believe in love making as a group activity.

For Leona, the routines of suburbia take a painful turn when, responding to an obscene phone call, she finds that her frustration forces her to listen to the caller…and sense erotic enjoyment from it.

Victoria's life as a call girl appears to end when she receives a marriage proposal from one of her clients. They agree to a rendezvous and, although she is sure that he wasn't sincere, he appears and they go off together.

The girls end their seminar in agreement that the social revolution is a welcome change and that each had learned much from her sisters to guide her in improving her own love life.

Drive-In Manager's 2nd Obscenity Arrest

RICHLAND, Wash. -- Richland Drive-In manager William Rabe has been arrested for the second time in less than two years on a charge of showing an obscene film.

City Attorney Tim Heye, who accompanied police during the arrest and confiscation of a print of Audubon's "Carmen Baby," reported that the film, which "glorifies sex in its most perverted forms," was attended mostly by apparent minors. He further characterized the film as "Filth...obscene under every test of the Supreme Court of obscenities," and in addition unfit for "display on a huge outdoor billboard for all of the world to see."

(Motion Picture Daily, 9/12/1968, p.4)

A QUEEN'S RANSOM (1976)

Recommended more to James Bond fans for the presence of series one-shot George Lazenby and connoisseurs of terrible English-language dubbing than to the kung fu buffs who’ll be drawn in by a couple of key names in the cast, A QUEEN’S RANSOM is Golden Harvest’s attempt at an international thriller along the lines of THE DAY OF THE JACKAL, RUSSIAN ROULETTE, and HENNESSY. It has something of a bad reputation, probably due to the export version that I’m reviewing here, but is an entertaining time killer as long as you’re not expecting an abundance of martial arts action. A letterboxed, sub-titled DVD and VCD can be purchased from online vendors or at Chinatown DVD shops, but nostalgia for the teen years I spent in front of the TV on Saturday afternoons drove me to this cropped, horrendously dubbed transfer. Pic reached U.S. grindhouses in 1981 as THE INTERNATIONAL ASSASSIN, courtesy of World Northal, and was already part of the company’s “Black Belt 2” television syndication package (as INTERNATIONAL ASSASSINS) by March of that year.

The serpentine story takes place during May of 1975, an especially hectic month in Hong Kong history. After accepting over 130,000 Indo-Chinese refugees who were fleeing communist takeover in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, the United States closed its doors and forced the remaining 12,000-to-18,000 to pour into makeshift camps in Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, and – yes – Hong Kong. At the same time, Queen Elizabeth II became the first reigning monarch to visit the colony in 133 years of British rule, an event that required massive amounts of police and military security. Into this powder keg comes Belfast IRA killer George Walsh (Lazenby, hilariously voiced by a whiny Brit who only tries for an Irish brogue in every third scene) and his motley band of international assassins -- familiar faces include Jimmy Wang Yu, Bolo Yeung and American starlet Judy Brown (THE BIG DOLL HOUSE, WOMEN IN CAGES) -- who are apparently in town to kill the Queen at any cost. But with a Cambodian princess (Angela Mao) and all of her riches stowed away in a nearby farmhouse, any halfway attentive viewer will know where this is going by the midway point. Other plot twists are competently handled and won’t be spoiled here. Director Shan-si Tung has a lot to juggle and manages to keep most of it in the air for the full 96 minutes. Others in the cast are Tien Ni a.k.a. Tanny (from the BLACK MAGIC movies and CLEOPATRA JONES AND THE CASINO OF GOLD), Dean Shek, Lung Chan, Chun Hsiung Ko, and - although I never actually saw him - Sammo Hung. Lazenby, who had already done one movie each with Mao (STONER) and Wang Yu (THE MAN FROM HONG KONG), was next seen in KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE and Al Adamson’s DEATH DIMENSION.

The Endangered List (Case File #8)

LASH OF LUST (1972)

Starring
Gary Kent
Bambi Allen

Directed
by
George Sheaffer
[Al Adamson]

Written by
Samuel Sherman

Produced by
Mardi Rustam

A
Target Films
release

Rating: Self-applied X

One-Sheet of the Week: BURIED ALIVE

BUIO OMEGA / BEYOND THE DARKNESS / BLUE HOLOCAUST / THE FINAL DARKNESS (1979)

U.S. release as BURIED ALIVE (1984)

THE NAKED KILLERS (1978)

It’s too bad that legendary drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs started writing his review column in 1982 and not three years earlier, because he would’ve had a field day with THE NAKED KILLERS, one of the goofiest Euro imports to reach American screens during the late ‘70s. The U.S. one-sheet misleadingly advertised the film as a lurid S&M bloodbath and the distributor, AMS Films, was supposedly “a division of A Major Studio, Inc.” Spanish production was originally (and more appropriately) titled LA ISLA DE LAS VIRGENES ARDIENTES -- ISLAND OF THE WILD VIRGINS -- and I doubt a real major studio would’ve gone near it in 1979. Then again, 20th Century Fox had a knack for wacky acquisitions (Dario Argento’s SUSPIRIA and INFERNO, Annie Bell and Pam Grier in TWILIGHT OF LOVE, the sex change drama THE WOMAN INSIDE) around the same time -- and in the wake of their success with STAR WARS -- so I suppose anything’s possible.

Pic is bizarro from the word go, opening with a five-minute jungle chase and hand-to-hand combat sequence between three scantily-clad Amazonian types on a remote island in the Pacific. Turns out the loin-clothed lasses are castaways from a cruise ship disaster and have been stranded on the island for 20 years with an elderly Japanese fighter pilot who was shot down during World War II and is training them to ward off an Allied invasion. “We have no other arms than what the lords of nature have given to us!” says an old Castilian wearing too much eye liner and speaking in an English-dubbed Japanese accent, “And on the day our enemy sets foot on this island, we will have to fight him with all the skills and dexterity we have learned!” Cut to Paul and Walter, two bumbling opportunists who set sail in Paul's fishing boat with a crew of local criminals to search for the Osaka, a Japanese freighter that sank during World War II and supposedly contained $400 million in gold and silver. Naturally, the booty-filled wreck is only a short raft ride away from la isla de las virgenes ardientes, nicely populated with booty of a different sort.

The type of movie that really should be stumbled upon at 4:30 in the morning rather than sought after, THE NAKED KILLERS is a silly T&A curio with a good amount of intentional humor until the violent third act, when the crew mutinies and invades the island to kill Paul and Walter but instead unleashes the bloody wrath of the wild virgins (the R rating is well earned). And just when you think you've fallen for another bait-and-switch, the bondage graphic used in the American ad campaign actually turns up in the movie. A good flick to throw on at a party, THE NAKED KILLERS has something for everyone. Director M.I. Bonns also made the Paul Naschy werewolf vs. Yeti classic NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST and KILMA, QUEEN OF THE AMAZONS.

The VHS from Something Weird Video, long deleted from their catalog, runs 84 minutes and appears uncut except for some rough patches during reel changes.

Criterion Goes Afro with 'Blood and Guts'

NEW YORK -- An authentic African village, complete with artifacts, dancing Afro-girls and drums will be the theme in the lobby of the Criterion Theatre in connection with Cinemation Industries' AFRICA BLOOD AND GUTS which opens Friday.

According to Larry Morris, of the M.S. Moss circuit which operates the theatre, the lobby will have a decorated ceiling and a grass-covered floor with a beaten path for patrons to move on. The box office will be dressed as an African hutch.

(Motion Picture Daily, 8/19/1970, p.2)

NOW SHOWING -- December 5th, 1974

Here are some of the movies that were in theatrical distribution thirty-four years ago today (December 5th, 1974) and quite possibly were playing at a theatre near you!

THE ABDICATION
AIRPORT 1975
ALI VS. FOREMAN CHAMPIONSHIP FIGHT
ALICE IN WONDERLAND (Disney re-release)
AMARCORD
AMAZING GRACE
ANDY WARHOL'S DRACULA
ANGEL NUMBER 9
APHRODISIAC
THE BEARS AND I
BENJI
BIRDS DO IT, BEES DO IT
BIRTH OF A LEGEND
THE BLACK DRAGON
CABARET
CHINATOWN
COUNTRY GIRL
DEADLY WEAPONS
DEATH WISH
THE DEBAUCHERS
THE DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE / IN THE DEVIL'S GARDEN (double feature)

THE DOVE ("Sneak Preview tonight!")
EARTHQUAKE
ENTER THE DEVIL
THE EXORCIST
FRENCH BLUE
THE GAMBLER
GOLD
GONE WITH THE WIND (re-release)
THE GROOVE TUBE
HARRY AND TONTO
THE HORRIBLE HOUSE ON THE HILL / THE NIGHT GOD SCREAMED (double feature)
JUGGERNAUT
KATO & THE GREEN HORNET
THE KLANSMAN
LACOMBE LUCIEN
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE ROLLING STONES
LAW & DISORDER
LENNY
THE LENNY BRUCE PERFORMANCE FILM
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF XAVIERA HOLLANDER
LIP SMACKERS
THE LITTLE PRINCE
THE LONGEST YARD
LT. ROBIN CRUSOE, U.S.N. (re-release)
THE MAGIC CHRISTMAS TREE (matinees)
THE NIGHT PORTER
THE ODESSA FILE
THE OPTIMISTS
PAUL AND MICHELLE
PORTRAIT
THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY
RUMPLESTILTSKIN
SANTA CLAUS (matinees)
THE SAVAGE IS LOOSE
SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE
SCUM OF THE EARTH
THE SEXORCISTS
SEXUAL CUSTOMS IN SCANDINAVIA
STEPPENWOLF
SUPER STOOGES VS. THE WONDER WOMEN
THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1-2-3
THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT
THE TRIAL OF BILLY JACK
TRUCK TURNER / FOXY BROWN (double feature)
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (re-release)
WALKING TALL
WET RAINBOWS
A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE

THE ATOMIC BRAIN (1964) a.k.a. MONSTROSITY

Reviewed by The Keeper of the Pit

Hey, gang, the Keeper here, jest taking some slime off recowering from the memories brought back after watching this "E"-pic on the ol' Violent & Creepy Receiver. It scums to that witch passes for my mind that perhaps in recent columns herein I have given off the impression that all was swell whilst catching movies in reel theaters & Passion Pits in the daze of my youth. Well, yes & no…there was a certain advantage I had over the kids of today in that I could see, say, GORGO on a BIG screen rather than the Bijou Box at the loco mall. & it was jest fine fine & dandy that from one Saturday afternoon to the next a kid could take in maybe two Steve Reeves Hercules PITures, then the next find himself hit over his little head with a gruely STRANGE double-bill like THE MANSTER w/ THE HORROR CHAMBER OF DR. FAUSTUS. Ah, but catching this little turkey again after scum 20 years since last viewing it the second slime around on "Chiller" of Shocky Doc only serves to shake the ghouled intentions of selective mammaries. Uh, memories! Even a Keeper Kid could smell when his buttons were being pushed, & I reely stink most of us Saturday afternooners could detect the difference between ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE and THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN, & it haunt the size that counts!

Witch brings us to ATOMIC BRAIN a.k.a. MONSTROSITY. I can still see a loco theater-full of kids throwing anything handy at the screen during this one, & I thank me lucky stars & garters that I had a place to learn the joy of the "this thing sucks!" fling, later refined to a state of art with beer cans at the drive-ins of yore & gore. Now you might think a flick directed by Ray D. Steckler's camera-person would at least LOOK interesting, & you'd be wrong. &, like most turkey turds of celluloid naturd, uh, nature, this will sound better on paper than it plays so be forebrainwarned!

Consider this film a DONOVAN'S BRAIN/mad scientist plot done with a silly narration right out of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. Yes, yer right, there's not enuff action for the flick to carry itself, so we get cut-to-the-mausoleum lines like "The watchman's mind was not on body snatchers, just his usual nip." Boy howdy, I can see those jujubes flying! PITure opens with a pseudo-scientific hexplanation as a Dr. Otto Frank plays around with a day-old female body he's robbed so he can zap it with his cyclotron with atomic fission & then put a living animal's brain inside it. &, despite the fact that we can see lotsa shots of gals naked but with bands over their chests & thighs, this was Wayback before RE-ANIMATOR, & mostly Dr. Frank works with dogs! Ah, but some pussies will come!

Seems the ghouled Doc works for a Heddy March, an 80-year-old rich miser who wants her brain put into a younger body. She KEEPs a lover named Victor, a gigolowlife of curse, but, as the narrator sez, "Sometimes it's convenient to have a man – especially when he comes cheaper than servants!" & spooking of servants, Heddy & Victor are using want ads for servants in a bid for cheap parts. She complains these foreign girls will probably show up answering the latest ad & be uglies. Victor sez yes, but most applications for servant girls don't ask for bust, waist & hip measurements. See, I told ya those daze were more innocent. Today the questions on the form would be multiple orgasm choice!

Sure enuff, our 3 gals show up at the airport & all sit down on the same bench to learn they've all answered the same ad. We've a standard mix here: 1 Mexican, 1 English, 1 Austrian, so it looks like Doc Frank runs a regular melting G-spot. Ah, but trouble brews amongst our villains! Despite her obviously huge mansion, the sets inside are a bit, how to say, low-budget for a supposedly wealthy matron like Mrs. March. For one, Frank's cyclotron always sounds like George Pal's Martian death-rays: just like a Duster trying to start. & the old bitchy, uh, biddy has no TV, jest a radio (in 1964, mind) to hear reports on how closely the police are linking the loco-grave-robbing to her door. Seems Dr. Frank & his dog-faced monstrosity assistant (a failed hexperiment, of curse) are getting a mite undercautious, so Heddy Lambasts them. The ghouled Doctor worried as for the police, if they scum around. "I hit the switch, a nuclear reaction is set off!" he claims, & the house of ho-hum, I mean horror, becomes a hole in the ground. This may sound a bit drastic to you reading this, as it did to us Saturday afternooners, but it doesn't bother Heddy much. She listens to this and jest sez, "Be careful!" Lick the monster always sez, "Split beavers, not atoms!"

Meanwhile, Victor the gigolowlife is stinking that making love to an 80-year-old woman in the body of a 20-year-old girl is insanity. Ah, but she's an old lady butt firm! & besides, Dr. Frank';s got this girl in the basement lab with the brain of a dog, about whom Victor sez "She doesn't have a brain, there may be advantages." Hmm, sounds like Victor's scumtemplating a ganglia banglia!

Lust we furget, the Austrian gal auditions for Heddy. "Turn around…very slowly!" She complies, to witch Heddy immediately yells to Victor, "Get the doctor!" Va-room! She's got the same measurements, she sez, as Marilyn Monroe…who the monster sez Kennedied for their sins. Soon enuff the Mexican gal finds herself with a living cat's brain, witch scums in handy when Dr. Frank feels Frisky! The udder gals are catvised by Mrs. March not to run up & down stairs, it'll give their pretty legs ugly muscles. Yeah, right, & don't slide down the banister, you'll spoil Dr. Frank's supper! (Here, kitty, kitty!)

Can things get more come-ply-catted? Lech see…Mexican girl starts climbing the walls, ends up scratching out Austrian gal's eyes. The English gal is up next to learn her lab tables, & she knows it, & so do the villains know she knows. Ah, but Victor & the doc are getting double-crossed by Mrs. March, so who will reely get the brain of the cat, Mrs. March or the babe from Britain? (Witchever, the monster sez English gals in horror flicks are known for being "into" toms, uh, Thames!)

River-ting back to 1964…Thames have changed. They don't make them like this anymore, thank the stars & garters, & if they did, end product would end up right to video, witch is what jest as well. No screen any size could make this PITure any less meowserable, it stank on screen, it stank on "Chiller Theatre," and it stinks on the video shelf. Scum things stink no matter how you wrap it. & spooking of wrapping it, it's about time to wind this up. I could, of curse, ghoul on about udder 60's flicks abut brain-switching, mod scientists & pussy plundering. I could meowander about THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS, THE BRAIN THAT PANNED OUT…but the monster sez I oblongatta ghoul now!

& bedsides, uh, besides, the monster sez that filling up these pages with more vancancy of my cranium would only prove what he's said all along: there's no way to make me dulla!

The Endangered List (Case Files #6 and #7)

[Case File #6]

THE NEST OF THE CUCKOO BIRD (1965)

Written, produced and directed

by Bert Williams

Starring

Bert Williams, Ann Long, Chuck Frankle, Jackie Scelza, Larry Wright

Investigating Florida moonshiners, a detective (Bert Williams) is searching the Everglades when he discovers a remote inn managed by a demented showgirl (Ann Long), a taxidermist who stuffs humans for display in her grotesque Chapel Of The Dead.

[Case File #7]

MOTORCYCLE MASSACRE (1971?)

I first heard about MOTORCYCLE MASSACRE back in 1988, when one of our contributors -- Dave Szurek -- began referencing it in the letters, lists and reviews he sent to us every month. At first I thought a shady subdistributor in Detroit (where Dave lived at the time) had re-titled a print of NORTHVILLE CEMETERY MASSACRE and was playing it off on triple- and quadruple-bills in area drive-ins and grindhouses -- but no, Dave insisted, this was a totally different movie.

When I talked to Dave earlier this year and mentioned MOTORCYCLE MASSACRE, he told me that he was pretty sure it was a re-titling of another movie -- but he has no idea what that movie is. He also told me that people in 'zines and on message boards have accused him of making up the movie.

The following appeared in Wet Paint #25 (March/April 1989, p. 19)

MOTORCYCLE MASSACRE (1971) Amateurishly produced and extremely obscure but surprisingly well-made and conscientiously written sleaze. No massacre – somebody obviously just liked the sound of that title – as lone biker rescues and returns a kidnapped girl, but his motives are misinterpreted and he becomes the target of rednecks. Offbeat and satisfying, with uncharacteristic evidence of brains; recommended to buffs of the obvious genre. Keith Hotchkiss, Connie Conklin, Lee Marsden, Simon Stewart, Art D'Angelo, Charles Lysander. -- Dave Szurek

Does anyone know the true identity of MOTORCYCLE MASSACRE? Can someone shed more light on this mystery?

"Heeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Bootsy Goodhead!"

JOHNNY CARSON: Why is it that everyone seems to laugh when I mention HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP?

LINDA SHAYNE: Well, it is something of a cult classic.

JOHNNY CARSON: I've got to see this picture!

[Linda Shayne on The Tonight Show to promote SCREWBALLS, Tuesday, May 3rd 1983]