One-Sheet of the Week: SUICIDE CULT (1980)

THE ASTROLOGER (1977)

Released in 1978 by Interstar Corp.

Re-released in 1980 as SUICIDE CULT

The Endangered List (Case File #82 )

MÄDCHEN MIT GEWALT (1970)

a.k.a. LOVE BY RAPE, THE BRUTES and CRY RAPE

Starring

Helga Anders (as Alice)

Klaus Löwitsch (as Werner)

Arthur Brauss (as Mike)

with

Astrid Boner

Renate Grosser

Elga Sorbas

Rolf Zacher

Monika Zinnenberg

Produced and directed

by

Roger Fritz

Written by

Roger Fritz

Jürgen Knop

Friedel Schnitzler

Cinematography by

Egon Mann

Edited by

Peter Przygodda

Music by

Can

Costume Designer

Barbara Grupp

Production Manager

Peter Genée

Released by

Joseph Brenner Associates

MPAA rating: R

Released as THE BRUTES in 1973

Re-released as CRY RAPE in 1974

It was a HOT SUMMER WEEK in 1972, dammit!

We thought we had cleared up the confusion surrounding GIRLS ON THE ROAD two months ago when we reviewed it HERE, but we were apparently giving ourselves way too much credit. The DVD is out now, and in the past week we've seen a half dozen reviewers get the title and/or the release information wrong because they insist on consulting the IMDb for their (mis)information. One of these critics even swung by the Temple long enough to right-click our ad mats, but evidently didn't rub his eyeballs across any of the text before scurrying off to write his own review, because he made the same mistakes as the others.

OK, let's try this again: GIRLS ON THE ROAD is not the original title, and the movie wasn't released in 1973. The original title is HOT SUMMER WEEK, and it was released in 1972. Don't believe the IMDb, because it's wrong. Flat-out wrong.

The ad above appeared in the January 17, 1972 issue of Boxoffice. Please note the "national release date" of June 21. That's June 21, 1972 -- not June 21, 1973. If you search THE MPAA database for GIRLS ON THE ROAD, you won't find it on file with them, not even as an alternate title -- but you will find a record for HOT SUMMER WEEK (1972).

Let's go over it again, shall we? Original title: HOT SUMMER WEEK. Release date: 1972. Re-release title: GIRLS ON THE ROAD.

Got it? We'll see.

Ballyhoo Motion Pictures does DARK STAR supplements!

Our friend Daniel Griffith of Ballyhoo Motion Pictures has made a terrific 'making-of' documentary for the upcoming DVD of John Carpenter's DARK STAR, and the folks at VCI seem to agree with us, 'cause they've given him special billing in the press release [See below]. Gosh, even those wascally west coast maestwos of supewior suppwahmental extwahs don't get that kind of recognition for their work. Congratulations, Daniel!

The Wabbit Zombie Weeturns!

Going by the name of this post, you might think that we've gone completely nuts and decided to acknowledge the existence of those wascally west coast maestwos of supewior suppwahmental extwahs, but no, we're just takin' some time to post and boast about our second Zombie Rabbit Award in as many weeks. You'll remember that our buddy Don Guarisco at Schlockmania sent one of these furry buggers our way last week. Well, now the guys at Video Junkie Strikes Back from Beyond the Grave, Thomas Simmons and William Wilson, have given us one as well. This is one of those pay-it-forward deals where the lucky recipients have to "infect" ten other blogs with the Zombie Rabbit, which was hard enough to do the first time and would be damn near impossible to pull off now without sending one a hoppin' right back at the Video Junkie guys, which would give them their third goddamn rabbit to deal with (Remember when Bill McKinney pops open the trunk of his car in THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT? It ain't a pretty sight). So we're going to try and eliminate this rabbit problem right now by passing it on to one and only one blog -- a great blog that we should've mentioned last week but didn't, and that's Samuel Wilson's Mondo 70: A Wild World of Cinema.  If you haven't checked out this superior site yet, then by all means get over there and become a follower.  It really is one of the best film blogs on the Web.

DRIVE-IN SUPER MONSTER-RAMA 2010 is this Friday & Saturday!

We'll be there both nights!

For all the details, click HERE

For our review of last year's show, go HERE

One-Sheet of the Week: THE LAST HUNTER (1984)

L'ULTIMO CACCIATORE (1980)

U.S. release in January 1984 as THE LAST HUNTER

Clippings: SNUFF stuff

The Endangered List (Case File #81)

ALIAS BIG CHERRY (1975)

Starring
Leo Rossi
Joe Tornatore
Johnny Silver
Stanley Myron Handleman
Thelma Pelish
Sharon Kelly
George Pelster
David Knapp
Herb Eden
Joe E. Ross
Stan Ross
Robert Easton
Millie Perkins
Roberta Collins
Alex Drier
and
Dyanne Thorne

Screenplay by
Robert H. Adleman
and
Robert Thom

Based on the book
Alias Big Cherry:
The Confessions of a Master Criminal
by
Robert H. Adleman

Music by
Luchi DeJesus

MPAA rating: R

A
Moonstone release

The Zombie Rabbit Award

Our friend Don Guarisco at Schlockmania has infected us with "The Zombie Rabbit Award," which was created a while back at the iZombie blog. Thanks, Don! We're now supposed to pass this wascally infection on to 10 more blogs that we believe are worthy of your attention. Here we go...

1. Scott's Introspection Section
2. Destructible Man
3. Blaxploitation Pride
4. The Dead Next Door: A Field Guide to Regional Horror Films
5. Westerns All'Italiana
6. Flickhead
7. Acidemic-Film
8. Arbogast on Film
9. Cinema Arcana
10. Entertainment Legends Revealed

Cannon coulda-beens from 1980

The following movie projects were announced by the newly revamped Cannon Films in October of 1980.

THE DOROTHY DANDRIDGE STORY was going to be a musical biopic directed by Michael Schultz (because his SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEART’S CLUB BAND two years earlier had turned out soooo well) with music by John Barry and lyrics by Carol Connors, to be produced by Leon Isaac Kennedy and starring his then-wife Jayne Kennedy.

Speaking of the Kennedys, their Cannon-backed 1981 remake of BODY AND SOUL was originally going to be helmed by busy actor-director Georg Stanford Brown, but George Bowers (in between Crown International films) ended up directing it instead.

Brian Garfield’s Death Sentence, the continuing story of CPA-turned-vigilante Paul Benjamin, was published in 1975 as a response to the controversial film adaptation of Death Wish, the first novel about Benjamin's exploits. To find out how this project very quickly lost Garfield’s approval and ultimately morphed into DEATH WISH II, pick up a copy of Paul Talbot’s excellent book Bronson’s Loose!: The Making of the Death Wish Films (iUniverse, 2006).

Following in the footsteps of Chuck Norris (GOOD GUYS WEAR BLACK), Joe Lewis (JAGUAR LIVES) and James Ryan (KILL OR BE KILED), undefeated karate champ Mike Stone wrote a screenplay titled Dance of Death that was designed to showcase his skills and hopefully launch his career as an action star. After purchasing his script and assuring him that he would be the star, producers Golan and Globus fired everyone -- the director, the crew, the cast (Stone included) -- brought in new screenwriters and gave the lead role to Franco Nero. Stone was rehired, but as the fight coordinator and also to double Nero for the action scenes. The resulting film was a hit that helped launch Sho Kosugi’s career as an action star.

We know nothing about this black-themed horror film from the writer of FIVE ON THE BLACK HAND SIDE and BLACK BELT JONES (Oscar Williams) and the director of COOLEY HIGH and CAR WASH (Michael Schultz again), except that it was never made.

Emmett Alston made NEW YEAR’S EVIL for Cannon instead of this slasher movie starring Wayne Newton!

Optical effects master Zoran Perisic, who had just won an Oscar for his groundbreaking work on SUPERMAN, was supposed to make his directorial debut with this big-screen adaptation of Colin Wilson's novel. It eventually became LIFEFORCE (1985), directed by Tobe Hooper from a screenplay co-written by Dan O'Bannon.

X-RAY is better known as HOSPITAL MASSACRE (1982). Boaz Davidson filled in for Emmett Alston as director and Barbi Benton replaced Jill St. John as the star.

Obscure shorts from John Wayne Productions

We knew that filmmaker Sid Davis had been a stand-in for John Wayne for over a decade before he talked the Duke into bankrolling the first of his many social guidance shorts, THE DANGEROUS STRANGER (1950) - "A molestation exposé" - but we had no idea that Wayne was also behind Davis' demented Christmas howler SANTA AND THE FAIRY SNOW QUEEN (1951) and a handful of really obscure, most likely religious one-reelers until we came across this ad from the early 1950s. Because of the misinformation that has been disseminated by the Wayne estate in the past 20 years regarding the original 3-D release of HONDO, we're not surprised that a handful of micro-budgeted shorts have been ignored for 60 years and allowed to vanish into thin air. Anyone know more about TREASURE IN HEAVEN, THY FAITH HATH SERVED THEE, WHITHER THOU GOEST or LIGHT UNTO ALL? To be honest, they don't sound like our cup of meat, but the Wayne connection piqued our interest.

One-Sheet of the Week: THE CARS THAT EAT PEOPLE (1976)

THE CARS THAT ATE PARIS (1974)

U.S. release in 1976 as THE CARS THAT EAT PEOPLE

Re-released as CAR WARS in 1977 and '78

The Endangered List (Case File #80)

ENSALADA BAUDELAIRE (1978)

a.k.a. ANDREA and SEX & VIOLENCE

Starring

Xabier Elorriaga

Marina Langner

Christa Leem

Ricardo Masip

Lorenzo Santamaría

Directed by

Leopoldo Pomés

Written by

Román Gubern

Leopoldo Pomés

Óscar Tusquets

Cinematography by

Juan Suriñach

Music by

Ricard Miralles

Edited by

Raúl Román

Ana Stefani

MPAA rating: R

A Group 1 Films release

This Spanish production was released stateside by Group 1 Films simultaneously as ANDREA and SEX & VIOLENCE in 1979/1980. It opened in the New York City area (from another distributor, as SEX & VIOLENCE) in 1983.

BILL LANDIS says...
SEX AND VIOLENCE is a 1977 import from the now defunct Group 1 Pictures, a company specializing in foreign stuff with an S&M bent (THE DEPRAVED, LIVING NIGHTMARE). Almi, I think, is handling it – as you can see, the distributor is embarrassed to put their name on the ad. The movie is imitative of Radley Metzger’s slow, pictorial style and would have fit in well with Audubon Film’s acquisitions like SEXUS. A wealthy man fetishizes his wife, saving photo collections of her and placing things in a sadistic context. She treats him somewhat mistress/slave. They go on a boat outing complete with caviar and champagne on the Med. A loud couple they invite on board proves to be more trouble than they bargained for. He gets tied up and she bullied. In one startling shot, the female aggressor reveals herself to be a drag queen. The other is a hustler/drag queen lover/destructive type. Our heroine is subjected to mild rough stuff, including groveling in crawfish. Her verbal humiliation revolves around the supposed inferiority of real women to drag queens. The torture ends with the protagonist forced to give his beloved a golden shower. A hackneyed trick ending reveals him to have hired the couple, and so on. SEX AND VIOLENCE is a groundbreaking movie in one respect. The sacred fetish of drag queen love is onscreen in a dominance melodrama. The revelatory scene, with the bikini top still on and the bottoms pulled down to show the cock, is a classic. Graphic as it is, SEX AND VIOLENCE is not as consistently shocking or extreme as Metzger’s S&M oriented THE IMAGE (a.k.a. THE PUNISHMENT OF ANNE on video). Like Metzger’s films, it deals with puppets rather than humans. Not up to its overambitious title, SEX AND VIOLENCE is still very entertaining and worthy of some notoriety. -- (Sleazoid Express, Vol.3, No.7)

RICK SULLIVAN says...
Like POSSESSION, SEX AND VIOLENCE is another curious and compelling exploitation oddity. Originally released in the west coast in late 1979 under the title of ANDREA, SEX is an almost undetectable Italian import concerning the life of a wealthy perfume magnate and his bored yet beautiful wife. Trying to rekindle their romance with a weekend of idyllic Mediterranean yachting, the couple is soon invaded by an ill-mannered American rowdy and his tight-lipped “Norwegian” girlfriend. Midway through the flick, the girl is revealed to be a transvestite who spends the rest of the film’s short 81 minutes torturing, humiliating and beating the rich wife in front of her manacled husband. Not much in the way of bloodletting here, but fans of LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT-style degradation will have a field day as the snobby wife is slapped, burned, cut, forced to eat lobster guts and eventually pissed on by her own spouse. The action is further embellished by classic dubbed lines from the gay torturers (ie. “I hate tits, they are revolting,” etc.) that will keep the truly depraved howling throughout. A twist multi-ending reveals director Leopold Pomes’ sense of parody about his project, but it may serve to turn off fanatic violence mongers who are serious about the tone of these films. SEX AND VIOLENCE can easily vy with the aforementioned POSSESSION for the dubious honor of being the weirdest film release of the year. Be sure to catch this one! -- (The Gore Gazette, No. 62)

RICHARD GREEN says...
SEX AND VIOLENCE, which played at 42nd Street’s Selwyn Theater a while back, is the strangest and kinkiest film to come along in ages. The copyright date on this depraved curio is 1979 (looks older) and the distributor listed on the print is Group 1. A filthy rich couple is off on a leisurely vacation aboard their football-field sized yacht. The husband is a wimpy voyeur who gets off by spying on his wife as she lolls around on deck. In case she moves out of view, he keeps a photo collection on hand. They invite an obnoxious couple (a loud man and his silent girlfriend) on board to share good times, but when they start acting too crazy, they’re asked to leave. That’s when the trouble/fun starts. The invited couple ties up the husband and spend the rest of the film torturing/humiliating the wife. About the female member of the sadists, one particularly vocal Selwyn patron yelled, “That’s the ugliest looking broad I’ve ever seen! It looks like a man!” The audience roared. When that character actually revealed himself to be a man (guess how) the audience really went berserk and didn’t quiet down for quite some time. The audience was also thrown into hysterics over how the two guys continually groped each other and how they criticized the wife’s wardrobe. They also whip her, spit on her food, force her to eat regurgitated food and eat food off the floor. In the ultimate gross-out they force the husband to piss on his wife’s face while threatening to make like she was an ashtray. In an inspired finale, an off-screen voice tells us to remain in our seats and then we’re treated to three different possible endings, all dealing with the wife’s revenge. A film like this can go either way – serious or camp, and damned if I know which this one is. The audience didn’t really kick in until almost half of the film was over. There’s a constant nervous tension that even your average 42nd Street patron didn’t know how to deal with. The unrelenting sadism is unpleasant, to be sure, but it’s also fascinating to watch. That may sound sick but I doubt if anyone reading this would walk out on SEX AND VIOLENCE. It’s sick, but it’s excessively so, and anything excessive is usually not serious. (See PIECES, Vol.2, No.13) Plus, if it can hold the attention and shock, something interesting is usually going on. Some bad dubbing, and the three different endings make it weird and almost funny. I said almost. When a line is audible (the dubbing is that bad) and it makes no sense (“The Robinsons won’t be coming, somebody killed their pet monkey.”) you’ll scream with laughter. This film is totally out of it – it could be taking place in another dimension. Make up your own mind about this one. Whatever the case, it was held over for two weeks at the Selwyn. The original title was ANDREA and stills on display outside the theater still had that tag. It may be Spanish or Italian, I’m not sure which. Directed by Leopold Pomes. Feminists will have a field day ripping this one apart and they just might have a case. -- (Confessions of a Trash Fiend, Vol.2, No.22)

For more information on ENSALADA BAUDELAIRE, check out Psychotronic Kult Video.