PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Operation Bikini 1963

Operation Bikini 1963 Written by John Tomerlin and directed by Anthony Carras. An American International Picture that was produced by Lou Rusoff, James H Nicholson and Samuel Z Arkoff. William Shatner is the uncredited narrator.

Tab Hunter is the head of a Navy underwater demolition team that's been assigned the task of blowing up a sunk US Navy submarine before the Japanese can get their hands on the new advanced radar system. The team has to travel by submarine to Bikini Atoll where they find the Japanese have already located the sub. With the help of some locals they battle the Japanese and blow the hell out of the sub.

It's a B&W film with odd bits of color inserted. Frankie Avalon sings a song while dreaming of his girl. The dream is in color, a truncated version of that scene is shown again later in the film. At the end of the film there's a scene of the Bikini atomic test and then it switches to color with scenes of girls in bikinis running around on a beach while the credits roll past.

It's the directorial debut of Anthony Carras, he edited a lot of AIPs films, he directed one more film in 1971. Sadly his debut is pretty basic with little to stand out. The cast is some better than the script.Besides Tab and Frankie we've got Jim Backus, Scott Brady, Gary Crosby, Michael Dante, Jody McCrea, Aki Aleong and a bunch of people I didn't know. William Shatner is the uncredited narrator.

I watched it and after a short while I switched to 1.5 speed to move things along a bit faster. There's a lot of cliched scenes, typical friction among the two different Navy teams to make it tense in the sub. An island romance develops, while on a mission, and the native woman later dies in a fire fight. Who needs that? You can find out if it's worth your while, I'm thinking it's below average enough to give it a 4, there's a link to the film on YouTube.

The Cat Girl Gambler 3 Abandoned Fangs Of Triumph 1966

The Cat Girl Gambler 3 Abandoned Fangs Of Triumph 1966 Screenplay by Kenzô Asada and Kazuo Nishida, directed by Hiroshi Noguchi. 

Yukiko travels to a town to bury her father's ashes, there she gets involved in a dispute between some local baddies and the clan that owns a strip club. The baddies want the club for development, they've learned the American's want to build a military base there, and they aren't too fussy about getting what they want by any means. Joe Shishido plays a guy in the middle of it all, he helps Yukiko at some point. There's a little more action than the first two films and the story was entertaining. Sadly there won't be any more in the series. No worries, there are plenty of other films with lady gamblers to watch.

The Cat Girl Gambler 2 Naked Flesh Paid Into The Pot 1965

The Cat Girl Gambler 2 Naked Flesh Paid Into The Pot 1965 Screenplay by Kenzô Asada and Kazuo Nishida, directed by Hiroshi Noguchi.

The second film is set a short while after the first. Yukiko is working in a massage parlor. Between films she'd learned that her mother had remarried after leaving Yukiko and her father a long time ago. The mother was married to a leader of a Yakuza clan called the Tempu's, at some point she died, some time later pop was killed. The sister sickens and a rival clan leader steps in to help. He takes over her territory with the agreement that he would return it to her when she was well.

Yukiko is looking for the man who killed her father, she believes working in a massage parlor frequented by gangsters is one way to get some info. One night a Yakuza drops in through the window, a couple guys are looking for him. Yukiko takes pity on him, he looks like her dead lover  from the first film, the same actor plays both parts, and hides him. It turns out he's was involved with the Tempu's before he went to prison for 4 years. He joins up with Yukiko and her sister to lure the head of the rival clan into gambling for territories after the man decides not to return the Tempu territory.

It's kind of pokey despite the number of players and all the stuff going on. There's not a lot of action, much of it in the last act. It ends with another dead lover and Yukiko vowing to leave town and find a new life. I'll find out if she does in the third film.

Friday Night Movies 881

Greed In The Sun 1964 Original story by Claude Veillot, written by Michel Audiard, directed by Henri Verneuil. A French and Italian production set in the Sahara Desert.

Jean-Paul Belmondo is a truck driver working for Gert Förbe in Morocco. Lino Ventura and Bernard Blier are also truck drivers in the same company. Gert buys a new tractor trailer and he plans to let his new driver Reginald Kernan take it out on a trip to Nigeria. Next morning Jean-Paul takes the truck and runs off with the cargo. He's got a pretty lady with him. She turns out to be the instigator of the robbery.

Gert sends Lino after Jean-Paul and Bernard after Lino. Reginald joins Lino at the edge of town, Gert had fired him for being tricked by Jean-Paul. The guys chase each other across the desert with Lino catching up with Jean-Paul on occasion. Jean-Paul uses any trick he can, he tells the owner of the gas pump and bar along the way that Lino and Reginald are gay and not to sell them any gas because it would upset Gert. That doesn't go down well with Gert and Reginald, they bust up the owner and his bar, they get gas but don't pay.

Their trucks have trouble and eventually Jean-Paul has to hi-jack Lino's truck. Lino and Reginald get to the city where the deal is supposed to take place and they split up. Lino finds Jean-Paul among some prostitutes and they have a punch up. Jean-Paul admits to being hi-jacked by his girl friend. They have a big laugh and join the prostitutes in the brothel.

It's no Hell Drivers but it was entertaining enough for me to spend $2.95 for the Blu-ray over at Hamilton Books. It's fairly comic and scenes in the desert are a good reminder I'm glad I'm not there. None of those trucks seem to have air conditioning. I wouldn't like that much.

God Raiga Vs King Ohga 2021 Written and directed by Shinpei Hayashiya. The third of his films featuring Reiga or Raiga.

I really didn't care for this at all and won't waste any  more of my time on it.

Crimson Bat The Blind Swordswoman 1969

 

Crimson Bat The Blind Swordswoman 1969 Based on the manga by Teruo Tanaka, screenplay by Hajime Takaiwa and Ichirô Miyagawa, directed by Sadatsugu Matsuda. This is the first of four films from Shochiku. Daie's Zatoichi films were really popular at the time and Shochiku wants to get some bums into the theater seats with their blind swordswoman.

In a flashback we see Oichi as a child, on a stormy night her mother and father abandon her in the woods. Lightening hits a tree while she's trying to run after them and she's blinded by the flash. She survives with the help of a couple of foster fathers and now she's grown up and making her way in the world.

Sadly Yôko Matsuyama isn't quite as good an actor as Shintaro Katsu. Yôko's face only seems to have one expression and she never seems to close her eyelids. That's Yôko in the blue kimono, the other lady is a dice dealer. Yôko's alright at moving about and sword fighting. The story is similar enough to a Zatoichi story, with Yôko helping some person in trouble and killing a lot of baddies. I liked it despite my complaints. I would watch it again and I'd watch the sequels if I had them.

Friday Night Movies 880

Vengeance Is A Golden Blade 1969 Written by Meng-Hua Ho and Yun Chih Tu, directed by Meng-Hua Ho.

That's Li Zhishan, his wife is fooling around with one of the Vicious Long Brothers. The VLBs are a rival security company who earn extra income robbing their clients. Business has been poor for the VLBs after Li began offering his security services. He's got a non-robbing security service. The Brothers decide to eliminate the competition and take Li's fancy, and unbeatable Golden Sword.

Li is hurt in the fight, a servant bundles him into a wagon with is young daughter and they all escape to the mountains. They find shelter with a herbalist and 18 years pass. The young daughter is now an adult, she's been trained up in the martial arts but doesn't know much of anything about her past.

Li allows his daughter to go into the city he used to live in and that unravels their secret existence. The wife sees the young woman and can only think of selling her virginity to the sleazy son of a rich official. Things go down hill from there, pretty soon most everyone is dead.

It's got some OK action and sword play, typical of the time, but the story is filled with clumsy bits and characters that act in their own worst interest. For a guy in security Li does one stupid thing after another. Early on he finds his wife cheating, again, and orders her to poison herself. He gives her the poison and leaves her alone in the house with the poison. She manages to poison Li and that helps the VLBs overpower him and take the sword. Li never tells his daughter anything of her past and that leaves her vulnerable. It's all very clumsy and I wished it was just better in general. There are so many more interesting films of the time, this one is barely average.

Deadlock 1970 Written and directed by Roland Klick. It's a German film shot in Israel which is standing in for the American West. It's filmed like a western and manages to use a lot of western tropes, all rather post-modern like.

A guy driving that truck sees a man lying in the desert. The man has been shot, he's carrying a machine guy and a suitcase with some cash in it. The truck driver takes him to the abandoned mining town he's living in, he's got an idea to let the guy die and keep the money but he's not that hard and he eventually saves the guy.

The guy is expecting a friend, turns out that friend is the guy who shot him in the first place. The trio fumble around while the money remains hidden. Ultimately nearly everyone lies dead on the desert ground.

It's way too slowly paced for me and there's little to like about any of the characters. I've seen better anti-hero kind of westerns, I wouldn't need to see this one again. The box says the film has developed a cult following, we all agreed we hadn't joined the cult.

Sleepy Eyes Of Death 7: The Mask Of The Princess 1966

Sleepy Eyes Of Death 7: The Mask Of The Princess 1966 Story by Renzaburô, screenplay by Seiji Hoshikawa, directed by Akira Inoue.

The Shogun's disfigured daughter Princess Kiku returns for another attempt at killing Nemuri Kyoshiro. Her face was disfigured at birth and it's driven her mad. She'd been banished from Edo for torturing and killing men and women. The Shogun is embarrassed by her behavior and like many royal figures they just send her off to live in a big house in the country. Nemuri ran into the princess in the fourth movie and she's still mad that he's not dead.

She hires some assassins who attack Nemuri at various times. There's plenty of swordplay and Nemuri's body count is 44. The baddies try framing him for murder but that doesn't work, their traps fail. Nemuri buys the contract of a young woman and gets her a job. The baddies kidnap her and threaten to hurt her if Nemuri kills any of their men. Stupid move, it's like signing your own death warrant.

I thought it was quite entertaining. There's plenty of action and running about and yelling. Just about all the characters are double dealing scum. I was happy for them to get stabbed up a bit. It's a nicely shot film, I enjoyed the images. There's some nice soundtrack music and plenty of time when there's no sound at all. They pack a lot in an 83 minute movie.

Residence For Spies 1966

Residence For Spies 1966 Director Jesús Franco co-wrote the script with Michael Loggan. Both these posters have some quirks.

Eddie Constantine plays a similar character to the spy in Franco's Attack Of The Robots but it's not the same one. He's in Istanbul, undercover as a driver for the head of a girl's school. He's investigating the deaths of some of the students. There's a few dust up and some traveling about the area. He even makes an illegal trip to Greece and some cops get killed. There's a few pretty girls but the romantic parts with Eddie and his fiance aren't much of anything. The whole movie is a bit blah, not hardly as much fun as Attack Of The Robots. I downloaded it from Rarelust and was glad not to have paid for a disc of it.

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Attack Of The Robots 1966 Director Jesús Franco co-wrote the screenplay with Jean-Claude Carrière. We watched the Redemption Blu-ray and it looked quite nice. I bought it on a whim during the last Kino Lorber sale, only a tenner, and it turned out to be my favorite Franco film. The IMDb says that Franco made a half dozen more films with private eye Al Preira.

Eddie Constantine plays an ex-spy who gets tricked into being the bait for an evil mastermind who's got a gang of well tanned hit men and women. They aren't robots, not in anyway. The baddie kidnaps people with a certain blood type and dips them in a tube with lights shining on it. The victims get tanned and a special pair of glasses puts them under the remote control of the baddies. Eddie has his hands full trying to keep ahead of the villains.

There's plenty of espionage activity, a fair number of gags, some dust ups, a few explosions and a ship on fire. There's plenty of beautiful women, oddball characters and gorgeous Spanish scenery in Madrid and Alicante. It was shot in color but only B&W prints are known to exist. I enjoyed it more than most Franco films and would want to watch it again. There's a sequel with Eddie Constantine called Residence For Spies that came out the same year.

Steel And Lace 1991 Written by Joseph Dougherty and Dave Edison, directed by Ernest D Farino. This time there's really a robot under that ladies skin.

The movie starts with a rape, a trial and a suicide. The rapist is defended by his four pals and is acquitted for lack of evidence. Clare Wren is the victim, she's so despondent at seeing the rapist walk free that she jumps off the roof of the court house. Bruce Davison plays Clare's brother, he tried to stop her but failed.

Five years pass. Bruce has built himself a robot sister and set her on a path of vengeance. She kills the pals, one at a time, each death ramming more fear down the throats of the still living. At first they aren't sure who's doing the killing, the pals even think it might be the rapist, cleaning house.

David Noughton plays a police detective and Stacy Haiduk is the court artist who was at the trial. They had dated in the past but broken up. Now they're brought back together. Such a tried cliche, that old ex, I wish people would stop using it.

There's a fair bit of running about, some gore and fights, a couple of laughs and a few effects. It's not more than about average to me. Not something that I would need to buy now that I've seen it.

Let's Kill Uncle 1966

Let's Kill Uncle 1966 Based on the novel of the same name by Rohan O'Grady, screenplay by Mark Rodgers, directed by William Castle. I watched the Blu-ray that came out last year. I didn't notice it had come out from Kino Lorber but ordered one as soon as I saw it. I suppose I could keep up with the new releases but that's a lot of work.

Rohan O'Grady turns out to be a 41 year old Canadian called June Margaret O'Grady Skinner. It's her 3rd novel, she wrote 4 more, only Let's Kill Uncle is available as a eBook. I think I'll get it, it sounds much darker than the film, that might be fun. The commentary by film historians Kat Ellinger and Mike McPadden talks about the book and the changes to the story.

Pat Cardi plays a 12 year old orphan called Barnaby, he's being escorted to a his new home on an island. His rich father has died and Barnaby is going to live with his Uncle Kevin. Mary Badham plays Chrissie, she's on the boat with Barnaby, they don't get along, fighting and causing damage. Mary's early role as Scout Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird had earned her an Oscar nomination, the first for a person of her age.

Robert Pickering plays Sgt Travis and Linda Lawson plays Justine, she's Chrissie's aunt and the romantic interest for the Sgt.

Nigel Green plays Uncle Kevin as a big game hunter adventurer sort. Barnaby is all excited to go live with Uncle Kevin, he's fascinated by Uncle Kevin, especially his WWII memoir Killing The Enemy. Uncle Kevin describes many gruesome ways to dispatch a Nazi. Little does Barnaby know that his cash poor Uncle Kevin is going to be using his deadly skills to deprive Barnaby of his inheritance.

The movie becomes a battle between the boy and the man, Chrissie aides  Barnaby and the adults are oblivious to what's going on. The kids adapt to the situation, if the adults aren't going to help them then they'll have to help themselves. Chrissie puts the idea of killing Uncle Kevin into Barnaby's head and the boy takes to the idea like a duck to water. I enjoy Castle's sense of humor. He's done well making a black comedy for the kids. I would have loved this as a child.

I saw a so-so download about 10 years ago and really enjoyed it. I'm a huge William Castle fan, I have most of his movies. Some are harder to get than others, this is the first time that Let's Kill Uncle has been released to home video. It's been restored and the 2K transfer looks fine. Nice and colorful too. I enjoyed it all over again.

The commentary is one of the few extras, there's a couple of trailers and an interview with Pat Cardi. He speaks well of his time on the film and William Castle. Both Kat Ellinger and Mike McPadden are huge William Castle fans and I enjoyed their enthusiasm for Castle and his work.

I find Castle fascinating as a film maker, he's more than his gimmick films. I like the gimmick films and have watched many of his films 3 or 4 times. I'm glad to have picked this up and will certainly want to watch it again. I should have a William Castle binge sometime.