PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Common Law Wife 1961

Common Law Wife is a 1961 drama about some horrible people who live in New Orleans. Grace Nolan wrote the script and Eric Sayers is the director. Larry Buchanan gets an uncredited director credit for directing the footage from his film Swamp Rose, Eric cut footage from that into the film he shot. It's that kind of lazy sloppy film making that makes Eric and Larry guys who should just fuck off.

An old man called Shug wants his long time girlfriend out of the house, he's got eyes on a tramp from the north to take her place. The tramp turns out to be Shug's niece and the girlfriend finds out she's Shug's common law wife. Now the girlfriend has some power and she makes Shug's life somewhat miserable. The niece has her own plot going one, Shug has some readies and she's gonna get some of that cash if it kill's him. Sadly it's not quite interesting enough to be really compelling. Spending time with these people just isn't much fun. At least many of them die. You can find out who by watching the movie on YouTube. There's a link in the title above.

Friday Night Movies 772

First up, The Satanist, a 1968 horror movie of the nudie kind. A couple move into a house next door to a satanist. The whole movie is narrated by the husband of the couple, there is no sync sound going on here. There is a good bit of nudity, some satanic crap but hardly any story. It's written and directed by Zoltan G Spencer. The movie was thought to be lost until 2014. Like anyone should have been looking for it. Well, now I've seen it and wouldn't need to see it again.

Wicked City is a 1992 Hong Kong film based on a Japanese Manga. I saw it for the first time back in the 90s and hadn't seen it in a while. I didn't dig it very much this viewing. We watched a Chinese Blu-ray and the movie looks great, it just wasn't keeping my interest, the personal melodrama is turnin' me off. Others might like it more than me.

Science Fiction Sunday 570

Prometheus Trap is a 2012 low budget SF movie. It has an estimated budget of $560K on the IMDb. I believe it. It's written by Steven J Niles and directed by Andrew Bellware. Both have made more than a dozen pictures each, this is the first for me. A space ship is sent to investigate a missing cargo ship. I wasn't too fond of the ships, the CGI is fair, kind of monotone. The crew, two humans and an android, get to the ship and find a couple of people still alive. The actors are fair to good, none are familiar to me. The ship has a secret weapon, one that can destroy the Earth by knocking it out of time. The device has turned on and it's making the ship and everyone in it repeat a segment of time over and over again. Lucky for them, the androids have an offline memory, it lives in hyperspace and isn't affected by the time resets. Eventually something else happens and the movie is over. I kind of liked the concept of it but wasn't impressed for the most part. I saw it on Amazon Prime and wouldn't bother with it again. I see there's a DVD, I wouldn't need a copy, though it might turn up in one of those multi movie packs of genre films. I'd probably buy it, if the price is low enough and I didn't have most of the movies.

Operation Atlantis was another film from AP. I've been picking through their free SF movies and it's getting harder and harder to pick a good one. The AP description for Operation Atlantis said it's SF, so does the IMDb, but that's stretching it a bit. There is an underground atomic city but we don't see much of it. There's not much by way of cool spy gadgets but the main spy has a radio transmitter in his elbow. It's an 1965 Italian and Spanish co-production with American John Erickson as George Steele Agent S 03. It was filmed in both countries. There's a bit of nice scenery but most of it's dully shot. The movie pokes along and it's 100 minutes long. There's some fights, car chases and gun battles, much of which are handled at a level below average to me. The whole movie isn't up the level of the worse of the OSS-117 movies I watched a while back. Not going to bother seeing it again. It'll be removed from my Watchlist next time I get in there.

Shanty Tramp 1967

Shanty Tramp is a 1967 film about a sleazy tramp in a small southern town. Joseph G Prieto is the director, he co-wrote the screenplay with Reuben Guberman, K Gordon Murray wrote the story. The woman in the picture is Eleanor Valli, she used the name Lee Holland for Shanty Tramp. She made two pictures for Herschell Gordon Lewis the same year, A Taste Of Blood and The Girl, The Body, And The Pill, then she didn't appear in anymore films.

Eleanor plays a sleazy gal named Emily, she hooks in the local bars for cheap. I wouldn't want to touch her but a black guy named Daniel sees her at the tent revival and can't take his eyes off of her. His mother warns him off "that shanty tramp". Daniel's mother is one of the only nice persons in the movie, she's a voice of reason. Daniel isn't listening and his interest turns into a death sentence for him and his mother. He rescues Emily from a rough biker and she takes him back to her place, her father catches them and Emily cries rape. It put Daniel on the run. The biker has gotten his gang together and they go looking for Daniel. One of the bikers kills Daniel's mother. Emily's father gets an angry mob together from the people in the revival tent and they go hunting Daniel. Emily kills her father and goes on the run. Daniel steals the bootlegger's car but has no luck getting away. Emily manages to escape to spread her vile sleaziness in another town. I can only hope she winds up dead in a ditch somewhere.

It's two big draws are the sleazy story and Emily's knockers hanging out. It isn't as overly racist as you might suspect, it's just so very sleazy. I imagine I can see the slimy trail following Emily out of town. It scores a 5.9 on the IMDb, a lot of people gave it a 6. I would give it a 6 for the sleazy story but knock off a point for the execution. I'd think I'd watch it again sometime. I found the DVD cheap enough so I can.

The Cut-Throats 1969

The Cut-Throats is a 1969 low budget copy of the Dirty Dozen. John Hayes wrote and directed.It's also known as She Devils Of The SS and Cut-Throat Kommandoss. It's part of the Vinegar Syndrome 5 Films - 5 Years Volume 4 Blu-ray set. The dozen got cut in half and 6 guys sneak into Germany to kill some Nazis and steal some important papers. Their important target turns out to be a brothel for naughty Nazis and there's plenty of boobies to prove it. The half dozen have sex with the prozzies and steal some jewels. There's more sex than fighting and neither is very exciting. It comes up short in the story and the production. Most people gave it a 4 on the IMDb and that's where I am.

The Flesh Triple Feature

The Flesh Triple Feature 3 film DVD set from Something Weird Video comes with all the films on one disc. That's a good thing, no wasted discs giving each movie it's own. These aren't films that really deserve a disc of their own. They're all written and directed by Michael Findlay under the name Julian Marsh. Michael is the co-producer, editor and he plays the lead role in all 3 pictures. He's not much of an actor. He might be worse at the acting but he doesn't really do any acting so it's hard to tell. Roberta is the co-producer, cinematographer, lighting person, musical director and she appears a bit in the films. All the movies are B&W and run about 75 minutes.

The Touch Of Her Flesh 1967 The Wikipedia says this is a break through film for the couple. I'd be hard pressed to say that with a straight face. Michael Findlay plays a guy who finds his wife in bed with another man, Angelique Pettyjohn plays his wife. Michael's a dealer in weapons but he doesn't kill them. No, he runs off into the night and gets hit by a car. After the hospital stuff is out of the way our fucked up dude goes on a killing spree, killing any promiscuous woman he meets.

He starts with a couple strippers. What a cock? Don't those working girls have a hard enough life already? He kills a couple more women and then cuts his wife's head with a table saw. At the end of the movie he's shot with an arrow by his wife's topless friend. The movie ends without knowing what else happened. It's kind of dull, even when the strippers are on stage, and there's no real dialog coming out of anyone's mouth. They've dubbed on a narration, when someone does have a line, they're shot from behind.

The Curse Of Her Flesh 1968 There's a bit of an improvement in the film making, sync sound for one, but the story is still the same. Michael survived being shot with an arrow and he's run off to kill another day. This time he's after the man who was screwing his wife in the first film. It's not any more exciting even with dialog. Like the first movie, there's a lot of strippers grinding away the minutes. It helps fill the short running time to make up for the lack of interesting story.

The Kiss OF Her Flesh 1968 More of the same.

Michael and Roberta Findlay have a cult following and someone once called them "the most notorious filmmakers in the annals of sexploitation". Now that I've seen these movies I'm going to call them a bunch of time wasting wankers. Some people love these films because they are so bad. I get it, I can laugh at bad but it's unsatisfying. At the end of the movie I want to have had a good story with fun dialog and interesting characters. They're missing on all those points. I wish they had been more entertaining.

The Naked Witch 1961

Larry Buchanan is a Texas film maker who works in the world of low-low-budgets. The Naked Witch is his third feature, it was shot in 1960, copyright 1961, released in 1964. Larry wrote and directed with Claude Alexander. Claude is also the producer. It cost 8 grand and made 80 grand in the box office and Larry got to make some more films.

A university student travels to Luckenbach Texas to study the Germans who live there. He stays at the inn, talks to people, looks around and accidentally releases a witch. The witch has some vengeance in mind, she was betrayed by the ancestor of the family that owns the inn. She kills a couple of the family before the student puts a stop to that.

There's not much story, it's lacklusterly told, and not that interesting to look at either. For a movie marketed as "an Adult picture" there's hardly any nudity and the witch's seductive dancing falls short. Some of the nudity is covered up with a black strip. Generally it just wasn't that exciting, I might never get around to it again, though I'll keep the Something Weird disc as it has another movie on it. I did like some of the Larry Buchanan commentary and there's a interview with Claude Alexander. There's some short of various quality and interest and quite a number of trailers.

OSS 117: Mission To Tokyo 1966

This time OSS 117 is in Tokyo for his spying. Some nasty bastard is attacking the American Naval bases with his secret weapon. He wants some cash or he'll attack the US again. OSS 117: Mission To Tokyo came out in 1966 and Frederick Stafford returns as OSS 117. Michel Boisrond is the new director and there are the usual gang of writers. There's the usual sort of running about and punching people. There's plenty of pretty girls and some of them get killed. Sad, huh. Oh well, that's the spy biz. Snoopin' today, in a dumpster tomorrow. I don't think the series ever gets to the level of the best of the James Bond series but they are watchable and a fair bit of fun. As with the others, I enjoyed the scenery in the countryside and in the city. One of the reasons I like some of the modern action thrillers like Taken, they travel to places I never would. In the OSS 117 it's like I've got a time machine back to the 1960s. US residents can pick up the Blu-ray set from Hamilton Books for 20 smackaroonies. That saves about 13 bucks over Amazon. For some reason Hamilton Books doesn't ship to the rest of the world. It is expensive, shipping to other countries, from the US, it seems cheaper to ship stuff from other countries to the US.

Married Too Young 1962

Married Too Young is a 1962 film with a bit of Ed Wood in it. He was asked by the producers to finish a script. He got no credit on the film but the IMDb lists him. The screenplay credit goes to Nat Tanchuck with George Moskov as the director. There's speculation that the Ed connection is bogus. It's the kind of story he might write, in fact he did. The Violent Years was a 1956 "young adults in trouble" picture by the same producers, Ed wrote TVY and The Sinister Urge for them.

That's Marianna Hill, she plays Marla, she's had a fairly good career from 1960 to 1988 but I can't remember ever hearing of her before. Harold Lloyd Jr plays Tommy Blaine and Jana Lund plays Helen Newton. They are the teen couple who elope and get married across the state line. They go to live with Helen's parents and you can imagine how much fun that would be for a young married couple. Tommy works in a garage and his boss tries to help him out with a raise. Tommy and Helen move out and have some bills for company. Tommy takes an offer from a shady pal of Marla's and joins him in the world of stolen automobiles. Tommy's not smart. Don't be like Tommy. Especially since they get rumbled on his first hot car delivery. Of course he's taken Helen along. They get shot at and the car drives off a cliff. Luckily the couple live and their parents have to go to court to get lectured on what shit parents they are. It's all pretty ludicrous. The version on the DVD is the movie version, there's also a TV version with a slight different ending, it's what's at the end of the movie at the link in the title above. It's no great shakes but it's better than average. 

The Violent Years is about a gang of bored teen girls who decide to dress up as boys and rob gas stations. It came out in 1956, Ed Wood wrote the script, William Morgan directed, it was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000. It's not that great, I kind of got bored with seeing it again. I've seen it on MST3K 3 or 4 times. It was nice to have a copy of the movie with out the guys yakkin' on.

Girl In Gold Boots 1968

I picked up the Ted V Mikels movie Girl In Gold Boots even though I had seen it before, it was episode 1002 of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Even though it's not that great a movie, the Alpha Video DVD has a commentary by Ted and I thought I've give that a whirl. Like his movie, the commentary turns out to be kind of poor. Ted forgets to talk much of the movie, too bad, I've seen him talking before and he might have some good stories to tell. Oh well, them's the breaks. While looking for an image of the poster I found that the movie had been released on DVD by Image Entertainment with a commentary by Ted. Alpha Video isn't a company that's known for extras so I'm guessing they just bought it along with the movie.

The story is about a waitress called Michelle who works in a roadside diner with her father, she decides to take off with a guy in a car with a gun named Buzz when her father gets too abusive. Michelle wants to go to LA and be a go-go dancer. They give a biker named Critter a lift to LA. Buzz has a sister who's a dancer in a shitty club. The manager is her boyfriend, he hires Michelle and Critter. Then he dumps the sister to groom Michelle. Buzz wants to get into the manager's drug biz, to prove he's criminal he brings manager man a big score. Stealing drugs from a jail cell. Things don't work out so well for the sister, she's off her head on drugs and booze. You need to be tough to be a go-go dancer in LA. It's looks bad for Michelle until Critter rescues her. The story was sort of familiar to other  downward spiral movies. At least there was some go-go dancing. The IMDb gives it a 2.2 and I gave it a three. Mostly that was for all the footage of the streets of LA and the trip to the Haunted House. Why Buzz, Michelle and Critter would stop at the Haunted House first thing when they arrive in LA is beyond me. Only in Ted's imagination is there sense there. It could be why almost 47% of the 3425 votes are a 1. That's some hate right there. On the other end of the voting spectrum, 525 votes were a 10. An odd imbalance. Not too sorry I bought it, it was a 3 buck clearance item and I had a coupon, but I wish the commentary had been a bit better.