PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Fifty Shades Of De Sade DVD set

Fifty Shades Of De Sade is a 4 film collection from Blue Underground. Unusually, each film has it's own disc. The first three films are all directed by Jesse Franco and form a loose trilogy of de Sade based stories. I looked at a de Sade book once, not sure which it was, it was a long while ago, and I didn't like the writing.

Marquis De Sade's Justine 1969 The movie is produced by Harry Alan Towers, who also provided the script, under his Peter Welbeck pseudonym. Jesús Franco is the director, he was credited as Jess back then. Harry and Jesús had worked together previously on The Blood Of Fu Manchu. The Wikipedia says Franco wanted to make an erotic film so Harry adapted Justine. He spent nearly a million on the film, Franco's largest budget, ever.

Romina Power, daughter of Tyrone Power, plays Justine. The Wikipedia says that she was forced on Franco by a Hollywood financier. Franco was unhappy, he didn't think she had much acting experience, comparing her to a window dummy. He's right. She's pretty, she's pretty naked, but she's pretty dull.

Justine has a series of bad luck, it keeps throwing her into the company of rapists and perverts. Maria Rohm plays her sister, she decides to take up the life of a prostitute and Justine moves on. She's quickly robbed and winds up being abused by some scummy people. Klaus Kinski plays the Marquis de Sade, he spends the whole movie in prison narrating the story as he writes. He adds little to the movie. Jack Palance has a smallish role, as do Mercedes McCambridge and Akim Tamiroff.

When the movie was released in 1969 it was heavily edited, the Blue Underground disc has the full 124 minute version. All in all I didn't think it was much more than average as a movie. It's certainly less sleazy than some of Franco later films which are more like soft core porn with vampires and lesbians. The IMDb lists 206 directing credits and 181 writing credits, and yet, I can hardly think of many I would like to watch again. Count Dracula and the Fu Manchu films, even though they aren't that great. Many I wouldn't like to watch at all.

Eugenie 1970 Another Harry Alan Towers production, he's also written this script under the name Peter Welbeck, Franco is the director. Marie Liljedahl is Eugenie and Maria Rohm is Madam Saint Ange.

Eugenie goes to stay with Madam Ange on her vacation island. Eugenie is seduced by Ange and her brother. Ange is shagging him and that the least naughty of the things she does. Eugenie is drugged and Christopher Lee subjects her to some weird masochistic sex stuff. The sex turns to murder, lucky for Eugenie she escapees for the sequel.

This one is struggling to get an average score from me. I'm not much into the spanking and torture and have a tendency to fast forward through those parts. Makes the movie shorter. Sleazier than the first.

Eugenie De Sade 1973 Franco adapted the de Sade novel Eugénie de Franval and directed the film. He made it in 1970 but it didn't get released until 1973. It's not really a sequel to the previous movie but it has similar themes. It ups the anti with some incest. Eugenie reads one of her fathers erotic novels and fancies her dad. He takes advantage of that and introduces her to his secret life of sex and murder. They are a creepy couple and I wasn't much interested in their activity. Once again Franco reminds me I don't respect for his story telling ability. He can go suck an egg.

Justine De Sade 1972 The most torturey film of the lot, I fast forwarded through a good bit of it. Least interesting of the lot.

Well, that was some wasted money, hopefully I can sell the DVDs when the set goes out of print.

Drive-In Classics Collection

Drive-In Classics Collection is a 4 disc set that collects four Something Weird DVDs into one package. All four had been released as separate DVDs in the past. Three of the discs have two movies each, the Two Thousand Maniacs disc only has the one movie, all discs have a lot of shorts and bits that Something Weird typically packs into all their DVD releases. Each disc has about 3.5 hours worth of material. The quality of all the video is varied and usually tends to lean to the poor side. Streaks, lines, discoloration, you get a plethora of video noise types. Bad sound too. I got mine for 6 bucks from Hamilton Book, they're sold out but the set is still available from Amazon for 15 bucks. I wouldn't want to pay that now that I've seen it, it's barely worth what I paid.

Speed Lovers 1968 Director William F McGaha co-wrote the story and screenplay with Fred Tuch. They set their movie in the world of stock car racing and they made stock car racing as boring as their characters and their drama. At least it's in color. McGaha plays the main character and he's not that interesting. Someone should punch this movie in the nuts!

Thunder In Dixie 1964 George Baxt wrote the story and the screenplay, William T Naud is the director. It's a bit better than the first film on the disc but still below average. It's another racing movie and the stock footage of the race is also the same footage that Speed Lovers uses, but Speed Lovers is in color and this movie is not. At least it's short, only 73 mins.

Swamp Girl 1971 Jack Vaughn and Jay Kulp wrote the story, Jay wrote the screenplay, Donald A Davis directed. Some locals near the Okefenokee swamp meet up with a blonde girl who's lived in the swamp for her whole life. She has limited contact with other humans, she lives with her grandfather in a shack by the water. An escaped convict and her boyfriend force the blonde swamp girl to take them through the swamp. This is after they've killed her grandfather. They don't have a hope in hell of surviving that trip. It's more entertaining than the first two movies in the set, maybe not intentionally but still I had a few laughs as the crooks struggle to stay alive. Reminds me there isn't any thing attractive about the swamp. It's like it has a big sign that says: Stay Out! I Will Kill You Dead! I'm obeying that sign. I might watch the movie again someday. Check out the version on YouTube by clicking the link in the title.

Swamp Country 1966 David DaLie wrote the screenplay and Robert Patrick is the director. Not quite as good as Swamp Girl but entertaining to the end. In a motel a lady guest gets murdered. Some creep peeks in her window while she's stripping for bed, he comes in the room to rape her, she screams and he strangles her. The man in the next room, played by writer David DaLie, rushes over to find the woman dead. He's caught by the motel clerk waving a shotgun around but we know he didn't do it. The police come, they arrest David, he escapes and heads into the swamp. He survives with the help of some locals. More played for laughs and I did get a few. Lyle Waggoner, of The Carol Burnett Show is the Sheriff's deputy. Another one I might want to watch again someday.

This Stuff'll Kill Ya! 1971 Written and directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis. A scumbag sets up as a preacher and moonshine maker in a hick town. He has a drunken mob for a congregation and he condemns the local liquor salesmen. The feds are after him and the local sheriff is a weak ass man. It's got a poorly written script, it's poorly made, bad images, bad sound, nothing much good about it at all. Boring and in need of speeding up to get to the end. Even the poster is shit.

The Year Of The Yahoo! 1972 Allen Kahn wrote the screenplay and Herschell Gordon Lewis directed. A gaudily dressed country singer runs for political office in this boring and uninteresting film. Absolute crap.

Two Thousand Maniacs! 1964 Herschell Gordon Lewis wrote and directed this hillbilly gore filled bit of nonsense. I'm not in the camp that thinks HGL is a brilliant film maker, he just splashed the gore before it was mainstream and got a rep, he's still a below average film maker. At least it's more entertaining than the two previous HGL films in the set. 

All in all a pretty piss poor collection from Something Weird. I'd hardly recommend it to anyone really.

Friday Night Movies 784

Since I was home alone I watched the whole of the Weird-Noir Six B-Movies DVD set from Something Weird Video. It's a two disc set with 3 movies to a disc. They are short, 60 to 80 mins in length and mostly fun to watch. Click the links to see the available films on YouTube.

Girl on the Run 1953 Arthur J Beckhard and Cedric Worth wrote the thing and Arthur and Joseph Lee directed. A reporter gets framed for murdering his boss. His girlfriend knows that the real murderer is a criminal boss named Reeves. The reporter and his girlfriend go on the run and they wind up at a circus. The girlfriend gets befriended by Lil, the woman who runs the girlie show, she hides the girlfriend in among the showgirls. The reporter gets hidden by other sideshow people who hire him to be the shill in the boxing show. He takes a good bunch of punches in the ring. For some reason Reeves is bossing the cops around, sometimes the script is a bit goofy, and he's got some criminal activity going on with the head of the circus. Lil has a bit of history with Reeves and he takes a pot shot at her. Eventually the cops get hold of everyone and the real killer is arrested. It's pretty entertaining, lots of interesting characters and stuff going on, they really fill the 64 minutes quite well. Glad to have seen it.

The Naked Road 1959 William Martin wrote and directed this sleazefest. An advertising guy takes a model out for dinner and drinks, he's expecting a bit of fun after, the model is OK with the drinks and dinner but no fun for her. He takes her home and on the way he's stopped for speeding. The cop takes him to a judge who fines him $100, cash. The man hasn't got the cash so he drives back to New York to raise it, the model gets held by the judge as collateral, to be released on payment of the fine.

Three hours pass and another speeder is brought in. He pays the woman's fine and offers her a lift. They stop for coffee and he drugs her, kidnaps her, and tries to force her into a prostitution ring. The model is feisty and stands up to them. They scare her with drug addiction but she's adamant not to join the gang. The boss has a hench man who's a sleazy murdering creep. Turns out the cop and the judge are part of the ring and so are other officials in the area. The advertising guys looks for her but he doesn't find her. A bit of stupidity on the part of the henchman triggers the arrival of cops and the model is rescued. Interesting but one that struggles to get to average. I'd still watch it again.

The 7th Commandment 1961 Director Irvin Berwick wrote the screenplay with Jack Kavan. A man has a car accident and looses his memory, he's found by a travelling preacher who brings him into the life. They have a good bit of success for 7 years but the woman the man left in the accident car finds him and starts to blackmail him. Her plans grow to wanting to marry the man. Her boyfriend doesn't like the plan. It goes downhill from there. I thought the story wasn't that interesting, it seemed overly long movie, 82 mins, and it dragged along. Even though it got a bit more interesting in the last 10 mins it was the least entertaining of the bunch so far. I'd be less interested in seeing it again.

Fear No More 1961 Robert Bloomfield and Leslie Edgley wrote and Bernard Wiesen directed. Mala Powers takes a train, in her compartment she finds a man with a gun and a dead woman. He knocks Mala out and when she awakes the police are there but the dead woman has been moved to the baggage car. She escapes and hitches a ride with a man and his son. Jacques Bergerac plays the man, he meets up with Mala again, takes her to her apartment, where she finds her boyfriend dead, the man on the train is there too. Mala runs off with Jacques and  tells him what happened on the train. She also tells him she'd been a mental patient for a while. They visit the man who sent her on the trip and he doesn't know what she's talking about, the cop that took her off the train is there and he doesn't know anything about it either. At first Jacques is skeptical but when he finds a dead body he becomes convinced something is up. In the mean time Mala finds out about the complicated plan of the head criminal and her part in it. She's going to be the crazy killer and he's going to get his wife's $5 mill fortune. It's got a goofy ending but I enjoyed it for the most part. I'd watch it again. It's a good bit better than the other films in the set. Almost worth the cost of the set.

Fallguy 1962 Richard DeLong Adams and George Mitchell wrote the story and screenplay with Donn Harling directing. A young guy, played by Ed Dugan, helps a guy who was run off the road. The driver is hurt but not enough to stop him from pulling a gun on Ed and forcing him to take him to Sam's house. Sam is part of the same gang, he kills the driver and tries to kill Ed. Ed escapes. The gang meets and plans how to get rid of him. Sam calls the cops and blames the killing on Ed. The cops find Ed right away and the homicide detective's try to crack him. The main homicide detective turns out to be the pal of the head crook in the gang. A car accident gives Ed a chance to escape and it's all downhill for the crooks. They're all on edge waiting for Ed to turn up, they send their killer "The Indian" after Ed. The killer finds Ed and traps him in a warehouse but Ed escapes and the gang proceeds to fall apart. It all works out for Ed, despite getting shot. It's got a rather clumsy script and it isn't quite as entertaining as some of the other films on the disc. I'd still watch it again, someday.

Stark Fear 1963 Dwight V Swain wrote the screenplay, Ned Hockman directed with an uncredited Skip Homeier. Beverly Garland and Skip Homeier are a couple, he's in sales and she's running up the bills. Skip is a cold hearted creep, he reacts badly when Beverly takes a job with Kenneth Tobey. Skip runs off and Beverly goes after him. She runs into trouble but Kenneth shows up and gets her home. She continues looking for Skip and gets into more trouble. Why she's looking for him, I just can't imagine. Skips a creep of the sadistic type but it takes Beverly a while to get it through her head that she should be done with him. She starts working for Kenneth and romance develops. Skip doesn't want anything to do with her but she turns up at the motel he's staying in and a man is killed. More bad stuff happens and despite all Beverly's stupid ongoing behavior it all works fairly well for her in the end. I wouldn't run to watch this one again, Beverly is such an idiot.

Not a bad lump of movies, at least four of them are ones I'd watch again. Better average than some of the multi-movie packs I've seen.

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.