Sins Of The Fleshapoids 1966 Directed by Mike Kuchar. An underground SF movie set a million years in the future. It's only 43 minutes long.
Future men have created human like androids called Fleshapoids, they treat the androids like slaves and live in comfort. Having had enough, a male androids kills the woman who's his master and runs away with a female android. There's a bit of a revolution. The script is vague on what's going on, it's all a guess on my part. The movie lacks any audible dialog, there are word balloons superimposed on the screen for some of the times someone speaks. It doesn't matter, it's just not that good. I downloaded a copy from the Internet Archive, see link in title. Don't expect anything. Not something I'd rush to get back to at any rate.
The Day The Earth Caught Fire 1961 Screenplay by Wolf Mankowitz and Val Guest, directed by Val Guest. A British disaster film about the Earth being blown off it's axis by nuclear blasts.
We follow a reporter about just after the US and the Soviets conduct nuclear tests. The weather starts to change over a short period of time. The Earth has gotten hotter, rivers and lakes evaporate. It's found that the blasts have tipped the Earth by 11 degrees and things are awful all over. Shortly after it's revealed that the Earth is closer to the sun. The heat rises and many die. The governments of the world hope to correct that by blasting off 4 more big nukes.
It's a pretty good film. It's B&W except for some yellow tinted bits at the beginning and the end. It's a talky film but the script is good and there's a good cast behind it. I liked the scenes at the newspaper office as the staff deal with the crisis. There's a bit of romance mixed in with all the horrible calamity. It seems a bit bold for 1961. They use a good bit of stock footage to depict the disasters around the world. It's done quite effectively.
There's a rather ambiguous ending. Not sure why people do that sort of ending. Not my favorite story element. I watched a DVD from Kino-Lorber that has the 2014 remastered print. Looks nice. I'd want to watch it again sometime. Definitely worth seeing.
It Came From Somewhere 2022 Written by Steve Hermann and Bryan Parkerson, directed by Ashley Hefnew and Steve Hermann.
The movie is a modern attempt to recreate a low budget picture from the 1950s. It's a mash up of Plan 9 From Outer Space and Teenagers From Space. These parody films rarely work for me. The film makers never seem to understand that Ed Wood wasn't setting out to make a bad film. He thought he had something going on but he had more enthusiasm than talent.
This time the aliens are planning to take over the Earth by enacting Plan 10. The alien's soldier monster gets loose and befriends a little girl. One alien is a killing machine, the locals get blasted one after another, their skeletons pile up as the alien moves on. The other alien falls for an Earth woman. Ultimately the aliens fail in their mission. The Earth is saved until the next alien invasion.
Sadly it's not that good. Lucky for me it was only an hour. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. You can watch it on YouTube but I'm not going to watch it again. It's an insult after the first movie.
Billy goes to Ibiza in Spain to "write" on his mother's dime. He's not a writer, he's more a beatnik, he spends his days hanging out on the beach and at the local cafes, drinking coffee and beer, smoking cigarettes and cheap weed. Billy stays at the house of a local drug dealer called Eric. Billy meets and marries a German girl, they move to Barcelona where the marriage fails after Billy gets cut off by his mom.
Billy runs back to Ibiza to stay at Eric's again. Eric thinks the layabouts need to start contributing a bit of cash to the upkeep of his casa. One of the women suggests robbing an older man she used to date. She was with him when he was robbed before and he didn't put up a fight. Eric wants Billy and another lad to do the job but Billy is scared and doesn't want to do it. Eric brow beats him into getting the rob on and off they go. Of course things don't go so well. These aren't competent young men.
As a film it's below average but interesting as a bit of social history. I can say the same for a segment of the film near the end. Billy is on the run, he's gotten back to Barcelna, he sees two cops down the street and ducks in Antonio Gaudi's Casa Mila to hide. There's a short scene of him outside, inside and on top of the building. I'm such a big Gaudi fan I decided to keep a copy of the film in case I wanted to see that segment again. You can see the film over at YouTube. You might have an interest.
Murder At The Vanities 1934 Play written by Earl Carroll and Rufus King, screenplay by Carey Wilson, Joseph Gollomb, Sam Hellman (dialogue) and an uncredited Jack Cunningham, directed by Mitchell Leisen.
The Earl Carroll Vanities were a series of Broadway revues that appeared between 1923 and 1940. The main draw was the big lavish production numbers with dozens of showgirls dancing and singing. There were other acts featuring singers, dancers and white comics in blackface. Real black entertainers had jobs too, Duke Ellington appears in the movie just like he would have appeared in the revue.
Jack Oakie is the backstage manager at the Earl Carroll Revue, he's on his own, Earl is out of town, and he's worried about failing. Carl, the main singer, is going to marry Ann after the show, she's his partner in the show. Carl's old girlfriend is upset but his mother is happy, she's the seamstress on the show but that's a secret. Things percolate as the story progresses.
That's one of the cactus ladies in the Sweet Marijuana song. That song got a lot of flack and not for the nearly naked lady. It was the weed itself that people were complaining about, there was even comment at the League of Nations. Paramount was supposed to cut the song from the film but lucky for us Paramount didn't and we can see it today. That lovely ladies is about to have blood dripped on her by the first victim of the movie. It's pre-code so it's a bit more risque than it will be for another 30 years.
There's a good cast beside Jack Oakie: Carl Bisson is the main singer suspect, Victor McLaglen is the homicide detective, Kitty Carlisle is Carl's main partner in the revue, she's the gal he's going to marry. Gertrude Michael is the ex-girlfriend and Jessie Ralph is Carl's secret mom with a bad past. There's over 100 showgirls, they're often scantily clad.
The murders ramp up and there's plenty of running about between musical numbers. The show is known for the debut of Cocktails For Two. I didn't know it was from the movie but I was familiar with the song from 60s and 70s TV variety shows. People are still singing it today. Eventually the music is over, the murderer confesses and everyone leaves the theater.
I thought it was fairly entertaining but I wasn't that keen on some of the musical numbers. I watched the Kino Lorber Blu-ray and then listened to the commentary by film histories Arthur Slide. He had plenty of info and presented it well. I'll probably give it another watch sometime down the line.
The Love-Ins 1967 Written by Hal Collins and Arthur Dreifuss, directed by Arthur Dreifuss. The film was produced by Sam Katzman for Columbia Pictures. Sam had his own film unit there and was well known for making cheap pictures that made a profit.
A college professor becomes a cult leader in Haight-Ashbury. Richard Todd is the professor, Mark Goddard is the grifter, James MacArthur and Susan Oliver are the college students who run a hippy newspaper. James and Susan get tossed out of college for their views. The professor speaks out for the hippy newspaper and freedom of speech. He becomes the hippy's hero when he quits his job in protest. The professor falls victim of his vast ego and Mark moves in as manager so he can make a buck from the hippies. Things go pretty poorly for everyone. I did enjoy Susan's Alice In Wonderland themed LSD trip.
I never embraced the hippy lifestyle, preferring to work and have a nice place to live. And books, and toys, and music, all that jazz. I did stand on the corner of Haight-Ashbury in the mid 70s. I think I have a picture on a slide. I should scan it someday. I'm always interested in cultural movements and what happened. The better ones yield some change in lifestyle habits, good or bad.
Producer Sam Katzman was well known for taking a topic people were talking about and quickly spinning up a film that used that topic to base it's story on. He worked in all genres, he was there to make product, he had a successful career. The Love-Ins captures some of what was going on in the hippy scene despite the heavy handed and rather laughable script. Here's a nice copy to see on YouTube.
School For Sex 1969 Produced, written and directed by Pete Walker. The second film in the Kino Lorber Blu-ray with For Men Only.
Lord Wingate sets up a finishing school for bad girls. He teaches them ways to scam money from rich men. He'll take a cut from their spoils. The first girls come from a local prison. The scheme works for a while, then comes tumbling down.
There's plenty of jokes, some of them dumb and some less so. I don't remember laughing at a gag but some scenes made me laugh. There's plenty of dumb writing and goofy scenes as the girls get trained up in swindling. Sadly, at their best these girls aren't up to the girls from St Trinian's.
I liked it better than For Men Only but it's still below average. Pete Walker has said he thought it was a terrible film. I might watch it again someday but mostly to see Nosher Powell again. Some might remember him from Eat The Rich, The Comic Strip or The Sweeney.
The version on the disc is the regular UK version, there are a number of extra scenes that have more nudity what were for areas that were more permissive of nudity. They might have allowed more nudity in the US, I don't know for sure. It made good box office in the US, around $2.5 million, that's nearly $18 million today.
The Fort Of Death 1969 Written by Kôji Takada, directed by Eiichi Kudô. The sequel to Killer's Mission. Here's a picture of the Radiance box set released under the title The Bounty Hunter Trilogy.
The first film in the series was a mix of samurai and James Bond, this film is a mix of samurai and spaghetti western. Despite being in Italian the poster above is for this movie. This is the best image I could find of what could be the original Japanese poster.
This time the Ichibei bounty hunter gets hired to defend farmers who are staging an upraising against the local lord. The farmers are tired of the high taxes and bad treatment from the local lord. They've holed up in a makeshift fort. Feudal Japan is a horrible era, hardly any chance of getting old if you're poor, if you're lucky you'll get stabbed to death and die quickly. That's what happens here. Many of the local peasants are killed before Ichibei gets there. After his arrival a lot of the lord's warriors are slaughtered. Ichibei has a nice surprise weapon. By the end of the movie most everyone is dead. We know Ichibei survives because there's a third movie.
It's got good fights and a fair bit of slaughter. We see a softer side of Ichibei, he works as the local doctor in his town. He works as a bounty hunter to help finance his practice. I enjoyed it and will want to watch it again sometime.
Prey 2022 Story by Patrick Aison and Dan Trachtenberg, screenplay by Patrick Aison, directed by Dan Trachtenberg. A Predator movie set in 1719 featuring an encounter with the Predator and a local tribe living in the Northern Great Plans. That's northern Nebraska going well into Canada. At one point the tribe is identified as Comanche by some French trappers. That might be a mistake on the part of the characters, the Comanche didn't live on the North Great Plains, they lived on the Southern Plains. It also might be the film writers at fault.
A young woman in the tribe wants to be a hunter but she gets a lot of push back from the tribe and her brother. One day she sees something in the sky. We know it's a Predator space ship. The Predator is dropped off and starts hunting. He watches the local tribe and hunts a few of them. There's plenty of fights between the Predator, the local warriors and some good number of animals.
The young warriors of the tribe are picked off one by one as they venture into the forest looking for one person or another. Most of them can't get a handle on the Predator as he's invisible. The young woman gets to see the Predator, she wants to hunt him but he doesn't think she's much of a threat to him. She proves him wrong by the end of the movie.
I liked the movie. There's plenty of fight and lots of running through the woods. I'd be happy to add it to my collection. Someday I could have a nice Predator film festival.
For Men Only 1967 Produced, written and directed by Pete Walker. It's a 38 min short film that was packed on a Kino Lorber Blu-ray with another Pete Walker movie School For Sex.
Freddie leaves his job on a fashion magazine to appease his fiance. He takes a job at the prudish Puritan Magazine only to find the publisher is a horny lad with a house filled with scantily clad women.
It's a weak short with hardly any story. Pete's not much on writing any jokes either. It could have used something to perk it up. I'll watch the other soon. Hope it's better.
Russ Meyer's Vixen 1968 Written by Russ Meyer and Anthony James Ryan, directed and produced by Russ Meyer.
I didn't find much to like about Vixen, she's a racist. The movie is about her and her husband Tom. They run a resort in the Canadian wilderness. People visit, Vixen screws them, they leave. She even has sex with her brother.
Sadly the film is dull and uninteresting. The script is poor and so are the actors. The sex scenes aren't sexy. Even the attempted sky jacking is dull. I wouldn't want to watch it again.
The Big Switch 1968 Written and directed by Pete Walker. The second film by Pete, it was shot on location in Brighton. He only made 16 films between 1967 and 1983. They're mostly low budget exploitation crime and horror films. Usually there's plenty of violence and sex. This film is set amongst the strip clubs of Birmingham and there's plenty of ladies getting their kit off.
Some sleazy crooks have developed a plan to smuggle an old gangster back into England. They frame a low level crook for the murder of a woman, they beat him up a bit and force him to pose for pictures with nude women. The pictures are of a rough and sadistic nature. That's just the icing on the poisonous cake. He's going to be the corpse when the gangster is supposedly burned up in an accident. The old gangster will assume his identity after some plastic surgery.
It's a not a good plan for our guy. Lucky for him the criminals keeping an eye on him are pretty dumb and he escapes taking a woman with him, she was slated to die in the accident too. There's usually something happening and the scenery is entertaining to me. Between the talking bits there's a bit of a punch up and later the action ratchets up a notch with a decent shoot out, it starts in an arcade and spills over onto the Ghost Train ride. Not bad for the most part, I'll give it a bit of a bump up for all those naked ladies running about. You can see a nice enough copy on the Internet Archive, link in the title.
Castle Of The Creeping Flesh 1968 Written by Adrian Hoven and Eric Martin Schnitzler with an uncredited Jesús Franco, directed by Adrian Hoven. A West German film called Im Schloß der blutigen Begierde. We watched the Severin Blu-ray which looked fine.
A Baron hosts some people at his castle. They ride in the woods. A woman falls while riding alone and is found by a servant of the Count. It's set in modern day but the Count decorates his house like he's in living a couple of hundred years in the past. The Baron and his guests visit the Count and he couldn't be happier.
The Count just happens to need some body parts for the experimentation he's conducting. He's trying to restore his just murdered daughter back to life with those body parts. He's successful but the organ donor dies. It's a common enough sort of plot device but the movie ruins it for me with scene after scene of some sort of open heart surgery. We were thinking that it might have been a pig that was being operated on. It didn't seem like a human operation. Some of that got fast forwarded through, not something that happens very often.
On average the story is barely average and with all the surgery stuff, I sure wouldn't bother seeing it again.
The Tale Of Tsar Saltan 1967 Based on an 1831 story by Alexander Pushkin, screenplay by Aleksandr Ptushko and Igor Gelein, directed by Aleksandr Ptushko. A Russian film by the same director who directed Sadko and Sampo.
The Tsar marries a young woman and her mother and two sisters are upset. The young woman goes to live with the Tsar and the mother comes along. The Tsar offers the sisters jobs and they come live in the castle. The Tsar goes off to war. Mom and the sisters scheme against the young woman, they kidnap her and her just born son, seal them in a barrel and throw them into the sea.
The young woman and son wash up on the shore of a small island, he rescues a swan who turns out to be an enchanted princess. She magics up a city and makes the son a Prince. Eventually the Tsar comes to visit and finds his wife. The mom and sisters aren't punished enough for my liking.
It was interesting enough but not as entertaining as Sampo and Sadko. I enjoyed it but wouldn't need to pick up a copy for myself.