PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

The Cycle Savages 1969

The Cycle Savages 1969 Written and directed by Bill Brame. It's the second film on the Midnite Movies DVD with Angel Unchained. Bruce Dern is a creep, he's part of a motorcycle gang of like minded garbage. People in the town are terrified of them and the cops are pretty weak ass. An artist sketches the gang at play and gets roughed up for it. That isn't enough in Bruce's tiny paranoid mind, he wants to cripple the artist's hands. That'll stop him. There's other bits of raping and looting going on and eventually some vengeance against the gang is delivered. It's a bit unpleasant and not that well made. It's not better than average for a biker movie. Neither of these are great but AU is more watchable.

Psych-Out 1968

Psych-Out 1968 Story by Betty Tusher, screenplay by E Hunter Willett and Betty Ulius, directed by Richard Rush. Dave Clark produced the film and László Kovács is the cinematographer. The 2003 MGM Midnite Movies DVD has the 82 min theatrical release of the film, there's a more recent release that has the director's original cut that clocks in at 101 mins.

Susan Strasberg is a deaf woman visiting San Francisco, she's come to find her brother. He's an artist who's dropped out, her last connection was a postcard from him saying God is in a sugar cube. Hippies, aren't they funny?

Susan meets up with Jack Nicholson and some of his friends. They befriend her and tell her they'll help her look for her brother. They take her around to their place. Susan sees a piece of her brother's art in the studio of the band's poster artist. That gives her a name, The Seeker, a name her brother is now using. Turns out someone knows he's living in a junk yard. Trouble is there's hippy hatin' scum on the streets and don't like The Seeker. There's trouble ahead with those pricks. Not that much has changed in that department since those days in the 60s. Hippies attract angry red neck scum no matter where they seem to settle.

 

They eventually find the brother but it goes pretty bad at the end. Drugs and the hippy life style are not so desirable in this film. The whole communal living thing isn't for me, especially when no one helps clean up.

I don't know if I'd need to see the longer version. You can see the short version here, though it is a good bit fuzzy, you can see the longer director's cut here, it looks very nice. Not a film I would want to return to very much. Still it was well enough made and the music by the Strawberry Alarm Clock was fun. Jack and Susan are joined by some other cast members I knew, Dean Stockwell, Bruce Dern, Ken Scott, Garry Marshall, John "Bud" Cardos, Harry Jaglom and Adam Rourke.

The Trip 1967

The Trip 1967 Two versions of the script were written by Charles B Griffith before producer director Roger Corman had Jack Nicholson write the final screenplay. Roger took LSD to see what it was like to trip. Corman spent a $100,000 to make the movie and it made 6 million for AIP.

Peter Fonda is a TV commercial director, he takes LSD, with Bruce Dern acting as his guide. He starts in Bruce's house but gets paranoid and leaves. He wonders down to the Sunset Strip, stopping at some nightclubs. He meets people who take him places. Eventually he comes down when the sun comes up.

It's sort of captures what a trip is like. Parts of the film try to recreate the audio and visual experience from the POV of the tripper but it's such a personal thing that each person is going to have a different experience based on their set, setting and size of the dose. Tripping by yourself isn't always the best idea, the experience lasts several hours, and varies in intensity, that having an experienced person along is helpful.

It's colorful and noisy, there's plenty of places to see and a fairly entertaining cast with Dennis Hopper, Susan Strasberg, Salli Sachse, Dick Miller, Peter Bogdanovich and Gram Parsons. It's not got much story, it's more an experience. I got the 2003 release, it's on a Midnite Movie DVD from MGM, paired with Psych-Out. There's a fairly interesting commentary by Roger Corman. Not one I'm going to rush back to see again to soon but glad to have seen it.

Friday Night Movies 812

Dr Frankenstein On Campus 1969 Robin Ward plays Frankenstein, some might remember him as the boring guy from Starlost. Here he's the boring guy on campus. He's been tossed out of one University for experimenting and he's moved to Canada to get thrown out of another university. This time he's been sort of framed by the local radicals, he was passed a joint just as someone took a picture, then it got published. The others at the swinging party were reprimanded but allowed to stay at the school. Frankenstein then gets his revenge by killing some of the radicals that set him up. It's pretty piss poor and not worth watching.

Wrestling Women Vs The Killer Robot 1969 A mad scientist has invented a robot that he can program to kill. He's kidnapping scientists help in his evil project. The police join up with a couple of wrestling women to catch him. Not very entertaining. The slowness of the story isn't enhanced by the repetitive scenes of women wrestling. Not the best of this sort of thing, below average.

Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things 1971 Two criminals on the run are hiding out in Miami. Stanley is really immature and a problem, Paul is disguised as his aunt, he tries to keep Stanley from fucking up. It leads Paul to killing people who find out too much about them. He should have just killed Stanley, it would have saved him a lot of aggravation. Well below average, not one I'd probably see again.

Trashy Teen Double Feature

 

The Alley Tramp 1968 Director Armand Parys is a pseudonym for Herschell Gordon Lewis. Jean Michel wrote the story and Paul Gordone wrote the screenplay. It's Herschell's 24th film, he hasn't improved much since he started, and he won't over the next 14 films.

The story is about a 16 year old girl who can't dance. Julia Ames plays Marie under the name Anette Courset. She's not a very good actress but she's only appeared in 3 films. The other 2 are both HGL films, Blast-Off Girls and Just For The Hell Of It. There's a copy of B-OG on Daily Motion in two parts, one & two.

Marie gets all horny from seeing her parents having sex. Next thing you know she's banging her third cousin and things go downhill from there.

It's not much by way of original, the script is only so-so and the acting is fair to poor. There's a good bit of nudity, including a brief flash of some bush, but the sex is pretty tame. There's not much by way of story, I laughed at the inappropriate moments and got to the end. It's below average but it doesn't care. It's meant to put butts into seats, lured by the bare titties.

Over 18...And Ready 1969 Screenplay by Don Lambert and directed by Lloyd Allen. Basic story of a young woman who arrives in Hollywood looking to be a star, the twist is she wants to star in a sleaze film. She hooks up with a sleazy producers. Her first role is in a nudie movie, her first scene is one where she gets whipped. The guy directing film is even worse than the guy directing this film. Soon she's having all sorts of sexy fun off screen. There's more nudity than acting ability here, the story is weak and the script doesn't help anyone. I wouldn't rush to see this one again soon.

Sweden: Heaven And Hell 1968

Sweden: Heaven And Hell 1968 An Italian pseudo-documentary of the Mondo kind written and directed by Luigi Scattini. It's all fake news here, or at least much of it's made up bullshit and staged scenes. Some of the people filmed in the streets are bound to be real persons. You can find out for yourself, there's a link in the title above to a decent copy of the movie on YouTube.

It's sort of amusing, but not for any intentional jokes. It's a constant dig against Sweden's open society, from a guy who comes from the supposedly highly religious country that spawned that human sperm bag Berlusconi. There's a fair bit of nudity in the film, clusters of young naked Swedish ladies running about in the snow and by the sea.

One odd thing that popped up was a segment of Piero Umiliani's international hit Mah-na Mah-na. Turned out he supplied the music for the film and this is the first place it appeared. It would later appear on The Muppets, The Benny Hill Show and The Red Skelton Show.

Red Peony Gambler 2 Gambler's Obligation 1968

Red Peony Gambler 2 Gambler's Obligation came out in 1968 and it's known as Hibotan bakuto: Isshuku ippan in Japan. Norifumi Suzuki directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Tatsuo Nogami.

Sumiko Fuji returns as Red Peony Oryu, a gambler trying to resurrect her fallen house. She travels about and stays with people until the local baddies are all dead. Kind of like Zatoichi but with less blindness. Tomisaburô Wakayama returns as the comedy relief machine but he's not really that integral to the story.

This time it's another gang take over that needs some attention. Red Peony joins forces with another loner to wipe out the cruel crime boss. There's plenty of gambling and a good bit of action. Hardly anyone is getting out of this one unscathed. Good solid movie, well worth a look.

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.