PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Naughty School Girls 1975

 

Naughty School Girls 1975 Written by Alonzo Pye and directed by Jean-Paul Scardino. The Blazer Girls seems to be the original title, the copy on YouTube I found has the Naughty School Girls title.

A comedy set in a private girls school, five girls want to raise $500 by selling their virginity at a $100 each. It's pretty typical of it's genre, there's a goofy story, a fair bit of nudity and some sexier bits. The jokes are so-so but the girls are cute. It's about average. You can see a so-so print on YouTube, it's watchable, but should you. Depends on how much time you've got left. YouTube has a plethora of these type of films, I haven't seen many of them, some might be better than this.

The Cheap Detective 1978

The Cheap Detective 1978 Written by Neil Simon and directed by Robert Moore. Robert only directed 3 films, all of which were written by Neil Simon. He worked in theater and TV as an actor and a director, he died of AIDS related pneumonia in 1984.

I didn't care for this send up of The Maltese Falcon that much. It's got a good cast and it's packed with jokes but many of the gags fall flat on my ears. I bought a used DVD a long while ago, now I'm disappointed. Oh well.

The Love Ban 1973

The Love Ban 1973 Based on the 1969 play It's A 2'6" Above The Ground World by Kevin Laffan, there's no credit given for the screenplay writer, the director is Ralph Thomas, the producer is Betty E Box. Ralph directed 42 films in his 30 year career. He directed 6 of the Doctor film series, two of the Carry On film series, and a favorite of mine, the 1959 version of The 39 Steps with Kenneth More.

The movie is part of The British Film series from Network. The movie uses the It's A 2'6" Above The Ground World title. I find The Love Ban title less cumbersome. It's also been retitled Anyone For Sex?

The movie opens up with animated credits and a really poor pop song. Hywel Bennett and Nanette Newman are a couple with 6 children. She's tired of being pregnant and has gone on strike until her strict Catholic husband lets them get some contraception. Milo O'Shea is Hywel's priest and a friend. Seems he's always popping by.

 

Poor Hywel is desperate for a bit of action, it's been 10 months, and his mind is imagining many of the local young ladies are running about naked. Luckily for some of us the young ladies appear on the screen.

Everywhere he goes he's reminded of sex, sadly for Hywel he's working at a bra company and he's got to be hands on with the merchandise. Hywel slowly gets swayed to buying some condoms but he's too sad and wimpy to succeed at a drug store. Hywel stops in at a barber that sells Durex (?) and all he winds up with is a bad haircut.

Nanette and her friend stop in at a contraception lecture given by John Cleese. Nannette decides to buy some birth control pills at the drug store and heads home. Nanette and her friend's trip has a series of vague comedy bits that involve their lack of driving skills. There's also another subplot with the family au-pair getting pregnant. Eventually things get sorted out, the reconciled couple head to bed, only to interrupted by their small fry.

Mildly amusing, nothing made me laugh out loud, glad to have seen it.

Watermelon Man 1970

Watermelon Man 1970 Written by Herman Raucher and directed by Melvin Van Peebles. I'd seen the movie when it came out but hadn't seen it in years.

Godfrey Cambridge plays a white family man who sells insurance. He's kind of an obnoxious boor and a bit of a bigot. One day he wakes up and finds he's turned black. Over the next couple of days poor Godfrey loses his job, his doctor, his wife and kids. The neighbors throw rocks through his windows. They start calling, telling him to move out, eventually a delegation shows up in his living room. They'll buy him out, paying him $100,000 for his $38,000 house. He goes off, buys an apartment building and opens his own insurance agency. 

Estelle Parsons plays Godfrey's wife, Erin Moran plays his daughter, Howard Caine is his boss, Kay E Kuter plays his doctor, Mantan Moreland plays the counterman at a cafe, D'Urville Martin (director of Dolemite) plays a bus driver, Paul Williams plays a clerk and Emil Sitka plays a delivery man.

I thought the story was entertainingly told, Van Peebles uses fast cuts, variable film speeds, psychedelic images, adds text and other visual hoopla to add to the narrative. It's got plenty of laughs but it's still a pretty serious and angry film. Godfrey does a great job as the poor guy who has his life turned completely over. Worth seeing. Makes me glad I picked up the DVD.

The Love Epidemic 1975

The Love Epidemic 1975 Brian Trenchard-Smith wrote, directed and produced the film, Michael Laurence gets a comedy material credit. Brian's a familiar face to the genre fan with titles like Leprechaun 3, Leprechaun 4: In Space, BMX Bandits, and Dead End Drive-In to his credit. He might not be able to buy a car with that credit but people look at the titles of his films and say, "Ya, I've seen that."

The film's a mix of documentary and sex comedy, there's actual history and medical info about venereal disease sandwiched between raunchy sketches. The jokes were kind of flat, the info kind of gross at times. There's a fair bit of nudity, both male and female, and some simulated sex. It's on the Internet Archive. You can find the link in the title above. I might watch it again, who knows.

Friday Night Movies 831

Plugg 1975 Written and directed by Terry Bourke.I found this on the Internet Archive, in the feature films section. Someone has posted over 300 Australian movies, most of them were posted February 5, they're still up, even though some of them aren't in the public domain. I poked around there for a bit and picked these two to watch. You can watch them on the site or download them.

 

A goofy comedy about a detective investigating an escort agency suspected of prostitution. Plugg is the lowest of the detectives but there's no one else to send on the case. Plugg is a bumbler and a voyeur. Cheryl Rixon is the popular lady at the escort agency and she bangs all of her customers. There's plenty of naked ladies but not many good jokes. My attention often drifted from the story. I got to the end. It's similar in style to The Groove Tube or Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes, but not as good. It's kind of fun to watch but there's always that little voice in the back of your head wishing the jokes, acting and production were better. I might watch it again someday but that might be unlikely.

The True Story Of Eskimo Nell 1975 Director Richard Franklin co-wrote the script with Alan Hopgood. Loosely based on the poem The Ballad Of Eskimo Nell. 

Dead-eye Dick saves Mexican Pete's life and they travel together. Dead-eye is searching for the girl of his dreams, Eskimo Nell, a whore from the north. The pair knock about and eventually heading to Alaska. There's a sort of happy ending. There were a few more jokes than the first film but neither is above average in any way. I might watch it again but doubt it. You can look down the IA page (see the link above) and see all the films from Australia. Maybe one of them is to your liking.

Eskimo Nell 1975

Eskimo Nell 1975 Screenplay by Michael Armstrong, direction by Martin Campbell. One of the handful of DVDs I ordered since the postal rates from the UK went sky high. For some reason postage rates at Amazon UK dropped in Sept but quickly returned to their previous high. Today some of shipping prices seem to be back in the £4 area, they had risen to a high as £18. Couldn't see paying that.

Michael Armstrong, Terrence Edmond, and Christopher Timothy are film makers who get hired by sleazy film producer, played by Roy Kinnear. He wants a smutty picture based on The Ballad Of Eskimo Nell. Trouble is, Roy's a bad egg, he promised all 4 of his independent backers that they can have total say on the type of movie he's making. They all want something different so it's logical that Roy steals all the money and runs off to South America. The trio have to produce four films to satisfy the producers. We get to see a fair bit of the films they've made. They aren't that good at making movies, especially with no money.

It's goofy and kind of fun but it's also forced and lacking good gags. There's a bit of nudity and it has an early appearance by Mary Millington as a stripping lolly pop lady. Small parts for Jonathan Adams, Christopher Biggins, Stephanie Cole, Rosalind Knight, and Katy Manning. I gave it a 4 on the IMDb, it scores a 4.6, and I didn't think it was worth a 5.

Science Fiction Sunday 617

Toomorrow 1970 Written and directed by Val Guest. Val wrote and directed a lot of TV and feature films, his next film after this was the fan favorite When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth.Producer Harry Saltzman had a three picture deal with Don Kirshner and they wound up loathing each other during the production. The write up in the Wikipedia details the problems and why the film was shelved for 40 years. I read online that there was a poor quality DVD out but I watched a copy off of YouTube. The DVD came out after Kirshner died in 2011.

It's a science fiction musical with Olivia Newton-John, she's in a band with the other three guys in the pictures above. According to the IMDb Trivia page Olivia was so "disenchanted with filmmaking that it took a lot of coaxing to get her to agree to star in Grease (1978)." Val didn't have that good a time either, he never got paid, even after he sued the production company. In a way it's not surprising, the film biz is cut throat and there are a lot of scumbags out there.

Benny Thomas, Vic Cooper and Karl Chambers play the guys in the band Toomorrow. Vic has invented a new sort of music synthesizer. Roy Dotrice plays an alien who's been studying the Earth people for 3000 years and today his boss tells him that they've discovered at there's magical healing power in Toomorrow's music. It's all about Vic's invention, the Tonalizer, the aliens want it and the band, it's Roy's job to figure out how to make that work.

The band plays several times in the film and I can't say I much liked the pop music, not because it's awful, it's just bland melody. There's plenty of running about as the band members try to get through their day at college. Roy pops up and offers a place to practice, he lives in a big old mansion and the band takes him up on the offer. Now Roy has to get them on the space ship. Some of it doesn't make a whole lot of sense but I don't suppose anyone really cared. I didn't but I still don't think it's anything other than about average. Nothing notable about it really. I got a laugh or two and I might watch it again someday.

Mutant Swinger From Mars 20o9 Written and directed by Michael Kallio. It's another one of those "lost 50s science fiction films" that people make these days. Martians have come to Earth for women. One of them impersonates a suave guy who picks up chicks 4 at a time. It's sort of like the 50s but not quite. There are way too many in jokes. It gets tedious. It was on AP and I don't think I'd watch it again anytime.

Halloween With The New Addams Family 1977

Halloween With The New Addams Family 1977 Screenplay by George Tibbles, direction by David Steinmetz. George is a veteran writer who started writing an episode of The Betty White Show in 1954, over the years he wrote hundreds of TV episodes for shows like Dennis The Menace, Leave It To Beaver, The Musters, Family Affair, My Three Sons, One Day At A Time and The Partridge Family. He wrote right up to his death in 1987. This is the only listed credit for David on the IMDb.

John Astin, Carolyn Jones, Jackie Coogan, Ted Cassidy, Lisa Loring, Ken Weatherwax and Felix Silla all play their original parts from the 1960s TV show. Halloween is on the family and Gomez has a conflict. He's been invited by his lodge to Tombstone Arizona. Gomez's brother Pancho is staying with the family. There's a gang of crooks that want to rob the family safe. They've got cameras in the place but haven't figured out where the safe is located. They send in one crook dressed as a city inspector, Vito Scotti plays the guy, he barely gets out of the place alive.

The family is hosting a big Halloween party, the crooks sneak in to the party in disguise and look for the safe. They all suffer mental and physical damage from members of the family. Sadly, all the mayhem, yelling and physical violence isn't enough without good jokes. It's a poor movie, even with a happy ending. I guess it's the reason that no one has put it out on DVD. There was a VHS. I watched a copy on YouTube but can't really recommend it. I'll stick to the original TV series and some of the movies.

Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly 1970

Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly 1970 Loosely based on a play called The Happy Family by Maisie Mosco, screenplay by Brian Comport, direction by Freddie Francis. It was retitled to Girly when it was released in the US. It's Maisie's only writing credit. Brian has 5 other films to his credit, they appeared between between 1968 and 1972. Brian's first two films were documentaries, MNS&G was his first feature film, I haven't seen any of his other features. 

Freddie was both a cinematographer and a director in both TV and feature films. I'd recently seen The Scamp, or Strange Affection in the UK, and he was the director of photography. He was the DOP for David Lynch on The Elephant Man, Dune, and The Straight Story. He directed several films for Hammer and almost as many for Amicus. He directed episodes of The Man In The Suitcase, The Champions and The Saint. I've seen a good bit of his work.

Freddie wanted to film a film in Oakley Court, it was a location that was used in several Hammer films and plenty of other films including The Rocky Horror Picture Show. You can read about it on the Wikipedia page. He'd shot three Hammer films there but all exteriors, he wanted to use the interior for his own film.

That's Vanessa Howard as Girly, Ursula Howells as Mumsy, Pat Heywood as Nanny and Howard Trevor as Sonny. They all live in the house and play The Game. It's got it's own rules and they must be followed, breaking them gets you a one way ticket to visit the Angels. Girly and Sonny leave the house to lure young men into the place, to be their New Friend, usually the New Friend doesn't last so long.

It's a house with a pecking order, Mumsy is in charge, Nanny below, the two children are on the next rung down with New Friend below them. The latest NF is slowly figuring out The Game and he starts playing the characters off of each other. It's a dangerous ploy, they could turn on him at anytime and it's off to see the Angels for New Friend.

It's pretty goofy. I enjoyed it. You might, you can see in the link above.