Homebodies 1974 Screenplay by Howard Kaminsky, Bennett Sims and Larry Yust, directed by Larry Yust.
An odd little film about some seniors that turn to murder to keep their condemned apartment building.
I liked the film's sense of humor and the groups decent into madness. I enjoyed the movie and would watch it again.
The Great Alligator 1979 Story by George Eastman, screenplay by Casare Frugoni and Ernesto Gastaldi, directed by Sergio Martino. Original Italian title Il fiume del grande caimano. That translates to The Giant Alligator River and the movie appeared under that name in a few places, in the US it was The Great Alligator. In Canada it was The Big Alligator River, that title was also used on the US DVD box. West Germany has my favorite title Der Fluß der Mörderkrokodile.
There's about 25 mins of nothing much going on until the alligator starts attacking a new tourist resort in Africa. It's really Sri Lanka but I couldn't tell. Mel Ferrer is the resort owner and Barbara Bach is assistant. A photographer is visiting the area when the attacks begin. Many locals are slaughtered and the living local believe it's the tourists fault. There's some tribe and tourist friction.
It's a below average giant monster movie but not by too much. I got a few laughs out of it but that first long stretch before the critter shows up is a hump. When it does show up it lacks greatness. You can see if you like the movie on YouTube in the link above.
The Abductors 1972 Written and directed by Don Schain. The second in the Ginger film series with Cheri Caffaro playing the lead role. Cheri married Don Schain before doing this film.
Ginger's some sort of spy or investigator, she gets asked to help investigate a series of teen abductions. We already know who the kidnapping scum are, a thuggish and rapey group who need killing. We spend a lot of time with the scum as they terrorize the young women into submission. They rape them while the boss sets up a trio of business scum for a purchase.
Ginger arrives and starts investigating, she enlists another gal who gets kidnapped right away. She follows them to a house, scopes it out and returns with a gang of coppers. They raid the house and rescue the young women.
Ginger and another cop confront the head man at his office, he's a bank manager with a trio of shotguns in his desk. Ginger and her pal nearly get blown away but the head man gets all worked up over the injustice some other rich scumbags have inflicted on him. Poor him, he should suck a shotgun and put himself out of his misery. As it plays out in the movie, head man gets all worked up, Ginger and the cop jump out of the way of the shotguns while his fingers are waving in front of his face. A couple of quick punches and he's ready for the slammer.
Like that scene the whole movie is poorly made and scripted. Well below average. I downloaded this from somewhere last January and it's no longer there. You can download a copy at RareLust. Certainly not something I would need to buy.
Doctor Strange 1978 Written and directed by Philip DeGuere. I had forgotten that we had watched this on a previous FNM night. That was back in 2018. Click the link in the title to read that.
I still feel it's just not that exciting. The director was sad it got such low Nielsen numbers but I could see where a lot of people would have bailed on this after sitting through the first half. I don't think Peter Hooten is much of an actor, he certainly doesn't do very well here. The other actors are a mix, John Mills, Jessica Walters and Clyde Kasatsu do well, the rest are weaker by far. Not that they have that great a script to work with.
The Blu-ray does look nice but that isn't enough to make the movie much better. Ironically the second film today, like the film in the 2018 post, made Doctor Strange look a little bit better by comparison.
Bury Me An Angel 1971 Written and directed by Barbara Peeters. It was picked up for distribution by Roger Corman's New World Pictures. According to the Wikipedia, Peeters was the first woman to direct a biker film. Peeters is also credited with directing Humanoids From The Deep. Not a great picture but one that's fascinating to watch none the less.
Corman didn't think Peeters had made the monsters in Humanoids From The Deep nasty enough for his audience, so Jimmy T Murakami and second unit director James Sbardellati were asked to direct a bit more of the rapey monster stuff that Roger wants his audience to have. He did this without telling the other cast and crew, Peeters and Ann Turkel didn't care for the changes and asked to have their names removed from the film, they were refused. Roger, classy or what?
It''s kind of the same for Bury Me An Angel, the exploitative elements are weak for a biker film. Dixie Peabody plays the main character, a biker called Dag. This is her second film, the first was a bit part in the 1970 biker film Angels Die Hard. Peeters worked on that film and it's there she meet Rita Murray, an actor who wanted to producer her own films. In 1971 Dixie had a small part in Night Call Nurses and then worked briefly as a PA on Summer School Teachers. No more acting. It's probably best, she doesn't have the ability.
In Bury Me An Angel Dag's brother is killed by another guy. The brother stole that guy's nice motorcycle and gave it to Dag. She decides to get revenge. After rounding up a couple unarmed goofs for backup and getting some info from a guy, the trio head north. They meet some people along the way, Dan Haggerty was one of them, eventually they find the guy who killed Dag's brother. There's an unsatisfying confrontation with the murderer at the end of the movie.
It's amazing that a movie could fail on so many fronts. Peeters just isn't that good of a director. The film meanders around with nothing happening way too often. The script isn't very good, it's certainly does not make for a good exploitative biker film. It seems more like a melodrama with Dag moping around. Too much time is spent with Dag and her internal struggle over her brother's death. The acting is mostly poor with poor Dixie leading the pack in lack of ability. We were mesmerized by her facial expressions. I think mostly because there wasn't a lot going on up on screen. Oh, well, another one I wouldn't need to buy.
Blue Money 1972 Story by Nick Boretz, screenplay and direction by Alain Patrick. I watched an online copy not the Blu-ray. Not much by way of posters available online. It was cut down by Crown when made and there was a multi pack DVD set that came out ages ago. The negative reports of disc quality on Amazon make me less interested in buying a copy. Nothing else in there I really need to see. I didn't even need to see this movie. The Blu-ray is closer to the original run time of the movie.
It's about a guy, writer director Alain Patrick plays the main character, who is making porn films in California. He's got a pretty wife who seems unable to keep her clothes on, a nice baby, a boat and a sports car. He's being cheated by the film distributors that buy the films him and his partner make and the local police want to bust him for making porn. His wife leaves him and the business falls apart.
It's below average to me. I started fast forwarding a short way into the film. It's just a sad melodrama with plenty of nudity. I wouldn't need to see it again, let this one time.
Christa 1971 Written by Jack O'Connell with additional dialogue by Bent Christensen and Gene Price, directed by Jack O'Connell. The poster boasts that Manfred Mann produced the rock soundtrack. It was a fair soundtrack but nothing I would buy as a soundtrack record. The movie was released in the US under the title Swedish Fly Girls even though Christa is Danish and much of the action takes place there.
Birte Tove plays Christa, she's a stewardess who's a single mom. Her young son lives with her parents while she jets around Europe. The father of her child is a driven businessman who wants Christa and his son. She's not interested in him but he's a mean spirited dick and he's hired a private eye to document her sex life. If Christa won't come back to him he's going to take their son because she's an unfit mother. During the movie he ruins his family's 200 year old fortune, instead of trying to fix things, he kills himself. Dying in a flaming car wreck couldn't happen to a more deserving guy.
Much of the movie has Christa, and some of her flying pals, running about without clothes on. There's even a couple of visits to a nude beach. It's got some humor, some drama, a lot of bare flesh and a happy ending. About average for this sort of film. There are hundreds of them out there. You can check out all the flesh on YouTube.
Amarcord 1973 Written by Federico Fellini and Tonino Guerra, directed by Federico Fellini.
Somehow I wound up with a copy of Amarcord, I don't remember where I got it, it's not something I would ordinarily buy. It's been in my To Be Watched pile for years. Trying to downsize that pile, get the DVDs filed away in one of the Watched Movie piles.
It's Fellini's look at his home town during the time before WWII. He pokes fun at the Fascists, the Catholic Church and the local citizens. He harps on their sexuality a good bit. Reminds me that I'm not at all fond of any of those groups. Why am I watching this. Lucky for me I have 1.5 speed on my VLC Player.
There's little or nothing in the movie I was that interested in other than the large snow fall. It was snowing when I watched it. I'm not that fond of snow either. I'll file it away until the day comes when I decide to purge my DVDs. Or someone else throws them all out.
The Black Six 1974 Written by George Theakos and directed by Matt Cimber. This is the second movie on the Alpha Video disc with The Black Gestapo. Sadly it's got an even worse script. The Black Six are a motorcycle gang, all 6 characters are played by 70s NFL football players, Gene Washington, Joe "Mean Joe" Green, Eugene "Mercury" Morris, Lemuel "Lem" Barney, Willie Lanie and Carl Eller. I didn't know any of them by name except Mean Joe. In the movie Gene's brother is killed by a white supremacist motorcycle gang for dating the leader's sister. The Black Six ride to the town to find out more. They get in some fights with the white supremacists and there's a big battle at the end of the film. It was apparently filmed with the Black Six dying but people didn't like the end. The film makers edited it so poorly that you can't tell what's going on during the battle. Really, it's a stunningly bad ending. The film makers need a bit of the old bish bash bosh from Paul Naschy's flaming skull. Apply liberally to their nether regions. You can check it out on YouTube above. I gave it a generous 2 on the IMDb. It's a stinker.
The Black Gestapo 1975 Story by Lee Frost, Wes Bishop and Ronald Goldman, screenplay by Lee Frost and Wes Bishop, directed by Lee Frost. It's a hard life being poor and black in Watts, the mob lays a heavy hand on the local black businesses. The all white gangsters rape their women and beat up their men. General Ahmed has started a small group to help the locals but they aren't too effective against the mob's thugs. After getting beat up pretty badly Ahmed lets Colonel Kojah start a more militant wing to protect the locals. That backfires as Kojah goes full on cray-cray and chops a mobsters balls off. He goes full on Nazi with his black shirted military unit. Ahmed gets tossed out of the group and he fights back to take down Kojah. I get the sentiment but the execution is pretty poor. There's no money and despite all the writers the script is weak. There's plenty of physical action but it's pretty poor. I gave it a generous 4 on the IMDb. I watched the Alpha Video DVD with The Black Six as a bonus. I'm off to watch that. You can watch the movie on YouTube, see link above.
Red Peony Gambler 7 I'm Here To Kill You 1971 Screenplay by Tai Katô and Norifumi Suzuki, direction by Tai Katô.
Oryu finds herself in the middle of a battle between the villagers and corrupt officials. The village has a lead mine that's of military importance. The trouble is the polluted water and air are killing the rice crops so the villagers are starving. The company sends them some money but the corrupt officials decide to steal it and cover their tracks by killing anyone they can get away with.
That plan only goes so far before Oryu pushes back hard. She gets some help from Tomisaburô Wakayama and others. There's a fair bit of comedy when Tomisaburô shows up, a nice break from all the drama that's been going on. There's some real bastards for villains, it was nice to see them sliced when the end comes, they were total selfish pricks. Some days a guy could wish some kimono wearing lady would sort things out a bit. Almost done the series, one to go. Great so far.