PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

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.

The Wild Ride 1960

The Wild Ride 1960 Screenplay by Ann Porter and Marion Rothman, directed by Harvey Berman. The third of the films on the Biker Triple Feature DVD set.

Jack Nicholson plays the spoiled son of a well off family.  He's such an asshole and a danger to society. He plays chicken with a cop, the cop crashes and winds up in the hospital. No dash cams back in the day and the cop never regains conciseness before dying. The cops know it was Jack but they can't prove it. He spends the movie acting like an asshole and pushing his weight around. After he kidnaps his best friend's girlfriend and causes the death of his friend, Jack turns himself in to the police. It's a big bag of heavy handed melodrama that isn't that interesting. I'd give it a miss the next time.

Science Fiction Sunday 654

Doctor Who 0032 The Underwater Menace Four part story that aired January 14 to February 4 1967. Written by Geoffrey Orme and directed by Julia Smith. Linking script by Sue Cowley, read by Anneke Wills. Only the 2nd and 3rd episodes survive intact, there's audio and a minuscule bit of video from episodes 1 and 4.

When I watched the series back in 2013 the library didn't have the audio CDs and the story's DVD hadn't come out yet. The CDs were released back in 2005, I have the 2020 re-release collections. All four episodes have Anneke Wills narrating the action we can't see. I enjoy these productions much more than I thought I might.

The 2015 DVD has the two surviving episodes, for the missing episodes they use still pictures over the restored original soundtrack. It's not the CD soundtrack but it works well enough with stills to flesh out the story. The Wikipedia says at one time the two episodes were going to be animated but that was cancelled.

The Tardis comes to a stop near the sea. It's Earth and they're on an island that's home to the survivors of Atlantis. The gang of four get captured and taken to the high priest.

The Tardis gang get sentenced to being sacrificed but Doctor Zaroff rescues them. Zaroff is a scientist from the surface world. He's got a plan to raise Atlantis to the surface and the King is right on his side. Little does the King know that Zaroff has a plan to blow up the world. Just as a show of power, cause he's nuts.

Polly had been separated from the Tardis men, she was sent to a crazy scientist called Damon, he's the guy who turns humans into fish people. They are slaves who supply the colony's food. The colony has no refrigeration and the food must be gathered everyday. If only Zaroff has put his person ambition aside and worked on a freezer.

Ben and Jamie run about and eventually rescue Polly. The Doctor learns of Zaroff's plan and puts all his effort in putting s top to it. The King won't listen to him, so the Doctor decides to start a revolution among the fish people, that eventually works rather well.

Zaroff gets crazier and crazier, alarming the King, sadly his stand against the plan leads Zaroff to shoot him and seize control. Things fall apart under his command, his soldier's have deserted to find food, and the Doctor's plan to flood Atlantis puts an end to nearly everything.

Zaroff slips under the water in a scene that was cut from the Australian broadcast. It's one of the only remaining bits of video for the episode. The Tardis gang escape and head back to the Tardis and they're off again.

I thought it was fairly entertaining but it seems to have some that feel it's one of the poorest stories. I was happy to watch it. The commentary was entertaining, it had quite a few people talking about the show. I usually like the extras on the DVDs. This one has some video interviews with surviving cast and crew, a photo gallery and part 2 of the documentary on the BBC's Television Center.

The Audio CD set has a bonus disc that has an interview with Anneke Wills and a nice feature on the music of Doctor Who.

Satan's Little Helper 2004

  

Satan's Little Helper 2004 Written and directed by Jeff Lieberman. Part of a Triple Feature 2 DVD set, this DVD is two sided, backed with Spliced, and Blood Gnome is a single disc. Jeff directed a few films, this was his first, and last, since 1995. I've seen Blue Sunshine and my comment on my Watched Movie List was "wow, crap - Z king sucks". I'd seen Squirm on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and my comment was "Yuck".

In Satan's Little Helper a stupid 9 year old called Dougie has a fixation with a video game where he plays Satan's Little Helper. In real life some horrible guy is dressed up as a Satan like figure, he's killing the locals and using their bodies to dress up his house for Halloween. Dougie's sister has come home for Halloween and she's brought her boyfriend. Dougie isn't too happy about that, he wanted to Trick or Treat with his sister only, he stalks off in a huff, and soon after encounters the fake Satan. Dougie thinks the guy is real and he tells his new pal that he should send the boyfriend to hell. Dougie is a real creep. Satan beats the crap out of the boyfriend and dumps him in an alley.

Dougie bring Satan guy back to his house and everyone thinks he the boyfriend. Dougie and Satan guy are sent to the store for candy to give out to Trick or Treaters. Their shopping trip leaves a trail of deaduns, and still Dougie thinks it's all playing. Back at home Dougie's dad is dispatched and everyone finally realizes that it's real. They are a thick bunch at best. It gets worse and the movie ends on a cliffhanger. Annoying!

I'm thinking below average even though it had a few good moments. Not something I'd need to watch or re-watch. Hopefully I won't bother with it again.

Friday Night Movies 853

Martial Law 1990 Written by Richard Brandes, directed by Steve Cohen. I didn't think I had seen this before but I had back in 1999.

Steve McQueen's son Chad plays a police detective and Cynthia Rothrock is his girlfriend. Andy McCutheon plays Chad brother and David Carradine is a psycho gang boss who steals expensive cars for foreign customers. He's ruthless and prone to killing. He especially likes killing them with his special kung fu fist to the heart. The police keep finding bodies and Chad gets assigned to the case with Cynthia as his partner.

Andy gets deeper and deeper into David's clutches, trouble is he's not that smart and David's response to his failure is a fist to the heart. Poor Andy's mom. Chad goes all out to get David and give him a taste of his own medicine.

It's all rather familiar and the fights scenes are only passable. There's a lot of melodrama and that slows things down. At least it had David as a psychopath, he worked well with his psychotic second in command, played by Phillip Tan, both men enjoy killing way too much.

Barbarian Queen 1985 Written by Howard R Cohen, directed by Héctor Olivera. Another I wasn't sure I had seen, but I had. Other than for one character, I didn't remember anything else. The movie was one of the selections in a 2011 Friday Night Movie night.

Here's that post:

Sperhauk picked up a cheap DVD of a pair of Roger Corman movies. We watched Barbarian Queen. I wasn't sure if I had seen it before, my list of watched movies says no, but the movie came out in 1985 which was before I started that list and it sure didn't seem familiar. Lana Clarkson is the BQ and she's also the gal that Phil Spector murdered a few years ago. The BQ lives in a small village attacked by Roman's from the local camp. They kill and rape and burn the BQ's hut down. Most of the village was killed or carted off to be slaves. The BQ and three other gals who survived vow revenge. They get to the Roman city and meet a young girl who leads them to the resistance group. The gals want to rush in and the leader of the resistance is reluctant to act just yet. He's a big wimp, that one. The gals get captured, one or two get killed, but Lana stabs her way to success. There's a lot of nudity and not much of a story. There's a lot of rapin' and torturin' and a crazy mad scientist who gets his. You'd think a scientist would know that a human sized trough of acid is a dangerous thing to be leaving uncovered. I got a huge laugh out of his skeleton and goofy glasses in a later scene. It's got pretty big production values for a Roger produced film, huge sets and lots of extras. The fighting is crap. The director, Hector Olivera, made 5 films for Roger between 1985 and 1990. Hector had already been a film maker in Argentina and he used the money from Roger's films to make his own films. He's still making films down there but I haven't seen them. It's was fun enough for what it was.

I'm betting the Blu-ray we watched was better looking than the DVD we watched so long ago. I still feel the same way about the movie. I doubt I'll need to see it again.

The Rebel Rousers 1970

 

The Rebel Rousers 1970 Written by Michael Kars, Abe Polsky and Martin B Cohen, directed by Martin B Cohen. It's was Martin's only directing job. He wrote one more film, Humanoids From The Deep, and produced handful more. The Rebel Rousers was filmed in 1967 but not released until 1970. The Rebel Rousers is part of the Biker Triple Feature DVD set.

Cameron Mitchell comes to a small coastal town looking for his girlfriend, she ran away because she's carrying his child. On the street Cameron runs into Bruce Dern, a friend he hadn't seen in some time. They say hello and Cameron moves along to find his girlfriend. He finds her and it turns out that she's played by Diane Ladd. They visit a while and go for a drive.

Bruce is part of a motorcycle gang that includes Harry Dean Stanton and Jack Nicholson. Bruce is the voice of reason in a gang that is happy to loot, rape and pillage. Bruce isn't there when the gang decides to bother Cameron and Diane while they are parked. Things turn violent and even Bruce's intervention doesn't stop Cameron from getting a mighty beat down.

Things get worse as the bikers get more and more out of hand. Eventually the locals rise up, shoot Jack, and drive the bikers off the beach. Not enough bikers died that afternoon. They really were dicks. Not the kind of people I would like to hang around.

It's alright, nothing stands out as special, other than the interesting cast. I doubt I'll watch it again but I'll keep the DVD anyway.

The Secret Of The Loch 1934

The Secret Of The Loch 1934 Written by Charles Bennett and Billie Bristow, directed by Milton Rosmer. The first film about the Loch Ness Monster. I watched a copy from the Internet Archive. I discovered it was part of The Ealing Studios Rarities Collection. It's the fourth volume and it's also part of The British Film from Network.

Milton Rosmer started his career in 1915 as an actor, he has 65 acting credits on the IMDb, he worked as an actor until 1954. Milton directed a couple of shorts in 1926, a couple years later he started with the first of his 15 feature films. I've only seen a couple of them before this one, Emil And The Detectives and Murder In The Red Barn. Both were entertaining enough but nothing outstanding. The 1935 German version of Emil And The Detectives is much better. Both films are found on a nice 2013 BFI release. It's a Region 2 British release so you need some way to play that if you live outside of the UK.

The Secret Of The Loch starts with a professor trying to convince other scientists that there is a dinosaur in the Loch but no one believes him. A reporter from London convinces his paper to send him to the Loch to see if there's anything to the story. He falls for the professor's daughter when he breaks into the house while trying to get a story. She takes it in stride and eventually plays a nice trick on him.

It's fairly light and breezy until the professor mounts a deep dive. The story turns a bit darker when the diver doesn't return. The professor is put on trial, though he's acquitted, he's vilified in the press. The reporter takes it on himself to turn that around by taking a dive and looking for the monster.

He finds the dead diver and the monster. The part of the monster is being played by an iguana. The reporter manages to escape and the monster is sighted on the surface. The underwater effects are fairly common for the time, there's a panel of water in front of the camera and air bubbles up from the bottom for no particular reason.

The Wikipedia has a bit I liked: Charles Bennett said the film was based on his original idea. He later admitted it was "terrible... but amusing".

I can't say it's terrible, it's about average for a film of the time. I liked some of the characters but that reporter is a jackass. I was glad to have seen it and it does have some significance as an early monster movie and the first film about Nessie.

Gemini Man 2019

Gemini Man 2019 Story by Darren Lemke and David Benioff, screenplay by David Benioff, Billy Ray and Darren Lemke, directed by Ang Lee.

I found a copy of the movie on the Internet Archive and thought I would take a chance to be yet again disappointed by Ang Lee. The public was disappointed at the same old story and the appeal of Will Smith couldn't keep them from staying away in droves, the box office was over $100 mil short of making the $275 mil gross needed to break even. That's sad, for the studio, but it's their own fault. On a positive note it might be harder for Ang Lee to make more movies.

Other than the nice foreign scenery there isn't much worth seeing in this action thriller about a guy who discovers that the "Agency" is sending clones of himself to kill him. It's a secret black ops agency story with a rogue department head, one of my least favorite plot drivers, who covers their trail by killing everyone who worked with them.

The action scenes would be fairly good but the cartoony CGI of the animated main characters weakens them. The effect to make Will look younger isn't that effective. Generally can't recommend this one to anyone. I wouldn't have bought the DVD anyway.

It's A Revolution Mother 1969

It's A Revolution Mother 1969 Written by Thomas Casey and directed by Harry Kerwin. This scruffy documentary is part of a three film set called Biker Triple Feature, all three films on one disc, I got it from Amazon for 8 bucks, it's still for sale. The other two films are fictional and star Jack Nicholson. The film is called Biker Babylon on the DVD.

 

It's a Revolution Mother looks at the youth counterculture of the late sixties. There's plenty of raw footage shot live on the street and it's entertainingly narrated by some unknown guy.

The film starts with the New Jersey motorcycle club The Aliens. There's some sitting about and talking, cut with plenty of motorcycle riding. Then the setting moves to a big march on Washington and the delivery of a bunch of white coffins filled with placards worn by the marchers. The placards have names on them, names of the fallen soldiers from the Vietnam war. 

The last segment of the film moves to a more upbeat place, a sea of mud in Florida with a big 30 band rock festival. Oddly they never mention the name of the festival but there was a big one in Miami at a racetrack in December 1968. I'm betting that it's it based on some quick internet sources, especially after seeing some of the aerial shots.

It's a nice snapshot whether you agree with the sentiments. Glad to have seen it.

Blood Gnome 2004

 

Blood Gnome 2004  Written and directed by John Lechago. This was John's first movie, he's made 8 total through 2020. The only other film by John I've seen is Killjoy 3. I don't remember it being anything special, I never bothered to post about it. He directed two more Killjoy films but they weren't in the multi movie set I got with the 3 Killjoy films and the first 9 of the Puppet Master series. Blood Gnome is in a three pack with a couple of other low-budget horror films.

Daniel is a police photographer, he sees something in the viewfinder of a broken video camera while photographing a murder. We see what he sees, that ugly critter in the poster, but no one else does. They think he might still be stressed from the recent murder of his wife, he'd spent a few months in an mental hospital to recuperate, now he's back to work.

Daniel meets up with a customer of the dominatrix and asks for some help. They figure out what's going on and the critters come after them. There's plenty of bondage, nudity and killing. Most of the bondage scenes turn into blood baths, especially once the flesh hungry little fellers get to chomping.

Julie Strain shows up at a naughty party and she was the only one of the cast that I knew. I'm always saddened to see her big fake breasts. They are kind of scary. It's not that good a film but I got to the end and I did like the little critters. It turned out that I had seen BG before but that was back in 2004 and I'd long forgotten anything about the film. I doubt I'll watch it again.