PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

French Touch 1952

French Touch 1952 written by Serge Véber and Jean Boyer, directed by Jean Boyer. A French comedy film called Coffeur Pour Dames over there.

Fernanal had a career that started in 1931, his last picture was in 1970, he passed away the following year. He was fairly popular but I've think the only picture of his that I've seen is the 1956 Around The World In 80 Days where he played a French footman. I don't remember anything about that role and it's most likely that I will have forgotten to keep an eye out for him by the time I see the movie again.

In French Touch, a man, played by Fernandel, works his way from being a sheep shearer on a farm to being the most important hairdresser in France. It takes him a while to do it and there are several stages, at one point he's a dog groomer, later he's styling doll's hair. His power over women goes to his head and his life takes a beating.

I enjoyed it for the most part, it's got some jokes of the rather broad and old and tied varieties. It's rather misogynistic but considering the era it's not unexpected. I took a chance picking up the DVD on Hamilton Books, it's a no company name DVDr, that's the cover above. Lucky for me it's watchable, it was 6 bucks, rather steep now that I've seen it. It's since disappeared from Hamilton's list in the last month and it doesn't seem to be on Amazon that I could find. You can watch a fairly decent subtitled copy on the Internet Archive.

Friday Night Movies 940

Curse Of The Blue Lights 1988 Story by Bryan Sisson, screenplay, cinematography and direction by John Henry Johnson. Released in overseas markets as Blue Lights. Filmed in Pueblo Colorado. It's John's only fictional film, in 1981 he directed a documentary called Damon Runyan's Pueblo and in 1984 he directed the documentary Zebulon Pike and the Blue Mountain.

The IMDb says the movie is 1 hr and 44 mins long, the Code Red DVD says 88 mins on the box but the movie is 93 mins, the new Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray we watched lists the time at 93 mins, the YouTube video linked in the title above is 93 mins.

A pack of high school students head out for the local make out area. They find something peculiar in the ground. While going for a truck someone steals the item and drags it off. It leads the kids to a cemetery and some underground dwelling ghouls.

Despite it's low budget and amateur production the movie has something going for it. John does try to tell a good story and he does well for having little money. The actors aren't that great but they do alright. The scripts a bit weak and the last quarter fight drags on a bit. It's not overly vicious or gory, the ghouls are almost cartoon character like. They remind me of the baddies in those 70s and 80s Japanese action shows like Kagaku Sentai Dynaman. It made me laugh a bit and I'd probably watch it again sometime. You can try it out on YouTube, you might get a laugh or two.

Dr Caligari 1989 Written by Jerry Stahl and Stephen Sayadian, directed by Stephen Sayadian. Stephen, under the name Rinse Dream, is the director of several porn films including the cult fav Café Flesh. He also directed the Do It Again video for Wall of Voodoo.

In this vague sort of sequel to 1920 film The Cabinet Of Caligari, Dr Caligari, the granddaughter of the original Dr Caligari, runs a mental health clinic and experiments on her patients with glandular brain fluid swaps. The victims patients take on the characteristics of the other swapee. Things fall apart at the clinic as the movie progresses.

It's all very surreal and colorful but lacking a good story. It's 80 mins pokes along at times. I'd seen it in 1990 but had forgotten what the movie was about in the interim, now I know. Don't think I'll need to see it again anytime soon. It's got some value as a novelty piece.

George 1972

George 1972 Original story by Marshall Thompson, screenplay and direction by Wallace C Bennett. An American film that was mostly filmed in Grindelwald Switzerland. There was a TV series based on the movie, it also starred Marshall Thompson and Jack Mullaney.

Marshall plays an airplane pilot that gets given a giant St Bernard. Jack plays Marshall's pal, he's also a pilot. Marshall takes George to his home in Grindelwald. George doesn't like heights and crashes the plane into a hay wagon near the airport.

George is a bit of a problem for Marshall and he gets donated to a monastery. George runs away and Marshall flies around the mountains in his small airplane to find him. He spots George but on landing he causes an avalanche. No worries, Jack flies up, spots him and sends mountain rescue. Marshall decides to keep George.

I would say it's about average for the kind of movie it is. The scenery is better than the jokes. I wound up with the VCI DVD somehow and I'll keep it for now. 

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Frostbiter: The Wrath Of Wendigo 1996 Written and directed by Tom Chaney. Troma released the film and put it out on DVD. We watched the new Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome. Chaney was highly influenced by Sam Raimi's Evil Dead.

A couple of hunters go nuts on an island off Northern Michigan. One of the hunters kills the guardian of the Wendigo and destroys the circle of protection that traps the Wendigo. The beast kills most everyone but one strong lady becomes the new guardian and she puts the beast back in it's hole.

It's pretty low-budget and goofy, there were some laughs and some gory bits. I'd watch it again but I doubt I'd buy a copy.

Mindfield 1989 Based on a novel by William Deverell, screenplay by William Deverell, Tom Berry and George Mihalka, directed by Jean-Claude Lord.

Michael Ironside is a cop in a city in Canada. He's got some mental issues from being experimented on when he was a teenager. Christopher Plummer plays the scientist who did the experimenting. Years pass and a shootout with a criminal triggers the memory. He gets some help from a lady and there's a bit of romance. Eventually Michael figures out who needs killing and takes care of them.

Fairly good but not much more than average. There's a dull part about an hour in, the action picks up for the ending. Enjoyed watching, wouldn't need to see it again.

The House With The Clock In Its Walls 2018

The House With The Clock In Its Walls 2018 Based on the John Bellairs novel of the same name, screenplay by Eric Kripke, directed by Eli Roth.

Ten year old Lewis goes to live with his Uncle Jonathan in New Zebedee Michigan. Uncle Jonathan lives in a big old mansion that could easily be mistaken for a haunted house. The man who lived there previously was a warlock and Uncle J is one too. UJ's best friend Florence Zimmerman is a witch and she lives next door.

Lewis breaks the big rule in the house and open the locked vault and steals the magical book he finds. He uses a spell in the graveyard to impress a friend but it only revives the dead warlock Isaac who used to live in the house. Isaac returns home to unleash the deadly clock he'd hidden in the walls of the house. It will turn back time so he can live without the annoying humans he's come to dislike so.

It was fun and there was usually something going on most of the time. I was happy to have seen it and I'll want to watch it again someday.

Penny Points To Paradise 1951

Penny Points To Paradise 1951 Written by John Ormonde and directed by Tony Young. It's the debut film for the guys from The Goon Show, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan. I'll be the first to admit I'm not a big Goons fan. Their humor is a bit miss for me.

Spike and Harry are a couple of pals, Harry wins big on the football pools, he's got £100,000 in a suitcase that he's carrying around with him as he's a big idiot. The pair of them vacation at the same seaside resort they always stay at. A couple of gals have eyes on Harry and Spike, they know about the money and don't mind being gold diggers. Peter Sellers plays an old man who sells fake investment opportunities and a Canadian salesman with the gift of gab. The disc has a short from 1951 with Peter in several roles. It's even worse than the movie.

A couple of counterfeiters move into the resort and substitute their fake cash for Harry's real cash. One of the gals is arrested for passing a fake bill given to her by Harry. The counterfeiters do a bunk but one of the gals finds their printing press before they go. It's a wax stencil duplicator that couldn't make a very passable bank note in anyway. I'm trying to ignore that glaring mistake.

The guys and gals go after the counterfeiters. The police are on the chase too. They all speed about the beach side streets of Brighton. The baddies make a break for it on foot and hid in a wax museum. They mug about in the wax museum changing into goofy costumes at nearly every scene change. The baddies give themselves away because they too are stupid. Harry and Spike marry the gals at gunpoint and run off into the distance.

The film did poorly at the box office, Peter Sellers called it "a terrifyingly bad film" and I have to agree with him. The jokes are poor and tired. It's a weak start to a film career for the Goon guys. It was thought to be lost but a 72 min version was created out of existing prints. The MVD Blu-ray looks fairly good for most of the film, some bits are a bit more fuzzy than others. I feel it was a wasted couple of bucks on clearance. I doubt I'd watch it again.

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The Wonderful World Of The Brothers Grimm 1962 Based on the biography The Brothers Grimm by Dr Hermann Gerstner, story by David P Harmon, screenplay by Charles Beaumont, William Roberts and David P Harmon, directed by Harry Levin with George Pal directing the fairy tale sequences.

The film was filmed in three panel Cinerama widescreen. The film hadn't had a US video release since the 1989 VHS and the 1992 Laserdisc. The Wikipedia tells of a bootleg Italian DVD. I know I haven't seen it in decades. I'm sure I saw it on TV as a kid. The film's been restored and presented in two versions, letterbox and Smilebox. We watched the letterbox and the dragon sequence on the Smilebox.

That's the Smilebox. Letterbox below.

Laurence Harvey plays Wilhelm and Karlheinz Böhm plays Jacob, Claire Bloom plays Wilhelm's wife and Barbara Eden plays Greta, a young woman smitten with Jacob. Oskar Homolka plays the Duke and Walter Slezak plays a bookstore owner called Stossel. Other members of the cast that I knew were Yvette Mimieux, Russ Tamblyn, Jim Backus, Beulah Bondi, Terry-Thomas, Buddy Hackett, Otto Kruger and Arnold Stang. Stan Freberg does some voices for the Puppetoons puppets.

The Brothers Grimm have taken a writing assignment from the local Duke. They are writing his family history and are nearly at the end of the 6 month project. The Duke is mad because it's not quite finished and he knows Wilhelm has been devoting some of his writing time to the fairy tales he loves so much. The brothers need to get this work done or the Duke won't pay them, he'll toss them out of their house and send them to the debtor's prison.

Wilhelm is a problem, not a practical man, he causes issues, nearly dies and hallucinates fairy tale characters and gives them names. Interspersed with the bio story are three short animated and live action fairy tales. They were nice to watch but the bio stuff was less interesting. I would have liked to see more fairy tales animated instead of incorrect bio info. It's fairly long too, 140 mins.

The Blu-ray looks nice but I'm doubtful I need to add it to my library. I can say the same about our second movie.

Amityville In The Hood 2021 Written by Jeremiah Douglas and Dustin Ferguson, directed by Dustin Ferguson.

Some joker is growing weed in the Amityville house, some guys steal it and take it to California. It's Big M's weed and he follows the weed to Cali. The drug guys have a dust up and kill some people. The weed turns people crazy and they kill other people. Sadly, most of that sort of action takes places off screen. What we have to sit through are some bad actors reading crap dialog from a poorly written script that was never thought through in the first place.

It was hard to sit though without heaping scorn on the film. The movie scores a 1.8 on the IMDb. It's deserving, just about everything about it is poor.

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Espionage In Tangier 1965 Story by Herbert Curiel, screenplay by R Belgrozo, directed by Gregg C Tallas. A Spanish Italian production.

 

A mad scientist has invented a disintegrator pistol. Agent S 077 is assigned to the case. We follow him around as he annoys everyone. There's some baddies and some pretty ladies. The dialog makes little sense at times and the fights are often poor. It's a bit of a loser. I wouldn't need to see it again.

Drive 1997 Written by Scott Phillips and directed by Steve Wang. We watched the MVD Director's Cut Blu-ray of the movie, it's got restored scenes and plenty of new extras. When I saw Drive back in 1999 I thought it was a highly entertaining action driven chase film. I watched it several times with other people but hadn't seen it for several years.

Mark Dacascos is an augmented special agent from Hong Kong. He's got a special device in his chest that makes him stronger and quicker than your average martial arts expert. He has decided to leave Hong Kong, he's going to sell the device to a company in Los Angeles for $5,000,000. James Shigeta plays the boss of the company that makes the device, he wants to keep the device from getting into other people's hands.

The baddies catch up to Mark in San Francisco, he's crossed the ocean by stowing away on a ship. He manages to escape and after kidnapping Kadeem Hardison in a bar they race across California. John Pyper-Ferguson and his toady Tracey Walter lead the gang that's chasing them. The pair get a room in a motel that Brittany Murphy is managing for her parents. She helps the guys out and the baddies blow up her motel. It was a darn good explosion. There was nothing left of the motel.

It's got a great script with a great sense of humor. The action, martial arts and stunt work are the equal of any top notch Hong Kong action film. Mark kicks the crap out of a horde of baddies in some entertaining fights. There's some nice scenery as the guys travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles. There's a big ending fight in a NASA themed restaurant. It doesn't survive the fight too well, neither do the baddies. Mark and Kadeem head for LA without anyone on their trail.

Why this movie isn't more popular beats me. It doesn't seem to make any of those best martial arts movie lists I see once in a while. It scores a 6.6 on the IMDb, I gave it a 7, it's easily that good or better.

I liked the director's cut so much I ordered one as soon as I got home. I would have ordered it on my tablet during the movie but I couldn't remember my Amazon password. I'm curious about the commentary and extras, the earlier DVD I have has no special features. 

Basket Case The Trilogy

Basket Case The Trilogy

I ordered the Second Sight Blu-ray in August 2020 and I'm finally getting around to it. Second Sight is a UK company but the set is region free and all 3 films have their own disc. I liked all three films with I first saw them.

Basket Case 1982 Written and directed by Frank Henelotter.

Kevin Van Hentenryck plays Duane Bradley, a young man who had a conjoined twin called Belial. They were separated when they were in their early teens, Belial survived and the twin went to live with their Aunt. She died and the twins set out to kill the doctors that separated them. There's three of them and Duane is successful in his endeavor but he creates a big mess and falls off a building.

There's a lot of mayhem and murder in the film, it's all balanced out by a good dose of humor. There's plenty of odd characters and 42nd Street plays a big part in the film. Not for everybody but I still like it after quite a few viewings.

Basket Case 2 1990 Written and directed by Frank Henelotter.

The story picks up with Duane and Belial in a hospital. They are rescued by a woman called Granny Ruth. She's got a nice big house and it's filled with a large number of deformed people. Belial finds a girlfriend while Duane thinks he should be allowed to go off and lead a normal life. He wants the one woman in the house who seems normal to go with him but Granny Ruth's granddaughter Susan isn't willing to leave the group.

Duane and Belial are wanted by the police for all the murders and things get dicey when a snoopy reporter and her photographer spot Duane in the house. The deformed people fight back and the snoopers come to a gory end. Duane gets nuttier and nuttier, especially when he nearly has sex with Susan. The movie ends with Duane killing Susan and then trying to sew Belial back on his body.

It's somewhat sillier than the first movie while still providing plenty of laughs and gooey content.

Basket Case 3 The Progeny 1991 Written by Frank Henenlotter and Robert Martin, directed by Frank Henenlotter.

Some time has past and Duane has been locked in a padded room in Granny Ruth's house. She finally lets him out as the group are going to take a road trip to visit her ex-husband Hal. Belial has gotten his girlfriend pregnant and she wants some help with the birth. Once they get to Hal's house things go downhill pretty quickly. Duane escapes the house and Belial attacks Hal. Duane gets arrested and the cops want the million dollar reward for for the capture of the brothers. Things go bad for the cops when they get involved, many of them die.

Even more gore and mayhem in this one. More laughs too.

It would be 17 years before Frank made another movie.

Bonus Features A mix of older extras from the US DVD and some new stuff. The commentary and the new docu were the most entertaining extras for me.

What's in the basket? A new 79 min docu with director Frank Henenlotter; actors Kevin VanHentenryck, Beverly Bonner, Annie Ross; producers Edgar Ievans and James Glickenhaus; make-up effects artists John Caglione Jr, Kevin Haney, Gabe Bartalos and writer Uncle Bob Martin.

Interview With Graham Humphreys A new interview with the artist who did the cover to the Second Sight Blu-ray set.

Everything below came from the US DVD:

Video introduction by Frank Henelotter

Audio commentary by director Frank Henenlotter, producer Edgar Ievins, and actress Beverly Bonner

Outtakes / Behind-The-Scenes

In Search Of The Hotel Broslin Frank and a pal wonder around New York looking at the places where they filmed the movie.

Trailers / Radio Spots

Photo Gallery: Behind-The-Scenes, Promotional Material, Stills

Re-Elected 2020

Re-Elected 2020 Written by Eric Looney and Max Radbill, directed by Max Radbill. I caught this on Amazon Prime, free with membership.

It's a cabin in the woods with zombies film. Some 20 somethings visit the family cabin and the stupid half brother releases three zombies when he reads a cursed copy of the Declaration of Independence. A zombie Washington, Lincoln and Jackson come looking to destroy the document and take over the country. The film is very Evil Dead like but without the talent of Sam Raimi behind the wheel. It's filled with dumb jokes that weren't making me laugh. If I was mean spirited I would say it was poor as fuck. I gave it a 1 on the IMDb. I won't need to see it again. Hopefully I'll forget about it soon.