Junesploitation 2021: Midnight (1989)
June 26: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is 80s horror. Midnight (Lynn Redgrave) is a horror hostess who wears low-cut outfits, makes bad puns before the movies she shows and looks like an undead mistress of, well, the night. Pretty much exactly like Elvira, which seems weird, because they […]
White Lightnin’ Road (1967) and That Tennessee Beat (1966): A Tribute to Ron Ormond . . . and Earl Sink
For our “Ron Ormond Day” at B&S About Movies, I chose this early hicksploitationer* featuring an early role for Ron’s son, Tim. Tim would grow up to serve as an editor, cinematographer, writer (39 Stripes, The Second Coming), and director (the lost The Second Coming) on several Ormond family productions, which also included wife and […]
Girl from Tobacco Row (1966)
One of my favorite things about Ron Ormond’s movies is that he brings back old western stars — often to my surprise — and gives them work long after Hollywood stopped hiring them. The congregation in this movie is led by Reverend E.F. Bolton, who is played by Tex Ritter, a singing cowboy who was […]
The Exotic Ones (1968)
This would be the last secular movie that Ron Ormond would ever make and what a movie to end that era of his career on. He also plays the mob boss Nemo, the man who rules the strip clubs of New Orleans — this movie is also known as The Monster and the Stripper — and […]
Please Don’t Touch Me (1963)
Right before Ron Ormond’s road to Damascus moment, he was making movies like this, which feel like a mondo crossed with a sex ed movie and yet have all of the best things of both genres. Using his real name Vittorio Di Naro, Ormond directed this film (and wrote it, too). It starts with Vicky […]
39 Stripes (1979)
Man, in 39 Stripes, Tim Ormond nearly makes a roundtrip, going from the young kid protecting a convict in Girl from Tobacco Road to playing a criminal himself, portraying Ed Martin, former chain gang convict who converted to Christianity in prison in 1944 and formed the HopeAglow Prison Ministries. A life of petty crime led Ed into […]
The Grim Reaper (1976)
Ron Ormond’s journey — from Southern deep-fried drive-in fare to religious grindhouse filmmaker — is the kind of thing that obsesses me. Usually working with Rev. Estus Pirkle, his films reach a level of ecstatic mania that I could only dream of discovering in a snake church revival, yet can do it in the comfort […]
The Believer’s Heaven (1977)
The basics of this movie: Fire-and-brimstone preacher Estus W. Pirkle gives a sermon to his followers, explaining what Heaven looks like. Yeah, that’s kind of what it’s about, but that’s like me saying Edwige Fenech is a girl. The Believer’s Heaven is the kind of insane cinema that secular filmmakers could only dream of conceiving. Pirkle […]
You must be logged in to post a comment.