Monthly Archives: June 2021

Sssssss (1973)

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Oh man, this movie. I can’t even believe some of the things that happen in it, to be perfectly honest with you. It’s another PG-rated 1973 movie — hello, The Baby — that is absolutely berserk.

Directed by Bernard L. Kowalski and written by Hal Dresner (Zorro the Gay Blade) and Daniel C. Striepeke (who also produced this film and did the creative makeup design*; he also did makeup work on everything from Planet of the Apes and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls to Myra Breckinridge, Jaws the Revenge and Can’t Stop the Music before doing make-up for several Tom Hanks-starring movies), Sssssss tells the story of Dr. Carl Stoner (Strother Martin), a man who we first meet as he sells a mysterious creature to a carnival.

Beyond being a herpetologist, Dr. Carl has gone completely and utterly crazy, believing that man is about to undergo an ecological apocalypse and would be better served if we all became amphibians. He brings on David Blake (Dirk Benedict) as his assistant, slowly injecting him with medications that he claims will make him immune to snake bites. Obviously, Blake is a moron because such a vaccination does not exist**. He is not so dumb that he doesn’t instantly start pining for Dr. Carl’s daughter Kristina (Heather Menzies, who was Louisa in The Sound of Music and would appear nude in Playboy the very same year this was made in a pictorial all so creatively titled “Tender Trapp”).

And before you know it, David is having wild Keir Dullea dreams of reptiles when he isn’t turning green. The doctor keeps feeding people to snakes and sending snakes to kill people in showers and one wonders, how has he gotten away with all of these shenanigans in such a small town for so long? Also, the end of this movie is completely off the rails — and the movie is never normal, not for a second, so for it to get weirder is an accomplishment — when David transforms into a king cobra and battles a mongoose before the cops come in blasting with shotguns.

I kind of adore this movie because at once it’s a movie that has an incredibly scholarly take on snakes and how they actually operate while also being a movie with numerous sideshow scenes and two people — the other is Tim McGraw the Snake Man who is played by Noble Craig, a Vietnam vet who lost lose both of his legs, his right arm and most of the sight in his right eye and used that handicap to become a living special effect in movies like this, Poltergeist II, the remake of The Blob, Bride of the Re-Animator, A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child and Big Trouble In Little China — are transformed into snake men.

In case you think that this movie was safe to make, the venomous king cobras in it were not defanged. Instead, they were kept at their full potency and milked of their venom every day.

This movie has some great alternate titles, like O Homem-Cobra (The Snake Man) in Brazil, SSSSKobra and Ssssnake in Finland — and Sssssnake Kobra in Germany — as well as Ssssilbido de Muerte (Whisper of Death) in Mexico and Hissssss and SSSSnake in the U.S.

Honestly, drop what you’re doing and watch this movie right now.

*The actual effects are by John Chambers, who created Spock’s ears, and Nick Marcellino.

**I take that back. My research has show that there is a rattlesnake vaccine, so there you go.

The Woman Hunter (1972)

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The Woman Hunter has an all-star cast, with Barbara Eden in the lead, alongside Stuart Whitman, Larry Storch and Robert Vaughn. Like I said — it’s what I say is an all-star cast.

Most Giallo heroines are characterized by their wealth and potential mental issues. However, in The Woman Hunter, when Dina Hunter (Eden) survives a car accident and plans a trip to Mexico with her husband (Vaughn), who would have thought that the artist she hired to paint her portrait (Whitman) could be a jewel thief and a murderer?

Enrique Lucero, who plays the Commissioner, would go on to try and hunt down Mary, Mary, and Bloody Mary and also appears in The Wild Bunch, Guyana, Cult of the Damned and The Evil That Men Do.

This was written by Brian Clemens (Captain Kronos, And Soon the Darkness) and Tony Williamson (Adam Adamant Lives!, The Avengers). It is Clemens’ first U.S. work and Williamson’s only script made over here. It’s directed by Bernard L. Kowalski, who stepped in for John Peyser (The Centerfold Girls). I assume that everyone enjoyed shooting this on location in Acapulco. Larry Storch even brought his wife Norma along.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Junesploitation 2021: Uppercut Man (1988)

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June 24: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie — is free space!

Sergio Martino made some truly baffling and wonderful movies in the late 80s. Perhaps even stranger, two of them — this film and American Rickshaw — were made in Miami, a place that Italian directors loved in the wake of Miami Vice (see also: Cy Warrior, Cop Target, The Last Match, Mean Tricks, First Action Hero, Plankton, Karate Warrior 2, Primal Rage, Moving Target, Nightmare Beach, the Bud Spencer version of Aladdin, Brothers In Blood, Striker, The Wild Team, Cut and Run, Miami Golem, Super Fuzz*, Go for It* and Atlantis Interceptors*).

Also known as Qualcuno Pagherà (Someone Will Pay), Punhos de Exterminador (Terminator Fists, which is a great title), Vaincre ou Mourir 2 (Win or Die 2), Bloodfight and The Opponent, this movie is seriously everything I love about late 80s Italian bootleg cinema.

Daniel Greene was once Paco Queruak in Hands of Steel, which is why that Terminator Fists title makes sense, and now he is Bobby Mulligan, a boxer who works for Martin Duranti (Giuliano Gemma, Silver Saddle). His wife, Gilda (Mary Stavin from Strike Commando 2 and Born to Fight) ends up working our hero’s speedbag — if you know what I’m saying and I think you do — and Martin declares a vendetta against our hero.

Bobby was already in love with Anne (Keely Shaye Smith, who was in the “Stuck with You” video with Huey Lewis before marrying Pierce Brosnan), whose father Victor (Ernest Borgnine!) was once a boxer, which will come in handy later. He doesn’t trust anyone who is a fighter with his little girl, especially after he gets in a slaphappy battle with our hero in his grocery store.

Duranti, learning that he’s been cucked, wants Bobby to do the job in a fight against Eddy (James Warring, who was the World Kickboxing Association World Cruiserweight Champion), but Bobby has no idea what that means and wins the fight. So the mobbed out Duanti sends his men to break our hero’s right hand, pretty much ending his boxing career. However, Victor comes around and starts respecting our hero because he also refused to throw a fight. Guess what? His daughter comes around too.

Remember that opportunity for Victor I mentioned? That comes when the mob takes our hero’s ex-drunk coach Larry (Bill Wohrman, Porky’s), forces him to drink chemicals and drowns him in a scene that is a narrative and tonal shift, but so is the end of this movie, when our hero goes from the championship match to rescuing his woman in a junkyard and getting horrible and bloody revenge, but not before the bad girl turns good and pays for it with her life.

I really wish Martino had made more of these cover movies, because I love every single one of them. It starts with the conventions of the accepted boxing movie and just gets wild, as you hope that it will.

The montage where Borgnine teaches Daniel Greene to box with only his left hand is beyond joyous, as is the scene where our hero tries to do some road work and a car runs him down. Man, I got so excited writing about this that now I want to watch it again.

*Yes, I know, these were made years before Crockett and Tubbs got to town.

Omerta (2011)

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Starring former pro boxer Paul Malinaggi, Will Wallace, Joe Estevez (The Zero Boys), Adam Nelson (Mystic River), Joe D’ Onofrio (A Bronx Tale, Goodfellas), and Carmen Argenziano (Sudden Impact), Omerta tears the lid off the secrets of Bensonhurst, a place where connected men own all of the political and legal power. Yet one man learns that the code of loyalty simply means being a street soldier in a battle that he can’t win.

At once a religious and a mob movie, Omerta is written and directed by four-time Emmy nominated Craig Syracusa (Ring Of Faith, Walk in Faith) and has music by Ceazar Reyes and Raekwon from The Wu-Tang Clan.

From the office of a priest to a bloody battle on the streets, mob fans will find something to like in this film, if only to see some of their favorite actors from those films in different roles.

You can watch this on Tubi or get the DVD from MVD.

Two for the Money (1972)

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Thanks for joining us as we wrap up our second day of our three-day tribute to all things Bernard L. Kowalski!

He had to go through Roger Corman with Hot Car Girl, Attack of the Giant Leeches, and Night of the Blood Beast, then do TV series for the rest of the ’60s to get his shot at the major studio brass ring with Krakatoa: East of Java and Stiletto. But both of those films — as well as the David Janssen-starring western Macho Callahan — flopped at the box office, so it was back to TV for Bernard L. Kowalski. However, instead of the TV series of the ’60s, he now was in the TV movie business, in which he gave us Terror in the Sky, Black Noon, and Women in Chains. For his fourth TV movie, Kowalksi directed this script by TV series and TV movie scribe Howard Rodman (best known for the series Route 66 and the later Harry O, also the TV sci-fi flicks Exo-Man and the first Six Million Dollar Man TV movie). Was this a TV movie pilot film? Yep, you bet.

If you spent any time in front of the TV watching reruns of series from the ’60s and ’70s, and even into the ’90s, you’ll notice character actors Robert Hooks and Steven Brooks as our two cops who quit the police department to become private detectives — and come to hunt down a serial killer who has eluded the law for years. And they’re against the clock because notable western character actor Walter Brennan (John Wayne’s Rio Bravo) is out for vigilante justice to avenge the murder of a family member by the killer. And the always welcomed character actor-ness of Neville Brand as a racist, small town sheriff isn’t helping matters.

Yep, that is Richard Dreyfuss (Two Bernard L. Kolwaski flicks with future Jaws stars? Roy Scheider was in Stiletto, remember?) starting out his career. And that is the voice of the devil, Mercedes “Pazuzu” McCambridge, from The Exorcist. (Plot spoiler: she’s the killer and she’s off-the-hinges-great here; not that you don’t see that plot twist coming.) Also be on the lookout for Oscar actors Anne Revere (Supporting Actress winner for National Velvet) and her “sister” Catherine Burns (Supporting Actress nominee for Last Summer). Shelley Fabares, who did her share of car racing and Elvis flicks*, is the town’s pretty librarian girlfriend of Brooks that’s caught the creepy eye of Brand.

You can watch Two for the Money on You Tube. Grey market DVDs are easily available. It’s not that bad of TV movie thriller. Definitely not engaging TV series material in the manner of say, Starsky and Hutch (gotta go watch The Supercops from 1974 with my youth-buddy, Ron Leibman), but a serviceable TV flick, none the less.

* Of course we did all off the King’s — well, all three — racing flicks. What ensuing, trope-laden cliched movie site did you think your were surfing, here? Check out our “Drive-In Friday: Elvis Racing Nite” feature.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

Women In Chains (1972)

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The ABC Movie of the Week for January 25, 1972, Women In Chains brings Ida Lupino to TV for her first made-for-TV movie, as well as bringing her back to the WIP genre that she made such a mark on with 1955’s Women’s Prison.

She plays prison guard Claire Tyson (Ida Lupino), a woman who can get away with anything that she wants to, as long as its within the prison walls. Parole officer Sandra Parker (Lois Nettleton, who was on the TV series form of In the Heat of the Night) gets the idea to make herself over as junkie Sally Porter to the protests of Assistant District Attorney Helen Anderson (Penny Fuller).

Helen is the only one who knows about this undercover work, but when she’s shot and killed by the boyfriend of one of her cases our heroine is stuck in the big house. Her goal is to save an innocent girl named Lemina (Belinda Montgomery, Dooger Hauser’s mom) but she runs into Tyson’s henchwoman Leila (BarBara Luna, who was in the “Mirror, Mirror” episode of the original Star Trek). After asking so many questions, the word comes down. Helen/Sally is going to get killed, so she makes a daring escape that brings her directly into physical combat with Tyson.

Written by Rita Lakin (who wrote 464 episodes, eight movies of the week and two miniseries in her career, as well as the  Gladdy Gold Mystery book series) and directed by Bernard L. Kowalski (Night of the Blood Beast, Sssssss), don’t go into this movie expecting the normal WIP hallmarks. After all, this aired on broadcast TV. That doesn’t make this a bad film, however.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Repost: Black Noon (1971)

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Editor’s Note: We reviewed this on May 22, 2020, as part of one of our many “TV Week” tributes.  It’s back again for the second day of our three-day “Bernard Kowalksi Week” tribute to his drive-in features and telefilms. He directed this CBS film after working on numerous episodes of TV’s The Untouchables and Mission: Impossible, as well as the westerns Rawhide and The Wild Wild West.

Bernard L. Kowalski has a decent horror pedigree, directing Night of the Blood Beast, Attack of the Giant Leeches, Krakatoa: East of Java, Terror in the Sky and Sssssss. Here, he puts the terror on a slow boil and puts Reverend John Keyes (Roy Thinnes, constantly battling the occult) and his wife Lorna (Lynn Loring, The Horror at 37,000 Feet) against an unseen force bedeviling a small Western town named San Melas. There’s voodoo, devil worship and a mute young girl and a gunslinger possessed by the Left Hand Path.

Ray Milland shows up, proving that Old Hollywood is never to be trusted. Plus, there’s Gloria Grahame (Blood and Lace), Henry Silva (Almost Human, Megaforce, the epic Escape from the Bronx), stuntman Stan Barrett, Joshua Bryant (Salem’s Lot), a young Leif Garrett (Thunder Alley) and Jodie Foster’s brother, Buddy.

This 1970s made-for-TV horror neglects the Old West, so it is a strange film to start with. Then again, it also plays the Troll 2 trick of a town with a backward name and a connection to witches, but it doesn’t telegraph that. The ending—which moves to 1971—more than makes up for the slow-moving last 68 minutes. I love dreamy TV movies that take forever to get anywhere.

You watch it on YouTube:

Repost: Terror in the Sky (1971)

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Editor’s Note: This review ran on December 28, 2020, as part of another one of our “TV Week” tributes — dedicated, in part, to TV airline disaster movies (see our end of the week Round Up). We’re bringing it back for our our second day of our three-day “Bernard Kowalski Week” tribute — a great director!

CBS-TV got its start in the airline disaster sweepstakes in September 1971 with this tale about transcontinental flight struck with food poisoning. To save the aircraft, the cabin crew locate a passenger with enough flying experience so that he can be coached by an experience pilot on the ground. Doug McClure, it goes without saying, is very good in his role as a Vietnam war ex-chopper pilot who’s called into action to safe the day.

While many write this off as a rip-off of ’70s airline disaster flicks — and, in a way, it is (which we will get to) — Terror in the Sky has it roots in an Alex Haley-written Canadian telefilm starring James “Scotty” Doohan, Flight Into Danger (1956). The CBC-TV screenplay was quickly rebooted as the Paramount Pictures features film Zero Hour! (1957) starring Dana Andrews — each deal with a “food poisoning” premise. Haley then took the premise and retooled n’ tweaked it again for the novel Runway Zero-Eight (1958), then again as novel Airport (1968), which, in turn, became the Burt Lancaster-starring Airport (1970). So, officially, Terror in the Sky is a bigger-budget TV remake of Zero Hour! and a loose cousin to Runway Zero-Eight. which aired on CBS-TV in September 1971.

As for Zero Hour!: Interest in the film was renewed in the ’80s when it was revealed that the Abrahams-Zucker Brothers’ (The Kentucky Fried Movie) Airplane!, which spoofed the Airport series of movies of the ’70s, was actually an almost verbatim comedy-remake of the film.

Yeah, you know why we love this, as it’s another airline disaster TV movie with bonkers casting: assisting Doug McClure are Roddy McDowall and Kennan Wynn, along with ’50s gents Kenneth Tobey (The Thing) and Leif Erickson (On the Waterfront).

Is the name of director Bernard Kowalski ringing any bells? It should. He gave us the Alien precursor Night of the Blood Beast, The Fast and the Furious precursor Hot Car Girl, and the giant monster mash classic Attack of the Giant Leeches, and the mad scientist romp Sssssss. Oh, and the western-horror about devil worshiping voodoo cowpokes, the most awesome TV movie ever, Black Noon (1971). And let’s not forget he closed out his career with TV’s Colombo, Airwolf, Knight Rider, and Jake and the Fatman.

You can watch this on You Tube.

Junesploitation 2021: Dobermann (1997)

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June 23: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie — is 90s action.

Dobermann (Vincent Cassel, Black Swan) got his first gun at his baptism. Now, he leads a gang of bank robbers, made up of his knife-throwing deaf girlfriend Nat the Gypsy (Monica Bellucci!), Olivier who is also a woman named Sonia, Pitbull and even a priest who likes to put grenades into the helmets of motorcycle cops.

A sadistic cop named Christini (Tchéky Karyo) has been chasing Dobermann for what seems like an eternity and he decides that this will be the night he catches him. He sets up an ambush in a club as the gang celebrates their latest bank robbery and his methods are even worse than the villains.

This film may have an opening CGI animation that looks dated and sure, it’s highly influenced by Tarantino, but it’s packed with action and incredibly cool villains as protagonists. There’s been a sequel planned for a long time and I hope that it gets made. If you’re into gunplay set to music by Prodigy, I mean, you really should watch this. I also realize that this is a very small subgenre of action film fans, but so it goes.

Director Jan Kounen and Cassel would go on to make Blueberry, which is based on the comic books by Jean “Moebius” Giraud. That makes sense, as this film is also based on a comic book by Joel Houssin.

Finding Opehlia (2021)

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New York ad exec William Edgar (Jimmy Levar) has been experiencing a series of ultra-vivid dreams that he is obsessing over when life throws him a curve. He must choose between his real life and the fantasy world that a mysterious woman (Christina Chu) offers. Now, as he follows her down an increasingly strange path, he wonders if she’s the girl of his dreams or something much worse.

This is an auteur project, as Stephen Rutterford wrote, directed, produced, edited, did the cinematography, created the color design and co-scored this film. It’s a dreamlike 73-minutes that seems like you’re part of the lucid dreamworld of its hero, going along for the ride as he escapes reality and enters something and somewhere different.

This film transcends its small budget to tell a story that’s different than anything else you’ll see this year.

You can learn more at the official Facebook page and the official site for the film. Finding Ophelia is available on Amazon Prime, Google Play and Tubi.