June 15: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Free Space! We’re excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what’s next.

I approached this movie with a strange and melancholic blend of joy and sadness. Joy because it’s everything I love about movies: Italian maniacs let loose in Miami making a movie that at once combines Lethal Weapon, Ghost Dad and Tron while being shot on film in the very late for the Italian exploitation film industry year of 1997. Even better, it has the high concept of combining Terence Hill and “Marvelous” Marvin Hagler as buddy cops.

The cheerlessness comes from the fact that this is at the end. This is the last movie that Antonio Margheriti (Anthony M. Dawson in America) would direct, the last that Bruno Corbucci would write and really the event horizon of an era of films that I love with all my heart.

Yet in this bubble of time, you still get Margheriti combining actual car chases with the practical miniature effects that you hope for in his movies. The explosions are as big as they can be. And sure, maybe Terence Hill is thinking about better days alongside Bud Spencer. Perhaps Marvin Hagler is probably remembering when he fought world middleweight champ Alan Minter, who said, “No black man is going to take my title.” Then he hit him so many times so quickly that he opened four gigantic wounds on the champ’s face and Hagler won his first title as the fans in Wembley Arena launched beer bottles his way. How did he end up here in Miami trying to tell jokes and being in his fourth movie for these wacky Italians?* And was Margheriti dreaming of filming cobwebbed staircases being navigated by a candelabra-wielding Barbara Steele?

No matter. Here they are in Miami and a movie needs to be made.

Skims (Hill) is an ex-cop turned computer salesman who comes back to Miami to see his old cop friend Mike Davis (Hagler). But we know why he’s in town. He’s undercover, investigating a microchip stealing plot. He’s also excited to reconnect with former cop — and the widow of his partner — Chelo (Giselle Blondet) and bond with her tech-loving daughter Lily (Jennifer Martinez).

Our hero finally tracks down the villain behind all of the drama in this, a man named Abel Van Axel (Stephen Edward, who showed up in three episodes of Miami Vice), who goes by the even cooler — if unnecessary — name of Mr. X. What is he, the final boss of a Konami beat ’em up?

Despite being informed that Skims is the greatest cop of all time, he gets blown up real good and dies. We even see his funeral. I’m shocked they didn’t run the credits.

Except that Skims has somehow survived and shows up on Lily’s computer, looking like Trinity by way of Automan, fighting dinosaurs and transforming like he’s fueled by Energon. His power set is beyond crazy here, even moreso than the goofball abilities Hill had in my beloved Super Fuzz. He can be invisible unless someone tells him they love him, he can travel through telephone lines and is now a hologram, which is explained as “the result of modern technology and Biblical faith.”

Of course the bad guys pay and Skims carries around the bad guy’s gun, turning it on him, and everyone is all smiles by the end. Even me, as I watch the credits and try not to think that it’s over, it’s over, all the rainbows in the sky start to weep, then say goodbye. Apologies to Roy Orbison, obviously.

The best thing in this whole movie is that Skims forgets that he’s just been killed by techno gangsters and real estate lords and decides to screw around with his fellow cops while they’re lifting weights, playing ghost reindeer games with them like he’s Super Fuzz — “He’s a super snooper. Really super trooper. A wonder cop a one like you never saw.” — and I could watch a 90-minute movie of these antics.

You may ask, who else is in the cast? Well, who isn’t? This is the last movie of Richard Liberty, who unites the decades of Romero films by playing Artie in The Crazies and Dr. Matt “Frankenstein” Logan in Day of the Dead. He plays Captain Holmes. The old lady who pulls out a gigantic handgun and fires it at criminals is Florance McGee, who was also a senior citizen in Super Fuzz and was Phoebe Russell in Empire of the Ants. Tommy Lane was a stuntman who was in Shaft and Ganja and Hess along with playing the trumpet and flugelhorn. Wikipedia thinks that he’s the same Tommy Lane who was in the Rock ‘n’ Roll RPMs with Mike Davis. He wasn’t.

There’s also Roger Callard (Conan the Librarian from UHF), Edoardo Margheriti (who would go from doing effects on Yor Hunter from the Future to being a second unit director for Hudson Hawk) and a lot of folks who were in Florida-based productions such as Wild Things and B.L. Stryker.

Beyond Corbucci, this was written by Terence’s son Jess and executive producer Ferdie Pacheco. It was the only movie that Ferdie ever wrote or produced. He was better known as the personal physician and cornerman for Muhammad Ali. He left Ali’s team in 1977 when after Ali won against Earnie Shavers, he felt that the post-fight physical showed that the boxer was falling to pieces. In the book Muhammed Ali: His Life and Times, Pacheco said, “The New York State Athletic Commission gave me a report that showed Ali’s kidneys were falling apart. I wrote to Angelo Dundee, Ali’s trainer, his wife and Ali himself. I got nothing back in response. That’s when I decided enough is enough.” When they reunited in 2002 and Ali was suffering from Parkinson’s, The Greatest told The Fight Doctor “You was right.”

This also has one of my favorite things about Italian movies going for it: absolutely strange alternate titles. I get Virtual Weapon as it tells you that this is a Mel and Danny ripoff with a tech twist and the French title Cyberflic means Cybercop. But then the Japanese title is Point of Dead, which is a great title that says nothing. Germany got Zwei Fäuste für Miami (Two Fists for Miami), Hungary the very metal Én vagyok a fegyver (I Am the Gun) which spoils the ending of the movie and Italy had Potenza virtuale (Virtual Power).

I always worry that I am going to run out of Italian movies to obsess over but so far, I keep finding new things to write over a thousand words about.

*In case you wondered, Indio and Indio 2 for Margheriti, as well as Across Red Nights for Maurizio Bonuglia.

June 13: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Ozploitation We’re excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what’s next.

John D. Lamond worked in promotion before directing his first two movies, Australia After Dark and The ABC of Love and Sex. These mondo films were both successes which led to him making his first narrative film, which is Felicity. He also wrote Sky Pirates and directed the slasher Nightmares.

For this one, he was inspired by Just Jaeckin’s Emmanuelle to the point that the book gets references multiple times and there’s even a similar wicker chair. He said, “The French have always been able to make their films NOT be pornographic, they’d be erotic. They were classy – the most they could ever say was softcore. And the way they did it, they made pretty images that looked like a Singapore Airlines TV commercial, they had nice fashion, good photography and nice music. And that way it dresses it up and makes it all chocolate boxy… I thought okay, the way to do that on a film budget is to go somewhere exotic. Make sure the people are pretty and they don’t have pimples. Don’t be sordid in any way, have pretty music and exotic locations, nice lighting and nice fashion. So even though it was a tiny film, we came up to Hong Kong and we got all the clothes tailor made for them, so that they fitted properly.”

Felicity Robinson (Glory Annen, Prey, The Lonely Lady) has spent most of her life in boarding school, forever dreaming of the kind of true love — and plenty of lust — she has read about. Well, she mostly reads Emmanuelle and The Story of O (you can even see Udo Keir and Corinne Clery on the cover). She also occasionally has sapphic interludes with her Willows End Ladies College classmate Jenny (Jody Hanson) that mean more to Jenny than Felicity.

Then, her father arranges a trip to Hong Kong to visit his friends Christine (Marilyn Rodgers, Patrick) and Stephen (Gordon Charles). As soon as she gets there, Felicity spies on the two as they make love. Christine realizes this and decides to introduce Felicity to the ways of love, first having her be deflowered by the much older Andrew (David Bradshaw) and then the exotic Me Ling (Joni Flynn, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Octopussy), who takes her on a journey through the erotic world of the East. But ah, Felicity remains traditional and eventually falls in love with a nice young boy named Miles (Chris Milne, Thirst).

There’s even a scene where the characters go to see The ABC of Love and Sex, which Lamond said was a “total Roger Corman.” He also intended to make a sequel, Felicity in the Garden of Pleasures, that the government organization known as the South Australian Film Corporation would invest in. Controversy resulted and the movie was never made.

Felicity’s voice — and the reason this might feel so charming instead of lecherous — belong to Diane Lamond, the director’s wife. They pull another Emmanuelle move by claiming that the story was written by Felicity Robinson.

Sadly, Glory Annen’s went through some dark times in her life. She was the partner of racehorse owner Ivan Allan for more than a decade and when the relationship ended, both she and her mother were evicted from their home. This led to a major British court case which “established that parties to ancillary relief court proceedings may generally expect the information they have provided about their finances to remain confidential and protected from publication.”

After Annen died in 2017, several documents she wrote regarding her relationship have been released and are currently being used to create an expose of Allan, the British legal system and the criminal elements in the world of horse racing. Her last role was in Lamond’s True Flies.

I had so much fun watching this movie. I’m certain I watched it furtively on Cinemax After Dark along with stand outs such as Eleven Days, Eleven Nights; Emanuelle in Bangkok; Gwendoline; The Secrets of Love: Three Rakish Tales and Young Lady Chatterley II. These movies seemed so naughty then — well, Joe D’Amato’s work still is sleazetastic — and watching this today, I felt the same way that people that once got arrested for watching nudie cuties must have felt as hardcore started playing legally.

June 12: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is New World! We’re excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what’s next.

Directed by Greydon Clark, a lot of critics made fun of this movie for ripping off Charlie’s Angels. But you know, that’s exploitation. This time, you get seven girls — policewoman Elaine Brenner (Robin Greer, Satan’s Cheerleaders), high school teacher April Thomas (Jacqulin Cole, Clark’s wife), martial artist Kako Umaro (Lieu Chinh), stuntwoman Terry Grant (Sylvia Anderson, Record City, Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway), model Maria (Noela Velasco), Vegas singer Michelle Wilson (Susan Kiger, who was in Seven, Death Screams, Galaxina and H.O.T.S. as well as being the January 1977 Playboy Playmate of the Month) and Trish (Liza Greer, Robin’s sister) — going up against drug dealers that have put Michelle’s brother Bobby (Mike Gugliotta) in the hospital.

Yet this movie never feel seedy and the ladies all have their own jobs and independent lives instead of just being giggle. Yes, they are gorgeous. But they’re also pretty intelligent and drive a great 70s van. It’s nearly a cartoon, as the seven women all get special costumes and even the transition between screens is closer to Wonder Woman than Charlie’s Angels.

The bad guys include future Andy Sidaris leading man Darby Hinton, Jack Palance and Peter Lawford. Yes, that’s star power. And there’s even more, as Jim Backus (as a right wing militia leader!) and Alan Hale Jr. (as Michelle’s manager) somehow get off the island and appear in this. Perhaps the wildest casting is Arthur Godfrey as himself. At one point, he was heard on radio and seen on television six days a week with nine different CBS shows. Yet the end of his popularity came when he publicly fired singer Julius La Rosa on his radio show before going on a spree and letting more than twenty employees go in the next few years and the public began to see through his public image. But here he is in a low budget Greydon Clark movie. And I nearly missed Pat Buttram!

Best of all, the The Angels get a Charlie and it’s Neville Brand. Did I cast this movie?

It looks way better than it should — it’s an early Dean Cundy-shot effort — and as for that van, well, Darby Hinton bought it when they were done with the movie and put a hot tub in it. I bet his mustache got one heck of a workout.

Clark would work with Palance later in one of my favorites of his films, Without Warning. This is also one of four movies Jack would make with his son Cody. The others are God’s Gun, Young Guns and Treasure Island.

A lot of reviews get upset that this was so cartoony and had a PG rating. Then, they make fun of the acting. Have they ever watched a drive-in movie before?

You can watch this on Tubi under its other title Angel’s Revenge. It also goes by Seven from Heaven, which is probably the best title.