Author Archives: bandsaboutmovies

IT’S THE LAST DIA DOUBLE FEATURE OF THE YEAR…

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This Saturday at 8 PM EST, join Bill and me on the Groovy Doom Facebook and YouTube pages for our last double feature of the year.

Up first is Martin, which is a movie that we’ve been wanting to play on the show for some time. You can find it on YouTube. You can also download it from the Internet Archive.

Each week, we watch two movies, talk about them, look at the ads and share drink recipes. Here’s the first one:

Vampire Martin-I

  • 1.5 oz. vodka
  • 1 oz. Watermelon Pucker
  • 4 oz. orange juice
  • .5 oz. lemon juice
  • .5 oz. raspberry syrup
  1. Shake vodka, Pucker, orange and lemon juice in a cocktail shaker with ice.
  2. Pour in a glass, then add raspberry syrup like you’re slicing a sleeping housewife’s wrist.

Our second movie is Screamers, which was also released as Something Waits in the Dark. You can watch it on Tubi.

Here’s the recipe for the second drink.

Isle of the Fishmen

  • 1 oz. rum
  • 1 oz. spiced rum
  • 1.5 oz. amaretto
  • 1 oz. blue curacao
  • .5 oz. lime juice
  • 6 oz. apple juice
  1. Shake up all the ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker.
  2. Pour in a glass and see a man get turned inside out.

See you on Saturday!

Spagvemberfest 2023: Giunse Ringo e… fu tempo di massacro (1970)

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Ringo, It’s Massacre Time (AKA Wanted Ringo, Revenge of Ringo and Reward for Ringo) is at once an Italian Western and a mystery. A series of deaths at a ranch — the victims are all foaming at the mouth — brings Mike Wood (Mickey Hargitay) to solve things. Yet he soon mysteriously disappears (he was actually the star of the movie, but had to fly home to California when he learned that his son Zoltan was mauled by a tiger at Jungleland during a publicity shoot for his wife Jayne Mansfield) and his brother Ringo (Jean Louis) comes on board.

Director and writer Mario Pinzauti starts with those basics and then goes wild, bringing in elements of the giallo and even voodoo dolls, something you may not see in a single other Italian Western. Pinzauti made several movies that cashed in on other films, like Let’s Go and Kill Sartana, Mandinga, Passion Plantation, Due Magnum .38 per una città di carogne and Clouzot & C. contro Borsalino & C., which looks like Borsalino quite a lot from the poster.

There is a femme fatale named Pilar (Lucia Bomez) and a witch — yes! — that lives in a cave that has caused all of this. The film feels like it was being written as it was shot, as people literally stop speaking in scenes and some characters walk on and never get seen for the rest of the movie. It’s just a blast of complete wildness and while I appreciate just how strange it all is, if you’re looking for a complete film, this is in no way it.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Bogie (1980)

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I have a big weakness for made for TV biopics, often because they’re rarely good and yet that keeps me coming back to them. The blame lies at the feet of the multiple tabloids my grandmother subscribed to as I learned about Liz’s sad last days, Liberace and Rock Hudson’s watermelon diet and who was beating who, who was doing drugs and who was getting surgery.

Based on Joe Hyams’ 1966 novel, Bogie: The Biography of Humphrey Bogart, this stars Kevin O’Connor as Humphrey Bogart, who was my father’s favorite actor. O’Connor has an interesting list of credits, like playing Irijah in The Passover Plot and Woody in Let’s Scare Jessica to Death.

In the roles of the two loves of his life are Ann Wedgeworth (Aunt Fern from Steel Magnolias) as Mayo Methot and Kathryn Harrold (Raw Deal) as Lauren Bacall.

Director Vincent Sherman made The Return of Dr. X, All Through the Night, Crime School, Across the Pacific and King of the Underworld with Bogie and writer Daniel Taradash wrote Knock on Any Door, so they knew that man. It’s hard to say if this was right, because it seems like it tries to get in so much in such a short time. The transitions where it shows Bogart in his many roles seem like something out of pictures you would get in a Wild West saloon at a theme park. Nothing feels authentic. Much of the film is O’Connor mugging for the camera and trying to get his face to look like the star.

You can spot a young Drew Barrymore as Bogie’s daughter Leslie.

When asked about the movie, his widow Lauren Bacall said, It’s a bunch of crap, and there’s no way to stop it. It’s a crock, unadulterated garbage, and it’s untrue. They’re just going to use him. Jesus, there’s no creativity left in the world. People will do anything for money. Anything.”

Oddly enough, both Bogart and O’Connor died from cancer.

You can watch this on Tubi.

TUBI ORIGINAL: No BS: Rich, Famous & Terrified Stars (2023)

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Everyone always wants to be a rock star when they grow up. But after watching this TMZ special, which is on Tubi, no part of me is interested in the life that Taylor Swift has. She has to arrive at her shows inside a black curtained box so that no one stalks her or tries to get her before she’s on stage. She can’t go anywhere without being recognized. I understand, people trade their ability to be normal for all that money but when you can’t go anywhere, is it worth it?

This also shows how Dave Chapelle was attacked onstage and what happened next, as well as a stalker breaking into Sandra Bullock’s house and her calling the police from a panic room. None of these moments will ever happen to normal people, so when we go on and on about celebrities, maybe we should think for a bit about how rough it really can be.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Snapdragon (1993)

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Two men have been murdered after hiring an unknown prostitute. Sergeant Peckham (Chelsea Field) and her boyfriend, police psychologist David Stratton (Steven Bauer) are assigned to the case. They believe that it might be Felicity (Pamela Anderson), an amnesiac woman who has a dream where she kills men.

Pamela Anderson’s first movie was directed by Worth Keeter, who got his start making movies like Wolfman, Unmasking the Idol and Tales of the Third Dimension In 3D for Earl Owensby Studios before eventually making TV shows like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Beetleborgs. It was written by Gene Church and Terri Treas, who was Kelly Cobb in House 4.

Matt McCoy, who became the focus of the Police Academy series after Steve Guttenberg left, is also in this.

Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)

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Directed by Terence Fisher and written by Jimmy Sangster, this sequel to The Curse of Frankenstein played double features with Curse of the Demon, which seems like the most perfect night of all time.

Baron Victor Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) escapes the guillotine by having a priest beheaded and buried in his place with the aid of a hunchback named Karl (Oscar Quitak). He changes his name to Doctor Stein and heals the rich while still tending to the poor in the city of Carlsbrück. He’s discovered by Dr. Hans Kleve (Francis Matthews), who doesn’t want anything other than to work with Frankenstein on his experiments. They place Karl’s brain into a new body (Michael Gwynn), which he hops will help him steal the heart of Margaret (Eunice Gayson). The experiment doesn’t work, as the body becomes contorted and turns back into a hunchback, which kills Karl.

As the important doctors discover Frankenstein is still alive, his poor patients attack him, killing him. Hans shows them the body, but he also puts the doctor’s brain in a new body and the two escape. The experiments will continue.

Hammer pre-sold this movie in the U.S. James Carreras told Jimmy Sangster they needed a script. Sangster said, “”I killed Frankenstein in the first film.” He was told “You’ll figure something out.” This was shot three days after shooting finished on Dracula.

MILL CREEK SWINGIN’ SEVENTIES

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The Swingin’ Seventies set is finished. You can get more info on this Letterboxd or IMDB list. You can get the set from Amazon. Thanks for Jenn Upton and Paul Andolina for their help.

Movies covered this month include:

Spagvemberfest 2023: Sons of Trinity (1995)

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Directed by Enzo Barboni, who wrote the movie with Marco Tullio Barboni, Sons of Trinity (AKA Trinity & Babyface and Trinity & Bambino: The Legend Lives On) finds the sons of, well, Trinity and Bambino being Trinity (Heath Kizzier) and Bambino (Keith Neubert).

Just like their fathers, Trinity loves women and getting in trouble as he works as a bounty hunter while Bambino is a sheriff who doesn’t want bothered by his cousin. They end up having to stop a wealthy landowner by the name of Parker (Siegfried Rauch) and the Ramirez Brothers from evicting the people of San Clementina. As always, there’s a beautiful woman — Bonita (Yvonne de Bark) — to get Trinity to do the right thing.

This is decent but Terence Hill and Bud Spencer are superior in every way to the young cast. It did make me smile, as the fight scenes remind me of their films, but it just feels like something is missing. But hey — Jack Taylor shows up, as do Riccardo Pizzuti (the creature from Lady Frankenstein), Renatoi Scarpa (Prof. Verdegast from Suspiria) and José Lifante (Dr. Death from The Adventures of Baron Munchausen).

I realize it’s unfair for me to think this would be anything or anywhere as fun as the films that inspired it, but I think the potential was there. A cameo from Hill and Spencer would have at least brought a smile and some sense of passing the mantle so to speak.

 

MILL CREEK THE SWINGIN’ SEVENTIES: The Young Graduates (1971)

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Crown International Forever.

Directed by Robert Anderson* (Cindy and Donna), who wrote this with Terry Anderson and Dave Dixon, this movie starts off with high school senior Mindy Evans (Patricia Wymer, The Babysitter) dumping her boyfriend Bill (Gary Rist, who went on to compose the music for Lifepod) and hooking up with very married photographer and teacher Jack (Steven Stewart). He hasn’t had sex in, well, maybe years and as soon as his wife heads out of town, he gets with the much younger girl and of course, knocks her up. So she does the sensible thing and goes on a road trip with her best friend Sandy (Marly Holiday).

An early movie for Bruno Kirby and Dennis Christopher, this has the Crown house style of being a movie where nothing seems to happen for a long stretch of time. Usually that ennui is punctuated with blasts of violence or nudity, but this is a pretty friendly movie for them.

Instead, it has dune buggies, a drugged out biker gang, a hippie enclave and the requisite teenage trappings of 1971. It also has Terri Johnson, who was pretty busy in the early 70s. She’s a shower girl here, but shows up licking her lips during a Black Mass in Her Odd Tastes, a witch in Blood Sabbath, some adult loops and as an Amazon in Flesh Gordon. There’s also Kathy Hilton (If You Don’t Stop It… You’ll Go Blind!!!, Invasion of the Bee Girls, The Toy Box and also a witch in Blood Sabbath).

I enjoyed this, even when it was just long stretches of motorcycle chases or a gang beating up a hippie kid. It’s the small moments that make me happy and even the slowest and dumbest Crown International movie makes me happier than anything that’s going to be released this year.

*Not the Oscar winner, despite what Wikipedia tells you.

MILL CREEK THE SWINGIN’ SEVENTIES: The Werewolf of Washington (1973)

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Milton Moses Ginsberg started his directorial career with Coming Apart, a near-documentary which starred Rip Torn as a mentally disturbed psychologist who has been filming his sexual affairs. Sally Kirkland was also in the film, which was shot within a one-room, 15’x17′ set.

This movie is absolutely nothing like that movie.

Jack Whitter (Dean Stockwell) is the press secretary for the White House. While he’s in Hungary, a Communist werewolf bites him, which is no help at all when he moves back to our nation’s capital and starts making time with the President’s daughter.

Of course, now he’s also killing members of the President’s Cabinet with all of the murders forming the shape of a pentagram. I guess it’s up to the Second Daughter to take him out with a silver bullet, eh?

You must admire a movie that posits Clifton James, Sheriff J.W. Pepper from the 1970’s James Bond films, as our nation’s attorney general.

Don’t have the box set? You can watch this on Tubi.