EDITOR’S NOTE: We first reviewed Galaxina on December 20, 2019, as part of our month-long Star Wars tribute. Then, as part of our unpacking the Mill Creek Sci-Fi Invasion box set, Herbert P. Caine jumped into the fray on November 21, 2020, with his alternate take. Here we go again, as we unpack Mill Creek’s B-Movie Blast 50-Film Box Set this month.

Galaxina is directed by William Sachs, whose first movie was a psychedelic film called There Is No Number 13. He edited it in Rome, saying “There were three cutting rooms in a row. I was in the middle one. Antonioni was on one side and Fellini on the other. I thought if I could touch both walls at the same time I would be injected with genius. Too bad my arms were too short.”

Yes, the director of The Incredible Melting Man, The Force Beyond and Van Nuys Blvd. could have been the American auteur. Instead, he made really entertaining junk.

This is a movie that has all the humor of Cracked Magazine*, which saw what Mad Magazine did and did a second-rate version that “spent nearly half a century with a fan base primarily comprised of people who got to the store after Mad sold out.” Those are their words, not mine.

I mean, this movie starts with a crawl** because Star Wars did. After reading that, we meet the crew of the Intergalactic Space Police cruiser Infinity is on deep space patrol under the command of Cornelius Butt (Avery Schreiber). If that joke made you laugh, then good news. You’ve found your movie, where that same joke will be made repeatedly.

His crew includes Sgt. Thor (Stephen Macht, The Monster Squad), space cowboy Pvt. Robert “Buzz” McHenry (J.D. Hinton, Night Eyes 3), a combination black man/Vulcan/bat named Maurice and a wise Asian named Sam who quotes Confucius, which is pretty cool, because the actor who played him, Tad Horino, played Confucius in Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. 

They also have Galaxina (Dorothy Stratten, who was killed by her boyfriend weeks after this movie came out), an android servant on board. She shocks anyone that touches her and can barely communicate, but she’s a vacant beauty that everyone loves from afar.

The crew battles Ordric for a McGuffin called the Blue Star, which should take them 27 years in space to recover. Their sleep chamber malfunctions, leading to Commander Butt to become an old man. Oh yeah — and he also eats an egg and nearly has an Alien moment (the film references that groundbreaking movie numerous times).

This is a movie that has the Batmobile show up in the wild wild, that steals sound effects from Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, and reuses footage from First Spaceship on Venus, which was a much earlier Crown International science fiction movie.

Despite making fun of every other science fiction movie of the time, as well as westerns and biker movies, this is a movie that never has a secure footing on its own from which it can laugh at others. But man, Stratten is nearly impossibly gorgeous, a vision who should have had a much better life than she did. She didn’t just deserve better from this movie. She just deserved better.

*To be fair, Cracked lasted a long time and had John Severin art in nearly every issue. It was also part of the anthrax scare of 2001, as it shared offices with The Globe tabloid. That meant that the magazine’s archives, containing the original photographic prints of nearly every issue, was contaminated and destroyed.

**I’ll just spare you straining to read it and list it here: The year is 3008. Space travel is now routine. As new galaxies were explored and more civilizations discovered, the traffic in space increased. The United Intergalactic Federation was called upon to create a police force and soon a fleet of ships was patrolling the far reaches of the known star systems. This is the story of one of these ships, police cruiser, Number 308, the Infinity. It is also the story of the ship’s crew and of the ship’s robot. She was no ordinary robot for in the 31st century man finally created a machine with feelings, and her name is…Galaxina.

Crown International Pictures serving up that sweet, sweet movie sugar that I love so much, with Stella Stevens (The Silencers) and Stuart Whitman (Demonoid) as a Vegas couple looking to get out by pulling a scam.

Stevens is Lucky, who is being ordered by a man in the shadows to use two of her friends, Carol (Lynne Moody, Nightmare in Badham County), who is in debt, and Lisa (Linda Scruggs), a trapeze artist with vertigo, to rob Circus Circus of $500,000.

Frank Bonner (Herb Tarlek!) is in this, as is George DiCenzo, who was the voice of Hordak.

You know who else got a role? Stella’s son* Andrew, who may have failed to win the role of Luke Skywalker, but got to simulate arrdvarking Shannon Tweed in four movies. Of course, those would be the seminal Night Eyes II, Night Eyes Three, Scorned and Illicit Dreams.

This was directed by Noel Nosseck and is not the first movie I’ve watched from him. Yes, he also directed Best Friends and No One Would Tell — where Candance Cameron is trying to love a steroid addicted Fred Savage! — amongst many more efforts.

My favorite part of this movie is when Stella’s character sings “Happy Birthday” — did they pay for the rights? — to Whitman’s and he answers, “Is it February 1st?” That’s his real birthday. Obviously — as you can tell by reading the above deep dive into all things Las Vegas Lady — I know way too much about these movies.

*Stella and Andrew also appeared together in Down the Drain, The Terror Within II and Illicit Dreams.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Oh man, this movie is the reason why I bought the B-Movie Blast set twice. The first one I ordered actually had the Dark Crimes movies inside it and I couldn’t find Lena’s Holiday streaming anywhere. Well, you know what a completist I am, so I got another one, just so you could know all about this movie, dear reader.

Lena Jung (Felicity Waterman, who was on Hulk Hogan’s Thunder In Paradise) has gone from East Germany to Hollywood and the culture shock is everything you thought that it would be. Making matters even worse, her bag is switched at the airport and she loses her itinerary and she ends up in the middle of a suspense switcheroo.

There’s a pretty interesting cast here, with everyone from Chris Lemmon (Wishmaster), Nick Mancuso (one of the voices of Billy in Black Christmas), Michael Sarrazin (They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?), comedian Bill Dana, Liz Torres (Gilmore Girls), Pat Morita and Susan Anton.

This is one odd Crown International movie, because just when you think, “This has to be smut,” they fool you into making a movie about culture clash and how foreigners see America. I mean, it’s not a great movie nor is it worth getting the box set for like I did, but it is not exploitation like most of their output.

Editor’s Note: This review ran on August 2, 2020, as part of, you guessed it, a Mill Creek blowout with their Savage Cinema set. We’re bringing it back for its inclusion on Mill Creek’s B-Movie Blast pack.

Mill Creek box sets? Yeah, they’re kind of our jam. Just look at the work we’ve put into their Chilling Classics, Pure Terror and Explosive Cinema sets. I grabbed this set used for $2.50, but your mileage may vary. It goes anywhere from $10-150 on Amazon and $10-25 on eBay. It’s worth it — there are plenty of movies that fit the theme quite well.

Up first is Richard Kanter’s (Thar She Blows!, Sensual Encounters of Every Kind, Fantasy In Blue) 1971 grimy biker film Wild Riders. It’s all about Pete and Stick (Arell Blanton, whose IMDB list is full of cop roles and, yep, a very young Alex Rocco), two scumbags who get thrown out of their gang. So they do what any of us wouldn’t do — they take over a house and assault the two girls who are there.

One of them, Rona, is played by Elizabeth Knowles, who may be better known as Lisa Grant. That’s the name she used for Executive Wives and Behind the Green Door, one of the movies that introduced porno chic. The other girl, Laure, is played by Sherry Bain, who was in The Hard Ride and Ride the Hot Wind.

It’s another movie to cross off my Letterboxd Crown International list. If you’ve learned anything from this site, it’s that I am nothing if not a completist. If you end up thinking, “Is that Peter Fonda?” Well, no. But Arell Blanton is happy that you noticed him trying.

Editor’s Note: This review originally ran on August 2, 2020, as part of our reviews for Mill Creek’s Savage Cinema 12-Movie collection. We’re bringing it back as part of Mill Creek’s B-Movie Blast 50-Film pack. Faux-Charlie’s Angels that look like they’re out of a The Dukes of Hazzard crossover episode . . . and rails? We ain’t hatin’! Program it, Mill Creek!

The Mill Creek Savage Cinema box set has twelve movies, some with great looking pictures, others that have been battered beyond belief. If you’re not a snob, you’ll find something enjoyable on this. I know I did! I started with this film, one of the few drag racing movies that I’ve ever watched.

If you know anything about drag racing — and I sure don’t — this movie is filled with the stars of the 70’s. That’d be Don Garlits, Marvin Graham, Gary Beck, Don Prudhomme, Raymond Beadle, Tony Nancy and Shirley “Cha Cha” Muldowny, the only name I know because the movie Heart Like a Wheel is all about her. Shirley is great because she’s super outspoken, claiming that Jamie Lee Curtis should have played her instead of Bonnie Bedelia, who she called a “snot.”

I actually looked up other drag racing films — just to see if there were any other than these two examples. There are! They would be Funny Car Summer, Seven-Second Love Affair, Drag Racer, Wheels of Fire, Fast Company (directed by David Cronenberg!), Right On Track, More American Graffiti and Snake and Mongoose. If you’re now thinking, “I bet B&S About Movies is going to do a theme drag racing week,” you know us oh so well. We did, sort of: check out our “Drive-In Friday: Drag Racing ’70s Doc Night.”

Scott (Mark Schneider, Supervan) wants to be a drag racer. His dad doesn’t want him to be one. Soon, they learn that they can bond by being part of the sport. Scott is also incredibly hard to like. And there’s the movie.

Director Graham Meech-Burkestone only made this one movie. But man, he was all over the place in Hollywood, doing Oliver Reed’s hair for Burnt Offerings and makeup for Day of the Animals, The Manitou and The Exterminator.

“This picture is dedicated to the men and women in drag racing — they are all winners,” says the credits. Nope. This movie is dedicated to my Letterboxd Crown International list. Someday, somehow, I’m going to get 100% that thing.

Editor’s Note: Hey, it’s a Ron Marchini movie! So program it as many times as you want, Mill Creek! We reviewed this flick on August 5, 2020, a part of our reviews for Mill Creek’s Savage Cinema 12-Movie collection. Then guest writer Herman P. Caine gave us another take on November 28, 2020, as part of our unpacking Mill Creek’s Sci-Fi Invasion 50-Film set. And we’re reposting our review from the Savage Cinema set to celebrate Death Machines’ inclusion on Mill Creek’s B-Movie Blast 50-Film pack. All Hail Ron Marchini! Celebrate karate sci-fi and B-Movies!

The Savage Cinema set has motorcycles. It has stock cars. It has dynamite coffins. And now, it has death machines. The poster for this movie has always fascinated me and now the time has finally come to see if it lives up to the insane promise of the painting that hawked its wares.

Madame Lee has gathered three martial arts masters, now and forever known as White Death Machine (Ron Marchini, who is also in Omega Cop and Karate Cop), Asian Death Match (Michael Chong, Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects) and Black Death Machine (Joshua Johnson, The Weapons of Death) after she injects them with a mysterious formula that makes them her commandable karate fighting soldiers.

There’s a green-faced cop named Captain Green. A good guy who loses his hand, gets his ass kicked in a bar fight and still gets the girl. Bikers who bother zombie killers when they just want to eat burgers and talk to old men about God. A mysterious mastermind in the shadows. Dudes getting thrown off buildings. And a distributor — yes, our friends at Crown International Pictures — that wanted a science fiction angle for a movie about evil martial artists shot in Stockton, CA.

I have no idea what was in that zombie juice, but it makes street fighters impervious to bullets. This was all a passion project of Paul Kyriazi, who also made Ninja Busters. There’s also a cop named Lt. Clay Forrester, who is no relation to Gene Barry or Trace Beaulieu.

This movie doesn’t make any sense and you’re either going to be bored into oblivion by it or love it like the lover who broke your sixteen-year-old heart and you never quite got over her. There is no in-between.

If you want to see it for yourself, you can do no better than the blu ray release that Vinegar Syndrome has put out. Freshly restored in 4k from its original Techniscope camera negative and featuring brand new interviews with its director and stars? I never thought I’d see the day. You can also check this out on Amazon Prime.

Editor’s Note: This review originally ran on August 3, 2020, a part of our reviews for Mill Creek’s Savage Cinema 12-Movie collection. We’re bringing it back as part of Mill Creek’s B-Movie Blast 50-Film pack.

The Mill Creek Savage Cinema set features an image from this film’s poster on its cover. Seeing as how this was also known as Biker Babes, it’s probably the most suggestive — and therefore best possible selling — film to feature.

The Hellcats bury Big Daddy, who was killed by their mob contact Mr. Adrian (Robert F. Slatzer, who directed this as well as Bigfoot) when he learned that the crook was also a snitch for Detective Dave Chapman. All of these relationships are symbolized in the start of the film — the biker gang is putting their boss in the ground while the cops and the crooks watch from a distance.

Adrian decides to kill off Chapman when he’s on a date with his fiancee Linda (Dee Duffy, who was a Slaygirl and Miss June in the Matt Helm movies The Ambushers and Murderer’s Row). Dave’s brother Monte (Ross Hagen, who was also in The Sidehackers) comes back from the war to learn about what happened. He and Linda decide to act like a biker couple and get revenge.

He does so by getting drawn and quartered longer than the leader of the gang, Snake (Sonny West, a member of Elvis’ Memphis Mafia). This earns him the right to have sex with Sheila (one and done actress Sharyn Kinzie) and brings our protagonists into the gang’s scam to bring back drugs from Mexico.

Tom Hanson, who directed The Zodiac Killer, shows up here as Mongoose. Gus Trikonis, who made Nashville Woman, The Evil, She’s Dressed to Kill and more, is Scorpio. Tony Lorea, who plays Six-Pack and also acted in Supercock, went to to be the assistant director of Sweet Sixteen, The Glove and Ladies Night. Was this entire gang made up of exploitation movie directors? Where’s Bud Cardos?

You can either watch this as part of the Savage Cinema set or check it out on Daily Motion.

Editor’s Note: This review originally ran on August 7, 2020, a part of our reviews for Mill Creek’s Savage Cinema 12-Movie collection. We’re bringing it back as part of Mill Creek’s B-Movie Blast 50-Film pack.

Savage Cinema’s last film is the 1962 film Dangerous Charter, the only narrative film directed and produced by Robert Gottschalk, who helped found Panavision. This film was to be a showcase for his new process and camera lenses.

Instead, it is 75 minutes that feels like 75 hours, an odyssey at sea that seems to never end. It has no motorcycles in it, no matter what the Savage Cinema box art may promise