EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Every time I write about a Laura Gemser movie, I always say to myself, “Just be cool. Don’t write an entire article just about how gorgeous she is and how you can’t even concentrate on the screen when she’s in a movie.”

So let me get it out of my system.

There’s an absolutely insane moment in this movie where Laura’s husband Carlo (Gabriele Tinti) demands that she pose for him in front of a desert vista filled with dead bodies and blood. As she barely remains inside her dress, she bends backward and begins a series of poses that make her seemingly take the form of Kali, all at once becoming the goddess of time, death, violence, sexuality, female empowerment and motherly love as she transcends this mortal world of warfare and sadness to become ethereal, something beyond our understanding.

Thanks, I feel a lot better.

This movie is supposed to be all about Crystal (Nieves Navarro)…

Wait a second, Nieves Navarro is in the same movie as Laura Gemser?

Why did anyone make movies after this? You have pretty much scored a perfect cast.

Anyways, I guess I should finish this review I started.

Crystal’s husband has left her, as if any man is dumb enough to run from Susan Scott, and she has moved in with her daughter Magda (Ziggy Zanger, who also in Black Cobra with Gemser and her name sounds like a Spice Girls lyric). She sleeps with their servant Ali (Tarik Ali), who is mainly teased by her daughter, and then both of them fall for a spiritualist named Horatio (Al Cliver, did I cast this movie?).

After an evening reconnecting with Laura and Carlo, as well as drinking too much with former Hollywood actor, Hal (Feodor Chaliapin Jr.), mother and daughter end up having a menage a trois while everyone watches.

Pina (Annie Belle, yes, I definitely casted this movie) soon comes to stay and falls for Laura. They end up stranding her husband in the desert after he forces Laura to pose on the top of a pile of human excrement while villagers throw feces at her. Yes, this happens, and no, this is not a Joe D’Amato movie. I am as shocked as you.

As if that’s not wild enough, Horatio later — I mean, after the obligatory visit a foreign brothel and watch ladies and then a lovemaking scene between Gemser and Belle that the foreign investors were just throwing money at — hypnotizes Laura into having convulsions and killing a goat drinking its blood because, well, that’s what you do in Italian movie parties.

So yes, Horatio ends up sleeping with Pina even though her psychic powers allow her to block his hypnosis — yes this happens — and then her mom tries to kill herself and Pina realizes that she should just let Al Cliver fight zombies and run off with Laura Gemser. After all, Al Cliver is no sex guru when you’ve seen George Eastman do the same in Emanuelle Around the World.

Sex gurus are to Black Emanuelle as stolen diamonds are to Jess Franco.

Director Brunello Rondi worked with Fellini on the scripts for 8 1/2, La Dolce Vita, Juliet of the Spirits, Orchestra Rehearsal and City of Women. His first film, Violent Life, was written by Pasolini and he also directed Le tue mani sul mio corpo, Run. Psycho, Run and The Demon. He wrote this film with Ferdinando Baldi, the director of Treasure of the Four Crowns.

The alternate Black Emmanuelle, White Emmanuelle title suggests that there is an Emanuelle or Emmanuelle cinematic universe where Black Emmanuelle (Gemser) and White Emmanuelle (Belle, whose movie Laure is also called Forever Emmanuelle and not only was directed and written by the real Emmanuelle Arsan, but co-stars her) cross over and by cross over, I mean scissor.

Also: Disco dancing.

According to Temple of Schlock, this was released by Dimension Pictures as Smooth Velvet, Raw Silk in 1978 and re-released in 1979 as Naked Paradise. VCI released it on home video as Naked Paradise before 21st Century, who bought it from Dimension, licensed it to Continental Video as Emanuelle In Egypt.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

What if Death Wish had a bad payoff? Then it would be Tomcats, a movie that has a great poster and really gets you into the theater with it and then says, “Thanks for your money.”

A bunch of maniacs — M.J. (Wayne Crawford), Johnny (Daniel Schweitzer), Billy (Jim Curee) and Curly (Sam Moree) — are assaulting waitresses and get away with it. One of their brothers, Cullen (Chris Mulkey), decides that he has to get justice all on his own for his dead sister Wendy.

Take another look at that poster, which makes you think this is going to be a wacky sex comedy and go read that paragraph again.

Director Harry Kerwin also made Barracuda, Cheering Section, God’s Bloody Acre, It’s a Revolution Mother and Sweet Bird of Aquarius. You may recognize his last name, as his brother is William Kerwin, who shows up in several Herschell Gordon Lewis movies. He plays a detective in this that allows Cullen to go outside of the law.

The trailer is also great as it has Don Steele talking you into the theater only for them to just grab your money and run.

Released by Dimension Pictures in 1977. this was bought by 21st Century, who licensed it to Continental Video under the title Avenged. It was also released as Getting Even and Deadbeat.

September Drive-In Super Monster-Rama is back at The Riverside Drive-In Theatre in Vandergrift, PA on September 27 and 28, 2024. Admission is still only $15 per person each night (children 12 and under free with adult) and overnight camping is available (breakfast included) for an additional $15 per person. You can buy tickets at the show but get there early and learn more here.

The features for Friday, September 27 are The Raven, The Terror, The Little Shop of Horrors and Attack of the Crab Monsters. Saturday, September 28 has The Beyond, Opera, Cemetery Man and A Blade In the Dark.

In his book How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime, Roger Corman went into detail on this film, an infamous one in his career: “It began as a challenge: to shoot most of a gothic film in two days using leftover sets from The Raven. It turned into the longest production of my career — an ordeal that required five directors and nine months to complete.”

While Corman is listed as the director, it was also worked on by Francis Ford Coppola, Dennis Jakob, Monte Hellman, Jack Hill and even Jack Nicholson. It all started with a rained out tennis game, as Corman decided that since the sets were still there for two days and he had access to Boris Karloff. Nobody really knew what the movie would be about, other than to be in a castle, and that Karloff had two days to do his part. The icon of horror had no clue that some of that would be spent in a tank of cold water.

The funny thing is that American-International Pictures paid for the sets for The Raven, but Corman was making this film by himself. He never asked if he could do it. He just started shooting. Samuel Z. Arkoff knew something was happening when at the wrap party, all of the sets were still standing. Then again, he knew that Corman would be coming to him to distribute the movie.

Other directors came in instead of Corman, as this was a non-union job and he was a union director. The beach scenes were shot by Coppola, along with Hill and Gary Kurtz, much of which was unusable as Coppola didn’t tell the cameraman that he was shooting night shots and then he went way over. Eleven days of shooting, which was like two Corman films worth of shooting.

Dennis Jakob shot Hoover Dam for the water scenes — while also working on his thesis film, something Corman couldn’t get angry about, because he was doing the same thing so often — and Monte Hellman and Jack Hill finished the film. Well, then Corman thought nothing worked together and it was boring, so he went back and shot a bunch of new scenes to make the movie work together. In a lot of those reshoots, Jack Nicholson’s wife Sandra Knight is noticeably pregnant when she wasn’t in the early shoots.

Meanwhile, Corman had promised Karloff $15,000 if this movie made $150,000. It didn’t,. but he had another idea. If Karloff would appear in Targets, he would get the cash. Corman told Peter Bogdanovich that he would finance his film if he shot twenty minutes of new Karloff footage, added in twenty minutes of this movie and then shot forty minutes with a new cast. Bogdanovich used footage from this movie at the beginning of his film, as Karloff watches himself and proclaims the movie as terrible.

French soldier André Duvalier (Nicholson) has left his men after a battle gone wrong and is rescued by Helene (Knight), a woman who looks just like the dead wife of a Baron. Twenty years before, after finding his wife with another man, the Baron (Karloff) killed her and had his servant Stefan (Dick Miller) kill the man he found her with.

A witch named Katrina (Dorothy Neumann) has been sending the ghost of the Baron’s wife to torment him, asking him to kill himself and join her. That’s because she thinks that the Baron killed her son Eric when the truth — ready for the spoiler — is that Eric killed the Baron and has gone so insane that he thinks that he is the Baron and killed Eric. By the time she learns this, it’s too late to enter the castle and as she runs to save her son, she walks across consecrated ground and burns. Just like Shakespeare, everyone dies except our young lovers, except that Helene is a ghost as well and she turns into a corpse after kissing André.

Speaking of saving money, AIP used to send its composers to more inexpensive European studios. In spite of this movies small budget, Ronald Stein was able to record both this movie’s soundtrack and the score for Dementia 13 all in one session while using the 90-piece Munich Symphony Orchestra. Speaking of that movie, The Terror played double features with it.

So yes, this isn’t a perfect movie, but at least Nicholson has good memories of it, saying “I had a great time. Paid the rent. They don’t make movies like The Terror anymore.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Also known as Bruce’s Revenge, Return of Fists of Fury and Ninja vs. Bruce Lee, this was made as Zhong lie Jing wu men. It super stars — that’s what they said — Bruce Le as Bruce Wong, who comes to Manila to visit his uncle who has apparently forgotten and just left home. So he wanders the streets and meets a young thief named Piggy and save a girl from the deadliest pimp in the Philippines, Mr. Cross.

One of the women Bruce saves is his cousin, who runs a martial arts school with his other cousin. He helps them fight Mr. Cross, who has one henchman who is such a gay stereotype that even far right people will be offended by this movie’s homophobia. Anyways, Bruce shuts almost everything down, so the bad guys hire a killer named Sakata to kill everyone, starting with his male cousin,.

This movie has an instrumental version of Barry Manilow’s “Mandy” that completely made me insane, screaming out the lyrics. “I’m standing on the edge of time, I’ve walked away when love was mine, Caught up in a world of uphill climbing, the tears are in my mind and nothing is rhyming.”

Also: This ends with the police all coming to bust up the final fight between Mr. Cross, Sakta, Sakata’s brother, a hundred goons and Bruce. Piggy watches, all alone on the beach, crying, realizing that he will forever be alone. So…an unhappy ending?

If you were Asian, did martial arts and looked like Bruce Lee with aviator sunglasses on, you always had a job in 1977.

Director Joseph Velasco also went by Joseph Kong and made Bruce’s Secret Kung Fu,. Thundering Ninja, The Clones of Bruce Lee, Treasure of Bruce Lee, The Young Dragon, Enter the Game of Death, Bruce’s Deadly Fingers, Bruce and the Shaolin Bronzemen and Kung Fu Master: Bruce Lee Style. He made more off Bruce Lee than Bruce Lee made off of Bruce Lee.

You can watch this on Daily Motion.

September Drive-In Super Monster-Rama is back at The Riverside Drive-In Theatre in Vandergrift, PA on September 27 and 28, 2024. Admission is still only $15 per person each night (children 12 and under free with adult) and overnight camping is available (breakfast included) for an additional $15 per person. You can buy tickets at the show but get there early and learn more here.

The features for Friday, September 27 are The Raven, The Terror, The Little Shop of Horrors and Attack of the Crab Monsters. Saturday, September 28 has The Beyond, Opera, Cemetery Man and A Blade In the Dark.

The fifth of Roger Corman’s Poe movies, this was written by Richard Matheson and based on the poem “The Raven.” It has an astounding cast with Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff — who was also in the 1935 adaption — as sorcerers locked in magical combat with one another.

In the book The Raven, Matheson said, “After I heard they wanted to make a movie out of a poem, I felt that was an utter joke, so comedy was really the only way to go with it.”

As Dr. Erasmus Craven (Price) pines for his lost wife Lenore (Hazel Court, The Man Who Could Cheat Death), he is visited by a raven that he helped to transform back into the human form of Dr. Bedlo (Lorre). Now, Bedlo wants revenge on the man who turned him into a beast — Dr. Scarabus (Karloff) — and gets Craven to come with him, claiming that he’s seen Lenore’s ghost in his enemy’s castle. Along for the ride are Craven’s daughter Estelle and Bedlo’s son Rexford, who is a very young Jack Nicholson.

It all turns out that Lenore is alive and faked her death to become Scarabus’ mistress and doesn’t even bat an eye when the evil wizard tortures her daughter. Of course, a duel between magicians is the only way this can all end.

Lorre was given to improv, which Price grew to enjoy, Nicholson loved and Karloff hated. Between that and the goofy Latin phrases the magicians say when they cast spells, this movie always makes me laugh.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Jack (Jack Lee) has come to fight in a martial arts tournament run by his friend Peter (Bruce Le). He’s brought a book of JKD secrets that was written by and given to him by Bruce Lee himself. After a rival fighter, Miguel (Romano Kristoff) defeats Peter, Jack gives him the book to learn from. However, Miguel kidnaps Peter’s girl Miriam (Carla Reynolds) and demands the book.

The best thing I can say about this movie is that it has the song “Shanti Dance” by Droids in it. A band that was the invention of Fabrice Cuitad, they had one album, Star Peace and a single, “(Do You Have) The Force.” Cuitad was a label manager at Barclay and founded the label Egg. Musicians Yves Hayat, Richard Lornac and Jean-Paul Batailley play on the album and in most live appearances, Hayat and Lornac performed.

Director and writer Bill James mainly worked as an actor. This also has Bruce Le take a girl on a date to a cock fight, which in no way feels like romance. And if I get confused by this, it’s also because it’s almost the same movie as They Call Him Bruce Lee.

How many books did Bruce leave to people after he died, anyway?

I’ve seen this listed as a 21st Century release but can’t find any proof. Anyone know if they had it at some time?

You can watch this on Tubi.