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.

Miguel Zacarías is the same Michel Zacharias that executive produced Demonoid and The Bees, but before that he directed fifty-five films and wrote fifty-one. He directed and wrote this film and must have really enjoyed bringing religious films to the screen, because he also directed Jesus: Nuestro Senor, Jesus: el Nino Dios and Jesus, Maria Y Jose.

Yet this movie was sold in America by New World and that was probably because for most of the movie, Jorge Rivero (billed as George Rivers; you may know him as Mace from Fulci’s Conquest or from the Santo movies he co-starred in like Operation 67 and El tesoro de Moctezuma or the movie Fist Fighter and Fist Fighter 2 where he played the amazingly named C.J. Thunderbird) and Kandy (sold in America as Candy Wilson; she only appeared in one other film, Si vous n’aimez pas ça, n’en dégoûtez pas les autres, which translates as If You Don’t Like It, Don’t Disgust Others) are naked for the entire movie. Other than Kandy’s long hair spirit gummed to her chest and strategically placed scenery to keep one from seeing full frontal, this movie doesn’t skimp on the naked time, but then again, Rivero and Kandy have nearly perfect bodies.

This movie is set inside what 1969 thought the Garden of Eden looked like and after that apple gets bit into, well, it also turns into the best stock footage available as well as animal madness and this being Mexico, one can imagine that the ASPCA was nowhere near the set of this movie. There’s also a moment when giant flaming wooden daggers literally rain down, keeping Adam and Eve from finding one another until the end, when they have found loincloths and I’ve never been more upset about original sin.

Supposedly, Kandy was an American tourist lured into being in this movie. Can a Biblical film be sleazy? God bless you, Mexico.

This was originally released in the U.S. by New World Pictures in 1971, then picked up by Dimension Pictures in 1972. 21st Century got it when they bought Dimension’s films.

Torso is such a simple title. I’d rather call this film by its Italian name: I Corpi Presentano Tracce di Violenza Carnale, or The Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence. Either way, it was directed by Sergio Martino and features none of the cast that he had come to use in his past films like George Hilton, Ivan Rassimov or Edwige Fenech.

It does, however, star British actress Suzy Kendall, who played the lead role of Julia in Dario Argento’s seminal The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. She’s so associated with giallo that she appeared as the main character’s mother in 2012’s ode to the genre, Berberian Sound Studio.

This is a film that wastes no time being strange. Or salacious. A photographer is shooting a soft focus lovemaking session between three women amongst creepy, eyeless baby dolls. By the time we register what is happening, we’re now in a classroom, where swooping pans and zooms refer us to the main cast of the film as we overhear a lecture and later a discussion about Pietro Perugino’s painting of Saint Sebastian. Did he believe in God? Or was he just trying to sell sentimentality? Could an atheist find himself able to translate religion to those with faith?

We cut to a couple making out in a car as a figure stalks them through the eye of the camera, making us complicit in the act of the killer. Quick cuts reveal the white-masked face of this maniac. The man runs after him while the girl doesn’t even care that they had a voyeur watching. As she waits for him to return to the car, but grows impatient. The headlights of the car cast her shadow large across the columns of a bridge. And their light is quickly extinguished by black-gloved hands. The camerawork here is really striking, keeping us watching for the killer, as we’re no longer behind his eyes. His attack is swift and ruthless, juxtaposed against the images of fingers penetrating the eyes of a doll.

The art professor (John Richardson, Black Sunday, The Church) and Jane (Kendall) meet by chance at a church where she challenges him to change his views on Perugino. As she returns from their somewhat romantic afternoon, Jane spies her friend Carol arguing in the car with a man who she believes is married.

Meanwhile, ladies of the evening walk the street, ending up with Stefano, a student who has been stalking Julie. He has trouble performing and the prostitute he’s with tells him that all the men with hang-ups always come her way. That said — even if he’s queer, he better pay the money. He flips out and attacks her, but she makes her escape.

We’re then taken to a hippy party that looks like it’s taking place inside Edward Lionheart’s Theater of Blood. There’s weed, there are acoustic guitars, there are bongos, there are dudes with neckerchiefs, there are motorcycles. Truly, there’s something for everyone. But after leading on two men, Carol just walks out into the mud. They try and chase her, but she makes her escape into the foggy night. We hear her footsteps through the swamp as she walks, exhausted and covered in mud. What better time for our white-masked killer to return? We see glimpses of him through the fog and then he is gone. Whereas in past films Martino ignored the murder scenes instead of story, here the violence is extended, placing the killer and his actions in full view. After killing the girl, he rubs mud all over her body before stabbing her eyes — again intercut with the baby doll imagery. Her blood leaks into the mud as the score dies down.

This scene really feels like what the first two Friday the 13th movies were trying to achieve, but of course several years before they were made.

A police detective is in front of the art class, showing images not of art, but of the crime scene. A piece of cloth has been found under the fingernails of one of the murdered students, Flo. And that same scarf was found on Carol’s body. It’s their duty to report seeing anyone who wore this scarf to the police, who want to cooperate with the students who normally riot and throw rocks at them.

Two of the men in the class — Peter and George — were the last two people to be seen with Carol, the ones who she turned down at the party. Meanwhile, Stefano continues to stalk Jane. The music in this film is so forward-leaning — tones play when the killer shows or during moments of tension.

A man calls Daniela and tells her that if she ever tells where she saw the red and black scarf, she’s dead. Fearing for her life, she tells her uncle, who lends his country home to her and her friends so that they can get away from the city while the killer is at large.

Oh yeah — I forgot the pervy scarf salesman, who the police are leaning on. Right after talking to the police inspector, he calls someone and asks for money to buy his silence. Whoever it is, they bought the scarf from him and wouldn’t want anyone else to know. They’ll also get out of town and head to the country. Coincidence? I think not!

Stefano is all over Dani, telling her that he needs her. She wants nothing to do with him. When she stares at him, she remembers seeing him wear the red scarf. She escapes — slamming the door in his face. She tells Jane that she remembers seeing him wear the scarf — and never again — the day Flo died. The whole time, the creepy uncle is watching the two girls. Jane offers to speak to Stefano, then meet the girls at the vacation home.

The street vendor is flush with cash, creeping along in the dark. A car starts to follow him. We see the black-gloved hands again as the car hits its victim again and again, bright red gore pouring all over the screen.

Jane goes to speak to Stefano, finding only strange baby dolls and letters to Dani asking her to love him and remember the promise that she made as a little girl. Jane is surprised by Stefano’s grandmother, who tells her that he left town.

The other girls are asleep on the train as someone watches them. A strange man enters their train car and sits down.

The camerawork in this movie feels as predatory as the perverts and killers that exist within it. Speaking of pervs, when the girls arrive in the countryside, the local men pretty much lose their minds, particularly over Ursula (Carla Brait, the man wrestling dancer from The Case of the Bloody Iris). She and Katia make out as a peeping tom watches, only for the killer to show up and off the leering man. There’s an amazing scene of the killer dumping the pervert into a well, shot underwater and staring upward as the body falls toward the lens.

Man, every man in this movie is scum. They’re either frightened boys or perverts wanting one chance to knock up a woman or scarred from past sexual encounters. None of them are positive, as even the uncle who gives Dani the villa seems way too interested in her. Every man is a predator at worst and a leering pervert at best.

Jane hurts her ankle when she gets overly excited about breakfast. A doctor arrives — the mysterious man from the train — and he gives her a pill, which knocks her out.

The girls go sunbathing while Jane recovers. Dani thinks she sees Stefano — complete with the red scarf — watching them. They return home and drink champagne, which Jane uses to wash down her sleeping pills.

A few minutes later, the door rings. It’s Stefano — the girls all scream — but he’s dead — the girls scream again — and the killer is behind him, holding the red scarf — now scream even louder! Instead of showing us the murders, Martino switches form, cutting to a ringing bell and Stefano being buried.

Jane wakes up, asking where her breakfast is. She’s obviously slept late as a result of the pills. She walks around the apartment, looking for Dani, Ursula and Katia, only to find a mess. Tossed chairs, bottles of beer and every single one of her friends murdered. Suzy Kendall is amazing in this scene, caught between fear and nausea. Unlike so many wooden giallo performances, she’s actually believable.

She hides as the killer comes back, forced to stay quiet and watch as he saws her friends into pieces. Even the ordinary world routine of the milkman arriving cannot stop the butchering of her friends, with her trapped just feet away.

This final act is completely unexpected, as up until now, the film had played by the rules of the giallo, the large number of victims versus a large number of red herrings.

In fact, this film is so packed with red herrings, even the cast had no idea who the killer was. Martino wouldn’t tell them who it was, so each of the actresses had her own theory as to who the killer was. And in the original script, the killer survived.

Now, instead of that traditional giallo structure as I mentioned above, it is the last survivor — a near prototype for the final girl — against a killer. Throw in that Julie can’t move well due to her leg and Martino has set up quite the suspenseful coda.

Trapped in the house, Julie tries to signal with a mirror, using Morse code. But it totally misses the heroic doctor’s sight. He places a call, but it doesn’t seem like it’s to Julie. She looks out the window and sees the killer coming back.

It turns out that the killer was the professor, who saw a childhood friend die trying to reach for a doll. He compares the other kills to dolls, with only Julie as a flesh and blood person. Everyone else was a bitch or played games with him or blackmailed him. He hacked Ursula and Katia to pieces like dolls as a result. Dani saw him. Carol may have seen him. And he killed Stefano when he saw him in the village. Death, he says, is the best keeper of secrets and then he sees Julie as a doll and tries to hang her. She’s saved at the last second by the doctor.

They battle into a farmhouse, across the yard and to a similar rock where we saw the younger professor watch his friend die. We hear a screen and have no idea who has been killed — but luckily for Jane, the doctor survives.  He discusses whether fate or providence had kept him in town, where he could save her. Perhaps it was written in the stars. Julie replies that Franz, the professor, would have been a realist and called it a necessity. Franz is dead and the dreamers live on.

The more times that I’ve watched this film, the more that I appreciate it and how it flips the genre conventions on their head and moves toward more of a slasher, with many of the giallo elements feeling tacked on somewhat to stay within the expected pieces of the form. A real clue that it’s really a slasher? The killings are more important than who the killer is.

Who are we to doubt the movie that Carlo Ponti brought us after Dr. Zhivago?

The Arrow Video 4K UHD release of Torso has a new 4K restoration by Arrow Films from the original camera negative. It has audio commentary by Kat Ellinger, author of All the Colours of Sergio Martino; interviews with Sergio Martino, Luc Merenda, Ernesto Gastaldi, Federica Martino and Mikel J. Koven, author of La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo Film. There’s also footage of the 2017 Abertoir International Horror Festival Q&A with Sergio Martino, alternate opening and closing credits from the US release, Italian and English theatrical trailers, a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Adam Rabalais and an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring writing on the film by Adrian Smith and Howard Hughes. You can get it from MVD.

Marcus Nispel directed the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 2003, so why shouldn’t he get a shot at Jason? This film is more than just a remake of the first film. It’s really a bit of the first four all in one, which is an interesting way to start a new version of the series.

We watch Jason (Caleb Guss as a kid, Derek Mears as an adult) as he watches his mother (Nana Visitor, voiced by Kathleen Garrett) get killed by a camp counselor. Thirty years later, he kills every single teen — Wade (Jonathan Sadowski), Richie (Ben Feldman), Amanda (America Olivo, also in the remake of Maniac) and Mike (Nick Mennell, Bob in the Rob Zombie remake of Halloween) — who has comes to Crystal Lake looking for marijuana, except for Whitney (Amanda Righetti), who reminds him of his mother.

Weeks later, some rich kids — Trent (Travis Van Winkle), Jenna (Danielle Panabaker), Chelsea (Willa Ford), Bree (Julianna Guill), Chewie (Aaron Yoo), Nolan (Ryan Hansen) and Lawrence (Arlen Escarpeta) — come to stay at a fancy cabin. They’re all fodder, too. Only Clay (Jared Padalecki), Whitney’s brother, can save her. Finally, Whitney acts like Jason’s mother and stabs him, but he comes back at the end, rising from the lake.

This is a slick, CGI animated take on the Jason mythos. Writers Mark Swift and Damian Shannon also wrote Freddy vs. Jason and they have some decent ideas. No matter what, this had to be a hard movie to make, as there will be people that hate it no matter what. I’m more into the Savini school of gore, so there’s a lot of this that didn’t work for me. It’s not a horrible film by any means. It does look gorgeous, as this had a major horror cinematographer — Daniel Pearl from Texas Chainsaw Massacre — filming the movie. And while it did well at the box office — $92.7 million at the box office on a budget of $19 million — it was the end of the series. There are so many reasons for that, but it’s been too long since there’s a new film.

The package for this Arrow 4K UHD and blu ray is amazing. It has a double-sided foldout poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Gary Pullin, a limited edition Greetings from Crystal Lake postcard, an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Matt Konopka and Alexandra West, a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Gary Pullin. On the discs, you’ll discover both the theatrical and killer cuts of the movie with two new commentary tracks for the theatrical cut, one by director Marcus Nispel and another by  writers Mark Swift and Damian Shannon; an interview with cinematographer Daniel Pearl; A Killer New Beginning, an exclusive video essay about why horror fans shouldn’t fear remakes, what 2009’s Friday the 13th remake gets right, and why the film serves as a perfect template for future franchise remakes by film critic Matt Donato; terror trivia; archival features; deleted scenes; the original teaser, trailer and TV commercials; a press kit and an image gallery. The Killer version has audio commentary by film critics Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson.

You can get this from MVD.

This film started when producer Amanda L. Manuel approached director Michael Todd Schneider to direct her first short film, which is the chapter “Manna” in this movie. Manuel had other story concepts and brought on other directors, including a few who did not appear in the final movie like Richard Stanley (who supposedly was never part of this), Andrey Iskanov (whose segment was complete but needed new sound and some new footage which was too expensive to go to Russia for) and José Mojica Marins (who left the project).

After years of this movie getting press, it finally debuted in August of 2022. There were screenings of some parts of it and the reports were that the film was no good. Yet nine years later, here it finally is.

The film begins in a Paris nightclub that houses a secret society and The Room of Souls, a private gathering place for the world’s richest and most evil people. Madame Sabatier allows each of them to tell a story and attempt to impress one another.

The first segment is “Mother May I,” directed by Anthony DiBlasi, has Sister Sylvia abusing the girls in her halfway house for sins both real and imaginary.

Yoshihiro Nishimura (Meatball Machine, Kyûketsu Shôjo tai Shôjo Furanken) brings the next movement, which is entitled “The Hell-Chef” and is a quick cut artistic tale of two young Japanese women eviscerating and devouring a man. It’s quick, to the point and well-made, even if there’s no rhyme or reason, which is the point one figures.

The third chapter is “Basement,” directed by Uwe Boll. This is based on the Josef Fritzl case, which was also made into a documentary, Monster: The Josef Fritzl Story. It’s short and well-made, shockingly among the best of the entire film. That said, if you want to watch Clint Howard have sex with his character’s daughter, well…this movie may just be for you.

It’s followed by the part I was most excited about, “Bridge,” directed by Ruggero Deodato. Sadly, it’s only three minutes long and just when it seems like it has some steam, it quickly ends.

Marian Dora, which is a pseudonym for an anonymous German creative, contributes “Mors in Tabula,” which is the same title as another Dora short. This one has a boy being operated on while his father helps the surgeon in a sequence that shows plenty of surgical nightmares over an Aryan rally soundtrack. There’s no real story, just shocks, which is pretty much the Grand Guignol feel of this entire enterprise.

“Tophet Quorom” is directed by Sergio Stivaletti (Italian special effects master and the director of The Wax Mask). It’s pretty wild and is has some incredible gore, like a jaw being ripped off, a practical werewolf transformation and an infant sacrifice. Now, as you can see from that description, this tale of a woman looking for the missing twin baby she’s just given birth to might not be for everyone — again, a running theme.

Ryan Nicholson (Gutterballs, Hanger) seems like the perfect person to be part of this and his segment “Goodwife,” in which a woman learns her husband is a killer and joins him in his depravity, might be the limit for some people. There’s no humor in this, just shock upon shock, the kind of madness that seems like someone working out more than just a horror film if it wasn’t so well shot. Apply liberally every trigger warning ever.

I loved Nacho Vigalondo’s Timecrimes, so I was excited for his segment “Sins of the Fathers.” A son has recreated the room he grew up in to place his elderly father into the same mindset he was in while the man abused him. It’s an intriguing idea that could make up its own film.

“Manna,” directed by Michael Todd Schneider goes from BDSM club to that most unimaginable — and impossible of fetishes, vore. That means that someone gets off from being consumed and what follows is a man being treated like he’s the Old Country Buffet for an entire room of latex clad women who break him down and make a meal of him.

“Amouche Bouche” is directed by Jeremy Kasten (The Attic Expeditions) and shows more human meat being prepared and eaten, which seems like how this movie should finish.

This is a movie made for extreme horror fans featuring some of their favorite directors. As such, people who think Hollywood horror is disgusting should probably stay home or keep this out of their streaming device. For those of a sicker bent — and I say that lovingly but also you never get to play with my dog — this is for you.

The Unearthed Films blu ray of The Profane Exhibit is filled with extras, such as an audio commentary by director Michael Todd Schneider, producer Amanda Manuel and Ultra Violent Magazine‘s Art Ettinger; interviews with Jeremy Kasten, Uwe Boll, Amanda Manuel and Michael Todd Schneider; a mini-documentary Ten Years Later by Marion Dora; Awakened Manna, footage from the world premiere, a gallery and trailers. You can get this from MVD.

Honestly, I’m more excited that there’s a sequel to A Good Man than any other movie this year.

Remember last time, when Ethan Carter (Joel Smith) barely got over his ex-wife when he got engaged to Arianna (Ebony Tates) and she ended up getting done from behind by her Kaos (King Wesley) which led to him, well, killing everyone, including Kaos’ wife and teenage son because Ethan had been a good man way too long.

Fast forward a few months for the next episode. Ethan and his partner Matt (Robert Q. Jackson) are trying to go beyond real estate and into development with the whitest Irish guy ever, Miles (William Swift) and get rich. Well, Ethan already had $4 million of his own money, so for me, he’s already rich. Richer. The problem? He hasn’t gotten past Arianna and keeps dreaming about her, which causes him to have flashbacks when he’s shaking sheets with Shalice (Fancy Jones), his new girlfriend. Maybe she didn’t think he was hard enough. Maybe she didn’t think he was a violent man. The dude has cut dudes chest’s open while their whole family watched, so when he starts choking her, he really starts choking her and not in a loving “This is kinky like Spencer’s Gifts so not really” way. So she runs out and he’s a crying naked mess on the floor.

Also: Arianna’s mom Sheila (Tonja Brown) is the only person who doesn’t think that she just ran off with Kaos. She thinks Ethan is a killer. Even the cops won’t believe her.

Ethan confesses the entire crime spree to his brother James (Johnathan C. Williams), who helped him dispose of the bodies. But as soon as they finish talking, Detective Evans (Bianca Williams) and Parnell (James Abernathy) show up from missing persons, as Arianna’s mother finally got through to the police.

Meanwhile, Detective Evans’ husband Aaron (Steven Weed) accidentally shot a kid which has led to the two of them battling. If you don’t see it coming when she falls for Ethan, you haven’t been watching Tubi Originals with the intensity of mainlining heroin like your author does.

Someone is following Evans and Ethan. It’s Parnell, who used to date her before she got back with her husband. He threatens to tell his boss and get her taken off the case. That night, as Ethan prepares for his big date with Evans, Sheila shows up drink and with a gun. He surprises her with a punch to the face and a rear naked choke with her dying moments before his new girl shows up.

After a fancy dinner, Ethan proposes to Evans, but she tells him that she hasn’t been honest and that she’s already married. Meanwhile, outside his home, Parnell is sneaking around as her husband keeps calling over and over again. Ethan goes nuts finding this out and just as Evans tries to leave, Parnell calls out that he’s found a body. Ethan knocks her out and when Parnell goes to look for her, he knocks him out as well, dumping their bodies in his car.

By the end, Ethan has the cops tied up, then obliterates his mother-in-law with a baseball bat, then brings in Aaron to learn that his wife has been cheating with both Ethan and Parnell. Ethan goes full on crazy here, even more than in the first movie. This goes full on drama, with police officers pissing their pants, knives to the legs, axes to the faces, the look out behind you trick working, gasoline and so much more. That’s an understatement.

Director and writer Joe Smith, you did it again.

Bring on A Good Man 3.

You can watch this on Tubi.

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.

Curtis Harrington had the thread of magic running through all of his films. One of the leaders of New Queer Cinema, he also directed Queen of Blood, Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet, What’s the Matter with Helen?, Who Slew Auntie Roo?, the Sylvia Kristel-starring Mata Hari, tons of episodic television shows and the TV movies Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell, The Dead Don’t Die, Killer Bees, The Cat Creature and How Awful About Allan.

His links to the occult, include the study of Thelema with his close associates Kenneth Anger (he played Cesare, the somnambulist in the magician/filmmaker/author’s movie Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome), Marjorie Cameron — who is pretty much the nexus point of twentieth-century occult doings and appears in his film Night Tide — and avant-garde film pioneer Maya Deren, an initiated voodoo priestess.

Harrington was also the driving force in rediscovering the original James Whale production of The Old Dark House and — as a friend of Whale near the end of his life — advised the making of the movie Gods and Monsters.

His final film was Usher, based on a high school film he made of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. He cast Nikolas and Zeena Schreck — the daughter of Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey — who financed the movie by brokering the sale of Harrington’s signed copy of Crowley’s The Book of Thoth. Perhaps even more interesting is the theory that singer Taylor Swift is a clone of Zeena. No, really.

But hey — we’re here today to discuss 1977’s Ruby, a movie that brings Piper Laurie from Carrie into a story about possession and flashbacks.

In 1935, a lowlife mobster named Nicky Rocco is betrayed and executed in the swamps as his pregnant girl Ruby (Laurie) watches. The moment he dies, she goes into labor. Fast-forward sixteen years and she’s living with a mute daughter named Leslie (Janit Baldwin, Gator Bait, Phantom of the Paradise, Born Innocent, Humongous) and running a drive-in with several ex-mobsters like Ruby’s lover Vince (Stuart Whitman!) and Jake (Western actor Fred Kohler Jr.), a wheelchair-ridden man whose eyes were once cut out.

Ruby misses her days as a lounge singer, but the present has some nasty surprises. A poltergeist begins killing people at the theater, including the projectionist and a creepy guy who runs the concession stand (Paul Kent, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Prey for the Wildcats and the founder of the Melrose Theater). Before long, our heroine — such as it is — believes that Nicky’s spirit has returned and believes that she caused his death.

Vince is visited by Dr. Keller (Roger Davis, Dark Shadows, Nashville Girl and the first husband of Jaclyn Smith), who helped him get out of jail early. He’s a clairvoyant who believes that there’s something in the drive-in, which is true, because Nicky starts speaking Ruby’s name over the speakers at the drive-in. Before long, Ruby’s daughter is speaking with the voice of her dead father and showing the wounds he endured before his death.

The producer chose to change the ending, and both Curtis Harrington and Piper Laurie refused to be involved in the re-shoot. It was allegedly shot by Stephanie Rothman (the director of The Student Nurses and the writer of Starhops). This ending, where Nicky comes back from the grave and drags Ruby into the swamp, was part of the TV commercials for the film.

Keep an eye out for Len Lesser in this — he was Uncle Leo on Seinfeld — as well as Crystin Sinclaire, who appeared in Eaten Alive and Caged Heat.

This was picked up by 21st Century after Dimension Pictures went out of business.

You can watch this on YouTube.

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.

Directed by Krishna Shah and written by Joseph A. Walker, this has an incredible soundtrack by the band War. It’s based on Walker’s 1972 play.

Johnny Williams (James Earl Jones) is a house painter and poet who has raised his family in Watts. His son Jeff (Glynn Turman) is home after failing out of the U.S. Air Force flight school and his wife wife Mattie (Cicely Tyson) is dying, but Johnny tries to remain positive. Yet when Jeff kills a rival gang member and a police officer gets killed, there’s a standoff with the cops that doesn’t end well for anyone.

The cast also includes Roger E. Mosley as Big Moe Hayes and Louis Gossett Jr. as Dr. Dudley Stanton.

This is shot in an all over the place style, sometimes in striking POV shots, other times in your face African masks dominating the entire shot. There seems to be so much crammed into this movie — Vietnam, alcoholism, racism, dealing with loss, Afrocentrism, the militarism of the Black Panthers — that it doesn’t have a solid focus, but these are the kinds of movies that had to be made and stories that had to be told.

Originally released in 1976, this was picked up by 21st Century.

You can watch this on Tubi.