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.

It seems like every one of my favorite 1970s studios put out a family wilderness movie. I mean, Sunn Classic had their Grizzly Adams movies, Cannon had The Alaska Wilderness Adventure and 21st Century had this, The Legend of Black Thunder Mountain, which starts with a whole bunch of volcano stock footage.

Well, as we soon discover, “Black thunder, you know, is the Indian name for earthquake. They say its the earth speaking from inside her soul. And that fire and smoke from a volcano is a warning, that the earth is angry with man. Well, it turns out the earth had good reason to be angry.”

Anna (Holly Beemer) and Jamie (Steve Beemer) Parrish are lost, their dad (Ron Brown, who was also in Lefty, the Dingaling Lynx and Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar) has been knocked out by two criminals, George (Keith Sexson) and Buzz (John Sexson). As they look for their father, the children meet plenty of stock footage animals, as well as a real bear named Mrs. Mullen, who is played by Bozo the Bear. If he looks familiar, he was Ben the Bear on the Sunn Classic TV series The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams. There’s also a bald eagle named Balderdash, but he hasn’t been in anything else.

Directed by Tom Beemer — yes, whose kids are in this — and who wrote this along with Susan Shadburne (who also wrote the frightening The Adventures of Mark Twain, so it makes sense that Will Vinton was an editor on this), Tyler Johnson (whose only other IMDB credit is writing a Harry Styles video and that has to not be true), Lola Thompson and Don Chasan.

Yes, when we had only a few channels and went to the movies often, producers would make family wilderness movies with weird pop songs in them and sometimes make it look like volcanos were going to kill kids.

You can watch this on YouTube. Watch it in Spanish like I did.

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.

A guy in a Santa suit has sex with a woman in a filthy alley before they’re both killed by a man in a grinning see-through mask. Another Santa has his head impaled by a spear while his daughter watches. And yet another has his face grilled while roasted chestnuts on an open fire.

Scotland Yard inspector Ian Harris (Edmund Purdom, who wrote and directed this film as well as appearing in 2019: After the Fall of New York and Pieces) and detective Powell are perplexed. Plus, Harris just got a gift that says “Don’t Open Till Christmas.” They question Kate, whose father was a killed Santa, and her boyfriend, Cliff.

The next day, Cliff tricks Kate into coming to a porn studio. She storms off and he takes photos of a model dressed as Santa. A pair of police officers spot them shooting nudes in public, so he runs and the killer finds her, but lets her go. Oh yeah — and there’s a reporter named Giles digging around, too.

Things get worse. A strip club attending Santa gets knifed. The police think Cliff is the killer and the paper Giles says he works for has no idea who he is. And another Santa runs into the London Dungeon (yes, the place The Misfits sang about) and gets killed.

Even after undercover officers go after the Santa killer, they can’t find him and are killed themselves. The killer has a stripper who was there on the night he killed the Santa in her club and says that she will be the supreme sacrifice to Christmas evil. And Caroline Munro (!) is on stage in a nightclub when a Santa is chased on stage and stabbed in the face with a machete. Another Santa is castrated soon after.

It turns out that inspector Harris has no birth certificate and has gone on leave, disappearing to a mental asylum where Kate follows.

It turns out that Giles is Harris’ insane brother. Kate finds out first, but she is strangled and stabbed while detective Powell listens. Then, Giles lures him to his doom, as he electrocutes him in a junkyard.

Sherry escapes and Giles chases after her. She knocks him over a railing and he has a flashback of when he went insane: he caught his father, dressed as Santa, having sex with another woman. When his mother found out, Santa shoved her over a railing. But it’s too late for Sherry, as Giles has survived.

Finally, Harris wakes from a bad dream and unwraps his gift, complete with a card from his loving brother. It explodes, killing him and ending the film.

What I have just done is write about this film in a way that will probably make you want to watch it. It’s a slasher that even references Halloween in its opening credits. But it’s no Halloween.

According to tvtropes.com, “this utter sleazefest of a film is quite a jumbled and confused mess, and for good reason. While production began in 1982, the film remained in Development Hell for two years, due to the title of director continually changing hands; first up was Edmund Purdom (who also portrayed Inspector Harris) who walked off the set, prompting at least three or four others to fill in for him, with one only holding Purdom’s former position for a mere two days before being fired.”

This was released in the U.S. by 21st Century.

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.

This movie is quite literally the Batman and Superman of Italian sleaze filmmaking uniting to create some art. Those two men have many, many names, but for the purposes of this article, we’ll use the names that they used most often: Joe D’Amato and Bruno Mattei.

Producer Franco Gaudenzi wanted to bring the movie The Wild Pussycat to Italy, but it would have never made it past the Italian censors. For some reason, if the movie was made in Italy, it would pass. This is the country where it’s legal to call your movie Zombi 2, but illegal to use Mrs. Ward’s name. Let’s forget the complexities of law when it comes to exploitation cinema and move on.

D’Amato and Mattei took up the challenge of remaking this movie for Italian audiences with both writing the script and co-directing the picture, even if only D’Amato got directing credit. What was important for the producers was that the film could play theaters and it passed the Italian censorship board on November 5, 1975 after some lesbian elements and scenes with sodomy were removed.

Ironically, when this was brought to Switzerland by Erwin C. Dietrich, he added in actual hardcore scenes with French actress Brigitte Lahaie (who is in Fascination) and dubbed it into German, releasing it as Foltergarten der Sinnlichkeit (Torture Garden of Sensuality) and Die Lady mit der Pussycat (The Lady with the Pussycat).

Truly, scumbag pictures bring all the nations of the world together, do they not?

Francoise (Patrizia Gori, The Return of the Exorcist) has had enough of the abuse from her gambler cad of a husband Carlo (George Eastman!), so she jumps in front of a train. Her sister Emanuelle — no, not Laura Gemser just yet, she’s played here by Rosemarie Lindt from Salon Kitty — gets revenge by drugging Carlo and restraining him in a soundproof room. There, she teases him through two-way mirrored glass as he’s forced to watch her make love to numerous men and women, all while he’s repeatedly dosed with LSD.

Finally, Emanuelle enters the room and attempts to castrate Carlo, who has been repeatedly fantasizing about killing her and finally does so for real. His joy is short-lived as while he’s hiding in the secret room, he gets locked in and the police closed down the crime scene for thirty days, basically leaving him to die.

This is exactly the kind of movie that you’d imagine D’Amato and Mattei would make together, filled with numerous sex scenes, frequently spinning and zooming camera angles and a cannibalistic feast sequence.

Back when we reviewed Emanuelle In America, the guys at Severin said, “If you thought that was rough, watch this one.” Their release has a great George Eastman interview in which he says that D’Amato had the ability to do bigger and better things, but preferred doing ten B movies a year than one A film. You can get the Severin edition of this film and see just how good-looking a completely irredeemable piece of trash — I say that with love — can look.

21st Century released this — according to Temple of Schlock — as Emanuelle’s Revenge, Blood Vengeance and Demon Rage. 

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.

Chesty Anderson is a WAVE (Woman Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) in the U.S. Navy and the lead character in a movie that promises that you will see bare breasts. That’s 1976, I guess, and Shari Eubank is the right actress for this. A former cheerleader and homecoming queen at Farmer City High School in Illinois, she only was in one other movie and what a movie: Russ Meyer’s Supervixens. After this movie, she quit acting and moved back home where she became a drama teacher. And she’s a way better actress than most people would be in sexploitation film, but man, Supervixen is your drama teacher? The world is fascinating.

While this movie is a snooze — how can a movie named Chesty Anderson, USN be boring? — it does have a fun cast. It left Scatman Crothers ill-prepared for dealing with Kubrick, as one can only assume every scene is done in one take; I’ll bet there were fewer takes in this all put together than in one scene of The Shining. Timothy Carey is devouring scenery and being a lunatic as a mobster, while Ilsa herself Dyanne Thorne is in this as a fellow WAVE, while Joyce Mandel (Wham Bam Thank You Space Man), Uschi Digard (so many mammary-based movies), Rosanne Katon (Bachelor Party), Marcie Barkin (Fade to Black), Connie Hoffman (Naughty Stewardesses), Dorrie Thomson (Policewoman) and even Betty Thomas show up. Fred Willard too, as Chesty’s square boyfriend.

Chesty’s sister has been killed after taking photos of Senator Dexter (George Dexter) in drag, which gets organized crime involved. And a man-eating plant is part of the story.

Yet through all this — a movie with all of these people — it’s very PG. And look, I’m not demanding sin, but in a movie with this cast, even the shower scenes could be watched on regular television. It promises you vice and gives you virtue. Well, not much, but you get the point.

Director Ed Forsyth also made Superchick, Caged Men, The Ramrodder and more, while writer Paul Pumpian mostly worked in animation after this and this is the only film for his co-writer H.F. Green.

This was originally released by Atlas Films in 1975, then rereleased by Flora Releasing and Coast Films. Thanks to Temple of Schlock for that, as well as the knowledge that this aired on TV as Anderson’s Angels. How much did they cut? It was also rereleased by 21st Century.

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.

I was so loud while watching this movie that my wife had to come to check on me. The sheer delight had overtaken me when East Eddie (Sid Haig) appeared in a movie where gigantic-eyed Atlantean people attempted to keep their undersea world alive thanks to a new queen named Syrene (Leigh Christian), who must constantly sire new children, as decreed by her adopted father Nereus (George Nader).

Eddie is part of a group trying to farm pearls for money which includes what could be the exploitation movies made in the Philippines version of The Avengers: Manuel the Barracuda (Vic Díaz), Logan (John Ashley) and Vic Mathias (Patrick Wayne).

Producer Ashley had the idea that this would be a science fiction version of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which is a big idea, while Wayne would only be in the film if it was a family-friendly movie, but it’s also about rebuilding the DNA of a dying world of interbred bug-eyed merpeople, which is a fun juxtaposition.

The underwater scenes are gorgeous and this has way better production values than many movies made in the Philippines. Yet if it had more exploitation — a fact that Ashley believed — I think it would be a more exciting movie.

This was released by Dimension Pictures in 1973 and rereleased by 21st Century.

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.

Eddie Romero directing and John Ashley starring? That was all I really needed to know. Man, anything remotely connected with these two — like the Blood Island films — and I’m ready to go.

This was also the first release for Roger Corman’s distribution company New World Pictures. After successfully distributing Beast of Blood in 1970, Kane W. Lynn’s Hemisphere Pictures tried to get the distribution rights to this, but got cut out of the deal.

Ashley’s new company, Four Associates Ltd. went on to produce The Twilight People, The Woman Hunt and Ebony, Ivory & Jade. As for Lynn, he worked with Sam Sherman to make Brain of Blood. Me? I’m happy all around at whatever these maniacs decided to make.

While Ashley would say that this was the most cerebral of the Philippines-based horror movies he made — and its success led to Corman making more movies there like The Big Doll House — Eddie Romero would say, “We really tried for quality. I don’t think it did very well. They prefer out and out gore.”

As World War II ends, Satan himself — Vic Diaz from Night of the Cobra Woman — spares Joseph Landgon’s (Ashley) life if he becomes his disciple. So over the next 25 years, Langdon possessed people and forces them to do the bidding of his dark master.

However, he wants to free himself from the Lord of the Flies, but instead becomes a hairy monster who could pretty much be a werewolf. He’s in the body of Phillip Rogers now and that man’s wife tries to save him. An old blind bandit named Sabasas finally saves him, asking him to pray for his soul just as an inspector catches up to him and shoots our — well, I guess he isn’t the hero — turning him into an ancient corpse.

Mary Charlotte Wilcox, who plays the wife, is also in the absolutely bonkers film, Love Me Deadly, which I love me dearly. She also shows up in Psychic Killer, Black Oak Conspiracy, Strange Brew and was a cast member of SCTV and Maniac Mansion.

Once he moved back to America, Ashley produced The A-Team. In one episode, he plays a movie producer trying to get a movie made. That movie? Beast of the Yellow Night.

While this was originally released by New World Pictures in 1971 on a double bill with Creature With the Blue Hand, it was rereleased by 21st Century.

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.

An American soldier — on his way home from the Vietnam War — is left for dead and is saved by a pair of Japanese stragglers from WWII, who train him in the way of the samurai. This movie is also known as Deadly Force, The Force and The Black Samurai, as well as several other titles. It’s a compound of blaxsploitation and the kung fu genres, with some social commentary mixed in along the way.

I’ve always been fascinated by the Japanese soldiers who didn’t surrender after World War II. Here, they help our hero Doug — James Iglehart, who was Randy Black from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls — learn the ancient fighting skills he’ll never to make it back home.

Turns out that Doug and his buddies —  McGee (Leon Isaac Kennedy, Too Sweet from the Penitentiary) and Morelli (Carmen Argenziano, Grave of the Vampire) —  have stolen gold on the way back from Vietnam for a crime boss. On the way back, they stab our hero, slash his throat and dump him off the boar. Luckily, those aforementioned Japanese soldiers are ready to teach him that violence really does solve issues.

McGee really wants Doug’s wife Maria, who is played by Jayne Kennedy, who appeared on the cover of Playboy and was selected by Coca Cola USA as the Most Admired Black Woman in America. She was married to the actor playing McGee — Leon Isaac Kennedy — in real life. And back in the days before the internet, the two appeared in a sex tape so infamous, it’s referenced in a Mr. Show sketch (it’s at the beginning of the “Show Me Your Weenis!” episode where Wyckyd Sceptre gets caught on tape).

I just posted the screencap so that the review itself doesn’t get flagged on Amazon.

The soldiers that help our hero are played by Joe Mari Avellana, who was the Scourge in Wheels of Fire, and Joonee Gamboa, whose characters constantly bicker back and forth.

This movie has an amazing tagline: “She’s in Playboy. He’s out of Penitentiary. Jayne Kennedy and Leon Isaac in Fighting Mad.” A bit misleading, as he’s the villain, but what can you do?

Cirio H. Santiago is to blame — or praise — for this. He made more movies than we’ve probably reviewed on this site like Wheels of Fire, Demon of Paradise and Stryker.

This was rereleased by 21st Century.

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.

Terminal Island has been created as an off-shore island prison after the abolition of the death penalty by the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, first degree murderers are sent there to spend the rest of their lives battling to remain alive in what has become a lawless place. Kind of like Escape from New York only eight years earlier or No Escape but two decades before.

Carmen (Ena Hartman) is dropped off at Terminal Island by the last guards she’ll see. Prisoners are stuck on the island until they die, which could be any minute the way things are here. There, she meets Dr. Milford (Tom Selleck), who was sentenced there for a mercy killing and joins the camp of Bobby (Sean Kenney) and Monk (Roger E. Mosley, working with Selleck years before Magnum P.I.).

As the male prisoners just keep killing one another, the women work in the fields by day and service them at night. Carmen is joined by the revolutionary firebrand Lee (Marta Kristen), the sex-loving Joy (Phyllis Davis) and the silent Bunny (Barbara Leigh).

A.J. (Don Marshall) and Cornell (Ford Clay) start their own camp and steal some of the women. Carmen ends up with A.J. while another man, Dylan (Clyde Ventura) tries to assault Joy. She responds by later covering his privates with honey and setting bees loose near him.

Lee teaches everyone how to use weapons and together, the men and women of this rebel camp decide to go after Bobby. In the final battle, nearly everyone is killed, other than Dr. Milford, who decides to stay instead of returning with the guards; Bunny, who gets her voice back and Monk, who is blinded.

Director Stephanie Rothman made this instead of The Big Doll House, saying “I would be in control of how the subject matter was treated, and while I had to put in the usual elements of sex and violence, I also could introduce ideas about how prisoners were treated, and how they could treat each other, that were not necessarily in these other films. I didn’t have to turn it into what most of these other films were, which was a cartoon.”

She also avoided having a rape scene. “In a film like Terminal Island, practically the whole film involves violence because the subject matter is violent people. I accepted that. I recognized that if I was going to make films, and I was going to make them for the market, I was making them for it. I wanted to make films very much and that’s what I needed to do. What I needed to do was try to refine that and give it some meaning beyond the violence itself, or beyond the nudity itself. In that sense, I tried very hard to not make it exploitative.”

I love that the women and the men in this end up having equal agency by the end. While this is exploitation, Rothman is a great director and turned in something here that’s better than the assignment. It’s an idea that takes advantage of its budget, with an outdoor location and simple effects working for a great concept.

You can watch this on Tubi.