Frank Henenlotter’s Sexy Shockers (September 1 – 7) We all know Frank Hennenlotter as the director of the Basket Case films, Bad Biology, Brain Damage, and Frankenhooker, but he’s also a cinematic curator of the crass! An academic of the pathetic! A steward of sleaze! A sexton of the sexual and the Sexy Shocker series is his curio cabinet of crudity. Skin and sin are mixed together in these homegrown oddities, South American rediscoveries, and Eurohorror almost-classics. Your mind may recoil with erotic revulsion at the sights contained within these films, so choose wisely!
The 70s and its obsession with Bigfoot is something I’ve written about several times. But little did I know The Geek existed, a movie that has no known director that was shot in Oregon and has Lynn Holmes (The Undergraduate), Nora Wieternik (Flesh Gordon) and Rene Bond’s husband Ric Lutze in it. No one is sure who the other actors are, either. They play three couples who are looking for Sasquatch in the woods or as this movie refers to it, The Geek.
Of course, as you expected, all the couples have sex. Perhaps you didn’t think one would say that his sister allowed him to fondle her breasts, but look, this is 1971 sleaze and there aren’t any rules like good taste. We haven’t even gotten to the monster, who looks like Andre the Giant on The Six Million Dollar Man if he got stuck in the costume and kept pissing himself inside it.
This movie is 50 minutes long and finds time to have two crypto sexual assaults in it, which had to be what some people were looking for. I learned that Bigfoot has a small pink member and that he prefers it doggy style. Squatchy style?
This is the kind of adult film that is just so squalid and sweaty and disgusting and you know I had to watch it. There are some things in this life you need to live through, like Bigfoot pornography.
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.
He may have only lived 48 years, but Harry Kerwin got to make some wild movies, like It’s a Revolution, Mother; Sweet Bird of Aquarius; God’s Bloody Acre; Tomcats and Barracuda. Cheering Section is a pre-Porky’s teen sex comedy that hits a lot of the same locker room beats, just four years before that was made. He wrote this along with his regular partner Wayne Crawford, who went on to write Valley Girl and play Jake Speed.
If you’re going to watch a cheerleading movie, pick The Pom-Pom Girls. But if you choose to watch this, it’s about star athlete Corey (Tom Leindecker) who wants to make his football team a winner but keeps getting involved with the Coach Jackson’s daughter, Melanie (Rhonda Fox). If they win the final game, the coach will allow them to date. That’s it. That’s pretty much the movie, other than a bikini car wash scene. This movie, released by Dimension Films, will make you realize that the New World nurse and cheerleader movies are cinema by comparison.
21st Century re-released this as a double feature with Dr. Minx.
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 is a vansploitation movie. Yes, that’s really a genre and there are several films in it, of which I can name Blue Summer, The Van (obviously), Best Friends, C.B. Hustlers (which has Uschi Digard in it), Mag Wheels, Van Nuys Blvd. and I guess you could almost count On the Air Live with Captain Midnight. There’s a great article on it by Jason Coffman that goes deep into the genre that I totally recommend.
The beauty of this movie is that it posits a world where solar energy is already happening, van culture is the driving force in society and there is no AIDS to worry about, so all of the vans are a rocking and absolutely no one is knocking. It is surely paradise, if paradise only gets 11 miles to the gallon, fuel crisis be damned.
Our hero Clint Morgan has traveled to The Invitational Freak-Out, a major event for custom van enthusiasts, which means that any time we’re near it, we get to see plenty of b-roll footage of painted vans and all of the accouterments — this is not a word you want to use when selling Winnebagos — that they have inside.
Clint saves Karen (Katie Saylor, Invasion of the Bee Girls) from some bikers from another exploitation genre and they destroy his van The Sea Witch. That’s when he goes to the super genius van designer Bosley and together, they all make Supervan, which uses solar power and lasers. It was really made by George Barris — who designed so many other Hollywood cars — and was based on a stock Dodge Sportsman van. This thing was so big that it had a phone intercom system inside it.
Oh yeah. It turns out that Karen’s dad owns a car company that is out to make a van that uses more gas than ever before — what does it get 3 miles to the gallon? — and they have to take Supervan to the show to prevent him from making it happen, but he puts the cops on their tail.
We’ve seen Clint before on our site, as Mark Schneider is also in the Crown International Pictures movie Burnout, which is one of the few dragsterpolitation movies I can think of, so perhaps he is the perfect star for all things vehicular in nature.
Director Lamar Card is also there, in the nooks and crannies of strange movies that I find myself obsessed with, like producing the scumtastic Nashville Girl and directing the only Fabian-starring, Casey Kasem-coke sniffing disco freakout Disco Fever.
Beyond the near gynecological explorations of all of these vans at the absolute expense of story, this movie has a cameo by Charles Bukowski — the firebrand of a man who wrote “what matters most is how well you walk through the fire” — judging a wet t-shirt contest. I am in no way making that up.
There’s never really been a movie like Supervan. To be fair, I don’t think the world could have handled two. To quote the love ballad from the film, when I think of Supervan, “I’ll always remember you as a milestone in my life.”
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 has so many names, but that’s because it was released both before and after Jackie Chan became a big star in Hong Kong in Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow and Drunken Master. In 1979, a version with new inserts and a Jackie stand-in showed up in Hong Kong. This goes by names like Little Tiger of Canton, Ten Fingers of Death and after it was sold to producer Dick Randall, he dubbed and repackaged it as Master with Cracked Fingers. He sold to 21st Century who released it in 1981 as Snake Fist Ninja.
Hsiao Hu (Jackie Chan) has been forbidden to fight by order of his foster father (Tien Feng). However, he’s been training with a beggar known as “The Man Who Isn’t There” (Yuen Siu Tien, in new footage where he’s playing the same role as Drunken Master) and soon learns that his real father was murdered when protecting the people. However, all that fighting back causes the gang to kill his adopted patriarch and now Hsiao Hu has two reasons to get a pound of flesh from these criminals.
If you bought cheap VHS back in the day, you probably got this remixed Jackie movie along with Fantasy Mission Force.
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.
Director Li Kuan-Chang also made The Cub Tiger from Kwangtung, which was rereleased as The Master With Cracked Fingers after Jackie Chan became a bigger deal. This rips off Fist of Fury and The Big Boss while trying to make you think its a Bruce Lee movie.
It stars Tong Lung, who spends more time running than fighting in this, but to paraphrase the words of MXC, “He’s not running from, he’s running to.” This has him fighting the Japanese who are invading China, much like the aforementioned Bruce Lee movies. Otherwise, it’s not your normal Bruceploitation. It’s more just a kung fu movie brought to the U.S. to cash in on the martial arts craze of the early 70s.
This was brought to the U.S. by 21st Century, who renamed it Challenge the Dragon. They also licensed it to Continental Video.
Frank Henenlotter’s Sexy Shockers (September 1 – 7) We all know Frank Hennenlotter as the director of the Basket Case films, Bad Biology, Brain Damage, and Frankenhooker, but he’s also a cinematic curator of the crass! An academic of the pathetic! A steward of sleaze! A sexton of the sexual and the Sexy Shocker series is his curio cabinet of crudity. Skin and sin are mixed together in these homegrown oddities, South American rediscoveries, and Eurohorror almost-classics. Your mind may recoil with erotic revulsion at the sights contained within these films, so choose wisely!
Edward Earle Marsh started acting as a young kid, potentially playing of the Three Little Pigs in the Laurel and Hardy movie Babes in Toyland, with Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood and as a slave in The End Commandments. In the 60s, he recorded the album I’ll Sing for You with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. This was the first time he’d use the name Zebedy Colt and the record was probably shocking for its time, singing songs to men that were usually sung by women to men.
He would come back to that name when he was looking for a way to make money while struggling on Broadway (he was Anthony Newley’s understudy in The Roar of the Greasepaint, The Smell of the Crowd and was also in Dark at the Top of the Stairs, The Royal Family and Travesties). He was recognized by his fellow actors several times, include Sandy Dennis, who saw him in an adult film that she took her mother to see.
After appearing in movies like Sex Wish, The Story of Joanna and Barbara Broadcast, he started to direct — something he continued to do in New Jersey and Pennsylvania regional theater — from his Lambertville, New Jersey farm. His movies include Farmer’s Daughters (starring Spalding Gray), White Fire, Terri’s Revenge and Unwilling Lovers.
Strangest of those movies is The Devil Inside Her, a movie set in 1826, somewhere in New England. Two sisters, Faith (Terri Hall, Rollerbabies, which fortells that in the not too distant future, sex will be illegal. But there will be Rollerbabies) and Hope (Jody Maxwell, Neon Nights) are both in love with a farmhand named Joseph (Dean Tait). Their father, Ezekiel (Colt), hates this and flogs Faith for having lust in her heart.
Instead of waiting for the punishment from her father, Hope prays to the devil (Rod DuMont), who begins to possess each of the members of the family. You can tell because they have face paint on, just like he does. Satan ends up looking more like Moloch from CHiPs than KISS or King Diamond, but when you see what a few demons do to Annie Sprinkle later, you’ll know that he’s the real cloven hoofed deal. That’s what you get when you meet a witch in the woods and milk a young boy, unleashing “the human snake that grows to fill the void.”
Someone had to prove how smart they are and write this on IMDB: “The opening scene states that this film is set in 1826, however several actors are wearing modern denim overalls and blue jeans. Denim jeans were not patented and produced until 1873, by Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis.”
You’re expecting perfect costumes from an adult movie made in the 70s.
Anyways, this all ends with Joseph and father trying to save Hope — never mind that every family member has co-mingled more than every character in every V.C. Andrews book put together — and laying crosses on her. She responds by saying, “Go fuck yourself in Heaven! You have ruined it all with your cocks of impurity!” As she dies, it seems like this is an unhappy ending, until Satan is revealed, holding her under his cape.
If it all seems like Faith would like to live deliciously, well, this may not have influenced The Witch but damn it all if it isn’t really similar. Except, you know, one of them is a movie with a budget and this is an adult film shot in a few days on a farm. Somehow, this one ends with only one person dead, a father recognizing his daughter’s marriage and new husband, and the dead daughter achieving the true love she never had in life within the arms of Lucifer. “Love of God cannot be so oppressive that one forgets pure love and honest desire,” is spoken and somehow, a movie that is absolute filth — seriously, this goes below and beyond what even your internet connected dirty mind can look up — has a moral even in the midst of absolute immorality.
Frank Henenlotter’s Sexy Shockers (September 1 – 7) We all know Frank Hennenlotter as the director of the Basket Case films, Bad Biology, Brain Damage, and Frankenhooker, but he’s also a cinematic curator of the crass! An academic of the pathetic! A steward of sleaze! A sexton of the sexual and the Sexy Shocker series is his curio cabinet of crudity. Skin and sin are mixed together in these homegrown oddities, South American rediscoveries, and Eurohorror almost-classics. Your mind may recoil with erotic revulsion at the sights contained within these films, so choose wisely!
Herbert S. Altman directed one other movie, the Lenny Bruce film Dirtymouth, and co-director Robert Worms was the director of Terror On Tape. Together with writer Bill Boyd — one and done — they made what may be the strangest take on Richard Connell’s story. They go by the name Eve. This is the first time an adaptation would have a female hunter.
Actor Charles Freeman (Dick Lord), druggie Buddy (Frank Geraci) and former pro wrestler Rocco (Jake LaMotta, the raging bull!) have all been acquitted of murder — Charles killed a lover’s husband, Buddy gave a girlfriend an overdose and Rocco wouldn’t stop beating on another fighter — at some time in their lives but are now on the skids. They’re gathered by Virginia Marcus (Eileen Lord, a one and done as well and that’s a shame because she’s beyond bonkers in this), a wealthy woman who offers them $100,000 each if they can survive for one day with her hunting them throughout New York City.
None of them make it. Charles gets the acting role he’s always wanted, but it’s a set-up to be shot with an arrow. Rocco gets treated like a bull as Virginia dresses like a matador and uses the traditional bullfight weapons to murder him. Buddy gets away, but just for a few hours and soon dies, killed looking for a fix.
Those are the original 55 minutes of this movie. The other 15 minutes that were added later are nude women, added so that this could play in art theaters. Virginia is unhinged, becoming a hunter after her brother threw her dog off the roof — “I was glad when it died!” she barks at her psychoanalyst — and she ends up screaming in a straightjacket, back to being a little girl by the end.
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.
Whether you see this as The 36 Crazy Fists, Bloodpact, Secrets of the Young Master or The Master and the Boxer, if you’re here for Jackie Chan, he only shows up in the opening credits. Directed by Charlie Chen Chi-Hwa, this had Jackie directing the fights with his stunt team. Producers took the behind the scenes footage for the opening of the film and released it as an actual Jackie Chan movie.
The story is about a young man who goes by Wong Ti-Kwang (Siu-Hung Leung). He wants revenge for the death of his father and ends up learning kung fu, after being refused by many schools, through the same way that Jackie did in The Drunken Master. He gets his ass beat day after day until he learns the windmill strikes of the 36 crazy fists.
If you were buying Jackie movies in dollar bins at any point, you probably bought this.
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.
Cheung Da Gong (Henry Yu Young) is a journeyman martial artist, sometimes fighting on stage, other times as a bodyguard or someone who protects shopkeepers. The death of his father brings him back home to work on the farm. He refuses to sell it to criminal Mr. Wong (Tien Fang), who gets his men to burn it down, killing his mother and sister. As you can imagine, the grief makes him get revenge. Then he gets arrested and the police say, “You should have left retribution to the law.”
This is a downer.
Also released as Fury of the Black Belt, this was directed by Lung-Hsiang Fang. Woo-Ping Yuen coordinated the action and a young Jackie Chan even shows up, but you may not spot him. He has a mustache!
It’s a very serviceable revenge film, even if I dislike that it ends with an arrest. I think if the mob burns down your family, legally you should be able to destroy everyone.
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 answers two questions.
How do you have a sequel to a movie where the main character, Chen Zhen, is executed?
How do you make a sequel to a Bruce Lee movie with no Bruce Lee?
Filling in for the gone before his time actor is Bruce Li, playing Chen Zhen’s brother Chen Shan. The Japanese who killed his sibling are worried that the martial arts schools will unite to fight back against them in Shanghai, so they send Miyamoto (Lo Lieh) to close down the schools. When Chen Zhen’s Ching Wu School refuses to close, it is forcibly shut down. But now Chen Shan is in the country and after visiting his brother’s grave, he is ready for revenge.
Also known as Chinese Connection 2, this is the second attempt to make a sequel to the original. Lo Wei’s New Fist of Fury starred Jackie Chan and was not as well regarded. This would be followed by another sequel, also starring Bruce Li. Li Kun and Tien Feng would return for this film, but Nora Miao is in New Fist of Fury, which was considered an official sequel. Oddly enough, Chris Hilton dubbed the hero in the English dubbed soundtracks for both movies.
21st Century released this and man, they gave a disco record to the first fifty people at each show. I can only dream that it was a Bruce Li-themed record.
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