After pretty much creating the nurse cycle for Corman with The Student Nurses and then directing The Velvet Vampire, Stephanie Rothman and her husband Charles Swartz left New World for Larry Woolner’s new Dimension Films. It was still exploitation, and she didn’t have much creative control, but it was more money and the opportunity to own some of the movies that she was making.

Rothman directed Terminal Island and The Working Girls, wrote the script for Beyond Atlantis, offered some creative ideas to Sweet Sugar and re-edited The Sin of Adam and Eve. After stops and starts, as well as writing Starhops and taking her name off it when the film didn’t reflect what she wrote, she eventually left movies.

We’re all the worse for this, as her films are progressive in 2024 and had to be incendiary in the 1970s.

This starts in a rental car office, where we meet Chris (Aimée Eccles, Ulzana’s Raid, Paradise Alley) and Judy (Jayne Kennedy!). Well, Judy isn’t in this, but Jayne Kennedy is always a welcome actress in any film. Chris has issues with her boyfriend, Sandor (Solomon Sturges, son of Preston, who is also in The Working Girls), who pretty much berates her at any opportunity and is only concerned with writing acerbic bumper stickers. He flips out that he doesn’t have a working car, so she has to hurry home and fix it — the women in this movie don’t just have agency, they’re all more capable than the men — and that’s when she rides in the same taxi as Dennis (Jeff Pomerantz). This leads to Dennis trying to get them to stop fighting, staying overnight, having his girlfriend Jan (Victoria Vetri, Playboy Playmate of the Month for September 1967 and 1968 Playmate of the Year; she’s also in Rosemary’s Baby, playing Terry Gionoffrio, and in Invasion of the Bee Girls) break up with him and sleeping with Chris.

Before you know it, Dennis is introducing Jan to the couple, and all four are in an intertwined relationship. That soon becomes five when the women — who are just as in charge of their sexuality as the men — fall for a lifeguard named Phil Kirby (Zack Taylor, The Young Nurses). Yet he feels a little lonely and starts looking for someone else. At this point, I was marveling at how beautiful everyone in this movie is. And that’s when Phil’s partner, Elaine (Claudia Jennings, there’s a reason to watch this!), is introduced. Sure, she’s a lawyer representing his ex-wife in the divorce, but she wants him.

Everyone decides to get married, but Jan doesn’t want commitment, even if they have the opportunity to be with different people within their poly group. But then people start showing up trying to be part of the group, and some go wild and try to firebomb their house. Dennis even loses his job. Elaine decides to figure out how to make group marriage legal, which leads all five to get married. And wow, I lied before, because Judy ended up with Dennis, so now there are six. I mean, seven! Chris is pregnant.

How progressive is the California of Stephanie Rothman? Not only can these people all create their own marriage, but their gay neighbors Randy (John McMurtry) and Rodney (Bill Striglos) are also able to be husband and husband, 22 years before the first legal same sex marriage in America.

Other than the John Sebastian song “Darling Companion” and the stereotypical mincing gay couple, there’s a lot to celebrate here. It’s erotic, sure, but never feels filthy or even exploitative. This is at once a humorous but thoughtful take on the good and bad of being married to six people. As always, Rothman’s work is nearly current today, and many of her movies were released before I was born.

This was re-released by 21st Century as a double feature with The Muthers.

The Church of Mortavia needs cash, so Father Guru does what he can, which means getting dead bodies for medical students to experiment on. This may mean stabbing churchgoers in the eyeball or working with vampires and hunchbacks. And while this is supposedly set in the Middle Ages, it was actually shot at New York City’s St. Peter’s Church, which means you may just hear the sounds of modern traffic.

Shot for $11,000, this is yet another Milligan film, in which the director wrote, directed, built sets, and sewed costumes for a cast of mainly off-off-Broadway actors and Staten Island locals. How else would you populate a prison colony of Catholic sinners who were all waiting to be served sentences that are all being wiped out by an insane priest?

This was made as part of a double bill with another of Milligan’s movies, The Body Beneath. It’s around 55 minutes long and has some gore, but in no way does it have as inventive a title as Milligan’s best-named film, The Rats are Coming! The Werewolves are Here!

Milligan is a fascinating character study, probably more so than his films, to be perfectly honest. He was considered one of the worst directors of all time until his movie Fleshpot on 42nd Street was rediscovered by Something Weird Video, and his theatrical efforts were unearthed. In some strange universe, his work as a queer filmmaker found a better audience than maniacs like me who watched his movies like The Ghastly Ones.

Frantic Friar

• 1.5 oz. Frangelico
• .75 oz. lemon juice
• .75 oz. lime juice
• Maraschino cherry

1. Pour Frangelico and juices into a shaker with ice.
2. Scream at it like you’re in an Andy Milligan movie while shaking, then pour it into a glass and top with a cherry.

Directed by Rene Martinez Jr. (Road of Death, The Sexiest Story Ever Told, Supersoul Brother) and written by Gardenia Martinez, this stars Loye Hawkins as cool cat Al Connors, a Mimai detective from Harlem who has been hired by the CIA to protect Mrs. Ashanti (Patricia Fulton), the wife of a leader they’re doing business with. Spies hired by Big Daddy (Wayne Crawford, who would go on to produce Valley Girl and direct Barracuda). As you can imagine, Al goes from pretending to be her husband to bedding her.

But forget all that. Halfway through the movie, Al gets a new job, protecting Harry De Bauld’s (Steve Gallon, also known as Wildman Steve; a Miami-based DJ who would star in Supersoul Brother and release albums with titles like Eatin’ Ain’t Cheatin!!!) daughter Wanda (Cathy Davis), who he also has sex with, to the cobstrernation of his regular white girl, Sue (Wanda Starr).

Then, he challenges Big Daddy to a wrestling match to the death and walks away the winner.

Nearly every line is a blooper, the action is bad, and yet this has a heart that I really enjoyed. If you’d like to see a worse Dolemite, this movie is here for you.

You can watch this on Tubi with and without riffing.

Also known as The New Adventures of Snow White, this sex farce is part of Rolf Thiele’s downward career trajectory, who had once been a mainstream director but increasingly found himself making lower-budget sex comedies. It’s all about Snow White (Marie Liljedahl, who was Eugenie in Eugenie…The Story of Her Journey into Perversion), Cinderella (Eva Rueber-Staier, who was General Gogol’s assistant Rublevitch in the films The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy) and Sleeping Beauty having a series of adult adventures.

There’s also a dude in a bear suit.

As for the evil queen, she’s played by Ingrid van Bergen, who famously shot her lover dead in 1977 and was released five years later to continue being a star. She was also in the Edgar Wallace adaptation The Avenger and The Vampire Happening.

A section 3 video nasty, this is a pretty tame film, aside from the scene where one of Cinderella’s wicked stepsisters literally slices off her heel to fit it into the glass slipper. Wow. That even took me a second to get over. Well done, silly sex comedy from 1969.

The only movie directed by John Leone (he also wrote the Richard Fleischer movie Tough Enough), this is also known as The Goodbye Run and The Last of the Cowboys. But if you’re expecting Burt Reynolds and Jerry Reed from the title, you won’t get it. This is filmed in the dark, features moments of genuine sadness, and is a low-budget film compared to the Hollywood blockbusters of Hal Needham.

Trucking isn’t as fun as those movies in this. Elegant John Howard (Henry Fonda) is recovering in a Los Angeles hospital when his truck is repossessed. So he escapes from the hospital and plans one last perfect run, stealing back his truck and picking up hitchhiker Beebo (Robert Englund). At the same time, across the country, Madame Penelope (Eileen Brennan) has 48 hours to close down her house of ill repute.

Unable to find a load, due to his truck being listed as stolen, John takes on a job transporting Penelope and her girls — Ginny (Susan Sarandon), Alice (Mews Small), Lula (Melanie Mayron), Glinda (Leigh French, the mother of the kid who are a razor blade apple in Halloween II), Mary Agnes (Valerie Curtin) and Celeste (Daina House, January 1976 Playboy Playmate of the Month and now ministry leader at the Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California) to a new place to do business.

The only problem? Police officer Harley Davidson (Dub Taylor) wants to arrest them all and get the attention for it.

Austin Pendleton and John Byner (Bizarre!) also appear.

After this played at the Cannes Film Festival, nobody picked it up. It was a depressing movie — Ford was dying of cancer and was fighting real-life illnesses throughout — and the only taker was Dimension Pictures, which re-edited it into an upbeat story, giving it the title The Great Smokey Roadblock.

You can watch this on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meNr8PEdxps&msockid=eb7701def00211f0beccc0b7870aa2bf

Sam Kellog (Sam’s favorite actor ever, John Saxon) was a cop, but now he’s a bounty hunter. Working for Bill Schwartz (Keenan Wynn, Laserblast, The Devil’s Rain!), a bail bondsman, he brings in lowlifes for low money. His biggest frustration is that his ex-wife is going to cut off visits with his daughter over missed alimony. Then he gets the chance to earn $20,000 from his old boss, Lt. Kruger.

The mark? Victor Hale (Rosey Grier, former football player, needlepoint expert and the man who subdued Sirhan Sirhan), an ex-con who is suspected of the murder of his former prison guards. While he was in the joint, they used a five-pound, leather and steel riot glove to brutalize him. Now, someone — probably him — is using it for revenge.

The movie switches between Kellog and Hale. Kellog’s life is a mess, while Hale is beloved by the people who live in the Section 8 housing alongside him. He’s a jazz musician and has found his place in life, even if he is killing all those old guards.

Finally, our protagonists battle one another, with Hale even giving Kellog the glove to use. Their fight ends in a draw, and they both collapse. Hale then rises and helps the bounty hunter to his feet, only to be shot by Kruger, who says that the bounty was for bringing in the man dead, not alive. Hale’s neighbors surround the evil cop and murder him.

The result? Kellog gets the bounty anyway and spends the day with his daughter.

This movie also features Joanna Cassidy (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?), Joan Blondell (The Phynx, The Blue Veil), Jack Carter (Alligator), Aldo Ray (Evils of the Night) and Michael Pataki (who is in probably more movies than anyone else we love other than Joh Saxon — witness Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Graduation Day, Dead and Buried, Pink Angels, The Baby, Airport ’77 and many more).

It’s not a great movie, but it does have some fantastic posters. And sometimes, that’s all you need to watch it.

The Black Souls are led by Chino (an absolutely berserk Dennis Hopper), and the Glory Stompers are led by Darryl (Jody McCrea). Chino jumps him and nearly kills Darryl, then steals his girl, Chris (Chris Noel, who has a wild life story. Starting as a model in her teens, she was painted by pin-up artist Gil Elvgren; she was a New York Giants cheerleader; she was in Girl Happy with Elvis and most interestingly, she toured Vietnam eight times, was the only woman to travel through South Vietnam to remote bases in helicopters and lived to tell despite mortar and assault rifle attacks in war zones. She had her own Armed Forces Network radio show and married Green Beret captain Ty Herrington, who sadly took his own life eleven months into their union. She’s continued to help veterans ever since.).

Originally written by James Gordon White (Bigfoot, The Hellcats) as a Western, it was turned into a biker movie, which makes sense, since you just replace horses with motorcycles. Director Anthony M. Lanza adapted another White script into a film, The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant, and edited The Sadist and Wild Guitar.

Joined by ex-Black Soul Smiley (Jock Mahoney), Darryl heads off to save Chris, battling gang members like Mouth (Casey Kasem!), Clean Cut (Jim Reader) and Monk (Bing’s son Lindsey Crosby). Plus, Robert Tessier as Magoo! This also has a great soundtrack by Davie Allen and the Arrows, along with Mike Curb.

What makes this worth watching is Hopper. He’s crazy in this, yelling at everyone and saying man so many times. He talked to Tarantino about this, as it’s one of the director’s favorite movies.

QUENTIN TARANTINO: One of your performances that’s one of my favorites?it’s a wacky, kooky performance?is in The Glory Stompers. I loved you in that. You know, that is the beginning of you as Frank Booth in Blue Velvet right there.

DENNIS HOPPER: Glory Stompers is the American International Pictures movie which actually, I ended up directing. That was my first directorial job because the director had a nervous breakdown. I drove the guy to a nervous breakdown and then I took over the picture.

QUENTIN TARANTINO: You have this one line that’s just so fucking funny in it: when you’re fighting this guy, you beat him up, and then you look around and say, “Anybody else got anything else to say? Turn it on, man, just turn it on.”

DENNIS HOPPER: Well, thank you, man.

Saul Resnick only directed this movie, but he was part of the late 60s sexploitation film scene, serving as cinematographer on Broadway Jungle and shooting Mondo Bizarro and Everybody Loves It. 

Also known as Maidens of Fetish Street, this is about Nick (Ken McCormick), who goes to a club to watch girls dance, which causes him to meditate on people’s sex lives. This is less a nudie or roughie and more softcore noir; it feels gross in the best way, sleazy and leering, dirty without penetration, just the way it’s made.

Every man in this, including Nick, is a loser. Women obsess over them and are upset and confused by them. All is, well, lost. Sometimes, like when one guy gets what he wants, they just cry. And this is way ahead of other films of the era, as women of every size and shape are included, as long as they have the most enormous breasts you’ve ever seen.

Speaking of that crying guy, he’s in love with a sex worker. He’s been in love with her for years. He tells her a few stories, and she barely listens; time is money, and she’s already got his cash. She then tells him every filthy tale about her life, all the men she has on a daily basis, and all he can do is weep as he sprawls on top of her, just another number and not the white knight he was hoping to be. 

Then, a nude model is the fantasy object for a female sculptor. This sequence feels like raw eroticism compared to the first, as the black and white film makes the clay look like flesh. Is this art?

Imagine: a movie set in 20s Los Angeles, shot like a film noir with distorted sound and non-synched voiced, like Carnival of Souls (copyright to Sakana1 on Letterboxd for that amazing connect the dots) but if Candace Hilligoss pulled her car over in the salt flats and suddenly decided that she wanted to give you the kind of lap dance that gives you blue balls for the rest of all eternity. Supposedly, this was based on a play called The Degenerates. Gentry Austin, also on Letterboxd, reminds us that Andy Milligan had a lost film of the same name; one can hope it had the same inspiration (and that Severin gets it out on Blu-ray ASAP).

It ends with Nick giving a black woman a bath alongside his much older wife, then falling for a gorgeous blonde, only to wake up to his wife whipping them both before he’s locked inside an adult bookstore as the night goes on without him.

The cast includes Althea Currier (Mr. Tease and His Playthings, Lorna, Surfside 77, the writer of the Ask Althea column in Adam magazine), Barbara Nordin (Orgy of the Dead), Kellie Everts (whose adult career goes from this movie all the way to Full Service Butler in 1989, a film she also directed; her stage dancing career lasted from March 1966 to August 1987. She then quit to become a producer of dancing and female domination videos, making enough money to purchase a large property with an island in Upstate New York in 1989, where she has lived ever since. Interestingly enough, she was known as a “stripper for God,” often preaching before she took her clothes off, starting her first spiritual talk at the Melody Theater in Times Square. If that’s not enough, she was also one of teh first female bodybuilders, which led to her winning Miss Nude Universe in July 1967, second place in Miss Americana nd Best Body in 1972, second place for Miss Body Beautiful in 1973, Miss Body Beautiful U.S.A. first place in 1974, and second place for Miss Americana and Best Body in 1974, which found her on the same stage as Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now, she has her own religion and her followers believe that she’s an “incarnation of God, much like Ramakrishna.” Wow.) and Margo Lynn Sweet (who is also in The Beach Girls and the Monster).

You can watch this on Mubi and ByNWR.

David Hewitt started his career as an illusionist for a traveling spook show called Dr. Jekyll’s Strange Show before Forrest J. Ackerman helped him get into movies by having his script Journey Into the Unknown made into The Time Travellers. His directing debut was 1965’s Monsters Crash the Pajama Party, a movie in which actors ran into the audience to enhance the film’s antics.

He also directed Dr. Terror’s Gallery of Horrors, which had a title way too close to Amicus’ Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, so it also ran as Return from the Past, The Blood Suckers, Alien Massacre, The Witch’s Clock and Gallery of Horror. He also directed Hell’s Chosen Few, The Mighty Gorga (he’s also Gorga, the giant ape) and The Tormentors. Later in his career, he moved into optical effects, working on films as varied as Inspector Gadget 2, Willow and The Quiet American.

Today, we’re here to talk about bikers vs. moonshiners vs. the syndicate vs. the government in the exploitation film The Girls From Sunset Strip.

The screenplay for this film came from Pat Boyette, a news anchor in San Antonio, Texas, who went on to become the producer of a daytime talk show, a puppet show and TV commercials. Turning to comics, Boyette worked mainly for Charlton Comics, where his character the Peacemaker — he loves peace so much he’ll kill for it — became the inspiration for the Comedian in Watchmen. He wrote and drew hundreds of comics for Charlton, including Ghost Manor, Ghostly Tales, Space Adventures, The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves, Cheyenne Kid, Korg: 70,000 B.C., Flash Gordon, Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt, The Phantom and The Six Million Dollar Man. He was also responsible for writing and directing films such as No Man’s Land, The Dungeon of Harrow and The Weird Ones.

Three hillbilly girls — Red, Jessie and Lil — take on three bikers, led by Teach (Gary Kent, The Black Klansman) and aided by Animal and Todd. Of all people, Casey Kasem plays the government man, Conrad, while Jack Starrett (Race with the Devil, Cleopatra Jones) is the sheriff. The hero is Pike, who is played by Jody McCrea. He was in a ton of beach movies, including Operation Bikini, Beach Blanket Bingo and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini. Interestingly, he was the only American International Pictures actor who could surf. And oh yeah — Bing Crosby’s son Lindsay is in this.

But we’re here to talk about the girls, because this movie isn’t called The Boys From Thunder Strip. Red is played by Maray Ayres, who is also in The Cycle Savages and looks a lot like Mary Woronov. Jessie is Megan Timothy, who appeared in three of Hewitt’s films, as well as in Al Damanson and Bud Cardos’ The Female Bunch, and in Russ Meyer’s Good Morning… and Goodbye! Lil is Melinda MacHarg, who really didn’t do much other than this film.

The film starts with one of the girls being assaulted by one of the boys, but honestly, stuff just happens after that. I mean it — sides are constantly switched, cops are brought in and turned on in moments, and Pike keeps getting beaten up.

It was shot on Spahn Ranch, a 500-acre property located in Chatsworth, California. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.  In Brian Albright’s Wild Beyond Belief!: Interviews with Exploitation Filmmakers of the 1960s, Gary Kent said that members of Manson’s Family would often visit craft services and beg for food.

The Girls From Thunder Strip was shot by cinematographer Gary Graver, who was, of course, Orson Welles’s preferred cameraman. Honestly, the behind-the-scenes stories of this movie are probably way more interesting than what was filmed.

No, not Evil Eye. 

That said, Letícia Román, Dante DiPaolo and Roberto Calvi are in both movies.

This The Girl Who Knew Too Much stars Adam West as Johnny Cain, nightclub owner and adventurer. Directed by Francis D. Lyon, this was his chance to escape the typecasting of Batman, and no, that didn’t go down. But what does is murder, baby, the murder of Tony Grinaldi (Steve Peck) in Johnny Cain’s joint that brings him back into dealing with the Syndicate.

Working with his piano player, Lucky (Buddy Greco), Cain helps the CIA to defeat the Communists and the underworld at the same time. Maybe he picked the wrong side, who can say? Then, he gets all messed up with his old love, Revel Drue (Nancy Kwan). 

Revel Drue!

There’s some plot about a dead gangster who was after some priceless art and blackmail against Cain, but really, this is all about watching Adam West — or his obvious stunt double — get beaten up for nearly the entire running time, then tossed through a glass window. Meanwhile, he’s all laconic whenever he speaks, like the coolest guy in the room, if the coolest guy in the room got his ass kicked every two minutes.

You can watch this on YouTube