EDITOR’S NOTE: Not of This Earth was on Chiller Theater on Sunday, January 19, 1964 at 11:10 p.m.; Saturday, February 6, 1965 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, September 16, 1967 at 1:00 a.m.
At 67 minutes, this movie was made to be shown with Attack of the Crab Monsters. Its stars Paul Birch as Mr. Johnson, a man quite literally not of this Earth because he’s an alien from Davanna with blank eyes that can burn right into your brain. If you start to like him, remember that he starts the movie by removing the blood of a teenage girl with some tubes that he keeps in his attache case.
Davanna is dying from the end of a nuclear war which has turned everyone’s blood to dust. Now, as he waits in Los Angeles, Mr. Johnson is attempting to solve the issues with his peoples’ blood. He has a houseboy named Jeremy (Jonathan Haze) and hires away nurse Nadine Storey (Beverly Garland) from a man he has hypnotized, Dr. F.W. Rochelle (William Roerick).
The police are wondering who the vampire killer is, but Mr. Johnson is just trying to stay alive. And look out anyone — like Dick Miller as a vacuum salesman — who comes to his home. Soon, another alien (Anna Lee Carroll) shows up but her blood becomes laced with rabies. She’s not the last as even though Johnson perishes in a car crash — a police siren is too much for his alien hearing — another alien that looks just like him shows up at his grave.
Director Roger Corman and Charles B. Griffith (who wrote the screenplay with Mark Hanna) worked together quite a lot. Griffith said of the story, “It started all this X-ray eye business. Most of Roger’s themes got established right in the beginning. Whatever worked, he’d come and take again, and a lot of things got used over and over. During the production of Not of This Earth, I was married to a nurse, and she helped me do a lot of medical research. I remember how we cured cancer in that script. Somehow the film was a mess when it was finished.”
Birch had no fun making this, as he had to wear the painful contacts all day as Corman wanted to shoot whenever with no prep. The actor was so upset he left before filming was done, so in some shots, that’s not him. Luckily, he has on a hat and sunglasses often, so he was easy to fake Shemp in this by Lyle Latell. Before he left the set, he said, “”I am an actor, and I don’t need this stuff… To hell with it all! Goodbye!”
This has been remade twice, once by Jim Wynorski with Traci Lords as Nadine in 1988 — Wynorski made Roger Corman a bet that he could remake the 1957 film with the same budget and schedule thirty years later — and in 1995, directed by Terence H. Winkless and part of the Roger Corman Presents series.
If you watched this on TV in the 1960s (or any time), there are three more minutes that were added by Herbert L. Strock right after the credits. A voice intones “You are about to adventure into the dimension of The Impossible! To enter this realm you must set your mind free from earthly fetters that bind it! If the events you are about to witness are unbelievable, it is only because your imagination is chained! Sit back, relax and believe.. so that you may cross the brink of time and space.. into that land you sometimes visit in your dreams!” If you’re wondering if a scene or two are repeated, they are so that the movie fit into TV schedules. There were also three scenes that were extended in some theatrical prints: the scene in which Johnson speaks with the courier, him chasing Nadine and when Harry chases him.
We’ve been off for a few weeks but this Saturday at 11 PM EST we’re back! Join Bill and me on our Facebook or YouTube channels as we talk about — and watch — Fear No Evil, which you can find on Tubi.
Every week, we break down the movie with our chat room, look at the ads for the film and have a mixed drink themed to the movie. Here’s this week’s cocktail!
Mamie Taylor
2 oz. whiskey
1 oz. lime juice
3.5 oz. ginger beer
Pour whiskey over ice, then add juice and ginger beer.
BONUS WILDCARD WEEK (September 22 – 28) Go order something from the SWV website and watch it!
Chloe (Olive Borden) has escaped the swamps where she was raised and her family, including her mother Mandy (Georgette Harvey). Thanks to the light color of her skin, she’s passed for a white person. She’s in love with Wade (Reed Howes), who works for Colonel Gordon (Francis Joyner). The problem comes when her mother keeps bringing up — the swamps aren’t all that far — that Gordon led the lynch mob who hung her father.
This all leads to the wild truth that Chloe is really Gordon’s daughter and that he never ordered Sam’s death. Mandy takes her into the swamps and is ready to kill her as part of a voodoo ritual when she’s saved by Wade, who is really saved by Jim (Phillip Ober), a black man in love with Chloe, so romantically driven that he fights an alligator for her and then dies to save both her and her white man. Because Chloe is really white and man, this movie is really racist. It’s a tale of a black girl who hopes and dreams that she is white, that wish comes true and then her black mom tries to kill her while a black man sacrifices his life to save her and a white man. Then, she moves into a mansion.
The voodoo scenes look really scary, however.
Chloe was one of three films — along with Hired Wife and Playthings of Desire — that were made at Sun Haven Studios in St. Petersburg, Florida. The goal was to take back Florida as a filmmaking destination from Hollywood.
Here are the short films that I watched at this year’s Fantastic Fest.
A Fermenting Woman (2024): Visionary chef and master fermenter Marielle Lau (Sook-Yin Lee) is about to be let go from the restaurant that she has given her life to. However, she has an idea to save things, as she begins to ferment a new dish that has an ingredient that truly feels like part of her. Directed by Priscilla Galvez and written by Maisie Jacobson, this puts you directly into the kitchen and all the time and energy that this dish takes. And perhaps it’s a pun to say that it has her blood and sweat in it, because Marielle uses her menstrual blood in her garden, so she decides that it should be the main ingredient in this fermented food. Marielle has taken a piece of her, perhaps the egg that she will never get to fertilize, and gives it to people who don’t pay attention to a bite of their meal, instead ignoring it as simple sustenance when she has given everything to make it into their mouths. The truest horror is that we create — whether its foods or the words you’re reading now — just so that they can be consumed and forgotten.
ATOM & VOID (2024): Gonçalo Almeida has magic here, a mixture of effects and real spider, as it watches the end of all things and perhaps the birth of a new adventure. The score, sound design and look of this film all work together to create perfection, just a true joy of watching and listening. In fact, I went back several times and saw it again, one of the few advantages of seeing this online and not in a theater. If you get the opportunity to watch it, take it. This is a short that I will think of far beyond most full length movies I see this year.
Be Right Back (2023): Ah, the worst words to say in a horror movie. In this short, Maria is left home alone while her mother goes to buy dinner. However, her mother takes way longer than she should and as the night grows dark, Maria is startled when she hears a knock on the door. Is it her mother? Or is it something else? Have you ever gone shopping when you were young and gotten lost, then looked for your parents only to find someone who you thought were them and were instead strangers? That’s the feeling that this creates and it is not one I ever thought that I would live through ever again.
A Brighter Summer Day for the Lady Avengers (2024): As if I couldn’t love this short enough, just check out this paragraph from its creator, Birdy Wei-Ting Hung: “My first encounter with Yang Chia-Yun’s Fēng Kuáng Nǚ Shā Xīng / The Lady Avenger (1982) was an uncanny experience. I was researching Italian giallo film when a vintage newspaper movie poster grabbed my attention. The advert depicted a sensational female vigilante that visually recalled Edwige Fenech in Tutti i colori del buio / All the Colors of the Dark (Sergio Martino, 1972), only this time it was an Asian woman’s face. Her alluring body was barely covered by a white sheet, and her lustrous black hair rested on her collarbones. Standing in a martial art squat stance, the way she holds a katana (Japanese sword) is reminiscent of Meiko Kaji in Shurayuki-hime / Lady Snowblood (Toshiya Fujita, 1973) and Uma Thurman in Kill Bill(Quentin Tarantino, 2003). I had found our lady avenger Wan-Ching, who was played by Hsiao-Feng Lu—the Taiwanese “sexy goddess” of the 1980s, and Taiwanese pulp films.”
This short is a video essay that mixes “two specific female characters in Taiwan Pulp films and Taiwanese New Wave…the female protagonists in Yang’s The Lady Avenger, and in Edward Yang’s Gǔ Lǐng Jiē Shǎo Nián Shā Rén Shì Jiàn / A Brighter Summer Day.”
I love that this film puts these movies against one another, just as a young woman spends a day in the theater savoring a watermelon drink while watching several films beyond the two mentioned, as Deep Red is one of them. A sexual awakening as well as an exploration of what film tells its viewers about the path that being a woman can take, this is one of the most gorgeous shorts I’ve seen in years. I want people to just give Birdy Wei-Ting Hung as much money as she needs to create movies that will inspire us in the same way that films have motivated her.
Bunnyhood (2024): “Mum would never lie to me, would she?” In this short by director Mansi Maheshwari, writers James Davis and Anna Moore, as well as several talented animators, Bobby (Maheshwari) learns the answer as he is rushed to the hospital. The frenetic style of the animation creates the worries of childhood, replicating the fears that aren’t always rooted in the rational or the real. The hospital and surgery come across as horrific places where nothing good can happen and at times, our parents will lie to us to keep us from worrying about the truth. Is that the right way to be a parent? Who can say!
CHECK PLEASE (2024): I am a veteran of the wars of fighting for the check. The director, Shane Chung, is too. He said, “As a kid, I witnessed firsthand the quickness with which friends can turn on each other whenever my parents took me to dinner with their pals. It was all smiles until it came time to pay for the bill – then the fangs came out. “I got it!” “Don’t be ridiculous, it’s my treat!” “You can get me next time!” It got so serious for no reason. Arguing, subterfuge… it was killing with kindness taken to another level. I wondered how far someone could take fighting to pay for the bill. Inspired by my love of goofy slapstick action comedies like Drunken Master and Everything Everywhere All At Once, I thought: what if they literally fought each other? I challenged myself to write a ten-minute long action scene where two Korean-Americans fought each other with chopsticks, grill coverings, and credit cards… and CHECK PLEASE was born.”
Starring Richard Yan and Sukwon Jeong, this is a simple story but is so perfect. It gets across what it means to be a man — paying the bill — as well as the director’s attempts at getting across the feeling of assimilating to a new culture. It’s also filled with great action. I laughed really hard throughout and found joy here.
Compost (2024): Directed by Augusto and Matías Sinay, this film presents an intriguing way at looking at grief. Anastasia (Natalia di Cienzo) has just lost the love of her life, Lisandro (Maximiliano Gallo), after an accident as he builds the greenhouse where she plans on spending most of her time. How can a dream place be as such when it is filled with so much pain? And can she carry through with his last wish, which is to become compost for their plants? Can we become part of the cycle of death and rebirth when emotions are part of our equation, unlike the plants that we help bring to birth each year, only to have to watch them die in the fall?
Considering Cats (2024): A short experimental documentary shot at the Long Island Pet Expo in 2023 by director Matt Newby, this short asks us to “Take a moment to consider the cat.” Seeing as how I live with two, I do this every day. This does a good job of showing the joy that people find in the small creatures that become part of our lives, if only for a short time, in an interesting lo-fi style.
Do Bangladroids Dream of Electric Tagore? (2024): Allem Hossain’s short is described as “desi-futuristic sci-fi.” Interesting. The director says that this genre is “a body of sci-fi work that dares to imagine speculative futures through a South Asian lens.”
In this, a documentarian goes into the New Jersey Exclusion Zone to meet the droids that live there and learn why they are obsessed with a subversive Bengali Renaissance poet. Featuring the poem “Freedom” by Rabindranath Tagore, which is read by Bernard White, this is AI generated but its director asks us to think of “how AI and other technology will impact us but I think we should also be thinking about our moral and ethical responsibilities towards what we create.”
Don’t Talk to Strangers (2023): Imanol Ortiz López has created a short that looks like vintage Kodachrome and is set within a toy store that only looks bright and friendly. Even the IMDB description of this movie is somewhat scary: “Mom always told me not to talk to strangers, but Agustín is not a stranger, because whenever we go to his store he offers me treats.” A young girl is saying that and in this, she’s played by Inés Fernández, who explains how she was abducted by Agustín (Julio Hidalgo). It sounds simple and expected, but in no way does what is revealed end up that way. A really interesting short.
Down Is the New Up (2018): Directed and written by Camille Cabbabe, this is the story of how an ambitious filmmaker and his crew attempt to tell the story of the last hours of a man who plans on killing himself at dawn. To be honest, I found it kind of indulgent and wish that I had spent a bit more time watching it. Maybe it was the language barrier or honestly how many shorts I watched in a few days, but there wasn’t anything here that jumped and grabbed me. I feel I owe the filmmaker an apology and am certainly willing to try and see what was here one more time.
DUCK (2024): The sell copy for this promises that this is “a classic spy thriller turned on its head.” What it is is a deep fake generated film starring almost every actor to blame James Bond and Marilyn Monroe, all voiced by director and writer Rachel Maclean.
As someone who uses AI for my real job and to create music, I have no hate for it. I do, however, dislike this movie. It should be something I love, one that gets into aliens and conspiracies while using pop culture characters. Instead, it feels like robbing the graves of the cemetery at the lowest part of Uncanny Valley. It goes on and on, reminding you of the much better work of the actors who it is raising from the dead to serve as stiff actors for a plot that can be worked out in seconds. I believe AI and deep fake can create the kind of cinema that we want to see, movies that create joy. This just engendered ennui.
Empty Jars (2024): After the last two shorts I watched, this brought back the love I have for film. Director Guillermo Ribbeck Sepúlveda has crafted a fantasy world where a woman (Ana Burgos) deals with the loud guests at her hostel by freeing a ghost from a jar, a spirit that, well, fills her with something else, giving her an experience that she hopes to replicate again and again. Yet, as this movie shares with us, the dead are even less trustworthy than the living. What a gorgeous looking and feeling short. I can’t wait to see what else Sepúlveda can do!
Faces (2024): Look out for Blake Simon. In this film by the director and writer, he starts with Judy (Cailyn Rice) being invited to a fraternity party by Brad (Ethan Daniel Corbett). However, in the ether all around this is a character called The Entity, a creature that has been abducting women the same age as our heroine, such as Bridget Henson. Now, as the frat party hits its height, the struggle for identity and who or what people are plays out. Faces feels like an entire film in its short running time and could easily become a full length feature. Whatever The Entity is, whatever it is looking for and why it does what it does are all unimportant. What is is that Simon seems ready to become a valued new talent in horror and this announces him so well.
Godfart (2023): Directed and written by Michael Langan, this is “The very true story of how the universe was created.” God (Russell Hodgkinson) is looking for breakfast. This short explains it all. This is part of something called the Doxology Universe. As someone who loves breakfast, I want to know more.
How My Grandmother Became A Chair (2020): Director and writer Nicolas Fattouh has created the perfect way of showing what it’s like to slowly lose an aging family member, something that I have gone through several times of the past years. His grandmother is losing her senses, one by one, until she — as the title lets you know early — becomes immobile furniture. There are times when it takes animation and the surreal to make life — which never makes all that much sense — something more easily explainable. This looks so wonderful and moves so perfectly that even though I knew where it was going, it still ended up as an emotional experience.
Huntsville, July 1981 (2024): In Sol Friedman’s short, four characters must deal with the ferocious attacks of a creature that is hiding in the woods. I loved the look of this, which seems like the wildest sketches the weirdest kid in school made and here they are, coming to life.
J’ai le Cafard (Bint Werdan) (2020): “J’ai le cafard” means “I have the cockroach,” yet it also means “I am depressed.” Director and writer Maysaa Almumin is followed everywhere by a dying large cockroach, which is her mental anguish. She connects more with this gigantic roach than anyone else around her until she realizes the impact that it is having on her life. I loved the puppet work and enjoyed seeing how this idea came to life. Can you be friends with an insect? This movie asks that question and I think the answer is yes, but roaches can be just as infuriating as people.
Manivelle: The Last Days of the Man of Tomorrow (2017): Directed by Fadi Baki Fdz, who wrote this with Omar Khouri and Lina Mounzer, this takes a realistic look at an unrealistic story, exploring the life of Manivelle, an automaton from Lebanon whose life seems to mirror the history of the country. His glory years were in the past, when life felt free, and today he is falling to pieces, his body failing him, reaching out in vain to people whose lives he ruined. Manivelle has been an actor, a soldier and now, he’s just a lost robot that claims to run a museum and read books, but he fails at all of that. I absolutely loved how this was shot. It’s perfect.
Yummo Spot (2024): Directed and written by Ashley Brandon, this is about a couple who moves to the woods and tries to start a family. Soon they learn that the Live, Laugh, Love lifestyle may be more difficult than they thought. This had a strange vibe but you may enjoy it more than me.
Two of Hearts (2024):Director and writer Mashie Alam places a boy (Anaiah Lebreton) and a girl (Basia Wyszynski) in a battle over some decisions, like eating a piece of pizza. Are they brother and sister? Are they a couple? Where did they get all of those great clothes? What’s happening? This is one of those times when the way something is filmed outdoes the basics of the script. Does the title refer to a Stacey Q song? Where is this house where they live? Can I visit? This movie has an amazing look and I want all of the answers to these questions and so many more. It’s good to have questions. It’s good to want to know more.
Skeeter (2024): Chris McInroy gets me every time. Actually, he’s made me physically sick a few of those times, no complaints. That’s because his movies are always fun, like this one, where someone has been raised by mosquitoes. If you’ve seen his movies Guts, We Joined a Cultand We Forgot About the Zombies, you know what you’re in for here. Thank you again, Chris, for shocking me and reminding me to never eat popcorn — or any food — during your movies.
BONUS WILDCARD WEEK (September 22 – 28) Go order something from the SWV website and watch it!
Lycanthropus was directed by Paolo Heusch (The Day the Sky Exploded) and written by Ernesto Gastaldi. Heusch used the name Richard Benson, as all Italian directors of that time had to have an American names.
If the title Werewolf In a Girls’ Dormitory isn’t good enough — and it is, it’s one of the best exploitation titles ever — it was also released as I Married a Werewolf, Ghoul in a Girl’s Dormitory, Monster Among the Girls and The Ghoul In School, which is the name of the song that Marilyn Stewart and Frank Owens wrote and that was sung by Adam Keefe. In case you wonder why a voice that sounds like Peter Lorre says, “Come with me to the corridors of blood,” that’s because this movie was on a double feature with Corridors of Blood.
Director Swift (Curt Lowens) is trying to run a reform school that’s funded by Sir Alfred Whiteman (Maurice Marsac). Swift brings on a new teacher named Julian Olcott (Carl Schell, the brother of Maximilian) even though he’s aware of the fact that when Olcott was a doctor, some patients died.
One of the girls, Mary Smith (Mary McNeeran), is sleeping with Whiteman and also blackmailing him. She’s the first to die — shocking that the bad girl of all these reform girls is the first to die and that she’s also sleeping with the rich man paying for all of the school — and the police decide that she was killed by wolves. Priscilla (Barbara Lass, Roman Polanski’s first wife) believes that someone else did it, as she finds a note that was threatening Mary. Like a giallo main character, she ends up investigating the case herself with the help of the school’s handyman Walter (Luciano Pigozzi) and Whiteman. She soon learns that his wife Sheena (Annie Steinert) knows who killed the girl ruining her marriage but she won’t reveal the truth.
As you can tell by the title, there is a werewolf. It gets there and yes, it’s amazing when it happens. This movie looks so much better than you’d expect with its title. It’s also the only werewolf movie I’ve ever seen where the girls attacked by the monster have orgasms while in the jaws of the furry creature.
Want to see what Bill Van Ryn of Drive-In Asylum thinks? Check out what he has to say here.
BONUS WILDCARD WEEK (September 22 – 28) Go order something from the SWV website and watch it!
Scream of the Demon Lover goes by many names. Blood Castle. Il castello dalle porte di fuoco (The Castle With Doors of Fire). El Castillo de Frankenstein. Killers of the Castle of Blood. Altar ofBlood. El asesino del castillo sangriento (The Bloody Castle Killer). Scream of the Demon Lover. Le monstre du château (The Castle Monster). Murhaaja kauhujen linnassa (The Murderer In the Castle of Horrors, what a title!). Ivanna: El castillo de la puerta de fuego (Ivanna: The Castle With the Doors of Fire). Mördaren i skäcken hus (The Killer In the House of Horrors). Das Geheimnis von Schloß Monte Christo (The Mystery of Castle Monte Cristo).
In the U.S., New World Pictures cut it down to 78 minutes so it could fit on a double feature with The Velvet Vampire. It was also syndicated for television with all of the nudity missing, of course.
Biochemist Dr. Ivana Rakowsky (Erna Schurer, Strip Nude for Your Killer, Deported Women of the SS Special Section) is a very rare thing: a woman in an Italian gothic horror film who is capable and not just a damsel in distress — well, she is at times, but work with me here — but a capable scientist who travels to the castle of Baron Janos Dalmar (Carlos Quiney, who played Zorro in three films, Zorro’s Latest Adventure; Zorro, Rider of Vengeance and Zorro the Invincible) to assist him in his experiments.
She has some problems getting there. The only person that will give her a ride to the castle, Fedor (Ezio Sancrotti), tells her that she’ll die in there and then tries to assault her. The Baron isn’t very kind to her either. Not at first, as he believes no woman can be a scientist. She shows him that she can handle it, even if his housekeeper Olga (Cristiana Galloni) has issues with her. Also, seeing as how this is an early 70s Italian/Spanish horror movie, there are also plenty of psychosexual moments. You see, Dr. Ivana sleeps in the nude and she has dreams where a scarred man visits her bedside and tortures her. Somehow, in the midst of all this, these two mismatched leads fall in love after science fonds them.
Castle Xenia has many secrets. After all, Igor Dalmar, the last owner, blew himself up real good and the Baron is his brother. Igor’s body is in a milk bath and he wants Dr. Ivana to help him bring Igor back to life. Olga, in case you didn’t guess, used to be with the Baron. And the new maid, Cristiana (Agostina Belli, who somehow went from being in movies like this and The Eroticist to being in the original Scent of a Woman), seems to want the lady doctor more than any man in this movie that still has his skin on.
As you can imagine from the town in the open of the film, young women are dying and everyone thinks it’s the Baron. The man who keeps torturing the good doctor with a red hot poker and fumes while whispering, “Stay pure,” hints that these girls have all died because they weren’t virgins. And even more to the case of whodunit, each of these young ladies has lost their innocence to the Baron before they were killed. So who is it? Olga, who hates every women who gets near her forever lost lover? Cristiana? Or is Igor perhaps not so bereft of life? And why does the Baron have a library of werewolf and occult books that rivals Danzig’s?
Director José Luis Merino also made the Paul Naschy movie The Hanging Woman, another movie with a ton of other titles but I prefer Beyond the Living Dead.
This movie hits all my buttons. Foggy castle. Strange science. Gorgeous young scientists with diaphanous see-through gowns carrying candelabras through a cobwebbed castle. Gnarled up monsters sneaking their way through the countryside with dogs howling in the Bava-esque moonlight. Man, I’ve been thinking about this since I watched it and every review I read that says that it’s a boring dubbed Italian piece of schlock makes me want to conduct sinister experiments in the night and get this thing up to a higher rating on IMDB while unleashing my hound — a five-pound chihuahua — on anyone with the bad taste to dislike this epic.
BONUS WILDCARD WEEK (September 22 – 28) Go order something from the SWV website and watch it!
James Granilla (Steve Vincent) just wants to read his science fiction magazines in bed until his wife Marge (Bambi Allen, who is in everything from Day of the Nightmare to the title role in Miss Nymphet’s Zap-In and Terror At Orgy Castle; she should be a Something Weird hall of famer) seduces him, revealing that his back is quite hirsute. Then he goes to sleep and despite what he’s like while awake, dream James in horny, as he becomes Planetarian Colonel Granilla , who has stowed away as a spy on the Terranean ship Supreme Erection.
His job is to study the crew, led by the whip-carrying lesbian Captain Mother (Cara Peters as Legs Benedict; she’s also in a ton of movies, including Massacre Mafia Style), but he keeps getting yanked into their sexual hijinks. There’s Connie (played by Karla Conway using the name April Playmate; she was not only the April 1966 Playboy Playmate of the Month, living up to her stage name, but is tied with Sue Williams as the shortest Playmate ever at just 4′ 11″), Portia (Merci Montello, who would soon use the name Mercy Rooney once she married Mickie Rooney Jr.; she was the December 1972 Playmate of the Month and provided the costume for Bigfoot) and Astrid (Fancher Fague, The Head Mistress). They all have stage names here because producer and co-director David F. Friedman didn’t want the actresses them to get famous by their names, as if they became known, he was worried that they would charge him more money to get naked in his movies.
This was co-directed by Byron Made, who also made The Bushwhacker, She Freak, The Acid Eaters and A Smell of Honey, A Taste of Brine. The best part of this would be the credits — and that’s no insult — as they are painted on the legs and breasts of several women.
EDITOR’S NOTE: For the last two days of Cannon Month, I’m going to cover movies that weren’t produced by Cannon but which were distributed by them on one of their various home video labels including Cannon / MGM/UA Home Video, HBO/Cannon Video, Cannon Video, Cannon / Guild Home Video, Cannon / Rank Video, Cannon Screen Entertainment Limited, Cannon Classics, Cannon / Warner Home Video, Cannon/VMP, Cannon Screen Entertainment, Scotia/Cannon, Cannon International, Cannon/ ECV, Cannon / Showtime, Cannon / United Film, Cannon / Isabod, Cannon / Mayco and so many more.
Known in Holland as Gebroken Spiegels, Broken Mirrors is split between two stories. In one, Diane (Lineke Ripman) and Dora (Henriette Tol) are Amsterdam brothel workers at the Happy House Club who begin to tire of their lives. And in the other, a housewife named Bea (Edda Barends) is kidnapped by one of the johns and is slowly starved to death while her captor takes photographic evidence.
Directed and written by Marleen Gorris (A Question of Silence), this film sets forth the belief that all women are captives of men, whether that means that the patriarchy that they’ve created or quite literally the situation in the second story.
Dora explains to Diane that these men rent their bodies, not who they are, so they don’t need to give them anything more than seconds of fumbling sex. They’re supported by the lady of the house, Ellen (Coby Stunnenberg), who allows them to turn down customers and gives them a line to call for help.
Bea is in a strikingly similar situation and knows that she’s going to die. But if she does, she will only give the killer brief moments and none of the emotion that he craves. He only has her body as well, not who she is.
It’s also worth noting that we see the women’s faces, learn their emotions and become sympathetic to them, but never really see many of the men, even the killer. They are near-silent and almost always anonymous.
EDITOR’S NOTE: For the last two days of Cannon Month, I’m going to cover movies that weren’t produced by Cannon but which were distributed by them on one of their various home video labels including Cannon / MGM/UA Home Video, HBO/Cannon Video, Cannon Video, Cannon / Guild Home Video, Cannon / Rank Video, Cannon Screen Entertainment Limited, Cannon Classics, Cannon / Warner Home Video, Cannon/VMP, Cannon Screen Entertainment, Scotia/Cannon, Cannon International, Cannon/ ECV, Cannon / Showtime, Cannon / United Film, Cannon / Isabod, Cannon / Mayco and so many more.
Niall Hennessy (Rod Steiger) watched his family die in a Belfast riot. There’s only one thing he can do now. Kill the Royal Family and all of Parliament. As he coldly enacts his plot, both the police and the IRA want to stop him. Steiger is great, as he plays a man who just wants to avoid “the Troubles” — even though his brother is in the IRA — but when he loses those that he loves, he loses his humanity.
John Guillermin was the original director, but he left to make The Towering Inferno. Don Sharp (Psychomania) came on and worked from a script by John Gay. Lee Remick agreed to play her supporting role as it reunited her with Steiger and Gay, as they had just worked on No Way to Treat a Lady.
This was based on a story by Richard Johnson — who played Inspector Hollis — and the movie was accused of making entertainment from terrorism. Samuel Z. Arkoff for American-International Pictures said, “We do not consider this a pro-IRA movie but we are very anxious to avoid public opinion in Britain. I think the film is brilliant. I realize the bombing campaign in Britain must have made people very bitter about the IRA. I ask people to see the film before they make up their minds.”
The British Board of Film Classification refused to classify the film as there was newsreel footage of the Queen altered to appear as if she was reacting to a bomb explosion. Arkoff added a disclaimer stating that the British Royal Family had not participated, but Odeon Cinemas refused to show it and EMI would not distribute it.
It’s wild that this movie came out during such a politically charged time and was either very brave or very exploitative.
EDITOR’S NOTE: For the last two days of Cannon Month, I’m going to cover movies that weren’t produced by Cannon but which were distributed by them on one of their various home video labels including Cannon / MGM/UA Home Video, HBO/Cannon Video, Cannon Video, Cannon / Guild Home Video, Cannon / Rank Video, Cannon Screen Entertainment Limited, Cannon Classics, Cannon / Warner Home Video, Cannon/VMP, Cannon Screen Entertainment, Scotia/Cannon, Cannon International, Cannon/ ECV, Cannon / Showtime, Cannon / United Film, Cannon / Isabod, Cannon / Mayco and so many more.
Jim Goldman is also Jun Gallardo, the director of fifty plus movies like SFX Retaliator and The Firebird Conspiracy. Are you surprised that he’s recruited Richard Harrison for this film mission? If you’ve watched as many movies where the Philippines become the new Vietnam, you’re not.
Also known as Operation Coleman — Frank Coleman is the man who needs to be rescued — and featuring the same cast as Intrusion: Cambodia (coming later this week) this one finds Harrison as CIA agent Robert F. Burton. He’s offered a hundred thousand dollars to save the POW and uses a government computer to choose the best men for the job.
Between pretending to be archaeologists and spending the night before their mission getting drunk at a strip club may not be the best move for these soldiers. Plus, in any gathering of thirteen — or however many people go to Vietnam to get a treasure or rescue someone in an 80s VHS rental movie — expect a Judas.
Somehow, Tetchie Agbayani — who plays Kara in this movie — would also appear as Princess Rubali in Gymkata, get to be in The Money Pit and Disorderlies (of all movies!) and was the first-ever Filipino woman to appear in Playboy (even if it was the German version). She’s still acting today.
B&S About Movies 
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