Joe Sarno week (June 16 – 22) Joe Sarno was called the Bergman of 42nd St, but don’t let that stop you from watching his movies! He was able to shape dramatic stories that were entertaining and of-the-moment while working with tight budgets and inexperienced performers but he never lost sight of why people were buying the tickets – HOT SEX!
Cannon was making money on Joe Sarno’s films, getting them into theaters as Sarno divided his time making movies in the United States and in Sweden, Germany and Denmark. His early films are stark black and white affairs and life is never easy for anyone within them. Also, the phrase Deep Inside is the greatest adult title ever and would eventually be used along with the names of actresses, such as Sarno’s uncredited X-rated Inside Jennifer Welles and Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle.
Millicent Redmond (Peggy Steffans, the Findlay Flesh trilogy) is a woman who is frigid in bed and therefore gets her pleasure manipulating others, like seeing what kind of trouble she can get Lina (Mary Park) into; plays around with the relationship between her old lesbian roommates Neva (Tia Walter) and Jean (Sheila Britt, The Swap and How They Make It); heats up older lesbian who loves younger women Mavis (Bella Donna, not the Belladonna whose retirement still makes one wistful) and gets Pam (Lara Danielli) involved with the absolute wrong man.
Sarno’s movies have an existential sadness that I absolutely love. I can only imagine what raincoaters felt about these movies, already worried about being in public watching filth, worried about the cops coming in and then the movie they went up against so much just depresses them beyond comprehension. They are sexy without sex, a fascinating idea that feels like the ruined orgasms that so many unfortunate of today’s cyber perverts are so obsessed by.
June 19: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is 80s Horror! We’re excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what’s next.
I’ve made a real 180 on Lamberto Bava. Maybe it’s because the first of his movies that I watched was Devilfish. I should have really started with Macabre, A Blade In the Dark or any of his TV movies and then I’d feel a lot different. And years ago, I unfairly compared him with his father instead of allowing him to be judged on his own merit.
I am sorry, John Old Jr.
The Prince of Terror has never been released in the U.S. on VHS, DVD or blu ray. That’s a shame.
It pulls the Body Double fake out as soon as it starts, as you get the jump scare of a woman — Magda (Marina Viro) — escaping an RV only to see her boyfriend drown in a swamp and become an inflated zombie and begin stalking her through a swamp.
This isn’t happening.
Instead, it’s the set of director Vincent Omen’s (Tomas Arana, The Church) latest movie. He hates the script from his longtime writer Paul Hilary (David Brandon, who was the director in Stage Fright so dumb that he let his cast stay in the theater where a killing machine was hiding), so he gets him fired before heading out to play golf. While he’s hitting the front 9, he’s interviewed by a reporter (Virginia Bryant, The Barbarians) who asks him about the rumors that he’s much older than 37 and his public perception as the “Prince of Darkness.”
He holds up one of his golf balls, which has 666 on it. Obviously, he’s into this personna.
After he finishes playing, he goes home to his wife Betty (Carole Andre, Yor Hunter from the Future), daughter Susan (Joyce Pitti) and dog Demon. Yes, he is definitely into this demonic side. That evening, he and his lovely spouse are supposed to join his producer (Pascal Druant) and Magda for dinner. And then, golf balls explode into their home, sinister phone calls start and end only when the phone lines are severed and their cute little dog is killed — by having his fur removed and then he’s just thrown in the garbage — because this is an Italian movie. Then, a bald killer with a huge knife (Ulisse Miniverni) appears.
By the end of the movie, Omen gets shot, his wife gets her leg ensnared in a bear trap and his daughter gets buried alive in the basement. Plus, the toilet flushes blood and the security guard is replaced with a robot. It’s an all over the place plan from Paul the writer and actor Eddie Felson– the bald monster — who both want to get back at Vincent.
Special effects maestro Sergio Stivaletti got a workout here, as when Vincent gets his revenge, he starts attacking people with golf balls, including one that blows up a man’s wrist and another that goes Fulci and blows up an eyeball. There’s also a good Simon Boswell score.
I wonder how much of this story was writer Dardano Sacchetti getting his scripting revenge on former friend and co-creator Lucio Fulci. That scene where he’s accused of stealing ideas and it becomes obvious that Omen has no ideas of his own, as well as a bloody script emerging from a toilet, seem to lead one to feel that way. It’s fun in a TV movie way — I love this era of Italian TV movie horror — but it certainly doesn’t aspire to the heights that Fulci reached.
This is part of a series of movies that aired on Italian TV as Alta tensione. The other episodes are L’uomo che non voleva morire, in which a man is near death in a hospital and trying to recall how he got there; Il gioko, a story of a teacher thinking her students murdered the instructor she has replaced and the giallo Testimone oculare. All were directed by Lamberto Bava.
I hope that American boutique labels follow the lead of Cauldron Films and release movies like this and the House of series that they just put out instead of just releasing the same movies in new formats. There is so much out there!
Joe Sarno week (June 16 – 22) Joe Sarno was called the Bergman of 42nd St, but don’t let that stop you from watching his movies! He was able to shape dramatic stories that were entertaining and of-the-moment while working with tight budgets and inexperienced performers but he never lost sight of why people were buying the tickets – HOT SEX!
In the sex films of the 60s and 70s, the line between sex and the occult is as thin as the flimsiest of garments. Carla (Laurene Clair, who was also known as Patricia McNair and is also in director and writer Joe Sarno’s Deep Inside) goes from visiting a Tarot card reader with her friend Enid (Carol Holleck, who was in Sarno’s The Swap and How They Make It) to joining The Cult of Pan,a coven of sexually open ladies led by card reader Martha (Helena Clayton, Suburbia Confidential) and who draw on the power of red roses for their psychosexual energy.
What she doesn’t know is that Enid and Martha have worked together to bring her into the orbit of these women, all to get her away from living with her dominating Aunt Julie (Liz Love, also known as Bella Donna — and not Michelle Sinclair — and who was in Sarno’s My Body Hungers and the Joseph Marzano version of Venus In Furs) and cousin Tracey (Laura London), who is constantly reminding people that she’s met a nice boy and plans on marrying him.
That’s not the life that Carla wants but she has no idea how to get there.
“Once you have tasted the wine of Delphi and touched a rose from the garden of Pan to your breast, you will forever be a priestess of Pan.” That’s what the ladies say and soon, they’re drinking, rubbing flowers all over their barely clothed bodies and everyone gets as kinky as a one room shot 1966 softcore movie can get. I mean, the very idea that women had that secret garden and weren’t dependent on men for their pleasure, much less could get even more orgasmic bliss alone or with another woman, takes the very idea of fantasy and makes men force head on that they really aren’t necessary unless they rise above their normal roles and become enlightened.
Even the suburban women so ready to spend the rest of their lives in a minute every few nights of the missionary position soon realize that striking one another with thorned blooms and committing blasphemy as they praise Pan. Before the end of this movie, Aunt Julie and Tracey have abandoned their chaste ways and are after every man they can get, as well as becoming addicted to those roses that come every day to their door.
How amazing is the world of Sarno, another below the Hollywood budget filmmaker who created black and white worlds of dubious women who are content to not live in the world of black and white, no matter how they’re shot, and become something else, something other?
June 18: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Gangsters! We’re excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what’s next.
Weapons of Death comes from the Commissioner Betti (Violent Rome, Violent Naples and Special Cop in Action) cinematic universe as a spin off of the character Gennarino (Massimo Deda). Betti is also in this, except now he’s played by Leonard Mann instead of Maurizio Merli. And now, in the place of Umberto Lenzi, there’s Mario Caiano (Nightmare Castle) in charge of the show.
The villain is the main reason to watch this. Henry Silva is always absolutely perfect and here he’s as awesome as you’d hoped as a hit man named Santoro. He has the protection of crime boss Don Alfredo (Tino Bianchi). He’s able to train so many people to do robberies and murders that he puts not just Belli job in jeopardy, but his reputation. That’s because the one time that Santoro gets a gun on him, he lets the policeman live, telling him, “You go your way and I’ll go mine.” That’s how smart he is, as he gets more out of not killing Betti as he would have shooting him.
At the same time, the other crime families all begin to hate Santoro for how out of control he is — one of his major crimes has masked men running wild in the streets, shooting people and kicking women in the stomach — and they try to rub him out.
This movie lives up to the poliziotteschi madness that its fans want, as it has kids turned into young gangsters, a motorcycle rider getting beheaded and a man being castrated in prison. Also, Ida Galli. Or Evelyn Stewart. You know, whatever name you prefer. And it looks out of control because a lot of this was filmed without permits, closing streets or even informing the crowds of people in some of the scenes that they were filming. Instead, they had the camera inside a box on a truck. Italy, I will always love you.
June 18: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Gangsters! We’re excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what’s next.
Gordon (Gordon Mitchell) and Carl (Antonio Casale) have taken a stack of gold, moved to the middle of nowhere and hide their fortune in a wooden shack. No one bothers them, because they have a stranglehold on the small town’s alcohol sales, marking it up and getting everyone blissfully wasted. However, a crippled man (Richard Harrison, who came up with the idea) has come to town and everyone that has something to hide is about to get exposed.
Everyone in this small silver mining town is horrible. I mean it, there are murderers, child molesters, thieves and more. And in the middle of them all, playing their arousal off one another is the gorgeous and unsatisfied Rita (Dagmar Lassander). She loves every moment of the worked up chaos that she unleashes.
The town could be a Western one for all we know, save the modern truck, the clothing and the bottles and bottles of J&B. There’s so much J&B here that you wonder how many black gloved killers are here for a convention of psychosexual degenerate switchblade aficionados. Also, Ms. Lassander protects herself with a broken bottle of J&B which is as sexy as you think.
Everything is filthy. Everyone feels like they’re just waiting to die. Or kill you. It’s like Bad Day at Black Rock mixed with the Italian West’s ability to keep remaking Yojimbo and then ripping off the rip off, but you accept it and love it because it’s Italy.
Joe Sarno week (June 16 – 22) Joe Sarno was called the Bergman of 42nd St, but don’t let that stop you from watching his movies! He was able to shape dramatic stories that were entertaining and of-the-moment while working with tight budgets and inexperienced performers but he never lost sight of why people were buying the tickets – HOT SEX!
The title of this movie is awesome and then I found out that it’s also called All The Evils Of Satan and I don’t know if I could be more enthusiastic about a film.
New York City shutterbug Henning (Dan Machuen) is supposed to shoot some nudes for his agent Paula (Peggy Sarno) but is obsessed with shooting the evil that lives inside all women. To capture this, he takes images of Leslie (Maria Lease, who would go on to be a director of adult films as well as Dolly Dearestand being the script supervisor on Better Off Dead) as she hangs from the ceiling of his studio. After, they make love, and while Henning usually never sees another of his conquests again, she feels different. She’s also mindblowingly gorgeous, which helps.
He also meets another model named Joyce (Marianne Prevost) who he feels sorry for. She’s homeless and needs a hand up. He invites her to stay in his studio and assist him, but when he grows angry that he can’t capture with his camera what he sees with his eyes, he learns that she’s the perfect muse for his images of base morality. Paula even tells him that she sent Joyce his way, claiming “”I sent her to you because she is what you’re looking for. If I ever I saw it, she’s the daughter of Satan.”
That means that things aren’t going to end well for anyone. Again, this is in stark black and white and while the lovemaking scenes are quite erotic, they’re mostly clothed. Then again, when they were made by Sarno, this burned the celluloid.
June 17: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Lucio Fulci! We’re excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what’s next.
When writers cover Italian exploitation film genres, often the concentration is on horror, cannibal movies, mondos, Westerns, giallo. Anything but musicarello, which are jukebox musicals inspired by Elvis’ Jailhouse Rock and Love Me Tender. The movie that really broke this filone — a small stream, so to speak, that flows from the larger river of Italian cinema — was Go, Johnny, Go!, which was directed by Paul Landres and starred Jimmy Clanton, Chuck Berry, Ritchie Valens and Eddie Cochran. Released in Italy as Vai, Johnny vai!, it had sequences filmed just for the Italian market with singer Adriano Celentano opening and closing the movie.
In a pre-MTV world, musicarello featured young singers in the main roles — like Gianni Morandi, Al Bano, Mal Ryder, Tony Renis, Adriano Celentano, Bobby Solo, Orietta Berti, Little Tony, and more — as they performed songs from their latest albums.
As you may expect, several of the same directors who excelled in other Italian genres made their own music movies, including Bruno Corbucci (Questo pazzo, pazzo mondo della canzone), Ferdinando Baldi (Rita of the West), Ruggero Deodato (Donne… botte e bersaglieri), Duccio Tessari (one of the founders of the Italian Western, he made Per amore… per magia…) and the unholy team of Antonio Margheriti and Renato Polselli (Io Ti Amo).
Yet the originator of native Italian-made musicarello is the very same man who most in America only know as the Godfather of Gore. Yes, Lucio Fulci made Ragazzi del Juke-Box and the second example of the genre, Urlatori alla Sbarra (Howlers In the Dock).
Wikipedia says that the musicarello is a mix between “fotoromanzi (photo comics or fumetti), traditional comedy, hit songs and tentative references to tensions between generations.” This is before the Days of Lead and radicalized political moments that would make up much of the late 1960s and 1970s in Italy. And as the genre gets older, generational revolt wouldn’t be something studios wanted to sell to, particularly as the music in this genre was no longer being directed toward young people. Think how the American-International Pictures beach movies seem so dated in just a few years versus movies that Hollywood was releasing by the end of the 60s and early 70s.
A company that makes blue jeans has to rethink their image because of a group called the Teddy Boys, young men and women who love American rock ‘n roll. The leaders of this music-loving group of kids are Joe Il Rosso (Joe Sentieri, whose biggest song was “Uno dei tanti,” which was translated by Leiber and Stoller and recorded by several English-speaking artists as I (Who Have Nothing); he appears in several films, including The Most Beautiful Wife with Ornella Muti), Mina (Mina, Italy’s best-selling music artist of all time; known as the “Queen of Screamers” and the “Tigress of Cremona;” she was banned from TV and radio due to her relationship with married actor Corrado Pani and out of wedlock pregnancy. She was so famous and beloved that this ban ended in a year despite her songs being about religion, sex and one of her favorite things, smoking. Her look was so alien to Italian audiences — shaved eyebrows, dyed blonde hair and fragrant sex appeal — which makes Mina look as cool in 2024 as she did in 1960) and Adriano (Adriano Celentano, who introduced rock ‘n roll to Italy with songs like “24.000 baci”, “Il tuo bacio è come un rock”, and “Si è spento il Sole;” he’s in Fulci’s first music movie as well as a singer in La Dolce Vita. His daughter Rosalinda is best-known for playing Satan in The Passion of teh Christ).
The jeans company wants the kids to improve their image and do good deeds, yet their remain suspicious of them. While this is happening, Joe falls in love with Giulia (Elke Sommer, Baron Blood) — and can you blame him? — whose father Giomarelli (Mario Carotenuto) runs the TV network and wants these rockers off television and to stop influencing other young folks.
Thanks to Italo Cinema, I can report there are nearly twenty songs in this:
Joe Sentieri: “Let’s Go,” “Moto Rock, ” “Millions of Scintille” and “Don’t Talk:
Mina: “I Know Why,” “Nessuno,” “Whisky” and “Tintarella di Luna”
Adriano Celentano: “Rock Matto,” “Blue Jeans Rock,” “Nikita Rock,” “Impressive for You” and Your Cheek is Like a Rock
Chet Baker: “Arrdividerci”
Brunetta: “Precipito” and “Beby Rock”
Umberto Bindi: “Odio”
Gianni Meccia: “Delicate soldiers”
Corrado Lojacono: “Carin”
I Brutos:” I, Blue Devil”
You may look through that list and be somewhat amazed that Chet Baker is in it. The “Prince of Cool” was seen by Hollywood as a potential movie star but the promise of his early career was marred by a life filled with drug addiction. That comes up in this movie, as he is often sleeping — and often, yes, he really was nodding off — and it’s turned into a comedic plot point.
This is also the first film appearance of model — and the only woman fashion designed Valentino ever loved — Marilù Tolo. She’s also in one of my all-time favorite Italian Westerns, Django Kill… If You Live, Shoot!
Fulci co-wrote this with Giovanni Addessi (who would later write and produce Web of the Spider) and Vittorio Vighi (I Maniaci!). Yet his closest collaborator was Piero Vivarelli, who is listed as screenwriter and assistant director. Vivarelli — according to previously cited Italo Cinema — “had been working for radio stations since the 1950s and from the 1960s onwards was editor of the music magazine Big, for which he always wrote the editorials himself and which was regularly devoured by young people looking for good music. Vivarelli’s opinion carried weight; whoever he thought was good could become famous, but whoever he ignored was ignored by the audience.”
Vivarelli lived a wild life. In addition to his music influence, he directed comic book adaptions Avenger Xand Satanik, wrote Django and later in his career wrote the story for D’Amato’s Emauelle In Bangkok and the lunatic Emanuelle In America. Besides that, he was the only foreigner other than Che Guevara to have his membership card for the Cuban Communist Party signed by Fidel Castro.
Working together with cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo (who would go on to shoot 8 1/2, The 10th Victim and Juliet of the Spirits before dying way too young) , Fulci and Vivarelli created a new visual template for how young audiences saw music that would be adapted by Scopitones and music videos.
Not to be a broken record, but Fulci remains, as ever, so much more than his horror movies.
June 17: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Lucio Fulci! We’re excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what’s next.
I was reading through Letterboxd reviews the other day and I saw someone mention in a Fulci horror film that there was a humorous moment that they didn’t enjoy but that made sense because Fulci wasn’t known for making comedies.
Of the 57 movies Lucio Fulci directed that are listed on Letterboxd, 16 are comedies.
Anyways…
Like many of his comedy films (thirteen, in case you were guessing), this stars the team of Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia. As always, they play two Sicilian morons. Franco is completely deranged and uses his body and wild face to try and communicate in the loudest ways possible while Ciccio is the mustache-having bully who thinks he’s the more intelligent of the duo but is quite dumb.
In this movie, they have an older brother who is such an incredible thief that he is known as the Master. Paolo (Maro Pisu) wants his brothers to stop being criminals so that they don’t lead the police to him, so he sets them up with money, homes and girlfriends. Yet the two are so annoying that they can never keep these women and way too dumb to not want to be criminals like their brother.
Then Paolo meets two singers, Marilina (Lena von Martens, Operation Counterspy) and Rosalina (Mirella Maravidi, Requiescant, Terror-Creatures from the Grave) who are totally gorgeous and just as insipid as his siblings. He sets them up and leaves the country to hire experts to pull off his most daring and final heist, robbing the Bank of Italy.
The problem is that the ladies are gangsters and want the brothers to show just how good they are at being crooks and pull off their brother’s plan before he gets back.
A heist film that is a comedic version of Seven Golden Men, this even finds Franco and Ciccio dressing up as Diabolik to rob a safe. Plus, you get appearances by Solvi Stubing (Strip Nude for Your Killer), Kitty Swan (House of 1,000 Dolls), Maria Luisa Rispoli (Kriminal) and Adriana Ambesi (Fangs of the Living Dead).
I have to confess that I hated the movies of Franchi and Ingrassia when I first watched them but now find them charming. Maybe it was Argento discussing. how great they are in an interview I saw with him or it could be that I had to learn how to appreciate their basic humor. However I got here, I laughed several times while watching this and loved the space age sets and opening super thief action.
Joe Sarno week (June 16 – 22) Joe Sarno was called the Bergman of 42nd St, but don’t let that stop you from watching his movies! He was able to shape dramatic stories that were entertaining and of-the-moment while working with tight budgets and inexperienced performers but he never lost sight of why people were buying the tickets – HOT SEX!
Bobbi (June Colbourne) is the kind of person who could only appear in a roughie directed by Joe Sarno. She’s a combination exotic dancer and fortune teller who uses a Haitian voodoo amulet to remain young and oh yeah, she can control almost any man, like her lover and bongo player Dave (Derek Murcott).
Her daughter Julia (Dian Lloyd) doesn’t want to live in the world her mother dominates. She’s also a dancer and doubles as a possessed woman during her mother’s psychic flim flam shows, raking in money from the marks and rubes.
After a night getting sodas, she gives her body to Ben Furman (Charles Clements). But soon, Dave decides to steal the amulet, putting everyone’s lives in a tailspin. Didn’t Dave already know that every one of Bobbi’s lovers has died horribly?
There’s no nudity or sex in this, but it feels just plain scuzzy and that’s the kind of filth that I wallow in. The promise of a carnal inferno and the delivery of entropy, so to speak. Then again, you get a lot of dance scenes that were volcanic in 1963 and could play on prime time TV today.
Like how Andy Milligan really only wants family members to lose their minds and scream at one another while the horror elements are just window dressing, so many Joe Sarno movies are about sadness and how people fail to connect. At the end, Bobbi remarks just how old and tired she is, despite all the magic. We don’t see her as younger — there’s no money for special effects — and have to become part of her illusion, hypnotized ourselves with the black and white starkness.
Sarno took over when original director Anthony Farrar left. Sure, it drags despite being 66 minutes, but then you remember that this is a sexless sex movie that has become a voodoo noir and you figure, well, it’s good enough.
One review on Letterboxd said, “The people are not very attractive nor appealing.” Maybe you’ve never seen pre-1970s adult films before. For shame.
In the woods of Amityville, scientists whose lab once occupied the very space that the house on 112 Ocean Avenue sat have somehow captured Bigfoot, conducting a series of experiments on him. He escapes and runs wild in the woods, all while a film crew is shooting their own Bigfoot movie, local birdwatchers seek an elusive species and protestors who want an end to Amityville movies all gather in one place to become victims.
This movie has almost everything that an Amityville movie should, which is a great name and a better poster, even if that looks like Kong exploding from the familiar windows of the De Feo home. It does not, however, have any taglines.
Directed by Shawn C. Phillips, who co-wrote it with Julie Anne Prescott and is on his ninth trip to Amityville, (he directed Amityville Shark House and Amityville Karen and acted in Amityville Webcam, Amityville Job Interview, Amityville Frankenstein, Amityville Thanksgiving, Amityville In the Hood and Amityville Hex) has put together yet another movie that has no ties to the original other than you’ve seen both movies.
He also plays Ian, the leader of the scientists who lose Bigfoot, leading one of them named Annie (Lauren Francesca, who was the Amityville Karen) to be assaulted by the creature, who she claims “Has the biggest dick I’ve ever had.” The Amityville Bigfoot which acts a lot more like the sasquatch in Night of the Demonthan a friendly skunk ape. Is there such a thing as an amiable abominable snowman?
As for that movie in the woods, its director Claude (Brandon Krum) is having issues with his producer father Harv (Phillip Krum) and his main actress, Francesca (Ashleeann Cittell). And somehow, in the middle of all of this — Bigfoot sexual, fecal and urine assaults abound — Eric Roberts and Tuesday Knight appear. There’s also a scene where Bigfoot pushes a baby carriage with a dog inside it down a hill and this is played for comedy.
This wouldn’t be an Amityville movie without ten minutes at the end of videos sent in by people who paid to be in the movie, as well as news footage that pads out the running time. There’s also lots of ad libbed dialogue, people talking on and on when they never would in real life and so much screaming. Yet it looks a lot better than most Amityville or Bigfoot movies, so I guess that’s some faint praise.
NOTE: Ryan Stockstad informed me: “Just a small correction: the producer’s father was played by Brandon Krum’s actual father Phillip Krum, not G. Larry Butler! Larry plays one of the hobos in the woods;)”
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