EDITOR’S NOTE: Today’s movie is brought to you by AC Nicholas, who has graciously become a Big B&S’er, a monthly supporter of the site and got to pick an entire week of movies. His idea this time was for a series on movies that started as one film and were dubbed into something else.

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International Secret Police: Key of Keys is the fourth of five James Bond parody movies in Japan known as Kokusai Hhimitsu Keisatsu. Yet once Woody Allen got hold of it — it’s his directorial debut — the story turned into a battle for the world’s best egg salad recipe.

Originally intended to be just an hour-long made for TV movie, Henry G. Saperstein and American International Pictures took more footage from International Secret Police: A Barrel of Gunpowder, an actor imitating Allen’s voice and music numbers from The Lovin’ Spoonful to pad the running time of the film and get it into theaters. Allen had no control over that, a mistake that he wouldn’t make in any of his future projects.

The voices in the film include Allen’s writing partner Mickey Rose (he’d go on to write and direct Student Bodies), Julie Bennett (Madame Piranha’s voice in King Kong Escapes), Frank Buxton (a story editor on Love, American Style), Len Maxwell (the voice of Punchy, the Hawaiian Punch mascot) and Allen’s wife at the time, Louise Lasser.

After some nonsensical action about the mob and the secret agents vying for the egg salad recipe — intercut with Allen himself speaking about his work on the film — the credits include China Lee, Playboy Playmate of the Month for August 1964 (and the then-wife of Allen’s comic idol Mort Sahl) stripping while Allen explains that he promised her a role in the film. She’d go on to appear in an episode of The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. and as one of the robot girls in Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, while we’re on the subject of spy films.

Speaking of spy women, two of the secret agents in this movie — Akiko Wakabayashi and Mie Hama — would also show up in You Only Live Twice.

Hi EDITOR’S NOTE: When Bill Van Ryn asked me if he could write something for the holidays, I was overjoyed. This is such a gift for all of us. Check out Bill at Groovy Doom and Drive-In Asylum.

Nothing can derail a festive holiday with the relatives like dark family secrets bubbling up to the surface, and there’s likely to be at least one of those loved ones that are downright ornery. This is the case in one of my favorite holiday horror films, the 1972 film most commonly known as Silent Night, Bloody Night. Originally released in 1972 as Dark Night of the Full Moon by the Cannon Group, they reissued it in 1973 with the new title and ad campaign that emphasized the Christmas connection in the story, and it played grindhouses and drive-ins throughout the rest of the 1970s, often as a co-feature to other Cannon releases such as I, Monster, It first appeared on TV in 1974 as a CBS Late Movie, but it also screened on WOR-TV more than a few times, including their beloved Fright Night time slot on Saturday nights, which is where I saw it as a kid. It was resurrected for theatrical release yet again in 1981, The Year of the Slasher, as Death House, or Deathouse as appeared on the title card. I can’t imagine what it felt like to go see this movie in 81 and realize that you’d seen it on TV seven years ago, but nobody should have complained, because seeing it a few times makes the convoluted plot a little more clear. I know that it was very confusing to ten-year-old me watching it on WOR in the middle of the night.

It’s hard to imagine this low key film appearing so often in front of glassy eyed moviegoers and TV-
watching night owls. It’s got a few shocking moments, but it was a weird experience to be confronted with this at 1 in the morning. It’s a murder mystery involving a big old mansion with a sinister past.
Jeffrey Butler, the grandson of the now-deceased proprietor, Wilfred Butler, inherited the house after the death of his grandfather about 20 years prior. Jeffrey intends to sell the place, but when this news get out, an unseen inmate of a local mental hospital breaks out and returns to the house, murdering anyone who dares step inside. The first to go is the lawyer closing the sale of the house, who makes the mistake of sleeping there overnight with his young ladyfriend. Since he’s played by Patrick O’Neal, the moment when they get graphically axed is the Janet Leigh shock of the film.

O’Neal was likely the highest profile in the cast at the time, but there are numerous actors in the film who would later become well-known cult icons. Mary Woronov plays Diane, a young woman from town who happens to be the daughter of the Mayor. She helps Jeffrey unravel the mystery of the house, and all sorts of unsavory history is exhumed while the killer slashes his way through several other cast members. Together they learn that Jeffrey is actually Wilfred Butler’s son AND his grandfather, since Wilfred raped his own daughter, Marianne. The baby was spirited away to another state, while Marianne suffered a psychological breakdown. Rather than institutionalizing her, Wilfred set up his mansion as an insane asylum, where he could keep a close eye on her. Eventually he became disillusioned with her so-called doctors, and turned the violent inmates loose on them, resulting in a Christmas Eve massacre where Marianne herself was killed. Diane doesn’t escape the curse of the mansion either, as she learns some unpleasant information about her own family and her connection to the tragic events.

Director Theodore Gershuny (“Sugar Cookies”) was married to Woronov at the time, and he displays
some style with his camera and his concepts. The most breathtaking and frightening sequence of the
movie is the moment when the inmates of the asylum silently surround the drunken doctors and their party guests before murdering them. This scene is full of Warhol personalities, including Ondine and Candy Darling -although technically her final film, this was actually filmed in 1970 and not released until 72. John Carradine also appears in this, because of course he is in every movie. His character is mute, so we don’t hear his distinctive voice, but he communicates by ringing a bell, as if he’s summoning a missing clerk to a vacant drug store counter.

The holiday imagery is not quite as pronounced as it is in movies like Black Christmas and Silent Night Deadly Night, but we do get some very yuleish (as Barb Coard would say) moments. The characters listen to Christmas carols on the radio, Woronov wraps gifts in front of a fire, and the tone of the film is very wintry. Certain outdoor scenes look as if they were filmed some time after a snowfall began to melt, as portions of the ground seem to have a thin layer of snow and others are muddy. This isn’t the scenic kind of winter, it’s the unpleasant kind that has you tracking mud into the house. Whether or not this was intentional, it takes the romance out of Christmas just a little. And incidentally, it seems as if the Black Christmas game plan of menacing phone calls placed by a killer on Christmas may have been inspired just a little bit by this movie – or perhaps that’s just another Christmas miracle. I love the muted, downbeat atmosphere of Silent Night, Bloody Night a lot, and it does seem to be the movie that knows the most about how family dysfunction can easily lead to an eyeball being gouged out with a wine glass on Christmas Eve. Happy holidays!

Directed and written by Bruce Robinson, this movie is about how being a cop in Los Angeles has destroyed John Berlin (Andy Garcia). His friend Freddy Ross (Lance Henriksen) tells him to move to Eureka, a smaller town, and regroup. His big city ways cause headaches for other cops, like John Taylor (Graham Beckel) whose promotion he takes.

Berlin finds a hand in a dumpster, one that has marks on the fingers as if it read Braille. He believes its either part of a missing girl known as Jennifer or part of that case. By working with some of his old team, he learns that in the last four years, six women — most of them blind — have either been found dead or are still missing within a 300-mile radius of San Diego. He thinks that Jennifer was seven and the eighth was Amber, the missing roommate of blind music teacher Helena Robertson (Uma Thurman).

Against all rules of being a police officer, Berlin falls in love with her. She looks like his ex and he’s obsessed by the case and still getting past all his PTSD from the things that he’s seen. After the killer attacks her, Ross accompanies Berlin on a stakeout at her dorm room. As Helena stays with Ross’ wife Margie (Kathy Baker), the killer knocks out Berlin and kills his friend with Ross’ service firearm. FBI special agent St. Anne (John Malkovich) believes that Berlin is the killer, but his questions open that last bit of knowledge that the hero of a giallo needs to see the information that he is missing. He thinks Sgt. Taylor is the killer but no one believes him. Margie bails him out. She takes Helena back to her dorm as Berlin races to get there to save him. Yet Taylor catches up to the woman he’s been chasing and then realizes that it’s Margie, who kills him and gets revenge for the loss of her husband.

The director wasn’t happy with how this ended up. Robinson said, “There were four different heads of studio on that movie, they all wanted different things. The worst thing happened before we made the movie and that was having Andy García, great guy that he is, on the movie. I didn’t write it for a handsome young lead, I wrote it for a shagged out old cop like Gene Hackman or Al Pacino…he problem is the moment you see Andy García and Uma Thurman on screen together you think, “That ain’t bad. A couple of romantic leads, that’s nice.” The whole point was that he was this fucked guy; he was Rod Steiger if you like.”

García said that twenty minutes of the film had been cut before its release, including an all-night alcohol binge and more of the interrogation, which he said was the heart of the movie and made for a totally different movie.

Rex Kyōryū Monogatari or Rex: A Dinosaur Story was originally written by Masanori Hata and illustrated by CLAMP. It was serialized in the shojo magazine, Kadokawa Shoten: Asuka, in 1993.

Chie (Yumi Adachi) and her paleontologist father Akiyoshi Tateno discover tyrannosaur eggs and one hatches to bring Rex to our time. Chie becomes his friend and protector. The birth of the dinosaur — he comes from the lost continent of Mu! — allows her to be the mother that her own parent Naomi (Shinobu Otake) never was even when that maternal character comes back into her life to study Rex.

At the end, shaman Mr. Shinoda (Fujio Toneda) takes the cute dinosaur back home, perhaps even to find his mother. There’s also a long sequence where Rex gets to get in all of the Japanese experience of the holidays, which is watching fireworks and feasting on KFC and Coke. If this were an American movie I would be angry at all the product placement but here I find it charming.

The scientists even make Rex into a celebrity and make him appear in all sorts of commercials like anyone who gets famous in Japan. One of them, Morioka (Mitsuru Hirata), even attacks the little creature and decides to become a Yakuza and kidnap Rie and her friend for himself.

Director Haruki Kadokawa was a pretty big deal for some time, producing movies like G.I. Samurai, Virus, Sailor Suit and Machine Gun amongst many others, and directing The Last Hero, Heaven and Earth, Aijou monogatari and more. In 1975, he inherited his father’s publishing company Kadokawa Shoten and announced a new and ambitious plan for his company. They would  produce film adaptations of the best-seller novels and comics of the publishing branch. A few weeks into the release of this movie, Kadokawa was charged with smuggling and embezzling money from his company in order to fund a cocaine addiction. He served two and a half years of a four year sentence, but this movie was pulled from theaters.

He made a comeback and is still making movies.

I loved this movie and if you don’t, stop being cynical. It has a dinosaur dressed in a Christmas outfit running and playing in the snow with the little girl who loves him. It made me tear up numerous times and that’s what all holiday movies should do.

You can download this at the Internet Archive.

From the Urban Dictionary: Trappin: The act of dealing or selling illegal drugs for the accumulation of wealth. Drug dealers often partake in “Trappin.” The word originates from Atlanta. “I was trappin’ on the corner when the 5o rolled up” or “He is trappin’ at the party and making a killing.”

Midnight Black is an Atlanta record producer who has worked with Young Jeezy, 8Ball & MJG, Greg Street and others. He wrote and did the music for this.

Director and co-writer Lisa Maydwell also wrote Haunted Trail, a movie that was on the site a few weeks ago.

As for the story, it’s about Granny Mae (Rita Kendall), who is about to lose her house to the bank, but her grandchildren 808 (Kadar Brown) and TR (Brian Loving) work to use their trappin’ skills to save it. There’s also a sex worker named Pretty Peach (Phyllis “Tank” Allen) who is scammed men out of money, a dude named Mooshie who is running all sorts of scams when he isn’t getting the weird curl in the middle of his heap worked at in the barbershop, a Trap News TV crew with a British girl (Erica “Erica Duchess” Stinchomb) reporting on the goings on and actors named Mr. Fireball, Mr. Elmo, Crum.com and Trap Boi Hot who are all basically yelling at the camera.

Everything that can get called trap in this movie is. Like, there’s trap milk. There’s also an amazing scene when the tax bill comes in and it’s just a piece of paper that has a handwritten note. “Tax bill. $10,000.”

You know how people looked down on Cheech & Chong and then ICP made movies and people saw what Cheech & Chong did as high art? This is kind of like the same thing. That said, everyone has high energy and really believes in what they are doing, even if it’s stuff like a guy named Drum getting made fun of at a barbershop and then screwed over by a girl and then butt naked on the news.

There’s a Bad Santa but I have no idea what Christmas has to do with this other than the fact that the grandmother is losing her home at the worst time of the year. This is not the worst Tubi Christmas movie that I have watched which really says something.

As this movie would say, “Merry Trapmas.”

You can watch this on Tubi.

The Bedrock Community Players presents A Christmas Carol, starring Fred Flintsone as Scrooge, Barney Rubble as Bob Cragit, Betty as Mrs. Cragit, Pebbles as Martha and Bamm-Bamm as Tiny Tim. Mr. Slate is Jacob Marbley and Dino even gets a part as the Cragit’s pet.

Fred becomes Scrooge through method acting making everyone hate him, as he does stuff like forgetting to drop off Pebbles at day care and also pick her up. He makes his wife do everything. This gets harder for her as everyone in the play gets the Bedrock Bug, which is kind of like COVID-19 or so it seems.

Strangely, this cartoon for kids in no way pulls punches, discussing how Tiny Tim won’t make it to next year and featuring Fred lying on his own grave screaming for his life. I have no idea how people explained all of this to their children.

Unlike 1993’s A Flintstone Christmas, this takes place in the classic Flintstones timeline with Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm still children. First showing up in syndication on November 21, 1994, It was directed by Joanna Romersa and written by Glenn Leopold. It was the final full-length Flintstones project for Jean Vanderpyl (Wilma), Don Messick (Bamm Bamm) and Henry Cohen (Fred). The same year, the theatrical film debuted.

I don’t know what turkeysaurus tastes like but I want some.

You can watch this on Tubi.

I’m always kind of interested in when a cartoon revises its characters to become characters from A Christmas Carol. Daffy Duck, yes, I buy him as Scrooge, now running a big store called Lucky Duck and ruining the lives of the other Looney Tunes. Also, because there aren’t all that many Looney Tunes to go around, this has to go deep cut and include characters like Playboy Penguin, Priscilla Pig, Egghead Jr., Henery Hawk and Barnyard Dawg Jr. along with the characters that everyone knows.

Porky is Bob Cratchit, Sylvester the Cat is Jacob Marley, Granny and Tweety are the Ghost of Christmas Past, Yosemite Sam as the Present and Tasmanian Devil is the Future. As for other characters, most of them — Pepé Le Pew, Speedy Gonzales, Marvin the Martian, Elmer Fudd, Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner, Foghorn Leghorn, The Three Bears, Sam Sheepdog, Claude Cat, Charlie Dog, Miss Prissy, Gossamer, Barnyard Dawg, Mac, Tosh, Hippety Hopper, Beaky Buzzard, Pete Puma, Hubie and Bertie  — all work in the store.

Bugs Bunny just starts the whole thing off and keeps coming back to upset the duck. This doesn’t get into the sadness of the Charles Dickens story to the level that A Flintstones Christmas Carol gets into. I mean, that leans into death like no cartoon I’ve seen outside of Japanese ones.

But you know, if you want to put on a modern Looney Tunes and see how they’d treat a classic, here it is. I know that this is where as old man I need to mention that I grew up on the originals and how much better they would be than this, but man, all these battles against the fact that things are always worse and that this was made 17 years ago and there have been worse things since then has diminished my fighting edge.

You can watch this on Tubi.