Tag Archives: 1966

The Sizzlin’ Something Weird Summer Challenge 2024: The Wages of Sin (1966)

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Roadshow Rarities (June 30 – July 6) In the old days of theatrical releases some of the more lavish movies would be promoted by holding limited screenings in large cities. These roadshow releases would generate hype before the nationwide release and allow producers to tweak the film to the audience’s reaction. This model also worked for low budget productions that may have had no intention of a wide release. These explo roadshows traveled an informal circuit of theaters, churches, revival tents, high school auditoriums and anywhere else they could run a projector. They frequently promised more than they delivered and left town before the angry audience could catch up to them. Through the restoration efforts of SWV many of these movies have survived to piss audiences off to this very day!

Somehow, this West German movie originally called The Doctor Speaks Out (Der Arzt stellt fest…) played to American audiences as The Wages of Sin and The Price of Sin. Sure, in its native country it was a mediation on abortion, but over here, it was a chance to see a woman fully nude. Never mind that she was having a baby at the time.

Being that this played the grindhouse circuit, it also came complete with a not-real doctor discussing the miracle of birth and then, yes, showing more babies come out into the world in shocking detail.

Those moments are on the Something Weird blu ray re-release that Kino Lorber has just put out. You also get a second movie, The Misery and Fortune of Women, audio commentary by film historian Alexandra Heller-Nicholas a medical lecture and book pitch by Donn Davison, who released this movie in America and two baby birthing films, Life and Its Secrecies and Triplets by Cesarean Section.

What an astounding time for movies. And just think — you can have this on your shelf, just like I do, when someone is at your house and wonders, “You know, I’ve always wanted to see triplets get cut out of a human being.”

Junesploitation: The She Beast (1966)

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June 27: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Barbara Steele! We’re excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what’s next.

Michael Reeves only directed three movies: this film, The Sorcerers and Witchfinder General. He also had something to do with Castle of the Living Dead* and assisted Don Siegel, worked for Jack Cardiff on The Long Ships and for Henry Levin on his movie Genghis Khan.

Made in 21 days for hardly any money — even when Barbara Steele made $1,000 for one day of work, that day was 18 hours long — and most of the crew is in the movie. Reeves also wrote the script, along with F. Amos Powell and Mel Welles (the director of Lady Frankenstein), under the name Michael Byron.

Two hundred years ago in Transylvania, a witch named Vardella was burned at the stake, but not before threatening to come back for revenge. This would end up ruining the honeymoon of Philip (Ian Ogilvy) and Veronica (Barbara Steele) and that’s not even counting the squalid hotel owned by Ladislav Groper (Welles).

As they enjoy breakfast, Count Von Helsing (John Karlsen) delights in sharing the legend of Dracula and the story Vardella. Well, those foreigners have no interest in this weird old man and blow him off. That night, Phillip catches Groper peeping on his wife and beats him into oblivion. If that doesn’t make this a rough wedding getaway, he wrecks their car into a lake and when they pull out his new bride, it’s the dead body of the witch instead of the gorgeous Steele.

Now, Phillip has to make nice with Von Helsing and be part of his plan to take this dead body, drug it and perform an exorcism to get his wife back. It seems like a lot of work, but I’ve done so much more for women who couldn’t stand in the brightness of Steele’s flawless alabaster skin.

How do you kill a witch? You drown it. That’s also how you find out if someone is a witch.

This played double features in America — distributed by American-International Pictures — with The Embalmer. 

*Depending on who is asked, Reeves either did minor second unit work, a polish on the script’s dwarf character, a complete takeover of the movie or nothing at all.

You can watch this on YouTube.

The Sizzlin’ Something Weird Summer Challenge 2024: Red Roses of Passion (1966)

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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?

Junesploitation: Come svaligiammo la Banca d’Italia (1966)

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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.

Except that Fulci wrote Toto In the Moon and directed The Thieves, Letto a tre piazze, The Swindlers, I Maniaci, I due evasi di Sing Sing, Oh! Those Most Secret Agents, I due pericoli pubblici, How We Got into Trouble with the Army, 002 Operazione Luna, The Two Parachutists, How We Stole the Atomic Bomb, Operation St. Peter’s, The Eroticist, Dracula in the Provinces, My Sister-In-Law and The Long, the Short, the Cat.

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).

Fulci wrote this with Roberto Gianviti (who wrote 134 movies including Don’t Torture a Duckling, Murder Rock, A Lizard In a Woman’s Skin and The Psychic) and Amedeo Sollazzo (who wrote the Italian Western with my favorite title, God Was in the West, Too, at One Time) from a story by Alfonso Brescia, who would use the name Al Bradley to make the music video-like Ator movie Iron Warrior, as well as the director of The Beast In Space and a whole galaxy full of Italian space operas.

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.

You can watch this on YouTube.

RADIANCE FILMS BLU RAY RELEASE: Misunderstood (1966)

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John Duncombe (Anthony Quayle), the British consul in Florence, has come home from his wife’s funeral and makes the decision to tell his son Andrea (Stefano Colagrande) that his mother is dead. He hides the truth from his other son, Milo (Simone Giannozzi). 

Andrea has to become a grown-up well before he should, while Milo is allowed to be a child and can act has badly as he wants. As for their father, he becomes absent from their lives until it is almost too late.

Director Luigi Comencini understands the time that exists and is so fragile between being a child and an adult. He shows how all three of these men navigate this loss in their own ways. It’s a really dramatic film that made me consider how I went from a child to a grown-up and how my father made his journey as well.

This was remade in 1984 as Misunderstood with Gene Hackman in the lead role.

The Radiance Films blu ray of Misunderstood has a 2K restoration from the original negative, as well as extras such as interviews with co-screenwriter Piero De Bernardi, Cristina Comencini and Michel Ciment; a visual essay by David Cairns on Comencini and the filmmaker’s affinity for childhood stories and a trailer. This limited edition of 3000 copies is presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings. There’s also a reversible sleeve featuring designs based on original promotional materials and a limited edition booklet featuring new writing by critic Manuela Lazic and a newly translated archival interview with Comencini.

You can get it from MVD.

RE/SEARCH Incredibly Strange Films: Mondo Topless (1966)

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“Two Much For One Man…Russ Meyer’s Busty Buxotic Beauties … Titilating … Torrid … Untopable … Too Much For One Man!”

After going from nudies to roughies, Russ Meyer made this mondo film that explores San Francisco as well as the women who dance there in one of the first cities that permitted them to dance topless. As they show themselves to the camera, there’s a non-stop barrage of a narrator speaking, the girls being interviewed and distorted guitars.

The women who appear include Bouncy, who is Babette “44-24-38 World’s Most Sensational Exotic Entertainer” Bardot, who also appeared in Meyer’s Common Law Cabin; Pat Barrington, who was in Mantis In Lace and dated jazz musician and serial killer Melvin Rees; Lucious (Sin Lenee); Buxotic (Darlene Gray); Yummy (Diane Young); Delicious (Darla Paris); Xciting (Donna X) and footage from Europe in the Raw of Veronique Gabriel, Greta Thorwald, Denice Duval, Abundavita, Heide Richter, Gigi La Touche and Yvette Le Grand. There’s also screentest footage from Lorna of Lorna Maitland.

Pat Barrington says in this “All you’re doing is a dance – it has no meaning whatsoever” and she’s right. This is an hour and fifty-five minutes of women dancing nude in front of radios. What must a girl possess to measure up as a topless dancer? She must have a body well above the average in physical beauty – unblemished by an uneven suntan!” This is as pure a journey into what Euss Meyer wanted to see — well, he called it “crud” and made it just to make money — if he were the paying customer. I kind of enjoyed Abundavita, who has antenna of some sort. Also, Yvette LeGrand dances at the Crazy Horse and that reminds me that as dumb as Motley Crue was, they wrote “Girl, Girls, Girls” and that ensured they’d get free lap dances at every bar they mentioned (those would be the now closed Dollhouse in Ft. Lauderdale, Tattletails in Atlanta, the Seventh Veil on the Sunset Strip, Crazy Horse in Paris, the Body Shop in Hollywood, the closed Tropicana in Los Angeles and the closed Marble Arch in Vancouver).

This movie has no redeeming value unless you like to watch naked women dance next to trains. Maybe I do, you know?

RE/SEARCH Incredibly Strange Films: The Frozen Dead (1966)

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Directed, written and produced by Herbert J. Leder, this is all about Nazi scientist Dr. Norberg (Dana Andrews), who has taken over an English estate and is unfreezing soldiers that have been iced up for twenty years. What he gets are zombies like his brother (Edward Fox) and Elsa (Kathleen Breck), the best friend of his niece Jean (Anna Palk), who is now a living head. His commanding officers General Lubeck (Karel Stepanek) and Captain Tirptiz (Basil Henson) have been told he’s doing a great job but all he can freeze is the body and not the brain. He brings in American scientist Ted Roberts (Philip Gilbert) to help him, a man who is not aware that there are 1,500 frozen soldiers all over the world.

How did that smart man come in, see a wall of arms and a decapitated female head that is still alive and think, “Everything seems totally fine.”

Although The Frozen Dead was shot and released in UK theaters and on U.S. TV in color, the U.S. theatrical release prints of it were released in black-and-white in order to save money. It played double features with another Leder movie, It! 

This is not the first movie I have seen where a disembodied female head just wants to die.

RADIANCE FILMS BLU RAY RELEASE: Black Tight Killers (1966)

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Daisuke Honda (Akira Kobayashi) meets stewardess Yuriko Sawanouchi (Chieko Matsubara) on a plane from Vietnam to Japan. After a date at a Tokyo nightclub, they are attacked by female ninjas. She’s kidnapped by men in trenchcoats, he’s in love and that’s all we need to get the action started.

Directed by Yasuharu Hasebe, the criminals all think that Yuriko’s father has taken gold from Okinawa at the start of the war. The ninjas want to return it to the people, the masked men want the money for themselves and Honda just wants to save the girl. Also: the female ninjas have record album weapons and spit deadly gum at people. They also have side work as go go dancers. If it sounds incredible, well, it is.

I’m so glad that Radiance released this, as I may never have seen it. It’s really something!

The Radiance Films blu ray of this movie has commentary by Jasper Sharp, an interview with director Yasuharu Hasebe, a trailer, a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow and a limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Japanese cinema expert Chris D. You can get it from MVD.

FVI WEEK: Gamera Strikes Back (1966)

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According to Michael Callari — who posted the YouTube video linked below — Film Ventures International began using a legal loophole while releasing movies on VHS in 1989. They took several films and created their own opening and closing credits using footage from a different movie, then claimed that the movie in between was just a clip.

Nine of the FVI movies that aired on Mystery Science 3000 used this magic trick on the legal system. They include:

  • Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster
  • Cave Dwellers (Ator the Blade Master)
  • Pod People (Extra Terrestrial Visitors)
  • Stranded In Space (The Stranger)
  • Master Ninja I (The Master)
  • Master Ninja II (The Master)
  • Space Travelers (Marooned)
  • City Limits
  • Being from Another Planet (Time Walker)

Gamera Strikes Back, which FVI released on home video, also has this alteration, basing their credits off of scenes from Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster. Of course, they didn’t own that footage, so who can even say how this really was legal.

As that footage is impossible to find, Michael made this version of what he thinks it looked like:

Now, on to the movie.

Also known as War of the Monsters in the U.S. thanks to its English-language dubbing by American International Television, the second Gamera film has twice the budget of the first and realizes what they should have known all along: Gamera isn’t the villain. He’s the good guy and ready to defend children against more dangerous kaiju.

Those dumb scientists and their Z Plan rocket didn’t count on a meteorite letting Gamera escape and come back to Earth. Meanwhile, three ex-soldiers invade a cave — a scorpion kills one and treachery another — before bringing an opal to the surface. And that jewel? It’s an egg. And it’s hatching.

It becomes a lizard called Barugon, who can breathe freezing gas and launch rainbow rays from the seven spines on its back. These are all weapons that can do great damage to our turtle protector.

How do you defeat an undefeatable monster who freezes our hero again? Mirrors and drowning. Yes, Gamera straight up holds Barugon’s head under the waters of Lake Biwa.

In Germany, they screwed up the translation and call Gamera Barugon and Barugon Godzilla. Those versions are titled Godzilla, der Drache aus dem Dschungel (Godzilla, the Dragon from the Jungle), Godzilla, Monster des Grauens (Godzilla, the Monster of Horror) and Gamera vs. Godzilla.

You can watch this on Tubi and Vudu. You can also download it from the Internet Archive.

A… For Assassin (1966)

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Balsorano Castle has been the location of many of my favorite movies: Lady Frankenstein, Bloody Pit of Horror, The Lickerish Quartet, The Blade Master, Black Magic Rites, The Devil’s Wedding Night, Crypt of the Vampire, The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance, Sister Emanuelle and more.

In this early giallo, it’s the home of British millionaire John Prescott, who dies at the beginning and brings together his seven potential heirs, all of whom could have killed him. They are Martha (Giovanna Galletti, the Baroness from Kill, Baby, Kill), his secretary Giacomo (Sergio Ciani, who was also Alan Steel; he started as Steve Reeves’ body double and appeared in Hercules Against the Moon Men and Samson and the Slave Queen), his mentally handicapped son Julien (Charlie Karum), nephew George (Ivano Staccioli, also known as John Heston; he’s in 3 colpi di Winchester per Ringo) and his wife Adriana (Aichè Nanà, whose dancing during a November 1958 private party at the Rugantino restaurant and nightclub on the Viale di Trastevere in Rome led to a national scandal and inspired a scene in La dolce vita), and niece Angela (Mary Arden, who not only was in Blood and Black Lace but also wrote the American dialogue) and her boyfriend Armand (Ivano Davoli).

Prescott leaves behind a recorded will in which he tells each of the gathered guests just how much he hates them. In order to get his money, they have to live together for a month. Then, only three of them can claim it, so that means that at least four people need to be killed for his plan to work.

There’s a dagger with an A in the handle that figures into many of the murders — as the U.S. title was M… for Murderer, the site Euro Fever believes that the scenes with the knife were shot twice and there was an M on the murder weapon — and despite being produced by Walter Brandi (The Vampire and the Ballerina, The Playgirls and the Vampire) and having white nightgowns and candleabras, this leans more giallo than gothic, even if it all takes place in a castle. Italian gothiciallo?

Based on an Ernesto Gastaldi play, this is a movie that even has a flashback halfway through it to show you everything you’ve already seen. Despite that, I have to admit to loving this. It was directed by Angelo Dorigo and written by Sergio Bazzini and Roberto Natale.

You can watch this on YouTube.