EDITOR’S NOTE: The Wrecking Crew was on the CBS Late Movie on November 17, 1977 and November 10, 1978.

Directed by Phil Carlson (Walking Tall, Ben), the last of the Matt Helm movies dispenses with screenwriter Herbert Baker, James Gregory as MacDonald and Beverly Adams as Lovey Kravesit.

Thanks to Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood, this is probably the best known of the four Matt Helm movies (not to mention the Tony Franciosa-starring TV series).

Matt Helm is assigned by ICE to bring down Count Contini (Nigel Green, Countess Dracula), who is trying to Auric Goldfinger the world economy. Matt’s assistant is now Freya Carlson (Sharon Tate), a gorgeous but goofball Danish tourism bureau agent.

Elke Sommer (Baron Blood, Lisa and the Devil) and Nancy Kwan (Wonder Women) play the women out to kill Matt. It turns out that Freya is actually a deadly British agent who, of course, ends up in Matt’s bed. It’s kind of funny that Sommer and Green play pretty much the exact characters as they did in Deadlier then the Male.

Matt’s boss is played by John Larch (Bad Ronald, The Amityville Horror) this time and Tina Louise — Ginger Grant herself! — also makes an appearance.

While The Ravagers was revealed as the next Matt Helm movie in the credits, it was not to be. Martin had no interest in returning after the death of Sharon Tate. So when he refused to make the film, Columbia held up his share of the profits on the second Matt Helm film, Murderers’ Row. As we learned from Airport, Dean was about to be rich and no longer care. Man, I wish the proposed Martin and Sinatra double bill of Matt Helm Meets Tony Rome had been made.

This movie is packed with pro wrestlers and karate experts. That makes sense, as Bruce Lee was the karate advisor for the film. Some examples include:

• Karate champion Mike Stone was Dean Martin’s fight double. You may know him better as Elvis’ karate instructor who ran away with his wife Priscilla.
• Prince Wilhelm von Homburg, who is perhaps better known as Vigo the Carpathian in Ghostbusters II.
• Pepper Martin, a pro wrestler who was friends with Woody Strode; he also appears in the 1981s slasher Scream.
• Boxer, stuntman and friend of Henry Miller, Joe Gray.
• Joe Lewis, considered the best American karate fighter in the 1970’s.
• Ed Parker, founder of American Kenpo karate.
• And in his first movie ever, Chuck Norris.

I’m sad to see the Matt Helm movies end. Hollywood has been discussing remaking them, but I’ll always have my four DVD box set to go back to.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz was on the CBS Late Movie on March 8, 1977; January 30 and November 9, 1978.

Director George E. Marshall’s career saw him make movies with Laurel and Hardy, Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, W. C. Fields, Jackie Gleason and Will Rogers. Before that, he was a combat cinematographer with the U.S. Army Signal Corps in France during World War I. He also acted in several films and TV shows. Working from a script by Albert E. Lewin (the director of the 1945 The Picture of Dorian Gray), Nat Perrin (head writer of The Addams Family) and Burt Styler (a TV veteran who wrote the “Edith’s Problem” episode of All In the Family) — based on a story by Ken Englund — this was made on a summer hiatus for Hogan’s Heroes and stars three cast members: Bob Crane (Col. Robert E. Hogan), Werner Klemperer (Col. Wilhelm Klink and a U.S. Army veteran), John Banner (Sergeant Hans Georg Schultz; a Jewish Austrian, he defended being on the show by saying, “Schultz is not a Nazi. I see Schultz as the representative of some kind of goodness in any generation.”) and Leon Askin (who was General Burkhalter and whose parents died in an actual German concentration camp).

Paula Schultz (Elke Sommer, Baron Blood, Lisa and the Devil) has been training for the Olympics as part of the East German team. The truth is that she has been learning the pole vault so she can go over the Berlin Wall where she’s taken by con man Bill Mason (Crane) to his friend in the CIA, Herb Sweeney (Joey Forman).

Bill isn’t into the West vs. East Cold War. Instead, he loves money. He’s willing to take money from either side for Paula and she loves him. Crushed, she goes back to her home, only for him to realize that he had Elke Sommer and then he goes back to her homeland dressed as a woman to win her back.

This has even deeper Hogan’s Heroes connections as several of the actors in it played guest roles on the show. Theodore Marcuse had three roles, General Freidrich von Heiner, Pierre and Ludwig Strasser, as did Larry D. Mann, who was Illyich Igor Zagoskin, SS General Brenner and Doctor Vanetti. Overachiever John Myhers was in four different  episodes as Colonel Schneider, Dr. Hermann Felzer, General Wittkamper and Field Marshal von Heinke. Barbara Morrison was in just one as Mrs. Gretchen Schultz.

Not many would remember this movie today if it wasn’t for Quentin Tarantino. Chapter 7 (“The Lonely Grave of Paula Schultz”) in Kill Bill Vol. 2. comes from this movie, as does the name of Dr. King Schultz’s (Christoph Waltz) wife in Django Unchained.

As the Godfather of Gore states in that intro to this film in its Arrow Video release, this is the one movie that rivals Blood Feast for box office and was his answer to the question, “Why don’t you stop cutting up all those girls and kill some men?”

This time through, I watched the film with commentary by H.G. Lewis and Something Weird’s Mike Vraney. This commentary track is a real joy, with Lewis quite honest about his faults as a filmmaker while giving tips for would be exploitation creations for how to film things properly. I wasn’t sure how much more I could love this movie, but this release exponentially increased my ardor.

Filmed with a legitimate cast of biker riding women, this movie is years ahead of its time. Heck, it’s years ahead of its time now. These women outride, outfight and dominate every man they meet with no apologies whatsoever. Even Karen, our would-be protagonist, after being forced to kill a lover by dragging him behind her hog, still stays with the Maneaters. They terrorize Florida and every human being they meet because they’re outside of the scope of humanity. They’re superheroes — well, supervillains — who can’t be stopped.

I love that Lewis realizes that adding on a post-credits scene in 1968 was a mistake. It was often trimmed or audiences left before they saw it. The film can’t end with the Maneaters in jail. They speak almost directly to the camera, promising more chaos. It’s as if they’re the biker gang Avengers years before anyone would think to film such a sequence.

I also love that Karen rejects the straight world and her ex-boyfriend Joe, who wants things to be the way they always were. The women in this movie reject the roles their gender has enforced upon them and instead have no issues slicing, dicing, tearing and maiming their way through their rival gang, led by Joe Boy. The fact that he’s a slice of mom and pop Americana, with bleached blonde good looks and it’s astounding — not to be a broken record — that the film ends with her rejecting white picket fences and a certain future.

H.G. Lewis made 33 films between 1962 and 1972. Those films would run in drive-ins for years before the adventure of the VCR and Something Weird would bring them back to viewers. Most of these movies had lower budgets than this and less time ($60,000 spent over two weeks), but they all exhibit a zeal and love for shock and showing you something different than you’ve ever seen before. Lewis remains affable and happy throughout the commentary, the kind of uncle you wish you had who’d done some crazy things in his past and wasn’t shy about sharing them with you. The loss of both he and Mike Vraney are palpable.

You can watch this on Tubi.

The poster for The Acid Eaters is, of course, a billion times better than the movie it’s selling, but how many films have a bunch of people climbing a fifty-foot tower of LSD cubes? One that I can think of.

Under the name B. Ron Elliott, this film’s director, Byron Mabe, made a nudie cutie with perhaps the best title ever, A Smell of Honey, a Swallow of Brine. He also directed She Freak, The Lustful Turk, Nude Django, Mystic Mountain Massacre and Space Thing amongst others. In between making these berserk movies, he was an actor in Hollywood.

Writer Carl Monson would direct a few movies too, like A Scream in the Streets, Please Don’t Eat My Mother!, Will to Die (AKA Legacy of Blood), The Takers and the x-rated Tarz and Jane and Cheeta, which had Devil In Ms. Jones star Georgina Spelvin, Talia Cochrane (Wham! Bam! Thank You Spaceman!, Devil’s Ecstasy) and Patrick Wright (The Seven Minutes, Track of the Moon Beast) in it.

Pat Harrington, who was in plenty of Harry Novak movies and Mantis In Lace, is in this, billed as Camille Grant and dancing to bongo drums. So are former pro wrestler Buck Kartalian, who you may know as The Khan from Gymkata, and Sharon Carr, who was in the aforementioned A Smell of Honey is on hand.

There’s a drone soundtrack, David F. Friedman serving as the cinematographer and the devil poking people in the butt while they’re all trying to kiss in the nude. Look, I’ve never done LSD, but I would hope that it is not as boring as this movie and totally as sensational as the poster for this one.

With a newly made title that runs over scenes from Son of Godzilla — broken by a red border at times — this movie starts with a copyright from Film Ventures International for a movie they did not make or possibly even own — “© Copyright in video, music, editing, special effects, packaging, and design. Film Ventures International Inc. 1990”.

This movie started as a vehicle for the Japanese version of King Kong, with the title Operation Robinson Crusoe: King Kong vs. Ebirah. It was rejected by Rankin/Bass Productions, the folks who created all your favorite holiday specials and who had the rights to Kong, producing a licensed TV show — The King Kong Show — which was amongst the first original cartoons to be produced in Japan for Americans.

King Kong’s role was replaced with Godzilla under the title Ebirah, Horror of the Deep*. It’s the first of two Godzilla films — Son of Godzilla is the other — set on a South Pacific island instead of Japan.

What most filmmakers have never realized is that no one cares at all about the humans in these stories. As a child and an adult, I do not care if people find their brothers that have been lost or if the Red Bamboo terrorist group sells heavy water weapons. I only care to see the monster crab named Ebirah and our friend Godzilla fight.

Yet as an old man, I also feel for Godzilla, who just wants to hide in a cave and sleep after defeating the menace of Ghidorah. Instead, these kids make a lightning rod** and zap him to awareness before he has to kill a giant condo (which is totally a Rodan costume), knock down some jets and then set that big crustacean*** straight by ripping his claws off.

Bonus points to Godzilla to remembering that just because Mothra**** is the friend of humanity, she and he are not on speaking terms. The movie ends with another big battle, an island getting blown up real good and Godzilla going back into the murky depths. Soon, he would meet his son, but that’s a story for another day.

This one has a really lower budget and reused the Daisenso-Goji suit. At some point during filming, the head of this suit was combined with the Mosu-Goji suit for episode ten of Ultraman to create the monster Jirass. That head was replaced with a different head that shows up after Godzilla fights the Red Bamboo and is noticeable for the bug eyes and raised eyebrows.

A lizard with eyebrows. This is why I love Godzilla.

*It’s known by so many names around the world, but my favorites are Germany’s Frankenstein and the Monster from the Ocean, Poland’s Ebirah: The Monster of Magic and Holland’s Mothra the Flying Dracula Monster.

**Godzilla being powered by electricity is totally because the script was written for the Japanese King Kong, who is powered that way. It’s also why he’s so protective of Dayo, as falling for human females is a Kong characteristic.

***Ebirah’s name comes from the Japanese word ebi. That means shrimp, so he’s really one of those and not a crab, but he has crab claws, so…

****This is the last Showa-era Godzilla film where Mothra’s twin helpers the Shobijin, appear. They’re played by the same actress, Pair Bambi, instead of The Peanuts (Emi and Yumi Itô).