Tag Archives: 1968

ARROW 4K UHD AND BLU RAY RELEASE: Barbarella (1968)

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Shot directly after Mario Bava’s Danger: Diabolik, this Roger Vadim-directed movie is based on the comic book of the same name by Jean-Claude Forest. The film stars Vadim’s then-wife Jane Fonda as Barbarella, a United Earth agent sent to find scientist Durand Durand, who has created a weapon that could destroy humanity.

Vadim was hired to direct this film after producer Dino De Laurentiis purchased the rights. This led to Vadim looking to cast several actresses in the title role, including Virna Lisi, Brigitte Bardot (that’s who the character was originally based on) and Sophia Loren before ending up picking his wife.

In case you’re wondering why this movie is such a mess, Charles B. Griffith was the last writer to work on it, saying that he had done uncredited work on the script after fifteen other writers — including Terry Southern — worked on the movie.

This film is packed with fashion, amazing sets — you can credit Bava’s film for some of that, and great characters, like John Phillip Law (who used the break in shooting to be in the aforementioned Danger: Diabolik) as Pygar the angel, Anita Pallenberg (Performance) as the Black Queen, Milo O’Shea as Durand-Durand, Marcel Marceau in a rare speaking role as Professor Ping, David Hemmings (Deep Red) as Dildano and even cameos from Fabio Testi and Antonio Sabato (who was originally to play the role that Hemmings ended up doing).

So yeah. This is a gorgeous film that makes no sense whatsoever. Is that such a bad thing? I first watched this as a child on HBO and I think when the part came in which the birds tear apart Barbarella’s clothes, my parents decided that it was time for me to go to bed. I was hooked on movies that were seen as being wrong for me to watch and Italian-shot films.

A sequel was planned with producer Robert Evans called Barbarella Goes Down, but it never happened. Nor did a 1990 remake, a Robert Rodriguez idea or a potential project with Nicolas Winding Refn, who moved on to other projects, saying, “…certain things are better left untouched. You don’t need to remake everything.”

The Arrow Video release of Barbarella is, as you always expect, overflowing with features. It starts with a brand new 4K restoration from the original negative by Arrow Films, all inside a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tula Lotay. It comes with a double-sided fold-out poster featuring the same artwork, six double-sided postcards and an illustrated book with new writing on the movie by Anne Billson, Paul Gravett, Véronique Bergen and Elizabeth Castaldo Lundén, and select archival material.

There’s audio commentary by film critic Tim Lucas, as well as alternative opening and closing credits in 4K with Dolby Vision and the isolated score.

Extras include an appreciation by film critic Glenn Kenny, a two-hour in-depth discussion between film and cultural historians Tim Lucas and Steve Bissette, a feature on the costume designs, an interview with camera operator Roberto Girometti, actor/director Ricky Tognazzi discussing the life and work of his father Ugo Tognazzi, an interview with Fabio Testi, a video essay by Eugenio Ercolani on producer Dino De Laurentiis, a trailer, U.S. TV and radio commercials and an image gallery.

You can get it on 4K UHD or blu ray from MVD.

Spagvemberfest 2023: A Pistol for 100 Coffins (1968)

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Also known as El sabor del odio (The Taste of Hate), A Gun for One Hundred Graves and Vengeance, this Italian-Spanish Western was directed by Umberto Lenzi and written by Marco Leto, Vittorio Salerno and Eduardo Manzanos.

Jim Slade (Peter Lee Lawrence) had it rough in the Civil War. He’s a Jehovah’s Witness, so he refused to shoot other soldiers. He’s locked up in a labor camp for cowardice before being pardoned. When he gets home, he finds that his parents are dead.

Jim gets over that whole thing about not killing people pretty quick, taking out three of the four suspects quickly. That’s when he goes after their leader, Texas Corbett (Piero Lulli), which brings him to Galveston. Seconds after he shows up, he meets a preacher by the name of Douglas (John Ireland) and witnesses a bank robbery. He soon learns that Corbett was behind that robbery, so he gets the job of sheriff so he can legally hunt down and kill him.

This feels like an Italian Western mixtape with a weird undertaker (A Fistful of Dollars) and an end battle in a cemetery (Django). Then again, if you get upset with every Italian movie that rips something off, you’re going to be angry your entire life.

My favorite thing about this is that even though Jim is now able to kill people, he only drinks water. Never whiskey.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Spagvemberfest 2023: Vengeance (1968)

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Jokko Barrat (Richard Harrison, years before he would appear in so many Godfrey Ho movies), Richie (Alberto Dell’Acqua, one of the many undead in Zombi), Domingo (Luciano Pigozzi, who appears in so many movies and always gives me so much joy when he shows up) and Mendoza (Claudio Camaso, the brother of Gian Maria Volonté. Unlike his leftist brother, Claudio was ultra-fascist to the point that he may have planted a bomb at an entrance to Vatican City. He was exonerated, but years later was arrested for strangling a friend to death and then killed himself in jail) have a plan to steal gold from some bandits, but are betrayed by Domingo. Mendoza dies and Ricky is tortured before between torn apart by horses.

Jokko follows the five men and Mendoza, killing them one by one and leaving part of a bloody rope — the same that was used to kill Ricky — all while being followed by a detective (Paolo Gozlino).

As much a gothic horror film as a Western, this was directed and written by Antonio Margheriti. The end even takes place in a mine and feels like its more Italian horror than cowboy epic. I’ve seen some reviews that say that this is a typical Western, but I wonder what movie they were watching.

You can watch this on YouTube.

MILL CREEK SCI-FI CLASSICS: Zontar, the Thing from Venus (1967)

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Zontar, the Thing from Venus is one of the many remakes of Roger Corman movies — this one is It Conquered the World — directed by Larry Buchanan.

This starts at a dinner party. That’s where NASA scientist Dr. Keith Ritchie (Anthony Huston) reveals to Dr. Curt Taylor (John Agar) that he’s been secretly meeting with an alien from Venus named Zontar who is coming to solve all of Earth’s issues. A dinner party would not seem to be the time to do this.

Zontar ends up being a three-eyed, bat-winged, skeletal black creature and I don’t want to be one of those people that judges people by their outside appearances, but I don’t think Zontar has any intention of making the world a better place.

Not even when Zontar starts possessing people with lobster injecto-pods does Ritchie think this friend is a horrific alien monster. No, it takes his wife Martha (Patricia De Laney) dying before he does something about it. Scientists are really smart and also so dumb.

Don’t have the box set? You can watch this on Tubi.

Spagvemberfest 2023: The Mercenary (1968)

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As he watches the circus, Sergei “Polack” Kowalski (Franco Nero) thinks that one of the performers is Paco Roman (Tony Musante), which makes him think back to when they were revolutionaries and battled against another mercenary named Curly (Jack Palance).

Much like another Nero character, Django, Kowalski has a gun that gives him a big advantage, a Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun. Paco hires him to teach him how to lead a revolution. They go from town to town, stealing money, horses and weapons, even adding another member to their group, Columbia (Giovanna Ralli, What Have They Done to Your Daughters?).

Yet Paco and Kowalski soon start fighting over how much it costs to have him be part of the revolution. Finally, Paco imprisons him and marries Colombia, but then Curly and his men attack. He tries to free Kowalski, who turns the tables on him and he has to be saved by his wife.

Back to the circus, where Curly and his men attack. Kowalski kills them all and gives each man a bullet for their final duel. Then, he takes Paco to collect the reward only for Colombia to betray them both or so it seems before she and the circus performers create a diversion big enough for our two heroes to use machine guns to kill every one of their enemies. Kowalski suggests to Paco that they should be mercenaries, not understanding the dream of the revolution.

Director Sergio Corbucci set the standard for violence in Italian Westerns in movies like Django and The Great Silence before making comedies. Yes, somehow, the same man who made Super Fuzz made the most depressing Western ever, one that leaves its hero and his lover dead in the snow.

You can watch this on Tubi.

MILL CREEK SCI-FI CLASSICS: Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968)

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Roger Corman knows how to get the most out of a movie. He turned the Russian Planeta Bur into both Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet and this movie. The former* has new scenes with Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue, but the latter has one major reason to watch: Mamie Van Doren.

The pedigree of this movie is pretty wild, because it was adapted by Peter Bogdanovich, who chose not to have his name credited on the final film. And let’s not forget that this all ties back — since Corman loved to recycle what he recycled — into the early Francis Ford Coppola cheapy and Mill Creek box set favorite, Battle Beyond the Sun.

Five male astronauts and their robot John land on Venus and are attacked by a pterodactyl and then an entire culture of women, including Van Doren. Amongst their number are Verba (Mary Marr, who would go on to edit Rolfe Kanefsky’s softcore movies), Twyla (Paige Lee), Meriama (Irene Orton), Wearie (Pam Helton) and Mayaway (Margot Hartman, who in addition to being in this movie, would go on to be the chairman of the board of the First Stamford Corporation, one of the largest privately held commercial real estate companies in the State of Connecticut; she also wrote and starred in Violent Midnight, Descendant and The Curse of the Living Corpse).

Bogdonovich was asked by Corman to work on the film, as American-International Pictures wanted some girls in it, so he hired Mamie Van Doren and an entire cast of blondes, then went and filmed them for five days and did the narration.

Despite the fact that this had to be remixed together, you have to love the ending, where the robot left behind becomes the new god of Venus. Spoiler warning for a 52-year-old film…

*Curtis Harrington adapted that movie.

You can watch this on YouTube.

MILL CREEK SCI-FI CLASSICS: King of Kong Island (1968)

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I love this movie because I know that it upset people so much. It was titled King of Kong Island and there’s no King Kong, there’s barely an island and it’s so Italian that you know that I was yelling things in pure joy throughout the entire movie. Eva, la Venere selvaggia didn’t even know that in America people expected it to be something it couldn’t be.

Albert Muller (Marc Lawrence, the man who would make Pigs) is putting radios into the heads of gorillas to control them. These apes kidnap Diana (Ursula Davis, An Angel for Satan, Crypt of the Vampire) and Burt Dawson (Brad Harris) attempts to save her before being abducted by natives who are led by a white girl because that’s how movies work.

She’s Eva (Esmeralda Barros, God Is My Colt 45) and she doesn’t fall in love with Burt. No, she’s just kind of there. He’s into Diana. I’m also making this sound way more action-filled than it is because it’s packed with long moments of talking yet the beat up print and fuzzy noises that approximate a soundtrack on the Mill Creek box set that I viewed this on made me feel like I was lying in a sleeping bag with my feet under a warm old Zenith TV as a kid and I had no responsibility or anywhere to be.

Director Roberto Mauri also made He Was Called Holy Ghost.

Spagvemberfest 2023 and Arrow Video Savage Guns box set: The Four of the Apocalypse (1975)

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Salt Flats, Utah. 1873. Professional gambler Stubby Preston (Fabio Testi, Contraband) is arrested the moment he steps off the stagecoach, thwarting his plans to win money from the town’s casino. It turns out that he’s actually lucky, because the town has become a vigilante mob that burns that den of iniquity to the ground, leaving only Stubby and three other criminals alive: Bunny (Lynne Frederick, Phase IV), a pregnant prostitute, a black man named Bud and the alcoholic Clem (Michael J. Pollard, Bonnie and Clyde).

The four are given safe passage out of town by the sheriff, who gives them a wagon and horses for all of their remaining money and possessions. Soon, they are traveling with a Mexican gunman named Chaco (Tomas Milian, Don’t Torture a Duckling) who saves the group from lawmen, only to torture one of the remaining lawmen in front of the group.

Nevertheless, everyone agrees to take peyote together. The four wake up tied up as Chaco (Milian claims he based his performance on Manson) taunts and beats them, shooting Clem and raping Bunny in front of the entire group.

There have been rumors for decades that Frederick and Testi were having an affair during this film. Testi was dating Ursula Andress at the time, who was incredibly jealous. Some evidence is that even when Frederick’s scenes were all wrapped, the two actors improvised scenes that would include the two of them, including a love scene that has been lost. During the aforementioned rape scene, Milian was so into character and so rough that Testi’s reaction in that scene is real.

The four manage to get the gravely injured Clem onto a makeshift stretcher and follow Chaco and his gang as they kill everything in their path. Finally, they find a ghost town where Clem dies, Bud loses his mind and Stubby and Bunny admit that they love one another — just in time for her to die in childbirth and Stubby to leave her son to a town made up of only men.

Stubby hunts down Chaco, learning that the sheriff set up the events of the entire movie. Enraged, he murders every single person there, leaving Cacho alive so that he can torture him. When Chaco reminds him that he raped Bunny, Stubby shoots him without a word, as he walks into the sunset with only a stray dog as a companion.

Four of the Apocalypse… is influenced by Easy Rider and attempts to offer up a journey of redemption, but you have to understand that Fulci is at the helm. That means that as soon as you have a tender, feel-good moment, you’re going to be given moments of pure gore, like people skinned alive or used for food. Yet there’s also art to be found, thanks to Fulci’s first of ten collaborations with cinematographer Sergio Salvati. It’s also the first time Fulci would work with Fabio Frizzi on the soundtrack. The result is unlike anything you’ve heard in a spaghetti western.

Arrow Video’s Savage Guns box set has high definition 2K restorations of all four films from the original 35mm camera negatives, with El Puro newly restored by Arrow Films. Plus, you get brand new introductions to each film by journalist and critic Fabio Melelli, an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the films by author and critic Howard Hughes, a fold-out double-sided poster featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx and limited edition packaging with reversible sleeves featuring original artwork and a slipcover featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx.

Four of the Apocalypse has new audio commentary by author and producer Kat Ellinger, an appreciation of the movie by Stephen Thrower, a deep dive into the soundtrack with Lovely Jon Newly, a trailer and an image gallery.

You can get this set from MVD.

Spagvemberfest 2023 and Arrow Video Savage Guns box set: I Want Him Dead (1968)

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Clayton (Craig Hill) has been working for three years to earn money only to learn that money from the Confederacy is no longer worth anything. He comes back home and soon his sister Mercedes (Christina Businari) is assaulted and killed by two of Mallek’s (Andrea Bosic) thugs. Clayton can’t even go to the sheriff for help, because he killed that man’s brother in self-defense. Mallek also wants the Civil War to keep on warring, so he has a plan to kill off the generals who are in the middle of peace talks.

I haven’t seen many of Paolo Bianchini’s films before. He also made The Devil’s Man, Superargo and the Faceless Giants, God Made Them… I Kill Them, Gattling Gun and Hey Amigo! A Toast to Your Death. He’s still making movies. Il profumo delle Zagare was released in 2022.

The writer was Carlos Sarabia, who only wrote this movie, and everything looks great thanks to cinematographer Ricardo Andreu, who also filmed Beyond Terror, Assignment Terror, The Price of Power and Labios rojos.

I love that there’s someone on IMDB that points out that everyone uses Colt Single Action Army revolvers that didn’t come out until 13 years after this movie was set. There’s that and the fact that it’s set in a desert while the actual peace talks between Grant and Lee took place in Virginia.

But come on! We’re here for revenge, not a history class.

Arrow Video’s Savage Guns box set has high definition 2K restorations of all four films from the original 35mm camera negatives, with El Puro newly restored by Arrow Films. Plus, you get brand new introductions to each film by journalist and critic Fabio Melelli, an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the films by author and critic Howard Hughes, a fold-out double-sided poster featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx and limited edition packaging with reversible sleeves featuring original artwork and a slipcover featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx.

I Want Him Dead has new commentary by critics Adrian J. Smith and David Flint, new interviews with director Paolo Bianchini and editor Eugenio Alabiso, a trailer and an image gallery.

You can get this set from MVD.

CHILLER THEATER MONTH: Dracula Has Risen From His Grave (1968)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Dracula Has Risen from His Grave was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, October 29, 1977 at 9 p.m. on a prime time special. It was also on the show on July 21, 1979 and November 14, 1981.

This was the fourth Hammer Dracula movie and the third to star Christopher Lee (he doesn’t appear in The Brides of Dracula). It was directed by Freddie Francis, who stepped in to replace Terence Fisher, who injured his leg in a car accident. It has an extraordinary and wonderful effect when Dracula appears in the film, as the edges of the frame take on the colors of crimson, amber and yellow.

There’s a fantastic beginning where a young altar boy (Norman Bacon) finds a dead woman hidden inside a church bell, just one more of Dracula’s victims. But a year after — and the events of Dracula: Prince of Darkness — finds the greatest of all the undead quite dead.

Monsignor Ernst Mueller (Rupert Davies) visits the village from the opening and learns that the altar boy can no longer speak and the town’s holy man (Ewan Hooper) has lost his faith. Because Dracula’s castle has a shadow that extends over their church, they refuse to even come near it. The Monsignor decides to exorcise the castle, which leads to the kind of strange occurrences that always bring Dracula back: lightning strikes, the older priest slips, he hits his head on a rock, and the drips of his blood through the cracks in the ground make their way to the deceased vampire.

As Mueller returns home, Dracula quite literally rises from his grave and takes on the frightened priest as his familiar. Now unable to enter his castle, he flips out and demands revenge, heading off to Keinenberg, where he plans on making Mueller’s niece Maria (Veronica Carlson, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, The Horror of Frankenstein) into one of his lovers.

Luckily, her boyfriend Paul (Barry Andrews) is ready to protect her, even if he has to defeat the advances of a barmaid Zena (Barbara Ewing, who has since become a well-reviewed author) who has been hypnotized by Dracula. There’s a wild moment when Dracula orders the priest to kill Zena, so he burns her body in a bakery oven while Dracula leaps across the rooftops to find and bite Maria.

This has some fascinating ideas as Paul has to go it alone after the Monsignor dies. As an atheist, he and the lost faith priest are unable to properly stake and destroy Dracula. As always, Dracula is stopped, and faith is restored. This is the most challenging time for achieving that end goal.

As a kid, the Hammer movies were quite literally the end-all, be-all of my existence. I thought about them all day and would discuss them with anyone who wanted to hear about them—often, many who didn’t.

As an old man, I’m struck by how often the film in the movie is sped up, which doesn’t work, while the color effects and rooftop scenes have lost none of their infernal power. Plus, this has one of the best posters I’ve seen, just the throat of a bosom woman with band-aids where Dracula’s teeth have penetrated her.