A group of eleven street criminals between the ages of thirteen and twenty have raped and killed a teacher. There’s no evidence or even enough information to determine why they did it or if they had a motive. The judge wants the case closed, but Chief Luigi Càrrua (Enzo Liberti) knows that only Commissioner Lamberti (Pier Paolo Capponi) can solve it. He’s brutal on the boys, while social worker Livia Ussaro (Nieves Navarro) tries to understand how they could be this way. Once the main witness is killed, the rough cop discovers that this case may be more difficult to figure out than he thought it would be.
Based on the book by Giorgio Scerbanenco, director and co-writer Fernando Di Leo cut down the story and concentrated on the boys who have actually committed the crime.
He would also adapt two other books by the author, Caliber 9 and The Italian Connection. Scerbanenco’s books were popular stories to turn into movies, as Yves Boisset made Safety Catch from Venere privata (A Private Venus), Duccio Tessari directed La morte risale a ieri sera (Death Occurred Last Night) from the book Milanesi Ammazzano al Sabato (The Milanese Kill on Saturdays), Luigi Cozzi directed The Killer Must Kill Again from Al mare con la ragazza (By the Sea With the Girl), Carlos Saura directed ¡Dispara!, Romolo Guerrieri made Young, Violent, Dangerous from two short stories “Bravi ragazzi bang bang and “In pineta si uccide meglio,” plus TV movies include the Alberto Siron, Gian Pietro Calasso and Vittorio Melloni-directed Quattro delitti, the Daniele D’Anza directed La ragazza dell’addio, Bruno Mattei’s Appuntamento a Trieste, L’uomo che non voleva morire by Lamberto Bava and Occhio di falco by Vittorio De Sisti.
Erna Schürer (Scream of the Demon Lover) is Elizabeth Ball Janon, who has gone back to her family’s castle — along with her not-to-be-trusted boyfriend Jack Seaton (Roland Carey) and their friends Gerard (Giorgio Gennari) and Blanche (Beverly Fuller) — to claim her inheritance.
The only movie from director and writer Ferruccio Casapinta, this finds everyone in the castle battling over what Elizabeth should do with the place. Her uncle’s secretary Carol (Lucia Bomez) says that’s what he wanted while his lawyer Mr. Shinton (Domenico Ravenna) says the opposite. Then there’s Paul Reynauld (Ettore Ribotta) and Claudine (Aurora Batista), who claim that Elizabeth’s uncle had already sold the castle to them.
It all seems like something out of safe detective fiction until that evening when Elizabeth goes to bed and starts having wet dreams about Jack being taken over by a ghost and treating her to some BDSM in the basement, all while Carol stops being the librarian type and gets taken by a secret lover. And would someone get that dog to stop barking?
This was probably directed by cinematographer Francesco Attenni. A lot of it is basic by-the-numbers detective giallo fiction pre-Argento, but man, there’s also a moment where a Satanic gang lashes Elizabeth to a giant cross and then rips her dress off and she seemingly crosses that line from afraid to aroused. We wouldn’t have the poster art without this scene and while I wish that the rest of the film kept this demented and debauched feel, you can’t have peaks without valleys.
Shot in the summer of 1969 at Spahn Ranch, which was the home of the Manson Family at the time, The Female Bunch also has moments filmed at Hanksville and Capitol Reef in Utah as well as Las Vegas, Nevada. Adamson loved shooting outside. He must have loved every second of this movie.
All the bad men she’s dealt with leaves Sandy (Nesa Renet) wanting to end it all. Her friend Libby (Regina Carrol) takes her into the desert to meet Grace (Jennifer Bishop), who leads a gang of women that run drugs and use men.
This is the last movie of Lon Chaney Jr., filmed after Dracula vs. Frankenstein. His voice sounds painful, the result of throat cancer radiation treatments. He plays Monti, an old Hollywood cowboy who is loyal to Grace. Kim Newman, who writes some great film reviews, wrote a short story about this movie, “Another Fish Story.” In this tale, Charles Manson is trying to using one of the Ancient Ones to destroy the world while Lon Chaney Jr. is given a mission in the desert that will keep The Family from bothering Adamson and crew.
To join this gang of women, you have to be buried alive in a coffin. I don’t know if I’d go that far, but if I got to hang out with Chaney and Russ Tamblyn, I may let you throw some dirt on my grave.
Directed by Al Adamson and written by Robert Dix, who plays Ben Thompson, Five Bloody Graves is about Ben battling Satago (John “Bud” Cardos), the man who scalped his ex-girlfriend Nora (Vicki Volante) and her husband (Ken Osborne). Cardos is also Joe Lightfoot, Satago’s brother, who is half-white and half-Native American.
Ben was a former lawman and now, he wanders the Wild West — including an amazingly named town Goblin Valley, Utah, which is a real place — before he helps holy man Boone Hawkins (John Carradine) and a stagecoach full of showgirls like Kansas Kelly (Paula Raymond) and Althea Richards (Darlene Lucht) through Native American territory while death itself (Gene Raymond) narrating explaining how Ben and Satago are his messangers on Earth. It’s all very metal.
This also looks pretty great thanks to cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, who went on to win an Oscar for Best Cinematography for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, as well as filming McCabe & Mrs. Millers, The Deer Hunter, Deliverance, The Black Dahlia and many more.
The tagline “Lust-Mad Men and Lawless Women in a Vicious and Sensuous Orgy of Slaughter!” is enough to get me in the drive-in for this.
Al Adamson made his breakthrough with this movie, going on to direct Dracula vs. Frankenstein, Cinderella 2000, Nurse Sherri and one of the most legitimately unhinged movies I’ve ever survived, Carnival Magic. Even stranger, he was murdered and buried beneath his hot tub in 1995, killed by his live-in contractor Fred Fulford in a plot that could have been one of his films.
However, today we’re talking about his contribution to biker films.
The Satans are a motorcycle club who roam the American Southwest, led by Anchor (Russ Tamblyn, TV’s Twin Peaks) and including Firewater (John “Bud” Cardos, Breaking Point), Acid (Greydon Clark, who directed Satan’s Cheerleaders), Romeo (Bobby Clark, TV’s Casey Jones), Muscle, Willie and Gina (Regina Carrol, Adamson’s wife who appears in nearly all of his films). We’re introduced to the gang as they beat up a man, rape his girlfriend and then push them and their car off a cliff.
They have the bad luck to get in the way of hitchhiker Johnny Martin, a Vietnam vet who is just trying to figure it all out. He gets picked up by Chuck Baldwin (Scott Brady, the sheriff from Gremlins) and his wife Nora. The old man’s a cop and wants to help the young Marine as he travels the highways. They all go to a diner, where we meet Lew (Kent Taylor, half of the inspiration for Superman’s alter ego), the owner, and Tracy, a waitress.
The Satans show up and ruin the budding romance between Johnny and Tracy, as they earn the ire of Chuck and his wife, who tosses a drink in one of their faces. Chuck tries to pull his gun, but the old man’s authority means nothing to the hardened toughs who beat the fuck out of him and rape his woman. Then, they kill all three — but not until Anchor screams out a totally inspired rant:
“You’re right, cop. You’re right, I am a rotten bastard. I admit it. But I tell ya something. Even though I got a lot of hate inside, I got some friends who ain’t got hate inside. They’re filled with nothing but love. Their only crime is growing their hair long, smoking a little grass and getting high, looking at the stars at night, writing poetry in the sand. And what do you do? You bust down their doors, man. Dumb-ass cop. You bust down their doors and you bust down their heads. You put ’em behind bars. And you know something funny? They forgive you. I don’t.”
The Satans don’t leave witnesses. Well, except for our hero and the waitress, who just escaped from Muscle and Romeo. Meanwhile, the gang meets three young girls and start partying with them. Gina can’t take seeing Anchor with other women, so she jumps off a cliff.
Willie tries to kill our heroes, but a rattlesnake saves them (!). Meanwhile, Firewater finds his body and comes to tell Anchor, who has gone insane and murdered all three girls. They fight and Firewater leaves the leader for dead. As he finally finds Johnny and Tracy, he is killed by a landslide (again, nature itself is against the bikers).
Finally, Anchor catches up to them and goes nuts, giving another soliloquy about being Satan. He raises Chuck’s gun to kill everyone, but Johnny simply throws a switchblade at him. “In Vietnam, at least I got paid when I killed people,” he says and at that, he and Tracy ride off on the villain’s cycle.
Satan’s Sadists was filmed at the Spahn Movie Ranch in Simi Valley, CA, at the same time the Manson Family lived there. Some movies would hide this fact. This poster will prove that this one wears it on its bloody sleeve.
Truly, this is a movie that does not give a fuck. Just about no one gets out alive or unscarred. Any moments of pleasure are stolen or taken by force. The poster promises human garbage and this film delivers.
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Based on Alexander Dumas’ La Dame aux Camélias, Camille 2000 was made in Italy but directed by Radley Metzger and written by Michael de Forrest. This is the story of Marguerite Gautier (Danielle Gaubert, who died too young at 44 but had a life where she was married to the son of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo and ski champion Jean-Claude Killy, as well as acting in 17 movies), a woman of whom the rumors say “the hills are covered with the bodies of the men she’s ruined.”
Armand Duval (Nino Castelnuovo) falls for her instantly, despite the harsh words of his father (Massimo Serato) and the offer by his friend Gaston (Roberto Bisacco) to show him other women. He finally gets her alone and charms her; she tells him that if he really loves her that he should run. They instead live on love on a houseboat in Porto d’Ercole. Armand’s father believes that she’s using her son; unknown to everyone, the opposite is true, as she is selling off every gift rich men have ever given her to keep their life. The father asks her to leave his son, as he’s meant for more. She complies and ends up with Count DeVarville (Philippe Forquet) and hooked on drugs to try and forget. Armand throws himself into work, which becomes his addiction.
One of her friends introduces Armand to Prudence (Eleonora Rossi Drago) who throws an S&M orgy that also has Marguerite and DeVarville invited. Of course, things won’t end well. How can they, as when we first meet Marguerite, someone asks her, “Don’t you ever come down?”
She answers, “Not if I can help it.”
A movie filled with longing, eroticism and inflatable furniture, this is 1969 looking to a future that we’d never find.
Delbert Mann won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film Marty as well as the infamous NBC TV movie Heidi, Which interrupted the upset of the Oakland Raiders beating the New York Jets. The adaption was by Jack Pulman, who was also the writer for I, Claudius.
It stars Robin Phillips (who I know as the rich guy who kills Arthur Edward Grimsdyke in Tales from the Crypt) as David Copperfield. The cast is packed with stars, including Richard Attenborough as Mr. Tungay, three-time Academy Award nominee Edith Evans as Betsy Trotwood, Cyril Cusack as Barkis, Pamela Franklin (The Legend of Hell House) as Dora Spenlow, Susan Hampshire (The Trygon Factor) as Agnes Wickfield, Wendy Hiller as Emma Micawber, Ron Moody (Dominique) as Uriah Heep, Laurence Olivier (do I have to tell you?) as Mr. Creakle, Vanessa and Lynn’s father Michael Redgrave as Daniel Peggotty, Ralph Richardson as Wilkins Micawber, Emlyn Williams as Mr. Dick, Sinéad Cusack (Cyril’s daughter) as Emily, James Donald (Quatermass and the Pit) as Edward Murdstone, James Hayter (The Blood On Satan’s Claw) as Porter, Megs Jenkins as Clara Peggotty, Anna Massey (The Vault of Horror) as Jane Murdstone, Andrew McCulloch as Ham Peggotty, Nicholas Pennell as Thomas Traddles, Corin Redgrave as James Steerforth, Isobel Black (Twins of Evil) as Clara Copperfield and Liam Redmond (23 Paces to Baker Street) as Mr. Quinion.
This was on NBC in the U.S. but was in theaters everywhere else.
I think it proves how cultured I am that I went through everyone in a movie based on a classic and told you what British horror movies they were in.
John Warner (George Hilton) deserts the Confederate Army when he learns that his lover Rosa (Annabella Incontrera, Black Belly of the Tarantula) is about to deliver his child. He’s captured but has two friends who allow him to escape and he makes it home just in time to learn that she’s died. Even worse, the child’s grandfather Don Pedro Sandoval (Ernest Borgnine) rejects the child, who also dies from a fever that could have been helped with all the money that the rich Sandovals have horded.
Warner then decides that all hope is gone, so he becomes an outlaw, mostly seeking to make the life of the Sandoval family as bad as possible. This whole movie is about revenge and two men who ultimately will do anything to one another even if it destroys themselves.
Director Julio Buchs also made Murder by Music and Django Does Not Forgive. There were rumors that Lucio Fulci directed this — the opening with a man cutting rings off dead fingers and pulling out fillings seems to be something he’d craft — but no, it’s not him.
It also has a great AKA title: Those Desperate Men Who Smell of Dirt and Death.
The VCI 4K blu ray of this movie has commentary by Alex Cox, which is really all the extras it needs, because he knows his Italian Westerns. It also has a trailer. You can get it from MVD.
American International Television renamed nearly all of the Gamera movies for television. This is really Gamera vs. Viras.
This time, Gamera is defending our planet from aliens. He starts off by destroying one of their ships, but not before an entire planet declares that he is their enemy.
The aliens come back to Earth and learn Gamera’s one weakness: he loves children. They kidnap some kids and force him to do their bidding, but before long, he’s broken loose and is battling all of the aliens at once, who have combined their form into the menace known as Viras.
Daiei was in financial trouble, so this movie suffers from a smaller budget than previous films. But this is where the idea of Gamera protecting kids from aliens and monsters began. Yet it’s also the first of the series to use flashbacks from past films to pad the running time. This will get much, much worse as Gamera would battle on.
There was also an agreement with AIP that an American kid had to be in the movie. They couldn’t find any kids that could speak Japanese, so the studio cast Carl Craig, whose father was an army soldier stationed in Japan, despite Carl having no acting experience.
Don’t have the box set? YOu can watch this on Tubi or download it on the Internet Archive.
El Puro (Robert Woods, Massacre Mania, Lucifera Demon Lover) was once a dangerous and much feared gunfighter. But today, well, he’s a drunk lying low in a nothing town, concerned that a killer trying to make his name by shooting him is behind every corner. He’s treated as a whipping boy by every man in the bar and only Rosie (Rosalba Neri!) — who knew his legend — treats him kindly. She’s been saving money so they can get away from all this.
Or they would, if it wasn’t for Gipsy (Marc Fiorini) and his gang, who are riding into town to collect the ten grand on El Puro’s bounty while also killing grandfathers and assaulting young women. Just as certain that El Puro will find redemption is the fact that Rosie won’t survive. That said, her death is beyond upsetting and sure, one hates when its only the death of a woman that galvanizes a man to action, but trust me, you’ll want him to get revenge.
Also known as The Reward’s Yours… The Man’s Mine; 10,000 Dollars for a Gunslinger and El Puro Sits, Waits and Shoots, this movie was directed by Edoardo Mulargia, who made the giallo Tropic of Cancer and Don’t Wait, Django…Shoot!He also directed two of the movies — Hotel Paradise and Escape fromHell — that were remixed for the Linda Blair movie Savage Island. He wrote the script for this movie along with Ignacio F. Iquino, Fabrizio Gianni (second unit director on The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) and Fabio Piccioni (the writer of Murder Syndrome and the director of The Erotic Adventures of Robinson Crusoe).
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.
El Puro has two versions of the film: the 98-minute cut, presented in Italian and English, and the longer, 108-minute version, presented in both Italian and a newly created hybrid English/Italian mix. There’s also new commentary by Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson, an interview with Robert Woods and a new appreciation of the soundtrack and its composer Alessandro Alessandroni by musician and disc collector Lovely Jon.
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