A feel like a broken record saying this, but John Llewellyn Moxey made so many different styles of movies and I really love every single one.
Take this failed pilot, in which Cameron Steele (Christopher George!) is a former escape artist turned private investigator into the unknown. The unknown in this case being the secret formula that Doctor Henry Walding (William Windom) and his brother Charles (John Vernon!) had been working on. When thugs kidnap Henry and chain up our hero and toss him in the river, of course he can bring his escape skills out to save the day.
He’s also a rich playboy and the co-owner of a Vegas nightclub called The Crystal Ball with his friend Nicholas Slye (Avery Schreiber!). It’s filled with psychics and occult magic users who would have all made for plenty of great stories if this had actually become a series.
Man, with an adventure under an abandoned theme park and a scarred up Vernon as the heel and plenty of action, this whole movie makes me wistful for what may have been. Plus, it has appearances by William Schallert, Huntz Hall and Gloria Grahame!
In the future, overpopulation has created a world in which people are allowed to have only one child and are denied all medical care when they turn 65. So, you know, it’s pretty much halfway close to the world we live in.
Another film in the storied career of John Llewellyn Moxey, this was written by Peter S. Fischer, who created Blacke’s Magic and Murder, She Wrote.
Alan and Karen Miller (Michael Cole from The Mod Squad and Janet Margolin) are a couple attempting to have a second child after their first dies. Van Heflin, in his last role, plays Senator Quincy George, a man who attempts to get them into Canada. They must face off with perhaps the most frightening of all villains: Ed Asner.
Honestly, this movie is as good as any theatrical film made at the time, painting a great picture of a world where women have no control over their bodies and the government control is near absolute. It feels closer now than ever before.
The line between the giallo and 70s made-for-TV movies is a very thin one and this is one film that easily could be defined as an American cousin of that native Italian — by way of Germany and England — form.
Five young women have their five-year college reunion only to discover that life hasn’t worked out well for all of them. Nonetheless, they try to enjoy their getaway on an isolated island that has no phone service, which seems to offer them the perfect escape.
They are Lucy (Anjanette Comer, who was in The Baby, which was also directed by this film’s director, Ted Post), Dorian (Joan Hackett, Bobby’s mother in Dead of Night), Joy (Denise Nicholas, TV’s In the Heat of the Night), Gloria (Stefanie Powers!) and Mary Grace (Julie Sommars). Bradford Dillman and Robert Conrad play the captain of the boat that takes the women to their vacation spot and the caretaker of the mansion where they stay. Guess what? One of them is a maniac.
This was produced by Aaron Spelling and, as we said above, directed by Ted Post, who always turns in material well above what it should be. It was written by Marc Norman (Shakespeare In Love), Walter Black (who wrote for the Planet of the Apes TV series) and Larry Gordon, who also wrote The Devil’s 8.
The eleventh Godzilla movie was one that never felt right to me watching it on TV as a kid. It always looked dingy, dirty and cheap. Seeing the new Criterion re-release of this movie is a revelation, as the original Japanese version is a wild, out of control environmental message film with animated moments and musical numbers that battles within itself, somehow unrealizing that it is a big rubber suit monster movie.
Yoshimitsu Banno, who directed this, also made Prophecies of Nostradamus for Toho, which is another movie that should just be schlock and has moments that aspire to become outsider art.
Not all would agree that this movie is wonderful. Tomoyuki Tanaka*, one of Godzilla’s creators, demoted Banno and went so far as to claim that the director ruined the King of Monsters.
Hedorah is a microscopic alien that grows larger by eating Earth’s pollution and soon grows into a poisonous, acid-secreting sea monster. Or Smog Monster, if we believe one of the American titles.
Much like the motorcycle death scene in the aforementioned Nostradamus film, a party is thrown on Mt. Fuji to celebrate the last day of life before Japan. Thousands have died and so many more will as Hedorah and Godzilla fight again, with the pollution-eating beast doing more gore-drenched damage to the big green lizard than anyone before — he takes his eye and burns his hand to the point we see bone — before drowning him in sludge.
Godzilla returns, flying backward in an astounding scene that’s nearly hilarious, but then things get beyond serious when Godzilla repeatedly burns his enemy, tearing away at him bit by bit before returning to the ocean, staring back one last time to remind humans that Hedorah was all their fault.
This was released in the U.S. by American-International Pictures and teamed with The Thing With Two Heads before playing repeatedly on TV. I know that I saw it multiple times and never thought much of it until now.
Lucio Fulci would have loved this one, because not only does Godzilla nearly lose an eye, but he also tears Hedorah’s eyes right out of his body.
I mean, there’s no other kaiju movie inspired by Rachel Carson. For me, this movie is a success because it’s just so wild that this arose from a major franchise. Here’s to experimentation, with films that have Bond-like openings, wild musical numbers and extended sequences of a giant monster pulling junk out of another one.
*Tanaka banned Banno from ever working on another Godzilla film for as long as Tanaka lived. That said, after Tanaka’s death, Banno acquired Godzilla’s film rights and had planned to produce an IMAX short film entitled Godzilla 3-D to the Max. When funding fell through, he worked with Legendary Pictures on behalf of Toho and was an executive producer of 2014’s Godzilla.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Back in December of last year, December 25 to be completely exact, we posted this Barry Mahon Christmas movie. Enjoy!
Oh Barry Mahon.
While the rest of the world thrills to Tom Cruise cussing out castmembers concerning COVID-19, Mahon’s real-life story offers movie maniacs the kind of thrills that we breathlessly devour and share with one another. After volunteering for the British air force before America officially entered World War II, Mahon earned the British Distinguished Flying Cross and escaped from a concentration camp twice after being shot down, then became the personal pilot and manager of Errol Flynn before going into making his own movies.
And oh his movies.
Barry’s oeuvre is a madcap mix of ripped from the headlines fearmonger films like Rocket Attack U.S.A. and Cuban Rebel Girlsalong with horror like The Dead Oneand Sex Killer, then some nudie cuties like Fanny Hill Meets Dr. Erotico and The Diary of Knockers McCalla and finally, improbably, kids movies like The Wonderful Land of Oz, Jack and the Beanstalk and the Thumbelina movie that is part of perhaps the most berserk holiday movie of all time, Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny. Oh yeah — and he also made Musical Mutiny, a movie that I have yet to come to grips with*.
I hesitate to even call this a movie because it was made with all the motion of, well, a slide show. Instead, it’s a series of still images with a narrator speaking every single part. It is the very epitome of low budget, with puppets and people shot in only the murkiest of lighting.
If you ever watched Rodolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and wondered why everyone treated the hero so poorly — and why he would not only forgive them but blame himself for so much of their horrific and abusive behavior — then get ready. Calvin gets brutalized throughout this movie with even the narrator continually reminding us of how ugly he is.
*Some people, if given a time machine, would go back to meet famous people or kill Hitler. I would just go to Dania, Florida and spend the day at Pirates World.
No matter what title you know this movie by — Blood Waters of Dr. Z,Hydra, Attack of the Swamp Creatures or this one — this movie lives and breathes (well, gills kind of breath water) Jacksonville, Florida. That’s where its co-writer, director and producer Don Barton came from and that’s where this was film, using real locations like Rainbow Springs, Green Cove Springs and Marineland.
It mostly played Jacksonville drive-ins and some southern states before our friends at Aquarius Releasing got a copy and played it in New York City for all of a day, with former employee Ron Harvey telling Fangoria, “One of the all-time worst releases was Blood Waters of Dr. Z. We played it on 42nd Street, where it lasted until about 4:00 on a Friday afternoon before the theater pulled the picture! It had done like S200 business all day long.”
Capitol Productions re-released the movie in 1983 and two years later, it was re-released again as Attack of the Swamp Creatues with new cast and crew names.
Zaat is the tale of scientist Dr. Kurt Leopold (Marshall Grauer, in his one and done role), who takes his formula ZaAT and transforms human beings into sea creatures, starting with recreating himself as a catfish human. Yes, a catfish. He’s now played by Wade Popwell, who also only made this film, and is a creature that occasionally still wears athletic shoes despite being a merman.
He also makes catfish that can walk and starts poisoning the town’s water, forcing a cop and a scientist to engage in the kind of relationship that you may have seen in a movie called Jaws as they try to stop the world from being zaat-ed.
There’s also a government organization called INPIT, which sends two of their scientists to track down Leopold and bring him in, except they mostly are concerned with the welfare of some kids playing folk music.
That said, unlike nearly every amphibian on the loose movie I’ve ever seen — like Creature from the Black Lagoon and its sequels*, Slithis, Humanoids from the Deep, Encounters in the Deep, Demon of Paradise — this one has the creature pretty much end the film in triumph, wiping out nearly every human and even transforming the female scientist into a willing slave. Also worth noting is that one of the scientists is bit by a snake and in a moment of reverse-Cannibal Holocaust, it was totally real. As he was wading through the water, that little snake just swam up and took a chunk out of his arm.
That said, he does not have his own fan club like Slithis. I carry my card in my wallet so that Slithis knows where I live and that he should let me live.
*Revenge of the Creature was also shot at Marineland, but it’s an incalculable number of times better than this film. I also own a limited edition blu ray of Zaat because, well, I like junk.
Sam, the Chief Cook and Bottle Washer and Mix Master of Movie Themed Drink for B&S About Movies, is scary-psychic when it comes to my writing assignments. I don’t recall Dennis Christopher and Bruno Kirby ever popping up in conversation . . . Sam, how do you do it? It’s like my head is a Magic 8-Ball and you give it a shake. . . . It’s like Christmas!
Anyway . . . this why I love Mill Creek box sets — in this case, their B-Movie Blast 50-Film Pack — as it gives me a chance to see a movie that I never heard of, or seen. Yes . . . even with the Den and the Kirb in the house, so I don’t know how this one slipped by me. Sure, I’ve seen my fair share of ’70s soft-sexploitation flicks and T&A coming-of-age romps (but beware of advertising department scams) but this one . . . I don’t recall ever seeing The Young Graduates on a home video self. And, based on the college chick (What, high school?) showing off some strappy-sandals leg, along with the dune buggies, cycles, and rails . . . and that Crown International logo, well, what’s not to likey, here?
Now, you know how we are about particular actors ’round the B&S About Movie cubicles, right? In this case, for moi, I was into this lost drive-in ditty from the get, as it features early starring roles for two of my favorite actors: Dennis Christopher (Fade to Black and the really cool 10-Speed romp Breaking Away) and Bruno Kirby (How is Almost Summer not on a Mill Creek set? But, you know Bruno best from City Slickers and Good Morning, Vietnam). See? All actors have to start somewhere — and sometimes it has to be a Crown International flick.
Will you just look at Dennis! He’s just a kid, for gosh sakes! Yep, 16!, and he went on to appear nearly 40 movies and made-for-TV flicks since this debut (he was also in the proto-slasher Blood and Lace that same year). And Quentin? Well, he obviously knows both of Dennis’s 1971 debuts from his video clerkin’ days, so the Q recruited Dennis as Leonide Moguy in Django Unchained. Oh, and Dennis is such a stoner dude that his name is “Pan,” and not a more stoner name there be.
Anyway, while Bruno was a bit older, at 22, he was still able to play “young,” as a high schooler seven years later — at 29 — in, again, one of my favorite of his films, Almost Summer. But I’ll always also remember Bruno for The Harrad Experiment (which, in spite of the title, is not a horror film, but a coming-of-age drama led by James Whitmore and Tippi Hedren . . . with a babe-in-the-woods Don Johnson). Then there’s Bruno’s oft-aired HBO favorite, Baby Blue Marine with Jan-Michael Vincent (that also needs a Mill Creek bow).
Oops. I digress with the Charmin squeezin’ over the actors I dig.
This is loaded with mini-dressed dancing chicks, hippes in flower-power vans, wah-wah psychedelic guitars, and drag-racing rails, hippie chicks, doobies and roach clips, squares in suits and ties who want to be engineers, and those teens who just want to dropout and ride their motor scooters.
Rompin’ through this Partridge Family-cum-Easy Rider-lite world is the requisite sort-of-bad girl, Mindy, who’s like an early version of a romantically confused, can’t-make-her-mind Rachel Green with her endless I-hate-Ross-I-love-Ross insanity. Here, Mindy’s dilemma is between her decent, educated boyfriend Bill or her hunky married-but-he’s-so-hot teacher.
Oops. She’s hot for teacher and the rabbit just hopped in: Mindy’s pregnant. And how does she deal? Well, she runs away with her bestie, Sandy, on motorbike ride to Big Sur, California
Editor’s Note: This review ran on August 2, 2020, as part of, you guessed it, a Mill Creek blowout with their Savage Cinema set. We’re bringing it back for its inclusion on Mill Creek’s B-Movie Blast pack.
Mill Creek box sets? Yeah, they’re kind of our jam. Just look at the work we’ve put into their Chilling Classics, Pure Terror and Explosive Cinema sets. I grabbed this set used for $2.50, but your mileage may vary. It goes anywhere from $10-150 on Amazon and $10-25 on eBay. It’s worth it — there are plenty of movies that fit the theme quite well.
Up first is Richard Kanter’s (Thar She Blows!, Sensual Encounters of Every Kind, Fantasy In Blue) 1971 grimy biker film Wild Riders. It’s all about Pete and Stick (Arell Blanton, whose IMDB list is full of cop roles and, yep, a very young Alex Rocco), two scumbags who get thrown out of their gang. So they do what any of us wouldn’t do — they take over a house and assault the two girls who are there.
One of them, Rona, is played by Elizabeth Knowles, who may be better known as Lisa Grant. That’s the name she used for Executive Wives and Behind the Green Door, one of the movies that introduced porno chic. The other girl, Laure, is played by Sherry Bain, who was in The Hard Ride and Ride the Hot Wind.
It’s another movie to cross off my Letterboxd Crown International list. If you’ve learned anything from this site, it’s that I am nothing if not a completist. If you end up thinking, “Is that Peter Fonda?” Well, no. But Arell Blanton is happy that you noticed him trying.
This movie stars Gaspar Henaine, better known as Capulina, who often partnered with Marco Antonio Campos as the double act Viruta and Capulina. His nickname, El Rey del Humorismo Blanco (The King of White Humor) is because he’s known for clean and innocent humor.
Shockingly, I kinda dug this ridiculous movie that looks like it was shot with an eye to the TV Batman, packed with sound effects and no small amount of silliness.
Count Dracula lives with several female vampires, which seems like a pretty good deal for him, but then a spear accidentally drops on him and he dies. For one hundred and fifty years, strong men are brought int o save him, but they all fail and are killed. Capulina comes in as a handyman and book, he bumps into the spear and Dracula is back among the living.
Rossy Mendoza shows up in this as Pampa, who is the Count’s main wife. She was known as Mexico’s Smallest Waist and The Body. She’s in the same category as Lyn May, Princess Lea and Angelica Chain, as they are all burlesque performers who became famous for their appearances in Mexican exploitation movies. You may recognize her from Santo vs. the Kidnappers, Night of San Juan: Santo in Black Gold and La Laamada del Sexo, which from the description reads like a giallo, a fact made positive by the knowledge that George Hilton is in it.
This movie somehow is family friendly and filled with the most fetching vampire women this side of Hammer. Mexico, you’ve done it again.
Boris Karloff’s last film, this Mexican/American combo platter is really something else. Much like Isle of the Snake People, Fear Chamber and House of Evil, the main action was filmed by Juan Ibáñez while Jack Hill took care of the American footage and anything Karloff appears in.
The story takes place in Gudenberg, as Professor John Mayer (Karloff) has invented a laser weapon that runs on nuclear power. As he tests it, he nearly shoots down a UFO, which leads to aliens coming to our planet to shut down his plans.
That’s what they claim the plot is, but man, this has some twists and turns and veers off into some strange places. Which, you know, is just how I like it.
Karloff has an assistant, Dr. Isabel Reed, which is pretty woke for 1890 to have a female mad scientist. She’s played by Maura Monti, the Mexican Batwoman and she just might be in love with their Igor, who is named Thomas (Yerye Beirute, who was made for roles like these and as the big heavy in movies like Ladrones de Cadaveres). Sure, he just happens to be a sex murderer and an alien gets in his brain and all his victims suddenly become radioactive and this run-on sentence should explain just how convoluted this movie is.
Somehow, Christa Linder (Night of 1000 Cats) figures into this as Karloff’s niece and the eighty-year-old horror hero — never far from oxygen and frequently sitting — gets possessed by aliens who finally make him blow up his entire house just to prove a point that man is not ready for nuclear power.
I watched this whole thing and really was baffled by every single minute, which is often how I judge a movie that I love. Bring on the nonsense!
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