VIDEO ARCHIVES NOTES: This movie was discussed on the November 26, 2024 episode of the Video Archives podcast. 

An Italian Spanish co-production, this was directed by Eugenio Martín and produced by Philip Yordan as part of three movies they’d make together, which also include Bad Man’s River and Horror Express.

After being double-crossed in an arms deal by a gun merchant McDermott (Luis Dávila) from New Mexico, Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa (Telly Savalas) and his American lieutenant Scotty (Clint Walker) attack a U.S. Army weapons depot and seize McDermott.

Colonel Wilcox (Chuck Conners) is stationed on the American side of the border and is assigned to rescue the shady McDermott, who is as bad or worse than the Mexican revolutionaries.

In his book Hollywood Exile, or, How I Learned to Love the Blacklist: A Memoir, producer Bernard Gordon goes into how little Telly Savalas and Clint Walker liked one another. Savalas made attempts to upstage Walker while — unlike their characters in the movie — Anne Francis and Walker got along quite well. Walker was also not far from a near-death experience. The actor Walker skied out of control and had his heart stabbed with a ski poke. He was pronounced dead until a doctor heard a faint sign of life and performed life-saving surgery.

Walker is pretty much Rick Dalton. He was the lead on Cheyenne before getting into Western and war movies. He eventually moved into TV movies, several of which are pretty good, including Killdozer! and Snowbeast.

Pancho Villa even has a song, We All End Up the Same”, which was written by John Cacavas and Don Black and sung by Savalas. This feels very Vietnam-era, in that Connors has a scene where the entire army can’t kill one fly. It ends as all movies should with a train on train head to head crash.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Thanks to the British Film Institute, there’s a list of films that played Scala. To celebrate the release of Severin’s new documentary, I’ll share a few of these movies every day. You can see the whole list on Letterboxd.

As late as 1997, when it was re-rated NC-17 “for a wide range of perversions in explicit detail,” Pink Flamingos keeps on offending people in the best of ways.

A movie that has the dedication “For Sadie, Katie, and Les- February 1972” — Manson Family members Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten discovered in February 1972 that the death penalty was abolished in California, reducing their sentences — director and writer John Waters and star Divine announced themselves to the world here, despite already making the movies Hag in a Black Leather Jacket, Roman Candles, Eat Your Makeup, Dorothy, The Kansas City Pot Head, Mondo Trasho, The Diane Linkletter Story and Multiple Maniacs, films that didn’t escape Baltimore and small screenings.

The filthiest person alive Babs Johnson (Divine) lives with her mother Edie (Edith Massey), son Crackers (Danny Mills) and traveling companion Cotton (Mary Vivian Pearce) in a trailer with pink flamingos in the front yard. Her title is challenged by Connie (Mink Stole) and Raymond Marble (David Lochary) who come to regret ever invoking her wrath, costing them their baby stealing empire and eventually their lives.

Banned in Switzerland and Australia, as well as in some provinces in Canada and Norway as well as Hicksville in Long Island, this movie is less about the plot and more about the urge to shock you. It’s Waters using filth in the same way that his hero William Castle used gimmicks to bring you into the theater. If Joan Crawford was the ultimate gimmick for Castle, Divine served the same role for Waters. She even ate dog feces for the movie (followed by her calling a hospital emergency hotline pretending to be a mother whose son ate the same thing to make sure she would survive). And yet somehow, it’s all rather heartwarming, even if it’s a movie punctuated by Divine’s rants that include incendiary words like “Kill everyone now! Condone first degree murder! Advocate cannibalism! Eat shit! Filth is my politics! Filth is my life!”

Pink Flamingos is as old as me but retains its wild edge when everything else feels dulled down. I often think of it when I am down and am amazed that it exists, a movie that is endlessly watchable and quotable. I’ve resisted writing about it for so long because what else can I add to it? But I feel that I must celebrate it and why it keeps on meaning so much, a movie that I watched people walk out on 25 years after it was made, angry that the movie was just so wrong.

Thanks to the British Film Institute, there’s a list of films that played Scala. To celebrate the release of Severin’s new documentary, I’ll share a few of these movies every day. You can see the whole list on Letterboxd.

Reggae singer Jimmy Cliff plays Ivanhoe Martin, who was based on the real-life Jamaican criminal Rhyging, who may not have been a musician or a drug dealer but was the “original rude boy” and a folk hero in that country. Cliff said, “Rhygin was very much on the side of the people; he was a kind of Robin Hood, I guess you could call him.”

Director Perry Henzell believed that this movie was a success in Jamaica because people there had never seen themselves on the screen nor heard their native dialect, which may be English but still needs subtitles.

Cliff’s character moves to the big city, where he’s wowed by a screening of Django and just wants to make music, like the song which gives this movie its name. But the record producer he records it for controls the world of Jamaica’s music and even if it is a hit, he’ll probably never see the money. After falling into a life of crime, he becomes the kind of Hollywood gangster of his young dreams, sending photos to the press holding machine guns like some kind of Jamaican Dillinger. He’s doomed to die in the streets, riddled with bullets, but he’s going to grab every moment of glory that he can before the inevitable strikes him down.

New Line released this in February 1973 in the U.S. but it took over a year before midnight showings started building an audience. The soundtrack would introduce reggae to American listeners while Ivan was referenced in The Clash’s “Guns of Brixton” with the lyrics, “You see he feels like Ivan, born under the Brixton sun. His game is called surviving, at the end of The Harder They Come.”

Thanks to the British Film Institute, there’s a list of films that played Scala. To celebrate the release of Severin’s new documentary, I’ll share a few of these movies every day. You can see the whole list on Letterboxd.

This was written in two and a half days by Werner Herzog, who was inspired by a book his friend gave him and what he read about Lope de Aguirre. He was on a trip with a football team at the time and someone got so drunk on the bus that they puked all over the script.

Herzog knew who he wanted to be Aguirre: Klaus Kinski. Years ago, as a child, he met the actor when he rented a room in Herzog’s family apartment and proceeded to destroy it in three months, reducing a sink and toilet to dust. He sent the script to the actor and a few days later, at four in the morning, Kinski called him screaming.

Kinski wanted to play Aguirre as a madman. Herzog wanted him to be a quiet menace. So he would enrage Kinski before each shot and wait for the actor’s anger to work itself out and then yell for the camera to roll. This may have backfired, as Kinski was so upset at the noise extras were making while playing cards that he shot a man’s fingertip off, which was soon followed by Kinski trying to leave the set, only for Herzog to claim he would murder-suicide to stop that from happening.

Gonzalo Pizarro (Alejandro Repullés) sends Don Pedro de Ursúa (Roy Guerra), Don Lope de Aguirre (Kinski), nobleman Don Fernando de Guzmán (Peter Berling), Brother Gaspar de Carvajal (Del Negro), Ursúa’s mistress Doña Inés (Helena Rojo) and Aguirre’s teenage daughter Flores (Cecilia Rivera) along with forty slaves down the river to find El Dorado, the city of gold. Of course, things don’t work out that way, leaving us with Aguirre starting a mutiny that ends with him clutching a monkey and yelling, “Who else is with me?” but everyone is dead.

I wish someone had filmed the making of this movie, as Herzog chopped down a tree and was attacked by hundreds of fire ants, Kinski nearly killed an extra by hitting them in the head with a sword, Herzog filming with a camera that he stole from the Munich Film School, the monkeys biting Herzog fifty times and Kinski a few times as well and no regard for history, only the movie that Herzog wanted to make.

Look, we live in a world where there’s a Werner Herzog action figure. Also: Just seeing Kinski’s insane face, brooding on a raft that everyone was really in danger riding, all in the literal heart of darkness making a movie that Herzog almost lost the film for makes me realizing that magic can be real.

You can watch this on Tubi.

As a small, fat and large glasses-wearing child, I was obsessed with Ultraman to the point that if I ever saw any Japanese tourists on vacation, I would try to leave with them instead of my family in the hope that they would bring me east and all I would have to do is watch monster TV shows and never have to go to school.

I’m 52 now and I want the same.

Anyways, Mirrorman was made in the wake of Ultraman except that it has the king of all kaiju movies, Ishirō Honda, directing it. Its also Tsuburaya Productions’ — the home of Ultraman — first non-Ultra show and was pretty dark for the first 26 episodes before the TV network said to make it for kids.

Set in the far future of the 1980s, this has the Invaders coming to Earth with all of their evil kaiju. The leader of the Science Guard Members, Professor Mitarai, has a foster son named Kyotaro Kagami, whose last name means mirror. He has a secret, that his father was an alien and his mother was human. His father may be dead after a fight with King Zyger , but his mom has been taken by the alien monsters. To top all that off, he is actually the son of a superhero with has the same powers and is known as Mirrorman. He doesn’t want to be Mirrorman — come on, dude — but when he stands in front of a reflective surface, holds up his pendant and says, “mirror spark” he gets his powers.

This short was released in Japan on March 12, 1972, where it was distributed by Toho as part of the Spring 1972 Toho Champion Festival along with Godzilla vs. Gigan, Pinocchio: The Series, Hutch the Honeybee: Hold Me, Momma and The Genius Bakabon: Night Duty is Scary.

After episode 26, this became more like Ultraman, as Mirrorman would have a bomb put in his heart by the Invaders that will kill him if he uses his powers for too long. Why didn’t they just kill him? Unlike so many robot heroes, he actually lives at the end of his series, as his father also survived and they go to the second dimension to fight the Invaders.

In 2010’s Ultraman Zero The Movie: Super Deciding Fight! The Belial Galactic Empire, Mirror Knight is Mirrorman. Well, inspired by him.

The kaiju in the first episode, The Iron, has a hug attack and a tail that seems a lot like an evil penis. Young me would never have consider this.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Martha Peters and Mary Davis noticed that women weren’t making many horror movies in the 1960s, so they wrote this, which would be directed by Tom Moore, who  produced Horror High, The Town That Dreaded Sundown, The Norseman and directed, wrote and produced Return to Boggy Creek.

As for Peters and Davis, only Davis would work on another film, writing the script for S.F. Brownrigg’s Scum of the Earth.

This starts like Black Sunday, as a witch (Marie Santell) is being put to death after having been betrayed by her coven. As they take her to the gallows, she says that she will come back for revenge on the family of MacIntyre Stuart (Robert Elston), who is why she has been charged.

Three hundred years later, Professor Mac Stuart (Elston) is dumb enough to have a party and invite his swinging hippy students over to his place, where Jill (Anitra Walsh) steals one of Mac’s books, the Red Book of Appin, and soon becomes possessed by the witch after she, Sharon (Barbara Brownell) and Harry (Jack Gardner) — her boyfriend Alan (Darryl Wells) doesn’t want to play with evil — conjure up the evil woman, who ends up killing all of her friends to become the ruler of our world.

Pretty simple, but also pretty awesome, as 1972 was a way groovier place than 2024. The strangest thing is that instead of, you know, just killing Mac, the possessed Jill asks him all about telephones and coffee while a Moog synth soundtrack dibble dabbles. Man, could we all just live in this?

You can watch this on YouTube.

Directed by Cheng Kang and Shao-Yung Tung, this starts with Commander Yang Tsung Pao (Chung Wa) near death and almost ready to concede defeat. He sends his most trusted generals, Chiao Ting Kuai (Fan Mei-Sheng) and Meng Huai Yuan (Wong Chung-Shun), back home to inform his family that he has died and to send more troops. There aren’t any, as all of the men of the family have been killed in battle. Matriarch She Tai Chun (Lisa Lu) gathers the titular fourteen women and heads off, along with her teenage grandson (played by Lily Ho, but it’s no surprise that he is a she) to win the war. As for why Lily plays a boy, everyone must follow this line of thinking, as she will be the male heir for the kingdom.

Each of the women is capable and a dangerous fighter, including Mu Kue Ying (Ivy Ling Po) and Yang Pei Feng (Shu Pei-pei), who is celebrated in stories beyond this. This also has one of the most outstanding sequences, as when the bridge across Death Valley is destroyed, She Tai Chun orders her troops to form a human bridge that everyone trust falls into action, as the army uses them to cross and continue their revenge.

Also: So much violence and the evil Mongols have Santa Claus-like outfits on, making this a perfect holiday movie of women sword-slashing evil St. Nicks and tossing them off cliffs. Sure, there are hundreds of characters to keep track of, but this movie was made to amaze you. I saw one Letterboxd review that said, “There are supposed to be whole armies and I only see fifty people.”

This is a film of blood and sacrifice, of strategy and resolve. So if you have nothing nice — or smart — to say, just watch something else and let us enjoy.

The Arrow Video Shaw Scope Volume Three box set has a brand new 2K restoration of The 14 Amazons as well as commentary by Jonathan Clements, author of A Brief History of China; interviews with stuntwoman Sharon Yeung, film historian Bede Chang and film critic Law Kar and a trailer.

You can get this set from MVD.

Ainu (Lily Ho) has been kidnapped and stolen into slavery by Madam Chun Yi (Betty Pei Ti) and her Four Seasons brothel. Madam Chun is rough — she’s already killed one of the kidnapper for taking the virginity of one of her girls.

Our heroine and her owner don’t get along at all — at first — as Ainu keeps getting locked away for her insolence and her back whipped into a bloody mess that — of course — Madam Chun licks.

The rich noblemen who gather to take Ainu’s virginity get her drunk and then abuse her, over and over again. After stopping her from hanging herself, the pain of this event awakens a memory in a mute servant boy. Remembering a love he once lost, he tries to help her escape, but is easily killed, and Madam Chun tells Ainu that “I could easily kill you now.” Instead, Ainu starts to comply and becomes her mistress’ lover.

One by one, Ainu starts to murder the men who abused her, using her job as a courtesan to get close to them. Madam Chun is so blinded by her lust for her that even when her most trusted men tell her that Ainu is a killer, she refuses to believe it. It gets to the point that she even helps Ainu free all of her women and destroy her brothel, killing all of her loyal henchmen. When she’s struck down, she confesses that she loved Ainu, but she tells Madam Chu that it was all a lie, that she used her to get revenge. Of course, she misjudged how evil the woman is, as she’d hidden a poison pill in her mouth in case she ever needed to use it. With their last kiss, she kills her enemy and lover.

Amazingly — well, maybe not, Shaw Brothers stole some wild music for their soundtracks — this has Pink Floyd’s “Come In Number 51, Your Time Is Up” and “Heart Beat, Pig Meat” in it.

If you’re looking for a female revenge movie, Shaw Brothers style, this is it. Of course, being that it came from this studio and director Chor Yuen, don’t expect it to end either clean or happily.

The Arrow Video Shaw Scope Volume Three box set has a brand new 2K restoration of Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan and extras like two commentaries — one by film critic and historian Tony Rayns and the other by critic Samm Deighan — as well as alternate English credits and a trailer.

You can get this set from MVD.

So this is kind of cheating, because Sbatti il mostro in prima pagina is more a drama or crime movie than a giallo, but it has enough elements of the form to warrant being included in the company of black gloved killers.

Il Giornale is a newspaper that may remind you of some other media sources in 2021: it has a strictly conservative and fascist audience and seeks to discover the right wing way of looking at every issue, no matter how silly they are, while ignoring the real issues that people are dealing with every single day.

Then a young woman is assaulted and killed, so the bullpen goes all in screaming for the return of the death penalty and actually goes so far as to get involved in the investigation. They believe that an idealistic student protester is behind the sex crime, which their readership is only too happy to get behind.

Gian Maria Volonté plays the editor who gets the fires burning. He always ends up in the more mindful and socially conscious giallo that don’t really fit the standard ideas of what makes one of these films, like Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, Todo Modo and, well, this one. Plus Laura Betti (A Bay of Blood, Hatchet for the Honeymoon) and John Steiner are in this if you’re looking for familiar faces. Plus there’s an Ennio Morricone soundtrack.

Sergio Donati, who wrote the script, was the original director but he and Volonté had artistic differences. He also wrote The Weekend Murders, The Island of the Fishmen AKA Screamers, the original Man on Fire and Almost Blue. And oh yeah — Raw Deal!

Life imitates art: two years later, a real right-wing newspaper named Il Giornale started up.

The Radiance Films blu ray of Slap the Monster On Page One has a 4K restoration of the film from the original negative by Cineteca di Bologna in collaboration with Surf Film and Kavac Film, under the supervision of director Marco Bellocchio. There are interviews with Bellocchio and Mario Sesti, plus an appreciation by filmmaker Alex Cox, new English subtitles, a reversible sleeve featuring designs based on original posters and a limited edition of 3000 copies that comes with a booklet with writing by Wesley Sharer.

You can order it from MVD.