Friar Tazio da Velletri desires Lisa (Christa Linder, whose career takes her from appearing with Blue Demon in Invasion of the Dead and in Boris Karloff’s last movie The Incredible Invasionto showing up in the Westen Day of Anger, the Carlos Enrique Taboad quasi-giallo Vagabundo en la Lluvia, the Eurospy movies Kill Me Gently and Countdown to Doomsday, Harry Reems’ last adult film Bel Ami (she had a body double), Fulci’s Dracula in the Provinces before a move to America and being in Hooper and an episode of Trapper John M.D.; talk about an eclectic resume!) but she’s married and you know, he’s a priest.
He spreads the rumor that he’s a famous priest able to drive the lust out of women, which brings plenty of lusty women his way, and you know the rest, right?
Joe D’Amato was also worked on Sollazzevoli storie di mogli gaudenti e mariti penitenti – decameron № 69 at the same time as this movie and after a right with the producers, he left the film to be finished by Romano Scandariato.
Giovanni Boccaccio is considered the greatest European prose writer of his time (1313-1375, in case you’re interested) and he’s best known for The Decameron, a series of short stories that pretty much define much of the Italian literary tradition.
Six hundred years later, the cinema was referring back to Boccaccio with a series of films which are a subgenre of a subgenre, i.e. the decamerotici movies of the commedia sexy all’italiana, which get their start with Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Trilogy of Life of The Decameron, Canterbury Tales and Arabian Nights. Those films take the stories people knew, added sex and nudity, and there were around fifty ripoffs that followed.
Joe D’Amato made two of them, this movie and More Sexy Canterbury Tales, which he directed, wrote and even acted in under the names Romano Gastaldi in the Italian version and Ralph Zucker in the English cut. He was worried that other directors wouldn’t use him as a cinematographer if it got out that he was directing. That’s why he is listed as the cinematographer of More Sexy as his birth name, Aristide Massaccesi. It’s also the first time that D’Amato would show the idea of self-castration which is reflected at the end of his film Sesso Nero (Black Sex) AKA Sexy Erotic Love AKA Exotic Malice.
In this story, Boccaccio is led by demons into hell and learns of the reasons why his fellow pilgrims are there, including two couples who swap partners, a friar who ignores his vows to take a young parishioner, a merchant whose wife deflowered his nephew, a homosexual merchant (merchants obviously are all going to Hell) whose lover must sleep with his wife, Nero, a music teacher who instructs his students in the art of tickling more than just the keys and Dante Alighieri, the Italian poet who invented more of what we know about Hell than the Bible itself.
When this was first presented to the Italian censorship board, the title pretty much put every one of Pasolini’s three films together: Le mille e una notte di Boccaccio a Canterbury (The Thousand and One Tales of Boccaccio in Canterbury). Between full frontal female nudity and a priest in a pile of excrement, it failed and needed reshot, with Return of the Exorcist director Luca Damiano director filling in as D’Amato was in America shooting Alberto de Martino’s Il consigliori.
Nearly every long-time Italian genre director made comedies. There are several more from D’Amato, but this one takes advantage of his love and talent when it comes to making gorgeous women like Gabriella Giorgelli (Seven Blood-Stained Orchids, Wax Mask) look even more beautiful.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Kinski and D’Amato? Sometimes life just gets too wild. We originally wrote about this on March 31, 2018 and now it’s back with new information. Enjoy!
Once you watch this film, you’ll wonder — just how did this play on TV? It was part of the 13 titles included in Avco Embassy’s Nightmare Theater package syndicated in 1975 (the others were Marta, Maniac Mansion, Night of the Sorcerers, Fury of the Wolfman, Hatchet for the Honeymoon, Horror Rises from the Tomb, Dear Dead Delilah, Doomwatch, Bell from Hell, Witches Mountain, Mummy’s Revenge and The Witch) and several of these films aired intact on regular television! I can’t imagine — nor will you once you read this — what people thought! I even found a mention that the scene where Klaus Kinski inserts a pin into a girl’s eye aired uncut on Pittsburgh’s beloved Chiller Theater (indeed, it played on July 7, 1979 and December 26, 1981, thanks to the amazing listing on the Chiller Theater fan site).
1906. Austria. Greta von Holstein (Ewa Aulin, Candy from Candy as well as Death Laid an Egg) has been used and abused by all of the men in her life, including Dr. von Ravensbrück, a rich cad who knocks her up and leaves her to die in childbirth.
Three years later. Her hunchback brother Franz, besotten with incestual love, brings her back to life with a magic medallion inscribed with the secret of life over death. He tries to get back into her pants, so she throws a black cat at his face. It eats his eyeballs, because, well, this is a Joe D’Amato movie. She then escapes into the world where she seeks revenge on the von Ravensbrück’s family.
Walter, the son of the doctor who done her wrong, and Eve, his wife, take her in after an accident outside their home. They both fall in love with her, which gives D’Amato license to shoot long lovemaking scenes. You may know him on one hand for his horror films, likeBeyond the Darkness, Frankenstein 2000,Absurdand Antropophagus. But you may also know him for his adult films like Porno Holocaust and the Rocco Siffredi vehicle Tarzan X – Shame of Jane. Here, he combines his love of the female form with his eye for murder and insanity.
Eva is becoming jealous of Greta. But what he doesn’t know is that her new lover is wiping out people left and right, just for fun. The butler in the gallery with a razor. The maid in the woods with a shotgun. A lab assistant in the lab with a metal club. Even the family doctor (Klaus Kinski, do I need to say more or tell you he was in Schizoid, Crawlspace, Marquis de Sade: Justine and more? Or that he was also maniac who was drafted to the German army, spent time as a POW and drank his own urine to get sick and get home earlier? This is not the craziest Kinski story, by the way…) is strangled right after he learned how to use her amulet to bring back the dead that he had been experimenting on (as you do).
Eva’s jealousy wins out, so she walls her up alive in the rooms beneath the castle, killing her. But Greta isn’t done yet. She shows up as a ghost at a party and lures Eva toward falling off the roof. That night, Greta’s ghost gives Walter a fatal heart attack in bed. And all of this was just to lure her old lover, Dr. von Ravensbrück, to the funeral, where she leads him to a vault and suffocates him.
A police inspector wonders if he’ll ever add up the case, as he finds the corpse of Greta’s brother near her empty grave. She’s gone and he wonders whatever happened to her. The person he has been telling the story to? Greta.
I was really struck by Berto Pisano’s music in this. He also contributed the strange soundtrack to Burial Ground. Here, his music is jazzy and then atonal, with sharp stings to call out the action.
I feel like I need to take a long shower after watching this movie. Which isn’t a bad thing, really. It’s an effective mix of giallo and gothic romance, with plenty of sleaze and gore for those seeking those thrills.
In the book Spaghetti Nightmares, Massaccesi said that he used his real name on this film because he was “encouraged by the budget…and by the presence of two important actors like Ewa Aulin and Kalus Kinski, who were appearing at the time in several Italian films, and whose presence was opposed on me by production and distribution. Kinski, in spite of everything, is an excellent professional actor.”
When asked how he felt about the movie, he wasn’t kind to himself: “Not many fond memories there. I’m afraid it’s a very imperfect film, pandering and mechanical, but this is due to the fact that I wrote the script on my own. When you don’t work with someone else who challenges your ideas, stimulates them and corrects you where necessary, helping you to make what you write credible, it’s much harder to come up with a good product.”
Using the name Jim Black and Robert Hall — as well as Dirk Frey — Joe D’Amato really went all out to get as many names as possible into this movie.
Nadine Roussial plays Livia the Arena Queen, a virgin who must win one more battle inside the arena to get her freedom. It’s an adult movie — hey there’s Mark Shannon in a cameo — and was probably made on sets from another at the same time D’Amato movie like The Emperor Caligula: The Untold Story or Messalina… orgasmo imperiale which saw Joe use the name OJ Clarke.Nadine Roussial is in the latter, so it makes a little too much sense. Look — when you have a set, use it.
Diary of a Roman Virgin used the D’Amato named Michael Wotruba name here. It’s the story of Livia (Lucretia Love, who may have been born in Texas but made her way to Italy to be in everything from The Killer Reserved Nine Seatsto Enter the Devil) who has made her way from a tragedy involving stock footage from The Last Days of Pompeii and who rise in power.
This also has scenes from Triumph of the Ten Gladiators and The Arena in it, because why let stuff go to waste, right?
These films are at the opposite sides of D’Amato making Roman epics. Of course, after the 80s, the sex would go even further in his films, as he’d make Sodoma e Gomorra, Caligola follia del potere and Antonio e Cleopatra as adult movies.
Supposedly, The Devil’s Wedding Night (AKA Full Moon of the Virgins) was all Mark Damon’s idea. After being in House of Usher, Damon had moved to Italy and appeared in movies like Black Sabbath and Johnny Yuma.
Perhaps this idea was the start of his producing career, which was more successful than his acting job. Damon was planning on selling the movie an American production company. Luigi Batzella (Nude for Satan, The Beast In Heat) was picked to direct, but most people believe that Joe D’Amato stepped in and finished the film.
I’m a firm believer in this theory because there’s a moment near the end of this movie where an otherworldly Countess Dolingen De Vries rises from a bathtub of blood and fog and writhes near nude on the screen and somehow going beyond the confines of the screen to destroy my mind. I generally try my best not to turn reviews of movies with atrractive women into male gaze spectacles, but Rosalba Neri is absoutely iconic in this moment, a perfect scene that is never discussed nearly enough.
There’s also a magic vampire ring of the Nibelungen, which is gigantic costume jewelery and therefore better than any Hollywood baubles, village girls with sacred amulets of Pazuzu (yes, really), five virgins getting sacrificed all at once in an express line of bloodletting magic, three different twist endings in a row, tripped out Dr. Who looking tunnel moments, D’Amato billing himself as Michael Holloway and going absolutely wlld capturing every inch of womanly curves and an incredible setting, the Castello Piccolomini Balsorano, the same place Lady Frankenstein, Bloody Pit of Horror, Crypt of the Vampire, The Lickerish Quartet, The Blade Master, Sister Emanuelle, The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance, The Reincarnation of Isabel, Farfallon, Pensiero d’amore, Lady Barbara, 7 Golden Women Against Two 07: Treasure Hunt, C’è un fantasma nel mio letto, Baby Love and Put Your Devil Into My Hell were all shot at.
Plus, Xiro Papas, the monster of Frankenstein 80, plays a vampiric giant.
If you’re a fan of the harder side of Hammer, then allow this female vampire to obsess you as well.
We had this faith-based film from Johnny Cash on our long list for our most recent “Rock ‘n’ Roll Week” (which is actually musically diverse), then our Christian Cinema, aka Christploitation Week, came together, so here we are.
By the time Johnny had the clout to make the movie he always wanted to make — a film that professed his faith — he was already a seasoned film veteran, making his first transition from behind the microphone to the silver screen with a guest-starring role on TV’s Wagon Train (1959) and Shogun Slade (1959). After two more bit roles on The Rebel (1960) and The Deputy (1961), Cash made his feature film debut in Five Minutes to Live, aka Door to Door Maniac (1961). He soon followed with the lead role in the TV movie The Night Rider (1962) and held his own alongside Kirk Douglas in A Gunfight (1971) directed by Lamont Johnson (The Last American Hero).
At the time, “Jesus Rock” was big business, which lead to the film adaptations of the Broadway “Rock Operas” Godspell (via Columbia Pictures) and Jesus Christ Superstar (via Universal Pictures), and Neil Diamond taking the music reins on the film adaptation of the international best-selling novella Jonathan Livingston Seagull(via Paramount Pictures) — all of which were issued in 1973. So, when Johnny Cash pitched his version of the Gospel of Christ set to his original tunes, 20th Century Fox got on board the gospel train. The studio, however, only distributed the film: the production was fully financed by Cash and his wife (who plays Mary Magdalene).
To direct his version on the story on the life of Jesus, his death and resurrection on location in Israel, Cash, the producer, chose noted cinematographer and documentarian Robert Elfstrom, who directed Cash’s 1969 documentary Johnny Cash! The Man, His World, His Music.
As inspired Cash’s idea is — of his black-clad self narrating the story via an acoustic guitar performing original tunes composed by himself, his wife June Carter, and Kris Kristofferson — critics outright hated the movie (Michael Medved even gave it an entry in one of his Golden Turkeys books). Sure, the theology is skewed, the narrative is sappy, and the acting is rough in spots. But there’s a lot of heart (that Medved missed, big surprise) in the frames, and none of the negatives my production-critical eye sees today, as I revisit The Gospel Road all these years later, doesn’t detract from the fact that this was a big deal when it debuted in 1973. I have found memories of going to the theater and watching it as a family. I enjoyed it then, and still, today.
What makes it work is that Jesus (played by Robert Elfstrom) isn’t the pious, serious washcloth-wimp we’ve seen in other depictions. Johnny’s Jesus is a jovial messiah who takes to playing with children on the beaches of the Sea of Galilee. Beautiful stuff, indeed.
In addition to the film, the music in the film also served as Johnny’s fourth gospel album and 45th album overall, a double album issued in 1973. The music is, of course, absolutely fantastic.
Am I blinded by my Johnny Cash fandom? Probably. And this movie may not convert you, but it will certainly move you. Oh, yes. It will move you. Johnny has that way about him. And you can stream it for free on Godtube. You can watch the trailer on You Tube.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Movies.
Editor’s Note: Sam Panico previously reviewed this Christian-leaning extensional film as part of our February 2020 “Box Office Failures” theme week of reviews. As we fill out our ever-expanding database of reviews of “Christian Cinema” films from the ’70s that we’ve missed, we brought this film back for another look.
Sam and I are split on this film. But he hasn’t outcast me, as was Jonathan, from the B&S flock. For we are still united in our love of Godfrey Ho and Bruno Mattei films.And there will always be The Astrologer, right Sam?
And what does this all have to do with the “Jesus Rock” movement of the late ’60s and early ’70s? Read on, brother.
The September 17, 1981, cover of Rolling Stone #352, with a picture of Jim Morrison emblazoned on the cover, proclaimed: He’s Hot, He’s Sexy and Dead. In the early ’70s, the same could be said about Jesus Christ, for the Son of God ruled the airwaves and theater screens.
To set up the “why” of this tale of existential seagulls (as well as the “hippie Jesus” romps Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar), we need to look back to the positive message of the “Jesus Rock” movement born out of the disillusioned “Summer of Love” of the late ’60s.
At the time, as Sam Pacino pointed out in his review of the Christian apoc-documentary The Late Great Planet Earth*, the hippie occult generation’s dreams flamed out at Altamont and was annihilated on Cielo Drive. I have to add that, the hippies, whether they accepted it or not, were long since assimilated by Madison Avenue. There was still money to be made at the expense of the “Summer of Love,” for it was no longer an ideal, but a marketing campaign.
Enter Brother J. to breath new life into a down-the-tubes advertising crusade.
The short-lived “Jesus Rock” genre (for a contemporary context: think of the 36-month run of the Nirvana-driven Grunge era) hit its peak in 1972 when the Doobie Brothers scored a Top 40 hit with “Jesus Is Just Alright.” Other bands topping the Billboard charts were the Stephen Stills-led “supergroup” Manassass (with Chris Hillman of the Byrds) and “Jesus Gave Love Away For Free” (1972) (remembering the Byrds started the genre with their 1969-version of the Doobies’ later hit), the folk-rocking “Now Be Thankful” by Fairport Convention (1970), “Jesus is a Soul Man” by Lawrence Reynolds (1970), Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the the Sky” (1970), Charlie Allen and his band Pacific Gas & Electric with “Are You Ready” (1971), Sweathog with “Hallelujah,” “Put Your Hand in the Hand” (1971) by the Canadian band Ocean, “Joy to the World” (1971) by Three Dog Night, and “If You Wanna Get to Heaven” by Ozark Mountain Daredevils (1974). Pop music fans forget that Top 40-meister Tommy James of the Shondells followed up his early, playful hits of “Hanky Panky,” “I Think We’re Alone Now,” and “Mony, Mony” with an album that professed his faith, his second album, Christian of the World (1971); that “Jesus Rock” entry scored two U.S. Top 40 hits with the songs “Draggin’ the Line” and “I’m Coming Home.” (No, the prior song isn’t about cocaine use (“doing lines”), but about the futility of man’s efforts under God.)
Myrrh Records, a leading Christian music label, had their catalog distributed via A&M Records, which brought Petra (a Southern/Country Rock concern) to a national stage. Ohio’s Glass Harp (friends with the Eagles’ Joe Walsh, then of the James Gang), signed with Decca, and the Resurrection Band broke new ground with their Zeppelin/Sabbath “heavy blues” take on the genre. The smash hit, Broadway “Rock Operas” Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell were adapted into films; their respective cast albums and soundtracks topped the charts, with singles from each becoming Top 40 hits for Murray Head, Yvonne Elliman, Helen Ready, and even Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan.
So, with Columbia and Universal releasing their competing films versions of Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar in 1973 (in March and August, respectively), the odd-studio out, Paramount, wasn’t missing the “Jesus Rock” boat. So they optioned writer Richard Bach’s 1970 best-selling novella, Jonathan Livingston Seagull. And since the book — as did the two stage-to-films that inspired its production — didn’t come with a soundtrack, Paramount, through Columbia Records (his label), contracted Neil Diamond to write a companion piece to the book/film. Yes, Neil Diamond, the bane of many’s musical existence (not me), made a “Jesus Rock” album — and topped the album and singles charts.
Jonathan (aka Jesus Christ, voiced by James Francisus) tires of the boring life in his sea-gull clan. So he experiments with new, always more daring flying techniques (putting way the flesh and finding his spiritual side). Since his spiritual quest goes against the communal grains, the flock’s elders (Hal Holbrook) expel him from the clan (as was, if you know your Bible, Jesus). So Jonathan sets out upon the Earth to discover wisdom, find disciples, and a higher reason for being.
Needless to say, the general public had a hard enough time comprehending spiritually conflicted, sentient computers and alien interpretations of heaven as an all white-luxury hotel suite, as an astronaut traveled his “inner space” in 2001: A Space Odyssey. So, most — film critic Roger Ebert infamously walked out of the film — weren’t going for intelligent seagulls backed by a Neil Diamond soundtrack.
The seagulls, of course, do not actually talk; you’re hearing their “thoughts,” as it were, courtesy of a voice cast rounded out by Juliet Mills and Richard Crenna. You have to give Hall Bartlett credit, who, without the benefits of CGI or animation, somehow managed to film seagulls and frame it with dialog to give us an impression the gulls, in fact, talk.
If Roma Downey and her husband/producing cohort Mark Burnett (who found great success with their The Bible miniseries and 2014’s Son of God) remade this, courtesy of technology, the gulls — as do all of the animals in today’s films and television commercials, would actually, “talk.”
But let’s let this one be.
If you enjoyed the book — which many (criminally) dismissed as metaphysical drivel and thus, hated the movie — you’ll love the movie, a movie that is of its time and place: a time when seagulls could talk and Jesus was, in fact, “hot, sexy and dead.”
You can enjoy the soundtrack, in its entirety, on You Tube. The film is easily found on multiple PPV streaming platforms.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Andre Couture writes about film on his blog Celluloid Consommé and on Letterboxd. You can hear his voice talk about monsters on Humanoids From the Deep Dive from time to time and read his Twitter rambles by following him at @demonidisco.
There’s something infatuating about how weird 70s science fiction can get. It’s hard to encounter those stories that haven’t been filled in with the jargon of the time, injecting it with a time capsule-like quality while further embellishing whichever angle the sci-fi narrative is presenting, usually a sociopolitical one.
Invasion of the Bee Girls feels like the polar opposite of something like The Stepford Wives — in effect an act of revenge against men for all they take for granted and continually and casually oppress. It’s just so fitting that it takes the form of mutated women seducing men to death, literally.
The film opens on Neil Agar (played by William Smith, Captain Devlin and Count Sodom from Hell Comes to Frogtown) who is sent to California to investigate the mysterious death of a bacteriologist at Brandt Research, a government facility. It’s when he talks with some of the other lead scientists that he notices a lot of them are quite the players, living extravagant sex lives on the side. More bodies pile up that fit the same cause of death: congestive heart failure caused by sexual exhaustion. What a way to go! If anything, death by sex might be too good for these people.
In an early scene the local sheriff holds a meeting for the townspeople that feels ripped straight out of a Jaws ripoff. In some ways this one kind of is, too. But what this scene has going for it is wonderful and breathes some much-needed air into the movie. It includes an amusingly dated V.D. joke that even gets the town chuckling about the murders. I mean, if you’re going to make a sci-fi picture about women experimentally mutating bee DNA to kill male playboys with sex, you might as well have a sense of humor about it.
We loosely follow Dr. Susan Harris (Anitra Ford from Messiah of Evil) during her bee escapades while she wears large gaudy black sunglasses which at first seem to just be her own weird fashion choice that she’s latched onto (or Ford’s insistence on wearing them during her scenes as if she were recovering from a hangover while filming, something Cameron Mitchell fans can identify with). But as we see more and more Bee Girls they all don the same style. I’d say it works for some more than others, and while you’d think it’s not really that creepy just think how a crowd of them staring at you would feel like.
There’s one thing inarguably chilling in this and that’s the transformation sequence in the film where we see the entire process of what it takes to transform someone into the titular Bee Girl and its equal parts intense and frightening. In a completely dialogue-free sequence, a hypnotic drone sounds with a heavy dose of blue light blasting onto the subject. Various assisting worker Bee Girls cover the subject with a weird white substance that looks a little too much like Fluffernutter, then seal them into a chamber where bees swarm and cover every inch of their body. Daniel Robitaille, eat your heart out. They then emerge and the white stuff is peeled away, exposing the newly mutated lady inside. Truly creepy shit, and all achieved visually with no need for dialogue. If nothing else this is what you came to see.
Invasion of the Bee Girls is director Denis Sanders’ last feature film and Nicholas Meyer’s first film writing gig — he actually almost removed his name from the film after rewrites but was convinced to keep it. Got to take those credits when you can, I guess.
A Harlequin for my heart:Image courtesy of Sherry E. DeBoer via her IMDb page from a “Teen” magazine photo shoot.
Well, you know how the VCRs roll at B&S About Movies . . . where a review of Peter Carpenter’s Point of Terror, as well as Blood Mania, leads to a reader inquiry and discussion on whatever happened ever happened to Pete . . . which inspires a two-fer review of Vixen! and Love Me Like I Do to finish off his all-too-slight resume. And those discussion about Pete left us wondering . . . “What ever happened to Gene Shane from Werewolves on Wheels and The Velvet Vampire?”
Well, as you know, we solved “The Case of Peter Carpenter” with that said, two-fer review, and we peeled away at the onion that is “The Mystery of Gene Shane” watering our eyes with our review of The Velvet Vampire. Luckily — because we are so exhausted from those two crazed investigations of our favorite actors of yore — “The Case of Sherry Miles,” now known as DeBoer, is more easier slice and diced, thanks to her involvement in her own IMDb page, along with the many, loyal websites* dedicated to all things Hee Haw (an old “Kornfield Kountry” TV series that aired on CBS in the ’60s).
So, let’s pay tribute to one of our favorite — and missed — actress of the ’60s and ’70s.
What might have been: Sherry won — then lost — the role of Bobbie to Ann-Margret in Mike Nichols’s Carnal Knowledge (1971) — which also starred the equally burgeoning Jack Nicholson and Candace Bergen. Image courtesy of the Sherry E. DeBoer Archives, via IMDb.
That Teen modeling spread we used for our banner, above, soon transitioned Sherry into an acting career, which began with the pre-Gilligan’s Island Bob Denver series The Good Guys (1969), an early Aaron Spelling series, the counterculture sci-fi drama, The New People (1969), and Medical Center (1969) starring Chad Everett (The Intruder Within). Sherry’s other, early ’70s appearances included the popular series Mod Squad, Nanny and the Professor, Pat Paulsen’sHalf a Comedy Hour, The Name of the Game, The High Chaparral, The Beverly Hillbillies, Adam 12, Love American Style, and The Partridge Family (Sherry over Susan Dey, every day of the week — and twice on Sundays!). As we crossed the nation’s bicentennial, Sherry appeared on the popular series Baretta with Robert Blake (Corky), Police Woman with Angie Dickinson (Big Bad Mama), Richie Brockelman, Private Eye with future director Dennis Dugan (Love, Weddings & Other Disasters), and Wonder Woman with Lynda Carter (Bobbi Joe and the Outlaw). And let’s not forget Sherry’s 26-episode run as part of the comedy ensemble on the homegrown variety show Hee Haw* during its 1971 to 1972 season.
A one-time heiress to the Hawaii-based Long’s Drug Store chain (now owned and operated by CVS since 2008; I’m in there, often), Sherry Miles got married, became a DeBoer, and retired from the business after her final, on-camera appearance during the third season of Wonder Woman. Since her retirement, she’s become a long-respected animal rights activist.
Adorable. Sherry in 1969 on Pat Paulsen’s Half a Comedy Hour/Walt Disney Television.
Some of Sherry’s films you may not know. Others you have seen. And, hopefully, after this “Exploring” feature, you’ll search out the others. But you’ll surely revisit with Sherry in everyone’s favorite film of her career: The Velvet Vampire, a film so gosh-darn fine that, no offense to Sherry, intended: even if she weren’t in it . . . basically, we’re telling you to put The Velvet Vampire on your must-watch list, unintended insults to Sherry, be damned.
Okay, let’s unpack Sherry’s all-too-brief, big screen career, shall we?
Cry For Poor Wally (1969)
Everything . . . ended up on VHS in the ’80s. Everything.
Russell Johnson (the Professor of Gilligan’s Island fame) stars as the small town sheriff in this “based on a true story” crime-drama filmed in Dallas, Texas. Johnson confronts Wally (a very good Keith Rothschild in his only film role; Johnson is equally fine): a fugitive on the run who takes a woman hostage in a diner with the goal of staying out of prison — no matter the cost. As Johnson tries to talk down Wally, the story flashes back as to the “why” it all happened: upon the death of his mother, his father leaves (abandons) him for greener pastures; his girlfriend (Sherry Miles) also contributes to his psychotic break.
Keep your eyes open for another slight-resume actress in Barbara Hancock, who we enjoyed in her fourth and final film, the “GP” horror film, The Night God Screamed (1972). In addition to Russell and Sherry, this is packed with a great cast of familiar character actors of the you-know-them-when-you-see-them variety of Elisha Cook, Jr., Bill Thurman (!) ,Gene Ross, and Paul Lambert.
Cry for Poor Wally proved to be the only producing and directing effort by Marty Young. Screenwriter Marshall Riggan followed with the Christian apocalypse drama Six-Hundred & Sixty Six (1972) and completed his features career with the lost, psychological horror, So Sad About Gloria (1973).
There’s a copy on the Internet Archive to stream. There’s also a ten-minute highlight reel — of its opening diner scene — courtesy of our friends at Scarecrow Video on You Tube, who also contributed the film’s full-digitized upload to the IA.
To say Sam and I love this movie — Sherry’s presence, aside — is a well-worn trope.
The Phynx are a manufactured band — kind of like the Monkees meets Stripes — made up of A. “Michael” Miller, Ray Chipperway, Dennis Larden and Lonny Stevens. They’re trained in all manner of espionage, as well as rock ‘n roll, including meeting Dick Clark, record industry-emissary James Brown, and being taught how to have some “soul” by Richard Pryor. Hey, wait a sec . . . didn’t Cliff Richards and the Shadows do the “spy rock” thing in Finders Keepers (1966)?
At once an indictment of the system and the product of the very hand that it is biting, The Phynx occupies the same weird space as Skidoo, i.e., big-budget Hollywood films trying desperately — and failing — to reach the long-haired hippy audience — like the Monkees with Head — yet failing to understand them at any level. Sort of like the next film on today’s program.
Since this is locked up in the Warner Archive, there’s no streams to share, but here’s a clip on You Tube.
Making It (1971)
Ugh. The marketing of movies.
Based on the theatrical one-sheet and the R-rating, you’re expecting a soft-core sexploitationer: you actually end up with a not-so-bad, smart “coming of age” teen dramedy. As it should be: it’s written by Peter Bart (for 20th Century Fox), who you known best as the co-host, with film executive Peter Guber, of AMC’s film talk and interview programs Shootout and Storymakers, as well as Encore’s In the House. True movieheads known, that, after his screenwriting career, Bart was a writer at the New York Times, an Editor-In Chief at Variety, and later a Vice President of Production at Paramount Studios. While serving as the screenwriting debut for Bart, Making It was also the feature film debut for longtime TV director John Erman (Outer Limits, My Favorite Martian, Star Trek: TOS); continuing with TV series, Erman directed numerous TV movies into the early-2000s.
While Sherry Miles is what brought us here: we’re also captivated by a cast that features early roles for the familiar Bob Balaban (made his debut in in the iconic Midnight Cowboy), David Doyle (yep, Bosley from TV’s Charlie’s Angels), character actor extraordinaire John Fiedler, Denny Miller, Lawrence Pressman, and Tom Troupe, along with the brother-sister thespian duo of Dick and Joyce Van Patten.
Based on the ’60s best-seller, What Can You Do?, a very young Kristoffer Tabori (later of Brave New World and a Star Wars video game voice artist) stars as Phil Fuller: a 17-year-old ne’er-do-well clone of David Cassidy (who would have been perfect in the “grown up” role) living with his widowed mother (Joyce Van Patten). He quenches his self-centered needs by using the girls in his school (prom queen, Sherry Miles), his nerdy best friend (a very young Bob Balaban), and his basketball coach (Denny Miller) — by taking up with his wife (Marlyn Mason). Meanwhile, Joyce Van has or own sexual issues: she’s facing the thoughts of an abortion after shacking up with an insurance agent (played by her brother!). Then Phil, himself, deals with the issues of abortion when he gets one of his high school-conquests, pregnant.
In the end, what you get in the frames of Making It is not a sexploitation comedy, or even a “coming of age” dramedy, but an insightful examination of a pre-Roe vs. Wade world regarding the legalities surrounding abortions (then illegal in California, where this takes place, but legal in New York, where a Patten’s character considers going to get one).
It’s pretty heavy stuff of a time and place, but without the favorable atmosphere of Fast Times of Ridgemont High — if that film centered soley on Mike Damone knocking up Stacy Hamilton. My youthful nostalgia for movies like this slide in nicely next to an early Sam Elliot in Lifeguard, Dennis Christopher in California Dreaming, and the genre change-up with Cathy Lee Crosby in Coach. Your own nostalgia mileage — and for all films Sherry Miles — may vary.
My enjoyment of this movie, which serves as the suffix-title to this retrospective on Sherry Miles, is unbound. Sherry is not only stellar in it: so is the cast, under the pen and lens of Stephanie Rothman. Simply put: this is a beautiful, creepy film.
Swinging Lee Ritter and his vapid, but pretty wife, Susan (Sherry Miles), make the mistake of accepting the art gallery invitation of a mysterious, red-dressed vixen, Diane LeFanu (Celeste Yarnall), to visit her secluded, desert estate. The couple soon discover Diane is a centuries-old vampire — and both are objects of her bisexual thirsts.
The Todd Killings (1971)
Also known as Maniac in the VHS ’80s.
Fans of the based-in-fact teen murder tale of River’s Edge (marketed on the later VHS “slasher” reissues as Maniac; it’s why we rented it) will enjoy Sherry Miles’s second — after Cry for Poor Wally — true crime drama, this one based on the true story of ’60s thrill-killer Charles Schmid, known as “The Pied Piper of Tuscon.”
The film was inspired by a March 1966 Life magazine article about the killings, which, in turn, inspired the 1966 short anthology story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Schmid’s exploits were also loosely adapted into the Treat Williams-starring Smooth Talk (1985), as well as the (woefully inferior) films Dead Beat (1994) and The Lost (2005).
Skipper Todd (an outstanding Robert F. Lyons, a much-seen ’60s TV actor in his fourth feature film, but first starring role) is a charismatic, 23-year old ne’er-do-well who charms his way into the lives of out-of-his-age-bracket high school kids in a small California town. The girls, of course, fall instantly for him and head out to the desert for some romantic fun — only never to return. As in the true crimes that inspired River’s Edge, Todd, aka Schmid, was assisted by his girlfriend and best friend in luring, killing, and burying the victims. Shocking for its time, Belinda J. Montgomery and Richard Thomas are frontal nude; Montgomery’s is cut from the later VHS versions.
As with Cry for Poor Wally, this is another one of those lost, underrated gems — it’s heartbreaking for all concerned, even the beyond salvation Skipper Todd — of the Drive-In era rediscovered, not during the UHF-TV ’70s, but the home video ’80s. The quality comes courtesy of its familiar cast of a just-starting-out Richard Thomas (as Skipper’s loyal hanger-on buddy), along with Edward Asner, Barbara Bel Geddes, James Broderick, Michael Conrad (remember the gruff commander on Hill Street Blues?) Gloria Grahame, and Fay Spain. Also keep your eyes open for musician-actress Holly Near in her third role; she made her debut in the critically lambasted Angel, Angel Down WeGo (1969).
There’s no trailers or streams to share — well, there’s a You Tube Italian-dub to skim — but the DVDs abound in the online marketplace. This is a great film. It’s also a nihilistic, downbeat one, but still worthy of a watch.
Calliope (1971)
The new and improved Calliope.
“Spoofs today’s sex films (i.e., porn) the way Batman spoofed Super Heroes!” — tagline for the original, first release of Calliope
I just can’t see my dearest Sherry signing on the dotted line for a goofy, post-Russ Meyer wannabe skinflick that proclaims: “It spreads, and spreads, and spreads,” only to equate its comedy to a beloved Adam West TV series. Obviously, what was presented during negotiations to Sherry, and what was distributed to theaters, differed. Wildly. But what else should we have expected from writer-director Matt Climber, he who gave us The Black Six (1973), Pia Zadora in Butterfly (1981), and a sex-bent take on Indiana Jones with Yellow Hair and the Fortress of Gold (1984)?
Well, this movie. That’s what. And this one is truly a lost film.
So much for producing an Americanized remake of the significant and cinematically-respected La Ronde (1950), a 1900s-era, spicy-romantic, French-language comedy by German-born director Max Ophüls, which earned a 1952 “Best Screenplay” Oscar nod. He also repeated that Oscar feat with his next film, Le Plaisir (1952), which earned a 1955 nod for its Art Direction, done by Max, himself. So loved was La Ronde in its homeland, as well as across Europe, Roger Vadim (Barbarella) updated the film as Circle of Love (1964), with his soon-to-be lover, Jane Fonda. As for the Ophüls original: it took four years before U.S. film sensors approved the film, sans cuts, for theater showings in 1954.
As for the U.S. remake, originally released under the title, Calliope, what could go wrong: everything. Didn’t you hear the sound of two-time Oscar-nominated Max Ophüls turning over in his grave?
Both films are concerned with ten people “in various episodes in the endless waltz of love” (they go “round and round,” thus the titles), as they each hop from encounter to encounter . . . and that’s were it all stops. Dead.
Since Americans were still swingin’ from the free-loving, Summer of Love ’60s, and Mike Nichols answered the “sex revolution” charge with the aforementioned Carnal Knowledge (1971) (and Paul Mazursky’s 1969 effort, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice), Allied Artists (an outgrowth of Monogram Pictures, a library now owned-split among Warner Bros., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayor, and Paramount; Warner owns Calliope) decided that, instead of the main protagonist (now a hippie musician instead of soldier-on-leave) eventually finding love with the partner he started off with (Sherry Miles, now a band groupie, instead of the original’s prostitute) . . . he receives “the gift that goes on giving”: a sexually transmitted disease, i.e., venereal disease, since this was the ’70s and not the AIDS ’80s.
Yuk Yuk.
Calliope (no theatrical one-sheets exist, at least online), needless to say, bombed. Ah, but the “Golden Age of Porn” was in full swing, so Allied Artists didn’t give up: a year later, in 1972, the reimaged Love Is Catching hit the circuit; it opened in, of all places, the home base of B&S About Movies: Pittsburgh. It bombed, again, and harder than a Richard Harrison Philippine film he was edited-into and never signed on to do.
This soft-sexploitation romp causes me to reflex on poor Gerald McRaney and Tom Selleck, each scoring their first major roles in Night of Bloody Horror and Daughters of Satan, respectively. The scripts are pretty good . . . and work is work . . . and they thesp’d up a sweat to make it all work . . . then J.N Houck, Jr., and worse, in Tom Selleck’s case, since U.S. major, United Artists, backed it, cheesed the films with exploitative ad campaigns. Just like Calliope. And Skidoo. And Myra Breckinridge.
Sherry, six films in to her career, and just missing out on a co-starring role with Jack Nicholson in one of Mike Nichols best films — a frank, adult-discussion of modern-day sexual issues — was deserving of a better, leading lady role than this STD sex farce.
Sure, it’s a well-shot picture, and the acting is pretty decent (we have great character actors Marjorie Bennett and Stan Rose, on board). And it’s not all that bad; sure, modernizing from the early 1900s to the late 1960s is inspired. And it’s not at all porny, since the sex scenes are implied, more than shown . . . but I still have this need to go back in time and kick someone . . . for having my sweet Sherry transmitting VD in a movie.
But things are looking up, nicely, with our next feature.
The Ballad of Billie Blue (1972)
Also known as Starcrossed Road on ’80s VHS shelves.
From a sexploitation flick to a Christian cinema obscurity: only in Tinseltown, baby. And while his name is nixed from the one-sheet (whatever, Plekker, nice n’ cheesy paste-up work): the writer-director here is Ken Osborne, the man behind the pen and lens on the biker flick Wild Wheels (1969). He also appeared in our Uncle Al Adamson’s Blood of Dracula’s Castle (1969), Five Bloody Graves (1969), and Hell’s Bloody Devils (1970).
And there’s more!
In addition to Sherry Miles, we have Marty Allen and Eric Estrada? Ray Danton (too many ’60s to ’70s TV series to mention)? Bruce Kimball (Rollercoaster)? Where’s the VCR. Load the tape. LOAD THE TAPE!
The pedigree is the thing in this imperiled-musician-in-a-spiritual-crisis tale, not only with our director, Ken Osborne: the scribe behind this Christploitationer, Ralph Luce, also wrote Wild Wheels. Why, yes, that’s Robert Dix and William Kerwin from Satan’s Sadists, and Herschell Gordon Lewis’s Blood Feast, respectively, in the cast, as well as, again, a very youthful, pre-CHiPs Erik Estrada. And we mention Erik a second time, since this second film in his career was also his second Christploiter. The first was The Cross and the Switchblade, which starred ’60s crooner Pat Boone, as directed by Don Murray (Conquest of the Planet of the Apes).
The Ballad of Billie Blue is the tale of a drug-and-boozed out country music star — our faux-message “Jesus Christ” of the proceedings — sent to prison, aka Hell, on a bum murder rap; he finds God by way of a prison preacher and a Christ-following country music star.
Regardless of its secular, exploitative pedigree, this was Rated-G — and it ran as a “Special Church Benefit” in rural theaters, as well as in churches and tent revivals. Granted it’s no country-cautionary tale in the vein of A Star Is Born (1976) with Kris Kristofferson, but it’s not a total disaster.
I still say the Oscar-winning dramedy Sideways (2004) starring Paul Giamatti (in the Beau Bridges role) and Thomas Haden Church (in the Rob Liebman role) stole this movie lock, stock, and wine bottle. But I digress. . . .
So . . . the ’70s and their slew of ne’er-do-well “buddy films” were entertaining times, with the likes of Midnight Cowboy (1969), starring Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman, Busting (1974), with Elliott Gould and Robert Blake, Freebie and the Bean (1974), starring Alan Arkin and James Caan, and Let’s Do It Again (1975), with Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier.
My old Pop loved his “buddy films,” so you didn’t have to sell us twice — especially when the buddies are Beau Bridges and Ron Liebman. And we ain’t hatin’ Janet Margolin in the frames, either. Mom and Pop dumped me at the sitter to see this back when; I watched it later, amid the ultra-high frequency haze of my pre-cable TV youth. All, of course, were rented, again, when they hit home video.
Oh, and speaking of Sideways: this isn’t just a buddy film. You know all of those Judd Apatow, gross-out “road movies” you love: this is where that road, began. Only without any of the Paul Rudd or Seth Rogen annoyance aftertaste.
Charlie (a perfectly cast Beau Bridges) is a henpecked office drone-doormat at a dead-end job, engaged to harping woman (Janet Margolin, Planet Earth). The lone spark in his life is his “idol,” Mike (an even more perfectly cast Rob Liebman), a narcissistic and misogynistic, well, dickhead, of a buddy. So, to get Charlie out from under his soon-to-be-loveless marriage — and his own, mounting debts and his recently cut-off unemployment benefits — the pair hits the roads of the California coast on Mike’s last two, usable credit cards, subsidized by a little bit of larceny. Along the way, the pick up two, nubile hippie chicks (in the expertly cast) June Fairchild (Up In Smoke) and Sherry Miles.
So, somewhere in the frames is a message about America’s newfound “liberation” forged in the ’60s (more effectively done with Beau’s brother, Jeff, in 1974’s Thunderbolt and Lightfoot), but while this warms the ol’ UHF-TV cockles of watching it with ol’ Pop all those years ago, Your Three Minutes Are Up is an erratic, rambling TV movie-flat messadventure that could have easily went the bloody-serial killer route — if not for its purposeful, comedic slant. Think Easy Rider sans the drugs and bikes, or Five Easy Pieces with Liebman as our ersatz Jack Nicholson, and you’re on the right road in this still, effectively cast and well-acted adventure.
Look, Steven Hilliard Stern (The Park Is Mine) is directing . . . so what’s not to like, here?
Well, uh, not much, in this woefully dated “sex revolution” tale that sequels the box office hit, The Harrad Experiment (1973), which grossed $3 million against $400,000.
So, why did this sure-fire hit, flop?
Well, the character of James Whitmore (Brooks Hatlen in The Shawshank Redemption) doesn’t return. Tippi Hedren’s does, but is replaced by a lookalike in Emmaline Henry (Ms Amanda Bellows from TV’s I Dream of Jeannie). And Don Johnson and Bruno Kirby bowed out. Sure, Laurie Walters (Warlock Moon; later TV’s Eight Is Enough), who made her acting debut in the original, is back, and so is bit TV actress Victoria Thompson, but who is coming to see either? And we want more Sherry Miles, thank you.
Note to executives: When you loose three quarters of your cast, don’t make the sequel.
Anyway, the premise is that faux-Stanley and Harry, along with real-Sheila and Beth, are out on summer break from their first year at Harrad College: it’s time to test their new found sexual freedom in the real world. Or something. Like going back and re-watching Bob & Ted & Carol & Alice and Carnal Knowledge.
Hey, I champion Stern’s TV work just as much as my fellow fan of the VHS obscure, but this is simply yawn-inducing . . . .the total opposite of The Harrad Experiment, which has Don and Bruno — especially Bruno — going for it. Robert Reiser and Richard Doran in their places, well . . . they’re not awful: they just don’t have the same spunk to make the hippie proceedings, hep.
No streams, but the DVDs are out there; here’s the trailer.
Okay. So, the heart breaker and dream maker of my wee-lad years, Sherry Miles, closes out her career by running around an island with Joe Don Baker to escape a pack of wild dogs . . . get this: under the lens of Robert Clouse of Enter the Dragon, Black Belt Jones, and Golden Needles fame?
Load. The. Tape. Now.
Sure, this beat Stephen’s King’s Cujoto theaters and was all about a literal army of dogs biting everyone on Seal Island — which has nothing on Dog Island from Humongous. So, was Robert Clouse inspired by the 1976 film starring David McCallum that you don’t want to confuse with The Pack, aka Dogs? Probably. No, not Devil Dog: Hound of Hell (1978), as that one starred Richard Crenna. Get your horror dog movies, straight, buddy! Did Clouse’s dog romp inspire Earl Owensby’s (Dark Sunday) backwater sheriff fighting off government-bred mutts in Dogs of Hell (1983)? Probably.
What else can we say: it’s a killer dog movie. Not even Sherry’s presence can save it. But horror was hot and, as an actor, you jump the trend and hope for a hit. Well, it is to us, at B&S About Movies. We’re weird that way.
There’s no freebie streams, but the PPVs are out there; here’s the trailer.
The blue eyes and crooked smile that launched a thousand ships: Sherry, in her final role for an episode of TV’s Wonder Woman.Imagine Sherry going “Scream Queen” and dominating the Slasher ’80s . . . what might have been.
So wraps this latest “Exploring” featuring, this one on (sigh . . . skyrockets . . . rainbows . . . fields of flowers . . . hearts with angel wings) Sherry Miles. Be sure to click the “Exploring” tag below to read the full list of all of our “Exploring” features on the lost, forgotten and awesome actors and directors, as well as genres, of the Drive-In ’60s, the UHF-TV ’70s, and VHS ’80s eras.
Yeah, we’re doin’ it for the celluloid love. And because we’re just crazy that way. This is B&S About Movies, after all.
* Learn more about Hee Haw at this Alchetron.com fan site.
Some of our other actor and director career explorations include:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Nate Roscoe has been writing about film since the age of six, quite literally: he recalls penning an appraisal of Beauty and the Beast for a school assignment way back in ’91. His mastery of critique has improved a fair bit since then, and he recently contributed essays to a couple of Blu-ray releases from 88 Films. Currently, he is in the process of writing his first book. Nate is the editor of Trash to Tarkovsky, a blog devoted to the esoteric crannies of cinema. Catch him on Twitter @nutellanate
Psychiatry and cinema have always had a tempestuous rapport. For every well-intentioned – though seldom discerning – probe into the subterrain of mental illness, there are dozens of tone-deaf endeavours that circumvent authenticity for the glamour of lurid sensationalism. The setting of an institution, especially, has long been a prosperous fount of cinematic hysteria: that timeworn motif of sterile corridors stretching down to padded white cells, a motley crew of blathering idiots, sexual deviants, and slobbering freakshows housed within.
Make no mistake about it: Don’t Look in the Basement (1973) is neither shrewd nor particularly sensitive in its gauging of psychological impairment. But nor is it as trashy, violent, or exploitative as its moniker and marketing – or, indeed, its time spent back in the day on Britain’s notorious ‘video nasties’ hit list – would have you believe. The brainchild of Texan trash-master S. F. Brownrigg and screenwriter Tim Pope, the story follows beautiful Charlotte Beale (charismatic Playboy model Rosie Holotik) as she lands a new job at a privately-run hospital known for its subversive methods of treatment. Keen to make a good impression on both her employer (the formidable Annabelle Weenick) and those in her care, the young nurse does her level best to embrace the challenges that come with the role, but a sequence of alarming incidents in the workplace pushes her precariously close to the brink of her own sanity.
Predating Miloš Forman’sOne Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) by two years, one can surmise that sanatorium-based horrors such as Bedlam (1946) and Samuel Fuller’s Shock Corridor (1963) – along with the more traditional genre trappings of George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) – were pivotal to the inception of Basement. What it manages to cobble together from those illustrious scraps is a kind of psychotronic chamber piece, a late-night Southern Gothic soap opera comprised of oddball characters and the histrionic quintessence of golden age Douglas Sirk. As with the bulk of Brownrigg’s oeuvre, the visuals secrete a primitive austerity that could almost be certified as artless, yet there’s gumption to be found in the forthright technique; the stationary angles and invasive close-ups lending a docu-like immediacy to the picture’s stained, sweaty visage. Praise must also be bestowed upon the production design, the maze-like belly of the institution (a claustrophobic snarl of hallways, bedrooms, and staircases) evoking a malevolent ambience all its own – a would-be haunted house inhabited by drifting human spectres.
It is mostly in its allusion to the inconceivable terrors of Vietnam that Basement sets itself apart from the crud-laden crowd, pulling on the strings of post-war paranoia so prevalent at the time with a subplot involving Sgt. Jaffee (Hugh Feagin), an ex-military inpatient who spends his every waking hour warding off imaginary nemeses. As metaphors go, this one’s about as subtle as an AK-47, though it does suggest that Pope’s script was shooting for something a little deeper than surface-level schlock – an ambition it best achieves when it’s casting an affectionate spotlight on the quaint peculiarities of its subjects.
Whilst building to an expectedly berserk crescendo that sees the titular crypt (conspicuous by its absence thus far) come fleetingly into play, it is an unshakeable air of sadness, rather than one of revulsion, that lingers heaviest as the credits begin to roll. It’s impossible for us not to feel pity for these condemned pariahs, these flesh-and-blood footnotes in an unforgiving world that has long since turned its back on them (the original US release title, The Forgotten, feels so much more pertinent in this respect). The film overall could be described in much the same way: an anomalous footnote in the annals of Seventies drive-in cinema, as scrappily eccentric and singularly indefinable as those poor broken souls up there on the screen.
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