Tag Archives: 1973

WEIRD WEDNESDAY: Brother On the Run (1973)

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Directed and written by Edward J. Lakso and Herbert L. Strock, Brother On the Run has Billy (Kyle Johnson) and Frank (Gary Rist) on the run — one is black, the other is white — and they hide out after a job gone wrong with Billy’s sister Maud (Gwenn Mitchell), who lives next to Professor Grant (Terry Carter). The title comes from, of course, these brothers on the run despite the teacher trying to help them. He also has sex with two women before he gets to that help.

Lasko wrote The Power Within, Back to the Planet of the Apes, Mr. Tease and His Playthings and tons of TV, while Strock directed Monstroid, The Crawling Hand, The Devil’s Messenger, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, How to Make a Monster, Blood of Dracula and, yes, so much TV.

What they made here is about as good as you’d imagine, as two middle-aged white guys try their hands at blacksploitation.

You can watch this on YouTube.

CBS LATE MOVIE: Arnold (1973)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Arnold was on the CBS Late Movie on November 21, 1986 and March 25 and July 29, 1987.

Lord Arnold Dwellyn (Norman Stuart) has just married Karen (Stella Stevens), which would not be all that strange except that, well, he’s dead. He’s not buried, as per his will, if Karen wants to inherit all that he owns, she must never leave his mansion and leave him in state. That doesn’t mean that she’s taking it easy, as she’s been having an affair with Arnold’s brother Robert (Roddy McDowall). And, um, how did Arnold get married when he had a widow, Lady Jocelyn (Shani Wallis)? I guess it really is until death do you part, right?

There’s money hidden in the walls, though, but whenever anyone gets close to it, Arnold has already planned for it, knowing how each person will react and coming up with a death trap created just for them, like some kind of Dr. Phibes without the years of medical school. Only Arnold’s sister Hester (Elsa Lanchester, once a Bride) seems to benefit from all of this, but her luck can’t last.

Shot at the same time as Terror in the Wax Museum with most of the same cast — Lanchester, Wallis, Steven Marlo, Patric Knowles, Shani Ben Wright and Leslie Thompson — this didn’t hit right with me at first. It felt like a long, black out sketch from Night Gallery. Yet the more I think about it, well, I keep thinking about this movie. I mean, what other film finds roles for Victor Buono, Bernard Fox, Farley Granger and Jamie Farr? How many fog machines did it take to make this? And wow, it was produced by Bing Crosby Productions?

Directed by Georg Fenady, who other than this and the aforementioned Terror in the Wax Museum mainly worked in TV and written by Jameson Brewer (who did write The Incredible Mr. Limpet) and John Fenton Murray (whose credits include Sid and Marty Krofft shows and Partridge Family 2200 AD), this feels like something made in between episodes of other shows. Yet, it has a weird charm that keeps drawing me back to it. Maybe it’s the Shani Walls theme at the end?

CBS LATE MOVIE: The Devil’s Daughter (1973)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Devil’s Daughter was on the CBS Late Movie on September 9, 1975 and January 3, 1978.

The ABC Movie of the Week for January 9, 1973, The Devil’s Daughter, is very much Rosemary’s Baby, the home edition, and that’s perfectly fine. It captures many of the 1970s occult rules accurately.

It stars Belinda Montgomery (Stone Cold Dead, Silent Madness, Doogie Howser’s mother) as Diane Shaw, a young woman who has just lost her mother, Alice (Diane Ladd). At the funeral, she meets the rich Lilith Malone (Shelley Winters, fulfilling the most essential law of Satanic film, that Old Hollywood wants to eat the young), who was a member of a cult with her mother, one that has been following Diane her entire life, ready for her to marry a demonic prince.

I’ve said it before, and I will say it so many more times, but never come home to settle your parents’ estate after their mysterious death. Bad things always happen. As Diane works to settle down in a new town and work on the estate with Judge Weatherby (Joseph Cotten, yes, more Old Hollywood, a year fresh from Baron Blood). She gets a place to stay with Lilith, who gives her a ring that belonged to her mother. The symbol on this ring is the same one as a painting of Satan above the fireplace in Lilith’s home, as well as her baby book and even her favorite brand of cigarettes. Yes, even in 1973, Satan had a great marketing team. Or perhaps this is all predestined.

Diane even gets to go to elite parties. That’s not a good thing. There, she learns that she’s the Princess of Darkness who will marry the Demon of Endor. Yes, the place where Ewoks come from. You knew they were nefarious. At that party — shot very much like Rosemary’s Baby — you’ll even see Jonathan Frid from Dark Shadows as the butler, Lucille Benson (who ran the Susan B. Anthony Hotel for Women on Bosom Buddies) and Abe Vigoda as Alikhine, probably named for noted chess player Alexander Alekhine, as these devil worshippers have checkmated poor Diane.

Also, Abe Vigoda is the same age as I am now, and he always looked ancient. Now, I feel quite old.

Diane runs and gets a roommate, Spretty(Barbara Sammeth), who is the sacrifice in this, dying at a horse’s hooves! As much as she tries to avoid Lilith, she can’t escape. Not even when she meets a lovely man named Steve Stone (Robert Foxworth), a stunning architect who soon marries her. But if you know your demonic films, you won’t be shocked to learn that he’s the demon that Wicket W. Warrick prays to every night, the Demon of Endor.

Director Jeannot Szwarc made numerous TV movies and episodes of Night Gallery, as well as directing Jaws 2, Bug, and Santa Claus: The Movie. I love that this was written by Colin Higgins. Yes, the same man who wrote Harold and Maude would go on to direct 9 to 5 and Foul Play.

Do you think your father is terrible? Diane’s dad is Satan. And her husband? He has blank eyes because he has no soul! The best part is the reveal that Satan, who we have seen in shadow and who has crutches, ends up being Joseph Cotten and he has cloven hooves for feet! I’m not sure if I can love a movie as much as Devil’s Daughter.

CBS LATE MOVIE: Linda (1973)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Linda was on the CBS Late Movie on September 29, 1975, May 24, 1977 and June 12, 1978.

John D. MacDonald had several of his books turned into movies. The Executioners was filmed twice as Cape Fear, Soft Touch inspired Man-Trap, plus the novels Darker Than Amber, The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything, Condominium and A Flash of Green were all made into movies. Even this story was turned into two TV movies with the second starring Virginia Madsen as Linda.

Linda Reston (Stella Stevens) has a bad marriage with Paul (Ed Nelson, The Devil’s Partner), who is daydreaming of leaving her when she suddenly shoots their friend Anne Braden (Mary-Robin Redd) and turns the gun on Anne’s husband Jeff (John Saxon!) while at the beach. Paul calls the cops and when they arrive, Jeff is alive and the twosome accuses Paul of killing Anne.

As you can tell right away, Linda and Jeff are working together to get rid of their spouses and make a new life for themselves. Luckily, Marshall Journeyman (John McIntire, who replaced both Ward Bond on Wagon Train and Charles Bickford on The Virginian when both of those actors died), an elder lawyer, takes on his case and starts to investigate Linda and Jeff.

Paul sneaks out of his cell and soon learns that his wife has been conspiring with Jeff, which leads Journeyman to get the cops in on a scam to call her and try and get a confession. She’s too tough but man, Jeff folds right away. She tells him he’s spineless and also informs her now ex-husband that she won’t be in jail long.

Originally broadcast as the ABC Saturday Suspense Movie on November 3, 1973, this was directed by Jack Smight, who made one of my wife’s favorite movies, No Way to Treat a Lady, as well as Airport 1975, The Illustrated Man, The Traveling Executioner, Number One with a Bullet and Damnation Alley.

Stella Stevens is quite wonderful in this. She’s so cold and has everything figured out, yet as she laments, she’s never been able to find a man who isn’t spineless. Her husband can’t even bury a dead animal without having a nervous breakdown, and her lover gets her arrested for murder. I’d love a sequel where we learn how she takes over prison.

WEIRD WEDNESDAY: The Black Six (1973)

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Matt Cimber has pretty much lived a life—he was married to Jayne Mansfield, he created the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, and he directed movies like Butterfly, The Witch Who Came from the Sea and Hundra, amongst others. In 1973, he convinced six currently playing NFL stars to appear in a black version of the biker film. The results? Amazing.

The Black Six is made up of six All-Pro NFL stars:

  • Gene Washington, San Francisco 49ers (who was also in Cimber’s Lady Cocoa and Airport ’75)
  • Willie Lanier, Kansas City Chiefs (who is in the NFL Hall of Fame and was named to the NFL 75th Anniversary All-Time Team)
  • Carl Eller, Minnesota Vikings (an NFL Hall of Famer who went on to found substance abuse clinics)
  • Mercury Morris, Miami Dolphins (a Pittsburgh native who was drafted to West Texas State, the alma mater of tons of pro wrestlers, including Tully Blanchard, Stan Hansen, Ted DiBiase, Dusty Rhodes and both Funk brothers to name but a few)
  • Lem Barney, Detroit Lions (an NFL Hall of Famer who sang backup on Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” and played himself in Paper Lion)
  • Joe Greene, Pittsburgh Steelers (one of my hometown heroes, Greene is probably one of the greatest — if not the greatest — Steelers ever. He  appeared in a famous Coke commercial, as well as Fighting Back: The Rocky Bleier Story and Smokey and the Bandit II and is also an NFL Hall of Famer)

Washington already had some acting experience, so he stars as Bubba Daniels, a Vietnam War vet who returns home to find that his brother has been killed by a white supremacist biker gang. Their leader, Thor, is played by Ben Davidson, an avid real-life biker who played for the Oakland Raiders. You can also see him in M*A*S*H*, Conan the Barbarian and as Porter the Bouncer in Behind the Green Door.

Bubba and his gang — the Black Six — decide to avenge that death, which leads to battles with racist townies, uncaring police and Thor’s gang. The final battle ends with Thor blowing up his own bike to kill them all or so it would seem. According to Mercury M, orris’ book Against the Grain, the players protested that ending — guess they didn’t realize that nearly every biker movie ends with the heroes getting killed — so that’s why the movie ends with the title card that says “Honky, look out…Hassle a brother, and the Black 6 will return!” 

It’s all pretty depressing stuff, to be honest. But you can say that for nearly all biker and blaxploitation cinema. It’s still amazing to be that at one point, the NFL didn’t have the control that it does today and that six of its biggest stars could go off and make a movie together.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Chattanooga Film Festival 2025 Red Eye #4: The Girl Most Likely To…(1973) and Mooch Goes to Hollywood (1971)

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The Girl Most Likely To…(1973):  My acting career pretty much begins with an appearance as Sergeant-Major Morris in The Monkey’s Paw and ends with my role as Dr. Green from this story. No, I was not in the movie. I was in a stage play version and the kiss that gave me a fatal heart attack was the first kiss I ever had from a non-family member girl. She said I tasted like a chili dog. A much cuter blonde girl offered to give me lessons after the play (and some mints).

Inspired by The Second Face, this was written by Joan Rivers and Agnes Gallin It was directed by Lee Phillips, who starred in Peyton Place and also made The Stranger Within and The Spell. It was the ABC Movie of the Week, first airing on November 6, 1973.

It’s also Stockard Channing’s first movie and she’s Miriam Knight, an intelligent young lady who is overlooked because of, well, her looks. Her roommate grows jealous when Miriam gets the lead in a stage play, so she sneak attacks her with roses. Miriam’s allergies send her running from the stage and into an accident which changes her looks and life forever.

Once the bandages come off her face, she’s a totally new girl. One who is now willing to do whatever it takes to get revenge — murderous revenge — on everyone who has ever wronged her.

The Girl Most Likely To… has a great cast, such as Ed Asner, Jim Backus, Joe Flynn from McHale’s Navy, Chuck McCann (a voice of a ton of animated characters), comedy magician Carl Ballantine, Fred Grandy from The Love Boat, CHiPs star Larry Wilcox, future director Dennis Dugan (who, before directing a LOT of Adam Sandler movies, such as Just Go with It, acted in films, such as 1980’s The Howling) and the man who would be Captain America and Yor Hunter from the Future, Reb Brown.

This is a comedy, but man, it’s a really dark one. How was my school allowed to put this play on?

Mooch Goes to Hollywood (1971): Mooch is a new girl in town, fresh off the bus to Hollywood, wanting to be a star. We’ve seen it all before, but have we seen it with Mooch being played by Higgins the Dog, whose 14 year career in Hollywood had him on Petticoat Junction and playing the original Benji. His daughter Benjean took over the role of Benji and trainer Frank Inn loved this dog so much that he had his ashes buried with him. He also wrote this poem when Higgins died:

My Gift to Jesus
by Frank Inn

I wish someone had given little Jesus
a dog as loyal and loving as mine
to sleep by His manger and gaze in His eyes
and adore Him for being divine.

As our Lord grew to manhood His own faithful dog
would have followed Him all through the day
while He preached to the crowds and made the sick well
and knelt in the garden to pray.

It is sad to remember that Christ went away
to face death alone and apart
with no tender dog following close behind
to comfort His masters heart.

And when Jesus rose on that Easter morn
how happy He would have been
as His dog kissed His hand and barked its delight
for the one who died for all men.

Well the Lord has a dog now, I just sent Him mine…
My old pal so dear to me
And I smile through my tears on this first day alone
knowing they’re in eternity.

A movie narrated by not just Richard Burton but also Zsa Zsa Gabor, this is everything I love about 1970s Hollywood. How else can you explain a movie where a dog meets Vincent Price at the Brown Derby, goes to Dino’s and the Playboy Club with Phyliss Diller, runs into Ricky Ricardo’s Jerry Hausner, James Darren, Jill St. John and Jim Backus and his wife Henny. All narrated, again, by Zsa Zsa, who is basically unintelligble.

Meanwhile, the theme song plaintively warbles about Mooch’s adventures. It sounds like the “went to see the movie, went to see the show” drive-in commerical for the snack bar.

It was directed by Richard Erdman, who was in a ton of movies and also played Leonard on Community. He also directed The Brothers O’Toole, which was the first movie produced by Sunn’s Charles Sellier Jr. Speaking of Backus, he wrote this with Jerry Devine.

Some facts: This was Edward G. Robinson’s final movie. Higgins’ various costumes were provided by Frederick’s of Hollywood. The theme song is sung by Sonny Curtis, who wrote “I Fought the Law” and would follow this by singing the theme to Benji. Man, Sonny Curtis! He was in the Crickets and stayed in the band when Buddy Holly died. He also sang “Love Is All Around,” the theme for The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

This is a movie for kids and yet Mooch becomes a stripper with Zza Zsa saying, “Keep it on. Keep it on!”

Higgins was so well trained that he learned a new trick every week.

NOTE: I said this was Edward G. Robinson’s first movie when it’s really his last. Thanks to Kris Erickson for finding the typo!

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles and updating my Letterboxd list of watches.

WEIRD WEDNESDAY: Black Caesar (1973)

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Tommy Gibbs (Fred Williamson) was abused by a white cop named Captain Jack McKinney (Art Lund) before growing up to become the leader of Harlem’s black mafia. He ends up taking over the world for a while, but you know how gangster movies go.

Larry Cohen, who directed and wrote this, said that Sammy Davis Jr. wanted to be in it. He told Camera In the Sun, “Davis wanted to do a picture in which he was the star, instead of being a flunky to Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. So I suggested that they do a gangster movie like Little Caesar, since he was a little guy, and so was Jimmy Cagney, and so was Edward G. Robinson. And I thought he could play a little hoodlum working his way up in the Harlem underworld.” Davis couldn’t pay, as he had IRS problems, so American-International Pictures was looking for a movie with a black star. The rest worked out splendidly.

Never mind that the movie ends with Tommy’s wife, Helen (Gloria Hendry), getting tired of all the abuse and helping rivals get the job on him. He gets shot a whole bunch of times but just won’t die, even beating the evil cop into gore with a shoebox. Then, he stumbled back into his old neighborhood where a gang beats, robs and kills him. Well, at least in Europe and then when it came to home video.

Never mind that Timmy was alive for the sequel, Hell Up In Harlem, which has him fall in love with religious woman Sister Jennifer (Margaret Avery) and learn that people close to him ordered the death of his wife Helen. I mean, sure. That’s a totally different reality from what I just watched.

It doesn’t matter. Larry Cohen could do no wrong, and Fred Williamson is the king of New York in this movie. Cohen was also bothered by real mobsters while making this, so he gave them parts in the film and put them on the poster. There were no problems after that.

This and Slaughter’s Big Rip-Off are the only movies with a James Brown soundtrack. It’s as amazing as you think it will be.

Sizzlin’ Summer of Side-Splitters 2025: National Lampoon: Lemmings (1973)

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June 16-22 SNL Week: Saturday Night Live is celebrating 50 years on the air, can NBC last for another 50 years??

The magazine National Lampoon did a stage show that came out of the radio show. Directed by Tony Hendra, Michael Keady and Sean Kelly and written by Hendra, Kelly, David Axelrod, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Rhonda Coullet, Christopher Guest, Paul Jacobs, Harold Ramis, Anne Beatts, John Boni, Garry Goodrow, Douglas Kenney, P.J. O’Rourke, Alice Playten and Henry Beard, just from that sentence you’ve already figured out that a lot of SNL people started here.

Starting at The Village Gate on January 25, 1973, this ran for 350 shows. It begins with Belushi coming out to welcome the audience to the Woodshuck Festival: Three Days of Peace, Love and Death. Then, Paul Jacobs from Neverland Express does “Lemmings Lament,” sounding just like David Crosby. Christopher Guest is Dylan singing “Positively Wall Street,” Chevy Chase does John Danver on “Colorado,” Rhonda Coullet is Joan Baez singing “Pull the Tregroes, Negroes” (which has a much worse title); Belushi does Joe Cocker, Guest is James Taylor and there’s even a band named Megadeath years before Megadeth.

Supposedly, this was filmed for HBO — which started in November 1972 — but the tapes were lost.

Most of the acts in this are dead or your parents’ music now. Yet in 1973, this was really going after them and started careers. It’s too bad that Chevy Chase ended up being Chevy Chase.

WEIRD WEDNESDAY: Beyond Atlantis (1973)

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I was so loud while watching this movie that my wife had to come to check on me. The sheer delight had overtaken me when East Eddie (Sid Haig) appeared in a film where gigantic-eyed Atlantean people attempted to keep their undersea world alive thanks to a new queen named Syrene (Leigh Christian), who must constantly sire new children, as decreed by her adopted father Nereus (George Nader).

Eddie is part of a group trying to farm pearls for money, which includes what could be the exploitation movies made in the Philippines version of The Avengers: Manuel the Barracuda (Vic Díaz), Logan (John Ashley) and Vic Mathias (Patrick Wayne).

Producer Ashley had the idea that this would be a science fiction version of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which is a big idea, while Wayne would only be in the film if it was a family-friendly movie, but it’s also about rebuilding the DNA of a dying world of interbred bug-eyed merpeople, which is a fun juxtaposition.

The underwater scenes are gorgeous, and this has way better production values than many movies made in the Philippines. Yet if it had more exploitation—a fact that Ashley believed—I think it would be a more exciting movie.

This was released by Dimension Pictures in 1973 and rereleased by 21st Century.

You can watch this on Tubi.

WEIRD WEDNESDAY: Alvin Purple (1973)

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Alvin Purple (Graeme Blundell) is a door-to-door waterbed salesman — if we’ve learned anything from cinema, it’s that “The most beautiful thing in the world is smoking pot and fucking on a waterbed, at the same time.” — who is irresistible to women.

Somehow, this was made by director Tim Burstall, who was part of the new wave La Mama Theatre in Melbourne, established by his wife Betty Burstall. His first movie,  2000 Weeks, was well-reviewed outside of Australia, but failed at home. Did he get cynical and just make movies that would make him money? Sure seems like it. When adjusted for inflation, this is the seventh biggest movie made in Australia and had two sequels, Alvin Rides Again and Melvin, Son of Alvin.

It was released over here as The Sex Therapist. 

Alvin somehow goes from sleeping around to seeing a therapist to a quack doctor who uses him to start a whorehouse and then make porn movies and then the one girl that he really loves becomes a nun, so he becomes a gardener.

You’re not watching it for the plot.

You can watch this on the Cave of Forgotten Films.