“It was hardly the crime of the century…It wasn’t even the mugging of the month. It was just a rollicking rip-off!”

Professor (Robert Nichols, The Thing) is a man with a tweed jacket, a permanent squint and a foolproof plan that involves more geometry than common sense. His crew is a motley collection of losers and their target is Big Bertha’s, a sprawling, neon-lit roadhouse tucked away in the backwoods. To the Professor, it’s a vault of untaxed cash and liquid gold. To the rest of the county, it’s the only place to get a decent drink and a game of cards without being judged by the preacher.

Big Bertha (Hetty Galen, The Manitou) doesn’t need a security system. She has a six-gauge shotgun named Persuasion and a staff of girls who can outshoot, outdrink and outwrestle any man in three counties.

The Professor’s stealthy approach is doomed from the start. They arrive just as the local Sheriff’s Department is celebrating a birthday. The parking lot is a sea of squad cars, yet the Professor mistakes the flashing lights for grand opening decorations. Once the moonshine is discovered and the bullets start flying (mostly hitting vases and bottles), the movie devolves into pure physical comedy. It doesn’t take itself seriously. The film thrives on the absurdity of professional”criminals being outmatched by a house full of girls in nightgowns and a rowdy sheriff’s department. Somewhere in all of this is Bob Weir from the Grateful Dead.

This was directed by Peter Kares, the only film he’d helm, but he also produced Longshot and The Switch or How to Alter Your Ego. There were plenty of writers, including Robert N. Langworthy, who produced Preacherman and scored Sex and the College Girl, who came up with the concept; Robert Vervoordt and Albert T. Viola (Amos Huxley himself, the star of Preacherman) worked out the story and Viola and Harvey Flaxman (the writer of Grizzly!) wrote the script.

Nerd facts: An orphan in this is played by Paige Conner, who would go on to be Katy, the space devil child in The Visitor! There’s also Josie Johnson from Stigma (she’s also in Fingers, which has a dream cast of Harvey Keitel, Tisa Farrow, Jim Brown, Tanya Roberts and Danny Aiello) and George Ellis shows up. He was horror host Bestoink Dooley, who was in his own movie, The Legend of Blood Mountain. Mary Mendum is here as well. She used the name Rebecca Brooke for several of Joe Sarno’s films, such as Misty and Abigail Lesley Is Back in Town. Speaking of those movies, Bil Godsey was the cinematographer on them both, as well as this film. He also shot camera on Sisters and Deep Throat Part II.

Mitchell reveals a lot of misconceptions.

First: Joe Don Baker was once presented as the kind of sex symbol who didn’t just get Linda Evans in bed, he was kind of angry about it.

Second: Mitchell was not intended to be riffed on. And yet here we are, with a movie that most people know from the final episode that Joel was on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Then again, critics hated this when it came out in 1975. Vincent Carnaby said, “Mitchell, starring Joe Don Baker as a hard-nosed Los Angeles detective named Mitchell, has a lot of over-explicit violence, some gratuitous sex stuff and some rough language, yet it looks like a movie that couldn’t wait to get to prime-time television. Perhaps it’s a pilot film for a TV series, or maybe it’s just a movie that’s bad in a style we associate with some of the more mindless small-screen entertainments.

Mitchell spends what seems to be the greater part of the film climbing in and out of automobiles, driving automobiles, chasing other automobiles, parking automobiles, and leaning against the body of automobiles that are temporarily at rest. Once he smashes a hoodlum’s hand in the door of an automobile.

The climax, for a giddy change of pace, features a police helicopter in pursuit of a high-speed cabin cruiser. Automobiles sink when driven onto water.”

He could have been right. After all, the cut that aired on the CBS Late Movie was heavily edited with scenes shot just for TV, eliminating most of the violence, nudity and profanity. It also has the death of John Saxon’s character happen off screen, where we hear about his death on the radio. Keep in mind that he’s presented as Mitchell’s arch enemy.

Mitchell (Baker) is after Saxon’s character, Walter Deaney, but learns from the Chief of Police (Robert Phillips) tells Deaney is wanted for “every federal law violation in the book” and “FBI property.” This doesn’t stop Mitchell, who wants to go after him instead of staking out James Arthur Cummins (Martin Balsam), a crime boss shipping in heroin. To get him off the case, Deaney hired $1,000 a night call girl Greta (Linda Evans) to keep him busy. Instead, Mitchell arrests her for possession and even turns down a bribe. Soon, Deaney and Cummins are working together to kill our slovenly hero.

If you enjoy larger men battling, this has Baker fighting Merlin Olsen. I mean, we’ve already imagined a world where a high priced sex worker wants to sleep with Baker for free. Why not?

Directed by Andrew V. McLaglen (The Wild Geese, The Sea Wolves, Sahara) and written by Ian Kennedy Martin, this also has a great theme song, “Mitchell” by Hoyt Axton.

“My my my my Mitchell
What do your Mama say?
What would she do
if she knew you
were fallin’ round and carryin’ on that way…
Crackin’ some heads, jumpin’ in and out of beds
and hangin’ round the criminal scene…
Do you think you are some kind of a star like the guys on the movie screen…

Well oh my my my Mitchell
What would your captain say?
If he knew you was hangin’ round
Eatin’ with the crooks and shootin’ up the town
Know you been out there, roundin’ up the syndicate
succeedin’ where the others have failed
Oh my my my Mitchell
You shoot ’em just to get ’em in jail
When they take a look in the record book, they’ll find you got a lot of class…

The whole shebang, arrestin’ painted ladies for a little grass
Oh my my my Mitchell!”

Supposedly, Baker was so upset by this being on Mystery Science Theater 3000 that he threatened to fight anyone from the show if he saw them. That didn’t stop them from also doing another of his movies, Final Justice — another movie in which he uses an orange to prove how he is going to destroy someone — on the show.

You can watch this without riffing on Tubi. They also have the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version.

Brian Trenchard-Smith is the patron saint of go-big-or-go-home. For his feature debut (along with action scenes directed by star Jimmy Wang Yu), he didn’t just walk through the door. No, he kicked it down, set it on fire and then hang-glided over the ashes. The Man from Hong Kong (aka The Dragon Flies) is the ultimate East-meets-West collision, a 50/50 co-production between Australia and Hong Kong that plays like a James Bond flick on a steady diet of adrenaline.

Originally, this was supposed to be a Bruce Lee vehicle. Can you imagine? But after the Dragon passed, the production pivoted to Jimmy Wang Yu (The One-Armed Swordsman himself). He plays Inspector Fang Sing Leng, a Hong Kong cop who lands in Sydney to extradite a drug courier and ends up tearing the city apart to get to the man at the top. That man? None other than George Lazenby.

Yes, the guy who played Bond once gets to play the heavy here, Jack Wilton, and he is clearly having the time of his life being a total bastard. He’s joined by an Ozploitation who’s who, including Hugh Keays-Byrne and Roger Ward (both of whom you know from Mad Max). Even a young Sammo Hung, billed as Hung Kam Po, shows up to get into a scrap on top of Uluru!

If you’ve seen Stunt Rock, you’ve seen the action from this movie, as legendary stuntman Grant Page hang-gliding over Sydney Harbor like it’s no big deal. This is a stunt show with massive automotive carnage designed by Peter Armstrong that rivals anything coming out of Hollywood at the time. In the final showdown, Lazenby actually gets set on fire. Not movie fire. Real fire. He even got singed during the take, because that’s just how they rolled down under

And let’s not forget the theme song. “Sky High” by Jigsaw is a soaring, majestic piece of 70s pop that has absolutely no business being the intro to a movie where people are getting punched in the throat, yet somehow, it’s perfection. It was also the theme song for Mil Mascaras and his brother Dos Caras in Japan.

If you want to see what happens when you mix martial arts mastery with a complete lack of regard for human safety, make The Man from Hong Kong your destination. Also: No permits were used to film this.

You can watch this on Tubi.

The movie opens with a high-stakes military heist that feels more like a war film than a mafia flick, as Vincenzo (Peter Lee Lawrence) and his crew ambush an army convoy to steal a crate of rifles. Vincenzo’s fatal mistake isn’t just stealing from Don Carmelo (Adolfo Celi); it’s his arrogance. He believes he can outmaneuver the seasoned Don by selling the hardware to a group of Arab insurgents.

The middle act shifts the tension to a claustrophobic hotel in North Africa. This change of scenery distinguishes the film from other Italian crime movies of the era that rarely left the streets of Rome or Milan. The Middle Eastern subplot adds a layer of political cynicism, suggesting that Vincenzo is out of his depth not just with the Mafia, but with international arms dealing.

But you know how these Italian crime movies end. Not always well, you know? Maybe he should have just stayed at that hotel with his girlfriend, Sabina (Erika Blanc), and forgotten about a life of crime.

Nardo Bonomi (sometimes credited as Leonardo Bonomi) is a ghost in film history. This is his only officially released directorial credit. While he brings a surprisingly energetic eye to the action, this is one mean-spirited film. Vincenzo isn’t a hero, but an amoral social climber who uses his girlfriend Sabina’s jewelry to fund his escape.

His other project, Sortilegio, remains one of the great holy grails of Italian cult cinema. The fact that it was co-directed by Corrado Farina (the visionary behind the psychedelic Baba Yaga) suggests Bonomi had a foot in the more avant-garde side of Italian filmmaking before disappearing from the industry entirely. This movie starred Erna Schürer as a woman given to waking nightmares. It was completed, assembled and dubbed, but never arrived for censorship approval and went unpublished. Four Flies Records released the soundtrack, saying, “One of the most mysterious movies that came out from the golden age of Italian cinema, its soundtrack was recorded in 1974. The movie had never been officially distributed and was probably never taken to the final stage of post-production. The film is lost, gone forever apparently.” 

Peter Lee Lawrence was often criticized by contemporary critics for being too pretty or wooden, but in The Long Arm of the Godfather, his youthful, clean-cut looks work perfectly. He plays Vincenzo as a man whose ambition far exceeds his intelligence. At the time of filming, Lawrence was already nearing the end of his prolific but short career. The headaches — he died in 1974 at the age of 30 — he suffered during his final years make his frantic, high-energy performance here feel somewhat haunting in retrospect. He was married to Cristina Galbó, who may be best known for playing Elizabeth in What Have You Done To Solange?

You can watch this on Tubi.

Nora Green (Ursula Andress) is a flight attendant who is asked to deliver a letter to a circus led by Silvera (Woody Strode) when she lands in Naples. This gets her in the middle of a gang war. She’s beaten up and thrown to what should be her doom, but she somehow survives. Working with a former circus acrobat, Manuel (Marc Porel), she puts multiple bad guys — there’s Silvera, as well as Don Calo (Aldo Giuffrè) and the mysterious Americano — against one another and looks gorgeous doing it. Luckily, they find another partner in Rosy (Isabella Biagini), who has been the lover of nearly all these gangsters.

Known in Italy as Colpo in canna, this is a fascinating departure for director Fernando Di Leo. While he is the undisputed master of the gritty, nihilistic Poliziotteschi genre — he made Caliber 9, The Italian Connection and Blood and Diamonds and wrote one of my favorite parodies of the genre, Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man — this film sees him blending his signature violence with a lighter, almost comic-book tone that leans heavily on the charisma of its lead.

While Di Leo’s “Milieu Trilogy” (Caliber 9, The Italian Connection, and The Boss) is defined by cold-blooded betrayal and urban decay, Loaded Guns feels more like a colorful caper. Di Leo pivots Nora into a femme fatale superwoman archetype. Unlike the doomed protagonists of his other films, Nora is proactive and resilient; she isn’t just a victim of the gang war. She becomes its architect, deliberately whispering in the ears of rival bosses to ensure they wipe each other out.

This ends with a fun brawl that involves the entire cast, including Andress, who did her own stunts. She’s beyond ravishing in this, reminding you that she was not just a Bond girl, but the first of them all. She plays Nora with a wink to the camera, balancing the high-fashion glamour of a flight attendant with the grit of a woman who can take a beating and come back swinging.

You can watch this on YouTube.

While it might look like a standard witness protection thriller on paper, Lady Cocoa is a masterclass in 70s aesthetic. It trades the typical urban grime of the genre for the icy, high-altitude isolation of Nevada, making for a sleek, atmospheric watch that feels like a chilly companion piece to a Bond film.

The film belongs entirely to Lola Falana. Known primarily as a singing sensation and a protégé of Sammy Davis Jr., Falana brings a magnetic, world-weary energy to Coco. Fresh out of the Nevada prison system after flipping on her boyfriend Eddie (James A. Watson Jr.), she isn’t just a damsel in distress; she’s a woman navigating a get out of jail free card that feels more like a death sentence.

Watching her bounce between the protection of Ramsey (Alex Drier) and that of the local law officer, Doug (Gene Washington), you get a real sense of her internal conflict. Is she actually falling for the badge, or is she just playing the hand she was dealt?

She’s being hunted by Arthur (director Matt Cimber, who made The Witch Who Came from the Sea after this) and Big Joe (“Mean” Joe Greene). There are also some newlyweds, Arthur (Gary Harper) and Marie (Millie Perkins), who aren’t who they seem.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a true cult classic without the ubiquitous George “Buck” Flower. His turn as a drunken gambler isn’t just a cameo; it’s the soul of the film’s grimy casino backdrop. Nobody played disheveled and desperate with quite the same charm.

Cimber handles the tension well. He uses the Lake Tahoe locations to great effect, contrasting the neon warmth of the casinos with the bleak, dangerous mountains surrounding them. It’s a slow-burn thriller that pays off with a climax that reminds you exactly why Eddie was a man worth snitching on.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Also known as Kitty Can’t Do It, this was directed by Peter Locke, who also produced The Hills Have Eyes and directed It Happened in Hollywood. It was written by Paul Ross (who also wrote Journey Into the Beyond and Beyond Evil) and Michael Blank, and edited by Rick Jackson and Wes Craven, with second-unit direction by John “Bud” Cardos. It tries to be a nurse’s cycle movie, but reminds you how good the people who made the great ones are, like Stephanie Rothman.

Kitty, as you can expect from the alternate title, is the heroine, and she’s played by Kitty Carl. Speaking of better female-cast movies, she was also in The Centerfold Girls. All of Kitty’s friends are getting laid while she’s still a virgin,  perhaps because of her overbearing mother (Fay DeWitt). Those friends try to get their men to sleep with Kitty, but it never works out.

One of those men, MacGregor (Jack DeLeon), is seething into lusty rapist territory by the end, which gives us our chase scene. Otherwise, this is worth watching for the female cast, which includes I’m With the Band author Pamela Des Barres as Vickii, Lisa Ferringer from Coffy as Cindy, Marcie Barkin from Fade to Black, Janus Blythe from Eaten Alive and The Hills Have Eyes as a waitress and Uschi Digard as “Lady in Hotel Room.” She’s barely in it, but she’s what you will remember.

Do you know how much I love you, dear reader? I actually bought this to watch, and luckily Wide World Movie also threw in a triple pack of Invasion of the Bee Girls, 2069 A Sexy Odyssey, and Dr. Dildo’s Secret, all of which I would recommend over this. It’s not even Starhops, which is saying something.