Yes, that Stonestreet name on this indicates that this was intended to be a series, so this is another back door pilot that was burned off as a TV movie — it aired as the NBC Movie of the Week on January 16, 1977 — and was released in the UK on DVD as part of the Universal Vault Series. Here’s to more TV movies coming out in physical form.

Liz Stonestreet (Barbara Eden!) lost her cop husband in the line of duty. To keep his memory — and mission to keep law and order — she becomes a detective. In this pilot, her latest case goes from finding a missing man to working in an adult theater to trying to find Amory Osborn (Ann Dusenberry, Jaws 2), an heiress mixed up in the world of vice. It’s also the debut of LaWanda Page.

Russ Mayberry did plenty of TV, as well as Unidentified Flying Oddball for Disney. This was written by  Leslie Stevens, who created The Outer Limits, as well as writing Incubus, the William Shatner movie shot completely in Esperanto. He also wrote The Invisible Man TV series, which Riding With Death was cobbled together from as well as Return to the Blue Lagoon and Sheena.

This isn’t good, but how strange is it that just a few years before, Eden had to hide her belly button on I Dream of Jeannie and here, she’s an usher at a down and dirty porn theater?

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We first posted this on February 23, 2018 and I think about this film almost every single day. I’m deranged.

Legend has it that David Cronenberg for the idea for the torture TV channel that lends its name to his opus Videodrome from this Joe D’Amato film, which is also known as Trap Them and Kill Them. Think of this — a film that upset Cronenberg for its mash-up of snuff, cannibalism and sex. Take it from me. This one totally lives up to its promise. Or lives down. You almost have to appreciate it for how lurid it is, as if it just screams at you, “I am the kind of movie you should feel ashamed for watching.”

First, a history lesson. This film isn’t about the French film Emmanuelle, which starred Sylvia Kristel and had an extra “m” in the title. Nope, that series was made to cash in on the trend and features Laura Gemser, an Indonesian-Dutch actress who is more dark brown than black. But why quibble? This is exploitation filmmaking, after all. The Black Emanuelle films follow the formula of the original, all about a young woman discovering her sexual identity. But I have no idea how they morphed into a series where she becomes an investigative journalist who increasingly discovers more and more depraved behavior. Is there a thin line between swingers clubs and cannibals in the jungle? I would hope that there is. After five increasingly batshit Joe D’Amato vehicles, Gemser teamed with Bruno Mattei for two women in prison movies starring the titular heroine.

It’s really Emanuelle in America that sets up the craziness of these films, as D’Amato casts her up as a journalist that goes from learning how the rich and famous have sex to seeking out a snuff film conspiracy to giving up on journalism altogether when her story gets, well, snuffed.

Somewhere in between that picture and this one, our heroine has had a change of heart and is back in the yellow journalism game.

We start in a New York City mental hospital, where Emanuelle is undercover, looking for a lesbian nurse who is abusing her patients. Her idea of undercover is wearing lots of makeup and carrying around a stuffed animal. And how does she get her info? Well, once she learns about a girl who was raised by the Apiaca, a tribe of cannibals thought to be lost, she meets the girl and has sex with her. We realize this girl is a cannibal when she bites a girl’s nipples off within her first minute of screen time. That’s the kind of movie this is, one where the heroine makes out with a girl who just ate a piece of someone’s tit.

Again — I’m warning you. You’re in for some real scum here.

She contacts Professor Mark Lester (Gabriele Tinti, the husband of Gemser who also appeared in Enter the Devil and Lisa and the Devil), a curator at the National History Museum, and gets him to join her on a visit to the Amazon. How does she convince him? Well, she has sex with him. Come on. Get with the program.

They’re also joined by several others, including Isabel, MacKenzie (Donald O’Brien, Dr. Butcher, M.D.), Sister Angela and Maggie (Nieves Navarro, All the Colors of the Dark).

The film alternates between Emanuelle in danger and Emanuelle having sex. There’s a scene that defies logic with Emanuelle and Isabel making out while a monkey steals their cigarettes, lights one up and watches. Yes. A real, honest-to-goodness monkey.

Look — if there’s one thing I’ve learned from watching cannibal films. most of the white folks aren’t on the straight and narrow. MacKenzie is really after some diamonds and his wife, Maggie, is just here to sleep with the natives.

Soon, much like Shakespeare — if the bard had dared to make a film that combines a Cinemax After Dark film and an Italian gutmuncher — everyone dies except Isobel, Lester and our girl. She covers her body with tattoos — pay attention, Dr. Butcher, M.D. — and convinces the natives that she is a goddess. Everyone escapes on a rubber raft and gets over it, surely after plenty more sex.

Trivia note: American hardcore band Trap Them take their name from this film.

Gemser would become a costume designer after acting, working on several films, including Beyond Darkness, Quest for the Mighty Sword and Door to Silence. She also created the most demented costumes ever for the movie Troll 2. And she also was responsible for this, which I found thanks to the Found Footage Festival:

Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals isn’t the kind of adult film that’ll get you in the mood, unless you’re a maniac. But when you get bloody peanut butter and sexy chocolate together, you get a movie that should not, cannot and yet does exist.

After all of that, if want to watch Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals for yourself, Severin has released it on blu-ray with all the attention that it deserves. Make that more than deserves.

A bunch of small time hoods rob a grocery store for five grand without realizing that it’s a protected mob store. On the run, they hide in an adult bookstore, which by the fate of Italian exploitation movies is run by Lorna (Anna-Maria Clementi, Sister Angela from Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals) the girlfriend of the same mobster they’ve already screwed over. They kidnap her and head for Canada, but instead end up at the home of three college kids — Frank (Christian Borromeo, who was in another very similar movie, House on the Edge of the Park), Sue (Annj Goren, who was also in Hard Sensation and Porno Holocaust) and Faye (Brigitte Petronio, Cindy from House on the Edge of the Park) — and treat them exactly like you’d expect teenagers to be treated in a Joe D’Amato movie.

Written by George Eastman* and having softcore and hardcore versions, this is worth watching for the streets of Times Square in the late 70s, filled with several great marquees. D’Amato was also this film’s cinematographer under his real name Aristide Massaccessi.

*IMDB lists Tito Carpi, who hundred-plus writing credits include Tentacles, Giovannona Long-Thigh, Escape from the Bronx and so many more, as the writer.

Beyond his two decameron films, Joe D’Amato also made this commedia sexy all’italiana about a gynecologist who — despite his average looks — has a line of women who can’t wait for him to see to them. Most of the Italian sex comedies I’ve seen get lost in translation and feel dated — which makes sense, as they were made in the mid 70s in a foreign country — but this one actually made me laugh.

Dr. Giovanardi (Renzo Montagnani, When Women Had Tails, When Women Lost Their Tails) is brought in by Doctor Lo Bianco who is hiding out from his debts on an island. A libertine married to a lesbian — how progressive for 1977 — he gets set up by his secretary Pamela (Paola Senatore, Like Rabid Dogs, Ricco the Mean Machine) to put out for a wide array of clients, giving some the babies they want and others the exact type of lovemaking they adore, including one client who wants violent aardvarking so badly that she punches our hero right in the face as hard as she can, knocking him across the room.

Keep an eye out for Daniela Doria (who got stabbed through the throat in The House by the Cemetery and also is in The New York Ripper, The Black Cat and City of the Living Dead), Loretta Persichetti (Salon Kitty, Nine Guests for a Crime), adult actress Marina Hedman and Lorraine De Selle (Cannibal Ferox, Gloria in House on the Edge of the Park, the warden in Violence in a Women’s Prison, Women’s Prison Massacre and more).

The most amusing thing is that Montagnani played the same role as an irresistible male several times despite appearing in no way like a man who should be doing this.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We originally posted these movies back on May 18, 2021 and May 21, 2021 when we had a week of Bruno Mattei. Well, the scum always rises to the top, huh?

Emanuelle and the Erotic Nights (1978): Known in Italy as Emanuelle e le porno notti nel mondo n. 2, this movie is more like the Superman and Batman of Italian scummy cinema teaming up, as Joe D’Amato and Bruno Mattei (credited as J. Metheus) team up to unleash their absolute lack of restraint upon audiences, bringing along Laura Gemser, Black Emanuelle herself, to host the proceedings.

This being a mondo, you may wonder, how long until a real animal is abused? Oh, not long. That said, the majority of this film is given over to strip clubs and magic acts. Unlike other D’Amato and Mattei adult mondos, this is relatively tame by comparison. If you want full and unfiltered Joe and Bruno, you’d want Notti porno nel mondo.

Gloria Guida, Miss Teenage Italy 1974, appears in this. You may recognize her from The Bermuda Triangle and as the titular character in Blue Jeans. Ajita Wilson, who was in Fulci’s Contraband, also appears.

I’m always amazed that these mondos continually feature sex change footage, which is often faked. Who was clamoring to see this? That said, I do love Mattei’s super quick-cut editing style and unlike many mondos, this never gets boring.

Notti Porno nel Mondo (1977): Not to be confused with the above movie — that’s the safer one — this film finds Joe D’Amato and Bruno Mattei at the helm, starting things off with Laura Gemser appearing as Emanuelle with one m, saying, “It’s your old friend Emanuelle again…”  before taking us on a journey.

What a horrific journey it is!

Also known as Sexy Night Report, there’s a 70-minute edited version of this movie that’s still pretty rough. But man, the unedited one? You need to wash your eyes with fire after watching it.

Sure, this being a mondo means most of the footage is faked. So yesh, while a good portion of this one is beyond unreal, with scenes like a man in an ape costume “performing” with an exotic dancer and another where an Amsterdam red light girl shows off for a crowd before choosing a man from the window watchers, leaving his wife outside. Then, the movie descends into what I can only imagine Sodom and Gomorrah looked like to Lot’s wife before she was turned into seasoning.

Yes, in case you wondered if you were still watching a mondo, we have chickens getting their heads cut off, rituals in foreign countries, ping pong balls being launched out of a special place, a magic trick that turns someone into a hermaphrodite and, of course, a man’s member being chopped off again and again, as the scene is replayed from every angle, looking faker and faker each time.

It’s like Mattei — Jimmy Matheus! — and D’Amato — uncredited! — were thinking, “We’ve shown these raincoaters naked women for the last ninety minutes or so. Let’s show them a pisello get sliced off and then someone get their head cut off to remind them who we are.”

We get it, Bruno and Joe. Or Vincent Dawn and Aristide Massaccesi. Or David Hunt and David Hills.

Marina Hedmann — speaking of extra names, she was also known as Marina Lotar, Marion Bibbo, Bellis Marina Hedman and many, many more —  from Emanuelle in America, La Pretora, Play Motel and plenty of adult films (she was one of the first Italian actresses to appear in porn) appears.

If this looks way better than it should, despite being shot all in the same room even though they claim it’s all over the world, because Enrico Biribicchi shot it. He lent his skills to plenty socially unredeeming movies, including The Return of the Exorcist, Emanuelle in America, Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, Buio Omega, Erotic Nights of the Living Dead and Porno Holocaust. He was also the cinematographer for Antropophagus.

This being a Mattei movie, rest assured that plenty of recycled footage appears. There’s some stuff from several Erwin C. Dietrich movies, some of Jess Franco’s Mondo Erotico and even stuff from D’Amato’s Eva Nera*.

Notti Porno nel Mondo is absolutely ridiculous, a movie that I would never recommend to anyone but absolute maniacs with no taste whatsoever. If you read this far, that’s probably you.

*Thanks to Adrian on Letterboxd for figuring out where those scenes came from.

The Joe D’Amato Emanuelle movies are absolutely lunatic. I mean that in the best of ways, because while they promise you skin, sin and sleaze — and they deliver — it often feels like it all comes at the price of you feeling like you’ll ever be clean again.

Written by Maria Pia Fusco, the daughter of a policeman who rebelled by writing movies like Bluebeard and five of the Black Emanuelle movies while also becoming a respected film writer for La Repubblica where she became one of the few journalists to have an in-depth exploration of Kubrick from a first-hand perspective, and Gianfranco Clerici, whose oeuvre is filled with some of Italy’s most notorious films such as The New York Ripper, Cannibal Holocaust and The House on the Edge of the Park.

After a meeting with United Nations diplomat Dr. Robertson (Ivan Rassimov!) in New York City, our heroine Emanuelle (the always wonderful Laura Gemser) is invited to India to write a report on Guru Shanti (George Eastman), a man who is teaching his followers to hold off their orgasms so that they may all experience the ultimate in le petit mort before the lovely journalist of our dreams basically ruins everyone.

This movie lives up to the title because Emanuelle and her friend Cora Norman (Karin Schubert, Hanna D. – La ragazza del Vondel Park‘s mother) really do travel the world and free women from bonds both literal and sexual, encouraging free love and never having the film preach to us about what they do.

I mean, you should also realize that this is a D’Amato movie where scenes of torture, assault and two different species of animals involved in the sex scenes because, well, Italy is the most insane of all countries, but you’d be like that too if the Vatican was directly inside your capital city. There’s a cut of this that has a banana scene that has nearly made me swear off this type of fruit, but these are the dangers of watching Italian sexploitation.

But it’s even odder because D’Amato makes us look away in the climactic beauty queen assault scene, our heroines unable to do anything but realize that when this is all over, they’re going to ruin the men who let this happen. I first saw this as a teenager in the early 90s. While most of the movies I saw back then haven’t held up, this movie has only improved with time.

As he fights the gangs of Hong Kong, Tan Tung (Alexander Fu Sheng) finally runs out of luck and barely escapes to San Francisco. However, America is just as full of gangs, but Tan Tung is able to fight his way to the top of the gangs and battle for control of Chinatown. But now that he has all that power, will he use it for good? Or will he give in to corruption?

Has Tung become a pawn of the White Dragons as he continues to battle the Green Tigers across the world? Will he continue to protect his studious friend Yang (Sun Chien)? Will the Venom Mob show up to have some of the best fights of any movie anywhere?

Chang Cheh made several movies where someone learns that fighting ability isn’t enough to escape the path that you’re on. This would be one more of them, but I could watch this story again and again and still return for more.

This movie was chopped up — frustrating many Shaw Brothers fans — when Celestial remastered it in the early 2000s. I’m happy to report that there are two versions in the Shaw Scope box set.

The Arrow Video Shaw Scope Volume One box set has a brand new 2K restoration of The Chinatown Kid from the original film elements of the 115-minute international version of the movie with uncompressed Cantonese and English audio. It also has a 90-minute alternate version with uncompressed Mandarian audio — all with newly translated English subtitles and English hard-of-hearing subtitles for the English dubs.

It also has select scene commentary by Susan Shaw, Elegant Trails: Fu Sheng featurette and Hong Kong, U.S. and German theatrical trailers, a U.S. TV spot and an image gallery.

You can get this set from MVD.

You can also stream this movie on the Arrow player. Visit ARROW to start your 30-day free trial. Subscriptions are available for $4.99 monthly or $49.99 yearly. ARROW is available in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland on the following Apps/devices: Roku (all Roku sticks, boxes, devices, etc), Apple TV & iOS devices, Android TV and mobile devices, Fire TV (all Amazon Fire TV Sticks, boxes, etc), and on all web browsers at https://www.arrow-player.com.

Mei-Chun Chang made another 3D kung fu movie we covered, Dynasty, so we were super excited to get this movie, also known as 13 Golden Nuns.

Thirteen women are ravaged by bandits and the rules of the time state that they must go to a convent. What the rules did not state was that they would spend their time there studying the martial arts and gaining all of the skills that they would need to murder those that did them wrong.

I mean, take it from the film itself: “In 18th century China, bandit hordes roamed the provinces pillaging and plundering villages. Whole villages were decimated. Men, women and children slaughtered and the women raped.According to the social customs of the times, the rape victims, because they were no longer virgins, were sent to convents. Under the austere and knowledgeable presence of the Head Shogun Nun, these girls were taught the Revelations of the Budha and mastered the techniques of the martial arts. They became Shogun women capable of defending themselves and others from the bandit marauders.”

Look, someone gets scalped in 3D. I think that’s worth more than the price of this blu ray. There’s some wedding drama — a young woman is marrying an old doctor because the only way he can do accupuncture on her breast is to marry her so it’s not inappropriate and the artist who loves her calls in the bandits because, well, it’s a kung fu movie. The real reason to watch this is to see arrows come out of the screen.

The Kino Lorber blu ray has both BD3D polarized and anaglyphic (red/cyan) 3-D versions. You even get a pair of anaglyphic 3-D glasses to watch the movie with. There are three extra 3-D shorts: College Capers, Persian Slave Market and Two Guys from Tick Ridge. You can order it from Kino Lorber.

The Old School Kung Fu Fest is back and the Museum of the Moving Image and Subway Cinema will co-present eight newly restored films and one fan favorite classic by Kuo on glorious 35mm. Four titles will be available exclusively online, December 6–13, and another five films for in-person big-screen viewing at MoMI, December 10–12. 

To see any of these shows, visit the Museum of the Moving Image online or Subway Cinema.

Sang Kuan Chun is ready to retire. After all, he’s done it all and has nothing to prove until he gets a note that says that he’s not the best and must challenge the seven grandmasters to prove that he — and his style — are the best. Sang Kuan Chun goes on a journey with his four best students — and soon picks up Siu Ying who wants revenge — to challenge each of the schools. And let me tell you, this is not bs, as I once was part of a small martial arts group that would go school to school and challenge their students to prove that we had the best fighting style. Look — I’m no master of chess boxing and am just one of those gotta be dumb, gotta be tough fighters. So just imagine walking into a martial arts school in the suburbs and being like, “We want to fight your best guy.” I felt like Yoji Anjo challenging Rickson Gracie a lot of the time.

Before Sang Kuan Chun’s teacher died, he gave him a book of the Pai Mei Twelve Strikes. There was a masked man who stole three of those strikes — and also set up Sang Kuan Chun to kill Siu Ying’s father — and who is mathematically the better fighter because he knows all twelve of the deadly strikes. That man teaches Siu Ying the final strikes and leads him to nearly kill the teacher until he remembers the rule of never killing anyone if it can be avoided.

Once the masked man is revealed, there’s still one final battle.

Look, 7 Grandmasters isn’t the best martial arts movie ever, but it’s got a story that breaks from the norm and the idea that there’s always one more strike and always someone better than you rings true. It’s definitely a blast to watch.