EDITOR’S NOTE: Hollywood High was on USA Up All Night on August 6 and October 7, 1994; May 19 and December 9 and 23, 1995;
“If that’s Charles Bronson, ask him if his tallywacker wants some poontang!”
For that line alone, I stayed with this movie.
Jan (Susanne Severeid, Don’t Answer the Phone) Candy (Sherry Hardin, Ten Violent Women), Monica (Rae Sperling) and Bebe (Marcy Albrecht) spend most of this movie topless and smoking the stickiest of the icky with Frasier Mendoza, hooking up with the Fenz (Kevin Mead; guess who he’s supposed to be) and Buzz (Joseph Butcher, not far removed from playing the latter side of Bigfoot and Wildboy, hanging out with sex symbol of the past June East (yes, Mae West, but played by Marla Winters), having classes with stereotype teachers like the mincing Mr. Flowers (Hy Pyke, Grandpa from Hack-O-Lantern) and the overly horny Miss Crotch (Kress Hytes) when they’re not being chased by a cop, who they eventually hit with a watermelon and take his pants off, revealing that he’s wearing lingerie.
This was directed by Patrick Wright, who often plays the larger truck driver men in movies like this. He also directed a TV movie, Southern Hospitality.
Turner Classic Movies notes the existence of an unrelated 30-minute television pilot, also debuting in 1977, for a prospective series. It had Annie Potts in it and aired as part of NBC’s Comedy Time. There’s also an unrelated sequel.
At least this has a 70s shot of the Cinerama Dome in it. Otherwise, well…
William Girder died in a helicopter crash while scouting locations in 1978. If that hadn’t ended his life, who knows the heights of lunacy he would have achieved?
This had to have been the first movie about the loss of Earth’s ozone layer. Who knew it would drive everyone, including animals, nuts? Certainly not the hikers in this tale who turn against one another and try to survive all of the animal assaults.
Steve Buckner (Christopher George, who is fighting with Michael Pataki and George Eastman for most appearances on this site) has a dozen or so hikers who are about to go to Sugar Meadow for a nature hike, even though Ranger Chico Tucker (former NFL player Walt Barnes) tells him that the animals have been acting strangely.
Along for this nature trail to hell are anthropologist Professor MacGregor (Richard Jaeckel, Grizzly), a married couple named Frank and Mandy Young (Jon Cedar, who in addition to being a recurring Nazi on Hogan’s Heroes was also the co-star, co-screenwriter and associate producer of The Manitou and Susan Backlinie, the first victim in Jaws), rich Shirley Goodwyn (Ruth Roman from The Baby!), her son Johnny, teenage lovers Bob Dennins (Andrew Stevens, who was in the Night Eyes films) and Beth Hughes, a former pro football player dealing with cancer named Roy Moore, a magical Native American guide named Daniel Santee (Michael Ansara, Killer Kane from the 1980’s Buck Rogers series as well as the voice of Mr. Freeze), a television reporter named Terry Marsh (Lynda Day George, always ready to scream “BASTARDS!”) and finally, a frenzied Leslie Neilsen in the role of his career as Paul Jenson, an ad executive who acts like every account guy I’ve ever had to deal with in my 24-year-long ad career.
Before you know it, wolves are attacking people in sleeping bags, vultures circle overhead, hawks knock women off cliffs, Leslie Nielsen goes beyond bonkers and kills a dude with a walking stick and threatens to assault women before wrestling a bear and getting his neck torn out, rats attack the sheriff who decides to eat before trying to figure out how to deal with this emergency, dogs turn on the people they loved, rattlesnakes bite people and the military dons hazmats suits to deal with all of it.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, this movie is stupid. And awesome. It’s stupid awesome. And if you only know Nielsen from his later comedic roles, take a look at him in this movie. I love this movie. I don’t care what you think of me.
Here’s the drink to enjoy while you watch this movie.
Tentacle Painkiller
2 oz. Kraken spiced rum
4 oz. pineapple juice
1 oz. orange juice
1 oz. cream of coconut
Dash of nutmeg
Pinch of salt
Pour rum, pineapple juice, orange juice and cream of coconut into a cocktail shaker with ice. Mix it up.
Pour into a glass filled with ice. Drop in salt to give it the taste of the oceAdd a pinch ofthen top with nutmeg.
You can watch thi,s on Tubi or get the Blu-ray from Severin.
George Armitage wrote Gas-s-s-s, Private Duty Nurses, Night Call Nurses and Vigilante Force before scoring mainstream success with Miami Blues and Grosse Point Blank. He told Film Comment, “I wrote Darktown Strutters in three days, and the script form is all one sentence, the entire script is one sentence.”
While he had wanted to direct this, William Witney ended up making it. Witney was a Hollywood veteran, starting all the way back at Republic, where he worked on movie serials. He worked extensively with Roy Rogers and, at the end of his career, made a few movies with Gene Corman, including I Escaped from Devil’s Island and this movie.
This is less a narrative film and more a collection of hijinks as a gang of black bikers interacts with the police, all until Syreena starts to search for her missing mother, Cinderella. Turns out an evil barbecue chain — with an owner in full Klan regalia — has her.
Trina Parks from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Diamonds Are Forever is Syreena, backed up by a cast featuring former Ikette Edna Richardson, Roger E. Mosley (TC from Magnum, P.I.), Stan Shaw (Detective Sapir from The Monster Squad), Alvin Childress (Amos of the Amos ‘n Andy TV show), Zara Cully (Mother Jefferson!) and, this being a Corman family film, Dick Miller.
Get ready for a fairy tale mixed with blaxploitation, basically, with plenty of great tunes from The Dramatics, as well as John Gary Williams and The Newcomers.
And remember: “Any similarity between this true life adventure and the story Cinderella … is bullshit.”
Tucson, Arizona. The insane killer Ray (Jason Williams, Flesh Gordon) and the whiny sad guy Alex (Bill Osco, The Being) get five kilos of cocaine, run into some police, kill those officers — the title is a spoiler — before they steal a frozen lemonade truck, shotgun blast another policeman, murder a gas station worker, ice another guy and kidnap his girl, Karen (Diane Keller, one and done). Then, they hide out in a motel in the hopes that everything blows over.
Alex gives Karen some coke, they ball, then they sell the drugs to Collins (Michael D. White) and his girlfriends Lena (Donna Stubbert) and Becky (Judy Ross) before things go straight to Hell.
Almost everyone other than Flesh Gordon and Bill Osco are one and done, even director Walter R. Cichy. The biggest star out of this movie would be Rick Baker, who went directly from this movie to Star Wars, changing it from a grimy 16mm drive-in film where you can see the crew in the back of the car at one stage.
This cost $50,000, money that was raised by Ted Dye, a Texas-based owner of X-rated theaters looking to make something mainstream. Another reason? Flesh Gordon had been confiscated in a police bust, so its producer, Cichy, needed money. He got Williams to make this. The director of that film, Howard Ziehm, wrote the story for Cop Killers with Osco and Cichy, who finished the screenplay.
We first encountered The Child at a Halloween party thrown at the palatial Mexican War Streets home of Mr. Groovy Doom himself, Bill Van Ryn. While some folks drank in the kitchen or enjoyed the mix of Goblin and My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult blasting in the sitting room, I was entranced by a film that was playing on the TV. The sound wasn’t turned up, the images all felt like transmissions from beyond, and nothing really added up in the movie. “What the hell is this?” I asked. “Oh, The Child!” exclaimed Bill, hurriedly running in to try and explain why he was growing more and more obsessed with multiple rewatches of the film.
Sometime in the 1930s — which you’d only know from the old 1930s as this film feels like an anachronism lost in no particular time — Alicianne has been hired to be the caretaker for Rosalie Nordon, the titular child, who has just lost her mother. Along with her father and brother Len, she lives in a house on the edge of the woods.
Even the trip to the house is strange, with Alicianne’s car breaking down after she drives it into a ditch. A journey through the woods brings her to Mrs. Whitfield, who warns her about the Nordon family. She probably should have listened, as everyone in this family — hell, everyone in this movie — is touched, as they say.
When Alicianne first meets Rosalie, the jack-in-the-box suddenly moves by itself. It’s a very subtle scene that hints that things might not be right here. After all, people have seen Rosalie wandering the cemetery late at night, a place where she brings kittens so that her friends there will do anything she asks. And even dinner is strange, as her father relates a story of Boy Scouts eating a soup stirred with oleander that caused them all to die. Father and daughter have a good laugh at that while Len just seems embarrassed by his family.
Then there are the drawings — Rosalie has been sketching everyone who was at her mother’s funeral, marking them for death. And if she does have psychic abilities, is she using them to reanimate the dead or control them? Or do they just do whatever she wants? The Child wasn’t made to give you those answers. It just screams in your face and demands that you keep watching despite your ever-growing confusion.
Mrs. Whitfield’s dog is taken first, then that old busy body pays the price, with her face getting off as the zombies mutilate her. That gardener has some of mommy’s jewelry, so he has to pay, too. And Alicianne, who was supposedly here just for Rosalie, has started to spend too much time with Len. She’s next on the list.
There are some really haunting scenes as we get closer to Halloween, like a scarecrow come to life and a jack-o-lantern that keeps relighting itself and following our heroine around the room.
Finally, Mr. Nordon starts to discipline his daughter, which leads to Rosalie unleashing all of her powers. She decimates her father, crashes Alicianne’s car and sends zombies to chase her governess and brother all the way to an old mill. Len tries to fight them while Alicianna just screams and screams, but he can’t stop them from dragging him under the building and tearing his face to bloody pieces. As the attack of the zombies stops, Rosalie walks through the door just as our heroine hits her with an axe. She walks outside into the dawn’s light and everything is still. The threat is over.
Written by Ralph Lucas as Kill and Go Hide, The Child isn’t a great movie, but it’s an interesting one. If you ask me, that’s way more important. Some people will get tied up in things like narrative cohesion, good acting and a soundtrack that makes sense. None of those people should watch The Child with you, as they’ll just ruin what can be an awesome experience. This is the kind of magic that takes over, kind of like one of those dreams you have and try to write down the moment you wake up, but it gets lost in the ether of reality. For most of the film, the zombies are barely glimpsed, just seen in the shadows, so they really could just be tramps that live in the cemetery. Or something much worse.
Producer Harry Novak acquired this film and made his money on it, even if director Robert Voskanian and producer Robert Dadashia saw no profit. It’s a story we’ve seen hundreds of times — an interesting movie taken, used and abused by conmen who have no interest in art.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Cover Girls was on the CBS Late Movie on March 2 and August 1, 1983, March 21, 1984, December 30, 1986 and June 1, 1987.
Two models, Linda Allen (Cornelia Sharpe) and Monique Lawrence (Jayne Kennedy), are really spies, sent on a mission by James Andrews (Don Galloway) to track down both an embezzler, Bradner (Vince Edwards), and a criminal named Michael (George Lazenby).
This is a failed pilot made in the wake of the success of Charlie’s Angels. You get Don Johnson as an undercover agent posing as a rock star, Ellen Travolta as a photographer and an appearance by Ray Dennis Steckler’s wife Carolyn Brandt!
Directed by TV vet Jerry London and written by Mark Rodgers, this is enjoyable silliness that I wish had become a series, but I say that about every failed pilot.
The sequel to If You Don’t Stop It… You’ll Go Blind!!! This makes me remember when HBO used to show burlesque, which was weird after porno chic, as it was all these old comedians telling the same jokes and girls barely getting naked, yet at the same time, you could go see full penetration adult movies. However, this film is filled with dirty jokes, one after another, with some minor nudity. It was re-released three years after its initial release because Robin Williams was featured in it before he became a star. That said, he wasn’t in the 1977 version. They went and found the cut footage and put it back out, leading to a lawsuit.
Speaking of stars, L.A. billboard icon Angelyne, Ron Jeremy, Tallie Cochrane (AKA Viola Reeves, Kay Geddes, Grace Turlie, Talia Wright, Silver Fox and Chick Jones) and Uschi Digard all show up.
Director I. Robert Levy transitioned from editing 1970s TV to making these two movies, writing them with Mike Callie and Mike Price. There’s nothing like this today; it’s just a total piece of junk with a great title, a better poster, and an audience that was looking for something, anything, in the days before cable adult films.
Kawada (Hiroki Matsukata) is a yakuza member of the Tomiyasu Group, who has been promised by his boss, Mr. Yasuhara, that he will receive control of the security business for the speedboat racetrack in exchange for killing a man. He follows through and pays for the crime by going to jail. Years later, when he’s released, Mr. Yasuhara refuses. No problem. Kawada buries him up to his neck until he gets what he wants.
Yasuhara puts a price on Kawada’s head that is answered by the Kanai Group and their leader, Kanai Hachiro (Sonny Chiba). He sends fifty killers after Kawada while also planning to take over Fukui for his own territory.
Screenwriter Kōji Takada based Kawada on Hiroshi Kawauchi, boss of the Kawauchi-gumi. Takada interviewed the yakuza, who held nothing back. After the Hokuriku Proxy War was released, Kawauchi was shot and killed in the same cafe that he had been interviewed in, just like Kawada is shot in the film. The movie character survived; the real gangster didn’t.
Kinji Fukasaku really directed some fantastic movies. This is but one of them. Seek his work out.
The limited edition Radiance Films Blu-ray release has new interviews with Yoko Takahashi and Koji Takada; a video essay by Yakuza film historian Akihiko Ito on the real-life Hokuriku Proxy War murder case; a trailer; a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow and a limited edition booklet featuring newly translated archival writings on the film. It’s a limited edition of 3,000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with a removable OBI strip, allowing the packaging to remain free of certificates and markings. You can get it from MVD.
The Godfather of Hong Kong Cinema, Chang Cheh, had a career that spanned from the wuxia films of the 1960s to the martial arts movies of the 1970s, encompassing a wide range of other genres.
The Magnificent Trio (1966): Starring Jimmy Wang Yu as swordsman Lu Fang, Lo Lieh as Yen Tzu-ching and Cheng Lui as Huang Liang, this is the story of, well, three badass swordsmen who decide to help farmers against the rich people oppressing them.
A remake of Hideo Gosha’s Three Outlaw Samurai, set in the Ming Dynasty instead of Japan, this film features farmers kidnapping Wei Wen-chen, the magistrate’s daughter, in the hope of securing a ransom to feed their children. As for her father, Magistrate Wei, he keeps the poverty of his people a secret from the Emperor, taxing and beating them into submission.
Lu Feng is everything you want in a wuxia hero. To keep the farmers from being arrested, he agrees to take a hundred lashes, passing out from the pain. Man, the things he does to keep these people safe.
Magnificent Wanderers (1977): Nomads Lin Shao You (Fu Sheng), Shi Da Yong (Chi Kuan-chun), and Guan Fei (Li Yi-min) battle the Mongols in this kung fu epic. It’s also a comedy, as the three engage in a fortune-telling scam before meeting wealthy man Chu Tie Xia (David Chiang), who claims they are friends.
However, there’s no real story here; the Mongols are comical morons instead of frightening monsters and I never expect Cheh to do comedy. Working with Wu Ma, there is some action here. I also dig that Chiang’s character has a bow that shoots arrows of gold.
Even if this is a misstep, a year later, Cheh will make The Five Venoms.
This 88 Films set is a limited edition of 2000 copies. It has a limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Grégory Sacré; 1080p HD presentations on Blu-ray from masters supplied by Celestial Pictures; audio commentary on The Magnificent Trio by East Asian film expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) and martial artist and filmmaker Michael Worth; audio commentary on Magnificent Wanderers by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema; a video essay by Gary Bettinson, editor-in-chief of Asian Cinema Journal and a limited edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing on Chang Cheh by writer and critic James Oliver. You can get these films from MVD.
The editor of a sports magazine is trying to transform fashion model Reiko (Yoko Shiraki) into a professional golfer, while retaining all the rights to her image. Despite that, she becomes a big star after winning her first tournament. Yet a hit-and-run accident leads to her being blackmailed by an obsessed stalker, Kayo.
After being blacklisted for a decade, this was director Seijun Suzuki’s comeback film. He had been told that his “…films were incomprehensible, that they did not make any money and that Suzuki might as well give up his career as a director as he would not be making films for any other companies.” This led to a lawsuit that lasted three and a half years and barely generated any financial gain for him, despite his victory. His biggest concern was that Nikkatsu, the studio where he worked, would hold all of his films forever, never allowing them to be released.
Written by manga illustrator Ikki Kajiwara, this story revolves around a woman who is seemingly gifted everything to become a star, yet remains unaware of how the machinations of fame will ultimately ruin any hope of an everyday life. It’s not the sports story that you expect.
The Radiance Films Blu-ray release of this film has extras such as audio commentary by critic and author Samm Deighan, a new interview with editor Kunihiko Ukai, a trailers, a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sam Smith and a limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Jasper Sharp and an archival review of the film. It’s a limited edition of 3,000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with a removable OBI strip, allowing the packaging to remain free of certificates and markings. You can order this movie from MVD.
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