EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Curtis Harrington had the thread of magic running through all of his films. One of the leaders of New Queer Cinema, he also directed Queen of Blood, Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet, What’s the Matter with Helen?, Who Slew Auntie Roo?, the Sylvia Kristel-starring Mata Hari, tons of episodic television shows and the TV movies Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell, The Dead Don’t Die, Killer Bees, The Cat Creature and How Awful About Allan.

His links to the occult, include the study of Thelema with his close associates Kenneth Anger (he played Cesare, the somnambulist in the magician/filmmaker/author’s movie Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome), Marjorie Cameron — who is pretty much the nexus point of twentieth-century occult doings and appears in his film Night Tide — and avant-garde film pioneer Maya Deren, an initiated voodoo priestess.

Harrington was also the driving force in rediscovering the original James Whale production of The Old Dark House and — as a friend of Whale near the end of his life — advised the making of the movie Gods and Monsters.

His final film was Usher, based on a high school film he made of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. He cast Nikolas and Zeena Schreck — the daughter of Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey — who financed the movie by brokering the sale of Harrington’s signed copy of Crowley’s The Book of Thoth. Perhaps even more interesting is the theory that singer Taylor Swift is a clone of Zeena. No, really.

But hey — we’re here today to discuss 1977’s Ruby, a movie that brings Piper Laurie from Carrie into a story about possession and flashbacks.

In 1935, a lowlife mobster named Nicky Rocco is betrayed and executed in the swamps as his pregnant girl Ruby (Laurie) watches. The moment he dies, she goes into labor. Fast-forward sixteen years and she’s living with a mute daughter named Leslie (Janit Baldwin, Gator Bait, Phantom of the Paradise, Born Innocent, Humongous) and running a drive-in with several ex-mobsters like Ruby’s lover Vince (Stuart Whitman!) and Jake (Western actor Fred Kohler Jr.), a wheelchair-ridden man whose eyes were once cut out.

Ruby misses her days as a lounge singer, but the present has some nasty surprises. A poltergeist begins killing people at the theater, including the projectionist and a creepy guy who runs the concession stand (Paul Kent, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Prey for the Wildcats and the founder of the Melrose Theater). Before long, our heroine — such as it is — believes that Nicky’s spirit has returned and believes that she caused his death.

Vince is visited by Dr. Keller (Roger Davis, Dark Shadows, Nashville Girl and the first husband of Jaclyn Smith), who helped him get out of jail early. He’s a clairvoyant who believes that there’s something in the drive-in, which is true, because Nicky starts speaking Ruby’s name over the speakers at the drive-in. Before long, Ruby’s daughter is speaking with the voice of her dead father and showing the wounds he endured before his death.

The producer chose to change the ending, and both Curtis Harrington and Piper Laurie refused to be involved in the re-shoot. It was allegedly shot by Stephanie Rothman (the director of The Student Nurses and the writer of Starhops). This ending, where Nicky comes back from the grave and drags Ruby into the swamp, was part of the TV commercials for the film.

Keep an eye out for Len Lesser in this — he was Uncle Leo on Seinfeld — as well as Crystin Sinclaire, who appeared in Eaten Alive and Caged Heat.

This was picked up by 21st Century after Dimension Pictures went out of business.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Ms. Johnson (Jacqueline Cole, director Grayden Clark’s wife) has perhaps the smallest cheer squad ever at Benedict High School. Just four girls — Debbie (Alisa Powell, The Toolbox Murders), Sharon (Sherry Marks), Patti (Kerry Sherman, Eyes of Fire) and Chris (Hillary Horan, Young Doctors In Love) — who are more interested in playing touch football and getting scored on by the football team than doing their routines.

After their car breaks down on the way to their big game, Billy the janitor and bus driver (Jack Kruschen, The Apartment) rescues them. And by rescue, I mean sacrificing them on an altar to Satan. They’re saved again by a hobo (John Carradine), the sheriff (John Ireland) and his wife (Yvonne De Carlo) and you know what I always say: never trust Old Hollywood. Or a lawnman with a name like Sheriff B.L. Bubb.

Shot in ten days with no permits, Satan’s Cheerleaders is mindless fun with an entire town devoted to the Lord of the Flies and a cheerleader with a secret of her own. Sure, it could be better, but this is the kind of movie that was meant to either get drunk to or get laid during at the drive-in. As such, it did its job.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

He may have only lived 48 years, but Harry Kerwin got to make some wild movies, like It’s a Revolution, Mother; Sweet Bird of Aquarius; God’s Bloody Acre; Tomcats and Barracuda. Cheering Section is a pre-Porky’s teen sex comedy that hits a lot of the same locker room beats, just four years before that was made. He wrote this along with his regular partner Wayne Crawford, who went on to write Valley Girl and play Jake Speed.

If you’re going to watch a cheerleading movie, pick The Pom-Pom Girls. But if you choose to watch this, it’s about star athlete Corey (Tom Leindecker) who wants to make his football team a winner but keeps getting involved with the Coach Jackson’s daughter, Melanie (Rhonda Fox). If they win the final game, the coach will allow them to date. That’s it. That’s pretty much the movie, other than a bikini car wash scene. This movie, released by Dimension Films, will make you realize that the New World nurse and cheerleader movies are cinema by comparison.

21st Century re-released this as a double feature with Dr. Minx.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

This is a vansploitation movie. Yes, that’s really a genre and there are several films in it, of which I can name Blue Summer, The Van (obviously), Best Friends, C.B. Hustlers (which has Uschi Digard in it), Mag Wheels, Van Nuys Blvd. and I guess you could almost count On the Air Live with Captain Midnight. There’s a great article on it by Jason Coffman that goes deep into the genre that I totally recommend.

The beauty of this movie is that it posits a world where solar energy is already happening, van culture is the driving force in society and there is no AIDS to worry about, so all of the vans are a rocking and absolutely no one is knocking. It is surely paradise, if paradise only gets 11 miles to the gallon, fuel crisis be damned.

Our hero Clint Morgan has traveled to The Invitational Freak-Out, a major event for custom van enthusiasts, which means that any time we’re near it, we get to see plenty of b-roll footage of painted vans and all of the accouterments — this is not a word you want to use when selling Winnebagos — that they have inside.

Clint saves Karen (Katie Saylor, Invasion of the Bee Girls) from some bikers from another exploitation genre and they destroy his van The Sea Witch. That’s when he goes to the super genius van designer Bosley and together, they all make Supervan, which uses solar power and lasers. It was really made by George Barris — who designed so many other Hollywood cars — and was based on a stock Dodge Sportsman van. This thing was so big that it had a phone intercom system inside it.

Oh yeah. It turns out that Karen’s dad owns a car company that is out to make a van that uses more gas than ever before — what does it get 3 miles to the gallon? — and they have to take Supervan to the show to prevent him from making it happen, but he puts the cops on their tail.

We’ve seen Clint before on our site, as Mark Schneider is also in the Crown International Pictures movie Burnout, which is one of the few dragsterpolitation movies I can think of, so perhaps he is the perfect star for all things vehicular in nature.

Director Lamar Card is also there, in the nooks and crannies of strange movies that I find myself obsessed with, like producing the scumtastic Nashville Girl and directing the only Fabian-starring, Casey Kasem-coke sniffing disco freakout Disco Fever.

Beyond the near gynecological explorations of all of these vans at the absolute expense of story,  this movie has a cameo by Charles Bukowski — the firebrand of a man who wrote “what matters most is how well you walk through the fire” — judging a wet t-shirt contest. I am in no way making that up.

There’s never really been a movie like Supervan. To be fair, I don’t think the world could have handled two. To quote the love ballad from the film, when I think of Supervan, “I’ll always remember you as a milestone in my life.”

21st Century distributed this at one point.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Frank Henenlotter’s Sexy Shockers (September 1 – 7) We all know Frank Hennenlotter as the director of the Basket Case films, Bad Biology, Brain Damage, and Frankenhooker, but he’s also a cinematic curator of the crass! An academic of the pathetic! A steward of sleaze! A sexton of the sexual and the Sexy Shocker series is his curio cabinet of crudity. Skin and sin are mixed together in these homegrown oddities, South American rediscoveries, and Eurohorror almost-classics. Your mind may recoil with erotic revulsion at the sights contained within these films, so choose wisely!

Edward Earle Marsh started acting as a young kid, potentially playing of the Three Little Pigs in the Laurel and Hardy movie Babes in Toyland, with Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood and as a slave in The End Commandments. In the 60s, he recorded the album I’ll Sing for You with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. This was the first time he’d use the name Zebedy Colt and the record was probably shocking for its time, singing songs to men that were usually sung by women to men.

He would come back to that name when he was looking for a way to make money while struggling on Broadway (he was Anthony Newley’s understudy in The Roar of the Greasepaint, The Smell of the Crowd and was also in Dark at the Top of the Stairs, The Royal Family and Travesties). He was recognized by his fellow actors several times, include Sandy Dennis, who saw him in an adult film that she took her mother to see.

After appearing in movies like Sex Wish, The Story of Joanna and Barbara Broadcast, he started to direct — something he continued to do in New Jersey and Pennsylvania regional theater — from his Lambertville, New Jersey farm. His movies include Farmer’s Daughters (starring Spalding Gray), White Fire, Terri’s Revenge and Unwilling Lovers.

Strangest of those movies is The Devil Inside Her, a movie set in 1826, somewhere in New England. Two sisters, Faith (Terri Hall, Rollerbabies, which fortells that in the not too distant future, sex will be illegal. But there will be Rollerbabies) and Hope (Jody Maxwell, Neon Nights) are both in love with a farmhand named Joseph (Dean Tait). Their father, Ezekiel (Colt), hates this and flogs Faith for having lust in her heart.

Instead of waiting for the punishment from her father, Hope prays to the devil (Rod DuMont), who begins to possess each of the members of the family. You can tell because they have face paint on, just like he does. Satan ends up looking more like Moloch from CHiPs than KISS or King Diamond, but when you see what a few demons do to Annie Sprinkle later, you’ll know that he’s the real cloven hoofed deal. That’s what you get when you meet a witch in the woods and milk a young boy, unleashing “the human snake that grows to fill the void.”

Someone had to prove how smart they are and write this on IMDB: “The opening scene states that this film is set in 1826, however several actors are wearing modern denim overalls and blue jeans. Denim jeans were not patented and produced until 1873, by Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis.”

You’re expecting perfect costumes from an adult movie made in the 70s.

Anyways, this all ends with Joseph and father trying to save Hope — never mind that every family member has co-mingled more than every character in every V.C. Andrews book put together — and laying crosses on her. She responds by saying, “Go fuck yourself in Heaven! You have ruined it all with your cocks of impurity!” As she dies, it seems like this is an unhappy ending, until Satan is revealed, holding her under his cape.

If it all seems like Faith would like to live deliciously, well, this may not have influenced The Witch but damn it all if it isn’t really similar. Except, you know, one of them is a movie with a budget and this is an adult film shot in a few days on a farm. Somehow, this one ends with only one person dead, a father recognizing his daughter’s marriage and new husband, and the dead daughter achieving the true love she never had in life within the arms of Lucifer. “Love of God cannot be so oppressive that one forgets pure love and honest desire,” is spoken and somehow, a movie that is absolute filth — seriously, this goes below and beyond what even your internet connected dirty mind can look up — has a moral even in the midst of absolute immorality.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Whether you see this as The 36 Crazy Fists, Bloodpact, Secrets of the Young Master or The Master and the Boxer, if you’re here for Jackie Chan, he only shows up in the opening credits. Directed by Charlie Chen Chi-Hwa, this had Jackie directing the fights with his stunt team. Producers took the behind the scenes footage for the opening of the film and released it as an actual Jackie Chan movie.

The story is about a young man who goes by Wong Ti-Kwang (Siu-Hung Leung). He wants revenge for the death of his father and ends up learning kung fu, after being refused by many schools, through the same way that Jackie did in The Drunken Master. He gets his ass beat day after day until he learns the windmill strikes of the 36 crazy fists.

If you were buying Jackie movies in dollar bins at any point, you probably bought this.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

This movie answers two questions.

How do you have a sequel to a movie where the main character, Chen Zhen, is executed?

How do you make a sequel to a Bruce Lee movie with no Bruce Lee?

Filling in for the gone before his time actor is Bruce Li, playing Chen Zhen’s brother Chen Shan. The Japanese who killed his sibling are worried that the martial arts schools will unite to fight back against them in Shanghai, so they send Miyamoto (Lo Lieh) to close down the schools. When Chen Zhen’s Ching Wu School refuses to close, it is forcibly shut down. But now Chen Shan is in the country and after visiting his brother’s grave, he is ready for revenge.

Also known as Chinese Connection 2, this is the second attempt to make a sequel to the original. Lo Wei’s New Fist of Fury starred Jackie Chan and was not as well regarded. This would be followed by another sequel, also starring Bruce Li. Li Kun and Tien Feng would return for this film, but Nora Miao is in New Fist of Fury, which was considered an official sequel. Oddly enough, Chris Hilton dubbed the hero in the English dubbed soundtracks for both movies.

21st Century released this and man, they gave a disco record to the first fifty people at each show. I can only dream that it was a Bruce Li-themed record.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

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 acupuncture 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.

If there’s a weapon to be considered the strangest in the films of Shaw Brothers, the flying guillotine would be it. From 1975’s Flying Guillotine to the 1976 sequel Master of the Flying Guillotine (which is also a sequel to One-Armed Boxer), 1977’s Taiwan-made entry Fatal Flying Guillotine and this movie, 1978’s Flying Guillotine 2: Palace Carnage and Vengeful Courage, also made the same year, the deadly hat with a bladed rim attached to a long chain that envelopes human heads and tears them clean off just can’t be topped.

Original director Ho Meng Hua was busy working on The Mighty Peking Man, so this film was originally going to be made by Cheng Kang. But so many problems attacked this film, which took nearly two years from filming to release.

For example, actress Liu Wu Chi completely left the film industry and was replaced by Hsiao Yao. Then, Chen Kuan Tai broke away from Shaw Brothers, leaving the movie without its star. And then, Hsiao Yao also left acting. Was this movie cursed?

Maybe. After all, Cheng Kang left the movie and Hua Shan (The Super Infra-Man) had to finish it.

That’s why this movie is episodic and the editing feels chaotic. I have no idea how all the film shot was even placed together to make something this coherent. It works in spite of the pain that it was created in. Maybe it was forged in fire to be something better than it should be.

So what’s happening here? The  Emperor (Ku Feng) wants to kill Ma Tang (Ti Lung), but first he must improve the flying guillotine so that Ma Tang — who figured out how to stop the deadly weapon before — can be dealt with. At the same time, a female hero named Na Lan (Shih Szu) is trying to steal those plans.

This is one of the most doom-filled Shaw Brothers movies I’ve seen — there are literally crosses with decapitated heads hanging from them — and the final scenes are filled with slow motion and a downbeat finale. That said, any movie with a chain swinging a death device is going to be awesome, no matter if it has way too many characters to keep track of.